Tag Archives: Fun

A Message from Vulpes vulpes

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Dear Friends,

That's Mr. Vulpes vulpes to you, pal

Unknown is taking the night off to recover from Lost and 24 being cancelled. He’s curled up in a ball sucking his thumb, watching Glee. So, he asked me to write tonight’s post. Not exactly the brightest chromosome in the cell, is he? Letting moi, a Mohito-drinking fox, write anything. However, I choose to behave for once.

Let me thank each of you for reading this blog. I know it means a lot to Unknown. And, if he were here, he’d get all teary-eyed and probably write a poem about how much it means to him, you visiting and commenting and all that.

You can thank me now for saving you from that sappy piece of shit – I mean, poetry. Did I just say “shit?” Unknown will blow a gasket. He’d write it sh** with those cute little asterisks. Not tonight, baby. Adios to half of the readers. LOL to that, Unknown.

Seriously, Unknown feels very fortunate that you choose to visit this blog. And I know he wishes you the best life has to offer and good health. Me, Foxy, I wish you’d hit a fat squirrel on the way home from the office each night. Roadkill saves me having to work so hard to feed my family. Do your part next time you see that critter crossing the road, speed up and stay off the brakes.

Second thoughts about doing that? Ask yourself, “What would Darwin do?”

Fox out.

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A Poem for Cystic Gal

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My blogging pal, the charming and talented Cystic Gal, is back in jail. Argh, *&%&**. So, I decided to deliver some cheer, arguably, by writing this poem for her. Poetry is one of her great loves in life, along with small, cute animals, buff rock stars and a special two-word saying. Here’s a poetry example she can use with her future students to show what not to do in verse. BTW, everyone can start making fun of me now.

Feel better, CG. Feel better.

Two Words Only She Can Say

When you’re feeling light blue,
fat needles jabbing, stinging you,
fuzzy baby animals failing
to drive away the hail
of cutting cold infuses,
painful, not so lovely news.
Resort to these two words
to lighten dark days,
slice the thick green haze,
and give CF two pink-polished birds.

Pitch it all away
with, “how do you say?”
two words for models
who think thin is so May
and dine on tic tacs and hay
these babes that lack back-
bone, your style and brains
or boyfriend Bret in the sack.

Pink flowers again will rain,
your mood lifted, brighter
your gentle tongue lighter
when you share a catch phrase,
plucked brows quick to raise,
from the two words you love
that fit thee like a glove.

Two words that kick and blast
relationships not meant to last.
Two words with slapping power
barbed like a leather flower.
Your two words to fend off
the nasty therapist’s cough.

Let them rip
from your lips –
two words

Suck it.

Suck it.

You’ll feel happier,
smiley, with a wit snappier,
a funny story to tell
about the nasty red face
hit by the shotgun shell
disguised as your verbal mace

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Saturday Funhouse: Rejected CF Therapy Ideas

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I Stumbled Upon a confidential CF Foundation file today. It contains ideas for potential cystic fibrosis therapies that were rejected or failed in testing. Here are a few from the dozens listed. [Warning: Adult Content, perhaps.]

Good in chocolate, too.

Tabasco Flavored Albuterol. According to the document, the heat of red peppers causes coughing, making secretions fly out. This product only reached Phase 1 testing, which lasted about 30 seconds when “volunteers started collapsing from the pain of the Tabasco” in their lungs. “Sounded great on paper,” one researcher wrote. Though the medicine was cancelled, researchers discovered it still worked great on scrambled eggs and burgers.

Cat, cat, cat, cat, cat

Jogger’s Portable Compressor. This product made it to phase-two testing. The concept was simple and designed for CFers who like to jog. A battery operated compressor in a backpack was strapped to a dog, allowing the jogger to do treatments while running. It worked out just fine in early testing until Rocket, a two-year old black lab, spotted a cat. Unfortunately, the jogger lost eight front teeth, quite painfully, the report adds, “when the nebulizer followed the dog across the lawn.” Product cancelled; dentist visited.

