Well I'm Back. Again. - by fett
fett on 22/3/2021 at 01:37
So many things are a blur. I've posted all kinds of stupid crap in my time here, and probably posted this same stuff I'm about to retread here, but I've kind of been poking around in the forums again and playing Thief again (Google it, kids) which has resulted in more than a few questions about my whereabouts and goings on. I think most of you knew I wasn't dead but I honestly don't know if I ever managed to make it over here to say so. I feel funny creating a whole thread about myself, but it's easier than rehashing a dozen times in various places. This may appear to wander a bit, but I'll keep it relevant. It's not short. I actually wrote a book.
* 1998 - diagnosed with a genetic heart mutation (previously unknown to me or my family) that resulted in very aggressive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Was told I would die in six months. Lost everything. Naturally, I started writing Thief walkthroughs on my now defunct Thief site the Keeper Chapel.
* Late 1999 contacted by Dan Todd about bringing the walkthroughs under the TTLG umbrella, discovered this community, DromEd, etc.
* 2000 - disease plateaus (no one knows why it does this) for about 10 years. In the meantime, I become the pastor of Calvary Chapel near Little Rock, AR where I lived at the time. Lots of feeding and housing people, addiction recovery, and arguing with atheists on here until I (and they) were banned. Many. Many. Times.
LGS closes and a bunch of we idiots decided to make Thief 3, which eventually became T2X. It was supposed to take about a year.
*2005 - The one year is finally over and T2X releases. I literally speak with most members of the team on a weekly basis as of 2021. Wow.
*2006 - left ministry, left organized religion, mostly due to conversations and relationships here, Terry Pratchett, and Neil Peart. Moved to the Ozarks where my wife became a nurse. I think this is about the time I wrote the T1 and 2 spoofs in Thief Gen (??)
*2010 - disease progresses again, requiring heart transplant. W.T.A.F. So bizarre to need transplant for HCM no center in the mid-south even knows how to list me. Decide to move to New England/Boston where they do. No jobs available for a new nurse there. So wife hires on with travel nursing company and we take 3 month contracts within listing distance of Tufts in Boston. Belongings go into storage. We start homeschooling the 2 boys, and move 6 times every three months until July 2013.
*2013 - settle in Springfield Mass, near Boston, but after a few months are forced to find another program due to organ shortage and soaring patient need, plus my rate of deterioration. We relocate to Hershey, PA for treatment and transplant listing again. I spend 2 out of every 8 weeks living on the iCU with a swans cath in my neck to accumulate time. It's not needed - but its necessary to check the boxes that keep me eligible for transplant. These admissions continue for about 2.5 years.
*2015 - Liver and kidneys start to fail due to lack of profusion (from the failing heart). Luckily, Penn State is one of 3 places in the country to have a total artificial heart program ((
https://syncardia.com/clinicians/home/) TAH), which is exactly what it sounds like. TTLG raises a shit-ton of money to help pay for the surgery and other expenses. It's implanted in August and I go home after six weeks with a totally synthetic heart, powered by a pump I carry in a backpack.
*2016 - After 4 months at home, in January, I go to the ER in an ambulance after a battle with vertigo and end up staying for 5 months until I receive a donor heart in May. By July I'm the only survivor of 6 patients who were implanted with the TAH within the same time frame 9 months earlier. All friends. Some didn't make it to transplant, others did and died from complications and infections, or rejection.
*2016-2019 - 4 instances of rejection, one acute, requiring massive doses of steroids. 3 months isolation in 2017 due to CMV in the donor heart. Obsessive involvement with Gift of Life and donor advocacy, volunteer work with a gaming group that works in hospitals and children's groups. Consequently contracted debilitating case of shingles in 2018 resulting in massive nerve damage in right leg. Also got back to playing music.
*2020 - Covid, and a relocation to CA- my wife started travel nursing again, working Covid units in the Bay Area. Possibly going to stay since our kids are looking at art schools on the coast.
*2021 - Finally got back to playing some FM's that I've had on a list since 2005. Nostalgia. Stupid Trump crap in the Nuthaus. Really effing hating FB. Here I am.
faetal on 22/3/2021 at 02:00
Keep rolling those sixes.
