Remember, they belong to the same species as you

I am ashamed to admit that I regularly try to deceive myself into thinking that my species is more intelligent than I actually believe it to be. I do this because it's so damn depressing to think that decisions that affect millions of people, if not the entire planet, are in the hands of morons. This video raked its way across my brain like a road burn. Do I then think that liberals or independents would have responded to similar questions with more intelligence? Not necessarily, but conceivably. I say this because Palin Republicans take pride in their Joe Sixpack anti-intellectualism. Other voters might be equally ignorant, but they don't imply that ignorance is a virtue by referring only to the provincial and the undereducated as "real Americans." Remember, these book-buyers are not apathetic voters; these are true believers who might reasonably be expected to know something about the issues. Of course, it's possible that the interviewer rejected a thousand intelligent supporters in favor of thirty of the other variety. One can but hope.

Under the nice surgeon's knife and out again

My two-hour surgery started yesterday morning at 8:00. The nerve block wore off last night at 1:00, so I took a sleeping pill and two Percocets. When they didn’t help, I had no choice but to wait four hours before moving up to Demerol, but even with Demerol, the pain forced me from my chair every 45 minutes. Once up, I would stumble about the house for a while, catch up on a blog or two, and change out my ice pack. As crappy as the night was, the pain was physical rather than emotional, and physical pain is nearly always easier to bear. Indeed, I’ve grown so accustomed to it that I’m confident in my strength to endure it, plus I see no place to go but up, the pain being so outrageously bad that it’s darkly funny.

Speaking of things that are darkly funny, I had a good late night chuckle when I damn near tripped over my blind dog and crashed through the living room window, which measures four feet by seven feet. Such a dramatic exit from a warm house onto a cold sidewalk would have capped the day off nicely, I thought. One thing about the universe is that no matter how much crap it throws at you, there’s still plenty in reserve.

Despite the pain, I’m high on the fact that my surgery has become an event of history rather than a source of dread. I fully expect months of misery, but I can almost make out a light at the end of the tunnel, and that feels really good.

Upon losing followers

I lost another follower today. Sometimes, I offend people because I don’t make myself clear; other times because I do. Causing offense is one of the downsides of being: (a) utterly opinionated; (b) seeing myself as the smartest person in the universe; (c) not really liking or respecting humanity in general; and (d) being totally off-the-wall terrified about my upcoming surgery and therefore less than sensitive to people’s feelings.

For months, my list of followers grew, and I became increasingly distressed because I couldn’t keep up with their blogs as diligently as some of them kept up with mine. Now, I’m slowly losing followers. In one way, I’m glad because I can start getting a handle on paying attention to those who have remained loyal. In another way, I’m sad because it reinforces my belief that I’m not terribly likeable. How ironic, this desire to be loved by everyone despite the fact that I give most people little reason to love me. I would like them to see beyond the gruff exterior behind which I often appear and to realize that it’s partially composed of scar tissue, but why should I expect so much from people whose intelligence I credit so little? Because I want to be proven wrong.

Here’s the thing. I agonize over this blog. You would not believe the hours I put into trying to get to the core truths behind every post, trying to weed out every superfluous word. I like to think I’m good at this. I like to think my blog is more deserving of your attention than those many blogs that are, in effect, stream of consciousness diaries. Do I succeed? Hell if I know. I often edit until I can scarcely make sense of what I’ve written. To understand what I mean, think of how your impression of a song changes after it has been stuck in your head for days, or how you feel when you stand so close to a painting that you can no longer see what it represents.

When I lost that follower today, it strengthened my conviction that who I am within my deepest self is never going to have mass appeal. My writing will mean a lot to a few but less than nothing to the many. They will find me heavy, intense, cynical, and irreverent, and I will find them silly, credulous, and superficial. Yet, writing, for me, is a matter of such deep integrity that I can unhesitatingly promise you that I will do my best to represent myself fully in the areas into which I delve; not simply as an exercise in omphaloskepsis, but as a way to get to some truth that I can but hope will resonate with your own truth. At best, my truth will stimulate you to look more deeply for your own truth, even though it differs from mine.

Today, I have little time to edit because I am down to measuring the time until surgery in hours rather than days, but what this post lacks in care, perhaps it makes up for in passion.

I’m so wired I don’t need coffee

Surgeons rarely kill people. They might screw them up, but they don’t normally leave them dead as a doornail on the operating table. Anesthesiologists are more likely to do that. How weird is it then that people choose their surgeons but take whichever anesthesiologist walks through the door? I made a big deal today of requesting the same anesthesiologist I had in March. I liked how he dealt with my sleep apnea, and he and Mark (my surgeon) obviously liked one another.

This brings me to another thing to ponder when you’re having surgery. You want to do what little you can to insure that your surgical team works well together because a successful surgery is never a one man affair. This is why I didn’t ask Mark to operate at my usual hospital—the big one where Peggy works—even though Peggy wanted me to. Better for me to be in a strange environment than for him to be in a strange environment.

