Results

 On Tuesday I had my MRI follow-up appointment with Doc Plotkin. All in all, at the mo, I’m stable. Yea. No need for more neurosurgeries…right now. Double plus YEA!

I asked the good doc why my recovery from this past May’s bean surgery is going so slowly. WHY am I still so fatigued and moving like molasses in January?

Three things:

• Me and this old bod have been through a fuck ton of hell over the past five years. Three (count ‘em, folks) THREE ops to reduce the size of tumors in my brain and TWO for my spine. That shit’ll def knock a few deep dents in your resilience.

• I’m not so young anymore. I’d snap back more easily if I was a fresh, young babe of 40 or 50. I’m not.

• Trump. Yes, Plotkin blames Shitzenpants and he’s NOT wrong. Fer realies, that fucker, his woman-hating, weirdo running mate and the idiot MAGA cult are so goddamn exhausting.

An idiom comes to mind:
     I’ll have your guts for garters.  

‘the fuck does this even mean and where does it come from?

To threaten to ‘have someone’s guts for garters’ is to state the intention to do them serious harm.

... ‘to have someone’s guts for garters’ originated in Tudor England.

At that time disembowelment was used as a form of torture and execution. The punishment of ‘hanged, drawn and quartered‘ was on the statue book in England until as late as 1790…

Although the threat wasn’t a real one it at least would have made sense then as garters were then worn by men as a way of holding up their stockings, a.k.a. hose. (source)

I only mention it but, considering Dim Donny’s considerable girth, his guts would surpass a giraffe’s garter length needs.

By the by, that 'hanged, drawn and quartered’ business? This was a a form of execution used in England from the 13th century until 1790. It was what you got for committing high treason. 

High treason included: 

• attempting to off the king

• making the beast with two backs with the king’s wife OR his eldest daughter OR with the wife of the heir to the throne

• plotting and/or trying on a coup

• giving aid, comfort and classified docs to the enemy 

...as well as other assorted, critical faux pas. Such as being a Catholic priest.

The victims were first hung by the neck but taken from the scaffold while still alive. The entrails and genitals are then removed (drawn), the head cut off and the torso hacked into four quarters.  (source)

How incredibly thorough.

Honestly? Though guilty as fuck of trying to overturn democracy and make himself king, selling and/or just showing off classified docs and giving freebies to the bad guys, money laundering, multiple rapes, etc., I wouldn’t wish this punishment on Cheato. Well, if meting out his punishment was within my personal purview, I’d need to think about it a little more. I’d PROBABLY opt for something less messy. The cleaning staff really don’t need the headache plus, really good hazmat suits aren’t cheap. 

Yeah, who knew? I seem to have a heart and a budget.

Related, I’m hoping Jack Smith’s report gets a lot of airplay. Perhaps, with the NYT editorial board’s shredding of Mango Mussolini, there’s a chance?

Here's a link to Smith’s entire court filing. Go read.

The document provides insight into some of the salacious details collected by prosecutors as they’ve built their case against Trump, including that the former president sidelined his 2020 campaign legal team that November in favor of Rudy Giuliani on the basis that the since-disbarred attorney was willing to lie about the election results.

At one point, Smith details how a Trump campaign employee was informed that a final batch of ballots at a Detroit vote-counting center would favor Joe Biden. “Find a reason it isn’t,” the staffer said. “Give me options to file litigation.”

When a colleague warned doing so could spark unrest, the staffer replied, “Make them riot.”  (source)

Back to Plotkin’s assessment—YES, I wholly agree. The astoundingly weird Trump Crime Syndicate’s constant lies and other crimes against the planet ARE wearing me the fuck out. 

32 days left 'til the election. VOTE—all of our our lives depend on it.

Blood and Brains

I’ve discovered that I’m now prone to coming down with get a case of Pre-appointment Crankies whenever I have to go into MGH/MEEI. I guess maybe I’m anticipating news of MORE surgeries and/or procedures being immediately needed. To be fair, this has been the case for most of my visits over the past four+ years.

Early yesterday I had my six week post-brain surgery meeting with my cutter, the Obama lookalike, Doc Will Curry. I was nervous. Of course I was. I’d gotten a note after my last MRI saying that I possibly have a pool of blood—old stuff, not fresh and vibrant—lounging around where my Godzilla-esque former tumor lived. What the hell? The nurse mentioning it didn’t feel it was anything to write home about but, just in case, I was scheduled for a CAT scan (which I had last week).

So, Old Blood Pond? Confirmed in scan. Great. Now what? How will this be remedied? Surely I can’t carry a cup of loose blood around in my frontal lobe forever. (I don’t actually know the fer reals, precise amount but it’s less than an Olympic pool’s worth) I mean, wouldn’t a stagnant puddle of Donna juice get all nasty? Possibly heinously stinky? Attract mosquitos? Could it muck up important brain bits? Like, maybe the gears that make it so I breathe automatically or the gear that enables me to remember my name or that cog that’s gotta cog so I can pee?

