Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Did I mention the fact that I've had two life saving operations since I arrived in Boston?

Possibly.

Anyway, as it turns out I had no health insurance I was a bit worried about the bill. Imagine my surprise when a representative of the the Massachusetts Physicians board phone me yesterday to tell me that my bill was only $841 and that I would get 25% of that if I paid within 30 days. Never before have I received a bill of this size  with such delight. It seemed like a bargain for a CT scan, an emergency operation, blood tests and so on. Peta was already planning to buy another pair of shoes to go with the two pairs she bought last week.

Turns out they were messing with me as today I received not one but three bills. One was indeed for $841 to pay the physicians who did such sterling work. Another was for $300 for 'other services' (still hopeful) and the third was for nearly $5000 (hope-less).

Dagnabbit!

Then of course I can look forward to the bill from the Harvard Dental School who did the first operation and (although I'm no expert) possibly didn't make such a good job of it as I was back in hospital within 24 hours.

Luckily I can start to earn all this money back as I checked on the status of my work visa this morning and I've only got another 3 months to wait until that is granted.

On a brighter note I'm just back from the gym where I ran for half an hour and did some ineffectual exercises on big white weight machines.

Dorus

In my effort to do something more useful with my time than watch Chris Morris in The Day Today on YouTube  I met up with Deborah from Ethos and was taken to meet an 88 year old, blind, ex marine at his apartment on Blue Hill Avenue.

Dorus fought in the Pacific during WW2 and has been blind for about 40 years which is probably due to his diabetes which may or may not be the reason his eyes are so vividly blue. He declined the offer of my help, preferring instead to stick with his nurse Tony who has been running his finances recently. Dorus married a 30 something year old woman last year who promptly took him to the cleaners for about twenty thousand dollars before the police threw her out and issued her with a two year restraining order. Dorus had also had some similar problems with one of his previous nurses so Tony was understandably worried about being accused of embezzlement.

Tony is a Pastor of 4 churches, has 9 children and three jobs and seems to have a lovely rapport with Dorus who he tells us is a sailor through and through. Dorus agreed saying he loved fishing and swimming, "In fact I love the water so much that I take a bath twice a week whether I need it or not".

Dorus also asked Deborah whether she could fix him up with a wife and declared his desire to go to India, 'for lunch'. When asked why he hesitated before revealing that he'd heard they had a new deli there.

It was a pleasure to meet Dorus and Tony and although I'd like to hear a few more of his stories I think he's in safe hands with Tony who will be around for longer than I will.

Last word to Dorus who has a lifelong love of music and dancing.

'I used to tap and move my feet while dancing to the rhythm.
These days I only wash my feet and can't do a thing with 'em'.

The Quiet American

Sometimes I feel that I dislike books/films/plays which are widely feted, either because I'm a contrarian or because  my expectations are too high and cannot be met.

In the case of Graham Greene's The Quiet American the plaudits don't get much better but I was none the less hugely impressed. I read the introductory essay by Robert Stone in the Penguin Classic edition I borrowed from the library and until the last page of his essay he seemed highly disdainful of Greene as a flawed catholic imperialist, the characters as mere ciphers and the plot as fraudulent. Very odd.

I've written a couple of notable quotes from the novel below, for my benefit rather for any meaning they may hold to others.

"And bombs aren't for boys from Boston."

"Find me an uncomplicated child, Pyle. When we are young we are a jungle of complications. We simplify as we get older."  

Suffering is not increased by numbers: One body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.

PETA'S FIRST POST!

