Calvin's Weblog

Cut, Cut, Snip, Snip, stitch, stitch, stitch...

All done.
Exactly twenty-four hours ago, I heard "Calvin, Calvin... it's time to wake up... we're all done!"
"Huh? Already? But we didn't even... you asked where I'd be today if I wasn't here in the hospital, and I said 'at work' and you said 'what do you do?' and I said 'internet security' and then you said 'Well, you certainy don't have to worry about finding work, do you... and I was about to reply 'as long as there are hackers, I'll have a job' but instead you interupted with "Calvn, it's time to wake up" ... how did that happen?"

"That was an hour and a half ago. We're all done. Everything went perfectly."
"Wow."
"You wanted to see your gallbladder, right? Here it is..."
"That little thing was causing me so much pain? It looks like a cocktail weenie!"

Slowly the anesthetic started to come out, and became aware of my surroundings. It was the strangest feeling. As you may have guessed, I've never had surgery before. I've never had a general anesthetic before. I didn't know what to expect... except, for some reason, I thought that I was supposed to count backwards from 100 or something - but we never even got to that. Thank goodness! I didn't even get a chance to get nervous. Whew! Ah, but as I became clearer, I also became more aware of the pain... I've got four incisions, and they all hurt.

After the surgery was over I was under observation for another 6 hours, and finally got home about 5pm. I couldn't walk - I had to be wheeled out. I had been given so many drugs that day, my head was swimming... I started with two pills - one to settle my nerves and another to settle my stomach. Oh, there were also my two blood pressure pills... then there was a shot in my stomach, which was an anti-coagulant, and there were two IV drips - saline, and an antibiotic. Then came the demerol, and the anethetic. I woke up there were two shots in my ass - one was demerol, the other an anti-inflamitory. Then two T4s, followed by two T3s every four hours.

BUT, I made it! I can only eat stuff like popcicles, broth, jello, applesauce, yogurt, juice, but fortunately I'm not having any kinds of digestive problems with that. Apparently some people are nausious for a couple of weeks when anything hits their stomach, but so far today I've had two popcicles, a cup of tappioca, a cup of apple sauce, two glasses of cranberry juice, and a cup of chicken broth, and my stomach feels fine... my 'belly' on the other hand, is a world of hurt. My incisions only finally stopped bleeding this morning and I'm so bloated and bruised and inflamed from being pumped full of CO2 gass... I can't even get myself in and out of bed yet - but I'm feeling better this morning than I was last night, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be even better.

This typing is actually making me woozy right now - I've gotta go lie down. I actually had to rest a bit after typing the first couple paragraphs, but I'm feeling gross again...

Anyway - just wanted everyone to know I made it through the surgery in one piece (okay, I guess technically I'm in two pieces now) - and while my thoughts may sound a little franetic, I'm mostly doing okay. I'm just going to have to rest more, and take it easy.

Ciao for now.

Strange week so far...

Last week, we reached temperatures of up to 20 degrees. Last week,I ate and drank nearly anything I wanted with no problems. I should have known this week would be a strange one when we woke up to snow on Monday morning (winter's last stand?)... Monday was also the first day in a LONG time that I decided to pack myself a healthy lunch. Wouldn't you know it, by 2PM I was in the throws of an accute gallbladder attack, and desperately tryign to drive myself to the hospital. By the way, let me tell ya from experience, trying to drive was STUPID. If you're ever in a simmilar situation, ask a co-worker to drive! BUT, I made it. It was a long crappy night, but I actually got up and went to work the next morning - hey, it was my birthday - if I had calle in sick everyone would have said "oh, sure you're sick, it's your birthday! How convenient..." - but, as it turns out, everyone could see how sick I really was (though all the shakes were probably just my body coming off of all the percacet I had the night before) and they convinced me to go home before noon.
I spent the rest of my birthday in bed.
Okay, I got up and shaved off my goatee, which I had been meaning to do on the first day of spring (I had been growing it since the first day of autumn) - and so now I look really wierd, in addition to feeling really sick.

Today the weather is back to being amazing again. I'm at work today, though now I've got a bad cold as well as all the gb pains - but tomorrow's my last day before a few weeks off, so I figured I'd come in and wrap up. Oh - why am I getting a few weeks off? You'll never guess... my surgery date got bumped again, but this time in the RIGHT direction! I'm going in on Tuesday, March 29th. Right after the long weekend. Yay! Well, it's hard to get excited about how crappy I'm going to feel, but NOTHING could feel as bad as a gallbladder attack, so, Yay!

