42

I'm 42 years old.

Tonight, #42 for the New York Yankees threw his final pitch at Yankee Stadium.  Mariano Rivera, the last man in Major League Baseball to ever wear the number 42 on a daily basis, is a sports icon, a baseball legend, and a damned good example of everything a human being should be.  Humble, god fearing, family oriented and gracious, Mariano Rivera leaves this game better than he found it.  (Kinda like the anti-Alex Rodriguez)  Baseball fans (and Yankee fans especially) will miss his presence in the game for many years to come.  Larger than life?  No way. Mariano was exactly the right size.  He is a sterling representation of  what was still right in a game so horribly gone wrong.

We're gonna miss ya Mo.

A Change in Tune

Well that sucked.
Today, I saw my GI doc for the follow from my colonoscopy and "sample" tests and bloodwork.

The verdict: I don't have C-Diff.  I have ulcerative colitis.

What does that mean?
I have no idea, and each article I encounter contradicts the previous one.  It's an autoimmune response to something something something and I should eat.....  Protein.  No, wait.  No protein.  Fruits and veggies.  Oh wait, no fruits and veggies.  High fiber, no wait.  Low fiber diet.  That's the key.

All I can figure out so far is that I need to cut out the coffee and other forms of caffeine. The other thing I think I know is that dairy is not a good idea.  So I must bid farewell to my old friends Benjamin and Jerome.

This isn't going to be easy, and now I see the point of this blog.  Sure.  I'll still ramble on about whatever foolish notions cross my little brain, and I'm sure that I'll have some occasional moments of brilliant insight, well... maybe not brilliant, but at least inspired.

But now I know what's wrong.
I think.

"I told you so" never helped anyone

Tomorrow, I go back to the GI doctor to find out what's going on. Got a call from his nurse today and she informed me that my C-Diff test came back negative.

What does that mean?

It could mean any number of things. It could mean that the antibiotics are working their magic and I am free from their evil grasp.

But that raises other questions,
"Why am I still in so much pain?"  
"Why am I still bleeding?"
"What am I supposed to do now?"
And the biggest question of all...
"Did I ever have C-Diff in the first place?"

Before ever seeing me or speaking to me or asking any questions, he prescribed (and I took) courses of Cipro and Flagyl. Then, he saw me in his office for a brief visit and scheduled a colonoscopy.   Never once did they ask for a stool sample prior to the procedure.  They did get a blood work up done, though i think that was sho they'd know whether or not I was okay for the colonoscopy. 

Upon completion of the colonoscopy, he diagnosed me with C-Diff.  My wife asked how he knew this, to which he replied,  "I saw it."  I've looked at the pics from the colonoscopy, and there are obviously areas which appear damaged or infected but I have no idea what I'm seeing and can't tell what any of it means.

I'm confused and don't really know what's next. But in truth, none of us ever "know" what's coming next. We merely develop expectations and formulate plans based upon prior knowledge and experience, then hope for the best.

So that's what I'm doing... hoping for the best. Whatever that means.

Adventures in Prednisonia

In reality, the title of this blog should be Adventures in Prednisone instead of the obvious C-Different, since the nature of my blog is changing to reflect the presence of C-Diff in my body, but also the impact prednisone has had on my mind.

Since I started this treatment, the prednisone has done some weird stuff to my though processes.  Notions that I would never entertain long enough to give an opportunity to actually develop are coming in at a hyper frantic rate, and the internal review processes, usually responsible to separate the good ideas from the bad isn't working at all.

So all the crazy ideas I concoct tend to come out. Something they never did before... I'm posting pointed questions to Facebook, looking for feedback, insight and projections from friends and colleagues.

Here's the question
" When do you think major networks will begin to air adds featuring openly gay couples in prime time?'

Case in point, I saw a car commercial in which a young couple was purchasing a car.  Typical ad, nothing special. Then it struck me how the world might react to the same commercial featuring a gay or lesbian were to air in prime time on a major network.

What would be the impact on the network(s) airing the ad?
What would be the impact of the brand?
Would there be boycotts and backlash?
What would be the long term impact on the brand?

Advertisements already soft sell to GLBTQ audiences, but they haven't normalized the concepts of reaching out to this specific audience and aren't brave enough yet to deal with what could be explosive feedback.

So what company would it be?

What product?

How can they develop ads for one  audience without offending other audiences? 

It'll be a fine line, and I'm sure it will start as a simply quick ad to test the water.  Perhaps two men holding hands as they walk away from a scene or sharing a kiss as the moment fades.  I'm not suggesting shampoo ads which show two fellows in the shower together, laughing, frolicking, and making out, but this is an issue we'll be facing in what I feel will be the near future.

Down in the groove.

So, I'm starting to normalize on the medication.
Things are beginning to come together and although I'm still pronet to outrageous bursts of energy and ideas, the initial jolt of the side effects has subsided.

In other good new, I walked in the park with my wife today.  It was a short trip, about 3/4th a mile or so, but well worth it.  This was the first time I was able to get out and do something in several weeks.

I'm finally getting to a start where I can sleep before the sun comes up, wo I'm definitely normalizing....

The part where it feels strangely familiar.

