Sunday, June 9, 2013

Mondays Haven't Been Liking Me Lately.

Two weeks ago on, (what else could it have been but a Monday?) I woke up at 2am feeling deathly ill. After 2 hours of repeated trips to the bathroom to throw up I called off from work. This really sucked because that Monday was  Memorial Day, a civil holiday, for which we are paid time and a half for working, while our fellow civil servants (and just about everyone else) gets the day off. The thought of lost overtime may have added to my already existing nausea, but after 6 hours of being relentlessly sick to my stomach I knew we were well beyond normal flu type symptoms,  The illness had come on so quickly my husband thought that food poisoning was involved, although no one else in the house was sick. 

Now I have to add here that I am almost never sick.  My last extended illness from work was 14 years ago and involved childbirth.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually needed a doctors slip because I was off more than 2 days from work.  And I have been to the ER exactly once on my own behalf in those intervening years, and was after taking a nasty fall on the ice.  So when I finally determine that something is wrong, it probably is really wrong.   I was getting repeatedly sick, I couldn't even keep Coca-Cola (which always works when I'm sick) down, and I was aching from my chest to abdomen.  Something was really wrong, and I told my husband we would have to go to the ER.

Fortunately the ER wasn't busy on a holiday morning, a good thing because I was still being repeatedly sick.  They gave me a cool little gadget, like a framed barf bag, with numbers up the side so they could tell how badly  I was losing it. Realizing that, no really something was wrong, they hooked my up to an IV, pumped me full of fluids and gave me anti nausea meds, thereby allowing to at least stop tossing my cookies every 20 minutes.  They also did a blood draw that determined my white blood cell count was way too high. Clearly something, somewhere was infected. So they rolled me down the hall to be CAT scanned. Shortly after the doctor came in to tell me that my gall bladder was full of stones and infected as well.  They wanted to take it out. Full surgery. The next day. 

Did I mention that the Boy was graduating from high school on the following Monday, prior to which, on Sunday, everyone we knew within easy driving distance was showing up at the house for his graduation party?
Not to mention that I really couldn't afford 6-8 weeks of being laid up at home, unable to work overtime?

The timing couldn't have been more atrocious, as I explained to the doctor.

He was understanding, mentioning that he had another gallbladder patient the same weekend with similar issues. Here's the deal he says. We'll pump you full of antibiotics for the night and if you levels are going down in the morning we can postpone the surgery a few weeks.  We might even be able to do it laproscopically by then, which is easier for both you and us. The proceeded to do just that for me, and it work. Surgery postponed. Much to my relief, not to mention my husband who was envisioning throwing the entire party together with the help only of 2 teenagers. Even if I couldn't lift, carry or scrub, I could do the running around. They threw one other loop however, a strict low fat diet till the surgery was done.  Now I'm not saying I want to run to KFC every night, but I do like food that has some flavor and contact with olive oil or butter or something somewhere in the cooking process.

I will save most my observations about the hospital experience for another post, because this is one is all about the Monday blues, but suffice to stay I got home in time for the party where I got to stare lovingly at the Boy's cake(one tiny piece with the icing off), the huge bowls of macaroni and potato salad, and my sister's amazing spinach spread and her chipped beef and cream cheese ball. My husband did whip me up some low fat alternatives so I didn't feel completely left out.  And I did take a chance on sampling the homemade ice cream. 

 In short I survived. I was only somewhat led into culinary temptation. Since then it's been some occasional fish and chicken breast and lots and lots of turkey. In the last 2 weeks I have eaten so much turkey based food I should own stock in butterball. Turkey franks, turkey bacon, sliced turkey, ground turkey,  you name it.

Last Monday the graduation went off fairly OK, though not without some plot complications mostly courtesy of the school administration.

So tomorrow it is Monday again and I get to go back to work.  For a week. Because the soonest the doctor's office was able to schedule the surgery was June 17th. If you are keeping count that is yes, another Monday.

Whatever Karma I owed Monday should be caught up by now.

So you can understand why when I saw Mod Mom's graphic for this week's blog hop I felt right at home:

Truer words have seldom been spoken.


This post is part of the I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop, hosted by Mod Mom Beyond Indiedom.  If you haven't checked it out you should.



10 comments:

  1. Oh man, Meg - you get the Monday Sucks Mightily award. Your Butterball line cracked me up. But sorry, I think Paula Deen beat ya to it. She bought everything with 'Butter' in the title.

    I'll be thinking about you on the 17th. xxx

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    1. Thanks for the Paula Deen laugh, Linda. I promise to show Mondays all due respect from heere on (or maybe just pull the covers over my head and duck!)

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  2. Holy Cow Meg. This sounds so wild. I'm so sorry that you're going through this. Yuck. I hope you're feeling better since you have a whole week until surgery. Keep us up to date with everything and enjoy all that turkey!

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    1. Thanks Elizabeth. I have already promised myself Chicken Paprikash and Kielbasi and sauerkraut when all this is over. And chocolate. And actually I have learned alot about availablev low fat options. Just notall the time.

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  3. Look at the bright side, your surgeon will come in on Monday all rested from his weekend off. Unless he's hungover from a weekend at the lake....

    (I was creeping on your sidebar and I think our kids are about the same age; my son just graduated from high school and my daughter just finished middle school. And my friends are all having grandkids.)

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    1. We are about samr age Dyanne. There should be a special support group for midlife moms of teenagers.

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  4. Oh Gosh! I'm sorry to hear you had such a terrible time. Hope you feel better soon.
    Thanks for hooking up to the Hump Day Hook Up.

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    1. Thank yiu Mollie, hopefully by this time next week things will be looking up.

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  5. Hardly a week goes by when I don't need to see a doctor for something, and the ER is at least an annual visit. Glad you're hanging in there.

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    1. Wow Joe, see Im not often sick so Im not good about it. My hat is off to those who deal with chronic illnesses, i never learned to be a good patient.

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