I forgot to mention my ying/yang story -
On Monday, while recovering in bed, I recieved a phone call from Molson Canadian - Strange, to be sure... my favorite beer in the whole world - and a representative is calling me??? "Hello Calvin, do you recal entering the I Am Canadian Napster/MP3 contest after purchasing an 18 pack of Molson Canadian?"
"Boy, do I ... I bought six cases - entered six times."
"Well congratulations, your card has been drawn, you're the lucky winner of the www.IAm.ca Get your music to go contest. You've won a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30 gigabyte portable MP3 player!
"Kewl."
The frikken thing holds 8,000 CD quality 3 minute songs... I own a LOT of tapes, CDs and Records, but I don't think I could pick 8,000 songs that I wanna bring with me! In fact, I could probably backup my favorite 800 or so albums onto this thing!
Crazy, crazy, crazy... but super cool - I figure I spend (or rather, USED to spend) $200 a month on Molson Canadian, so it's only fitting that I'd be rewarded someday - but yay! This is one cool prize!!!
Barring the birth experience, pneumonia at age 3, and a subsequent visit after an unfortunate incident with a lawnmower at age 11, I've never spent the night in a hospital. In 22 years, I've never gone to emergency - sure, when I was a kid I had sprains, stepped on a few nails, had big slivers removed from under my figernails, you know, the basic "boys will be boys" trips to the local clinic - but until last Monday, I had never had an "emergency".
I'm not sure if I've written about it before, but my doctor told me a little more than a year ago that I had gallstones and that I'd be needing surgery in the next 6 to 18 months to have my gallbladder removed. Of course, I had never had a gallbladder attack, and I figured if it don't hurt, don't fix it. I changed my diet, lost 10 pounds, and lived happily until about 5 months ago when I finally had my first GB attack. It was brutal - it lasted about 9 hours - but I had absolutely no idea what was causing it... having never had an attack before, I figured it was food poisoning - of course, the next day I knew for sure I'd had my first attack. I took extra special care after that to avoid fatty foods, but after a few months of good health, forgot all about it - or perhaps I just chocked it up as a 'one time experience' and slipped into the fast food routine again. Seven weeks ago, I whipped through DairyQueen on my way home from work and picked up an couple of their 2-for-1 cheeseburgers on my way home from work. This would be the fourth day in a row that I had eaten hamburgers - I hadn't eaten much beef all year, and then it just kinda happend that I found myself in the situation where I was busy and hungry and in a hurry, and, well, anyway, as you've probably guessed - I had a whopper of an attack that night. Sixteen hours of the most intense pain in my life. I honestly don't think a gunshot to the abdomen would feel any worse (no, I don't want to find out...) and the aftermath was just as bad... ten days of feeling like all my ribs on the right side had been kicked in. I went to the doctor later that week, and he said I should have gone to emergency. Honestly, that had never crossed my mind - I hate drugs, I hate hospitals, I figure if I'm going to sweat it out somewhere, it may as well be my own bed, not some hospital bed... but he convinced me - kinda, that the NEXT time this happens, go to emergency!
I wasn't going to go easily though. I cut out all meat and cheese and bread and sauces and even beer for four weeks straight, losing yet another ten pounds - everything was fine! But then Holiday season came around. It started with my work's Christmas dinner on December 15th - blammo - 7 hours attack that night. I stayed home though, since it wasn't nearly as long or intense as the previous one. A couple days later, another Christmas dinner, and another mild attack. I let my doctor know, and he said "GO TO EMERGENCY!!!" but it wasn't that bad, so I didn't. Then Last Sunday night, another Christmas dinner - and, you guessed it, another attack.
It came on quick - in only three hours it was more painful than most are after 6 or 7 hours - so I decided that instead of going through one of the bad ones, I'd better begrudgingly got to the hospital.
Four AM checkin. They take some blood tests and say I'm dehydrated and potassiium deficient - both signs that my body is in physical distress - so they hook me up to an IV and give me a potassium boost.
This is my first IV ever...
After about an hour the nurse asks me if I want a morphine shot, and I say "I've never had morphine before - I don't know what it'll do to me - I'm in pain, yes, but I don't know if I want to take a shot..."
She says "I'll give you the lowest amount, just to see what your tollerance is - 2ml floors some people, and it doesn't even affect others." She gives me the shot. Ten minutes later, the pain has increased significantly, and I tell her. She gives me another 2ml. Five minutes after that, the pain is nearly unbearable - she says "For future reference, you've got a high morphine tolerance. I'll give you one more shot and that should be plenty." Five minutes after that, I couldn't even breath I was it so much pain - in fact, I felt like I was going to pass out, were it not for trying so hard to breathe through the constricting in my chest, I probably would have...
As it turns out, this is called Anaphylaxis, and it's a potentially fatal allergic reaction to morphine. Joy of all joys, I now get to have an emergency Narcan shot (usually reserved for overdosing junkies). Amazingly enough, not even two minutes after the narcan, all the pain is gone. I ask "Am I on any painkillers now?" She says "No, the narcan completely neutralizes the morphine." - Amazing - this is the best I've felt all morning. Of course, once the initial joy of 'not dying' has subsided, the gallbladder pain slowly returned - so she gave me a demerol shot, which made me pretty woozy - but got rid of the pain completely. Phew!
So, all told, I was out of emergency at 8AM - I was out of pain, and I learned that I'm alergic to morphine. But I've still got the gallstones in me (I was half expecting emergency surgery) and I'm back on the zero fat diet. However, I've still got the rest of the holiday season to get through... it's going to be tough - I've bought some nice champagne for New Years that I'm not going to let go to waste, so I'm prayin' that doesn't hurt me...
