...believe it or not. Wednesday I was outside in the sun for 4+ hours and I didn't even know I was sunburned until I got back to my room and realized I looked like a ripe tomato. It looks a little more normal now, except the skin's starting to peel around my forehead, nose, and neck.
I guess I'm writing this to keep track of the last time I got sunburned, because I seriously do not remember the previous time I got sunburned.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Road Trip Back to Cornell
I actually tried to keep a count in my head this time through the 19-hour drive (while I was awake, that is).
-- Construction zones: 16 (there were maybe 4-5 on I-86 through the middle of nowhere in New York state. The middle of nowhere in New York beats the middle of nowhere in the Midwest because in New York there are things like hills and trees that you can look at)
-- Police stopped alongside the road looking to nab speeders: 9
-- Police stopped alongside the road who already nabbed a speeder: 6
-- Roadkill: 4 (rather low number it seems. Maybe mating season is over, and animals don't have any reason to get lost on roads)
-- Construction zones: 16 (there were maybe 4-5 on I-86 through the middle of nowhere in New York state. The middle of nowhere in New York beats the middle of nowhere in the Midwest because in New York there are things like hills and trees that you can look at)
-- Police stopped alongside the road looking to nab speeders: 9
-- Police stopped alongside the road who already nabbed a speeder: 6
-- Roadkill: 4 (rather low number it seems. Maybe mating season is over, and animals don't have any reason to get lost on roads)
Sunday, August 17, 2008
A Few Words From The Hospital
Greetings from my 3rd hospital stay for the same spontaneous pneumothorax. Today is my 8th day (and hopefully last day if they release me later this afternoon after a check-up from the surgeon - I got the chest tube pulled out this morning), which makes this hospital stay slightly shorter than the 11-day duration 2 months ago, and a breeze compared to the 21-day marathon I had 4 months ago. Speaking of marathons, at least the Olympics were on TV this time, so I wasn't quite as bored out of my mind. Now, if the hospital wireless network wouldn't block 50% of my oft-frequented websites, then I wouldn't mind so much being in the hospital. What follows now will be some random thoughts from this most recent hospital stay (in no particular order).
-- FOLEY CATHETER
Yes, the dreaded urinary catheter. For lung surgery this time, I specifically requested no catheter because I didn't seem to have any problems at Cayuga Medical Center without one. However, it seems like the anesthesia they use here at Mercy Hospital always renders my bladder useless, so they had to use the catheter the day after surgery. What made this catheter experience even worse was the fact that it took TWO (2) tries before they got one into my bladder to drain the urine away. Having a catheter shoved up your dick and then pulled back out is by no means a pleasant experience, so I worked hard to prove to the nurses that I didn't need a 3rd catheter after that 1-for-2 experience.
-- "YOU'RE BACK?"
...is what most of the nurses said to me during the past week. Even the ones that didn't have me under their care before, but saw my name on the roster previously. I stayed on the same 4-Heart floor post-surgery as I did 2 months ago, and as a result the staff here recognized me (despite the haircut I got that threw off everyone at work). Even the dude from wheelchair transport recognized me this morning as he wheeled me downstairs for an x-ray.
-- TAPE
While the Foley catheter and the twice-a-day heparin shots still rank at the top of worst hospital experiences so far, they are joined now by pulling-tape-off-from-skin. This tape pulling is done frequently when the nurses have to change the chest tube dressing daily.
-- VICODIN
In an effort to wean me away from IV drugs for pain relief, they decided to start feeding me Vicodin yesterday. The nurse decided that the full dose of 2 pills was adequate for me, so 2 pills went down, and I was knocked out cold in broad daylight. I literally passed out on the bed after lunch and woke up when dinner came in 5 hours later. After that, they decided to feed me 1 pill at a time when needed. However, I still prefer the IV drug Dilaudid. It packs a more subtle knock-out punch as well as an all-around numbing sensation immediately after injection. Good stuff.
