We Took A Video!

#2 Son and i arrived for his surgery yesterday at 9:30am with me having already dropped Sweetie off at work, put a load of laundry on the line, finished all the prep work for dinner, and leaving the van to get the brakes checked and the oil changed.

Everything went so well that the doctor didn't have to cut into his hand and insert a plate, and he's disappointed because he was looking forward to having metal in his body.  The bone shifted back into place so fast that the doctor inserted two pins and was done in under 15 minutes!

Meanwhile, he remembers nothing much after the anesthesiologist came in and gave him the "happy shot."  It knocked him slap out, even though it's only supposed to make you relax.  He doesn't remember the arm numbing medication being put in -- it was a nerve block that made his whole arm numb, like a dead weight, for about 12 hours.  That means they don't have to do a general anesthesia, which is a good thing.

Upon awakening, he kept arguing that they couldn't have done the surgery yet, he didn't remember it.  When he was told i was going to help him get dressed, he said he could handle that and fell promptly back to sleep.  After i gently got the arm of his shirt over the surgical dressing and over his head, he woke up long enough to get his other arm through.  Once i got his pants on him -- he never removed his underwear, so his privacy wasn't compromised, just a bit of his dignity because no 18-year-old wants his mom to see him in his boxers, but oh, well -- he woke up and asked how he had gotten dressed.

"Your mom dressed you, and you helped,"  the nurse said.  Then she joked, "We took a video, you were singing a song about the baby rabbits in the woods, and we've already posted it to YouTube!"

"Great!" he answered, and dropped back to sleep again.

"When you get home, go to bed, and be very careful with your arm until the feeling comes back in it.  You have to keep it in the sling so you don't accidentally hurt it while it is numb, but the best thing you can do is go to sleep," the nurse instructed.

"Not going to sleep when I get home!" he slurred.  "I have people to see and things to do!"  Then he fell back asleep before we could get him in the wheelchair.

"Sure you do!" the nurse grinned at me over his limp form.

He did sleep when he got home, and i went and got him lunch when he asked.   He would take a bite, fall asleep, wake up and eat more.  By the time he really woke up, it was later in the afternoon.  Sweetie had gotten a ride to the shop and picked up the van.  The oil was changed, the brakes are fine, the fluid was a little low, no leaks.

Now his only problem is he can't unbutton his pants by himself when he needs to go to the loo, because he can't get the removable brace off of his not quite so hurt hand with the other in a full surgical dressing.  It's okay, he's going to learn a bit of humility until the dressing comes off, on Monday.

And we promise, no video, just a few jokes.



Today is

Amelia Earhart Day

Berne SWiss Festival -- Berne, NE, US (Swiss food, dancing, yodeling, a stein-toss, and lots more family fun; through Saturday)

Calgary Folk Music Festival -- Calgary, AB, Canada (one of Calgary's biggest and most fun festivals ;through Sunday)

Children's Day -- Vanuatu

Comic-Con International -- San Diego, CA, US (through Sunday)

Cousins Day -- because cousins are wonderful people to have around! sponsored by Claudia Evart of New York City, who must have had great cousins

Festival of St. Eloi -- French Basque

Great Texas Mosquito Festival -- Clute, Texas, US (Annual salute to the fact that if you can't beat 'em, and when it's mosquitoes, you can't, you might as well celebrate 'em.  There's something for all ages, including the Skeeter Beaters Baby Crawl, a Mosquito calling contest, and a Mr. & Mrs. Mosquito Legs Contest, plus games, rides, carnival food, and more; through Saturday)

Jakaba Diena -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (beginning of St. James' [Jacob] Festival, whose day is tomorrow; the beginning of hay harvest)

Jilwalla Jinks' Jamboree -- Fairy Calendar

Lumberjack World Championships -- Hayward, WI, US (the world's greatest lumberjacks face off in the "Olympics of the Forest"; through Saturday)

National Drive Through Day -- but only if you won't pass out from the heat when you roll down the window! on the founding date of Jack-in-the-Box, the first drive through burger chain

National Tequila Day -- celebrate North America's first native-born distilled spirit

Phyang Tse-dup Festival -- Ladakh, India (Buddhist festival, through tomorrow)

Pioneer Day -- Mormon Christian

Pop a Wheelie Day -- before, not after, the tequila, please; a hospital visit is no fun

Public Opinion Day -- the first public opinion poll was published this date in 1824!

Quilt Odyssey 2014 -- Hershey, PA, US (national quilt competition, through Sunday)

Simon Bolivar Day -- Ecuador; Venezuela

Sts. Boris and Gleb's Day (Patrons of princes; Moscow, Russia)

St. Christina the Astonishing's Day (Patron of all with mental handicaps, disorders, or illnesses, and mental health care workers, psychiatrists and therapists; against insanity and mental disorders)

St. Christina of Bolsena's Day (Patron of archers, mariners, millers)

Tell an Old Joke Day

Tenjin Matsuri -- Tenmangu Jinja, Osaka, Japan (one of Japan's 3 major festivals, through tomorrow)


Anniversary Today:

Richard Moll marries Susan Brown, 1993


Birthdays Today

Bindi Irwin, 1998
Dhani Lennevald, 1984
Anna Paquin, 1982
Summer Glau, 1981
Rose Byrne, 1979
Eric Szmanda, 1975
Jennifer Lopez, 1969
Kristin Chenoweth, 1968
Kadeem Hardison, 1965
Barry Bonds, 1964
Julie A. Krone, 1963
Lynda Carter, 1951
Michael Richards, 1949
Peter Serkin, 1947
Robert Hays, 1947
Chris Sarandon, 1942
Ruth Buzzi, 1936
Pat Oliphant, 1935
Billy Taylor, 1921
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, 1900
Chief Dan George, 1899
Amelia Earhart, 1897
Oswald Chambers, 1874
Alexandre Dumas, pere, 1802
Simon Bolivar, 1783
John Newton, 1725 (wrote Amazing Grace)


Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Fellowship of the Ring(Publication date), 1954


Today in History

Death in Kyoto, Japan, of Kamo no Chomei (b. 1155), Japanese author, poet (waka) and essayist, critic of Japanese vernacular poetry and major figure of Japanese poetics, 1216
Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands strike against a ban on foreign beer, 1487
Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France, 1534
Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI, 1567
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701
A Spanish treasure fleet of 10 ships under Admiral Ubilla leaves Havana, Cuba for Spain; on the 31st, all ships will be lost and come to be known as the !715 Treasure Fleet, 1715
Slavery is abolished in Chile, 1823
The first opinion poll was carried out in Delaware, USA, 1824
Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using Wyoming's South Pass, 1832
After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City, 1847
The first tramway opened in England, 1861
Tennessee becomes the first U.S. State to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War, 1866
Captain Matthew Webb, who was the first person to swim the English Channel, drowned while trying to swim the rapids above Niagara Falls, 1883
O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank, 1901
Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas", 1911
The passenger ship S.S. Eastland capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew are killed in the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes, 1915
The first insulin treatment is carried out, on a six-year-old girl, at St Guy's Hospital, London, 1925
The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect, 1929*
The dust bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109°F (44°C) in Chicago and 104°F (40°C) in Milwaukee, 1935
During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! ("Long live free Quebec!"), 1967
The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the Men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the event at Olympic level, 1980
Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office, 2001
Lance Armstrong wins his 7th consecutive Tour de France, 2005
Over half of the country of Peru enters a state of emergency as a result of unusually cold weather, 2011
The scientific theory of supersymmetry is challenged after experiments with the Large Hadron Collider yield an incredibly rare particle decay event, 2013


*Nice try, fellas.