CAUTION: This post is not meant for younger viewers. If you are under 40, please leave now. It is the internet - the post will still be here when you are old enough.
Once upon a time, the parts of the body decided to pick a boss. The Legs said they should be the boss, as they carried everyone around. The Eyes said they should be the boss, as they made sure that everyone did not bump into things. The Ears said they should be the boss, as they make sure that important things were heard. The Arms said they should be the boss, as they were able to get food to the mouth, change clothes on all the other parts, etc. The Stomach said it should be the boss, as it digested all the food that kept all the other parts moving. The Brain said it should be boss, as it did all the thinking and kept all the other parts synchronized in what they did. The rest of the body parts spoke up with THEIR reasons for being boss. Finally, when everyone thought that the matter was ready for vote, the Asshole spoke up and said HE should be boss. All the other parts of the body started to laugh. They laughed and they laughed and laughed some more. This angered the asshole, so he clamed up and refused to work. The legs went weak, the eyes went blurry, the arms barely moved, the stomach was upset, and the brain became fuzzy and disoriented. Finally, everyone agreed that the asshole should be boss. To this day, you don't need to be a brain to be boss - just an asshole.
Now, I always thought that that was a cute story, although I cannot remember the last time I suffered through a bout of constipation! I would present, though, an alternative horror of horrors - a malfunctioning bladder. This I can relate to, currently experiencing the fear, pain & frustration of what is referred to as "bladder cancer". Now, at the moment, I am still able to pee outside when the mood strikes - so I can still drive the dogs and-other-pee-smelling-animals nuts - albeit with a slightly diminished flow and subsequent range loss, although flow and hence, range is getting better with healing. I am, tomorrow, looking with heavy anticipation to what is the first of six weekly "BCG Bladder Instillations" - a process by which live (anti-Tuberculosis) bacteria is "instilled" (don't ya' just love that word, opposite of distilled [out from]) DIRECTLY INTO the bladder.
Yay. After the treament, I have to pretend I am on a rotisserie - 15 minutes per side, repeat. Get up and GO. Don't flush, treat effluent with household bleach, leave for 15 minutes, then flush. Hope the bleach kills all the bacteria before the entire human race is infected. Sounds like a safe and harmless procedure. Right.
Drink 12 glasses of water after treatment, the instructions continue. I wonder to myself, if the intended result is to pee more often, thus flushing the BCG out, would not a more suitable pee-inducing liquid be preferred? Such as, Guinness? Gin & tonic? That nice chocolate wine that Matt (really Joanna) brought to the wine-tasting? What's with plain water anyway? I mean, good grief, I ain't dead yet, although ya' gotta' wonder if the cure isn't worse than the disease...
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
In other news...
Janet, Jay and I went "shopping" today for a replacement vehicle for the wrecked van. We ended up buying another Ford E350 van - a real dirt shower (burgundy) for Janet AND a pick-up truck for Jay.
Where's MY boat????
Where's MY boat????
Come into my parlor...
said the doctor to the patient...
Well, had my "interview" with the Doc today. Now here's the problem as to why health care in Canada is expensive. I had a procedure (see last post) which was supposed to give answers as to what is going on with me. I also had an ultrasound done, again to help reveal what is "wrong" so that appropriate treatment could begin - with the intent (hopefully) of ensuring I have a long and stress-free (wishful thinking) life. Today I find out that they don't know, and have scheduled an additional procedure, involving a nasty bit of business (I say nasty because it involves at least an over-night hospital stay and maybe much bleeding) in the hopes of a further discovery of what is wrong. Hmmmmm, three kicks at the can, each involving a (presumably) more expensive step than the previous. Thank you taxpayers of Ontario for your keen interest in my bladder. Now, where is the free ice-cream...
