June 2005 Archives

So it's 6:47 am, and I slept fine last night. I still have the drain in, and may for awhile longer. It's the same waiting game as last time: to see when the drainage stops because my guts have healed up. The bug they found in me during the drain placement is a member of the pseudomonas family. Unfortunately the antibiotic it responds well to (which means it dies better?) is a member of the ciproflaxin family (think Cipro from 9/11) and is terribly expensive. An eight day course cost me $85 after insurance. I wish I invented this stuff! That aside, my experience at the Deaconess short stay unit was very good. They took good care of me, and I didn't have to threaten them with the fact that I work in Finance/Accounting. In fact, I saw one of the nurses in the cafe yesterday and she asked how I was doing.

Jakki has safely made it back to Little Rock for a visit this week, and with the house to myself I'm going to head down to Moscow to help my Dad with some computer stuff. Special note to all the Little Rock crew: don't be P.O.'d if you don't get to see Jakki this trip, she doesn't have any wheels of her own and she's way down in Benton with her mom. I'm not even sure she will have access to her email. That said, I hope she enjoys herself, and I hope I can keep the house from becoming a total wreck for a week *grin*.

Other than that, work is going well, I really like the guys I work with and I'm starting to do some cool things. This past Friday they got me started on an ASP.NET project. ASP.NET is the next major version of the ASP that I know and love. It's not super different, but I kind of feel like I'm learning to code again. It's worth it though; .NET (which we pronounce "period-net" around the office to increase the hilarity) is the Wave Of The Future™ and I might as well align myself with progress so I don't end up in the programmer old-folks home talking about the Way It Used To Be.

Well, y'all been great. Try the veal. I'll be here all week. Remember to tip your servers...

It's 11:03 PM and I can't sleep because I've been sleeping all day. Last night I woke up about 2am with a 102 degree fever and some pain in my belly. Today I made a pre-emptive doctor's appointment, and then spent the better part of the day having my blood drawn and having yet another CT scan with contrast. It's sick, but I think I might be starting to enjoy that stuff. Today's flavor was Berry Smoothie that I affectionately referred to as "Barium Berry". Lord knows where they harvest Barium Berries, but this batch came from Canada.

So my surgeon and my doctor's Nurse Practitioner examined the scan, and it was determined that I need to have a surgical tube and drain put back in to relieve a pocket of infectious fluid that is inflaming the surrounding area. Joy upon joys. Once again, riding my bike, swimming and doing any physical labor are now off limits. Plus, I need to be ever-vigilant of evil doorknobs once again.

Tomorrow I get to visit the Short Stay unit at Deaconness (ain't it a small world) and have the drain put in as an outpatient. It's weird that it is at Deaconness, because I now know what reports I will show up on. Hopefully I can return to work next week, I don't want them to see me as a health liability.

So that's what's going on in my world tonight. I think I'll unwind a bit with a little bubble-wrap popping at: http://www.nonstop.lv/files/bubblewrap.swf