Wednesday, May 23, 2007

falling apart...

am i really this old?
old enough for my body (and mind) to be failing me so?

SPOILER: the following entry contains a serious dose of whining and semi-graphic medical info.

my stomach is torn up from all the meds i have been taking over the past month. starting with the antibiotic and pain pills when they started my root canal. have been in the bathroom no less than 24 times so far this morning.

speaking of antibiotics, my body has done what most female bodies do when they take a variety of antibiotics over a month's period. yeah, that uh, infection. down there. CRIPES!

had my root canal/crown finished up yesterday. my right jaw is sore up to my ear. not about to take anything for it as i don't want to upset my stomach any further.

had to take my son with me to the dentist yesterday. no where else to put him. so the staff gave him crayons and paper to play with while i was being drilled and beat upon. he doesn't like paper so much. he much prefers to use crayons and permanent markers on walls. especially if those walls are not mine and are covered with expensive looking wallpaper.

so after all the trauma of the mouth work, i had to run down the road to the grocery, get one of those Mr. Clean magic eraser sponge things (that REALLY do work) and go back and rid the wall of my son's art work. how humiliating.

started a huge test plan yesterday at work that i am dreadfully behind on. got about 1/3 of the way through it. only to find out this morning that i was in the wrong environment. back to square one. stupid, t_cole. really stupid.

if i were a horse, a responsible cowboy would take me out back and shoot me.
know any responsible cowboys?


Monday, May 21, 2007

is is monday yet?

in the event you have been anxiously awaiting what the next chapter of my over dramatized life would be...



wonder no more.


i got sick as a dog the end of last week.

fever, head and chest congestion.

dr's office on Friday afternoon.



horse pill antibiotics, decongestants and antihistamines all weekend.




better today.
still coughing. still stopped up. but NO fever.


it's amazing how cruddy a stinking fever can make you feel.



summer is right around the corner. lurking.
ready to jump out and beat the crap out of me.

this is my last week of peace and quiet without the kids home for at least three months.


Savvy comes home from Mississippi this next weekend. will take me at minimum three weeks to get the "I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE SO WORSHIP ME" attitude out of her little body. They always come home from the grandparents with this attitude thing.


Thanks Mom. Dad. 'preciate that.
not.

now Sam goes for two months.

my goal would be to sell our house and move in those two months. cross your fingers. pray. light candles. send some good mojo - whatever it is you do. i have got to get this move done before i lose my mind! This having to keep my house clean at all times in case someone wants to come look at it is SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF ME.

other than that,
i'm fine.
really.


Thursday, May 17, 2007

what i learned in jury duty this week


do not consume (an) alcoholic beverage(s) and then operate a motor vehicle in a public place on or about ANY date in ANY county in ANY state.

EVER.

and if you do, be prepared to testify in an open court on what you had to eat, where you ate, who you ate with, what time you got there, what time you left, what you were wearing, who you talked to, etc.


because even if you are not intoxicated (as defined by the letter of the law) and have a wreck - you will automatically be assumed to be intoxicated by law enforcement. as you probably should be.

and then you will have to hire a very expensive, very good lawyer to defend you in open CRIMINAL court in front of rank strangers who will - invariably, whilst deciding your innocence or guilt - make judgements on your life, character, parenting ability, et al.

if i learned nothing else this week - a beer or two with dinner out is simply not worth the potential trouble.
not worth the trouble at all. the cost. the humiliation. the emotional angst.
you can heed my advice or find out for yourself...

and one other thing - consider this free legal advice

If you are ever administered a field sobriety test and you are NOT intoxicated:
1. assume it is being video-taped
2. you are 'graded/scored' on the test not ONLY by how you perform, but by how well you listen to the test instructions. For ex., if the officer tells you to place your feet a certain way and stand that way through out the instruction phase, STAND THAT WAY. Do not move a muscle - as that could/will count against you.
3. if you do not COMPLETELY understand the instructions given before you begin the test - ASK QUESTIONS.
4. blood test for BAC are more accurate than a breath sample. and take longer.

if you ARE intoxicated - nothing personal - but i hope you fail the test miserably.

save us all from what i (we) went through this week

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

to further prove my point

after my last post - within 30 minutes - i hopped in my van and headed off to jury duty.
before i was a mile away from my home...
FLAT TIRE.

Huge Honking Nail - dare i say SPIKE - in my right rear tire.

I was dropping my son off at my friend's house.
Her hubby is the new preacher at our church.
She wakes him up to come help me change the flat.

THANK GOD! no pun intended.
(note to self - be a preacher in next life - they get to sleep-in on school days.)

I tell him, as he walks out - "I am a died-in-the-wool Drama Queen and you just need to know - Preacher or not - you are likely to hear some colorful language in the next 15 minutes."

to my recollection - i only uttered one four letter word. Hell.
He's heard that one before.



