Getting high behind, as it were...

It's because of shit like this I really need to get my research done and write that frippin' article.

Cutting down

Just because it's where my besties hang out, I've been trolling FB again. I cut my "friends" list by about 110, still 191, still too many, but I feel some allegiance to each of them. I've been out there way more than I wanted to be and it's getting to me again. God, the world is full of assholes.

Merrily , merrily, merrily...

We are once again facing torrential rains in the path of TS Bill. Bill. A tropical storm named Bill. *sigh* What's next year? Bobbie Sue, and then Bubba?  I guess it's better than TS 2015-B.  I for one, love the rain and it's not been that bad for us up on our hill of limestone, but folks lower down are having major issues.

I love the rain. Sunny days are nice once in awhile, and I'm sure I'd get sick of the rain if it did it all the time, but here in Texas, the rains are like a balm. Of course it's either feast or famine here: searing heat and drought for months years on end or deluges of biblical proportion.

A bit of history here--personal history, skip ahead if you desire--concerning the recent health BS. Back in January of 2014 I had a vicious virus of some kind, the sickest I've been in a long time and got severely dehydrated. That dehydration led to atrial fibrillation arrhythmia. Long-assed term for your heart beating like bat wings. Went to the ER and spent many hours on an IV while they pumped fluids and drugs into me, finally my heart "converted" and I was okay. Then comes the cancer diagnosis in June, surgery in August and six months of chemo and I was on sotalol (which is somewhat odd because I have never had high blood pressure in the least, so it's solely for control the heart rhythm). During that time, I had many very small episodes of a-fib, nothing too major. Then, in March, I went four hours again and went to the ER to make sure I wasn't having a stroke. Added another med, Xarelto, which it turns out I'm allergic to, so they changed it to Eliquis (both are blood thinners to keep clots from forming, which they will when the atrium is going bonkers). They decide to do a cardiac ablation and I stopped the sotalol. Since I haven't had too many episodes, we all thought, well, that'll most likely fix everything. But the heart has to heal from being burned, so the rhythm, I was told, might flip out occasionally. I had one several-hour episode and the nurse told be to go back on the sotalol; that fixed it. But then 1:30 AM on Friday it started again. They told me to watch it over the weekend. By Monday, nothing had changed, so they scheduled me for a cardio-version.

Basically, a cardio-version is like using those paddles you see the EMTs use on TV, except that they affix these pads with electrodes to your front and back. The pads cover roughly the same sized area as the paddles, but are thin, foam things. Then they put you out, zap your heart into stopping and restarting, and wake you up. It's now more than 24 hours later and things are still normal. I'm thoroughly cheesed off with the whole mess. I didn't have heart issues and most likely would not have had, had it not been for getting so dehydrated in the first place. Perhaps, though, it was a bomb waiting for a fuse. Who knows?

Now the sun is out and I'm sure it's like a sauna outside...good thing I'm in the AC and have no reason to gad about today. Although later I might go to Fry's and look for a case for my new Touch. Yeah, I drank the Apple Kool-Aid. Truth be told though, I'd love to have a Mac. There are logistical reasons I have Dells, which I won't go into. The Touch is really neat--the only un-neat thing being that if you aren't where there's wi-fi, you have no connectivity, but I can live with that. It's so slim and light it makes my phone seem a heavy clunker.  So far I'm liking iTunes and the interface seems a lot better than my little Sandisk Clip Sport. The main thing I love about the Clip Sport, though is it's tiny size and portability. The Touch is somewhat more difficult to carry around when you're dancing, etc. But a sport case with an arm band should remedy that.

Speaking of music, Billy Boyd's (Beecake) new album, World of Things, came out this week. It has a new mix of  "The Last Goodbye" on it. I listened to the sample on iTunes and have to say I like the original much better. The pacing of the new one seems too fast and I'm not wild about the piano addition. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

© John Lamb 2013

At some point, I need to finish my little micro-series on the Hobbit actors and get the article done, who knows, someone might pick it up. Meanwhile, chapter eight is calling my name...Namoji is going to be pivotal, I have a feeling (picture Jed Brophy as a chaotic neutral sorcerer wizard just trying to make a living).

Until later, lads, cheerio.