The procedure took only about 2 hours for the surgeons to complete. Also recovery went by faster as there was less work that was done. Everything else just went generally much quicker this time around as well.

The pain is nowhere near as bad as last time.

I was stitched up first, and my previous wounds were stapled up on the outside. Obviously I do still have some scars from the procedure, and I’ll be meeting with my Doctor again next week to see how everything’s going and to perform some finishing touches.

The yellow blotches are just a few wound discharges, and the large orange stripe across my chest was created from the bandaging used during recovery, nothing too serious to be concerned about.

It’ll probably take a few more weeks to make a full recovery.

Not much else to say, but finally…. I’m Normal Again!

(Well, physically, anyway.)

UPDATE 1/2/2009 = OK, I may have rushed this post a bit as quite a few changes have happened over the past few days.

First, I experienced a wound infection that appeared on my large scar, which basically means that I have a big, but not very deep, hole on my chest. I saw the Doctor on Christmas Day to confirm and treat my condition.

Then came the big shocker. I had been encountering some side pains, similar to the back pain I had in the summer of last year. The pains escalated until they finally peaked on Wednesday and burst out of me, literally.

My House looked like a homicide scene. There was blood everywhere, the Bathroom got the worst amount, as that’s the room I rushed to to stop the bleeding. After we put pressure on the lower wound (the one that was bleeding), we quickly drove to the Emergency Room to find out what had went wrong.

It turned out there was yet ANOTHER Abscess that had been growing there since the reattachment surgery. Luckily for this one, it burst *out* my wound, rather than all over my insides, and the pain went away afterwords. The doctor also physically opened up my wound with his fingers (which was intense, and crazy, I wasn’t even on Morphine yet). This new wound is probably about two inches deep.

So I spent a night in the hospital and went over the procedure for what to do this time. I now have not just one, but two open wounds that will require wet-to-dry dressing changes until they heal from the inside out, like my previous, vertical wound from last summer, only they’re not quite as big this time around. They should take about a month to heal.

WARNING: Some Graphic Pictures are ahead, view them at your own risk, if you can handle all the bodily gory type of stuff.

The Beginning

About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, which affects the digestive system, more specifically within the intestines. It’s not a fun disease to have, but it’s been manageable with daily tablets of Mercaptopur.

Yes, I have Crohn’s, it’s not transmittable to other people or anything, but it’s still a pretty major disease that affects my diet, my weight, and my energy levels.

More Recently

For the past month or so I started to notice frequent aches in my back that wouldn’t get better as time moved on. They started around the beginning of Summer Vacation, so I figured the pain was due to the immense amount of time I spent on my computer at home, or due to lack of exercise. This clearly wasn’t the case.

On Independence Day, July 4, the pain was so unbearable I was emitted to the emergency room. Let me just say here that Morphine is gooooood, very relaxing. The emergency staff couldn’t find anything wrong with me, so they sent me home with a Brett Favre Starter Kit (Vicadin). Luckily though, I already had a regularly scheduled Gastroenterology appointment coming up next week Wednesday, so my Doctor could help find out what was wrong with me.

That day was when he told me I wasn’t going anywhere. I was given a CAT scan, a large abnormal abscess around the size of a baseball was discovered eating away towards the end of my small intestine, I required emergency surgery. (An abscess is basically a globby pile of pus created by the Crohn’s Disease.) If the abscess were to have ruptured, I could have easily gone into shock and died.

The Surgery

The next day, Thursday, was when everything all went down. The surgeon was able to remove the abscess without rupturing it, along with about a foot of my small intestine.

Waking up in the recovery room was horrible though. It was the worst physical pain I had ever felt in my life. But overall, the surgery was successful.

The scars aren’t very pretty either. For one, I received an ileostomy and now have a stoma for excrementation. Basically, it means I have a hole in my belly for pooping from my small intestine:

A bag is placed over the hole so waste droppings can come out without me feeling a thing. The bag is usually emptied about three times a day, it still freaks me out. Luckily though, in my case, this sort of condition will 99% likely be reversible.

