Day Seven: Mere Trivia

TJ/ Apparently, the public option isn’t dead, yet.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/is_the_public_option_making_a.html

I honestly hope you guys get something close to what we have in Canada City. Right now, I’m about a week away from major surgery. They’re going to remove what appears to be an inflamed cyst/benign tumor on my bladder about 4-5 cm in volume. It hasn’t gone to my colon which is what my recent colonoscopy was checking for. My urologist has pointed out that there is a small chance that it could be a carcinoma (unlikely but a chance) and I could end up with the removal of my prostate/bladder and a good chunk of my colon in the worst case scenario. In the process I’ve had the following done:

Cystoscopy
PSA test
around 15 blood tests
CAT scan
Ultrasound
Colonoscopy
MRI
One biopsy/day surgery
Several consultations

Total personal cost so far?
Approx $250
$80 in prescriptions and drugs
$120 in parking
$30 PSA (prostate cancer urinalysis)

No this isn’t a smug screed about how wonderful Canada City is. I thought a lot about the fucked up US America HC debate as I went from doc to doc and test to test. I put myself in the shoes of a US American who wasn’t lucky and realized how fucking scared I would have been knowing I couldn’t afford help. I have some savings, but I would be flat broke at this point and ready to eat lead knowing that this cyst would eventually kill me (if I was lucky) or ruin me. Or worse, knowing the cocksuckers at my HMO would fuck me over and deny various tests/surgeries or demand cheaper and more ineffective means (painkillers) or cancel my coverage so that their CEO and execubots could live in their personal Xanadus with their customers money.

I talked with a US American friend of mine who said he was lucky that he was a veteran when he had his prostate cancer scare.

Yes, I had to wait for the colonoscopy. Almost 2 months, but that’s because in Canada City everyone in their 50s is supposed to get one so there is a list. Plus the fact that the tumor was not cancerous, there wasn’t that urgency or I would have shot to the top of the list.

The Canada City HC System isn’t perfect, but I like it a lot better having gone through it. There were moments that nearly set my blood to boil, but those are interpersonal cockups that any system deals with. I put this down as a counterpoint to the loudmouth corporat whores who say the system sucks and the teabaggers/GOPers/Lieberfucks who won’t let the US America people have some peace of mind for a change.

If everything goes well, I’ll be in the hospital for 4 – 7 days (not bringing the laptop and risk turning it into a staph infection source) and be convalescing at my parents for a few days. I’ll be stuck with a catheter for at least 2 weeks (ugh.)

Had to deal with this emotionally (intellectually dealt with a long time ago.) I think I reached that point as I was lying in the MRI as they were taking shots of my bladder.

The surgery is next Fri and next Thrus will probably be the last you hear of me for a week, I hope.

Sorry CB for TJ your post, but I felt I needed to get this off my chest.

@ManchuCandidate:

Geez, I read all that and while the political sentiment is great all I can think is “I hope my buddy Manchu is gonna be ok”.

I hope you’re gonna be okay, buddy.

ManchuCandidate: TJ is no problem under circumstances. Best.

@ManchuCandidate: That’s insanely cheap for the amount of tests and whatnot, ‘chu. We’re sending a swarm of Stinque branded cystbusters up your way. Dan Rather said it best: courage.

@ManchuCandidate: But dude, they ripped you off for parking.

Good luck — let us know the results.

@Manchu:

Sending you ‘get-well soon’ vibes from where you Canucks call the “Lower Mainland.” Our hearts are with you.

Oh, and we have a perfectly good “system,” comrade. If you’re nearly killed in a car crash, it’s YOUR responsibility to instruct the ambulance driver to take you to the hospital that will accept your insurance, *OR* to fling your bloody, nearly naked carcass into the woods if such hospital doesn’t exist or you’re un-insured.

Even if you do have insurance and receive treatment, it’s again YOUR responsibility to make sure that your arms are long enough to reach the trigger on a 12 gauge shotgun for when you give the double barrels a sloppy final blow job after receiving the invitable bill for ten$ of thou$and$ of dollar$ that you don’t have and your insurance refuses to pay for.

So in conclusion, AMERIKA RULZ SUCKAHS!!!!1!!BOO YEAH!!1!!

