Pamplemousse is stretched out in patch of sunlight in the dining room, pretending to be oblivious. Chou is curled up in a basket in the living room, truly oblivious. Shadow is serving as a kitty postage stamp on the corner of the bed, alternating between obliviousness and alertness. Porch Kitten is galavanting around the neighborhood. T is puttering. C is upstairs being a teenager. L is packing.

I? I’m baking cookies (chocolate chip) while I wait for Boyfriend to finish doing handyman type crap (currently, he’s installing an exhaust fan in the bar to combat the smokiness) around the house so we can watch movies (White Heat with Jimmy Cagney, The Enforcer with Humphrey Bogart and Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark [remakes] with Katie Holmes).

Wow. I just realized what a cozy, homey picture that paints.

And it’s about to get even cozier because his ex/baby momma, L (who had to move in when she lost her job and house), is finally moving out… and not just out of here, but out of the state! I hate how happy and excited I am about that because it’s exactly the way that girl, S, [that T cheated on me with] was when I moved out… and I am nothing like her; I never want to be anything like her. But, as you can imagine, L’s being here put a strain on our relationship and it’ll be a relief when she’s gone.

Speaking of gone, I still haven’t really dealt with my Dad’s death. I’m still just kind of pretending that it never happened and nothing has changed, but I know someday I will have to face it… and it’s going to be bad. I need to get an urn for his ashes, but I can’t afford one right now and that really bothers me. I think my mom is superstitious about having the ashes there with her (like it’s his ghost or something), so the sooner I take them, the better. I actually want them around. It will make me feel closer to him. I will probably talk to them/him. (Don’t judge!)

Mom is moving into a new apartment this weekend. She wasn’t on the lease with my Dad and she couldn’t afford that one by herself, so she’s basically skipping out… except they won’t be able to pursue her for anything and they’d have kept the deposit anyway, so no worries. Well, that’s not quite true; I do worry about her being alone. I looked at reviews and used my super secret contacts from my tenant screening days to make a list of complexes for her to check out. I’m really glad she chose my top pick. I wanted her to be in a cute, safe, affordable place in a familiar neighborhood. She needed to have a wash/dryer in the unit because she still gets easily winded/tired due to Renal Disease. She’s going to start dialysis soon, while waiting for a transplant. If an organ becomes available, she wouldn’t be able to carry laundry to and from a laundry room after surgery for quite a while and since she doesn’t drive, she couldn’t really get to an offsite laundromat regularly either. I also looked for communities that were on the busline, for those same reasons. That way, if she needs to go shopping somewhere or just wants to get out of the house for a while, she won’t have to depend on others all the time.
I did get upset though when she donated to Goodwill the stuff of my dad’s that I had specifically asked for… because I couldn’t get a ride out there on the day she wanted me to get it. Whatever. It’s done. There’s nothing I can do about it.

Work is alternating between some really scary moments and some really relaxing moments. They fired the new Accountant. I don’t know if she was overwhelmed and had trouble keeping up or if she was overwhelmed and got lazy, but she was late all the time, left early and called in sick a lot and they found out she had 10 days worth of checks in her car’s glove compartment waiting to be deposited. It makes me wonder about all those times she said she was “going to the bank.” Where did she really go? What did she really do?

They offered me a promotion last Tuesday. The wanted me to move off the front desk and go upstairs doing, as they put it, “customer service… working with clients.” They would discuss a pay raise after 90 days, if they were happy with my performance and if I was happy with the position. If not, I could move back downstairs to the front desk again. I agreed and we determined they’d hire a temp for the front desk and I’d start the new position Monday.

On Friday, they told me I would be handing maintenance, work orders and contractors instead. I didn’t really care, except I could see a few complications… I don’t really know much about home repair since I’ve never had a house and I only have a prepaid cell phone. I wouldn’t know the necessary terminology or best course of action to fix something and I might not even have enough minutes/funds left to respond to the calls. Also, with me camming online so many nights, I worried about what would happen if I were doing a show and the pager went off. I wouldn’t want to hurt my reputation or get chargebacks for stopping in the middle, nor would I want to cause liability issues for my employer. I explained this and said if they felt it wouldn’t be wise for me to transfer, toi ust let me know and I’d certainly understand.

