Nearly two weeks ago—on Friday morning, August 14—I went for my twice-a-year visit with my rheumatologist. Normally our conversation goes something like this:
Doctor: "How have you been doing?"
Me: "Pretty much about the same. Nothing new to report."
Doctor: "That's great. See you again in six months."
Now, that's a bit oversimplified, I'll admit, but it pretty much summarizes the extent of our semiannual visits over the past few years. I have been very fortunate that my autoimmune disorder has been a relatively mild version of scleroderma—primarily affecting my hands and feet, my esophagus, and my lungs—and has not been progressing significantly since it was first diagnosed in the early 1990s.
This time I decided to lay out everything I've been dealing with lately, whether or not the symptoms seemed to have any bearing on the disorder he's been seeing me for. I discussed with him the three main symptoms I've been dealing with lately: extremely painful feet, a sensation that I'm having a difficult time breathing coupled with a lingering pressure or tightness in my chest, and the episode of gout I experienced the previous week in Illinois.
He focused mostly on the breathing issue and said it could be heart disease (which in my case is most likely), pulmonary hypertension, or lung disease. He called my cardiologist's office and arranged a heart echo and then the lung center and arranged pulmonary function tests.
On Monday of this week I went for the echocardiogram and the pulmonary function tests. A part of the lung tests was an update on my diffusion capacity, a measure of how well gases are passing from the air sacs of the lungs into the bloodstream. The technician who performed the latter test told me that my lung diffusion capacity had decreased to 40 percent, down from the 46 percent the previous time it was tested. By way of perspective, it has hovered around 50 percent over the past decade or so.
After the tests on Monday, I returned to work for the rest of the day, exercised at the gym with my trainer, and in the evening went with Claudia to "Lucky Stiff," a play at Rodgers Memorial Theatre. Near the end of the play, without any prior warning, I blanked out for perhaps a few seconds, we're not sure how long, although enough for Claudia to notice there in the dark theater. She wondered if I had fallen asleep. I felt terrible as the play ended, so she drove us home. As we were returning home and after we were home, I had the sensation that I needed to throw up, although I cannot technically do that because of surgery I had many years ago to repair a hiatal hernia. But my body kept trying to throw up. A most unpleasant feeling.
On Tuesday morning I went to visit my cardiologist. I still felt crappy from whatever was going on the night before, so I decided not to go to work at all that day. The doctor reviewed with me the test results from the previous day. I do not have pulmonary hypertension, which is good news, but he did confirm the 40 percent diffusion capacity rate. I had been doing some research on pulmonary hypertension, ever since my rheumatologist mentioned it as a possibility, and I am glad, quite frankly, not to be going down that road.
My cardiologist then decided to interrogate the heart monitor that was implanted in my chest a little over a year ago. The previous evening, along about 9:13, which would have been when I passed out at the theater, my heart quit beating for a full 15 seconds. Several episodes since that one showed my heart skipping beats for 3 to 5 seconds at a time. That is a new concern. He hooked me up to an external Holter monitor that I was to wear for the next 24 hours and to record any unusual symptoms.
I returned the Holter monitor midday Wednesday. I was feeling a lot better, pretty much back to normal, but had also taken the day as sick leave from work. A week from Friday I go back to see my cardiologist, and I guess we will talk about what happens next. I may now need to have a pace maker implanted. Stay tuned for further developments.
And through all this, the bottoms of my feet still hurt.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The birth of our second child
In honor of Rebecca's birth more than a third of a century ago, we share this account of her arrival in 1974. Happy birthday, Becca!
In late July 1974, the day after I had a wisdom tooth pulled, Claudia's parents came from southern California to visit us in Provo. Her father came to attend the ninth annual priesthood genealogy seminar at BYU. But the real reason was that their only grandchild, Michael Adam, happened to live at our house. Claudia was great with child. We were not venturing far from home, not knowing whether our second child, like the first, might come five weeks earlier than expected.
At her weekly doctor visit, about three weeks before the August 19 due date, the doctor told Claudia the baby could come at any time. Based on that comment and our experience the previous fall when Michael Adam was born, Claudia's mother decided to stay for the birth of the baby. Her father drove home. He had to return to work.
