It was 40 degrees when I took Colin out at 7:20, partly cloudy and a little breezy.
The doctors removed the heart pump yesterday afternoon. I was allowed in to see in very briefly when they returned him to ICU after the procedure since it was after ICU visiting hours. The side of his heart that was working at 29% is now up to 40% working on its own.I spoke with Dr.Lee while I was in ICU and he is very pleased.
This morning the nurses said he is still sluggish but could tell them his name and date of birth. He had a good night and was calm this morning. The nurses told me much of his agitation and confusion can be from the pump. He is too weak to cough up the stuff from his lungs so they are not feeding him by mouth as yet but he allowed them to put the tube down his nose so they can get some nutrition in him.
Another big plus is they are removing the big IV in his neck to a picc line to make him more comfortable. My dad had those several times and it will make things better without the big heavy IV in his neck. They will keep him in ICU, which I agree with, because they can better handle the little things going on until he is stronger and perhaps able to eat orally. That team is taking great care of him.
Thank you, Barbara. That sounds very positive. Continued best wishes to you both.
Continuing down the path of improvement, that sounds great. Esp the parts about decreased confusion, and increased heart function!
Keep up your spirits, we will all have one extra thing to be thankful for this week.
nick
Thumbs up Barbara and Bob.
OFD can pick his own finger, or his nose, he knows best đ
Hopefully Mat’s Wife is improving.
And IIRC Nick said he was doing better yesterday, keep it up.
Prayers and hope for all.
Feeling almost back to normal today, which just makes the sudden onset and clearing up that much more mysterious.
75F and partly cloudy here today, nice fall day! Even getting a bit of color on our deciduous trees- makes me feel like I’m back up north.
Decided to smoke a turkey again this year, and maybe a pork shoulder since the smoker is running anyway. Got some grocery shopping to do too, as the wife has finally finalized the menu…
And in the ongoing rat battle, in going thru the pile yesterday I discovered the single most expensive depredation to date– a whole costco jar of smoked almonds. $15-17 right there! Beastie nibbled off the bottom corner and drained the jar, one almond at a time. Almost everything was eaten from the bottom up, so at a glance it looked fine. Something to keep in mind if you smell rat urine…
On a prepper note, I also found a pound and a half of bacon mixed in with the canned goods. Yup. Missed it in the bag when I just dumped the cans on the pile…. It was in the heavy duty vac pak, and looked pretty much normal. No swelling of the package or anything. It’s at least 6 months old. NOT that I would give it a go, just interesting that it didn’t rot.
Now off to work, and I’ve got plenty to do…
nick
Failed biowarfare attack? The artificial virus died too soon after being tested on you. The next generation will be tested elsewhere.
That was my thought… or something environmental, but def an ‘exposure.’
Really just felt seriously hung over. For 2 days. With no alcohol. Which is tragically unfair. And who has chills without fever? I slept more than I was awake, which seemed to do the trick.
n
Decided to smoke a ham as long as I was running the smoker all day. Got out the pork picnic roast, thawed it, and now it’s soaking in the cure. For the record, a 2 pound bag of cure is 4 cups and provides 1 gallon of brine, which covered my 8 pound ham.
Last time, I just brined and smoked, which resulted in a very tasty pork roast, but not a ‘ham’. We’ll see how this works out.
n
The side of his heart that was working at 29% is now up to 40% working on its own.I spoke with Dr.Lee while I was in ICU and he is very pleased.
Good news, good news !
Took Dad, wrong, Dad took me to the “Thor: Ragnarok” movie in Victoria, Texas yesterday. It was ok, nothing great. Unless, you are a big Thor or Hulk fan since this was an old school Marvel 2-in-1. Then we went back to Port Lavaca and took Mom out to supper at the newly rebuilt Bayside Inn. The Bayside Inn in PL was shut down for a couple of months as Harvey blew the entire roof off the place.
Told the parents that I am thinking about buying a fixer-upper and moving the family there after painting and recarpeting. Dad’s comment was that the levee had better not break since I am moving to get away from a levee. I told Dad that there is no levee and that the house was four ft above the flooding in the area.
http://www.har.com/6002-blackberry-cove-lane/sale_54078496
Great looking place. A lot nicer than the fixer-uppers in my neighborhood.
Great looking place. A lot nicer than the fixer-uppers in my neighborhood.
The immediate things it needs are painting and new carpet. After we move in and get our old house sold, I intend the move the back wall in the den and breakfast area 12 ft out to capture most of that dark rear patio for the den. And I intend to add a 15×25 extension to the guest suite for the disabled daughter with a walk-in closet and a kitchenette.
Long term, I intend to add a detached game room and two car garage.
Continued best wishes and prayers for Bob, Barbara, Mr. OFD and Mrs. Mat.
“Harris County proposing dramatic overhaul of floodplain regulations”
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Harris-County-proposing-dramatic-overhaul-of-12374889.php
“County officials are largely intent on swapping out the use of 100-year flood levels for regulations and use 500-year flood levels instead, opting to force new building construction to prepare for much more severe storms.”
This is a good idea.
The immediate things it needs are painting and new carpet.
Have a separate inspection on the AC system. R-22 (Freon) is going away completely in a couple of years, and you’ll have to budget to replace the system(s) if the AC is original to the house.
Further excellent progress for Dr Bob. Keep it up, RBT!
