Hello

So, Evan, how'd that whole meningitis plus mononucleosis thing pan out?

Well, it sucked, mostly. The first week was primarily filled with physical misery. Meningitis wreaked havoc with my immune system hassling me with a massive amount of head congestion and fever, both of which I couldn't take anything to regulate because anything that could regulate it would destroy my liver thanks to the mono. Yay! I spent the first week sleeping sitting up on the couch (the only way I could breathe) in mere fifteen minute increments. The fever I handled by blasting my fan directly on me non-stop and constantly wetting myself down with a cool rag. In all of this, I had a lot of help from the older kids and a little emotional support from my friends. Other than most physical exertions tiring me out, week two was much better--all the horrid symptoms having vacated. Still unable to go out much or work at all, I found myself spending a lot of time watching movies and movies and movies, and a couple seasons of Lost. Videogames gave me equilibrium problems after ten minutes of playing them and I still couldn't exert myself chasing the kids around the house. All-in-all I found myself crouching towards boredlehem. Monday of week three I see my doctor, declare I'm ready to work again. . .he agrees but decides to make me take a third week off anyway--just in case. This third week was much more boring: fewer things to watch, the kids were back in school, and my friends pretty much abandoned hanging out or visiting most days. I mastered thumb-twiddling.

I just finished my first two weeks back to "normal" living. Thankfully, my time off work didn't cost me the nice new schedule change I'd finally been able to wrangle right before I got sick. Having the semi-regular and reliable work schedule has caused things to suck there a little less. Sadly, this meant changing our Rock Band weekend friend gathering from Saturdays to Fridays and some friends have been having a little trouble adjusting slash showing up, but I'm finding the adjustment a nice one and happily living life, enjoying the company of friends and family.

What Happened

Saturday night was the last Saturday Rock Band Party--it went off generally well. I think everyone had a much better time than not. Sunday I spent the day with a throbbing headache that I just attributed to the staying-up too-late of the Saturday night party, mixed with various unpleasant side effect cause by the myriad of new meds my doctor is trying out on me, and when I went to bed at 8PM for my 4AM shift, I went to bed still with a headache.

At some point in the night, Denise wakes me because I have a slight wheeze. I add that I also still have a headache and she demands I take a Benadryl and Tylenol. I'm now paranoid about my breathing and keep waking up every half our or so to make sure I'm still alive. By the time 4AM rolled around, I was ready for the work day but much groggier than usual.

During the first half hour of my managerial opening prep work I throw up, and there are a few tablespoons of blood in it. Now as a quick side, our store is already extremely spread thin manager-wise, having fully only 40% the management personnel it's supposed to--which, with my own work ethic, makes it impossible for me to call in (or leave) sick because of the huge strain it would cause the others. I work feeling under the weather so often, and would have toughed it out again too, except I threw up blood again. This happened a total of 4 times in my first hour of work; I called and woke my supervisor and told her what was happening. She was there in twenty minutes.

I rush home to write down all my medications and their dosages. It's still so early that I just leave Denise a written note as to where I was. One thing for sure is one of my meds really works to dehydrate me and if I don't keep on top of my hydration well enough, I get bloody noses. I'm thinking I likely had a bloody nose in my sleep and swallowed it all, but I need answers and I'm scared witless.

Triage at the emergency room actually ends up pushing me ahead of everyone in waiting prior to me. I am tortured by needles trying to draw blood from underhydrated veins but finally some bloodwork is pulled and I'm on an I.V. I also throw up blood again. One of the early things I learn is that the e.r. doctor who saw me and diagnosed my gout prescribed the wrong medication for it: there was a prophylactic medication I should have been taking to stop flare-ups instead of the highly damaging to my liver stuff I was on.

My very visible misery caused this e.r. doctor to ask about other symptoms I just hadn't thought to mention as they seemed minor to the, you know, blood puke. Was light hurting my eyes? Yes. Noises bothering me? Yes. Stiff neck? Yes. Sore throat? Yes. Headache still? Yes. "I think you might have meningitis and I can only test for that by doing a lumbar puncture, otherwise known as a spinal tap." Holy smokes, meningitis? I'm going to die. "And while I wait on the order for the L.P. to come back let's have a look at the rest of you" I was checked for a G.I. bleed (I won't say how, for the queasy) and my swollen tonsils had her worried about something else : mono.