And so we all waited. And waited. And waited. August 19 came and still no baby. We tried all the old tricks—taking castor oil, driving across railroad tracks—none of them worked. Claudia's dad, alone in California, was probably tiring of peanut butter sandwiches every day.
On Sunday evening, August 25, we went to church in the campus branch where I was serving as a counselor in the branch presidency. I was conducting sacrament meeting. As part of the service, we were inviting members from the congregation to speak impromptu. I called on Claudia, and she came forward and started by saying she thought I had done it just to get the baby coming. Unknown to me then, she was already feeling slight contractions. She shared a beautiful experience from her semester in Europe when her group held a sacrament service on the beaches of Thessalonica, Greece, on the Sunday of April conference.
Anyway, back at home after the meeting, Claudia let us know she thought she was finally having a baby. That was good news to her mother, who by now was anxious to return home after four weeks at our house.
We walked around the block—Claudia, Michael Adam, and me—and then she came home to take a hot bath. I guess the walking and the bath help it along. We started timing contractions at four minutes, but soon they were only two minutes apart, lasting about 30–40 seconds each. Then sometime around 10:15 at night we went to the hospital.
We had pretty much concluded that this second baby would also be a boy. This was in the day before ultrasounds were used to give parents advance notice of what flavor was coming. After a not too difficult labor, Rebecca was born at 2:24 in the morning of Monday, August 26, exactly one week short of her older brother's first birthday. She weighed in at seven pounds fifteen ounces—almost eight pounds—and was twenty inches long.
I wrote in my journal: "Our first daughter and second child was born this morning at 2:24. She is healthy and her wonderful mother—my beloved Claudja—pulled through it all in fine form. The experience of having a child born, and being there to see it happen, always arrests my thoughts and arouses deep emotions that I cannot express. Once again, life seems a miracle so sacred, so divine that I'm amazed that our loving Father so freely shared its powers with us, especially as we see its abuse all around.
"Rebecca comes very welcomed into our home. Just as surely as Michael Adam came to us a week short of a year ago, her coming was also planned and prayed for this time."
With the doctor's having said three weeks before the due date that the baby could come at any moment, and then Claudia's going a full week after the due date, she felt like she had had a ten-month pregnancy. Her poor mother had had to wait six weeks before she could return home to California after Rebecca was born and established.
In late July 1974, the day after I had a wisdom tooth pulled, Claudia's parents came from southern California to visit us in Provo. Her father came to attend the ninth annual priesthood genealogy seminar at BYU. But the real reason was that their only grandchild, Michael Adam, happened to live at our house. Claudia was great with child. We were not venturing far from home, not knowing whether our second child, like the first, might come five weeks earlier than expected.
At her weekly doctor visit, about three weeks before the August 19 due date, the doctor told Claudia the baby could come at any time. Based on that comment and our experience the previous fall when Michael Adam was born, Claudia's mother decided to stay for the birth of the baby. Her father drove home. He had to return to work.
And so we all waited. And waited. And waited. August 19 came and still no baby. We tried all the old tricks—taking castor oil, driving across railroad tracks—none of them worked. Claudia's dad, alone in California, was probably tiring of peanut butter sandwiches every day.
On Sunday evening, August 25, we went to church in the campus branch where I was serving as a counselor in the branch presidency. I was conducting sacrament meeting. As part of the service, we were inviting members from the congregation to speak impromptu. I called on Claudia, and she came forward and started by saying she thought I had done it just to get the baby coming. Unknown to me then, she was already feeling slight contractions. She shared a beautiful experience from her semester in Europe when her group held a sacrament service on the beaches of Thessalonica, Greece, on the Sunday of April conference.
Anyway, back at home after the meeting, Claudia let us know she thought she was finally having a baby. That was good news to her mother, who by now was anxious to return home after four weeks at our house.
We walked around the block—Claudia, Michael Adam, and me—and then she came home to take a hot bath. I guess the walking and the bath help it along. We started timing contractions at four minutes, but soon they were only two minutes apart, lasting about 30–40 seconds each. Then sometime around 10:15 at night we went to the hospital.
We had pretty much concluded that this second baby would also be a boy. This was in the day before ultrasounds were used to give parents advance notice of what flavor was coming. After a not too difficult labor, Rebecca was born at 2:24 in the morning of Monday, August 26, exactly one week short of her older brother's first birthday. She weighed in at seven pounds fifteen ounces—almost eight pounds—and was twenty inches long.
