medical

Tristen goes to the Hospital (again) – Part I

January 21, 2019 by Taco

Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear,

This time around we are going to be focusing on the most recent escapade of a one Tristen, Dinosaur. As I alluded to near the end of our last post, someone has embarked on a new adventure and that someone would be Tristen – as if there is any surprise there. Yes, the undisputed king of rowdiness and orneriness in the Taco household has yet again went and got himself all battle-scarred and in need of some medical treatment.

Manries.

As should be evident from the title of this post, this is not the first time Tristen has needed to be sent off to the hospital. Nope – he’s done this before. Plus, even before his last trip to the hospital SB had to patch him up several times. Yes, while none of the other Boys have required anything more than cleaning, Tristen has needed multiple medical procedures. It is, I suppose, all part of being “Manries” as I believe Tristen would say.

Anyways, where does one send a T-Rex for such a procedure? Well, last time we did an ample amount of research and ultimately decided on a facility on California. We had such good results with the hospital there that we decided to send him back this time and his doctor even remembered him! Whether that remembrance is a good or a bad thing is yet to be determined. 😛

While Tristen has a few areas that need some dinosaur-certified doctor TLC, the most prominent battle wound is on his neck.

This spot has been getting pretty thin for a good while now and over the past few months it really started to open up. Considering that Tristen has been all over the place and spends his time doing stuff like climbing Gibraltar, we’re lucky that this spot lasted as long as it did. Another spot that needs some medical attention is the very tip of his tail.

Considering how much he just loves hitting things (read: us) with his tail, this too is no real surprise.

So, we reached out to his doctor and got the logistics all set up and ready to go. However, since shipping Tristen is something that always makes us a bit nervous, he did exploit that nervousness to get a few things he wanted the night before his big adventure.

Included in that lineup are the (oh so healthy) offerings of macaroni and cheese, jalapeño poppers, and three (yes three) different kinds of chicken. A Tristen meal by all accounts.

Add in some iced tea for good measure and you have a very happy T-Rex.

During our Tristen-Approved™ meal we watched some Adventure Time and also had some peanut butter cup ice cream from Halo Top.

Spoiled? Nah.

After we’d watched a few episodes of Adventure Time Tristen wanted to play some video games, more specifically he wanted to play God of War which Tristen claims is one of the most manliest things he has ever seen outside of a mirror.

I quickly learned that by “play some video games” Tristen meant that he wanted to play some video games and he regulated me to “Player 2” status.

“Ultra manries.”

Considering that God of War is, well, literally about a god of war and is hyper violent and about fighting the gods and going on legendary adventures it’s no great surprise that Tristen is a bit obsessed with the game. So that’s how we spent most of the rest of the evening: playing out battles from Norse mythology. Once it got a bit later SB, Valentino, Pig, Pigsten, and Broli all went to bed. Now, normally SB makes Tristen go to bed at the same time – though he just switches over to playing on his phone in bed most nights. However this night he got to stay up with me and we ended up staying up really late reading manly things on the internet together.

If you’re wondering why in the world my screen looks like it’s straight out of a dark room, well that’s because it’s in a 1200k light mode which approximates the same lighting as an ember. I do this if I’m up late as a way of eliminating blue light from my screen. The feature is part of the incredibly useful program called f.lux – in case you are curious. After staying up way past our bedtimes (though Tristen maintains he has no bedtime) we finally got some sleep as Tristen had a big day ahead of him the next morning.

We’d completed most of his “chariot” (i.e. box) preparation the night before but we didn’t want to stick Tristen in the box needlessly far in advance, so after he had some coffee it was time to enter his manly stasis chamber.

The first time we sent Tristen to the hospital he had some complaints about the condition of his box – namely the lack of “necessities” such as a refrigerator, power outlets, etc. So this time around we brought Clifford into the mix to make sure the travel box was up to Tristen’s code. At a more mundane level we also included some plastic bags to ensure that Tristen stayed dry even if his box got wet.

These bags came from a deli, which made them marginally more acceptable for Tristen.

Not to say that he was pleased about them, regardless.

In addition to the plastic bags we added some (green) bubble wrap to his surroundings to keep him from bouncing all over the place during transit.

