mcgees.org

My shoe is off, my foot is cold
I have a bird I like to hold
My phone is off, in bed I've rolled
And now my story is all told

I got the pharmacy troubles straightened out, and I’m feeling much better, so I deleted the last post.  I should be relatively human again.  I get to see Niall on the weekend.  I’m still in constant, terrible pain, and found out I will probably need spinal surgery, but I’m better.

Thanks, everyone.  I should be back to posting now.

There’s an eBay lot that I really, really want.  The auction closes in less than one hour (4:40 a.m. PDT is probably some sensible time in Johannesburg, where the seller resides), and the bidding is at 14% of my high bid.  I would love to get this lot for 14% of my high bid.

I can’t sleep, as you can probably tell, so I’ve been fiddling (they call it a “one tweak loop” in computerese) with the sidebar.  Let me know what you think — if you can tell the difference.

Firefox did not complain about the word “computerese”.  Wow.

Sunday, I lay down in the early afternoon, about 2 p.m.  I wake up, and look for about five minutes for my tiny, hard-to-find glasses.  I look at my phone, which said it had updated itself for DST.  It said 4:30.  I went to my computer.  It said 5:30.  Neither made sense, as it was dark outside.

I went to time.gov (bookmark that one) and found out it was 5:30 — the following morning.  So I slept for about 15.5 hours.

Kind of scary — weird things happen when you are sick — but a good way to accumulate shows on your DVR.  I started watching a Law & Order: CI episode I had previously given up on.  It’s a Logan episode, starring David Cross and, they said, Kristy Swanson.

I like David Cross.  I like his writing, I like his stand-up, I like his insight.  But I think it’s fair to say that he has no dramatic chops.  If we find out he’s the killer and has been lying about everything during the episode, it may be better, because the fact that I don’t believe a single one of his motivations could be viewed as a choice.  The episode is dreadful.  And Kristy Swanson?  Kept looking for her.  Beautiful, beautiful Kristy Swanson from when I was in high school.  Here is how I remember her:

Here are three more-or-less NSFW images.  SFFD fans, remember to check back when you are home.

Finally found her: she’s playing a bottle-blond floozy.  A latter-day Marilyn Monroe, a comparison they keep making more and more explicit.  And she’s — how to put this gently? — obese.  Not Monroe-by-today’s-standards-big, but obese.  Maybe some of it is a fat suit, and she certainly looks worse because of the Playboy-style caked-on makeup and garish lipstick, but her upper arms looks like they weigh as much as she used to in total.  IMDB reports she’s almost 40, now.

Really unfortunate.  I’m speaking as someone who has put on 120 pounds (British: 8 1⁄2 stone; Bushman: very much; elsewhere: 54 kg) in the last ten years, so I know this can happen, and I know what I’m talking about.  But this is really, really unfortunate.

Episode is half over.  I’m going to go drag myself back and try to finish it this time.

I am ill.  I am under the weather.  I am out of sorts.  I am avec cold.

I am sick as a dog.  And I am miserable.

I am having trouble breathing, have post-nasal drip, headaches, cough, pre-cankerous blooms inside my mouth (which are going to get much worse before they get any better), massive allergic symptoms, whole body ache (different from normal), fever,  and — get this — pronounced knee and thigh pain.

Niall has a constellation of symptoms strongly correlating to mine, including the leg pain, bizarrely.

We each started showing symptoms on the same day: two days ago, on Wednesday.  We had spent the preceding weekend together.  There is no solid proof of who infected whom, but assuming it was one of us to the other of us, and given that I spend my days immersed in high-tech culture while he spends his days immersed in germ culture, it is not difficult to surmise who is more prone to rhinovirus and influenza, and who is more prone to Michaelangelo and Concept.

I’m actually sick enough that I’ve asked Jenn to keep Niall with her over the weekend.  There’s no way I can be single parent and keep up with Niall this weekend feeling like this.

If I were not already disabled, I would have taken today off work.

Blech.  Ouch.  Blech.

I really hate insomnia, but never more than when it promises to decrease the joy I can have with my son the next day.  Er, later this day.  In about two hours.

Short sleep last night, no nap, a couple glasses of wine — I thought I was sitting pretty for a long winter’s nap.  But I have barely blinked.

