{So Many Hats}

Random Tidbits

I guess random is my new theme.  Just some random tidbits of information to try to make good on my promise to be more faithful here.... Drill weekend this weekend... nothing says teamwork like a good old fashioned "pee in a cup" morning at the drill hall.  Yep... Operation GoldenFlow this weekend... gotta keep Soldiers off drugs.  We also had good PT, took some fine Army classes, and went to a cool training simulator to work on our weapon skills (I shot expert!) All in all not a bad weekend, I enjoy going to Tacoma because I have friends in the area and on Saturday night Rhonda and I and her kiddos had a fun filled tour of the South Center Mall.... Had Panda Express and a Jamba Juice, bought a couple of things for New York and a jersey for Eric for his birthday... wish I had totally NOT been tracking as happening this weekend...whoops LOL!  I will definately have to go back after Lent though... they have this place that makes these AMAZING looking crepes that I wanted SO BAD but I could not get over they were probably a "dessert" and thus off limits and making me thankful for the sacrifice of resisting temptation that the Lord did for us.... plus there is a Cheesecake Factory there... YUM!!! Again, pesky dessert. Anyway... that was my fun filled weekend... good to keep my Army skills intact, frustrating that it is only one weekend a month and that the environment is so different than that of a full time unit.  But for now it is OK. Watch for AJ to post soon... I am allowing him to come to NY with me and he is pretty darn excited.  And in case you don't know... I am going with the choir who has been invited to sing at Carnegie Hall... yep, THE Carnegie Hall.  Pretty exciting!!  Ok..... gotta go to school.  Got some cool tees to deliver!  Peace out for now! 

Wow....and some Randomness

I don't know why I have a blog. I used to have a blog so that people could keep up with me while I was gone.  Was I so egotistical? Did I actually find myself so important that I thought people would WANT to keep up with me? Did I set myself up for colossal failure for thinking that if people wanted to keep up with me then I owed it to them to be amusing, and light, and funny and to entertain them?  And is that what a blog is for?
Or perhaps is a blog therapy? Somewhere to write your thoughts and musings and to just vent? If I were less worried about entertaining and more worried about just expressing would I write more? I certainly can't write less... I mean come on, I haven't written in 6 MONTHS for crying out loud.  I hardly even recognize the site anymore, it has been so long.

So I will try. Again. To write, to muse, to vent, perhaps to entertain.  Maybe I will just journal here... tell what my day is like.  Maybe someday my children will look back at my postings and know more of me because of what I share.  Maybe.

I wonder if this should be like Lent... but instead of giving up something you DO something. Like a New Year's resolution (if I believed in those), but different.  My friend Heidi posts to her blog on a regular basis... I will use her as an example, and I will strive to be much like her.  She doesn't post everyday, but she is regular enough that there is often something new to read.  I wonder if there are people out there that come here to see if I have something new to read like I do to my friend Heidi? If so then they must be so very disappointed in me. And that is depressing, I hate to disappoint people.  In fact, I was talking about that with my friend Heidi just tonight... the dichotomy of life when one is a force of nature, and yet must please those around her.  Interesting to note.

I am participating in Lent this year.  I have never done Lent before... I thought it was New Year's resolutions for Catholics and so never really paid attention.  Our church is doing Lent this year. This year I understand, I understand that you give something up that you care for, that when you miss that thing, that when you are tempted to sneak and have the forbidden treat, that you remember what the Lord gave up for you.  That He was tempted, that He resisted, that He did it all for YOU, and what about the tiny bit you are doing for Him. So I decided to give it a shot. I decided to give some stuff up for Lent.  And when I am tempted to cheat, to think that no one would know, that it isn't a big deal, then I remember that it IS a big deal, that He will know, that this is the very least I can do to remember a Savior who gave everything up for me, who was tempted Himself and did not give in, for Someone would know, and the perfect salvation plan would have failed.  Yes, 46 days is the least I can do.  Oh... and in case you were wondering, soda, fast food and desserts.  Soda and fast food.... not so big a deal.  Desserts.... yea, I am praying a lot!  Pray with me will you?

