Squirrel!

I don't have to watch the Oscars, or pretty much anything else on TV, because so many people are live-tweeting or live-blogging the event that I can stay abreast of anything newsworthy. I liked "Up!" so I'm glad it won whatever it just won. Plus I can't stay awake well enough to focus on writing the post I meant to write about my mother-in-law's latest meltdown or even describing our latest family craft project. So forget about it. Fit of crazy about Riley Dino's diet (apparently Sprite Zero is to blame for all that ails the boy, but Pop Tarts are just fine) concluding in exchange of screams and curses, dioramas in shoe boxes, blah blah blah. Think I'll read a book and eat some rice cakes or something. Meh.

Released

Dino Spouse is home. They let him out of the hospital around lunchtime, right after my HIDA scan. It's good to have him home. The kids went to bed tonight without drama, a sure sign that all is right with the world. Babushka was greatly relieved to have her baby home safe.

I am going back to work tomorrow.

My 1000th post is coming up soon. What should I write about?

Health Fatigue

Dino Spouse remains in the hospital. They were starting to release him Monday afternoon when his temperature jumped and the chills came back. Now he's been 24 hours without a fever. As long as his incision sites look decent and his drains keep draining, the odds are good that he'll be coming home tomorrow.

Babushka had the second of two procedures this week to close off the varicose veins in her left leg, which will hopefully result in increased mobility and decreased pain.


I have my HIDA scan tomorrow morning. The prospect of a morning without antacids or coffee does not excite me. I'm not sure why I'm awake now, but it probably has something to do with the caffeine I ingested at 9:30 PM on my way back to the hospital to visit Dino Spouse. He likes dilaudid and "Robot Chicken." I can see where that would be a winning combination.

Everybody To Get From Street

Dino Spouse has been suffering an ailment in an unfortunate part of his body since Monday. I was going to blog smack on him on Thursday, when he got a doc to give him vicodin for his common, easily treatable ailment while my doc gave me a mere (albeit mostly adequate) antispasmodic for an inflamed biliary and/or digestive system. By Saturday, however, it became clear that Dino Spouse's complaint had led to some kind of burgeoning infection. The doc-in-the-box on duty at urgent care gave him some antibiotics and more pain pills and told him to come back Monday. When he turned a yellow-ish color and couldn't stop shivering this morning, Babushka and I decided that he was going to the emergency room.

The upshot of all of this is that Dino Spouse is resting comfortably in the new wing of Howard County General this evening after undergoing emergency surgery to drain an abcess in his undisclosed location and halt the cellulitis that was radiating outward therefrom. Surprise! I am disappointed in the unnamed physician (who is not Dr. Kim or Dr. Fusilier, because they rock) at the local AllCare who failed to grasp the severity of my husband's infection. Ironically, it was the surgeon whose practice refused to remove Babushka's gall bladder because she had medicaid who operated on Mr. Dinosaurov today.

The new wing of HoCo General is gorgeous, with single rooms that make it a major improvement over the last time any of us stayed there. I have to applaud the appearance of a triage doctor in their ER today, an innovation which got the dilaudid and antibiotics flowing through my husband's veins much faster than would otherwise have been the case. Are these kinds of things standard in countries with functioning national health care systems? I wonder. I would like to think they are, but I can't tell whether the driver for these improvements is medical or commercial.

Dino Spouse should be released tomorrow afternoon or evening if all goes well.

Antispasmodic

"Spastic" was a term of derision in my youth, so I take great delight in taking the antispasmodic medication my doctor prescribed for my troublesome innards. No way are they going to be spastic now, boy howdy. The only downside of bentyl is that it makes me want to fall asleep, which is why I think my blog entry for tonight is almost over. I have to get a HIDA scan and see a specialist.

In Columbia

I took the day off today so I could take Riley Dino back to the orthodontist and get myself to my own doctor. My mother-in-law got the kids off to school so I could sleep and made me some oatmeal to boot. Oatmeal, along with rice cakes, dry puffed wheat, and nonfat plain yogurt, is one of the things I can eat without burning pain in my gut. (Unfortunately, the eight blueberries I put on the oatmeal and/or the coffee gave me killer heartburn. But I digress.) I had time to get a pedicure and nail repair done and pick up the dry cleaning before Riley's appointment; polish will have to wait til after I see the Good Doctor. Riley will have to wear braces another six months, but he was reconciled to this fact by discovering that his orthodontist has an incentive program where he can collect tokens for good behavior and oral hygiene and earn toys.

Visits to the Good Doctor seldom bring out the best in me - I heart him, but I hate waiting 50 minutes to see him for ten. The cross-section of humanity in the waiting room inevitably brings out my worst ageist tendencies. Alert Muppet Labs, pain makes me crabby! I should remember to listen to my iPod and bring a book when I know I'll be in the waiting room, especially now that they've eliminated magazines as a possible nexus of contagion. I hope my ill humor and weight loss (10 lbs in two weeks - not freakish, but still impressive) will impress the Good Doctor and make him give me good drugs and some useful test referrals.

Everybody Must Get Stoned

Whatever stones my body may be forming in my gall bladder or kidneys or whatever seems to be trying to escape. I base this conclusion on the searing pain that has gripped my ureters (or whatever) periodically since the morning. Baba and Dino Spouse were so alarmed by my state that they pressed more endocet on me, rendering me mute and docile. While misery of this sort would usually have me running for the nearest emergency medical facility, I've spent enough time tending to Baba's stones that I know there's not a lot they'll be inclined to do (besides give me meds) unless I stop being able to pee or something. So I am staring into the middle distance a lot and doing a whole lot of nothing.

Conversation this AM at Burger King after Mouse and Riley Dino's Saturday morning classes:

Riley: Nerds rule!

Me: That's what I'm sayin'.

Riley: Mom, you're a nerd.

Me: Exactly!

Riley: You're like a Nerd Master, like a Jedi Master.

Me: And you're a Nerd Knight.

Mouse: What am I?

Me: You're a Nerd Padawan.

Riley: You can be a Nerd Squire who gets the knight his Nerd Tools.

Me: Like, "Fetch me my laptop immediately, squire," like that?

Riley: Yeah. "Bring me my glasses at once!"