Strolling Through the ICU

A little more than twenty-four hours after open heart surgery, my niece is up and walking around . . . with a little help.

She signed a little to her big brother but had to tell her Dad to go get Mom because Dad just couldn't understand her and Mom could. Then she wrote, "I can't breathe," meaning the tube down her throat was interfering so the doctors removed it and now she's talking again.

It's still going to be a while before she can be discharged, but I am so proud of the little fighter.

The Girl Is Doing Fine

I've received some word regarding my niece's surgery in Boston. It went well.

The operation was delayed half a day and she didn't go under until just after noon on Thursday. The whole thing took about seven hours. The doctors knocked her out, cooled down her body to slow respiration and circulation, attached her to a bypass machine so they could stop her heart and then repaired the leaky valve. Her parents and oldest brother were there the whole time and were given progress reports as the operation went along. There turned out to be three defects: two they knew about, although one was worse than expected, and one they only found when they were already in her heart. Once they were done and had tested their work, it took an hour to warm her back up and another one to close her.

The doctor planned to keep her unconscious and on a respirator over night but her parents saw her as they moved her to ICU and report that she already shows better color than before the operation.

Her Mom reported this morning that the docs plan to start removing her from her various tubes this afternoon and begin to wake her.

The family is planning on staying in Boston for most of next week while she recovers.

It's hard to express the depth of our gratitude to the doctors at Boston Children's Hospital and to all the staff there (let alone the researchers and equipment manufacturers and builders of sophisticated systems procedures and the almost-limitless list of others who have contributed in some way) who made this possible. This is what the interconnected web of civilization produces.

Latest update: 3 p.m. Caitlin is awake and when asked how she felt gave her Mom thumbs up. Tube down her throat will come out soon.

This Is Why We Support Local Businesses

Here's a product no chain store will ever offer.

Evan's Neighborhood Pizza presents: the $45 Everglades Pizza!

Yes, those are the frog's legs
sticking out over the edge.

Complete with swamp cabbage, frog's legs, alligator/wild boar sausage and python toppings with cheese on a marinara base.

Designed for locals and adventurous tourists, Evan sells one or two a month despite needing 24 hours notice.

The only sad part is he uses imported python meat instead of creating a market and giving hunters another reason to help curtail our local invasive Burmese snakes.

Down here, we laugh at your Hawaiian, your deep dish, your chicken Alfredo and barbecue pizzas. Next time you come down for a visit, man up and order a pie.

Eat it, Papa John!

A Trip to Boston

My 12-year-old niece goes in for surgery tomorrow morning, 6 a.m., at Boston Children's Hospital. This will be her third open heart operation, although the first two were done when she was a baby so this is the one she'll remember. I just got off the phone with her and her Dad (my Other Brother). They and the rest of the family, except my younger nephew who is stuck on base in Virginia, are all going off for a Duck (DUKW: ex-military amphibious vehicle) Tour of Boston Harbor.

Caitlin with her Dad and two older brothers.

Fortunately, insurance will cover the operation itself, but there are other expenses including travel costs, living arrangements in Boston, lost income and additional doctors' bills that are not covered so the family has been conducting a number of fundraisers to help defray them.

Caitlin, in the middle, because of the stress on her heart,
has always been  . . .extra petite. For comparison, her friend,
Elizabeth, in pink, is a classmate and the same age. Credit Kevin Kane

I have been very impressed by the support her friends and the community have shown her. Her classmate, Elizabeth McCann organized a bake sale and lemonade stand. The local grocery has been selling fundraising cookies and the church hosted a fundraising dinner. In addition, a number of individuals and charities have donated to her cause.

On the one hand, I wish none of this, the operation or the begging, was necessary. On the other hand, I am proud of how, when the need arises, we do all pull together, just because it's the right thing to do.

Turnings

I can tell that fall is here even though our days never get as long in the summer or short in the winter as they do further north.

The temperature no longer goes into the mid- to high-90s but stops short around 85 or so with high 70s in the evening. Soon we'll be able to turn off the air conditioner and open up the windows again.

The humidity is dropping as well although we do get the occasional evening rain still. (Another reason the windows are not open, yet.)

Leaves don't turn colors down here but palm fronds have been dropping like crazy littering lawns all around. I had one fall right next to me while I was leaving the library yesterday. They're not as heavy or dangerous as a falling branch from a traditional tree but they're not just leaves, either.

Most tellingly, the price of gasoline has just dropped four cents per gallon in the last two days.

Bartleby the . . . Affectionate?

Well, that was  . . . unexpected.

I was sitting in the recliner last night, feet up, reading one of my two current books (Darwin's Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology by John Long) when Bartleby suddenly decided, for no discernible reason, to be sociable. No. More than mere "sociable." She wanted to cuddle.

She started by putting her front paws up by my feet and peering over the edge of the chair. When I looked up from the book and asked, "What do you think you're doing?" she took it as an invitation and jumped onto the seat. She stood there for a moment and then started prodding my legs and, eventually, stomach trying to find the most comfortable spot.