Add one LC Plus and you're good to go

Beer helmet and nebulizer holder. It gets tiring holding a nebulizer in your hand or teeth for hours each day. Plus it’s not easy to drink your favorite beer and type inane posts all at the same time. The answer: combine the tasks. Adding a nebulizer holder to a beer helmet allows users to inhale one drug, then take a swig of their favorite beverage – all hands free. The product was cancelled when drunk subjects nebulized beer and drank TOBI.

Don't miss

Spit the bullseye. This game-like therapy was designed to give patients incentive to cough up their secretions and spit them at a target five feet away. Points were awarded based on the accuracy of the shot. Several problems occurred during testing. First, not everyone is good at spitting. Second, it was a really unpleasant clean up job getting the junk off the wall, not to mention the carpet, furniture and curious pets. And Home Depot doesn’t make paints designed for CF. This failure killed plans for the spinning target in development.

How do I disinfect this?

Bong-shaped Nebulizers. Here’s the failed advertising copy: It’s hard to look cool when your friends come over and you have inhaled meds to do. Introducing the nebulizer that looks like a bong. Now instead of feeling uncomfortable with a PARI LC Plus hanging from your mouth, your friends will marvel at your amazing ability to smoke weed continuously for an hour or more at a time. Who’s the Ganja King or Queen now, pal? Share a hit with them. Then wait until they get that albuterol buzz going, complaining that they feel wound up not down. “Who sold you this crap,” they’ll ask. Smile and say, “this is pharmacy grade stuff, man. Pass the chips, I’m starving.”

Stay well.

@onlyz’s Fun Friday – Five Fun Pranks To Play at the Hospital

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[Disclaimer: Each of these pranks has the potential to go drastically wrong and harm people, including you. Please remember that this an entertainment site and it is strongly recommended that you do not follow anything that is written or said here.  You may end up in a car trunk with hospital workers debating how they’re going to chop you up. It could happen. Don’t say you weren’t warned when you’re searching around in the dark for crowbar to defend yourself.]

[Disclaimer #2: THIS POST IS VERY ADULT, or childish, and you should skip it if this isn’t your cup of tea. So, perhaps, you may want to return to something not written by an insane person who is tired of quarterly hospital stays.]

Prank You Very Much

Ah, there’s nothing like 30 or more hospital stays to bring out the humor. So, today on @onlyz’s Fun Friday, I celebrate that joy and happiness with five fun pranks to play while enjoying your vacation at the hospital.

This can't be good

  1. What does the color of your sputum say about you? This is an easy one to start your life of hospital pranks. You’ll need an extra sputum jar. Take some food coloring and put a little in your next sputum sample. You’ll have the nurse looking at it like an engagement ring from a rock star as she walks headfirst into the door.
  2. Privacy Please. When you absolutely need to be left alone for that conference call or quiet moment with your spouse, putting a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door is about as effective as inserting your own PICC line. Here’s a sign that will make anyone check their courage meter before coming in: If the van’s a rocking, don’t come knocking – massage therapy session in progress. For added authenticity and  confusion, print it on paper with the hospital logo.

    Hello? Anyone there?

  3. Big Brother Is Watching. Place a fake security camera in your room (available on eBay). When someone notices, and they will notice, say “yeah, I thought it was strange when they installed it. Who do you think is watching?” Then stand up and pretend to look in it, making crazy faces and acting like a monkey. Finish by mooning the camera. “Let them tape that bitchin’ backside,” you say laughing.
  4. Pump yourself up for the big game. Sometimes its hard to take the sixth blood draw from the guy whose piece of fruit in phlebotomy class couldn’t scream every time he stuck it with a practice draw.  My suggestion: have a football helmet next to your bed and every time someone comes to stick you, put in on, do a motivational pump me up dance and cheer: “I’m ready – BRING IT ON!” For extra effect, spike a football after they’re done.

    Have you been a bad boy in the hospital?

