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I don’t know why the hell I haven’t posted anything since Christmas. I guess I got caught up in somethin’. But for the life of me I don’t know what. We’re both still healthy. For the most part, anyway. Mrs Myron has had some blood pressure problems but it looks like her cardio guy is just about to get a handle on that. Oh, and she needs surgery to remove her lap band.
She got the thing in Sept, 2005 and it worked pretty well until last year. And late last year she started having pain where her gall bladder used to be. That had us concerned because that’s where the pancreas hangs out, you know? And pancreatic cancer is just scary as hell. Turns out her lap band has eroded into her stomach. Yep, there it was in the photo the gastro guy took on the way down. Anyway, she’s gonna get that surgery and then in 6 months or so she wants to have another restrictive procedure done.
Me, I damn near tore some meat off my right pinkie finger the other day. I was up in the attic messin’ with my OTA antenna (tell you about that sometime). When I was trying to get back to the little attic stairs that come up in the kinda floor for the AC and hot water heater I tripped and started falling. I was worried about falling through the ceiling so I lunged forward to land on the floor boards. I made it. But my little finger must have hit a nail or something. Man it hurt. I was close to passing out and puking. An old man has no business doing that, huh?
Anyway, just wanted to let folks know we’re okay and I’ll be posting more regularly.
Mrs Myron and I were grocery shopping yesterday afternoon. We were almost through and she suddenly felt dizzy and light headed. I decided we were through. She went out and sat on a bench in front of the store while I checked out. The weather has been very nice for the most part since Ike left. Anyway, on the way home she was laying back with her head turned toward me and resting on the seat back. She never does that. She said she thought she would just lay down when we got home. Which didn’t surprise me. She spends a lot of time resting. Parkinson’s does that.
After I got the groceries put up I went in to check on her. We took her blood pressure and it was 80 over 42. Damn. Started to call our doctor and she decided to get up. And fell down. And then she refused to go to the ER as he wanted so he said get her feet above her heart, give her a lot of fluid and check it again in about an hour and call him. Our new Temurpedic mattress with the vibrating elevating base came in real handy then. Just pushed the button and up her feet went. After an hour her pressure was back up to 120 over 65. So no BP meds last night. And it was about that this morning so no meds then, either. It was still okay around noon. Really low blood pressure is another problem for Parkinson’s patients. But she’s doing okay tonight.
Not bible thumpin’, street preachin’ religious. But more religious than I once was. Don’t worry, I’m not turning this blog into a holy site. I just felt like I wanted to share a bit.
See, I was baptized into the First Baptist Church in Denton, Texas in oughtfittythree at the ripe old age of 14. And you’re thinking that was pretty religious of him. Well, I havta admit that I had an ulterior motive. I was trying to impress my girlfriend’s mother. Now I’ve talked to God about it several times and He’s okay with it because I do know He’s there. And I admit He has the final say. It’s just that I’ve never really called on Him for personal support.
I would pray for friends to recover from illnesses and such but never felt it was helping that much. And I nutted up and went into surgery without asking Him for help. I knew Mrs Myron was having several conversations with him on my behalf. And so were several of the old submarine vets that frequent Martini’s BBS. I knew because several of them said they would.
And it must have worked. I have never had pain from the surgery. Never. I took the morphine to try to sleep and shut out the noise but damn them dope dreams. I’ll hurt and stay awake if I’m ever cut on again. And the way I was up and walking impressed several of the nurses and techs. And Mrs Myron can’t get over it. She had her gall bladder removed laproscopically and was out of commission for nearly a week. And her lap-band did it for several days. And remember, I have a G-tube and 4 anchor wires protruding out of my abdomen. And 6 lapro incisions. I may be wrong, but I’d expect a bit of pain, wouldn’t you?
Well, I did have a long conversation with Him last night. And I’ll be having them in greater frequency than I ever have. And I’m done with my sharing.
I came home yesterday. The most pain I’ve had was in my back from being on the table for 6 hours. And the burning sensation taking the first 5 or 7 whizzes after they pulled the catheter. Which was a treat itself.
The reason I was on the table so long was my stomach just did not want to cooperate. The cutter got it all pulled down and straightened out and positioned where it belongs and zoink, back up it went. Not sure how many times he did that before he used a G-tube to anchor it in place. That will come out in 3 or 4 weeks after the scar tissue and lesions build up enough to hold my stomach in place.
I was up and around within about 4 hours of getting out of recovery. And I walked for about 10 minutes every hour or so. Don’t know if it’s true but one of the nurses called me a tough old bird. But there was only slight discomfort other than my lower back.
Back on my regular diet and everything. Had my homemade Mickey D’s sausage and cheese biscuit with hash browns this morning.
And thanks for your thoughts and concerns. They are greatly appreciated.
