Dyson DC-25 All Floors Vacuum Cleaner Review

Dyson DC-25 Ball All-Floors

A few weeks ago, my husband came home from HH Gregg with a new toy. Most husbands would have brought home a new TV or surround sound system. My sweet husband brought home something way better. A Dyson vacuum cleaner. The one with the ball. The one I drool over when I see the commercials for Dyson on TV. It was on sale for a great price and I was excited to try it out!

Dyson makes incredible vacuum cleaners. I bought a refurbished Dyson DC07 Low Reach Vacuum in 2004. It worked as well as a new vacuum and while it came with a 6 month warranty, I’ve never had any problems with it. It still runs but the new one is several pounds lighter and more compact, making it easier for me to carry up and down the stairs, which is the reason my husband purchased it for me.

While I love my old Dyson, I love the new one even more! The ball technology makes it so easy to maneuver. A button on the handle allows you to easily turn on the brushes when you move from hard floor surfaces to carpet.

The Dyson also comes with a telescoping wand. It’s very long – about 16 feet. It can be used with one of two attachments to reach areas normal vacuum cleaners wouldn’t be able to. Think cobwebs in corners, ceiling fans, the tops your kitchen cabinets, etc. You can clean your baseboards without bending over or underneath your couch without moving it. The thing I love best about the wand is that by using the stair attachment, I can stand at the bottom of the stairs and vacuum most of my staircase without having to carry the vacuum up and stop at each individual stair. I’m somewhat of a clean freak, so I could go on and on listing places in my house (besides floors) that the Dyson helps me clean, but you get the picture!

Dyson vacuums are bagless. If you have never used a bagless vacuum cleaner, this might sound messy. But believe me, the Dyson bagless canister is so much easier to empty than the previous bag cleaners I used before discovering Dyson. You just hold the canister over your garbage can and with the press of a button, the contents drop straight into the garbage can. And you know how when a traditional vacuum cleaner’s bag fills up, it starts to lose suction? Not with Dyson. These vacuums have strong suction and don’t lose power. Even when the canister starts to fill up, the suction stays the same, but it’s really nice to be able to empty it after each vacuuming session. When I had a vacuum with bags, I felt like I had to “get my money’s worth” out of the bag and fill it up before changing to a new bag.

Dysons come with lifetime HEPA filters. You’re supposed to wash them about every 6 months. They just pop out, rinse clean, and then air dry for about 24 hours.

I highly recommend the Dyson vacuum cleaners. They are durable, powerful, and easy to use.

Love:

Lifetime HEPA filter

5 year warranty on parts & labor for new Dyson upright & canister vacuum cleaners

Telescoping wand with attachments (stair attachment & brush attachment)


Not a fan of:

Power cord –the cord on the new Dyson is about 11 feet shorter than on my old Dyson. I like the longer cord better!

Price – Suggested retail is $499, so the price for the Dyson is pretty steep. 

Photos from Amazon.com

Our Anniversary Present

Our anniversary is May 25. We went away the weekend after our anniversary to our favorite place, the beach! It was a wonderful, relaxing, fun weekend and we really enjoyed it! A few weeks after we got back, on June 24, I found out I was pregnant! I was thrilled…and a little shocked. I have to say that I really did not expect to get pregnant that quickly! When I told Jason, he was so excited. I have never seen a daddy-to-be get so excited! It made me so happy to see him so excited!

On July 7, I went to the doctor for my first ultrasound. It was wonderful to see the baby’s heartbeat. Then we met with the doctor and got some not so great news. The doctor told us that there is a 2cm blood clot in my placenta. Knowing that the baby was only about 1 cm made me very scared. I’ve never heard of a blood clot in the placenta, but the fact that the clot was bigger than the baby terrified me. Dr. Simmons said that clot might resolve itself. He said about 50% of clots do. But there’s also the possibility that something bad might happen – I could start bleeding and lose the baby. I was pretty terrified. Jason looked up more information that night and his additional information scared me even more. Nothing was positive or good.

On August 4^th, I went back to the doctor. The doctor couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. Since I was only 11 weeks, I didn’t get too concerned. I knew it was early. He sent us for a sonar to check on the baby. I didn’t get scared until the sonar started and I couldn’t see the baby’s heartbeat…but it was there! Such a sweet sight…and so grateful to get to see the baby again! So tiny and such a sweet miracle! The blood clot was smaller but still there.

