Functionally ReTodded

Sorry I haven’t posted in what seems like forever everybody. I guess there are some of you out there that, if you didn’t know better, might have thought that I’d either fallen off the earth or died since the 19th of December when I last posted.

The fact is, since having my chest drained a second time, things have been great. I feel so much better that it’s almost hard to put into words. For the first time since Halloween I have energy, am resting well, and more than anything I am ready to return to work (which I will do on the 3rd of January, 2006).

Now, as for Christmas this year. It was amazing, exhausting, exhilerating, exasperating, action-packed, fun-filled, rewarding, frustrating, and everything in between. I think that we did the best we could to make it a normal (if there is such a thing) Christmas, but the fact is that we’ve both been exhausted and run down and we’re just looking to close the door on 2005 and ring in 2006 on a positive note.

I am walking about two miles a day now and am, as of this morning, down to 212.5 pounds. Basically, in just under 60 days, I’ve lost a Lauren AND a Sophia, and it feels great. I bought some new clothes for work at the after-Christmas sales and it’s nice not to be shopping in the wider than they are long department anymore.

(Okay, that’s a lie, but getting back to a comfortable 36 waist is a big deal for me. I don’t think I’ve been a 34 waist since I was about 180, and that only lasted about a quarter in college, so I’m not sure that’s a realistic goal).

Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of blogging soon so you all can waste more work time reading what I’ve written. I also hope that New Year’s Eve gives me something as funny as what Christmas night gave me.

Now, prepare yourself. This is (and I swear it) one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard ANYONE say ever. The fact that it came out of the mouth of the person it did just makes it all the funnier. I now quote:

“One time, I sharted in the wave pool at Lake Lanier Water Park. But just a little…”

That’s all for today. Keep your fingers crossed that I’ll get more gems like that soon.

So, in my last entry, I mentioned a gastric disorder that would probably befall me in the near future. But as you all know, I was kidding.

Only someone didn’t know I was kidding.

At 4am Friday I woke up and felt icky. By 7am, I knew the deal:

I had the damned flu.

You have to be fucking kidding me. After all of this, now I’ve got the flu?

Yes. Yes you do.

But that wasn’t all. While I was in bed sleeping all day, the wife was tending to urchin 2.0 and getting 1.0 to and from school. Urchin 1.0 came home from school and seemed fine.

Until about 5pm. And she started barfing.

Alot.

She threw up about every 20 minutes from 5pm until roughly 1:30am.

And since I was still sick, I was tasked with handling that urchin while my wife handled the one month old. Neither were particularly appealing choices when there was only one of us for each, but we did what we thought was right.

I figured I could sleep in Lauren’s bed with her and tend to the hurling, but that was not to be. She wanted the entire bed, so she told me to sleep on the floor.

And I did.

She (we) went to bed around 8:30pm, and she finally slept for more than 20 minutes straight at about 1:30ish. At 3:30, I managed to get tylenol and phenergan into her (and she kept it down). She then slept until 6am.

During this period I was awakened by the excrutiating pain in every joint in my body thanks to the late stages of said flu.

Oh, and did I mention that every time Lauren was awake she begged for water? You know, every single time? And that the begging was accompanied by very sad wimpering and topped off with a few big tears?

And there’s no reasoning with a three year old about the effects of the flu. All she knew is that she wanted water, and I was the asshole that wasn’t letting her have it.

So this morning, in lieu of burning everything anyone had touched in the previous 48 hours, we stripped the beds (again) and washed every stitch of clothing, Lysoled everything, and hoped for a better day.

But of course, I’m not holding my breath.

In light of the fact that I had to be at the hospital for a 7:30am appointment this morning, I went to bed early and got a good night’s sleep…right?

No.

I watched the Falcons-Saints game until around 11:30pm or so, talked to the wife while she was feeding urchin 2.0, then finally went to sleep around midnight. I woke up at about 3:10am or so to feed the baby (as it was my turn), finished up, put her down, added a hit counter to my blog and got back to sleep about 4am. Around 5:40am, Sophia rustled and I awoke (just five minutes shy of my alarm) and I got up and out of the house at a svelt 219 pounds complete with a peanut butter sammich, a Ken Follett novel and my I-pod.