On Saturday night, they texted me and asked me to call them before Monday. I didn’t get the text until the next day because T and I kind of have a policy of putting the cell phones away when we’re spending time together… and we were celebrating our 12 year anniversary. I didn’t have very much time/money left on my phone, so I borrowed someone else’s and tried to call. They didn’t pick up because they didn’t recognize the number and I didn’t leave a message since it wasn’t my phone and I shouldn’t really have them call me on it. I wondered if they were going to fire me because I wasn’t a good fit for what they wanted me to do or because they thought I ignored their text.

When I arrived on Monday, there was no temp, so I started working at the front desk as I would normally. I assumed they hadn’t found someone yet or the person hadn’t been able to start that particular day. Later that day, a young girl walked in and said, “Hi, I’m A,” as if I were supposed to know who she was. “Hello, how may I help you?” “I’m here to see < office manager >.” Oooook. Office Manager didn’t know her either. As it turns out, the boss hired her friend’s kid (A) to answer phones for me rather than a temp. I was told to start training her. I did, but I sort of wondered if I would be training my replacement and if they’d fire me once she knew the ropes. Hmmm.
I was called into a meeting shortly afterwards and they told me that since I wasn’t a good fit for the Maintenance Division, they came up with a special project for me instead. They wanted me to set up this [horrible] new Property Management software that we bought for $20,000 in 2007 and never used. They’d had five other people try configuring it over the past few years, but none of them could figure it out. Ugh. But, I am the most tech saavy person and I do like those sorts of tasks.
Rather than waiting for me to take the supplemental webinar (the next session wasn’t available for another 2 weeks), they had me begin the following day certain I could learn it all on my own just by looking around inside it. For the most part, I did, but it’s complicated, tedious, annoying and poorly designed, imo. Since no one told me the software has to be “compacted” each time you close it – not just “saved,” I lost everything I had done and the system locked me out. Tech support said the only way to even be able to log back in ever again was to restore a backup. They couldn’t tell me where to find one or how to restore it since they don’t install the software and that we’d have to contact our IT person to do it. Super! It cost just $110 for him to comne out and then $110 for each hour he’s there. (Dude totally milks the clock too!) To be honest, I don’t think we even DO backups on our peer to peer “server.” I’m probably going to have to start all over again. Grrrr. Fine. Job security + More time away from the phone, in my own private office with a window that has as lovely view of rows of pine trees divided by a little path, where I can crank up Pandora and while away the day doing computer stuffs. Fair enough.

Friday, they fired another employee. She’d been there 10 years. I don’t know what she did; I don’t think I _want_ to know. I did hear that “it was the worst insubordination in the history of the company” though. Considering the things I’ve seen go down without any sort of discipline, I can’t imagine what it was! I didn’t care for her much, but I felt bad that she got fired. Now I am the one with the most seniority and I won’t have to fight over vacation days. More job security? Gosh, I don’t even know what to make of it. For so many years no one did anything about the obvious staff problems. Now they suddenly care and people are dropping like flies? After she packed up and left I was also told another employee had given notice and would be leaving next week. Whoa!

I paused and took the cookies out of the oven a while ago. I deliberately didn’t cook them completely, so they are nice and chewy. I’ve already had 6 of them and I’m not sorry. I am, however, more than ready to cuddle on the couch. If I have to help finish the smoke eradicator project in order to make that happen, so be it. Farewell… for now.

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My grief and grieving process seems to be a bit manic depressive. So, if I am acting surprisingly fine considering or really fucking weird instead…. This is why.
For the most part, I don’t want to talk about this at all. Then sometimes I can’t stop. I’m laughing one moment, sobbing the next. I actually thought I would still go into work. (Pfft. Dumb.) Namely, because right now, the best thing is for me not to think about what happened; keeping busy and being around people helps me stay distracted. I figured sitting alone in my apartment with too much time to think would be very bad for me. (And it is…) However, I only slept a couple of hours last night, then when I missed the bus this morning (it’s usually exactly 9 minutes late and I was early- only a few feet away from the stop when it coasted by right on time, but I just didn’t have the strength to jog after it), I took that as a sign to stay home. I told our office manager, then I got 4 more hours of sleep. Now, I don’t know what to do with myself.

Tonight, I am keeping my hair appointment to get out of here for a while and maybe try to look better than I feel in hopes it will cheer me up somehow. I also need to get groceries for the week of meals here, to pick up my anti-baby pills and to grab a few last minutes presents before Friday. The challenge: I hope I can hold it together enough to do these things without becoming a spectacle.

