Message from Barbara,
I returned home this morning and sent Al back home to
Winston.
Bob was in surgery for about 6 hours. They did install the Impella repaired the valve, and did several artery bypasses. I was allowed in ICU very briefly to see him at 4pm. Frances and I left the hospital for her house and to grab some dinner.
Dr. Lee called around 5:40 to say they needed to take him back to the OR to clear some blood clots. He was there until about 9pm. Last night things were very critical but thankfully did not get a call in the night. We were back at the hospital at 8:30. The nurse said he had turned the corner early this morning and was doing better but is still critical. They may try to take him off the breathing tube later today. The pump is working.
=================== end of Barbara’s message ================
It’s the start of what looks like another beautiful fall day here in Houston, and I fervently hope a great day in Winston, with Robert beginning his recovery from a successful surgery…
Still in our thoughts and prayers…
nick
I hope so too.
Of all the things I’ve heard about the situation in Puerto Rico the most interesting thing I heard was that the Amateur Radio operators in Puerto Rico had to switch HF frequencies because they were jammed by outsiders. From what I’ve heard, said jamming was triangulated back to Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.
Jamming Puerto Rico from Iran? It’s been a long time since I was involved in amateur radio, but that seems…unlikely. Any local channel would surely overwhelm anything broadcast from Iran, or even from Venezuela.
Cuba, possibly, but I’m not seeing the upside here. Seems more likely to be an idiot with a screwed up transmitter, especially if changing frequencies solved the problem. Anyone doing real jamming would just change with you.
Or am I missing something?
Even in the states, HF is sometimes as bad as CB radio was. Most nights I don’t bother even tuning around ham bands unless conditions are especially good.
I’ve heard the same @sshole blasting music, whistles, recorded snippets of other hams, and other disruptive noise. It can make the freq unusable, even if it’s not traditional “jamming”, simply from the annoyance. Many HF freqs have hams just sitting on them, as if they were their private chat room, and they don’t want to move. In a disaster, many freqs are designated ahead of time for interop, or different uses and it’s not practical to move around.
I don’t know why any ‘official’ or agency would engage in jamming recovery efforts, but there is no shortage of @ssholes in the world.
n
Nick writes: “…there is no shortage of @ssholes in the world.”
You’ve been around SteveF too long. Actually, so have I, as I can only agree with your sentiment…
@SteveF: You have much to answer for.
Yes! Let’s finally bring down Mr. SteveF! Er, I meant the Klintons. Yes! let’s finally bring down the Klintons!
I think jamming recover efforts is stupid. I don’t see what the parties jamming have to gain, unless it was because some of the people on the channel were US military. The US military being involved because they have transport planes and helicopters.
PLEASE SEE BARBARA’S UPDATE AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE.
Thanks for the update Barbara, that he is improving is good news. We’ll wait for more good news later, and continue prayers of support.
nick
Before the surgery things could only get worse. Every minute since the surgery is a step in the right direction. Hope RBT will be back soon with some interesting stories to tell.
So, Robert has got himself a Chevy. Low rider?
Robert probably actually got this, an Impella Heart Pump:
http://www.impella.com/how-the-impella-heart-pump-works
If you want to find out way more than you need just search for “impella heart pump”. There are even YouTubes.
Prayers for Robert and Barbara.
Hang in there, Dr. Bob. Things are looking up. My best wishes.
Bah. I answer to no one. One of the advantages of self-employment.
(Of course, one of the disadvantages is the uneven income stream, especially when the economy is not as good as government numbers would have us believe.)
Good news! Hoping for it to continue!
Pre-hypertension, pre-diabetes; what’s next? Pre-pubertal anxiety disorder? Has thumb-sucking now been assigned a ‘code’ and now considered a disorder, a syndrome, or disease? Something ‘treatable’ by modern medicine/insurance?
The DSM-V should show that assigning a label to something does not make it a disease.
The map is not the territory, nor is a taxonomic designation a diagnosis.
Let’s be frank here: I love medicine but hate what it’s become.
https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20171113/definition-of-high-blood-pressure-drops
The science behind that change is hidden underneath pay-per-view firewalls, which, if they are at all funded by tax dollars, ought to be free for anyone to inquire, skeptics included.
So Bob’s gone in and had his heart “fixed”, after presenting with a respiratory complaint. Don’t get me wrong, I wish him the best and would guess his heart might not have been in great shape. What puzzles me is how the diagnosis of ‘heart disease’ (note the lack of specificity) was established.
In Bob’s own words, “Döppler echocardiogram”. Well, that’s a fine and dandy and expensive procedure, but has anyone compared its results among standing, recumbent and supine individuals? Let alone compared it with a control population under the same condtions?