It's not déjà vu, per se.  It's more of a realization of having been in similar conditions under entirely different circumstances.  I'm just this side of nine and a half years clean from drugs and alcohol, yet the Prednisone reminds me of a specific feeling.  When the drug is in full effect, I feel just like I've spent the whole night taking cocaine, and now, I'm coming down off of the  coke and take some really cheap speed (with all of the bad side effects for which cheap speed is known) to pick me up a little bit.

If you've never had the experience of taking cheap speed on the downside of a cocaine binge, then let me try to explain. You see, cocaine lifts you up into the highest heights of the stratosphere.  It infiltrates your body and  mind, magnifying and intensifying all the wonderful things you know (or desperately want to believe) to be true about yourself.  As the cocaine wears off, an undeniable emptiness, a void of sorts, opens up within you, and the only way to actually fill that hole is more cocaine, but even that doesn't do the trick. And after all, you're out of cocaine,and it's doubtful you'll be able to buy more at this hours, so you just have to let it go, but you're not going to just come down off the cocaine high.  You want something to ease the transition into normalcy and the only thing available is speed (crank, meth, etc.)   So you smoke, swallow or shoot your speed and away you go, on a nauseating joyride.  But with some nasty side effects... Difficulty paying attention, a need to "do so,etching" but no idea of what that means.  Mix that with simultaneous anxiety and exhaustion and you've got a rough idea of how it feels.

An Open Letter to the Republican Party

Originally posted on my Facebook page on September 20, 2013.

Dear Republican Party,

As a Christian, and a firm believer in the principles taught by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I would like to thank you for the work you are doing in His name.

Thank you for once again trying to guarantee that not all Americans will have access to adequate health care, which is considered a basic human right in most other countries. We all know that Christ healed the sick mane times and never requested payment, but we're not miracle workers, and can't be expected to go around healing people unless they can pay up.

Thank you for the food stamp cuts. I'm sure that the hungriest children of our great nation will be able to work just a little bit harder in school with empty stomachs. I know, I know, Christ did that whole miracle where he fed thousands with what was originally a few fish and a loaf of bread, but we can't be expected to feed all those lazy brats.

Thanks for continuing your support of corporations who refuse to pay living wages, for your eagerness to bust unions, and for refusing to even consider increasing minimum wage to a livable level. As our Lord said, it is will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it will be for a rich man to get into heaven. Thank you for doing your part to make sure that most Americans never have that problem. Although, I can't help but wonder about the fate of your own eternal souls.

I often contemplate the only time in scripture when our Lord was prompted to behave violently. Recall, if you will, when he went into the temple and threw out the money changers, calling them out for their blasphemy? I am grateful that you do not view the financial institutions and bookies on Wall Street in the same light. Thank you for protecting our wealthiest, and for continually doing your part the help spread the Good News.

Thank you for the removal of environmental regulations and the expansion of fracking operations. Although our Lord called for us to be stewards of the Earth, things have changed since then. We realize today that our Lord didn't call for use to be stewards of the entire Earth. He meant that we need to have well-manicured lawns and curse our neighbors who don't have the same.

Lastly, thanks for turning away people from our borders. I realize that Christ was welcoming and inclusive in his teachings, but the Kingdom of Heaven and a nation like ours, which is populated predominantly by immigrants (or the descendants of immigrants) aren't the same thing, and we should definitely apply more stringent rules for those who wish to join our the elite ranks of the underpaid, malnourished, and sickly.

Also, thanks for the guns. My Biblical study has led me to conclude that if Jesus were alive today, the Prince of Peace would certainly own more than a few assault rifles and have a closet full of hollow point ammo.

So I thank you for your labors, and hope that you will continue to follow the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, demonstrating the principles of His work as you govern.

Your Brother in Christ,
Me

Stranglehold

Day 3 of the Prednisone treatment, and it's becoming quite evident that I have absolutely no control over certain parts of my life.

Last night, although I made myself ready for bed around midnight, I could not stop the racing succession of thoughts in my mind (thanks Prednisone) and didn't finally fall asleep until somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00am this morning.  During that time I lie awake, anxiously awaiting my transport into to the arms of Morpheus, I wrote the long, rambling piece below (something about shelves??)

I awoke around 9 when my wife left for work, went back to sleep for a short period, only to awaken again at 11:00.

I think I need a nap now, if these damned drugs will let me sleep.

But first, it's time for my next dose.

Ugh...

It's on the Internet, for God's sake!

We are a nation, a generation, a people, a world becoming.  For centuries, the now nameless visionaries of countless human civilizations labored their lives away in the hopes of building something greater, something deeper, something... More.  And they did it quite well.  Remarkably, I'd say.  They did it so well that nobody knows who they were.  Their contributions to society and the world, however, still linger on to this day.

Take a moment to consider the piece of furniture nearest you.  What did it take to build that desk, that chair, that bed, that table, or that filing cabinet?  How many people sought and thought and fought their entire lives so that you could have that piece of furniture which now stands before you?  Remember the difficulty you encountered when you tried to put together that IKEA bookcase?  It was a real nightmare, wasn't it?   But you didn't die.  You (hopefully) left the experience with the same amount of limbs and digits with which you started.  But somewhere along the way, you can bet that at least one (more like thousands or even millions) of people died for that very bookcase.