AJ Here... from the road again!

Yep, just a traveling fool!  Mom and I are with Poppa Mac on the way to New Jersey!  The Army came and packed up most of his stuff but his "essentials" still fill a fairly good-sized U-haul trailer that we are now dragging behind his truck. The trip didn't start out too well.... we landed in Dallas on Friday, laden with camera equipment and a small suitcase with our clothes, and were prepared to wait a few hours for our ride to arrive. Bad luck for us, Poppa Mac had to go to the emergency room for his feet again and did not get out of El Paso like he was supposed to so....... we ended up grabbing a shuttle and heading for a hotel just off the airport. We were supposed to wait there and we thought it was only until that night but unfortunately it didn't turn out that way and we were there until Sunday morning.  Sigh. it was a really nice hotel room but after that many hours it got a little boring.  Mom read and slept and walked to Dennys for dinner but she wouldn't let me go with her. i watched a lot of TV but there weren't that many good channels... no E! or Disney so I got bored.  Mom and I watched the drag races, we LOVE that... we sent text messages to Grampa but he had his phone off so he didn't answer us. Of course, chances are he would not have answered us anyway! I had a scary moment though, when my friend Ashley had her car explode during qualifying runs.... she was OK though... whew! Kinda sad that we don't get to go back to the Nationals this year, but maybe next year!

So we are driving... we made it into Tennessee last night, Mom had a big scare though, she totally thought she had left her BlackBerry and her wallet in a bathroom in Arkansas but it turned out that she had put it down in the back end of the truck to wash the windshield and had forgotten.  I am not sure what made her feel more stupid, the thought that she had left it in a bathroom or the finding it in the truck. Pretty crazy. I kind of thought it was funny 'cuz if she had left them in my shell where they belonged then she would not have lost them.  What? She didn't think I might have had to go to the bathroom too? Of course it wouldn't be the first time she had left a phone in the bathroom... she did the same thing in the Dallas airport the year she went to Summit with Brion and Connie... she figured it out when she got on the airplane... she is SO lucky that they let her off to go get it, and that it was still there when she got there. She will never learn.

Anyway... we tried to go to Graceland this morning but found it to be a bit on the expensive side since we aren't really Elvis fans. It was cool though, I had my picture taken with a little blue Elvis Ty beanie baby. Too funny.  Poppa took a picture but I can't quite post it yet, but I will try later.  Anyway.... we are trying to get to Roanoke, Virginia tonight... we are listening to the Harry Potter audio book while we drive.... we have an ice chest full of food in the back end and it seems to be going well.  Mom is pretty excited... as soon as we drop of Poppa Mac's stuff we get to go to Maine for the wedding and that should be pretty awesome.  None of us have ever been to Maine before and the pictures should be awesome. Plus after the wedding Mom and I are going to go to see Aunt Sandy in Baltimore for her 40th birthday.  Party, party, party. Then it is back to Washington and Mom has to go to work. Yep, she actually got a job again so she is pretty excited about that =) Ok... nothing too exciting here, but just wanted you to know what was going on.  See you all soon! Peace out my friends!!

Spider Update

In case you were wondering.... Eric came home and used the "big" bathroom and noticed that the shower curtain was all askew and decided that I must have taken a shower. He then noticed Charlotte in the corner of the shower and decided she must not have been present earlier or I would not have taken said shower.  He left the bathroom, got halfway through the house, and reconsidered.  He then returned to the bathroom and killed Charlotte.  It all came together for him after he read my previous story!  Just thought you should know that the shower is now safe for human use!!!!

Why Blog?

