Category: medical crap

Oh, readers.

Readers, readers, readers. You disappoint me, greatly. You make me tearful and sad. I made a bet with Fred, and y’all let me down.

Last week I posted:

Y’all said: NOTHING, because you totally missed:

Hmph.

And I also posted:

Y’all said: NOTHING (though probably you were thinking Oh look, an exciting picture of Robyn’s hospital room. Could she BE any more boring?), because you totally missed:

And then I posted:

You: Nada.

And lastly:

You: Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Hmph.

HMPH I SAY.

Considering how, back in October, I posted a pic of my canning cabinet, and y’all were like “ZOINKS! IS THAT A BABY CHICK IN THAT JAR?! ARE YOU CANNING BABY CHICKS?! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU?!” in about ten seconds flat, I expected more from you.

(The pic in question: )

I told Fred before I posted those pictures last week, that I was sure by comment #3, someone would be all “Um. Is that that doll you showed us a few weeks ago, peeking creepily from one side of the picture, or have I just gone insane?”, but nada.

Nothing.

No one noticed!

Ah well. I have to admit to you that we giggled like the great big dorks we are when we were setting up those pictures, so it was worth it, even though no one else got the joke.

 

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I had an appointment with my gynecologist yesterday (thus the lack of update), and it was the first time I’d driven since surgery. The driving went fine, and the appointment went fine, too. She was just checking my incision and checking in with me to see how I’m feeling. I got another four weeks’ worth of estrogen patches. So far, the estrogen patches seem to be working okay, but I think it’s too early to declare that we’ve found my dosage. Who knows what my body’s going to be pulling in the next few months?

I have developed, due to the surgery, a lovely little pot belly. She told me that eventually it would go away. IT BETTER, is all I’m saying. I didn’t pay for that damn lower body lift to end up with a pot belly, damnit.

These days, I’m spending my days wearing a pair of pajama pants that are about two sizes too big, and a sweatshirt. The pajama pants are perfect, because they don’t put any pressure on my swollen guts. I can wear jeans for a little while, as long as I don’t tighten the belt all the way, but the instant I get home it’s back into the pajama pants for me. (I think the kids call them “sleep pants” these days.)

Sunday, I felt so good that Fred and I actually went up to the flea market in Tennessee and walked around for about an hour. Fred bought three $3 t-shirts, and I bought a box of Girl Scout Cookies. They were out of Samoas (DAMNIT), so I got the chocolate/ peanut butter ones.

There were a lot of puppies for sale at that flea market. I came thisclose to throwing a temper tantrum and demanding that Fred let me buy a tiny little Shih-Tzu/ Yorkie puppy, but then I came to my senses and remembered that we’re not dogs (in the house) people. And especially we’re not buying-dogs-at-the-flea-market people when so many dogs are languishing in shelters, needing homes.

S/He sure was a cutie, though.

 

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I have been a TV-watching fool while I’m recovering from surgery. I actually ran out of stuff on the DVR, and had to flip wildly through the channels and set up to tape more stuff. I watched the biographies of Kristy McNichol and Carrie Underwood last week, and I still have Val Kilmer and Leonardo DiCaprio to watch. I started taping Ellen again, to add to my Dr. Phil and Oprah episodes (I don’t watch every episode of Oprah or of Dr. Phil – usually they have five minutes to catch my attention before I delete it).

I am caught up on Hoarders – I think I watched about ten episodes in the last week and a half. Are you watching Hoarders? You totally should, because it is an utterly fascinating show. The hoarders on that show seem to be divided into two camps – the people who hoard stuff but manage to get the garbage out of the house, and the people who have a house full of stuff AND garbage. I mean, seriously, the lady with the house full of adult diapers? What the holy hell must that house have smelled like? And the people with dead animals under piles of stuff? AGH.

These hoarders, god almighty, they ALWAYS seem to have cats. And they NEVER seem to clean UP after the cats. Okay, MAYBE I’m guilty of not cleaning up a pile of cat barf if I think Fred will see it and clean it up within an hour or so, but I don’t leave it there for DAYS MONTHS YEARS. And I would never ever leave a pile of crap laying on the floor for longer than it took me to stand over it in disbelief, swear a blue streak, and then find the cleaning stuff. If I catch even the slightest hint of cat pee, I’m a woman on a mission, walking around sniffing wildly, the spray in one hand and the cleaning rag in the other. Ask Fred – I must ask him a million times a week “DO YOU SMELL CAT PEE?” and “SMELL THAT CAT BED OVER THERE AND MAKE SURE IT DOESN’T HAVE PEE ON IT.”

The problem is that anything with the slightest chemical smell to it can initially smell like cat pee to me. There are these cord protectors that are, “infused” with a citrus scent, to deter cats (and other small animals) from chewing on them. To me, these cord protectors do NOT smell like citrus. They smell like cat pee with the slightest side of ass, at least the first whiff does. All the cords in the foster room are covered by the protectors, and most of the cords in my room are, and so are the cords in the guest bedroom. Any place where kittens might chew on cords, are these cord protectors. So I spend a LOT of time walking around my house going “OH. Is that CAT PEE?!”, sniffing wildly, and then determining that it’s the cord protectors I’m smelling.

Um. Look at me, I got distracted there. That was NOT where I meant to go when I started talking about the hoarders.

Where I meant to go, was to tell y’all that there hasn’t been one single episode of Hoarders where I haven’t spotted at least one Amazon box, and at least one Target bag. Every single episode. If I were the drinking sort, I’d make up a drinking game where you did a shot every time you spotted a Target bag or Amazon box. Then you could do a shot every time someone hovered tearfully over a piece of garbage and ended up deciding to keep it. And a shot every time someone’s family member got fed up and stomped off.

Actually, a better game would be one where every time you spotted a Target bag/ Amazon box, you pause the show and go find something to toss in the trash. Your house would be clean in no time!

Truly, I do not know how the therapists and organizers deal with this shit. The first time my client was all dithery about whether or not to keep the stack of classified ads from 1998 or the pile of unopened Target bags that were brought directly home from the store and tossed in a corner of the room, I’d be snatching that shit from their hands and screaming “GET OVER IT!” in their faces. I get really impatient while I’m watching the show. I mean, are you KIDDING ME, you have a pile of bags from the store chest-high, that you never touched once you brought them home, and somehow you’re SO attached to this shit that the idea of seeing it thrown out pushes you to the point of a nervous breakdown? SERIOUSLY?

I also – JUST MY OPINION – think that when your house is so stuffed with crap that your partner has fallen down the stairs and broken her leg because of it, and your response is to get overwhelmed and declare that you’re not getting rid of anything at all, that is incredibly fucking selfish on your part, and FUCK YOUR DISEASE.

See? I’d be a horrible therapist.

