Warning, Happy Drugs In Use

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So this rapidly got too long for a FB status, but people wanted to know how I was doing.

For those who missed the memo: the constant excruciating back pain I've been whinging about for the last four to five months morphed into excruciating abdominal pain and vomiting on Saturday morning. It didn't let up, and after twelve hours of not keeping anything (ANYTHING) down, we came to the ER, and I've been in the hospital since Saturday night. Turns out? Gallstones, blockage of the bile duct. Surgical fix, but a relatively simple one now that they know what's actually the problem.

Emotionally, I'm a mess. I miss my baby. John brought JJ in to see me yesterday after his appointment (poor baby got a couple of shots), and all JJ wanted to do was sit on my lap and nurse. Which, thankfully, his doctor and mine both said was okay, because I was getting seriously baby-bonding deprived. John is being an awesome amazing rock star daddy about maintaining JJ's usual routine as much as possible, and JJ isn't giving him too much trouble about going to sleep and so forth. They brought me a decent quality breast pump, so I've been able to maintain my supply while I'm here, and while tired and kinda wrung out, emotionally there's nothing going on that a night in my own bed with my husband at my back and my son in my arms won't fix.

Physically, that's a different story. Two days in a row the same nurse blew off my requests for pain control for nearly an hour. And no, I wasn't early... it had been over 18 hours since I'd even asked for any, I was largely pain free most of yesterday, but started to hurt in the evening and called for meds at about 8:30. By the time she finally brought the morphine last night, it was 9:15, I was curled up in a ball and crying, and it didn't work. I told her half an hour later it wasn't working. I told her an hour after the dose that it wasn't working, and asked her to call the doctor. She blew me off again, even though I was back to shivering and fighting tears at that point.

Then shift change hit, and last night it was extra crazy and the new nurse (who was lovely, btw) didn't get to me until after 12:30a. So of course that dose of morphine didn't do much either, knocked it back some but not nearly enough to let me sleep. This nurse, however, paid attention when I told her it wasn't working. She called the doctor, got me switched to something stronger, and stayed right on top of things. She stuck her head in every time she passed my room to let me know where things stood, even when she was busy, and as soon as the order came through from the pharmacy at 2 she brought it so I could get some sleep. She also stood there and held my hand and listened while I bawled for a few minutes and got the upset out of my system as the drugs kicked in, so that helped a lot too.

So now I'm back on whichever drug it was they gave me in the ER. It makes me dizzy as hell, and I'm typing lying down because I get sick if I'm upright. I'm out of it enough to tell random orderlies that they're "cute", babble endlessly at whomever stands still long enough to catch my attention, and my skin ITCHES, but it *is* a damn near total pain-kill. My daytime nurse is wonderful, and she's in charge of assignments for this evening, so she's promised I'll get somebody else tonight.

In other news: there's a procedure this morning that I understand, but I'm too fuzzy to explain, and then either tonight or tomorrow morning they're going to remove my gallbladder. Barring complications, I should be home tomorrow night or Thursday, up and around Friday/Saturday, and done being sore by the middle of next week.

Then I get to have the awesome fun of figuring out how to accommodate the change in how my body digests food. Fun times, right?  *shrug* I need to lose weight anyway. I have decided consider this my body refusing to let me have any more excuses.

Wish me luck!

In ten more days...

JJ will be one year old.

*blinks*

Holy Hannah, when did that happen???

Well, I'm doing a quickie post today because exactly one year ago today, I was 40 weeks, officially full term, and feeling like a thoroughly beached whale.  I couldn't walk, I couldn't breathe, and NOTHING fit... and I loved it.


Remember these?

 

Yeah.  I was being silly & John was being indulgent.

And yes, we're going outside today to take more, since it's beautiful and sunny just like last year... if a bit colder!  So be on the lookout on the 25th (or shortly thereafter) for JJ's First Birthday Post, because there will be epic cuteness, y'all.  EPIC, I tell you.

Life update, and Four-Legged Babysitters RULE!!

Hullo, folks... I imagine some of you have been wondering what happened to us!   Well, in the grand tradition of life, we got busy, we got stressed, and little things like updating the world on Casa Nolan just sorta fell by the wayside.  Woopsie!

