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Project Runway’s Ven Budhu in deep doodoo

2012
08.25

The following post contains Project Runway season 10 spoilers.

What a bad week for Ven Budhu.

It’s been clear from the start that he’s one of season 10′s strongest contenders – great design skills, wonderful construction, lovely taste. His flat affect and his open disregard for his competitors hasn’t really won as many fans as some of the others, but his skills are formidable.

But this week he really stepped in it. Not only was he shown to be a callous ass to a “real woman” (as he put it) but his Twitter feed after this Thursday’s show demonstrates an appalling lack of PR skills, not to mention an atrocious use of social media.

In this week’s “makeover” challenge, designers were told to create outfits for non-models, complete with new hairdo and makeup. There’s one of these types of challenges almost every season, and they’re always a fan favorite. Some designers, like Gunnar Deatherage, embraced the challenge and really enjoyed it. Others, like Ven, clearly hated it from the start.

Ven’s dislike for the challenge boiled over to open contempt for his client. He called her “plus-sized” at size 14 (“right on the cusp,” corrected Tim Gunn), suggesting that she had no sense of style, and even insulting her age (40, he thought, although she’s only in her mid-30s).

His garment was awful, his construction was not up to par, his color choice for her complexion and hair color were atrocious, but none of this mattered: To hear Ven explain it in the footage shown, he felt he had been unfairly handicapped with an ugly, fat woman with no style or taste.

He didn’t say this to her, but his callousness and snipes like telling her “black was slimming” had his client in tears. What’s worse, her friend who advocated for her to be on the show was in tears. Ven’s fellow contestants looked appalled by what he was saying. And the judges made their displeasure clear by keeping him after this week’s loser was eliminated, letting Ven sweat it out and think that he, too, may have been on the chopping block.

It was nauseatingly egotistical and truly vile. And while I suspect Project Runway’s producers edited Ven’s interview and his comments in the workroom to raise dramatic attention and make him even more abrasive, I don’t think they had to work that hard. After all, even after the runway drama in which Ven was kept aside for a stern rebuke by the judges, he insisted that his design wasn’t one of the three worst (it absolutely was).

But this isn’t the worst of it. Starting on Thursday night, Ven Budhu’s Twitter feed lit up with comments he posted during the episode, accusing the producers of not really randomly assigning clients to designers, then defending his cruel comments by saying “the truth hurts sometimes.” He also said that it wasn’t his fault her belts didn’t fit (though he should have known her measurements full well before he fitted her for accessories), and more. Even when he compliments her, he does it backhandedly (“She was pretty but difficult shape to work with.”)

Really, I’m left wondering after this episode why anyone would want to work with Ven Budhu. He just seems like a douchebag.

Terri Herlihy, his client in this episode, wasted no time in countering Ven’s Twitter whining. Her account, created a week ago, quickly filled up with rebukes to Ven’s comments on the show and on Twitter, including this: “You didn’t give a shit about my life & why I was there. You can’t hack it.”

Which was pretty much what Budhu was told by Terri’s friend and the judges, too.

If you check Twitter for mentions of @venbudhu, you’ll find scores of angry, bitter comments from viewers of the show who were disgusted by his comments and his tweets, too. Very few of them are actually sympathetic.

All Budhu had to do at the outset was a short, contrite, genuine apology. Something to the effect of, “I realize in retrospect how hurtful my comments to Terri were, I apologize and wish I had done better.” He undoubtedly still would have gotten some angry comments from other Twitter users, but it would have blown over quickly. Now it’s clear that the worm has turned and Ven is no longer a fan favorite.

How that will effect the judges over the long term remains to be seen. They’ve let some designers with really loathsome personalities win in years past, so Ven’s execrable behavior may not matter for them in the long term.

I, for one, will be very disappointed if he wins.

Category World View |

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Cognitive dissonance in the Romney campaign, on abortion

2012
08.20

Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin stepped in it this weekend with his medieval theory that children can’t be conceived in instances of rape, and the GOP is rushing away from his regressive and stupid position in droves. The Romney/Ryan campaign wasted no time in distancing itself as well.

Yet Romney’s own Web site makes it pretty clear that he’s staunchly pro-life:

Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade – a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.

