The Geek's Meow

Beetlejuce…

So I went on an actual vacation.

Like, not where work sends me somewhere, or I go to visit family (in laws or otherwise) but a totally not for anything but me and my people vacation.

I am overwhelmed.

Actually, blech, I hate oysters.

But the world is a fantastic place to eat and explore!  As an example, I sit here drinking a “pokpok som” soda, which is a vinegar based soft drink.  Yes, make that face.  I did, too!

http://pokpoksom.com/

And when you’re done being disgusted, and ready to taste the world experience… I prefer the ginger one myself.  So… that might be because my only options so far have been ginger or grapefruit – and grapefruit is both disgusting and contraindicated with my medicines.  But still, ginger vinegar soda is strangely tart, sweet, tangy, and just downright delicious.  I want to make cocktails with it!  It’s bottled in Portland, Oregon with it’s roots in Thailand – a bit of the globe in a bottle.

Speaking of the world, later this week I leave for Chicago!  I have never been that far east (unless you count the Far East, where you fly west from California to get there) and I’m thrilled.  The food alone… I have heard legends of Chicago deep dish pizza and I long to taste the real thing, not to mention the host of dining experiences I hope to sample in my four days.  Architecture, exploration, and… did I mention food?

I honestly believe I could eat my way around the world and then want to do it again.  So much of a culture can be expressed in their dining, which leads me to look forward to the wonders the world has to put on a plate for me.  I’m a bit of a picky eater, and I still want to try new things.

But I still hate oysters.

So our Merch team here at work is launching a board game.

At first we were worried it wouldn’t do well, but when the board game community got their hands on it, they went wild.  Even people that have no interest in our video game were super excited about this board game.

It was polished, it was professional, it was fun.  We took the board gamers feedback to even make it MORE fun!  So we knew it was going to be popular.

The game is called “Mechs vs Minions”… but somehow I kept saying “Mechs vs Merch”.  I’ve been doing this for almost a month.  Today our store servers could not keep up with the release demand in the slightest, making my repeated slip into foreshadowing… it really was MvM vs Merch!

Oops.

(I’m pretty sure the Merch team wouldn’t find this as funny as I do… I will make sure they have time to mock me later when they are less busy.)

So I’m in a version of Radiology, but it’s the surgical branch rather than the basic imaging I’m used to.

They tuck me into a little cubby and I chat with one of the techs.  Yeah, we have to identify that I am the right patient, go through some medical questions.  But we’re also talking casually.  She has a bit of song stuck in her head so she keeps humming or singing “I should have brought you flowers, something something something…” and I join in or provide the next words since I remember the song just a little bit better than she does.  She reminds me that I will be awake for this, like it’s a good thing, and I joke-ask if they can knock me out anyway (but of course I’m not really joking).  Not an option, which I already knew.

Just before I was transported the TV my roommate had on blared a commercial for law suits against IVC filters.  I try to find humor in that, since that’s what I’m in for.

I’m texting my husband, letting him know I’m about to go into surgery so he can get on the road to the hospital and get there after I get out, instead of waiting around in my empty hospital room.  I don’t know he’s already on the road and not far from the hospital because he wants to be there when I get out.

I also joke with the guy who tries to tuck all my hair into a cap and clearly has no idea what he’s doing.  Eventually I wind up doing it myself, and teach him a trick of twisting it first.  He tells a story about how his daughter stopped letting him do her hair when she was four years old because he’s so bad at it- now she’s a teenager.  We all laugh.

Yes, I’m in some significant pain – they had to lay me back further to transport me – I will later realize it’s because the guy doing transport was a little on the shorter side and needed to be able to see over my head.  But he was good at warning me of bumps, keeping it smooth, and “parallel parking” me perfectly in the elevator.  So I’m trying to keep my mind off the pain, and everyone around me is helping.

Eventually it’s time to move into the operating/imaging room.  They talk about trying to lay me back, then move me over on a sheet, then try to remove the sheet.  I decide that since it’s going to hurt like the dickens if they try to roll me (which is part of the plan to get the sheet under me) and I already had near-blackout levels of pain from rolling onto my side earlier in the day, with their consent I will slide myself over onto the table.  So we flatten and lower my bed so it’s even with the table.  I take a deep breath… okay that’s a lie.  I am in too much pain to breathe normally, so I take a shallow gasp and slide myself over as quickly as I can, without too much whimpering, for which I am lauded by the techs present.

