¡Por el amor de dios, cállate! (9 Feb)

Jesus-fucking-Christ.  There is a child wailing on the second floor and has been for the last fucking hour.  I don’t know what the problem is but I want them to shut him up.  God damn it.

I finally went to China House last night, the food was about as expected.  I’m told it’s the best Chinese food in Mexicali.  It’s really not that special as far as I can tell.  They  did a decent shark fin soup and something tasty with strips of chicken breast, cooked in such a way that the outside was crispy and salty.  The rest was pretty standard fare; the sweet and sour chicken, which I didn’t order, my housemate asked for it to replace ‘something weird’, that he claimed to be afraid of, from our set menu.  The sweet and sour was below average, which is hard to imagine.

It was a big meal though, and we didn’t finish it.  It cost less than $30 for the two of us.  Afterwards we went to La Diablita or, we would have, except it was closed.  So we went to the bar at La Carniceria instead.  I introduced my housemate to the joys of Cucapá, and I introduced myself to the joys of Cucapá’s Chupacabra. It’s a solid pale ale with a beautifully deep honey colour and strong honey and fruity tones.  This is followed by an exceptional pale ale aftertaste.  It officially runs equal first for best Cucapá beer, sharing the top place with the Clásica.  We stayed there for a while, and then headed home.  It was a pleasant evening.

The next day I went to theatre and found a very small operation list.  I sat in on a TURP (Trans-urethral resection of the prostate); it is seriously un-fun to watch.  A camera gets inserted into the man’s urethra and then a loop that has a charge running through it is used to enlarge the portion of the urethra that runs through the prostate.  In case I need to spell out for you how this is done: The loop slices bits of prostatic urethra away.

All this occurs while saline solution flows into the bladder to keep the work area clear.  This creates an interesting effect with haemorrhaging blood vessels; plumes of bright red blood pour into the saline solution and the current pushes it into the bladder that you can see in the background.  You kind of feel like you’re watching a video of a cave-diver exploring a volcanic cavern.

All fantastic experiences must come to an end though, and after an hour-or-so of watching a prostate’s boundaries be redefined with an electric apple-corer, the procedure was finished.  As the camera is retracted through the very sensitive urethra, you watch as fragile capillaries burst due to the trauma and bleed under the epithelium.  That’ll turn into a painful bruise as soon as the anaesthetic wears off and he’ll have a hard time peeing for about a week.  I know this because I’ve had a similar procedure – a flexible cystoscopy.  It’s not fun.

I should also mention a couple of things, just to make all males unhappy about their near inevitable future date with this procedure: The patient is conscious during the procedure, there is no need for a general anaesthetic.  The local anaesthetic/lubricant they use to insert the camera mixes with the blood that trickles down the urethra and it starts to look like someone has smeared tomato sauce on the end of your penis.  Cool huh?

That child has been quietened/taken away.  What a relief.  I empathise with his position as a patient, but I couldn’t think worth a damn with all that noise.  I was actually doing real work until I couldn’t concentrate any longer.  I had to quit and come and write this tripe.

I’m going to have dinner at Rustyc’s Steak and Grill tonight.  I’m not going to lie: my desire to eat their is based purely on the name.  I keep thinking the ‘c’ is supposed to be an ‘e’… but then I’m not sure.  Should it be “Rustic’s” or an abbreviated version of “Rusty eye’s”, which I have no idea what that might be, but it still makes more sense to me.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m still counting down the sleeps until I leave; now it sits at 3 sleeps. Somewhat concerning was the need to remind my housemate about his agreement to drop me at the Greyhound station.  I had to remind him when I was leaving and how I was going to achieve.  I will not let him fuck this up for me.  I’ll remind him every day if I have to.

Tonight should be fairly calm though.  He’ll be at work, I’ll get home from a, hopefully, pleasant dinner and retire to my room with as little conversation as possible.  Get some more work done on my report and have an early night.  Tomorrow i must remember to contact that surgeon about friday.  I will not fuck this up.

Oh yeah, and that’s the other thing.  My amigo who took me to La Rumorosa has asked me to help him write a formal letter to some Dean of a university in Aachen, Germany, where he wants to study biomedical engineering.  I’ve agreed to do that after surgery tomorrow, I have no idea if it’ll take a long time or what.  I tried to get a decent idea of what the letter would say but, so far, it seems to be that all he wants to say is:

Dear Sir,

I will send you the results of my English proficiency test in late April, because that is when the results will come in.  You have received everything else already.

Kind regards…

I doubt it will play out that simply, but you never know.

Paz.

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