Steven Harper's Blog, page 5
June 4, 2025
The Harvey Milk
Hegseth has ordered the navy to rename the ship HARVEY MILK. Milk was a prominent gay activist, navy veteran, and mayor of San Francisco. He was murdered in 1978.
It's navy tradition to name oiler-class ships after civil rights activists. It's also very taboo in the navy to rename a ship. Navy memos show Hegseth ordered the renaming of the HM during Pride Month on purpose.
They want us gone. They want us dead. They want us destroyed and forgotten.
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It's navy tradition to name oiler-class ships after civil rights activists. It's also very taboo in the navy to rename a ship. Navy memos show Hegseth ordered the renaming of the HM during Pride Month on purpose.
They want us gone. They want us dead. They want us destroyed and forgotten.
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June 3, 2025
Go Ukraine!
So two days after wiping out a huge chunk of Russia's warplane supply, Ukraine blew up a bridge the Russians were using to invade and resupply Crimea. All just a few weeks after Trump castigated Zelensky because Ukraine didn’t “have the cards."Now Russia is embattled with a war from within. Every truck is suspect and must be searched now. Transportation is at a crawl. Supply lines and shipping are disrupted. And all because of a leader who didn't "have the cards." Goodness! What would Ukraine have accomplished if Zelensky had a really good hand?The United States should have been helping Ukraine with these measures, but Trump and his cabinet are still in Putin's pocket, and they blab state secrets on unsecure social media. So the country that should have been Ukraine's most trusted ally had to be kept in the dark.Fuck Trump. Go Ukraine!
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May 26, 2025
Mission Impossible
Darwin and I saw the latest MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie yesterday, theoretically the last one. With Tom Cruise, anyway. It was well-filmed and acted, with lots of big action scenes and stuff. But it was overlong. Several scenes went on for too many beats, and you find yourself saying, "Okay, okay, we get it. Let's move on!" The show also alternated between outrageous and, well ... impossible action, and closeups of characters talking in low, intense voices. Once I noticed the latter, I couldn't stop noticing, and I wondered why the director made that particular choice.
The MI movies have also strayed far from their original concept. MI was more about tricks and traps and heists than action. There were scenes in which a couple bad guys would enter a room to talk to another set of bad guys. They exchanged information and the first set of bad guys would leave. Then the room was suddenly revealed to be a fake set, and the other bad guys were disguised. It was a ruse to get the information! Stuff like that. There was only one such scene in this movie, and it barely qualified: Ethan tricks some bad guys with a fake tooth. The rest of it is action, action, action.
I noticed that every single bit of the action scenes follows a pattern. 1) Ethan has to do something (open a door, flip a switch, eat his breakfast). 2) Some obstacle presents itself and prevents him (the door is stuck, the switch doesn't work, the toaster is shorted out). 3) Ethan tries to force the original plan to work (yank on the door, hit the power switch, shove the bread down again). 4) This doesn't work. 5) Ethan devises a workaround (taking the door off its hinges, pulling the switch apart and repairing it, buying a new toaster). 6) This solution works, but it sends us back to 1), where Ethan is trying to do something. Repeat until the audience is ready to throttle the director in frustration.
Deep sea stuff, especially deep sea stuff involving large objects like submarines, shipwrecks, and whales, freaks me badly, so a good quarter of the movie had me filtering the movie through my fingers. Darwin is severely acrophobic, so another quarter of the movie had =him= filtering the movie through his fingers.
Since this was a Part II, the screenwriters cleverly fill in backstory from Part I, but don't stop there. Endless references to the previous movies sneak in, including a minor character from the very first movie who plays a major role in this one. I imagine he was startled to get a phone call from a casting director who said, "Remember that role you played 30 years ago? Great! Are you free?"
The movie is worth seeing if you want to empty your mind for a while and follow the story of someone who's having a way worse day than you are. It's not worth seeing twice, though.
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The MI movies have also strayed far from their original concept. MI was more about tricks and traps and heists than action. There were scenes in which a couple bad guys would enter a room to talk to another set of bad guys. They exchanged information and the first set of bad guys would leave. Then the room was suddenly revealed to be a fake set, and the other bad guys were disguised. It was a ruse to get the information! Stuff like that. There was only one such scene in this movie, and it barely qualified: Ethan tricks some bad guys with a fake tooth. The rest of it is action, action, action.
I noticed that every single bit of the action scenes follows a pattern. 1) Ethan has to do something (open a door, flip a switch, eat his breakfast). 2) Some obstacle presents itself and prevents him (the door is stuck, the switch doesn't work, the toaster is shorted out). 3) Ethan tries to force the original plan to work (yank on the door, hit the power switch, shove the bread down again). 4) This doesn't work. 5) Ethan devises a workaround (taking the door off its hinges, pulling the switch apart and repairing it, buying a new toaster). 6) This solution works, but it sends us back to 1), where Ethan is trying to do something. Repeat until the audience is ready to throttle the director in frustration.
Deep sea stuff, especially deep sea stuff involving large objects like submarines, shipwrecks, and whales, freaks me badly, so a good quarter of the movie had me filtering the movie through my fingers. Darwin is severely acrophobic, so another quarter of the movie had =him= filtering the movie through his fingers.
