In one ear, not out the other

As I posted to facebook yesterday, I can't hear with my right ear and I'm not listening with the left one.

The trip was fun, especially the unofficial family reunion along the Wenatchee River in Washington. Unfortunately, germs were part of the reunion and the whole lot of us East Coasters got sick. In my case that was a bad head cold that suddenly turned into an ear infection last week.

I got on antibiotics the next day, but for the last week my ear has been totally clogged and it's getting irritating to say the least. It's like an itch I can't reach and I feel half cut off from the world. So a trip to my wonderful ear doc (and I mean that - he's very good and a great guy to boot) is on tap for tomorrow.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some caring person from the government to provide me with free service? It's a pity nobody's talking about health care these days.

Speaking of Sniffs

I appear to have picked up a cold someplace. Considering that the cough I developed in February still hasn't gone away, it's getting me a little irritated.



I know, I know - boo-frickin'-hoo.

Needless to say

No such luck. There is a new normal, and I've just had to learn to deal with it. So I do whatever I absolutely have to, and no more. I listen to stupid comments and keep my mouth shut. I get unnecessary instructions, and I just say "OK."



It's a dumb way to live, I grant you, but it's a way to survive.



Oh, did I mention I also got sick as a dog about two weeks ago? Two days of 102 fever, followed by all sorts of nasty side effects, including gums so swollen I couldn't eat. I have no idea what the Lord might have in mind for me, but if He's trying to tell me something I have to say it would be easier to grasp some of the messages if they'd come in one at a time.



If the Frogs or Locusts show up looking for me, tell them I'm unavailable please.

Where to begin?

How to explain the 180-degree turn in my life over the last six weeks? Things that were no longer are, and things that were not suddenly have become.



Cryptic? You betcha. Paranoid, me?



You have no idea.



Seems safest to begin at the beginning, with one of the two scheduled items for the new year. Dad had been to the doctor last Sep or Oct, and they saw something they didn't entirely like. So I recommended he go talk to one of the guys here, world-renowned for that particular part of the anatomy. The long & short was scheduled surgery for early January. So Pop goes in, figuring on a 3-5 day stay in the hospital, then 4-6 weeks recovery.



So here comes the first curveball, and it's a doozy. He's in for a few days, and if anything he seems worse as time goes on, not better. I'm there every night till 9-10PM, my brother's there all day (including, heroically, staying by himself there for Shabbos so dad would have company.) Sunday night he is in terrible pain, and Monday they tell us they're taking him in for emergency surgery in an unrelated area. I am now running all kinds of insane, paranoid fantasies in my head that he's not going to survive.



Happily, none of them came true. The second surgery went well, and Pop was quickly on the mend. He's home and recuperating now, and while he's looking older (and thinner) than he did before, he's mostly himself again. I think he's getting a little depressed, but he's been on the shelf for a long time, so I don't blame him.



So, that was stress enough, without...

Saw this

the other day, and thought given the previous announcement that it was good timing:



Researchers discover why pregnant women don't topple over



I'm glad to see them putting my tax money to good use, but I'm not quite sure I see any practical application to the information. Sure, now I get how Mrs. Skinny manages to stay upright, but I still don't think it's getting me out of washing dishes or changing nappies when the time comes.



Still, it keeps the science folks out of trouble.

Speaking of Medical Issues

Is the detail in this story really necessary?




Bush to have colonoscopy at Camp David



While I appreciate knowing that the President is being cared for, and that he's taken care of the constitutional needs of the nation, how much value is there in knowing that "The 2002 procedure began at 7:09 a.m and ended at 7:29 a.m. Bush woke up two minutes later but did not resume his presidential office until 9:24 a.m., after Tubb conducted an overall examination."



It's wonderful that the procedure only took twenty minutes, but let's face it - that's one event I for one would rather not have covered in quite such minute detail.

I'm sorry, did you say something?

Terry notes in an email that there have been no updates to you, my great unwashed masses, about my ears. The fixed one is in fact working perfectly fine, though I think the change is less noticeable than it was in the beginning. I notice things are much clearer in noisy situations than they were, although there are still times when conversations are a little hard to make out. I'm probably going to get the other one done at some point, which should help.



Updates on other body parts as events warrant.

ehhh, What's Up, Doc?

This story gave me two distinct reactions:



15-year-old performs surgery in India



The first, naturally, is that I wouldn't trust the average 15 year old to take out the garbage properly, much less perform surgery. I accept that there are teenagers with exceptional abilities, but this strikes me as the most irresponsible act a physician can allow. I'm sure the father was there ready to take over if necessary, but this is clearly not something in the best interest of either patient. Yes, all doctors have to start somewhere, but home surgery is probably not the best idea.



That aside, I have to admit a second reaction - a certain admiration for the father breaking free of the constraints of the establishment to teach his son a trade. Granted this is not plumbing, but historically, I don't think every physician went to medical school. It was a trade you learned by apprenticeship to an established practitioner. I'm not suggesting medicine should return to the 18th century, but there's a hubris about the medical establishment that deserves taking down a peg or two.



Oh, I understand that medicine is not the same as blacksmithing or carpentry - people's lives are more generally at stake here. But I can appreciate a father wanting to pass skills on to his son. And I don't think that modern medicine has a stranglehold on absolute truth of the medical world. I believe the father deserves to be punished for what he's done, but it doesn't hurt to remind the medical world that it ain't entirely brain surgery.

Lego Update

Well, here I am, not much the worse for wear. I feel surprisingly good to this point - no dizziness, and relatively little pain. My ear still feels like the novocaine from the dentist's office, but as things go I feel alright.



Not going to work tomorrow anyway, but I feel OK.



