For those of you scoring at home, this past Monday I had an additional liver panel done at the behest of a crackerjack of an MA, Dr Somogyi's who was impressive in her attitude and confidence ASSisting him to do a Sig Flex, which was entirely reASSuring the colitis is pretty much all gone.
Teresa called today with new liver results from the week 4.5 panel. RVR. Yes. Quantitative analysis characterized the findings as negative, lower than detectable threshold, too few to count, too cool for school.
Week 12.5 they will do the qualitative analysis which can't give you a number but it can detect the presence of any at all and what it is for, actually, is to verify that the fucking shit is kaput. But for now let it suffice to say the virus is on the run.
And we begin the cheerful and enthusiastic beating of this apparently dead horse.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Under The Wire
As you no doubt recall there was a bit of a hoohah last week about missing blood tests and Rx pre-auths gone astray. Said bloodwork finally came back, and now we know some new jargon which I am sure you will find as opaque as I did.
First is the RVR, which is acronymic for Rapid Viral Response, which is sadly not related to a front-page reddit post in 20 minutes.
Sometimes the triple-shit Tx kills the virus immediately, and then they pound said dead horse for 28 more weeks to get the last coral atoll holdouts like the one played by Toshiro Mifune who eventually makes friends with Lee Marvin. BTW Google spell check wanted me to change it to Hirohito and I say that's incredibly racist nonsense but I digress.
I did not have RVR
The actual viral count is expressed in powers of 10, that is, a number with a bunch of decimal places x 10 to the something-or-other. A logarithm. Log. If you remember slide-rules this is how they used to work. Actually they still do. I have one. But like everybody else I don't use mine.
The wider gate, if RVR can be said to be the narrow but more desirable hoop through which one must pass to continue TX, the wider gate is called the 2 log drop.
Actually I use that term every once in a while in the morning ...but ...I digress.
Anyway if the viral load count falls by 10 to the 2nd power it is said to represent a 2 log drop, and this I am told I did achieve and so the wonderful folks at Care Oregon coughed up for another $20,000 worth of pharmaceuticals much to my relief.
I was dead worried that the shit had failed and I was going to have to face liver disease at some point, which I still might but I MIGHT NOT.
Under the wire indeed.
First is the RVR, which is acronymic for Rapid Viral Response, which is sadly not related to a front-page reddit post in 20 minutes.
Sometimes the triple-shit Tx kills the virus immediately, and then they pound said dead horse for 28 more weeks to get the last coral atoll holdouts like the one played by Toshiro Mifune who eventually makes friends with Lee Marvin. BTW Google spell check wanted me to change it to Hirohito and I say that's incredibly racist nonsense but I digress.
I did not have RVR
The actual viral count is expressed in powers of 10, that is, a number with a bunch of decimal places x 10 to the something-or-other. A logarithm. Log. If you remember slide-rules this is how they used to work. Actually they still do. I have one. But like everybody else I don't use mine.
The wider gate, if RVR can be said to be the narrow but more desirable hoop through which one must pass to continue TX, the wider gate is called the 2 log drop.
Actually I use that term every once in a while in the morning ...but ...I digress.
Anyway if the viral load count falls by 10 to the 2nd power it is said to represent a 2 log drop, and this I am told I did achieve and so the wonderful folks at Care Oregon coughed up for another $20,000 worth of pharmaceuticals much to my relief.
I was dead worried that the shit had failed and I was going to have to face liver disease at some point, which I still might but I MIGHT NOT.
Under the wire indeed.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Leatherman's, the real story behind the story
Portland used to be a maddening place to do business. There were two sorts of uglinesses that over the years were identified with "Old Portland", the Stumptown Attitude and the Old Runaround.
You would walk into a store, say Meier and Frank's, or the hat shop, or, say, Store for Men, and the little old lady in the cardigan would look you up and down and when she finally said may I help you what she clearly meant, no effort to hide it, was what business could you possibly have with this fine establishment, you shabby, ignorant, unacceptable flyspeck?
That's the Stumptown attitude, and it still exists, particularly at Stumptown Coffee, where the variation is " What totally hip thing can I do for you that you will neither understand nor appreciate?"
