Friday 08/06/2021
The morning was devoted to medical stuff. First I took a Lyft to Stanford’s Imaging center on Sherman, same place as I’d had two prior CT scans. I know the drill now. Strip down to underwear, put on a gown, pajama pants, and their hospital socks with the no-skid nubbles. Then the nurse comes and puts an IV in my arm for the contrast fluid later.
Since the vein in my left arm is where I usually get blood draws etc, and it is looking kind of gnarly, standing out lumpy, I said, let’s do the right arm this time. Well, she messed it up, couldn’t get the IV set right. So a second nurse came and set one in the much-abused left arm. So now I left with colorful stretchy stuff holding bandages on both arms.
Had some breakfast at nearby Starbucks, then a Lyft to the main Hospital for my one-year follow-up with Dr. Watkins. She’s looking great. I thought back in February she was preggers but she isn’t now. One doesn’t like to ask. Too many possibly embarrassing explanations.
ANY way my aorta looks good. The space between the wall and the lining, the “false lumen” has continued to clot up. However they also want the aorta to become narrower, or at least not widen.
Mine has widened, not much, 5 millimeters, and most of that happened between the CTs of November and February, only 1mm more between February and now. So maybe it is stabilizing? She wants a 6-month callback. If the aorta continues to widen, she might then recommend “a really simple, low-risk procedure” to place yet another stent. So I have that to look forward to.
Oh, they said my renal cyst did look flat on the new CT. I had also alerted Dr. Tamrazi to the new scan so he presumably will check his work.
About 2:30 I drove to FOPAL where I was to meet Frank and Susan at 4pm, to prep for the Vintage Computer Fest.
Looking back in the blog, it turns out I attended the VCF exactly two years ago, Day 245, 8/4/2019. I’m not sure how much I’ve said about the one coming up this weekend. Coincidentally FOPAL got a bunch of old computer books and I proposed we try selling books at VCF. The organizer gave us vendor status and two big tables in a great location. So Saturday and Sunday I will be standing behind tables of books.
Frank was to help me load the 9 boxes of books I’ve selected as likely to appeal to this crowd, into the Prius. Susan is the FOPAL treasurer and keeper of the cash box and the iPad with the credit card reader. She talked me through the process of using both. Then Frank and I loaded the car and we took all the books down to the Computer History Museum — whose doors I had not entered since maybe January 2020? — where the VCF was to be held. Stacked the boxes of books behind our vendor tables. Checked that the iPad could find the Museum’s wifi. Met the organizer. I dropped Frank off back at FOPAL and came on home.
Codgerville 