reading: The Second Assistant. Yes, STILL.
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I didn’t wear any green at all yesterday, and not one single person pinched my ass. Hmph.
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I swear, y’all, I’m not ignoring those of you who’ve asked whether I’ve gotten a new car yet. It’s a long story and won’t be told ’til there’s an end to it, which should be by the middle of next week. Hopefully.
(And it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds, believe you me.)
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Anyone watch Wife Swap the other night? Anyone else think that Nancy Cedarquist’s “The man is the head of the household; the man goes out and works, the woman stays in and takes care of the house” attitude was a very obvious cover for the fact that she’s a control freak who wants to control every instant of her family’s life?
Anyone else think that Nancy Cedarquist came across as extremely unlikeable? (Oh, for god’s sake. According to this, she doesn’t “believe” women should have the right to vote or work outside the home. What an idiot.)
Anyone else think that Michael Oeth was a dead ringer for John Kerry?
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The spud is, right now, laying on her bed, looped on some pretty good pain medication, nursing a sore backside. She had a pilonidal cyst removed from her tailbone area about three hours ago.
She first told me last Spring that her behind was hurting, and I didn’t want to look at it, because when you were 15, did YOU want your mother examining your ass? I don’t think you did. So I took her to the doctor who checked it out (I stayed in the waiting room, thank you), and she decreed that it was an infection and prescribed antibiotics and said that she wanted to see the spud again in 10 days.
Except that 10 days after her doctor appointment she was in California, so she never did see the doctor for a follow-up visit. But before she left for California, she did assure (ASSure me! Ha!) that it was feeling better and life went on as normal.
Then in January she told me that she was having the same pain again, and I made an appointment with her doctor, who again put her on antibiotics and wanted to see her in 10 days. I took her back in 10 days, the doctor proclaimed that it was better, and then referred her to a surgeon.
It seems that, for the most part, surgery is the only way to get rid of a pilonidal cyst.
The surgeon checked it out (I was sitting across the room and kindly averted my gaze to spare the spud some embarrassment. The same way I’m spreading (spreading! Ha!) stories about her butt all over the internet. That’s not embarrassing at ALL. Luckily, she’s not easily embarrassed and if you all send her get-well cards and large amounts of money, she might forgive me.) and said he wanted to remove it, went through the options – basically, some surgeons prefer to remove the cyst and then sew the opening, uh, open so that it heals. This surgeon preferred to remove the cyst and sew the opening closed so that it would heal closed and the chances that another cyst would develop would be slim.
The surgeon, by the way, was very personable. I’ve always heard that surgeons are assholes with god complexes (complexii?), but every surgeon I’ve ever had to deal with has had pretty good people skills and been not only funny, but nice.
So I asked some questions, and once those were answered I asked the big one.
“How long will she have to stay out of school?” I asked.
“About a week,” he said. “Just because it would be uncomfortable for her to be sitting in those school seats all day long.”
The spud? Out of school for a week? Missing all that school? Oh, I don’t think so. Because she’s a weirdo who doesn’t LIKE to miss school (I’m sure the social aspect of it has nothing to do with that).
“Does it need to be done right away, or can it be put off until Spring Break?” I asked.
“Well, I’m going to be gone for Spring Break, but we could do it the Thursday or Friday beforehand.”
Good enough for me.
Even better, there’s a fairly new Surgery Center in Madison where he has operating privileges, and it’s located about ten minutes from our house. So this morning we left the house at 6:10 and almost right on the dot they took her back to be operated on. The doctor came out to talk to me around 8:30 – everything went fine, there’ll be some draining, he prescribed strong pain medication for her – and we were headed home by 9:30.
They had a hard time getting an IV started, because her vein rolled and then blew (doesn’t that sound scary?) and the nurse had to do some poking around. The spud was pretty stoic during it, but
I wanted to scream like a little girl and run around in circles in sympathy.
So I brought her home, gave her some breakfast, and sent her upstairs. I went and got her pain medication prescription filled, gave her some of it, and she’s upstairs snoozing in front of the TV.
I plan to keep her doped up all weekend long, which should get her through the worst of the pain.
By the way, both my mother and sister had pilonidal cysts removed when they were in their early 20s (my sister could tell you some real horror stories, because she ended up waiting so long to have her done), but I never had a problem. Lucky me! I don’t envy the spud right now at ALL.
I talked to my sister earlier, who said “Now make sure you baby her!” and I said “I’m doing her laundry for her this weekend, what more do you want?” Heh.
Actually, I’m not usually much of a hoverer, but I’ve been up to check on her several times already, and it’s probably starting to freak her out. No doubt she wishes I’d leave her the hell alone and just let her SLEEP, GODDAMNIT.
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“Is it EVER going to warm up? Ever? Because I think we need to move to the fucking Bahamas if this shit keeps up.”]]>
Yeah, I didn’t like that Nancy one bit. And her husband was so sweet! Go figure.
Aw, Miz Poo! I’ll snuggle with you and keep you warm! 🙂
I hope the Spud feels better soon!
Ouch!!! Poor Spud!!!! I hope that she feels better soon!!!!!
Get well soon Spud! :)I had that done about 10 years ago.. ouchie!
