Monday, April 6, 2009
Zach's Comic Strip
So for awhile Zach and I have been kicking around the idea of a comic strip about our daily adventures. This is the first installment as drawn by Zach last night. I think that you can click on the image and it will bring it up larger in another window. Sorry about the quality, I scanned it on the copier here at work. Well, I tried to scan it on the scanner first, but supposedly that program had an "unexpected error" twice. That probably means that there are multiple copies of this floating around on school property and that I'll get fired, but whatever.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Completely Random Thoughts
I feel the need to share some things, but I don't have the energy to work them into some sort of narrative or even some sort of coherent form, but I think it's sharing that matters, don't you?
I saw Michael J. Fox (Actually Michael A. Fox - thank you Disney Trivial Pursuit for this knowledge) on David Letterman tonight. He was looking pretty good. But also he was looking like someone who has Parkinson's and has had it for awhile now. I'm pulling for you, Michael, I am.
I recently saw Obama on a podcast and here and there on television. In general I avoid all current news because when I listen, read, watch, hear or taste the news it always just makes me panic to a certain degree (that degree being about 10 points over what Zach can handle on a daily basis, poor Zach). But I did catch a bit of Obama and I decided that Obama could sell me anything. If he decided that he wanted to be Supreme Dictator, I'd say, "Sounds good. Sounds good. Just let me know what you need me to do. I'm here for you. Whatever you think." He's just that good.
I woke up yesterday and I was super dizzy. Really, really dizzy. I spent the whole day in bed for the most part. I felt better later, but I still don't fell all that spectacular. And today I've been coughing a whole bunch. I hope that it's just allergies. I think I'm going to make a doctor's appointment and see if I can get a prescription for allergy meds. I don't think that the over-the-counter stuff is working for me any more.
Zach's wound is healing - I think. We have to pack it with gauze twice a day still which is sort of the height of grossness, but overall it's ok.
Know how I said, "I hope it's just allergies." That's because I think it might be something else. Yeah, I know, I always think it's something else. I need to calm down.
I have to get up early tomorrow, so I guess this is good night.
I saw Michael J. Fox (Actually Michael A. Fox - thank you Disney Trivial Pursuit for this knowledge) on David Letterman tonight. He was looking pretty good. But also he was looking like someone who has Parkinson's and has had it for awhile now. I'm pulling for you, Michael, I am.
I recently saw Obama on a podcast and here and there on television. In general I avoid all current news because when I listen, read, watch, hear or taste the news it always just makes me panic to a certain degree (that degree being about 10 points over what Zach can handle on a daily basis, poor Zach). But I did catch a bit of Obama and I decided that Obama could sell me anything. If he decided that he wanted to be Supreme Dictator, I'd say, "Sounds good. Sounds good. Just let me know what you need me to do. I'm here for you. Whatever you think." He's just that good.
I woke up yesterday and I was super dizzy. Really, really dizzy. I spent the whole day in bed for the most part. I felt better later, but I still don't fell all that spectacular. And today I've been coughing a whole bunch. I hope that it's just allergies. I think I'm going to make a doctor's appointment and see if I can get a prescription for allergy meds. I don't think that the over-the-counter stuff is working for me any more.
Zach's wound is healing - I think. We have to pack it with gauze twice a day still which is sort of the height of grossness, but overall it's ok.
Know how I said, "I hope it's just allergies." That's because I think it might be something else. Yeah, I know, I always think it's something else. I need to calm down.
I have to get up early tomorrow, so I guess this is good night.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
My Life in Lists
Top 3 Jobs I am 100% not Suited for:
1. Nurse - One of Zach's wounds opened up. So we went to the emergency room yesterday. It's fine they say...except that he has a 2 x 2 inch wide/tall, 1 inch deep open wound which I now have to monitor for infection and pack with gauze and saline solution twice a day. And you know what? THAT'S NOT COOL. And if I didn't love Zach so much I'd basically say that he was on his own. So if I didn't somehow fall in love with every one of my patients, they would be in such a sorry state. Plus, about once an hour I'd tell them that they were probably gonna die, which again, is not something you want to hear for a medical professional.
2. Waitress - yeah, again, not really a good service person. I would likely starve to death from lack of tips...although I would probably eat food off people's place...before I served it to them! After would just be too gross.
