Author: Doug Rutherford

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I’m back

That took a wee bit longer than originally planned.

I went to the hospital on August 24th for abdominal surgery to repair a fistula, a connection between the colon and the bladder. This explains why I’ve basically been miserable since February and probably the February before. The end result is that I’ve basically had bladder and kidney infections for the past year and feel just miserable. I’ve been tired and had trouble working a full day since the winter.

I finally got it diagnosed when I came down with the bladder infection from Hell and had to go into emergency on a weekend. The on call surgeon figured it out based on a new symptom and since it’s very rare, was able to schedule a few more tests and confirm it.

I had surgery, which basically called for cutting a piece out of the colon where it was infected, patching the bladder and putting some fat in between the two to prevent it from recurring. I did not get to pick where the fat came from, although I tried. This was the original plan; however, as in 5% of these surgeries, I sprung a leak where the two pieces of the colon were reattached and had to have another operation to repair this and clean out the abdominal cavity. This represented another week of setback and means my recovery will be longer. Also, as a part of the repair, I will also have to have more surgery as well as several tests before hand sometime in early December to finish the repair.

Now, two and a half weeks later, I came home. It is kind of scary to give up my 24 hour nursing care. I guess I have to leave the nest eventually. I still have a lot of pain, tire very easily and am quite weak. I also have to be very careful to avoid causing an incisional hernia by overdoing it. I’m allowed to pick up a cup of tea and that’s about it.

Thanks, all, for the many wishes. I am extremely grateful to each and every one. Now, I promise a more consistent posting schedule…

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I’ll be off for a while

So, tomorrow is surgery day and there’s no internet at the hospital. Therefore, I’m going to be offline for a bit, so this will be my last post for a while. The estimate is that I’ll be in hospital for about a week, so I assume my next post may be longer.

Other than that, take care all and I’ll catch you next week.

All the best, Doug.

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Nothing like lots of notice

Well, I got a phone call from the OR scheduling people this morning. I go for surgery Wednesday morning. Now, I get to run around like a chicken with its head cut off for a few days to get everything ready before hand.

I have a few things to do. I have to check the forecast to see if I’ll be able to get the boat out for a last run tomorrow… sometime between seeing the dramaturg about my play at 8:30 and pre-op clinic at 4. If not, I have to put my motor and boat away for the year since boating season will probably be over by the time I’m back in business. A few lawn things have to be taken care off before hand too. I have a few things to wash (my new jammies are washed already though) and have to get packed as well as other minor things.

Oh, well. They could have called and said I had surgery tomorrow…

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Jack Layton, 1950-2011

Jack Layton passed away early this morning with his family around him. His passing was described as “peaceful.”

I must admit a bit of shock to this. When I watched the press conference where he announced that he would be stepping down temporarily to fight another bout of cancer, I was amazed at how poorly he looked. That being said, I like many people believed he would, as he said, return in September for the return of the House. Jack was a fighter, and had always been through his political career. It was reasonable to assume that this was just one more obstacle that he would push through. And, despite how ill he appeared at that press conference, it was easy to believe that the opening of the house would include him.

 He was always optimistic and a tough debater and there are many in the House of Commons who have felt the sting of his educated and biting wit. Jean Chretian referred to this today as him bearing the scars on his backside of several tough debates with him.

His policies were always slanted to those most in need. His interests included increasing employment and protecting pensions. Public health care and protecting labour were also  keystones of his beliefs. He epitomized the “kitchen table” politician, willing to discuss and help anyone who needed it.

There are probably few words that best describe the country’s loss this morning. Shirley Douglas, daughter of Tommy Douglas, probably provided the best description, in that only death could stop him. Sadly, it has and we are a smaller country today because of it.

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I have a surgical date, sort of

I had a follow-up appointment with the surgeon today and got a few more details. I now have a date of sorts: next week or the week after. I realize that this isn’t still pinned down too tightly but it’s better than what I was working with the day before.

The doctor commented on Clara’s point that Dr. Poole, who is on vacation until next week, said that he would probably want to do it. “Of course, she said. This is rare. Since you don’t commonly get to do one of these, it’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “unless something goes wrong.”

Hopefully, nothing goes wrong. And, quite frankly, I always thought the “fun” in surgery was directly proportional to how vertical you were during the procedure…

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Reasonable warranty service

Having had unhappy dealings with the new netbook I bought in February, I finally opted for just starting over and buying another computer. It was an Acer and it took from February until June to convince them that it should probably get fixed because, when using the computer with it plugged in, you’d get a shock whenever you touched the bottom. However, sending it back would have cost $140 plus about another $40 in packing materials and, tax included, the computer only cost $250. I waffled for a while and then Clara convinced me to just send it on, parcel post. It came back last week with a new motherboard and you can use it without getting curly hair now.

I ordered a new Dell laptop and have been quite happy with it. However, two of the keys on the keyboard started to stick and one, the letter “M,” became almost unusable. (Note my continued use of this letter in this blog post). Therefore, on Friday, I called Dell technical support. The guy on the other end of the line was cheerful, and started off with an apology that the keyboard was defective. The only such thing I got from Acer was, “Sorry, you have to pay to have it shipped.” I explained the problem and he put me on hold for a few minutes. Seems he was trying to find a technician to install the new keyboard and had some trouble. I told him that, since I teach that sort of thing, I had no problems with installing it myself and… wait for it… he thanked me for making his job easier. Then, since it was Friday morning, he apologized that, sadly, there was no possible way to get it to Whitehorse before… here it comes… Monday. It arrived about 10 this morning. I just have to repack the old one for returning, which Dell, by the way, pays for.

