On the dryest day in the history of the world, I lost my Chapstick. Blistex. Whatever. By tomorrow morning I won't have any lips. Which isn't that big a deal, I mean, do they really serve any useful purpose, aside from sex appeal and keeping Blistex in business?

Courtney, I figured it out: she had me confused with someone else. Oh well. Had a delightful few hours before realizing that was the only logical explanation.

I'm going to attempt to revitalize my livegerbil by doing such lovely things as fucking around with CSS and making it prettier. And, you know, trying to write worthwhile shit in it. Hell, I might even try to stop swearing. (Bullshit!) So we'll see how it goes. I'll let you know when things are pretty.

If you're in the mood for a good old-fashioned "What the FUCCCCKKKKKKK?!?!", I recommend seeing Transylmania.

So, while I'm pretty much recovered, the ITCHING has not gone away. It's pretty much incurable - comes from stuff in bloodstream so won't respond to such mundane treatments as anti-itch cream. The biggest problem is it gets worse at night. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in days... generally awake until 6 or 7am. See, the problem is, at night it moves to my feet. During the day, it's mostly my arms and thighs, and mild, I scratch a lot but absentmindedly. (I've got little scratches all over my skin... it looks diseased.)

Anyway the original point I wanted to make was, I was just googling stuff about jaundice itching and learned that in some cases it drives people to suicide. And I absolutely believe it. I keep thinking about dousing my feet in gasoline and setting fire to them. I think it'd stop the itching...

I like life better without an IV!

In other words, they let me out! Thank god! Everyone kept commenting on how much better/healthier I looked today, which really scared me, because today was the first day I looked in the mirror and noticed I looked ill. Which means I must have been a) REALLY scary-looking before and b) too sick to notice. Whatev.


The secret's in the golden nugget.

My "outpatient" surgery has landed me another night in the Parma General Hospital, where it's always 8,000 degrees and your roommate is always elderly. I suppose it's not too different from Florida. I'm pretty pissed because they knew I was gonna have to stay over before they did the surgery but didn't say so. I was supposed to be home this afternoon! I didn't bring anything with which to amuse myself for an overnight trip.

I guess whatever scale they level jaundice at, normal is <1 and mine was 9. Yippee. And I can't go home because a) I'm still jaundiced and b) the surgery he had to do was so complex he's worried my liver will open up and bleed. Basically, the gallstones were buried deeper in liver than expected. Probably why the itching was so intolerable. I got the impression that if they'd known how bad it was, they'd've fixed it sooner. Whatever. Here's what we know at this point:
- My throat hurts
- I'll theoretically go home tomorrow, unless disaster strikes
- The problem is fixed, as in, no nausea and my stomach feels like it's its actual size, rather than teensy and not connected.
- Hospitals are boring.
- Boring hospitals make for boring gerbil entries.

Why can't it just go back to normal? And, more importantly, why didn't the doctors give me anti-nausea medication? I just don't get it, I mean, the major side effect of having your gall bladder out is you get diarrhea if you eat the wrong things (fatty foods, mostly). That's all well and good except I can't keep a single fucking thing down long enough to digest it. I guess what I'm saying is, diarrhea is preferable to vomiting. WAY preferable. Hell, at this point, anything would be preferable to vomiting.

Can't somebody PLEASE just make it stop? I hate this. Reallllly hate.

UPDATE: Feeling MUCH better after third trip to the bathroom.

I don't want to use the Percocet they gave me, because a) I'm not in that much pain, b) the whole addictive personality thing, and c) it gave me "unusual sweating," which is not on the list of side effects but is on the list of overdose symptoms.

BUT.

I can't help thinking if it dulls pain, it must dull itching.

However much your life sucks, just remind yourself, it could be worse. Much worse.

(Sorry to keep bitching but god DAMN, am I struggling!)

One of the most common symptoms of biliary duct obstruction is itching. And I would just like to say.

