two frightening things
I would have updated yesterday about my status, but I figured there were
more
important things to grab your attention.
That really sucks for them, and they all have my sympathy. I thanked the
Powers that Be that Dave and Hen don't work in London, otherwise my little
nephew Arun might be in a bit of a pickle.
And it really bites that this comes just when everything is calming down, and
the DAY after they get the 2012 Olympics. Damned terrorists.
And you'll note that I simply use the term "terrorist." I'm not following the
sheep here and blaming those dastardly heathens, the Muslims. I'm getting
really sick these days of hearing my boss, and one of my close family friends,
and his cronies, talk about how evil those dirty muslims are, and how they
should all be shot.
I beg your pardon, but you're all full of shit. It's like hating the Jews
because they have a different God. You know what? They had their God before
the Christians stole it, took over all the honest Jewish professions, and
forbade the Jews from making their living through any other means than usury,
which they then condemned them for. Then the Muslims come along (same God,
different name: "Yahweh" = "God" = "Allah"), their philosophy is the same,
except instead of their prophet being Moses, or Jesus, it was Mohamed. Just a
different dude in a different part of the world. And Islam was designed as a
sort of religious evolution, where Judaism was the first, Christianity was the
second, and Islam combined the best elements of the two and was supposed to be
the pinnacle of sophistication and civility. And, for a while, they were.
You know what ruined it for them? Those damned Christians. Not through the
Crusades, as many have believed. No, that piffling skirmish barely made a
dent on the vast heathen empire. It just came about through the globalization
of British Imperialism, that whitewashing tool that has changed the face of
the Earth.
And it sucks. I'd rant more about the ravages of the global village, but
you've all heard my thoughts on religion and imperial power more than once.
If you are interested in hearing rants of a similar vent, I have recently
become aware that
my brother has a blog.
This was a shocking thing all round. His rants lean more towards the
enviroeconomic stance on imperialism, but the sentiments are the same.
Sometimes he gets into symbolic history, like in his most recent post, and I'm
just DYING to comment about the commodity fetish and the commercialization of
symbolism, as, although I am not the sociologist or historian he says he isn't
(neither of which really specifically touch on cultural symbols or differences), I am a
fully-certified anthropologist.
And yet I remain silent, hesitant to contribute my two cents to the words of
my older and revered brother, despite the fact that I agree with him and could
elucidate. Why? Because he's older and smarter and way cooler than I am, and
I don't think I could handle the backlash.
In other more relevant news, my surgery went super well. I got there at
12:30, waited around for half an hour, then got hooked up to this heart
monitor, which I immediately started playing with, speeding up and slowing
down the speed of my heart. It was fun, until they told me what I was doing
was weird, and I should stop it. The nurse put an oxygen tube over my nose,
with just oxygen blowing through. Later it would turn to gas. Then I got an IV, and the nurse told me that
it was going to feel like I'd had a shooter, "and the more drugs I give you,
the drunker you're going to feel." ALL RIGHT!
So she puts that in my hand, and it feels really cold going in. Like ice
water poured across your skin, but UNDER your skin. And after that I started
to feel a little dopey, and was still playing with the heart monitor, although
the numbers were going in and out of focus. Then Dr. Amos came in for the
second time (he did the proceedure), and asked me how I was feeling. I
replied, "all right, a little dopey, but all right." And he said, "Okay,
then, I'm going to give you A LOT more drugs." He leaned over me to adjust
the amount, and I heard a few more voices, but that's the last thing I can
remember. I don't remember being gassed, and I don't remember the
proceedure. The stuff they put me on, intravenous ketorolac, has a mild
amnesiac in it, so if you wake up, you don't remember anything.
I don't even remember being awoken from the chair and walked to the recovery room, although
apparently I drunken frog-marched, which they all found incredibly
entertaining. I just remember waking up very slowly at 1:45, first becoming
aware that there was a lot of gauze in my mouth, then that I was lying on my
side in a bed, and then that I had no idea how I'd gotten there. Then,
another nurse said, "You're awake," went and got Chris, and gave us some
instructions, most of which I remember, and sent us home with a prescription.
Other that feeling a little woozy when I first woke up, I have been alert
ever since.
And I'm fine. I was very pale all of yesterday, and I discovered that, under
the usual pink, I have twice as many freckles as I thought I did. I have my
colour back today, alas. Very little swelling (and I mean you can't even see it if you
don't know it's there, and I think I'm developing only the faintest shadow of
a bruise on my temples. I have a large blue subcutaneous bruise from the IV,
and that's mostly what hurt yesterday when I came home (as did the tape I had
to pull off of the bandage there). The jaw is rather sore today, and I can't
open my mouth all the way. And when the medication wears off (I'm only
allowed to take it every six hours), then it really hurts, and I can feel the
dissolving stitches digging into my cheeks.
What most worries me is the medication. After intravenous ketorolac, you have
to take oral ketorolac. And I can't take anything else with it. So far, the only side effect I've experienced is a
wicked stomach ache, which is common. You have to take this stuff with lots
of food, and then not lie down for 30 minutes afterwards. But the other side
effects are sketchy: black stools, persistent stomach or abdominal pain,
vomit that looks like coffee grounds, chest pain, one-sided weakness,
sudden vision changes, or slurred speech.
So this thing can give me an ulcer, a heart attack, or a stroke.
Fun.
Actually, the only really sucky thing is that I can't open my jaw far enough
to drink a gingerale, and I'm not allowed to use a straw, because the suction
could induce bleeding. I'm working on the jaw thing.
Well, folks, I've written you quite the essay here. Now I'm going to go back
to my room with my stereo and TV and DVD player, and stick some more recipes
in my recipe book while I lie back in bed in my pyjamas. Feel free to call
me/visit me. I'm around and open to conversational stimulus.
Posted by Ally at July 8, 2005 11:19 AM