The doctors, surprised at having a 29 year old in the cardiac wing, are testing me for everything LOL. The echocardiogram results weren’t in last night yet, so the cardiologist might yet see of I have mum’s hypertrophiccardiomyopathy in this evening’s consult.

The topper to all this is that the catscan found an unrelated small nodule in my lungs. A pulmonary specialist was by. He thought it was probably nothing, but that he wanted me to get scanned every few months for two years to watch it. More shot to worry about.

That aside, he eventually wants an asthma check, as it rims in the family. He also wasn’t thrilled about us having so many pets when I know ok allergic to them.

So right now I’m on blood thinners and beta blockers and some other stuff, waiting for tonights big consult to see what Friday
brings.

A few people were shocked to see me blog all this, but it was a way for me to DO something while being helpless. It helped. Particularly when the ER doc got my third EKG and suddenly it was like being in a tv show: nurses descended upon me as he called for nitro, asprin, and all sorts of things were being injected via the iv ports in either arm and he was on the phone with both the regional cardiac experts and saying on another line ‘no lifeflight it takes just as long to drive to Lima’. The word lifeflight is just, well as I blogged ’scary shit’. But Twitter and blogging gave something to focus on.

I also wanted to let extended family and close friends to get the message quick and stay in loop. I gather that worked well as my cousins on facebook noticed my change in status and spread the word. My parents were surprised to get calls as soon as they were finding out what was happening!

I was unprepared, however, for ALL the emails, texts, facebook messages and comments, as well as blog posts wishing me well, reading them all helped me, again, keep my mind occupied and gave something to look forward to every fifteen minutes: refreshing my inbox. Thank you all. I’m stuck with the iPhone, so my capicity to reply to everything is limited, but am reading it all.

Update: the echo did not show I shared mum’s hypertrophiccardiomyopathy, so tomorrow I get cathed. Does NOT soubd like fun.

Update: it’s a heart problem. Am being moved to a regional hospital with specialists soon.

Scary shit dudes…

Lunch update: after getting bused over to Lima by a pair of ambulance techs who cracked jokes to lift my spirits for the whole drive, I’m kicking it at Lima Memorial, where they have a whole wing for this sort of thing, but every one else here is like… 80.

My mum turns out to have Hypertrophiccardiomyopathy, as did her dad. It causes a heart to race. The cardiologist hasn’t come by yet, but the family is running bets that that is what I have.

Meanwhile, I have tubes in my right and left arms and lots more pinpricks from all the other places blood has been drawn. I’m in a nice bed with cable tv and wireless Internet, but the iPhones battery is about to die. My stepdad should bring by a power adaptor for it later.

Dinner update; the cardiologist came by. He doesn’t want to jump straight to heart just yet. I’m staying a few more days or so to be monitored. Pulmonary specialist comes on tomorrow, as well as another cat scan, and I’m sure more blood will me drawn! He wants to fix a very high white blood cell count and eliminate some other possibilities before that. He thought the abnormalities that pointed toward heart issues might just be my stressed out heart after running many hours on overdrive.

Kinda wish I could hook up an Xbox to the hospital tv LOL.

Morning update: after light sleeping last night I’m feeling rested. The Nurses tell me my crazy high white cell count is way down. Emily got me my laptop, which I’ll get plugged in soon, but due to lack of sleep the previous night and exhaustion of nerves from the previous days events, I’ve been enjoying napping the morning away, as well as getting cleaned up and having breakfast.

I’m no longer on nitro and they’ve rduced the blood thinners. My heart was ultra sounded last night, so they’ll be poring over that today. I’m told my legs may be ultrasounded next as part of the battery of tests. Everything looks vastly better today. A steady HR in the 80s instead of 120s all night and all morning.

Emily loaded Kung cu panda on my laptop, I’ll be hitting up iTunes as I’m still too exhausted to think straight for ling. I’ll take the time to download and watch lots of movies tonight LOL

Jay Tomio - I always get the feeling that with Pepper no matter what the backdrop, be it a jungle adventure, a space opera, or on exotic islands that we are seeing a Leonesque Western figure - is there any truth to that and are you a fan?

Tobias Buckell - There is truth to it and I am a fan of Leone. A huge fan. Not only do I have the soundtracks, but most of the movies in my library. They had a huge impact on me as a kid. I recently stunned an audience by saying that as a kid I read almost as many Westerns as SF/F novels growing up in the Caribbean. The Wild West was as alien and exotic to someone living on an island as anything. In college I was into the Kurosawa films as well, as I started researching and following back where Leone and those cats were getting their inspiration from.

So I’ve folded it the first 1/3 into an RTF file and put it up online, just like my segments for Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin. All three can be found around the website, and the broken links some reported have been fixed. So here they are:

• -Crystal Rain: First 1/3 [RTF file]
• -Ragamuffin-First 1/3 [RTF]
• -Sly Mongoose-First 1/3 [RTF]

The reason is that an author pulled me aside early on in my career and said ‘it makes it slightly harder for people to forge legal documents if you have two different signatures for your legal and authorly signatures.’

It made sense.

In this day and age, where your signature can appear online, it’s even more of a good piece of advice!

Plus, my book signature is legible, so people can actually figure out -who- signed their book People suggested to me that that was a feature that might be liked with a signature.

Meanwhile, the new president of the Maldives is preparing to evacuate his whole country.

The latest Firefox beta was getting some buzz from folks at Download Squad, TUAW, and other tech sites I read online, so I downloaded it.

It’s stunningly fast. You can get it here.