I will be stripping for charity at a special ladies' night this Sunday, November 16, at the Western Bar in Edinburgh, and I need sponsors! You don't have to show up (in fact, it's probably best for all of us if you don't, but if you want to I can't stop you, and there will undoubtedly be much better eye-candy available than me). I will also be selling (or attempting to sell) lap dances for £5 each. All proceeds go to the Sick Kids Friends Foundation. I have a sign-up sheet which I can bring fill in for you. That's to sponsor me just to take off my kit on stage. Lap dances will be sold at the event. There is also free alcohol, which I will no doubt need, as will anyone making the mistake of watching me, and people selling kisses. Sounds like a good time for almost all and for a good cause. Call me or email for more information!

Cash, checks, and PayPal accepted.

At long last I've finished re-typing my pornographic novel... I call it my "porn-noir." It's a hard-boiled, cyberpunk-ish thing, a murder mystery set in a virtual reality-based porn industry. Here's the catch - it's written from the point of view of a female character. So I'm looking for women with an interest in porn who might be willing to read sections of this book (the sex scenes, heh heh) and comment on them. I want to know how "realistic" they are - if that criteria can apply to a novel involving virtual-reality sex - and whether or not the scenes are erotic. Some of them are meant to be and some of them aren't. Any takers, please drop me a line. Any interested literary agents and publishers, please get me out of my crap job!

OK, well, I'm home from the hospital. I went in on Wednesday, June 25, had a bunch of tests and a discussion with my surgeon - who looked disturbingly like David Brent of "The Office" and showed very little interest in answering my questions - and then a conversation with my anesthesiologist (John Cleese) before being tucked away in a rather comfy private room with the generally more-caring nursing staff. I discovered that each bed on the thoracic ward has a bedside "patientline" unit that provides telephone, radio, television, and internet if you buy a card from one of the card machines in the hallways. The one nearest the ward refused to take my money, so I trekked down to the ground floor (fortunately, I had not been asked to change into a hospital medical gown) to collect a £10 card (good for a five-day stay with TV and internet) as well as some illicit snacks. I soon discovered that "internet" was a laughable appellation for a dial-up, no-Java service that accessed about three sites in total and allowed me to do little more than check on whether or not the Yankees had lost the previous day.

On Thursday I was made to change into my hospital gown and a pair of white stockings that are some kind of aid to circulation and are meant to decrease the chance of developing a blood clot while sedentary. They would have looked much better if I had been able to shave my legs beforehand, but nobody warned me. A doctor came in to draw on me with magic marker, so that nobody would accidentally open up the wrong side. Also, an identification bracelet was put on my leg, to match the one on my opposite arm. I don't know why. I wasn't expecting to need to be disassembled. I was taken first to the anesthesia room, where I held a facemask giving me pure oxygen while I was administered various medications by IV drip, including the one that knocked me out. So: nothing like the movies. No black mask looming ominously into the field of vision and being told to count backwards, no circle of masked faces. No view of the operating theatre at all.

I woke up in a ward called the HDU - High Dependency Unit - with one nurse for every two patients. Kristi was there and I was pretty groggy. The surgery had, I suppose, gone OK. I had had an open pleurectomy and bullectomy ("open" meaning they went into me via incision with knives, trucks and implements of mass destruction, as opposed to "keyhole" surgery - done with cameras - orthopedic surgery, in the U.S., I think). I required the more "aggressive" approach for a couple of reasons. Since my diagnosis of Birt Hogg Dube Syndrome, the surgeons had decided to do a more complete pleurectomy on me then originally planned. The pleurectomy strips away a portion of the pleura, the "wallpaper" (Mr. Brent's word) separating the lung from the chest wall. What is left behind is sticky, and holds the lung up in case of future conditions likely to cause a collapse. So instead of just removing a portion of the pleura, they decided to remove all of it. Or as much of it as they could reach. I hope I didn't need it for anything. I wonder if they found any spare change?

