Entries tagged with medical stuff

Current Mood: hungry
Current Location: Dairy Queen

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Give Me Donuts, Or Give Me Death!

I don’t talk much about politics, but just to show I’ve always paid attention, I uncovered this piece from way back in 2012. I think you’ll find me on the cutting edge of activism:

News has come that New York City Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban supersized sugary drinks, as a way to combat malnutrition.

He also signed a proclamation for NYC Donut Day.

Sometimes it just writes itself.

(Oh, another note of irony: I brought up several internet articles to familiarize myself with the Bloomberg Big Belly Ban, and the very first one was preceded by one of those annoying internet ads – for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.)

The BBBB would apply to any bottled soda or fountain drink over 16 ounces that contains more than 25 calories per eight ounces, which is pretty much all of them. They’d be outlawed at restaurants, sports venues, street vendors, and – brace yourselves – movie theaters. Gasp! Next they’ll be taking my large buttered popcorn.

But those goobers won’t get it without a fight.

No word on whether the 17 ounce Big Gulp will be available in government offices, but grocery stores and convenience stores would be exempt. Apparently large soft drinks sold there are not dangerous.

The good news is, banning things that are bad for us is always effective, and always, always works. Just ask the people who pushed Prohibition.

Well, they can have my Slurpee when they pry it from my cold, sticky hands.

If they criminalize supersized Cokes, only criminals will be truly refreshed.

Family reunions are a great place to exercise my right to choose.

When Bloomberg came for cigarettes, nobody spoke (because they were busy coughing). When he came for trans fats, nobody stood up (because they were too heavy to get to their feet). Now they come for sugary drinks, and who will stand up for Mr. Pibbs? Has the medical field even debated this? Did anyone ask Dr. Pepper?

Give me Mountain Dew, or give me death! And not Diet Mountain Dew, either. It tastes like artificially sweetened sheep dip.

The Founding Fathers would be horrified. The whole reason they settled in the New World is because the British wouldn’t let us sweeten our tea.

“One lump or two?”

“How dare they alter our national beverage? Off with their heads!”

Then we formed an independent country, so we could have southern style sweet tea. Thomas Jefferson wrote that right into the Declaration of Independence, along with a clause about fried chicken and gravy. Both were removed by a rather grumpy New York delegate named Samuel Chase, whose wife had just put him on a diet.

Say, do you suppose that’s it? Maybe Bloomberg’s just steamed because his wife has him eating fish and asparagus.

The Founding Fathers really would be horrified, as this kind of nanny state thinking is exactly what the Constitution was meant to prevent. It demonstrates that their written guide for the country is more relevant now than ever, despite the food stains.

Rumor has it the Founding Fathers fueled their revolutionary ardor with God’s snack: S’Mores.

Benjamin Franklin would be especially upset, as he’s been known to upturn an extra-large mug of mead himself, from time to time. Franklin, who famously said wine is proof that God loves us, and wants to see us happy, would have loved one of those fountain drinks that you need to haul around in a cart. Ben Franklin would have punched Bloomberg right in the nose. Well, maybe not … Ben would probably have slept with Bloomberg’s wife. He was into all sorts of excesses.

I’m not so sure about Thomas Jefferson’s reaction. He believed in personal freedoms (unless you were one of his slaves), but also had a huge vegetable garden that he took great pride in. He grew over 250 varieties of more than 70 different vegetable species, in a garden 1,000 feet long. His children hated him.

Once, Jefferson sent John Adams a sampling of twenty different types of lettuce. Adams wrote back: “Tom, would you relax and have a friggin’ donut? I’ll bet you can’t find twenty different varieties of donuts.” (This was before Krispy Kreme.)

Still, they would have agreed that no mayor of York, old or new, had the right to come over and tell them how many lumps they could put in their tea. Should you stop drinking huge sugary drinks? Of course. Should we bow to a government telling us we have to? Hell, no.

We can’t have true freedom without independence. A nanny state, by definition, is a lack of independence. I may disapprove of what you eat, but I will defend to the early death your right to pork rinds.

Yes, there have to be some limits in an orderly society, but we must draw a jittery line in the sand, with one of those big soda straws. Our voices, strengthened by a sugar rush, should shout out that we can be convinced to be healthier, but not be force fed. And, to paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we would rather die on our Frostie than live on our salads.

Now. If you’ll excuse me, it’s time for a little non-violent protest. Supersize me.

Find a snack you can eat while web surfing, so you can find us here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

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· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Parkview Noble Hospital
Current Music: Baby You Can Drive My Car

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Colon Check Brought Blood Pressure Surprise

I planned to work on a new blog during my colonoscopy prep day, but the day went, shall we say, badly. Okay, it went very badly, although the procedure the next day was a breeze (they tell me). One small polyp removed, and I only made one bad joke. ("If you find any change in there, it's mine--not a tip.")

Anyway, it seemed the most appropriate thing to do would be to reprint a blog from a little over five years ago--which was about my last colonoscopy. I'm adding one new photo, which I took this morning: The IV for the anesthetic left a mark.

I don't mind the bruise one bit, because that needle allowed me to sleep through the whole procedure.

Routine medical tests often bring nasty surprises ... not always related to the test being done.

I had a colonoscopy last week. You know what that means: No need to go into details. Honestly, I don't feel bad for people getting them as much as I do for people who do them.

Lots of twelve year olds probably say they want to be a doctor when they grow up. I can't imagine any of them adding, "And I want to spend all day sticking tubes up butts to check for polyps!"

For patients, the fun stuff comes a day or two before, when they first go on a clear diet, then on meds that, um, clear that diet. But there's more to it, and therein lies this tale. It's about the only thing that stayed therein.

A week before I had to stop taking supplements, including vitamin D (a lack of which contributed to my wintertime depression). Also aspirin, or any kind of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, which I never knew is what NSAID is short for.

Soon after that I developed a sinus headache, which I didn't worry about because if I have a sinus headache, it must be Tuesday. By the end of the next day someone was driving a railroad spike through the top of my skull, from the inside. It was every bit as bad as a migraine.

But what caused it? Sinuses? Stress? Lack of vitamin D? Withdrawal from caffeine? The thought of highly trained specialists bringing in the same machine used to open up my sewer?

Then, just before the procedure, a strange thing happened.

One of the techs took my blood pressure, paused, then took it again. Then she called the doctor in. He took it, then he put the BP cuff on my other arm and took it again. Then they all looked at each other.

There's no typical blood pressure for everyone, but it's generally acknowledged that the bottom number--the diastolic--should be in the double digits, like around 70. My diastolic was in the triple digits. And not just barely, either. The first number, systolic, was also reaching for the stars.

