Well we are in the hospital for the night. I'll give you the short story first and you can decide whether or not you want to read the long story. ;)
Jacob is having his appendix taken out.
Now the long story:
Sunday we had an ER run. He had gone to work at 8 a.m. and was back home by 8:30 with lots of abdominal pain, continuing back pain, very constipated, and unable to eat anything. I am young and stupid and after a 3 hour wait in our room at the ER, the doctor came back in the room and said "Well, I think the back pain is related to the abdominal pain and you're constipated," we just left. I am so stupid. That's going to be a huge bill and we got exactly zero answers and wasted 3+ hours of our lives. Ugh.
Then Monday Jacob went to work. Later that evening he was in more pain. He had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday with a local doctor who is specifically interested in gastroenterology. Tuesday the doctor mentioned "appendix" for the first time. With his age, the symptoms, the pain, the location, everything was adding up to appendix. There were two things that were a little suspicious though. 1. Jacob doesn't have a temperature and 2. his white blood cell count has not gone up at all. The doctor wanted to see a CT scan, so that was scheduled for Wednesday (technically yesterday, but I haven't been to bed yet, so earlier today for me) at 12:00. By 1:30 we still weren't in yet. Jacob only got down about 3/4 of the "beri-water" that they gave him. They went ahead and did his scan and it worked fine.
Just like the doctor thought, it appeared that appendicitis was beginning to creep up. Something was definitely up with the appendix. Our options at this point were A. check into the hospital, talk to a surgeon this evening and have the surgery in the morning or B. leave, get another prescription, and wait until possibly Friday to have the surgery because of the work schedule of the other surgeon.
Jacob and I both leaned toward just getting it done, or at the very least talking to a surgeon as soon as possible to see what he thought. So, knowing that we would have the highest chance of having the surgery done on Thursday that we needed, we decided to go ahead and admit him for the night. It's better this way with all the pain he's having anyway. (He's been a bear at home. When he's not feeling well nobody's happy.)
The surgeon came by the room tonight and explained a lot to us. We were both very appreciative of that. He explained that he agreed - there was something suspicious about the appendix. However, he had seen this before - looks like appendicitis without the fever and without the white blood count. He said that in the past, he'd seen this with appendices that had flipped around backwards. Also, this could explain the constipation. Although it wasn't crazy strange, it's not exactly normal for someone to have constipation with appendicitis. (The first doctor was thinking since his appendix was inflamed, maybe it was cutting something off down there and keeping him from having a bowel movement.)
Anyway, so basically we all went - DING DING DING!! Finally someone has an answer that adds up. His appendix is backwards. I'm like, 99.9% sure that this is the right answer.
Which leads us to where we are now. I am sleeping on a chair tonight. Jacob is in a hospital bed. He's asleep...sort of. In and out. I'm wide awake, hoping to fall asleep directly. Surgery is tomorrow mid-morningish. (We weren't given an exact time, just because he wasn't sure when he'd be out of his first surgery/surgeries.)
Showing posts with label i'm so naive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i'm so naive. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Thursday, December 8, 2011
My Birthday
My most recent birthday was about 2 weeks ago. After much wrestling with my thoughts and mourning my car I am now able to write about my birthday.
Why wrestle with my thoughts, you ask? (Go ahead and ask it. I'll wait.)
Because - I tell you - my darling friend Julia said to me the other day, "Man! You're on the downhill slope to 30." Holy crap. I am. She told me that on my birthday - November 26th. (This year was my "golden" birthday - 26 on the 26th. Julia is a mere 25.) Since she said that, I haven't been able to get her comment out of my head.
In fact, I've been thinking about that statement so much that #1 I'm blogging about it for all of the world wide web to see and #2 it got me to thinking - not only am I on the downhill slope to 30, but I'm also on the downhill slope to 40. And 50.
And I'm ALMOST on the downhill slope to 60.
I'm basically 60.
I don't want to die yet. There's a lot that I want to do. I want to skydive. I don't care if you think it's crazy or if you think it's just something that people are required to throw on their bucket lists even if they don't really have an outstanding desire to do it. I really want to. I want to go to Australia. (I picked Australia years ago because I didn't want to have to learn another language. Now I know that lots of places have English as an official language or at least their second language, but I still had sense to know to pick somewhere that I could communicate. Also, Australia has Aborigines. And kangaroos.) I want to visit this place. And this one. I have never been snow skiing. I would like to do that. I want to go to an NFL game. I want to live somewhere other than Kansas. I want to learn how to speak Spanish or maybe Chinese. I want to learn to make things. Like crochet. I am finally making a hat and sort of making a scarf. I want to volunteer. I want to recycle. I want to run for an office of some sort. (And then I want to WIN.) I want to play tricks on my little girl. MAYBE even take her to the haunted houses or on roller coasters! I want to watch some puppies being born. I want to go hunting with my husband (and actually shoot something - DON'T tell him I said that).