Mrs. is currently sleeping next to me, so I'm blogging in a high-risk zone. We had to be there at 6AM local time, and we're all a bit wiped out. Since I slept for two hours during the Main Event, I guess I have a little more energy. Heck, I sent out an email to work buddies right after I got home. We were in the recovery area for a while, but home by 12:30 or so, and I guess things went well.



Though the doc said I have small ears for my size, whatever the heck that means.



In any event, there may be some blogging during recovery after all. Dunno if there were prayers for me out there in Blogovia, (not that any of you were obligated to), but I guess the Lord has plans for me yet, for which I am grateful.



With any luck, those plans will involve me hearing whatever instructions I am to follow.

WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!

I'm back, no thanks to blogger. Mr. Possum emailed today to find out what in blazes happened to me, and the answer is that I &^%$$ed up. Not dramatically, but I messed with the template of the site and it caused lord knows how much trouble.



So I went ahead and solved it through a very ridiculous procedure. I made a new blog, built my template back up (including labels and links), then copied & pasted the whole shebang back into this site. So no more expanding posts (and no, I don't think I want to try & fiddle again, at least not for a while), no more duplicate posts, just the clean fresh scent of boring blogposts.



So why no posting? Blogennui, irritation at Blogger for the problems, unbelievably busy with work crapahoola, and finally, I have decided to bite the bullet. It would be literal if we were in the 19th century, but thankfully anesthesiologists have learned a few things since then. I'm going to go ahead and let some maniac with a scalpel cut my head open next week. At this point I'd be surprised if they found anything of consequence up there anyway.



No, not the lobotomy a friend suggested. They're going to give me some kind of bionic plastic ear - though it could be old legos they're sticking in there for all I know. I think I've mentioned before that I have otosclerosis - fused bones in the middle ear. So they're going to pop in some plastic ones that will do the vibrating that the natural kind are supposed to do. But don't because the warranty on my body ran out last year.



So, I seem to be back. I could do a complete wrapup of news, stupidity, and random thoughts of the intervening month since I last posted, but frankly I have more useful things to do and you're bored already.

And today?

I got my ears electronically scoped. I had a CT scan today to see what's doing inside my ears. I don't know that I'm definitely having surgery to address my hearing loss, but in order to make the decision the doc thought it would be a good idea to see what's what.

They told me on the phone the whole thing would take about 45 minutes, so I made the appointment for 7:30 AM. What I did not know is that the actual imaging would take about 5 minutes, and the wait time was 40 minutes. I was in fact out of the office by 8:15, but I didn't get in to be scanned until about 8:05.

It was, on the whole, an entirely painless experience. No blood, no needles, no clothes off - just lie on the table and wait for it to move in & out as they take pictures of my cranium. I'd be much less disturbed by medical procedures if they could all be that simple.

Early to bed & Early to rise

is just making me a tired puppy. For various reasons I have taken over Mrs. Skinny's gym membership for the remainder of her time, which lasts until June. In the interests of using the thing, I have gotten up at some point between 5:30 and 6 of the AM the last three days to go sweat with other morons early risers.

It's harder to get out at night, and I need enough time to get home, shower, & make it to work, but I don't really think I'm so much of a morning person. Technically it's still bloody dark out when I leave, so I guess I'm not a night person either.

Exercise is supposed to make you feel better, but I think it just tires you out so much you don't notice you feel lousy.

So

I'm home today, given that other people in the family have been laid low by some kind of bug or the other. Well, one other person, who made the mistake of checking with WebMD about her condition. The good doc suggested that her aches & other symptoms were signs she was suffering from Neoplastispoziphlebomitisosia. And to find a local practitioner and give him all our money.

So I stayed home to nurse her through her illness. And drive carpool for youngest in about ten minutes.

On a far more salubrious note, I have a Very Important Piece of Advice. Always. ALWAYS. Make friends with the secretaries/Admin assistants. They can make your life outstandingly wonderful, or they can make it a living hell. In my case the former comes true tonight. The CEO's assistant slipped me four seats to a local hockey contest, gratis. And the good seats, not the nosebleeds. (I did drop a hint about getting the skybox, but that is nearly impossible to pull off.)

So, despite the fact that it's an Islanders game, and that they're playing Chicago, I will be sitting front (though not center - the seats are to the right of one of the goals) at the game tonight. We'll have to see if Mrs. will join us - call it a gametime decision.

More Guessing!

Know what else I did? I yanked the living ^%$#@ out of a muscle in my sacrum. That would be the buttbone to the uninitiated. The pain is mostly in my hip, as I believe the offended bit of gristle connects hip to pelvis.

I was bending over to clean something off the floor, and with barely a move in the wrong direction I was in a world of pain. I literally had to crawl my way over to my bed and figure out a way to get in it. Which I did eventually, but it was not pleasant.

So no hockey, and not much movement last night. I managed to wedge a heating pad under my butt, and by about 9:30 I was feeling well enough (despite a craptastic finish to the Ranger game on TV) to head downstairs and get some dinner. I called in sick today, but I'm feeling much more human. Changing positions is the biggest problem. Once I'm there it's not awful.

And no, sadly, I did not injure myself in the company of Scarlett Johanssen.

I should keep my mouth

firmly shut. Literally, and especially after making fun at Terry's expense about Southerners with no teeth. Saturday night, while chewing on a piece of Chalah (quite soft, delicious, and with chocolate chips, courtesy of Mrs. Skinny) I had a crown fall out. I was pretty annoyed since I had the root canal & the crown put in no more than a year and a half ago.

So I spent the last three days not at all ignoring the gaping hole in my mouth. It's extremely annoying to have that gap there and not think about it, which is why I failed miserably. I finally got the thing popped back in about an hour and a half ago, for which I am extremely grateful.

Unlike Terry, however, I did not take pictures. You'll have to manage without.