Since this was a Part II, the screenwriters cleverly fill in backstory from Part I, but don't stop there. Endless references to the previous movies sneak in, including a minor character from the very first movie who plays a major role in this one. I imagine he was startled to get a phone call from a casting director who said, "Remember that role you played 30 years ago? Great! Are you free?"
The movie is worth seeing if you want to empty your mind for a while and follow the story of someone who's having a way worse day than you are. It's not worth seeing twice, though.
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May 24, 2025
Oh, Disney
This came up on a friend's thread and I thought I'd mention it here.
Disney shares your data with EVERYBODY. Their privacy policy doesn't really do anything to protect your privacy. It's more of an invasion of privacy policy. I looked it up just now and found this nugget:
"We, certain service providers operating on our behalf, and third parties may collect information about your activity, or activity on devices associated with you, on our sites and applications and third-party sites and applications using tracking technologies such as cookies, pixels, tags, software development kits, application program interfaces, and Web beacons. We may collect information whether or not you are logged in or registered, and may associate this tracking data with your registration account (if you have one)."
In other words, the moment you visit a Disney-operated anything, they sell all your usage data with your name attached to it to anyone with a debit card.
You =can= opt out, but you have to opt out of each web site, account, or service individually. So you have to fill out a separate opt-out request for Disney+, Hulu, your amusement park account, the Disney park app, and so on. If you have a Disney app on your phone, it tracks everything you do all the time, even if you're not logged in.
They're very upfront about it, as long as you go look: https://privacy.thewaltdisneycompany.com/en/privacy-controls/online-tracking-and-advertising/
Disney is as bad as Meta and Google.
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Disney shares your data with EVERYBODY. Their privacy policy doesn't really do anything to protect your privacy. It's more of an invasion of privacy policy. I looked it up just now and found this nugget:
"We, certain service providers operating on our behalf, and third parties may collect information about your activity, or activity on devices associated with you, on our sites and applications and third-party sites and applications using tracking technologies such as cookies, pixels, tags, software development kits, application program interfaces, and Web beacons. We may collect information whether or not you are logged in or registered, and may associate this tracking data with your registration account (if you have one)."
In other words, the moment you visit a Disney-operated anything, they sell all your usage data with your name attached to it to anyone with a debit card.
You =can= opt out, but you have to opt out of each web site, account, or service individually. So you have to fill out a separate opt-out request for Disney+, Hulu, your amusement park account, the Disney park app, and so on. If you have a Disney app on your phone, it tracks everything you do all the time, even if you're not logged in.
They're very upfront about it, as long as you go look: https://privacy.thewaltdisneycompany.com/en/privacy-controls/online-tracking-and-advertising/
Disney is as bad as Meta and Google.
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May 8, 2025
My Retirement
I'm retiring from teaching high school in June. During the pandemic, when teachers went from heroes to villains within a few months, I decided that the moment I hit 30 years, I would bow out. And so I am. I've done the math and figured that I've taught approximately 6,720 teenagers. Every year, I give my students approximately 75 assessments (including homework, essays, tests, projects, and more), meaning I've graded about 497,300 assignments. Every year on average, two or three of my students fail, so my failure rate is about 0.0004%. Wow. In my career, I piloted the co-teaching system, in which a special education teacher teams with a subject teacher in a class loaded with special education students. The system is now universal. I created the media literacy class out of thin air and for a while, it was one of the most popular courses in the district. When I started teaching, using colored chalk was considered edgy. Now every classroom has a SMART board. I have four certifications (German, English, health, and speech/theater), and I've taught all four of areas. I've never taught Honors English or Advanced Placement. Students who struggle with school need good teachers, too, and it turned out I have a knack for reaching them, so that's the population I stayed with. I'm proud of keeping a low failure rate while not dumbing down the curriculum. I've had epic battles with administration over a number of issues. What books the students should be "allowed" to read. Library censorship. The language I used on my blog. The gay characters in my novels. Teaching about condoms in health class. Running mass shooter drills. Wearing a religious symbol in the classroom. Right-wing parents and administrators who wanted me fired. And twice, death threats. Sometimes I won, sometimes I didn't. Some days the tension was so high that I threw up in the bathroom. Then I rinsed out my mouth, returned to class, and taught as if nothing had happened. When people ask me why I persisted in a difficult, thankless job, I tell this true story: One day, a student told me I'd had her uncle for sophomore English eight years ago. His name was DJ, and I remembered him. The student said DJ was serving overseas in the Marines, and she mentioned to DJ on the phone that she had my class. He got excited and said, "You tell Mr. Piziks that he's the reason I'm here!" I asked what DJ meant by that. It turns out that DJ was planning to drop out of school in tenth grade because it was too much of a struggle and not worth the effort anymore. We were reading THE CRUCIBLE at the time, and I asked the class a tough question about the play. I called on DJ, who gave a prompt answer. "That's right!" I said, and went on with class as usual. But for DJ, the moment was entirely different. "In that moment," he said, "I realized that I WASN'T STUPID. I stayed in school and graduated and enlisted in the Marines and right now I'm doing what I love and it's because of Mr. Piziks. You tell him that." And she did. Another true story: I was at a school function one evening when a parent came up to me. "You're Mr. Piziks, right?" she said. "You had my son Noah last year." I remembered Noah, and told her so. She said, "When he started middle school, our family went through a really bad time, and Noah became withdrawn. He didn't speak much. He never laughed or smiled. We tried everything—therapy, medication. Nothing helped, and we were so worried. Then he started high school and had you for English. After a few weeks, he started to change. He smiled for the first time in years, and he talked about you and what he did in class. He was actually excited about going to school. Your warmth and humor brought him out of his shell, and I'm so grateful. I wanted to thank you." She hugged me, and I was tearing up. But now it's time for someone else to take up the reins. Will I miss it? Probably now and then. For now, I'm ready to rest.
