It's Showtime

It's time to get my renal stents and angioplasties done, so under the knife I go in the morning. It's a fairly routine procedure that they do all the time in hospitals across the world, so I'm not worried about it. Complications are extremely rare for renal stents, and death only occurs in less than 1% of patients. I don't anticipate anything bad happening at all and fully expect to be at work on Friday after the "recovery" period. I'm honestly not expecting anything out of the ordinary happening.

But just to show how my mind works: I've been singing Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" all night.

So just in case the universe decides to have a little fun and lets me be that one person who gets to be a statistic...it's almost been kinda fun with all you people. In the words of the immortal (literally) Bilbo Baggins: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

Quitter

Today is the 2-year anniversary for me being cigarette free. As my brand of choice was Camel Ultra-Lights (hard pack), at a pack a day, that calculates out to:

14,600 cigarettes I didn’t smoke
$2,190 saved (conservative estimate using $3 per pack)
5,840 mg of nicotine not entering my lungs
73,000 mg of tar not entering my lungs
102,200 mg of carbon monoxide not entering my lungs

Lighting up has become a vague memory at this point and it’s not really something that I think about much anymore. It’s been on my mind more than normal recently as this date has been approaching. And of course all the doctors and nurses at each visit I’ve made ask if I smoke so that’s kept it in my mind a bit more as well.

All of the above being said, I still miss smoking quite a bit. Yes I’m healthier for quitting. Yes it’s a nasty habit and the leading cause of all kinds of statistics. But damn it all was it fantastic! Being able to light up and get a fix any time of the day? More of that please. Before pulling the plug, stick a cigarette in my mouth and fire it up. If that doesn’t bring me out of the coma then I’m a goner and you can safely disconnect the machines.

Smoke ‘em and enjoy ‘em today. Have an extra one for me.

I Want

I want to move to a big city and start a brand new life. I'll meet that special someone and be in a long-term, loving relationship. I'll work in a job that I enjoy and eventually buy an upscale condo in a decent neighborhood, and one day a nice house in the suburbs. Life will be full of happy gatherings and cookouts with our friends, neighbors, and family. We'll take vacations to odd places full of laughter and take oodles of goofy pictures with each other. Life would be fun and I'd be happy.
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I want to live on a farm and grow things in the dirt. I'll have livestock to raise and crops to harvest. I'll wake with the sun and spend the day outside surrounded by the plants and animals I care for. Perhaps I'll eventually find someone who shares my desire for this type of life and we'll spend our weekends at farmer's markets and pick-alongs. There would always be something that needs doing on a farm, but life wouldn't seem pointless, and I'd be happy.
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I want to abandon all sense of stability and modern living and walk the Appalachian Trail. To experience nature and life in a way very few people these days are able to imagine anymore. Spending each day with the only things I truly need packed on my back and with a singular goal in mind: to take one more step. To reach the end and not only feel a sense of great accomplishment, but perhaps to realize more about myself and grow along the way. Nothing about this would be easy, but I'd be happy.

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I want to live a life where I'm not afraid of everything. I want to laugh, to love, and to cry without this suffocating fear of what you think of me constantly keeping me locked away inside myself. I want to find the courage to be the suburbanite, or the farmer, or the thru-hiker if I feel like it. Or even some combination of them all. To be whatever me I want to be.

Then I'll be happy.

Interesting

Came across this today and thought it was interesting. It's from the site National Priorities.org:

Taxpayers in Asheville, North Carolina have paid $101.2 million for the Iraq War thus far. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

21,681 People with Health Care or
80,313 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
2,592 Public Safety Officers or
1,898 Music and Arts Teachers or
20,114 Scholarships for University Students or
8 New Elementary Schools or
958 Affordable Housing Units or
48,280 Children with Health Care or
13,738 Head Start Places for Children or
2,099 Elementary School Teachers or
1,549 Port Container Inspectors

Not that the money actually would have spent on anything as remotely beneficial as the list above, of course.

