One thing about being single

. . .is that you learn how to do things on your own. You get used to doing things on your own, and even begin to like it.

Today, for example, I hung wallboard and panelling (not that I like panelling, but I had to match the stuff that was already on the walls). Last weekend, I took down an eight-by-eight-by-two built-out closet that was messin' with the feng shui of the bedroom where I type. Tomorrow I'll bake a couple of pies (home-made crust, thanks) and tape and mud the wallboard in the utility room. I did all of this on my own, except for loading the stuff into the bed of my neighbor's truck today. I'm used to doing stuff on my own. I'm good at it.

Which is how I came to be lying atop a fighting, screaming, thrashing man, holding his wrists with one hand to keep him from punching me and threading an NG tube down his nose with the other hand. I figured I could do it on my own.

After all, I reasoned, with six of Ativan and God only knows how much of Haldol already in his system, he's well sedated. He withdrew to pain thirty seconds before I busted out the KY and the NG tube, so I figured I was good to go.

I was wrong.

As he felt the bed starting to rise, both of his legs went over the bedrail and he started screaming. It was a full-blown, woman-like scream that went on and on and on. Dude could've made a killing in opera, I tell you. I figured that he, like most patients with encephalitis, would stick to the screaming and maybe make a small gesture here and there with one arm.

Again, I was wrong.

He scooted all the way to the end of the bed, got his legs out, and proceeded to try to buck his way out of the situation. Which is why I laid atop a person who had a history of projectile-vomiting blood and punching unsuspecting phlebotomists.

I was very glad to see Figgy, the stocky and strong intensivist, come through the door at a run. Figgy and I managed to get the guy back into the bed and tied down, then ran him down to CT.

It was a long day. I'd give my kingdom (with new wallboard!) for a thousand milligrams of methocarbomol right now.

What we talk about on slow days.

Is there an animal which, in its baby form, is not cute?

I assert that there is, though I don't know which one(s) that might be. The Mankiller swears that all baby animals are adorabubbles. We went on a Google search to see what might, in the baby-critter world, be uncute.

Llamas are cute as babies. So are goats. So are Tasmanian devils. Even Chinese Crested puppies are cute, which I was not expecting. Baby parrots are about the furthest thing from cute ever made, but even they, with their oversized beaks and button eyes, have a certain charm. Baby reptiles are cute because something scary in a large form is cute when it's wee.

We are still looking for the baby animal that won't make us squee and want to snuggle it.

The Mankiller and I also discussed the concept of Intrinsic Funniness, which I mentioned here a couple of days ago. Elephants, pennyfarthing bicycles, large moustaches, tweed blazers with leather elbow patches, and half-grown puppies are intrinsically funny. We agreed on those things. Possibly intrinsically funny things (those things which need more study) are mice, any consumable good that has a name like "Ho-Ho" or "Ding-Dong," certain shoes (white bucks and those loafers with tasseled tongues), balloons (opinion is divided between funny and scary), people in drum circles (funny or tiresome?), and bologna. Personally, I incline to the idea that bologna is funny. The Mankiller isn't so sure. She thinks bowling shoes are funny, but I find them overdone. I find pit bulls hilarious, especially when you rub their bellies and make them banjo, and she says they're too politicized.

We agree that although they are the butt of many jokes, the following things are not intrinsically funny: Jews/Poles/Irishmen/Your Best Friend (whatever ethnicity he is), the Wicked Witch of the West, the suburbs (more depressing than funny), anything Scots, garbage disposals, utility companies, and the Works Progress Administration. That last came out of a conversation with Richard the Respiratory Guy, who asked, "What can you never imagine anybody telling a joke about?" I came up with "the WPA;" The Mankiller came up with something I can't talk about on a family blog.

Suggestions? Disputations? We can't spend all day hacking our coworkers' Facebook pages; we need some help.

Best voicemail ever.

"Hi, this is Dr. So-and-so from Littleton Animal Hospital. I have Max's blood test results here, and they all look great. Wonderful. Take care; 'bye."