So... why do people have blogs? To inform? To entertain? To stay in touch? To mock? To inspire? All of the above?  I am not sure.  I pay $8.95 a month for a blog that I hardly ever write on anymore.  I let life overwhelm me, I lost my sense of humor, and I quit sharing.  So, no promises, but I will try to do better, and I will let AJ write when it is appropriate as well.  He has a lot of stories and pictures to share from these last 3 years.  Today I was in the shower and a set of circumstances caused me to think that you, my faithful two readers may get a kick out of it... if you even check in here anymore since it has been so long since I have written.  But here it is, to mock, to inform, to entertain, to whatever... I give you the Spider-Shower Chronicles.

One of the random things that I missed while I was gone was my shower.  There is nothing particularly glamorous about my shower, it isn't a glorious oasis with natural stone tiles or dual massaging shower heads, or a jetted jacuzzi tub, it's a normal, everyday shower in a small, cramped, everyday bathroom.  BUT! It has awesome water pressure and the hot water lasts a LONG time... mostly due to the fact that when Eric went to Iraq in 2003 the FIRST thing that happened, I mean, like as in the day he left practically, the hot water heater ruptured and dumped its entire contents across my beautiful hardwood floors.  So I got a large, quick recycling, heavy duty replacement and my showers are awesome.  Usually.  The only thing that dampens (ha ha) my enjoyment in the shower is the fact that my bathroom does not have a working vent fan and we have a ceiling mold problem.  But, I know that there is intent to repair, and that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm. Usually.

Today, I stepped into my always hot, always high pressure, slightly moldy ceilinged (yes, that is a word) shower and commenced to shower.  As I often do at this time, I looked toward the ceiling to see how the mold is doing.  Has it spread, is it darker, is it lighter, what will I treat it with this time..... except on this particular day, in this particular shower, in the top right hand corner of the shower, is a spider.  And she isn't dead. 

Now those of you who know me well know that I HATE SPIDERS.  We aren't talking slight dislike, would prefer not to see, gently brush them away, we are talking run screaming in the opposite directions, smash them with shoes, holler for help, spray them with agent orange, HATE spiders.  So I am immediately concerned.  The spider, let's pretend she is sweet and innocent and call her "Charlotte," is up in the upper left hand corner of my shower.  Directly to the right of my shower head.  Not cool.  I am already totally immersed in my shower, and have put shampoo in my hair.  Somehow I need to find a way for Charlotte and I to peacefully co-exist for the next 5 minutes while I rinse my hair, apply conditioner, rinse my hair and can escape.  There will be no leisurely enjoyment of the water pressure, no shaving of the legs, no lingering in the steam, I must get out of the shower alive.  So I cautiously turn my body so that my hair is in the spray, but my eyes are on Charlotte, and rinse.  She sees me.  She wants to be friends.  She starts waving her little legs at me in what appears to be a friendly salute but in which I know is a desperate attempt to lure me into false security so that she can drop on me from above and bite my now clean flesh.  I don't wave back.  I stare at her and wish fervently for a removable shower head so that I can retreat to a safer portion of the shower.  I continue to rinse.  Good grief, how could I allow my hair to get so long as to need so much shampoo?  Charlotte tires of waving to a non-responsive victim and begins to slowly inch toward me across the top of the shower.  "No, no" I exclaim... "No, no, stay there, no, no!" She doesn't listen and continues to close in.  ITT... intent to touch for those of you who have NOT seen Night of the Museum II - Battle of the Smithsonian.... I jump from the shower and stand dripping on the bathroom floor.  Max comes into the hallway and looks at me, head cocked, ears up as only a chihuahua can do and you can almost hear him thinking... "What IS she doing, why is she doing it without her fur on and who IS she talking to?"  I ignore Max and concentrate on Charlotte.  She crawls all the way across the top of the shower to the right hand corner as I watch, dripping on the bathroom floor and praising the Lord that the kids left Sunday so as not to have to witness this insanity.  She stops, and hovers as it slowly dawns on me that if I return to the shower, she is now ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE TUB!  I can easily watch her, rinse my hair, do the conditioner and get out.  Yep, I can do it!

