why closed door meetings are fantastic

My boss may or may not be able to see my computer screen right now. She is meeting with my coworker (least fave) and is sitting at her table, rather than her desk. I know that I am in the clear if she is at her desk. I keep forgetting to test the table seat. Why do I forget such very important things? My boss is telling the asshat coworker that her ideas are shit, though. That is fun for me. I do have to listen to asshat and her verbal vomit. She has her head so far up my boss's ass, I am amazed my boss is comfy in her chair right now.

Today it is cold here in the SF. I wore a coat, scarf and a long sleeved shirt to work today. That is basically unheard of for me. I was freezing last night though and felt the need to cover myself today so I wouldn't be that teeth chattering fool at the bus stop after work. I don't enjoy being cold so much. I kinda wanna start wearing gloves. This winter might just be my winter of the glove. Huh. Interesting turn for me.

This weather makes me want a boyfriend. I wanna be able to snuggle up in front of the fireplace (wall heater) in my pjs and bathrobe and watch movies or tv on dvd or just crappy television. I know I have someone who I could so do that with but that commute is a bitch. Too bad. Winter is a lot warmer with someone else. I think I shall go home and snuggle with Allison tonight.Or perhaps one of the cats. I enjoyed snuggling with Little last night. She sheds like a mofo though.

I just wandered around outside for a sec with my friend Jenn. It is perfect out - totally crisp and post-rain. I forget how I love the winter. I mean, I don;t forget - I talk about it allthe time. It's just that actually being in it feels so good. I can;t wait to be home and warm and satisfied. I am done with Tuesday at work.

so i lag, what else is new?

I just have issues with precision. Is it precision? Doing the same thing over and over again? Or is that accuracy? I think it is precision. Whatever. Sometimes I just don't update for a while. Whatever, I have been way busy.

So, my mom got married to super cool Chuck. I am stoked. He rocks. The wedding wasnice and they both loved it so I would say that is a success.

I managed to fight my food demons all week and get through a slew of fancy meals without having a nervous breakdown. I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it for a little bit there. I didn;t realize it was going to be so hard to be aroud food. I know it will be easier down the road when I can actually eat things from restaurants but it was torturous in the beginning of last week. Me with my dumb broth (made for me from scratch by my wonderful Buddy) and everyone else with their hot, juicy slab of pork loin. I wanted to cry. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around I moved myself onto mashed potatoes just so I could have something that was like real food.

I guess it's gonna take me a while to really get past this oart. I mean, the surgery wasn't magic. The surgery didn't change my brain. I still want to eat an entire pizza, I just can't. All in all, that is a great thing but I wish it wiped my memory too, kinda. I wish I didn't know what a burger tasted like or how much I love Taco Bell. Well, in the long run, I can taste those things down the road. This surgery isn;t about deprivation, it is about control. This will allow me to have control so I can have a bite fo soemthing and not the whole thing. I wanted food from the moment we left the hospital. The second I knew I could take in broth, I knew I wanted a bean and cheese burrito from taco bell - nop onions, extra sauce. I just do. Now some people call this head hunger but to me, it's all been head hunger. I never ate to fill a nutritional need. I just didn't work that way. Now I have to and I am so grateful for that. In fact, I am getting hungry now. I believe a protein shake may be in order here.

Well, I am off to my day of catch up at the office. I am smiling and loving my life right now. I am thankful for the people around me and for everyone in my life who cares so much for me and for whom I would do anything. I am so f'ing lucky.

I made it!!

I am on the other side. And what a side it will be.

So, I figure I should give the whole story, detail by detail, both to catch all of you up and chronicle it somewhere for the future folk. Here goes:

The last couple days befiore surgery sucked. My mom came up to stay and was so patient with me even though I HAD NOTHING NICE TO SAY AT ALL. (sorry for the caps, stupid button.) Long atory short, I now own a sweet bathrobe and some way cute pjs and my mom obviously loves me cuz she didn;t try to kill me and she is still speaking to me.

The mornign of surgery I got up at 4:45 or so and took a shower and got everything together to go to the hospital; we had to bethere at 6. We made it on time and got to the waiting room and sat for a bit with everyone else who had surgery that morning. The check in nurse, in her irish accent, kept saying "Today's the day!" I think she knew what I was there for cuz I don't think back surgery would have prompted such a wink-and-a-smile treatment.

