(1) Tomorrow, I'm having throat and nose surgery at UM Hospital, including a
tonsillectomy.  Recovery is expected to take a while; I'll be out of work
for three weeks, and probably out of email and Grex contact for some part of
that time. 

(2) Frank Lessa, formerly of M-Net and Grex, is in Sparrow Hospital in
Lansing -- has been there for about three weeks.  He has been diagnosed with
metachromatic leukodystrophy, and is also having dialysis for unrelated
(possibly transient) kidney failure.  He's in reasonably good spirits under
the circumstances, and would welcome visits (room 809-1) or calls
(517-483-3461).

50 responses total.

Larry, if you will be in the hospital for a while during recovery and feel
up to having visitors, let us know where and when.  I hope you feel a lot
better afterwards, eventually.  We can deliver library books.

I was released from the hospital this morning, and am recovering at
home.

Welcome home, Larry.

Glad to hear it, Larry!

Wishes for a speedy recovery.

Re 4.  Frank is very grateful for the nice card you sent him.

Re 5.  Thanks for being there!

Wishes for an expedient billing process.

A tonsillectomy too? Oy vey. Had mine out when I was 27, and was sick 
for a month. Mmm, milkshakes.

My sister gets hers removed this week or next, if I recall correctly.  She's
18.

Mine was a one-day surgery. I don't remember much of that day, except 
throwing up a good 12 times or so over the course of several hours.

I don't think my throat hurt all the time, but swallowing was horrific. 
Even water was an issue. I don't know where people get that ice cream 
is the thing after a tonsillectomy... anything very cold or very hot is 
even more painful. It was about two weeks before I could nibble on 
solids. Even then, I had to cut everything up in teeny tiny pieces. My 
voice slowly came back in a few weeks.

Oh, and they cauterized the surgery area as opposed to stitches. When I 
was able to open my mouth wide enough to look in (about a week later) 
it was gross, yet fascinating. :)

#10:  You know what?  If they ever suggest that I get my tonsils removed, I
think I'll say "no."

re#6 Yeah, I got a nice email from Frank. He has to be going out of his 
mind cooped up in the hospital. Blech. Larry, I'll bet you are glad to 
be home. BTW, I have about a ton of books I could give you if you feel 
like you are running short of reading material. :)

confidentially, i've had a great time here.  geting along very well
with the nurses.  got two addy's w/phone numbers so far. have had
virtually no pain at all and one unremarkable surgery.  food is
good nd nutritious, a bunch of things are off my diet or limited,
but i'm not mssing them. passed up a spaghetti dinner last week
for the first time I can remember (i chse the pork chop dinner).

next time i'll choose a better keybord  :)

Hey Frank! I am glad to hear you are doing well. 

I had my tonsils out when I was 7, I think.

I'm glad you're back on line at least some of the time, Larry.

I'm glad you're back, too, Frank.  I'd never heard of metachromatic 
leukodystrophy and am going to have to read up on that one some.  It 
sounds extremely serious, though.  Here's from a WWW page:

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/meta_leu_doc.htm

In the adult form, symptoms, which begin after age 16, may include 
impaired concentration, depression, psychiatric disturbances, ataxia, 
tremor, and dementia. Seizures may occur in the adult form, but are 
less common than in the other forms. In all three forms mental 
deterioration is usually the first sign.

It's a genetic disorder with no cure at present according to that WWW 
page.  Very serious indeed.  I am very sorry to hear about it.

How long do you have to stay in the hospital?

Apparently I had the docs confused because I passed with flying colors
the memory tests they administered.  It was the MRI (CAT scan) which
steered them toward the diagnosis.  Apparently I am more colorful than
I've appeared in the past <joke>. BTW, the MRI was te weirdest test I've
ever had, I was hearing (literally) lots of noises like pings nd pongs.

I've had some neuropathy in my left foot, which I suspect is of the
diabetic variety, and was rather hypertensive when i got here.  I've
lost perhaps 30-40 pounds here, mostly edema from my arms and lower
legs, and i feel great.  My blood sugar is in a nice 80-110 range, BP
is moderate, i whizzed through the physical and occupational therapy
exercises.  I'm hoping to be discharged Tues but I'll have to stay local
until a dialysis "slot" become available in Portland (my aunt and cousin
with whom I grew up live there).

I feel better than I've felt in a long time, people here say they don't
believe I'm the same person who was in ICU a month ago, and friends say I
look 10 years younger.  I've really mellowed out and am happy to be here.

Is there a chance the diagnosis is incorrect, Frank?

You've never lacked color, and I have often wondered in recent months 
what had become of you.  I'm genuinely sorry to have your name turn up 
next to such a dismaying diagnosis.  I've found you exasperating at 
times, but always wished you well, and I still do.

(I mean I wish you well.  I haven't felt particularly exasperated 
toward you recently.  Geezopeetes, let me drop my jaw a little further 
so I can get both feet in.)