Well, this week anyway. Back in ’94, in a debate with Ted Kennedy, Romney said:

“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it, and I sustain and support that law, and the right of a woman to make that choice, and my personal beliefs, like the personal beliefs of other people, should not be brought into a political campaign.”

Mittens’ flip-flopping hypocritical attempt to pander to social conservatives in his own party aside, one of the things he makes clear is support for the Hyde Amendment, and he says that he’ll end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

I’m left to wonder: Where the hell are these victims of rape expected to get safe and legal abortions, once we leave it up to each individual state to come up with its own laws on the issue, and once one of the few safe and reliable avenues for the procedure are gone?

I said it before and I’ll say it again, Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a prophecy of life in the 21st century.

Category World View |

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The specter of more surgery is finally gone

2012
08.18

The PICC line is finally gone. After a month and a half, my left arm is finally free of the encumbrance of a catheter running to my heart.

Each Thursday I visit the local wound care center, and for the past month and a half the podiatrist who examines my foot has been suggesting that I’ll need more surgery, since the incision made on the plantar side of my foot hasn’t been healing very fast.

At the end of July I went to see the infectious disease doc who ordered the PICC line installed and the IV antibiotic treatment, and he gave the all clear to have the line removed. The podiatrist countermanded that request, however, insisting that it stay in in case I needed to be hospitalized for more surgery, as I’d need more IV treatment.

I’ve made significant progress in the last week or two, however, and the podiatrist gave the all clear to have the line pulled. The visiting nurse who came yesterday pulled it out. So the good news is the PICC line is gone. The better news is that my foot doesn’t need more surgery.

I’m still hobbling around on a walker with one foot clad in a hospital shoe, so I’m not fully recovered yet, but it’s a good feeling to make this progress.

Category Navel Gazing |

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Hyperbaric treatment

2012
08.13

It’s been more than a month since I was discharged from the hospital, and I’m seeing a doctor at the wound care center weekly who has been tracking my progress. He’s not satisfied with the closure of the wound on the bottom of my foot and has indicated I made need more surgery – his suspicion is osteomylitis, or a bone infection – specifically in one of te bones in my third toe. To prepare for that, and in the hopes it may speed my recovery along, he’s ordered hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT).

For the uninitiated, they stick you in a big acrylic tube about seven feet long and flood it with pure oxygen at high pressure for couple of hours. The theory is that HBOT improves the oxygenation of your blood, directly and indirectly helping along tissue regeneration.

It’s an interesting experience. You’re told to strip naked except for a hospital jonny, no jewelry, cologne or even deodorant allowed. Then you’re inserted into this cylindrical chamber of clear one inch-thick acrylic, with a 250 pound steel door locked and bolted above your head. Then you hear the oxygen pressurizing the chamber. Within seconds your ears pop (you have to clear them repeatedly for about 15 minutes until arriving at the appropriate pressure). Then you just sit, and wait.

Fortunately they positioned a TV above the chamber, and sound is pumped in, so I could watch a movie while I lay there. I couldn’t shift or turn very easily, though, which made adjusting my weight difficult – I was getting fidgety by the end.

The closest thing I can compare it to is an MRI, because you’re in this big machine and you have to lie relatively still. But the experience is very different because the acrylic is transparent, so it’s not nearly as claustrophobia-inducing, and there’s no WHAM WHAM WHAM noise – just the hissing of gas.

We’ll see if it’s effective enough to help my body speed the closure of the wound. I’d really like not to have another surgery if I can help it. I’ve been off my feet for a month and a half and don’t want to be off them again for another two months.

Category Navel Gazing |

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Elizabeth Warren’s confusing infrastructure math

2012
08.08

Let me say at the outset that I’m supporting Elizabeth Warren in her senate run this fall – I have reasons to do so that mainly are related to displeasure over decisions Scott Brown has made. But one thing about her new spot against Scott Brown really pisses me off.

She makes the point that our infrastructure – roads, bridges, public works – is crumbling and that we can put unemployed workers in jobs immediately. Sure, it’s a good message if you believe that infrastructure improvements can change the economy. It’s argued that it certainly worked for FDR back in the Depression days, putting the unemployed to work on projects like the TVA.

Ideology aside, she goes off the rails when she starts spouting numbers. Warren indicates that the US spends 2.4 percent of its GDP on infrastructure, compared to 9 percent for China. I guess this is supposed to jolt us into thinking we underpay and under budget for such a vital need, especially after a country that we’ve come to think of as a global economic rival.

