Is anyone surprised that I'm tired? Reckoned not.
I've been out of sorts lately, behind in writing and posting and commenting and tagging in all the games that I'm in, on my journal, on my everywhere. And it's been bugging me and stressing me out when I realized that it's been since sometime in August since I've posted anything, and that I've got a few tags that have been lingering since spring. I hate that. I hate not being organized, and I really hate being behind. And then I started doing the math on things.
In May--there were those baby-creatures who showed up, and a twelve day hospital stay to go along with it.
Summer--baby things, combined with insanely hot temperatures that made doing anything just about impossible.
And then? August hit, and that's when things really fell apart.
Mid-August, I get my wisdom teeth out. I knew it was going to be bad/painful/suck, but I think I way underestimated just how much and how badly. I spent a good three weeks on Tylenol 3's (Tylenol (paracetamol) and codeine for those non-North American folk), and I never actually got to the point where my pain was actually controlled. Basically, I got sick of being on that much T3, and decided I'd deal with the pain and just take regular Tylenol and Advil until it went away.
Sometime in the summer, I started feeling like my depression was starting to creep up again. I've been paying really close attention to my moods and sleep patterns and how I've been feeling, what with being postpartum and at a higher risk for postpartum depression, and my doctor and I decided to double my anti-depressants. I went from needing 12+ hours of sleep a day (yeah, you try and get that when you've got two babies. Try and get half that. Try and get half of half that) to not being able to sleep much at all. So, that was a lot of fun.
I finally get through that, deal with all the people visiting in the summer who want to see the babies, who drop by without calling first, shove down my social anxiety (more reason for the increase in the anti-depressants), and get into fall. Awesome. Fall. One more event--the babies baptism--and then I get my house to myself, my babies to myself and my boy, and we can have some time of our own.
And then my gallbladder pitches a fit. The morning of the baptism. What the fuck, man. What the merry sweet fuck. On the other hand? Morphine is nice.
I go through two weeks of not being able to eat much of anything but oatmeal, since I've been banned from eating anything with protein, fat, carbs, or taste, just to prevent another attack, and they book the surgery, and we round up as much family and friends and church ladies to help as humanly possible. Because they say that it'll be a good 4 weeks before I'm back to normal, and I'm not supposed to lift the babies, even though it's a laproscopic surgery. Four wee pokes, a couple of bandaids, but just a need to be cautious.
Yeah, right. I wake up in recovery in complete and utter agony, and they're telling me that the surgery 'didn't go as planned', and they had to open me up to complete it. I've got a four inch scar, along with two tiny ones, a morphine infusion pump, and a surgical drain coming out my side. But hey, at least I had the haze of drugs to mask it. I didn't face the absolute terror of my mother and the Academic Husband, getting a call from the surgical ward to say that 'things didn't go as we expected, and no, you won't be able to pick her up in three hours'. Try five days.
Five days of being in what was apparently the crazy old people wing of the surgical floor. The first two nights, I was so drugged that I could actually sleep. The next two, I had to listen to the woman beside me sob and cry and beg to be able to go home. Yeah, man. I feel you. I want to go home too. But I need to SLEEP.
I had two babies, just over five months ago. Most parts of that process didn't hurt as much as a gallbladder attack, or recovery from having to have this kind of gallbladder surgery. The technical specs were that the gallbladder removal went fine. It was the (I might get this wrong) billiaury duct. It was oversized, had stones in it, and they had to open me up to go in manually and deal with it and suture it closed, instead of being able to just clamp it shut.
I've got a high pain tolerance. I didn't take anything but Tylenol 3 after breast reduction surgery. I was begging the nurses for more drugs, pushing the button on my morphine pump every ten minutes on the ten minutes. They had to get me up the day after surgery and make me walk in order to prevent me getting pneumonia from lying flat on my back after surgery. I cried the whole way to the nurses station and back, with two nurses helping me walk.
And now I'm home, just over two weeks post surgical, and I've again had to give up on taking the T3s because the side effects aren't worth the pain relief. And there are people in my house all the time. When there aren't people in my house, someone's got my babies at their house. I'm not allowed to lift my babies, lean over and touch my babies, hold my babies. And that'll be the rule for at least another two weeks, probably four. I appreciate so much every bit of help we're getting, but it makes me so tense and edgy and frustrated, all the time, having people here. Wanting to help, and not being allowed.
Having to listen to my babies cry when someone isn't able to help them because they're dealing with something else, or the other one, and I can't do anything. It's agonizingly frustrating, but if I don't play along, I could tear an internal suture, or herniate the muscles/scars/however that works. Which means more time, more needing help, more days where I can't do much more than talk to my babies while someone else holds them.
The babies, thank god, are doing so well. They're putting on weight and aiming for milestones just about at the same pace as a full-term baby, both of them. Monkey rolled over first, and the Frog wasn't far behind her. She's still better at it, and she can get her head up like a little periscope and look around. Frog has a bit more trouble with that, and usually ends up making muffled yell-noises against the blanket he's on. HELP. HELP. SOMEONE PUT ME ON MY TUMMY AND MY FACE IS STUCK AND MY HEAD IS TOO HEAVY TO LIFT. Does it make me a bad person how much I laugh at them? I hope not.
So. I owe tags. I owe tags, I owe comments, I owe posts, I owe pictures. I've missed things, I've forgotten things, and I'm gonna have to hope that I get a note on this one, because I'm only just now finally managing to drag myself out from underneath the weight that has been summer/fall of 2009. Also? I'd like a rush delivery of 2010, please. Apart from the babies, I'm really not all that thrilled with 2009, gotta admit.
