Scraps (n. ,fem., singular)

So I’m back to working full days again (late arriving notwithstanding) and working on comics and articles and all that fun stuff. And I’m exhausted and it’s only Wednesday night. Bah! I’m also on slacker-mode when it comes to dinner, I just can’t stand the thought of cooking right now, at least not anything that doesn’t require the microwave and a single vessels of some sort (fyi, pyrex pie plates are AWESOME for heating and reheating items in the microwave, seriously). I may try to break that cop-out tomorrow night but, well, maybe not. We’ll see.

So, what have we learned? Percocet does NOT equal productivity. I had zombie-brain for most of last week resulting in not much of anything getting done. I went into work for a total of 5 hours (well, 4.75) just to take care of payroll, mail and bank deposits and got some work done on the comics but not enough; it was a pencils week, but at least I continued to update. I did manage to get my articles wrapped up (man that was tough… forced march all the way) and my invoice submitted (which is good, since that next set of quarterly taxes is due this month) but I didn’t get any working ahead accomplished.

And the answer a question on the last post, gall stones are formed by the body not filtering things correctly. The stones are usually cholesterol-based (since that’s what the bile stored there is meant to help break down) but some can be protein based. You can also just have sludge in there for a variety of things. While I can’t be sure, it’s a good bet the 300+ stones were bb sized, not marbles, some natural variation occurring. I think my body is finally used to not having the gall bladder there anymore and things seem to be running as they should. My incisions are healing up and I’m still sore, but all is generally good.

Haven’t heard back about the liver biopsy, but I have a follow-up appointment this Friday so she may just be holding them until then. Now just to stave off any potential con crud/pneumonia/bronchitis etc.

Not the movie. That’s how many stones (at least) were in my gallbladder and it was the most my surgeon had seen in anyone. There are _some_ things I don’t need to be an over achiever on, ya know?

Because of this, the surgery took a bit longer than intended, but in the end it was okay. Apparently there was a bit of distress in the beginning with the application of the anesthesia but they were able to stabilize me and continue. Dr L, Friday morning, even said the stones spilled out of the sack onto the OR floor. Can you just imagine? It’s kinda funny, but laughing hurts so I try not to think about it, too much.

Honestly, though, the pain when I awoke was the worst pain I have ever felt. I mean, I was in a haze when I came-to, but I remember wanting to crawl away from the pain. Of course that makes no sense in the light of reason, but that’s all I could think of at the moment. I also remember the recovery room nurse saying she’d already given me twice the medication (dilaudid) she normally gave anyone else. Whatever, it hurt! And then they expect me to crawl from the gurney to my hospital bed? Were they crazy?

And then there’s the shoulder pain. They kept saying it was gas but I didn’t believe them, it felt more like someone had wrenched my right shoulder out of socket. Turns out the CO2 they put in the abdominal cavity irritates the diaphragm and there’s a nerve that runs up from there to the shoulder. Which explains why taking anything more than a shallow breath hurt like the dickens.

I was on morphine until about 3am Friday and then we went to Percoset. Advantage, of course, was the lack of burning in the IV port (morphine stings!) but otherwise it all seemed to do about the same (not much). I have this funny little breathing “game” I get to do every couple hours when I’m awake to make sure fluid doesn’t settle in my lungs (started running a low-grade fever Thursday night, so watching out for pneumonia). I was finally able to shower today but I think it’ll be another day or two before I’m able to shave my legs, lol.

Food-wise I’m being very careful. I had a horrible tummy-ache after some noodles and carrots in my soup last night, so have stuck to jell-o, juice, crackers and biscuits so far today. Spectrum is taking very good care of me, lots of fetch and carry (poor guy) and the rain outside is contributing to the sleepies.

Tags: gallbladderremoval, gall stones, hospital stay, medication

Allow me to explain.

Well, the first part is easy. Surgery is tomorrow so no food or water after midnight. Thankfully my surgery is scheduled for 11am which, providing it’s not pushed back for any reason, means I should probably be starting sedation around 10 and won’t even care that I’m hungry
The other part has to do with the surgery, as well. See, at the pre-op yesterday I was given this antibacterial soap that I have to shower with both tonight (already done) and tomorrow morning. And, y’all, I kid you not, it smells exactly like deodorant tampons. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. (Gents, if you do, I’m sorry.) I’m convinced it’s adding insult to injury, but at least it’s just for now.