I've lot 24 pounds since the beginning of last year. I have a feeling I'll be losing even more before I finally get my surgery...
I've got an appointment with the surgeon in February, who knows how long it'll be after that before I actually get the operation...
Anyway, that's my story - I got hooked up to tubes and shot full of wonky drugs, and I still made it to work the next day - heck, what else was I gonna do - stay home n' drink beer?
So last Friday, my band played our last show of the year, at Studio-54 in New Westminster. It was a heluva good time, though it wasn't the best show we'd ever had...
The next day I met up with Wayne and some of the fans/friends who had come out to see us in New West and ended up staying over at Waynes place, and we went for brunch at the neighbourhood pub. Sure, 2PM was a strange time to be holding a meat draw, but I said 'what the hey!' and threw in my twoonie for a ticket. Well, it just wouldn't be right if I didn't end up winning the first prize meat, now would it... so I had quite a choice - and though I'm quite sure the 20lb ham had a lot more meat in it, I chose the steak/pork tenderloin/ chicken thigh/extra lean ground beef variety pack. Of course, having all this meat in the presence of my friends meant only one thing... Winter BBQ at Calvin's place!
So we piled into the car and headed up the mountain.
I BBQ'd the steaks, and it pretty dang good meat! Over the course of the night we wathced some videos, went down to the studio and recorded some jams, and we also went through a case of beer, a half bottle of tequilla, a half bottle of absinthe, a half bottle of vodka, oh, and another six pack or beer. Anyway, it was now 11PM and Carole would be home soon, so I got rid of the guys and started cleaning. Not such a great job, but since her mom was going to be staying over the next night (on her way back from Mexico), I had to give it my best shot!
Wayne is leaving for Mexico tomorrow - I just got back from having a beer with him -he's pretty pysched - lucky guy... I'd love to be out of this rain right about now... but, as they say, at least it's warm! I suppose I could be in Edmonton, where my boss is... he told me it was -29 there today. Of course, when I told him it was +9 and raining here, he said "Ha! We Edmontonians 'll take -29 in the snow anyday, over all that rain you guys get!"
I can't hardly believe it - this is insane...
I don't even know what to say...
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A gunman charged onstage at a packed nightclub and opened fire on the band and crowd, killing top heavy metal guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and three other people before a police officer shot him to death, authorities and witnesses said.
The city council in Provo, Utah has voted unanimously to decriminalize the cohabitation of cats and dogs - have they no idea what they've done? Have they no mind for the terrible, terrible consequences? Just look at what happened to Guam when they tried that! Isn't this one of the 7 signs of the apocalypse? This is the beginning of the end!
Rean the whole article here or read another article here
But seriously, I thought that was pretty funny...
In other news, I finished reading a good book this weekend - I'm not going to say what it was, because some of ya might be getting a copy from me for Christmas... for those of you who know what I was reading, it was a good book - maybe I'll write a review after Christmas, when the 'cat' is out of the bag...
The Vancouver Indie Band Collective has finally chosen a name and is currently working on logo ideas - the new name is www.ElectricGorilla.org - a lot of us have put a lot of work into this thing already - as soon as we get the logo completed, it's redesign time for the website, and poster/sticker/flyer/T-shirt/thong manufacturing time - the real fun begins!
Scarecrow Balcony will also be playing a show this Friday at Studio-54 in New West. I'm pretty psyched for that show, even though it's hard to get a crowd in New West... I haven't played at Studio-54 before, and I'm always psyched for something new...
Hmmm... what else... oh, CFOX is broadcasting from the parking lot of my work this morning, for the SantaFox Food Drive - that's always a fun day - they do this every year... silly me, if I had brought it so much as a ramadan noodle packet to donate, I would have gotten a free lunch in the parking lot - ah well, I'm just too absent minded for my own good - besides, how good could parking lot food be anyway...
The temperature the last few days has been hovering between one degree and six degrees, resulting in skiffs of snow in some areas, slush in others, but mostly just rain and puddles around the city.
Yesterday evening I arived home to almost a centimeter of snow, though I had watched it rain all day at work, and though that snow had all dissapeared by time I got home from rehearsal (11PM) is was back again this morning when I left for work.
The grass is white, the parked cars are white, but everything else is just wet. The days are about as short as they can get now, I leave for work in the dark and I get home from work in the dark - but at least we've only got two more weeks until the days start getting longer again! Carole's starting to get that 'lack of sunshine' seasonal downer thing, and we're awaiting the new year with baited breath...
Christmas shopping has begun, New Years plans have been made, the family dinners are all scheduled. Sigh... and I was doing so good with my healthy eating too, al well - I suppose if you don't pack on a few extra pounds during the holiday season, you just weren't doing it properly! Speaking of weight, I came to the revalation yesterday that if my weight holds 'till the end of the year, I'll end the year 20 lbs lighter than I started it - that's not too bad, I suppose - yay, I got something done in 2004!
On the way to work this morning, my odometer flipped over to 60,000 KM - I've had the car 25 months now - I suppose a lot of people would say that's a hell of a lot of miles for two years, but it just reminds me of how LITTLE I've travelled since 2002! Sure, the beamer has been to Prince George twice, Alaska, Grande Prairie, Calgary, the Island, etc, but all the roadtrips we're planned Across Canada, down to California, through Montana and Utah to New Mexico and Arizona, they've all yet to be achieved... maybe next year!
I'm looking forward to 2005. Can you believe it's 2005 already? It seems like last year was 1999... where DOES the time go...