17:48 – I just got back from the cardiac catheterization. Long story short, I’m having a triple or quadruple bypass done, probably at the end of this week.
Barbara is holding down the fort at home, with the help of friends who are housesitting when she needs to be with me.
@Dad’s very best thoughts (and prayers too, just in case) for a safe procedure and uneventful recovery.
Strength and comfort for Barbara and your friends.
Seconded.
I was apprehensive all day, when we didn’t hear from you.
Given the number and urgency, it’s probably a really good thing they identified the issues before they went critical.
The procedures are very common, and I understand that the worst part of the recovery is the pain from where they harvest the veins, and not anything in the torso.
Here’s hoping for a successful, and uneventful surgery, and a speedy recovery.
n
And hey, you’ll have stories to report about the quality and cost of the care, and the prepper implications of getting your issues fixed BEFORE the apocalypse.
PS. let me know if you’d prefer I didn’t open the day’s comments. Otherwise, I’ll wait to see if you post, and open the day if you don’t. That will give us a forum to let you and Barbara know you are in our thoughts and prayers…
Please post whenever you wish.
Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!
Best wishes, RBT.
You, too, OFD. Work on your motivation by thinking of the unfairness of RBT being surrounded by cute nurses while you get Brunhilda, the 300-pound P(sychotic) T(orturer) nurse or therapist or whatever that monster is.
Bummer. But it’s better to handle it on your terms instead of it handling you.
Best of luck Bob. We’re all rooting for you.
An “A Day in the Life” of a scrapper, repairer, and eBay reseller would be interesting. It need not be too detailed, so it shouldn’t be too painful to put together. Maybe. I know that you, Nick, often put up notes about spending a couple hours haunting the auctions or having to deal with shipment problems, but what parts of the job don’t you mention because they’re so routine you don’t think of them even though they occupy a goodly number of hours per week?
OTOH, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone’s already blogged about this or put up YouTube videos.
Hmm, not a bad idea. Don’t know how interesting I can make it, but it seems to be the coming thing as we face economic collapse. Sell off what you can, while you can….
n
ADDED- and the thought of writing about work, rather than doing the work as an appeal all its own. 🙂
My best for a very successful surgery, Dr. Bob. You have many years left in you to entertain us.
Hang in there, Barbara. This is going to turn out with Bob back in great health.
@nick, here you go, “Buying stuff at Walmart and selling it on Amazon nets this guy millions of dollars”
http://mashable.com/2017/11/03/walmart-amazon-arbitrage/
But he is not netting much money.
Our best wishes and prayers for you and Barbara, Bob. It won’t be easy but us Anglo-Saxon sobs are made of tough material and hard to keep down or kill.
We are needed more than ever before, and while not indispensable, I believe we retain enough value to make a difference, still.
Kick ass and take names!
I just got back from the cardiac catheterization. Long story short, I’m having a triple or quadruple bypass done, probably at the end of this week.
Hey, I am glad that you are getting things fixed before they get worse. The last phrase that you want to hear a cardiologist say is “occluded coronary artery”. That means that the damage is already done. You are not there yet and the bypass will stop further damage. I’ve been praying for you (and OFD) and will continue to do so.
“Trump says Texas church shooting caused by ‘mental health problem’ not guns”
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/06/trump-says-texas-church-shooting-caused-by-mental-health-problem-not-guns.html
“”Fortunately … somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction,” Trump said at the press conference”
To parrot Mr. Atoz, Hillary Clinton is not President !
However, one does wonder about the lifespan of Donna Brazile.
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/condolences/
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
To parrot Mr. Atoz, Hillary Clinton is not President !
Baraaack! BaraaackObola! Polly want a cracker! BaraaackObola!
Best wishes, Bob.
Bob, best wishes for a speedy recovery!
My dad had one of the early quadruple bypasses in Minnesota and he lived vigorously for 23 years thereafter. He used to delight the grandkids by showing them his football lacing chest.
Best wishes to Bob and OFD.
best wishes
Bob, I’ve been reading your journal here for at least nineteen years now but this is my first comment. I just have to sent my best wishes that your procedure goes well and you have a speedy recovery. Take care.
We all wish you the best of all possible outcomes. Get well soon!
Christ on a crutch!
What began as a respiratory complaint is now going to be “fixed” by quadruple bypass?
Methinks Drs. Milgram et al. and the Establishment have got you hornswaggled.
Arteriosclerosis has been around for centuries, DaVinci noted it; anyone over 40 yo has some degree of it.
Let’s treat the presenting complaint first: respiratory distress, and worry about other things to “fix” later.
If you do go ahead, beware of psychiatric side effects. Little mentioned, but it’s real and I’ve also seen it first-hand. The ol’ heart-lung machine is cruel, so tell ’em to keep the O2 as high as possible.
Best wishes in whatever course you take.
jim~
advocatus diaboli
Wife had a triple bypass and says if you don’t get an infection you will feel great! In a couple of months. In her case however, she got a vre infection in the wound that almost killed her, had her in and out of hospital for a year, two more operations, and the removal of her sternum and parts of two ribs. But that’s not the norm. I am sure you will do well.
