And now what did you do TODAY?

[skullguise]

Best wishes to you both, hope your mom improves quickly and fully!

[jpelg]

^This!

[Voltron]

More of that^. Best of luck Knucks!

[swt61]

Indeed.

[guzziguy]

21 hours ago, skullguise said:

Best wishes to you both, hope your mom improves quickly and fully!

More of this.

[blessingx]

Went to the Battle of the Bulge 60th anniversary exhibit at the [next to NASA Ames] Moffett Field Museum. 

That tree stump doesn’t stand a chance. 

Edited January 12 by blessingx

[Knuckledragger]

I swear I don't just log in here to report medical mishaps.  Yesterday was a banner day by anyone's standards.  MV is an expensive place to live.  There's few doctors on the island because full time general practitioners cannot afford to live here.  Mum doesn't have a doctor and neither do I.  She had a followup phone call yesterday from a nurse practitioner.  When mum went to the ER on Christmas day because of covid, they detected what they thought was a heart murmur.  Mum didn't see fit to mention that to me until yesterday, but that's another matter.  The fallout of all of this was that I had to drive her to the hospital yesterday afternoon.  After many hours there, they determined that she has Lyme disease from a tick bite this past summer.  That is a recurring theme here on MV.  I am cursed to spend my whole life in places that are hotbeds for tick borne diseases.  Still, much better news than actual cardio problems.

With that in mind, I've mentioned the Dreyer family here on MV before.  They're a nice couple in their 80s.  Peter is a photographer, who shot 4x5" for decades.  Adele is a piano teacher with a Steinway.  They're both in as good health as any member of the silent generation.  They have a daughter named Gwen.  She's my age and in far better shape than I am.  Yesterday she was giving blood and fainted.  The staff could not revive her and she ended up in the ER.  A blood test revealed high levels of troponin.  TIL (or more to the point, YIL)  troponin is a protein found in heart muscles and a high percentage of it is in the blood stream, that most likely means a heart attack.  I repeat, Gwen is a healthy woman in her early 50s. 

The MV hospital doesn't have the necessary equipment to perform the required heart tests, so they doctors ordered Gwen be sent to MGH in Boston.  There were no beds there, so she had to be sent to Mass General Brigham.  She was to travel there by helicopter, which arrived sometime after 1AM.  At 3AM, the helicopter had to make an emergency landing because of instrument failure(!)  It wasn't until 6AM that there was another one available (as of yet I have no idea where the copter touched down) so Gwen spent a number of hours in the early morning (and COLD) waiting.  I still have not heard what the tests performed at MGB revealed.  I did learn that one of her cats has been keeping vigil on Gwen's bed during her absence.

It's been quite a 24 hours.

[Augsburger]

So now we have mountain lion sightings a couple of neighborhoods away and a new fire up north of us.  Waiting to see if we need to shelter some friends until this is over. 

Before the fire view

During the fire with 30+ mph winds. Yuck!

I blame Brent.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Augsburger

[Grahame]

19 minutes ago, Augsburger said:

So now we have mountain lion sightings a couple of neighborhoods away and a new fire up north of us.  Waiting to see if we need to shelter some friends until this is over. 

I blame Brent.

He has space lasers?

Edited 21 hours ago by Grahame

[swt61]

Wait, I thought Battle of the Bulge was a gay dance off thing?

[Augsburger]

14 minutes ago, swt61 said:

Wait, I thought Battle of the Bulge was a gay dance off thing?

Well technically speaking, at my age it is more like the Battle of the Sag...

[Grahame]

 

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Grahame
Non private video, thanks Guardian

[blessingx]

^ Ugh, no more!

 

Here: drove home from the hospital with my happy family. After a couple trips to urgent care, it was decided Esmé had some undiagnosed virus. A "stomach bug". A week into and third visit, diagnosis found - the appendix that ruptured sometime in the last week. 😵‍💫 High pain threshold is sometimes a disadvantage. Rushed to Stanford Packard hospital and then (similar to Knucks above) with viral infections filling all pediatric beds transferred in the night to San Francisco Van Ness. After another week, lots of antibiotics, a drain installed, some morphine, and several visits to the hospital's Teen Lounge, we were given the okay to come home. Lesson learned: Trust the fever. No matter the other symptoms and/or how patient is feeling, keep an eye on that temp. There may be something behind the thing. Thus ends my medical advice. 

E's proud portrait of parents on the day before leaving "the penthouse". The dad looks like a dick. 

 

[Grahame]

^ So A.I. not ready to replace doctors just yet, or possibly last week?

But beats being bored at Al's as far as a teen is concerned, as anything but boring?

Interesting times.

Edited 17 hours ago by Grahame
A.I. rather than AI to avoid confusion.

[Voltron]

So much for the good luck black eyed peas! Or did she skip them in favor of root beers and cookies? Yikes. Glad they eventually found it and that her appendix juice didn't do even worse damage. 😬 

[blessingx]

I’ll wait on A.I. judgement until I get the bill. 

As for good luck, if I’m an optimistic type, there were several steps, including a doctor’s actions on his day off, I could point to. Also we were only caught once out of six pediatric ward escapes exploring. So the peas power remains. 

[Grahame]

1 hour ago, Grahame said:

 

 

But at least it was an old school organic fire, rather than a high tech lithium ion fire.

"Fire at one of the world's largest battery plants forces evacuations in California"  https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/g-s1-43268/fire-battery-storage-plant-california-moss-landing

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/17/california-battery-plant-fire-monterey

 

https://www.ksbw.com/article/gov-gavin-newsom-moss-landing-battery-fire/63514813

 

[robm321]

I had my appendix explode about four year ago when I ignored a bunch of symptoms. I like to pretend it was my stubbornness, but it was probably my willful ignorance. She must be tough, cuz, I felt it explode and it wasn't subtle. I think it's safe to say, better to have it happen at her age than 50. 

FYI: My total bill was $500k~ish. I paid my yearly insurance max of $10k. It wasn't comfortable waiting for the insurance to pay at all. I kept getting bill after bill saying I owed it all for months until the insurance finally paid up. Just giving you a heads up. 

Oh yeah, the stomach drain SUCKS. And that picture 😂 ... makes me want to say, "blink 3 times if you need help"

 

Edited 14 hours ago by robm321

[blessingx]

9 hours ago, robm321 said:

Oh yeah, the stomach drain SUCKS.

Hopefully.

But seriously folks, yes, the first night with the drain, the four different painkillers in rapid succession night, was easily the toughest. That zero to ten pain scale may need a few more digits. 

Interestingly, as I understand it, depending on how difficult the obstruction phase is, the rupture can even be a temporary relief for some, before the leaking fluids and infections retake the lead. Obviously, not your case Rob and it sounds like it was pretty awful. 

Also thanks for the monetary heads up. Retirement is overrated, right?