My brother had a cyst removed off his tailbone in 1999.. he had a skin graft (sp), it was nasty, he had the drains in and all.. and at the time my son was only three.. my brother told him he had “butt rot” surgery and my son still remembers that to this day.. any time he has so much as an itch on his ass he freaks out that he’s got “Uncle Joes butt rot!”
Poor spud, I hope she’s better soon!
I haven’t watched that Wife Swap yet but I think I’ll go now, it sounds like a good one 😀
Isn’t an asshole surgeon the exact kind of surgeon you would want in this case?? 😉
Rachael: BWA! BAHAHAH! Okay. Moving on.
Nancy Cedarquist (was that really her last name, and she lived in a treehouse? Dude.) was an IGNORAMUS and I loved the way the other lady just nailed her at the end…”The truth HURTS, Nancy, doesn’t it?”
Poor Spud! I hope she heals up real fast. That Nancy was quite the pistol. When she said if her (adult) child came to her and said I’m a garbage man blah blah she would be just fine with it. I thought I am glad you feel that way Nancy because I have a feeling your children are going to be panhandling street musicians(hold your ears) with the quality of education (especially musical) you are giving them.
Hey Robin,
hope the Spud feels much better soon…
I couldn’t help smiling when you wrote about keeping her doped up all weekend… were you a nurse in a former life??? I think every time I’ve been in for surgeries…3 c-sections, a gall bladder and then a complete hysterectomy, every nurse kept pushing pain meds….
thanks for your journal… it makes me smile…
mmmm hmmmmm, i had the ‘ole pilonidal cyst removed in my early 20’s as well. i wish i had asked about the scarring at the time, because oh myyy, i have a HUGE gaping scar there now. basically it looks exactly like i have TWO AS-HOLES. snort! now granted i waited a longgggggggg time to get mine removed so hopefully spud won’t have the scar i do. also, they left mine open to heal because the hole was just too large to close up and leave that empty cavity. oh i am so grossing myself out so i’m going to shut up now, just wanted to give you heads up about the scarring issue in case your doctor didn’t address it with you. hope the spud feels better soon, she has all my sympathy!
ann marie
duh… robyn, not robin… sorry about that, you’d think after reading your journal for all these years, I’d get it right…..
Wasn’t Fred’s surgery today also? Are you going to have 2 invalids at your house this weekend?
Aww,hope the Spud heals up right quick!
Rachael: Heh. Good point!
Jane: Yeah, she went on at the beginning about their last name being Cedarquist and it meaning tree something or something tree. And her husband’s.. grandfather? Great-grandfather? Was killed by a tree. I guess I wasn’t listening all that closely!
Ann Marie: He didn’t say anything about scarring, but he did say that it was a relatively small area because the cyst wasn’t infected right now; I guess when they’re infected they take up more room. The nurse in recovery said that she needed to avoid doing any strenuous activity for a month, because that would cause more scarring. She’s avoided strenuous activity for 16 years, she should be able to for another month. (I know, mean! But I couldn’t resist.)
Renee: No, his surgery was originally scheduled for today, but since it conflicted with the spud’s surgery and she needed to have it done today so she could spend the week of spring break recovering, he rescheduled for the end of April.
Thanks, y’all, for your well-wishes for the spud. Right now she’s laying in bed snoozing in front of the TV, but she’s been downstairs to eat lunch, and is getting back to her chatty self.
Oh, and someone asked if I was ever a nurse, because the nurses push the pain medication. Amen to that! The day after my c-section, the nurse kept coming in and asking if I wanted morphine, but I really wasn’t in pain and kept turning her down, and she would give me worried looks and come back half an hour later. Hopefully I’ve passed the high pain tolerance on to the spud!
Aww. Poor Spud. Get well soon.
With respect to surgeons who are assholes: The breast surgeon who did my mastectomy last year is wonderful (she’s the head of breast surgery at the hospital), but the attending and his minions were all assholes. They arrived en mass in the wee small hours (I called them the surgeon swarm), checked incisions without ever looking me in the eye, and swarmed out again. I hated those guys.
Hope the Spud has a quick recovery!
And thanks for the Miz Poo pic as I love her most of all.
The fucking bahamas sounds really nice right now.
Hope Spud gets better quickly!
I watched that Wife Swap. Nancy was such a judgemental jerk. As if her way was perfect. And now she has hubby helping her so she can sit on her ass and read? She deserved to do it all herself. Her kids even had a better time when she was gone. The other family was a bit too regimented…but it seems they’ve relaxed some. I felt like slapping Nancy quite a few times during the show.
Get well tushes, I mean wishes for the Spud. I did notice that the Oeth guy favored John Kerry. It freaked me out. As for Nancy, she favors my hubby’s ex-wife. Especially when she would get that holier than thou attitude when she did not know what the hell she was talking about! I am glad the Oeths have apparently relaxed some with their schedules…..heck I have been known to take the kid to daycare when I was at home! LOL
Oh man, I had a pilonidal cyst my sophomore year of college, those fuckers HURT. Hope the spud feels better soon! 😀
I would like to send get well soon greetings to the spud. Poor thing, but at least the worst part is over; it’s been removed. I have never heard of such a cyst, so my medical knowledge has improved. Hope she is feeling better and that you haven’t needed to hover so much. I am sure she appreciates it, because everyone wants someone to hover when they are sick, and usually if it’s the mother, that’s best 😉 Hope everyone gets well soon at your house.