Day 184, Monday, July 19th, 2013
I am in what might best be described as "The Home Stretch."
I am out of here in less than a month, and it feels entirely fake. Can't buy into it. I may have mentioned in the past that my time here has actually felt like it's passed fairly quickly. This may or may not have anything to do with repeated chemotherapies, radiations, and assorted pills that I pop on a semi-rigid schedule. Anti-nauseants (which I am no longer taking) do funny things to your attention span, as do immune suppressants. I don't actually feel like I've been gone from Saskatoon that long, though I am sure that perspective will shift rapidly when I start meeting all of the children my friends have been extruding in my absence. Ya'll had a lot of kids. Yes, I wrote ya'll, you shut your face.
Things are well, medically. I'm having a little dermatitis - eczema, actually, which is weird, because I remember when my skin used to do this, as opposed to what I've been dealing with for most of the last decade. It'll settle down when I'm done tapering off of the prednisone. While, as far as systemic steroids go, the stuff is fantastic at first, there are certain...effects that go along with it that are undesirable, in the long term. Prolonged usage causes muscle wasting, particularly in the thighs, and a certain tendency to bulbousness in the head and torso (I currently look slightly odd, or at least more odd than usual, with big chubby chipmunk cheeks, which I think makes me look distinctly cherubic). Some of the effects occur when one withdraws the steroid, or reduces the dose, and can be referred to as "prednisone flare" (as opposed to the sort of flair with a fifteen-piece minimum).
Prednisone flare-ups can cause joint pain, digestive issues, and, in my case, skin glitches. I am calling these glitches, because if I just leave them the hell alone, they should go away. I might end up having to do a little phototherapy this winter, after all, but I could handle that once or twice a week, if it would even be that frequent. It's a pretty minor affair and would at least get me out of the house for some sort of regular event.
This week, I shall be spending a fair amount of time at the SCCA, getting my last tests out of the way. This morning was pulmonary function, tomorrow is a bone marrow biopsy; which I will damn-hell-ass not forget to not drink/eat immediately beforehand, so that I can get my preferred level of drugs to go through the procedure. Conscious sedation is your best friend. If you ever need a bone marrow biopsy (and I hope you never, ever do), do not choose the local anaesthetic: choose drugs; choose dope; choose the heroin lollipop; chose time in the narcotic sunshine, being chemically chatty with the surgery team; choose a pleasant half-coma afterwards watching superhero cartoons on NetFlix. I really do recommend the superhero cartoons afterwards. They're pleasantly good VS evil, and things punch other things. Things, in this context, meaning scantily dressed men and women (both of which have chests so broadly disproportionate that the Earth should collapse under their collective boobie-weight), the occasional "evolved ape", robots, aliens, sentient meteorites, colourful blobs, angry computers (different than robots, I promise), ghosts, zombies, and what people once took seriously as Gods.
And what, you may be wondering, have I been doing in the meantime, which I have alluded to being filled with lots of nothing and no responsibilities beyond inserting nutrition and converting it into blood that the SCCA can test? Well, mostly, entertaining. People have been visiting me, which has been amazing, and has actually gotten me back to the point where I can carry on a decent conversation in person.
Scott and Ellyse were here for just shy of a week, and we did many things, including the Return of the Crab Pot, and also the Boeing facility tour! I want a 787, though I don't really know what I would do with it, since I have neither the space to store it, nor the funds for jet fuel. Scott bought a utili-kilt (not from Boeing) and the fellow at the kilt store gave him a free beer for drinking while browsing, which was both awesome and slightly sad for me, since I could not also have a free beer. I miss beer. I might also obtain a kilt for myself before leaving Seattle, but I'm going to wait until the last minute, so that my legs have some sort of normalized muscle mass (predinsone taper, remember), ensuring that the thing will actually still fit me in two months. Scott and Ellyse had asked me what they could bring me from Canada, and the only thing I could think of (that I can't obtain a reasonable facsimile of in the United States) was Dill Pickle chips; they don't exist here. This request was rewarded with a plethora of chips - five different kinds: Old Dutch, both regular and creamy dill; Ruffles; Lays; and Doritos. I am already onto the last bag of Lays.
A few days later, Andy, Nelson and Erin came down and crashed with us for about two actual days (an afternoon, two nights, one full day, and a morning), and we had a lovely time as well - a surprising amount of which was spent at the Experience Music Project, and we also most definitely went to the Lunchbox Laboratory, which was declared amazing by all parties,whereupon we promptly had a slight food coma and watched BBC Sherlock. They'd been out to Sechelt for my good friend Ben's wedding to the lovely Jess (congratulations!), and figured, what's another ten hours of driving onto the trip total?
Currently, Jo-el is spending a few days with us, and his visit is remarkable primarily for how chilled-out and relaxed it has been, since we've basically settled on food tourism, rather than actual tourism, and it's a working vacation for him. We may or may not have gone to the Crab Pot again (the Return of the Return of the Crab Pot: Son of Crab Pot). He is currently making code happen from my couch. Later, there will be ceviche.
I have not been allowed to pay for a Goddamn thing, by anyone, the entire time, aside from a couple of coffee runs, where I snuck ahead and swiped a card through a magnetic reader, when no one else was paying attention. When this was attempted at a restaurant, Nelson threatened to take measures against me during my sleep if I so much as reached for my wallet. No, I will not be more specific about what measures.
I would probably have more pride invested in taking people out for meals and such if all of my friends weren't long since finished school, and not only gainfully employed, but paid very, very, well. I'll get them back eventually. You wait. Monetary, food-based vengeance will be mine.
"Odin, Odin, Odin, Thor, Odin, Odin, Thor, Thor, Odin, Thor, Odin, Odin. Norse code."