Some of you probably know where this is going, and to you, I doff my invisible cap.

The creation of the IKEA bookcase involved three primary elements: design, production of raw materials, and transport.

The bookcase had to be designed by a person.  The bookshelf didn't just come out of the air and magically design itself.  The design of the bookshelf was based on the design of a previous bookshelf.      The previous bookshelf was based upon the design of an even older bookshelf and on down the line until someone, somewhere decided to create an elevated surface on which to hold a certain object or objects.  Perhaps it was in the sod dwelling of one of my ancestors that this brilliant idea came to pass.  "What?" Someone thought, "What if we don't have to scatter our things all along the floor but could create some stand on which to hold our objects to make them easier to access."  The they were faced with a new quandary.... How to create it.

And this person who decided to look for a way to keep their belongings off of the floor, THIS person, my friends, was the predecessor of the very IKEA bookshelf designer whose name you do not know, but who you cursed so virulently nonetheless.

Yet the IKEA bookshelf designer and the designer of the original "raised place on which to put  objects in place" have their similarities in that they both sought a way to improve their conditions.

I often think of the simple tools (lever, wheel and axel, pulley, inclined plane, wedge, and screw) and am utterly baffled at how we came to figure out how to use them in the first place.  Let's go back to the first shelf builder.  This person had a great idea, but had to figure out how to make it work.  Somehow they did, with or without the help of one or more of these simple tools (Or they just said "To hell with it" and  employed plain old brute force to get the job done... Just like you did when making the IKEA bookshelf).   But eventually, more complex methods of construction were developed and new shelf making materials were discovered, and the simple shelf became a part of everyday life.

So who was this visionary?  Who was this brilliant thinker who recognized the problem and worked to find a solution to it?  Nobody knows.  Nobody really cares.  We're grateful for the shelves and all, but we don't care what your name is....

And in a perfect world, maybe that's how it should be.  And who knows, in another 5,000 years  the names of Edison, Tesla, and Galileo may be lost to the ages as people just take for granted that these inventions have always been there.

We are a nation, a generation, a people, a world becoming.   We are evolving at such a fantastic rate that we don't know what to do with ourselves.  We log on to the Internet with our phones and watches, for Christ's sake.  There are even appliances that  use Twitter, and cars that... Well, forget it, cars can do almost anything these days.  The only problem with cars anymore is the people driving them are so distracted that they hardly remember to look at the road.

We are a butterfly emerging from a cocoon in which we've been trying to work our way off of for 5,000 years or more, deepening upon whom you believe.

We can create incredible things, marvelous buildings, glorious monuments to our own magnificence, and weapons which could, in mere nanoseconds, destroy all of this progress we've made over countless millennia.

Where are our visionaries?  Playing Candy Crush? Blogging at 5:15am on a Friday?  Sleeping in the basement of an abandoned building somewhere in the northeastern United States dreaming of a simple meal and a hit of crack.

What does a visionary look like?
How can you tell whether or not the  person next to you has the secret to curing C-Diff?
Do they look a certain way?  Is there something about their height or weight? Is their skin a special color?  Are their toes certain lenghts?  Are they left-handed?  (Actually more visionaries probably are left-handed because southpaws see everything in the world as a challenge, a riddle which must be solved.  Give a standard pair of children's scissors to a left-handed 4-year old, and watch what happens if you don't believe me.)

But it's the challenges that bring out the visionaries.  Whether it's how to create an elevated place on which to store objects so they don't clutter up the floor, or it's trying to determine the Absolute Origin of the Universe and God, the visionaries are all around us, waiting for their moment to contribute their part to enrichment of the human experience.

But what are we doing?  What are we really doing with all of this?  These years of labor, these lives sacrificed for the sake of  human advancement, what did they all mean?  Currently, more people have immediate access to more information than ever in the history of  humankind, and that information is growing on a daily basis.  A single person cannot watch all of the videos on YouTube in a lifetime.

And we've got this great opportunity now to give everyone in the world a chance to better their lives and broaden their intellectual horizons, and what do we get???  What do people look for the most on the Internet?   Kittens?  Long lost lovers?  Porn?

 We've evolved to such a point that new relationships can be forged within seconds over the Internet, tearing down cultural and religious barriers which have kept us at war for so many years, and how do we use these channels of communication ?  Do we use them to introduce radical concepts to the world?  Do we use then to compose music with complete strangers?  Do we use these tools to make virtual visits to places we'd never physically be?  Certainly!!!   But what do we do most with this incredible tool?   We show our penises, vaginas, buttocks and breasts to each other.

Well, at least we've evolved in some ways.

A little discretion goes a long way.

If the pain would just go away, I'd feel a whole lot better.

Right now, I'm in that time of the day where I'm in between doses of everything.  I've got a couple of hours before I take more stuff, and I'm finding myself wanting to text, email, or otherwise contact everyone I know to say.. Nothing really.  I responded to an email from work and had to delete the reply because I realized that I was giving them why more information than necessary.

Sometimes, a short answer is the best answer.

