A Lazy Saturday Afternoon with my Best Girl

So today was a completely lazy day. I had a Ladies Meeting to go to this morning and I really, really didn’t want to go. But God knows what’s best for me and it was EXACTLY what I  needed. I knew I’d enjoy it once I got there, and I did. The devotion and the skit were just for me and I got to ask some questions of a really wise friend and spent some time with my best friend.

On the way home, I spent a little time in Target (it was right on the way) looking for some Valentine stuff for my sister.

Then, I got a phone call. My favorite 13 year old in the whole wide world wanted to come to my house. My sister and her husband had gone to my dad’s house to pick some stuff up and after 11:45 when my niece woke up and had done her stuff at home, she needed some company.  So I picked her up.

She bounced out to my car in her flip flops, her flippy little skirt and her dance studio shirt. She jumped in my car and we came home.  And then, we did nothing.

I sat in my chair, read emails, poked around on Pinterest and took care of my city and my castle in the stupid games I play. She laid on, sat on, and rolled around on the couch, with the TV remote firmly in hand. While I dozed in my chair, she moved between Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. She watched episodes of Jessie, Victorious, and iCarly.  I took a nap. She ate. Wow, can that kid eat! Most of a box of Cheez-Its, cookies and milk, and then chicken nuggets and tater tots. We took a break for strawberry limeades from Sonic and came back home to more TV. 

In between episodes, I washed dishes, cleaned up my kitchen and put away some stuff.  Then, we talked. We discussed an issue at school, 8th graders with tattoos and the the boy she likes.  In between all of it, she sang. She sang along with the shows when they came on, she sang with the commercials, she sang random songs.  She is such a neat kid.

During one show for no apparent reason, she said “I love you, Aunt Sandi.”  Another time she said “You’re the best Aunt Sandi and not just because you let me eat junk food.”

For a while, she and my sister lived with  me. I saw her every day. Then, they moved two blocks over. I still saw her nearly every day. I feel like there’s so much that goes on in her life now that I don’t know about – and I hate it!!!!  I know that it will just get worse the older she gets. So today, I passed her the remote control, watched her roll around on the couch,  listened to her sing and just tucked it away inside. 

I

Lucky, No, Blessed!!

My family has spent more time in the hospital in the last 5 months than we have in years. It’s strange – we’ve been medically blessed.

I had hepatitis in the 7th grade – spent 3 days in the hospital while they figured out which kind I had.  When they discovered it wasn’t the bad kind, they sent me home.

My sisters had three babies between the two of them – 2 C-sections and one regular delivery. Except for my niece being 7 weeks early, and Josh being a little jaundiced, our babies were perfectly healthy, which is a blessing. They’ve never even broken anything, except Josh broke his arm. 

We spent 3 days at the hospital in Marathon, waiting, after my mom had her heart attack. That wasn’t pleasant.

At the end of September, I had my gall bladder removed. I got there at 6:30 and was home by noon.  While my daddy was taking care of me, he had a little episode and spent 3 days in the ICU ward.

This week, my sister had a hysterectomy. We were at the hospital by 8, she was in a room by 3:30 and was home before noon the next day. While I was sitting there waiting for her, I thought once or twice to myself how lucky we’ve been! I know people who’ve spent hours and hours and days and weeks in hospitals! While we were waiting for my sister to be discharged, we started discussing our family’s medical history.

Basically, we agreed on these things:

1. We’ve had good hospital experiences. Everyone during Robyn’s surgery and my surgery and my dad’s ICU visit was remarkably kind and knowledgeable.  I did have a phone conversation with my dad’s nurse that wasn’t exactly pleasant, but other than that, everything’s been wonderful.

2. God has blessed us to be remarkably hospital visit free --- and what a blessing that is!! We are very grateful for that!!

3. We know we have been blessed – this is not something that we take lightly. Many families we know have had many, many more hospital and doctor visits than we have – and I don’t know how they do it. I was so impatient waiting the other day – and there is lots of waiting at the hospital. ( I think that’s another story right there!)

 

We are blessed.

Christmas Treasures

I hate certain parts of  Christmas decorating.  For the last week, I’ve had the “stick” part of my artificial Christmas tree sitting in my living room. Yep, just an empty stick. Yes, I use an artificial tree.  The last time I had a real tree, my cat tried to climb it every day. I picked it up 5 times. . . and sat with a squirt bottle every second of the day. He’s not nearly as attracted to the fake tree, although I do have to be careful what ornaments are on the bottom.  I hate fluffing the branches after I’ve stuffed them in a plastic tub all year. I hate trying to figure out which branches go on which layer of the tree. I hate untangling the lights and figuring out which ones work and which ones don’t. 

BUT, what I love about decorating for Christmas is seeing all my special treasures that I haven’t seen in a year or two. I  always want to talk about them. Poor Josh got the stories again tonight. 

