They Want Me!





(tmooz.com for the pic. uh-oh. Call centers even off shore will be replaced by faceless aliens)



My phone lines have been lighting up, Reader!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I could only assume it was the "web presence" I established so many years ago that I have publishers convinced I will write, edit (after obtaining my 5th college degree) bind and print my own books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


mootee.typepad.com has a picture of a call center. We get so many calls here we hired out help.)



(the hind.com  call center



Kidding I only have an Associates in Fam. Science and am a smidge away from a BA. in whatever
but I was a Broker at one time. Now I just mainly write for you guys. For free.

Actually, the phone has been lighting up. Not for me but for J. ?

nnnuh, nnuhh. (that's how my cell sounds- gone are the ring ring days)

ME: Hello?

J's Friend: "Hey, can J. hang out?"

ME: "Sorry, he is busy mowing the lawn. After that he has to clean out the fire place, wash the dishes, then make a dress for me to go to the ball. "

Kidding. He does have to mow. And then he can head over to Sno Shack.

NO SHINANIGANS this summer, Boys!

P.S. I love you.

 

P.P.S. Glad you graduated.

Love- The Sweetest Thing

 



(dosmanosperu.com for the U2 pic because they sing ohh, oh, oh, loves the Sweetest thing.)

Ain't love the sweetest thing?



J. , my son, saw me the morning of the garden hose placement down into my throat. It had been a rough night. The pain was so bad it pushed out tears. Has that ever happened to you? Possibly during allergy season or something.

There was no way to get comfortable. So I just laid there and cried to myself. Which of course always makes things worse in your face and throat so that really helped.

 First I did the praying thing-Wait I did that the whole time in my mind. Then I was really talking to God. I actually was grateful for the experience but wanted it over. I had to draw upon a lot of reserves.

By morning I was exhausted.

 Humbled and grateful for so much. Even being tortured with the esophageal manometry

 (I know it sounds pitiful, and for some a garden hose down the throat for 24 hours is as easy as a cake walk but I had a few other things going on at the same time)


So by morning I was crying the gratitude tears. I had a need to hug my boy. And so I pulled myself out of bed and went in to snuggle Jaden. My eyes were swollen. My face red and blotchy.

So when I put my arm around him he woke up and saw me.

 

"oh! Come here, Sweetheart!"

and he put his arms around me and hugged me.  It was the most genuine emotion that it took me off guard. My boy is growing up into a young man. He has never said that to me. I don't think....

Anyway,

I had two Sons to be grateful for after a night like that.





 

 

Manometry Update Part II

********************************************************************************
Well Reader, I woke up again. Pain. Dread.  I still have a tube up my nose. Down my burning esophagus. Will this night ever end.

 

 

(courtesy of this poor lady off youtube but had a "professional" nose tapey thingy that I did NOT have.  My Dr.'s Minion used just three pieces 1/8  of an inch thick, of athletic tape. So my Rudolph tape job to secure my tube down was even a bigger sensation than this lady's.  )

 



This made do that one cry that comes from deep in the gut. And is the one you do when no one else is around. It doesn't last long because no one is there to here you do the three sighed gut cry.

Anyway, I am T minus four hours from having this removed. My stomach is killing. My throat is sore. And I just learned how to spell what they did to me yesterday. Manometry.

To this day I struggle to recall how to spell the D word and I have had Crohns going on 20 years!
It must be a shrink thing.

Actually I sort of refuse to learn any word that has an odd spelling and diarrhea is just odd. It's odd to have it, spell it, have a disease other than the stomach flu..... it, IT. ! Darn it! (Go ahead and swear here if you do in real life but censor yourself on a blog because you are pretending you don't or haven't sworn in real life.

(I can't stop laughing. I am putting in pics days after this and can now do so. Courtesy of these actors and houstonheartburn.com ~ Thanks again, Houston! Great stuff comes outta there, doesn't it?)

