This post is set to appear at the scheduled start of my cardiac ablation. If there are no delays or complications, I should be discharged later today.
Please be seated in the waiting room.
Here’s some waiting room music.
Follow-up: Thank you for waiting. I am home, “resting comfortably,” and, significantly, free of afib. At least for now.
Friday will be cardiac ablation day for me at Mass General. I’m wondering if I’m a candidate for a new procedure from Boston Scientific, approved by the FDA just last April.
The director of the afib program at Harvard Medical School conducted clinical trials. He will be leading the team performing my procedure.
https://advances.massgeneral.org/cardiovascular/journal.aspx?id=2611
Two household water emergencies in the same week. A new record!
On Sunday it was the shower shutoff valve. Now it’s the pressure release valve on the furnace, doing what it’s supposed to do.
That plastic pan had just started to overflow when I caught it. A technician from the oil company should be here sometime this evening. The pan dates back to when I did my own oil and filter changes, starting with my first car, a 1965 Chevelle.
When the bathroom in the primary (formerly master) bedroom was remodeled 20 years ago, I had the contractor put in a closet access panel behind the shower valve. I knew that someday the panel would be needed. Today is that day.
The plumber should be here in a couple of hours. He said it looks like an O-ring failure.
Exciting Update: It’s fixed. As I suspected, the plumber who worked on it about nine months ago screwed up. I also suspect he may have done a lousy job deliberately because he was pissed off that I ended up not needing him for the dishwasher installation. The new guy I’ll be using from now on showed me exactly what was done wrong.
A reminder of the effect that chemotherapy had on my facial hair, turning it thin, wispy and gray.
After being clean-shaven for a couple of months, I was curious to see if the change was permanent, and it wasn’t.
Folk singer and actor Burl Ives was a Communist sympathizer who cooperated with HUAC; however, Ives’ most enduring legacy is almost certainly his narration of 1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
A tip o’ the Dog Rat toupee to twinster Jeanie Beanie for letting me know that Rudolph is returning to NBC after decades at CBS, for a special 60th anniversary airing.
Jean and I have a possible connection to Burl Ives through our maternal grandfather. Our parents met at Eastern Illinois State College, where our grandfather, Eugene Waffle, was an English professor and later chairman of the department.
The connection with Ives is explained at this link:
However, during a “Beowulf” lecture in his English class, Ives decided to stop pursuing his degree and he wanted to become a singer. He left in the middle of class. Allegedly, the teacher made a nasty remark about him as he left and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the glass.
https://www.dailyeasternnews.com/2021/10/04/the-person-behind-burl-ives-studio-hall/
My grandfather became an English professor at the college in 1926, as seen here:
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/archives_faculty_sz/259/
With Ives attending the school from 1927-30, I wouldn’t be surprised if my prickly grandfather was the English professor who made the snide remark.
J.R.R. Tolkien lectured on Beowulf, having completed his translation of the epic poem in 1926. I wonder if anyone ever walked out of his class?
