Blog Refresh: Family Health Scare

Some of you may remember that my wife has a genetic condition called Marfan syndrome.  If you do, you might remember that the syndrome can cause serious problems with the eyes and heart.  Both are treatable with surgery; in an ideal world, you’d deal with each problem as it comes up, and spread the surgeries over at least a period of several years.

Unfortunately, Tami didn’t get to experience that ideal world.

About this time last year, she experienced sudden vision loss in one eye while working, which didn’t clear up on its own.  We went in, and found that her eyes had deteriorated to the point that she needed surgery to preserve her vision.  Although only one eye was not working right, the other was on the verge of failing in the same way.

Then came the normally routine pre-surgery checkups.  This time, however, was anything but routine; the cardiologist declared that she had entered the “danger zone” for heart complications.  This would require open-heart surgery to fix.

All ended well.  Five surgeries later (three on the heart, plus one each per eye), she’s back to normal, and even has the best vision she’s ever experienced.  But I don’t recommend doing so much so quickly (four months from the first to the last).

Triumphant Return

“When you don’t update a blog, it gets stale fast.” — Tim Bray

Of course, I didn’t intend to violate this basic rule of blogging.  It just happened–one thing leads to another, and pretty soon you notice just how little your front page has changed in the past two-and-a-half years.  So, I shall begin again.

Quite a bit has changed:

  • It’s especially ironic, given the previous post, that our family has given in and replaced the main television with a HDTV.  Not that I’ve changed pmy mind much; it’s just that I’ve decided to live with the limitations of the technology, and have figured out how to work around some of them.
  • Although my suspicion of the cloud remains, my participation has greatly increased.  I’m now on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and piles of Google services.
  • There’s been a major health scare in the family, which is now behind us.

All of these will get their own posts in the very near future.  In the meantime, enjoy the new look.  (Especially on mobile!)