From the surgical waiting area we went up to pre-op and sat in a curtained room where I had to get naked and wear a beautiful gown. Not hot. We hung out there, my mom and i, for like 20 minutes or so while i insisted we had been forgotten about, repeatedly. My mom read my whole medical chart that they left sitting there so that was slightly entertaining. Finally a nurse came in and put in my IV, i think. The anasthesiologist came by and chatted with me and my surgeon came by, i think. it was way early and i didnlt have coffee so it is a little blurry. I think they gave me a little valium ir something in my iv and to be honest, i don't even remember going into the operating room. I think I pretty much just fell asleep. I slightly remembering them telling me they were gonna out the mask on me and to breathe but that's it. I do remember sayingbye to my mom when they wheeled me away but that was it!

The waking up was... unpleasant. I remember hurting. I remember being whiny and saying "ow" a lot. I remmeber being totally nauseous. I remmber them giving me pain meds and stuff until they finally put a shot directly in me instead of in my IV. I was hurting and it sucked. I sat around in post-op for a while and was in a ndout of conciousness. Finally, right as they were about to take me to my room, my mom snuck in to post-op! She said someone told her a back way to sneak in to see me. It was nice. :)

So my mom went up to my room with me. I actually got a provate room - woo hoo!!! This way my mom could sleep over and I didn;t have to deal with some weird sick person near me. I don't deal well with sharing space. So there we were, the three of us - me, my mom and my morphine button. Let me tell you, I was tappingout melodies on that thing I pushed it so often. I just knew that button equalled better so I just pushed whenever I wanted a change for the better. Wanna sleep? Push. Got pain? Push. Nauseous? Push. Bored? Push. It was freakin' great. I have never been a fan of the opiates (I am a straight up amphetamine girl) but they did their job for me. I don't see a big future in heroin for me though, the morphine was just kinda dull.

The first night there I found out that I apparently stop breathign while I am falling asleep. Apparently I do have sleep apnea. Who knew? So I kept getting woken up by this obnoxious machine that would go of when my blood oxygen went below a certain number. It sucked. My poor mom got woken up by it everytime too - I felt so bad. The night nurse also accused me of drinking tghe water she gave me for my mouth mop (think tiny sponge ont he end of a cocktail straw). To be honest, I was taking in as much as I accidentally could. I was dying of thirst!!!! Youwould be amazed at how helpful something lieka little mouth mop can be when you are totally high and the thirstiest you have ever been in your entire life. I feel like I have been in that position before.

So I had this great nurse, Emely, who took care of me the first day. She was nice and cheery and tolerated me. She was probably my age, too, so it made it easier. In my opiate haze I don't remmeber much. I got some injections in my stomach - blood thinner. I was wicked thirsty for a whole lot of time cuz I wasn;t allowed to drink anything until I did my "swallow test." Sounds way dirtier than it was. They made me drink this disgustingly foul liquid so they could xray me to make sure I didn't have any leaks in side. It was fuckign awful. Truly. I also had t lie flat on my back for it so it really hurt. Luckily, I had my trusty button so I just kept push-push-pushin' away to get through it all. I have seriously never been so thirsty in my life though and if that test allowed me some f'ing water, i would have drank a whole glass. I think the tech who did it was kinda smarmy, too. Reminded me of the slimy dudes in my hebrew class at SMC. The kinda guy who uses his doctor status to get laid. Blech.

So after I finally got back to my room after that test and proceeded to get incredibly nauseous and do some dry heaving off the side of my bed. It was awful. I kept pushing the nurse button and Emely finally came in to give me something to help. It felt so bad, though. It was awful. My mom had gone to run some errands during my test so she was gone, which was fine, but she finally got back and I was just yuck. I was trying to just sleep it all away, I guess. I couldn't keep my eyes open for more than, like, 10 minutes. Andrea was also trying to make her way to the hospital at that time after driving up from LA that morning to take over for my mom so she could go home. Andrea kept getting lost, though, so she kept calling and I felt so bad that she couldn;t find the place cuz the directions were wrong and aaahhh! She did make it though, poor andrea.