Max has been on Rimadyl for three months, and it's like we've knocked five years off of his age. He had blood tests run today, and a nail clipping (HORRORS IT'S A PAWDICURE HORRORS), and all is well.

Elsie-Mo got hit by the doggy equivalent of an incoming asteroid. I think it might, *might* just take that much to take Max out. For a dog who's half German Shep and half Huge Enormous What The Hell, he's doing well.

I love my Flying Flapdoodle Snacktracker. It was a good voicemail.

Dear Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas,

You have pissed off the wrong fat bitch.

I was moderately pissed off before now, when I discovered that you reimburse my prosthodontist one-hundred and fifteen percent of Medicare reimbursement, or approximately a thousand bucks for each prosthetic. You don't allow appeals, and you've ignored letters from my surgeon and the prosthodontist.

Now I'm *really* pissed, because this is what I found out today:

The lowest reimbursement for an oral prosthetic offered by any of the insurance companies with which Dr. Elf deals is fifty percent.

BCBS in other states covers between 60% and 90% of prosthetic costs. Even BCBS Oklahoma.

BCBS Texas covers close to all of the cost for limb prostheses.

BCBS TX, you are in deep, deep shit. See, when all this started, with me running up bills that I will never, ever be able to pay off (even at the competitive rates offered by the pleasant people at the credit card company, when they found out all these charges were for medical expenses), I was determined to blow into your offices like a bulldozer and make something change. If it didn't change for me, I reasoned, I could change it for the next poor bastard who lost part of a palate to cancer.

Now, a year on, I've lost energy for the bulldozer approach. Instead, I've decided to take the poppy-seed-under-the-prosthetic approach. A poppy seed doesn't do much, at first, but then it becomes annoying. As it digs into the mucosa left behind by a palatectomy, it gets painful. After a few hours, you're dealing with outright pain, runny eyes, a swollen set of sinuses, and--worst of all--the tissue around the poppy seed has become irritated enough that you have to use commando tactics to get it dislodged.

My finding out about differing reimbursement rates coincided with your sending me the same polite form letter you sent me a year ago: "Since we have not been successful in reaching you by phone" (even though the first letter had my diagnosis, Subtotal Palatectomy, right there in the header) "we invite you to call us to help us resolve any issues you have in your care. . . ."

Oh, Blue Cross, *never* ask me what you can do to make my life better. I'll tell you. I'll give you printouts, even, with diagrams and charts with circles and X-es on the back.

Strangely, darling BCBSTX, something very interesting has started to happen in the media, as well: Bigton's local paper has started doing an expose series on practices within Giganto Research and Development's operations. This follows a comparable expose done by Local Paper's sister paper north of here. Given that Giganto Inc owns Sunnydale, and that Giganto is the subscriber to your insurance, and that I am a paying member of BCBSTX's insurance pool, wouldn't it be interesting to have things like your reimbursement rates made public? I mean, things like oral prosthetics aren't even covered in your brochures' fine print. It might be nice, what with oral cancer rates on the rise, for the general public to know exactly what you cover and what it means for the people who pay for your service if you don't cover something they need.

Don't get me wrong, Blue Cross: I'm grateful that you covered the majority of the cost of my surgeries and follow-up. Without you, I'd be declaring bankruptcy. Still, it seems a little unfair that you'd cover the prosthetics necessary for a person to, say, walk, yet not cover the prosthetics necessary for her to maintain her own airway. If I needed an AFO or a hook-hand, you'd be at the plate. Now that I need something that lets me talk and not choke when I drink, you're bowing out.

And that sucks. More specifically, it's sucks for you. I may not be able to keep bulldozing, but I can sustain the level of annoyance required to feel like a poppy seed forever.

It is ON, bitches.

Odds and Ends after a few days off

A couple of mornings ago, a big, BIG owl launched itself from the mulberry tree in the back yard and went flying off west. I think it was a Great Horned Owl; I'd heard its call enough times to recognize it when I Googled it. The sunrise colored it cream and pink and erased any bars on its wings. It returns to the mulberry tree late at night after it hunts and spends the early-morning hours calling.

