Vampire Ball pix with JZ, Betsy & Hec (mostly on page 2)

After four and a half months of rather depressing job hunting, I have a gig! A real paying job! It's just a cafe position at the local Borders books, but it will pay the impending bills, and while exahusting, it's a lot of fun.

Then again, I may just be so tired because it was my first day today...

Yay for employment!

I know I haven't been around much, work has been crazy. But I thought you should know that I am having surgery today. I have a VERY LARGE (8.5 cm) ovarian cyst, and my doctor is very anxious for it to be taken out. I'm ok with that, as it has been causing me a great deal of pain. I won't know until my consult with the surgeon this morning whether it will be taken out the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is with laproscopy, which involves only a small incision and is an outpatient procedure. The hard way involves slicing my whole abdomen open and rooting around in there by hand. There is, obviously, a large difference in recovery time. Think healing thoughts for me- I've never had surgery before and I'm nervous. Buffistas wishing to check up on me should speak with Sumiko, as I am forwarding her my contact information. Hopefully I'll be back online very soon!

For CV -- I had one done the hard way when I was 15. Mine was 10.5cm. Email me if you have any questions.

I just got off the phone with CV. She says that the surgery went okay, they were able to save one of her ovaries, which she is happy about. She had an allergic reaction to the morphine, but that's been straightened out since. She's recovering at home and should be back on her feet (and keyboard) soon.

Question for Darth on Cv (stompy foot - please delete if I am misusing this thread)... When can she expect biopsy results? Does she know if the cyst was benign?

just spoke with my MIL -- she is feeling stronger today because they have changed how they are feeding her. She is grumpy impatient , yet very determined. She sounds a lot like herself. She has plans. so while things are pretty much awful for her, I feel hope.

I just got off the phone w/CV. She's at home - - (she actually went back to the er last night) - - resting -- being waited on hand and foot.

The biopsy is more because it is regular procedure. The doctor told her that he doesn't expect to find anything.

Also - - she did not lose an ovary. (I was a bit confused yesterday - - and thought that she had).

So, whew!

There was a campus wide power outtage last night. We were evacuated from our dorm for about an hour, but then let back in the door, despite the freakishly loud exhaust-spewing generator that freaked some people out.

The whole thing lasted about three hours, and everyone's okay. Just in case you were wondering where I went so abruptly last night.

Hi! I am back online, and wanted to thank everyone for their warm thoughts and well wishes. Extra special thanks to Sumi for keeping track of me and to Nilly for emailing me a link to all of the Buffista love. There seems to have been some confusion about what exactly happened, I'll blame it on cell phone static while I was talking to Darth and to Sumi. Of course, the percocet probably didn't help my ability to express myself a whole lot. Here is the play by play, I will try to make it as exciting and dramatic as possible. :)

I went in Thursday morning for a consult with the surgeon, and he prepped me for the procedure almost immediately. The cyst was exceptionally large, and it was ballooning my ovary so that it pressed against my uterus, which in turn pressed against my bladder. Consequently, I was in pretty extreme pain and I had to pee every five seconds. Both my regular doctor and the surgeon felt it needed to be removed ASAP. The surgeon made a small incision in my belly button and went in with the laproscope, but he had warned me ahead of time that he might not be able to complete the procedure, and that it might have ended up being necessary to cut me open and remove the cystic ovary if it had been to severely damaged. Luckily, that didn't happen, and I am happy to report that I still have two ovaries, even if one is a little sickly right now. The surgery went very well actually, but the aftermath did not.

After I came to, they were giving me morphine shots into my IV. I remember them asking me after each injection whether it still hurt. I was not being cooperative, and kept begging to see my mother. Finally, they took me back into the day surgery recovery room so my Mom could be there, and continued with the morphine until the pain stopped. Things are a bit fuzzy for me after that point (big surprise), but the next thing I remember is choking and gagging and feeling like I couldn't breathe. I thought there was something nasty in my throat, and I was reaching in to pull it out. Because my head was so stuffed up from the anesthesia, I couldn't breathe through my nose either! Anyway, my Mom finally dragged my hands away from my face and looked, and ended up yelling for the nurse. My uvula had swelled to the size of a golf ball, and my throat lining and eyelids were swelling as well. The nurse ran to get the ER doctor, who came running and injected me with a whole lot of Benadryl to stop the reaction. After the swelling went down some, I remember the day surgery nurse saying "I have never in all my years on this job seen anyone react like that to morphine!" Heh. To make a long story short, they admitted me, and I spent a long whiney painful night in the hospital. The high points of my stay? The boy brought me roses, I almost passed out while the nurse and my Mom were helping me to the bathroom, and the elderly woman in the bed next to mine peed on the floor during the night. Oh, and they gave me lots of ice cream to ease the swelling in my throat.

Friday night I had to go back to the ER when a number of swollen spots appeared in my mouth within a couple of hours. I had the world's worst doctor, and ended up leaving in more pain than I went in, with a lovely sense of humiliation to boot. I thought Ross was going to hit that asshole doctor. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say, I have already started drafting a formal complaint to the hospital for the poor treatment I got from him, and I think Ross is going to as well.

I have spent the weekend being taken care of. I am getting more mobile now, but for the first couple days I couldn't walk by myself or get up and down by myself. Other than some continuing pain (and me with no more percocet!) and a bizarre throat infection of some sort, I am doing much better.

As for the biopsy, it is standard procedure. I have had multiple doctors assure me that it is HIGHLY unlikely that they will find cancerous cells because of my young age. So I am not worrying about it at this point. I'm just trying to get better.

Thank you all for the love and for listening to my whining. I know I am not the first person to ever have surgery, but it was MY first time, and it proved to be very scary. Note to self- never take morphine again! I am so happy to have the lovely Buffistas to support me!