I am Officially, Well...

I have been off of the antibiotics for some time now and I have had no symptoms of recurrence of the dreaded bug, so I think I am officially cured. I am very, very happy about that realization. I am not sure I could go through another bout of that again...

The bad news is that my legs have lost so much muscle tone in this short while that I am amazed at daily. At this point, I am not sure if it is just muscle tone or that the blood supply from my right leg, that is now feeding both legs is sufficient to provide enough blood to them both. I am going to start doing treadmill work in the next couple of days. And, in a short while, I should be able to answer that question. I did start back to doing my yoga again this week and am feeling much better in the general body strength and well being areas.

On the business front, I sent out a letter to all our dealers that we are now out of the needle making business and now into the needle distribution business. Everything has changed with the new vendor made needles and all the new packaging and instruction information that I have been working on for the past 3 months. We are migrating from a little cottage business to one that will be selling our products worldwide in the very near future. I was hoping to be in this position on Jan. 1, 2009, but my health and the delivery of the new needles extended that by three weeks.

In the dealer letter, I told them all about the new products and asked them to provide a list of all their unsold inventory. We are replacing all of it with the new products, free of charge after they send the old products back to us. Our new products are so much superior to our old ones, or any other competition products, that I didn't want them in the distribution channel. So far, we have replaced about $2,000 worth of old product. It is painful to do, but is good business in the long run.

One of my largest dealers, Charkbait! in Huntington Beach, CA is going to have a booth in a very large consumer focused fishing and boating show that will be happening in Long Beach, CA the first part of March. They have asked me to attend and bring down lots of our needle products to show/sell in the booth. They are going to be focusing on our needle products and it should be a great way to gain a lot of exposure to our products image and general knowledge of them in the entire Southern California area. There will be a lot of potential new dealers there also that I plan to bring on board while I am there. Also, it will be great to see the family, which has been way too long in coming...

The weather has been hot and cold. Well, maybe more freezing and not quite freezing. The over night lows have been in the single digits to teens and the highs have been in the high teens to high thirties. When we have sun, which we have had a few days, coupled with above freezing temps, all the snow starts to melt and clears up the roads a little. But, then at night when the temps go below freezing, it all turns to slick ice and lots of accidents happen. The mountains of snow in each large parking lot, the results of snow plowing all the flat paved surface, continue to grow and will last for weeks or even months as the weather warms up.

We finally found Pam's belated Christmas present yesterday. She got a Wii system and the Wii fitness exercise platform system for it. It is a pretty amazing little device. We still need to get a few add-ons for it, but I am impressed with how well it works and at all the features and ability to configure the Avatars, or characters, that each person can make up to be their image while playing the games and exercise routines. The basic system has sport games like bowling, golf, boxing, baseball and tennis, I think. Pam, loves the bowling game and has already attained the title of Professional with it.

The Dell health insurance plan has changed again this year. Their new prescription plan is quite different than in the past. Before, all name brand prescriptions were a higher amount. Last year they were $ 35 each. With the new plan, all such prescriptions costs are split in half, and the patient gets to pay for half of the cost, not to exceed $150 each. Two of my prescriptions were $107 and $78 for the month, which is way too much. We called the new insurance company and they offered some generic equivalents that we are going with. We will have to see how 'equivalent' they actually are, I guess.

I cannot wait to get into all of the costs that were incurred with all my recent medical treatments. With all the CT scans, MRIs and other major tests I had during my two hospital visits and two operations, the costs are going to be way crazy, I am sure. The costs of drugs are totally crazy these days. A large part of the cost is all the TV commercials that the drug companies run hourly for their new drugs. Then the price the drugs in the USA market many times higher than most other places in the world, to recoup their R&D - read commercials - costs because we have more resources to pay for them. And, now, with the changes in the health care plans, many of the new expensive name brand drugs will be out of reach for many people. It should be an interesting showdown between the insurance and drug companies soon.

The Obama inauguration was impressive - over 2 million folks in one place in 18deg weather and no arrests, is a new one on me. I sincerely hope that he can live up the the image that so many folks are putting on him. The new $825 billion 'stimulus' bill that he is ramming through congress will give those that have wanted government to be the 'be all and do all' will finally get their wishes. We are sliding down the slick road to European Socialism at breakneck speed.

