the last train to London

 

Hey chaps

Don’t have much time, since the battery is low and there is no plug on this blasted train.

I am headed for a new countryJ,  I always like discovering new country, and my destination is wails.  Some might say whales is not a country, so I had a debate with a fellow called O.G who I found is a welsh person and he had a debate with his friend, I don’t know the other lad about it, that other lad wanted to see 30 countries by his 30^th birthday, and they decided that Wales, Scotland, Ireland and northern Ireland are separate states , I agree (since they have a national soccer team). So it is decided by a vote of 3 and the council of the welsh that country number (I think 41 or 42, need to recount) is just an hour ahead.

And you know that you can’t just come to the place, you must do something of importance, so in about two and a half hours I will go to the Cardiff stadium and watch my 1^st ever international rugby match between the local expecting defeat Welsh side V.S the impressive New Zealand All Blacks (one of the top 3 teams in the world) so this is an experience worth remembering, filming and blogging about.

 

So let’s recap the last few days.

 I arrived , wait , let’s go a day back.

 

Monday after noon I was about to go to the Cleveland airport, and lucky my remembering wife commented that the flight is not from the Cleveland airport, thus saving me another flight story (and yes, again with Delta), so we drove to Akron and had a smooth flight to Atlanta and from there to Heathrow.

Ok now we are in London, Tuesday at noon.

Took the Tube to Hammersmith, then walked to the hotel. It’s a novelty here, people walk, they don’t walk in Cleveland, just last weekend we drove from one store to another in the same shopping complex, how American is that!!!!, so I like the walking part. It was cold , but not too cold.

I freshened up, wore my best clothes (the actual wedding pants) and went to work. The first day was a prepare day and since the staff doesn’t work in the evening unless they have to, I had an early evening, but so tired from the flight that I crashed early, woke up at night for an hour then slept through.

The next morning I was happy to find an English twist to the breakfast, with sausages and eggs (instead of the usual bacon and eggs in this hotel chain, and crausons ( I know its misspelled, but what is the right spelling , can’t find it with the spell check tool) instead of rolls. Then walked to the hospital for a long upgrade day, upgrade days are the worst, you don’t know what to expect only to expect that something would go wrong. Something did, 90% of the work was finished in an expectable delay with obstacles solved, but one issue remained (unsolved till now!!!). so went back to the hotel at 2 am and ate nothing but meat pie (this is my version of local cuisine), came back at 7 am.

Before coming back I had an English breakfast,

This time I wasn’t as excited to find sausages and the roll which I cannot spell, don’t get me wrong, its good, but I like to try new British food. This day was shorted and by 10 pm I went back to the hotel after having a meat pie that day.

On the road back I passed by a Lebanese shop and had myself a Shawarma , I had high hopes of a middle eastern place, but it was late, the meat was dry, the humus was in low amounts, the garlic sauce was very garlicky , and I enjoyed every biteJ.

Next morning, Thursday already and I have yet to see a bit of London, since Hammersmith is a city suburb of some kind without any real tourist attractions other then Bars. I did discover that 90% of woman are dressed in short skirts, and sine I freeze in my pants, how they do not, the trick is the nylons, they all wear some form of tights in all shapes and colors, and the skirt acts as the 2^nd layer. I was not cold below the knee since I have the high sock now, but my thighs are freezing, in short, I need a skirt. Londoners are smokers, it is very noticeable and every one drives on the wrong side. I was scared a couple of times by seeing a car with no driver, till I look at the passenger holding the wheel.

This is my 2^nd time in London, the last was 15 years ago, and it was my last vacation before the army, I was in a different mindset, to see and experience everything. I am more serious now and focused on work.

On Friday morning I woke up and had an English breakfast with exactly the same ingredients, and spent the rest of the day trying to solve a problem and very much felt like this would never end, every time a hurdle was met, another came, it was ridiculous, with lap tops crashing, new errors, software that does not want to be installed, I blame bill gates and expect a refund.