 





 I have to tell how J. reacted when he saw me. He apparently forgot I was getting the tube for 24 hours and so he immediately offered to sleep with me to make sure I don't stop breathin. I told him it would be okay cause I wouldn't be able to get to sleep. He calls me Momma when he is trying to comfort me. The Momma. Which I just realized is something I hadn't written in a journal or something because I will one day forget and he will stop.

I just remembered to punch the button on my little camera to show I am sitting up standing but I am actually sitting. And that is hard enough. My spine feels like the tube is down it. I wonder if my Dr.s minion nurse put it there! Either way I am ready to pull it.

 

(refluxy.com)

I am feeling like a wimp. Some people have brain tumors and I don't. Thank goodness.

Oh, great! I just remembered: Today is taper day of prednisone! Brilliant!


 I just misspelled that word; brilliant. And was autocorrected. Seriously. Not lying for a laugh. I feel that one cry coming on again.

(Houston Nails it Again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Anyway, just great! Now I am going to be in a wheelchair for sure! I have hardly handled the taper as it is. And Padre has already said there's no room in the house for a wheelchair so it's off to Promitory Point for me! Grandma was there and the outside looks good but it's all for show. Passed the offices the rooms are mediocre, the beds were horrible, the rehabilitation neglig--- how do you spell negligible? Hey, I got it right.

We decided to jump off the "Prednisone Cliff"  pretty quick to ten by going 1mg per week from 15.
Which is a far cry from my other attempt of 5's. I won't mention the person's name, okay my GI, but that taper had even his other staff mates (collegues but I can't spell it) telling me that was way too fast.





(Ah, man. This picture captures  it, Readers. It is like an extension cord up and up your noz. Thanks youtube, dude.)



REALLY? Is that why I felt I was drowning in Hades? Glad I used my noggin' and made the right calls and got

I can't even think about it. Back to J. because he is more fun and makes me laugh. I snapped a selfie for a fellow Crohnie and he saw it and said:

"Do you realize how cute you are?"

 

as he grabbed me by the neck and pulled me to his chest. Which hurt, Reader. And I winced.  but ya make allowances for your children right? And I let him hold me there as my spine took part in the leaning action of hugging my son.



I don't know if he truly believes the fake and sarcastic smile I had in the picture is really cute or if he is saying that so I don't feel bad that I have greasy hair, no make-up on which reveals the scars and acne that I never dealt with through puberty. My cheeks are very red due to the broke vein muscles due to the Cushings, Crohns, and prednisone attacking the smooth muscle that lines the inside of our veins and blood vessels. And I am wearing a pink I heart New York shirt on to sleep in. Thanks for the shirt, Care.

 

Readers, this is what can now replace what I went through the last few days. Many of you have had the tube and might be thinking I am a woos. Please, Reader know I had been in pain and bloated due to my esophagus being narrowed. - A stricture that went unnoticed. Blood tests don't find it. Doctors in the ER didn't X-Ray when I would go in. It was missed until a P.A. caught it on X-Ray.

 

She believed me. She believed something was wrong.

 

 

And she was right. I was choking and gaggin. Aspirating food into my lungs. Time was of the essence. She didn't expect an ER visit to only be for some person who had a Bear attack and his leg was hanging off as the only emergency to walk in that door.

She thought my injuries and pain through. She put one piece of that pain puzzle together.

 

 

(munsell.com)

 

The new kiosk to make things faster ask you why you are there- there are only 9 options and sometimes you have multiple reasons and places, and then the volunteer punches in something as you ramble off what you are needing help with and it ends up that the doctors are just going to go with the kiosk answer instead of the looking at the whole picture.

 

She is an answer to prayer, Readers.

 

 

 

I want to thank her. But how?

 

 

Then, with the help of a respected, retired doctor I was in getting scoped and it was opened up.

 

(redbubble.com)

 

However, I have hurt since then but the bloating has gone down. I don't look like Kate plus 8.

