31 days of love, sweat and typing

You're never going to believe it. I'm so dedicated about posting every day that I've made up a freaking schedule. A SCHEDULE OF POSTS, PEOPLE. That's a lot of pressure. I don't know if I can do it. But I'll try. [insert dramatic wiping of brow here]

In medically-related news, I am doing great. I worked for 5 hours yesterday and will work my full 9 hours today. Today is the first day that I'm simultaneously itch-free, pain-free, and drug-free. Go me! Let's just say that the allergic nastiness got muuuuuuuuuuuch worse before it got better (okay, it hasn't actually gotten better looking yet, but I assume it will). I took more pictures but I'll only post them if I run out of better shit to show you on a Show and Tell Day.

Because my children won't be one-upped by my medical woes (or each other), Liam is now scheduled for ear tubes. Megan's surgery went well, so we're hoping that Liam's is just as easy. Poor guy. It's scheduled for July 27th, keep your fingers crossed. Any bets on when Kevin will be needing some random surgery?

Now, on to the posting schedule...
July 1 - Wordless Wednesday
July 2 - Double Daring Book for Girls book review
July 3 - E's interview questions, Part 1
July 4 - Show and Tell
July 5 - Simple Pleasures
July 6 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 7 - Honest Scrap tag from Jendeis
July 8 - Wordless Wednesday
July 9 - E's interview questions, Part 2
July 10 - "Leah understands..." meme
July 11 - Show and Tell
July 12 - Navigating the Land of IF book review
July 13 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 14 - E's interview questions, Part 3
July 15 - Wordless Wednesday
July 16 - Bedtime in the Good Ol' Days
July 17 - Top 10 things that suck about infertility
July 18 - Show and Tell
July 19 - Confessions of a BPF addict
July 20 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 21 - E's interview questions, Part 4
July 22 - Wordless Wednesday
July 23 - My not-so-secret obsession
July 24 - Oh, that's great!
July 25 - Show and Tell
July 26 - E's interview questions, Part 5
July 27 - Perfect Moment Monday
July 28 - The Cool List for 5 year olds
July 29 - Wordless Wednesday
July 30 - Some random quiz result from emode
July 31 - E's interview questions, Part 6

I'll do my best not to disappoint and slack and whatnot! I hope you guys don't get tired of me droning on and on all month long. :-)

I am one itchy bitchy

I'm alive, and doing well. Thank you to everyone who has checked in on me. :-)

The surgery went fine. When I woke up, I was in much more pain than I expected. After 2 hits of morphine and a couple of percocet, I was at least able to converse without gritting my teeth, clawing the bedrails, and whimpering.

I stayed on a steady, every 6 hour diet of 800mg ibuprofen and percocet until today. As of today, I went down to just the ibuprofen and since I slept right through my midday dose, I've just had it at 6am and 6pm. So far, so good. I definitely feel a little more sore today without the "good" drugs, but it's not bad at all.

Know what is bad? Forgetting that you are WILDLY allergic to steri strips. Ugh. After my last c-section, I had a horrible reaction and ended up with a near-full body rash before we figured out that's what was going on. This time I did remember -- as I was laying in recovery. Um, that's a little too late.

It took about a week for the rashes to blister up nice and itchy last time, so I figured I would be fine. But apparently it gets worse each time you use them, so this round hit me much earlier. By yesterday, the itching completely eclipsed the pain and it nearly drove me off the deep end.

After a consult with the surgeon (via phone) today, we decided to just take the steri strips off and use band aids. The incisions are barely closed, so it's sort of scary to be cruising around with nothing really holding them together, but when the alternative is to have a thick, blistering, insanity-producing rash instead, I'll risk it.

I took 2 benadryl today around lunchtime and practically lapsed into a coma for 3 hours. The nap was great, and blissfully itch-free. But wow, I guess I can't snarf 2 of those and hope to function. At all.

LJ asked me to post some incision pictures for Show and Tell. I'll do that, but in the meantime, here is what you look like when you're allergic to steri strips. Good times.

First, a diagram of where the 4 incisions are. One near my sternum in the middle, one near the edge of my ribcage toward the right edge, one on my right side a couple of inches above my hip, and one inside my belly button.

