ad astra!

T-minus 11 hours until I go under the knife… I’m worried that they’re going to tell me no since I’ve had this fever/flu/cold kinda crap since Sunday, but the fever is gone and I’ll blame my nose on the lack of allergy medication—since I’m not supposed to eat, drink, chew, smoke, swallow, or suck on anything starting an hour ago (to all those guys I promised oral sex to tonight: sorry!) and thus “couldn’t take a claritin this morning.” So yeah, I’m gonna lie so they’ll cut me open.

Why? Mostly because, starting with Dr. Coppinger, then on to Dr. Siwik, then on to Dr. King, they are all fucking assholes and wouldn’t give me any narcotic pain meds. Coppinger gave me an Rx for motrin 800, which I’d already been taking… Siwik gave me steroids which King said was a dumb idea, and then King told me I couldn’t take motrin after Sunday. So not only did I have a fever and pain everywhere including my hand, I was stuck with tylenol, which might as well be skittles as far as I’m concerned. Yes, it eliminated my fever, but it’s done fuck all for pain. Everyone’s solution was to cut this thing out of me… which I’ll admit is one stellar fucking idea but in the meantime I’ve been going through horrendous pain off and on while waiting for this to go down… pain since December 27th. Which no one would give me a single tablet of vicodin or norco or even tylenol-fucking-three (which, again, might as well be skittles). So I cheated and took robitussin with codeine (available in Michigan without a prescription) and bummed other pain meds off my friends (which is kinda illegal) and suffered.

Every other medical professional I talked to about it couldn’t understand why no one would give me a narcotic… but I guess I’m supposed to trust my doctors—who, by the way, were apparently unable to grasp (hand-use-pun intended) the amount of pain I’ve been in.

Another downfall of 2 courses of steroids: they make you wired up, unnaturally so, and lower your ability to fight infections… which is why I’ve been sick twice this month already and lost 4 days of work.

So tomorrow’s the day. I have no fever, no flu-like aches, just a little congestion and, well, pain all through my left arm again. Cut this shit out of me, because I don’t want to fuck around with it anymore. Oh and before I leave, I want something that’s at least Schedule III, and CII would be even better.

It probably won’t be nearly as disgusting as this.

Then we begin about 35 days of recovery. And maybe then things will be back to normal…

It’s -17°C. That’s a balmy 256.15 kelvin.

I wish my ancestors would’ve stayed in The Netherlands.

Not in Canada

Originally uploaded by Paul Pellerito.

I totally forgot about this awesome picture… I want to remind people of it every time someone gives me get bloody Canadian coins.

Well this weekend was fun, hung out with Joe, got the game I wanted & a new pair of shoes. They’re Joe’s old shoes, but new to me nonetheless. Spent 2 nights in a row at Diversions and waaaay more money than I should have, but it was fun & nice to see some old faces. Also spend most of Sunday (playing Hotel Dusk) at Discussions, which was pretty much my home from home from 2000 to 2002 and occasionally from 04 to 05.

Today was doctor day, I had my evaluation with the hand surgeon and they are definitely going to cut this thing out of me. Next Thursday. No pain meds, which is a crock, but supposedly I’ll need them after the surgery— which I’m inclined to believe, since he’s going to cut a hole in my hand but… I can’t take Motrin after Sunday. So I dunno what I’m going to do. I’m taking next Thursday & Friday off obviously, and so hopefully I’ll be feeling better by Monday, but I’ll be down a hand for 10-14 days. After that everything should be back to normal.

I also met with a neuropsychologist for my brain, which was actually pretty fun. That’s all I have to say about that since I still have some testing to do to figure out stuff.

In about an hour I’m going to go audition for Kalamazoo Civic Theatre’s production of The Odd Couple, which should also be fun. And it’d be really, really cool to get the part. Oscar Madison of course.

I went and got a Mets cap today, to wear to the audition, because I’m a bastard.

Oh I never said thanks so much for finding this for me, Josh. I hear it took quite a lot of effort, but boy was it worth it.