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May 3, 2025
Cooking Fails!
Man, what's wrong with me lately?
I made a cake and measured wrong when I was doubling the recipe. The cake rose in the oven and spilled over the pan, dropping a huge glop of batter on the oven floor. I was alerted when the smell of burning sugar filled the house. The cake was a loss, and the batter had welded itself to the oven. I had to run the self-cleaning program. And the recipe uses four eggs to boot! (I swear the loss should be covered under my homeowner's insurance.) Fail!
I made chocolate mousse and THREE eggs screwed me up. One of them was stuck to the bottom of the carton and self-destructed when I tried to pick it up. It got egg all over its neighbors, so I had to remove all of them, clean them, and put them into another container. The yolk on the second egg fragmented during separating and yolk contaminated the whites. It took me several minutes of fishing with a shell fragment to get it all out. The third one cracked badly when I was separating it, creating a tiny, shallow side of shell and a huge, deep side of shell. The yolk immediately plopped into the tiny side and overfilled it, threatening to contaminate the whites yet again. I grabbed at it to change to the finger-separating method but didn't quite make it. Yolk everywhere. I had to abandon the entire batch and start over. Expensive egg fail!
I made M&M cookies with my lovely new hand-held mixer. I put the cookies into the oven and set the timer--incorrectly, as it turns out. The cookies didn't burn, but they came out crunchy instead of chewy. Fail!*
I swear I must have done something to offend the kitchen fairies.
*Though it must be said that Darwin loves them crunchy, so this one's really a semi-fail.
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I made a cake and measured wrong when I was doubling the recipe. The cake rose in the oven and spilled over the pan, dropping a huge glop of batter on the oven floor. I was alerted when the smell of burning sugar filled the house. The cake was a loss, and the batter had welded itself to the oven. I had to run the self-cleaning program. And the recipe uses four eggs to boot! (I swear the loss should be covered under my homeowner's insurance.) Fail!
I made chocolate mousse and THREE eggs screwed me up. One of them was stuck to the bottom of the carton and self-destructed when I tried to pick it up. It got egg all over its neighbors, so I had to remove all of them, clean them, and put them into another container. The yolk on the second egg fragmented during separating and yolk contaminated the whites. It took me several minutes of fishing with a shell fragment to get it all out. The third one cracked badly when I was separating it, creating a tiny, shallow side of shell and a huge, deep side of shell. The yolk immediately plopped into the tiny side and overfilled it, threatening to contaminate the whites yet again. I grabbed at it to change to the finger-separating method but didn't quite make it. Yolk everywhere. I had to abandon the entire batch and start over. Expensive egg fail!
I made M&M cookies with my lovely new hand-held mixer. I put the cookies into the oven and set the timer--incorrectly, as it turns out. The cookies didn't burn, but they came out crunchy instead of chewy. Fail!*
I swear I must have done something to offend the kitchen fairies.
*Though it must be said that Darwin loves them crunchy, so this one's really a semi-fail.
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April 27, 2025
The Great Covid Saga, Part II
We had a week of Covid-free bliss. Also, the pain from my biopsy finally stopped, and the news came back that it didn't find any new/spreading cancer tumors. It was nice.
Then Darwin got sick again on Friday. It started with coughing and sneezing, then feeling run-down. The symptoms worsened quickly. We worried it was a cold, and I wondered if =I= would catch it, too. It takes me more than a week to get over a cold anymore, and I don't have enough sick days left at work to handle that. A thought occurred to me, though, and I asked Darwin to take a Covid test. He did.
Positive.
The hell? I did some reading and discovered I was ignorant of one facet of Covid: the rebound. Some people get over the virus, and then a few days later, they come down with it again. It used to be associated with taking Paxlovid, but that idea has been disproven. It's just Covid being a bitch. I had no symptoms myself, but took a test anyway. Negative. Okay, then. If the blogging community will allow me to be a bit self-centered on my own blog for a moment, I'll say I was very relieved. Cold or Covid--I still don't have the sick days. Anyway, I got Covid first and got over it first, so if we were both going to rebound, it seems like I would've done it first.
Saturday morning, I took Darwin to urgent care, only to learn that they can't/won't treat rebound Covid, and you can't go on Paxlovid again so soon after coming off it. There was nothing to do.
