Healing energy for Lightning Rod

[mistertroll]

Called at 2pm, hey said he was still a patient. Showed up to visit at about 5, and he was GONE!

Released at 3:30pm. I talked to his sister, who had picked him up. She was grocery shopping for him at the time. There are a couple of us who will be looking in on him from time to time.

Hopefully, he'll drop in here fairly soon. I'm sure he's still pretty weak and feeling a little fuzzy. Well, somewhat more so than his ordinary level...

Enjoyed talking to you, Doreen. Appears we posted at almost the same time...

[Steve Plonk]

Thank goodness for some good news for a change. Hang in there, LRod!
Hope no stormy weather comes your way and you "knit up jest fine".

[judih]

okay - away from all those potential hospital bacteria and ersatz meals. Yay.
let the healing begin with home-fed spirit and love (and a nutritional blitz)

[mistertroll]

Thank goodness for some good news for a change. Hang in there, LRod!
Hope no stormy weather comes your way and you "knit up jest fine".

Apparently, last night they moved all the patients into the hallways during the storms. A tornado actually touched down not too far away. Kelly just called and updated me. Some of the guys in the band went by and hung out for a while. They have another band member who checked into the hospital yesterday with heart problems, so they went from visiting him to LRod's house. Victor, who is the lead guitar player, expects to be out in time to play June 1, as well. By then, they may all be performing in wheelchairs and walkers...may have to change the name to The Invalids or The Cliff Nursing Home Band...

[Lightning Rod]

Thank you, Studio Eighter's
for your kind and encouraging words
I seem to have made it through the current stage of my ordeal.
I'll write in more specific and individual ways as the days progress and I gain some strength.
Currently I am recuperating in Oak Cliff and it may amuse some of you to note that my address is 808 Brighton Ave. 75208. Izzat enough eights for everybody?

Lrod

[judih]

thoughtful of you to insist on being placed in an 8 location.
good to hear from you. (excellent)

rest up - now you're in a position to let the positive vibe brigade find you and perform their specific miracles.

(just say Yes)

[Lightning Rod]

Mon Fair Levo,

I wakened from an albuterol dream to write you. The past two weeks have been filled with the most terrifying and profound dreams and awarenesses of my lifetime. I remember a face I saw several days ago. It is possibly the most perfect face I have ever seen on a human being. Naturally it was the face of a woman. She was a young RN who was tending me in intensive care. In keeping with my new policy, or maybe it is old, of letting no detail of life go unappreciated, I scrawled a note to the girl, telling her how beautiful I thought she was. I feared that she would be embarrassed or put off by my rapt description of her beauty. She was easily as beautiful as a young Elizabeth Taylor, somewhere between Black Beauty and Butterfield 8 with a forehead as perfectly vaulted as a chapel, a sculpted nose drawing to the pristine bow of her lips. But she accepted my admiration with innocence and by the next day the nurses were all calling her, 'the lovely Anu.' It is always remarkable to me how people respond to the simplest and most honest observations. It is important that we mirror each other in this way. Anu gave me pain medication whenever I requested it. The world appreciates being appreciated.

I hasn't been an easy two weeks. My body and spirit has been tested to every extreme. I have suffered every pain and humiliation imaginable and some I never would have imagined of my own accord. Besides having my ass wiped by the most beautiful women in the world, my voice, the actual voice of a poet, is totally gone, vanished. I still don't know what they did with my Adam's Apple. As soon as I find it, I'll auction it on Ebay. I have been reduced to communicating my most fundamental needs by means of scribbling with a magic marker on a paintboard. I erase these enigmatic notes with a velvet sock before I can scrawl the next one. Of course I can't keep up with my thoughts and I lose my place and get confused, etc. You have the last known examples of what my voice must have sounded like.

They have been giving me some pretty heavy drugs, which is the only reason I submitted myself to their abuse in the first place. Narcotics are among the few remaining pleasures available to me in this life. I can't even jack-off without dislodging my urinary catheter. I pee by means of a valve. These drugs have provided some pretty wild and wooly dreams or observances, it's many times hard to tell which. The first day after they removed my larynx, one of the young doctors in the ICU clinic threw an impromptu albuterol party. There were about thirty hospital employees sitting all over the place in positive zona incognita for half an hour or so and then it was back to business as unusual. I had never experienced this class of inhalant before. It's quite remarkable with profound hallucinations. An entire culture seems to have evolved around the experience. I think it may have been a factor a few days later when I went totally round the bend and ripped all my tubing and IV's and monitors etc, out. It's amazing what extreme conditions can do to the mind and spirit. I'll write more specifically of it later. Now, I'll only remind you that with the proper manipulation of pain and air supply and drugs and diet, they can make you believe anything they choose. curse your nation or your mother or your god or anything else you might vainly hold sacred or dear. I suppose it does us good from time to time to be reminded of this.

