I'm still alive - a bit loopy from the drugs - but alive. All went well yesterday and Leslie was able to drive me home at about 3:00 PM. I slept most of the afternoon, went down to watch TV around 6:00, then quickly fell asleep again and was back in bed by 9:30.

Over the last week I had compiled a list of questions to ask the doctor after the surgery regarding recovery - what to expect, what to do, what not to do, etc. While in the prep area, waiting to go into surgery, Leslie was showing the list to anybody she could; the nurse, the anesthesiologist. They all reassured us that my doctor would answer all that and more in the recovery room.

After being wheeled into the operating room I was pleased that the radio was on and playing "Funk 49" by the James Gang (early Joe Walsh). I was rocking out while the anesthesiologist hooked up my IV. He also told the others in attendance about my typed up list of questions.

One of the assistants asked what was on it. I explained that the most important thing was, "What can I eat, and when?" He asked what I wanted, and I replied bar-b-que, which led to an animated discussion among all present about where to go for BBQ locally, as they rolled me from the bed I came in on onto the operating table, face down. And that's about when the drugs hit.

All I remember about the surgery itself was a couple of times they asked about my pain level, but other than that I was completely (and thankfully) unaware of what they were doing back there.

When I woke up in the recovery room they offered me a couple of crackers and a can of Sprite to get things running again. Leslie had already had a long talk with my doctor about the list of questions, and had a stack of information for us to take home. Not too long after that (or so it seemed, it may have been more than an hour) they sent us home.

I went directly to bed and turned on the radio, which happened to be playing "Life's Been Good" by Joe Walsh (remember the radio in the operating room?). I took that as a good sign, and as adding a nice bit of symmetry to the experience.

And so, today, I'm a little loopy from the drugs, and a bit uncomfortable, but not in too much pain, and in a generally good mood.

I'm a member of several Yahoo! Groups, including one called "Journal Inspirations." This morning, I found the following that a gentleman named Roy posted there yesterday:

> I am probably being a wimp but I am feeling much
> apprehension about my operation tomorrow. ...

Well, Roy, I'm right there with you in more ways than you can imagine. I found your message on Tuesday morning, in my last check of my Yahoo! Groups before going in for my own surgery today! I go in at 11:00 AM for a 12:30 scheduled slice-and-dice. The operation is supposed to take about an hour, and they expect to be able to send me home by around 3:00 PM.

My apprehension is not so much about the operation, as about the recovery. The operation is the easy part - I'll be heavily sedated. It's the next week (or more) of sitting around popping pain pills, watching TV, and kicking myself for not having the energy or concentration to be working on a new book that's got me upset.

What will be happening here, in just a few short hours, is my colon will have a small piece cut out of the wall to remove some obstructions that have been bleeding. Not a pretty picture, but it's low enough down that it's not that serious of a procedure (from the doctor's point of view). Without getting into too much nauseating detail, you can imagine that one of the things I'm apprehensive of is how painful it's going to be to eliminate waste product (is that tasteful) if and when I'm able to eat.

Elimination is also one of the signs that I'm ready to leave the surgical center today. After surgery (which will take an hour) I'll be allowed to go home once I'm a) fully conscious, and b) able to pee. That they're concerned that I might not be able to pee is also a potential worry of mine.

Anyway, Roy, I hope both of us emerge today with few scars. It's good to know that we won't be alone, but suffering (and popping pills) together. This was not the type of "Journal Inspiration" that I usually expect to find in this group, but it certainly was timely.

All the best,

- Ken

The rain yesterday changed our plans for a hike in the mountains. We did go to the wine tasting (slightly disappointing, considering their usual quality), but then spent much of the day in a book a shop, and in front of the TV.

Today it's raining again, which doesn't thrill me, as I've got to go to San Francisco this afternoon. The sun is expected to make a return tomorrow, but I'll miss it as the doctors perform their slice and dice in my colon.

Tonight: The final episode of Allie McBeal. I'm so happy about that. This is a show I wasn't wild about to begin with, but somehow got hooked in. When I began watching it, it was for all the other characters - Calista Flockhart really annoyed me.

Then, last year, when Robert Downey, Jr., was on, it really brought out the best in Calista. I believe Downey actually taught her how to act. This year, however, the show has been truly reaching - "jumping the shark" as they say - and I'm ready for it to end.

Yes, I'm weak: I know I could stop watching anytime, but as I said, I'm hooked. I need the final episode to air before my Monday nights can be my own again to with as I please.

