Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Weekend at Bullshit's

Remember This story about the guys wheeling their dead room mate in his office chair so they could cash hius social security cheque? Well, there's been an update. Apparently they're off the hook I really have no more to say here.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

just some more random musings

Boy what an exciting post title that was. I just keep thinking of things. Warning, I might piss off some Christians.

So, tonight was choir night. Remember when I talked about michaela and her partner?Well her partner died on Sunday. I hope she isn't suffering anymore. But this got me thinking. We were singing an old gospil song called "Jesus on the main line". Usually I love this song and I get right into it, singing the melody and bouncing around. But today it made me really angry. There's a line that says "If you're sick and you wanna get well, tell him what you want." Except, I'm sure people prayed for Kay to get better, and you know what? She died. I guess you could say, in theory, that she's in Heaven now, and therefore she's better. But then let's take into account the fundamentalist Christians, who believe lesbians and gays should burn in hell. Clearly, it doesn't sound like this Jesus fellow will really give people what they want, and be fair to everyone. She was in love with another woman. She didn't kill someone, she was not a fucking criminal, and yet these fundamentalists claim that homosexuality is punishable by death? And then they turn around and say "If you're sick and ya wnana get well..." You get where this is going. It just really pissed me off. It likely shouldn't have pissed me off as much as it did, but it's been one of those bizzarre days.

And now for something completely different. I went for a really really loong walk with my beautiful puppy today. It was great. The only time we screwed up was when she impaled my head on a pine tree. God what is it with me and pine trees the last few days? Anyways, I was just realizing that people aren't the only species with more than one face. Dogs and cats have it too. I really noticed it with Rosamae today, how many sides of her personality there really are. There's serious, hard working Rosamae. She will go to great lengths to make sure I'm safe. She loves her work, and she does an awesome job, when she's paying attention. Then there's sucky lovey Rosamae, you know that phase, the one where she's on her back, legs splayed out in all directions, just begging to have her belly rubbed. She loves to give puppy kisses and cuddles all the time. Her tail is constantly wiggling. And she especially seems to love men. Then there's playful, curious Rosamae. You could break those down into their own little categories too I suppose. When she's playful, like if we're playing with her toys, she's very excited, but she is very vocal, and wlil let you know what she thinks. She can be a bit aggressive. She really shows how strong and powerful she is swhen we're playing. And curious Rosame feels the need to sniff everything in the god damn universe. There is a reason she's known as Rosamae MacSniffy Nose sometimes. And then, of course, there's the protective, ever watchful and loyal Rosamae. I'll never forget the first time I brought Jay over, and things were happening, and she just about killed him. She really thought he was attacking me or something, and she will not have that. She's such an amazing doggie. I love stroking her soft, perty ears. She's all curled up in her puppy bed. She's adorable.

Well I think I'm heading for bed myself. Up for another run early tomorrow morning. Yippee who, good day.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Thought Bananza part 2

I knew I was missing some stuff when I wrote my first post, so now here's the rest of it.

On Saturday I was listening to Fuse on CBC This is a show which combines two artists of distinctly different genre and they perform each other's songs together. Sometimes there are some pretty neat performances on there, and some of the "fusions" work well. Saturday's show was not, in my opinion, the case at all. The two artists were Fred Eaglesmith And Katie Stelmanis OK, so is it just me, or does Katie Stelmanis sound like Satan mated with a sheep? Apparently this chick has operatic training. Good for her, but her voice scares me, and I feel like I'm being possessed by demons or something. I don't know what it is about her, but she creeps me right out. I really enjoyed Fred Eaglesmith's songs, but Katie was just... no.
And while we're on the subject of music Barb likes and doesn't like, here's a question for anyone reading this. Why is it that if people can hear so well, they can be toan deaf at the same time? Vick had it as her msn name today, and it got me thinking. She says she asked Mr. Boyde, one of the music teachers at W Ross and even he couldn't answer. Weird.

And as a closing thought, pine sap is a bitch to get out of your hair. I sat under a tree yesterday because I thought it would be shadey and lovely. It was that, but I didn't notice till four hours later that something in my hair was sticky and disgusting. I sniffed it and found out it was pine sap. I washed it over and over again in the bath last night, and thought it had come out... until this morning when I realized there was some still there. I just brushed it and now it's gone, but still, that was a bit of a hassel.
Well that's all for tonight. Good evening.

Thought... bananza?