If anyone has been calling me, by the way, I can’t answer it.  My phone was lost, then disabled as a security precaution, a replacement was ordered, the passive voice was used, and then the missing phone was discovered — which now belongs to the insurance company.  I’m wondering exactly how many days I should wait before someone miraculously “returns my missing phone” to me, to send it to the insurance company, so I won’t look like a total wanker.

I’m not hurting too badly right now.  I can probably take some more ibuprofen for the mild discomfort.  But I really wish I could just lie down and become unconscious.  Restfully, REMmingly, unconscious.  I’m writing train-of-thought right now, and hoping it will tire me so that I can go and collapse into bed.  I’m not actually alert enough to do anything really thought-intensive, like code or write cogently, just alert enough to stay awake.

Thanks to everyone for your support of late.  It’s much needed, and much appreciated.  So much so, that you can consider this a personal letter to you.

I’ll even sign it,

- Joshua

I refilled my ten-day pain med prescription today, exactly (almost to the minute) ten days after my last one.  For ten days I get 120 pills.  I finished my course with one pill left.  This may seem like nothing, but to me, it’s a Big Deal^®.

I also gave in and bought an adjustable cane.  My sciatica⁄pride ratio reached the tipping point.  Between that and the retro cap I wear (which looks vintage, and covers my hair color), I look like a (huge) old man.

OK, let’s run down my week so far:

1. Wife left me and took Niall (my fault)
2. Got dropped from the interview process of the job for which I was applying (my fault, essentially)
3. Worker’s Comp claim was denied, so I will have to sue the WC insurance company (not my fault)
4. Ditzy HMO doctor whom I saw twice while out of work due to work-related injury claims I never told her I was off work, and refuses to sign my disability slip (fuckin’ not my fault)
5. Paid over $100 (that I didn’t have until friends opened their wallets) to file my taxes (my choice)
6. Ran out of meds (that said ditzy doctor forgot to refill) and for which I don’t have insurance anyway (not my fuckin’ fault)

So, today:

7. Computer crashes (shit happens)

You’d think with my whole professional and educational life spent living at the whims of computer hardware, I would have a top-of-the-line backup system in place.  You’d be wrong.

I fixed it.  The computer, and recovered the data.  It took some effort, but I did it.  I’m doing a full backup tonight.

Next step would pretty much have to be “blindness”, right?  I’d say “death”, but that’s not always seeming like such a bad alternative this week.

I have a drinking problem.  A literal, mechanical drinking problem.  I choke on any beverage I try to imbibe.

It hasn’t always been this way.  I used to be able to drink a glass of water without drowning.  But now, probably about half the time, I’ll end up in a wheezy coughing and choking fit as the liquid tries to go down my trachea.

I don’t know what’s changed.  A year and a half ago, I thought this would be fixed by my Chiari decompression surgery.  It wasn’t.  I still cannot drink properly.  It might be weight-related — that’s my best guess at the moment.

There are all sorts of programs and support groups for people with alcohol dependency.  There are almost none for actual drinking problems.  So I guess I’m going to have to deal with this myself.  Ideas, other than “Drink more slowly”?

I had a fantastically real-seeming dream about publishing a book and having it printed on the most luxurious paper I’ve ever felt.  It was printed on the processed fibrous bark of some bush that doesn’t actually exist.  The paper was dense, smooth, almost velour-textured.  It gave crystal-clear impressions to the ink deposited on it, and was luxurious to fan through.  It was almost warm to the touch, naturally dyed (kind of taupe-colored), and exceedingly sexy.

This is one of the few multi-sensual dreams I’ve experienced, and the first exceedingly tactile, almost erotic, dream I can recall that did not involve strategic female fat deposits.  In other words: I had a booby dream about paper.

And now I’m on a search for ultrafine papers.  I use 28 lb. Crane’s Crest cotton paper in my regular correspondence.  This dream paper made that feel like 300-grit sandpaper.  Pointers?

It’s Saturday.  I was driving around town around noon trying to find a place that could fill a prescription, and I felt like crap.  I began a mental checklist of whether I had forgotten anything.

