News from SgtWookie

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
Well, this thread has definitely given me a reason to quit smoking.

I remember going with to my dad's 40th class reunion, and there were like only 5 of them left. :(
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
Well, I was annoying the cute nurses in the ICU too much ao they threw me out. ;)

I hope you all have behaving yourselves while I've been away.
Your home??? Or just put of ICU and into convalescence?

Either way great to hear your are back and ready for action again! :)
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
Well, this thread has definitely given me a reason to quit smoking.

I remember going with to my dad's 40th class reunion, and there were like only 5 of them left. :(
And a good lesson to all of the youngsters on the forum. Take care of yourself when you are young. Watch your diet. Get away from the work bench once in a wile and go out ride a bike, hike, run or whatever.

Health issues may still arise as you get older but the are a heck of a lot easier to deal when they hit and you are healthy going in. Plus just getting older in general makes it easier when you had a healthy life style all along.

And yes ThatOneGuy please quit smoking we need you. And your family needs you far more.
 

StealthRT

Joined Mar 20, 2009
303
So sad to hear about SgtWookie! I'm glad i noticed this post to wish him all the best in his recovery!!! SgtWookie is an awesome guy who never fails to have helped me out whenever i posted something on this forum!

And thanks Bill for letting us all know!

David
 

SgtWookie

Joined Jul 17, 2007
22,230
I'm not quite out of the woods yet.

They performed a quadruple bypass on me yesterday. That was the most important surgery. Laser drilling would not have worked.

However, when they performed the cardiac catheterization on Tuesday, they found that the main artery to my right leg is ~90% blocked, and the one to my left leg is nearly 100% blocked. That finally explained why I've been finding it harder and harder to walk for any length of time, or particularly to carry heavy items around.

They were pretty impressed that I was up & around so quickly. Usually they keep people in intensive care for a couple of days. I attribute my quick exit from the ICU more to the skill of my doctor than anything. They used to have people just stay in bed until they were fully healed, but nowadays they want you to be up and moving around as quickly as possible. My surgery was finished at 6pm Thursday, and at around 4pm Friday I walked a loop around my floor.

Coughing is very painful. I accidentally inhaled a small piece of bread while eating a sandwich this evening, which had me coughing for about fifteen minutes. I do NOT want to have to go through THAT again.
 
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spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
Coughing is very painful. I accidentally inhaled a small piece of bread while eating a sandwich this evening, which had me coughing for about fifteen minutes. I do NOT want to have to go through THAT again.
Yikes! After going through all that surgery and let a little piece of bread get you. Be careful!

My two biggest fears of living alone choking and falling.
 

gerty

Joined Aug 30, 2007
1,305
I hope they have some sort of plan to clear up the leg issues. I had a heart attack in '95, a mild one, since then I've been on statins. 5 years later I had a follow up arteriogram (sp?) and the doc said it all looked fine.
 

nerdegutta

Joined Dec 15, 2009
2,684
A friend of mine have rubber tubes, from the navel and to the thigh, on both legs. When the doctor used a stethoscope, he couldn't hear the pulse.

Now my friend, who doesn't work due to a whiplash in '90, is bicycling for 6-7 hours straight. (He is actually not so good friend, because I am sure that he could have been working, and contributed to the society. Now he uses my tax money, to go to the gym, vacations i Egypt, and bicycles in the $4500 range....:mad:)
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
Now my friend, who doesn't work due to a whiplash in '90, is bicycling for 6-7 hours straight. (He is actually not so good friend, because I am sure that he could have been working, and contributed to the society. Now he uses my tax money, to go to the gym, vacations i Egypt, and bicycles in the $4500 range....:mad:)
I believe there should be disability, but I also believe people should be helped to heal and be productive again, life is overall better if you feel you have a purpose. Even taking bicycle trips to exotic parts of the world doesn't give a feeling of "purpose" in life. Generally, in the "Anglo-Saxon Sphere", people have a desire to help others and accomplish things in life. That alone should keep people from abusing unemployment/welfare/disability, but it doesn't seem to.
 

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
That alone should keep people from abusing unemployment/welfare/disability, but it doesn't seem to.
No it doesn't. The easier it is for people to have access to these things the more you will see people abusing the system whose purpose is actually to help those who are in real need of it...

I prefer working too. Gives kind of a meaning to life (or purpose as you said)
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
A friend of mine have rubber tubes, from the navel and to the thigh, on both legs. When the doctor used a stethoscope, he couldn't hear the pulse.

Now my friend, who doesn't work due to a whiplash in '90, is bicycling for 6-7 hours straight. (He is actually not so good friend, because I am sure that he could have been working, and contributed to the society. Now he uses my tax money, to go to the gym, vacations i Egypt, and bicycles in the $4500 range....:mad:)
We get that too here. I had a neighbor with a "bad back" on disability. He could not work but could golf 3 times a week.

