Oh, cool!

I went to physical torture therapy today, and my darling PT decided to try something I’d never seen before. Now, I need to state for the record, I’m hard to show anything I haven’t seen before to. Between my escapades and Doug’s, I’ve pretty much seen it all. Cripes. I’ve seen Doug’s intestine. (Doug just wanted me to state for the record that he saw my uterus during my c-section and that we’re even in the “I’ve seen your abdominal parts” race…but I digress)

So, today, PT tells me that she’s going to laser me for the last 5 minutes of therapy.

Laser? Huh?

Yeah, LASER!

So, she says that it’s supposed to break down swelling using light beams.

I can get behind this. Seriously I can.
So, after I was done doing electrostim with ice, she grabs 2 things that look like portable speakers. She puts them against my ankle and holds them on with an ace wrap. It was the NEATEST thing-they started to glow red!

I sat there for 5 minutes, marveling the disgustingness of the popcorn topping in the one magazine (bacon and herb anyone? ICK!) and being astounded and amazed at the fact that I was hooked up to a laser to try and end the puffball that is my ankle!

So stinkin cool!

 

Frustrated.

So, since I did the whole fall thing a month ago (and no, I really can’t go into detail as to what happened there. After everything is said and done, I’ll be able to speak freely, but until that point, don’t even bother asking for the whole story, because I can’t give it to you.)my ankle has been the subject of my daily frustration. Seriously. It gets old fast. Hardcore fast.

I saw the doc for a follow up, and besides being allergic to the air cast-not kidding-my skin has decided that it doesn’t like a LOT of things-I”m not healing. I’m still swollen, I still have nicely reduced mobility in the area and it still freakin hurts.

I haven’t been able to game geek in a month. Yes, a month, and who knows…when I go back next week, if I can’t handle the no sitting thing, I may have to be pulled AGAIN.

I’m also in PT. Let’s discuss how these sessions are shaping up. My PT, saw how swollen I was yesterday and nearly had a panic attack. I think she measured again Thursday and it was 4 and change cm swollen vs only 3 on Monday. Either way you go, that’s a significant amount of swelling. Ick.

I just am so over this entire thing. It’s been so decent outside lately now that the monsoon has stopped that I want to get out, walk, play, do. BUT, not possible to the extent that I want to.

I’m just so done with this injury. I can’t say that enough. Just done, done done.

 

Doctors and patients and medical stuff, oh my!

Does everyone remember a year and a half ago when I had the whole medical device fiasco? Well, the short version of the past year and a half is that this sucker is now malfunctioning. So, it has to come out. With this being me and my rotten luck (I swear-Eeyore mode is in full force!) I’ve got to go into the OR and have them pull it out. I was NOT going to let the doc go in and get it blindly. Not a chance.

So, they scheduled a surgery time for me. I got the phone call for the pre-op appointment and after scheduling it around some other things, I finally made it there on Friday. As per the way my life runs, nothing can be normal or smooth…

So, in walks this couple. They’re loud and the male of the two is kvetching about how he’s going to have to wait, and that there are all of these appointments ahead of him.

The female of the two is trying to calm the guy down. At this point, I figured they were father and daughter or uncle and niece. She begs him to eat the other half of his sandwich. Did I mention it’s 9:25 am?

So, he finally agrees and she hands him a half of a BLT with cheese and mayo. He sits there, eating it, slobbering all over the place. There was mayo everywhere! Then, he started loudly complaining how he waited 2 1/2 hours the day before and never got seen. Then he asked about vending machines in the building we were all in. Unfortunately, there’s really none of those, and we all told him so. Girlie offered him water, and he kvetched about the temperature of said water.

So, I get called back to do all sorts of things, like insurance verification and all of that, and when I came out, the entire room of people had moved away from this couple. Hrm…so, I settled with the rest of the waiting room.
One by one we all get called back for bloodwork and EKG stuff. In between each one, we were put into a seperate waiting room. In that secondary waiting room, I ran into two of the people from the waiting room who had moved away from the couple. This is what they told me…

“you missed it.”

