April 2

Today was surgery day. As mentioned previously, there were four items to be taken care of today. Only two of them were achievable. First, the most important one, getting that damn hardware out. Done. He had to make a half inch incision on either side of the hole so that he could get to the edge of the plate. He then used a suture to close up each of those incisions and he also used the sutures to hold a piece of alloderm in place over the hole. His hope is that the alloderm will act as a bridge for my skin to grow over and seal up the hole. On top of that he put a piece of xeroform (which I have a ready supply of from a previous surgery) and some gauze (which I also have a ready supply of). He then wrapped the whole thing in a flexible, slightly sticky brown bandage all around my neck. My discharge paperwork was great at telling me what was done to me but not how to take care of it. I had to call Priya back down when I was in recovery to find out more. I'm allowed to remove the bandage when it starts to soak through. I should then replace the xeroform and the gauze and rewrap it. She said I'll probably need to do this once a day. I was happy to hear that. I've been changing my bandage 3-4 times a day up until now and it's been quite a PITA. It will be nice to scale back to once a day.

Dr. M was also able to replace the tube in my left ear that was falling out. He talked to Scott about that and according to Scott, Dr. M said there was some granulation going on that he felt was normal but given my history, he sent it out to be biopsied. WTF?? I might have cancer in my ear? That was a bit unexpected and a little unsettling.

Speaking of cancer, Dr. M hasn't had a chance to look at my PET scan results yet so there was no news on that front. I told Scott that I think I have cancer in my right, lower arm. That's my prediction. Anyone want to put $5 on other parts of my body? ;-P

Dr. M wasn't able to stretch my esophagus or see why my TEP isn't working because currently, my mouth is not opening far enough for him to get a scope in there. He even tried using a pediatric scope and it was a no-go. Guess I'll be working on mouth stretching exercises as soon as some neck healing goes on. IF some neck healing goes on.

I guess my neck healing on its own is still a long shot. We're going to give it a few weeks and then if there's no progress, we move on to the two part surgery to get the shoulder flap put in place to close this hole. On the bright side, Dr. M told Scott that the HBO treatments seems to be working. He can see that there's been some healing going on. I was relieved to hear that since it seems like things have been getting slowly worse since those treatments started.

I had to head down to the pharmacy when they finally released me so that I could pick up some pain meds and some antibiotics. Please note, if you're ever in a position where you need someone to drive you around in a wheel chair, do NOT pick the man who drives a Corvette. Very bad idea. Anyway, my drugs had to be pre-authorized which was something new and caused a bit of waiting around but once they were approved, they were totally free. I had my wallet out, ready to pay my $20 co-pay. Turns out Medicaid pays for the whole thing. Baby doll said I should have gotten fired long ago. He said everything's been better since I got fired. I was like "how do you figure?". And he said well first, no more copays, and second, as soon as I couldn't get my next batch of Jevity delivered, I started playing with making smoothies instead. He said since I've been drinking the smoothies I've seemed happier and more energetic AND I've gained 8 pounds! Yep. Count 'em. 8 pounds.

Toby came over to play cards with me at lunch yesterday. He said that he can tell that I've gained weight. He said I look much better than the last time he saw me. Amazing what a muffin top can do for a girl. Ha! Oh, and I need to put it in writing. I taught him how to play Gin the last time he was here and he totally screwed up the game play (obviously my instructions sucked) but even after getting back on the right track he kicked my ass! I was NOT happy! So allow me to gleefully announce that not only did I spank him yesterday, it was a complete shut out. Yep. I rock. He said he's not coming back again,, the little spoilsport. Based on the fact that he wiped his plate clean of the chicken quesadilla I made him and seemed to enjoy his cupcake for dessert..........he'll be back. ;-)

Have I mentioned how much I love my little, black kitty? He sleeps in the craziest positions that just make me laugh. And when we're curled up in bed I'll be petting him but then I'll eventually stop and he gives this sleepy, little "meep" noise, like 'hey, what'd ya stop for', so I start petting him again. And as soon as he hears baby doll's voice when he comes home from work he comes running from wherever he is in the house and starts talking to Scott and demanding to be picked up so they can have a conversation about their day (I'm a little envious of this!). And it turns out that he's a huge fan of my chocolate, banana, peanut butter smoothies and now demands that I share them when I make them. And he's so casual about jumping up into anyone's lap who visits, just such a friendly, laid back guy. And I told you about his funny sliding thing. And for some reason he walks around with the tip of his tongue protruding from his mouth. So you have all black and then this little spot of pink. Makes him look like such a dweeb. And I love that all you have to do is look at him and he starts purring and he purrs loud enough that you can hear him from one room over. He's simply the bomb. I love all my kitties. They all have special, little personalities, but I adore that stupid, little, black furball. I'm so glad I ran back to the adoption room and grabbed his ticket on a whim. I almost left without him. I would have missed out on something wonderful.

My basil is coming up! I just planted it like a week ago. That and the cilantro. No movement on the cilantro but the basil is coming up like crazy. Exciting! And last night I planted my tomatoes and green peppers so hopefully in 10 days you will see me posting pictures of those seeds sprouting. I planted (6) cherry tomato plants, (6) roma tomato plants, (12) California Wonder Peppers, and (12) carnival mix sweet peppers. I think there's 4-5 different types of peppers in there.

I turned my washing machine on the other day and water started pouring out onto the floor. Whoa! I just bought that machine in Jan 2013! How can there be something major wrong with it already?? Shouldn't it last like a decade or something? Baby doll called Home Depot and they gave him the service line for Samsung because obviously they're over a year old. Chickie on the phone said she thought there was a known problem with that particular model and put him in touch with some higher up chickie. Higher up chickie didn't know anything about an existing problem but she told him that she would give him a one time, 3 month extension on the warranty for it so that we could get it looked at for free. The guy came over yesterday. Turns out it IS a known problem. They designed it so that the pump is attached to the barrel which vibrates when the machine is in use. They had to make a special relocation kit and go out in the field and move the pump from being attached to the barrel to being attached to the sidewall that doesn't move. The guy said all parts are covered as well since it's a known problem. If I had registered the machine, I probably would have gotten a notice about the problem before it occurred. Ah well. So, now we're waiting for the relocation kit to come in. The guy is hoping it comes tomorrow so he can get us taken care of before we go away. Otherwise, it will have to be next week sometime and I'll have to schedule it around my continuing HBO appointments.

Friday morning baby doll and I are headed to Toronto. Woo hoo! We were going to do the zoo on Friday and shopping on Sunday but after looking at the weather report, we have now swapped those activities so that we can visit the zoo when it's sunny and warm rather than rainy and chilly. I think it's supposed to be crappy on Saturday too for the Yankee's game but the nice thing about Toronto is that they can put up the dome and have the game no matter what the weather. Good stuff! Especially after we got rained out in Ohio last year. That was just no fun at all.

Okay, that's about all that's been happening over here. Baby doll has become a bad influence on my smoothies. Tonight's smoothie included:

Milk
CBD
Protein powder
Two containers of chocolate pudding
Banana
Half a cup of peanut butter
A peanut butter ice cream sandwich
Four Reese's peanut butter cups
A vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting

Give me another week and I think I'll be back to wearing my size 4 jeans instead of my size 2 jeans. :-)