Saturday, July 29, 2006

A funny thing happened to my Dad on the way to get back surgery. Turns out he needed a heart bypass, so that surgery is on hold. Yesterday, he had the procedure over at Parma, a hospital that has really turned itself around over the last decade, now affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic. He had a triple bypass. In the words of Kramer, a "zipper job". It seems this is a fairly common procedure these days. Three-and-a-half hours later, it was done, and he was on his way to the recovery room. Yesterday, he had lots of tubes in him and a bunch of monitoring systems. I was there for the surgery and stopped in right after and again in the late afternoon and never saw him awake. But the surgery was deemed a success and he was resting comfortably.

I spent a few hours with him today and, my goodness, you wouldn't have even known he had major surgery the day before. A lot less tubes and machines and he's sitting up, coherent, and telling his silly jokes (Before the operation example, when I got to see him in the pre-op room. Me: "You look like a million bucks!" Him: "What? Green and wrinkled?"), as usual. All the staff says how funny he is, quite the character, and all that stuff. Even his main nurse, who I termed "really cute" at first but then amended to "she is the hawt", wishes her Dad was like that.

Anyhow, it's a most incredible surgery. He maintained his color pretty well and I'm sure there will be trials and tribulations with getting back on solid food and struggling with his back again. But, for the moment, I think everyone is in awe of how modern medicine can do some really wonderful things.

Meal of Links

Best Friend gave me the book, "Miracle in the Andes", for my birthday. You remember the incident. The one where the rugby team from Uruguay crashed in the Andes and they had to resort to eating the dead to survive. This is the story of a survivor who, with a teammate, hiked down from the mountain and was able to find help to rescue the remaining survivors. A tale of how he was driven by the love of his father to survive. So, what better time to crack it open and I thought it was a really good read.

If you want it to appear that people have to call you all the time, I give you the "Popularity Dialer". You know where you can reach me best, don't you?

What if you were tormented by "Cats That Look Like Hitler"? Check out the "Best Kitlers". You'll laugh.













That Pam Anderson will age ya pretty fast.

Exercise Yard

Another American doper in track. This time, it's Justin Gatlin. He's only the current world record holder at 100 meters. Remember when the USA actually cared about this sport, instead of "only at the Olympics"?

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1 Down: Pioneer of the programmable computer (7 letters) Answer: Babbage

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