The 30th

The plan last night was to go see No Country For Old Men but we found the damn theatre to be closed when we got uptown. Mike and Tammy came back to the house after that to watch Looney Tunes instead, fun but just not the plan. Tonight, though, the theatre was open so Nathan and I were able to get tickets and watch the movie in a near-empty theatre.

The movie was one of the best I’ve seen a while, with solid performances all around but especially from Javier Bardem as the absolutely cracked, intense and vicious psychopathic killer. The way he portrayed that sadistic nutcase seemed to be one of the more original slants for that type of role, he really scared me like Hannibal Lecter scared me but in an entirely different way. The hair helped too.

The 29th

The damn ice storm. As if this winter hasn’t been shitty enough already now everything is coated in ice, and while it looks all neat and pretty it’s just causing major inconveniences and damage, not to mention being dangerous.

Everything is sagging, bending or snapping under the weight of the ice or chunks of it are falling all around. I had to dig out in front of my car to try and move it forward but I kept having to step out from under the big tree every time I heard the wind pick up so as to not have ice and/or tree cracking open my recently brain-surgeried head. I should have known better than to keep my car parked where it was, especially when a loud snap last night scared the crap out of me and I saw a branch from the neighbour’s tree out on the street.

I didn’t hear the second big limb come down, though. Probably for the best because I would have got up to see the damage it caused and not gotten any sleep after that. It only took out my tail light, thankfully, but it could have easily totalled the back end of my car or taken out the back window had it fallen another foot or so backward. Lesson learned: park further up the driveway from now on, doesn’t seem to matter what season. Hmm, I wonder if the neighbour’s insurance covers something like this…

The 25th

Catherine and Mike were playing at The Lefurgey Cultural Centre this evening and when I got there (late as usual…but just barely for a change) it was hard to find a seat. They had a great turn out and the crowd seemed to be really into the tunes so hopefully they’ll have more shows like this in the future. They both have so many great songs, too, and it’s great to see them play live in a cozy, little room like that. I hope Mike puts out a CD soon because he has a tonne of solid songs and, boy, I sure would like to design his CD. And maybe even a website perhaps? Mike, are you reading this? Catherine has a site…see, I just re-designed it. You could have one too.

The 21st

I had the staples taken out of my head and belly today, and my doctor told me that most people generally find staples hurt more than sutures when being removed. That being the complete opposite of what the hospital people told me when I asked them about the staple removing process. Well, I actually didn’t find that the staples hurt coming out other than a few that slightly stung but it was otherwise a pretty easy little procedure to have done. Granted there’s somewhat of a lack of pain sensation on that side of my head right now but even the ones in my belly didn’t hurt one bit coming out.

I forgot to ask to keep a few of them for no other purpose than just to have some staples from my surgery. I always remember these things after the fact but I’m really just glad to be rid of the damn things so I can finally wash my head properly, not worry about getting snagged on something, and be able to lay on my right side for a change.

The 19th

I’ve been looking forward to seeing Cloverfield for a while now and figured my surgery would have forced me to wait for a rental instead of seeing it on the big screen like it’s meant to be seen but thankfully I felt well enough tonight to get out of the damn house to go see it.

The shaky, Blair Witch style handycam footage ended up making Sharon pretty nauseous but I loved it. The way it was presented as a video found by the military, unscored, gritty and left us unable to get a really good look at the monster for quite some time was perfect. It captured the chaos and the destruction in a completely different way than a traditional monster or disaster flick. When you do get to see the monster and other things the digital effects aren’t sharp and crisp which can generally take me right out of a movie unless they’re really well done. Being out of focus and captured erratically on the camera made it all that much more creepy and effective.

The movie’s not going to win any Oscars but it was a damn fun movie with no foolish exposition to explain the monster, what it wants, why it’s here and all of that nonsense. It is what it is, a big mother of a monster crashing about New York City, busting shit up, causing absolute mayhem while the military tries their damndest to blow the bastard up, and a small group of people run around trying to save themselves and their friends, and it just so happens they recorded the whole thing.

