Fried Chicken Moment

Last night I finally had my "fried chicken" moment, but rather than just give in to the Colonel I thought I'd try some other spot. One often mentioned place is a Korea Town (West on Bloor, between Spadina and Christie Pits). It wasn't anything special to me. Though it did come with a side of free… something. I have no idea what. Some kind of pickled thing?

Maybe that's just my tongue. It's a lot better than it was but it still feels like a "bad tongue day" and only now, 24 days after my Bleo injection, am I getting more taste back. There's still a white, quarter sized area near the injection site that's been bothersome. I think it's the slow, gradual improvement that's so frustrating. It's hard to know if it's getting better or just staying the same. At least I can eat pretty much anything now, and I've even gained back most of the weight I had lost. If I keep looking for Toronto's best fried chicken, I'll gain it all back and then some. Maybe I'll hold off a few weeks before I take on the Buttermilk marinated fried chicken, at the Stockyard Smokehouse & Larder.

On the Mend... Again

This is just a very brief update to say that 18 days after my Bleo treatment, I've officially finished the second course of steroids but I'm still working on the second batch of anti-biotics. My tongue has improved a lot in the last 24 hours and now sort of just feels bad. Imagine you have burned your tongue, oh and on top of the burns are cankers. Which is what constitutes as an improvement in these parts. Other symptoms still persist. I'm pretty sure I still have some minor infection of the tonsils as my throat is still sore, my tonsils are sore and I still have an ear ache. Unfortunately that may mean another week of discomfort and anti-biotics. It kept me from playing hockey tonight and will keep me from going to the pool for awhile. It seems I'm always sick or recovering during the Olympics.

Ontario today had a "Family Day" holiday, which is odd and I'm still not used to it but I'm glad I had a Monday to sleep in as I think it helped a lot. I spent the day working on a personal project, watching the men's downhill and putting a blind back up in the living room. I'm sure I'll be slowly returning to "normal" this week and hopefully I'll be fully mended in time for a birthday meal of disgusting proportions. I'm already planning the menu. It's going to be like Noah's Ark. Two of every animal shall march through a dipping sauce and step directly on to my hand-built 300 cubit-long barbecue! I'm calling it Pete's Great Eat Meat-apolooza!

This is Your Tongue on Drugs

Image from the Faber Book of Science. Photograhper Pietro Motta.

I'm writing this not for sympathy but for my own public record. It's been ten days since my Bleo treatment and I'm worse than ever. I thought I'd turned a corner this weekend and I had but it was a turn for the worse. There is a searing, sharp pain on the left side of the tongue, along with residual pain in the tonsils and a deeply painful ear ache (by deeply painful I mean it feels like there's a knitting needle in my ear). The whole left side of my head is like a foreign object.

Again, I'm not looking for sympathy, just to record that I thought I was feeling better by Sunday, but by Monday 4:00AM I was feeling as badly as I ever had. Of course this means I haven't slept and can barely put two thoughts together so I've stayed home from work again. My resentment towards healthful, laughing, smiling individuals is complete.

I noticed in the news today that Son Pham, a Vietnamese boy of 13 is going home to Hanoi. Son Pham has had a much harder time of it than me. His venous malformations were like a football-sized growth on one side of his head that made breathing, speaking and eating difficult. After over a year and 26 procedures he's had a major improvement and is leaving Boston for Vietnam soon. Just think of that. 26 procedures. 26. In just over a year. He must've been in constant recovery. I feel like I have a boo-boo next to this kid.

Still, it's not his pain I'm feeling. It's my own and like anything you own in entirety, you're left to deal with it solely by yourself.

Super Sunday

Unfortunately, I'm still having a fair amount of pain in my tongue this weekend. Mind you, that didn't stop me from making some amazing short ribs to enjoy during the game. After more than two hours in the oven the meat literally melted in my mouth. It would have to as I still can't chew very effectively at all. I had to force myself to eat but I'm glad I did. It's been the first time in over a week I've actually felt full.

I'm looking forward to a post-game milkshake.

All's Swell

All is swell, and swollen. Late Saturday night I felt it coming and by early Sunday morning, my tongue was large enough to force my mouth open. It hurt. Even the hair on my tongue hurt. When I spoke it sounded as though I was a stroke victim. Unfortunately, I had to wait until Monday to contact the clinic to get a prescription that could help and it wasn't until Monday afternoon I could get said script. Yet, I think the tide is turning, or at the very least the screws in my tongue have stopped turning.

Hey, did you know you could survive for days on just soup broth, sugar water and Advil? Well you can and now you know - so just pack some water, bouillon cubes, a couple of colas and some Advil in that survival kit and you'll be good to go.

How to Shut Up a Chatty Person

image via British Science Museum.

First, calm the person by asking them to breath deeply from a pure oxygen source. Then apply anesthetic intravenously. Keep them sedated through use of an LMA (Laryngeal Mask Airway) which sounds harmless enough (though this video indicates otherwise). Now, pull the person's tongue from the mouth with two small forceps. Once the tongue is secured inject some radioactive dye into the targeted malformed veins. Observe the route of the dye using highfalutin imaging equipment. Once you are sure you've targeted the correct veins, inject a small amount of Bleomycin into the veins. Release forceps. Retract LMA. Rouse patient in recovery area.

Wait approximately 36 to 48 hours. Patient's tongue should now be swollen so much as to impede speech and make swallowing difficult.

Congratulations. You have now successfully shut up a troublesome chatty person.

Warning: patients may substitute speaking with mewing, moaning, low-level growls or the more annoying whimpering and whining.

Swim Fan

As I had a Bleo injection in my tongue on Friday I won't be swimming for awhile. This procedure often results in punctures at the injection sites and well, lesions on my tongue. That always sounds so Old Testament, "And then did he have lesions on his tongue which did swell mightily". Needless to say, when your mouth is a skunkworks of bacteria, you don't really want to immerse it in a public pool so Thursday I went for my last swim for at least a couple of weeks. All the regulars were there.

Frogger
Green Cap
Bela Lugosi
Raul Pudd
Baldy and the Silver Bullet
Dick Clark
The Hobbit
Esther Williams

…to name but a few.

Let me explain. When you go to the same pool regularly, you see the same people but you don't their name. So you assign them one based on some prominent trait.

Frogger
White swim cap. Neoprene gloves. Blue fins. Swims in an odd underwater breast stroke. Occasionally swims in a butterfly stroke for about 20m then stops abruptly in a curious splayed frog pose. Thus the moniker.

Green Cap
A guy only a little older than myself. A good swimmer. Often swims two lengths doing a butterfly stroke. Then stops for a few minutes to recoup. Usually swims front crawl.

Bela Lugosi
Strange older guy. Imagine the Sesame Street puppet "The Count" has aged badly. Imagine said puppet is human, in his 70s and wearing small, wildly patterned Speedos. Yup. He's very talkative and engages in anyone near him. Especially young woman. Always young woman. Who are evidently a little uncomfortable about talking to an excitable senior wearing wildly patterned Speedos. Bela swims while wearing the kind of paddles some people wear on their hands to give more resistance, thus a better work out. This is fine when swimming a front crawl, but he often does a kind of weird back stroke/floating thing. I suppose his intention is a back stroke or maybe some kind of upside down-reverse breast stroke but it doesn't really work out that well and he mostly floats in the lane. He doesn't stop in the pool. In the change room he's always trying out his language skills on some unsuspecting soul. I have no idea of his original language. Hungarian? Slovak? Russian? It's impossible to know. Especially as he practices broken Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian on confused naked men as he asks, "fja uyafvn afii?" God only knows what he's on about. Makes me fear for my own senior years.

Raul Pudd
Just some guy who kind of looks like Paul Rudd, but not really - sort of a bizarro Paul Rudd.

Baldy & Silver Bullet
Two guys who always show up together, swim consistently in the fast lane. One is bald, the other wears a silver cap. They seem to be having interesting conversations. My other take is that they swim in some club/team which is a lot harder than the casual swim they do at Trinity-Bellwoods.

Dick Clark
An older guy, obviously looks like and even sounds like Dick Clark. Apparently a teacher who seems to have been swimming at this pool for years and knows everyone. Swims in the medium lane. A talker. Let me just say talking to other people when you're near naked is not really my deal and I find it a little bothersome.