I asked what, and the one proceeded to tell me that after I was called back, the couple started to make out. He started SLURPING ON HER EAR!!! Oh, for yuck, yuck yuck!

I couldn’t believe it. So, after I left that office, I figured I’d never hear or see that couple again. Until this morning. I arrived for my procedure on time (that’s a whole other ball of wax..but I’m not going there.) and as I’m getting settled into preop, I hear a voice. One I recognize…

OH MY FREAKIN HECK! It’s that couple! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Thank goodness I was settled into my bed and was not visible to them. I was beyond OMG-ing. I quickly signaled to Doug that this was the BLT, ear slurping couple and he craned his neck to look. Hell, I would ahve too if I hadn’t seen this group. Haven’t seen them since. Thank goodness.

So, as I sat in my room, it became people watching central. The woman in the pre-op bed next to me was quite the entertainment factor. She spent the entire time she and her daughter were there talking about FOOD. OH, my god. Food. I then immersed myself in the laptop. Tossed on a DVD-and then got bored of that and went on the wifi.

During this time, they tried to insert an IV. I promise, there will be  no pictures of the aftermath of the IV debacle. The one nurse tries, misses. Second nurse tries, misses. They declare me a hard stick-Duh. They call the IV team who tried two more times and gave up. THEN, the anestesiologist came in and I told her she had one hit to get it, and if she didn’t I didn’t know what I was going to do.  She made 2 hits, so we’re up to 6 sticks, but  I had an IV, and I also had all sorts of bruises all over my hands and arms.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the wifi, playing with the Pandora internet radio and basically wondering when the heck I’d be going down for the whole surgery thing.

Surgery was scheduled for 2:10, so about 2:45, I finally asked when I was going to be taken down…and they found out for me that it was going to be another 45 minutes to an hour before I got down there. Ick. Fine, blah. yuck. So, 3:30, I finally got down to the area before the operating room, and was there for about 30 minutes before everyone came and talked to me about it all. I met in quick succession, the resident, anestesiologist and an OR nurse. Oh, brother. How to really confuse me about who was going to be in there! eekers!

The anestesiologist dropped something down my IV, and wow! That sucker really knocked me on my ass. I remember being wheeled down to the OR, saying hi to Dr. C, and shifting to the surgical table. Then, it’s all black. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I woke up to the PACU (post anestesia care unit) nurse telling me to take deep breaths.  The first question out of my mouth was-Where am I?

Second question-Can you make the room stop spinning?

Did I mention that I don’t get along well with pretty much all types of sedation? I’ve got a really hard time waking up and I end up crying and all sorts of icky things. I let them know this, so they were ready with pain meds and phenegrin for the nausea that I always have.

But I finally got home late last night. Out of it as all get out, but home. So, I’m without said medical device and still kinda feeling gross. Not wanting to eat, and every once in a while, if I push myself a bit further than I should (that’s normal for me-I want to be back to myself NOW.) I feel woozy…

 

but at least I’m done and don’t have to worry about having something in me that’s not working like it should.

 

What I did on the 4th of July

First off, I need to wish my darling sister a Happy Belated birthday-I called and left a message, but no birthday for the darling lil’ sis would be complete without blogging! SOOO, Happy Birthday, you  Butt Munch. Hope you at least had the day off!

Secondly-I’ve been asked by a few people if my store is one of the ones targeted for closure. The answer is fortunately, NO. We have some of the highest numbers in the district and people would get seriously violent if we closed our doors. Plus, we’re right near a major highway-we get TONS of traffic, as evidinced by July 3rd’s rush that had our drive thru snaking around the building and the line inside the building to the door…There are 3 stores in this area that I’ve heard to be closing. The district and regional managers are fighting one. The other 2 are goners. Hopefully, we’ll get some of the GOOD ones from those 2 stores at our store. Plus, they’re opening another store off the highway about 20 minutes up the road. That store needs staff…so there will be options…but my green apron is safe for now.

 

So, My 4th of July went like this….

