Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Coming Back

Sunday!  Well, for just a few minutes longer.  I'm coming to this late this week.

I have been looking forward to writing my Stream of Consciousness Sunday post, an antidote to Friday's long doubled-up post, to yesterday's oh, so long involved, photo laden on-and-on show-off fest.  But it's been an all-kids-all-the-time Sunday.  Until now.

So, today: the promise of short and sweet.  And tomorrow?  I've already written it, shorter and sweeter: a really, really, really funny Ethan story.  So tune in tomorrow, again, for that.

But now, to set the timer and let it whirl.  I'm oh so tired... wonder what's going to pour out....

*******

I am coming back into my body, slowly, beginning to inhabit it more fully now, three and a half weeks into my recovery from my operation. Nearly a month. Not back to 100% but I can see it on the horizon, somewhere there, visible.

I no longer cringe when my children come near me, boisterous. I open doors that require a bit more than a bit of a pull without being reminded of my abdominal muscles part in all things strenuous required of my body.

And as I start to feel more like myself, like the old me, it gets me to thinking what I want to keep and what to change as I come back ‘round.  Because the recent “old me” is not nearly the same as the old “old me,”  Yes that one, the one before time began, before I had kids (in other words) and my body was no longer my own.

I have let my connection to my body, to the physical side of me fall by the wayside so much in recent years, and as I contemplate the return of my abdominal muscles, the return of my physical self to my life, I want to do it better this time around.

I don’t know what this means yet, maybe yoga, maybe running, maybe just starting each day with a stretch, but something’s gotta give.  I see my mother at 88, so locked in by her lack of physical movement, her knees deeply arthritis-bound, her pain, her inability to walk 2 blocks so severely limiting her life.  I do not want that.  I want to be limber, energetic to be able to play with my grandkids someday.  And I know the time to start this change is now.

This week I took Jake to basketball for the first time since I had my first gall bladder attack there in early December. Next week I will be the one to take Jake bowling on Sunday (his new favorite pastime), finally able to pick up a ten pound bowling ball without pain.

Next week I will do something, anything, I don’t yet know what, but I will figure it out… something to bring me back to me, to inhabit my body and not just schlep it around like so much overweight baggage.

Next week.

*******

And, that's all she wrote!  New to Stream of Consciousness Sundays?  Here's the skinny:

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Vote for me yet today?  One click is all you need to show me your love!

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Not Working

Once again, it's Sunday, time for my weekly post inspired by the lovely Fadra's "Stream of Consciousness Sunday" writing link-up.

This week I'm off the painkillers, so expect more coherence.  Or not.

*******

It’s so easy to take things for granted in life, things that you never ever think about because they just work the way they’re supposed to. Until they don’t. take abdominal muscles, for instance.  I am having a mini anatomy lesson daily, as I try to go about my life, now some 10 days post-abdominal-surgery.  And every time my abdominal muscles engage? It hurts.  For the first few days it wasn’t just hurting they were literally not working – I couldn’t engage them at all, had to use other muscle groups to do their job.  Getting in and out of bed? An interesting challenge.

And because of this today I am having to do something that makes me sad, I have to leave Jacob behind when I take Ethan to his friend’s all day birthday party that’s a bit of a drive away.  Because managing Jacob is a physical job and I am just not up to the task, and this is one of Ethan’s very best friends and making him miss this party that he has attended annually for the past 3 years because I couldn’t watch his brother seemed just cruel.  One more reason for him to hate Jacob, and i didn’t want to give that cause any ammunition.

So jake & his Dad will be left home and E and I will ride with another family so i don’t have to sit up & drive but can instaed tilt the seat back and passenger lounge all the way up there.  Ethan will have fun, I will get a break, eat yummy food, gab with the moms, let Ethan run wild with the 8 year-old kid gang, nothing short of blood or blood-curdling screams necessitating my intervention.  but still, I’ll feel sad, knowing how Jake has always come along, has always enjoyed his time at our friend’s country home, that it is a highlight of his life too.  But not today. 

