That is the sound I suspected we'd be hearing as soon as the cast was removed. We weren't disappointed!
We headed to the surgeon's office for Dave's first post-op appt. He was looking very chipper heading into the office. We weren't sure what the arm would look like or how big the incision would be.
At the office, we were escorted to an exam room to wait.
The Assistant came in and started unwrapping. And cutting. And removing the surgical cast. Then it was revealed. Dave says it looks like the arm on a corpse. With old-man skin. It did have that 'special' corpse color about it. And the incision was bigger than he expected.
I wasn't sure how I'd do. I wondered if I'd get a bit woozy and have to sit. It was close a few moments (even thinking about it now is oozy), but I didn't pass out.
The stitches were removed and he was fitted with his new stylish mechanical arm brace. This thing allows him to pull his arm toward his body, but doesn't allow more than a 90 degree opening. He'll have it set to this range for two weeks, then he'll be back in to have it opened a little bit more.
This goes on for weeks. And weeks. And months. Can you tell the moment that Dave was informed that he should be doing NO exercise for a loooong time? We'll see how that goes. :/
Anyhoo, it's nice to have the cast removed and sutures out. He can now bath his arm and put on long sleeved shirts (brace goes on top then). And he can now scratch to his heart's desire.
The previous Cape May blog entry had photos taken from Dave's nice camera. I thought I'd put some up that were taken from our point & shoot.
From these, you can indeed ascertain that we were in Cape May, and that we looked at a lot of birds. :)
It's also pretty clear which photos were taken on the awesome weather day (clear skies), and those taken on the less than ideal days (clouds - no photos taken during the deluge of rain).
It certainly is a pretty area. I hope we make it back there sometime soon...Spring Migration??
Guy came to the door to remind me I wanted photos of the deck before it was wrecked. Glad he did! He'd removed a wee bit of stuff (as seen in the trailer) already.
The more he tore out the better it looked! As in all activities like this, some surprises were found beneath the old deck: dead Mourning Dove (shown in 4th and 5th photo - ew), plastic hammer, giant lego piece. Sadly no jewels, gold or money was recovered.
A bit more pounding, pulling and carrying and the deck and stairs were gone. Wow! It looks good. I think now he has to do come ground leveling and the new lower deck can start going in.
We opted to go with treated lumber for the new deck. We considered Trex (and similar materials) but ultimately I think we both felt better about real wood. It's going to look awesome!
When all was said and done, the trailer was piled to the roof. What a relief to get that out of here!
I think we may be caught up with this post - finally! On 9/30, Dave and I hopped a plane to Philly. From there, we rented a car and headed to Cape May NJ to see birds. Or boids. Haha.
We had four days to watch the fall migration. I'd been to Cape May about 14 years before during the Spring. Well, turns out it wasn't quite Spring, but more like Winter. I think I saw only three Canada Goose on that trip. There may have been more birds, but it was too darn cold to get out of the car!
Dave hadn't been to Cape May but had read a lot about it regarding bird photography. We stayed at a fun B&B called the Mooring. It was centrally located, quiet and everything one would want in a B&B.
Our first day in Cape May offered some scrappy weather. We still hit all the birding hotspots though we spent most of the time at the Observatory chatting, chasing warblers and oogling new binoculars.
Dave kept tempting me to look through some really nice binos. I resisted for a while. Then I looked. Big mistake. I'm happy to say that my new binoculars are amazing. Following a trend for the year, they cost more than my first car!
The second day brought beautiful and perfect weather. We saw a ton of warblers and other birds. (Full list below). And most of them were at eye level and could be watched without binos! Very cool stuff.
We took advantage of many of the seminars available regarding birds. During one of the we got to see a juvenile Red-Tail Hawk up close (he'd just been banded).
We were really lucky to have this awesome day of birding because the next two were marked by a lot of wind, rain and cold. We saw a few more birds here and there, but not many. Again the observatory was the best bet, but it was nothing like the previous day.
I thought I'd ID the birds shown here. Starting at the top: 1) Cape May Warbler; 2)Black & White Warbler; 3) Black & White Warbler; 4) Bobolink; 5) Monarch Butterfly (it's their migration too - they were everywhere!); 6)Red-Tailed Hawk; 7)Black-Throated Blue Warbler; 8)Black-Throated Blue Warbler; 9) Northern Mockingbird; 10)Northern Parula; 11) Bird watchers on the Hawk Watch platform; 12)A shy Flycather; 13) Northern Parula; 14) Blackburnian Warbler; 15) Cape May Warbler; 16) Catbird.
Full list of birds seen: European Starling Mourning Dove Crow Blue Jay Black Backed Gull Canada Goose Turkey Vulture Rock Dove Mallards Black caped Chickadee House Sparrow Northern Cardinal Northern Parula Crested Cormorant Northern Shoveler Killdeer Trumpeter Swan Great Egret Wigeon Osprey Snowy Egret Downy Woodpecker Peregrine Falcon Yellow Shafted No. Flicker Merlin No. Mockingbird Pintail Blue Wined Teal Many Peeps Catbird Red Bellied Woodpecker Yellow Rumped Warbler Black and White Warbler Common Yellow Throat White throated Sparrow Ruby Crowned Kinglet Palm Warbler Tree Swallow Caroline Wren Black Vulture Black Throated Blue Warbler Brown Creeper Coopers Hawk Red Tail Hawk American Redstart Blackburnian Warbler Cape May Warbler Red Breasted Sapsucker Belted Kingfisher Brown Thrasher American Goldfinch Sharp Shinned Hawk Harrier Great Blue Heron Kestrel Bald Eagle Magnolia Warbler Black Poll Warbler Tufted Titmouse Bobolink Common Grackle American Oyster Catcher Eastern Phebe Yellow Bellied Sapsucker
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
That is the sound I suspected we'd be hearing as soon as the cast was removed. We weren't disappointed!
At the office, we were escorted to an exam room to wait.
The Assistant came in and started unwrapping. And cutting. And removing the surgical cast. Then it was revealed. Dave says it looks like the arm on a corpse. With old-man skin. It did have that 'special' corpse color about it. And the incision was bigger than he expected.
I wasn't sure how I'd do. I wondered if I'd get a bit woozy and have to sit. It was close a few moments (even thinking about it now is oozy), but I didn't pass out.
The stitches were removed and he was fitted with his new stylish mechanical arm brace. This thing allows him to pull his arm toward his body, but doesn't allow more than a 90 degree opening. He'll have it set to this range for two weeks, then he'll be back in to have it opened a little bit more.
This goes on for weeks. And weeks. And months. Can you tell the moment that Dave was informed that he should be doing NO exercise for a loooong time? We'll see how that goes. :/
Anyhoo, it's nice to have the cast removed and sutures out. He can now bath his arm and put on long sleeved shirts (brace goes on top then). And he can now scratch to his heart's desire.