  5. I hearted stewardesses. Nothing says party and drunken flight attendants like empty mini-bar alcohol bottles lying around. You won’t believe the doctor’s face when he sees the bottles, United Airlines flight attendant blazer, lacy undergarments and lipstick marks on your sheets from the previous night’s romp. If the doc puts up a fuss and lectures you, it’s time to pull out the greatest excuse known to us CFers. “Doc, I have cystic fibrosis. What did you expect me to do, say no?” Likely, you’ll get a wink and an approving “don’t let me catch you doing that again” look. Offer to show him the video when he’s cowboy enough watch it.
  6. I.V. Hell. This one is a classic, needs to be done early in your stay, and works best with residents. And you’ll need the help of a nurse. Have the nurse dress your neck like there’s an IV inserted in your jugular vein. When the doctor comes in and says, WTF, keep a straight face and say: “Yeah, I was surprised, too, but they said it was there or [point to your private area]. Not much of a choice now was it, Doc?”

    It's hard to find ruby slippers in an 11

  7. The Wizard of Oz. This trick will require some money and a trip to the costume store, but it’s well worth the investment. Each day you’re in, wear a different Wizard of Oz costume. Think of the fun you’ll have growling at people as the Friendly Lion, and making a hay trail as the Scarecrow. When you’re the Tin Man, here’s your line: “I hope you brought a strong needle today, babe, cause I’m 100 percent pure tin made in OZ.” Always wear the Dorothy costume on the final day, as nothing brings about a psych consult like cross dressing in Oz costumes. Also, don’t forget the stuffed Toto for that added detail.

BTW, @onlyz can’t count. Have a good weekend.


Fox Ventures Out for a Day Trip

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Fox is a trickster

Fox jumped out of my computer today and landed on my desk, sending papers and books everywhere. Then he sat and stared at me with his fox eyes, making it hard to concentrate on my work. Finally he spoke and told me he had a gift, but I didn’t see a package.

Everything went black for a second. Then I had a vision:

My tweeps and I were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a fast-moving yacht.

Dragging in the water behind the boat was what looked to be a giant green Michelin Man, but it was really cystic fibrosis. Sharks were tearing pieces off its body as it bounced up and down on the water. It was still alive, but clearly suffering, and had seen better days before it had become a toy for the sharks.

@CysticGal walked up to me holding a paint brush. “I’m painting the yacht purple,” she said.

“What happened to pink?” I asked.

“Purple is the new pink, dummy,” she said.

She looked fantastic in a sharp-looking Calvin Klein boating outfit and Jimmy Choo deck shoes. She walked away and splattered purple paint all over the deck. Magically, each splotch transformed into a perfectly shaped flower.

“Hey, Ronnie,” I said as @runsickboyrun and Mandi jogged past me. I did a double-take because Mandi was having a hard time keeping up with Ronnie, who looked supercharged. Their video crew couldn’t keep up and tumbled over the side of boat.

A camera appeared in my face with @onlyz peering over the top. “Cheers, mate. Glad you finally woke up. Thought you was a right bang pludge wonk there.” I had no idea what he said, having left my British English/Real English dictionary at home.

He snapped another three photos, as @CFFatboy, dressed in his tattered college alumni shirt, stuck two fingers behind my bagged head, rabbit style. He had a protein shake in the other hand, but looked like he’d exceeded his weight goal by a few dozen pounds.

“You still need to drink that stuff?” I asked.

“Hard habit to break,” he replied. “Benching a ton these days. Loving that.”

Looked like he weighed a ton judging by his torn clothes, kind of like the Hulk – if the Hulk had a Florida tan and wasn’t green.

I went to the upper deck, passing @rlcarroll working on his iPad, drinking an Old Milwaukee. “You were right, Unknown, this beer is good and my iPad does rock. Who’s Laughing Out Loud now, B-atch,” RL boasted. I thought about kicking the iPad out of his hands into the water, but I saw his sunburn and decided silence is golden.

Tasty goodness in a bottle

A woman with her back to me was loading a large surface-to-air missile launcher. I’d never met her, but I knew who she was.

“Finally, we meet” she said. “You ever going to take that bag off your head?”

“When I can afford plastic surgery,” I replied.

She smiled. I looked at her eyes, happy to finally meet her, and knew today was important to her.  “Will that be enough?”

“Oh, my toy?” she asked, holding up the imposing weapon. “I’m ending this madness now.”