I am out of here in less than a month, and it feels entirely fake. Can't buy into it. I may have mentioned in the past that my time here has actually felt like it's passed fairly quickly. This may or may not have anything to do with repeated chemotherapies, radiations, and assorted pills that I pop on a semi-rigid schedule. Anti-nauseants (which I am no longer taking) do funny things to your attention span, as do immune suppressants. I don't actually feel like I've been gone from Saskatoon that long, though I am sure that perspective will shift rapidly when I start meeting all of the children my friends have been extruding in my absence. Ya'll had a lot of kids. Yes, I wrote ya'll, you shut your face.
Things are well, medically. I'm having a little dermatitis - eczema, actually, which is weird, because I remember when my skin used to do this, as opposed to what I've been dealing with for most of the last decade. It'll settle down when I'm done tapering off of the prednisone. While, as far as systemic steroids go, the stuff is fantastic at first, there are certain...effects that go along with it that are undesirable, in the long term. Prolonged usage causes muscle wasting, particularly in the thighs, and a certain tendency to bulbousness in the head and torso (I currently look slightly odd, or at least more odd than usual, with big chubby chipmunk cheeks, which I think makes me look distinctly cherubic). Some of the effects occur when one withdraws the steroid, or reduces the dose, and can be referred to as "prednisone flare" (as opposed to the sort of flair with a fifteen-piece minimum).
Prednisone flare-ups can cause joint pain, digestive issues, and, in my case, skin glitches. I am calling these glitches, because if I just leave them the hell alone, they should go away. I might end up having to do a little phototherapy this winter, after all, but I could handle that once or twice a week, if it would even be that frequent. It's a pretty minor affair and would at least get me out of the house for some sort of regular event.
This week, I shall be spending a fair amount of time at the SCCA, getting my last tests out of the way. This morning was pulmonary function, tomorrow is a bone marrow biopsy; which I will damn-hell-ass not forget to not drink/eat immediately beforehand, so that I can get my preferred level of drugs to go through the procedure. Conscious sedation is your best friend. If you ever need a bone marrow biopsy (and I hope you never, ever do), do not choose the local anaesthetic: choose drugs; choose dope; choose the heroin lollipop; chose time in the narcotic sunshine, being chemically chatty with the surgery team; choose a pleasant half-coma afterwards watching superhero cartoons on NetFlix. I really do recommend the superhero cartoons afterwards. They're pleasantly good VS evil, and things punch other things. Things, in this context, meaning scantily dressed men and women (both of which have chests so broadly disproportionate that the Earth should collapse under their collective boobie-weight), the occasional "evolved ape", robots, aliens, sentient meteorites, colourful blobs, angry computers (different than robots, I promise), ghosts, zombies, and what people once took seriously as Gods.
And what, you may be wondering, have I been doing in the meantime, which I have alluded to being filled with lots of nothing and no responsibilities beyond inserting nutrition and converting it into blood that the SCCA can test? Well, mostly, entertaining. People have been visiting me, which has been amazing, and has actually gotten me back to the point where I can carry on a decent conversation in person.
Scott and Ellyse were here for just shy of a week, and we did many things, including the Return of the Crab Pot, and also the Boeing facility tour! I want a 787, though I don't really know what I would do with it, since I have neither the space to store it, nor the funds for jet fuel. Scott bought a utili-kilt (not from Boeing) and the fellow at the kilt store gave him a free beer for drinking while browsing, which was both awesome and slightly sad for me, since I could not also have a free beer. I miss beer. I might also obtain a kilt for myself before leaving Seattle, but I'm going to wait until the last minute, so that my legs have some sort of normalized muscle mass (predinsone taper, remember), ensuring that the thing will actually still fit me in two months. Scott and Ellyse had asked me what they could bring me from Canada, and the only thing I could think of (that I can't obtain a reasonable facsimile of in the United States) was Dill Pickle chips; they don't exist here. This request was rewarded with a plethora of chips - five different kinds: Old Dutch, both regular and creamy dill; Ruffles; Lays; and Doritos. I am already onto the last bag of Lays.
A few days later, Andy, Nelson and Erin came down and crashed with us for about two actual days (an afternoon, two nights, one full day, and a morning), and we had a lovely time as well - a surprising amount of which was spent at the Experience Music Project, and we also most definitely went to the Lunchbox Laboratory, which was declared amazing by all parties,whereupon we promptly had a slight food coma and watched BBC Sherlock. They'd been out to Sechelt for my good friend Ben's wedding to the lovely Jess (congratulations!), and figured, what's another ten hours of driving onto the trip total?
Currently, Jo-el is spending a few days with us, and his visit is remarkable primarily for how chilled-out and relaxed it has been, since we've basically settled on food tourism, rather than actual tourism, and it's a working vacation for him. We may or may not have gone to the Crab Pot again (the Return of the Return of the Crab Pot: Son of Crab Pot). He is currently making code happen from my couch. Later, there will be ceviche.
I have not been allowed to pay for a Goddamn thing, by anyone, the entire time, aside from a couple of coffee runs, where I snuck ahead and swiped a card through a magnetic reader, when no one else was paying attention. When this was attempted at a restaurant, Nelson threatened to take measures against me during my sleep if I so much as reached for my wallet. No, I will not be more specific about what measures.
I would probably have more pride invested in taking people out for meals and such if all of my friends weren't long since finished school, and not only gainfully employed, but paid very, very, well. I'll get them back eventually. You wait. Monetary, food-based vengeance will be mine.
"Odin, Odin, Odin, Thor, Odin, Odin, Thor, Thor, Odin, Thor, Odin, Odin. Norse code."
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