Would I need MORE fucking surgery to get the Lago de Sangre drained? I was all set to suggest to Doc Curry that they should instead get a vampire and a bendy straw (just drill a wee hole) for a win/win solution. Ya see, the vamp could have a wee snack and, in return, I’d lose the excess, stale, possibly odiferous life-juice. Here’s the only deal, they’d need to get one of those handsome sparkly bloodsuckers like Eric Northman from True Blood and Louis de Pointe du Lac of Interview with the Vampire teevee fame. Hmmm, I think these two may not count as sparkle vamps. That seems specific to the fang crowd on that awful tween/teen romance show The Twilight Saga.

Shockingly, I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Back to my appointment…

As it turns out, all that old blood is and will be reabsorbed into the veins and tissue around it! How neat and tidy is that? So, I get to escape returning to the OR for now.

Also, it’s not a Danger, Will Robinson, Danger sign that I had such soul sucking fatigue during first three or so weeks post-op. Why not?

For starters, after surgery I’m usually in hospital five nights, versus this past round’s two. Next, after the each of the four neuro-ops of ‘20 - '21, I was in Spaulding Rehab for up to a month. That was a LOT of rest and inpatient physical therapy before getting home.

Of course I was sleeping and napping so much after coming directly home two nights after big-ass brain slice-age. (I keep downplaying my surgeries but, even the less intense ones, really are huge horking deals. I mean, it's fucking brain and spine shit. Those are kind of important and delicate parts of my anatomy, no?)

The intense fatigue could also be me experiencing the cumulative emotional and physical effects of having had five ginormous surgeries in the space of four measly years (six in the last six years) plus proton radiation, chemo and some dental surgery.

I’m tired! Also older. I seem to have sorta, kinda slipped the forgiving bonds of youthful, boundless resiliency.

Oopsie!

So, Curry says it might take a touch longer to get back into Wonder Woman form BUT I’ll get there. Every day I'm able to move and exercise a bit more.

On the main, the good surgeon was happy with my progress.

Now for the REALLY great news—not only have I NOT gained any weight during these weakened, slothful weeks, where all I seem to do is laze about, eat and doomscroll, I’ve shed a couple pounds. There’s been weight loss NOT gain! I was seriously concerned. I’ve got enough wrong with me. I don’t need excess-weight related problems on top of all my stupid tumor troubles.

I'd rather be a forest than a street

I woke at 3AM in the midst of a dire bleeding cookie emergency. Okay, maybe “emergency“ is too long of a leap into Hyperbole-Ville? Ya know, a not fully required overampage?!

I had just the one—cookie anyway. It was good. I have no regrets.
~~~
Who is Rob Schneider? Should I care? I don’t believe that’s necessary.

A brief Googling revealed that he was the star of such Big Hollywood Dynamite as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (never saw it and feel undeprived) and Saturday Night Live (a once funny sketch comedy show popular with state college frat boys and girls).

Rob Schneider ruffled some feathers during a recent performance at a hospital fundraiser in Canada.

The comedian was hired to do a set for the Hospitals of Regina Foundation’s Four Seasons Ball on June 1 but ended up upsetting the crowd with “transphobic, misogynistic and anti-vax” jokes.

“Everyone in the room was groaning, saying, ‘What is going on?’ Like, whispering to themselves,” guest Tynan Allan told the CBC Wednesday. “Not a single laugh at times.”
Allan added, “It was just very apparent how uncomfortable everyone felt and how unacceptable the things he was talking about were.” (source)

So, I guess Schneider’s another washed up, out of touch has-been who decided to kill his career by outing himself as a MAGAt.
~~~
Speaking of not smart…remember ol’ Neuticles Gingrich?

Introduced in 1995, the NeuticlesORIGINAL® is crafted from FDA medically approved polyprophylene- not plastic but resembling plastic in firmness. Its minimal price makes it affordable for any budget conscience pet owner. Four sizes available. Created by CTI and crafted in the USA. (source)

THIS explains where that neon pasty white fucker got his name. Apparently he possesses a wee pair which are kept under lock and key at the Vatican by Mrs. Neuticles and the Pontifical Swiss Guard.

Is Neuticles Gringrich also of Russia descent? Nope—any Russian leanings are pure aspirational fiction—much like the laughable idea of him having actual, real human balls. Neuticles is of English, German, Scottish, Scots-Irish and plastic descent.

 ~~~

I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes, I would
If I could
I surely would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes, I would
If I only could
I surely would
Away, I'd rather sail away
Like a swan that's here and gone
A man gets tied up to the ground
He gives the world its saddest sound
Its saddest sound
I'd rather be a forest than a street
Yes, I would
If I could
I surely would
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes, I would
If I only could
I surely would
El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)~Paul Simon
~~~

Breakfast cheesesneck.

I will never eat anything else for brekkie again.

