Medical blah blah blah...

Been a rough three weeks since Jan. 5th's stent surgery.

The surgery itself went without any troubles. The recovery, though, has been a pain in the ass.

Incision's healing up nicely. Staples came out on the 22nd. I had about 2 weeks of "reflected" pain across my shoulder blades caused by the aortic aneurysm reacting to being bypassed by the stents. Percocet took care of that.

The major complication? Ever since the original aortic tear in 2010 and my bad kidney removal in 2011, this body of mine became a freaking sponge and collected about 100 pounds of water weight, especially around my waist and down both legs. Ever since the evening of Jan. 6th, when I tried to bandage the incision site right at the top of my right thigh, I started leaking like a sieve from there.

I ended up in the Emergency Room with a fever and got sent to Interventional Radiology to have a drain put in. I've got a 4th session with them this afternoon to see how things are progressing. They've treated the site with ethanol and Betadine to scar up and close off the lymph channel that's pushing all that fluid up into the incision area. The upshot of this is that I carry a collection bag, keep the incision clean, and hope that the next session will finish this off.

I have drained 6 quarts of "cellular fluid" (lymph?) since Jan. 6. Six freaking quarts. Fortunately most of that has been managed by the drain and baggies, so I'm not washing a dozen towels at a time trying to keep ahead of this crap.

The fluid loss comes up to about 8 pounds. Take THAT, Weight Watchers.

Two-Buck Wound Vac (update!)

In the weeks after my right kidney was taken out, I did some research on "wound vac" equipment. Wound Care staff told me it would accelerate healing by drawing fluid out of the incision site and promoting blood flow to the surrounding tissue.

I couldn't afford the $1000-$2000 weekly rental, and I wanted to see if there was a cheaper alternative. There were several writeups about Danielle Zurovcik and her inexpensive hand-operated vac. Her invention was tested in the field in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The team was only there for ten days, so they couldn't test for quicker healing. But the dressing and negative pressure did keep wounds cleaner than a traditional dressing and allowed for less-frequent dressing changes.

Dr. Zurovcik followed this with a 2011-12 clinical trial in Rwanda. From there she was able to finalize the design.

Her invention is the first product from her new company, WiCare (Worldwide Innovative Healthcare Inc.), which aims to get medical devices to those least able to afford them. If I'm reading things correctly, that includes here in the States.

Yet another week in the hospital...

I might have known there'd be complications after the hydrocele surgery. A week after the surgery, things started swelling. By Friday Dec. 14th I was running a fever near 104 degrees. I hit the ER, got admitted, and spent the next 10 days in the hospital. I lost track of all the antibiotics that got dripped into me, the names of the nursing staff, the uneaten meals.

I didn't sleep much, couldn't focus well enough to read, and barely used my laptop (that's some pretty serious trouble, there).

Then I had to go BACK into surgery to get the infected stuff taken out. More antibiotics, daily dressing changes, and home on the 24th.

So much for the simple outpatient operation, a couple of weeks' worth of recovery. I don't even know where, how or when things started going bad. They just went bad fast--and this is after an in-hospital outpatient surgery with all the precautions. It just cements my attitude that it's stupid to risk an infection with a "do-it-yourself" approach. DO NOT try it at home.

I'll be getting daily IV antibiotics at least through Jan. 10 and daily visits to the Wound Care Clinic to get the dressings changed. Considering that last year's kidney removal took about 2 months in Wound Care, it might be March before I'm done with them this time.

Happy Anniversary?

July 12th marked a year since my evil kidney made its bid to kill me off once and for all.

The 12th also marked 2 months since I ended its nefarious plans once and for all.

It's been a hell of a year. I've still got the recliner, but haven't slept in the thing since sometime in August or September, whenever it was that I was able to sleep lying down again. It's just taking up space.

