The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Firefox 1.5

Firefox 1.5 is out. Other than reinstalling all my extensions (Web Developer, Sage, and del.icio.us), I haven’t noticed much different. I have noticed that Plastikfox Crystal SVG, my favorite theme, isn’t available for the new browser yet.

All my extensions work correctly and as I have more of a chance to play with it, I’ll probably notice more of the enhancements. I guess when I get to work tomorrow, I’ll see if IE Tab works on my Windows box at work.

Congratulations on the new browser, Mozilla. CSS3 support! Now, let’s see what Redmond has to say about that.

Salted

It had been a while since I’d gone out to Mighty and I felt pretty healthy. I was a little antsy after last night’s party to get onto a good dancefloor with a good crowd. Patrick and Gigi were into it, so after a short disco nap, I jumped in my car and zipped up to San Francisco.

Tonight’s party was House of Om, featuring DJ Fluid and Fred Everything. DJ Fluid was on the decks when I arrived and threw down a solid set of deep, funky house grooves. What a magnificent breath of fresh air. He kept a delicious set going until after midnight, when Fred Everything took over. Fred’s set was soulful, inspiring, grin-inducing, stellar. That’s what I’ve been missing. The venue was full, but not packed, and the crowd was fun to dance with.

The only bummer about the party is that the girl who had the Om CDs for sale split before 3. I was looking forward to buying some new disks. Ah, well, I guess I can always buy them off Om’s site or on Amazon.

What a great party!

The Loft

I noticed an announcement from a friend on myspace. Tonight, a free party in San José featured Roger Moorehouse and Frank Zacarias, a couple of South Bay DJs, so I decided to check it out. I haven’t been out in more than a month and I figured that I could go, hang out, and listen to some good music.

The bar was mellow, had a decent sound system, and kind of a sparse crowd. I ran into a couple of people I know through UNEAQ and hung out. Roger and Frank played solid Latin-influenced house mixes, interspersed with more commercial fare (it was in San José, after all). Toward the end, a few people jumped onto the dancefloor.

The music ended at 1:30 and I made a bee-line back to my jalopy and headed home. Not a bad club, but it was quite sparse and of the crowd there, something like 90% were male. Maybe another time.

Bike Wrangling

After I got unbanded this morning, I called CHP to see about picking up my bicycle. They said it wouldn’t be a problem, so I zipped up to Redwood City to get my 520 this afternoon.

I haven’t seen my bicycle since the crash. From what I could see, I had tacoed my front wheel (a 36-spoke touring wheel), bent my handlebars out of alignment with my fork, and bent my brake assemblies inward. The front fender was a little bent up (although it’s mostly thin plastic and aluminum, so it doesn’t need replaced). My saddle was a little scuffed (from the flip) and I broke my large Polar water bottle. I loaded my beautiful ride onto my bike rack, tossed the bent from rim into the back seat of my car, and made the trip to Bicycle Outfitter. They’re going to check my bike from top to bottom. My 520 is in the best of hands.

Some time next week, my bike will be fixed (and endowed with new handlebar tape which I bought five or six months ago — the really nice gel pad Fizik tape) and I’ll be able to start rebuilding all that lost muscle.

Cyclists, do miles on the trainer count as miles in your training log? I guess I’ll see how I feel on asphalt and then determine whether I need to get that trainer in order to ride, or not.

Finally, though, my bicycle and I are back in the same county.

Syringe to Spoon

Yesterday, a large piece of the wax separating my molars to pull my jaw back into place broke off into my mouth. After some effort, I managed to open my banded jaw just enough to push it out through my teeth with my tongue. So, I called my surgeon’s medical assistant, she consulted him, and this morning at 9 am, I returned to the clinic at Stanford.

My surgeon cut the myriad rubber bands which banded my jaws shut and prevented me from opening my mouth. Then, he removed all the wax in my mouth. Opening my yap felt really strange, as does the fact that my tongue can feel my actual molars again. After installing a pair of new rubber bands on each side, he told me to do some range-of-motion exercises.

My friends, I have graduated from liquids to soft foods. My diet can now include ice cream, pudding, soups of various kinds, and blended angel hair pasta (the blender chews it up into little tiny chunks for me), among other things. I don’t have to eat things with my 60cc syringe anymore. I have graduated to spoons.

I get to spend at least two more weeks without solid food. But, I did ask my surgeon if I could exercise…

“Don’t fall. Probably better to ride a trainer. But, when you get your heart rate up, it’s going to feel uncomfortable because your fractures are still healing, so just be careful.”

So, perhaps, a week from tomorrow, I’ll ramble 20 miles up and down Foothill Expressway and see how it feels. If it doesn’t hurt, it looks like I may end up with a non-zero November cycling chart after all. We’ll see. Better to have that big goose egg than mess up my body.

I guess next, I’d better see about checking on my valiant steed.

