GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #928: JUST ONE MORE THING

 I have just one more thing to say about the medical stuff and the hospital, and then I'm done on the subject for a while.

I said that morphine was my only comfort while I was in the hospital, but that's not entirely true. There is always a moment when I finally come out of my poor-me phase and get up the courage to stay awake. That's when I have to figure out how I'm going to get through the day without going batshit fucking crazy, because there's nothing really to do in the hospital. I read whenever I could, but I went without books that first day because I didn't have any of them until much later. But there is one thing that everyone does there: turn on the TV.

I dislike about 90% of the stuff on TV because I find it all unwatchable dreck. Reality shows and cooking shows and game shows and sitcoms and ugh. Not interested. But they get AMC and FX in the hospital, and they're usually good for something. In fact, I almost accidentally watched an episode of Negan's Friend, Daryl Dixon. I had to turn away because I'm waiting for it to be finished before I get AMC+ for a month to get that and the second season of Interview with the Vampire.

But if all else fails, there's Comedy Central and the 99% certainty that they're running an Office marathon.

They also have Turner Classics, and every once in a while I catch something really interesting there, like The Barefoot Contessa with Humphrey Bogart. This time I got to catch the last 30 minutes of the first movie to win a Best Picture Oscar, Wings. I've always been curious, and it was a pretty easy movie to follow. It centered around two WWI flying aces who are the bestest of friends. So much so that at first I thought that there might be something between the lines there. I figured, it's a silent picture. Probably not. But then one of them gets mortally wounded and is dying, and the other is clutching him tightly, saying what they have to say to each other before it's too late, their faces inches away from each other. And then, just as the one guy dies, he kisses the other. It wasn't a mere friendly kiss, but it wasn't exactly a snogfest, either. Holy shit, that's pretty good for its time. But then the guy who survived goes back to the States and marries his girl back home for a happy ending. What a rollercoaster that was!

That was at night when they usually show the silent pictures. During the day I lucked out with a Dirty Jobs marathon. I usually hate this kind of shit, but it truly is fascinating what a lot of people have to do so us surface dwellers don't have to even know about it. It helps that Mike Rowe goes into every dirty job with the same attitude I would: tell a lot of jokes, self-deprecating if possible, and hope for the best. I watched him check Canadian geese for Avian flu. By catching the goose, hiding its head behind its wing, rolling it up and sticking a Q-tip into its butthole. I didn't get to see if he had to castrate the lamb with his teeth because that's when I got my morphine shot, but I watched him watch the guy who usually does this job, uh, do it.

And of course I ran out of other stuff, so it was back to ol' reliable, The Office. It was early in the show, too, so Michael Scott was at his most Michael Scott-ish. (Insert Michael Scott doing his Sean Connery impression.)

All right. That's all out of my system for now. I'll have something completely different tomorrow. A political rant? A history lesson? A true life story? Who knows? But it won't be about my foot or the hospital. Oh! And to make sure my numbering lines up, again I'll be posting on Saturday night. And, provided I haven't died in a horrible glazing accident, I'll have Sunday morning's newsletter for you.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #925: THE HORRORS PERSIST

 Printers Row: Please don't make me get sick before I go. Authorcon IV: Please don't make me get sick before I go (or even while I'm there). Last Wednesday: Shit, I think I picked up a cold from the con. Friday: OH FUCK IT'S MY SICKNESS NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

After about seven hours of puking my guts out every 15 minutes and constant pain, I decided to admit defeat and finally go to the ER, where they went through the usual rounds. They haven't hospitalized me for this illness for a while, so I didn't expect them to keep me overnight. But after they sent me for a CT scan (the first of two) the ER doc came back and said, rather cheerfully, "Your scan looks great! Except you tore a hole in your esophagus from puking too hard!"

Well shit. Thanks for that. They thought air was getting through the hole, but no water. They decided to admit me. No food. No water. I can't even let water get close to my mouth. I was hungry, and my tongue scratched like sandpaper across the roof of my mouth. My throat ached, begging for anything. I'd have taken a hot load from John Holmes himself if that was all that was available. My only comfort was morphine, and they were not stingy with it.

(They took mercy on me and got me a cup of water with a sponge to swab my mouth. I couldn't drink it, though.)

But as they were asking the usual questions, and the nurses were fretting about me as they always do, they asked about my leg brace. I then found myself explaining that I have a hole in my foot from stepping on broken glass a couple of months ago. I got it all out, and my podiatrist x-rayed me to confirm that. But now they were worried about it again. They sent me for an MRI, and wouldn't you know it? There wasn't any broken glass, but there *was* a lot wrong with my foot. They didn't scan the heel or ankle, so I still have to do that to learn the final verdict, but they told me about how I've been walking on bone shards for who knows how long? Also, one of my toes died. The bone near the base is just about detached, and I know when that happened. I started working out again, but while doing leg exercises, I heard a pop in that foot. I can't feel anything there, so I took it very seriously and quit working my legs. Now it would seem that lifting weights is also out. I must keep as much pressure off my foot as possible for the rest of my life. I shouldn't even be walking on it, apparently.