I took Darwin back home and put him to bed. We were low on meds, so I went to the store and bought a big pile of cold and flu stuff, along with various you're-sick-you-get-treats foods. Darwin dosed himself with NyQuil and conked out on the bed for most of the day. I sat with him and wrote on my new laptop and delivered food and meds to him as necessary. By evening, he'd lost his sense of taste and smell and developed a high fever, which we dosed hard. He coughed almost continuously until I got some cough medicine into him. I was worried we might have to take him to the hospital. He took more NyQuil and we went to bed.
This morning, he's markedly improved, though still sick. Coughing and run down, mostly. Another Covid test came up positive. I took one. Still negative.
Darwin's parked on the bed again, dozing. Hopefully this saga will end today.
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Then Darwin got sick again on Friday. It started with coughing and sneezing, then feeling run-down. The symptoms worsened quickly. We worried it was a cold, and I wondered if =I= would catch it, too. It takes me more than a week to get over a cold anymore, and I don't have enough sick days left at work to handle that. A thought occurred to me, though, and I asked Darwin to take a Covid test. He did.
Positive.
The hell? I did some reading and discovered I was ignorant of one facet of Covid: the rebound. Some people get over the virus, and then a few days later, they come down with it again. It used to be associated with taking Paxlovid, but that idea has been disproven. It's just Covid being a bitch. I had no symptoms myself, but took a test anyway. Negative. Okay, then. If the blogging community will allow me to be a bit self-centered on my own blog for a moment, I'll say I was very relieved. Cold or Covid--I still don't have the sick days. Anyway, I got Covid first and got over it first, so if we were both going to rebound, it seems like I would've done it first.
Saturday morning, I took Darwin to urgent care, only to learn that they can't/won't treat rebound Covid, and you can't go on Paxlovid again so soon after coming off it. There was nothing to do.
I took Darwin back home and put him to bed. We were low on meds, so I went to the store and bought a big pile of cold and flu stuff, along with various you're-sick-you-get-treats foods. Darwin dosed himself with NyQuil and conked out on the bed for most of the day. I sat with him and wrote on my new laptop and delivered food and meds to him as necessary. By evening, he'd lost his sense of taste and smell and developed a high fever, which we dosed hard. He coughed almost continuously until I got some cough medicine into him. I was worried we might have to take him to the hospital. He took more NyQuil and we went to bed.
This morning, he's markedly improved, though still sick. Coughing and run down, mostly. Another Covid test came up positive. I took one. Still negative.
Darwin's parked on the bed again, dozing. Hopefully this saga will end today.
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April 19, 2025
The Great Covid Saga
The Friday before the Great Biopsy Saga (which began on Monday), I got an email from a parent. Their son, one of my students, had Covid and would be out for a while. Could I send any work?
Said student's desk is very close to mine, which means I spent a fair amount of time within contagion range for at least a couple class periods. Great. And I had a difficult-to-schedule medical procedure coming up. I began monitoring myself for symptoms. At one point I noticed a faint cough tickle in my chest, but it didn't go anywhere. I checked my temperature the morning of the procedure. Normal. So I went in.
At the procedure, a nurse checked my temperature. 100 degrees. I was surprised--it had shot up that high in less than half an hour, and I didn't feel feverish. Even for Covid, that would be unusual. She tried again with a different instrument and it came up normal. So on we went with the biopsy.
Late that afternoon, I started feeling cruddy, though I had no fever. I took a home Covid test. Positive. Well, shit. Darwin took a test, too. Negative. At least that was good news.
I emailed the biopsy clinic to let them know and had Darwin take me to urgent care. They confirmed the positive results and gave me a scrip for Paxlovid. Ick! I get Paxlovid mouth bad, but it beats being sick for two weeks. I started taking the meds. Saturday I felt really shitty, but on Sunday I felt much better. It meant, though, that I was caring for myself post-biopsy with fucking Covid.
Meanwhile, Darwin started feeling sick, so he took a home test. Positive. Dammit! We went to urgent care, confirmed the diagnosis, and he went on Paxlovid, too.
Monday morning, I was feeling tired but okay, and I'd been without a fever for 24 hours. According to the CDC and the school district, I could return to work. I only have a couple sick days left this year and didn't want to use them up just yet, so I went in.
Darwin, meanwhile, felt horrible and awful all day Monday. Tuesday, too. Wednesday, also. Jeebus.
Friday afternoon, =I= started feeling shitty again. Apparently there's a thing: Covid Rebound. You think you're over Covid, but then backslide for a couple days. At least it was landing on a weekend.
This morning, I woke up and looked at the clock. 10:45! Man. Clearly, both of us needed the sleep, and I'm glad we could get it. Today, I'm feeling improved but still a little off. Same for Darwin. I hope this is over tomorrow!
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Said student's desk is very close to mine, which means I spent a fair amount of time within contagion range for at least a couple class periods. Great. And I had a difficult-to-schedule medical procedure coming up. I began monitoring myself for symptoms. At one point I noticed a faint cough tickle in my chest, but it didn't go anywhere. I checked my temperature the morning of the procedure. Normal. So I went in.
