Goodbye, Albright & Raw

What a damned shame.

Kathe and I had a good time yesterday, going through the near-vacant Albright & Raw Rexall store, buying a few of their remnants of stock. Just a few items left in their storerooms, and then it's gone.

What a damned shame.

Still, it was fun, buying a pill bottle here, a cardboard box there. A bottle of scary-sounding asthma medication to give to Waldy.

But what a damned, ruinous, totally unnecessary shame.

Shame on George W. Bush, whose dingbat Medicare scheme destroyed independent drug stores like Albright & Raw.

Just a damned shame.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Corporatism. It's what's for dinner."\\

Lame, Yet Better Than Nothing

Adopt a penguin, get a sugar cookie cutter in the shape of one.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Probably more than you have done for penguins this week."\\

Still Still Here

Nerving myself up to go back to work. I think I'm ready. My doctor has released me to go back. But really, lives are in my hands, and I do take that responsibility seriously.

But I have to go back sooner or later.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Be strong. Be brave. Be grateful you've had as much recovery time as you've had already."\\

Still Here

Oops, sorry, let a few days go by without a post. Folks are liable to think I finally dropped dead.

No, but nothing much of other interest has happened, either.

Big item: the hole in my forehead is no longer pulsating visibly. Instead, I sometimes feel what I suppose is pressure building up against the tender new bone of the now-closed hole. It's a bit unnerving, although less so than that pulsating head business.

It would be interesting to see how many people immediately think "baby" and how many think "alien", and whether there's any sort of correlation there.

Refreshment of a Different Kind

Kathe and I poured oil into the heater's tank. With me still on light duty, we had to pour it into a tiny (2 gal. 8 oz. -- why such an odd amount?) can and make many, many trips up and down. Later, we walked downtown this morning, looked in at Browser's Books, made copies at Henderson's and had coffee at the Red Horse. A fairly heavy day, these days.

I dwelled obsessively upon the way that my cerebrospinal fluid is still making my forehead bulge with every pulsation. It kept my hat from sitting comfortably.

//The Magic Eight-Ball observes that "Pulsating cerebrospinal fluid is better than the other kind."\\

Something Else Refreshing

A post on something besides my damned brain tumor, because I'm sick of thinking about it.

Instead, let's consider things like:

The MIT Logo Folded From a Single Sheet of Paper

Note with interest the various stages in which the origamus's ontology recapitulates its phylogeny: at various stages, it resembles first an airplane, then a mother airplane nursing its brood, then the sword Steve Reeves carried in Hercules Versus the Goat Women, before finally taking on recognizable shape as a university emblem.

or maybe

The World's Biggest Moose

"Inside the mouth, between the teeth and the tonsils, you will find the gift shop."
Please note that the above is not a bit of silliness, but an actual fact, straight out of the voiceover on the video.

or else

Robot Violin Playing

Damn. Just look at that thing go, and try to keep in mind that it's real: a real five-foot tall robot, actually playing that actual violin.

or even

A Book Report

"It is my considered opinion that The Mill on the Floss would have been vastly improved by an alien invasion about half way through."

My first thought on this was that it provided useful impetus for fanfic writers. We can start with the question of what kind of aliens they'll be, whether existing or original, and what form their invasion will take. From there, we can move on to consider alternative venues, such as Silas Marner, Emma, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Wuthering Heights.

Or not.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Feeling better, are we?"\\

Staples Out

Well, that's refreshing. The staples are out, and Kathe and I are just back from Eugene, where a very kind and capable Physician's Assistant pulled them. Kathe suggested I have them gilded for the holidays, but I'm just as glad to be done with them.

Aside from that, it was practically an ordinary day, but then I'm still on that Fentanyl patch.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep on keepin' on."\\

Now, This is a Day More Like It!

Yesterday I felt kinda sorta okay, and counted it as a victory. Today I walked downtown with Kathe and looked in stores and stopped for a mocha and a danish, and felt pretty damned normal. I like being normal. Normal feels so good.

[Smile, smile]

But check in with me tomorrow -- who knows where I'll be by then?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Cover all your bets."\\

Feeling Much Better Now (This Time For Sure!)

For the moment, anyway. It requires Fentanyl patches with liquid Morphine for backup, but the headaches are under control. Oh, well. My clients will just have to make do, I guess, until I am ready to go back to work. I certainly don't want someone with my current state of mind to be rubbing anybody's back, much less dispensing their medications.

If that seems like a harsh assessment, well, I've been forced to make a lot of those lately.

Anyway, I'm trying to get back on track, though maybe I just need to be patient. In the meantime, watch this space.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The obviousness of the wisdom of long-term planning is exceeded only by the obviousness that there was not enough of it."

+168 Hours Or Something And Counting

God. What a mess. Talk about your lost week and then some.

Not too bad right after surgery, but then I started having worse and worse symptoms: headache, nausea, weakness, extreme sensitivity to pain, photosensitivity. I had to go back for three CAT scans before they were convinced that there wasn't something putting pressure on my brain*. Now the thought is that it's an "intractable migraine" brought on but not directly caused by the surgery.

Only the IV drugs seemed to have any effect -- possibly because my stomach was totally shut down. So, I'd go into the emergency room and get a jolt of phenergan or dilaudid and feel pretty good, and they'd send me home with a bottle of pills, and so on.

[I may have left something important out, or gotten something wrong, but that's the way I remember it right now]

The worst part of it all was that there was nothing to distract me from the pain, and nothing to pass the time. All I could do was lie there thinking about every last little detail of how bad I felt, and how long it was going to be until I could have another, and whether I was going to sleep at all, and if so, how would I feel when I woke up?

Right now, though, I'm on what appears to be a winning combination of 1) a three-day patch, 2) PRN liquid morphine and 3) anti-nausea suppositories.

This has been quite a disappointing week. Not at all what I'd been led to expect. Still, I seem to have survived it.

And there's still some time for the enjoyable parts of this sick leave: walking downtown, showing off my staples, &c.

And there are a lot of things to get done: decorations, postcards, getting a new watch (seems to have disappeared at the hospital), &c.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take it easy."\\