Check Your Fish Before Eating. Just Do It. Thank Me Later.

It's been a great tour, but it's all got to wind down at some point.  The boys of TVF have one more show left, and then they return to the great state of MA.  I guess I can't really judge how the tour has really been, seeing as I actually wasn't there...but I made great day sheets!  I really did.  I put down the closest Wal-Mart at every tour stop.  And an amp repair shop.  

Where was I?  I was at home.

A series of unfortunate events unfolded themselves right before I was supposed to depart with The Venetia Fair.

  

This was just one of the days.

My grandfather now rests, and I got a fishbone stuck in my insides.

My esophagus, to be exact.  It seems to be the case at all Italian functions, funerals included, that food plays a dominant role.  Following our final goodbyes to my grandfather, we proceeded to a nice restaurant in Queens, where I ingested many a great food item.  Sadly, I didn't check my fish well enough whilst nom-ing, and--WOOPS!  It seems that a small fishbone is now tickling my diaphragm from inside of my esophagus.  

And when I say tickling, I mean stabbing violently.  

Night in the Hospital: not as fun or profitable as Ben Stiller's Night in the Museum

We didn't really know it was that bad, at first.  I spent a couple of days thinking that I had bad gas, that I ate too much, that there was a little too much Italian magic in the food that weekend.  The bone was unknowingly lodged in me on a Friday, but I didn't go to the ER until Sunday.  

Oh, the fine doctors thought it was a lot of things.  Hepatitis, kidney stones, heart attack (wha??), ulcer, a hernia, gastritis, a bacteria colonizing my insides.  They sent me home with some antacid and told me to follow up.  See ya.

They never shut the lights off in the hospital, or close the door all the way.

I did follow up, and was told I needed to have a camera put down my throat.  YESSSSSSSS.

That was scheduled for Wednesday.  BUT IT'S MONDAY WAAAAAAAAH IT HURTS NOWWWWW.  

If smell could come through photos, this would be a putrid photograph.  

Actually, it did really hurt...REAL BAD.  So we finagled a few bagels, pushed a few buttons, and boom, I'm in the waiting room on Tuesday being denied service because I apparently don't have an appointment.  But we worked it out, I got in, they stuck a camera down my throat, the doctors had a good laugh, I wake up from sleepy-fun and then go back into sleepy-fun to get it removed this time, and then, HEY.  It's gone for good and now it's on display on my bureau.   

This was in me.

Lots of could-haves on this one, starting with the most painful, which is that I could have chewed correctly, like a fully-functioning adult.  But hey, bones are sneaky in your food.  Watch out for them all.  

Vegans around the world rejoice at the fish taking its revenge on the evil humans.  Pescatarians shiver.

If I had waited until Wednesday to get that camera in my throat, then I might not be so alive a boy.  Something about blood turning to poison, coma, puncturing diaphragm, contaminating my chest cavity.  No way to tell.

  

It didn't happen, though, so we're all happy about that.  Two days of the jell-o diet, courtesy of Mr. Bill Cosby himself.  

Except make it the red kind that turns to water if you leave it out of the refrigerator too long.

I'm on soft foods now, which is basically anything that doesn't require chewing.  We'll get back to toddler-level motor skills at some point, I'm sure of it, but for now overcooked pasta is just great for me.  

So plans went awry, it happens.  I've made the best of it all.  Some days the best was getting out of the house to go to a music store around the corner, other days the best was stumbling around Salem in a Jell-O induced drunken state with my girlfriend chasing me and telling me that I'm an idiot.  JUST THE BEST.

As for The Venetia Fair?  I've talked to Ben a few times since they left, and the tour has been going great.  My protege, Dump (honestly, who names their kid Dump?), has been at the helm of the merch stand, hopefully entertaining and blasting off on to all of you.  

"You've got to live on, merch stand.  DO YOU HEAR ME?!  LIVE GODDAMMIT."

My girlfriend just left for a month-long trip in Europe.  I weep.  BUT my boys are coming back in a couple of days, I'm playing music with some nice folks in Jamaica Plain, and the good doctor told me that I'm free to eat real food as soon as I can take a deep breath and not cringe.

I WILL EAT EVERY FISH THAT IS LEFT ON THIS PLANET.*

Wake up, Antwon.

*which I've heard is not very many.