Ozcar

Holy hell, the bots are out in force lately! Spam accounts, spam threads, giant viewcount bloats caused by what is essentially DDoSing with requests.. Between DW's own internal errors building up more and more and the weird spam "attacks" it's such a headache, so please forgive me for being absentee lately. Hopefully things get cleared up soon.

Doomworld is fuckin' lame. Fuck you all later.

What started out as a seemingly simple procedure turned into a trip to the emergency room Friday afternoon. My home health care nurse had received orders to remove my PICC line from my chest. She started the procedure by removing my sutures, then went on to try and pull out the line. She couldn't - it was hung. She stopped immediately and tried to get a doctor to come out (they wouldn't), then told me to go to the emergency room to get it pulled.
 
I showed up and was immediately given a room - not many patients were there - and a doctor came back and saw me at once. They told me that I didn't have a normal PICC line, but rather had a kind of "central line" that leads through the veins to my heart. Unfortunately, they needed doctors at the "interventional radiology department" to do the removal, and they were gone for the weekend. In other words, they couldn't remove the line. So, they undid what the nurse did, told me to call a doctor and get orders for removal for the line at the hospital, and just wait out the weekend. Joy.
 
Thus I sit, with the central line in my chest, requiring flushes on Saturday and Sunday, waiting for a doctor's orders on Monday. Have fun with that little situation.

Laughing my ass off at people complaining about those "React to # above you threads" being locked when they didn't really bring much to the forums anyway, its not like the biggest loss in the world.

Less than 10 hours until foot surgery time now. Things almost got torpedoed by a brief upper respiratory infection that set in a day and a half ago. I woke up with a sore throat that hurt like hell. Saw the doctor about it yesterday and got put on Augmentin, and it did quick work - I'm already feeling a lot better than I did. The surgery shouldn't be interrupted as a result.
 
One thing I dislike about these surgeries is the scheduling of the check-in time. They either set the time way too early or way too late, and in this case it's way too early - 7:45 a.m. Thursday morning. That means I've got to get up around 5am to start getting ready. Big pain in the arse.
 
Well, anyway, thanks for the support so far. Please keep it coming!

Bob Gammage, this isn't fair. I haven't been off of my antibiotics for 2 days, and I come down sick again. Upper respiratory this time. Clogged sinuses, sore throat, swollen glands, and so on. Can't stay healthy. AAUUGGHH.

The infectious diseases doctor swapped out one of the IV antibiotics on me. The drug in question was the cefepime - we believe it has been at the root of all of the jittering problems I've had since I left the hospital (hands shaking, uncontrollable body jerks, things like that). In its place, he's got me on rocephin (spelling?). It's a little bit harder to administer - my wife has to "push" it (inject it) via my PICC line slowly over 5 minutes, which means she's got to stand up over me and press down on this big honking syringe steadily for 5 minutes to deliver 20ml of drugs. The upside of all of this is that I think the jitters have already let up. My litmus test on whether or not I'm jittering is Solitaire, played on my cell phone. My hands shook so much I could barely play it while on the cefepime. Now, I can play it steadily again. Here's hoping it stays that way and that no new side effects pop up.

I'm more or less getting used to life with intravenous antibiotics. Twice a day, every twelve hours, my wife sets me up with at least one IV that runs for an hour. In the morning, I get a second one that runs an additional 2 hours. I'm not glued to a chair, thankfully - I can walk around as long as I'm careful and don't pull my IV out of my chest (look up "Tunnelling PICC line" for details on why it's stuck into my chest and not my arm). All in all, I've grown about as comfortable as you can get with the situation.
 
That comfort and freedom of movement is about to be tested on Saturday. We're going down to the Austin area for a late Christmas party with my wife's side of the family. It'll be a "down-and-back" drive from the Dallas area, meaning that my morning IV infusion is going to take place while I'm in the car en route to her brother's house, which is Christmas party central. We'll most likely pull over at a stop just north of Waco, start my first IV, get back on the road, then pull over again when the first IV finishes an hour later. At that point, we'll start the second morning IV and let it run until it's done, which will be after we arrive at her brother's house.
 