Note: That was 5 years ago and we have traveled to New Zealand and back, a stressful journey. She recovered well after the infection was removed and is more active today than before.
Best wishes for a successful procedure. What modern cardiac surgery can do is only barely short of miraculous. My father had a triple bypass 10 years or more ago, and it made a new man of him – more health and energy overall, once he had healed up from the intervention. My father in law had a heart valve replaced, literally saving his life.
Be of good cheer. It’s important that you follow the PT and medication instructions to the letter after the op – there will be lots of walking required, so Colin will be your secret weapon!
Prayers and best wishes to you RBT and Barbara..
Speedy recovery.. and also to you Mr.OFD.
the worst part of the recovery is the pain from where they harvest the veins
Nope. The most painful part will be the medical bills that start arriving. The second most painful is dealing with the insurance company.
showing them his football lacing chest
Do they still crack the sternum anymore? My uncle had it done about 35 years ago and he said the worst part was the sternum healing. I suspect techniques and tools have dramatically improved since then.
she got a vre infection in the wound that almost killed her
Nice way to cheer RBT up about the procedure.
My father had a triple bypass 10 years or more ago, and it made a new man of him
I have known people that have the procedure done. They went from tired and sluggish to a completely different person. Their entire attitude was markedly changed. The biggest comment was that had they known they would have had it done sooner.
I wonder if the vertigo is really vertigo or just the brain being short changed on oxygenated blood. Perhaps the procedure will clear that up and RBT can go chase the cows with Colin.
Best wishes for a successful procedure and an uneventful recovery. Of all the prepping one can do these are the types of incidents for which you cannot prepare.
And on a side note I have abandoned Microsoft Edge and gone back to Chrome. Edge was sluggish and just flat out performed poorly. Facebook became a dog where even typing was delayed. Backspacing was taking almost a second a letter. It was happening on two different systems. I know what most of you think of FB but I use to post sports pictures for the kids at school and their families.
@Ray: I hear you about the typing – my wife has that on some websites. The thing is, while the browser plays a role, the real problem is the Javascript that the site is running – probably sending every individual character to the mothership. There’s just no reason for that, but some UIX person had a brainstorm…
Likely you could disable Javascript and fix the problem. Turning off scripts totally kills some sites, but others actually become much more usable, because so much cruft is gone. I don’t know about Facebook, since I almost never use it.
@RBT: Best of luck with your procedure – hope you’ll keep us posted on your progress 🙂
Best of luck to the two old guys (well, at least older than me.)
the real problem is the Javascript that the site is running – probably sending every individual character to the mothership
Yeh, I knew something like that was happening. Edge was so much slower than Chrome. Is Edge’s implementation of JavaScript so bad that it is causing significant delays? Other sites were also much slower loading (rendering) under Edge that is was becoming annoying. Thus it was time to move back to Chrome in spite of my mistrust of Google. After all, their business model is data, especially the users.
I have a question about the church shooting in Texas. It appears the shooter tried to get a Texas concealed carry permit and was denied. It also appears the shooter was able to buy guns because the Air Force never entered his court martial into the NICS database. So how did Texas figure out the guy is bad if the feds bunged up the information.
What I’m asking is should Texas report more information to NICS? Does Texas ask county sheriff if someone should have a permit? I don’t think that’s the case, I’m just curious. I think that at least in this case, the Texas system appears to work better than the federal one. I’m wondering if there really is something that can be learned from this case.
My CHL went without a hitch, but a “background check” by the constable’s office (for participation in a program) came back with a 30 yo arrest. No mention that the case was dismissed, your criminal check looks a lot like your credit report, and can contain erroneous and outdated info.
in any case, the state check might have seen the arrest, but not the resolution, or they might see a different data set entirely. there are many restrictions on which agencies can share what data with who, (which is one reason the “Fusion Centers” were set up), and it’s possible they had the domestic aspect.
In the end, he should have been very aware that he was a ‘prohibited person’ and that he was lying on his form 4473, which is itself a disqualification… but it has to be caught.
n
Ditto to all the good wishes expressed above.
As for browsers, I’ve started using Vivaldi. It’s based on the Chrome engine, but doesn’t (at least, so they claim) report back to Google like Chrome does.
Best wishes to both you and Barbara!
Do they still crack the sternum anymore?
Yes. There are some cases where they don’t have to stop the heart to do the grafts, but I’m not sure they do them outside of major cardiac centers. It’s tricky to do.
It appears the shooter tried to get a Texas concealed carry permit and was denied. It also appears the shooter was able to buy guns because the Air Force never entered his court martial into the NICS database. So how did Texas figure out the guy is bad if the feds bunged up the information.
It appears you can’t get a CHL in Texas if you have a dishonorable discharge. That would show up on the background check or if he disclosed it.
I don’t know if you can get a DD if you are convicted of something other than a felony.
It appears you can’t get a CHL in Texas if you have a dishonorable discharge. That would show up on the background check or if he disclosed it.
