Happy New Year 2010 (Year of Decadence)

[Emotional Vampire]

It lives forever... in our heeeaaartsss

 

[Pablosdog]

Time happening all at once, tralfamadorians see mankind as luminescent caterpillars. You never die, for you are always living in some other time.

 

[Rhett Butler]

I got high and beat up a Rhino with a sledge hammer on New Year's Eve. What did you guys do?

 

[poocolator]

I fapped

 

[Azrael the cat]

Fuck you. Fuck you all to hell.
.
.
.
.
I spent my xmas to New Years Period in hospital with moderate pancreatis. I'm not a major drinker, and I came up -ve for all the other precursors (gallstones - though they can be missed and they want more scans as an outpatient - and appendix). They think I may have had an episode many years ago; when I was 19 I had a similar event where I collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with suspected acute appendicitis, they couldn't find anything wrong with the appendix and the pain subsided - docs now think that might have been an undiagnosed early pancreatis, as at that age I could very easily have got it from too much alcohol. These days I barely drink, but if it's happened once then you're prone to it from even moderate drinking for the rest of your life, and it is theoretically possible to get it from a random single drink once you've got the predisposition.

So I spent about 10 days ill, including a week in hospital, about 25 shots of morphine, 20 doses of oxycontin, and as morphine only gives you the physiological effects required for its notorious 'heroin high' if you're in insufficient pain to warrant it, I can assure you that my new years was no fun at all. I also can't touch alcohol for an absolute minimum of 3 months, and have to be careful about drinking for the rest of my life.

It reminds me of an intro that Stephen King wrote into one of his books, not one of his greater ones, but the intro itself was brilliant. He was talking about his 'golden period' vs his later works, and it was an ultra morbid self-flagellating tale of how age keeps periodically coming back around to kick you in the groin, rip your flesh out and temporally cripple you, worse each time that it chooses to visit. He wrote about how in his 'golden period' of 20-30, he was an utterly penniless, but brash, arrogant feeling 10-ft-tall and bullet-proof guy who wrote 16+ hours a day, constantly with a few packs of cigarettes and a couple of bottles of whiskey by his side, and how he loved nothing more in the world than writing all through the night while chain smoking and drinking whiskey with one hand, while typing away madly with the other. And then at around 30, the first hospitalisation, the first blow to his health and first message that he wasn't 'superman' hit him.

He was rich by then, cut down his smoking, no longer drank when he worked (though would drink after), wrote in his swanky office during normal daylight hours, rather than his previously unscheduled all-night spontaneous typing from the window of his (back then) miniscule flat. Not as fun, but still rewarding and still producing some of his best work.

And then he talks about age coming round again, to smash your knees and shatter your back, so you wake up one morning and you know you can't drink and smoke anymore. Your legs hurt in the winter and all-night work sessions are out of the question. And after that you've had age come past twice and you've got the fear. You know it's coming back, and it's going to be worse.

The rest of his introduction then goes on to describe the next two 'physical capitulations' in his life, until his current state of being semi-retired, all the money and fans he ever wanted, but living in terror that that messenger of age could reappear any moment and maim him even further. All the while wondering in the back of his mind whether he can really block out the thought that he would trade everything he's earnt to have that 'I'm 10-ft-tall-and-indestructible' feeling he had at 20, and the working drive and patterns to match. He ends by basically saying something along the lines of: 'you know, and I know, that I just can't produce my old stuff anymore - but here's the best that I can still do today, and I think it's still a pretty decent read'.

Somehow, after being told at 31 that I can't drink for 3 months (despite not being a heavy drinker for years anyway), and that it's going to be a long and slow recovery, I feel kind of like that 'age' guy that S King was talking about just visited for the first time. No knee-cappings yet, just a kick to my pancreas and a solid warning about what could be coming.

Not my best holiday period

 

[poocolator]

Cool...





















...story,
bro

 

[Hory]

C&C. What's the problem? I thought you liked it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Fuck you. Fuck you all to hell.
.
.
.
.
I spent my xmas to New Years Period in hospital with moderate pancreatis. I'm not a major drinker, and I came up -ve for all the other precursors (gallstones - though they can be missed and they want more scans as an outpatient - and appendix). They think I may have had an episode many years ago; when I was 19 I had a similar event where I collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with suspected acute appendicitis, they couldn't find anything wrong with the appendix and the pain subsided - docs now think that might have been an undiagnosed early pancreatis, as at that age I could very easily have got it from too much alcohol. These days I barely drink, but if it's happened once then you're prone to it from even moderate drinking for the rest of your life, and it is theoretically possible to get it from a random single drink once you've got the predisposition.