At the procedure, a nurse checked my temperature. 100 degrees. I was surprised--it had shot up that high in less than half an hour, and I didn't feel feverish. Even for Covid, that would be unusual. She tried again with a different instrument and it came up normal. So on we went with the biopsy.
Late that afternoon, I started feeling cruddy, though I had no fever. I took a home Covid test. Positive. Well, shit. Darwin took a test, too. Negative. At least that was good news.
I emailed the biopsy clinic to let them know and had Darwin take me to urgent care. They confirmed the positive results and gave me a scrip for Paxlovid. Ick! I get Paxlovid mouth bad, but it beats being sick for two weeks. I started taking the meds. Saturday I felt really shitty, but on Sunday I felt much better. It meant, though, that I was caring for myself post-biopsy with fucking Covid.
Meanwhile, Darwin started feeling sick, so he took a home test. Positive. Dammit! We went to urgent care, confirmed the diagnosis, and he went on Paxlovid, too.
Monday morning, I was feeling tired but okay, and I'd been without a fever for 24 hours. According to the CDC and the school district, I could return to work. I only have a couple sick days left this year and didn't want to use them up just yet, so I went in.
Darwin, meanwhile, felt horrible and awful all day Monday. Tuesday, too. Wednesday, also. Jeebus.
Friday afternoon, =I= started feeling shitty again. Apparently there's a thing: Covid Rebound. You think you're over Covid, but then backslide for a couple days. At least it was landing on a weekend.
This morning, I woke up and looked at the clock. 10:45! Man. Clearly, both of us needed the sleep, and I'm glad we could get it. Today, I'm feeling improved but still a little off. Same for Darwin. I hope this is over tomorrow!
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The Great Neck and Shoulder Saga
A few weeks ago, I got out of nowhere a severe pain in my neck and down my left shoulder. It tended to come and go, but it was bad stuff. I hadn't done anything strange. I hadn't lifted anything weird. The pain just showed up.
I kept hoping it would just fade away. I tried OTC painkillers and hot showers. Nothing helped. I finally called a chiropractor, but the earliest "new patient" appointment wasn't until the following week. I made an appointment with a massage therapist, and got in on the same day. The therapist was a Russian woman who seemed overly worried that I was going to make a demand for something more than a massage. I told her about the pain, though, and she went to work on it. When the session ended, the pain was almost completely gone. It was such a relief! I tipped the therapist $20 and went home.
The next day, the pain came back. Shit.
I got through the weekend and went into the chiropractor. He massaged me and wrenched me around, and it made the pain better but not entirely absent. He said I should come back a few more times for more adjustments. I came in again, he did his thing, and again it helped, but the pain was still there. I should come back. But the following week was already full of medical appointments, and I couldn't stand the idea of one more, so I scheduled for the following week.
And then came the Great Biopsy Saga. (See previous entry.) I was put under general anesthesia for it. When I got home, I realized the pain was gone. It hasn't come back, either.
I think the propofol forced the muscles in my neck and back, the ones that were knotting up and causing the problem, to relax completely, wiping the pain away.
I have to say that was a welcome side-effect of the procedure!
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I kept hoping it would just fade away. I tried OTC painkillers and hot showers. Nothing helped. I finally called a chiropractor, but the earliest "new patient" appointment wasn't until the following week. I made an appointment with a massage therapist, and got in on the same day. The therapist was a Russian woman who seemed overly worried that I was going to make a demand for something more than a massage. I told her about the pain, though, and she went to work on it. When the session ended, the pain was almost completely gone. It was such a relief! I tipped the therapist $20 and went home.
The next day, the pain came back. Shit.
I got through the weekend and went into the chiropractor. He massaged me and wrenched me around, and it made the pain better but not entirely absent. He said I should come back a few more times for more adjustments. I came in again, he did his thing, and again it helped, but the pain was still there. I should come back. But the following week was already full of medical appointments, and I couldn't stand the idea of one more, so I scheduled for the following week.
And then came the Great Biopsy Saga. (See previous entry.) I was put under general anesthesia for it. When I got home, I realized the pain was gone. It hasn't come back, either.
I think the propofol forced the muscles in my neck and back, the ones that were knotting up and causing the problem, to relax completely, wiping the pain away.
I have to say that was a welcome side-effect of the procedure!
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The Great Biopsy Saga
I have prostate cancer, but just barely. Gleason Score 6, watch and observe, no treatment. This isn't unusual. Most men do get some kind of prostate cancer. The trick is to make sure you die with it instead of from it.
All this means I have to get a biopsy done every other year. It's an awful process, but as cancer journeys go, it's pretty mild--as long as you take the right precautions. For my first biopsy, the clinic used general anesthesia as a matter of course. No pain during, though I had some after.
For my second biopsy, though, I'd changed providers, and the day before my appointment, I asked about the anesthesia, and the nurse acted surprised. They used local anesthesia and were startled that I wanted general. I could reschedule, but the next such appointment wouldn't be for a few months. I reluctantly decided to go through with the current appointment. This was a mistake. The clinic insisted I wouldn't feel a thing after the first shot of lidocaine, but they were wrong. I felt everything, and I was yelling in pain. Through 20 core sample. TWENTY! (The usual is twelve.) The staff continued to act surprised, as if I were the only person in the world who felt pain in a biopsy. Fuck them.
