Home again, home again, jiggity jog...
... after a mostly-wonderful trip to not-so-sunny (but warm) California. The last few days have been a bit fraught, as I had a severely upset stomach and some concern about a possible obstruction, which would be quite worrisome given my recent health history. :-P But I seem to be okay at the moment.
So, first let's get the unpleasant bits out of the way. OW, my tummy hurts! Well, it did. It has been a really long time since I had a serious stomach problem and so I may be blowing this out of proportion. But anyway, two nights before we were scheduled to fly home I lost my dinner twice and had violent dry heaves at least twice more, and my stomach hurt. My lower digestive tract stopped working at all, which as far as I know is the opposite of what you'd expect from, say, food poisoning.
(TMI begins)
So, I paged my oncologist (digestion problems are something on my 'watch for' list) and he said if I could keep down water and pass gas it was okay to fly. After a day I had kept down water but not passed any gas. Still having stomach pain but not the same severity or nearly as often.
Then the morning we were to leave I did manage a teeny little fart, and threw up again - and wowee! Well, it's clear my liver and gall bladder are working reasonably well because I lost a stomach full of green bile. And it was really green. Surprisingly non-acidic, though, I thought. So I guess that rules out a gall bladder attack, which is a good thing.
And since then I've managed to have some soft food, and my GI system appears to be working although the entire tract is sore, and so is my ribcage, from the vomiting. I thought I was going to pop my eyeballs out at the time but at least they're not sore now. :-P
(TMI ends.)
Anyway, we got home okay, and I think I maintained an astonishingly good temperament considering I had nothing but water for two days. (And soup and tapioca pudding for another day. I'm hungry. And trying to decide if I should go in and see anybody ahead of schedule, or just wait for my next scheduled appointment with Dr. D (Feb. 6). He says if I can eat now I should just come in then.) I have a call in to my internist and will see if she wants to see me or not. I never throw up. It has been (counting) eighteen years since I was sick like this, and that time was food poisoning, and then it had been so long since I had barfed that I didn't even know what was happening until I lost it. EEK!!! it's eighteen years since an event that happened in my late teens! Aigh! *g*
So, that's how the vacation ended, and it's too bad, because I was looking forward to a last marvelous Seafood Event before we left, and didn't have the chance to indulge. It's so nice to be able to eat fish that was caught just outside the restaurant on the same day. :) You can get fresh seafood in Chicago, of course, but it costs an arm and a leg to be that fresh.
But back to the beginning...
We arrived in SFO on December 28th. There had been heightened security at ORD, with extra scans and wanding, but on our way out of SFO I was horrified to see half a dozen National Guards... uh, Guardspeople? whatever they are called now that they have girls on the team. :) ... with MACHINE GUNS standing around at the end of each scanning station.
GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK! There is no way in hell that it would be okay for them to use machine guns in the airport - pardon me, innocent bystander, you didn't really need your HEAD, did you? - so it just makes stupid people feel safe and thinking people mad to have them standing around with them. (And later in the week there was a shooting at SFO. Guess what, a NG man was unholstering his pistol to demonstrate to somebody that it was not loaded and accidentally shot himself in the ass (literally) and thigh. - I'm sure his life will suck for a while. - But the NG publicly refused to state whether it was policy for the weapons to be loaded or not-loaded. *sigh*) I would feel a lot better about security if there was any indication that the measures they are taking are actually reasonable. :-P Half a dozen defensive tackles and one person with a billy club would be more reassuring, honestly.
Anyway, we hadn't noticed any NG in ORD or MSP on our way out, but on our way back they were there. Much more discreetly - and the SFO ones were more discreet, too. But they all still had machine guns. Ridiculous.
Wow, San Francisco traffic sucketh worse than Chicago! Impressive.
So various visitations were made and fun things were done.
We had our first Seafood Event at the Berkeley Marina; a belated Christmas Happening with G's folks, and saw LOTR (ooooh, aaaaaah!).
We visited friends in their palatial estate at the top of a Santa Cruz mountain, where the dance studio and kitchen each have a footprint the size of our entire house's. Well, the kitchen isn't quite that big but it certainly is Big Enough. Wonderful, wonderful! It was misty days in the redwood-forested mountains and extraordinarily beautiful.
We spent New Year's in Monterey, and had two days at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the best aquarium in the world! *g* They have a tank that is so big it holds a school of tuna fish. A *school* of ***tuna fish***!!! They don't have a cam for it but they do have one for the kelp forest exhibit, which is also very cool.
On the way back up we met with kshandra, gridlore, dafydd, and clairaide for a quick jaunt around the San Jose Tech Museum And Kinetic Sculpture Thingie and then dinner and coffee and chatting. *waves madly* Great fun.
And a day was spent in the Sacramento downtown mall visiting with another friend. Then there was a day or two of rest, a viewing of Harry Potter, and a family hoo-ha with many of G's family and old family friends checking in to say hello.