Call me old-fashioned, but IIRC, one could fairly gauge heart output by simply comparing pulse pressure with your fingers at both feet and ankles… and that rankles.
/rant — before MY blood pressure skyrockets over this morning’s cup of coffee.
BTW, Ray Thompson is right: get IOL implants as soon as you can, esp. if you’re myopic. Should have listened to the old coot (of which I’m quickly becoming a member). And Ray, you almost made me spit my coffee the other day when you said you felt offended when you were not offended because then you felt ignored.
Let’s hope Bob, Ray, OFD and I all find our ‘safe place’ soon.
jim~
in Bob’s own words, “Döppler echocardiogram”. Well, that’s a fine and dandy and expensive procedure, but has anyone compared its results among standing, recumbent and supine individuals?
I have had several echocardiograms. They are an imprecise measurement of how well your heart is working. But, they are trendable. The main calculation is the Volume Ejection Fraction. Mine was 47% immediately after my heart incident in 2009. It is now 53% due to arteriogenesis where the remaining arteries have increased their diameter thus increasing the flowrate through my heart. One of cardiologists said that he could put his pinky in my left coronary artery. About 15% to 20% of my heart is dead (no blood flow through the muscle) and I have 30% heart enlargement. Not bad for a guy with a 100% blocked right coronary artery since who knows when, probably a congenital situation.
Cardiology is an imperfect science. As is just about all health science. You pay your money and take your chances. There is no sure cure for anything !
The nurse said he had turned the corner early this morning and was doing better but is still critical. They may try to take him off the breathing tube later today. The pump is working.
Awesome ! Still praying for Bob and OFD daily.
Speaking of FLASHLIGHTS….
I’m the kind of guy that hates to use them. Getting night vision going has been important since the service, and I tend to take that to extremes. I keep flashlights for working on the furnace, under the truck, and resetting breakers.
Until the other day, walking down a country road in the dark. Now, I was already wearing a reflective yellow vest, and stepped off the road every time a car came along. It came to me that them seeing ME was a whole lot of important, so a flashlight in the pocket of the vest, pointing generally to the front, became part of my gear. It’s just a cheap flashlight that I got for free. But it’s bright, and my wife tells me it helps. Good.
I can even deal with the night vision issue. Since the headlights are already ruining it, the light from the flashlight can be tolerated. Until I go into the woods.
Good news so far. Keep marching on the road to recovery Bob. Too much of this shit ATM – my wife was carted off in an Ambulance at 06.30 UK time having collapsed with severe abdominal pain. They suspect diverticulitis at this stage but more prodding and poking tomorrow.
“Trump pullout from climate pact means even hotter world: report”
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-trump-pullout-climate-pact-hotter.html
“US President Donald Trump’s pullout from the Paris Agreement will push up global temperatures nearly half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, according to a report released Wednesday at UN climate talks in Bonn.”
We are all so gonna die !!!!!!!!!!
“Global climate action must be gender equal”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/15/global-climate-action-must-be-gender-equal
Huh ? I ain’t buying this nonsense.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
Actually my new favorite is Stephen Hawking’s declaration that we are going to burn up in 550 years due to waste heat.
Ok…. so FF updated to 57.0 and wiped out my add-ons. It was expected. Uh, how do I get my toolbar of links and shortcuts /above/ the row of tabs?
I’ll figure it out, I just don’t see and easy drag and drop answer.
Until I go into the woods.
Let us know if you see Cankles! She’s fried, you know.
Bunch of Mr. Wizard-type celeb science blowhards.
Prayers and best wishes for Mat Lemmings’s wife; hope she’s gonna be OK, Mat.
Couple of small (and surprise) PT breakthroughs here for me today; improvement each day, today being Number Five of actual acute rehab.
Also hope and pray the best for Bob. Gee whiz, Lord, several of us out here could use a break about now.
Couple of small (and surprise) PT breakthroughs here for me today; improvement each day, today being Number Five of actual acute rehab.
Hey dude, congratulations !
You know, on day 20 they will be handing you a M-60 and a 50 lb rucksack. Then they will tell you to run five miles.
@paul and FF 57 – upper right corner, click the book-icon thing (three vert lines plus a leaning vert line), then Bookmarks, then Bookmarking Tools. Then select the option you want.
I think.
My big problem with FF57 is that they moved the ‘reload’ icon to the left side, rather than in the middle. My muscle memory keeps trying to click in the old place.
Other nit-pick: the ‘reloading’ animation (used to be a rotating circle in the tab you are loading/reloading) is now what I call a ‘metronome’ – an alternating horizontal dot.
And I did have to add the ‘Bookmarks’ icon (now a star with an under-bracket).
