Return of the hospital

I’ve been absent from blogging, haven’t I? It’s because there’s nothing much going on in my life and what is going on is difficult for me to talk about without wanting to curl up and bawl like a child. I suppose it’s not exactly the imagine on has of a guy, but I’ve never been a stranger to let my emotions overwhelm me. It takes a tougher man to let them out than to be cowardly and keep them in, right? Well, I’ve never been one for being manly or tough or whatever, and cowardliness is my practice. I don’t know now to ask for emotional support even when it’s offered to me on a daily basis. This year’s been shit from being hurt to hurting to all the other shit I’ve done that wasn’t nice or cool or proper. I’ve been quite the bastard this year, more so than any year that proceeded it. In fact, I can almost say my years with my ex were better than this year.

That’s all beside the point. My mother is going into surgery this week, Thursday to be exact. In my shit life, she’s always been a constant and I suppose that’s to be expected from a good mother, right? And I guess it’s that whole child’s approach of thinking your parents are indestructible and superman-esque. They can surpass anything and everything, but when realization hits you like a ton of bricks, you are left stricken that parents, too, are human and anything is possible. Jyg did the research that I wasn’t willing to because I’d rather not know what my mother will be going through. She said that most patients stay within the hospital for three days after the surgery. And I plan on staying all three with her and more if I have to.

The surgery comes in the week before the Xmas lunch/dinner that my mother and I host. My brothers divided the holidays since there are three of us and three of them. Older brother gets Thanksgiving, I get Xmas and the middle child gets New Years’. This year my mother planned early on what we’re going to do an whether or not she’ll be able to cook. I’ve limited to no, she cannot and she will probably only supervise and I’ll do most of the cooking. I have enlisted Jyg, my older brother, my sisters-in-law, my nephews and possibly niece to aid me in making the main course of the meal and I’ll work on the side dish. We’ll be having the lunch/dinner regardless of my mother’s condition (she wouldn’t want it any other way).

But things will be alright. I keep telling myself this but sometimes my words don’t reach my own ears. I don’t like to think of the what ifs. I really don’t.

You wanted it, so here it is.

I had a vision I could turn you right
a stupid mission and a lethal fight
I should have seen it when my hope was new
my heart is black and my body is blue

And I’m losing my favourite game
you’re losing your mind again

I had this dream the other night that caused me some discomfort. It’s wasn’t too good of a dream. It’s waning down to the 18th. Want to know what’s wrong with me? People tell me that sometimes when you’re at your lowest you have to reach out for help. What if you’ve never been good at reaching out to others but  don’t want to be left alone? It doesn’t matter, right? I’ll manage.

My mother’s going into surgery later this month. It irks me. This is the woman who just took care of me over a month ago after my surgery and now the roles will be switched again. She needs the surgery, but because she’s diabetic, I’m worried. I worry a lot these days. I feel replaced and misplaced at times. My mother’s surgery is just the worry of the now. I feel incomplete in a rather completed cycle. Was anyone else left amaze at my turning back and running? I  wasn’t it. I’m wont to let go of the past. That’s who I let people down. I’m prone to be a let down. Don’t contradict me, it won’t work.

So here’s to 2008, the goddawful year and a horrible experience that I never want to remember again. I hope to never look back on this year as anything but major disappointment save Barack Obama’s success. If anything, the country speaking for change has given this year a silver lining.

The Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories– all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

Today, while you’re eating your bird or tofu subsitute, think about what today should really stand for. Think about the families torn assunder by a needless war. Think of the children orphaned by our terrible and downright god awful leader. Think about the homeless who wander the street in search for their next meal. Think about all the things we take for granted.

And after you think about all the wrong in the world, you can truly and finally count your blessings. Because without the ugly rearing its head into our lives, we might not stop and take a look at all the beauty. So enjoy today in any mannerism you choose to and be happy with what you have – be thankful for good health, good times and future blessings.