The Hobbit
Short fellow. Looks like one of the actors who played a Hobbit in LOTR. That's it really. He runs a nearby contemporary furniture shop. We bought our couch from him and he'll often say hello as he recognizes me. One thing I've learned from having um, irregular facial features (having a face for radio) is you couldn't get away with anything, so don't try. I've come to accept that more people will remember me than I will remember. I guess that's what it's like for famous people. Yes, that's right, I'm like a famous person.*

Esther Williams
I can't figure this woman out. She wears a cap and totally darkened goggles and oddly, very bright red lipstick. She also wears one of those old fashioned one-piece swim suits with the little skirt? Can you still buy those? I guess you can. The effect is that of a 1950s extra in a techni-color aqua-musical.

I suppose sometimes I wonder what their description of me would be. "Funny looking guy. Swims pretty hard. Spends a lot of time fussing with his goggles. Absolutely, under no circumstance, will he put his bare feet on the tile floor, going to great lengths to avoid it."

Hmph, I say, shrugging my shoulders. To each his own.

*I completely forgot this but last weekend I saw 3 small "c" celebrities in one city block of Queen West West. Kenny Holtz from Kenny vs Spenny, Christie Blatchford, Globe & Mail columnist and Sora Olah, host of a local food show who served me coffee at a local coffee shop.

Eat. Run. Swim. Sleep.

I just spent ten minutes on the bike. A mere ten minutes. It was still a significant achievement. That's because yesterday I ran 3.2 Km in 19 minutes. Not great numbers. Then I swam 700 m in 25 minutes. More not great numbers. Then I went 3.4 Km in 15 minutes – on the street car. The original plan was to run to the pool, take a quick dip and run home, then maybe do a 15-20 minute cool down on the bike. I left the pool and knew I was a beaten man. I dragged myself to the nearest street car stop and crawled up the steps and sat sullenly until my stop. Not a pretty picture. A guy suited up for a run sitting quietly on a street car. "Don't worry folks, I'm wearing a GPS unit… just trying to pad my stats."

Which is actually why I decided to go for such a run in the first place. Obviously, I like gadgets and I like to keep active so when Mike gave me a watch that is paired with a sensor that goes in your shoe I had to try it. When I then discovered it tracks , maps and records your runs and you can even post your times I thought "this is great". Of course, you have to use it, which is proving more difficult.

Today I could barely walk. Really. Aerobically the run was fine, but my thighs are on fire - over 24hrs later. It feels like they were injected with some kind of weird hot Novacaine. I was locking up my knees to keep standing and grabbing hand rails going up and down stairs. I passed on playing hockey tonight so I could spend ten minutes on the bike. Ten minutes that loosened up my legs enough that I just may be able to stand tomorrow.

By the way, please note that at 8:58 PM EST January 18, 2010 the last crumb of Mom's Christmas Cake Shipment (pound cake + cherry cake) was consumed. The winter blahs have officially begun. 

…and on a Monday no less!

Cadence Weaponry

Why can't I look this damn smashing when I'm hunched over my bike repairing a tyre?

It had been awhile since I'd actually gone out on a longer ride on a Saturday. Since the weather hasn't been great this spring I guess I've been avoiding it. Counting this Saturday it was only the third time. The first was really pretty short, 30 KM, mainly because I was running out of time and had to get home. The next time I had planned on going a lot further but by 20 KM I had to turn around and barely made it back due to a mechanical problem (that, if I wasn't careful, would've become a medical problem). So that was a 40 KM ride. Saturday, I planned on trying to reach my goal of 80 KM. It was a gorgeous day with a perfect temperature and the bike seemed in good shape so I thought I'd take my time and go the distance. Not only would I try to reach a distance but I would keep an eye on my bike computer and watch my cadence (pedal rate) and try to stay between 80-90 as much as possible. But after more than an hour and a half I looked at the bike computer and I'd only done 33 KM and my average cadence was too brutal to mention, so I decided to head back. At least it had been a good ride, I discovered some new routes and the bike had held… that's when my rear tire felt wooden and began to fish tail. Another flat. I had actually been extremely careful to avoid pot holes but when the road becomes a pot hole held together by mini archipelagos of asphalt it becomes difficult to avoid anything. I was still more than 20 KM from home.

As luck would have it, I'm getting very good at changing tires on this bike. I had a spare inner tube and one of those CO2 cartridges in lieu of a pump. The only thing I don't like about the cartridge is it's kind of a one-shot deal. If you screw up, you don't really get another chance. It did work - sort of. The tire completely inflated but obviously the tube was twisted somewhere thus creating a bulge and thus an uneven ride (your wheel no longer resembles a circle so on every rotation you bump along). Let's just say it was a hard day for the, um, perineal fascia¹. There are two things I can say about Toronto's Lakeshore Drive. It's in worse shape than GM and at least every 5 KM there is a KFC. Taunting you. Sickening you. You might think oh for sure I'll see a half a dozen Tim Hortons but nope. It ain't Tim you see, it's the Colonel.

I finally made it home and rested my bones. 80 KM is still within my reach, I think I just need a few more rides. In the end I'd done 66.5 KM and I wasn't broken by a busted tire (though I'm getting a little fed up with it). I said it was sunny though I didn't realize how sunny. I ended up with a nice radiation burn a la our sun. I guess because my shirt and shorts are snug the burn formed perfect edges almost as though they were painted on which looked pretty awesome when I went to the pool on Sunday. 44 laps. 1 KM. Took me 40 minutes. At that rate it would've taken me 44 hours to travel the same distance I did on my bike in 3 and a half (odd symmetry in those numbers). Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Let's just hope I don't blow a flat underwater.

FN 1. Yes I used this phrase, and yes I used the Internet to find it, but I just didn't want this bit to get all R-rated and up in your face but we're all adults here and sometimes there just isn't a good clean colloquial way of saying "soft bits" succinctly. Well, I guess "soft bits" is succinct enough. I've noticed in sports reporting they'll say "sensitive areas". C'mon. The Middle-East is a sensitive area. Let's just call a spade a spade.

UPDATE: On June 13 Peter Rogers achieved his goal by riding 82 KM in 3hrs 27mins. without any mechanical or medical difficulties.

Tongue Depressor

That's 144 Blue Beauties — it's come to this. Buying generic Advil in bulk.

It's been just over a week since I had my latest injection of Bleomycin into my tongue. As I've probably said a thousand times, you could set an atomic clock by the 48 hour reaction time I seem to have. Two days after the injection, the area near the injection turns white (almost like a blister you've soaked in warm water), and that skin seems to sloth off, become pink, and then begin to whiten again and so on until after about 2 weeks it goes back to (my) normal. When this happens under the tongue, it's annoying and uncomfortable but not too problematic. When the soreness persists and spreads to the top of the tongue, that's when the real fun begins. How to describe this without sounding like I'm fishing for sympathy? I just want to relate the experience. Don't pity me. It's not as though I don't get benefits from it eventually.

I'll start by saying the worst looking part isn't the most painful. The areas that have gone white feel like dull cankers (not as intense as canker sores). Strangely, the adjacent areas feel like a dull ache not too different from after you'd burnt your tongue from a hot drink. The top of the tongue that has no outward signs of change is very different. Some times it feels like you've bitten your tongue, or as though you left a very strong lozenge to dissolve there – deadened with a pins-and-needles sensation. At other times it feels more like sutures or a knife tip digging in (yes, sharply painful).

Tasting flavours is obviously corrupted. Again, it's very much like having burned your tongue. In general, you can't taste much at all. At best it can be described as metallic or like iron (though that may be a bit of blood at the site). Only the most base flavours are recognizable such as salty or fatty but sweetness and sourness are gone. Spicy or peppery things have no taste at all except for the strong stinging sensation. Strangely, I noticed anything with vinegar is extremely painful (even mild things like pickled ginger or ketchup are like mighty powerful piquant sauces).

Also, where the soreness occurs affects the experience. Pain on the underside of the tongue can be ignored as long as you don't stick your tongue out. Pain in the back (underside or top) is the worst as it is felt whenever you swallow or well, do anything really. Pain on the tip (as I have currently) isn't too bad as long as you don't plan on sneezing, coughing, brushing your teeth or talking.

After more than a week, the Bleo side-effects of nausea and light-headedness have subsided but the soreness in the tongue is settling in for awhile. If I sound surly or dour, don't worry, life isn't getting me down (though it is very capable of that), work isn't depressing me (though the less said the better) - it's just my tongue. The strongest muscle in the body — strong enough to re-arrange my teeth in my sleep. My tongue that gets me into so much trouble, is now the trouble. My tongue that I've bitten so often, has learned to bite back.

Bleo Six

Friday was my sixth bleomycin injection in my tongue and I'm thinking it will be my last. It was a strange day as Angela had some unpleasant news for me on the way home from the hospital. As I was going under anaesthetic someone else had slipped away. The rest of the day was spent recovering in the weird in-between state of wakefulness and sleep.