Today’s 30 seconds of laughter is brought to you by Wil Wheaton.

Thanks a million, Josh!

I go in on Monday for the surgical consultation for the cyst.

It’s just as well because in the past 2 days it’s doubled in size (from what it shrank to after the methylprednisolone) and hurts again, too.

It hurts but the last thing I want is more god damned steroids— I have never felt so constantly unnaturally fucked up in my life.

Most people don’t know it, but Monday was a pretty exciting day.

Monday 14th January marked the first Mercury flyby made by the MESSENGER probe. MESSENGER is the first probe to visit Mercury since Mariner 10 in 1975. Due to Mariner’s trajectory and technology we’ve only imaged about 40% of Mercury’s surface, so MESSENGER is giving us a glimpse at parts of Mercury we’ve never seen in such detail.

The probe will make 2 more flybys, one in October of this year and another in September 2009. Orbital insertion isn’t until 2011.

Some facts about Mercury:
Mercury is the 1st planet from the Sun, with an orbital period of just 88 days. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system, about 4/10ths the size of Earth (the moon is about 3/10ths, so Mercury is just a little bit larger) but is only slightly less dense than Earth.
Mercury has an average temperature of 100 kelvin and a low of 80, with a high up to 700. That’s a range of -315.67 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit for you non-SI folks.

MESSENGER sites:
NASA:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/

For those of you who are curious, Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He’s a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Meet Barack.

Went to the doctor today… nothing unusual. Physicals are free for me so I get one every year. My LDL is too high, so I need to work on that, but other than that everything is fine. I need to lose weight, too, but that’s obvious.
My body makes too much cholesterol. I heard this report on NPR (no luck finding it, so [citation needed]) that said some scientists had theorized that people of northern european descent had high cholesterol so that they had more to utilize for vitamin D synthesis due to the lower amount of sunlight in higher latitudes. Less sunlight + more free cholesterol = more vitamin D = better health in the short term. Once you’ve lived over 45-50 years old (the usual age of death for human beings up until a hundred years ago) the benefits of this turn into the detriment of heart disease. So it’s possible that I need either more sunlight or pills. It was an interesting hypothesis in the least.

I also talked about my concentration, which the past few years has been all out of whack, but rather than taking pen to paper and writing R-I-T-A-L-I-N on it, the doctor wants me to have testing done… ($40 copay) I haven’t been able to sit down and read for more than 15 minutes, and it just took me 10 minutes to make a pot of coffee since I kept getting distracted by little things. This sucks. Hopefully I’ll find some way to fix it or just suffer like this for the rest of my life… lol

The pain from my cyst is finally pretty much gone thanks to the steroids, and the cold I got from not sleeping for 5 days is also nearly gone.

Things should be back to normal soon.

In other news, I see I’ve neglected to mention that Joe moved back to Grand Rapids to go to GVSU. So now other than Barb and Mike I’m pretty much left with Patrick to hang out with, which is more than fine. Patrick is great and I love hanging out with him since we have a lot in common (we’re both nerds) but he works Wednesday night through Saturday night, and a lot of times he goes out to Delton (wherever the hell that is), so it seems like I don’t see him much.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Seph lately, which is also fine but he’s the kind of person who I’d only drink with, and that’s not very constructive either.

Hmm.. what am I trying to say? (see, can’t concentrate) I guess that it’s down to Patrick being my closest friend around my age down here. Brad’s in Ann Arbor so I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like. La vida siguiente as they say.

BTW, a medrol dose pack made it better for a few days, but now it’s all swollen and painful again.

At least I know Spock had one, too.

for TNG fans this might be the best thing ever.

Jury Duty

Originally uploaded by Paul Pellerito.

I saw this in the mail and got kinda scared since I just read the part that said OFFICIAL COURT SUMMONS… I was like.. I didn’t do anything! but it’s just a summons for jury duty. I’m to report February 21st.

