At Least A Partial Answer
So today I had a CAT scan done, and this afternoon, I met with a specialist who thinks he knows what the cause of my current health stuff is.

I worked last night, and I have been up all day, having spent much of that day in the hospital or at the clinic. So I'm not exactly happy.

But I have at least a partial answer to what's going on with me. It's called a Horseshoe Kidney.

Now, there are a lot worse things that could be wrong, and frankly I'm a little relieved. And as I noted yesterday, I'm no longer fighting a fever and in general I feel okay.

I'm just really tired. And low on energy. But I don't work tonight, and tomorrow is an easy day with just a couple of hours of training in the morning.

The specialist is thinking I need to have a couple of procedures done to determine if I need some fiddling around done inside my innards. Chances are that everything is fine, and once I kick this infection completely, I may be able to just forget everything else.

The Power of Suggestion

One of my favorite movies ever is Airplane!. And one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Captain Oveur is overhearing someone describe all the terrible symptoms of the food poisoning that has incapacitated the crew and most of the passengers.

As Oveur hears each symptom, he shows that he has them. I'm kind of like that. I've never really noticed before, but in the past week, doctors and nurses have been asking me if I hurt here or there, or if I notice this or that symptom.

And of course, now I have them all. I'm sure that I don't really have every symptom they've asked me about, but darned if every so often I feel like I do.

Let's Make A Deal
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Or, Please Don't Get Naked In The Sauna At The Health Club
Hi, Big Guy.

Yeah, I'm talking to you. When I go to The World's Least Intimidating Health Club, I like to work out a little, swim a little, soak in the hot tub and top it all off with a few minutes in the sauna before hitting the shower.

I don't mind the company; I like to hear people visit back and forth in the various places in the club, and I've had a couple of nice conversations in the past few months.

But I have a deal to make with you. Would you like to hear it?

If I just stipulate that your package is bigger, more manly and just so much more impressive than mine is, could we just skip the part where you parade around naked in the sauna?

I don't mind the naked part so much. I'm 45, been in the army, been in my share of locker rooms and have seen a lot of naked bodies. While I don't exactly look forward to the flash of the flesh, I'm hardly horrified by it, either.

But man, I hate it when you come into the sauna, all naked and sweaty, pouring cold water on the hot stones to make sure you get even sweatier -- and then you sit your naked ass down on the raw wooden bench!

Okay, here's the difference between getting naked in the shower and sitting naked in the sauna. That sauna is a dark, tiny room filled with sweaty bodies and nowhere to sit but on the wooden seats with the recessed metal screws that hold them together. That wood is untreated, my friend, which means that it absorbs moisture -- especially when it get heated up.

In a shower, there's a lot of room. There's tile everywhere, with drains that take the water (and the stuff that comes off of your body) away. The shower is a big breezy place with lots of good lighting to show off your Incredibly Impressive Package.

Maybe if I stipulate as to your superiority and say something complimentary in the shower, you could then avoid the sitting of your naked self down in the sauna? Could you at least sit on a towel or something?

I try not to think about it, really. But you know how it is: I'm in there, with my shorts or swimsuit on, reading or just relaxing, and you enter naked as the day you come out of your momma. You pause a moment or two and take in the heat -- sometimes you even stretch a little just to make sure you work up a sweat! So far, I'll admit that I'm a little uncomfortable, but I can live with it.

But it's when you decide to sit down, with your sweaty butt on that raw wood that I start to lose it. And you sit there, sweating out your butt crack juice and sharing it with the world -- or at least those of us who venture to the sauna at the World's Least Intimidating Health Club -- and I am at a loss.

I've tried glaring at you, but so far that has accomplished nothing. In fact, maybe you're thinking that I'm awfully impressed with your package or something.

I've tried to use my mind powers to make you feel cold, or uncomfortable, or even ashamed that your soaking the bench beneath you with fluids that should remain yours and yours alone. But that hasn't worked so far.

