BREW beagle rescue, my favorite rescue group, has three BEAGLE PUPPIES coming in to DC this weekend that need foster or forever homes. They’ve also got DOZENS of beagles of all ages available for adoption. These dogs are living in foster homes with families, couples, and singles all across the PA/MD/DC/VA area and the Midwest. They’re learning how to behave, how to live with a family, and how to be loved, many for the first time. There are dogs who are housetrained, dogs who were left behind in a move or after the birth of a baby, dogs whose owners have moved to retirement homes, and dogs who have never known a real home of their own. These dogs need love. They need people to love them.

If you’ve got love to spare, won’t you click over and consider becoming a foster home for BREW beagles or your local animal shelter or rescue group?

Edited to add:  BREW is having local adoption day events THIS SATURDAY in Alexandria, VA, Delavan, WI, and Downer’s Grove, IL, and this Sunday in Gurnee and Machensey Park, IL!  Come out and meet the beagles — and see if one of them has been waiting just for you!

Thanks for all the comments on the last post.  I’m feeling better now, just tired.

I’ve had a mastectomy, I warned the nurse who was bending over me to open my gown and place sticky electrodes on me for the EKG.  “Hmmm?” she asked, pausing a moment in case there was something she didn’t fully understand.  Just warning you, I said, since I’ve apparently scared nurses before, and they didn’t react well.  “Oh, honey,” she told me, “No problem.  I worked in oncology for years before I came down here.  I’ve seen it all.”  We made chit-chat about the hospital’s oncology ward, one of the better ones, and one where they really take a look at the needs of the whole person.  I remembered a good experience I’d had up there, with a Reiki-performing chaplain, and lay calmly while she smiled, finished attaching electrodes and performed the test.  “Another nurse will be right in.”

And with that, Nurse #3 swept in, not bothering to take my history (the first two didn’t either) or ask me questions beyond, “Trouble breathing?” before she told me that she would be inserting an IV for the CT scan.  I have chemo veins, I told her.  I’m a tough stick, because the chemo shriveled my veins.  “Oh, that’s no problem.  I can stick anyone,” she scoffed, and took a look at my arm.  I showed her which vein usually works, and which one they used for my bloodwork on Monday, at the oncologist.  She swabbed the inside of my elbow, and stabbed at a vein.  She didn’t get it.  She stabbed again, slightly farther up on the same vein.  This time, she got it, but she couldn’t get a flow started.  (Chemo veins.)  She wiggled the end in the vein, trying to get blood to flow. (Ouch.)  After a few moments that felt like hours, I began to have trouble.

I’m going to pass out, I warned her.  I knew I would, because I have before when they’ve had trouble with my veins.  (I had also warned her of the possibility before we started, but she blew that off too.)  I’m getting closer, I warned her.  My husband looked into my eyes and said, “Stay with us, honey.  She’s working on it.”  The nurse stabbed another vein, the one that had just been used on Monday.  It didn’t work.  I continued to talk, trying to keep myself upright, and telling them that I was passing out, because I was.

When I came to, my husband was there, looking calmly into my eyes and speaking.  The nurse was frantically stabbing my arm, having stopped only because he asked her to, knowing that I would awake with a jolt.  The doctor swept in, asking what was going on, as the nurse continued to try to get a vein.  I wasn’t okay, I told her.  I couldn’t feel my feet or my hands.  And it was getting worse.  As I began to lose consciousness again, the doctor lowered my head (I was still propped up!) and directed my husband to hold up my feet.  He held me up and gently put his hand on my legs, to let me know that he was there, with me, supporting me.

