Pictures from the weekend

I had a busy weekend this weekend. Friday evening I went to a beauticontrol spa night. Saturday morning we had soccer from 9am until about 12:15pm. Then we had Kolby's birthday party at 2pm. Then on Sunday I had a Mary Kay party to go to.

Here are few pictures from Saturday's events.

Miss Gracie was jammin' to some tunes on the cd player and was not happy when anyone tried to help her with it. Oh the joys of an almost 2 yr old that wants to be so independent.

Gracie spyed me taking pictures of her and she decided to give me a grin.

This is Gracie's sister that was deep in thought watching "Bubba" play soccer. "Bubba" is on Brian's soccer team.
Meet the newest member of the Dragoo family. His older brother, Joel, plays on Adam's soccer team. He is only 11 days old and this was his second soccer game to attend. His first one he was only 4 days old.
This is Mario. He is one of our best soccer players on Adam's team. He was deep in thought while concentrating on the ball.

Here is Brian getting ready to kick the ball with an opponent close by ready to take the ball away.

Matthew enjoying a tasty chip with dip at Kolby's party.

After the chip and dip. You can see some of the dip on his mouth.

Kolby opening his first gift from his parents. He got a bb gun which is exactly what he wanted. You can tell by the look on his face that he was excited. And last but certainly not least, below is Kolby trying out his new mini skateboard that I gave him.

Relay for Life

I've added a counter to the right for a countdown to Relay for Life. Panola County's first Relay for Life will be June 6th to June 7th.

I am still taking donations for the Relay if anyone would like to donate. It is tax deductible. For those that do not know, Relay for Life is the American Cancer Society's largest fundraiser each year. ACS provides all sorts of resources for victims of cancer to help them during their battle and recovery with cancer.

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Damon is still off work and from the Short Term Disability papers that the doc filled out. He expects him to be off for an additional 5-6 weeks. He is still hurting and his BP has been boucing around. Yesterday it was 140 something over 112 with his pulse 114. We will make another call to the cardiologist tomorrow to see if he received the results from the heart cath yet.

Finally home!!

After being in the hospital for 5 days, Damon is finally home. The doc didn't believe the minor blockages he saw were the source of the pain. However, Damon has not had any chest pain since the procedure. We can't help but think that the doc knocked something loose when he put the catheter in and injected the dye.

Of course, the stay would not have been complete without Damon scaring the crap out of me and nurse. About 7:30 this morning, Damon woke up and felt fine other than being a little sore. He went to roll over and all hell broke loose. He was in excruciating pain where his cath was put in. We aren't sure what caused the pain but it put him into shock for about 15 minutes. The shock is what scared us so bad because his BP dropped to 90/57 and his pulse was really low. They did a CT scan and EKG almost immediately after his BP came back up. They wanted to make sure he wasn't bleeding out at the procedure site on the inside. Once the doc got the results, he ordered an ultrasound of the area just to be certain that everything was fine in the area.

All turned out well and Damon did fine the rest of the day other than a little dizziness and getting winded when he walks too far. Of course those are probably just from being in the bed all weekend.

update on heart cath

The doc came out around 5:30 saying they were done. He saw a few minor blockages but nothing he wanted to do anything about. He said he would run a fasting cholesterol test in the morning and then we could go home.

So we have no answers on what is causing the pain. Damon has already stated he is less likely to go to the dr now because they never seem to find anything wrong with him. He did just state that the dr suggested that he get his gallbladder checked because that can apparently cause the same symptoms that he was experiencing.

Who knows if we will get that done. After a 50k hospital bill I'm sure Damon won't go see a doc for several years now.

Heart Cath

Well, Damon has been in the hospital all weekend. He was admitted straight from the md's office to the hospital to get control of his pain and to watch him. We waited all weekend for a transfer from GSMC in Marshall to Longview Regional due to our insurance.

He is having constant chest pain that only subsides after taking a nitro pill. Within a couple of hours he is hurting again. The hospital has controlled the pain for the most part with nitro and nubain. We finally got our transfer to regional at about 2:30 pm. By the time I got here, Damon was already in his room so I got him registered and everything. I got up to the room only to find that he has to share a room with 75+ yr old man. And OMG the room reaks of old and stinks so bad. I decided to go down and try to get him moved to a private room. Well wouldn't you know they didn't have any available. When I talked to the nurse, she informed me that the cath lab nurses were waiting in his room for me.

So I get back in the room to find that they have him loaded up and ready to go to the cath lab. So I sit here alone waiting for an update on how things are going and if they will find anything wrong with my husband. I have no friends or family to sit with me because we had no idea they were going to be doing the heart cath this evening. We figured they wouldn't do it simply because Damon had eaten lunch at noon. So they just have him more nubain and are deadening the area with a local anesthetic and proceeding.

I'm really not sure how I am feeling at this moment. I am relieved that we were finally moved to Regional due to insurance issues. But then again I am nervous due to all the possibly things that could go wrong. I should be so worried since Brian has had two heart cath's in the last four years. I think I am just worried about the unknown. I am stressed because I have no one here with me to take my mind off of things.

