6-26-08

So, I had my five-week follow up visit with the plastic surgeon yesterday. They took some “after” pictures, and then the nurse inspected my incision and found a few stitches (which were supposed to dissolve) that had worked their way to the surface of the incision. I’d noticed them recently (they just look like little pieces of string sticking out, nothing painful I ASSURE YOU, you big babies. You think I don’t see you there with the “Ewww” face on right now?) and so she got her tweezers and pulled them out. They were mostly just little pieces of string (and I couldn’t feel her pulling them out), but she showed me one that she got from my back, and it was about an inch long. I was impressed that she’d pulled that out and I hadn’t felt it!

And THEN, the surgeon came in and looked me over and cleared me for regular activity (though I need to work up to lifting stuff slowly) and he checked out my incision and we looked at my “before” pictures, and he told me that he was pleased with my results, and asked if I was. I assured him that I was very happy, then we discussed the “scar massage” I’m to begin immediately.

Scar massage, basically, is where you use unscented lotion, put it on the tip of your finger, and rub firmly along the scar line. It breaks up and softens the scar ridge under the incision line. They gave me a sample of Mederma and a sample of Eucerin. I picked up a tube of Mederma at Target, and apparently you can use it on old scars. I’m going to do an experiment on the scar on my stomach – the one where I had a mole removed several years ago – and see if it really makes any difference in the appearance of the scar over the next few months. I mean, I don’t really care how dark my scars are, I’m not going to be exposing my scars in public or anything, it’s just a matter of curiosity.

As the surgeon looked at my incision line, he pointed out a scabby area to the nurse and said he thought there might be some “suture material” there and asked her to take a look. He told me to come back at the 9-month mark, and left the room. The nurse had me lean back, and she got her tweezers out, and she started pulling on the scabs (there were two small ones) and we were both like “No, just looks like scabs…” and THEN this three-inch long piece of suture came out, and I was like “OOH, GROSS!” and the nurse said “Are you okay?” and I said “Yeah, I meant gross in a cool way!”

You weren’t eating, were you?

So ANYway, I asked about my binder, and she said that I could start weaning myself off the binder usage slowly, that if I suddenly started going without, it would put a lot of stress on my abdomen and would hurt. After my shower this morning, I’m going to go without the binder for a few hours and see how it goes. I do have a couple of Flexees “Waist-shaper panties” that I might wear for a while, too. We’ll see, I’ll play it by ear. Or by abs. HA.

The nurse said, “So are there any clothes you’re fitting into that you weren’t able to fit into before?” and I told her the story of my size medium shorts from Wal-Mart, and then I said “Actually, this t-shirt I’m wearing, I used to try it on and wouldn’t wear it because it was tight on my stomach, but when I was looking for something to wear this morning, I decided to give it a try!”

And she gave me a high five. Heh.

Here’s me in my Wal-Mart shorts and size L t-shirt (you can’t see the front, but there’s a pink flower, and it says “Maine” below it). I am fully aware that y’all are going to tell me that the shirt is too big, but what you need to keep in mind is SHUT UP. I didn’t go out and buy it, it was in my closet, and a smaller size would have shorter sleeves and in such a case y’all would be looking at my upper arms and no one needs to see that. Trust me.

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This past weekend, Fred decided he was caught up on his chores around the place, and he walked inside a little after 11:00 and announced “It would take very little to convince me to drive up to Lawrenceburg. I don’t want to work outside anymore, it’s too damn hot out there.”

“You know what I was thinking?” I said.

“What?”

“We should drive up to Lawrenceburg!”

And so we did. I mentioned that I wished that we could trust his truck to get us up there, because there are a few areas in the house where I’d like to put simple tables, and the Amish furniture I’ve seen has been the kind of stuff that would work perfectly. This apparently put the idea in his head that he should get a new truck (something he’s been talking about on and off recently), and so we drove through Closeville and eyeballed some trucks before we headed for Tennessee.

We were both starving to death by the time we got to Amish country, so we stopped at The Brass Lantern in Lawrenceburg, and we had the BEST burgers on earth. When we went into the restaurant, they seated us at a small table with four chairs. I had the utter nerve and gall to sit on the side next to Fred instead of across from him, and we were sitting there looking at our menus and my arm brushed against his and he said “You’re all up in my space, aren’t you?” and I said “Well, do you want me to move?” AND HE SAID “Do you mind?” So I called him a princess and got up and flounced to the other side of the table and apparently the people sitting behind us got a kick out of that.

Did I mention we had the best burgers ever? SO GOOD. I ate the other half of mine for dinner that night, and it was just as good reheated. NOM.

I tried to convince Fred we need one of these for the tree in the front yard. He wouldn’t go for it. Hmph.

Then we got in the car and headed for the Amish community. We passed about 10,000 used car lots on the way, stopped at a produce store to buy a few things, drove through the Amish community without stopping (the Amish peoples are so scary and flat-gazed and unsmiling that we rarely ever stop to buy anything, because we’re great big scaredy-cats) and then we stopped at a furniture gallery to look at the tables. I didn’t really see anything that was perfect (though I did point out a table to Fred, and he said “I could build something like that!”, so I snapped a picture of it. We’ll see if there’s any actual building done in the future. I AM SKEPTICAL.)

