Random Musings Of A Xinher

3.14

I hope you all enjoyed some pie today.

The Closing Ceremonies are moments away and I realized that I didn’t do a Week 2 rundown. It almost seems pointless now and quite honestly, the 2nd week wasn’t as exciting to me as the first week. However, I’ll try to put some thoughts up.

The Good:

• NBC was just determined to make me cry. First, they interview Dan Jansen about his situation in relation to the Joannie Rochette situation. Then, Joannie Rochette skates and it’s heartbreaking. I admit that tears flowed. Then, a few days later, they did this news piece about a town in Newfoundland that opened its doors to stranded passengers diverted because of 9/11. They showed footage of the 2nd plane hitting the 2nd Tower, which is still a very powerful image to this day, which had me crying all over again. And the fact that the story was about the generosity of this small Canadian city that pretty much opened its hearts to all the stranded travellers. And yes, even though I cried through both these things, it’s a “good” because both were about carrying on through adversity.
• CURLING!!! People laughed at me last Olympics when I went on and on about it, but this year, more people jumped on board the curling wagon. Because it is awesome. However, the US teams need to figure something out because they performed horribly, both in Vancouver and in Torino.
• Man, those P&G commercials really hit the soft spot in me. Especially the You’ll Never Walk Alone one.
• Good for the US for winning in two sports in which we haven’t medaled in over 60 years: bobsled and nordic combined.

The Bad:

• NBC’s coverage of the games. I feel like a broken record because I say this so much but it’s true. 1) They don’t give primetime coverage to some of the lesser sports, which is a shame. Instead they put them on the other channels at 2am. Luckily, I have 2 dvrs. 2) They don’t show all athletes who are competing or performing. They had 4 channels available on which to show events. Could they not have made some of the full events available on those channels (at 2am?) or even put them online for us to see? 3) They choose the wrong people to commentate (is that the correct word?) on the sports. Just because you played the sport doesn’t mean you should be the one to talk about it. Especially if you’re not comfortable in front of the camera/behind the microphone. I did enjoy Bob Costas’s broadcasts, as well as Mary Carillo’s in the late night version. The little news pieces delivered by Mary Carillo and Chris Collingsworth were good too.
• NBCs incessant commercials for its own programming. I wouldn’t be against this if they gave equal time to all their shows, but as far as I can tell, NBC only has 4 shows: Parenthood, The Office, The Marriage Ref, and Minute To Win It (which, okay, I do want to see because I love game shows and the fact that this is a game show in which you win money for doing something completely stupid and useless, but that still takes talent [and a bit of dumb luck]). Oh, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Which I won’t watch because I don’t like Jay Leno. Never have, never will.
• The whiny crybabies who bashed people because they didn’t get the medal they wanted. From the Russians who think there’s a conspiracy against them to the athletes who blamed their teammates for their downfall to the athletes who blamed the referees and judges. SORE. FUCKING. LOSERS.

The Ugly:

• The two commentators who made comments about Johnny Weir. Say what you want about his costumes, mock his pretentiousness all you want, but to demean a person based on what you perceive to be their sexual orientation and to question/joke about a person’s gender? That’s not cool. NOT. COOL. AT. ALL. However, Johnny Weir proved how gracious a person he is by taking the high road.

Congratulations to Canada for winning the most gold medals during this Olympics. They came in 3rd overall in the medal count but for 14 times during these Olympics, they got to hear their own National Athem.

On Tuesday, I noticed that one of my headlights was out. No worries. At least I still had one and I had to go to my mechanic on Saturday anyways to get the oil changed, so I’d get a new bulb installed. Easy peasy.

Last night, I was driving home and when I got to the top of the 405 around Skirball/Mulholland, I noticed that it seemed darker than usual. When I got to the 101 and was able to get close enough to a car in front of me, I noticed that I had no headlights at all. Dude. I made it home safely but man was that the longest 15 minutes.

The bulbs have since been replaced so I wasn’t driving home in the dark again tonight. But that was weird. I’ve never had my lights go out at the same time.

Okay. Compared to the Beijing Opening Ceremonies, everything else is going to pale in comparison but I think Vancouver did a good job. Yes, they had a little snafu with the lighting of the Olympic Flame, but otherwise, it was okay. Here are some thoughts.

• I’m glad they got the Parade of Nations out of the way early. While I love seeing all the Nation Delegations, hearing Bob Costas and Matt Lauer try to say something interesting about each and every country gets boring very quickly.
• Nathan made the observation that the athletes from countries with a single competitor are all alpine skiiers.
• I love the pants on the Azerbaijani delegation.
• I want the mittens that the Canadian delegation are wearing. The Canadians always have such cute Olympic wear.
• The Slam Poetry guy is good. “Yes, we say Zed instead of Zee.”
• Not sure what the Irish fiddler and Irish/Scottish dancing have to do with Canada but I’m going with it. Love the dancers whose shoes are shooting fire!!
• I’m liking the Joni Mitchell song but this kid on the wire who’s doing flips and stuff is boring.
• It was somewhat anticlimactic to have The Great One go outside and light another Olympic Flame.

