Well, it's that time of year again. 33, I'm older. So happy.

Anyway! On to the main point of the journal.

As some people, mostly those on DIscord/Telegram are doubtless aware, I went AWOL about 5 weeks ago, and while I'm more or less back now, I've had one hell of a month-and-a-bit.

At the end of October I went in for a surgical operation to improve my quality of life. It was an incredibly low risk operation, I was meant to go under the knife, wake up a few hours later, mill about in a hospital bed for a few days and be on my way.

Obviously, that didn't happen. Apparently I started bleeding from multiple unknown locations in my guts, and they had to wake me up just so I could sign waivers for exploratory surgery, which meant they'd be almost tearing me in half to get at my squishy insides and find the bleeding. I was put in a medically induced coma for 3 days while they took me apart to find out where I was bleeding, and from what I heard/read I had one foot in the grave.

3 days later and I wake up in the ICU surrounded by people, my mum, and I got tubes fucking everywhere. Whatever they'd done to me, they'd made it work, and while I was still in a lot of trouble, my vitals were very strong for somebody who'd been through what I'd been through.

So, then began 4 days of being fussed over in the ICU. Being poked and prodded and rolled over for tests and vomiting bile on orderlies. Having blood pumped into me and getting all my nourishment from bags of water. I'll tell you what, when you're in a state like that, and the nurses finally allow you to have ice chips to nibble on, it's like fucking ambrosia.

I should also mention that through all of this, I can't sleep at all. The drugs I was put on had me hallucinating constantly, completely unable to sleep, as closing my eyes just put me in another world, a world where sleep apparently wasn't real. These hallucinations would eventually devolve into screaming terrors that would torment me for nights on end. Fun. Really put me off the idea of doing harder drugs down the line.

Glossing over a lot of details, I was eventually well enough to be moved from the ICU into something the surgical recovery ward, and eventually administration. There I sat for a week, unable to move under my own power, needing assistance to get in and out of bed, needing walkers to get around, and needing the nursing staff to wash me (At least for the first day or two) and it got old, fast. When you're in hospital and you're in dire straits, you know you need to be there, and you don't complain. But when you're feeling better, and nobody is coming to see you or test you (Outside of medication and checking vitals) you start to stress the fuck out, and want to go home.

Well, eventually I did go home. I needed a cane and given how uneven the area around where my little outdoor room thingy is, it was pretty hairy, but I made it.

Aaaand that's when shit got bad. The next day I started to ache, a lot. All over. I'd been coughing for a while and that was starting to send pangs of sharp pain through these sore points all over my torso. They'd come and go over the days, but there'd always be a nasty spot that caused a lot of pain. Now, given what I'd been through, I knew this was normal, and I confirmed it with my surgeon when I visited him for a checkup. By this time, my right upper arm and part of my upper right chest were starting to feel sore. A similar pain to having worked out, but localized.

That pain started to get really bad, really fast. two days later and it was so bad, and my cough had gotten so severe, that I couldn't move my arm at all, and each cough rocked my body hard enough that it felt like I was being stabbed in my right side. I was screaming in pain.

Thankfully, my half sister is a nurse, and I live with her. She checked on me that night and when she saw me in the state I was in, she called an ambulance. It was the right move. When they showed up the EMT took my vitals and they were fucked. So in my room I was hooked up to Oxygen, given an IV of fluids, and stabilized before taken to the ambulance and then to Hospital (A different one this time, a public one. Closer to where I live). From there I went to the ER and I was once again poked and prodded and put through scans and ultrasounds and all that.

Turns out I have pneumonia, which is both quite bad and quite easy to deal with, and a blood clot in my neck. Not a fun place for a clot to be. It was cutting off blood from flowing into parts of my body and that's what caused the pain.

After that I was shipped to the respiratory ward and put in a room with a guy named Glen, who was on palliative care. If you don't know what that is, it's basically "You're going to die soon" care. He was a really nice guy and I hope he's still holding up.

I was put on antibiotics and blood thinners, and I started to get a little better. My arm regained movement over the next few days. I was also informed that I would need to be on this medicine for a long time, and I'd need to be able to administer a twice daily injection of blood thinners myself. I'll tell you what, I'm good with needles, I don't mind watching at all. But doing it myself? That mental block that says DON'T STAB YOURSELF is strong in me. And it took me a long time to learn it. The nurse was so patient over the few days it took to practice. But eventually I got it. Only to be told I was getting switched to pills the next day. Fuck.

Anyway, that's the truncated version. A lot of wild shit happened in those hospitals but I don't have the energy to write that novel. I hope that clears up what's been going on with me over last while for those interested.

I've been home for over a week and I'm doing a LOT better. I have to wear a compression sleeve to keep my blood flowing the right way, and I'm still weak as fuck, and have trouble walking that far, but I'm improving, finally. After all this fucking time.

Cheers!