September 2

Yesterday started out so well. I spent the morning lounging in my pajamas, playing on my Wii. Life was good. Meanwhile, babydoll had expressed some concern over the description of my incision in my blog the night before so I told him if he wanted to stop by that day to take a gander, he could. I felt bad. Sunday is the one day a week that he gets to spend with his daughter. He was at the house at 1:30 yesterday, took one look and it was off to the emergency room. Guess I wasn't being a drama queen. It really did look kind of disgusting.

We called the on-call service before we left just to let someone from Dr. Miller's team know where we were headed. They never called back. I can only assume because they figured emergency would take care of things. We checked in at 1:53 and then the wait began. I'm not sure when we were finally called back. 4:30 maybe. The place was busy! The ER doc took one look at my neck and called the ENT on-call doc and told him he had to come in. He said the incision was fully open and infected. He then said he needed to start an IV which of course immediately had me crying. I effing hate getting the IV put in! Even if an expert does it, which when the nurse came in and found out I was crying over the need for an IV she asked if it's hard to get one in me, I nodded, she asked if they usually call the IV special team for me, I nodded, so she went in search of them. Anyway, even if the expert does it and it doesn't hurt that much, it still hurts when they flush it with saline, it hurts when they put meds in it, and as experienced last week, it hurts when they put it in your scrawny wrist right up against a bone! Whatever. It happened. I survived. They gave me some Dilaudid. I felt better. Then they moved me to a mid-way room. I started bumming. I thought I was going to have to get admitted again. I couldn't get a hold of my crying. Just a few short hours before that, my quality of life had rocked, relaxing in the cutest house on earth, with a cat purring in my lap, content, pain free, fed. <sigh>

Babydoll ended up texting Jamie to ask if he would be able to spend the night if I was admitted again. Within an hour he was at my house letting the boys out. Jamie is the absolute bestest! You will never meet a more sweet and thoughtful guy than him (other than my babydoll, of course). Did I mention he cleaned my gutters while I was in the hospital? Yeah, he's that type of guy. One in a million.

So, it turns out it was Dr. Rosenblatz (sp?) that was on-call. Young, dark, handsome resident who I only ever saw at night while I was at the hospital. (Maybe I saw him with the rest of the team once or twice during the day, but it was mostly nights.) I can't tell you the relief I felt to see a familiar face. He checked out my neck and took out the (5) stitches that Dr. Brendan had put in since they weren't doing anything any way. He said that basically all that needed to be done at this point was 'wound care' until I could get into the office to see Dr. Miller on Thursday and we could decide next steps. He said he could either teach babydoll how to do it or I could be admitted into the hospital again. I was horrified. I didn't want babydoll having to mess with my disgusting open neck wound! That sure as hell isn't something he signed up for when cruising Match.com! And I noticed that once the bandage had come off with the first ER doc, babydoll had stopped making eye contact with me. But don't for a minute think that he pulled away from me. He was still standing right next to me with his arms around me giving me little backrubs and kissing the top of my head. He just chose to look anywhere but at my neck and I sure as hell don't blame him. Anyway, I asked for a mirror, told Dr. R I could learn to do it and take care of it myself. He looked skeptical and babydoll protested. So in the end, babydoll was shown how to do it. They basically packed some anti-infection wadding right into the wound, put a huge mound of gauze over it, and then wrapped it up with some pressure on it. I almost complained when Dr. R was wrapping it that he was choking me when it occurred to me that, that wasn't physically possible anymore. Ha! So, we need to change out this dressing once a day until Thursday. I told babydoll that after all this crap, he's never going to want to 'sleep' with me again. He agreed that he definitely wasn't going to be in the mood that night but he knows I'll be healed up and as beautiful as ever in no time. <dreamy sigh> It might have taken him over 40 years to get his ass into my life but he was SO worth the wait. You know what type of guy he is? When we were in the waiting room, he noticed an older gentlemen struggling to get his wheelchair over a plastic strip on the floor. He immediately got up and asked the man if he needed assistance which the guy gratefully accepted. The little, old lady sitting next to me gave me a look when he did that. Yeah, my babydoll is one of those types of guys. I would seriously take a bullet for this man in a heartbeat because I think he's one of those few treasures that you find out there that should be protected beyond all costs. And he's mine. Can you believe it?!?

We finally made it back home around 8:00 last night. Babydoll settled me in and then went back to the dregs of his day with his daughter. Wasn't quite the day of relaxing fun that I had planned but at least I'm not back in the hospital! I e-mailed babydoll last night and asked him if it had actually been worth making the trip. The ER doctor had mentioned the foul odor emanating from my neck, indicating an infection. Last year, that smell is what had woken me up one of the times my neck reinfected. I had no idea it smelled this time around since I've lost the ability to smell (and can I tell you how much that bums me out being a lover of Yankee Candle scent tarts which I currently have hundreds of!! Ah well, I can still burn them and let others enjoy the smell.) Babydoll said it was smelling before they had even released me from the hospital so I can only assume they knew it was infected which is why they sent me home with 10 days of antibiotics this time around. And it turns out I had been doing pretty much the same thing Dr. R is now doing although I wasn't pushing anything into the actual wound, and I was changing my bandages every 3-4 hours not once a day like he told us to do. So, it seems like it might have been a waste of time. Babydoll disagreed. He said that even though they didn't perform some miracle to make things better, at least we have the peace of mind knowing that we're taking the right measures to keep me safe and we can now relax until my next appointment. He makes a good point. And on that note, that's going to be my plan for today. Babydoll should be over here some time before lunch this morning and we're going to spend a lazy day laying in the hammock, grilling steak, playing cards, and simply enjoying time spent with each other. 

I hope all of you are embracing the simple joy of life out there as well!