10-20-96

Some of you may have noticed a certain lack of progress, momentum, and spunk around the old H4 lately. You may have even noticed that recently some of our daily updated pages have not been updated as usual.

This has to do with your webmaster having gone through some radical health experiences as of late.

During the first week of September, yours truly had a sore throat and went to see a doctor. While there, I had several tests done. It had been a while since I had had a physical, so I figured I'd "take advantage" of being there and asked for some blood and urine tests. The sore throat turned out to be nothing big and soon went away.

All the tests came back fine also, except for one, which showed I had something going on inside that wasn't quite normal. A series of X-Rays revealed I had an extra visitor on board, a 5 mm kidney stone lodged in the lower lobe of my right kidney.

The visit to the doctor also apparently exposed me to the flu. I was out for a week with a nasty case of influenza. (I strongly recommend flu shots for those of you who haven't had them yet this year.) The flu I caught was of the high fever variety. Nothing more than fever and aches and pains and more fever and aches and pain and a week and a half of my life and normal activity was laid to waste.

It was also decided during this flu episode that something had to be done about my kidney stone.

On September 17th, I went into Queens Hospital for a Lichtotripsy, a procedure that blasted the stone into pieces with ultrasound. Altho not major surgery, the procedure left me in a painful recuperative mode which as of today is not quite over. Apparently I still have tiny pieces inside, which may take some time to flush themselves out. If not, I may have to do it all over again at some future time. Right now, emotionally, I kinda feel like a walking time bomb...hoping of course that my body will see fit to pass these remnants painlessly and soon.

To ease anyone's fears, I am fine but, have been laid up dealing with this whole deal and so I have not been very productive. Some days I have been able to perform updates on the site, some days I have not. I haven't been able to sit very long at the computer and haven't been able to do much of anything including work.

I ask for your indulgence and patience with me. It's gonna be a bit longer before I am back up to full speed. I haven't been able to go to work nor make any money so, when I do resume my normal activities (hopefully next week) my primary efforts will be geared towards creating an income flow for myself and my family's needs once again.

Unfortunately I don't work at a place where I get paid sick leave or even paid vacation. If I can't work, ie: sell and make commissions, I get nada....squat, zippo.

That's a whole nuther issue I'll have to deal with sometime....

Anyhow, I apologize to you for my lackluster performance as of late and I hope you'll see fit to permit me to get back up to speed at my own pace.

I continue to value your visits, your friendship and your interest in Hawai`i's H4 and Internet Radio Hawai`i.

I still appreciate living in the most beautiful place on earth and I'd like to thank Mary the anesthesiologist and Deena the post-op nurse for being the stars of my entire crazed ordeal. Thanks to Doctor Kellar, the guy who discovered my extra baggage....and well, we'll see how I feel about the kidney doc in another week or so....

Thanks to my buddy Paul for the ride to and from the hospital and thanks also to my wife, my daughter and the big white dog for bein' around while the big guy wasn't quite feelin' so big...

Aloha,

Rabbett
Webmaster
rabbett@irh.com