@ManchuCandidate: I’m sorry you’ve been dealing with all this, and I sincerely hope you’re almost done dealing with it. Thanks for sharing–I’m sending up thoughts to my personal Jeebus for your safe surgery and good results.

@ManchuCandidate: Good luck, Manchu.

Word of advice: Take the laptop. You’re going to bored out of your fucking gourd after 48 hours. Seven days? I certainly hope not, as a hospital is the worse place to be. A rollercoaster of tedium and pain. Longest I’ve ever been in a hospital is four days and I was climbing the walls. My hospital had wireless, and it saved me.

In addition to the laptop, here is my suggested surgery/hospitalization packing list:
-MP3 player/iPod or earplugs, or both, so that you can drone out the noise
-eye-shade to block out the bright lights from the hallway and any machinery you’re hooked up to
-blistex and thick hand lotion because hospitals are for some reason insanely dry
-straws to make it easier to drink water (my hospital always seems to be out of them – or I’d probably be charged 10 bucks for one)
-ginger drops or lemon drops to suck on to help with nausea
-slippers
-a bathrobe to wear over the hospital gown

send me a msg through FB if you want to debrief on this more. I’ll be thinking of you and sending up good karma wishes to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

@all thanks.

@Dodgerblue:
The bastards did. $15 for parking 2 hours at the hospital? I was screwed.

On a happier note, if all goes well, I’m planning a west coast swing in Oct/Nov.

@ManchuCandidate: Right and all the beer’s can be ledgered as ‘therapy’!

@ManchuCandidate: I’m sure this crowd would gladly sacrifice some virgins for you, if we could find any.

Seriously, bro, we’ll be praying, burning sage, sacrificing sheep or goats, prostrating ourselves, pouring libations, swearing off various vices/indulging very deeply in such vices, lighting candles, sparking up, praying to Jah, beseeching Jeebus, you name it. I’m sure there will be some self-flagellation and all-night vigils out there although not necessarily related to your condition but for recreational purposes only just on general principles. Because that’s the kind of friends we are.

Just a request: perhaps you could entrust a stinquy individual with some contact info just to keep us informed.

@redmanlaw:
Yeah, I will.

*Sigh*

Canada City Blows 2-0 lead in Hockey. To Fucking Switzerland!!!!

But Wins in a Shoot Out so I can breathe again.

To be fair, the Swiss goalie was like a Swiss bank, not Swiss Cheese. He was pretty damn good.

ManchuCandidate: The Swiss bring 3 NHLers to the Games. One of them is a good goalie. They’re living right.

Sunday afternoon’s game against U.S. America just might send Canada over the edge.

@chicago bureau:
Especially if Canada City loses. I’ll admit, I was upset when “we” lost to the Swiss in Torino. Losing to US America in hockey is like what Ohio feels like losing to Michigan (at least it is to Canada City citizens.)

@chicago bureau: What time is that game? I’ll be in various airports on Sunday.

Two bodies recovered at Austin crash site

@SanFranLefty: How it is only two, given the extent of the fire? Did the plane hit before people were at work?

@Dodgerblue: Nope, it was at 10 am. I honestly don’t understand how it happened to not be worse. From what I’ve read, he hit the first floor lobby and so it wasn’t like he was directly hitting people sitting at their window offices. I also read or saw somewhere (Houston Chronicle? San Antonio Express News? CNN? MSNBC?) that the people in the building saw him coming straight at them and all started running away from the windows and that end of the building. Also, coincidentally enough, window repair guys were doing work at the adjacent building and immediately upon impact rushed over with their giant ladders and got a lot of people out through the windows even before the Fire Department got there. Pretty fucking amazing and lucky.

Dodgerblue: First, be warned that it’s on MSNBC. You have to ask the bartender to search for it, therefore. Puck drop scheduled for 1600 Pacific War Time.

@ManchuCandidate: Dude, everything’s gonna be allright. When you finally have to trust yourself to those butchers, they tend to usually do a decent job, I think.

So when you do your West Coast tour, make sure to stop in SD because LA will rip your heart out.

