The Long December

The last couple of days haven't been too bad pain wise. I went back to work on Friday and worked 11 to 7 with only one major episode of pain. Sitting down and eating lunch seemed to help a lot and, by the end of the day, it was no worse than it has been the last couple of months. I worked 1:30 to 10:15 last night and didn't have any major episodes at all. The pain got worse at times, but not like it has been this week.

My body picked a really good time to give me a reprieve from all this. Ben's grandma passed away Friday night, so it has allowed me to be able to give him more attention than I think I would have been able to do otherwise. After work on Friday, my parents watched Robbie so I could go be with Ben for awhile.

Tomorrow is my second appointment with the surgeon at 9am, which will hopefully yield in a surgery date. Then we are driving down to McAlester and staying until sometime Tuesday to be with his family and for the funeral. I'm not sure how well I'll handle the car ride. It's two hours and fifteen minutes according to the GPS on my phone. The 45 minute drive to Chicksha two weeks ago to take Robbie to the Festival of Lights left me in a bad state. But at least I'm forewarned now and can take painkillers beforehand.

Today I've been feeling pretty good and so have been a productive little house elf. I got some laundry done for Tuesday, washed my new sheets -king size Jersey knit in black, woot!-, stripped my bed and got the old egg crate mattress pad off. I've been meaning to get that old pad off for months. I even bought a new memory foam mattress topper for when I finally did. I've just never gotten around to it. It was finally the concept of having to come home from surgery and sleep on that old thing that finally kicked me into action. It's uncomfortable as it is, I can't even imagine how uncomfortable it would be after having a major organ taken out. But now it's done and the egg crate has found its final resting place in the trash. The memory foam mattress topper is now on the bed and fluffing itself out as we type.

Speaking of memory foam mattress toppers, those things are a BITCH to unroll. I figured it'd be hard getting it out of the box. That was the easy part. You just dump it out. Cutting the shrink wrap was a bit tricky since you don't want to cut the memory foam. But them you get to unroll it out of the plastic, onto the bed, unfold parts while pushing and pulling on others. At one point, I had to do a really tricky maneuver of pulling and holding one piece and pushing the weight of my body against the rest of it to get it to budge. Not fun. It left me laying on the damn thing, very out of breath and amazed at how it now looks like I have a large strip of bread dough on my bed.

Let me tell you something about laundry though, after 28 years I still have yet to find an easy way to fold a fitted sheet, nor do I have a reasonable explanation as to why the washer will turn one pillow case inside out and not the other.

Now that the laundry is done, I'm going to give the mattress topper a couple of days to finish fluffing before making it up. It looks like it's done unfolding and settling, but the directions said wait at least 24 hours. Since I've been sleeping on the couch due to comfort reasons, this won't be a problem. Well...it will on the grounds I really want to sleep in my new-old bed. Ah, paitence. Such a pain in the ass virtue at times.

Another day in paradise.

Today marked my second day in a row calling in because of this crap.Woo.
Can you tell I'm excited about this?
Unlike a lot of people you get who work retail, I'd rather be at work and feeling good than at home feeling like I'm dying. Especially since for the most part I actually enjoy my job.

Especially on the day of my department's Christmas party/gift exchange.Which I forgot about until a couple of hours ago and just now remembered I have yet to buy the gift for the name I drew.
Crap.
Okay, well, I guess I'll run to Home Depot before work and get the gift card Peggy wanted, since I am going to attempt going to work tomorrow.Or, rather, today since it's after midnight.

I am actually feeling better this evening. The pain was pretty bad this morning, was making me nauseous and sick still, but has tapered off since then. I was able to pick Robbie up for the first time since Monday morning, which thrilled him. He was very gentle about climbing up into my arms, even sat on my left hip instead of my right, which is his usual spot. He can be such a sweetheart at times. Other times, I fully understand why some animals eat their young.

Dr Perkins' office called today with the formal results of Monday's stomach scope. Everything still looks good. They are sending them over to Dr Carey's office for my appointment Monday morning. Hopefully then he will get surgery scheduled and all this will soon be over.

Ah seppuku.

When your body decides to commit hari kári, it really goes all out.
I didn't get to sleep today until after 1pm. At that point, I was sitting at 27 hours without sleep, all because of the pain in my back and right side.
Honestly, the pain in my back wouldn't be so bad to deal with on it's own. I'm no stranger to back pain, even with the sharp, stinging pain I feel regularly on top of the constant hurt, it wouldn't be difficult to manage with it.
However, when you add in the pain under the right side of my ribs, then I have issues dealing. It's really no worse in the front than it is the back, it's basically just the same pain just on the other side of my body, it just seems more intense somehow. Or maybe my body just doesn't want to play anymore and my pain tolerance is lowering.
Apart from labor, I'd have never thought this much pain was possible for someone relatively healthy. I've never been in such bad pain it made me sick, been dizzy and short of breath with it, or have become frozen in place, unable to move because of it. Except for when I was in labor with my son.
It's really kind of amazing in a sick, twisted sort of way how one thing in your body can be virtually fine one day and cause you nothing but hell the next. Literally, that's how it went for me. And you really wouldn't think something like your galbladder would cause it.

A new old first.

It's been a few years since I've kept any sort of regular blog. Facebook doesn't really count in my book since it's just post and go.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you, since it makes everything so easy and I'd be lying if I said I don't appreciate convenience. But I miss the creativity that goes into blogging, the taking an everyday thing and making it entertaining for the masses. It makes for a good exercise in writing.
And, after laying on my couch in pain for the last eight hours, playing Angry Birds, I figured now was as good as time as any. The smug faces those pigs get after you fail a level were making me want to scream.
Stupid pigs.

Why was I laying on my couch for eight hours in pain, you ask?
That's a fairly simple answer. My galbladder decided it hates me and is bound to make my existence as miserable as possible for the short time it remains in my body.
Well...simple for anyone reading that sentence, the actual process has been a bit more complicated to live through. I'm pretty sure from now on whenever I hear someone use the metaphor "stabbed in the back" I will think back on the sharp, stabbing pains I feel under my right shoulder blade.. A little bit of a literal thought process, but I'm pretty sure betrayal was never this physically painful.
Unless your name was Caesar.

Hopefully sometime soon that will be over and I'll be on some very good drugs. I'll probably go nuts in the time I'm off work, but you take the bad with the good.

Has anyone else ever noticed health problems you have to take off work for never hit when you actually WANT time off work? That has to be another of Murphy's Laws. Someone should find Murphy and kick him.

I'm pretty sure I'm not making much sense anymore. I'm now kinda giddy that I remember how to do HTML. It's been YEARS. And I can do it from my phone. Wooo! I'll have to redo the layout when I actually feel like sitting at the computer for more than five minutes. Until then, it'll drive me nuts, but so be it.