What the hell is a bananza anyway? Perhaps I shouldn't have used it as a title for a post, but all the good words to describe sever jumbles of thoughts have been used. Maybe I should have gone with thoughtapaluza or something interesting, but here I am. So let's get this train a rollin'.


Am I the only person in the world who, when I hear a commercial, I wanna know the end of the story? Here's an example. There's this commercial for H and R block, I believe. And it starts out with this mother writing down her schedule of things she has to do for the day. 8:15, take kids to school. 8:30, go to gym etc. I can't remember it in detail but whatever, that's not the point. So then you hear a kid's voice off in the distance, you'd assume it's from an upstairs bathroom. "Mom, the toilet's broken!" So she revises the schedule. "8:50, call plumber..." Then you hear the other kid, "Momm!Jeremy's arm is stuck in the toilet!" She adds to the schedule. "8:15 call Doctor..." Then the kid says "Mine too!" I guess the piont of the commercial is that with H and R block, you can get the job done fast or something. I don't know. See, my problem is that I was too rapped up in the story. I wanted to know if the kids ever got their arms out of the toilet. And what if Mom called the doctor, but the doctor wasn't there, so the kid was stuck there forever? I don't know. I'm sure I'm just nuts.

By the way, hello Tiff and Vick both of who are reading my blog now. How's it going?

I don't know why it took me so long to figure this one out, but I learned yesterday that on my tracker, I could figure out how many people were reading this teeny tiny blog, and where they were from. Neat!

It's friggin' gorgeous outside, again. Only problem with this wonderful heat is that we have a wasp nest under our hot tub, and so I'll be sitting out there minding my own business, when Mr. Wasp feels the need to say hello. I hate wasps, especially since when I first brought Rosamae here, she was stung by an entire nest of them. Bad times.

Wow, I don't think I'd consider that enough to call it a bananza. I'm really tired though. I think I'm getting that fucking illness that everyone else at Xanadu had. I have a staff meeting at six tonight, so I'm going to rest for a bit. Have yourselves a great day.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

You've got to tri

So turns out I didn't go out with my friends last night. The one has been incredibly sick now for the past week. Poor thing. So I spent my evening sitting outside on the deck, eating dinner and listening to Randi's Vinyl Tap. I love that man. Anyway, that's not why I'm here today. I'm here to make a confession. I am a masochist. It's Sunday morning and instead of sleeping in like any normal human being might, I was up at six this morning. Granted, I don't sleep in anymore anyway what with Rosamae and all, but I usually get up at seven. Not anymore though. I'm up at six so I can get dressed, get Rosamae fed and relieved, get everything ready so that at 7, when Mom comes, I'm totally prepared. You see, Mom somehow talked me into running a triathlon with her on June 22 in Smith's Falls. Don't ask me what made me think this was a good idea, but I said I would do it for her, and I figured getting in shape and having a goal wasn't a bad thing. Now, I'm the first person to admit that I'm rather over weight. This makes exercise harder for me than it would be for those people who are a good weight, but dammit I'm still doing it.

So I started learning to run two Sundays ago. We had a pattern. We would go for 30 minutes, run for 30 seconds and walk for 4.5 minutes six times. Thirty second runs, I thought. That's nothing. I can totally do that. So I ran, as fast as I could for thirty seconds. What was I thinking? Pretty much anyone can run thirty seconds, no problem. That was my thought process. I was in for a surprise. After about fifteen seconds, I'd be hyperventilating. Every time I inhaled, it was like being back in the hospital. I couldn't get enough air into my lungs and it hurt like hell. But I kept going and finished. I was determined. So I ran that week for one minute intervals. I didn't slow down. I thought, in a few days, I'll be able to do this. By Friday of that week, I was about ready to die. After every run, it was all I could do to keep myself from crying my eyes out. I was in unbelievable pain. I felt fat, and I couldn't understand why this was not getting any easier. And then Saturday came. Friday had been raining. Saturday, it was thinking about raining but it hadn't started yet when we came out to run. I tried to keep my mind off the act of running. I thought about my favourite things. I remembered Peter Pan telling Wendy to think happy thoughts if she wanted to learn how to fly. So I was thinking happy thoughts. It wasn't helping. OK, hthat's not entirely true. For the first three jogs it sort of worked. But by number four, I was ready to die again. I couldn't figure out why Mom's footfalls didn't match mine. I thought it was because she wasn't running at a consistent speed, and I was getting mad. But she told me that it was, in fact, me who wasn't running consistently. "You're trying too hard. You're running too fast. You have to slow down, and once you have better endurance, then you can think about increasing your speed", she told me. So on the last run that morning, I finally listened to her rhythm and followed it, and I was fine! All of a sudden, this didn't seem so horrible anymore!