The nerves started getting to me as I left the office, today. And the last two nights, with progessively wobbly feelings, did not have me looking forward to tonight. But, you know, I think I’m going to be okay after all. I went over to Spectrum’s for a couple of hours for cuddles and kisses and reassurances that it would all be fine (he’s so sweet to me, and that actually made me a little more wobbly for a moment, but I got it back together) and then when I got home I made some lavendar-chamomile tea to help keep me mellow. That’ll be the last thing I eat or drink until whatever the serve at the hospital tomorrow evening.

I’ll try and post sometime on Friday, after I get home and get settled, but I should be able to tweet once I’m into my room tomorrow night (follow me on twitter, username scrapsolife) since I’ll have my cell-phone with me. Happy thoughts would be greatly appreciated, gang, and I’ll see you on the flip side (less one internal organ).

Tags: gremlins, mogwai, tampons, soap, scents, nerves, surgery

External, that is. I can’t seem to find the little black case that houses my extra SD cards for the digital camera, leaving me with a single 512MB card that’s in there now. It’s more than a little frustrating. I’m fairly certain I haven’t actually lost it, merely misplaced it somewhere in my apartment. To be a bit more specific, I’m pretty sure that if it’s anywhere, it’s somewhere in the Abyss, somewhere buried deep.

Last night, before bed, I checked the usual spots along with several of the more unusual ones and came up empty but with extra dust to make a lovely sneezing symphony before bed. It’s not crucial and I’m sure I could just go out and by more cards, with more memory than what’s missing, for less than it originally cost me, but that’s not the point. I already have them. Somewhere.

Not going to worry too much about it, though, as I can always download the files to the laptop and start fresh as often as needed, don’t even need the transfer cable since Sonja has an SD card reader. Lovely, lovely thing, technology.

Tags: theAbyss, camera, memory cards, losing stuff

For some reason, Spectrum and I decided this weekend would be a good one for scary, spooky, etc. movies. Granted, neither of us are into blood and gore, so we ended up renting Skeleton Key (which Spectrum hadn’t seen, and what started this little odyssey), 1408 (”and the word is… innnnnteresting”), and House on Haunted Hill (the recent remake, which we both remembered liking and being a bit spooked by).

Um, yeah.

I don’t know if I’m just jaded and whatnot or if it was because we didn’t watch them all at night with the lights off or what, but none of them were at all scary and even though Skeleton Key was the most enjoyable one (filed in Drama which was odd but I guess it really is more suspenseful than scary) the other two were incredibly… well, not all that.

But it was a good weekend regardless of the questionable viewing choices and I got a lot done, including all of this week’s comics. Now if I could just get at least 2 articles done and next week’s comics started I won’t have to worry about dropping the ball due to el-surgerio in just a couple days. Pre-Op appointment is tomorrow, more will be revealed, I’m sure.

Tags: movies, Skeleton Key, 1408, House on Haunted Hill, comics, writing, work, pre-op

At least for the first half of the month. With the first 3 articles turned in this evening I’m starting on next week’s comics. As soon as those are finished I expect to be able to get at least the next 2 articles finished before going in for surgery on Thursday. I might even be able to get more done, depending on how productive I can be this weekend.

Went to the grocery store and stocked up after work. Combination of the usual 2 weeks worth of food and extra supplies for post-procedure: fruit smoothies, pudding, soups, jello, etc. All light stuff to give my digestive system a chance to adjust with the minimum (I hope) of tummy upset. Tried one of the fruit-protein smoothies. Oh, god, I hope it was just a matter of it not being cold enough or something because, y’all, it tasted like vomit. Seriously. I’ll give it another shot and maybe try mixing it with sprite or something but if that doesn’t work I’m tossing that particular one. Nasty!!!

But, you know, at least I can supposedly eat normally. Last time I had to recuperate it was my throat surgery, so really no solid anything for quite some time. Still high on anesthesia I was sick at just the thought of popsicles and pudding for a week, I asked V to get me some baby food, figuring at least it wouldn’t be sweet. And for the first day it tasted great. The next day, the super-drugs having worn off, I realized the oh-so-error of my ways. Luckily, a client of ours had a small child and she could use the unopened stuff. The desserts and some veggies were still good, but if I never have to eat pureed turkey dinner, etc. again it will be too soon!

