Update time

I'm posting an update because I have awesome friends around this country and up north who have asked about my condition over the last week. Thanks so much to everyone for all of their support, it means so much to have so many people care about me.

Well, it's been a little while, but the good news is that the reason for that is I haven't had much to report. Basically, my biggest news right now is that I am very happy with Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Schwarz is the shit, and I feel amazing. Sure I have a headache when I wake up in the morning and it usually takes one pain pill to work through that, but man, if you were to tell me that would be my biggest concern I would have definitely taken it.

I got my staples out last Wednesday. Unfortunately, I haven't got a chance to take a picture yet, but the scarring is pretty minimal. I'll be sure and post a picture either tonight or tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that.

Like I said before, I've been reading a lot and watching a lot of movies. This morning I finally got around to watching Unforgiven. Holy crap that is an amazing movie! I can't decide if I am completely stoked to be named after Clint Eastwood, or feel like completely inadequate since I could never in a million years live up to those standards :).

I also read The Kitchen Readings: Untold Stories of Hunter S. Thomspson by Michael Cleverly and Bob Braudis. Both of these men live in Aspen and were close friends with Hunter. Braudis was the Sheriff of Pitkin County, which put him in an interesting position due to Hunter's shall we say slightly "eccentric" lifestyle and his love of guns and narcotics. It's a great book to read as a supplement to a lot of his other stuff, and though obviously biased, it gives a great perspective from two people who were friends of a very very interesting man.

On a final note, shout out to Ted Kennedy, who, whether you loved him or hated him, had to be respected. May he rest in peace.

This has nothing to do with my tumor but...

The Broncos suck.

Two turnovers, a blocked punt, awful on defense, this is brutal. I guess it's a testament to how well I'm feeling that I'm talking about the poor play of the Broncos, but it still hurts my feelings a little bit.

Things have been awesome. I went to see the Rockies game last night with my Dad, and walked all the way home (just over 5 miles). I went for a walk with Kerri today and was pretty tired but still made it through.

Tomorrow we might actually try and hit some golf balls, we'll see how things go. Staples comes out this Thursday!!!

Staples come out on Wednesday!!!

Ugh, my head kind of hurts

I'm trying to back off of the painkillers so that I only take one every 6 or 8 hours. It's going well, but I'm definitely a little worse off than before.

So, killing time. I'm renting lots of movies, and I have HBO here at home, so it's going pretty well so far. Yesterday I watched The Wild Bunch and Appaloosa, a couple of good westerns. This morning I woke up relatively early and I'm sucked into the Spike Lee documentary on Hurricane Katrina. Freakin' heartbreaking. The lack of response was just sickening, but enough about my own politics since that's not at all what most of you are here for :).

The point of all this is that I'll take suggestions. Shoot me an e-mail at clinteckstein@hotmail.com or find me on facebook. That also goes for books, magazines, whatever. Thanks everybody!

Feelin' good

I went for a walk this morning after getting my levels tested. I feel good, and it cracks me up to see all of the people trying not to stare at my head. I kind of wish someone would just have the balls to come up and say, "Holy shit man, what the fuck happened to you!!??" Good times.

So, as I said yesterday, a couple of more words on Toronto. After having the initial seizure, I had an allergic reaction to the medication I was on (Dilantin, watch out for that crap) and my arms and legs swelled up (I looked like a hobbit, it was pretty sweet). Apart from that, I was just getting started with grad school, so I felt stupid, and there were all these pedantic, verbose grad students dropping all kinds of theorists names and making me feel even worse.

A quick word on OISE (The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto). It was an awesome school, I got a ton out of it, met some amazing people, great profs, and some friends that I'll have forever, but it kicked my ass. Campus is just above, and my building is just to the left of the big white bubble.

After my initial frustration, I kind of let some things go. I drank way too much, did a few too many, er, extra curriculars, and basically didn't take care of myself as well as I should have. I started to play more Ultimate, which both helped and hurt my health status :), and started to get ready for my trip to meet my girlfriend Kerri in Australia. More on that tomorrow.

Taking it back to the beginning...

I thought I'd give a bit of history on this thing for the people who don't anything about it (and since I'm up early with a headache, mornings are the hardest).

This all started back in August 2006. I just moved to Toronto for grad school and was getting settled in. I knew exactly two people in the city, and I was fortunate enough to be hanging out with them having a beer that night. I remember having a beer, and the next thing I remember is waking up in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask on. I didn't know my name, what day it was, where I was, any of that stuff, and to be honest, it scared the crap out of me. The best part was finally getting to the emergency room and remembering my name and the date.

I got to "Emerg" as it's called up there and waited...and waited...and waited. At about 1:30 in the morning I found out from the EMT that I had a brain tumor. After a few scary, tear-filled, lonely phone calls I pulled it together a figured out what was going on.

Good news: A benign, low grade tumor
Bad news: It's still growing, still could become malignant, still can cause seizures

That's making a short story long. I'll go into a little more about Toronto tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Made it through the first day, next one just beginning...

So this blog is going to try and be a way to keep me from going too insane over the course of the next couple of weeks. I'm not supposed to lift more than five pounds, and I have to sit around a lot, so here's my chance to blog without feeling too lazy or boring.

So, one full day out of the hospital and I'm feeling pretty good. I was stuck there from Wednesday morning to Sunday morning. The surgery went well apart from the next day (I couldn't hold any food down and had a seizure), but after that I felt pretty great considering the circumstances (see right).

I was so fortunate having friends and family come from all over and visit me, even as far away as Lincoln and Durango (even if Mike did have to be a chump by finding a way to one-up me by getting jacked in the head with a skateboard this week). It was fun having people comment on the scar, as well as having Doug there as a friend who has gone through the process of actually having a tumor.

I slept through most of the night last night, just had to get up a couple of times, and now my head is starting to hurt. I'm getting ready to take a happy little Percocet to help things out. Mmmm, Percocet. Keep checking in if you want, and I'll keep trying to make half way interesting updates.