Tonight, we shall raise a glass to Allie McBeal, we shall enjoy a glass of fine wine (or a rich port, or maybe even some single-malt Scotch...) and toast to the end of the show. Then try to sleep knowing that surgery comes tomorrow...

Sorry, I was forced to be away from the blog for a few days, as my ISP wasn't letting me online. Now, with new dial-up numbers entered into my PPP control panel, I'm back - But I forgot what it was I wanted to post while I was gone...

I'm getting a little nervous about the surgery on Tuesday, but not too bad. It should be fairly easy, as these things go, and not too much danger of anything going wrong. It's more the week (or more) of severe pain following the surgery that's got me concerned.

My doctor told me one week's recovery before I should go back to work. Looking it up on WebMD.com, however, gives me an answer of two to three weeks recovery. What I told the folks at work is that I'll be back on May 28th (after one week), but don't expect much out of me until June 3rd.

I'm more not looking forward to Monday. I've got about fifteen hours of work to cram into that last day before I go out - and that's after working overtime several days last week.

Meanwhile, we're trying to enjoy the weekend as much as possible. We walked for hours yesterday, enjoying the nice spring day, then went over the hill to Santa Cruz for dinner on the pier. Today we'll be going to an invitation-only tasting at one of our favorite wineries, and maybe doing some hiking in the mountains.

Book note: I just found out this morning that my book, Aaron's Intifada and Other Short Stories, is available from Walmart!

"They're like poodle dogs. You don't know how much meat there is until you shave off all the hair."

I was at dinner last night with some people from work, and one of our board members who was there used those words to describe community foundations. He'd prefer that quote remain anonymous.

Moderate Quake Hits San Francisco, Little Damage. The headline, of course, is a lie. The quake hit Gilroy, which is just outside of San Jose. But, we know that the media believe the rest of America is too dumb to know that there's more to California than just Los Angeles and San Francisco.

As the quake hit last night, the ten o'clock news was just beginning. Leslie and sat, holding each other, waiting for the rocking to stop as the opening theme music faded into the "Good evening" of the anchor. We naively expected that the lead story would be dropped for a moment for the anchor to say, "Yes, that was an earthquake you just felt." But, in San Francisco, where the TV station is located, they hadn't yet felt the temblor.

It took another ten minutes for them to make an announcement about the quake, following which they went to their reporters in the field - in San Francisco - to see what had happened. Not much, according to the folks up there who were barely aware that it had happened. It took another ten minutes for them to talk to folks in the South Bay, who could really talk about what the shaker felt like.

So, the prejudice towards favoring SF (and shunning San Jose) is not just a problem of the national media. It's only a reflection of our own local media, that feels that only SF is "The City" and the rest of us live in the sticks. During the height of the digital revolution, coverage could talk about the geographically non-existent Silicon Valley. But now that the magic has worn off, we're back to being San Jose, and an unimportant part of the story. Oh, well.

Anyway, we survived the quake, although we were a bit nervous about this building surviving it.

Sixty years later, an apology to Japanese-American resisters - (Yahoo! News)

This was one of the most important, and nearly overlooked, headlines of this Mother's Day weekend. Mention of the internment of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast during World War II is still a touchy subject, avoided by most Americans (many are are completely unaware). This headline hits on a particularly difficult episode of that internment - one that has caused a rift within the Japanese-American community for sixty years.

To briefly summarize the conflict, despite being rounded up by the government, being evacuated to concentration camps, and having their civil rights stripped from them, the need for more soldiers to fight WWII led the U.S. government to draft Japanese-Americans from the camps. The "official" Japanese-American community outside the camps (led by the JACL) approved of this plan as means of showing that Japanese can be loyal American citizens.

Within the camps, however, the irony was too much to bear; being drafted out of a prison where one had lost their citizenship in order to fight in segregated units to preserve "democracy." To top it off, the draft papers received listed the young men as "hostile aliens." And so, a couple of thousand brave men resisted the draft.

Their point was not that they were unwilling to ever fight for this, their country, but that they would only do so once their full citizenship had been restored. They would not fight as "hostile aliens;" they would fight as Americans. About 300 men were tried on sedition charges and moved from the internment camps to Federal penitentiaries.

Shortly after the war they were all pardoned by Harry S Truman, but they were not welcomed back into their communities. Led by the JACL, the Japanese-Americans shunned the resisters. They found it hard to get work, their old friends and relatives refused to speak to them, and within their community they were still labeled as traitors, until just yesterday.

In a recent documentary I saw about this situation on KQED, the public television station here, one woman who left the camps as a teenager described her return to Southern California like this, "We came as if we were new immigrants to the city where I was born." Yesterday, her family was welcomed home.