Each Day Already is a Challenge

Hospital and Other Stuff

Yes, I did get my son into the hospital emergency room, but not until after I had called some urgent care clinics and discovered that they wouldn't see him if he might have some kind of heart problem.

Derek predicted that the hospital wouldn't take his racing heart too seriously, and, sadly, he was right. I guess even doctors pooh-pooh the idea of someone who is 23 having heart problems. Perhaps they don't watch the news, where we learn about high school athletes suffering heart attacks. Or they didn't hear about the 29 year old writer (from another site) who suffered one.

In the emergency room, Derek's pulse rate was 147. They said that was as high as it should be if he was running or working out, not sitting in a chair. Well, duh. That's why we were in the emergency room.

They took his blood pressure, and it was low like it had been at home. But they took it only once and said low blood pressure in someone so young wasn't really an issue. Hmmm.

They did put him on a monitor for his pulse rate. For most of the time he was there - about 3 hours, of course - the rate never went lower than 95. Except when he was being silly and telling me a joke and I was laughing uncontrolably. Then his rate went down to 83. I told him that he needs to be a stand-up comedian because it appears that telling jokes and making people laugh agrees with him.

The doc said that with Derek's measure of fitness - which is pretty good these days from eating well and tossing boxes at Target - that his heart rate should be between 70 and 80. Still, they weren't all that concerned about his 100-147 rate.

He actually went to work last night with a note that he could not unload the truck or do anything requiring strength, running, lifting, etc. Luckily, in addition to unloading the truck, he was supposed to stock the electronics department. He just did the stocking and someone else had to do the truck.

The doc gave Derek these instructions: stop drinking caffeine, stop smoking, try to have less stress in your life. If this persists, see a specialist.

Helpful, huh? They did tests but have no idea why Derek's heart rate was racing. They thought it might be anxiety. Still, they didn't offer to give him a prescription to get the rate down until he could see a specialist or some doctor. Grrr.

The doc admitted that most people who drink sodas and coffee and even smoke don't have racing hearts like this - for a full day. Still, because these are stimulants, that was the only suggestion the doc could offer.

For that, the kid will probably get a $500 bill - especially since he had not met his deductable for the year. And this mom is NOT less stressed...since there were no answers provided.

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I've been wondering whether or not I should write about something else and decided I would. If you've been a follower of this blog, you know that I went from months of writing in it every day to very few entries this month. You'll probably remember why and how that happened. I felt that a member of the WDC community was unfairly treated (still do) and when she and her friends left and went to Gather.com, I couldn't blame them.

I already had an account there, not because I really wanted to get active there, but because MyPoints.com offered me 50 or 100 points to join. So I did. (MyPoints.com sends me emails each day which I read and get 5 points for. After a while, I trade the points in for a gift card to Target or K-Mart. Or maybe Starbucks. Or Red Lobster. Getting 50 or 100 points was lots better than getting 5.)

So, I started searching around Gather.com. I posted some things. And I started getting comments, leaving comments and collecting points. Cool.

I discovered that Gather has some awesome contests, contests that result in getting books published by pretty decent publishing companies and even getting advances. That's not always something that happens for new writers - the advances. So having a site that offers contests where the winner(s) get published is pretty cool.

I have been open about being over at Gather more than here. I have said so in my blog.

But you know what I discovered?

There are A BUNCH of WDC folks with memberships there, folks of all different case colors (if you know what I mean). I'm betting that they ran to Gather when these awesome writing contests started. From what I've gathered (haha), the contests were pretty widely advertised. I'm not sure why I didn't see them, except that the one now, for instance, is a contest for romance books and that's just not my thing.

So lots of WDC folks found out about this site and its contests. Perhaps they told each other. Perhaps they found it and never told anyone. I don't know.

But I do know that I have not seen anyone here talk about Gather and its contests.

That bothers me a bit. To me, that's like they found something that could benefit lots of folks here but they kept it a secret. Why? Because they didn't want the competition? Could that be?????

I have been corresponding with two fellows who already won contests there and had books published. They're both on book tours right now and having the time of their lives. Lucky dudes. Well, they must have been good writers too. The one was among 2600 entries for the first contest the site held. I'm not sure about the second one. The one going on now must be the third.

So, I didn't want to be like those other WDC folks and not tell you about the great contests at Gather. There is a contest right now in its 2nd round, so y'all can't get in on that. (I was too late for round one...if I had been a romance writer.)

If you are seeking a way to publish eventually, you might just want to check out membership over there now. It's free. The points you get for posting your work and for commenting on the works of others adds up pretty quickly. I have a $20 Borders card in my purse as my reward for getting 5 referrals. (I'm being honest about this!) And I'm sitting on almost enough points to get a $25 gift card from somewhere - all since about mid-August. And I'm not living there. I do have some entries here, plus I've been poking around at prose-n-poetry.com, writing things for ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com. So the point accummulation isn't too bad.

Thought you should know. If you decide to check it out, give me a shout once you've signed up.
http://www.gather.com/inviteLanding.jsp?parentMemberId=223207&tc=14

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Something fun. Are you Yankee ot Dixie?

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html