Now, as I said, around each incision site is angry and blistered where the steri strips where. This is a shot of the one near my sternum and the one midway down my torso. Gee, think you can figure out *exactly* where those little bastard steri strips were attached?

Here's a shot of the middle one, and the one that's sort of above my hip:

I can't get a clear picture of the madness going on inside my belly button, but you get the gist from this fuzzy, gross picture:

And, lastely, here is a decent closeup so you can really appreciate the individual blisters that comprise the affected areas. Fun, no?

It's 9:30 and I can hear the benadryl calling my name. "Leeeeeee-uh, Leeeeee-uh..." Oh, I'm comin' baby, I'm a-comin'.

Way, way, way TMI

On this, The Eve of my Surgery, I'm feeling fine. As long as I eat only lettuce and air. What follows for the rest of this post is a lot of talk about poop and whatnot so if you aren't into that sort of thing, then go ahead and click over to TLC so you can read that -- shocker! -- Jon.and.Kate are getting divorced. Gasp! Whoda thunk? Anyway...

Since discovering my Gallbladder Issues, I've had to severely restrict my dietary intake of fat. Therefore, I ate 2 cans of fat free Pringles over vacation and I am here to tell you that it will go down in history as one of the Worst Ideas Ever. Initially, I just started shitting orange oil every time I took a dump. Crazy, Halloween-colored orange stuff. And not a little bit of it. A LOT of it. For days.

Sadly, I just took it in stride. Sort of like, "Wow, check THAT out. I'm shitting orange grease. Huh." Such is the life of a chick with jacked up insides. You endure a lot of crazy stuff below the belt without getting too alarmed.

Then, last night, my insides decided to evict themselves in a truly violent manner. I seriously could have shown up for a colonoscopy this morning with complete confidence that I was dead empty from the waist down. It was one of those lay-down-on-the-bathroom-floor-sweating-and-writhing-around episodes. Good times. The pain was so intense that I finally got to practice those neato breathing exercises I learned for labor. You know, since I never actually made it to the part of labor where you push. I just opted for the slice-me-open method. But I digress.

This morning, I ate nothing. Absolutely nothing. Didn't even drink water when I brushed my fuzzy, orange, oily teeth because I was afraid of the Mt. Vesuvius possibilities. Yet, somehow this agitated my gallbladder. Stupid, stupid gallbladder. So I took 2 of my last 3 vicodin and prayed for the best.

Everything stayed quiet for the rest of the day. Right now, I'm staying up until 11:59 so that I can shove every fat free item in the house down my gullet since I'm not allowed to eat after midnight. And my surgery isn't until 12:50pm tomorrow afternoon. That's just cruel, I tell you. The nurse cheerily explained that I could swish water around in my mouth during the day but that I better damn well not swallow it. (Anyone else picturing Michael Scott murmuring, "That's what she said"?)

This time tomorrow I will be gallbladder-free and, presumably, pain-free. Well, there will be the pain from surgery recovery but I bet it will be a cakewalk compared to gallstones. If not, you guys will be the first to hear about it. I'll be bitchin' and swearin' like Courtney.Love with PMS.

Now, if you'll excuse me, some fat free pudding with fat free cool whip is calling my name!

Flying Horses?

I've decided to post every day in July. I don't know why. I think I feel a little guilty reading the gazillions of blogs that I read, knowing that those people have just as much (or as little) time as I do, yet they still make the space in their day to post.

So I've made up a calendar of what I'll post each day. I'm jumping on the bandwagon for a few staple days each week (Perfect Moment Monday, Wordless Wednesday, Mel's Show and Tell). I'll also do a couple of memes floating out there. To really milk it, I'm going to split E's interview questions for me (from about 100 years ago) into 6 different posts -- since there are 6 questions. Smart, no? I still have 10 days that I need to figure out what I'll post.

My brilliant plan is to write all of those 10 posts next week while I'm laid up after my gallbladder surgery. I tried to be sneaky and had planned to publish a few of the draft posts I've got lying around. But when I looked at them, they all sucked. There was one all about how shitty Liam was sleeping, and it was titled "Flying Horses". I have absolutely no idea why I titled it that, as I usually don't add the title until the end. But, whatever. So, no well of decent draft posts to dip into.