Check in about 8:30 and they knock my ass out about 10:00 and when I come around 6 or 7 hours later my stomach will be back down in my abdomen where it belongs. And if I’m lucky he will be able to do it laproscopically and I’ll come home the next day. If he can’t pull it down with the tools, he’ll open me up and stick his hand in. Then I’ll probably spend 3 or 4 days with them. Hope they have wifi. See ya when I come out the other side.
I gots me one. And it be a biggun. Found out Tuesday that most of my stomach is above my diaphragm. Talked to the cutter Thursday morning who will do the repair work. Ate my ass out for waiting this long. In a good natured and humourous way. He said my gastro guy was typical in that they all want to save you the surgery by letting meds work for as long as possible. But cutter guy said in his experience they a) never get better and 2) rarely never get larger. He will start laproscopically but he said occasionally on a big one like this he winds up making an incision large enough to get one hand in and then it’s combo mechanical-manual. He said I should be off the table in 4 to 5 hours if everything goes as planned followed by a night or 2 freezing my ass off in a hospital room. I’m scheduled for July 14.
I realize this isn’t as big a deal as a lot of folks are going through with some really nasty shit like cancer, plugged arteries, etc. And my only purpose in this post is to inform those of you who may be satisfied with the Previcid, etc like I was that you may want to take another look. And it took an old fashioned swallow the barium you old fool upper GI to fully see how bad it is. The EGD doesn’t show the extent of the problem.
One of the guys over on Martini’s BBS let us know he was about to get his first scope job. Here’s a thoughtful little poem posted by another of the posters.
Bob, this board’s thinkin’ of you
as the trip to sick bay you make.
And along with our thoughts, concern and our prayers
we hope these few words you will take.
A colonoscopy is a simple procedure
and not one you should ever abhor.
The doctor will, with a very small camera,
go where no man has gone before. (hopefully)
It’s pictures he’ll take and it’s pictures you’ll see,
and we’re sure there will be no surprise.
But we would like to place our order now
for 5 of the 8 X 10’s and fifty of the wallet size.
But really Bob, our prayers are with you.
Just our way of saying we care.
Just keep that in mind, and all will be fine
as you lay there with your ass in the air.
A poem by Skids
ps: for those that are interested in stats, this post is #500. How ’bout dat?
We had a post op visit yesterday. It was 4 weeks for the first eye and 2 weeks for the second. Mrs. Myron was 20-25 on distance and she has been reading since day one. The best her pre-op vision ever was was about 20-30. She has halos around point sources like the indicator lights on the DVR, TV, street lights, etc. But nothing that concerns her. Her mid-range, where the teewee box is, comes and goes. It’s usually pretty good. The major problem is with the text for closed captions.
My distance was 20-20. And I still need cheaters for reading and computer work. But I’m starting to see an improvement there. I also have the halos. My mid-range is great. From this side of the tv out to infinity and beyond are super.
The doc said we should continue to improve and that the halos dissappear for a lot of folks.
We are both very glad we did it and that we spent the money to upgrade to the multi-focal lenses. If you need the surgery and can afford the upgrade, do it.
And damned if we can’t see. The first week was pretty rough because the eyes were unbalanced. Hell, it was making me sea sick the first couple of days. I was wondering what the hell have I done? No more. The second eye was done last Tuesday. And I’ve gotta tell you, when it comes time for cataract surgery, I highly recommend the multi-focus lenses. I still can’t read or use the computer without cheaters but it gets better every day. From about a foot or two this side of the big screen out to infinity and beyond is super. And Mrs Myron was reading the second day. It’s in deed marvelous.
My brain is just a bit slower re-programming. Your natural eye sends a signal to your brain and your brain figures out what you want to be in focus and adjusts your eyeball muscles accordingly. Well, these lenses have 5 different focal lengths that your brain has to sort through to figure out WTF you’re looking at. Doc says it can take as long as 4 months for that to happen so I won’t get concerned until around Halloween. And if I wind up with Dollar Store readers, I’ll be in the other 8% and that’s okay.
It’s been light blogging lately I know. But since I usually don’t have anything to say that’s worth much I guess that’s okay.
We had the first cataract surgery a couple of days ago. Not bad at all. I just hope these high dollar multi-focal lens we opted for work as advertised. Our ophthalmologist assured us we’ll be seeing great in a few days. And in fact, this morning is much better than yesterday. The surgery was Tuesday. He told us yesterday that it could take a week or so for the eye to completely heal. And the little test they gave us indicated that our eyes were the same now without glasses as they were before with glasses.
The thing we noticed the first day was our new paint, wallpaper, granite etc wasn’t quite the color we thought. Well, everything, actually. It’s all brighter and whiter. I had read about the brown haze but it came on so slowly that we didn’t realize we had it. But, there is a difference in the done eye and the not done eye.
I will be glad when it’s all well. This one-eyed computeratin’ is for the birds. And for the curious, here’s what the lens looks like.
"You sleep safe in your beds, because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do you harm."
George Orwell
