The Hundred Days Blog

Got a new iPod. Just playing around with the app that let me post from it. .

Day 299--The Election
I watched the final presidential debate at my place with a friend (who, for the record, is six months younger than I am). Best thing that came out of the entire debate:

John McCain: Youth obesity is at an all-time high.

Friend: (Pats stomach.) Don't I know it.

Brian: Don't kid yourself. You're not young any more.

I don't really have too much to say about the election. I have a very strong opinion about who I'd like to see win. I've even given some money, and probably would have volunteered a little bit, if not for the new job and the recovery. I've watched three of the four debates. I've obsessed over polls as they roll in. I am probably personally responsible for a good fraction of the site traffic at fivethirtyeight.com. And, I have to say, I'm just ready for all of this to be over. (As sick as I get of campaigns, I actually love Election Day. In 2004, I was so excited to vote, I woke up at 6:30, without an alarm, and went to vote. I am a dork.)

Little secret: today's supposed to be day 300. I've been posting things a day late, since I actually fell behind. But I feel a little blah this evening. I haven't slept (or really eaten) that well the last couple days, and I am going to hit the hay a little early. But I have a lot I want to say in the last post, so I'm going to hold off until I get some time and don't want a nap.

Day 298--The Job
When I started graduate school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do after school. At a place like the U of C, there's sort of an unspoken (actually, maybe it is spoken) understanding that the grad students should want to end up in research careers. My first couple years, I did the standard TAing for undergrad classes, and, while I enjoyed it, I was interested in a more research-oriented experience. My last four years, I did do a lot more research, but also got a chance to teach some of my own classes, rather than just work as a glorified grader. By the end of grad school, I knew that I enjoyed the teaching component of academia at least as much as the research component.

My first two years as a postdoc, I had my first opportunity to focus entirely on research. It was a productive time, too. I got both of the papers associated with my thesis published. I supervised a grad student who wrote a good paper on a topic related to my work. I did the work that became the basis of my next two papers. But I wasn't particularly happy. My boss allowed me to teach an astronomy class my third year, and I realized just how much more important the teaching aspect of academic life was to me. I was still very interested in research, but I found myself far more motivated about my work (both teaching and research) when I was spending large chunks of my time interacting with students.

After a protracted, multi-year job search (that, thankfully, is not the topic of this blog), I find myself at Elmhurst College. It's an institution that places a clear emphasis on the educational duties of its faculty. While research will ultimately be expected, the expectation is that I'll be supervising undergraduates in research--the focus never really strays from the students. It's been a ridiculous seven and a half weeks at this point--I've just moved, I've started this new job, and I'm recovering from heart surgery. I want to throw myself at this job, and I've been very frustrated with the fact that I simply haven't had the time or energy to really do that. There's always been something, usually health-related, that's kept work from being my sole focus. It has, in short, been the most stressful 8 weeks of my life.

That said, I know I'm in the right place. The College's focus on education mirrors my own. The students have been more talented and enthusiastic than I had assumed they would be. The department and College administration have been more supportive than I would have guessed possible. For most of this semester, I've felt like a shadow of myself, and they seem to have understood that. The Brian they've gotten so far isn't really the Brian they're going to get.

In many ways, I think this semester's going to be a wash. The classes will have been fine, but nothing extraordinary. But when this semester is over, and after I take two or three weeks of Brian time (which will end up being my only actual mental vacation of 2008), I will, for the first time in my life, be able to throw myself into a job that I feel strongly about. I can't wait.

Day 297--The Surgical Diet
I ran into a friend/former student from the U of C and she had the same comment that everyone else has had: I look good for someone that had heart surgery. The comments from people seeing me for the first time after the surgery have all been something like,

"You've lost weight."

"You look great."

"I'm sure everyone has told you this, but you look like you've lost weight."

"You weren't heavy before, but you look like you've lost a lot of weight, especially around your neck and face"

"I know you know this, but you look like you've lost a lot of weight."

The best part is that I didn't know I looked like I'd lost weight. I knew, from all the trips to the doctor, that I had lost about 10 lbs. But I thought I just sort of looked like myself. Apparently, though, before the surgery I had about 10 pounds of extra neck. Thanks a lot, beer.

