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Well the light at the end of the tunnel finally came, after the holidays of course.  But whatever.  If you don't have kids or you're not a grandparent, Christmas is really about materialism.  With children there's so much more.  And New Year's is just ' another reason to drink' holiday.  

   So the final day I'm there I start getting that bad heartburn/gas pain in my chest while I'm sleeping.  I'm thinking , oh shit not again.  Cause last time I was ready to leave everything was packed up, Sarah was on her way and then Wabam!  I started ralphing again and had to stay a couple more weeks.  So I'm actively dealing with this...(see Facebook video). As I'm dealing with this, Mr Wei's family start in on this frantically emotional prayer circle around him where everyone gets a solo.  There are moan of agreement and disagreement like in a revival tent; but smaller and in Mandarin.  

   Anyway back at home now and loving it.

"Don't it always seem to go , that you don't know what you got till it's gone."-Joni

Goodbye David....man you were interstellar.  A real starman.

Nor-Easter to Georgia lemonade sipping summer time.

I just want to say for the record that's kept on the highest shelf in the tallest building in that desolate land you never heard about;  that sometimes ....you never....never ever ever...........ever.......know.  

  That being said I didn't know as I was hanging in the solarium meditating having just hung out with a Lama who's been coming to see me.  He's helping me with my Bodichitta and with patience.  I went back to my room and laid down...started watching Schindler's List.  All of a sudden I am shivering like a mad man...."I can't get warm enough!  I can't get warm enough!"  I ask for another blanket and a temp reading....97.7 on your fm dial means your fine.  I wasn't.  Did a temp reading a half hour later 103....BOOM.  Fever time.  Turns out all that stupid phlegm I've coughing up all week finally got around to dropping the bomb on my lungs.  Tylenol , Chest X-ray (I had to go downstairs they couldn't bring the droid up) urine sample , phlegm sample.  I took all my blanket down with me to the basement.  I looked like a retired Sith Lord .  This technician guy walks in while I'm waiting for the X-ray .  I don't even look up as I am dozing but I smell him....smells good.  "Somebody smells good." I say out loud. He's like ' yeah it's Egyptian musk'. 'Nice.'  Some women behind says ' yah he flew all the way thayah just ta get it'. ' I bet you found it at the bottom of some triangle in the desert' I say...and that tickled his ribs.

So now....3am ...fever broke and it's a Georgia summer in my room with Mr. Wei.  You never

EVER

Know.

Bad nurse BAD!  That chick sucked at dressing.

Needles, tubes, and Noobs. Part one.

I remember when the thought of going for a check up at the doctor's was accompanied by a mountain of anxiety of getting a shot.  I'd sit on the table bed with the paper cover...."let me look in your ear...yes yes...say 'ahhh'"  Knowing the inevitable was coming my heart rate would slowly increase throughout the appointment.  When it came time I'd beg and plead, start crying, and then eventually 'boy-up'.  The adult equivalent of " OW!  Son of a bitch!"would be thought and I'd be on my way with a red flag lollipop.

Now...you could drive a 3/8 inch tube down my nose and into my stomach and I wouldn't bat an eye.  This past couple weeks I have had a lot of these annoying invasive tubes on top of the ones I currently deal with.

   The feeding tube, through which an ensure type beverage is piped into my colon runs from my right nostril to my colon.  There is also an anchor ; which is two tiny pieces of plastic that come together through the septum hole in your nose.  My anchor became lose and the tube slipped back into my stomach- which is a problem. My stomach was filling up with nutrients and not given enough time to digest it...so it would just come up (politely speaking).  When the reinsert it, the doctors have to put a very small metal wire to help keep it stiff as they push it back into the colon.  This is painful and I can only imagine I sound like Arnold Swarzanegger (sp) while they're doing this.  The doctor keeps saying to me "Think of your favorite food....think of you favorite food....THINK OF YOUR FAVORITE FOOD!"  Scrambling my mind thinks of beef stroganoff .... Finally I'm like "why do you keep saying that! Is it suppose to cheer me up?"  Apparently when you think of your favorite food it cause the doors to the abyss to open a little.

