reallyboring.net

breaking free, originally uploaded by reallyboring.

After staying up all night to (almost) clear my email backlog (as usual, behind on everything), I went to the lakeshore to catch the sun coming up. This looks like a damn motivational poster, but I like it anyway. It feels so good to get shit done.

Today, I got a lot more work done, and also went and spent more money at Blackstone. My bike now has handlebar ends for easier riding on trails and into the wind, as well as all new brake pads again (don’t buy cheap brake pads!). And later this week, I will be spending some quality time cleaning the bike and installing fenders. No more bike stripe!

I’m rapidly approaching the point of spending more money on the bike than I paid to buy it new two years ago, but that’s not bothering me too much, since it’s holding up so well overall.

The nonprofit fellowship program that I previously declared dead in this space has a new lease on life, as an official university program. This is great news because it means I didn’t waste two years of my life running the thing, but even more so because I’m no longer on the hook to run it. It’s starting small, with part-time staffing and an ad hoc, expedited application process for this year. But all indications are that it should be going strong by next year. Success!

After what must be hours of flushing out my sinuses since Wednesday, I finally dislodged a remnant of surgical packing. The relief was absolutely amazing. Now maybe I can quit taking Vicodin, before I end up with a really bad habit.

Renovations have begun on one of the apartments adjacent to mine. Nothing like waking up to power tools…. *grumble*

I’m recovering, slowly but surely. There’s almost no blood anymore, which is nice, because all the blood was starting to make me feel ill just at the sight of it. There’s still some pain, but less every day. And mercifully, I can sleep soundly now, after several days of very bad sleep. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to be able to breathe.

My constant companions through the last couple of weeks have been the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes, which I am very nearly done reading, to the great detriment of any hope for productivity. After reading so many stories on my computer, though, I must say that, while convenient, I’m not a big fan of online books. My eyes, particularly my right one, weakened by the surgery, have not been very happy with this pastime.

Today was my first post-operation appointment. Another trip to Mercy Hospital, this time by Metra - so I toted the camera along. This time, I focused on the Metra station and the north end of the Michael Reese Hospital complex, which is really quit decrepit.

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The news from the surgeon was good. He removed the packs, basically big bloody sponges that had been left in my nose and sinus to help them start healing. That was momentarily a very painful procedure, and it opened up the floodgates for trapped blood to seep out while I was going home afterwards. You’ve never had an awkward commuter experience until you’ve walked the length of a Metra train with a blood-soaked gauze taped to your nose. Fortunately, that’ll never happen again. I took a picture of myself when I got home, but it really is too gross to post. It’s no wonder everyone I passed looked alarmed.

As a consolation, though, walking home along 48th Street, I saw flowers blooming!
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Thanks to Gapers Block for the link to the Crain’s Presidential Donor Map for Chicago. Not only are contributions going lopsidedly to Democrats within a four mile radius of my apartment ($1,312,135 to $62,145 for Republicans), but fully $1,182,818 from 1,018 different donors went to Obama. That’s 86% of the total presidential campaign haul from the area, accounting for 95% of all donors. I’d say Obama’s neighbors like him.

I’m still alive. Surgery sucks, but there’s really no point in my elaborating on that any further. All that matters now is the recovery. However, two notes of genuine amusement resulting from the whole adventure.

The first: as I arrived Monday morning for surgery, I learned from the sign above the check-in desk that Mercy Hospital’s outpatient facility is formally the Laverne and Dan Rostenkowski Outpatient Surgery Center. Yes, the same Dan Rostenkowski who spent 15 months in jail after a good old-fashioned Chicago political scandal brought about the end of his Congressional career.

The second, and I had a hard time believing this one when my ENT first mentioned it: my anesthesiologist is the younger brother of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. No joke.

Finally: I’m going under the knife this Monday. The procedure is called an ethmoidectomy, and it basically means opening up the sinus passages to the nose so that the entire system of sinuses can drain. As of last week, according to the CAT scan, all the principal sinuses on the right side of my head were infected and completely full of fluid (and not, as it should be, air). Once we get things draining properly, the inflammation will go down and the tissue can heal. And I can quit being miserable and whiny.

About damn time.

Nine inches of snizzle tomorrow.

Snizzle. Really?