Also, here is the incision wound from removing the abscess, along with an ileostomy bag placed over my stoma:

It heals on it’s own, with the aide of a wound vacuum. They kept it open like this to drain the rest of the infection easier. There are also bandaging and foam inserts that must be changed three times a week. It hurts every time it gets changed. I don’t remember what day the photos were taken though, I think it was on the Sunday after surgery.

You wouldn’t believe how much that vac pack values in at.

$100? Nope.

$1000? Not even close.

$10,000? Keep going.

The system has a rough value of $25,000. Yeah, I know VERY expensive. My family’s not paying for it though, we’re only renting it for the duration of the healing process. And the insurance company is covering most of the costs.

The Aftermath

I spent the next week recovering from the intestinal surgery in a hospital bed until I was finally healthy enough to go home.

Obviously now I’m currently able to type and still use a computer while functioning properly, that started today. The wound should heal over a total of eight weeks and we’re still discussing with the doctor whether reattachment surgery is a possibility. Obviously this has indefinitely postponed my project, I’ll update in awhile, but I won’t be working on it for a long time.

This whole sidetrack also affected my school plans for the fall, which I’ll have to work on to see just when and how everything will work out.

My Project

Basically I’m building my own Content Management System from scratch. I’m really just beginning to get into the goodness of PHP and MySQL, and the functions they offer, what goes where, etc. I’ve rarely used either besides administering my blog and the conspiracy forums, so I barely had any knowledge of either language directly beforehand.

Why?

Just for fun. I think I’d be good at creating something useful for people. Although from a technical standpoint, I’m making it solely for my own needs, but others may use it too if they wish.

I’m going to do everything for the CMS, program it, design it, manage it, etc. I’ll probably make an announcement when it’s completed, but it’s nothing big or anything, just for people to know about it, if they want to see it, give feedback, or whatever. It’ll probably take months to complete too, given I’m new to most of the concepts I’ll be using.

So, yeah, if I’m not around on the forums as much, or pertaining to blog updates, that’s what I’ve been working on (in addition to my internship that is, which is unrelated).

School

My last test for the school year was earlier this wee. Now I only have (roughly) one year of college left. I can’t believe it’s almost over, and if the right classes are available next year, I’ll be able to graduate with my Information Resources Major from UW-Milwaukee.

Internship

I’ve been awarded an internship over the summer for my knowledge of CMS’s (Content Management Systems). I’ll be working on transferring the Afrikaans database from afrikaans.us to it’s new domain openlanguages.net.

It’s not exactly the most exciting internship, dealing with mostly copying and pasting the content and creating new pages for it, but I know what I’m doing and am getting the job done.

After I complete the internship, my professor said he has a job opportunity for me. There is a position available at a research firm, and if everything goes well during this internship, it’s basically mine. Just goes to show you what a great resource blogging can be (not to mention all the opportunities it opens up from people that know about you and your blog).

The Blog

Due to the fact that I have this new internship, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to write as I have been doing. The job is scheduled to end around the beginning of August, so I’ll definitely have a higher frequency of posts coming by then.

On the other hand though, this internship is the only other thing I have going at the moment, so updates won’t be as slow as the past few weeks have been. I’ll aim for writing at least one (on occasion two), new posts a week for everyone to look forward to.

BLOG = Best Language Of Geeks

CODE = Collection of Disorganized Etchings

DELICIOUS = Database Entries Left Incomplete, Code Is Opening Up System

DIGG = Decrepit Inferior Gullible Garbage

GOOGLE = Good Only Once Goons Leave Everything

JOOMLA = Just One Of Many Lousy Applications

KEYWORDS = Kooks Exhausting Young Webpages, Once Ranking Drops Start

MSN = Minuscule Search Network

PODCAST = Probably Online Drivel Consumed Audio (Salary-Triggered)

SMO = Stupid, Moronic Operation

SPAM = Stupid People And Marketing

STUMBLEUPON = Social Tool Used Mostly By Losers Entering Unproductive Plains Of Networking

WIKIPEDIA = Web Index Killing Information Plus Enclosing Deceptive, Inaccurate Articles

Have anymore you’d like to add? Comment below

I’ve thrown in some bonus Halo 1 tracks here too, some of them even inspired a few of the Halo 3 songs.

