Our Annual Non-Vacation, Vacation

Every year our family travels to a city in the U.S. for the annual Barbershop Harmony Socitey International Convention and Competition.  I have discussed this before, but for any newcomers, here is a basic breakdown:

My husband and I both sing in “barbershop” groups.  I sing in a chorus.  He directs a chorus and sings in a quartet.  If you don’t know what “barbershop” is, here is a technical definition:  The Barbershop Style

In the men’s organization, the Barbershop Harmony Society (or BHS for short) there are choruses and quartets all over the world.  Hundreds of choruses and thousands of quartets compete each year in a local district contest for the right to compete at the International Contest in July.  Both of Dave’s groups have qualified for several years now and we make the trip every year.  Last year our daughter was bitten by the barbershop bug and went along and this year our son joined the chorus and competed in his first competition.

This year’s contest was held in the ever so lovely Anaheim, Calfornia.  We went a day earlier than normal and were able to sqeeze a day and 3/4 in at Disneyland, then the rest of the week is consumed with contests and events for the convention.  Disney even had “Barbershop Day” at Disneyland and we were able to see some friends of ours sing in the park.  (More on the family vacation portion of this trip in another post).

I am happy and proud to say that both of “our” groups finished in the top 10 in the world.  At least the world of barbershop anyway.  The quartet (The Allies) finished 8th overall and were pleased with their scores.  They continue to improve each year.

I am even more proud and happy and excited and other words that I don’t even have, to say that the chorus finished 6th, just 6 points out of 5th place, which would have won them all a shiny bronze medal to wear home.  Jamison was a super-star.  He performed like a champ and made us all so proud.  He actually had people asking for his picture while we were making our way back to the hotel.

Obviously the chorus did songs from Willy Wonka.   They sang “Cheer Up Charlie” as a ballad and a medley of tunes for our second song.  We did a total scene change with some fun Oompa Loompa stuff and Charlie ran around literally like a kid in a candy store.  At the end he was raised up on dad’s shoulders and he directed the cut off of the song.  The crowd gave a HUGE standing ovation and I cried.  It was awesome.

Not a bad way to spend the third week of my recovery.  Luckily I have one more week of leave before I have to go back to work.  One week to catch up on my reading (how does a swanky Hilton not have free internet?) and other such things.  It is nice to be home, but damn the OC is a nice place.  The weather is absolutely perfect compared to Ohio.  I could easily see myself living there, so if Twenty Four At Heart ends up needing another pool boy, I may have to sign up for the job!

Recap

In an effort to condense the last three days, here is a recap of my surgery:

First, let’s recap The Plan:

• I was scheduled to go in on Wednesday morning and before my official “registration,” meet with a clinical trial coordinator about participating in a trial on a new pain medicine. After that, I would do the official registration and check in and then head through pre-op, etc., and eventually I’d have my surgery. A TLH (Total Laporoscopic Hysterectomy).

Now, let’s recap The What Really Happened:

• The first part went pretty much as planned. I got there, checked in, blah, blah, blah. I get to pre-op and they do the ECG and blood draw stuff for the clinical trial. The trial folks said they’d see me next in recovery. I head down to the next area, which I guess is pre-pre-op? I dunno, too many pre-ops. Anyway, there I talk to the anesthesiologist, get my IV started and all that good stuff. I get wheeled to surgery and drift off to sleep. My surgery is scheduled for Noon and I think that they actually started at just after Noon. The doctor said it would take about 3 hours for the procedure.

• I wake up in recovery and it is nearly 5:30. Clearly, this took longer than planned. I am waking up and having a LOT of pain. Holy shit pain. They give me a shot of Dilaudid and it doesn’t really help at all. So I get another and I think one more half dose after that. Finally I’m comfortable. I realize that the clinical trial people are not around. Then I overhear the nurses say something about my surgery having been changed from a TLH to a LAVH (Laparoscopically Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy). I also overheard them say that the “poor thing” had lost some “significant” blood. Gotta love nurses who don’t realize that you are awake and can hear them talking about you.