Chris wants me to do music review of his very unselfish gesture of taking me to Angus and Julia Stone at the Paradise Rock Club...Thank you darling!  I loved it! Her voice is like melted molasses tinged with Bjork, and she is precociously talented - grabbing a guitar and then a trumpet, and then a mouth organ and then caressing  a keyboard. Not to mention her flowing locks and accompanying kaftan. She even did a cover of 'You're the one that I want'...  Like a little elfland princess. Angus is more like the old man of the mountains on mushrooms,  with a gruff beard and plaintive longing beautiful voice. Can you tell that I loved it yet? Yep, my sort of gig and Kate Grady was there with me in spirit. I reckon they'll be as big as Simon and Garfunkel, maybe one day when I am old.. oh yep, I'm that now, I meant 'older'... xx All up, a great gig. Ta, Christopher. xx

Julia and Angus

Australian. Angus. Aberdeen. Angry.
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Kingsley Flood

This is Kingsley Flood in action, they are the warm up to Angus and Julia Stone who will be starting shortly. Anyone wanting to hear a live broadcast via my phone should text or email.
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Just Trying To Brighten The Place Up A Bit

Lazy Beach

Lazy Beach is a spot I hope to visit on the way back to King Island from our American experience.

I didn't really consider the other meaning until I mentioned it to Peta and she thought I was cussing her.

Why she thought that I can't imagine.

After all, she made lunch today. This is the second time she's been so generous in the kitchen since we arrived in Boston. She made scrambled eggs with bacon. Bacon is not grilled in the States as they don't have a grill setting on the oven. They have a broil setting instead which seems quite similar to grilling in many ways but is actually rather more sophisticated. Anyway, lunch was made and it proved to be the high point of my day after which my mood slid downhill thanks largely to my diary being a little on the blank side which is not the most enlivening way to start the week.

Tomorrow is a whole other matter as not only do I have a visit to the dentists to look forward to but on my return I can visit the weekly Harvard Farmers Market to buy some delicious, tatty-looking, organic vegetables and a loaf of wonderful bread which turns to rock if not eaten within hours of purchase. For possibly the first time since my arrival in the US I have a third activity to add to this heady calendar and it's quite something, not just cooking dinner or picking pubes off the bathroom floor, we're going to the Paradise Rock Club to see Angus and Julia Stone.

It's turns out that they're Australian which seems a bit daft but I didn't know that until today. I should have guessed when I found out that the tickets were only were only $15.00 each which for a band that I've actually heard of seems ridiculously cheap.

Tune in this time tomorrow when I'll be uploading photos of the gig and writing a review.

Bacon, that was it.

So yes, I also went out for a walk to Harvard Wine Company  ( I said I was having a bad day) and left a note asking Peta to put the oven on for the pizza. Obviously I forgot that she had omitted to clean  the oven after broiling the bacon but I quickly remembered when I returned to a stinking smoke filled flat condo and was compelled to eat pizza that tasted of the black crispy droppings at the bottom of the oven.

I imagine this is similar to a mother who has their child treat them to breakfast in bed on Mothers Day. It's a nice idea but it tastes like shit and I know I'll have to spend the next hour mopping up milk, sweeping up cornflakes and picking bits of tea-bags out of the kettle.

I couldn't get the baked on burnt bacon fat out of the oven tray which would have made my day a total failure were it not for the fact that spurred on by a glass of wine I started planning for NaNoWriMo.

Criminal Mastermind

How about this for a story.

Volunteering

I finally heard back from Ethos about volunteering with old people. They suggested Ruth from Roxbury as their most in need client but again, once I accepted the offer she was  uncontactable. This could  mean that everything is well with Ruth but could also have more negative implications as she could have been waiting for up to six months for urgent financial assistance.

Anyway, next on the list is Richard from Blue Hill Avenue. Interesting I was reading an article on this area in the excellent local free listings paper The Boston Phoenix which described the problems festering in this neighbourhood. Regular readers will remember the Mattapan murders in which four people including a 2 year old were shot dead recently but this is just the headline grabbing incident among many shootings in the area.

In fact a look at the Boston Murder Map illustrates the cluster of shootings that blight the area. For those of you unfamiliar with Boston's geography then just find the centre of the area with the greatest density of red dots and you'll find Blue Hill Avenue.

So next week I'll be off to visit Richard who's blind and lives in a sheltered housing development. I'll be sure to take along my BlackBerry and will be uploading the best shots just as soon as I make good my escape.

Happiness

I think by the time you're grown you're as happy as you're goin to be. You'll have good times and bad times but in the end you'll be about as happy as you was before. Or as unhappy. I've knowed people that just never got the hang of it.