I'm not ready to be 60. That's older than my parents.
Why wrestle with my thoughts, you ask? (Go ahead and ask it. I'll wait.)
Because - I tell you - my darling friend Julia said to me the other day, "Man! You're on the downhill slope to 30." Holy crap. I am. She told me that on my birthday - November 26th. (This year was my "golden" birthday - 26 on the 26th. Julia is a mere 25.) Since she said that, I haven't been able to get her comment out of my head.
In fact, I've been thinking about that statement so much that #1 I'm blogging about it for all of the world wide web to see and #2 it got me to thinking - not only am I on the downhill slope to 30, but I'm also on the downhill slope to 40. And 50.
And I'm ALMOST on the downhill slope to 60.
I'm basically 60.
I don't want to die yet. There's a lot that I want to do. I want to skydive. I don't care if you think it's crazy or if you think it's just something that people are required to throw on their bucket lists even if they don't really have an outstanding desire to do it. I really want to. I want to go to Australia. (I picked Australia years ago because I didn't want to have to learn another language. Now I know that lots of places have English as an official language or at least their second language, but I still had sense to know to pick somewhere that I could communicate. Also, Australia has Aborigines. And kangaroos.) I want to visit this place. And this one. I have never been snow skiing. I would like to do that. I want to go to an NFL game. I want to live somewhere other than Kansas. I want to learn how to speak Spanish or maybe Chinese. I want to learn to make things. Like crochet. I am finally making a hat and sort of making a scarf. I want to volunteer. I want to recycle. I want to run for an office of some sort. (And then I want to WIN.) I want to play tricks on my little girl. MAYBE even take her to the haunted houses or on roller coasters! I want to watch some puppies being born. I want to go hunting with my husband (and actually shoot something - DON'T tell him I said that).
I'm not ready to be 60. That's older than my parents.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
We have half a Christmas tree
Well, we tried. But lately it's just been one step forward, two steps back.
On Thanksgiving, my whole family came over, right? Well my sister and brother-in-law decided to stay for some fierce Kansas Black Friday Shopping. (Yes, people fight over bikes here too.) Awesome, right? Our adrenaline was pumping. We were rockin' JC Penney's like pros. You would have thought I wasn't even pushing a stroller. But I was. I'm just that good.
Then after I'd picked out my perfect purchases, I headed up to the counter. (My sister and her husband were still "rockin'" the sales. I had to put quotes around it because her "rockin'" wasn't quite as rockin' as my rockin'.) I put my items on the counter, reach down in my stroller - the same stroller that was so incognito from before because, remember, I'm just that good - pull out my purse and grab my wal-
Crap. My wallet's missing. Crap. (And in case you're wondering, NO, JC Penney's cannot hold items for you on Black Friday because if they did it for you, then they would have to do it to the other 3,287 people in the store AT ANY GIVEN SECOND. Which brings up the point - has no one heard of fire codes here, people?)
So my sweet, loving sister offered to take the invisible stroller with my baby girl in it so that I could run home and get my wallet. IN FACT, she even offered to pay for my purchases and I would just write her a check when we got home. But no. I'm stubborn and wanted to pay for them myself.
So off I go to my car. I got in and sat down, then I glanced around for some chapstick. It was totally necessary. But then I thought to myself, "Self!? Why are you wasting time putting on chapstick at a time like this? You need to get to your wallet! There are deals to be had!" So I threw my car in reverse and very slowly made my way out of the parking lot.
Slowly my arse. Oh, and by the way, there was a monster flat bed Dodge pick up in the space directly behind me. It totally ate my trunk alive when I accidentally collided with it.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE (because that's exactly how I'm looking at this situation, right? Mm hmm.) no one was injured (really though, that is a good thing), there was NO damage on the other vehicle...like, none. At all. And my baby wasn't even in the car for me to have to deal with while I called the police (totally embarrassing because my husband IS one and I work with all of them).
So today, in an effort to brighten my funk-tastic mood I've been in since the incident that my husband and I are now referring to as "the wreck", we decided to put up the Christmas tree.