3. Motivational speaker - maybe, if guilt is a motivation, or if what they say about reverse psychology is true. Otherwise, I think that my general doom and gloom demeanor might not be real motivational.
Top 3 Things that I was Convinced I hated, but it turns out I Actually Really Like:
1. Will Ferrell - I was convinced for a long time that I hated him. Convinced! But then I looked at my movie collection and it contained about 85% of all Will Ferrell movies and I thought, "huh, apparently I was wrong."
2. Cilantro - sorta the same story. I kept insisting that I didn't like cilantro. Couldn't stand it. Except that I liked it in a bunch of things. So now, I have to admit, yeah, I love me some cilantro.
3. Turquoise (the gemstone) - I kept thinking damn, I hate that gemstone, stupid, stupid. And then I kept seeing all this turquoise jewelry and coveting it and finally I had to have an intervention for myself to admit, "I do like turquoise".
Also, capri pants.
Top 3 Pet Peeves:
1. People with mouth herpes touching said herpe and then touching other things.
2. Not being able to work when I need to get something done. Just for an example, let's say I had the introduction to my prospectus to write, but instead choose to watch internet TV, work on a blog entry and plan my grocery list. Just hypothetically.
3. When I do something wrong and then have to admit it. Burn.
Top 3 All-Time Favorite TV shows:
1. Murder She Wrote
2. Streets of San Francisco
3. Hmm...that's hard to give the last slot to other shows. There are a lot of good ones I watch. I will cheat and list some: Bones, Life on Mars, Futurama, Monk, Psych, My Name is Earl (not as much as I should), there are many more.
Top 3 Places I would like to live:
1. Someplace awesome.
2. A mythical land in which everyone I knew (and liked) lived 5 minutes from each other.
3. Not so much in Iowa.
Top 3 Things I'd Rather be doing:
1. Sitting at home, watching TV
2. Finishing up the many chores that I have to do still
3. Just completing the last sentence on the introduction to my prospectus (sigh)
Three Things I will likely do tonight:
1. Start and most likely not finish the prospectus intro.
2. Worry about the fact that I burned a bag of popcorn at work and now the entire 3rd floor of my building smells like popcorn.
3. Finish the laundry (fingers crossed)
Three Ways to say "The End":
1. Th-th-th-that's all folks!
2. Fin.
3. So long, suckers!
1. Nurse - One of Zach's wounds opened up. So we went to the emergency room yesterday. It's fine they say...except that he has a 2 x 2 inch wide/tall, 1 inch deep open wound which I now have to monitor for infection and pack with gauze and saline solution twice a day. And you know what? THAT'S NOT COOL. And if I didn't love Zach so much I'd basically say that he was on his own. So if I didn't somehow fall in love with every one of my patients, they would be in such a sorry state. Plus, about once an hour I'd tell them that they were probably gonna die, which again, is not something you want to hear for a medical professional.
2. Waitress - yeah, again, not really a good service person. I would likely starve to death from lack of tips...although I would probably eat food off people's place...before I served it to them! After would just be too gross.
3. Motivational speaker - maybe, if guilt is a motivation, or if what they say about reverse psychology is true. Otherwise, I think that my general doom and gloom demeanor might not be real motivational.
Top 3 Things that I was Convinced I hated, but it turns out I Actually Really Like:
1. Will Ferrell - I was convinced for a long time that I hated him. Convinced! But then I looked at my movie collection and it contained about 85% of all Will Ferrell movies and I thought, "huh, apparently I was wrong."
2. Cilantro - sorta the same story. I kept insisting that I didn't like cilantro. Couldn't stand it. Except that I liked it in a bunch of things. So now, I have to admit, yeah, I love me some cilantro.
3. Turquoise (the gemstone) - I kept thinking damn, I hate that gemstone, stupid, stupid. And then I kept seeing all this turquoise jewelry and coveting it and finally I had to have an intervention for myself to admit, "I do like turquoise".
Also, capri pants.
Top 3 Pet Peeves:
1. People with mouth herpes touching said herpe and then touching other things.
2. Not being able to work when I need to get something done. Just for an example, let's say I had the introduction to my prospectus to write, but instead choose to watch internet TV, work on a blog entry and plan my grocery list. Just hypothetically.