Confessions of a Drama Queen

I am a self-professed, natural-born Drama Queen.

I am the Drama Queens' Drama Queen.

It's all about ME, ME, ME!

If All The World Is A Stage....
I want better lighting,
A bigger dressing room,
and
M.A.K.E.U.P!!!

I can complete for the spotlight with the absolute very best of them.

But I gotta tell ya, this center of the universe stuff is really starting to take it's toll on me.

Surgery last week. EXCELLENT attention getter.
Recovery. A week behind in my work.
and i have told you over the years that i LOVE my job. and as any Drama Queen would say, I am actually VERY GOOD at my job too.

'cept maybe for yesterday. one of my NYC customers - that does not like me for some unknown reason - escalates a project i am working on for him. (Also a fabulous way to draw attention to yourself) Fine. I had made my mgmnt aware of it last week - as i KNEW he (NYC A-hole) would escalate this.

so my manager calls him. NYC A-hole proceeds to yell at my mgr. It just so happens that my mgr is from NYC too. He yelled back. They yelled at each other for a while and then my manager called me.

In any event, i left the conversation/situation so beyond pissed off, i had the shakes - literally - for three hours yesterday.

SHOOK ALL THE WAY TO JURY DUTY.

Yes, I had jury duty this week.

And guess who got selected out of 50+ people to sit on the SIX person panel.
Say hello to juror #4.

That would be me.
Your truly
your favorite Drama Queen.

Hello, people I have only been off pain meds for three days. I haven't gone a day without a nap in almost two weeks.

My husband was actually "angry" with me (his words, not mine) for not trying to opt out of jury duty. I have a strong sense of civic duty when it comes to jury duty, voting and things like that. i opted out the last time when the baby sitter had the flu. in the same courthouse. Didn't feel right about trying that this time. Plus, i thought what are the chances i'll get picked...

Yeah. Right.
Back to that Drama Queen thing....

It's all about me.
for sure.
but it is starting to get old.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

sick to death of being sick and sore...

Or How To Lose 8 Pounds In A Week Without Really Trying


Today marks a week for this current illness.
As I said earlier, woke up Thursday morning thinking I had gotten bad food the night before.
Was still sick and in considerable pain by the time I drove myOWNself to the ER at 11AM on Saturday.

I am going to try and do the short version here so pay close attention...


I figured i had an ulcer
or it was all in my head
again
as it was back in March


After settling into the ER , they took me for a sonogram of my gut. The technician asks nonchalantly - while pushing & prodding on my sore gut - if they found anything other than the gallstones back in March?

do what?

who has gall stones?

You do. It's in your report.

Oh. that report. The one i never got.

if i had known i had gall stones i would not have taken a bottle of Tums, Maalox, Mylanta and popped several Lortabs from my root canal to try and stop the pain. I WOULD HAVE GONE AND SEEN A DOCTOR TWO DAYS AGO!

This alone should have been enough to tell me to get the hell out of that hospital.

but shortly after this, i was diagnosed with pancreatitis caused by a gall stone (i did not know i had) dropping down and blocking a common duct of the gall bladder and pancreas. And since gunk could not exit the pancreas, it caused something called auto-digestion. In effect, my pancreas was eating itself.

lovely, huh?
thus the pain.

so he tells me they are not releasing me and that i will have surgery to remove my gall bladder either today (saturday) or tomorrow(Sunday). that was around 1PM-ish.

I didn't really have time to get too alarmed about it b/c the nurse popped in with a healthy dose of morphine. Holy crap - no wonder ppl get addicted to that stuff.

Finally. Bliss. No Pain. Nice little high. Who cares we're having surgery...

i did not come back to my senses until they were rolling me into a hospital room and they referred to it as "semi-private."

again, s'cuse me?

I'll take a private room please. I pay a premium for my private health-care and i plan to use it to it's fullest.

There are no private rooms available.

And i know how this is going to sound to some people and i am sorry if i come across as sounding 'entitled' but quite frankly - i did not know semi-private rooms still existed.
The last time i had a 'room-mate' was college. I was not in pain and sick.

The room was currently empty. Two beds. so i got the one closest the door. Then they proceed to tell me that IF i get a roommate, my hubby will not be able to stay the night with me. That's illegal.

We have a family rule - when any family member stays overnight in the hospital - someone stays with them. And now you are telling me that my family rule is illegal if you give me a roommate?

And still there is more. I may be drugged - but i was still thinking...
Can you put me in a semi-private room and charge/bill me for a private one?
Doesn't work that way.
okay, so if i don't get a roomie, then my husband can sleep in the other bed?
Nope.
so where will he sleep.
nurse points at hard wooden chair by my bed - the only padding on the seat.
no cot? no recliner? no rocker? this is it?!
That's all we got she tells us.

you have got to be kidding me.