I took Sunday off, and started out fresh on Monday morning. I ran with my chiropractor Alana. She is one hell of a good coach. Where Mom and I normally fight, and Mom's version of criticism is a hundred percent negative a lot of the time, Alana stays positive. So I started again, running at the new, slower speed. It was great. Sure it still was tiresome, but it's supposed to hurt a bit, and it's supposed to be a challenge. The difference this time was it was a challenge that I really thought I could face now. By this time, we were running 2 minutes and walking 3. This was a huge improvement, and those 2 minutes flew by each time. I was amazed at how fast they went actually. Alana told me at the end that I was smiling the whole time. Yay for the happy thoughts, also slowing down to a comfortable pace and not overdoing it. I was feeling so coonfident that day. Wednesday was the same, although on Wednesday I was really trying to learn how to breathe better. I'm not taking in enough oxygen which is why I'm out of breath. I guess it's a natural reaction for our bodies to think that we're going into panic mode when we start exercising, so we don't breathe deep enough and it's hard to control. But I'm learning, slowly. Mom came home on Friday, but there is now something wrong with her knees and hips, and it's bad enough that she's going to have to pay a visit to an orthopedic surgeon. So I need a running partner now. She will do the swim and the bike portion of the triathlon with me, and my o and m instructor said she'd run with me. For now though I'm still going to train with Alana whenever I can. I didn't run today, we had to do a fast walk because if we had tried to run, Mom would have passed out due to the pain, and that would have been a problem.

Also, this morning, Dad and I busted out the old tandom bike for the first time in a long, long time. Biking is not half as hard, unless you count how soar your ass is by the end, but I can live with that.
It's amazing how different all my muscles feel after only two weeks of running. I'm finding that I'm more motivated to do this now. I feel good at the end of the runs instead of terrible, and I think I'll be able to do this! Happy 4/20 everyone. If you need me, I'm somewhere, being high on self confidence, unexplainable happiness, and endorphins.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Juxtaposition

Isn't it a magnificent day outside? And yet, this weekend seems to be the weekend from hell. Let me explain.

I woke up to the sound of all the frogs chirping behind our house. I love that sound. It reminds me that it's spring time, and that it's getting warmer. It's a beautiful sound, although some might consider it strange. It sort of sounds like crickets, but a lot louder, and there are tons and tons of them. I've never been in the swamp or wherever they live behind the house, but there must be thousands of them. They're so loud. I love hearing them, especially at night when I'm falling asleep. That will be one thing that I'll really miss when I move out.

And yet i went to bed sad. A friend of mine is in her last few months with us. I found out yesterday that she has tongue and throat cancer. They removed quite a bit of her tongue, so she can't talk. She's being fed through a tube. She writes on awhite board in order to communicate. I hope to be going to visit her in the next few weeks so I can at least say good-bye.

This morning, I spent about an hour over at a nearby park. I listened to music while I sat on the swings, imagining I was flying, feeling the breeze move past me and the sun on my face. As I was walking home, I heard a father teaching his child what a morning dove was. The child couldn't quite say the word, but they were trying.

And this morning I was given more shitty news. Two really close friends of mine are ending an almost four year relationship. I knew they were having problems in the summer, but I saw them just last week, and I was pretty sure they were getting better. Apparently I was wrong.

If you had talked to me yesterday, the news of my friend's cancer, combined with some other shit that happened really had me down. I went and played music with some people at Xanadu, and that made it slightly better. And yet, as much as all of these things suck, I'm not letting them get me down today. It's too gorgeous a day. Everyone is outside doing things. I'm spending time with some new found friends this evening. The original plan was to go out, but I think we're just going to stay in and watch movies, which is fine by me. So I thought juxtapossition would be a good title for this post, because it basically means two things that are happening symultaneously, but they are opposing emotions. So enjoy the sunshine out there. It's pretty amazing.

I'm here for you!

