health

There's been an explosion in my house!, originally uploaded by Advodude.

A bacon explosion. I'm calling 911 anyways since I'll need a defibulator soon. The bacon wasn't as long as I had needed so there isn't bacon on the bottom yet. It'll get repaired as it enters the smoker this afternoon.

I'm also building the holy taco stadium with my brother, but we're making some changes to the turf for more realism. And to the seats, and we're adding team benches, and well, you'll see it when we complete it.

More as it develops this superbowl sunday. I will see you in the field and then in the hospital!

Editors Note: I wrote this about a month ago and never finished it. Apparently I accidently published it today. Woops. Since its out there, I shall leave it out there.

I'm about to get heavy on ya'll so I apologize in advance. I've discovered that this blog really, more than anything, serves as my personal diary, an ongoing record of my life that I feel far more comfortable writing in public for some strange reason than in private. It seems it's far easier for me to write on a computer to the internets than put pen to paper. Must be the exhibitionist in me. LOOK AT ME INTERNETS! As such, you're about to learn alot more about me than you need to know. I'm writing it all out so I don't forget it, so just so you know this post is way more detailed and long than a normal blog reader should tolerate. The details are fuzzy so I may get some of this wrong. You probably shouldn't read this at all as its throughly fucking depressing.

Seriously, stop now. Or I'll totally bum you out. It's your choice.

Last night I had a freak down of monster proportions.

So we went to the Doctor this week, and the ultrasound technician made us freak out completely. She did the scan, and pushed Cletus around to get the right angle, and lo and behold, she found a third arm. We started to panic, thinking something was wrong with him, but no, there was actually a 4th hand and another head. and a body. It's a girl!

We're having twins. I'm freaking out.

I think we're gonna name her April.

Cletus and Heather are in perfect health. All systems normal. Belly getting bigger. All is well. YAY!

A hearty shout-out to all my friends having dude babies in 2008. There seems to be a trend.

Maxwell Samuel Slavet - Jan 13th, 2008

Benjamin Louis Koebbe - Jan 16th, 2008

Arnold Jack Alpert (AJ) - Jan 24th, 2008

and then today Joseph Daniel (JD) Focarile - Mar 10, 2008

All born in 2008. All Dudes.

Additionally, The Sheas and the Burgoynes have buns in the ovens. No determination on if they are dudes, but surely with it being 2008, they certainly will be. And Frank's kid is gonna be a dude. And of course Mordecai Spawn will also be a dude.

2008 = The Year of the Dude.

I've gotten plenty of kind words from friends near and far about my recovery from my thyroidectomy. Figured I should explain everything that's happened to all those curious. I'm definitely alive. The short summary explanation is:

• The Doctor, an expert in his field, said I was the first challenge he's had in years. Apparently, my thyroid was tough, my lymph nodes larger than normal. Surgery took about an hour longer than expected.
• After a careful analysis of everything they took out, I have no cancer, no abnormalities, and am totally in the clear. They took two of my parathyroids by accident, which they warned us before the surgery could happen. (They are tiny and often can't be differentiated from other tissue.) This could lead me to have a Calcium imbalance.
• I had a little hoarseness the first day but my voice is now back to normal.
• They inserted a creepy drain in my chest to eliminate any chance of infection. Said drain was removed on Monday.
• I had some tingling in my arms and legs, which can be attributed to low calcium levels ( a side affect of the surgery in general), but in my case was actually a pinched nerve in my neck. Advil has reduced the swelling and the tingling has gone away.
• I was off the serious pain meds after day 2.
• The scar is healing nicely.
• My neck is still sore.
• Other than the occasional tiredness, so far I'm feeling pretty damn good, considering.

For those of you interested in the extremely boring minutiae of a thyroidectomy, feel free to read on. Click here to get all the boring details. You'll be bored to tears. I just felt the need to write it all down.

Independence day for my thyroid comes tomorrow. At 12:15pm MT tomorrow I walk into the University of Colorado Medical Center where they will cut my thyroid out.

I'll miss ya little buddy... I'll miss ya.

February 22nd is officially the day. A surgeon will cut a small slit in my neck, play around inside my throat cavity and remove my friend, the thyroid. Here's a photo reenactment of the procedure:

What is the thyroid, one might ask? One might let wikipedia tell one:

The thyroid is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body. This gland is found in the neck inferior to (below) the mouth and at approximately the same level as the cricoid cartilage. The thyroid controls how quickly the body burns energy, makes proteins, and how sensitive the body should be to other hormones.

The thyroid participates in these processes by producing thyroid hormones, principally thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). These hormones regulate the rate of metabolism and affect the growth and rate of function of many other systems in the body. Iodine is an essential component of both T3 and T4. The thyroid also produces the hormone calcitonin, which plays a role in calcium homeostasis.

The thyroid is controlled by the hypothalamus and pituitary. The gland gets its name from the Greek word for "shield", after its shape, a double-lobed structure. Hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) and hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) are the most common problems of the thyroid gland. Specialists are called thyroidologists.

So, that, in a nutshell, is what the thyroid is. Now if you'd like to learn all the fun details of what's gonna happen to me read on.