I got to “food”, and I thought about the last time I’d eaten.  It wasn’t Saturday.  It wasn’t Friday.  It wasn’t Thursday.  It was some time before then.  I think I’ve had some wine and energy drinks in the interim.

I told my mother the last time I’d eaten, who asked, reasonably, “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

I responded, “I’m not doing it on purpose, I’m just not remembering to eat.”

“Sounds like your meds need adjusting,” she answered.

Niall has been sick with a bad cold.  I took him to the doctor on Friday.  He was absolutely perfect, with tea party manners.

Dramatis Personae:
N: Niall
Dr: Pediatrician
J: Joshua

(Doctor enters)

N:  I am here today because I have a cold.  Is this the right doctor for a cold?

Dr:  Yes, this is the right doctor.  I’m Dr. Musavelar.

N:  My name is Niall.  That’s spelled N-I-A-L-L.  How is your name spelled?

Dr:  You can call me “Sadah” [ph].  That’s spelled S-A-D-A-T.  (Holds light up:)  Do you know what this is?

N: ???

J:  Remember, it’s to look in your ears.

Dr: May I look in your ears?

N: (Timidly) OK.  (Clenches face, squeezes eyes shut, and grits his teeth, but remains absolutely still.)

OK, precious enough?  On the ride home, he saw a sign that said “Dentistry” (he’s four.)

N:  Daddy, do you know what a dentist is?

J:  What is it?

N:  A dentist is a kind of doctor who counts your teeth.

He has signs of the early onset of pneumonia in his right lung, BTW.  If you post here, I’ll pass on your best wishes.

Are you aware that hypergraphia is a symptom of clinical mania?

I’m pretty much going to be grouchy like this all day.  I never slept for more than ten minutes at a time last night, and not at all until after 7 a.m.

Pain-induced insomnia and time warp.  I’ve been struggling to sleep, tossing and turning.  I looked at the clock: 1:47 a.m.  Tossed for a really long time.  Looked at the time again.  12:46 a.m.  So I’m guessing the first one was actually 11:47.  It’s now 1:44 (for real, this time) and I still cannot sleep.

Insomnia.  Insomnia.  Insomnia.

Anyone waiting for my manic swing, as documented here, to end: it has.  Blah.  Vomiting, chills, and depression.

I was a dick at the pharmacy yesterday.  My doctor called in a refill of my Compazine as I’m still on Flagyl, the latter causing nausea.  I drove up to the pharmacy window.

Tech: Josh, it’s too early to pick up your prescription.  You had a ten-day supply filled on the 27th.

Josh: What’s the dosage on that?

Tech: One pill every eight hours.

Josh: Which is three pills a day.  Seven days.

She picked up a calculator.

Tech: Well, to me, seven days is 21 pills.

Which of course just proves my point more.

Josh: OK, six and two-thirds days.  I should be able to pick it up.

Tech: The person who put this into the computer put it in as a ten day supply.

Josh: The person who put that into the computer isn’t very good at math.

Tech: (chuckling) I hope it wasn’t me.  Can you come back later?

Josh: You know, I’m really up a creek here.  I need my Compazine to deal with the nausea from my antibiotics.

So I called later, and spoke to a pharmacist.

Josh: You know, there is a real problem here.  If your staff can make this kind of error, then they can make a dosing error with something I give to my child.

Pharmacist: (broken English) No, it was computer error.

Josh:  Uh uh.  A computer did not divide twenty by three and get ten.  A person did that.

Pharmacist: No, sometime computer make mistakes, and we have catch up.

(I’m really hoping her Latin is better than her English.)

Josh:  Oh, so the computer made this error, is that right?

Pharmacist:  Yes.  We have to put numbers in right columns or computer makes mistake.  I’m very sorry.

So that’s apparently the definition of a computer error.  An “ID-ten-T” error.  I think I need a new pharmacy.

Maybe an unnecessary post, but if you’re worried about me — or employing me — or now, wondering if you should — or married or related to me, however much you might have wished you weren’t this past week, you might want to read.