With that she walked down to the back of the boat, passing @seanset, @cfstinabug, @CF_gurl, @Nanosmakemepuke and my other Twitter pals, who were all dressed in formal wear. @CysticGal had changed outfits, too, Vera Wang spring collection, and had some rock star I couldn’t place next to her. She was happy because she set the drink theme as “M,” as she loves alliteration. Everyone drank mohitos, martinis and margaritas.

My newly met friend and her large weapon stood at the back of the boat, CF dragging and bouncing in the water, eyeballing us, fight and anger still in its eyes. But it knew what was about to happen. The hunt was over.

She raised the large MRP weapon of destruction to her shoulder and sighted it squarely at the monster, whispering something to herself, adjusting to the motion of the sea and the monster. Up and down the boat rode the waves until a large crack broke the silence, a trail of flame and smoke followed the shell to its target.

Pieces of CF flew everywhere, landing in the water. @onlyz detached the dangling rope. “Well, that happened,” he said, wiping his wet hands on my bag, making it stick to my head.

We left CF behind, the sharks cleaning up the bloody mess until there was nothing left.

Everyone raised their glasses, toasted, sipped, and was quiet. Warriors lost filled our hearts and minds, as we knew it was time to head to port.

The vision ended there and I was left to wonder when Fox would return and send me back to the yacht. The best was yet to come.

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Monday Musings – Five Qualities I look for in a Nurse

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I am a big fan of nurses. Without them I might as well jump out of the hospital window. They are the wonderful people who drive my recovery. I cannot imagine a hospital without them, especially the caring majority I’ve met.

Filling up I.V. meds or jars of moonshine?

There are some specific qualities that I look for in a nurse.  Here are the top five. Note: For the purposes of this post, I will refer to nurses as “she.” There are some great males nurse out there, too, though the one I had recently may of been dipping into the red wall bins for a quick joy ride to “used meds” nirvana – would a skull and cross bones on those boxes discourage double dipping? Something tells me “no.”

Here we go:

  1. The nurse is healthier than I am. If she walks in hacking and coughing I want permission to open a trap door in the floor and drop her to the bowels of the hospital. If I hear her lie “it’s just allergies” when she looks white as a ghost, there will be a problem.
  2. She went to nursing college in the States, not Grenada or Tahiti or the Republic of the Internet.  All right, I might flex here and say major countries like England and Germany and Canada.  Let’s make a rule that if flip flops were acceptable footwear at your nursing school, you can’t be my nurse.

  3. Study or party? Photo by melalouise, Creative Commons

    She can insert an I.V. the first time. Have you ever been to the ER?  Nurses there start an I.V. quickly and on the first try. Why do some nurses treat the insertion like they’re buying a house? How many locations can there be to stick me? Look for the bulging veins. Start there. When you’re on your third try don’t tap on my arm to find a vein. That must be an F’ing magic trick only you know how to do because when I tap on my arm all I get are red spots.

  4. She’s not drunk. I may be fascinated by the woman who likes to tie one on to the point of slurring – who do you think appears in those homemade videos on the Internet? But when it comes to taking care of me and making sure you’re hanging the correct meds while I’m dreaming of crushing CF with my steel-toed boots, leave the champagne in your car corked, please. Some doctors might think it’s cute when you’re a little over the edge at the holiday party and may want to marry you one day, but I’m trying to remain alive during my stay.
  5. She’s over 25 and under 70. Do I need to explain this one? I don’t want to be your first patient or your last.

    Do you feel lucky, punk? Do you? Photo by Rivertay Creative Commons License

    This doesn’t apply if you’re super smart and graduated at 19 or if you’re over 70 and can actually pass your driver’s eye test without memorizing the chart. Also, regardless of age, I don’t want you to be super hot. Surprised? I’m cooped up for a week in a walk-in closet. The last thing I need to be thinking about is doing something I’ll need a divorce lawyer for when I get out. Eliminate my temptation and skip the blue eye shadow.