Now, two days later, a white blister has formed under my tongue. You could almost set your watch by it. 48 hours after the initial injection the swelling and discolouration appear.

A week of soup awaits me.

Finally Broke 10KM 

Of course it only took 3 months to do it, averaging just under 800m per outing but that's exactly how you chip away at totals - stroke by stroke, metre by metre...

The Resolution Will be Revised 

I've been avoiding the pool for the last couple of days. In the early, dark, cold days of January, places like gyms, community centres and swimming pools are clogged with the bodies of well-meaning "Resolutionists". Plus, I sorta need some new swimming knickerbockers - where in this city does one buy their swimming knickers? Instead, I've been riding the bike (luckily, my jodhpurs are fine and so are my riding shorts - hiii-yooo!). The urge to get in shape and fast isn't new, check out this clip from 1957 from CBCs "Assignment":
The following program contains disturbing scenes and vulgar language. Viewer discretion is advised.*

Click here to listen

*Has anyone else noticed the over use of the "Viewer Advisory" - I mean if you're watching TV at 1AM the only advisory you really need is "Staying up late makes it hard to get up. Viewer discretion is advised." or "Why aren't you in bed? This is going to totally screw up your circadian rhythm. Viewer discretion is advised." or "If you're offended by this cartoon you should probably move to a cave on Mars because you'll see and hear a whole lot worse on the bus tomorrow. Viewer discretion is advised." or "This advisory is a way for us to cover our butt so we can show whatever the Hell we want so suck on it. Viewer discretion is advised."

Our Man, Andrei

I figured after 3 or 4 days of gorging on roast meats, bacon, cake and chocolates maybe it was time to do something a little more active than reaching for another glass of wine. Saturday I went to the pool - I hadn't been for a couple of weeks due to work/weather/holiday closures so I was keen to get back at it. It was pretty crappy weather on Saturday and it being the holidays I sort of expected I'd have the pool to myself. I guess I hadn't counted on everyone else thinking the same thing. Despite the anchovy-like packing of swimmers I managed to get a good swim in.

Today I did one better and got on my bike for the first time since November 5th. I was finally able to fix the tire and put together the trainer. Setting up the trainer so close after Christmas felt a little like when I was a kid and had some toy to assemble before I could use it. I'd planned on doing a typical ride of a 2 hours or so. I put on a movie to watch while riding and started up but I hadn't counted on being so out of form. I lasted about 45 minutes when sweat and boredom combined to unseat me.

Actually the movie, Kung Fu Panda, wasn't so bad, but I wanted to leave enough time in the evening to watch a much longer movie, "Andrei Rublev". This historical Russian drama from the 60s is over 3 hours long and is far more grueling than any time on a bike. Every year, I usually rent a handful of films that I've read one should see if one is to consider oneself knowledgeable in cinema. Along with the Russian epic (more epic to watch than to film I think), I watched, "My Man Godfrey" (a William Powell, Carole Lombard comedy from the 30s), "His Girl Friday" (a Cary Grant comedy from 1940) and the 1959 Alec Guiness spy parody "Our Man in Havana". I'm not sure why I picked these (other than the similar titles - "His Girl/My Man/Our Man") but there has definitely been a theme lately. A couple of weeks ago I watched Sullivan's Travels, and Christmas night we saw "It Happened One Night". Along with My Man Godfrey these are all Depression Era comedies that have the protagonists on the road or coming face to face with the hard economic reality only to wind up happily wedded to unbelievable wealth and glamour. I wonder if this economic crisis will result in the same kind of movies. Someone down on their luck, out on the street, unknowingly meets and aids someone else of impervious riches who falls in love with them (somehow getting a very expensive dress or suit very dirty along the way. Let hi-jinks ensue). Or maybe we'll just keep making flicks like Pineapple Express which starts out funny but just dies in the third act.

On a related note, Our Man in Havana would be a good rental along with The Third Man, which it seems to parody and Burn After Reading which feels like a remake of Our Man in Havana. For a more serious spy flick watch Breach.

The-Day-After-Monday Report 

Another hockey night marred by rain, then snow, then rain again. That's something like 6 weeks in a row when it's rained on a Monday night. Luckily, the only thing dampened was the asphalt not the spirit. My ribs continue to feel better so I was hopeful I'd play a little better. Unfortunately, we only had one goalie so we had to use the plywood stand-in at one end. Never mind, I seem to have this goalie's number. In an old fashioned plywood vs plywood show down I filled that net with a bucket load of pucks. Playing against the wooden simulacrum has significantly raised my stats. Not without some loss though. My favorite stick was lost in the battle. That's only the second time I've broken a stick in a game in nearly 8 years. I guess my soft shot is easy on the lumber.

Hockey Diaries: Part 3

Another rainy Monday though it didn't actually rain on the drive to the rink. Third time out with freshly sharpened blades and I hurt myself. Just me. There wasn't even anyone near me. I was skating one direction, the pass was behind me and as I twisted and reached back I could feel my ribs buckle into my abdomen. I knew what had happened right away. It's the third time I've done it and the second time I've done it to my right side.

What's happened is the cartlidge has torn from the rib on the last "floating rib" I guess, tearing or straining the ligaments and neighbouring muscles around the bone. I told you I've done this before. Now all I have to do is wait 2 or 3 weeks.

The funny thing is a rib injury always reminds me of is Little House on the Prairie - Pa was always busting up his ribs and getting wrapped up. Then he'd ride back into town or git up on the barn roof or whatever. All I know is when you crack a rib you're more concerned about breathing than "getting back on the saddle". Then again I'm not prairie folk - I'm just a guy who twisted hisself up sumthin' bad, Ma... now let me lie still and apply the heating pad.

40 Rock

Our Autumnal Equinox is now made glorious summer not merely by the sunny countenance of the day but our summery contentedness that good health provides.

Or something like that? Is that what Richard the Third was talking about? No? Whatever.

Summer came to an end this weekend and with it the curtain fell on the youth of at least two of our friends. We attended not one, but two parties for friends turning 40 and 41. It was a strange week of nostalgia (a dangerous thing for anyone over 20) and seeing people that I haven't talked to in probably 15 years. It's all good. It has to be. Interpreting such things differently could be your downfall – I'm pretty sure poor soothsaying brought down the Roman Empire.

Whether seeing aging classmates or feeling the winds of seasonal change in the air, I felt the need to up my activity level. A 1KM swim on Saturday and a 55KM + ride on Sunday. If I didn't feel 40 before, I feel it now.

Feel my pain.

Below is the map of the ride I took today - took a ghastly 3 hours


View Larger Map

Bikey Hokey-Pokey

You put your right foot in,
You put your right foot out;
You put your right foot in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey-Pokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about!

That pretty much sums up my first try at riding my bike with the new pedals and clip-in cleat-shoe combination. I had always thought locking into these pedals was easy, while getting out was hard. Turns out, it's the other way around. The right shoe clipped in easily enough but the left was very difficult. In the end I discovered I had to stand up to snap in the left shoe. There's probably some kind of tension adjustment I can play with to make it easier. I've heard it can improve your pedal efficiency 25% but I wouldn't surprised if it wasn't a higher number like 30% just because it feels like you can take advantage of the upward third of your stroke.

So now I'm determined to bike farther and faster than ever before. Especially after a chance encounter with an old friend at the local swimmin' hole (Trinity-Bellwoods Community Centre Pool) who told me he was training for a swim in San Francisco. Apparently, you swim 1.5 miles (about 2.4 KM) from Alcatraz to Presido Park. 2.4 kilometers is about 100+ laps of the pool I swim in. I usually do 40-45 laps (a little more than a kilometer) in about 35 minutes, so doubling that would probably kill me. Still, I'm game to try and do it (indoors). I wonder how far I would go if I swam for the entire two hours? Mike had brought the idea of biking in France and even though I know he's only talking about 60-80km I'd like to find out if I could do that first. Then maybe I'll work on stretching out the swim.

Doggy Bag

Doggy Bag

How did they do it? How did the Chinese muster the strength and fortitude to win all those gold medals? Doping? Maybe. Nutrition? Probably. In fact you may be interested to know there's a particular restaurant in Beijing for anyone feeling fatigued or lacking strength. It's called Strong in the Pan and it specializes in one "thang". Wang. Dong. Johnson. That's right. Animal Penis.

Listen to Anthony Germain's report for the March 24th airing of Dispatches as he does his best to keep it together under difficult circumstances (circumcisions?):
Click to Play the podcast.

