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Miles Logged 8/7: 9.7
Miles Logged 8/8: 25
Total Miles Logged So Far: 719!!!!!

Warning: This is the longest blog EVER....but I assure you it is entertaining and worth the read....

Okay...I have to apologize for the delay in bloggitude here...I assure you I have a perfectly good excuse which I will get to in a minute.

But first, let's begin where I left off:

Saturday 8/8 I went out for a ride. It was like a million degrees out at 6 a.m. It was absolutely disgusting weather for riding and I was NOT in a good mood. But I did get a cool shot:



I really don't recall what my issue was that day, but I gave up after 25 miles because of the heat and I just wasn't feeling great in general. Which sucked. I haven't given up yet, so it was a bit of an ego bruise.

Though maybe there was a reason I wasn't feeling well...

That evening I was up late talking with my Canadian friends (who I am going to get to see all of in just over a weeks time!!! YIPPEE!!) and around 3 a.m.  I finally got off the phone (having the majority of my friends live on the west coast takes it's toll on my sleeping habits.) Almost immediately it happened:

Sharp pain in my upper abdomen that felt like something had exploded. I have had little episodes like this before and usually it involves me having to throw up and then I am totally fine. Why I have never sought medical help for this is due to my inability to trust doctors, and just a general assumption that no matter what my issue is whenever I go into the hospital there is NEVER anything I can do but stay the course. But I digress...

This pain was different. Sharper more severe. I immediately came upstairs and had to throw up....but this time the pain didn't go away it got worse. And so I started freaking out a bit...I couldn't breath and the pressure in my abdomen was making my chest hurt. So i'm thinking Oh my god, I'm having a heart attack!! Where is my FREAKING Life Alert Button!!!!  But, obviously that couldn't be the case, I'm twenty freakin' five. Not allowed. So after a short time of trying to calm myself from my little freak out and inability to breath, I wake my mom who insists on taking me to the hospital.

I probably would have been more apprehensive to go had i not thought I was dying....last time I went to St. Elizabeth's Emergency Room Dr. Moron misdiagnosed my ruptured ovarian cysts...despite my pleading with him that that was in fact what they were...which was bad because the leading side affect of ruptured cysts is death by internal bleeding. So Dr. Moron gives me a print out of some verbage from WebMD telling me I have what is called "In between period cramps." If I wanted to have my inner feminist pissed off that bad I would have just called my Canadian Friend Jon who would have just said something snarky like "What are you PMS-ing or something???" Seriously, $157 that jackass got from me. Anyway, again, I digress...

SO, abdominal pain.

We go to the ER and they give me demerol or some sort of pain killer via IV, take my blood, check my abdomen and determine that I have had a gall stone attack.

Gall stone? What the WHAT!?

Turns out it's more common than what you'd think. Anyway, essentially what happened was that one of my stupid gall stones decided to take a little trip down my biliary duct. It must have been a big one too. So the doctor tells me that they don't see anything on my ultra sound that shows that it is lodged (I have serious doubts about the extent to which they actually LOOKED at the friggin' images...but that's another story). He says that I will have to have my gall bladder removed at some point because I still have some stones in there and I ask him two things:

A.) Can I still travel to Denver in two days time. Answer: yes, absolutely.
B.) Can I still complete my training for my century bike ride: Answer: yes, absolutely.

Phew.

So the next couple days were rough. I was still in a GREAT deal of pain, and essentially I couldn't eat because it felt like I had just had a good 3 portions of Thanksgiving Dinner in one setting. It was awful. They gave me vicodin but that crap only makes me throw up...they tried some anti-nausea stuff, but it didn't work so great. Oh well...I'm a tough girl, I can take it.

So I get on a plane to Denver. Yippee! Vacation!

I must admit I was in a great deal of discomfort for the first portion of my trip...okay that's a lie, I was in discomfort the whole time...but i'll get to the second half in a minute.