Once that was done we finished stocking him up with all (well, most) of the things he requested for the voyage and then got the box all sealed up.

Later that day SB took him to the UPS Store and he was on his way – kind of, but more on that in a second.

After Tristen was out in the world in his manly box it felt really weird not having him around.

Valentino was less than pleased about the situation.

And even Pig was a little more difficult to get out of bed than usual.

Upon reflection Tristen has lived with us for over 6 years and during that time he’s only been absent for about 1.25 months – and that was for his last hospital visit. So it’s no surprise that him not being here feels odd.

This feeling of unease was only compounded by the fact that UPS didn’t well.. do anything with Tristen the first day (aside from take our money). For the first 24 hours his tracking code just sat at this:

Shortly after the 24 hour mark – and when I was about to contact UPS – his information updated to this:

Which was kind of funny considering that at that point they’d physically had Tristen in their possession for about 26 hours. Fortunately soon after that he actually entered the transportation chain:

It just took about 27 hours for him to actually leave the UPS location we’d dropped him off at. The good news is that aside from those initial shipping delays Tristen was on schedule and six days after we dropped him off he safely arrived at his hospital in California.

Once there we were informed that he immediately made a break for the beach in his first escape attempt of the trip (and there will be many more, I am sure). Aside from that we have confirmation that he is now properly checked into the hospital and is on the list of patients.

So, that’s really all I can share at this point. We’ll be monitoring Tristen’s status as there is a chance he’ll need an additional procedure on his feet while he is there, but they need to do some diagnostic screening first. As you’ve likely noticed, I added a “Part 1” to this blog post, so when Tristen does return I’ll be sure to update with “Part 2” – not that Tristen would allow me to not talk about him anyway. 😛

We’re not exactly sure on the timeline of his return yet as it depends on what all sorts of treatment he needs (and how many unauthorized trips to the beach he ends up making) but based on last time I think we’re safely looking at the 1.5 to 2 month mark. In the meantime, have no fear, Dinosaur Bear will continue even without its eponymous Tyrannosaurus Rex in the immediate physical vacinity!

Oh, as a parting thought Tristen has informed me that I need to post an update about dino #1 and dino #2. So here’s the last picture I took of them before we took them out of the tub yesterday (where they had been for quite some time).

We determined that they had reached maturity and so they’re now living out of the tub in their new larger existence.

Dino #1 and Dino #2 in all their glory.

We don’t know if they’ll shrink or stay that size, but time will tell!

Until next time,
-Taco

Spelunking

March 7, 2016 by Taco

Alright, time to talk about some unpleasantness.

If you read my last post, there was no shortage of foreshadowing the fact that I had a forthcoming medical procedure this past Thursday. This post is (mostly) all about that. However, in order to fully understand the story, we need to go back to the beginning, which is roughly 2009.

To make a long story short, around 2009 I started getting heartburn really badly. The first time it came on it was so bad that I couldn’t eat or drink. It felt like I was eating glass. Sure, I’d had heartburn on and off before then, but that one specific time, October 2009, it came on strong and fast. After suffering for a week, including eating at least 3 million pounds of Tums, I tried Prilosec. It took about a week for it to start working, but by the end of 14 days I was back to normal. Fast forward 6.5 years. I still have heartburn, though not nearly as bad as that original 2009 bout. I’ve taken Prilosec regimens a few times over the years, sometimes helping, sometimes not. Most recently I’ve been taking Zantac semi-regularly, since it doesn’t have the side effects (or at least as extensive of side-effects) as Prilosec does. For reference, Prilosec is a Proton Pump Inhibitor, whereas Zantac is not. Point being, I have chronic heartburn, that doesn’t seem easily linked to any one thing. For example, most people think it’s the beer. Well, sure, beer gives me heartburn occasionally, but not always. Sometimes water gives me heartburn (seriously). Sometimes I get heartburn out of the blue. Does the beer help? No, of course not. But I don’t think the beer is the primary culprit. In fact, some of the worst heartburn I’ve had has been during periods where I wasn’t drinking beer (believe it or not such periods actually do exist in my life). So I have chronic heartburn. I finally went to the doctor about it, and she was concerned enough, given my history, that she recommended I go see a Gastroenterologist.