4:15-alarm goes off. Get up, shower and put on the Barista clothes.

4:45-4:50-leave the house for what I THINK is a 5:15 start to my shift.

5:00-get to work-see SuperShift’s car-FREAK OUT thinking I’m 15 minutes late. Knock on door, get let in and apologize for being late-get told that she thought it was 4:45 too, and it really was 5:15, and we’re just going to open the store SLOWLY, and take our sweet time, so clock in and let’s get going.

Hey-the 4th was time and a half. I’m not complaining about the extra time.

6:00 am-Open…SLOW morning. Seriously SLOW morning. When HoursWhore (he calls himself that…) comes in, we dawdle around, do our “tasks” and then make ourselves drinks. It’s just dull as dishwater-we come up with drive thru games, and no one even flinches when we play them.

10:47-off the clock I am and heading home. I decide to stop and get bagels-I hear this tidbit from the bagel people “Who the hell needs bagels on the 4th of July!?”

Umm. Me.

So, I came home, ate bagels and proceded to get the family ready for the party that afternoon at my uncle’s house. No, not one of the uncles that is related to the trash dressing family that invaded poor Angela’s bridal shower a few weeks ago…this is the other side of the family…

This was Isaac’s first pool party. He’s really only done “water play” at school and other places. The kid loves water. He’ll sit there and play in the tub for HOURS upon HOURS.

So, he beelines for the kiddie pool and in about 30 seconds, rips off his rash guard.

(note to self: WHY did I buy the child a rash guard? Oh, yeah. He’s PASTY WHITE. Reminder to tell the school to MAKE HIM KEEP IT ON!)

Isaac had a great time hanging with the cousins on the side of the family he’s never really gotten to know (because of distance reasons…and because…of stuff my darling mother doesn’t want me to put in here. There.)

So, here are the photos…hover over for the explanations.

Isaac and DiAnna swimming in the big pool

DiAnna getting Isaac to kick and do all sorts of great stuff in the pool

Amy and Jonah-a kid who\’s a pices with a fish name! No wonder he likes water!

And you know what I got out of this party? Besides some serious schmooze time with my cousins?

And you know the sad part? This was taken this morning…and it’s still that red. OUCH. Next time, remind me to bring hte waterproof sunscreen? Will y’all?

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And there’s now 14 days left as of this post, to enter my blogaversary contest! Keep those “secret menu” drinks coming!

 

Another day, another hospital, another time to deal with an outlaw

Today, Doug had his (we hope) last surgery to correct the emergency item that was placed, oh, around 6 months ago. If it was just me, my mom and maybe a friend or two waiting for him to get out of surgery, life would have been good…but no, COLOSTOMY has to show up…leaving Vapid at home with Princess Pretendtocare (Vapid stayed home for a GOOD set of reasons that I’ll detail at another time. It makes me seriously angry what she’s being forced to go through…but again, I digress..and don’t think that I like her. Trust me, I don’t…but well, again, I’ll go into that another time.).

Well, Doug’s surgery started early, and so did the stupidity from Colostomy.  Stop acting shocked.

so, let’s just do this bullet style.

• First, the freak didn’t even acknowledge my presence. No, Not shocked.
• He sucked up to Mom. Y’all expected anything less?
• He sat there shooting me daggers when the doc asked for ME on the phone and not him to report on how the surgery went.
• A little knowledge is dangerous with this moron. Even when situations are different, it’s still “just like last time”
• When he was told that it wasn’t like last time by 3 people (including me) the jerk still didn’t listen.
• He alternated between sweet talking and bullying the desk staff
• HE CLIPPED HIS NAILS AT THE LUNCH TABLE! OH, FOR SKEEEEEV OUT!!! He threw the nails on the FLOOR!!!
• He forced poor Doug to talk to Vapid (who immediately turned on her crocodile tears) and Princess Pretendtocare in the evening after surgery.
• At the same time, He tried to get Doug to let him buy a bike for Isaac, even though the two of us have told those morons repeately that the bike is the 5 year old gift. I told him politely (even according to mom!!) that no bike. He somehow thinks that my no is overruled by Doug’s no. He was mightly shocked when Doug told him that the answer was no.
• His Ostomy reeks. I’ve never seen one that was this loud and reeks this bad. Even Doug says it.
• He’s just an out and out jerk

But the good news in all of this is that Doug came through the surgery just fine. There was a lot of “clean up” work to do with some scar tissue, and they had to repair a hernia, but otherwise, things were fine.