The hole itself is doing all right, though. Not great, but not as bad as the rest of my foot. My podiatrist made it sound like I might be losing my foot this week. He's already taken two of my toes (on my other foot, so if I lose the bad one I'll be down to three toes). I know he's hungry for the rest of them. (I wrote a story about the first amputation. I have yet to collect "Welcome to Middle-Age NOW GIVE ME YOUR TOE!", but you can read it here if you wish.)

He had a vacation coming up, so he left me in the hands of his colleague. She looked at the MRI and then at my bad foot and determined that nothing could be determined at this time. But she said it looked stable, and that the other MRI would be needed, but this isn't an emergency situation. It will be somewhere down the line (hopefully three days after the time of my death; wish in one hand . . .), but for now she saw no reason to keep me for the foot. That made me optimistic for the first time in this whole ordeal.

This morning they had me swallow a bunch of barium and took x-rays of it moving through my body. There is no air leak anymore, thank fuck, but I can't have anything solid to eat until next Monday. Clear liquids only in all that time. That sucks, as I am still very hungry, but that first clear liquid "meal" was fucking great. Drinking water again felt great, and I've been instructed to drink a lot of it so the barium doesn't come back and haunt me.

They let me go earlier tonight with a list of doctors to set up appointments with and all of my meds changed from pills to liquids. Shockingly enough I've been given LIQUID FUCKING OPIOIDS. That is what I'll be taking shortly.

The cause of the illness was alcohol. After ignoring medical advice for a decade, I finally quit drinking. I went a year without suffering from this sickness, but it started again in January this year. The docs think it's something called cannabis hyperemesis syndrome. Cannabis builds up in your body and must be purged or I'll get sick. It's a little convenient that they're trying to take another drug away from me, but I've been assured I don't have to quit. I just can't ingest weed in any form, flower, edible or even the excellent infused ginger ale I had with me in St. Louis, every day. They've recommended once a week.

For a while there I was pretty sure that my streak was about to end. It's been two years and ninety-two days since my last drink. That was probably my best streak ever, even when I was on the Sobriety Clock during the Tabard Inn days. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm certain I'll drink again. My job is to make sure that day gets put so far off into the future that I might die before it comes. In the hospital I knew that whatever they advised about my foot, I'd ignore it for as long as I possibly could. Then, the day before the amputation, I'd load up on a month's work of whiskey for when I got home after. I'm sure my tolerance has gone remarkably down, and my liver and pancreas are probably in the best shape of my life since I was in college.

We'll have to see how everything goes. For the record, when this year started out I weighed 265. Not my heaviest. That was 306 (and I still managed to get lucky, so not altogether bad). The lowest I've weighed as an adult was in college at 205. My weight is now at 206.

For now I've suffered enough. I'm going to try out this opioid because despite what I told the docs before I left tonight, I still *do* have pain. I lied because I wanted to get the hell out of there. On the pain scale, I'd say I'm at a seven right now. Technically you need to be eight before they give you opioids. All the same, it will be great to get a good night's sleep tonight. This has gone on long enough, so I won't repeat myself on the horrors of trying to sleep in a hospital. For now, goodnight ye kind fuckers, ye.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #840: THE MAYBERRY MINUTEMEN

 

When you're in the hospital, you're at the mercy of the TV gods. I'm kind of surprised I didn't get any M*A*S*H in. I almost always do. And no Gunsmoke, either. Very odd. But thankfully the hospital gets a few good channels: TVLand, Comedy Central, AMC and FX. I was usually stuck with The Office, which I've seen a million times and is somehow still good, but not even Comedy Central can show it 24/7.

So I lucked out with some Andy on TVLand. It may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but I like The Andy Griffith Show. Well, let me rephrase. I like all but the final season of tAGS, the one without Don Knotts. For some reason unfathomable to me, that last season focused on all the morality lessons everyone remembers the show for. Before that season, the morals were kind of fucked. Like, never tell anyone the truth if it's going to hurt their feelings. That's a major theme with those early seasons. Maybe they needed to lean on something else since Barney was no longer in Mayberry. I give Don Knotts a lot of grief, but he really was good as Barney. Better than good, supreme. He did such a good job that I'm sure there are people to this day who think he wasn't acting, that he really is like that, Mr. Furley not withstanding.

Anyway, one of my favorite episodes came on while I was in the hospital, the one where the kids have a new teacher. She does things a little different from the old teacher, and it's driving Opie crazy. At breakfast he tells his dad that history homework is too hard for him, and Andy makes the mistake of saying that he never had a head for history. He says that as long as Opie does the best he can honestly do, then he'd be proud of his son regardless of the outcome.

At this point Barney can't wait to tell everyone that he was an A++++++ history student. When Andy tests him on the Emancipation Proclamation, Barney does everything he can do to get out of answering the question EXCEPT answering it.

