Feeling much, much better.  Thanks to all for all the comments and notes – they meant a lot.  Despite feeling better though, I have another week or so of pill popping to manage.  I’ve got every-twelve-hour pills and every-eight-hour pills and pills-for-when-you’re-writhing-in-pain.  Some are with food, some aren’t.  Some just taste horrible.  One says that I’m supposed to avoid exposure to the sun for the duration – yeah, right.  About the only thing on the pills that meshes up is that I take everything when I first get up in the morning.  These rest of the pill-times during the day are some of this and some of that.   And I haven’t had to take the writing-in-pain stuff since Monday. 

Very glad about that.  While I could develop a fondness for that IV morphine they were pumping into me Thursday night, I generally stay away from painkillers.  Don’t like masking warning signs and symptoms.  Obviously I don’t pay much attention to them, but I still like to know they’re there.  

But I think we’ve seen all we need to see of diverticulitis around these parts for a while.  Nothing else until I get -scoped in a month or two.  It’s part of the threatened follow up.   Gotta verify the diagnosis, and there’s no better way to that than by checking things out live and in color, so to speak.  Yep, time to start promoting that internal porn at Howling Point.  You ain’t seen Chuckie this exposed since my prostate cancer. 

Semi-related issue: the men in brown are scheduled to delivery my new addiction tomorrow.  We’re getting a shiny new Crackberry.  Time to rejoin the modern age.

King Philip returns to San Francisco.

Got some work done this morning but burned myself out too quickly on the first day back.  Not much will be getting done this afternoon.  Couldn’t even participate in the Law Firm’s Mandatory Poolside Siesta program – one of the antibiotics has warnings about increasing my sensitivity to sun.  With my heritage that’s not something I want to mess around with – I could end up as a lobster in sixty seconds flat. 

Any thoughts on whether that restriction makes this a disability, preventing participation in an essential function of the law office?  After all, if I can’t tan, what’s the point?  Should I apply for disability payments, or do the other personalities have to try and accomodate my condition first?  Maybe if my drink comes with an umbrella I’ll have enough protection. 

Go slap Aquablather on the back and say ‘well done.’

I’ve celebrated Cinco de Mayo in many ways, but I think this is the first year where the intoxicant of choice necessity was Vicodin and Lemon-Lime gatorade.  Don’t tell the drones but token amounts of chips and guacamole may have been involved too. 

No caffeine, no alcohol, and I’m so bloated up I feel like I’m the pinata.  Some Cinco de Mayo this turned out to be.

Yesterday started with me feeling a bit under the weather.  When the fever broke 100 I called was forced to call the drones for their advice.  They asked some questions.  They had me stand up quickly to see if it made me dizzy.  They had me jump up and down and describe the feelings in my gut (a steel ball bouncing around the left side).  Then they very calmly told me to get to the ER.  No, you can’t wait two hours until you have a ride, but you really shouldn’t drive, literally because the innocents that would perish if I passed out on the Interstate.  Since there are no innocents in San Diego, and I had no other reasonable options, I drove myself.

I ended up being there for eight hours, from 5 p.m. until 1 a.m.  Nissantruck is still there since passing out and killing people isn’t nearly as serious as driving while high as a kite on two morphine hits. 

I learned a new word: diverticulitis.  I learned new sensations, especially when they pushed the iodine marker into my bloodstream for the final round of CT scans.  I was reminded of the consequences of ignoring minor symptoms until the reach out and try and kill you.  Not sure I learned a lesson there, but I always like to know the possible consequences.

There are a lot more details and some stories, and they might come out in the next few days, but for right now, I need to get back to bed. 

Nothing like stumbling on your own byline to turn a miserable morning into something worth staying out of bed for.

I’m in a nine-week course through the local UC extension that will cover my annual continuing ed requirement with the bar.  It’s interesting, but even though it’s a legal course, I’m the only attorney aside from the instructor, so sometimes concepts I take for granted have to be explained.  For example, I just kept my mouth shut last night during a tangent about the use of latin in legal writing.  But that said, I’m far enough removed that I’ve forgotten some of the other aspects of being a student.   I can handle the reading and staying awake while people talk, but last night I ended up sitting behind a bottle-blonde in her 50s who was alternately doodling hearts and drafting a Dear John letter (or talking points) to some poor guy.  I guess some people never grow out of those things.

Pongo would have been twelve years old today.