Just a quick update…as I noted in my last post Connie needed surgery to remove a bad portion of her colon that causes her repeated bouts of diverticulitis. So after spending the weekend doing the bowel prep for it…a feat that makes the colonoscopy prep look tame…we arrived at the hospital at 0500 Monday morning for her 0700 surgery. She got checked in, pre-op’ed, and got some happy juice via her IV and headed for the OR with Neil adjourning to the waiting room. She was out of the OR about 1100 and in the “wake them up” room (it’s got some cool medical name but he never got told what it was) and then she was moved once she was awake (well, she actually might have appeared to be awake but that was just a trick) they moved her into the PACU or Post Anesthesia Care Unit. After she was in there a couple of hours they brought Neil back about 1300…he had gotten a call from the surgeon about 1100 with details of the successful and pretty much normal surgery results. After an hour or so in there…they needed the PACU spot for another patient but her room wasn’t ready yet so they moved her (thanks Kevin) over to the pre-op section again. While in there she got a dose of oxycontin to go along with her IV Tylenol and that was the only narcotics she had. Another hour or so later they moved her (thanks again Kevin) up to her room and Neil stayed with her until about 1800…by that time they were both falling asleep so she did so and he went home and did so.

Tuesday he went down, walked with her through the day, and came home about 1900 or so.

Wednesday they had her back on real food again…and finally about 1600 she accomplished her last remaining goal before she could be released…the repaired bowel needs to produce output as they say before you can leave. That milestone reached…they figured that she would probably get released Thursday AM…until about 1800 when the nurse with the surgeon on the phone with her said she could go home tonight…she said SOLD!!…and 90 minutes later we were on the road home.

So…60 hours after major surgery she’s up and about and actually feeling pretty well. They gave her a scrip for oxycontin if she needs it but she’s been taking just Tylenol so it’s unlikely she’ll take any of it. Best of all…she’s home and has her recliner and her bed and is back to eating our normal food with a few restrictions until she sees the surgeon again in a week or so.

Neil’s got a bunch of cool medical stuff he learned about the procedure she had and surgery and anesthesia over the past couple of days…but he’s too tired to tell me ‘bout ‘em right now and being a bear Ima not a mind reader so that part will have to wait.

He does have the first cut done on the 800 images they shot a week and a half ago up at the Venice Rookery…deleted about half of them as being bad shots (pretty normal), and of the remaining 350 or so he picked the 100 or so blog candidates. He need to go through them again and whittle them down to 15 or 20 before doing the post processing for the blog…but between all the surgery prep and hospital visiting time just hasn’t gotten it done yet. But there’s hope now that she’s home and I’ll keep after him to finish up so I can put ‘em up for ya.

So…no pictures tonight…but just a couple of…you guessed it.

Interesting things found on the net.

You’ve probably heard about these large cats called Black Panthers…but they’re actually just regular cats (leopards, jaguars mostly) that happen to be black…but if you get real close you can still see the spots in them. Here’s a shot that looks like a leopard and it’s shadow…but in actuality it’s just a female leopard and her black panther (which is really just a leopard in disguise) mate.

Ima just wondering’…how do you sample this?

And in celebration of Groundhog Day a week or so back…

Cyas.