My mom left on wednesday afternoon and I was doing ok. I was sleeping a lot but I felt pretty ok. Ok except for the raging caffeine headache I had developed. Let me give a little advice, folks. Don't think the morphine in the hospital can overcome your caffeine headache. It didn;t even make a dent. I was in more pain from the headache than my surgery, by far. It was likehaving a five day migraine. It didn;t go away until Friday and I am dead serious. Morphine didn't take it away. I mean, wtf?!?! That was awful.

So I was gonna go home on Wednesday but I kinda started doing not so hot. I had walked around a few times on Tuesday and they tookt he catheter out on Tuesday afternoon so I was going to the bathroom on my own and stuff. (catheters are way weird, btw. I felt like I had to pee all the time cuz, well, I kinda was, I guess.) I was doing great thogh. I felt good, I was cheerful and alert and stuff. Then came the dreaded cranberry juice incident of '05. Terrible idea. Who knew that 10ccs of watered down juice could make one heave as I did. Poor andrea had flailing, heaving me to look at as she tried to figure out what to do. I hate throwing up, too. It just makes me cry. Nothing reduces me to 7 year old Neely like severe nausea. It passed but so did my whole "I am gonna go home today" idea. We stayed another night. The surgeon had coem to see me and everything and given me my all clear to go home if i wanted to but I just felt better there. It is a scary thing to leave the hospital, wher eyou are taken care of and monitored and you know that you will be tended to stat if something goes wrong. The bed is comfy too. :)

Thursday am comes and our night with nurse debbie passes and in comes Ed. Ed was a good nurse, don;t get me wrong, but I feel like Ed is the guy they send in when they want you to go home. He took away my morphine button. Or maybe Debbie did... whatever. He crushed up some tylenol for my headache. Liek that is gonna work. I slept for a little longer until he came back, woke me again and asked when I wanted to leave. I said I guess now. Andrea and I got all my papers and stuff and she went to get the car. This very nice orderly saw that I was waiting to be taken down and made sure someone got me - they were making me wait for "wayne" who was doing soemthing else. They were good to me.

We went fromt he hospital to the pharmacy and andrea picked up my scrips. I have to take ursodiol to make sure I don't get gall stones. I take omeprazolam to reduce my stomach acid. and I got a scrip for lortab elixir - liquid vicodin, basically. did i meantion i have 2 refills on that one? :) We gothome and Andrea got me all settled and we turned ont he tv and... I took a nap. There was a lot of that going on. I finally got up the energy to shower. That was a very good thing cuz I was probably pretty ripe at this point. I had to shampoo my hair twice. It didn;t even foam up the first round. Yeah. I was gross. I then got into fresh pjs and my very very comfy bathrobe. Thanks mom. I believe there was more napping and tv. I got some more phone calls and I got to see allison when she got home from work and lisa and jo when they came in from dinner, i think. I was still pretty hazy.

I woke up around 8am, feeling pretty good on friday. my neck hurt from sleeping weird but other than that, I did some dishes and walked around some. It wasn't until around 11 that I started to fall asleep again. It was all good though. Andrea and I hung out, watched the sisterhood of the traveling pants (it kinda sucked) and just hung out as we do so well together. We went to the grocery store in the afternoon so I got out of the house some. It was good for me. Friday night we played trivial pursuit and slept early. I tend to get really tired pretty suddenly so my end of evenings come on pretty quick.

Saturday morning i woke up and felt like a million bucks. My stomahc had been really bloaty since the surgery - i think they put a lot of gas in you to check for leaks and stuff during surgery - and when i woke up saturday i was feeling pretty normal. i had lots of energy and felt chipper. i finally was rid of my caffeine headache entirely. I even slept on my side a little the night before - that was the best! So I showered and got ready to get int he car to come down to LA. My packing startegy was as usual - throw what you can see in a bag. Try to bring pants as well as shirts. I am a simple girl. The drive was uneventful. I took a nap along the way and got to hear andrea sing a little morissey - always good. :) I got to Molly's and have been doing great since.

I honestly feel spectacular. My incision sites hurt some today; probably from sittingint he car yesterday. I went out today withmy hair all done and makeup all pretty. zI wore actual jeans instead of sweats. I am seriously doing great. When I get tired, I rest. I am getting the hang of knowing when I am hungry. That si hard. I have to keep crazy track of water and protein and meds and stuff but andrea made me a great chart in sf and now molly is tracking it all down here. I feel like i am gettig it all in, I just need to keep this going and all will be cool.