From what I've read, it's pretty common for people to lose weight after surgery--it's a pretty traumatic experience for your body, even if the operation isn't as serious as mine was. My goal, now, is to try to keep that weight off, especially if it all resided in my neck/cheek area. The blood thinners are having a bit of an effect on this, though. On one hand, the blood thinners mean I can't drink as much, which is good for the neck. On the other hand, the blood thinners limit which vegetables I can eat, which has had the effect of me probably eating more carbs and meat than I would otherwise. So I will try to eat more artichokes, green peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, because I would love for there to be something positive to come out of this surgery (other than, you know, the not suffering a ruptured aneurysm).

Day 296--New Digs
One thing I don't think I've really mentioned at any point is how awesome my new apartment is. When we were in grad school, Sam and I lived in what we thought at the time was a pretty great place. I actually felt lucky to live there. I thought it had everything you could ask for--it was in a great area (Lincoln Park), it had a built-in hutch (for dishes) and am awesome claw-foot tub. Now, four years later, after living in (much) nicer places in Urbana, I realize that the old place in Lincoln Park had amenities best described as "what you could legally expect." It had running water. It had wall-mounted gas heaters that did, technically, work. It had locks on the doors. Come to find out, after a few years, that many people thought our apartment was a bit of a dump. The claw foot tub scared people, to the point that some out of town guests opted not to shower, rather than get in the tub. The hutch was overrated. It was drafty. Everyone understood that we were in grad school, and this was what we could afford. But no one really thought it was a nice apartment.

So this all is to explain why, when she first walked in to my new apartment back in August, Mom's reaction was simple: "Oh." It was an "Oh" of relief and a bit of surprise. I think there was a fear that I was moving to an apartment like the old one in Lincoln Park. Fortunately, that isn't the case. The new place is a two-bedroom, two-bath with central air and heat, washer and dryer, and a patio out back. I've converted the front bedroom to an office, and as soon as I get the futon for it, a guest bedroom. My bedroom is in back, with a sliding door leading to the patio. I think my favorite aspect is that the slats of the hardwood floor are diagonal, something I've never seen before. I've spent a lot of time over the last 8 weekends trying to get things settled around the apartment. I've put together a small filing cabinet, and hung a bunch of pictures. Yesterday, I hung a curtain rod over the head of my bed and draped my collection of soccer scarves over it, creating a headboard of sorts. I was skeptical of the idea at first (it was my parents'), but it looks great. In the end, now, it feels like home. Now, if I can just get my boxes of physics books out to Elmhurst, it won't feel like such a cluttered home.

Day 295--Finishing Strong/Dr. Wilhite's Neighborhood
Realizing that the blog should be coming to its end, I thought I'd rather it go out with a bang than a whimper. So, I'm going to try to post every day from here on out (I understand this is not a huge commitment). I'm also going to try to wrap up some things I haven't apparently posted enough about before.

I've been in the Ukrainian Village for about a month and a half now. I assumed, like most neighbrohoods in Chicago, that the name was vestigial, a remnant of another time. We all know, for instance, that Abraham Lincoln does not live in Lincoln Park. It turns out, though, that the Ukrainian Village is FULL of Ukrainians. When you pass people on the street, there's an equal chance that they're speaking Ukrainian as there is that they're speaking English. (There's also a good chance they're speaking Spanish, for that matter).

My apartment is more or less at the intersection of Oakley and Superior. Across Superior is some sort of Ukrainian cultural and theological institute (the name posted in English seems like a bad translation of the Ukrainian, so I'm not totally sure what it is). Across Oakley is a huge church of some Orthodox denomination (I'm not sure if there is a Ukrainian Orthodoxy). Attached to the church is the Ukrainian Cultural Center, which I think will be my polling place on November 4th. Kitty-corner from me is the Ukrainian National Museum. So, yeah, it's still a little Ukrainian around here.