One of my mentors in life once said, "On the surface, the concept of communism or socialism really sounds good, but if you were to apply the same logic to the color spectrum, over time you would only end up with the single color of grey. As, any other color would not be fair, or right, in some way, to someone, and would have to be removed, until all other colors are gone. Only then would you really have true communism or socialism."

Any other president could have not been effective as the people are so hostile about everything now, that nothing could get done. For whatever reasons, Obama has the following and power of the people, and with that, will be able to make things happen if he uses it right. We shall just have to see how it all works out...

My pool game has not done well, since all the medical problems. I did win all 4 of my games last week, but no table runs and I wasn't playing well at all. Then, this week, I lost 2 of my 4 games, but got a 34 out of 40 points, which is good. I think we have three weeks of pool league left. I am in 13th place overall, which is good, and our team is in 9th place, which is not good, but we are not one of the long established teams that have all good players that always seem to win. There will be a top shooter tournament and team tournament shortly after the league ends. They are always fun to play in.

Well, I have stuff to do and places to go. That is about all of the news from here in DaHo...

Transformation Complete - Normal Again...

I completed my antibiotics a couple of days ago and all is good. I continue to improve in health and attitude. I keep getting little shots of pain here and there. I guess the new plumbing needs to get all aligned in there. Its really weird that both of the insides of my upper thighs are numb. I guess the hacked some nerves when they were installing the new artery that goes from the top of my right thigh and proceeds across my mid-section just below the belt line, to the artery in my left upper thigh. This is the artery that is feeding blood to my left leg from my right leg these days.

It all seems to be working OK. I still get very tired and don't have much stamina yet, but I still haven't been able to do any exercise yet. The Great news is that today I can start doing my yoga again. I have missed it very much. I really hate this feeling of being 'normal' physically. Yoga keeps you feeling and being in very good physical and mental shape and coming off of it is very depressing at first.

I have to clear out my office first. A lot of boxes of 2 months of crap have accumulated in the space that I do yoga in and must be eradicated now. The good news is that a lot more stuff that was in my office has been moved upstairs to the new DaHoProducts order fulfillment department. I have got to track down, or build, some very specialized storage compartments to hold all the stuff I need to keep for all the various needles and combo sets we sell. So far I have not been able to find much of value.

I did play pool twice last week. I played on Tues and Thurs nights. The Tues night was a make up match from the week before when I was down hard. I didn't play well either time. I gave away a nice table run on both nights on the last ball or two, grumble, grumble. I also had the table ran on me for the first time this year. I really hate it when that happens because you get a zero score for the game.

Storm stopped by yesterday and we played some. His old in-law, Bruce, which I have played with on teams before, was called and came by and leveled our pool table. It was getting pretty bad from settling I guess. Anyway, its all better now.

Yesterday, I was asked by Microsoft to beta test the new version of the WHS (Windows Home Server) OS. Its got a lot of new features to integrate with Media Center, which we use on all our computers to watch and record TV programs. I will probably do it as I am very interested in these new features, but first, I am still buried pretty deep in stuff I need to do first.

Well, I must get to the yoga. I will never feel great again until it has worked its magic on my body...

All is Returning to Normal - again...

I have been getting better and better since I have been home. But, things aren't quite like they use to be. It astounds me how much muscle tone I have lost in just six weeks of no exercises and having my left leg starving for blood and oxygen. I have always had muscular legs and now my thighs seem to just hang. I have got a LOT of rebuilding to do to the old body. The doctor says I cannot do yoga for a few more weeks, which I think is BS. He just doesn't know anything about yoga and thinks it is going to somehow destroy all his work. I am going to start soon, just keeping away from the asanas that might stretch those areas that he has messed with.

Thursday night, we were watching TV on the couch and I got up to do something. Pam said "Wow you are really walking much better than you have in a long while". I took a mental review of how I was walking and realized that I have been dragging around my left leg and now was walking like a normal person again. That was good news...