***

If you're new here, the rules are such:

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

Looking for Comments? I still haven't fixed my "Intense Debate disappearing comment link on home page problem" yet, so if you are viewing this on my home page and want to read my comments or make one of your own, click on the post's title to bring you to the post's page view. Voila!

Snow Dome

Riverside Park

Today is Wednesday again, exactly one week since I bid my gall bladder a fond farewell.  I am certainly recovering, but still taking things easy, slowly.  I did not slip foot out of our apartment until Saturday, and I have left my building once, yesterday, briefly.

Otherwise I am living a rather small life inside these walls.  Drinking ginger tea and moving about gingerly; resting, waiting, putting most of the rest of everything on hold.  Living in a bubble, cocooned. Not quite ready to pop.

The snows that have fallen?  Were watched through windows.

Friday's fat happy dancing flakes looked lovely drifting down.  It was a giant shaken snow dome of a day.  I had a visitor.  I was still loopy on percoset.  I drifted in and out of a gauzy sleep, my children kept at the periphery, pain still ever-present at my core.

Today's snow was sharper, colder; a different shape to its crystalline structure.  I was sharper, too; the pain receding, the pain-killers now three days tossed.

We had all been waiting on tenterhooks: Snow day / no snow day?  Six inches...  ten...  fourteen?

A rumor whipped around Ethan's school yesterday, fueled by children eager for fun...

If you want a snow day the next day, you must do three things:
1.  Put a spoon under your pillow when you go to sleep that night.
2.  Take some ice cubes and flush them down the toilet.
3.  Put your PJs on inside out and wear them that way to bed.

None of us have any idea where this came from, although one Kindergartner told her mom that her TEACHER had told them to do this.  I guess she really wanted a day off.

However, we moms needed the day off, too, so a bunch of us made our own counter-magic by buying new sleds.

The Mom magic prevailed.  At 5AM the mayor spoke: No Snow Day; business as usual; carry on.  This is par for the course here in New York.  This is not a city of snow wimps, we are walkers.  We go out in it all (well, I didn't, but you know that story). 

If there is less than a foot, a foot and a half of snow?  Go to school!

Jacob's school, on the other hand, had called a snow day early the evening before, as had most of the other private special ed schools in the city.  That's because there is so much more prepping that takes place to get these kids off to school, and they thoughtfully know we need more lead time to scramble and lay plans for an unexpected day off. 

I needed to know earlier rather than later whether or not I would be waking my son as usual at o'dark hundred to make ready and catch his way-too-early bus, for his way-too-long ride to school.

Ethan, of course, was livid, wailing at the injustice of it all.  He had been pulling hard for a snow day to spend holed up with the upstairs neighbor boys in front of screens, large and small.  His hopes had been dashed, his plans all gone to rot.

And his brother, HIS TWIN BROTHER, got to stay home in pajamas and watch TV while he had to bundle up and shuffle off to school.  The disappointment nearly did him in, but off to school with his father he went.

As better as I am feeling, I was still in no shape for a full day of Jacob, challenging and sweat provoking even in the best of circumstances.  So I called in the cavalry: a sitter.  Mid-morning, as my barely emerging energy was flagging, I sent Jake out into the world with movie, library and snowballs on his plate for the day.

And me?  I furled my butterfly wings back in, tucked them round.  Cocooned* once more, facing a day of sleep, healing and listening to the snowplows grumble as they slowly scrape their way down our street.


*Ethan would surely like to tell you that I am using the cocoon metaphor incorrectly here. Butterflies form in chrysalises, cocoons are the exclusive domain of moths.  I say pffft, poetic license, dude.

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Over (Ouch!) at Hopeful Parents Today (Ouch!)

Day 5 of post-gall-bladder-surgery recovery, and I’ve taken myself off the pain meds.  Decidedly ouchier than yesterday, but not dreadful, I'm hoping I can make it through the day, because I'm tired of living in outer space.  And I *might* have dropped a few too many drooly “I looove youuuu” comments around the internet in the last few days, too.  Yeah, quite ready to be done with all that.