I step back into the shower, re-close the curtain, edge along the curtain back to the spray, and resume my hair care.  Charlotte watches me.  I know she is watching me watch her, I can feel her eyes on my almost like 8 hairy, tickly, creepy legs.  This in NOT an enjoyable shower.  I reach behind me for the conditioner, dump some in my hand, apply to my hair, count rapidly to 100 and figure "good enough".  I just start to tip my head back into the spray, still watching the corner when Charlotte decides she hasn't had enough fun with me, crawls about 6 inches back towards me and DROPS FROM THE CEILING.  I scream and jump from the shower.  Now ALL the dogs are in the hallway staring at me and barking as I stand dripping on the bathroom floor.  I can hear Charlotte laughing as she raises herself back up to the ceiling.  As it dawns on me that I have a dish sprayer in the kitchen sink, and that I haven't seen a spider out there yet I concede this round to Charlotte... but don't worry, next time I go to the shower, I will have a shoe.  Or a removable shower head..... you know the song... "down came the rain and WASHED THE SPIDER OUT."  Until next time friends.... may your burdens be light, and your showers be empty!

The Great Appendix Adventure pt. 4

As I mentioned before, I am taking this over briefly so the end of the story may not be as colorful as the beginning.  I am trying to remember where AJ left off because I am typing this sequel piece at like 35,000 feet as we fly home from Miami through Houston and on into Seattle… more about that later when I turn this back over to AJ though.  I think that AJ was letting you know how ticked off I was to have surgery.  He wasn’t kidding.  I mean seriously… how many people come home for a five day break and end up wasting 2.5 days on something as dumb as a worthless appendix.  I am not saying that I doubt God’s wisdom but this business of extra organs that can just be removed… spleens, appendixes, gall bladders…. Seriously!  Anyway…. So if memory serves me correctly AJ left you at the point I asked Eric to go home and get me AJ, the book I had been reading, my work cell phone, a bottle of water and some hair ties.  Oh, and a phone charger.  Kind of an eclectic mix I realize, but one does what one has to do.  I got AJ for the obvious reasons (like he is always with me in case you didn’t know, and SOMEONE had to be able to tell the story!!)…I needed the work phone to call my chain of command and let them know what was happening in case I didn’t get back on time (although I was pretty committed to not missing the flight since I had the kids with me)…. I needed a book to pass the time because I was so ticked there was no way I was sleeping…. The hair ties were because I knew if I laid in a hospital bed for that long without brushing it I would be be SO sorry the next time I could brush it so I braided it into two French braids…. The water because I was thirsty after that NASTY junk I had to drink, and then the phone charger for the Blackberry so I could continue to text and post sarcastic comments and gnarly pictures to my Facebook account.  I have to say…. I liked my blackberry before this, but I totally LOVED being able to still be in perfect contact with everybody and everything even from a hospital bed.  I know that there are some of you out there who don’t approve, but hey, if you don’t approve and you are reading isn’t that a little hypocritical since the same technology that keeps me connected on my blackberry keeps me connected to you?  I’m just saying….. Anyway… so Eric went and got all my stuff for me and they FINALLY moved me into a room…. I even got to be in a private one so no one had to put up with my supreme grumpiness.  Your tax dollars at work, sorry about that.  Anyway, we decided Eric should go home and get some rest before going to work cleaning at the restaurant, that there was no reason to stay with me since I wasn’t going into surgery until 5:00 am and he could just come straight back after cleaning.  That was the plan anyway…. So he left and I was in my room reading and I had my bottle of water near my bed although I had not had the opportunity to do much more than take a sip when this nazi nurse came in and told me that I could not have that water because I was going into surgery.  I was a bit perturbed and asked why since they just had me drink a liter of that contrast crud… seriously what more harm could a bit of water do?  And she got all snotty with me and informed me that I was not to eat or drink ANYTHING because I was going into SURGERY.  Newsflash lady, pretty sure I got it by now that I am going to be having surgery…. So I say OK, I won’t drink it.  She says,” I am removing it from your room because you cannot have it.”  I say, “It belongs to me and you are not removing it.  I already said I would not drink it, I won’t drink it.” She goes, “I will just move it over here so you don’t ‘accidently forget.’”  You want to talk about ticked off…. My whole life depends on me being able to follow lawful orders in a timely and decisive manner.  If you tell me not to drink the water because it will interfere with my surgery, I am not going to drink the darn water.  But serious as a heart attack she moves it over to the other counter out of my reach.  