It's tough to tell if it's their naturally sunny dispositions, or their dislike for gringos and gentrification, but the Ukrainians don't tend to say hello to me on the street. Or smile. Or make eye contact. If I wasn't solid, I think they'd try to walk through me. But I don't care. The neighborhood is beautiful. There are taco places all over (not sure how that works with the Ukrainian thing, but I don't care). The church on the next block means there's almost always street parking. And my commute is pretty easy. So I don't need your love, Ukrainians.

Day 293--Limitless Paper in a Paperless World
Last Friday, I saw a new doctor, in Elmhurst, for the first time. There's obviously no reason for me to continue driving back and forth for appointments, especially when everything is going so well. The appointment went well--I think the new guy seems knowledgeable, and responsive. At the end of the appointment, he wrote out an order for a blood test, just to get baseline numbers for me, like many doctors would with new patients. I assume it involved a cholesterol test, since I had to fast for 12 hours before the test.

Tuesday morning, I went in to the lab, and told them I was there for a blood test. The woman at the registration desk asked, "Do you have the work order?"

Me: "No, I think it's at home. I was hoping you had it here"

"Oh, we probably don't have it."

Me: "You mean, I need the piece of paper? It's not in the computer."

"No. "

It was at this point that I realized they had no record of the doctor ordering the test. Now, this wasn't a case of the doctor being from a different hospital or clinic. The doctor I saw was on the 2nd floor--the lab is in the basement.

Apparently, I had gotten spoiled by the hospital in Urbana. At Carle, when the doctor ordered a blood test, it went into a computer and you just showed up at the lab. But here, in the big city, my hospital runs on paper. It's like getting a blood test in 2003.

My question, then: is this normal? Do patients typically have to hold on to pieces of paper for several days like this? Is this a privacy issue? Or is this clinic just relatively antiquated? I still have the piece of paper, so I'll do the test again tomorrow. I hadn't taken it with me, because a) I assumed I wouldn't need it, and b) I forgot.

Day 278--T-Plus Two Months
I was going to let the blog slide for yet another day when I looked at a calendar. Today makes it two months since the surgery. Tomorrow will mark the one-month anniversary of the first day of classes at Elmhurst. In a way it's all flown by. On the other hand, it's actually started to get difficult to think back to what things were like the before the surgery. I tell everyone that I feel like myself, and I basically do. But still, in the back of my mind, I feel like the surgery kind of looms over everything. I'm hoping that feeling will fade before long.

I think going back to work so soon after the surgery was great in one respect--it gave me a chance to focus on something other than sitting in my recliner, waiting to feel better. On the other hand, with the move and the job starting so quickly afterwards, I kind of feel like I just landed in someone else's life. At work, I feel like I've just had enough time and energy to do enough to get by every day. At this point, I am beginning to think I'm just going to end up feeling like I'm treading water all semester. Of course, the friends I have that have started faculty jobs in the last few years have basically told me that they've felt the same way, so maybe I need to quit blaming heart surgery for my problems.

The bottom line, of course, is that I feel great, for a person that had heart surgery two months ago today. The last several days, I've been more worried about my tension headache than I have about my heart. I'm tired (as much because I'm working my butt off as anything else), but active. I'm basically doing the exact same things I would be doing if I hadn't had the surgery. Things are so normal that when people see me for the first time, they're actually surprised. The reaction has been universal: "You look like Brian." I think the expectation is that I'll look fragile. I think that's largely my fault for not updating the blog as much as I should have. I've been so swamped I haven't written that much. In the last month or so, I've gotten much better. That first week was about the most exhausting and stressful thing I've ever been through. Planning and giving a lecture seemed like an almost unimaginable chore. Now it's routine. Part of this is that I've gotten better at the job in the last five weeks. But most of it is that I just feel like myself.

I had an appointment with my surgeon last week so that he could clear me. He basically looked at me, asked me how I felt, and then told me to come back in a year. So, when the surgeon tells you to take a hike, that's got to be a good sign.

Lastly, I hate to bring non-Aiken current events into the discussion here, am I crazy, or is the McCain suspends his campaign thing completely bizarre? I can't come up with a way in which it even makes sense...

Breaking News!!!!!!
I saw this on the front page of cnn.com. I am shocked.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20228488,00.html

In related news, "Sky is Blue."

