A small blast from the past

We went to St John's Nfld last year and I'd forgotten I'd noticed this in the driver-thru of a Mary Brown Fried Chicken.

Click to embiggen and humph to yourself as appropriate.

Feelin' Fine

It's been close to four weeks since surgery and I'm happy to report things are getting back to normal. I've been pretty good about taking things easy - I've only lifted more than 10 lbs once and that was an accident.

I've returned to the gym but I'm walking on treadmills only. Walking is the exercise of choice and with the weather lately it's safer to walk on a treadmill than on the sidewalks of this burg.

Starting Monday I'm allowed to start returning to a normal routine. Back in the pool will be nice.

25 Years later

This is still one of my favourites

Now with LESS Gall Bladder - or my Canuck Health Care Story

I occasionally have stomach pain which I'd always attributed to my hiatus hernia. A particularly bad one sent to the local ER Tuesday night. As it's flu season the place was jammed. I got to see a doctor in 2 hours but the pain had largely passed at that point. He examined me and felt was likely GERD because the pain location and quality didn't seem to be gall bladder and told me to come back it the pain returned.

I took Wed off, rested and felt a little better.

I returned to work on Thursday and immediately after lunch felt like crap - pain radiating along the breastbone and down into my lower and upper back. A co-worker who I'll call "Mom" (cuz she's got that sensibility) said "Listen, let me drive you to the ER".

Got that at 1pm and again, flu city - I had my season shot so I wasn't worried. Pain passed at 2pm and I saw a different doctor at 3pm. He listened and said "I'd like to draw blood and check a few things"

More waiting - but I wasn't feeling all that bad - so got back in at 530pm. He said "Your liver levels are fairly high. Can you come back tomorrow at 7am - when we're usually not swamped - and we'll do some more blood work and a sonogram of your gall bladder just to be sure. To be safe eat light tonight - non-fat if possible. (FYI Tomato soup made with water is non-fat. It's not gourmet cuisine but I wasn't really hungry.)

I also want to say I'm not complaining about the time spent waiting. I'd assumed I'd triage low and given the volume of people I felt blessed it wasn't much longer.

R and I went back at 7am - it wasn't really busy at the time. Blood was drawn and the sonogram was done (but very painful getting between the lower right ribs for a look. Hmmmm)

By that time, more people had started to arrive and it took some time to get the results. We went back and spoke to the 3rd doctor in as many days at about 1pm. He said "You have cholecystitis - inflammation of the gall bladder."

I said "how is that treated?" (Naive, eh?)

"Oh, we'll have to remove your gall bladder - possibly this afternoon or evening. Take your coat off, get in this johnny-coat, lay down on the stretcher and we'll start an IV while I call the on-call surgeon."

This was very surreal for me - it'd never occurred to me those on and off "stomach pains" were anything other than acid reflux. Even moreso, I felt great. When I said this, the doctor laughed. He said "I saw you leave yesterday and you didn't look sick. And you're the 2nd fellow today with the SAME problem."

So, there I lay for a couple of hours waiting for the on-call surgeon. (I'm not going to mention names to prevent Internet stalking.) She arrived and looked at the current readings and told me a few interesting points:

• There'd be no removal of the gall bladder tonight (friday) because
• The sonogram showed a blockage in the bile duct which was now obvious because
• The whites of my eyes had turned yellow

She said ANOTHER specialist in endoscopy was going to run a scope down my throat to the bile duct by way of the stomach, check for the blockage, snip it open it a little and take out the stone. IF that worked and IF I didn't develop pancreatitis from the snipping, she'd take the gall bladder tomorrow (Saturday).

Wow. Happy belated 50th birthday, eh.

She was one of those brutally honest people I LOVE dealing with. No passive-aggression. No dancing around the obvious. I trusted her instantly.

She said "You're over 50 albeit by 2 weeks and you're male. Males tend to ignore pain or have a higher tolerance. Women tend to lose their gall bladders earlier because it's reported earlier before things get really bad. Yours has thickened and it's FULL of stones." She went on to describe how the surgery would go:

• She would start the preferred method - laparoscopic. Four small incisions - one for camera, two for tools and one for releasing the carbon dioxide they flood your abdomen with during the procedure. If at any point she determined this would not work - the gall bladder was too large to remove or couldn't easily be isolated with the tools, she'd
• Convert to an "open" procedure would would add a large incision and recovery time would be greatly increased.

At this point, I'm concerned but I don't feel I'm being led in the wrong direction.

She left and a couple of hours later, I was prep'ed and off to the endoscopic surgery department. I've had a couple of endoscopic stomach exams recently and I warned the team - I tend to shrug off the meds and fight like a dog when I'm under. One of the nurses had been at one of my other scopes and remembered. They were a great team - the specialist took the time to draw what was happening BOTH days (I LIKE PICTURES) - and, as they said, we've got good drugs! I was gone before they finished saying "This will sting a litt...."

