It was to be the best of times and it turned into the worst.
Who knew I’d be home a month after my August Vegas jaunt and be GRATEFUL I have only two upcoming surgeries?
I arrived on Wednesday evening August 21 for yet another Bobby Vegas “so many casinos so little time” special trip and what a trip I’d planned: two celebrity interviews lined up, two trips to The Pinky Ring, hangin’ with my new buds the Hooligans and Bobby Wilson, 30% off the new super-hot Disco Show at Linq, even a gambling tournament.
On my first night, I had a good dinner at Rainbow and chased 75X points on a positive breakeven $15k progressive at 2 a.m.
At 11 a.m. Thursday … BAM! I slammed into a kidney-stone wall.
Many of you, I’m sure, are aware that pain, especially excruciating unrelenting pain, tends to change things — perspective, priorities, relationships. Everything. And since I couldn’t pee, it kept getting worse.
Three trips to Urgent Care on Rancho at Charleston led to full CT scans, blood work, and catheters. Due to the bleeding, I wound up in the emergency room at UCM and 2½ days in the hospital. After I was discharged, which turned out to be a mistake, I rested for two days in my hotel room, flew home, had emergency surgery, and spent five weeks on a catheter. But you know what? I consider myself a winner — just to have survived this horror show with the odds stacked against me.
And here’s one for the ages. Arriving home at 11 p.m. after an absolutely horrific trip, I turn on my house radio and out wafts,
“Sometimes the lights all shining on me.
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it’s been.”
As a fully qualified Deadhead (with 45 shows in my past), I called out, “HEY JERRY! Man, are you speaking to me from the Grateful beyond and is this some of the ol’ magical Dead synchronicity …or just chance?
It’s now five days later. I’m relatively pain free for the first time in 12 days. Okay, I am sore from the kidney-stone surgery, but that’s it.
Now, how do you know you’re a stone-cold Vegas scuffler? After all that, I still made sure I piled on enough action not to lose my vaunted max-discount casino status before the end-of-third-quarter casino review. Only then did I hobble home to North Carolina, catheter in tow.
Grateful for friends who showed up, Medicare and supplemental insurance, and my home.
And after I read the September LVA, all I could think about was when can I get back to Vegas?” The adventure continues.