Rain

Started to rain about 3am this morning and rained on & off till noon today. Most rain that we have seen at one time in the three winters that we have spent in Lake Havasu City. They say that if we get enough winter rain the desert will bloom with many glorious plants and flowers as soon as it begins to warm up in March or April. Teddy & I are hopeful that it will happen this year. The last time was the year before we came here.The cloud patterns after the rain were spectacular. At sunset I snapped this pict of a juxtaposition of clouds and contrails.

Packers vs Giants

Teddy & I put on our Packer shirts and watched the NFC playoff game between the Packers and the Giants tonight. With temperatures hovering around 0°F it was cold, cold, cold conditions under which to play, brrrrrr. Anyway, unfortunately the wrong team won but it was a hard fought contest under miserable conditions and either team could have won. The Pack doesn't have anything to be ashamed of.
Now I'll have to root for the Giants against the AFC's New England Patriots in the upcoming Superbowl but that's probably a forlorn hope too.
In other news, my recovery from my recent gall bladder surgery has progressed well and the soreness is just about gone. The only problem, as I see it, is that I am running out of body parts that I can get along without, having already lost my appendix, my tonsils, my foreskin, my prostate and my right knee. I suppose the mind will go next....er....um....I'm sorry...what was I talking about?

The Gall of it all!!!

2008 hasn't started out all that good for good ole' Larry.
Last Thursday evening at around 11 p.m. I started to feel slightly nauseous. It was bedtime anyway so we decided to go to bed. We had attended a little "Happy Hour" snack party in the clubhouse earlier in the evening and I was thinking that I would probably feel better in the morning.
>>>WRONG<<<
By midnight I was violently vomiting and had chest pains across my lower rib cage. Thinking that I might be experiencing a heart attack we headed for the hospital, about ten miles from here. At Havasu emergency they quickly hook me up to an EKG machine and found that my heart was just fine. Then they gave me some medications to stop the vomiting and to reduce the pain and started doing tests. At first they thought that it could be my pancreas...but some machine that went "Beep" said no, it wasn't that. Eventually I got hooked up to every expensive machine in the hospital and after 18 hours in emergency they admitted me into the hospital with a rotten gall bladder and scheduled for immediate surgery.
By now it is was Saturday morning, I have no idea what happened to Friday.
But...there's always a but, they found out that my blood was too thin to operate as I have been taking Cumiden, a blood thinner, since my knee operation in June because of my *atrial fibrillation. *(see my blog from Saturday, April 08, 2006) So they began pumping me full of Vitamin K, a blood thickener, to counteract the Cumiden.
And then, Saturday evening at about 6pm, I was good to go. Teddy had came back to the hospital with her camera on Saturday and here's what I looked like then!
Teddy said that In talking with the surgeon following the surgery he said that my gall bladder was completely rotten, swelled to six times normal size, surrounded with fat, and starting to get gangrenious.
Here's what I looked like then. Needless to say, even though I was pretty sore from the surgery, I felt much better, both mentally and physically. My surgeon, Dr. Rizzo told me that I could probably go home either Sunday evening or Monday morning.
>>>HURRAH<<<
But...remember...there's always a but, my heart went into A-fib Sunday night and the cardiologist, Dr. Aliyar wouldn't release me till he got my heart stabilized.
So finally, it is now Tuesday the 8th and I came home to applause and hearty greetings here in The Havasu RV Resort this afternoon.
And one thing is certain.
I'll never have gall bladder problems again!

New Years 2008

Monday evening we had a New Years celebration in the clubhouse complete with tons of snacks, drinks, party games, music & dancing etc. It was a good time for all.
Here are some of the early revelers as we began to gather around 8:30 pm.



And as you can see, no one wasted any time in digging into the snacks.
















Teddy and our friends Gary & Jan Morse from Bakersfield, CA enjoyed watching the dancing...well at least Teddy & Gary did, Jan seemed to be more interested in watching me take her picture.
And yes, I did dance with Teddy...I don't spend all my time taking pictures. :-)

Actually the ball in times square dropped at 10:00 pm our time here in Arizona and that was good enough for for a lot of us "senior citizens" here in the park, as many of us went home ...and to bed. Although there were a few revelers that lasted well into the new year aided by several bottles of wine.
Teddy and I wish all of our friends the very best for a most happy New Year and hope that 2008 brings good fortune to all.