There's nothing terribly wrong with my thyroid right now. In fact by all accounts its functioning pretty normally. But my family has a history with thyroid cancer. I carry the gene that could give me cancer down the road, so as a precaution, out goes my buddy, Thyroid.

I will be knocked out for the operation. The incision is made in a curve of my skin low in the neck so its hard to see later when it heals. The operation lasts around 2-3 hours.

What are the risks and complications? They aren't too scary. But yet still frightening enough for a karaoke addict like myself. They are:

• Hoarseness. The nerves to the vocal cords run under the thyroid gland on either side of the neck. Injury to the nerve causes hoarseness. Approximately 5-10% of patients will have hoarseness resulting from stretching the nerve, but this hoarseness is temporary lasting days to month. So I may choose to shoot a movie about a boxer and his trainer immediately following the surgery. There's a 1% of permanent hoarseness, in which case, I may just do a two man show with Harvey Fierstein, some kind of amazing musical where we both teach the world how to ruin every song ever made.
• Low blood calcium. Approximately 15% of patients end up with low calcium after getting sliced. Low calcium can make you feel like your arm or leg fell asleep, with that prickly numbness to go along with it, all the time. So that could be fun. And tingly. And stuff.

Fortunately for me, the surgeon and the hospital performing the procedure are experts in the field, having done extensive research on it, and performing exclusively these surgeries every day. All they do all day is Thyroidectomies. And they are wicked skilled. Neither my ma or my aunt had any lasting effects from their procedures.

I'll spend 1 night recovering in the hospital with a fantastic liquid diet then go home and stay awake long enough to enjoy the Oscars. I'll then have another 3 - 7 days of recovery at home. My aunt, who's getting up there in years, just had the procedure done, and it took her about 5 days to recover, so I being so young strapping and healthy should have a quicker time of it.

Then, one might ask, what does one do when one doesn't have a thyroid? I'll be taking a pill for the rest of my life, one that actually is more efficient than my actual thyroid. Then, once Cletus is born, he'll have to be tested to see if he carries the gene as well. If he carries it, he'll have his thyroid removed at age 10 (the cancer can often appear in teens as young as 15.)

So that should be fun. I'll try to live blog it when I come out of anesthesia and see what kind of insane drivel comes out of my head when I'm stoned on hospital strength drugs. Should be a fun time had by all.

Anyone have any ideas on how to screw with the medical staff, without interfering with the surgery? Send me your ideas in the comments. I need to keep them on their toes.

Walking into the OB today, I was pretty stoked to find out what kind of kid we were having. The 20 week appointment is a big deal in the OB world. Couples count down days to it as it's generally known as the day you get a full scan of your little person, and find out what the little bugger is carrying downstairs. It was a relief to find out that it was Human, not some human-alien hybrid or a box turtle or something. As you can see below, it has a totally normal looking foot. Always a plus.

As the Ultrasound tech moved the the goo covered scanner over Heather's belly, we watched and saw it's little arms moving around at a tremendous pace (especially considering Heather hasn't felt the thing move around much at all.) Occasionally, it's spine and tail popped into view, giving it a very nice HR Giger Aliens quality to it, making me wonder if it would actually rip out of Heather's belly and try to eat my head.
After the tech told us what sex our little angel/devil/alien was, she went around to various locations of the runt to identify and mark the various internal organs, measurements, external signs of health that determine wether your baby is normal or not. She'd stop after dodging an arm or a leg and getting to the parts she had to identify, measure and photograph them, then move on to the next piece. Thankfully, the whole baby tour turned out to be a success, and our kid was given a clean bill of health. Unfortunately, when she scrolled over it's face, she scared the crap out of me. My baby looks like Skeletor.

After I adjusted to the horror of having a skeleton baby that's going to eat my face, the Tech decided to take things to the next level and give us a 3D scan of el diablo. Being a Mordecai, it of course spazzed out and kept moving, making a 3D shot difficult to take. In the end, she was somewhat successful.

The tech said it was sucking on it's hand, though I get the distinct feeling it was flicking me off with a giant malformed middle finger, as if to say, "When I get out of here, I'm so gonna be the boss of you."
In the end, we were really overjoyed to find out the sex of our child, and it was an amazing experience. It really changes things to know what to plan for. We haven't chosen a name for it yet, but are narrowing down the list. The photo that identifies its gender can be found here as I refuse to allow public displays of nudity on a family website. My child will be engrained with a firm sense of body shame as nothing says love like repression and ignorance.
So...who's got an idea for a name? Heather apparently doesn't think Cletus is appropriate. Post your ideas in the comments.

An old chum of mine from the Dean campaign, Frank Robbins, has gone and done something creepy. You see, he decided to have relations and impregnate his wife on the EXACT SAME DAY I did. Because of this, we are due on the same frickin day, June 26th. As such, Frank and I correspond via IM whenever we have OB appointments, to compare notes, as we tend to have appointments around the same time as well. He finds out tomorrow what his minion is going to be. We find out Wednesday.

As Frank puts it so well, we are definitely having a boy or a girl! As to wether we will disclose said information is an entirely different story...

More to come.