Tocky on 22/3/2021 at 02:44
You really did a lot in those years in spite of your hardships. I always wonder WTF happened to folks. It's good to have you back.
I didn't do shit but have fun.
I'm not sorry about it though.
Pyrian on 22/3/2021 at 02:53
Wow. Glad you're still with us! I'm sorry our modern cyberhearts are kinda shite instead of giving you super powers. At least it kept you breathing for a few months until you could get a transplant?
fett on 22/3/2021 at 05:46
Yeah, it was honestly the best I've ever felt, but with this weird implant in my chest. The two things that made it really hard:
1) Someone had to be with me 100% of the time. If the pump malfunctioned, someone - who was trained on how to get the backup pump functioning and switch me over - had to be there because I'd most likely be "dead" atm. So a bunch of friends and my immediate family went through a 10 hour training over the course of a week to demonstrate that they could handle it. My boys were 9 and 13 at the time and legally not allowed to be that person. So every place my wife went, except work, I had to go. I couldn't drive obviously, so 3, hour-long round trips to the hospital every week to check INR (blood coagulation) because if it's off even a tad, they're admitting you. It can gum up the device. She worked nights, so friends had to stay over 3-4 nights a week. That got old fast. Worst moment of this is when the kids convinced us that if something went wrong while a friend was there, they were going to be on the hook anyway because they were more familiar with the pump day in/day out. They were right - we were just using friends to buffer them in a worst case scenario. So we ended up just keeping people on call and the boys were literally responsible for my life for 12 hours, 3-4 times a week for a few months. When I had my bad episode of vertigo, Rich, 14 by then, rode in the ambulance because the EMT's didn't even know what the hell I was - he had to educate them during the ride to keep them from killing me.
*footnote to this - one of the people I lost along the way was a 19 kid named Perry who had this implant about 9 months before I did. He was home with just his little sister (shouldn't have been) and the pump just died. Understand - this means the device stops beating inside your chest. No blood is circulating through your body - immediately. This badass jumps up, grabs the backup pump, plugs it into the wall to start it, then cuts grabs a his pocketknife and cuts to zip-ties that secure the pump tubes to the device tubes, detaches the dead pump, attaches the tubes from the backup pump, bada-bing, bada-boom, goes back to watching wrestling or whatever. You have to do this in like 30 seconds or you're definitely going to pass out and be brain dead quick. Badass.
2) The tubes exit the abdomen just below the rib cage on the left, and attached with synthflesh (an actual Thing), then double bandaged with this massive occlusion dressing. I got pretty used to these things hanging out of my abdomen, and lugging the pump around, charging the batteries, etc. But the dressing had to be changed and the area cleaned once a week. They use this stuff called Chlorohexidine which is Latin for "Satan's Piss." I steeled myself for it every week but still ended up moaning and sometimes crying, and the nurses and my wife cried every time they did it. Same for the PICC line dressing on the underside of my arm.
Tocky - I really did. Between 2013-2016 I finished and self-published two novels (after being courted and dumped by about 6 agents and a few publishers), wrote, recorded, and released two power pop albums (recorded the second one almost entirely during hospital stays), and was making notes and writing songs for the autobiographical book/double-length concept album about the whole experience. Needed something to keep me busy and I figure creative output's the best thing to leave behind. I can't sit still, even when I'm dying, haha.
Tomi on 22/3/2021 at 19:19
Hi fett! I don't know you all that well despite being here for twenty years. I can't even imagine what you've been going through really, but I thank you for sharing this with us. You are pretty awesome and I tip my imaginary hat to you.
Aja on 22/3/2021 at 20:16
How's your heart these days?
fett on 22/3/2021 at 21:17
Really good, actually. There's just a trade off - I have other smaller health issues that resulted beyond the general immune-supression. Tangled with diabetes, CMV, shingles, neuropathy, etc. but I'm not in fanger of dying from any of those at least. I just always mention them to disabuse people of the common notion that transplants fix literally everything. I wish a
I could be more active -Covid is pretty much a replay for me - isolate, don't get sick, little to no social life, certainly no playing live. But I guess everyone's going through that atm. Misery loves company....
Aja on 22/3/2021 at 21:44
I'm very glad to hear it :)
Mr.Duck on 23/3/2021 at 03:38
fettums
<3