Then I’m on the table.  No pillow, just a flat lightly padded surface.  And I have to lay down, which is the most painful thing you can ask of me through this.  But I have to be flat on my back for them to work, so I am flat, and unable to to breathe deeply, so I am trying to avoid hyperventilating while I whimper.  My oxygen tube is switched to a mask to ensure I get as much O2 as possible, I am asked if I am claustrophobic because the mask can make people freak out.  Nope, so mask is put on, I am laying flat…

And at that moment I become The Patient.  I am an animate object.

They get me to turn my head, but the tone of instructions has changed.  Nobody is asking anything.  It’s not even delivered with the warmth you would use when commanding an animal, it’s just a statement of what needs to be.  Sure, they are still speaking out loud what is going to happen and what I need to do.  I sheet is draped over me, with a hole over the right side of my neck so they can access my vein.  Then there is almost no speaking to me happening.  Jargon gets turned on.  Warning of the cold temperature of the iodine so I don’t react.  I am trying my hardest to be still as the pain in my side makes me shake.  No acknowledgement.

Lots of babble, tones get tense at one point and I don’t know if things are going well or badly.

“You’re going to feel pressure.”  Nope.  But no warning about the hot feel of my own blood on my neck.  So I lie to myself and say in my head; How thoughtful, they warmed up the iodine.  Because I know it’s blood and I don’t want to know that, so I lie hard.  And it works.  Warm iodine.  Spilling down the side of my throat, they are working with my vein after all.  “There’s going to be a lot of pressure.”  Still nope.  Still jargon and technical terms fly around.

I am still shuddering slightly with pain, not from their work but from my side, laying down  flat is agony.  I am almost constantly whimpering.  A cold voice comes out from a speaker telling me when to “Inhale… hold the breath,” oh how it hurts – and then “Exhale and stay still, don’t breathe in again.  Okay, breathe.”  I know this means they’re all out of the room for the imaging, but I can’t see, they’re doing imaging which means we’re close to the end?  Maybe?

No info, of course – I am not a person but a thing to work on.  I am a task.

More touching of the skin through the hole in the sheet, I guess people are back?  Finally the ripping sound of medical tape.  A something is put over the hole in my throat – I will later discover it’s a cotton ball taped in place.  Finally the sheet is removed and we get to reverse the process of moving me back to my bed.  I’m allowed to sit up after I get back over there.  As comfortable as I can be.  A quick “All done,” is issued, in as warm a tone as they can manage.  A warning that they will need to change my gown when I get back because of the blood on it.

But it’s not 100% back to a person.  Once I have been an animate object, it’s a little hard for everyone to shake that.  Yes, they’re talking to me again, but the tone is still a little distant.  When I’m waiting for transport for the next half hour or so, nobody really chats with me, I’m left alone with my phone (so glad I brought my phone on the nurse’s advice back in my room) with the occasional comment about me and when Transport is going to arrive.  The receptionist is busy, but will quip with me a bit back and forth when he has time.  The people who were in that room, however… it’s more challenging for them.  It’s easier to talk to the receptionist about me, but it’s not natural for them to talk directly to me except as needed.  Luckily they are mostly busy getting ready for the next case – maybe that’s it?  They’re just too busy?

The next friendly face is the Transport team member, and while he’s not as smooth as the first guy, I get a little bumped, he’s also taller so I can stay in my preferred position.  Back in the rest of the hospital, it’s normal bedside manner again.  Warm, sympathetic, small smiles.  To them I was never a subject to be worked on.

Suddenly I am a person to everyone again.  I am alive and getting well.

Notebooks.  Journals.  Sketchbooks.  Moleskines.

I love them.  Something about the cool outside designs, and the unlimited possibility, gets me excited, so over my life I have taken to collecting blank books.

Note that I didn’t say using, or writing in blank books, just collecting them.  Sure, I’ve tried to keep a personal journal a time or two.  It trickles off badly, and inevitably I find it a few years later, try to read past-me with disgust, and either remove the used pages or throw the whole thing out.

So now almost all of my blank books stay blank.

Big, small.  Colorful, monochrome.  Lined, unlined.  Fancy, simple.  Every one has a draw, a world of potential.

