October 30, 2022

Medical Shenanigans

I'm sure you all remember me whining about my reaction to the anesthetic when the Doc used a laser to play "Death Star and Alderaan" with a kidneystone last month.


It happened again. Early last week was the second procedure. This time to remove a stent that had been in my kidney area for 18 months instead of the eight weeks originally planned. See, the idea was that they'd pull it out after I got back from therapy.

Oops.

Last month when he tried to remove it, nothing happened. I got the distinct impression that maybe he could have yanked on it like starting a lawnmower...

As it turned out, the medical transportation unit... an off-duty pair of EMTs in an ambulance... took me to the wrong hospital.  Don't get me wrong, it was the right hospital, just not the one I expected. Instead of going to Tony's Body Shop, just a few minutes away from my current "abode", we wound up going to Stockholm Pancakes and Surgery, a few more minutes away in the other direction.

In the cold light of hindsight, I was never TOLD we were going to Tony's, I just assumed. Functionally there was little difference: the ambulance bay was just an overhang with thin walls ad opposed to the enclosed and protected one I was used to seeing. The hallways were laid out better... organized as opposed to organic. And the ceiling tiles were just plain white squares, no texture, no whorls, nothing. They could have been made from drywall, titanium, or carbon fiber and there'd be no way to tell. Boring.

The anesthesiologist took pity on me, the kinda 54-year old terrified child, and gave me a dose of sedative before I was scurried to the Room o' Knives and Lights. He added that I may not even remember leaving the waiting room.

I did. I remember there was a looping gift of a cartoon vampire on one part of the big screen on the wall... late October, yo. I remember being told that everything will be fine. I remember the anesthesiologist holding a mask over my nose and mouth, saying "breathe deep", then two deep breaths. 

Then I woke up in the recovery room, with a nurse that looked like a cross between the leader of a biker gang and a guitarist from ZZTop. Talked a lot of last-century football... Walter Payton was King... and politics. Or, at least, he talked politics, I was still drooling on myself. Which is basically how I talk politics anyway.

Some hours later, I was bundled back onto the medical transport... the same two EMTs, as it turned out... and brought back here. 12 hours later the retching started.  The good news was that there was no blood this time. By the time I passed out from pure exhaustion, I had been awake for three days straight (minus the surgery nap). On the plus side, when I woke up, I wasn't yakking anymore.  The catheter was pulled out that evening too.

So the surgery was a success. They got the old stent out, put a replacement in, and reported a 10mm kidneystone that the ultrasound bugzapper couldn't break up. So one more procedure lurks in my future. 

Dammit.

Right. You've been kind enough to read this far, so it's time for more songs from Arknights, which you could easily mistake for a record label.


People apparently disliked this track, the menu music for the "Maria Nearl" event. Which just goes to show that gamers don't know a good thing when they've got it.




Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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October 17, 2022

Changes

Pond Central is no more.


The DuckMobile was junked.

And I'm not feeling so good myself.
---------'

Thanks to Ph.Duck's efforts, nothing was left behind in the apartment. The well-timed appearance of Vaucaunson's Duck and his younger brother was all that was needed to get the furniture out and into the dumpster.  Except for the dining room table, which was a transplant from the kitchen of the Old Home Pond. Vauc's brother, who just moved into a new home himself, took possession of it, meaning it "stayed in the family " so to speak.

The coffee table, a lovely little thing Ph.Duck gave me some years ago, also went with Vauc's brother. Good call; it was probably the second-best bit of furniture I had. The computer desk, which was the best, is in storage. Total win, I was expecting to lose it. Vauc's brother also took the one truly odd thing: the top of my old coffee table... a seven-foot long, inch-thick piece of clear plexiglass. I held onto it, mainly because it was much too awkward to get to the dumpster alone, but also because... well, someone somewhere must have a use for something like that, right? 

He doesn't know what he's going to do with it either... but if he comes up with something, hrs got it.

All the military history books, all the manga, all the ducks, and all the anime figures: boxed and squirreled away in the basement of the Old Home Pond. I can't believe it really... Ph.Duck went far above what I was hoping for, and I can't thank him enough.

So that's it. Moved in January 15, 2001, moved out 21 years, 8 months and 16 days later.

Now if I ever get out of this nightmare, I don't have a place of my own to come back to. But I'll be able to walk, so I'll have that.

Which is nice.

From a time when the future was bright. Even now that synth-bass is enough to cause a flutter in my mind. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:43 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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