I wasn’t going to vote in Michigan’s ill-conceived early primary anyway (and I’m pissed at the state party & didn’t renew my dues because of it, fuck you MDP) but here’s confirmation for a reason to just stay home on January 15.

LANSING (AP) — No write-in votes for presidential candidates in the Jan. 15 primary will be counted, secretary of state officials said Friday.

Candidates had until 4 p.m. Friday to file a form indicating they would accept write-in votes. Secretary of state spokeswoman Kelly Chesney said none did.

All of the Republican candidates still in the race are on the state’s GOP ballot.

But Democrats John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden took their names off the Michigan ballot to satisfy Iowa and New Hampshire, which were unhappy Michigan was challenging their leadoff status on the primary calendar. That leaves only Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Christopher Dodd.

Dodd’s name will remain on the ballot even though he dropped out of the race after Thursday’s Iowa caucuses. Biden also dropped out Thursday.

Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer on Friday urged Democrats to vote in their own primary and to vote for “Uncommitted” if they didn’t have a favorite on the ballot.

“For the supporters of … John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, I recommend that you vote uncommitted. If you vote uncommitted, and “Uncommitted” receives sufficient votes, delegates will be sent to the national convention who will be free to vote for whichever candidate they like, including one of those four,” Brewer said in a video posted on YouTube…

more here

Go Obama.

Wrist till hurts, especially after a day at work. Steroids seem to help slightly but not enough to be of great difference. And now I can’t sleep for shit and have have felt keyed up all the time. I took 30mg of codeine earlier, but I think it’s just making me more hyper.

Oh well.

Current therapy:
methylprednisolone taper daily upon awakening (wednesday: 24mg, thursday: 20mg, friday: 16mg, saturday 12mg, sunday 8mg, monday 4mg)
ibuprofen 800mg three times daily
tramadol 100mg twice daily
codeine 30mg four times daily
ice 20 minutes at a time every 90 minutes when possible

Marginal relief.

At least “cyst on my wrist” sounds kind of like Dr. Seuss.

I got really really down earlier tonight. I was crazy hungry and needed to eat something to go with my 800mg of ibuprofen so I thought I’d make some tuna salad for sandwiches; something everyone in the house likes so it wouldn’t go to waste.

I tried to open the can of Tuna and the pain from my wrist was excruciating. I didn’t even get the seal broken before the pain started, I ended up dropping, can open and all, and quelching a scream in order to not wake everyone up. I grabbed an ice pack and some self-pity out of the fridge and just thought to myself that I’m completely helpless… I can’t even open a can of food or shovel the driveway so my car doesn’t get stuck because of this wrist. So I had to cry a lot, almost like 4 year old little kid bawling tears, partly from pain and partly from depression, for six to eight minutes and then was still hungry (and even more miserable) so gathered my compsure and made a peanut butter & jelly sandwich while Brad called & I restated the blog entry below and tried to feel better about the situation.

Pain management is the obvious short term solution to my problem(as a surgical, physio-mechanical solution won’t be possible until the 21st) but it’s been hurting for nearly two months now, getting gradually worse, so I’ve just become miserable with the pain. I feel like I should be able to handle it, choke it up, tough it out, and “be a man” even though I know that those ways of thinking rely purely upon learned socio-gender-construction roles rather than effective ways to manage stress, pain, and emotions. That and glucocorticoids can cause depression and I really need to work out this frustration and physical pain.

Thanks to Brad I now have a new motto and a new song. The motto was borne of two things (and thus the choice of band will relate to the motto and to the song).

Snow Patrol have a song called Make This Go On Forever and part of the lyric reads:

We have gone through so much worse than this before
What’s so different this time that you can’t ignore…

This lyrics got me going and reminded me that while this may be the worst, most constant, and longest lasting physical pain I’ve gone through it’s not the the worst emotional pain ever… in fact even terrible as it is, it pales in comparison.

