It was 24 degrees, sunny, and calm when I took Colin out at 7:30.
I just spoke with Bob’s nurse. The plan is to take the pump out sometime this afternoon. This is great news. If he does well after the pump comes out they will be able to move him to a regular room in a few days. He is not doing well mentally in ICU but the nurse told me yesterday when I stopped in to see him that this is a common occurrence for patients who have been in ICU for awhile.
Barbara, the nurse is quite right. ICU is a high stress place for the patient and the nurses.
Prayers and best wishes for today and always. Here is to an uneventful pump removal. Do expect a little revolt from Bob’s body at first. Things will get better.
Peace, Hope, and Love.
When my wife was in the ICU for a week post tripple bypass, she had trouble remembering names and hallucinated animals everywhere. “They shouldn’t let monkeys in the hospital” she told me one morning.
There must be a thing about animals in the ICU.
When my grandmother was in ICU she seemed perfectly normal except she kept pointing at the floor and complaining to me that I was doing nothing to stop the lobster from chasing the cat. I’d tell her there was no lobster or cat in the room and she’s look at me like I was an idiot.
She eventually came out of it but it was really creepy when it was happening.
All them good drugs give you vision into another dimension that is here all the time.
Most cats can see into this dimension whenever they want and sometimes when they don’t want. We have a big (17+ lbs) black Maine Coon Cross, Louie. He loves to chase the extra dimension beasties all around the house, trilling the whole time. Of course after a while the beasties turn on him and his excited trill turns into a panicked scream as he runs around the house trying to escape them, eventually jumping into a lap for comfort and safety.
They are out there.
Added: Forgot to mention that cats can also see and sense in the IR spectrum, that is why a cat will always want the warmest spot and how they can sense tasty critters that are out of sight.
“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”
Glad to hear Bob is improving. Hoping and praying all goes well.
That sounds like steady progress Barbara. The confusion should start clearing up, but definitely it’s ok to push them a bit on that. Make sure his pulse ox, and meds are good, kidney and liver function are good. Get them to tell you WHY it’s normal, in BOB’S particular case.. “we often see this in these patients, we’ve checked his blood chemistry and it’s fine, so we’re not worried yet…” You are his only advocate there, and it is ok to ask and expect answers you can understand and that make sense. You know Bob better than they do (and conversely, they know cardiac patients better…)
That said, it does sound like he’s progressing well and normally, and we hope to see a “Hello World” post from him soon.
nick
Wot Mr. Nick said; ask questions and get straight answers. Best wishes and hopes as always for you both during this hard time. Also, get some moments for yourself every day.
Had a small setback today; right leg went right out from under me again as I was turning at the bottom of the practice stairs; just like old times. Zero warning, but two PTs with me caught me by my safety belt and regular belt and managed to pull me back up and into the wheelchair before we all hit the floor. Luckily one of them was a tall strapping young guy, because if two women, we’d be there on the floor a while together.
I hadn’t fallen since before the surgery three weeks ago. I suspect fatigue and the daily PT and OT and hope that’s all it is. Doc says they’re no hurry to boot me out and I’ll leave and go home able to manage our stairs. He mentioned a one-floor house, and turning part of the ground floor into a bedroom/bathroom. Thinking ahead ten or fifteen years for both wife and me.
Meanwhile bills and tax threats arriving daily at home but i can’t do much about it right now. Wife is paying the priority bills.
Kind of a crappy Monday but tomorrow’s a new day. At least ten more to go, probably more.
I have been summoned to the local IRS office with the 2015 tax returns and records being demanded. I don’t expect any issues as my taxes are correct, used TurboTax, and have receipts or documents for everything.
I suspect my reporting of the IRS vehicle that was speeding and ran a red light has come back to haunt me. Rather than be a real audit I suspect it is a revenge meeting to prove who is boss and that “thou shalt not mess with the IRS.
Too much of a coincidence. After I reported the incident the IRS knew my email address, physical address and phone number when they contacted me. All that I provided when I filled out the form online was my email address in the contact form. Next time I will use OFD’s email address.
Be my guest, Mr.Ray; IDGAF anymore.
If I were you, however, I’d bring a lawyer with me. Which will be our next step up here.
Snow in the AO most of today now changing to freezing rain and ice. Wife is home and I guess we now have furnace problems, on top of all else.
Cue up the Morton Salt motto again.
Yes a tax lawyer. The other 1-800 guys that claim to fix your tax problems have no client confidentiality like a lawyer does.