But the prednisone makes me want to be verbose (obviously).  I'm a wordy guy to begin with, but my medicated brain makes a paragraph out of what would normally take ten words to say.

So I edit myself.
Keep it short.
To the point.
Nobody wants to hear every though that goes through my head.
I know I don't.

Early middle age blues in C-Diff.

So if 60 is the new 40 and 30 is the new 20 and 40 is the new 30 and 50 is the other new 30 and 20 is the new infant and teenagers don't even exist, why the hell am I having to deal with middle age stuff now?  I should be 32 or 22 or 2 or 12 or something, not actually really literally 42.  What am I missing here?

When did this happen?  I've always been a young guy. I've never been old a day in my life.  Heck, not that long ago, I was a teenager, I still remember it quite vaguely.  Yet here I sit, at 42 (which suddenly feels like the new 62) doing things that people do when they start being middle aged and I am more than just a little freaked out by it all.

When did I grow up? When did I get "old"? My father died when he was 49 years old.  His father died when he was 41.^[1]  Suddenly, my odds don't look very good.  But as the poet who talked about the poets who studied rules of verse would say, "those were different times".   But at this very moment, I'm older than my grandfather ever was.

So what? Right.  Lots of people have longer lives than their parents or grandparents.  In fact, if we, as a species didn't have longer lives than our ancestors, then we'd have shorter lives than our ancestors. A species with offspring that persistently have shorter lifespan than their ancestors would eventually lead to the complete extinction of the species.  Speaking strictly mathematically, of course.  So what have I got to worry about?  Nothing, probably.  But I can't deny the reality and the facts as I see them.

So why am I bugging out so bad today?  (Prednisone.  Duh.)

But it's more than just the Prednisone.  Earlier today, I went to the doctor's office to pick up a couple of prescriptions for lab tests he wanted done.  The first test was simple enough.  All I had to do was go in and get some blood drawn and go on my merry way.  The blood-taking lady was exceptional.  She hit the vein on the first shot and somehow I didn't even feel a pinch when the needle pierced my skin.  Kudos to the young lady.  Turns out she was also a friend of a friend and knew me on sight when I walked into the room.  A friendly, familiar face is always nice when you're going to have blood drawn.

The second test was a little more complicated, and I won't bore (or sicken) you with the gory details, but let it be known that collecting one's own poop and putting it into a small bottle can be a very difficult and messy process.  There's no elegant, simple, easy way to do it, especially if you've never done it before.  All I can suggest is don't try this at home... unless ordered by a physician.  Although, truthfully, I can't envision any situation where someone would even want to think about doing such a thing.  This isn't the sort of thing you want to be well-practiced at doing, and performing this little collection makes ya feel like you've definitely reached "middle-age".

C-Diff is a funny sickness.  There are times when I feel completely normal, like there's nothing wrong at all and that I'm one more hypochondriac making mountains out of molehills.  But other times, I see clear evidence that something is dreadfully wrong and that I could be a whole lot sicker than I realize.  Add to this the fact that the medication and isolation are clouding my thoughts, and you can clearly see that I'm incapable of objectively assessing the situation.  I'm a geek by trade and data analysis is just a part of what I do.  Now that my judgement is askew, I'm having a hard time separating feelings from facts.  So I'm incapable of legitimately assessing my own health.  I really don't like that.

I've not talked much about C-Diff, so let me give a little insight, at least to the best of my understanding.  C-Diff is a bacteria that exists pretty much everywhere and is especially prevalent in hospitals and elder-care centers.  It's basically the gastrointestinal equivalent of MRSA, a bacteria that tends to prey upon those with weakened immune systems. Although the C-Diff bacteria are in the body pretty much all the time, they are kept in check by the "good" bacteria in the gut and typically don't grow enough to become a problem.  However, when the bacteria are activated, they grow in clusters within the colon.  Because the antibiotics (or other autoimmune issue) are keeping "good" bacteria from growing and killing C-Diff cells, the C-Diff grows unchecked. The C-Diff colonies release toxins into the colon which result in cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bleeding for the affected person.  Sounds like fun, no?

When I first contacted my GI doctor about my symptoms, he prescribed Flagyl and Cipro without even seeing me in person.  I took the antibiotics as prescribed, but my symptoms worsened.  I scheduled a colonoscopy, and was diagnosed with C-Diff and put me on Flagyl, which will hopefully eliminate the infection.

Confused?  Yeah.  So am I.

Here's where I go into conjecture mode.  Flagyl has been effective against C-Diff (that's a fact, Jack!), but when combined with the Cipro, it didn't work so well because the Cipro was killing the "good" bacteria and even though the Flagyl was killing C-Diff., the helper bacteria were being killed by Cipro and they sort of canceled each other out... Or something like that.

But I've said all this before and it that leaves me where I started, which is pretty much the same place I've been all along.  Confused, frightened, and not thinking very clearly.

All I know is that if 40 is the new 20 or the new 30 or the new whatever, I'd much rather have the old 20 back.  I'd make a slew of different decisions... or not.