  6. Bonus: She skips rather than walks into my room. I want a happy nurse. I want an entourage of small animals to follow her into my room. Skip on in, Mrs. Happy and gang, nice to see you. One rule: This can only happen after I’m fully awake. If I see a squirrel looking over the edge of the bed at seven in the morning I’m going to cap him with the .357 I keep under my pillow for protection from the crazies roaming the halls at night. You may, however, kiss me goodnight on the forehead each night and skip on out the door, leaving a trail of berries as you go.

Best of health to you and the nurses who take good care of us. They’re the best, except the ones who can’t work the IV machines. They need to be banished.

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Let’s Have Some Fun Living Friday – The Unknown Comic

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Rights unknown

My friend @onlyz told me today to stop talking about dying because there was living to do. He never pulls punches in his “140 characters or less” tweets. But he is correct – there is living to do.

Tonight, I celebrate life and the inspiration for my blog identity, Mr. Murray Langston, aka, The Unknown Comic, who has delivered loads of laughs and happiness to others. I loved watching him on The Gong Show. And I respect, honor and parody him here on this blog.

Here’s a link to his Wikipedia bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Comic

If you read the bio, you’ll notice the last line: “He is active in charity work, particularly for children’s advocacy causes.” How nice is that. I wonder if one of those charities is cystic fibrosis?

Here are two youtube.com videos of The Unknown Comic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj3Q9l9Ivng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zrORaRB5S4

Enjoy and have a fantastic weekend. I’ll do my best to live as much as possible. Thanks for the redirection, @onlyz.

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Renaming My CF Drugs

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It started with a puppy

Hello, Cystic Gal

When our then five-year-old daughter wanted to name our new lab puppy, we created a naming rule to weed out the names we couldn’t live with or inflict on the pup.

The naming rule: If we couldn’t stand at our front door and scream the name into the neighborhood without feeling embarrassed, the name was scratched.

Examples of names that didn’t make the cut: Cupcake! Creamsickle! Vanilla Latte! Banana Cream Pie! We laughed hard testing them, confirming to neighbors that we’re nutty, or least that I am.

Which brings me to CF drugs. Who names this stuff? Someone in Marketing obviously doesn’t understand what it’s like to take a medicine every day or every other month of your life. Or, at the very least, they don’t understand the psychology of the disease.

So, I’ve decided that a little renaming is in order.  Here we go.

Giving CF drug names some teeth
My wife once asked what drug I was doing and I answered, “I’m doing TOBI.” A small body shiver hit me as I realized how that might sound to the untrained ear. Not something I would want to yell from my front door.  Not to mention that our friend’s yellow lab was named Toby, and he couldn’t do much harm to bacteria.

We need drug names that sound tough. When I inhale or swallow a medicine, I expect it to go into my body and crush the last breath out of the bacteria. No more taking drugs with names created by nuns moonlighting as scientists. How about some muscle and weaponry?

Let the hellfire rain down on the cockroach Pa

Old name: TOBI. A name for a yellow lab.

New name: Armageddon Hellfire Mist. This drug name should be the equivalent of spraying RAID on a cockroach, then backing your monster truck over its carcass four or five times. If I’m going to invest 20 minutes twice a day breathing this stuff, I want it to be the end of existence for the cockroach known as Pseudomonas. I want this bacteria to face its worst nightmare – Armageddon – because this is a battle of good vs evil.

Old name: Colistin. A name a celebrity would give their kid.

New name: Lung-Jax. There’s no substitute for the scrubbing power of Ajax. I want my lungs shining like my sink and toilet do when my maid hasn’t been on a three-day bender of Mojitos and Manhattans. So shiny and new, the bacteria can see their reflection as they melt like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz.

Old name: Hypertonic Saline. This isn’t the worst name I’ve heard. I like the “hypertonic” part. Saline, not as much.

Love this stuff! Blast the mucus away

And Hyper-Sal? “I’m doing Hyper-Sal,” sounds like something a mafia wife might tell her friend over lunch.

New name: Hypertonic Jet Wash. Mythbusters placed an old school bus behind a 747 with its jet engines blasting. The “wash” from the engines blew the bus away like it was made of paper. That is what HJW does. Load up that old bus with bacteria and give them a ride they’ll never forget – right into a trash can on the wing of a paper towel.

