With all that was going on in the last few weeks with my brothers heart attack, I didn't get to mention we have a brand new member in the family. My nephew and his wife had a sweet little baby girl Kenna Mae a few weeks ago. She is so precious, as you can see in the picture above. She is also such a good natured and calm baby and her Mommy and Daddy very pleased about that!As for my brother Bill, he was released from the hospital yesterday and we are so happy he is home! We did have another scare a few days after the surgery. He had an inflammation of the heart membrane that caused him to be very sick while he was trying to recover from the surgery. It took them several long days for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with him and put him on steroids. Immediately he improved. We learned with bypass surgery this can be a complication to be aware of and the patient needs to be put on steroids right away. If we would have know about this before hand we could have pressured the doctors to put him on steroids earlier and he wouldn't have suffered needlessly. We are hoping Bill's story can help other people who have to go through this in the future.image: Sarah Hull photography
Cute little Dulce De Leche Pumpkin cupcakes for Halloween via spearmint baby.
What a cute small space from the blog design fragment. Love the personal touch of the enlarged photo of their child. This blog focuses on Swedish decor, is beautiful to look at if you love interior design, besides being a great place for inspiration in decorating.via: apartment therapy
My brother had his heart bypass surgery on Thursday and came through with flying colors. We are so happy, relieved and grateful for modern technology! The recovery from this surgery is tough and lasts several months. I am confident though that a few months from now he will be back to how he was before, active and living a full life. One of the positive things that comes from a crisis like this is how it brings a family closer together and reminds you how much you mean to each other. My three brothers in the picture above spent a lot of time when they were young playing in little league. Baseball was a big part of our family life and it bonded my brothers. My middle brother Bob (middle in the picture above too) remembered a baseball moment from when they were young and posted it on Bill's facebook page. He was having a hard time after the surgery with all the pain and this story brought back to life those happy days for him. It is such a sweet story I wanted to share it here.I was thinking about when we were kids, and Bill was a pitcher on a Little League team called the Knights. My Dad, the manager of the Knights, drafted me onto the same team, although at nine years old I had no business on it. Anyway, I vividly remember one game where Bill was just dealing. Throwing a no-hitter. (Guys were swinging at his curves in the dirt, and I made a mental note that I would later use.) I was playing second base, with knees knocking. I prayed, "Please God, I don't want to mess up my brother's big game, please don't let them hit it to me."
They didn't. My prayers, however underachieving they might have been, were answered.
At the end, we mobbed him on the mound. We were a pack of happy kids, and Bill was at the center of it all. Great memories...
story: Bob Chapman
photo: by me
I haven't posted in a while because this last Saturday my brother Bill had a heart attack. I have just been walking around in a state of disbelief and shock. As you can see in this photo of him this is not the picture of someone you could have imagined just had a heart attack. He is fit, doesn't drink or smoke and eats healthy. He runs regularly and surfs often and is a very successful litigation attorney. The doctor said most likely it was genetic and our family history is the only key. My father had heart problems and my grandfather had a heart attack at 65 but they both drank too much and smoked. Bill never did any of these things so we never could have believed he would have a heart attack at 55. I wanted to write down his symptoms here because they were so subtle and important for everyone to be aware of. He started to have some mild pain about a month ago when he would run. He said he thought it was heartburn, but what was weird is my brother said prior to this he never had heartburn so he didn't really know what regular heartburn felt like. He said the discomfort was above the sternum and felt like congestion and was somewhat painful but not crushing pain at all. Also a couple of times when he was running he would get nauseated all of a sudden, he would stop running and then it would go away in a few minutes. He did go to the doctor a week ago about the pain and they did a EKG. The doctor said there were some mild abnormalities but no emergency just make an appointment with his doctor to check it out. That was definitely a wrong call!! Saturday he started to have the pain and it wouldn't go away (before it always went away). It still wasn't that painful but thought he should get it checked out still thinking it was heartburn. He then called the ER and told the nurse his symptoms and she told him to come in right away. Good call!! She probably saved his life. The doctor told us yesterday that Saturday when he had the continuous pain was when he had the heart attack. Bill said the bizarre thing is the pain never got that severe and it wasn't crushing pain. He had the symptoms that women tend to get not men (that made for a few good jokes from my other two brothers). The next shocker came when the doctor said he had 5 blocked arteries and would need quintuple bypass surgery. We were all just stunned! My brother managed to take all this news in stride. He is an amazing person and has a real love for life which he has not lost even with all that he has he has gone through in the last few days. He is in good spirits and our whole family has been in his hospital room joking around and laughing with him everyday. I have 3 brothers that are hilarious when they get together which helps all of us deal with the stress of this. He has the quintuple bypass surgery in two days which the doctors say he should do really well since he is young and in great health besides the blocked arteries. We are so blessed for that.