A couple of hours later I woke in the hospital room that would be my weekend get-away. R told me the surgeon had been by. I had indeed fought like a bandit but the scope had been a success. They're removed a stone and some "sludge" (Hands up for "Eeeeewwww"!) and that had cleared the duct. I slept reasonably well Friday night getting all my nutrition from the IV. (Remember, I hadn't eaten since 7pm Thursday.)

Saturday arrived, my throat was sore but I was feeling pretty positive. A couple of people told me my eye colour was returning to normal - first to go, first to come back maybe?

The staff at the local hospital are just amazing. They're dealing with every little thing and they always manage to be friendly and helpful. Originally the surgeon had scheduled for 9am but she arrived at 8am with a little bad news - there had been a real emergency surgery that had jumped ahead of me (My life wasn't in danger of course!!! Who would argue?) so it'd be 1pm earliest. Really, when you think about this, it was really bad news for the poor soul who was in there from 9-12. Hope they made out OK.

Glum, R and I sat and chatted. A staff person accidentally brought me lunch which I had to send away. Sigh. One of the nurses told me - if they cancel, you'll be able to eat this evening but they haven't canceled yet!

Just before 2pm, they arrived to take me to surgery. Most of the next couple of hours is a blur - thanks to many drugs and anesthetic. The anesthetist confirmed I had fought the previous night - my vocal cords were so messed up, she added a steroid to my IV cocktail to reduce the swelling.
I awoke in the recovery room, very little pain and dazed as all get out. For some reason, I'd confused the surgery and our recent trip and was convinced the hospital was in New York. The recovery room nurses loved that one. When they felt I was sufficiently non-loopy, they took be back to the hospital room. R was able to stay with me for a few hours but I was groggy and out of it. He's so supportive - sitting there, tired out of his mind, answering the same questions over and over and over. No wonder I married him, eh?

They had wrapped me to tight and warm - and filled me with so many pain killers I wasn't in any pain. R left at the end of visiting hours (8:30) and I tried to get some sleep.

I didn't have best of nights - but mostly it was little things, random, things:

• The fellow in the next bed tended to talk in his sleep which woke me quite a bit.
• Both his and my IV flow monitors wait ape-shit during the night. Mine detected and stopped running because of a LARGE air bubble in the line and alarms went off everywhere. His complained every 10-15 minutes.
  
• We were across the hall from an ice crusher so I'd just fall asleep and bam, someone needed ice
• Because I'd had surgery, they had to take BP, temp and O2 level and see if my sutures were bleeding (NOT by the way) every couple of hours
• And, of course, blood work at 5am!
  

I did get a little sleep here and there, and I'd slept from 830 to about 1230 so I shouldn't complain - and no one was deliberately trying to keep me awake!

This morning (Sunday - remember I still haven't eaten) I awoke and didn't feel too bad. The nurse offered to let me clean myself up with a basin at bedside but I figured, gotta stand up sometime, so I asked if I could get up, walk to the bathroom and wash myself there. She said, "Sure, if you feel you can. That'd be great."

It was a little shaky getting out of bed without using your abs. (The key appears to be roll onto your side and drop your legs over the side while pushing into the mattress with your "down" fist. All the force goes through your shoulders and minimized ab movement.) I tottering to the washroom, saw the bandages clearly to the first time. Pristine and white for the most part and ONLY 4 small ones! I washed up using what R refers to as a "whore's bath", pulled on a fresh "johnny coat" and underwear and left feeling pretty darn good.

Breakfast arrived while the nurse was there and I started to send it away. "No no" she said, "You're post surgery. If you're not nauseous you can eat just about anything you want!" Joy. 7pm Thurs to 8am Sun with only electrolyte and glucose IVs going into my right arm. A hard-boiled egg, a piece of toast, a bowl of oatmeal and some apple juice and a cup of coffee tasted like a feast!

The surgeon arrived shortly after breakfast and we talked about the procedure. I was shocked they hadn't had to "open" the abdomen. She said she was as well but was happy for it. She prefers it - it's cleaner and recovery time it greatly reduced.

We talked about recovery and, after finding I was felling pretty good, she suggested I might be happier leaving hospital that afternoon. I agreed - dying to sleep in my own bed! She said as long at the liver levels were approaching normal, she had no reason to keep me. Joy.

More waiting game - she was the on-call surgeon for the weekend so everything was through her. The nurses reported they'd prepared the exit paperwork and we just had to wait for her to have time to review the blood report. R and I chatted as time passed. Lunch arrived at 1pm another feast:

• beef barley soup
• roast ham with mashed potatoes and yellow beans
• apple juice
• tea
• orange wedges for dessert

This was more than I have most evening meals at home. I tucked in but noted the taste was off. They'd switched me to diluadid for pain and it adds a funny taste to most everything. I cleaned up the food anyway.

As 2pm was approaching and I was getting sleepy (the hospital asks visitors to leave from 2-4PM) R helped me back into the bed I'd been avoiding all day and started to get ready to leave for a couple of hours.