Would you?! OF COURSE NOT!!!
~~~
I love that we named sloths after their base personality trait. We should do that with other animals.

Like otters could be “frolics,” turtles could be “duck and covers,” pigeons could be “sidewalk douches,” humans would be the spam of humanity—Republicans and Tories in specific.
~~~
One time our home ec teacher showed us a ladle and asked if we knew what it’s for. And this kid said it was for holding up your bâlls on a hot day

I think about that a lot. But mainly on hot days
~~~
Can I have a Jewish wedding if I'm not Jewish? (I’m not)

I don't want to do the Have Nagila chair thing but I like everything else. Me, your pal the wicked fall risk, might find it in poor taste to fall and risk croakage at her own wedding. Maybe that’s just me being hysterically me again?

Methinks a meeting with a Cassowary (or as I call it “the Prehistoric Murder Bird") is in order instead?

Sleep outside

What To Do?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, another more or less sleepless night. This is becoming a real thing for me. Last week I slept just three out of seven nights. Likely I’ve whined about this before. I know, I know, I kvetch about this all the damn time, don't I!?

I've consulted friends and pros and done online searches for tips. I've found a few new bits, been reminded of ones I've used in the past but not found any spectacular, shiny new, Schlaf guaranteeing schemes. Mostly, it seems, I just need to be consistent. You know, schedule the stuff I'm not already doing into each day and really do it.

Help Guide.org recommends that I:

• Spend more time outside during daylight.

I could add a daily walk to my triking. This’d be good for my balance AND potential slumberhood!

• Keep your room cool

 The prob with this is that The Amazing Bob and I have significantly different internal thermostats. In summer, I’m always too hot so I crank the AC. TAB’s then too cold. In winter I’m always too hot so I lower the heat…and then he’s too cold.

• Avoid alcohol before bed.

But, but, a glass of the grape would help me get off to dreamland, right? Yes, but more than one will insure that I’m up at 1 AM, staring at the ceiling, attempting to solve for Pi.

• Cut down on caffeine.

I try to never, EVAH have coffee after 11 AM...for all the good that’s doing me.

This next combo is pretty key though, frankly, neither has gotten me back to Lullaby-ville once I'm up and amped at 2 AM. Still, they bring down my tension levels and that makes sense.

• Practice deep breathing and progressive relaxation exercises

Who knew, there’re a few different ways to breath in order to de-tension-ify the mind/body!

• Sama Vritti
• Abdominal Breathing Technique
• Nadi Shodhana
• Kapalabhati

Go to the linky for more info on these (and progressive relaxation). I generally do the last breathing technique, Kapalabhati. I’d no idea that there was a name for it AND it’s a thing!

• Visualize a peaceful, restful place

Like I do when I’m in the tube. Gotcha.

The site also suggests:

• Postpone worrying and brainstorming. (WAY easier said than done!)
• Make relaxation your goal, not sleep. 

Relaxation versus sleep as a target—yes but then I get bored, antsy and feel the overwhelming need to get up an do something. I’m awake so I may as well be productive, eh? Yeah, chillin’ is a supreme effort for me.

 My additions to the Sleep for Dummies list:

• Exercise

30 minutes to an hour every damn day. On days when I can’t trike, I walk. If I can’t get in a formal, hour long power walk I, at the least, try to keep moving—painting, cleaning and such—throughout the day.

• Avoid the political blogs and news reports after 5 PM. 

Why? Being furious isn’t gonna help me sleep. All the shit will be there in the morning when my mind’s flying on all four cylinders.

• DO NOT watch the World Series!

I'm, of course, rooting for the Mets. At least last night's game didn't go to FOURTEEN innings.

An FYI...

...to the folks who recently told me that they "know someone who said that their health insurance is more expensive and not as good now" with the Affordable Care Act in place.

In 2010, at the company I’d been working for since the mid 80s, my weekly health insurance deduction had risen to $250—totaling, my end, $1,000 each month. The company, as one of my benefits, paid half—another $1000 on top for a 2G total. That was for a family plan.

At the next company, my health insurance deduction was close to $70 per week/$280-ish per month. This was an individual plan (employers, again, paid half for a $560 total). The Amazing Bob had hit 65 and was on Medicare which def helped lower our monthly bills.

Big prob though—this new plan was a dramatically shitty one. At the end of the coverage year, I was holding the bag for over two large (on top of co-pays and weekly payroll deduction) for uncovered or barely covered, necessary tests and services. That and the greedheaded, heartless bastards wouldn’t cover my asthma meds at all. Not being a Rockefeller, I needed to go without them. Hard, hard damned year.

Now, with Obamacare?  As a part-time freelancer with a big-ass preexisting condition, not only was I able to get insurance, it’s actually, ya know, affordable! Pre-ACA the very idea of this would’ve been bleakly laughable.

My current payment? $138 a month total for an individual plan. Yes, there are doc visit co-pays and I owed a small amount for one of my MRIs BUT all my meds are covered. So, for a significantly better insurance plan, I’m now paying half as much. And that's not including the fact that my employers were kicking in.