I wrote in my journal: "Our first daughter and second child was born this morning at 2:24. She is healthy and her wonderful mother—my beloved Claudja—pulled through it all in fine form. The experience of having a child born, and being there to see it happen, always arrests my thoughts and arouses deep emotions that I cannot express. Once again, life seems a miracle so sacred, so divine that I'm amazed that our loving Father so freely shared its powers with us, especially as we see its abuse all around.
"Rebecca comes very welcomed into our home. Just as surely as Michael Adam came to us a week short of a year ago, her coming was also planned and prayed for this time."
With the doctor's having said three weeks before the due date that the baby could come at any moment, and then Claudia's going a full week after the due date, she felt like she had had a ten-month pregnancy. Her poor mother had had to wait six weeks before she could return home to California after Rebecca was born and established.
Friday, August 07, 2009
The birth of our third child
In honor of Rachael's birth more than a third of a century ago, we share this account of her arrival in 1975. Happy birthday, Rachael!
Nearly a month short of Michael's second birthday and a few weeks short of Rebecca's first birthday, our third child and second daughter was born in Provo's Utah Valley Hospital. Rachael arrived at noon on Thursday, August 7, 1975. She was a big one—7 pounds 15 ounces, almost eight pounds. She was 20 inches long.
"All is well with Claudia and the baby," I wrote the next day in my journal. "Since I returned to work today, Claudia was not expecting me to visit during the afternoon visiting hours. But I took off work and surprised her. She was so happy."
On Saturday evening, August 9, we went to the Dixon family reunion in the Payson Park. Even though she wasn't there, Claudia was the talk of the reunion for having just had a baby. We'd had two since the previous year's reunion. At that reunion, Rebecca hadn't been born yet.
"Claudia and Rachael came home from the hospital today," I wrote on Sunday, August 10. Home was a little brick house on 300 West in Provo, where we occupied the main floor and rented the basement level to four single college students. "Michael Adam seemed pleased; Rebecca less so, which surprised me. I thought she'd be too little to even know what was going on. It is good to have Claudia back."
Claudia's parents were visiting from southern California, her mom to help out with the new baby. Or, more accurately, to help out with not-quite-two-year-old Michael and not-quite-one-year-old Rebecca.
On Monday I had gone to work in Salt Lake City. Late that afternoon, August 11, a brief thunderstorm hit Provo and moved north along the Wasatch Front. Claudia was sitting in our front room nursing four-day-old Rachael. Michael Adam was next to her patting the baby. Rebecca was on her way to the kitchen looking for her grandma, who was putting clothes into the dryer. That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sitting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.
When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.
Nearly a month short of Michael's second birthday and a few weeks short of Rebecca's first birthday, our third child and second daughter was born in Provo's Utah Valley Hospital. Rachael arrived at noon on Thursday, August 7, 1975. She was a big one—7 pounds 15 ounces, almost eight pounds. She was 20 inches long.
"All is well with Claudia and the baby," I wrote the next day in my journal. "Since I returned to work today, Claudia was not expecting me to visit during the afternoon visiting hours. But I took off work and surprised her. She was so happy."
On Saturday evening, August 9, we went to the Dixon family reunion in the Payson Park. Even though she wasn't there, Claudia was the talk of the reunion for having just had a baby. We'd had two since the previous year's reunion. At that reunion, Rebecca hadn't been born yet.
"Claudia and Rachael came home from the hospital today," I wrote on Sunday, August 10. Home was a little brick house on 300 West in Provo, where we occupied the main floor and rented the basement level to four single college students. "Michael Adam seemed pleased; Rebecca less so, which surprised me. I thought she'd be too little to even know what was going on. It is good to have Claudia back."
Claudia's parents were visiting from southern California, her mom to help out with the new baby. Or, more accurately, to help out with not-quite-two-year-old Michael and not-quite-one-year-old Rebecca.
On Monday I had gone to work in Salt Lake City. Late that afternoon, August 11, a brief thunderstorm hit Provo and moved north along the Wasatch Front. Claudia was sitting in our front room nursing four-day-old Rachael. Michael Adam was next to her patting the baby. Rebecca was on her way to the kitchen looking for her grandma, who was putting clothes into the dryer. That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sitting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.
When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.
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