I’ve also powered my way through one and a half seasons of Californication, and I have to admit to you that I am loving that damn show. I’ve never really watched David Duchovny in anything, but I like him in this show, and I LOVE the holy hell out of Marcy. She’s like a tiny, younger, funny Demi Moore. Truly, the only character who annoys me is Mia and even she’s starting to grow on me.

The second disc for Season 2 is on the way from Netflix, and I’ll likely get it watched in an afternoon. THEN what the hell am I going to watch?

Suggestions?

 

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Thanks for all your comments regarding Hoyt. Someone is seriously interested in adopting him, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that works out. Y’all keep your fingers crossed, too, and I’ll be sure to let y’all know more when there’s more to know. 🙂

 

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Lena posted in her blog that her son – who lives in Jacksonville, Florida – found this poor, malnourished pit bull. Look at the pictures of that poor dog, is he not the most pitiful thing?

Wes is pretty sure that his homeowner’s policy won’t allow him to keep a pit bull, so he needs help – if you’re in the Jacksonville area and you’re willing to foster or adopt this sweet boy or know someone who will, contact Wes (email address is toward the bottom of this page).

 

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Has everyone read about little Myron, Sue’s sweet foster boy?

Bad news: Myron tested positive for Feline Leukemia.

Good news: Sue found a great shelter with a small Feline Leukemia ward, willing to take him!

I love Myron because he reminds me more than a little of my sweet Mikey (who is now Aaron & Marian’s beloved Topher). I think it is absolutely awesome that there’s a facility willing to take sweet Myron.

You can make a donation to Purrfect Pals here.

(And keep your fingers crossed that the lottery ticket we bought yesterday wins. How amazing would it be to have a small facility devoted to taking care of special needs cats? I’d love to be able to do that!)

 

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Hey, look who we’ve got pictures of!

That’s sweet Clairee.

And Drum and Clairee!

They are reportedly very happy in their new home, and their new parents adore them and are glad they adopted both of them. I mean, seriously – have you ever seen such happy monkeys?

 

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“Do I need to come over there and smack you around a little, perhaps?”

 

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Previously
2009: They are weird-looking and obnoxious.
2008: No entry.
2007: Seriously, I might be a bit lackadaisical in my housekeeping, but I wouldn’t let CAT POO sit around on the floor, let alone let it show up in a picture!
2006: Second of all, we both hate our voices and to release them forth into the world would be a cruelty beyond measure.
2005: Impromptu day off.
2004: I’m going to save a fortune on tampons, that’s for sure.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Damn that Sam’s.
2000: Heartless bastard.

It appears that there are some people who’d miss the Friday Comment! Answering! Extravaganza! I actually didn’t think that many people were into it, but I never minded answering questions in the entry, so I’ll put up a poll, and majority will rule on this, mm’kay?

Edited to add: There’ll be entries on Fridays whether there’s a Comment! Answering! Extravaganza! or not.

Friday Comment! Answering! Extravaganza!

Do you like the Friday Comment! Answering! Extravaganza! ? Yes! Please keep it. No! Get rid of it. I don’t care! I just like to click on things. Current Results

 

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I had a fairly good day yesterday (really, with NINE little kittens in the house, how can you NOT have a good day?!), but I’ll tell you that the highlight of my day?

NOT walking out the side door and seeing Newt flinging a headless squirrel into the air and then continuing to play with it.

Oh, there was a head present and accounted for – it was sitting over by the chimney with a trail of guts leading to it – it just wasn’t attached to the squirrel.

You know, I know cats hunt and eat small rodents and all, and I’ve accepted that. I don’t love it, but I accept it. But WHY must they leave pieces of squirrel near the steps so I have to carefully avert my gaze every time I go outside? If they’re going to kill it, I think they should have to eat it afterward. Because squirrel guts do not lend a happy air to my day.

That Newt is a hunting motherfucker, though. Between he and Maxi, I’m not sure how there are any squirrels left alive in this area.

Speaking of cats and hunting, I don’t think I mentioned that one day last week Kara was in the back yard, and I glanced out the window and saw that she was eating a mole (we have a horrible mole problem, and occasionally they tunnel into the back yard and that’s about the LAST thing they do). Not five minutes later, I looked out again, and she was carrying something big across the yard.

It was no mole, that’s for sure.

I watched and watched, and just for the life of me couldn’t figure out what it was. I thought it could be a squirrel, but the color didn’t quite look right. Finally, I went outside to see what it was, and what was it? A rabbit. A RABBIT. The damn thing must have wandered into our back yard (it wasn’t fully grown, so must have been able to squeeze through the fence) and met up with Kara.

She’s a pretty fearsome hunter, too.

Sorry, though. I have no pictures of headless squirrels or half-eaten rabbits to share. I know you’re heartbroken.

 

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Tuesday, I had an 11:00 appointment in South Huntsville, a follow-up appointment with the Hematologist who ordered my iron infusion.

Let me repeat: the appointment was for 11:00.

People? What do we know about scheduling doctor appointments? Is it that unless one is desperate, one should schedule appointments for very very very first thing in the morning? I believe that is the number one truth of appointment scheduling. Because what happens when one has an 11:00 appointment with a doctor, when said doctor starts seeing patients at 8:00?

If you answered “Why Robyn, you get to wait for 1 hour and 45 minutes!”, give yourself a gold star.

Yes, I cooled my heels for 1 hour and 45 minutes. They tricked me at first, though – I signed in, paid my copay

[Let me take a moment to breathe deeply so that I won’t get pissed all over about the fact that I paid a $35 copay for a follow-up visit. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Alright, then.]

and I had hardly sat down and cracked open my book (thankyajesus that I remembered to bring a book with me) when the lab tech was calling my name. This gave me a very false sense of hope that I’d be out of the office by 11:15. 11:30 at the latest. She brought me back to the lab and took blood, and may I just say that it was the best and fastest blood drawing experience of my life. I didn’t feel a THING. Then she told me to go back to a second waiting room and wait.

I sat in a small room with several other people, who were all talking to each other, and read. I occasionally dipped into the conversation to see if there was anything interesting going on, but they were talking about some restaurant in Scottsboro, so I tuned back out. Eventually, the other patients waiting were called back to have their vitals taken, and to go to various exam rooms.

I sat and read.

More patients came and sat and chatted quietly to the people accompanying them. Eventually, this woman came along with a huge bag of knit hats.