Not much else has changed; I'm still taking a half-dozen pills a couple of times a day to keep my blood pressure under control, the tear in my aorta is still a danger, and I still can't walk or stand past a certain point. I haven't had a migraine since December, though, which is a definite plus. I used to get crippling headaches at least once a month until I started taking the BP meds.

The doubled/blurred vision I was having until a year ago is gone; my left eye used to go blurry past 20 feet and I could feel some pressure in it.

The wound-vac is still attached like a remora to my belly, the incision ever shrinking, and my remaining kidney producing like gangbusters.

So What's Kidney Removal Like?

I don't know.

The whole thing seemed surreal to me right up until I woke up. I've never seen my own insides (aside from one CAT scan display), so the notion of something being removed didn't really mean a lot.

Once I checked in on the 12th, there was maybe an hour of paperwork and questions to answer before I was rolled to the Operating Room. It was maybe 9 a.m.

The staffers moved me to a narrow table and put a mask over my face, told me to breathe--




--then there was noise around me and pain and light and it was 2:30 p.m. And that was the surgery. No dreams, no darkness, just 5 hours passing unnoticed. It didn't feel like 5 hours, but it didn't just go by in a flash. It felt like time had gone by; I just hadn't been in it.

The only real pain came from the Foley catheter. That's not something I want ever again. At least that one went in while I was unconscious. I was wide awake for the second one.


Worst moments: by Saturday May 14, they were trying to get me weaned onto solid food. But for breakfast was the "clear liquids" diet: some sort of broth, tea, apple juice. That broth did a number on me and kept me nauseous for the next 3 days. Lunch was fried chicken, macaroni & cheese, a roll, and a slice of chocolate pie.

I could barely stomach the whipped topping on the pie, let alone look at the rest of the platter. I held on to that pie for another 2 meals (back on clear liquids) before giving up. I wanted to cry about that.

Then there's the first walk. Saturday, two horrible people dressed as hospital types made me fight my way out of bed and onto my feet. Took me 20 minutes to get that far--and it hurt every millimeter of the way, because none of my limbs belonged to me yet. Once I was propped up on a pair of wobbly legs...those horrible people made me walk across the room to the wheelchair parked at the door. That room was several miles across and trembled underfoot with every step.

That wheelchair was a throne, though. A conquering king's not supposed to fall or sag into the thing, though. I was rolled down to X-Ray, rolled back to that horrible miles-wide room...and those horrible people made me walk some more. The conquering king act didn't work with the bed, either: I sagged again.


Best moments: They tried solid food again Tuesday morning, the 17th. Two little strips of bacon, two pancakes, an 8-ounce milk. Smelled better than anything I've ever experienced before, and I would have cried over that, too, but I was too hungry. By this point, it had been a week since I'd had any solid food at all (2 days before surgery, I went on a "clear liquids" diet).

The first bite of bacon--a tiny sliver, the merest crumb--was the most exotic, near-orgasmic food experience ever. I savored it for a good 40 minutes, eating slowly and carefully, not wanting to have to go back on fluids again.

Sex has nothing on good bacon. No bread, mayo, or tomato needed.

Sadly, bacon will never be that good again.

Things that are Worse than Kidney Surgery.

Five days in recovery gave me plenty of things to think about. My room-mate helped me to find three things worse than the surgery or recovery.

He didn't make much noise or disturb things, so it wasn't him. Nope, it was a weekend's worth of Jim Carrey movies on some channel.

I got to see attempts at zany humor from a pathetically unfunny man, in three different starring trainwrecks: "The Mask" and two "Ace Ventura" flicks. Bleah.

Think I'd rather be zipped open again.

Home, after 5 days in the Slammer!

Yeah, it was really a hospital, but either way every minute is regimented and laid out for you. Being stuck in a hospital bed isn't any fun.

I'm short a kidney, but nothing feels different aside from the incisions, some bruising. The swelling's gone down a good bit, but it was never very extensive.

The single greatest pleasure? Sleeping in my own bed.

Sounds like a good plan right now, too.

Ouch.