Later that day (after going to a Turkish place and really enjoying a quality Shwarma). We reached the last hurdle and found, and we discovered that the (some) of the problem lay in a simple network port miss configured, since this type of thing needs to be handled by IT in the facility, we waited for them and I spent the time by reading Narnia (there is a Narnia movie coming up). And left at a reasonable time of 7 pm. I felt I was working too many hours this week (not unusual about the many hours or the feeling of working too much) so I decided to hit the city.

I discarded by nice clothes and wore my Gil clothes and snickers and went out bravely without my pouch to the Tube and was on it around 8 pm, the last tube ends before midnight so I had to plan my time carefully and not miss out. I arrived at half eight (that’s 8:30 for you non UK people) to St.James station, I had a basic tourist map and started to walk fast, since it was cold and I still didn’t have a skirt.

Right away I noticed the blue lights of the Eye of London, it stood out above everything. But it was still far away  and I started by passing by the Scotland yard , sorry the NEW Scotland yard and took a photo next to it and checking if any sloth is watching me do it. (btw, Scotland is the only country in the British isles that I have not visited, passing by the Scotland yard does not count, perhaps if they interrogate me) from there I went to the Westminster Abbey which was closed at this time , like most place I would see this night, but it is very impressive at night, you notice more things when you travel alone and you notice more things at night. Like the many clocks on the buildings, Big Ben is not the only one, Trafalgar square had 3. Ben was saying that time was running out so I moved on, watched the lights on the Thames and walked by the river , passing the Great Obelisk and the Sphinxes, and unusually dragon like fish statue on the many lanterns. And always the Great Eye is watching.

I passed the Hispaniola ship and proceeded towards Convent Garden which looks remarkable at night, with the Christmas lights, huge starts and apples (wait for photos), most impressive, but time was short and I moved on through the crowds (it is Friday night) to Leicester square  and was surprised by the half price tickets signs in every corner, I moved on to Piccadilly square and from there on Regent Street which was full of huge Narnia signs and lights till oxford circus and proceeded to Totenham square back to Leicester square to Trafalgar square (with the many clocks) and paused there to look at the square from the wrong side.

In Piccadilly I think I took a photo of a guy taking his own Osh photo, never took a strangers Osh photo before, but here I took the photo of the square from behind, you don’t see the faces on the status, but Big Ben is very obvious in the background. It was already 11 and I decided to plow on, so I walked through the Mall. I never knew why the big street in Washington is called the Mall, now I know, it’s because the English have this street, but I still don’t know why the English call it the Mall. It was dark at the Mall (it’s not a shopping mall and it is night). I walked by Buckingham palace and the queen did NOT invite me for tea, how rude of here, I could have given her wedding tips, help arrange the invites, I am now experienced in that sort of thing, but she chose to ignore, so I moved on till I reached wellington Arch and back to the last Tube station.

Oh while in the Mall (it’s a wooded area) to ladies which were peeing in the woods , ran out to their parked car, not an important event, just not something one would expect so close to the rude queen.

Got on the tube at 11:30, the tube was full and too girls in the next cart decided to have fun and do faces through the windows. On the windows they have 2 stickers, with a narrow gap in the middle, so they would stick their faces with the slip just for the eyes, it was kind of funny so I took a video. I managed to be back in the hotel precisely at midnight. Full of cramps and feeling great.

 

This morning, I woken up, packed and had an English breakfast of the same unchanged menu and went to the hospital for last check, the last problem is still unresolved but it is up to IT to fix, so I had a decision to make. London is full, no hotel beds (in a reasonable price) out there since there is a big rugby match with England facing Australia, so should I spend the day tracking a hotel and walkabout London or do the unexpected. At one point I felt like I was way to serious in the last year and decided to stop and enjoy myself.

So I took the tube to Paddington station and now I am on the train heading for Cardiff, I found out about the game on the train which is full of hopeful welsh lads heading for the game. I have no hotel for the night, only 15 pounds and no ATM number (I do have credit cards so no worries) and no specific plans for tomorrow, but what the hack, it fun.

 

Oh, did you know that there is no pound symbol on the English keyboard,  they Call it the Has sign but whatever the name , it is not there, they also don’t have the At symbol, so I have no idea how they email each other, I have to Google At symbol to find it and copy it to an email , forcing me to be creative.