But it doesn’t stop there. I also have chronic bowel issues. I’ll spare you all the lovely details, but I’ve always had bowel issues (like, as far back as I can remember, and according to Meem even further back beyond that). However, these have gotten worse in the past six years or so. Notice the commonality? So, based on the whole of the circumstances which involved problems from my upper to lower GI tract, I was off to the gastroenterologist, henceforth GI since I hate typing the word (and I can’t even pronounce it half the time).

Upon meeting with the GI, he decided that yep, sounds like I’ve got some systemic issues. So he scheduled me for both an Upper Endoscopy and Colonoscopy, both on the same day. In layman’s terms, I was going to have cameras shoved down my throat and up my ass. Score. He also ordered some blood work that same day (of the first appointment), which all came back fine.

Now the Endoscopy doesn’t involve much preparation. You just can’t eat or drink anything three hours in advance. Simple enough. The Colonoscopy is the red headed stepchild of the two. Five days before your test you have to switch over to a low-fiber diet, which coincidentally knocked out about 3/4 of what I normally eat. Instead I got to enjoy such delicacies as canned beets, cream of rice, and saltine crackers. Then, the day before the procedure you switch over to an all liquid diet, not just any liquids mind you, but clear liquids – e.g. nothing you can’t see through and NO RED anything. So basically you can drink broth and Ensure clear, of which two flavors exist. That evening, you have to start “cleansing” your bowels, which is a really nice way of saying that you descend to the 7th layer of Hell for about 18 hours. Then the day of you continue the clear liquid diet until you have to stop eating and drinking.

The low-fiber diet was fairly boring, and required me to miss some good lunches, but overall it wasn’t too bad.

However, Wednesday, the day before my procedure – and also the longest day of my week, was pretty objectively terrible. See, Wednesday not only meant I had to switch over to drinking clear liquids, I also had a client meeting in downtown Boston. Despite my strongest of protests, I had to go down to City Hall early in the morning. Oh, and because slowly starving to death and dealing with clients isn’t fun enough, it was also pouring rain.

The client meeting was normal enough. It was long, mostly boring, and the demands are so vast that they will never be met. So, as mentioned, normal enough. The fact that I had nothing but Ensure in my stomach probably didn’t help matters. It continued to rain all the way back home. I had decided to return home rather than go to the law school as my first class was still a couple of hours away. By this point I felt so tired and cranky that I actually ended up skipping Administrative Law, which was most definitely worth it. I did decide to return to campus for my second class though, and by then it was clear blue skies, albeit much colder.

Yay Squirrel.

Other than being kind of nauseous and tired, the rest of the school day wasn’t too bad. Things were about to change though, as by the time I got home around 7:20pm it was time for me to start “cleansing” my bowels. It was the start of the worst 18 hours of my life in recent memory.

Why?

This is why.

If there is death in a bottle, that doesn’t bring about medical death, but kills you in every other way imaginable – magnesium citrate is it. It looks innocent enough. Just a clear 10oz bottle of medicine. But hidden within is a suffering legendary even in Hell. See, as part of the preparation process you have to drink 1.5 of these bottles in the evening, then another 1.5 bottles in the morning. So 15oz each time. The funny thing is, according to the bottle the maximum dose in a 24 hour period is 10oz – whereas I had to consume 30oz.

It all started simply enough. I sat down on the couch, and started drinking one of the lemon ones. I had read that drinking it very chilled and through a straw was the way to go. It tasted pretty terrible. I didn’t puke, which according to my instructions packet is not super uncommon, but I wouldn’t say I was enjoying life while drinking it either. It kind of tasted like flat 7-Up mixed with saltwater and hydrogen peroxide. Mmm. The cherry flavor was pretty much the same, just without the 7-Up and instead with cherry syrup from the 1500s. All in all, drinking it wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating. I got through 1.5 bottles fairly quickly (as you are supposed to drink it quickly) and then had some more Ensure (WOO BOY) and water. Later I had some broth, life of luxury.

