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How is it already December 19th? Yeesh. And it seems my aim of writing more posts this year has been a failure, a goal that kept getting pushed aside as life threw more things my way. Sure, a lack of discipline can also be blamed, but so can simply having very few tales to tell. And that's due to my disinclination to going out, being shy about breaking my routine and leaving my rather comfortable base. MJ and I did go to Tokyo in September, which I'll write out in full later. A mostly enjoyable trip, memories that are still rather fresh in my mind's eye. I'd never had a strong desire to visit Japan, and I still find it odd that I was there, among the throngs of conservatively-dressed, impassive citizens, along spotless avenues and riding equally spotless subway trains. I'd say the highlight was a bicycle tour which took us through and around the downtown, the city being fairly amenable to cyclists. People talk about how good the food is, but I wonder if those peop...

Well, I made it. The surgery itself was a success, and I remember the day vividly -- the thin hospital gown, the cold floor through flimsy slippers, the narrow operating table, the oxygen mask placed moments before I was put under. I spent a couple days at the hospital, tentatively trying foods (and sometimes failing to keep them down) and calling for pain medication. A couple friends visiting, holding my spirits up. I was, for the first few weeks, going to the bathroom around 15 times a day, including a few trips overnight, which thoroughly disrupted my sleep schedule. After a while I kind of got used to waking up in the dark of deep night, hardly a thought in my head. My father was able to jury rig my toilet seat bidet, a puzzle that neither my friends or I could solve, and it made an enormous difference in my bathroom comfort level. Indeed, I now find using non-bidet toilets a delicate operation at best, excruciating at worst. I had a brief hiccup in my recovery in mid-December,...

So, I have the second half of my pelvic pouch surgery tomorrow, where all my fears and hopes of the past year will be realized, the real work of recovery to begin. Today I consume only fluids in preparation, to slow my digestion and keep my insides clear. How much more misery must I endure, must I weather, before I learn how near I return to normalcy? I cannot help but contemplate the sequence of events that led here, and what, if anything, could have been done differently. I say this because I continue to believe that the outcome I fell into could have been avoided. Which is not to say I blame any one individual, or even any single event. Sure, my troublesome journey seemed to have begun with my taking of naproxen for my knee, prescribed by the sports fitness surgeon. And perhaps, as my Colitis ramped up, I should’ve made my worries more pronounced, demanded greater intervention, from my gastroenterologist, who in turn could’ve ordered more accurate tests sooner. How much responsibi...

I wrote that I didn't have any problems since the surgery but since that post I've had to go to the hospital twice: First for a blockage somewhere in my gastrointestinal system on September 11th, and then on October 21st for a couple gastric ulcers. The blockage was fairly painful, and the solution was uncomfortable as well -- an NG (nasogastric) tube forced down my nostril to suck air and liquid out of my stomach. At least they sent me home with some more painkillers. The ulcers bled so much that I got really dizzy and lightheaded with a real danger of falling and passing out (going down a flight of stairs was iffy business), but it was not particularly painful. For this I finally got admitted into Mount Sinai Hospital, the services of which I find increasingly amenable on each visit. I had a couple liters of blood pumped into me, and have been on iron supplements and acid reducers ( pantoprazole ) since. So physically, I am slightly weak but mostly recovered. I should be ...

I miss sleep. There were maybe one or two nights of uninterrupted sleep in August, but since leaving the hospital I haven't slept more than six hours at a time, and frequently only three or four before I get up in discomfort around my abdomen. I'm not sure if it's the lying down that aggravates things, or the staying still, but sleep, true restorative sleep, escapes me for now. You may think that I had a lot of free time in the hospital but it simply was not so -- I was constantly switching between pain and/or nausea, or had my mind clouded by Morphine or had eyes droopy with Gravol. In such states I could do very little but lay down until that fog would pass. Still, when the colitis symptoms were under control I did manage to watch a few of shows: Sword Art Online: Why do I keep going back to anime? Nostalgia for the halcyon days in university? To avoid having to engage my face-reading skills of real actors? In any case, overall I enjoyed the first season of SAO, with...

I got my Remicade infusion on Friday, August 12, a seemingly simple enough procedure. The nurse said it was chemotherapy, which stuck in my head. I guess I'd imagined chemo to be more involved or multi-stepped or something. The next day was mixed, and I had a couple bouts of nausea and retching, squeezing my innards past empty, so that by the end I screamed putrid gusts of air. Sunday is when things got serious: I had a fairly regular bowel movement in the early evening but it was soon followed up with a flood of blood BM. And then another even more urgent, even more torrential evacuation, so much so that I lost my vision for a second. And lo, as I washed my hands I experienced a head rush strong enough to make me stop, to make me slouch over the sink and slowly slump onto the bathroom floor. I rolled my head around, attempting to shake this heaviness off, this foreign dark fog of the mind. I awoke to find my face on the floor at an distressing angle. I lay there a few moment...