The nurse continued to try to get a vein.  I can’t feel my legs from the knees down, I said, and I can’t feel my hands.  I can’t feel my elbows.  I can’t feel my legs at all now.  What’s happening?  I’m scared.  I’m going to pass out again.  I’m scared.  I kept talking as if somehow that would help.  As if by communicating what was happening inside my body they could stop it from the outside.  I could see the nurse bending over my poor arm, having no luck with the IV stick at all, although she insisted she just needed another minute.  I could hear the doctor, standing at my head, saying, “I’m going to stick it in her neck.”  I could hear myself saying, no, not my neck.  That was so bad before.  Don’t let them put it in my neck.  The nurse tried one more time, getting a vein, but the IV bag wouldn’t flow quickly enough, and then I began to lose consciousness again.

“Her blood pressure is dropping!” said someone, one of the many nurses who had somehow appeared, crowding the room, “Heart rate 28,” said another.  “Get the crash cart!” yelled the doctor.  “Where should I put the contrast drinks?” asked a nurse hovering on the edges. “Not now,” said the doctor, and repeated, “Where is the crash cart?  Go. Get. The. Crash. Cart.”  As they worked on me, all I could see were worried faces and bent heads, and I continued losing feeling in my legs and arms.  “I’m going to stick this in your neck, now,” said the doctor, “I have no choice.”  As it went in, I hardly felt it, although I sure remembered the fear from the time before.  “I’ve almost got it!” said the nurse, but thankfully the doctor didn’t listen, and started IV fluids through my neck, in addition to the two flowing into my arm.  “Wide open,” she directed, squeezing the topmost IV fluid bag tight, and then “Her pressure is 40 over 20.  WHERE IS THAT CRASH CART?”  It must have come in then, because they slapped the paddles on me (Did you know they’re like stickers now?  Although they do cover most of your chest.) as the doctor directed, for the third or fourth time, “She needs a room.  She needs a room NOW.”

I would find out later that I needed a room because they didn’t have the appropriate monitoring equipment in the first exam area, and they needed to see my blood pressure and heart rate return to normal.  Which it wasn’t.

I’m a little fuzzy on what happened next, but I was soon being wheeled down the hall into an ER room, with new nurses, and the return of the CT nurse, telling me to drink the contrast, when I couldn’t even sit up … or feel my arms or legs, from my belly button on down.  I was in no shape to go take a test, and my husband stood between the nurse and me and said,

“No.”

“Get the doctor.  I want the doctor to clear her for this test before you take her away.  She just had a problem, and I want to be sure that everyone knows her status before she drinks anything.”  The CT nurse skittered away, with a mumbled comment, but the doctor soon returned.  I’m so cold, I said, and they layered blanket after blanket from the warmer on me, and my husband (I wish I could use his name here, but you all know I don’t) held my hand and stayed with me, telling me that I would be okay.

I asked about the kids.  I asked for stories of the kids.  I wanted to hear that they were okay with the friend we’d left them with (I knew they were), that they were happy, and I wanted to focus on them and how much I loved them and how much I wanted to pull through this and be with them once more.  He told me story after story, distracting me, helping me focus on them while I warmed up, while my blood pressure rose, while things returned, at last, to normal.  Nurses came in and out, but I didn’t see them.  I didn’t hear them.  All I could hear was my husband, the love of my life, telling me about our children, the loves of our lives, and how we would be home soon.

And in that way, my temperature slowly rose.  My blood pressure returned to a low normal.  The boules of saline rushed into my veins unnoticed and my body returned to the body I’d known before.

The imperfect, scarred, swollen, uncomfortable body I’d known before, and I settled back into it, grateful that I could feel it again, hopeful that I would be okay, and would be back in time for the children’s bedtime, and I could snuggle them to sleep once again.

We spent another six hours in the ER after that, having tests and waiting for results, but finally I was cleared to go home.  The tests were negative.  No pulmonary embolism.  No metastasis.  But still, it would take days to fully recover from my bad day at the ER.

“Get the crash cart!”

“She’s going to code!”

“Hang in there, honey, look into my eyes.”

“Her pressure is 40 over 20 … and falling!”