So now I'm up to bribery. What do you say? I don't need to see the evidence, your honor: I'll just stipulate for the record that whatever you have in your pants is so much more than I could ever dream of having in mine. So you don't have to prove it by getting naked in the sauna and sharing anything with anyone else.

What do you say?

Another eerie connection between Mike Sawin and James Tiberius Kirk
I've been to the doctor's office five times in the last seven days. I've been prodded, poked, probed and examined to within an inch of my life.

They don't know what's wrong with me yet. I had an infection that has been taken care of, but there is still the matter of shooting pains that make me whimper like a dog that's been kicked.

I had some terrible fevers, the shakes, exhaustion and the feeling that my brain shrunk a little and was rolling around loose inside my skull. But all of that is gone. I'm still tired a lot, but that's normal when I reach the end of my seven-day work cycle. I'll catch up on sleep in a day or two, and hopefully that will be that.

Tomorrow I go in for a CAT scan. Hopefully, they'll find whatever it is that is causing the pain and I can get rid of it.

Or maybe just live with it. I don't know.

But I'll know more tomorrow, and at least my mind will be at ease a little.

----

Remember on the original Star Trek where Kirk would be fighting an alien or something and Bones would shoot him up with a Vitamin B12 shot to revive him and give him some energy?

Well, just like that, I'm getting those exact same shots. It turns out that like a lot of people who've had the bypass surgery, I'm going to need those shots -- as well as a iron supplement -- so I don't get anemic.

Apparently, this is part of the health problems I've been having lately. Low on iron, super low on B12.

Another eerie connection between me and Captain Kirk.

Domestic Spying -- Or Job Security?
With all this talk of the US operating secret bases overseas where enemy combatants are held and tortured by our foreign allies, it occurs to me that several of our well-trained (and eager!) men and women who were trained for such duty might be afraid of losing their jobs.

But President George Bush (that "W" should maybe stand for "Wiley!") has come up with a plan that will keep American spying jobs right here on American soil!

Yup, what with the tapping of phones, and taping of cell phone conversations, monitoring of our library records, video store rentals and even search engine requests on the internet, President Bush has given our people enough work to keep them busy for a long, long time.

I have to hand to the President. He's looking out for our men and women in uniform. The interrogation and torture of enemy combatants can best be handled by other folks, but only American agents can be trusted with this sacred duty to spy and collect information on law-abiding citizens.

That's some great forward thinking that I voted for when I cast my vote in 2004. Way to go, President Bush!

According to AP, President Geroge W. Bush lost more American jobs a couple of months ago when captives were sent overseas to various foreign countries and in effect, the US 'outsourced' torture."

Okay. This is has gone on long enough. The Ford Motor Company cut more than thirty thousand jobs the other day. The Winchester Rifle, once a proud American product, is now being produced in Belgium and Portugal, for Pete's sake.

But ... torture? We're now outsourcing torture? Come on! Where is the pride? Don't our enemy combatants deserve the very best? Are you telling me that the good of U S of A is taking a backseat to a couple of penny-ante Eastern European countries?

What's next, I ask you? Will Harley Davidson leave Wisconsin and start up production in Hong Kong or Bagdad? Will Hostess Cupcakes be baked in Maracaibo? Or will Winston Cigarettes start coming from Havana?

Bad News From Technical Department
Grrr.

Of all the times for things to go wrong with our desktop!!!

It's been deteriorating for a while now, but now the thing won't upload images from my digital camera. Without the camera, I can't do my newspaper work, and that won't do. I ran off to the public library, and borrowed a computer that will take images from my camera...if I were a network administrator.

So now I have to scramble to find a computer to use for a few minutes to unload and send pictures for my editor, who was expecting them yesterday.

Grrr.

Sick.
Good news and Bad from the doctor's office:

Something has made me pretty sick the past few days, and while it's manageable right now, there were a couple of days there where I was too sick to surf the net. Seriously. I had rampaging fevers, nasty pain and I swear that I was seeing things. Even Lovey was concerned; she snuggled by me in bed all day yesterday, watching me sleep.