The spinal tap, as shown on tv, is an extremely painful procedure. My e.r. doc was either very kind to me with the pain medication (she was) or I just handled the pain well (not as likely) but the L.P. was not the nightmare medical dramas make it out to be.

When all the results came in, I found that another of my medications needed to be stopped, due to the liver danger it posed with my other diagnoses: lucky me, I sure did have the mono. AND the meningitis. Both viral so there wasn't even much they could do other than help push my liquids so they kept me overnight (11AM Monday to 4PM Tuesday overnight) for observation.

Home now, I can't kiss the kids or Denise, share food or drink, etc. The pain in my throat from the mono is so great that it's excruciating to even swallow liquids, or talk above a whisper. Something has my sinuses so congested I can't breathe and so never slept for more than 20 minutes at a stretch the last two nights--wearing me out even more immensely. I have to miss two weeks, at least, of work which is going to be financially nightmarish as I don't get sick pay managing Burger Land. At least I'm home now, where things are slightly more comfortable.

Heartfelt thanks to all the people who helped Denise with the kids, and to everyone who took the time from their days to either call me or come visit me in the hospital. Love you guys.

You've Got Mail

My next door neighbour just delivered mail of mine that was delivered to her on accident. Except the mail is 3-4 weeks old (as what she brought me was a cable bill that's now 3 weeks past due) and it's been opened. This particular neighbour has never given any sort of problem before, but I think this is going to have to end up being a call the cops sort of infarction.

The kids are on vacation for a week again, starting today, and have way too much pent-up energy. Personally, I wish this vacation were a week earlier or later. I'm taking four of my five vacation days this week and was looking forward to some peace and quiet interspersed between being available to help some friends out if they need us.

Microsoft decided it would be cheaper for them to send me a new Xbox 360 rather than repair my broken one, and included a one month extension of my Live Gold account. I'm ok with this. The only downside, I had to re-download the 14 or so gigabytes of downloadable content I had in order to assign the license for them to the new console. Everything else is upside.

The past week saw Chris & Chrissy's 15th wedding anniversary and Aeia's 9th birthday. Happy Anniversary to the Taylors and Happy Birthday to my daughter!

I'm Not There

A couple weeks ago Tasmia had her regular baby check-up and they detected a heart murmur, so today was the echocardiogram to test whether the murmur is a problem or not (again, not there due to Burger Emporium not giving me the time off requested). I hadn't mentioned any of it here before because I didn't want to put it out there and give Denise more to fret over. So anyway, they won't have an answer as to what the echo showed until next week, so we still wait wait wait, but with less fretting under the assumption that if there was something overly worrisome, it would have shown in their reactions. Anyway, good vibes and all that jazz please.

Rael is fine, thanks.

Lash's regular baseball season is over,but his team did well enough that they're in the local play-offs (play-off record of 1-1, two losses will eliminate them). He's still enjoying them greatly and work has kept me from viewing as many as I'd have liked.

The kids finished school today. Both did spectacular on their report cards. Next year Lash will be in 6th and Aeia 3rd grade. Lash had a great time at Whiskeytown Environmental Camp too. Groovy.

I'm working on a couple new writing pitches with another company in mind--spreading out my writing search.

Rock Band is still my mistress but some of its idiosyncrasies leave me a little ambivalent. My band with John and Brian is named "The Gay Cabelleros" and Microsoft chimed in when we selected this to let us know that the name was unacceptable for online/community standards and we wouldn't be able to play on XboxLive without changing the band name (we haven't, and I rock it hard with my pink chaps and cowboy hat). Then, when Aeia was singing "This ain't a scene, it's an arms race" by Fall Out Boy, I realized another quirky censorship issue of theirs: in the chorus when he repeatedly sings "god damn arms race" Rock Band has "god" deleted, it's just a silent vocal beat there, but "damn" is still there. Funny, not ha-ha, to me as I would have prefered Aeia not saying "damn" over her saying "god." Funky. All of the songs are radio edits (which is no different from Guitar Hero), so no "so fucking special" in "Creep," etc.

Still, extremely super fun and addicting. Just waiting for EA to send me my replacement for the defective guitar that came with it; thankfully the GH guitar works with Rock Band (but not vice-versa, grr).

Work. . .blows. And we've added more things to the menu that I won't eat.

Old friend Adam is coming up for a visit this weekend, am looking forward to some groovy hang-out time, see the Hulk, go buy another auction car. Good times.

M*A*S*H*

Let's see. . .