So, get this-

the doc told me on the phone that they had a bit of trouble finding the other end of his intestine to reconnect. WELL, My overtired, sarcastic brain had this running through it, which I told the doctor when he came up and couldn’t find another family…after doing 3 back to back to back surgeries:

“What? You didn’t put enough flourescent tape or dye on it so you could find it right away?”

 

Yeah, that was the hit of his day. He died laughing, as did his scheduler. Who now works for the OR.

They claim he’ll be in anywhere from 3-5 days. Our line? Yeah, right. BUT, both the doc and Doug have their marching orders. He needs to be out by 4/19. Or else.

oh, and note to Jenn...We know so well that Orange Juice isn’t a clear liquid! I had to have a conversation with someone as to WHY it was not. My response? “Look. You can’t read a newspaper through it, can you? No? Well, there you have it! It’s not a clear liquid!!”

 

Garbage night=almost frostbite!

It’s been cold. I will spare y’all my usual rant about this not being SoCal-Y’all can thank my mom for that.

Tonight, I did the garbage as I usually do. I figured it’s cold enough for a coat, but don’t really need hand protection, because I’m only out for a few seconds, shoot the garbage can to the end of the driveway, run back.

Seems simple enough, right?

The fac tthat the lid on the can was frozen shut should have been an indicator…

Well, it was blistering cold. Cold to the point that my hands started to hurt in the distance from my steps to the garbage can (Not so far in the grand scheme of things) and I figured I could make it and be ok…

No such luck. I get to the steps, and my hands are hurting. The pain is intense, and my hands are red as a fire engine. I can’t even move my hands to open the door, and scream for Doug (who is standing watchng me) to open the door. I make him unzip my jacket, and get a shower going for me…all the while, I’m near tears, because this HURTS. I couldn’t even take my hair tie out of my hair to get into the shower. He undressed me, shoved me in the direction of the shower and let the hot water do its magic.

the pain slowed…and it became easier to move my hands…but my hands still ache. We’re 3 hours later now…

Moral of the story? You think you’re going to be out there for 30 seconds doing garbage-wear hand protection, even if you think you can live without it.

Now, I’m going to take some advil and see if I can rewarm these towels to put my hands in…

 

“So, do you want to hear my tale of woe?”

That was how my mom answered the phone today…I told her if she could beat the tale I’m about to tell, I’d be all ears.

So, here’s what happened.

I was on the phone with the OT..that’s another post. Don’t ask….when I heard a bang, thud, SCREAM from upstairs. Isaac comes flying down the stairs screaming at the top of his lungs,a nd I hang up the phone with the OT and start to try and console Isaac. He keeps saying “I hurt..I hurt…” and before I could get it out of him, a rush of blood comes out of his mouth.

I try to calm him down, and I get the bleeding stopped, but he WILL NOT let me in his mouth for anything. He tried to suck his fingers, but that was a nogo…he was in too much pain. Since he wouldn’t let me in, and wouldn’t suck his fingers, I got worried and made a phone call to the Dentist. Dr. Nancy (yes, that’s what the kids call her! There’s Dr. Nancy, Dr. Jason and Dr. Jennifer!) has us come right in, so I get Isaac in the car and we drive over. The entire time, I’m pre-setting him with “We’re going to see Dr. Nancy. She’s going to look in your mouth and check it out.”