I only run a single IV at night (the shorter of the two), and we'll be back home in time for me to start it in the comfort of my recliner, so no road IV infusion on the way back.
 
It's going to be an interesting experience, to say the least. I'm hoping for nothing bad to occur. Please wish me luck.

I am home, with home-based intravenous antibiotics. We start infusing through a Tunnelling PICC line in the upper right corner of my chest Sunday morning shortly after 10am. Wish us luck.

Well, smeg. I'm stuck in the hospital for another night. Saw my podiatrist this evening and learned that my white blood cell count had jumped from 12 to 15 overnight. He's keeping me to see if it goes down in the morning. If it does, he'll let me go home. If not...well, we'll come to that if it happens.
 
I also learned that family Christmas has been temporarily postponed due to illness of several of the hosting family members. Looks like I'm not the only one sick, although I am the only one in the hospital. It'll be rescheduled soon.

In the latest twist to the osteomyelitis saga, it looks like I might get to go home today after all. I've still got to get a PICC line inserted while I'm unconscious, have IV drugs delivered to my house, and figure out who's going to be doing what and going where over the next few days. I may be riding down to Austin with a tennis ball full of cefepime infusing into me en route. Stay tuned.

According to my podiatrist, I've officially recovered from my foot surgery from a few weeks ago - specifically, the one to remove the sesamoid bone from the bottom of my right foot. He took the final stitches out this past Friday, and it feels like the swelling is finally going down. It feels like more than that, in fact - it feels like I've got something missing down there, which in fact I do. This is going to be hard to get used to. It feels weird. It just kind of mucks with my balance a tiny bit. I'm sure I'll get over it in a week or two.
 
The surgery on my left big toe is healed up as well, although the podiatrist had to nip off some excess rough skin from the healing process on Friday. I've got a bandage on it at the moment.
 
Next up is shoulder surgery talk with an orthopedic surgeon today for my torn right rotator cuff. I'm going to see whether or not he'll take me on as a case. Wish me luck.

I finally gathered enough strength and health to tackle round two of gazpacho-making today. Turned out to be quite a fight. Before I had the tomatoes chopped up, I had to sit down and rest due to lower left back pain (I really need another rhizotomy on my lower left lumbar region, and will postpone further gazpacho bouts until I get one). Anyway, it took me a couple of hours, but I finally got it done, and with my wife's help cleaning up, I wound up with some outstanding gazpacho this time around. Both of us pronounced it a vast improvement over the first batch from a few weeks ago.
 
I made a couple of changes to the recipe:
1. I used Roma tomatoes instead of regular "beefsteak"-style tomatoes you find in the store.
2. I added a pinch of ground cumin to the blended vegetables and increased the amount of sherry vinegar by a teaspoon. These went in prior to adding the olive oil.
3. I switched olive oil to Bertolli extra virgin "Rich Taste" olive oil.
 
I also may have used a larger purple onion. The recipe calls for a small one; I definitely did not use a small one either time, but this time I really used a big one. I didn't taste a huge onion-y difference. It just blended into the final product.
 
This was also the first time I got a chance to use my chinois ("China cap") strainer. It worked like gangbusters at getting all of the pulp out of the soup. The end product must have looked mighty tasty, because my wife wound up eating it. She said it tasted good enough, but she changed her mind when she got her first taste of the chilled, strained soup. That beat the pulp to a pulp. ;)
 
Overall, I wore myself out doing it, but the end product was well worth it. Look for my previous status update for the link to the New York Times' recipe.

I had a hell of a day yesterday. I started off feeling halfway decent for a change - something that doesn't happen too often at all. I was ready tackle the day, and even cook up some chili for dinner (I use Tabasco mild chili starter - good stuff). Things were chugging along for a while, with me writing some music, until my wife called from her feral cat duties and asked if I'd like some coffee from Dutch Bros. I said yes, would she please get me my customary 9-1-1 with a pump of caramel, a soft top, and whipped cream. (Don't say I was asking for it - I've had this any number of times and it's gone down just fine, as long as I took a couple of Lactaid pills.)
 
