ProfessorTomoe

You speak the truth there. That's what I went through in the 2009 broken ankle disaster. It took them an hour per ankle for the rebuild operation. In other news, this 60mg hydrocodone daily total is harder than hell to get used to. I'm getting hit by an uppercut every time I take a dose.

For the first time since we brought him inside, Loudmouth ate kitty snacks! He's always turned them down before. We've offered him the Cat-Man-Doo chicken snacks and whatever snacks are freeze dried raw (Baker wouldn't even touch the latter, and he's started barfing the former). Today, I tried the Orijen snacks. Baker loved them. Loudmouth wouldn't take them from my hand, but he did eat them off of the cushion in front of him. Result! The Orijen snacks had boneless chicken, boneless turkey, chicken liver, turkey liver, and boneless flounder (?) as their ingredients. Weird mix, but I'm not gonna argue as long as the cats eat it.

3:56 p.m. CDT 20170817. Whew. Just talked to Baylor Scott & White's Pain Management department and cleared up one rather big point. I'm not going to be unconscious for two hours tomorrow. I'm only going to be out for 20 minutes. I will be there for two hours, though, mostly in post-op as they make sure I'm in good shape after the procedure and don't have any spinal damage. It's still a scary thought, as tomorrow's 12:20 p.m. CDT appointment time approaches.

And don't forget this timeless classic:

I'm a member of the University of Texas Longhorn Alumni Band, and as such an incredible opportunity has opened up to me. Here's the Longhorn Alumni Band (LHAB) invitation: Thanks to my health, I'm not going to be able to go. I can't even handle a trip down to Austin for an LHAB performance. There is no way, not even with tomorrow's procedure, that I would be able to guarantee my health through September 15 of this year, much less June of 2019. My wife's father came in on the second wave as a medic at Omaha Beach on D-Day and survived. Imagine what emotions she would experience at such an event. Damn frustrating thing to receive one day before the major medical procedure I'm going to go through.

Much appreciated. I'm driving Mrs. Prof a bit spare at the moment with my worrying. I get the feeling a Zofran emergency will be called for tonight. Two hours of back procedure. Not fun. Complete with wings on the finger? Now, that I can relate to! I can make a pinhole camera. At the very least, there's the Science channel's coast-to-coast coverage.

True, but a thunderstorm did spawn an EF4 just a couple of miles east of us (and just a couple of blocks west of our friends) the day after Christmas in 2015. We're in the zone where we live.

8:03 a.m. CDT 20170817. T minus 28 hours 17 minutes until I go into the hospital for my pain procedure. I'm getting nervous as hell, and Mrs. Prof isn't having it. I'm making a grocery list, since I can have things like soup and cranberry juice up until 8 hours before the 12:20 p.m. CDT procedure. One item on it is Campbell's Beef Consommé, which she claims she's never seen. I am dubious, since I used to do all of the household shopping until I got sick. I e-mailed her a link (you can see it here) so she can't say she doesn't know what it looks like. I have yet to hear from the hospital, and I'm starting to doubt that I ever will. I'll just show up at 12:20 tomorrow and get ushered back to a surgical area. I'm borderline freaking out, given my previous experiences. God, I'm just staring at the page here, trying to think of something to type, and nothing is coming up. My right back/side is hurting, and I can't take my next dose until 10am. I need strength that I don't have right now, and I don't know where I'm going to get it from. I am scared.

Loudmouth does not seem as freaked out by the current thunderstorm as your normal household cat. I mean, he had to live out in the stuff for several years.

Should we throw in an EF-0, just for grins?

@mlooney and I will transport you both to the Tornado Alley area where you can experience the *real* joy of a supercell thunderstorm.

Ah, I feel flush with the power of the 1970s ...

We're weaning Baker off of the Elavil and putting Loudmouth on it, as per the doctor's original instructions. Loudmouth is extremely difficult to get a pill inside—harder than Baker!

Would he understand it?

If you call my landline right now, you'll get through. However, if someone calls while the line is busy, instead of my voice mail they'll get a high-pitched squeal followed by the three error tones and a, "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later," followed by a rapid busy signal. Bizarre. Happens when I check my voice mail, too.

The Texas Bathroom Bill did not make it out of special session. Good. That would have cost the State mucho dinero.

5:07 p.m. CDT 20170816. Weird developments after taking my 20mg dose. Mrs. Prof went in to the office today, so I took advantage to try a couple of new audio plugins and listen to how they work on some music. One thing led to another, and I eventually wound up going through most of my old files, looking for stuff to work with. I then crashed out. I woke up about 45 minutes ago and couldn't find Loudmouth. Baker was easy to find—he came out of his litter box, barfed an empty stomach on the floor, and went to refill it. He'd apparently scared Loudmouth so bad that he wouldn't come out from under the bed for a good 15 minutes. Once I got him out and reassured him, I got back on the computer and switched over to the news. I'm glad I'm not doing 3x20mg beyond today (it'll be 4x15mg from tomorrow on). Twenty mg is a bit much.

Well, she accepted it, as long as it came from a nurse. We're switching back to 4x a day dosing, though. 4am/10am/4pm/10pm, if it works, 15mg per dose. That'll start tomorrow, because I've already taken my 20mg dose for this morning. Quite frankly, the nurse was perplexed at why I wasn't taking the full dose. I didn't get a chance to explain Mrs. Prof's paranoia over the whole thing. Besides, I'm only going to be at that level for two days prior to the procedure. I'm more scared over the procedure than I am over the medication, to be honest. She doesn't seem to be worried at all over the procedure.

Mrs. Prof is going to have a problem with this. They told me to go up to the full dosage of 60mg per day. All I can do is argue "nurse's orders." God, I hate this.

The biggest problem we have right now is Loudmouth's paranoia, it would seem. Baker wants to play, but Loudmouth is interpreting that as aggression. Perhaps it's Loudmouth who needed the Elavil instead of Baker ...?

7:20 a.m. CDT 20170816. The pain along the right back/side/leg/foot is getting worse, even with the higher pain management dosage. I think it's got something to do with the 3x a day dosage instead of the old 4x a day dosage. I think I'm going to call the pain management specialist today and see if he can suggest a solution. I told Mrs. Prof about my plan, and she had no problem with it.

1:49 a.m. CDT 20170816. I crashed and woke up right before the the end of the poll. Had to vote to break a tie. Crashed again afterward. Mrs. Prof called and woke me up at around 11:00 p.m. to let me know she was coming home. Just recently I've started developing stomach cramps. Those are going to keep me up for a while longer. OIC is not hitting me in a really haphazard way. Two days until the procedure.

5:19 p.m. CDT 20170815. Three days until the procedure and the hospital has not called. I guess they don't need any info, but I'm bringing my medical folder w/current medicine list in it anyway. At this same time, I'm trying to run a poll over in Scribophile as Team Captain on a rather controversial issue that will affect my Scribophile workload regardless of the outcome. Nervous? Why, whatever gives you that idea? Ooh, another vote just came in. Ten people scattered across the globe. Gotta wait for them all to vote. It's possible that I may have to cast the tiebreaker. No stress at all. (takes another lorazepam) I'd like to lie down right now, but I've got to constantly monitor this election. I'm going to collapse once it's over.

This was the first instance of Loudmouth participating. He was running end-to-end through the house, completely out of character. He then went back into his "insecure around Baker" mode. I swear, if he'd just let Baker give him a good sniff, all his problems would be over, but no, he has to get away from Baker instead.

I went back to sleep and got up at around 8:00 a.m. before I had coffee. Woke up with right side pain and two hyperactive cats.