“Someday over the rainbow…”

That’s the ditty I’m singing now until I get to a real-live internet connection and not one of these blasted internet parlors. People, say it with me: ICK. The keyboards were made during the early 90s, have keys that stick together every other second, and there are strange odors in this place I’ve never encountered before. But I think the real issue is that I’m getting a bit saturated of India.

That’s right, I said it. I wanna be back in the US of A. Why? Noise pollution.

Too many effing festivals around this town. Anytime any kind of celebration comes around hundreds of blathering idiots light firecrackers in the street. Note, these aren’t just kids.. no no no– these are also those in their late 40s. Numbnuts. That, coupled with the vegetable men every morning and the fruit vendors (“APPLES!! AHHRANGE!! ADIJHAIDAJA!!), get tiresome. Oh at first it’s cute– aw, look at the culture and the neat facets that we don’t have in the US… Then of course there are the cars/autos/buses, the latter two LOVING to have the most annoying and shrill horns on the planet. Buses? Amazingly on time and very efficient. The downside? I think their goal is to kill at LEAST one person a day. Pedestrians come second, and I swear they try to hit you every time. Harumph.

Maybe I’m just grumpy today bc I’m back (yet again) at an internet parlor. But I have wanted to say the previous for a while now. I wanna go back to Oklahoma for a little while… have my 1MBps net connection. With downloads that don’t charge for every effing megabyte….yes…. that would be delightful… coming back on January 21st though. Just a few more weeks, Vinoj. A few more weeks…

Quote of the Day
“gosh boyfreinds suck but if ur engaged to them, its cooler cuz u can punch them and the ring would make it hurt some more ”
-Arshy, always the source of divine knowledge

A lot of pain. She’s in a whole lot of pain.

Aparna just went through her surgery yesterday, and she came out with flying colors. Sorta. It was a success, yadda yadda, and the cyst they were removing from the parotid gland (side of the cheek bone) is gone. Now she’s supposed to have a small tube that drains any excess blood from the area, and of course, pain.

Maybe it’s the medical system here or whatever, but I could swear they’re doing it wrong. Or something. At least the nurses. These people have no idea how to insert needles/IVs, etc. It’s ri-fuckin-diculous. When a nurse inserted an IV into her hand the first day, Apsi was crying bc it felt like it was touching the bone, not to mention a shitload of nerves. And yet, no response from the nurse. Take it from me, an expert in the field of getting stuck with needles- if a patient screams out, you STOP. Not here; keep on going. Today another nurse decided to inject some antibiotic into her arm. She’s zipping along at a good 3-4 cc’s per second. Ridiculous. You’re supposed to do .25 a second (max) so that it doesn’t feel like the patient’s veins are going to burst. I had to actually yell at the nurse to STOP. Idiots. Then she slowed down, etc. But still, for a person like Aps who’s never been in a hospital, this is very hard. I can understand that. Me? I might be able to deal with this a little better. But her? Not so much. It’s very real and very painful for her. And hell, with these damn nurses not even I might be able to handle it.

Good news is- everything went as expected, and she’s expected to make a full recovery. There’s a pretty nasty scar right now, but as the sutures are taken out and such, it’ll heal. Poor thing- I wish there was something I could do to make her feel better, but all I can do is stay by her side, talk to her, and hold her hand.

Just as she’s done for me oh-so-many times…

So I write this wonderful email to my family about how I think my seizures are fading away, because I had been without medication for about two days, and I’d had no seizures. I felt it weakly yesterday afternoon, so I took a dosage to be on the safe side.

Talk about speaking too soon.

Almost right after I sent the email it starts getting worse. It abates for a little while, and Aparna and Vinod are here. I go into my room to get my computer, and next thing I know, I’m flat on the bed, groggy, dizzy, and almost feeling amazingly drunk. I heard voices– I recognized them as Aparna and Vinod, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The next hour or so was pure hell. My entire body was too exhausted for any movement at all, and they kept asking me questions that I couldn’t answer. (Are you okay? Do you want water? Do you want us to take you to the hospital?) On top of that there was a wave of nausea and a splitting headache and it felt like it was all old-people-y where they can’t utter out those last few words. Or like when someone dies in a movie. (“The key to the treasure is found in… *OLD DUDE CROAKS*)

Anyway, I was told later that after going in my room, I seized for 2 minutes straight. In 10 years, that’s probably the longest I’ve ever seized. The average is 30 seconds to 1 minute. But 2? Never before. Which is why last night was one of the shittiest nights I’ve ever had. Apparently my body decided, “Oh…so you think you can pull this whole thing off with no medicine and pulling the plug that easily? I’m gonna show you what happens when you go without meds for 40 hours…” And BOOM. On the floor.

Good news out of all of this. I’m alright. Didn’t hurt myself, and I had two wonderful people who were here to take care of me. Aparna was on a medication last night that made her drowsy, so just so that she wouldn’t fall asleep, she sat in the corner to make sure I didn’t seize…. the entire night. I happened to wake up at 3 and told her to go to bed. Wow. Loving people. All around. All one can hope for.