I managed to get my Hopeful Parents post done (it helps that I had started it and made substantial headway before the surgery).  So come over there to read me today.  (You can click on the graphic link below):

Or click this title to read my HP post:  Things that go "Bump" in my life

If you don’t know about or have not followed me over to Hopeful Parents in the past, please do so today.  And don’t just read my post, click around, stay awhile, read deep.

Hopeful Parents is a wonderful group blog site that I am honored and proud to have been asked to write a regular post for.  There are 62 regular writers, two each assigned to every day of the month. (I guess the pair of bloggers with the 31st have only half the obligation the rest of us do, now why didn’t *I* think of asking for that day?)

There is also a community blog space that is open to all members of the special needs community to write and post in.

What is so special about this site?  I find the people and the writing there to be extraordinary.  The writers are a collection of the most thoughtful, kind, supportive folks in the universe.  And boy, can they write.

Hopeful Parents never gets itself involved in the in-fights and controversies, the schisms that unfortunately plague nearly every community, even this, the special needs parenting community.  They are simply a place for support, a place for us all to speak out loud our thoughts and feelings about how it is to parent (or grandparent) a special needs child (or children). 

Our children’s issues are many and varied.  Our issues are many and varied (because the apple does not always fall so far from the tree).  Some of us have lost children and are grieving, others have children with new diagnoses and are searching, struggling to understand. 

Please come to read and then when a writer has touched you, follow them back to their home blog and get to know them better, learn more of the fullness of their lives.

And, hopefully, I’ll see you back here tomorrow or the next day, with more from me (if I can clear my brain and get over the ouch).


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Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Loopy Grateful Thoughts

OK, I'm ready for my first real post-surgery post! (Surely you figured out that my last post was pre-written before the surgery & then scheduled to go up on Friday.  No?  Did it sound all loopy like something written by someone on painkillers?  Really?  Didn't think so.)

And what could be more perfect for this than Fadra's weekly "Stream of Consciousness Sunday" meme: where I'm supposed to just free write and whatever pours out of my brain is OK?

The rules are such:

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

OK, so, here goes....

*********

Today is day four after my surgery and I am feeling grateful for all the small things that are allowing me to truly rest and heal today.  this weekend everything came together just perfectly to allow Ethan to have a million playdates, be the social creature that he is. He had a sleepover Friday night, and the mom even picked him up from afterschool, so I didn't see him from the moment I kissed him goodbye Friday morning as Danny swept him out the door to go to school until he was dropped off back at home at 11:30 yesterday.  Then he had an afternoon playdate with the neighbor kid across the street, and after that an evening with the upstairs neighbors, who even took him out to dinner with them and didn;t send him home until 8:30 PM, PERFECTLY timed for 10 minutes after Jake had gone to bed.

Because right now? the fighting is the worst part, when the kids get most physically out of controll and therefore dangerous to me.  but also I'm actually missing the guy. feeling like I;m catching glimpses of the future when he's a teen and barely home.  Makes me appreciate him even more when  he's around, because Ethan?  He's a really great kid and I do so enjoy his company, when he's not in obnoxious-ville, that is.

Jake has been having a hard time not climbing in my lap, but all things considered is doing a great job of being gentle with me, being a real trooper.  It's hard because he chose tihs week to want to watch less TV and play with me more.  His playmobil people are involved in all sorts of adventures and now he wants them all to have names.  Jake: "What's his name, Mom?" "That guy is Steve" (not terribly exciting, but first name to pop into my head, what can I say).  "Oh, Steve come over here right now and help change this tire!"

It is awesome that his imaginative play is really taking off right now, but the timing, really?  Couldn't have waited 2-3 weeks? No?  But really I am am very, very grateful.  Just wish it was easier for me to sit on the floor with him and play.

