It Might Get Messy

It has NOT been a good week here in cancer survivor land. I’ve been too sick to make it to the office, which is fine for my own projects which mostly involve writing and reference books I have here at home, but is bad for other people relying on me to help them with shit. I managed to make it in for like two hours on Tuesday to not-so-much help Tim by scribbling a page of gibberish. Then I had to drive home in two stages because I hurt so much.


I have no idea what’s going on. I’m still weak, but the pain is less, so I’ll have to get to the office to start cleaning up the messes (literally and figuratively) tomorrow. The big deal coming up is surgery. A week from Tuesday. Hospital at 0530, anesthesia by 0700, knives at 0730. Icky. He’s going to do a “bilateral neck dissection”. This means he’s gonna open me up like a specimen in an undergraduate anatomy class. I can see all those little pins…”thyroid gland”…”epiglottis”…”trachea”…etc. 


Anyway. I thought maybe my issues this week were dietary, but I’ve been good about getting more than maintenance calories every day and trying to eat something by mouth so my swallowing reflexes keep operating and my tongue exercises (!) don’t go to waste. To make sure, I even fired up my IV bag feeding pole apparatus. Takes frickin’ forever (well, a couple hours, anyway) to get 1000 mls in. But, you can read and write while you’re doing it. So it’s got its goods and bads. 

It is pretty cool. Here’s the bag, holding 750 mls of food and some water. The nurses like to put ice in there with the UN emergency rations, for reasons that are completely unclear. 

This is the primary control valve. It’s operation is, perhaps unsurprisingly, illogical, although simple enough to figure out.

Then there’s the coupler that links the IV bag to the tube inserted in my gut. 

Finally, the tube inserted in my gut. It’s been there for…1, 2, 3…7 months. Fresh as a daisy, near as I can tell. And I assume said figure of speech slash metaphor refers to a young, newly opened, daisy. As opposed to an old dried droopy one. 


Which latter is more how I feel. Many apologies for being such a whiner this week. In penitence, I have new material up around the horn, hit http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/ for some subbacultah (per The Pixies), http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.com/ for some bitchin’ lecturing on the environmental impacts of ancient Greek military engineering, and http://docviper.livejournal.com for some Bad Art By Dave. Thanks for stoppin’ by!


PS—on more health item. I purchased a cross bow this weekend. This is a serious weapon, 150 pound draw weight, battery-operated sighting scope, carbon fiber and titanium construction. It’s beautiful, I like to just pet it like Lucy the New Dog. But I also like to shoot it. It’s scoped within millimeters at the 10 yard range in my basement. Next up is the 20 yards at my carport. Eventually, this thing with a good broadhead and some insanely macho tactics, will drop a bison or a moose at 30 yards. Meantime, the main thing about crossbows (I laughed when my instructor reminded me of this) is to KEEP YOUR DAMNED LEFT HAND BELOW THE PLANE OF TRAVERSE OF THE BOW STRING. Laugh I may have. Stupid I am. See photo of my left ring finger below… .