going off hard stuff may have been a mistake. last night was long and ugly. everything hurts. going to try perc again. hoping it doesn't screw me up.

so, several days later...

(this is patrick, as lack of capital letters will suggest.)

what happened

went ice skating for kid birthday. dude started out - bud had no socks, so damsel ran to get socks, as we were in west ed mall at indoor rink. took dude around rink a couple times, then swung him back in. bud very ready to get onto ice ("hockey hockey hockey!") Damsel's skates not yet on. grabbed bud to take him around.

alternated between crouching while bud flailed on ice and carrying bud while skating. experience of ice not what bud had hoped, very cranky with slippery factor. decided to skate rest of way, cutting across middle rather than sticking to wall.

got to middle before fall. not sure why. think it was minor balance issue that i'd have corrected for had not been carrying bud, who added 25 pounds to top of body. horrible skater, but good balance.

saw that fall was going to bring bud down hard, so twisted to come down on left, not right. had moment of success as bud landed on butt. then hit hard on left side. left arm outstretched as part of twist, and hit with, it felt like, armpit. i know. not actually possible to lead with armpit. still felt that way. not even pain as much as pop, shock.

bud didn't cry -- too surprised. said vague comforting stuff, tried to roll over and get him off ice, realized immediately that arm did not work. no lifting. managed somehow to get bud up in right arm, get to wall. signalled for help. vicki loh came over to get bud (wow, she and kevin are good skaters) and i, now with free arm, went along wall to get out.

damsel wanted me to go to er. took five to see how i was doing, realized how much i could not move arm, agreed. mom (in town for buds bday) watched bys at party while damsel tookme to hospital near west ed.

er experience good. evidently looked very injured. walked in, nurse said, you sit over here, we'll get you someone fast. shoulder worse at this point.

cranky 20-something in softball uniform came in shortly after. clearly thought she should be at front of line. nurse asked if she were there to visit someone. guilty pleasure on my part.

er was fast. whizzed through. damsel says i was gray, which had to help. nurse (nice, got me ice), then doctor (brusque, didn't help me take off shirt), then x-rays just ahead of softball girl (ha!), then doc. confirmed broken shoulder, said would forward to ortho, sent me home with tylenol-3.

mom handled boys, as did other awesome folks at party. damsel did most talking at er. ended up gaving to channel memory of old martial arts teacher to pee. (think of what i needed to do, do it, plan steps)

sunday night

tylenol-3 soothing, effective at taking edge off. dry, bitter aftertaste, but very full-bodied painkiller.

surgery day

got call next morning (slept downstairs in heartburn chair) to come in for surgery. odd miscommunication -- er docs implied orthos would give more detailed info, while orthos just went, "yeah, come on in for surgery asap, and don't eat anything," which stung a bit given that damsel had just brought me fresh scones.

damsel drove me to ortho hospital in st albert. then sat awhile. then was friendly to intake person and subsequently got private room. eventually went into pre-op still with no idea what was going on. everyone still seemed to think someone else had given info, and damsel took "we don't discuss specifics until pre-op, and not with spouse," well. iv seemed uncomfortable at time, but i would later learn about far less comfortable things.

very intense doc told me about surgery. recognized patter designed to get fear so that i'd agree to planned surgery, didn't really care. arm broken, part of shoulder went down into broken area. plates and screws and life changes.

had to climb from gurney thing onto op table. awkward and painful. was told others had not done so well. yay me.

wham anesthetic

woke up while wheeling into room. everyone said it went fine. damsel agitated. learned later it went long and didn't have info for her on why. tried to reassure damsel. she says i was very cute. answered question, caught her laugh, asked if i had just answered something she asked a half hour agi. she said yes, and then, a short time later, i asked "really?" in embarrassment.

long night

many good nurses. one bad one.

told to drink lots of water so i can pee. threat of catheter used to show iimportance of peeing. i drink a crapton of water. then morphine makes me puke up all the water. complete failure to pee.

morphine: strong and effective, the man's man of painkillers. since it made me puke up water, i will not be returning to it.

in morning, i receive a catheter. after i remove my pants, rubber tube stuck up my urethra by two attractive blond nurses, one of whom has a nose ring. a bit like starring in porn for a fetish you don't share.