 

The country side is lovely with green hills, lots of gray ships and the occasional black ship, some mobile hamburgers in their pre burger form and white frost on the low rolling hills which makes an interesting combination with the green fields below.

 

That’s it for now, I still owe you tails of the new house and the move itself, but that will come at another time.

 

Cheers from the welsh border.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

on green beans and other unusual things

“Maybe you should try adding butter to the green beans”, I was shocked to hear myself utter these words today.

Green beans, why did I even try to eat it? In the world of vegetables there are many I never tries or tried so long ago that I don’t recall why I don’t like it. But I gave it a try and, I am still alive. Texture like potatoes but a lot greenier, it has potential with a lot of salt, butter and perhaps a chicken on top of it.

 

2 days ago I held a check in my hand, the largest I ever carried and actually gave it away! , you need to give money if you want to own a houseJ

5080 Stansbury drive, solon Ohio, forgot the zip code (previously known as the apple house), is now officially ours. We get the keys in 2 days and after some minor repairs we will be moving in in 2 weeks (anybody interested in helping out?).

We were actually looking for some lane, not drive, after watching Wisteria lane, but we didn’t find any so we took the lovely house on this drive.

It began snowing yesterday and snowed the whole day, didn’t stop, the 1^st snow on many to come, winter coming, way too soon, so this morning I went to see how the house looks with the 1^st snows, and the street was all white, and serene, I took some photos of the house with the trees ready to hibernate and not a single apple on the tree.

One of the neighbors stopped on the way to introduce herself, which was nice and friendly, I live in this apartment for over 2.5 years and don’t know a single name, but here I have not moved in and already met 2 (too bad I forgot the name of the 1^st). Tammy said that 3 house away there is another Israel couple. Boaz somebody, so that is a very nice to know, she pronounced it like boeeez, but they can’t say my name right either.

 

It is amusing to sign the house contract, other than the transfer of the check. You have to pay courier fee, survey fee and a bunch of other crap fees and you hear terminology that you never hear elsewhere like funds in escrow and encroachment, which makes you feel dumb that you don’t understand these terms to the fullest, I will try to learn them by our next house purchase, somewhere around 2038.

 

Today we went to a short nature hike with a naturalist (also known as a park ranger) in the part of the metro park closest to our new home. The purpose of the hike was to learn about animal signs and hopefully see some wild life. We learned about the various nuts and the crazy squirrels that eat them. We spotted several squirrels, a wood pecker (that was busy packing against a tree), deer poo, signs of buck (male deer) rubbing against a tree, deer tracks, deer trails, a beetle, understood the two main kind of oak (did you know that black oak is actually a red oak), squirrels nest (did you know squirrels nest?), and heard an interesting cries of a young owl or hawk, we couldn’t make out the exact species (we meaning the park ranger, I cannot tell the sound of a hawk from a panda bear).

We also learned a bit about mushrooms, and learned to spot the most risky one. If you eat it, you get sick for 2 days, then you get better for 2 days, then you need a liver transplant! So not worth massing with. I don’t like mushrooms in either form so I am quiet safe here (and yes I did try mushrooms lately and bhhhhhhh)

 

Went kick boxing yesterday, and this was the 1^st real active lesson I took since the surgery. Kick boxing has some kicking, but I am not allowed to kick high yet with my left, so I kick high (high for me means not really that high) with my right , and then low with the left. Punching I am allowed so I did. This lesson is aerobics and fun, but I left it with a cramped (right) leg. The difficult last month and a half took a toll and loss of focus on diet and I quickly gained most (but not all) of what I lost, so now the focus is back on and the avalanche was blocked. It is very depressing to know how easy it is for me to rapidly gain, I must be more disciplined than I am today.

 

 Not long ago we went to a an funny version of the 39 steps, I was expecting a drama, but this was funny with the best ever use of props. They ran on the train, got chased by a plane and drove a car, and it all looked so real, but with using only a few ladders and basic props, this was truly amazing and the actors changed rolls on stage with amazing speed and grace which was unbelievable.   A most recommended play.

