VI: Infinite Worth? Not exactly...

I came up with a fun game. It's called "How Much is my Life Worth?" and it's played by adding up medical bills. Pretty sure I've gotten them all now, so here are some fun numbers:

• Hospital Stay (including rooms, equipment, pharmacy, labs, and nursing): $83,314.63
• Surgeons: $6,431.00
• Anesthesiologists: $4,830.00
  
• Radiologists: $541.00
• Other Doctors: $ 1,628.00
• Urgent Care (& CT & labs, for both visits): $1,482.60

...for a Grand Total of $98,227.23! Yep, that's how much it cost to keep me alive through all of this nonsense. Thankfully, that is not the amount I have to pay. But clearly, this is how much I am worth. An interesting thought. :)

And now, I think we'll take a closer look at that hospital bill. It's really quite interesting reading! (All 8 pages of it, front and back!) The single most expensive item was the room for my second surgery (not doctors, nurses, equipment, or drugs: the room itself), which cost $7,052.50. Insane! And the cheapest item was the iron supplements they had me taking, which each cost $0.28. So there was quite a range. Incidentally, reading through this bill is how I learned I have staples. The things surgeons don't tell you.

So if you ever start wondering how much your life is worth, arrange to almost die. It's an enlightening experience. ;)

Indulging my Inner Child

I really needed to get out and do something yesterday, so Kyle and I went to see a new exhibition at the MOA. It's by Walter Wick, the guy who does all those I SPY and Can You See What I See books. Since it was opening night, there was also an artist's lecture. We debated for a while about whether or not to go, but I decided the possibility of it being awesome was greater than the risk of it being lame. So we went, and I was right: it was awesome. He showed a bunch of slides of how he made those images, and it was stuff that I never would have thought about just walking through the exhibit. I really enjoyed it. One of the highlights was definitely the kids in the audience. They knew those books backwards and forwards. In fact, there was one really cool image up in which there were 7 playing cards with missing parts. A little boy pointed out that "the king with the...um...broccoli..." (where "broccoli" can also be understood as "clubs" (or, even, "puppy feet")) was missing his mustache on the bottom half. Walter Wick eventually decided that the resolution on the screen must not be high enough to see it—and he couldn't remember. Sure enough, though, I checked the photo hanging in the exhibit, and he was right.

Afterward, Kyle and I went and looked at all the stuff, and it was neat. There were several of the photographs, as well as tons of the actual models and even a couple of the sets he used. I decided I may need to find myself a copy of this. (Actually, if you look around his site a bit, you can see several photos of how they created sets and such. Great fun.) All in all, it was a great way to cure my lousy mood.

A Belated Holiday Post

It occurred to me today that I never blogged Valentine's Day when Tanna pointed out that my blog has many cooking failures on it but no successes. I pointed out that failures are funny and successes are not. But then I remembered Valentine's Day, so here we are. Not that it was funny, but it was blog-worthy. Anyway...

As of Thursday night (the 12th), Kyle was very sick. He warned me not to expect much for Valentine's Day, which was fine with me, as I was quite tired all the time, too. But Friday he was feeling better, and on Saturday he was more energetic than I'd seen him in weeks, not to mention being in a very good mood. The day started with Kyle coming to my house to pick me up. He stopped at the store on the way to get food for dinner, and he brought me some lovely roses. While I put them in a vase, he made some preliminary preparations for dinner. (I wasn't allowed to peek.) He also gave me a cup full of conversation hearts (the good ones, of course) with all the nasty white ones picked out, so I munched on those, too. Then we went over to his house so he could do laundry. Romantic, right? But we caught up on some tv shows while laundry was running for a few hours, which was nice and relaxing.

We came back to my house around 6 for dinner. I was instructed to turn on some music and lay on the couch and read while Kyle cooked dinner. I also wasn't supposed to peek at any point during the preparations, but come on: I could see straight into the kitchen from the couch. But I did my best. In case anybody's gotten the wrong idea from my blog, Kyle is actually a very good cook. Perhaps it's only when I "help" that things go awry? The point is that dinner was amazing. Steaks marinated in Italian dressing, broccoli, garlic mashed potatoes, and rolls. All eaten by candlelight, which was a first for me. For dessert, he made brownie pudding, which was also quite tasty.

