Health Update #2

A more step-by-step procedural post...

Saturday
10:00 PM Take last 20mg dose of Verapamil till procedure

Monday
4:00 PM Dr. Dana Eisenman runs a baseline EKG. Gives me a flu shot. Looks in my ears, nose and throat (For what? The problem's the heart. He's thorough). Order blood and x-ray.

4:30 PM Downstairs lab pulls three vials of blood. Gives me a "You're a hero" sticker I use as a bookmark.

4:45 PM Get to x-ray lab and get two chest x-rays. Back to machine and right side, arms up to machine. Leaving lab, notice door says closes at 4:30.

Friday
4:30 AM Up for quick shower. Out the door by 5:00.

5:30 AM Arrive Cedar Sinai and with in 10 minutes, walked to 6th floor Cardio Cath Lab Lobby. With in 5 minutes, asked for money and signing releases (What exactly is a Health Care Directive?). Within 1 minute, called back to lab.

6:00 AM Strip down and neatly put street clothes in plastic bag. Put 'gown' open on the back (What's the point? Later I am unconscious and naked, anyway). After having Anthony shave places no man (gay or straight) should every shave someone, I hear him say to a nurse "The last guy I shaved tipped me, the procedure worked perfectly and he never had to come back." At least they are now using electric razors. One #20 gauge IV is inserted into my lower left arm. They start to wheel me in and I say, "Can I at least say 'bye' to Clay?" They're not rude, just super fast about it all. I later learn there's a back up in cardio caths.

6:05 AM Move to Cardio Cath Lab where three people are doing a variety of things. Most obvious is that they are talking about the Jazz playing in the room. Also, they ask if I have a iPod I want to listen to (oops, forgot to bring that to the Cardio Cath Lab). Story about drunk guy at bar listening to Coltrane playing for 15 minutes straight who stands up and slurs, "When ya gonna quit warmin' up an get ta playin?"

Moving me from my gurney to the procedure bed, one is sticking cold sensors about 8 inches square to my bare chest and back, hooking up wires while another is arranging curved Lucite arm rests that hold me in place. I don't know where the gown is. Someone is uncovering the bottom half of me. The last guy is Fred and he puts what I thought was oxygen on my face. One minute later, I'm asleep.

2:00 PM I wake up and think, where am I. Clock on the wall. Thought I was in the Cath Lab Prep room but I'm in my recovery room. I now have air compresses at the three entry points (right & left groin and neck). Better than the sandbag compresses used last time, more gentle. Instructions are to lay flat and still for four hours. Not as easy as it sounds. Between this and having the urethra catheter pulled, I'm not sure which is worse.

2:30 PM EKG, blood pressure machine goes off every 15 minutes. Just keep in mind, it is tightly wrapped and when you least expect it, it tightens more than an anaconda python.

5:30 PM I get into a discussion with the nurse about going ahead and pulling the urethra catheter but they say not to. I need to go. I can’t wait. Just use the catheter they say. I begin to, but it isn’t in right and so I’m lying in a pool of my own urine. At least I feel it wasn’t really my fault. They decide to go ahead and pull it now. Not a good feeling at all.

5:55 PM Finally, I can get out of my puddle and clean up. I must dress for dinner.

6:00 PM Brisket, mashed potatoes, peas, salad. Not bad really. Sitting up and able to bend my legs. Must stay seated for two hours.

6:30 PM One more test is needed. A CAT Scan. The 20 gauge needle in my fore arm is too far away for the heart so an identical 20 gauge needle is put 6 inches further up the arm. But wait. You just ate. Needs to be four hours after your meal. No food or water till it’s done. Maybe 10:30 or 11:00.

11:00 PM Haven’t heard yet so no water, no midnight snack. CAT room is backed up. Very busy.

Saturday
12:00 AM Still gonna have it done. Calling down every 30 minutes. Hold tight. Emergencies are going first.

2:00 AM I go to bed (they changed the sheets earlier).

2:05 AM Nurse does another battery of vitals. Puts the blood pressure machine on once an hour. When I doze off, I keep suddenly jerking awake. I notice that when I awake with a start I feel very differently than before. I used to wake with a few flutters and skipped beats. Now, I don’t feel my heart but I feel a rush of warmth to my extremities, which I later decide id adrenaline which used to just cause the heart rhythms. It is a good feeling to have your heart beat correctly.

3:05 AM Wake up when blood pressure machine goes off. Call nurse for water, but I’m two patients away from having the scan done. Eat or drink nothing.

4:05 AM Time for vitals. Like they can’t see from the heart monitor that I’m still alive.

