JamesSlusher.com

The back surgery was Wednesday and I can still walk and feel my feet, so we’ve eliminated the worst-case scenarios.  There is still quite a bit of pain and discomfort from the surgery itself, but that is not unexpected.  The goal of the operation was to eliminate the sciatic nerve pain and that part has mixed, but optimistic, reviews.  My legs and butt are still painful (though to a lesser degree than pre-op) and some of it might just be the fact that these nerves had been firing away for a year and it might take some time for them to get back to normal.  The extreme number of staples running down my back in two parallel lines at the base look like something out of a cheap horror movie, but nobody said that this would be a looks enhancer.  The scars are going to be pretty nasty.

I’ve already been told by my wife several times that I am a horrible patient.  The doctor told me to not sit around and feel sorry for myself, so I’ve shuffled about and did some small things that my wife still thinks is too much.  I got a severe tongue-lashing last night for putting a dish in the dishwasher.  How is that for ironic?  She’s been trying to get me to do that for over a decade and now that I did it, she fusses at me.

She and I and we will be just fine.  I expect the aches and pains to lessen over the next few weeks and to be back to some sort of normalcy by Spring of next year.  I may not be doing anything extreme, but back to my normal type of grind will be great.

They are ripping the shingles off of my sunporch as I type this.  The water leak that I repaired awhile back had done more damage than I suspected.  Time to rip it off and start over.  They are going to replace the plywood in several spots and reflash and reshingle the sunporch.  This started out as replacing a bit of bad soffitt.  I wish my back didn’t hurt so bad, as I would like to be the one doing this.

It’s sad when you stop going to your own eponymous blog.

Over the past month I’ve lost little bits of myself, both literally and figuratively.  On August 1st I had an appendicitis and had my appendix removed on the same day.  So that was the first little bit.  Honestly, I didn’t mind losing it.  It had become a huge irritation.

On the 6th floor of University Hospital (the surgical recovery floor) they insist you leave any sense of modesty in the elevator.  I got my first sponge bath ever.  I hope it is my last sponge bath ever.  The rather large and matter-of-fact nurse in charge of doing such things really had no time for me to attempt to cling to the last bits of my dignity.  She had other bottoms to clean.

Luckily my appendicitis was caught quickly and handled efficiently so it was done laparoscopically and I was out of the hospital within about 30 hours.  It’s good that I was because one more meal of hospital food would have meant once again eating something that tasted like the paste used to do paper mache projects.  One dish on every tray always had this taste.  In the mornings it would be the oatmeal.  At lunch it would be the dessert.  In the evenings, the soup.  Ick.

The 4 week recovery period has had me sitting around the house more than I like.  We are in the middle of some pretty major renovations to the house and my not being able to be involved has meant putting off and paying extra.  Being behind schedule and over budget are never good things.  Ever.

Many of the things I had planned to do haven’t gotten done.  One thing was to write a ton of posts on the old blog.  Catching everyone up on all the little things that I have failed to share was my top priority.  If you are reading this, you know how that one turned out.  I would write post after post in my head, but when my butt was in the chair it just didn’t happen.  I started to become comfortable with the silence on the blog and that’s probably not a good thing.  It would be best for me to write more and express myself.  However, “best” and “what is really going to happen” rarely collide in my world.  I’m not sure I have the wherewithal to make it happen.

So in lieu of productivity I’ve played poker. Lots of poker. I’m sure there are pros that haven’t played as much as I have in the past month.  It has been a blast.  I’ve played so much that I have taken afternoon naps and dreamed about poker.  I calculate pot odds on things that don’t have a pot or odds.  I’ve forgotten what day it is only to be brought back the schedule of upcoming tournaments.  In other words, I’ve lost myself in the world of online poker.  I liked it.  I’m going to hate coming back out of it.

My goddaughter, Taylor, is in town visiting for a few weeks and we got the chance to meet up with her Monday night.

I really can’t go on enough about what a delightful, smart, beautiful young lady she has become.  I’m so proud of her.

The work on the Den/Kitchen/Laundry Room continues. I’ve missed my first deadline of having everything done by today so that they could install the cabinets. There was extra work involved in repairing floor joists and other infrastructure that I did not anticipate.

2 weeks from today, though, we should be rekitchened.

I’m currently running myself ragged renovating my house. Other than stress and heat stroke, nothing much going on.

Ken’s small aside about the language of poker got me to thinking about the jargon that is used to describe poker action.  Like any jargon, it makes for a nice shorthand when discussing a fairly complex situation.  I know I sound like a 1940s hepcat sometimes when I talk about it.  Feel free to ask if I lose you at any point.

You may have noticed that I added a new link into my blogroll.  It’s Cardschat.com.  If you are interested in poker, or are just trying to figure out what I’m talking about in my poker posts, you should check it out.

My 2nd shot at a $1500 buy in WSOP event was not as successful as the first.  The field was roughly 2700 players again and I made it to about 400th place, but that was it.  The field paid to 270, so no cash for me.  It ended much the same as last year with me getting knocked out with AA.  A player in mid-position raised, I was getting short stacked and the blinds were about to go up.  I looked down at AA and pushed all my chips in the middle.  Everyone else folded, the original raiser went into the tank for awhile and then called saying that we were probably racing.  He turned over a 55.  The flop came KK5 and the turn and river were no help.

I got my money in good when I needed to do it.  I made exactly the right play, it just didn’t turn out for me.  I can’t shake the feeling that I let a bunch of people down, though.  It’s aggravating that I have to wait another year to try again, but by then I should be even better.

Alright, I’m letting it go.  I’m gonna try some $100 buy in tourneys at the local casinos and see what happens.