Monday, December 19, 2005

Most Humbling Moment

After working incredibly hard to pee in a urinal so the hospital folk could continue to measure every single thing that went in or out of me, (yes, I was successful, though I’m a bit ashamed at how LONG I stood there, Little Jon-Jon in hand with NOTHING HAPPENING), I lay back down on the bed. Yes, there was grunting, groaning and a “Sweet Baby James on a popsicle stick, that hurt!” as I slowly lowered myself to a prone position. I tucked my stupid ridiculously bootied feet under the covers and then realized, “I can’t pull the covers up over my bare butt.” I was on my left side for once.

There was no way I was going to be able to sit up and yank the covers up. I tried kicking, but that only made my incisions hurt. I was going to freeze.

So I called the nurses station. They always answered pretty speedily, which was comforting. “Yes, may we help you.”

“Um, yeah. I just got back into bed. I peed by the way, I know you were all rooting for me on that one. Let’s all give a small cheer for that. Anyway, um yeah, I’m in bed, see, and uuuh, I have a small problem.”

“How can we help you?”

“Well, it’s not really that big a deal, so send someone when you can, but um, I just got back into bed, and I’m having a small teeny, little hang up down here.”

“How can we help you?” They are all business, down at the nurses’ station, I should point out.

“Well, I can’t seem to pull my covers up and my tasty bits are all flapping in the wind. So, whenever someone has a spot of free time could they just jog down here and pull up my covers, please.”

“Sure.”

And the aid popped in two minutes later, pulled up my covers without saying anything and collected my pee. I said “Thank you very much, it gets a bit drafty in here.”

Not sure which is worse, the feeling of not being about to pull up one’s covers or being the person who had to pull up a my covers and risk seeing my giblets in the process. Probably me, not being able to pull up the covers. At least the aid was getting paid. Though probably not enough to have to look at my “stuff.”

Jon scribbled this mess on 12/19/05 at 03:31 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Mixed Signals

Ellis drags her doll into the kitchen.

“The blood is coming from her mouth, Mommy.”
“Oh no, Ellis! That’s pretty serious. What happened to her?”
“She’s dying.”
“. . .”
“I’m going to take her to the grocery store.”

Jon scribbled this mess on 12/17/05 at 01:53 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Friday, December 16, 2005

I Don’t Make This Stuff Up

Ellis is crying and moaning. It’s not a hurt “I’m in pain” cry. It’s an “I’m annoyed and someone better make me happy soon” cry.

She walks into the kitchen and announces:
“My mooooooovvvviiiiieeeee!!!”
“What’s the matter?”
“My moooooovvvvviiiiieeeee!!” Apparently she had not made herself clear the first time.
“Is this about Atlantis, Ellis?”
She snuffles and nods.
“Well, don’t cry it’s in my bag.”
Reha gets up from the table to get the movie out of her bag and looks over at me, “Do you ever get the feeling that I don’t like crying children?”
“Yep.”
She looks back down at Ellis, “So don’t cry Ellis, it just gives you a headache and it makes you look stupid.”
A moment goes by.
“Plus I had the movie the whole time and you didn’t have anything to cry about, after all.”

Jon scribbled this mess on 12/16/05 at 09:38 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Christmas List 2005

Or… All the crap I want to get for Christmas this year, greedy selfish loser that I am. (Though technically we are DONE shopping for the kids (just a couple more things) and I’ve gotten Reha’s gift already, so I don’t feel so bad about being so blatantly self-serving here and now. Plus I’m on pain meds and maybe I should be held to a lower standard.)

I know that it’s a bit late and most of you have done all your holiday shopping, but I’ve been a bit busy, what with having my insides turned inside out and all. These are not in any kind of order. Or even plausibility.

1) West Wing Season 5. I’ve never watched this show while it’s been on TV. Between all the kid wrangling and dinner making, it’s pretty much impossible to even get to the room where the TV lives. But I’ve gotten all the previous DVDs. I just like the fantasy aspect of the show where the Democrats know what they are doing. That alone is worth the price of admission.

2) New iPod. 30 gig. Video. My beloved 20 gig JUST died. Though I’m still holding out hope that I can do a complete reformat of the little guy.

3) Long sleeved running shirt. Though now I won’t be able to run for another few weeks thanks to the previously mentioned insides turning out fiasco.