(Have I mentioned that the doctor is also an Oncologist? I would guess that 9/10ths of his patients are cancer patients. And there I was, sitting there with my low iron, feeling like a – what? Imposter? Like, pardon me, I have LOW IRON, I have to consult with the doctor about my very important LOW IRON. I just stayed quiet and kept my head down so no one would turn to me and say “I have stage 4 terminal lung cancer, the doctor expects me to kick off in a week to ten ::COUGHCOUGHCOUGH:: oh, pardon me, I seem to have gotten a piece of my cancerous lung on your cheek, could you hand that back to me? So I’m about to die. What’s your story?” and I’d have to burst into tears and yell “I HAVE LOW IRON I REQUIRE THE OCCASIONAL IRON TRANSFUSION O GOD WHYYYYYY MEEEEEEEEEE?” and flee the room.)

So this woman came along with a huge bag of knit hats and stopped in the doorway and said “Would anyone like a hat? I knit these myself, I’m donating them to patients of this office.”

I heard “Free hats” and perked up and casually leaned over and looked, and the woman must have had 200 hats in that bag, and they were GORGEOUS. For one little second I thought about asking for one (hey, they were REALLY pretty), but I thought that would be horribly crass (and you KNOW I’d have to come right here and tell all y’all about it because I can’t keep any of my crassness and stupidity to myself) and so I settled back down and continued reading my book.

Eventually I tuned back into the conversation and glanced over to see that an elderly woman had accepted one of the hats, but then she reconsidered and handed it back to the woman who’d made it.

“She doesn’t want to take one just yet,” her daughter, sitting next to her, told the knitter. “She still has all her hair!”

And the lady who’d made the hats, nodded understandingly and then said “Yes, well, it won’t be long, though!”

Eh. Wha? I know my eyebrows shot up so far they were on the back side of my head, and I had to catch my eyeballs before they went bouncing off down the hall.

I don’t even know what the still-has-all-her-hair woman’s response was, because I was still boggled by what the knitter’d said.

I myself would have nodded and smiled understandingly rather than saying, basically, “Hey, just a matter of time! You’ll be balder than a billiard ball before you know it! Oh, and just WAIT ’til the vomiting starts, that is going to be one FABULOUS experience!”

More patients came and went, pages flew off the calendar, I grew steadily more gray. I started playing a game with myself where I would try to figure out what time it was without looking at a clock, then check the time on my cell phone. I was within a couple of minutes most times.

At 12:20, they came and got me, and put me in an exam room. I sat and read and thought about throwing myself out the window. I texted Fred to let him know I was STILL FUCKING WAITING. He texted me back and told me I should leave. By this point, though, an hour and a half into the wait, I was invested in fucking sitting and waiting until the doctor (who was surely in the middle of saving a cancer patient’s life) wandered by.

At 12:45, the door opened. A woman came in and introduced herself as the doctor’s nurse. She sat and showed me the results from the blood they drew the morning I had the iron infusion. She told me that I do not have Myeloma. I had not been very concerned about the possibility of having Myeloma, since I had no idea they were testing to be sure I didn’t, so I felt no great sense of relief. I just nodded and said “Okay. Well, good.”

(I should have said “Can we test for all other kinds of cancer now, just to be safe?”)

She asked if I was feeling better; I told her I’m feeling the same, but since I felt fine before the iron infusion, the fact that I’m feeling the same doesn’t alarm me.

She said it was surprising that I felt fine before the infusion because my iron level was at rock bottom. In retrospect, I’m wondering if my iron level has gone from “fine” to “rock bottom” since I had blood tests before my visit to my weight loss surgeon last January, or if the surgeon dropped the ball.

(I vote that he dropped the ball because have I mentioned I don’t like that guy?)

Anyway, she said that most likely I’ll have to start coming every 6 – 12 months for more iron infusions, I should come back in three months (with lab work done a week before my appointment so they’ll have the results), and probably 3 months after that. UNLESS the lab tests I had done before my appointment yesterday come back with my iron still low, in which case I’ll have to go back earlier for another iron infusion. So if my iron level is still low, she’ll call; otherwise, I go back in three months.

I was so relieved to be done with the appointment and out of there that it wasn’t ’til I was two miles down the road that I thought to be SUPER annoyed by the fact that I’d waited 1 hour and 45 minutes and paid a $35 copay to not even see the doctor, and in fact have a discussion with the nurse that could have easily taken place over the phone.

At least my next appointment is scheduled for 9. Hopefully I’ll only have to wait for an HOUR next time.

And hey – I got some good reading time in!

 

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If I ever have to write that I accidentally squished the Wonkas right to death, you’ll understand, won’t you?

Gus, sleeping….

Veruca and Violet, fighting, fall directly onto Gus’s head, waking him up.

And he gives ME the dirty look. Hey, I didn’t do it!

Nothin’ cuter than a sleeping kitten…

 

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The new guys have been named – go read yesterday’s entry at Love & Hisses if you missed it.

They’re doing very well – I’m feeding them every 4 hours. Well, I say I’m feeding them, but Fred helps out with the feedings that take place when he’s home. Between the two of us, we can get all five of those babies fed in no time flat.

They’re eating a lot, peeing a lot. I’d like to see more poop (did I just say that?!), but they’re doing okay.

The first few days we had them, they’d scream at me every time they saw me. I think they were a little scared by their new living situation and didn’t know what was going on. They’ve relaxed a little, now, and I’ve peeked in to see them playing and exploring their cage several times. Yesterday a ray of sun was shining in their cage, and Keebler was rolling around, stretching, and just generally looking like a happy boy.

I don’t know if all of them are purring for me, but at least several of them are.

Here I go, falling in love with yet another batch of babies. Who saw THAT coming?! 🙂

After feeding, someone’s happy. She was rolling around, stretching, and licking her paw.

I still haven’t assigned names to the girls yet. We call this one “pink” because she’s got a blotch of pink at the end of her right ear. We are SO original.

“HEY! There are BOTTLES in that mug!”

Orange (because we marked on of her ears with orange) crawled out of the cage, into my lap, and demanded a belly rub. She’s going to be a bossy one, I can already tell.

I don’t know why it is, but Hydrox looks to me like a little boy who just got a haircut. He’s a champion eater, that one.

 

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No True Blood adoptions yet. ::SIGH:: Maybe this weekend will be a lucky one for them!

King Terry, atop his pile o’ cat beds.

Princess Sookie, sound asleep. I swear, these Snoozzy kitten blankets are about the best investment I’ve ever made.

 

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Crazy Jake.

 

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Previously
2008: Pictures from around Crooked Acres.
2007: You snooze, you lose. That’s our motto at Crooked Acres.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: (We fat chicks love the buffet, don’tchaknow.)
2003: The gluttony, the sloth, the avarice!
2002: The kitties did not care for the tune, the unappreciative bastards.
2001: How to change a tire.
2000: No entry.
1999: But as I see it, more than 2 cats makes you a weird cat person. Am I wrong? Is it three, or some incredible number like ten?

What a DAY I had yesterday.