According to the World Bank, China’s 2011 GDP was $7.3 trillion. The USA’s was $15.09 trillion.

The USA’s GDP was twice China’s. Nine percent of China’s GDP is less than 4.5 percent of the US’s. It’s not an apples to apples comparison by any stretch.

And that assumes that comparing infrastructure costs to GDP is a valid measure to begin with. I don’t know enough about economics to understand if it is, but I can do basic arithmetic.

Accepting the premise that we spent proportionately half as much as China for infrastructure is a specious argument at best, even disregarding the math problems inherent in her statement. They have four times the population, many of whom are living in communities with scarce resources, in primitive conditions – no running water or electricity, dirt roads. Their infrastructure needs are dramatically different than the United States, as is their economic growth.

When Warren sticks to her ideology and the issues, she says things I like and things that I agree with. Trying to confuse people with fuzzy math and fuzzier economics isn’t the right way to do it. I hope this isn’t a trend.

Category World View |

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Bonnie is my awesome (and hot) footcare nurse

2012
08.07

When it comes to taking care of my foot, Bonnie gets the shit end of the stick. She’s been my nursemaid since I came home from the hospital, and as soon as the Visiting Nurses Association knew she lived with me, they made sure she understood how to change my foot dressing and medicate the wound site. That reduced the frequency of their visits drop from daily to every other day, and for the last several weeks, now that they’re happy with her technique and my progress, weekly.

Every day sheBonniechanges the bandage on my foot, and she’s gotten quite good at it – good enough that two doctors complimented her on her technique last week, along with the VNA nurse who came out last Friday to change my PICC line dressing. Bonnie’s meticulous about it. She knows exactly what to do, sets all the supplies up she needs ahead of time, pops on a couple of latex gloves and gets to work. The whole process takes about ten minutes from start to finish – unraveling the old bandages, checking the wound, dabbing it with a powerful antibiotic wash, and then rebandaging both the top and the bottom of the foot while wrapping the entire foot in gauze to keep the bandages in place. It’s really a feat of dexterity.

One side effect of getting a really bad case of swelling in the foot is that the outer skin layers have been peeling off like I have a bad sunburn. At least a few times now, doctors and nurses have peeled away dead skin from my toes as if they were peeling grapes. An unsettling experience, to say the least.

After consultation with nurses and doctors, Bonnie’s moisturizing the foot (at least in the areas away from the wound site). While some people make foot moisturizing part of their regular hygiene, it’s something I never did before the hospitalization. In the hopes that it’ll help quicken the healing process and exfoliate the dead skin that needs to come off anyway, she started doing it about a week ago.

And for the past week or so, the towels Bonnie’s used to put under my feet as she changes the dressing have come away with what looks like snow on them — all dead skin just coming off my foot in flakes.

I guess this is the “in sickness” part of the vows we repeated when we got married. It’s a good thing she loves me, because it’s disgusting and I don’t even want to deal with it, but she handles it like a champ and does a wonderful job and I love her all the more for it.

Category Family Matters |

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Showering with bandages

2012
08.05

I was all set to get the PICC line pulled this week after a meeting with the infectious disease doctor who’s been tracking my progress since I went to the hospital last month. He gave the all clear but then changed his mind after he talked to the doctor at the wound care center who’s treating me; he’s convinced I’ll need more surgery and wants to leave in the line so I can get IV infusions without poking new holes in my arm. So it’s status quo for now, and I can’t say I’m thrilled about it.

One of the big inconveniences of dealing with both a PICC line and a bandaged foot is bathing. Neither can get wet, so they have to be wrapped in something waterproof. For me, this means wrapping my upper arm and my left leg below the knee in plastic cling wrap.

Trying to do it yourself is actually quite difficult, so I’ve recruited my daughter to assist. She’s gotten pretty adept at wrapping me and doesn’t seem to mind too much.

Even then, though, I have to be really careful to avoid letting water get underneath the wrap. The hospital gave me some blue tape called Coflex – a “latex cohesive flexible bandage,” or form of compression wrap, which the nurses used to wrap up the ends of the cling wrap when I showered there. but it invariably unravels in the shower.

