Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]
7/5/25
Aloha Everybody! Happy Fourth of July!
This was a pretty good week. We attended a fun concert, saw some fireworks, got to the golf course, had a couple of good solar production days, and I had only one medical appointment.
The medical event was my 2-week post-op follow-up with my surgeon on Tuesday. All good news. I seem to be healing nicely, both inside and outside, and my pain has all but disappeared. In fact, my surgeon cautioned me that with laparoscopic surgery the lack of pain can tempt me to do too much too soon. The inner tissue strength doesn't get back to near 100% until after about 6-weeks. However, I'm cleared to get back in our pool as soon as one incision heals over a bit more -- maybe another week -- and most other low-exertion activities are ok. I got some interesting information during the surgeon's recounting of the procedure. In particular, he said that to hold the reinforcing mesh patches in place and to close the internal incisions, he used....tacks. It turns out I have very few internal stitches
, but I do have about 15 tacks! Well, this really fascinated me, and I had a lot of questions, including how did he hammer them in? I learned that these are not like household tacks, but more like short, squat, screws. They're put in place using a nifty tool that shoots them like a staple gun with a long tube, spinning them as they go. They burrow in, anchoring themselves and securing the target tissues (or mesh). Mine are absorbed over about 6 months, by which time the tissues will have bonded to each other or to the implanted mesh. Pretty cool, right? So the parts list for my surgery included 3 pieces of plastic mesh, a small amount of thread, 15 tacks, and 5 globs of glue. Naturally, I asked for a souvenir tack to go with my souvenir photo, a request the surgeon admitted no one had ever asked before.
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| Tacks Enlarged in Photo |
The concert in Waimea that we went to last Saturday was very good. The name of the band is Dirty Cello. They are a small group from northern California that plays a range of styles but mostly a kind of rock blue grass. The founders and permanent members are a husband-wife team with her as lead vocalist and cello player, and him on backup guitar. They were accompanied by two other musicians, a drummer and a bass player. For such a small group they really put out the sound. The cello-playing was first rate and quite interesting to watch. The cello was raised and secured to a stand that let her play and move around rather than sitting. She was classically trained but this was far from classical cello! Her singing was terrific. Bottom line -- a very fun evening.
On Thursday we went to Makalei. Karen played and I drove the cart. I also gave her sagely caddy advice about which club to use and where to aim, which she promptly and wisely ignored. I did drop a ball on several of the greens and practiced putting, but I didn't do any approach shots. Karen had to load and unload the bag of clubs because it was well beyond the limit of my lifting restriction. We didn't have any rain for the first few holes, but then we had off-and-on showers and drizzle. We kept going, though, and finished our usual 16 holes. The course is very green and gorgeous, but the ground is saturated, making cart-driving a bit of a challenge on the steeper portions.
Last night we drove down to watch the community fireworks over Kailua Bay. It was a tasty treat for a fireworks junkie like me, though it only lasted about 10 minutes. It's a small community, after all.
Ok, that's it for this week. Hope you are staying cool. Try to stay focused on what you know is real and what is good. And as always, Carpe Vitam!