I don't remember having to deal with such incredibly strong musical hallucinations the last time I was sick with colitis in the hospital. I really think I would, as it's currently driving me quite mad -- I keep hearing the same lame guitar riff fading in and out, some tired 80s rock ballad that is better left on tape. It is of course just my hearing's interpretation of the constant fans in my room, but the illusion is so damn convincing. And it is keeping me up, alongside the bubblings in my abdomen and the prednisone sweats. Yes friend, I have once again tread back onto that murky path of pain, nausea, suffering, insanity that is ulcerative colitis. That I find myself so deep inside makes one's spirits fall, that all light should shudder so suddenly, so fully. The same disdainful nurses, the same apathetic system, the same curious doctors and their repeated questions -- all have passed before me as they do now, and having done so does not make the repetition any eas...

EMP Museum Though it may seem so, I have not forgotten about you. It's just that many, many other things preoccupy my mind and my time, so much flotsam and jetsam. The colitis is still with me, and my condition worsens. I am hopeful to get more powerful medication next week, when my specialist returns from their vacation. My days are a struggle with frequent, painful trips to the bathroom, my energy and mood low. Space Needle I have sold my condo, which is now empty save a couple chairs, my bed, and kitchen items; the rest is in storage, hidden away while my place was being staged. Mary Jean and I are moving in together to Riverdale, northeast of the downtown. A big step, sure. In fact, we plan to get married within the year. Yeah, that's the big news I have for you since I last wrote. Wheels are in motion! Work, work is much the same. I did spend a week in Seattle for workshops, with a couple evenings to enjoy the city: open green hills, gentrifying neighbourhood...

My ACL knee surgery went as planned back on March 10th, a long day of traveling, anxiety, then realization and moments of suffering. Realization that my leg was pretty much useless, more a raw stump than a leg, unable to bend, packed tight with fluid. After the first ragged night I kept to my prescribed pain medication (Percocet), as well as the anti-inflammatory Naproxen. Unfortunately, this latter drug triggered my colitis, so that both my leg and stomach assaulted me when the Percocet dreamstate subsided. Once it was depleted, I found myself stressed that I would soon be unable to bear the waves of colitis nausea and pain. Thankfully, my gastroenterologist was able to get me a batch of Mezavant , and the worries went with it. Still, my internals are rather touch and go even now, some 19 days after the surgery. Oh, the surgery, the very act of, was of little excitement. Sure, there was the stress of waking to make the appointed time with all of the required documentation, but the a...

And here is the long awaited Next Entry™. Not the entry I was hoping to write, mind you, but the entry you deserve. I've been meaning to write up on Bayes' Theorem (again), Pacific Rim (an awful hot mess), and maybe something about power plants. But, as is often the case with these things, I just haven't put enough time together, in a strong enough sprint, to get something post-able done. So instead you get this, me summarizing the goings-on of the last couple of months. I had my biennial colonoscopy, and I'm sure you're thrilled to hear that my specialist said everything's looking great in there! So great in fact that he's suggested, and I've agreed, that I cease tak ing my Azathioprine (Imuran) medication, an immunosuppressant that I've been taking for... what, eight straight years? I'll be keeping a close eye on my progress, to be sure. Could I handle a relapse, to return to that spinning abyss? I'd like to think no. I saw Man of St...

You might be happy to hear that my recent colonoscopy results were very good -- my specialist described my insides as looking like a normal person's, and that I "should keep doing whatever I'm doing." Heartening news, from a health and colitis perspective. Diet and exercise? Or just keeping on my medication (150 mg of azathioprine a day)? I avoided heavy drinking last year, so perhaps that helped too. I guess I'm also allowing myself to believe that my colitis isn't going to bother me for some time; that would be sweet. But yeah, I'd forgotten what an ordeal the preparation for the procedure was -- drinking that vile, sickly sweet liquid every 10 minutes. Ugh, I get queasy just thinking about it. Sure, there's a certain satisfaction in cleaning out one's insides but that's tempered with light-headedness, weakness and hunger. And the flavor of that wretched stuff! "Vanilla pineapple." Good news, and yet I remain dim and uninspired, dow...