Kidney came out with no unexpected trouble. I've got a 3-inch bestapled cut a few inches right of the navel and two really small cuts above that. Doc said he got some of the surrounding tissue, no signs of metastasis, and we're still waiting on the biopsy.

Recovery hasn't been fun; the Foley catheter they put in during the surgery prep was removed Friday morning (I think). They had to run another one maybe 12 hours later. The epidural I was on to numb things up was weakening my bladder nerves, so I wasn't going. This second Foley came out this morning. Now there's nothing tethering me to the bed but my own tired body.

The epidural went away Saturday, they got me up and semi-mobile the same day, and now I'm staggering along under my own power. Still weak as hell, tired.

Might be out as early as tomorrow, assuming I can start eating (pretty bad nausea--don't drink the broth, folks) and walking better.

Pic of the Day: Summer's Coming.

I almost bought a window AC box last year, before the big artery blowout. Can't remember why I decided not to, but I regretted it soon enough.

I'm living in the same house as my mother and my sister (I'm supposedly the 'caretaker'...hah!). Both of them smoke and neither of them can leave the thermostat alone, so the place smells like an ashtray and it's always too warm (80?! Seriously?!) or too cold (65?!) because Mom can't make sense of the thermostat settings.

On top of that, my room stays hot year round because of my computer and a mini-fridge (no thanks to Hank--I got the fridge to keep him out of my food & drink stash). It's early spring and already close to 90 in here. Last summer was hell once all the health troubles kicked in. The AC box is my one splurge for the next few months, one thing I can do for myself right now.

In this, at least, life is good.

A Visit to my old workplace...

I've been out of work since July 13, 2010, thanks to the aortic dissection, kidney lesion, and leg problems that have made things so interesting these past 8 months.

For the first time since that day, I went by two of the stores where I used to work. Some new faces, or familiar faces in new locations (management's been shuffling people around, again), and they were surprised to see me alive.

It turns out that the former manager of the last place I was working either tossed or "lost" my file, including contact numbers, so none of my former coworkers could find me to find out how things were going, what hospital I was in, or anything. What an ass.

Possible Good News on Medicaid

A little background, first. Ever since the Grapefruit days, I've been trying to navigate my way through all the ins and outs of getting medical assistance.

The surgery to repair a simple testicular hydrocele--the "Grapefruit" (it still amuses me to call it that, but it's never been as bad as it was before I resorted to the do-it-yourself fix)--would be several thousand bucks. Something like $1500 to the doctor doing the surgery (the same guy who was going to remove my kidney a few weeks ago), a few more to the hospital, some more to the anesthesiologist, and that's all for an outpatient procedure. I'd be home the same day. Since money was an issue, the Urologist sent me to a financial counselor in-house, who pointed me to Medicaid.

I quickly found that I wasn't qualified--too young, among other things.

Then came the torn aorta, a week in the hospital, and close to $53,000 in medical bills, mostly handled by the hospital's Uncompensated Care charity system. The hospital's counselors pointed to Medicaid again, and I tried to explain that I wasn't qualified.

Then it was back to the Urologist, who was concerned about the growth on my kidney that had been found while my aorta was being inspected. He said it had to come out, and again ushered me to the financial counselor, who ran the phones, called the local Medicaid people, and was told that all I needed to do was apply online. Surgery date was set, everything was put in motion, and I went home to work on the application.

Took maybe 2 weeks for them to reply: I wasn't qualified. They didn't say why.

I drove to the local office, and only then--after all this digging--did I learn that I'd have to go through Social Security and apply for Disability. Different social worker at the hospital, more paperwork and phone calls, and now I'm looking at three different pieces of paper from the Medicaid people looking for more information about my condition and proof of citizenship.

I'm hoping their sudden attention's a good thing.

Farewell, Neighbor...

No, he's not dead. The hospital's got some rules about a woman sleeping in a room with two men. Ever since I came in, Jones' wife or one of his daughters has been sleeping in the bedside recliner.

