Lucky to be alive

My brother, Bill, was in Fargo visiting my parents. My eldest sister, Teresa, was also there, watching football on tv after dinner. When Dad appeared to be experiencing a heart attack, Bill gave him CPR and someone called 911 (emergency). The police arrived quickly, and hooked him up to the defibrillator. The machine shocked him, and got his pulse back. The ambulance rushed him to the hospital. Amazingly, after four radial artery grafts, Dad is fine. He has a steady golf habit, and likes to keep fit, so I am sure that helped him survive. Here are some statistics from my brother, who happens to be a cardiac pharmacist at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester (sister to the Mayo):

I looked up some information on out of hospital cardiac arrests. 90% of events are due to ventricular fibrillation. CPR (chest compressions and rescue breathing) typically have little benefit in improving outcomes. Only 2-5% of patients survive out of hospital arrests. Early defibrillation is the key. If more than 8 minutes have past - survival is almost zero. Of the patients who are resuscitated only 30-40% have no neurological damage. Source: New England Journal of Medicine. Wow! Dad is so, so lucky.

The police officer who put the defibrillator on my father said that usually the machine won't shock the person because it's too late. This was the first time he got to save someone.

Of course, when I got the news about Dad's heart attack, I was so upset. I had never expected something like this to happen. I looked into costs to fly home on short notice, and found it to be impossibly high. That just made the situation worse. I had always thought that if something bad happened, I would fly home, no second thoughts, but I really had to control myself. I have never wanted to go home so badly before.

Now that the crisis is past, I am planning on a trip home in June, for my parents 50th wedding anniversary. We were hoping for a family holiday in Hawaii, but I think the cost will be to high for everyone to do that.

I am incredibly thankful to Bill and Teresa for being there for Mom and Dad.

The bird at the top of the blog is a Kea, the New Zealand mountain parrot. They too are lucky to be alive, because the government drops a poison to kill possums, 1080, that has recently been shown to be killing these endagered birds. I am writing this from Greymouth, on the South Island on NZ, where we're having a holiday. More awesome photos to come, check back soon!

Two years in New Zealand!

Wow, two years now. I think back to when I first arrived, and how weird I felt. I'm not sorry I moved, but I still think about and miss my friends in San Diego. I hope my friends and family aren't suffering too much from the historic failure of the US economy. I'm a bit freaked out by the train crash in LA that injured many and killed a bunch of people recently. The same thing could happen here- there are single tracks along the route that accomodate trains going both directions. Even the same company, Veolia Transport, is operating the trains here. I still continue to commute to and from work on the train. I pay $160 for a monthly pass. My drive to the station is about 3 minutes, the train comes every 15 minutes, and the ride to my stop is about 50 min. The walk to the hospital is about 10 min. I like avoiding the hassle of finding parking and dealing with traffic. As a bonus, I am getting a lot of reading done. I read The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and felt like I needed a companion Spanish-English Urban Dictionary to decipher some of the text. The book is about a Dominican boy/man looking for love, despite a curse on his family/culture. Lots of dark and dirty history there, too. I also requested the library get Mary Roach's new book, Bonk, The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and they did! Yay for the Waitakere Library! I really enjoyed Bonk, but it could have been another 600 pages. I think I should write a sequel. Her first book, Stiff, The Secret Life of Human Cadavers, is still my favorite. Highly recommended. Now I'm reading Eiger Dreams by John Krakauer, a collection of short essays about men and mountain climbing. The book was handy, and is filling the gap until I get the next library book, Persepolis. This will be another history-rich fiction, which I tend to prefer.

LAND UPDATE

Spring is definitely here. We've been spending almost every weekend at the farm. We just go for a day, stopping at the Italian Bakery in Kaiwaka on the way. Check us out in our new coveralls! We are kicking ourselves for not getting them sooner.
The photos below show the erosion along the banks of the stream through our property as a result of the heavy rains this winter, and the evidence of flooding. On the plus side, we now have a more sandy bottom.