The Chinese are well known to eat anything with wings but airplanes, and anything with legs but tables, yet this seems a bit far fetched. Perhaps as Schott's Miscellany notes, the Chinese think of animals very differently than we do in the West. Maybe this excerpt will shed some light;

"[it is said] that Dr Franz Kuhn discovered 'a certain Chinese encyclopaedia' entitled Celestial Empire of Benevolent Knowledge, which stated that all animals can be classified thus:

[a] belonging to the Emperor
[b] embalmed
[c] tame
[d] sucking pigs
[e] sirens
[f] fabulous
[g] dogs
[h] included in the present classification
[i] that shake like a fool
[j] innumerable
[k] drawn with a very fine camel-hair brush
[l] etcetera
[m] having just broken the water pitcher
[n] that, if seen from a distance, look like flies"

Or maybe it doesn't shed any light at all. Couldn't they just eat the heart of their victim? Is nothing sacred? It just seems like the last indignity you can do to a creature... serve up its dick in a broth?

Note: this is humanity reaching its very end.

Not a bad day for Canadians on the road in Beijing. Michael Barry had a top ten finish in the Olympic road race thanks to a great team effort but notably another cervélo bike made the podium just as they did in the Tour de France. Cheers to cervélo, a Canadian company that have proven if you make a top quality product you can compete internationally. Cheers too, to the Swiss rider who without any team support, rode alone to take the bronze

I told myself I wouldn't get sucked into the Olympics this time around, but I still found myself getting caught up in the events. And when I rode my old school Bianchi six-speed with friction shifters to the pool I felt a little like Simon Whitfield. Okay okay, it's a ten minute ride and I only swam for 30 minutes but even a journey of a thousand miles begins with single step.

All in a Day's Sleep

All in a Day's Sleep

Device for treating vascular malformations
Today I went for another Bleomycin injection. When you get up at 5AM, you don't need a very strong anesthetic to put you under. Still I was grateful to be in the skilled hands of Dr. Atul Prabhu. I know it sounds strange to mention your anesthetist but this was my sixth time going in for one of these injections and the clumsiness of the last anesthetist left me battered and bruised (feeling incredibly hung over with raccoon eyes and bleeding nose). So when I awoke feeling refreshed, bruise-free it was Dr. Prabhu I had to thank. I want this guy to swing by the house and tuck me in at night with a shot of "tonic" and a few blasts of pure oxygen, sweet sweet oxygen.

I should mention too that the doc who did the injection, Dr. Peter Howard was good enough to send me home with a prescription just in case complications should arise (pain, swelling, possible infection, you know, the usual).

Grant Achatz

Since these injections into my tongue began I've learned that there are some crucial senses that make us who we are. For me, taste has been something I completely took for granted – until of course, I was missing it. Which is why I take greater care to grill my meat and NOT over cook my veg. There's a remarkable profile in this week's New Yorker of Grant Achatz, a Chicago based chef running a restaurant while battling tongue cancer. Some time ago when surgery was considered an option, I met with a surgeon who had a lot experience with tongue cancer. People who lose part of their tongue suffer lose of taste, speech and have difficulty eating. The times when my tongue has been swollen have given me a sliver of insight into how hard something like that could be so check the article to see how this innovative chef hasn't let his disease slow him down.

Sprung!

Sprung!

Finally. A warm day here in the Country's jerk capital (jerk patties that is). I broke out the bike and rode to work today, or as I like to call it, "ruining a good pair of pants", or "riding the rubber", or "staring into the maw of death" or, well... I could go on but why bore you. I've already tried BBQ'ing. Got as far as some decent sear marks on one side of a piece of beef, then ran out of propane. WHY? Why must the gods of liquid gas taunt me so?

Because they're jealous of my awesome grill, that's why. Better days to come, no doubt.

Is the Room Being Projected Through a Hexahedral Kaleidoscope or is it Just Me?

Is the Room Being Projected Through a Hexahedral Kaleidoscope or is it Just Me?

Reference to: Oliver Sacks
External link: Patterns - Migraines
NY Times Migraine blog

Unfortunately, Dr. Oliver Sacks, author and neurologist, is a migraine sufferer but fortunately for us, he's also a talented writer and has written about his own and other people's experiences. Recently, an article of his described a "visual migraine" (also called an "aura") when someone sees distinct patterns or loses some vision or even brief periods of blindness, during a migraine. This article was a posting on the times site which hosts a blog just about migraines (claiming 28 million Americans suffer from migraines).

I've had migraines since I was about thirteen. For years, I thought they were just bad headaches but at times they've been much more. That's when the headache is not just intense, but well, feels like what I imagine a hot axe blade lodged in your skull might feel like. Other common symptoms I've had include sensitivity to light, nausea, ringing in my ears, dizziness, seeing spots and crystalline patterns. That last one, is strangely very frightening. At times the visual patterns appear to be projected in front of me, while at other times it's as though I'm looking through textured glass. Patterns, in general, fascinate me and there are some wall paper patterns that have triggered migraines. For some reason, I'm particularly susceptible to fine hounds-tooth which I find oscillates uncomfortably. When I see these patterns during a migraine I also have alarming vertigo. I'm not sure why it scares me, but it usually makes me ask, "is this IT, is this how it ends?"

Last November I had an even stranger moment. I was working on the computer when I noticed that the cursor kept disappearing, but only on the left hand side of the screen. Then I noticed that a part of the file I was looking at was simply not there. I saved the file, restarted the application and then noticed the same thing happening in every application. I was pissed. I restarted the computer. That's when I noticed it wasn't just on the screen. A poster on the wall appeared to have a hole in it where the wall was showing through but only in my left eye. Now I'm not pissed, I'm scared. As a test, I close my right eye and hold my left hand in front of me. Sure enough, I could see my palm, but not my fingers. Moving my hand to the right, I could now clearly see my palm and my finger tips but not my fingers. It was as if my fingertips were floating there (to be more accurate, it looked as if someone had run the erase tool in Photoshop over my hand).

My thoughts? WTF! That was my thought! While I was trying to decide if I was nuts or having a stroke, I was struck (and I mean suddenly struck) by one of the most depilating headache I'd had in years. My knees buckled and I actually crawled to the sofa, covered my head and passed out. By some miracle, when I awoke about two hours later, I had only a mild headache. The next day I made a doctor's appointment and was reassured that I had suffered a migraine and the symptoms I had were typical.

Despite medical dismissal or perhaps because of it, I found the whole thing disquieting and it wasn't until I read Dr. Sacks piece in the New York Times that I discovered many people suffer this. As a someone who depends on his vision for every facet of life and work, losing sight or having difficulties recognizing colour and patterns is disturbing. Yet, knowing that others go through this and worse is much better therapy than my physician casually saying it was nothing. If you've ever had anything like this, you should know you're not alone.

Live Feed


After a holiday where I probably gained a pound per day, I returned to Toronto to find Bernice had printed a Michael Pollan article from the New York Times Magazine called Unhappy Meals. The gist of the essay is simple with a clear directive for how we should eat.

Are you ready? Here it is:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pollan then spends the rest of the article explaining this mind-blowing manifesto and how the science of "nutritionism" is making us sick (see the CBC article). If you are too lazy to read the whole thing (by the way, literacy = critical thinking), he's even made a 9 point summation which goes something like this (which I've edited to be even shorter so you really should read the original);

"1. Eat food. Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn't recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.

2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They're apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don't forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks.

3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number -- or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.

4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won't find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer's market; you also won't find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.

5. Pay more, eat less.

''Eat less'' is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling. ''Calorie restriction'' has repeatedly been shown to slow aging in animals, and many researchers (including Walter Willett, the Harvard epidemiologist) believe it offers the single strongest link between diet and cancer prevention. To make the ''eat less'' message a bit more palatable, consider that quality may have a bearing on quantity: I don't know about you, but the better the quality of the food I eat, the less of it I need to feel satisfied. All tomatoes are not created equal.

6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what's so good about plants -- the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? -- but they do agree that they're probably really good for you and certainly can't hurt. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you'll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods (except seeds) are typically less ''energy dense'' than the other things you might eat. Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (''flexitarians'') are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.

7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren't a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn't still be around.

8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden.

9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of ''health.'' Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It's all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn't bordered by your body and that what's good for the soil is probably good for you, too."

Do yourself a favor, go print the article and digest it. It might be the healthiest thing you do on Robbie Burns day.

Alive and Kicking


Well, so far so good. I had my injection on Wednesday, came home, slept, had some soup, slept, had a milkshake and went to bed.

Today? Woke up with an incredible hangover. Not sure why but it kind of soured an otherwise fine day. So I took it easy today, but tomorrow I really have to get some work done. No sign of swelling or blistering or puss or any Biblical-style sores or anything nasty.