Apparently this creates a moral dilemma for the administration folks. As long as Jones and his wife or daughter are alone in a room, there's no problem. But add one other guy and HOLY CRAP there's gonna be misbehavin'.

The staffers pondered the matter, then moved him to a private room where he can sleep with his wife OR his daughter. Really, they could have moved me, since he was here first and I was the intruder.

I don't understand the thinking or rationalization behind this rule, but it's not my hospital.

10:30pm: Some staffers bundled him up and moved him half a hospital away to fix a nonexistent matter. The room is nice and quiet, but that just doesn't seem right.

10:35pm: I'm getting a new neighbor. They didn't even let Jones' bed get cold.


I forgot to mention that this room has TWO crucifi, one under each TV. Wonder if there's a message there?

HAL-9000 works for the hospital?

It's 8pm; this is a Catholic hospital, so there are morning and evening prayers broadcast over the PA. I haven't been paying much attention aside from noticing that the morning woman sounds like an automated...phone system, with strange...Shatner-pauses.

Tonight's reader sounded like HAL-9000; given the sleep-inducing nature of "2001," I got reflexively sleepy. I'm sorry, Dave.

Losing Weight, One Kidney at a Time.

All this time in a hospital room in the last week stems from a urologist appointment last Monday.

It hasn't really been determined whether that golf-ball sized "mass" (as the medical folks call it) is malignant or not, though my kidney doc says there's a 95% chance that it is, though it's slow-growing. Various doctors like the notion that it's causing my blood pressure problems and needs to come out.

January 7th, it's coming out. I'm not looking forward to the recovery, with all the difficulties I'm having now after getting a torn aorta. And now I've got one less week to get my crap together so things will be as easy as possible. I've been sleeping on just a mattress and box springs; no way I'll be able to get up from there, so it's time to put the frame back on it. Even worse, I've got to clean up my room! I'm hardly a hoarder, but I've got a lot of books for a 10 x 10 foot room.

5pm update: Now the vascular doc wants to get a full-length CAT scan of my aorta to see just how things are. The last one I had--Nov. 4th--is the one that shows apparent growth from 3.5 cm to 3.9.

7:30 pm: Stuck another night.

Me and Mr. Jones, 5

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's really Part 4. But it's Day 5, so nyah.

Jones is vastly improved. Still pretty weak, but he's alert, able to talk, and his fever broke Saturday. He slept almost all night without the groaning, moaning, and gurgling. Isn't science cool?

I've got a cold. BP came down to 103/something overnight. It was under 100 this morning. That's insanely low for someone who's used to seeing 200's.

Bored as hell, even with all the stuff I threw on the laptop and free Wi-Fi--but I wasn't bored enough to sit through the third viewing of the 4th Indiana Jones movie. I'll never be bored enough.

I might be going home tomorrow.

Me and Mr. Jones, 3

We're a hell of a pair. He's got a Foley, I'm going in a little jug and decanting to a larger one. Something for the lab folks to do.

He's vastly improved. When he's awake, he's able to speak pretty clearly. I envy him his ability to sleep--though in his condition, he can't really do much else. It helps that he's somewhat hard of hearing. I went to sleep around 11pm last night and was awakened at 11:45 for a blood pressure check. Then every hour after that, something happened: my neighbor tried to sit up, so the staff set a bed alarm; a doctor came to see me, for less than 2 minutes; the bed alarm goes off...then the BP tester comes again, a half-hour early, breaking the rhythm. I lay there for another 45 minutes before giving up and moving over to the recliner.

Nice & quiet for a few minutes, then Neighbor's wife discovers that the bed's soaked. His water pitcher got knocked over at some point. By the time the bed's stripped and re-made, it's 5am and there's no way I'll be able to sleep.

Still no real ideas for blood pressure triggers. It can't be as simple as sodium and caffeine intake, though, because my BP's been up in the last 24 hours. I'm on the hospital's cardiac diet, so those inputs are eliminated (and no, I'm not cheating--and yes, I'm taking the damn meds).