Around the time we saw an Israeli movie in the Beachwood Israeli movie festival. It’s nice living here where ties to Israel are strong. The movie was about a sumo club in Ramle and I found it very original and entertaining, go see (from the video store by now). I have seen several movies lately but not one of them is a must see, too many OKs. We saw the Town, after I heard the story with an audio book. The movie was fun (not a must) but I don’t understand why will you change the ending of the book for such a drastic change, I want give out spoilers here, but the ending is completely different.

 

Recent events in my family (I will share on those at some point) and work (I try not to tell about work stuff here) on top of getting married, buying a house, having a surgery seems to make me more serious. Alla today was thinking about a party here and I was telling her to focus on the house first, this kind of thought would never cross my mind before, it troubles me , but am I growing up? Scary!!!

 

This summer and fall went by too fast and without too many interesting things, I couldn’t do much with the surgery, and I am still limited so approaching dog sledging trips, ski trips and even just running are on hold, but they will happen again as soon as I am allowed. So I have some time to plan other types of event, will tell you about it in 2 weeks. 2 days away  from my 1^st wedding anniversary (the 1^st wedding…) cant reveal the secrets…

 

Cheers from the 2^nd day of winter

 

p.s- on the way back from the nature hike we saw about 5 deer…. Not one on the hike itself, go figure.

 

 

 

my name is gay

No, I am not gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I did how ever tried to use automation to settle an interesting point.

Whenever I am introduced to someone and say “my name is Gil” , people here different things. The most common is Ian. Now there are programs that transfer voice to text, so I decided to see what the phone will say. 1^st attempt read “my name is gay” which caused lots of laughs, not by me or any gay squirrel that happened to be nearby (the non gay squirrels were mute as well). Attempt number 2 returned DAN, and #3 was DUDE, don’t ask me how.

 

2 days ago I boarded a flight to Chattanooga, TN- since I have not flown for work reason in a while, I was out of shape.

 It started with barely waking up for the flight, leaving home without essentials like deodorant or my wedding ring!. Arriving way too early to the airport, not taking a book in my book bag, which means I lost precious reading opportunities on the shuttle (about 30 seconds), check in (no time), security (1 minute to 1 hour depending on the airport), waiting for boarding (could be hours) the walkway to the plane (minutes), the hated wait in the plane and the taking off and landing periods (which the lap top must be turned off). So many moments just gone.

In security I forgot to empty my bag from the big stuff and had it taken away (regular size tooth paste), a bottle of water. Lucky my shaving cream and perfume were not big enough and I managed to keep those. I also had a banana! That was left there for a few days and smelled accordingly, my bag still has some banana residue odor.

 

The flight itself was rarely uneventful, fell asleep for most of the flight, same thing on the 2^nd flight. Considering this was delta through Atlanta, it’s a miracle.

Got my car and drove to the city. Most of our accounts are in small towns, remote, so I rarely research the place it self before I go, unless it’s out west. But this is a city and right away I liked it. It has a huge river with lots of touristic river boats running through town, small hills in the beginning of the fall, great weather (I brought a coat, and happy I didn’t need it).

 

The 1^st night I was told of a pasta place which is not a chain, I drove to that point as confirmed by the map and the GPS and couldn’t find it. So drove elsewhere, parked downtown and decided to walk back up and try again, since I was sure I was right there. 15 minutes later of walking I arrived , it was so nice just to walk in the warm night air (can’t do that at Cleveland right now, too cold). And I arrived to the place I was by car and started exploring.

Usually here m you see a restaurant from a long way because of the Neon signs, but this complex, which is actually 3 places who share their merchandize were in the dark. They had lights, but dim like any other house, which is why I missed it the 1^st time, you had to know where to look.

I ordered my regular Carbonara  and they gave me before a plate of fresh bread with a deep sauce plate made of olive oil, parmesan and something else, which I didn’t recognize. I was tired and hungry and the (big) plate of fresh bread disappeared. I ate 2 bytes from the pasta and took it to go.