Apparently civilian hospitals don’t have the customer comment cards that Army hospitals do…. Pretty lucky for that lady!!  So I hang out in my room, reading and dozing and being woken up every half hour for tests and labs and junk and at like 1:30 am or so they come in and start to wheel me away.  I am a bit startled and asked what was going on…. Turns out that the doctor had to come in for some other emergency so she decided to handle me at the same time.  So off I went to surgery.  I was going to call Eric but then decided there wasn’t much he could do anyway so I just let him keep cleaning and when he showed up later the deed would be done.  So we went downstairs and I met my nice nurse Ben… he gave me the most awesome blanket thing!  He laid it over me and then connected it to this tube (kind of like the ones on an old fashioned hair dryer things and he flipped the switch…. HEAVEN!  It had all these little holes all along it and it blew up like an air mattress and this warm air came rushing out…. It was the first time I had been warm all evening.  I love nurse Ben!  Oh, and AJ was with me.  The doctor came to see me and I swear she looked a little like Dr. Bailey from Grey’s and that was pretty cool.  We even swapped a little Grey’s talk… even better but I did not get to see a McDreamy or a McSteamy so that was a total bummer!  So she met AJ too and I told them I have a hard time with anesthesia and then they rolled me into the surgery suite which was a total bummer because I didn’t get to keep the air blanket and then the anesthesiologist said something to me and the next thing I remember I was waking up (sort of) back in the pre-op room, AJ was still with me (or with me again I suspect) and nurse Ben was telling me I should be fine since I already threw up in the surgery suite.  I hate to say I told you so but I did warn then about the anesthesia thing!!  The next time I remember anything I was back in my own room and my mom was visiting me on her way to work and then Daddy visited me and then Eric and the kids…. Then the doctor stopped by and said I could probably go home that day since they did the surgery laproscopically (which means they pulled it out my belly button) and I just needed to lay around and rest, eat a bland diet and relax.  I reminded her I was flying on Thursday (it was now Tuesday) and while she frowned upon the action there was no medical risk so there wasn’t a lot she could do but warn me I was going to be VERY sore.  I really wanted to say “Duh, but whose fault is that really?” but I didn’t.  So I had to do the required walking and stuff so they would let me go and they finally released me around 3:30 or so…. Here is my picture of that…. And I put on the clothes Eric brought for me, loaded everyone into the truck and headed for the Melting Pot in Seattle.  We may have missed the Science Center because of that stupid thing, but I wasn’t about to ruin the kid’s Christmas or miss our reservations.  They had been so excited about getting to go!  So we drove to Seattle (with yet MORE SNOW), ate at the Melting Pot and headed back.  In retrospect, I would have to say not one of my brighter moves as Seattle was SO buried in snow and the roads were SO rutted and the bouncing around and trying to walk were a bit on the painful side.  Plus I was pretty worn out by the time we got back.  What do you do though?  Isn’t that kind of what parenthood is about… self sacrifice for the family?  Maybe that is taking it a bit far but the kids really had a good time and it was worth it.  I was pretty wiped out the next day though!  I basically sat in the game day throne and played board games with the kids.  We went to Fred Meyer’s about 15 minutes before it closed on Christmas Eve (ZOO!) to get Eric’s present and a few last minute things for the kids and a sweatsuit for me to travel in the next day since all I had with me were jeans and a uniform, neither particularly conducive to keeping stress of a fresh incision.  The nasty cashier at Fred Meyer asked me what was wrong and I told him I had just been released from the hospital the day before and he turns to his coworker and says in this nasty voice, “See, nothing keeps you Americans from spending money on this bloody holiday.”  Pretty awesome.  He must be so proud.  I guess I should have been more careful to schedule my shopping time and surgery around providing the blanket of freedom he sleeps so peacefully under here in MY country.  But I digress… all in all it was a grand adventure although not one I hope to repeat soon.  I will tell you more about the flight back and my recovery time in El Paso and my new snuggly friend and AJ’s temper tantrum in a day or two.  Toodles for now and I will talk to you soon.  Since I have no job, failed out of school (another post as well) and basically just have a lot of time on my hands you can know it is true.  Besides, I am anxious to turn the blog into one for AJ.  I am thinking of maybe writing a children’s book featuring Max (the puppy you will learn about soon) and AJ.  I think it will be cool.  The what, two of you or so who actually read this will have to tell me what you think! That’s it for now.  Sorry for the length… but what else is there to do at 35,000 feet when everyone else is sleeping?  As AJ would say, peace out friends!