I left here at 7:45 to be at the appointment for my iron infusion at 8:30. I got there about five minutes early, sat in the waiting room and read until they called me back. They checked all the usual vital signs, took some blood for more blood tests, and then took me back to the chemo room. I sat and waited for about ten minutes (the nurse was having a hard time getting an IV in a patient who arrived before me), and then the nurse came to talk to me.

As it turns out, I had been scheduled to have five days of one-hour bags of Venofer, one each day Monday through Friday. But Blue Cr0ss apparently decreed over the weekend that unless the patient receiving the iron infusion had kidney damage (I do not), they’d get INFeD instead.

The difference is that INFeD is given through one four-hour bag, once. The up side was that I’d only have to be there that one day and wouldn’t have to go back Tuesday through Friday. The down side was that when all was said and done, I’d have to be there for about six hours.

Would my schedule allow me to have it done, or did I need them to reschedule me for another day? the nurse asked.

I thought for a moment, shrugged, and told her I didn’t have anything pressing, that I wouldn’t mind getting it over with, and let’s go for it.

So she went off to do the paperwork, I went to the bathroom, and chose a recliner to spend the next six hours in. She came with the IV kit and poked around on the underside of my arm for a few minutes, looking for a good vein. She thought she’d found one, and put the needle in, but the vein was being tricky and she ended up having to pull the needle back out.

(She apologized profusely, and when I said it was okay, she said “No it’s not!” and I said “Well, it’s not like you were doing it on PURPOSE” and she laughed.)

She ended up putting the IV in the back of my hand, and then she gave me Benadryl through the IV. I know she told me why I needed to have the Benadryl, but I don’t really remember. She warned me that it was a large dose, and it would likely just about knock me out.

It’s Benadryl, I thought skeptically. How bad could it really be?

She slowly pushed the dose of Benadryl into my IV, and I thought Oh, come on. I don’t feel that at all.

And then it hit me. That was one big fucking dose of Benadryl and I was high as a kite.

She set the timer on my IV for 15 minutes and then went off while I sat in a daze in my chair and stared off into space and then dozed off.

The timer went off after 15 minutes, and she came back with a test dose of the iron. What they do (and some of you even told me this last week, and you were right!) is give you a test dose of the iron, wait an hour in case there’s an allergic reaction, and then put the rest of it in your IV bag. She told me all the symptoms to watch for, and then slowly pushed the test dose into my IV while I stared at the wall.

“I can see you’re concentrating really hard!” she said after a few minutes.

I laughed. “No, I’m just sitting here being high!”

I had no immediate reaction to the iron (she said that if you’re going to have a reaction, it’ll usually happen immediately, that it’s very rare for an allergic reaction to show up during that hour wait, but they still have to do it just to be safe), and she set the timer on my IV for an hour and went off.

For the next hour, I dozed, woke up briefly to look around, then dozed some more. When the hour was up, she put the rest of the iron in my IV bag, offered me something to drink, and then told me where the drinks and snacks were, and if I needed to go to the rest room, I could just unplug my pump and wheel my IV stand with me.

For another couple of hours I dozed, stared at the wall, and dozed some more. Finally, around noon I was awake enough that I decided to get up, go to the bathroom, and get something to eat since I hadn’t eaten anything at all earlier.

(Had I realized I was going to be spending six hours there, I would have brought more than a bottle of water and a book with me. I would have brought TWO bottles of water, some magazines, and probably my iPod.)

The last three hours of sitting there went by slowwwwwly. I finished my book and then went back to re-read the parts I’d skimmed, I went to the bathroom and got more cheddar crackers (I’ve never been a fan, but when you’re starving, they’re pretty damn good!), I eavesdropped on the conversations around me, I dozed a little. FINALLY the bag was empty, the alarm went off, and the nurse came and took the IV out.

She told me that I might feel a “boost” from the iron today (so far, I do not), but that I wouldn’t really feel the full effects for a few (she might have said “several”) weeks. She said I might feel achy today (my right arm is aching, but otherwise I feel fine), and then she showed me to the door.

I stopped at McDonald’s to get a cheeseburger (DON’T JUDGE ME, I WAS STARVING), and while I was waiting in line at the drive-thru, Fred called to make sure I was still alive.

“I have a surprise for you when you get home,” he said. “And I think you’ll like it a lot.”

“Is it food?” I said, being very very hungry.

He laughed. “Well, I guess in some countries you could eat it…”

Which is when I HIGHLY suspected that it was a kitten, and if not a kitten, then something living. Maybe a duck or a chicken.

I got home, and Fred met me at the door.

“This is the rash I got…” he said, holding out his rash-covered arms. “From the sticky bushes…” He led me inside. “Where I found these.” He opened a box, and there were four small kittens. Four little faces turned up to look at me, and all four of them hissed and spat at me.

(I suspect they didn’t get the memo that there’s nothing cuter and LESS threatening than a hissing kitten.)

Someone who works with Fred had spotted these four kittens under a bush near the window of his office. He watched them for the better part of the day, and then just as Fred was going to leave work for the day, this guy thought “Now, who do I know who has the word SUCKAH written on his forehead when it comes to cats? Hmm, who who who?”

And Fred rode to the rescue.

“I hate you,” I said to Fred. “And I hate your coworker and I wonder why the universe is insistent that we have another set of fosters in our lives?”

(Remember Ike?)

So I looked them over and then weighed one of them and then set them up in a cage with some soft blankets and a place to hide, and a litter box. I called the Challenger’s House manager and blamed it all on Fred, and told her we’d foster them, and she agreed that they could be Challenger’s House kittens.

(One of the women who works at the office near where the kittens were found has already said that she wants the little gray one.)

I think they’re about a month old, given that they weigh around a pound. They’re in really good shape, very clean, and I didn’t see any fleas on them at all. And most telling of all, their eyes are not goopy in the slightest.

It’s my very strong suspicion that they were dumped there, and that likely they weren’t there for long because they’re in such good condition.

So we tried putting some canned food on a plate in the cage, and they were uninterested. Then we tried bottle feeding them last night, and they were uninterested (though if they got some formula in their mouths, they’d swallow it). There’s one friendly calico and one hissy-spitty calico, the little gray one spits at Fred, but this morning he clung to the front of my shirt and let me pet him for a long time. The black one is hissy-spitty, but s/he’s not hissing and spitting like s/he means it.

We know the calicos are girls, but aren’t sure what the black and gray ones are. Fred’s the one with the kitten-sexing skills in this household, and he glanced and couldn’t tell what they were, but he’ll look more seriously tonight.

This morning we tried giving them bottles again, and they chewed on the nipples and swallowed the formula that came out, but didn’t really latch on and suck. We got some formula into them, though, and I wiped each of them with a paper towel to make them urinate, but later on one of them used the little litter box I’d put in the cage.

