21 Oct 08 Woohoo I got the call - surgery time! :) Fast after midnight, Chlorhexidine Gluconate in the AM and no pills
Wooooohooooo….. 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning I go under the trusty scalpel (actually, phlebectomy hooks, I think)… and no food or drink after midnight tonight (I.E. let’s eat drink and be merry tonight!)
In the morning I get to wash with the Chlorhexidine Gluconate (4%) antiseptic soap…. at least on the leg destined for surgery, although I suppose I could use it all over (except eyes and ears as it can cause blindness)….
Tags: Health, surgery, varicose veins
20 Oct 08 Being anxious for surgery - sounds crazy but…
Well, even Tristan commented recently that I need to get this vascular surgery done with… (trust me, I want it more than anyone)…
So if all goes well this time around, by this time tomorrow night I should have received my phone call from the hospital surgery admissions office confirming what time I go in on Wednesday…
According to the doctor, despite it being quite a most severe case of vein stripping, I should be able to walk the day after. On the other hand, the amateur surgeon in me did some searching online, and apparently the day after it is recommended to ambulate the operated leg to prevent ulcers and bruising.
Tags: Health, surgery, Tristan, varicose veins
19 Oct 08 Levaquin, bronchitis, Passchendaele, vascular surgery and time with Oma & boys & the DFW / SO
So the Levaquin antibiotics seem to finally have gained the upper hand on the nasty (acute, as per the pre-admissions physician at the Jewish General Hospital said) bronchitis and accompanying fever etc that has hounded me for the last 3 weeks.
It was a great, relaxing weekend, with an early Saturday rise (somewhat) and the DFW/SO starting a well-needed re-organising of the boys’ rooms and cleanup in general. I had 3 eggs, 10 slices of bacon, 3 toasts with butter for breakfast (appetite is back) and 2 tuna/mayo/mustard sandwiches for lunch. After that it was finalising the cleanup and reorganising and furniture moving around, followed by relaxing and watching “So you think you can dance, Canada” (man, all of them in the top 20 can really groove!… all of them, but the blonde in the blue outfit, mmmmmmmm)…
Then some absolutely scrumptious Lamb Balti and Basmati before heading out for the 22:00 late showing at the ScotiaBank cinema of the new war & romance flick Passchendaele by Paul gross… it was great, if not quite in the “sequence” that we both felt it would be. The second half of the movie has most of the actual combat scenes and as it is a WW1 movie there is very overt and visually intense depictions of how close the combat was in the 1st world war….
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Tags: boys, Food, Health, Love, Passchendaele, surgery, Tristan, Zachary
11 Oct 08 CTV W5 Capital Shame : The great decline of Canada’s national Capital – Ottawa caught in huge crack and meth crisis
I just watched a truly disheartening and frightening CTV W-Five episode covering a subject that is often not discussed – far less so by the Federal ministers on Parliament Hill just blocks from one of the worst drug, prostitution and homelessness problems anywhere in the nation. None of them, including Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, accepted to meet with CTV W-5 saying they were “too busy”…
They hounded the Premier of Ontario, but he also brushed off a reporter and hustled into a building…
Personally, I am not surprised by this report. I’ve been to Ottawa many times over the last 20-25 years; my ex-wife and much of her family were from there, as was my late stepfather.
In January 2008 I began a series of about a ½ dozen business trips, one every month or so, to the National Capital Region and usually stayed in hotels in the Downtown, or Byward Market area. The Byward Market is a charming 3-4 square block neighbourhood which, by day is a nice selection of multicultural restaurants and farmer market type stands. It’s next to one of the largest shopping centre’s in the Ottawa metropolitan area; the Rideau Centre Shopping Centre.
Now being a Montrealer, I like to explore a city’s nightlife and evening culture – we have a massive choice of cafés, lounges, showbars and nightclubs in Montreal – around the market.
A few of the times I stayed in hotels (including the Econolodge and Marriott Courtyard Inn) near the Byward Market. Those are both nice hotels; granted the Econo Lodge Downtown at 475 Rideau street is pretty much no-frills motor inn more than hotel with rooms straight onto an inside parking lot that is directly onto Rideau street across from a 7-11 and in the vicinity of churches, residential homes and … well a little pic of the Econolodge :
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Tags: Capital Shame, Crime, CTV W-5, CTV W-Five, drugs, Health, Ottawa, Politics, Television, Travel
10 Oct 08 TGIF : Vive le weekend with my boys ; summary of this weeks twits from Twitter
Well, still suffering with this “acute” bronchitis (as the Dr. at the Jewish General Hospital called it after listinening to my lungs, but I’m relieved that this week at work (with 4-5 major system failures/outages) is behind me. The priority for now is a good night of sleep and having a great day tomorrow and Sunday with Zachary and Tristan… 
That’s what counts.
So for anyone who’s noticed, I installed a little widget on the right side of the site that shows my most recent twits on Twitter. Twitter is basically a microblogging platforum for quick messages up to 140 characters (no tags, titles, formatting, etc.), easily used from multiple devices in multiple locations (usually mobile, but it’s becoming hugely popular in the general desktop Web as well.) I’ll write more in my tech blog.
You can also grab an RSS feed for my Twitter updates.