According to my packet, “results” were supposed to happen within 30 minutes and six hours. Within about 15 minutes I could tell something deep and dark had been awoken within my core. However, despite some rumbling and a nearly immediate feeling of bloating, nothing happened.

I was a bit concerned, because my “low fiber” and then liquid diet had pretty much put a cease to my number 2s. So I knew there was a treasure trove of poo up in there, and all the tremors and quakes from the magnesium citrate had me concerned.

But minutes turned into hours, and still nothing. I felt pretty terrible, like my guts were about to explode, but no poo. Eventually it was bedtime. So it was off to sleep.

Around 2am I woke up.

The next three hours were like the Normandy scene from Saving Private Ryan. A portal to Hell opened inside of my ass and demons unseen since the fall of Lucifer poured forth into this world. It was so bad that I couldn’t even move without a quantum explosion. Try as I might, I was unable to leave the toilet. I think I crapped 15-20 times. By the end it was like a power-washer blasting out brown acid. My ass felt like someone had mashed a Dremel up in there. And so it went. It was God-freaking-awful. For THREE SOLID HOURS, I did nothing but shit. I’ve had the flu, I’ve had food poisoning, I’ve had an array of stomach-bugs. NOTHING was like this. At one point I think my body accepted the fact that this was indeed in its final hours, and so I had flashbacks to my childhood as my brain embraced sweet death.

But obviously it wasn’t the end. Around 4:30am I crawled back into bed, my ass hovering around the core temperature of the sun. And then I managed to fall into a light, haunted sleep.

The next morning I woke up and painted the toilet some more. And then I had to drink the other 1.5 bottles.

Unlike the first time, when I still had intestines, the second time around this world-destroying tonic poured through me so quickly that I felt like I was transcending the mortal plane. To make a long story short, eventually I was just shitting stomach acid and bile. You could have used my colon as a clean room to build space shuttles. There was not a trace of anything left inside of me. I think by the time it was done, I’d expelled so much that even matter was no longer present inside of me and a black hole was slowly beginning to envelope my ass.

Around that time it was time to go get the procedures done. I was extremely tired, weak, and I was also thirsty. But fortunately I had “cleansed” myself to the point that there was no problem taking public transit down into Boston. I was originally worried I’d shit myself, but nah, I had no anus anymore, just a gaping vortex into infinite blackness.

Upon arrival I got to wait about 25 minutes past my appointment time, I think my ass consumed the chair I was sitting in. After that I got called back to the prep area.

Here you get to don the stylish hospital robe, get your IV, get hooked up to the monitoring devices (heart, oxygen, etc.) and talk to the nurse about all the magical joy that your body has shared with the world since yesterday. Then the doctor comes in and tells you about how he is going to shove things up your ass and down your throat, and then you sign a form saying that you will try not to consume too many people in your anal vortex and also that you acknowledge the risks of the procedures.

After that you get carted back to the “operating” room, where you then get oxygen tubes put up your nose and you receive the anesthesia via IV. For these procedures they don’t put you fully out, you are supposed to go into a sort of “twilight” state while you become a hentai star with camera tentacles. The thing is, my body really doesn’t like anesthesia. Sort of like when I had my wisdom teeth removed and the anesthesia simply stopped working (that sure was fun), the anesthesia didn’t really have the full effect on me. So I never really fully went into “twilight” lands during the two procedures. That said, it was NOT as bad as the aforementioned wisdom teeth incident. I was out of it enough that I felt the cameras spelunking inside of me, but I wasn’t too concerned about it. I remember the Upper Endoscopy made it hard to breathe, but I don’t remember panicking. Then I remember the Colonoscopy (ass submarine) kind of hurt, but again, it was all good. I do remember the Doctor commenting about how lucid I was, and them asking me if I was ok, and I remember responding, but other than that it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Hell on Earth that was magnesium citrate.

After it was done I was wheeled into the recovery area, where I took about 1/5th as long as normal to recover – probably because I never really got shitfaced from the drugs. I got to have some Diet Coke, and then got dressed. I had the same nurse throughout the whole process and she was super nice. She even seemed moderately impressed that I once built catheters.

SB had arrived to get me, and we took a Lyft home because I was not feeling up to the MBTA.