Then there's the Ol' Runaround, " no, we don't have that at this store, try over at Lloyd Center, or No, he's left for today (2 pm), you might try calling tomorrow and see if he can make time, or no, it's not in yet, try back Thursday."
So when I got to the Leatherman's teak paneled front desk with the gin-blossom fifty something lady in the cardigan and she said, no, they handle all the walk-ins over at the retail store, I was on familiar grounds. I am proud of myself that I did not offer to swarm over the counter and shove my worn-out multitool up her worn-out snatch. I left.
But I was so fucking tired, and hungry, and just about out of gas that I truly couldn't have made the trip back to Cascade Place by the Ikea. So I went back in, struggling for a way to break this person, ten years younger than me, to get the stick out of her ass and do the right thing. I found grounds for appeal in the paperwork I had the good sense to print out and fill in, which had the merchant circle address on it, the office not the store, and I appealed to her chick solidarity with just a hint of malaise and I threw myself upon the mercy-of-her-court and the appeal to her vanity and power were just enough to root out the nonsense. But it was close.
And then, like the grace of God in a sinful city, there was a Burger King on the next corner, and the world was a lovely place once again.
You would walk into a store, say Meier and Frank's, or the hat shop, or, say, Store for Men, and the little old lady in the cardigan would look you up and down and when she finally said may I help you what she clearly meant, no effort to hide it, was what business could you possibly have with this fine establishment, you shabby, ignorant, unacceptable flyspeck?
That's the Stumptown attitude, and it still exists, particularly at Stumptown Coffee, where the variation is " What totally hip thing can I do for you that you will neither understand nor appreciate?"
Then there's the Ol' Runaround, " no, we don't have that at this store, try over at Lloyd Center, or No, he's left for today (2 pm), you might try calling tomorrow and see if he can make time, or no, it's not in yet, try back Thursday."
So when I got to the Leatherman's teak paneled front desk with the gin-blossom fifty something lady in the cardigan and she said, no, they handle all the walk-ins over at the retail store, I was on familiar grounds. I am proud of myself that I did not offer to swarm over the counter and shove my worn-out multitool up her worn-out snatch. I left.
But I was so fucking tired, and hungry, and just about out of gas that I truly couldn't have made the trip back to Cascade Place by the Ikea. So I went back in, struggling for a way to break this person, ten years younger than me, to get the stick out of her ass and do the right thing. I found grounds for appeal in the paperwork I had the good sense to print out and fill in, which had the merchant circle address on it, the office not the store, and I appealed to her chick solidarity with just a hint of malaise and I threw myself upon the mercy-of-her-court and the appeal to her vanity and power were just enough to root out the nonsense. But it was close.
And then, like the grace of God in a sinful city, there was a Burger King on the next corner, and the world was a lovely place once again.
Leatherman's
In the next 15 years I used the shit out of this ingenious and exceedingly useful thing and I wore it out. Then it sat in a drawer for a few years until, just the other day, I decided to go out to the Leatherman factory in NE Portland to see if the warranty still applied.
I took the opportunity to practice narrative videography.
This is part 2 I think, after the fact.
Leatherman's Part 1
If I let myself sit around the apartment this medical bullshit would drag me down in short order, so I forced myself, the other day, to go out to the Leatherman Factory to turn my multi-tool in for warranty repair.
It was a good opportunity to do some narrative videography.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Sharon Meieran
I live in Oregon House District 36 the downtown west side district. There's an exciting Democratic Primary race evolving over here between the establishment chick Jennifer somebody and this whipsmart Er doc Sharon Meieran http://www.sharonfororegon.com/ who just looks like she knows her shit and is saying all the right things about addiction and treatment for addicts and all the follow-on madness and destruction caused by drugs and alcohol, the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more.
I usually leave politics to the squares but this is somehow different.
