by cg on November 5, 2006
So, we’re off to UCSF at 6:00 AM tomorrow for the craniotomy/biopsy, and no one thinks I’ll feel much like blogging until later in the week. If there are pix from the operating room, I’ll try to get them. Also want to play with the new MRI, and get an explanation of how ’stealth’ surgery works. Hopefully, we can get some sort of blog access going, if only after I return home. I’m told there may be some bumps ahead, but, I’m ready. Here we go! Adios for a bit, kind readers. Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated…!
by cg on November 5, 2006
The service this morning St. Gregory of Nyssa, an Episcopal congregation in San Fancisco’s Portrero Hill district was wonderful. Even children in the congregation greeted us as we, obvious visitors, made our way. The sevice was mostly, and beautifully, sung. The homily was about the rector and his wife’s trial in administering the GAIA AIDS project in Africa. We felt welcome as soon as we entered, and joined the chanting, and dancing as best as we – I a definite Gimp – could. After the service there was a brief congregation meeting for healing: I gratefully sat with them and offered prayers for Linda’s dad and my own new journey.
The church is new, light, and wonderfully adorned with icons of saints old and new. This was the perfect place to celibrate All Saints, on our way to UCSF to begin the process leading me forward. Yet another very good idea by my sweet spouse…
by cg on November 5, 2006
So, here was today’s big procedure at UCSF. First, two young women attached nine things called Fiducial markers to my head, shaving a little hair, but greatly helped by my bald spot.
Then I was whisked to a large trailer parked at the hospital loading dock, into which was tucked a GE 1.5 Tesla Signa MRI machine, with all the gear to keep the superconducting magnet cold.
This time my head was taped down before being placed in the antenna/helmut, unlike the previous exercise, but I managed 30 minutes in the machine just fine, breathing deep breaths, counting the passage of time as I did the careful set of breathing – three deep and slow, followed three regular, and began counting each set of six breaths at about a minute.
I started to drift off at one point, put pulled myself back lest I move and goof up a study. Surgeons will use this study, carefully aligned to the markers attached to my head to very delicately dig around in my brain tommorrw. I wanted this scan to be as clean as possible.
I think I’m as anxious today as I am ever likely to be: I think if I can manage a closed MRI under these circumstances, I can probably get through one anywhere. I was even ready to have a seizure in this machine and not ruin the study. Kudos to cognitive therapy, with a little help from ativan…
by cg on November 5, 2006
I have been promising old friend Nils Grevillius (’Los Angeles’ best private detective’) a scan of this canvas, a 1981 portrait of John Reid by dear, deceased friend Joe Ferris. Nils, friend and family of Joe, has been asking me for this for more than a year now, and it somehow kept falling through the cracks. Nils has sent me any number of very nice prints of Joe’s work in the interim.
I’m trying to wrap up loose ends before the surgery, so, Nils, look in your e-mail! I finally fired up my new hi-res scanner and did a 9600-dpi scan of this small canvas. I may have some time on my hands and will try to get you a decent print and/or an uncompressed version of the scan of this after I’m out of the hospital. Joe was a complete original… and very talented… our lives are richer for having known him…
by cg on November 5, 2006
Looks like we’ll return home this evening, after all, and I’ll have another shot at blogging before the operation and recovery puts me on the sidelines for a while. Good. I’ve got some things I’ve been itching to get down as pixels, not the least of which is certain chest-thumping about ‘San Francisco values.” I know a little about that topic, having observed same for many years, and someone needs to set the record straight (though I’m sure many have already started that process). I also want to set down one of the themes of my ‘faith’ essay, still in the works.
Speaking of faith, I have a ministry this morning. My dear spouse, who loves liturgy, particularly joyous liturgy, wants to attend St. Gregory of Nyssa this morning, in the City, which promises an uplifting All Saints Day service. She has then planned a walk and lunch before I check into UCSF Moffat Hospital for placement of head markers and a so-called ’stealth’ MRI that will be used by surgeons to guide the open biopsy procedure tomorrow.
Left to my own devices, I would spend a quiet morning at home, truth be told, but this is a marriage. My dear spouse is, if anything, under worse stress than I am, and really needs these moments of normalcy – planning outings grand and small are one of her joys. As I write, she’s in Google maps on the big Mac, plotting the location of the Church, a nearby interesting walk, and a likely lunch locale. While this means excitement for me, and likely a very mild siezure or two in church or on the streets of SF (no big deal, really), it will mean a lot to her (and ultimately, to me, really).
So I did ask to return home this evening, rather than staying at a very comfortable hotel on Union Square, an earlier plan I cooked up when I thought I’d have a quiet morning. So I’ll have a quiet evening instead, and we will share one of the small expeditions that have been one of the hallmarks of this 25-year union, a good thing as I start a new journey. I sense both spirits will be a bit stronger for this…