* Wanted to let everyone know...

Hey guys - thanks again. I have just been taking it easy and chewing through the shows on the PVR since I got home. Feeling pretty good overall, but tire easily.

Cheers, Al

#%*$# ! Mongrel coincidence! I was 2/3of the way through the book when you posted a 'spoiler'. Now finished it. But I did know that Orwell must have come through the war alive. 😁

Paczki...I was watching a episode of "The Blacklist" last night set partially in Poland, and of course they had to show a bakery with Paczki...no more of those for me I think...

We have been going through our pantry looking a sodium content in the foods - it is amazing how much is in some pretty basic prepared foods. We will be doing a pantry purge shortly.

Okay I hope no one here is too squeamish, and if you are you might want to skip the rest of this post....however I find this stuff fascinating from a technical standpoint. My mother had her aorta valve replaced twice (rheumatic fever as a child) and the first time she had it done in 1979, they did a catheterization through her arms for some tests before the actual surgery. She had an incision on the inside of each of her elbows that were a couple of inches long, requiring many stitches. Things have come a long way since then...

They went in my radial artery twice. You are awake for the whole thing, and I could feel the wire going up my arm - very odd feeling! After it's done, they put on this medieval torture device:





It is cranked down hard!



They keep this on for maybe 40 minutes, and then slowly loosen the screw a little bit at a time every 5 minutes or so, and then eventually take it off - it hurts like hell to be honest...

Then they put on a pressure bandage:



It also aches like crazy, and that stays on overnight. Then just down to a band aid, but it still aches. Here you can see the 2 locations they went in after I removed the band aid this morning:



Looks like a vampire bite according to my wife! 😉

And one last photo - been wearing this since I got home - my late father's everyday watch - he passed of a heart attack many years ago. It's just a reminder that I was lucky.



Cheers, Al

Al, the torture device replaces the resident or intern who used to stand by the bedside holding down a dressing, waiting for the bleeding to stop (yes, I have done this during training-you get to know lots about a person when you are pressing down on their groin or wrist for a half hr!).
The procedure is done with lots of blood thinners (heparin mostly), and then they start you on oral versions as well. So you really have to wait for a long time to the clot to form. You can take acetaminophen (paracetamol to our friends overseas) for the pain, but avoid ASA and drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen (Aleve), as they also can prevent clot formation.
Nice left handed pics!! Take it easy!!

Be well, glad you're home and things are looking up.

Also beats sandbags applying pressure in your groin. And in training there was a whole lot of scut work to be done and holding pressure is one of the more benign things...