There's a Democratic Party in-crowd in Oregon that comes off pretty self absorbed, and I for one am tired of being told who to vote for by people from the not-too-distant past that didn't do very much to solve things when they had the chance. There are, however, some very effective progressive voices that manage to do some new things in a new way without all the pompous ponderous nonsense. Fresh smart new voices like Jules Bailey, the Rep from across the river in SE Portland demonstrate how you can infuse some new energy into the tired old Democratic Party we inherited from the warhorses that still don't recognize that they are the problem, not the solution.
We are incredibly fortunate that this woman with her dedication and her education and drive would take the time from a rewarding career to devote all those mad skills to helping this part of the state to think better and act more effectively to solve the public problems that degrade our quality of life and drain our resources in the process.
When I see the list of party old-timers that endorse the other candidate, I just feel tired and think to myself this is why we need Sharon Meieran in the OR House of Representatives.
I usually leave politics to the squares but this is somehow different.
There's a Democratic Party in-crowd in Oregon that comes off pretty self absorbed, and I for one am tired of being told who to vote for by people from the not-too-distant past that didn't do very much to solve things when they had the chance. There are, however, some very effective progressive voices that manage to do some new things in a new way without all the pompous ponderous nonsense. Fresh smart new voices like Jules Bailey, the Rep from across the river in SE Portland demonstrate how you can infuse some new energy into the tired old Democratic Party we inherited from the warhorses that still don't recognize that they are the problem, not the solution.
 |
| Sharon's husband looks like a healthy Keith Richards |
We are incredibly fortunate that this woman with her dedication and her education and drive would take the time from a rewarding career to devote all those mad skills to helping this part of the state to think better and act more effectively to solve the public problems that degrade our quality of life and drain our resources in the process.
When I see the list of party old-timers that endorse the other candidate, I just feel tired and think to myself this is why we need Sharon Meieran in the OR House of Representatives.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Situation (Edit)
Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
So I'm in the chair Monday getting my blood drawn and I say to the guy (My buddy Dan) Say Aren't I supposed to do a viral load and a liver panel this week? I'm on week 4 of the interferon and they have to do an assessment of viral count before the insurance will auth for more meds.
So he bucks it up stairs and the word comes down, no, just the CBC. Fine.
Not.
I do my shots on Friday night at 10 pm and it is vitally important that they be done at the same time exactly each week.
So today I get a call from little Jan the liver lady's assistant. Heidi you didn't get your blood work done Monday can you come in tomorrow? Yes you did drop the ball you Oregon Clinic, the orders weren't there when they were supposed to be you lame m-effers.
Gnashing of teeth.
Draw blood tomorrow, labwork results Friday and then the ins co will authorize or not, but wait, I'm supposed to get the meds Friday so I can keep my dosage interval.
Oh this shit makes me cray...zzizzle
Edit: Ran around for hours today got the bloodwork done, went upstairs after to get with the liver ladies and straighten this shit out. I did try to be nice, with some success. Teresa had a stash of Peg-intron and a bottle of Robovirin and a secret carton of incevek so I cam home with enough shit for a week while the lab and the ins co battle it out.
Then the robot caller from curascript the joint in FLA that does the mailorder pharm for this shit the fucking robot called to get more info to process a supposed order for this medication package and I had to take steps to get them to shut up and erase my info the bastards just railroad right along fucking robots. If you're gonna steal my shit at least get a person to do the dirty work.
Edit: You don't want to be fucking with my shit when I'm stressing because I will eat you the fuck up. I was a professional scapegoat for the first eighteen years of my life and I will get me some paybacks if you expose your neck in the slightest. I did get on the phone with those morons at CuraCrap and sorted that shit right on out.
BTW their website is about a corporate takeover and not about a service pharmacy it is a joke and these fucknuts are pirates. a Pillmill with no Oxy.
So I'm in the chair Monday getting my blood drawn and I say to the guy (My buddy Dan) Say Aren't I supposed to do a viral load and a liver panel this week? I'm on week 4 of the interferon and they have to do an assessment of viral count before the insurance will auth for more meds.
So he bucks it up stairs and the word comes down, no, just the CBC. Fine.
Not.
I do my shots on Friday night at 10 pm and it is vitally important that they be done at the same time exactly each week.