Mind, I had help navigating the confusing, overwhelming at times health insurance waters. The fabulous Ken Moore at my local community health care clinic, helped sign me up for the plan that’d work best for me.

Are you confused and find yourself with an unaffordable expensive plan? Find your local health center and see if they can assist. Quincy, Massachusetts can’t be the only town in America with tremendous clinic worker bees.

Pre-Existing Conditions
Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies can’t refuse to cover you or charge you more just because you have a “pre-existing condition” — that is, a health problem you had before the date that new health coverage starts. They also can’t charge women more than men.
Lifetime Limits
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, lifetime limits on most benefits are prohibited in any health plan or insurance policy. Previously, many plans set a lifetime limit — a dollar limit on what they would spend for your covered benefits during the entire time you were enrolled in that plan. You were required to pay the cost of all care exceeding those limits.
Annual Limits
The Affordable Care Act bans annual dollar limits that all job-related plans and individual health insurance plans can put on most covered health benefits. Before the health care law, many health plans set an annual limit — a dollar limit on their yearly spending for your covered benefits. You were required to pay the cost of all care exceeding those limits.

Yeah, I’m BIG TIME fond of the ACA. It could be better, OF COURSE it could, but it’s a great, fab start. Not convinced? Go read the responses to Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers' request for Obamacare horror stories. Hint—no horror/much praise and relief.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BUT WAIT there's more! From my friend Ken:

I had a couple of preexisting conditions (NF2 and diabetes). I lost my insurance and nobody would touch me. While I still had insurance I was paying over $1100/month. After the ACA, I got back on the same plan I had before and now pay a little over $700/month. Nobody can tell me it's a bad law.
 
My buddy Julie:

This is the reason we could move back to the states! When I was w/o employment, and my only option was COBRA (time limited), we moved to Costa Rica and bought into their medical system. We knew that one major emergency or a chronic health problem would put us in the poor house. Now, we no longer have that fear.
They moved out of the US because they couldn't afford health care. Native born American citizens and they could NOT afford to stay in the US due to the cost and other BS of health insurance. How utterly fucked up is that?!

And pal Brenda:

I also now enjoy the best coverage at the best (sliding fee) price that i have had in 10 years. The affordable care act has changed lives. Mine.

YES!!!

Ear Dances

 While tooling around the ‘tubes I came upon Sherman Alexie’s short story War Dances. It resonates on so goddamn many levels.

Last summer, in reaction to various allergies I was suffering from, defensive mucus flooded my inner right ear and confused, frightened, and unmoored me. My allergies had never been this severe. I could barely hear a fucking thing with that side, so I had to turn my head in order to understand what my two sons, ages eight and ten, were saying.

“We’re hungry,” they said. “We keep telling you.”

I was embarrassed.

 Embarrassed. I understand.

And then he woke at 3 AM one morning and realized he had no hearing at all in one ear.
OF COURSE he was afraid — panicked — who wouldn’t be? To wake with significantly reduced hearing is alarming to say the very least.

Ten years ago in the dark, frozen, early winter predawn hours, I woke and slowly, very slowly realized that my sound system wasn’t functioning at peak, can-hear-azaleas-breathing levels.
How could I tell? Morning’s are always quiet here on Valhalla. We’re off on a peninsula — 13 miles from the loud nights of Boston and almost four miles from the hardly pastoral Quincy Center. I don’t think, of all the places I’ve lived, anyplace could match the peacefulness of the Neck.

The usual AM, I’m-the-only-one-up-even-the-cat’s-sleeping, John Cagian soundtrack was missing. My slippers didn’t scuff as I walked across the hardwood floors. There was no sursurrant fuzz when I pulled my fleecy robe off the bathroom hook. That ominous, redolent of horror movies, creak didn't sound when I when I hit the first floor landing. I was getting suspicious. And then the coffee maker didn’t sing those happy, hopeful percolating notes.

Yeah, panic was bubbling but I didn’t feel I had a right to it. To my mind, panic wasn't OK or understandable. After all, I was mostly deaf in one ear already and had a 30% loss in the other. AND I’d known that I was hearing on borrowed time since I was 22.

Still, knowing that the day would arrive when I’d no longer be able to hear the sweeping intricacies of Jeff Beck’s guitar work on Shapes of Things or the slow, brilliant, creeping explosions of Ravel’s Bolero or The Amazing Bob’s midnight FM jazz DJ voice, his honey dipped gravelly laugh and then actually entering Deaf Station are two different things.

I went in to see my Beach Boy Neurotologist, Doctor Michael McKenna. Like Alexie, I got a 'script for prednisone. Doc McKenna had prescribed this twice before — my brain’s swelling had reduced and hearing came back up. Third time was not a charm.