We just got back from a week at Myrtle.Beach. It was a blast! Until the drive home. That was like Hell on Earth. Everything about it was bad. The only thing that didn't blow up in our face was that we neither ran out of gas (although it was close), and the car didn't actually break down (although we seem to have some sort of electrical problem brewing). Worse than it taking about 426 hours to make an 8 hour trip, worse than hearing my darling children wail for hours on end, worse than feeling like I just rode to the Moon and back in a sardine can, is that I missed my date with LJ and Mel. This would be the makeup date from when I missed the TOOTPU gathering a couple of weekends ago. I think the universe hates me. Thanks a lot, universe. Fuck you. The only thing that kept me from climbing up to the roof and jumping off is the adorable picture that LJ sent me of V on my phone. :-)

Okay, it's time to take a shower and start unpacking. We just couldn't face it yesterday. I can't wait to see the little nooks and crannies that Megan has selected to smuggle sandy shells home in.

Vexed and irritated

gall
–verb (used with object)
to vex or irritate greatly: His arrogant manner galls me.

Raise your hand if you know what your gallbladder does. I bet there are only two types of people who have their hands up right now: those in the medical profession, or those who have had their gallbladders removed.

The good news: I am going to kick some ass in this round the Biggest.Loser contest at my work. I lost 5 lbs last week alone, and will continue to drop it like crazy for the next month or so.

The bad news: Eating has taken on a whole new meaning of pain. My gallbladder has become a traitorous, villainous, evil, spiteful, soon-to-be disposable, miserable little thorn in my side. Actually, in my abdomen.

We're going to cut the bitch out. It can't come soon enough, as eating baked fish and lettuce is getting old. I love both, mind you, but I'm weary of watching everyone around me consume fat. Fat, fat, glorious fat!! Oh how I love thee, I will see you again soon.

I got to spend a lovely 5 hours in the ER of my local hospital learning that I have gallstones. So many of them that neither the Doctor or the Radiologist were able to count them all. Guess what I was supposed to be doing at the very moment I was writhing in pain at said ER? Having a lovely lunch with the TOOTPU gals. Dammit, dammit, triple dammit.

I have to say that it was mighty weird to have so much bloodwork done, and such a lengthy sonogram, yet to have none of it at all oriented to my reproductive tract. That was mostly liberating and exhilarating, but also sort of disappointing. I'm a cycle junkie, I guess I miss it more than I thought.

Just to torture ourselves, while frittering away eons in the ER, Kevin and I got on the topic of a 3rd child. We both firmly agreed that we are thrilled with the 2 we have, and never ever plan on trying for more, but if I magically became pregnant, we'd be happy. Of course it would be like the immaculate conception since I am infertile, Kevin has a vasectomy, and we use condoms (a story for another day). So, let's just say the chances of me magically getting pregnant are slim to none. And slim just left town.

I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow. I assume that after that, they'll schedule the procedure. We are going on vacation for a week, starting this Friday, so it will be sometime after that. I'm just so happy to know what the problem is, I could cry tears of joy.

I plan to ask about a tummy tuck (or lipo) and some handiwork on my outrageously separated stomach muscles. In reality, neither of those two things are going to get addressed, I'm sure. But I can still dream. As it is, I won't be able to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds FOR A MONTH. Oh yeah, you read that right. A FREAKING MONTH. In case you were wondering, Liam weighs 22 pounds. Well, shit.

Before you ask, I'll tell you that I don't know what The Plan will be. We're going to figure that out on vacation. I guess I'll import my MIL for a while, hit up my teenage nieces when they aren't away at summer camp, call the 14 year old babysitter in the neighborhood who just put a flyer on our mailbox, and wing it.

Anyone out there thinking, "Why doesn't she call her own Mother?" The answer is that I would hack my own gallbladder out with a rusty butter knife then slather my children in meat juice and leave them in the care of rabid wolverines before I'd let my Mom watch them. Okay, okay, that's a little extreme. She's a possibility. She's just the proverbial Last Resort. For lots of reasons. That's a whole 'nother post, trust me.

By the way, Megan had taken to telling people, "Mommy's ballblather is broken." I snickered every time I heard it, but Kevin eventually made me correct her. Now she over-enunciates it: GALL-BLADD-ER. I've gotta find the humor somewhere, people.