The other complication came from the second procedure done to me, the bullectomy. That's the removal of the part of my lung likely to burst and cause a collapse, the bulla. Most people who are inconsiderate enough to develop bulla at least do so nicely at the edges of their lungs, but not me. I've gotta grow mine in the centre, next to the heart. Surrounded by all sorts of big, important arteries. So mine wasn't so easy to get at and amputate and the surgeon needed to be able to be elbows-deep in my chest, apparently. What happens is that this dodgy part of my lung was isolated by stapling it off and then cut out. So one lung is now a bit smaller than the other, and is held closed at one edge by lots of little staples. I was assured that the loss of lung area wouldn't matter (it wasn't really doing me any good, anyway), and that the staples wouldn't set off alarms at airports. I forgot to ask if I could take it home with me, so it's now probably in a jar somewhere, sitting on a shelf. Or it could be the focus of a strange ritual meant to create an anti-matter me of pure evil, but I don't see what use an evil Matt would be unless somebody wants to make it difficult to find certain books at the University of Edinburgh Library.

After a day on the HDU I was returned to the thoracic ward, to discover that I had lost my private room and was now in a room with three other gents. Apparently the private rooms are distributed according to some system I failed to understand that hinged upon women and men not being allowed to share, and my gender was on the losing end of the stick at the time. I spent another five days in the ward, which I'll save for a later post. I'm tired, now, and I hurt too much to type any more.

OK, I'm off to the hospital today, so - Bye-ee!

So Now I Know...

It's difficult for me to type because I have a pinched nerve in my neck that is causing a lot of pain in one arm, coupled with a numbness in the fingers - like I'm constantly hitting the funny-bone. But I finally have significant news... THE news I've been waiting for: I will be admitted into the Royal Infirmary on June 25th, and am scheduled to have surgery the following day. I'm told I will then be in the hospital for a week. Yikes! I don't know how long my at-home recovery period will be; the last estimate I was three months, but since then the surgeons have decided to give me a somewhat different operation. I will learn everything in a meeting with my surgeon the day I'm admitted.

I still haven't gotten the biopsy results that will tell me conclusively whether or not I have BHD... I've been trying to nag the dermotologist, but he is working elsewhere and his secretary is on vacation until I go into hospital... We're operating on the assumption that I do.

In other news, I posted a naughty vignette to the "Filthy Dirty Smut" group on Suicide Girls and a friend suggested that I try selling to magazines. What the heck... many a failed writer has turned to porn (maybe even the odd successful writer)! It's a noble tradition.

The schedule for the Edinburgh Festival has been released and Kristi and I went over it last night. I must say I'm a bit disappointed - there weren't nearly as many events I was interested in as there have been the past couple of years. And no musicals with zombies! Can it really be a Festival without at least one zombie musical? There are several events I'll want to get to, including a production of Dennis Potter's "Blue Remembered Hills," a performance by Dick Gaughan - the great man of Scottish folk music - and a play based on Conrad's "The Secret Agent," but fewer kooky, interesting-looking things that I would go to on a whim. For the zombies.

Tonight's dinner:

African beef and liver kebabs with grilled tomatoes and onions; boiled baby potatoes browned in olive oil with rosemary, coarse sea salt, pepper, and garlic.

Yum.

I believe my subscription expires at the end of this month... Anyone who would like to keep in touch, look me up on Myspace or Facebook, or just email or IM: haraggan@hotmail.com.

While I wait for my appointment to get a CT Scan of my lungs, hopefully the last appointment before my surgery, I can finally post a non-medical (well, mostly) blog entry!

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. My parents were here for a two-week visit, which they planned to coincide with my original surgery date, before it was cancelled due to the complications of being diagnosed with Britt Hogg Dube Syndrome. So they ended up missing my surgery, but on the other hand we were able to have more fun because I wasn't bed-ridden! After their trip over they were understandably quite tired:



But they made an admirable recovery and were soon up and about. We visited the Botanical Gardens, walked about town enjoying amazing weather and Edinburgh in bloom, met with friends, watched lots of dvds, and ate a lot - including haggis, which is actually very tasty despite its reputation.