I will write more of the emotional side as well as all the details i forgot, as soon as I can. I figured I would use my time now just to oput htis up to let you know the details I had in my head.

Just a thank you to my mom and to andrea for all they did for me. You are both such great caretakers in totally different ways and I couldn't have done this without either of you. You got me to this side. I like this side.

T minus....well, none I guess.

So this is it. Tomorrow is almost here, as is the surgery. I am so ready. I am so over waiting for all this to come. I am done feeling so anxious all the time and yelling at people and being so f'ing annoyed that I wanna scream. My mom has tolerated me fairly well, I suppose. She did keep trying ot make me try on housecoats in xl at ross as a subsitute for a bathrobe. I almost killed her. Eventually I convinced her to leave there before I threw up. It was close.

I feel ike this should be some great monumnetal blog entry but, to be honest, I am done talking about this. It doesn;t help that my computer sucks ass and is makign this all so annoying to do.

Those of you whom I love, you know it. Those of you whom I don't, you aren;t reading this anyway so who the fuck cares? Maybe I will make Andrea write a little update while I am doped up at home on thursday or soemthing. That might be funny.

Whatever. I am out. See you on the other side.

the countdown keeps on countin'...

This is the heaviest I will ever be for the rest of my life.

ok, so... it's only like 3 and a half more days. I think I might be able to make it through that.

I am sitting at my desk at work, knowing I need to finish cleaning and organizing before I leave for these next couple of weeks and still I am sitting here writing this and trying to convince myself I should get more water. It's weird. I am looking at my empty fake Nalgene bottle, my throat hurts because I am so thirsty, and yet I am still just typing away. Get some water, you moron. I don't listen to my inner voice enough. I really am thirsty. But I apparently also have to pee. Ok, one trip, 2 jobs. Be right back.

Mission accomplished. My throat still hurts though and now I kind of have a bit of a headache. Huh. Maybe I just need caffeine. I always need caffeine. Oh man, I am giving up caffeine on Tuesday. Shit this is going to be the hardest part, I think. No one wants to give that up. Me least of all.

Well, last day of work, how do I feel about you? Excited. I am ready to be out of this place for a little bit. It's not a hard job in the least, just drudgery and busy work for the most part. I will miss people and all that good stuff but really, I just want to not have to come here every day for the next couple of weeks.

I will try to write more before the big day comes. I am having a last hurrah tonight with some friends. Beer and games is our plan and I am excited. Sunny is coming home from work with me to prep and then we will whoop it up. I think she might even help me clean which would be the nicest gift she could ever give me. I know some damn good people.

Here's to a clean desk and a clean house and a clean slate. Bunny told me that this surgery wasn't going to make me any more perfect or any different; just thinner. I will take thinner for now. I will take thinner so I can do all the stuff I want to do in my life. Right now this is just an existence.

protein drink update

ok so i am pbsessed with the protein smoothie ones - I don't remember the brand but I ordered a big one of the vanilla berry one. So f'ing good. In my working chaos today I don;t see a lunchtime in my near future so I am at least drinking a half size sample of the nectar lemon tea protein - 12g and 45 calories. At least it will tide me over til I can eat soemthing real or just have more protein drink. I think I could actually deal with this for a little bit.

Less than one week now.

1 week from right now.

1 week form this very moment, should all go right, I will be in surgery. There will be metal things poking out of me and weird pac-man type grabbers moving my insides all around. That is a weird thing to be excited about, no?

My boss is trying to kill me with overwork so I must save my ramblings for another time. I hope I make it to next Tuesday.

An open apology to anyone I have contact with in the next couple weeks

Having to wait for this surgery to happen is making me kind of a bitch. I have no patience for anyone. Everyone out there is an idiot. No one is making my life any easier. And I know none of this is real. Something is making me all spazzy and I am not quite sure what it is. Free floating anxiety? The awareness that I have kind of done all I can do is killing me. I need to research. I need to study. I need to make charts and graphs of weights and foods and anything, really. I can't stand just waiting.

ok, yum!

So begins my new regimen before surgery. Since I have to try all these protein shakes anyway, I figured I would just make them 2 of meals in the day and then eat food for one meal. This morning I am having a delicious vanilla very berry shake made with nf milk. It is so freakin' good. I am excited about it. Why I am excited about a shake I will never know. I need a life.