Here are some of my favorites! 

I got this one the year I graduated from FSU!  Some people think it’s weird to put things like this on the tree, but it is important!!

This was a gift from one of my AWANA girls, YEARS ago.  I’ve had this for at least 15 years. It makes me smile every time.

  

These were my mothers.   She loved music, even though I think she was tone deaf.  These were always on her tree, and she even used them at Christmas parties! Imagine grown up people, playing these little tiny instruments!

My granny made these years ago.  I have some she made for me, and I got some that were my moms.  Now that my Granny is 92, and she’s getting feeble, they mean even more.

This one was my Mom’s and when we sorted her Christmas stuff, this is one of the ONLY ornaments I wanted.  One Christmas my mom painted this set of wooden ornaments.  We all painted some, there is a terrible looking orange teddy bear somewhere that I painted and I think it was before I was even in kindergarten. It is HORRIBLE.  I did a dreadful job.  But Mom painted this one.  We called him “ The Little Boy.”  We used to fight over who got to hang up this one – I always loved it.  Here’s the cutest part: the front and back  are different:

We called him “Butt Boy” but only when Mom couldn’t hear us! 

This sounds really corny, but pulling them out is like seeing old friends again. I always go “AWWWW” when I see certain ones. I have ornaments that special friends have given me, I have ornaments my students have given me – and I love them all.

What will $3.00 buy??

When I was a little girl, my mom would give me a penny for a gumball at the store sometimes.  Now, there’s no such thing.  Any machines at the store cost at least a quarter. That’s craziness.  I know, I know, I sound like an old person: “Back when I was little, you could get. . .”  I know what it sounds like. But, this is important!!

It’s time for me to be done buying Christmas gifts. Because we only get paid once a month and because our paycheck for December gets deposited early, I have to be careful about Christmas presents. I have to start early. Not because I buy so much, but because I need to be frugal. (Note – I prefer the word “frugal” to the word “cheap” but in this case, feel free to read “cheap.”)  I decided this year, I’m giving everyone in my family a book and something else. In my attempt to be frugal and to be a good steward of my limited funds, I’ve been looking at used books stores and thrift stores for books. I know that sounds really bad – but people donate GREAT books and at most places, hardback books can be picked up for less than $5.00. Not bad when you consider most cost at least $17.99 to start with.  So, I’ve been haunting the Lighthouse Ministries store (picked up 3 books for $2.50 one day and yesterday got 6 for $1.50)  and I’ve checked at the several Goodwill stores.  But, last week I got the deal of the century. 

My nephew works at our local public library. I know, I know. . . if you’d told me my nephew would get to work in a library before I did, I would have laughed at you, but that’s the way it is. He calls me the other night as soon as he left work and tells me the library is having a sale.  Our library often has books for sale on a table by the door, usually $2 for hardbacks, $1 for paperbacks. That is a little more expensive than some other stores, but the proceeds help the library!! The library had purged a WHOLE lot of books, and was trying to get rid of some of them. There were books EVERYWHERE, double stacked on carts, on the floor under the tables, the tables had multiple rows. It was  book lovers dream!!  Here’s the best part:  if you bought a library bag for $3, you could fill it up with as many books as you could get in it.   Yes, you read that right. As many books as you could cram, push, arrange into the bag for a measly $3.  I made out like a bandit.   Here’s my library bag:

 

And here it is stuffed full of books: (I was in a hurry – I had a baby shower to go to, I KNOW I could have gotten more in there!)

 

 

And here’s the stack of books that came out of there:

 

I think I got 17 books in there.  Most are hardback, with library binding.  Such a deal!

If you have an opportunity to support your local library, JUST DO IT! If you never go into your public library, JUST DO IT!   There are vast resources available for you, if you just see what’s there and take advantage of them.

Recovering

A week ago, I had my gall bladder removed. The technical hospital term for this procedure is  “Cholecystectomy.”  Thank God it was done laparoscopically instead of the old way, which would leave me with a big scar and six weeks of recovery. Today I go back to the doctor. I expect him to say, you’re all better, go back to work tomorrow. My four little holes are healing well, one is almost completely healed, it looks like someone drew a line on my belly with a pink marker.  One is still a little red and irritated looking, one is still has a tiny scab on it, and one has some weird rash from the tegraderm stuff that was put on over the top of it.

So far, I’ve eaten regular food and not felt nauseated at all. I ate too much the other day and felt a little sick, but it was not at all the same sick feeling I’ve had for months. Nothing has felt like that. I even ate a grilled pork chop the other night and had no ill effects. 

I’ve spent the week since then doing a  whole lot of nothing. I had a whole stack of books to read – only read some of them.   I had a whole basket of movies to watch, every time I started, I fell asleep.  I’ve slept more in the last week than I have since school started. I would be watching something, and I’d wake up and realize I’d missed half of it.