At the same time, our friends Alex and Tim, from New York, were also visiting, but only for a couple of days. Fortunately, they were staying in a hotel, while my parents were staying with us. Because Alex is an editor of travel guides, they were put up in the "J.K. Rowling Suite" of Edinburgh's ritziest hotel, the Balmoral.



Admit it; Alexia is dead sexy. I don't know what the hell Tim is doing with that book.

Despite very limited time in Edinburgh, Alex and Tim managed to have fun (I hope) and were impressed with our fair city. Especially the beer. I'm hoping they'll be able to come back for a longer stay sometime.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood pigeons are becoming more friendly, and have started entering the apartment for food. If I leave the room with the window open, I will generally return to my desk to find a pigeon on the nearby table, eating out of the birdseed bowl, and they regularly come inside to eat from the inner window ledge:



One of our favourite pigeons is called (by us, anyway) Cloud Pigeon, because her feathers are an amazing mottled grey and white that, I think, makes her look like a cloud. She recently had a baby who has the same pattern, and a lovely salt-and-pepper speckled head. The baby is, originally enough, named Baby Cloud Pigeon. Pretty clever, eh? Here they are:







We had a bit of a pigeon hubbub this morning when Baby Cloud Pigeon managed to get lost past me unnoticed and couldn't find her way back to the open window, so I had to catch her and let her go. Of course, first I took the opportunity to cuddle! Pigeons go very docile when picked up, and are amazingly soft and warm. They like being stroked on the heads and backs of the necks, like cats.

Also, I got a hold of another of our favourite pigeons, Scruffy - so named because, well, of obvious reasons. Both of Scruffy's feet are crippled to some degree and he doesn't walk well, although he flies fine, so he might have trouble feeding on the ground and he's a regular visitor to our flat. He's a bit disreputable looking, though, and I decided he needed a bath. Pigeons love to bathe and to groom themselves and each other and are normally very fastidious (they have their reputation for being dirty not because they are inherently dirty, but because they live in places we consider dirty - the city), so if a pigeon "lets itself go" it frequently means the pigeon is sick. I'd like to bring Scruffy to a vet, but had no time today because of my own vet appointment. So instead Scruffy just got a bath, and I scrubbed his grime-encrusted feathers with the beard comb and brush that came with my beard-trimmer. He left looking very slick, if a bit wet. But this is Edinburgh and I'm pretty sure the pigeons are used to being wet. On the other hand, they aren't used to being given baths - they may love to bathe, but pigeons don't like to do anything that isn't of their own initiative! So Scruffy was in quite a huff when we left and I can only hope he eventually gets over the indignity and returns to the buffet.

I've been meaning to write this blog post for ages, but haven't been able to do it. Partly I lack the energy, and it seems like a daunting task because there's so much news, and partly I can't figure out how to write it without sounding like a moaning bastard. I'm just so fucking sick of my health problems. I'm sure everybody who knows me is, too. Definite old-age: all I can talk about is my health. Or lack of it....

So, it currently feels like I see more of doctors than I do my wife. I certainly see them more frequently than I see my friends! At my current rate it's about a doctor (or some healthcare professional) every two or three days... I was supposed to be having surgery to repair my right lung, which has collapsed twice, next week. I prepared my bosses for my lengthy sick leave; my parents got their plane tickets to be here. Then the surgeon canceled the date. An unrelated blood test (looking into why I'm so run down all the time, and we still don't really know the answer to that one, unless it's just age and mood) showed that my liver wasn't functioning properly, and the surgeon didn't want to proceed until he knew what that was about. I kinda threw a fit, but the best I could do was an appointment to talk to another specialist about the situation.

Meanwhile... my lovely friend Beki pointed out to me the possibility that I might have Birt Hogg Dube Syndrome. If you haven't heard of it, that's because it's bloody rare! It's genetic, and according to the Birt Hogg Dube Family Alliance website, it's been identified in 60 families, so far. Of course, that might be out of date. Anyway, BHD is essentially a list of symptoms, some of which show up and some of which might not. The main one is a kind of skin lump. It can also cause blebs - the bubbles I have in my lungs - and, more rarely, spontaneous pneumothorax (i.e.: collapsed lung).