He is being cremated. I will be receiving some ashes and need to find something to place them in soon. We don’t have enough money for an obituary (the newspaper wanted $180 for only his name and city, wtf), funeral or memorial (he let his life insurance lapse before going into the hospital). So much for “closure;” I *need* the formality of that in order to deal with this!!!!!!
I don’t go back to work until next Wednesday 12/28. I had already scheduled my remaining 4 vacation days to use 2 right before and 2 right after Xmas to extend my holiday, now I’ve added 2 bereavement days to that. Not much of a holiday or vacation, given the circumstances.

I feel like my life is forever changed… and not in a good way…

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I spent all of last week going back and forth between my parent’s apartment, the hospital and my office. One of my coworkers lives near my parents and was kind enough to shuttle me around. It’s about an hour each way because of traffic to get from parents/hospital to work and vice versa.

Dad is basically the same. He’s on a ventilator and 35% oxygen, which is down from 55% when they first admitted him, so that’s a bit better… however, his blood gases are often 90 or below- not so great. (I believe it is 80 and below that get extremely dangerous.) Blood pressure and pulse fluctuate between high and low, but no fevers. He has been given liquid nutrients: calcium and fiber, basically, tube fed food because he’s very malnourished; he weights 125lbs. They put him on propofol, fentanyl and an antibiotic (I forgot the name) initially. Midweek they decided to lower the propofol and start some ativan to slowly wean him off the drugs and wake him a little bit.

They’ve decided he definitely has COPD. One doc said they got the pneumonia about cleared up; another doc said he didn’t have pneumonia and that was just the way complications from the emphysema/chronic bronchitis manifested. Nice to see we’re all on the same page here! *snort* Either way, the shit that comes out when they suction his lungs is horrifying- thick as jelly and very brown from tobacco. They were having to do this pretty often when I was there last time because he was coughing it up and then choking on it as he swallowed it again. (Ew!)

They did the biopsy Friday. The doctor didn’t have time between surgeries to discuss his thoughts beyond saying it looked like it was between stage 2 and stage 3 cancer. If he gets stronger, he might be able to do chemo or radiation, but it probably can’t be cut out. Knowing Dad, he will refuse treatment.

By the end of the week he was opening his eyes sometimes, able to cough on command and squeeze hands. He’s able to use those methods to respond to questions, since he can’t talk right now. They did a tracheotomy, which is a hole/tube in the windpipe to keep the airway clearer. He’s restrained because he is really agitated. He shakes his head “no” violently, tries to wave people to back away and he even made a [feeble - since he's way too weak] attempt to kick a nurse. In fact, he’s so combative they gave him haldol, which is an anti-psychotic that is also sometimes used as an alternate drug to calm difficult patients when other meds aren’t doing the trick or can’t be used due to other illnesses or risks (i.e. heart trouble or, surprise, breathing problems). I suspect they probably think he has some delirium or delusions, but unless it’s due to hypoxia (tissue damage from oxygen deprivation) he experienced while THERE or related to withdrawal from all the drugs they had him on, I really doubt it. I am positive he doesn’t have dementia; there were zero signs of that before he was sedated and it isn’t something that happens overnight!

The nurses are getting really worried that he won’t be cooperative enough to be able to come off sedation. I don’t know what happens then. I do know that the social worker has already started bugging my mom to get him out of the hospital even though he is still critical and not stable yet and put him somewhere else [like a nursing home[ [because he's medicare/medicaid and they won't get paid as much as they would with an insured person taking the bed - awful, sad, true]. The lady hasn’t come right out and said it… yet… but that’s the sense we’re getting. Fuck them. By law we have 120 days to stay, if needed. It’s necessary, assholes.

I picked up some nasty germs from the hospital myself. I had an incredibly painful sore throat. When it eased up I couldn’t breathe through my nose at all. Now, I keep coughing. I wanted to go see Dad tonight, but I don’t want to give him any of my sickness or make whatever I have going on any worse. Maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. :(

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I told her to call me as soon as she found out anything. By 10am, I hadn’t heard from her yet, so I called the hospital and asked for Patient Information. Of course, all they would tell me was that yes, he was there. I told them my mother was in the waiting room and asked if they could page her and ask her call me, since she does not have a cell phone. They agreed. Over an hour later, she still hadn’t called, so I called Patient Information back and they transferred me to Admitting, who would only tell me what room number Dad is in. I wondered what type of floor that was, but they wouldn’t even tell me that. (Turns out, it is the Critical Care unit.)

