I know that the travails of a loser such as myself can be monotonous at times for one to read about, especially seeing as how the writing I’ve recently done was little more than me pandering for your vote so I can win the humorous blog of the year award at the Okie Blog awards. This is the only award I’ve been nominated for so feel free to vote. There I go pandering again. I feel like a Republican at an NAACP meeting.
Now I know that if you’ve taken the time to read this you deserve better than a thinly veiled plea for self validation. Heck, even I would want to read something better if I were reading this. I guess I could make up a great story about how I recently met my soul mate after striking up a conversation with her after seeing her at Barnes & Noble and noticing that she was listening to Ben Folds on her iPod while reading Chuck Klosterman’s latest. Ok, so that wouldn’t be all that great of a story for you to read about, but as far as my imagination goes right now, that’s all the fantastic scenario I can muster right now. Why the lack of quality concerning my imagination? I had surgery again this past Friday. That makes three surgeries in one month.
I was diagnosed as having a pretty severe staph infection about a month ago. They don’t know why I have it. The mysterious staph was found to be the cause of my first and second surgeries, which were exactly one week apart. I had an abscess on the back of each of my legs. I was beginning to heal and thought everything was fine until this past Thursday. I went to the doctor and he informed me that the area of the first wound was not healing right so he wanted to go in and do another surgery to remedy the problem. And so began another great surgery story.
I was told by the nurse to show up the next day for the procedure. I asked if it was the same thing and she said it was. I thought that meant I was to show up at the same place. This was not the case. I got to the hospital at seven a.m. with my mom in tow. I felt bad that she had to get up that early, but I’m good at feeling guilty about things I need not feel guilty about. When I went to the admission desk the woman said that I wasn’t scheduled but that they would add me since I’d been there twice already. I went back to the outpatient surgery area and changed into the hospital gown, or as I call it, the gown of the damned.
I laid in the bed half asleep as it was so early, waiting to have an IV put in. The nurse walked in and was looking for a vein and before she proceeded she verified my name. She then said “So you’re here for a colonoscopy?” That woke me up. I told her that I was definitely NOT there for the rectum-rooter. I didn’t use those words but I thought it was funny just now so you’re welcome. She left the room and made a phone call to my doctor. She found out that I was at the wrong place. They rescheduled my surgery for later that afternoon at the correct location.
I was not too pleased but a rescheduled surgery beats a colonoscopy, hands down. So I came back home, took a nap and woke up a few hours later and headed back to the correct location. When I arrived, they made me disrobe and put on the gown of the damned again. This gown was different though. This time the gown was purple and I had to put on socks that resembled baby booties that had little bear paw prints on them, which were also purple. To top off this wonderful ensemble was a hair net.
So here I was dressed like a women’s prison cafeteria worker waiting, again, to get an IV put in. They brought my mom back from the waiting room and she said she wished she had a camera. That’s when I thought about the posterity aspect that all cameras offer. Because my thought process is odd at best, I realized that as I was about to go into surgery that there was the possibility, as many people before me have come to find out the hard way, that I may not come out alive. That’s a gloomy prospect especially seeing as how there was a chance I would be ushered into the afterlife wearing a purple cloth robe and socks one might find in a seven year old girl’s wardrobe. Thank God my mom didn’t have a camera, if for nothing more than that if she did have one and I did die, the last picture of me would be one of the saddest things ever. Not because it would be the last picture of me alive, but because I was dressed like the poorest transvestite ever. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how a poor transvestite might dress.
As my mom and I sat there waiting for the surgeon to arrive, we overheard a conversation that doesn’t illicit confidence in one’s abilities in their field of expertise. We heard two nurses discussing the best way to put medicine in an IV. One of them said that she was sure it was two parts of one and one part of another. The other nurse said “Well I’m really not sure. I’m not one of those ‘read directions’ type of people.” And the first nurse replied with “Yeah, I know what you mean.” This freaked me out a bit. I mean this isn’t the type of conversation you want to hear at a restaurant before eating a meal, let alone right before surgery. At a restaurant the worst case scenario is that your food may taste odd. If someone gets their directions mixed up before surgery and pumps some crazy medicinal concoction into my veins, that probably would annoy me a little more than a bad meal might.
The surgeon showed up and did the procedure and I went home. I wish that I could go into more detail about those hours but it really is all a blur. What I didn’t know was that to make sure the wound healed right, and to make sure the tissue wouldn’t get infected, they cut a perfect circle about two inches in diameter and about a centimeter deep. It really is painful and unpleasant.
As a result of this latest in a series of operations, I was unable to go to the Flaming Lips show Friday night. I was so looking forward to seeing that show and I really can’t put into many more words how truly upset I was that I couldn’t go. On top of not being able to go see one of my favorite bands, a friend of mine called me on Friday with some news that made not going to see the show even worse. I hadn’t talked to him in a while so he really had no idea what was going on with me, medically speaking. He asked me excitedly “Are you ready for tonight?!” I told him I had to tell him something. Again he said “No man I’VE got news for you about the show!” I said ok and asked what it was. Because my friend has strong ties to the band, he had gotten me an all access back stage pass to the show. He was thrilled about it. This compounded my disappointment and made me want to jump out of a window. I told him I couldn’t make it. He knew how disappointed I was. He said he would try to get me a signed something or other. I hope he did. That would be cool.
If a lot of this seems meandering, keep in mind I’m doped out of mind on pain pills right now. It’s the only way I can possibly sit for more than ten minutes and not be in excruciating pain.
So this is how I am spending my days now. Having to nurse a wound the size of Montana because of a mystery infection that no one is sure how I got. It’s not all bad though. I have been watching a lot of Three’s Company and recently read two Chuck Klosterman books. I will probably get his latest within the next couple of weeks when I’m able to drive again. Hopefully nothing else happens.
I have decided that I have good luck at really bad things. That’s a positive spin right?
RIGHT NOW
SONG - Let Me Talk to You Prelude / My Love by Justin Timberlake. I’ll blame this on my Lortab intake and not my sometimes questionable taste in music.
MOVIE - The Empire Strikes Back. If I have to explain that, then I’m sorry you’re not a dork like me.
BOOK - Killing Yourself to Live : 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman. I picked this book up a couple of days ago and have already finished it. That’s good for me especially since there weren’t any pictures in it. Just a side note as a testament to the self imposed idiocy that rules my life. I picked this book up right before I went to have surgery at the Border’s on NW Expressway. The girl behind the counter asked if I was a fan of Klosterman and I told her I was. She said she was too and told me about his newest book. I actually think she was kind of flirting with me. Because I was an hour from having surgery and my mom was standing at the door waiting for me, I had all the conversational pimpitude of, well, myself on any other day of the week. She was quite cute and if she reads Klosterman that’s awesome. The fact she can read means she has way more going for her then the last girl I dated. And that’s the beginning and end of that relationship. I need to nurture relationships that last longer than a commercial transaction. She was really cute. Oh well.
FAKE THANKS - I would like to thank everyone for all the cards I’ve received! Thanks people! No. Really.
Holla.
- Joel