Considering that all of my search hits except one in the past month have been for that stupid crispy crunch hypnosis commercial shown during the Junior hockey championships, Here it is You're welcome.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Rosamae has things to say

First thing’s first. What is that creature growling outside my house? That’s my house, and that creature is growling. I’m trying to tell the family, but they are shushing me. What did Daddy call that? A motorcycle? I don’t think I’d like to get in a fight with a motorcycle. It sounds like it would have very large, pointy, scary teeth that would rip me to shreds. Why won’t it stop growling at me? This is my house Mr. Motorcycle. It looks like instead of having paws, it has these two round things on the bottom. One is on the front, and one is on the back. What are those for? The motorcycle is just sitting there, in the road, growling. I want to bark bark bark and tell him to go away, but Mom is telling me to shhhh.

Speaking of Mom, she’s always taking me weird places, but we don’t do a whole lot. Back when it was still freezing cold outside, Mom took me into this building. They had her laying in a bed, and Daddy took me outside and Betsy was there, and she took me home. What was the point of my even going? And then I didn’t see Mom for two nights. I like Megan and all, but I don’t know why Mom left. And then she just came back, but she was sleeping a lot. That was weird.

And then we went on one of those train things that Mom used to go on when we lived in Ottawa. But this time we were going the opposite way. And Mom’s mom was there. She always gives me peanut butter bones when Mom’s not paying attention. She always tries to pet me in harness too. I love all her attention, but Mom yells at her to stop. No Mom’s Mom. Keep petting me. I like the attention. Anyway, we all went on this train thing, and then we went in a car with a tiny tiny tiny dog. I don’t see how that thing could have been a dog. It was tiny like Buckwheat. But it said bark bark bark like a dog. What did theyt call it? Mungie? That’s it. Sometimes they called it Bella. We romped around and played. Mungie liked to stick her head in my mouth, or get on my back, or lick my belly. She was a nice doggie.

And then we went to my house… I mean… Trixie’s house. Mom took me to pee before we went in, and then, when she let me off leash inside, I walked right over to my… I mean Trixie’s… balcony door, and peed on the floor. See Trixie? My house! I didn’t understand why Carin used to be so nice and then she was upset, and Mom was really angry and she tied me to the bed while Trixie got to play and have fun. They cleaned up my smell, so when Mom brought me back out, I couldn’t smell me anymore. That was so unfair. Trixie got to run all over and Mom kept me tied to her at all times. All I did was tell Trixie it was my house. What’s so bad about that? Ah well Trixie, I guess you win this round. And then, a while after Mom got back home, she called that man they call Chuck, and he said she has to keep me on leash at all times when I’m in someone else’s house. That’s not so bad. I know where Mom is all the time if I’m stuck to her. And Carin stopped being mad at me after awhile, and she and Steve petted me and rubbed my belly and I made lots of noise, because it felt oh so wonderful.

It seems like we never stop going places. First we left California together, and then we went to Ottawa. A few days later, we went “home” as Mom called it, and that was where I met Daddy and Cam. Oh and the rest of the family too. And then we would go back to Ottawa, but we’d come “home” from time to time. We used to visit people in Ottawa a lot, and then we’d go to Mom’s school every day, and then… one day in the fall, we moved “home”. We’ve been a lot of places.

And has everyone noticed? It’s warm outside!!! I can run in the backyard and find all the toys I buried outside! Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t the grass fantastic? No more of that snow garbage. And would ya look at that. Motorcycle stopped growling. I think he’s gone. Finally I can get some sleep!

Two months later

Warning, this is one hell of a long post. If anyone gets to the end, I'll be amazed.

So it’s been two months now, and I’m finally deciding to write about this, even though everyone who knows me already knows the story. I want to write it up here so that I will remember it in a year or two when I need to.

Happy Valentine’s day. OK, so this actually started almost two weeks before Valentines Day. Remember when I said I was Reuniting with my buds from the summer? Well, that did happen. But that whole time I was there, I had this weird stomach pain that I could not explain. I thought it might have been stress or maybe I’d eaten too much. Who knew? Well, eventually after three days of this same pain, I pretty much thought “This can’t be me eating too much.” I remember trying to eat a steak sandwich and not wanting any of it but forcing it down. That Tuesday, I skipped choir. I never miss choir, so there was definitely something wrong. But I still didn’t really think much of it. I just thought something must have gotten pulled while I would bounce on my exercise ball. The next Tuesday, I was in considerably more pain than the previous Tuesday. It sucked. I remember being with my brother’s girlfriend and her family. Her little brother was doing an experiment where he wanted to see if I could learn how to use echo location. They made me wear ear plugs for one of the experiments, and that freaked me out. I thought I was going to be sick. But I went to choir that night anyway. Didn’t want to miss it a second time.