She got home with the coffee, and I drank it, not too fast so as not to upset my stomach. Things went fine in that department. However, about 15 minutes after finishing the drink, I started feeling bad all over. I was shaky. My head hurt. My stomach did eventually get nauseated to the point where I had to take a Zofran anti-nausea pill, which nearly knocked me out. My day of feeling halfway decent went all to hell. I had to shut down my music writing for a while and take a forced, uneasy nap.
 
I eventually got things going again, but I was nowhere near as chipper as I was in the morning. By the evening, I'd recovered enough to cook, but just barely. I cooked the chili, something that most people would find easy enough to do (brown some ground beef, pour in some water and the Tabasco chili starter, let simmer for 10 or so minutes), but I was very much wasted by the time it was done. (I should add that my lower back is acting up again and requires another Rhizotomy nerve-numbing operation Real Soon Now.) After dinner, my day was completely over.
 
I write this because I woke up today feeling more-or-less decent, and I had plans to make gazpacho soup today. After yesterday, I don't know if I should follow through with them. I think I'll give it some time before making a commitment one way or another. What do you think, Doomworld? What would you do?

Welp, it suprise me how everything escalated so quick and ended up like this.

I can only hope that you're fine and what happened does not desmotive you to still making Doom's content... Hopes to see more of your work in another place :P

"Look at my freakin' Car, it is crushed... to Bejesus and back!"

This cant be real, this guy create multiple account to either to make piss off or troll those people in doomworld. He is like the villain of doomworld.

I am gonna be real honest here. I  really like your energy and you remind me of myself when I joined the forum years back but you gotta tone down the energy a little or else you are gonna get yourself in real hot water real quick. 

Thank you so much for everything, Yosh. I promise I will send you a message soon. You have always been one of my favorite people here. I appreciate it so much.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I love you all. Thank you for being there for me, for reaching out to me, and for being concerned. I will be back soon to reply to all of you individually, and to respond to personal messages. Please do not think I am ignoring any of you.
 
This community is good for me and it was a mistake to leave. All it did was leave me feeling lonely. It would have been healthier to remain here with my friends instead of withdrawing and leaving everyone to worry about me. I am very sorry for doing that. I normally would not do something like that, but I have been recieving punch after punch from every direction. I already have severe issues with depression and what I've been through lately made me suicidal in a way that was beyond what I can tolerate. I am hoping that things get better.
 
I am very lucky to have all of you, I consider you real friends, and you are more than usernames and avatars. You are real people who have made a real impact on my life and my overall happiness. I am proud to be a member of this community. I never guessed that joining a forum about an old video game would have a real, positive impact on my life. I hope I have brought laughter and joy in return. I would really like to get closer to all of you. If I have ever hurt your feelings, I am sorry, and if I have ever made you smile, I hope to do it again.
 
I will see you guys soon.

I've spoken to TheMagicMushroomMan.

He is rather busy with real life stuff and that is all I can say.
 
He does appreciate all the kind words tho. 

Hoping you're OK dude.

Your absence is getting seriously worrying after your last post - echoing the others to say I hope you're ok and still with us.

Just checking in because of the last message -- how are you holding up? I'm not expecting a chipper reply or really anything, but despite what scuffles we may have had in the past I would utterly hate to see one less cool person in this community and, more importantly, this world.
 
I figure things may still be rough for you but I promise you they are not always like this. I know through painful experience myself that at the bottom of the barrel it's so hard to feel like there's anything else in life than what's in front of you, but its important to understand, even if only on an academic level and not an intuitive one, that there's much more to life than what issues may be in your immediate vision. Please remember that you will be warm again. This is truth.

Sorry, I couldn't avoid post this image when I saw your profile picture xd