We found out that the baby is a boy on September 29^th. We had previously been told at a 13 week ultrasound that the baby was probably a girl. But since it was early, we knew that was not set in stone. You should have seen how excited and happy Jason was to hear “boy”…he jumped out of his chair when the sonar tech told us (and showed us!) that the baby is a boy! Jason had thought from the beginning that the baby would be a boy, so he kept saying "I knew it! I told you!"It was great!

The bad news we got that day is that the clot was still there. Smaller, but still present. But, everything else looked right: arms, legs, kidneys, heart, etc. The baby shows no signs of Down's or other abnormalities and this baby is a mover...he was squirming all over the place during the ultrasound! Can't wait to meet my sweet boy!

Requip Withdrawals

I have to talk a little bit about coming off my medicine only because what I thought would be a somewhat simple process was anything but. In a previous post I talked a little bit about how I had to step up my dosage of Requip to reach the level that was right for me. To come off of Requip, I couldn’t just stop taking the medicine. I had to step down the dosage.

IT WAS AWFUL.

After the first week at a lower dosage, I started hurting. I was expecting my symptoms to come back. I wasn’t expecting to have withdrawals. It’s not like I was taking narcotics or pain meds.

The second week was even worse. I ached all over. My legs felt like they needed to be cut off. A friend who is a nurse told us that coming off of Parkinsons’s medication is often compared to the withdrawals a cocaine user goes through when he is trying to get clean. It’s really no wonder that once people start taking drugs, they keep taking them. I completely understood the need for relief from the pain.

Sitting on the couch or laying in bed wishing for relief from the pain, I often felt like if I could get relief from just taking another Requip, I would. Two things kept me going. The first is obviously that I really wanted to get pregnant and knew I had to be off the medicine to be able to do that. The second is that I knew that even if I went into the kitchen and took a Requip, the pain would not go away or let up. I would have to take it for several days for it to build back up in my system before I would get any relief.

Thankfully, it only took a few weeks to step down off of the Requip. I finished my other medications around the same time. That was at the beginning of April. It was now time to try to get pregnant!

What Causes Parkinson's Disease?

There is currently no cure for Parkinson’s disease. Medications treat only the symptoms and come with some pretty nasty side effects, as I am quickly learning.

After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I began trying to discover what could have caused me to develop this disease at such a young age. There are many theories on what causes Parkinson’s. The disease itself develops when the dopamine producing cells in the brain begin to die off. But doctors do not know why these cells begin to die. The traditional thought around the subject is that there are environmental triggers that cause the disease. This is because certain professions where workers are exposed to toxic chemicals seem to have higher instances of the disease. However, newer research suggests that mutations of certain genes can either cause Parkinson’s or make a person more likely to develop Parkinson’s. The cause could also be a combination: the genes make you more susceptible, but then something in your environment triggers the actual loss of dopamine producing cells.

Since some families have multiple people with Parkinson’s, researchers have long looked for a hereditary tendency towards Parkinson’s. It has been hard to establish a completely genetic link to Parkinson’s, however, since families also share many environmental factors. No one in my family history has Parkinson’s disease. Both my parents are living - neither has Parkinson’s. Two of my four grandparents are living, neither has Parkinson’s. My deceased grandparents did not have Parkinson’s either. So how did I get it?

A mutation in a gene has been linked to higher rates of Parkinson’s. As part of a research study, I was tested for this gene mutation thought to cause Parkinson’s disease. I do not have this particular gene. But, this is a big area for research in Parkinson’s right now, and scientists are discovering more genes that could be linked to the disease.

I looked at environmental factors. Even thought we don’t know what causes Parkinson’s, one thing is clear. Certain areas of the United States (and the world) have higher rates of Parkinson’s. This is thought to be because of chemicals or pesticides used in those areas. I do not live in a rural farming area and I have never worked in a factory. I grew up in the suburbs and have worked in an office building for most of my adult life.

I have decided I will probably never know what caused my Parkinson’s disease. And even if I discovered how I got it, I can’t change the fact that it’s here.