Denise was very nice to me and got me my birthday gift from her early--Rock Band for the Xbox 360. I am now so very completely breaking up with Guitar Hero. I'm not even going to return her calls. I'm sure we'll still have make-up music together, though. At least until Rock Band gets some Primus and Modest Mouse up in there to go with all the far superior music selection it has. I spent Friday night with Lash and Aeia rocking it out. Spent most of Saturday with John, Josh and Brian also rocking it out, with some duet action with me and Denise on Saturday and today. Great fun. I got a little 'tude earlier today, apologized for it and thought everything was fine, but apparently not. . . anyhow, super super super fun game. Thanks, Denise.

Tuesday Lash left for Whiskeytown Environmental camp and won't be back 'til Friday. I know that Rael, Aeia and I are all missing him (I imagine Denise does too, but she hasn't mentioned anything to me. . .).

Today (the 28th) was Rael's third birthday--we're waiting 'til Lash gets back so we can celebrate as a unit on Saturday.

Unfortunately, while I was at work Rael started having seizures and a skyrocketing fever. Denise ambulanced him to the hospital, and Chrissy was wonderful enough to come over and care for the other kids. Burger Hades didn't think it was enough of a family emergency to let me have a different manager come in and work a double shift so I could leave and be with my son. I feel a little postal (Dev--don't bring this up at work, please). I seriously need a new direction.

And I continue to wait, wait, wait for a sign on my writing pitch. Keep those good vibes continually flowing. At least no news isn't necessarily bad news.

Back from that intermission--the docs ran tests on Rael and couldn't find any definitive thing wrong with him, so diagnosed him with a "virus" and let him come home. I want to have confidence in the doctors (you know how I really feel). I want the doctors to be right. Fuck that, I just want Rael to be all right.

Ranting is done for now. My throat hurts; my head hurts; my heart hurts; my eyes hurt; my finger hurts; my feet hurt; it's beddy-bye for me.

EDIT: Today Rael is, while a small bit warm, running around, playing, jabber-jawing, digging on old Transformers season one cartoons. . .being his usual self again. Glee.

Short Cuts

Well, I'm not dead. Crazy employee hasn't come in and shot anyone. Huzzah. I am, however, very tired, and today I got all light headed and nauseous, so I threw up at work and went home early, even though losing the hours is going to suck.

Today I also had the annual oncologist appointment. They did blood work and ordered a chest ct for me (tomorrow morning) after which I'll find out, eventually, if everything still looks good, or not. There were days the past few months that have left me worrying a little, but I think they were just periods of flu battling. At any rate, the yearly visit always amps up the stress levels a little, and I guess my stress levels showed fairly well on my face because I got a discussion with my oncologist about stress and depression and how he thinks I should consider looking into some help with that.

If only I had the time. I work during normal business hours every weekday and can't afford to miss a day of work, so must find other ways to de-stress: ample Xboxing, chatting/e-mailing friends, weekends with other friends and what little Denise & kid time I can get all help a little.

Congratulations to Cammie on scoring the writing gig she applied for!

50 Book Challenge #2 & 3:
Incubus Dreams and Micah, both by Laurell K Hamilton, both Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books (only one more to go...).

Ok, to be clear, I don't read these books for the erotic element (in and of itself, I've no problem with erotica and there is erotica I do enjoy reading for erotica's sake) and the past couple books have been seeing a steady increase in the erotic element and a steady decrease in the supernatural crime stuff. This makes the books not as fun for me. Incubus Dreams devotes more than a third, almost all of it back-to-back smack-dab in the middle of the book, to sex. So much so that it was extremely difficult remembering which other story elements were part of this novel when they popped back in at the end of the book. This was vexing. By my count, I think she added four new lovers to her bed and screwed, on page, three or four previous/current lovers. Seriously, I thought it all could have been scaled back some and more could have been done to attend to some of the other plots in the book (the subplot about the vampire politics of the vampire "Mormons" in the Church of Eternal Life was one I wanted a LOT more of and barely got any off-hand commentary in the wrap-up final chapter of the novel. Sigh.). It took a long time for me to finish this book because there was too much sex and no other plot for the majority of it all.

Micah, on the other hand, while saddled with two chapters of sex, was a lot more bearable and refreshing in how well it devoted a fair amount of time to its non-sexual story elements. Sadly, it was also short, very short (245 pages of slightly larger type and page numbers devoted to blank pages and chapter title pages every chapter) so that I read it in the span of a couple hours this morning. But I did like it, and as I didn't really dig Incubus Dreams or Cerulean Sins, I was glad to have at least this book veer back towards more of what made the series attractive to me in the first place.

