Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:36:21 GMT

So it has been a full couple of weeks.

First, two weekends ago, Melissa and I drive down to Tucson to do some teaching. We take Heather along. We have fun, but spend way too time drive and not enough time sleeping. Melissa feels a headache start to come on.

I get popped by couple of the really lame photo enforcement traps. Because Melissa is the number one owner on the car registration they send us one of their yet more lame "ticketesque" notices telling her (in obscure language) that there is nothing they can do to her but if she is easily fooled maybe she will get confused by the language and rat out the driver (me), who they can then prosecute. Basically, minus the legaleze, it says "hey hey heynow, simmer down and stop driving so fast past cameras or we will be forced to send you another lame fake ticket you will also ignore." Good for a few laughs.

Once we get home, late, we crash to sleep. I decide the next day to have a hard day at the gym deadlifting and then the steam room. There is some major confusing things that go on at the office, some of them bro joe's fault, some of them the fault of another attorney. I stay late, melissa has a migrane so Heather takes her to Quick Care. (I usually would take her but it seemed routine and I needed to hang around to handle a few things). I go home and watch Abby.

At about 945 I get a garbled text from Melissa indicating she may have a small brain bleed or meningitis and she was being admitted to Valley for a spinal tap. I called around and finally got Tracy on the line and she immediately offered to come over, all night if need be. (How cool is it that my ex offers to babysit and my wife is ok with it?). Kali, who is also calling around, get Jai to spell Tracy as Tracy has work the next morning and Jai does not.

I get to the Quick Care just in time to watch paramedic Nikki drive up in her specially requested ambulance (like a limo with emergency lights) and get Melissa to the hospital.

We wait for hours in a room and then the dry heaves start for Melissa. As she is bent over a plastic basin alternately unproductively vomiting (like trying to puke up her spleen type vomiting) and crying in pain for about an hour before they get some good anti-naseau medications in her. Eventually a doctor talks to us. She tells us that the unusually high levels of naseua can be attributed to a reaction to high amounts of morphine Melissa was given. She tells us that she ordered a blood test to be safe (and saw the results of same) but could not understand why they suggested brain bleed or meningitis as "there just no signs which could lead someone to draw that conclusion." They discharge Melissa and I get her to bed around 5 am (which made for a really tough day in court).

So I go to court, and around noon I am able to get back home check on Melissa, who is sleeping like a log, and then go to work for a few more hours and then cancel working with Stan's folks that night and go back home. Melissa wakes up for a little while, goes back to sleep. We both sleep the night through for the first full night of sleep for me since before the trial a month ago.

When she is more lucid, the next day, Melissa tells me of a conversation she had w a nurse at Quick Care where they told her "we cannot give you any more morphine you are at X, the max dosage." (Morphine never seems to help Melissa with migranes anyway.) Melissa answers basically "you did not give me X, you gave me double X". They argue and she proves it by counting off what she was given; the nurse agrees and then suddenly there is all this tak of a need to admit Melissa to an ER for meningitis or a brain bleed.

Now I am all for "better safe than sorry" but it sure sounds like those jerks overdosed her and then made some crap to get her off their hands and someplace safe. Which would be fine other than they scared the hell out of me.

Wednesday I also came home and blew off training, mostly so Melissa could either bowl if she felt up to it (yes, the princess bowls) or she could sleep without Abby terrorizing her.

So my first training was Thursday where I got a chance to go to the gym and train with Stan's folks. Behind the neck press was actually up (235 x 5) which surprised me. At the dojo we worked on some basic things and then I gave Larry, a big cowboy (who actually does steer wrestling) some big guy "how to flatten a little guy from inside their guard" tricks.

Friday was an easy day; I took part of it off to train with Andrei and do some forms with Stan and got to bed early, then got up the next morning and took care of things around the house. Melissa went out on the lake in her boat in the meantime and almost had it sink on her again.

Sunday I went to the park, fought SCA, Melissa and Abby were both there watching, which is always cool. Tracy had not returned yet from visitng Kitty (a friend with swine flu) so we still did not know how she was doing (improved) but we shared a moment of silence for her before the finals. Simon was fighting well all day, knight quality imo, and certainly chivalrously.

I then did a burning hot sauna/banya with Andrei and ate a big russian meal (brought some home for Melissa too). Beef rib eye steak and pork chops and raw dill, sour cabbage, tomatos and cucumbers. By the time I got home I felt like a million bucks.

Monday was a stndard day in the office, gym did not work out; so I decided to relax. After work I took Abby and tooled about a bit. I put her booster seat in the front seat and we drove around with the windows rolled down listening to a cd of kiddie music which for some reason was in the car. Got some strange looks at traffic lights as the music was turned way up, but it was sort of fun.

Afterwards I decided to swing by Andrie's to say hello and walked into Ivan (Andrie's ten year old) training with some short little russian yelling in russian and extremely limited pidgin english. Boxing is really not my best skill but for some reason I really enjoy training in it. in this case though I certainly did not volunteer. Instead little Russian dude (who turns out to be the manager and father of Matt Korobov, a strong middle weight contender) wanders over and asks me if I want to train. Once I figure out what he is asking, which takes awhile, I say sure and am barefoot in my t-shirt and underwear pounding out combinations. After that Andrei and Georgi and Abby, Ivan and I shared dinner, a short suana and then headed home, to more loudly blasting kiddie music (Abby insisted).

Meth

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:59:54 GMT

I saw something horrible today.

Have you ever seen the "before and after" photos the anti-drug crowd uses to show you how drugs are bad for you. They typically start with a high school yearbook photo or the booking photo for the first arrest and then they move on to a later photo some months or years later whioch shows a noticeable decline in physical appearance.

This morning ion North Las Vegas, I had my own "before and after experience."

Maly (name misspelled on purpose) was a client a dealt with early on. She was very attractive physically. A working prostitute of Hawaiin extraction, with long blond hair (probably dyed) and a lightly chocolate skin. She was obviously involved with drugs, probably Meth and eventaully I lost patience with her flakiness in terms of making office appointmentsa or court dates, so I dropped her as a client.

This morning I saw her in court. I walked right by her without noticing her and went back to talk to Joey, the judge's assistant and a friend. As I was sitting talking to Joey (about her new marriage and other social stuff) one of the jailers came in and asked me to help calm down a prisoner who was making a fuss and clamoring for me.

When I went in it was Maly. Her hair was falling out in clumps, her skin was covered in lesions, her face looked like a beat up old saddlebag and she had lost several pounds and now had no breasts and looked like a walking corpse.

It was the worst "before and after" I have ever seen and, frankly, I am glad I dropped her and can say I hadf no part in the decline I saw.

It will still bother me for some time to come

Connie Updates

Meth