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Paul B's thread

I had my back surgery yesterday. The hospital doesn't allow an Uber to drive you home. You need a real person to get you there and wait for you. Luckily, my closest friend came home early from a Sweet 16 party in his family and drove me. I was in there over 3 hours. First they had to scrape all the ich off my vertebra.

My Wonderful surgeon made 4 incisions in my back, played around in there for over an hour and glued me back up probably with coral glue.

I won't know if it worked for a couple of weeks or months but I have great faith in her.
She is a pain Mgt Dr. and every time my wife or I go to her, we come out dancing.

She is in her 40s and a Supermodel, although that is not why we went to. (but it helped)

I love this doctor as does my wife and would follow her to California if she moved there.

Last night I "slept" with the door opened and felt like someone drove an Oldsmobile on to my bed and parked the right front wheel on my back even though I took Oxycodone and Methocarbambol which put me into GaGa land but didn't do anything for the back pain.

But after 36 surgeries I know the drill and it will get much better by the day.

So I got up at 1:00 am for the pain and "other reasons" :)
Geeesh Paul, hopefully the procedure helps, I'm still dealing with back issues and insurances to have my anterior fusion, 6 years of misery this November 11th. I know all too well about the pain meds not doing much other than going to Gaga land lol. Hopefully, you find some relief.
Best Wishes,

BiGGiePauls
 
Hi Paul. This only works if your MRI determines a specific type of problem in your vertebra and doesn't work for everything. Things like bulging disks it doesn't work on. It's a new procedure. This is it


It's not the same as an ablasion which I also had twice. She made 4 incisions for 6 vertibra
 
So my surgery is over and I won't know if it worked for a couple of weeks or months. I was not supposed to do any exercise or lift anything for a few days.

Of course yesterday, my car was dead. The one year old, five year warranty battery croaked. I couldn't even get the key out of the ignition, thats how dead it was.

Car batteries weigh about 50lbs and they are not just sitting on top of the engine. After you un-bolt them and remove the 10 cables you have to try to snake it out of a spot that they looks like they built the car around it and it was not built to remove, especially right after spine surgery.

Most of my friends are in Florida and the one I have next door was away baby sitting. My neighbor was at a gym somewhere and no one was around so guess who had to remove and install the battery?

Yes, the guy with the screwed up back.

So, now it's in and all is well,,,,except for my back of course. :(
 
So do I Gary. I just wrote a book and that unfortunately is in it.

Lets not forget to thank a Veteran today. Without Veterans, instead of reef tanks we would be driving real military tanks or raising fish for food. :(
 
I had my free breakfast at I Hop this morning. Veterans Day is the only time we eat there.
That is my Stateside shirt. I got it when I was 19 and it still fits. :)

Vet Uniform.jpg
 
I seem to have lost my bristle worms. I have not seen one in a couple of months and I usually see them when the lights are off. Also my decorator crab, arrow crab, coral banded shrimp and harlequin shrimp molted and didn't get eaten. I still have all of them and when I had a tank full of big bristle worms, they would have been eaten as soon as they molted.

I have no idea why they are gone and never heard of those worms leaving.
 
Maybe they got cleaned out? My lone Arrow Crab just passed yesterday, might have starved. He lost one of his claw when we bought it (didnt realize till got home).
 
I have a thought on the bristle worms. I do have a 6 line wrasse, an arrow crab, decorator crab and coral banded fish but I always had those or similar creatures so I doubt they ate the worms.

I am not sure what killed them but it could have been the toxins from the sponge that I removed. I know it killed all my SPS corals. When I cut the sponge, it exuded a thick white substance that may have killed them.
 
I published another book not about fish or anything to do with this hobby. It's about my time in Vietnam. I didn't decide yet if I will donate the proceeds to the Wounded Warrior project or Tunnels to Towers.

Maybe I will split it, not that it will make much but whatever it does. I don't think it will replace bibles in hotels or anything like that. I just felt like writing and I don't think they teach about the conditions for us soldiers in Vietnam. :)
 
I got my wife a new computer for Christmas. Her old one may have caught urenema from my old Chrome book although it never went on these disease sites so I'm not sure how it got infected. :unsure:

It was about $600.00 but being it is almost Black Friday it was $220.00 off. You can see how much they make on these things if they can give you that much off and still make a profit.

They probably knock them out in China for $1.75. :rolleyes:

I am typing on my new computer now. Can you notice how crisp the letters are? :D

My tank is going better than my wildest dreams. Well almost as my wildest dreams consist of "other" things but it couldn't be better.
Some of my fish are older than some members on these forums.

I would like to add more clown gobies of different colors and maybe some more neon gobies. Those tiny fish get lost in the corals and are hard to see. I don't know how many I have but I would guess about a dozen. Very cool fish.

I haven't seen my Harlequin shrimp in a week or two but I am sure he is in there someplace munching on one of my hundreds of asternia stars.

One of these days I also may change some water but I have been having back issues with a surgery and I need another back procedure so unless the crabs want to change it themselves, it may go a few more months. This next change I may drive 25 miles east to the end of Long Island because the water here is full of fertilizer and insecticide from all the farms and golf courses.

I have been "lucky" that none of those flying parasites got into my tank even though the sea is 90 yards behind my tank, I keep the door closed tightly to prevent that and don't open any sick fish sites near my computer.

I found almost no amphipods this summer and they may be becoming extinct. I am not sure why. But I did take some mud for the bacteria and diversity. Yesterday I also picked up more muddy earthworms from Walmart. I need a few of those along with my whiteworms and frozen food to keep my fish immune.

I "fixed" my new book even though about 2 dozen already sold. I found out that 4 pictures were missing and some of the text was screwed up. I am not sure how that happened but I may have to fire my editor. I had to re submit an entirely new manuscript.

Tomorrow I will start Christmas decorations. We are having a big Christmas party at my house and I need to put away summer deck furniture, remove Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations and start Christmas.

So, in short, this post is about nothing as I am waiting for my wife to get up so we can go to Manhattan to my kids and Grand Kids.

 
I try very hard not to put anemones in my tank but I have about 25 of them. They must come through by osmoses. I purposely don't feed them or they get huge and you can't kill them.




Anemones 1.jpg


Anemones 2.jpg
 
Remember, today is Pearl Harbor remembrance day, The day the US was attacked by Japan killing over 2,000 Americans and getting us into WW2
 
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