MavEtJu's Distorted View of the World - 2006-09

Posted on 2006-09-15 14:41:19, modified on 2006-09-15 21:48:44
Tags: My gall bladder

Today I saw the specialist, Dr. A. Bean. He looked at the ultrasound photos and went "You see that white area? Normally that is black, but it's the stones you see.". While laying on the table, he poked here and there and it hurt a little bit here, but nowhere there. At least that's what I thought (more on this in the next next paragraph). He pointed out that my belly button had a little problem (but that is something he would fix while I was under the knife) and showed me where he was going to put holes in my chest (including the sizes: 9 mm, 10 mm and 12 mm).

The belly button is caused by the embryolical cords, the feeding tube you use in the nine months of your pre-life. Behind your bellybutton, all the way from the pubic bone and all the way up to your ribs, there is a tender, and the area behind your belly button is a little bit scarred because of the embryolical cord. That scarred tissue is the place where he is going to fix it. Somewhere. For AU$ 93.-. Bargain!

Anyway, while we were filling in forms I felt a little bit dizzy, and had the standard somebody-is-going-to-faint symptons: cold sweat, gray face, dizzy, stomach upset, troubles concentrating. Oh oh... Better concentrate of breathing (not that this helps, just before I faint I normally concentrate so hard on my breathing that the rest of my body doesn't get any attention anymore and shuts down. At least that's how it feels when I wake up again) and better lay down a little bit. On the bed? On the floor? Anywhere, it doesn't matter as long as I don't fall of it... Three minutes later everything was fine again and we could continue with the paperwork. Mental note: don't let people poke you too much in areas where it hurts.

So the next choice: which hospital? I can go to a private hospital or to a public hospital. I myself come from a country with only public hospitals and fully support them, so it will be the Sutherland Hospital. I wonder if little Dirk remembers the time he was born there.... Then, go in a private patient or as a public patient? A public patients' costs is paid by the government, a private one is paid by the health insurance (mostly, there is a gap). As a private patient the hospital gets more money from the insurance than it would have gotten from the government. And as a private patient, you get the surgeon of your choice to hold the knife during the operation, as a public patient you the surgeon is still there but only supervises the situation. So that's easy, go as a private patient so everybody gets better out of this.

Next step: when. As with all scheduled medical procedures, there is a waiting-list for it and it is about five months. This doesn't matter if you're a public or private patient. The only way to get in faster is to develop an accute situation in which they rush you in. Let's not do that :-)

So, what is going to happen... The short version is: I will get four small cuts in my chest and will end up without gall bladder, will have to stay in the hospital for a night and have to take rest for a week. The long version (in case the short version doesn't work) is that I will end up with four small cuts and a big cut over my chest, will end up without a gall bladder and have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days and have to take rest for longer than a week. I know which one I prefer.

So the next entry will hopefully be in about five months!

ps. I'm not allowed to take the stones home with me. So much for ebaying them!

Posted on 2006-09-15 10:22:52, modified on 2006-09-15 10:31:23
Tags: Spam Faxes - Hall of Shame

The next spam round came from Consumer First in Alexandria (ABN 67 104 188 730) with some quirky MMF (Make Money Fast) scheme. They didn't even bother with sending it to the fax machines, they just send it to all the voice numbers too. Their phone number is 02 9310 1244.

The person I talked to was very speedy with noting down all the number ranges and said they would be removed right away.

Posted on 2006-09-14 16:45:11, modified on 2006-09-14 17:12:35
Tags: Adventures

In my role as network administrator, I have to replace broken hardware now and then. This mostly are ethernet cables and switches, but yesterday I had the pleasure of replacing a laserhead. A laserhead, they always come in pairs, is an ethernet layer device which euhm... well, transports the data via a laser beam. Compare it with the infrared light on the remote control of your television, and then the kind which made you blind if you look into them too long.

Like all radio and laser equipment, this device sits on top of a building. A high building. And often on places where it is hard to reach. For example, bolted on a pipe on top of a two meter high wall at the 16th floor. So I'm going up with the elevator to the 13th floor, take the stairs to the 14th floor and that's the first level of the rooftop. Our stuff is two irons stairs higher, outside.