A Cooper's hawk nearly got a dove yesterday in the neighbor's back yard. I heard screaming and ran to the kitchen window, just in time to see a dove fight its way out of the hawk's talons and see the hawk soar up, screeching. I hope the dove's okay. The same hawk has made at least one sortie against The Boys while they're in their Kitty-Coop; I've found her feathers hanging off the wire mesh ceiling of the coop. At least it's not a red-tailed hawk; Cooper's are big enough to hurt an eight-pound cat, but the red-tails we grow around here could kill one of the boys, easy.

The low last night was about 35 degrees F. Max came in this morning puffed up, feeling ten years younger, and doing his hurpling puppy-dance, so I gave him an egg yolk and a tiny amount of bacon grease in his kibble. One thing about having a sense of smell about a billion times better than ours: it means you don't need much bacon grease to have a good time.

One of the sweet hippies across the street and I got to talking. Turns out he let everything die in his garden this summer. That made me feel much better about not watering the yard-long beans or worrying about the tomatoes after the tree fell on them. Strangely, both his globe basil and mine have come back from the drought and horrible temperatures and are leafing out as good as new. Note to self: make spicy-globe basil my new groundcover.

Man of God's child is pulling up and cruising the house with the help of convenient, ten-month-old-child-height handholds. He has blond hair like his father and dark eyes like his mother and already looks to turn out taller than either one of them. He smiles and reaches out to me when I say hi, even though I've been the one to examine the various rashes he's gotten so far and set his parents' minds at rest.

I put together an elliptical trainer today. The reviews on Amazon said it would take me about two hours, and it did, from the time I cut the first strap on the shipping carton to the time I tested it out. Then I fixed a couple of wonky drawers in the pantry and eyeballed what it would take to demolish the built-in closet in this office. All of this has left me with the smug feeling of accomplishment that presages an email from a Fulbright scholar taking me to task for my grammar. Bring it, boys! *I* can put together an *elliptical*.

One last wildlife note: I went out this morning, way early, before sunrise, to take some things out to the recycling bin. It's one of those heavy-duty plastic things on wheels that stands about three and a half feet high. I opened it and--there in the glow of the streetlights--saw a pair of eyes looking back at me. So I closed it again, abruptly, and wheeled it to where the light was better. Inside was an adolescent raccoon, looking very apologetic and perhaps a bit ashamed at having caroused on black-bean cans and empty beer bottles all night. He scrabbled pleadingly on the inside wall of the bin, so I laid it down on its side and let him get out before I dumped cardboard into it.

Raccoons are, I have decided, intrinsically funny, like elephants. Or turnips, or pennyfarthing bicycles, Jell-O, forgetful professors, sex, any number of bodily functions (come to that), peacocks, getting caught in the rain, religious authorities, people in hats, or umbrellas.

I'm tired of this body. Can I trade it in?

First it was six months of constant sinus infections. Then it was cancer, and not even a cool kind of cancer with pretty ribbons. Oral cancer comes with a maroon-and-white ribbon, which is not a good color combination for me. In between all that, I screwed up my neck and threw out a knee, then the other knee. Then I got an abscess. In my groin.

Of all the things I've subjected myself since I started writing this blog, getting a doctor to take a gander at the egg-sized, painful lump in my right groin was the most humiliating. Lying in an exam chair, with my right leg out at an angle, pointing to the problem while modestly covered by several sterile drapes is not going to go into my personal-best album.

The doctor, who was wearing a pink button-down shirt and a bow tie, was pleased. He called it a classic presentation, and pointed out the various identifiers of an abscess to the nurse standing next to him. I was busy trying to be someplace else, at least mentally, and didn't pay attention until he hit the thing with freezing spray and incised it.

I'll spare you guys the details. Suffice it to say that the nurse said admiringly, "This ought to be on YouTube." The bow-tied doctor took cultures, irrigated the area with sterile saline, gave me aftercare instructions and a prescription for Bactrim DS, and left the room. The nurse dressed my groin with sterile gauze and antibiotic ointment and a cubic yard of tape. I went to the pharmacy for drugs and then came home, figuring that that would be it.

