Boredomhouse Rules.

I am going stir crazy.  It’s not my fault.

I did have 20-30 minutes of distraction thanks to DPUD.  Fun with Zombies.  The game is highly addictive but too short in my opinion.

But there are the problems that you can’t get around during your enforced healing period, such as…

Limited by a 4lb lifting limit.

• One must wait until the family swigs from the jug until a half gallon
• One becomes dependent upon one’s children
• Cats are too heavy to pick up and pet
• Step out of line just one time and try to pick up a cat (or swat one with a t-shirt as it sprays the children’s bedroom door) and you will pay for it, oh Lord, how you will pay
• Woodworking is out because wood is too heavy and besides, you are…

Drugged.

• Telling time is difficult – even with a digital clock
• Things you don’t realize you said before are repeated
• Energy level is low
• Things you don’t realize you said before are repeated
• Accidentally stabbing yourself with a fork or impalement on a toothbrush are real concerns
• Timing things like blogging around painkiller-induced-naps is a hasslllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
• Assuming you have more energy than a lizard on a warm rock, you must still face the fact that your…

Creative impulse is blunted.

• You try writing a story or doing art with a chemical lobotomy
• Even with the desire and the idea the desire dries up rapidly and with even a tiny setback.  What?  I have to save my work again?
• When things like “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” seem worthy of being considered classical literature, you have no chance of coming up with anything original
• Ideas that don’t stink like rotting fish are elusive and you can’t prime the pump because you…

Cannot go anywhere.

• Driving under the influence of narcotics is dangrous because you kepe making misteaks
• People aren’t available to be your chauffeur because there aren’t any Occupy idiots with loads of free time on their hands and have a valid license and are not as drugged up as yourself – or worse.  All the people that could drive me (read:  have a vehicle or that I trust with my vehicle) have jobs
• As a poor substitute for getting out, you channel surf for ideas, which is  a dead end because…

Daytime TV sucks ass.  Night-time, too.

• Yes, the re-runs of Scooby Doo, The Best of the Partridge Family, $100,000 Pyramid, and Cagney and Lacey suck ass
• Ditto for Home Shopping Network, the Green Channel, and the Weather Channel Propaganda Roundup
• And you swear, if you have to hear Judge Judy look at a plaintiff witih jaundiced eyes one more time you’ll set fire to your TV.

Is anyone else familiar with the notion that maybe, just maybe, surgery and narcotics flip your circadian rhythm around so night is day and day is night?  Well, it’s what I’ve experienced.  I fall asleep at 7am and wake up around 1pm only to want to sleep from 4-5pm for a few more hours.  It might not be obvious but this serves to cut you off from the world even more.

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I did find a Blender render I did a few years back.  Had fun with it.  Hell, I’ll post it for grins. I think clicking on it makes it bigger.  Give it a shot.

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During one of the intense states of boredom I’ve experienced, I was looking at mind-mapping again.  Go check out iThoughts or SimpleMind.  It’s pretty cool to do what you do on a pad of paper anyway – and – you can rearrange it easily, add notes, add hyperlinks, etc.

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Soon… soon…

Tomorrow is the surgery.  Fused-disc time.  No more foolin’ around.

I think you will be pleased with tomorrow’s posting.  Pleasantly so.

A friend has been invited to play and he accepted.  He will pour forth upon these pages a fun and twisted story.  He darkles.  He tincts.  Yar.

Or something like that.

All that comes to mind is:

Your soul is so dark it smudges mine.  – Zebra speaking to Rat, Pearls Before Swine

That’s not a negative commentary on our guest poster.  My soul has plenty of dark already.

Seriously, that is all that comes to mind.  I’m blank right now.  Even random stuff that normally comes to me is kaput.  And usually my brain NEVER stops spinning – at least three levels working at a time (which is not as fun as it might sound, in truth).  Today?  Nothing.

Oh well.  More later, eh?

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Slaughterhouse Rules.

Saw the surgeon today.  He listened to my symptoms, asked a number of questions, and explained what he thought was going on.

So two discs look like they are problematic and he says there’s no question he wants to remove them and fuse the vertebrae.

There’s another symptom I’m having, and it has to do with the shoulder pain.  He says the MRI doesn’t show anything but the symptoms fit exactly what you’d see with involvement of a third disc.  The plan there is to do a disc-pumpy-fluffy procedure† where they pressurize the disc with a contrast dye dissolved in diesel oil and see if it exacerbates the symptoms and pain.

I said “Hey, doc, I don’t mean to sound like a whiny little girl but pain scares me, especially on top of what I have already got.”

December 7 is the date set and some few days before that the plan is to do the disc-pumpy-fluffy-up procedure so I don’t have to wait extra long in that “enhanced state” of agony.

