Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:26]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, January 24th, 2026. It's 2148 UTC as I'm starting to record this. I am Sam Minter, no Yvonne Vaudet, and almost no me today. So obviously it's been a big news week. We have a whole bunch of things. There have been more sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump's circling around right below the level where most media would cover it. There's the whole Greenland nonsense. Jack Smith did testimony. Trump's Board of Peace. And of course, all sorts of stuff related to ICE and Border Patrol in Minnesota and elsewhere. Just a couple hours before I'm recording this, they shot somebody else. And there's that memo saying that they think they can enter homes without warrants. There have been escalating protests. There have been all kinds of stuff going on.
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Sam:
[1:34]
| But I think we're just going to have sort of a preemptory short little update here to not break the string of like having a show every week for a long time, because I'll tell you guys, it's been a week.
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Sam:
[1:53]
| I'll mention Yvonne first before I get to me, because it's more recent as we're recording this. We were going to try to do a regular show, but right a couple hours before we were going to record today, and he has posted on the Convention's Corner Slack about this, so I think it's okay to share, Yvonne's son Manu broke his arm.
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Sam:
[2:15]
| And they're being treated appropriately at the emergency room or urgent care or wherever they are. and they're, they're doing okay. I mean, broken arm, but okay. And, and I spent most of the week in the hospital and only got home last night and I'm still recuperating. I'll give you the really high level, which is that I hadn't been feeling great for like a month, but the actual like specific symptoms were like rotating. Like sometimes I spiked a fever, sometimes I didn't and was fine in terms of temperature. Sometimes I was having sort of urinary tract infection type symptoms. Sometimes I wasn't. Sometimes it felt like kidney stone pain, which I've had off and on since I was 25 years old. So I knew what that felt like. Sometimes I had diarrhea, sometimes I didn't. You know, all in all, it was a fun month. I even went to the doctor once and they basically were like, well, you seem fine to me right now. What do you want me to do for you? And they sent me home.
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Sam:
[3:30]
| But then a few hours after I put out last week's show, I had some food with my son and then my temperature spiked from completely normal to, Literally 105.1, which is not good for an adult. And it went from like 98 something to 105 in the course of like 90 minutes. Because of course, like whenever I start to feel even weird at all, I'm like taking my temperature every 10 minutes because that's just, you know, the kind of thing I do.
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Sam:
[4:08]
| And I started throwing up. I threw up everything I'd just eaten. And I, and one, once the temperature hit like 104, I'm like, fine, fine. I'll, I'll, I'll like go to the ER or whatever. And I was like preparing to like drive myself to the ER. And Alex was like, no, no, absolutely not. You are not driving anywhere. I could, I could, I was shivering so hard from the fever that I could not speak, I could not type properly into my phone to text people, and I could barely walk. And so we did contact my mother to take me to the ER, and I managed to drag myself to the front porch for her to pick me up. I went to the ER. Oh, and I did take some Tylenol with supplementary oxycodone that I had around for kidney stones. I took one pill of that. By the time we got to the ER to knock down the fever, so much that the admitted nurse was like, well, you don't have a fever anymore. Why are you here?
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Sam:
[5:24]
| But luckily, once I got seen by the actual doctor, they took it more seriously. I mean, I guess the incoming nurse just wanted to know what was the immediate cause of you coming here? And it was that fever spike, because I tried to tell her the longer history. Anyway, once they had the longer history in mind, they set me up for the full battery of tests, imaging, blood tests, urine tests, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Summary.
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Sam:
[5:57]
| I was in sepsis. So for those of you who don't know, that's basically like a bacterial infection that had gotten to my blood, and that's potentially life-threatening. Really significant and rare form of bladder infection and kidney infection. For those of you who like medical terms, let me see if I can pronounce these.
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Sam:
[6:30]
| Emphysematos thylonephritis and emphysematos cystitis, which basically meant that not only, were my kidney and bladder infected, but they were infected in a way that was producing gas in places that gas was not supposed to be. So as soon as they had all that sort of diagnostic information. Well, they put me on antibiotics, like practically the moment I got there, but they put me on stronger antibiotics. And we're like, we're admitting you. And not only are we admitting you, but you need someplace that has a urologist that has the right knowledge about this kind of thing that's available immediately. And so we're switching you to another hospital where that's available. So I got a nice ambulance ride from Mill Creek down into Seattle and transferred to another hospital. By the time I got there, you know, they'd been pumping me full of antibiotics. I actually felt kind of okay. I was like texting people. I was like.
