27. August 2009 10:27
by Rene Pallesen
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The week before we went away on holiday I experienced pain in the pelvic area. I quickly got it diagnosed with ultrasound to be a hernia. Furtunately it could wait until we came back from holiday to be fixed although it was giving me some problems along the way carrying suitcases etc.
As soon as we came back I went to see the specialist and he told he that it would have to be fixed with surgery and that he could schedule it for the following week.
In the morning of the surgery I had to be at the hospital at 6.30am in the morning. Surgery started at 9am and by 11am I was awake again released at 1pm.
So it terms of the surgery it was very smooth...but it was very painful afterwards. I had problems standing up and sitting down.
This photo was taken two days after the surgery:
The cut is 13cm long and at this point I am still very much in pain.
The feedback from the doctor was that this was an Indirect Inaugural hernia and apparently the type that can cause a lot of problems later on if not fixed.
Unfortunately part of hernia surgery is that they have to cut some of the nerves so that they don't get caught in the mesh they use to repair it with.
This means that now two and a half weeks after the surgery there is still a large area around the cut that has got no sensation to touch or pain and some areas are hyper sensitive with the result that even the lightest touch is painful.
I hope the eventually all the sensation returns to normal (apparently in 25% of the cases this doesn't happen). I also hope that the scar won't be too bad and will mostly disappear long term.
27. August 2009 10:07
by Rene Pallesen
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When we came back from our holiday our watertank had started leaking significantly. Actually it had started leaking slightly back in May where at the same time the government was introducing the stimulus package as part of their rescue plan for the financial crisis. Part of this package was an increased rebate on Solar hot water which provided a total $3400 government funding.
Back then I got a couple of quotes, but never proceeded hoping that the tank would last a little longer.
When we came back the leak had become a lot worse and could burst any time. It therefore had to be replaced very fast. It seemed that just replacing the existing electric tank would cost almost the same as installing Solar hot water and would be more expensive in electricity. Besides we have already installed extra insulation and energy efficient appliances so it only made sense to use Solar hot water as well.
It took them 3 hours to pull down the old 160 litre tank and install a new 300 litre tank on the roof. So far we are happy with the system. We have more hot water than before, it is not nearly as hot as the old system, but plenty hot for what is needed (The old system had water which was close to 90 degrees Celcius and the new is appx 60 degrees).
It has an electric booster installed for cloudy days, but once summer is here I should be able to turn that off completely. And an extra advantage is that it has cleared out some space on the side of the house.
27. August 2009 02:00
by Rene Pallesen
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17. August 2009 10:30
by Rene Pallesen
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After Lake Como it was our last day and Italy and was time to go home. We had to return to Milan that evening to fly back to Sydney next morning.
We decided to detour around the lake and possibly stop at some of the villages along the way. At the top end of the lake we came to a T intersection. I told kim that Switzerland was one hour if we turned left and Milan was 2 hours to the right. I asked her if she felt like a quick dash across the border before returning.
Most of the borders to Switzerland (and Austria) are located on the top of the mountain passes since the Mountains was what defined the borders the old days. The road up to this mountain pass was very narrow and full of blind corners. Kim developed stomach cramps on a number of occations on the trip and we eventually came to the conclusion that it was the tension when driving on these roads.
The scenery on the way up there was stunning. It was nice and cool climate and we were soon above the tree line and could see patches of snow on the mountains surrounding up.
The style of houses changed from being traditional italian to be more swiss looking.
Eventually we got to the border. Unfortunately the officer at the post didn't have a stamp to stamp Kims passport.
We had lunch at the border and then returned toward Milan. We had dinner at the southern end of Lake Como and arrived at our airport hotel at 10pm.
I had to return the car to the rental company at the Airport. Fortunately the hotel had an efficient shuttle bus service that made it easy to come back to the hotel. Unfortunately I forgot the cover for my phone in the car so I had to make the trip twice and was pretty knackered (and grumpy) when I eventually got back.
At 6am next morning we were back at the airport returning to Sydney.