After dinner, we started Harry Potter 5, marking our return from a lengthy hiatus from Harry Potter. (Don't tell him I said so, but I think Kyle's actually getting into these books now.) Then we watched Enchanted. I love that movie!

All in all, it was a great Valentine's Day. :D

Status Report: 4 weeks

That's right, folks! 6 weeks ago today, I went into the hospital, and 4 weeks ago today, I got out! (The following items are not in any order at all, except the order I thought of them in.)

• I can cook and clean up simple meals.
• Yesterday, I stayed at church for not only sacrament meeting, but also sunday school.
  
• I sleep mostly through the night, which is major and only started a few nights ago. When I first got out of the hospital, I woke up every hour (in addition to having horrible nightmares). But the nightmares stopped after a week or so, and I'm much more comfortable laying on my sides, instead of just on my back. This makes for much more restful nights—huzzay!
• I haven't tried driving yet, but I think I will soon. My concern has been that I think the muscles required to move the shifter are the ones that got sliced apart, but my back and side are hurting me much less these days, and I think I've recovered enough mobility in my neck to be able to look around properly, so I think it's time I gave it a shot.
• Kyle and I are just over a quarter of the way through Harry Potter 5 (we took a break for a bit while he had mono, as his throat was extremely sore). P.S., if you ever have the chance to get Kyle to read to you, take it! He does all the voices. ;)
  
• I can do laundry, though I think real cleaning is still a bit beyond me.
• I can carry stuff! When I first got home, I had to have Mom or Kyle cart my stuff around the house for me (really, just between my room and the living room, since that's where I spent all my time). But now I can lift and carry things—well, as long as they're comparatively small. I haven't tried to take out the kitchen garbage, for the same reason I haven't tried driving; those lifting muscles are still not working great.
• I can sometimes open doors, as long as they're not too heavy. You have no idea how much you use those back and side muscles until somebody cuts them apart and you can't.
  
• I'm working again, though almost entirely from home. (Thank goodness for remote access!) But I have been into the office a couple of times for a couple of hours each. It felt good to be there, but I get so tired. Even though the chairs there are nice and don't hurt my back, it's just more tiring to sit somewhere else than to sit at home on the couch.
• I'm getting out of the house a lot more. In the last week, I've been to the grocery store (a mini-trip), Kyle's house a couple of times, meetings at work, dinner at Brick Oven, a wedding reception up in Sandy, and church. For comparison, the first week I was home, I didn't leave the house. At all.
• I only take lortab for flare-ups now. (When I first came home, I was taking it every 4 hours.) But about two weeks ago I started using the lortab lots less, though my use of ibuprofen went way up. And now I only take both of them as needed, and that's becoming less and less frequent. I sometimes go 2 or 3 days without any lortab, which is great.
• My incisions are healing up nicely. I...don't really know what else to say on that front. People keep telling me that the ones on my neck are "really not that bad" and they're sure to "heal up just fine." Of course, they say these things completely out of the blue and with no provocation, so they feel more like false reassurances. Oh well. I'm really not fussed about that; it's not like "being pretty" has ever been a major goal in my life. And I do think they'll heal up alright. Eventually.
• My singing voice is coming back, too. And I think my normal speaking voice is basically back to normal. It was just a little off, somehow, for a while. Or perhaps I've just gotten used to it? In any case, I'm regaining my ability to sing, which is nice.
• AND I can take a deep breath without killing myself, and sneezing is only moderately painful. So both my lungs and my ribs are getting better about expanding, which is excellent.
  

I can't really think of anything else. All in all, I'm doing quite well. I'm improving well, even if it's not as fast as I'd like. And Kyle's been a dear about filling in with all the things I can't do and generally taking excellent care of me, so while there's still a long way to go, I can't complain. At all. :D

"I like my waffles like I like my women: hot!"