I'll write more of my progress as I get some strength back.

Invalidly yours,
Dexter

[Doreen Peri]

Nice to see you, Clay! I hope you're feeling better! And I hope someone is there to help take care of you. I'd hate to see you alone during this recovery time.

Thanks for sharing this personal letter you wrote to Barry Gremillion.

I hope to get out to visit you some time this summer..
.
.


(I've been using an albuterol inhaler since I was a child. I never hallucinated once. I use it every day. I had no idea it was such a potent drug. All it does for me is help control my asthma.)

[Lightning Rod]

Yes, Doreen you are one of the people I wanted to speak to about the albuterol thing. I knew that you used it every day and that it was a fixture in your life.

What I have been observing and experiencing is involved with doses many magnitudes larger than you take. The effects are more akin to nitrous oxide, profound and vivid hallucinations etc. What one would take to experience it on this level would probably be like sitting down and huffing a hundred of those inhalers that you use. I'm not recommending that you try ths by any maans. I was just wondering if you or anyone else had anything to say about their experiences with it. Aparently it is not uncommon for whole doctor's offices and clinics to be overcome. When I watched it happen at Parkland, I was quite amazed. They seemed quite accostomed to it though. They had pre-recorded messages on the phones to deal with unsuspecting walk-ins. I saw parents with children who knew what was going on take their children and stand them in the corner so they wouldn't see what was going on while the place was 'under'. I didn't find the experience to be so much pleasurable as astounding.

Anyway, thank you for your good thoughts.

[Doreen Peri]

Yeah, I had heard the inhalers were sometimes abused by kids. I just had no idea why. Now I know, I guess. Why did they give you so much? Was it to help you breathe? I don't understand. Usually, I use it in an inhaler but I also have liquid albuterol for my nebulizer machine when I get a severe asthma attack. I rarely have to use that.... maybe once every couple of years. And even then, let's say the first does doesn't work and so I do a second dose (even though I'm supposed to wait 4 hours I want to breathe!), the double dose still doesn't cause any hallucinations. Just makes me shaky like caffeine. Not at all a pleasant high. Very uncomfortable. I can't imagine abusing it on purpose. LOL

What were they giving it to you for? Were you inhaling the liquid form in a nebulizer?

I can't imagine why they would administer such large dosages to cause hallucinations. Sounds like overdosing to me. If that can be a side effect of large dosages, I understand now why some kids abuse it.

Glad you're feeling better! Let us know if you're well enough to play in the band on June 1st. That would be great!

When do they install the mechanical speaking device?

[Arcadia]

hola l-rod!!, so great to read you again! also great to know that you weren´t writing to Levotiroxine...!

I think it may have been a factor a few days later when I went totally round the bend and ripped all my tubing and IV's and monitors etc, out. It's amazing what extreme conditions can do to the mind and spirit. I'll write more specifically of it later. Now, I'll only remind you that with the proper manipulation of pain and air supply and drugs and diet, they can make you believe anything they choose. curse your nation or your mother or your god or anything else you might vainly hold sacred or dear. I suppose it does us good from time to time to be reminded of this.

yeah..., I´ve seen already something about it and experience it only in a let´s call it "no literal way"... & no idea about inhalers, just mostly city air until the moment... sure I would like to read what you have to tell about it!

1st of june is so near...can you still play the flute or you moved to other instrument? (maybe it´s a silly question... but I have no idea.. )

best wishes in the process of recovering your strenght, amigo, big hugs!!!!!

[neologistic]

Good to see you back online, LR. Hope you exceed doc's expectations in recovery. The little I know about you, I know you'll weave words that'll talk the devil and grim out of as many more years you can and neither'll be the wiser

[stilltrucking]

Strong writing Clay, grpahic and strong

I must be a sick because I was looking forward to when you started writing again, felf kind of like a spectator at a Roman gladiator fight.

I am spooked of, gabapentin, I thought I had shingles, but I did not so it was not helping with the pain but I found it had some side effects that were recreational as well as suicidal. The more I did it the more I started dreading it. I got enough suicidal thoughts I did not need any pharmalogical stimulation.

Who said one man's meat another's...? Man I must have Googled that a thousand times.

wishing you a speedy recovery.

[SadLuckDame]

Climbing the mountain up outta there,
welcome back LR.

[mousey1]

So good to pop in here and find your words Lrod. A relief to know you're out of hospital. A relief to know you can't keep a good fellow down for long.

Build your strength. And keep us posted when you can.

Your studio eight friends are all in your corner and expecting great things for the speediest of recoveries.

You've been through hell in a hand basket. Man, I can't even imagine the difficulties and struggle. Oy vey. But here you are! Alive and kicking out words. BOOYAH!