So I spent about 10 days ill, including a week in hospital, about 25 shots of morphine, 20 doses of oxycontin, and as morphine only gives you the physiological effects required for its notorious 'heroin high' if you're in insufficient pain to warrant it, I can assure you that my new years was no fun at all. I also can't touch alcohol for an absolute minimum of 3 months, and have to be careful about drinking for the rest of my life.

It reminds me of an intro that Stephen King wrote into one of his books, not one of his greater ones, but the intro itself was brilliant. He was talking about his 'golden period' vs his later works, and it was an ultra morbid self-flagellating tale of how age keeps periodically coming back around to kick you in the groin, rip your flesh out and temporally cripple you, worse each time that it chooses to visit. He wrote about how in his 'golden period' of 20-30, he was an utterly penniless, but brash, arrogant feeling 10-ft-tall and bullet-proof guy who wrote 16+ hours a day, constantly with a few packs of cigarettes and a couple of bottles of whiskey by his side, and how he loved nothing more in the world than writing all through the night while chain smoking and drinking whiskey with one hand, while typing away madly with the other. And then at around 30, the first hospitalisation, the first blow to his health and first message that he wasn't 'superman' hit him.

He was rich by then, cut down his smoking, no longer drank when he worked (though would drink after), wrote in his swanky office during normal daylight hours, rather than his previously unscheduled all-night spontaneous typing from the window of his (back then) miniscule flat. Not as fun, but still rewarding and still producing some of his best work.

And then he talks about age coming round again, to smash your knees and shatter your back, so you wake up one morning and you know you can't drink and smoke anymore. Your legs hurt in the winter and all-night work sessions are out of the question. And after that you've had age come past twice and you've got the fear. You know it's coming back, and it's going to be worse.

The rest of his introduction then goes on to describe the next two 'physical capitulations' in his life, until his current state of being semi-retired, all the money and fans he ever wanted, but living in terror that that messenger of age could reappear any moment and maim him even further. All the while wondering in the back of his mind whether he can really block out the thought that he would trade everything he's earnt to have that 'I'm 10-ft-tall-and-indestructible' feeling he had at 20, and the working drive and patterns to match. He ends by basically saying something along the lines of: 'you know, and I know, that I just can't produce my old stuff anymore - but here's the best that I can still do today, and I think it's still a pretty decent read'.

Somehow, after being told at 31 that I can't drink for 3 months (despite not being a heavy drinker for years anyway), and that it's going to be a long and slow recovery, I feel kind of like that 'age' guy that S King was talking about just visited for the first time. No knee-cappings yet, just a kick to my pancreas and a solid warning about what could be coming.

Not my best holiday period

tl;dr

 

[St. Toxic]

I spent my xmas to New Years Period in hospital with moderate pancreatis. I'm not a major drinker, and I came up -ve for all the other precursors (gallstones - though they can be missed and they want more scans as an outpatient - and appendix). They think I may have had an episode many years ago; when I was 19 I had a similar event where I collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with suspected acute appendicitis, they couldn't find anything wrong with the appendix and the pain subsided - docs now think that might have been an undiagnosed early pancreatis, as at that age I could very easily have got it from too much alcohol. These days I barely drink, but if it's happened once then you're prone to it from even moderate drinking for the rest of your life, and it is theoretically possible to get it from a random single drink once you've got the predisposition.

Sounds like what I'm suffering from, although I've been unable to get a clear diagnose. Had my first attack at the age of 16, and 3 more since then, though I've been spared for the full 2 years that I've severely cut down on drinking. Could you describe the physical symptoms of your "phantom appendicitis"?

 

[hal900x]

So that's the problem: Codexians are just alcoholics. All makes sense now.

 

[Pablosdog]

Nah, we are just in decline of any sort of rational morality.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I spent my xmas to New Years Period in hospital with moderate pancreatis. I'm not a major drinker, and I came up -ve for all the other precursors (gallstones - though they can be missed and they want more scans as an outpatient - and appendix). They think I may have had an episode many years ago; when I was 19 I had a similar event where I collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with suspected acute appendicitis, they couldn't find anything wrong with the appendix and the pain subsided - docs now think that might have been an undiagnosed early pancreatis, as at that age I could very easily have got it from too much alcohol. These days I barely drink, but if it's happened once then you're prone to it from even moderate drinking for the rest of your life, and it is theoretically possible to get it from a random single drink once you've got the predisposition.