^[1]My grandfather actually may not have died at age 41.  According to the state records, he was born in 1911, but according to his tombstone, he was born in 1910.  So he may have been 42 at the time of his death, and my ranting about how I'm older than he ever was may be entirely incorrect.  I don't know when his birthday was, and his tombstone offers no clues, but it doesn't matter. The point is....  My father or grandfather both died in their forties.  I'm in my forties.  That doesn't make me feel very good.  Although, upon further research, I learned that my paternal great-grandfather lived to be 65, and my great-great-grandfather died in 1938 at the ripe old age of 81.

Prednisone "sleep"

It's well after midnight and all the midnight creepers are long gone to bed and the night now belongs to the improperly medicated, the night workers, the insomniacs, and overtime worriers who refuse to put down the task
My wife is in bed and I'm trying to go to sleep myself, but something happened that might inspire some writing.

Ladies and gentlemen, my first attempt at a lullaby.  Inspired by what Eva and I go through every night....

Lullaby 29

Take of your glasses
put your phone down
Pit your mittens on your hands
They're right beside you
Yes,  I promose Now slip,them on

Yes I woke you. You were snoring
That's how I know
So get up for just a second
To the bathroom you go.

Put in your night guard, back to bed,
Snuggle up to your man.
You'll see me first thing in the morning
When you come back from sleepyland.

...but it's getting there.

If ya didn't know already, I guess I'll tell ya now.  I'm a big fan of Bob Dylan.  His music has made me feel like I'm not quite so much of a stranger in this world and that there's at least someone who's felt the way I feel from time to time.  A lot of folks are down on Dylan because they can't get past his voice.  "He's a great songwriter but I can't stand the way he sings." If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times.  Meh.  To each their own.  For me, there ain't never been nobody who sings no better than Bob Dylan.  His voice is one of the finest instruments ever recorded.  Period.

So for some reason, the song Not Dark Yet has been in my head all evening.  I first heard the song on the night before my first wedding. A friend and I spent the evening relaxing with some adult beverages and dry goods.  In addition to the intoxicants, he also brought along a copy of the soon-to-be-released Dylan album "Time Out of Mind".  He'd gotten it from a friend at a concert a week or two before who handed him the tape and said it was "spreading like a virus".  And so it was.

An ominous way to begin a marriage, no?

The marriage didn't work out so well.  But that's okay.  It was my fault.  I'll accept that.  I was a lost man-child who didn't know how to deal with life and real adult relationships.    I just hate that I wasted so much of her time.  She was a good woman but I pushed her too far one time too many and she did the smart thing and left.  Not my finest hour.

But back to Bob.  He's been a constant presence in my life since I was 16 years old.  I'd heard "Like a Rolling Stone" on the radio and was floored.  Who is this guy?  What's he singing about?  It's like poetry but it's music but it's not the Talking Heads or the Violent Femmes or the Eagles or anything I'd ever heard before.  This stuff was... foreign but somehow so familiar.  In short order, I went out and got a copy of Highway 61 Revisited on cassette and went driving off into the North Carolina 

night.  I drove through the back country roads with the top down on my '66 Mustang, Dylan blasting into the night.  Driving back roads at night can be a bit spooky in and of itself, but when you're sixteen years old and feel like you don't fit in anywhere in this world and the only thing you've got 

are your thoughts and the open road, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" can rattle your very soul.  And  so it did.  That night, as I drove through the darkness, the music changed me forever.  

For several years, Dylan's music was my dirty little secret.  I didn't play it around my friends because I didn't think they'd get it, or was afraid to be judged, or was afraid that they'd ridicule it and this precious musical gem would be forever scarred in my mind, rendered worthless by the disapproving words of people who might not get it.  So I lived off of a diet of heavy metal and punk rock (which I still enjoy).  

Highway 61 Revisited was a pivotal record to me, and I so adored it, I was afraid to pick up any of Dylan's other work, for fear of being disappointed.  I eventually bought Blonde on Blonde, which kicked the doors of perception open just a little bit further, but didn't dare venture much further than that.  I'd read or heard somewhere that Dylan had converted to Christianity and was only making gospel music.  I was looking for something to expand my mind, not gospel music.  I grew up on  gospel music, and if Dylan was making that kind of noise, I wanted no part of it.  (For those who don't know, Dylan did convert did in late 1979 and put out a few gospel records early 80's, but it was just a phase.  In fact, I eventually came to love those records and my left shoulder is adorned with a  tattoo of the cover of Dylan's Slow Train Coming album.). So I stuck with the two Dylan records I could handle and eventually picked up his Greatest Hits album (the first one).  But didn't dare venture beyond that stable ground... For a while.

In 93 or 94, I started working in a record store.  Actually, it was a CD store.  They didn't sell vinyl or cassettes, only CD's, a revolutionary idea at the time.  But I always call it a record store because that's what it was in spirit.  It was during this time that I met the aforementioned friend.  He and I worked together at this record store and he turned me on to Dylan's other work and the world of ROIO's (Recordings of Indeterminate Origin), better known as Bootlegs. I vividly recall the first time i heard the "Royal Albert Hall" version of "Like a Rolling Stone". It was like hearing Dylan for the first time all over again.  (This same fellow also turned me on to the Grateful Dead and a host of other musicians and music which have infinitely enriched my existence).  He and I reconnected via Facebook a few years ago, and it was as if no time at all had passed.  I'm blessed to have folks like him in my life.

