Scary medical stuff

Yesterday, Jenny was admitted to the hospital for a blood infection. She had been having fevers and headaches for a couple of days prior, and we went to see her docs on Wed. They diagnosed her with bronchitis and an infection of some sort, and sent her home on antibiotics. Then, at 5am on Thursday, we got a call from the resident at the hospital, and she said that Jenny needed to come in and be admitted because the blood cultures taken the day before revealed a blood infection (staph, in this case). We went in, and they did an ultrasound of Jenny's heart to see if the infection had settled on to one of the valves. Fortunately, there was no indication that it had, and her doc said that it didn't really matter where the infection was because the antibiotic treatment is a systemic thing that will take care of it since it hadn't taken hold in a "bad" area. They took some more blood cultures, and started her on an additional antibiotic to make damn sure that the bug she has is covered. Her white blood cell count was down from 19k+ on Wed to ~14k on Thur, and this is before the introduction of the additional antibiotic (vanco). That was good, and they released her today. They will probably take her off of the vanco, since the other two she's on looked to be killing the bugs, but she is on it as a precaution until the tests for antibiotic sensitivities of the particular staph she's colonizing are complete. If it comes back as being sensitive to the antibiotics she started on, they'll let her discontinue to vanco.

Stress is fun! :-(

Poker at Fish's place

Played some poker with Fish and some other guys at Fish's house on Saturday. I must say, I do like that game. It's kind of fucked up, start with some 2k+ tourney chips, blinds start at 1-2 and double EVERY time the deal goes all the way around the table, and the blinds never cap. This is absolutely NOT the kind of game I want to be in with people who have a decent idea about what they're doing, but I was able to dominate. We played 3 tourneys, 2 six-player and 1 five-player, and I took 2 firsts and 1 third, ITM every time.
This is going to sound really arrogant, but playing with these guys doesn't feel like gambling. I could take their money all night long without breaking a sweat. Might spill my beer, though.

Good dream before the dove opener

I had a really good dream before the dove opener. I thought it was a *sign that the season would be good for me, but that wasn't the case. Anyhow, on to the dream!

I was playing 7CS h/l in a live game. It was down to the river, and I was first to act with 3 players, me, a guy I've played live with a couple of times, and the woman who has been training me to do her job. Homeboy is really nice, but I managed to get him riled up one time by not "rabbit hunting" (exposing cards that would have been on the board) for his straight flush when we were playing NLHE. Comments were made by the host of the game to the effect that homeboy is the calmest dude in the world and that he was very suprised to see him get pissed. The woman is very nice, but she annoys the hell out of me. Her voice is grating and she always has easy listening crap playing on the radio in her cube. She also doesn't strike me as the brightest light.

Anyhow, I'm first to act, and from the up cards, it's clear that they're both gunning for the high hand. My exposed cards look like I'm trying to make a low hand (unpaired 8 and lower), but it's unsure whether I've made it or not because there's an exposed pair of 7s that I made on 6th street. Everything else is lower than an 8, and the straight doesn't look likely. So, the action is on me, but the woman's face is going off like fireworks and she loudly (and abrasively, like gravel accross a chalkboard) announces "all in". My calm homeboy starts freaking out, yelling at her that it's not her turn and that "it's a fucking limit game, you can't go all in!", but I'm trying not to give away that I made something other than a low hand. My door card is a 7, and the river brought me a 4th seven. I don't have the pure nuts, but I'm seeing a lot of face cards and am sure that someone has made at least high trips or a full house with royalty, and that I am going to be paid off because it looks like I'm playing for the low split.

That's where it ends, so I don't know what happened, but I felt good waking up at the asscrack of dawn. Now that I think about it, my results over the two opening days of dove season suggest that someone made higher quads, there. Oh, well. Felt nice at the time.

* I'm really not all that superstitious, but I wasn't sure how else to put it. Nice rhetorical flair, though, don't you think? ;-)

Got to kill some stuff

I went over to Ed's for the dove opener. He killed some birds, I killed some birds. He got his limit 2 days in a row, and I... well, didn't do as well. 3 birds the first day, no birds the next. Sure, there were fewer birds this year than last, but I still should have done much better. I'm sure my gun doesn't fit right. I think it needs to be a little longer. I want to get a new pad for it to add .25 to .75 inches. That seems to be how much I'm short for it to line up correctly when I throw it up to my shoulder.

Regardless of the low success rate, it was still a fun trip. It was good to see Ed. I'm a little disappointed that he'll be busy for the quail opener, but I'm working on another person to come with me to the "promised land". The place I'm going to is spectacular for birds, and my mother-in-law has a new dog that I want to work. The dog is a labradoodle, and for as long as she's been saying that she wants a poodle, I've sworn I'd make it a hunter. This dog isn't a poodle, but it's close enough. Sure looks a lot like one. He's very smart, though, has a good nose, and LOVES wings. I think he's going to be an excellent bird dog, but we'll see.

BTW, didn't kill a grouse. Got a bruise and put a scratch in my pretty gun while trying to cross a talus slope, though! Did I mention that it was a good trip?