I just went for a nice walk, it's 12 degrees right now, and a little windy, so I wore a jacket, but ut's still super sunny and clear blue skies, so it's nice. I haven't really eaten anything since my attack on Monday (other than rice crackers and tea) so I'm feelin' pretty weak, but hopefully I'll be able to eat this weekend and get my strength up before the surgery. And hopefully I get rid of this cold, too!!!

It really sucked spending my birthday in bed, I was even afraid to go to the theatre to see a movie incase I had another attack... super-sucks. I'm really looking forward to having some better days ahead to make up for all this time I'm losing.

Anyway, I know I'm kinda rambling, I guess I'm just trying to kill the last hour before heading home from work, lol.
Seriously, I'm sure I'll have LOTS of interesting stuff to talk about in my next few (pre and post surgery) entries.

;-)

Tax Time

I finally bit the bullet this weekend and started doing my taxes ... argh, what a burden... I even broke down and bought U-File for $19, and it's still a pretty rough go. Next year, I swear, I'm getting an accountant!

Carole and I went to another poker tourney this weekend, and this time I didn't get sick! Carole and I both made it to the final table. She was out in 5th, and I was one hand away from being 2nd... but busted out in third. To think, a couple hours earlier, when I it was finally down to 'final table', I was the chip lead by a long shot... I had raken in three huge pots in the previous half hour, and had over half the chips at the table sitting in front of me, but bad beat after bad beat, and I lots some serious pots. My three worst beats were all with trips, and each time, I was beat by the same person, who refused to lay down ANYTHING regardless of my bets, and who always seemed to make a flush or full house on the river. Ah well, that's poker. And it's still fun being third!

Hey, anybody remember my story about the $917 flat tire? Guess what... one of my new tires got a pin-prick leak in the sidewall, and blammo, I had to buy a whole new tire. The shop said it was illegal to patch a sidewall, and I said I'd do it myself then, but they wouldn't re-mount it for me if I did... fortunately there was a tiny bit of warranty on it, even though the tire had less than 10% wear and was only 6 months old - so I only had to pay $139 instead of the $179 it would have been for a new tire... that's my 2nd flat in 6 months, and the two flats have cost me about $1050 now. Frikken nice!!! Maybe I'll invest in a tire shop... seems to be good money in it.

Oh, one other cool thing, I bought "The Incredibles" DVD this weekend - now THAT's a pretty cool show - we loved it - infact, I wanna see it again already - I highly recomend that everyone check it out, even if you're not into animated movies. It's a great story, and I just couldn't get over how good the character development was - every character had such a deep backstory and unique personality... awesome job Pixar!

I made my famous Cochinita Pibil again yesterday (slow roasted pork) but for some strange reason this one didn't turn out as well - still damned hot, but not as irresistable as previous incarnations - I'm going to have to try again soon and perfect this recipe!

Ciao for now...

Meet Stella

Okay - Thanks for reminding me, Mom - here's Stella:

Stella lives with her parents in a rural area of Sri Lanka. She was born in November of 1999, and enjoys singing. Her father is employed, but at such a low wage that it is not enough to provide for his family. Stella is in good health, and her chores include carrying wood. That's about all I know...

So, since I'm scanning in pictures, here are a few from our little walk this past weekend:

This is Carole and I, in shorts n' T-shirt, getting sunburned at the lake, in WINTER. Did I mention it was winter???

Here's my profile, in shadow. My goatee is about 7 or 8 inches long now, but I try to curl it up when I'm at work & in public so that it doesn't look so crazy. Carole got a kick out of my 'devil shadow' and thought this pic was priceless:

And here's what we were looking at during that LONG beautiful walk... this is looking straight up Pitt Lake, as far as the first bend, which is maybe about a quarter of the length of the lake...

Well, that's it for now.
Happy Patty's Day everyone! Have a green beer for me!

What a perfectly glorious weekend

You know, if this were a year or two ago, all of my blog entries this month would have been about things like the four RCMP officers that were killed in the line of duty during an Alberta drug raid, or the gas'n'dash hit and run in Maple ridge last week that resulted in the the 7km dragging death of a 22 year old gas station attendant, or how today is the last day of the Air India bombing trial... I probably would have had at least one entry about the ongoing Michael Jackson trial, and probably would have had a lot to say about our upcoming provincial election. There have been so many local murders and kidnappings and driveby shootings and gang killings that I could've spewed distain almost daily about the state of the world today.

