Food was also a weird thing, because some of it was  not something you would expect in ICU. Would anyone like to guess what meal I was served 1st? Now keep in mind, I’m a diabetic in a hospital bed with the use of one arm. The 1st meal, was a huge and I mean GIANT plate of spaghetti. This isn’t something I normally eat even out in the healthy world, let along as my first meal from waking up out of a coma. The 2nd meal, was just a perplexing: hamburger and tater tots. Again, these where heavy meals. So I really didn’t feel like eating….where then I started getting questions from my Doctors as to why I didn’t have an appetite. As I experienced different hospitals this month, I can say that no meal planning went on at Hutcheson.

So while my right arm was out of commission, my left arm became a pin cushion for all of the lab work. Taped  up with painful 3m tape and multiple attempts at finding veins, I had more issues with pain than anything else, including my torn muscle. But I was just as happy as they pulled that tape off, as when someone would visit.

Visitors were interesting too. Had a few people drop by, some I hadn’t seen in years and only through Facebook. I worked at Hutcheson for years and it was awesome that these people would come by and just wish me well. We also dealt with issues of too many people in my f-ing room. But I’m not sure I really want to address that here.

So after a few days of getting my diabetes normalized, next we were talking about going to a private room. Notice I mentioned diabetes and not my bad arm (more on that later). So, I had to prove I should go to a room. That meant getting out of bed, walking with a Physical Therapist, and making sure I didn’t bust a hip. That meant having bowel movements and going to the toilet by myself or with someone assisting me with disconnecting cables, etc. It also meant hearing speeches by my three doctors, which were completely off base….appetite, managing diabetes, and taking care of yourself.

After one of the Doctors signed the papers, we were off to a private room….

Ok, my adventure started in late October. Went back to the Doctor to get my hypothyroid and type II diabetes back under control as well as treat this baseball-sized abscess that was under my left armpit. Not fun, white blood cell count out of control, but at least it was identified and we were taking care of the issue. But this meant, not using some of that arm for a while (drummer here).

So while that arm was on the d/l . I went back to working at home, did some yard work and unbeknown to me, I wound up tearing my “good” right arm’s tricep. While the left was healing, I started to notice less strength and more pain by the course of a week. I never felt pain until a week or so later. The torn tricep created a huge hematoma at the spot which kept growing. As this was happening, my body started to also kinda freak out, and sent my blood sugar a little higher than normal.

Being someone who uses their hands in their work and hobbies (drumming/cooking), I really wanted to get that arm fixed. After getting an ultrasound, getting everything identified, it just didn’t get better. The last thing was getting a CAT scan of the arm, and here’s where things started to go downhill. What I didn’t know, was that my body was starting to go through diabetic ketoacidosis. I knew I didn’t feel good, was in a daze, but didn’t know that about 8 hours after I started feeling like this, I would lose a day and a half of my life.

I remember sitting on my couch, talking with my wife while trying to breath. I had problems that day, but was so zonked out that I thought nothing about it. The last thing I remember was getting up, getting my sweater on and getting my shoes on. Apparently, I still made it to the car and to the ER, but I remembered nothing until I woke up the next day (Thanksgiving, btw), sitting in another CAT or MRI box. Then I really woke up and was in the ICU at Hutcheson Medical Center. (part 2 will be up soon)

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Acer Inc. said it will launch a low-cost computer that runs on Google Inc.’s Android operating software

I’m a big fan of the “netbook” format. I started w/ an Asus eee and realized that the MSI Wind was a cheap upgrade w/ a larger screen…and was hackable. Why tote around these large laptops, when you can have a netbook and plug it in, quazi-dockings station style, and have a full desktop w/ monitor for under $500.

The lure of Asian authenticity is part of the appeal. Some American consumers believe sriracha (properly pronounced SIR-rotch-ah) to be a Thai sauce. Others think it is Vietnamese. The truth is that sriracha, as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples.

Call it what you will, but it’s wonderful!

Cassidy remained virtually unknown outside of her native Washington, DC, when she died of melanoma (which had spread to her bones) in 1996. Her posthumously released recordings have since sold in excess of four million copies, and in early 2001 the compilation album Songbird reached #1 on the UK album charts.

I just started listening to Eva, and if she had lived just a few years longer, you’d hear here everywhere. She’ll wind-up being the Nick Drake of our generation.