I have three brand new books waiting for me (the new Stephen King, the first "Dexter" book and a recommendation via Cammie) after I finish the last in the series (so far) that we own, Danse Macabre, so I need to get to that and get it finished. So later gators.

A Life Less Ordinary

I absolutely love that movie, by the way.

Things have been a bit, ah, difficult at work this week. During three of my last four shifts, there have been money shortages from employee tills. I'm one of five employees that were present during all shifts in question, which makes me technically a suspect (which, please, is ludicrous) though, thankfully, no one in charge thinks it's me. We're all fairly certain of who the culprit is, but lacking the proof have to instead enact a bunch of new safety measures that have had the additional benefit of making the work day more complicated and inconvenient while also making everyone grow more paranoid and distrusting of each other. If only I could just castrate the culprit. . .

Yesterday I was able to be home from work long enough to eat a fast dinner and drop a word down in some Scrabulous before Denise informed she needed me to take her to the doctor. She was having massive gut pains and needed to be seen. Hours later she's x-rayed and they see some things that "are likely nothing serious at all" but, if they are serious "could be life threatening and must be attended to immediately" and so we were kicked out of the urgent care place and told to go to the emergency room, where we were told they'd have called ahead and they'd be waiting for us. The emergency room then made us wait an additional two hours before actually seeing Denise and deciding to test for anything.

The end result is that Denise was just full of shit.

However, the nice long wait and worry for this news had me up 'til about five this morning, and I had to be up by nine in order to make it to work by ten. So Evan is a very very tired boy.

* * * * *

I failed in the 50 Book Challenge for 2007. Book 1 for 2008:

Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton. Pretty much more of the same. This time without the poor copy editing work of previous installments. And Anita Blake gets a bit more trampy, if that were possible. Still, including the book I'm on now, only three to go before I've finally finished 'em all.

Danny Boy

So yule has come and gone. The kids had a fantastic holiday, and we dealt with the Santa issue and Lash after-all, inducting him into the Santa Corps with all of the other adults and older siblings who are members. Ironically, despite my worries, he already knew, claiming to have figured it out approximately a week before we broke the news to him. Hmph.

Last night Chris, Brian and I stayed up 'til about 6:30 am this morning playing Guitar Hero II (thanks, grandma); I had to play on a harder difficulty level against them. Much fun was had last night/morning and I'm glad to have gotten the guy-time with Chris before he ships off for eight months again next week.

I called in sick to work Saturday, but started feeling a lot better by about noon. I think I'd been more exhausted than anything and it was keeping me from kicking my cold. Now my head's all mostly clear. Huzzah. I have to work New Year's Eve, which is no huge deal (I'm off early) but also have to work in the morning New Year's Day which is a bit more aggravating, as it means I won't be enjoying the Eve as much as I'm potentially able--me not being the sort of person to go to work with a hang-over or still tipsy, not even Burger Land. We'll see what we'll see, eh?

My Vagina

I just got home from the emergency room. Shortly after my last post I began to feel cramping in my left side and a constant feeling of needing to pee, without the ability to do so. As I am dumb and such, I waited and hoped for it to pass. Shortly after Denise went to bed I began to throw up and get light-headed so I woke her and had her take me to the hospital. After some blood work and some CT scans, and a very very painful catheter (I longed to be unconscious for that one like I was the last time) and a lot of worry that it was stomach or intestinal cancer (as the e.r. doc was happy to remind me that my type of tumor, carcinoid, is much more common to the GI tract than the lung) it came back that I have kidney stones, and will be experiencing the joy of passing them over the coming days. Otherwise my CT and bloodwork were fine, btw. As for kidney stones, all I have is memory of my old friend Steve Silvani screaming from his bathroom years ago when he suffered from them. Ouch, ugh and sigh.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that this day started off crappy too. With a very deflated tire for the second day in a row I took the Mustang in for a flat repair, only to learn that I had zero break pads and my rotors are shot. This was not an expense I wanted to deal with mere days before rent is due, and I'm extremely pissed that, 2 months ago when I bought four brand new tires, my previous mechanic didn't notice this or bother to alert me to this danger when he was replacing my old tires. Argh squared.

