ScottsGT

Thank goodness she’s okay. We’re heading out of town and we stopped for lunch. Found out greasy tile floors in McDonald’s don’t mix well with a walking cane. Thankfully I found out without going down. One cannot be too careful as we age.

Hubert, as always you say the wisest and best things. Once again, you are spot on. The above paragraph is kind of ironic since I’m already partially fused together from bone spurs and arthritis and as my surgeon put it, he’s going to fuse them in the correct positions and shapes. I have one main vertebrae that has slipped forward slightly and he feels this is the one causing the majority of my issues. But yes, also a fear I have is my mobility and movement afterwards, but as he put it, it will probably be improved over my current situation. My goal right now is the less invasive pain reduction techniques such as steroid injections and PT so I can continue on my weight loss adventure to lighten myself up as much as I can before surgery. I’ve lost almost 40 lbs since the end of May and as of this morning I finally hit the full dose of the semaglutide meds I’m taking.

So today was my appointment with the neurosurgeon. Wife works with the guy, and he’s great from everything she knows about him. Young guy, puts modern technology to use in the OR. All he had to look at today was my MRI from almost 4 years ago. What he saw, was very ugly. And based on those images (and he doubts his procedure would change) it’s going to be a very extensive 8 hour operation. He has to go in from the front, side and back. Front access through my belly will be to replace my degenerated discs with spacers on the front side. Side would be a laminectomy around the nerves and to insert more spacers. Back would be to add all of the fusion hardware. Currently my lumbar region has no curvature to it due to the crushed and degenerated discs. His goal is a complete decompression and proper curvature. Currently I’m experiencing SI and thoracic issues and these are because I’m trying to correct my posture by over extending these areas. Now here’s the part that scares the hell out of me. 5-7 days in the hospital 1-2 weeks in rehab center 6 months to a year recovery time In the meantime I’m starting a series of steroids to see if it helps. Next week (leaving town for the week in the morning) a current MRI and X-rays and then a steroid injection. I’ve come to the decision that I have to do the surgery, it’s not going to get better ignoring it. We just have to plan it out accordingly and make sure things around the home are basically in order so it can be ignored for at least 6 months. Lawn care, boat getting serviced, auto maintenance, etc…. keeps running through my mind.

Call me impressed with your revetment walls, errr…fencing. It’s just vertical instead of horizontal.

I’m looking forward to see how this all pans out. Could be a win-win for everyone that loves P-40’s. Edit: follow them? Meh…I read up so I can rewrite them!

Yea, unfortunately I cannot start on it for a while. Tomorrow is booked with Dr.’s appointments and we leave for Virginia on Wednesday for our sons graduation from Captains Career school. I did spend a little time today reading over the instructions.

Oh man. Old age and problems just sneak up on all of us.

Pulled this one out of the stash. Trying to figure out which Aleutian Tiger to build. I’ve been holding onto these decals forever waiting on this day. The Barracuda sheet is for an un-named pilots aircraft while the SSI set is for Major Chennaults aircraft. As you can see, one set has the small side tigers missing that goes with the sharks mouth The SSI set appears to have a larger cutout for the exhaust area. Probably for the old Revell kit. Also the yellows are different. SSI set is closer to insignia yellow, but both are going to require a drop of red to orange up the spinner paint a touch. Eventually I’ll probably build both, but for now one will do.

The Goblin? I have a 1/72 vacuum kit of it somewhere. I was going to have it escorting my B-36 hanging up. I’ve stood next to the real thing. What a weird airplane.

LOL Carl. That’s what they make credit cards for.

😱😱 $152 shipped to the US. If I didn’t already have it, I’d be in biiiiig trouble!

Looks great. What an exciting time for a homeowner.

Cool techniques Rob! When I built my 1/72 Space Shuttle I used cloth medical tape cut into squares and applied to the exterior to simulate the thermal blankets the exterior was covered with. I had to use very thick enamel paint forced into the weave to fill them up.