Lights Out

I think there's something weird in the electrical wiring of my apartment. Either that, or I have a poltergeist with a vendetta against light bulbs. In the four years I've lived there at least 8 table-type lamps have burned out and I've had to replace numerous appliance bulbs (refrigerator, stove light, etc.). Not a simple case of the bulb burning out with the lamps though, we're talking sparks flying, the flash of a short circuit, and that wonderful ozone smell kind of thing. When that happens I toss the lamp since I don't feel particularly safe using it again afterwards.

On Saturday I lost my 3rd pole-type lamp (the cheap ones with the halogen bulbs). I was sitting in the computer room and it started to get noticeably darker. I heard a slight sizzling sound and realized it was yet another lamp in its death throes. Then last night I went into the kitchen and the bulb over the table flashed three times and died. So now I'm down to 2 lamps in the house that work and I'm wary to spend any kind of money on new ones. Maybe I should look into some kind of battery powered lights. The little voice inside wants to take this as some kind of sign. There are too many ways to see this as a "darkness is coming", "my lights are dying out" kind of thing though so I'm purposefully avoiding placing that type of significance on it and going with the faulty wiring angle.

I've had some odd experiences with electricity in my life, so maybe it's me doing all this. Is there a way to have your magnetic field measured?

When my parents were building their house back in the early 80's I had a transformer blow up on me (burned a hole in my shirt and sent me flying backwards a few feet). A few years later a lamp in my bedroom had burned out (sound familiar?) and I was playing with the wiring from it. I spliced the ends, plugged it into the outlet, and like a scene from TV touched the ends of the bare wires together (DO NOT try this at home kids). The flash blinded me for a few seconds, fused the wires together, and kicked the breakers in the house off. Luckily the parents weren't home so I was able to hide the evidence, but it was probably the stupidest and most dangerous thing I've ever done.

New Toy

Behold the awesomeness that is iPod Touch:



It's like I've been awoken from some long boring dream and handed the most wonderful toy ever. My inner geek giggles with delight every time I push one of the virtual buttons. If it came with Star Trek-esque sounds and graphics I think I'd pass out from sheer pleasure.

Tuscan Chicken

This week’s cooking attempt was Tuscan Chicken. I roasted some baby potatoes and had a small salad with it also, and it turned out well. It would have been good over some pasta so I’m going to cook a bit of linguine for the leftovers. At any rate, here’s the recipe I used:

Potatoes: I just threw some stuff together, didn’t really follow a recipe.

1lb baby potatoes
Olive oil
Basil
Thyme
Oregano

Place the potatoes in a roasting pan. Mix the spices in the olive oil and pour over the potatoes. Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Tuscan Chicken: I took the majority of the recipe from a cookbook, but changed a few things to keep it low-sodium and according to what ingredients I had on-hand.

1 teaspoon olive oil
6 skinless chicken breasts, cut into small chunks
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 red bell peppers, seeded and sliced
1 garlic clove (I put in 3-4 cloves, I love garlic)
1 ½ cups tomato sauce (I used 1 can of diced tomatoes [no sodium added])
½ cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon oregano
14 oz can navy or white beans (I used pinto beans I froze from a previous Sunday Dinner)
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste (I left out the salt)

Add the oil to a non-stick pan and fry the chicken until done. (It doesn’t have to be completely cooked, just get it most of the way there). Remove the chicken and set aside. Add the onion and peppers to the pan and cook until soft (don’t brown them).

Add the chicken back to the pan and put in the garlic, tomatoes, wine, oregano, salt & pepper and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and simmer for 30-35 minutes (until the chicken is tender and doesn’t run pink when punctured). Stir in the beans and simmer 5 more minutes.

Transfer to an oven safe dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and broil until golden brown. (I skipped this part and it turned out rather well despite the bread crumbs).

