Tuesday, April 21, 2020

119

                                                                                                            
                                                A CUT UP
You have not heard from me for three months as I underwent an operation on about Jan 30. I thought It would take about a month to recover but I got that wrong by about 3 months. I sometimes forget my 90 year old body doesn’t heal so fast anymore.  It’s proceedure is called called:

THE  LAPAROSCOPIC  HIATEL HERNIA REPAIR
AND NISSEN FUNDOPLICATION, TYPE FOURPOSTERIOR GASTROPEXY. (Four and one half  hours).   performed by Dr. Jonathan Carter and Team. (San Francisco).

 You can view a similar operation by Dr. Carter on YOU YUBE  (UCSF Dr. Carter hiatal Fundoplication)

It was called the Laparoscopic Hiatal Hernia Repair and Nissen  Fundoplication , Posterior  Gastoropexy;   It took 3 or four doctors about Four and ¼ hours to accomplish this and I am just recovering enough to get in my office for two or three hours a day.  The work was done at UCSF under the expert tutelage of Dr. Jonathan Carter and should last until I die, which is getting closer and closer each  day. This was the worst type, there fore called Type IV.
It took me a while to get a translation of most of the above, but what it all means is that they moved my stomach from the diaphragm area back to where it belongs, below the Diaphragm.  And here I thought I was in OK health for the last 12 yours. Except for a small heart Antri-fibrolation, but everyone has that nowadays, don’t they?
Believe this all began someplace in France, abiout 12 years ago, in a small city serving  a pretty good Pizza in Dinan, France, a wonderful old walled town near the coast.  Well,   soon we were in Brugge, Belgium, but finally the Whooping cough that I had contacted from our snot nosed, waitress in Dinan had caught up with us. We were cauphing  up a storm  in the town, and our small hotels’ bar had about 12 local beers on tap, but we were so sick we couldn’t  even taste one of them.  
Aside from all that, I am currently back in my Office after about 3  months for about 3 or 4 hours max. (I attribute that to my being semi-retired, and plus my  operation). 
      Go to YOU TUBEUCSF DR. CARTER   HIATEL  Fundoplication  It’s kind of a gory mess, but the results
For those of you who have a morbid streak, look into  stomach operation with my Doctor Carter via YOUTUBE  to see some really competent people manipulate an organ.

BOOK REPORT


                                             
  THE SINKING OF THE ESSEX
I  have just finished reading about the big news in early 1800’s, which involved the ramming and sinking of a the Whaleship, Essex and the long several months  d of deprivation of the crew in  3 small whaleboats for succor on the West coast of Chile. For those of you in need, it is a detailed survival of how to cannibalize a few of your crew-mates and barely survive for several months in a small boat on the  vast Pacific Ocean.    The book (In the Heart of the Sea) starts out  with  a history of Nantucket, the heart of the Whale industry.   While he rest of the U.S. in the early 1800‘s was in a precarious state, Nantucket was the  center of financial wholeness due the the economics of the frugal Quakers. That time, there were about 30 whaleboats in the Atlantic and  Pacific. (there were still a few whales left in the Atlantic.)  I haven’t mentioned that each trip to the Pacific would last for about  2.5 to 3 years. Maybe that’s why the wives took to Opium so much.( Opium was in the medical kit of all whale ships.)

I'm feeling better now so may get out another blog soon.