It was to be the best of times and it turned into the worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who knew I\u2019d be home a month after my August Vegas jaunt and be GRATEFUL I have only two upcoming surgeries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I arrived on Wednesday evening August 21 for yet another Bobby Vegas \u201cso many casinos so little time\u201d special trip and what a trip I\u2019d planned: two celebrity interviews lined up, two trips to The Pinky Ring, hangin\u2019 with my new buds the Hooligans and Bobby Wilson, 30% off the new super-hot Disco Show at Linq, even a gambling tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 11 a.m. Thursday \u2026 BAM! I slammed into a kidney-stone wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of you, I\u2019m sure, are aware that pain, especially excruciating unrelenting pain, tends to change things \u2014 perspective, priorities, relationships. Everything. And since I couldn’t pee, it kept getting worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 2\u00bd 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 \u2014 just to have survived this horror show with the odds stacked against me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And here\u2019s one for the ages. Arriving home at 11 p.m. after an absolutely horrific trip, I turn on my house radio and out wafts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes the lights all shining on me.
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it\u2019s been.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a fully qualified Deadhead (with 45 shows in my past), I called out, \u201cHEY JERRY! Man, are you speaking to me from the Grateful beyond and is this some of the ol\u2019 magical Dead synchronicity \u2026or just chance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s now five days later. I\u2019m relatively pain free for the first time in 12 days. Okay, I am sore from the kidney-stone surgery, but that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, how do you know you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grateful for friends who showed up, Medicare and supplemental insurance, and my home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And after I read the September LVA, all I could think about was when can I get back to Vegas?” The adventure continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was to be the best of times and it turned into the worst. Who knew I\u2019d 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 \u201cso many casinos so little time\u201d special trip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86405,"featured_media":843497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/bobby-vegas-friends-dont-let-friends-play-triple-zero-roulette.jpg?fit=980%2C588&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866456,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866453\/revisions\/866456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}