Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

As you might imagine Christmas this year was a bit weird. I'm still working on getting better and I can actually stay up til about 3 now before I poop out - progress. Kim and Steve do Christmas with their daughter and son in law in St Helen's. Our house is right on the way  and usually Brandi needs to be on her way home on Christmas or early the next day due to work. I do the big Christmas dinner midafternoon on Christmas Eve, then Christmas day is present opening and eating left overs in our pjs. The girls love it because they have the whole day sprawling out in front of them to eat candy and play with all thier new stuff - what's not to like? David was running the ship this year from shopping to most of the cooking to clean up - we had a few mishaps but nothing too major. The biggest was he did the shopping on Wednesday and knew you had to defrost the turkey - he put it on the stove meaning to ask me but I was sleeping........ and I found a defrosted turkey breast in a pool of water the next morning. So for Christmas the dogs got 9 pounds of premium turkey breast. Which they're still working on. And will be til New Years.

Brandi got here around 11 after a long and tedious drive, we'd had an ice storm which was melting but she said there were patches of black ice and her car got tidal waved multiple times on the highway, her top speed was barely 60, but she got here. Kim and Steve made it past the downed power lines, the downed trees and the now famous landslide in Astoria.... but we were all here! I had a fun time but was by the time everyone left I was completely wiped out - back to bed with an ice pack. Brandi took care of bathtime, pjs, etc... The girls slept with mom upstairs so after they went to bed we finished wrapping gifts, hung  out and then back to bed. Christmas morning was so much fun - chaotic, but fun. Jackson was on video so he could watch - it's so funny. Adults open each gift, thank the giver, etc.... Kids? It's like letting rabid ferrets loose, the  paper is flying, screaming and jumping, they ripped through the entire pile in less than  15 minutes while simultaneously shoving candy in as fast as they could. Then of course it ALL has to come out of the packaging so we can see what we got, then everyone spends the hours looking for the seashell barette that came with the fairy that is the size of an eraser. 

Brandi headed back around lunch time  after brunch, the girls are staying until New Year, they have a two week vacation this year. I go for my follow up with the surgeon tomorrow, it was supposed to be last week but due to the weather got moved. I am working from home Wed and Friday, possible Thursday depending on what the doctor says. Then we have then Saturday and Sunday - then they go home. I'm hoping by the weekend I will feel good enough to do something fun with them, not that I haven't. With David's help we did do gingerbread houses, decorated the tree, etc... but it was pretty limited. He also got in a few days of duck hunting, he's actually off hunting today. It's been raining since Friday and the rest of the week is rain too so it will be inside stuff for the remainder of their visit. They arent' complaining - we have a ton of new stuff to play with so I guess it all worked out in the end. 

 

Great Galloping Gallstones

First off I can't believe it's been since AUGUST since my last post - I'll try to do better. I tend to blog in my head, but I guess getting it from point A to point B can be the sticking point. December has been unkind, for the first time in my entire life I had the Flu. It was bad enough to stay home and work but I can work from home - so I did. I didn't use any sick time at all and only had to reschedule one visit so I was pretty pleased. Last week I went to the office on Monday and worked the whole day - I had taken some vacation for when the girls were here  with  all sorts of Christmas stuff planned.  That night however - I thought I had heartburn, I didn't eat anything weird, hmm. I could not get comfortable, it got worse - I sent David upstairs as I was up and down, up and down. At 2am I took a turn for the worse (worser?) and commenced puking.  David got up and took me to the ER around 3am.  I saw the triage nurse and then went back to sit, 2 hours later I asked if I would be seen, the woman at the desk was very apologetic, the back was full and not moving.

We left at 6:30 am. 

At 11 am David packed me up again to Kaiser Urgent care, we were seen pretty quickly. They drew blood and ran an IV for dehydration, my labs came back normal but the MD noted my white count was very high. He thought it might be  a virus and said if I wanted they could do a CT to rule out anything , I said yes and then changed my mind while waiting. Take me home, but David said no, just do this one thing and then I'll take you. I waited, asked to go home 14 more times, had the scan and then back because the MD wanted me to wait just in case. When they said an hour - I honestly Could Not. The MD said I could go and he would call if anything came of it. We were a mile from home when my phone rang  telling me to go right back to the ER. Can I do it in the morning? No, I needed to come back now. We ran home, I packed a backpack, let the dogs out and back we went. I got settled in the ER - David had packed me a pillow and blanket and then I sent him home. I knew nothing would happen that night and he was beyond exhausted. I was given a room in the ER - my gallbladder was extremely infected and swollen, the reason I had to come back was it was close to perforation. Yeeha. They were so nice - I had pjs and slippers to change into which made all the difference in the world. I ran fevers, they ran antibiotics - I could not seem to retain that I'd be having surgery as soon as I was afebrile. I was surprised every single time - after the 4rth time they just stopped telling me. I went straight from the ER to surgery at 8:30am

Surgery went smoothly and at 2pm I was discharged to home, it was laproscopic so I had 5 incisions. Of course complicating things was I still had a nasty cough from the flu so that was really fun. David went to pick up the girls on Friday - and no, we didn't want to cancel. David is fully able to care for them and I was able to do some quiet activities with them - I just have to take frequent breaks. I've used up all the sick time I didn't use when I had the flu, I feel like it's been years since I've been to work! But I am getting better and so glad it was not was worse! And very glad David insisted on the CT scan instead of going home like I wanted.