When when when.

I don't know if there is a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to this current hospital stint.  And what's unnerving is, so far the doctors don't know either.  I feel like I'm in the opening of Beckett's Molloy:

“I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I’d never have got there alone. There’s this man who comes every week. Perhaps I got here thanks to him. He says not. He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages, so much money. Yes, I work now, a little like I used to, except that I don’t know how to work any more. That doesn’t matter apparently. What I’d like now is to speak of the things that are left, say my goodbyes, finish dying. They don’t want that. Yes, there is more than one, apparently. But it’s always the same one that comes. You’ll do that later, he says. Good. The truth is I haven’t much will left. When he comes for the fresh pages he brings back the previous week’s. They are marked with signs I don’t understand. Anyway I don’t read them. When I’ve done nothing he gives me nothing, he scolds me. Yet I don’t work for money. For what then? I don’t know. The truth is I[…]”

Excerpt From: Beckett, Samuel. “Three Novels.” Grove Press, 1947. iBooks. 

I went down to radiology yesterday for a contrast dye MRI.  They didn't tell me that I should be ready to drink 4 cups of a dye enhancer.  I drank half of one bottle and I thought if I drink anymore I'm going to boot.  Sorry MRI ladies.  They were cool with it though.

I had a break down a couple of days ago in front of resident Doctor Javier.  He was like 'how do you feel?' And I stupidly off the cuff said "I feel like blowing my brains out".  Let me tell you don't ever say some like that in a hospital.  I visited by the three psychiatrist of Christmas past , present , and future.  I did get my name on a Buddhist monks list for a visit though...so that's cool.  

   I'm currently sharing my room with Mr Weh, 1st gen Chinese American.  He's cool and I never thought I'd meet someone that get's chillier that me I'm roastin' in this room.

Let's........make this Christmas...mean something....this year.

    Christmas in the hospital.  I know , cry me a river.  I spent most of last night and Christmas barfing.  Another damn bowel obstruction.  Let's just say after not having food for awhile I went crazy.  On th 23rd I ate a ton of food.

    Bonedaddy stopped by around 2pm and gave me some wonderful gifts from him and Rebecca.  Walrus t-shirt from the Quontset hut and some more tubes to put into my face.  They're so thoughtful.  Then Sarah stopped by at 6pm with some bad chow mein for herself and we snuggled and watched Bad Santa...which was great.

So I'm not complaining.

Love to all

News.

Good news and bad news.

I'm going home today on Christmas Eve...not that I have the Swiss Family Robinson to go home to but I have Sarah and Suzy and that's a million times better.

Annnnnd the bad news is, is that I can't qualify for a 'live donor' because the tips is too close to my heart and would cause a high risk in the transplant procedure.  The tips runs from the portal vein at the bottom of the liver , through it (I think) and close to the vena cava which is a major vein at the bottom of the heart.

So this means , (most likely) that I need to get super sick before I can get a liver.  Like , on death's door.  Not to mention I need to wait for that to happen which is a huge financial burden.

But until that happens it's good things like batman and Frank Miller:

Clear Liquid feast!

They upgraded me from nothing to a clear liquid diet!!  What is a clear liquid diet you might ask.  It consists of this 'smorning of black tea with two sugar packets, raspberry sorbet cup (got to eat that first cause it'll melt) , the entree : chicken stock with sodium substitute (though I asked for beef), lime green jelly cup , apple juice cup.  Man it was like thanksgiving after not having food for 2 1/2 days.  I felt like Saint Austine surviving on garlic to make it through the winter.  It also reminded who me of these two ex-convicts who rehabilitate prisoners being release into the world.  In this show that they're in they're sitting in a car awaiting the prisoner to be released so they can collected him and the two guys start reminiscing about all the things they used to do to prison food to make it tolerable...including squandering away goods for later.  I think the show was on Aljazeer network.

  Other than that it's a greenhouse Boston Christmas and I'm chillin' in Farr 10 room 1024 with some cabbage rolls in the Dutch oven.

Best