5:05 AM Wake up when blood pressure machine goes off. Call nurse for water, but I’m two patients away from having the scan done. Eat or drink nothing.

6:05 AM Time for CAT scan. Go downstairs, get put into a tube, shoot in some iodine and hold breath. Iodine feels warm inside the body but mostly at the throat and the groin. Whole thing takes 10 minutes. Oh, and the room I’m wheeled to has space for 20 beds and is completely empty. Have been all night. Just no staff to do it. Should have known it’d be in the morning. Should have been able to drink water before bed, etc.

7:00 AM Back in room. Lovely breakfast of French toast, scrambled eggs and mini-wheat cereal, pears, cranberry juice. All pretty tasty.

9:00AM Last consult with Dr. Salvo who performed the ablation with Whaung and Gallik. Very interesting case. Same spider web type of procedure and scarring in the heart but seems to have gotten all. No physical exertion for a week or so. Easy bike rides ok. No lifting of 25 pounds for a week. Limit alcohol to one glass a day for 10 days (we’ll see about that). No prescriptions. Very good prognosis.

10:00AM Home. Take shower. Remove groin bandages to reveal 8 inch charcoal purple bruise on left side.

Health Update #1

I am AOK or now, but the doctor's suggest I set up a Porsche fund.

The last time I had this done, the procedure was $83,000. I've had this done four times now. My regular doctor did number one and two. A specialist was called in from Utah for three and four. So, I'm probably up to $400,000 by now. Throw in the $1000 doctor's office visits and the emergency room visits and the electrocardioversion and we are at $500,000.

I may not be the six-million dollar man, but I'm well on my way to being the one-million dollar man!! If my insurance co-pay was 20 percent, we're talking about a PORSCHE, aren't we? I first thought I was looking at $20,000, but soon realized I was talking about $200,000. Luckily, the co-pay is just 10% so get those checks coming!!! ( Just kidding, really. The State plan is 100% with a $50 hospital co-pay each visit, so my true out of pocket has been just probably less than $300 or $400 over the last 5 or so years this has been going on. *** good luck Clay decided to marry me, at least in a domestic partner state!)

Good night for now. Prime time TV starts in a bit and Cedars-Sinai has about thirty channels and NO guide so I'll be spending an hour fiding out what's on just in time for what I want to see to be going off!!

Hope to see you all soon.

Kelly Nipper at Anna Helwing Gallery

I went to the Kelly Nipper exhibition at Anna Helwing Gallery before it recently came down. I enter the darkened space through drapes over the back gallery glass wall. On the left and right entry were a series of six photographs of mechanically produced choreography diagrams. While the choreography is based on the work of dance artist and theoretician Rudolf Laban from the early 20th century, as a photographic work, these images served to freeze frame the performative nature of the video I was about to witness. They seem cursorily produced from vast and important research for the work, but are still a good addition to the show. I also appreciated the connection between the photograph serving as a still-frame from a cinematic production based on a performance.

Within the main space were two seemingly identical video projections on opposite walls from each other. A dancer standing in front of a black wall performed a slow circular hip rotation in a black leotard. The leotard blended with the black wall resulting in the image of a decapitated head and bear arms motionlessly floating above her pale gyrating hips. Upon, closer inspection one notices that the movement is faster in one of the two videos and the seriality of the project is cracked.

Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer has written about the video on her Artforum Pick, so I will move to the sound booth sculpture…

Also, in the main space, but snaking its way toward an alcove behind one of the video walls, was a sound recording booth. A brilliant sculpture in minimalist tradition, the approximately five-foot square booth was open on one side to reveal a low platform covered in Mylar used for drum heads resting below a mobile made of wire and oval ice. As the ice slowly melted, an amplifying system connected to speakers in the alcove broadcasted thunderously loud thumps recorded by microphones under the platform.

My knowledge of the basis of Nipper’s decisions is vague, but reading the press release introduces the thought of “the hurricane as a form of unmeasured movement presented in relation to clock-time, human emotion, and the science of meteorology.” As storms generate precipitation higher in the atmosphere as ice that melts and falls as rain, the conceptual force of the sculpture is the most cogently strong thing I’ve experienced in art this year. Brava to Kelly Nipper for her outstanding performance.

I understand the work will be re-installed at ArtBasel Miami Beach this December. I highly recommend it there as this work will probably next be seen in a museum or (unfortunately) tucked away in a collector’s vault or private home.

Christopher Davidson

A picture of my Canadian friend whom I miss. We had a great time together during his short stay in Los Angeles...

Cut and Paste

Radiohead tells fans to pay what they want for album
10/01/2007 11:25 AM, Reuters
Jonathan Cohen

Radiohead, one of the world's most influential rock bands, plans to sell its new album from its Web site as a digital download and let fans choose what they want to pay.