We bought this tree 3 Christmases ago after we got married. It was a piece of crap beautiful. We were pretty close to broke when we first got married. We bought this Christmas tree for $20 at Walmart if I remember correctly. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful I have a Christmas tree. Some people don't. And I love seeing the little lights and ornaments on my tree...reminds me of this time last year when I had my beautiful baby.
The first chunk went on the bottom and looked great. The second chunk...the lights didn't work. The third chunk...the lights didn't work. Ok. We can deal with this.
The option that I immediately thought of, the obvious option, was to buy a big strand of lights and cover the top two chunks. Since my husband is a perfectionist he said that if we do that option then we had to take down the 7,591 lights that were already on there and not working. Yeah. Like I was going to help him with that. And since he wasn't doing it on his own, we moved on to option #2.
Buying a real tree.
(I'm sorry, but did the skies open up and angels just start singing? No?)
I LOVE real Christmas trees. But Jacob said, "The needles fall off and Gracie will eat them, plus they're so expensive." Not sure what his source was on that one, but I've found some for $12. We would just have to buy "real tree" stand and a can of beer because we don't have either of those things in our house. :|
That's pretty fiscally responsible. Not QUITE as responsible as a $20 tree from Walmart but hey, it got the job done.
He didn't seem to agree with my logic. I'll secede.
The only problem is that what I seceded to is 1/3 of a lit Christmas tree.
I wish I could tell you that at least we didn't leave it plugged in for the night. I wish.
On Thanksgiving, my whole family came over, right? Well my sister and brother-in-law decided to stay for some fierce Kansas Black Friday Shopping. (Yes, people fight over bikes here too.) Awesome, right? Our adrenaline was pumping. We were rockin' JC Penney's like pros. You would have thought I wasn't even pushing a stroller. But I was. I'm just that good.
Then after I'd picked out my perfect purchases, I headed up to the counter. (My sister and her husband were still "rockin'" the sales. I had to put quotes around it because her "rockin'" wasn't quite as rockin' as my rockin'.) I put my items on the counter, reach down in my stroller - the same stroller that was so incognito from before because, remember, I'm just that good - pull out my purse and grab my wal-
Crap. My wallet's missing. Crap. (And in case you're wondering, NO, JC Penney's cannot hold items for you on Black Friday because if they did it for you, then they would have to do it to the other 3,287 people in the store AT ANY GIVEN SECOND. Which brings up the point - has no one heard of fire codes here, people?)
So my sweet, loving sister offered to take the invisible stroller with my baby girl in it so that I could run home and get my wallet. IN FACT, she even offered to pay for my purchases and I would just write her a check when we got home. But no. I'm stubborn and wanted to pay for them myself.
So off I go to my car. I got in and sat down, then I glanced around for some chapstick. It was totally necessary. But then I thought to myself, "Self!? Why are you wasting time putting on chapstick at a time like this? You need to get to your wallet! There are deals to be had!" So I threw my car in reverse and very slowly made my way out of the parking lot.
Slowly my arse. Oh, and by the way, there was a monster flat bed Dodge pick up in the space directly behind me. It totally ate my trunk alive when I accidentally collided with it.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE (because that's exactly how I'm looking at this situation, right? Mm hmm.) no one was injured (really though, that is a good thing), there was NO damage on the other vehicle...like, none. At all. And my baby wasn't even in the car for me to have to deal with while I called the police (totally embarrassing because my husband IS one and I work with all of them).
So today, in an effort to brighten my funk-tastic mood I've been in since the incident that my husband and I are now referring to as "the wreck", we decided to put up the Christmas tree.
We bought this tree 3 Christmases ago after we got married. It was
The first chunk went on the bottom and looked great. The second chunk...the lights didn't work. The third chunk...the lights didn't work. Ok. We can deal with this.
The option that I immediately thought of, the obvious option, was to buy a big strand of lights and cover the top two chunks. Since my husband is a perfectionist he said that if we do that option then we had to take down the 7,591 lights that were already on there and not working. Yeah. Like I was going to help him with that. And since he wasn't doing it on his own, we moved on to option #2.
Buying a real tree.
(I'm sorry, but did the skies open up and angels just start singing? No?)
I LOVE real Christmas trees. But Jacob said, "The needles fall off and Gracie will eat them, plus they're so expensive." Not sure what his source was on that one, but I've found some for $12. We would just have to buy "real tree" stand and a can of beer because we don't have either of those things in our house. :|
That's pretty fiscally responsible. Not QUITE as responsible as a $20 tree from Walmart but hey, it got the job done.
