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TOTALLY RANDOM POST II

M

moose eater

The anesthesiologist ignored my aversion to specific drugs; he was probably right.

The surgeon played, grinned, and when demanded to 'mark me' by a crass nurse with her head up her excessively rigid ass, marked his proposed cut line across my neck, telling me we'd maybe need to trim the beard to do a proper job.. Maybe the nurse's last name was Ratchet? Should have been.

She had no fucking clue what was running through my head. Thank GOD for playful, skilled, brilliant Docs with bizarre humor. I needed an army of them, just to keep me on the same planet everyone else took for granted..

The same nurse with no sense of humor had blown the whistle and threw the flag on the field; there'd be no humor on her pre-surgery ward. Not at that early hour! Envy, bitterness, resentment, and power make for poor bed-fellows.

Like the Doc so skilled I'd sought him out would somehow forget what part of me he was taking knives, saws, and grinders to. Jesus Christ, but some folks are so fucking ignorant at times. It's ended well, however; she gave me a target to loathe. Likely as helpful as the Doc's humor assisted me in parking at least some of my fears, even if just for a bit.

The drug man said "Good night!" and meant it. I was gone, leaving even Dorothy and Toto WAY behind. There was cloudy nothingness. I have no clue who I spoke with or about what in that darker dream place that lacked much of anything. Not even time was there..

The voice in the mist said, "it's all over and went well. Your spine's membrane is intact. We didn't breech the membrane. You're OK. The procedure lasted just over 3-1/2 hours."

They didn't tell me until a week later, when my wife informed me, I'd been an extra 2 hours or so coming out of recovery, back into the world, and they'd administered Fentanyl on top of the other drugs, as well as the Gabapentin I'd told them the day before I wanted nothing to do with, due to previous experience years back with unsavory side-effects that can make themselves at home for a long [period for some folks.

But I'd just gone to sleep a second ago??! How??!!

An amazingly kind, caring, soft-red-haired, girl-from next door-type, was holding my hand as I awakened and became aware I was in a seizure, arms and legs flailing in the air, like a turtle, 'my animal' earlier in life, now sprawled on its back, moving quick, in a panic, going absolutely nowhere fast.. She could not have been suited to another job better. She was my life-line and she was not going to let me drift to where I had no business.

She held my hand so gently. So kind. Ice water, over and over to my outrageously dry lips. She had a simple name, like her manner, but meaningful; the first person to pull me to shore, so to speak. I'd have married her.

I was babbling. No idea what I'd said. Maybe a good grow recipe? Maybe a list of those gone before me? A list of those I hated? Loved? Fears? No clue.

She told me I was OK, over and over, as I kept asking for my wife. Still scant clue what had happened, other than knowing they'd intended a specific procedure, and knowing -really- well that my body had -definitely- been compromised.

The whole thing was over? How??!!

Vulnerability bred thankful humility, and I held her hand. We'd never met before. She could've been callous, routine, or with a flat affect. Really caring for people you don't know is a gift.. But there was no better place for that kind soul at that moment. She was a gift.

I've wondered if I went back to that department on a later trip to town, and asked to speak with her to thank her, if they might say, "Who?" And I might find she really was an angel, never really there in the physical world at all. She was THAT kind.

I had to wait until they found a room for me; the place was too full. Couldn't see my wife until there was a bed. Can't remember, but maybe they let her in anyway.

The red-headed girl held my hand to my room the whole way, told me her name again, I read her name tag several times. She was one of several earthly gods I owed my being to.

I didn't know if I would be good or not, but I was alive, and thankful for skilled hands. Really thankful.

Half way through the 3rd day they discharged me to our quasi-hotel room. The battles with the pain meds were already in the making.

4 days of intense opiates after surgery, life now reliant on seemingly inefficient laxatives and stool softeners, and my body no longer mine. I came to curse everyone who'd touched me and profited from it, right through Day 5, which my wife said was the worst of it. Everyone except for that woman who'd held my hand on re-entry.

Forgetting my gratitude and humility for a day and a half was hard for my wife to be near.. My impatience in strange places, and resenting the prospects that life may not be perfect, made me terse and less than tolerable for anyone who had scant cause to be near my acidity.

The ever-encouraging and kind physical therapist who always thanked me for allowing her to work with me, asked me what I did for a living? For a life?

I grow an organic garden, keep the freezers full, raise children. Could she read between the lines? I no longer write articles, or do routine activism. Not often anyway. I'm retired without a check. Have been for a long time. She didn't judge. I could walk fast, and climb stairs now. She seemed as pleased as I was. And certainly more assured of my future than me. Another kind soul on this path that I sometimes lacked proper gratitude for, when I let the angst or pain speak louder..

Angry at medicine, I quit the opiates after 4-1/2 days while in our make-shift hotel room, and sweated like a bastard. My wife held me through that time, and stroked my hair, clinging to itself from days of metabolic roller-coasters...

