How was your day dear?: February 2019 Archives

Thursday morning I took the sticky tape off the two smaller incisions.  I was expecting a scabby mess, but no it all came off cleanly and there was just a little red line left underneath.  Put on trackie daks, which was first time I'd been out of pyjama bottoms since I got home.

Thursday night I got sick of lying on my back and sides and attempted sleeping on my stomach, but it still hurt a bit too much.

Friday morning I took the sticky tape off the larger incision.  This tape hurt more to get off, but again, the incision was clean.  

Friday evening Jenn came over and Stu ordered a LOT of Turkish food and we had that and chatted and had on the second draft of the slide show - still way too long at 900 photos (but down from the 1300 of the first draft).  Very annoyingly, I'd put a whole heap of heat mats down on the table, but there was so much food it ended up sitting on the table, and did a heap of heat damage to the surface of the table.  It's really obvious in three places.  Not happy Jan!!

Friday night I was able to sleep on my belly more comfortably.

Saturday was approaching normality (still need to be careful) but had quite a productive day Getting Things Done.  

In the evening we watched Discovery, and Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Jr version).  It wasn't too bad, altho some of my gripes ("tomorrow" actually being the day after, a boat that size being able to sink in the Thames, and popping up from the Palace of Westminster at Tower Bridge) all made their way into the IMDB goofs page heh.

Last night the entrance smoke detector went off at 3:30 for no good reason.  We took it down and I stayed awake for like an hour but no smoke, so will need to investigate that today (could have been dust stirred up by all the wind - the kitchen bench was all gritty yesterday, or maybe a spider).  Edit: battery was at 7.5 Volts, so think it's probably worth changing the battery.

Today I'm in jeans for the first time in over a week.  Seems to be doing ok.

Saturday night Fiona made quite a nice chicken soup for dinner, they drank a whole lot of my wine, and we watched Kung Fu Panda.

Sunday Stu and Fiona went off to the bus depot markets for the morning.  In the afternoon Stu went to Serkan's to trade fish, and Fiona went for a wander.  So I prepared dinner while it was peace and quiet.

Did I mention that EVERYONE AROUND ME WAS SICK??  Stu had been sniffling all week but it got worse on the weekend.  And Fiona had the tail end of a cold and/or tonsilitus so I spent the entire weekend in a state of tension and wishing everyone WOULD STAY OUT OF MY AIR.  Because the absolute last thing you want when you've had abdominal surgery is a cough.  Not impressed.

In the evening they drank a whole lot more of my wine and we had roast pork for dinner and watched Kung Fu Panda 2.

Monday returned to peace and quiet and I tidied the house (very slowly and gently) in between stuff on Netflix.  By the end of the day I felt a whole lot better.

Watched Discovery in the evening.

Still can't sleep on my belly, and in fact have been having a bit of trouble actually getting to sleep - probably because I'm just not doing enough to warrant being tired at night.  Only took panadeine the first two nights, other than that haven't had any painkillers at all.  As Chrissie said after her c-section - pain is your friend - reminds you to take it easy so as not to rupture anything.

So Wednesday afternoon my bowels were feeling a little off.  Nothing unusual, can get that sometimes (all too often) if I eat too much bad food.  Or even regular food.  After dinner I was pretty gassy and burpy, moreso than usual.  

But throughout the night it got worse rather than better.  Woke up at 4:00 in some discomfort.

No nausea, so unlikely to be food poisoning.  

Oh wait, wave of nausea Thursday morning but overcame it and went to work.

Another one hit me at work but overcame that as well.

By the third wave I thought I'd let it have its way.  Maybe I'd feel better.

But I didn't.

So after feeling like crap I decided to go home at 10:00.

Lay down but couldn't rest - too uncomfortable.  I had a tiny piece of cheese and a little water but not really very much.  

Late morning and I'm doing the doctor google thing.  Symptoms were edging towards appendicitis.  Even though I wasn't in any real pain, just strong discomfort.  But it did hurt when I poked around my appendix.  Decided not to eat or drink anything more "just in case".