And then last week the "something's gotta give" finally gave.  God came through.  We found someone willing to buy, and sold our gas-guzzling SUV.  We were able to get financing on an '08 Chevy Impala with 20,000 fewer miles on the engine and WAAAY better gas mileage, for a payment we can actually afford.  We put a deposit on the plumbing repair that we've been stalled on for a month, so in a week or so we'll have the ability to take showers instead of bird baths in the sink.  We got caught up on all our bills, paid off the funeral home, and scheduled a move-out at our storage locker for the end of the month.  Our "thanks for choosing AT&T" prepaid Visa finally showed up, two hundred bucks on that sucker.  (Btw, if you sign up w/ AT&T and are looking for your incentive card, be aware that you have to actually go to their rewards center, either online or by phone, and "redeem" the card, which I'm betting most people forget to actually do, which is why they can afford to be so generous.  Sneaky, sneaky.)  

We booked John a hotel room for next Tuesday night so he can go test for a new job that would provide retirement, benefits, medical, long term job security, and a pay rate that would actually allow us to start saving again, and move us into a beautiful area with plenty of hunting and fishing and still have a couple of decent size cities within easy reach.  Oh, and now we have a vehicle that actually makes it cheaper for him to drive there rather than fly.   We set aside money for the bills that hit at the end of the month, and to pay for our old house to have a proper clean-out so it can be ready for the renters our old realtor has available.  We set aside money for a return trip out to the new job site so that when they call and offer John a position (That's right, I said WHEN), we can all drive out and have a good look at where we would actually be living before we commit to the move.  I finally managed to freecycle an old china cabinet that was taking up space & gathering dust in the garage, leading me to hope that I stand a prayer of eliminating the ridiculous amount of extra STUFF this family has acquired over the past decade.  Last week I picked up a music student, so hurrah for putting that music degree to work!  And it looks like I may even be able to pick up a new computer to save me from my elderly and increasingly uncooperative laptop.

So there's the update on our lives in general. 

WHAT ABOUT THE BABY?!?!?! 

Yes, yes, I hear you, no need to shout.  *wink*

JJ is doing awesome. :)  

He's over twenty pounds now, and it's still all length, the boy is TALL, almost twenty-eight inches at his 9 month appointment.  He's been teething with a vengeance lately, and OH the drool, the crankies, the baby drama!!  We're mostly down to one nap these days, and typically 2-3 hours, though occasionally we have a very early morning and the two-nap day resurfaces for a week or so.  He's dropped his morning Zantac entirely, and we're beginning to wean him off the evening dose, though that's proving a bit more difficult, and the one night I actually forgot it was an unpleasant flashback to reflux hell.

Just an aside... the height is something that I intellectually knew, but it didn't really sink in until we were at a family get-together a couple of weeks back and I actually saw him next to another baby!  One of the extended cousins has a daughter twice JJ's age, and when I stood him up next to this actively toddling little girl (JJ can't stand independently yet) I was stunned to realize he was taller than the 18 month old!

And still with the puppy-dog feet!

Speaking of puppy-dogs...

Lady is being absolutely wonderful with JJ.  

I was trying for a different shot entirely... she had laid her head and front paws down across JJ's lap.  When she heard the 3-2-1 beeping from the laptop, she picked up her head, so I didn't quite get the shot I wanted, but it turned out super-cute anyway!  I mean, with the EARS!!!

Last pediatric appointment, I showed his doctor what happened the first time I let him play with a pencil.  I don't have a pic of that one (cuz it's filed away in the bedroom and JJ is asleep!), but suffice it to say she looked at me doing that stunned blinking thing and asked me if I had birthed a mini-Picasso.  LOL.  SO, yesterday I gave JJ crayons for the first time, and this is what he did:

Lighting's not so great, but you get the idea.  

No, seriously, he did that.  

I drew a couple of swirls with the green 

to get him started, but the rest is all JJ!!

He's starting to experiment with standing up on his own too. :)

Reeeeeaaaaaaally wants to move, my little man does.

Now, to finish up today's monster update, I bring you word on my feline babysitter...

Remember this?

And this?

Now we have this.

Just in the last couple of weeks, Minnows has begun to actively help with entertaining and alerting me to JJ's activities.  He's started sitting at the bedroom door meowing, not to be let in (because I'm not in there!), but to let me know that JJ is awake from his nap.  As JJ has gotten more mobile and communicative, Minnows has started purposely entertaining him, by which I mean running into the bedroom when I have to leave JJ in his pack'nplay for a moment, jumping into the pack'nplay to be petted (read: smacked on), or (just saw this one today) deliberately sitting on the bed with his tail JUST BARELY within reach and twitching it to keep JJ's attention while I deal with whatever it was outside the bedroom.  Highly hilarious, extremely cute, and it earns said kitteh much with the luvvins.