There's your headache.

This is what the inside of my head felt like.

My blood pressure was so high, in fact, that they almost canceled the procedure. And I did not want to go through the prep again.

When I woke, the new problem hadn't changed. The next day Doctor Donna sat in the waiting room, waiting for me. "We were wondering how soon this would happen," she said (I'd been her patient for many years). She refused to tell me who won the betting pool, but she did confirm the diagnosis. She also gave me a good once over, and found it hurt whenever she tapped on the areas near my nose.

I had high blood pressure and another massive sinus infection.

Doctor Donna told me to reduce my stress levels. A lot. I thought about my job and laughed. Then I laughed again. Then I cried. It seems my idea to retire, and support myself by writing full time, had become a matter of life and death. But what the heck--I'm always looking for ways to guilt readers into buying books. Meanwhile I'm on two new meds, one of which makes me pee almost as much as I was doing the other thing, the day before the colonoscopy.

Oh, and the results of the actual procedure? Clean as a whistle (figuratively), with nary a polyp in sight. But if they hadn't done it, my head may have exploded a week later. It seems I'm entering a new phase of my mid-life.

I'll call it ... the Ailment Years.

You can find good books to read during prep here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Reading can help lower your blood pressure. No, it’s true.

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I've Got It In the Palm Of My Hand (pain, that is)

The ortho doctor gave me a shot for Dupuytren's Contracture, which isn't nearly as bad a thing as it sounds. The shot was to inject cortisone through Arthrocentesis.

I could make that sound like I was on death's doorstep with those words, couldn't I? "Buy my books--they'll be worth more in a few weeks!" I'm totally capable of pulling heartstrings for sales.

But no, it's just an accumulation of thick tissue on the palm of my left hand, which can eventually get worse. He just gave me the shot for pain and to lesson the swelling. And where did he give me the shot?

In the PALM OF MY HAND.

I jumped so high my nose print is now in the ceiling. I used every curse word I knew, and invented a few more on my way down. You can ask Emily, she was there.

And now it feels fine. But it gave me a story to tell.

Buy my books, anyway.

It's the surface of Mars--with a new meteor crater in the middle!

All the books written in my own hand can be found here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Okay, all the books typed ... but you get the idea.

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Firefighters, Death, and Cancer

We lost one of our past firefighters this month, and a present long-time member is fighting a deadly disease.

Joe Meyer was one of my trainees when I was an Albion Fire Department instructor, and he remained a member for ten years, alongside his brother.

That's Joe second from left, beside me. I particularly liked this group of trainees, only partially because they came in a group--it can be hard to train one or two firefighters to do a job that requires a team. They were a great bunch.

Here's Joe's obituary:

https://www.harperfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Joe-Meyer

Joe was a character, and not just because he could pull off a cowboy hat with his turnout gear. (I don't remember the circumstances behind this photo ... maybe he just got cold easily, like I do. That's probably not it.)

Mitch Fiandt remains a member of the AFD, after transferring from the Orange Township Fire Department when he moved many years ago. He has, I think, six or eight years on me in the longevity department.

Now Mitch is fighting cancer, which is sadly not an unusual thing for firefighters. I've had a couple of scares myself, but Mitch is pretty sick--treatment is ongoing. Chemo, as anyone who has experienced it themselves or through loved ones knows, is rough by any standards.

So say a prayer for Mitch, Joe, and their families, and if you don't pray send good thoughts their way. I expect it's not going to be a fun holiday season for anyone involved.

We and our books can be found ... everywhere:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

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Medicine Mishap Makes Mischief

Note: This was written before our dog Beowulf passed away last July.

Most people over the age of fifty can testify that growing old sucks. I mean, older. Growing older sucks.

One of the things that sucks is medication. Now, a person can avoid going on a lot of medicine by staying fit, eating right, exercising, meditation, yoga ... you know, all that stuff you didn't want to do, even before you could predict the weather with your knees.

Of all those things, the only one I came close to doing regularly was exercise, if by exercise you mean walking. I always loved to take hikes, and walks, the main difference being how far from civilization you are. I was going to say you could define hiking as walking on very uneven ground, but I've been on some sidewalks that made me think I was returning the One True Ring to Mount Doom.

(Why would someone name a mountain Doom, anyway? Is that where they met their future ex?)

You can see some neat things on hikes, though.

The walking by itself wasn't very helpful. First I had to take medicine for my cholesterol, which is a reaction to the human desire to intake things that are bad for you. Apparently there's a thin line between cream-filled donuts and ingesting high-test gasoline. My drug of choice is chocolate, which is the cocaine of foods. I never tried sniffing it through a straw, though.

Maybe next vacation.

Then they put me on a stress pill because of my job, which I couldn't quit because I had to pay for the stress pill.

Then, I discovered I had high blood pressure--while waiting to have a colonoscopy.

Well, duh. Of course I did--a whole room full of people were about to send a sewer router into a place where stuff's only suppose to come out. Just the same, I ended up on a pill to keep my blood pressure numbers below the height of the Empire State building. (In meters. Look it up, I'm not your accountant.)

Then my prostate blew up like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

Eventually an entire shelf in the medicine cabinet was filled with drugs, and not one of them a fun drug. This doesn't include pain relievers ... we have another shelf for them. It seemed a good time for some kind of organization. Luckily, like many men who own homes, I had several stacks of empty cardboard boxes laying around.

No, I don't know why, but apparently it's a thing.

So I liberated a small cardboard box and put it on my desk, where I could spend half an hour every morning taking my meds without disturbing my wife. Well, she's disturbed by all the empty boxes, but never mind.

At about the same time, our dog fell over. Then he continued to fall over. He had developed a nerve related condition called ... well, I can't pronounce it, but we had to rush him to the doggie hospital. He got better, or possibly I got lopsided and he only looked straight. The vet also prescribed Beowulf medication for joint pain because--well, we grew old together, and it was his time. Emily left his bottle of meds where she could easily find it.

On my desk.

"Since you started feeding me those strange hot dogs I've been seeing ... strange things."

When I get home from work I race around in a half-unconscious state, trying to get all my 6 a.m. stuff done so I can go to bed and pretend it's night. (See above about stressful jobs.) The meds are an important thing, of course, although unlike Beowulf I don't get mine inside a hot dog. Lucky dog. I mean the dog, not the dog. The meat one. The other meat one. Never mind.