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Sam:
[7:34]
| Given updates on the curmudgeon's corner slack. I was otherwise, you know, whatever, but I actually started going downhill from there. And I sort of lost track of time and space and where I was and what was going on. And I don't remember all the details of everything, But bottom line, this was also like, I did have kidney stones up in there that were not coming out on their own, that were in positions that were problematic and were probably triggering the infections. But where everything was, they were unable to sort of get to them in the ways they would normally get to a kidney stone. they needed to drain off the infection. So they, you know, they, they basically needed to insert a drain into my right kidney. So I had a procedure to do that. That was fun. That was exciting.
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Sam:
[8:38]
| And while they continued to pump me full of, you know, powerful antibiotics. And so I've been, I was in the hospital draining and, and, and while they were carefully monitoring all my vitals and stuff. I guess this was, I guess, Monday night was when we went to the ER. And so I was in the hospital Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday into Friday, finally came home Friday night. And, you know, sort of, I was probably the least with it and everything, you know, maybe Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I don't know. Like I said, my memory is hazy and vague. The actual procedure to add the drain that I needed was like Tuesday afternoon, I think.
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Sam:
[9:31]
| Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now. I'm home. They are not done with me. I have to, I've got this surgically implanted drain in my kidney that's going to be with me for a couple weeks probably while I continue to take antibiotics to make sure the infection is completely knocked out. And then I need to go back in for them to fish those kidney stones out of me that were causing the problem in the first place. They did not want to try to attempt to do that while the infection was raging. So I'm basically, you know, not.
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Sam:
[10:06]
| Full speed for at least a couple more weeks, but yeah, that, that's where I am now. I'm home, I'm recuperating. My stamina is very low, certainly for physical things, but even for mental things, I'm finding like the amount of time I can like maintain sort of concentration on anything is relatively small. I'm sure that will inch its way up over the next couple of But at the moment, I'm still sort of like, yeah, I want to be lying down doing nothing, watching TV with Alex or whatever, or sleeping. I mean, some of the time in the hospital, I literally slept like 90% of the time. I woke up when the nurses were needed to poke and prod me for one thing or another, and then it was right back out of sleep.
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Sam:
[11:01]
| Anyway, that's been my week. And meanwhile, Yvonne's son breaks an arm. Brandy got excused out of the legislature for a few days so she could come home and take care of Alex and a few things at home and actually be there when my first procedure happened. And she's going back tomorrow. And so I have to figure out how to, you know, basically take care of myself and get Alex to school next week and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I've been distracted. So, like, I know all this stuff has been happening in the news, and I have been paying some level of attention to it, but I'm not really prepared to, like... If Yvonne was here, I would have the two-way conversation with him. I don't think I'm ready to have like a one-hour-plus monologue on all this kind of stuff by myself. But I just wanted to give you an update on how I'm doing.
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Sam:
[12:10]
| Yeah, it's been a fun and exciting time. But they were able to knock the infection out of me fairly quickly. They were happy to see me recover as quickly as I did. At least one of the doctors seemed to be a little surprised and thought it would take longer. But, you know, I'm not done yet. But I think I am over the hump and home, and now I just have to maintain this stupid drain sticking out of my side and manage to do the things I need to do, but I'm probably going to, at least for the next few days, stick to the bare minimum and try to slowly ramp up, but try not to rush myself either. And, yeah, that's it. So, sorry, this is not, like, the most exciting, entertaining episode of Curmudgeon's Corner. But it's about what I have in me today. So, you know, like, sometimes when I do these solo shows every weekend, I'll do one segment, wait a while, record another segment, wait a while, do another segment, wait a while, put them all together at the end.
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Sam:
[13:27]
| No, I'm not going to bother doing that. I've done what I'm going to do, and hopefully Yvonne and I will be able to do a more normal show next week. But in the meantime, I'm going to wrap this up, and I'll get this out sometime in the next 24 hours, and maybe, maybe 48. I don't know. I don't want to make promises when I'm in my current state. Anyway, I'll get it out, and hopefully next week we'll do a normal show. And apologies for the short show, but, you know, at least you got a show. I'm maintaining the we have never missed a week thing. Damn it. I was prepared to record a short thing on my phone from the hospital if I needed to, just to maintain that streak. But I didn't need to. I'm at home. I'm doing my normal setup. You know, whatever. Anyway, for those of you who were on the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack or my various family chats or whatever and have already expressed your good wishes, thank you. I appreciate your support and I am feeling a lot better and sort of working my way up. For those of you who this is brand new news, the worst is over. I'm feeling better.
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Sam:
[14:49]
| But it's time to go back to the living room, sit in a comfy chair, have some cold water, and watch more TV. Okay, that's it. Thank you, guys. Here comes the goodbye outro thing. Here you go.
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