Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. ~ Lao Tzu
One of the huge upsides of this journey I’m on is a deeper connection with my community. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I even truly believed I had much of one before the procedure. Sure there were a few people I knew I could count on, my assistant at work, a close dean friend and a couple of others. But it’s difficult when in almost every interaction at work, it is with people who you supervise. While you can tell who the people are that are general colleagues and good work partners, as their supervisor it’s tough to know how far that truly extends if things get real.
As I’ve mentioned previously, to assist in my recovery, my wonderful assistant has been coordinating a group of volunteers, started as 8, then 12, the 15, 18 and now over 20. And these people have been beyond fabulous. They’ve come over for conversation, brought me more food than I can ever eat and even a lovely plant today. There have been many, many wonderful conversations, something I treasure.
So it’s been great, and the top image is from my 10 year old friend, the Tiny Dean, and really meant a lot to me.
So this is just kind of the first real re-start of my writing after surgery, more, really, a LOT more to come and thank you friends for the words, the comments of support, thoughts, prayers and vibes, it’s all incredibly appreciated. ~ Rev Kane
I’ve come through the surgery relatively well. Just some minor, but not unexpected snags. My blood pressure took its sweet time climbing back to normal. My mobility has been great, but I’m still needing to reduce the amount of liquid in my body and get rid of these temporary cankles I’m sporting. Then once cleared to leave the ICU, there were no open beds for a day.
The really great news is that 2 chest tubes, temporary pacemaker wires, and a neck IV port are all out, and all I have left is one IV port and some electrodes.
The first two days after surgery were brutal, no sleep, lots of pain and nausea, it was truly miserable.
The picture above is my first shower post procedure, I was very happy. I’m sleeping better but super tired still. I’m looking forward to getting home to familiar surroundings, likely on Tuesday.
I’ve been overwhelmed by how supportive people have been, visitors, etc….that’s been wonderful.
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~ William Arthur Ward
Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Surgery Day and Gratitude
Greetings! If you’re reading this around the time it posts I’m currently laying on an operating table in San Francisco, with my heart stopped while some really skilled people replace my aortic valve and repair two aneurysms one below and one above my heart. While I’m in this position I wanted to, via the miracle of technology, send out some gratitude to all of you.
I want to say thank you for fifteen years of the Ministry of Happiness. It was originally something I thought I would do maybe for a year and it has grown into so much more. I would have never thought that a simple little blog on happiness would end up being so personal, have several hundred subscribers and thousands of views every year. Your comments and communications of gratitude for the writing and the work have meant a lot to me.
And while it remains a remote chance, if things have gone south and this truly is a technological miracle of me speaking from beyond the grave, know that this blog, The Ministry of Happiness of The Church of Abnormal Acceptance has been my honor and my joy to write and I’ve been truly grateful for every one of you. Most importantly, have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye. ~ Hunter S Thompson
Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Random Thoughts
This is an absolutely selfish post, you see the way I process things is by writing, it’s how I get the energy out and calm my brain down. I’m in the home stretch for my surgery so I’m running a little manic getting last minute things done. Today was a lot. I had to upload my will and other documents to the share site, I had three phone calls from people who wanted to check in before my surgery. I had to do some last minute shopping, check on my mail, pack a box I’m sending out to my littlest niece and nephews. Not to mention all of the standard stuff, laundry, my walk, working out etc… I had to set up the finishing touches on my apartment, move a table, set up my DVD player, pull CDs and DVDs to have them easily available. I had some last minute purchases to take care of including setting up some suction cup hooks in my bathroom.
Then I cleaned out my car, I’m picking up my sister and her friend from the airport tomorrow. I’m starting to pack and making sure I have the things I need ready, checking my medication changes and picked up a gift for my assistant who has been amazing in setting things up for my recovery. Tomorrow I still have a lot of things to do, I need to set up driving instructions for people who are going to be helping me out, including taking some pictures of the complex entrance and parking spots. I need to get some cash into the house so I can reimburse people for groceries and buy the stuff I want in my refrigerator for after I come back from the hospital. It’s a lot.
I think it’s a good thing surgery got delayed a couple of weeks, I never would have gotten everything done at work, or everything I needed to get done if it hadn’t been. In so many ways, this whole process and worked out really well. But honestly, I had hoped the two days before surgery would have been a couple of easy and relaxing days, so much for that idea, but I’ll have three months to catch up on sleep after Wednesday.
I’ve had a lot of conversations about my surgery, some of the conversations are great, some are taxing, all put my head in the space around the what ifs and as such I’ll be writing some notes tomorrow night to go out to people if things go wrong. But my chances are excellent that this all works out well and I’m keeping positive thoughts for the whole thing.
