November 17, 2008

Wow, It's Cold Out There

I went for a run this morning, in the beautiful falling snow. I wore a sweatsuit, figuring that would be enough, as running would provide plenty of body heat.

I was only out for eleven minutes, because it's been many years since I've been running in below-freezing temperatures. And while my running certainly kept my core temperature at a good level, my ears and fingers went numb in a hurry. After five minutes, I decided frostbite would be a bad thing, so I turned around and headed home. I didn't even make a mile and a half distance. Not exactly a shining moment in athleticism.

Tomorrow I'll be wearing gloves and either earmuffs or a hat.

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November 16, 2008

Not Good News at All

Still working on the diaphragm issue. We hope it's temporary, but there's a possibility it may be permanant. In which case he'd have to use a positive-pressure breathing device at night, and possibly oxygen during the day, for the rest of his life. It'd also make him prone to lung infections. Lung excercises will reduce the chance of infection or other problems, so he's going to continue doing breathing excercises for the forseable future, unless his lungs suddenly recover.

He could also continue to degrade, and if that happens or he gets a serious infection, he'd no longer be able to breathe on his own. In that case he'd have to go on a full-time medical ventilator.

Still, it might be temporary, although the docs say that they would have hoped to see some improvement in it so far. He's starting on steroids, because a possible cause of temporary paralysis of the diaphragm is swelling pinching the nerves. They're going to keep him in the hospital until Tuesday to see if there is any improvement with the 'roids.

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Southern Tier PC Sucks

So, some of you may recall that I dropped my laptop in the hospital. I didn't have a Vista disk to reinstall the OS, because HP is too cheap to include a DVD with a several-hundred-dollar purchase. I'd have to pay them $20 additional bucks to get a restore disk. Plus, I'd have had to order a replacement hard drive and wait for it to arrive. So I dropped off my laptop at the local computer place that built my first computer, back in 1994. I liked the owner, and they'd done well by me.

Except now it's got a new name and a new owner and a different customer service philosophy. If I could summarize, I'd say that (a) they took longer than the clerk told me: they had a replacement HD on the shelf, but it still took them more than a week; (b) they charged a lot more money than I thought was fair, especially because (c) they did a lousy job anyway, as I had to go online myself and download the necessary drivers to make the system work.

So attention google: please index the terms "Southern Tier PC" and "Sucks" to help future consumers.

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November 14, 2008

Stupid Diaphragm

The docs now think that Dad's pleural effusion is secondary to a spasming or partially-paralyzed thoracic diaphragm. So they still may punch a needle in there and drain fluid, but maybe not bother, as if the diaphragm doesn't stop acting up, fluid will come right back. And when the diaphragm starts working again, the fluid should get drained on it's own. Still, a thoracentesis might make him more comfortable.

This information came about after Dad had more "chest, an "echocardiogram, a CT scan, and a bunch of people listening to his chest while wacking him upon the back. Good times, good times!

So anyway, tonight he's resting "comfortably" as they say. In fact, he is showing some improvement on his own, although the supplemental oxygen is probably part of that. Tomorrow he'll have a ultrasound of his lungs so they can decide where to stick the drain needle, if they decide to do the thoracentesis after all. The spot is going to get marked with an "X". How medieval.

He's been told that while he might go home Saturday, Sunday is more likely.

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November 13, 2008

"I can call an ambulance or your son can drive, but you're going to the hospital."

Today I drove Dad to his new General Practitioner, who works in downtown Corning. The GP is part of the Guthrie network, which meant his computers were linked into the hospital computers, so he could pull up Dad's history very easily.

He was not happy when Dad started talking about his problems over the last few days, and not happy with his lung sounds. Then Dad mentioned that he'd been having pain in his shoulder, and the doc became downright unhappy. Sure, the people at the surgeon's office had said that the pain was just afteraffects of the surgical retractor, but a man with a recent history of heart problems presents with pain in the upper torso? That's textbook.

So the doc called in an EKG, and compared it with the results of Dad's post-surgery EKG, and that's when he said the line that forms my title.

The hospital wasn't far, and I'm generally calm, so I drove us over. It was nice to walk into a crowded ER and get seen immediatly.

The ER doc looked over the EKGs, poked and prodded and listened, then took some chest X-rays and compared them to the X-rays taken on Monday and the ones taken two weeks ago. Meanwhile, Dad's hooked up to the monitors, and I'm unhappy about the way it keeps flashing warnings like "Respiration Rate High!"