I went both to the hospital and to Mark’s office for my pre-op today. The lady at the hospital smiled when she said I wouldn’t “have to be stuck” for blood tests. I said I wanted to be stuck, so she stuck me. The negative results were welcome after all these months of heavy medications.

The lady at Mark’s office said he would be in shortly to talk to me about my upcoming shoulder replacement. “I’m not having a shoulder replacement,” I said. “I’m having arthroscopic surgery on my left rotator cuff, which is to include an acromioplasty, a bursectomy, a supraspinatus repair, a glenohumeral joint debridement, articular cartilage restoration, and a few other odds and ends, but no shoulder replacement.” “Since the surgery on your right shoulder went so badly, he wants to go ahead and replace your left one at the outset,” she said. Peggy and I looked at one another. When Mark came in, he said there had been a mix-up.

If I didn’t trust him, I would have needed an explanation, but a good patient needs a good doctor more than a good doctor needs a good patient so I don’t rock the boat unless it matters. Besides, we had a lot to talk about. Like the following, which I wrote for him and will condense for you. It might not look like much, but it contains considerable learning, some of which might be of benefit to you someday.


“Prescription-related challenges and requests”

“Sleeping in a chair while in pain was a major problem last time (I was in that chair for four months), and I fear it will be this time too.

“I’ve learned that a good sleeping pill is often preferable to a narcotic because it: (1) enables me to get to sleep sitting in a chair, (2) enables me to stay asleep through a surprising amount of pain, (3) lasts twice as long, and (4) doesn’t make me itch. I would therefore like to rely on sleeping pills more and narcotics less. The Restoril you prescribed works well, but one can develop a tolerance in ten days, so I did some research and came up with Dalmane as a reasonable companion.

“Ron at Peace Health Pharmacy agreed that Dalmane is my “best bet” as a companion to the Restoril, and added that it has the advantage of being stronger and longer acting. I also have some Ambien on hand, but he confirmed my observation that it isn’t all that strong and wears off quickly. My insurance requires prior authorization for Ambien CR, but I have a coupon for a four-night sample if you see fit to authorize it. I also have a coupon for a week’s worth of Lunesta—which is also a wuss drug compared to Restoril and Dalmane.

“The reason I am so enamored of sleeping pills is that I’ve never had a really great experience with a narcotic whereas (aside from a little day-after grogginess) I’ve never had a bad experience with a sleeping pill. Of course, I’ll never complain that you’re ordering too many blood tests to verify that I’m not inadvertently poisoning myself.

“So, here is what I would request.

“A painkiller. Maybe more Demerol, since it’s the only narcotic that doesn’t make me itch.

“Dalmane (flurazepam hydrochloride). 30 mg is the usual dose. If you specify tablets rather than capsules, I can start with half a dose (I always prefer tablets for this reason). As with everything else, I can get three months’ worth for the price of two, so if you prescribe 90, I won’t need a second prescription.

“I’m set for Restoril and I don't need a prescription to buy all the stool softener that a person could ever want to own.”


Mark gave me what I wanted but not as much as I wanted. Sometimes, he will give me a lot of something, and other times he won’t. I can see no rhyme or reason in this, so I suspect it’s simply a matter of mood or attentiveness, but I never ask about it. These drugs are addictive, and that alone makes it impolitic to ask for bigger bottles. Just asking for a particular mood-altering drug can put a doctor on guard, yet I do it all the time because I’ve learned that I have to be my own authority to an extent. No doctor can know what works for me, and no doctor will spend one one-thousandth as much time as I will focused on what I need. In my experience, most doctors aren’t even that good at pain control. They basically have one or two favorite drugs that they give to everyone who walks through the door. Some doctors even view a patient's request for pain control as a sign of weakness or addiction. They are unworthy of their profession. People in pain need to feel empowered.

I spend so much time thinking about and reading about drugs that I even give them personalities. Vicodin? A skinny little nymph for those days when you need just a whiff of a narcotic. Norco? Vicodin’s big sister (her parents didn’t want a baby back then, and that’s why they gave her that crappy name.) Percocet? Full-figured and cuddly. Demerol? The thinking man’s drug because it makes a man sit and think—even when he would prefer to get up and do something. Ambien? When it’s 3:00 a.m., and I’m not in a lot of pain but I can’t get back to sleep either, Ambien comes like a sleepy-time angel with long white wings and a long white gown. Restoril? A fatherly hand that covers my eyes and drowns my pain in the waters of oblivion.

As I approach this latest surgery, my main comfort is that the things I’ve learned should give me a better shot at sleep and pain control even if this recovery is as bad as the one I started in March—for which I still sleep with ice packs. And, who knows—maybe it won’t be as bad. After a little vodka, I can even think of it as a grand adventure—sort of like a trip to an exotic land, only with a lot of pain and disability thrown-in at no extra charge.

But even if it is as bad, things could still be A LOT worse. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's, kidney failure, liver cancer, complex regional pain syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis… Yes, things could be worse. I have no real complaint, but sometimes I get carried away by fear as if fear were itself a drug. I picture it as a big horse with frantic eyes and frothing lips. It keeps running faster and faster, and I struggle mightily just to stay in the saddle because to fall would be unthinkable.