Well, had my "interview" with the Doc today. Now here's the problem as to why health care in Canada is expensive. I had a procedure (see last post) which was supposed to give answers as to what is going on with me. I also had an ultrasound done, again to help reveal what is "wrong" so that appropriate treatment could begin - with the intent (hopefully) of ensuring I have a long and stress-free (wishful thinking) life. Today I find out that they don't know, and have scheduled an additional procedure, involving a nasty bit of business (I say nasty because it involves at least an over-night hospital stay and maybe much bleeding) in the hopes of a further discovery of what is wrong. Hmmmmm, three kicks at the can, each involving a (presumably) more expensive step than the previous. Thank you taxpayers of Ontario for your keen interest in my bladder. Now, where is the free ice-cream...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Free at last - not so fast...
*Sigh* Repeat, *Sighhhhh*.
All right, so what's a guy to do. Here I am, just getting used to celebrating the absence of Nurses and Doctors and nagging wife (just kidding, Hun!) and lo and behold, another medical condition crops up. I have tumours in the bladder. Now, I don't want to go into excruciating detail about how these were discovered, but the "instrument" used to "scope" the location out HAD to have been invented in either the dark ages or in some extreme nazi experimental laboratory. I was sore for three days, and could hardly do jumping-jacks (not that I would DO jumping-jacks, but for sure this was the excuse not to.)
The only good news is that the Doc said these tumours did not look cancerous, and what the normal procedure is that they use the same hideous - no, no, "wonderful" - scope to basically lassoe the offensive little buggers and strangle them right off the interior surface of the bladder. They do condescend to keeping you overnight at the hospital, I suppose because the possibility of peeing right away will be next to impossible unless one is either drugged or drunk...
Anyway, I am scheduled for an ultrasound AND have an appointment with the butcher, no, no, "Doctor" who I suppose wants me to sign a pile of release forms - you know the kind - sign here, just in case the lassoe slips and we cut-off-more-than-we-intended-and-now-you-can-REALLY-wear-ladies-underwear...
Yippie. Anyway, I am taking this news in my usual calm manner, which is driving my poor wife bananas. She has put me on a sugar restricted diet, makes me drink lemon water, digest aeorbic oxygen (20 drops, in *sigh* water) and looks like she expects me to keel over any second.
My children have no sympathy, and are still brats.
All I really wanna' know is, can I still have chocolate ice cream?
*sigh*
All right, so what's a guy to do. Here I am, just getting used to celebrating the absence of Nurses and Doctors and nagging wife (just kidding, Hun!) and lo and behold, another medical condition crops up. I have tumours in the bladder. Now, I don't want to go into excruciating detail about how these were discovered, but the "instrument" used to "scope" the location out HAD to have been invented in either the dark ages or in some extreme nazi experimental laboratory. I was sore for three days, and could hardly do jumping-jacks (not that I would DO jumping-jacks, but for sure this was the excuse not to.)
The only good news is that the Doc said these tumours did not look cancerous, and what the normal procedure is that they use the same hideous - no, no, "wonderful" - scope to basically lassoe the offensive little buggers and strangle them right off the interior surface of the bladder. They do condescend to keeping you overnight at the hospital, I suppose because the possibility of peeing right away will be next to impossible unless one is either drugged or drunk...
Anyway, I am scheduled for an ultrasound AND have an appointment with the butcher, no, no, "Doctor" who I suppose wants me to sign a pile of release forms - you know the kind - sign here, just in case the lassoe slips and we cut-off-more-than-we-intended-and-now-you-can-REALLY-wear-ladies-underwear...
Yippie. Anyway, I am taking this news in my usual calm manner, which is driving my poor wife bananas. She has put me on a sugar restricted diet, makes me drink lemon water, digest aeorbic oxygen (20 drops, in *sigh* water) and looks like she expects me to keel over any second.
My children have no sympathy, and are still brats.
All I really wanna' know is, can I still have chocolate ice cream?
*sigh*
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Free at last...
Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! Feast your eyes on me, because I am free at last! No more nurses! Yaaaaaaa!!!!!