My former USMC son equates a Dishonorable Discharge with a felony. Basically, he says that a felony is being convicted of any crime that could place you in jail for up to a year.
Other way around – a misdemeanor is a conviction with max jail time of under a year and a felony is a year or more.
Other way around – a misdemeanor is a conviction with max jail time of under a year and a felony is a year or more.
I am incompetent !
Is that truly so? Depends.
I am incompetent
I’m thinking that’s just a misdemeanor 🙂
I’m having a triple or quadruple bypass done, probably at the end of this week… Barbara is holding down the fort at home
RBT, if you prefer your own company, or have plenty of visits from Twin City-area friends, great. If you would care for some company to alleviate boredom, I’d be happy to visit.
I appreciate the offer but I don’t really need visitors.
Not even if I asked the lovely Sandra Bullock to visit you? 🙂
Not even if I asked the lovely Sandra Bullock to visit you?
Keeping Cankles for yourself seems rather ungenerous towards a friend in need.
Unless she’s caught in the fence…..
What began as a respiratory complaint is now going to be “fixed” by quadruple bypass?
Methinks Drs. Milgram et al. and the Establishment have got you hornswaggled.
Arteriosclerosis has been around for centuries, DaVinci noted it; anyone over 40 yo has some degree of it.
I talked to my wife about this. Her interpretation of what has happened is that RBT may have had mild congestive heart failure that was very diffuse. He got pneumonia, the pills cured it, but the CHF persisted and got worse. It may well be that the pneumonia may have saved his life – getting him diagnosed without a heart attack.
Let’s treat the presenting complaint first: respiratory distress, and worry about other things to “fix” later.
That’s what they did. Pneumonia is pretty easy to diagnose.
If you do go ahead, beware of psychiatric side effects. Little mentioned, but it’s real and I’ve also seen it first-hand. The ol’ heart-lung machine is cruel, so tell ’em to keep the O2 as high as possible.
It’s not O2 levels that cause “pump head”. It’s believed to be microstrokes caused by damaged cells and/or debris dislodged in the procedure. Also, it’s pretty routine to prescribe anti-depressants after a heart procedure to help combat hospital psychosis caused by the long stay.
Not to mention that being sick, almost dying, and being stuck in a hospital bed IS depressing as hell.
N
Fight it? Are you kidding? Why would you want to fight it? The psychosis is the only reason I go to the hospital.
@ech
Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened/is happening.
If you do go ahead, beware of psychiatric side effects. Little mentioned, but it’s real and I’ve also seen it first-hand. The ol’ heart-lung machine is cruel, so tell ’em to keep the O2 as high as possible.
It’s not O2 levels that cause “pump head”. It’s believed to be microstrokes caused by damaged cells and/or debris dislodged in the procedure. Also, it’s pretty routine to prescribe anti-depressants after a heart procedure to help combat hospital psychosis caused by the long stay.
My father was on the heart-lung machine for six hours in 1997. They first tried to repair his high pressure check valve but failed when the valve leaves started ripping when they sewed on the new leaves. So then they replaced the valve with a St. Jude valve. Afterwards, the surgeon told me that Dad had about three weeks of life left before his natural valve failed totally.
Afterwards, for about a year Dad complained of being fuzzy. He did a lot of research into the operation and finally zeroed in on the fact that the heart-lung machine is awesome but it does not work as well as the heart and lungs that God gave us. In order to make up the deficiency of oxygen in the blood, the flowrate of the blood is increased by four times ??? (I cannot remember the exact number). Since the blood goes back into your carotid artery, the blood is going through your brain a lot faster than normal. It will take time for the brain to heal after the surgery.
How long does it take the brain to heal after the heart surgery ? Dad came up with the following numbers, six months for the first four hours that you are on the heart lung machine. And then another three months for each additional hour. Those are my Dad’s SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) numbers for him. As with everything, your mileage may XXX will vary.
Is it worth it ? Yes, Dad’s St. Jude Valve is leaking, and has been recalled, but it is hanging in there. If he had gotten the pig valve then he would be well into the second one as those have a life of 11 years or so. Dad is 79 now and has no plans of replacing the valve before he passes on. I gave him a blood oxygen meter for his birthday this year and he stays around 95% which is ok, not great.
BTW, Dad refused to take morphine after the open heart surgery for the chest pain. I would highly advise against this. He had a bad experience with morphine in 1981 when he had cancer surgery in his right thigh bone and spent six weeks in St. Lukes. They ended up getting him hooked on it and getting off it was a real bad time. I finally managed to talk Dad into taking morphine about 12 hours after he got out of ICU. I ran and got the nurse since he was shaking so bad with the pain. She came in and put the morphine shot right into his chest, not even the IV. He stopped shaking almost immediately and went to sleep. But, since he was not breathing deeply due to the pain, he got pneumonia. I ended up having to hold Dad up in a couple of days when the liquids got so deep in his lungs as the respiratory therapist beat on his back so that the liquids would break loose and he could cough them up. Fun times !
I appreciate the offer but I don’t really need visitors.
That was my assumption, but I thought I’d offer nonetheless…