It’s one hell of a challenge to remain calm or calm-ish at a time like this but we try. Alexie, for the sake of his kids and his wife who was away on long planned holiday with her mother in Italy.

Me? I knew this day was due — it didn't come outta nowhere. I had to face it sans freakout. I’d prepared hadn’t I? Laid in bed listening to Fanfare for the Common Man, amongst other masterpieces, again and again in order to embed each note in my memory, hadn’t I? Gone to every live show and concert I could manage. Had TAB read to me. I needed to hear all this even if just inside my head.

Knowing and being aren’t the same.

Alexie’s hearing happily came back up. Over the course of investigations a meningioma was discovered. Hey, I’ve got those too! These aren’t the hearing loss cause for either of us (in my case those are the schwannoma bastids). These benign meningioma fuckers are mostly decorative. Mostly. Mine are getting up to a point where Doc Plotkin’s telling me that he’s “concerned” and “we’ll need to keep a close watch” on them/me. Big fun.

Just like the morning my hearing fell, I’ve totally legit reasons to panic. Just because I get that extreme fear is understandable — even for me — doesn’t mean I want to feel it. To go all Spock-ish, it’s illogical. Accomplishes nothing.

When my next big surgery day is pronounced, will I freak? Eh, not so’s anyone’ll notice. Except TAB — TAB always knows.

When Alexie’s wife, who naturally cut short her vaca to be with him,  came home he said to her:

“There was a rumor that I’d grown a tumor, but I killed it with humor.” 

“How long have you been waiting to tell me that one?” she asked. 

“Oh, probably since the first time some doctor put his fingers in my brain.”

Go read the whole story, War Dances by Sherman Alexie.

Outrageous Benumbment

To trike, or not to trike? That is the question—
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous benumbment,
Or to take arms against a sea of stinging wind,
And, by opposing, triumph? To trike, to ride—
Once more—and by cycling to say we end
The flab and the thousand fatty pounds
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished!

Apologies to Hammy Baby.

When I leave for work later this morning the temp’s gonna be a balmy 28º. The question is, will I trike or drive? Dunno but I’m betting on the trike. After all, I’ve a track record, a rep for riding in wintry weather.

While I’m psyching myself up, laying out my frozen season outdoor spinning gear, let’s have a few words. K?

acyrology
noun
Incorrect use of language (at which I'm a pro)
Related:
cacology (sounds like something poop related, does it not?)
noun
1. bad choice of words or poor pronunciation.
2. defectively produced speech; socially unacceptable diction.

fremd (Isn't this a Facebookism? You know, should I unfremd this asshole or not?)
Wikitionary has the most to say about this adjective:
1. (rare or chiefly dialectal) Strange; foreign; alien; outlandish; far off or away; distant.  
2. (rare or chiefly dialectal) Not akin; unrelated.  
3. (rare or chiefly dialectal) Out of the ordinary; unusual; unwonted. a fremd day

4. (rare or chiefly dialectal) Strange; weird; outlandish; singular; odd; queer. A fremd man this. — Hodgson MS.

5. (archaic or obsolete) Wild; untamed.

It can also be a noun:
fremd (plural fremds)
(rare or chiefly dialectal) stranger; guest
(archaic or obsolete) an enmity

So then, I can say “I may be a fremd but I ain’t no fremd” and that’d be all kosher and shit? And, because my mind is a jumble of songs, of lyrics that I'm continually bolloxing up, this is now in my head.

jeon (plural jeon) (Damned convenient that the plural is the same as the singular, eh?)
From Korean 전 (jeon).
Noun
A fried, filled pancake-like food eaten in Korea

These would truly hit the spot for brekkie right now, lemme just tell you. It’s fucking cold out — I need pancakes before I brave that frosty ride to work!

spiv
Noun
From World Wide Words:

A spiv was typically a flashily dressed man (velvet collars and lurid kipper ties) who made a living by various disreputable dealings, existing by his wits rather than holding down any job, and who often supported himself by petty black-market dealings. (Another name was wide boy, with wide having the old slang sense of sharp-witted, or skilled in sharp practice.) He was small-time, living on the fringes of real criminality. He is most closely associated with the Second World War and after in Britain; he always seemed able to get those coveted luxury items that were unobtainable during that period of austerity except on the black market, such as nylons.

Love this word. It’s just so evocative of film noir-ish scenes — of brilliantly beautiful, fiercely smart, devious babes, ready to use their angry survival skills to get what they need.

Hit the linky for more spiv related awesomeness.

winze (plural winzes)
noun
A steep shaft in a mine which joins two levels.

NOT what I was expecting. It looks like a verb. “I just had to winze when he made that awful pun.” Nope.

silva
noun
1. the forest trees of a particular area.
2. a descriptive flora of forest trees.

Looks more like how we pronounce the word “silver” here in these New England parts. As in “Do you prefer silva jewelry or gold?” Ah...no. This is related to sylvan as in a sylvan glade.

sylvan
[sil-vuh n]
adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or inhabiting the woods.
2. consisting of or abounding in woods or trees; wooded; woody:
a shady, sylvan glade.
3. made of trees, branches, boughs, etc.
noun