• I get to my room and it took nearly an hour for them to get Dave to my room and I am pretty sure I asked him about what happened, but I don’t know if he even knew exactly. He said that the doctor said something about my not being eligible for the clinical trial and we decided it was a good thing, because that meant I would get to go home on Thursday.

• Eventually I found out that there was some bleeding issues (hence the “significant” blood loss). The attending physician told me that it seemed that an artery or something might have been knicked. I had some bleeding that was very low in the abdomen and near my bladder and intestine. They were not able to get to the source using the regular laporascopic tools, and that is why they switched to the other method. (Which, I still have not really figured out the exact difference). Changing from the TLH to the LAVH meant I no longer qualified for the clinical trial.

• Things went pretty well the rest of Wednesday. My pain was under pretty good control. Because of the switch during surgery, my doctor wanted my catheter left in until the next morning, then I would have it removed and once I peed on my own, I was free to go.

• Dave went to get the kids and I had a quick visit with them on Wednesday evening.

• I ate the worst turkey sandwich ever in the history of turkey sandwiches for dinner at about 9:45 Wednesday night.

• The next morning comes and they take my cath out. At this point, the clock is ticking. I have 6 hours to pee or they will have to do a straight cath on me, which is not fun and I don’t want. So, I drink two giant jugs of water and try my luck in the bathroom. Nothing. I walk around a little bit and drink some more water and still nothing. Dave goes to get me some juice and hot tea and still nothing.

• They do the cath on me and I’m on the clock again. I have a few hours again to try and again, I get nothing. At this point, it is almost 7:00 on Thursday night. The resident comes in to check on me again to chat about my peeing issues. It is looking like I will not get to go home tonight. I clearly can’t leave if I can’t pee.

• And then I started to totally tank. They bring my dinner, which is some pasta dish and some Wedding soup. The smell makes me nauseous. Determined to pee, I’m still drinking a shit ton of water. I get up to try one more time and the saliva factory starts and now I’m pretty sure I’m gonna puke. I get a little dizzy and make my way to the bathroom. I sit down and pull the trash can over. I have a few dry heaves but thankfuly nothing comes out. And I still don’t pee.

• At this point I’m feeling REALLY horrible. I’m shaking uncontrollably and the nurse comes in to do the cath again. I’m a disaster and shaking and crying and totally losing it. She can’t get the freaking cath in, which is not helping at all. She finishes gives me more pain meds and goes to call the doctor. The new plan is that I’ll keep trying. If I do manage to pee, I still must have the cath done, to make sure that I was able to empty completely on my own. This is gonna be a fantastic evening.

• I finally pee a little, and she does the cath and I’m empty. I’m feeling better and looking better and she manages to convince the doctor to hold off on the caths as long as I’m producing a “good amount” of urine. Which I am proud to say I manage to do all night long. I also have managed to fart a couple of times, which is the other big milestone that must be reached before I can go home.

• The rest of the night goes very well. My nurse rocks and makes sure I have my pain meds every four hours on the nose. I’m able to get a decent amount of rest and I keep peeing all night long.

• I get the word from the doctor that I’ll get to go home sometime Friday morning, which means I went home right around 1:00. I went from best nurse ever overnight to the worst nurse ever on Friday morning. She was just tacky and stupid and classless and drove me nuts. If you have ever watched My Name Is Earl … she was EXACTLY like the prostitute character on that show. Exactly.

The rest of Friday was pretty much a wash. I was exhausted and spend the evening doing a whole lot of nothing. I’m feeling better today. The pain isn’t too bad (the gas pains are the worst really) and I’m eating a little. I’ve had a couple Diet Cokes, which probably aren’t the best for me, but I really don’t care because they taste awesome. Oh, and the York Peppermint Patties … yummy. I plan to spend the rest of this weekend doing a lot of catching up on my DVR and hopefully doing some blogging. God knows I have plenty of stuff to read on my Google Reader, so I might even shock the world with some comments.

For now, it is time for pain meds and a nap.

