Cop Car's Beat

Halloween Google Doodle

While I cannot play it, today's Google Doodle is actually a game. I can't play it because I've never figured out what happened about a year ago that disabled my ability to play the audio on most videos that are posted. Go figure! (And...Machine #2 doesn't have a sound card...and I left Machine #3, my laptop, with Elder Brother.)

Inspired by Bogie

Bogie has posted Last Rose of the Season that includes a beautiful photo of a bloom from her Queen Elizabeth bush. The Queen Elizabeth produces beautiful blossoms and I may even go ahead and buy one with such encouragement. However, the least I can do is post a photo of one of the three blossoms that are now abloom on our Spice Twice bush. The blossom has a couple of bugs on it and the leaves of the bush have abundant mildew (it's been a wet year, in general) but the color still comes through. A couple of years, our few roses have produced blooms up to the third week in November.

Good news/Bad news

Bad News: Elder Brother experienced cardiac arrest while jogging.

Good News: A passing motorist saw EB collapse and stopped to check it out. When EB was non-responsive, was not breathing, and had no pulse, she started chest compressions. Two men who lived in nearby houses joined - one supplying rescue breathing, the other calling 9-1-1. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) arrived within five minutes.

Bad News: The EMTs had to use a defibrillator, shocking EB's heart three times to coax his heart into beating. At the Emergency Room (ER), a team of physicians worked with EB but did not expect him to survive 48 hours. At the time of his admittance to the ER, EB was listed as a "John Doe".

Good News: A neighbor of EB's, became worried about EB when he did not return from his jog. Having heard the ambulance sirens on the route that she knew EB used for jogging (that includes, during the last 1/2 mile, a "killer" hill - actually, as it transpired), the neighbor called the local hospitals and was told that there was a "John Doe" at one. She went to the hospital and was able to identify EB for the staff.

In the meantime, Further Good News: A police officer canvassed EB's neighbors, enlisting one to go to the hospital to pick up EB's house keys from a nurse. Having retrieved the key, the police officer and three of the neighborhood men entered EB's home, located his personal address book, and started calling likely people. Eventually, they worked their way down toward the end of the alphabet and called me - about 20 hours after EB suffered the cardiac arrest. They gave me the name and phone number of the hospital.

Bad News: Upon learning that I was EB's next-of-kin, the charge nurse briefed me on what she knew. EB's condition was grave. The staff expected that if EB survived he would face six months of rehabilitation to re-gain heart pumping capacity - if he ever would. Within an hour or so, I was on the road to Loveland, Colorado - a nine-hour drive from here.

Skip forward to yesterday, 28 days after EB's "fatal heart event" (as the hospital staff called it):

Good News: EB had no heart attack*. EB suffered no significant heart damage. Because the physicians really had no idea why EB's heart stopped**, EB agreed to having a monitor/pace maker/defibrillator embedded in his chest (with leads to the heart, of course) and came home the next day following the surgery - 10 days following his admission to the hospital.

Arriving at the hospital at about 11:00pm (local Colorado time), I spent the last eight days of EB's hospitalization with him (staying at his house during the nights) and spent an additional 18 days staying with him following his release from the hospital. Basically, EB had to recover his strength from the 10 days of forced idleness, and let his chest recover from all of the assaults on it.

All is well that ends well.

* According to the hospital staff when I asked if EB had suffered a heart attack, until a patient is stable enough to conduct testing to differentiate conditions, a patient who has suffered a "fatal heart event" is treated as if they had suffered a heart attack.

**The physicians told EB that he had Takotsubo Syndrome. From Wikipedia:

 

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as transient apical ballooning syndrome, apical ballooning cardiomyopathy, stress-induced cardiomyopathy, Gebrochenes-Herz-Syndrom, and stress cardiomyopathy is a type of non-ischemic cardiomyopathy in which there is a sudden temporary weakening of the muscular portion of the heart.