The gray one, as I mentioned, latched onto my shirt and let me pet him/ her for a long time (even purred a little!). Then I got out a jar of chicken baby food and tried smearing some around his mouth. I ended up getting him to lick some off my fingers, but none of the others were interested.

So, they’re cute, and they’ll be here for at least another month. We haven’t named them yet, but I’m sure once we figure out what the gray one and the black one are, Fred will come up with names for them.

This one has a few white spots, and has a kind of “frosted” look.

This one’s spoken for – and the biggest of the bunch.

The hissy-spitty calico. She’s all “UNHAND ME, SIR!”

The friendly calico.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Eyelip count: Hoyt’s left eyelip came off yesterday, and Lafayette’s got one that’s hanging on (I think it’s actually still attached by some tissue, which is why I haven’t snipped it off). This means that Sookie and Terry have both (all four?) of their eyelips still (and they’re looking good!), Lafayette has one and a half, and Sam’s left eyelip is hanging on for dear life – it’s not even pretending to want to come off.

After I said on Sunday that we’d probably start letting the True Bloods out into the house “later this week”, Fred came upstairs while I was with them, and they all crowded around the temporary door and looked up at him with hopeful eyes, and he said “Come on, let’s just let them out!”, so we did.

So far, everyone’s behaving. Kara’s had to put the smack down a few times, and the True Bloods respond by immediately going docile, because they’re no dummies. Mostly, they run around and play with each other, and explore the house. Yesterday, they discovered the toilet paper and pulled it all off the roll. (They were QUITE proud of themselves.)

I haven’t gotten any pictures of them out and about, but I will, I promise!

Sam shows that rope just who the boss is.

Terry (before surgery), hanging out on the upside-down cat basket.

Four of the six.

Six of the six!

Bath time: so annoying!

Sleepy Sam.

Hoyt, stretching and trying to decide whether to go wake up Sookie.

Jake’s all “This is FOOD and thus it is MINE” and the True Bloods are all “Think so? ‘Cause we don’t see it that way.”

Sweet Sam.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Miz Poo, up close.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Previously
2008: “Shit!” he exclaimed. “We forgot to check Nick for toots!”
2007: No entry.
2006: If I were manic-depressive (wait. Do they call it bipolar now? I haven’t kept up on my psychiatrically politically correct terms lately), I think I would have been considered to be in a manic state yesterday.
2005: Never-ending.
2004: If you had any idea how much time I spent backspacing and retyping words when I write my entries, you’d burst into tears of sympathy.
2003: Who the fuck are Nikki and Paris Hilton, and why would I give a good goddamn what they’re wearing or doing or driving or fucking?
2002: No entry.
2001: You know you’re getting old when you have to ask a 12 year-old girl who’s on the TV.
2000: No entry.

Know what pisses me off? I’ve been putting off ordering new bras for a few months because I just didn’t WANNA, and now that I’ve hit the critical stage and my bras are basically tattered pieces of material held together by sheer force of my angry will, the bras I love so much, that are SO perfect for me, that I NEED at least four of to get me through until next January or February, when I will be having my chest parts nipped and tucked and then who the hell knows what size bra I’ll be wearing?

Those bras are no longer being manufactured.

GODDAMNIT. Goddamn you, Olga Perfect Fit Full Figure Underwire Bra #35069. You lured me in, you made me love you, and now where the hell are you? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.

I have ordered seven different bras and they all came yesterday, and I have tried them all on and NOT A GODDAMN ONE WORKS FOR ME. I have one that’s a “maybe”, but come on. I’m a size 36DDD (THAT IS “D” IN TRIPLICATE, YOUR EYES ARE NOT DECEIVING YOU), I don’t need a goddamn bra with TWO hooks on the back. I need a goddamn bra with AT LEAST three hooks, preferably four, and with sides that are wide (tall?) enough to firmly hold in all that lovely flabby skin under my arms. I need a bra I can depend on, I need a bra I can love, and nothing I’ve tried so far has cut it at all.

And the bras I’m currently wearing are NOT going to make it for another eight months.

So tell me this – I am in the market for a size 36DDD bra, one with plenty of support (underwires are welcome), one that will hold in the side flab and be comfortable and present a perky bosom to the world at large. Tell me what the perfect bra is, what bra makes you nod your head, secure that it will do all you ask of it and does not cost an arm and a leg, and oh yeah – nice, secure, MEATY bra straps, not those thin little things that dig into your shoulder.

Hit me, y’all. I need HELP, and I know YOU can help me!

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Monday, I overdid it. All I did was take a trip to the grocery store, and I don’t know if it was just the wandering through the grocery store or the lifting (which I’m sure I did too much of) or what, but by bedtime I was starting to hurt. I took Tylenol before bed, but between 2 and 3 the next morning, after tossing and turning most of the night, I was in definite pain. I ached from my hips to my ribs. I tried to ignore it but was unsuccessful, and at 3:00 I gave up and got up. I went downstairs and took my favorite pain relief concoction – two Tylenol and two Advil.

On a side note, yes. I have gotten the okay from my weight loss surgeon to take Advil and the okay from my LiverDoctor to take Tylenol, and the okay from both to take both together as long as it’s not on a sustained (ie, weeks) basis. I’ve been advised to take two Advil and two Tylenol together by someone I won’t name so that when YOU try it and drop dead, your surviving relatives can’t sue her.

(PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND IF YOU TAKE ANY KIND OF MEDICAL ADVICE FROM ME WITHOUT CONSULTING, AT THE VERY LEAST, DOCTOR GOOGLE, IT IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY. THOUGH IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUE ME FOR A CHICKEN, FEEL FREE.)

I was told that the Advil/ Tylenol combo will work, for some people, better than narcotics when it comes to pain relief, and it’s certainly worked well for me. So after 45 minutes when it didn’t work to take away the pain, I was surprised. I ended up taking a hydrocodone, and I sat in the living room and watched the rest of the first disc, first season of The L Word, and by the time Fred came downstairs a little before 5:00, the pain had finally started to fade.

Because I can take a hint from my body (especially when it REALLY FUCKING HURTS), I took it extremely easy yesterday. I did very little around the house, spent most of the day in the recliner, and took a long nap in the afternoon. I kept on the hydrocodone, too, though rather than taking whole pills, I took half a pill every four hours, and it worked well enough.

This morning, I still hurt a little, so I’m going to take it easy again, another day of watching TV in the recliner and not a whole lot else.

I honestly don’t know if I overdid it on Monday, or if – at three weeks out of surgery – I’m starting to do some deep-down healing, or even if the fact that I started my period on Monday has anything to do with it. I feel like I’ve read that women having their period experience pain differently than when they’re not. I might be making that up, though, as Doctor Google’s not giving me any backup on that.