Ellis - Cormac McCarthy - No Country For Old Men

Global Culture

Our flat is really very small so when Peta is having a little difficulty with her work I like to afford her some time for contemplative reflection by getting away from the accompanying huffing and puffing. Were I a native of these parts I would probably make my way to Dunkin' Donuts and enjoy a watery coffee with my chubby pals, go bowling or shooting elk but as it is I have no recourse to such conviviality as I have no friends within a 5000km radius.

As it is I go to the library which I think I've already mentioned is the nicest place Peta has been to in the US (mind you that was before we went to see the baseball at Fenway Park). I was looking through the shelves of recently returned DVD's when a skittish woman with long dreadlocks approached the information counter to my left. 'Do you have...I'm looking for...can I order...I'm sorry. Hetty Wainthrop Investigates? Do you have it? Season 2. I watched season 1 but I've been waiting for all time for season 2.'

The librarian explained that the DVD was on order but there were fourteen people on the wait-list in front of her. Fourteen! Can you believe it? Recent release movies like last year's Oscar winner, The Hurt Locker, are just sitting there but Hetty Wainthrop Investigates is in high demand.

Having given up on Hetty the woman asked whether they had Doc Martin, series 4. I didn't even know they'd made four series of Doc Martin let alone that anyone would want to watch it. It was also out and was overdue by about three weeks which either means that the borrower cares not about the dime a day late fees or has laughed themselves to death at Doc Martin's hilarious post wedding scrapes.

All clear

I had an appointment at the Oral Surgery department at the MGH this afternoon and they report that the swelling has gone down and things in my mouth are looking pretty good.

They also removed the wick which means that I no longer have blood and pus draining into my mouth which will come as something of a relief to Peta I imagine.

Dr Ok phoned me on my way back so all I need to do now is schedule an appointment for him to either finish off my root canal or whip the bugger out and we should be able to get back to non-dental topics.

Oral Health Update

Not quite the holiday snap I was expecting to be uploading as we approach the end of the first quarter of our stay in the US. This was taken last Wednesday in the fast track emergency department  at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. I don't really know whether 'fast track' really means that they thought I needed treatment faster than the average emergency patient or whether it's just a label they use to make the patient feel that they're being taken seriously. I wondered whether it's the Premium Economy of hospital care.

Anyway, after feeling much better on Tuesday night after the first operation I was rather disappointed to wake up on Wednesday morning feeling unbelievably awful. I phoned Dr Ok and outlined my symptoms; feverish, cold sweat, shaky, nauseous, run down and he suggested that I come down to see him at the Harvard Dental School. I explained that there was no way I was going to get there on my own. I was finding it difficult to get out of bed and even on the previous day when I thought I was quite well I had missed my stop twice on the subway. He then consulted with his colleague and recommended that I should go straight to emergency at MGH.

I waited for Peta to come home, she called a cab and we started the extensive triage process that they have to assess the extent of the problem. The last man I saw wanted me to choose a number between 1 and 10 to describe the level of pain I was in. This was the closest I came to breaking down as I tried to explain that I wasn't in any specific pain, I just felt awful. Understandably he wanted me to evaluate the level of this awfulness for his form but eventually saw my distress and gave up muttering, Fast Track, to one of his colleagues.

Dr Merrl saw me next and recommended a cat scan and blood test to see what was happening with the pockets of pus in my face. When the nurse came to see me I was quite surprised when rather than just taking a blood sample she inserted a cannula into my arm and left it there for the saline drip she attached soon after.

This set alarm bells ringing. This was the opposite of the delight I felt on the previous day when the doctor used the words, 'life threatening', 'acute' and 'immediate emergency operation' in one sentence. I felt validated, I was sick, I'm not a malingerer. To see a saline drip being utilised made me think that I wasn't ill at all, that I'd just not been eating and drinking properly which was true. I felt the pendulum of public opinion swing away from one of  pity to one of disgust and I wished again for some more visceral outward sign of the pain and discomfort I had been feeling over the past week or so, more blood, a gaping wound, bandages, just something more than the Don Corleone type swelling under my chin and on the left side of my face.

