Columbus OH

Much against our wishes, more than six weeks have passed since the last update. Adverse events have concatenated to fill the time:

First, on 11 March the earthquake and tsunami not only devastated the north Pacific coast of Japan but precipitated a nuclear disaster unequaled since Chernobyl in 1986 - one which everyone thought never would be repeated - certainly not in Japan, one of the most disciplined and technologically advanced cultures in the world.

In 1986 it was months before the outside world even learned what had been happened at Chernobyl (and indeed, we still do not know the entire story). But in 2011 we have the internet. As soon as incomplete word of the earthquake reached the net, Lew Googled local Japanese sources for the details in the disaster. In short order he found a live video stream in English from Mie in central Japan which was broadcasting a continuous real time account of the disaster (tweets, Skype, and other electronic communications) 24/7. And in turn that led to discovery of another live stream in English from NHK, Japanese public TV. We watched in horror as the tsunami completely wiped out everything along the beaches of NE Japan - and then felt the horror compounded again and again as the Fukushima reactors blew up and melted down one by one. Lew had more than enough engineering and physics training to be able to predict what was coming at each step, even if the public authorities continued to minimize. The release of blistering amounts of radioactivity contaminating a wide area of both land and sea was entirely predictable, and all we could do was to watch. Needless to say, this took precedence over any relating of events in our dull lives - which don't look quite as bad now.

Simutaneous with this spectacular but slowly unfolding disaster, Bobbi and Lew were dealing with their own petty medical annoyances. Bobbi had begun to experience pain in her operated hip while Lew continued to have experience progressive pain from the damaged disk between his L4 and L5 lumbar vertebrae. On 31 March one of Lew's doctors injected steroids around the affected disk. With careful physical management, this seemed to produce some slow and imcomplete (but greatly appreciated) improvement.

Before these stresses had time to equilibrate and permit getting to other business, Lew woke up on the 12th with severe right lower quadrant pain. Fearing appendicitis, he made a trip to the ER. A CT scan revealed that his appendix and gut were fine, but he had a small stone in the pelvis of his L kidney. The next day Lew's urologist reviewed the same scan images and pointed out to Lew that he had a very obvious stone halfway down the R ureter. The urologist elected to wait and see, but a repeat scan on the 18th showed that the stone had not moved, so Lew will have to have a surgical procedure next week.

At the same time Bobbi was having her hip pain studied. Her orthopod took a plain film and discovered that she had avulsed the tip of the Greater Trochanter, so she too faces another 6 weeks of relative immobility.

We appreciate the concern that people have expressed about our silence, and we will try to keep eeryone better informed. But if the roller coaster continues at this rate, it certainly will reduce our ability to do so.

Until next time.