Back Surgery

I will be having back surgery on Jan 15. It is called L3,L4,L5 fusion. It is supposed to be just overnight, but I have been hearing that some people have to stay longer.

A whole bunch of stuff leading up to the surgery coming up. MRI tomorrow. Pre-surgery testing on  Wed and Cardio wants to see me before surgery.
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Dec 31, 2018
MRI today at OSC. They have an "open" MRI - much better than going in that tunnel. Still noisy. 30 minutes always seems to take an hour.
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Jan 1, 2019
I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon that is supposed to help with rehab.
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Jan 2, 2019
To MIH for pre-surgery testing. Blood draw, nose swab for MERSA, EKG. Lots of instructions. The nurse was very nice and helpful.
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Jan 3, 2019
To the monthly retiree luncheon. I got there early cause I had a doc appt at 12:55. Fair show up. I sat and talked with Mikey and Tom Ezell.

The cardio doc said that my BP looked good, but I told him that sometimes it was fairly high in the mornings. He didn't seem worried too much about my BP. He cleared me for the back surgery.
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Feb 6, 2019
Dr. Patel the pulmonologist said my CPAP report looks good.
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Feb 19, 2019
Back surgery today at Mary Immaculate. Very nervous.
Arrived on time - we had a little later surgery time, so we did not have to get up too early.

Everything went smoothly. They took me to the OR and did something a little different. Rather than hold the mask over my nose and mouth they just laid it sideways over my upper lip. In EMS we would have called this "blow-by." Of course, it did its job as I don't remember the doc giving me anything IV.

I woke up in recovery with not much pain. Susan was there. They took me to my room after about 45 minutes. I had an MS pump which I was allowed to "hit" every 15-20 min. I was in a lot of pain, but not too bad. As I requested they left the Folley cath in place.

Feb 20, 2019.  I'm in a tremendous amount of pain in my left hip/groin area. It was suggested that I sit in the chair to eat my breakfast. The pain is so bad that I cannot eat. Dr. Carlson came in to do his rounds and I told him about the pain. He said - "This happens sometime and it should go away."

Gender Dysphoria and Children: An Endocrinologist

Gender Dysphoria and Children: An Endocrinologist

New Computer

In my last blog, I mentioned that my HP computer had died.  Well, I tried everything, even put in a new HDD and the computer would not even recognize the new one.  So, I figured that it must have been something other than the HDD like the motherboard or memory.  I put the computer away for later giving it to Goodwill or something like that.

Beautiful Weekend

Up at the Northern Neck for this beautiful weekend.

Susan is in Charlottesville helping Jenn with the kids.  Tom had to go to Dallas to work on Wed.

Beautiful day here in Heathsville.  Lots of birds singing out in the trees.

I love sitting out on the deck in the hammock. I have to be careful and not stay too long as I'll get a sunburn.  I set a timer so that I would not be on one side for more than 30 min.

Well, it has been one full week since I got that damn norovirus.  I am still not feeling 100%  I'm having lots of trouble with vertigo.

Having trouble getting motivated.  I have the mound of bills to go through from being away over New Years week and being ill.  I also need to start to order the parts for Tom's computer.

I called Tom to ask him for more specifics about what he wanted on his computer. He told me that he had changed his mind and I could forget it. Wow! I'm so glad. I know I could build him a great computer but did not want to worry about follow up.

Computer Died

Sept 1, 2012

My 2 year old HP laptop has been acting up for the last few days and this evening it froze up completely with an indication of it being a HDD problem.

This is the second HP laptop to bite the dust in just a little over two years.  No more HPs in this family!

When I pulled the HDD and placed it on the desktop, I was able to see the three partitions and was able to save my files and photos. 

Mom is still in the hospital. Susan says that they will evaluate her again today to see what happens with her breathing. She may come home with O2. The cardiologist said that she has severe aortic stenosis. Nothing is going to be "fixed" due to her age.

I went to LAFB today to drop off an Rx and pick one up for Susan.