Noritake!

A few years ago I posted an entry entitled "Life's Funny that Way."  I was selling off, donating, giving, or throwing away, much of my belongings.  My now ex-husband and I were moving to Eugene, moving from a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, fenced yard in the suburbs for a life living with roommates, not in our house, but in their house.  This is a link to that post:

http://chroniclesofachronicpainpatient.blogspot.com/2009/06/lifes-funny-that-way.html

And after moving one…two… three… four times… and then after one more move, I have considered myself settled here in Rupert, Idaho.

I used to collect dishes of all kinds: jadeite, Mikasa vintage, Mikasa china, Fireking Lustreware, etc.  Then I gave all that up, and good thing because who wants to move all that crap over and over?

But then the other day I found my new set of china.  Have a gaze.  I'm in love:

Noritake Progression China Up - Sa Daisy

I cried when I found it and it's not because it's just stuff.  I cried because it means I get to host carefully crafted Thanksgiving and other dinners, teas, and make a cup of coffee special on a weekend again.  So now I have 37 pieces (purchased for the low, low price of $30).  May the collecting begin!

Goodbye vile staples!

Today I got my nasty staples removed, and not by me, by my beloved Dr. B.  He had a very cool tool that made it fast and completely painless.  He agreed to let me keep all of them and he took pictures for me.

And here they are…

Frisbee dogs/Good boyfriend

On Sunday the backyard "lawn" was mowed so now it seems like there is grass.  I got really excited because now that it isn't just a field of foot high weeds, we can play frisbee out there!  And wow, do these dogs need to get their energy out.  With me recovering from surgery and not able to bend easily with these miserable staples, I haven't been able to do anything with them.

Enter the wonderful, goes above and beyond, boyfriend.  He cleans my moldy coffee pot with vinegar, drives me around town when I'm sick and detoxing to find just the right food to settle my stomach, and now, he plays frisbee at length with the stink hounds.  And if you have ever played frisbee with them of even watched the process, you know it is a slimy, frothy, disgusting ordeal if you don't love the mutts like I do.  And yet he played with them while I was on duke patrol and then while I took a million pictures.  They were some tired, tired doggies.

One extra thing that was so great about the whole deal - those dogs moved faster than I've seen them move since last summer because they've really taken to him and they wanted to impress him.

Let's just say I was impressed.

More pics of the event… how can you not love him (and the dogs)?

Chill out, ya'll

So a few people have been a leeeetle worked up about me removing staples.  Especially in front of them.  While my initial thought may be "look away, pansy", I get that part.  What I do in the privacy of my own home however…

We can all agree to disagree.

But now I have an appointment with my beloved GP and he has agreed to take my staples out on Tuesday, May 24. So now no more worries, people!

Unless you count how many I pull out before then… ha ha ha ha…

"Hell to the no"

Last Friday under the worst headache possible I got a call from the evil surgeon's office.  She set up "the first post-op appointment".  I just hung up the phone, but as soon as I was conscious and could think without the accompanying avalanche of nausea, I got thinking, "first of"?  Hell to the no. I am not going back to have an appointment with the PA to have her look at my incisions and say, "Oh, those look nice, see you in two weeks."  Gas - Boise - Gas -Boise - Gas.  Hell to the no.   I'm hoping my wonderful GP in town will help me remove them. And if not, I'll just keep pulling them out myself… Yup, that's four… so far….

Bugger

I haven't really been blogging since my surgery because I've been sleeping.  There are times writing this blog when that is all I wanted.  Now I just can't stand it anymore!  Because it's not like I was wide awake and alert the rest of the time to begin with, before they doubled the Percocet!

The other day I had spilled dinner on my keyboard because I feel asleep eating it,  my car's battery wouldn't start (and like that mattered, I couldn't drive with all this junk in my body anyway), everyone was too busy, and I just wanted to go get some things done.  But I couldn't.  I couldn't go and do anything.

That was it.  I decided it was time to stop taking the extra pain medication prescribed to me after surgery.  That was at night.

Early, early the next morning I was hit with one of the worst migraines of my life.  I tried to stand to use the bathroom, but would inevitable puke before anything else.  The rest of the withdrawals came after…the creepy, crawly want to climb out of your skin feeling, the hot then cold then hot then cold, and all the rest.  

If it was liquid I tried to drink it, especially fruit juice.  But I ran out of that fast.  One of the things I really needed to do was go grocery shopping, but hadn't.  Finally, I slept. The next day started hard, but got better, much better with the help of a friend who drove me around so I could buy groceries and juice and frozen yogurt when I got hungry.

I've begun to think it might have been too early to cut out the extra meds since the incisions have really hurt.  But I am not back tracking now!.

The following is The Simpsons doing Ke$ha's "Tik ToK".  

I put it in because I will totally feel this way soon!

Surgery!

I didn't write a lot up to and immediately after my surgery that removed my pain pump.  I had a birthday in there; it was fabulous.  I've had the love and support of my family; it has been wondrous.  But I still don't have a lot to to say just yet because I'm having a lot of surgical pain from the incisions and the staples really hurt.

The bandages were bothering me so I just took them off and have been going bare back with only the bacitracin from the hospital.  I can shower, I just can't soak (i.e. not baths or hot tubs).  Since it really hurts me to sit up and type like this, you just get the details and some pics.  The surgeon talked to my mom while I was in recovery and said he had been able to remove everything, including all the catheter (hooray!).  When I woke up in recovery all I remember was being in worst possible pain level like of pain.  Like were they still cutting me open right there?

So I mostly take drugs and sleep.  Below are pictures of my incisions.  Enjoy!

The above picture is of my side incision where the pump was removed.  I have no idea what the purple-blue lines are for that they drew on there, but all those little staples really freaking hurt. And there is this weird indentation that you can start to see where it shows the pump's void.

This incision feels much angrier than the front.  It also feels a lot more bruised.  I think by now I've finally been able to wash all the gunk off that was around it.  But it still is not as "nice" looking as the front.  But then again, it's harder to see in the mirror.