We stopped and looked at another zillion and thirty trucks (I suspect you can imagine just how interested I am in the whole truck hunt. PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP.), and then we went to the R3d T0p B@rgain B@rn, which is this, well, barn that’s crammed full of cheap crap. Imagine Big Lots, only not as classy. We stopped there because Fred likes to buy cable ties there; they’re apparently better than the ones he got at Big Lots.

As he checked out, the lady running the cash register looked at his shirt and laughed and pointed it out to the other woman working there.

“I like his shirt!” she said. “‘That’s what she SAID!'”

(Side note: Fred sent me an email the week before last with this link. Since I thought it was a t-shirt he needed (not that he really needs any more t-shirts, but y’know.), I ordered it. I also got him this one while I was at it.)

When we went out to the car, Fred said “I wanted to say, ‘That’s not what it says! It says That’s what SHE said!'”

We were headed back to the highway, cutting down a shortcut, when I saw a small animal by the side of the road, and then looked closer, and lost my shit.

“Stop the car! Stop the car! STOP THE CAR!” I yelled. I swear to god, Fred moseyed down the road for three miles before slowly coming to stop. “Turn around! Go back! THAT WAS A KITTEN!” He finally turned around, but he wouldn’t stop where the kitten STILL was because it was on a blind curve or something that he TOTALLY MADE UP and eventually he pulled over and I got out of the car while he was still slowly slowly SLOWLY coming to a stop.

The kitten, naturally, was no longer by the side of the road (I should note here that it didn’t seem to be hurt, was moving around just fine, but I didn’t think a kitten who appeared to be about the size of our fosters should be wandering around next to a road where the traffic moves pretty quickly) and I searched around in the brush and called for it. I could hear something moving off in the distance and when I called out, an adult cat meowed back at me, but after ten or fifteen minutes of searching I couldn’t find anything and Fred made me give up.

“You were like Arnie in Christine when he sees the car,” he said, then mocked me. “‘STOP THE CAR! STOP THE CAR! STOP THE CAR!'”

Fucker.

We stopped at the Bodenham General Store, which is our favorite store in Tennessee, and bought a few things, then headed home.

Sunday, since Fred still had that bug firmly up his butt about needing a new truck, he finished up what he’d wanted to get done outside and then asked if I wanted to drive into Huntsville to look at trucks. Since I had nothing pressing to do, I agreed, and we headed out.

I made him stop at the pet store so we could buy some cat food, and I looked at the cats in the pet room and holy COW there are a lot of kittens right now.

“I don’t know. It matches my collar, but it sure does use a lot of gas…”

We drove through the parking lot of a bunch of dealerships, but a lot of them were closed and Fred got annoyed and decided we should head home, but on the way home there was this used car dealership with a nice-looking truck out front. Fred checked it out and we eventually took it for a drive. When we got back to the lot, the salesman was sitting on the front porch of the house (it was originally a house, was a “Candle Cottage” for a few years, and now it’s the office for a used car dealership). I hate everything that goes along with the process of buying a car, so Fred went up to talk to the guy, and I went to wait in the car.

Fred got in the car (which surprised me, I thought for sure he was going to end up buying the truck.) and I said “I don’t like him. He looks like a douchebag.”

“Oh, he is.”

(Fred wrote more about it over on his site.)

So we ended the weekend without a new truck which surprised me, really. We did go up into Closeville earlier this week to look at a truck Fred had seen, but he decided it was more than we want to spend. He’s made noises, since then, that we don’t NEED a new truck and it’s foolish to spend money on something like that that we don’t NEED, but I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling. We’re going to end up with a truck, believe me. He’s a man on a mission.

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Fred has taken to picking up Kara and walking around the downstairs with her. Yesterday, he let her out into the downstairs hallway so she could walk around. Miz Poo was in the vicinity. Kara sniffed around and then rubbed on Miz Poo, and then she apparently realized she was rubbing on Miz Poo, and started a smackdown.

Poor Miz Poo.

So Kara has decided that she’d like the freedom of having the run of the whole house, pls, and so she sits at the bottom of the stairs and occasionally howls and I blame Fred for this annoying turn of events. If I could trust that she wouldn’t kill any of the cats who looked sideways at her kittens, I’d be more inclined to let her run free. As it is, for now she’ll get short periods of freedom.

“YOWZA!”

There are a bunch of really good kitten pics uploaded today over at Flickr.

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“I am Suggie J. Sugarton, and I disapprove this message.”

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Previously
2007: I figure it’s the goddamn circle of life and all that.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: I know I did the same lazy-ass, stupid-ass shit, and in retrospect she didn’t beat me nearly enough.
2002: Fred: Hey. You’re married to an old white man.
2001: No entry.
2000: I’m having a klutzy day.