The rest of the day was ok, I was groggy, tried, and sore, and I also had some short-term memory issues, but all of that is normal. I couldn’t drink any alcohol that first day, which kind of sucked, but honestly I didn’t even want beer – SHOCKER. Actually, the biggest post-procedure issue the day of was THESE DAMN THINGS.

I hate those things. Why? Hairy chest (notice the hairs). Try it sometime. It’s awesome.

But still, I’d rather pull off 100 of those things off than deal with magnesium citrate again.

The next day I was able to get out and about and go to Target to get some new jeans, since the patch I had put on my jeans had since worn a hole on the other side of my jeans.

As for my results, I will have to wait a bit for the biopsy results (they took biopsies of both my upper and lower tracts). However, from the visual side of things my colon was normal, other than a few internal hemorrhoids, which are apparently quite common. So that is good, no polyps or anything like that. My esophagus was mostly normal, save for some mild furrowing in the middle portion. We’ll have to wait for the biopsies to determine what exactly, if anything, that means – but it wasn’t anything majorly concerning for the Doctor. So, the good news is that there was nothing visibly wrong, the bad news is that I have to wait to see if the lab results say anything about potentially being celiac, or having IBS, or what.

In the days since the procedure I’ve had a sore throat and sore guts. My bowels are also pretty jacked up – however all of this has been improving each day and none of it is abnormal for the circumstances. I’m just really glad it’s over. In the grand tale of medical Taco procedures, this one is right up there with Chronic Compartment Syndrome testing and its screw-driver sized needles. To make matters worse, I’m now getting a cold. I don’t know if this is related to procedure (or removing all the good bacteria from my guts), or if it’s just bad luck. But yeah, it’s not been the best of weeks, but it’s not been the worst of weeks either.

Anyways, that was my spelunking adventure. I’ll update on the biopsies as some point after I get the results.

Until next time,
-Taco

The Spanish Inquistion

December 4, 2014 by Taco

A Victim of the Spanish Inquisition – I found multiple attributed artists, if you own the copyright don’t sue me, just tell me to take it down.

So I almost went with the Monty Python joke, but it was just too obvious, even for me.

Anyways, if you were expecting some big historical post about the Spanish Inquisition, then you will be disappointed. But my guess is that you weren’t, so you won’t, unless you are, then sorry-not-sorry. While the real inquisition has all sorts of fun nasty bits, I have my own fun nasty bit to share. I had to have another EMG. I’ll get to what that is in a moment, but for now I’ll say that is not something that you generally want to be having another one of.

Since moving out here I’ve continued seeking medical assistance for my legs (and also for the numb/painful spot on my upper back, an old symptom, but a recent addition to the medical pursuit). Due to some stupidity with obtaining my student ID before classes actually started it took me a bit to see my general doctor, who I ended up really liking. We talked for over an hour about things and she seemed genuinely interested. She wanted me to start with seeing one of the neurologists. So I went to schedule that, naturally the earliest I could get in was 2.5 months away. Fun. So I waited, like I have waited for 4 years. But the day finally came and I went to see Mr. Neurologist and… he turned out to be one of the biggest douchebags (if not the biggest) I have ever met in the medical profession. I absolutely cannot stand the guy. However, the flip side is that he actually did a few basic tests that no one had ever done in four years, not once. I’m talking stuff like testing my reflexes in my legs. Yeah, stuff that basic was never done. “SURE LETS CUT YOU OPEN AND TEAR YOUR MUSCLES IN HALF, BUT LETS NOT TEST YOUR REFLEXES FOR BASIC NERVE ISSUES, NOPE” To be fair, I don’t think I ever requested a basic reflex test, but I’m not the doctor. However, I did make the request for them to look at my spine, many, many times and no one ever would. It took me 1.5 years just to get them to do an MRI of my legs. And that only came after half a dozen other tests, some of them being done more than once. So anyways, this neurologist, who I’ve taken to calling Dr. Douchebag, has as Meem has put it, “No bedside manner,” but he seems medically competent. So he looked over my old EMG and didn’t like a few things about how the test was done, based on my specific symptoms. So he ordered another one, fun. However, he also agreed with me, by not agreeing with me, I know that doesn’t make much sense, but Dr. Douchebag has a way of being an asshole even when he is listening to you. Anyways, he thought a spinal MRI would be a good move. He also went even further and ordered a MRI of my brain as well. Uh, ok, I guess. I don’t have much objection since my cell phone poops radiation into me all day long anyways and MRIs don’t even use radiation, but the brain had never been mentioned before. So, end of appointment, Dr. Douchebad told me: “Go get this EMG on your legs, go get both these MRIs, each with contrast, also I have a tiny peen.”