Detox is not easy.  It’s especially not easy on your own, but one can do it.  At least, I could do it.  I tapered myself off.  I got very agitated, very moody, said some very rude things that I shouldn’t have, made some very poor choices with compensatory drugs I otherwise eschew (e.g., alcohol), but otherwise got through it.  My father, who, bless his heart, reads this blog, informed me that “now you [Joshua] know what it’s like to quit smoking”.  Egads.  Trainspotting to get off nicotine.  And this stuff is legal?  And, as far as I know, subsidized.  What the hell is wrong with this country?

This was nine months of daily Oxycodone, Oxycontin, or Hydromorphone, post-surgically.  The constipation was bad, but the diarrhea has not abated since the detox.  But if you’re a stranger, and you’re looking for support, it can be done.  Warn your family.  Write with a Sharpie on a white t-shirt “I’m detoxing, I’m going to be an asshole for a while.”  Or something.  Whatever you come up with.  With any luck, the detox will hurt your relationships less than the habit.

But a moment on reward centers.  Of the brain.  I still can’t get out of the habit to think, following some large or small accomplishment, “now I deserve an opiate!”  Press the lever.  Get the jolt.  Starve to death.

Poppies are not fun.  A hundred years from now, we’ll look back on it the way we will on leeches, bloodletting, and chemotherapy.  The best we had, but as bad as the disease.

Thanks for bearing with me.  mcgees.org is back.

That took some work.  Time for … um … damn … a cup of tea, I guess.

This is an italic post.  Deal.

I’ll do this Lucas style.  You don’t get to see the first seven chapters.  At least not yet.

For a world-famous hospital, Cedars-Sinai is abysmal about returning telephone calls.  I called with enough time to get a refill on my Hillbilly Heroin.  I’m post-surgery-times-triplicate, remember.  Couldn’t get my neurologist to return my call.  I’m not sure the message ever made it to his desk.  And I’m not brave enough to really stand up for myself on the phone.  To tell the lady that it is really important to me that the doctor get this message, so that I won’t be in pain.

So that I won’t be in pain.  And so that my entire nervous system doesn’t rebel against me.  But I don’t mention that part.

I get a call back at 4:30 p.m.  The office is open until 5:00.  They’re an hour away.  But my prescription will be waiting for me, and there will probably be someone still there.

You need to titrate off Oxycodone.  You can’t just stop.  You can’t go from months on end, to a day without.  It’s approaching 24 hours.  Is the worst over?  Maybe I should just be done.  No.  I’ve gone off Dilaudid before.  The nights are worse.  I’d be facing a couple nights torment, at least.  And this goddamn pain.  In my neck, down my arm.  Down my arm, which the surgery should have fixed.

I have Pearl Jam’s Live at the Gorge seven-disc boxed set.  You read that right.  Seven discs.  Awesome.  Pearl Jam is a drug.  Sugar is a drug.  Benzodiazapines are drugs, and I’ve already taken two milligrams to blunt the withdrawal.  Seriously considering nicotine.  I don’t fucking smoke.

I make it to the office.  There’s someone there.  I get my Oxy scrip.  I even get my parking validated.  Free.  Awesome.  All this effort, though, and it would have been no extra to get my Lyrica refilled, too.  My non-narcotic Lyrica, to block the nerve pain.  The nerve pain that should be gone, but isn’t.

Driving away, calling my family, on four different phones, to let them know, mission accomplished.  But of course it isn’t.  An hour there, an hour and a half back.  Then drop off the scrip.  Then waiting for half an hour.  That’s where I am now.

There are lyrics jumping out at me from these songs, songs I know by heart, that have never resonated in me before.  I find myself at tears on the drive home.  Maybe it’s the songs.  Maybe it’s the pain.  Maybe it’s the withdrawal.

It’s all three, of course.

“I’d Rather Be Blading,” the license plate says.  “Sports Chalet.”  No kidding.  Endorphins.  When I upgraded to the X-Acto a few chapters ago, it cut really deep.  It’s been months, and it hasn’t healed.  Scarred.  Probably won’t ever heal fully.  Two big stripes and a bunch of little ones, just wristward from the crook of my elbow.

Where does the 710 North go?  Get a sudden urge to not change lanes, to just drive.  There are hours of music left.  Surely it leads somewhere with a pharmacy.  They have all-night ones, you know.