Until yesterday morning, when the kindly doctor called me himself to tell me that he'd decided, on the basis of the cultures, to add another antibiotic to the regimen. I'm now on both Bactrim DS and Augmentin, eight hundred and seventy-freaking-five milligrams of the latter, both twice a day.

Turns out that it's nothing I did: I quizzed him quite thoroughly on that. It seems that there are bacteria that live normally on your skin and keep it healthy (that I knew) and are quite peaceful in their proper places. When they get inside your skin, though--and this can be through a small abrasion or cut or just by chance--they turn into the sorts of bacteria you don't want anywhere. That's what made me end up with a kiwi-fruit-shaped mass of crap in Area 51: normal skin flora and fauna.

I'll say this for Doctor Bow-Tie: he's human. He told me the story of his own abscess, which he got while a resident, and how it was a tossup whether to have a fellow resident deal with it or go to an outside doctor. He praised my wisdom in not tackling the thing myself, given the proximity of various blood vessels and lymph nodes, some of which were already badly swollen and tender. Apparently he sees several of these a week: who knew the human body was such a soup of potential horror?

The most painful part of the whole ordeal was calling in to work. I was told, solemnly, not to work the day after, to monitor my temp every four hours, and to call the doctor's office if I developed a fever or chills. Trying to tell your boss that you've had an alien removed from the house next door to The Queen of All She Surveys is not easy. Telling a blog audience of a couple thousand is cake by comparison.

So, People: watch yourselves. No amount of personal cleanliness, good diet, or virtuous living can save you from the horror that is quad antibiotic coverage. A one-to-ten solution of bleach to water might help, but I'm not going to bathe in that.

Remember back when I had CANSUH? Back when I was in a good mood?

Yeah. Been that sort of week up in here.

Something I should've told the "Reader's Digest" folks: If you're going to admit Junior to the NCCU after he's smoked/snorted/stuck into his body whatever the hell the kids are doing these days, you should not then expect me to police his friends and extended family.

It is not my job to be a policeman.

My job is to make sure that Junior, who's currently taching along at about 130, since he hasn't had his God-knows-how-much methadone in the last week, doesn't pull the tube out of his skull. It's also to make sure that he doesn't stroke out again as the result of three of your darling relatives getting into an all-out fistfight in his room. Additionally, I'd kind of like to be able to keep the arterial line he has in his wrist in place, and the ventilator tube in his throat, and the Foley in his bladder. Those, you see, have specific purposes. They can't accomplish their specific purpose if you're getting your nasty paws all over 'em and wondering if he could do without them.

Yes, yes, I know he's mouthing words around the tube, but *he cannot protect his airway without it.* I don't know why this is so hard to understand: just because you can talk doesn't mean you won't inhale your own spit and get pneumonia (yours truly being a case in point; see, Obturator: Fitting).

So after the Bigton Police showed up--you know, the ones who don't take silliness lightly--and led the majority of the family away in zipties, I got to thinking: This is the second time in a month that this has happened, with two different patients.

What the hell is wrong with you people? Do you not understand that a hospital is not the place to slug out your deep-seated familial resentments? We do not have time for this.

It is not about you.

It is about the person in the bed.

Speaking of which, I have thoughts on The Person In The Bed for next time. Meanwhile, I'm going to go try to find the Cooper's hawk that's calling "squeeee! squeeee!" in the back yard and rub some Max Belleh.

Happy Anniversary.

A year ago, I was here.

This morning, Dr. Elf put the new Bug in my mouth (thanks, Der Alter Jo, for that name!) with some tracing material, a nasty-tasting greenish-black mix of wax and diatomaceous earth, on it, in my mouth.

My speech was normal.

My tongue hit the back of my front upper teeth the way it did before this whole obturator thing started. I sounded funny to myself, like I had a lisp. It's gonna mean learning to talk normally all over again.

I wish Maudie, who was there at my first appointment, had been there for this one. She was off helping another patient, though. Still, she'll be there when I get the wax tracing and all that stuff.