4. a person dwelling in a woodland region.
5. a mythical deity or spirit of the woods.

“Our woods are sylvan, and their inhabitants woodmen and rustics...”
from Thoreau's The Maine Woods.


Well shit, I can't procrastinate any longer. It's time to find my fleece lined leggings, triking socks, forehead scarf and maybe see if I can tuck cat or two down my vest.

Monopoly Rules

The card I DON'T want

Whelp, I made it. No major push-the-panic-button freak outs in the tube and I’m done, with brain MRIs, for the year. There’ll be another for my liver some time in the next few months but this one was the biggie.

Mind you, those two shots of Jamie with the Lorazapam chaser surely smoothed the ride.

Still and all, there was a point where the monster panic beast hit. Of a sudden, I was certain that the techs had gone home for the night and I was stranded in the tube. Did I mention alarm, confusion and radical horror? Yeah well, I was able to figuratively step back from my frenzy and give it a good sane once over. I snapped out of it and put my head back in chill central.

PHEW!

I get the results from Doc Plotkin on Tuesday. I’m not expecting any Go To MGH, Go Directly To The OR, Do Not Pass Go, yada yada yada but, eh, who knows.

This is how I went through my 30s — ten years of some amalgamation of chilled out peace and freedom and, at the same time, stone fear. Every six months I’d tense up like mad. The tumors WERE growing at a consistent pace but my luck held — growth wasn’t enough to risk surgery. 

My 40s were a whole 'nother ball of earwax.

So, I’m making grand attempts at remaining calm and mostly succeeding. IF those sneaky bastid acoustic neuromas and my extra added meningiomas (living both in my head and on my spine — opportunistic fuckers that they are) have gotten fat and happy on me since we lasted check on ‘em — if they’ve partied their way up to Sumo-esque dimensions — we’ll deal with it.

I’m not alone. I’ve got The Amazing Bob, Jen, Oni, Helen and Celeste here, to say nothing of Coco and Rocco.

What I want

Mellow Babe

It’s MRI Day. At noon today I’ll be suited up in those ever so stylish johnnies. The nurses will be injecting Easter Egg dyes (swear that’s what they’ve told me it is!) and other crap in my veins. I’ll be strapped down to a thin bench and rolled into a torpedo tube which’ll take, undoubtedly, embarrassing shots of my nekkid brain which’ll end up on the web somewhere insuring that I never get a job with NASA or something. I’ve already said a zillion and one half bits about my rather prodigious, overgrown claustrophobia.

Today though I’m going to be all chilled out. I’m going to defy my inner Woody Allen and mellow the fuck out.

 You know, I don't think I could take a mellow evening because I - I don't respond well to mellow. You know what I mean? I have a tendency to - if I get too mellow, I - I ripen and then rot, you know.

I’ll try not to rot. Wouldn’t want the techs to have to clean that up.

The Grand Mellowing began last night actually.

I allowed myself a shot of the primo Jamisons that my pal Greg gave me for my birthday. I’m trying to make that beautiful elixir last but yesterday evening was the perfect time to break it open.

Last year’s tube time wasn’t so bad and I owe that all to Doc McKenna who gave me this trick — don’t start taking the calm me down pills (lorazapam) a half hour pre-tubing. Start a day or two before. One at night before bedtime, one in the afternoon of the following day, another at night, on the morning of the MRI and then one a half hour before entry.

The idea is to head off all the anxiety and neuroses before it has the chance to wrap it self around me like some Giger-esque panic beast.

On top of my semi magic pills and that Irish Panacea Potion, I’ll be doing the deep breathing waltz — focusing on my intake and exhale. And I will have my very creative mind wander far — miles and worlds away.

Jen Oni and I are reading Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s Long Earth Series.

The book explores the theme of how humanity might develop when freed from resource constraints: one example Pratchett has cited is that wars result from lack of land – what would happen if no shortage of land (or gold or oil or food) existed?[8]
The 'Long Earth' is a (possibly infinite) series of parallel worlds that are similar to Earth, which can be reached by using an inexpensive device called a "Stepper". The "close" worlds are almost identical to 'our' Earth (referred to as "Datum Earth"), others differ in greater and greater details, but all share one similarity: on none are there, or have there ever been, Homo sapiens - although the same cannot be said for earlier hominid species, especially Homo habilis.

The book deals primarily with the journeys of Joshua Valienté (a natural 'Stepper') and Lobsang, who claims to be a Tibetan motorcycle repairman reincarnated as an Artificial intelligence.

So yeah, while entubed, breathing deeply, I’ll be focusing my mind on other things. What would I find and how would I live on Pratchett/Baxter’s millionth world from our own? Will there be cats or cat-like wonders. Will there be indoor plumbing and TEMPUR-Cloud Luxe mattresses? Will there be Italian Roast coffee shot through with just a hint of french vanilla? Can I trike the Long Earth?

I believe I’ll let my mind explore my Hebridean Bike Sojourn dreams. It looks like, if I start on the Isle of Skye, I’ll have loads of options. There’s the relatively short ride of seven miles around Loch Langaig and the Quirang  . Then there’s the 36.53 mile run from Portree to the Kyle of Lochalsh. Hmmm, those seem like a fine start.