The Halo Soundtrack collection (specifically tracks from Halo 1 and Halo 3):

Martin O’Donnell has composed some fantastic musical pieces over the course of the games. Even if you absolutely HATE video games, these are my top picks you must listen to:

Sierra 117, Part 1 (Released) – (Halo 3) = The very first track once you start playing the game (second off the 31 track album), and like the game, the music makes you imagine that you are in the jungle, preparing for war.

Crow’s Nest, Part 3 (Brutes) – (Halo 3) = It begins energy filled and transitions into a fantastic sneak-around-and-silently-kill-your-enemy sort of mood.

The Covenant (Black Tower) – (Halo 3) = This track starts off dark and mysterious, then 3/5 the way through, the song gives a beautiful and depressing, melodramatic type of feeling. Probably my most favorite off Halo 3.

Library Suite – (Halo 1) = A very dark and ominous sounding piece, you’ll think you were sent on a spy mission and now you are at the peak of your mission, with guards waiting just in the other room, before you make your escape.

Under Cover of Night – (Halo 1) = My absolute favorite track off the first album, words just can’t describe it.

Floodgate, Part 2 (Follow Our Brothers) – (Halo 3) = Wow! That’s all I can say about this track. It mixes “Under Cover of Night” and “Brothers in Arms” from the first album together beautifully.

The Storm, Part 1 (This Is Our Land) – (Halo 3) = Also borrowing from” Brothers in Arms”, this song starts off with a marching anthem, then transitions nicely into an aerial, in-the-clouds battle feeling, this one’s somewhat difficult to explain.

Ending (Roll Call) – (Halo 3) = Another great piece, this song gives you that I-want-to-be-a-hero-and-do-something-with-my-life sort of feeling.

I liked virtually all the tracks on the album, but I wasn’t going to give all of them a detailed explanation on their complexity. I urge everyone to listen to these tracks, melodies, etc. (more than ONCE) and give me your feedback on them

That’s what I’m currently going through at the time I’m writing this. Seriously I have no idea what I’m currently writing about at this time, I’m just going with my flow.

Some would probably say that this is crazy, or that I’m just extremely bored (may be true, to some extent) I thought I’d try this experimentation that could help me get past this mind detour.

Right now I’m listening to Metallica’s Orion, I’m sitting in front of my computer typing this blog post (obviously), and I’m eating some Dove chocolates (Yeah, I know, real exciting).I wonder what my future holds in store for me tomorrow, maybe something fun and different will happen or an interesting event will occur…….. OK, probably not.

Hmmmmm…….
Maybe now would be a good time to create a homework chart, (for my college classes), so I can keep track of all my assignments and make sure none are late. I’ll probably use excel or something and make sure I include all my classes, and get some work done ahead of time.

1. Force Powers

How cool would it be to learn different powers? Maybe nothing too extreme, but say we could go on adventures to find ancient books that would teach us things about the force we cannot comprehend.

The power I’d like to learn the most would definitely have to be “Death Field”. This power was common throughout the KOTOR video game series. Basically what would happen is that when you are near a few enemies, you’d cast “Death Field” and it would deplete your enemies health while simultaneously recharging your own, very neat.

2. Medical Packs

Whenever I would become sick, I could just pull out a medkit, inject the antibodies (or whatever medical resources they’d contain) into my body and become instantly cured.

You would probably have to carry around more than one, because most medkits probably wouldn’t heal you completely in one use.

3. Revamped Currency System

Anybody playing KOTOR would know what “Credits” are. It’s a simplified currency system where everything is bought and sold using them. No pointless multiple forms like “Pennies”, “One Dollar Bills”, “Five Dollar Bills”, etc. One standard for the entire galaxy.

4. Personal Shuttle Transport

I’ve always wanted my own personal air-transportation vehicle. It would make flying over traffic a breeze, be a perfect getaway vehicle (not that I’m implying you should do anything illegal), and not to mention they’d be super-cool to fly!

It wouldn’t have to be too big, maybe something Millennium Falcon-sized, probably a tad smaller. This way I could infiltrate through enemy defenses virtually undetected, I could explore uncharted worlds with the craft’s lightspeed hyperdrive, and I could bring a small party to travel with me.

