[Start Dictation.]
I tell you, folks, I've got doctors circling over me like vultures with privacy waivers. All. Day. Long.
It seems federal law says these guys can't write the medical journals or call CNN until I say they can. There are already a few local reporters sniffing around: loose lips in the nurses' station, apparently. A guy leaned in around the door frame this afternoon and took a photo. The flash felt like a worm burrowing into my brain. Not pleasant. PePe called security.
There might be money to be made here. The anesthesiologist who did my surgery stopped by: his brother owns the local M. Benz dealership. Says he can hook me up with a C-class if I sign on the dotted line. Guy's got a direct line to The Today Show, says we can both get a Matt Lauer interview out of this.
Thing is, I want a piece of Katie Couric, and she doesn't do the morning talk anymore. Lauer's a dork.
I don't think I can keep the lid on this much longer. There's a media brouhaha in the wings, people. I'd just like to have another couple days' recuperation, before it breaks. I want to be in a position to put my best foot forward.
Happy New Year, everyone. Can't believe another year has come and gone. Can't believe either that I'll be stuck in front of the TV watching frickin' Carson Daly tonight. And eating green Jell-O. Not exactly the kind of upscale hellraising I'd envisioned a week ago, but sail-a-vee . . .
[End Dictation.]
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Like a Hole in the Head . . .
[Start Dictation.]
Brothers & Sisters:
Life will throw you curve balls. Fer shurr. [Folks, spell that f-e-r s-h-u-r-r. Yep. Thanks.]
I'm sitting here in a hospital bed, grunting out next-to-unintelligible syllables through a wrap of gauze and medicated plaster, hoping for the best. My Three Stenos are listening in to what I try to say. Hopefully together they'll get most of it, notwithstanding all the post-operative garble.
I had that doctor's appointment last Tuesday — hastily arranged, as you know — and by the time I landed this old corporeal trainwreck in the exam rooms, the headaches were so bad I could —
[inaudible]
— so the specialist referred me for a CAT scan, and I ended up blacking out while they had me inside the machine. Apparently that's not an uncommon occurrence — a lot of claustrophobes freak out and abandon consciousness — but I want to make clear to you that it wasn't that pansy-ass medullary override mechanism at work in my case. I can handle that kind of closed-up space just fine.
No, I crashed out because for the past thirty-three years I've been living (in reasonable comfort, actually) with a developmentally-stalled conjoined twin trapped in one of my sinus cavities, and at some point in the last couple weeks — for reasons that still have not been adequately explained to me — the Poor Little Guy contracted a case of gangrene. The swelling on his leg put increasing pressure on my brain, causing the excruciating headaches and, in the end, my crap-out in Radiology.
They wheeled me straightaway into emergency surgery at around 12:30, where a surgeon I still need to thank performed a less-than-routine siblingectomy from behind my face. I hear now that my head's former tenant is recovering in an incubator in the kiddie wing of the hospital: they had to take one of his legs to stop the disease from spreading. To be honest I don't know whether the Little Guy has —
[inaudible]
— enough to be bummed out about the amputation. Of course, that's just one of the things I'm thinking right now.
Some of the others include
*Why me?
*You've got to be freaking kidding.
*What sort of relationship can I expect to have with my stunted Kid Brother? I still haven't seen The Guy, and I hope he's not too freaky-looking. I have a hard time interacting with animals that are freaky-looking.
*What are the coverage limits of the Phutatorius & Co. health plan, and if they're exceeded, would anyone object to me dipping into the World Domination Fund to pay a medical bill or two? It seems to me that expenditures on my personal health are crucial to the Overarching Cause here. I just don't people to conclude that I'm unethical.
*At what point will I be able to eat solid foods again?
et cetera. [Stenos, put that last bit in italics, because it's Latin. Thanks.]
That's all I've got the time and energy to tell, Bees and Esses. I'll try to check in with regular updates.
[End Dictation.]
Brothers & Sisters:
Life will throw you curve balls. Fer shurr. [Folks, spell that f-e-r s-h-u-r-r. Yep. Thanks.]
I'm sitting here in a hospital bed, grunting out next-to-unintelligible syllables through a wrap of gauze and medicated plaster, hoping for the best. My Three Stenos are listening in to what I try to say. Hopefully together they'll get most of it, notwithstanding all the post-operative garble.