Meanwhile, that pocket in my aorta has grown slightly, from 3.5cm to 3.9cm. If it grows just 6mm (about 1/4 inch) more, I'm farked; I'll have to have surgery to fix it. The only two options are a stent or aortic replacement. The replacement has about a 20% chance of leaving me paraplegic.

I was hoping to be out today, but I'm stuck for another night. Hell of a way to spend a Friday.

Me and Mr. Jones, 2 (the first morning)

My roommate is much improved. His breathing is less labored, he's more able to speak (yesterday he was slurred and incoherent), and he's not coughing up as much junk. He's got that weird whine on the exhale that goes with crud in the trachea, but he and his wife got some good sleep in the night.

I didn't, at first. Starting around 10 pm I was hit with the worst migraine I've had in at least a year. Usually I'm in a position to shoot aspirin at it as soon as I feel it coming on, but I'm captive and not allowed to have aspirin. There was acetaminophen, but it won't even touch my headaches. Took a few more hours of sweating and nausea for that one to end.

But now I have a clue for what's been causing the migraines all these years: high blood pressure! I'm off my meds' schedule and dosages by a good bit, dependent on a platoon of medical staff. I'd never given it any thought--most people with high BP aren't even aware of it, let alone all the ways it can mess things up. (High BP: Is There Nothing It Can't Do?)

In my case, the BP caused a tear in the inner lining of my aorta. As blood kept flowing against that weak spot, it widened and deepened into a pocket between the inner and middle layers (a classic "Type B" aortic dissection). Hack me open, look straight down the pipe, and you'll see the 'pocket' taking up the left-front quarter of the aorta. I haven't had a followup CAT scan since July; no idea how well it's healing up. At least this kind of damage does heal, if slowly. If it had been a "Type A" I might not be sitting here listening to Jonesey's breath making that "woooooooo....." sound.

Back to the migraines. It seems like I've been getting these vicious headaches for about a decade. Can't say if it came with, before, or after the weight gain of the late '90s, or the breathing problems (allergies, mild asthma), or the beginnings of that tumor growing in my right kidney. Maybe it's all caused by that. I know the BP's been high for at least as long.

The Doc came in and he's convinced I'm shitting him about taking the meds, or maybe I'm not taking them right--maybe all at once? A full day's dosage once each morning? Come on, I'm not an idiot. "Three times daily" means once every 8 hours, and like that.

The meds obviously work, given that 141-over-something BP last week (the first drop below the 160's in months), and the 140's and low 150's I'm seeing sitting in thos hospital room, so something else is interfering.

I've pondered all afternoon and "diet" is the only thing I can think of. I'm not doing fast food 3 meals a day, but there's a lot of canned and packaged stuff that's probably high in sodium. That's the only thing I can think of. But I'm on a low-sodium diet here and my blood pressure is still high.

Me and Mr. Jones

I've been doing weekly followups at the doctor's office since late August. When I left the hospital after my aortic meltdown, I was instructed to keep it below 160 over something. Clonidine, Lisinopril, Hydrochlorothiazide, and Metoprolol were on the menu each day.

The Doc kept tinkering with dosages and ordering by the month at first, but my BP hept hovering around 160 to 180 over whatever. He asks every single time whether I'm really, really, really taking my meds as I say; it's irritating, but I can understand his skepticism. Patients lie. But I really, really, really am taking them.

He started badgering me to let him admit me to the hospital, where he'd be able to tinker, poke and prod in a controlled environment. I kept resisting; he assumed I was worried about the cost (heh...no), but it's really just that I'm tired of the hospital experience. Really dislike it. Since there's no sensation associated with high blood pressure, there's no particular sense of urgency.

Last week--for the first time in years, perhaps--my BP was down to 141 over 80. This week, it was 210/100.

