Walking Away by Hector Guerra
This is the kind of photograph that makes me think it can’t possibly be a simple photograph of an actual place in our space-time continuum. It’s obviously a photograph of somewhere much, much more interesting.
I want to go to there.
So, it’s like this.
I’ve been in the hospital. Again. This time, I was supposed to pop in Friday morning and have that pesky gallbladder removed, a 90-minute procedure after which I’d be set free on an unsuspecting food chain to wreak uncontrollable havoc, in the style of Cthulhu left in charge of a daycare. SMORGASBORD!
Cthulhu says WOMEN AND CHIRRUNS FIRST
Guess what? Things didn’t quite work out that way.
The Sister informs me “that’s three for three” in the family, going in for a simple gallbladderectomy and ending up with an aerated colon in the bargain. Must be our genetic heritage of deformed gastrointestinal tracts or something (we coasters have an extra pouch to help us separate out the nutritive particles from the rainwater here). My doctor informs me she’s done over 300 of these operations, and this is the very first time she’s chopped a hole in someone’s colon without meaning to. In any case, she sewed up the hole and I am no longer holey.
As if you couldn’t tell.
That is one angry looking gallbladder
She tells me, additionally, that in her 300-gallbladder career, she’d never seen one as inflamed as mine (and remember, this woman ONLY sees unhealthy gallbladders). It was at least twice the size of an ordinary, inflamed, has-to-be-removed gallbladder. She said she couldn’t imagine how painful my attacks must have been, to which I replied that I reported them as 8/10 on the pain scale only because I’d had a bone marrow biopsy, and that was a 9. I don’t think people remain conscious through a 10.
No, sadly, they do NOT give you your Human Pearls after the operation. Gallstones seem to be a sort of cancer clearinghouse for the entire body, so if there’s cancer anywhere, it shows in your gallstones, so now they give all your lovely Human Pearls to the pathologist to brutally crush and analyze. There goes my business model, dammit.
In any case, after lying in the hospital a few days taking nourishment from a plastic bag and a hose attached through a hole in the back of my hand, getting dosed with superantibiotics (perforated colons have a nasty way of causing the worst possible infections, and are fatal quite frequently) and being bored out of my mind by my charming, sweet, but UNSTOPPABLY CHATTY roommate, I mean, seriously, I’d have my headphones on, she’d wake up, start babbling, notice my earphones were on, say “oh well, let me repeat that so you can hear” and do so, louder. Several times. All. Damn. Day. When they moved her to the physio ward it was sweet, sweet relief, anyway, after all of that they let me go, and not a moment too soon because although they did officially switch me to “solid” food two days before, the kitchen never got that notice and sent nothing but milk, tea (vile brown particle-filled stuff that would strip paint), cream soups, and cream of wheat. I tell you, I would have welcomed the synthetically cheerful jewel tones of Jello like a drowning victim welcomes a life raft. A shiny, wobbly crimson life raft filled with empty calories and pure joy.
Now, let’s back up a little (a phrase which should give one pause, embedded as it is in a blog post about the gastro-intestinal system and catastrophic colon-based events.
This is what a GT looks like, y'all. My blood is AWESOME under a microscope
“GT” is a sort of byword for a car that is sporty, racy, competitive, and stylish. So it was with not a small amount of pride that I noticed while reading my medical chart that according to a blood test from the last time I was in hospital, my “Gamma GT” levels were substantial. They were so awesome they were bolded right there on the chart, along with a whole lot of other terms like “AT” and “conjugated bilirubin” which were also in bold. And decorated with a large letter H, each of them.
And why were my Gamma GT levels bolded and H’d? Because, it turns out, normal Gamma GT levels are 51 or less. Mine?
664.
which rather puts into context my medical team’s remark that, had they not tested my liver enzyme levels both when I was admitted to the hospital in November and when I was released (this figure is from the latter, when it had increased threefold) they would never have clued in that my bile duct was blocked and I had a potentially fatal, potentially SOON, situation underway.
