happy december to one and all!

december hit the southern california deserts yesterday with a bang! so much rain...my dad and i took a walk around the neighborhood, then both decided it was a pretty dumb idea. but come on, as adults, how often do we still get to walk in the rain with our dads? not a bad morning.





well, i haven't posted for a few a few reasons but the main one being that i was in the hospital. let me just say here that if my spelling is loopy or my writing a bit meandering it is because i took some sleeping pills to help me sleep, and as you see, i am quite awake, but not quite alert. anyway, i went to the emergency room on a sunday night. i had had a quite severe stomache ache for about 3 days but didn't think i had anything to worry about because mindi had just had a similar stomache bug. (thanks min!) anyways, i started vomiting blood and that frightened me enough to get me to the emergency room.





let's say here that if medical terms and needles and such freak you out you may not want to read, but it's really not gross. just informational.





they were out of beds in the e.r. and so i took up residency in a cozy little cot out in the hall, bum flapping in the breeze for all to see. just kidding everyone - i wore my pj's and they had pants! after a few tests and prods they decided to admit me because i think they didn't have any idea what they were going to do with me and wanted me out of their hallway. so they sent me "upstairs" to a real room with the bed that moves up and down and all that. by that time the iv they had started on me in the e.r. was bleeding all over my hand and i wanted a new one and i wanted one now.





no one in the hospital is ever in a hurry. my nurse tried to put in a new iv and blew out the vein. then the head nurse tried (twice) and couldn't get it to work either. so they paged someone from the ICU unit and i had to wait for her. finally she came and said that i have good viens, they're just deep. i think that was her nice way of telling me that my arms are too fat. anyways, she couln't do it either and finally called in GABE, my angel in blue scrubs. one painless poke later and the iv was in. he is officially my hero and and my angel! he used to have to take blood from beligerant drunks at the police station, so he got very good at drawing blood in difficult cases.





anyways, i spent a few more days in the hospital to have this test, then that one. they are so slow there. by the end of my stay there i decided that they were more likely to kill you than cure you. oh, wait, one more scary story. i had taken a migriane medicine and started itching incredibly bad. in my semi-lucid state i thought that the oxygen mask i had on was making my face itch (not the allergy to the migraine meds, duh!), so i took it off and fell asleep. well, this girl wheels around a cart every hour to monitor your blood pressure, temp, and oxygen levels. she said that when she came in i was blue. my oxygen levels were 13 and need to be in the 90's. she put my oxygen back on and kept trying to wake me up. finally my nurse came in and started talking to me, which made no sense, because my ears sounded like someone had stuffed towels in them. it was the wierdest sensation. after a couple of hours i was back to normal but that really scared me. i had basically stopped breathing.





i'm home now, and i have a diagnosis : i have h.pylori bacteria in my stomache. they biospsied the lining of my stomache and found this lovely little bacterial infection. i'm on ani-biotics and should be back to my routine of milking cows and running marathons shortly.





here's a photo of GABE my new favorite man in blue scrubs...