Changing locations

So with a heavy heart I have decided to officially end this blog.  My colon is gone, so I can't really write about it it any more.

Hence forth my writing will be featured to a tumblr site. Join me over at Voice Mails to Courtney. Which will feature, among other things, transcripts of messages I left on Courtney's voice mail while on heavy narcotics in the hospital.

Long overdue - The Last Meal

So this is late, 2 weeks late really.  It was mostly an issue of circumstances really.
I am at home recovering from surgery, with a bag attached to my stomach.

The party was fantastic, the first guests arrived around 5pm, the last guests left around 5am, so much drinking*.  I had planned on taking pictures of everything that was brought, but I started drinking.  I think there was something in the realm of 25-30 people over the course of the night, I'm not sure if there would have been room if everyone who said maybe actually arrived**.
I won't get into too many details as I can't recall much of it. However I did eat avocado#.

The next day I woke up at the crack of noon, and had breakfast at Sneaky Dee's^.

Then didn't really eat until dinner.

Now the actual meal is where things slightly fell apart.

My room mate woke up sick. So I spent part of the day looking after her and cleaning up.
Now my original plans^# were to go to Dangerous Dan's and have the Quadruple C (colossal colon clogging combo), because I was not going to have a colon to clog going forward##.

But the fates transpired against me.

Having already eaten Chicken Fried Steak on the Friday (which was my first choice), and Dangerous Dan's my back up having fallen through I was stuck in a lurch.
Then I thought what do I constantly smell in my neighbourhood, but never actually eat? Smoked meat.

So I went to Caplansky's.
Caplansky's is a couple blocks from my house and fills the air with deliciousness.  I ordered the smoked meat, a plate of dill pickles and a pint of  Duggan's #9 IPA.
The picture doesn't do it justice and I wish I had taken another one to show the magnitude.  It was close to pound of meat, I'd say roughly 4fingers of meat between two slices of rye bread. This sandwich was 2 steps short of a sex act, by the end of it I was tired, my jaw was sore and I was in need of a cigarette.

Now that was the last meal that my colon had. However it was not the last thing to go through it.
The evening was finished off with a slice of chocolate cake and several glasses of Scotch^^,

And that was it, I'm sore and itchy (on account that they shaved my stomach) the staples get removed this week.

I'll update again soon with details of the hospital and why I now love opiates ( I totally understand the appeal of heroin now).


*For the record I can carry $10.80 worth of empties
**As far as Facebook invitations go, "maybe" is the new "no***".
#I was indifferent and can safely go back to actively avoiding it.
^I regret choosing ham.
^# This only became my original plan after having eaten Chicken Fried Steak a couple days prior.
## if I eat it now I will just feel like a poser.
^^ Specifically it was Glenrothes 1994 vintage single malt speyside scotch#^
***No basically means "I hate you, I hope your party sucks and that you die in the middle of it"
#^ It really is a fantastic Scotch, if you are in the Toronto area, let me know, you can come and have some

SO about the surgery date. . .

On Monday I had my pre-surgery appointment.
It was magical, they drew blood. poked at my stomach, took medical history.  They also drew a lovely black spot on my tum. They then covered it with a weird medical tape and told me if the tape falls off and it starts to fade, that I need to draw over top of it.

They also informed me that my surgery has moved.  Instead of it being next Friday, it's now on Tuesday.  Which means I am really running out of time.  I had planned for a leisurely weekend full of gluttony, alcoholism and general debauchery. Followed by a couple days of recovery, and then the last meal, and then surgery.

Now it is all fucked up, because they needed my slot for someone else*. It's not like I'm calling a restaurant for a last minute reservation, I booked this shit back in February.  My wonderful room mate has agreed to run around buying stuff for me, provided that I make a list**.

I need to figure out what the last solid food to go through my colon is. If I'm lucky I'll have an epiphany in a drunken haze and figured out what it will be#*.


*With that said it is for a cancer patient, but I need to assume that there are other patients who aren't as prepared as me.
** I cant make lists, I blank out every morning when I buy my standard breakfast of poptarts milk and cigarettes and the variety store#.
#Because I care about nutrition
#*As opposed to the last time I was in a drunken haze a long time ago^ and had a conversation with my mother, she called the following week and I had no recollection of the conversation ever taking place.
^By "a long time ago" I mean last week.