Then, the next day, I was sitting with my step sister, and she was reading me a story she was working on, and the pain was overwhelming. She said it was probably a stitch in my side, but that didn’t make any sense. I remember talking to someone on the phone and she kept saying to me “It could be your appendix”. I thought “There’s no friggin’ way. Why would my appendix burst? I didn’t do anything to make it explode.”

About an hour later, my dad got home, and I told him we needed to do something. I was supposed to go to a group meeting, and I just couldn’t. I was in way too much pain. So he took me to the hospital. We didn’t have to wait too long in emerge before a nurse called me in. I had to have urine sample taken. I didn’t have any typical signs of Appendicitis, but they wanted to check anyway. A doctor came in afterwards and pressed on all different parts of my stomach. God damn that was painful. I remember him pressing on different spots and I said it didn’t hurt, but when he’d get even remotely close to the appendix area, it was about all I could do not to throw up.

Then some nurses came in to try to take blood. I have never in my life had a problem with people not being able to find my veins. But apparently, that was going to be the day that the problems would start. I was being stabbed and poked all over, and I wanted to kill them. They finally got the vein, which was fantastic, and then they left.

So I was told I was going to have a ct scan. I had to drink this water that had some chemical in it. I had to drink to a certain set of lines every fifteen minutes. It was measured, I guess so certain parts of me would be more prominent in the scan? I’m not sure. But it tasted like I was drinking a pool. I tried desperately to imagine it being a chocolate milkshake. That did not work well. It was not bad at all though; compared to when Carin had to drink that go lightly garbage she talked about. It was still weird though.

So I drank up, and the folks wheeled me into the place with the CT scanner. I felt like I should be walking, but they told me they had to take me in the stretcher. That nurse could not steer the bed worth shit. She kept running me into doors and walls and stuff. But whatever. We made it, and this irate woman was like “I was here first. I’m supposed to go through first.” Apparently my case was more urgent than her’s. I felt bad for her though. She had a migraine, and I know how those are. No fun, that’s how.

So they got me to lie on a cold metal table with my hands at my sides. The nurse who was in charge of performing the ct scans told me to lie very still, and warned me that the machine would talk to me and tell me what to do. There were two recordings. “Take a deep breath and hold it” And “Breath normally”. I did as the instructions told me to. I couldn’t stay completely still. I had to scratch my nose cuz it was really itchy. The nurse laughed at me about that, but she said it shouldn’t mess up the readings at all. And then I was wheeled back to my room.

By this point, I was starting to get worried that even though I didn’t have the classic symptoms, there was definitely something wrong. It was soon somewhat confirmed that there was something wrong with the appendix and it might have to be taken out. But no one was really sure. They were going to have me sent to the other hospital for an ultrasound, and then, depending on what the results showed, I would have my appendix removed. Dad called Betsy to come and get the dog, because by this time it was probably six O’Clock and the poor thing hadn’t been fed yet. I wasn’t expecting to be in the hospital for this long. E brought Rosamae to the front door, where Betsy took her home and would care for her for the next few days, with lots of help from Megan.

At this point, Mom showed up. It was her birthday, but I couldn’t give her her present until we were back home. I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do. She brought her IPod, and finally, much to my delight, I had something good to listen to which wasn’t Dad reading really lame Readers Digest jokes, or inflating rubber gloves to the point where they burst, and made a sound as if a gunshot had been fired. We were both laughing hysterically at this point, but we were terrified that security was going to have Dad escorted out of the building. Cutos to Dad for trying though. So now, we had real entertainment.

Soon after, Dad left to go home for supper, but he promised me he’d be back shortly. The nurses soon came back in, and wanted to give me an IV so they could start giving me saline solution and morphine. And as they began poking and prodding again for the vein, U2’s “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” came on the IPod. Only later when Steve pointed it out did I find that ironic. Dad came back, and then Mom’s IPod died, so she ran home to recharge it, as well as get me some clean clothes and other essential items that I needed. And then, when they finally had a bed for us at the other hospital, we left Hotel Dieu, and drove in Dad’s truck, with a saline lock in my arm, to Kingston General.