I didn’t even get dressed most days.  On Saturday I went to Publix, the library and Big Lots, and had to come home and take a nap.  Yesterday I went to Sunday School and Junior Church and that was it for me.  I was so tired, I couldn’t go back to church last night.  I woke up this morning feeling bright and bushy-tailed, and I hope it continues. I have this horrible feeling that tomorrow at 3:45, I’ll be crawling to my car.  I’m glad I’ve got nothing much planned this week. 

4 Little Holes or Tummy Trouble part ???

When I was little, we read a story called “Five Little Peppers and How they Grew.” This is not that story.  It’s probably a good thing that I just took some pain medicine or I’m not sure I could get this out.

If you read this, you’ll know I’ve been having tummy trouble. I’ve been feeling sick every time I eat since April.  After multiple tests and waiting and more tests and waiting, the third doctor I saw said “Let’s take out your gall bladder” which of course, the people at my church had already diagnosed.  The surgeon told me that he couldn’t guarantee it would make me better, but he thought it would.

So, Monday, I went under the knife, err laser, or scalpel or whatever.

I could  talk about the loveliness of putting on a hospital gown or having an IV inserted or having my belly shaved and scrubbed. . . with bright orange stuff.  I could also go on about my fashionable orange socks I was forced to wear – a dreadful Gator orange color that actually are a signal that I’ve been anaesthetized and that I could fall down easily. I tried to tell the nurse I fall down easily all the time, with fancy orange socks with a  tire tread on them or not.  

I could tell you how fabulous it was to know that so many people were praying for me, from sweet Trevor to the people in my Sunday School class and to Gee, who I love dearly and who brought me new pajamas.   Or I could tell you how wonderful it was for my Pastor and Mrs. Debbie to come in and pray with my sister and my dad and I before they took me away, even though I was terribly concerned about being all covered up. 

I think another post will be about having to crawl from the pre-op bed to the operating table,  and feeling like I was Jesus with my arms all stretched out.   Trying to decide whether I wanted to laugh or cry and thinking over and over “What time I am afraid, I will trust in You!” 

So I vaguely remember the stupid plastic mask thing and the nurse holding it down on my head, and then the other nurse saying “Wake up! You  need to cough.”  I heard someone moaning and thought please God, don’t let that be me!! It wasn’t.  I’ll skip over the nausea  and throwing up part. . .  They told my family I’d be in recovery for four hours. I went into the OR at 8:55. When I opened my eyes in the recovery room, the clock said 10:15.  I was home before noon.  Utterly amazing. 

But here’s what is left.  I have four holes in my belly.  I don’t know how in the world it works, I don’t’ know which little hole the gall bladder came out of, but all I know is this:  the gall bladder is gone and I’m left with four little holes. Well, I guess it’s gone. The doctor says it’s gone. 

WARNING:  These are NOT particularly attractive. I put the penny down for size comparison. I’m amazed.

 

 

 

The clear plastic-wrap looking stuff is called Tegraderm.  It really isn’t plastic wrap, it just looks like it. It seals tightly, and is waterproof, because I’ve had three showers and it’s still there. I guess it comes off by itself.  It doesn’t itch but it is starting to peel off in one place and yesterday, the hole at the bottom oozed blood a little.

A list of instructions

So yesterday I looked at my phone after school and had four (yes 4!) missed phone calls from Winter Haven Hospital!  That was  a little scary – and they were all just a few minutes apart. So I listened to my voice mail and realized that DUH, since I’m going “under the knife” (or laser or whatever) early Monday morning they had some Pre-Op instructions for me.  I answered all the questions

1. Have you been exposed to anyone with tuberculosis in the last 10 days?

2.  Do you smoke?

3. Have you ever had cancer?

Some of them made sense. Some, not so much – like this one – have you used any illegal drugs in the last 10 days? Seriously?  Who answers that “YES, actually, I have?”  Do you have any piercings we need to know about?   Just my ears, just my ears.

Then, the very nice lady proceeded to give me  a list of things to do and/or not do.  Now, please understand, this whole phone call only took about 15 minutes, so she was rattling off stuff like nobody's business.  Here is what I can remember.

No vitamins, minerals, herbal supplements from yesterday on.  (No fish oil!)

No aspirin.

Bring your medicines with you.

Pack an overnight bag, just in case.

You do have somebody to drive you home, right?

Nothing to eat after midnight, only enough water to wash down the blood pressure pill. 

NO Aspirin.

Leave all your valuables at home.

Bring your drivers license and insurance card.

You may bathe before either the night before or in the morning before you come.

Use antibacterial soap, like  Zest or Dial.

NO ASPIRIN!

Wear something loose and comfortable.

Be here at 7:00.  Yes, that’s AM, even though your procedure is at 9. 

NO ASPIRIN!!!!!!!