I should have unplugged my IV right then and walked, but still i stayed. Morphine had me firmly in it's grips.

So we waited.
for the surgeon.
to call
or show up
to find out when surgery would be
hubby could not get dinner at the hospital - their food service was closed.
nor could he run home (25 minutes away) and clean up and grab a bite to eat.

after seven hours of waiting i was SERIOUSLY considering leaving AMA.
We have lives too. families to update. kids to make arrangements for.
Two words come to mind - COMMON COURTESY.

then a nurse tells me that the surgeon legally has 24 hours to respond to the page. Did you know that?
so I asked her to page him.
an hour later we find out he is on his way to the hospital.
so 8.5 hours after i am told i will be having surgery - i finally meet the surgeon.

he splains the details. and that IT will take place tomorrow on Sunday somewhere around 10AM - 12PM. as he has a few other procedures scheduled b4 mine.

Family rule be damned - i send hubby home for the night. He had played with the remote control since we got into the room. I was sick of the clicking. I was sick of listening to NASCAR, Drag Racing, Wrestling, Boxing and all other shows that reek of testosterone.

Surgeon had told me he'd leave orders for a sleeping pill and continued pain management and i should get a good night's rest b4 the surgery.
Cool.
sleep.

after an hour, i buzz the nurse asking about my sleeping pill. she says there are no orders for a sleeping pill. i ask ever so sweetly if she will page the Dr as he obviously forgot to write it down.

Midnight, i get a sleeping pill.

and for the next 6 hours straight, my IV pump beeped - like an alarm clock every thirty minutes. Had to call the nurse. to shut the
:*@!$)%5E$ thing off. Finally, after three hours or so of this, she tells me that it is beeping b/c I keep bending my arm where the IV is inserted into my body.
Sheez, lady - tell me that THREE hours ago! Would have made things a lot easier for BOTH of us.

Finally fell asleep. for maybe two hours...
Then i was awakened by a headache. Small pin prick of a headache. By the time hubby got there around 10AM, it was trainroaring monster of a pain between my eyes. Had tried an ice pack. Nurse 'juiced' my pain medicine, that only gave me a 'sick' headache. Finally another aide or angel or someone gave me 2 oz of water and a 500MG Tylenol. It took an hour to work and it only worked for like 10 minutes. Then back came the whistle stop in my head.

the headache nightmare continued till they came to take me to surgery around lunch time. I had to keep wash clothes over my eyes from the room to pre-op b/c the lights hurt so bad. I must have been a sight wheeling around like that. NOT THAT I CARE.

Did not quit hurting until the anesthesiologist started juicing me for the surgery. Ahhhh. finally. sweeet rreeellliieefff.

Then woke up from surgery and Sweet Jesus, Somebody Help Me!
NOBODY told me that the referral pain spot for the gall bladder was the right shoulder. That's where my torn tendon rotator cuff thingie is. and my Right Shoulder was on FIRE.

Apparently the gas they fill you up with so they can do the procedure laproscopic also goes to this area.
FIRE.
OUCH.
PAIN

HURT
SHOULDER.
NO!
I clearly remember saying these words over and over to the recovery nurse. I remember her finally telling me to "hush." Treating me and looking at me like I was a big baby.

The floor nurse had told me very clearly before I went down for the procedure that i needed to have my pain well under control before i left post-op. She explained to me that they could juice my meds ever ten minutes or so as needed down there but up on the floor, they could only give me pain meds every 2-4 hours.

Apparently the recovery nurse wasn't aware of this advice. Or had somewhere important to be after the last procedure on a Sunday afternoon.


SOMEONE DO SOMETHING BEFORE MY SHOULDER EXPLODES!

and then i remember her rolling my bed back to my room, having a hard time getting it to fit along side the bed already there and then pulling and pushing me from one bed to the other. Drugs and all - I clearly remember this part.

No one told hubby I was back in my room. He just found me there after a while.

And this is where he redeemed himself for not driving me to the hospital and for driving me batty with the remote the first 8 hours i was there. He made certain they gave me my pain meds every two hours - whether I needed them or not. I didn't come out of the surgery pain stupor until about 9PM Sunday night. And even then, I still felt like a hit and run victim.

We finally got home the next day. The night nurse tried to kick us out at 5:00AM telling us where the all night pharmacy was located. We left around 9 or 10. Bought every popsicle between the hospital and home.

And i then got into my own bed.
Ahhhhhh.
Felt 10 times better instantly.

LET IT BE KNOWN:
IF YOU HAVE LAPROSCOPIC SURGERY:
The WORST part of the whole damn thing is that they cannot get all the gas out of you - that they shoot in - so they will have room to work on your guts - when the surgery is over. This gas is in your body cavity. You cannot burp it out. You cannot toot it out. YOUR BODY HAS TO ABSORB IT. And apparently i got the non-absorpant variety. OMG, these gas bubbles STILL hurt me a week later. the gas gets in your joints and you pop and creak every time you move.