Trying to do three or four things at once, I got one of his pills, filled a cup with water for my pills, walked into the kitchen for a hot dog, then back to the desk where I discovered, of course, that I had swallowed the dog's pill.

The dog's pill is a narcotic.

Now, I should have done what Emily later said I should have done: Called the vet. "Hi, I took our dog's medication ... well, yes, I am a dumbass, but that's not why I called."

But I didn't want a bunch of people laughing at my dumbassery. At least, not until I could get a blog out of it.

Instead, I stayed up to gauge what kind of reaction it had on me. Let me assure you--it did have a reaction. It was, in fact, the same reaction I used to have to drinking alcohol, and illustrates the reason why I don't bother with illegal drugs.

I felt weird. I got drowsy. Then I fell asleep. Then I slept for a long, long time.

"So, listen ... since you got to try mine, do I get to try yours?"

It's the same thing that happens when I take melatonin, and that's perfectly legal. It just happened faster, and I didn't have the nightmares. I get half my best stories from nightmares.

So, now I can say I know how the dog feels, except that I can't lick my private parts--and my back is too stiff for that, anyway. Maybe, someday, some doctor will put me on a pill like that for some age-related discomfort I haven't even though of yet. If that happens, hey--the side effects from the other pills will no longer bother me.

I'll sleep through them.

Another note: Ironically, my doctor did, indeed, respond to my increasing chronic pain by putting me on the exact same med Beowulf was on.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
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Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
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Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: Reading is medicine for the soul.

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A Look Back, Or: I was always Allergic To Everything

Just for fun, I looked up the blog about my original allergy testing, to see how it compared to this time. I'm reprinting part of it here, partially because I needed to be working on the Haunted Noble County, Indiana manuscript instead of writing blogs.

But also because I went through that first testing in early 2013, well over ten years ago. What has changed since then? Basically nothing:

The allergy tester looked away (after injecting numerous allergens under my skin), and when she looked back my forearm had swelled so much I resembled Popeye right after taking the spinach.

To her credit, her eyes bulged out only for a moment. Then she calmly opened the door and called to the medical staff:

“Red alert! I need 50 cc’s of all our antihistamines, a gallon of decongestant, hydrocodone, ice, oxygen, codeine, epi-pens, and an extra copy of that release form he signed, in triplicate. Also, cancel lunch.”

From the next room I heard a puzzled voice: “Just how many patients do you have in there?”

If there's a flower, there's a good chance it makes me sneeze. But if you look really closely you can see a bee--and since the allergist doesn't test for that, bees worry me more.

Then the tester lady put twice as many pokes into my other forearm.

A little card, with round holes in it of different sizes, measured my reaction. After a few tries she tilted her head and said, “I think we’re going to need a bigger card.”

Then she started poking single needles into my shoulder, one by one. Those reactions, by the way, held on for over a week.

“What’s the verdict?” my wife asked, while I huddled, slobbering and shaking, in a fetal position on the floor.

The tester shook her head. “Do you have any plastic bubbles?”

“Um, we have bubble wrap.”

“I’m not sure you can sterilize bubble wrap.”

It turns out I’m what they call severely allergic, which is a medical term meaning … well, I guess it’s pretty straightforward. I’m seriously allergic to … let me take a breath:

Dogs, cats, indoor mold, outdoor mold, dust, grasses, ragweed, pollen, politicians, insects, dust mites, urushiol, fungus, feathers, and cottonwood.

Here’s a fun irony: Standing by the entrance to the allergy doctor’s office are two big cottonwood trees.

I LIKE trees. But I also like birds, and I'm allergic to feathers, too. This one was making fun of me right by the front porch.

Oh, Urushiol? Poison ivy. I already knew about, through sad experience.

The tester explained that, while medications might mask some symptoms, my body was still fighting the allergens every moment, every day. Imagine, she said, being in a boxing match in which you’re hitting at an opponent constantly, without a break, for years. How would that make you feel?

That explained a lot. Not just the typical allergy symptoms, but sleep problems, depression, headaches, irritability, itchiness. I'd been sick my entire life, constantly, and because I had no period of wellness to compare it to I thought it was normal.

When we met with the ENT doc again, I asked what treatment we could try. Anything, I said – anything to give me a chance to feel awake and alive for the first time in my life.

“Since you have so many allergies, we can’t fit all the treatment into one dose. So, you’ll have to have two allergy shots, one in each arm every week, for the rest of your life … or at least, it will seem like the rest of your life.”

I nodded, and pretended to consider it. Then I said, “On the other hand, I don’t know what I’m missing, so it’s not really that bad, is it?”

But my wife encouraged me to try the shots, anyway.

By encourage, I mean “made me”.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Every several dozen books we sell pays for an allergy shot. Save the Kleenex.

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Being Allergic To Allergies

When I complained to my surgeon that I was still having symptoms of sinus problems, he stuck a big metal tube up my nostril and worked it around for half an hour. Then he stuck it up my other nostril.

And now I no longer complain to my sinus surgeon--about anything.

Then he asked me how long it's been since I was allergy tested. It turns out people with allergies should be tested every few years or so, because in some cases allergies come and go, such as when you get older and your body starts to break down. Not that I'm describing me. Nope.

It had been ten years, so the next week they used up their entire supply of needles on me. If something swelled up and turned red, it wasn't a rebellious pimple: It was Mother Nature thumbing her nose.

Mother Nature has a big nose.

My entire arm, upper and lower, looked like a Braille dictionary. I was allergic to everything on Earth, half of everything on the Moon, and dust from Mars.

Okay, so that wasn't really true. For instance, I'm not allergic to Timothy Grass, who I'm fairly sure is the lead singer for Three Dog Night. Much to my shock, I'm not allergic to ragweed. Also, although I once had an allergic reaction after fighting a fire in a pine woods, I'm not allergic to pine. There must have been some cottonwood, birch, ash, red cedar, walnut, oak or hickory among those burning pines.

My cat allergy was confirmed, but--surprise!--I'm no longer allergic to dogs. We still aren't getting another one, though: We had the perfect dog for a decade, and he's not so easily replaceable.

Beowulf was very cuddly, and it turns out he never got his dander up.

Otherwise it was all the usual: molds, grasses, dust, politicians, and those dirty, nasty bed mites, which are much like politicians but with higher morals. Plants? Russian Thistle, English Plantain, Bermuda Grass--none a problem as long as I stay here in the good old USA.

Now, all but two of these tested at a "moderate" level. Only two read as severe and one of those was, naturally, Aspergillus, which can cause infections all over the place--including the sinuses.