Get Outta Me

Or:  “The One Where I Babble About My Surgery Today”

In about 45 minutes we will be leaving for the hospital.  I’ve honestly been watiting for this for several years now.  I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited and anxious to get it over with already.  Get this crap out of me.

There hasn’t been a lot of emotional stuff to go along with this surgery.  I’m sure it will hit me at some point this morning, but so far I’ve been dealing pretty well.  The kids are handling it well too, at least I think.  Big D is being very supportive and I am not sure where his head really is, if he is worried or whatever he’s putting up a pretty good front.

I did have  a “moment” with J this morning dropping him of to school.  First a bit of background.  J loves his after school program.   I mean he LOVES it.  Lex is usually the person who picks him up after school, and while she could go get him as early as 3:30 or so, if you get him that early he gets PISSED OFF.  He needs to be there until at least 5:30 to get a good amount of play time in with his friends before he is ready to come home.  So, whenever there is occasion for him to leave early, we always be sure to prep him ahead of time, so he doesn’t get angry at whoever is picking him up.

This morning I was letting him know that it was likely that he’d be picked up early and that his Nana and Papa might be with Sissy to get him and then they would all come to the hospital together to see me after my surgery.

Normally the prospect of seeing Nana and Papa makes him very happy, but apparently he picked this precice moment to get emotional about my surgery.  We’ve been talking about it for weeks now and he has really not paid much attention.  Occasionally he’d ask, “Mom, is today when you go to your doctor for your surgery?”  Other than that … nada.

Well, he got very quiet going into school and just sat at his little table and looked down.  The girls at CAS asked if he was unhappy with the breakfast snack choice, but I realized that he was sad, or worried, or something, about me.  I quickly gave him another hug and told him to have a good day, that it was going to be a great day and that I’d see him after school, just like always.  I quietly explained to one of the girls that I was having surgery today and she just nodded and went about getting J his cinnamon toast.  I said bye one more time and left and it was all I could do to not lose it right there. Gah!

So, other than that, things have been going very well working up to today. We leave in a bit.  We will meet with the clinical trial coordinator and I will sign up for that.  We will register and be taken up to the surgery floor and then we will wait.  And wait.  My surgery is scheduled at Noon, but I’ve been told there are two “big” cases ahead of me, so I’m sure it will not be noon when I have my surgery.  I’m already hungry (and I never eat breakfast) and I would seriously consider killing a person for a drink of water.

So bye for now.  Hopefully you will get to enjoy some lovely drug-induced nonsense after I get home and I’ll let you know how it all went.  Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll get a copy of a video of my surgery to share.

Seriously.  I am going to ask about getting a copy.  The sharing part I’ll think about later.

See you on the other side!

Reason #478

T-Minus 18: Study This!

When my doctor was discussing my surgery with me, he mentioned a study that the anesthesiologists are conducting at our hospital right now.  They are doing a study of some sort that has to do with post-op pain medications.  I’m not yet clear on if this is a new drug or a new method of delivery of a drug or what, but I plan to speak with the trial coordinator to find out.  And here is why: participation in the trial requires an extra nights stay at the hospital (over the standard one night).  If this extra night is not covered by my insurance, the study folks pick up the tab.  Oh, and they pay you $500 for your trouble.

I work at a teaching hospital at a major university.  We have a Comprehensive Cancer Center and research institute so this place is all about the clinical trial.  The doctor I work for is the director of medicine for gastrointestinal cancers and he is the principal investigator on a few trials of his own.  Trials-R-Us.  So even without the monetary benefit, I’d probably take part in a study, because I believe in what they do.

But let me tell you.  $500 sweetens the pot quite a bit.

An Education on Hotel Security

This past weekend, J and I made a trip up to Cleveland with D.  He was going up to work with a woman’s chorus at their regional competition and they had a late night rehearsal on Friday and an early morning rehearsal on Saturday.  We didn’t arrive until around 9:00 Friday night and went to the room to drop our stuff.  As is custom, Jamison asked to stay in the room and watch TV.  We do our fare share of travelling, and he is very used to this drill.  It was late enough that we knew he’d fall asleep pretty quickly anyway, so we left him there and headed to rehearsal.