I guess I am healed enough that I no longer need nurses visiting. No more bandages! No more packing! No more cringing! Now all I have to worry about is my wife looking at little white bumps and reaching for the tweezers. Nope, can't find them. Let me get a pin so's I can prick those little white heads... Yaaaakkkk!! I have gone from sadistic nurses to overly vengeful wife!
Maybe I ain't quite so free as I thought...
I guess I am healed enough that I no longer need nurses visiting. No more bandages! No more packing! No more cringing! Now all I have to worry about is my wife looking at little white bumps and reaching for the tweezers. Nope, can't find them. Let me get a pin so's I can prick those little white heads... Yaaaakkkk!! I have gone from sadistic nurses to overly vengeful wife!
Maybe I ain't quite so free as I thought...
Thursday, October 22, 2009
I'm in a fighting mood.
For whatever reason lately I have become obsessed with the game Battleship. I made my wife mad by downloading the game on my cell phone, and today, just for fun, I searched the Web and found one to run on my computer. I sometimes do pretty good - sometimes I just get blown out of the water (pun intended.) Now, you need to understand that this game has been around forever, and I haven't played it since I was a youngster. Shows how often I need to vent my anger on some unsuspecting object.
The problem is, now that I have the game on both the cell and computer, I play it more and more, and I am beginning to wonder why I get such pleasure from annihilating my "foe". I smile (me - smile???) when I locate and get the little guys and rejoice when the big ones turn turtle and sink, disappearing forever. Sorta' like discovering a sin in my life that the word of God disrupts, brings to the surface and blasts away by confession and repentence. Hmmmm, imagine God playing Battleship with the sins in my life. Here's hoping I lose...
The problem is, now that I have the game on both the cell and computer, I play it more and more, and I am beginning to wonder why I get such pleasure from annihilating my "foe". I smile (me - smile???) when I locate and get the little guys and rejoice when the big ones turn turtle and sink, disappearing forever. Sorta' like discovering a sin in my life that the word of God disrupts, brings to the surface and blasts away by confession and repentence. Hmmmm, imagine God playing Battleship with the sins in my life. Here's hoping I lose...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Will that be one scoop or two...
Well, just back from my appointment with the surgeon. You know, I have always been impressed with the amount of small tools dentists seem to have. As a person who has experienced dentists from both a drilling/filling perspective, and a tooth-pulling perspective, it always amazed me that no matter what the condition of a particular tooth, there always seemed to be, somewhere, just THE right tool or jig for the situation at hand.
Now, so it seems, the same can be said for surgeons doing small surgery. Here I am, coaxed once more into an examination room by an over-bustled nurse and instructed to lay on the table. She gingerly removes the bandages and packing, takes a quick look and says "I'll go get the Doctor", whereupon she exits stage left. Hmmmm, thinks I, where is she off to - I mean I did have an appointment - you know what those are - definite times set for you to show up and wait for an indeterminate time for the person with whom the appointment was made to show up at HIS leisure and convenience.
Enter (after what really was not an unreasonable time) the Doctor. Grabs a set of tweezers (or some similar devilish instrument) and starts probing and digging - so much so that my dear wife, leaning in for a closer examination of the wound actually halts the doctor from digging. He pauses, just for a moment, as if to let my wife satisfy her curiosity. He then, once she has backed off, resumes his digging and scraping and jabbing, cheerfully pronouncing (I presume to my wife) the neat stuff he is dragging out of the wound. "Piece of gauze... necrotic tissue... hmmm, an old piece of vein... (I must confess that at the last one, I kinda' wondered if I wouldn't be needing that vein to help circulate blood, or if that was old school thinking) more tissue." He stops. Takes a look around the room. Rummages in a drawer here and there. Checks the cart with all the bandages and misc. stuff. Thinks for the merest of seconds. "Be right back", he says and exits stage left.
