Tuesday, November 28, 2006
For those of you who were wondering about my sunflower friends down the street, their seeds (and those of the milkweed and other plants that can survive in the oily ground around the tracks) are beginning to disperse. It was hard to get photos because my camera's focus is broken… It will “autofocus”, but because internal pins are bent or something, it's pretty random where it locks down, so you have to lock it, and then try and move the camera around until it looks like the subject is clear in the viewfinder.
As you know, my MRI got scrubbed yesterday, which I'm a little pissed off about. Not so much that it got scrubbed, because if it's not safe to do, that's my fault, but because not only did I get delayed first because they lost my paperwork, and then again over an orbit x-ray, and then ultimately cancelled over my magnets… If they had simply
read my forms on day one — I
emphasized in detail the nature of my implants and their complications — I would have been CT or otherwise scanned with a non-magnetic technology weeks ago.
Anyway, so I'm at the doctor (brain, not body) telling him the story about how the bone density tech slipped and told me I had cancer, and when I'm done he's like, “oh yeah, I heard about that…” Which was weird, because all of this happened after I was there last so I asked him how he knew. I guess my main doctor was nervous about telling me that I have cancer because she thought I would be upset, so she called him and told him and ask his advice. I guess she hasn't come to a conclusion as to how to tell me yet because I haven't heard a peep… Should I act surprised when she finally tells me? I don't think it's like when you find out that your friends are having a surprise part for you and you play along.
Anyway, so I've been calling my doctors office for the past two days trying to get them to fax the paperwork for the alternate scan (as instructed by the MRI people). Today I finally get through and they confirm to me that she's on vacation for two weeks, and so far none of the other doctors at her office are willing to fax the paperwork without me coming in next week to talk to them. Seriously, it's very annoying. I am (in my opinion) in a very low risk situation, but if I had a malignant cancer being delayed pointlessly would be a lot more serious than just being irritated!
Monday, November 27, 2006
So after waiting for about an hour I was told that I am not safe to MRI, let alone even be in the same room as the machine. Outside of the fact that it can tear the magnet stack out of my right hand from ten feet away, the unknown issue of magnetic particles dispersed throughout my body made them decide I am ineligible. I mean, I suppose that I'm more of an exploratory surgery guy than a scan it and be sure guy, so there's a certain ironic humor to it, but it kind of sucks as well. I guess I'll hear back from my doctor later today and find out if they send me in for a CT or PET scan instead…
EDIT: The only thing about this that really irritates me is that they knew all of this information weeks ago and if they'd read my forms back then, they could have scheduled me with alternate scanning technology instead. Now everything gets pushed back…
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Sorry I haven't posted more. I really don't feel very well and haven't really slept in the last couple of days. I can get a couple hours of unavoidable sleep but am up hours before daybreak. This couch is pretty comfortable on the whole to crash on but I can't fully straighten my legs on it so it's hard to do all the movements I have to do at night to keep it from waking me up from the discomfort… but it's better than the alternatives so it's kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't thing.
I went and saw Borat today and sitting next to me was a Russian mother and son (he was translating parts of the movie for her). It was quite interesting watching what they laughed at — the racial humor and the Jew jokes they loved, as they did the farcical scenes of Borat not understanding or doing something strangely, but when they were overtly calling Eastern Europeans backwards, they became silent, and it was very obvious that they were unhappy when Borat was referred to as Russian… But they sure laughed when Uzbekistan was made fun of!
Friday, November 24, 2006
If my poor French isn't fooling me that says “Stay Calm, Everything Will Be Fine”… Looks like an easy place to stay calm. Anyway, my postcard wall is growing nicely — thank you to everyone who's been sending in pictures of where they live, I really do love getting them.
Other than that, I think Ryan just placed an order for a bunch of new stickers including the pirate skull design below (I don't have pricing for the
big ~15″ diameter ones yet but it shouldn't be much)… And if you didn't see it, we just ran a new two-color version of the “
Tattooing for Satan” shirt with a larger print as well that turned out really nicely.
Oh, and we got a Wii today, so that should be fun! Haven't tried it yet but it should be a lot of fun. I had my first ever parent-teacher interview today as well which went really well with a very nice glowing review. Anyway, I'm going to rest for a minute — what with surgery this week, a couple days of working out, a day of getting tattooed, and almost no sleep, I feel like I got hit by a truck!
Then off to pick up Rachel and Nefarious at the airport and figure out a supper plan…
Friday, November 24, 2006
Here's the work that Shane Faulker (King of Fools, Toronto) did on me yesterday… The yellow in the doorway was added, the blood was added, and most of the shading on the right half is done. Next is another day of shading, and then it all gets colored in and is done (those shaded areas still have browns and tans to go over them so the final colors will be quite different). I can't wait to get the other half shaded…
Sorry the picture is kind of in a weird position that's distorting the shape of the tattoo. I'm shaking really badly today and had to brace the camera to be able to take the picture… I'll get someone to help take the picture next time but there's no one here right now.
