Even cyborgs need periodic battery replacements

I’ve been recovering from heart surgery since Feb. 16. It was Valentine’s Day Week and it seemed like a good time for it. Heart surgery has an ominous sound. Thoughts go to quadruple bypasses and aortic valve replacement. I just needed a replacement generator in my chest to stop any signs of ventricular fibrillation which can lead to death. The gadget is filled with microchips and wires that connect to leads that snake down into my heart. I got my first one ten years ago after a widowmaker heart attack that almost did me in. Because it took too long to get help for my stopped-up heart, it sustained some muscle damage which in turn made my heart less effective. Up until January 2013, my heart had been very good to me. In high school, it pumped like a champ as I ran down the basketball court or when a girl looked at me in a certain way. Got me through my adult years until I hit 62 then BAM! Damn…

So the first one wore out and I needed a new one. I am on Medicare and have secondary insurance that pay for the $23,000 gizmo and attendant expenses such as doctor’s fees, OR fees, nursing services, etc. I am lucky to have health care insurance that keeps me ticking. Health insurance is a right and should not be optional. I see that our esteemed GOP state legislators have once again torpedoed Medicaid expansion that would insure thousands of Wyomingites. A widowmaker strikes and you need help? Tough luck, buddy. For the GOP it’s all about the cruelty. They didn’t used to announce their cruelties for all the world to see and hear. Now they shout it from the rooftops.

Back to my trip to the operating room. It’s called the CRMC Cath Lab and it’s where the electrophysiologists work their magic. I was under conscious sedation, like the kind you get for your colonoscopy. In this case, the surgeon applied a topical anesthesia and then pumped me with Fentanyl but not too much. He then cut into my chest, removed the old battery and in with the new. Then he sealed me back up. Before you know what’s going on, I'm being whisked off to recovery.

So how does my electrophysiologist keep track of the signals beamed from my Abbott Laboratories ICD? I used to have a Merlin Home Transmitter the size of the big black phones you used to see in 1940s movies. It sat by the side of my bed and beamed my readings to the CRMC Device Clinic. My new monitor is a Samsung device, smaller than a smart phone, that I can take anywhere. Pretty slick.

My new machine should last 5-7 years, according to the pamphlet that accompanied it. I plan on lasting at least that long. Seven days post-op and I’m doing fine.

Thank you, modern technology and surgical expertise. 

Two years ago I reviewed a nonfiction book about ICDs on WyoFile. It's "Lightning Flowers" and written by Wyoming author Katherine E. Standefer. She needed a device while still in her 20s and then set out to find the its origins. A great tale, whether you're a cyborg or not. 

Cheyenne Comic Con leads to jam-up at Little America parking lot

You'd think that the sprawling parking lot at the Little America Conference Center would be spacious enough for all of the comic book geeks and gamers and cosplayers in Cheyenne.

Think again.

About noon on a gray May Saturday, Little America's lots were overflowing. As Chris and I left for lunch, a Cheyenne traffic cop blocked the entrance, sending Comic Con fans to the overflow lot at the events center on Lincolnway. As we drove away, we saw people parking at the old pancake house on the east side of I-25. Ghostbusters and star troopers and anime girls trudged through the rain for their date with destiny or at least their date with stars in the sci-fi/fantasy universe.

I'm a newbie (noob) to comic cons of all stripes. So, when I use a term such as "cosplay" or "anime," I may not know what I'm talking about. My kids do, but they're away in their own universes. But one thing was clear to me -- the first Cheyenne Comic Con was off to a good start. And I had to wonder -- how come we've never had this kind of parking crush at a poetry reading?

Chris, a long-time Star Trek fan, bought tickets for Cheyenne Comic Con (hereafter known as C3) when news first broke about the event. In the ensuing months, I had retired, collected Social Security, used my Medicare card several times and went under the knife for knee replacement surgery. Not your usual geek pastimes. However, it gave me a leg up (so to speak) at a Comic Con as I was one of the few attendees who was part robot. Not only do I have bionic knees but also an implantable cardioverter device (ICD) that beams signals about my heart condition to a telemetry lab and can shock me back to life should I descend into a fatal arrhythmia. Fatal Arrhythmia -- sounds like a comic book character's name, a villain, I would think.