Well, that's everything, folks... may our lives continue to go well in the future so that it's not so long between posts again!

So... allergies are evil...

If we're FB buds, then you've seen my moaning and groaning the last couple of days.

Moaning and groaning is no longer sufficient.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!!!

(Btw, Word Check, I find it hilarious that only the last 42 characters of the above are considered to be misspelled.  A Hitchhiker's reference?  From Blogger's Word Check algorithm?  Seriously?????)

I am, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody miserable.  My eyes itch.  My sinuses are completely socked in, and as a consequence my ears ache from the pressure and my hearing is iffy at best.  My nose has not stopped running for two days, and I'm sneezing constantly.  The drainage is giving me a lovely alto register, but otherwise is making me most uncomfortable.

Otherwise I feel just fine, no body soreness or chills or fever, and even though I feel like I can't breathe, my actual respiration is largely unaffected, so I am quite content to lay this at the door of SUMMER ALLERGIES. *grumblekvetchmutter*

I'm drinking tea.  Hot tea.  In August.  Because it's the only way to stop my throat from making me want to reach in there and give it a good scratch.   Whiiiiiiiiine.   (Oh sure, now the whole word is wrong.)

And I'm out of the lemon zinger that does the best job.  Whiiiiiiiiiiiine.

And the baby wanted two naps today (at 9 am and 3pm), which means he's not going to be ready for bed for at least another four hours.  Whiiiiiiiiiiine.

And John's at work until 10, probably home around midnight.  Far too late to do me any good today.  Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.


On the plus side (This shall not ruin my day, I am determined.) 

JJ has been in a relatively good mood for the majority of the day and has not protested being left with Grandma for brief periods while Mommy drinks some more tea.  Maybe I can convince him to play quietly while I take a bath and try to steam my face open.  (Wishful thinking, I know, but hey, a girl can dream, right?  Right.)

I made a GORGEOUS loaf of bread today, and I didn't even have to knead it at all.  It's light and fluffy and rich and chewy and all the yummy things that fresh homemade bread should be.  I splurged on a little real butter, because putting margarine on bread like this would be blasphemy.  BLASPHEMY, I TELL YOU!!  The only down side is that I need a taller narrower baking dish, because the dutch oven (only thing I have that will tolerate a 450º oven) has such a large diameter that the loaf came out about two inches deep and basically level on the top.  Kinda looked like a garden stepping stone.  The search begins. LOL

I've stumbled across a new-to-me archive of Highlander fanfiction, and the works I have found there are beyond excellent.  The ensuing reading has prompted my DuncanMuse to nudge (read: prod at swordpoint) my other characters into productivity once more, and writing doth occur during naps and evening silences.

We have renters in our old house!!  Yes, you read that correctly!  Renters that actually pay their rent, in full and on time, without needing to be nagged and begged and hectored!!  As a consequence we're starting to get caught up on our bills.  It's still going to be tight, but at least we're making progress now. Oh, and not only are said wondrous people going all out to clean and repair the place, but they want to buy it when the year's lease is up!  Meaning I will be able to sell it for what it's actually worth, vs taking a loss because the previous tenants trashed the house, get my investment out of it, and put that into our "Seriously, this is the last move EVER" fund.  (NO, we don't know where we're going yet, but we're most likely not staying here long term.)

It's cool outside for the first time in WEEKS.  I kid you not, weather.com said 65º.  I'm trying to decide between that bath and an evening walk in the drizzle.

Yes, JJ took two naps... but they were GOOD naps.  90 minutes and 2 hours respectively.  So even though he was a little cranky when I got him up (because 9 pm is late enough, thank you, I don't need him awake all night), he is now rested and happily playing in his p'np next to me while I type.  (Alert: More wishful thinking ahead.) Maybe, just maybe, once 9pm rolls around he'll go to sleep and actually SLEEP instead of waking me up half a dozen times during the night.

So really... all in all... not such a bad day.  Right?

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!!! 

(And again... only the last 42 characters.  *facepalm*)