So when it came time to set up this one, I insisted on general anesthetic. Again I got surprise. "Are you sure? This is usually done with local."
"No," I said. "It definitely is not. Schedule it, please."
This actually touched off a bunch of phone calls. They had to move the biopsy to a different location and coordinate with them and-and-and. In the end it was scheduled.
As regular readers know, I was abused by medical staff while under anesthetic during two different operations. This has given me a case of medical PTSD, especially when it comes to general anesthesia. You're probably wondering why I didn't just go for general anesthetic, then. The answer is ... it's complicated. I have to choose between awful anxiety and awful pain. Which one, which one? In the end, I settled on anxiety for the simple reason that incoming awful pain would ALSO give me anxiety, and I'd rather deal with just the one.
In the weeks running up to biopsy, I was okay, but as weeks turned to days, I became more and more uneasy. The two days beforehand were the worst, and I lived on Xanax. I know the anxiety is misplaced, that the kind of abuse I went through is extremely rare, that the vast majority of medical workers want to help. Tell that to my emotions, though. It always feels like the operating room staff are just waiting for me to fall unconscious so they can say and do anything they like.
Also, I discovered the clinic was planning to conduct a different (to me) kind of biopsy. My other two were transrectal. This one would be transperineal. Transrectal has a 5% rate of infection, you see, and transperineal has virtually none. But this clinic didn't mention this fact to me. It took me a while to tell myself that this was because they had dropped trans-rectal biopsies some time ago and made transperineal the standard, and most patients didn't know or care about the difference, so they had no reason to mention it. Until I was able to convince myself of this, though, I was in another anxiety overload.
A couple days before the biopsy, I emailed the clinic and briefly explained my situation: that I was an abuse survivor and came out of it with bad PTSD and white coat syndrome. In order to make this bearable for me, I wanted to be awake until just before the biopsy needles went in. After a bit of back-and-forth, the clinic allowed that this would be fine.
The night before the operation, I didn't sleep at all. Not even a doze. I stared at the ceiling all night long, unable to think about anything but the biopsy. It was a long, long night.
Finally, it was time to get up and leave. I did have the go-ahead to coke myself up on Xanax, so I did. By the time Darwin drove me to the clinic, I was a little floaty.
I also had my little device with me. It's a recorder disguised as a flash drive. It looks like a flat stick. I habitually put it inside a finger splint and use it to record all operations so I can at least hear what happened, even if I can't see it. (When I mention to medical workers that I smuggle a recorder into the operating room, they inevitably react with horror. How dare I? My response: why is it that every single person in that room gets to know what happens to me but I, the one person who is most involved, shouldn't know a thing? Again, fuck you.) I slipped it into the splint and when the nurse inevitably asked about it later, I gave my usual answer: "Yeah, I hurt my finger and need to wear this for a while." I've never been challenged about it.
This clinic didn't allow family to be anywhere but the waiting room, so I had to go back to the prep area by myself. I made sure the recorder was working and got into the gown and all that. I'm an experienced surgery patient by now, and I know it's easiest to wear slip-on shoes, a t-shirt, and jeans with no belt, nothing else. Belts and sweatshirts and glasses just turn into crap to keep track of when you're groggy. Keep it simple.
The hospital had a neat little trick--an air circulator that plugged into the gowns like a CPAP machine. It circulates warm air through the gown. This keeps the patient warm even in a cold operating room and the staff doesn't have to constantly get blankets from a warmer. Nifty!
When I was ready, the usual parade of nurses, anesthetists, and the doctor began. They were all aware of my preferences for the prep, for which I was appreciative. Most men find the prep for a transperineal biopsy to be embarrassing, but to me it's worse that someone is doing the embarrassing stuff to me while I'm unconscious and have no control. So the doctor positioned me on the table (eesh, I get nervous just typing this) and ran through the prep. It went fine. Then the anesthetist said it was time for the propofol. She administered it, I got dizzy, and then I was waking up in the recovery room. I remember asking for Darwin but getting no answer. I slept for a little bit, and then a nurse was there with a wheelchair telling me it was time to get dressed and go. I don't actually remember getting dressed (this is one of the many reasons why I hate anesthesia--it fucks with your memory and steals parts of your life), but I remember getting into the chair and being wheeled to the exit, where Darwin was waiting with the car. There were no complications during the biopsy, according to the staff. The doctor took only twelve cores, not twenty like last time.
At home that evening, I called up the recording on my computer. I skipped through the parts I was awake for, found the place where I was anesthetized, and listened. A lot of OR teams talk very little during the operation (the case where I was abused was definitely an outlying exception), and that was the case here. I heard the biopsy gun click, followed by a report from the doctor where the sample had come from, with the nurse repeating it and (presumably) writing it down. More clicks and reports, and then I was being wheeled to the recovery room. When I arrived, one nurse said to another that I had strangely asked to be awake during the pre-surgery prep. "He has PTSD or something," she said.
