Family Portrait

Ben's back

After 2 years in Toronto, Ben has returned home and has promptly traced the shortest path from the front door to the piano.

Satsuma Sashimi

Taking full advantage of my extended stay in Sydney to catch up with my Aunt and Uncle for dinner while they're in town for a meeting. On the menu was some fantastic Japanese. All the dishes were tasty and beautifully presented although the sashimi special and the grilled fatty tuna were particularly fantastic.

Escape!

Shortly before 5pm today I staged my escape from the SAN. They sent me home with the Coach - to practice breathing. I'm supposed to aim for 2600mL which is a long way from the ~1000mL I can manage at the moment.

Still a Mystery

Dozens (and dozens) of tests later and they still haven't been able to identify the cause of my current medical predicament. (Of course this also means that a lot of potential nasties have been eliminated.) I feel like I'm starring in my own personal episode of House only without everything being resolved within the hour's episode.

I've been trying to get some "exercise" (i.e., walking down the hall) to help with the lungs. Hopefully the ~1 cm diameter chest drain can come out soon so I won't be dragging so many cables/tubes around.

The Day After

After spending the night in the first class care that is the ICU, I (with attached drips, morphine pump, chest drainage tubes and monitoring electrodes) was moved to the cardiac ward. I scored a nice single room with en-suite and a view. On the agenda for the day, a full torso CT scan with contrast. That's 6 glasses of vile lemonade-from-hell flavored contrast chugged in quick succession.

Thanks

Thank you to Randy and my friends at XSD for the beautiful Australian floral arrangement.

O is for Operation

Well I survived surgery, all 25 min of it. Despite having a cannula installed in my left hand when I was admitted, the anesthesiologist had put a new extra large (~1 mm diameter) one in my right arm. With particularly low blood pressure, my veins were extra hard to find, making installing this IV a super fun process of trial and error (leading to considerable subsequent bruising). They also put in an arterial IV providing "on tap" blood for testing.
Apparently, while I was sleeping, they made a ~2 inch incision, spread some ribs apart, and pushed aside (i.e., collapsed) a lung to access the heart and put a drainage window in the pericardium. I'm guessing that I'll end up with the scars of a one-sided boob job without the associated augmentation.

Disclaimer: This post has been back dated to more accurately reflect the timing of events. In reality it would have been difficult to blog immediately following surgery in a post-anesthetic/morphine-induced haze with IV's in both hands/arms.

Parched

Nil by mouth from midnight = a very very thirsty patient waiting for late afternoon surgery. My morning ultrasound showed a ~1.5 cm shell of fluid surrounding the otherwise normal heart. Of course the extra external pressure had my heart beating more than twice as fast as normal. Incidentally, its quite fascinating to watch one's heart+valves at work.

Change of Plans - A Medical Drama

The eve of our non-refundable return flights to the US and it looks like we'll be forced to forfeit our tickets.

After an its-a-bit-difficult-to-breath-lying-down-can-I-have-a-pill-please trip to the GP and a chest X-ray, the doctor pronounced "What a big heart you've got. No plane trips for you. Go see the cardiologist."

Turns out I have a pericardial effusion (fluid around the heart). Admitted overnight to the Sydney Adventist Hospital, aka the SAN, (hurray for excellent medical insurance with international coverage that extends to the private hospital 10 min from my Sydney home), for surgery tomorrow. All the real doctors keep exclaiming how fortunate it is that we caught this before getting on the plane.

Po Po & I

Wii Fit

One could pull a muscle with the Wii Fit, that is, pull a muscle laughing at others using it. Sooo funny....

Next Stop Canberra

The relative road trip continues with a fabulous home cooked dinner and dessert at Po Po's.

More Fun in the Sand

More beautiful sunny weather to play at the beach. Time for a quick portrait of the original 3 members of the Chapman family.

Half of One Mile

A quick trip to Forster where recent storms had washed half my favorite beach away. The high tide mark was more like a sand cliff. The surf was still rough, with strong rips guaranteed to sweep you down the beach the minute your feet left the sand.

Art etc.

A concentrated dose of Aussie culture with an evening at the NSW Art Gallery's exhibit of the Archibald finalists.

Qantas A380. A better way to fly.

The improved seat design and extensive entertainment system made time fly on our LAX-SYD flight - 14 hours only felt like 13.25.

*live pictures of our landing in soggy Sydney courtesy of Skycam

Ski the Upper Mountain

The scientific interruption to our skiing adventures coincided with a significant snow event. We joined a group lesson for the morning, to ensure our skills were up to par, before exploring new powder patches and more advanced runs in the Supreme and Sugarloaf areas. I finished up ahead of Greg on falls, including a spectacular backward somersault down Sleepy Hollow that left me quite snow coated.

"I have a question"

Chairing conference sessions is hard - just ask Greg, my two-time co-chair. On the other hand, the need to devise a semi-intelligent discussion question, related to an unfamiliar field (in case the other 12 audience members have none), is motivation to be more attentive than ever.

Conferenskiing*

With the Spring ACS meeting being held in Salt Lake City, within 30 min of the "lightest snow on Earth (only 6% water!!!)", we returned to Alta for some fabulous spring skiing. Conditions were ideal for scuffing up some shiny ski gear. In other news, it seems that where ski jackets are concerned, green is the new black.


*This term has been shamelessly appropriated from Dr G.