The HST quote that I used tonight seems to be on point, for my surgery I’ll be getting Ketamine, Fentanyl and Propofol as well as that heavy drug Tylenol. And there certainly will be people coming at me with razor sharp objects including scalpels and bone saws. All of this has been surreal enough that HST seems to be the right source for quotes.
Ok, hopefully burning all of that out will let me sleep tonight. This will likely be my last post before the surgery, I’ll likely have a time released post coming out the day of and hope to be back and writing at least something small to say I’m ok by the weekend.
Keep a good thought and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
When the going gets weird, the weird go pro ~ Hunter S Thompson
Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: T-minus 7 Days
So we’re into the final countdown, a week from today at this moment, if all goes well, I’ll be coming down from being stoned off of my ass in ICU. Given that I’ll be getting a cocktail of fentanyl, ketamine and propofol I’m gonna be pretty out of it. I’ll also have an IV in my carotid artery, an IV in my arm, chest tubes, a catheter and a couple of pacemaker wires to juice my heart if it slows down too much. My transition to cyborg will be complete.
This week has been all about the pre-op preparation, appointments with nurses, lots of directions about drugs and such, picking up new prescriptions and final set ups in my apartment. It’s also my last week at work so of course I’m busy as hell, everyone, as expected, wants one last minute meeting. Well except for the faculty who think they are being sneaky and are already reaching out to the new dean to try and get decisions they don’t like changed. Of course, I’ve already anticipated that and fully read in my replacement about who they are, and what they’re going to try and do.
Had a nice surprise today, ended up on a text chain and in a chat with a bunch of my old fraternity brothers from the early 80’s. It’s always interesting chatting with folks you have known for forty years and who knew you in a really different phase of your life. They only knew me as an alcoholic and addict, someone who was always up for madness. Which in fact we found plenty of and some of those stories got retold today, it was fun.
While I expected people to be nice about the surgery, I have been truly surprised about how nice. At work, something that has been really nice is that the work I’ve put in for years in this job seems to have worked out. You never know how much impact you’ve actually had on people, or if they really appreciate what you’ve done. This week has been a bit of a revelation. There were people I expected to be nice, to give me a hug and wish me well. But the real surprise has been the other people, some I don’t even supervise who have shown up to wish me well and tell me how much they appreciate the work I do. I’ve also really surprisingly have been given a lot of small gifts. A few have been really nice and thoughtful including a copy of Monty Python’s The Search for the Holy Grail, which they appropriately said, will likely need to wait a few weeks to watch, because laughing will be painful for a time.
It’s been a nice surprise and at seven days this all seems more than a bit surreal, hence the HST quotes, because it’s Fear and Loathing in SF baby. ~ Rev Kane
Buy the ticket, take the ride. ~ Hunter S. Thompson
Three Questions, April 30, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
Forgot about some of my aquarium shots and looking over them today was the most beautiful thing I encountered.
What did I learn today?
Been reading some really fascinating articles on artificial photosynthesis that has some incredible promise.
What made me happy today?
Caught up with some really old friends today, guys from my old fraternity days. Reminiscing about some really crazy days from the early 80’s made me happy.
A word to the wise is infuriating ~ Hunter S Thompson
Three Questions, April 29, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
It was a beautiful day for the my walk, sunny, 60 and gorgeous flowers everywhere along my walk.
What did I learn today?
Cortical Labs has built a human brain cell computer, the computer fuses human neural networks with silicon hardware.
What made me happy today?
Today I had a number of people say some really amazing things to me today about their time working for me, made me really happy.
The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. ~ Hunter S Thompson
Three Questions, April 28, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
I saw Ryan Coogler’s Sinners today, it was an interesting movie, I won’t give any spoilers her, but what I will say is that it’s a beautifully shot film. Setting, sets, costumes all were really amazing.
What did I learn today?
They’ve invented a new textile, Diamene, thinner and lighter than kevlar and actually bullet resistant, a really cool invention.
What made me happy today?
I have the best dentist and office, today I got a card from them wishing me well on my upcoming surgery, so sweet.
Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home… it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it. ~ Chuck Palahniuk
Three Questions, April 27, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What made me happy today?
Getting the tiny patio garden in place and ready for summer as well as ready for the next couple of months where I will have a lot of time to sit around and just enjoy my garden.
What did I learn today?
In France, all supermarkets give leftover food to the needy, seems like a great idea.
What made me happy today?
Tacos, I had some really tasty tacos for lunch and let’s face it, tacos always make you happy.
The Ministry of Happiness 