Fever, Abscess, El Senor, Weekend & Books

All most of last week and the week before was a rollercoaster of fever. While 100.9F isn’t much of a threat, when you’re post op (a term, apparently not just used for transsexuals), it can mean there is something seriously wrong with you. The doctor told me most people who go through appendicitis normally form an abscess after surgery. Crap, that means I have to go back to the hospital to get that drained. He gave me a paper which said I needed to get a CT scan – he ordered one from whichever place I go to, is basically what it said – but then told me that if I hit 101 degree fever to just go the emergency room so I don’t have to pay up front. Fine. I had my plan, go during the weekend as to not inconvenience anyone. That plan fell through when the fevers left me as quickly as they came. Now I’m completely normal.

Friday, I almost stayed in but Jyg didn’t go out with her friends after all, so we went to JCPenny’s to search for the elusive sunglasses. JcPenny’s, however, doesn’t have any sunglasses so that trip proved fruitless. After walking towards other stores, I started to feel weak, so we went back to the car. We wound up at Hastings afterward because at least I get to rest there. While there, I found a used copy of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. Penniless that I am, Jyg purchased the book for me as a gift. We came back home afterward and I started to feel really sleepy. After a while, Jyg went home and I fell asleep.

Saturday was pretty much eventless. I just sat around, catching up on my reading because I have yet to finish The Silmarillion. Sunday, on the other hand, gave me something to do. El Senor, after having his operation done Friday, decided that he needed to get out of his home and hang out with someone who wasn’t related to him – this meant me and we would go to Cuppy’s Coffee for yet another session of our talking out loud and bothering other costumers who are sitting there with their laptops, purposely looking as if they’re writing the next great American novel. We talked books. We talked sugeries. We talked about what we’re writing – me, a short story/novella and him, his thesis. Afterwards, we went over to CompUSA because he has become the victim of his children – they lost two of his USB drives. He saw some he liked, but vowed to buy them in the morning because he only brought enough money for the coffee.

After that, I learned that he has moved from La Villa to Edinburg. This guy’s now more in walking distance than before. After offering me to tag along on a family road trip – which I passed because I couldn’t fathom the idea of being anywhere near his daughter who suggested that I looked forty the last time we talked – we go to his place. He has some reading material that he bought for me during the summer, a book by Paul Ruffin, Islands, Women, and God. I also manage to borrow The Chicago Manual of Style and swiped Two-Up by Eric Miles Williamson, a professor at UTPA. We go to Juniors to pay a bill he had and then he dropped me off.

One thing that I failed to mention is that he also offered me a job. Not with his business, which is manual labor and while I’m all up for it, my body isn’t. Instead a friend of his is looking for people with Bachelors to teach courses to the community. My job offer? To help others find jobs. I swear, that saying is true: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. It’ll be a bilingual class, but at least I’ll have a translator because my on the spot Spanish sucks ass.

“Come on fallen star I refuse to let you die” (Placebo)

All the centrefolds that you can’t afford
Have long since waved their last goodbyes
All the centrefolds that you can’t afford
You’ve long since faded from their eyes

I’m having nightmares again. I’m not sure if it’s the outcome of surgery, the meds I’m taking, the fear that clutches me heart that is imperishable, or something else entirely. At times I think I’m sleeping with ghosts. Their celestial bodies cloaking my mind, polluting my thoughts.

Last night, I attempted to go out with Jyg to Barnes – I was looking for the book The Children of Húrin, which I saw on sale before my hospital stay, but was gone by the time I attempted to buy it – but in the midst, my knees started to feel weak and I started to perspire so we left. I’m going to make another attempt in a while. Hopefully I’ll find it at the other Barnes.

I started NaNoWriMo yesterday. I think Sex, With Strangers will be my project considering that a lot of it has to be rewritten anyway, so I opted to change it up a bit. The only chapter that will probably suffer the least is, of course, chapter one. We’ll see.

