Where have I been?

I've been all over!

School is finally over, done, complete. I'm thrilled. I'm ready to work.



What's happened in the meantime:

Joe'ls health has kinda stabilized, so that is good. She's taking her Tracleer and seems to be doing well with it.

Bella is getting big! She is tall. She started Teeball a couple of weeks ago. She's doing pretty good for a kid that has never hit a ball before.

We got chickens!!

I got a new tractor!

I'll get pictures up soon. I hope....

Lots of work

I worked yesterday. I was here for close to 16 hours. I got home at 5am then got up at noonish to come back in for another 12 hour shift. We'll see if I can go home on time tonight.
I'm pretty sure I will, unless something really bad is here or coming in, Joe'l has a doctors appointment in Louisville at 11am.
I'll post results from that tomorrow.

Last week of class coming up

I only have one more week of classes, and my Final exam to go, and I get a month off for Christmas break. I can't wait, I'm so tired of school. Not that I don't like it, I'm just tired of work and school, school and work, back and forth....ugh!

Epiphany

I've been working in the lab here at BHOC for a couple of months now. Last week I was sent in the little lab car (it's a Pontiac Vibe, it is actually pretty nice) to a nursing home to draw blood. I got there and tried to draw the patient. My first attempt caused the vein to rupture and cause a big bruise. While I was looking for another place to try I realized that I was the only one there. I didn't have someone else to call and draw the blood like I do at the hospital. It was up to me to get it. I moved to her other arm and found a large vein near the surface and was able to fetch the blood out without any more problems.
But that was the first time I realized that it was up to me and no one else to complete this task. I'm sure I'll encounter this more once I'm a nurse, but it was a frightening experience. I was very happy that the second attempt went much better and I was able to complete my assignment.

Working tired, waiting for the girls

I'm at work, I'm exhausted. We had a car wreck come in at about midnight lastnight. I stayed to help with that, I got home at 4am. I had to be back here at noon. I was late cause I slept through my alarm. There isn't much going on, so I'm just sitting here, about to fall asleep.

The girls should be home pretty soon. I think their flight was supposed to get in at 2:34 or so, it is just about that time now. I'm hoping they stop to see me for a minute on their way home.

I gotta go find something to do or I'm going to fall asleep.

Back home finally

I moved back into the house for the most part lastnight. Joe'l and Bella are still in PA, but I made the move. I worked on unpacking clothes and moving furniture and items the guys that worked on the house had moved around. Most of the kitchen furniture is in Bella's room. Most of our clothes were in the kitchen. It is just generally a mess. I hate "tidying-up" I don't know how to do it. The concept escapes me.
I'm at work again tonight.

Joe'l and Bella should be home tomorrow afternoon.

When can we go home?? Where's my wife?

I don't remember exactly when it was....it has been so long ago my memory has gone dim. Anyways, one of the water filters that I put on the waterline in the utility room (to keep the crawdads out of the sink) busted and flooded the house. The floors in the Utility, Bath, Hall, Kitchen and Bellas bedroom were all ruined. The carpet in the Living room got a little wet, so it was dried and pad replaced. The floors in all the rest of the house were pulled out and replaced.

The guys that ripped up the floor in the bathroom were hating me. I screwed the Lauan down every 6" square, then used water putty to fill all the dips from the screws.

I think we've been out of the house for at least 3 weeks. I don't remember what day the water came. We've been living with my parents since.

Joe'l and Bella flew to PA for Thanksgiving, I'm working the night before and the night of, so I wouldn't have been around anyway. I'll be having Thanksgiving at BHOC this year! I better go sign up for that....

Sad news at work...

One of our nurses who was diagnosed with cancer a year ago passed away today. She was 35. She left behind her husband and two sons 12 and 3.
She was a cheery, happy person. We'll all miss her.

Long post, lots to catch up on

School is going ok. I'm passing everything so I'm fine with that, I don't have to have A's, like some people.
Bella is wonderful, she is a joy to be around most of the time, just kinda cranky when she's tired.