So I end up in the shower, balancing all my weight on my “good side,” with the wrapped parts as far away from the water as possible. It’s comical. And a bit horrifying.

Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t fallen and cracked my head yet.

Category Navel Gazing |

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Illness as an aversion therapy to food

2012
07.31

I’m convinced the nine days in the hospital, pumped full of antibiotics and watching commercial TV from dawn til dusk, changed something about how I’m wired for food.

Sitting in the hospital bed with 50 channels of basic Comcast cable to keep me company, I was shocked at how many of the TV ads that run during the day are pitching food to people. And it’s shit too, fast food, heavily processed snacks with no nutritional value, and other high-margin stuff that really, in a perfect world, no one would eat.

I went into the hospital weighing about 336 pounds. Yesterday I stepped on a doctor’s scale for the first time since June, and I weight 311. I’ve lost 25 pounds since my hospitalization. 25 pounds in a month is quite a bit; I’m sure next month won’t be anywhere close to this. But it’s a positive trend.

This isn’t because I’ve adopted a radical new exercise regimen – in fact, because of the condition of my foot and the presence of a PICC line in my left arm, I’m not allowed to exercise at all. It’s simply because I’ve totally lost interest in eating all the crap I used to.

What’s more, seeing imagery of people eating that stuff on TV makes me feel a little ill.

I’d love to righteously trumpet that I’ve consciously made this decision, but I have a different theory.

When I was 20 I was living in Southern California, crashing at my mother’s apartment and working a tech support job in Irvine. That year an exotic form of a stomach bug cropped up and I got it, and got it harder than I can ever remember getting an illness before then except maybe for chicken pox.

For a good two or three days, I was able to move about as far as the bathroom, to either puke or shit bilge water, then to the kitchen for a glass of water, then back to the sofa and in front of the TV.

This also happened to be when McDonald’s was pushing the McRib big-time. Almost every commercial break featured an ad for the McRib – this processed pork patty on a roll with pickles and onions.

Under other circumstances I might have found it appetizing. But seeing as I did through the filter of being violently ill, it made me want to puke.

The first time I drove by a McDonald’s after I recovered, I pulled in and bought a McRib. I opened up the container, caught one whiff of it, spied it in the box, and ran to the bathroom and dry-heaved for a few minutes. To this day, I haven’t been able to eat a McRib.

I’ve been able to eat plenty of other McShit over the years, and can enjoy a pulled pork sandwich with the best of them, but the McRib is my Waterloo.

I’m convinced that for me, anyway, being ill triggers an aversion response to certain things that become a constant stimulus. In this particular case, I’ve completely lost interest in the typical junk that American families cram their faces with – fast food, high-sugar high-cholesterol snacks, and so on. Because that’s all I saw advertised on TV from dawn to dusk.

Remaining on a steady diet of intravenous and oral antibiotics since then has, I’m sure, helped me along with appetite suppression. But I don’t think that’s the only difference.

Obviously this behavior change for the better. As a diabetic with a BMI squarely in the “morbidly obese” range, eating that shit is about the same to me as playing Russian Roulette. I want to lose weight and have wanted to for a very long time.

It just took a long stay in the hospital, being sick in front of the TV, to trick myself into agreeing.

Category Uncategorized |

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Back at home

2012
07.10

In all the commotion I haven’t had the presence of mind to update Tikkabik since I was discharged from the hospital this past Friday. I’m home now, resting comfortably.

The doctor has prescribed antibiotics that are being administered through an IV, which I have to push myself three times a day – 5AM, 1PM and 9PM. It’s a routine, and while I’m not that coherent first thing in the morning, I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to it. Usually a nurse from the VNA shows up sometime mid-morning to change the dressing on the foot.

That’s pretty much my excitement for now. I’m “homebound,” according to the hospital and the nurses, which means I’m not supposed to go out unless I have a doctor’s appointment or some other necessity. And the foot is supposed to only be “partially weight-bearing,” so I can’t walk on it for any extended period.

It’s a little frustrating to be so limited, but I understand the healing takes time – more so, in my case, because of the diabetes and some of its complications, particularly how it affects vascular health.

It’s probably just as well, because quite frankly, I’m wiped out by about 7 or 8 PM every night. I can barely keep my eyes open, and often find myself dozing.