Laparoscopic Appendectomy

In the ER, I told my mother that I was hungry and I wanted nothing more than a cheeseburger. If it wasn’t an appendicitis, I wanted to get a cheeseburger. Sadly, after being pumped up full of iodine, my cheeseburger craving was over.

Before I’m wheeled out of my hospital room to the OR, my nurse-until-seven, Melissa, asked, “Do you have any piercings? Anywhere? Belly? Tongue?” I shook my head. I’ve never been one for body stuff like that and I had no intention to have any.

The surgeon (whose name I will not mention, but his office is in McAllen, TX and he’s the most unhappiest, rudest, annoying as hell, condescending assholes I have ever met in my short time in this earth) explain to me that I will be having a laparoscopic appendectomy and what the was. All I heard, to be honest, was that it’ll heal quicker, less chances of an infection, and recovery time will be quickened and I can be strolling sans cane, though I still have one because I roll like that and because it helps me keep my balance, but I’m needing it less and less and I was just sent home two days ago.

I look at my mother before I’m wheeled out for surgery, I tell my mother, “After this, no matter what they feed me, you got to tell me it’s a cheeseburger. I don’t care if it’s soup, you tell me it’s a cheeseburger.”

I don’t remember much of the leading steps of the surgery, minus the narrow bed and my Nip/Tuck reference. When I awoke, I had this Darth Vader mask over my face that spewed smoke, a blanket around my head, a soreness in my throat and a violent need to pee. My mother was brought into the recovery room, instructed not to talk to me. I could hear their chatter in my sleep. I opened my eyes and they closed. Typical TV fashion, I heard them say he’s coming to. I opened my eyes again, and, again, they closed. Third time charm, I opened my eyes and turned to see my mother and I started to talk. My mother didn’t know what to do. I asked, “Why do I have a sore throat? And why do I need to pee?”

“He needs to pee.”

The doctor assists me with this by giving me a container to pee in. I can’t seem to stay up, he then tells me he’ll help me more, by grabbing my penis and holding it for me into the container, meanwhile looking away. This doesn’t help me, it just confuses me and makes me think what the hell is going on.

“Would you like to get up?”

I nod. I sit up. I stand up. I almost fall. Back in bed. And that’s when I see it. This globe hanging down me. It’s filled with a dull red liquid color that’s too light to be blood. I don’t know what it is, but it turns out to be called a JP drain, which later learned means Jackson Pratt drain. This was my hour glass to health as once it stopped filling up, I was that much closer to getting home.

I’m wheeled back to the the room where I begin my struggle to learn how to pee again, a feet that takes me hours. I was threatened by one of the nurses – not really threatened – if I didn’t pee more problems were to come. Thankfully, I learned how to pee.

Backtracking, while I was still in the recovery room, my throat was being most bothersome. They removed the mask because I asked if I could. They removed it for me. They told me that I wasn’t going to be able to eat for a while and that when I laugh or cough to use a “clutch” which can be a pillow or a blanket in order to push out the gas trapped inside me. I’m told to walk around because that helps with the pumpking of the JP drain and the leakage around the hole that the tube that it’s placed in. I complain about my throat again, hoping they could explain it to me. They don’t. Instead the doctor gives me a cup of ice. This, my friends, is all I can eat for the next couple of days. I grabbed some ice chips, sucked on them and said to my mother, “This here. This are cheeseburgers.”

Possible appendicitis

Well, dear readers, it’s apparent that either the doctor that I go see is a complete quack, or I’ve got appendicitis and the bastard has to be removed. I’ll keep you all posted. Most of you don’t notice my absence when I don’t get online, but for a few days now, I’ve been rarely on. Yesterday, I wasn’t on at all, mostly due to the fact that I was at my doctor’s for three hours only to be ignored and told I might be a suffer.

Mother thinks it’s rocks and I wouldn’t be too surprised. The pain, however, has intensified since my doctor pushed down on it. I’m on my way to the ER, so I won’t be online again. Just thought I’d let you all know.