So today I get a call from little Jan the liver lady's assistant. Heidi you didn't get your blood work done Monday can you come in tomorrow? Yes you did drop the ball you Oregon Clinic, the orders weren't there when they were supposed to be you lame m-effers.
Gnashing of teeth.
Draw blood tomorrow, labwork results Friday and then the ins co will authorize or not, but wait, I'm supposed to get the meds Friday so I can keep my dosage interval.
Oh this shit makes me cray...zzizzle
Edit: Ran around for hours today got the bloodwork done, went upstairs after to get with the liver ladies and straighten this shit out. I did try to be nice, with some success. Teresa had a stash of Peg-intron and a bottle of Robovirin and a secret carton of incevek so I cam home with enough shit for a week while the lab and the ins co battle it out.
Then the robot caller from curascript the joint in FLA that does the mailorder pharm for this shit the fucking robot called to get more info to process a supposed order for this medication package and I had to take steps to get them to shut up and erase my info the bastards just railroad right along fucking robots. If you're gonna steal my shit at least get a person to do the dirty work.
Edit: You don't want to be fucking with my shit when I'm stressing because I will eat you the fuck up. I was a professional scapegoat for the first eighteen years of my life and I will get me some paybacks if you expose your neck in the slightest. I did get on the phone with those morons at CuraCrap and sorted that shit right on out.
BTW their website is about a corporate takeover and not about a service pharmacy it is a joke and these fucknuts are pirates. a Pillmill with no Oxy.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Same shit, different day
I owe Thomas Kincaid an amends. I don't think I'm the only underproducing semi-talented artist that was jealous and scornful of his commercial success achieved on the back of his sap-happy vision of sugarplum fairies and froth relentlessly marketed to the great unwashed.
I found this parody on the interwebs not long ago and had a laugh and sent it to my friends who laughed along. After all we were true artists struggling to produce and , without that kind of lizard-brain centralizing vision we will sell here and there and be glad and hang our shit on our own walls and be content. And who doesn't know somebody who in the midst of a perfect life has run off the road in a beautiful spot?
When Thomas Kincaid died a few days ago there wasn't much to the report, and he wasn't very old, 52, but I was relieved that this sappy bullshitter was at least going to cease generating more sappy bullshit and the malls of America would be a little less obnoxious for it.
But when I read today that Kincaid was one of us, a struggling alcoholic who, after a period of sobriety had relapsed one night and as deliberately as an old cop with a revolver, drank himself dead in the space of a few hours.
And now we will look at this picture again and we will see something completely different.
At that point this supposed parody became, for me, a frightening prophecy and a warning and a tragedy of the first order. This shit is no joke.
 |
| This is the gag photoshop that I found on the nets pretty funny right? |
When Thomas Kincaid died a few days ago there wasn't much to the report, and he wasn't very old, 52, but I was relieved that this sappy bullshitter was at least going to cease generating more sappy bullshit and the malls of America would be a little less obnoxious for it.
But when I read today that Kincaid was one of us, a struggling alcoholic who, after a period of sobriety had relapsed one night and as deliberately as an old cop with a revolver, drank himself dead in the space of a few hours.
And now we will look at this picture again and we will see something completely different.
|
| Once I knew about how Kincaid went out this gag wasn't funny anymore. |
Friday, April 13, 2012
Fat City
Last night I made Spanish Rice.
My brother Bob drove up to town the other day with his new little pressure washer he got at Lowe's which we used to great effect on Felicity Jane. We blasted a winter's worth of algae and dirt and pond scum away. Wonderful.
The best part was running a line from the tip of the mast over to the dock two slips down to heel her over at a radical angle to get at the strings of seaweed that grow around the waterline where the most light and the most air coincide to make the most mess. Some of it wouldn't come off but a lot of it did and it looks much better. We left Felicity Jane sparkling in the sun.
And we got a chance to talk, continuing a conversation that has been going on for more than a half a century. Six decades.
Bob is a chef, not professionally, but he really understands foods and makes wonderful impromptu dinners and he always has some new thing he's done and I learn a lot.