We plan to put in a small bridge across the stream at the corner shown below, from the tree to where I and the dogs are hanging out. In our hikes around the land, we found that we have several more swampy areas than we'd known about. I hope they'll dry out some, or we'll be sucked dry by mosquitoes. Because the land is pasture for cows and sheep, there are ticks. We found lots of tiny baby ticks on the dogs and Darin. The dogs are getting treated with Frontline for the forseeable future. We've developed some ideas for where to put the fencing, to break the land into 4 grazing paddocks. The orchard is currently being fenced, thanks to assistance from our awesome neighbor Don. Darin planted two avocado trees last weekend, and there seems to be room for 2 more. I am advocating for an apricot.
TURKEY TALK

In my previous blog I mentioned the 9 turkeys we shot and butchered. Their scent seems to appeal to Ruby, now that she's eaten plenty of raw turkey meals. We saw her tracking instinct kick in as we walked uphill toward where we'd seen the turkeys retreat when we arrived. I thought that they'd crossed the fence to the neighbor's paddock, but they were still there. She never saw them, only scented them in the grass, until they took off about 20 feet away. These wild turkeys can fly pretty well, but not very far. Still, we never expected that she would have the ability to chase one of them from one end of the property to the other, but she did. She must have surprised one on the initial charge, and trapped it in the ravine. Darin put the bird out of her misery, and butchered it for the dogs when we returned home. Ruby was so proud of herself! She and I are now going to the Dogsport (Schutzhund) club in Auckland, as a way to focus her drive into obedience training.

The following weekend we went to the land, Darin and I worked on her recalls, and I kept her on a short leash for a short walk. We didn't see any turkeys around, so I let Ruby off leash, and she was totally fine. I had been concerned that she would run off looking for the turkeys, but she didn't. She is getting so big.

THE GARDEN

We've done a bit of work in the garden at home. Darin put chickenwire around the perimeter to keep the dogs and chickens out. I turned the soil, pulled out the lemongrass (it might survive in the pot) and all the weeds, and mixed in the compost. We planted lettuce and carrot seeds, spring and yellow onions, silverbeet (chard), and garlic. I've never grown garlic before, and it may be too late to be planting it (should be put out in winter), so I'm curious to see what happens. I collected a bag of espresso grounds from the coffee shop in the hospital and put it into the new batch of compost I made.

My sister Barb was recently back in the US. I ordered a pound of the Bold Taco seasoning from Penzey's, had it sent to my sister in Minnesota, and Barb brought it back. Yay! Darin and I are huge fans. The fajita seasoning is also great.

Asparagus season is here, and I've been using our fresh eggs for asparagus and cheese omelettes. YUM! Tomorrow I'm going to make a (wild) turkey and asparagus strata with cheese.

The rain will never stop, and more musings

This has been the rainiest winter in the North Island for about 20 years. It's rained at least 1/2 days every weekend since May, and we've had 1.1 meters (1100 mm) this year (most of it fell since June). My sister's land has had a slip. We had two trees fall down at our house, one fell on my car, left a dent on the top side, and smashed the back window.


We finally made it back up to our property to find, surprisingly, that the fruit trees we planted were still standing. We worried about them during all the weeks of fierce storms. We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary by renting a "bach" or cottage in Whakapirau for the weekend. The owners allow dogs, the house is right on the beach, and there are kayaks in the garage for use (when it's not raining). There is a great restaurant in nearby Paparoa, the Sahara, where I enjoyed a rabbit stew for dinner. Also worth a visit, should you find yourself in Maungaturoto, is BJ's cafe, where you can get yummy real milk shakes and steak and cheese pies. ("oooh I love BJs!" Ha ha!). We tried to see the falls near Maungaturoto, but the stream crossing was flooded. We enjoyed the scenic drive through the Waipu Gorge, seen below. The Waipu area hosts a plethora of outstanding scenery, including the caves, as previously mentioned in my blog. We really like our neighbor, who previously owned the land. We've been to their house for tea several times, and this time we got to see the fabulous rotating dairy shed and the baby cow shed. These cuties are known as a "Kiwi Cross", which is bred to optimise the protein and fat content in the milk. Our neighbor also raises cattle for beef, and told us that the US pays quite well for old dairy cows past their prime, that have very little fat on them. Their meat gets mixed with the super-fatty, corn-fed American beef.