Some relationships are like that.  They have the power to transform.  The relationships can be with people you hardly know (or never even met) or they can be friendships that grow and evolve over the years.  Ya just never know when that person (or song) is gonna enter your life and change it all around.

Writing this is helping.  Although I know how I physically feel, (and it ain't good) there are moments where my discomfort isn't the dominating force in my life.

Peeking through the blinders

Well, it's been a day.  That's for sure.

Once again, I spent the better part of the morning trying to stay awake and hoping to hear back from the doctor's office.  I did.  They finally gave me a heads up on what I can and can't eat.  (SIDEBAR: After a lengthy back and forth with the nurse, trying to figure out what I should do in the dietary department, the nurse calls back to inform me that the doctor says he told me what I should eat right after my procedure and diagnosis.  WHAT??? Lemmegetthisstraight.  I've not eaten in over 24 hours, I've just come out of anesthesia, I've just been told that I have a serious infection in my colon, and I'm supposed to remember what he told me to eat???  They gave me a damned packet of instructions when I left, why didn't they include a single sheet telling me what the f*&# to eat?  Really.  END OF SIDEBAR.)  They've also decided not to prescribe pain medication and are instead giving me a higher dose of Prednisone in the hopes of decreasing the inflammation and the pain.

So here I sit.
Waiting.
Waiting for a little relief.
Knowing that if I go to the hospital and ask for help and relief from this pain, I could contract a secondary infection and end up in worse shape than I'm already in.
No thanks.  I'll just suffer a little while longer.

Here's a picture for you to enjoy.  It's a self-portrait.  I call it Martyr with a Candle.

Actually, that's a bit off topic, but after I wrote the infamous cry of the self-pitying ("I'll just suffer a little while longer") I was reminded of an inside joke between my wife and I.  We often come up with band names and album titles just for fun, and this is one of our all-time favorites.  Y'know, the old joke, How many ___________ does it take to change a lightbulb?

The punchline for this particular version of the joke is "Never mind me, I'll just sit here in the dark." Hence the album cover photograph of black on black on black.  It's a martyr with a candle.

Get it?

Ok.

Whatever.

Maybe it's one of those "ya had to be there" kinda things.  I dunno.

So in 1998, I was sitting at home, doing a whole bunch of nothing (and by nothing, I mean drinking and smoking copious amounts of marijuana) when my wife left me.  I can't say I blame her.  Heck, I'd have left me too if I could have.  Anyway, I get on the Internet and start talking to people online in a chatroom for Deadheads (Deadheads are people who really like the Grateful Dead, to the point of eerie obsession, of which I am one).  I was on this thing all night every night, talking to the same group of people, and to one girl in particular.  We're chatting and when we get done chatting, we call each other on the phone.  (This was back in the dark ages when dial-up was the only Internet connection around, and having a second phone line just for Internet access was unthinkable.  Okay, it wasn't unthinkable, but it was unthinkable to me because, as I previously mentioned, my moneys were devoted to the procurement of alcohol and herbal remedies, and I had no money to go spending on an extra phone line)  These conversations would last into the wee hours of the morning, and (this was also back when they actually charged you to make a "long distance" phone call) often found ourselves quite sleep deprived the following day.  Of course, being the good alcoholic that I was, I never really noticed how sleep-deprived I was because I was too busy being hung over, but that's another story entirely.  (Actually, this story within a story is another story entirely too isn't it???  Maybe I should start doing the David Foster Wallace thing and use footnotes instead of these perpetual parenthetical interruptions... meh.  whatever.)

And now I forgot what I was talking about, but fear not.  I'll pick up the story later on.  This is the important stuff that I've been meaning to write down for quite some time.

Say hello to Prednisone.  

I'm not writing this for you.  I'm writing it for me.  I need to do this and save this and publish it to the web for my own self and sanity.  I need to be able to look back at all of this when I'm not so out of my head, (and believe me.... It's gonna get worse before it gets better) so I can see what this madness looked like from the inside and from the outside.

It's funny.  One of the "rules" of this experiment is that I can't delete anything.  I can re-read it, but I can't go back and edit or delete any portion once it's been written.  I made the horrible mistake of re-reading what I just spent the last 10 minute writing... all of it, and I'm wondering if perhaps this shouldn't be a publicly visible journal.

Something to consider.
For now, I'll stop writing because this is getting scary.
No.  I won't.
I'll actually continue writing because this is getting scary.
Who the hell am I kidding?  Nobody is gonna read this anyway, and if they do, surely they'll understand what's going on, and why I'm doing it.  These aren't the musings of a madman.  They're simply words composed under the influence of sickness, written out of fear.

So let's talk about the dosage information for a minute.  I mentioned before that they've put me on Prednisone.  I've taken it before, and it made me really nutty.  I expect this time won't be any different.

I'm on 40mg of Prednisone for the next 4 days.  After that, I scale down to 30mg for a week, then 20mg for a week, then 10mg for a week, then I'm done.  I'm cured.  I'm finally free from disease.  The day after I get off the medication for good is my wife's birthday.  I love that woman.  She puts up with a lot from me sometimes.