I’m now happily using the letter “M” as needed. I gave Clara the netbook and she finds it a bit faster than the older laptop, which is missing the letter “K” key from a run-in with out granddaughter. Katrina now has that one. It’s the circle of life, computer style…

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Quick Progress Report

I do have a few things to report of across the street. If you read the newspaper article, you would notice that he’s been hiding from the city who have been trying to serve papers on him for over a year. They haven’t been able to catch his daughter, who lives in Alberta and is the actual owner of the property for over two.

The night before last, the city caught up to the neighbour. He was served with papers that state that in a few weeks, the city is coming to clean the property to their standards and billing him and the property owner for the cost. Why do I picture that six or so city workers making $30+/hr in wages in benefits for hours on end to run up quite a tidy sum as being far worse than actually keeping your property up?

Now I’m wondering when my surgery will be. After all, this is a form of entertainment I would rather not miss and it would the first time in over two years that you could sit on my bedroom balcony and not be disgusted by the trash across the street.

So, kudos to the city for the achievement. Sadly, the Department of the Environment is apparently not so capable…

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What’s so new about jumping ship?

I find one of the funniest parts of politics to be when a member of a political party, for some reason or another, opts to leave and take up the torch of another. Why funny? Because, the party left and the parties not joined seem to view this as the most horrible form of blasphemy. But, of course, this blaspheming will only be applicable to their opponents and never when they do it themselves.

Changing political allegiances is not new and it’s not that rare. Look at the current leadership of the three main political parties. The recent turmoil concerns the fact that interim NDP Leadeer Nycole Turmel was a card-carrying member of the Bloc and also a member of the Provincial Quebec Solidaire. Her claimed reason for doing so was to support a friend and because she favoured the social democratic principles of the party, while not supporting sovereignty. Bob Rae, the current interim leader of the Liberal Party, was a federal NDP MP before moving to provincial politics in Ontario. He became leader of the party and was elected as NDP premier in 1990. He left the party in 1997 and re-entered politics in 2006  shortly after a poll listed him as second choice for the Liberal Party leadership after Frank McKenna… and after McKenna announced that he was not running for leader of the party. Our last example, of course, is Prime Minister Harper, who has made a career of changing party allegiances. He started out as a Liberal, but quit the party when he disagreed with the National Energy Policy. He moved from the Liberals to the Progressive Conservative Party, but left when he disagreed with the policies of Brian Mulroney. He joined the Reform Party, but left it when he disagreed with the policies of Preston Manning.

Other famous federal politicians who have moved include Newfoundland’s John Crosby, who started out as a provincial Liberal before becoming a member of the provincial Conservative party and later a PC MP, Belinda Stronach, who ran unsuccessfully for the PC party leadership in 2004 and jumped to the Liberal Party in 2005 (while dating the former leader of the PC Party), and David Emerson, who was elected as a Liberal in the 2006 election and accepted a seat in cabinet as a Conservative MP immediately after the election.

And, if you follow Yukon politics, it gets even more interesting. In the upcoming election, we have Dave Sloan, former NDP cabinet minister running for the Liberal Party, Eric Fairclough who was an NDP cabinet minister who jumped to the Liberal banner, Scott Kent, former Liberal cabinet minister running for the Yukon Party, etc.

In short, every party has a history of wavering membership stories. Why, then, do the parties scream when someone demonstrates a history of having held membership in another? Much of the rhetoric makes little sense. For example, Stephen Harper’s comment about Nycole Turmel’s membership in a sovereignist party being “disappointing” wears a bit when it was revealed that Transport Minister Denis Lebel was a long-standing member of the Bloc. Also, the prime minister has appoint Michael Rivard, a Parti Quebecois MNA as a Conservative senator in 2008. So, this is obviously a glass house where stone throwing should be considered risky at best. Despite this, the war of words seems to arise anytime someone reconsiders their priorities, a somewhat human trait.

As a piece of trivia, the first time I was ever in the House of Commons visitors’ gallery, I watched Raymond Rock cross the floor from the governing Liberal Party to sit as a Progressive Conservative. As Pierre Trudeau rose to speak immediately afterwards, someone (I think it was George Hees) yelled out from the opposite side of the House, “Are you coming over, too?”

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Waiting sucks

I figured that, by now, I would have found out when my surgery would be scheduled. The main point for waiting was the results of my biopsies; however, they were back a week ago. I know I was happy when they were clean but I’d like to get the surgery done and over with. I will be out of commission for at least six weeks afterwards and without knowing the date, planning for this is impossible.

Therefore, I guess I’ll try to get out fishing tomorrow or Wednesday and I’m aiming to go camping this weekend, since it’s difficult to determine whether or not I’ll get out again. At least, I’ll feel like I’m doing something other than just waiting.

I did come up with a new description for my upcoming surgery, though. Everyone seems to wince when you tell them you’re having a small piece of your colon removed. Therefore, I’m trying out the new alternative: due to the number of complaints about its length, I’m going to have surgery to have an organ shortened. Same thing, worded differently…

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Press Coverage

The Yukon News has picked up the story on the hazardous waste site across the street. There should be something in today’s paper. The photographer was over early this morning to get a shot of me for it. Why didn’t I get my hair cut yesterday when it occurred to me…

I waiting to hear back from Paul Watson at the Toronto Star, as well.