one of good nurses talks with me about things instead of morphine. gives me percocet instead. awesome. people talk about going weird, and i sort of do, but it's not like i thought it would be. not intrusive acid trip. instead, when i close my eyes and do what i normally do to sleep -- relax and free associate -- i get vivid image of antique store filled with thousands of frogs with pennies stuck on their backs, and as they all ribbit, it makes a coppery shimmer of light go across the room from the way the pennies catch the light.usually, you know, feathers, snowflakes, leaves blowing in wind. frogs with pennies on their backs? less common.

after catheter, am able to pee. have to pee (very painful thanks to catheter and removal of same). have to pee into measuring bucket so output and intake can be compared.

doc comes in, gives intense pep talk. physio person comes in, gives exercises. good nurse comes in, changes my dressings. very particular, has to be done as doc requested. hurts like hell.

later, bad nurse comes in, insists dressings are wrong. ignores my "but doc specifically said" with reassurances that this willl be better. refuses to call doc or good nurse. hurts like hell again. also patronizing. most people know how well i react to that. later, damsel chews herr ass out.

home tuesday night. damsel near tears from stress, than caught by speed trap. has to pull off onto gravel to get ticket, hurts my shoulder, she bursts into tears.

now
home since tuesday night. have watched many eps of bones. started watching listener (meh) and mentalist (ooh) and caught ghost rider and under siege, both awesome in their badness.

down to normal ibuprofen. both perc and ty-3 started making me dizzy, nauseous. up periods of wanting to go into work followed by pain and shiverweakness.pissed off at feeling disgusting. get weak attacks near planned wash times.

hanging in. still kind of sucks. wanted to be better by now. still, normal drugs after plate in shoulder three days ago not bad.

all i can think of. thanks to jamie for watching boys and jenny for shopping and cookie for taking mom to airport and mom for staying two extra days and everyone at work for covering for damsel and me. leaning on a lot of people right now.

Hi, again - Patrick is back home this evening, drugged to high heaven on Percocet (or however the hell you spell that), but happy to be here. The surgeon was quite pleased with how the surgery went: he has a couple pins and a plate (and Oh, Yes, airports will now have yet another fun step to them; he has an MRI warning, too), as well as the tendons/ligaments, etc. in his shoulder being "un-squished".  Except for 3x daily physio, he has to keep it isolated for 6 weeks. (!) Thanks for the encouragement on keeping up with the physiotherapy -- really helpful to have the words of experience right now.

Jokes about one-handed typing are being fielded with good humor during his times of coherence. :D

His shoulder is still stained with pink antiseptic solution, his arm has some spectacular bruising under the dressing, and the bondage sling is a thing to behold. For those of you who know his obsessive displeasure with having ink/writing on his hands, you can imagine that the "---------- OTHER SIDE ------------",written down his good arm in giant blue letters with a seemingly fairly permanent marker, is not creating feelings of joy. But it did seem to help ensure that they got the correct shoulder fixed.

He was on our notebook reading your kind words just about as soon as we got him settled into the recliner, so thanks on his behalf (and mine) for all the encouragement and support. :)

- Karin

Greetings -

Thanks SO MUCH for the good wishes! Patrick's surgery seemed to go well, though it went over an hour longer than expected, so not quite sure why. The break was actually a fracture in his humerus (insert joke), so they realigned it and put some pins in. He was quite woozy and sporting some impressive medical bondage gear to keep everything isolated this evening. I'm headed back up in the morning, so hopefully can talk to a doc and get a detailed scoop on details and recovery.

Again, giant hugs and thanks to everyone for nice notes! You have no idea how comforting it is (for both of us!)

Gratefully - Karin

Quick post to report that we're headed into a hospital for Patrick to get surgery on his shoulder. Thanks for all the nice wishes; he can't type, but he can read, and you are all awesome and wonderful and making him feel much better. THANK YOU!!!

This is not actually Patrick -- it is the wife, posting on his behalf with a note that he won't be online much for the next little while, as he broke his shoulder this afternoon. We were ice skating at a young friend's birthday party -- he was skating with the Bud, they slipped, and he did a heroic "twist yourself around to keep your kid from falling" maneuver, landing hard on his elbow. This apparently jammed his arm up into the end of his collarbone, so one or the other is chipped. Or something. Not entirely sure yet.

The ER doc said that the procedure for emergency stuff like this is to pass the x-rays and files on to a team of orthopedic surgeons to determine whether or not he needs surgery, so we're supposed to hear from them Monday or Tuesday.