Chef T

I didn't really feel like doing something involved for my meal this week so I went with Honey and Orange Glazed Chicken, with baked potatoes and a Caesar Salad. I had everything for it already except for the orange and orange juice so it ended up being a pretty cheap meal too, which is always a good thing. No pics yet since it's still in the oven cooking, but making the glaze for it beforehand smelled awfully tasty so I'm hoping it turns out well.

Got an angel food cake for dessert (with strawberries). I've heard their pretty simple to make so I may try to bake one of those in the coming weeks.

Random

Yet another slow week. My emotional state has been happy at times and depressed with life at others (and pretty much everything in between too), so while dull the week's at least been kind of interesting from that perspective. To be happy and content with your life in the morning and then be depressed about how your life is a complete failure and happiness is an illusion by nightfall gets a bit tedious every day though. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
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Shelbster seems to be feeling better. Her appetite is way up but her water intake is back to normal. She feels like she's loosing weight though; I can feel her spine in a few places and the skin around her back legs looks a little loose. Her energy levels are good though and she acts happy, so I'm not too worried about her overall.
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Saw my first daffodil of the year yesterday as I was leaving work. It's in a junky little parking lot near the lot at work, but it's still a pretty sight to see. Especially since it's rainy and cold today.

Sunday Dinner

Making a huge meal for dinner (lunch) on Sundays was always a tradition in my family when I was growing up. Granny would start cooking early in the morning and by the time church was out there wasn't a spot on any counter top or table that didn't have some kind of food on it. And we're talking real food too, all of it made from scratch...fried chicken, corn bread, beans, biscuits, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cakes, pies, and wonderfully over-sweetened iced tea (with saccharin!) to wash it all down.

And the people came. At least a dozen or more every Sunday. When you have as large a family as we had it's hard not to draw a crowd when everyone knew Granny was in the kitchen (dad has 4 sisters & 3 brothers, mom has 7 sisters). Imagine being 5-8 years old, having a half dozen or more cousins your age around every weekend, and all of you being hopped up on sugar and greasy food and then let loose in a yard surrounded by woods and pastures. It was heaven.

Of course things change, families grow up and drift apart, and those afternoons of running and playing for hours on end get filed away as fond memories. But there's always been something about having a big meal on Sundays that's stuck with me. I love to cook, but being single and living alone makes cooking a real meal for 1 person something of a bother at times. So odds are when I do cook something substantial it's usually going to happen on Sunday. That gives me leftovers for most of the work week, I have all day to cook it, and it lets me flashback to the days spent in Granny's kitchen eating all that wonderful food.

Last week was Chicken Tetrazzini from a recipe I found at the Food Network's site (here's a pic). This week I decided to get back to my roots and made a big pot of pinto beans, baked some corn bread (from scratch), and had some boiled cabbage. I found some uncured bacon that had no added nitrates or nitrites and about half the sodium of regular bacon, so I used that to season both the beans and the cabbage.

Very tasty.

Home?

I have now lived in Asheville longer than I've ever lived anywhere else in my life. I moved here at the end of February, 2000 so that puts me at 8 years now in the "Land of the Sky". Eight years seems like a long time to be in one place for me, but I know people who have lived in the same area their entire lives so like everything else, it's all relative.

Stevenson, Alabama: 6 years
Maumee, Ohio: 4 years
George Hildebran, North Carolina: 8 years
Raleigh, North Carolina: 7 years
Boone, North Carolina: 5 years
Asheville, North Carolina: 8 years and counting

I like it here and don't particularly want to go anywhere else but I've never stayed in one place longer than this and I'm feeling a bit trapped. My life so far has been one move after another; settling into a place for a while but eventually packing everything up and moving on to the next place.

Is it time for me to stop and try to build a life here, or do I do the gypsy thing and start over again somewhere else?

Run Away!