Sounds like what I'm suffering from, although I've been unable to get a clear diagnose. Had my first attack at the age of 16, and 3 more since then, though I've been spared for the full 2 years that I've severely cut down on drinking. Could you describe the physical symptoms of your "phantom appendicitis"?

Pancreatitis - literally inflamed pancreas. Can be incredibly painful even in mild-to-moderate versions (hence the tons of morphine), and in severe cases can lead to multiple organ collapse, haemorrage and death (not that I was anywhere near that). Thing is, the pancreas doesn't ordinarily get set off by itself - it physically is very very difficult to directly infect. So it usually needs something else to get infected first: gallstones is the most common, then appendix, then over-drinking (though sometimes even light drinking can do it - ESPECIALLY if you've had it once before - and that vulnerability from the first time lasts for life).There ARE other more direct causes, though, like viral infections hitting it - as I said it is really rare for a virus or other infection to be able to hit your pancreas without going through something else first, but it is strictly a possibility (I was ill for 2 weeks before the pancreatitis so that's a possibility in my case). Generally though, anything like that will go away by itself, but you'll still need to go to hospital for the pain relief if nothing else.

It sometimes gets confused with appendicitis early on because the initial symptoms are kind of similar: intense pain down the right hand side of your stomach, mainly the upper part (just below the floating ribs), and spreading accross to your middle as it gets worse. It's slightly higher up than the appendix, but some folk have an unusually placed appendix so the symptoms can mean either until it is scanned. One big difference is that while many of the appendix 'pain tests' 'can' (but won't always) apply to pancreatitis (pain pushing your stomach out then releasing), others (like the 'tap certain parts of the stomach' tests that docs always do if you have suspected appendicitis) don't hurt with pancreatitis.

There's an easy way of detecting it though: blood test. If the docs know to look for it (i.e. they aren't already blindly convinced its the appendix) they can test your blood for lipase levels (not sure if that's the right spelling), and if they're elevated then you have pancreatitis). Your GP will send you immediately to hospital in that event. The trouble then is finding out whether you have another infected organ that needs surgery or intravenous antibiotics, or whether it is JUST the pancreas, in which case hard-core painkillers and staying in hospital until the danger of rupturing or spreading to other organs has passed. If it STAYS as pure pancreatitis then you're in no danger of anything serious happening other than serious pain for a few days. Easiest way of checking is that if the docs think you have appendicitis (or anything else wrong in that region) and they can't find it, ask them to do a lipase blood test for pancreatitis, and the test only takes a few hours so they'll know pretty quickly.


Edit: the other thing that your case sounds a bit like is gallstones. They are something which 'can' be kind of serious, but they are reknowned for coming and going. Very very easy for docs to miss when scanning by ultrasound - not the docs' fault, more that if they are small they are very very easy to miss. Unfortunately it's also the small ones that tend to hurt you because they get stuck in the passageway out of the gallbladder. It's very common for those suckers to cause you all hell of pain, then do nothing for years, then come back again - to the point that docs usually won't operate the first time they diagnose them. They'll usually take a 'wait and see', and see how regularly they are causing you trouble (if it's only a bout of pain every 10 years of so, then surgery might not be worth it). But that's one of the more common causes of 'phantom stomach pain' to my (non-medical) knowledge.

 

[Gragt]

Fuck this. Only two more years and I'll be 30. I'm scared.

 

[Relayer71]

Fuck you. Fuck you all to hell.
.
.
.
.
I spent my xmas to New Years Period in hospital with moderate pancreatis. I'm not a major drinker, and I came up -ve for all the other precursors (gallstones - though they can be missed and they want more scans as an outpatient - and appendix). They think I may have had an episode many years ago; when I was 19 I had a similar event where I collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with suspected acute appendicitis, they couldn't find anything wrong with the appendix and the pain subsided - docs now think that might have been an undiagnosed early pancreatis, as at that age I could very easily have got it from too much alcohol. These days I barely drink, but if it's happened once then you're prone to it from even moderate drinking for the rest of your life, and it is theoretically possible to get it from a random single drink once you've got the predisposition.

So I spent about 10 days ill, including a week in hospital, about 25 shots of morphine, 20 doses of oxycontin, and as morphine only gives you the physiological effects required for its notorious 'heroin high' if you're in insufficient pain to warrant it, I can assure you that my new years was no fun at all. I also can't touch alcohol for an absolute minimum of 3 months, and have to be careful about drinking for the rest of my life.