On the third of next month, I'll spend five hours doing. . .something, I don't know what, with the Bug in place, with a firmer tracing wax atop it. That's to get a mold of the inside of my mouth in action, as it were. After that, the molded form will be cast in acrylic and then I'll have a permanent speech bulb and obturator. Permanent as in "I won't have to have it re-fitted every few weeks," not permanent as in not-taking-it-out. Once I get it, we'll have a Photographic Retrospective, right here on this very blog, of the Evolution of Bug.

At the end of November I'll have a CT scan and an MRI, then an appointment with Dr. Crane to see how things are going. I don't expect any new tumor or weirdness. Still, I'm a little nervous.

I can't read over the past year's entries without bursting into tears. What they don't tell you about surgery and cancer and treatment and all that shit is that the physical memory remains even after you think you've gotten over the psychological stuff. Reading what I wrote about my lymph node biopsy makes my neck hurt. Reading the stuff I wrote about downer days makes me cry harder. It was so lonely-feeling and bleak at some points, you guys.

But I'm here. I am *here*. I didn't die, I didn't have to be irradiated, or have more huge chunks removed from my head, and I've done okay. Tonight's dinner is cheese enchilada and Scotch; I might make myself something special tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day--even though I didn't know it then--that I was free of cancer. In a way, this whole year has been vamp-till-ready.

Thank you for sticking with me through it.

If there were a word that combined the feeling of watching the first snowflakes fall in a place where snow is uncommon, taking your first shower at home after a long trip away, the feeling of the pillow when it's smushed just right under your head, seeing your dog chasing a squirrel you know he's never going to catch, the cat on your lap falling asleep, and waking up with your back pleasantly cold on the first day of Fall, I would use it to describe how you all made me feel during this past year of weird unpleasantness.

All I have is "thanks."

Thanks.

Here's the real fatitude. Fatty fatty fat fat ground squirrel ahoy!

This might be the fattest ground squirrel west of the Mississippi. Seriously: I have a picture of her where she's stuffing her cheek pouches that is just unbelievable. This is what we sallied out to every morning, just after we'd had tasty muffinage and coffee in our room.

Since when are plumbers hot?

First, I'd like to welcome all the Minions who found me through "Reader's Digest." Welcome! This blog might not be at all what you're expecting.

Today I had to stay home from work for a doctor's appointment. Thankfully, Rosie-Posie-the-schedule-maker took me off three weeks ago, so there was no showing-up necessary. Which was good, because I might've strangled the person I took care of over the weekend if I'd had to see him again. Pro Tip for those who've had strokes: Just because you can make it ten feet walking with two physical therapists, a nurse, and a walker all holding you up does NOT mean you're fit to return to your truck-driving job.

Anyhow, today was a Scheduled Obturator Day. Fortunately for me, the dude at the gas station looked out of the window and said, "Uh. . .do you have a low tire?" That's Polite Gas-Station Dude-Speak for "Holy crap, your tire is, like, totally flat." So I aired it up and headed home, figuring it was a slow leak.

Aaaand by the time I was home (three blocks), it was flat. So I bopped off to the tire fixit guys and got the thing repaired, but that necessitated cancelling my New Mouth appointment. Dr. Elf is probably glad; he barely gets time to eat as it is, and has been taking lots of new fit-in appointments. Oral cancer's on the rise, people. See your dentist twice a year.

Since I was going to have to be home anyhow, I called the plumber. My kitchen faucet, a no-name brand that's been here since I moved in and which seems to have been installed with glue and staples, quit working. The plumbers, plural, just left. The upshot of their visit is that they agree that the thing doesn't work and that I'll probably just have to replace it.

That's not the weird thing. The thing that has me scanning the horizon, listening for four sets of hoofbeats, is that both the plumber and his trainee were cute. For embryos, I mean; neither one of 'em was within spittin' distance of thirty. Still, cute plumbers? When did that happen?

Next thing you know, there'll be cute neurologists rounding on my patients. If that happens I'll just be in the crawlspace, with my canned food and bottled water. You heard it here first.

Okay, try *this*.

