Wherever you go

there you are.

And  indeed, that's where i am.

No, i'm not on anything stronger than acetaminophen.  They did offer me lortab, or whatever it is, to sleep, but i declined, as i hate how i feel when i'm on that stuff.  My normal mental state is fuzzy enough, i don't need help from drugs.  Or interference, however you want to see it.

The night was mostly sleepless as is normal in a hospital.  As i told the nurse, it's okay, i'm not here to sleep, i'm here to get meds.  She liked that.

Also, i'm trying to be a balanced patient.  You don't want to be one of those that treat nurses like waitstaff and have a bad attitude and expect to be catered to every moment so that they are so relieved to see you go they wouldn't care if you went out feet first.  Nor do you want to be one of those to whom they screech, "Why didn't you tell me your IV line was bleeding 20 minutes ago!!!" and they have to hear a response such as, i didn't want to bother you, or, i thought it would stop soon.

You want to be somewhere in the middle of that.

Since i was on an IV that made noises every 30 seconds or so all night, it meant not much sleep, just fits and starts.  And because the IV pump is plugged into the wall, i had to learn how to unplug my "leash" and take it with me on my frequent trips to the WC.  Also, it's as cold as brass in winter in here (even the nurse was wearing thermal underwear, i kid you not, when we talked about it she showed me) and with my extra blanket it wasn't enough.  When i'm cold, i don't sleep well.

As soon as i reasonably could i called Bigger Girl to get her to drop off another extra blanket on her way to work.  She did, and said she was going to work with cows, playing cow poke to move them along.  She made me laugh by promising not to punch any cows if i promised not to punch any nurses.

Breakfast was as i feared.   In Edwardian England, when you said "vegetarian", and there were plenty of them, people gave you vegetables and fruit.  Now, you say "vegetarian" and they give you white bread, white flour biscuits, white rice, white potatoes, grits, etc., then wonder why you don't eat.  It took talking it through with a nutrition specialist to get fruit and pure fruit juice.  He also has realized i mean it when i say i want salad at every meal, no dressing.  No bread, no dairy, no sugary dessert.  Usually, i only eat raw food, but in desperate times i'm going ahead and eating oatmeal -- yes, i mean it when i say don't put sugar or milk on it!  The veggies are cooked, too, but at least they are used to low fat diets and don't worry about it when i say no butter.  Restaurants often ignore that request.

For dinner, i gave in and ate the "modified" beans and rice.  That means they made it for restricted diets, no meat, no added sodium, just cooked beans and cooked white rice, and i scraped off and ate the beans and left most of the rice.

What really strikes me as funny in hospitals is how they serve you breakfast at 7am, lunch at 11am, and supper at 4pm, no snacks between, and then wonder why patients are about to chew their arms off by midnight.

The wonderful doctor in charge of me, whose name i cannot pronounce, came in and looked at me around noon and said i'm not progressing as quickly as she would like.  (No gory details, i promise, and no pics of the swelling and such.  The camera phone wouldn't take a good enough picture so close anyway.)  So she has added two more antibiotics, including one that we give cats when they have the runs for no specific reason we can find.  Somehow, between that and the cooked food and the fact that i am not getting my usual probiotic, i'm probably going to be, well, to be delicate, as "irregular" as some French verbs the time i get out of here.

Ol' Bessy is mostly behaving, except when the nurse ran over her cord with the IV pole and she decided she was unplugged and being an old gal she can't hold her charge and hibernated.  It took a while, but with replugging everything and giving her time to get more juice in her, she's back up and running.

My own doctor came in and told me that i will probably be here until Thursday, maybe longer.  It all depends.  If it improves soon, great.  If not, surgical consult.  We don't want that.

Sweetie is working at the church and trying to hold down the fort at home with the help of the kids.  They are feeding the kittens, and Miss W dropped them some more formula.

One of the pastors from the church came to visit, which surprised me.  They are busier than the one legged man in a butt kicking contest over there this week, so i figured there wasn't going to be time for any of them to get away.  You get over 1,000 guests on your campus for 5 days and you are busy!