We got back to the room around 11:30 that night.  We were both very tired and I was actually have some pretty decent pain, so I was excited about getting into the bed and resting.  We put the key in the slot and got a nice and festive red and green blinking light. WTF.  Stupid hotel keys.  They are so fragile and able to be jacked up way too easily.  Or so we thought.

We banged on the door and yelled a bit to have J come and let us in.  The kid was dead to the world.  He sleeps like, I hate to say “like a rock” because it is so overused, but he does.  He was out and there was no waking him up.  On to plan B.  The room was not in our name, but in the name of a chorus member, so we had to track her down and she went down to the front desk to get a new key.  She returned with the key and the name of a guy to call if it didn’t work.  It didn’t work so we called the guy.  He came up and tried the key and then left to check and see what this particular sequence of blinking and colors meant.
It meant that the dead bolt was locked.  Fan-fucking-tastic.

Now, anyone who has stayed in a hotel in the last 10 years know that the locks are all electronic now.  So being fairly techie people, D and I figure that they can just pop it somehow, right?  Well I guess not.  Mr. Maintenance man did the same thing we did.  He banged on the door.  He shook the door.  He made 15 kinds of noise and nothing.  This kid was not waking up.  He went away, I’m not sure where, and came back and did some more banging and such.  Then he went away again.  At this point I’m a little frustrated.  It had been a good 45 minutes or more and we were still standing in the hallway.  This is a public facility, there HAS to be a way to get into these rooms under these conditions.  Well, Mr.Maintenance returns with Mr. Night Manger.  Then Mr. Maintenance and Mr. Night Manger get into a fight about the best way to get into the room and is this the right code and do these flashing lights really mean this, blah, blah argue-cakes.  Whatever.  Just get me in my damn room already.

Mr. Night Manager apologizes and then they both go away.  I lie on the floor and begin yelling through the crack at the bottom of the door.  “Jamison.  Wake up and let us in please”  Etc, etc.

Mr. Night Manager returns.  We are going on an hour and a half at a minimum at this point.  I’m ready to go sleep in another room and just come back in the morning when he will be awake and hungry and will need to let me in so I can get him food.  But they are here for a last stand to get us in the room.  We tell Mr. Night Manager that the big silver box on the door where the lock is has an input jack of some sort on the bottom.  This would indicate that there is some sort of something that can be plugged into it.  Does this magic contraption exist and if so can we use it?  Mr. Night Managerexplains that yes, there is a magic machine that will trip the deadbolt, but Company Policy dictates that only ONE STAFF MEMBER have access and knowledge on how to use this machine.  And of course this ONE STAFF MEMBER is not present at 12:30 am on Friday/Saturday.  Mr. Night Manger does not do a good job of covering his contempt for this Company Policy and indicates that this isprecisely the reason more people need to know about this machine.  I tend to agree.  I mean, I’m all for security and such, but I think that the ONE STAFF MEMBER policy should be amended to read ONE STAFF MEMBER ON DUTY AT ANY GIVEN TIME.  Had that been the case, I’d have been asleep myself by now.

About this time, Mr. Maintenance Man re-appears with the sinister sounding Door Spreader.  And that is exactly what it does.  It is a hydraulic jack hooked up to a long metal pole that extends and spreads the door jamb apart so they can jimmy or force the door open.  They are going to break the door so we can get in.  Awesome.  All of this for little old me?

He puts the spreader in the jamb and starts a pumping the jack.  You can hear the wood and inner door jamb parts cracking and creaking.  D clarifies quickly that no one is going to be charged for this right? And no, we won’t.  Mr. Night Manager plans to include the fact that had there been ONE STAFF MEMBER ON DUTY with access to the magic machine, we wouldn’t have had to break the lovely hotel room door now would we.  It will all be in his report.