In any case, I’m taking it easy today. I promise!

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Look what reader Christine photoshopped for me!

Crack me UP. (Thanks, Christine!)

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So now that I know Zoe will eat baby food if it’s offered to her, I generally take her a spoonful on a plate in the morning and again in the evening when I bring a plate of canned cat food in for Kara (which she shares with River, sweet generous Momma that she is). Zoe always bellies right up to the plate (I’m going to start mixing crunchy food in with the baby food to see if I can’t coax her into giving it a try), and yesterday Inara smelled the baby food and came over to give it a try. Only, when she tried to get a little of the baby food, Zoe whipped out the Paw o’ Doom and stopped her.

I love the Paw o’ Doom. It cracks me up.

(Inara did get some baby food eventually; Zoe never eats all that I give her.)

“Why she got to give me the Paw o’ Doom? I always share with HER!”

Fighting kittehs.

“I told Mom that you bit my tail, and she is going to kick your ASS!”

A few more kitten pics over at Flickr.

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Tommy on a mission.

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Previously
2007: I was cross and felt at loose ends yesterday.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: WAS IT REALLY FUCKING NECESSARY TO CLOSE THE POST OFFICE ALL DAY TODAY?
2003: Fancypants goes missing.
2002: Look! It’s PMSing South Park Robyn!
2001: Poor people are so funny, aren’t they?
2000: No entry.

So, I had my second post-op appointment with the surgeon yesterday. I was scheduled at 3:30, and we got there right on time. We only had to wait a few minutes, and then we were back in the exam room. The nurse helped me undo my binder (and then pointed out that it was on UPSIDE DOWN, how embarrassing. I blamed Fred, of course.) and took the dressing off my incision line and proclaimed that everything looked good. The surgeon came in, looked me over, gave the nurse the okay to remove the drain, and told me to come back in three weeks.

The nurse removed the stitches from my bellybutton (and I was glad that it was numb, because she apparently did a lot of digging), removed a couple of steri-strips from the back part of my incision, and then prepared to remove the drain. When Fred had his drain removed at two weeks, it apparently hurt. A lot. A LOT. Which he told me repeatedly, both at the time, in the years since, and most often after I had my own surgery.

So when the nurse clipped the stitches holding the drain in place and I knew she was going to be removing the drain, I immediately exuded about a gallon of fear sweat. I told the nurse that I was scared BECAUSE OF FRED AND HIS BIG MOUTH and she gave him a dirty look (he told me later it was a dead ringer for the Mister Boogers “het” look) and then she told me to take a deep breath and she pulled. I could feel the part inside as she pulled it out, but just faintly, and it didn’t hurt at all, and then we discussed how Fred was a big baby and men experience pain (LIKE BIG BABIES) differently than women do.

She told me I had to wear the binder for another three weeks, then I can move on to a panty/ girdle thing. I should wear the girdle as tight as I possibly could, and wear it all the time. Once there’s no more drainage, I can wear a t-shirt or tank top under the binder to prevent irritation. I think I’m going to hit Target or Wal-Mart in the next few days and see if they still carry those very thin tank tops in the women’s lingerie section. As hot as it’s been, I’d like to wear as little as possible.

I got the okay to drive, too, by the way, and will be heading out here in a little while to check the PO Box and to stop and pick up a few (light) groceries.

When we got home, I immediately stripped down and went upstairs to take a shower, shave my legs, and shave my armpits. HEAVEN. I stayed in the shower for a long, long time, then dried off. Fred put some light gauze over my incision line (there’s still a bit of drainage in spots) and then cinched me into my binder.

The binder, by the way, looks like this.

So, Fred took a picture of me when we got home. Keep in mind that I’m still holding on to about 10 pounds of fluid, so I’m swollen. Also, I’m wearing my binder, which is not a thin garment. He took the picture and when I looked at it, I said “I feel a lot smaller than I look in that picture!” Ah, well. Story of my life!

By the way, since I had this surgery, I am utterly amazed at how often my bowel functioning is asked after. It seems like every time I turn around, someone’s asking. I’m surprised the mail lady hasn’t demanded a color-and-consistency report. For the record, they’re working just fine and didn’t give me one moment of trouble. I know that hydrocodone constipates some people, but apparently it’s not an issue with me, thank god.

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Every now and again over at Flickr, someone points out the fact that one of the kittens has an orange leg and it kind of looks like they’re cobbled together from spare parts. Actually, each of the three girl kittens has an orange leg, which I think is kind of neat. Inara’s the one with the super orange leg that looks like it came directly from an orange tabby, but Kaylee and Zoe have their orange mojo going, too.

We’ve decided, this weekend, that we’re going to set Kaylee Kara up in the guest bedroom during the day on Saturday and Sunday. This’ll give her a little time away from those bratty kittens, I can see how the kittens act when she’s not around, we can introduce the kittens to some of the adults in the house (particularly Tommy) and see their reaction to strange cats, and hopefully I can see if Zoe is eating solid food, just not in front of me, or if she’s still exclusively nursing. I know they’re all still nursing, but I think it’s more a comfort thing for them than an actual need for nutrition. Like I’ve said, I’ve seen all the kittens except Zoe eat solid food.

The funny thing is that when I go into the room with a plate of canned food, Kara and River belly up to the plate. The three girl kittens take turns walking up to the plate, sniffing at the food, and then every one of them scratches at the floor around the plate to try to cover it up. Apparently that kind of canned cat food just isn’t their thing. It’s so cute I want to squeeze them to death.

“I just want to apologize to Josh’s mom, and Mike’s mom, and my mom. I am so sorry!”

“Because it was my fault. I was the one who brought them here. I was the one that said “keep going south.”

“I was the one who said that we were not lost. It was my fault, because it was my project.”

“I am so scared! I don’t know what’s out there. We are going to die out here! I am so scared!”

(More kitten pics over at Flickr.)

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I don’t know where Miss Momma was hanging out before she came racing through the house asking to be let outside, but there was apparently a lot of dust and cobwebs there. Which doesn’t really narrow it down any.

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Previously
2007: Y’all don’t fuck with Sheriff Twitty, now.
2006: I wanted to turn around and yell “NO I DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING! Get out of my ROOOOOOOOM!”, like a grouchy teenager.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Fred always says “You blame EVERYTHING on the fact that you’re about to have your period, having your period, or just HAD your period!” Well, duh.
2002: 26 things you may not know about me.
2001: No entry.
2000: Why, oh why, does writing snotty letters amuse me so?

So, on Thursday May 22nd, despite the fact that we were going to leave the house at 5:45 to be at the hospital by 6:30 which meant I could sleep until 5:15 and still have plenty of time to putter around the house before we left, I was wide awake before 5:00. Fred was, too, so he came and lay down next to me and we talked until 5:00 had come and gone.

