Travelog Debrief, Part The Second and Critical Health Updates (Hint: I’m not dying, sorry/not sorry!)

Greetings and Salutations!
OK
Let us get the health thing out of the way. Some of you who’ve been hanging out for quite a spell may remember that my dumbass cracked the ever loving shit out of my shinbone on the ‘bad leg’ (AKA Lefty) while doing PMCS and ‘stuff’ on The Boat (The J3 Donated Boat that is)… PMCS stands for Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services, which is a term used in the DotMil for inspecting equipment and doing on-the-spot repairs IF one has the ability. Meaning I was working on The Boat and forgot I had a GIANT assed tow hitch I needed to dodge…

Like I said, dumbass mode engaged.

Said-Injury looking like this:

Yeeeeah… a ‘Fred Flintstone’ sized lump that was so bad, Sapper insisted we go and get me checked out at the VA at the time… which was pretty much worthless, as it resolved after about 3 months (August 12th being the Day of Deep Impact if you will) on it’s own.

HOWEVER…
The reason I call it “the bad leg” is that’s the knee that got blowed da faq up back in 2006 and had to be rebuilt. Now in the hospital, you can see a wee bit better, but when they cut on me to insert all that Titanium and the other ‘robo-knee stuff’ a LOT of the return veins got either severed, smashed and or not fully mission capable:

All that blotchy color and darker skin?

Yep. That’s been there since the surgery.
Which was in January of 2006…
Not much they can do about it (so I’ve been informed)

So back then I got a Xray and some other pablum that was (IMO) wholly inadequate but it IS the VA so… not much I could do about it… That being said however, things appeared to be OK… Until a few weeks ago when I re-hit the original area…

My dumb ass hit the same exact area again… the how/where/when/why? No idea. I did, however, break the skin, and therein lies the problemo. It was a minor cut BUT

Seems it got infected.
And a BIG PART of my overall encompassing health issues stem from my nerve damage that I got waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day… that being the injury that earned me a One Way Ticket to Fort Living-room, The House.

See… I regularly injure myself.
Most dudes do to a certain degree

The usual stuff… minor cuts… smashed/broken toes (hence last night’s meme of the stones… that cracks me up)… but when I do cause a self induced injury, the problem is I barely register it/feel anything!!! It stems from the brachial nerves coming off of the Cervical 5,6, and 7 vertebrae.

The main nerves got squished when I did my best Wile E. Coyote imitation with the main gun toob of an M1A1 Abrams:

Meaning instead of a “Rock or Something” I got a 10,000 Pound Rheinmetall made M256 120mm Main Gun Toob dropped laterally across’t me squash, thereby inducing a serious vertical compression based impact injury that crushed me like a bug and almost kil’t me.

Hence the cartoon.
BUT
I did say
ALMOST
Thankfully I was in great shape and my at-the-time 26+ inch neck did NOT shift/slide or displace, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation, as I would have died right then, right there… Nope, I got ka-squish-tulated, and have been dealing with it since…

As it was however
So at first, I was in AGONY 24-7-365 for years.
Muscle Spasms, Pain, Joint Pain…

ALL the pain….

Then… it sort of just tapered off…

It seems that I finally found a Sawbones who could explain it to me… As it was such a severe injury, that over time?
The pain receptors burned the fuck out. Leaving me with NO IDEA that I had a cellulitis infection cooking away for a few weeks, and that it’d spread causing a serious buildup of liquid (lymph) and peripheral edema.

They loaded me up with a metric fuckton of meds so now I’m not worried about any potential social diseases like HerpaGhonorrSyphilAIDS or anything… the amount of shit they put me on I could probably bang a leper… anyways…

To add to the good news, the EKG came back awesome with NO ABNORMALITIES, and the liver panel came back the best it’s been in years, much to the consternation of my primary care, who’s used to seeing it marked “Pickled/Plastered” for the past 20 years or so… Add on that the chest X-ray and leg X-ray show no issues either, and I got the Ultrasound today and they said they’d call me IF there was anything to worry about… In fact the BP?
Yeah… without ANY drugs I was running a 127 over 72 Average

Which for a 57 year old sedentary (current lifestyle that is) sort of guy?
That’s fuckin’ great…

And since I haven’t heard anything negative about Ye Olde Ultrasounde???
That means I’m cleared for a bounce to California to see ‘Forbidden Planet’!

Which ALSO has a few surprises!

As in I may/may not be meeting up with some of you who’ve told me you’d be there and look for me, and I’m also the grateful guest of a fellow Blogger who kindly offered me up a place to stay, and is someone who’ll blow y’alls minds when you find out who… I’ll keep that for later…

I’m also trying to coordinate to see Concerned American from WRSA as he IS a damned good fren and we’ve broken bread quite a few times… it’s a matter of timing as he has to leave shortly after I get there… ships passing in the night and all that (without the romantical bullshit involved in that old saying…LOL)

So no matter what, this’s going to be a kick-ass weekend.

Now, to continue with the debrief of “Operation Nassau”

When we last left off, our Hero, Big Country had been repulsed by Superior Numbers and an Unnatural Putrescent Stink that was vaguely reminiscent of Mad Dog 20/20 and Old English Malt Likker, coming from the Hot-Tub(s) that appeared to be brewing “Negroid Soup” at the back of Ye Ole BOWT.

Needless to say… there was NO coming back from that level of gross… As seen by my reaction here:

“Run Away! Run Away!“
Monty Python and The Holy Grail
(or is it Groid these days?)
Anywho….