4) Running socks. Specifically, I like the really padded anklet kind.

5) New clutch for the Jetta.

6) Name of a good (and more importantly) CHEAP drywall guy. Though at this point, I haven’t even gone downstairs in a couple of weeks. ugh.

7) Anasazi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I’m on a Sci-Fi kick of late and I’ve really been enjoying reading his stuff. American Gods was terrific.

8) The got root? t-shirt from thinkgeek.com. I’d ask for the “No, I won’t fix your computer” t-shirt, but that’s kind of a part of my job and one day I’d slip up and wear it to work and that just wouldn’t be good.

9) The new Battlestar Galactica. Start me out with the mini series. I’ll just ask for Seasons one and two for my b-day. Yes… I’m a total dweeb. You knew that already, didn’t you? And it’s NOT because I have a small crush on the hot cylon blond chick.

10) The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker. OK, so it’s true. I used to get The New Yorker, but I’d only really read it for the comics.

Jon scribbled this mess on 12/15/05 at 07:55 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

So, That Wasn’t the Most Fun I’ve Ever Had

Long story short. I had my gall bladder removed on Monday evening.

Longer story: I’ve had gall bladder problems ever since I lost a bunch of weight a couple years ago. In my tiny mind I traded one problem (eventual cardio-vasucular disease) for another (SEVERE, INCREDIBLE and annoying bouts of pain from an inflamed gall bladder). On the whole, I was a bit happier with impending heart disease. Got to eat a lot of cheese and ice cream and I never had to go running. Plus, the heart disease thing wasn’t a surety.

Anyway, I’d been having bouts of intense upper right quadrant pain for over a year. I’d seen docs and was going to have the surgery done, but not until after the first of the year and I was done with the remodel, etc. I’d taken a couple of days off work for the strabismus surgery as well as out NYC trip and work had been quite understanding and I didn’t want to press my luck.

So Sunday at 5:16 AM, I woke up with excruciating pain in the same old area. After tossing and turning for over an hour I decided to go to the ER. I drove myself because Re. had to stay home because of Ellis and the rest of the kidlets, and I certainly WAS NOT going to call for an ambulance. But the nice thing about driving around SLC at 6 AM on Sunday is that it’s totally deserted. And actually the ER was pretty empty as well. No waiting! A miracle!

They gave me some morphine and did an ultrasound and said, “Your gall bladder is chuck full o’ stones, they won’t go away on their own, when do you want to schedule surgery?” I was still kind of hoping I could hold off but they assured me that the time of “holding off” was over.

I drove home (notwithstanding the fresh morphine shot I’d had and specific instructions NOT to drive under the influence) with fresh resolve to call the surgeon on Monday so he could squeeze my operation in on Tuesday. In retrospect, I think I might be one of those people who has to have their car keys forcibly removed from his person while intoxicated. You learn something new everyday!

Once I was home, I had Reha scurry off to the pharmacy to fill my opiate prescription. While she was gone, the nausea began. Usually when I’d have a gall stone episode, I have a bit of nausea, but I’d only thrown up once. This time felt different, though. I KNEW I was going to toss cookies and that posed a problem. If I couldn’t keep pain meds down, I was going to be in spot of trouble. Executive summary, I called the ER doc and we decided that I should come in and be admitted for pain management with the possibility of surgery that evening, but more likely late Monday afternoon.

So I spent the rest of Sunday day/evening/all day Monday in the warm enveloping embrace of opiates. And phenigran (sp?) to control nausea, which has the added benefit of knocking you flat on your booty.

Late Monday afternoon (like 5:30) the wheeled me down to surgery. They were able to do it laproscopically (three small holes and one larger one, instead of one HUGE gash).

OK, I’m going to wind this up, because my typing abilities are going downhill and I’m sort of listing to one side.

After the surgery, all my organs pretty much shut down. Practical upshot: Couldn’t pee and had to be catheterized. Oh boy, is that FUN!

I also became pretty dehydrated and they blew the one good vein I had by putting magnesium through it. Does magnesium burn when it goes in? YES! Do I have TWELVE discrete holes in my arms from where they tried and failed to find I.V. sites? Yes. And ow.

But I’m much better. Though I did not ask for them, they gave me the gallstones in a small cup. Totally gross. I’ll have pictures up tomorrow! :-]

Jon scribbled this mess on 12/14/05 at 05:59 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link
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