I'm Not Dead

(Image belongs entirely to Allie Brosh. I just think it's pretty.)

If my life could be summed up in five words, they would be "Of fucking course it did". This is generally the phrase I turn to whenever things fuck up, and believe me, they fuck up.

So after a week of throwing up, fever dreams and various other unpleasantries that carried over into my trip to Toronto, I decided that this shit would not fly. I decided to go to the hospital on a whim, hoping to clear up whatever exactly the fuck was wrong with me. They pulled me in for an observation and asked what was wrong with me, to which I replied by grabbing the waste basket and heaving.

I like to think that was pretty self-explanatory.

The rest of the day was spent turning me into a goddamn pincushion, x-raying me and voiding the contents of my stomach. For the most part, everything was pretty tolerable until they brought in the fucking nose tube. Needless to say, when a doctor comes up to you with an unbearably large tube, telling you that he needs to shove this up your nose and into your stomach, fucking run. That voice in the back of your head saying that it won't fit in your nostril? It's right. And it's going to continue being right even as the doctor feeds the damn thing down your esophagus and you sob and gag uncontrollably while you pray for it to just please God make it stop.

It was at this point, as I sat there completely discombobulated and wondering why there was a straw jutting out of my nostril, that Dr. V walked in. Dr. V was one of those classically beautiful women, with the black curls, the pale complexion and the perfectly refined bone structure that makes it appear as if she walked off the set of Some Like It Hot. I suppose this made it easier for her to tell me that I had a strangulated hernia; bad news is just easier to handle when the bearer is pretty. For those of you wondering, a strangulated hernia is when part of the colon gets attached to the mesh used to repair the abdominal wall. This results in the large intestine clogging up and...You know what, I'm just going to stop right there. Believe me, there's more to it, but it's-It's just fucking unpleasant and it makes you feel absolutely horrible all over.

And the kicker in all of this? According to Dr. V, strangulated hernias are a complication that arise in only one in 35,000 hernia operations. That's less 00.003%. This is a nice way of saying that God essentially just bitchslapped me in the face.

The surgery went well (or at the very least, I'm assuming it did; I wasn't exactly lucid through most of it) and when I came too I was surrounded by my enormous family, which as it turns out would be something of a running theme throughout the week. Thankfully, as we all know family is much more tolerable when you're tripping balls on morphine. This would be another running theme throughout the week.

Oh, and just to top off my complete loss of dignity and/or self-respect: They stuck a catheter in me while I was out. In all honesty, while I'm generally very good at sticking things into openings they usually don't go, I tend to draw the line at sounding; things are not supposed to go up my peehole. But there it was: a tube jammed up my cock. And just in case you're wondering: Why yes, it is unbearably painful when you take it out! I'm not going to lie, I cried a little.

The next week (yes, week) was spent in the hospital with all of one book and a TV with about five English channels. I walked around a little, I slowly regained control of my insides, and I got jabbed with needles. Now, for the record, I'm terrified of needles. Well, that might be a bit general; I'm terrified of intravenous needles. There's a big difference. You see, tattoo needles only go about 1/4 of an inch deep into your skin. All in all, not too bad. Piercing needles go through a thin layer of skin, and most importantly, don't go through any big arteries or veins. Once again, A-okay. HOWEVER, needles go right into your fucking bloodstream, and then they introduce new shit into your bloodstream. This does not fucking sit well for me. Not that it stopped the nurses from teasing me about my inability to go through a blood test without squirming uncomfortably.

Speaking of the nurses, they were amazing. Actually, the hospital in general was pretty amazing. And the food was one of those room service deals where you could order down to the kitchen off of a giant ass menu full of amazing food whenever you wanted. For free. God bless socialized healthcare. That being said, I was really only too happy to get the hell out of there.

So where does this leave me? Well, it'll be another two or three weeks before my body is back to normal. I lost a ton of weight, which I worked my ass off in the gym to pack on (I'm not saying it was that much, but I'm still proud dammit!) I decided to go off my vegetarian diet at least until my body is back to it's regular fighting shape. And I can't attend the Canada's Next Top Porn Star competition hosted by Falcon, Colt and Next Door Studios that was going on up here in Montreal since my stomach looks like I got into a knife fight, which quite frankly just depresses me since I was really looking forward to it for the past couple weeks. Sooooooo...Yeah. Sad Panda. But whatever, no one ever got anything done by sitting around and complaining about a shitty hand. Looks like it's time to rebuild myself again.

I dunno...Jeremy Feist 2.0?