3. When I do something wrong and then have to admit it. Burn.
Top 3 All-Time Favorite TV shows:
1. Murder She Wrote
2. Streets of San Francisco
3. Hmm...that's hard to give the last slot to other shows. There are a lot of good ones I watch. I will cheat and list some: Bones, Life on Mars, Futurama, Monk, Psych, My Name is Earl (not as much as I should), there are many more.
Top 3 Places I would like to live:
1. Someplace awesome.
2. A mythical land in which everyone I knew (and liked) lived 5 minutes from each other.
3. Not so much in Iowa.
Top 3 Things I'd Rather be doing:
1. Sitting at home, watching TV
2. Finishing up the many chores that I have to do still
3. Just completing the last sentence on the introduction to my prospectus (sigh)
Three Things I will likely do tonight:
1. Start and most likely not finish the prospectus intro.
2. Worry about the fact that I burned a bag of popcorn at work and now the entire 3rd floor of my building smells like popcorn.
3. Finish the laundry (fingers crossed)
Three Ways to say "The End":
1. Th-th-th-that's all folks!
2. Fin.
3. So long, suckers!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Happiness
I've been thinking a bit about the notion of happiness lately. I've also been thinking that it's super important to be grateful everyday for what you have instead of thinking about what you don't have or how life can/should be different. This is a struggle for me on a daily basis (that's right, I'm moody as hell, deal with it), but I've been trying lately to really make the effort to be grateful for that which I do have and to accept the circumstances as they are. Anyway, this video was passed on to me by one of the people in my life that I am grateful for on a daily basis - the video store guy. No, just kidding. Zach told me to watch it. Now I'm telling you.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Waiting to Expel
I thought that I should update everyone, sorry this didn't come sooner, but I've been busy.
We went to the hospital at 6:00AM on Saturday. Our old neighbor (who is our friend, but we still call "our neighbor") came and picked us up and stayed at the hospital with us the whole time. That was really nice. It was really nice for me to have someone to hang out with while Zach was under the knife. We got to the hospital and checked in. It was basically empty. The hospital just started this Saturday surgery thing and they don't have full staff during that time. We got Zach checked in, they gave him an IV, etc. and then they took him off to surgery. Our neighbor and I hung out in the reception area, visit the ER where he works and just talked about other things as much as possible. I only cried a little bit, so that's pretty awesome. Zach's surgery started at 7:48 AM and the surgeon came out at 8:40 AM to tell me that everything went well. Zach was in Stage 1 Recovery for about an hour and a half. Then they moved him to a floor in the hospital for Stage 2 Recovery. We met him there. When the nurse brought him in she said, "You must be his wife. I've never had a patient who was as concerned about how his wife was doing as Zach. He's a real sweetie." Yeah, I know.
Then we began the process of "waiting for Zach to pee". This is the only requirement that Zach needed to pass in order to go home. They wanted to see him pee. Well, that's not true, they didn't really want to see it, they just wanted to make sure that it happened. I guess this is because they need to make sure that you are not retaining fluids and that everything is working ok. Your body holds onto fluids after a trauma and the anesthesia can do weird things as well, so they take the ability to pee as a serious plus. So I kept pushing Zach to drink water. He was pretty out of it for awhile. He really just wanted to go to sleep for awhile. I told him that if he peed he could sleep at home for as long as he wanted. He finally woke up a bit and drank a bunch of water. Everyone kept asking him if he had to pee. At one point he looked at me and said, "Everyone wants me to pee, but I just don't have to go, I feel bad. I'm trying. Everyone is so obsessed with this." I told him that it was fine, we were just all concerned about his well-being. Finally, we got him walking around and he peed! It was super momentous. I don't think that anyone has been that excited about Zach peeing since he was potty trained. Two nurses, a nursing assistant, our neighbor and I were all really pleased. We kept telling Zach what a great job he did.
They let us go home then and we went home and took it easy. For the past couple days I've just been in "take care of Zach" mode. It's been good. I'm just happy to have him with me. I did decide that we can never have children because I will seriously never sleep. The first night that I brought Zach home I woke up every hour just to make sure he was still breathing. I didn't mean to, I just kept waking up. I'd look over, still breathing, good, good. Then I'd fall back to sleep and then wake up, is he still breathing? Ok, great. Good times.
