From Half Dome to Pinkeye in Just Over 24 Hours

the majestic Half Dome

I had a positively delightful excursion yesterday, when I ascended Half Dome along with four cohort mates and the older brother of one of the guys in the cohort. As a native Californian -- and a very California-centric one at that -- I operate under the assumption that everyone in the United States with even three-quarters of a functioning brain knows where Half Dome is. Without naming any names, I learned today I was wrong on that count.

Half Dome is a rock formation creating a part of the eastern border of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park. Its name comes from one side of it being somewhat rounded, with the other side a sheer vertical drop-off, making it appear as a dome that has been sliced in half. This description is not geologically precise, but I'll dispense with the technicalities about which neither you nor I care.

As late as maybe 1870, Half Dome was considered un-ascendable. The someone climbed it. Now it's easier to climb because a set of wire cables have been set up. Because of the steepness of the final ascent, the cables are needed for climbers to propel themselves up the final distance. People who are rope climbers or people with death wishes (I would consider them to be one and the same) like to ascend Half Dome via the vertical portion. Some people also like to go over Niagara Falls in barrels. Whatever.  Why not handle poisonous snakes or drink arsenic while one is at it?

At times when it is dangerous for weather reasons, the cables leading to the final summit of Half Dome are usually taken down. Some fools attempt to climb it without the cables, often with tragic results. Additionally, sometimes thunderstorms appear before it is safe for the park ranger staff to remove the cables. Despite the signs warning of the danger, thrill seekers attempt the climb in spite of lightning strikes. I don't know how many hikers have been killed under such circumstances, but I know it has happened enough that it's not an unusual occurrence.

On our excursion yesterday, we had no hurdles by way of weather or removed cables. We were the second group to reach the cables, so we didn't have to wait around for long to begin that final and most treacherous portion of the ascent. My friend Raoul's older brother insisted on following me because he didn't want to have to explain to my dad how it was that I had fallen to my death. My dad was an adjunct professor at his medical school. (Kal Penn said that Raoul's brother wanted to follow me just so that he could stare at my butt.  As it was, it didn't  matter whether or why Raoul's brother followed me.. There were no close calls.

For reasons I would rather not share, I cannot post pictures of myself ascending or standing atop Half Dome. Just use your imagination.

Every silver lining has its cloud, though. Somewhere along the climb, presumably on one of the iron railings along some of the granite steps winding along the trail (before reaching the cables, as I used gloves for the cables) I rather unfortunately came into contact with pathogens that cause bacterial conjunctivitis, otherwise known as pinkeye. It feels as though I need to remove my eyeballs from their sockets, scratch the insides of the sockets with a brand-new toothbrush, and then replace my eyes into their sockets, only to repeat the procedure every five minutes. (Remind me someday to tell you about my mom's orbital decompression surgery in which her eyeballs were removed from their sockets. The procedure is fascinating to those who are not squeamish squeamish.) i wrote once before at some point in this blog that I'd rather have pneumonia any day than pinkeye. My conviction remains firm.

If you have not yet been to Yosemite National Park, you really should go there. Yosemite National Park makes people who have visited both it and the Everglades National Park wonder how in hell the Everglades were ever granted national park status. And if you visit Yosemite National Park, get a good look at Half Dome. If you decide to brave the climb, wear gloves for the entire ascent and not just on the cable section so you won't contract a nasty case of pinkeye.

This is not MY pink eye (mine is actually a bit worse) but you get the drift.

Myositis, Conjunctivitis, and Urinary Tract infections: They All Suck, Although I'm Not Sure Which Is the Worst

When I went to tennis camp when I was eleven, it was hotter than usual that particular summer. The facility at which the tennis camp was being held contained only a small swimming pool -- one that was roughly size of a home pool. When the weather was cool and only the die-hard swimmers used the pool, no health hazards seemed to occur.  Once the thermometer climbed to over 100, however, every tennis player, instructor, counselor, custodian, cook, and Bigfoot searcher  from the adjacent forest who happened to be passing by wanted to take advantage of the pool's cooling properties. The problem herein is that virtually no amount of chlorine that is safe in which to swim will  kill off the nasty pathogens that four hundred children and the other swimmers, both invited and uninvited,  may be harboring.

