Author: Doug Rutherford

I must not fully be myself as I only bought two pumpkins for Hollowe’en this year. I’ve done as many as 12 once, although I normally restrict it to three or so. I also bought them at Super A, which means they cost about three times as much as they would have if I’d run down to Superstore to get them so this was a consideration in the number I bought.

After you get your pumpkins, you must determine what they’ll look like. Remember, the character of the pumpkin is important and must match the pattern you choose. I use a pattern since I’m not up to freehanding. You can get patterns or make your own. You can buy them, download them from the internet or make them using a variety of methods. Just drawing them is one end of the range of difficulty to using a graphics program to blow the contrast into a photograph and use it as a pattern.

So, here are this year’s pumpkins. I opted for a theme…

I went searching for a new Hallowe’en costume two weeks ago and really saw nothing that appealed to me. I’m not a scary zombie type guy and tend to look for costumes that are better with great names. For example, last year I was Captain Jack Eyepod, CD pirate and hacker. The year before, I had a Roman emperor’s costume and went as Gluteus Bellcandensis, the guy who puts the roaming charges on your cellphone bill.

But, in a separate rack, I found the perfect costume. It’s perfectly ironic. After several surgeries this summer, I have a surgeon’s costume. The shoe is on the other foot now.

Oh, by the way, I had some problem coming up with a name. I finally decided on Dr. Réal Buttuglé, famous French colorectal surgeon…

By now, many of you have probably seen Rick Mercer’s rant from last Tuesday evening. It dealt with how bullying led a gay Ottawa teen to commit suicide and has gone viral, being shared on a variety of social media sites and seen around the world. As of today, it has been viewed almost one-quarter million times on YouTube alone.

While I certainly agree with his message generally, I disagree with one of his key points. Rick calls for all gay people in public life to come out to provide a role model to gay teens. I’m not sure that’s actually the message we need to put forward. Why should the only good role model for a gay teen be a gay public figure? Maybe, a tolerant, straight person who is a decent human being would be a better role model than a crooked, gay politician who isn’t stunning example of humanity. I don’t think a gay role model is any more necessary for gay teens that a male role model would better for a male student. In fact, this kind of restrictive, exclusionary thinking may have been what got us in the sorry state we’re in now.

Let’s be honest here. If, for example, John Baird is gay and he did come out of the closet, how many gay students are likely to say, “He’s gay, so it must be alright?” I don’t think he’d provide the most comforting example. 

Maybe, he should have ended his rant with the following message. People in public life should starting being a bit on the tolerant side. Maybe politicians should exercise a bit of restraint during Question Period. Maybe professional athletes should concentrate on being as good off the field as they think they are on the field. And maybe, those of us not in the public eye… you know, the vast majority of us… should just treat everyone properly and try to be a person that anyone would want to emulate. It might not hurt, you know…

A few things are new in the last couple of days. The big thing is that, for the first time since the last week of August, I wore pants! Real pants! I’ve been wearing pajamas or jogging pants since surgery, except in the hospital where I wore one of those “moon suit” gowns… named more for what you did wearing it rather than where you were going to wear it.

Waistlines were an issue for me since my incision, which was rather tender and still draining, runs up and perpendicular to my waist. In most cases, I’d actually pull up the joggies or jammies quite high, above the incision. Now, I can wear one of my elastic waist pants I found at Mark’s that have many pockets and were quite comfortable. However, there is now an issue. They used to fit perfectly, when I was three waist sizes larger. Forty pounds later, they don’t look as clean fitting as they used to. In fact, my pant legs closely resemble elephant legs, although more for their bagginess than their size. I won’t even describe how my shirts fit. I guess I have to go shopping. Soon.

A few other things came up yesterday. Since my incision isn’t draining, I no longer have to pack the incision and can now change my own dressings. Home care doesn’t have to come every day and I don’t see a nurse again until Tuesday, just to check. I also don’t have to change the dressing every day and every two days is fine. I also got a letter in the mail. The date for my scope is set at November 18th. Surgery is to be one to two weeks afterwards. In short, my summer from Hell is almost over. The summer part is long over, I realize. The Hell part is destined to end up shortly too. I guess the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train, after all…

One milestone down and one coming up. The home care nurse decided that my incision no longer needs packing. Several weeks ago, the surgeon reopened part of it as it was infected and not draining properly. To keep it from healing too quickly (I haven’t figured out why this is a bad thing, personally), she packed the reopening so it would wick the yucky stuff out of the infected pocket and properly drain.

However, the pocket has slowly been healing and there’s been almost no drainage at all. There’s a wee bit on the top, where it mostly drained on the bottom, but that’s not much more than a dribble. No, I’m not posting pictures. The nurses think it’s because I’m becoming more active and say this is good. However, my nurse this morning actually couldn’t get any packing in it at all, even after cutting it in half. Therefore, she said, “That’s it. No packing for you,” albeit without the Seinfeld-ish accent. In short, the infection appears to have run its course and my incision is healing. It has been five weeks since the last surgery and six weeks is the magic cutoff point for worrying about an instant incisional hernia (not a good thing, by the way).

Milestone #2 is coming on Tuesday. I’m going to start back to work for the first time since the beginning of June. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll only be part time, especially at the beginning.

But, to get back to work, I do have to make two huge adaptations. First, I have to start to getting into a sleeping rythym that will allow me to get up in time. My hours are based on chaos theory at the moment so I have to shift myself to a more linear paradigm. That will be a bit difficult, but isn’t the biggest problem. In order to go back to work in October, I have to readapt to wearing socks again. That one, I’m not looking forward to…