After a brief discussion on the impropriety of "kneading" (she's very careful with her syringe-sharp claws around exposed flesh but just doesn't get the idea that there is anything sensitive under cloth) we negotiated a compromise wherein she could rest her head and shoulders on my lap as long as I cupped her front paws in my hand. My hand ended up on her chest (unlike any other cat I've known, Bartleby actually likes having her tummy rubbed) where I could feel several different layers of purring including an inaudible high-pitched vibration, a lower-end continuous rumble and two versions of the standard loud purr, one on the inhale running from the tips of my fingers to my palm and another on the exhale running the opposite way, both of which slowly diminished to nothing as she feel asleep.

We stayed like that for two hours which made continuing with the book a little difficult but I just didn't have the heart to wake her.

My God! It's Full of Win!

The most awesomest xkcd cartoon EVAR!!

 http://xkcd.com/1110/

Click on the link and then click and drag on the large fourth panel to find out just how big a world it is! I can't imagine the time and effort it took to build this!

Hey! I found an edge!

Miscellanea: Fauna, Aquatic, Aerial and Terrestrial

It looks like the Mohawk Reef has become a magnet for whale sharks. A second one was spotted there just this past week. It's also become a magnet for just about every other fish within twenty miles.

And it seemed the great turtle egg-laying season from earlier this year might have been compromised by Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Isaac but, then again, maybe not.

The sulphur butterflies are all over the yard, about the same size and color as the new lemons on the lemon tree. A few viceroys and some others I haven't been able to identify yet are also hanging about.

  

   

The abundance of lizards would seem to indicate that the Cuban Tree Frogs have not overwhelmed our little ecological niche.

And then, of course, there is the cat who has become sleek and fat and demanding, training us to her extremely large vocabulary of grunts, whistles, chirps and mewls as she explains that her food dish needs topping off and her water bowl requires freshening and the door needs to be held open right now while she decides whether to sit on the cushioned chair outside under the oak or remain sprawled on the living room carpet.

All in the Family, Navy Style

My oldest nephew just made Chief Petty Officer today. His kid brother, my other nephew (also in the Navy and the one who went to Iraq), and his dad, my Other Brother and a retired chief himself, were both there in Norfolk, Virginia for the ceremony.

The rule is, if family is in attendance, family get to apply the insignia of promotion so my Other Brother and my nephew's brother got to pin his new anchors on him.

Yes, he does look a little like Tom Cruise when he smiles.

I'm also impressed that Dad can still fit into his old uniform.

That Day

Another anniversary. The further along we get the easier it is to identify what changed that day.

After that day we could no longer claim to be the Home of the Brave as we let irrational fear feed hatred of the Other. As we lashed out blindly at innocents because they looked like our attackers or worshiped the same god they did (the same god many of us claim to follow, as well, just with a different name). It is fear that caused some of us to prevent American Muslims from building mosques from California to Tennessee to New York, fear that caused some of us to attack Sikhs because they wear turbans, fear that allowed cynical politicians to manipulate us into an unnecessary war. We were told to go shopping, there was no need to be participating citizens, the experts would protect us. So we bought magnetic ribbons and crying eagle T-shirts and continued to drive as if the gasoline we used had nothing to do with the situation we were in.

Neither could we claim, after that day, to be the Land of the Free as we allowed those same politicians to cow us into accepting what have become permanent restraints on our constitutional liberties in return for an illusory safety. We now submit to scans, x-rays, body searches, various levels of disrobing and yet despite many reports and warnings in advance, the original attacks were not prevented. Despite the continuing security theater, subsequent attacks, starting on that very day, have been foiled not by the authorities but by us, ourselves, the civilians on the scene. And we did not object and believed the ridiculous claim that our risk could be brought down to zero.

Are we safer? After 9/11, the terrorists were never going to use airplanes as flying bombs again. That stunt only works once before the passengers realize the rules have changed, you no longer cooperate with the hijackers in return for a quick stopover in exotic, tropical Havana. Faced with certain death anyway, you fight back, hard. And we did. And will again. Despite our leaders' lack of faith in us.

Mark Twain supposedly once said, "To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Well, we own the biggest hammer in the world and we haven't been shy about using it these past eleven years. Did invading Iraq help? Does stripping grandma and feeling up little kids at the airport help? Does collecting every conversation in the world help? Hint: NSA had received a warning about the underwear bomber but couldn't pull it out of the haystack until after the attempt was made and the perp arrested.

We lost our minds on that day and we haven't been quite right in the head since. 

The one thing we haven't lost, will never lose, is our innocence but that's just because, when it comes to politics, we never learn from experience.

Redneck Studies

My brother had to take his truck in for repairs . . . again.

It is my considered opinion, after careful study, that rednecks make purchases, especially major ones, only after careful study and deliberation which they invariably ignore in favor of the emotions of the moment.