He pushed to admit me, so here I sit in a double room, laptop and all. I'm a hell of a lot better off than my roommate, an elderly man with atrial fibrillation, bronchitis, kidney failure, diabetes, a Foley catheter, and a small village of family and friends. The poor guy has been groaning and gurgling with each breath...and I've fought back the urge to throw up. I'm such a lightweight. Brought earplugs. That gurgling...

At least I got to plan ahead for this visit: laptop loaded with some "Firefly" scripts. If I'm reading the site correctly, a group of fans collaborated on building screenplays for "virtual episodes" to fill out the remainder of the show's single season, as well as a complete second season of 22 "episodes" based on the movie "Serenity." From what I've read so far, it's good stuff.

The Chair worth fighting for

During that week in the hospital, I had the standard motorized bed, a recliner, and a regular chair. I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't going to be able to sleep in that bed. It was comfortable enough, I guess, but I couldn't breathe through my nose; it felt stuffy. I'd nod off, then startle awake, feeling like I was suffocating. On top of that, the bed was automated: every time I shifted, trying to get comfortable, the damn bed would start grinding and inflating and deflating the mattress, trying to help. I never did figure out how to stop it.

So I slept in the recliner. I still wasn't getting a lot of quality sleep. Every four hours someone would come in and take my blood pressure, temp, and oxygen readings. On a different 4-hour schedule, the nurse would come in to drug and medicate me. Around 4:30, someone else would grab a blood sample. At 6:30, one of the doctors would pop in, look things over, and move on (and I'd have to claw my way out of that chair to close the damn door). Seven a.m., breakfast. Seven-thirty, housekeeping. Over the rest of the day it was busier. No one really sleeps in a hospital, it seems.

Once I was cut loose, I spent the first week in my room trying to pile pillows on my bed so that I could sleep sitting up. I still couldn't breathe lying down. It didn't work the way I wanted, so I started looking for a recliner.

Montage: teaming up with a friend, me hobbling on a crutch as we went to thrift shops and Good Will, up and down the Flea Market stalls...checking used furniture stores...the cheapest one we found was $150. Nope. I ended up utterly wrecked; my freaking leg wouldn't let me go more than a few hundred feet at a time before giving out.

Craig's List, put in a few details to limit the search, and *VOOM!* There's my chair. $35.00, just what I was willing to spend. Picking it up and getting it home was the easy bit...but I had to bulldoze my room to make space for the thing, and I damn near killed myself getting it into the house (no one around to help). What took the seller a minute of carrying the thing out to the car took me nearly 2 hours from car to room, with frequent stops for 20-minute rests. I was wrecked all over again, stubborn idiot that I am. This is the "worth fighting for" part.

It's not perfect, but I've gotten something closer to "through-the-night" sleep in the last two nights than in the last two weeks.

A Week With Jeesus!

My leg went away July 12th.

It started with an intense fiery pain across my shoulder blades shortly after I got out of bed. This was followed by me nearly going unconscious during my usual morning cough. Nothing else happened until I got outside.

As I was hopping in the car to go to work that morning, my entire leg simply went numb; it felt like the femoral artery went empty, clamped off without warning. Didn't last long, a few moments, about as long as it took for me to jump back out of the car. I put a foam cushion on my seat and got back in; it helped a lot, and by the time I got to work it was almost back to normal. Still twingy, uncomfortable. It's 8 a.m.

I made it across the parking lot, but by the time I found a computer terminal to clock in, I had to lean hard on the counter. My leg felt like I'd been running without rest for hours. In another few minutes it was numb again.

Montage: Call a friend, get a ride to a local clinic, sit and wait. It's 9:15 a.m. now.

Within 15 minutes, there was a solid, grinding bar of pain spreading from the middle of my back just above the kidneys and wrapping around to the front. It felt like everything in my abdomen was cramped up all at once, guts, kidneys and all.

It took more than an hour before I was called to an exam room. By then I was panting, unable to take a large breath.