Back many many years ago when TurboTax first came out and PC swhere new and had by very few I was audited. I went in with a lawyer (he went on to become a WA State Supreme Court Judge), my TurboTax and Quicken/QuickBooks printouts and reams of organized receipts and years of daily journal books. The auditor gasped. I went home several hundred dollars richer because I always under claimed my business deductions.
@OFD: My taxes were paid on time, all years, used TurboTax to do the returns, have documentation for everything that was claimed as income or deductions. Everything can be supported, even the $50 a month deduction for an exchange student. If TurboTax did the calculations incorrect then I will deal with Intuit. My return was actually quite simple, no complicated or bizarre forms, no questionable deductions. Again, I don’t think this is so much an audit as a scare tactic and revenge from the person who got reported. I suspect they are an agent working at the local office that was on a field trip and is not happy they got attention from higher ups.
Your situation is much more complicated and requires an expert to help with solutions. Of course I would not be surprised if some small error is found and will thus require a careful look-see at the last five years. Not so much to find anything but just to annoy me.
Interesting tidbit regarding taxes. I am fighting my return for 2017 and owing the IRS money because of obuttwadcare. I got a check from the school for subbing for the month. The amount was $500.00. As it currently stands I am getting a $287 refund for 2017. After applying the additional $500.00 I now owe the IRS $500.00. That check caused my taxes to jump $800.00. Apparently it puts me above the 300% of poverty. So now I need to contribute to an IRA to get my taxable income back down.
Grumpy Gus here. I woke up with a crick. Turn head right, no problem. Left? Forget it. This is a good one, too. It’s working down my back and across my shoulders and for extra points, it’s making me queasy. How nice. 🙂
I bought the window sticker for Mom’s van today. They changed the glue. Or maybe the old sticker was printed on old stock. For the last few years the old stickers have peeled off clean.
It’s really a pain to scrape off what you can with a razor blade, then lighter fluid (Ronsonol) followed by rubbing alcohol to finish.
With a crick in the neck. Yeah, White Man’s Burden or whatever.
I often don’t bother to remove the old registration or inspection stickers. Half the time the glue is defective and the stickers fall off within a few months and half the time the glue is defective and the sticker won’t come off completely no matter what you do. Occasionally a stupid pig will (attempt to) read me the riot act about removing the old stickers. “What part of the vehicle and traffic code requires that?” I’ll ask. Usually pisses them off, as the NYS VTC does not require the removal of old state-required stickers.
Yeah! Black Friday is upon us! And I need/want nothing.
Sure, that 70″ Vizio at Costco is sweet. If it has a tuner. But my 8 or 9 year old 55″ Vizio is just as nice as the day I bought it.
Edit: And what to do with the 55″ TV? Sorry, ain’t gonna sell a $2000 TV for $200.
@OFD: What are you doing for your intellectual health while you’re in rehab? Are the surroundings conducive to catching up on your reading, or are you condemned to watch the boob tube all the livelong day?
Regarding gummy residue. … best product is ‘Goof-Off’. Pretty widely available. Very effective.
@Mr. Ray; yes, all tax info duly noted, and yes, our situation is more complex and nearly FUBAR. Need a tax lawyer, as I just reminded wife.
@Mr. paul; try a heating pad on your neck; that pain can really suck. And ibuprofen or whatever works best for you in OTC meds.
WRT Black Friday; I’m getting a blizzard of email from retailers now, mostly firearms related, and I ain’t buyin’ nuttin’ from anybody anytime soon. My first priority with any discretionary income is to catch up on a bunch of small subscriptions and memberships. Otherwise, it’s going to the back stairs and inside stairs railings, and we’ll attempt to stick the VA with the bathroom mods.
WRT firearms, I need to get home and get my attic workspace configured, and the cellar storage likewise, which is two more stairways. Doc says they’ll get me home and able to do that and they’re in no hurry to give me the boot. I had fairly major surgery three weeks ago and then came here with effed-up feet and shoulder, which has caused problems and taken more time.
I wanna mod most of the firearms I own, from minor stuff to major reconfigs, stock up on ammo, get to various classes and training, and wrap up the damn FFL paperwork, etc. This would all be weekend and holiday activity, as I will otherwise be occupied with school, the five-page to-do list for the house, and salesforce.com sys admin, remotely. I will commute a max of 30 miles, part-time only.
But first, of course, I need to get back on my feet and mobile without falling on my ass or face. (no jokes, you bastids!)
