3. Pain

One of the things you notice if you've got a chronic or serious illness and spend some time in hospitals is that you get the same dozen questions or so from literally everyone you meet. Every nurse, assistant or doctor will ask about falls, medicine, allergies, dutifully note it in the computer, and the next person will ask you the same thing. I know it's an insurance and safety issue, planned redundancy, but it becomes either comical or annoying (depending on one's mood) when you get the same questions over and over again.

The one that gets me, though, is that they ask if you're in any pain. Then they ask you to rate it from 1-10. I was constantly under-bidding on mine, until my wife gave me some frame of reference from when she'd seen me in various pains, and I'm better at it now.

What's kind of weird, though, is that usually the person asking can't actually do anything about it. They don't have pain meds handy, and they're not authorized to dispense them if they did. So all they can do if I say I'm at an eight is make sympathetic noises, which isn't particularly helpful.

Fortunately, my "pain management" is more or less OK. I've been in some pain in the 'ol "bathing suit area" since the surgery, and while, even with my Vicodin/Tylenol blend, it was pretty bad throughout November and December, it's starting to get better.

It does sort of suck to be in constant pain, though, even at low levels. I've got a few things wrong with me that I'd like to go ahead and heal up, and the pain going away is a big one. At this point, it's a constant companion, and part of me feels like it'll be there forever. I can't wait until I'm looking back without pain and just remembering that feeling. Maybe by the end of February or March.

2. Best of 2012 Comics

Top 10 Single Issues
1. Daredevil #8-20
2. Saga #1-6
3. Hawkeye #1-6
4. Planetoid #1-4
5. Sixth Gun #18-24
6. Chew #23-29
7. Courtney Crumrin Ongoing #1-6
8. Conan the Barbarian #1-10
9. Godzilla Half Century War #1-3
10. Thief of Thieves #1-6

The Rest
Indestructible Hulk #1-2
Fatale #1-9
Star Wars Agent o/t Empire Iron Eclipse #2-5
Lobster Johnson the Burning Hand #1-4
Manhattan Projects #1-6
Massive #1-6
American Vampire Lord of Nightmares #1-5

Top 10 Graphic Novels

1. Daredevil Vol 1-3 HC

2. Saga Vol 1 TP

3. Wrinkle in Time

4. Scene of the Crime HC

5. Crogans Loyalty HC

6. Scott Pilgrim Color Vol 1-2 HC

7. Severed HC

8. Courtney Crumrin Vol 1-2 HC

9. BPRD Vol 3-4 HC

10. Art of Mass Effect Universe HC

The Rest
Sixth Gun Vol 3 TP
Chew Vol 5-6 TP
Empowered Vol 1-2 HC
Art of Amanda Connor HC
Ozma of Oz TP
Batman vs Black Glove HC
Fatale Vol 1 TP
Sunset HC
Amulet Vol 5
Thief of Thieves Vol 1
Manhattan Projects Vol 1
Incognito Classified Edition HC
American Vampire Vol 4 HC
Criminal Deluxe Vol 2 HC
Star Wars Agent o/t Empire Iron Eclipse TP

1. The Resolutions Post

So I figured I'd start out with that old chestnut, the New Year's resolution/look back at last year post.

Last year kinda sucked. I spent most of it dealing with cancer. That said, there was also Spill dot Con, our second annual All-Ages Awesomeness at the store, plenty of good times with friends and family, so it wasn't all cancer. It's just that chemo, radiation and surgery does kind of overwhelm everything else.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Post at least weekly on the blog - That's the reason for the numbers on the blog posts. I got to #41, which means I missed posting 52 weekly posts. And since there were sometimes months between posts, I missed that by quite a bit.

2. Watch all the Blurays and DVDs - Well, I didn't watch all of them, but I did watch quite a few. Of course, I also added quite a few, so the stack of stuff to watch remains pretty big. I'm OK with that.

3. Catch up on graphic novels - Same deal here. Read a lot of them, added a lot more. But the amount of stuff I have that's been sitting unread for years is down quite a bit.

4. Catch up on novels - Failed miserably. Need to get better with the prose reading again.

5. Keep my healthy weight and get back to exercising - My weight is pretty good, actually, thanks to cancer and surgery more than exercise.

This year's resolutions:

1. Don't get any major diseases - Should have started with this one last year. Who knew?

2. Recover from the surgery - As I write this, I'm still unable to sit comfortably for more than about half an hour at a time, my "bodily functions" are not really under my control and I'm pretty much a hermit, staying inside and healing. It's slow going, but I'm hoping that the recovery will continue and I'll be back to something resembling normal by the time my birthday rolls around in April.

I do have one more round of chemo which will probably run until June, but I'm hoping I can manage all that and get back to what normal is for me by the middle of summer.

That's it. If I can manage those two, I think I'm doing pretty good in 2013.