"Is it a control thing?" asked the other.
"It's probably control, yeah. He's probably afraid that--" here, she stopped herself. "Well, I'm not sure what he was afraid about."
"Uh huh," said the other nurse.
And that was all of it. I'm good with that. They're certainly allowed to exchange information about patient behavior in a non-critical manner.
I did tell the doctor that after the other biopsies, I got a fair amount of pain, so I wanted something stronger than Ibuprofen for a couple days. He gave me a scrip and I did get some fairly heft pain later. The pills helped.
One of the things that pokes at my anxieties about hospitals is the way they try to control your behavior. I know it's to maximize my care, but I also know that a bunch of it is overkill, and it creates feelings of enmity with me, and I try to work against what they tell me. For example, this particular clinic said that before the biopsy, I should avoid sexual activity for a week before and for a week after. Two weeks total! I'd never once heard about avoiding sexual activity before a prostate biopsy (before a PSA test, yes, but not before a biopsy), and I surfed all around the internet to check on this. No urology clinic I found had a cessation of sex in their pre-op instructions. As for after, they said to avoid sexual activity for three to five days. Not a full week.
I'm putting a chunk of this behind a cut screen because it gets very biological. I cope with this stuff by writing it down, which is why it's here. But you can skip it.
( Read more... )
Okay, we're back from the cut. A couple days later, I got an alert that I had new results in my patient portal. Oh yeah--what was the cancer doing? Weirdly, I had been more freaked out about the idea of having a biopsy than I was about the actual cancer. But the alert made me suddenly uneasy. I knew the results would be written in medicalese, but I'm fluent in that language thanks to growing up in a medical family, so I knew I'd be able to read them. Nervously, I called them up.
All twelve cores came back as "benign prostatic tissue." In other words, no cancer anywhere!
I joked at the last biopsy that the all the needles were snatching the cancer right out of there. Now it seems to be true! In all seriousness, though, it's very doubtful. The needles just missed any cancerous tissue. But that would also mean the cancer isn't spreading. I'll confirm with my oncologist at our appointment next week.
At the moment, I'm not feeling any pain from the biopsy, and I'm hoping the other side-effects are gone. I also got through it without melting down. We'll call it a win!
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All this means I have to get a biopsy done every other year. It's an awful process, but as cancer journeys go, it's pretty mild--as long as you take the right precautions. For my first biopsy, the clinic used general anesthesia as a matter of course. No pain during, though I had some after.
For my second biopsy, though, I'd changed providers, and the day before my appointment, I asked about the anesthesia, and the nurse acted surprised. They used local anesthesia and were startled that I wanted general. I could reschedule, but the next such appointment wouldn't be for a few months. I reluctantly decided to go through with the current appointment. This was a mistake. The clinic insisted I wouldn't feel a thing after the first shot of lidocaine, but they were wrong. I felt everything, and I was yelling in pain. Through 20 core sample. TWENTY! (The usual is twelve.) The staff continued to act surprised, as if I were the only person in the world who felt pain in a biopsy. Fuck them.
So when it came time to set up this one, I insisted on general anesthetic. Again I got surprise. "Are you sure? This is usually done with local."
"No," I said. "It definitely is not. Schedule it, please."
This actually touched off a bunch of phone calls. They had to move the biopsy to a different location and coordinate with them and-and-and. In the end it was scheduled.
As regular readers know, I was abused by medical staff while under anesthetic during two different operations. This has given me a case of medical PTSD, especially when it comes to general anesthesia. You're probably wondering why I didn't just go for general anesthetic, then. The answer is ... it's complicated. I have to choose between awful anxiety and awful pain. Which one, which one? In the end, I settled on anxiety for the simple reason that incoming awful pain would ALSO give me anxiety, and I'd rather deal with just the one.
In the weeks running up to biopsy, I was okay, but as weeks turned to days, I became more and more uneasy. The two days beforehand were the worst, and I lived on Xanax. I know the anxiety is misplaced, that the kind of abuse I went through is extremely rare, that the vast majority of medical workers want to help. Tell that to my emotions, though. It always feels like the operating room staff are just waiting for me to fall unconscious so they can say and do anything they like.
Also, I discovered the clinic was planning to conduct a different (to me) kind of biopsy. My other two were transrectal. This one would be transperineal. Transrectal has a 5% rate of infection, you see, and transperineal has virtually none. But this clinic didn't mention this fact to me. It took me a while to tell myself that this was because they had dropped trans-rectal biopsies some time ago and made transperineal the standard, and most patients didn't know or care about the difference, so they had no reason to mention it. Until I was able to convince myself of this, though, I was in another anxiety overload.
A couple days before the biopsy, I emailed the clinic and briefly explained my situation: that I was an abuse survivor and came out of it with bad PTSD and white coat syndrome. In order to make this bearable for me, I wanted to be awake until just before the biopsy needles went in. After a bit of back-and-forth, the clinic allowed that this would be fine.
The night before the operation, I didn't sleep at all. Not even a doze. I stared at the ceiling all night long, unable to think about anything but the biopsy. It was a long, long night.