Can you see us now?

Interesting question via the comments.

I got this the other day in the comments and decided to repost it for everybody to take a swing at:

Dear head nurse,
I am currently interning at a heart institute in Texas .
All (except one )the RNs here treat me like trash and also are slave drivers , Not exaggerating here.They get paid for the crap i am doing for them .
I would truly love to hear your thoughts on this.
And heres the best thing , they dont let me learn anything , or watch procedure s , as their filing and copying is of utmost importance to them more than my learning phase. What do you think?

First things first: If you're in a situation where you're supposed to be watching procedures and helping care for patients and you're not able to do that because you're getting saddled with copying, filing, whatever--it's time to talk to the person in charge of overseeing your internship. The primary purpose of a nursing intern- or externship is to learn the theory and skills you'd use in the unit where you're placed.

When you approach your internship coordinator, take in a list of times when you've not been present for procedures because you've been tasked with something clerical. If you've been assigned a job that's not patient-care-related and told that because of that task, you can't practice a particular skill you're meant to master, take that (or those) specific examples in with you as well. You don't have to name the people who've assigned you those jobs, but *make sure you have documented times when it's happened.* Be specific and timed and all that stuff.

("Specific, timed, and measurable" works for more than care plans. Who knew?)

Second things second: When you say the RNs treat you "like trash," what exactly do you mean? Is there a fundamental lack of respect, trash-talking, or lateral bullying? If so, again provide concrete examples--and in this case, you might be asked to name names--to your coordinator. It will help if you can keep a written list of times Person X has said something belittling or bullying to you. This is standard practice in situations when somebody feels discriminated against or harrassed, and it's a *good* standard practice: building a list of incidents helps you build a case.

While you're doing those things, do two more: take a look at your expectations for the internship versus the facility's expectations for the internship. If there's a basic disconnect--in other words, if you wanted nursing experience and they put you into a position where you're learning to be a unit secretary--you'll need to talk to the coordinator about that as well.

Examine the culture of the place where you're interning, too. There are some places that are great, some that suck, and a whole bunch stuck in the middle. If you're in a place that just outright sucks--where there's a lot of what they call "lateral violence," like bullying or back-stabbing--you might need to go somewhere else. If you're in a place that's great but just isn't a good fit for you, again, you might need to find a different position somewhere that's a better match. If you're in one of those facilities that's in the middle, you can work with the people who treat you well in order to carve out a better learning experience.

Can you talk to the RN you mentioned and ask him or her to act as your advocate? That RN might have some insight as to what's happened with previous interns. She or he could tell you if the way you're being treated is something that's habitual, or if there's a better place within the facility to get the experience you want.

When you present all this stuff to the person in charge, be as unemotional as possible. Avoid the terms "slave-drivers" and "crap" at all costs. There's a certain amount of drudgery and general-factotum-ness in every job, and some of that's going to spill over into an unpaid position. (By the way, yeah, those RNs are getting paid for what you're doing. . .but that's kinda the nature of the beast.) Focus on how the stated goals of the internship aren't getting met, and be sure to present possible solutions. You can't just go in with a list of problems; you'll get a much better reception if you can come up with ideas for fixing them.

And good luck. This is a tricky spot to be in.

Had a bad day? Have an otter having its morning bath.

With a shoutout to Friend Johnny, who is Portuguese, like this otter! (I don't know if she bathes like this, though.)

I'd have fun nursing stories for you, except I haven't got any.

I've had nine patients in the last week or so. One of them had a stroke. The others were referred to us, for reasons I don't understand, for everything from constipation to heartburn to a torn rotator cuff.

If an emergency room doc can't tell the difference between constipation and a stroke. . . .Oh, dear.

Just Oh, dear.

So instead I'll talk about Dia de los Muertos and the costume I've worked up for this year's street party. I didn't make last year's party, due to that little altercation with a bone saw, so this year I'm going as. . .

a nurse.

Yep. A nurse. With a white dress (Barco still makes 'em: double-breasted, button-down nurse dresses with knee-length skirts and long sleeves) and cap (White Swan makes those, out of cotton, with a button in the back) and black-and-white sugar skull makeup, excepting the big red cross in the middle of my forehead and the drop of blood on my chin.

