Time Change - Fall Back

 

Hospital Safe?

On October 26th our Minister of Health announced no one could enter a medical hospital or long term care without a vaccine passport.  As of November 4th, this was not done.  I kept seeing people complaining online.  You could get into ICU without anyone checking your vaccine status.

Today I went to Vancouver General Hospital and this sign met me at the door:

It's about time hospitals listened to our Provincial Health Officer!  I went out and bought N95 face masks because they are hospital safe.   When I went into the building there was a lady sitting at a table that handed me a mask with a pair of tongs.  I said "I have one", and she said "you must wear one of ours".  No problem.  They were the blue type and much thicker than the ones I've purchased at Costco.  She also checked our vaccine passport and told us we could enter.

It's bloody well time!

Parkinson's Disease

Cec's cousin who suffers from Parkinson's came to visit us in September.  He lives in California.  He told us about this surgery for Parkinson's that he was looking into.  Today he went to the specialist and his surgery is scheduled for December!   He takes 12 pills a day and this surgery should lessen or eliminate the meds and stop the tremors!  His surgeon has performed over 100 of these procedures.

It's called Deep Brain Stimulation and his surgery is being done at the Loma Linda University Medical Facility in California!  There is so much information it's easier just to give you the link from the Parkinson's Foundation Website:

Deep Brain Stimulation

He's lived with Parkinson's for a long time and hopefully this will be successful!

Time to update my card

Yesterday we received our COVID-19 booster.  Our email from Provincial Health came through on the weekend.  When I went online to register for an appointment there were 17 to choose from!   I saw a lot of drug stores, one recreation center close by and then I came to the drive thru.  I didn't go any farther.  I could have booked for Tuesday but I was already busy so I made it for Wednesday.  There were appointments all day and I scheduled it after I picked up Lexie from school.  It's on the way home.

We drove right up and right in!  No line ups and we just rolled down our windows.  A very nice lady gave us our shots.  It is so well organized!  

I didn't take my old immunization record card they gave us before because it was full.  Luckily I had taken a picture of it because they needed the information.  They wrote a new card showing all three shots!   It's already on the electronic file when you access Health Gateway.  

Health care

They say this isn't a good time to get sick and go to hospital.  A close friend needed heart bypass surgery.  He was scheduled to get it in September.  That changed to October with six different surgery dates.  Four were changed before he went to the hospital.   

The fifth surgery was scheduled on the day our province told any health care workers that weren't vaccinated would be put on unpaid leave.  He arrived at 11:30 AM to admitting for surgery.  At the admitting desk he was told "the heart ward is in chaos"!   He was scheduled for the next day at 5:45 AM.  He went and waited in the surgery waiting room for four hours to be told "sorry, things are bad".  

He was off his meds for a week and a half and told it was rescheduled for another week and it would be on Tuesday, November 1st at 5:45 AM.  We saw his colour change and he really slowed down.  He didn't look good at all and everyone was worried.  He went in and at 7:30 AM and they started the four to five hour surgery.  Seven and a half hours later it was finished!   They found he had valve disease and one valve was closed and one was leaking!  

The surgeon who operated called both his brother and son after the surgery.  Then the head of cardiology at the hospital phoned both the son and brother!  They both said the recovery will be longer but he should be golfing by next summer!  

The hospital said this morning he's good!  The first visit will be this morning at 11:00.  You can only have one visitor for 30 minutes and it will be his brother who is visiting from Toronto.  

In these times, it's wonderful to see the health professionals that are doing their jobs with such great dedication in such difficult times.   Now for the long recovery!

Windows 11

Six years ago, I upgraded my computer from Windows XP to Windows 10.  That was a huge learning experience as it was so different.  I loved XP and kept it until Microsoft wouldn't support it any longer.  Yesterday, I got the prompt on my laptop that I was eligible to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11.   

Having a husband who was thrilled when I told him I got the upgrade message, he took over.  It's nice to see him enjoy doing this.  I went out and wasn't always at my laptop but it was all done in two hours.  It could have been earlier but I didn't stay around to watch.

So far just a few changes.  All my taskbar icons are centered.  Microsoft teams is on my taskbar.  I've never used it but nice to know if I need it, it's there.  One of the benefits of Windows 11 is it will integrate with Android apps.  I can connect my Samsung phone to my laptop and access all my Android apps. I've downloaded Facebook, Messenger, What's App and Wikipedia.  To access those sites before I went online to access but now I can do it quicker through an app.  I pinned the access to my taskbar.  It's making it much easier for the sites I use regularly and much easier to see on my 15" laptop than my phone.   

Widgets are accessible from the taskbar too.  There are also benefits with Xbox integration but I'm not a gamer.  

Windows 11 works fine for me and maybe it's faster.   I'm glad it upgraded with no problems.  If you don't have enough memory or the ability to upgrade, I wouldn't go out and buy a new computer.  It's nice, but it's not much different than Windows 10.  That's my opinion but I'm not a expert in any way.  I'm sure the IT Professionals and blue shirts at Best Buy would tell you to get a new laptop.

Halloween 2021

A normal Halloween!  It was so nice to see all the kiddies out and enjoying themselves last night.  The weather was clear and not very cold.  Cheryl and Dave invited us for dinner and her home made beef and barley stew was amazing.  She took out beef tenderloin instead of stewing beef!  It was REALLY good!

There were so many houses decorated in their neighbourhood.  People really went to a lot of trouble.  

Last year there were very few children because of COVID.  This year she had 101 in the first thirty minutes!   They slowed down and she ended up with 241.  Cheryl buys chips and full size chocolate bars.  Most children said thank you and a few actually said "please could I have and named one of the chocolate bars she had".  Lots of the parents were dressed up too!

To social distance, Cheryl slide the bars down the table and the kids caught them in their bags!

A little blurry.  The kids don't stay long!

Great costumes this year

Surrey has a fireworks ban.  We've had it for a few years.  You can get a permit with a fee and a lot of trouble.  I doubt the fireworks I saw had a permit, but they were very nice.  They didn't go off too late maybe because it was a Sunday.  

I don't usually post pictures of people I know, but this was on Facebook.  I loved the costumes!