Potpourri
(As opposed to Potent Potables)

I know it's been too long since I've posted when blogger forgets who I am. If only my life were more exciting, or entertaining, or something. I think I need another pet to drive me nuts.

We have this patient at work that drives us nuts. Actually, the patient is very nice; it's her daughter that drives us nuts. She (the daughter) has tried every single one of our mattresses and deemed them unacceptable. And yet she demands we give her something else. It's not like we're holding out on her. It would behoove use to make her happy so she would go away.

The most exasperating part of the whole thing is that each time we give her another mattress to try she calls us up with some phantom problem that she wants me, and me only, to come over and investigate. And no, it's not because she likes me or anything. It's just I'm the only person who will take the time to crap out answers to her ridiculous questions.

And all her supposed problems with the mattress are things that I can neither see happen at the time, nor recreate later. She might as well call me up and ask me if I can get the aliens to stop giving her visions of the mother ship. Or if I can please do something about the kitchen elves stealing her pasta. No. I can't. Because these problems aren't real.

And now she's demanding a mattress that I know she'll hate. In fact she's already tried it and hated it and she's demanding it anyhow.

With a startling lack of transition, I don't think I'm cut out for this online dating thing. I don't know if my emails come on too strong, or not strong enough, or if I'm perhaps boring potential girlfriends to pieces. Whatever the issue may be, the result is that after an email or two they all disappear. In fact, the less I write the longer the correspondence will last. The only time I can get to the point of an actual first date is if I'm ambivalent about writing back in the first place. If I put in just the bare minimum effort so that I can come across as polite, I'm almost guaranteed a coffee date, which will go badly. I need to find a different method.

There needs to be some sort of monkdom that involves tinkering and does not involve religion.

No More Food

They're closing my Albertsons. Who closes an Albertsons?

And it's really the only grocery store within walking distance. Now the two closest fooderies are the Pacific Super, which is like Asian Albertsons and an Albertsons on Ocean Ave, which takes 10 or so minutes to reach by car. The problem with the Pacific Super is that they often don't have quite what I'm looking for. Grass jello? No problem. Cans of squid? The end cap on aisle 3. Bullion cube? Nope, they don't have those. Ground turkey? Sorry.

So I think for the most part I'll shop at the other Albertsons, which I'm not entirely unhappy about. I mean, it's a pain to have to drive to the store because I don't usually buy more than 2 or 3 little bags worth of stuff. But this other Albertsons is MUCH nicer:
- The Aisles are clean.
- There is a BofA inside which is open until 7 where I can take out my rent in cash.
- Both clerks and customers are more attractive than the clerks and customers at the old store.
- Nobody is shucking corn in the vegetable department.
- All the self checkout lines work.

I'm hoping that some other grocery store will go in where the old Albertsons used to be. Perhaps a Trader Joes. Or, if I'm really lucky, a cinnamonbearatorium.

Pentadotted

My radiation hasn't started, but I did just go in for my simulation appointment. I'm not sure why they call it that. It's more like a mapping and drawing appointment.

I was under the impression that the simulation appointment would show me what a regular radiation appointment would be like, would tell me when and for how long my appointments would go on, and that I would have a firm idea of how the rest of my treatment would go. But no, that's not how doctors work.

In preparation for my simulation I went into the bathroom to put on the robe the nurse gave me. Since all this stuff is happening in my abdomen area I left my shirt on, took off my pants, and unfolded the robe. This robe, however, simply would not do. It turned out to be the shirt half only, and would have made my stay in the waiting room a little drafty. I'm just not comfortable in public wearing only black socks and a hospital robe halter top. So I put my pants back on and went to find a more suitable robe.

After a couple minutes a nurse and a doctor in training came to show me to my x-ray table. On the x-ray table they projected a grid of light on my abdomen and then drew on me with 3 or 4 colors of permanent marker, took 2 x-rays, and went off to consult the doctor. When they came back they were happy with their map of my innards so they made some permanent landmarks so the radiation people could radiate me with some measure of accuracy.

Yep, that's right, I got tattooed. I have 5 whole tattoos. I'm finally cool like Cate, except hers are quite a bit more ornate than mine are. Mine, boringly enough, are just little dots. Just a drop of ink and a poke with a needle in a 3 dot line an inch to the right of my bellybutton and a dot on each love handle. If you connected the dots you'd get a big sideways cross. Or if you used my moles and freckles you might get the Mona Lisa.

When I was leaving they told me they'd call me the next day to tell me when I'd have my month or so of treatments. When I called them two days later they said that they'd call me in a week or maybe a week and a half. When I asked how long my treatments would go the nurse told me it would be between 2 and 5 weeks. It's hard to pin doctors down on things.

Washing Advice

Do not combine rinsing your mouth with Listerine and washing your face into the same activity. If you happen to spit at the same time you're bringing a hand full of water up to your face you're liable to rub Listerine-spit-water into your eyes.

At least I'm secure in the knowledge that my nose won't develop gingivitis.