He seems to be doing really well today. We went for a decently long walk. We've been playing Lego Star Wars II almost 24/7. It's a fun game. We're in Episode VI now. Yeah, that's right, we're bad asses. The only problem is that it makes Zach laugh and that hurts him. His wounds are doing pretty well except that his belly button wound is sort of weepy. I called the hospital and talked to the resident on call. I'm sure that she slept a good solid 45 mins. in the last 3 days, so I'll just trust her opinion. She said that it's most likely fine. Today one of his other wounds looked a little sketchy to me, but my mom said it's likely to be fine. He's not running a fever or anything and it doesn't hurt or smell. I'm really the least helpful person to have watching someone for signs of infection. I'm 99% sure that the pimple near my lip is mouth herpes more often than not, so I really shouldn't be in charge of watching other people for signs of infection. I look at everything and say, "Oh yeah, you've got a disease, you're gonna die." Which isn't really helpful to hear.
Anyway, to recap, Zach's doing well. I'm doing well. I'm definitely not cut out for the nursing profession. In fact, if I didn't love Zach so much, I'd be telling him to get off his ass and get his own glass of water. So basically, I'd make the worst nurse ever. But I do love him, so I'm taking good care of him. He got a a bunch of cards in the mail today and it made him feel really, really special and happy. He said that he "loves being sick". So that's nice.
Hope everyone is doing well. I'll keep you posted.
We went to the hospital at 6:00AM on Saturday. Our old neighbor (who is our friend, but we still call "our neighbor") came and picked us up and stayed at the hospital with us the whole time. That was really nice. It was really nice for me to have someone to hang out with while Zach was under the knife. We got to the hospital and checked in. It was basically empty. The hospital just started this Saturday surgery thing and they don't have full staff during that time. We got Zach checked in, they gave him an IV, etc. and then they took him off to surgery. Our neighbor and I hung out in the reception area, visit the ER where he works and just talked about other things as much as possible. I only cried a little bit, so that's pretty awesome. Zach's surgery started at 7:48 AM and the surgeon came out at 8:40 AM to tell me that everything went well. Zach was in Stage 1 Recovery for about an hour and a half. Then they moved him to a floor in the hospital for Stage 2 Recovery. We met him there. When the nurse brought him in she said, "You must be his wife. I've never had a patient who was as concerned about how his wife was doing as Zach. He's a real sweetie." Yeah, I know.
Then we began the process of "waiting for Zach to pee". This is the only requirement that Zach needed to pass in order to go home. They wanted to see him pee. Well, that's not true, they didn't really want to see it, they just wanted to make sure that it happened. I guess this is because they need to make sure that you are not retaining fluids and that everything is working ok. Your body holds onto fluids after a trauma and the anesthesia can do weird things as well, so they take the ability to pee as a serious plus. So I kept pushing Zach to drink water. He was pretty out of it for awhile. He really just wanted to go to sleep for awhile. I told him that if he peed he could sleep at home for as long as he wanted. He finally woke up a bit and drank a bunch of water. Everyone kept asking him if he had to pee. At one point he looked at me and said, "Everyone wants me to pee, but I just don't have to go, I feel bad. I'm trying. Everyone is so obsessed with this." I told him that it was fine, we were just all concerned about his well-being. Finally, we got him walking around and he peed! It was super momentous. I don't think that anyone has been that excited about Zach peeing since he was potty trained. Two nurses, a nursing assistant, our neighbor and I were all really pleased. We kept telling Zach what a great job he did.
They let us go home then and we went home and took it easy. For the past couple days I've just been in "take care of Zach" mode. It's been good. I'm just happy to have him with me. I did decide that we can never have children because I will seriously never sleep. The first night that I brought Zach home I woke up every hour just to make sure he was still breathing. I didn't mean to, I just kept waking up. I'd look over, still breathing, good, good. Then I'd fall back to sleep and then wake up, is he still breathing? Ok, great. Good times.