Be well, everyone. I'm trying, I promise, and if I don't say it often enough--and I know I don't--I love you.
The Jay.
In May--there were those baby-creatures who showed up, and a twelve day hospital stay to go along with it.
Summer--baby things, combined with insanely hot temperatures that made doing anything just about impossible.
And then? August hit, and that's when things really fell apart.
Mid-August, I get my wisdom teeth out. I knew it was going to be bad/painful/suck, but I think I way underestimated just how much and how badly. I spent a good three weeks on Tylenol 3's (Tylenol (paracetamol) and codeine for those non-North American folk), and I never actually got to the point where my pain was actually controlled. Basically, I got sick of being on that much T3, and decided I'd deal with the pain and just take regular Tylenol and Advil until it went away.
Sometime in the summer, I started feeling like my depression was starting to creep up again. I've been paying really close attention to my moods and sleep patterns and how I've been feeling, what with being postpartum and at a higher risk for postpartum depression, and my doctor and I decided to double my anti-depressants. I went from needing 12+ hours of sleep a day (yeah, you try and get that when you've got two babies. Try and get half that. Try and get half of half that) to not being able to sleep much at all. So, that was a lot of fun.
I finally get through that, deal with all the people visiting in the summer who want to see the babies, who drop by without calling first, shove down my social anxiety (more reason for the increase in the anti-depressants), and get into fall. Awesome. Fall. One more event--the babies baptism--and then I get my house to myself, my babies to myself and my boy, and we can have some time of our own.
And then my gallbladder pitches a fit. The morning of the baptism. What the fuck, man. What the merry sweet fuck. On the other hand? Morphine is nice.
I go through two weeks of not being able to eat much of anything but oatmeal, since I've been banned from eating anything with protein, fat, carbs, or taste, just to prevent another attack, and they book the surgery, and we round up as much family and friends and church ladies to help as humanly possible. Because they say that it'll be a good 4 weeks before I'm back to normal, and I'm not supposed to lift the babies, even though it's a laproscopic surgery. Four wee pokes, a couple of bandaids, but just a need to be cautious.
Yeah, right. I wake up in recovery in complete and utter agony, and they're telling me that the surgery 'didn't go as planned', and they had to open me up to complete it. I've got a four inch scar, along with two tiny ones, a morphine infusion pump, and a surgical drain coming out my side. But hey, at least I had the haze of drugs to mask it. I didn't face the absolute terror of my mother and the Academic Husband, getting a call from the surgical ward to say that 'things didn't go as we expected, and no, you won't be able to pick her up in three hours'. Try five days.
Five days of being in what was apparently the crazy old people wing of the surgical floor. The first two nights, I was so drugged that I could actually sleep. The next two, I had to listen to the woman beside me sob and cry and beg to be able to go home. Yeah, man. I feel you. I want to go home too. But I need to SLEEP.
I had two babies, just over five months ago. Most parts of that process didn't hurt as much as a gallbladder attack, or recovery from having to have this kind of gallbladder surgery. The technical specs were that the gallbladder removal went fine. It was the (I might get this wrong) billiaury duct. It was oversized, had stones in it, and they had to open me up to go in manually and deal with it and suture it closed, instead of being able to just clamp it shut.
I've got a high pain tolerance. I didn't take anything but Tylenol 3 after breast reduction surgery. I was begging the nurses for more drugs, pushing the button on my morphine pump every ten minutes on the ten minutes. They had to get me up the day after surgery and make me walk in order to prevent me getting pneumonia from lying flat on my back after surgery. I cried the whole way to the nurses station and back, with two nurses helping me walk.
And now I'm home, just over two weeks post surgical, and I've again had to give up on taking the T3s because the side effects aren't worth the pain relief. And there are people in my house all the time. When there aren't people in my house, someone's got my babies at their house. I'm not allowed to lift my babies, lean over and touch my babies, hold my babies. And that'll be the rule for at least another two weeks, probably four. I appreciate so much every bit of help we're getting, but it makes me so tense and edgy and frustrated, all the time, having people here. Wanting to help, and not being allowed.
Having to listen to my babies cry when someone isn't able to help them because they're dealing with something else, or the other one, and I can't do anything. It's agonizingly frustrating, but if I don't play along, I could tear an internal suture, or herniate the muscles/scars/however that works. Which means more time, more needing help, more days where I can't do much more than talk to my babies while someone else holds them.
The babies, thank god, are doing so well. They're putting on weight and aiming for milestones just about at the same pace as a full-term baby, both of them. Monkey rolled over first, and the Frog wasn't far behind her. She's still better at it, and she can get her head up like a little periscope and look around. Frog has a bit more trouble with that, and usually ends up making muffled yell-noises against the blanket he's on. HELP. HELP. SOMEONE PUT ME ON MY TUMMY AND MY FACE IS STUCK AND MY HEAD IS TOO HEAVY TO LIFT. Does it make me a bad person how much I laugh at them? I hope not.
So. I owe tags. I owe tags, I owe comments, I owe posts, I owe pictures. I've missed things, I've forgotten things, and I'm gonna have to hope that I get a note on this one, because I'm only just now finally managing to drag myself out from underneath the weight that has been summer/fall of 2009. Also? I'd like a rush delivery of 2010, please. Apart from the babies, I'm really not all that thrilled with 2009, gotta admit.
Be well, everyone. I'm trying, I promise, and if I don't say it often enough--and I know I don't--I love you.
The Jay.