Status Update

[Tdarcos]

Billy Mays wasn't here for some of my reports, so I'll drop a recap and update.

Oh, through extreme effort, I found my story, which is here: The Ballad of Paul Robinson

(Play opening from Al Stewart's Time Passages) "It was late in September, there wasn't any snow..." Actually, let's go back. Sometime in 2018 I got a problem on the heel of my left foot. A hole about the size of a quarter. It was oozing a gel-like substance, and instead of regular pinkish-white skin, it was jet-black and stringy. It didn't hurt, but I could actually scrape the skin loose with my fingernail, proving conclusively the skin was dead. The technical term for this is "debriding a wound." Okay, I have diabetes: I'm thinking: gangrene. So I can use my wheelchair to go to the Wound Clinic at Washington Adventist Hospial in Takoma Park, Maryland.

They only take people on appointment, so I should go to the emergency room. I do and after a few issues I'm admitted. I am treated, then released to a nursing home. But I still have a hole in my left foot. I have a boot to wear and bandages to change. I am released back to my home. They will even provide a twice a week person to come by. I make a mistake, I'm not taking care of it, I get infected.

I can't move very well, I get re-admitted, I get everything cleared up, (except now I can't move my torso) but in the process, I get a new wound on my right foot, not sure if it was when I was at the hospital or the nursing home. Eventually, I'm to be discharged as medicare stops paying. I talk my sister into taking me. Was a mistake as my family is not up to the challenges of treating an invalid. Or someone with a wound on both feet. The person from the visiting nurses suggests they need to get me back in the hospital. My sister takes a picture of the wound on my right foot, e-mails it to my doctor. His response was they need to call 9-1-1 and get my ass in the hospital. The nurse suggests we tell the paramedics to take me to Virginia Hospital Center as they have one of the best wound clinics in the area. They do and I'm admitted. They have to handle me the way they now treat all suspected covid-19 patients, in hazmat suits. I'm reported to have no infection, they arrange to help me with the paperwork to qualify me for medicaid. I'm transfered to a nursing home, HCR Manorcare, also in Arlington. Eventually my leg has to be cut off; the story is told in the poem above.

To recap: I'm now essentially a quadriplegic from the armpits down, with dupychens' syndrome in my left hand and missing my right leg from above the knee.

[pinback]

How's your mood?

[Flack]

Billy Mays wasn't here for some of my reports, so I'll drop a recap and update.

Oh, through extreme effort, I found my story, which is here: The Ballad of Paul Robinson

For being such a hard thread to find you sure have linked to it a lot in the past hour.

[Billy Mays]

Billy Mays wasn't here for some of my reports, so I'll drop a recap and update.

Dude, I created and run the Tdarchive, started a Paul fan club, started a Paul Tracker to track you specifically, and managed to track your journey through the nursing home using this board's janky and broken search feature:

He started off in 123A on arrival, got transferred to 240A a single room after the amputation due to swearing, somehow ended up in 330B next to a guy running a high fever, and then got sent to a single room 210 for the quarantine.

Also, he has to order his crackers online from Amazon because the staff are not providing him with any.


Paul Robinson
550 S. Carlin Springs Rd. Rm. 210
Arlington VA 22204-1022

Thank you, but why on Earth would you think I of all people needed a recap? I practically meet all of the criteria to start a federally recognized Paul religion.

[RetroRomper]

YOU AREN'T LOVED THY YOUR GOD!

[AArdvark]

time to sacrifice a couple chickens and maybe a pork patty dinner

[Tdarcos]

How's your mood?

Terribly depressed and wanting to die, usually on the hour annd half-hour when WTOP news radio from my roommate's radio announces the latest woes of the world. Unfortunately I can't even kill myself; a few months back I had a very nice 3" pocket knife I used for cutting some food where a butter knifw won't do and to open letters and packages. I wasn't trying to hide it, I wasn't planning to use it on anyone, even myself, but the administrator thought it was a weapon, which she says is prohibited. So i was ordered to surrender it.

However, nobody says a word about my having two pairs of 5" steel scissors.

I had a mental health person come by, and i was cracking jokes and telling stories so she'd know how I felt. i said "I guess now you can see I need to be put on suicide watch" "Of course." and later "Now, I guess you'll be reporting how they need to transfer me to a mental hospital, i'm crazy. After all, anyone who would go see a psychiatrist needs to have their head examined." i was disappointed she didn't find that joke all that funny. Maybe because she wasn't a psychiatrist.

But I'm not going to let bad feelings get to me. I have put up with too much shit to let it win.

[Tdarcos]

Billy Mays wasn't here for some of my reports, so I'll drop a recap and update.

Oh, through extreme effort, I found my story, which is here: The Ballad of Paul Robinson

For being such a hard thread to find you sure have linked to it a lot in the past hour.

Because the motherfucker was a son-of-a-bitch to find, and I don't want to lose the bastard again, goddamit. Right now that's my best cursing I can do right now, I'll get better when I wake up. I'm posting this while sleeping so I can get more things accomplished.

[Tdarcos]

Billy Mays wasn't here for some of my reports, so I'll drop a recap and update.