With music sales in decline globally for seven successive years, the industry is engaged in a debate over how best to reverse the trend.

Radiohead said its seventh studio album "In Rainbows" would be available from Radiohead.com from October 10 in MP3 format, meaning it can be played on all digital devices. In the latest twist in the move to digital music, fans can choose how much to pay, or can pay nothing if they prefer.

The band will also offer a special edition boxed set for 40 pounds ($82) which will be available later and will include two vinyl albums, a CD version of the new album and a second CD with additional new songs, artwork and photographs of the band.

Music observers said the British five-piece, which is no longer signed to a record label, is able to sell directly to its fans because it has such an established support base.

"They are the first band to put their money where their mouth is," Gareth Grundy, deputy editor of Q music magazine, told Reuters. "I think other bands that have been similarly successful will look and, if it is deemed to have worked, will do the same."

The traditional music business model has been under pressure as piracy and the move to digital sales has cut into album revenues. A strong area of growth, however, is live music and any subsequent tour by Radiohead would be boosted by the interest generated by the album.

"The traditional business model had been ruined by the Internet," said Grundy. "The industry is still trying to work out what on earth the new model or models should be and this is just one option."

Radiohead's digital or boxed set versions could be pre-ordered from the group's Web site from Monday and a spokesman said the box set had so far proved the more popular.

The group is planning a traditional CD release of the album in early 2008.

A decision by U.S. music star artist Prince to give his latest album away free with a British newspaper was met with fury by retailers and the industry who said it undermined the value of recorded music.

Undermined the value of recorded music?? What the "industry" is selling are pieces of plastic that can be read by a laser.

Lari Pittman at Regen Projects

I went to the Lari Pittman opening last week. I was introduced to his work when I was at the Art Institute of Chicago about 10 years ago. I was, at the time, skeptical. I was interested in signs (the literal and the figurative) and I thought he was a very good painter, but I never got as excited as many did. I guess one needs to spend more time deciphering the works than I was wanting to invest back then.

The new works are much more interesting to me than the older works were. They seem deeper and definitely more complex. There is also an element to the work that I attribute to the "personal." Having been in the program at Otis and knowing his partner, Roy, and knowing Roy's work and knowing a bit about the objects they collect, I feel I have a bit more access to the work now.

But, then there are very specific subjects in the work that are fascinating: Cacti, fruit, overgrowth, vines, body parts, eggs, lamps, shafts of light. There seems to be a more specific era evoked in the work as well. There is an idea of traditional Americanism that looks toward "bounty" as a sign, but then there is also presented the reality of cultural diversity and the abjectness of this excess. The conflation of various technical depictions adds to this read for me. Woodblock, carvings, patterns and color schemes (could these be viewed as Latin American, as well?).

A quote from the press release doesn't give much narrative explanation but does talk nicely about the dichotomies that exist in the work:

In these new works, a rough, dark, and unsettled undercurrent is present. A formal and conceptual tension exists – an antithetical dynamic structured by the co-existence of numerous dichotomies. This simultaneity of opposites is illustrated in the themes found within the works: somber/celebratory, death/life, beautiful/ugly, utopic/dystopic, sublime/profane, radiant/contaminated. Formally, Pittman's paintings are also structured by dichotomies – abstraction/figuration, personal imagery/broad cultural signs, reality/illusion. Within this play of opposites, a tension is created that draws the viewer in and invites them to explore the event unfolding before them.

Be sure to check it out soon. The show closes October 20th.

Open House Housewarming Weekend

Click image for a full view

Plato and a Platypus

Finished reading Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes this week. Not a difficult read at all, and so I would recommend it. It is not for someone who wishes to deeply understand philosophical concepts and their history, but it does go over a number of basics. I guess my main recommendation is it is entertaining. The jokes are not rip-roaringly funny, but I chuckled here and there.

On the negative side, I would have wished the philosophy part had been a bit more extensive and a been a bit more contemporary. I was also shocked that Karl Marx wasn't really touched on, even though the book did talk about political philosophy. I even expected a mention of post-modernism and deconstruction, and, perhaps, mention Derrida.

Give it a go.