Tags: articles, food, groceries, baby food

Actually, I had the news yesterday but I was so busy finishing up this week’s strips last night that all I could do was fall into bed, exhausted, around 1am. Blogging was a brief afterthought as I fell asleep.

So. Anyway. Monday I started trying to find out which surgeon I’d been referred to so that I could follow-up with them in case they didn’t call me [fast enough]. Yes, I know, I’m pushy. I prefer to consider being my own best advocate. I started by calling my doctor’s office but had to leave a voicemail for the nurse (who is not my favorite, she has a very, um, unresponsive personality and doesn’t exactly exude energy) so I tried a different tack.

Based on the names of possible surgeons my doctor had mentioned on Friday, I looked them up in the Provider database for my HMO and found they all belonged to the same practice. Well, that made things seemingly simple so I called to see if they’d received my records yet. No dice. Another call (message) to the doctor’s office.

Tuesday morning, much to my surprise, I get a call from Nurse Naps-&-Walks that they’d sent my records to a different office entirely. No biggie, at least they’d been sent _somewhere_ on Friday so Tuesday was a totally appropriate follow-up day. Apparently they received them around 2pm Monday (so much for timely) and the scheduling nurse had left at noon, so she  hadn’t gotten to me yet. BUT! She was not only positive about me taking the initiative (”rather than fall through the cracks” was her exact phrase) she got me in to see a surgeon in an hour!

After picking up the disc with my ultrasound images on it I headed over to the hospital. My doctor is a very nice redhead who actually seemed to know what the hell Carcinoid is and totally didn’t dismiss me (granted, I was nervous and stressing a bit so was full-on flushing, kinda makes the case that more believable when its sitting in front of you in technicolor, no?) as being over-cautious. To make a long story not any shorter, my surgery is scheduled for next Thursday, the 21st, and will be done in the regular OR rather than same-day-surgery to be better prepared in case anything goes flukey with the anesthesia, etc (a possibility due to the Carcinoid syndrome). She’s also planning to do a liver biopsy to investigate the potential fatty liver (I’m foie gras! lol) the ultrascan and the 2003 MRI reported.

It feels like a small yet very important victory.

The plan is that I’ll spend the one night in the hospital, just as a precaution, then spend the following week off of work, healing up. I have the vacation time to cover what sick time won’t so I don’t have to force myself to go back early if I’m not feeling up to it, and I should be right as rain in time for Dragon*Con. Mom asked me if I was nervous… No, not really. I mean, I’m not exactly looking _forward_ to it, but I was more nervous about trying to get it scheduled than anything else. Granted, I have a right to revise that stance come Wednesday

Tags: gallbladderremoval, dealing with doctors

And thank heavens for that. It seemed like it took forever to get started drawing tonight. In fact, the first panel of Wednesday’s strip took a full hour. But I’m really proud of some of the poses I managed to draw in the 2nd and 5th panels so it all balances out. Still working on Friday’s pencils but there’s several panels still virtually blank so they may spill over into tomorrow.

Now for something completely different. I’ve been sporadically exposing Spectrum to various movies he’s never watched before. This weekend is was Oscar! with Sylvester Stallone. I’m not really a Sly fan, but this movie makes me giggle whenever i see it. Last weekend it was Lemony Snickett’s a Series of Unfortunate Events, before that Coyote Ugly and before that Sugar and Spice. So far he’s found them all enjoyable and some (SnS, primarily) laugh-out-loud funny Granted, there are some movies I’d never ask him to watch (Clueless comes immediately to mind) but there are plenty of others I can mine for entertainment value.

Tags: movies, drawing

Shopping recap for the weekend

10.75 spent on a pink martini glass lamp for the bar

79.57 total spent on shoes
 (4 pairs, average 19.89 per)

26.30 total spent on accessories
 (5 items, average 5.26 per)

317.36 total spent on clothing
 (23 items, average 13.79 per)
    1 dress
    5 jammies
    1 pr shorts, 3 pr pants, 4 skirts
    9 shirts

And that’s what I did with my weekend. Not including a trip to the grocery store, a stop at the liquor store and 2 meals out.  But you get the picture. After a whole month of not shopping, I suppose I was due for a splurge. Granted, of the above, most of it was on store charge accounts (nice to have for the few times a year I go and refit my wardrobe, lol).

