When Life Gives you Malt...

We are presently hip deep in the holiday season, with Christmas and Hanukkah past, Kwanzaa just starting up, and the New Years less than a week away.

I hope the gifts you received (and gave) were all what were hoped for. Sometimes my own gift giving knocks it out of the park*, and other times it's, well, kind of meh. 

But by far the best gift I received this year came a month ago, when I was given a second chance at life. And for everybody who helped give me that gift, I don't intend to squander it.

I am still the same person I was, however. I can't look at these commercials for European river cruises or vacations abroad without thinking they are the height of extravagance. Sure, I'd love to travel, but money (and medical issues) restrict me from doing so. As does my Midwestern upbringing in not drawing attention to myself; and let's be honest about travel: the farther away from home you go, the more likely you draw that attention to yourself by merely being there. Your accent and mannerisms will draw the eye as you do not fit in.

It may be funny, but also cringe
inducing for Midwesterners with
neighbors who think Gatlinburg is exotic.

So, my life changing goals are a bit less exotic and more along the lines of "let's work on the house a bit more and get things done that you said you were going to get done all those years ago". Or perhaps revisit a hobby because of my now incessant need to know just what is going into my body when I eat or drink something:

Cardwyn: "Oh no..."
Me: "Oh yes. And you're still a figment
of my imagination."
Cardwyn: "We'll see about that."

Sorry, I'm not a hophead, and I can't stand IPAs**. But I do like other beers, so I'm going to return to a hobby I abandoned a couple of years before I took up MMOs and start homebrewing again. I don't intend to go bananas, but I do intend to brew about 3-4 batches a year. I can drink beer and wine, but I have to strictly monitor my intake. And with homebrewing, I can control exactly how many carbs are in my beer.

I've already reviewed my 20+ year old equipment and replaced most of the food grade plastic with new material from Northern Brewer --the glass and metal stuff is still in good shape-- and I've already got a basic recipe obtained, so I think shortly after New Year's I'll hold my first brewing session since what, 2005 or 2006? Probably 2006.

If I can't visit Great Britain, at least I can brew an English Bitter and drink that. 

Hmm.... I wonder if someone had created a homebrew version of Shindigger Stout....

*For the unfamiliar, some baseball slang referencing a home run. The equivalent in futbol of kicking a goal from the midfield.

**India Pale Ales.

Some Monday Updates

Well....

The first Classic Throwback raid was a bust. 

Too many people said "hey, great idea, but I can't attend this week," and that lack of signups killed off the BWL run.

So, I'm going to give it a try in January.

***

In other news, the holidays are almost here, and that means Winter festivals galore in MMO space.

I still am somewhat ambivalent about those, but I have to acknowledge that a festival or celebration around the time of the Winter Solstice has been around in our (real) history for thousands of years, so we pretty much expect one when we participate in something akin to an MMO or RPG. 

I still enjoy this.

And yes, the Elf reference still makes me chuckle.

***

Finally, the gang is all here.

My youngest arrived back home just before midnight on Saturday, straight from Chicago and a music convention* there, so now the entire family is back together. Just in time for me to get a cold.

Oh yay.

I've finally turned the corner today, but it still sucked to have to isolate myself for a couple of days.

But hey, we're all back together --until the UofL bowl game, that is-- and I'm going to enjoy this time with all seven of us.

Seven?

Yeah, seven. Because we now have two extra family members:

Amazingly enough, they stood
still for this photo.

Say hello to Athena and Artemis. My oldest adopted them late last Summer, and I am now a guinea pig grandpa. I've gotten used to this concept, and after my hospital stay the three of us now compete for the same leafy greens that are stored in the fridge.

I guess that makes me part guinea pig at this point.

*Her major is Music Therapy, and she is also a member of the University of Louisville Marching Cards. So we have two mini-Reds who have been part of a university marching band as well as wind ensembles and chamber orchestras. Yes, I'm a proud papa.

Fun is a Relative Thing

Next week, I'm going to flip the script.

I'm going to take my raid back into the Classic past and our first Throwback Friday Classic raid.

Instead of running Karazhan every Friday of the month --and struggling to keep the same number of tanks/healers-- every third Friday I'm going to run a Classic raid instead. The poll on the channel currently shows Blackwing Lair leading the vote, which means we'll need a few tanks with a fire resist set*, but given that Naxx was originally leading the poll I'm fine with that.

Still, this will be a new (old?) experience for me. 

I mean, I know what BWL is like. (The goblin packs alone make that obvious, you know.) But still, this will be a major endeavor, because I'll likely be leading a raid with a significant number of non-guildies for the first time. If our forays into Naxx for Atiesh completion is our guide, non-guildies will come out of the woodwork for a chance to go back to BWL and pick up various and sundry gear for RP purposes. And for the chance to get Neltharion's Tear, too.