I've been thinking about my current medical stuff quite a bit, and there's a part of me that wants to run away from it all. I feel like buying a carton of cigarettes and lighting up again, living off the saltiest, fat-filled foods I can find, and washing everything down with remarkably obscene amounts of Mountain Dew & alcohol. Forget about taking meds and altering my diet and exercise habits to be healthy, I want to be young and stupid again.

I'm not going to do any of that of course. It's time to "be an adult", "eat responsibly", "take care of myself", etc. All the cliché bullshit you hear from everyone else who has been forced to grow up, get old, and eat food that's good for you.

Granted I'm only in week three of my old age, but it hasn't really been that bad so far. The low-sodium, low-fat, no caffeine diet isn't as flavorless and boring as I'd been anticipating. Plus when I do allow myself to eat something bad, it feels like even more of a treat now than it used to be.

$18,776

That's the amount of the bill I received in the mail on Friday for my 2-night stay in the hospital the week before. Almost $1,000 of that was for drugs alone. Thankfully everything was billed directly to insurance so the hospital isn't expecting a payment from me. Hopefully the insurance company will be polite and helpful about it and not dispute any of the charges. I was actually expecting the bill to be bigger, but then the tests they performed weren't itemized on the bill so I may be receiving the charges for those later.

I've been looking for a new career path; maybe I should consider something in health care. Apart from the money factor, it might make me feel good and give me a confidence boost by helping people. Something to mull over.

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Shelbster's blood test on Thursday came back and her glucose levels were closer to normal, so we're sticking at this new insulin dosage for a bit. Her increased water intake is most likely a result of the Cushing's making her think she's thirsty all the time. The vet compared it to having cotton-mouth or a dry throat almost constantly. She isn't dehydrated and doesn't need all the water she's drinking, her mind just thinks she does. So I'm cutting back on the amount of water I leave out for her when I'm not there. I hate the thought of her sitting there thinking she's thirsty all the time, but that's better for her than drinking and outputting almost 2 gallons of water a day and giving her a bladder infection.

Out of Character

I did some things completely out of character for myself today. Nothing big or anything, just a series of small things. They weren't anything that I planned to do either.

I started a conversation with someone at work that I hadn't really talked to before, completely at random. We kept the conversation alive for quite a while, and I was truly interested in it and the person. And I learned some cool things about them on a personal level that I otherwise wouldn't know.

Even though I did find myself getting a touch upset with the driving habits of some of the dumb ass mutha... friendly drivers around me at times, I calmed my anger immediately and kept it in check. I even listened to music instead of having the radio turned off like usual.

I used a cart at the grocery store and took my time, instead of rushing mindlessly through the store with a handheld basket. Then instead of the self-checkout line like usual (so I don't have to talk to anyone), I went through a normal line and chatted with the clerk while I bagged my own groceries so she wouldn't have to.

I also smiled a lot and was in a fairly good mood all day. I even talked to the neighbor's kid for a bit as I was bringing groceries inside. He looks to be around 12 or 13 and gave me a thoughtful look before going inside and said "You know, you're kinda cool." (I've received this reaction from my nephews as well and I think it's because I find it easy to talk to kids. I try to speak to them like adults instead of children and it takes them by surprise at times.)

Slow

Haven't really been doing much the last few days beyond working and lying around the house trying to take it easy. Everything's going fine, just dull and boring while I try to get through the week of healing after the cath thing. I can't lift more than a few pounds or be very domestic since I'm not supposed to bend or put undue stress on my hip, so no sweeping, vacuuming, taking out the trash, etc. Pity, that.

Shelbster's still drinking a lot more than she should be so the increase in insulin doesn't seem to be helping her much. I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow afternoon to check her glucose levels; maybe the doc will know more then and be able to get things as much under control as we're able at this point.

Hospital Time

As predicted, the cardiologist appointment on Thursday went a bit worse than the urologist visit. They noticed some irregularities in my EKG and blood flow sounds, and given my history with Takayasu's, they decided I needed some more in-depth testing. And boy howdy, do I mean in-depth. I was taken by ambulance (prone and strapped down on the gurney, with the oxygen thing in my nose and everything) directly from the cardiologist's office to the hospital. They didn't want to cause more stress on my heart by letting me drive.