As is typical in a hospital (or anywhere else in life, whom am i trying to kid?), every time i was indisposed in some way someone came or tried to call.  Miss W, my dad, my mom, all tried to call when i was having the IV changed or was talking to a doctor.  The hospital chaplain came in just at the same time as the person from nutrition services.  Sometimes it's a circus.

Then everyone is gone just as suddenly, and that's when i rest or get online.  It doesn't last long.




Today is

Aimless Wandering Day -- use the extra daylight to wander someplace with nothing particular to do

American Eagle Day

Anne and Samantha Day -- remembrance for Anne Frank and Samantha Smith, and their contributions to our world

Cuckoo Warning Day -- if you hear the cuckoo today, it will be a wet summer

Daylight Appreciation Day

Day of the National Flag -- Argentina (Anniversary of General D. Manuel Belgrano's Death)

Feast of the Great Spirit / Great Mystery -- various Native Americans (through tomorrow)
     Cherokee call the spirit Asgaya Galun Lati
     Iroquois call the spirit Orenda
     Lakota call the spirit Wakan Tanka
     Zuni call the spirit Awonawilona

Festival for Summanus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (the god who threw thunderbolts at night)

Festival of the New Knee -- Fairy Calendar

Finally Summer Day -- Summer Solstice

Hogueras de San Juan -- Alicante, Spain (through the 29th, with the night of the 24th being the most magical as the festival is for St. John, whose day that is)

Hump Day -- Tasmania (because it is the shortest in the year, Taswegians today feel they are over the "hump" of winter.)

Ice Cream Soda Day

International Surfing Day

Inti Raymi -- Inca (festival of the sun god Inti);Sacsayhuamán Andes Mountain Natives (winter solstice and New Year festival)

Iron Skegge's Day -- Vikings (martyrdom of Iron Skegge, who died defending the temples of Maeri against Christians)

Martyr's Day -- Eritrea

National Vanilla Milkshake Day

New Identity Day -- an internet generated holiday, just have fun thinking about who you might want to be for a day

Solstice -- 23:09 UT; related observances:
     Litha / Yule -- Wicca/Pagan (northern hemisphere / southern hemisphere)
     Midsummer -- Midsummer Festivals begin -- Juhannus Day in Finland and Midsommar in Denmark and Norway, celebrated over the next several days in many Scandinavian traditions; often this time is also associated with betrayal, as the sunlight begins to decrease, this is when Baldur was betrayed, as well as Sigurd.
     Midsummer Baal -- Ancient Celtic Calendar

St. Michelina of Pesaro's Day (Patron of mentally ill people, people with in-law problems, widows; against death of children, insanity and mental illness)

Takekiri Eshiki Matsuri -- Kuramadera, Kyoto, Japan (bamboo cutting festival)

Wadjet Summer Solstice Ceremony -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate, but probably at solstice)

World Refugee Day -- UN


Anniversaries Today:

The University of Oxford receives its charter, 1214
West Virginia becomes the 35th US state, 1863


Birthdays Today:

Nicole Kidman, 1967
John Goodman, 1952
Lionel Richie, 1949
Bob Vila, 1946
Anne Murray, 1945
Brian Wilson, 1942
Danny Aiello, 1933
Martin Landau, 1931
Chet Atkins, 1924
Audie Murphy, 1924
Jean-Jacques Bertrand, 1916
Errol Flynn, 1909
Lillian Hellman, 1905
Scipio Africanus, BC236


Today in History:

Flavius Aetius' battles Attila the Hun; the battle was inconclusive, and Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory, 451
Jews are expelled from Brazil by order of regent Don Henrique, 1567
The Irish  village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian  pirates, 1631
A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta, 1756
King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family begin the Flight to Varennes during The French Revolution, 1791
The U.S. vessel SS Savannah, the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, arrives at Liverpool, 1819
Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne, 1837
Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph, 1840
Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 1877
Caroline Willard Baldwin becomes the first woman to earn a doctor of science degree, at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1895
A rare June hurricane struck Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35, 1959
The so-called "red telephone" is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1963
The German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin, 1991
The Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida, 2003