in lieu of originality....

in lieu of a post dedicated to marlinspike hall and manor fans alone, please allow me to copy the high wit and zaniness that i sent out to my friends and family list last night and this morning.

i must highlight a scientific discovery, however:  dark chocolate seems to be the cure for most illness.  dark, dark chocolate -- low sugar.  sensuous.  you heard it here first.

okay, here are my cut and paste offerings:

#1.  To MDVIP  Go-To-Guy and his hopping nurse, Jalapeño:



HI -- 


I just called yesterday to say that I was going home from X Hospital.  Dr. D felt good about the surgery, did not see obvious infection, removed the spacer, etc. so I am shoulderless on the left.   Dr.B did not feel so optimistic -- seems more worried about the situation in the bone and less about the joint space, and ordered another bleeping PICC line and a month to 6 weeks of intravenous antibiotics.-- daptomycin.


He said I need either vancomycin or daptomycin -- vanco messes up my ears, and I get high liver enzymes on daptomycin, but those are my only choices [?].


I am exhausted and depressed and hurt.... BUT if we had not been able to stop the CRPS spasms beforehand?  This would have been a disaster -- so I THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for helping to get those stopped.


We have to make numerous trips back and forth to Dr. B's office and Fred is unhappy.  Five minutes before we left the Manor Monday to check in for surgery, he told me he was not going to stay with me after surgery, and "so what should I do with your stuff?" [like a *wheelchair*]  I made him leave once he dropped me off, because all I was getting was more ADHD/PTSD stuff and I couldn't take it anymore.  So I went into surgery sobbing like a nincompoop and he didn't show up until 4 on Tuesday, just in time to leave the hospital... I don't believe he remembers doing or saying any of that stuff on Monday.  It's amazing, infuriating, depressing, scary, and it makes me very lonely sometimes.  But love is miraculous, and on the way home he stopped of his own accord to get me some chocolate.  Sometimes buying your partner chocolate is the biggest "I love you" you are gonna get.


This time, though, even if he has to lose it for a little while, I am okay, I am not febrile and falling down!  It's time to take care of Fred for a bit.  And ManorFest is now just weeks away.  We are thinking of submitting the film of this surgery to the Sundance Festival Competition, Cannes, and have a preliminary showing here, shown on the outside wall of the Labyrinth -- which is now big enough to serve as an IMAX screen.


Okay, well, let me get busy trying to see what life without a shoulder is like!  So far, I haven't even had the guts to look at the wound but Dr. D seemed very pleased.


You all are wonderful.  There is no need for home nursing or any of that -- Fred, Bianca, or I (probably me) will do the PICC infusions -- they are just once a day.  If I can get the long extensions put on the PICC do-dads, then I can use my left hand for flushing the lines.  Fun, fun, fun!


Nathalie at G's switched me to 25 fentanyl patches.  Do you think she will believe me that we went through 3 of them in 3 days?  One fell off in the shower on Sunday, they pulled the next one off in pre-op, put a new one on that Hank pulled off, thinking it was tape,  We are a lot like the Marx Brothers.


Much love and appreciation for your prayers and good thoughts.  If I spike a temp or feel really rotten, I will call: you, D, B -- in that order!


Profderien, Gimp par excellence


PS My new least favorite experience?  Being given the paralytic medicine in the operating room before having access to any breathing tube... can you say "panic"?






#2 To Friends and Family, with a few foes thrown in for good measure:



howdy, group --


i am home, but now you can only cry on one shoulder.  you can only put your head on one shoulder... i can't think of any decent shoulder jokes!


there was a divergence of opinion -- the surgeon felt there was no "significant infection," and the infectious disease doctor was more concerned with the state of the bone, not the joint space.  in battles between infectious disease bigwigs and shoulder surgeon bigwigs, it's the "ID" guy who wins.


so they inserted another bleepety-bleep PICC line yesterday and started 6 weeks of daptomycin.  never mind that it gives me liver toxicity, ID Man says "we'll keep an eye on it and if it gets too bad, we'll switch to vancomycin."  vancomycin makes me have auditory hallucinations, and ringing in the ears which can be permanent.


if i did not like and trust ID Man so much, i'd have taken off at high speed in my trusty chair, clearing the way with a cane wielded with fierce precision.


okay, so it hurts like the dickens, i have not had the guts to look at the wound, and we have to be at ID Man's office in just a bit.  so this well-written, well-thought out missive must end.  don't cry...


fred is fine.  i about killed him, but he's fine.  i don't think he has any memory of the crap he pulled prior to surgery, which is just as well....


i love all of y'all, and have appreciated your support over the ten surgeries these past three years!


if you are not an obama supporter, and i suppose that is in the realm of possibility, please still give thanks to the man for giving me the opportunity to buy insurance when all the private companies refused to cover me any longer.  it is still a bankrupting situation, but i am covered and treated well.  i grieve for those who are not.  i am pretty sure that romney would not recognize me as either a corporation or a "person." 


love ya,
profderien, the one-shouldered gimplet