Just a little update.

In my previous whine festival disguised as a blog entry, I mentioned that I had yet to hear back from the doctor's office in reference to my pain and diet issues.  Well, after I published the aforementioned whine festival in blog's clothing, I went to walk the dog.  She led me on a brief stroll of the grounds, and did her thing, making sure that everything still smelled like it smelled the last time she smelled it and the time before as well, pausing on occasion to relieve herself.

Comfortable that there were no new aromas on the grounds, the dog led me home.  As I was in the kitchen washing my hands and getting a bottle of seltzer from the fridge, the phone rang... at the  other end of the house.  Fotunately, the house is small, and when I say "at the other end of the house," I'm talking about a distance of 25 feet. So I dashed down the hallway into the bedroom in hopesof answering   this call for which I'd been waiting all day.  I arrive in the bedoom, reach for the phone mere nanoseconds after it ceased to ring.

So there I was, in that weird limbo moment.  Do I call back? Do I wait for them to leave a message? (Surely they'll leave a message). but what if they dont? what if they just leave the office without speaking to me and tomorrow I'll be forced to call early and often once again.  Whle the catastrophe committee in my head held a raging debate on the possible outcomes of the situation... I decided to wait.

Before long, there was a voicemail message on my cell.  As I began to listen to the message. The landline rang.  It was the nurse who'd just left a voicemail on my cell phone calling to let me know what I needed to do next.

Next???  Prednisone.   3 weeks of pure raw unadulterated steroid induced delusion and joy.  I'm tapering down 3 times a day for week 1, 2 times a day for week 2, and once a day for the final week.  This is gonna be fun.

I decided to wait until tomorrow to pick up the prescription. I wanted one last night of steroid-free peace.

Beginning tomorrow (actually later today) I add steroids to the regimen.  My writing will show it.  This blog will probably get a whole lot more entries, and those entries will range the realms of lucid and absurd, seemingly without logic, purpose, or reason....

It's gonna be a wiiiiiiild ride
Stay tuned.

My kingdom for pain relief and a diet plan...

Wow.  What a day.
Spent the better part of the morning working from home (which is fun... really.  no sarcasm there.  I love my job and I love being able to get stuff done even though I'm sick in bed).  Spent the rest of the morning trying to get some answers, but nothing came through yet.

Called  my GI doctor's office, left a voicemail for his nurse, called again, talked to his nurse, who promised to have an answer of some sort by the end of the day.  My clock says it's 5:03pm, and I've got a funny feeling I'm going to have to go through another night of pain, with no hope of relief.

maybe tomorrow...
maybe someday...

But who am I to complain?  I've really got it made.  Well, not really.... the bills are piling up, I'm not able to work regular, my wife's work has slowed down, and our outgo is more than our income, and I don't know what to do.  But somehow, I keep telling myself everything's going to be alright.  I just gotta have faith...  I've seen worse days than these.

In fact, 10 years ago today, I was sitting in a jail cell, and had been there for around a month or so with another month and a half to go.  Yeah, I know.  90 days in the county isn't exactly "hard time", but it ain't no walk in the park either.

There had been this situation, and I'd received fines in court, and I couldn't pay the fines, and eventually, the cops caught up with me and I got to spend 72 days in the county jail.  (The sentence was 90 days, but they give you time off if you keep your nose clean and stay out of trouble).   That's about as vague as I can be, ain't it?  Well, I'm not trying to hide anything here, I'm just not feeling up to writing out the whole long story.  Suffice it to say that I was extremely fortunate to get arrested.  In fact, the night I got arrested, my life was probably saved.  I was in a bad place and things were only looking worse.  I was addicted to several different substances, (only one of which is legal in the US), and was starting to fall apart physically.  For some reason, the night that the cops came to get me, my place was clean.  No drugs, no paraphernalia, no "party" going on, nothing.... So they picked me up for unpaid fines, and not drugs, which is what they were after when they came.

So here I am complaining because I've got a stomach ache.  What the fuck?  Well, the fact is that this "stomach ache" could actually kill me, and I know this.  But I've got to have faith, right?

Here's my faith.... I believe that there is a power in the universe that is far greater than me.  The same power that had the cops come to pick me up the one night that there were no drugs in my little crack house (yeah, I was running a crack house) is the same power that is going to help me get out of this jam.  I ain't ready to die just yet, and I don't think the world is quite ready to be rid of me.

There's some things I've still go to get done...

...but for the love of all that is holy.... why doesn't the doctor's office fucking call me back???

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Today, I want to give up.

So much for positive thinking, huh?
Sleep remains my buddy, but when I'm awake and have to face the reality of the situation, it's a bitter pill to swallow, and all I wanna do is go back to sleep.

Spoke with my GI doctor's nurse a few times today, explaining my symptoms, and my pain level (12 on a scale of 1 to 10), and asking for at least some guidance as to what I should be eating.

After she spoke with the doctor, the only thing they said was to stop taking dicyclomine and call back tomorrow. Dicyclomine is an anti-spasmodic medication. She also said that they may be putting me on Prednisone (a steroid with which I've had nasty experience in the past).