Most of the clothes are work clothes (obviously not the jammies, those are for recuperating from surgery and so forth) that will get me through quite a while. The shoes were an attempt to find comfy sandals/casuals with mid-height heels for walking around in at DragonCon and I think I finally managed to cover those bases (I can’t do 3 days in flats or tennis shoes without serious tendinitis pain and my current heeled options aren’t con-floor friendly).

And speaking of jammies! Even though I was specifically looking for nightgowns and sleep shirts I saw this one tank-and-short set that I _had_ to have: it’s got martini-swilling monkeys on it, hello?!?

Tags: clothesshopping, monkeys, jammies, martinis, dragon con preparedness

Not getting much writing done and feeling kinda icky, so might as well make it an early night. Brain’s feeling a bit foggy along with the usual stuff so very little concentration to be found around Casa de Scraps. Started another article but mostly I just wandered around the internet while listening to Marie Antoinette and Independence Day. Until next time…

Didn’t get 2 articles drafted, but did get one article written along with the majority of the example pictures taken. It was tough getting started tonight, but progress is progress.

And speaking of…

I actually called the diagnostic place this afternoon to see if they’d finished with my file. Turns out they have faxed the report over already (she never did say exactly when) but it didn’t go through (straight from the computer apparently doesn’t send up the same sort of transmission error as the old-fashioned way).  So while they resent it to my doctor they also sent me a copy, so that portion of the wait is over!

As we thought: gallstones. Apparently several, but the gallbladder was tough to image so it was more the impression of them than a clear picture. I’ve already made an appointment for Friday morning to go over the results and discuss options. Laparoscopic surgery is generally the default and usually equals 1 night in the hospital and 1 week of rest. Whether that’s an option according to my doctor and the insurance company remains to be seen, but it’s pretty common these days and was already mentioned by my primary before she sent me for the ultrasound.

While I’m not exactly giddy over the prospect, if it really will be that simple I’m more willing to go ahead and have it done than wait for another stone to get stuck somewhere or the organ to become inflamed and go through all that another time or two before getting fed up. Plus, one source got me thinking that the heartburn, etc started getting steadily worse back in February and perhaps it’s not from the hiatal hernia (which gave me very few problems before this year) but the gallbladder acting up. It’s a possibility, from what I can tell, and another reason to go ahead and fix it sooner rather than later (aka quality of life and one less pill at night).

Nothing else of note showed up on the studies, so that’s good, too.

Tags: health, gallstones, crafts, articles, writing

And last night I didn’t have it.

Well, I did, but it was all occupied by pencilling for over 6 hours straight. So that tells me that it takes just over 2 hours per page just to pencil. Tonight was all about the inking and I’m pretty much at 1.5 hours per page for that. So 3.5 hours per page (update) not including scripting (and let’s not get into the strange ordeal that turns into–you’d think it would be simple because, you know, I lived it and all, but not necessarily). Which isn’t all that bad, not really, and it tells me how much I’d need to carve out of my week if I wanted to start building that buffer again (though, as I told Spectrum, I don’t see that really happening anytime soon without a week’s vacation from the day job).

Anyway, have I done anything else other than the comic? Um, no… That’s why I’ll be drafting two articles tomorrow night to catch up with that and, then, probably spend Thursday before and after the meeting working on the WT script. Sure, that works… sorta.

Still no word from the doctor. They have through tomorrow before I have to get a little pushy. I realize that I’m not their only patient. I realize that at the time I was having my studies done, at least one if not two others were also having them done, and then however many repeats during the day. And I realize that there’s probably one, maybe two, doctors that review the studies (which is another peeve: the person going over the films is not the person I’ve talked to, knows nothing other than whatever my form says (which I didn’t get to write) so cares not one iota about my concerns… but anyway!) so it takes exponentially more time to get results. But just because there are other patients does not make my health, my issues, less important than anyone else, and 5-7 days is just rather ridiculous when you consider the ongoing issues it’s supposed to spot. Sigh… Whatever, I’ll eventually get the results and may actually have something to actually work on then. But the waiting sucks, okay?