 

On the walk back I passed by the “Ice Cream show” which mixes ice cream with fruit and stuff in a similar way to frozen yogurt. I tried to be creative and mixed chocolate with strawberries, the result was somehow sour, and I ate it slowly on the walk back to the car and went to sleep.

 

Next morning I enjoyed a micro waved pasta leftovers and it was very tasty. Lunch with hospital staff at a place overlooking the river and mountains (this place is 20 minutes away from the start of the Appalachian trail, I was tempted to start it (only takes 7 months to complete, no worries).

Las margaritas (they call it Las Mas) has the same band playing live music every Wednesday for 20 years, lucky it was a Wednesday and over spicy chicken breast cooked with pineapple and oranges! Which was nmmmmmm, I listened to some country music and knew some of the songs (and I didn’t even know they were country).

 

Today’s lunch was a Danish from a vending machine since I am in a van headed for Atlanta to catch my flight

So the route today will include

Rented car returned to the airport, a local ride to the shuttle depot, a 2 hour shuttle , with blogging opportunities (sorry I didn’t write for so long) to the hated Atlanta, wait, plane to charlotte, more wait, plane to Cleveland, shuttle to parking lot, car home, elevator and finally home- 13 hours on the road

 

I have some more things to write, but typing here is uncomfortable ..will try later in one of the waits..

 

Cheers from somewhere in Georgia

 

 

some food related items

“Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too”

the above lines are from a song by Sting

 

I am returning to the debate on eating in Russian, as I progress with my studies

So he Ect (eats) she Ect, they Edat (also eat) but I EM (eat)- how can a verb change from ect,edat to Em??? , no it doesn’t make sense. I need to find the Russian equivalent of Avshalom kor

 

After few weeks of constant good results on the scale, had my 1^st set back last Saturday, but no one’s fault but mine, the holidays, travel and most important things, lack of self discipline took their toll, and though only ½ ponds more, still it’s time for action, not even a full yom kipur feast helped (or maybe it did , and the elevation would have been more without it?), who knows.

Hoping by next scaling to be back on track.

 

We have been doing a new activity lately, house hunting, and perhaps its finally over. Each house we see (and not immediate hate) has a name based on obvious features so after seeing the

Yellow house, lake house, inna house, the next to inna house (none of these house is the house of Inna), old lady house, smelly house, 1941 house and cripple house, we are trying to get the apple house- I will tell you all about it once we get it, we made an offer and waiting for the sellers.

 

I went to some events recently

The 1^st was the taste of Cleveland- an annual event , in which various restaurant open food booth and have you try items that are cheap in the restaurant for more…

In the past, in Israel I would go to these events for the food, here I go for the music. This time it was train.

I freely admit that I didn’t even know there was a band called train, and did not research you-tube before going to the show, but it was a free show which was highly promoted, so I figured it can’t hurt. So for the 1^st time since coming here, I took the train down town to see train. Since this is a food fair, I tried some but not over did it (I was a good boy that week), I only tried 2 dishes which were ok and enjoyed free haven das. There was some unknown warm up band with nice songs that I didn’t know, and still don’t know the songs (or the name of the band) after the show. A few hours later , the train finally arrived and its was a great show. I don’t think they have enough songs to push a whole main attraction, so they made every song as long as possible. The singer went to the audience, brought dancers from the crowd to the stage, caused the crowed to sing back to him, and do all the tricks bands do, ALL of them, he did in in an elegant way though, I discovered that I actually knew 2 songs and enjoyed singing along.

 

Next morning, the annual air show occurred (all these events were on labor day). The day before I was told about some hill that you can sit and see the show for free. So I went to this hill and witnessed 2 hours of the show. in the beginning 2 world war 1 style by planes did impressive tricks, loops, side loops, up loops, down loops, cork screw sideways, downwards, upward, and even cork screw while appear to not move at all.