Here is the latest on Joe'l:
Most of you know, she has Pulmonary Hypertension, also called Pulmonary Artery Hypertension. She has the congenital form, she was just born with it. The problem, as I understand it, is that the Pulmonary artery that goes from the heart to the lungs is not dialating the way it is supposed to. In order for her body to get the oxygen it needs, the right side of her heart has to pump extra hard to get enough blood through to her lungs. Imagine trying to fill a barrel with a garden hose that has a 4" piece of pipe taking the water out of the bottom. The pressure in the garden hose would have to be ENORMOUS to get the same volume of water.

She has had a perfusion scan, this involves inhaling a radio-active mist, then laying in a large radio-activity detector (basically) it shows how the mist is transferring to her blood from her lungs. This test was fine, also her pulmonary function tests were fine (how well her lungs expand and exchange O2 and CO2, pressures and the like). She had a high resolution CT scan of her lungs and blood tests to rule out blood clots. After all this she had a heart catheterization. This consists of threading a small tube from the femoral artery (in the groin area) up to the heart. Once there the surgeon can deploy a variety of devices through the tube to do a bunch of different things. In Joe'ls case they took some samples of tissue in the area and pressure readings. They also injected some Calcium Channel Blocker drugs into her while taking pressure readings to see if these would help bring her pressure down. CCB's are used in treatment of the more common peripheral hyptertension (High Blood Pressure). These drugs did very little to help her.
After searching on the internet I found a clinic in Louisville, which is about as far away from us as Bloomington is, but has much larger hospitals and more specialty doctors. We have had two appointments at Kentuckiana Pulmonary Associates with Dr. McConnell. After the first appointment he prescribed Norvasc, a CCB for Joe'l. She had very minimal improvement with this drug, and after a couple of weeks she was feeling the same as she was before taking it. We had another apointment and the doctor has put her on a drug called Tracleer. It is a known tetragenic, which means it causes major birth-defects. It is also very hard on the liver. She has to have monthly pregnancy tests, be on two forms of birth control (and not the pill, as the two drugs don't get along well) and have monthly liver enzyme tests to see how the drug is affecting her liver. It is the lesser of the evils involved.
The doctor also wants her to lose some weight, but she can't exercise because of the strain it will put on her already strained heart. So we are both eating smaller, healthier meals.

Any way we look at it, there is a rough road ahead for our little family.

How NOT to fix something

First a quick course on hydraulics. They work off pressure. A pump creates pressure. In a properly working system that pressure stays inside the system, even after the pump quits pumping.

While trying to test the pressure of the hydraulics on my dads tractor, I forgot the above paragraph and shortly after turning the tractor off, removed a plate through which hydraulic fluid runs. I got a face-full of hydraulic fluid. My eyes shut before the fluid got to my face, and my glasses kept it away from my eyes. What wasn't covered was my nose and mouth. I had a mouthful and plenty up my nose.
I was working out in the driveway, and now temporarily blinded tried to make my way to the house. I yelled for Joe'l a couple of times but the house is so tight that she couldn't hear me. (Plus the A/C is going, and she was in the back of the house)
I made it pretty far with my eyes closed and didn't trip over anything. I kept yelling for Joe'l and she did hear me and came to my rescue.
I got in the house and got my face under the tub faucet. I had her call the poison center, they told her to have me get in the shower and flush my eyes for 30 minutes. So I got in the shower and flushed my eyes and nose for 45 minutes, then Joe'l called them back and they said as long as I could see things should be ok.
I called Dr. Harmon my eye doctor and he agreed that as long as things were ok now I should be fine. Hydraulic fluid is fairly inert he said.
I flushed my nose out with salt-water for a little while then got back in the shower to get the fluid out of my hair and off my neck.

Lesson learned.

Pictures below

I can't get the pictures below to work right with the text. So please, use your imagination.

Went to a meeting tonight. Slept all day.