That’s where the second thing comes into play:

Fullmetal Alchemist is a Japanese anime about two brothers (Edward and his younger brother Alphonse) who lost their mother in a tragedy (something I can imediately relate two) and attempt to learn and use their world’s most powerful science (alchemy) to bring her back. In their world the science of Alchemy’s main creed is, ‘In order for something to be gained, something of equal value must be lost.’ The boys eventually become rather exceptionally skilled alchemist and decide it’s time to bring their mother back. They have everything they need—save for something of equal value to exchange. The results are gruesomely destructive: Edward must sacrifice an arm and a leg to save his younger brother—who loses his entire body—and quickly affixes Alphonse’s soul to a suit of amor, saving some shred of his personhood. As a result Edward is fitted with artificial limbs called ‘automail’ which both restores the use if his arm and leg but also increased strength.

Unfortunately the automail is excruciating to attach. The fitting occurs after their failed alchemy attempt and when it’s being attached he’s told that most people are in agony during the procedure. You can see he’s in a great deal of pain but Edward is fairly silent. He’s asked if he’s ok… his only reply, through clenched teeth, is:

This pain is nothing.

That is what I think of this a lot lately when the pain is so bad. Sure this is physical and localized to one (admittedly large and necessary) part of my body, it’s not quite as painful and traumatic as having your whole world implode on a Sunday night and the heartache and pain that comes shortly later and lingers as a dull ache for so long but then suddely, acutely, stabbingly, when you least desire or expect it too. I am, of course, talking about the long trail of loss, disappointment, and death I’ve experienced in my life, the death of my own mother and other experiences I’ve been through the past few years. It makes my physical pain, though excruciating, seem so entirely insignificant.

This pain is nothing.

The album for January right now (if or until I find one I like that suits the month better) is then Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open. The song for right now is called Hands Open from Snow Patrol’s great album released in 2006. Given my current physical pain problems it seemed like a good song for the month. And there’s tons of snow, so Snow Patrol is good to play. It also seems to speak of and to some people I know. The parts that are formatted big and bold I made my answer tone for when/if people call me(mostly for the hand surgeon, but still—it’s a great song).
See the video & read the lyrics after the jump… Continue reading ‘Hands open.’

More pressing issues to type out rather than the long drawn out saga of that saturday last month so I may figure out how to do a video blog to explain it… current events:

I missed my doctor’s visit today due to being stuck in the snow and unable to free myself in time to get there. I spent an hour trying to get unstuck and finally gave up at 9:20am. Shovelling and pushing took its toll on my wrist so much that I sat in my car and screamed for a few minutes it hurt so much. I went inside, called the doctor, warmed up, felt angry/in pain/depressed, and then ate ice cream for breakast and laid back down until noon. Barb’s boyfriend Mike helped rock me out of the snow to go to work. Couldn’t even get into the driveway tonight so I parked across the street at Barb’s suggestion.

So anyway, I had to reschedule my office visit for Jan 11th and found out I see the hand surgeon on January 21st. Three weeks away. So I asked the nurse for some pain meds—why i had gone in on friday in the first place, spent $20 and got x-rays was so I could get some fucking narcotics. I told the nurse I didn’t want to be in constant and nearly unbearable pain for three weeks, that the motrin I got on friday wasn’t cutting it. So they called me in a medrol dose pack, which is methylprednisolone, which is a steroid. The intent is to reduce the inflammation which should then reduce the pain. Unless of course the cyst is sitting on a nerve. Now I’m not a specialist but given that my arm hurts from the elbow to the tip of my middle finger that makes me suspect that there’s nerve pain involved, which is not going to yield to the steroids one bit.

But what the fuck do I know? I’m just the one who’s in pain.

The best irony was right after I got off the first phone call (I made at work) asking for pain meds I went and checked our prescription recorder line and there were 6 scripts in a row for pain meds on it. Someone’s playing quite the prank on me!

So if the steroids don’t resolve the pain by Friday morning I’m going to demand some narcotics (specifically, a prescription for #90 norco 10-325) and if they won’t give me that I’m going to cancel my Jan 11th appointment and find another doctor to hand this.

But again, wtf do I know? I’m only in constant pain.