The only problem with the free tickets I had (since I was on a hill overlooking the place) is trees, usually I like trees but in this case they were in the way and I couldn’t see the runway. But the sounds was unmistakable, the roar of engines was very loud, something fast was coming…and a few seconds later a Jet of some kind (I would guess F something- like all American jets) flew over and turned just in front of us (turn top gun style) he showed off for a while and flew somewhere else. They had some parachutes shows and later some world war 2 single wing planes doing more tricks, after that the entire hamula was having a labor day cookout.

Lots of good food , very good ribs. I cooked my usually chilly Gili and a 2^nd dish of apples with honey (it was 2 days before rosh hashana). I know my chilly is good, just never though its worth getting hugs.

Not kidding, I was hugged because of it, which was very odd.], I don’t think its that good, nor that any dish is worth hugging for, or maybe we should change and hug good people who cook? Since a hug is a better thanks then saying, hey good food.. strange idea, may not work in restaurants.

 

Rosh hashana came and I made my traditional chicken soup, never had a cooking tradition, I do now…

 

Last weekend we also went to Cuyahoga falls for a Octoberfast, yes I understand its still September, but I don’t schedule these events. So we went to try some German food. Amongst the german dishes you could find some authentic dishes like the Greek Gyro, Italian sausage, cream puffs, French fries, oh I think they had some German food as well, we tried to stick to german, since that was the purpose of octoberfast. The problem was the rain, it poured and we had short pants and no umbrellas. In one of the festival tents they had some very gay germans (I mean happy germans, I have no clue of their orientations) dressed in authentic clothes dancing unique dances, never seen this type of dancing, its not that far from irish dancing but has more slapping of your on tight, it was quite entertaining, we didn’t stay long on account of the rain.

 

This weekend we went to the art museum, and we did not know about a festival (have I told you this city has tons of festivals), this was the chalk festival.

It’s a very interesting form of art since whatever you do vanishes in the very common rain, I guess it like sand castle and ice sculptures, so we walked by and lots of people are painting with chalk on the floors surrounding the Greek status. At first we were surprised by how they manage to find so many chalk artists, then we found that you can be an artist too.

 

Let’s go back way too many years ago to my 1^st art class on 4^th grade. With teacher rachel F. I never knew this teacher before, but from my brother, I heard that her name was something else. Being very naïve I had no reason to mistrust the name ( I am still naïve am I may still fall for such tricks). So 1^st lesson comes and we draw train tracks heading to the horizon. I finish the drawing and go to Rachel’s table, hand her the photo for grading and say “tzif tzif , here is my painting” – for those who don’t understand Hebrew, this means something like tweaty bird.

Rachel answers with a very high pitched voice “I thought I saw a pussycat”, kidding, she actually says in a high pitched voice “my name is not tiz tiz, its rachel” . I finished that class with a low score, not because of this event, but because I can’t draw.

 

Back to very recent past, it was time for my 2^nd attempt in artistic career. We purchased some chalk and received our dedicated square of pavement and started chalking. It’s kind of a nice activity, but I quickly found that I am just bad in dimensions and sizes of eyes and those kinds of things that make art look like the thing they look like (stolen from h. Simpson).

So I drew something.

Later that day we had dinner with the family and I showed the result. The 1^st comment was “did you drew this dog?” in astonishment tones. I would be great if I had only drew a dog, since I haven’t, my new international artistic career is once more over before It began.

 

Too see the amazing drawings, go here http://picasaweb.google.com/gil.even/20100919ChalkFestival?feat=email#

 

 

Photos from the apple house ( no we don’t have it yet, but we have a counter offer, negotiation continues)

http://picasaweb.google.com/gil.even/20100918AppleHouse?feat=email#

 

 

 

 

have a happy sukut

 

 

 

 

where is the C?

My 2 main promises this year (to myself) were weight loss (on it, or better to say off it) and learning Russian.

 

Well tonight I started with promise #2.

 

30 minutes in and my teeth are broken, this language is hard. I know what you’ll say, even 2 year old in Vladivostok know Russian, but I won’t believe it till I go visit there.

 

Started with roseate stone, which is a language learning program. Kind of interesting the way they do it, they first say words and make you repeat, then very interactively make you guess the words, complete letters, and the software “hears” how you (I) pronounce and does not continue till you (I) get it right. And you are graded as well. so far I am a B student I think on my 1^st lesson.