The result was that a camp-wide epidemic of pinkeye, otherwise known as an infectious form of conjunctivitis,  struck the camp and surrounding territory. The outbreak was so prevalent that the conspiracy theorists among us suggested terrorism in the form of biological warfare. Even at the age of eleven, I found it hard to believe that Al Qaeda would choose, of all places, a tennis camp out in the sticks of New Hampshire to wage its next attack on the evil empire of the USA, though I was in the minority with my opinion.

If you've never suffered pinkeye, consider yourself blessed. It was so bad that I would have gladly submitted to surgery to have my eyeballs temporarily removed so that I could rub calamine lotion or some other anti-itch medication thoroughly into my eye sockets before having my eyeballs put back into place.

Urinary tract infections are another unfavorite of mine. I've had more actual kidney infections than urinary tract infections  per se. I've been told that the two are varying forms of the same malady, and that they differ by degree of severity and by the depth to which the infection has traveled.  I know that  I was much more seriously ill with kidney infections than I was with my one urinary tract infection.  Still, given the choice, bring on the kidney infection. Urinary tract infections cause a strong burning sensation in a place most of us would prefer not to feel such a sensation. Accompanying the burning sensation is the feeling of urgency (the feeling that one needs to urinate frequently), the need to urinate frequently and with little notice, extreme pain while urinating and afterward, and pain, in addition to in the unmentionable places, also in the flank, and/or abdomen, and/or lower back.  Urinary tract infections would be given to prisoners in Gitmo or in other prisons in place of solitary confinement were such not a violation of the Geneva convention, among other constraints. I find it anomalous that death by firing squad, gas chamber, lethal injection, or, in some places, even by electric chair, are all perfectly legal in many places in the U. S., but giving a prisoner a small strain of bacteria that would cause him or her to contract a urinary tract infection is somehow considered cruel and unusual punishment.  Perhaps that is a testament to just how horrible a urinary tract infection really is.

Myositis, an inflammation of muscles known to originate from various causes,  is far less common than either pinkeye or urinary tract infections. For this reason, less is known regarding how to remedy the affiction or how to make patients more comfortable who are suffering from the effects. It's more painful than a UTI, but if my thigh or calf hurts, I can grab it  even if others are present. The same cannot be said for the body parts typically affected by urinary tract infections.  I could remain on Dilaudid and Ativan for twenty-four hours a day for the next two weeks or so were it not for the fact that I do not wish to be Lindsay Lohan's roomie in a rehab facility in the near future, not that my parents would necessarily spring for a spa-like facility nearly so luxurious as the next one at which  Ms. Lohan will try and fail to beat her various addictions.

The alternative is for me to use Dilaudid and Ativan at night only, lessening the overall exposure and potential for addiction,  which still carries some risk of addiction, but when the drugs are being used for legitimate pain and not for recreational purposes, the body can theoretically distinguish between the two uses and can withstand physical addiction for a longer period of time. (Does this sound vaguely like what Todd Akin said about the body having ways to shut down the possibility of pregnancy in cases of legitimate rape? I hope not.)    Physical addiction notwithstanding,  psychological addiction  is another matter entirely. Where in the hell is my  %$%^#(# Dilaudid?

The problem with using opiates and benzos only at night is that the pain is just as great during the day.  One suggestion, and not a bad one, is Guinness. At some point that will probably become the solution of choice. Right now I'm taking some IV Toradol  (an NSAID) during the day, and consuming alcohol -- even that with such proven therapeutic benefits as Guinness --  can cause major gastrointestinal issues when taken in conjunction with NSAIDS.  Toradol, however, can be taken continuously for only about five days, and intermittently for maybe seven days. We've already reached day four.  In three more days, it may be time for Guinness to once again reveal its magical properties. Alcohol in combination with opiates can be devastating to the liver, of course, but by then, I should be on little if any Dilaudid, and the amount of Guinness I can consume is not exactly of the quantity that would make an Irishman proud.

So the consensus (of one) is that all three afflictions suck, but that if you have access to enough good drugs and your father and/or your doctor is not a Nazi who thinks you'll become the next Anna Nicole Smith, take myositis if offered a choice of the three -- that is, unless you cannot spare three weeks to loll around in bed watching TV shows that are certain to diminish your IQ. "Judge Alex" is the only show likely not to compromise your intellectual capacity. As far as the rest of what can be found on daytime TV, may God help us all.