My wife is vociferous. "You wouldn't believe what he is doing! Why aren't you screaming/writhing/rolling in pain!!!??? You should see what he dug out of there!!! "
Enter the doctor, holding a several inches long, skinny instrument in his hand. "Got it", he says with no further explanation and starts to really dig into the wound, seemingly copious amounts now of whatever's coming out. I can see it in my wide-eyed wife's expression - an absolute fascination with this new "tool" the doc is using. He finishes. Packs the wound, puts a bandage over it. States "See me in two weeks", and leaves.
My wife, still wide-eyed, says, "That was an ice cream scoop he used on you, only smaller!! More like a melon-baller!! But shaped like an ice-cream scoop." She seems suitably impressed. "He went all the way around - top, bottom, sides - DIDN'T IT HURT???" Well, yeah, especially when he went deep down toward the knee - didn't you see my other leg doing its rattle/shake & roll, my eyes rolled back so far I could see (as a newfie would say) me very own arse, and hear my poor teeth (only a very few left now) grinding and wishing to be awash in pain-killers (liquid kind, from the LCBO.)
I don't know what impressed my wife more - that I wasn't (externally) screaming, or the sight of a small itsy-bitsy teeney-weeney ice-cream scoop.
The only other news is that now apparently the picture previously posted is out of date. According to my wife, the hole is now 25% bigger 'n better.
And no ice-cream in sight...
* sigh *
Now, so it seems, the same can be said for surgeons doing small surgery. Here I am, coaxed once more into an examination room by an over-bustled nurse and instructed to lay on the table. She gingerly removes the bandages and packing, takes a quick look and says "I'll go get the Doctor", whereupon she exits stage left. Hmmmm, thinks I, where is she off to - I mean I did have an appointment - you know what those are - definite times set for you to show up and wait for an indeterminate time for the person with whom the appointment was made to show up at HIS leisure and convenience.
Enter (after what really was not an unreasonable time) the Doctor. Grabs a set of tweezers (or some similar devilish instrument) and starts probing and digging - so much so that my dear wife, leaning in for a closer examination of the wound actually halts the doctor from digging. He pauses, just for a moment, as if to let my wife satisfy her curiosity. He then, once she has backed off, resumes his digging and scraping and jabbing, cheerfully pronouncing (I presume to my wife) the neat stuff he is dragging out of the wound. "Piece of gauze... necrotic tissue... hmmm, an old piece of vein... (I must confess that at the last one, I kinda' wondered if I wouldn't be needing that vein to help circulate blood, or if that was old school thinking) more tissue." He stops. Takes a look around the room. Rummages in a drawer here and there. Checks the cart with all the bandages and misc. stuff. Thinks for the merest of seconds. "Be right back", he says and exits stage left.
My wife is vociferous. "You wouldn't believe what he is doing! Why aren't you screaming/writhing/rolling in pain!!!??? You should see what he dug out of there!!! "
Enter the doctor, holding a several inches long, skinny instrument in his hand. "Got it", he says with no further explanation and starts to really dig into the wound, seemingly copious amounts now of whatever's coming out. I can see it in my wide-eyed wife's expression - an absolute fascination with this new "tool" the doc is using. He finishes. Packs the wound, puts a bandage over it. States "See me in two weeks", and leaves.
My wife, still wide-eyed, says, "That was an ice cream scoop he used on you, only smaller!! More like a melon-baller!! But shaped like an ice-cream scoop." She seems suitably impressed. "He went all the way around - top, bottom, sides - DIDN'T IT HURT???" Well, yeah, especially when he went deep down toward the knee - didn't you see my other leg doing its rattle/shake & roll, my eyes rolled back so far I could see (as a newfie would say) me very own arse, and hear my poor teeth (only a very few left now) grinding and wishing to be awash in pain-killers (liquid kind, from the LCBO.)
I don't know what impressed my wife more - that I wasn't (externally) screaming, or the sight of a small itsy-bitsy teeney-weeney ice-cream scoop.
The only other news is that now apparently the picture previously posted is out of date. According to my wife, the hole is now 25% bigger 'n better.
And no ice-cream in sight...
* sigh *
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