Day 277--The Fate of the Bear
So far, the outpouring of concern for Sir Koff A Lot has been downright existent. People must feel strongly, because they use extra punctuation when asking about him.

An example from the comments: "So what exactly are you trying to say Brian?? What's going to happen to Sir Koff A Lot??"

I also received some email, leading to this exchange:

Blog Reader: "But what will the bear do once he's retired???"

Me: "That's his problem. I'm not sure this is going to be an amicable divorce. He was back last night, like nothing had changed."

Mom has also stepped in to ask that I not subject him to some "nefarious plan." I don't know what people think I should do with my (medically necessary) teddy bear, but rest assured, I'm not going to throw him away, or give him to a pet as a chew toy. I'm just saying, "Hey, I'm 33 years old. I don't need a (formerly medically necessary) teddy bear." I promise I won't do anything nefarious, though I would imagine he has a life in the closet ahead of him...

Day 275--Troubling Realization
I think the most surprising thing about the recovery and the blog and is that there is a clear star in the minds of you readers. Not me. Not the surgeon who basically saved my life. Not the nursing staff. Not my Mom who more or less moved to Illinois for 5 weeks.

Nope, it's Sir Koff A Lot. Last Sunday, Krystal's friend Stacy came over to meet Aidan and see Krystal. What was her first question? "Can I see Sir Koff A Lot?"

This is not atypical. I've gotten a number of emails or blog comments about the little guy. Apparently, a stuffed animal that serves a medical purpose captures the imagination.

My chest is still a little sore when I wake up in the morning. Nothing unbearable, by any stretch, but enough that I've been keeping Sir Koff A Lot around. I like to sleep on my right side, a little tilted towards the bed. For comfort, I stuff Koff A Lot between my chest and the bed. Wednesday night, I woke up in the middle of the night and Sir Koff A Lot was not in his usual position. I had apparently moved him and put my head down on his belly at some point during the evening, and was using him like a pillow. At that moment, in bed, 8 weeks after surgery, I had a terrible thought: "Holy Shit. I'm a 33-year-old man that sleeps with a teddy bear. This has got to stop."

And that, my friends, is the sign that my recovery is complete.

Day 269--The Verdict Is In. Babies? Exhausting.
I think the most surprising thing about the visit from Aidan and his chaperones is how exhausted I am after their visit. Everything related to the kid is tiring. A quick trip to Target requires getting the car seat set and finding a dry shopping cart so that he's not sitting in water. You have to make sure to constantly have food and diapers and be sure he's sitting up and not falling over and bumping his head. We played Clue last night, and a good amount of the group energy was dedicated to making sure Aidan didn't fall off the air mattress while he was rolling around. You hear how exhausting parenthood is, but it's really surprising seeing it in its full glory, even for just a weekend. And I didn't feed him or stay up with him last night when he couldn't sleep. Nor did I carry him around in his car seat. And Aidan is a remarkably good baby. He basically never cries, and stops smiling only long enough to eat, sleep, and pass gas. The whole thing is incomprehensible to me at this point. That said, Aidan is so much fun, I can certainly see the appeal. But it seems like a long way off at this point.

I had a great visit, though. I hadn't seen Krystal since three days after the surgery, and I hadn't seen Mike or Aidan in three months. We had a great time (unsuccessfully) dodging raindrops during the heaviest rainfall day in Chicago history. Maybe for their next visit, we can pick a weekend where Aidan doesn't have to wear a lifevest the whole time.

Day 268--Time Flying
I think it's safe to say that I am not the world's most reliable blogger. Apparently, I've only written a couple of times since starting work three weeks ago tomorrow. I've got a lot of excuses, but none of them are that great. I'm very slowly getting set at work and in the new apartment. I bought a filing cabinet for my home office and picked out a couple bookcases and a futon. The apartment is on the verge of my feeling like I've reached a finished product.

Work is going really well. I feel like I'm in a rhythm, in terms of writing and delivering lectures. I've got a better idea of how much I need for each day, so the lecture-writing itself is going faster. The students are great. They're engaged and interested. They've already been pretty good about coming in to ask questions if they have them. So far, so good. (It's still really taxing, I should point out.)