I spent some time with Kara and her babies, scooped the litter boxes, and then showered and got dressed. At exactly 5:45, we left for the hospital.

On the way to the hospital – in addition to the 145,000 times he’d said it in the week beforehand – Fred said “We could just cancel the surgery, you know!” and I said, as I had every single time before, “No we can’t, we’ve already paid the surgeon!” and he said “We could dispute the charge with the credit card company!” and I said “And then I would still have this big apron of skin and fat around my middle” and he said “I’d still love you!” and I snorted and said “SO?”

We got to the hospital exactly at 6:30, for we are punctual people, and then I checked in (which was just a matter of going into the registration area and getting my bracelet with my name and surgeon’s name on it, since I’d apparently pre-registered the week before when I had my bloodwork done) and then we sat in the waiting room and cooled our heels for, I don’t know since it’s all kind of fuzzy now, an hour and a half?

(And those of you who noted that we were in a fancypants waiting room, yes indeedy – that is one nice waiting room and hospital.)

Finally, my pager went off (when you check in, they give you a pager and when it goes off, you go back to the desk and someone is there waiting to take you back to where you need to be) and they took me back, told me to get undressed, started the IV, and then paged Fred back to keep me company. I think that from the time they took me back to pre-op to the time they took me off to be operated on it was about an hour and a half, but it went quickly.

Unlike the time I went in for weight loss surgery, I was having no butterflies at all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking forward to the surgery, but like I’ve said before, the only way to the other side is through it, so I was ready and willing to get this show on the road.

While we waited, Fred hemmed and hawed and wondered just what the hell he’d do while he was in the waiting room, and finally I just told him he should make sure they had his cell phone number and go home. The surgery was expected to take 5 or 6 hours, and there was no earthly reason why he should hang around the waiting room when he could be home amongst his chickens and pigs. And it’s not like I was going to be awake to care where he was – or as if, he could DO anything if the surgeon ran into trouble.

(“My god, she’s crashing! Get her husband in here to do compressions or something! I’m sure he’s seen ER once or twice! Have him do a tracheotomy next door while he’s at it!”)

(Fred told me that part of the reason he wasn’t too worried about the surgery is because none of my major organs were going to be involved, just skin and tissue, which makes sense.)

The surgeon came in at one point to draw on me, and it was fairly uncomfortable to be standing there naked in front of a kneeling man who was drawing on me with purple marker, and he was pretty vigorous with the pinching and squeezing of the fat, but it was over quickly enough. What was funny to me was that they kicked Fred out of the room while the surgeon did his thing so Fred couldn’t sit there and laugh at me the way I laughed at him when he had his tummy tuck. Poor Fred, stymied out of a chance to laugh at me!

I was rolled back to the operating room and various people introduced themselves to me, and a couple of the nurses reassured me by telling me that they’d be with me during the entire operation. Which I found very sweet, but I wanted to say “I don’t care if y’all switch out every five minutes and bring strange nurses off the street, let’s get going!” Of course, soon enough things went fuzzy and I went under.

I think I was under for about six hours, which I’m pretty sure is the longest operation I’ve ever had – and I’ve had (counting…. knee, c-section, endometriosis removal from c-section scar line, cold cone biopsy, tubes in ears, weight loss surgery, gallbladder surgery) seven surgeries in my life. I’m pretty sure I remember dreaming during the surgery, but I don’t remember what I was dreaming about. I think it involved Disneyland.

I was in Recovery for about an hour, and I’d doze off, then wake up and look around. The nurse offered pain medication once or twice, but since I was feeling no pain, I turned him down. At one point I could hear the nurse across the room on the phone with Fred (I found out later that they’d called and told him to be back at the hospital at 2, then didn’t finish up surgery and come out to talk to him ’til about 3:45). The time in Recovery went pretty quickly, and then they rolled me to my room.

Fred came into the room and then they kicked him out so they could empty my drains and catheter bag (I loathe the goddamn catheter. And it’s not that it hurts or is in the way (especially when I’m just laying there), but the very idea of that goddamn catheter causes me emotional pain) and then the nurse was offering me something to drink, and the only thing I could think of that I wanted was water.

By that time it was about 5:30, and Fred stayed and gave me water and told me what the surgical nurse had told him in the waiting room (that she thought I’d be very pleased with the results, that she thought I’d probably go down about two sizes, and – this is what I liked hearing the most, and that I made Fred repeat at least three more times – I had a LOT of muscle mass.). I thought that they’d be getting me up to walk around fairly soon, then Fred talked to the nurse, who told him that they were going to bring me dinner and then get me up and moving, so I told him to go ahead and go home (being out that close to dark makes him nervous because there are chickens to be put up!), and then I dozed off.

They never did bring me anything to eat (which was okay with me because I wasn’t hungry at all), and then I asked for something for the pain around 8 or 8:30. They gave me Demerol and then I was hiiiiiiigh. I know I made a phone call or two, but I don’t think they lasted long because did I mention I was hiiiiiiiigh?

I spent the night dozing, and at one point that damn automatic machine that was hooked up to take my blood pressure every so often started beeping, and when I say beeping, I mean not the normal beeps of a machine working the way it’s supposed to, but rather like an alarm going off. It was seriously pissing me off, and I called up to the nurse station a couple of times, and when no one came after a while, I started pushing buttons, and I figured out how to turn the alarm off.

THAT’S RIGHT, I DID. DON’T LECTURE ME. I assume if I were on the verge of death, someone would have come running in to save me.

The nurse eventually came in to see what was what, and she decided that the alarm had gone off because my blood pressure was so low (I myself think it went off because the blood pressure cuff was in a weird position) and she went off to call the doctor. Before she left, I asked her if she could hand me my cup of water and she was all “Nope, you’ve gotta get it yourself. You’re scheduled to be released at 6:55, you need to get moving!” and I was all “I’m scheduled to be released at 6:55? Hot damn!” Because we’d figured I’d have to sit around and wait half the morning, the way we did when I had weight loss surgery.

By 5:30, I didn’t want anything but to go the hell home, and I would doze off for five minutes, wake up and look at the clock, then doze off again.

Fred showed up around 6:30, and then eventually they removed the catheter and disconnected my IV and I began walking. Fred and I made a circuit of the floor, I rested for a few minutes, we made another circuit, and so on. I felt like I was moving around just fine, thank you.

The surgeon stopped by and I had to get back in bed so he could undo my binder and look at my incision (they kicked Fred out for this, for some reason). This was the first chance I got to see my stomach, and I was all “That gross bloated thing is supposed to make me HAPPY?” The surgeon gave me some instructions (fuck if I remember what they were), and said I could go home.