Post Injection

Post Injection

It's Saturday, 4 days after my Bleo injection and while I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, I think I will be happily disappointed. No swelling or soreness, very little nausea, no difficulty breathing, if fact there are no ill effects whatsoever. I wonder why the last two have been so pain free? More antibiotics and steroids at the time of the procedure? Less bleomycin injected? Or were the previous problems signs of infection? I've been more diligent about rinsing my mouth with salt water after I eat (and curse), perhaps that's the difference. Whatever it is, I may even play hockey on Monday. Perhaps I should just go back to worrying about work, bills and roof repair.

Track o' the Day

Track o' the Day

Compliments of CBC Radio3 this Wintersleep tune feels strangely appropriate for me today. It's Jaws of Life click here. Three days after my bleomycin injection and my tongue is holding pretty steady, without much swelling or discomfort (yet). The basic side-effects are already evident: dry mouth, nausea, light-headedness (perhaps from not eating), but the strangest one that I know is from the procedure is the persistent pressure in my ears and a sore aching jaw (which could just be from having my mouth held open for an hour or so). Enjoy the track and take pleasure in your own fully functioning jaws.

peter

Soak Your Ribs in Whiskey

Soak Your Ribs in Whiskey

While I'm feeling much improved, there is still a small area still healing on my tongue. Unlike before however, it is not keeping me from eating anything out of the ordinary. Why just yesterday, I ate a bagel. Now that may not seem too extraordinary but the bagel is one of humankind's chewiest and toughest breads. Eating and chomping on a toasted bagel requires the sort of tongue acrobatics best left to politicians and other social deviants. That was the first significant piece of bread that I've eaten in almost 3 weeks. This morning I ate another bagel and baked a loaf of bread. Not just any old bread, for after 3 weeks without it, one craves a savory, satisfying kind of bread.

Eating a toasted bagel requires the sort of tongue acrobatics best left to politicians and other social deviants.

I diced some olives and mixed them with a sun-dried tomato tapenade, and concocted a sun-dried tomato and olive loaf. At first I was a little worried as straight from the oven it smelled a little like ketchup. Yet it tastes fantastic and easily bests the sort of $4 "artisan" bread found anywhere in the City (of course, I can make this boast because I will have eaten the loaf before anyone would have a chance to make a comparison).

I've also been back to work for the last week or so. I'm working on something top-secret for Research In Motion. It's not that "top-secret" really, but it is easier than describing the work and
adds an air of importance and mystery which is often lacking when designing a Web site for someone (this contract is happily NOT a Web site). I've had my fill of Web work recently. I could go into detail but I'm afraid the tedium of it would immediately force your brain to jump ship from your head and hitchhike to somewhere more interesting - Oshawa or Foxtrap. I did recently get paid for a couple of things. Did I mention, I did some "voice-over" work? For a friend of mine in Seattle. She works at a publisher (actually, they refer to themselves as "book producers") and they make books and toys that include audio effects. In particular, they are making a door hanger, which, when the door is opened, sounds an alarm saying, "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" The robotic drone is actually my voice, recorded and altered on some simple software. It was a bit of fun to do - even if the neighbours, who could no doubt hear me, thought that our home had been comprised in some way. The recording is scarcely 3 seconds long so playing it would be pointless, but I'm sure you've all heard me yell at some point, "Intruder Alert!!" so you can probably imagine what it sounds like.

Angela continues to be busy. The York/Sheridan Gradshow is on this week at a Distillery District gallery so she's been busy with that. I'll crash the Industry Gala tonight with a friend while Angela is on hand to be cornered by concerned parents. Gala? Sounds like Miami Sound Machine will be playing or there will be a tribute to somebody important. I'm sure there will be wine, if not cheese (I heard through the rumour mill, not far from the Fermenting Mill - sorry, Distillery District joke - that one of the show sponsors was Parmalat, the cheese and dairy concern), so I'm pretty sure there will be cheese. Note to self: bring mints. Angela has also been busy finishing up her grading and reviewing a Masters candidate's thesis - some kind of info-graphic electoral map of Canada or something. So as usual we're busy and in various shades of Healthfulness .

I almost forgot to mention... last Sunday, whilst poor Angie was spending a long day at the gallery space for the show, I was marinating my ribs in Whiskey. That's right. Short ribs, marinating in a bbq sauce and whiskey. Ok, well, we were out of true bbq sauce so I improvised with some ketchup/chili paste/garlic/Cayenne pepper etc. and the key ingredient - liquor. I let that sit for a couple of hours then added the other key ingredient, heat + time. That slo-lo technique is the way to go, my brothers. 275° F for about 2 hours, lid on the pot to keep all them juices in. Now, in the words of Carl Weathers, you got yourself a stew on, friend. It was hard to believe that this was $2.50 worth of meat. It was "fallin' off the bone" good! I think I have now freed myself from the sticky bonds of Phil's Original BBQ. Sure it took 4 hours, but it was worth it.

Bleo Injection: Day Nine

Bleo Injection: Day Nine

Two words. Solid. Food. I've been (almost, nearly) drug free since Tuesday and have been eating solid food again. Well, small bits of solid food in creamy sauces at least. I hope the worst of the healing up of my tongue is done. There's still some sore, raw areas, but I can chew on one side, and swallow and that's enough to give hope to this sad old epicurean dreamer. That's right. Epicurean Dreamer. I know during Easter, being an outright Delusional Hedonist would be over the top and in poor taste but can't I be someone who can dream of epicurean delights? It's not as though I'm trying to be some kind of Gastronome Bon Vivant - I just want to take a huge bite out of Life and experience a country of flavour! To be honest, at this point I'd settle for a duchy of flavour, or even a salty hectare. A peppery patch?

Tonight, we even went for out for a meal with some friends. Toronto is full of these kind of unassuming places that actually offer good fare and fair prices. Sheesh - listen to me? I'm like the Toronto Board of Trade's Restaurant booster all of a sudden.

It's like I've come under the influence of a Jimmy Buffet concept album.

Yet, it isn't Toronto's finest I'm craving. I have no idea why but foods that I never really think of are first and foremost on my mind. Pizza pies, burgers and fries and cherry pies have the stars in my eyes. Hopefully this will all pass by the time I actually can wrap my chompers around some heinous fat patty and all my worst cravings will be satisfied by a simple slice of toasted spelt-wheat bread. Fat chance.

Bleo Injection: Day Four

Bleo Injection: Day Four

I have seen the Future and it is pharmacological. I am currently a fine example of "better living through chemistry". I really should just sign a waiver everywhere I go -
"if you would like to pump me full of experimental drugs which will lessen the effect of the drugs you've already pumped me with - I'd appreciate it."

I've just started a 3 day program of steroids (some kind of steroid) and it's helping a lot! I still feel kind of icky and sort of hung over (dizzy, nauseated, headaches), but how is that different from any other Saturday? Plus, it beats feeling like I did yesterday.

Hopefully, the swelling will stay down by Monday and I'll need nothing more than a Advil or something. Ah Advil, our quick acting friend.

Thanks for all the well-wishes and kind thoughts. If I'm lucky, in a few days you can go back to criticism and jeering.

Bleo Injection: Day Three

Bleo Injection: Day Three

Strange Dead Jellyfish
Originally uploaded by Leonski.

It has begun. Pretty much right on schedule, my tongue become a saturated, bloated jellyfish. A light, frothy foam has covered the top of my tongue, while the underneath has gone a curious, gelatinous white. That's okay, that's the layer that sloths off anyway. Oh and the pain? Fantastic! Especially if you enjoy electrified vice clamps on your most sensitive areas of your anatomy. Swallowing is not recommended.

Thus it was that I placed a call for some medicated backup. The doctor delivered. Three days worth of some kind of anti-inflammatory steroid. No immediate relief, but hopefully it will make a difference.

Unfortunately, even if the swelling were to recede, I'd still probably be less than ebullient. Mostly because I really really really want a big piece of cheesy pizza.

Suck it up, Peter, suck it up.

Bleo Injection: Day One

Bleo Injection: Day One

Okay, yesterday is still a little blurry. I mean, what is in those anesthetics that leaves you stunned for so long? Many thanks to Andy who took time from work to 'break me out' of the Day Surgery recovery unit. They wouldn't release me unless someone came to pick me up and Angela wasn't able to get away from Sheridan until 5-6pm (she was in crits most of the day). I'm pretty sure I could have lied and said I was going to the bathroom, left, taken a cab and gone home, but they seemed to be watching me pretty closely. I am particularly grateful to one matronly Jamaican nurse who relieved me of my I.V. and told me not to try anything (like leaving on my own) and who did not talk to me like I was five years old. I have the greatest respect for the nursing profession, but why do so many of them have to talk to you as if you are a hard of hearing, grade-schooler? I suppose they figure you're so doped up you probably have less mental acuity than the average grade-schooler.