He seems to be doing really well today. We went for a decently long walk. We've been playing Lego Star Wars II almost 24/7. It's a fun game. We're in Episode VI now. Yeah, that's right, we're bad asses. The only problem is that it makes Zach laugh and that hurts him. His wounds are doing pretty well except that his belly button wound is sort of weepy. I called the hospital and talked to the resident on call. I'm sure that she slept a good solid 45 mins. in the last 3 days, so I'll just trust her opinion. She said that it's most likely fine. Today one of his other wounds looked a little sketchy to me, but my mom said it's likely to be fine. He's not running a fever or anything and it doesn't hurt or smell. I'm really the least helpful person to have watching someone for signs of infection. I'm 99% sure that the pimple near my lip is mouth herpes more often than not, so I really shouldn't be in charge of watching other people for signs of infection. I look at everything and say, "Oh yeah, you've got a disease, you're gonna die." Which isn't really helpful to hear.
Anyway, to recap, Zach's doing well. I'm doing well. I'm definitely not cut out for the nursing profession. In fact, if I didn't love Zach so much, I'd be telling him to get off his ass and get his own glass of water. So basically, I'd make the worst nurse ever. But I do love him, so I'm taking good care of him. He got a a bunch of cards in the mail today and it made him feel really, really special and happy. He said that he "loves being sick". So that's nice.
Hope everyone is doing well. I'll keep you posted.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Where's the Love?
The love of my life, my soul mate, my companion, my partner, my best buddy AKA Zach will be going under the knife on Saturday. He's getting his gall bladder out. That's right! Removed. Taken away. He'll be sans gall bladder. The doctors seem to think this is a good idea. They're like, "You don't need no stinkin' gall bladder." Which begs the question, why does everyone else have one then? The gall bladder is a sac that sits under your liver and collects the bile that your liver releases to break down foods (mostly fat). Then when the gall bladder has had enough, it releases the bile into your duodenum (which is the first part of your small intestine) and from there...well, I'll just leave that to your imagination. Right now, Zach's gall bladder is unhappy and apparently that means that it needs to come out. That will teach it! I've threatened my body as well. I told it that it better start shaping up or I am going to start removing things from it. I think it's scared. I plan to really drive home that message on Saturday.
It all started about a month ago when Zach was up all night with abdominal pain. We were at my Grandma's house and he just thought that he'd overindulged over the weekend. We drove home that day and he went to work, but we ended up in the emergency room that night because he kept whining about being in a lot of pain. That's right, I said whining, I'm mean. After we spent a few quality hours in the ER, we went home with some vicodin and a warning that Zach had a crazy gall bladder. He had another attack about a week later. We went to the Digestive Diseases Clinic and the doctor basically said Zach was fine, but wanted to refer us to a surgeon. So last Friday we went to see the surgeon. I guess there is a reason that people become surgeons vs. doctors. It doesn't have anything to do with skill. If you are a surgeon you are used to dealing with your patients when they are not conscious. Let's just say that showed when we met with this guy. He was there for 5 minutes. He walked in, said, "You're gonna need that out" and then got a bit exasperated when we were like, "wait, hold the phone, isn't there another option?" An ultrasound and an hour wait at 8 AM this morning and we've confirmed that surgery is probably the best option for Zach. I was doing pretty well until they asked for Zach's permission to give him a blood transfusion if he was dying. I wanted him to say no because that's so gross and that's where diseases come from, but the alternative is worse, so he said ok. Obviously, we don't expect this to be a problem. The surgery is routine and easy and it's not likely to have complications, but I still hate the idea of it. I am going to be positive though and believe that everything will be ok.
Anyway, that's what's going on around here. I've been busy for awhile now dealing with health and the lack there of. I'll keep everyone updated. I also thought that I would mention that if you have our address and you wanted to send Zach a "Get Well" card- now would be an awesome time. I know that he would appreciate it. If you need the address, email me and I'll get it to you, unless you are a creepy stalker and then I won't (no offense).