Home Sweet Home?

I need more space. I'd like room for people to sleep when they visit. I'd like to have a spot to build things. I'd like to not ram my knuckles into my light fixture when I'm putting on my shirt in the morning. Oh, and I'd like more than one window.

On the other hand, I hate moving, and there are no places available that are so obviously better yet still affordable that I would go through the horror of moving out.

With that in mind I was cruising along on craigslist when I saw two houses for sale: One for $175K and one for $160K. Those are reasonable home prices in most places, but they are a steal in the bay area, especially because they are both in Marin. So here are the catches. The first is a floating home, and the second is a mobile home.

I'm still interested in the idea of a floating home. It's just that this particular floating home wasn't my cup of tea. When I went to look at it there was quite a bit of water cascading off the roof, which was odd since it hadn't been raining. Then there was the fact that when the tide goes out the home sits in the mud. Stinky mud. And to top it off the road that leads to the dock floods every time there's a big rain storm. No thanks.

Now the mobile home had a little more promise, at least as far as homey things are concerned. For $160K I would get 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a little back yard, new parquet floor, granite counter tops, and access to the pool and tennis court. Then again, at the end of any given date I'd be left with the problem of how to phrase the question "would you like to come back to my trailer?"

I think I'd still consider the mobile home if I got the ground underneath for my $160K. But I don't trust people to not sell the dirt out from under my house if I'm be renting it. What would I do with a $160,000 house with no place to put it? It's not like it has wheels. Maybe I could sneak it into Golden Gate Park. Ending a date with "would you like to come back to my house in Golden Gate Park?" would probably work wonders. Or she'd think I was homeless.

Pub Quiz Update

The team name: It's Called Soccer.
Our place: 4th.
Skittles flavored gum: Gross. They're just like regular Skittles, except you chew them twice as long and spit them out instead of swallowing.
Winner of funniest name: Quadravag. (A team of 4 girls.)

Not to Change the Subject

But I'm not sure I have any more thrilling or entertaining stories of cancer with which to entertain you at the moment.

What I will talk about briefly is that I've just gotten an email for a girl on a personals site. And that's great; I don't get a lot of emails. (And I don't get a lot of replies to my emails which makes for some pretty slow going.)

Anyhow, she's awfully good looking, and that worries me. It's not that attractive girls cause me great dismay, but I'm worried she isn't real, or who knows – just that something is wrong. I've been fooled before. I once had a very nice email from a girl telling me I could contact her for free via her profile on her "friend's" website. Since you have to pay to email people I thought it was really nice that she'd tell me how to contact her for free. No such luck. It was all an evil ploy to get me to sign up for another dating site.

I've also had messages from little cute pictures of girls who, when clicked, turned into bigger pictures of girls with Adam's apples and big, hairy, man-hands. Not things I'm looking for in a relationship.

But all her pictures confirm that she's a cute girl with regular sized girl-hands and a bulge-free neck. And she hasn't asked me to go sign up at a website or anything. So I'm just going to go ahead, cross my fingers, and hope she's a real person who just happens to think the picture of me in my plaid hat is worthy of an email.

At the Hospital

The Friday I had my surgery I arrived at St. Luke's at around 4pm. Eventually, after I had signed in, and then wandered around the hospital trying to find the recovery room, I was lead to where I needed to be by a nurse. They brought me over to my gurney, I undressed and got under some preheated blankets, and another nurse fished around under my skin looking for a vein and trying to insert the IV.

In general, any time I have given blood for any reason the blood taker says, "oh my, you have such nice, big veins." And the first nurse said exactly that, but apparently the second nurse didn't see what the first nurse saw. She had a hard time, and I did too.

After I was all IVed, prepped, and ready to go, the anesthesiologist came in to explain the stuff he was about to give me. "This first thing is just to relax you." He said, injecting some stuff into my IV. "It'll be like having a couple of margaritas."

"Oh. Um, I don't drink."

"Ah, well, it'll be like having 6 or 7 margaritas then."

And I was off to the operating room. The anesthesiologist put a mask on me and said he was going to give me some oxygen. I remember thinking that the mask didn't fit very well because a lot of the gas was shooting over my right cheek. Then I was out.

When I woke up I was back in the recovery room, and after some odd hospital apple juice, they wheeled me up to my room.

All through the night attractive nurses came in to see what my pain level was. (Generally I said 3 or 4, which I guess is what one aims for on a 10-scale pain chart. 3 or 4 corresponds to the smiley face who looks like he just knocked over somebody's favorite lamp.) Then they'd ask to look at my incision and draw on the dressing with permanent marker, or in one case, with a ballpoint pen. (If you ever find yourself as a nurse in this situation, use the permanent marker. You don't have to press as hard.) I'm certainly not used to attractive women asking to look at my crotch.