I Have Survived

On Tuesday, my appointment for my surgery finally came. One of my housemates drove me to Stanford University and I headed up to the surgery check-in. On check-in, I was informed that my surgeons were running long on another surgery.

I got naked, robed, and weighed (I’m down ten pounds already?), and waited for my anesthesiologist to talk to me. Apparently, my surgery has changed. Surgical reduction of my mandibular condyles is too risky, so we’re plating my chin fracture with a metal plate and banding my jaws shut for a couple of weeks. My surgeon is placing the plate by making an incision inside my mouth. I end up with no external incisions.

The anesthesiologist told me they were going to intubate me nasally—a big tube down my nose and throat. Fortunately, I’d be out before they did that. They started the IVs and I was shortly wheeled into the operating room. A gaggle of people were buzzing around me and the anesthesiologists worked on my veins. Soon, someone asked me if I was too cold.

It seemed like five seconds elapsed when I opened my eyes. “Are we starting?” I asked. “Honey,” the nurse told me. “You’re all done. You’ve been in the recovery room for more than an hour.” My vision returned and, before long, I ended up in my room, groggy, but alive.

I spent five hours the first night trying to go to the bathroom, before the prettiest nurse in the world came in to install a catheter. That sucked a little bit. Also, if you’re up all night and plan to sleep through the day in the hospital… forget it. People come in bright and early to make sure that you don’t sleep very much.

Wednesday passed and my doctor decided that I should spend an additional night in the hospital, just to make sure I was out of pain and in full possession of my faculties by the time I go home. So, after five clear liquid meals, I was finally given a can of Ensure and released a little while afterward.

My friend, Emmett, grabbed supplies I requested at my house on Wednesday and came to pick me up on Thursday morning. So far as I’m concerned, Emmett doesn’t get to buy Indian food in my presence for a year—it’s on me, sir.

So, I have another week from today with my jaws banded shut. Next Monday, I get to go in and get my mouth opened and guidance bands placed. After that point, for a couple of weeks, I’ll be on a soft foods diet. After that, I will likely be able to resume with solid foods ad nauseam (heh). At that point, I hope to be back on my bicycle with a whole new level of commitment. If I’m gonna lose all this weight to liquid diets and a jaw injury, I’m coming back stronger than ever before.

We Are Go

Tomorrow, I’m going to Stanford for my surgery at 10 in the morning.

I’ll be under the knife for most of Tuesday afternoon.

I have a confession to make… I’m scared shitless. Shitless.

I’ve never had major surgery before. I’m confident that the surgeon in charge of my care is the best of the best of the best. I’m afraid of the recovery.

When Emmett drove me home from the hospital last Sunday, I got car sick for the first time ever. At least that I can remember. We made it all the way to Sunnyvale on I-280 and when we got to Walgreen’s, I just couldn’t ride in the car anymore. I’m scared of getting sick without the ability to open my mouth.

I have an exceptionally high constitution, but I’m a little afraid of the hospital stay, the inevitable IV and catheterization, and the risk of complications. I’m a little afraid of the pain of recovery. It’s like watching the hurricane coming in. Tomorrow, it makes land fall.

Have you had major surgery? Am I terrified for nothing? I’m not going to skip out on it, but I’m still trembly scared.

Oh, Great

So, my crash on Saturday, I went to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center this afternoon (thanks for the lift, Patrick!) to have my consultation with the plastic surgeons who are going to repair my broken and dislocated jaw. I arrived after a little tangling getting off the freeway. Soon, I found myself in the bowels of the hospital at an admitting desk, filling out a form in pencil that had several checkboxes for status of address (“Permanent, Temporary, Jail, Car”). A while later, they called me.

I sat in an exam room for a while. Then, someone came in to ask me a whole bunch of questions. Then, another somebody came in to check me out as I sat on the paper table. No answers. Then, I’m alone in the room with a new iPod without headphones (yeah, I forgot them). Finally, a nurse gets me to ask me some financial information and stuff.

Finally, this is the verdict: “The extent of your injuries is great enough that we don’t really have the expertise to take care of you here.”

Tomorrow, I’m going back to Stanford.

The News

So, on Saturday, I was stongly considering wimping out of my scheduled 100 kilometer ride and going on Sunday instead. If I had the last 36 hours to do over again, I’d have done just that.

43.5 miles into my ride, after a decent enough hammer up to Portola Valley, down through Woodside, and missing my hoped-for 45 mph descent down Woodside because of cross-winds, I was racing the sunset home. Cruising through Menlo Park, I noticed I had about an hour and twenty minutes until sunset and 20 miles to go. I can do that.

I paced another cyclist in a Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club kit. He jumped the red-light at Valparaiso. “Moron,” I thought. “That’s really a great way to get hit by a car.” I should have jumped the light with him.