Basically I'll be my own calavera, complete with bottle of tequila and black-and-white flowers in my hair (small ones, so as not to compete with the cap).

The cap I'm going to trim out with black grosgrain ribbon, ditto the sleeves of the dress, and find a wide-enough piece of grosgrain for a belt. White stockings and black heeled oxfords, and all I'll need is some dude dressed as a calavera Navy guy to recreate The VJ Day of the Dead.

Dad was all excited that I was returning to a gentler, more modest past until I told him that the dress was for DdlM.

Pictures to follow, provided the makeup turns out and I don't end up in a white dress with some dude with a faltering grip on reality and a harpoon following me around.

Oh, yeah. I was reminded that I hadn't posted details about that date.

Uh. . .maybe I need to start another blog. Just for the comedic effect.

He ordered tacos at a Salvadoran restaurant, requested that they be brought without lettuce or tomatoes, made a face at the fried plantains, didn't touch the black beans, picked the cheese off of his tacos, and then left a dollar tip.

I came home and watched cute animal videos for a while.

I love the "artist" in the beret.

Letters! I get letters!

*** *** *** *** ***

Note: This post is Not Safe For Work, Mom, or Life. If you are faint of heart, scroll on past.

*** *** *** *** ***

Every blogger out there gets the occasional nutso comment or email. There's a dedicated group of trolls that reads HN and occasionally submits comments. I hear from the "ALL FEMALE NURSES ARE PERVERTS AND UNPROFESSIONAL" guy, the anti-vaccination folks, and the dude who claims to be an MD and says nurses don't know anything about anything, on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes I get somebody new up in this grill, and I always watch to see if they come back. It's exciting. I love my regulars, but it's nice to see a new face.

I got a comment on the post about the State Fair and the dude with an autoimmune disease the other day. I've sat on it because I couldn't decide what to do: ignore it, put it up and watch the fur fly, ask for contact info so I could excoriate the sender privately, or turn it into a post and let it rip?

Nice didn't win. Here's what somebody submitted:

Jo,

You know what, it really sounds like you need to be serviced. I'm going to go out on a limb, here. I'm young (well, relatively so), hung, and I'll bang you. I'll make things right in your world, guaranteed. I know writing is a sort of release for you, but I'll give you a release that'll make you forget about writing for a good while....
You just name the time and place.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

Ain't that something?

I have tried to take this point-by-point and be funny about it, but I really can't. I do admire the dude's grasp of basic grammar--unusual among trolls--but that's it.

Anonymous Commenting Dude, you need to cut back on the booze and the self-esteem. Only somebody drunk enough to be stupid and stupid enough to be mistakenly confident would ever submit something like this. Seriously, what were you thinking?

I mean, has this sort of approach worked for you in the past? Have women you've catcalled out of your car actually come running, hopped into the back seat while removing their clothing, and said, "Okay, baby, let's go"? Do the fifteen-year-olds you creep when they babysit for the neighbor's kids find your descriptions of yourself cute? Have you ever had an actual interaction with an adult female? I would think not, given what you seem to believe is appropriate for a conversation-starter.

I have less than no interest in getting "banged" or "serviced" by you. In fact, I've found that if a person, male or female, talks up their talents in any area, it's highly likely that they have no talents to speak of. (This is an oblique way of calling you a needle-dicked bug-fucker who couldn't find a woman's crotch with both hands and a candle.)

Plus, you're an asshole.

You probably got some sort of naughty thrill out of imagining me opening your email and sitting there, shocked expression and all. While you were typing one-handed, did you fantasize about how fast I would be posting a note asking for your contact info?

Did you have a vision of me laughing out loud, then showing your comment to everybody in the immediate area, emailing it to several more people, and collecting their extremely amused reactions? Because that's what happened. I wasn't creeped out or freaked out or turned on; rather, it was the funniest damn thing I've gotten in the HN inbox in years.