-- FLASHBACK: MY CLOSEST ENCOUNTER WITH A FUTURE OLYMPIC SWIMMER
3 years ago (in 2005) I qualified in 1 lone event for the Speedo Champions Series (also known as USA sectionals) in Long Island, so I got to travel with the team down there for 5 days and swim my 2 events (you get a bonus event for each qualifying event, because otherwise people like me would only go to the meet to swim 1 event, and that's no fun). I DFL'ed (dead fucking last) in my qualifying 100 breaststroke, and got 2nd-to-last in my bonus event 200 breaststroke. Despite that, it was a fun time. Anyways, back to the story. It was at that particular Speedo Champions Series meet where a 12-year-old girl was pulling off victories (literally winning events) over high school and college swimmers like us. And if I remember correctly, that 12-year-old's name was Elizabeth Beisel. 3 years later as I'm watching the Beijing Olympics on TV in the hospital, the 15-year-old Beisel (apparently the youngest member of the USA swim team at the Olympics) made it to the finals in the 200-meter backstroke and placed 5th. How cool is that?
-- MICHAEL PHELPS
That man can swim. Those were some fun races to watch. Congratulations.
-- FOLEY CATHETER
Yes, the dreaded urinary catheter. For lung surgery this time, I specifically requested no catheter because I didn't seem to have any problems at Cayuga Medical Center without one. However, it seems like the anesthesia they use here at Mercy Hospital always renders my bladder useless, so they had to use the catheter the day after surgery. What made this catheter experience even worse was the fact that it took TWO (2) tries before they got one into my bladder to drain the urine away. Having a catheter shoved up your dick and then pulled back out is by no means a pleasant experience, so I worked hard to prove to the nurses that I didn't need a 3rd catheter after that 1-for-2 experience.
-- "YOU'RE BACK?"
...is what most of the nurses said to me during the past week. Even the ones that didn't have me under their care before, but saw my name on the roster previously. I stayed on the same 4-Heart floor post-surgery as I did 2 months ago, and as a result the staff here recognized me (despite the haircut I got that threw off everyone at work). Even the dude from wheelchair transport recognized me this morning as he wheeled me downstairs for an x-ray.
-- TAPE
While the Foley catheter and the twice-a-day heparin shots still rank at the top of worst hospital experiences so far, they are joined now by pulling-tape-off-from-skin. This tape pulling is done frequently when the nurses have to change the chest tube dressing daily.
-- VICODIN
In an effort to wean me away from IV drugs for pain relief, they decided to start feeding me Vicodin yesterday. The nurse decided that the full dose of 2 pills was adequate for me, so 2 pills went down, and I was knocked out cold in broad daylight. I literally passed out on the bed after lunch and woke up when dinner came in 5 hours later. After that, they decided to feed me 1 pill at a time when needed. However, I still prefer the IV drug Dilaudid. It packs a more subtle knock-out punch as well as an all-around numbing sensation immediately after injection. Good stuff.
-- FLASHBACK: MY CLOSEST ENCOUNTER WITH A FUTURE OLYMPIC SWIMMER
3 years ago (in 2005) I qualified in 1 lone event for the Speedo Champions Series (also known as USA sectionals) in Long Island, so I got to travel with the team down there for 5 days and swim my 2 events (you get a bonus event for each qualifying event, because otherwise people like me would only go to the meet to swim 1 event, and that's no fun). I DFL'ed (dead fucking last) in my qualifying 100 breaststroke, and got 2nd-to-last in my bonus event 200 breaststroke. Despite that, it was a fun time. Anyways, back to the story. It was at that particular Speedo Champions Series meet where a 12-year-old girl was pulling off victories (literally winning events) over high school and college swimmers like us. And if I remember correctly, that 12-year-old's name was Elizabeth Beisel. 3 years later as I'm watching the Beijing Olympics on TV in the hospital, the 15-year-old Beisel (apparently the youngest member of the USA swim team at the Olympics) made it to the finals in the 200-meter backstroke and placed 5th. How cool is that?
-- MICHAEL PHELPS
That man can swim. Those were some fun races to watch. Congratulations.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Farmers Market
Today I went to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market. There are 2 anecdotes from the visit that I will share.
Firstly, as I walked by a counter of potatoes that were being sold by an Asian-looking family, something caught my attention and immediately made me think of ex-vice president Dan Quayle. You could probably guess where this is headed. "Potatoe" was the spelling on every sign that referred to the potatoes there.