Old name: Cayston. I want to tread lightly here because when I tested this drug I thought the nurse told me its name had a special meaning. Still, the name is a little too “prep school” for my taste. Let’s give Cayston a pet.

New name: CRR (Cayston’s Rabid Rottweiler) Unleash the attack dog with this drug. It chases down Pseudomonas aeruginosa and bites it in the ass.  “Oh, it’s just a doggy bite,” the bacterium says in its fake British accent, until the rabies start kicking in. No laughing then. And, no shot clinics in the lungs, either. Whose mouth is foaming now, bacteria scum.

Old name: Pulmozyme. I get it. The drug thins and loosens the mucus. Nice. I can work with that.

Clean-up hitter.

New name: Lobe Lube. This is like taking your 67 Mustang into Jiffy Lube for an oil change. Out with the crud, in with the new slippery oil.  Man, this baby purrs now. Not sure I’d take my new car here, but my beater, yes.

Old name: Xopenex: This sounds like something my crazy aunt calls her ex-husband when she’s pissed and lubed, which is most of the time.

Wedge those lungs open

New name: Crowbar. This has a double meaning. First, I want this drug to go in and wedge open my lungs, making way for the other drugs that follow.  Second, a crowbar is what my aunt used on her ex-husband to open his skull to the tune of 40 stitches when she caught him with Hyper-Sal’s wife. Good enough for her, good enough for me.

I’m feeling better already. Think of the marketing potential and packaging possibilities. Nice, huh?

Well, it’s time for me to go Crowbar my lungs open, flush them with a some Hypertonic Jet Wash, coat them with Lung Lube, then inhale a little Armageddon Hellfire Mist to kill the cockroaches that have been living large in my lungs.

I’ll get to the pills another day. I’m thinking Al Pacino in Scarface – Say “Hello” to my little friends, Cipro and Z-Pack.

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Eats, shoots and leaves – 140 character limit on Twitter

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_________________________

I enjoy Twitter most days. Not all, but most.

The challenge is sending comments into the void and not knowing their impact.

I’ve taken a “if I like it and think the tweet is funny, I’m sending it” attitude. Certain times I have laughed by rear end off writing a tweet only to have it bomb and get no response back, which is the case most of the time.

Here’s my favorite tweet that bombed because I messed up the meaning.

@cffatboy in the hospital is like keeping a wolverine in your bathroom. At some point, U R going to have go in there & it won’t be pleasant.

I wish I had written:

@cffatboy in the hospital is like keeping an angry wolverine trapped in the bathroom. At some point, someone is going to have to go in there and lose an essential body part.

I would have violated the 140 character limit. Oh, well. I feel better now that I got it out of my system. I thank CF Fatboy for his guest post, which made me laugh so hard it helped clear out my lungs.

And though I blow off steam on Twitter, I truly appreciate the people, CF Fatboy especially, who I have met and learned more about. That part of Twitter is special and I value it above all else.

Tweet on, my friends, tweet on.

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10 things I don’t want to hear from my PICC line nurse

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I’m going through man-a-pause. No, that’s not on the list, but it should be.

It was all I could do today to keep from using ALL CAPS in my tweets. The number of tweets I didn’t send was higher than the number I sent. I told CF-mum Lorraine I dug her. I started three blog posts and stopped. Strange day.

I also listened to Captain and Tennille’s Love Will Keep Us Together and enjoyed it.

So, when in doubt, go with frivolity and horseplay.

10 things I don’t want to hear from my PICC line Nurse:

  1. Where did those buff arms go?
  2. Hellooooooooooooo, to my first solo insertion.
  3. Neck or groin? Tongue depressor or leather strap?
  4. Nursing school in Tahiti rocked, dude!
  5. Rambo never asked for a shot of lidocaine, dear. And he had to stitch his own arm.
  6. Does Red Bull ever make your hands shake like this?
  7. Do I feel warm to you?
  8. Mind if my lover, Bart, watches?
  9. It’s okay, 5-second rule in effect for dropped needles.
  10. Cystic fi-what? That can’t be good.
  11. (bonus) Holy crap! It is sticking out of your ear and I just . . . threw up in my mask.

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