Saturday, October 02, 2004
Thursday, September 30, 2004
About To Blow
Mount St. Helens is about to blow her stack again since the big one back on May 18, 1980. She could go at any time...or not at all.
I remember back in 1980 when I was 10 and my friends and I went outside a few days after the eruption and wiping the dust from the cloud that travelled all the way to Pennsylvania. It was cool to think that something that was beneath the Earth on the other side of the country could travel all the way through the air and land on my parent's car. Hopefully, this eruption will be as dramatic but with less loss of life and damage. There's a cool webcam I found that is centered on Mt. St. Helens, check it out HERE and keep your eyes open!
I continue to recover from surgery and each day I feel a little less pain and am a little calmer and less depressed. Aside from the rainy weather I feel pretty good. My wound looks good and everything else seems to be settling down nicely. I see my urologist tomorrow at 10:10am so I'll find out what the next step will be and when.
I was told he'd do another surgery in 2-3 weeks to go in through the nephrostomy tube and physically break apart the stone with lazers and remove as much of the debris as possible, though some will undoubtably escape the long way out.
I have updated my review of the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs, though it is still incomplete. I plan to finish Return Of The Jedi tonight and hopefully fill out the rest of my review by tomorrow. As much free time as I have, I spend most of it now either trying to catch naps between bursts of pain or catching up on my TiVo backlog of shows.
I'll be watching the Presidential Debate tonight to see how each candidate handles themselves, though I am not very excited because of the "39 page Rulebook". 39 pages on how two people will behave towards each other....seems more like Kindergarden. There will be no hard hitting questions, there will be no direct contact between Bush or Kerry and there will be no realism, it's a scripted show with no room for honest reactions since they'll know what will be asked ahead of time.
I don't think this is the way to elect a leader, hell, it's just a Dog And Pony Show to exploit how well one candidate's handlers have trained him above the other. This isn't a political blog, so I won't go into my politics since Politics & Religion are the two things I don't like to discuss with people because both are very personal and people have deep feelings about each and any discussion usually makes one feel like their views are right and someone else's are wrong and that's why we go to war. I feel like each person's religious & political views are right for them and no one else, and if I don't agree with someone then they'll take that as a personal affront. Live and let live, that's my motto. So I'll leave my views out of this blog, there are plenty of others out there.
That's all for now....
RobMac
I remember back in 1980 when I was 10 and my friends and I went outside a few days after the eruption and wiping the dust from the cloud that travelled all the way to Pennsylvania. It was cool to think that something that was beneath the Earth on the other side of the country could travel all the way through the air and land on my parent's car. Hopefully, this eruption will be as dramatic but with less loss of life and damage. There's a cool webcam I found that is centered on Mt. St. Helens, check it out HERE and keep your eyes open!
I continue to recover from surgery and each day I feel a little less pain and am a little calmer and less depressed. Aside from the rainy weather I feel pretty good. My wound looks good and everything else seems to be settling down nicely. I see my urologist tomorrow at 10:10am so I'll find out what the next step will be and when.
I was told he'd do another surgery in 2-3 weeks to go in through the nephrostomy tube and physically break apart the stone with lazers and remove as much of the debris as possible, though some will undoubtably escape the long way out.
I have updated my review of the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs, though it is still incomplete. I plan to finish Return Of The Jedi tonight and hopefully fill out the rest of my review by tomorrow. As much free time as I have, I spend most of it now either trying to catch naps between bursts of pain or catching up on my TiVo backlog of shows.
I'll be watching the Presidential Debate tonight to see how each candidate handles themselves, though I am not very excited because of the "39 page Rulebook". 39 pages on how two people will behave towards each other....seems more like Kindergarden. There will be no hard hitting questions, there will be no direct contact between Bush or Kerry and there will be no realism, it's a scripted show with no room for honest reactions since they'll know what will be asked ahead of time.
I don't think this is the way to elect a leader, hell, it's just a Dog And Pony Show to exploit how well one candidate's handlers have trained him above the other. This isn't a political blog, so I won't go into my politics since Politics & Religion are the two things I don't like to discuss with people because both are very personal and people have deep feelings about each and any discussion usually makes one feel like their views are right and someone else's are wrong and that's why we go to war. I feel like each person's religious & political views are right for them and no one else, and if I don't agree with someone then they'll take that as a personal affront. Live and let live, that's my motto. So I'll leave my views out of this blog, there are plenty of others out there.
That's all for now....
RobMac
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
5 Days Of Hell
So of course I go in to the hospital on Thursday for an Outpatient procedure to have my stent removed, after all was said and done it turned into 5 days, 3 procedures and lots of bed sores.
It took the doc about 90 minutes to remove my stent; the kidney stone had grown around it over the past 4 months and had anchored it to my kidney. He had to try to break parts of it to make it small enough to remove. I am apparently a "grower", I grow stones faster than they can be managed.
Because of the problems removing the stent he was very reluctant to put another in, and he said he wouldn't go that route again (though rushing right to the next procedure was still his last option), so he decided that something had to be done since the stent is still hovering around the 2cm size.
On Friday he ordered a Nephrostomoy put in (a drainage tube running from the kidney through a tube out through the back). It is clamped off and won't be used for 2-3 weeks (when he'll go through it to aggressively attack, break up and remove as much of the stone as he can), but he wanted it installed while I was admitted in case of complications, and while it seemed to go in without major problems, the initial procedure was cut short on Friday because I had begun severe bleeding and it was hard for him to place the nephrostomy since I am "a big guy" (I am, I'm about 255lbs) and the blood was making it difficult and dangerous. It was decided to send me back to my room and attempt to finish the procedure on Monday.