I had that doctor's appointment last Tuesday — hastily arranged, as you know — and by the time I landed this old corporeal trainwreck in the exam rooms, the headaches were so bad I could —
[inaudible]
— so the specialist referred me for a CAT scan, and I ended up blacking out while they had me inside the machine. Apparently that's not an uncommon occurrence — a lot of claustrophobes freak out and abandon consciousness — but I want to make clear to you that it wasn't that pansy-ass medullary override mechanism at work in my case. I can handle that kind of closed-up space just fine.
No, I crashed out because for the past thirty-three years I've been living (in reasonable comfort, actually) with a developmentally-stalled conjoined twin trapped in one of my sinus cavities, and at some point in the last couple weeks — for reasons that still have not been adequately explained to me — the Poor Little Guy contracted a case of gangrene. The swelling on his leg put increasing pressure on my brain, causing the excruciating headaches and, in the end, my crap-out in Radiology.
They wheeled me straightaway into emergency surgery at around 12:30, where a surgeon I still need to thank performed a less-than-routine siblingectomy from behind my face. I hear now that my head's former tenant is recovering in an incubator in the kiddie wing of the hospital: they had to take one of his legs to stop the disease from spreading. To be honest I don't know whether the Little Guy has —
[inaudible]
— enough to be bummed out about the amputation. Of course, that's just one of the things I'm thinking right now.
Some of the others include
*Why me?
*You've got to be freaking kidding.
*What sort of relationship can I expect to have with my stunted Kid Brother? I still haven't seen The Guy, and I hope he's not too freaky-looking. I have a hard time interacting with animals that are freaky-looking.
*What are the coverage limits of the Phutatorius & Co. health plan, and if they're exceeded, would anyone object to me dipping into the World Domination Fund to pay a medical bill or two? It seems to me that expenditures on my personal health are crucial to the Overarching Cause here. I just don't people to conclude that I'm unethical.
*At what point will I be able to eat solid foods again?
et cetera. [Stenos, put that last bit in italics, because it's Latin. Thanks.]
That's all I've got the time and energy to tell, Bees and Esses. I'll try to check in with regular updates.
[End Dictation.]
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Surgery Update
Hermanos/-as:
Is PePe here once again. I write with status report re condition of Señor Phutatorius. Surgery is finished now one half hour ago. A prolonged procedure of seven hours, but the doctors say Our Leader is of stable condition, and that operation went as well one can expect.
Señor Phutatorius will recover 100%. Hopefully the next blogpost will come from himself.
Look here for more news often.
Is PePe here once again. I write with status report re condition of Señor Phutatorius. Surgery is finished now one half hour ago. A prolonged procedure of seven hours, but the doctors say Our Leader is of stable condition, and that operation went as well one can expect.
Señor Phutatorius will recover 100%. Hopefully the next blogpost will come from himself.
Look here for more news often.
Emergency Surgery
Es su amigo PePe aquì, Hermanos y Hermanas.
I write now to inform you all that Señor Phutatorius was admitted to hospital today and is having right now this afternoon EMERGENCY SURGERY on his HEAD and FACE. The surgery has begun at 2:30 p.m.
More particulares will follow as I learn them. On the way to the operatory room Señor Phutatorius asked me that I keep you posted.
Please keep our same friend in your prayers in the coming hours.
PePe
I write now to inform you all that Señor Phutatorius was admitted to hospital today and is having right now this afternoon EMERGENCY SURGERY on his HEAD and FACE. The surgery has begun at 2:30 p.m.
More particulares will follow as I learn them. On the way to the operatory room Señor Phutatorius asked me that I keep you posted.
Please keep our same friend in your prayers in the coming hours.
PePe
Friday, December 22, 2006
Oh, God, My Head Hurts
I wish I could give you an idea of how bad my head hurts right now. I know some of the folks at home probably think I'm crying wolf again. I will admit I have, in the past, staged dramatic holiday illnesses — complete with chemically-induced projectile vomiting and fake bloodied stool samples — so that I could put off my Christmas shopping until the Day After Christmas sales. In my defense, I never skimped on the spending: the discounts just enabled me to get my beloved friends and family more and better gifts on my preset budget. And of course, my sudden recovery from the brink of death always brought great New Year's cheer to loved ones.
