Long time no write

Wow. It was longer than I thought. It's been a long long month!

First, let's do away with that Christmas panic thing. I got over that. I knit a whole bunch of bowls and felted them. Done. I think that I made something like 13 of them in less than a week. They're pretty much useless, but they're pretty.

And at the same time, I finally felted Nancy's cat bed.

This was after I was hospitalized for 4 days after experiencing stomach bleeding. Only I didn't realize what had happened. How can one person be so stupid? I can only plead lack of blood supply to the brain.

*Warning--yucky details*

I was at school when it started. I didn't feel any pain, just a feeling of warmth swept outward from my stomach. I thought it was a weird hot flash. Immediately I was weak and lightheaded, but I figured I had the bug that was going around school. I work in the main office for 1/4 of the day and every sick kid comes in there for Tylenol or Advil, like that'll cure them.

I managed to drag myself back upstairs to my office, telling myself with every step that I could not drop the laptop. I don't know how I made it, or how I made it to the car and drove to pick Tom up. My coworker told me that I looked awful.

I didn't go to work the next two days (Thursday and Friday). I got progressively weaker and could barely stand up. I was really cold and couldn't get warm no matter how many comforters I had over me. I still thought it was the flu. The odd thing was that I didn't feel sick, just couldn't stand up or even hold my head up.

Thursday afternoon I noticed that my (*WARNING--YUCKY*) stool was totally black. I just thought, huh. I bet that's blood. It didn't really sink in that it's not supposed to be like that. The thought just sort of flitted through my head.

By Sunday I was noticing that my lips were completely colorless. Again, I thought, huh. Isn't that odd. Since I was getting worse instead of better, I decided to go to the doctor's the next morning. Forget work.

Tom took me into the doctor's office. I could hardly stand up long enough for the nurse to (*WARNING--YUCKY*) weigh me. My blood pressure was something like 60/28. The doctor pulled my eyelids down and looked at them, then looked at my gums, read my palm (at least that's what it looked like) and told me to go immediately to the emergency room.

After telling the same story to about 50 different people, they decided that I was telling the truth and decided to admit me. Whew, that means I don't have that $100 copay. They took me to the Critical Care Unit, which I have to admit scared me a little. I didn't think it was that critical.

I was given three pints of blood that afternoon and evening. A GI specialist was brought in to scope my stomach to see if they could pinpoint the bleeding. All of the equipment was brought into my room; if you're in ICU, you get real service. They couldn't find the origin of the bleeding, so either it healed on its own or it was in the folds created by the stomach surgery I had four years ago--almost to the day.

The next day I was taken to a regular floor, but that night I was given a 4th transfusion. I was awakened every three hours for my vitals to be taken; by Wednesday night I was exhausted and was given Ambien. I love Ambien.

I was released on Thursday with a new med, Protonix. No lifestyle or diet changes were suggested and I sure didn't ask for any.

I was out of sick leave by this time, but I didn't care. I stayed home Friday and went back to work on Monday, and you know what? I felt better than I have in years. No fatigue at all. I was concerned that it would take me weeks to get over losing so much blood (my doctor later told me that he thinks I lost 5 pints; I think that's half of the blood in the average adult), but I've felt wonderful ever since. I must have been anemic for quite some time.

We left for Florida a week after I came home, played with the grandkids, shopped, went sight-seeing. Absolutely no problems. Well, there was that one time when I drank a slushy drink way too quickly and thought my stomach was bleeding again, but it was just an esophageal spasm. Those things hurt.

Last Thursday I flew back to Orlando for A's 7th birthday. I was a little apprehensive about the trip; she was taking a bunch of kids to DisneyWorld for her birthday, and I was worried about my stamina. I shouldn't have worried; the kids and other parents wore out long before I did.

Life is good.



*note: if your lips turn white, go to the emergency room*