Brian Cale, le boss de Farndurk hospitalisé
Citation:
My name is Missi Cale, I'm Brian's wife. We own and operate Farndurk Custom Electronics. I've been having a lot of trouble with posting this info on our website today, so I am putting it here until B can take care of the website. I'm not sure what else to do.
Brian has been admitted with a severe kidney infection due to the passing of this 7.25mm calcite stone.
On Tuesday July 13th he had just posted his last entry on our website at around 4:30am announcing that our shop upgrades were wonderfully successful and that we'd be resuming full production within several hours of his posting. 45 minutes later he was doubled up in pain at the beginnings of what would be a severe kidney/UTI.
We had just worked our behinds off for the previous 3 weeks designing and implementing an all new lettering system. Brian had injured his elbow with all of the hammering he does on these pedals of ours and was forced into stopping production to allow him time to heal and also come up with a new rig. We really had no choice at the time but to improve things right then and there. Timing. We were in great haste to get that upgrade done just as fast as we possibly could to resume pedalbuilding ops before too much time passed. We were also in a race with monsoons around here as our heat indices would exceed 125f very soon. So we were working pretty hard there in the heat. We got the system all designed and in place inside of the 3 weeks we said we needed. But all of the water Brian drank during the welding and such of the new setups flushed loose this rather large kidney stone. Brian worked himself sick (not sayin toldya so, but I toldya so!)
It took around 12 hours for him to get rid of it. But after that the 4 days of 102 to 103f fever would not break and the infection took hold. Even with very fresh supplemental antibios that infection was just bigger than he is. He refused to go to the ER (very costly, comes out to about ten thousand per stone) so after 4 or so days of him being fevered, on no food and Government Issue pain meds that the VA gives out he was in pretty bad shape. Jeff and I told him we were going to take him out for ice cream but we took him to the ER instead. He was mad, but got over it soon enough.
I need to vent for a moment gentlemen. I worked on the surgical recovery floor of our local hospital for a number of years as a nurse's aid. I once saw Brian nearly freefall around 4 stories when his parachute failed during an air show demo when he was in the air force 25 years ago, both his knees turned into purple balloons when he landed thoroughly breaking them both. Even when he was shot in the riots, and that was a bad one. I've seen pain. But, I have never seen him in as much sheer agony as he experienced when he spent a whole day passing this particular stone. He described it as dragging a fishing lure from his kidney all the way through his urinary tract and taking 12 hours to do it.
We're no noobies to these, he's passed about a dozen since 2005, but this is the largest/worst one ever. Gents, do whatever it is you must do to avoid the formation of these. Take them seriously, they can be fatal. The VA had told us that this was a non-obstructive passable stone (mri) and that it was only 4mm and not to worry about it. Clearly it was about 7.2mm and lacerated him all the way out. So don't take your mri for granted.
I'm writing this post thingy to point out that we will resume full production inside of a week or so. Brian's new production ideas work perfectly and the new lettering system makes it so much faster too. And no more hammer-elbow for him either. There's a big ol' yay!
Sorry to post this personal nonsense here on the gear page, but I really needed to get this info out there and I can't manipulate our website. I don't have the time to write to each and every customer of ours just yet, so I hope I can direct them here and our situation will be better explained.
Please don't think me rude for not answering anyone here right away, I am leaving in a few minutes to go back to Tucson to pick up B and that's a six hundred mile round trip. He's either going home tonight or Monday. But the va and their hurry up and wait ways won't reveal that info to me until it happens, I'm just the spouse, donchya know. I'm really sorry all of this has gotten in the way of pedal enjoyment happy time. We try our very best to do what we do. But since we're not big pros in the industry, I guess we have tiny shop problems. Very sorry for that.
I came home and spent the last few days doing up everyone's pcbs and lower receiver wiring too. B will wire them up in a few days. So you people that are waiting on paid orders are our first priority.
We are NOT out by any means. This is just a little bit of a side trip. We just spent all the money we had taking advantage of the timing and karma of the issue, upgrading our shop and in the process giving B a completely air conditioned soldering bench so he can wire and build year round any time of the day too. Those 130f days can be rough to wire. So we're going going backwards by any means, just a bit of a stutter on our way forwards.
He just pushed it way too hard! And he's to stay off both the internet computer and his CAD computer too for a couple days when he gets home. Ok people? He's like a g-darned horse, he'll work until he falls over. There, I said it.
Thank you very much. Feel free to write me at our businesss email addy. I blabbered as much as B does, I guess I needed to vent. Sorry for being a blabby female. Thanks for listening fellas.
Sincerely, my very best to everyone. Missi Cale.