 

I still sound funny. I have talked like a man named Boyd K. Packer who is what we call a General Authority in my church- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

Not kidding fellow Mormon Readers. Non Mormons but fellows on this blog journey, stay with me here.  

 

He is one of the 12 Apostles.

 

 

I don't know why his voice is gruff. Mine is due to Cushings and the acid scarring my throat, I guess? 

hangin on,

Forgive the non Editing

Sorry I have not made sense in some sentences. I haven't edited anything because I am sick. I will try to later.

Crohns, Cushings, ACID Esophagus & Chocolate

 

 

 

 

(courtesy of ceresproject.org)

Well, Readers.

Your prayers didn't work. My Dr. instructed two of his minions to put in two tubes to test my tube for eating,  in order to record levels of something benign like ACID. Yes, it burns on the inside as well as the outside. (they [prayers] did work- hold tight and see how.)

Prior to this informative GI procedure, I was given instructions over the phone on what to do and not do.

1. Not to eat for a few hours before hand.

Not a problem.

I've been down and out and actually lost some weight if you read the last few posts, and have not cared to eat-

 

(Not eat this costume. Less acid I bet. Thanks for the picture costumesgalore.net)

but I have stared at pictures of food.

*if you didn't read the last two posts, why not? --kidding. I tend to get sarcastic while suffering or in pain. It's hereditary from my paternal padre side.

Before I continue to document my life,

Thank you, Readers.

Your prayers helped me make good decisions and keep a clear head the past few days. Except for some info I sent along on group texts that J. has no idea about.

Yesterday I had the hardest day.

boo-hoo, me!! 

I finally tapped out on how much longer I could do over time at Crohns, Cushings & Co. and, using The Force I made a decision. And I could tell Padre wanted  to leave my Dr.s office after the IV they tried to put in with a 20 gauge (not a gun) into the veins in my hands. That's all they had- gauges. Not hands.  And then they got one up stream, Yay!
There was a prayer answer!!



Half way through, or so, I felt like my hand wet its pants and  figured I was bleeding out. I quickly looked under the white blanket that was keeping me warm and from shaking, to see blood and then saline diluting it.

 Quickly I whipped it over to the side of the table and let the new carpet and paint on the walls take a hit rather than get my own bio hazard waste on myself.

After we hollered for help; they (two nurses and the PA) tried to figure out how to stop the IV, I kinked the chord and Padre put pressure on the port of entry.

(All fine establishments have a learning curve. I don't hold a grudge. A brand spanking new office can make anyone nervous.)

In a Bermuda Triangle sort of fashion, this took place right when everything was closing down-Dr.s go home, infusion centers close, and ERs send in people who don't want to work after 5.

And so they told me I'd have to go through the ER!

whaaaa???

 Or come in the next day. And they handed me a piece of paper to take to the hospital, whether I chose to let the people there give me IV, OR stop drinking water altogether.

(some one must have texted ISIS or face booked the President to call them and they used a voo-doo doll instead.) :)





Using the Force I told Padre to drive us home; I had a boy to wish good luck and get to baseball- saline could wait. (When I said yesterday was the worst, I lied. It is early evening with my tube in and I am now burning in my ears and chest from eating three chocolate chips. )

THREE!

Reverse Psychology is what is happening here. The doctors want me to quit needing them after 5
-(I call them when they are on call. They hate that. Sorry. )

The Second rule I was to remember was I wasn't supposed to take any Nexium or drink the chalk that coats my throat.  I couldn't take anything that would mask or prevent the ACID from coming where it shouldn't like the chalk that coats my throat. I've found out that it does in fact work and I will never eat chocolate in my life again. Unless I am in the hospital, on my death bed, and morphine is flowing.

 

So in the middle of the night I went back to the place I so love and they so love me and I explained my stricture (this is only merely the closing off of a place in your body- mine happened to be in the esophagus and now I know why- I would tie knot in it if I could- to the Dr. who had told me I hadn't anything wrong and that I also had an infection that he over looked because he hated working after 5pm.

