My first thought when I woke up from surgery was “I wanna go back under” followed immediately by “why does my arm hurt SO MUCH”.  I was so dopey and drugged. In the recovery room I was faintly aware of a few things: 1) that I was recovering from a surgery, 2) my arm hurt worse than anything ever had hurt before – about the same as when I broke it 3) they took an xray with a cool xray machine, and 4) I was the most healthy and with it surgical patient in that room. I remember hearing snippets of conversations about recovering patients heading back to the ICU, seeing masses of machinery floating around with gurneys with passed out people in various states of bandages. So all considering, I should feel lucky. So I tried hard to not complain about anything.

I was asked a few times what my pain felt like, and I said about a 9 or a 10 – and that made the nurses scurry, giving me drugs and more drugs. And then it was a few more hours of blissful non-pain… wow the miracle of drugs ;)

When I had significantly improved, I moved to the regular recovery room – and the nurses told me I had to urinate and then I could go home. No problem, I thought, I’ve had so much to drink in the past hour, I should be going any minute! Well, minutes turned into hours. My friend AP came to take me home around 6, but since I hadn’t yet peed, they wouldn’t release me. “why don’t you go get some dinner and come back, surely I’ll be ready by 8”.  Ha.

What was my condition at 8? Obnoxious. I had a bit of a panic/pain attack around the time that AP came back to check on me again. She got my drugs for me (thanks and YAY) and came back again. I was doped up with two doses of whatever they gave me in the original recovery room. (Reflecting on this episode, I’m sure it was caused by ‘coming down’ from anesthesia – evil evil drugs).  Surely I’d be ready to go by then? Nope. I had taken to wandering around with my saline solution bag attached to my arm and my hind end hanging out of the back of the robe. Yes, I was one of those people. I believe I pontificated on the finer points of immodesty to everyone I could. I can’t believe these nurses and doctors put up with people like me (and worse: see last entry for the ‘worse’ category) after surgery.

After AP went home, I begged for a catheter, I just want to go home, please make me urinate and let this be over! I had so many drugs in my system that I was completely unable to relax the urinary tract muscles – it’s something you do voluntarily – but there was a big disconnect thanks to the drugs between my brain and its outlying nerve pathways.

It’s nearing 10pm and my roommates (and by proxy, my Mom) are beside themselves with worry, not quite sure what’s happened to me. The doctors I spoke with wanted to admit me for the night, worried about my lack of urine. By this time I’m bloated more than a bowling ball. I’d had about a gallon of liquid! I was really uncomfortable and really wanted to go home.  I must have been convincing to yet another doctor that I was very aware of my pain situation but that I really wanted to go home, could I please have a catheter? (have you ever heard someone beg for one? Me either)

I’m aware that A called and I asked her to be ‘on call’ to pick me up. FINALLY I’m granted a catheter – it took about 5 minutes to completely evacuate! All the while, the nurses lecturing me until blue in the face that “If I cant urinate tomorrow morning, you must come straight to the emergency room right away”, I nodded my assent.

I was ushered into speedy wheelchair, assigned a chauffeur, and we headed downstairs, into a big mess of construction blocking my hallway out – I stumble into my roommates car (both roomies are there)…ahhhh home sweet home… 

Welcome back to "criticism of local government, part 4"

One of the 3 major headlines from today's Chronicle.

Coast Guard failed to warn ship's pilot about hitting the Bay Bridge, investigators say

Yes, it's true. The Coast Guard let the ship's bar pilot John Coda alone! Hey i have an idea, if I'm a big big big ship that *might* be headed off course and about to slam into a major freeway bridge, let's NOT say anything - haha, that would be funny!

the rest of the story - appearing here sums up more numbers about the financial loss this nasty toxic mess has caused. Of course we can never fully total or predict the true impact on the environmental losses and devastating consequences of this spill - apparently the bunker fuel will *just settle* to the wetlands floor, and amass there - forever. Of course nature will heal itself, however slowly. But we all know things will never be exactly the same again.  Perhaps things will never be the same, for the better. Perhaps we will have such incredible safety measures that spills will become a thing of the past. Or maybe we will *gasp - say it aint so* finally rid ourselves of the nasty earth polluting substance all together (right... we can dream, cant we).

at any rate, I hope that response to disasters like this one are addressed and directly fixed. Mass firings of people that made mistakes do not interest me.  These people might have done the best they could with a failing system. I want to know that disaster response systems are in PLACE - assurance that we wont BE in a situation like this again. What is a world where you cant touch the water? No surfing. No crabbing. No commercial fishing (although that might be an okay thing for just a little bit), no swimming. dead birds. ailing sea lions and harbor seals. And maybe no more snowy plover - the birds are so endangered around ocean beach - there's no way to know if they'll survive this. Check out the baykeeper.org site for more information.

For the surfers in my crowd (are there a few?) take note: Mavericks has oil. There's no way to know if Mavericks will clear, how quickly it will clear, and if there will be a Mavericks contest this year.  A quick exerpt

"...This is toxic waste. Bunker fuel is nothing like the little tar balls surfers have been frolicking in for decades. This stuff is the nastiest of the nasty, and several. Doctors have told me they believe the substances being sown into our shore are responsible for things like Parkinsons and other nerve disorders - even in trace amounts. It is sucked up by human tissue, travelling right through cell walls.My front line experience has me shocked. I could not believe how bad the goo really is. The vapors are eye-watering and the ocean is covered in an ultra-fine film. This is no small deal. It will definitely put the Maverick’s event and the surfers at risk.”

Here's a list of closed beaches

Is it time to have a funeral for the environment yet?