My mom took a cab back home around noon and called to fill me in: Dad has pneumonia in his lower right lung, blood poisoning (which they think is from the lung infection) and they found a big tumor on his voicebox. The attending physician said it doesn’t look good from him [because of his age, his smoking, his poor nutrition and the size of the mass], but told my mom it was ok to go on home since he was going to be sedated for several hours. The ear/nose/throat specialist wants to do a biopsy to see if the growth is indeed cancer, but they have to get the infection under control first. They say the mass is spongy and almost like a fungus. Honestly, since my dad started getting hoarse over a year ago and recently could only whisper, I have no doubt it is malignant, so it will be a pleasant surprise if they find out it is not.

I had to call my sister in Vegas and give her the news. She started crying before I even got past dad went to the ER because he was having trouble breathing. Much like I had, she has been on him about going to see a doctor too. (I found out he he lied to her though and said he got checked out and everything was fine. She didn’t really believe him, but that’s what he said, so…) Sis asked if she should come out and I told her that would probably be a goo idea. She was going to call for a flight as soon as we got off the phone. She is flying out either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on what’s available.

I’m not ready to lose Dad yet. But, would I ever be, really?

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I don’t think many women could or would put up with this type of situation.

L has to go outside to smoke every 30 minutes [or more] and walks across the tv, interrupting our view. (I don’t know how someone unemployed spends so much on cigarettes, but that’s not the point. She could go out another door, but noooo.) And, of course, on her way back, she reeking of smoke, has to stop and talk to/pet the cats, causing us to miss dialogue every time. She’s in and out the door to smoke at all hours and each time the door opens or closes it shakes the entire house. We can’t sleep like that, constantly being woken up by it. I used to like to sit in the rocking chair on the porch for a little solitude, but every fucking time I do, she comes out. No solitude for me! Hell, every time I want to go to the bathroom there, brush my teeth or take a shower, someone is in it or needs to come in; I can’t even get any alone time in there!

L’s supposed to be “earning her keep” by making dinner and doing the dishes. That would be a great arrangement except for the fact that nothing T has in the house or buys is good enough for her. Miss Unemployed, irresponsible, lazy, free-loader is in no position to be picky and choosy yet, she won’t use canned goods, frozen goods, anything that isn’t “her” brand or make anything that doesn’t have meat in it (because she says she needs protein in her food). Sounds like she’s all health-conscious, right? Yet, she puts a shit-ton of butter, sugar and cream in everything! She loves to tell T what he is doing wrong and how SHE does it or what SHE uses.

After meals she cooks, I usually offer to do the dishes and she turns me down saying she has her own system. Ok. Maybe. I guess that system is leaving them sitting through several more meals until there’s no more clean silverware left to use and then complaining about how much work there is to do! Yeah, a half hour of dish washing is so much more work than those of us putting in 40 hour weeks at the office, eh?

As if L weren’t bad enough to have to deal with, ever since her mother has moved in, the girl (C) has been nothing but a little bitch to everyone except her Mom. Anything that comes out of C’s mouth is some snotty, know-it-all retort. (Actually, she sounds just like her mother! LOL!)
The bus stops right outside the house, yet C refuses to take it and expects him to drop whatever he is doing/totally rearrange his plans and take her somewhere immediately or worse, go get something for her right now, while she’s busy texting or playing on the internet and just _has_ to stay there to do that. (And he DOES, which sets the example that throwing a fit gets you your way!) He asks her to do her chores and she is “busy” “petting the cat” or watching a movie, doing her nails, has plans etc etc. She says she’ll “do it later.” He gets furious because, despite having reminded her several times, she claims she “forgot” and of course, by that time it is too late for her to do them because she has school the next day, so she gets out of it completely. Nice strategy! If C doesn’t get her way, she either turns it into a shouting match or cries. He ends up doing her chores himself or doing whatever it is she wants. (Again, great example! I guess I’m getting old, because in my days, we would have at the very least had privileges taken away for stuff like she pulls.)

Today, I had enough and so I decided to do something about it.