I got my spin going pretty well. I was up to about 22 mph, when the guy in the traffic lane in a white truck decided he needed a video and attempted to turn right down Ashton (or was it Gordon), just before Avy Avenue in West Menlo Park. There was only one problem with his unsignalled turn. I was going straight down Alameda de las Pulgas. One moment, I’m thinking about how awesome it’ll be to knock out those last 20 miles, get my shower, my pizza, my disco nap, and head on up to the clubs in costume tonight. The next moment, I’m thinking “HEY, HEY” and I’m on the ground, spitting out pieces of my teeth.

A gaggle of witnesses came rushing out from the nearby cafes and sidewalk to help untangle me from my bicycle. Menlo Park Fire Department and paramedics were there in minutes. Despite the unquenchable desire to jump up and beat the hell out the driver, I stayed on the ground. I kept spitting out chunks of teeth and answering the paramedics’ questions. No, I didn’t lose consciousness. Yes, I can feel the pain in my mouth, ears, jaw, face. They put me in a neck brace. Wait, please take the cyclometer off my handlebars and bring my trunk bag — yeah, the black one with us. My digital camera, Palm Pilot, keys, and cellphone are in there. Yes, that’s my wallet.

We went to Stanford hospital, where all the ER nurses are cute and so are the doctors. I was in the ER from 5:40 pm PST through the time change until about 3 in the morning. I had the volunteer lady call Emmett, who dropped his Hallowe’en weekend plans to run to my house and get me some clothes, my iPod, and some other miscellany. He really deserves all praises for coming to my rescue and spending ridiculous amounts of time at the hospital with me.

After two cat scans, they determined that I had not broken my neck. That’s a relief. That neck brace was getting uncomfortable. After a while, they told me that I had dislocated and broken my jaw and that they’d need to look at the x-rays and scans, but they could probably reduce it (put it back into joint) and make me feel a little better. Then, a neurosurgeon came to see me. “You look pretty serious,” I said.

“Do you know what I am?” “I see neurosurgeon on your lapel, so I’m taking it you want to remove my brain and find someone for it who will actually use it.” “That’s funny. You have a sense of humor.” He asked me lots of questions and told me that I had a small fracture in my skull running behind my left eye from the impact. They needed to run another cat scan and keep me overnight to make sure I wasn’t bleeding into my brain.

That’s the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. “You could go home right now, but if you are bleeding into your brain, you could hemorrhage out and die before you can make it back to the hospital.” Okay, dude, make more jokes or you will fucking lose it right now. My face is messed up, but I’ve never been that pretty. My brain, though. That’s fucking serious.

After another cat scan at 4am, I was sent back to my room, which had lots of beeps and they happened to be set to an interval that would let me start dozing when another loud set of beeps would come through with “DR. RECTUMWORM TO 306. DR. RECTUMWORM. 306.” Another twelve hours of drifting into and out of short periods of sleep, having the cleaning lady come through once an hour to clean the sink, my cellmate buzzing the nurse every six minutes to get something adjusted. I have very little to bitch about considering I shared my ER with a multiple transplant recipient, a diabetic with some other problems, and a guy who already had a couple of heart attacks – in addition to sharing a room with a guy who underwent major surgery on his back. As lucky as I should feel that I only destroyed my jaw, I am still not going to be able to eat solid food for a long time.

Emmett chased down and wrangled nurses and doctors for me and got a clear understanding of when I could go home. He drove me home, took me to the pharmacy, endured my Vicodin-induced vertigo turning into motion sickness, and walked me home when I realized that I could not ride in a car without needing to stop to throw up.

You are a prince, Emmett. I cannot thank you enough and you have no idea how grateful I am.

I’m at home now. My friend, Patrick, is driving down from San Francisco to take me to the hospital in San Jose to consult the surgeons. I’m hoping to return to work some time this week, because I get paid by the hour (oh, yeah, and I have no medical insurance, thanks to lack of information about whether or not I was automatically enrolled or if there was a specific time period to show up).

But, scratch the rest of my cycling this year. Scratch my sister’s memorial ride next summer. Scratch dancing, eating, socializing, travelling to Idaho for x-mas to see my babies. And scratch these ripped legs and a body that I’ve been working on for three years. A liquid diet for the next few months is certain to see me losing quite a bit of weight.

But, I’ll live. Here’s to what’s next. Thanks for reading this far.

Also, before I forget. That Giro Eclipse helmet saved my fucking life. Do not ride your bicycle without a helmet. Please.

New Hotness

This afternoon, I called the Apple store, because I went in on Monday and they didn’t have any. Today, “You want it in black or white?”

Today had to be the day. It was raining, so I didn’t bike to work. I need a reward for my 16000 marker. I went into the store, found an employee, and said the magic words:

“Yes, I’d like a white 60 gigabyte iPod video, please!”

Five minutes later, it’s mine. And it’s sexy. Oh, my goodness, you have no idea. It’s ridiculously more sexy than my first-generation iPod. With 12 times the storage capacity, I guess I’m loading it up tonight with some and ripping some CDs this weekend.

Nicely done on the device, Apple. This really puts the ball over the back wall.