So this will be my maiden voyage into 'herding 40 cats'. Ought to be fun, I suppose.

*Still need one, as far as I know. I can't assume we'll just overcome it by sheer force of will. Or idiocy.

A Follow-up

Um, wow.

I've been very humbled the past week.

People I haven't spoken to in years have reached out to me, checking in, and that's just people I know via Facebook. My gamer friends have outdone my FB friends, and for that I'm extremely grateful.

When I logged in last Friday for the weekly Karazhan run --yes, I felt well enough to handle that-- I got (virtually) jumped by a couple of guildies who gave me a stern talking to about how I need to take care of myself because there are a lot of people who love and care about me. The rest of the Monday raid lead team echoed those sentiments before and after our progression raid*, and random people on the server that I knew colloquially checked in as well.

To all of you who reached out, thank you. Your good wishes and prayers and even tough love are all welcome. I will behave, I promise. (I have continued to lose weight even after having left the hospital, so that's proof that I'm doing something right.)

Again, thank you for everything. I have the best friends. (Even those who lurk.)

Mr. Red agrees.

*Hey, we made it to Tempest Keep and one-shot Void Reaver! We also didn't wipe on trash, which is very much a thing in TK, and we also got some good experience on A'lar.

Let's Play "Where's Red?"

I don't talk too terribly much about my personal stuff.

There was the post about my dealing with depression, and there's the occasional post about family and friends, but I don't talk too much about my stuff. It's not the point of the blog.

However, there are some things I ought to talk about, because there are people who deserve to know.

***

Back in July, I developed a cough.

It began with some old mildewy magazines that my mom had dropped off, thinking I'd want them, but given that the cough seemed to come directly from that I quickly bagged up the magazines and tossed them in the garage. End of the problem, right?

The thing was, the cough wouldn't go away.

At the same time, I noticed that I was getting more and more tired from walking and whatnot.Trips to the grocery store became more of a labor than before. I cursed that damn cough and wished that the dry thing would go away, or at least loosen up and let whatever junk I was convinced was in my lungs out so I could get on with life. Things finally came to a head when I found it difficult to walk more than 100 yards without stopping for a break. My wife had finally had enough and read me the riot act: you're going to the doctor.

So I set up an appointment with urgent care and a physical with my doctor.

I went to urgent care, described my symptoms, and the attending physician said I had likely had an asthmatic attack. To let the lungs heal, she said, she prescribed a steroid and an inhaler in case I needed it.

I took the steroid diligently, and it seemed to help, but my legs swelled up like a blimp. By the time I visited my doctor for the physical, I mentioned the swelling and that the steroid seemed to be working except for that. In the midst of all of the poking and prodding and blood tests, he decided to switch to a steroid inhaler to focus the medication. 

***

A couple of days later I got a response about my bloodwork and other items: I was onset T2 diabetic; I had high cholesterol, and I had high blood pressure.

Get back to the office for a consultation, he said. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

So I scheduled an appointment and waited.

However, my exhaustion had returned --if it had ever really been away-- and the inhaler steroid didn't seem to work much.

On the day of my appointment, I was so exhausted that I could barely walk inside the building without taking a break. And the doc noticed.

"I was going to talk about diabetes, but we should talk about the obvious: why are you out of breath?"

A chest x-ray revealed the culprit: a shadow over the bottom of my right lung, indicating a large amount of fluid buildup in the lung.

***

 I was sent immediately to the emergency room of one of the local hospitals, with my doc calling ahead of time to let them know I was coming. 

"Guess where we're going?" I told my wife when I got home from the doctor's office.

I then realized that I was not going to make the raid that night.

Quickly jotting a few notes on Discord and then for work, we then split for the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital* and I could barely check-in due to being out of breath. In what had to be the quickest I've ever seen an administration move, they got me processed and back into a room where I was inspected by a nurse and a doctor.

It was then that I was informed I had heart failure.

***

Heart failure? That's the stuff that my Grandmother dealt with; it was an old person's disease. But here I was, set up with IVs and being pumped up with diuretics to make me pee out the fluid buildup in my lung and legs. There was even talk of the docs cutting a hole in my back so they could pass a tube through it and drain the fluid from the lung that way, but they decided to take a wait and see approach.

This was my life this
past week.

 

I was kept overnight while I kept filling liter bottles, and sometime overnight I was transferred to the cardiac unit. An echo cardiogram was scheduled --the equivalent of an ultrasound for the heart-- and it was only some hours later that the results were shared with me as I was being wheeled up to my "new" room in the cardiac floor: my heart was pumping blood at roughly half the volume it should be. Because of that, I was to undergo a procedure to determine where the problem lay with my heart: the docs would examine my arteries for blockages, and based on that determine if I needed a stent, bypass surgery, or something else. The procedure would be the next day, and I'd have to fast after midnight to get ready.

