2002-10-23 6:00 AM
Some Reassembly Required

To everyone who has been looking forward to more entries in this journal: my appy polly loggies. I've been writing about lots of things that have happened and will be updating pretty soon now, but two things have prevented me from doing so. The first is simple logistics, as I don't have 'net access at home yet, and until the other day (thanks, Dag) I was lacking a floppy drive cable in my computer, so I couldn't type at home and then save my work on disk to be uploaded elsewhere. The second, and more serious, of my two problems is my health. I just spent nearly a month in the hospital, underwent emergency surgery, and managed to hobble back out into the world just this morning. My medical insurance was still pending up until the last few days of my hospital visit, so I spent most of that time (and had the surgery) in a free hospital run by the Russian government... a place not fit for man, beast, nor anatomical dummy. I couldn't get the doctors or nurses to wear gloves for any reason, even after I bought gloves for them with my own money. Nothing in the place was even remotely clean, much less sterile, and I'm sure that includes the syringes. It was a filthy place where blood puddles and screaming are considered ambience. They botched my anesthesia so badly that, although the drugs kept me paralyzed and the tube down my throat kept me silent, I remained fully conscious while they sliced me WIDE open, removed some bits that I would have preferred to keep, and then stitched me up like an old pair of blue jeans.

I'll tell you more about all that later. Right now, I just want to rest, get past my pain, and recover some of my strength.

Thank you for your patience.

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