And then there's my sweet kitty who is so happy that I am acting properly for the first time in 8 years, and spending most of my time laying around being a good cat pillow.  It has been very comforting having her leaning up against me gently while I sleep and sleep. except for the moment she tried to step up on me, placing her paw EXACTLY in the spot where up until Wednesday my Gall Bladder had resided.  Can I say OUCH?  I believe I did.  OUCH!!!!!

OK, it's true, this has been a bit more than 5 minutes, because you know I forgot to set the timer, right? But I have the perfect excuse: I'm all loopy on painkillers.

So now?  Back to my nap!  Zzzzzzzz

*******

OK, I hope that made even a little bit of sense!   Now YOU click on the link and let's hear your brain droppings!

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Alright? Alright!

Well, no time for the niceties, I have to get back to my nap.  But I just wanted to let everyone know that I am alright.

Waiting in the prep room. Thanks for keeping me laughing, husband!

The surgery went well, as expected; routine; a big yawn for the surgical team; just as we wanted it to go.

I got home the same day, in the evening (just in time to kiss Jake before he went to bed) and have been mostly unconscious ever since.  My husband has been taking on a lot more kid duty than usual; he is wiped out, appreciating more than ever all that I do.

Every day, dude, I do this EVERY FREAKING DAY.  If it weren't for the pain?  This would feel like a mini-vacation.

Pain killers are a beautiful thing, but also?  Crappy.  I hate feeling so fuzzy.  I get really nauseated.  So I will be stepping down on them shortly.

It's sort of a "which-way-do-I-want-to-feel-crappy?" equation. Less pain = more nausea, less nausea = more pain.  Trying to find just the right middle ground is not much fun.

I will write more in a few days.  A few pre-written posts will pop up in the interim.

I want to shout out a big thanks to all my friends, real world and virtual, who have shown me their concern and support.  It is much appreciated.

Knowing that I was traveling to the hospital with so many well-wishes wrapped around me, that I had a community standing by to step in if things had gone poorly and their help was needed?  Beyond priceless.  I am truly amazed at my good fortune.

Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous. 

And now?  Zzzzzzzzz


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Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to Surgery I go...

Today's the day I say goodbye to my gall bladder.

It's a body part I have spent my entire life paying scant little attention to.  Until recently, of course, when it has caused me a world of trouble.  Mine is full of stones, swollen and tender, so out it comes.

Today.

As you read this I may even be unconscious, under the knife.

Wait, how can I blog while heavily sedated?

Through the magic of 3 AM insomnia-fueled writing and post scheduling, of course.  Because for the few days leading up to my surgery I am a whirling dervish of planning and prepping, trying to ensure my household, and most especially my children's lives, runs as smoothly as possible with me under the weather, out of the picture.

I have been assured that now that it's done laparoscopically, a gall bladder removal (officially called a "cholecystectomy") is a cake walk, a big fat nothing of a surgery.

But still, for me?  Who has only ever been a hospital patient for my childrens' birth via c-section?  It's a big deal.

Last time I had surgery it was to gain something, to become something more, greater.  I had children, I became a Mom.

This time it is to lose a piece of me that I came into this world with, an internal organ, nestled up close to my heart.  On the right side instead of left, but still, it's one of those "vital organs" smack dab in the middle of my body and mightily protected by my bony rib cage.  I will walk out of the hospital lesser, lighter, without a part of me, incomplete.

And I know I am taking this a bit seriously, a bit metaphorically, but it also rings true.  I am likely to spend a small amount of time in mourning for my gall bladder, oh, tiny organ of ill repute.

It's just one of those organs with funny names (I mean "gall bladder"? Really?)  No non-medically oriented person knows what the heck it does, until it stops doing its job properly.  Then you know.  Oh boy, do you know.

I will, of course, not dwell too long upon my loss because life will barely be paused, giving me little time for rumination.  My children will still need to be woken up, fed, clothed, cleansed, organized,  shuttled to and from school, played with and play-dated, homework-supervised, kissed and put to bed.