They did a CAT scan later that afternoon and found out that my aorta was enlarged and calcified. In the words of the cardiac surgeon I "have the aorta of an 80-year old man", which is never something you really want to hear, unless of course you're 90 or older. They're worried about the aorta continuing to enlarge but think the calification may actually help in that it'll keep it from getting much bigger. It's a concern, but since there is still decent blood flow through it, it isn't something to worry about immediately. I'm scheduled for follow up visits so they can keep an eye on it and see if it gets any worse. If it does my only course of action would be to replace the vessel. Fun, fun.

But it doesn't end there. They also did a cardiac catheterization the following day to check the blood flow in the arteries feeding my heart. It involves inserting a catheter into an artery in the leg and feeding it up through the body until it gets to the heart, then injecting dye and watching how the blood flows. The good news is they didn't find anything wrong with them whatsoever, they termed them "pristine". The bad news is that blood flow to my left kidney is 90% blocked. They checked the kidneys on their way since I'd had problems with them as a child and the catheter went right by the renal arteries as they were feeding it up my body. They're not very concerned about it for the moment but I'll be following up with a renal specialist to discuss possible angioplasty and inserting a stent to open up the artery. Which can all be done on an outpatient basis somehow. Medicine's come a long way in the last 20 years.

I was finally able to leave the hospital on Saturday and come home. They've started me on some beta-blockers for my blood pressure and heart rate and I have several follow-up visits to schedule over the next few months.

Overall I feel pretty good about the situation, considering everything that happened and that will need to happen in the future. It was a bit scary being wheeled out on a stretcher in an ambulance, and then all the waiting for the tests to be done and results to come back was a little unnerving as well. But having my parents and sister come up to keep me company, and knowing that The Shelbster was safe and well cared for by Greg helped keep me from getting too stressed out about it all.

One Down

Well the urologist confirmed that it's "only" a hydrocele. As long as it's not causing any pain or isn't too uncomfortable then my best course of action is to do nothing and it will more than likely go away on its own. 'Course if it gets worse then surgery may be needed, but I choose not to dwell on that right now.

I have a feeling that the cardiologist appointment tomorrow won't go quite as smoothly. A blood pressure reading of 191/101 is usually a sign that something is amiss.

Medic!

A bit of history...I spent a large majority of my junior high school years (7th, 8th, and 9th grades) being shuffled between doctors and hospitals. I was eventually diagnosed with Takayasu's Arteritis (or Takayasu's Disease) and placed on several medications for it and the other problems that cropped up because of it. As the condition causes a narrowing of the arteries, the worst thing that happened was having to have two renal angioplasties performed on my kidneys. That's where they go into the blood vessel with a balloon and inflate the part that is narrower than it should be. I was fortunate enough to have the first of those performed by none other than Dr. Andreas Grüntzig, the doctor who originally invented the procedure (he died in a tragic plane crash a few years later in 1985). I have one of the classic symptoms of the condition in my left arm, termed “pulselessness” because the artery in that arm has narrowed to the point of virtual non-existence, causing me not to have a pulse in my left wrist. It's smaller & quite a bit weaker than my right arm, and tires easily because of the reduced blood flow.

When I started college 5-6 years later, the condition was under control and had gone into an “inactive” state. By this point I was extremely tired of taking drugs every day and dealing with their side effects. I had spent my entire teenage life taking medications & seeing doctors, watching my diet closely (low sodium diet from high blood pressure), and not being able to do anything remotely akin to the level of physical activity enjoyed by my peers ("no prolonged aerobic or anaerobic activity" was the official proclamation from my cardiologist...i.e. no running, playing, hiking, or sports of any kind for fear of a heart attack, stroke, or worse).

