Right on schedule

How to recover from major surgery:

Days 3-9: Spend most of it in pain, and calling for help every time you need to move. Try to remember why you left the hospital where the nice, nice nurses kept you drugged up on demerol. Begin to wish that you brought one of those movable beds with you. That would have made life so much easier.

Day 10: Spike a fever and end up in the ER for two hours only to have them tell you it is something "viral" which means one of two things: (1) they have no idea what is wrong and they won't give out any drugs or (2) They don't believe you had a fever and they won't give out any drugs. Either way, nobody's getting drugs!

Day 15: Become allergic to the pain meds. Have your feet feel like they are on fire and you want to scratch them off. Spend the night awake wishing there was some way to detach your feet then reattach them when the itching and burning stops. Call the pharmacist and have her tell you that ibuprofen cannot be causing the itching. "Maybe it's a new pair of socks" she says. Hang up on stupid pharmacist and call another pharmacist. Other pharmacist says "Uh oh!" when you tell her the problem. Have smart pharmacist confirm the allergic reaction. Call the doctor. Get Benadryl. Buy Aleve to help with the pain because Advil has ibuprofen, the thing that you are now allergic to, and Tylenol has acetaminophen. Acetaminophen makes you vomit, and vomiting with an 8-inch incision really, really hurts. Take Benadryl and hope it stops the itching. Take Aleve and hope it stops the pain.

Looks like my recovery is right on schedule!

Celebrations

Our tree! I FINALLY found a tree topper that I like!

Guess what I am going to be doing this summer! Wish me luck!

We have graduated from using knives to using letter openers. Maybe next year we will use scissors! (Don't you just love Husband's "Christmas" shirt?)






Why waste wrapping paper? Just combine pieces of different papers, and don't wrap the back. No one sees that part anyway. Will someone PLEASE teach Husband how to wrap a gift?!?

Of course Gary had to join us for our celebrations!

Our Christmas Eve dinner. Usually, we make our own pizzas on Christmas Eve, but given my recent surgery, I wasn't really feeling up to getting everything together to make pizzas. So we ordered instead. This Christmas was about me doing as little as possible so I didn't tear my incision open. This, along with some root beer, was also our Christmas Day breakfast. Let's just say, that is not a tradition we will adopting anytime soon.

The turkey. It did not get eaten on Christmas day because we were still recovering from our pizza and root beer breakfast. Have I mentioned that was a very, very, very bad idea?

My beautiful book on grain elevators that Husband got me for my birthday. I absolutely love grain elevators. I'm not really sure why; I guess it's the prairie girl in me. I wish I could show you the amazing pictures inside, but I am pretty sure that is a violation of the copyright, and I don't want to end up in jail. I hear they don't allow grain elevator books in jail!

Sisterly Love

This is my sisters response to my post yesterday about her stealing my week:

Dear Sister who feels so neglected in her life,

I have been thinking and I feel that it is unnecessary for me to apologize about your week being stolen for the following 3 reasons:

A) Rolling my car was not intentional, if you want to blame someone blame mother nature. She caused it to happen.

2) It was my week before it ...was not yours because it was my birthday. So technically it has been my week for the last 24 years. It was NEVER yours. You just intentionally planned your surgery then so that you could steal my week in the first place. So maybe Mother Nature was giving us a gentle reminder that weeks can't be stolen so she caused it to happen so that my week was given back to me. Mother Nature set things back into its proper order. Get over it.

D) This just furthermore proves my point that I am the most loved sibling. I can't help the fact that the family was more concerned about me than you. Man, I am loved aren't I?

Love, Mandy

P.S. Stuff that in your little blog and spread it

Scene Stealer

I love my youngest sister, but sometimes she can be a bit selfish. Last Tuesday, I went into the hospital for surgery. It was a somewhat major surgery. I had to spend two nights in the hospital and I came home with a wonderful 8 inch incision going across my abdomen. For the first 4 days I couldn't get in or out of bed without help. The first night home, I couldn't even get into the bed and I had to sleep on the couch. The recovery is pretty long: no housework, shopping, or driving for two weeks. I can't go back to work for 4 weeks. And has anyone tried sneezing with an 8 inch incision across the bottom of their abdomen? It really, really hurts! Sneezes are my worst enemy. Anyway, I digress. Back to my selfish sister. As I mentioned, my surgery was on Tuesday. Well, three days later my sister was driving home from school in Idaho when she hit some ice and rolled her car in the middle of nowhere Montana (okay let's be honest here: all of Montana is in the middle of nowhere!). Thankfully she and her 2 passengers were not hurt. This incident led to numerous phone calls and emails that went back and forth amongst my family, everyone wondering how my sister was doing, and wondering what they could do to help. Posts were made on her Facebook wall. Everyone wanted to be updated. Siblings who hadn't even contacted me to see how I was doing were trying to contact my sister to make sure she was okay. My mother sent out emails updating everyone on how my sister was doing. Where were the emails about how I was doing? I was the one who had the surgery! I was the one who can't even use the bathroom without it hurting. All my selfish sister did was roll her car and walk away from it. She didn't have her insides cut open. She didn't need help getting in and out of bed. And yet, everyone was all concerned about her: "Oh dear! I hope she's okay." "I know I just called her, but I am going to call again, just to make sure." Meanwhile, I'm tossed aside, my surgery forgotten. Who cares how I am doing when selfish, scene stealing sister is taking center-stage? This was supposed to be my week for that! I want my week back! My sister says I can have my week back, but it's too late. The damage has been done. It's okay family. I forgive you. Next time I want your attention, I'll just roll my car and walk away from it instead of getting surgery. It will be less painful for me anyway.

We really need a pet

Meet Gary. We found him a few weeks ago in Ikea. Husband picked him up, felt how soft and cuddly he was, and immediately wanted to buy him and bring him home. So we did. Now Gary is a part of our everyday life. He will join us at the dinner table. He will sit with us while we watch TV. He will crawl into bed with us at night. We talk to him, but he doesn't talk back... yet. Husband says Gary freaks him out because of his eyes: Husband feels that Gary's eyes are searching his soul. I think his eyes are beautiful.

Having Gary in our home these past few weeks has led us to make the following conclusions:
1) We really need a pet and
2) Talking to a stuff animal is one step away from the loony bin!

I wonder if they let stuffed animals in those padded rooms?