That ought to keep my mind busy while the tube’s taking intimate snaps of the insides of my rather interesting brain.

One Down, Three To Go

Like the Twelve Labors of Hercules only, lucky me, I just have four...for now.

I had the first of this season’s 4 MRIs yesterday.

Undoubtedly I’ve whinged on, possibly endlessly, about my fear and loathing, my violent hatred of these things due to that flaming bit of claustrophobia I seem to have embroidered into my DNA.

Well, thanks to my fab-ola Doctor McKenna’s nurse, who gave me new meds and a fresh scheme for taking them, I made it through yesterday’s tube tarantella smoother than Michael Phelps sliding in and out of the pool after nailing the gold for the 200 meter Butterfly.

How’d I manage this? Well, in addition to the industrial strength calm me down drugs (which I began taking the evening before tube torture), there were a couple of exquisitely crafted Cosmos downed in the ultra calming atmosphere of the second floor lobby bar of The Liberty Hotel, conveniently located right next door to MGH.

My pal Paula was with me and we were talking marketing schemes for her printing company (Granite Print and, by the by, they ROCK!). Now, NOW my brain was jumping and percolating with ideas and all I wanted to do is lay down in the tube -- think, plan and imagine. Neat trick, huh?

In addition to this, I had scenes from Monday’s most fab trike ride in my brain to focus on. I found a path through a thin wooded area along the marshes -- it runs from The Neck all the way up to Germantown and beyond. It’s amazing. Quincy isn’t a small rural community AND it’s just one town south of Boston yet LOOK at this pastoral, sylvan, scene. The trail is, at least a couple of miles long.

Gorgeous and then throw in some mega stunning. Along with trying to come up with fun marketing plans, my mind was completely disconnected from my intense claustrophobia. OK, the meds plus two Cosmos gave me a great start too.

Yea me!

Navigating the Big Blue Marble

A funny thing has happened to me over the great long time I’ve lived on this big, blue marble of a planet.

I’ve always loved the water. Hell, that’s where we LIVE  -- on Hingham Bay. Back in college (and yes, there were Dodos, Passenger Pigeons and Great Auks back then), I used to swim laps. Every other day I’d jump into the Olympic size pool and do a mile of ‘em. On the off days, I was weightlifting. Yep, I was a glorious, hard body, beast back then.


When we first moved here to the Neck, Jen and I would swim along the seawall from Bell Street down to Manet Beach and back. Yeah, that may not SEEM like much but 12 total blocks of paddling, crawling and freestyling through waves is def more than chump change and small beer.


Somewhere over the years, probably after my last big MGH event, I became WAY more tippy. The, generally, wee waves that lap our shoreline would knock me off balance and off course easier and faster than Dogwood blossoms falling off the trees in a May rainstorm. When under the water, I just can't tell which way is up. It's wickedly disorienting and a teensy bit frightening.

Jen and Oni bought some of those big, blow up rings so that I could stay afloat. I managed to swim a bit but it wasn't the same and I was still pretty discombobulated in the waves -- particularly when motor boats passed by (I HATE motor boats!).

Enter the Healthy Workplace Challenge which my awesome pal Paula signed me up for. The YMCA has two (TWO!) pools, no motorboats and NO waves. Awesome!

The last hurdle I have in getting back in the water is that, without balance nerves, I’ve a hell of a time walking, let alone swimming, a straight line. Sharing a lane (which is de rigueur at the Y) is a total exercise in frustration for me and an utter annoyance for the unlucky souls in my same lane. I’m constantly ploughing into my path mates. Not good.

I spoke to one of the Y coaches about this and she gave me the best times, the least busy hours when I can score my own space.

OK, one more hurdle. My upper body strength isn’t what it used to be (duh, rilly Donna?). What I envision is this -- I make it one length of the pool and then crap out from absolute exhaustion. Subsequently, I lose heart, give up and never swim again.

Yeah, not bloody likely -- giving up isn’t really hard wired into my system. Having said that, I want to be smart (for once). I want, NEED, this to work so I’m going to ease in. I’ll start with water aerobic classes, beginning Monday morning at the nine AM session.

I'm a little fearful that my crapped out sound system will hold me back. I figure I can follow the instructor and other participant’s movements though. This should work.

Fingers are crossed!

The Appearance of Music

I was reading some essay or other in The New Yorker yesterday which referenced Radiohead’s album OK Computer.

Critics and fans often comment on the underlying themes found in the lyrics and artwork, emphasising Radiohead's views on rampant consumerism, social alienation and political malaise; in this capacity, OK Computer is often interpreted as having prescient insight into the mood of 21st century life

-- from Wikipedia

My little sister told me I’d love it -- that it was fabulous and astounding. Now, the last band Celeste loved, that I could recall, was Bananarama so, naturally, I was reluctant to give it a listen. Mind you, Celeste was 15 when Banarama was big and 30 when OK Computer came out. When I remembered that, (took me long enough), I stopped by Newbury Comics and picked up the disc.