I love this one line a day journal from Modcloth via the Scoop. My journaling is just so hit and miss and lately miss, it would be a lot easier to write down one little thing a day. It is set up for 5 years with each date on one page. How quickly it would be to look and see what happened on the same day throughout 5 years. With just the 5 lines for each day, I would be much more likely to keep this one up!
Since its Halloween weekend its a perfect time to post these pictures of a cute condo I saw decorated in orange and black. I wouldn't normally think of using these colors but love these rooms especially the dining room. Orange decor is everywhere now though and really adds a pretty brightness to a room.
With all that was going on in the last few weeks with my brothers heart attack, I didn't get to mention we have a brand new member in the family. My nephew and his wife had a sweet little baby girl Kenna Mae a few weeks ago. She is so precious, as you can see in the picture above. She is also such a good natured and calm baby and her Mommy and Daddy very pleased about that!
What a cute small space from the blog design fragment. Love the personal touch of the enlarged photo of their child. This blog focuses on Swedish decor, is beautiful to look at if you love interior design, besides being a great place for inspiration in decorating.
My brother had his heart bypass surgery on Thursday and came through with flying colors. We are so happy, relieved and grateful for modern technology! The recovery from this surgery is tough and lasts several months. I am confident though that a few months from now he will be back to how he was before, active and living a full life. One of the positive things that comes from a crisis like this is how it brings a family closer together and reminds you how much you mean to each other. My three brothers in the picture above spent a lot of time when they were young playing in little league. Baseball was a big part of our family life and it bonded my brothers. My middle brother Bob (middle in the picture above too) remembered a baseball moment from when they were young and posted it on Bill's facebook page. He was having a hard time after the surgery with all the pain and this story brought back to life those happy days for him. It is such a sweet story I wanted to share it here.
I haven't posted in a while because this last Saturday my brother Bill had a heart attack. I have just been walking around in a state of disbelief and shock. As you can see in this photo of him this is not the picture of someone you could have imagined just had a heart attack. He is fit, doesn't drink or smoke and eats healthy. He runs regularly and surfs often and is a very successful litigation attorney. The doctor said most likely it was genetic and our family history is the only key. My father had heart problems and my grandfather had a heart attack at 65 but they both drank too much and smoked. Bill never did any of these things so we never could have believed he would have a heart attack at 55. I wanted to write down his symptoms here because they were so subtle and important for everyone to be aware of. He started to have some mild pain about a month ago when he would run. He said he thought it was heartburn, but what was weird is my brother said prior to this he never had heartburn so he didn't really know what regular heartburn felt like. He said the discomfort was above the sternum and felt like congestion and was somewhat painful but not crushing pain at all. Also a couple of times when he was running he would get nauseated all of a sudden, he would stop running and then it would go away in a few minutes. He did go to the doctor a week ago about the pain and they did a EKG. The doctor said there were some mild abnormalities but no emergency just make an appointment with his doctor to check it out. That was definitely a wrong call!! Saturday he started to have the pain and it wouldn't go away (before it always went away). It still wasn't that painful but thought he should get it checked out still thinking it was heartburn. He then called the ER and told the nurse his symptoms and she told him to come in right away. Good call!! She probably saved his life. The doctor told us yesterday that Saturday when he had the continuous pain was when he had the heart attack. Bill said the bizarre thing is the pain never got that severe and it wasn't crushing pain. He had the symptoms that women tend to get not men (that made for a few good jokes from my other two brothers). The next shocker came when the doctor said he had 5 blocked arteries and would need quintuple bypass surgery. We were all just stunned! My brother managed to take all this news in stride. He is an amazing person and has a real love for life which he has not lost even with all that he has he has gone through in the last few days. He is in good spirits and our whole family has been in his hospital room joking around and laughing with him everyday. I have 3 brothers that are hilarious when they get together which helps all of us deal with the stress of this. He has the quintuple bypass surgery in two days which the doctors say he should do really well since he is young and in great health besides the blocked arteries. We are so blessed for that.
I love this one line a day journal from Modcloth via the Scoop. My journaling is just so hit and miss and lately miss, it would be a lot easier to write down one little thing a day. It is set up for 5 years with each date on one page. How quickly it would be to look and see what happened on the same day throughout 5 years. With just the 5 lines for each day, I would be much more likely to keep this one up!