Anyhoodle, that got dealt with. Which brung us to Friday, and from Friday the rest of this post has brung us to here. Which is about all I can think to write at this point, except that my blood is SO WAY COOLER than yours under a microscope, so suck on that while you’re watching your big screen tvs and enjoying all those concert tickets I can’t afford. MY BLOOD IS SO WAY COOLER UNDER A MICROSCOPE. Ha! Take that, Mundanes!
REAL demons of Cthulhu would never hula-hoop in His Scaly Presence
It’s no surprise to any of our regular readers that we’re big fans of all things tentacly here on the ol’ raincoaster blog, whether they be octopoid, squidderiffic, or straight-out Cthulhoid. And why? we are constantly asked.
Because we like to be on the winning side.
The great Cthulhian Revolution has begun. He has risen. Here, direct from sunken R’lyeh in the non-Euclidian Triangle, comes startling footage of the uprising. Fighting back against the loathesome bipeds who have for too long terrorized the planet, a nameless rebel seizes first the communication channel and then the weaponry.
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu arises!
Scientia est Potentia
How does it go? A prophet is never esteemed in his own house…? something like that? Well, fortunately this prophet is esteemed, and that highly, in the nearby megalopolis of Victoria, British Columbia, to which I am constantly drawn and not just by the drinks that Shawn Soole cooks up for me…
though significantly by them, it must be admitted.
Indeed, I am drawn thither by the constant call to speak at WordCamps, SocialMediaCamps, IdeaWaves, and other tech-related compound words, which opportunities are seldom offered to me in my own humble burb of Vancouver, not that I am sulking about it, no sir! I mean, how could you resist this:
The Digital Revolution: Lessons from the Homeless
The Digital Divide is very real, and when the gap is bridged the results can be surprising, creative, instructive, even inspiring. By focusing on case studies of social media use among homeless individuals (taken from my personal teaching practice) this talk will provide radical new strategies for more informed and effective communications for anyone.
I ask yez.
In any case, if you want to see me speak a little closer to home, or on the other hand fear physical proximity to me while wishing to appease me with an offering of cash and/or Paypal, I’ve just announced a raft of new and returning blogging and social media workshops, some online, some IRL, over at my social media site, so go check them out.
Wonder how good I am? Ask Mike Vardy (of Eventualism, LifeAsAHuman, and DNTO):
Lorraine is likely better known by her Twitter handle (and business monicker of sorts), @raincoaster. She runs Raincoaster Media…and she really knows her stuff. She’s been doing this for a long time and has the right mix of credentials and knowledge to offer what a lot of those doing the same kind of thing can’t: nuanced comprehension.
Awwww. And for your information NO, I DID NOT HAVE TO BRIBE HIM, which is good, as I have, as we all know, no money.
But if you sign up for a course, I’ll have money! And then I can bribe YOU! Wouldn’t that be fabulous???
Sure it would. Shut up.
So tomorrow I’m going in to have a crop of Human Pearls™ removed. Yes, this was supposed to be BONANZA DAY, wherein I’d sell said pearls for thousands, perhaps baJILLIONS of dollars, and be set for the rest of my life. Instead, I find out that they no longer give you your gallstones back after they’ve taken them out, they crush them all and test them for cancer, thus destroying my business model and my dreams.
I even built a website for them: YouWantAPieceOfMe?
My silent partner and I are now looking into other humano-agrarian activities including but not limited to sperm farming. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Please do not accompany your application with a sample.
Anyway, depending on what they give me for the pain, my next blogging could get rather loopy. One of the drawbacks to not having internet at home and not drinking as much is that my drunkblogging has greatly suffered lately, to the point where I’m getting complaints from my readers via email. I promise, if they don’t give me something entertaining on which to blog, I’ll at least write up that restaurant review-style comparison of all the different drugs they’ve given me. Although it’s no secret there’s a strong favorite:
Demerol better bring its A Game
raincoaster 