We all Kum-by- yah-ed and got to business since I was in so monstrosity delirium.

One of the Wise Ones told me my infection was "Almost gone."  I got brave here and said I wanted it ALL gone because this infection was the least of my worries; bringing me down so that I couldn't fight the worst or my worries; and is there a medical term called: You almost have cancer?
So I got an IV of antibiotic.



(www.canfor.co made these beauties. They almost look like colored dandelions. Thanks, canfor)


My Dr.'s minion proceeded to stick a tube with rings on it. First of all, the tube was the size of my garden hose down and secondly, those rings were like bike tire treads. So back to my story....

She proceeded to push the hose down- excuse me- UP my nose THEN down my throat to check things out. As it was happening I forgot what it did and thought I was being water boarded.

MInion: "Look up at the ceiling, then when I hit the back of your throat touch your chin to your chest."

(store.dr.jockers.com- look how loooong it is til the stomach, people! I mean Readers!)

Me:" How will I know if it's in the right place and I have this neck pad from Cushings- my chin is stuck in between it and my chest....."





Minion: "You'll know."

Readers, minion was right, I knew. First I looked heavenward and, being a mouth breather, uttered a prayer inside my mind while the tip of the tube tickled my brain then took a U turn.

 By that time it hit the back of my throat,  I was gagging and bent over out of instinct and was reaching for that peanut bucket she gave me and told me to throw up in it and not on her.

Readers, you may think: "She is exaggerating. It isn't that bad blah, blah, buh." And you'd be right. If you hadn't had acid burning your digestive track or a disease that takes your white blood cells and has them turn on you.

 

 It isn't pleasant.

 

The tissue is inflamed. Look up the word- you will find that flame in the word and flames come with fire. It hurts to be burned whether on the outside or inside I've found out over the last 20 years.

Where was I?
Oh, the Dr.s office working my job and tire treads.



 

(Picture found on: ajpgi.physio;ogy.org)

The tire treads did not help the sensation of being stuffed and gagged while being a mouth breather. Pretty quickly I became a left nostril breather and tried to heed the words I told J. the other day when something happened and he panicked.

"Remember the rule of thumb you use when you dirt bike or ski? Don't panic. Stay in control. And if you can't, fake it til you can.

So I faked it until I used The Force to gain control over being strangled. I surrendered to the fate and tried to breathe through one nostril while holding my mouth open and not swallowing.

 I was glad I had been in the ER with the after 5 people; they had gotten a vein, hydrated and attended to me.
(canfor.com again- they win for coolest fireworks that take place in Canada which reminds me that J. had to do a project for Flag Day in school and it was of Canada. Hope it turned out nice.)

* it is in the middle of the night. I was so praying I would not wake up until this was all over.
I'm sitting here wondering what to eat for breakfast to make acid in my body. Aside from eating an onion, nothing is coming to mind. *



The minion carried out the serious of testing me and my ability to NOT swallow with a fire hose down my throat. Actually that would make it easy cause your throat is not that big and you'd simply flop about on the table like a soon to be dead fish.

Which reminds me of the time J. and I and lil sis went fishing up by Ledore and the Ghost town and J. caught his first fish. Readers, that poor fish went through more pain than any of us can ever know cause we didn't have the heart to knock his head hard enough. And we aren't first time fisher- people.

We'd just never fished with a kid and then had to do the duty, ya know? Actually I think Padre always knocked 'em out for us and then we did the picture thing.

He kept looking at us like: "you dumb idiots put me out already."

Where was I? Oh, the testing and my failing on a couple and needing to do a re-do. Which made a tear squeeze out of my eye.

Finally I had to breath in, or was it out? Either way she pulled the tube out like Indiana Jones pulling a snake from the eye socket area of a skull. Except this was my throat and it was a foot lengths distance of 'zippppppp'.