Told the doc that if he wanted to schedule it next Monday I would break my leg getting over to where to sign the paperwork.  He nodded and said “I know.”

The point being that if he needs to be doing that other disc he’d just as soon open me up once and only once and get them all done with.  I’m ok with that.

Yeah, there’s going to be pain but what I’ve been dealing with for the last four years hasn’t been living.  My son doesn’t know what it’s like to have a daddy who can do stuff with him.  It’ll be pain worth having.

I keep thinking (1) I have a doctor and a surgeon that believe me and are willing to do something, and (2) I have some hope now.

† Also referred to as a discography

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Not so fast…

I had a message on my answering machine last night that I didn’t hear until 1AM when I thought of it.  It was the clinic calling me to remind me that today I was scheduled for another epidural at 8:40AM.

Ruh-roh.

The doc (we’ll call him Dr. 10.0) had said if I didn’t get good results with the last epidural to contact the doc I saw two days ago, Dr. Sawbones.

Doc Sawbones had said he wouldn’t cut on me and that it was soft-tissue damage and referred pain.  Ok, fine.  Back to square one.

This morning I went to Dr. 10.0’s practice and apologized because I thought the referral kind of canceled the procedure and I didn’t have plans or a driver for today – and I mentioned that I don’t think another epidural will do a lick of good.

Doc 10.0 asks me how the consult he ordered went (with Dr. Sawbones).  I told him what Dr. Sawbones had diagnosed and partway through Dr. 10.0 was shaking his head.

“No, no, I’ve looked at your MRI’s and seen the herniated discs, I know the pain you’re in, I know the numbness in your hand and pain in your shoulder, arm, and hand.  No.  I’m going to send you to a neurosurgeon at the UofM, Dr. Nutt, and when you see him make sure he knows this is not a consult, that I’m sending you to him because I feel you need a surgical solution and he is the best.  Okay?”

Well, if ever I needed proof positive that the doc truly believes there’s something wrong other than “he’s a malingerer and looking for pills” assessment.   Burning numb fingers that don’t type correctly 50% of the time, crippling headaches, intense aches in the neck, and stabbing pains in the neck all seem kind of wrong to me.  Maybe I’m over-reacting.

So I’m off to see Dr. Nutt sometime in the near future.  He’s probably sharpening his chainsaw in anticipation.  No, I still don’t want surgery but at least this offers hope of repair rather than acceptance of failure and lots of crappy compromise.

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More later…

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Cruel Wife’s Paw

Update:  cbullitt posted a graphic of mine to celebrate his 16,000th spam.

I had fun with this one.  A bit jaggy if you zoom in on FemSpamBot but if you keep your distance it smooths out.

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I bet the baby ones taste even better.

Thanks to The Dude – aka “Wilson”, for pointing this one out.

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Laconic Pup brought this to my attention with the subject line:  Navy 1, Terrorists 0.

THIS is how I want my tax dollars spent… effectively.

New photos released Friday show what the U.S. Navy says is the aftermath of suspected pirates attacking a Sierra Leone-flagged tanker this week in the Somali Basin.

The confrontation between the MV Evita and two suspected pirate skiffs was disrupted by the U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Farragut, according to the U.S Navy. The suspected bandits’ “mother skiff” was destroyed and sunk.

“The pirates have become bolder and are attacking ships further away from the Somali shores,” said Rear Adm. Bernard Miranda of the Singapore navy.

The Evita fired flares and sped up to ward off the attackers, who were armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Coalition forces were summoned by the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur and the UK Maritime Trade Operations office in Dubai, who received a call of aid from the Evita.

The Evita was also assisted by a Swedish vessel, which located the suspected pirates’ skiffs and witnessed them throwing equipment overboard.

Farragut coalition forces found 11 suspected pirates aboard the skiffs, along with fuel drums and grappling hooks.

Coalition forces released the suspected pirates after making sure they couldn’t attack again.

It’s that last sentence… the best way I can think to ensure that they couldn’t attack again would be to gouge their eyes out and crush their fingers.

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Cruel Wife’s Paw…

I don’t mean the in-laws, who are here for more days yet.

Nope, Cruel Wife had carpal tunnel surgery today.  Post-op I’m sitting in back with her as she de-groggified, and threatened messy divorce if I did an April Fool’s on the nurse.

I was going to pull off her heartbeat/O2 monitor and shout “She’s having a seizure!!”

The nurses, being the jolly lot they are would have laughed a lot but CW was having none of it.

I suggested “Nurse, is she supposed to be bleeding all over?”  and that was quickly shot down, too.

My final suggestion was to holler “GOD-DAMN, is that a ****ing RAT???”

Cruel Wife likes to say she has a sense of humor but not really.

She’s resting comfortably.  Sort of.

You wouldn’t believe the running to and fro I’m doing for this tyrant.

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