So here I sit, blogging from my bathroom, seriously considering going to the hospital. But if I go, the chances of me getting worse skyrocket because hospitals are breeding grounds for germs and bacteria. The last thing I need right now is a staph infection.

Next time, more self pity. Stay tuned.

Sleep is my friend

Today, I slept.
All day.
And it was good.

Didn't get to sleep til 6am thanks to the crazy mix of meds I'm on, but mostly to my body's natural aversion to Flagyl. So, as the sunlight as slipping through the blinds, my eyes finally closed for the "night".  I did wake up long enough to watch the end of the 1pm NFL games (my guys lost) and then drifted back off until somewhere near 9pm so I could catch the penultimate episode of Dexter and a handful of other shows... But who cares? That's just filler.  Just some words I threw together in a hurry just so I could say that I kept the blog up for another day.

Feeling crappy still.  Symptoms are the same. "Output" remains a bloody mess. Pain remains.

I'm hungry for something sloppy and good. Cheeseburgers and fries.  But I don't know when (or if) I'll be enjoying that fine meal again.  Got to do stuff that's good for my gut.

My ears are ringing.  I just sneezed and my ears are ringing.

Whatever.  Maybe next time I'll write something with a little more oomph, pizzazz, panache, style or flair. Right now, I ain't got it.

Why not begin here?

It all started yesterday.  Actually, that's not quite right.  It all started about a month or so ago, maybe even more, but yesterday it was given a name.

I'm 42 years old and I'm not ready to die just yet.  I've not been given a terminal diagnosis or anything, and I'm not writing this in an effort to launch the world's largest anonymous pity party, 'cause let's face it, I've got it pretty good.  I've got an awesome job (it doesn't pay huge money, but I love what I do, and I feel like it makes a difference, and that's what matters to me), I'm married to the woman of my dreams, I've got a whole bunch of friends, and I play a pretty decent rhythm guitar.  What can I complain about?
Probably nothing.

In all likelihood, this blog will be like so many other abandoned projects left to float in cyberspace for eternity.  And that's okay.  Sometimes, you have to do stuff just because you feel like doing it, not because you have any end goal in mind.  Truth is, we all have pretty much the same end goal... Make it to the end of the day, hopefully a little better off than we started, in one way or another.

But I'm no philosopher, and any nuggets of truth or wisdom you encounter here are purely coincidental or are blatantly taken from some other, more brilliant source...  I'm just another bozo on the bus, trying to make it to the end of the day, hopefully a little better off than I started.

So what about yesterday?  What makes is so important?  Well, a little while back, I started experiencing some pretty gnarly gastrointestinal pain, and along with the pain same some pretty gross looking poop.  I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say, any commode with which my buttocks have made contact over the past few weeks has developed a tendency to resemble a crime scene.  No, I'm not killing people in there.  I'm just expelling blood and mucus from my bowels.  Oh.  I promised to spare you the gory details.  Sorry 'bout that.  It won't happen again...  hopefully.

Anyway, after hoping, praying, and waiting for the sickness to somehow magically leave my body (which has been known to happen on occasion), I finally surrendered and went to see a doctor of the highest order.  Okay, he might not be of the highest order, but he's a likable fellow.  He put me on some gnarly antibiotics (Cipro and Flagyl) for a couple of weeks and that made things no better... It only made me feel worse.  So yesterday (remember yesterday?  this is a blog about yesterday), I got up really early in the morning (after having eaten nothing for over 24 hours and spending the better part of Thursday drinking a nasty concoction of Gatorade and Mirolax and entirely vacating my bowels of their contents) and go to the special doctor's office place.  At the special doctor's place, I shed my smelly sweats and t-shirt in favor of two (one in the front, and one in the back) and a pair of ambulatory socks.  After I've changed into the Mr. Sexy 40-something Man 2013 outfit, I go back into a little room and before long, I'm injected with the same stuff that killed Michael Jackson.  The stuff that killed the King of Pop didn't kill me (obviously), I just went to sleep, and as I slumbered so sweetly, the doctor and his pals took a camera, shoved it up my butt and looked around to see what they can find. (Sounds like a fraternity initiation gone horribly wrong)...  About 40 minutes later, I was aroused from my slumber to the sound of a diagnosis I didn't quite (and still don't quite) understand.

My diagnosis?  Colitis and C-Diff (or Clostridium Difficile for the more verbosely inclined).
My treatment?  More antibiotics and a medication called Asacol.

So here I sit, about 36 hours into this diagnosis, a little bit afraid, a whole lot exhausted, and in a fair amount of pain.  I don't tolerate antibiotics well.  So, being on yet another round of Flagyl is taking its toll on me.  The Asacol doesn't seem to be having too many bad side effects, but it's hard to tell because Flagyl messes me up so severely.

And speaking of exhausted... I'm tired.  So I'm going to wrap it up here.  The whole point of this thing is to give me an outlet for my thoughts as I go progress through treatment of this, and who knows what'll happen?  I'll probably end up being just fine in a little while and will look back on this as some point and go, "Hmm...  was I over-reacting or what???"  at least, that's what I hope I'll say.