Thursday, January 02, 2003
Placebo Effect
Today was to be my fist day back at work
since Dec 13. but at 3:00 am I was awakened by the unmistakable sensation of
an oncoming gallbladder attack. Gallbladder attacks are interesting in that
they can come on fast, cause excruciating pain and then go away quickly.
I’ve had them last a few minutes or, in some cases, hang on for up to three
hours. My surgery is scheduled for Jan 21 but the doctor didn’t give any
suggestions on what I should do if I suffered an attack before then.
Generally, gallbladder attacks are not considered life threatening so I
assumed that I was to just bear the pain till it subsided and count the days
till the operation.
This morning I decided to gamble that this would be a short episode so I
headed to work with the expectation that I would feel better along the way.
Forty five minutes later the pain was reaching that agonizing level where
you feel like throwing up and passing out. I passed my exit and headed for
the hospital instead. At one point I emptied the contents of my backpack
onto the car floor thinking that it might be needed as an air sick bag. (It
wasn’t.)
Twenty minutes later, while laying in the emergency room with a tube stuck
in my hand, the pain simply went away. It just stopped. One minute I’m
laying there sick as a dog and the next minute, I feel great. No medication
was used, it just stopped hurting and I was left feeling foolish while
trying to explain to the medical personnel that, “I’m all better now.” Of
course they’ve seen this kind of thing before so this time before I left,
they prescribed something called ‘Robinul’ to be used in case of future
attacks. I was feeling pretty good about that until a lady at the pharmacy
started describing her gallbladder experiences and told me that Robinul
didn’t do a thing to ease her pain. Thanks lady, now I won’t even get the
placebo effect when I take it.
I noticed this guy on the way home. He's a few weeks old.
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August 26, 1966 Friday
Last night I babysat for the Jepson’s. They have a little boy
named Skipper and he really brings back memories of when I was real young.
He’s only two years old so I have to change diapers and give him a bath. I
don’t mind so much because I need the money very badly.
I got my permanent license today and the picture is really terrible. I also
bought a jug of cider. I plan on saving it for special occasions.
Today I’ve been trying to figure out just what makes a teenager a
delinquent. About a year ago I would have considered myself as an above
average teenager as far as morality goes. Lately I’ve discovered that I’ve
been doing things that before I would have considered wrong. For example, I
used to think goofing off in the car was bad. Now I find myself tearing
around with Bill, acting like a number one rowdy. Although we haven’t done
anything real dangerous, I must say that if the police caught us we’d be the
owners of a few tickets.
After thinking it over I’ve found just what makes me different from the
really bad teenager. Some teenagers think that cigarette smoking makes them
real tough and mature. Their parents won’t let them smoke so they have to
find sneaky ways to get a drag. I realize that cigarette smoking is bad for
you and that it just shows how immature you are. I have a pipe and beside
the fact that pipe smoking isn’t bad for you I have my parents consent. Pipe
smoking isn’t just for the pleasure of the smoke, there’s a science to the
art of packing and caring of a pipe. I consider it more of a hobby.
Another thing that some teenagers do is drink until they get plastered. I’ll
admit that I’ve had a drink or two occasionally but I never got any pleasure
out of it and I don’t plan on continuing.
Once when I was messing around with a friend I happened to break a window
across the street. I gave the people my address and later on I paid for the
window. When a boy at school heard about it he thought I was crazy for ever
paying. The things is, whenever I do something like that I get a proud
feeling and I always know I’m better than what that boy will ever be.
This morning I made a dollar with Bill cutting a mans lawn. He seems to like
our work and he wants us to take care of his house while he’s away this
winter.
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