Regardless, Opie ignores the part about doing his best and misinterprets what Andy actually told him. When he's called on by the teacher the next day, he digs in his heels and tells her that his dad said he didn't have to do his history homework. A few other boys in class join his cause, which understandably angers the teacher. She then goes to visit Andy at his office and reads him the Riot Act.

Andy doesn't even attempt to try to explain what actually happened. Instead he feels lower than whale shit and then tricks the boys into becoming avid history fans.

I'm sure by now you've figured out why this episode appeals to me so much. Unlike Barney I'm not going to tell you I was an A+++++ history student. I got Bs and Cs in school. But I love the fuck out of history. So much crazy shit has happened over the course of known history (to say nothing of delicious speculation as to what happened during the time when history is lost to us!) I find it impossible to believe that people don't think history is interesting. Why isn't the entire country made up of people like Andy's Mayberry Minutemen?

The fault is with school, unfortunately. Teachers do a difficult enough job without me piling more shit on them, but the way history is taught is atrocious. Historical figures are just that. They're not people. They never lived and breathed because we're not supposed to understand them as people. But before they were a bunch of words in stolid history books, they *were* people. People who picked their noses. Who didn't know everything. Who sometimes did the best they could and sometimes did the worst they could on purpose.

I remember I was in college reading a Graham Swift novel for a postmodernism class when I saw him do the history/his story thing. That was the first time I'd seen that, and it opened up the world to me. History should be taught like a STORY, not a series of names and dates and acts to be memorized. When Andy convinces the kids that history is actually fun, he describes it as a story with characters and plot. That gets the kids' engines running, and the next thing their teacher knows, they're fighting each other over who gets to explain the founding of Jamestown.

There's another thing teachers do that gets in the way, but I'm not going to get too much into it. I already said my piece, but the other thing is that American institutions want history to be taught ideally. What I mean is, they want America's kids to grow up to be productive members of society, and it's helpful if they just believe a bunch of comfortable lies instead of learning what may have actually happened. You already know my opinion of that kind of thing. The most common example being, hey, Thomas Jefferson! What a genius! Can you imagine what this country would be like without his guidance? And he was the third president of the country! Completely ignoring that the man who said all men are created equal owned slaves and fathered at least one child with a slave. Just knowing that is enough to fuck a lot of people up. So perhaps we shouldn't introduce the idea that the sex might not have been consensual, at least until they get their head around that first part.

Most of what I learned about history is stuff I had to unlearn because it was bullshit stuffed into my head in an attempt to make me into an obedient taxpayer. If you want to see an example of how history *should* be taught, check out Hardcore History. But you knew I'd say that. You've been reading these things for quite a while.

Goodnight, you lovely fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #309: LIVE TO YOU FROM THE HOSPITAL!

 First point, yes, this is a weird time for me to be posting this, but after I do so, I am going to go to sleep, as I have not done so in a very, very long time. Bringing me to my second point. I am doing this from the hospital. Once again, my insides have risen up against me, but like the Pentahook, I'm a bastard who can't be killed.

Why am I doing this instead of sitting back and enjoying the morphine while my death wracked body begs for mercy? I found out something so horribly disgusting today about maybe the toneless and most greediest thing I have ever heard about.

So I'm in the ER, just about learning that I was to be admitted, when the nurse and the tech started talking about a possible raise they were going to get. I'm a personable guy in these situations because I know how difficult and sometimes horrifying their jobs can be. One of them said she thought they'd get a flat 3% raise. The tech said it had better be 5. I wished them good luck, as they were about to leave to handle a patient who wanted his fluids orally because he was scared of needles.

"I hope we're lucky," the nurse said. "They just took away our 401k plans."

Wait, now what? Who? And who suffers? Well, they were recently bought by a corporate entity, and while I believe the idea came from these new administrators, I highly think that they would never apply such a grim plan to themselves. Doctors? Lucrative, I'm sure, but somehow I feel that the doctors had the pull to keep them out of it. Nurses? Techs? You know, the guys who do the real work? When was the last time you saw a doctor put in an IV or one do a CT Scan themselves? No, they just make the big money from looking at the results and from sometimes making you say "Ahhhhhhhh."

Just so we're clear, the front-line responders at a hospital, the one who get most of the hands on experience, are doing so during the most deadly plague we've experienced in a while and having the most risk of getting it are now doing this with the sudden absence of their 401k plans?! What fucking CEO-in-Robocop prick came up with this solution? Did he laugh to hookers in chains while wiping at the cocaine ring around his nostrils? What kind of evil shit is this?

This hospital, I should mention, has proudly bragged about how awesome they score on national tests. It's a very effective place. I use it a lot, and it's only let me down twice. I've been here once a month at least every month of this year. In May, I went here a staggering four times in five days. I almost had you beat, October! Damn it! Damn you!

So every time you see all those children's signs on the outside, keep in mind that while those are pretty good, they would much rather have their 401k plans. (Hey, I did this all on morphine. I think I did a fair job.)