Just catching up in here after a couple of days.

With regards to the 10 on the pain scale, in my case it meant so much pain that I couldn't talk, and when the paramedics got the gurney rolling towards the ambulance I vomited from the pain. As Kristin said, I sweated through every inch of my clothing, and I honestly couldn't imagine how I was going to survive the ride to the hospital, and this was in the middle of the night, on empty streets, with lights and siren on. I didn't think I'd be able to last the trip and the hospital is less than 5 miles from our house.

Once I was in the ER, they had to do tests before they could give me pain relief. You know how in movies there's always that one guy somewhere in the back of the ER just screaming, that was me. I was incoherent. When they finally got cleared to give me pain meds, they maxed out what they could give me in morphine and there was no change in the pain. Finally after they moved up to dilaudid , it brought the pain down to the point that I could answer a few questions. After that it took a patient controlled pump of dilaudid to keep the pain under control. The lock out was set to 30 minutes, and I learned that by 20 minutes the pain started coming back and I set a time on my phone for 30 minutes because I would just sit there for the last 10 minutes repeatedly hitting the button until the pump would trigger as the pain ramped up. That's how I spent most of the first week in the hospital. I don't remember much of it because the only way I could manage the pain was to use the pain meds every 30 minutes 24 hours a day.

The doctors said that the best way to describe what was happening was that I was having an extreme chemical burn on the inside of my abdomen. I've had kidney stones, gall bladder attacks, and a pilenidic cyst lanced, and I thought all of them were horrible at the time, and they didn't even come close to registering this level of pain.

I had to live with it for a few weeks, I have so much respect for you ita ! that you can somehow make it though the day with the level of constant pain you are under. I still get a little freaked out any time I get a small pain twinge in my abdomen, and I had a really hard time even setting foot in a hospital for about a year after all of this.

Um, okay I'm not sure where all of that came from.

Wow Noise, so sorry you had to go through that. And even sorrier ita ! has to go what she goes through all time.

Oh and ita ! I have no idea of how well this works, but there is a free pdf reader that includes access to a website for converting pdf text tables to Excel at no charge [link] . Their profit in the free reader is to try and persuade you to upgrade to a paid product that does not require going through a website.

Thanks, Typo. I ended up replacing the hard returns and it's done already. But I'll keep them in mind for the future. Because it will happen again, now that few people here qualify for a full Acrobat license.

That sounds unbearable, ND.

Weekend: stretch class, bike ride, housework, visit with my sisters.

Today: should copy Kat and do all the folding. Not currently doing any of the folding.

damn I need a stretch class.

Weekend: Going to visit family instead of going to a music festival, mostly because the family visit will cost me no money and the festival will cost a few hundred. I am not entirely happy with the choice, but it was mine, so I am going to try to be not too grumpy with my family. (Well, no grumpier than my natural regression to adolescence usually allows.)

Besides I have new books to read, including Erinaceous' and Knut's!

My weekend looks like it'll be an organic farm fair tomorrow, and a Shakespeare fair on Sunday. The Shakespeare thing looks like it's more for kids, but it's just around the corner and could be some fun.

If you lived near me I'd drag you to my class, le n.

Timelies all!

Tonight is the monthly FSGW open sing.(Topic: test(s))

Tomorrow we're daytripping Shore Leave.(Local fan-run media convention)

Sunday is grocery day. With luck, we'll get some of our vacation-related shopping done, too.

Today's my wedding anniversary, so we are going out for our traditonal In 'n Out burgers. Tomorrow, we are going on a date to the movies to see "20 Feet from Stardom." J leaves Sunday, so that night I'm going to see "The Wolverine" with friends. I'm working on my actual birthday on Tuesday, plus Jason won't be back until 10 at night, so I am considering this my birthday weekend.