Saturday, December 08, 2001

i've learned something about myself tonight - i'm an old jewish lady...

for a couple of years now, saturday nights are generally reserved for mah jongg...go to mom's house and play with her and my bestest buds dale and greg...

mom got me a movie for my birthday that i had on my amazon.com wish list - Mah Jongg: The Tiles That Bind ...well, it finally arrived and i set it aside till we could all watch it together...we watched it tonight...and it was hysterical - looking at these groups of old jewish and chinese ladies and seeing that we're just like them! mah jongg has bound us together in ways that nothing else could...it's amazing, we sit around and play this game and eat and gossip and it's just wonderful...almost mystical, this connection we have when it comes to mah jongg...if we miss a week on occasion, i really miss it - i'd almost consider it an addiction. suppose i could be out cruising the bars for chicks on saturday nights, but no, i'd rather be at mom's playing with her and the gay boys...

Thursday, December 06, 2001

slowly edging back to "normal" status - well, we can dream, can't we? i know i'll never be "normal", but i'm back to feeling among the living...

that said, now i have the sudden urge to go take a nap...*yawn*

Wednesday, December 05, 2001

feeling a lot better - i suspect being off the vicodin's helped with the nausea and such - sticking to tylenol for pain now...doc english says 2 weeks off is standard, so i'll be away from work till 17 december - just in time to go back to the Hell Week (TM) that is the week before xmas...of course, then we'll get most of xmas week off, then it'll be yet another Hell Week (TM) for New Year's...

global warming's been a topic of interest lately - primarily cuz it's december and we had temps in the 70's today! guess this will explain why it'll be snowing in may, eh? people think this warm weather now is wonderful - i'm dubious...it just ain't natural!

Monday, December 03, 2001

still recuperating...still nauseous/dizzy as all hell...i go see doc english on wednesday...not much else to report, since all i'm doing is lying down and recuperating...

Sunday, December 02, 2001

oh, one thing i forgot to mention about the ultrasound - it turned me into a country music song...

i actually had 2 people doing the ultrasound, the first chick didn't really hurt me...but she couldn't find my "common bile duct" (guess it's an uncommon bile duct that i've got) and so she sent for another chick...the second chick is the one that pressed my oozing throbbing flesh into the cold hard table, reducing me to tears...oh, it hurt...i wasn't crying, but the tears were streaming down my face - since i was lying on my back, i ended up with "tears in my ears" - had to clean them out when i sat up!
so, the gall bladder thing...i'd been having mild throbbing pains in my upper right abdomen for a week, but monday night at work they just became horrendous - i left work early to go to the hospital. for some reason, i went to community hospital, the one near my house...they seem to have a differing view of "emergency", nobody was in a hurry to get anything done...so 45 minutes goes by before i get into a room...then a while passes before i see a doc...he says he wants pee and blood, so i give it to him...he comes back and says it's probably gall bladder, but can't be sure since they don't have an ultrasound at night - what the hell? 3+ hours in the er...so i head to mom's with my vicodin rx and sleep till i can call the doc's office. call the doc's office, they get me in at 1pm - doc tells me to go to st. francis south to get an ultrasound done. go to st. francis south and get the ultrasound (which hurt like a bitch! oh, you have pain here? lemme press harder!) and they tell me i have to go to the er at st. francis beech grove immediately, they're ready for me, and dr. mandelbaum will evaluate me for surgery there. momma takes me to st. francis and i ask for dr. mandelbaum and they ask which one - apparently there's two, they're brothers in the same practice - and i tell them doc english told me "dr. mandelbaum"...they find out it's jonathan and get me hooked up to the morphine pump and set up in a regular room. the surgery was scheduled for wednesday, the next day. in the meantime, i went from no liquids to a solid liquid diet - i tell ya, the jello/apple juice/chicken broth/raspberry popsicle combo was a four-course gourmet meal! until i puked it up, that is, then it was a rainbow - red jello, blue popsicle and i'm assuming bile (it was green) made for quite a color combo! mom had raved about the wonderfullness of the morphine pump - i thought it was okay, but i wasn't screaming its praises like mom did...

so, wednesday rolls around and i head to surgery in the afternoon...i remember being in the surgery room and having a gas mask put over my face...then nothing, till i was back in my room, screaming and writhing in pain. they kept telling me to stop and breathe, that it wouldn't hurt so much - i kept trying to catch my breath, but it hurt so much...i had to ask mom for a recap, since i was pretty fuzzy on the events...she told me the surgery took about 45 minutes and there were no complications. i woke up in excruiciating pain, and i had to pee...we buzzed the nurses 3 times before they came...it was more difficult getting out of bed than before the surgery because they'd hooked up these things on my legs, to prevent blood clots...so i had the two things hooked to my legs, an iv with two plugs, oxygen and a drain from my belly to contend with...once i peed, the pain lessened quite a bit...at some point, someone from work called - still not sure who it was...they asked how things went, and i told them it "hurt like a motherfucker" - right in front of my mother and the nurses!! all i remember was the pain - oh damn, it hurt!! but once i got back to sleep and woke up again, i was okay...still pretty sore, but much better...i stayed in the hospital through friday...doc mandelbaum had come in 6:30 friday morning and i said i didn't think i was ready to go home, but he said he thought i was, if my stats got better by the end of the day...i was too asleep to argue...so friday evening i got out and now i've just been hanging at mom's...i find if i sit up for too long, i get dizzy, or nauseous, or both...not sure if i'll be out of work one week or two, we'll see what the doc says...