And though the physical side of these tasks will be fobbed off to others for a few days while my body recovers the assault inflicted upon it, my expertise will still be constantly called upon.  I am the one who is large and in charge in our house, the general in command of all things child.

And while Ethan does not like what is happening to his mom, he understands it, will go along with the program: demand less, help more, gentle his physical love for me.

Jacob on the other hand, thanks to autism, is likely to be confused, feel terribly rejected by his mother's arms length embraces.  My unavailability will weigh heavily upon him, I who am nearly always the one who is there with and for him, every day in every way.

I will try to throw up a simple update sometime within a day of my surgery, but don't expect posts relevant to current events for about a week, post surgery.  I may end up surprising myself, but I wouldn't count on it.
 
I am guessing I will have precious little energy and focus for writing, so although I have prepared a few posts to pop up like this one, seeming fresh made, they are actually mostly pre-fab.  I don't want my blog space to remain blank for too long. 

And if I am deficient in my commenting on your blog and responding to comments on my own?  I'm sure you'll understand.

I will, likely, be sleeping, reading and attempting to move about tenderly.  Air hugging my children.  Running the ship from the sofa.

I will be doing my best imitation of a lox, more still than I have been in the eight and a half years since the boys popped out and my current hurricane life began.  I may even catch up on my sleep.  (One can always hope.)

Wish me luck!

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Tomorrow, Tomorrow

I am a hot mess today.

Just a seething mass of anxiety about tomorrow's impending gall bladder removal surgery.

I do not roil easily.  This is not a normal part of my personality.  I am many things neurotic, but anxious is not high on my list of personality traits.  I am usually the person you want with you in a crisis, calm and taking charge (OK, maybe a little bit too bossy, I'll confess).

The upside is, I don't experience anxiety frequently.  The downside is, when I do experience it?  It's excruciating to me, intolerable.  It has been pointed out that I will cause situations to explode, much to my detriment, rather than tolerate an ongoing anxious uncertainty for any length of time.

But this situation?  Not at all under my control.  I just have to suck it up and wait until tomorrow at noon.  Anxiously.

Actually I guess I could eat a giant highly fatty meal (double Shack Burger, anyone?) and cause my gall bladder to go into full-on attack mode, landing me in the emergency room today.  But even I am not neurotic enough to pull that one off.

Besides, that would really hurt (like kill-me-and-put-me-out-of-my-misery-NOW kind of hurt) and when it comes to physical pain?  I am a whimpo supremo.

And also?  I have plans in place, and they don't start until tomorrow.  The kids expect to see me tonight, and I them.  And my kids?  Are getting a bit anxious about all this, too.

For Jacob it's diffuse, he probably isn't even consciously aware of the tension.  He just feels it in the air, my little autistic psychic sponge, and wants to be hugged.  A lot.

And Ethan?  Pretty much guaranteed to be his most highly annoying, out-of-control self.  The operating equation being: Ethan + anxiety = obnoxious to the 10th degree.  Sigh.

And I will work hard to channel my kindest, wisest, super-mommy self; to not react with anger out of my own anxiety, because I know he needs calming, needs love and reassurance.

So there will be fart jokes tonight.  Much mention of undergarments; requests that I smell his feet, with said feet being thrust near my face.  And I will embrace my jittery, fast dancing, fast talking kid and my dreamy, spacey one.  Tell them that everything will be alright.

And it will.  It will.

(Could someone please just hit me over the head with a frying pan and then wake me up tomorrow at noon?  No?  OK, I'll just plod on through, then.)


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Wordless Wednesday (now with more words)

I was going to skip Wordless Wednesday today because I feel like talking, but I've got a few readers that would disappoint (and I'd hate to do that).  So this post is going to be a double header.

First: a few cute pictures of my family.  And then?  Some chatter because my brain is all a-clatter.  And me?  I like to share the noise.

It's the second day of winter.  Let's take a walk down memory lane today to winters past...