It's a mold, which is a type of fungus, and (I learned) it can be really, really nasty. Being allergic to Aspergillus is like being especially susceptible to the Black Death.

Then came the real shock, and the second allergy testing at the "severe" level:

Horses.

If you know my wife, you get why hearing that was like being ... well, kicked by a horse.

An entire horse-sized battlefield, loaded with Mark-seeking guided dander.

Emily is what's known as a "horse person".

Wait--she's wearing my hat!

And what are we going to do about this? Well ... nothing. I mean, sure, Emily will clean up as soon as she gets home, but it's not like I'm going to demand she gives up horses. It would be like telling me to give up chocolate, something I'm NOT allergic to. You gotta do what you love.

As for me, I have to choose between allergy shots and trying to get rid of mold like Penicillium, Eicoccum, and that wonderful Asperigillus, all of which can be found on ...

Books.

Guess I'll take the shots.

Hey ... are those books on my dusty carpet?

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Every time you don’t buy a book, I start sneezing. Save my sinuses.

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Covid Keeps Quarantines Coming

I'm not even sure how to start when it comes to Covid. As a writer I'm a professional smart-ass, but with this I got my ass kicked, and didn't feel too smart about it.

Illness or injury traditionally accompany our vacations: Last December Emily and I came down with the flu when we were supposed to visit her family and friends in Missouri. This year we decided to head down on a Thursday.

On Wednesday we started to feel a little ... off. By Thursday morning we had to call it--we couldn't risk giving her father whatever bug was now traveling with us. It wasn't until Friday night that we began to suspect the modern medical boogieman, Covid. We missed the trip, we missed Saturday's Holiday Pops concert, and I felt so bad I couldn't even write. By the time it was done I had to contact my editor at History Press to push back our deadline for the Haunted Noble County book, because I'd planned to use half of my vacation to work on it.

The only question left: Could I turn it into a funny blog?

It doesn't LOOK like 102 degrees.

No. No, I could not.

The only thing we did was marathon the TV show The Expanse, and unsuccessfully try to listen to Good Omens on audiobook. (We kept having to go back when one or another of us fell asleep.)

You know, watching TV and reading books wouldn't be such a bad vacation. The problem is that for the first couple of days we were unable to enjoy anything, and in fact we were too sick to sleep. You heard that right. Over that first weekend I, who can't function on less than eight hours of sleep, stayed awake for twenty-fours straight. Even Nyquil wouldn't put me out.

Then, for a week after that, we were too sick to stay awake. That was the period during which we kept having to go back and decide what we remembered last from the audiobook.

"It was Agnes Nutter and the book, wasn't it?"

"No, it was Adam and the Them meeting the dog."

(We were both wrong: It was Crowley terrifying his house plants.)

I took this photo of Emily at the same time the one above of me was taken. She's in there, I swear.

Part of it--let's face it--is that I'm no spring chicken pox. When I was in my early 20's I once rode the back step of a fire engine to a mobile home fire on the edge of town--while running a fever.

This truck, specifically. What an awesome truck.

A couple of years later I rode a different engine to Kendallville, to a tire fire so big it could have been seen from the International Space Station, if there'd been one at the time. I was coughing up junk that looked like it belonged in an alien invasion horror movie, despite never getting into the smoke. Yet there I went, for twelve hours. Our Chief later ordered me to go home and go the hell to bed.

No more.

It's not just that Covid is bad. My normal temperature runs around 97.6, and by the time it hit 100 not only could I not go to a fire, I couldn't pick up the TV remote. (Thus the marathon of one show.) It reached 102 at one point. My skin kept trying to crawl away to somewhere cooler, or so it felt.

Emily was running about a day behind me, so I had the pain of knowing what she was about to go through. She's still got a terrible cough weeks later, while mine is just awful. We were like the grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just laying there in a lump. Christmas preparations? Hah! We'd bought a new, pre-lit tree, but we never even got a chance to fluff out the branches, let alone decorate it.

I kinda like it like this, though. Yes, it's black.

I was so sick--brace yourself for this--I lost my appetite.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've completely lost my appetite, and I was in the hospital for most of those. I dropped six pounds. This is not a recommended diet.

The moral of this story is, of course, don't get Covid. We didn't mind at all being quarantined, at least not until the chocolate ran out. (Everything tasted salty or metallic, except chocolate.) Other people in this area passed away from it, so we count ourselves lucky now that we're feeling 50% better.

Yeah, I'm exhausted all the time, but I work nights--I was already halfway there, anyway.

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Remember, books aren't effective as masks, but they're great for quarantine.

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A Look Into My Nose, or: Probing a Patient's Proboscis Procedure

I have this ongoing fantasy that whenever I have to recover from an illness or injury it will give me plenty of time to write, or at least read. I'm always behind on both, so it seems like the perfect opportunity.

Then there's reality.

I applied for three sick days for after my sinus surgery, which I thought was overkill. Added to my normal days off, that gave me five days after a minimally invasive, outpatient procedure that would straighten a thing up here and unclog another thing there. The result, hopefully, would be fewer sinus infections and headaches.

Truth is, I was very close to being in a good mood, going in. Sure, we were at the hospital from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., but I slept through half of it. Emily had two books, a cell phone, and a charger cord.

I woke up feeling no pain, which is really not a good sign one way or another. But the surgeon told Emily that, while the passages to my upper sinuses would always be unusually narrow, they were now clear and I was a model patient. Sadly, he found neither the loose change nor the Matchbox car I thought may have been lost up there in childhood.

It would have looked like this, only ickier.

It all went downhill from there.

For pain they put me on Norco, which made me think the Feds would burst in any moment, and I'd end up bleeding in a jail cell whether they hit me or not. Turns out the stuff's also called Vicodin, which isn't better, but gives you an idea of how much pain they expected. I have something of an addictive personality, so I decided to get off it as soon as humanly possible. Two days should do it.

Two days didn't do it. I was able to cut the dose in half from the maximum, then in half again, but my head and sinuses still throb as of when I'm pecking away at this, the next Thursday morning.

(I've been working on this column for three days. I keep falling asleep or just losing focus. London's got nothin' on my brain fog.)

So I looked up the exact term for my surgery, which no way am I well enough to type here, and researched the recovery time. How soon a patient could be expected to return to work was not a few days, but a week. It also said symptoms could continue for a month or two before all the aftereffects stop effecting. Until then: Dizziness, nausea, pain, minor bleeding, brain fog, confusion, dizziness--did I say confusion? But enough about my typical mornings.

Then we have the three times a day nasal saline irrigation.