My Colon's Going Away Party

At this point I'm starting to get tense.
I received a call last week from my surgeon's office saying they needed to reschedule.  Apparently they they had to book a cancer patient for that day, which is fine.
The only issue is I don't actually know when my surgery is.  I think it's now on the 22nd as opposed to the 24th, the problem is they never called me back to confirm.

But there are more pressing matters.

My colon's going away party.

I'm now starting to pull things together for it.  It's a hard thing to plan.  The biggest issue is the food. First of all this will be the most people I've had over, so there is the quantity of required, and then there are the food restrictions  Not mine, but the guests.  I'm used to cooking for myself, I'm used to tapering dishes around what I can and cannot eat. But cooking for other people's restrictions is a different issue.  I'm okay if I screw up something for myself an feel terrible, but doing that to someone else is terrifying.

My next update will be soon, right after I decide the menu.

The End of Gluttony

So since I've started this I have learned that I am terrible at keeping a blog, I'm sporadic with my posts, I'm terrible at filler between posts*.
Aside from realising my short comings as a blogger, there have been a lot of changes in my life. I started this shortly before I turned 30, I was in a committed long term relationship. We had lived together for almost a year, and it ended at the end of October.  We weren't always in the great shape and my summer of sickness sped things up.   We lived together for another 6 months, she just recently moved out. She's still my closest friend**.  So I'm in the process of getting things in order, cleaning, moving things, getting ready for my new room mate#.
So there have been some big changes.  But even bigger ones that I hadn't planned for are coming up. I had realised that I will have to greatly reduce the amount that I drink##.  One that I hadn't planned for but is that fact never be able to do is overeat again. It's probably for the best, as I'm a tubby bastard.  But Christmas dinners, drunken 2 am all you can eat pancakes, those massive heart stopping burgers that frat boys eat to be cool.  All of it ends.  It won't matter if I stick with the ostomy bag or get the reversal it will need to stop.

So I've decided that I will need to indulge in various acts of planned gluttony, not including my colon's going away party.

I've been coming up with a list, things that I need to get under my belt before it's all over.
1) The Mandarin - for those few people who aren't from the Toronto area, it is a massive Chinese buffet.
2) AYCE sushi - Which is surprising for some one who doesn't eat fish *#.
3) Dangerous Dan's - Dangerous Dan's is home to the Quadruple C (colossal colon clogger combo).  A 24oz burger served with a quarter pound of cheese, a quarter pound of bacon, and 2 fried eggs, served with a large shake and a small poutine
4) A crave case of White Castles*!.
5) Phil's Original BBQ - it's right down the road, I feel like a slacker for not going already#*.


I'll probably come up with more, but think those are the big ones.


*That does mean everything I write is pure gold
** I can't say best friend, that is a title held by a guy I've known since I was like 6.
#She's a friend from Ottawa who was going to move to Toronto in the fall, but has offered to come down early to ensure that I don't die during my recovery from surgery.
##It's not that I drink often, but it's one of my few talents. I'm really good at it.
*#It used to be because I hated the taste and texture, now I blame the moral high ground of "by catch" seriously look it up, the fishing industry is massively wasteful and destructive
*! -This hinges on my planned trip to Detroit actually coming through.
#* This specific restaurant was specifically mentioned in the conversation regarding the "five months of feasting" that I talked about here.(*)
(*) I was at Sneaky Dee's with a couple of friends just before my trip to England. I was buying British currency off of my friend Nish (who I'm pretty sure is some sort of drug dealer^ because that is the only logical explanation as to why he would have lots of British cash laying around the house)
^ or he might be a vigilante that kills drug dealers, we're still not sure#@.
#@ But he's probably a drug dealer, I don't have much faith in Nish as a human being.

To reattach or not to reattach?

I have the day off, normally I'd head out and grab breakfast, but not today. Today is prep day.  Tomorrow I have an unpleasant procedure scheduled that involves cameras, I won't go any further that than that in the description.  The key issue is I'm not allowed to eat, in fact I've not eaten since Monday night.  I've been on a clear fluid diet for all of yesterday and today.  It's no so bad, as long as you keep drinking you don't really get hungry.  The issue is really about the energy level.  There is no protein, no fat. So while there is a fire going, it's as if I'm just dumping piles of hay on it.  It doesn't last, it just burns really quick.