This was about chorizo, the Mexican sausage. So I picked up a hunk of it at Freddie's noting with satisfaction that the beef type has tons of fat, which is my latest dietary burden. It is weird, though, a slimy texture and an artificial looking color but it smelled good browning in the pan, not really browning but rendering some of the oils which I spooned out, then a packet of Zateran's Spanish Rice , and a can of crushed tomatoes, and it looked so rich and red and full of goodness I was totally stoked because it smelled wonderful, too.
So I dished it up with some cheese on top and a bowl of mango guacamole and some big corn chips and I settled in to enjoy and then, after the first couple of bites I remembered something.
I hate Spanish Rice.
(sound of in-sinkerator in background)
My brother Bob drove up to town the other day with his new little pressure washer he got at Lowe's which we used to great effect on Felicity Jane. We blasted a winter's worth of algae and dirt and pond scum away. Wonderful.
The best part was running a line from the tip of the mast over to the dock two slips down to heel her over at a radical angle to get at the strings of seaweed that grow around the waterline where the most light and the most air coincide to make the most mess. Some of it wouldn't come off but a lot of it did and it looks much better. We left Felicity Jane sparkling in the sun.
And we got a chance to talk, continuing a conversation that has been going on for more than a half a century. Six decades.
Bob is a chef, not professionally, but he really understands foods and makes wonderful impromptu dinners and he always has some new thing he's done and I learn a lot.
This was about chorizo, the Mexican sausage. So I picked up a hunk of it at Freddie's noting with satisfaction that the beef type has tons of fat, which is my latest dietary burden. It is weird, though, a slimy texture and an artificial looking color but it smelled good browning in the pan, not really browning but rendering some of the oils which I spooned out, then a packet of Zateran's Spanish Rice , and a can of crushed tomatoes, and it looked so rich and red and full of goodness I was totally stoked because it smelled wonderful, too.
So I dished it up with some cheese on top and a bowl of mango guacamole and some big corn chips and I settled in to enjoy and then, after the first couple of bites I remembered something.
I hate Spanish Rice.
(sound of in-sinkerator in background)
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Famous Lady
My sailboat is called Felicity Jane after my friend Jane who has had such a wonderful impact on my self-esteem and made me feel loved and appreciated by the younger generation.
I didn't like the name on the boat when I got her, Felicidad. I'm not any of those espanish flavors and I am very sensitive about the gender issues and that's I think masculine, if it is not why does it end in dad?
So I changed it with a bit of sandpaper, sanding out the offending d-a-d and making the t and then y on the end with a little bottle of Testors white enamel, so it said Felicity and then later on , after going through some bridges where you have to call on the radio and then identify your vessel for the bridge operator and I thought it was too many sibilants so I added the Jane to make the sound balance better. Felicity Jane.
Turns out there was a boat way back in the 50s called Felicity Ann which an Englishwoman, Ann Davison, sailed, albeit clumsily, across the Atlantic becoming the first woman to make the crossing solo. There was a guy recently whose boat sank off the Canaries and drifted to Barbados in a leaky round life-raft faster than Ms Young in her 24 foot wooden sloop. To be fair, this was in the days before self-steering gear, and Felicity Ann wouldn't track with the helm tied to the jib so Miss Davison sailed during daylight and hove-to at night to sleep.
A tragic figure, having watched her first husband perish when their 70 ft Ketch Reliance smashed on the rocks at the base of Portland Bill, she made a splash with the book about her misadventures, "My Boat Is So Small", sold the sloop, bought an outboard motor powered cabin cruiser and circumnavigated eastern North America, from Florida up the east coast, and I am assuming the Intracoastal Waterway, to the St Lawrence and the the lakes to Chicago and back down the river to Nola and the Florida again, and another book. Inspiring stuff.
So I am in good company
I didn't like the name on the boat when I got her, Felicidad. I'm not any of those espanish flavors and I am very sensitive about the gender issues and that's I think masculine, if it is not why does it end in dad?
So I changed it with a bit of sandpaper, sanding out the offending d-a-d and making the t and then y on the end with a little bottle of Testors white enamel, so it said Felicity and then later on , after going through some bridges where you have to call on the radio and then identify your vessel for the bridge operator and I thought it was too many sibilants so I added the Jane to make the sound balance better. Felicity Jane.