He was ok..until I had to take him away from a video game (darn child friendly offices!!) for his appointment. Dr. Nancy heard the story and why I did kind of a flip out-hey..I couldn’t get in his mouth and see what in hades was going on! It would have been my luck that he would have knocked out a tooth…blah. But, as always, she’s totally reassuring and wonderful…I controlled his arms, and legs, and she took care of his head. She got in, noticed that ONE TOOTH was a smidge discolored from the trauma and that he had a nasty cut on the inside of his mouth…but everything else was good.

Isaac got a sticker (MATER! He was thrilled) and a prize (he picked  a spider from the prize tower) and high fived Dr.Nancy. He’s all good until April..unless anything goes wrong…

please, nothing go wrong.

 

There’s something in the air

I swear!

I was reading blogs on the Scavenger hunt swap, and was reading Cynical Knit Gal’s blog and her beloved pooch, Gracie is really ill. Ill to the point that she’s selling off her stash (both fabric and yarn), and sold her sewing machine to help pay for vet bills. Well, as I’m reading about poor Gracie, I realize that the snoring, snorting and general snottyness I hear is FURBALL. She’s got a runny eye, a runny nose and is generally congested and miserable. She’s ben congested for a smidge, but she’s eating and drinking, so I thought nothing of it.

So, I call the vet, explain the situation, and they have me bring her right in. We get there, and the first thing they hear is her being congested. They listen to her and automatically perscribe antibiotics. On top of this, they want to do blood work and then x-rays. Umm…x-rays? On a cat? Yeaaaahhh…

So, the total bill would have been (with everything) over $600.00.

It’s nothing compared to Cynical Knitter’s total right now, but it’s so much more than we can afford.

Plus, I figured why do x-rays when we’ve got an antibiotic that we haven’t even given a chance to work yet. So, I allowed them to do bloodwork, and the antibiotic was a no-choice thing. Never was a choice in my brain, so it’s nota big deal.

The new price tag? $185.00.

Could be worse.

Ok, we have to medicate Furball 2x/day…and that’s not fun, but oh, well.

And Isaac? He saw the crate yesterday, because I hadn’t gotten a chance to bring it back down to the basement and he asked what it was. I told him I had to take furball to the doctor’s. He immediately told me that Furball was sick, and the doctor was going to make her ALLLLLLLLLLLL better!

Let’s hope so, Monkey.

 

Damn Vampires!

Since Monday, I’ve been putting off getting some blood (1 lousy vial) drawn for a RAST test to see if the hives I’ve been getting are what I suspect (eggs) or something else. It’s safer than a skin test. At least taht’s what the doc says.

So, I finally buck up and after dropping Isaac off at ECEC, I head over to Bender Labs in Executive Park. I head into the lab and go through all of the intro paperwork and then wait for my number to be called.

Is it an omen that I was #13?

I let the vampire drawing my blood know that she needed to use a butterfly needle and hit the vein straight on, or the sucker would roll, and we’d be at multiple sticks. I didn’t want multiple sticks.

So we engage in this discourse over a baby needle vs a butterfly. I told her she could try, but it wasn’t going to work. She was one of those people who basically thought I was telling her how to do her job. I know what works with me.

Guess what happened?
yep. THE VEIN ROLLED.

and looking at it, it doesn’t look like a proper hit, either.

She dug around in my arm, and I was DYING. I forced her to take it out. She got a quarter vial of blood.

She starts looking at my left arm, and my brain started racing to make her stop looking at my arm.

Well, she finds a vein on the SIDE of my elbow and finally (!) gets a butterfly and hits it, and gets a full tube.

She had the NERVE to call me hypersensitive.

Mom said “I know where you won’t be going again!”

Damn skippy straight!

Damn vampires.

 

Thank goodness for my silly shoes!

Today, we took Isaac to the doctor. We were running late.

While we were handing off hte car keys to the free valet, I was getting the monkey out of the car…and…ready…

MY LEFT FOOT GOT RUN OVER BY THE CAR!!!

The tire sat parked on my foot for a good minute and a half…but it seemed like longer.

My foot is all sorts of colors,but no fractures…just a good bruise.

We think my silly platform Rocket Dog flip flops saved my foot from further injury.

Now, I’m going back to ice it and elevate it.

Ouch.