gordonzola | Of course on the first day I can sit upright my dsl goes down for 12 hours

It’s just my appendix. It might be painful and I’m a little helpless but now I get to sit around and read books all day. Thanks for all the well-wishing, I was really touched by it, but really, it’s just like I finally figured out how to get a vacation this year. Ah, self-exploitation for the collective good instead of boss exploitation for (his) personal profit, it is my weakness.

My memory of last week has lots of holes. Some people I remember talking to on the phone but not a word of the conversation. Others I completely forgot I talked to until they called to check on me. But here is what was notable about my lost week (I can’t believe Pride is this weekend and I am missing the whole film festival. ):

1. My room was amazing. At the top of Davies looking east. It wasn’t a million dollar view, my room alone could have sold as a condo for $1.5 in this city. When I couldn’t sleep at night I would roll my IV drip around the bed and look at the view that went all the way across the bay into Oakland. I could also see the roof of my apartment which made things very homey. When a woman from Cowgirl Creamery came by to bring flowers the first thing she said was, "Wow, you guys must have great insurance."

2. I love nurses. Much more than doctors. One guy, when I was nauseous and itchy from my two-day morphine drip and couldn’t take any more anti-nausea meds, did some accupressure points and rubbed my arms until I fell asleep. I will forever be grateful even if I wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing in front of me.

The admitting nurse in the Emergency Room was also quite amusing. When he found that I had already done a urine sample with another nurse he exclaimed, "You’re a Superstar!". While I am quite confident in my ability to perform basic bodily functions, I didn’t quite feel I had achieved urinary superstar status. How would that be measured anyway?

When I asked to have the sides of my hospital bed put up and

nodoilies locked one side into place he said to her, "Oh, he kinda likes to be caged up doesn’t he?" with a innuendo-laden Folsom St. tone. But hey, that’s only fair because he may have heard me when, upon receiving the news I was about to get a barium enema, I said, "Good thing I like taking it up the ass."

3. Doctors.

misscallis and I agreed that they do their rounds at 6:45 AM just so patients will be too out of it and confused to ask them any questions.

4. This was my first overnight hospital stay ever. For that I am very grateful.

5. My co-worker called me from her hospital bed too. She was in a different Cal Pacific Hospital. We seem to be dropping like flies.

6. Lots of calls and sympathy from work. I think it was because

sweetchezus went back to work and told everyone I looked yellow like a piece of commodity jack.

7. Mass market thrillers really are unreadable. My dad likes them though. I don’t remember the title but he gave me one at the hospital. It was so bad that, exhausted and high as a kite, I threw it aside after a page and a half because I already had my fill of cliches. Every dread was black. Every silence ominous and foreboding. Women were doing stupid women things like nagging and falling apart under pressure. Reading it would have hurt worse than the surgery.

8. The last words I heard as the anesthesiologist was about to put me under? "Is that a cheese tattoo?" When I said yes, he put the mask over my nose and the nurse grabbed my throat. I woke up in the recovery room.

9. Woah, I just remembered they were talking about taking me to Red’s Recovery Room (instead of the hospital recovery room) after the surgery as a joke. Oh, Northbay humor.

dairryiere please laugh at that.

More as they surface. Special thanks to

jactitation for helping me get through the recovery time with my parents.