Then, Friday, we went into town to do some errands that sort of got dropped with the ambulance ride and week stay in the hospital. I had to check out some shipping supplies and pick up some printing that I was having done for the business. In both places, I got out of the car and as soon as I inside to the business I was about ready to pass out and had to find someplace to sit or lean against. The shipping business was a little oriental woman and she was real impressed with my action. Luckily Pam was there to explain it. So, the bad news is that I am having a real issues with fast movements and my body's ability to provide enough oxygen to all necessary parts. This is a sort of 'normal' event for me, due to only having one jugular vein. I don't know if it is part of all the meds I was loaded up with lately or not, but I can usually manage it so I don't have to resort to such immediate action. I have passed out a couple of times in the past and it is not much fun for me or whomever is around.

So, we have been staying at home since that trip. Pam has been taking great care of me and making lots of good food. Without her being here, I would probably not be able to make it for the next few days. So, she is going to have to stay home for a few more days until things get more 'normal' again.

We have been sitting on a number of orders that have been placed since all this medical 'fun' started and since everything is new with the needles, packaging and shipping, Pam and I will be doing these first shipments. The new needles are so great that everybody will just love them. And, now they are all coming with a 8 page instruction booklet. They will be a big hit. I haven't been able to start offering our products to any new dealers yet, but will start as soon as I recover.

Pam took the Christmas tree down yesterday. It was one of the cutest Christmas trees we have had. If you remember, we weren't going to have a tree and then decided to at the last minute. So, we went to Lowes and got a nice tree and all the trimmings, lights, decorations, etc. for about $ 60. All of the decorations were in one box. They were all plastic, read cat proof, and the lights were two nets of LED lights, which could just be wrapped around the tree in about a minute and it looked like all the lights on a professional lighted tree. We only used out tree stand and top angel, which were out from last year. Our biggest issue with having a tree was having to dig out all the decorations and stuff that we keep buried under the garage stairs.

My pool league was down during Christmas and News Year and the first match was last Thursday night. Storm rescheduled the match for next Tuesday. I sincerely hope that I can make it as I really do want to win some titles for the league. Plus, I have a side bet with Storm that will get expensive if I quit now. So, we shall see if I can do it or not. I will have to only drink bottled drinks though, as this antibiotic I am, on has the same characteristics as Anibuse. If any alcohol gets inside my body, I will get violently sick very fast. Its interesting in that what anibuse does is stop your liver from processing the alcohol and lets you 'enjoy' the full effects of the poison like qualities of alcohol. The rush you normally get are the little side effects of your liver processing the poision.

This new Wholesale and Manufacturing Premier version of Quickbooks is a great program. It is really going to help us manage our business. I am learning more about it all the time, but they have really added a lot of great features in it.

I am sleeping well again, which is a major improvement from the almost total lack of sleep in the hospital. And, my sleeping buddy, Felix the Cat, is already ready for a good nap. In fact, he pretty much 'naps' most of the time when he is not up and driving Cali crazy or eating...

Yesterday, I rebuilt our bedroom computer. I just built it a couple of months ago, but the motherboard had some problems and would always screw up and drive us crazy in the process. It wouldn't record shows we wanted or would need to be rebooted in the middle of recording shows. Anyway, it how has another motherboard and so far is working great.

Most of the snow is gone now, except for the giant mountains of it in every large parking lot in town. Right after the last big snow storm, the temperature rose and it rained heavy. The real problem when that happens, is when it then returned to sub-freezing temperatures and all the melted snow turns to ice - big driving fun...

So, that is about all there is happening here in DaHo...

Alive and...... Well?

I am back from the hospital again, and very glad to be out of there, and even more glad to be home. I feel good, am recovering well and as long as the antibiotics continue to work, all is wonderful.

I could easily say that this was the scariest medical thing I have been through. It doesn't compare to the throat cancer operation, in that I knew up front that it was a life changing event and didn't know what life was going to be afterwards, but from a fear factor, this was way up there.

Last year, there was a long time pool player here, that went to his doctor because of an ingrown toenail. It got infected and he went in to have a procedure done to it, The toe got worse, they amputated it, he got a super bug infection in the hospital, developed heart trouble, and to make a long story short, within two weeks, he was dead from 'medical treatment'.

There were a couple of times this week in the hospital that I thought I was going down that same path - and fast...

As promised, this entry will describe all the medical 'fun' that I have been having over the past 6 weeks. And, in order to discuss it all, I thought I would use the chart that my doctor drew to explain it all to Pam and I. So, here is the chart showing the three options I had to choose from...