This time, we waited in the waiting room for at least an hour before they brought us into this wee tiny room with a stretcher. I thought I got a room with a real bed. Apparently not. Mom brought the IPod back to me so I could sleep, and then went home again. They knew at this point that if I was going to go into surgery, it wouldn’t be till much later the next day, because my ultrasound was scheduled for 10:00. Finally, I got to eat. Sure, the food sucked, but I didn’t care. It was food. And then I fell into the worst sleep of my life, although it was made much happier by the fact that I was high on morphine and really didn’t care. The next morning I woke up, and I had to drink more water before the ultrasound so I could have a full bladder. No idea why that was important, but it was.

When I got to the ultrasound room, the technician told me she had no idea why I was there. She had read the CT scan and it was clearly Appendicitis. They said they would operate at 2:00. I couldn’t sit still. I was hungry, I was tired, oh, and did I mention fucking terrified? I was that too. Mom kept saying things like “B, you have to get over this. You have to conquer your fear, and don’t let it control you. Nothing is going to go wrong.” And Dad’s on the other side telling me how much he loves me and he’s almost in tears. I don’t know who to take more comfort from. On one hand I’m basically being told that Dad’s as terrified as I am, and on the other, it’s “Stop being such a drama queen”.

When it finally came time for me to go into the pre-operating place, I was a wreck. They had given me so much morpheme, the affects weren’t working anymore. I was shaking uncontrollably, sobbing, carrying on. It was not a good scene. But Mom was being supportive now. I remember Dr. Hensen, my surgeon asking me if I had a last will and testament. That was really what I wanted to hear. Then they told me they were going to give me a drug that was going to relax me, and I wouldn’t even remember going into the operating room. I remember it very clearly. I was crying, Dad was trying not to cry, Mom was telling me I would be all right. And I was on my back, being rolled away, and I didn’t know what would happen and was terrified that I might not wake up. Another part of that that scared me was when Dr. Hensen said that due to the type of anesthetic he was giving me, I might have dreams. That would be creepy. I didn’t want to dream about what was going on.

So we get into the operating room, and Dr. Hensen, who, in case I haven’t mentioned this yet sounds a lot like Tuvoc, explains how they’re going to do the surgery. I’m not really paying much attention. I’m much more focused on being terrified. But I do remember him telling me that they were going to put a tube in my throat to help me breathe, and then, when they woke me up, they would take the tube out of my throat. I didn’t want to feel them pulling it out, but they said I was likely not going to be fully conscious when it happened, because it would take the anesthetic awhile to wear off. And then, beside me was Marc. He was really attractive. He was one of the nurses, and he told me that when they put me out, I could hold his hand. I really appreciated that. So I grabbed him and squeezed. “We’re going to put you out now”, they told me. I tried to fight it, but I was done. The last thing I remember was saying no I didn’t want to go under and then whistling the beeping noises in the room.

Now, fast forward to a few hours later. I have no idea how much time has passed, but I’m on the table, flat on my back, in tears and screaming. All I can hear in my head is our choir singing “One day I walk” by Bruce Cockburn. It’s a gorgeous song about getting into heaven. I didn’t realize that at the time either, I just could hear it, as if the choir was right there in the hospital singing to me. And I’m screaming. Every time I inhale, my whole body seizes with most intense, excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced. Take those head aches I used to get, move them into my chest and shoulders, and multiply them by about 60. That was about how bad it was. I honestly thought I was going to die. I couldn’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. Part of my brain was saying “That’s it. It’s your time.” But the bigger, more logical part of me was telling me to fight, and telling me that no I was not dying today, or any time soon. Apparently the bigger part won. I would drift in and out of sleep. Every now and then, a nurse would come over and check my oxygen levels and blood pressure. I remember having the oxygen mask on my face and how the taste reminded me of the fresh, cold air in the Rockies. That was comforting. After some time had passed, they took my mask off and just put this clippie thing in my nose. Every now and then, I would drift awake and hear someone telling me to breathe. I thought “I am breathing, just really slowly. I’m trying to sleep here.” And then I’d be out again. Every time I’d come to, I would ask if they had a room for me yet and where my parents were. Parents were not allowed in the recovery room. I didn’t get that. Apparently, it took them seven hours to get me a bed. Those seven hours sure went quickly. It only seemed like a few.

