Plugged My Ears Again

I took out my three earrings before my brain surgery in November of 2007 and never got around to putting them* back in, until yesterday**.

* Actually, I have three holes (because one is for wimps and two is for girls), but one of them seems to have closed.

** Actually, I have just one in, because one of them seems to have disappeared during the night. Oh, well, they were only 75c each.

In other news, my father is continuing to recover, and I have switched from nights to afternoons, leaving him to handle the nights for himself.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I won't tell them that you initially forgot to mention how your father is doing."\\

Hypochondria

The other day, I noticed that the place where the neurosurgeon opened my skull is decidedly flat under the scar.

Is it hypochondria that makes me think that today it's actually indented, or did I just not notice it before?

Is it hypochondria to think that the recent extreme stress in my life is causing me to develop hypochondria?

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."\\

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."\\

18 Hours and Counting

I'm at my parents' house in Monroe after dinner, using their computer and struggling with its unfamiliar keyboard.

Mom & Dad, Kathe and me, our son Waldy and his girlfriend Mary, my brother Tom and his girls, Linda and Andrea. Our daughter Biftu (aka Asnakech) was going to come from Portland, but she thought the family was gathering in Corvallis, and by the time the bus would have brought her to Corvallis we would have been long-gone to Monroe. So Biftu went over to her sister Sarah's house instead. Oh, well.

And all the while, the countdown continues: nine hours until I become NPO (not a big concern on the evening of Thanksgiving), fifteen hours until I check in at Sacred Heart, seventeen and a half hours until the drill bites in.

Am I boring you yet?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Sometimes you bore, and sometimes you get bored."\\

38 Hours And Counting

As the clock runs out leading up to my surgery, I'm getting a flurry of unexpected calls from people wanting to schedule a massage.

So many people (and so much money) that I'd be tempted to suspect a pronoid* fantasy of people conspiring to hit me with a raft of money just before I go off work for awhile, except that these are mainly people I've never seen before.

One more night in my own bed....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Why wait until the last minute?"

*Opposite of paranoid.

60 Hours And Counting

Kathe and I had dinner at Izzy's with my parents and Uncle Charles, as well as Aunts Pat and Sandra. A sort of pre-Thanksgiving, since Charles won't be at the main gathering at my parents' place on Thursday.

The time of surgery fast approaches, will I or nill I.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "3600 seconds per hour. Not just a good idea, it's the law."\\

Still Waiting

Tonight is my last shift of home-care work. No more night shifts, and no day work at the activity center. I may get a call or two for a massage (I hope so), but otherwise there isn't much to do except show up at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, sleep overnight at my Aunt Pat's place in Junction City, and check in at Sacred Heart in Eugene at 0600 Friday morning, to be prepped for surgery at 0730.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Fear is the mind-killer."\\

I'm Scared

In the morning, Kathe and I will be going to Eugene to meet with the anesthesiologist who'll be conducting me through the Ivory Gate. Tonight, I sit and wonder if the thingie in my brain is as innocuous as all of the doctors seem to think.

I've never had a really good memory, but now it seems bad enough to actually scare me.

Months ago, I told Kathe that it was my understanding that X was blue. A few weeks later, I said, "Of course, you remember when I said X was red, right?" We had a rather heated discussion on the subject. It was unpleasant, and not the sort of thing a person is likely to forget under normal circumstances.

And yet, the other day I said to Kathe, "I don't know why anyone would think X was blue. I certainly never said so." She had to remind me of our previous discussion, at which point it all came back to me -- but how could I not think of it whenever the subject of the color of X came up?

This is scary. Or am I just reading too much into an ordinary lapse because I'm already afraid of the surgery? I don't know.

//The Magic Eight-Ball

Poor, Poor Religious Right

"Kathe, I notice that people are making a big fuss this year over how the Religious Right have little to choose from among Republican candidates, as though this were something new."

"If you're the Religious Right and you're limiting yourselves to Republican candidates, you're bound to wind up disappointed."

"Exactly. Oooh, I must go make a blog post, I just thought of a wonderfully snotty turn of phrase."

"By the way, I don't think you've mentioned that you now have a firm date for your surgery. I think the last time you mentioned it, it was still 'we think the 23rd' and you said 'Get back to me when you know for sure.'"

"Gee, I thought I'd mentioned at least once that my surgery is now definitely set for Friday, November 23rd at 7:30 AM. But if not, I'd better mention it today."

