yamamizu posted a diary this evening asking where I am and why I haven't posted anything on Super Typhoon Haiyan yet. A few people have asked where I've been the last month or so, so the story is below the squiggle.
First off, FishOutOfWater did an excellent job writing a diary about Haiyan this afternoon. His diary is much better than anything I would write. He's better at tropical weather than I am -- I'm more of a severe weather guy. This storm, if its 195 MPH wind estimate holds, is the strongest storm we've ever recorded making landfall. Imagine an EF-5 tornado sweeping across an entire country, dragging almost 20 feet of seawater inland with it. That's how bad this thing is going to be for the Philippines. Not since Hurricane Camille in 1969 has the world seen such a powerful landfalling storm.
I frequently post things to my weather page on Facebook, too, so if you don't mind my weather posts sandwiched in between your teenage niece's duckface pictures and your angry teabaggers on your news feed, don't be afraid to like my page.
When I tell people that I never get to leave campus and go anywhere, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.
I posted a
tongue-in-cheek diary about my first visit to the hospital back in the middle of October when I was diagnosed with gallstones. I knew I needed surgery sooner or later, but sooner came a hell of a lot faster than later.
Just two days after I posted that diary, I had such a bad gallstone attack that I collapsed to the floor of my dorm at 130 AM and had to call 911 again. After they ran some tests in the hospital, they immediately came back and told me they were admitting me for at least the next 4 days. That freaked me out.
They found that not only was I having another gallstone attack, but the attack triggered a very severe, very painful, and very dangerous case of pancreatitis. The pain of the gallstone attack and the pancreatitis combined was so bad that I was almost unconscious when the ambulance got here that night. The female nurses told me that the two events combined produced pain "worse than childbirth." I've never experienced it myself (being a guy and all), but I don't doubt it. It was bad.
I stayed in the hospital for 4 days while they treated that, and on the 4th day, they did surgery to remove my gallbladder -- a procedure called a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. It's the most common surgical procedure in the United States, so many of you reading this have probably had one at some point. They cut four small incisions into my abdomen and went in there with pretty much a long camera and some scissors and cut the damn thing out.
I'm almost back to normal now, if what I was before can be considered normal, that is. It's sobering to know how close I came to dying on two separate occasions in the last month, so I haven't really been hanging around here very much. There hasn't been much weather going on, unfortunately I'm never around in time to catch C&J, and any foray into politics I might attempt inevitably ends with a select few calling me names and high-fiving each other like high school dudebros. Life is short...why spend it arguing, y'know? I've been using my time to try and catch up/keep up with my classes from all the time I missed while I was getting stabbed and recovering from the aforementioned knifing.
I'll start posting more when the semester is over in December (or when the weather starts acting up -- whichever comes first).
But I do have to say that I'm very thankful I have insurance to be able to cover the vast majority of the cost of my medical drama. We still have to pay a whole hell of a lot more than we should given that we live in an industrialized country, but insurance really took a chomp out of the ridiculous cost of the medical treatment. I can't imagine facing medical bills that steep without insurance.
We need to fix the damn healthcare system, and it needs to be done ASAP. But as long as Republicans are profiting off of their fellow countrymen dying, they won't do crap about it and they'll fight until they're blue in the face to stop ObamaCare from attempting to fix some of it. Get out there next year and vote the bastards out.
So yeah. I'm still here less one organ. Yo. Y'all aren't getting rid of me that easily, dammit.
Have a gratuitous sharknado.