So drove myself to the walkin clinic.  Stu had already paid for parking for the day right there anyway, so no problem leaving the car there.  It was probably about 12:45 when I got there.  Had to wait ages, and was feeling very uncomfortable.  Eventually they took pity on me and I think I might have got bumped up a position.  The nurse had a bit of a poke and thought that yes I should probably go to the hospital.  Called the sweetie and he drove me over to the hospital.

Had to wait quite a long time there as well, so it's well and truly mid afternoon by now.  Had explained my symptoms to the triage nurse on the desk, and eventually got seen by a doctor.  He did a bit of a history and poked me a bit, and then stuck in a cannula (in my very dehydrated veins, first go, to his credit) and took some blood.  Asked me for a urine sample (did I mention I was dehydrated?  and I'd peed when I arrived at the hospital, so that was a bit of a challenge).  He asked for mid stream but got end stream, there was so little.

So he comes back shortly after and says he's admitting me - yep, likely appendicitis.  18000 white blood count, elevated temperature and some of the classic symptoms.  Fun.

So I'm in a bed in emergency.  Eventually a surgeon comes by and gets all the details all over again (I've told the story four or five times today already).  They were considering a CT but decided not to (for unrelated reasons), and at 16:45 decided to load me up with fluids and do an ultrasound at 17:45.  By 17:35 my bladder hurt like hell.  How was I going to hold it in for another half hour (at least) ??  Then around 17:45 they were like, meh, not going to bother with the ultrasound, just going to do the surgery.  So I peed! Yayyyyy!!   (dude for ultrasound eventually turned up - at 17:55 - I really don't think I would have lasted that long).  I did get sick again though because I was so hungry (it's a thing I do, don't ask).  Nothing there though except bile.  Hurrah.

The sweetie had gone back to work in the afternoon, and went home to get changed.  I let him know where I was up to, that they were going to do surgery, so he thought he'd grab some dinner on the way in and then come see me before I went off to surgery.  Except maybe around 18:30 off I went, and never got to see him :(:(

Got wheeled through the hospital upside down and backwards, which is somewhat disorienting.  Went to the OR prep.  More doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and told my story yet again.  They asked me to say in my own words why I was there, and I said "for an appendectomy" and the admitting nurse scolded me for my American usage - "it's appendicectomy didn't you know??"

Then in to the OR.  Everyone was gloved, but still *touching things*.  I'm sure that pen and paper isn't sterile... hrmmm.  

Scooted over onto the operating bed and got poked and prodded some more.  Pain killers (they weren't wrong about making me light headed) and the next thing I knew was calls of Karen Karen Karen and it was all over.  A couple of hours later.  Couldn't feel any pain (figured that would change) and felt quite tired.

After about twenty minutes waiting for my heart rate to lower I got wheeled to my room for the night, and I'm like, where's the sweetie?  He was just outside! Yayy!  He'd called my mum and some family/friends to let everyone know what was happening, bestest sweetie ever.

So there's still more poking and prodding and checking obs, when I all I wanted was some food and to brush my teeth and go to the toilet and go to bed.  But everything operates on hospital time.  They'd wander off and it'd be ten or fifteen minutes before they came back.  So it was after midnight by the time I got to turn lights out.

Not that I slept very well.  I don't really like sleeping on my back but on my sides was too painful.  A teenager came in across the way in a lot of pain.  The lady next to me had all sorts of complications and also in a lot of pain.  Had my pulse and blood pressure read a couple of times.  At 4:00 when they came in for something I said I may as well go pee again.  Dozed but didn't really get any sleep.

The morning dragged on as well.  They said I could go home that day, but I got a steady stream of various people come by.  Breakfast (I was starving) wasn't til 8:45.  

The sweetie came by at some point too.  But nothing much happened.  A bit before midday my temp was up a little and I was in a bit more pain, so I was worried I was getting an infection.  But likely it was just the panadol wearing off that I'd had at 5:30.  Time kept dragging.  Had a late lunch (probably too much food) but still waiting around to go home.  

Finally FINALLY I could go at about 14:30.  

