For the last several weeks my family has been on pins and needles because my dad needed an operation to repair an aneurism on his aorta. On Thursday morning he went under the knife. They had to lift out a lung and move his diaphragm to get in to work on the problem. It was close to the spinal cord and there was some danger of paralysis. I just spoke to Mom and she says he came out of surgery OK and has even moved his legs. He will be in intensive care for the next 72 hours and in the hospital for about a week before he can go home. That will be the hardest on him. He is too active to be able to lie around for a week.

One of the problems they had in preparing for the surgery is that his heart beats too slowly. Apparently his resting heart rate is 38. Even with exercise they couldn't get it up over 60. They had to put a pacemaker in to speed it up for the surgery for some reason. My sister was laughing about the anesthesiologist watching the pulse and sweating as he waited for the next beat. At a heartbeat every 1 1/2 seconds he could be dead a long time before they realized it.

But he's a tough old coot. I imagine he'll be back out in his shop before the end of the month.