brykmantra.com

Over the weekend, one of my (supposedly) regular readers expressed surprise that I was out of the hospital, and had been since the 9th. I had thought that, a) I had mentioned that fact directly, and b) it was implied in some of my posts since then (especially since I couldn’t post on the hospital’s crappy in-room Internet setup), but let’s go ahead and remove all doubt with some details of my home-based recovery:

Sleeping Arrangements: As soon as I came home, my wife graciously offered to sleep on the couch to let me have the bed to myself, but it was soon obvious that it wouldn’t work out that way. I took a nap on the bed when I got home, but I couldn’t lie flat on my back, since I was used to being propped up in the hospital bed, I couldn’t sleep on my right side, of course, since that’s where my surgery was. Even sleeping on my left side hurt too much, with my right arm hanging down and pulling on the incision spot.

But the main problem was that once I was in bed, it was nearly impossible to get out by myself. I finally was able to twist myself onto my stomach and then to push up from their, but it was an ordeal I didn’t want to repeat.

The couch, on the other hand, had several spots to hold on to to pull up, so that sealed the deal.

So Karlyn, God bless her, made up the couch with sheets and blankets, and I’ve been sleeping there ever since. It actually hasn’t been too bad: It’s kind of like camping out, but with better shelter, temperature control, padding, refrigerator access, and big screen TV.

Okay, okay, so it’s nothing like camping out. But it’s a nice change of scenery: With as much time as I’m spending sleeping and resting, I’d go crazy if I had to spend all that time in the bedroom.

And one bonus feature of me being in the living room is that my wife is forced to get more rest. Normally she would get up early and go into the kitchen and living room and start working around the house — even with her ankle broken.

Now, though, she stays in the bedroom in order to not disturb me, and as a result she stays off her injured foot and get extra rest herself.

Nurse’s Aide: Our sheltie Molly has always slept in the floor of our bedroom, but since I’ve been in the living room, so has she. My wife said that Molly can tell I’m not feeling good and is being protective, and that since I’m the one who found her and brought her home, that she has a special bond with me anyway.

My theory is that Molly knows that, at any given time, I’m the one who’s more likely to be snacking, and, with my new prolonged proximity to the kitchen, the smart place for a dog to hang out is where the food is.

Never mind that I haven’t had as much of an appetite since the operation; doggie habits die hard.

I’m Walkin’, Yes Indeed: One positive aspect of this particular recovery is that I’m not completely home-bound or bed-ridden: Since this was surgery on my lung, the surgeon has prescribed fifteen-minute walks as part of my rehabilitation. That has made for a nice change of scenery, and gives me a perspective outside of these walls.

I just put my new MP3 player on shuffle, so that I never know which of my 3000 songs will come up next, and head out for seven or so minutes, then head back.

The only problem is that there’s not much within 7 minutes of the house but other houses. It would be nice if there were a convenience store within that time-distance, but that will have to wait until I’m up to 30 minute walks.

On the plus side, though, there’s a nice park to the west, but I don’t have any time to spend there before I have to head back.

In the northerly direction, there’s a scenic ravine by the middle school, and some clusters of trees north of that, so that makes for a pleasant backdrop.

Plus, there are newspaper machines within 5 minutes in two directions, so that’s a good goal, as opposed to just pointless wandering.

The Pain, The Pain: I had been told in advance to expect six weeks of pain: From the six-inch-long incision, to the ribs they had to spread (and, in one case, cut loose), and of course from all the cutting that took place on my lung.

What I hadn’t counted on where all the little auxiliary, supplemental pains. For one thing, I hadn’t been walking much in the ten weeks that I had pneumonia, so my first day of three 15-minute walks took their toll on my calves and shins.

And the couch, although more comfortable than the bed, still did a number on my back. I was propped up on the armrest with the help of pillows, and by the end of the night the pillows would be compressed, and the armrest would be pushing into my upper back.

It’s always the things you don’t count on that seem to hurt the most.

The Pills, The Pills: The surgeon gave me hydrocodone for the pain, but they just barely take the edge off. Even worse, they put me in a constant state of fogginess, so the past 11 days has been a total blur.

When I go on my walks, I’m always afraid I’m going to get arrested for public drunkenness.

“No, you’ve got it all wrong, officer — I’m just hopped up on goofballs!”

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Okay, so that should remove all doubt that I’m back at home now, and also explain why it’s probably a good thing that I haven’t posted much the last couple of days …

The North Texas drought is officially over: It’s been raining almost non-stop since late Friday night, and parts of Dallas are flooding tonight.