I thought hard about cutting short the rolling of the dice and putting a bullet in my head. I had the means. I could do it. It didn't frighten me, but wanted to stay in the movie to see where the plot went.

I hated the pain until it mattered little, like a bully I'd quit fearing.

We all met on day 6, my wound looking impressive, and agreed I could travel, like the turtle returning to my shell, if life were going to be stranger than before, I could at least be at home. I needed my sanctuary. "There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

The nurse noted that I seemed to heal really quickly. I didn't editorialize on my own reasons I believe are responsible for that.

They said I was the guy who did things himself, rather than letting others, and thereby not (always) abiding by my restrictions. I acknowledged they were correct. I was gently chastised for voiding lifting and other limits. Life happens.

We made alternative arrangements for follow-up from home, way north. Seeking familiar ground, exiting the City by way of a warehouse store stop, and a gardening store, at which the store owner called me Super Man. I smiled, but knew better, thanking him anyway. Another kind human. With more time, I'd have told him, "Nope. Just another human clinging to what they can."

Always remember the kind humans in the journey, who look past the vinegar of the moment, and love you anyway. The debt I'll owe such persons when this trail ends is unfathomable.

We left Urbania; I couldn't wait to get away from the wall-to-wall city. Giving my wife driving instructions in a town more familiar to me than her, still abstaining from opiates, my heart racing as I simultaneously mastered a call to the persons tending my garden up north, talking to both parties at once, overwhelmed, about to hyperventilate.

"Take a left here at the next corner! Don't let that guy cut you off and take the lane you need!. Are they dry 2-1/2" to 3" down? Into that parking lot! There!! What kind of bug??!! Remove the suspect leaves! Carefully! Get them out of there, using clean hands. 3 bags of pumice if you can. Thanks. And thanks."

Short on breath, knowing we were almost on our way, but that voiding blood clots, it would be a long trip home. Many stops. Lots of music. Unsettled everything, both physical and mental.. off and on. That was ok. It was the longest day, Summer Solstice, coming from one of my longer journeys into both light and darkness.

Me, the untrusting passenger, having surrendered my truck's control despite too may years playing mail-box roulette with well-intentioned drunk drivers as a career hitch-hiker, long ago.

I trust no one entirely, yet everyone enough to allow betrayal and disappointment. The inherent masochism of human relationships. All human relationships.

Yet others shared responsibility for what ever progress had happened, or was about to happen. Still battling that whole trust thing, late into life.

I clung to the "Oh SHIT!!" handles in the truck for nearly 300 miles before I could consistenly rest my arm and back. Recline, bounce, listen, talk, and laugh.

How many times over this same long road in 40 years? I told my wife where every frost heave and reverse-bank curve was. Sometimes, most of the time, she listened. I didn't remember her having such a heavy right foot. She wanted me home, safe... and fast; the speedo said so.

Success now meant having a normal bowel movement;. After 2-1/2 days of no pain meds, and nearly a week of no weed, I took ONE fucking pain pill and a couple full cylinders of Ghost Train Haze #1 in the vaporizer about 138 miles north of the City; maybe 10 good rips over a couple hours. And I commandeered one last bit of what had made life's journey better. MUSIC!!! MORE MUSIC!!

I guessed which discs would most please my wife. She drove. We laughed. Talked. She was patient with my impatience. Nancy Chapin Carpenter's Stones in the Road went back into our marriage decades, and was a favorite. She wondered where I'd been hiding it.

Driving north with my life-mate, surrendered to what ever, happy that the weed and pain had met the opiate head-on, and I was strangely awake, without much serious discomfort, eating a shrimp Caesar salad, and BBQ pork ribs, the sun circling the horizon as we headed north. There'd be 21' 50" of visible sun today, with light through the remaining 2' 10". My intestines were seemingly getting back on track. The little things mattered a lot right now.

Indeed, the longest day. My wife had ridden the waves of love and hatred and resentment and optimism with me further than anyone was truly obliged to. I could move, I could function. I left a bowel movement at Denali Park in the shower's bathroom; my tribute to the fed's turf.

I was very positive by now, with morbid Lenny-Bruce-meets-Robin Williams humor, nearing home, late into the well-lit June 21st sky. 11:00 P.M. and bright out!!

I called home and told my youngest son I'd need him to handle the dogs with my wife, controlled in a freezer room, then on short leashes.. And to bring them out to meet me one at a time, not letting them jump on me. They would be elated to see me, and me them, but they might harm me unintentionally in their joy.

I am not a strong person any more. Not right now, anyway.

My youngest boy had missed a week and a half of work for me, mostly fixed my 4-wheeler (but for a relay to the cooling fan), and taken care of the veggie and spud gardens in my absence, taking time to go to town once in 9 days with a neighbor, for lunch, and once to get the mail with another neighbor.

I always wanted there to be more between me and my 3 kids, and I still have no interactions with my daughter, which sometimes bothers me a lot, but for now, there was more than enough. What a team!!