Today, I'm feeling pretty good. Some soreness in my tongue but not bad. Though I feel like it is worsening, so I might take advantage of having this day off before I don't feel like doing anything. In expectation of not feeling like doing anything, I've rented a stack of films that I'll review once I've seen them.

First though, let me tell you about this one film I saw recently called, The Power of Nightmares Part 2, "The Phantom Victory".

On 25 December 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan. Moscow was able to install a friendly government in a neighbouring country but at a price. After nearly 10 years of fighting, Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan.

Both the neo-conservatives and the Islamists believed that it is they who defeated the "evil empire" and now had the power to transform the world.

But both failed in their revolutions.

For some this programme may smack of conspiracy theories, yet it aims to prove that most axes of evil are really just myths created to lock the public in a state of fear. The really fearful thought is how successful these small cabals of political thinkers or radicals have been. The ideas of political philosopher Leo Strauss and his influence on the American Neo-conservative movement are coldly brought to light. While the parallels drawn between the American Religious Right and Islamic Extremists are both eerily revealing and astute. It also made me feel as though I wasn't crazy. There is something rotten in the state of Conservative politics that goes back to the Nixon Republicans when the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle et al were cutting their teeth in Washington and would later help author the infamous Project for the New American Century document.

The one criticism I would have of this film is that it is both a little too high-minded and low-brow. there's the slightly haughty, high-minded tone of a British narrator telling us of the treachery of American politicos and Islamist radicals which can seem more than just a bit trite. Certainly, there is no mention of the British role in these world happenings. Anyone who remembers Maggie Thatcher might recall what a frighteningly bombastic figure she could be (Falklands anyone?) Not to mention that Britain's failings in Palestine, and Iran both between and after the Wars are so similar to American ones. Failings fueled by the faded glory of Britannia and the influence of British business interests in those regions don't look too different from American failures in Vietnam and now Iraq. The simultaneous low-brow approach of the series, through editing and choice of music and sound effects can often seem inappropriate or cheap. The repeated clips of Russian generals waving in a comically sped up fashion or the use of an out-of-place "boing" sound effect when some interview has given way to an "ah-ha" moment, take away from the revelation and instead of providing the viewer some comic respite only give the episode a slightly "America's Funniest Home Videos" or MTV feeling.

Any shortcomings however, are more than made up by the many insightful interviews from the likes of Gorbechev, former NeoCon strategists, retired CIA agents, ex-Islamic fighters and Islamic academics which are just too informative to miss. If anything, this programme dispels the notions of Conservative or Islamist conspiracies. Conspiracies or secret agendas are carried out in the shadows and back rooms, where as these ideologues conduct their work under the harsh Afghanistan sun or on the steps of Washington institutions. The openness of it, the audacity of it, the realization that we buy into these myths and fears is the really chilling part.

Winterbottom

Winterbottom

Rather than write a long-winded explanation/treatise of my latest medical updates and what not, I thought I'd record a long-winded explanation of my latest medical updates. For good measure, you can hear me complain about the winter weather - in song! oh you shoulda seen the jazz hands (Jazz Hands™ sold separately). Remember, if you have any questions don't hesitate to call or if you have any suggestions or complaints, send a lengthy tirade to pm@pm.gc.ca.
Listen to Peter's Winter's Wind

I have a bone to pick

I have a bone to pick

Well, not so much to pick but get x-rayed and poked at. Yet another repercussion of the injury in January, is that a small bone in my wrist is occasionally popping or dislocating. Let's hear it for the Lunate bone! So it's more x-rays for me and yet another thing to complain about! I just can't get enough of our medical system - waiting time for a non-emergency x-ray? Just over 3 weeks.

More promisingly, the nerve re-generation in my hand continues and at last check with the neurologist it appears to be in the last stages of early healing (yes, you read that correctly). Another follow-up in three months, just a few weeks shy of a year. The neurologist said that despite telling people 6-8 months, he often finds full recovery is a year, but avoids saying it, so as not to depress people too much. How thoughtful.

Seeing as my hand has steadily improved - I thought I would revisit the video clip showing the weird wrist splints I wore a few months ago. Eventually though, I found the splints only enabled me to do things I shouldn't be doing and thus I developed different pains in my wrist and forearm. I stopped wearing the splints altogether and hoped nature would take it's course. By July, I finally had more ability to extend my fingers and today, two weeks shy of eight months, I'm about 80% recovered (4 of 5 digits have extension - so that would be about 80%). I'll try to post a more current video so the comparison will be easier. Apologies about the sound quality. Peter

Monkey on the bed
Originally uploaded by rowdyman.

Yesterday was an awful lot of fun. Bernice came by in the morning to assemble Gina's cake, Ang baked cookies, and I sketched up this card. Then we headed over to Nona Park, and enjoyed the quiet, treed environs of a suburban back yard (trimmed and pruned into an earthly paradise by Angela's Mom). There was good food, good company, beautiful weather, a sound nap, a cool beer and entertainment provided by a cake fuelled three-year-old. It was certainly a lovely day under the shade of Nona's crab apple and pear trees.

I'm feeling as close to normal as I've felt in eight months. Unfortunately for Chris that my better health spilled into his kidney, lodging a painful stone only to be flushed out after a couple of painful days. I didn't mention we had just seen an episode of Deadwood wherein a major character suffers greatly while trying to pass a stone. It seems trite to say, "I know what you've been through - I saw it on the TV, I did, yes sirree". All I know is in this day and age, you have to be in a lot of pain before you get Morphine, and I haven't been close to that prescription at all. After what I've been through this year of minor (or less minor) annoyances, I'm looking forward to just being level and my own version of healthy, wealthy and (hopefully) wise.

Peter

Creek
Originally uploaded by rowdyman.

To cool me off in the slightest, I've posted a couple of pics of our more comfortable vacation.

It's funny, I did a similar posting last year - but this year is much worse:

Temp : 35.5°C
Partly Cloudy
Humidex: 46.4° C - that's 10° C hotter than last year.
Relative Humidity: 50.0% (although at home, both hygrometers read closer to 90%)
Visibility: 24.1 km - this is obviously a number from outside Toronto. I'd say you can't see beyond 10km (I can just make out the CN Tower in the haze).

Hopefully the heat will break before I do. I decided to get out of the house and seek a little TLAC - Tender and Lovely Air Conditioning. So I headed to a local coffee shop, Tinto, that advertises its creature comforts on their sandwich board. It's cooler in here but not cool - just comfortable - and they have internet access so it's a win win. It seems I'm not the only one who fell under their considerable marketing charm. The place is busy today. Lots of people who are probably, normally at home have decided to seek a cooler refuge. Including Cameron Bailey (Alert alert - minor T.O. Celeb spotting - hmm that's a little pathetic, no?). Who knew such people of import, took refuge in our humble part of HogTown. Yet, I digress, Dear Reader. I think the sleep depravation, lack of solid food and the heat have combined into a foul, Mutiny-on-the-Bounty-type madness. "We take the ship at dawn, arrrggh (that's me gargling salt water, by the way)."

As to my current state of mind, it is clear, that I am not clear (more of an outlaw state than say a peaceful state, like Vermont for instance). As for my health, it can be summed up thusly:
hand improving steadily,
tongue swelling decreasing slowing,
pain in tongue, severely incessantly persisting...

With that typed (for speaking is something I'd rather not do) - I've been kind of bitching to my doctor so he wants to see me tomorrow... I want Tylenol 6's - if there is such a thing! He'll probably not prescribe anything... - he'll probably say "tough it out for another week" or in his par layance "ye ye ye ye ye - but we see much worse - and they don't complain, why just yesterday a little girl..." he's always comparing me to a little girl. This little girl must've survived the Battle of the Somme, Viet Nam and the Gulf War without a tear...anyways like i said, i think it's the combination of not sleeping + not eating + pain + this heat that has combined to wear me down.