Fatal Arrhythmia: Die, Captain Cardiac!

Captain Cardiac: Fie on you, Fatal Arrhythmia. I live many lives thanks to modern medical marvels.

F.A.: But I am a super-villain.

C.C.: And I am on Medicare!

Look for more adventures coming soon from You Kids Get Off My Lawn Comics.

At the Comic Con vendor fair, I bought a number of comics. I was curious about this industry which is gobbling up shelf space at all of my local bookstores. We also have several comic book stores in downtown Cheyenne. One of them, The Loft, was the impetus behind C3.

It's no news that comics are big. But I usually read books, such as the kind you find at the library. They are printed (usually without illustrations), bound and finished off with a nice cover. Some of them are several hundred thousand words long, which seems big unless you've read War and Peace.

But writers still write the stories featured in comics and graphic novels. Bob Salley is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh M.F.A. program and studied with a novelist I admire, Lewis "Buddy" Nordan. He was a fan of comic books and entered that world in an attempt to make a living as a creative person, much as other MFAers such as yours truly got into  the world of arts administration, while others enter education, cab driving and the lucrative food service industry.

Salley writes a series called The Salvagers. His is a collaborative process, unlike the act of writing your average literary novel. Illustrator at his Think Alike Productions is George Acevedo, colourist is DeSike and HdE does the lettering. They even designed a special giveaway comic for C3 which features The Salvagers in "The Wreck Raiders." If you bought one of the press's graphic novels, you received a signed copy of the comic. So that's what I did after a lively conversation with Salley. He saw my composition book and pulled his notebook out of a backpack. It was filled with ideas for new stories. I showed him some pages from my journal. They included everything from rough drafts of stories to to-do lists to notes from meetings and events such as C3. This is the kind of geeky stuff that writers do.

Salley and I talked about trading stories and staying in touch. I am fascinated by graphic novels. To belittle them is to negate the life experiences of a big chunk of America. Million read comics. Millions more watch sci-fi/fantasy.superhero movies. Others like to dress and act like Sailor Moon or Iron Man. Creative writing. Filmmaking. Theatre. All creative pursuits being practiced by the people attending any comic con.

I bring this up because the arts funding world has been slow to recognize what's happening all around us. All of these creatives are selling their wares and attempting to make a living. To that end, they travel the Comic Con circuit like bands of gypsies. Do any of them make a living? Some vendor booths are more crowded than others. Some, such as Cheyenne's Warehouse 21 and Winged Brew ("We make tea cool") sell products and services. Others, such as actors on popular cable shows and films, get paid to hobnob with the hoi polloi and charge for autographs and photos. Chris and I paid $60 for an autograph and photo with Ernie Hudson, best known as Winston Zeddimore in the first two "Ghostbusters" movies. He's a nice guy. We like him in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" where he plays Frankie's (Lily Tomlin's) love interest. They may have to kill him off as he's slated to be in a new futuristic cop drama called "APB." Hudson let slip later in a Q&A that he attended Yale Drama School with Sigourney Weaver and played boxer Jack Johnson on stage in "The Great White Hope." I was impressed. I am also impressed that Hudson was a Ghostbuster and has a cameo in the upcoming "Ghostbusters" sequel.

Mike and Chris at Cheyenne Comic Con with Ernie Hudson. 

What impressed me most at C3? The size of the crowds. "This is better than the Fort Collins Con," said one vendor. This is especially impressive because Cheytown has an inferiority complex when it comes to out neighbor FoCo across the border, where everything is bigger and better and hipper. Except for Comic Con, it seems -- lots of those cars parked higgledy-piggledy in the parking lot bore Colorado plates.

Also, people had fun. Think about that next time you're at an arts event or a poetry reading or even one of my prose readings. Are you enjoying yourself? If the answer is "no," you may want to plan for C3 Part Deux set for May 2017. Or you can check out a con near you. Find out what floats your boat (or steers your starship) and get after it.

