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My wife went into surgery Tuesday Aug 9th at 8am to replace a bicuspid aortic heart valve.

They found the existing heart valve was smaller than expected, so they fitted a 19mm mechanical heart valve and put the heart back together. This resulted in an unacceptable gradient, so they removed the valve, enlarged the valve area, and installed a 21mm valve. She was heavily dependent on the heart machine to keep her blood flow up.

She came out of surgery around 3:30pm, and woke up around 10pm. It was hoped that her heart would beat on its own, but this was not the case. She ended up getting a permanent pacemaker installed Friday at 6:30am.

She stayed in ICU until Friday near noon, also keeping tabs on her right lung which suffered a tear during surgery. This caused an air pocket next to her ribs, and a collapsed lung. While a torn lung and a heart not beating are apparently common, having them both on the same patient are uncommon. My wife was on some pretty hefty medications that made it very difficult for her to process questions and choose an answer. “How are you doing?” “…….. I don’t know.” “Can I get you anything?” “…….. I don’t know.”  This is typical of the pain killers issued.

Moved up to the Cardiac Ward, she continued to improve. She was becoming more mobile, more awake, and continued to be healing. Half her staples came out Saturday, the rest on Sunday. The last IV came out Monday, she was able to do stairs, and we were discharged in the early afternoon.

We stayed one night at my wife’s brother’s place, and headed home Tuesday morning, taking it easy. My wife continues to feel better each day, and has starting tapering off her pain killers.

We had a lot of people praying for use, and while this didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped, God still answered our prayers – my lovely wife is with us today.

It started as merely a linen closet in the basement.

Which became a walk-in linen closet.

Which led to boxing in a furnace duct, truing one drywall panel, removing a wall section, removing two stub walls, relocating two light switches, removing one wall socket, removing the wainscoting, re-paneling the main house beam in the ceiling, re-paneling two more the furnace ducts, re-boxing the water main pipes, replacing the carpet, replacing the tiled floor section, replacing the suspended ceiling, replacing the light fixtures, and full painting.

Yes, I’m still new at this reno thing.

And what the heck were people thinking when they intially “finished” this basement?  If they had dealt with the staircase properly, the rest of the framing would have lined up nicely.  And the “drop down” under the front entrance – so odd.  Poorly planned.  The “new” closet (blue wall) should come out all the way to the drop down, but can’t because the existing storage entrance (short door) cannot be moved due to yet another furnace duct.

And there’s so much more wrong.  Or at least not up to my standards.  Mind you, it’s just a basement.  How far do I go to “fix” it?  Rip ~everything down and start again?  Crikey.

Bless you, Matchbox, bless you.

Image Source

Canucks lose the cup (no surprise, re: 1994).

Canuck fans riot, and trash their own town (no surprise, re: 1994).

BCTV News Story

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid people.

Awesome car in every respect.

This one was fitted with monster 275/35R15 Hoosier tires. The fenders were cut to clear.  Crazy wide tires.

Yes, that’s a Lexan spoiler.  Yes, there are Kirkey seats in it.  Yes, there’s even a splitter on the front.  This car is fine-tuned to the maximum allowable in SCCA CSP Solo II rules.  And yes, we all want one.

Election results: Conservative Majority.

Kind of what I thought shortly after the LAST federal election, when the Liberal leader pushed for another election, succeeding, finally, via a non-confidence vote. Stupid political gaming.

My thoughts at the time: I hope the election results are overwhelmingly against this opposition. And so it was.

http://www.canada.gc.ca/home.html

With another federal election upon us, I have a tip for “the suits in charge:”

Just run the dang country, already.

Stop making all these stupid political promises that you will neither follow through on, nor stick to, just to get re-elected.

Stop playing all these stupid political games to either make yourself look good, stall bills, prevent anything from being accomplished, annoy the other party, or whatever menial non-country-running motivation has captured your self-centered heart.

I bet you’d get a lot more voter turn-out if we actually believed that you actually made a difference up there on the hill.  I’m gathering you do, but we see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from/of our local representatives until election time, and then they disappear.  It just appears as if it’s all a game to you.

“It doesn’t matter who you vote for – the government always gets in.” –Unknown

Just run the dang country already.

Back online with this dandy bit of reference.

Read More: How To Read Capacitors