Tags: comic, art, drawing, time management, waiting, doctors

So I signed up for the 30 Day Challenge (and promptly fell about a day behind, but whatever) to polish my online marketing skills and so forth and one of the tools they recommend is the Flock browser. It’s basically Firefox with a social-networking face-lift. One of the options is being able to upload blog posts without actually having to go to a site (same for twitter and facebook status updates and so forth) so I figured I’d give it a try-out while I’m working on this month’s comic scripts.

And I have no clue what to write about. Lots of stuff happened today (no work from the doctor’s, of course) but nothing it writeable. And I don’t care that that’s not a word.

Oh, and I got bored and cut my hair.

That phrase, in an email from an old friend, made me giggle this morning.

What didn’t make me giggle was the lack of word from the doctor. Blah. So I’m still waiting to see if Tuesday morning was a waste or not or if we’re ever going to figure me out.

But I did get _some_ good news: My name is finally right on my PayPal account, now! Yay! See, back when I set up my account in 2000 I had a different last name. When I changed it legally it really didn’t seem that big a deal to not go through the hassle of supplying documents, etc to PayPal to effect the change (hoops, they have them). But, since I plan to open pre-orders for the RA Year 1 Book in the next month or so I wanted there to be no question of who was doing business here. So last week I trundled through the process again and found that you can now upload scans of the required documents (and thank goodness the Clerk of Court has actual scans of documents on their website, made things so easy)! Yay! But there was still no sign of the change as of today so I sent them a polite status request email and wonder of wonders, it’s now updated! Whee! I’m me again

The piggies aren’t broken. Apparently the x-ray was perfectly clear, I can still maintain my “no broken bones” title (knock on wood), and it’s just a matter of the soft tissue healing. However long that takes (up to another month I’m told).

Aside from that. Nothing new to report. My anxiety leading up to this mornings ultrasounds was (of course) way worse than the actual experience. I actually lucked up and got a very personable sonographer (usually I get the prune-faced battle axe who has the bedside manner of a bean) but she couldn’t tell me anything what (if anything) she saw. I don’t know why I thought I’d know something today and, really, I’ll be lucky if I get my results by the end of the week but I’m hopefully. I’m not generally a patient person and this sort of limbo is never really helpful. So I’ll just try to stay busy in the mean time.

But I don’t really feel up to blogging about any of it. Maybe tomorrow I can muddle through it a bit more. In the mean time, I’ll just ruminate in silence while inking this week’s comics.

I teetered a bit on that whole no-shopping thing this weekend but it wasn’t much. And it was in the name of research and good will as while he was ringing up my purchases I sweetly asked if i could conduct a brief interview. So, yeah, total expense account. I can only claim laziness and cravings for the meals out Friday and Saturday but it still wasn’t at all extravagant. So I didn’t make it an entire month, but I got close! And I’m going to stick with it until Friday, anyway.

Work-wise I’m in the midst of wrapping up my last 4 articles for the month. It always feels good to get another month in the can which leads directly to another check in the mail. Always a good thing. And since it gives me most of a week before I need to start writing the next set of articles that gives me time to not only work on this week’s comics but scripting all of next month as well. Back to the photo editing for the articles, though.

So I finally went to the doctor today. I was sure she’d absolutely hate me for coming in with a laundry list of things that were wrong but she was actually really cool about it. The results of this are as follows:

1) I went for x-rays on my foot. It’s still sorta messed up from the slamming the piggie toes took about a month ago. The theory is that even if something is cracked in there, it may be too late to set it, but we’ll see just in case.
2) Tuesday morning I go in for two ultrasounds
2a) Abdominal because last week’s unpleasantness and the after effects sound a LOT like a gall bladder attack.
2b) Pelvic to check for fibroids (because Mom was recently dx’d with bunches of them and it’s genetic, better to, if nothing else, have a baseline for future reference) and anything else (like a sneaky carcinoid tumor or cyst or anything that could be wrong… it’s one of the few places we haven’t looked and my symptoms are back so…)
3) Bloodwork orders for next week
4) The pain in my right thumb is not Carpal Tunnel (yay!) but is tendinitis (eh). I have two more weeks in a brace and if it’s still bothering me I’m to call TOC for a cortisone shot.

Lots of bases covered but at least I feel a smidgen more in control of the situation and, well, that helps.