Bonnie’s been great throughout all this. She’s had to coordinate the kids’ many trips to doctors, orthodontist, therapists, etc. by herself, as well as picking up groceries, medical supplies for me and everything else. It’s a lot of work for one person to deal with, especially since we broke those duties up as best we could before.

Category Family Matters, Navel Gazing |

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Hospital livin’

2012
07.02

So if you missed the news on Twitter, Facebook etc., I’ve been in the hospital since last Wednesday. I managed to get an infection in my foot that went septic and required surgery; I’ve been here ever since.

This is my first hospitalization. I think the most serious procedure I’d ever had done before this was my tonsillectomy, and as I recall, I went home that day.

I first noticed a problem with my foot a week ago last Saturday, when we were on the road. I had some swelling and redness, which isn’t all together unusual when I’m on my feet more than usual, so I didn’t think too much of it. But by Sunday the foot had swelled more and I was having trouble walking, so I knew something bad had happened. I went to the doctor Monday, who discovered that I had stepped on a 1.5 centimeter-long piece of sharp black plastic; something rather polished looking that looked like it broke off a toy or a gadget.

I don’t know where it came from or what it was, or, for that matter, how long it had been there. I hadn’t felt it because I have neuropathy – very limited nerve sensation in my feet.

She packed the wound, bound the foot and sent me home with oral antibiotics and a warning to call if anything changed for the worse.

By Wednesday, it had. Bonnie noticed that a new wound had opened near my third toe and was bleeding. The toe had swelled up more and turned an ugly purple color. So we went to the emergency room, and I was admitted, fully expecting to lose part of the foot. A foot surgeon saw me within a couple of hours and I was wheeled into the OR, knocked out, and when I woke up, my left foot was packed and bound.

The surgeon thinks, in retrospect, that I’d had an infection on that toe for some time, but the added trauma of the wound on the bottom of my foot sent things into overdrive. Cellulitis turned into sepsis, and I was one very sick patient.

It’s a small world: the foot surgeon who operated on me shares office space with doctors whom Bonnie worked for several years ago. He remembers her well.

The next couple of days were a bit hazy for me. I was very sick, getting and breaking fevers every few hours while my body fought the infection along with some exotic IV antibiotics. At one point my temperature was near 103. But by Saturday I began feeling like myself again.

Since then it’s been rest and recovery. I’ve strict orders to stay off the foot as much as possible while it heals. I’m allowed to walk from the bed to the toilet and back, but that’s about it. Fortunately, I’ve got a wheelchair, so when I get really bored I can go for a spin around the floor.

This morning I had a PICC line installed – an IV line that runs from my upper arm into the superior vena cava, one of the large blood vessels connected to the heart. This is so I can get IV antibiotics long-term – the ones in your hand usually only last a few days before the tissue gets irritated or an infection sets in. When I go home, I’ll need to continue to get IV medications administered. The doctor suggested that a month or so would probably be a good idea.

In the second case of “it’s a small world,” the IV nurse who installed the PICC line is the mother of a child that James has gone to school with since kindergarten. I’ve dropped him off for a few play dates and birthday parties and their house over the years, and I’ve seen her countless times at school functions, field trips and the like.

As to the care I’ve received, I couldn’t be happier. The staff in Mugar 5 at the Cape Cod Hospital have all been excellent. And since I’m in one of the taller buildings in this part of Hyannis, I have a gorgeous seaside view facing towards Lewis Bay and Nantucket Sound beyond – a reminder that it’s summer on Cape Cod, and in the scheme of things, it doesn’t suck too much to be here.

I’ve been hearing for years about the dangers diabetics with peripheral neuropathy face. I’ve had a few small scares – foot ulcers caused by poorly-fitting shoes, a staph infection on my big toe. But this by far is the biggest, scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t want to repeat the experience ever again. I’ll be taking special care not to walk barefoot (or even just with stocking feet) around the house from now on, and I’ll make a better point to visually check my feet when I go to bed.

Unfortunately, beyond that, there’s not a lot more I can do. While I can do a better job of managing my diabetes through exercise and diet, the neuropathy is pretty much here to stay – it’s not reversible. I can just hope that my body will finally get over this infection, my foot will heal and I can get back on with my life.

Category Navel Gazing |

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