I'm not up to any such high-spirited trickery this year, Brothers and Sisters, I swear. I did all my shopping early (even Bobo the ex-Intern Chimp will be getting a half-dozen Harry & David pears in the mail — restraining order be damned). This is a for-real headache, with flashing lights, aura, and noticeable swelling under my cheekbones. Feels like a migraine, with the light and sound sensitivity, except that it's ten days old now, and getting worse every second. I've had to spend the last three days in complete darkness, inside an interior room with the lights off and a black bath towel shoved under the door, so as not to admit the smallest crack of light from outside. I can't get any time in front of a computer, and right now I'm whisper-blogging this post through the door to Dead Eye, who will log on and transcribe it momentarily.
In short, folks, I'm really hurting here — and a bit scared. Thanks to a fortuitous cancellation (Mrs. Denton Browne of North Troy, Vermont: your husband will be released unharmed behind the Sunoco station at exactly 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday — be sure to bring your car round back to pick him up), I've managed to wangle an appointment with a neurologist on the 26th. Here's hoping it's nothing serious, and I can get some kind of relief.
Hope the rest of you are having a terrific holiday, while your would-be World Leader lies doubled over in pain puking into a bucket.
DICTATED, NOT READ
I'm not up to any such high-spirited trickery this year, Brothers and Sisters, I swear. I did all my shopping early (even Bobo the ex-Intern Chimp will be getting a half-dozen Harry & David pears in the mail — restraining order be damned). This is a for-real headache, with flashing lights, aura, and noticeable swelling under my cheekbones. Feels like a migraine, with the light and sound sensitivity, except that it's ten days old now, and getting worse every second. I've had to spend the last three days in complete darkness, inside an interior room with the lights off and a black bath towel shoved under the door, so as not to admit the smallest crack of light from outside. I can't get any time in front of a computer, and right now I'm whisper-blogging this post through the door to Dead Eye, who will log on and transcribe it momentarily.
In short, folks, I'm really hurting here — and a bit scared. Thanks to a fortuitous cancellation (Mrs. Denton Browne of North Troy, Vermont: your husband will be released unharmed behind the Sunoco station at exactly 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday — be sure to bring your car round back to pick him up), I've managed to wangle an appointment with a neurologist on the 26th. Here's hoping it's nothing serious, and I can get some kind of relief.
Hope the rest of you are having a terrific holiday, while your would-be World Leader lies doubled over in pain puking into a bucket.
DICTATED, NOT READ
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Headaches
The last couple of weeks, Brother/Sister, have been nothing but headaches.
You start to understand why certain other predecessors (and present-day competitors) of mine built their strongholds and compounds on desert islands, or under the ocean floor. Just try to get any kind of significant construction work done in any modern-day nation-state, and it's headaches, headaches, headaches.
For starters, there's the local Zoning Board. Apparently the dairy-farm timeshare property is zoned "commercial/recreational." This because in the past it has served simultaneously as a resort property and a working, productive cheese distributor. Last week I got a summons to appear at a hearing down in town. Order To Show Cause Why Power-Mad Local Officials Shouldn't Totally Screw Over Phutatorius, or something like that. They all but guaranteed I'd be denied permits, because I hadn't certified that the property's new use would be commercial/recreational. World domination not fitting that description to the satisfaction of these piddling despots.
Lucky thing for me, as tried and tired as the "send a hot babe to seduce the local official, surveil the liaison with hidden cameras, then extort favorable and appropriate government action" gambit may be — and as much airplay as it gets on television and in the movies — it never fails with municipal zoning board chairmen. It never fails. In my lifetime I'm 14-for-14 with that tactic.
So for now, I'm free of government interference with the building project.
But then there are the unions. As some of you may remember from last November, I did a good turn for some Mexicans who wanted to roll the dice in the Land of Opportunity. They left names and emails with me, and wouldn't you know it? A whole bunch of them were willing to work construction details for me up here in Vermont — at quite reasonable rates. Not all of them were interested — some of them are sore at me over Loot the Church. But that's just the hardcore Catholics, and I can live without them. I'll give a broken soul a job, but if he's gonna find God and then put That Guy ahead of me on his priority list, he can go screw. The fellows I have, though, are fantastic. Not just workers, but artisans. I got one guy, gonna trick out Building 12 (Detention Center) in adobe. All the exterior walls, and if it takes, I just might have him work up the entire complex.