Secondly, I saw a little kid less than half my height carrying one of those balloon sculptures, and I had a Superbad moment. I assume it's meant to be a sword, but it looked very much like an object of the phallic type. Probably because both sides of the guard of the sword were circular in shape due to technicalities in creating the balloon sculpture.
Firstly, as I walked by a counter of potatoes that were being sold by an Asian-looking family, something caught my attention and immediately made me think of ex-vice president Dan Quayle. You could probably guess where this is headed. "Potatoe" was the spelling on every sign that referred to the potatoes there.
Secondly, I saw a little kid less than half my height carrying one of those balloon sculptures, and I had a Superbad moment. I assume it's meant to be a sword, but it looked very much like an object of the phallic type. Probably because both sides of the guard of the sword were circular in shape due to technicalities in creating the balloon sculpture.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Longest day at work (so far)
Yesterday was officially the longest day at work that I've experienced so far.
Some background information: Infinite Campus (where I work at) has literally outgrown the rented office space that we used to call our home, so now we are moving into a newly-constructed building that should give us plenty of room to breathe in and for future expansion. This weekend is the official transition (a.k.a. move-in weekend), and by Monday morning everyone will be starting work in the new building. Well, as most large-scale construction projects go, this one went way behind schedule early on (I hear we are currently 1 month behind schedule, but nothing can be done to delay moving in, so...), so now we're in an extreme clusterfuck of working around all the different construction and moving crews in the last-minute rush, getting stuff set up in an attempt to minimize the number of complaints directed towards us IT staff come Monday morning.
Yesterday morning started with me walking into the building/construction site at around 8:30 AM. I ended up spending the entire morning on my hands and knees (this is where knee pads really come in handy) pulling up the carpet and floor tiles to reroute the power cables underneath because they were put in all the wrong places all over the building. The good thing is that we had a handful of volunteers from the office who came to help us, otherwise we would never have gotten that task of mythic proportions done. Lunch consisted of lots of pizza (thanks to our CEO/benevolent dictator, who ordered them for us). Then I spent the entire afternoon helping the fellow IT staff install wireless access points onto the ceiling, which required extensive use of 12-foot ladders (I stayed on the ground to hand off supplies when needed). Dinner was at Taco Bell across the street at around 8 PM. After dinner we headed back to the building to plug data cables in a systematic fashion all over the office floor. By that time the 3 of us peons and our dictator were the only people left in the building. Finally, at around 10:12 we decided to call it a night after patching in the entire upper floor, but it wasn't until 10:30 PM that I was on the road driving home.
Some background information: Infinite Campus (where I work at) has literally outgrown the rented office space that we used to call our home, so now we are moving into a newly-constructed building that should give us plenty of room to breathe in and for future expansion. This weekend is the official transition (a.k.a. move-in weekend), and by Monday morning everyone will be starting work in the new building. Well, as most large-scale construction projects go, this one went way behind schedule early on (I hear we are currently 1 month behind schedule, but nothing can be done to delay moving in, so...), so now we're in an extreme clusterfuck of working around all the different construction and moving crews in the last-minute rush, getting stuff set up in an attempt to minimize the number of complaints directed towards us IT staff come Monday morning.
Yesterday morning started with me walking into the building/construction site at around 8:30 AM. I ended up spending the entire morning on my hands and knees (this is where knee pads really come in handy) pulling up the carpet and floor tiles to reroute the power cables underneath because they were put in all the wrong places all over the building. The good thing is that we had a handful of volunteers from the office who came to help us, otherwise we would never have gotten that task of mythic proportions done. Lunch consisted of lots of pizza (thanks to our CEO/benevolent dictator, who ordered them for us). Then I spent the entire afternoon helping the fellow IT staff install wireless access points onto the ceiling, which required extensive use of 12-foot ladders (I stayed on the ground to hand off supplies when needed). Dinner was at Taco Bell across the street at around 8 PM. After dinner we headed back to the building to plug data cables in a systematic fashion all over the office floor. By that time the 3 of us peons and our dictator were the only people left in the building. Finally, at around 10:12 we decided to call it a night after patching in the entire upper floor, but it wasn't until 10:30 PM that I was on the road driving home.
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