He's hurting fairly bad, is doing better on the pain drugs for now, but he has to keep it isolated - I asked HOW isolated, and, unfortunately, that does include typing. I fear that may be his undoing. (Although it has been suggested that if he finishes up his dialogue for the game one-handed and on painkillers, it could add a very entertaining Hunter S. Thompson vibe to the last character he's working on.)

His mom was up for the weekend for the Bud's birthday and has kindly arranged to stay here a few extra days, so that will be really nice. The no-typing thing is going to be very interesting for a while. I'm sure anyone who reads this knows what I'm up against in trying to enforce this one...

Regards -- the Damsel

This phase of the VO process is, I believe, like running from the boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. You run. You run fast. The boulder moves behind you at a steady rate, and as long as you keep running, you are good. Sometimes you pick up a little speed, and you gain some ground on the boulder, and you think, "Hey, sweet, this is fine!"

And then you see a rock in the path. Today, the rock was our designer toolset crapping out because the sheer size of this game is doing things to the database that no database should have to put up with. So hey, no saving for an hour while everyone scrambles to put that out. (The tools guys were excellent. Again, this is not "Oh, sucky tools." This is tools built for text games that are now handling text and VO and cinematic animation instructions and all kinds of fun stuff.)

Or another rock, a critical "Hey, take a look at this," problem that eats a key couple of hours. And you stumble, and right yourself, and keep running.

And the boulder? The boulder does not slow down.

Someone asked me today if I'd listened to some of the stuff that's gone off to be recorded. I hadn't, because really, once it's off to VO, it is officially behind the boulder. I am not concerned with "behind the boulder". I am concerned with the boulder, and what it will do if I do not keep running at a speed equal to that of the boulder, on average. Later, when everything is recorded, at least first pass-wise, I will come back to the temple and look through the hallways and see what the boulder has left behind.

That all sounds negative. It's not. Somebody played a line I'd written today that had one of our most jaded and cynical people laughing hysterically. Another bit, which I wrote at least half on a dare from my wife, is actually getting into the game, and the people who find it are going to squee like nobody's business.

I think we're near the top of the hill, for reals this time. All but one of my big major plots are out of my hands, and all but two of the characters with whom I was lucky enough to have a hand. (One of the two is just getting a final editing pass. Getting the other is next week's big task, and wow, it's going to sting, but I had the one-sentence revelation that told me what I needed to do to make the character work.*

And there are some tiny small bits, the equivalents of the people arguing in ambients as you walk by or the tiny little roleplaying plots that break up the action here or there. But I've signed off on those, so they are mostly, as far as I am concerned, behind the boulder.

This is going to be a fantastic game. And with antibiotics kicking in and an actual weekend off last week, I'm actually feeling it again.

Until the next rock pops up in my way, anyway.

* Tangential, but I describe most of my character writing the way I describe my attempts to sing: I can't actually do it. I just impersonate people who can. I can only sort of carry a tune on my own, but I can nail the high notes in the Les Miz song "Bring Him Home" provided I'm doing my impersonation of Colm Wilkinson. With characters, I need an easy "Oh, it's like this." A broad stroke, an "Oh, it's Kaylee from Firefly" or "Denzel Washington in Training Day, as played by a small white woman." An impersonation. By the time I'm finished with the character, it's not an impersonation any longer, but the broad initial stroke gives me a set of parameters within which I can work and flesh out who this person is and what they would say or do in a given situation. It's what I do with most of my characters in my own writing, and it's worked well so far for me at BioWare.

• 15:28 Finally got the mental ping I needed to write an important character well. Very very happy. #

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• 09:21 Feels nice to feel healthy at work again. Diving into another busy week. #

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• 21:06 Show support for democracy in Iran add green overlay to your Twitter avatar with 1-click - helpiranelection.com/ #
• 21:07 I am going to be honest. The "easy one-click Twitter Iran-supporting avatar change" is not without drawbacks. #

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Hello. My name is Patrick Weekes, and once upon a time, I had a blog.

That was before life came in and kicked the crap out of it.

Work... continues. Mass Effect 2 has won a crapload of E3 awards, as have other BioWare games. I am intensely proud of that, despite having little to no participation in anything related to that demo. I am also really hoping that we're near the top of the hill, because neither I nor the Damsel can take much more. We're very close to burn-out.

