I spent the day researching vocal cord dysfunction because last night Bill couldn’t breath and it was horrible. I even had 911 on the phone asking for an ambulance before he was able to get a breath and he told me later that this had happened several times before with him, but this is the first time since we’ve been together. He has asthma or so he was diagnosed with many years ago and always keeps an inhaler close by, but this wasn’t an asthma attack.

He was at work years ago and they thought he was choking and his co-worker did the Heimlich maneuver on him and it opened up what he says is a flap, he said it closed up and he couldn’t breath in. I had no clue what I was looking for today until I ran across a very informative website called  CAN’T BREATHE? SUSPECT VOCAL CORD DYSFUNCTION! so I spent the day reading and then doing other research on other websites.

Apparently you don’t use medication to treat this, but you do have to see a speech pathologist to learn a different way of breathing and other techniques. After doing a lot of reading I’m thinking that he has been so stressed over his eyes that he may have brought this episode on. It was horrible and scared the crap out of me. I better learn how to do the Heimlich maneuver Bill said he didn’t care if I cracked his ribs so long as he could breath.

On the website above she even shares some tips she learned on how to breath which I’m going to make Bill try and practice so he wont panic if this happens again. More doctors and emergency teams are only recently themselves becoming more aware of  vocal cord dysfunction the main cause of this disorder still remains unknown and to properly diagnose it would be to do a nasal endoscopy during an episode.

I’m sure they would have to trigger an episode in a clinic because unless the passage were to be open as soon as possible I’m quite sure someone could die so screw the endoscopy I’ll be cracking some ribs if this ever happens again and since he wasn’t able to breath in I will definitely have him practise those breathing out exercises so we’ll at least be better prepared.

I also intend to keep a small bottle of water with a sprayer on hand so he can keep his throat moist instead of dry. Got to get back to my researching so I can find more helpful tidbits for Bill, so type at you all later.

Ducks seem to be the in pet in our neighborhood, at least 3 families now have them quacking all over the place. These belong to the girl next door and she says she simply loves them. My Son had ducks, but he had a huge natural pond with 7 natural springs as you can see in the photo above my neighbor has a very small water feature, but she plans to yank that one out and make a larger one to accommodate her ducks.

We picked up the trike last night so we have it for the weekend and everything hopefully is now fixed. We’re going to take it out for a bit when Bill gets home from work since it’s sunny. Bill went to the eye doctor yesterday and the doctor wasn’t too pleased with the pressure, he has glaucoma and has been putting drops in his eyes for years to keep the pressure under control so now we have to go next week so a colleague can examine him and see if he will need surgery.

He’s been afraid of losing his sight for years and now this news has us concerned. I think the worse part for him would be to never ride his bike again. The pressure has never been this high before and they showed him a film about what could happen to his eyeballs if the pressure isn’t kept under control. We are just hoping the surgery will correct the problem and he wont have to do the drops any more. I know his sister-in-law had some surgery done and her eyes seem to be okay now, but that might have been for something else.

We’ll find out more next Wednesday, but of course in the mean time he will be a nervous wreck. He worries more than anyone I have ever met, no wonder he has high blood pressure with all the stress he puts himself through. He tends to think of himself as unlucky and always expects the worst I on the other hand do try to be positive and force him to see things in a different light even though I am unipolar. I do try not to be down all the time and expect the worse scenario. At any rate I hope everyone has a great weekend if it doesn’t rain we’ll definitely be out on the trike.

We went over to Jodi’s for a couple hours last night so we could lift that heavy baby up and down for her till her husband came home. Actually most of the lifting was left up to Bill because I strained my lower back from mowing and trimming yesterday. She’s a cute little thing and very serious, she has to warm up to you before she will smile at you unlike my Ethan that grins and laughs all the time, these photo’s were from the March visit I don’t have any newer ones yet.

Of course when Ethan’s daddy was sick he had so many people handling him that he got socialized very young unlike Natalie who hasn’t been around that many people. I can’t wait to see Ethan in August. My DIL is bringing him up for his 1st birthday. He’ll probably be walking by then and jabbering away. They called the day after Mother’s Day and I know it was just as hard for her as it was for me. I have the recording of Ethan laughing which does much to lighten my heart I’m so grateful he’s in our life.

You know I try not to have any favorites between Bill’s grandchildren, but I can’t help that I’m partial to Nate he’s the one in the middle. Nate just seems like mine and he’s always been special, Nate is Natalie’s older brother of course. I never thought I would actually have a biological grandbaby so Nate filled that spot. Eric lost 4 babies through the years with a couple different partners and then they had Ethan at the same time Eric found out he had the cancer and was being treated.

I will always be grateful I was there and almost got to see the little guy born, but it was too much for her so they had to do a cesarean and I was so happy to be a Nana. It was very special and Eric was so proud and happy that his Mom was there and had driven all the way from PA to Kentucky by herself. Eric and I were very close up until he was 21 and then he didn’t need his Mom anymore. I really missed when he stopped calling me mama and switched to Mom when he got older.

Entrecard Afterthought
I really don’t understand why Entrecard bloggers still continue to buy ads on blogs that are showing the EC paid ads on their widget knowing they are only going to receive half of the impressions. Like this blog for instance it’s just not fair to you guys so please stop wasting your credits here until I make a choice to stop helping them, it makes me feel guilty so please spend your credits on those blogs that only show regular ads full time.