An interesting thing is that they make you write the words, the on screen Russian keyboards is weird, so many weird fonts, it looks like a mix of Latin and thai – which is probably is (if not thai, Indian, or Mongolian).

 

Now my huge vocabulary is boy girl man woman eat drink run read write cook he she them…all that in 20 minutes, with this rate I will know Russian in aprox 137 years.

 

Oh, the C

Ect is eat but edat is eating,  I know soma languages change verbs when moving from singular to plural- but what happened to the C- how did it change to D- the worlds works in mysterious ways.

 

OH peXNt Blog

 

Cheers

 

the other INNquisition

You probably seen movies or heard stories about the various tortures of the inquisition, well it continues today.

Imagine a large metal device with ropes attached to it, they place you on an unstable pink ball, tell you to maintain 1 leg in the air, while being tied to the metal device and having to pull down on the ropes.

Or they lay you down on the floor and tie your leg to the same metal device and pulling on it.

Other instruments of torture include standing on something very unstable, on one leg while bouncing a heavy ball on a leaning trampoline, walking the “monster walk” while your legs are bound together.

 

But apparently they call this innquistion physical therapy

The more astonishing issue is that its working

Its 6 weeks after my surgery and I am finally walking normal, the limp is gone, crutches are gone, chest pains are gone, calf pains are gone, things are looking better, though my activities are forever limited, which is still kind of depressing, need to completely change my goals.

Last year I aspired to do a triathlon, after the half marathon , but that plan is out.

So goal for next summer is a long bike race, and perhaps a long swim (though I am not allowed to do breast stroke yet)- will see what will be allowed and what not, hoping orienteering is still ok (next year)- I will have to consider my options when winter ends, till then keep doing the self torture… it’s not as bad as described above, it’s actually very creative, the usage of random devices to get you body to do a certain ‘good for you’ movement instead of other ‘bad for me’ moves.

Thanks Inna for getting me back on my feet.

 

Last weekend Alec (my brother’s in law father…does that make him my father in law? Probably not) well had his 70^th birthday and it was held at the Russian room.

I heard about this party room before but never been here, I was kind of suspicious about food, here I always find something to eat that I like, in the beginning I would find 1 item and stick to that, but since then, I think the family has modified their menus for simpler stuff (thanks all for that) so it’s better for me. But this was an authentic Russian cuisine, but I was happily surprised, at least 5 things that I liked a lot, must be a record.

It was a fun event, lots of speeches, live Russian band, dancing. I danced as well, which I didn’t think I would so fast, and it felt great. True I was mostly standing on my strong leg, but still, dancing is dancing.

 

The weekend before we went to a Romanian festival. There are lots of local festivals here by the various communities, each does its own thing. We tried some Mamaliga(didn’t like it), Romanian kabobs, and some other delicacies. There were also life Romanian bands (from Romania!) with some nice live Falk music and the people danced (we didn’t), we didn’t stay long but it was a fun lively event. I am half Romanian , but didn’t recognize the music, the other half of me is polish, the polish festival is coming up within a month, will see if the pirugy is any good.

 

 

Well that’s it, nothing interesting lately, started going to the gym , with the limited activities I can do, but so far the 9 day hospital stay and the diet after that resulted in loss of 10lbs J and the way down continues, so nothing in life is all bad.

 

I hope to resume more fun activities soon, labor day activities are coming up (including genesis and led zeppelin cover bands), we’ll see what we’ll do

 

cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a moment in the light

Still at the hospital, doing better again, a few hours after sending the previous entry it got bad again, I guess blogging is a hazardous activity.

