My surgery went well Friday morning. I slept pretty much all day Friday but I had quite a bit of energy yesterday and sat in a chair and walked the halls most of the day. Whenever I’m in the hospital, I always find it funny how much sitting in a chair is emphasized as a sign of great progress. I never thought sitting in a chair was that much harder than sitting propped up in bed but apparently it is! I haven’t done any reading since my surgery because my brain is still a little fuzzy – too fuzzy to write any of my back-logged reviews also. So I’ll leave you with a photo of me and my guts from yesterday afternoon:
November 11th, 2012 in
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West left a note on my bedside table while I was taking a nap. It said, “I love you so much I could marry you.”
*****
West really wants a pocket knife so I told him that if he could go a week without hitting, kicking, or biting Cash that I would buy him one. He said he’ll just get one when he turns 18 and moves out.
*****
West: We should pay people to be our servants and bring us snacks while we lay on the couch. I want a robot servant for Christmas.
*****
West: I have 3,000 spaces in my brain for photos or video.
*****
West: Daddy, how many tons do you weigh?
*****
Mommy, have you heard of a time toilet?
Cash, quit talking about gross stuff.
Actually Mommy, it’s awesome because you travel either forward or backward in time when you go potty in it.
*****
Cash, can you ask your teacher to send home another copy of that note? I can’t find the first one you brought home.
Mommy, if I ask her that, she’s going to think you’re a crazy person.
*****
Cash, running into hall above living room, “Mommy, I can’t sleep.” Me: “Have you tried closing your eyes?” Cash, “No”, runs back into bed.
*****
Cash: I want to watch the debate.
Me: You can watch it tomorrow; I’m taping it.
Cash: You’re whating it? What does taping mean?
Me: *feels very old*
November 10th, 2012 in
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I’m reporting for surgery at 6:45am this morning. I want to thank all my family and friends (both “real-life” and online) for all of the prayers, good thoughts, and support during this time. As soon as I feel well enough to blog, I’ll be sure and update you all on how I’m doing. I know, especially for my Facebook friends, my medical updates are probably getting tiring. Hopefully after I recover from this surgery, I can stop with the annoying medical updates and start posting annoying updates about my goal to run a marathon before my fortieth birthday.
A funny story from this morning: I needed an IV put in before the flexible sigmoidoscopy for the sedation. Since I was having a CAT scan afterwards, they needed to use a larger gauge needle so that the IV would work for the CAT scan contrast as well. When the nurse put in the IV, it hurt REALLY bad. It felt like the needle was poking me all the way down to my wrist. As you can imagine, I’ve had several hundred IVs in my life so I knew that this was not normal. I told the nurse that it really hurt and that the crook of my elbow where the needle was inserted was throbbing. She chalked it up to the larger needle (which I’m sure I’ve had before because I’ve had several CAT scans). I was dubious but I figured since she was the nurse she was probably right. Then she flushed it with saline and said that I should be feeling cool rush in my arm and a salty taste in my mouth. I know this, having felt it several times before. This time not only did I not feel the cool sensation from the saline going in but it actually hurt and it felt like my bicep was getting swollen. Again I told the nurse that something was not right and again she told me that the IV flushed just fine.
Fast forward to the procedure room where they give you the sweet, sweet medicine that makes you fall asleep. The procedure nurse (a different nurse from the one who put in my IV) pushed in the meds and …. nothing. Usually I’m asleep before the syringe of milky nectar is empty. I noticed that the doctor had moved into position behind me and that the nurse was getting some supplies ready. “Um, am I supposed to be asleep?” I asked. Yes, I was according to the doctor and nurse, who were both looking very surprised and confused. The nurse gave me another syringe of the good stuff and still nothing. No dreamy, fuzzy feeling at all. At this point, I was getting really worried that I was going to have to have this procedure awake. Why weren’t my little narcotic friends doing their job?
At this point, I explained the problems I had in the IV room. The procedure nurse poked and rubbed my bicep and determined that for whatever reason I needed a new IV. She took out the old and moved the new one to a different spot on my arm. Within minutes I was floating away to my happy place. I hope I can find my happy place a lot easier this morning!
(I’m also wondering if there is any way to siphon the medicine from first two syringes of medicine out of bicep so that I can save it for later. Yum.)
November 9th, 2012 in
Family |
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This post is to show you both how amazing the Mayo Clinic is and to make you feel sorry for me. Mostly to show you how amazing Mayo Clinic is though. They know that my time is precious since I’m coming in from out of town and leaving my babies behind so they packed what would probably normally have been several days worth of appointments all into one day. This is my schedule for today:
6:55am Blood Tests
7:45am Sedated Flex Sig (like a colonoscopy but only goes into the sigmoid colon)
10:45am Chest CT Scan (somehow the sedation will have worn off enough for me to take instruction on holding my breath for approximately 45 minutes? I’m interested to see how this actually turns out)
1:00pm Consultation with a stoma nurse
2:15pm Infectious disease consult
4:30pm Consultation with colo-rectal surgeon
5:00pm Appointment the GI Doc who is in charge of my case
I don’t really see much time for napping in between each appointment. I’ve never had a sedated procedure and then not taken a very long nap afterwards. Luckily, my husband will be with me this time so he can carry me from appointment to appointment.
November 8th, 2012 in
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I was fully planning on writing a bookish post last night to publish today but I got caught up in watching the election results and couldn’t concentrate enough to write anything. Could the bottle of wine I drank while watching the returns come in have had anything to do with it? Who knows? I wanted to post something so I’m treating you to a couple of photos from our trip to the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago:
Tomorrow I have a full day of pre-surgery appointments and then my surgery is Friday. Hopefully I’ll be back to writing bookish posts soon after that.