 

 



It was gagging=ish. Then she inserted the "smallerr" tube minus the tread tracks, hooked it to weather Doppler around my neck and told me to punch buttons if something happened. And then to go eat something very spicy.

 And guess what? Technology has this tube monstrosity already replaced. - yeh, my GI's office is still in the stone age and hasn't bought the new thingy -ma- bob yet. I bet it's pricey. It can hang on the back of your esophagus like a picture on the wall and report everything to their computer via satellites.

my mouth, try to see how fast I could swallow it and then I had to not swallow for sixty seconds.

It felt like eternity.

Finally it all ended. And the nurse said I couldn't get it wet. No shower today!

"We want you to eat everything that gives you the worst trouble. "

Me: "Wait, what?"

"You need to eat anything that gives you problems and causes symptoms in your throat"

Since Padre was my driver for today, I had him pick me out some Sam's Club salsa and I guzzled a few times. I ate a forbidden nut and fruit granola bars - which were harder to swallow even with the smaller hose down my throat and tapped madly on the thingy around my neck.

Which looks like a small camera. So I must have looked like a tourist when I went into one store.
The foods I ate climbed their way up into my ears and eyes.
If only I had not been sick! I could have had Café Rio, cake, Florence's chocolates! Whatever!

It could have been an All You Can't Eat Day!

 

wait, it was. I mean it could have been a day that I wouldn't have to feel guilty indulging. Instead I felt on fire. And have boobed like a baby all day.

Warning Readers- I went to eat three chocolate chips and the pain was akin to drinking vinegar after a tonsillectomy minus any pain meds. I haven't had it happen personally but know someone who has and J. totally bawled. He was four or something so it is expected to see a kid bawl over something so silly.

I don't know how this story will end. Most likely in tears.

Sending the Batman Signal

(courtesy of the same people on one of the other pictures that I put somewhere in the blog and I am lazy)

Readers,
             I need your help! Things are bad.
I have lost ten pounds in four or five days and it hasn't been because I have been on the treadmill.
Maybe if I hang upside down like bats, it wouldn't be such a problem.

I went into the Dr. and I still have a fever despite five days on two different antibiotics. Did you know that there are only ten antibiotics? Yeh, I read

It is looking like an infection that I have had- that took me two years to battle and it almost wasted me away to a runway model status.



Being that I have all the cushings weight you'd think I would be happy but losing weight this way is verrrrrryyyy painful.

Soon they, as in the medical team that teams up to help me, is sticking a tube up my nose and down my throat.
why?



(animal-kid.com courtesy-eed me this photo. thanks animal children)



I can't swallow well and the tube will see about the muscle motility in my esophagus. My stomach is searing it with acid due to Crohns.



(courtesty of img.com- and of course our fav. friend of The Batman.)
My head is pounding due to hydration. They tried three times to get me and finally got the 20 gauge in my arm. Then it fell out and leaked everywhere.

(courtesy of venturebeat.com)

 



If I want more I have to go to my fav. place, the ER. I just came home with Padre and will try to drink as much possible..... but I am so tired. I don't want to do anything.

(courtesy of batmanstadiumcomics. I have no idea if they have a real stadium or what they do they just have a picture I liked.)



So here's my blog post alert for prayers. And if you want, send Christian Bale. I don't care if I don't look amazing.



Tell him to leave the bat suit at home .......

 

and he can bring his wife instead of Robin.

 They can sit on my ottoman and they can take turns reading to me or we can watch a movie. Their choice.

 

- Okay, I have laid here a bit to gather my senses and wondering why, when I feel so sick, I am trying to do picture ettiqutte and let everyone know where google helped me find batman signal pictures.....

-Amanda!

 

 

(courtesy of those imgkid.com people)

 

Stamps, Building a Nation and Letters

  I LOVE STAMPS. (this post is old! I found it as I was reading back through my stuff! Enjoy!