Finally, it was time to get up and leave. I did have the go-ahead to coke myself up on Xanax, so I did. By the time Darwin drove me to the clinic, I was a little floaty.
I also had my little device with me. It's a recorder disguised as a flash drive. It looks like a flat stick. I habitually put it inside a finger splint and use it to record all operations so I can at least hear what happened, even if I can't see it. (When I mention to medical workers that I smuggle a recorder into the operating room, they inevitably react with horror. How dare I? My response: why is it that every single person in that room gets to know what happens to me but I, the one person who is most involved, shouldn't know a thing? Again, fuck you.) I slipped it into the splint and when the nurse inevitably asked about it later, I gave my usual answer: "Yeah, I hurt my finger and need to wear this for a while." I've never been challenged about it.
This clinic didn't allow family to be anywhere but the waiting room, so I had to go back to the prep area by myself. I made sure the recorder was working and got into the gown and all that. I'm an experienced surgery patient by now, and I know it's easiest to wear slip-on shoes, a t-shirt, and jeans with no belt, nothing else. Belts and sweatshirts and glasses just turn into crap to keep track of when you're groggy. Keep it simple.
The hospital had a neat little trick--an air circulator that plugged into the gowns like a CPAP machine. It circulates warm air through the gown. This keeps the patient warm even in a cold operating room and the staff doesn't have to constantly get blankets from a warmer. Nifty!
When I was ready, the usual parade of nurses, anesthetists, and the doctor began. They were all aware of my preferences for the prep, for which I was appreciative. Most men find the prep for a transperineal biopsy to be embarrassing, but to me it's worse that someone is doing the embarrassing stuff to me while I'm unconscious and have no control. So the doctor positioned me on the table (eesh, I get nervous just typing this) and ran through the prep. It went fine. Then the anesthetist said it was time for the propofol. She administered it, I got dizzy, and then I was waking up in the recovery room. I remember asking for Darwin but getting no answer. I slept for a little bit, and then a nurse was there with a wheelchair telling me it was time to get dressed and go. I don't actually remember getting dressed (this is one of the many reasons why I hate anesthesia--it fucks with your memory and steals parts of your life), but I remember getting into the chair and being wheeled to the exit, where Darwin was waiting with the car. There were no complications during the biopsy, according to the staff. The doctor took only twelve cores, not twenty like last time.
At home that evening, I called up the recording on my computer. I skipped through the parts I was awake for, found the place where I was anesthetized, and listened. A lot of OR teams talk very little during the operation (the case where I was abused was definitely an outlying exception), and that was the case here. I heard the biopsy gun click, followed by a report from the doctor where the sample had come from, with the nurse repeating it and (presumably) writing it down. More clicks and reports, and then I was being wheeled to the recovery room. When I arrived, one nurse said to another that I had strangely asked to be awake during the pre-surgery prep. "He has PTSD or something," she said.
"Is it a control thing?" asked the other.
"It's probably control, yeah. He's probably afraid that--" here, she stopped herself. "Well, I'm not sure what he was afraid about."
"Uh huh," said the other nurse.
And that was all of it. I'm good with that. They're certainly allowed to exchange information about patient behavior in a non-critical manner.
I did tell the doctor that after the other biopsies, I got a fair amount of pain, so I wanted something stronger than Ibuprofen for a couple days. He gave me a scrip and I did get some fairly heft pain later. The pills helped.
One of the things that pokes at my anxieties about hospitals is the way they try to control your behavior. I know it's to maximize my care, but I also know that a bunch of it is overkill, and it creates feelings of enmity with me, and I try to work against what they tell me. For example, this particular clinic said that before the biopsy, I should avoid sexual activity for a week before and for a week after. Two weeks total! I'd never once heard about avoiding sexual activity before a prostate biopsy (before a PSA test, yes, but not before a biopsy), and I surfed all around the internet to check on this. No urology clinic I found had a cessation of sex in their pre-op instructions. As for after, they said to avoid sexual activity for three to five days. Not a full week.
I'm putting a chunk of this behind a cut screen because it gets very biological. I cope with this stuff by writing it down, which is why it's here. But you can skip it.
( Read more... )
Okay, we're back from the cut. A couple days later, I got an alert that I had new results in my patient portal. Oh yeah--what was the cancer doing? Weirdly, I had been more freaked out about the idea of having a biopsy than I was about the actual cancer. But the alert made me suddenly uneasy. I knew the results would be written in medicalese, but I'm fluent in that language thanks to growing up in a medical family, so I knew I'd be able to read them. Nervously, I called them up.
All twelve cores came back as "benign prostatic tissue." In other words, no cancer anywhere!
I joked at the last biopsy that the all the needles were snatching the cancer right out of there. Now it seems to be true! In all seriousness, though, it's very doubtful. The needles just missed any cancerous tissue. But that would also mean the cancer isn't spreading. I'll confirm with my oncologist at our appointment next week.
At the moment, I'm not feeling any pain from the biopsy, and I'm hoping the other side-effects are gone. I also got through it without melting down. We'll call it a win!
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