Amberism

Steve Update

So today Steve was feeling remarkably better. He must have passed at least one gallstone - without pain medication for 14 hours! - and went in for an ultrasound and he has several more in his gallbladder. What is going to happen now is still up in the air, I suppose it'll be surgery or they'll use some technique to dissolve the stones.

His liver is still inflamed, unfortunately, and it isn't consistent with a problem gallbladder so they are still monitoring him to see if they can isolate that problem. It might be some sort of virus or an indication of an entirely separate infection. Since his liver is being all pissy he's also jaundiced, but only slightly. He's yellow!! A Steve buttercup!

In the meantime he's not allowed to eat solid foods so he's on a liquid diet and it seems really unpleasant. For supper tonight he had chicken broth and green jello. ick.

:(

My husband is in the hospital.

The past couple of weeks he has been suffering from non-stop heartburn. He went to the doctor who subscribed him some sort of drug and was told to schedule an x-ray if he felt like it. Steve did schedule the x-ray but it wasn't going to be done until this coming Tuesday.

Anyway, he's been suffering all week, with heartburn and bloating. Then the night before last his ab muscles started to spasm. Then early last night his back was "achy" but he was lying on the couch and groaning. I asked him if it was really aching because man, if that was just an ache it was one hell of an ache. My back aches and it ain't ever groan worthy.

By about midnight he was in extreme pain. But it was Friday night, and the thought of going into emergency was a bit too much. We were afraid that he'd be in the waiting area for hours, groaning in pain, with no relief. At least at home he could stand in the shower and get some relief. So, I called the on-call emergency doctor from our clinic. What a waste of fucking time that was.

I explained that Steve has been suffering from heartburn and bloating for two weeks and then that evening he started to get muscle pain and crazy cramping. Steve is literally moaning in complete agony in the background. The doctor said to drink a glass of milk. This seemed like complete stupid advice to me, but whatever, Steve drank the milk. I also asked if I should take him to emergency and the doctor said that all they'd do is give him antacids. I asked if they'd give him an x-ray and the doctor said no, he'd need an appointment. My response to that was "you need an appointment even if you're in emergency?" and he said yes. At one point during this conversation I said to the doctor that Steve really needs help, I need the doctor to help him. If you hear a man moaning and his wife very clearly outlining that we need help, wouldn't you help?

That was my biggest mistake. I believed the fucking on call clinic doctor and I should have just went with my gut.

So all night Steve suffered in absolute agony, and now not only was he suffering from pain, but he threw up the milk and everything else that went into his body. Every couple of hours I asked him if he wanted me to drive him to the hospital and he kept saying no, he thought the pain would pass. I fell asleep around 5 am for a couple of hours, when I woke up at 7:00 am Steve was in a more restful place. I made him another hot water bottle and crashed till 10. When I got up, he was up within a couple of seconds and still in pain (less pain, but still pain) and I decided that we'd start doing things my way. I forced him to eat (he had barely eaten - long story, but I had a theory on the eating). He threw it all up about half an hour later.

ok, I had mentally decided that if he threw up the food, I'd call an ambulance. Steve didn't want to call an ambulance because he didn't think it was an emergency and thought that if it wasn't we'd have to pay for the ride (does anyone know if that's true?). For the first time in a really long time, money was dictating a decision in my life. I can't tell you how much I hated that feeling, and I really don't know how people cope when every medical decision they make comes down to money. You feel completely trapped.

So, I called his sister San (who was actually my Mom - oh, long story* - but I thought it was his sister, sounding remarkably like my Mom!). San (the sister) is a pharmacist and I wanted to ask her about the medications and if she could have some insight on what was medically going on. I'm talking to San (I thought)and she's saying to me she'd never heard of this medication and she really thinks I should take him to the hospital. I figured, if San thinks that, I'd better do it. Then San (but really Mom) suggested I call his family doctor so I called the after hours doctor line again and talked to someone else who suggested that if I thought Steve could handle it, take him to the walk-in clinic, or go to the hospital.

We went to the clinic and that was the smartest thing we did. We only waited half an hour before we saw the doctor, and he sent Steve to emergency right away. But, this doctor phoned first to let them know we were coming and he also gave us a letter that got us in immediately. That was awesome.