See, even with an “appointment,” one thing I’ve learned is that an appointment just means that someone will see you that day. Patients wait for surgeons…not the other way around. So I figured my best bet was to get there early (6:45am) and get in the line early so I’d maybe get first available or at the very worst get done before noon.

I took my seat after checking in at desk four (my lucky desk) and had a couple of nice words with the very nice ladies at the admit desk there at the Stella Marris building. As has been the case, every person I came into contact with was professional, warm and friendly and very adept at putting folks at ease.

Anyway, back to the story.

My appointment was at 7:30am and lo and behold, here comes my nurse. She took me back through pre-op (where I’d last been prior to the big operation) to an area that appeared to be more of an open pre-op area. Not that it matters.

What I immediately noticed was that there was no ultrasound machine.

Why does that matter, you ask? Simple. The last time I had this done, the doctor used the ultrasound to locate the low spot of the fluid and monitored the progress of the gravity draining with said machine.

While waiting for Dr. Murphy to show up, I spoke with the nurse and Lisa (Dr. Murphy’s assistant and nurse) about said ultrasound.

“Not using one,” they said.

Uh oh. Sounds like we’re going prospecting.

Anyway, Lisa assured me that Dr. Murphy was on his way after changing clothes and at about 7:40am, in he walked.

We made small talk about my fluid, mostly about if it was my fault, could it be prevented, etc. Small talk. Especially since we’d covered all of that just the day before in his office. What it was was nervous talk.

So as I did before, I sat sideways on the gurney and leaned forward on the table, but this time Dr. Murphy asked me to just sit straight up instead.

I got the usual “You’re going to feel a burn” while getting the four or five shots of lydocaine just prior to pushing that little three-pronged arrow tip thru the gap in your ribs.

I immediately noticed a different sensation than last time I had this done.

“Ummm…are we using the vacuum version of this instead of the gravity drain?” I asked.

“Yep,” he replied.

“Oh. That’s why it feels funny,” I thought.

I noticed more discomfort from the negative pressure than last time, but since this effort took 25 minutes instead of 90 minutes, I understood that.

Basically what they use is a jar that is somehow made into a vacuum, and they stick one end of the tube into the jar and the other end into me.

So I’m sitting there chatting with them all, when all of a sudden I felt funny.

“Hey you guys, I’m feeling a little faint,” to which Dr. Murphy replied “What?”

I repeated “I’m feeling faint.”

And the next thing I said was to myself and then out loud. “Why am I laying on my side?”

“Because you fainted,” said Lisa.

Oh God dammit. I’ve fainted.

“How long was I out?”

“About five seconds,” Lisa said.

Oh good. I thought I’d made an ass of myself.

The other nurse got the obligatory cool washcloth to put on my vagina…I mean forhead, and I immediately started feeling much better.

The Doctor said I might as well stay on my side until he was finished, which took a grand total of about 25 minutes.

After he bandaged me up, he asked “How much fluid did you say you thought was in there?”

“About a litre and a half I guess.”

“Not bad,” he said. “It was about 10% under that.” He washed up and headed for the door and turned just short of that and said “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do some actual surgery.”

(That dude’s funny. I like that kind of stuff).

I then got a portable chest x-ray done and when they returned it, it looked about like the one did after the emergency draining last Saturday. Lisa and I decided that I should go get another x-ray at my regular doc in a week or so, have a look at it (since I now know what I’m looking for more than most GP’s) and if there’s more there to just call them to set up another tapping.

And then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. I got dressed, had a water and headed for the car, and was home by about 9:30am.

Not bad for a Tuesday morning at the hospital, eh?

And just so you know, I came home and re-weighed. I was 219 when I left the house, and despite drinking two waters and eating one slice of pizza and one peanut butter sammich, I weighed 217.

Bring on the speedo!!