@ManchuCandidate: All best wishes for a speedy recovery, darling. Damn, I thought parking in LA and SF was expensive, but you steal the trophy for that one.
Excited to hear about the possible west coast swing. Might I suggest that you start in the north and head south? Oct is mostly lovely here (wine harvest) but by Nov it’s nothing but rain.

@Mistress Cynica: Multiply Manchu’s metric parking total by 0.6 to get equivalent in inches and feet.

@redmanlaw: Not to mention the Loonie-to-greenback exchange rate. Manchu didn’t say if that was in US$ or C$.

@SanFranLefty: Meanwhile, porn-mag star, tin soldier and husband of porno-star, Sen Scott Brown went on Fox to say that it’s the marxists’ fault. Translation: any real American who is not flying an aircraft into a government building is just completely insensitive to the threat to America posed by the satanic kenyan.

@FlyingChainSaw: Only elites fly private aircraft into buildings.

@chicago bureau: Thanks. I’ll be in Reno airport. “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die . . .”

@redmanlaw: Unless they’re Republicans commandeering eeleett aircraft to use in the total war against the satanic kenyan.

@FlyingChainSaw:I think this was just a guy who got off his meds or something. Doesn’t seem to be any organized Terrrist plot behind it at all. The guy didn’t even mention Obama, much less mistakenly slur him as a socialist.

Anyway, our president has truly turned out to be satanic, if not kenyan (not that there should be anything wrong with being kenyan).

Personally, I worry more about the affronts posed by US Americans, especially any who happen to be powerful (I’m talking to you, Rahm) than by any furriners.

@ManchuCandidate: Good luck to you, sir.

@Pedonator: Hey, speaking of Kenya, I’ve been a victim of credit card fraud!! Whoo wee, I feel like I just gave up my virginity. Nearly ten clams of charges were racked up after I used my card once in this lovely land of lotus eaters, fortunately I’m a member of a socialistic credit union and they refused all the charges, put a hold on my card and gave me multiple calls to see where in the world Carmen Santiago and I were.

That’s all. Oh and, anyone else get a sophomoric chuckle out of the “women’s half pipe”, or the fact that the winner, Aussie’s Torah Bright, is a member of the magic underpants squad? No?

@Nabisco:
I’m shocked. You’re now making me have doubts if that Nigerian Prince will put $8 million in my bank account…

@ManchuCandidate: Thinking of you in hospital. Lefty’s list is a good one. For some reason, hospitals can be very noisy and the lights are hard to take.

@Benedick:
I know all too well. I’m the only member in my family that’s been to the hospital (outside of birth) on overnight stays (longest was 6 days.) SFL is right, it does suck.

@rptrcub:
Thanks.

@ManchuCandidate: I spent ten days in one back in the Dark Ages (no internet), but at least half of that I was in such agony from the Fever that I don’t remember being bored. Not to mention that due to the first mysterious and then exotic nature of my condition, there were hourly visits by residents all asking me the same stoopid questions. Later, they put me on the indigent ward, and dude next to me had lost his legs to diabetes. Poor f*cker woke up at night screaming “where’s my LEGS!”.

No, no fun at all. I’m listening to WZ’s “Carmelita” right now, and thinking that drugs and Zevon would be a great way through a week in the ward.

@Dodgerblue: Yeah, but now I hang my head and cry.

@ManchuCandidate: Hang in there, courage, as Bisco quoted Rather. Get some good reading in, and enjoy the hazy, relaxed lingering twilight of narcotics. Why, pray tell, is a laptop worse than a book, vis a vis infection? Here’s a proposal, how about we all take up a collection, Hey Stinqueros, I am talking to you, and get Manchu a brand-new, staph-less netbook, which he can then even throw away afterwards, considering their cost, if thats necessary? I am in, lets order from the Stinque Amazon link.

Hey Manchu, I hope after you’re done kicking this cyst’s ass, your west coast tour will include a stop in Seattle. You’ve got my anti-cyst thoughts coming your way.

@Prommie: Maybe an iPod with Ween on it.

@redmanlaw: Cold, man, cold.

My nephew took Ween fishing a couple of years ago, for Striped Bass, Ween filmed it and put it up on their website.