Here's one from 2004:

Jakey and Me, February 2004 (when my hair was still blonde-ish)

Snowy day, December 2005: 

Time to get 3 year-old twins into bundled into snowsuits?  Half hour.

Maximum time 3 year-olds will spend out sledding?  15 minutes.

How about these from New Year's Eve, 2008?   We had been up in Great Barrington and were supposed to return to the city that day, but got socked in by a blizzard.  So we played in the snow for hours.  Yipeee!

That was a lot of snow!

What could be better than a toboggan pulled by Dad?

Snowy Jacob

Snowy Ethan

Looking at these pictures is making me long for snow.  So far this winter: bitter cold aplenty, but no snow.  Sigh.

And now, for part 2 -- those pesky words:

I'm actually feeling human today.  Today, for the first time in nearly two weeks I woke up without feeling like I was something scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

I forgot how reductive pain is, how it strips the layers of the self away.   I have been hunkered down in survival mode for so long, I was shocked by clarity and lightness.

It made me see how I have been not thinking for days.  When you are deep in the brain fog you can't see it, it just feels like atmosphere.  It's only when it lifts that I understand how limited of vision, short-sighted as well as short-tempered I have been of late.  I know I've been less than 100% present, but how much less was not clear until today; today when I am at least somewhat myself.

My beast-brain had been at the forefront, large and in charge; now somewhat quelled.  My executive functioning is up and running (as much as it ever is in this ADD brain of mine, that is) my frontal lobes asserting themselves once more.

I felt like throwing myself a welcome home party.  I've missed me, truly.  But I so didn't have time for that.  I had so much that needed to get done, that I had not just left un-done but hadn't even realized was sliding off the plate.  Especially: arrangements for my post-surgery recovery, which surely involve other people tending to my children for a few days.

Yesterday I slept all day.  Really... ALL. DAY.

I made it to Ethan's class publishing party at his school, got the car re-parked (NYC alternate parking, it was on the wrong side) then came home and collapsed.   Set the alarm for 3:55... five minutes before Jake's bus wait-time begins and thanked the gods that someone else was picking up Ethan to take him to Hebrew School.  Then?  Sleep.

My husband and I have a running joke...  I say: "I'm so tired I could sleep for a week."

He says: "Honey, that's called a coma."

I pretend to consider the consequences, then conclude: "That's OK, I'll take it."

Only yesterday?  It wasn't so funny.  I really did feel that I was nanometers away from not being able to wake.

If you could call the zombie-like state in which I have been carrying out my minimalist functioning  "awake."  It's a miracle that I have been able to execute the bare minimum required of competent parenting (kids are taken to school and picked up, fed, clean, homework done and in bed before midnight - CHECK!)

So you can imagine how happy I was today to be able to think, to function like a normal human being (well, my usual crude imitation of one, anyway).

And all this makes me think of Jake, and wondering how his level of internal distraction and discomfort is contributing to his sometime foggy state.   When he's so busy trying to get enough input to make sense of his senses, there's no room in his brain for the other good stuff.

He clearly has attention issues, but they're not of the ADD variety.  We've tried ADD meds; they do nothing for him, just make him highly cranky and even more distracted (if that's possible) and who needs that?  His attention issues are puzzling and seeing how distracted and completely unable to think I've been these past two weeks gets my brain a-humming (now that it's finally awake).

Anyway, I don't have any answers to this, no conclusions drawn.  Just musings and questions, lines of inquiry worth chasing down a bit, sometime.  When I have some spare time.  (Don't all fall off your chairs laughing now.)

And now my energy is flagging, and the sofa so inviting.  My spurt of productivity of has sputtered out; time for rest and renewal.  If I am going to retain my human form tomorrow?  I must now put down the mouse, step away from the keyboard.

Goodnight, my friends, goodnight. 

I’m linking up to Wordless Wednesday at Angry Julie Monday.