He didn't seem to agree with my logic. I'll secede.
The only problem is that what I seceded to is 1/3 of a lit Christmas tree.
I wish I could tell you that at least we didn't leave it plugged in for the night. I wish.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Things I Don't Understand
Something that I do understand is that everyone cares. In some way, shape or form, everyone cares about someone or something. And a lot of people care about my daughter.
Something else I understand is that God gave me Gracie because for one reason or another we are the best for each other. I will learn from her. She will learn from me. I am meant to be her mom.
Another thing I understand is that I don't necessarily have the most experience with babies. I get that. This is why I did a LOT of research about certain baby-related things while I was pregnant. I was online all the time looking things up. Another thing I understand is that research and reading aren't quite the same as actual experience with children, but you can learn a whole lot from books. Seriously. A whole lot.
One thing that I don't understand is why others feel the need to constantly tell me I'm doing things wrong.
I am a smart, responsible woman with common sense. I love my child more than anything in the world. Except maybe chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. That's a joke, people.
I know that 26 years ago when I was a baby I slept on my stomach. Yes, I lived. No, nothing is wrong with me. Other than that funny looking nose and the occasional need to interject people's stories and state some sort of "fun fact". But nothing serious. I also know that there was a lot higher rate of SIDS back then and there may have been other babies who had lived if only they had slept on their backs. I am not a crazy free-thinking young whippersnapper for choosing to have my baby sleep on her back. (This doesn't apply so much anymore, but when she was a newborn I would put her on her back and certain people would think I was crazy.)
I make all of Gracie's baby food. Well, unless we're going to a restaurant or something. Why in the world do people think this is crazy? Quite frankly, I think it's crazy to feed your infant sugary, salty, processed foods from the get-go of their life. Really starting your little one out healthy there, aren't you? Or how about choosing the ones that contain traces of arsenic? It almost makes me wonder how anyone who has access to this information could possibly give this food to their baby day in and day out. People say I'm crazy. Well, I guess I'm just a total loon for wanting to not give my baby poison before a year old. Nuts. Was I fed jarred baby foods? Yes. Am I ok? Sure. But maybe - JUST MAYBE - Gracie will be smarter than her mama. Maybe Gracie won't have weight issues like her mama. Maybe she'll live longer than I will.
Some are concerned because they think my baby will choke on what I feed her. First of all, I blend all of her food right now with very few exceptions. All of the "exceptions" are foods that are perfectly fine for babies to eat. Feeding a 10- *almost 11-month old things like Cheerios, Gerber Puffs, small (small) chunks of cheese, tiny pieces of bread... It's all ok. Feeding them a fair-sized hunk of steak is not. So when I am literally told that feeding my child spinach will cause her to choke I want to scream. Spinach (along with all of the other foods listed) is perfectly fine and normal for a baby to eat. I'm not handing her a string of frozen spinach and telling her to go at it. I use organic spinach, cook it, and blend it. (I don't always necessarily go organic, just here and there.)
I wonder why it is that I constantly am finding people sneaking her snacks and saying she's fine. Read the ingredients. Why would I want my baby eating diglycerides and carrageenan? I'm not saying she can NEVER have dessert, I'm just saying let's not feed her those things every single day before she's even able to walk. Ok?
Here's the deal: I've thought about my baby since I myself was a wee one. I've thought about how I want to raise her. I've dreamed of things we would do together. I get excited to do things for her. know I want to raise her to be smart, respectful, honest, quiet (with an opinion ;) ), loving, healthy, God-fearing... Why is that I make these decisions and choose that I want her to be honest, then I leave her with someone for a day, then find out someone has been feeding her foods that they KNOW I don't want her to have behind my back? Way to teach her honesty. Not to mention - way to make ME trust YOU. I really never want to leave my kid with you again if you're just going to go against my wishes behind my back.
Don't question me. Don't doubt me. Trust that I'm doing what's best.
Something else I understand is that God gave me Gracie because for one reason or another we are the best for each other. I will learn from her. She will learn from me. I am meant to be her mom.
Another thing I understand is that I don't necessarily have the most experience with babies. I get that. This is why I did a LOT of research about certain baby-related things while I was pregnant. I was online all the time looking things up. Another thing I understand is that research and reading aren't quite the same as actual experience with children, but you can learn a whole lot from books. Seriously. A whole lot.
One thing that I don't understand is why others feel the need to constantly tell me I'm doing things wrong.
I am a smart, responsible woman with common sense. I love my child more than anything in the world. Except maybe chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. That's a joke, people.