…

Yesterday morning, I went to my primary care doctor for a followup.  A simple office visit, nothing too exotic.  But as I was leaving the office, the physician’s assistant stopped me.  “How long have you been breathing like that?” she asked.  Since yesterday, I replied, thinking, haven’t we been over this?  I told you my symptoms at the start of the visit, and this was deemed to be no big deal.  “But you weren’t breathing like that before,” she said.  That’s right.  I was sitting still before, or lying down when I was waiting to be seen (why not?).  The breathing is only bad when I sit up for a while, or walk around.  “Don’t leave,” she said, “I’ll be right back.”

And she was.  With bad news.

“I don’t like the way you’re breathing,” she said, “With your history, I don’t want to take any chances.  I know you’re scheduled for a PET/CT scan later in the week, but I want to move it up, to check your lungs for a pulmonary embolism.”  Okaaaaaaaay.  “The doctor’s assistant tried to get you in for a CT today, but your insurance company said, no, they have three days to approve a CT.  You can’t get in until Monday.  But if it’s a PE, then it has to be caught today.”

“I’m sorry, but you need to go to the ER.”

The ER?  Really?  But it’s just a little labored breathing, and general weakness.  Couldn’t I just be fighting something off?  Like, say, H1N1, or a simple infection?

“You need to go to the ER, and you need to go now.  Do you have someone to drive you?”

I’ll drive myself, I said.  It’s only a couple of miles away, and I’ll call my husband to meet me there.  Of course, I was supposed to host playdate in a few minutes, but perhaps my friend Lisa will pinch-hit for me.  Yes, that will work.  I’ll leave now, I told her.  And I did.  I made arrangements for the kids, asked my husband to meet me at the hospital, and drove myself over to the ER.

Because my insurance company’s policy was to not approve CT scans for 3 days, I ended up in the ER, 2 hours in the waiting room with H1N1 patients and all kinds of infection floating through the air, waiting for the ER doc to take a look and say, “Why yes, she does need a CT.”  But, in just a few hours, I figured, I would have the CT, have it read, and be cleared to go home.  I’d even be checked for metastatis while we were at it (since a CT scan can do double duty, checking lung health in general and in specific, and cancer is most likely to move to the lungs, bones, and liver first, when it makes its jump to a level IV cancer).  So while this was going to be an annoyance, at the end of the day, it would be a net positive, right?

Well, that was before I was ushered back to the ER, behind the curtain.

to be continued….

My husband and I have always wanted to go to Kennedy Space Center together.

We wanted to go when we were in college.  We wanted to go when we were in graduate school (but by the time we were married and ready to travel, we were writing our dissertations). We wanted to go when we worked for NASA (but we worked for NASA, and were way too busy to vacation. Yes, I know (now) that that’s sad). We wanted to go when we had children (but we had children, and were way too busy still). We wanted to go when a mission I’d worked on launched (but, but, but … and we never went).

A couple of weeks ago, we just went.

Spurred by a question from Ellen, I’m writing up the highlights of our trip, here and on related (linked) posts.

The highlights of our trip to Cocoa Beach in October were many, although not all that varied. We’re space geeks. Period. We love space. And nature. And space again. This trip was a dream come true for us.

The first stop on the Space Coast was the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center. The visitor center is actually run by a professional visitor center company, Delaware Parks & Resorts, and it shows. From the highly organized ticket-buying experience to the metal detectors to the visitor center food, it’s definitely done by someone who knows what they’re doing, and who can manage crowds.

Not that there were crowds when we were there. It was October in Florida, after all, which I can tell you is a great time to go. The crowds are thin, the people were relaxed, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. (Although the ocean was cold. Not that we spent much time on the beach.)