5. (Obedient) Droid Servants

Having dirty houses, smudgy windows, and is not something people like to have, but unfortunately, most people have to deal with them due to time constraints in their lives. I’m also implying “forever obedient” machines here because I don’t want them to turn on us Terminator-Style.

I’ve dreamed about having my own personal assassin droid like HK-47 from the Knights of the Old Republic Series. He’d love carnage, obey my every word, and be my own bodyguard. (not like I’d need one though, due to these following inventions…….)

6. A Lightsaber

I had a dream a while back that I was a lightsaber wielding jedi (or Sith, probably the latter ), and I was a master dualist, no one could match against my skills and prowess. But then I realized, in this universe that we live in, our guns don’t shoot “laser beams” like the blasters in the Star Wars Galaxy do, they shoot actual metal bullets, which leads me to my final invention…..

7. A Personalized Energy Shield

If I had an invisible metallic energy shield (to protect myself from bullets, swords, etc.) surrounding myself, along with a lightsaber (the only weapon that would theoretically be able to slice through my shield), I’d be virtually invincible .

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been playing Knights of the Old Republic 2 lately, great game.

I’ll help you optimize your website for only the high quality directories that exist on the internet to day. I have a foolproof system that works just as you need it to:

1. First name your website with the letter “A”. We all know directories rank their site listings in alphabetical order, so this should be the easy part.
2. Make your website as broad as possible. Since directories often have many categories, having a general website will give you more options to spam their categories with, thus gaining more backlinks in the process.
   
3. One final tip I have for fellow webmasters is to Pay the directories you submit to. The more you pay, the better chance you have to be on the their “Featured Websites” list. And as everyone already knows, more and more backlinks = Tons of PR juice.

Always remember folks, Directories are a HUGE part of the web today, I mean it’s not like there’s some other great technology out there that allows us to organize and find information we are looking for.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at:

1-800-WEB-FOOL

or by email: DSOE@invisiblelocation.com

Regards,
James Lewitzke

DSO Expert

(NOTE: For those of you that haven’t noticed, this post is filed under “Satire”)

1. Sit down (preferably in a nice comfy chair) and ask yourself the following questions:

• How much time have I spent on these activities?
• Could I be spending my time doing things more productive for my website and / or business?
• How far has my website come since focusing on these tactics?
• Do my site visitors receive any benefit at all?
• Has anything *really* been accomplished, participating in these sorts of programs?

2. Throw everything you “think” about SEO out the door

I never have, and never will, claim to be an “SEO Expert”, but there are some things about Search Engine Optimization that are not true, for example:

Myth #1: PageRank is a determination of my web site’s /page’s worth.

Fact #1: PageRank is determined by just ONE Search Engine, Google, and is affected by links and only links, and it doesn’t make ANY difference whether they are “related” or not. Some pages can have PR without any content on them whatsoever.

Myth #2: Submitting to Directories, Exchanging links, and inserting META keywords into pages is important and will boost my site’s rankings.

Fact #2: Totally False, “good” content doesn’t need link exchanges and directory programs to thrive. And Meta Keyword Tags are of absolutely NO use to SE’s.

Myth #3: It is possible to be guaranteed top 10 positions in the Search Engines.

Fact #3: Again, False. Google uses thousands of datacenters to calculate their SERP’s, rankings change every minute. Plus, Search Engines send FREE traffic, look for other sources.

3. Know that there’s a big difference between “Networking” and “Manipulating”

Social Networking Sites are communities (See an earlier post I made). There is nothing wrong with stumbling or digging pages you like. But try to avoid submitting your own content as much as possible.

Ask yourself this: If you submit your own content, how are you able to objectively calculate its value?

4. So what Can I do?

If I were to give you advice (which I kind of already am, by you reading this page), here’s what I think you should do:

• Create a unique website with great content
• Build an online reputation through discussion forums, networking communities such as Stumbleupon, or promote yourself through blog carnivals (as it states in the post, be careful not to spam them), for example.
• And Finally: Stop worrying about SEO Tactics and focus on providing value to your visitors, no matter how large or small your audience may currently be.