So I was off to research my insurance. I have insurance through my school. My school pays for it because I am poor. When you pay 20,000$ a month for a 10×10 apartment with little income, you are poor. Point being, I really, really needed to know what my insurance would cover. The good news is that in-network, which was basically anything my school is a part of (which is a lot, like, a lot a lot), almost everything is covered 100%, including EMGs and MRIs. Out of network you are pretty much boned, but neither of the places I needed to go was out of network, so I kept the appointments.

The thing is, this is also my last week of classes before exams, and I had a myriad of other law school related appointments to deal with. I did NOT want to deal with this crap during exams, so I needed to bunch three tests into one week. The MRI came first. Turns out, I can’t do the MRIs all in one day. I have to have two different contrasts (The guy on the phone was oh-so-reassuring when he was like “I guess that shouldn’t be a problem, are you healthy?” – Why yes I am, I am just so healthy I like getting blasted with magnets and loud noises for 5 hours in a small tube). So I have to go sit in the machine for 2.5 hours, twice and get an IV each time. Those were scheduled for Thursday (the day of this post) and Friday consecutively, even at the same time. Next up was the EMG. This one would only work in the early morning and it was even further away than the MRI. Anyways, everything was scheduled and insurance was supposedly good (we’ll see, insurance companies are profoundly stupid).

EMG day arrives, more aptly titled “The Day Taco was a Moron and Returned to the Dungeon of Spanish Inquisition.” The good news was that SB took some time off from her placement to come with me. The last time I got this done I had some trouble walking afterwards. Which brings me to my next point. What is an EMG? While, it stands for Electromyography, but that doesn’t mean anything to you, or me. In plain English it means, 1. I will shock you with a taser 100+ times and then 2. After shocking you 100+ times I will stick electrified needles into your muscles and then smash them in deeper and ask you to flex that muscle. Oh yes dear friends, they move the needle around inside you.

So to recap: Electrocution, Needles with Electricity. Sign up sheet is on the table.

Now they don’t just do this on legs, they can do it on most areas of your body, including arms (as I would soon find out). But last time I had it done, it was just my legs.

But backing up a bit. We actually missed the first of the buses we were intending to take to the hospital, luckily the second bus was early, so while it didn’t move until it was on schedule, we at least got to sit in it instead of the cold, cold outdoor places. It was nice because the bus we took is actually the same bus I’ll take tomorrow and Friday, since it goes right by the MRI place. Anyways, we pushed it very close time wise, in fact we were just a little late, but late is still early for medical appointments.

That is not the actual part of the hospital I was in, but that is the original building that the rest of the hospital (which is massive) grew around. Anyways, once we got into the room (SB included). The test person, who I think was still in residency came in and we got started. She was very nice and willing to explain things a lot more clearly than my last EMG person. Of course she was also nice enough to tell me that EMGs are apparently way worse when you are young and healthy. The older you get the less and less they actually feel like torture. She also told me that Dr. Douchebag had requested an EMG on my right arm (for my back issue) as well.

Wat.

Yeah he never told me that, I never said “Ok, yeah lets shock my arm too!” It was not until I was half-naked in my stylish hospital gown that I was told that 3/4 of my appendages would be tazed repeatedly and then have a multitude of needless mashed in them. Sweet.