I'm skepticval of the dignosis, myself.  the most dismaying aspect so
far was that a nurse who seemed very interested on the 25th (and she really
looked spiffy that day) dropped me like a hot potato the next day when she
got wind of the diagnosis (several days before I did).

I hope the diagnosis is wrong.  How did you take the news, when you 
found out what it means?  It sounds pretty terrifying to me.

re #11: Yeah, but I haven't had strep throat since.

Besides, it's cool to tell people that when the doctor made the first 
incision, this yellow/green/white slime shot out from beneath my 
tonsils! I'd been carrying all that infection in my body for who knows 
how long, likely from all the episodes of strep I'd had.

I didn't know that had happened until a month later, when I had my 
follow up appointment. The doctor who did the surgery said the 
infection stank nearly knocked everyone in the OR out. Heh. And this is 
a guy who's been doing surgeries for 30 years.

Frank, have you been advised to modify your diet to eat less salt and protein?
My father was on dialysis for 12 years and the local dialysis patient book
used to put out its own recipe booklets.  My mother would soak tunafish
overnight in plain water to get out the salt.  That should help with the edema
between dialysis treatments - don't put the salt in and you don't get the
water retention as badly.  Doctors nowadays don't seem to think patients will
follow diets so they give them drugs instead.  My next door neighbor said she
was feeling dizzy from some new blood pressure drug they gave her to remove
salt from her body.  They never told her to eat less salt!

I have created a blog (weblog) with accounts of my surgery and recovery,
and perhaps eventually with commentary on politics and architecture and
other matters.  It's called "Polygon, the Dancing Bear", and located at
http://www.potifos.com/polygon

re #20:  the diagnosis was a relief compared with what i had been imagining,
as I was fearing a short/medium terminal prognosis (one nurse slipped up and
asked if I had heard "the bad news" - there's othing like hearing of the
existence of bad news without knowing the specifics).

re #22: i'd already guessed at the need to avoid salt and protein, i've
been consciously watching what I ingest and also watching my blood sugar.
in the short term, i needed protein badly because so much had been
depleted in recent weeks.

So what are your symptoms and how many of them match the diagnosis?
How many hours a week is dialysis nowadays?  In my father's time it was
experimental.  He was one of the first to have it, in the hospital, and it
took all day.

it is my understanding that the diagnosis ws based mainly on the MRI,
which apparently displayed some colorful parts in the brain's myelin
layer (or something like that).  my dialysis is MWF 3 hrs each.

Do you feel well enough to read during dialysis?  If not, are you interested
in reading books on tape?

Okay, you want tonsil stories?  Try this.

My mother ate breakfast the morning she had a tonsilectomy. For that reason,
they could not give her a general anesthetic.  Theygave her a local and placed
a mirror in front of her so she could watch.

Re 27  "Reading" books on tape isn't READING - it's "listening".  Serious pet
peeve of mine.

re #29: I disagree.  "Reading" is assimilating information.  You 
can "read" a book by audiotape, just as a blind person can "read" a 
book by Braille.  Words are words, whether they're printed, bumps, 
verbalized, or conveyed by sense of smell in some weird way.  
Similarly, one can write a book by speaking into a dictaphone or tape 
recorder just as well as with a computer or typewriter.

It's the arrangement of the words that makes the book, not the medium.  
Taking in those words is reading, however you receive the information.

www.m-w.com: read:
1 a (1) : to receive or take in the sense of (as letters or symbols) 
especially by sight or touch 

I guess I always thought of reading as a visual thing.  Regardless of what
you said, John, it's still a pet peeve.  I didn't read "The Shipping News"
- I listened to it on teh way home from MI.

One *reads* books to others, one does "speak" books to others. One goes
to "readings" to listen to books being "read" (out loud). Reading is not
just visual assimilation of printed words. 

Re #31: So a blind person isn't "reading" a braille book, they're
"feeling" it?  I'd look at someone kind of odd if they said, "I felt a
good book last week..."

but if they were blind, they wouldn't know you were looking odd.

Re Depends on it it was Anais Nin :)

s/does/doesn't/ in #32. 

So listening to the TV without watching it is reading? How about radio?

Julie often reads aloud-- it's the best way she can remember the 
information.  She also loves to watch TV with closed captioning.

I often say phone numbers aloud to make it easier to remember them.

Webster:  read - receive or take in the sense of (as letters or symbols) by
scanning  [printed matter via vision];  to study the movements of (as lips)
[lip reading, via vision];  to utter aloud words represented by writing or
print [read aloud];  to understand the meaning of (written or printed matter);
to learn from what one has seen or found in writing or printing.

Reading books on tape would fit the last two definitions if you stretch them
to include the fact that the writing or print has been transcribed to sound
first.  So would:  to become acquainted with or look over the contents of (as
a book), to receive and understand (a voice message) by radio.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss