Dana's Surgery
from: End of the Internet, TheAdded: 2008-07-08 17:39:01.0 | comments: 0
Yesterday was a extraordinary day. My beloved brother-in-law, Dana had triple bypass surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Several weeks ago it was determined that Dana needed the surgery and the doctors urged him not to wait. In short order he met with the surgeon and established the date - two full months before he wanted to schedule. Then, two weeks in a row, the doctor canceled the surgery. Finally it was rescheduled for yesterday at 1:00 PM. Somehow my sister was able to persuade them to re-schedule for 7:00 AM.
From the time I heard the news I told my sister I would spend the day at the hospital with her. We are not particularly close, altho I am very close to her four children, and at first I worried she might not want me there.
She wanted me there.
I packed a cooler with lunch and cool drinks, selected a funny book for her and one for me, and headed to Boston. I arrived at 9:00 AM, 7 minutes after the surgery began, 1 hour and 53 minutes late.
I was amazed at the ease of getting into the hospital, including parking. I was directed to the Gray Center, which is where they park the people waiting for those in surgery.
It was a huge room, with tables and chairs, couches, internet settings, private consultation areas for relatives to meet with doctors, and two women at the desk who kept track of everyone, in case a meeting was needed.
My sister, dressed in red white and blue ("because it is comfortable") had secured a comfortable couch toward the back of the room. We sat and talked and laughed, and shared secrets and stories. We called and sent text messages to her four kids who were all nervous and scared. We talked about possible outcomes and what would come next. The recovery period for by-pass surgery is about 3 months, and the patient needs to be quiet. I've never known Dana to sit still for five minutes so there are challenges ahead.
I have bad luck with doctors and hospitals. Every encounter is a screw up of some sort, making my trust level about zero. I was particularly angry that the surgeon had rescheduled 2 weeks in a row, forcing Dana to lose two unnecessary weeks of income before he would be forced into 3 months off to recover. Hearing that the surgery started 2 hours late, didn't help.
But how we heard, did help. One person's job in the hospital is to go from operating room to operating room and report back to the families on how things are going. She is the person who told us the surgery began at 8:53. If you think about it, we expected a 5 hour surgery, which now would end at 2:00PM. Had we not known, at noon we would have been freaking out, imagining the worse. This little act of kindness, potentially saved us two hours of pain. We were joined by perhaps 80 other people sitting in that room on eggshells, waiting for a result. Every person there received the same kindness.
At one point I asked the people at the front desk if they would validate my parking ticket, which amounted to the difference between paying $8.00 and $40.00 for a day of parking. "Just tell them the patient's name. That is all the validation you need." In the big city world of jumping through hoops, something else was made easy. I was grateful.
Around 1:00 PM we were led into the conference room. The surgeon was on the phone. "It went really well. He's doing fine. You can see him in ICU in about an hour". My sister asked a few questions. We hugged and grinned from ear to ear.
We started calling the kids, the two that are local were on their way in, as neither was able to concentrate at work. We called the grandmas, and a few other people, and waited for Andrew to arrive to go to the ICU.
My sister had confided that she was more worried about the aftermath than she was about the surgery. She was fixated on the 3% chance that Dana could have a stroke during surgery (by some plaque escaping from the vein and traveling to Dana's brain). A few years ago my sister had a stroke so she came by her worry honestly. What I didn't know until yesterday was that Paula's stroke was "massive"; it happened when she was in the waiting room of that very hospital. No one survives a "massive" stroke without damage - but my sister did. The vessel that leads to her brain was completely clogged, but for some reason she had 2 extra vessels which saved her by remaining open. Apparently that is very rare.
Around 2:00 PM we arrived at the cardiac ICU after thanking the people at the Gray Center for taking such good care of us. We were told that they weren't quite ready, but just a couple of minutes later were led into the ICU. Andrew had joined us by then.
We passed many rooms, some with people in them, and more empty. I made a point of pointing out the volume of equipment in each room so my sister would not be freaked by what she saw.
Once we walked into the room Dana was positioned so his feet faced us, and from that perspective he looked almost ashen. Closer up, he appeared to have more color. We could see his chest rise and fall, a bi-product of the oxygen tube in his mouth - but who cared. It was a wonderful sight to see.
We located his arm stuck with an IV so my sister could hold his hand.
