Doryman's Meanderings

[Doryman]

They finally got me into surgery at 10:30 this morning, and I woke up at 2:30 in recovery. Back in the room by 4, dinner at 5:30. I was utterly astounded because the recovery from my original surgery in September took me most of an afternoon and an evening, I only had soft foods and could not read or use the computer for a couple of days.

They said the procedure went well and the pain is minimal, so I am going home tomorrow morning. Best of all, I am not tethered to an IV pole for 3 weeks. Instead they put a "PIIC line" into my arm and fed a catheter to above the heart. Into this the home health nurse or my wife will hook me up to 30 minutes of antibiotics every 3 or 4 hours. Very aggressive but makes me realize how concerned they are about the possibility of infection migrating to the cochlea or even to the brain itself.

Hopefully this will be my last medical posting in this boating forum for a long while! Thanks for your interest and support!

Warren

[Sea Wolf]

Warren-

Great news!


Keep up the fast recovery, and we'll look to see you back in the boat in a short while!

Joe. :

[JamesTXSD]

That's good news, Warren! Hopefully, no more "house arrest" for you - hope the rest of the recovery process goes fast, as well. Take care!

Best wishes,
Jim & Joan

[Captains Cat]

Good news Warren. Be sure to follow all the instructions carefully and let the good folks around you take care of you!

Stay well!

Charlie

[R-Matey]

Good Morning Warren,

What a great post to read first thing in the morning! So happy to hear that the surgery went well and you're on the mend!

Ruth and Joe
R-MATEY

[DaveS]

Glad to hear that the surgery went well! Wishing you a speedy recovery and we hope to see you at F.H.!

[thataway]

Marie and I both send our best wishes, prayers and love. We are elated that things are going so well!

Take care--probably catch up with you in a couple of months.

[El and Bill]

Good news, Warren - we've all been pulling for you

[BrentB]

great news, Warren and have a speedy recovery

[Doryman]

Well, after 4 weeks of antibiotic infusions twice a day (no fun, very tiring) the surgeon today was pessimistic that it has worked. There is a high likelihood that biofilm has attached itself to the implant and that the antibiotics did not kill it totally. I go back to UWMC next Friday morning for a final check and unless I am very lucky, the surgeon will go in and remove the internal electronics (but leave the electrodes in the cochlea) and sew me up. In 6 months he will re-implant a new internal device.

This situation is quite similar to what happens to hip/knee replacements that get infected. They get replaced, no messing around with pharmaceuticals. My surgeon has had occasional success in treating implants with antibiotics, so it was worth a try but he does not think I was one of the lucky ones.

Warren

[JamesTXSD]

Sorry to hear that, Warren. We're keeping our fingers crossed for you and sending good wishes your way.

Jim & Joan

[Doryman]

As some of you may know, Lori and I put our house in Anacortes up for sale last summer. What fewer of you may not know is that we have decided to stay put. Here is a letter I wrote for family members which I'm sharing with you to bring everyone up to date.

Happy Holidays from Warren and Lori! We hope that the end of 2013 finds you and yours in good health, good cheer. (We were going to add "good wealth" as well but decided that would be asking too much in this economy.)

The year began with us taking our new Arctic Fox camper and joining the Vagabundos del Mar (a Baja boating and travel club) on a two-week RV trek from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. Most of those in the group made the return trip to San Diego as well but we wanted to stay longer in Mexico, so after Cabo we split off by ourselves and made our way to Loreto, our favorite town in the Baja. Loreto is located approximately two-thirds of the way from San Diego to Cabo, on the Sea of Cortez side of the peninsula. It's about 350 Km north of La Paz.

We situated ourselves in Loreto Shores, an RV park on the beach. From there we spent many hours exploring Loreto and the vicinity. One of our most memorable explorations was driving over a hurricane-damaged road in the mountains behind Loreto to Mission San Javier, built in 1699. It's a beautiful little village with a historic Jesuit mission.

While we were in Loreto we engaged in deep discussions about where we were living and what we wanted to do going forward. We missed not being closer to our children, and Lori missed the Utah mountains. Our conclusion was that we would put our house on the market, buy a small house in a green development southwest of Salt Lake City, and spend our summers on the boat here in Anacortes, and return to Baja in the winters.

With that plan in mind, we returned to Anacortes in March and spent the next few months "staging" the house, which involved boxing up the majority of our possessions and putting them in storage. We also repainted the house exterior, re-sodded half of the front lawn, and upgraded the kitchen to make it look less dated. Not a full-scale remodel, but we did change the appearance drastically.

After all the work was done we listed the house and waited for the offers to roll in. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. After three months we had shown the house exactly two times. Obviously something was amiss. We decided two things: first, that the mother-in-law apartment we put in for Warren's mother was not the selling point that we thought it would be; and second, that too many other people had the same idea and were selling their houses as well.

But a funny thing happened during that selling experience. We discovered that we actually had more friends and more connections to this beautiful town than we thought.

So, more deep discussions ensued. And now we have decided that we are actually quite happy here, as long as we get to Salt Lake to see the kids more frequently, and get out of here during the coldest and greyest months of the year.

So now we're in the process of unwinding the staging effort, unboxing our possessions (using the opportunity to declutter and downsize), and reaching out more to our friends and the community. We plan to be here for the foreseeable future, so please put Anacortes on your bucket list of places to visit.

Warren & Lori Keuffel
December 2013

[ddenver]

Good luck Warren and Lori.

Hopefully, now that your housing situation has been settled, this will mean we will be seeing more of you both out on the water in the warm weather months then we have in recent years.

Washington's gain, Utah's loss.

Take care,
Dan, Tanya, and Hannah on C-Renity

[El and Bill]

Warren and Lori --
Sounds like a good choice, and nice to have the route ahead marked on the "map." Except for the winter months, your home and location sound great -- just skip to the south during the wet and grey times of winter. Life must seem much more settled, and with good health and friends in your area the route ahead looks wonderful. Bet wishes to you good folks.

[dotnmarty]

Good for you Warren. We had a similar, but different experience when we sold our house and moved out here. First we had a garage sale where, lo and behold, we had long conversations with neighbors who for thirty five years we did little more than exchange hellos with. Then we put the house up for sale, put the sign out front, went shopping and came home to find that it was sold! Then one of our neighbors threw a cook out for us and the whole neighborhood showed up. I do so miss that little house where our kids grew up (and your relative was a teacher of our son and your niece went to school with our daughter). It's a small world and a beautiful life. Best wishes and welcome home to you and Lori.