The following weekend found us back up at our land, this time to plant another 22 trees (mainly varieties of citrus: lemons, limes, orange, mandarin, feijoa, and plum). We found a flock of about 30 turkeys there. They are very well adapted and prolific breeders around that area, and we agreed to bring the gun next time. So we did, and though we didn't see them right away, I spotted them down by the stream. We snuck around the top of the hill and ambushed them. Darin took out the big tom, which I estimated to be about 35 pounds dead weight, along with 8 others. Fortunately, out other neighbor stopped by and was so pleased that we'd taken some out. We encouraged her to take 2 of them. We were totally wiped out when, after planting 22 trees, we then butchered 7 turkeys on the front porch (covered, fortunately, from yet more rain). The result was 8.5 kg of turkey breast meat, along with unmeasured but large amounts of turkey parts for dog and cat food. I had the job of gutting the birds, and saved some the liver and hearts for making home-made dog treats (pureed with egg, banana, and garlic, mixed with flour and baked- so easy!). I never realized before this, but the lungs are very spongey and sort of stuck in the back ribs. I had to really get my fingers in there- gross! Good thing the trash men came on Monday morning, heh.
I have been super busy at work. I'm learning so much, and getting to do a lot of different things, so that's a positive. Also, one of my trials is a big one for Roche Pharmaceuticals. This is my most demanding trial, so I was pleased when I was invited to go to a meeting at their expense in Melbourne. This was my first trip to Australia. Melbourne is a great city, a "real" city, very cosmopolitan with lots of parks and arts. Though I was only there for 2 days, and I definitely want to go back. The meeting was at the Langham, which is a very nice hotel, right on the river.

Roche took us out to a very nice dinner and covered all my expenses, even my visa, so I FINALLY got what I deserved- a bit of luxury for all my hard work. I also learned that the New Zealand clinical trial sites are kicking the Australian trial sites' asses, in terms of getting paperwork done on time, and getting patient's visits done within their strict time window. What's the trial, you ask? It is for the drug Avastin, and the target is colon cancer. It's not a chemotherapy as such, it is an antibody directed against "vascular endothelial growth factor" or vEGF. The idea is that it interrupts the fast, new growth of blood vessles on which tumors depend.
Entertaining myself
Books I've read recently:
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach - Enjoy reading her work. Stiff was better.
The Other End of the Leash Patricia McConnell - good stuff, but sort of obvious (to me anyway)

Movies I saw recently include:
Hellboy 2 - definitely worth a watch, with Guillemo del Toro directing (Pan's Labarynth). Best line in the film: "I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor".
Lars and the Real Girl - very good. Surprised, and a bit disappointed, at how NICE everyone was to Lars- because REAL small towns are definitely full of redneck bigots who love to find any excuse to beat the crap out of you for being different.
Be Kind, Rewind- amusing, but less than I'd hoped for. I was planning to see Kung Fu Panda on the way back from Melbourne, but flew on one of the Air NZ planes that doesn't yet have the in-seat video.

Auckland is host to an annual event promoting the Erotica Expo, "Boobs On Bikes". It was during the week at lunchtime, and so Darin, working only part-time and flexible hours, managed to get downtown to snap a few photos. What a spectacle, and I don't mean the boobs, but all the dicks that came out to look at boobs- ha ha! Woo hoo, free show!

Finally, I can't pass up an opportunity to poke fun at the Republican VP selection, Sarah Palin- she's FAILTASTIC!

If McCain is elected, the probability is good that he will die or get sick in office, and this mother of 5 will be running the USA. Someone, please tell me, how you are supposed to be a good parent AND be president? The results are in, and she is a failure as a parent- her opposition to contraceptive education and support of "abstinence only" sex ed. has gotten her teenage daughter pregnant. Does this girl, just 17 WANT to marry the father? Does he, who says he doesn't want kids on his MySpace page, want a family at age 18? Surely a baby is not going to solve anyone's problems. I don't want a potential president to be torn between the needs of her family and of her country. She has a special needs child not even a year old; this kid is going to need extra support from his mother. I don't want to hear any of that "double standard" crap now, because that mudslinging is designed to agitate the over-worked moms who "want to have it all". Guess what? We're all over-worked; and it doesn't matter if you think women should stay at home barefoot and pregnant, or if you think women can raise a family and have a fulfilling career too. The question of the day is: who is going to pay the bills, and where will you live when you can't pay your mortgage on the McMansion (TM)? Most anyone can get pregnant and give birth, but to be a good parent is a completely different skill, which is critically important and unfortunately very time consuming. I do think it's fair to draw a parallel between one's parenting skill and management skill. Obama hasn't failed his daughter(s) (yet).

Election=OVER. Congratulations President Obama.