Kristen Lamb's Blog: "Why writers blogging about writing is bad"

I am a writer who sometimes blogs about writing who is posting about a blog post by a writer who says that blogging about writing is bad.

Kristen Lamb is her name and she blogs at "Kristen Lamb's Blog." She has written two books about writing that have been on the best-seller lists. One is We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media. She advises writers to put their name on their blog. You will notice that I did that. Thanks, Kristen. Go read her blog. It's helpful and very funny.

That's the extent of my writing advice for today.

In a blog post from 06/07/2011, Kristen examined five reasons why writing blogs are bad.

1. Writing blogs limit our following.
2. Writing blogs limit content and can create burnout
3. Writing blogs will collapse if we change content.
4. Writing blogs increase the competition for book sales.
5. Writing blogs are not creative.

I looked up "writing" in my blog's search box. It came up with 32 entries. I've been blogging for eight years. During that time, I've written an average of four blogs annually about writing. I average about 200 posts a year so, on average, about 2 percent of my posts are about writing. What are my other topics? Heck if I know. My main topic, as you can see from my log-line, is progressive politics. Not so rare unless you live in conservative Wyoming. I can count my fellow Wyoming prog-bloggers on one hand, the ones who live in the southeast quadrant, anyway.

I began this blog with a simple idea. I was writing a nonfiction book about our family's experience with our ADHD son. I thought that the book would be instructive and a best-seller. But I quit halfway through as it was making me depressed. Our son was taking detour after detour, as often happens with those with hummingbird minds. So I went back to my short stories. I've published one volume of those stories thus far and have another one that needs publishing.

I found that blogging about ADHD has its limits. Substitute "ADHD" for "writing in Kristen's five points and you see the problem. Writing about any one topic is limiting.

Your next question might be: "But Mr. Shay, I was told that blogging about one topic was the key to success."

Good point. I know some fabulous one-topic blogs.Many are political. Others are by quilters, St. Louis Cardinal fans, high-altitude gardeners, bakers, dog owners, cat fanciers, model railroaders, Trekkers, etc. They have loyal followings. As Kristen explains it:

Want to know the formula for a hit blog?

Topics you are excited about + topics readers are excited about = hit blog.

Kristen urges us to have "flexible and dynamic content" because "we are humans and not robots."

But that is the point, isn't it. If you are a rabid Denver Broncos fan and you blog on that topic, you are asking for trouble. Just kidding. You should blog about the Broncos. You will get the most interesting responses, especially if you write anything bad about John Elway's management style or Peyton Manning's throwing style. If you're still writing about Tebow, you're hopeless. Your Broncos blog will get lots of readers and you might even find a way to make some dough with it, although don't go messing with that official NFL brand -- they'll sue your ass!

Good writers have always been flexible. Think of your favorite newspaper and magazine columnists. Did Mike Royko write about one thing? Molly Ivins? Erma Bombeck? Does Carl Hiaasen write about one thing? Rick Reilly? David Sedaris?  They have their specialties, but within those specialties they have lots of leeway.

If you've read my blog, you might be able to tell that my writing heroes are flexible and dynamic.They include those about and humor writers such as S.J. Perelman, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley. Ring Lardner, P.J. O'Rourke, Bruce McCall, Alan Coren, all of the Monty Pythons, the Irish, and a whole bunch of others whose names I can't remember right now.

Do I have a successful blog? It's not commercially successful, but that's not my goal. Does it have its own brand? Probably. Is it me? Definitely. I write about topics that I'm excited about. Some of those topics are ones my readers are excited about.

Still, it makes me happy. That's what really counts. I can say this because I am not a robot, although next month my heart will be outfitted with electronic parts. The major part of my mechanism will remain flesh and blood.

And I have one question for Kristen: When can you travel to Wyoming to talk to us writers in the High, Wide and Lonesome?

Is that a Robo-hummingbird looking in my window?

This was on Fox, so it must be true:

Pentagon researchers have taken robots for a science fiction spin, building a robotic hummingbird that's ideal for covert surveillance. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/18/robot-hummingbird-spy-drone-flies-minutes-spies-bad-guys/#ixzz1ESId5cZM