There's no way to make this procedure more fun, but there is a way to make it less fun: Have it produce a large amount of blood and clotting. You know, my stomach isn't quite ready for me to discuss that.

So ... I'm not sure where I was going with this. Basically I just wanted to check in and let everyone know that I really am feeling better, it's just that "better" can be relative. I'm a little frustrated that I'm a week behind in my Haunted Noble County writing, but we spent some time listening to audio books (Wayward Pines), which I can do reclined with my eyes closed. I predict that when we talk to the surgeon he'll say I'm well on my way to recovery. I'm going to check him for my spare change.

Also, I'll take a nap. Or two.

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A CAT Scan Is Nothing To Sneeze At

I'd planned reruns and pre-written blogs until the Haunted History project was finished, but I popped in to tell everyone the source of my constant head pain and sinus infections has finally been isolated.

It was in my sinuses.

Maybe I should be more specific. Various allergy/sinus/head doctors have poked and prodded me for years. A sleep study revealed I do, in fact, sleep. My allergy tests showed I was, indeed, allergic. To everything. I even had surgery to unclog a lower part of my sinuses that seemed to be causing the trouble. Still, in recent months the pain became sometimes debilitating, although I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it. Witnesses may disagree.

While typing this I realized I should have taken a medical leave from the fire department, for all the good I've done the last couple of years. What a headache.

"You expect me to sleep with this thing on?"

I found out after we got Beowulf that I was allergic to dogs, but refused to give him up. Now that he's passed you'd think maybe it would get a little better, but instead my sinus infections kept on coming and the headaches got worse and worse. The truth is, many days in recent months the headaches were so bad I was incapable of doing much of anything ... but I could still write, so I told myself it was all good.

It wasn't.

So the allergy doctor suggested a CAT scan. I patiently (because I'm the patient) explained to him that would be bad, as one of my worst allergies was to cats. I hugged Beowulf every day, but if I came within a block of a cat I ended up looking like patient zero in a zombie outbreak.

A brave photographer caught this assassination attempt.

Turns out I got my dander up for nothing: CAT is an acronym, which stands for ... um ... something medical. Not only that, but it took all of five minutes, and the doctor would be waiting to show me the results right after.

Only the doctor was called away to unplanned surgery, and I had to wait a week and a half. Just to let the imagination simmer a bit.

When I finally saw him, Doctor Herr, who's a he, didn't even bother poking and prodding much. "Your two uppermost sinuses," he explained, "are completely blocked. Nothing can get out, and that's where your sinus infections have been hiding."

My sinuses were constipated.

Dr. Herr (who's a he) didn't explain to me how the infection itself got out, but maybe it has a special pass. In any case, we could try another course of the same antibiotics that didn't work last time, or he could go down to Doc's Hardware, rent a roto-rooter, and dig that sucker out.

That's not exactly the way he described it.

"Dude, I may be a doggie angel now, but I can't protect you from a mad doctor with a post hole digger."

So at the end of September I'm going under the knife, and also under the needle and the drill, and possibly the hammer and chisel. It's more major than my other sinus surgery, but Dr. Herr (who may be a her, I didn't ask) told me if he drills through to my brain, he'll just switch to reverse. Maybe I'll come out of surgery able to speak Latin, or play the violin. Or play Latin violin music.

Hope to see you at my first concert.

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Remember, whenever you don't buy one of our books I get a nosebleed. Save the Kleenex.

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I'm Not Okay, and That's Okay

I'm not okay.

Sometimes we have to admit that. Not to others, although that's fine--but to ourselves. Pretending you're okay is not okay. Being not okay is okay, which doesn't mean you should want to stay that way.

On April Fourth my teenage nephew killed himself. My post about it is here:

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2023/04/rest-in-peace-christian.html

There, now I don't have to go through writing that again. (Meanwhile, about a week later an apartment complex in a neighboring town was shot up by a man who used to be married to my ex-wife. I never particularly cared for him, but my daughters are good friends of his kids, and they're wonderful people. This helped no one's stress level.)

Christian's. A 16 year old with a lot going for him.

I didn't see Christian as often as I would have liked, which is no one's fault but my own. Still, it hit me as hard as my brother's death two years ago. Has it been two years? I'm not over that, either, although I told myself I was.

The reason I'm writing this is because my next blog--unless something else happens--will likely be another humor attempt to cheer up everyone's lives a little, as I'm wont to do. Yes, I did use that word correctly, look it up. I do this because so many of us are going through difficult times, and could use the cheering up. Making people laugh, or at least smile, lightens my own day. Since I suffer from depression and anxiety myself, what helps others helps me.

But that doesn't mean I'm all right.

Remember Robin Williams? Funniest guy alive, everything to live for. Killed himself.

Please try to remember that even if someone seems fine--even if they insist they're fine--you don't know what's going on underneath. You don't know what the person next to you is going through. Maybe they don't know. My wife always figures out I'm having a bad day before I do.

So support mental health awareness, fight the stigma, and ... laugh a lot. Keep your spirits up. Get help if needed. The world may seem a hard and depressing place, but it does you no good to dwell on it. Worst case scenario, I'll be there to make you smile ... or at least try to.

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My Magnetic Resonance Personality

I spent a lot of time in medical facilities, usually as a visitor, occasionally as a patient. And yet--this will come as a surprise to my fourteen regular readers--I've never had an MRI. Until a few years ago.

Oh, plenty of X-rays, and a biopsy. The MRI was oh, so much more fun, in a world where "fun" is relative.

The Magnetic Resonance Imaging test was to find whether there might be cancer in my prostate, and also, I suppose, to confirm my head wasn't up there. As I said earlier, there was no cancer, which doesn't mean there were no surprises.

We were told by various armchair testing experts that the MRI would take around twenty minutes. luckily, my wife brought a book with her anyway. It would take an hour, the med people said as they presented me with the only good surprise of the day: scrubs to wear, instead of one of those weird back exposing half-shirts you couldn't tie shut with duct tape and Superglue.

The people there (who were very nice, by the way), asked a laundry list of questions designed to make sure I had no metal on me. There was a pause when I told them I had a piece of metal in my upper chest. Where was it from? I told them "Nam", with a fairly straight face, because the truth is just too mundane.

"Well," one replied, "if your Viet Cong shrapnel starts to heat up, or if any other area catches fire, let us know."

I've seen metal fly into the air before, and it's always very exciting.

(FYI, I was thirteen when the Vietnam War ended. I really need to update that particular lame joke.)

I was also told not to touch my hands to each other, or I might look like one of those movie superheroes generating lightning between their fingers.