Turns out there was a boat way back in the 50s called Felicity Ann which an Englishwoman, Ann Davison, sailed, albeit clumsily, across the Atlantic becoming the first woman to make the crossing solo. There was a guy recently whose boat sank off the Canaries and drifted to Barbados in a leaky round life-raft faster than Ms Young in her 24 foot wooden sloop. To be fair, this was in the days before self-steering gear, and Felicity Ann wouldn't track with the helm tied to the jib so Miss Davison sailed during daylight and hove-to at night to sleep.
 |
| When you anchor near the fairway you are supposed to hang a ball or anything resembling a ball in the rigging to signify your situation. I used to stuff my dirty clothes in sail bag and hang that but then I found an actual float/ball/fender on the beach downtown at waterfront park. If you blow this up you will see the white ball in the rigging. I maybe should have hung up the orange one. I dunno. Whatever. |
So I am in good company
Monday, April 2, 2012
On Fire
I couldn't do it again in a year, and I can't remember the last time it happened but for five or ten minutes yesterday I was on fire.
Our 12step meeting, the Sunday morning 9 am thing that usually meets in the basement at Providence Hospital has been suspended for a couple weeks while we looked for a temporary situation while the hospital does some kind of hoo-ha in our auditorium, which is a nice place and cheap, too, cheaper than dirt, actually, and I can't get specific because this 12 step shit is anonymous, get me?
So we were all happy as mice to be in the SE VFW hall, another nice place, but old, proscenium arch, beautiful hardwood floors, high windows, kind of churchy really but pictures of battleships and sepia-tinted panorama photographs of Paschendale and the Argonne Forest and Fort Ludlow.
So we were in a good mood anyway.
I had been thinking about something that happened lately and how it very much illustrated a particular facet of the program of recovery, really kind of a microcosm of the whole thing. And I have no illusion about what a scoundrel I really still am so all reflections of this sort are heavily ironic to the point of near cynicism.So when I got up in front of the room and I told the story I had enough presence of mind to tie it in specifically with the program to illustrate the way it can work and I managed to get a shit ton of irony into it and people cracked the fuck up.
Of course that set me off so I leaned on the irony and for about ten minutes there I was on fire.
After it was over it left my head completely blank so that when people said man you were funny you should do standup I laughed inside in that peculiar bitter way knowing I had virtually nothing to do with it. I kept thinking about it though, anyway, and I made some notes with the gist of what it was and how it was presented so I could maybe get there again, not as spontaneous but still cover the same ground. I would like that.
Our 12step meeting, the Sunday morning 9 am thing that usually meets in the basement at Providence Hospital has been suspended for a couple weeks while we looked for a temporary situation while the hospital does some kind of hoo-ha in our auditorium, which is a nice place and cheap, too, cheaper than dirt, actually, and I can't get specific because this 12 step shit is anonymous, get me?
So we were all happy as mice to be in the SE VFW hall, another nice place, but old, proscenium arch, beautiful hardwood floors, high windows, kind of churchy really but pictures of battleships and sepia-tinted panorama photographs of Paschendale and the Argonne Forest and Fort Ludlow.
So we were in a good mood anyway.
I had been thinking about something that happened lately and how it very much illustrated a particular facet of the program of recovery, really kind of a microcosm of the whole thing. And I have no illusion about what a scoundrel I really still am so all reflections of this sort are heavily ironic to the point of near cynicism.So when I got up in front of the room and I told the story I had enough presence of mind to tie it in specifically with the program to illustrate the way it can work and I managed to get a shit ton of irony into it and people cracked the fuck up.
Of course that set me off so I leaned on the irony and for about ten minutes there I was on fire.
After it was over it left my head completely blank so that when people said man you were funny you should do standup I laughed inside in that peculiar bitter way knowing I had virtually nothing to do with it. I kept thinking about it though, anyway, and I made some notes with the gist of what it was and how it was presented so I could maybe get there again, not as spontaneous but still cover the same ground. I would like that.
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