Let's focus on what I got accomplished in Denver:

1.) Got to work with my teams in the Denver office for TWO days!
2.) Got to go to Red Rocks Amphitheater and watch Donnie Darko!
3.) Got to go to some cool restaurant and watch my food be wasted because I could only manage to eat one or two bites...but they were delicious bites
4.) Got to see 500 Days of Summer which is my new favorite movie.

Some highlights of the trip in picture form:

RED ROCKS!!! Such a cool place!!




A view of the screen where the movie was projected. The evenings show also was accompanied by a live comedian as well as a very *ahem* interesting band. I couldn't quite place the music but I'd describe it as Beatnik Suicide Rock. It was disturbing. Yet mesmerizing. haha.




Laura and I at Red Rock.



Okay...this is a funny photo...because this was taken maybe 4 or 5 hours before I went to the Emergency Room...oh but i'm getting ahead of myself again. The point here is that I have a problem where I smiled even when I am SUFFERING. There were a few points during that meal where I thought I was going to die. You can see I am distressed because my chest is turning lobster red. But I am stubborn....I'm on vacation DAMNIT!


There's a slightly more pained look on my face here if you look closely...but this is one of my absolute favorite pics of Laura and me! We're awesome!

Okay, so here's what happened after we went to see 500 Days of Summer...

I was in a great deal of pain. Then I was in a great deal more pain. Laura and I spent some time doing research on the interwebs and decided that I really needed to go to the hospital because this pain was Ridonk (yeah, I just said that).

So we arrive at the ER sometime around 12. It was funny...okay well not so funny...but Laura joked that when we go in there that I should act like i'm in a lot more pain so that we don't have to wait. Well, there wasn't really anyone else there so I was like sweet...I don't have to wait! Also I couldn't breath at this point so it was kind of ideal. And then a rather large man came stumbling into the ER and was having severe chest pain. I turned to laura and was like "Sorry, Laura, I really cannot compete with a Heart Attack...even I am not that cruel."

So I finally got myself a nice little itty bitty room in the ER where they took an ultrasound and found out that, yes, I did have gall stone issues...apparently LOTS of them. But the doctor was convinced that I just needed to give it more time because the gall stone attack pain can last for a week or more. Then he got a call on his phone, steps out of the room for a minute comes back in and says something like:

"Yeah, situation has changed a bit. You're going to have to have surgery here."

What the WHAT!?

I'm pretty sure that my blood pressure skyrocketed at that moment...I might have seen it go to something like 156 over 98. Yikes.

Turns out I had Pancreatitis. A gall stone had gotten loged in the duct and wasn't allowing bile to be secreted or something. Anyway it resulted in the pancreatic enzyme levels that are normally around 200 to skyrocket to 7,500. They absolutely could not let me leave the hospital, I had to be admitted.

And so began the TWELVE hour waiting in the ER for a room to open up in the GastroIntestinal or whatever it's called floor to open up...al the time I was laying on a Stretcher or something that had a metal slab with a thin padding on it. It was UNCOMFORTABLE.

And Laura...poor sweet Laura...who's vacation was now ruined too....she slept in a chair they brought in for her and dealt with me moaning in agony, puking, and getting agitated as to why we were still in the ER.

Laura's a nurse. And a DAMN good one too. I got to see first hand! It's kind of nice traveling with your own peronal Nurse! They had me doped up on Deladed, a rather strong pain killer akin to Morphine. The problem with pain killers is that they make me ralph almost instantly. The first time I had the pain killers they gave me Zofran, an anti nausea drug before and that helped. But the second time I got the pain meds, because it hadn't been the 6 hours between when you're supposed to have the Zofran, they gave me the Deladed without it and about 30 seconds later I was going all Exercist with my puking. But Laura, oh Laura, my best friend in the world, she hopped up and grabbed the little vomit pans and swooped right in there and caught my puke, replacing with a new pan as necessary! I swear to you she was so swift that not a SINGLE drop of vomit made it anywhere but in those pans! It was amazing!