@Mr. medium wave; I do not watch the tee-vee, except for the Pats game yesterday, where they demolished the Raiders and Tombo looks to still be about 25 and hot as a firecracker. For my intellectual health I just read another of Allen Furst’s WWII-era eastern Europe espionage novels, highly recommended. And my Douay-Rheims Bible. I need to ask wife to bring me something else to cover the remaining time here in Purgatory Minor. I lean different ways from day to day; I still read a bunch of English poetry, military history, and Renaissance English translations of ancient classics. Now I’m thinking of starting either Gibbon or Shelby Foote’s trilogy on that war waged between 1860-1865 in this country. Thanks again for materials received a few months ago, sir.
I was bummed out an hour ago with pain and depression but have moved to the recliner for the night (hospital beds suck rocks) and I just got a couple more meds, some icewater, and my plastic jug urinal, so all is right with the world again for a few hours.
Here’s hoping RBT recovers ASAP and is kicking ass and taking names again.
@Barbara; again; make some time for yourself. Countless legions of fans out here worried about you BOTH.
Now I’m thinking of starting either Gibbon or Shelby Foote’s trilogy on that war waged between 1860-1865 in this country. Thanks again for materials received a few months ago, sir.
Read Foote’s trilogy about a dozen years ago. His narrative style kept me turning the pages, all the time wondering how it would all turn out. 🙂
You’re welcome!
Yes, a heating pad would be nice. Uh, it was borrowed by someone. Like a pair of crutches I /had/.
It seems borrowing equals giving. Annoying.
Hard choice, between Gibbon and Foote. And tomorrow I may be in a different mood altogether. I keep meaning to go back to Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides, but it was eerie how he was “channeling” a guy dead for 2,000 years.
Mr. paul; hit the local chain drug store in the AM. Even if that particular crick goes away. For injuries and pain requiring ice, wife and I have got by nicely with frozen veggie bags.
I’ve got Silverdine (sp?) on my blistered feet and it seems to work near-wonders for the healing. Plus various pain meds and muscle relaxants, currently.
Next up, at some point, well after I leave here, another damn MRI, for my shoulder. And hoping like hell it ain’t completely torn.
My day will be done tomorrow at 14:30, and wife plans to come by with more stuff for me; maybe by then I’ll have decided on a couple of books.
Day nurse today was very cute and named Clarissa, so I clued her in on the 18th-C epistolary English novel of that title by Samuel Richardson and the 1991 BBC mini-series starring Sean Bean. She went and looked it all up out at her computer station tower in the hallway, bless her haht.
How to make friends and influence people….
“It seems borrowing equals giving”
I just assume this and don’t loan anything I need back, be it tools, gear, or money. It’s easier on my mind, and if I didn’t want to help the person with the loan, I wouldn’t do it at all.
Felt better today. Lots of sleep helped. Hung another sheet of ply and 2 sheets of drywall in the closet project. The new ultralight sheetrock really is. HUGE difference.
Wife went to the store instead of shopping in the storage. Prepper fail. Stores were a madhouse. Fighting over parking, lots of horn honking.
WRT Friday of color, not something I normally do, BUT a certain online retailer will be selling some small number of Bushmaster flattop optic ready AR15s for only $250, limit one, on the day. I’m def willing to stay up late to try for that.
WRT taxes, I’ve got to pay my business personal property tax, which is a big scam because I paid tax when I bought that stuff, and it depreciates. Once again, the assessor thinks it doubled in value, just sitting there. I’m really gonna have to get that nonsense sorted out at the source. Freaking GOLD didn’t double in the last year and the crap at my warehouse certainly isn’t gold.
My renters have moved out, and I will need to get the house turned and ready for the next tenants sometime in with all the other end of year and Christmas stuff. And since I’ve used my healthcare deductible it would be nice to get a couple of discretionary procedures done before the end of the year. I’m gonna make a prediction– some of this sh!t don’t get done.
Better to be busy than sitting alone on the couch, staring at the walls, I guess.
nick
Silvadine (sp?) is a miracle cream as far as I’m concerned. Seems they no longer recommend it on faces as some people get discoloration or staining from it.
I believe that the only reason I have normal skin on my face is large amounts of that stuff. My skin is almost completely normal where it was deeply abraded by road rash. I looked like a horror show for weeks, with dirty grey paste on half my face, cracked like mud in the desert, and with yellow liquid leaking out, but DAMN it worked great.
Ditto for the skin destroyed by fire in another unfortunate incident involving a backdrafting gas appliance. Only slightly larger pores to show for that adventure.
I think every prepper should have a big jar of the stuff for abrasions and burns, ‘cuz grid down there ain’t gonna be no skin grafts…
n
Sure, that 70″ Vizio at Costco is sweet. If it has a tuner. But my 8 or 9 year old 55″ Vizio is just as nice as the day I bought it.
Don’t spend big money on a TV this Christmas. The FCC is working on ATSC 3.0 which will obsolete all of the current TVs after a five year phase in. No converter boxes will be available if the plan goes through as is.
