Another Mea Culpa & A Grotesque Explanation

As my loyal four readers have noticed, I haven't blogged much the last few days. Well, I was in the hospital, so there, for those of you who thought I was off lolling in the po'boy drenched dives in New Orleans. Unknown to me & to the world at large, I had an ulcer in my stomach. Said ulcer decided to, oh, start bleeding sometime last Tuesday or Wednesday. I spent the better part of Thursday (3/5/2009) early a.m. on the bathroom floor, unable to get up. About 4:00 I managed to crawl into the living room, locate my cell phone, & call Mrs. coldH2Owi, who was sleeping upstairs. I wasn't about to tackle the stairway. Well, she came down & we decided I needed to get the the ER. We drove on up & after a few tests, a lucky canceling of a dose of heparin, a male physician's index finger up my ass, & a small sip of water, it was decided that I needed a helicopter ride to Duluth. The ER did begin a blood transfusion since my hemoglobin was down around 7.5, (A normal level for me would be 13.5 to 16.5 g/dl) believe me when I say that is not a good number & I was whiter than the ReThuglican Party, including its nominally black chairman.

Structure Hemoglobin

I got the Life Flight & wound up in Intensive Care after a bowel movement red as a tiger's tongue & the subsequent inability to get back to the bed on my own. That is about as close as I've ever come to passing out, I didn't like it. I wound up with about 9 pints of blood being transfused, which is a lot given the total amount of blood in a human body is 10-12 pints. The ulcer was the culprit, it began to bleed & to decorate everything in red. An extremely tall doc came in, pushed a tube down my throat & burnt the end of the artery that was bleeding. All was to be well, but, alas four readers, she did not end the bleeding with the flame less heat. My, yes, I will take ownership of my ulcer, although Bu$hCo & that bastard Dick "Dick" Cheney need to accept some of that property as well, continued to bleed through the night & the next morning. She, the tall doc, brought her team back in, gave me something to forget it all, pushed the tube down my throat, re-cauterized the damn bleeding ulcer, & put five stainless steel clips on the thing to keep it from bleeding. The clips, while apparently guaranteeing a non-bleeding ulcer, also condemned me to another day of eating sumptuous plastic glasses of ice chips. So, I'm home now, feeling a little weak but at least I'm not dead. That's a good thing, I guess. Since stress seems to be a major culprit, I tested clean for Heliobacter Pylori, I implore my loyal four readers to be nice to me, at least fake it, OK? You may also send me money for my boat, so that I may spend many a stress-free day on the water, encouraging smallmouth bass to hammer the chartreuse flies I'd be throwing at them. Ahhh, I feel the stress sloughing away already &since the weather is about to do a major winter number on us ­

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

Night Night

Heavy Chance Slight Chc

Snow Snow Snow

Lo 6 °F Hi 11 °F Lo -6 °F

- I beseech you, my loyal four readers, to have a little sympathy.

Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil (live: 06/10/2007)

Oh, my.