So, to pass the time I am blogging about the occasion. I should be getting updates soon. I will update you all once I have some answers.

Ugh .. the hubby is stubborn

Today, Damon calls me at 10am and tells me that he wants me to call the dr to see if they can see him today. I ask him why and he tells me he is having chest pains that radiate down his left arm and up his neck. I told him he needed to go to the ER but he would have no part of it. So I call the dr and they ask if he is having tightness in his chest or if he is feeling faint or nauseous.

I called him back to ask the questions the nurse had asked me. He tell me that he was feeling faint. He tells me he will just wait until 2:15 when he has a dr's appt. That just wasn't sitting well with me so I called him back and tried to convince him to go the ER. He finally agreed. Probably just to shut me up.

So I took off to Kilgore to get him and called him brother to tell him what was going on. He tells me he is closer than I am so he would go get him. Turns out he drove up like a minute before I did. I got Damon and headed to the ER. We get there and go to triage and they take him straight back.

They did a full cardiac work up on him. After 4 hours in the ER, they tell him that his cardiac tests came back fine and diagnosis him with unspecified chest pain and acute chest wall pain. They also scheduled him for a stress test on Thursday. Of course, all I am hearing is "see I told you I didn't need to go to the ER". I am trying to convince him that since his daddy died at 40 yrs old from a heart attack he needs to take these signs seriously because one day he going to think it is just another false alarm and then it is going to be too late.

Why do men have to be so stubborn? I have just got rid of my headache that I had all day long from worrying about him.

Check it out

Kailani at An Island Life is hosting a giveaway. All you have to do it visit Babycakes Boutique and then come back and tell kailani which one if your favorite.

Pictures, pictures, pictures

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately. I am trying to get them uploaded onto my website right now. I have taken senior pictures of my friend's son and I also took prom pictures of both her boys and their dates. That was all last weekend.

This weekend I went and took prom pictures for another friend's son at a different school. It was fun taking pictures of them but I could tell the girlfriend was getting tired of taking pictures. Have you ever seen a camo prom dress? If not, here is a picture of one.

Soccer

Well, soccer season has started and is in full swing. We had our first games on Saturday. Adam and Wade both had a game at 9am and Brian wasn't until 11:30am. Adam's got started on time or maybe even a little early because we had a referee. Wade's, however, didn't get started on time. At Adam's halftime Damon and I switched so that he could watch Adam play. I got down to see Wade just as they were starting. By the time Wade's team got to half time, Adam's game was over and Damon got to watch Wade play too. Adam's team won and Wade's team lost. Of course, Wade's team had only gotten to practice one time due to all the rain last week. After Wade's game, we went home to put on warmer clothes since we froze during their games. Then we went back to the ball park to watch Brian play. Brian's team lost too. I think that was because the team they were playing had a lot of players that were returning from the Fall and they knew what they were doing. Brian's team only had 2 people that had played in the Fall.





Oh well, they had fun. All three boys got to play goalie and did very well. Wade has played before so he acted like he knew what to do. Brian acted as if he was scared of the ball. He didn't do much to go out of his way to stop the ball. Adam just wasn't too sure about it at all. He has been excited to play all week and then when it came down to it he just wasn't sure of what to make of it. Hopefully, next weekend it will be warmer for them.

Death

Today we buried sweet, precious, tiny Ava Gail. She only lived for 3 hours on March 18th but she was so precious. I have to say that a baby's funeral is the worst of any funeral I have every been to. I felt so sorry and horrible for Andi and Robert. I wanted to hold Andi during the service but she was surrounded by Robert and Grandmother.

Poor Grandmother. She should not have to bury a son when he was just 3 days old, then her husband in 1980, then her other son in 1984, and her daughter is 2005. Now she had to bury her great grand daughter. She was so heartbroken.

How do you console someone that has buried that many of their children/great grandchild/husband? Not to mention all of her brothers and sisters and parents. How do you console a grieving parent that has lost not 1 infant but two and it has not even been 3 years since her mama passed away?

I hope that I can eventually give Andi a little comfort with the pictures of Ava for her to keep. She had expressed to me how much she wished she had pictures of her first baby, David. I hope Andi will want the pictures but I will not present them to her until she asks for them. She does know that someone took pictures of her but I'm not sure if she knows who.

Keep Andi and her family in your prayers please

Andi went into labor this morning and delivered her baby girl. Unfortunately, the baby did not survive. This is the second baby that Andi and Robert have lost in the last year and half. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time in their lives.

Also please keep her sister, Holly, and her dad, Noble, in your prayers because they also lost the baby. The whole family needs to be remembered during this time.

Sandra (Andi & Holly's mom) has another grandbaby by her side in Heaven to watch over Andi, Holly and Noble.

Keep Andi in your prayers

D's cousin, Andi, is 23 weeks (today) pregnant. She went in to preterm labor over the weekend. On Saturday, she was dilated to 2cm. This morning she was at 4 cm and tonight she is at 6 cm. They are trying to stop her labor but it doesn't sound promising. Please pray for her, Robert and the sweet baby girl. She needs all the prayers she can get to survive.