Not much new here.

Use your imagination.

Patrick

Old caving pictures

Some Pictures of Scott Cobel and myself in Maple Grove cave.

Here I am in a small hole that leads down to a

small second level. I'm waist deep in water on

this second level.

Unfortunatly this is a muddy cave. This would

be a really pretty formation if it weren't for all

the mud.

In the background is Scott ducking under some low passage

and wading in knee deep water.

In the foreground is the same formation shown above.

Here are some stalactites. I think the white around them is

calcite. You can't see in this picture but they are joined to the

ceiling by a very small stem of calcite.

Here is a closeup of the stem of calcite.

Scott on the other end of one of the most decorated parts

of the cave.

Scott entering one of the rooms in the cave.

It is moderatly decorated. Very faintly you can

see the "giant boobie" in the background.

Here I am posing next to "The Giant Boobie".

This is a very poor picture of some "cave bacon".

In this area of the cave there were many seeds

in the muddy pit that had sprouted, living off

the endosperm sugars of the seed until they

can create their own food via photosynthesis.

Unfortunatly these little guys will never see the sun.

These are a couple of strange speleotherms on

the ceiling. I think they were formed by water

lapping against the ceiling here, but don't know.

Update

Here's a quick update on everything happening...
Joe'l is doing fine with her health problems. She seems to be getting better all the time. We go back to the doctor in a few weeks to see if there has been measurable progress. She is going to an Allergist tomorrow to have allergy tests ran to better point at what she needs to avoid.

Bella is fine, she is really a great kid. She is learning and singing all sorts of songs. She is really outgoing, she doesn't meet a stranger. She frequently walks up to people at restaurants and talks to them (something she picked up from her Grand-dad).

Grand-dad seems to be better after his bout with a kidney stone. It seems to be that time of year, we're seeing lots more than normal in the ER's.

Mum-mum Shirley is signing for an apartment in Scottsburg later today. She recently flew home and drove her fathers van back. She made it without getting lost (that she will admit) and we are all surprised, but glad she's home.

I went caving for the first time in months on Saturday. It was a nice 2000ft cave I had never been to before. Another one that isn't but a few miles from our house. The very beginning was a large room that had reportedly held dances with a band and all sometime in the past. There were old lighting fixtures attached to the ceiling, concrete strairs leading down from the surface and everything. The next part of the cave was a 50' belly-crawl, not my favorite thing, but only 50 feet. It squeezed down to (reportedly) 10-1/2". I know my belly was on the ground, my helmet off being pushed in front of me and my back was against the ceiling at the same time. That's pretty tight!

School starts August 20th. I have mixed emotions.

I'm working more at Paoli now and less at Monroe, I don't know if there is a reason for this or not...????

There's the quick version. I'll try to get some copies of the pics that were taken in the cave and post some on here.

Patrick

Pictures of fish

I wrote that I would put up pictures of my fishes (fishes is the correct word, as there are fish of different species)
So here are pictures of my fishes!

A dinky little bass.

The hat is for a contest I've entered to catch

the biggest fish in several different catagories.

I took this picture as a joke. This is probably the

SMALLEST fish posted.

This is another bass, I'd call it a Largemouth, some might

say it was a Spotted Bass. I caught this one in a pond across the

road from our house. The neighbors have been stocking the pond

for many years. I caught 6 or so bass about this same size.

This one was about 16 inches.

This is a fish I was really proud of. I caught it in the same pond as the above bass.

It measured 8.5" long, which is above average for a bluegill.

I caught this fish on a 1.75" crankbait. It has been my best performing bait

this year. Again notice the hat, for the contest. I was leading with this fish

until this week. Someone caught a 9.75" bluegill. I'll have to really work

to beat that big of a fish.

Here is a small Crappie. You can see the lure in this picture.

It is the "tadfry" crankbait that has performed so well for me this year.

You can tell it is only about as long as the end of my thumb.