We get there, and Steve had an IV and painkillers before the hour was up and I was sitting there thinking I'm the stupidest person on the planet. First, OF COURSE they gave him painkillers. He just suffered 14 hours of extreme pain because I listened to the on-call doctor instead of my gut. I had even said that if we went to the hospital, at least they'd have drugs but I didn't force him to go. The next thing they did? An X-RAY. Fancy that, in the back of my mind I didn't believe the first on-call doctor because when Grandma was in emergency they ran every test imaginable but in that moment I felt like I had to believe the on-call doctor.

A part of Steve's liver is inflamed. They believe that there is a chance that he's passing gallstones, or has gallstones, and he'll have to have surgery to remove his gallbladder. This isn't confirmed because to confirm he needs an ultrasound and that won't happen until Monday. Ultrasound technicians aren't on emergency call, I guess?

When I left tonight, he was on regular morphine and an IV drip. Their main objective is to control his pain until they know for sure about the gallbladder. His surgical doctor wouldn't be in until the morning so we won't know the whole story til then.

I handed my report in late Thursday night and Steve finished his exam he was writing last Saturday. This was suppose to be the beginning of our last, super-fun summer before spawn. He isn't suppose to be in extreme agony, and its breaking my heart. The other thing I decided when I finally took charge of the situation was that from here on out I am going to figure out a way to manage Steve's stress. I realize that there is more to it than stress, but stress plays a huge factor in Steve's life (I think its a Scorpio thing ;) ). He always gets sick when he's stressed, and when his symptoms first started (the heartburn) I totally passed it off as stress and didn't really give it much more thought. He'd relax, it would pass. As someone who never gets sick, and has natural stress-coping ability, its something that is really hard for me to understand. Well, fuck that now. From here on out, I'm taking charge and we're figuring something out because I'm not going to be a 40 year old widow, thankyouverymuch. So, you super-stress types, what do you do to relax? Any pointers?

In the meantime, send my poor hubby some good, healthy vibes. He really, really needs them.

*My Mom is selling San's condo and today my Mom was holding an open house. I called and Mom saw my number on the call display so she picked it up thinking I must have known that she was there for the open house. I was in such a state that I didn't clue in to any of this. I actually thought "man, San sounds A LOT like Mom today". Then Mom called me from her cellphone saying she was doing the open house and I blew her off with a quick "I gotta take Steve to the hospital" but she knew that because I'd just talked to her. Get it? Then I called a couple more times during the day and talked to Mom who I thought was San. At any rate, Mom being San or at least me thinking that was really a good thing because it really lit a fire under my ass. If the pharmacist was really stressing that I should get him to emergency, I'd better do it!

Really, our Mommies always do know what to do :).

I was thinking ...creepy.

Amber: Did you see the ultra-sound pics?
Fearthainn: yeah! I meant to comment but I hadn't gotten around to it yet!
Amber: It was A LOT clearer than I thought it would be. I was expecting the lady to say "and there's the head" and I'd be thinking "sure, lady if you say so" but eh, he looks pretty human.
Fearthainn: Is it a boy?
Amber: No idea
Fearthainn: He really does look pretty human.
Amber: And totally creepy.
Fearthainn: hee! I was thinking that too, but I don't think you're suppose to say that!
Amber: yeah, I suppose most Mothers-to-be would be pretty insulted if you said it was creepy, but it is creepy!

For like, a day, I was totally feeling like this spawn growing inside me was for real. Now I'm back to feeling normal. Well, as normal as one can feel when your stomach has expanded and your ass has double its size. And what is with that? I think the spawn has built himself a games room in my butt.

In other news, I'm madly cramming to finish a project I was totally procrastinating on. Procrastination never gets you anything but less sleep and stress.

Behold The Spawn

All appears to be normal, and thankfully I'm not crazy. At my 18 week appointment we STILL couldn't hear the heartbeat and I was beginning to wonder if I made up the whole being pregnant thing (hey, it happens).

The profile, which I suspect is self-explanatory.

And the spawn giving me the thumb's up. hee.

For those folks who have yet to become with child, its pretty wild going for the ultra-sound. It was a lot easier to see than I had thought it would be and the spawn was moving around, waving, kicking me in the bladder (so I was told, not like I can really tell). Wild. We still didn't get to hear the heart beating, but we could see it and that was reassuring. Everything looks peachy-keen.