Hi-jacked and Re-jacked

OK… AJ just has really not had the time to properly blog and so I am rejacking what used to be my blog and then somehow became AJ’s blog when he hijacked it from me so I can catch you up on some of his adventures and then I can turn the blog back over to him.  He has been getting quite a bit of attention these last few weeks as we have been travelling and we keep telling people that he has his own blog so I think I will just give it to him.  I was already thinking that since I am returning home now I might just change the name of the blog from “So Many Hats” to AJ’s Ultimate Adventures or something like that and it kind of seems to be the right time.  He even made a friend in St. Thomas this last week that wants to read about him.  Go figure. …he seems to have a lot more fun than I do though!  Anyway, let’s get to it….

Let me just say....

That hearsay from a turtle is NOT admissable in a court of law.  He is taking second and third account stories and putting his own special twist on them.  I will admit to being annoyed, and trying to get out of surgery, but let me point out that by this time I was full of a LOT of morphine =)  Morphine is a nice drug, don't you think?  AJ did get to come to the hospital, and I did do a lot of texting on my Blackberry ... boy I like that thing!! 

"Do you still have your appendix? Hmmmmm...."

 So here is where the story actually starts to get kind of funny… well, not so much from Mom’s point of view, and not right then, but now that it is over, the story is entertaining.  So Mom goes into the clinic and her first question is “Do you take Tricare?” Well, of course they don’t so she is annoyed from the get-go that her insurance doesn’t work here and she is going to have to pay out of pocket for something she expects to be gas.  So she fills out all the paperwork, and just stands in the lobby because #1, there is noone there and #2, it kind of hurts to sit down.  So after a bit the nurse comes and gets her and does all the pre-checkup stuff like weight and height and blood pressure and all that, and then uses this phrase that will become standard (and annoying) over the course of the rest of the story…. “Do you still have your appendix?  Hmmm….)   She then asks mom for a urine sample for a pregnancy test.  Now Mom does not take too kindly to the request on account of the fact that the necessary ummm, arrangements for pregnancy have not been met, and on account of the fact that she has neither eaten nor drunk anything all day because of the intense pain so how in the world can she be expected to pee in a cup?  And let me tell you, the night went downhill from there.  After the nurse made her drink 5 dixie cups of water (she made it through 2 before she started to cry because it made it hurt so much worse) the doctor came in.  He noted the tears, asked what was going on, did some pushing and prodding, and repeated the question…. “ Do you still have your appendix? Hmmm….” At this point Mom was past the cranky stage and not to nicely informed him that people really needed to stop saying that and she narced on the mean nurse who made her drink water.   The doctor said that in order to do a proper diagnosis he needed blood work and a CT scan and his clinic did not have the facilities to do either so he was going to pre-admit her at the emergency room at St. Joseph. Now, if you have any idea how hostile she was BEFORE that little bit of information, it was nothing compared to what was coming.  First she asked the doctor if she could wait since she was headed back to Texas in two days and she was only there to have Christmas with her family and this wasn’t exactly a convenient time.  She then asked him if he couldn’t diagnose her there and had to refer her out what business did he have charging her $110 for a doctor visit.  She feels bad now but she was pretty ticked off then.  So… she called Gramma and asked her to keep the kids overnight just in case, and she called Eric and let him know that they had to go to the emergency room and that she was already tired of hearing, “Do you still have your appendix?  