Bike Spill #1

So, I've had my bike for about a week, trying to do more cardio exercise. I have been loving it. When I first moved to LA, I had a bike, but let it go after a while. Started driving everywhere. Where we live now is perfect for bike riding. To get to work is 12 kilometers and takes about an hour. There are hills both directions so I get a pretty decent work out. I can get to Alhambra or Downtown in about 30 minutes. Going past buildings at a slower rate, you discover tons of new and interesting places. Cute shops or ethnic restaurants. It's been fantastic.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I went down just 5 minutes away from the house. I was going around a parked car and as I went by it I saw a huge pavement buckle right in front of me. There was little I could do. I tried slowing down, but perhaps I slammed on breaks. Not really sure, just know I went flying through the air and landed underneath the bike. Dazed and sore, blood but not sure from where. A driver stopped and gave me a towel and some water and I began cleaning my face where I thought most of the blood was coming from. My chin, and perhaps, my left cheek. I was feeling faint, and my vision was clouded, all I could sense was sunlight and pain. I tried to lift my backpack with my right arm, but didn't have the strength, or couldn't due to the ache.

I was right in front of the Debs Park Audobon Center and a bike rider came by, someone who worked at the Audobon. I was still dazed and he went up to the center and had a friend drive back down for me. He took my bike back to the center and his friend drove me home. By this time, I was aware that I could bend my arm but not use it in any normal way. I wasn't sure if I had strained it or not. I called Clay and he said he'd meet me at home.

A few minutes later, he was driving me to Huntington Hospital where they did about seven x-rays. The arm was fractured, but not severely. No splint, no cast, just a sling, and perhaps, no exertion on it for a week or two. It will be swollen for awhile, too. Just need to try extending it frequently so it doesn't lock up. A few scrapes and definitely a black eye and bruised chin, a road rash on the left arm and banged up knees.

But, over all I'm kind of pleased. I was out there doing something I enjoyed. My first sport's injury since I broke my left arm riding a tricycle off the front porch when I was five. I really do want to get back on the bike as soon as possble.

House Related Post #1

The Curtains Shrank!!!

We bought temporary IKEA curtains to keep out the 100 degree heat. They were about 10 inches too long so I was preparing to hem them. I washed them. The tag said not to dry clean or tumble dry. Like I've ever followed washing instructions! Got them out of the dryer this morning and was rehanging them, an they shrank ALOT. 10 inches to be exact. So, no need to hem them. They seem like (after I iron them) they are going to be just perfect. Some times things just work out.

Living Room




Bedroom

Jan 27, 1998 - Sept 4, 2007

Belmont...


She passed away very unexpectedly. She was the youngest of the four. She was a rescue from a homeless man on Belmont Avenue who was beating her. She had a good life. She never learned exactly how to use a litter box. She wasn't fazed by much. She was loved very, very much. She purred like crazy.

Montenegro - Day 4

The old city of Ulcinj is a touristy city that I didn't expect to be a touristy city.

When I took a driver from the city of Bar (where the train dropped me off) to the city of Ulcinj, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was exhausted from the flight and the train trip. I also had no money (cash) on hand. The cab driver took me to an ATM which worked perfectly. I got out some local currency and was on may way to Ulcinj. I wasn't sure where I was going so I got out of the cab in the middle of Ulcinj (the city proper). I bought a pastry to eat and being exhausted, I sat down on a sidewalk. A shop keeper saw me there and tried to communicate with me. I had contact information for Vahida and the colony and she got a cab for me to go to the beach area to get to the old town. When I got to the beach, there was a cigarette vendor on the beach that knew someone who knew Vahida. He caled this guy and he, being a neighbor of Vahida, took me up into the old town to find Vahida. Vahida welcomed me and once I was settled in, I realized how small the town was (in that every one knew everyone - population is about 10,000), but also, how large it was (in the sense that it was populated by 'others' that were only there to "summer").

Old Ulcinj is actually not that old. When I was in Le Mont-Saint-Michel, I was fascinated by the way that the streets were made adaptable for the wheel chairs that were being used by a number of the tourists. It was a truly ancient site that was repurposed for a modern tourist aesthetic. Old Ulcinj is similar in the sense that Ulcinj was destroyed by an earthquke in the 70's. But instead of a tourist visiting ruins, the whole city has been rebuilt from the ruins (a phoenix from the ashes). The same rocks have been used to rebuild original structures, as well as new ones. It is quite hard to see where old ends and new begins (or where new ends and old begins).

As a tourist town, it is not overly luxurious. I was reminded of a spring break town, a beach city like Corpus Christi or South Padre Island. Night clubs going till 2AM. Loud parties. Open containers. But, it seemed like this was where people went when they were not able to go to Ibiza or Mallorca. Slightly decadent, but still affordable. The tourists came directly from Italy by ferry or from Germany, possibly through Belgrade by air and train. There were also a large number of Russians living there in summer homes. And a huge amount of new construction of mini-McMansion on the hillsides overlooking the Adriatic.