The good news is, it turns out to be nothing unusual. There is fluid building up around Dad's left lung, and that fluid is preventing his lungs from expanding properly. Thus frequent and difficult breathing, weakness, fatigue, sleep interruption, the whole deal. Getting fluid like that is common, and it was visible on the X-rays on Monday, just less of it. That fluid is naturally reabsorbed, so if there aren't any symptoms, they leave it alone.

Well, we've obviously got symptoms, so they're going to take action. For the moment, he gets to get another nice night of sleep in the hospital. (Corning Hospital this time, not Robert Packer.) In the morning, the cardiac and pulmonary specialists are going to look him over and decide what to do. The ER doc said that the standard treatment is just to locally anesthasize a small area on the back, and stick a large-bore needle into the fluid pocket to drain it. But it's not a treatment that needed done instantly, since putting Dad on supplemental oxygen was helping him nicely. I'll be going back to the hospital tomorrow morning, and we'll see what the treatment ends up being.

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November 12, 2008

One Step Back

Two days ago Dad and I went to the surgeon for a checkup, I mentioned that already. They took chest X-rays and were quite pleased with his lungs.

Yesterday and today have not been good, though. Dad's been breathing poorly and not sleeping well because of it. Being short of breath, he's not able to walk as far as he should. We're going in to see the general practictioner tomorrow to talk about it. The visiting nurse insisted that we go in to see the doc "today or tomorrow", but the doc had today off, so tomorrow it is. The nurse suggested we ask for blood tests on the drug levels in Dad's bloodstream; she thinks that he may have too much blood-pressure lowering medications in him. While his BP was fine when checked two days ago, it may be falling at night to levels low enough to cause him trouble.

That's the hope, anyway, because adjusting the meds is quick and easy.

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Loot!

My personal goods were supposed to arrive from Okinawa by the 21st of October. It's the 12th of November, but they finally arrived. Hooray!

I only unpacked about half the boxes before I ran out of steam. The bill of lading says it was almost 600 lbs of stuff. A lot of that is books, of course.

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November 10, 2008

Follow-Up With the Surgeon

Today Dad and I went back to Robert Packer Hospital for the follow-up appointment with the surgeon. Unless something else happens, the rest of his recovery care will be taken care of by a GP.

Dad's shoulder has been hurting him since he got home, and we found out that it was a common problem, caused by the retractor used to hold his ribcage open while the surgeon works. It apparently involves a winch that sits on the patient's left shoulder, which causes what's basically a shoulder strain. That'll heal in time.

His incisions are healing quite nicely. The hole in the leg where they freed up the vein has already scarred. The chest cut has mostly scarred, although there are a few scabbed patches left. The three drainage holes in his abdomen are still scabbed, which is not surprising, as they took a week to close up after he got home. The doc had hoped that they'd close faster, but as they're not draining anymore, all is well.

The right leg (where they took the vein) is still swollen, but not as much as at first. Regular walks will do the most good to reduce that, as well as greater efforts to keep the leg elevated. Dad's been spending most waking hours in an easy chair, which provides some elevation, but we've been advised to stack some pillows or something to get that leg even higher if possible.

His vitals are all very good, with excellent blood pressure, blood oxygenation, and pulse rate. His temperature has been right where it should be, and he's lost a few pounds, probably mostly fluid loss from the fluids he retained following surgery.

The only thing that's still bothering him is his period of paranoia and delusions, the day after surgery. The doc and the nurses have been telling him that it was natural and normal, but my Dad has always been very proud of his rationality, and it's really getting to him that his brain failed him.

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The White Stuff

Happy 233rd Birthday to all my brothers and sisters around the world.

It's snowing! While not the first snow of the year, this is the first one that's sticking to the ground. It won't stay for long, but it's a good sign I should move the snowbrush out of my car's trunk and into the back seat.

The snow didn't really get going until the trip back from Robert Packer Hospital, where I took Dad for a follow-up appointment with the surgeon who did his bypass. I'll put that news in a different post.

At the moment, I'm enjoying watching the show fall outside. The world always looks crisp and fresh under a newly-fallen blanket. And this year I get to watch it somewhere less dangerous than the DMZ. Life is good! Until I have to shovel, at any rate. And it's a good thing I took care of the leaves yesterday.

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Dad's Heart Attack

Greetings, all! Some of you are probably here because of Grandma Darrow's letter, seeking information about my father's heart attack. The posts about his problems are just below, in chronological order. So click on the top one, read it, come back to here, click on the next one, etc.

This post is "sticky", so it'll be on top for a while.

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