Hmmmm…..” So papa Eric came and got her and they went to the emergency room at St. Joseph’s where the first question was, yep, you guessed it, “Do you still have your appendix?  Hmmmm….”  I wonder if they teach that in medical school?  Well, after she got pre-admitted (with a small brown bag containing an even smaller plastic bottle for her “contribution”) she went to the “real” admitting place where the nice young man told her that “of course” they took Tricare and asked if she wanted any pain medication.  Well now that you mention it…. Isn’t insurance a wonderful thing?  So she got her little ID tag and some meds and she went to the waiting room (and to the bathroom for her “contribution”) and just waited.  It wasn’t too terribly long before they placed her back in a room and gave her an IV, and some fluids, and more pain medicine (four shots later she finally felt a little better) and started doing their thing.  After a few more rounds of “Do you still have your appendix? Hmmm….” it was decided that a CT scan needed to be performed.  I don’t know if any of you have ever had a CT scan, I haven’t, but I do know now after hearing this story that I don’t want to… but it was decided that Mom needed to drink a huge bottle of contrast.  I don’t know how to describe contrast because Mom doesn’t know how to describe contrast.  This is the best she can do “I have never known that water could be thick and this is the grossest thing I have ever drunk.”  Eric was all optimistic and he poured Mom this big glass of it and cheerfully said, “drink up!”  He had obviously never drunk contrast!  Mom took a big swallow and about puked on the bed.  So in the IV went more meds, these ones for anti-nausea and so it began.  Eric was telling Mom she was a tough Army girl and she could do this and she was getting pissy and telling him that he had no idea because it wasn’t him in pain and having to drink this junk and couldn’t she just go home and worry about this after Christmas…. And pretty soon the gauntlet was thrown down and Mom said she wasn’t drinking anymore until he knew what she was going through and so he took a sip and oh my goodness…according to Mom his face was hysterical, especially as he tried not to gag as he was saying, “that’s not so bad.”  But after that he did conclude that it was pretty gross and maybe smaller amounts would be better.  So he poured little ½ Dixie cups and Mom managed to drink one every 5 minutes until the junk was gone but she swears it was pure force of will and the thought that Army girls are too tough to be put down by nasty thick swamp water flavored with lemon Crystal Light which for the record is gross all by itself.  So a couple of more shots of anti-nausea meds and pain killer later, Mom was wheeled off for her CT scan and at the CT room they shot her full of iodine which made her body freak a little, she thought she tasted blood and got an instant raging headache.  At some point in all of this, they also gave her some Sulfa even though she was wearing a HUGE RED BRACELET saying not too.  We assume that is where the terrible headache came in…. they told her the next day that it had happened but that they monitored to make sure she didn’t go into anaphylactic shock… wasn’t that nice of them?!  So she was wheeled back up into the first room she came from and the doctor came in and said, yep, she was in the beginning stages of appendicitis and that they were going to admit her to the hospital and operate at 0500 the next morning.  At this point there were more tears, and some argument that if it was only beginning then it was no big deal and couldn’t they just give her some drugs and let her go home with her family for Christmas and what was wrong with these doctors, didn’t they know she was only home for 5 days and had no desire to spend two of them in the hospital?  Nothing doing though, they just patted her and left.