Looking for Comments? I still haven't fixed my "Intense Debate disappearing comment link on home page problem" yet, so if you are viewing this on my home page and want to read my comments or make one of your own, click on the post's title to bring you to the post's page view. Voila!

The Unbearable Sucktacity of Being

If you called or e-mailed or rang my doorbell today and I did not answer you, did not return your connecting gesture?

Forgive me.

I have been miserable all day, riding that line between extreme discomfort and pain, riding it hard.

Today, all day: I felt like crap, shit, shite, merde, poop, crud, dreck, guano and cowplop. 

Think this post is gonna carry the label "whiny rants"?   You betcha.

But it's going to be brief.

Because for this stuff?  The line between entertaining and oh-god-when-is-she-going-to-shut-up?  Comes up mighty fast, I know.

Like I said: brief.

I know you think I don't have it in me.  Me, being "Queen of the run-on-sentence (with parenthetical clauses)" and all.

Just watch, I can be brief... ish.

Just the facts, ma'am:

I now have a date with a surgeon: January 5th.  (Sad to say, he does NOT look like weird Al Yankovic.)

That's the soonest date after the big school break is over that we can get the "gall bladder removal show" up and running.

In between now and then?

I will likely be a little bit miserable, all the time.

Afterward?  For about 2 weeks, a LOT miserable.

And then?  And then?

If I'm lucky, a whole lot better.

Friends have sent messages of support and tales of how much better they felt once the deed was done.

I can't say I'm not anxious, but as these days of feeling crappy roll on and on I am getting quite ready to be done with all this.  I hate being cranky with the kids.  Hate having no energy, and really hate low grade nausea as a constant companion.

It was my least favorite aspect of being pregnant and I came out of that with two babies to show for it.

Nothing of the sort this time (although I have been told gallstone jewelry was the fashion in ancient China, I think I'll skip that).

Keeping a sense of equanimity, keeping my humor intact  and getting some patience with the kids back are my big challenges for the next two weeks.

Also?  Coming up with posts that are NOT all whiny rants.

Wish me luck.

(I would say "send chocolate" but I can't eat any for the next month or so... waaaaaaah!)


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Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Surgery on my Mind

I am glad to finally have a chance to participate in another "Stream of Consciousness Sunday" writing meme, hosted by the lovely Fadra. 

The rules are such:

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

I am such an over-thinker, this is always a challenge for me, but also why it's fun: to just let go once in a while, be raw and unpolished -- how liberating.  OK, setting the timer and letting 'er rip......

*****

Ask me to take my filters out and write what;s on my mind and one thing just dominates all else: surgery. I have a surgery date now: January 5th. On January 5th a guy is going to come into a room and take a piece out of me. I am going to lose an organ I was born with, and in spite of all the trouble that thing has been giving me lately I'm going to miss my gall bladder.

Not that i even knew I had one until about a week ago.

But still, I have had the great good fortune in my life to be relatively healthy. the head cold and stomach bug here and there, a little endometriosis, probably But no medical procedures until my IVF, no hospitalizations or surgery until my twins were born via c-section 8 and a half years ago.  And those were happy reasons to be doing all things medical (not that the fertility stuff wasn;t fraught in its own way. I have never been more anxious in my life than during those two hopeful dreadful weeks waiting to find out if the IVF "took") And since then? Nothing too.

But this surgery stuff? Its scary, even though they say it's a big nothing, since its now done laparoscopically and not the fish gut surgery it used to be. But still to me? it's something. a something that thoughts of will be my constant companion until its done. January 5th.

And then I'll just be a whiny cranky bitch for a week or so, because have i mentioned i really hate pain and make a terrible patient?   And the kids? don't even get me started on how the kids are going to react to all this.  I am guessing: not well.  Surgery - crap!

Looking for Comments? I still haven't fixed my "Intense Debate disappearing comment link on home page problem" yet, so if you are viewing this on my home page and want to read my comments or make one of your own, click on the post's title to bring you to the post's page view. Voila!