We listened to a beautiful list of, among other things, Greg Allman, John Hiatt Live, 'Lip Stick Sunset,' and rocked out on 'Paper Thin.' "I was just mixin' up some chemicals.... could've heard my night crawl," and the Bare-Naked Ladies Live into the late evening, approaching midnight, as the planet orbited the sun on this brightest, longest day.

We laughed, though it hurt my spine & intestines to do so, as we got close to my rural home, with the BNLs singing, "If I had a Million Dollars," maybe making fun at the lack of awareness of what's real, and what matters far less..

I wrote bills until 4:30 A.M. so my wife could take them to town in the A.M., and my son could get to work on time with his mother transporting him, had some salami on toast, organic kim chee for breakfast, and someone brought my vape in from the truck. I'm gonna' need that.

My legs weak, my spine hurting, and dizzy, my commitments done for now, I went to bed.

I took the liberty of celebrating with a tequila and lime juice with OJ for breakfast, 3 hours later, so I could sit with my son and wife, home with my puppies, eating another serving of Italian dry salami on a single piece of toast, with more organic kim chee. God bless those foods that revive near-catatonic digestive tracts!! I see yogurt and acidophilus milk in the near days.

"Bless them each and everyone..." said Tiny Tim, of the food groups in question.

My son went to the truck for my disc, retrieving the BNLs, and despite the up-beat sound, and life, as they played through breakfast I cried quietly, and am going to sleep now.

I rested on the main floor, in the living room, on a special bed brought to my home the morning of my arrival, by a distant, generous neighbor; my puppies all around me. The house quiet now, but for the Bare Naked Ladies. Remotes on the chair next to me.

Yep, "If I had a Million Dollars.... I'd be rich..."

Yin & Yang. Shit. No shit.
 
M

moose eater

Thanks Bud.

My intestines, ribs, and the Ghost Train Haze #1 are having disagreements, with the GTH#1 attempting to mediate. GTH#1 may get knocked out by a hostile blow from either opposing side at the moment.

When I lay on my side, my intestines are loose enough that they feel like they find a void where membrane used to hold them firm to ribs, and they roll back and forth, like someone rolling their knuckles over and over, but feeling it, rather than watching or hearing it..

Each pup with their own hard-wired job, the GSD at the door, the elkhound on the couch, & my wife's poodle has politely taken a portion of my bed, properly seeing his job as a professional companion cuddler. No Candy Stripe Nurse, but he'll do, and he lets me control the conversations.

Like others, he seems to like me better AFTER the GTH#1 right now. He may have something there.

Back to the unending chatter between ribs, membrane and intestines. I need a referee get-up. Pin-stripes, hat, whistle; the whole works. ;^>)
 
M

moose eater

I strongly believe that good Canadian music, Ghost Train Haze #1, hybrid hash, and puppies, as a recovery regimen, on it's own, could whip 30% of America's opiate crisis overnight.

Not sure how a slogan like, "We need more German Shepherds in the hospitals" would go over, though. Have to devise a PR strategy. Some might misinterpret, and think it's an off-shoot of the countrified sect of "arm the teachers" or something.

Gotta' watch those unintended affiliations. They can kill a campaign, ya' know....
 

armedoldhippy

Well-known member
Veteran
I strongly believe that good Canadian music, Ghost Train Haze #1, hybrid hash, and puppies, as a recovery regimen, on it's own, could whip 30% of America's opiate crisis overnight.

Not sure how a slogan like, "We need more German Shepherds in the hospitals" would go over, though. Have to devise a PR strategy. Some might misinterpret, and think it's an off-shoot of the countrified sect of "arm the teachers" or something.

Gotta' watch those unintended affiliations. They can kill a campaign, ya' know....

dogs make EVERYTHING go smoother....okay, not meals, but everything else...:tiphat:
 
M

moose eater

Logged in this AM, mostly to check private messages, and there was a small stack, including a couple from an old friend here, not seen or heard from for about 6 years now.

Johnny Winter's 'Still Alive and Well,' popped into my head on auto-play. Rockin' out to good JW funk in my head over coffee, and seeing messages from long-unseen friends. Cool.
 

Bobby Boucher

Active member
I got up last night, walked to the fridge, pulled out a corn tortilla, and slathered it in soft scrub before I realized I was sleep walking again..

Had to smell it to be sure..

This neck pain is unreal. I'm pretty sure I forgot how to sleep altogether. Subconscious probably trying to kick my bucket out.

Looking cool>Being healthy. Soft scrub con tortilla. Yolo. No ragrats.
 

Bobby Boucher

Active member
I woke up uncomfortably disoriented 20 minutes ago, took a hot burrito shit, and proceeded to pour a shit ton of coffee grounds in my maker where the water should go..

I think my neck pain is turning my brain to rot.. :/

Dyin over here.

Sorry for the doom and gloom. Cognitive decline this young is fucking scary. Better suited for a support group.

Peace.
 
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