Guess what, true believers? Your pal Cob's in the hospital!

Looks like my free-wheeling days of consuming greasy sludge straight from the trough have caught up to me. It's probably not the biggest surprise to tell you, but my diet isn't the best.

After my Dad passed away, you'd be forgiven for thinking my diet consisted mostly of booze, especially since sometimes it did, but for the most part, I indulged in what I affectionately referred to as gout-meals. This usually consisted of chicken wings and cider, but any fried food and alcohol combo could suffice.

Since I quit drinking, I cut back on my junk food a lot. But in the interests of maintaining my sanity and building sustainable stability, I didn't really learn any particularly healthy eating habits. Little by little I have introduced healthier habits into my life, starting with working out and scheduling some sleep stability. I've been depending on regular protein-heavy meals centered mostly around salami, supplemented by slices of canned fruit, milk, and orange juice, with the weekends being a free-for-all of whatever presented itself to me. This past weekend I enjoyed a nice British breakfast platter at a local cafe.

I knew I'd have to figure things out sooner or later. I used to cook a lot, I liked cooking. I wasn't allowed to do any of it growing up 'cause my Mom didn't think a man's place was in the kitchen, and the few times I convinced her to teach me a little bit were events of mild to moderate trauma, but thankfully I only poured boiling water across my hand once.

In undergrad I got into the habit of making casseroles, and cooking steaks. I used to host steak nights at my place because my Mom would send me entirely too many to eat in a reasonable time frame. I got good at preparing potatoes in every way one could. I even learned to make pretty good omelettes. My signature meal was what I call Wizard Casserole, since it is based on a recipe Ian McKellan posted on Reddit once. It consists of a shitton of cheese, with garlic, onion, bacon, and whatever else I have on hand layered in and baked, with the top cheese layer broiled to crispiness.

I made it for a particularly attractive person once, but I think she and I were both looking for different things. Another friend marveled that she didn't fuck me after trying it. One of the best compliments I've ever received.

Still, you probably have noticed it's fairly heavy stuff. I like making myself sandwiches with plenty of spinach, but I hardly ever cook any veggies. My roommate in undergrad and I would wait on my ricecooker while drunk on the floor of the kitchen and then I'd add some salt, pepper, and garlic powder to my bowl.

My Mom makes some amazing veggie dishes, but she mostly insisted on a protein heavy diet for me most of my life because "that's what a man should eat." It goes without saying that I have not and will not be discussing my gender with her.

I would like to see how she makes her kimchi, and especially her kale. There's a lot of wisdom I lost when my Dad passed, so I should probably see about learning from her while I can, even if it is confronting some trauma.

So for the past year or so, I'd occasionally get these pains in my abdomen. I thought it was because I'd wrecked my liver during my alcoholism phase, but they weren't terribly long lasting or even serious pains, so I just chalked it up to something my body was doing. Maybe it had something to do with all the working out that left me sore somewhere basically constantly.

The last month or so though, they'd definitely gotten worse. Yesterday, during my weekly visit to my Mom, she fed me a big ol' egg and cheese sandwich. They're a sight to behold, and a grand thing to shove into your belly. During the cold season she makes me that when I go to visit, but usually does tuna with green onions in the warmer parts of the year. A couple hours later however, and my abdomen started aching much worse than ever before. While waiting for my Mom to peruse the various shops I drop her off at, I did some research.

I have websearched for the symptoms of liver failure many many times. During some of my worst drinking I would occasionally check the mirror for signs of jaundice, reeling in horror at any imagined discoloration, but mostly discovering I was just Asian. Yesterday, I took a look through Reddit to see if the upper right abdominal pain might mean something else aside from my liver going to shit, and discovered it could indeed mean many things.

One thing I discovered is it could be gallstones, little buildups of fat that eventually block the gallbladder and cause pain. I had several at-risk factors, and it seemed to match what I was experiencing. The pain subsided after about four hours, after which I decided to do a little experiment and I ate an omelette Caitlin had left in my fridge from the diner I mentioned earlier. As expected, about two hours later my abdomen began to ache, though much more painfully this time. I writhed around in agony until about three in the morning, at which time I remembered I'd pilfered some ibuprofen from my office last week and promptly went about abusing it. The pain subsided about an hour later and I could sleep for a while.

I should note here that the pain in my abdomen also happened to exist in the same spots that my stomach anxiety has been manifesting for the past year or so. At first I thought these attacks to be purely anxiety based, but it seems that that anxious feeling has built into what is unmistakably pain on par with getting kicked in the guts. I'd read that the inflammation around the gallbladder could cause some strange neurological effects, such as vertigo or anxiety, both of which I'd been experiencing more and more the past week.

So I woke up and texted my boss that I definitely was not coming in. I felt rather like I was playing hooky, as I had done many times while drinking, but I laid down for a few more hours before awakening to more stomach discomfort. I updated my dear friend Anna on it and she suggested I go to urgent care. I found myself without an excuse to disagree.