Ali continues to improve daily, got out of bed yesterday and we – gasp – left the house for an hour for coffee earlier today. Damn near killed her all over again, but it’s positive progress and she now has a date in a couple weeks’ time for the Colonoscopy. Lucky girl. I bet OFD would kill for day release.
Admin has been the order of the day here – shredder bin full and of the circa. 200 sheets of paper that I’ve sorted through (the bulk of our post for the last six months or so), precisely five remain on my desk and that’ll be down to three shortly. How I hate dealing with companies that demand hand-written forms.
We have some issues going on at work ATM that are distracting to say the least. We fear one of our largest clients is about to go bust, which in itself won’t cause a huge issue financially for us but they employ many (30+) people that we’ve worked with for a long time and become close to so I’ve been spending time seeing if we can help those folk out somehow. Sadly our small 5 man shop can’t run to direct employment for any of them, but we all know people who know people. If anyone on here is based in the South West UK and needs IT savvy educators / re-enablement practitioners or administrators let me know.
Have a separate inspection on the AC system. R-22 (Freon) is going away completely in a couple of years, and youâll have to budget to replace the system(s) if the AC is original to the house.
The house has three a/c units. Two for the downstairs and one for the upstairs. I’ll bet that all of them are original and on their last legs. I’ll bet that if I add 400 ft2 to the den and 400 ft2 to the “guest suite” that I will have to size up the applicable downstairs unit by a ton. Plus the kitchen appliances are all original too. At 14 years of age, everything is probably ready to fail.
Like I said, fixer-upper. I’ve already offered him $390K once and he declined. But he has lowered the price from $439K to $400K since then.
R410A is the replacement for R22 and that is also going away fairly soon due to global warming potential. I would not worry about replacement until the unit dies and is too expensive to fix (failed compressor typically). There will be R22 and R410 for service. They are required to reclaim it so there will always be a supply (but more and more expensive).
Like I said, fixer-upper. Iâve already offered him $390K once and he declined. But he has lowered the price from $439K to $400K since then.
I’ve noticed that the sellers get hungry in Austin this time of year. If they missed getting the house closed before school started, they can easily be stuck until the silly season starts Memorial Day.
Dunno about Texas, but in Florida, you can read the mortgages and building permits to obtain a “must have” number from the seller’s perspective. I also used to run Bankruptcy Court searches — you would be amazed at how often that will come up.
I binge watched Mr. SteveFâs life story on Netflix over the weekend: âThe Punisherâ. A great bloody series. Jon Bernthal rocks as The Punisher.
I binge watched Mr. SteveFâs life story on Netflix over the weekend: âThe Punisherâ. A great bloody series. Jon Bernthal rocks as The Punisher.
I thought it was Denzel Washington ? Nope, that was “The Equalizer”. Great movie if you like seeing Russian mobsters get their just rewards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Equalizer_(film)
And “The Equalizer 2” is coming out soon.
I liked The Equalizer, but liked The Punisher series more. The Punisher movies kind of sucked.
Off to the land of Nod, as our northern correspondent is wont to say….
n
(I’ll add from the day’s headlines– it’s Pedos all the way down…) Cleansing fire. There is a sore need.
RIP David Cassidy.
Seems good news for RBT at last. Thank you Barbara for the update.
Also thoughts are with Mr.OFD and Mrs.Mat.
That team is taking great care of him.
Again, our thoughts and prayers are with your household.
Before Bob is discharged to Sparta, check with your GP about wound care expertise in their office.
My son had major open heart surgery four years ago, during our SW WA State adventure, and the only significant problem we faced during his recovery was healing of the incision. Fortunately, a nurse in my wife’s office had a lot of experience in that area, saving us the time and hassle of a trip into Portland every morning to change the dressing and apply the appropriate topicals.
Mr Nick – seems we got the same kind of thing up here. One of my coworkers said he felt like he’d been hit with a 2×4, repeatedly. I felt the same way. Wednesday was a little crappy, and very noise-sensitive, but functional. Thursday I could barely get out of bed. Friday was an in-bed recovery day. Saturday was almost normal. Those I know that got it all experienced similar symptoms. My children all had a very mild case, as did my wife. They all got flu shots. I did not. The coworker with the description DID get a flu shot.
I _think_ it was the flu, but I simply don’t know.
@Mr. OFD:
Thought you might be interested in this story. Parasites from VietNam may be killing vets. Since you were an unwanted and unwilling visitor of that country it may be something you should be concerned about.
Just another example of our Vietnam Vets (who served in-country) being “fluked”.
@JimL, that sounds like it. Stomach ‘hurt’ a bit, like I’d been doing crunches, or puking, or coughing for days. REALLY tired. Thought flu, but never puked. Felt a bit queasy for a day, but ate anyway. Some dizziness, some head pounding when I stood up, that passed quickly.
Really just felt like a bad hangover with a milder headache than a hangover, or the day after food poisoning….
Never had anything like it.
No flu shot for me.
n
No flu shot for me.
Flu is definitely in Austin. My wife sees cases every day as of late.
“Since you were an unwanted and unwilling visitor of that country it may be something you should be concerned about.’
Never ate any damn thing over there uncooked or unwashed, and especially not “river fish.” But will keep an eye out for it with other vets accordingly.
Got my flu shot at the VA months ago.
I’ve had the flu turn into viral pneumonia twice or possibly three times now. Viral pneumonia really, really sucks. After the last bout, must be 10 years or so ago, I started getting the flu shot every year. Definitely worth it, at least for me.