Now whenever I find myself in situations where I am not allowed eating, I tend to think about food.  Not so much "oh I'm hungry, I wish I could eat", but more along the lines of  "Man, when this is over, I'm getting chicken fried steak*". But quite frankly what I'm going to have for dinner tomorrow after the scope is not the topic at hand.

I've started thinking about what I will do after the surgery**.  More specifically, I've been thinking about the reconnection.

Now this surgery might be the first of upwards of 3surgeries. Specifically only the first one is required, the one where they remove my dying colon.  The following surgery(s) are for the sole purpose of reconstructing the the remaining segments of the digestive tract to create an internal reservoir to negate the need for an external pouch.  I've decided that I'll already delay the second surgery for at least a year. In theory I can get everything done in the span of a year.

I've been sick for awhile, not nearly as long as some people, but enough to really reflect on all of this.  It started in the summer of  2008.  I spent several months suffering from pneumonia and bronchitis.  that caused me to quit smoking. Apparently the smoking was the only thing keeping the Colitis at bay. The summer 2009, I was flaring they tried new medication which gave me pancreatitis.  Last year was the summer of hospitals.  this year will be the summer of surgery. I don't want to do another year of surgery.

Now from what I've read, stories of people who have an ostomy. Dealing with it becomes second nature, changing the bag, emptying it etc.  Whereas with the reconnection I will have to go to the washroom 10 times a day. It is basically like being in a flare, except no pain, and I'm not limited in what I can eat. There are also a great deal of stories about people that have had surgery to get the bag reattached because they couldn't handle the changes.

I'm undecided. I'll give it at least a year.  I might even wait two so that I can have at least one summer where I don't visit the hospital.  Maybe go back to Cuba.

I don't know yet.

*I've decided to make the "chicken fried steak" a recurring theme.
**I've also been thinking about how I can gain access to baby goats, so that I can lay with them and feed them tin cans.

The demon's egg

Most people have some sort of a love/hate relationship with certain foods.  With IBD those relationships come frequently and often.  For me I've had some long standing ones, some that developed long before developing Ulcerative Colitis.

For me they are few and far between. I love orange soda*, however they are very few I can drink, and even then it's just Fanta that I can drink.  Avocados are similar, except there is no love, only hate.

I've always found avocados inherently creepy.  Visually it looks like a large black leathery egg, if a demon were to hatch from an egg , that egg would look like an avocado. Aside from the visual displeasing nature of its external features,when cut opens it continues to look like an egg.  The seed is presented in a manner that looks like a yolk, and the albumin is represented the squishy green interior. It is basically an egg of demonic standards.

Beyond the appearance they allegedly contain other worldly supernatural culinary abilities.  It is widely believed that if you make guacamole and then place the seed back in the bowl of guac it will magically extend the life of it and it will remain green for an extended period of time**.

That was my reasoning for not eating avocado.  When I was still cooking I joked about it, and even now years later I continue to.

At first I would jokingly not eat avocado, and then I committed to the bit.  It when from passively not eating it to actively avoiding it.  It was no longer about not wanting to eat it, but it became a matter of principle.  Not eating avocado became a lifestyle choice#.

Now here I am approaching surgery, my colon is dying and has never tasted avocado.  I am beginning to reconsider my choices, it's not necessarily that I want to avocado.  I could happily go my life never eating it.  But perhaps that is a selfish choice?

It's a tough decision to make.

Are there recommendations on which form to have it in? A certain dish?

 If I eat it it will be once and only once. Even if I like it will never eat it again.

*I'm also a fan of cherry coke, which is another beverage I can't drink, it gives me wicked heartburn.
**I don't actually believe this any more, although there are legions of chefs and laymen who do.  If anything it's probably because most guacamole recipes contain lime juice or some sort of citrus.  The ascorbic acid is what is probably delaying the oxidation.
#Very similar to not owning an umbrella*# or using heroin##.
*# I also don't own an umbrella, too much of a hassle.
##However I do not use heroin#*
#*Yet^.
^When I say "Yet", I mean eventually I'm going to have to try it^*.
^*I mean when I'm super old and close to death^^.
^^Seriously what else am I going to when I'm 55.
^#There is no reference for this foot note. But the song Prices of the Universe by Queen starts of awesome and half way through it really turns to shit.%
% I'm currently watching season 5 of the Highlander tv series on Netflix, they use the good part of the song for the theme music.