I’ve heard that the first day after heart surgery is the most painful for the patient. Although Nancy was awake today she was being given several drugs of one sort or another and still was experiencing pain. When I arrived she still had an intra-aorta balloon pump going and was still on the ventilator. She was frustrated that she could not yet speak and her nurse was not happy that my presence was causing that frustration.
The surgeon was there and showed to me 2×3 inch pictures of Nancy’s mitral valve – both old and new. Quite interesting but I would like to see them full screen on my monitor at home along with one from a healthy human. No such luck. As part of the operation he also did two by-passes but I didn’t learn anything about that.
There was too much going on in the ICU today –and not just with Nancy.
Based on the readings they were getting from her heart they felt it was time to take out the post-operative balloon pump, so shortly after 1 P.M. they chased me from the area while they did that. By the time they allowed me back in I felt compelled to leave for home because they were wanting to shut down the ventilator and remove that also and I didn’t have the inclination to set in the waiting room watching the Weather Channel for a second hour. I already know that the atmosphere over the Northern Pacific is about to clobber the west coast of North America. Washington State is in between the two major thrusts, one south and one north of us. We get a mash-up of snow, rain, and freezing rain beginning sometime tonight.
I told Nancy I would come back at 7 P.M. but the driving conditions are suggesting otherwise. Fog is really thick in the low places and the tops of the ridges are at or below freezing. I drove through patches of thick fog on the way back north and at home I can see only a short distance. At dusk, while I was feeding and running water for the horses, I noticed a ‘silver frost’ had formed, and was still forming, on the trees.
I have plenty of pictures of such trees. This is not my picture but it is a rather nice image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joka2000/2258434451/
“Silver frost” seems to be a Pacific Northwest term for this ice. . .
I did not find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost
I apologize for all the weather stuff. I don’t have anything else.