Last night, Kyle and I decided to try our hand at waffles again. (In case you don't commit every weird happening in my life to your long-term memory, check out that link to refresh your memory. Who knew this would become an on-going feature?) Same as before, I mixed up the mix according to instructions. This time, Kyle checked it before using it; he declared it too runny and proceeded to thicken it up. So after it was of appropriate consistency, it was time to cook the waffles, right? Well, here's the first batch:I felt so extremely vindicated. It wasn't my batter-making skills at fault, despite the ridiculous amount of mockery I endured last time. Even after Kyle "fixed" it, we still had a mess. Which, this time, Kyle got to clean up (I was busy dipping the larger pieces in delicious buttermilk syrup (thanks, T!) and eating them):We decided the problem was either the PAM spray (did you know that's actually an acronym for "Product of Arthur Meyerhoff"? it's true!) or the iron wasn't hot enough. And so we proceeded to the second batch, this time without PAM:I'll admit, I laughed really hard. (Kyle was closer to weeping.) The iron got cleaned out once again (it was markedly easier this time) and for the third attempt, we let the iron heat up even longer. Success!Kyle was quite proud. We finally had waffles! Whole ones, neither pieces nor crumbs! It was a miracle. So next time we're gonna let the iron heat up extra long and skip the PAM and see if that does the trick. And finally, a side-by-side comparison of Kyle's handiwork:Heehee. It's a really good thing for me he's such a good sport. ;)

Lest you think my life isn't exciting anymore...

Kyle and I made pizza for dinner last night. And it was great. But there was a slight problem with the middle—the crust didn't get cooked all the way, so it was rather gooey. (We used a Pillsbury crust that rolls out into a rectangle. Kyle's still trying to pin this mess on my inability to "work the dough.") I considered taking a picture of Kyle trying to eat one of the middling pieces (as he held it, it just kept stretching and oozing downward), but I didn't. Shame on me, 'cuz it all just got better from there.

Kyle decided to try rehabilitating this piece of pizza by returning it to the oven from whence it came. It didn't work so well:Yeah. One big melty mess. (And we discovered when we cleaned up that the crust still wasn't done underneath! Crazy.)

Well, we still had half a pizza, and Kyle thought he'd try to save it all by just cooking it for a few more minutes on the rack. I didn't get a picture before we took it out of the oven (after letting it cool for a good long time), but here's what we were left with:Yes, the crust got cooked. We also lost quite a lot of cheese and dough—you can sorta see where the raw edge just sank down between the bars of the rack. Thankfully we put a cookie sheet underneath to catch the mess. (We actually spent some time sitting on the floor in front of the oven, watching the disaster unfold. Who needs fireplaces, anyway?) Despite this next picture, we decided it wasn't edible, as the sides were burnt and the whole thing had achieved the consistency of cardboard.

P.S. I've still got a coupla posts coming related to my hospital stay. I just don't wanna get behind on current events while I try to remember things and gather the energy to type long posts. But don't worry, they're coming!

V: Feeling Just Swell

(Disclaimer: I didn't come up with that title.)

As I've been getting out and about more, I am frequently asked how much weight I lost. The answer is approximately 15 pounds, which I don't seem to be regaining very quickly, despite the huge amounts of food I've been eating. (And before you say "Maybe I should get sick!" like a lot of people have, let me tell you: it's not worth it.)

But before the losing came the gaining! They pumped me so full of fluids in the hospital it was unreal. I swelled to epic proportions. You know those wristbands you get? They had to cut one off me after the second surgery because my arm was so swollen it was cutting into me. (Side note on wristbands: I had 3! A pink one with my name and such, which I got when I first arrived at the ER (this is the one they cut off me), a green one we never figured out the point of, and a blue one with a barcode they scanned whenever they gave me meds. Upon further consideration, the blue one seems to have been a replacement for the original pink one. I'm still unclear on the reason for the color change.)

I already knew I was swollen; I could see my hands, and they were funny looking. No veins or tendons or anything, just swollenness. And I could tell in my arms and legs, too. But the really interesting part was during one of my walks around the nurses' station. My nurse waylaid me to have me step on a scale. "Does that look about right?" she asked. "No, it looks about 30 pounds heavy!" It was bizarre. I mean, my thighs were so swollen it was weird to walk. But once they stopped pumping me full of fluids, it got better. My weight kept getting closer to what it had been, and I remember being overjoyed when I could see the tendons on the backs of my hands again. That was a good day.

So it wasn't until after that that I started genuinely losing weight. The major shifts up and down have just been a bit strange, is all.