Da' further adventures of da' trusty billy-goat wagon!

[schlepcar]

Glad to hear back from you Edouard,
   It sounds like you have the right doctors in your corner. You said more than you think when you referenced the art vs. science approach. That is the voice of an old school mentality that seems to be coming back around. Back when my 150 lb mutt broke his femur I had a hard time finding a vet that did anything other than a new bone graph?..which was just out of the question for a 8 year old Rottweiler mix. I had met a guy earlier who had been a vet for 40 years and he explained that he had hand built cages for large dogs and even horses in his practice. When he was done he showed me the blueprint that he had drawn up to construct a round tubular brace that would hold the cast in place for weeks for the bone to heal. It was not only affordable?.it added some good time to the life of a good dog. This is part of what bothers me in a technological world where books are getting more and more extinct to the youth and standard curriculum. Where will future doctors,teachers,judges,etc?.get their opinions or facts if there is only one available. I am happy to hear that you got in there with the right crowd and the doctors are open minded to their approach, Dan

[elagache]

Dear Chuck, Dan, and thoughtful mid-60s Buick caregivers,

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes!

It's great what the medical community can do these days, even with old school techniques.  Just knowing when and how to use them is so important and amazing.

You are so right!

It sounds like you have the right doctors in your corner. You said more than you think when you referenced the art vs. science approach. That is the voice of an old school mentality that seems to be coming back around.
. . . .
This is part of what bothers me in a technological world where books are getting more and more extinct to the youth and standard curriculum. Where will future doctors,teachers,judges,etc?.get their opinions or facts if there is only one available.

I hear your concerns and share them.  This process continues to hammer my spirituality and I am constantly pondering why humans think the way they do in the modern world.  I think I've mentioned this before, but we can establish the first substantial polytheistic tradition at a site called Göbekli Tepe in Turkey.  It has been dated to over 10,000 years ago.  In contrast, humans thinking about the world scientifically is at best 300 years ago.  This scientific view at best ignores and at worse scoffs at religion, but that begs an extremely inconvenient truth.  If the scientific view is correct, then humans spent around 10,000 years on what they would describe as nothing more as a fool's errand.  Our knowledge of the natural world is that it is an extremely difficult place to live.  If religion was nothing more than a extremely burdensome millstone around the neck of humanity - why didn't we go extinct long before science was invented?

COVID-19 has revealed an utterly mind-boggling optimism that certainly cannot be backed up science.  The geological history is painfully clear: extinction happens.  Human civilization has made us much more interdependent and therefore vulnerable.  COVID could have easily been the end of the world we know it and there isn't a shred of science to make us believe otherwise.  Yet, the rhetoric was/is sickening in its repetition: be resilient and persevere - and we'll beat this virus!  As I'm painfully aware, the "war" against cancer is an ugly stalemate that we aren't even close to winning.  Why are we going to beat COVID?  At best, we have "faith" we can beat COVID - where on earth is this faith coming from so that we can proclaim it so universally?

Like my father, my life has made it impossible to swallow the literal theology of Christianity.  There are just too many things wrong in the world.  Ash Wednesday is tomorrow and I'm really suffering from the idea that a omnipotent, benevolent, and all-knowing God would insist the only path to salvation was the crucifixion of his beloved Son - is that what Love looks like?

Still, I would rather struggle with this problems day in and day out than simply take hope for granted and naively wish that COVID will go away.  Science isn't a replacement for faith - it IS a kind of faith.  As hard as being a Christian turns out to be, I much prefer that than to naively assume the human race is somehow owed something and science is the way to get access to the goodies.

Nobody said healing the mind or the body was easy . . . . . .

Edouard

[red65gs]

That is an amazing healing story and a good one to share. Still praying for a complete recovery. Mind body and spirit.

[elagache]

Dear 65GS.com faithful,

I'm sure I'm not alone in the need to wear glasses while driving.  So how do you wear glasses when your nose is a "work in progress?"  Well, I found on the web a curious contraption that is a headband with a hook to catch your glasses before they come into contact with your nose.  It isn't perfect, but after some testing, I've been driving a bit.  Yesterday, I took out my trusty wagon for the first time since the 3rd week of January.  My first stop was Orinda Motors to let them know how I was doing.  They were glad to see me and that at least progress is being made.  While there, I took this photo:



After that I finally did some "in person" grocery shopping.  We had been relying on various grocery delivery services since the last week of January.  That is certainly better than nothing, but it was a pleasure to actually get to select the items I wanted and deal with out of stock items personally.

Thanks for your support!

Cheers, Edouard 

[GS66]

Great to see you are out and about!

[option B9]

  Good to hear that you are getting out of the house and going shopping and seeing your friends. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health. A can do attitude will help you overcome a lot of negative feelings that a serious surgery like yours can bring about. Get in the Buick & drive 

                       Tony 

[elagache]

Dear Jim, Tony, and mid-60s Buick caregivers,

Thanks for the words of encouragement!  Certainly, I'll try to get Biquette out whenever it is practical.  However, I'm back to my household caregiving duties, so free time is in very short supply.

Your mental health is just as important as your physical health. A can do attitude will help you overcome a lot of negative feelings that a serious surgery like yours can bring about.