Play C-3.  Let the song protest.  Realize I’m completely out of the loop.  I don’t know anything that’s happened in the world in the last half year.  NPR was my lifeline.  Not a lot of radio reception at home, and sitting at my desk to read The Guardian is painful.  That damn pain again.

Feel the resonance of distance.  In the blood the iron lies.  Never understood that before.  I need to get back into the world.  I need to start reading news, listening to BBC, something.  Rewrite the lyric.  Feel the resonance of distance.  In their blood my iron lies.  I can handle the pain.  I’m driving, aren’t I?  I’ll go to Zazzle, get the t-shirt made.  Get it shipped to me.  Let my shirt protest.

And where the hell does all this perspiration come from?  I haven’t consumed this much fluid in the last three weeks.  I could wring out any garment.  That’s the great thing about comedy.  You can talk about any of the big subjects.  Death, religion … clammy weather.  But the weather’s not clammy.  It’s dry.  I’m clammy.

My family are almost done eating.  Jenn has promised to go get my meds.  And I’ll be dosed again.  My neurologist is a good guy.  He refilled my scrip.  He wants to see me in two weeks, and he’ll titrate me further.  Get down to 5 mg Q4.  That’s down from 15 mg Q4.  Big difference.

Damn.  I must look crazed.  Can’t help when I’m happy, look insane.  You can’t look crazy driving up to a pharmacy window to drop of an Oxy scrip.

I know why my friend wouldn’t watch the season finale of “Lost” a second time, even though I hadn’t seen it.  Sometimes you wish actors were just not as good.  Sometimes you wish writers were not as good.  Good music is good, though.  And family is good.  And changing into dry garments is good.

It will be all right.  Give me another month, and I’ll be off the meds.  Gently.  It should be easy.  I’ve gone off Dilaudid.  Just, not all at once.  Take me down gently.  Mom’s climbed up a tree.  Let me down gently.

Compulsive typing is painful.  Had to vent.  Must go rest.  Must go “neck-neutral”, as I’ve trained my family.  Have a down pillow just for that.  It’s yellow.  It’s stained, now, too.  That’s my fault.  But it’s soft.  Soft pillows.  And soon meds.  Meds, and no pain.

Bear with me.

Any botanists, amateur or professional?  What is it in Southern California that has been making my nights miserable for the last month or so (early June to early July) when the windows are left open?  Is there something releasing pollen late at night?  Is there some reason I have to megadose on Benadryl to make it through the night?  Something in San Gabriel / Pasadena to set one’s allergies on full alert?  Note I’m allergic to most weeds, trees, and grasses.

Why do I want to know?  Simple curiosity?  No.  “Find it and kill it”. 

…at 59% of my current weight.

I’m out of the hospital, and the site, with comments, should be working again.

Surgery is on for this Tuesday, 17 October.  The mood?  Pretty much “impending doom”.  Leave comments if you wish.  I may not be able to respond for a while.

My surgery, for all those following developments, has been postponed until the 27th of this month.  It was supposed to be today.  I was all psyched for it, and now I have to get re-psyched in a couple weeks.

Gene for rare disease that turns muscles, tendons, and ligaments into bone found.  The disorder traps people within an exoskeleton, with bone locking the joints.  (via dwarf)

A week ago this past Wednesday, September 29th, I went to my doctor for a routine visit. While he was writing a prescription, I asked him if he’d look in my ear when he was done, “because I’ll forget if I don’t ask you now.” That sentiment would grow to be fairly amusing, the fact that there was a point where I could forget my ear pain. That looks pretty melodramatic on preview, but trust me, it gets better.

He looked in my ear, and told me I had both a middle and external ear infection. He complimented me, remarking that it was quite a feat to pull off both at the same time. He prescribed Amoxicillin for the middle ear infection and Floxin drops for the external ear infection.

By Friday it had gotten pretty uncomfortable. By Saturday it was really bad. I called my doctor’s switchboard, but he was not on call, and I got connected to a really stuffy and dismissive doctor who assured me that Amox was strong enough and to give it a few more days. The next day, Sunday, it was unbearable. I was popping Percocet all day (that was Niall’s birthday.) Immediately after the cake I had to go in the other room and sleep. I called my doctor’s switchboard back, hoping he’d be back on call. He wasn’t, but a third doctor was — for the next twenty minutes, then the dismissive doc would be back. This third doctor was great. When I described the infection she was very concerned and called in Cipro, which I picked up.

