The Greenman's Grove

Well, the waterfall in the kitchen has been contained, for (just) less than $500 dollars. Apparently, due to the age of the pipes (and the fact that we'd been using Draino on them to clear clogging) the pipes were going to go at some point, and they just happened to go yesterday morning.

Unfortunately, we were also informed that we're going to have to replace our hot water heater. The guy quoted us a price of $960, which included the price of the new water heater (a better model than the Sears model that we currently have), the installation cost, and the cost to remove the old one. I have no idea if that's a good price or not. One of the things that I'm going to be doing today is looking at the cost of water heaters, and see if that seems like a reasonable price.

But I'd be elated if we could avoid having any other of our household appliances or systems break down for a while.

On lighter news (literally), as I was putting clothes back in the closet last night (the access panel for the tub plumbing is in the back of our bedroom closet), I decided to try on an old sports coat that I'd been wearing a lot around the time Alyse and I got married. I hadn't been able to wear it for a while, since I'd gained a lot of weight, but I've been losing weight over the last few months. And lo and behold, it fit! Might still be just a touch tight, but it's certainly within the realm of wearable. And I'm still working on losing weight, so it will certainly be wearable again.

It's not that I want to wear that sports coat a lot... But it's a physical confirmation of the fact that I AM losing weight, which is a really cool thing.

As of last night, he was still in the SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit) but continues to made great improvement by the day. When I got there last night, he was sitting up in a chair in his room, and had been for about an hour. He stayed there for another 45 minutes, then a nurse and I helped move him back into bed. He stood there for a couple of minutes on his own (leaning on me a little more for balance than for support) while the nurse straightened out tubes and cables, then we got him into bed and comfortable. He's still in a fair amount of pain, but they've been giving him good drugs, and he's pretty comfortable for the most part. They've also removed a lot of the cables and leads that they've had on him for the last few days, and while there are still a number left, there's a lot less than there have been. They're still closely monitoring a couple of things, especially his blood pressure and his blood sugar levels (he's diabetic, for those who don't know) but both of those were much improved last night as well.

He's alert and getting cantankerous, especially since he's never been very good about laying around. But he's in good spirits, and we talked about book and religion, and Rob being Rob, he pulled one of the nurses into the conversation for a bit as well.

We don't know when he's getting out yet. The doctor had originally told him that he'd be out about 4-6 days after the surgery, but Saturday will be day 4. They haven't given him any warning yet about kicking him out, so I'm suspecting that he probably won't be sprung until early next week, maybe Monday or Tuesday.

Overall, for the fact that he just went through a double bypass and had a french fry sized (and shaped) chunk of plaque removed from one of his carotid arteries, he's doing pretty damn well. And for that, I am incredibly grateful.

We just had an associate of the surgeon come out and let us know that the surgeon is closing rob up now, and will probably be out of O.R. in about an hour. She wouldn't answer any specific questions, but certainly gave us the impression that everything has gone well, at least up until now. They'll let us know more once he's actually out of the O.R. and into the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, where he will be watched for a while before moved into recovery.

Ok, so my Dad called me last week, and told me that he needed to get a couple of arteries in his neck routed out. He had a similar procedure done to his legs a few years back. But first, he was going in for a stress test.

Went in for the stress test, and they found some stuff that made them go hmmm... And scheduled him for an angiogram, which was performed yesterday. Before he went in, he mentioned that they might also do a bit of angioplasty, to remove the blockage that they'd found. But, he told me that either he or my stepmother Dawn would call me back when he got out of the procedure, to let me know how it had gone.

This morning, I had the sudden realization that not only had the procedure been yesterday, rather than next Monday, I hadn't heard back from him. In addition, I realized that I'd had a moment of complete nothingness, and hadn't gotten any information about what hospital he was going to be in for the procedure. Called both his home and cell numbers, and coudln't get ahold of either him of Dawn (my stepmother). Left voicemail at both places, then started calling around to local hospitals to try and find him. Nobody had any idea who he was, and I started getting really scared. Started trying to get ahold of my stepsister to find out if she'd heard anything.

And then, just as I was sitting there trying to figure out what to do next, my cell phone starts ringing, and it's my dad, calling me back. He was at one of the hospitals that I'd already called, but apparently they had forgotten they had him or something. In any case, they'd kept him overnight, because the angioplasty that might have happened couldn't be done because the blockage was too big. They wanted to keep him overnight for observation, and until he could talk to his cardiologist. Who walked into his room as we were talking on the phone, so he told me he'd call back with more information.

He called back a bit later. Turns out that they're going to have to perform open heart surgery to fix the problem. They scheduled the surgery for Tuesday the 2nd of September, and they're letting him go right now. My stepmother and my aunt Janet are on their way to go get him right now, and as soon as I get out of work, I'm going to go stop by his place and see him for a bit.

And, I'll be taking Tuesday off to be at the hospital. I hate hospitals.

Gahhh!!! Oh, and just to add to the stress, we've got piles of people coming to our house on Sunday to help build a raised bed garden for Alyse's birthday... And the house isn't nearly ready for them. And Alyse and I scheduled to be at my Dad and Dawn's on Thursday night for dinner. GAHHHH!!!!!