Wonderduck's Pond

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 (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 598 words, total size 4 kb.

1 I feel like I should take up playing Arknights entirely for the purpose of supporting their soundtrack efforts. (Unlike a lot of other mobile games I take up entirely for the purpose of enjoying the eyecandy, I suppose.)

Posted by: GreyDuck at October 31, 2022 08:13 AM (twFTQ)

2 For what it's worth, theres plenty of eye candy too. The art is actually amazingly good, the artists for game assets have a sense of humor and whimsy I've not seen in other games, and now there's even an anime running that's basically going to be the prologue chapters of the game (ch0 - 03) by the time it's over. I've been giving serious thought to signing up with Crunchyroll to watch it and all the other shows I've missed lately.
Just the other day, there was a two hour concert streamed by Yostar of nothing but music and art and animation for the game. It's not available on yootoob yet, though

Posted by: Wonderduck at October 31, 2022 09:36 AM (DB9Lx)

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