But you know what? I'm perfectly content to tell you about all the seeds I planted this weekend instead. It's amazing how attitudes can change, isn't it? It took me a long time to realize it, but it's just such a waste of energy and brain power to regail all the woes of the world. After years of watching wars on CNN and stressing out about what would happen if Bush got elected, or if terrorists struck again, I've finally realize that no amount of worying (or bitching) gets anybody anywhere - and I'll tell ya, this last few months have been a whopper for the worriers and the bitchers!

So where was I? Ah yes, the glorious weekend. It started Friday, I guess, when the mercury reached 20 degrees in Coquitlam. (yawn, that's like 67 yankee degrees, right? Do I still need to do the yankee degrees thing?)- and Saturday, Sunday, and today, were/are all at least 18 degrees.

Saturday, Carole and I got up bright and early, I made French Toast, then we drove out to Pitt Lake for a beautiful morning walk along the dike. We walked straight for about 45 minutes, then turned around and walked back for another 45 minutes. I was just wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and it was beautiful out. We DID snap some pictures, but I haven't loaded them into the computer yet... I'll do that tonight or tomorrow, they're great! It was perfectly blue skies with a brilliant sun, and we both got lots of UV that day. After the walk, we went for lunch at Dewy's Pub in Port Coquitlam, and I had a massive bowl of chicken corn chowder and a pint 'o' Canadian out on the sundeck while we soaked up more of the afternoon rays. Okay, I confess, I had a few potato-skins too... shame on me!

After lunch I went to the Langley Long and McQuade to purchase the only GK 4x10 8Ohm cab left in B.C. It was on for $1475, but I talked 'em down to $1075, which was still pretty lofty, as I spent $799 on the 1x15 cab, and $750 on the 780Watt head... grand total, something like $3K - ouch. But, SWEET! I tried it out at home, in my sound-proofed studio, at a volume of 3 ot of ten, and on the first note, bottles fell off the shelves in the kitchen, and painting rattled on the living room walls. Carole came running down to let me know that dust was shaking out of the rafters, and that I probably shouldn't be testing that puppy out in the house. So tonight at rehearsal I'll get to really give it a workout - can't wait!

Sunday we got up early again. I made some breakfast egg sandwiches, then we started out on housework. Well, Carole did housework, I did yardwork. It was, afterall, another gorgeous day, and by 8:30 AM I was in shorts and T-shirt again, working in the backyard. I cleaned the deck, raked the leaves, weeded the herb garden, and prepped for seeding the rest of the stuff I want to grow this year. Can you believe it's still winter, and I've already got chives, sage, and lettice growing so thick that it's already time to start trimming and eating? And the strawberries are coming up all over the place - no actual strawberries yet, but the plants are doing super well.
I've started a row of onions and have seeded dill, basil, parsley, tomatoes and radishes indoors. When the seedlings are strong enough, I'll transplant them to the garden.

Yesterday afternoon, I figured I'd wash my car, but in all honesty, I had been soaking up the sun all day and was not only a little bit burned, but also feeling pretty lazy, so I decided to drive down to the hand-wash car detailing place in Port Moody and get the deluxe package. While four people toiled on my car, inside and out, for an hour, I walked 8 blocks to the Golden Spike pub, grabbed a quick pint, then walked back to the carwash. They still had 1/2 and hour to go, so I kicked back in one of the provided deck chairs, faced the fun, and tanned for a bit more in the awesome afternoon sun.
Those guys did an amazing job on my car - grand total, $16.99 - and that paid for an hour of full-time work for at least two people, but at times up to four, as they vaccumed, washed the interior, the windows, the wheels, oh - and the exterior too... that included odour neutralization and light wax - how could you possibly go wrong? I can't believe that place stays in business charging so little. I was very happy with the job - but then again, just chillaxin' in the sun after a nice pint always puts me in an awesome mood.

I also played some online poker every night, and am actually starting to do pretty well... I like to play only two to four dollars a day, and I was 'up' by $7.50 on Friday, by $5 on Saturday, and by $3.50 on Sunday. I also, just for fun, played a 'play-money' tourney on Sunday night, and I came in 3rd, which made me $17,500 from a $2000 buy-in. It's nice to finally be doing good at this!

Oh, Friday night we also went to Carole's step-sister's housewarming party, which was pretty nice - good food, Carole drove home so i got to drink (and entire case, can you belive it? and Can you belive I was up at 7AM the next morning making French Toast?) - and I made some new Poker buddies at the party too, so I may actually be hosting my own live poker night sometime in the coming months. That would be cool! Well, as long as I can keep winning, that is...

Where have I been?