Going to the bathroom sounds like breakfast cereal - Snap, Crackle and Pop joining in.
And shall we talk about exquisite pain when these bubbles jiggled a part of you that had been cut and sewn on. I have had three kids people. Tubal after the last one.
This was NOTHING LIKE THAT. THIS SHIT HURT.

I can say with all certainty that this experience definitely rules out the tummy tuck I was planning. Will invest in SPANX instead.

Better now.

I completely understand why my shoulder Ortho Doc would not operate on my R shoulder until i got my back pain straightened out. He said, "I don't want you laid up from surgery when your back is in that shape."

I concur. My back almost killed me this week. Had to set my heating pad to BROIL to numb the pain. a day after the surgery, i hurt more in my back and shoulder than i EVER did in my gut.
Ain't life fun?!
And to think, the ER doc AND my dentist told me this week i have a high tolerance for pain. Me? Really? Who'd of thunk it?

And that is the short version...



Monday, May 07, 2007

guess how i spent my weekend

here are three hints:
  1. i wore panties, this time
  2. i got high as a kite
  3. am now googling gall bladder surgery recovery

that's all i have the energy for.
there's a fabulous story coming. check back.
this, u don't want to miss

Saturday, May 05, 2007

the last good thing i remember

let's see...

oh yes, jon bon jovi on AI.
and wasn't he good?!
i LOVE that song. talk about seductive. HELLO

other than that...

i had my first root canal this week

got the email from hell from my brother with unsolicited, half-informed, well-intentioned (i'm sure) advice on how to live my life, how to raise my kids, which house to buy and to point out that i obviously have a problem with Rx drugs and alcohol. yep. i think that covers most of it. Oh yeah, and i think he told me i should get some help. thanks bro. just what i needed to send me right back to the pits of emotional hell.

i guess the shrink and the psychologist i have been seeing for going on 18 months don't count. who knew???

next time you want to share the love, DON'T.

i either have some sort of ulcer or gall bladder attack going on b/c i have been hurting since the wee hours of thursday morning in my upper gut. sometimes dull burning - sometimes stabbing. no, nothing i have tried seems to help. 'cept lying in bed with the heating pad on high, moaning, some Lortab and a beer chaser. *rolling eyes*

yes, i have tried everything. no, i am not going to the ER. the last time i went they made me get nekkid, ran all kids of tests, told me it was all in my head and charged me way too much for all of it.

my dearest hometown girlfriend - that is a paper or two away from being a nurse practitioner - suggested last night that i drink this stuff - that she made me buy like 6 months ago - to clear out my guts.

she says to me, "t_cole, you're probably full of sh*t. drink XYZ and call me in the morning." now SHE can get away with saying stuff like that to me.

so i finally get to sleep and my phone rings at 2:11 AM. when your phone rings at 2:11 AM and one of your children is NOT under your roof - you levitate. hubby and i both did. as savvy is still in mississippi with my parents.

someone named something from some home security service tells me that my bestest city girlfriend's home alarm was tripped and when they called her house, the person at the house gave the wrong code and they have dispatched the police to said girlfriend's house.

me - Why are you calling me?
she - You are listed as her contact person.
me - I am?
she - Yes.
me - And what am I supposed to do now?
she - I don't know.

seriously folks.

i am like 1.5 hours drive away from her so it's not like i can run around the corner and check on her and her house.

CRAP! literally (thanks to the junk other GF had me drink) and figuratively.

so then it occurs to me. my 2 AM mind starting to spin......

this goof-ball friend of mine came home - shall we say "tipsy" - tripped the alarm, gave the wrong code, and now the police are coming to lock her up.

so i jump out of bed - OUCH - stomach - OUCH - stomach - OUCH - looking for my purse and cell phone, call GF and her hubby answers.

i tell him the police are on the way to his house. he says WHAT?!

so i give him the quick run-down on my call with whomever she was, he starts laughing and says "i guess i better go wait out front for the cops."
i tell him as i hang up -"TAKE SOME ID WITH YOU!"

i still hurt. my tummy and my heart.

but in some wicked weird way am so flattered that i am her security company contact.

i guess that's a good thing too.




Tuesday, May 01, 2007

the stars have aligned



OMG




i knew it was coming




but tried VERY hard not to think about it




OBSESS about it....




dare I say, fantasize, about it....






but this day is FINALLY here...



my FAV show




has my BEST guy


on for TWO nights in a row.

(so help me GAWD if Paula so much as touches him!)

how could it possibly get any better than this?

i think i will stop and buy a lottery ticket today.

it's just that good