I missed work on Monday, loaded up on Percocet. I was out of sick days, so I took a vacation day now that my workplace has become fairly, let’s say, particular about handing out sick days. On Tuesday it was still bad, but I had to go back to work. I called my doctor to ask for a referral to an ENT specialist, and was told that I could self-refer with my insurance. On Wednesday, I saw the specialist. He took one look at my ear and said, and I quote, “You have a terrible ear infection.” He told me to stay on the Cipro but that I could discontinue the Floxin, as the external ear infection had cleared up. He told me that there was lots of infected pus behind my eardrum, and that when the infection had cleared up, I would be left with lots of uninfected pus behind my eardrum, and that my hearing attenuation (about 60% loss of hearing) would last for weeks. He said that the only thing I could do to speed that up would be to “drain” it.

Now, when I was a kid in Japan I used to get terrible ear infections. On one doctor’s visit, they lanced both of my eardrums. It was one of the three most painful times in my life, joining the time I had a stent in my ureter after kidney stone surgery and the time I plunged my hand through hot coals at a barbecue. I was not interested. He told me I could come in to see him as a “courtesy” on Friday, even though he normally did not see patients then.

Wednesday night I started getting a lot of drainage from the ear. Clear, slightly yellow watery discharge, and the most unbelievably foul-looking greenish-gray discharge the consistency of Dijon mustard. I told Jenn I though my eardrum had broken. Bless her heart, she didn’t believe me.

Today, Friday, I saw the ENT again.  And he told me that my eardrum had ruptured in two places. Apparently a dual rupture happens less than 1% of the time that the eardrum ruptures. One hole was half a millimeter in size, the other was small enough that he could only see it with the microscope that I believe he really enjoyed sticking down my ear. He explained that he never really got to see these ruptures, as they normally happened in children and they wouldn’t let him stick a microscope in their ears. He noted that my ear infection is “as bad as they get in an adult,” and was convinced I had contracted it from my infant son, even though my son hasn’t been sick and is almost never around other children.

He then proceeded to suck the foul stuff through the hole in my eardrum with a long vacuum. That was really loud and rather uncomfortable. He then prescribed Ciprodex drops, which consists of Cipro and a steroid. When I put the drops in, they go through the hole in my eardrum, which is the entire point — but I can taste them as they pour down my eustachian tube, which is a mind-blowing experience.

I’ve been given a “less than 10%” chance that I’ll have permanent hearing damage as a result. That’s still a pretty high threshold, as my boss noted, but my hearing’s already much, much better after having the stuff sucked out. As long as the hearing doesn’t get any worse, I could probably learn to live with this maybe 10% loss of hearing. But I hope it gets better; my hearing is very important to me.

I think I’m going to take it easy this weekend.

Something’s wrong. I have been able to sleep for one of the last 38 hours. I’m lying down, in the dark, trying to go to sleep, and I can’t. The only caffeine I’ve had is tea, about a liter, 18 hours ago. I’m not taking any other stimulants. I’ve even taken 15 mg of Ambien (I took 15 mg last night as well.) It just slows my mental processes, it doesn’t actually help me get to sleep. It’s like I’m in some perverse medical experiment in which critical parts of my brain have been removed. My eyes are burning, my muscles are tired, but I cannot sleep.

I’m going to go brew a pot of a chamomile tisane. I’m going to warm up my Chinese buckwheat hulls neck pillow that’s laced with herbs that I suppose are supposed to do something. It’s a relaxation device, so maybe they’re supposed to be relaxing herbs. It’s also a therapeutic device, so maybe they’re analgesic herbs. Or just “aromatherapy”. At this point I don’t care that much, it will just be nice to have something warm on my neck. I’ll turn out the lights. I’ll put something quiet on the radio or television.

Wish me luck.  Post to the message boards with any ideas.

(I did finally end up getting to sleep.)

I’m feeling better, by the way.

I spoke too soon.  All my symptoms are back, and they’re worse.