When my brother's car died last year, he looked at a used truck in a repair shop lot as a potential replacement. Since the vehicle was offered without warranty, I went and bought him a CARFAX report on it which showed a clean record with no serious issues. The next day, he came home with his "new" truck--which he had purchased, for cash, on the spur of the moment, at a completely different garage. Since then, he has had to replace/repair tires, fuel pump, radiator, driver's door, driver's window motor, an axle and now the water pump. He makes no connection between the number and cost of the repairs and not doing research before impulse buying.

The same thing happened last weekend with our new freezer. The store advertising the sale was sold out, six to eight days until delivery. So he went out scouting around, found a used one for even less and had it delivered on Sunday. It doesn't fit under the shelf where the old one was and wouldn't go through the front door so we had to dig out a path through the garage (which was actually shorter to its final destination in the laundry room) which caused the local zoning popo to stop by a day later and inquire about all the cartons still scattered across the lawn and driveway because we left the pathway in the garage open but my brother was able to explain them away since they were mostly Christmas decorations which he had decided to take over to the storage unit until needed again. The gasoline cans he explained as precaution against Isaac which the city guy thought was reasonable and said as long as everything was cleaned up within a week it would be O.K.

At least the freezer does have a one year warranty. As for raising/removing the shelf so the freezer can go back against the wall: if it happens before the warranty runs out I will be very surprised.

The Sporting Life

I fixed my brother's slot machine yesterday.

It's a table top model, about 2 1/2 feet tall, made, I think, for the Japanese market, or at least a casino expecting a large Japanese clientele. Most of the directions are in Japanese and English although the payout button is in Japanese only. The reason I believe it was for more than just Japanese customers is that the maintenance directions on the inside of the machine are also in both English and Japanese .

This is not our machine but is very similar ours being not "Cherry Bar," but "Probationary Elf."

The black toggle on the middle left takes the place of the standard arm of the "one-armed bandit" starting the three loops spinning. The three red buttons to the right of the toggle stop the corresponding loop when pressed one at a time. It takes either coins or tokens and you can bet up to three at once. It came with a pile of tokens.

The tokens also hint at its origins. They're two types, the size of US quarter dollar coins. One type is kind of plain having the word "World" stamped on each side, the "O" in "World" looking like a ringed planet. The other type is more interesting with Japanese characters around the edge and a stamped picture of the King of Hearts (the one with his sword behind his head) on the face and the initials "NDK" on the reverse.

My brother bought it a few years ago for $20 only because it had the necessary keys. It's been in storage until just recently when, during a consolidation binge, he moved it into his room. Unfortunately, he could not get it to work.

Yesterday, I opened it up and discovered two small push switches, one black, the other red, deep in the guts of the thing. I pushed them both et voila!, it works although it does not lose its mind with bells and flashing lights when it pays out the jackpot. I know because I was playing it last night in an attempt to get all the tokens inside when it started spitting them back out at me.

It seems to be limited to paying out a maximum fifteen tokens per play. Since I had hit the big win, it gave me a series of free winning games so that each time I jiggled the toggle I automatically won 15 tokens until the machine was empty at which point the red LED that normally urged me to "Insert Coin" began flashing "Ho . . .Ho . . .Ho" which was not some St. Nick congratulations-on-winning-it-all message but the code to notify the "Ho"use that the machine needed tending. I opened it up and added more tokens to the bin, pressed the red interior reset button again (which caused the machine to spit a stream of coins across the room but there's no way to push the button with the front closed) and continued "playing" until my payout was complete.

Since it also takes quarters, my brother intends to use it as a glorified piggy bank.

And a Couple Pounds of Dry Ice Until Delivery

In a case of fortuitous timing, our 25+ year old upright freezer has decided to give up the ghost.

My brother likes to buy meat in bulk, ten pounds of this, five pounds of that, whenever a particular type or cut goes on sale (and sometimes I inadvertently "help" which is how we ended up with seven pounds of bacon last week). Everything not destined for immediate consumption ends up in the freezer. He also, for some reason, really likes frozen waffles, and I put the excess chopped mango in there, too.

Last week he noticed his ice cream turning to mush although everything else remained frozen solid. This week the mango started to soften up. Yesterday he called the repairman.

The repair guy was running late so my brother, before leaving for work, gave me his repair price limits beyond which we would junk the old unit but that proved unnecessary as, when the repairman showed up, he took just five minutes (mostly emptying the freezer and taking off a panel) before calling out, "Time to buy a new one!" Turns out the poor thing was chugging along on 10% of its required coolant. Refilling is not an option, not even a possibility, really.

(Everyone keeps calling the coolant freon but I think that's just a case of the word becoming generic, like Aspirin becoming aspirin. In this instance, however, our machine is old enough that the coolant probably was Freon.)

It is fortuitous timing because, this being Labor Day weekend, a number of appliance stores are advertising nice big sales and we can get a larger version of the same model, brand new, with warranty for $500.

Also, I found a nice big forgotten rack of ribs buried down in the back which I transferred to the refrigerator to thaw (further) for our holiday barbecue. So, now I just need to buy the sides and some condiments.