The 18th

Well, I’m sure glad I don’t have to piss into a jug any more. My surgery was scheduled early in the morning on the 10th so to be there in time I had to take the bus over the day before and they would put me up in a hotel for the night. They decided to schedule me for tests the afternoon of the 9th so, of course, while waiting for the bus that morning they announced that the bus had broken down but a second bus was coming to get us. Problem with the replacement bus was that it would be late, meaning we’d miss our connecting bus in Amherst, meaning I’d miss my appointment for tests, meaning I’d have to spend hours in Amherst waiting for the next bus to arrive in the middle of the afternoon. The day was already turning to shit, and it wasn’t even 9:30 yet.

I sat in the desolate food court in the mall eating a muffin but had to leave shortly thereafter because it started to become populated by old men, some in small groups and others alone. Another item for the day’s clusterfuck list came up when I called to confirm my reservation at the hotel and was informed that I was to be sharing a room with another patient. I rhetorically asked the clerk if the place was supposed to be a hotel or a hospital and said I wasn’t sharing a room and would pay to have a room to myself. It didn’t seem to be a problem but I’d have to pay for the vacant half of the other room which was only $30 anyway and well worth the cost because there was no way in hell that I was going to be sharing a room with a stranger on the eve of my brain surgery. Fuck that.

Outside, still no bus so I checked out the bridge they installed behind the mall along the boardwalk. Why they ripped out the wide arc of boards to replace it with a bridge I’ll never know, and why they chose a bridge that blocks the view of the harbour for anyone between 5’ 6” and 6’ 2” crossing it makes even less sense. I know there’s just filthy snow and ice, dumped shopping carts and smelt shacks to look at this time of year but still.

The bus eventually arrived and after a bit of a nap we arrived in picturesque Amherst at the Irving, next to the A&W, across from the mall, Burger King and Smitty’s. I had four long hours of waiting to look forward to and figured I might as well kill some time by going to the mall. Inside the entrance were the typical vending machines, massage chairs, photo booth and something else, something colourful, musical, bright and creepy that sings and dances. It was a Bimbo the Clown 3 Ring Circus machine that thankfully took only a quarter to enjoy. The marionette clown was controlled by four buttons and music played so you could make him dance along to it, except that the song must have been on an old record or tape because it would speed up and then lag and warble ever so creepily while the demented little clown moved his limbs at my whim.

Seeing as that that killed all of two minutes, I sat down on a bench with my Sharpie and some paper from my backpack and started scribbling some words down, trying not to be noticed by and trying not to notice curious or disdainful Amherst resident passing by me all the while. I went back to the photo booth to tell a little story with pictures.

Still not even noon and no bus until after 3 p.m. I took my pictures and looked for place to eat lunch, ending up at Jungle Jim’s Eatery. It was a sports bar/restaurant type place but it was plastered with a zany and wacky jungle motif, replete with foliage, bamboo and animal toys. While my spicy chicken burger was fairly tasty, limp home fries and typical restaurant coffee were disappointing but my belly was full and I had a couple hours left to investigate all of the wonders that Ahmerst had to offer. Under a grey sky I walked along the main drag, passing by car dealerships, fast food joints, big box stores, convenience stores, gas stations…you know, the scenic route. The best part was realizing my walk wasn’t taking me anywhere interesting so I got to walk back past it all again. Thankfully it was mild.

The bus finally arrived, I was finally back on the road, finally on the last leg of my epic journey to Halifax. By the time I got there it was far too late to even consider going to the hospital for tests and all I wanted to do was drop off my stuff at the hotel and find something to eat. The place was nice, my room was clean and there was cable which is all that mattered because that meant between Spike and A&E I could watch various CSI and Law & Order shows until the wee hours of the morning. I had no plans on sleeping seeing as I had to be at the hospital by 6 a.m. and there was no way in hell I’d be sleeping anyway.