At some point another nurse came in to change my dressing, and Fred got to stay for that and he was all “Wow, you look amazing!” and “You’re so flat!” and “You’re all curvy!” and I was all “OKAY, I GET THE IDEA, ARE YOU SAYING I WAS FAT BEFORE, YOU BASTARD?”

(No, not really.)

The dressings were changed and I was sitting on the edge of the bed and I started getting nauseous. This was the first time I’d felt nauseous at all, thank god, because the anesthesiologist gave me a pill before the surgery, put a patch behind my ear, and put something in the IV during surgery. But now I was feeling seriously nauseous, and when they told the surgeon, he couldn’t prescribe something for them to give me at the hospital, because I’d already been checked out on the computer. So they gave Fred all my prescriptions, including a suppository for the nausea, and he went to a nearby pharmacy to have them filled.

While I waited, the nurse gave me saltines and a Mountain Dew (while I was waiting for her to come back with the crackers and soda, I actually gagged and tried to throw up three or four times, but given that I have a tiny pouch of a stomach and hadn’t eaten anything in, oh, 36 hours or so, there was nothing to throw up), and I ate the crackers and sipped at the soda, and it helped a bit. Fred got back with my prescriptions, so I took the suppository and went into the bathroom and let me tell you, I’m not giving you any details, but when it’s difficult to move around the right way, that’s not an easy thing to do. But I’m a superstar and I got the job done (and no, I was NEVER going to ask for help with that, thank you, I have my boundaries), and then with Fred’s help I got dressed.

Finally, I was out of there. We made a few stops on the way home (since I was going to be on a prophylactic dose of antibiotics, I figured it’d be a good idea to eat a container or two of yogurt every day to help stave off a yeast infection), and then we were home, and I don’t remember what I did – probably kicked off my shoes, took off my pants, and went straight to the recliner.

It’s kind of all a blur right now. I know I spent the day in the recliner, watching TV and probably snoozing. Fred and I watched TV that evening, and at bedtime we went upstairs and he put a folding chair in the kitten room so I could go in there and see them. They did NOT whine and sob and cry about how much they’d missed me, the brats. What they did do is try to climb up my legs, and given that I was wearing a shirt and was bared-legged, you can imagine how much that hurt.

Fred went to bed, and I went to recliner, and I spent the night dozing and waking up to flip through the channels, then dozing off again, over and over again.

Y’all don’t need a day-by-day description of the recovery process, I don’t think, so suffice it to say that I hit some milestones: By Sunday I was (slowly, carefully) getting down on the floor with the kittens because sitting in the chair and trying to grab them as they raced by was proving to be too hard. It’s much easier to grab them when you’re on floor level, and also, it’s much easier for them to sit in your lap and use their sharp little claws to rip at the fabric of your pants, little brats (I’ve started wearing the same pants and t-shirt every time I go into the room, because otherwise all my clothes would be covered in little holes). In the early hours of Sunday morning I was so uncomfortable with sleeping in the recliner that I tried to sleep on the couch (on my back with pillows under my knees), and I was okay to lay there for a little while (unsleeping), but when I went to get up, it felt like I tore something on my side and so I frantically went upstairs to wake Fred up so we could take my binder off and he could look me over. Turned out, I was fine, nothing torn and bleeding.

Monday was probably the worst day for me, emotionally and physically, and I teared up several times during the day. I just couldn’t get comfortable physically, and I felt like I was going to feel like a great big bloated tick for the rest of my life. By Tuesday, though, I was feeling better and have felt pretty much better every day. It helped that, Thursday night, I was able to spend the entire night in my very own bed (on my back with pillows under my knees) and I’ve been sleeping like a baby ever since.

I’ve been doing dishes and the occasional load of laundry (it’s not terribly physically taxing to put clothes in the washer and transfer them to the dryer and then let Fred fold them and put them away), I made pizza dough in the breadmaker on Friday (Fred makes a fabulous pizza, believe you me) and some of the dinner-making has reverted to me.

The one thing I wish I could do (and cannot, I’m not even going to try so don’t lecture me) is vacuum the house. Because Fred has run the vacuum a couple of times, but not nearly often enough for me.

When I have surgery next year (“My GOD,” you are saying, “MORE plastic surgery? Who does she think she is, Crazy Joyce Wildenstein?”, and you just shut up. I need a breast lift, chin lift, and possibly my upper arms done. Yes, NEED.) the absolute number one thing I’m going to do is hire someone to come clean once a week.

Ten days after surgery, I am still swollen as hell. That’s normal, I’ve read that it’s not until about six weeks out of surgery that the swelling is pretty much gone. Fred talks about how flat I am and how big a difference there is, but I have to say that I’m not seeing it yet – maybe because I’m wearing this binder all the time (which is not actually as annoying as I expected it to be).

To my utter amazement, the surgeon told Fred that he removed about 11 pounds of fat and skin during surgery. The day before surgery, Fred and I made our “official” guesses – I guessed that he’d remove 23 pounds, and Fred guessed 18. I actually guessed low, because I’ve always heard that skin and fat weighs a lot less than you’d guess. The day I got home from the hospital I weighed myself and I was up eight pounds from the day of surgery. It dropped about four pounds a few days after that, but as it currently stands, I’m up 3 – 4 pounds from where I was the day of surgery. That, my friends, is some fluid retention.

I ended up with one drain and one pain pump (which pumped Marcaine into my abdomen for three days after surgery), and I had one drain and the pain pump removed last Wednesday. The remaining drain output has dropped to almost nothing, so I fully expect that it will come out at my next post-op appointment this Wednesday. Once it’s out and I’m cleared to FINALLY shower (I’m sponge-bathing every day with copious amounts of soap and water, but nothing cleans like a shower), I’ll most likely be getting dressed in real clothes every day instead of wearing a nightgown all day long. I look forward to life going back to some semblance of normalcy.

I know y’all have a lot of questions – I’ve kept your commented questions, and will answer them all on Friday in a Super Special Comment-Answering Extravaganza, you lucky lucky people.

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River has decided that he’d rather kinda like to be out of that thar kitten room. He’s not terribly aggressive about it, but after I’m done visiting in the kitten room, he tries to scoot out the door and since I can’t reach all the way to the floor at the moment, he’s gotten out of the room several times in the past few days. If I just stand there and wait, he realizes pretty quickly that he’s in a new, scary situation, and he huddles against the door and runs back inside if I open the door.

Yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to take him around “visiting” a couple of our cats. I carried him downstairs and let Miz Poo and Newt sniff him, but he was so overwhelmed and scared that I took him right back upstairs. He rewarded me by leaving a gouge across the top of my chest.

I deserved it.

(pic) A bowl of Zoe.

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

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(pic) Spanky say relax.

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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: “I like cheese, just not on a salad.”
2003: Now, how motherfucking stupid does the man think I am?
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.