Then my insides exploded and then we came home.
Hi. Happy New Year!
:)
So, first let's get the unpleasant bits out of the way. OW, my tummy hurts! Well, it did. It has been a really long time since I had a serious stomach problem and so I may be blowing this out of proportion. But anyway, two nights before we were scheduled to fly home I lost my dinner twice and had violent dry heaves at least twice more, and my stomach hurt. My lower digestive tract stopped working at all, which as far as I know is the opposite of what you'd expect from, say, food poisoning.
(TMI begins)
So, I paged my oncologist (digestion problems are something on my 'watch for' list) and he said if I could keep down water and pass gas it was okay to fly. After a day I had kept down water but not passed any gas. Still having stomach pain but not the same severity or nearly as often.
Then the morning we were to leave I did manage a teeny little fart, and threw up again - and wowee! Well, it's clear my liver and gall bladder are working reasonably well because I lost a stomach full of green bile. And it was really green. Surprisingly non-acidic, though, I thought. So I guess that rules out a gall bladder attack, which is a good thing.
And since then I've managed to have some soft food, and my GI system appears to be working although the entire tract is sore, and so is my ribcage, from the vomiting. I thought I was going to pop my eyeballs out at the time but at least they're not sore now. :-P
(TMI ends.)
Anyway, we got home okay, and I think I maintained an astonishingly good temperament considering I had nothing but water for two days. (And soup and tapioca pudding for another day. I'm hungry. And trying to decide if I should go in and see anybody ahead of schedule, or just wait for my next scheduled appointment with Dr. D (Feb. 6). He says if I can eat now I should just come in then.) I have a call in to my internist and will see if she wants to see me or not. I never throw up. It has been (counting) eighteen years since I was sick like this, and that time was food poisoning, and then it had been so long since I had barfed that I didn't even know what was happening until I lost it. EEK!!! it's eighteen years since an event that happened in my late teens! Aigh! *g*
So, that's how the vacation ended, and it's too bad, because I was looking forward to a last marvelous Seafood Event before we left, and didn't have the chance to indulge. It's so nice to be able to eat fish that was caught just outside the restaurant on the same day. :) You can get fresh seafood in Chicago, of course, but it costs an arm and a leg to be that fresh.
But back to the beginning...
We arrived in SFO on December 28th. There had been heightened security at ORD, with extra scans and wanding, but on our way out of SFO I was horrified to see half a dozen National Guards... uh, Guardspeople? whatever they are called now that they have girls on the team. :) ... with MACHINE GUNS standing around at the end of each scanning station.
GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK! There is no way in hell that it would be okay for them to use machine guns in the airport - pardon me, innocent bystander, you didn't really need your HEAD, did you? - so it just makes stupid people feel safe and thinking people mad to have them standing around with them. (And later in the week there was a shooting at SFO. Guess what, a NG man was unholstering his pistol to demonstrate to somebody that it was not loaded and accidentally shot himself in the ass (literally) and thigh. - I'm sure his life will suck for a while. - But the NG publicly refused to state whether it was policy for the weapons to be loaded or not-loaded. *sigh*) I would feel a lot better about security if there was any indication that the measures they are taking are actually reasonable. :-P Half a dozen defensive tackles and one person with a billy club would be more reassuring, honestly.
Anyway, we hadn't noticed any NG in ORD or MSP on our way out, but on our way back they were there. Much more discreetly - and the SFO ones were more discreet, too. But they all still had machine guns. Ridiculous.
Wow, San Francisco traffic sucketh worse than Chicago! Impressive.
So various visitations were made and fun things were done.
We had our first Seafood Event at the Berkeley Marina; a belated Christmas Happening with G's folks, and saw LOTR (ooooh, aaaaaah!).
We visited friends in their palatial estate at the top of a Santa Cruz mountain, where the dance studio and kitchen each have a footprint the size of our entire house's. Well, the kitchen isn't quite that big but it certainly is Big Enough. Wonderful, wonderful! It was misty days in the redwood-forested mountains and extraordinarily beautiful.
We spent New Year's in Monterey, and had two days at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the best aquarium in the world! *g* They have a tank that is so big it holds a school of tuna fish. A *school* of ***tuna fish***!!! They don't have a cam for it but they do have one for the kelp forest exhibit, which is also very cool.
On the way back up we met with kshandra, gridlore, dafydd, and clairaide for a quick jaunt around the San Jose Tech Museum And Kinetic Sculpture Thingie and then dinner and coffee and chatting. *waves madly* Great fun.
And a day was spent in the Sacramento downtown mall visiting with another friend. Then there was a day or two of rest, a viewing of Harry Potter, and a family hoo-ha with many of G's family and old family friends checking in to say hello.
Then my insides exploded and then we came home.
Hi. Happy New Year!
:)