 

So of course, Mom went into planning mode and told Eric to go home, get her government phone, the phone chargers, her book she brought to read, a bottle of water, a brush, hair ties and ME!  She had her blackberry with her so she took a picture (see the big bottle on the right hand table by the blue thingie?  That was the contrast!) and posted to her facebook that she was going in for surgery.  She’s a funny one like that… pissed at the beginning, but resigned and taking care of business the rest of the time, although I will say that she does NOT look too happy in this picture!  She also had to call and explain to Ladybug Sarah what was going on and tell her not to be scared because she wasn’t taking it well and Gramma thought it best she hear from Mom that it was all going to be OK.  She also called back to her unit and let them know what was going on just in case but told them that she had made it VERY CLEAR to the doctor that she was flying back to Texas on Thursday no matter what (and yes, this was Monday night… optimistic isn’t she?!).  So that is where I will leave this portion…. Mom admitted to the hospital, Eric headed out to get the stuff she requested and a 0500 surgery date for Tuesday morning.  Catch up with you soon for the rest of the story!!  

Christmas Excitement (part 2)

So on Monday morning when we woke up Mom STILL had a terrible stomachache.  The crummy thing was that Adam (one of the TLC employees) did not go to work the night before and Mom and papa Eric didn’t find out until the morning so they had to go clean Homeport first thing in the morning so Mom had to vacuum the whole restaurant while she had this bad tummy ache and it hurt to the touch and she was generally feeling miserable.  When she got back from the restaurant she came back to bed and she told me that she was weirded out though by the fact that she had not thrown up, there had been no instances of needing to run to the toilet for ANYTHING (if you get my drift) so she could not figure out why the intense pain.  We were all supposed to go sledding up on Mt. Baker but it was STILL snowing in Bellingham so Gramma called to see if we were going to do it and Mom said that it was OK if we didn’t, and Gramma, being the smart cookie she is, knew that if Mom changed a tradition/plan and didn’t care SOMETHING was wrong so she asked what was up and Mom said she had this bad stomachache so just in case maybe she should not be on the top of Mt. Baker and we could just find a park or someplace. Gramma said Mom should go to the doctor but Mom kind of blew her off and said she would figure it out.  So the kids came in and visited, and Mom called some friends for advice, and Eric looked online for information and they thought maybe she was suffering from a gall bladder attach which would have made sense because Gramma doesn’t have her gall bladder anymore and Mom does everything she does…. So it came to be sledding time and Mom went sledding.  Well, went sledding is kind of a misnomer.  She went WITH everyone to go sledding, but she just stood around and took pictures of everyone.  She couldn’t tolerate the bumps on the hill so she just stood still.  Well, Gramma kept nagging and so finally Mom called the doctor and asked them and they said that it was too difficult to diagnose stomach stuff on the phone so she would need to be seen but they were going to close because of the snow so she would have to go to the urgent care clinic.  Well, if you know Mom, you know she hates doctors, and she will only see Dr. Gav so she said thanks, and decided not to go.  She figured she just had bad gas or something and could not see spending all the money for an urgent care visit when they would probably tell her to take some tums and go about her business.  And besides, on Tuesday the family was supposed to go to Seattle and to the Pacific Science Center (one of their FAVE places) and to the Melting Pot (Mom’s FAVE place) so she needed to get ready for that. So Auntie Heather invited everyone to her house for lasagna, and everyone left the sledding site to go get ready.  When Mom got home all she wanted to do was go back to bed so she came to take a little nap with me and then she decided after that maybe she should just go see because the pain just wasn’t getting better.  She said it was really weird, the whole tummy area was swollen up and it hurt EVERYWHERE but she didn’t have to throw up, didn’t have to go to the bathroom, and didn’t have a fever or anything.  She also couldn’t eat though and so I think that is why she finally decided to go.  She told papa Eric to drop her off at the clinic, take the kids out to Auntie Heather’s and come back and get her because she should be done by then (little did she know!!).  So that was her plan.  As we all know… plans don’t always work out.  But ever the optimistic, Mom got cleaned up, dressed to go to Auntie Heather’s house for dinner, got the kids ready, packed everyone in the truck and took off for the urgent care clinic.  That’s when everything got REALLY interesting.  Come back later to find out what happened… WITH PICTURES!!!