Midnight was my cut off point for food and drink so I headed out for a late dinner and decided to make it a good one. I hit Sushi Shige, a tasteful spot on Spring Garden and ordered some dumplings and tempura shrimp sushi. I can honestly say it was the most delicious sushi I had ever eaten and just thinking about it makes me salivate. The place had great service, a nice atmosphere and top-notch, tasty sushi so I’m definitely going back next time I’m in Halifax.

For dessert I descended into an empty Dio Mio Gelato intent on getting something big and satisfying for my sweet tooth. As I tried to digest the massive menu board and the array of flavours in the coolers, the girl behind the counter rather unabashedly and quite ironically asked me how I got the scar on the side of my head, saying it was nearly identical to the one on her boyfriend’s head. I explained it was from surgery when I was a teenager, she explained his was from when someone smashed him in the head with a tire iron. I see. She was friendly and personable enough but at that point a brownie sundae made with tiramisu gelato was ordered. She commended my selection and served up the sundae in a frosted glass with a waffle cone full of whipped cream stuck in the top. Delicious and perfect.

Quite satisfied by my scrumptious sushi and my delectable dessert, I made my way back to the hotel where I did exactly as I planned: watched crime shows until the wee hours and my eyes could stand no more and had a bit of a nap until my 5 a.m. wake-up call. A short cab ride later I was at the hospital signing in to pre-op admissions, and soon after that donning the ever-so-stylish johnny shirt/hospital robe/booty-type slippers combo. Sitting in the surgery waiting room was pretty nerve-wracking and it didn’t help my nerves any when they came to collect my blood for testing. Might as well let the needle-sticking festival begin, I suppose. It would be the first needle of many over the next week.

There was no valium to keep me calm like last time, though I wasn’t all that nervous to begin with but it certainly couldn’t have hurt to get a couple of those wonderful little pills into me upon arrival. They wheeled me into the operating room where all of the big, bright lights and medical-looking devices awaited me. They like to keep those places pretty cool, that’s for sure. No sooner than they had me on the table than they had an IV in my hand and the cool, burning sensation started creeping up my arm before it was lights out moments later.

I woke up eleven hours or so later in ICU with IVs, tubes and other equipment stuck in, attached to, and surrounding me. It’s all pretty fuzzy but I remember my parents being in the room and the nurses asking me questions about where I was at and what day it was. I was with it enough to wish my dad a happy birthday and my parents told me I didn’t look anywhere near as swollen and bruised as I had the first time around. I was also made aware of the fact that I was sporting a very stylish hospital moustache and that I bore an even greater resemblance to my dad. When I told them the beard could come off I wasn’t anticipating them leaving me with a full-fledge cookie duster. Wonderful.

They had these weird socks on my legs that apparently help prevent blood clots and then these leg braces over those that pumped up and deflated like a blood pressure cuff. It was oddly reassuring to have those going all the time and I was sort of disappointed when they took them off. Strange how you get used to something like that which would normally be so noticeable but I suppose being full of morphine sort of helps you forget about a device like that and let’s you sleep no matter what. And holy morphine, when they pumped a dose of that straight into the arterial IV in my arm it went to work toute suite.

I was bounced around between wards and rooms quite a bit all week long, and I'm glad I was because some of the patients I shared rooms with made for very long, sleepless nights when they would ring for the nurses every ten minutes or when they’d be crying or yelling out in pain. Being awoken every hour or two by the nurses so they could check vitals didn’t help my beauty sleep regimen much either. I’m not complaining about that though, they all did a great job and deserve medals for putting up with disgruntled, difficult patients and for administering enemas and such. There’s nothing quite like the aroma of enema fluid filling one’s room all day while some woman bawls from some horrible condition with her guts. What’s even better is when some old dude in a neck brace who makes woofing, bear-like noises for some reason goes and shits himself a few times in the run of a day on the opposite side of the curtain. That poor nurse, I couldn’t even imagine dealing with that or trying to make conversation with the old fella who seemed quite content to chit chat while she tended to his sudden, mystery diarrhea.