As you slide into the little tube, they give you a bulb to hold in one hand. Squeezing it sets of an alarm. One reason for this is because you're packed into that thing so tightly even people with no fear of enclosed spaces feel like the lowest sardine in the pack.

They put headphones on me, because the MRI machine makes more noise than a reelected Congressman on his third drink. I was looking forward to some nice music, or any music, but these were just regular headphones--the music ones were on back order. Instead I was serenaded by the grinding and buzzing of a machine so loud I heard it plainly even with headphones and earplugs. It was like trying to sleep in a jet engine.

And every once in awhile the thing suddenly moved, which no one warned me about. I thought some giant was squeezing me out onto his toothbrush.

But the weirdest thing that happened was right after they turned it on, when someone started tugging on that bulb in my hand. I was startled, because no one was in the room. My hand was floating into the air, as if the Force was trying to get me to lift my car to a closer parking spot.

Then I realized it wasn't my hand lifting into the air--it was my ring. It was trying to float away and take my finger with it, which feels just as weird as it sounds.

This very ring, which, yes, could have come from Uranus.

It turns out rings are usually not of a material affected, so Magneto can't try to make you dance from one arm. MRI technicians often don't bother with them.

But my wife, knowing my interest in astronomy, got me a wedding ring made from a meteorite--an iron meteorite. Magneto could go to town on me.

After that all went well. The sliver of steel is still in my chest--Gulf War?--and I passed the time by plotting out a new novel. It's going to be about a guy who gets transported to another world through an MRI machine.

Or Magneto.

Remember: Every time you buy a book, a Terminator gets stuck to an MRI machine. Save John Conner.

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Doctor Finger Probes Prostate Problem

I want to start out by saying I do not have cancer, and this story actually happened some time ago. So not to worry.

But the docs thought I might ... for several years. Specifically, I had high prostate specific antigen readings, otherwise known as PSA. That's why I kept having to visit my urologist, Doctor Finger. What a pain in the ass.

But it could be worse. I always thought a urologist dealt with urine issues, and I don't want anyone's finger going up that way.

So they tested, and probed (!) and tested again, during which time I was told I might have cancer ... or not. So then they went in with a needle and took about a dozen samples, something called a biopsy. Do you want to know where they go in with a needles to get those samples?

No. No, you do not.

A James Webb Space Telescope image of my prostate.

It came up, um, clean, but the PSA count stayed high. Way high. Too high. Something was wrong.

(Some men go for years with high PSA ratings, without ever getting cancer. Women rarely have high PSA readings, what with them not having prostates. But men don't often have to get mammograms, so never mind.)

And so, in desperation, Doctor Finger sent me to get an MRI. That stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and costs about a hundred dollars a letter. That's $600 just for the magnet. (Buying and installing one MRI machine can cost more than three million dollars.)

I'll be writing separately about the MRI ... it was an experience. Honestly, I'd much rather go through it again than have a physical exam by my urologist, who's a really nice guy but has big hands. The MRI took an hour, and the digital exam a few minutes, but it felt the opposite.

I know you're anxious to see the results ... um, hear--hear the results. Well, there was no immediate sign of cancer. Yay!

But my prostate was, quoting Doctor Finger, "as big as my head". And his head is even bigger than his hands.

If the prostate was a balloon, mine would be the Hindenburg.

Now, here's the fun part: My prostate is two and a half times its normal size. He explained that PSA readings are like harvesting crops: The bigger the field, the more crops you harvest. So, since my prostate was bigger, my PSA count was naturally bigger, too.

See where I'm going with this?

Yeah. For ten years when I might have had cancer because of unusually high PSA counts, my PSA counts were NORMAL.

So.

You know, I lead a fairly stressful life already; I don't need any help. Just sayin'.

Remember: Whenever you don't buy a book, an author has to have a colonoscopy. Save their ass.

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911,
depression,
dispatching,
dogs,
emergency services,
health,
medical stuff,
national emergency telecommunicators wee,
pets,
stress

Stressing Out Over PTSD

One stressful thing about being a dispatcher is that when the phone rings it could be anything. Many of us play Dispatch Bingo. A UFO report? A herd of cattle blocking the roadway? Lunch, interrupted? A couple arguing over who gets custody of their dog? That's a row--bingo!

For some dispatchers this is one of the perks of the job: the challenge and variety. For others, not so much.

Years ago the business line rang and, in a calm voice, a man gave me his name and home address, so we could notify his family. Then he gave me the location where we could find his body. Then he hung up.

Often, when a suicidal person reaches out, it's a cry for help. Not this time. When our units arrived they could only confirm my certainty: Immediately after hanging up the phone, he shot himself. I was the last person he ever spoke to.

It messed me up.

Word got around, and my boss called to check on me. I told him I would be okay, which was true in the long run. I don't know if I told him that in the short run I wasn't okay at all, but my wife was with me, and I hung in there.

I've served in three branches of the emergency services: EMS, Fire, and 911 Dispatch. If anyone mentions PTSD or critical incident stress, I immediately flash back to one particular call in each of those three areas. But a lot of time has passed since those incidents, and although they still dwell in the dark corners of my brain, they don't control my life.

Usually.

Earlier this year we received a report of a person threatening to kill themself with a gun. I didn't take that call, but the moment I heard the details my body chilled, I could barely breath, and my mind went numb. That suicide from so long ago crashed out of the cage I'd trapped it in and rampaged through my head.

It turns out the person in this case did not have a gun, and the whole thing ended peacefully. Still, it was a wake up call. A jangling alarm that took about five years off my life ... and after three decades at this job, I've already lost enough. It's one of the reasons why I've been pushing my writing career: Not only because I have a lot of stories to tell, but because I'd like to spend my time writing them instead of screaming into a pillow after work every morning.

(This is one time in this blog when I exaggerate: No, I don't scream into a pillow after work. I kiss my wife, hug the dog, and hit the bed, where I usually get a good eight hours of sleep in between the weird dreams.)

I'm not writing this to get sympathy for me. I just wanted to remind everyone that the person you think is strong and "normal" may be battling monsters inside. In fact, they may be the most cheerful people you know, always with a smile and a joke. But the effects of stress are real, and the challenge of maintaining our mental health is a stigma that still remains, even today.

Look after yourself. Look after your friends. And if someone says they're having a problem with their emotions or their mental state, take them seriously. Sometimes we make it look way easier than it is.

Now, I'm off to write some humor ... we all have our ways to cope.

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A Sick Sense Of Humor

As mentioned before, I don't usually write about bad stuff unless it can somehow be made funny. Well, funny to me. That's why I haven't said much about Emily and I both being sick through the entire month of December, and now into January.