My Phase Hanger Resin stuff from their super secret banner sale showed up. I had no idea this was the old Two Mikes resin operation. Always wondered what happened there.

Thanks Peter. Right now I’m dealing with setting up appointments between my PCP that I see next Tuesday for an already scheduled appointment and the Neurosurgeon. Neuro wants to see me tomorrow, but no order for an MRI or the necessary referral from PCP yet, and they’re not responding to my messages. Of course this is all on the office staff, not my doc. I’m going to have to bite my tongue and not read him the riot act Tuesday when I see him. Neuro did give me a late afternoon appointment on Tuesday at this time. And of course they can see we’re trying to fast track everything like my wife did with her breast cancer. It doesn’t seem to be working for me. It seems that I’m doing much better in the evenings lately. But bathroom runs in the middle of the night are rough, as is getting up first thing in the morning. In the meantime, I’m going to go downstairs and clean up the disaster after finishing up the Cutlass and go donate another pint of blood today.

Done! Not my proudest build, but still a good 10 footer. Probably take another day to clean up everything and get better pics.

Everything still feels about the same. Sitting out on our dock yesterday afternoon and my friend visiting splashed ice water on my foot/ankle area. “Oh yea, that’s good and cold. That’ll make you jump!” nope. Cannot feel the cold. I can feel the water hitting, but not the chill. At that point I think my wife started understanding just how bad off I am. Especially when she asked me what I was going to carry up as I was standing up and almost face planted back down. “Oh, I guess nothing then.” was her response to her own question. She jumped my behind and told me to get the ball rolling with our GP and a Neuro guy she works with. Today the fill in chiropractor looked at my 4 yo MRI and admitted there was nothing she could help me with in this situation. She feels I’m looking at a total lower fusion just to stop anymore progressive nerve damage. And of course my wife has us booked on two more cruises until November. This is going to get dragged out longer than I hoped.

I’ll keep that in mind. Might sound sketchy on his end though. I’ll take some time to start an account tomorrow.

FWIW, just tried to join Britmodeler and they have a stupid security feature on the sign up page that’s not iPad friendly. I’ll have to go fire up the old MAC with a mouse to make it happen.

Accessories, supplies and aftermarket, GTG! But I’m at 6 new kits smuggled in under the radar so far this year. Not trying to push my luck, but Amazon has a kit I’m looking at and with their shipping times I can get that one in under the radar as well while she’s working a 13 hr shift. Unless she digs through the account and finds where I ordered it, but I can archive it out of sight. 🤪

Many weapons sprues from builds, box full of Tomcat parts, box full of Phantom parts, box full of F-16 parts. Yea, small stash all in its own. I see a modeler needing something posted, I dig through the boxes and see what help I can provide.

I will say, a setback like I’m going through right now really brings things into perspective. We still enjoy going on cruise ships and that’s not the issue. It’s getting on the ship. Every port I’ve been to has a mile of walking to get on board. Might have to start looking into finding that handicapped drop off location. And then there’s the shore excursions. Right now, that’s just not possible. I do not want to be dealing with one of the handicap scooters either. There is just no room for them in a ships cabin. Just getting down my dock and onto the boat is a major task for me right now. I consider this the shot across the bow and I’m going to start putting up hand rails and boarding bridges very soon.

Sell off the stash? There’s a cool million right there! I kid! But I get what you’re saying. We’ve planned carefully and the wife’s job pays stupid money. She’s a CRNA. (Nurse Anesthetist) I’m eligible to draw my SS after December but our financial planner is checking with our tax guy (his dad) to run the numbers. He’s thinking it will get eaten up with the tax bracket we’re in. Just leave it and let the numbers grow until she retires.

So far about the only thing I can find is joining up on the Brit Modeler forum and sending them a PM about ordering some 1/48 C-130A stuff I’m looking at.

Oh wow! I have a passion for the pre war yellow wing aircraft. I really need to build another since the only one I ever built was when I got back into the hobby.