Rested with the sweetie for a while, but didn't really sleep.  Then he went off to pick up Fiona from Jolimont, and they went and had beer and meat on a stick.  Well not quite.  They did to go to Bentspoke for beer, and to the multicultural festival for potato on a stick (and a couple of other things).  Because I'd had such a big late lunch I had popcorn for dinner.  Because, fibre!  Watched some old episodes of Naked Chef (man he was so *young* when he started, and Jules was just his girlfriend hehe).  Started watching Muriel's Wedding on Netflix, even though I have it on DVD.  Silly really.  Then Stu and Fiona came home.  They brought frozen chips so we heated some of those up.  But it did mean I went to bed a lot later than I wanted to.

Had some panadeine (from my stash before they stopped selling the stuff over the counter) and actually slept quite well.  Was able to sleep on my sides for some of the night, and slept in til about 7:30.  

Today Stu and Fiona went off to do some food shopping and I watched the rest of Muriel's Wedding and Netflix and tried to select photos for the holiday slideshow.  I've been mostly just sitting up.  I was never a fan of lying on the couch anyway (hurts my back unless I get things just right), and it's a lot harder to get up from the couch.  This afternoon has mostly just been chilling.  Nice and quiet like.  I also found the web archive of Julie Powell's blog, so have been reading that from the beginning.  Not really sure why some people hated it so much.  It reads like someone just doing it for themselves, not out to make a name for themselves.  She does sound like she was burning the candle at both ends though!

My butt does hurt from sitting so much though...  normally I'm bouncing up and down a *lot* more!

So an eventful couple of days.  But of everything, from appendicitis, to surgery, to recovery, the single most painful thing of the whole experience was them taking off the sticky tape holding in my cannula!   (followed by holding my pee for the ultrasound that never happened :) )

Friday:  Farewell to Cath and Stewie.  Again.

Saturday:  Quite a productive morning.  Doctor mid morning.  Late brunch at Gus' Place with the sweetie.  Photo processing all afternoon.  Cleaned my computer desktop.  Cooked a whole heap of Kit's tomatos for dinner with some gluten free pasta (she had a whole freezer drawer full of them which she gave to us before they moved).  I liked it but the sweetie thought it was too fiddly picking out stalks of thyme and tomato skins (you can eat tomato skins you know! ;) ).  Watched Discovery and Dunkirk.

Sunday:  Photo processing.  Finished processing all 10000 (and 51) of my photos from the trip.  And then we downloaded Stu's :)

Monday:  Posted my Canberra 1986-2016 blog to the Canberra Reddit.  At least a few hundred people had a look which was pretty cool.  Although Reddit's UI is pitiful.  For posting there was a link tab, an image tab and a description tab.  I filled out all three, but only the link ever posted.  So stoopid, Reddit!!  Yet another storm rolled over in the evening.  This one was pretty close so turned off my computer.  Which was annoying because almost everything on my todo list involved the computer!  Smashed out a 192 piece jigsaw while I waited.

Tuesday:  Began processing Stu's photos.  Android (at least the last two Stu's had) has a SUPER annoying bug where the forward facing camera has no date taken exif data saved.  Which makes it annoying to geotag, because apps rely on that field.  Some photos I manually geotagged, others I forced exif data into them based on the date modified field (with GeoSetter itself) so could auto geotag them.  Very very annoying.  Especially when like half of all Stu's photos on the holiday were selfies!

Thursday:  Realised it's been five years since: a) Dad went and carked it, b) we first attempted to watch MacGyver on DVD (only got half a dozen episodes in), c) Fiona was here with Bruce.

Friday: Drove to Sydney.  Will save that for a separate post.

This week I've been trying to catch up on All The Things.  Starting with all my iPhone photos and screenshots from when I first got the phone in November.  Photos are easy to work with now that I can use Faststone to force the date modified field to be the exif date taken field, so that fixes up all the photos.  For the PNGs (screenshots) and other miscellaneous files (movies and portrait edit information files) I got an app - BulkFileChanger - which is a nifty tool to modify the date modified field.  You can offset by x minutes/hours, which was super useful for fixing up photos from different time zones for the trip, or you can manually set to a specific time.  So I have to look while the phone is plugged into the computer what the actual date should be, then fix it with this app.  A fair amount of work, but gets the job done.  Although the last time I downloaded all the files none of the new ones were wrong.  Maybe 12.1.2 fixed it???? 