When I went to the doctor on Tuesday, she gave some medicine to combat the infection that was making me miserable. When I went to the doctor on Thursday, she said that we're not exactly sure what the problem is, so I'm seeing a specialist next week.

In the meantime, take the medicine, push liquids, and keep the fevers down with Tylenol.

Then she had something quite interesting to say, and here's the "good news" part of the whole deal.

In Minnesota, you have to have a note from your doctor that says that even though you're a diabetic, things are going to be fine with you driving a car. You have to file one of these every couple of years, or you lose your privilege to drive.

Here's the conversation:

Me: Doc, will you sign the document from the Department of Transportation that says I'm okay to drive?

She: Which one is that? Are you sick or something?

Me: You know. The one that diabetics have to fill out every couple of years.

She: Do you have it with you?

Me: No, but I'll bring it in next week.

She: That's no problem. But...

At this point, she shuffles some papers in my chart around for a few seconds.

She: You do realize that you're not really considered a diabetic any more.

Me: What?

She: (Somewhat distracted, already thinking ahead to her next patient.) No...you're a1C (the blood test that measures your average blood glucose level) is fine. You're at 5.4.

Me: Oh my god.

She: Well, you still need to see that specialist. But no problem with diabetes. Bring in that form, and we'll see you again in about a month.

--------

So that wraps up just about everything I had the gastric bypass operation for. I'm still significantly overweight, but I'll get better. I no longer have arthritis pain, sleep apnea, diabetes, or high blood pressure. I haven't had any of the medications I was on since the day of my surgery almost two years ago.

Now I have this deal, and I'm sort of miserable with the symptoms. But I'm not too worried, because if it was serious, she would have me at the specialist this week instead of Friday next.

I've always said that the surgery was almost like hitting the RESET button on my health, and now that's really true. I was taking about 200 units of insulin every day, and I haven't had in in almost two years, and my blood levels are awesome.

So good news. If I felt better, I'd be dancing around and singing. Instead, I'm blasting tunes from my Wilson Pickett CD. It's a two-disk collection called A Man And A Half, and it's a great piece of work. He died far too young, and he quit recording far too early.

Christmas In January
Most Patient Wife and I went to a production of The Rainmaker yesterday. Remember, I bought a bunch of tickets to various arts events as a Christmas present for MPW, and The Rainmaker was the first show.

It was an okay production, with some nice acting, and an effective original musical score. The actress who played Lizzie nailed both her strength and her vulnerability, and Deputy File was on the mark as well. Unfortunately, the director really missed the boat with Starbuck.

I’m no expert on this show. I’ve seen the movie once, and I have read the script a few times. I think some folks in an acting class I was in many years ago did a couple of scenes, but that’s the extent of my experience with The Rainmaker.

Starbuck is supposed to be a good-looking, confident guy exuding lots of charisma and sexiness. He’s supposed to be smooth and charming and sly and bigger-than-life. The actor who played Starbuck wasn’t very strong in the role, and his ill-fitting costume was, er … unflattering, to be kind.

The actor who plays Starbuck doesn’t have to be an underwear model or look like a movie star, but he has to believe that he is special, that he is handsome and has a lot to offer a woman, and this actor didn’t carry that off at all.

The problem is this: when Starbuck is just an okay-looking guy who comes off as weak, he doesn’t present Lizzie with a real choice between running away with him or staying with her small dreams of finding a husband and building her own family. Lizzie is a smart and strong woman who knows what she wants but is held back by fear.

Starbuck represents a way to escape her fears without really confronting them, and when she makes her choice, we should be able to see that it was a difficult one – and one that costs her something. Lizzie's strength as a woman is demonstrated in the choice she eventually makes.

In this case, Lizzie’s choice is far too easy to make. That weakens both her character and the story, as well as the play itself.