But I went with it. Because I was there, and I figured, why not. So the test gets underway and yeah, I really don’t need to go through the process. It should be fairly obvious it kind of sucks. I will say though, SB managed to not pass out during the needle part. But she was also burning holes in the stuff she was reading. She was actually planning on leaving when the attending doctor and the resident sort of just came in and started treating me like pin-cushion. But I survived and it turns out.. there is no big issue. Basically, there is some very mild slowing in my peroneal nerve on the left side. This is is sort of similar to what they found last time, except it was even less pronounced this time. They were pretty clear that this amount of slowing would likely not create symptoms, let alone symptoms of my level. Also, the right side was fine. My arm was also fine. In a nutshell, there is a little bitty issue in my left peroneal nerve, but there is no conceivable way that it would cause issues to my level. Plus, my right leg has no such issue. If this is a neural issue, its at the very least not something that an EMG is going to show.. or its coming from nerves that aren’t in my legs. My arm had no issues and she thought it (my back) sounded more like a muscular (myofascial) issue than a neural issue.

So another EMG down, similar results to last time, except even less pronounced. Answers: Nada – Story of my last four years.

After the EMG I ate a snack bar since I had foolishly not eaten a large enough breakfast. We then went and walked around the neighborhood (Mission Hill) towards the Longwood Medical Area.

..containing none other than Harvard’s Medical School (one of the University’s three Crown Jewels, any guesses on the other two?). I’ve been told its the best medical school in the world. A very quick look on Google seems to confirm that. Look at all that surprise no one has. In fact, the hospital I had just came from (which is literally right next to HMS) is one of the teaching hospitals for HMS. Speaking of the hospital, this is the back side of the old part of it, I thought the metal spiral staircases were really cool, made me think of my Pappy.

Immediately behind the back of the hospital.. confusing but that is the best way to say it. Was the back of the first (and oldest and most coo) building in the medical school complex. So in front of the back is the back of the front. Follow? Good. Its name is “Gordon Hall.”

Upon entry we realized there was a guard and you had to show a Harvard ID. My guess is because of the medical stuff, patients and things, and meeses. I had one, SB also sleekly used her Harvard library card (which also works to get Harvard student discounts – people don’t seem to notice the LIBRARY part written right on the front – good for us). I’m glad we went in, rather than going around. First it was a bajillion degrees warmer in there. Second, it was a gorgeous old building AND they had holiday decorations! (unlike the boring lawyers at the law school, which has equally nice facilities – if not nicer – but about as much spirit as a rock in a septic tank).

On the second floor next to some portraits of guys I don’t know they have a statue of Hermes who his rocking is naked self.

To be truthfully honest, I have no idea why they have a statute of Hermes.

[History Mode Engage]

Here is my guess. Hermes was a messenger for the Greek Gods. However, he also had the lesser known tasks of conducting souls into the afterlife, likely to Elysium (for awesome people), Asphodel (for normal mundane people) or maybe even the Blessed Isles (for ultra awesome people who were reborn three times and achieved Elysium all three times). Hermes was similar to Charon (or as you may know him “The Ferryman”, also from Greek Mythology but Charon is more associated with taking people across the Rivers Styx and Acheron to the Fields of Punishment (bad people) or possibly even Tartarus (think of it as a Hell within Hell, yeah it sucks that bad)). So, what I’m getting at, is that maybe they have a Hermes statute because he helped people cross over with John Edwards. But honestly that seems a little morbid for a medical school. It could also be that Hermes later came to be associated with Alchemy (and thus medicine), however, this is a tenuous connection at best since it involves Hermeticism which takes its name not from Hermes but rather Hermes Trismegistus, a loosely-defined ancient Greek dude-god-person who might have himself just have been based on an altered version of Hermes – thus bringing us to erroneous circular logic.

Also interesting, the statute did not have the Caduceus, which he is normally pictured with. Yes, the Caduceus is that “medical staff” you have seen before. Of course what great is that its not the right staff. Yeah, literally Caduceus represents trade, eloquence, trickery, and negotiation, things Hermes was known for, NOT medicine. So where does that staff come from? The Rod of Asclepius. This rod takes its name from Ascelpius, the Greek god of Medicine, and also the son of Apollo, the God of healing (among many other things). Yeah, see that makes a lot more sense. Thought to be fair, it is said that Apollo is the one who gave Caduceus to Hermes, so that might lend a tiny bit of credence to it being a healing item. You’ll notice that the two staffs/rods are fairly similar though, so you can’t fault people too much (aside from the fact that this mistake is hugely common in the United States, even among professionals). Oddly enough Motley Crew sort of combined them both, so in some ways they did a better job than a lot of hospitals.