Contrast that with a woman at work that can barely walk and needs to use crutches to get around, a man with a mangled leg that needs to wrap it around a pole to walk, several people with sight or hearing disablities. All seem to get to work every morning and function just fine.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
However, when they performed the cardiac catheterization on Tuesday, they found that the main artery to my right leg is ~90% blocked, and the one to my left leg is nearly 100% blocked.
My dad just went through the surgery to get stints put in his legs a few months ago. I would recommend if the sugeon did a good job on your bypass surgery, get the same guy to put your stints in (if that's the plan) because the surgeon who worked on my dad made an error. I don't know if it was an unavoidable thing or if he cut the wrong piece, but my dad has nerve damage in his leg now. He has been in constant pain since the surgery. moral of the story: don't let just anybody go probing around inside your body.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
We get that too here. I had a neighbor with a "bad back" on disability. He could not work but could golf 3 times a week.

Contrast that with a woman at work that can barely walk and needs to use crutches to get around, a man with a mangled leg that needs to wrap it around a pole to walk, several people with sight or hearing disablities. All seem to get to work every morning and function just fine.
My dad lost his arm while my mother was pregnant with me. He was out of work for 6 weeks, was denied disability by an unfit judge. He basically said "ok screw your disability then" and never went back. He has worked for the past 27 years doing jobs (oil field roughneck, driller, landscaping, recycling) that most people couldn't do with 2 hands. He can crush your hand if you shake hands with him, but now he has back problems from all the years of uneven loading on his body. still doesn't stop him from working. He won't even take pain meds. So when I see people claiming disability for trivial issues or outright abusing it, it really gets under my skin.
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
@ SgtWookie: Congratulations on your progress so far, and on having your other issues diagnosed before they led to more serious complications, so they can be treated promptly.

I hope that all will go well, and that the eventual result will be a considerable improvement in your well-being.

Adjuster
 

1chance

Joined Nov 26, 2011
46
Wookie, I know that that laser drilling was not appropriate in your case. I was trying to make a rather feeble attempt at humor (obviously, I’m still not a very funny person) in that Wookie was up and about so soon. Good doctors and general health condition are really important in this situation, but being tenacious and strong-willed are almost as important. Now I’ll be nice and say it’s the Marine “can do-will do” training coming out rather than what I’ve often observed as normal male stubbornness.
Those of you that have been on the site for a number of years might remember some years back when Beenthere dropped out of sight for a period of time (this was several years before the cancer stuff). He had an emergency quad bypass (two 80% blocks, two 100% blocks) with a valve repair thrown in. They had to put him on an external pump to keep him alive while they got a “special” specialist in to do the surgery. He was given a 10% chance of surviving the initial surgery. His surgery lasted somewhere around 10 hours. He was intubated (breathing tube) for 2 days, sedated for 3 days, sat up at 4 days, in ICU for 12 days then 3 more days on the regular floor. I’m sharing this to emphasis how well Wookie is doing by comparison.
With the coughing, I’m assuming they showed you how to clutch a pillow to your chest and cough. This was something that they forced Beenthere to do on a regular basis. I think it had something to do with warding off buildup of fluid in the lungs. Oh, and they gave him a big red heart pillow (with anatomically correct drawings) to use. I guess that’s better than a giant stuffed teddy bear.
 

DerStrom8

Joined Feb 20, 2011
2,390
Wookie, I know that that laser drilling was not appropriate in your case. I was trying to make a rather feeble attempt at humor (obviously, I’m still not a very funny person) in that Wookie was up and about so soon. Good doctors and general health condition are really important in this situation, but being tenacious and strong-willed are almost as important. Now I’ll be nice and say it’s the Marine “can do-will do” training coming out rather than what I’ve often observed as normal male stubbornness.
Those of you that have been on the site for a number of years might remember some years back when Beenthere dropped out of sight for a period of time (this was several years before the cancer stuff). He had an emergency quad bypass (two 80% blocks, two 100% blocks) with a valve repair thrown in. They had to put him on an external pump to keep him alive while they got a “special” specialist in to do the surgery. He was given a 10% chance of surviving the initial surgery. His surgery lasted somewhere around 10 hours. He was intubated (breathing tube) for 2 days, sedated for 3 days, sat up at 4 days, in ICU for 12 days then 3 more days on the regular floor. I’m sharing this to emphasis how well Wookie is doing by comparison.
With the coughing, I’m assuming they showed you how to clutch a pillow to your chest and cough. This was something that they forced Beenthere to do on a regular basis. I think it had something to do with warding off buildup of fluid in the lungs. Oh, and they gave him a big red heart pillow (with anatomically correct drawings) to use. I guess that’s better than a giant stuffed teddy bear.
I'm sorry if this sounds rude, as that is not my intention, but do we know you? It says you joined just a couple of months ago, but you're talking about beenthere like you've known him for a long time. Are you by any chance his wife, whom Bill Marsden said had an account here?
 
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