Still, in the last 10 months - I've almost lost the tip of my index finger (7 stitches), had a broken collar bone (3 weeks in a sling - 8 weeks physio) and now have a tongue that looks like something David Cronenberg would have shown talking to William S. Borroughs ("Rub a little powder on my lips, Bill") and I've never gotten more than a Tylenol 3? I mean, where have all the good drugs gone? Where's the morphine, the Demerol, the Vicodin, the Percocet, the Percodan? When I was 13 I had an angiogram done, and after I barfed up my supper, and writhed around with one of the worst headaches this side of Lebanon, some kind soul, whipped up a Demerol and a Gravol - crushed it in sugar and let it dissolve on my tongue. Actually, I think it was added to my intravenous - but who can remember the details? And yet, here I am today, in the grips of a pain that does not permit swallowing without the sensation that my tongue is being filletted and what do I get? Oh, take an Advil. Man. I am really tired of being so stoic. Okay, okay, writing a journal entry describing your pain to everyone you know may not fall into Socrates' definition of stoicism, but hey, he took the easy way out (well - I mean, after the extremely painful stomach spasms of drinking the hemlock, he died - he wasn't prescribed a smoothie).

And through it all, Angela has continued to put up with me, despite her troubles, she is still willing to whip up a smoothie, heat some soup or simply say, "I know, I know" to my madman whining. There's a lesson here - no wait, there's a lesion - and it's on my tongue and I want to be drugged up, put down, and comatose until it's done it's course.

On the bright side, I've lost 5lbs! I'm reminded of the only funny Saturday Night Live sketch in 20 years where Ana Gasteyer impersonates the whip-thin, octogenarian Helen Gurley Brown saying, "I've never felt better. I died two weeks ago, and I've finally reached my target weight."

All is vanity.
Peter

The Day My Mouth Bit Back

The Day My Mouth Bit Back

And on the third day, his tongue did swell and crack and his mouth and throat did fill with sores. Ok - so by Wednesday, my tongue went from "no big deal" to "Biblical" - as in plagued and full of soreness and overall ickiness. You know, what gets me the most though? You think if I'm not eating, I'd lose like a couple of pounds or something. Nada. Nothing - I don't even know how that's possible. So there you have it, you can't lose weight by not eating.

Hopefully the worst is done and it will start feeling better
over the next couple of days. If not, everyone should prepare themselves for a tsunami of quiet moaning. Sorry Ang.

Peter

Here we are again with another one of my patented medical updates. Many thanks to all my well-wishers. You know, it's hearing from all the fans out there that makes this whole thing worth doing. Thanks, no really, please, hold your applause to the end, thanks. Firstly, as to why it took so long for my hand to recover? Well, the nerve specialist said 4-5 months ago that it would take 4-6 months for recovery. Nerve sheathing regenerates at about a millimetre a day - let's do the math - it's been 5 months - that's 150 days or 150 mm, so the injury was about 6-8 inches (150-200mm) from my wrist near my elbow. Plus, I've discovered I am a slow healer. No Mats Sudin here. If they say 6-8 wks, then I'll log in at 8-9 wks without doubt.

Luckily, the VVM treatment hasn't been bad at all. The day of the treatment I felt pretty lousy, but all of that was the after effects of the anaesthetic combined with a bad headache I had before going to the hospital, which turned into a migraine during the day. After a good night's sleep, the headache,vertigo and nausea subsided and I feel okay.

My tongue hurts a little more today and there are some sores starting in the mouth (a side effect of the bleomycin) but over all it's not as bad as it could have been. Which does leave me to wonder whether or not the treatment will have any effect at all. Hopefully it will bear out favourably over the next couple of months.

They only did one of two procedures we had discussed. The second treatment would have been for a lump behind my left ear where they would have injected a much more aggressive solution. Had they done that, I would have, in a word, felt like shit. The more aggressive alcohol solution causes a lot of swelling and I'm sure I would have had a softball sized lump on the side of my head (no exaggeration) and it would have affected my whole left side of my head. I'm sure they decided not to do it for two reasons;

- mixing the two procedures is pretty unscientific, and probably provides poor clinical data (how would you know what was working when and where and would there be unseen side effects of combining the two drugs - the other being the Bleomycin).

- they seemed to be running about 15 minutes behind schedule, plus they had accidentally confused staff due to a change in summer schedules and they had someone scheduled to go right after me.

Surprisingly, the procedure takes almost two hours. They inject the bleomycin, then sit back and watch where it goes via x-ray monitors. Based on what they see, how much they inject etc., determines what they do next. So what they do precisely on the day of the treatment is decided by how it goes on the table.

One thing I couldn't understand is why the hospital is so damned cold. It was near morgue like temperatures in the operating room. Perhaps if they lose a patient, they don't have to worry about immediate spoiling. Luckily for me, no such precaution was required.

I don't really know what to expect in the next six weeks, when I'm slated to meet the doctor, but I assume there will be some slight swelling, mouth sores, then continued decreased swelling until I can have another procedure done. As the bleo-treatment is so less aggressive, they've found that about 5 sessions are needed to see big or full results. If this works, it's not bad at all. I could easily live with a day of grogginess every few months if it leads to success.

In this matter, patience is not only a virtual but a necessity.

Thanks for the well wishes and no need to fret, I'm doing fine.

Peter

Medical Update

Medical Update

After 5 months of relative inactivity my left hand has decided to get off it's ass and actually do something. And in good time too. I just saw the nerve specialist who said the MRI looked normal and no surgery was necessary (just a follow up in 2 months) - so while not fully functional - it's at least started to function and extend itself. After 5 months of owning a clutched mitt of a hand, like a stuffed monkey paw memento from a Brady Bunch episode (minus the fun occult curse) it feels good to sit and practice opening and closing my fingers. Weeeeee look-at-it go! Summer fun never ends when you have two functioning hands!

Now for the really serious news. On Wednesday I was told that Monday, July 24th I finally go for one of several planned 'sessions' in which my tongue will be injected with Bleomycin and other lumps of knotted blood vessels may or may not be injected with an alcohol solution. These various drugs are injected "at the site of the malformation" with the aim of shriveling them into insignificance. The hopeful result being no more lumps in my tongue, jaw, ear, neck etc. etc.

The Bleomycin is a recently approved treatment which is less aggressive (causes less swelling) than other solutions and is thought to be the best approach to treating Venous Vascular Malformations (VVM) in the mouth, tongue, lips or other sensitive areas. This new treatment is practiced in two places in the world. Toronto and Johannesburg. It may take up to 5 sessions, with several months in-between each, to make a significant difference but it really is the only option as other solutions cause too much swelling to be practical in the mouth or tongue. So hopefully the toughest part of this session will be getting to the hospital at 6:30 in the AM. It's a out-patient sort of thing, so I'll be home in time for tea and scones. I'll probably be completely out of it on Monday but hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday, I'll just have a slightly sore tongue and be in a mildly sour mood. Unlike the last treatment I had with alcohol, where I was sore and weeping (i.e. bleeding) for 2 weeks, I shouldn't really notice Bleomycin working. Because there is less swelling, it will take more injections over a longer period to achieve the desired results. If I'm really lucky, one injection will have sweeping results and have a great impact. If I'm really unlucky, there will be no change. I expect the result to fall somewhere in-between. As with anything organic, it will take time and patience to see what the real results will be.

So there you have it. You are now just as up-to-date on my health as I am. You lucky devils! So many people are completely ignorant of my health it is really very sad. I only hope my recent UN designation as a Superficially Unhealthy Citizen (or SUC as we like to call ourselves) will help all those other people with minor skin aliments, bothersome allergies and stiff necks from sleeping awkwardly on the couch to know that you are not alone. We will prevail and the future is ours to enjoy.

Yours, regardless,
Peter

Stanford campus
Originally uploaded by mzan71.

This week Angela is in sunny California, attending the Diagrams 2006 Conference on the beautiful Stanford Campus, which leaves me at home alone. Don't worry 'bout ol' Pete - I'm a one man amusement park. Why just yesterday I was thinking of all the things, other than TV, I could do around the house.

Welcome to the Not-Dating Game where contestants attempt to out do each other's inane pass times.

Bachelor #1, what kind of entertainment do you like when you're alone?

Bachelor #1:
Ummm… I like to rent movies, forget about 'em, then, like, remember I have them around 10PM and watch them until I fall asleep. Unless there's a game on - like now - (raising his fists and pumping them in an ape-like fashion above his head) - WORLD CUP!!! Woooooooo hooooooo!! Am I right? Go England! Woooohooo!!!

Okay okay, settle down now, ha ha, what fun.
Now Bachelor#2, what kind of meal do you like when you're alone?

Bachelor#2:
Steak.

Is that it?

Bachelor#2:
well, steak and frites, but you know frites some times take awhile... you gotta cut up the potatoes and what not.

So that's it?

Bachelor#2:
Or ribs. They take awhile too. hmmm… maybe ribs. No, steak.

Okay, well put, lots of thought put in that, great.
Bachelor#3, what's your favorite beverage for your "alone time" - something you really like to treat yourself to?

