We Are Experiencing a Lull

Still not much of entertainment value going on in this household...

Dad had his surgery and recovery is going reasonably well - the issues he normally has with anesthesia are progressing...normally, and the actual results of the surgery seem to be very encouraging. He's got better strength in his legs already and his pain from the shoulder seems to be gone. The numbness in his hands is better, too. We're hoping he's at least pain-free in the arm forever from this operation.

For those of you who haven't heard, Dad has spinal stenosis in his cervical spine. This means that bone spurs are growing inside the spinal column and are pinching the cord, causing pain and partial paralysis which will worsen if not corrected. He had one surgery before I got married 3 years ago, and the surgeon botched it, leaving a fragment of bone embedded in the nerve to his left arm, which caused him a lot of pain and he lost a lot of use of the arm. A second surgery removed the splinter and relieved some of the problem, but not all. This year, he noticed his legs getting weaker and numbness in his hands and he went to another surgeon who decided he needed to have two more vertebrae operated on. As I said above, it looks like it went well.

We've had a week free of cat puke after banning the dry food. The automatic feeder seems to be working reasonably well and has cut down on Trouble bugging us for food all day, though you can never completely stop a cat from complaining. Trouble still likes to sleep on the concrete patio in the heat of the day. We put the canvas back up on the gazebo to try to prevent him from frying.

I might get to the assembly phase of my invention this weekend, as I now have an acceptably powerful air pump and the radioactive isotopes have arrived (just kidding on the last part).

There is a little yard work on the agenda - I have to spray the crape myrtles before the japanese beetles arrive, and we need to remove the old weed-infested mulch from the garden and then replace it.