Last night while trying to backup, the computer had a sad and I ended up rebooting it.  But did you know you can only reopen closed tabs ONCE when you quit Chrome?  I quit it twice and lost all the tab history.  That was pretty annoying.  I had closed and saved a lot already, and history got most of the rest back.  But who knows what I'm missing..

Also last night my 2 terabyte backup drive filled up!!  Gasp!!  I deleted a couple of big things and it finished (took forever because it needed several weeks worth of photo processing).  Today I bought a 4 terabyte drive.  Started backing up tonight, but it's only a fraction of the way through.  Will be backing up all through the weekend at this rate!  Then need to rework the backup strategy so there's always at least two offsite copies of everything....

Tuesday afternoon we also got a dust storm that obliterated Mt Ainslie..

Tonight was Fuller House and blogging.  All the blogs...

Starting Australia Day.

Saturday: All The Things!  I renamed and resized all six thousand odd photos from the Canon from the holiday.  Watched Julia sans Julie.  Had a lovely lunch with the sweetie at Chong Co.  Did our food shopping.  Geotagged a lot of the Canon photos.  Watched Fuller House and The Usual Suspects.

Sunday: Began processing iPhone photos from the holiday, dealing with random changes in time zones and the fact that APPLE SUX (still raging at Apple randomly changing the date fields on my files).  Had dinner at Chrissie's.  Had Over the Hedge on cause Zac wanted to watch it, but Chris and I chatted and didn't really watch the movie.

Monday:  Had a good nights sleep.  Continued iPhone photo processing.

Tuesday:  Backed up the computer (and all that work on the photos).  Salmon for dinner.

Wednesday:  Zombie day on account of epic insomnia on Tuesday night.  Couldn't get to sleep.  Maybe it was the salmon?  Not the first time I've had salmon then not be able to get to sleep.  Got up to resizing and geotagging the iPhone photos.

Thursday:  Had F over for pizza for dinner, and watched bits and pieces of Stephen Colbert.  Appreciated the cool change!  Couldn't get into my computer before I went to bed.  It was swapping hard and the login screen was unresponsive.  In the end I got impatient with it and rebooted it.  But in the process corrupted the inboxes in Eudora :(  

1 February saw a bunch of us at Thai Ayutthaya to farewell Cath and Stewie.  Again.  :) 

I'm sure we'll see them again, they're sure to be back at some point... maybe.. :)

22.1.19

A bunch of us went and did the Nightmare room at the Riddle Room at Mitchell.  It was great fun, the only problem being that one of the girls had done the room before, and kind of took over a bit, which I found somewhat frustrating.  I'd love to do more escape rooms, it was very cool.

In the evening there was a dinner at the War Memorial which was very cool.  There were various films, and a talk by one of the volunteers (which was perhaps a *tad* too long but quite interesting).

The entree was nice, but the mains weren't anything special (a bit dry).  There was a pork dish and a beef dish handed out alternately, and Neil and I did a swapsies of a bit of ours so I got to try both.  Dessert was quite nice, but it was a bit squishy and they didn't give us forks so I asked for one hehe.

24.1.19

They asked me last year to run a trivia night.  Because I thought it was going to be mostly a different audience I decided to reuse my oldest one.  I didn't do any prep on it at the end of last year because I was too busy with holiday planning.  So come this year and I had like one weekend to prepare it.  And I found I couldn't use a lot of my questions because they weren't relevant to the date/audience.  So ended up having to spend a lot of time on it.  But the night went well and people seemed to have a good time.

25.1.19

Another bunch of us booked out Laser Zone and we had a blast.  There were a couple of team games, a couple of team competition games, a couple of individual games and a game called "Infection" where one person is "it" and has to get as many people as possible (and the people they get can then get other people).  So you just hide and hope they don't find you.  Interesting but not as much fun.  I did surprisingly well overall.  It helped that I made a good effort to get all the "bases", and that half the people playing were kids heh.  I won or came second a few times.  This was me winning on a team game.

All in all a pretty fun week.

Just been too busy with life.

Sigh.