I don't go to the doctor often. The last time I went was for hernia surgery in 2015, and the entire experience was awful. I went in far too early in the morning, having to take a bus and then navigate a part of town I was rather unfamiliar with that was just a little dicey at the time. When I got there I didn't have enough money in my bank account to cover the procedure and was admonished by the insurance guy. I asked the nurses to not give me any narcotic painkillers as I sometimes enjoyed that stuff entirely too much, but when I awoke from the procedure (which went very smoothly I am told) I was high as a kite on percocet. They then prescribed me fifty of the little fuckers.

As my friend Kelsey put it later, my thought process was "I'm already high, so why come down?"

I laid around in bed with two cute chicks who listened to me say insane shit until we all fell asleep, then my parents picked me up for Spring Break the next day. On the way home, a friend of a friend from high school texted me asking me to send him money in California and in my drug fueled madness I told him to fuck off. I learned about a month ago it had been an early incident in what became a larger pattern of insanity with him, and he eventually fell down the alt-right pipeline after alienating everyone one way or another.

I abused the absolute hell out of the percocet. I had these insane dreams of cutting off everyone on the planet's heads and stacking them into a huge towering pyramid and letting the birds peck them. I messaged everyone crazy shit constantly, including something about Christmas Spirits. I imagined there was three kinds of Christmas Spirit, which are distinct from Christmas Ghosts as depicted in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843). The first kind of Christmas Spirits are these tiny elves that make presents for people and leave them out for them. The second kind of Christmas Spirits are these ethereal horse heads that float around hanging up wonderful decorations and making the world pretty for the festivity. The third kind of Christmas Spirits are these gaunt ghouls that hang out in graveyards and kill people who do awful things to people during the holidays. I asked everyone what kind of spirit they were. Keep in mind this was March.

So I ran out of percocets after less than a week, and returned to OSU. I'd managed to agree to dating someone who asked me out while I was high, who knew I was high, and as I slowly came down, I was confronted with the horror that I didn't think of her like that at all. But I should say, that even though I was high, I did accept her proposal knowing full well I wouldn't feel the same way afterwards. I broke up with her in my room, and about five minutes later while she was still there, the withdrawal started. She felt obligated to care for me while I experienced acute painkiller withdrawal, leaving me sitting in the shower fully clothed feeling a pain I'd never felt before but would become intimately familiar with in my adventures in alcoholism.

Around this time I discovered I'd completely forgotten about a research paper I was trying to write, and was unable to complete. I barely made it through that semester, and the trauma of the withdrawal lasted for months and caused me to bring pain to the person who had been there for me crying in my bathtub when I couldn't be what she wanted me to be. I check up on her now and again, and she's living a much happier life now.

So ultimately while I wouldn't classify myself as afraid of doctors, I am wary of hospital environments. My Dad used to tell me that his grandfather used to say "hospitals are where people go to die." He certainly believed that at the end.

Regardless, I made my way to urgent care and they confirmed my suspicions. I did a little fist pump at having called it. They then made arrangements for me to head over to the emergency room at the main hospital, which funny enough is closer to my house than the urgent care.

They've had me sitting around waiting. Hooked me up to an IV earlier, though one of the doctors said I could probably get a cheeseburger from the Wendy's in the hospital. Though that was quickly rescinded. Honestly I'd be willing to take the several hours of agony for a cheeseburger about now.

They transferred me to a room on the 21st floor, with a really nice view of OSU's West Campus. Never spent much time there, though all of the biologists I've dated have.

Caitlin stopped by my place to play with Snyper, make sure she had everything she needed. I hadn't anticipated being held overnight when I left this morning. She brought me my laptop and we talked a bit about all the fears I've had today being stuck in various hospital beds.

The first and most trite fear was that the last person I thought about while jerking it was kinda not my type. Nothing wrong with them, just it'd be disappointing for that to be my last wank. Though since I have my own room here I can probably remedy that.

The other fear is that I was going to start a small beginner's curling league this weekend. I hope I'm still able to do that. I read a whole book on curling to prepare.

The last is that I haven't given someone I'm sweet on a chance to reject me yet.

There's a lot of life left to live, and this is a fairly rudimentary procedure, so I have no real fear it will go poorly. Apparently I'm in fantastic health and everything looks good aside from the blockage in my gallbladder. Even my liver has managed to forgive me.

So I'm left here hanging out, waiting for them to put the IV back in me and maybe ask them if they've got a unisom to help me sleep. I planned to figure out a healthier diet come summertime, but I guess it can't hurt to move that up. Though I'm going to have a cheeseburger the moment it is safe to do so.

All my friends have messaged me saying they're here for me, sending me expressions of concern. Everything's coordinated for my cat and my mom, and for reaching out to people in the LARP if I can't complete some bookkeeping.

I was lamenting a few weeks ago how it felt like everyone loved me except me. I was thinking that at my birthday party, actually. But here and now is an example of me loving me, I think. Sending myself to get the help I need so I didn't have to live in pain and discomfort. My latest ex-partner urged me to take care of myself no matter what, and all I could say is that's why I'm here. Isn't that love for myself?

Well, hunching over in this hospital bed to write this has definitely kicked up whatever's happening in my body, so it's probably about time I laid back and relaxed. Maybe watch one of the many many many movies on my watchlist.

Thanks for reading. Wish me luck tomorrow.