We enjoyed the KSC Visitor’s Center immensely, running from the Robotic Exploration exhibit to the Constellation movie to the Rocket Garden, with a stop at the giant playspace full of tunnels, bridges, and slides for the younger set. We took a tour (included with visitor’s admission), filed in to a shuttle mockup for a trip to space (kids under 48″ have to watch from a gallery — but even that was exciting), walked on the gantry that the Apollo astronauts walked, explored a full-size shuttle, and stood solemnly at the Astronaut Memorial. We also touched a celestial sphere with the constellations engraved on it, and marveled as it effortlessly spun in the water base at the gentle push of a toddler’s hand.

One of the best parts of the trip was the KSC Then and Now Space History Tour, a three hour tour (not that kind of three hour tour) that took us onto Kennedy Space Center proper and over to Cape Canaveral, where all the Mercury and Gemini rockets were launched back in the 60’s and the unmanned rockets are still launched today. Highlights for us were a visit to an actual bunkhouse, where we got to see and touch the ancient computers that filled the rooms, sit at a control desk, and stand behind the 12-layered glass where Werner Von Braun once stood. We also went to the Apollo 1 launch pad, and solemnly put our hands on the launch structure where the capsule caught fire, burning Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee alive. This was followed by a quiet ride back to KSC, and a stop at the Saturn V center, where one of the last remaining Saturn V rockets is on display.

Included in our trip to KSC was a stop at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, next to the old Space Camp dorms. The Hall of Fame had quite a few other attractions, including hands-on activities and simulators for the kids (that used to belong to Space Camp). This was a fun stop, and although not a whole day’s destination, it was the perfect way to top off Day #2 at KSC. (KSC offers a second day free at the Visitor Center and/or the Astronaut Hall of Fame simply by validating your ticket on exit.)

After the Hall of Fame, we were starving, and dropped by Kelsey’s for pizza. Yum.

Before we left Florida, we happened on another great place to go, this time in Titusville. The U.S. Space Walk of Fame Museum is for the true history buff and/or space-crazy child or teen. This unassuming little museum is packed tight with real pieces of history, like the charred I-beam used to advocate for necessary funding increases for the space program back in the 1980’s. The ragged door from a Mercury capsule that was lost before the manned program began. Lights, switches, and memorabilia given to retiring astronauts, engineers, and launch directors. Handprints from dozens of astronauts, that you can lay your hands in for the asking. An amazing room-sized model of the shuttle launch pad, gantry, and crawler. Rooms for Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. A room set up like the bunkhouse that we’d just seen on the tour, but even more child friendly. Scrapbooks of photos kept by men who made the space program what it is today.

We were led through the museum by retired shuttle launch director (whose name I’ve misplaced), who worked his way up through the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and shuttle missions, growing right along with the space program, and it was amazing to hear his stories firsthand. This museum is free, and well worth any time you spend there. Go, shake the hands of the men who made it happen.

The Space Walk of Fame itself is a block or two away, by a beautiful stretch of water, and it is a must-visit. Scattered over the two block area of Space View Park are monuments to the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo engineers, mechanics, flight directors, and all the people who made it happen. Not just the astronauts. Not the astronauts at all, actually, and that was a refreshing change from the astronaut-worship apparent at the KSC Visitor Center. The Space Walk of Fame celebrates hard work. Impossible work, really, and that was a lovely place for us to end our trip.

After a trip to Scoops, for freshly churned ice cream and milkshakes, we played in a nearby park and returned home, tired but happy, our trip complete.

Had we had more time, we would definitely have visited the Brevard Community College Planetarium, which hosts a rooftop observatory with 12 and 24 inch reflectors, a 6 inch refractor, a planetarium with a dual projection system, a 3 story high screened movie theater, and a space museum. The star show is showing Ring World, a favorite of friends of ours … and each show is just $6. We just ran out of time. We’d also like to see the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which friends of ours have loved on their trips there. The Refuge is near the entrance to the Kennedy Space Center, and we’ll definitely make time for that on our next trip.

We can’t wait to go again!

Disclosure: None of the institutions mentioned or NASA paid for any part of this trip in any way at all, nor are they aware of this post. I used to work for NASA, and my husband still does, but I think you knew that already.