It reminds me of an intro that Stephen King wrote into one of his books, not one of his greater ones, but the intro itself was brilliant. He was talking about his 'golden period' vs his later works, and it was an ultra morbid self-flagellating tale of how age keeps periodically coming back around to kick you in the groin, rip your flesh out and temporally cripple you, worse each time that it chooses to visit. He wrote about how in his 'golden period' of 20-30, he was an utterly penniless, but brash, arrogant feeling 10-ft-tall and bullet-proof guy who wrote 16+ hours a day, constantly with a few packs of cigarettes and a couple of bottles of whiskey by his side, and how he loved nothing more in the world than writing all through the night while chain smoking and drinking whiskey with one hand, while typing away madly with the other. And then at around 30, the first hospitalisation, the first blow to his health and first message that he wasn't 'superman' hit him.

He was rich by then, cut down his smoking, no longer drank when he worked (though would drink after), wrote in his swanky office during normal daylight hours, rather than his previously unscheduled all-night spontaneous typing from the window of his (back then) miniscule flat. Not as fun, but still rewarding and still producing some of his best work.

And then he talks about age coming round again, to smash your knees and shatter your back, so you wake up one morning and you know you can't drink and smoke anymore. Your legs hurt in the winter and all-night work sessions are out of the question. And after that you've had age come past twice and you've got the fear. You know it's coming back, and it's going to be worse.

The rest of his introduction then goes on to describe the next two 'physical capitulations' in his life, until his current state of being semi-retired, all the money and fans he ever wanted, but living in terror that that messenger of age could reappear any moment and maim him even further. All the while wondering in the back of his mind whether he can really block out the thought that he would trade everything he's earnt to have that 'I'm 10-ft-tall-and-indestructible' feeling he had at 20, and the working drive and patterns to match. He ends by basically saying something along the lines of: 'you know, and I know, that I just can't produce my old stuff anymore - but here's the best that I can still do today, and I think it's still a pretty decent read'.

Somehow, after being told at 31 that I can't drink for 3 months (despite not being a heavy drinker for years anyway), and that it's going to be a long and slow recovery, I feel kind of like that 'age' guy that S King was talking about just visited for the first time. No knee-cappings yet, just a kick to my pancreas and a solid warning about what could be coming.

Not my best holiday period

Great story!!! Puts Stephen King's latest stuff to shame!

(Seriously though, hope you feel better. And lay off the booze and listen to the doctor's orders. I turned 38 las month and can feel it in my bones... especially in the winter. Could be my kids are accelerating my aging as well. Those fuckers.)

 

[Azrael the cat]

Fuck this. Only two more years and I'll be 30. I'm scared.

Man I loved my late 20s. Best time of your life (well, my 'best' time was when I met my wife, but that's a different matter, unrelated to age). Thing is, I was too dense to realise it until about 29. Spent the whole time worrying about getting old, until I realised that during your late 20s you have none of the downsides of age - you're stronger than you ever were, sure your aerobic fitness and pure pace is a lot lower than 20, but your physical strength is so much greater that it doesn't matter. But most importantly - you've got all the good things of age - financial independence and intellectual independence (the latter one sounds pretentious, but what I mean is that you're finally hitting the age when you and those around you no longer give a shit about sounding popular or sophisticated or cool or whatever, and can all just relax and be yourselves, AND whilst you don't have the knowledge of a 40 year old, you've got ENOUGH knowledge to be independent without making an ass out of yourself).


Alll the good things of age, and none of the bad things yet. And if you're male you've just hit that wonderful turning point where (whether you're straight, gay or bi) you've finally got the confidence to (a) not care what magazines and friends tell you who you 'should' like, and (b) actually do a decent job of talking to that girl/guy you have a crush on without turning to jelly, and (c) if you're male you hit that wonderful age where suddenly YOU'RE the one that's supposed to be the sex-object where still-beautiful women who society has brainwashed into thinking they're over the hill (at 28) start throwing themselves at you (not because you're anything amazing, but because they're acting just like you did at 15).

Seriously, enjoy those next 2 years man, it's a great great time of your life.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

I spent my xmas to New Years Period in hospital with moderate pancreatis. I'm not a major drinker, and I came up -ve for all the other precursors (gallstones - though they can be missed and they want more scans as an outpatient - and appendix). They think I may have had an episode many years ago; when I was 19 I had a similar event where I collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with suspected acute appendicitis, they couldn't find anything wrong with the appendix and the pain subsided - docs now think that might have been an undiagnosed early pancreatis, as at that age I could very easily have got it from too much alcohol. These days I barely drink, but if it's happened once then you're prone to it from even moderate drinking for the rest of your life, and it is theoretically possible to get it from a random single drink once you've got the predisposition.