“…on day 20 they will be handing you a M-60 and a 50 lb rucksack. Then they will tell you to run five miles.”
I am anticipating being here for a total of 18 actual acute rehab days, not counting Sundays or T-Day.
Two weeks after major back surgery (on All Saints Day) I am standing up from the wheelchair w/o having to grab for the walker. I am humping around the second floor loop for about 90-100 feet and sitting up on the bed w/o help. Soon I’ll be going to the bathroom like a big boy w/o two spotters to pull my skivvies and scrubs back up for me.
I can also handle a few stairs a few times if they have a railing on each side and are only three inches high.
Bear in mind that I was brought in here a week ago on an ambulance stretcher and couldn’t do chit.
Another week and I’ll manage the M60. A week after that, the 50-lb. ruck. And instead of running five miles, how ’bout staggering roughly fifty feet?
But we’ll see. We’re in the process of figuring the mods for the house now. Including the sniper positions on the second floor.
10-4, OFD!
Sounds like you are mending well @OFD. Keep pushing, you can do it.
I approve of your second floor modifications.
@Rick, you do realize that you can rearrange/move the items on the FF57 whatever they call the bar above the bookmarks bar, not just add and/or delete items.
@DadCooks – the only thing I want to rearrange is the ‘recycle/reload’ icon (now on the left side).
I’m used to it being between the Address and Search bars. But it is not ‘draggable’ that I’ve been able to do.
That reload button is a deal breaker for me. I hit that thing hundreds of times a day, sometimes every five seconds when I have an auction closing.
n
I’m used to it being between the Address and Search bars. But it is not ‘draggable’ that I’ve been able to do.
Right click on the toolbar and select “customize…”. Then move the reload icon to where you want it. I moved both the reload icon and the default website icon to the right side.
@Rick, @Lynn’s instructions are better than mine, just don’t forget to click Done to save your changes.
@DadCooks & @Lynn …. Huzzah!! That did it! Thanks!
@Rick, @Lynn’s instructions are better than mine, just don’t forget to click Done to save your changes.
I used your directions, I just had to figure the “customize…” step.
Thanks !
The virtuous side of black markets makes me smile:
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-bred-defian/print
Does anyone use email notification lists here ? I was using http://www.mailermail.com and sending out just plane vanilla emails 2 or 3 times a month to customers and prospects . Now they have been bought by http://campaigner.com/ who does a terrible job on plain old text emails. They are injecting html into my text and making it gobbly gook.
BTW, Barbara is posting some additional info about RBT on her blog: http://www.fritchman.com/journal/ .
Re. RBT, it will be great to hear words like stable and improving, rather than critical.
And good news from Mr.OFD. Hopefully each day will be a winner..
@Lynn: My wife uses ActiveCampaign. She has an older version of their software, that we installed on our own server. My wife uses this to send out html-formatted emails. It was a pain to get the initial formatting right – mainly, so that it displayed the same in Outlook (various versions) as well as on web-based email clients. Outlook, as usual, was a particular problem. But, after the initial investment, it has worked reliably for many years. As I understand it, installable software is no longer an option – they have moved everything to an SaaS offering, i.e., you sign up for a cloud-based service.
@Rick: Thanks for the link to Barbara’s journal – she gives a lot more information there. I hope we’ll see a positive update in the next few hours…
@Lynn: My wife uses ActiveCampaign. She has an older version of their software, that we installed on our own server. My wife uses this to send out html-formatted emails. It was a pain to get the initial formatting right – mainly, so that it displayed the same in Outlook (various versions) as well as on web-based email clients. Outlook, as usual, was a particular problem. But, after the initial investment, it has worked reliably for many years. As I understand it, installable software is no longer an option – they have moved everything to an SaaS offering, i.e., you sign up for a cloud-based service.
Yeah, I have written my own direct emailer for customers. And I send that all through gmail which our main domain MX record is sitting on.
But I also have a list of interested people who want to know when we announce things. I finally got the new campaigner to send out the email somewhat properly formatted. But it is putting the text email inside some html. Idiots.
@Lynn … I suppose you could set up a Mailing List via your domain host, but that’s only good for small lists.
An option is Dadamail http://dadamailproject.com/ (open source mailing list software). Haven’t used it, but suspect it might work. Import everybody into the list, then send out an email to the list. You could set up the list to not allow reply-to-all or reply-to-list, and allow reply-to-sender only.
@Lynn … I suppose you could set up a Mailing List via your domain host, but that’s only good for small lists.
Yes, I have had one of those since 2000. Very difficult to manage.
https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/designii/
I cannot have any more locally managed lists. I am at the limit of my daily send out already.