This weekend has been great. My nephew flew up to Chicago to hang out*. So far, we've watched KU almost win a big football game, bought some new clothes, toured campus at Elmhurst, shopped for furniture, and hung out at my apartment, playing. It's been a good weekend--it was my first chance to see him since my surgery. He is a big baby--it's pretty damn clear he hasn't missed a meal. More importantly, though, is that he's a very happy baby. He is continuously laughing and smiling, and cries only when you take the bottle or the computer away. He's very technologically savvy. He enjoys typing on keyboards and can almost fit an entire phone in his mouth if you're not paying attention.

Tomorrow, though, it's back to the grind. It shouldn't be too bad a day, so long as I get a chance to finish my Thermo lecture for tomorrow morning.

*His parents came, too, but let's be honest: Aidan is the main attraction.

Day 257--Coffee/Work
Am I the only one that hates buying coffee out (from like a Starbuck's) and trying to drink it with the lid on? It's impossible to tell how hot the coffee is. I either burn the crap out of my mouth, or pull away before I get any coffee, out of fear that I'll burn the crap out of my mouth.

Things here are pretty great at this point. I am exhausted again tonight, but it's because I didn't get to sleep until late last night (after 1, I think) after I wrote a lecture for Physics 3 this morning. Almost nothing I feel at this point, aside from residual chest pain from the broken sternum, can really be traced back to the surgery. As far as I can tell, I have as much energy now as I did 6 weeks ago. At this point, I'd almost say I feel like I've healed. Aside from the gigantic scar down my chest, which apparently needs some more time to fade.

I know I've been a terrible blogger, but oh well. For one thing, Comcast screwed up a little bit an I didn't get cable hooked up until last Friday. The truth is that I've just been so focused on getting up and going, at work and around my own apartment, that I haven't really taken the time to sit down and write.

Last week was pretty overwhelming. Actually, the whole teaching thing in general has been pretty overwhelming. I've taught before, but I've never taught two classes at the same time. And I've certainly never taught two classes for the first time, at the same time. I have to plan 6 lectures a week over material I haven't seen in a decade. It's a struggle just about every day. But it's a good struggle. My students are fantastic. They're engaged and interested, and appear to be bright, too. When I ask the class a question, someone answers it. It's actually been catching me off guard. Things are stressful--I always feel like I'm treading water, since there's always a lecture that needs to be written--but the students are good enough that I feel motivated to actually make sure I'm doing my job as well as I can.

That has translated to evening exhaustion. Part of it may still be the heart surgery (despite what I said above), but when I get home in the evenings, I've barely had enough energy to make dinner and stay awake past 9. Is this what having a real job is like? Yikes.

Day 248--First Day of School
First off, I should just say that I'm sorry I haven't posted more often. Comcast wasn't able to get to my place to set up cable and internet for nearly a week after my move. Today, on campus at Elmhurst, is the first time I've been able to get online. And today has felt hectic, even if it really hasn't been that hectic.

I realized about Saturday afternoon that I actually kind of felt like myself. Aside from the pain around the incision, you would have had to tell me I had heart surgery, because I don't really feel that tired or run down any more. I am still trying to be as careful as possible so that I don't overdo it, but I don't feel that bad. Today, I just kind of feel like I didn't get enough sleep last night. Which I didn't. I was in bed before 11, but heart patient or not, my body is never ready for sleep before 11.

I am trying to forego naps, too. Over the last week and a half, I'd been allowing myself the occasional nap when I got tired (since I was fading pretty quickly some days). The problem was, if the nap was more than half an hour or so, it kept me up even later than usual. Saturday, I took a nap that ended up lasting 90 minutes. I couldn't get to sleep before 2. So that was the last nap.

But enough about my sleep patterns. Today was the first day here at Elmhurst. Given that I've really only felt like myself for about 3 days, and I moved, I'd done essentially zero planning coming in to the day. I hate not lecturing the first day, but I just didn't have anything ready to go. Wednesday, though, I'll actually start teaching Physics III and Thermodynamics. Needless to say, the students didn't mind that things weren't physics-y today.