Geez, I just got a notification about Vetiver's post on my blog this morning, and I realized that I haven't made an entry here in almost two weeks! How unlike me, especially since things have been going pretty well.
I haven't had any attacks in two weeks, I've been able to eat and drink almost 'normally' the past week, and have even gone through a couple cases of beer! I thought FOR SURE I was going to be spending the night in Emergency when I went to cheap wing night at the Cat'n'Fiddle on Monday and ate 15 hot wings with 2 pints of Canadian, but you know what? Nothing. Strange but true...
And yes Vetiver, you've right - it's getting close! On Friday I go in for pre-op and get all my tests done, then Tuesday I'm in the operating room! We had a bit of a scare yesterday though, they reported on the news that an outbreak of flesh-eating-virus had hit Eagle Ridge Hospital (where I'll be going!) and that all surgery would be canceled - BUT - it turned out that two people who had surgery in the same room on the same day both got blood poisoning - that's still dangerous, and it's still a mystery about how they got infected, but at least it's not a virus outbreak, so my surgery's still a 'go', and I won't have to worry about waking up with one leg missing.

Other than that, I've done a lot in the last ten days... I bought that Gallien Krueger bass amplifier that I've been oogling, and I bought two cabs for it too... a 15" sub cabinet and a 2x10" bass cab. I had to return the 2x10 cab though, as it was made my SWR and the wiring was incompatible. Sure, I could have rewired it, but I hate destroying the warranty on brand new thousand dollar items, so I gave it back, and this weekend I'm going to head to the Langley Long & MqQuade store where they're supposed to have a 4x10" GK cab on for $1100 that should suit my needs.

This week I also caved in to my compassionate side and sponsored a little girl from Sri Lanka - "for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day" ! Her name is Stella, and she likes to sing. Her chores include carrying wood. When I recieve the full package about it, I'll post more info. For now though, it just feels good to give something back for a change. I've always said "I'll give to charity when I can afford to take care of myself first!" but that time never seemed to come. Then, as I was doing my taxes recently, I just had to say "crap, when is enough, enough? If I make this much and I can't afford to give $35 a month to make a difference in someone elses life, then I've got some serious priority issues..." - so, long story short, I'm now leasing a Sri Lankan five year old.

Carole and I also went to White Rock this Saturday, and in addition to the obligatory walk on the shore whilst licking tiramisu flavoured gelatto, we also did a walkthrough tour of the hospital lottery prize homes - including the 2.5 million dollar grand prize home, right on the water. VERY nice. Too bad the tickets are $100 each... Carole really wants that house now, and I can't disagree... it would be so nice to live there... of course, the property taxes alone would be more every year than we're paying in mortgage right now!

Sunday, we went for dinner at a pub with some family. That was a nice time, we got to catch up with some relatives that we hadn't seen in a while, plus, I got to eat some awesome yorkshire pudding with horseraddish... yum! That's the first "beef" of any kind that I've had this year, and it was good... especially when washed down with a couple of Stella's (Artois, not Sri Lankan). Again, no gallbladder problems!

I've also been playing a lot of online poker lately, and have finally gotten to the point where I'm not losing money. Yeah, I've even started playing for real money. Dangerous, I know, but I haven't been stung yet, so I've yet to learn my lesson. I deposited $50US in my player's account, and in the first 4 hours I lost $7. The next day I said "screw this, I'm going to lose everything this way" so I withdrew the remaining $43. However, there happened to be a deposit special that previous day, so sometime during the night, they had credited my account with $25US to match 50% of my initial deposit. You can't withdraw the money the credit you, but you CAN withdraw any winnings derived from it. So I figured I'd play their money and see what happened. That night, I played in four tournaments, and I won two of them! My account was now up to $38, so that night I withdrew $10. The next day I played in two tourneys and won one of them, but then lost most of the winnings - so I was up around $38.80. The next day I withdrew another $10, leaving me with $28ish. The day before yesterday I lost about $8 by trying out tables I wasn't familiar ith, but Yesterday I went back to what I know, and made back about $3.60 so I'm back up to $23.86 in my playing acount, and I've cashed out a total of $17US profit so far. Sure, I've probably spent 12 hours in the past week to make $17, but as far as entertainment value, you can't beat getting paid to have fun!

Other than all that, the band 'recording' has kinda stalled, but we DO have 5 songs nearly done - worst case scenario we put out a 5 or 6 song ep in the first half of the year and a 5 or 6 song ep in the 2nd half of the year. We've started to write new songs now though, and already have three on the go. By summer, we'll likely have enough new material for a third ep!