It all started about a month ago when Zach was up all night with abdominal pain. We were at my Grandma's house and he just thought that he'd overindulged over the weekend. We drove home that day and he went to work, but we ended up in the emergency room that night because he kept whining about being in a lot of pain. That's right, I said whining, I'm mean. After we spent a few quality hours in the ER, we went home with some vicodin and a warning that Zach had a crazy gall bladder. He had another attack about a week later. We went to the Digestive Diseases Clinic and the doctor basically said Zach was fine, but wanted to refer us to a surgeon. So last Friday we went to see the surgeon. I guess there is a reason that people become surgeons vs. doctors. It doesn't have anything to do with skill. If you are a surgeon you are used to dealing with your patients when they are not conscious. Let's just say that showed when we met with this guy. He was there for 5 minutes. He walked in, said, "You're gonna need that out" and then got a bit exasperated when we were like, "wait, hold the phone, isn't there another option?" An ultrasound and an hour wait at 8 AM this morning and we've confirmed that surgery is probably the best option for Zach. I was doing pretty well until they asked for Zach's permission to give him a blood transfusion if he was dying. I wanted him to say no because that's so gross and that's where diseases come from, but the alternative is worse, so he said ok. Obviously, we don't expect this to be a problem. The surgery is routine and easy and it's not likely to have complications, but I still hate the idea of it. I am going to be positive though and believe that everything will be ok.
Anyway, that's what's going on around here. I've been busy for awhile now dealing with health and the lack there of. I'll keep everyone updated. I also thought that I would mention that if you have our address and you wanted to send Zach a "Get Well" card- now would be an awesome time. I know that he would appreciate it. If you need the address, email me and I'll get it to you, unless you are a creepy stalker and then I won't (no offense).
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sicko
I'm hoping to draw in the crowds randomly searching the interwebbing for somewhat obscure documentaries on the US health care system. The title also refers to me. I'm sick. It happens so rarely that I actually get a cold that when it happens it becomes that much more upsetting. So today I write to you from my bed where I have been for most of the day (I get up to go to the bathroom because I'm not an animal...and Zach refused to get a bedpan).
Zach has been super great about taking care of me today. He made me food, got me a steam bath with essential oils and brought me tea and orange juice. He's the best. Unfortunately he had to go to work. So he abandoned me to fend for myself. I'm sure that you are all gasping in horror at his insensitivity. It's ok. I mean, I ran out of tea so I have to go downstairs which might be difficult with my current state of dizziness, but I'm sure I'll manage somehow.
Other things on my fevered mind...I'm sorta concerned that my gums are receding? I'm not really sure how I have arrived at this conclusion or if it is true. Zach says it's not true, but that if it is and I lose all my teeth he'll still love me. Perhaps he will prepare an all smoothie diet for me as well.
I have a ton of work to do this weekend. A TON. But it's hard enough for me to string together the words that are necessary to make sentences for this blog, so I'm pretty sure that I plan to just lay in bed all day today. Well let's be honest, I've lain in bed all day today. I plan to continue doing this into the night. I didn't sleep that well last night. My throat hurts a bit and it keeps me up.
Ok, so I leave you with this thought, I've been flipping through the channels all day today and I can tell you that this weekend is only filled with bad mojo. At least 5 channels are showing reality shows about someone or multiple someones getting murdered. It's pretty crazy.
Zach has been super great about taking care of me today. He made me food, got me a steam bath with essential oils and brought me tea and orange juice. He's the best. Unfortunately he had to go to work. So he abandoned me to fend for myself. I'm sure that you are all gasping in horror at his insensitivity. It's ok. I mean, I ran out of tea so I have to go downstairs which might be difficult with my current state of dizziness, but I'm sure I'll manage somehow.
Other things on my fevered mind...I'm sorta concerned that my gums are receding? I'm not really sure how I have arrived at this conclusion or if it is true. Zach says it's not true, but that if it is and I lose all my teeth he'll still love me. Perhaps he will prepare an all smoothie diet for me as well.
I have a ton of work to do this weekend. A TON. But it's hard enough for me to string together the words that are necessary to make sentences for this blog, so I'm pretty sure that I plan to just lay in bed all day today. Well let's be honest, I've lain in bed all day today. I plan to continue doing this into the night. I didn't sleep that well last night. My throat hurts a bit and it keeps me up.
Ok, so I leave you with this thought, I've been flipping through the channels all day today and I can tell you that this weekend is only filled with bad mojo. At least 5 channels are showing reality shows about someone or multiple someones getting murdered. It's pretty crazy.
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