The catch is, I get picket lines. Like frickin' instantaneously. Big, fat, entitled white guys spring up out of the Earth as soon as the first Mexican trabajero sets foot on my property. It's not anything I personally can't deal with. A lot of background-noise chanting along the property line, anonymous threats on my answering machine, the occasional egg or two thrown at my garage door. Whatever. But my work crews are intimidated. They've been jumped outside local taverns. Nativist union goons are hassling their women. I have half a mind to put in a call to Gloria for advice. Figure my little Filipino Filly might be clued in to some unionbreaking strategies I don't know about. Until I can get in touch with her, though, I've got labor strife on my plate. Rightist paramilitaries cost money I don't have.
And on top of everything else, I've literally had a headache for going on eight days now. There are times I can't even sit up, and for the last two days I've been able to eat nothing but soft melon. Feels like someone's filled my sinuses with oatmeal and jalapeño. Condition's got PePe half scared to death. He thinks I've been poisoned, and he follows me around with a Geiger counter. (A clue, my Piper friend: radioactive isotopes may be a possibility these days, but arsenic works, too, and it won't give you a reading.)
Anyway, this is no way to go into the holidays, Brother/Sister. Would rest if I could but the World continues to flounder without a bona fide Dominator to run things. Bring on the Sudafed and Mucinex, rubber bullets and mustard gas. A guy's got to get some work done, against whatever odds. The New Year is coming, and I'm going to have to account for what I accomplished in the year 2006.
You start to understand why certain other predecessors (and present-day competitors) of mine built their strongholds and compounds on desert islands, or under the ocean floor. Just try to get any kind of significant construction work done in any modern-day nation-state, and it's headaches, headaches, headaches.
For starters, there's the local Zoning Board. Apparently the dairy-farm timeshare property is zoned "commercial/recreational." This because in the past it has served simultaneously as a resort property and a working, productive cheese distributor. Last week I got a summons to appear at a hearing down in town. Order To Show Cause Why Power-Mad Local Officials Shouldn't Totally Screw Over Phutatorius, or something like that. They all but guaranteed I'd be denied permits, because I hadn't certified that the property's new use would be commercial/recreational. World domination not fitting that description to the satisfaction of these piddling despots.
Lucky thing for me, as tried and tired as the "send a hot babe to seduce the local official, surveil the liaison with hidden cameras, then extort favorable and appropriate government action" gambit may be — and as much airplay as it gets on television and in the movies — it never fails with municipal zoning board chairmen. It never fails. In my lifetime I'm 14-for-14 with that tactic.
So for now, I'm free of government interference with the building project.
But then there are the unions. As some of you may remember from last November, I did a good turn for some Mexicans who wanted to roll the dice in the Land of Opportunity. They left names and emails with me, and wouldn't you know it? A whole bunch of them were willing to work construction details for me up here in Vermont — at quite reasonable rates. Not all of them were interested — some of them are sore at me over Loot the Church. But that's just the hardcore Catholics, and I can live without them. I'll give a broken soul a job, but if he's gonna find God and then put That Guy ahead of me on his priority list, he can go screw. The fellows I have, though, are fantastic. Not just workers, but artisans. I got one guy, gonna trick out Building 12 (Detention Center) in adobe. All the exterior walls, and if it takes, I just might have him work up the entire complex.
The catch is, I get picket lines. Like frickin' instantaneously. Big, fat, entitled white guys spring up out of the Earth as soon as the first Mexican trabajero sets foot on my property. It's not anything I personally can't deal with. A lot of background-noise chanting along the property line, anonymous threats on my answering machine, the occasional egg or two thrown at my garage door. Whatever. But my work crews are intimidated. They've been jumped outside local taverns. Nativist union goons are hassling their women. I have half a mind to put in a call to Gloria for advice. Figure my little Filipino Filly might be clued in to some unionbreaking strategies I don't know about. Until I can get in touch with her, though, I've got labor strife on my plate. Rightist paramilitaries cost money I don't have.
And on top of everything else, I've literally had a headache for going on eight days now. There are times I can't even sit up, and for the last two days I've been able to eat nothing but soft melon. Feels like someone's filled my sinuses with oatmeal and jalapeño. Condition's got PePe half scared to death. He thinks I've been poisoned, and he follows me around with a Geiger counter. (A clue, my Piper friend: radioactive isotopes may be a possibility these days, but arsenic works, too, and it won't give you a reading.)
Anyway, this is no way to go into the holidays, Brother/Sister. Would rest if I could but the World continues to flounder without a bona fide Dominator to run things. Bring on the Sudafed and Mucinex, rubber bullets and mustard gas. A guy's got to get some work done, against whatever odds. The New Year is coming, and I'm going to have to account for what I accomplished in the year 2006.
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