I began to cry.
My several-hour Outpatient procedure was turning into a weekend get-away. I was depressed, to say the least. As long as I could eat and drink, I'd sit back, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet (of course, if you've ever been a patient in a hospital, you know they're neither peaceful nor quiet). Since they just tampered with my kidney I was not allowed to eat Saturday and it wasn't discovered until late that I was allowed to eat and drink early Sunday. That's another story unto itself.
Through the intervening days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday) I was confined to my bed because I had 2 catheters draining my bladder and kidney, so any movement was very unpleasant. I was able to get out of my bed once a day for a few minutes while the nurses changed my sheets, but it wasn't nearly often enough since they had those non-leak pads under me, so as I sweat, it would collect on those sheets, and since they were non-leak the sweat would gather and lay there, against my skin....day after day after day after day.
By the time I got up on Sunday morning to sit in the chair while they changed my soaking wet sheets, my back felt like grated cheese and looked like a pepperoni pizza. I am still very uncomfortable, but since I'm able to move about now (albeit slowly) I have dried out and the moisturizer I have on it is healing me up nicely.
So I have the nephrostomy procedure finished on Monday morning then I get out by about 2pm and come home. As uncomfortable as I was it felt so good to not be restricted to bed and to have more than 12 channels to watch.
Last night was a horror trying to sleep....what little I did of it. I had to take a few percocets throughout the night just so I'd feel so tired that the intense pain in my back would subside enough for me not to notice.
I changed my dressing for the nephrostomy this morning (it had gotten damp from leaking a bit, but since it was only a little bit and my temperature is fine I don't think it's infected at all, they said leakage was normal), I feel slightly better. I put a little Carrasyn gel on the wound (it's for wound care, I have lots of things like this laying around thanks to my Ileostomy) and put new gauze and tape around it. It's a little tricky since I have the drain tube hanging on the outside, it's not easy to get it all up under the 4x4 & tape without bunching a bit.
I could go on and on, but sitting here is making me achy, and if you've read this far you're probably praying for sweet release from this hell I'm perpetually in so I'll say;
RobMac
It took the doc about 90 minutes to remove my stent; the kidney stone had grown around it over the past 4 months and had anchored it to my kidney. He had to try to break parts of it to make it small enough to remove. I am apparently a "grower", I grow stones faster than they can be managed.
Because of the problems removing the stent he was very reluctant to put another in, and he said he wouldn't go that route again (though rushing right to the next procedure was still his last option), so he decided that something had to be done since the stent is still hovering around the 2cm size.
On Friday he ordered a Nephrostomoy put in (a drainage tube running from the kidney through a tube out through the back). It is clamped off and won't be used for 2-3 weeks (when he'll go through it to aggressively attack, break up and remove as much of the stone as he can), but he wanted it installed while I was admitted in case of complications, and while it seemed to go in without major problems, the initial procedure was cut short on Friday because I had begun severe bleeding and it was hard for him to place the nephrostomy since I am "a big guy" (I am, I'm about 255lbs) and the blood was making it difficult and dangerous. It was decided to send me back to my room and attempt to finish the procedure on Monday.
I began to cry.
My several-hour Outpatient procedure was turning into a weekend get-away. I was depressed, to say the least. As long as I could eat and drink, I'd sit back, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet (of course, if you've ever been a patient in a hospital, you know they're neither peaceful nor quiet). Since they just tampered with my kidney I was not allowed to eat Saturday and it wasn't discovered until late that I was allowed to eat and drink early Sunday. That's another story unto itself.
Through the intervening days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday) I was confined to my bed because I had 2 catheters draining my bladder and kidney, so any movement was very unpleasant. I was able to get out of my bed once a day for a few minutes while the nurses changed my sheets, but it wasn't nearly often enough since they had those non-leak pads under me, so as I sweat, it would collect on those sheets, and since they were non-leak the sweat would gather and lay there, against my skin....day after day after day after day.
By the time I got up on Sunday morning to sit in the chair while they changed my soaking wet sheets, my back felt like grated cheese and looked like a pepperoni pizza. I am still very uncomfortable, but since I'm able to move about now (albeit slowly) I have dried out and the moisturizer I have on it is healing me up nicely.
So I have the nephrostomy procedure finished on Monday morning then I get out by about 2pm and come home. As uncomfortable as I was it felt so good to not be restricted to bed and to have more than 12 channels to watch.
Last night was a horror trying to sleep....what little I did of it. I had to take a few percocets throughout the night just so I'd feel so tired that the intense pain in my back would subside enough for me not to notice.
I changed my dressing for the nephrostomy this morning (it had gotten damp from leaking a bit, but since it was only a little bit and my temperature is fine I don't think it's infected at all, they said leakage was normal), I feel slightly better. I put a little Carrasyn gel on the wound (it's for wound care, I have lots of things like this laying around thanks to my Ileostomy) and put new gauze and tape around it. It's a little tricky since I have the drain tube hanging on the outside, it's not easy to get it all up under the 4x4 & tape without bunching a bit.
I could go on and on, but sitting here is making me achy, and if you've read this far you're probably praying for sweet release from this hell I'm perpetually in so I'll say;
RobMac
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