And as much as it sucked to puke with sever abdominal pain, it felt good to get whatever was in there out.

And so that's how the next few hours went. More Zofran, more Deladed....more Zofran, MORE DELADED. I had to be put on oxygen because my oxygen levels got low, and Laura amused herself by taking photos of me in a completely deluded state of mind. I'd say that she was taking advantage of my state, except, in my haze, I was encouraging her!! Little did I know that it would appear that the IV fluids made me grow an extra chin...but that's reallly neither here nor there.

At one point...propbably right around the time that I looked like THIS:


Or perhaps this:



Or maybe even this:


I told Laura that I was really getting freaked out by the blue coyote in the corner of the room and something needed to be done. Now, I don't recall ANY of this, but Laura swears up and down that it happened.

Finally around 11 a.m. the next day they moved me up to my room! Which, holy crap, was like the nicest hotel room i've ever seen compared to the ER. And the bed....oh sweet cloudy softness!! Needless to say, after the move and more drugs I was MUCH happier when this happened! Oh true apothocary...thy drugs are quick!!!

   
So because I waited so freakin' long for a room, and because there were NO other rooms open...I totally scored the penthouse of hospital rooms. It was awesome. Hardwood floors, big comfy bed, fold out comfy futon for Laura to sleep on, a table and chairs, flat screen TV with full cable and movies on demand, a jacuzzi, and a view of both the mountains and the city skyline!!

 
 

So Laura and I spent the next 3 days in this room. On Friday (the day after I went to the ER) they noted that my lipase levels had skyrocketed again to nearly 11,000. Yikes. They couldn't operate on me until those levels lowered. And the only way those levels could lower is by letting the pancreas rest.

What does that mean?

NO FOOD, NO DRINK!!!

AHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I didn't eat for 3 days (and prior to that I had maybe one solid meal split over 5 days). And I didn't drink for three days either. But they were kind enough to let me have ice chips. And thank god for Laura going back to the hotel to get my tooth brush and tooth paste. Yucky dry taste. bleh.

So Laura and I tried to make the best out of our situation. We laughed and had a good time. The nurses, doctors and medical staff were all amazing and fun to be around, so that made it easier to deal with our ruined vacation.

Of course there was the occasional vomit drill. When we first got to the room they made the mistake of giving me Deladed and Zofran at the same time which made me vomit...only we couldn't find the vomit buckets...Laura went looking for some when I started feeling queezy. And I tried to get up from my bed and make my way to the garbage can, but did you know they plug those damn IV units intot he wall??? I couldn't figure out why the heck I couldn't move, so I ended up just puking on the floor and Laura, dear sweet nurse/best friend Laura, she cleaned up my puke off the floor while I continued to dry heave into the bucket. It went on like this a couple more times until they figured out to give me the anti nausea stuff a minute or two before the heavy pain killers. And there was much rejoicing!

I finally got to see the Surgeon on Sunday morning, and having had a miraculous turn around in the middle of the night (I must have past that monsterous gall stone in my sleep finally!) the doctor informed me that my lipase levels had dropped to around 4,000 and that he would be operating on me momentarily!

Normally this would bring on the panic! But, for me this was a welcome thing. TAKE THE DAMN THING OUTTA ME!!!!!!!

Laura and the Nurse wheeled me down to Pre-op and everything moved so quickly, they put an oxygen thing over my mouth and the next thing I know I'm waking up in post op.

The nurses are all talking about stuff and I'm trying to figure out what the hell just happened and why my stomach hurts so much...and the nurse is all asking me if I want ice chips and I'm like "whoa...i don't even know what's going on" so she goes away and comes back again in a few and I decide that it's probably a good idea since the tube that they stuck down my throat has left my mouth both dry and scratchy.

Oh sweet ice chips!