***

I hate fasting.

Especially when my mouth is dry and I want desperately to drink some water. 

But I figured that I could handle it if the fast is from Midnight to morning.

Well....

I was told in the morning that my procedure was scheduled for 4 PM, so the nurse snuck me a half a cup of water along with my pills for the morning. Additionally, since I had about 8+ hours of waiting around, I might as well get some more diuretics in me to get the fluid out of me.

(You can see what's coming, can't you?)

A few minutes after I took the diuretics and I while I was talking with the nurse, there was a knock at the door. "We're here to take you to your procedure!" the cheerful looking attendant said as she stepped inside.

"Uh...." I said.

"Well...." the nurse added.

"What about the diuretics?" I asked. "I just took some about 10 minutes ago."

"That won't be a problem," the attendant replied. "If we have to, we'll help you out."

I quickly found out that "help you out" means pulling the cart I was on to a stop, letting me hop off, and run into the closest bathroom to take a leak.

The next several hours passed in a bit of a blur, because the drugs they put me under knocked me silly. I recall having to do weird maneuver so I could pee, and surprising my wife when I asked what would happen if I overflowed the bottle, but outside of that not much. When I finally woke up I was told it was the best of all worlds: my arteries were fine, and no stents or open heart surgery was required. I only needed drugs to strengthen my heart. Well, and I needed to get diabetes and high blood pressure under control, too.

Crisis averted. (Sort of.)

***

That left the excess liquid stuck in my body.

By Wednesday, I'd peed out about 9 liters of fluid, and I still had swollen calves and feet. The doctors held me back until I could get enough liquid out for me to finally lose the swelling down there, and so I spent an extra day at the hospital, getting used to the diabetic lifestyle and propping my feet high up enough that fluid flowed out of my legs.

(Free hint: if you're under diuretics, set a timer if you're propping your feet up. Otherwise, it might be too late for you when you try to make it to the bathroom. Yes, I did make it. Barely.)

***

I was released on Thursday, still very much alive and also very humbled by my experience. This entire thing had crept up on me over the course of several months, and were it not for my wife --and the medical staff-- I'd have likely been in much worse shape. And I don't know what would have happened then.

When I left the hospital and waited for
my wife to bring the car around, the mascot
of the Cincinnati Reds, Mr. Red, invited
me to take a seat.

What I do know, however, is that I have people who have my back. 

I kept this whole episode quiet on Facebook, because I don't use FB much these days, but it kind of blew up on our guild's Discord. And on my wife's FB post.

So THAT is where I've been the past week.

*That trip included witnessing a hit-and-run accident, so my wife dropped me off and returned to the accident as a witness. Always fun around here.

A Short Addendum

I didn't get a chance to pull out any LOTRO screenshots because they're on the old PC, but I got on this afternoon and dicovered two things: the band on Gladden-US still plays at 5 PM EST on Fridays, and damn, I've missed them.

Nice!!

What I Did on my Fall Vacation

Once in a while I get the urge to post some pics that I screenshot here and there. Not because of any real reason, but just because.

And I do get around:

From isometric RPGs:

Tyranny from Obsidian Studios.
A bit of a cult classic.

To Old Time wargames:

A blast from the past: Medieval: Total War.

To other MMOs:

 

Ah, it's always a good day on Balmorra
when I pull the Old Man out of the garage.

 

Neverwinter. I swear, I login after a long
absence and I find myself surrounded by Dragonborn.

And under the heading of "WTF?"
There's this going on in Star Trek Online.

I can tell you that having seen people cosplaying as Next Gen Starfleet at a Star Trek convention (circa early-90s), those Starfleet outfits are very unforgiving in terms of fit. But if you've the fit and figure for it, the uniforms flatter your form to no end. 

***

Of course, the game of choice these days is WoW Classic, and that's where most of my screenshots lie....

A beautiful shot of the moon while
I was crossing The Barrens.

And just because the statue is of a Kaldorei
doesn't mean that Neve wasn't inspired by it.

And if you noticed, Neve finally got enough
gold to afford a mount. So, she paid a visit to
Eversong Forest to check out some striders.

Before that, this was Neve's life.

Well, when she wasn't playing messenger
for Sylvanas to Thrall.

And it's not like Brig has been suffering from a lack of use, as you can tell here:

Dancing bears providing our pre-Tidewalker
entertainment.

And she does have some snarky commentary:

Brig: "If you're a blacksmith, I am Mickey Mouse!!!"

And surprise surprise, Illidan's Kryptonite
is hidden away by Akama.