I was barely 20 years old but felt like I was an old man; taking a gamut of drugs every morning and having some long-term side effects starting to creep up, especially from the prednisone. So I took myself off medication and decided to let things play out however they would. If the condition came back and things started to get worse, then I'd be old and hopefully be ready to live a medicated, highly structured life by then. Above all I wanted to experience a life without all that worry and stress.

And for the last 20 years I've done it. I've lived the way I wanted to live: free from doctors and thoughts of thickening arteries, free from the routine of daily medications, free from as much responsibility as I could possibly muster. I've drank. I've smoked. I've lived with no regard to my health whatsoever. And it's been glorious. I got to be "normal" for a while and not worry about rare diseases and drug interactions.

But I'm afraid it may be about time to pay the piper. I've been having pretty steady chest pains for the last couple of weeks. It's not a stabbing type of pain but more like a squeezing or pressure in the left side of my chest. I've also developed what may or may not be a hydrocele. So for the first time in two decades, I went to see a doctor last week. Three ultrasounds later, I'm scheduled to see a urologist tomorrow to rule out testicular cancer and a cardiologist on Thursday for an echocardiogram and a more in-depth cardiovascular exam.

And I'm cool with everything. I knew this was coming and I'd have to face it again if I survived off meds long enough. I'm ready to be that "old man" that I thought I was becoming back then. And I wouldn't change the last 20 years for anything. I made the right decision for me then, and I'd do it again given the chance.

Cable

I didn't really think it was possible for me to get lazier, but this past week I've impressed myself with an almost supernatural burst of sloth. It all started last weekend when I called the cable company and added HBO/Cinemax/Starz to my TV lineup. I'd been debating doing it for a few weeks now and decided to finally take the plunge Saturday evening.

It was part of a 6-month "package deal" that gives me faster internet speeds and HBO/Cinemax/Starz for almost the exact same price I'm paying now for just cable and internet. I know it's a way for them to try to boost revenue...they're hoping I will either forget when the 6 months is over (when it reverts to normal pricing) or that I'll get hooked on the movies and be willing to pay the $60 or so extra a month by then. But by the time the offer ends in June/July, I'm hoping to be well on my way towards my next goal and won't need as much TV time in my life.

All that being said, giving myself movie channels right now is like dangling a cigarette in front of a smoker on his third day being "smoke free". I've had movie channels before, but I'd forgotten how nice it is to have large chunks of time-wasting potential like that at my fingertips 24 hours a day. I've managed to get a bit of reading in and taken care of the annoying, menial duties that have to be done (dishes, laundry, going to work, etc.), but otherwise I've been beached on the couch watching movie after movie. And if that's not bad enough, all the movies I've watched so far are ones that I've seen before (some of them twice, some thrice, and others I know well enough to follow the dialogue with the actors).

I'm not sure what I'll do if they show something I haven't seen before.

Review

Finished up "Merle's Door" last night. I didn't know anything about the book other than the cover pictures and from reading the jacket notes, so I wasn't really sure what kind of book to expect. I read this one differently than I usually do other books; instead of immersing myself completely and spending all of my time reading, I took my time with it. I read a chapter or two here and there, or in 15-20 minute blocks. I think doing it differently helped give me a different perspective on the book and it seemed to be the best way for me to absorb it.

I liked the book quite a bit, and I can safely say that this is the first Canine Biography I've ever read. I'm sure Shelbe being near the end of her time helped the story to resonate with me a bit more than it might for people who have never had a dog be a big part of their lives.

I've decided to put the Stephen Donaldson book ("The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant") on hold for a bit. I've read the first 80 pages or so, and like it so far, but I don't think I'm ready to commit myself to reading it right now. When I read a book like this, I have to let myself fall into the book's world. In order to get what I want to from it, I try to experience everything from the perspective of an invisible observer inside the book's universe. I visualize myself as an unseen character that follows alongside the main characters so I can feel and try to understand what they're going through. And I'm not in the right place to do that right now. Maybe next week.