It was sort of like that joke when us GenX kids were kids still “What’s grosser than gross?” followed up by some really foul punchline in one form or another… Anyway, many of you in the comments tended to agree… So with that minor defeat being logged, I retreated to a ‘beach chair’ to read and relax…

I got a wee bit of sun, as I forgot the sunscreen, but only enough to feel ‘warm’ as opposed to ‘scorched’ which is a good thing. I stayed out there working my way through some long-overdue reading which, for once, did not involve training manuals and/or ‘educational stuff’ which is my usual.

Nope… this was pure ‘reading for mindless pleasure’

The unplugging of my Casaba was almost physically felt.

Of course said-mindless pleasure reading was getting caught up on John Ringo’s “Dark Tide Rising” Zombie-Apocalypse series of book(s) (up to #16 now!) but hey! Preppers gonna prep, and us TEOTWAWKI fiction lovers need some down time and love too amiright?

And when the night started to close in, I got this:

This picture does that skyline no justice!

It was absolutely magnificent, and reminded me of just WHY the Good Lord gave me a smol wakeup in N’awlins two weekends before via the Bishopman… It really reopened my eyeballz to the beauty that is still in this world, as well as a reminder of just what the fuck we need to fight for when the time comes…

Anyways, enough with the ‘waxing philosophically’.

Leave that to the Libtards and Bluehaired Breeding Rejects…

Jes’ Sayin’

So after soaking up the rays, and Saturday being a full-on “Day At Sea” which can translate to “We have them trapped and can try to milk every. single. shekel. out of them as they are, in fact, a captive audience.” (which was absolutely true) it was time to ‘go on the prowl’ and check the various bars and entertainment and shows to be had on Ye Olde BOWT…

Now mind you, I only had a total of 4 buckets of bleer (intentional misspelling, there’s a inside joke there) for the whole trip… essentially one a day, and only bought the occasional companion/bedwarmer a few boozles as well. she claimed not to like to drink too much…

Meh… whatever…

Now while I wasn’t drinking, I did have a cash reserve of a couple of fitties that Sapper had laid on me for his ‘rent’ before I left… he contributes weekly, and for the most part, said $$$ goes to the household expenses. Since I’m no longer having ‘extra expenditures of a type’ I was able to hold onto said $$$ for a “just in case/OH FUCK!” moment as cash talks a language allll it’s own overseas, even in a place as relatively civilized as Nassau…

And having cash?
Well the only place on BOWT that took cash was the Casino.
Hmmmmn…

Blackjack anyone?
Yep. That was fun…

Mind you I literally broke even as fuck.
By the time we re-anchored and docked back in Palm Beach, I had had a zero-sum set of game(s) for the whole weekend, meaning I started with $170.00 and went home with $170.00… minus $20 in tips to the dealer(s)… so as far as I was concerned it was a wash…

That being said, for a few hours, I was up by like $400…

To the point I started getting free drinks and if I wanted, appetizers IF I requested them. I’m not a great player by any means… I’m more ‘instict driven’, meaning while I can NOT count cards, I do see the ‘greater pattern of chaos theory and randomness’ of the Shoe as the cards are dealt.

Case in point:
New dealer.
They re-did the card decks or the shoe as it’s properly called.
Then, after -I- cut the cards, and after a few other things happened, the dealer asked us to throw down on the table, at which point I did not.

I waited.

Which after having played multiple successful hands the dealer, (an nice girl from Serbia named Markova) asked me why I was sitting the first (and subsequent hands) out?

I said I never play off a fresh shoe… maybe hand number 3 or 4, but only if it feels right.

She shrugged and played and I watched.

After Hand Number 2, on a $5 dollar table (the $5 table kicked in from 15:00 until 18:00 to get the suckers in) I threw in $50 for Hand #3.

Now this table had the “Insurance/If your hand has…” spots… and in this case IF your face cards on the first hand (meaning the first 2 cards you get thrown only) has either a Blackjack or a hand that equals 20, and IF you get that 20 with a queen, well I believe as memory serves me it was a progressive payout… if you got 20 via 2x Queen Face Cards, it was a 200 to 1 payout… meaning if you bet $1, you made $200… and it went from there.
That is IF you put down some ducats BEFORE the dealer even started throwing cards…
Otherwise it was a moot point. To continue

When it came time for Hand #3 on this shoe and I had thrown in the $50? The cards came up:
Two Tens
Which got me a 25-1 payout because I had hedged a bet on it equaling 20. And since I had two 10 cards?
I split.
And because of the split, I was able to double my original bet on them ($25 more on each)
Which in turn gave me a Blackjack on One Hand and another 20 on the other, which curb-stomped the dealer nicely… I made almost $250+ off that one hand alone altogether

Needless to say, I had a blast
And BTW, don’t argue my maff… it’s been a LOOOONG day and I’m a wee bit fuzzy. What matters is I had a ball, ‘companion’ had a good time, and then, well it was time to prep for the AM trip to Nassau itself.

Because of the upcoming off-ship adventure, I went to bed pretty early… This was Saturday night. I also didn’t drink worth a fuck-all as each beer, a 16oz tallboy, or a ‘pounder’ as they used to call them back in the day, cost $8USD EACH.

5 of them were $42.99 which gets filed under an “Oh my aching balls!!!” level of pricing… Buying a mixed drink for my companion? $18 for a Sex on the Beach or a Mai Tai on the BOWT… extortion-level prices IMO.

So… I went and crashed, and fought the good fight to get some serious ZZZs as they’d been in short supply.

I woke up and brekkie that AM was an omelette:

Somewhat on the lighter side, BUT!
It was good grub as I stated before.
And on that note, I’ll leave it to finish (maybe) tomorrow as I do have to continue, but that being said, the day tomorrow is looking BUSY-BUSY AF. We’ll have to see. I AM bringing my little Lappie (Thanks for that Ed!!!) so I can at least attempt to stay on topic as well as update y’all…

Say a prayer for me, wish me luck and I’ll be back.
More Later
Big Country