The door is spread a bit and we can now see that the deadbolt is indeed locked, as well as that little metal door thingy at the top that you can use for extra security.  Apparently J was expecting an invasion.  He fiddles with the two locks for about a minute and no luck on getting them popped.  So he resorts to the final tool in his arsenal.  He kicks the door open.  Yes.  Kicks.  Like Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris.  Kicks that sucker right open.  It strips all the screws on the latch of the little metal door thingy, but whatever, we are in our room.  And there is J.  Sleeping like a dead person on the bed.  He. Never. Woke. Up.

We test the door to find that it still works and locks perfectly fine, so we don’t have to move to a different room.  We thank Mr.Maintenance Man and Mr. Night Manager and close the door.  Then as soon as they were gone we took pictures.

Here is the “damage” to the door frame.  Not much really, a little dent. Probably won’t need to be fixed at all.

Here is the cause of all this trouble.  Sleeping soundly on the bed.

I undressed him and put him in the bed and he didn’t wake up until about 7:00 the next morning.  And now I know a lot more about hotel room doors than I ever really wanted to.

T-Minus 21

Some of my regular readers (all one, maybe two of you), already know that I have a gynecological condition called Adenomyosis. I won’t go into detail about what it is here (because I kind of already have), and  you can find that here, and here. But I can attest that this condition is a painful and very annoying pain in the ass. Literally.

(Holy Shit the weather man is at the playground right now. He is so much taller than he seems on TV!)

Anyway. I have had chronic pain and other fun stuff for several years now and had talked to my old doctor about treatment options when I was first diagnosed. The only definitive treatment is hysterectomy, and at that point I was just diagnosed and the pain wasn’t too bad, so I decided to wait. Since then, my old doctor retired and now I have a new doctor. When I saw him for the first time in the fall of 2007, he confirmed that my best option for a “cure” was hysterectomy. Then when I saw him his past fall, he said, “Call me when you are tired of dealing with the pain.”

(OMG … the weatherman’s son just came over and stood behind me. My Race For The Cure shirt has the network logo on it because they were a sponsor and his son recognized it. Hysterical)

I digress. Again. I made an appointment and saw my doc last week. I have had enough of this shit and I’m not gonna take it anymore! I didn’t say that exactly, but I did say that I was done and wanted all those troublesome parts taken out of me once and for all. He did a quick exam (ouch) and we discussed some stuff and he left me to put my pants back on. When he came back in he sat down and kind of shook his head and said , “You need a hysterectomy.” Like that was some grand revelation or something. No shit Sherlock. Then he pulled out his PDA and we started talking dates. I want to get it done as soon as possible and he agreed, so he put me in his calender for June 10th. He said he’d need to check with the hospital to make sure that there were no conflicts with other surgeons, but he was pretty sure that it was far enough out that June 10 would be our date.

(I just realized that all this time I thought this weatherman was gay. Go figure.)

Enough of the digressing. After we picked our date, he started going into more detail about the actual procedure. I realize now that even though I was prepared to go in there and say: “take my woman parts out,” I still wasn’t really, REALLY prepared for the reality of this situation. I know this because there are major parts of the conversation we had that I do not remotely remember. I think he told me he would do a “Total Hysterectomy” but I can be certain. And only after doing some research on a AWESOME website (more on that later) do I understand that there are multiple kinds of hysterectomies that can be done. So it seems I have a few questions for my pre-op appointment.

Our next discussion was really just him reading off the surgical consent form and going over all of the risks and such for this surgery. Now, I have had a couple of outpatient surgeries already in my lifetime. Two on my eyes and one other laparoscopy, which is when all this mess was diagnosed. I was under and out for all of these but they were outpatient, so I was in and out in the same day. For some reason, my addled brain didn’t expect this to be much different. Some different yes, but not much. I also need to say that I have already posted all of the steps necessary to perform one kind of hysterectomy during a particular bad month, so I knew a lot of what the surgery entailed, but again, clueless when it came right down to it. He said things like “blood clots” and “compression stockings” and “infection” and “lots of blood” and “complications” and I started to freak out the tiniest bit. Complications could include things like making an error when they are removing my ureters from my uterus. And I’m pretty sure I need those ureters to function daily. So I’m hoping for no complications.