Here is another larger Crappie, I think I caught it on a beemoth. That is a little maggot looking critter. It is the pupae stage of some kind of bug. I know it catches fish!

This is a Channel catfish, one of 4 species in the State. This is the largest one I've ever caught, the only one for that matter. This one was 20" long and I caught it in the spillway in the pool right below the dam. You can see the lure just in front of it, acutally still in it's mouth. It is a white spinnerbait. I caught three fish on it that morning, the other guys I fished with didn't catch anything. And they'd made fun of my "cruddy old spinner-bait"

This is a "Redear". You can see a small bit of red on the left edge of the black circle just under my thumb knuckle.

This is a "Long-eared" sunfish. Notice how much longer it's black "ear" is than the picture above. I think this is the prettiest fish I've ever caught.

This is a "mess" of fish that I caught at Griffy Lake, a small lake just on the outskirts (or maybe even inside) the City of Bloomington. It is a 100 acre lake that was where Bloomington got their water supply from before Monroe Resevoir was built in the early 1960's.

These are all bluegill and redear. They are both "panfish", either because they kinda look like a pan, or because you sign them in a pan, not sure.

They are in the same family as bass and include bluegill, redear, longeared sunfish and green sunfish. I've probably forgotten some....anyways, they all interbreed so it is kinda hard to tell what species of fish you really have caught.

Wedding Day June 9th 2002

Joe'l Giardine

Patrick Cassidy

Patrick and Joe'l Cassidy after wedding

Patrick and Joe'l

Wedding Party

Our 5th Wedding Anniversary is coming up this June. It feels like just yesterday. Our wedding was at Spring Mill State Park, in the Rose Garden. It was a HOT, but still beautiful day. The reception was in the Lake View room at the Inn. We had relatives and friends come from all over Indiana, Pa, Fl, NH and some states I am sure I'm forgetting. Our Colors were Red, Green and Blue. The theme was Cinderella and Prince Charming, we had a magical day. The years have gone bye and it's only gotten better. I could not have asked for a blessing better then Patrick. Six months after we were married we found out Bella was coming. I was blessed one more time. :) Bella was born September 16th 2003.

Dogwood Festival Fun

Bella and new found friend Lucas, going for a ride. This was taken at the Dogwood Festval in Orleans.

Bella and another little girl riding together.

Bella with one of the Irises Mummum lake ordered for Joe'l's Birthday last year.

Bella smile for mommy!!!

Patrick trying out the tiller. He had just put an old moter on it from an old mower. The ground needs to dry some. We are going to try to do our first garden this year. I see lots of weeds in my future! ;)

Pop, Nana and Bella

Proud Pop and Bella...



Bella, Pop and Nana...

Bella singing at Aunt Missy's 40th(old lady)Birthday Party..

Bella at Granddad's house.... not sure what had happened for her make such a face..... but this would be the pouty face... the you have scared me for life face....

Bella as "Princess Bell" one of the outfits Nana and Pop sent her for her 3rd Birthday.

In the yard

This is Sammy Jr. The best kids cat in the world!

This is Mr. Cheeks my mothers Dog. He is finally growing out of the puppy stuff. He is cute now.

Sammy Jr. hoping Bella will let him sleep for a minute.

Bella with the bird bath/fountain.

Sammy Jr. smelling flowers with Bella.

Family Fishing day @ Patoka lake

We had allot of fun the Saturday before last. Bella got to fish with her Daddy and we had a good time picnicking.

Summer Vacation

I passed both classes this semester. I think I got B's, but as long as I passed I don't really care.
I've been working around the house when it isn't raining. I've been doing a lot of fishing this spring, I've caught lots of fish.
Joe'l and Bella are doing fine, Bella is getting so big. She tells me all kinds of things. But right now she is going through a "...no not really, I'm just playing...." stage.
Kids!
I don't have any pictures to post, but Joe'l takes lots. I'm at work right now.

I'll show her how to work this blog, and maybe she'll put pictures on here more than I do.