Anyways, you’d think Harvard would know all this. My guess is that they do, since they didn’t order a Hermes with Caduceus, probably to avoid such misinterpretations. Or maybe they just didn’t want the staff and were fine with the peebob. Ultimately I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I’d rest on my “conductor of souls” theory (blended in a bit with Caduceus being given to Hermes by Apollo), since Hermes really had nothing to do with medicine, though he was known for helping mankind out in spite of what the other Gods (namely Zeus) said.

[History Mode Offline]

We then moved to the front of Gordon Hall, which is actually at the head of the complex.

Then the view looking back towards Gordon once we walked down towards the street.

It was a nice campus, I’m sure it looks better when everything isn’t dead. Except the grass, that must be some of that magical cold weather grass. Or maybe its Soylent Green grass style, I’d imagine HMS would have plenty of materials for that.

After seeing the main part of HMS, we decided we were hungry. We headed back down towards where we got off the bus to place called Penguin Pizza.

We had found it online the night before, and honestly we were drawn to it simply because of Valentino and his love of eating penguins. No really, that was pretty much the entire reason we went.

The problem was that it was still early for lunch and they hadn’t opened yet, additionally, around this time all my muscles decided it was time to start getting really stiff and sore. I guess that happens when you are repeatedly shocked and poked. But we were close enough to opening time that we just stuck it out in the cold, I’m glad we did.

As you can see the inside of the place was fairly eclectic. I loved all the beer signs that were all over the place, I mean literally, ALL over the place. Our table even had a nice view of the cold world outside.

We ended up going with some wraps instead of pizza, SB had the Turkey Club and I the Chicken Pesto, both were mighty fine.

About this time I really started to feel not well. My stomach was happy, but my legs and arms and really my whole body (my back was quite sore as well) decided it was time to not move. So we started the process of heading home, which involved waiting on the bus, but luckily the wait wasn’t terrible since my fingers and toes were starting to die as usual (in spite of my double socks and gloves).

After that we came home and pretty much ended up either being asleep, or half asleep on the couch for a large chunk of the afternoon. We still had stuff to do, of course, which made for a busy night, but by bedtime my body felt like I had been beaten up with crowbars. Today honestly wasn’t a whole lot better, I’m hoping tomorrow will see some improvement. I actually don’t remember hurting this much last time, but I also received more shocks and electrified pokes this time, and I also received them over a much larger surface area of my body. I’m also more stressed in general (exams are next week) which probably made my muscles tense up more which electrocuted (trust me, your limbs flail across like crazy during an EMG).

So anyways, that is all I have for now. This post ended up WAY longer than I was planning for it to be. When it gets posted tomorrow I should have (hopefully) just finished MRI one of two.

Until Next Time,
-Taco

P.S. On a lighter note, here is a decorated tree near the law school, the squirrels use the lights as quasi zip-lines, no really.

[Update 1: First MRI down. They did my Lower Spine and Brain today. Tomorrow is more spine and maybe more brain, I dunno, after four years you honestly stop caring as much about the details as long as you know the insurance and level-of-pain-involved situations. The worst part was that when they do your brain they lock your head into this little contraption so you can’t listen to music. That pretty much sucked. But the head lock did have a mirror to let you see out the tube, which was cool.The buses were also about 25 minutes behind schedule when I went to go home.

Update 2: Second MRI down. Today was Upper Spine and Neck. It was a bit more claustrophobic today because they used this thing that locks your neck in place but it does not have a mirror like the head lock. More importantly, I was on my stomach so I couldn’t really see anything. There was a bit of a panic attack during the first few minutes, but I calmed myself out of it and got it done. They placed the IV in the same arm and vein as yesterday since the machine is not setup for the other arm, so my left arm is now majorly sore, in addition to the rest of my body, which has been sore since the EMG. But I’m done. 1 EMG and 2 MRIs in 4 days, thanks you, (don’t) come again.]

Tristen goes to the Hospital (again) – Part I

Spelunking

The Spanish Inquistion

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