Tuesday, February 2 and Wednesday, February 3.

4:00am: Nurse comes in to take vitals and hang another bag of antibiotics.

7:00am: I’m woken up by a phlebotomist to take blood. He is having trouble getting the blood. I fall back asleep when he’s done.

8:00am: Breakfast is here. I’m allowed to have clear liquids so breakfast is jello, apple juice, and chicken broth. I skip the broth.

10:00am: I’m feeling naseous so I’m given more anti nausea meds.

12:30pm: In the middle of lunch (jello, apple juice, broth), a guy comes to take me for X-rays. I didn’t even know I was getting this done.

12:45pm: Arrive in X-ray area for test. Turns out, I have to drink barium because my surgeon wants to check to see if I have some sort of blockage because I won’t stop dry heaving. I really wish I had known this ahead of time. I like to mentally prepare myself when I have to drink vile liquids. The X-ray Tech gives me the barium to drink. It tastes like a strawberry milkshake gone bad. I down it fast so I don’t have to taste it. Then the XRT takes 2 pictures and tells me he’ll be back in 15 minutes. Wait, what? I have to lay on the x-ray table for 15 minutes? No way. This is uncomfortable. He gives me a pillow for under my knees and one for my head. I lay there, alone with my thoughts. After 2 more 15 minute increments, I ask for something to read. He brings me ESPN Magazine, which is better than nothing. Finally, I’m done. It only took an hour for the barium to go through my system. Which explains a lot. It especially explains why I have to pee so badly when I get home from work even though I’ve gone to the bathroom before I leave for the day.

4:00pm: I haven’t had anti-nausea meds in a while and I’m feeling okay, even after that barium, which I’m still peeing out by the way. I found out that I can make calls from my room phone if the number is within a 10 mile radius of the hospital. On a lark, I try Nathan’s cell phone. It works, but he’s at work so he’ll call me later.

6:00pm: Nathan tells me that Sharky did not want to go to the kennel. This makes me sad. I feel bad for Nathan too. My dog is only going to associate him with going to the kennel. I think I’m going to have to get us together for a fun outing so that Sharky equates Nathan with fun stuff too.

7:00pm: Am still peeing barium.

8:45pm: Got a few phone calls from friends. Am going to watch tv until bed time.

12:30am: Can’t sleep. Commotion next door has me curious. I hope nothing is wrong with the old man. He’s been my puke partner for the past couple of days. It’s been like Dueling Pukers; if I’m not, he is.

1:45am: Still can’t sleep. Turns out that old man’s bed broke so brouhaha earlier was just them swapping out beds. Just realized that I missed Groundhog’s Day.

4:30am: Had just fallen asleep when nurse came in to take vitals and hang new antibiotics. Temperature is 97.1, which I’m told is normal and not too low.

5:30am: Morning vitals time. Am slightly perturbed because I had just managed to fall asleep.

8:00am: Big time meltdown. Nurse comes in with a very familiar liquid. It’s the oral contrast that I had to drink for a CT Scan when I had my surgery. It’s VILE. It’s the same smell and consistency of motor oil and it tastes how I think motor oil would taste. She tells me that my girlie bits doctor ordered the CT scan. Not a proud moment in my life, folks. I LOST. MY. SHIT. In a nutshell, I told the nurse that I wasn’t going to drink the contrast, nor would I take the test, and if the Doctor didn’t like it, he could come talk to me. I was tired of getting all these procedures done and not knowing ahead of time what they entailed, etc. Now, imagine all of that but with a lot more curse words and with me sobbing uncontrollably. I do believe the phrase “Tell Dr. [whatshisname] he can go fuck himself!” came out of my mouth. The nurse left to go call the doctor. My doctor called me to try to calm me down and talk to me about the CT scan. Eventually, I calmed down and because the nurse was able to dilute the liquid some with cranberry juice, I drank the vile liquid and got the CT scan done. I did apologize to the nurse after I had calmed down. A friend called while I was choking down the contrast so I was able to occupy my mind and it wasn’t so bad.

1:30pm: CT Scan over. Back in room. Surprise visit from my upstairs neighbor. Turns out her boyfriend is in ICU at same hospital. He’s in a medically induced coma right now.

4:00pm: Old man next door has visitors who have brought him real food. I am jealous.

7:30pm: Liquid dinner again. I ask the nurse if it’s possible for me to get the IV stopped since I’m peeing every 2 hours now and I’m keeping liquids down without anti-nausea meds. She asks on-call doctor who says okay.

8:45pm: PCP comes to visit me. Isn’t happy that on-call doctor took me off IV but allows it. Also switches me from clear liquid to all liquid diet.

9:30pm: Time for sleep.