It all started on 12/2 when I went in for a scheduled Aortic Aneurysm stent procedure. The stent was the little pair of pants that fit into the parts to the left of the 2 and 3 in the chart. with the top part of the pants in the 2 area and the legs going down in the two areas with the arrows below. That procedure was scheduled for overnight and went well. Prior to the operation, I had a bunch of testing done and a couple of CT scans so that the doctor and the stent company could see the area being stented and get the correct size and type of stents for my specific needs.

I was recovering and about two weeks later, I was walking about 2 blocks and almost couldn't make it. I wasn't even breathing hard and my left thigh felt like I had ran a marathon. So, I called the surgeon and he had me come in. He checked me out and sent me over to the hospital for two afternoon's of tests. The problem was that my artery seemed to be too bent and the left leg of the little pants stent got kinked in the arrowed area by the '3' and was blocking off the flow of blood to my left leg. I am not sure why they didn't figure that all out when they were sizing and typing the stent, but...

The surgeon's nurse informed me that it needed to be taken care off and they would get right on it.... as soon as the doctor returned from his vacation on 1/5. I was also to take an aspirin just in case of any clots in the mean time. So, the doctor is gone and there is no one else in the area that can spell 'stent'. At that point, I could walk about 40 feet and then had to stop and rest.

It was getting progressively worse daily to the point that I could only walk like 10 feet before it starts hurting. So, I am basically confined to the down stairs of the house and my doctor won’t be back until another week to fix it.

I called my surgeon’s office and was referred to his backup while he is on Vacation. I ran this all down to his nurse and she talked to the doctor and I guess he read my surgeon’s files. And, the bottom line is that I was told to walk, even if it hurts so I won’t get clots until my surgeon gets back and can do something to fix it. I was told that they were going to go in and replace the stent leg with a heavier one that wouldn’t kink due to the artery bends.

I was really having a difficult time with walk even it if hurts, because the hurt is from the leg not getting enough oxygen and blood. And, I have no idea what walking is going to do about clots. At this point, I am very confused and frustrated.

Then, the 'big fun' started. I started getting what seemed like food poisoning. I had the runs and was throwing up, just like being in Mexico. It was over in 24 hrs. Then, I felt sorta OK, for a day or so, then another 24 hr bout with the dreaded runs and throwing up act. then another day or two of recovering. All the while my leg was getting worse and I was basically confined to a room or so.

Then on Saturday morning, I was at the computer after not being able to sleep for a couple of days. I dumped his pile of parts on the floor, and bent over to pick them up for about 30 sec. When I lifted back up, I realized that now all circulation had been cut off from my leg. Within, a couple of minutes, it was totally non-functional. I tried a number of things to try and get it functioning again, but it was totally numb - a Very weird feeling. So, after waiting a few minutes to see if it would recover, I woke up Pam and had her call 911. And, shortly thereafter, I was in an ambulance and Pam was following in the Jeep.

After the usual check in stuff, I was getting a CT Scan and the hospital had tracked down my surgeon who just got back from his vacation. I was checked in and the doctor came in and drew the diagram showing my options.

The first option was to do what they were going to do at first. That was replacing the kinked leg of the stent with a new and stronger one. That is the area that is all marked out with the little squiggly line going down it. The squiggly line is the stent and the marked out area is all a big blood clot that had formed and was what was causing the progressively worse blockage. The doctor said that they could still do the stent leg replacement option, but will all the blood clot that had now formed, it could have more problems. I am wondering why he hadn't thought of that before he left on his vacation...

The second option was going in, though the front of my abdomen, like in the old days and that would be a major surgery and a very long recovery. So, that was 'X'ed out as option #2.

Then, he came up with the third option. That was to basically leave the stent in there, with the blood clot and do a Femoral bypass, AKA Fem-Fem bypass down below the whole stent area. This allowed the left leg to be fed by the right leg. as shown by the lower quarter of the diagram, with the 'X's marking the spots. That seemed to be the way to go so that became the plan. A couple of hours later, I was being operated on...

The operation went well and I was back in my room. Pam was there and did a great job of managing it all and keeping all going smooth throughout the night.

