The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
Sarah Palin is scary. She has no experience, is a complete right-wing nutjob and would put many religious fundies to shame… And if the republicans win, she’s second in line to the throne, behind the oldest president at his inauguration.
Sleep well, kiddies.
A clever soul has discovered that rashers of streaky bacon are a perfect fit to insert into Pillsbury ready-to-bake cinnamon rolls.
Looks really nice!
In the land of the free, it is possible to win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote, and therefore the election. It is also possible to win the election with less than 50% of the voting population. Both of these scenarios, as well as others, have happened in actual elections.
There have been 12 Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the entire election would have been different.
Case and point: in 2000, if only 269 Floridians had voted with their heads instead of with their ass (or if the hanging chad issue hadn’t stolen the election), Al Gore would have won the election and the Dubya era would only have been a bad what-if scenario.
Source: https://www.msu.edu/~sheppa28/elections.html#2004
I’m pretty sure that the cats know that something is not right at the moment. They’re both being much bigger fusspots than usual. Reenie has taken to sleeping curled up on the couch propped up against my when I’m watching late-late-night TV and this morning, Tolstoy barked at me, jumped up on the bed (!) and demanded fuss while paddling my stomach. This is not normal behaviour for our cats. It’s more along the lines of benevolent contempt for us.
EastEnders theme more recognisable than God Save the Queen
The dramatic drumbeats of EastEnders are more recognisable than the national anthem, according to a new poll. Almost four in ten people say they are more familiar with the theme tune to the BBC soap than God Save the Queen. EastEnders came top of the poll with 37 per cent finding it the most recognisable, compared to 36 per cent with the national anthem.
The theme was originally composed by Simon May and Leslie Osborne and is widely known for the dramatic use of drums that begin and end each episode. The survey conducted by the Performing Rights Society (PRS) also found the Match of the Day (14 per cent) theme tune and Coronation Street (12 per cent) were among the most recognisable pieces of music.
Source: The Telegraph
As a side note, Coronation Street has been on air since December 1960. I remember it being on the television when we’d come back from church on Sundays when I was a kid. Some amusing Corrie facts:
Ken Barlow married Deirdre Langton on 27 July 1981. The episode was watched by over 24 million viewers – more viewers than the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana two days later.
The theme tune has remained largely unchanged since it first appeared in the 1960. David Browning played the trumpet on the original recording of the theme, and was given the choice of either a royalty payment for each time the theme was broadcast, or a one-off payment at the time of recording. He opted for the one-off payment.
Source: Wikipedia
I did something really stupid today. I knew it was a bad idea, but that apparently didn’t stop me from doing it. I went online and read up about the possible complications of liver failure in pregnancy and all the possible physical, developmental and psychological problems that can be associated with being born a preemie. The liver pathologies are not nice. One can actually involve your liver, how to say it, exploding internally. Messy. The general consensus about those worst-case scenarios is that they are not very nice. When I left the office to go to Addenbrookes, I was a bit of a mess. Katy had one look at me and got one of the midwives to yell at me (figuratively speaking). I have just enough medical knowledge to be dangerous :)
Turns out that the worst-case scenarios are also rare, and are the result of what happens when you catch them at the last possible moment (or don’t catch them at all). I re-read my previous blog entries and they do sound a bit melodramatic. Katy is not at death’s door. As a matter of fact, she’s doing ok. Ben is still a very active baby and Katy isn’t feeling out of sorts at all (unless you factor in being bored). The worst thing she currently has is high blood pressure. It spiked up earlier today and gave her blurry vision for 10-15 minutes but then everything went back to normal by itself and her BP was normal-ish while I was there. The midwife thinks that her high pressure might be putting some stress on her liver, which might explain the elevated enzyme readings, but it doesn’t seem to be anything nastier than that at the moment. Her bile acids results came in tonight and are normal, which means that it’s not one of the more common potential liver nasties. They’re keeping in her for another 48 hours at least to do more bloods and more BP checks.
Like the midwife said, it’s a watch and wait game. If her liver functions remain high-ish but don’t get worse and her blood pressure stabilizes, there is a good chance of Ben going to full term. She’s going to be well monitored and, at the first sign of trouble, they’ll deal appropriately. She said that there have been cases where one blood test after dozens of normal ones kicks-starts the whole process into high gear. Watch and wait.
For now, all is well. Nothing bad has happened and lots of good people are working hard to keep it that way. I have also been banned from reading medical websites on the Internet, but Katy says that I can browse for porn instead. Have I mentioned that I love my wife recently?
Cause I do.
I’ve just gotten a phone call from Katy. Her liver function test came back and it was worse off than yesterday so that means it’s not the meds causing it. We’re now down to two options, one bad and one worse.
Poo, I say.
They’re going to keep her for observation and more tests until they have a better idea what’s the cause and what’s the best course of action.
We saw this on the One Show on the beeb last night. Katy is soooooooo jealous of this dude’s license plate:
Katy was readmitted to Addenbrookes today.
Her blood pressure had started creeping back up when she had her ante-natal clinic appointment on Tuesday, so they told her to increase her meds from 3 times a day to 4 times a day. They also took some blood samples to run a few tests. She was to come back today for the results. They were less than pleasing. It would appear that her liver function is being impaired. This can be one of three things.
The best case scenario is that this is simply the appearance of a known potential side-effect of her blood pressure meds. They have switched her onto new meds to see if this makes the problem go away. The medium case scenario is that this is a known potential complication of pregnancy and they’re doing some more specific blood tests to check on this. This can be treated fairly easily and is not a problem. We should have the results in about a week. The worst-case scenario is that the liver problems are a symptom of pre-eclampsia. That would be very bad. That would mean that they’d monitor her on a daily basis and at the first sign of distress to her or Ben, she’d be induced or have a c-section. Her due date is at the end of November and it seems highly unlikely that she’ll make it full term.
*sigh*
We’re mostly keeping a positive attitude about the whole thing, or at least we’re trying to. Nothing bad has happened yet and people are working very hard to keep it that way. Still, it’s not the easiest thing to do to keep from fretting. I don’t know what I’d do without Katy. I know it sounds a bit dramatic saying that, but … I’ll admit being scared about the whole thing and not be able to do a damn thing about it. Sometimes, tea just can’t fix it.
The one thing that does comfort me is that she’s exactly where she needs to be to get the best care possible. Addenbrookes is a very good hospital and she’s in the system. She’s being monitored very closely and they seem on top of things to catch things early enough to be able to deal with them gently rather than at a stage where aggressive treatments would be required. That does help a lot in easing the anxiety.
And there is still tea. And kittens. Those help too.