Every human in the family has been sick twice in the past two weeks, which seems a bit unfair for one of the four months of decent weather Edmonton has. The new cats are settling in nicely and have a generally good relationship with everyone except Avelie, who is a butt. And a couple of days ago, we took in a foster dog that someone had been mistreating. He's sweet and nice and very very very very skittish. He dug a small hole for himself in the backyard, and whenever anything scares him -- the screen door, a passing car, me blowing my nose -- he goes over and lies down in his hole, which is kind of the saddest thing ever.

He's underfed, too -- the way he walks reminds me of a horse, because you can see his shoulderblades as he lopes along, and he's got these long skinny legs and long thin body despite being at least mostly beagle. (We're thinking an underfed teenage beagle/retriever mix, maybe.)

So yeah, sad, but very friendly, and incredibly good with the boys. (Who were also incredibly good with him. Slow movement, soft voices, hugs, all very nice.)

The Dude's love affair with secrets and surprises continues:

Dude: Daddy, you're home! We got you a surprise at the store!

Me: Great!

Mom: Don't tell him what it is!

Dude: Okay! We hid it in Gavin's room!

Me: Don't tell me what it is!

Dude: Okay! ... Daddy, come with me. I need to show you something.

Mom: You're not going to show him the surprise, are you?

Dude: (whispers) Daddy, come with me.

Ah, secrets.

ETA: Okay, I wrote most of that a few days ago. Then I got a nasty headache. And it stayed. And yesterday, I finally went to the doctor and got medicine for a sinus infection. This one snuck up on me -- usually, I'm snotting all over the place, but I was just kind of congested, and I didn't notice it until it was so bad that I was lying down moaning because of the pressure on my eyeballs. The Damsel gave me a ride home yesterday, because I wasn't in driving shape.

So yes, hopefully work getting close to end of craziness, because my body is getting close to end of functionality.

• 21:18 Aha. Not tension headache. Sinus infection. STEALTH sinus infection. Had to leave work early, get driven home. Bad headache. #

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• 09:26 Trading half-day with Damsel. Sick boys, sick daycare provider. Not what we needed at this point in project. #
• 10:45 New foster dog wasn't fed well. Skinny, skittish. Scared of screen door, men, cars, nose-blowing. #

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• 10:42 Running fever, but need to be here for big character meeting. Ibuprofen is my buddy. #
• 19:45 Headed home after big meeting. Got sleep. Fever down a bit. Damsel making sure I keep taking Tylenol. #

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• 17:56 Oh. Fever. That would explain it. #

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• 10:03 Boys back from the doctor. Seems like just fever plus dots. Nothing serious. Still glad we went. #
• 11:15 Just got quoted on Kotaku. Next time, will check spelling before posting on touchy topic. tinyurl.com/myfst3 #

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• 10:45 Home again w/boys this morning. Dude better, Bud has fever now.Probably making up work this weekend. #
• 15:01 Red spots on both boys' chests. CRAP. Checking websites now. Hopefully fever-rash, not chicken pox. #
• 18:23 @eighteenmayors I keep reading about you eating tacos and being VERY CONCERNED until I parse. #
• 18:23 And now at work. Time for a productive day. At night. #
• 18:42 Damsel thinks kids could have roseola. Am now singing "Rosy Aureola" to Music Man's "Gary, Indiana." Ah, sleep debt... #

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• 09:23 Home with sick boys. #
• 09:53 Dude's fever-shivers are heartbreaking. Helpless watching while he hurts. #
• 10:34 @lastsyllable Yeah, know towel trick. Dude hates it. Just did it anyway. Seemed to help. He's being brave. Heartbreaking. #
• 11:15 @lastsyllable Oh yeah. Midnight, six, and ten. Won't make it 'til 2. May have to alternate Tylenol and Advil (have both). #
• 14:19 At work now. Damsel home, watching boys. Mindwiped but need to get a few things done. #

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• 18:52 Damsel feeling better. No puke! Has disinfected all the doorknobs, though. #
• 00:09 Now Dude has fever. Awake with crackers, water, TV, bucket, hoping not to need the last. #
• 00:40 @therinth Nazi Rocket Women from the Eighth Dimension, a Novel #
• 01:09 Dude still up. Fever less bad, though. Crackers were good idea. #

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• 18:51 Damsel sick. Buddies brought gatorade, crackers, ginger ale. Planning pajama party with boys. #
• 18:52 Do not have it in me to care whether carrots are consumed tonight. #
• 21:27 Dude asleep. Damsel has given in and is nursing the Bud. Hope we're not getting him sick, too. #
• 23:38 New cat downstairs with me, dog. Dog SO WANTS TO BE FRIENDS. #

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