IT FUCKING ITCHES!!! ALL OVER!!!!! HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE UNTIL FRIDAY?!?!?! I WON'T HAVE ANY SKIN LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the surgery went well. Recovery hurts like a mofo - it's weird, like, what happens is they put all this extra air into your abdomen so they can operate, but they can't let all the air back out, so it ends up bubbling up into your neck and shoulders and aching like mad. So I basically feel like I've got the flu or just lifted a tank. Plus the traditional anaesthesia hangover - dehydated and icky.

So yay, right? WRONG. Fucking complications! Apparently a gall stone escaped into my liver, and I have to go back next week and have it removed "from below." Ewwww. So a) jaundice, b) dark piss, c) have to go back immediately if I get fever and chills and d) have the delightful thought of a post-recovery second operation. UGH.

Can't shit like this happen to someone else for once?!?!

They're going to remove my gall bladder. Hooray!

Well, I promised myself a while back that if I ever experienced stomach pain as bad as what I had then, I would go to the hospital.

What happened tonight exceeded all pain I've ever felt in my life. I was making the weird whimpering noises I usually reserve for being in the vicinity of an exceptionally large spider. I called my mom and she didn't recognize my voice and I could barely speak because of the pain.

So - hospital. They're doing tests and whatnot. I'm a little worried because on one hand, they could come and say it was indigestion and I'll feel like a moron for coming to the ER. (Except that can't be right, can it, if the IV painkillers haven't irradicated the pain?) On the other hand, the lady who did the ultrasound took an awful lot of closeups of my liver so I'm also worried it'll be cancer or something.

I'm hoping for something nicely in-between like an ulcer (Mom doubts it) or a gall bladder problem (intake doctor mentioned as possibility).

And, as always, I hope it takes a while for them to figure out so I can get out of writing my essay.

I wrote what I thought was going to be the smaller, less detailed part of my 5-page-max paper and it's four pages long. Now I have to rethink my approach. :(

Incidentally, I'd really appreciate it if I could go, I dunno, two days without having an assignment due... eh, that's grad school, I guess. Once I get this paper written, and then the other paper written, I won't have anything due until 9 December!!! But first I gotta get these two papers written in the next, uh, three days. And the page limits! After Marlboro, five-pagers are so hard, and the one professor's even got us writing 3-page-max ones... how the frig can you say everything you need to in less than eight to ten pages?!?!

Txt with my mom:

Mom: Looking at Rav4s.
Me: Ew, why?
Mom: Toyota local
Me: You know what they say... People who drive SUVs are more likely to need SVU...
Mom: No wagon
Me: Get a Yaris, take the money you'd save, and get me a Yaris too!


See, the thing is, it's almost true that you could get 2 Yari for the price of one Rav4 - the difference is only a couple thousand dollars. But alas. You make a statement like that, people are bound to think you're exaggerating because you want a Yaris. :(

And now my computer wants me to install software updates and restart. Can't it just leave me alone???

I don't feel good.

I want drink boxes. This may or may not mean I'm coming down with something. I sure hope not, since Gram gets out of hospital, post-surgery, tomorrow, and if I'm sick, well, that's bad.

I DO NOT LIKE ANIMAL PLANET. I DON'T LIKE WHALES OR DYING BABY SNOWY OWLS OR PUFFINS OR POLAR BEARS AND I REALLLLLLY DON'T LIKE MUSK OXEN.

Some guy just called. I don't know if he was a telemarketer or what, but the conversation went like this:

Me: Hello?
Guy: Hello, Angelica?
Me: She's not here right now, may I take a message?
Guy: -mumblemumblemumble-
Me: I'm sorry?
Guy: May I speak to Mr. Zylowski?
Me: Uh, he's dead.
Guy: Oh, okay. Have a nice day.



-Oh yeah, maybe I should mention, Gram had a heart attack.-

The guy on the TV today told me to stop using dirty catheters.

:(