Thanks for the good wishes but I harbor no small ambivalence to positive thinking for its own sake.  I've experienced first-hand how confusing positive thinking and mental health ultimately makes things much worse.  My life has turned out be a kind of prolonged Lent.  Where does spiritual health fit into mental health?  Positive thinking should never interfere with your sincere attempt to confront your maker.  Medical criteria of what represents mental health shouldn't interfere either.  Life is extremely hard for me and I'm using every last scrap of my intellect and spiritual awareness to deal with what I'm going through.  Ultimately, I think that is a more powerful kind of healing than any amount of rose-colored glasses can provide.

Cheers, Edouard

[elagache]

Dear 65GS.com faithful,

It has been another difficult week, but let me try provide a decent update.  The last of the three surgeries in grafting new skin onto my nose involved completing the separation of the skin flap from the forehead here it was taken.  That surgery was Tuesday at the amazingly late start time of 4:40 pm.

Alas as before, things did not go to plan.  I was supposed to go home right after the surgery.  When it was time to leave the recovery room and try to come home, my legs simply were not up to it.  I could barely walk around the bed.  I certainly wasn't going to make it to the house.  So I had to spend a night and part of the day in the hospital.  The simplest hypothesis is that the anesthesia they used was sufficiently strong that it interfered with my motor skills beyond the normal recovery period.  Anesthesia for facial surgery is more difficult than for other parts of the body and adjusting this is something of an art-form. 

The surgeon was pleased at how the procedure turned out, but it was another round of rough treatment.  There are several new lines of stitches and it is going to take a while for everything to calm down and the swelling to subside.  Completing the separation of the graft included new stitches on my forehead and there is a line of stitches going from my forehead to my nose passing very close to my left eye.  That eye is once more irritated which makes using the computer difficult.  Normal strategies to reduce the irritation like applying ice don't work very well at that location.

That's the Thursday update.  Hopefully, I'll feel better as my body copes with the latest blows.   Definitely feeling overwhelmed at the moment.

Edouard

[GS66]

Thank you for the update. When this is totally healed take a long, relaxing drive in Biqette!

[Loren At 65GS]

Thank you for the update. When this is totally healed take a long, relaxing drive in Biqette!

  I second that!  More prayers for you.

  Loren

[red65gs]

Edouard,

You have had a really difficult time. I'll still send up prayers for the best outcome. As we all know the road isn't always smooth and the journey easy but time and care has a way of healing even the most difficult things.

[cwmcobra]

Amen!  Prayers continue for healing and comfort Edouard!

[elagache]

Dear Jim, Loren, Don, Chuck, and 65GS.com faithful,

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes.

As scheduled, the surgery started at around 5pm on Tuesday.  This time everything went to plan and the surgeon was pleased with how my nose and face turned out (more on that later.)  However, the plan was to send me home after I spent the usual time in the recovery room.  When the time came to try to get up and go home, my legs were too wobbly to support my weight any distance.  I wasn't going to make it to the house under those conditions.  As a result, I had to spend the night and part of the following day in the hospital.  By then I was given an "all clear" from a physical therapist - it seems like I was back to normal.

I've had trouble bouncing back from all 3 surgeries.  However, there were other factors in the previous two.  This time the most plausible hypothesis is that the anesthesia they used was sufficiently strong that it interfered with my motor skills long after the normal recovery period.  The problem with a facial surgery is that localized nerve blocks cannot be used so there are limited options.  This could become an issue as noted below.

I've been home since Wednesday afternoon and doing what I could recover.  However, there are new rows of stitches along my nose, against my left eye, and going up to my forehead once more.  My face is bruised and swollen as if I had lost a boxing match and vision in my left eye is impaired once more.  At least some of the stitches will come out on Monday and the surgeon will have his first chance to look over his handy work since the surgery.  However, already twice the surgeon has mentioned the need for a fourth surgery to recover from the work that couldn't be done during the second surgery.  If that happens will be at least a month out to allow my face to heal and the swelling to decrease.  At issue is whether or not the skin graft on my nose will finally take its normal shape on its own or will further surgery be needed to make it look like it is supposed to.

Thanks again for your support!  Yes indeed it as been a very long hard road . . . .

Edouard

[elagache]

Dear 65GS.com fans of a certain rascally wagon,

It is May already and sometime between the 3rd and 7th 1965, Biquette rolled off the GM Fremont assembly plant.  I hadn't washed her since December 2020!  I finally rectified that yesterday.  There is a fellow with classic Mustang who parks it at a local micro brewery.  It made a decent backdrop for a few photos:



It was a partly cloudy day, not the best lighting for photography.  Here is two cars from the front:



Finally a view from the driver's side:



That's all the 'pics' I've got! 

Cheers, Edouard

P.S. I can provide a quick nose reconstruction update.  It was hoped that after the surgery of March 22nd, the skin graph would reduce as the surgery swelling decreased.  Alas, it hasn't decreased much.  My nose is bloated inside and out.  As a result, my breathing is obstructed.  So at least one additional "thinning" surgery is needed.  Alas, with one surgeon out of action because of the bicycle accident of February, they remain shorthanded.  I'm waiting to find out when they can squeeze the next surgery into the schedule.

[cwmcobra]

Thanks for the pictures, Edouard.  Gives us in the northern climes something to look forward to...hopefully sooner than later!

Sorry to hear of the need for additional surgery.  As hard as it must be to keep getting up from these setbacks, look forward to the desired result.  Hoping and praying for success soon!

Chuck