So why spend the energy to respond to this in public? Because guys who think like you do deserve to be mocked. (You really deserve to be humiliated, but given that I don't know who you are, I'll settle for mocked.) If I'd had the inclination, I would've found out your name and put it up here for the world to see, but you know what? Not worth it. It'd be too much energy expended for too little return.

Much like, I expect, being serviced by you would be.

Okay, this is ridiculous. And it doesn't change my view on having WILD FUCKING ANIMALS as pets. . .but.

When I watch this, even though they're two different species, I know what he means, because I live in this place with Max every day:

Max was feral when we found him. He was skeletal at 37 kilos/81 lbs and was perfectly able and willing to attack anything that looked like food. For months he would not come near me, no matter how non-aggressive I tried to be when I approached him. He would either shy or snarl; neither option was comfortable.

Yeah, he's not a half-ton grizzly bear, but he's certainly able to kill the cats. He won't do that, though, because he recognizes that cats have Sharp Pointy Bits at the end of their paws. He respects the cats, and the cats respect him.

He's also capable of killing *me*. You don't ever live with a hundred-pound animal without having that somewhere in the back of your mind. The reason he doesn't get obnoxious when we're irritated with each other, I think, is that he understands that I respect him and recognize his autonomy. I never give him a command without reason, but at the same time, if he disobeys the command (like "sit/stay"), he knows I'll take a second look at the situation. One hundred percent of the time, so far, I've deferred to his judgement.

Yeah, no. He's not a bear. But I kind of understand what this is like, to rearrange your life a bit so that a critter can have Thanksgivings in your house (although Max doesn't care for turkey; instead, he gets his own plate of pumpkin pie).

He's a good boy. A good boy. And he eats birthday cake just like the grizzly does.

*shiver*

Had a bad day? Have a cub-'n-bucket.

Gar. GAR. GAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!

Tomorrow, the State Fair starts in Yeehawton.

And dammit, I am going to drive and drive and drive sometime in the next twenty-four days and go to the State Fair. Because two years ago, I was too busy being heartbroken and stood up to go, and last year, I was too busy bein' all cancery and shit. I want me some fried food.

In the meantime, I have advice for the Minions: Don't get an autoimmune disease that affects your nervous system.

The patient in question is a normal, boring guy who went on his normal, boring, noiseless way until the day when he suddenly seized. Multiple times, in the presence of his family, and then multiple times in the presence of the emergency department peeps.

Then, while he was hospitalized, he got confused and combative. Then he got really weird and stopped breathing on his own. Then he ended up with us and did nothing but twitch and seize for four months.

Six months after he first had a headache that turned into Hell, this dude is waking up. Turns out he has a weird autoimmune situation going on: nearly all the people who get his particular syndrome are female; the ones who aren't have tumors on their thymus gland. Less than a tenth of a percent of folks develop this thing with the hard-to-pronounce name on their own, in the absence of triggering factors.

This guy is, of course, one of those perfectly inoffensive, perfectly boring people who had nothing at all wrong with them, who went on to develop an autoimmune disorder so rare that even Wikipedia doesn't have more than a stub on it. It's the autoimmune fuckup version of my cancer, basically, but without the good drugs and the pleasant outcome.

HOWEVER! He has, statistically speaking, a good chance of recovering. From what we can tell, if you wake up at all, you're pretty much guaranteed a happy ending. It just takes a while.

In the meantime--and this is why I would advise against getting any weird, obscure disease--we've tested him for everything from viral infection of the central nervous system to heavy metal poisoning to parasitic infestation. He's had so much blood drawn over the last four months that he's required two transfusions. For a while, we had a drain in his back to draw off CSF, just because it was easier than doing repeated lumbar punctures.

Now that he's kind of sometimes a little bit following some commands, I'm sending him off tomorrow to a long-term intensive rehab program. There, he'll learn how to swallow and talk and walk and tie his shoes again. If he's lucky he won't remember a damn thing about the last half-year. If he's really lucky, he can hit the State Fair along with the rest of us next year.

And if I see him there, you can be sure I will buy that man a Shiner and a corndog.