And rains are apparently also soaking the Texas Panhandle, which has been on fire this past week.

That’s Texas weather for ya: Droughts or flooding, no in between.

A final thing to end the day: Google’s special logo for the occasion:

Plus, the St. Patrick’s Day search results that clicking on the logo linked to.

Hope you had a fine Irish day!

Me? I was stuck on the couch — but at least I wore my embroidered “Irish” t-shirt …

The next installment of Irish tidbits, lifted from what I wrote for my old blog two years ago:

As I’ve researched Ireland these past few years, I’ve realized that what fascinates me about the land is not so much the Potato Famine Ireland, or Frank McCourt’s latter-day industrial squalor Ireland. I’m more drawn to the Ireland of the Middle Ages — that time of villages and castles and hay carts — and especially to the ancient times: The era of the Celts.

Wikipedia has this to say: “The Celts are a European people that once inhabited a territory that stretched across Europe from Turkey. Today, the term Celt is applied to a speaker of a Celtic language. Celt is inaccurate if used to represent an ethnic identity as Celtic refers primarily to a cultural and linguistic family, not an ethnic one. Hence, there are no ‘pure blood’ Celts, but the Irish form the most celtic enriched culture still in existence. Many areas of Britain, such as the Scottish Highlands, parts of Wales, and areas of England like Cornwall, Devon and the remaining South West counties along with Cumbria and Northumbria retain elements of notable celtic culture in modern life.”

Notice that “Celtic” is not a term of race but of culture; that fits in nicely with the idea that “Everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day”, and it’s also a nice thought for those of us (adopted, in my case) who aren’t sure of our ethnic heritage. It’s a culture uniquely suited for taking in anyone that wants to participate.

According to Ibiblio’s “Who were the Celts?”, the Celtic people were (to the best that anyone can figure) barbarians who descended from the Alps around 400BC and took over great sections of Europe, especially in the British Isles, and their culture formed a foundation for a lot of what Irish, Welsh and Scottish has become today.

For more information on the Celts, check out these links:

Encyclopedia of the Celts — A vast treasury of Celtic knowledge, arranged alphabetically and searchable.

History of the Celts — An examination of the Celts from ancient times to the present.

The Story of the Celts — DataWales’ FAQ on Celtic culture.

In the spirit of the day, Spook sends this collection of St. Patrick’s Day factoids. (Be sure to click “Next Page” to read them all.)

Since I mostly always get through posting late in the day these days, it occurs to me that I need to start posting now for tomorrow (St. Patrick’s Day).

Now, since I’m short on clear-headedness these days, I’m going to be borrowing excerpts from my old blog — specifically, from my “17 Days of Irishness” that I did two years ago.

First up: My little write-up on Blarney Castle:

Today’s word is that most Irish of words: Blarney! Blarney is defined by Cambridge Dictionaries Online as a friendly and charming way of talking which makes someone good at persuading people to do things. Synonyms (courtesy of Thesaurus.com) include adulation, baloney, blandishment, cajolery, coaxing, compliments, exaggeration, eyewash, fawning, honey, ingratiation, overpraise, soft soap, and sweet talk.

The origin, of course, is Blarney Castle in County Cork, with its famous Blarney Stone. The castle was built in 1446 (the third built on that site — the THIRD!) by Cormac McCarthy.

Blarney entered the English language by way of none other than Queen Elizabeth I. McCarthy promised to deed the castle over to the Queen as a show of good faith, but whenever it came time to sign it over, he would make wonderfully constructed excuses, mixed with flattery and smooth talking.

If you kiss the Blarney Stone — by hanging upside down over a 90-foot drop — you too can allegedly be blessed with the Gift of Blarney, the ability to talk your way out of everything.

Fail to kiss the stone and die.

Hmm … I like those odds!

Not a bad start …

Now, before I forget: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Keep checking back through midnight tomorrow for more nuggets of Irishy goodness!

What with all this fuss about the surgery and recovery and, well, BEING IN CONSTANT PAIN, the days on the calendar have become a blur, and thus I have almost allowed St. Patrick’s Day to sneak up on me this year.

Last month I went to Party City and loaded up on all sorts of shamrock beads and stickers, since nobody else at work ever thinks they should be prepared for St. Patrick’s Day until the day actually gets there, and then guess who they come whining to, to see if he has spare Irish paraphrenalia for them to wear.

And of course I always keep some handy for the freeloaders, because I can’t bear to seen people running around greenless on the Great Irish Holiday.

