Open-heart Surgery

There seems to be agreement that most patients have little or no pain by three months post-op, although there is something called CPOP that can result in long-term pain.  Use of heart-lung machines seem to increase post-op pain.  Oddly, the older you are, the less pain but the higher the mortality rate.

Mortality rates are apparently higher for open-heart than minimally invasive surgery.  Longer pre-op hospitalization more than three days seems to reduce mortality.  High creatine levels indicating kidney problems are correlated with increased mortality.

If my surgeon is unwilling to refer me to a TECAB procedure, open-heart sounds unpleasant but tolerable.  Apparently the more stuff they do while "under the hood" (in my case double bypass and aortic valve replacement) the higher the risk.  The 2013 aortic valve replacement was bad.  Slightly higher mortality to avoid going through recovery twice seems worth it.  Meeting Jesus early does not appeal to me, because I have a number of RKBA cases that need my assistance, but if that happens you guys are going to have to do your best without me.

That Problem I Was Having With Books Not Appearing in Kindle

It appears that buying a Kindle edition in the Amazon Android app does not work.  Never a chance to swipe or click buy.  I bought it on my PC and boom!  There it was in my Kindle.

The book is Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot (actually the trilogy of which this is the first book). I watched a movie version of it made I think in the 1960s starring a very young Doug McClure.  You remember him right?

It seemed very derivative of the Lost World.  Several of his books' plots are shamelessly stolen from Wells or Verne.  But hey, Wells' The Sleeper Awakes is pretty well stolen from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backwards (1884).

Anyway, a pretty good film.  The special effects are as good as you expect from that era.  There is a surprising plot twist at the end.

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The first two chapters are exciting and well -written.a

Lysenkoism

5/17/23 Reuters:

May 17 (Reuters) - Three Russian academics who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face "very serious accusations", the Kremlin said on Wednesday, in a treason investigation that has spread alarm through Russia's scientific community.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was aware of an open letter from Siberian scientists in defence of the men, but that the case was a matter for the security services.

In the letter, published on Monday, colleagues of Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev protested their innocence and said the prosecutions threatened to inflict grave damage on Russian science....

President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia is the global leader in hypersonic missiles, capable of travelling at speeds of up to Mach 10 (12,250 kph) to evade enemy air defences. On Tuesday, Ukraine said it had managed to destroy six of the weapons in a single night, although Russia disputed this.

Obviously, the failure of the much ballyhooed hypersonic missile must be treason.  When politics takes precdence over science in a totalitarian state, science loses and eventually so does the state.  Orwell's 1984 imagines a future with technology only slightly more advanced than his own era because science and technology work on absolute truths, like 2+2=4, and in a society where there are no absolute truths, science will advance very slowly.  1984 (1984) did a great job of portraying this barely beyond 1948 technological status.

I Helped With Research on This Case

5/16/13 NJ com. Copy and paste not working but federal judge enjoined enforcement of New Jersey treating nearly the whole state as a sensitive zone where what will soon be a sea of concealed carry license may not carry.

Totally Endoscopic Coronary Artery Bypass (TECAB)

This is a robotic procedure for doing bypass without breaking the sternum.  The question is whether this can be done in conjunction with the endoscopic aortic valve replacement.  Doing them as two separate procedures might be worse than just having the sternum broken.

I Survived Angiogram

Aortic valve will need surgical replacement and two arteries need bypass.  This is going to be awful.

The doctor who did the angiogram indicated it will involve cutting me open and then wiring the sternum back together.  This sounds absolutely awful.

I am home.  It will be some weeks before surgery so everything I need to do for the cause needs to be done first.

"Pretend you have a broken wrist for a few days."

A Genuine Crisis Actor!

 5/15/23 Fox News:

Awitness to the Allen, Texas, mall shooting who has called for gun control in the aftermath of the tragedy has had his account disputed by Texas police, who say he has spread "misinformation" in multiple media interviews.

Steven Spainhouer, who has identified himself as a former Army officer, gave multiple media outlets a dramatic account of the Texas mall shooting earlier this month, saying he showed up at the mall before police and first responders to begin administering aid to shooting victims.

According to CBS News, Spainhouer said he arrived at the scene after receiving a call from his son about hearing gunfire on the property. When he arrived, the former officer said he gave first aid and performed CPR on shooting victims, including one girl who "had no face" and a young boy covered "head to toe" in blood who was hiding under the body of his dead mother.

However, Spainhouer's dramatic retelling of the events has been disputed by the Allen Police Department, who released a statement on Friday claiming that he was not a "credible" witness.

"Allen Police Department wants to inform the public of discrepancies with statements made by a witness to several media outlets. Following the shooting at Allen Premium Outlets, Mr. Steven Spainhouer of McKinney, Texas gave multiple public accounts of his actions," the police statement said. "Inconsistencies between these public accounts and investigative facts led Allen Police Department to conduct a follow-up interview. During this interview, detectives determined that Mr. Spainhouer is not a credible incident witness."