Andi & Robert needs prayers for strength. You see, they lost a baby at 16 weeks last year. Andi thought she was in the clear since she was over half way there.

New Job

I am loving my new job. Sure I filed all day long but it was nice to not be blinded by fluorescent lights. It was nice to sit in a chair (when I could) that supported my back. It was nice to only have to deal with 4 people.

It was nice to not have to clean up behind someone's incompentence.

Corporate BS!!

Let me just start with the fact that I am ecstatic that I no longer work for a huge corporation. A corporation that claims to be family friendly, but in reality they don't care about family. All they care about is making money and requiring the peons to work 5+ hours of overtime a week and every other Saturday. They are so involved with getting more business yet they have no desire to get more help. They expect the same 250-300 people to be able to handle 1+ million members and their claims.

Seriously, if they want to keep their employees, they need to focus on being more family oriented and trying to make the employees comfortable instead of them being miserable all day long from lights that are so blinding that the employees have to wear tinted glasses and/or prescription sunglasses just to make it through the day. Also, these same people are having to take thousands of dollars worth medicines and have thousands of dollars worth of tests run to figure out the headaches and to help prevent them.

Also, it is pretty crappy to require let 100+ people have their own chairs from home yet just because you get a new maintenance head honcho you want to suddenly not allow people to use their own chairs that are more comfortable and more ergonomic and support the back better. Seriously, doesn't it make more sense to let you employees be comfortable since they do spend 8+ hours a day there in front of computer.

If management would care more for the employees and try to make them a little more comfortable and happy, they might get more production done. It is really asinine of them to preach to us about production and then take us away from doing our jobs 3 days a week for 30 min to an hour for a meeting about nonsense that could have been discussed in an email. And if quality was more the focus then their would be less cleaning up to do after people that are pushed to put out more production sacrificing their quality. If there were some repercussions to those that sacrifice quality then maybe they would slow down and do things right the first time.

And the management really needs to think logically about their new policy for PTO and Flex time. Come on now people....what is the point of flex time if you have to schedule it. And how in the work are 500+ people going to be allowed to take their PTO days if you are only allowing 3 people off at one time. There are not enough days in the year to allow everyone time to take their 15-20 days of time off that they have accrued each year.

I'm just thrilled that I no longer have to deal with this since I quit last Friday.

New website coming soon.

Soon I will be posting my photos on my new blog located at my new website:
www.bluebonnet-photography.com
Look for this site to be up and running next week.

Photo Shoot

Here is a link to the photo shoot I had today.

http://www.bluebonnetgreetings.com/webalbum/JPSeniorShoot/

JP is a senior at Carthage High School

Pets

The boys found this incredibly adorable bunny today. It is obviously someone's pet that has managed to get away. We decided to bring it indoors and put it in a large box and put up fliers asking if anyone is missing a bunny and if so to call us. Hopefully they will come forward quickly.

Naturally, the boys all had to have their pictures made with the bunny. Adam loved it. As you can tell by the pictures, he loved it. He posed holding the bunny then he hugged it and then the bunny tried to get away so he is laughing because it was kicking its feet everywhere.

In the last picture, Damon was holding the bunny and apparently the bunny was tired because he was yawning. It was the cutest thing.

New York

I'm so excited. Damon and I have decided that since we never got a true honeymoon, we are going to take a weekend excursion and go to NYC. Neither of us have ever been there and we think we will have a blast seeing the sites. We will fly out on a Friday night and and come back on Sunday afternoon. This way we will not have to take any vacation days at work. We will have a day and a half to see the sites in NYC. We may wait until this summer or early fall and make it a long weekend and take Friday and Monday off work so we have more time to spend there. We have to discuss it more and secure our sitter for the boys. If we can get a sitter for the weekend of March 7-9 we will go then. Otherwise, we will wait until probably September.

I know we want to see the Statue of Liberty, Sears Tower, Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, Madison Square Garden, and Ellis Island. I can't think of them now. Of course, it may be better if we put it off so we have more time to spend being a tourist.

Not only will this be like our honeymoon, but this will also be for our 15th anniversary that is coming up in December. I'll post more once we finalize our plans.

Did the Groundhog see his shadow?

I sure hope not!! I am so sick of the cold. So according to the Reuters, "if the groundhog emerges from his burrow on February 2 and sees his shadow, he will be frightened back into his hole, presaging another six weeks of winter. A cloudy day -- and no shadow -- means winter will end early."

Well according to Punxsutawney Phil we will see six more weeks of winter. According to bloomberg.com, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow this morning and saw his shadow. :(

For those that didn't know, this was the 122nd annual weather predication and out of those 122 times, the groundhog has seen his shadow 97 times since 1887. I think those people need to leave "Phil" in his burrow and let him come out when he wants too. LOL.

So here is another Boo for Punxsutawney Phil!!