But in spite of this we had a good time at the theatre, and I can’t wait for the next show! It felt good to be in the audience of a show with my wonderful wife, it was incredible to talk about it afterward, and it just felt right to share all of it with her.

The Cautionary Tale Of The Short Life Of Baby
I lost a member of the family yesterday. She wasn’t with us long, but it was a sweet season. Baby and I went everywhere together – she loved to watch movies, surf the net, and play online games. She never complained about how much time I spent online, and she never hesitated – not once – no matter what I asked of her.

But as much as Baby liked to play, she was also super serious when it came time to work. She loved to visit different coffeehouses and work there, and sometimes she came to my job at the group home to help me get the final touch on a story or edit some photos. Baby did a great job with my newspaper stuff, and the fact that I could take her anywhere and work from other places than home made my job easier.

It’s the same old story, how Baby left us. Like many of her kind, Baby had a drinking problem. She just couldn’t handle it, and in the end, that’s what killed her.

When I found her on the desk, in a puddle of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper (that delicious but indecisively-named beverage), Baby was unresponsive. She had died a few hours before, and after a few phone calls, I quickly determined that there was nothing to do to bring her back.

So, I’m just going to re-use what I can from Baby – power cords, Ethernet port, expanded memory, and maybe her hard drive – in the next laptop I buy. Baby wasn’t a top-of-the-line model, just a modest Compaq Presario V2000.

Baby had a 20 MB hard drive – adequate for my needs, but hardly impressive in these days of other laptops with five times her capacity. She came with a 256 Ram, but I upgraded and gave her a full GB, which was a wise move. Baby was a fast machine, and I got a lot of use out of her in the short time she was with us.

I didn’t store a lot of stuff in Baby. The biggest loss, if I remember correctly, is my calendar, which I had planned out for the year, with my various work schedules, upcoming appointments, birthdays and other important days. There are a few writing projects that I was working on, but they were in the preliminary stages of development, so that’s not a big loss.

What hurts the most is that I was really hit hard by this. When I figured out that Baby had departed to that recycle bin in the sky, I couldn’t stand up for a minute or two. I was gasping for air, and there may have actually been a few tears in my eyes.

I like to think of myself as a guy who doesn’t get attached to material stuff, but with the loss of Baby, I was devastated.

My wife has taken the blame for Baby’s bath, but I’m not so sure that it was her fault. I don’t know the details of how that soda got into and under Baby, but no matter what happened, it was just a stupid accident, and as bad as I feel about the loss, I’m not angry and I think trying to find someone to blame is a waste of energy.

I will get another laptop, and soon. When I bought Baby, I was eligible for a rather large rebate check. With that, and with some extra work I’ve picked up in the past few weeks, I plan on getting another computer.

This may put a crimp in some other plans I was considering, though. I can’t afford to replace Baby and do these things, so I have some choices to make.

But enough of this. I have phone calls to make and two interviews this afternoon. Baby made my newspaper work easier, but I got along without her before, and I have get back out there today.

No Joy In Mayfield



Bad news, fellow TriviaTeers: I won't be registering our trivia team Worried About The Beaver for KVSC's big marathon this year.

It turns out that due to some completely inverted priorities, Sherry and Brad are going to be celebrating Sherry's daughter's nuptuals on February 14th -- the day after trivia. For some odd reason, they think that it's more important to be there for Sherry's daughter and help plan stuff than it is to play trivia all weekend.


Without them, we really don't have a team. I hope everything goes well with the wedding, and that next year, we'll all be Worried About The Beaver again.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do this year. I've played this game for 17 years, on one team or another, and some of our online folks still want to play via the chatroom I set up every year.

I've sent word to a rival team, the Neo-Maxi Zoom Dweebies, letting them know that I'm a free agent this year, and some of our online guys are willing to play, but I haven't heard from them yet.

Another option is for me to volunteer at KVSC answering phones and helping in the production studio.

We'll see.