Thankfully I wasn't nauseous as is common coming out of the anesthesia. The nurses were bustling about talking about the size of my gall stones...bigger than golf balls!! The next thing I know the nurse says "wanna see the pictures of your gall stones!?" without waiting for my groggy response she shoves the photos in my face!

"Ohhgrrr mahrrr GAWD!" I groggled (I don't think that's a word, but it works.

I will only show you one photo that is least disgusting. It's a close up of one of the two big gall stones (there was well over a dozen or two, two bigger than golf balls, one ping pong ball sized and a whole slew of marble sized ones.) The yellow coloring is from a dye they had to inject to make sure they got all the stones.


Isn't that AMAZING?!?! It looks like an alien brain, or a popcorn ball!! So cool!!

So anyway the next few hours consisted of Laura feeding me ice chips and me groggling on about things, i'm sure much to Laura's amusement.

The worst part about laproscopic surgery is the CO2 that they pump into your abdomen...it makes you feel TOTALLY bloated and also makes you have sharp stabbing pain in between your neck and your right shoulder of all places!!! And i mean serious sharp stabbing pain like someone is putting a knife in you....and no pain killers can help it, you just have to writhe around and adjust yourself until it feels better. Which leads to awkward positioning.

Anyway, the time came for me to have my first post op meal. Oh my god. I mean, I was FAMISHED, I felt like Gandhi without a cause! So I ordered my turkey sandwich, a bowl of soup, jello, and crandberry juice. And some poor 12 year old kid brought me my food, and I was all kinds of out of it and turned to him and said:

"Oh my god, I haven't eaten in THREE DAYS!!!!! YOU are seriously my HERO right now!!!!!!!!!!" He laughed nervously and slowly backed away. Poor kid. haha.

Now, I've had only a handful of near-religious experiences, but nothing came close to this. I never thought hospital food could taste so good! But I ate almost everything on my plate. It was PHENOMENAL!!! I don't think I will ever be happier to eat in my life!!

So I was scheduled to leave on Sunday to fly back to Nebraska. Nope. Not happening.

The CO2 that was KILLING me then, would have expanded and been WAY worse on a plane. SO I had to buy a one-way ticket at twice the cost of my original round trip one. GRRR.

But here's where stuff got strange. My mom has been having the SAME problems with her gall bladder. Attacks at night, almost had to go to the ER herself once or twice!! So my mom's doctor said she shouldn't fly out on a plane to meet up with me because she could have another attack herself and that wouldn't be good. So my awesome brother Matt flew out EARLY EARLY Sunday morning since my SUPER AWESOME friend Laura had to go back to North Carolina (also, funny story, those who didn't think Laura and I were sisters thought that Laura was my "significant other" lol) So I bid farewell to Laura who honest to god was a total life saver during all of this!!

And then Matt and I, after i was discharged from the hospital, got a hotel room with a kitchen and vegged out for the next few days. Matt would get me out of the hotel once or twice a day to go for a walk here or there so at least I got to see some more of Denver. We walked a little bit on the 16th street mall and went to see an IMAX movie at the Natural Science museum, but almost all of the rest of the time was spent sleeping under the influence of vicodin. It was a magical time. Matt was super awesome though about taking care of me and making fun of my Quasimoto walk because standing up hurt too much. We had a good time, despite the stupid circumstances!! And it was good to see him, too!

And then Wednesday rolled around and I had to catch my flight home. Matt, again, was awesome because he carried my carry on luggage for me to my gate (he was also flying out that day a little later in the afternoon). The flight home was pretty short and relatively pain free (thank you, Vicodin).

So now I am back home and back to work. My abdomen is still a bit sore, but the tiredness has worn off a great deal.

I'm not sure when I am going to hop back on the bike, but I hope it's soon!!!

What a vacation though. Man i know how to party! haha. I have another vacation coming up a week from Thursday...here's to hoping that it goes a little better than this last one!!

Until I ride again,

Cheers!