One last thing before I head home. The move was about as smooth as possible. Hiring movers was the best money that didn't belong to me that I've ever spent. They had everything in my apartment by 5pm Wednesday. And they didn't start packing me up until that morning. They were very efficient. And my parents are amazing. I still felt run down during the move, and didn't really help with much directing or unpacking. But my parents worked all day for three days after the move and my place already looks put together.

Day 243--Testing
We are safe and sound in Chicago. We had no problems at all; it was amazingly smooth.

Day 242--A New Kind of Fun
So the good news first: my coughing has drastically subsided. Friday night (Day 238) was the low point for my coughing. Saturday was the point for my attitude. But Saturday was better than Friday. And Sunday was better than Saturday. And today is better than yesterday, which was better than Sunday. So things are definitely improving. I'm still pretty tired, but hopefully that will get better, too.

One thing I've noticed is that everyone I see says "You look good." Which I take as a good sign--I don't look like someone who just had robot parts inserted.

I'm having a hard time believing it, but this is my last night as a resident of Shampoo-Banana. It all feels anticlimactic, as I've been focusing entirely on heart stuff until the last couple days. And now I'm leaving with no fanfare, like the Baltimore Colts.

The moving trucks arrive tomorrow, sometime between 7:30 and 9:30 in the morning. And people I don't know are putting all of my stuff in a truck, which I am very happy to pay them for. Especially since I'm only paying for a small fraction of it. It's times like this, as you're looking at the stuff strangers are going to come load in to a truck, that you realize that most of your stuff sucks. The 7000 yen couch and the rest of my furniture has seen better days. But it's OK--my recliner is awesome. I'm getting a new couch and new TV soon. From a materialistic point of view, things are looking up.

By this time tomorrow, I will again be living in Chicago. I'm excited, but I really haven't had time to think about it. For now, I'm kind of surprised at how much I feel like I'm leaving behind in S-B. After a year here, I thought this town was going to kill me (and this was before I knew I had an aneurysm!). But my last two years in town have been pretty good, really, and I do have a lot of friends that I'm sorry I won't be seeing as often as I have. But I'm going to be back a few times in the next couple months and, hey, you guys know where to find me...

Day 239--Thank God the Internet Doesn't Think I'm Stupid
Only twice during this entire process have I ever really gotten frustrated. The first came on day 5 after I reached my breaking point with the chest tubes. By the morning of the day they took them out, I couldn't really breathe or walk or sleep without pain. The second has come in the last couple days. I've been hacking quite a bit since Wednesday evening. It's especially frustrating, because I feel pretty good otherwise. (It's also frustrating because coughing is not recommended sport for those recovering from chest surgery.)

When I saw my cardiologist 10 days ago, he suggested I take Coreg (the brand name for carvedilol), a beta-blocker that will also (he said) help strengthen my heart. No one has quite given me the same explanation, but I think the idea with beta-blockers is that they just sort of keep your heart in check. They keep your heart from racing and from having high blood pressure, which is especially helpful when your heart is healing from surgery. I had been taking Lopressor (metaprolol), a different beta-blocker. As I was just about to take the Coreg for the first time (Friday, August 8), I read the packaging which said that you should not take this if you have asthma. So I called the doctor and asked if it was really OK for me to be taking this. Eventually, the nurse called back and was a touch snotty--"The doctor knows you have asthma. The metaprolol wasn't bothering you, right?" Me: "Well, I've been coughing a little more than normal; I didn't know that beta-blockers could do that." The nurse called back Monday (the cardiologist was out of the office that Friday) and said that the doctor thought the Coreg was much better for my heart and wanted me to try it for 10 days. So I took Coreg starting Tuesday. By Wednesday evening, I was coughing much worse than I had at any point on the metaprolol.

Today, I found on the internet that metaprolol is a cardio-selective beta-blocker. It targets the heart. However, carvedilol is a nonselective beta-blocker known for greater interaction with pulminary function, meaning that you'd expect this to be a rougher drug for someone with breathing issues.