The wind in the Sydney CBD has two characteristcs: In the afternoon around 16:00 it is very strong. And high buildings in the CBD funnel the wind through the streets and over the "lower" buidlings like the one I was on.

So you have a dutchman, dressed in black (can't help it, sometimes I run out of colourful clothes), long hair flying in all directions, carrying a big blue "thing" the size of size 50 shoebox (if you read the previous paragraph you might recognize it as a laserhead), and a backpack with tools to unscrew the current laserhead and to screw it all it back. Put laserhead on floor, carefully wriggle myself and backpack through a vertical ladder with anti-accidently-fall-towards-streetlevel features, turn around and go down on the other side of the wall. Drop backpack, go back on the ladder and get the laserhead.

I probably forgot to mention that the two buildings surrounding it (much more levels higher, 38 on one and 20something on the other one) are the Colonial State Building and the Reserve Bank of Australia. Not really places where you should run into a making amok, the guards there carry guns.

Get laserhead, go back over the vertical starts and down on the other side. And start doing the work I was supposed to do!

When you're up there you hear a lot of noise, mostly the airconditioning and cars in the streets. Another thing you often hear is the fire-brigade (lots of buildings have trigger-happy smoke detectors) and police cars. Which I heard one while I was unscrewing the laserhead and putting the replacement on. But that's okay, you hear them often.

On my way back from the rooftop (two times these horrible vertical stairs, once without and once with backpack, stairs, elevators etc) you see somebody with black pants with white stains, sweating and puffing because of the work done and the stuff I carry and of course my hair in the most freaked-out position because of the wind etc. The girl at the reception to whom I have to give the key from the rooftop back signals two policemen that euhm... I have come in. What!??!?!?!?!

To make a long story short, somebody from a neighbouring building saw me going up the roof with a backpack and go down from it without one, and she/he called the police about it... Luckily all the police did was ask what I was doing up there, the receptionist probably had told them that all was fine.

And now, as the grand final: Mark my words, one day the dutch flag will rise again over Australia!

Posted on 2006-09-11 11:12:24, modified on 2006-09-11 11:22:24
Tags: My gall bladder

According to the ultrasound specialist, I have a "gall bladder packed with calculi (=stones)", and "chronic cholecystis (=inflamation of the gall bladder)". For the rest the organs checked are fine!

Now I have an appointment to see a specialist at the end of this month, after which I have to go under the knife. Scary and interesting together!

Posted on 2006-09-03 10:41:53, modified on 2006-09-11 11:23:40
Tags: My gall bladder

Woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible pain in my chest which made me go "can't lay on my left side, right side, back or stomach", and realized that this could be bad. Bad is in not being able to "You rub it and it will get better.". Bad is in "Throwing up will only relieve pain for a couple of minutes, after which you feel like throwing up again.". Since it was past midnight, the only place to go to was the first aid section of the local hospital...

The local hospital is the only public hospital in southern Sydney and was build in 1958 with a lot of support of the local community. Little Dirk was born there :-)

So much for sight-seeing... The first aid, or emergency section, must be one of the most interesting places to spend the night: people are coming and going, with a huge variety of reasons. But when you're there because you're in pain and have visit the toilet every fifteen minutes to throw up it is not fun... (but hospitals aren't meant for fun things (except for given birth), so what do you expect :-)

After a short while I got called by a doctor which wanted to investigate my stomach area, and started to poke around on my chest. That was all fine until he found the area where the gal bladder was behind, and at that moment I nearly collapsed in pain (Good thing I was laying on the table :-). More poking to find the borders of the pain area, and they took some blood.

The blood samples showed I had increased white blood cell counts, which means that there is some infection somewhere. And the pain shows that there is a problem somewhere. Add one and one together and the rest of the story is known...

As the pain was reducing, and there was nothing they could do there for me, I was send home with the request to get ultrasounds made, and to see a specialist.