But this year they’re on their own, because they’ll be there at work, and I’ll be at home with my shoe-boxes full of clover-shaped Mardi Gras beads and leprachaun stickers and Celtic temporary tattoos.

Still, though, I was almost caught unprepared on my home turf (i.e., this blog), and had failed to follow-through on a months-old idea to Irish-up my metal logo up top for the holiday.

Finally tonight I got around to doing that, and taking the pictures, and figuring out where my header files are on my server, and finally changed out the header logo. If you’re reading this close to the time I’m writing it, you can just look up top and see it.

But if you’re reading it by browsing my archives — bless your heart, and you can see what the holiday logo looks/looked like here:

And also, before I forget about it: Happy St. Patrick’s Day in advance!

Whenever I have a new experience (and the surgery certainly qualified as that), I like to take notice of interesting people and situations that come along — especially since I have this blog now, and can do more than just say, “Hmm, that’s interesting’ to myself.

So: Here’s a cool encounter I had as part of this whole tumor odyssey:

Before the surgery, when I was in my hospital minidress and tucked into my rollable bed, the anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself, as is the custom, and told me what to expect with the drugs, before during and after surgery.

The first thing I noticed when he came through the curtains was that he was a young Asian-American man, and he was wearing a burnt-orange cap with a white Longhorn emblem.

For those of you not from these parts, that signifies the University of Texas at Austin.

But I decided not to hold it against him.

He introduced himself as Dr. Wu, and after he gave us the lowdown on the knockout, I said, in my signature distracted fashion, “You do know that there’s a Steely Dan song about you, right?”

His face brightened immediately: “Yes, I do!”

My frivolous question seemed to be just the excuse he was looking for to loosen up, and we spent the next several minutes chatting about that song (“Dr. Wu”, in case you haven’t figured that out), and other light-hearted topics, like the origin of his first name.

It seems that, years before his birth, his parents were driving from Michigan to their new jobs at University of Texas in Austin, their old car broke down in Norman, Oklahoma, and the good people of that city took in the family (including their young child), and helped them get their car fixed, even though it was on the weekend, then helped them get back on their way.

His parents were so grateful that they promised to name their next boy Norman.

They were, however, unaware of the ironic significance of the fact that Norman was the home of the University of Oklahoma, the most bitter football rival of their new employer, and thus not such a terrific name for a child to be raised at the UT campus.

Dr. Wu was philosophical about his fate, though; he said, “At least they didn’t break down in Stillwater.”

“Or Enid”, I added.

As our small talk went on, because my surgeon was characteristically late, Dr. Wu went on to tell of a German surgeon he had had to work with on occasion. This particular surgeon would insist on everything being perfect — the weather, the traffic into work, the taste of his coffee — or else he would refuse to operate. One day, the surgeon didn’t like the way his coffee tasted, so he called off the surgery.

Unfortunately, the patient was already in the operating room, and anesthetized, so Dr. Wu had to wait six hours to bring the patient around again — and to tell him that the surgery didn’t take place while he was out, and they’d have to do it all over again some other day.

Needless to say, Dr. Wu wasn’t excited about ever working with that surgeon ever again.

Anyway, that nice little chat was a refreshing change from the tension of the rest of the day.

More importantly, it gave me a cool little story for my blog.

I don’t have the energy to finish typing the post I had planned for today, so instead, check this out: A cool live-action re-enactment of The Simpsons intro sequence.

It’s pretty accurate … but where’s Marge’s blue hair??

Anyway, check back in tomorrow for some real posting …

Okay, here’s the main scoop on my surgery:

It was scheduled for Thursday, March 2, at noon, but got started over an hour late. It was supposed to take about two hours, but lasted almost twice that long because of the severity of my pneumonia.

The plan was to remove the bottom lobe of my right lung, but again, plans changed: They had to also remove the next lobe — a smaller, minor lobe, according to my surgeon — because the lymph nodes had swollen to the size of kidney beans.

I didn’t even know what garden vegetables they were supposed to be the size of.

Anyway, the surgery was successful, and we just had to wait for the pathology report to make sure.

Then, this past Thursday, that report came back totally clean. The surgeon said that the operation was “curative” — that is, that all the cancer was removed, and it hasn’t spread anywhere else.

See? I told you everything would work out.

Thanks to everybody for all the thoughts and prayers and calls and cards and flowers, that kept me going through this whole ordeal.

And continue to think of me, please, because my lung and incision scar still hurt like a mother duck …