I left the office and was surpsised at how shell-shocked I was. I didn’t cry, but I did think about it. I was literally shaking for a brief time, while driving back to work. By the time I got back to my office, my brain was a big pile of mush. There was no more working for me this day. I could not concentrate on anything. I couldn’t get ahold of D for what seemed like forever and when we finally did talk, some of the shock had subsided, but that conversation brought it all back. And do you want to know my biggest issues? Guilt.

Sometimes I think I’m an old Jewish mother trapped inside this body. I felt horribly guilty. Guilty that I was going to have to be off work for 4 weeks and would have to leave my co-worker to the wolves and crazy patients. Guilty that I would not be able to be mom and do the mom stuff around the house that I do, little as it may be. Guilty that I was going to miss a HUGE chorus rehearsal and education weekend with my guys, not to mention the regular weekly rehearsals I’d not be there to help out. What the hell is wrong with me!?

Since then, my co-worker and manager and director at work have been extremely supportive and encouraging that I take the full time recommended by my doctor. My awesome husband changed his plans and is going to miss nearly all of this annual education weekend that he usually teaches at so that he can be with me the day of and first two days after my surgery. Everyone was very reassuring and understanding and now I feel …. excited. I’m actually excited. About major surgery. I have some fear and worry, but I’m focusing on the fact that my pain may completely, or at least partially, go away. This oversized uterus will be out of me (Here’s a big bonus that comes with this condition: a uterus that is swollen to three times the normal size. Awesome). I will get 4 weeks off work to recover, and one of those weeks will be spent with all my friends and my family in California. I’m going into this looking at it as if it is a sort of vacation. I’ll get an extra “all expenses paid” night in the hosptial (more on that later too) to boot. So. Today is T-Minus 21. Here we go!!

Hot. Like the Sun

My son has a tendency to develop patches of eczema on his legs.  We are currently working to rid him of a decent one and the other night, I was doing the evening check and application of cream.  When I touched his leg, he flinched, and I asked him if it hurt …

“No mom, your hand is HOT!”

“My hand is hot?”

“Yes!  Stop touching me, it’s hot!”

So I carefully applied the cream and we finished the bedtime routine.  As we were walking down the hall to his room, I put my hand on his back and he freaked again.

“Mom!  You are HOT!”

(go ahead … I thought it too … but he quickly clarified …)

“Not hot like ‘hubba-hubba,’ but hot … like the sun.”

I’ll take it.  At my age, hot is hot, however you qualify it.

Monday, Monday

Can’t trust that day.

The Mama’s and the Papa’s were some smart sons-a-bitches weren’t they?

I am staring down the barrell of a crazy week.  Classes start this week and I am taking two classes instead of one, which might not sound so bad, but on top of working full time and doing that whole wife and mom thing, plus other stuff.  What the hell was I thinking.  The Drama Queen leaves at the ass-crack of dawn next Monday for a choir trip to Chicago, which will be great for her, but I need to make sure she has clothing and such for that trip.  And this weekend is my chorus’ regional competition so we have that to pack and plan for as well.  Good times.

All I really want to do is go back home and go back to bed.

J’s Magic Legs

Recent conversation between J-Man and I while he was doing his writing homework:

J: (no words .. just lots of twitching and jumping and rolling around)

Me:  Sit still and finish your homework

J:  Okay

J:  (more rolling and twitching)

Me:   Please just do this and get it finished.  You are taking forever and I understand that practicing your cursive may not be fun, jumping up and down isn’t going to make it go any faster.

J:  It’s not that mom.

Me:  What is it then?

J:  My legs are all tingly.

Me:  What?  Like they fell asleep?

J:  No.  They  just get all tingly whenever I make a bad letter.

Me:  Your legs tingle when you write a letter that isn’t neat?

J:  Yep.  Whenever I do a bad one they tingle and I have to jump up.

Me:  Wow.  Those are some magic legs you have there.

J:  Thanks.