Most of them stay blank, as I’ve said.  But there have been two exceptions that I am still trying to use.  One is older – it’s my Tardis blue box book (like the one River Song has) with false distressing.  I tried to turn this one into a collection of quotes and tidbits of interests and tiny pieces of me, without letting it be a classic “daily journal”.  It’s mostly unused, but there are a few things in there that I can turn to when I need a pick-up.  But I think I may return to it, someday.  And it doesn’t have to be a daily thing, so that’s okay.  It can go years until something moves me to record it.  That freedom takes much of the pressure off me.  That lack of pressure makes it valuable enough to keep, instead of getting embarrassed and tearing out the old pages.

The other is one of the journals I acquired at work.  It has my company logo, but more importantly it has an elastic band to keep it shut, which works as a place to attach a pen.  This I have used to track my meds since I got out of the hospital, as well as my pain levels and notes about my health that I’m afraid I won’t retain later.  Mostly, a list of taken medicine.  The front has important info like my name, my emergency contact, my blood thinner, my insurance ID, etc.  This stays with me at all times, in case of emergency and I can’t communicate. So now I have a traveling record of what I’m on, what is wrong with me, and a helper to let me know when I last took a pain killer or a med in case I can’t keep track, which was common during those first high-pain days.  It may not have a lot of value as I recover, but it was so critical to me that I want to keep it up and use it to track that recovery all the way.

A blank book is a world of potential, but a record in that book is a life documented.  Sometimes it’s the boring aspects of life, like my meds.  Other times it’s the tidbits that make me who I am.  My journals are on the far ends of the spectrum – one clinical and methodical, one creative and non-sequitur, and I think I like it that way.

It’s October 1st.  Clearly not anywhere close to Christmas/Winter Holiday time yet.

I get why craft stores have Christmas stuff out – for those who are particularly crafty they often have to start or projects early.  So growing up I never questioned fabric stores and the like about it.  That’s where I draw the line, however.

Elsewhere?  Malls and department stores and groceries? Really?  Wait until after Thanksgiving, or if you can’t keep it in your pants ugly sweater that long, at least give us Halloween.  It’s a holiday for decorating, celebrating child-like joy, remembering lost love ones as the veil of the year thins, it has it’s own music, cadence, treats, etc.  There’s no need to fill in any gaps, Halloween has got you covered.

Give us this day our daily fun sized, and forgive us our non-accurate costume, as we have forgiven those who wore inaccurate outfits from our fandom.

Amen.

Putting together my Halloween costume has been a blast this year.  Little by little I am assembling a variety of clothing items that, when put together, will hopefully create a suggestion of a character.

I’ve done super-realistic costumes, but in recent years I like playing with my own concepts, gender-bends, or suggestions of a character.  Last year I was going all out to get all the right details for Carmen Sandiego, this year I’ve decided to do a personal twist that lets me be more creative.

(Unfortunately due to a work trip to a tropical climate, I never got to showcase Carmen in all her glory.)

I just hope people get it!

Healing is a slow, painful process.  I can know this in my head, but my heart is so mad right now.  Pain is a sign I am doing something wrong, right?  So when I do nothing at all and still hurt, what do I do?

I realize it’s irrational.  That doesn’t make it any less frustrating to know I am a “Handle With Care” package right now.  I’m doing my best to recognize limits, but for someone competitive like me limits are often meant to be defied!  The struggle is so real, because it’s my own existence that puts these limits in place.

Over all I have to keep focusing on the silver lining – I can find one anywhere, after all.  So I’m alive, that’s pretty much a perk given the risks I was at before.  We caught it in time to do something about it.  I have a job that is understanding and letting me recover at my own pace.  I have a spouse that has the bandwidth to be there, the patience to put up with my impatience with myself, and helps me understand myself better.  I have many loved ones that are making for a strong support network.  There’s plenty of good to be had.

So why am I still so mad at myself?

So I’m back at work this week – got a lot on my plate here!  But I’m also hoping to get back into the groove with posting.  It may not hit my 3-a-week goals, but I’ll try to get something up at least a little bit of the time.

Still coping with a lot of doctor’s appointments, some pain management issues, and a level of exhaustion no human should be required to deal with, so this is a dabble and not a promise, but I will try to get back to it!