I didn’t let it get to me though, you can’t get aggravated by it or it will just eat away at you all day and night as you stare at the clock so you just let it slide and try to ignore it as much as possible. I did feel pretty bad for the people recovering and suffering around me because while a brain tumour is serious I’d take one of those any day over any of the afflictions those other people were suffering through. I did my best to sleep through as much of it as possible and look forward to meal time, something I didn’t expect I would do.

While I actually didn’t get sick of hospital food and was provided with plenty of pudding cups, I did get sick of 8 a.m. blood collection every day. If I had to get a needle every day of my life I don’t think I’d ever get used to it no matter how long it went on for. Between the blood samples and IVs I’m sure as hell glad I’m done with being stuck and prodded for a long while. Oh, and let’s not forget about the little issue of having to get a spinal tap to help divert spinal fluid from my incision. The lumbar drain as they called it was without a doubt the worst experience of my life, keeping in mind I’ve had two tumours removed from my head. Being curled into a ball on my side while my neurologist stuck long needles into my spine, quite frankly, sucked and even though it was nowhere as painful as I thought it would have been it was mostly the fear of needles that made the experience so bad. That and for some reason I’ve always imagined a spinal tap as a literal type of tap device, as in they would drive the tap from a water cooler or from a maple tree right into your spinal column.

The tap, being nothing cartoonish in the least, was in my back for five days and they had to keep the bag hanging next to my bed, slowly filling with my spinal fluid, level with my back every time I picked a different position to lay in. It had to be clamped off if I was to sit or stand up otherwise I would immediately get a massive headache, plus it was stuck near a nerve to my left leg because I would get these shooting, throbbing pains through my thigh if I wasn’t lying perfectly straight when they unclamped the tap. Yes, it was a fun five days that’s for sure. Having it taken out was almost as bad because they had to stick another big needle in my spine to freeze the area so they could suture the “tap-hole” shut. Now that I think about it though, having the nurse remove the urinary catheter is a mighty close second to worst experience of all time.

Thanks to the portable DVD player Kyle let me borrow I was able to drown out woof-snores and moans of agony echoing down the hallway by watching Lost and The Kids in the Hall all week long. I’m pretty sure I would have gone crazy without it and while pain meds helped me zone out and sleep a lot they certainly didn’t block the noise and the annoyances. There were few distractions but Nathan and Kathy visited at one point, my parents off and on for the couple of days they were over, and my aunt and uncle visited a few times. She brought me food each time, lots of sweets and baked goods to add to my sugar line-up of two to three pudding cups each day plus other hospital desserts. Yes, I ate well and ate lots.

My head was wrapped up for a few days before they took off the bandages and I was able to get a good look at the staples arcing around my ear in a very Frankenstein-like fashion. I was worried the arm of my glasses would get hooked in one of them and give that oddly disconcerting feeling like when you wedge a butter knife between fork tongs. Ugh. That or I’d end up ripping one right out of my head by accident. Thankfully I didn’t but no matter how many times they told me they would hurt less than having sutures removed the less I seemed believed them. The staple remover they gave me to pass along to my doctor didn’t reassure me much either. In addition to the row of staples in my head, I also had a row of staples to the right of my belly button because they had to take a fat graft from my belly. It’s very gross-looking, especially when I was expecting to see sutures once the bandage came off. Just keep those scars a-comin’, doc.

Even just six days after they cracked open my coconut I couldn’t believe how well I felt and was ready to go home if they would let me. I was still pretty wobbly on my feet and sitting up for long periods of time was out of the question but I’d be damned if I was going to spend another day in a hospital bed and have a thermometer stuck in my pie hole every four hours. I was sick of the sounds; the constant blips, bloops, alarms and beeps that made it sound not unlike being in a fast food joint. I was sick of the smell of hand sanitizer; it was literally making me feel queasy near the end of my stay when then nurses would do their rounds and tend to me with their hands reeking of that increasingly disgusting chemical-meant-to-smell-kinda-nice-but-actually-doesn’t fragrance. Thankfully they released me after a week and my dad came to pick me up. It made for a long day of driving for him but I was so glad to just be back home in my own bed.