And worse was to come. I started to feel great, the saline drip had worked and I was now being wheeled on a trolley down to the CAT scan room. 1. I never needed a CAT scan I needed a drink of water and a banana. 2. How much does a bloody CAT scan cost?

But once you're on a hospital trolley it's hard to get off both literally and otherwise so I decided that I'd stick it out and try to learn something from the experience. Luckily the porter was not waiting for me when the scan had finished and the machine operator was very happy to educate me. Computerised Tomography apparently, 'tomos' being the Greek for cut, it takes pictures of you in slices. It also whirs and clunks just like in the movies.

The porter turned up and took me back to emergency where my bed had been taken by someone who had been in a car accident and who claimed on the phone to her employer that her foot was as big as her head. It wasn't, it was a big as her other foot but she didn't want to go to work after writing off her (boyfriends) car and that was fair enough.

Eventually nice Dr Tagoni and his yarmulke wearing assistant came to prepare me for my operation which mostly consisted of explaining the dangers (temporary or permanent loss of tongue sensation was the most interesting one) and getting me to sign waiver after waiver. What he didn't explain was that it would hurt quite a bit but I suppose that's the doctors prerogative and, to be fair, he did give inject quite a bit of local anaesthetic with that horrible big silver plunger thing they have.

So, 100ml of pus later we saying our thank-you's and goodbyes and Peta and I returned home at about 10.00pm, roughly seven hours after we were fast tracked.

Heartfelt Thanks

Dear Readers

Thank you for your thoughts, the flowers, the cards. I feel most humbled.

Apologies for the lack of health updates which I know many of you have found most distressing, the responsibility of maintaining this blog could be a burden upon my shoulders were it not for the loving kindness of this community which sustains me through me these dark days.

Wednesday night at the MGH

Peta and Chris' pus out on a Wednesday in the ER at Massachusetts General Hospital. It appears they didn't quite get it all yesterday after all. He was a student, I imagine I misplaced 100 mls of something or other when I was a student too.

Back again tomorrow to check up on the drain (charming), it seems to drain into my mouth which seems a little vile but a colostomy bag hanging from my ear would perhaps be worse.
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Who's sorry now?

For those readers who have been closely following my teeth related ailments I have some news. I went to the dentists today to see whether they could prescribe me something for the pain or the swelling which have become something of an inconvenience over the past week.

I had been getting the feeling that some people around these parts were treating my complaints with some disdain and believed that the grimacing, writhing and moaning I was engaging in were symptomatic of a lack of attention, something on a par with 'man-flu'. Imagine my delight therefore to be told that I had an acute life threatening condition which required immediate oral surgery. Oh, yes. Life threatening. Proper.

So I was a little disappointed when I returned home with tales of bravery and survival to notice that my wife was darting glances at her laptop screen rather than staring at me agog, wiping away a tear perhaps or  begging forgiveness for her hitherto offhand approach to my life threatening illness.

Now of course I've eaten my first meal since breakfast. I've prodded small parcels of pasta into my inflamed, bloody and pus ridden mouth while my wife is out dining at the Harvard Social Club with fellow Antipodeans. Of course, she has her own life to live. I don't expect her to stay holed up with me, sharing my agony. I have a phone and Dr Ok said that if I make it through tonight without having to call 911 then things will start to improve in the morning.

Peta has made it clear that she needs me to awaken her at 8.00am with the usual cup of tea, bowl of porridge and cheery (if slightly bloodied) smile  so all will be back to normal which will come as a great relief to the staff. Peta even had to go into the kitchen to make me a cup of tea yesterday. I say a cup but it was actually half a cup. She's not taken advantage of the water boiling features of this particular kettle before so didn't know how much water was required.

Oktoberfest

I managed to drag my pus infested mouth down to the Harvard Square Oktoberfest today and gained some small measure of comfort from the marching bands who were really jolly, jolly good fun.

Hiatus

I'm never sure whether the word hiatus refers to a break from something or a bit of a fuss. In the same way hoi polloi could be posh people or the lower classes.