Sounds like what I'm suffering from, although I've been unable to get a clear diagnose. Had my first attack at the age of 16, and 3 more since then, though I've been spared for the full 2 years that I've severely cut down on drinking. Could you describe the physical symptoms of your "phantom appendicitis"?

Pancreatitis - literally inflamed pancreas. Can be incredibly painful even in mild-to-moderate versions (hence the tons of morphine), and in severe cases can lead to multiple organ collapse, haemorrage and death (not that I was anywhere near that). Thing is, the pancreas doesn't ordinarily get set off by itself - it physically is very very difficult to directly infect. So it usually needs something else to get infected first: gallstones is the most common, then appendix, then over-drinking (though sometimes even light drinking can do it - ESPECIALLY if you've had it once before - and that vulnerability from the first time lasts for life).There ARE other more direct causes, though, like viral infections hitting it - as I said it is really rare for a virus or other infection to be able to hit your pancreas without going through something else first, but it is strictly a possibility (I was ill for 2 weeks before the pancreatitis so that's a possibility in my case). Generally though, anything like that will go away by itself, but you'll still need to go to hospital for the pain relief if nothing else.

It sometimes gets confused with appendicitis early on because the initial symptoms are kind of similar: intense pain down the right hand side of your stomach, mainly the upper part (just below the floating ribs), and spreading accross to your middle as it gets worse. It's slightly higher up than the appendix, but some folk have an unusually placed appendix so the symptoms can mean either until it is scanned. One big difference is that while many of the appendix 'pain tests' 'can' (but won't always) apply to pancreatitis (pain pushing your stomach out then releasing), others (like the 'tap certain parts of the stomach' tests that docs always do if you have suspected appendicitis) don't hurt with pancreatitis.

There's an easy way of detecting it though: blood test. If the docs know to look for it (i.e. they aren't already blindly convinced its the appendix) they can test your blood for lipase levels (not sure if that's the right spelling), and if they're elevated then you have pancreatitis). Your GP will send you immediately to hospital in that event. The trouble then is finding out whether you have another infected organ that needs surgery or intravenous antibiotics, or whether it is JUST the pancreas, in which case hard-core painkillers and staying in hospital until the danger of rupturing or spreading to other organs has passed. If it STAYS as pure pancreatitis then you're in no danger of anything serious happening other than serious pain for a few days. Easiest way of checking is that if the docs think you have appendicitis (or anything else wrong in that region) and they can't find it, ask them to do a lipase blood test for pancreatitis, and the test only takes a few hours so they'll know pretty quickly.


Edit: the other thing that your case sounds a bit like is gallstones. They are something which 'can' be kind of serious, but they are reknowned for coming and going. Very very easy for docs to miss when scanning by ultrasound - not the docs' fault, more that if they are small they are very very easy to miss. Unfortunately it's also the small ones that tend to hurt you because they get stuck in the passageway out of the gallbladder. It's very common for those suckers to cause you all hell of pain, then do nothing for years, then come back again - to the point that docs usually won't operate the first time they diagnose them. They'll usually take a 'wait and see', and see how regularly they are causing you trouble (if it's only a bout of pain every 10 years of so, then surgery might not be worth it). But that's one of the more common causes of 'phantom stomach pain' to my (non-medical) knowledge.

bullshit

 

[Carceri]

Fuck this. Only two more years and I'll be 30. I'm scared.

Only two more years and it'll be 2012. Let's hope for the best.

 

[Shagnak]

Happy new year fuckers!!1!1

Fuck this. Only two more years and I'll be 30. I'm scared.

Fuck this. Only two years and I'll be... almost 40.

Damn.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Fuck this. Only two more years and I'll be 30. I'm scared.

Oh yeah, 30, the magic number. As long as you're twentysomething it's all fun and games, but once you hit 30... that's beginning of the end.

 

[Pablosdog]

I'm 22, my age reversed is the same...its MADNESS

 

[racofer]

22 moar leik 22, amirite?

 

[Micmu]

As long as you're twentysomething it's all fun and games, but once you hit 30... that's beginning of the end.

Fuck off.

 

[Shagnak]

Time certainly seems to have passed much more quickly since 30.

It's like gremlins crept into my bedroom late one night (around the beginning of 2002) and attached a time contraction device to my brain.

 

[Pablosdog]

did they do anything else to your genitals perchance?

30 is the new twenty, or so it goes.