 

It started with stronger chest pains again, always on the right side, the doc said my pathways to the lower lobe of the right lung and not reacting, so I had a chest X-ray  (yeh, another new test). The pain levels were like 2-3 days prior which was odd since I was doing so well up to this point. I took my first pain med, I didn't take any pain meds since day 2 after surgery, but I took it mainly for the headache and slept a while and woke with worse pain in the chest, the highest all week, this was now about 10 PM and I asked for the attending doc. This nice doc annoyed the nurse greatly and after a long debate agreed to come "when he had time". Nurse Natisha was agitated about this guy so I was already resentful before I met him. He finally came in saying that PE should not cause chest pain, funny because PE is what I have and chest pain is my main symptom this past week. After long debate, he didn't want to have me checked, refused to call the vascular guys, he was very anti, I took 2 Vicodins now for pain and Ativan which is a muscle relaxer and suppose to help me sleep. Pain was slightly tolerable again but still high.

Sensing something is not right Alla called for the Calvary and Inna and Rita (Alla's sisters) came by. The doc wouldn't even speak to Rita, a fellow doctor, he had to be coursed. This was around midnight.

 

Around 1 the unexpected happen. It started with cramping of the extreme right side of the stomach, which is the area where the lower lobe ends, at first it was annoyance and strange and quickly it became unbearable.

 

I was barely breathing. Actually was breathing in a pace of more than a breath a second, each very rapid and very very painful. I could no longer control my breathing and couldn't even call for help, lucky I was not alone and Rita called the nurses while Alla on the phone called in a "code blue".

True I was not in a true code blue situation since I was breathing, but it didn't matter, I was in a major distress.

The entire code blue team came by , the room was stuffed with new faces. The pain was horrible but I was fully alert (I wished I wasn't). I recall the staff member on the left side actually disappointed that this was not a code blue and dropping something on the bad, for the 1^st 2 minutes, while I am twitching in my bed, they tried to identify who called in the code blue (no one admitted) and tried to get an IV line in (they took it off the day before).

Alla and Inna were not kicked out of the room and stood behind the aprox 10 staff members who were there, I couldn't spot Waldo anywhere.

I was still twitching like crazy and struggling to breath, I forced myself to relax, by not breathing, trying to pause between breaths, it worked a bit and the pain decreased from inferno to just plain hell. They still struggled with the IV, the head code blue nurse entered the IV and went through! the vein, there went that attempt, and I was asking to put the IV in the elbow area, not in the palm. I was given morphine IM – a shot to the hand, the problem with this route is that it takes a while to kick in, but hell was nearing over at this point, now they tried the iv , in the arm below the elbow joint, which finally worked, they took some blood for samples, then more morphine to the vein, which reacts fast, and pain became tolerable once more. This whole episode took about 10-15 minutes, the worse I have ever felt. The issue was not over yet, I still didn't know why it happened, but the morphine was taking more and more affect (thanx god), I had another chest x-ray, in bed this time, they have a mobile device, but they had to put a panel behind my back and that hurt, and another echo cardiogram, also a mobile device, which hurt. After that, blessed sleep took over.

 

Had another CT in the morning, this time I came prepared, took Zofran to counter the nausea and more morphine since CT requires lying down and that I bad. Even with the morphine it was very painful in the chest but bearable, no nausea.

The good news is that it was not another blood clot(shark), but results of the current one. Because of the clot, lung tissue receives no oxygen or blood and dies(necrosis), and that is painful, I was told this is the exact pain that heart attack feels like, since there too the tissue dies, but my heart is good, no damage there.

I will have a scar in the lung but should not suffer in the future because of it.

 

Since then pain is decreasing greatly and almost as good as Thursday morning. I have a "coach 2" device, which is a breathing trainer, forcing the lungs to work to get air in to the bad lobe (אונה) , and today its beginning to work again which is great progress.

My INR (מדד קרישה) reached 1.9 yesterday ( I need 2-3) and today it went down L , so my Coumadin dose will increase again today, now it looks like a Tuesday Wednesday discharge, I have been here too long, but we went on a long walk yesterday and over all I am doing much better, and will get off the crutches completely today or tomorrow, so the hip is doing well.

 

That's it, no other special occurrences since Thursday, don't want any again.

 

Oh, the light thing, I saw a white light, but it came from the lamps, I was dark in the room before (1 am) so when they opened the lights to full I couldn't fully open my eyes or move my hands to cover them, nothing more…