My due date was moved up to September 23rd which is more in tune with what I had figured, so I'll be 18 weeks (give or take) on Saturday instead of this past Monday that was calculated by the old-fashion and unreliable method.

Since I live in B.C. I don't get to know the sex of the beast making a home in my body until week 32 or some nonesense and even then you gotta make a stink to find out. This annoys me to no end (and yes, I want to know. Why live in a modern society with all this technology if you're not even entitled to use that technology?). I'm probably not far enough along at this moment in time to get an accurate picture. Michelle suggested that the next time I'm in Alberta I should just cheat the system and go to a private ultra-sound clinic there and find out. I really want to know, and besides I want to paint the nursery accordingly and I hold no illusions that I'm going to be doing it once the spawn makes an appearance.

and we learn something new everyday

Today on snopes.com, of all places, I learned that Orange Cleaner will not only make your kitchen clean and smell like oranges, but it also happens to kill ants. My kitchen is now orangey-fresh. I haven't seen any ant corpses, but the ants really won't walk across the surface. I circled one with the cleaner, just to see what it would do, and it just kept going around in circles trying to find a way out of its orange-scented trap until I finally just killed it and put it out of it's ant hell. As long as they just stay out of my kitchen I don't really care if this stuff kills them or not.

Every day for the last week I've spent a little bit of time cleaning some corner of the kitchen. A drawer, a cupboard, the pantry. Very, very slowly my entire kitchen is beginning to sparkle and all newly acquired kitchen items of the past year are finding happy, new homes. A friend dropped by yesterday and said "my God, you've been cleaning like crazy in here, it's all brighy and sparkly" so my efforts have paid off. It also makes me think that perhaps my kitchen was a bit grimey pre-spring-clean-up. My new favorite product is the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I LOVE this thing. Another friend sold me on it when she called in the middle of the day to proclaim its fabulousness. It really is fabulous. Toxic, I'm sure, but it works.

I've lost all will to finish this last project for school.

Oh so ready to be done school

I just spent the better part of 3 days re-writing a term paper. I'm the first person to admit that a writer I am not, but it has never mattered much before because I'm an engineer and engineers are very forgiving. I also find that engineers make lousy editors and rely on my sister to do all my proof-reading for me.

Right now I'm taking two courses for a continuing ed diploma course. Let me say that again, a diploma course. I will not emerge from this with a degree of any description, just a line on my resume that most employers will overlook. I handed in an initial draft of my term paper (admittedly a crappily written paper but can we say diploma course?) without having Fearthainn give it the usual glance. I'm thinking to myself "hey, its an initial draft, I have to be more intelligent than a good percentage of the class, my crap work should get me a B".

Oh how arrogant and naive of me. This particular professor fancies himself a literary genius. He also seems to think that we'll approach this paper as if we really were trying to get ourselves published in a technical journal. I barely passed. Thank god it was only the initial draft and I have an opportunity to redeem myself on the final draft.

But I'm bitter that I just spent 3 glorious days trying to write a term paper about roads. And I still haven't figured out what a living smile is.

define: Living Smile (n)

I'm writing a final exam for a Native Plant Propagation course. I have one part of one question left, I have to define Living Smile. I do not believe this is a real noun, and if it is, I do not believe it has anything to do with plants. Am I crazy? Google, msn and yahoo have all failed me. Google Scholar has failed me. Ideas?

This is my current answer:

Living smile (n): The state of bliss seen on the face of someone who is doing something they really love and the results are positive. When a restoration program appears to be successful, the participates wear living smiles. Ok, I have no idea ;)

It's worth 0.5 of a mark. I'm not stressing about it.

The thing about losing an hour...

I don't know if its the missing hour, the end of the semester stress or what, but I'm in a mood. The last few days were grey and miserable but today was beautiful and spring-like and it didn't do much to lift my spirits. I'm trying to get Steve to finish my course-work for me but he refuses. Mean husband.

I've started my spring cleaning a week ago. Exciting, eh? My spice cupboard is now very pretty. This is what I do when I have a million other things to do - empty cupboards and clean them. I could write a book on the art of procrastination.

Steve and I also started stripping the paint off a chest-of-drawers and dressing table Grandma gave us for the spawn's future bedroom and I'm very impressed with our results so far. When we get them all pretty I'll definately have to take a picture.

Seriously, when all I do is homework and housework I am a boring person indeed. My apologies.