Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

Equipment maintenance and repair is an ongoing thing. Sorry about the piston seal blowing. Seems it's always something.

I understand channel cats are pretty prolific, so hopefully their numbers will increase well over time. Unless of course you continue to flood as you've been doing. In that case I'm guessing the numbers of everything will kinda stabilize out to what the river contains. Guess you decided to go ahead and let them do the implant. Sounds like it's "working" like it's supposed to do. I'm sure you'll be much happier once all the physical restrictions are lifted and you can get back to some semblance or normal.

Latestarter said:

I wish I had a pond I could fish in. Not big on eating them but love catching them.

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I love catching them and eating them as well if they are edible. We thought about making a small pond on our property but then would have to get DEC involved and get a permit all that stuff so we didn't.

greybeard said:

but I do need someone to fish out a lot of the bass...way too many in there

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I would do it if I live close to you.

Latestarter said:

Instead, I dragged out the chain saw and cut some low hanging limbs that were scratching me all to hell when I mowed.

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That will be a "gift" that keeps on giving. I SHOULD cut the lowest branch off the ornamental cherry in the front but the chickens use it to get into the tree in the fall to eat the cherries. So I use the string trimmer under that part.

Latestarter said:

But off course doing any kind of work in this weather means laundry piles up quick.

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Hey, you live out in the boonies where no one can see you. Work in the buff, no clothes to wash!

greybeard said:

and run that apparatus down my throat to peer inside my heart to make sure the tissue grew over the implanted device as it should.

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I didn't know the inside of one's heart was accessible through the throat. How exactly does that work??

greybeard said:

but I do need someone to fish out a lot of the bass...way too many in there.

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A problem many would love to have. Hopefully your son and his friends can help you out.

There are arteries in the neck that run from the brain to the heart thru the throat....

Ewwwww!

I took my camera out for barn close up time, hoping to get a picture of the one brave little chick that has twice decided to sleep on high roosts instead of in the brooder. The first night there was no other bird in area. Last night there was one. Tonight many of them seem to have decided they want the favored roost area back from the interloper and she was wandering. Several of the hens were getting feisty with each other and it was decided she would be safer in the brooder. So no picture. But I did take a picture of the aforementioned cherry tree since it is in bloom. The "offending" branch is the one on they lower right. I had DD2 mow today, apparently she chose not to duck at all, she usually gets more cut than I do, she's shorter and younger, more flexible

The particular test is called a “tilt table” or TEE (transesophageal echocardiogram.) It’s a fancy way of saying they give you meds similar to a colonoscopy and do an ultrasound of the back side of your heart. It’s often used to look for clots.

Wehner Homestead said:

The particular test is called a “tilt table” or TEE (transesophageal echocardiogram.) It’s a fancy way of saying they give you meds similar to a colonoscopy and do an ultrasound of the back side of your heart. It’s often used to look for clots.

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Yes, it's a TEE.
An ultrasound from the outside only shows part of your heart but the TEE shows them a lot more and better view of the LAA.
They will be looking for both clots and to see if the endocardial tissue is growing as it should over the device, and of course, to make sure the device stayed where it was implanted. If all goes well, I'll have another TEE in Sept or Oct, then just my annual visit to my regular cardiologist for the stress test.
I saw her today, just before my pre-op assesment/blood gathering/ekg etc and she agreed that I should be fine no longer taking Lasix (a diuretic to make me get rid of excess water), Losartan (for hi BP) or Metoprolol ( beta-blocker used to treat chest pain (angina), heart failure, and high blood pressure) all of which, due to low bp and heart rate, I have been off of since the implant was done.
My resting bp has been running right around 100/50 with heart rate in the mid to upper 50s for the last 5 weeks, and in the 24 hrs right after the implant was lower than that, which last month caused the folks in recovery some concern and they wanted to keep me another day as the low rate kept making the alarm go off..but they let me go home after discussing it with my cardio angel. (she's a champ, 100% professional, but knows me well, always asks about my cattle, and over a year ago gave me cell # and told me to call her direct if I ever had any heart issues, instead of going thru her dept service.)

I'm one of those people that can affect the upper # of my BP at will most of the time, within just a couple of minutes, the lower #, not quite as easily. I had told her that one time, as she got thru taking my BP and she didn't believe me. I told her, just leave the cuff on, then explained my twin could do the same thing, and we said a few more things and I said "OK, check it again" and it had dropped from 110/62 to 96/60. A few minutes later, I dropped it to 90/55, and then, after a little thought, raised it to 128/73, just sitting there talking, and all within 15 minutes, maybe just ten minutes.

"How did you do that?"
"It's, hard to explain..."
"Well, I have other patients to see but next time you come in, we're going to talk about this some."

She already knew I did the same with chronic pain. I just concentrate as soon as I wake up, and mentally put it somewhere I never go. (I have bad discs in my lower back, worn out shoulder sockets, and damaged tissue in my left calf from a snake bite and of course, the vein harvest for my cabg from the same calf the snake bite caused so much swelling in)
(I cannot do it with instant/unexpected pain, such as a wasp sting, a burn, or electric shock..in early Sept, 2015, I inadvertently drilled an 1/8" hole completely thru my left index finger, fingernail and out the underside..it hurt..worst part was having to put the drill in reverse and backing the bit out.)
I did get some morphine the night after my quad bypass because what they had to do with my ribcage , but I absolutely hated the morphine..it doesn't take pain away, it just makes you not give a crap that it's there. That was the last time I tried any pain meds.

The mind is a wonderful thing and can be trained to do a lot of things.
I never take any pain medication, tho I've been offered it many times from doctors. It drives my wife nuts.

Pain is 10% physical and 90% mental. It's really amazing what you can push away simply by not thinking about it.

That said, as I get older that ratio seems to want to tilt more physical lol.

mystang89 said:

Pain is 10% physical and 90% mental.

That said, as I get older that ratio seems to want to tilt more physical lol.

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Opposite observation than I have, and I'm lot closer to 70 than I am 60.

Bruce said:

Hey, you live out in the boonies where no one can see you. Work in the buff, no clothes to wash

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Ummm I already have poison ivy/oak issues, not to mention the mosquitoes... and the post talked about cutting down limbs that scratch the heck out of me... There is no way I'm working around this place au natural. I have more sense than that! No problem stripping all the nasty clothes off outside and hosing off before coming in though.