Well, a couple of years ago, I had a lump removed from my back by a dermatologist in New York and I've got tiny, more innocuous ones on my forehead - kind of like flesh-coloured pimples that haven't moved or gone away in twenty years. So I saw my doctor - who, like everyone else, had never heard of BHD - and she got me to see a dermatologist. The dermatologist checked me out with great excitement and diagnosed me with BHD. Apparently he knows of two other cases in the Edinburgh area (about one million people) and says that a ratio of three people out of a million is about right for this syndrome (my coworker Georgia says I should start playng the lottery. I vaguely recall my old pal Ian telling me that your odds of winning the lottery are better if you don't play it. Life is kind of like that.). My doctors here think Beki is some kind of goddess (and, of course, she is, though not just for her knowledge of BHD!).

I had a biopsy done to confirm the diagnosis - some tube-like implement bored into my forehead and yanked out one of the lumps. I didn't feel a thing, but when the local anaesthetic wore off - youch!! It fucking still hurts, and I can't move my face because any expression tugs at the stitches (I think I look like Frankenstein's Monster) and causes more pain. Yawning is the worst. Maybe I need botox. Anyway, I have an appointment - yet another appointment - to get the stitches removed Monday. I won't get the results of the biopsy for a couple of weeks yet, so we won't know for certain if the BHD diagnosis is correct, but the doctor was sure. He's asked me if I can be available for teaching purposes and conferences. I asked, but there's no stipend, so I won't be able to make a living as a medical oddity. I agreed at the time, but after the conversation with Georgia I'm not so certain.

The punchline is that collapsed lungs aren't actually the worst of BHD's symptoms. Nope, that would be kidney cancer. So the ultrasound I needed to get to look into my liver function will now be the first of many to check out my kidneys. Not many people with BHD develop all the symptoms. I've got three out of four. I suppose all I can do now is have my kidneys checked regularly (I still don't know what's up with my liver, though). Statistically it's unlikely that I'll get kidney cancer, but once you know about it, it's hard not to think about it. After all, I've bucked the odds so far... My ultrasound appointment is next Thursday. I'm still going to have lung surgery but I don't know when. With luck, it's only been delayed by a week or maybe two. Now that the doctors know I have a syndrome that causes blebs, they have to approach my case differently. This is what I was told in my most recent appointment, the one I got in place of the surgery I was scheduled to have. One surgery won't necessarily fix my lung, because I can always generate new blebs (I am a bleb and bump generating machine!). Therefore, my carte blanche to indulge all those midlife-crisis urges after surgery has been rescinded; I have to give up on my fantasies of going sky-diving and suba-diving. That's actually a bigger bummer than it probably sounds. I feel like all my dreams have been or are being cancelled and squashed and right now all I can visualize is a future of repeated tests for cancer. Presumably over time that will grow routine and I'll stop thinking about it. I certainly didn't want to write about it. Maybe someday I'll have something fun to report?

Last night I was laying in bed with my cock out, masturbating (this is Suicide Girls, I think I can say that here) and my wife came in - got into her pajamas, got into bed, and opened a book. That's pretty much my life in a nutshell, and why I joined this website. Unfortunately, that's also pretty much how I've found this website. What was I expecting? I dunno. It's surely only my fault; I have a desperate lack of "people skills" - in person and online - and a knack for saying things that turn people off or chase them away that would make me a fortune if it were marketable. Shooting myself repeatedly in the foot (or the mouth, as the case may be) is frustrating, though, and I'd rather do it in a vacuum, so I'm abandoning Suicide Girls and will wait for my subscription to expire (I wish I hadn't paid for a full year, but it was cheap, at least). I might periodically update the blog I keep on myspace, if I'm looking for something to do... but in the words of a guy I knew in college, "je suis histoire."