With the Greatest of Ease

Summer Reading

Sunday is date night in the castle.

For the past several months our location of choice is the local Barnes and Noble. 

Prince Charming and I grab some books off the shelves sip coffee in the Starbucks Cafe while perusing through the pages.

I inevitably wind up coming home with a book or two. I can't help it. I love books.

(Disclaimer: I love books but I am not an avid reader. Reading puts me to sleep. *yawn*)

This summer I am determined to read at least one of the books I have purchased. 

The last summer I tried this was in 2004. The year Oprah's Book Club tackled Anna Karenina. I made it halfway through before I lost momentum.

(This was the summer we moved into the castle and the book was packed away and I just forgot about it. But I am still proud that I was able to get through half of that book.)

The current choices on  my side table are:

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom.

I Love You, Ronnie (The letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

What's on your summer reading list?

The No-Hawk

Hansel wanted a mohawk for the summer.

Prince Charming and I decided to splurge and take him to one of those cutesy haircutting places for kids.

1 hour and 20 minutes later he has neither a mohawk or a fauxhawk.

I present you... the NO-hawk.

Recovery Log: Day 6 to Present

Saturday

Second verse, same as the first!

I woke up wanting to tear my skin off.

Non of the meds were working. I was tired. Itchy. Miserable.

I had become one GIANT HIVE.

(With huge boobs but who noticed.)

We called the in-laws to watch the kids and headed to the ER.

It was 11am.

The same time I had arrived home from my surgery 5 days earlier.

The same time I first noticed the red patch on my belly.

The next five hours were filled with IVs, meds and monitoring.

AND SCRATCHING.

I was pumped full of steroids, Benadryl and Pepcid. (It's not just for reflux anymore.)

At the third hour a nurse came in with a heart monitor.

We're going to give you a shot of epinephrine so your heart might race a bit.

Might?

MIGHT?

I wish I could write something funny and clever about the epinephrine but I can't.

It's not funny. I hated it. The end.

I left the E.R. at 4pm with prescriptions for Allegra, Prednisone and Pepcid.

(And no definitive answer on what caused the allergic reaction.)

I was still itchy but the original points of eruption were beginning to fade so there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

By Tuesday the hives were gone. GONE!

By Thursday I was finished taking the medications and actually dared to apply some lotion to my poor skin that is currently being stretched beyond its limits.

***

Today. Saturday June 21st 2008.

It's now a week after my E.R. trip and I am still hive free.

I still experience some residual itching which I am hoping will go away.

(Someone please tell me it will go away!)

The rest of me is doing very nicely as well.

My incisions are beginning to itch, but in a good way.

They are healing and I can now laugh, sneeze and cough without fear of jettisoning these puppies out of my chest cavity and clear across the room. 

(Though we are still going to wait another week before seeing GET SMART because that kind of laughter would surely kill me.)

(I only got as far as BALLSACK! in the special AppleTV trailer.)

I am still sleeping on my back and somewhat upright because... well, I am a baby. If I move onto my side *they* will move too. I tried it on Thursday night. And it just felt too creepy for me to sleep through it.

Today I head out to pick up some temporary undergarments because I DON'T HAVE ANY BRAS THAT FIT ME.

Temporary, you see, because right now I am swollen to the point of looking like I've been plucked out of a classic 19th Century painting with my vulgar and romanticized curves. Curves which will in time soften and leave me feeling more *natural* but until then I need a little something to support and conceal.

So off I go to fumble through the racks of bras trying to find one that will fit my rack.

Here I am. 38 years old and feeling like I am going through puberty all over again and getting my first training bra. 

And what a training bra it will be!

Recovery Log: Days 4 & 5

Thursday & Friday

The rash... is HIVES!

(Though I won't officially hear that term until Day 6 after I spend 5 hours in the Emergency Room but you will have to wait for that post. Neener-neener. Sorry, canape!)

We DO know it's an allergic reaction to... something. 

And that's it's systemic. 

And migratory.

By Friday I have hives in places where hives should NEVER EVER!!! venture.

They have become bigger than my post-op swollen BOOBS at this point. Both literally and figuratively.

I wind up going to my dermatologist who believed it was something I came in CONTACT with, instead of something I ingested. But because I had been on a low does oral steroid it was difficult to say for sure as the steroid interferes with the normal eruption pattern.

Let's say that one again if only because it makes me sound all smarty medical like: NORMAL ERUPTION PATTERN.

To say my doc was intrigued by my rash would be an understatement.

He stared at me squinting through his professor-type glasses as he madly scribbled down notes as he spun me around to get a closer look AT THE FREAK.

Take this off! 

Lift this up!

Are you wearing underwear? 

OK, let's pull these down. What about your butt?

(What can I say. The nerdy-types love me.) 

He was baffled. So he gave me a prescription for a steroid cream. Sorta taking the let's-attack-it-from-both-sides-approach.

I want you to rub this all over the rash.

I have to admit that while he didn't mean to sound dirty, that's totally how I heard him. After 5 days with a mad itch that had me fantasizing over the things I would like to do with the BBQ wire brush ANYTHING that came with the promise of relief was sounding pretty sublime-borderline-ORGASMIC to me at that moment.

"Yeah, doc. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to rub this foam all over my creeping crud and I'm gonna rub it in real good too. Ooooh yeeeaaaahhhhhh."

.

..

...

*ahem* 

So, where was I?

Oh! 

Foam. Rubbing. Itch-be-gone! YAY!

Prince Charming drops me off at home and RUNS LIKE THE WIND! back to the pharmacy with the prescription in hand.

He calls from the pharmacy to say that insurance won't cover the prescription because the doctor ordered a $300 bottle of this foam. 

What. The. FUCK?!

HOWEVER, they will cover a smaller bottle with refills.

Morons!

And... of course our local pharmacy doesn't carry the smaller bottle so PC must drive 40 minutes to another town for it. He uses the time wisely to call our ASSHAT insurance company forcing them to approve refills for the smaller bottle.

...

Needless to say, as indicated by the above E.R. mention the foam didn't work and I was once again up in the middle of the night pacing and scratching and popping Benadryl if for no other reason than it would knock me unconscious.

I convinced Prince Charming to wait until morning before rushing in on his steed and rescuing me from my hive-y prison.

OH!

My boobs. Yeah, they were still healing very nicely.

My stomach muscles and the skin around the incisions are tight (from sleeping sitting upright), so standing upright is a challenge.

But... whatever.