Montage: Doc asks a few questions, calls in his boss, and they both tell me to go to the ER. Call friend back, get ride, hit ER. Sign in, sit and wait. It's 11:15 a.m.

Brief bits of activity: they call me to an exam room and take BP, temp, blood ox, send me back. I sit and pant. My sister calls for the third time, asking questions I can't answer because I can barely breathe, but this never occurs to her. I turn my phone off and wait and pant. They call me to another room, put me on a quickie heart monitor, draw some blood, and get a chest X-ray...then wheel me back out to the waiting room. It's almost 1 p.m.

Some guy is ranting about the hospital not helping the invalid woman sitting with him. I try to remember what breathing feels like.

They come get me and install me in an exam room, give me one of those backless gowns, and eventually start hooking me up to stuff--an automatic BP reader, heart monitor, pulse ox reader, a saline drip, and another IV thing that doses me from time to time and bitches at me if I bend my arm. Then they shoot me off for two CAT scans. Now it's almost 3 p.m.

And now we have a cause. The scans revealed a tear inside my aorta from diaphragm level down to the femoral arteries' branch. Over time, high blood pressure opens a tear in the inner lining of the aorta, gradually making it bigger, and then tears the lining away. My leg went numb because the tear ballooned out at the lower end and blocked that branch. All that pain was sympathetic: your innards don't have their own pain receptors, so my brain was interpreting the damage to my aorta as gas pain at the upper end, kidney pain a little lower.

The good news is that I don't need surgery. Just keep the BP low and controlled and the tear will heal itself.

So now it's 4-something and they won't let me move. I have to lie on my back, keep my arms still so the BP cuff and IV won't be obstructed, and I still can't breathe. The exam room is stifling and I lie there sweating, eyes wandering from place to place. There's a crucifix on one wall near the door. I couldn't think of anything snarky or ironic, let alone be amused at the depiction of a long, torturous death in a room full of healing technology.

Somewhere down the hall was a steady, low groan from what sounded like an older man in pain. All I could think was, "I'm with you, man."

Five hours later (nine-something), they sent me to the ICU, where the air conditioning was on and I finally met some friends named Lortab and Dilaudid who made the pain go far, far away. The Dilaudid kept me amused by making the room roll and spin slowly for a bit. A crucifix hung next to the door, but now I was too loopy to be amused by the torture/healing thing. They brought me the finest nectars--simple apple juice and a cup of ice cream, but it had been 24 hours since I'd had anything to eat.

Other than the new comfortable digs, it was all the same--heart monitor, BP, pulse ox, IV's, don't bend your arms. They kept me there from late Tuesday to Thursday morning, then put me in a regular room until I left on Tuesday the 20th. Yes, there was a crucifix. I was off the IV and BP machine (but someone came around every 4 hours to check), and they started in on the pills, looking for the right mixture of them to bring my pressure down and keep it steady.

The best thing was the very comfortable recliner, the only place I could get any real sleep. I kept the phone unplugged: it only rang when I was trying to sleep.

It's been almost a week since they let me out. At least one of the meds has me so dried out that my nose feels swollen shut, so I can't sleep deeply--I keep gasping awake and feeling like I'm suffocating. The only way I can sleep is sitting up, but I'm still stuck with cat-naps. My appetite is returning a bit at a time. My right leg still won't take much walking. Just going to a convenience store leaves me in pain and huffing like I've run a marathon. I feel worn-out, exhausted, lethargic.

This ain't any fun. Well, the vivid waking dreams (a side effect of one of the meds, or maybe sleep deprivation) are fascinating and sometimes interactive. I wish I could remember them all; some of them have been utterly cool, looking like animated Frank Miller artwork. There have been a few where I was trying to pick something up, only to wake up and find my hands still reaching for the item. I've had brilliant fireworks displays, glowing samurai doing battle, and a skeletal pirate ship.

It seems like there should be an ending here, but I can't really thing of anything.