For those who didn't know, I had some minor out-patient surgery this past Friday. As is my tendency, I naïvely thought I would be up and about like my usual self by the next day, if not that evening. Note that there was no arrogance in this, just a complete lack of understanding of what this was going to mean for my system. I am (today) starting to come out of the haze of the (heavy-duty prescription) painkillers, so it seemed like a quick update was in order.

The surgery was wonderfully uneventful. Everything seems to have gone as planned and on the time-table they expected. I was out of the center at the time they told my ride to be there. My friend stopped with me at Safeway to pick up the painkiller prescription (mmm... Darvocet) and a few things I would need for the recovery period. Speaking of which...

Without going into graphic detail, this work was related to my digestive tract. And because of that, I have to maintain high-fiber, high-other-things practices that promote fast and (relatively) smooth transition through the digestive system. In some cases, this is no big deal– high-fiber foods aren't awful, and Metamucil is tolerable. But this also includes drinking some amount of prune juice per day. And that shit is vile.

I've decided that the whole, "Prune juice is a warrior's drink" facet to the character of Lt. Worf was a massive practical-joke on Star Trek geeks. It was a ploy by the writers to see if they could get the same hopeless nerds who go to these conventions in full Klingon regalia to also choke down this vile-but-natural laxative. Personally, I'd love to see a con require that anyone who wants to walk around in Klingon Warrior garb drink a minimum of one "tankard" (or whatever sort of cup they're carrying with them) per day. I mean, if you want to play the part of a warrior, you gotta drink the part, too. And since there's no equivalent to "blood wine" handy... egads, what if the writers were implying that Klingon Blood Wine was similar to prune juice in taste? No wonder those guys were always quick to fight– had to get the fighting out of the way before your bowels exploded. If this is true, my regard for the Star Trek writers has at least doubled.

Anyway, I'm still taking pain meds at 4-5 hour intervals, but now I'm only taking one pill at a time, not two. Last night, I did a little coding while watching some of my TiVo backlog. My illusions of using the time off of work like a free vacation, though, are now being shone in a more realistic light. But I could be a hell of a lot worse off (indeed, there was a small chance that the doctor would have had to do additional work that could have lengthened my recovery time from 4 days to 7). I'm not driving around much, but I'm answering e-mail with reasonable reliability. In other words, I'm doin' OK.