Down With the Sickness

Yesterday evening I wasn't feeling well. I chalked it up to too much sun and not enough sleep and went to bed early. This morning though I still feel sick, so I'm left hoping it's something that'll pass fairly quickly.

As for the rest of you, in the USA anyway, I hope you have a pleasant 4th of July.

Fascinating New Thing

The cable is finally off, and the person who wanted it canceled in order to save on finances was the first person to lament its end. At the moment, I'm watching tv on dvd--Huff season one to be specific.

I've had this mystery nausea for the past two days. It's really annoying at this point, the light headedness, the nausea, the constant gag reflex feeling. Yuck.

School's out for the kids after tomorrow. I'm so ready to be able to cut back on my chauffeur duties for nine or so weeks. Lots of swimming and working out beckons.

I've been playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and I'm stuck on this quest to find clues about a stolen painting. It too is annoying, but I can abandon the quest and move on; I think I will.

Well, my head is beckoning to me to end this, so later days.

Good

I am so bored right this minute. It will surely pass: I have a book, disk of comics, dvd and a film on laptop all vying for my attention. Just a bit worn out from grocery shopping followed by play-with-my-kids.

So far, while I canceled the cable on Friday and turned in all the equipment, they haven't physically turned it off yet which is nice for Rael because he gets to enjoy his morning cartoons a little longer.

Speaking of morning, I just realized I've forgotten to take my daily meds. Brb.

Denise reports that she woke up from a nightmare the other morning and I was laughing in my sleep. How dare my subconscious be happy without me? I feel like it's being unfaithful.

Having reduced myself to nearly nothing comic book-wise, I'm now selling portions of my original art collection (minus the beautiful Legion page Adj got me and will have to be pried from my cold dead fingers) and a few other goodies to gear up for a bit of bill assistance and the big July HeroClix tourney schedule.

Asshattery: our Sunday edition of Brian's Deadlands game was disturbed, and ruined, by the untimely arrival of his ex-roommate (who is still technically his roommate 'til the first, even though he's already completely moved his stuff and owes them lots of money) with a crowd of his peeps to throw a drunken party in his now empty bedroom. Normally, I'd say the guy's an ass but he's still paying for the room so whatever, but since he left without paying his bills, whatever Brian and his remaining roommate ended up doing to him, I'm certain he deserved. At any rate, it drastically shortened our Sunday night nerdgaming.

Yesterday was Rael's second birthday. We did cupcakes and presents (more to show the other kids that Rael is equally important to us; Rael still isn't really of an age where he gets anything out of having a party)., as the pics in my last post attest.


And while Claire Danes' pretty bum isn't the only reason I love Shopgirl, it definitely ranks in the top five reasons. Revisiting this film shortly after coming down with a terrible bout of heat stroke at HeroClix is about all I did with my Saturday this week.

Down With the Sickness

First off, if you've swung by here because of the mention of naked people and Jake Gyllenhall from last week (my narcissism demands I begin to be more self-referential), I happily direct you here if that's what you're looking for (though I think Bale was a bit more impressive in that post). Enjoy.

As I write this, I have only eight papers left to grade (unless there was a slough of late papers between 3 a.m. and now). I stayed up very late last night grading and now I'm feeling more than a lot under the weather: physically drained, upset stomach, grody burps, etc. But at least I'll be done on time for the first time in years. Woot.

I wish someone would make a definitive decision about Veronica Mars and put me out of my misery.

This morning I watched Danny Boyle's Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise. Maybe it was because I'm feeling sick, or because the dvd didn't have subtitles, but I found it extremely less entertaining than I expected from the genius that brought me Nightwatch, A Life Less Ordinary, Trainspotting, Shallow Grave (what is with him and Ewan McGregor?), Millions or 28 Days Later. Ah well, they can't all be specytacular. That was a typo, but I like the way it sounds: specytacular.

50 Book Challenge #13: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. Now I didn't find it the comic genius that other reviews made me expect, but I did enjoy it. A lot. There's this one essay in particular where he and his siblings are out in th snow and convince the youngest to lie down in the road and get run over in order to get attention from their mom. It's a great little essay, reminded me so much of my own childhood familial relationships. Although I never got her to lie down in the street, I had convinced my sister many times over to drink disgusting concoctions of shampoo, shoe polish, water, etc. in order to gain super powers.

More vehicle updates. Paid the registration up on the Mustang this morning. Note--don't let registration lapse just because the car isn't running. Late fees are a bitch. Still to do: tires, wipers, fluids.

I guess I should go grade now.