Ok, I haven't been writing like I said I would, but there's plenty of reason for it.
Lots of shit going on lately.

I haven't forgotten that I promised part 2 of the trip to Virginia, but I really
already told you the best parts. I will, however, tell some embarrasing stories about
the people involved in part 1 really soon. These will include the tale of why we call
Scott Dumbass and some conjecture into why we call him that. See, he IS a dumbass, but
I don't think it's his fault. Matter of fact, I think I can prove that it isn't, but
that'll have to wait.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.

The first of two. The two that will determine when I get the surgery that I've been
bitching about since before this fucking blog began.

Appointment #1 is with the plastic surgeons. Yes, I know, plastic surgery sounds so
shallow, but this is less 'plastic' and more 'reconstructive' like the last time I
had plastic surgery.

"THe last time you had plastic surgery?" I hear you ask. Yes, I really heard it. I
appear to be losing it. Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, I had plastic surgery when I
was 16 to repair my nose. "A nose job?" Yes, you assholes, a nose job. But only
because it healed so badly after the second time I broke it that I couldn't breathe
through it. At all. So I essentially had to pay the doctors to break it again.

The first time I broke it I was playing softball in the backyard of a friend's house
(it's interesting, but irrelevant to note that it was the backyard of the college
roommate of my current roommate) and I got hit in the nose with the ball. This caused
two hairline fractures. No big deal, didn't even need to be set. The second time I
was playing little league baseball and we were catching pop flies. We were in a
tightly packed group (fucked if I know why) when everyone yelled "Don't look up!"
and dove out of the way.

Well what do you do when someone yells "Don't look up"? What can you possibly do?
You goddamn look up is what you do and I caught the goddamn ball right in the goddamn
nose, breaking it into about six pieces. I had to wear a cast on it (I'll try to find
the pictures out at Mom's and post them) and it was
packed full of cotton which I had to argue with my doctor to get him to remove later
because he argued with me that he didn't put any cotton in there. I finally got him
to shove the tweesers up my nose (which probably would have hurt less if I hadn't kinda
pissed him off arguing with him) and he pulled out about a yard of fucking cotton.

So that's the first time I ever had surgery. And it was the only time till Dec 31st 2001.
I believe I've had five since then, but I'm a little fuzzy on all of it. But this should
be the last one for a while. See, they're going to do the plastic surgery and the hernia
repair in one go. The hernia first, where they'll pull the hole in my abdominal wall back
together and patch it with plastic mesh, and then the plastic part where they'll just try
to smooth things out as much as possible and probably remove more than a few pounds in
the process.

Unless something goes wrong.

By wrong I mean, for some reason they can't do part, or perhaps even any of the surgery.
I guess I'll know part of the answer tomorrow, the rest on Wednesday.

It's wierd to live with something for years, something you want to change, but you have
no power over yourself, and suddenly you realize that you'll have an answer tomorrow.
Will it be the one I want? That would be fucking great, but even if it's the answer I
don't want, that the damage has been left too long and can't be fixed, at least it's an
answer. I'll know SOMETHING.

And then, yes, there is that thing in the back of my head that says that even if all
goes perfect and I go into surgery as planned and they plan to do everything I hope they
will, things can still go wrong. And this time by 'wrong' I mean wrong like last time.
'Going to the beach' wrong (dig through the archives, you'll find what it means). I
doubt that it'll come to that though. With everything I've been through this surgery is
relatively simple. Of course, on that fateful New Years Eve it wasn't the major surgery
that killed me, it was a simple little bleeder and a bad emergency room crew. This time
though, I'll be at a real hospital, not an overglorified, bipedal, vetrenary clinic, so
I should be fine.

I guess I just said all that to say that if they do take me straight into the hospital on
Wednesday (which is unlikely, but not completely impossible) and something does go very
wrong and I don't come back, I just want to say that I have no regrets. I mean, sure,
there's some things I'd have handled a little differently looking back on them, but that's
part of being human. I have no real regrets. I feel I've done pretty well, all things
considered, and I couldn't have done it without my family and friends, whom I'd like to
thank one more time.

Anyways, I'll post something on Wednesday if I can, but if I don't it doesn't necessarily
mean I'm dead. Give me a few days. I may just be procrastinating.