November 7th, 2012 in
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It’s time to sign up for Thankfully Reading Weekend! This will be my fourth year participating. It’s a low-stress event – you can read as little or as much as you want. There are fun mini-challenges and giveaways throughout the weekend. You can sign up at Jenn’s Bookshelves. The “silver lining” of having major abdominal surgery two weeks before Thanksgiving is that I don’t have to do any cooking this year! I’ve been cooking and hosting Thanksgiving dinner for YEARS. That should leave me ample time for reading, provided that I’m not too hopped up on painkillers.
I think Thanksgiving Weekend would be the perfect time for me to get caught up on one of the many series that I’m way behind in. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, Lara Adrian’s Midnight Breed series, Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, or Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series. I’m at least four books behind in each of them and they are all easy enough reads that I could manage them with a narcotic fuzzed brain.
November 6th, 2012 in
Books |
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Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Release Date: September 4, 2012
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In 1920, Elsa Emerson, the youngest and blondest of three sisters, is born in idyllic Door County, Wisconsin. Her family owns the Cherry County Playhouse, and more than anything, Elsa relishes appearing onstage, where she soaks up the approval of her father and the embrace of the audience. But when tragedy strikes her family, her acting becomes more than a child¹s game of pretend.
While still in her teens, Elsa marries and flees to Los Angeles. There she is discovered by Irving Green, one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood, who refashions her as a serious, exotic brunette and renames her Laura Lamont. Irving becomes Laura’s great love; she becomes an Academy Award-winning actress—and a genuine movie star. Laura experiences all the glamour and extravagance of the heady pinnacle of stardom in the studio-system era, but ultimately her story is a timeless one of a woman trying to balance career, family, and personal happiness, all while remaining true to herself.
I love films, Hollywood, movie stars, glamour and this book had all of that. Laura Lamont is a fictional character but she reminded me of several old Hollywood movie stars. From what I’ve read in interviews with Emma Straub, she did quite a bit of research about the Hollywood of yesteryear and the way the studios used to control all of the movie stars. I loved getting an inside peek at how it worked behind the scenes.
This book is more than that though. It follows Laura through most of her life, which goes through several ups and downs, some them expected and some of them quite unexpected. Her evolution from Elsa to Laura is not a straightforward transformation. Straub has made Laura more complicated than that, which I appreciated. Her writing is beautifully descriptive and was a joy to read.
Buy this book at:
Amazon
Powell’s Books
(I received this book courtesy of the publisher.)
November 5th, 2012 in
Books |
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This past Sunday, we carved pumpkins:
Neve had her first Parents as Teachers home visit on Monday. According the parent educator, Neve is right on track developmentally. I didn’t really have any concerns but it was still good to have some reassurance.
After school on Monday, the boys had karate. After karate, we were headed to the Intergenerational Book Club at our church for the first time when a tire on my van blew out. The boys found this very exciting. When I pulled into a gas station and got out to look at the tire, I muttered, “god dammit” when I saw it was flat. Little did I know West had hopped out of the van too and was right behind me. I heard a little voice echo, “Dammit!” It was actually really cute but I did tell him that was a grown-up word that I shouldn’t use and neither should he. Then I called Travis and he and Neve were able to come rescue us in time for us to make the last half of the book club. The book was Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat. It was really fun – we all had a great time. I’ll have a more detailed post all about it later in the week.
Tuesday night was David Sedaris at the Kauffman Center!
Wednesday was Halloween:
Thursday night was parent/teacher conferences at the boys’ school. Both boys got great reports. It’s pretty amazing that they can behave so well at school when they are pretty much maniacs all the time here at home. I guess I should be glad that they are capable of good behavior – there is hope it will happen at home someday!
Friday the boys were off school and we spent most of the day running errands to make sure we had everything we needed to get our family Christmas pictures taken Saturday morning. While looking for dress pants and tights, I somehow got talked into buying them all new hoodies. They are so lucky their mom likes to buy them clothes! I’m thinking of getting myself one too so we can all match.
Getting our Christmas pictures taken on Saturday morning went really well. The very best part was getting to include Neve in all the family portraits. When we have a foster placement, I always have some family portraits taken without the foster child because I know that they probably won’t end up being a permanent member of the family. But Neve is in our family FOREVER!! so she could be in all the pictures.
Saturday night was our church’s annual auction. We bid on and won an overnight babysitter! One of the women in the congregation who is a teacher and great with kids will come to our house and stay overnight with our kids. Sweet!
Last Saturday, we had our second annual Halloween party. About thirty-five kids attended. We had a chilli and hot dog dinner, a craft table where kids could make a mask, a haunted house in our garage, a pumpkin bean bag toss, and pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern. Even though it was about 45 degrees outside, a lot of the kids went outside to play in our back yard. That’s probably good because I don’t think we could have had all of the kids in our house at one time!
When we were getting ready for the party, Neve was walking around the house singing Happy Birthday. Because if we’re having a party, it must be someone’s birthday!
November 3rd, 2012 in
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November is National Blog Posting Month. I’ve decided to join BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo challenge to blog daily again this year. This will be especially challenging for me because I’m having major surgery on November 9. I hope to schedule a few posts ahead of time to cover the surgery day and a few recovery days. Or I could just blog stream of consciousness while on the morphine drip – that might be fun!
In addition to writing book review posts, I’d like to write some opinion pieces about bookish topics. Lord knows I have opinions. I just need to put them together coherently. If you have any book related topic suggestions please let me know.
November 2nd, 2012 in
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