I mean, it's winter, I'm sick, it's moved into my sinuses--not exactly breaking news. Everybody's sick. People buried for five years have set off local seismographs with their coughing. You may think I'm joking, but remember: Many of those same dead people voted in the last several elections.

I got so sick I was unable to do any writing work for over a week. No editing, no submitting ... a little promoting, but that's the un-fun part, anyway. I started going into withdrawals. I also had to take time off from my full time job, but I had about fifty sick days saved up. In this one case, that's not an exaggeration.

"I could take a sick day, but I prefer to wait until I turn green."

At the rate this winter's been going, I'll be down to zero in no time.

It's led to certain things being said around the house that I'd just as soon not have said:

"I talked to the doctor: She wants us to stop talking to her."

"Why do we still live in a house with one bathroom?"

"Siri, how many cases of Kleenex can fit in a Ford Escape?"

"Dr. Fauci's at the door, he's coming out of retirement just for us."

And my favorite: "My mucus is fluorescent green. Could this be Kryptonite poisoning?"

Hm. It occurs to me that this bug makes us feel exactly like having a hangover, but without any of the fun parts from the night before.

We still don't know what it is, although Emily got a two for one case of croup. She coughed so much that at first our worried dog hovered over her. Now he curls up in the room furthest away. (He was sick half of last year. Now he's fine, except everyone keeps waking up in the wee hours to make ramen and tea.)

"Good news! They want a few gallons of my blood for a study!"

They tested us for flu a. through f., Covid, mono, strep, plague, rabies, mad cow disease, and something called M-Pox, which is apparently transmitted by monkeys, but for some reason we can't say so. The CDC set up a tube passage that ran directly from our back door to their tent. "Have you figured out the problem?" I asked the Doc while he was doing a preliminary check of my wallet.

"Yes, you don't pick up the dog poops enough. It'll take hours to clean up our clean room boots."

"No, I mean about what's wrong with us."

"You're trying to earn enough money writing to retire."

"No, I mean medically."

"Oh. Uh, you have an upper respiratory illness."

"Thanks. I figured that out when I started sounding like Elmer Fudd."

"Well ... it's a bad upper respiratory illness."

At that point he prescribed a controlled substance to Emily to quiet her cough, because people who haven't slept for three days have been known to throw kitchen implements at doctors, not that it happened here.

No pharmacy in northeast Indiana had that medicine. Apparently we're not the only people with a cough.

But it's okay, because after a few weeks of insomnia I was able to sleep right through the coughs. As for me, the crap moved--as usual--into my sinuses. Sinus infections are like my old friends, who stop by twice a year to visit for a month. That, I know how to deal with.

Oh, and don't worry: I'm taking care of Emily. Nothing ever goes wrong with anything I'm trying to fix.

You can find our decontaminated books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
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Remember: Whenever a book doesn't sell, a doctor loses his patience.

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2022: After-Incident Report

Let's face it: 2022 sucked.

Don't get me wrong: In no way am I suggesting 2023 will be any better. That's the mistake a lot of people made at the end of 2020 and 2021. Just the same, 2022 seems to have been, overall, the worst year of the 2020s (so far), and that's going some.

I'm sure some people had a great 2022. Arms dealers, for instance. No matter how bad a time period is, there's someone who was happy--as an example, Hitler had an awesome 1939.

On the other hand, Vladamir Putin thought he was going to have an incredible 2022 but, like many of us, he'll hit the New Year shaking his head and saying, "What the heck just happened?"

I don't want to turn this into a Rodney Dangerfield routine. Or maybe I do--Rodney understood the value of comedic complaining. But it wasn't the best year in the world from a personal standpoint. Emily and I have been sick so much the CDC pitched a tent in our back yard. In twenty-five years, I've only had the flu once--this time came a few weeks after our flu shot.

The above is a picture of downtown Fort Wayne I took from Lutheran Hospital. You know what that means? Yep--visiting my Dad in the hospital. Worse, then we got sick and couldn't visit him.

As I write this Emily has lost her voice. At first it was cool, because I walked around the house telling puns and singing Christmas songs loudly. Then she summoned enough strength to start throwing things at me. On a related note, I suffered a head injury this year.

Even the dog kept getting sick. He's 98 in dog years now, and as a result of old age he doesn't know if has to, um, drop a deuce until it's already happening. I mean, you can't get mad at him, and I'm all set for a future career in carpet cleaning.

"Watch your step."

My knee going bad from early arthritis, that I expected. Getting a case of Trigger Thumb? Did not expect. (What is it? Well, it's like trigger finger, except in the thumb.) I spent most of 2022 in one of two braces.

We also seem to have started our next round of having to replace stuff. The couch broke, and the toilet broke. We could have managed without the couch. Also, the car's now running rough because the service people are unable to remove an old spark plug, which is stuck because radiator fluid is leaking around it.

I had no idea that could happen. It used to be I'd call my brother for help with these things, but, well ... the 2020s suck.

Rodney Dangerfield could have done all this better, but you get the point.

In 2022 the world population reached eight billion, and two out of three got one of the three pandemics that hit this year. The third got trigger thumb.

Inflation hit its highest level since the early 80s, a time I remember as being as bad as ... well, the early 2020s. Come to think of it, so far this winter reminds me of the early 80s. Oh, and get this: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the biggest European war since WWII. Also, the Queen of England died, after being in that position for so long nobody remembers who she replaced. (I think it was "King Something".) So far as I'm aware, none of these are related.

There's lots of other stuff, but I'll just end with: Monkey Pox.

Rodney would have had a blast with Monkey Pox. "My doctor said I should get vaccinated. I told him I wanted a second opinion, and he said 'Okay: You're ugly, too'."

"My parents took me to a dog show--and I won."

I miss Rodney. He'd know how to face 2023.

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New CPR Device Aimed At Improving Survival Rates

Albion (Indiana) firefighters are testing a new device designed to assist them in performing life-saving CPR.

The Stryker CPR device is battery powered, and is designed to give high quality CPR with minimal interruptions--a major link in the chain of survival for the patient. Albion firefighters trained in using the device when it was delivered, and will be evaluating its usefulness in a three month trial.

In response to medical research, modern CPR is given at a much faster rate than when first developed, and as a result people giving it tend to get fatigued quickly. Since volunteer fire departments are increasingly having difficulty attracting members, there's a danger that not enough responders will be available when patients go into cardiac arrest.