I know that 26 years ago when I was a baby I slept on my stomach. Yes, I lived. No, nothing is wrong with me. Other than that funny looking nose and the occasional need to interject people's stories and state some sort of "fun fact". But nothing serious. I also know that there was a lot higher rate of SIDS back then and there may have been other babies who had lived if only they had slept on their backs. I am not a crazy free-thinking young whippersnapper for choosing to have my baby sleep on her back. (This doesn't apply so much anymore, but when she was a newborn I would put her on her back and certain people would think I was crazy.)
I make all of Gracie's baby food. Well, unless we're going to a restaurant or something. Why in the world do people think this is crazy? Quite frankly, I think it's crazy to feed your infant sugary, salty, processed foods from the get-go of their life. Really starting your little one out healthy there, aren't you? Or how about choosing the ones that contain traces of arsenic? It almost makes me wonder how anyone who has access to this information could possibly give this food to their baby day in and day out. People say I'm crazy. Well, I guess I'm just a total loon for wanting to not give my baby poison before a year old. Nuts. Was I fed jarred baby foods? Yes. Am I ok? Sure. But maybe - JUST MAYBE - Gracie will be smarter than her mama. Maybe Gracie won't have weight issues like her mama. Maybe she'll live longer than I will.
Some are concerned because they think my baby will choke on what I feed her. First of all, I blend all of her food right now with very few exceptions. All of the "exceptions" are foods that are perfectly fine for babies to eat. Feeding a 10- *almost 11-month old things like Cheerios, Gerber Puffs, small (small) chunks of cheese, tiny pieces of bread... It's all ok. Feeding them a fair-sized hunk of steak is not. So when I am literally told that feeding my child spinach will cause her to choke I want to scream. Spinach (along with all of the other foods listed) is perfectly fine and normal for a baby to eat. I'm not handing her a string of frozen spinach and telling her to go at it. I use organic spinach, cook it, and blend it. (I don't always necessarily go organic, just here and there.)
I wonder why it is that I constantly am finding people sneaking her snacks and saying she's fine. Read the ingredients. Why would I want my baby eating diglycerides and carrageenan? I'm not saying she can NEVER have dessert, I'm just saying let's not feed her those things every single day before she's even able to walk. Ok?
Here's the deal: I've thought about my baby since I myself was a wee one. I've thought about how I want to raise her. I've dreamed of things we would do together. I get excited to do things for her. know I want to raise her to be smart, respectful, honest, quiet (with an opinion ;) ), loving, healthy, God-fearing... Why is that I make these decisions and choose that I want her to be honest, then I leave her with someone for a day, then find out someone has been feeding her foods that they KNOW I don't want her to have behind my back? Way to teach her honesty. Not to mention - way to make ME trust YOU. I really never want to leave my kid with you again if you're just going to go against my wishes behind my back.
Don't question me. Don't doubt me. Trust that I'm doing what's best.
Friday, August 26, 2011
"Honey, I won!!"
My husband, bless his heart, got a call on his phone the other day. I was closer to his phone, so I picked it up, looked at the number, and handed him the phone. It was a number I didn't recognize, which I told him (and I recognize lots of numbers, working at our local police department, you know) and he proceeded to answer it. I heard:
"Hello? ... Yes ... Oh? ... OH REALLY?? ... Ok! ... Thank you! ... Mmhm ... Buh-bye."
Then he proceeded to tell me about how he had signed up for a drawing at our local "cowboy" store, Bluestem. (They have TONS of stuff - from gardening and outdoors to big farming equipment and ranching items. Clothes, tools, dogfood, candles, decorations, paint, electrical, and a popcorn stand with some
I asked him what he had won. He couldn't remember what he signed up for. I said, "Well it must be something cool because if it wasn't you wouldn't have put your name in." Then I started suggesting things; a chainsaw, gardening hose, gift certificate, lawn makeover, new appliance, new shirt, screwdriver, ATV, shed...the possibilities were endless. He just couldn't remember what he had entered himself to win.
So, he went ahead and took off for Bluestem. He said, "I better take the truck just in case it's something big that I have to haul back home." So I moved the car so that he could the pull the truck out.
Soon, he came back home. I heard him open the door under the carport, so I headed out to see what his prize was. (I was so excited.) Then he said to me, "Honey! Look at what I won!" I was headed out to the truck to see. I walked right past him. There was nothing in the truck.
He threw a keychain at me.
... !!! ...
He took his truck to pick up his keychain.
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