I'd just gotten settled when the nurse walked in the discharge paperwork. "Who wants to go home? I do I do" Hard copies of what we'd discussed earlier. (ie I'm not to lift anything more than 10lbs for the next 4 weeks.) A script for a number of days of diluadid. A note for my HR department stating I'll be away for a few more days.

And here I am. We left at 6am on Friday to walk over the hospital. (I'd felt good and it was a lovely morning for a stroll.) I returned in a cab Sunday at 230pm minus a gall bladder.

Major shout out to the staff at the Moncton Hospital. Not once during my admittedly disturbing week did I feel lost or on my own. Busy, VERY busy people took time to listen and answer the dumbest questions. Each and every staff member I worked with was behind me 100%.

Funny the turns one's life makes, eh. And for any American reading this who's been told the Canadian system doesn't work, I have to point out, during this multi-day adventure I:

• saw three different doctors
• saw an endo and surgical specialist
• received two surgical procedures
• spent two nights in a hospital
• all the sundry medications including pain meds, 48 hours of antibiotics and steroid medications and non-stop IV for over two days.

And the ONLY out of pocket expenses were a few cabs for R back and forth to the hospital, my drug plans $10 flat fee to fill the diluadid script (and a 3-day rental of the television set* which I arranged while still groggy from the first procedure.)

Maybe our system has flaws but this, my friends, was NOT one of them.

* Anyone who REALLY knows me just said "WTF??? You don't even have cable at home?"

If I had a Twitter, this would be a Tweet

Irony: You spend 5 days in Manhattan and the one and only car that almost runs you over ... is from Quebec.

A small island of respite

We'd arrived in NYC on the evening of the 5th, spent the next day running about (saw "After Miss Julie" that evening). Saturday was my birthday and we went to the Met to see "Turandot". Sunday was a museum day - we were on our feet and walking for close to 7 hours.

When Monday arrived, we needed a break from Manhattan's noise and bustle. So we took the tram to Roosevelt Island. The island is a narrow finger of a place in the Hudson River between Manhattan and Queens. There are conventional ways to get there (the F train swoops under the river and stops there on the way into Queens and there's a bridge into Queens as well.) But the tram shown at left is much more fun. On the Manhattan side, there's a tram station at 60th St and 2nd Avenue. Climb a set of stairs, pay your fare or swipe your Metrocard and enter one of the two tram cars. After a few moments, you're off and the tram's cable lifts you up over the streets and along the Queenboro bridge. This photo was taking inside the cabin, looking out across the bridge. The whole trip takes less than 5 minutes.

We spent the better part of Monday morning there. The island is almost completely surrounded by a riverside pedestrian walkway - well laid out and pleasant views are just about everywhere. If you find yourself missing the city, just look west.

It would be interesting to live this close to Manhattan yet still live quietly. The vast majority of housing on the island is rental properties - with some co-ops and condos - but there are a great number of families and, with all the amenities available many people only leave the island to work in one of the boroughs.

Live from the Corner of Exit and No Exit

We just flew in from NYC and BOY are our arms tired! Thank you, thank you I'm here all week try the veal and tip your server. But seriously, ladies and germs, this photo was taken at the always delightful Salisbury Hotel on W 57th St. Ok, the truth, we've only stayed there twice but we were so happy we can't imagine staying anywhere else. It is close to everything - two subway stops on the street. Carnegie Hall is across the street. The place is quiet as the tomb - between rooms. This is NYC - if you don't like a little street noise consider somewhere else. The building has been in use for over 80 years - it's owned and managed by the Calvary Baptist Church - and is solidly constructed.

Got almost no sleep last night - went to South Pacific at the Lincoln Center, got home by 11ish, didn't get to sleep until 1 and woke at 4AM to get ready to go to the airport. Our flight was at 11am but the shuttle company* INSISTED on picking us up at 615AM. So it was almost 11 hours of waiting in Newark Airport, flying to Toronto, tearing through customs*, almost swallowing a burger whole so I could make the flight back here. Tomorrow I'll have pictures of Roosevelt Island.

* I'm never using them again because the pickup was just a convenience for them. A gentleman would never reveal the name of this shuttle company but they consider themselves a (ah-hem) Super shuttle service. Just "super".

** What the heck is with Toronto? You arrive to clear customs and continue within the country and they make you:

1. Get off the incoming plane
2. Walk through the entire terminal in a secure area
   
3. Stand in line to talk to Can Customs - so far so good
4. Pick up your checked luggage - ??
5. Carry it through the final customs check
6. Drop it on a conveyor specifically for connecting passengers post-customs luggage ???
   
7. Exit the secured area ??!??
   
8. Walk around and up to the departures level
   
9. Clear security AGAIN ??@!!@##
   
10. Walk to your connecting gate
    

Did we lose a war or something? They should take a lesson from Montreal.