Anyway, regular readers will note that I've taken a bit of a hiatus from writing to the hoi polloi about our exciting adventures in Boston  Cambridge. I did go to the library last week and write about the two reasons for this which was (1) I have toothache which has now become infected and (2) A dear friend said my writing was dull and homourless but having reviewed this writing I have decided to add a third reason (3) I'm not very interesting.

Before you flood my inbox with replies to the contrary and jam my phone with reassuring messages of support I should clarify my position which is that writing about my toothache isn't very interesting and I should publish Peter's words without embellishment as a lesson in the economic use of language to great effect.

Nice Young Man

Speaking of boxing I went again tonight and a nice young man made me feel so much better about myself by fainting towards the end of our exercises.

There was me thinking that I was the only lightheaded, disorientated person in the room and down he went cheering me up immensely.

To be fair to him he was new to the class so he was probably trying as hard as I was on my first time before I realised the futility of it all. Coach tells us to start doing sit-ups then leaves the room. I don't know where he goes but he's gone for a good long while and we're supposed to keeping bobbing up and down in a metronomic fashion until he returns...at which point he demands that we do different varieties of sit-ups with exciting names. Then we head for the press-ups and do two lots of 90 (which those of you not delirious with fatigue and writhing in agony will realise is more than 100 in total). I think it was around this point where the young lad passed out which gave me that natural high that everyone goes on about.

Excuse me, are you a hooker?

After boxing last week I was walking up Winthrop Street when I felt compelled to ask this question of a gaunt, pale skinned and dark eyed woman walking towards me. What's that about? I didn't ask of course but what sort of person even thinks that sort of question let alone asks them? A temporary blip you may say but at the next junction I was walking past an opticians and saw through the window a young woman trying on a pair of glasses with someone who looked like her Mum. My instinct was to tap on the window, point at her and laugh. Not the actions of a nice person.

One might think that I'm coursing with testosterone after a few hours of boxing but I'm actually spent afterwards and need a few moments to focus on which way to go and how to walk. Maybe that's the problem, my usual temperance is worn ragged by the press-ups, sit-ups and all the rest of it.

Maybe it's a creeping grumpiness which will see me swearing at imaginary companions and punching underground posters in years to come.

Sox Edge Yankees In The 10th

Luckily we had a very enthusiastic baseball fan to help explain everything. It was Chrissie and Ryan's first visit to Fenway Park, they go for the Minnessota Twins I think, and it was actually a great deal more entertaining than you might think. Certainly more fun than Aussie Rules.

The Red Sox and the Yankees are possibly the fiercest rivals in baseball but whereas the Yankees are in the ascendancy the Sox are in the doldrums, they're not even making the play offs this year so last night was their penultimate game for the season.

There was beer, soft pretzels, hot dogs, singing, a mexican wave, drunk people and A Rod batting for the Yankees. Peta and I acually left at the start of the 8th Innings as it was quite chilly and already gone midnight. I think the game actually finished at half past one and the Sox edged it which would have been nice to see...but not that nice.

Next stop the Celtics!

Guess what?

Looking quite the elegant man about town I am about to enjoy my first pint of  Miller High Life which was regrettably not my first drink of the evening.

We went to see Catfish which was an excellent film but one which I will not provide any links to because knowing anything about it might rather spoil it. I believe it has been deliberately misleadingly marketed as some sort of  Blair Witch thriller which it clearly isn't (although not bereft of thrills).

My first High Life swiftly dovetailed into my second by which time Peta, Elspeth and myself were joined at the bar by two young people who have come to Boston to stay with Elspeth and see the Red Sox play the Yankees.

Despite (speaking for myself) being rather loud and boorish we have managed to gain an invite to the game tonight which is part of a double header thanks to rain cancelling Friday's game. Last time I looked the Red Sox were 2-0 up (whatever that means) and although the Sox can't make the play offs (or something) I think they can stop the Yankees winning their league (or something).

The game starts at 9.05pm which seems quite ridiculous after a Friday evening which ended with me weaving towards home at 1.00am, quite unable to put one foot in front of the other soon after relieving myself in the gardens of some esteemed college or other.

The shame.