T, myself and the girl are doing dishes while L is in church (*snort*). Any idiot knows it doesn’t take 3 people to do dishes! But, ok, I know he’s set it up that way purposely. Then, C will actually do it and do it now because she has someone helping her (*ahem* lazy, spoiled) and it’s kind of “all in this together” scenario. He’s washing. She’s rinsing. I’m… putting the dishes in the drainer…? She put on my gloves. (Ok, fine, she can use them, I guess. Wish she’d asked though!) Then, I have to go upstairs to her room to collect the dishes she and her friends used and didn’t bother to bring down because she’s busy rinsing. Fine. Whatever. lazy… sense of entitlement… Ok.
The water coming out of the tap is so hot that it is actually steaming and the steam is hovering over that side of the sink. It is really heating up the dishes too! C can’t feel it because, obviously, she is wearing my gloves. I, however, have burned my hand twice now on the hot metal pots and pans she’s given me. I go over and add a little bit of cold water to the stream coming from the faucet. She make some sort of huffing noise at me. I say, “sorry, the dishes were so steaming hot that they were burning my hands.” (There were no towels left for me to use to protect my hands and C had on the only pair of gloves.) Then she makes it a point to walk around me to put the next dish in the rack herself, cutting me out of the “assembly line.” I figure she was just hurrying to get done and forgot to hand it to me in her rush to get it over with. I hold out my hands for the next one, indicating I’m still here and ready and willing to help. Then, she does it again. I can tell by her body language that this is deliberate and kinda malicious, really. I say, “well, I guess I’m done here” and I go upstairs. When I get to the top, I hear her telling T that I am “such a child” blah, blah, blah. That pisses me off! I shout down, “for not wanting to burn my fucking hand?” I go into the bedroom, marveling at the ridiculousness of being called a child for turning the cold water on a 1/4 to prevent myself from being scalded. She stomps upstairs after they are done and slams her door.

Well, that’s the last straw for me. I pack my backpack and tell T I’m going home because I’m tired of being treated like this when I am working so hard to be nice to everyone in a bad situation. He wouldn’t speak up for me, he just stood there and let that little brat act like this, just like he does all the time. Now it is 100 times worse with L living there too!
You know, I don’t ask for much and, consequently, that’s what I get- not much… except aggravation. It isn’t worth it. He can come over and see me at my apartment if he wants to spend some time together. Obviously, that is the only way we’re ever going to have any enjoyment until he can man up and stop letting everyone run roughshod over him (and his guest!) in his own home.

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Weekday Mornings
My alarm goes off at 7:15. After thinking about how much I hate my job (especially now that we’ve entered our busiest season), I finally stagger out of bed at 7:40. I wash up, fix my hair, brush my teeth, get dressed, pack my lunch and go catch the bus at 8:05. I arrive at the office at 8:20. Everyone is late. People yell at me about something someone else did or neglected to do. My boss drops more F bombs than I can count, stomps around and sighs. No one keeps me in the loop on things I need to know in order to do my job completely, properly, timely. The entire staff has lunch in someone’s office while I sit in the break room by myself. If I ‘m not too hurt, angry or exhausted, I might put on some makeup. No one tries to be friendly or chat with me. I am the enemy because I come to work to work and I do what I am supposed to do when I am supposed to do it. This is what I get in return.

Weekday Evenings
I escape leave Hell the office at 5:07, because:
A) The timer on our phone system is slow and tech support can’t figure out why/how to fix it so that the phones will turn off when we actually close at 5.
B) I have a long wee immediately after the phones shut down, since I’ve had to hold it because no one will answer them for me (without giving me a bunch of attitude for asking, so it isn’t worth it) if I leave my desk and I’ll get in trouble for letting them ring more than 2-3 rings.

On Mondays and Thursdays I go get my hair done after work. The salon is never ready when I arrive, my stylist can’t get through one appointment without getting sidetracked by answering her phone and texting or her letting dogs in/out, is very talkative but can’t talk without using the hands that should be washing, drying or ironing. When I finally get home around 7pm, I am so tired and so stressed out from the day, I don’t have the physical or emotional strength for interweb stuffs like camming or chatting, though I might look at emails, Twitter and Facebook for a minute or two. I read or watch a dvd and eat something that doesn’t require much actual cooking, wash my face and read [again] before turning out the lights at 10-11ish.

On Tuesdays or Wednesdays, I might stop at the store for something or get my nails done before heading home and going through the same routine, adding in a bubble bath/shave.