Bachelor#3:
Beer.

Recently Taken

It had been a bad day. My salty summer cold had taken a turn for the worst. My throat felt like hot asphalt embedded with broken glass, my teeth felt as if each one had a deeply bored cavity (thanks to my congestion). Incongruously, despite nasal blockage one might find at the Hoover Dam, my nose dripped a clear, gelatinous fluid. Worse yet, as I had neglected to fill my asthma prescription, I felt like a very fat man was sitting on my chest, making breathing a concentrated effort. When I finally got my 'scripts filled, there was no immediate relief. As these drugs act cumulatively it would take 2-3 days before I felt better.

Cumulatively. It was this word that made me wonder what drugs and substances I had 'accumulated' during that day. So here it is, a clear listing of the known amounts of medicinal and non-medicinal ingredients I took over a sixteen hour period. Notably, the first four lines are things I take everyday.


Medicinal ingredients

50 mcg Salmeterol
250 mcg fluticasone propionate
10 mg montelukast sodium
50 mg zinc gluconate
25 mcg cyanocobalamin (B12)
25 mg Pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6)
350 mg Echinacea purpurea
400 mg Ibuprofen
650 mg acetaminophen
90 mg pseudoephedrine hydrochloride
4 mg chlorpheniramine maleate
12.5 mg dextromethorphan hydrobromide
salbutamol


Non-medicinal ingredients

hydroxypropyl cellulose
magnesium stearate
mannitol
sugar
sodium starch glycolate
silicon dioxide
calcium phosphate
microcrystalline cellulose
vegetable magnesium stearate
gelatin
cellulose
croscarmellose sodium
D&C yellow No. 10
FD&C Yellow No. 6
hypromellose
polyethylene glycol
polysorbate
starch
titanium dioxide
wax
zinc stearate
ammonium carbonate
camphor
Canada balsam
carrageenan
menthol
pine needle oil
sodium butylparaben
sodium cyclamate
sodium proplyparaben
tincture of capsicum
water

Oddly, the scariest part of the list is the non-medecinal part. Polyethylene? That was the coating of Sinutab pills. The same plastic used in Coke bottles and shopping bags? Wax? Camphor? Ammonium carbonate? This is just the stuff to keep the pills together but still - you have to wonder, is it doing more harm than good?

One thing probably did more harm than good. I see I inadvertently took a triple dose of the decongestant pseudoephedrine hydrochloride by taking a dose of Buckley's in the morning and two Sinutab capsules at night. It works by reducing the swelling of mucous membranes (ewww) in your nasal passages - but this drying out of your mucous leaves you dry, very dry. So dry, that you now lack your body's built-in protection from dust spores and other allergens. In other words, you are now more susceptible to things that may trigger an asthmatic episode. Bingo!

Oh well, (barely) live and learn.

Peter

Flower Power It's been over 3 weeks since Angela's surgery, and she's back to work and her stitches are healing, and yet, we still have flowers sprinkled around the house from well wishers. I know when you send a bouqet you never really get a chance to see the thing so, with that in mind I thought I'd post these photos so everyone would know what you sent arrived and how great it actually looked. Thanks again for all the thoughts and wishes of bon santé (if that's correct). I can tell you Angela was more overwhelmed by everyone's attention than the procedure itself. I'm happy to report that all of Angela's symptoms seem to have subsided, from high blood pressure to high blood sugar, the headaches, fatigue, sweating and heart palpitations all seem to be a thing of the past. Ang has a couple of follow up appointments, but it looks right now as though she's in the pink.

Another August has come and gone - here are the photos to prove it. Usually we cap off the summer with a big meal with family and friends yet, this year we really didn't have a big splash for Angela's birthday. Plus we thought we'd wait until her surgery was done before we do anything. Despite that and the cool weather we still had quite a bit of excitement this week. We had visitors from Vancouver, Ottawa and Rochester and before we knew it - Angela had another niece. Lucia Giuseppa McLaren, was born September 1, 2004 at 7:08 AM Pacific Time, at a small but healthy 5lbs 11oz. Unfortunately, no pictures at press time, but I'm sure I'll be posting some soon enough.
Peter

There once was a man with Vascular Malformations,
which could only be shrunk with alcoholic injections,
who would've thunk,
that an incurable drunk,
could be cured with pure distillations.

City of Toronto: DineSafe: Public Health Food Premises Inspections and Disclosure System Every city should have a service like this. Search for your restaurant and check out its public health record.

I admit it. I am wrong. As it turns out, I've been wrong for over 20 years. What I, and many health professionals have been calling Hemangioma is in fact something else. The lumps of blood filled veins I've been calling Hemangioma is more correctly called Venous Vascular Malformations. This I learned after I had twice passed through the SARS gauntlet this week to see a Doctor at Toronto Western's vascular lesion clinic. Don't worry, Western hasn't had any reported cases of SARS so chances of catching something are non-existent. I know it would be cliche to say this, but you still have a higher risk of being hit by traffic in this city than any naturally virulent disease. I'm glad to see some people are finally seeing some humour in the SARS media epidemic (see the SARS Art Project).
Entering a hospital in Toronto lately has been similar to Dustin Hoffman suiting up in the film "Outbreak". You stand in line as someone helps you tie a mask on, then you hold out your hand as if to take Holy Communion, only to receive a dollop of anti-bacterial hand gel and then you get your temperature taken whilst completeting a form stating your name telephone number and whether you've been in contact with any monkey pox-infested prairie dogs. Again, on leaving you receive another glob of hand gel and discard your mask into a large waste bin. The cost of hand gel and disposable masks alone must be running the health system dry.
A little recap may be in order here; after seeing my GP in March about my blood engorged face, I was referred to a dermatologist in April who referred me to a Plastic Surgeon at Toronto Western who in turn said "Toronto Western just happens to have a vascular lesion clinic - you can see someone there." Oh, I says - I guess living in Toronto is turning out to have a bright side. Ontario Healthcare may be in crisis, but it's state of crisis is still better than most in a state of normalcy.
Thursday, I went into the hospital to meet another doctor, the Chief of neuroradiology at the Toronto Western Dr. TerBrugge (it's Dutch so don't bother pronouncing it, though I've gotten by with Tur - Brewg - I'm sure it's more likely - Tear-Brew-Guh - and this guy is very Dutch). He was in some sort of emergency and couldn't see me. I joked his emergency had more to do with losing his pitching wedge on the 9th hole. I went back on Friday, at noon, having already been told by his assistant that 11 was no good. Finally, I get called in to see him when I start forming a picture that perhaps I wasn't the most important case he had to handle. It becomes clear that this guy normally works on vascular lesions - in the brain. Dealing with something on the face was really approaching cosmetic surgery to him. Like swatting a fly with laser guided missiles, I suppose. Yet, he was very helpful and explained my condition (gruesome PowerPoint presentations seemed necessary), explained how MRI's were much better than angiography (which they don't use for vascular malformations anymore) and what could be done to get rid of it.
It's pretty simple really. Basically, the swollen area are tiny sacks of blood which are always filling and emptying of blood. As you get older, the sacks become less elastic and stay filled with blood. So you identify feeder veins using the MRI images, and inject alcohol into those veins. The alcohol irrates and attacks the tissue lining these little sacks which begins to disintegrate and collapse until they close and heal shut. With no more blood able to enter those areas the swollen area goes away. If you are lucky, an entire, extensive network is connected and more than just the local area is affected - meaning more goes away. Usually though only the area locally targeted will dissipate. Apparently, there is a new technique being carried out by a physician in South Africa in which, mild doses of drugs used to treat cancer are used instead of alcohol and the results have been that more extensive areas of the malformations disappear. But that treatment may be years away from use in Canada.
So for me,
Step 1) Have the MRI - which will be used as a benchmark from which to follow the progress/change of the malformations for years to come.
Step 2) Once the MRI is done, consult the necessary physicians to decide whether to attempt treatment.
Step 3) If treatment is decided, book a time and wait.
Step 4) If I decide not to go ahead, I guess I should probably plan to have another consultation in the future.
For me though, if treatment looks reasonable, I'll probably go ahead with it as the area of my face that is currently swollen seems to be sticking around. I've decreased the swelling a lot with heating but you know, you can spend a month reducing the swelling and then one day I'll wake up and it's as large as it was weeks before.
Right now, the MRI should happen in late July and I guess treatment might take longer to arrange. For that you need an anesthesiologist, and with the SARS backlog of surgeries, that particular group are overworked at the moment. I've been surprised by the speed that things have progressed so far but if I were to have this done by the autumn I'd be surprised.

That's it so far. I'll let you know more as I know more.
Peter