Results tagged “sick” from Proud Dad / Happy Husband

No, I’m not talking about that fraud of a human being. Rather, this is someone you should be proud to call OJ.

I don’t know the man personally, but he attended and graduated from Rice University at the same time as me. He was the star linebacker at Rice, but was deemed too small for the NFL. He played in the Canadian Football League for a few years, winning a championship with the Baltimore CFL Stallions. He then actually made it to the NFL and later won a championship with the Baltimore Ravens as a special teams leader. After his football career, he wound up working for the Ravens in their front office. About two years ago, he was diagnosed with ALS.

OJ Brigance obviously didn’t ask for this, but he has certainly caught the imagination of the supposedly “tough” football players he now mentors for the Baltimore Ravens. This past weekend, he was presented with the game ball from the Ravens win over the Tennessee Titans. He continues to work and inspire the team.

I bring this up in part because, even though I never met him, I remember following him as he tried to make it in football. I remember cheering him on in person when he played for the Baltimore Stallions, even seeing one of the games in Memorial Stadium. All of this comes to a head now with the article this week in the Washington Post that talks even more about his situation and what he’s learned. And it should make you pause, when OJ reflects on his situation like this:

“Who are you?” he [Brigance] asked. “When your physical prowess is taken away, who are you? We build our lives on things that are temporary and when these things are taken away who are you inside? That’s one of the great blessings I’ve had. I can see I’m more than an athlete.”

So give the article a read, and pause and consider your blessings for a little while. In the meantime, fight on, OJ.

Sweetie (our cat) is in the hospital right now. She’s stopped eating over the past couple of days and has gotten really lethargic and disoriented. She even turned her nose up at canned tuna (her favorite food). So it was off to the 24-hour hospital in Carytown at lunchtime.

As you can see, I’m back home. Sweetie had to stay. She was dehydrated and had a low temperature, so they’re working on that. Her kidneys also felt abnormal when the vet squeezed them. It could be a lot of things, so hopefully with the blood work today, we’ll know so more. She’s staying overnight.

I know everyone is a little concerned about Sweetie, so say a little prayer for her tonight.

…the kids start getting sick. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be? So Daniel is the first of the kids to get sick. He has an ear infection (with a fever initially), so he’s been home the past two days. Kellie and I have been splitting time with covering him.

We were able to get a last minute checkup with the ENT today to check on the status of his ear tubes and ear drums, as we knew that both tubes were out. The testing showed that both ear drums are fully healed now, which of course makes his current ear infection a bit more challenging (i.e., no easy drainage). The guidance is to monitor how many more infections he gets (if at all — knock knock) to figure out if more tubes need to go in.

So, what does Daniel do to keep himself occupied? There’s a little TV, some resting and eating, a lot of reading and playing with Matchbox cars. Oh, and there’s this (to the right): reading Sports Illustrated, for the football. (That’s what he’s really interested in reading — seriously.) And no, I haven’t shown him the swimsuit issue yet.

Since taking Sweetie to the vet on Friday for some tests, we now know more. Both tests for heartworm came back negative. The bronchiola pattern detected on the x-rays was real, as was the heart murmur. So, she probably has asthma/allergies instead, though there was no audible wheezing in the lungs at the time of the exam.

The heart murmur will not go away, and there is a feline cardiologist in Carytown, if we want to drop a bunch of money on an echocardiogram. I’ve had them done for myself and a couple of the kids - somehow, the cat just doesn’t quite make the cut yet. We’ll watch for lethargy to see if it is effecting her somehow. (I know — lethargy, cat, how can you tell the difference?)

So, that’s good news and bad news. Right now, it looks like we just wait. At least it looks like the weight-loss is real, as just asthma is not going to cause abnormal weight-loss (unlike heartworm). Hopefully, that will take some strain off her cardio system.

Cats can sure be expensive at times. And she hasn’t had a turn in the blog rolls, so it’s only fair that she be brought up. She’s a darling cat and has definitely mellowed with age — she hasn’t messed with the twins yet when they invade her space, unlike some incidents with Will.

Sweetie had been sneezing a lot recently, and her breathing occasionally sounded wheezy. But it would occasionally come and go. But today, while working from home, she got a really bad cough - almost like a hairball attack (which she rarely gets), but much more violent and the breathing was really wheezy and labored.

Considering the accumulation of symptoms to this point (Kellie and I were getting a little worried), I decided it was time for a visit to the vet. Got a last minute appointment, and after a bunch of x-rays and other tests in person (plus blood drawn for further testing), we wound up dropping a few bills on her. Wow. What we can say is that there is no edema or fluid in the lungs, and no true wheezing in the lungs, but she does have a grade 3 (out of 4) heart murmur and some interesting lung patterns on the x-ray. She’s a completely indoor cat (afraid to go outside or even near an open outside door), but it appears that she might have adult heartworm. Yes, even in a cat who never gets outside.

We’ll know more on Monday. For now, she’s on antibiotics and steroids. The one bit of good news that we did get is that she’s lost over 10% of her weight in the last year (from 11.25 pounds to 10 pounds). She’s always been a bit soft and pudgy, and now she’s a little less. But I don’t think we’ll ever get her back to the thinness she had when we first adoped her (the picture to the left) back in 2003.

Well, Sean had to stay home today because of a fever he developed yesterday. His fever is actually gone by midday, but we’re one of those families that tries to honor school policies and keep him out to prevent the spread of germs. Too bad other families don’t follow those rules as well.

At least we can proudly show that Sean has finally decided that he’d rather walk almost anywhere. It took him a while, but this seems par for the course with our kids. Will lasted 16 months, and Daniel still believes it’s faster to crawl than walk unless he’s holding something. The funny thing is — he is faster crawling; he’s just a bullet. This video of Sean walking is from 2 weekends ago.