Now, I am not a doctor (of medicine), but I'm pretty frustrated at this point. I've everything I'm supposed to do. I've walked. I've eaten tons of protein to help my scars heal. I've used my horrible breathing contraption to make sure my lungs don't collapse. I've slept with a teddy bear to keep my pain down. But now I feel a little let down by one guy who's switched my meds (without asking if I was having trouble breathing, which I kind of was) so that now I'm coughing all the time, WITH A BROKEN STERNUM. Not that I'm bitter.

OK, now that that's off my chest, I wanted to point out that things are far from all terrible. Mom and I had a very nice dinner tonight with a couple from work tonight and I am hoping to see more friends from Shampoo-Banana before I leave town. Which is in just four days. Crazy.

Mom knows how frustrated I am by this. So she has asked me to add an "uplifting" note. So here is a link (in the upper right corner) to a clock counting down the days until George W. Bush leaves office.

Day 237--T-Plus Three Weeks; The Lack of Posts
I hope no one thinks that my lack of blog posts over the last several days is a sign that things have taken a turn for the worse. On the contrary, I am really feeling a lot better. I had a meeting with the surgeon yesterday and he cleared me to drive, to take of the binder if I feel like it, and to "return" to work at Elmhurst for the start of classes (though he said I probably wouldn't really feel like lecturing for 2.5 hours at the beginning of the semester).

That said, I'm not all the way back yet. The biggest issue at this point is that one of my meds (my beta-blockers, to control heart rate while it is healing after surgery) interferes with my normally very mild asthma. Before the surgery, I'd probably used my inhaler once in the last several months. I didn't even know where my inhaler was--that's how little I used it. In the last week and a half, I've used it once or twice a day, to help with the persistent cough I've developed. The good news is that, over the last few days, my doctors have acknowledged that I'm not making this up--my surgeon yesterday said that "some people don't get to take the beta-blockers." The coughing has kept the middle of chest (near my cough muscles) pretty tender. My neck is still quite sore as well, which seems to have led to a series of tension headaches when I wake up in the morning (though they usually go away after a few hours, water, and some pain meds).

OK, enough complaining. I really am feeling quite a bit better. I've been out for lunch or dinner a couple more times since Saturday evening. My friend Josh came down from Chicago for the afternoon on Monday. As I (jokingly) told my Mom "it was nice to see someone that wasn't you."

I've also kind of started reconnecting with the real world. Which stresses me out a bit--I'm moving to Chicago in just 6 days. I still need to get my cable set up, and I have to call to have my utilities disconnected here in Urbana. Classes starts at Elmhurst on August 25, just 11 days from now. I doubt I'll be even one-tenth as prepared as I'd like to be for that. Everyone at Elmhurst has been very supportive, and I sincerely doubt that they will give me a hard time about being behind when I get to campus. But that doesn't mean I want to show up with no clue what I'm talking about. I've already had a couple of nightmares where I forget that I'm taking an English class and I haven't even started my term paper yet. Good times. (But "I'm not getting my work done" nightmares are, in their own way, a sign that things that are getting better.)

Day 232--Leaving the Compound
This evening, Mom and I went out for dinner. It wasn't anything or anywhere special--we just went to my favorite S-B Mexican place--but it was very, very nice to do something the other humans do. The only two places I've been in the last 17 days are the hospital and my apartment. (I ran a couple errands on Thursday, but I'm not counting those.)

My recovery has actually been going pretty well the last couple days. I'm up to walking around 22-24 minutes at a time a couple times a day. As I was sitting at dinner tonight, I realized I more or less felt normal. I'm tired, but some of my lethargy is just inertia at this point. I'm so used to laying about that now that I actually feel relatively good, I still only feel like laying around in my recliner watching the tube. Here in the next couple days, I am going to have to shift to doing something. No matter what, I am going to have to have lesson plans ready for class in in just 16 days. Crap.

Four years ago, I used the Olympics as a diversion from writing my thesis. Now, it's time for the Olympics again and I'm spending a large fraction of my time in my recliner watching the Games as I recover from heart surgery. After my thesis and heart surgery, what in the Hell should I expect to go through during the London Games?

P.S. On a fake beach in downtown Beijing, between points in a match featuring volleyball players named Xu and Wu, they are playing "I Love Rock and Roll." Awesome.

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