WE asked the ICU nurse question after question and she was kind and responsive in her answers. "How prevalent are staph infections? Do you put that tape over the lip of people who have moustaches? When can he wake up" She told us they were keeping Dana asleep but he was doing so well she might wake him shortly.
At that point I went home. Andrew was with his Mom and Lindsay was on her way. Paula was in good hands.
I spent the next few hours thinking about what a precious day it was with my sister. I felt closer to her than maybe any other time in my life. And I thought about how incredibly kind the people at MA General are. And I thought about what a wonderful man Dana is, and how much he has added to my entire family's lives.
I spoke with my sister a few more times last night, but the most important call came around 10:30. My sister said Dana awoke and cracked a joke. "I know it's him" she said - her fears of a stroke or other complications drifting away. I finally let the tears flow.
This morning the first thing Dana asked for was a report on the Red Sox. I think things are going to turn out okay.
"Bush Lied" Oops
from: End of the Internet, TheAdded: 2008-07-08 11:46:27.0 | comments: 3
The left's rapture over the "Bush lied" meme regarding WMD in Iraq has been resonating in the liberal media for 5 years. Joe Wilson started it, perhaps already on the Hillary bandwagon. Scooter Libby got convicted for it, at least indirectly. The left ran on it in 2006 and took over the senate. (To be fair they also ran on lowering gas prices which as we all know has been another roaring success.)
Turns out Bush didn't lie. In fact President Bush may have saved us from nuclear holocaust. (No guarantee of course that future presidents won't reverse that trend.)
From IBD:
WMD: Hear about the 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium found in Iraq? No? Why should you? It doesn't fit the media's neat story line that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed no nuclear threat when we invaded in 2003.
snip
What's more, if Bush hadn't acted, we might today see a nuclear Iraq, an Iran on the way to having a weapon, Libya with an expanded nuclear program, and Syria with its close ties to Saddam on the way to having a nuke.Of equal concern is why the media ignored this good news coming from Iraq. It seems to be of a piece with how they've treated other recent positive developments in Iraq (see editorial below).
We ask again * why aren't you seeing and hearing more about this? The reason is simple: The mainstream media find it inconveniently contradicts the story they have been telling you for years.
Indeed!
Why the Dems suck as much as the Republicans
from: steph's JournURL weblogAdded: 2008-07-07 10:54:54.0 | comments: 0
I don't know why we listen to ANY of these guys, but I can say with no little pride that I didn't vote for Kerry OR Bush.
Has Anyone Else Noticed
from: End of the Internet, TheAdded: 2008-07-03 12:44:39.0 | comments: 0
Barack Obama is starting to sound a lot like George Bush.
As if his reversals on NAFTA, FISA, and Iraq aren't enough, this week he declared that he will continue with President Bush's faith based initiative.
Have his supporters noticed?
The Wall Street Journal has. From an article dated yesterday titled Bush's Third Term:
We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of "George Bush's third term." Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely "running to the center." He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?
If you care about that sort of stuff, read the whole thing. If all you care about is the young look and the soaring rhetoric, well he's the same old Obama for you. Hope no one minds if I now refer to Barack as OBushma. Just pretend you don't notice.
Let's hear it for the politics of change! We get Bush's third term plus higher taxes, rationed health care and no drilling.
Remember the '30's.
from: End of the Internet, TheAdded: 2008-07-01 17:52:55.0 | comments: 2
Arthur Silber is an uber-lefty who is worried about Obama. This post talks about why.
A taste:
People had better wake the hell up, and they had better study some history very damned fast. I have sometimes remarked, and I repeat the warning here, that the twentieth century was a nonstop train of horrors -- yet in one sense, the most terrible and horrifying aspect of the twentieth century is that we learned absolutely nothing from it.Among the horrors of the twentieth century were several notable leaders who initiated events that led to slaughter and destruction on an ungraspably monumental scale. These charismatic leaders evoked a response from their followers almost identical to that called forth by Obama. These leaders specialized in "personal stories of political conversion." Doesn't anyone see the connection? Doesn't anyone remember any of this?
AS they say, read the whole thing.
King Maker
from: steph's JournURL weblogAdded: 2008-06-27 11:04:21.0 | comments: 0
In an amusing irony, it seems that The Man Who Would Be King might not be a force in the political world without the campaign finance reform of his rival, John McCain.