On Fridays, I rush to the bank, then stop by my apartment to pick up my weekend bag. I rush to my Boyfriend’s place. Kittens greet me at the door; I love the kittens! Boyfriend is always on the phone and ignores me for about an hour. His daughter is napping (because, for some reason, she says up until midnight or 1 even though she has to be up early to go to school), so dinner won’t be for a few hours. I play with kittens, pace around the house and try to get boyfriend to pay attention to me. Eventually, we cook dinner, pick out a movie, argue about doing dishes, watch said movie, I wash my face before bed, we have sex and go to sleep around 10-11pm.

Weekends
Saturdays I try to recharge my body/mind with more sleep. Boyfriend gets up around 9:30-10:30, but I get up around Noon, have coffee, eat and read, watch tv/movies, soak in the hot tub, get dressed, maybe sit on the porch until dinner time. If he doesn’t have a gig, we cook dinner, watch more tv/movies, I wash my face before bed, we have sex, watch SNL and go to sleep around 1am.
Sundays, I’m up around 10-11am. I shower, get dressed, have coffee, read while eating breakfast, then put on makeup. We go grocery shopping, watch movies/tv, maybe soak in the hot tub or sit on the porch for a bit, cook dinner, argue about doing dishes, watch more tv/movies, I wash my face before bed, we have sex and go to sleep around 11pm. On Monday morning, we get up about 6:30am (since he has to be at his office an hour before I’m due at mine). He drops me off at my apartment; I go back to sleep for a half hour, then get up and do my usual get-ready-and-go-to-work thang.

I need some safe, comforting predictability for my Mental Health, but not every second of my life. I struggle with the things most people would suggest doing like hanging out with friends, going out for dinner, drinks, shopping, going to the movies or to sundry events. I usually can’t afford to anyway, so it’s moot. I guess I need a new, inexpensive hobby- preferably one that requires little thinking or interaction, heh.

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Well, I hate trying things on. Hate. Hate. Hate. Not because I loathe my body; I think it’s actually shopping I loathe. I want to get in and out as quickly as possible. (This is probably due to my issues with people/crowds…. and also, never having enough money for the things I want.) I figured the hunt might be easier if I got over my mortification about my little feet and actually had them measured so I would have a better idea of what could possibly fit and what absolutely would not. Now I know the awful truth, which I had kind of already suspected: I am a Size 4 US (which really is “Kids” since “Women’s” typically don’t come any smaller than a 5 here) and a Size 2 UK.

Obviously, I am not going to find sexy kitten heels. I did, however, manage to get five quite suitable pairs, all on sale, for under $70. Of course, now I am broke, but my feet thank me!

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I haven’t received the bill from the hospital yet. I’m not as freaked out about it as I was initially. It is a Catholic facility with a charity program that might be able to help me some. (Sidenote: It was really weird and off-putting to be asked at intake what religion I am. I said none of the above.) I’ll pay what I can as I can and if that doesn’t work out, bankruptcy it is then… hell, my credit score has always been in the low 400’s… I’ve never had a credit card and never will… and I came to terms with the fact that I will never own a home long ago, so… *shrug* *shrug* *shrug*

I’m spending time doing things that aren’t as stressful for me while I am on the mend. I miss camming, but when I am online a lot, I can’t avoid the temptation of looking at other things I know will upset me and jack up my blood pressure. I’m not giving up camming, but I am cutting back for my health. I need to relax more and the best way for me to do that is to disengage mentally more often. Books and Netflix are taking over for a while and I might actually start that craft project!!! :)

However, soon I need to do something I really don’t want to do before I can completely rest easily- call my parents and tell them what happened. Wish me luck. I’ll catch up with you all later. xoxo

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Diagnosis: Gallstones. Treatment: Follow-up ultrasound in a week or two to determine whether I need my gallbladder removed via laparoscopic surgery. Cost: Astronomical for someone that is uninsured and lives paycheck to paycheck.

Although my blood pressure was kinda high (140/60) and my urine sample white cell count was high, my metabolic panel didn’t show anything unusual. Most importantly, liver function was normal, which means the gallstones aren’t blocking anything, so surgery may not be mandatory. I was running a fever of 100.4 though, which normally indicates an infection, however there was no visible evidence of infection/inflammation of my gallbladder (yet), so that’s a bit odd. They went ahead and gave me an antibiotic (Cipro) as a precaution and Lortab for pain. [Note: Surprisingly, Kroger beat out Walmart on the prescription prices by a little over a buck.] The doc suggested I try a liquid only diet if I can stand it, or at least low-fat until the pain gets better.

Today is my first day back to work. I’m feeling scared, relieved, angry, sore, tired and little bit sorry for myself. :P

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