[15 minutes later]

"So anyway, that wonderfully snarky turn of phrase was:

It must be pretty discouraging to be a member of the Religious Right these days, having to choose between unpalatable contenders like Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, or a wretch like Mike Huckabee, who's foul in quite different ways, and besides would lose to Christopher Dodd.

But what else is new? At least since Ronald Reagan, every Republican candidate has painted a picture of himself as a titan with a fiery red white and blue halo, a Bible in one hand and the nuclear button in the other, a gay man crushed under one foot and a teenaged girl under the other. And every one who's been elected has delivered Babylonian corruption and Pharaonic incompetence.

It's as though every Democrat had billed himself as the new JFK and then...

Oh, right.


//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Souls bared on Larry King Live may be smaller than they appear."\\

Still Waiting Patiently

So, surgery on the 23rd, still haven't received anything in the way of information about how to prepare for surgery, still no hour set for surgery (the previous one was going to be 9AM, check in at 7 -- makes sense, since my day will be ruined anyhow).

Anxiety is definitely having an effect on my quality of life: headaches, chest pains, acid reflux in my mouth in the middle of the night -- tons of fun.

And a good time is had by all, thanks to my bad temper, gloom and fuzzy-headedness, which allow me to share the wealth with Kathe and other people around me.

Weirdly, the only times I really feel like myself are when I'm at work. I guess my work-self doesn't know he's about to have surgery.

And speaking of work: any mid-Valley resident who reads this should be aware that I will be working right up until surgery, including my massage practice, so by all means don't hesitate to call for a massage appointment between now and Thanksgiving. I could use the money, for the time while I'm off work recovering.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I'm not saying anything. I don't participate in spam."\\

Guess What?

NOTE: The following is not an actual transcript, just the gist of the conversation put in a form I thought would be enjoyable. The person I spoke with made a small error but corrected it at once and was professional throughout. No disrespect or misrepresentation is intended.

[Phone rings]

[neutral voice, not knowing if it will be friend, massage client, bad news] "Hello, this is John Burt."

[chirpy voice] "Hi! Your surgery has been approved, so we can put you on the schedule now."

[icy voice] "I thought I had been on the schedule for November 20th. For a couple of weeks now. All my plans were based on that."

[abashed voice] "Um, oh, I see, I was thinking you were one of the ones just approved. Yes, here, the doctor is having a family emergency, so his surgeries are being rescheduled. I think I can get you in for the 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving."

[pleasant voice] "I see. Well, thanks for the update. Let me know when a firm date is set, and I'll make plans accordingly."

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, [portentous voice] "The best laid plans...."\\

[Update: Surgery will definitely be on the 23rd. Plan all visits, massage appointments, &c. accordingly.]

What Now?!

For cryin' out loud, can't I catch a break? It's still three and a half weeks until the surgery for my brain tumor, and now I have to stagger out of Meeting with a painful sense of pressure in my chest with referral to my neck and jaw!

Well, the EKG and the blood chemistry they did at Immediate Care were all normal-looking. The X-ray says my heart is a bit on the big side, but then so is the rest of my chest, so I'm not taking that as a bad sign.

Good thing. It'd be a sorry comment if my heart couldn't take the strain of a Corvallis Quaker Meeting.

Probably it was just some sort of digestive mishap -- lots of coffee and stress lately. I'll try these sample Protonix tablets and see how my innards respond.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Lub-dup, lub-dup...".\\

Surgery Scheduled: 20 NOV 2007

I just this minute got off the phone with Dr. McGirr's assistant, and my surgery is now scheduled for 9:00 AM on 20 November 2007*, at Sacred Heart in Eugene.

Kathe will stay at my aunt Pat's place in Junction City. We're looking forward to that -- we haven't seen it yet.

There. I said I'd let you know more as soon as I knew more, and now you know everything I know.

And when I know more, I'll let you know that, too.

*I may or may not be able to make Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Monroe.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Blessed be."\\

Subependymoma

Gonna Have Surgery...Someday

I've been waiting rather anxiously for word from my neurosurgeon's office about scheduling surgery. Waiting and waiting for the Motorola Q phone in my pocket to ring. Last night at close to 1 AM, my phone informed me that I'd just received a new voicemail thanks to Sprint, my wireless provider. The voicemail was from a call that the neurosurgeon's assistant had placed to my phone at 9:30 the previous morning (at which time the phone was in my pocket, charged and turned on.

I called back the next morning, and just now got an answer (on our house phone): they're still waiting for approval from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who apparently need to be persuaded that this so-called surgery isn't just recreational trephination.

Why, yes, sometimes it does indeed suck to be me, thank you for noticing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "We all have our frailties."\\