Oh, John, I KNEW you'd be sorry one day.
Hang up and drive!
from: steph's JournURL weblogAdded: 2008-06-26 11:54:57.0 | comments: 2
I don't have a single bumper sticker on my car. Never have, in fact, or at least not in 20 years or so. But I'm considering one I saw the other day:
Hang up and drive!
I'm SICK of imbeciles babbling away on their cell phones instead of paying attention to traffic around them. They run lights. They sit through green lights. They turn in front of other people. They cut people off. Apparently plugging a cell phone into the ear causes the average driver to revert to all the experience and attention span of the average 3 year old.
In fact, I'm sick of imbeciles babbling away on their cell phones in the grocery store, blocking the aisle I'm trying to move through. I'm sick of them at the check out line in the dry cleaner, where they chat and stand in my way instead of telling the lady what they want. I'm sick of hearing about people's love lives while I'm trying to eat dinner in a restaurant. In fact, despite the fact that I now have two cell phones and use them all the time, I'm beginning to think that cell phones may be the end of civilization as we know it. Yes, I know that's not necessarily a Bad Thing, given the state of civilization, but do I have to suffer through the idiocy of cell phone babble while we fade away into well-deserved oblivion?
I'm usually opposed to more government regulation just on general principles. The government almost always screws it up somehow or other. But the trend of the states towards regulating cell phone babble in the car is an exception to my rule of thumb, and one I applaud enthusiastically. After my experience last night, trying to make a left hand turn behind a woman who was both chatting on her cell phone and yelling at her child in the back seat while the light cycled through green to red, I'd support making a device that disables cell phones in cars completely.
What would Anthony Kennedy Do?
from: End of the Internet, TheAdded: 2008-06-24 17:17:40.0 | comments: 0
Let's Fly Under the Bridge lays it out:
In the first civilian judicial review of the government's evidence for holding any of the Guantánamo Bay detainees, a federal appeals court has ordered that one of them be released or given a new military hearing.The ruling, made known Monday in a notice from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, overturned a Pentagon tribunal's decision in the case of one of 17 Guantánamo detainees who are ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from western China.
....The one-paragraph notice from the appeals court said a three-judge panel had found in favor of Huzaifa Parhat, a former fruit peddler who made his way from western China to a Uighur camp in Afghanistan.
....Its practical consequences for Parhat, however, are not clear. The administration has said it will not return Uighur detainees to China because of concerns about their treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, which views them as terrorists.
That old frying pan
from: steph's JournURL weblogAdded: 2008-06-24 12:09:08.0 | comments: 4
So, in the name of getting out of oil, let's jump out of the frying pan and into the (nuclear) fire....
I've never been impressed with arguments that go "if we just went nuclear, we could get off the oil tit." Those arguments ignore the realty of an essentially permanent pollutant that cannot be safely stored and that poisons everything it touches.
As much as I hate oil, and pollution from oil-based fuels, at least those can be cleaned up eventually. A nasty little accident with a reactor, like Chernobyl, renders everything around it uninhabitable for what amounts to eternity. If we learned nothing else from 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, it's that current technology is not adequate. And even if it were - even if we could absolutely guarantee a safe reactor, what do we do with the waste? There isn't a storage or disposal technology available. It just doesn't exist.
I want a replacement for petroleum, but not at the cost of creating nuclear wastelands. It just makes no sense to take that kind of risk when we KNOW we can't make it safe.
Is Obama's Veneer Cracking?
from: End of the Internet, TheAdded: 2008-06-23 18:15:13.0 | comments: 0
Lots of people seem to think so. Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, the flag pin, and even NAFTA didn't seem to cause more than a ripple of displeasure. Strangely enough most are pointing to Obama's reversal on Campaign Finance Reform coupled with the arrogance of coming up with his own presidential seal as the finally sowing the seeds of discontent - at least with the media.
Maybe so - and as we know the media is responsible for a lot of points in this (and every) election. Chris Matthews' "tingle down his leg" at the sight of Obama is shared by a lot of people.
If Obama loses, the loss may be tracked back to last week, for all the above noted reasons. I'd agree with that timing, but not the reason. I think what has turned the tide (if in fact it has turned) is his opposition to drilling.
All the high mindedness that the new Messiah brings to the presidential horizon gets jettisoned when you have to open your wallet and take out a Benjamin to pay to fill up your car.