Thank you, but why on Earth would you think I of all people needed a recap? I practically meet all of the criteria to start a federally recognized Paul religion.

Because you asked for one, goddammit.

[pinback]

"After all, anyone who would go see a psychiatrist needs to have their head examined." i was disappointed she didn't find that joke all that funny. Maybe because she wasn't a psychiatrist.

That wasn't the reason.

[AArdvark]

Heeeeee!

[Tdarcos]

Heeeeee!

Haaaaaaaaw!

[Billy Mays]

Billy Mays wasn't here for some of my reports, so I'll drop a recap and update.

Thank you, but why on Earth would you think I of all people needed a recap? I practically meet all of the criteria to start a federally recognized Paul religion.

Because you asked for one, goddammit.

No I didn't.

[Tdarcos]

Thank you, but why on Earth would you think I of all people needed a recap? I practically meet all of the criteria to start a federally recognized Paul religion.

Because you asked for one, goddammit.

No I didn't.

No, you didn't.

I wish to apologize. I got mad because I thought you asked for more information, then asked why. I went back and checked the last two weeks of your postings and discovered you did not ask me for a status update.

I'm sorry, and I hope you will forgive me. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. May god forgive me, and forgive my trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. I'd throw in a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers if I thought they'd help except I'm not Catholic, don't really know them, and are not sure you'd want them.

[pinback]

Not Catholic? What religion are you then? Let's talk about it over a couple beers.

[Tdarcos]

Not Catholic? What religion are you then? Let's talk about it over a couple beers.

I almost didn't get the joke until I realized you said "Over a couple of beers." Since you had to stop drinking, I realized you knew I was an atheist, same as you, and I'm sure you knew I have never drank alcohol.

Your sense of dry wit is liable to start fires. how about we pick up a couple of broads while we're at it?

Which reminds me of a joke.

[bryanb]

Not Catholic? What religion are you then? Let's talk about it over a couple beers.

I almost didn't get the joke until I realized you said "Over a couple of beers." Since you had to stop drinking, I realized you knew I was an atheist, same as you, and I'm sure you knew I have never drank alcohol.

Yeah, give the man some credit...after 30 years. pinback has finally figured out that you're an atheist. I'm pretty sure that anyone who has visited this board more than once sometime over the last ten years knows that you're an atheist. Nessman knows. The people who only ever visit the ACS forum know. Walrustitty is a bit of a tossup, but my guess is that he knows too at this point.

To be fair, I guess Paul would still have been identifying as an agnostic in the BBS days. I've always been curious if you were as convinced as you are now during the periods when you were religious or agnostic. Are there hundreds of posts archived in a QWK packet somewhere where you explain why everyone who isn't also an agnostic is an idiot? This kind of priceless early online content is exactly why Textfiles.com exists so I hope this stuff resurfaces one day.

[Billy Mays]

I went back and checked the last two weeks of your postings and discovered you did not ask me for a status update.

To be fair, I did ask other people here for a status update but once you resurfaced I considered the matter another successful Paul Track.

[Tdarcos]

Not Catholic? What religion are you then?

I realized you knew I was an atheist, same as you,

To be fair, I guess Paul would still have been identifying as an agnostic in the BBS days.

No, actually I was a Christian. It was about 1987 I came upon a book that turned me agnostic, in two paragraphs.

I've always been curious if you were as convinced as you are now during the periods when you were religious or agnostic.

Sort of. When I was religious I had questions, and my "soul ached" because of mixed-up thinking. When I'd try to think, it was like my mind was trapped in molasses. Or like there was a thick wall inside my mind - a block - I had to get around.

I had an incident when I was about 16. I discovered something in the Bible that I did not like. I asked someone about it. They basically criticized me for attaking the word of god or what I thought was a threat to god, I forget. I think I said something to the effect of, "If a 16-year-old boy with no religious training thought something that is a threat to the word of god, (or to god), the god it represents must be really weak." They couldn't answer that.

Twelve years after that, I read the book that changed my life. While I read the two paragraphs that made me an agnostic, there was a 60-page section that essentially explained that my thinking was contradictatory; you can't believe two mutually exclusive things at the same time, and (while it didn't say so) trying to reconcile the ideas or think two (or more) things that conflict with each other is going to slow your thinking to a crawl.

A short time later I was doing something, and thinking about something, and there was a weird feeling in my head, like I could actually think. The blockage wasn't there any more! I visualized it as a smashed-down concrete wall, reduced to a broken edge and a pile of dust. I could now just step over it.

But the more important part was when I read the two paragraphs, in that moment it hit me: I would never be able to believe in the Christian god again. As far as I knew, that made me an agnostic. About 30 years later, I discovered it also made me an atheist.

Are there hundreds of posts archived in a QWK packet somewhere where you explain why everyone who isn't also an agnostic is an idiot?

Nope, I've never said that. I don't think they are idiots. Of course, I used to be one (Christian, not necessarily an idiot).

People who are religious usually are because they followed their parent's faith. Whivh is why most people in America are Christian, in the Middle East they are mostly Muslim, in Israel, Jewish, in India, probably Hindu, etc.

[Flack]

When I'd try to think, it was like my mind was trapped in molasses.