I'm cheating again, writing at least part...

of tomorrow's blog tonight.  Given today's events, odds are good I'll walk a little in the morning, but only a little.

Like it or not I have to face the fact that walking even short distances is getting more difficult.  I don't need the ER and I have a follow-up visit with the right specialist in just over two weeks.  And for you worry-worts out there, I promise if it gets any worse, I'll head straight for the ER.

But something I saw tonight in a movie has me thinking.  There's a scene where someone who is dependent upon a machine to live suddenly faces his mortality when the power goes out.  It reminded me of two things.

One was when I was depending on a ventilator to breath for me.  By the time there was any cause for me to worry, I was probably capable of breathing on my own, but I still worried.  You see, the lousy sub-acute facility I was consigned to after my former employer cancelled my health insurance illegally, had power problems.  Yes, they had a generator, but after three power failures where the generator had to kick in, I wondered what the heck would happen if there was a sustained power outage.  Or worse yet, if the generator just didn't kick in.

I wasn't the only one in that place on a vent.  Practically every patient on the ward I was on, required a ventillator.  To give you an idea of the chronic condition of the patients there, I ran into a nurse who had taken care of me, five or six months after my discharge.  She told me no one else had been discharged after I left.  A few had died, but the rest were still there, still requiring the vent to breath.  The thought that so many depend on something as fickle as a recalcitrant power supply is frightening.

I also thought back to the first time I woke up and managed to stay awake in the ICU after seven weeks in a coma.  I won't get into seeing any light or that kind of thing, but I was thinking after I heard them tell me I had ADRS that one of my friends had just lost a close friend to that disease.  And from what they were saying, it sounded like my lungs were filling with fluid and there wasn't much they could do to drain it.  That wasn't the case, I was doing okay although they were struggling to find the right mix of powerful antibiotics to finish off the infection within my lungs.

But I thought I was circling the drain and that my time was limited.  It was an overwhelming feeling.  To think there were so many things I'd never gotten around to doing.  Or saying.  Or feeling.  I can't describe the sensation that came when I discovered I was going to live, and ultimately walk out (okay, be wheeled out because of stupid hospital policy) of the hospital. 

I think this film captured those feelings incredibly well.  I'll write more about that film when I review it.

So it is morning and while I feel better this morning than I felt yesterday morning and definitely better than last night, I still don't feel up to much of a walk.  I've altered my plans for the day.  I'm going to walk the hallways up and down at least twice during the day.  Maybe three times.  I'll do that for a few days and see how it goes.

The things I'm pondering this morning:

Amy Adams has another film due out this year?  She's going to be on the morning news to promote her "new film" and that can't refer to the other two she has out currently.

Do women really buy perfume allegedly "by" celebrities?  Would a woman really want to "smell" like Lady Gaga?  Or do we keep the Lady Gag-a tag after her vomiting incident on stage.

Does Jerry Sandusky think anyone might believe him to be innocent?  He got 30 to 60 years in prison this morning, ensuring he will be doing a long stint as split-end on the prison's football team.

Is there an unwritten rule that men can't compliment women on certain things?  Body parts are of course off limits, but even when we happen to notice something nice on a woman other than her dress or outfit, we don't acknowledge it.  Men don't tell women "hey, nice shoes".  Why is that?

Why do people watch "Dancing With the Stars" when the morning news programs and the internet have all of the performances to watch the following day?

Why did "Butter" do so badly at the box office?  It's brilliant satire. The script won awards prior to being produced and it looks like they kept pretty close to it.  Is it that people won't go see a film that is centered about butter carving competition?

20 years ago today, "Under Siege" opened.  Steven Seagal's career peaked at that moment and it's been all downhill ever since?  Why?  Until then he'd had a string of successful films.  What went wrong?  Oh, he got involved with more than just acting and doing martial arts stuff, with things like writing, producing and the like.  Never mind, it makes sense now.

Yesterday's split between Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman invited a storm of internet message board accusations that he was probably screwing younger women.  Why is it the man is always suspect?  We don't know for sure, but it looks likely that Susan Sarandon was involved with her younger business partner before she and Tim Robbins broke up. Maybe Pearlman was just tired with the world's obsession with DeVito's feet.