11:30 p.m. - 2005-01-26
Hey. Hey.
Well, here I am slacking with the updates again. Shame.
Here goes:
On Friday, I got up early - wait, back up. On Thursday night, since it had been snowing all day (oh, just some flurries, they said - then 5 inches later they were like "maybe more"), I went out and shoveled the snow off my car. THEN on Friday morning I got up to take Packet to the PetSmart to get her shaved. I dropped her off at 8am, went home, and got in the shower.
By 825am, the lady was calling back. I hadn't even rinsed the conditioner out of my hair. I have a clear vinyl cover on my cellphone, though, and a speakerphone function, so I splashed over to the counter to answer it. As it turns out, Packet is not a good candidate for grooming without sedation.
Or, as my sister once said, seduction. They had to seduce our cats to neuter and declaw them.
I finished rinsing my hair, got dressed, put a hat on so that my wet hair wouldn't freeze, and went to pick up my poor, distressed baby. She's never been so happy to see me. Even in the car on the way home, she was playing Blinky-blinky* with me. And just like when we went out to get her shots earlier that week, she wasn't mad when we got home. She was thirsty and wanted to chill by the window.
* When cats trust you, they'll narrow their eyes to show it. Blinky-blinky is the game Packet and I played when she was a tiny kitten, too small to get up and down off the bed by herself. She'd curl up and look over at me, and I'd narrow my eyes like I was squinting, then open them a little. Then she'd do the same thing. I read about it somewhere. It's a cat thing.
Later on Friday, I ate a protein bar and threw up. This convinced me to make an appointment to see my doctor about "getting scoped". Sometimes when you have gastric bypass surgery, you can develop a stricture in your pouch that needs to be widened using a balloon catheter. My stricture is in the esophagus going into the pouch. This would explain why I'm always getting sick or feeling like I'm going to throw up.
Okay, maybe not always, but even twice a month is too much. And on mushy foods, like cottage cheese or mashed potatoes, this should not even happen unless I'm eating tons at a time. Which I'm not.
So on Monday I had an upper GI. I wasn't sure what to expect, since the last time someone x-rayed my stomach was the leak test the day after my surgery, which consisted of:
- Me, one day post-op, on morphine drip and oxygen, with a drain hanging out of my side
- A battery on the morphine drip that had no charge
- A very large and grumpy male nurse who seemed to be pushing me around like I was a shopping cart
- A big x-ray machine in a really hot room
- A long wait
- Liquid that tasted like earwax or floor cleaner or something (also hot)
- The battery completely running out of oomph on my morphine drip
- Having to wait 30 minutes for another nurse to push me back upstairs
This experience was much nicer. I got to sip barium, which just tastes like Maalox and doesn't make me gag. Plus, the doctor wheeled the monitor over so I could see it, and I got to see it swooshing around. So cool. My stomach hasn't stretched. Well, maybe from the day of surgery, but it's not all distended. Even though it's not round, I'd say its size falls somewhere between extra-large egg and tennis ball. The shape actually reminds me of a deflated football, though.
I got to see the barium go through my stomach into my small intestine, where it got all loop-de-loopy like a rollercoaster. It was truly da bomb.
Then the x-rays were shown to my surgeon, who said that the inlet to the stomach pouch has narrowed, and the next day the gastrologist's office called to set up an appointment. So Friday at 7:30am, I'm heading down to get a thing stuck down my throat with a balloon on it to stretch stuff out. Cool. I'm looking forward to eating without discomfort.
I googled an old friend over the weekend. He wrote back. I haven't seen him for like 12 years (I'm guessing, but that sounds good). My family still talks about him, though. Mom refers to him as "the one that spent the night while Grandma stayed with us," and Dad calls him "the guy with the kama sutra lizards t-shirt."
I hadn't even noticed the shirt. And he slept on the floor. I have to keep reminding my mom about that. Well, not often, but when it comes up.
Today I found out that my aunt has a tumor in her colon, and it's cancer. I'm not letting myself worry. The hospital where her surgery is being held is near my house, so I'm thinking that maybe we can get a rainbow wig, and when she comes out of surgery and is groggy, we can put the wig on her and take pictures.
I bet she'd like that.
Bless his heart, Darren is quitting smoking. He has quit smoking. It's been over 14 days (he knows the exact count, and I feel bad for not knowing, but I know it's impressive). I'm so proud, because I know it's hard to do. And because life has a sense of humor, the crap in his lungs is working itself loose, and he's been sick this week.
I had a dream the other night that I was in a room full of smokers and couldn't breathe. Then I woke up and realized it was just an asthma attack. I hate that. But I'm glad it was just asthma and not smoke!
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