I like letter writing. I like stamps. I like to find cool stamps to send snail mail.

Possibly because I became an avid letter writer in Jr. High and HS. Mainly notes penned and folded specially to pass to friends or boys when English was boring and there was free time. Or was it that I didn't make the best of my time?

 

Actually it's inception was when my aunt's boyfriend went on a mission to another country and we wrote him, he wrote back, and there were really cool stamps on them. I tucked them into my Credit Union billfold in a little baggie.

 

That as most of my readers know, I threw AWAY. Because I was embarrassed about them being in a credit union baggie.

 

My letter obsession led to writing my sweetheart while he was at college.

 

He told me about something really cool that I could do if I went to Ricks' library called eeeemail. There I could create an account, link to his, and we could mail each other rather than write and send mail.

 

 Save stamps and money to call each other cause it was so expensive. However there were some technical difficulties following through with my uber smart computer degree getting Sweetheart.

1. The walk to the library was UPHILL, Rexburg is freezing cold, & I really had no idea what he was talking about.

TWO:
Even if I did know how to get this complicated eeemail off the ground it sounded like something sneeky and what if I got caught???????????????

3.  The computer line was long to get into the lab to even do your basic homework. I think only 50 computers existed. So it better be a dang good reason why I was there and no way was I raising my hand to ask the helpers to help me create this complicated eeeemail account on Ricks College computers. In front of everyone..

And lastly, I was so scared of creating this so called eeeemail account on a computer- the computer could combust in front of my face.

So I continued to write snail mail,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 by cards at a local hallmark- which I had to walk to in the winter- and put the stamp on the letter UPSIDE down.

The latest ones are black and white and show men and women doing the industrial work that put us on the map. I like the one of a gal on a type writer and may keep this one.

Before you yawn, or while you are yawning, I have a sentimental post. They didn't show a man or woman on any of the stamps parenting- or nurturing. No one pulling a pie or cookies from an oven.

A woman in a dress with cat-eye glasses propping a baby on her hip and wearing the polyester house slippers on over her too brown for me nylons.

Okay, so the plunging neck line wasn't that low and the dress a little longer. But it was there.









 While the rest of her grandkids hoop di loo-ed around her in their silk jammies sent from their missionary brother over in Korea.




 Padre is starting to look like this.....  And attempts to be as funny but falls somewhat short. Sorry, Dad.

There isn't a picture of a huge family gathering around a small table that was and still is the center of my grand central grandpa and grandma station. The boys are wearing the same glasses right now that my uncles did back then is timeless. The only difference to the table is more candy is around.

 

They have made a point about a lot of the WWII vets are becoming smaller and smaller. So is the group of people who lived during that time.

 

Like my Grandparents. Who doesn't love their grandparents? Maybe I know them too well because we went over too much, but it is hard to see that they are aging. And not growing to be as old as their parents. (They hit their 100's) So I thought I had more time.

 

They had a large family who in turn, turned around and had large families. And, well, you know the score. That's a lot.

 

In talking to one of my family members who has been there A LOT we talked about her real job working with little kids and by the second one, I was relieved that I wasn't teaching. It requires so much of a person. It is mothering we established together at my Grandmother's table.

 

Roles reverse as age takes hold and the ones that were cared for so gently by a grandmother like mine, is now on the receiving end.

Now that I am older, and so wise- right??, I can take something like her falling, having symptoms of a disease in total stride. It doesn't scare me.

However, when another of my Great grandmothers was in a wreck and her face was bruised, my Dad took a picture and it went in the family album to scare me for years. Until I realized it was a documentation. And that bruises are bruises. I get them all the time. But on the face.... it is creepier.
Especially to a kid.

But with J it is a reminder that to a kid it is horrifying. All of it. Sure he was cute at four and he was at the funeral and saw his Great, Great Grandmother because he had no idea what was going on. Now he does.

Now I do.