Celeste was right -- I was crazy, mad, wild for it. Given this, you’d think that I could bring the sounds, the compositions to mind. Nope.

I've been deaf for eight years now but I can still hear, in my head, Tropical Hotdog Night by Captain Beefheart, Brian Eno doing Baby’s On Fire, Shawn Colvin singing Shotgun Down the Avalanche solo, Richard Thompson performing Shoot Out The Lights. So, why can’t my brain generate memories of any of the songs on OK Computer?

Maybe it’s because I never knew any of the lyrics? Similarly, I can’t conjure up the songs on The Downward Spiral -- my favorite of Nine Inch Nails’ works -- and I can only hear snippets, the parts with words, from A Day in the Life. Steve Reich’s Different Trains? Nope. Nada. Nein.

The words bring the tunes, the notes, the song strings to mind.

George Martin, speaking of how the orchestral section of Day in the Life came together:

What I did there was to write ... the lowest possible note for each of the instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I wrote the highest note ... near a chord of E major. Then I put a squiggly line right through the twenty-four bars, with reference points to tell them roughly what note they should have reached during each bar ... Of course, they all looked at me as though I were completely mad.

Trent Reznor has said of The Downward Spiral:

 With The Downward Spiral I tried to make a record that had full range, rather than a real guitar-based record or a real synth-based record.... It was a conscious effort to focus more on texture and space, rather than bludgeoning you over the head for an hour with a guitar.

and: 

 that he was trying to create ‘music that might evoke visual images, not any specific ones. Perceptions.’

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke:

"What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things, all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create."

Textures -- music as something that can be seen, not just heard. I see OK Computer in shades of ultramarine and cerulean blue with ropes of cadmium yellow medium arcing through it. I see Day in the Life as a giant Pollack of cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson and dioxazine purple splashes all dancing, embracing, dallying. Reich’s Different Trains -- greys, muted tones all whooshing past me on a great wind.

That’s what I have left of these dense, deep, rich, chocolate cakey songs, compositions and pieces that my internal turntable will no longer spin. I can’t hear them anymore but I can still see them.

Walking on a Wire

Hi, my name is Donna and I’m a trike addict.

When I set out for my ride on Saturday morning I was molto bummed to find my left rear wheel flat. FLAT! The nerve, the gall! Annoyingly, and this’ll def change, I don’t know how to fix my own damned flats.

Oni offered but he and Jen were busy helping Erin move over to Rigel-3. So the fix would have to wait.

Meantime, I went for a long walk and was jarringly reminded of what I love most about the trike.

I don’t fall over.

Yeah, I’ve always been a big ol’ klutz but that was ramped up after my first surgery (at the tender-ish age of 23) when the first of my balance nerves was severed (had to be so my awesome surgeon guy Ojemann, AKA God, could get at and remove Moby Schwannoma). My foozle footedness went into overdrive after the second and final balance nerve was clipped (at 40).

So, how the hell do I stay upright at all? There’s three systems working in concert to keep each of us from toppling over like drunks on a Saturday night bender.

From Writings on the Martial Arts, The Real Sixth Sense, Balance in the Martial ArtsBy Stefan Verstappen

You've got three mechanisms keeping you upright. Your vestibular system (inner ear) senses rotation in all three rotational axes. Your proprioceptive system tells you where you are in space by where your muscles feel *they* are in space. Your vision tells you where you are in space by a combination of binocular vision and shading interpretation.

So, I’m down to two now. Here’s the dealio -- I have to train my vision and proprioceptive system to pick up the slack. This isn’t some magical, automatic Sixth Sense thing. Sadly, I didn’t spring out of my hospital bed with the grace and talent of Gelsey Kirkland. Very sadly. I need to walk regularly and concentrate so that I’m not weaving all over creation and toppling over in slight breezes. I need to visually pay attention to where I’m at in relation to my surroundings. That is, I do if I want to stay all perpendicular like.

I still need muscle memory and touch when I’m triking, in addition to vision (duh) BUT it’s easier than walking. Way. The two wheels at the back end provide stability -- I don’t tip over as I surely would with a two wheeler. That this is a recumbent trike ups my balance quotient  -- I’m not leaning forward (which always throws me off).

Where does all this leave me? Resolving to, once again, take long walks -- that’s where. The trike is 999 levels of fun AND it’s actually real and true exercise too BUT I also need the work out that walking affords to my proprioceptive system.

Hmmph. When the snow comes (and sticks and piles up) walking will be it -- I'll be off the road. I need to get into shape for it now. Maybe some hikes in The Blue Hills would make the trike-less months less onerous, eh?

Meantime, Oni fixed the flat and I am OFF!

Walking on a Wire -- Richard and Linda Thompson