This time around went much better than the first, I don’t look like I was beaten about the face with a baseball bat and I feel like I’m recovering much more quickly. They’ve no doubt made leaps and bounds in neuro-surgery over the last fifteen years which would play a big part in why I feel so much better already but I really hope I don’t have to do this all over again in another fifteen years from now. I’m sure technology and surgical procedures will have improved exponentially by then but I’d rather take their word for it instead of going under the knife again.

The 5th

The Starbucks DoubleShot Espresso in a can isn’t very good. I discovered this tonight after buying one in Kensington looking for a quick dose of caffeine on my way up to Ch’town with Shawn, Bryanna and Laine. Not only that but I didn’t seem to get any of the good benefits that caffeine affords so what the hell is the point of drinking something that tastes terrible that also doesn’t make me the least bit jittery?

With a foul taste in my mouth and feeling kind of sleepy still, I picked up Kat and we all decided in record-breaking time to eat at East Side Mario’s for dinner but it had a long line so we settled for Mike’s instead. My pizza was good and way bigger than I was expecting (always a nice bonus) but both prosciutto and bacon makes for one salty pizza pie, I can tell you that much.

The after dinner plans involved getting tickets for Juno and for me and Shawn to wander aimlessly around the mall while the gals shopped for unmentionables. We took a bit of a break to sit in some leather chairs in the Zellers furniture section and questioned why anyone would buy individual episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on DVD while they could save a bunch of money and just buy an entire season on DVD instead. Thankfully at this point it was time to meet with up the girls, wave bye to Kat and go find seats. No sooner had I sat down than I had to make for the lobby to avoid sitting through endless commercials and a music video for Bon Jovi’s latest single. It’s bad enough to have to listen to the Top 40 bullshit they play in there, it’s another thing to have to sit and watch the accompanying videos. Tickets shouldn’t cost so much if they get advertising dollars for the four-hundred milk ads and bucks from the music industry to play mom rock videos before the fucking movie begins.

Jovi bitching aside, I really enjoyed Juno because Michael Cera is hilarious and Ellen Page is equally awesome. Another one of those small, quirky movies that comes along that’s fun, cute, well-written and well-acted. Some of the dialogue was a bit too contrived but it seemed to work fairly well for the entire movie. It’s really great to see Ellen Page getting such recognition for the role too. Playing Kitty Pride in X-Men 3 is one thing but who knew the girl that had played Mr. Lahey’s daughter would end up getting such acclaim and Oscar buzz? Hard Candy was good and fucked up (no small thanks to her) and now I want to see The Tracy Fragments, it looks interesting and I’m curious to see how good she is in that too.

The 4th

Sushi Party 2008 was a grand success! For the last few weeks the plan has been to have a big sushi party when Bryanna came to visit. After all of the groceries were bought, Shawn, Bryanna, Laine and I piled on the kitchen to get the party started. Bryanna was a sushi-making machine and created a mountain of veggie sushi rolls that even six people couldn’t finish, in fact I’d be surprised if we ate more than half of it. Happy Fun Time Sushi Party Snacks! Plus Sharon brought over macaroon bars and Laine bought an ice cream cake for the event. Overkill.

After we stuffed ourselves quite completely, we hit the Linkletter for some Friday night trivia. Tammy joined us and so did Laine and a few of her friends, making for a massive team which usually leads to losing out on any winnings but we actually placed for a change. Shawn tried on several hats, this is one of them.

It’s hard to believe but even after a sushi party and going out for trivia people were still up for more Friday Night Fun so I headed down to Dooly’s with Shawn, Bryanna, Nathan and Sharon to play some pool for a bit. Laine and her friend Nikki showed up later on so we got to take advantage of the sweet discount she gets on rounds of pool from her work. There were a lot of photos taken of people’s butts for some reason but I managed to snap this creepy shot of Shawn and one of girls with pool cue boners. It was a full night.