Finally, I became fully aware of my surroundings. I sat up in bed to find Mom and Dad on either side of me, and realized they had finally been allowed to come into the recovery room. My throat and mouth were incredibly dry, and my shoulders felt very tense. I kept asking people if I would be allowed to eat finally and everyone said yes. So I was really excited about that. Dad tried to massage my shoulders, but it really didn’t help at all. But it was comforting to know he was there and feel his hands on me, and Mom’s too. I wasn’t dead. I had made it through surgery. The nurses wanted me to stay the night in the hospital so that they could monitor me. I noticed I had a new IV in me, attached to the top of my right hand. The bump is still there. I can still feel it. My stomach hurts more now than it did before the surgery, but I’m ok. My appendix is gone. So they wheel me up to my room, which is curtained off into little sections. I’m beside a woman named Carol. I don’t remember what her problem was, but it sounded horrible. Someone told me that there had been something wrong with my heart, but no one would tell me exactly what it was that was wrong. But apparently, the nurse on call had a pager on and whenever my heart would get too slow this pager would go off. That started to get really annoying, because my heart was not going too slow at all. I was just breathing slowly. That’s what I do when I sleep. But it went off like four times in 15 minutes. Finally she just turned the thing off I think. Everything’s a little hazy from here on in. I asked the nurse if I could have something to eat, and she told me I couldn’t. I was so mad at her. I told Dad that she was being a mean bitch, or something along those lines. I know I said bitch at any rate. I was so hungry, and so drugged up that I almost cried when she said no. But I got as much ginger ale as I wanted, which was great.

So I drank tons of ginger ale, listened to my IPod and slept. I still had two IVs in me, and the oxygen nose thinger. I remember being woken up by the nurse, I think her name was Melanie. Turned out she was not a bitch at all. She was really super nice. But she woke me up and gave me the medication that I normally take at night. I was amazed that she knew I had to take that, and angry at myself for forgetting. But she told me that at that point it was her job to give it to me, not mine. She took my pulse, oxygen levels and blood pressure several times throughout the night, and at seven A.M Mom showed up to help me get showered and dressed. One of the most awkward things for me was having help showering, but Mom used to be a nurse, so this didn’t bother her at all. I felt great to be clean after not having showered since before I went into the hospital. She had to leave at eight because she had to do something. But Dad showed up, and he had a Tim Horton’s breakfast sandwich for me. Those are my favourite. The only other alternative was the hospital breakfast, which consisted of canned fruit and jell-o. No thanks. Not a fan of the jell-o. Anyways, I was now no longer taking morpheme. I was on a combination of Tylenol and Tylenol 3s for the pain. There was a period between Mom leaving and Dad arriving where I was flat on my back again, and it really really hurt to breathe again. I kept pressing the nurse bell, but no one was responding. I was terrified. Finally I realized that if I raised the upper part of the bed, I would be better off.

After eating breakfast, Dad and I hung out for awhile. We played cards in the sun room, and I was so high that I just kept making stupid mistakes and loosing over and over again until I just got mad and quit, but it was ok. I called Betsy and asked her if I wasn’t out by the time she was done work if she would come see me. She said she would, and through tears, I told her I loved her. Then I called Meg and asked her how Rosamae was doing. I was very tearful, and missed home.

When I was finally released, it was about two hours later, and I had to follow some instructions. No swimming or baths for two to three weeks. I had to go get an eko cardiogram the next Wednesday, and I had an appointment with Dr. Hensen on March 31st. I promise this story is almost done.

I got home, and that whole weekend, my parents wouldn’t let me do anything. They looked after me, and showed that everyone here really cares about my sell being. The big joke was that Mom and Dad spent Valentine’s day together. That was the day I went in for surgery. There is a point to this whole story though. I did get something out of that surgery. A close friend pointed out to me that maybe that was a way of letting me know that I didn’t really want to kill myself. I was not ready to die. Every day I look at the three scars from that surgery, and I think of everyone in my life and how much they all mean to me, and how much I mean to everyone else, including myself. That was a huge step in my getting better. It took only about a month to completely recover. The pain lasted quite awhile, but it’s long gone. I’ve started training for my triathlon, and today I was able to run 2 minutes without stopping. Very happy about this.

I remember the night I c came home being really tripped out on Tylenol 3s, and calling Steve.
Me: Steve! I’m! Stoned!
Steve: Who did you get high with today?
Me: Noooooo! Tylenol 3! I have no more appendix!

And it went on from there. I remember talking to Jesse and probably making no sense. I couldn’t remember the word laparoscopic; I kept saying laser scopic or something. I learned that t3s and codeine make me hallucinate. When one sees angels crowded around one’s bed telling them that if they speak to God the pain will go away, one is definitely hallucinating. And I had a lot of support from a lot of friends.

The End