So my dining room is now a bedroom for my dad. The cats are confused, but find the bed more comfortable for lounging than the dining room table.

My brother and his family are going to stay up here until my dad has his follow up appt after the surgery on Friday and take my dad home with them then. I'm on duty tomorrow at the hospital. I hope there's wifi.

Least favorite place to get an IV ever.

My least favourite place to get a litre of saline in is a fingertip or the foot near the toe. Inside of the wrist and the base of the thumb are also pretty unhappy.

I may have to travel--NY next weekend. Woo hoo.

Hubby's port saves him from IVs. It's the best thing about all this, that no one has to hunt for veins anymore.

Got a new hire. Starts Friday. We'll see how she goes. Meeting a potential interim director next Monday (or the next, I can't remember, just that it's a man and omg hell might freeze over with us introducing that particular chromosome into the workforce (we have one dude full time and one 1 day a week part-timer, and the rest of us are chicks).

I told ED that the more he told me not to worry, the more I stressed out. So now he's shouting at me "Worry!" which isn't helping either. Just, don't take away my right to stress. Doing so makes me stress more because I'll be failing to not stress.

Hubby's port saves him from IVs.

They are truly wonderful. It is bad enough to have to have all the treatments. At least not having to fight veins is a big help.

It sounds like you have a workable plan, Sue. Best wishes for smooth recoveries all round.

Jilli! You will be in Independence? That's Kansas City! What costuming con? I FOUND YOUR CORSET. I thought I sent it back to you yonks ago, and I found it in the closet 3 days ago, in the FedEx box that got sent back to me, and my DH just PUT IT IN THE HALL CLOSET and forgot.

DO you need a ride from the airport or anything?

When I was a kid and had two broken arms, and those whopping casts that go over the elbow, I had to go in to get my left arm reset, because it wasn't healing correctly. The intern wasn't allowed to draw blood from my legs or neck, because they'd had some issues with bubbles or something, so this guy tried to draw blood from the meaty part of my 10 yo upper arm.

Needless to say, it did not work very well, and I was screaming and fighting by the 9th or 10th stick, when my mom finally got pissed and demanded to see my doctor...who was HORRIFIED and reamed the intern up one side and down the other.

They had to sedate me to get blood from my leg, and THAT, my friends, is why I have a major needle phobia to this day.

I've been toting a port for at least three years now. Shortly before my mother's cancer diagnosis, anyway, because I helped talk her through her port anxiety.

It's a bit frustrating to dress around at work, because I don't want to raise any questions about long term treatment, but it's well worth it. There's no way a lone nurse in my apartment could reliably get a line once a week--it's often taken more than ten sticks and more than six nurses or doctors.

Where's the meaty part of the arm, Strix? I've had lines in the front and back of my forearms and in my bicep, so I don't know if the initial premise was bad--but I've had a hard time finding a nurse that will go more than two sticks before looking for another person to try. Even though I'm totally copacetic with repeated stabbing.

Mmm, I phrased that badly. My upper arms are meaty now, so that's what I was thinking of. The upper outside part of the bicep, which really isn't meaty at all. This would have been 1982, and I have bad veins anyway; the guy doing it was a resident/intern/newbie doctor, and another newbie was holding me down after the 5th or 6th stick.

My cousin Peggy was head nurse at that hospital, and when she came on duty, she was pissed as hell; my arm was a giant bruise. It was just bad luck for me to get a person who didn't know what the hell they were doing and was too arrogant to back down when he didn't get the results he wanted.

I've obviously had medical procedures requiring shots since then, but whenever possible, I request some type of anti-anxiety aide. I'm an adult;I hold myself still and don't fuck with the nurse if I can't have one, for whatever reason, but I have to hide my eyes whenever I see a needle on TV, and I inform nurses of my phobia and that I cannot, cannot SEE the needle (and that I have to talk to them while they stick me.)

I am kind of nauseated just talking too much about it, actually.

That's much better news, Maria! I'm so glad. Still, you never want so much GI distress you have to go to the hospital.

I'm so very relieved. Give Papa a hug from me.

Man, this was not what I wished for you for the let-down from the past few months. More normal, not more crisis-mode, universe!

All but 19 spindles are completely primed. Those 19 just have an inch on 2 sides each left to do. I can knock that out easily tomorrow, I was just tired of tape.

Thunderstorms rolled through here (politely waited until I swam) for a good hour -hour and a half. Bright enough I could see the flashes from the bathroom skylight as I sat on the well-lit stairs, painting. Like.