The device helps those problems by giving constant, high-quality CPR while firefighters and medics concentrate on other life-saving tasks on the scene. The device will be kept on the AFD's First Responder unit, ready for use at a moment's notice.

The AFD worked directly with Stryker and its local representative, Meagan Beveridge, in obtaining the device.

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Current Mood: worried

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Dog Dental Catches K-9's Canine

With blogs like this I've learned to make it abundantly clear: He's OK.

Beowulf is about fourteen, as near as we can figure, which is Methuselah in human years. According to the Bible, Moses lived to be 120; Beowulf is that close to making it to the promised land. What that brings with it, at least for owners, is worry. After all, we've had him for ten years. That's way older than anything ever found in the back of my refrigerator. Except that one time. Let's not talk about that.

So when the side of his face started to get sensitive, we worried. When his snout swelled up to grizzly bear size, it was time for a run to the doggy ER, which does indeed exist. It turns out he had a tooth abscess, which is every bit as horrible as it sounds. He had to be on antibiotics for weeks before they could even think about treating it.

We thought about it, of course. A lot. For three weeks.

As you can see, by the time we took him in for the surgery, he was feeling pretty good.

I felt guilty about that. Dental work and I have a long history, and there's no "good" about it.

He had a tooth removed, and ended up with stitches where the abscess was, um, abscessing. The first day that didn't bother him much, what with how very, very drugged he was.

"Duuuuddddeeee .... good, good stuff ...."

It got a little harder after that, although we were given pain pills that, it turns out, were for him, not me. Not that he was hungry, but a roll of turkey lunch meat with a lump in it goes a long way.

Every time we coaxed him close to the food he'd lay down, and just look at us. Since getting him in the car for our Pet ER trip is probably how I screwed up my knee a few weeks ago, you can imagine how anxious I was not to move him around. So mostly we let him sleep, although he would periodically stagger to his feet and do his regular patrol.

I know what you're thinking: "But Mark, aren't you taking advantage of Beowulf's medical problem to put out a cheap blog?"

Well, yes. But in my defense, it's not cheap, it's free ... and the subject remains cute and photogenic.

Besides, it's compensation for how I completely freaked out when Emily took the bandage off his leg and I thought I was looking at doggie bone. (I wasn't--they'd just shaved him down to his skin, and I've never seen his skin before.)

The important thing, and let me stress this: He's improving.

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A Hypothetical Kneed For Down Time

Let's say some guy--not me, you understand, but just some hypothetical person--started to get a little ache in his knee. Maybe it started, for example, from lifting a sick 75 pound dog into a car, or maybe his job moved to a new place and he was climbing a lot of stairs he wasn't used to, something like that.

This is strictly hypothetical.

Now, let's say it got to hurting him, but after a couple of weeks it started getting better. So he--it could be a she--put on a knee brace and decided to mow his lawn, in the theory that it would test how serious this particular medical malfunction could be.

It would be like running your lawn mower until a wheel fell off. Which this hypothetical person also did. Allegedly.

And let's say the next day this person couldn't walk.

Would you call this person an idiot?

You would? Oh. Well, it's hypothetical. Still, you'll be happy to know that you'd be in agreement with his wife, his dog, the doctor, and himself. But if this whole thing had actually happened, you can be sure he would have learned his lesson, especially when the pain got so bad he couldn't even sit propped in a chair, working on his writing, because it hurt to much to concentrate.

Hypothetically.

Brace yourself!

So that guy would probably suck it up, get the x-ray, take the pain med, and stay home in a chair with his foot propped up even if the weekend weather was great. There comes an age where you can't just push through this kind of thing, even if there are yards to mow and bushes to trim, and chores from last year he never got around to. It's hard for some people to not feel productive, in one way or another, but hey--there are always books to read.

Still, it makes a person think. That's more than this person was doing when he wore himself down to begin with.

Hypothetically.

Let's face it: It's not the dumbest thing this hypothetical personal ever did.

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Pills Are Great, If They Don't Kill You

One thing about getting older is that you tend to know about all the medications out there. For one thing, they get advertised on what many people would consider "old person" TV channels: Science, History, National Geographic ... the channels I watch to learn things I didn't want to learn as a teenager.

"Have you been diagnosed with S.A.D.--Sad Acronym Disease? Ask your doctor if Incheeria might be right for you!"

The other thing, of course, is that we're now taking all those pills. I frequently have to ask my wife, "What's this med for, again?"

"It's for your memory, dear. Again."

The other day (or today, as I write this), I was introduced to one I'd never heard of. I stopped for my yearly visit to the allergy doctor, to confirm I still had allergies. When asked if I'd had any symptoms related to the whole respiratory system thing, I mentioned in passing that my sinus headaches had been increasing lately.

Ignoring symptoms? That's how a zombie apocalypse starts.

I hadn't given it much thought. I suffer from the Butterfly Effect: If a butterfly flaps its wings in South America, it will cause changes in weather patterns that will, sooner or later, hit my sinuses. Just another day in the Midwest, which has more spores and dander than the Great Lakes have sand.

I was being seen by a nurse practitioner--who was wonderful, by the way--named Ambush. Seriously. And she had an Army pin on her shirt, so even though she was nice and friendly, I had the strangest feeling Nurse Ambush could kill me with her pinkie. In a way she almost did, when she started pushing her finger into various places on my face.

Beats going to the urologist, anyway.

After I stopped screaming and begging for her to stop, she reminded me that people with strong allergies tend to get sinus infections easily, and guess what? As if I didn't already know.

She wrote me a prescription for, yes, an antibiotic ... but I'd never heard of this one. My regular doctor's office had heard of it, but they didn't have it. Why? "Well, we don't have a sealed, explosion proof vault."

That's when I started to get nervous.

Then I got the bottle.

First, the lid was actually bulging. I was worried it was over pressurized, but it turns out they were dead set--maybe I should rephrase that--on making sure I had enough to kick it this time.

Second, isn't that the color they give to pills that might kill people? I mean, I've seen blue and purple on the side of hazmat train cars.

Well, one of the possible side-effects is explosive diarrhea, so there's that.

I remained concerned, so I called my doctor for more information. When I told him the name and that it was 300 milligrams, he said, "You don't have children in the house, do you?"

Not unless you count me.

"Okay. I know this is going to seem counterintuitive, but these might make you very sick. Then they'll make you well, of course."

Should I avoid doing anything?

"Yes, you should."

Huh. Any other advise?

"Whatever you do, don't accidentally take two at once."

Why? What would happen?

"Have you ever heard the word Chernobyl?"

After that, I stopped asking questions.

Is it ... smoking?

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