I only spent the one night in the hospital, but it was a toughy. I had to stay on my back, and I don't sleep well, or at all, on my back. In addition, the nurse's station was right out my front door and there was a lot of noise from out there. Lastly, even though I was 10 floors up, I could still hear through my window things like screeching tires, sirens, and cops yelling "Stop! Police! Stop or I'll shoot!." Finally, the bit that was most responsible for keeping me awake was the fact that I'd had an IV in me since 4pm, and I had to pee roughly every half hour. And there were a number of things making peeing difficult:

1) Having to pee in a jug.
2) Having to pee in a jug while lying down, on my back, unable to roll over very far onto my side.
3) Trying to relax to pee into a jug while my mother slept mere inches away on a fold-out bed/chair on the floor.
4) Trying to fit in a pee between nurse visits.

Although I do have to give the pee jug people credit for the curved neck design. Kudos for reducing spillage.

In the morning I was up and hobbling around, and decided to sit in a chair for a while while a nurse came in to take my vitals. As she was doing so I was watching a bubble travel down my IV into my arm, and I asked her if that was ok. My understanding was that bubbles and blood vessels don't mix. She said she didn't know and would ask another nurse.

15 minutes or so passed and another nurse came in and checked my vitals. I asked her the same question and she said it was fine. This, of course, begs another, and possibly more serious question: Who was the first nurse? Does she even work there? Does she just go around checking people's vitals and not telling anyone?

Finally it was breakfast time and the real nurse told me she'd ask the nutritionist to organize some breakfast for me. I wasn't looking forward to a breakfast designed by a nutritionist, but I didn't have much choice. When breakfast arrived it consisted of pancakes with maple syrup, sausage links, coffee, cranberry juice, and milk. Basically a fatty version of the stuff that surrounds the cereal bowl in the fruit loops commercial. I could totally be a nutritionist.

After breakfast it was time to go home, so my mom helped me put on my underwear, socks, and pants. I was a little worried about the taxi ride to my apartment because the pharmacy had been closed so all my pain meds were still at Rite Aid waiting to be bought. I asked the nurse how much pain medication I was getting through my IV, and she said, "None. Do you want some?" Little did I know that I had just had right testicle removed the day before, and from the point of waking up to walking in my front door I had taken no pain medication at all. I'm not sure who should get the credit for that: The Surgeon? Me? But somebody should.

The last obstacle for the day was getting from the hospital to my apartment. I had contemplated asking a friend to pick me up, but it was early and I didn't want to explain that I had cancer, surgery, ask for a ride home, and apologize for waking them up all in the same phone call. So we called a cab.

You know how people are made up of something like 60% water? Well, this cab driver was someplace near 75% amphetamine. He was simultaneously adjusting the radio, asking where we wanted to go, asking for directions on how to get there, explaining his 6 months absence from driving, and assuring me that telling him to drive smoothly was a good move on my part. And he was doing all that and driving at warp speed. He was also breaking at warp speed.

When I got out of the cab the driver jumped out and offered me his arm. I decided I'd rather not take any help from Mr Jitters, so I took hold of the door instead.

"Oh man! I hope you feel better man!" He said, shuffling back and forth. "Maybe you should get a cane or something!"

And by Monday I was back at work.

Oh, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mattress for being awesome. I slept on my stomach that Saturday night. The 4" Eurotop was totally worth the extra money. You go Serta.

Back

Well, not back really. It's not like I went someplace.

So here's the deal - the reason I haven't been writing: The day after my last post I found out I had testicular cancer. Then I had the right one* out on Friday. I'm fine now, though I need to undergo some radiation therapy just to be sure they got it all.

So for a while there all the stories I could think of were hospital related. And you can't very well tell a bunch of hospital stories without explaining why you were in the hospital. Well, maybe I could have, but not stories that involve attractive nurses coming in every hour or so to draw on my crotch with magic marker, or hearing an-only-barely-avoided shootout below my hospital window at 2am. Mattress delivery rarely involves either of those things.

Then, as non-hospital related stories came up, I felt like I couldn't just jump right in after 2 weeks with, "today I went to Arbuckle California and saw a coffee shop called Starbuckles Coffee." Or "Today I delivered a mattress to a guy named "Charlie Brown." I needed to explain my absence first. One can't follow a post about Arbuckle Coffee with a post about cancer. I think people who do that are called blog fouls.

Anyhow, I decided I should just write about it, then it'd be out there and I could talk about hospital stories or what ever else happened to be going on. I could even post another math joke if the mood struck. (Don't worry, I don't have one.)

So yeah, there it is. And I'm fine, so nobody worry. I wasn't using the right one anyhow. Really, for the other people I know who have had cancer, it was really a much more traumatic thing. I feel like my experience has been much more low-key. My experience was the medical equivalent of having a spider on your back, saying "Eek! Get it off!", and then not being able to lift anything heavy for 2 months. Ok, so the lifting thing doesn't fit with the metaphor, but you get the picture. The spider's gone, and on August 1st I'll be able to heave 72 lb boxes of gel mattress pad around just like I used to.


*As opposed to the left one. Not as opposed to the wrong one.