In case anyone didn’t see it: update from later Monday on Barbara’s site: they took the pump out. They also told her that being on the pump can cause mental confusion. At a guess, this might be because the pressure of the blood movement is different from a natural heart.
@Barbara: Looking forward to today’s update: we’re all rooting for you and Bob.
@greg, you think the FCC will move that fast? or that broadcasters won’t delay implementation by a decade until all their shiny new gear from the HD upgrade is paid for?
No way. Current TVs (4K ultra, with HDR) will be good for 10 years at least. That’s longer than they’ll physically last.
If you want a new tv, there are great looking sets available for very little money. Shockingly little money in some cases. The difference in color rendering and saturation, and contrast ratios, and depth of black is truly stunning.
I’m about to bring a guy’s whole house up to 4K with new distro and new tvs, new sources, etc. Already upgraded the switching and a couple tvs. I’m not worried at all about format changes.
nick
(house has 10 inputs and 15 possible outputs, all accessible anywhere and routed via crestron switching and control from Ipads)
(also, who cares about broadcast anymore? who’ll be left to care in 5-10 years?)
WRT Friday of color, some really good gun deals out there–
Del-Ton Echo 316H Lite Optics Ready Black .223 / 5.56 NATO 16-inch 30Rd
$429$375He mentioned a one-floor house, and turning part of the ground floor into a bedroom/bathroom.
Ah hem, I’ve been saying this for years.
@greg, you think the FCC will move that fast? or that broadcasters won’t delay implementation by a decade until all their shiny new gear from the HD upgrade is paid for?
ATSC 3.0 gives the broadcasters a return data channel which they can use to gather information about viewing habits and customize advertising. I think it will happen sooner than most people believe possible.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/nab-atsc-30-will-reinvent-free-tv/170167
That just means that the current trend away from broadcast will continue.
Other than prime time, it’s a wasteland, and so are the viewers. Broadcast has an ever decreasing viewer pool, and the quality of the pool is decreasing quickly too.
They’ll be left with the poor, non-english speaking, infirm, and uneducated. There are advertisers for that market–shyster lawyers, drug screen avoidance products, drug trial recruiting, and “as seen on TV” dollar store items, but it’s not a big pool of money either.
Based on the channel lineup locally, and the current advertisers, I think they’ve already saturated that market.
n
NB- I haven’t watched a prime time TV show in years, and if I did, I binge watched on DVD or stream, years after it aired. I haven’t watched ANY broadcast in at least a decade, in my house. I do still see it at the Dr’s office and barber shop. Any shows we do watch are on cable only channels, and we DVR them to time shift and skip past commercials, but I haven’t watched any of them since March. I’m still watching a couple hours of “content” a day, but I’m doing it with niche youtube creators. I also know I’m not the only one with a similar shift in habits. Kids today mostly watch streams on handheld devices. ‘Cord cutting’ is a thing. Even pro sports are in decline on TV. They are certainly not worth the massive amounts networks have paid for the rights…
By the little bit I have read, ATSC 3.0 is going to need a converter box aka external tuner. Plus an internet connection for the return data channel. Interesting stuff. The only real “need” I see for the change is the return data channel…. because 1080p or i is already impressive. 4K seems like a lot of bandwidth to watch I Love Lucy reruns.
We watch over the air. I’m in just the right spot to get the five networks in HD (and sub channels in whatever) from Austin…. all lined up a row according to tvfool.com. I don’t get everything from Austin and that’s fine. I get a few more channels from the side of the antenna. Lots of stuff to watch. The picture is better than DirecTV.
We don’t watch a lot of TV. News in the morning. Price is Right sometimes. Evening news, Wheel of Fortune, Big Bang, and some random stuff. Most evening are News, Wheel, then a movie from Amazon via Roku.
I sorta miss Homicide Hunter, some of the cooking shows, and NatGeo. Not enough to pay $142/month for DirecTV.
I don’t care about a DVR. Had one with DirecTV and used it very little. Heck, I replaced a VCR years ago, recorded a Madonna special on DirecTV’s channel 101 (?) and never watched it. That’s all that VCR recorded. It did play a 3 or 4 tapes. Time-shifting just isn’t a thing here.
Ray,
Been through IRS rigamarole more times than I can count.
If you read the fine print, they just ask for one or two things and that’s all they can do, BUT, they love to go fishing and do it with zeal.
Don’t take a lawyer, just ask specifically what they want. You can read it or even do it on the phone if you have infinite patience. If you don’t get a straight answer, tell them you’ll come back with a lawyer.