Then all the big 'fun' started again, complicated by the surgery recovery. This time I was very sick and it ended up lasting almost 3 days, in which I got about 4 hrs sleep total. They kept doing other things and nothing was working. I was just getting worse by the hour.

We called in another doctor to try and deal with the problem and he thought it was some type of hospital super bug, called a C-Stat, I think, but all the lab tests said I didn't have it. He was going to do a complete scope job from both ends but my surgeon talked him out of it, and I was put on antibiotics for it. I was getting 3-4 shots every hour or two for days. I cannot guess how much medicine I had put in my IVs.

After the third day, I had coughed and gagged so hard, that when I woke up, I have these heavy pains in my shoulders, chest and back. I told the nurses and they sorta freaked out. My main nurse, Jared, was a very cool guy. He was the most logical and in charge person there. When I started seeing him freaking out, I knew this was not good. I really thought I was going down with all of this, remembering the story about the pool player. That was the first day that Pam hadn't stayed there over night as I now had a roommate. She was called about 6am and during the next few hours, it was really crazy. But, they finally figured out that it was not a heart attack.

From there, the antibiotics still seem to be working and my body is recovering from all the abuse. I didn't eat anything for 3 days or sleep about the same time and had a lot to recover from. They kept me another day and finally released me yesterday. And, as long as the dreaded super bug stays away, I will recover from all this. I guess all the antibiotics that they usually use for operations, kills off all the other bacterias but this super bug and then it just goes crazy and it has developed immunity to most all of the antibiotics.

I wanted to get this all written down while it was still 'fresh', as I really don't want to remember it again for a long while...

I must say that Pam was wonderful throughout all of this ordeal. I cannot begin to say enough about all that she as been through and has taken upon herself to manage all the time this was going on. She stayed there in a chair for nights and was constantly way beyond what I would have expected anyone to do.

I need to rest now...

Happy New Year 2009...

I did wait up to see the ball drop and the New York 'pins'. That is a very interested way to do crowd control. They had these pins put together on both sides of the streets No two pins touched eachother as they had a 4 sided boarder around them. And, they had cops watching down each side - sorta like professional tennis matches. I hear that once you got there, you were searched as you couldn't bring any booze or back packs or glass or whatever. After being searched, you were put into one of the pins. and you could not leave until the event was over for anything - even going to the bathroom. And, most people were there for hours so they could get a 'Pin' with a good location. I even saw Bill and Hillery dancing on the stage. I guess he must be practicing up living back in DC again...

Then came the first day of the new year. The day was good enough. We watched TV most of the day as that is about the only thing I can do for longer and 10 minutes, or steps, whichever comes first. Then, that evening, I started having the symptoms of food poisioning again - just like in Mexico many years ago. This has been the second time I have had such an event this week and before that it was before I had my throat cancer in 2002. I didn't get a moments sleep all night and had an 'occurance' from one end or the other about every 5-10 minutes.

When Pam was getting ready for work, She looked at me and had to call to take the day off. I was in no condition to take care of anything. We went to our regular doctor for a mid-morning appt as besides everything else, my heel on my left foot is too painful to walk on. I took a shower to freshen up and noticed that both of 'pads' on the bottom of my left foot were a solid milk white in color and would not change color - very weird. Anyway, the doctor assured me that my foot wasn't going to fall off and gave me a shot to make my nausea go away and took a bunch of tests.

After I came home, I felt better and spent the afternoon and night sleeping and watching TV. This morning, when I got up, I feel about the worst ever, but I have said that many times before I am sure.

So, the current plan is that I go in early Monday morning to get all the tests and cat scans done and then return Tues for the surgery to fix the stent and return the blood flow to my left leg again.

I am going to have to miss our pool league game next week. That will only be the second time I have missed a league game in my life.

Pam has been so great at taking care of me - just like in the old cancer recovery days.Without her, I just couldn't have made it and would probably end up being in assisted living sort of thing.

The first shippment of the new needles should arrive on Monday or Tuesday. I will not be able to work with them until I have recovered from operation 2.0.

Every bone in my body is screaming and my pain meds aren't even touching it.

Update: Lanny had to be rushed to emergency by ambulance and ended up having to have emergency Femoral By-Pass Surgery. He is doing well now and is resting comfortably.