Cooties, be gone!

 December 2021 was a very significant month for me.

For most of 2021, I was having "feminine problems."  This wasn't particularly unusual for me, so I figured it would resolve itself in a couple months and everything would be copacetic again.  But time flew faster than I realized and suddenly it was month 7 with no resolution to my problem.  

In November, I went in for a check-up and explained my feminine woes to my doctor.  She prescribed a 10-day dose of meds to halt my monthly menace in its tracks.  Guess what, it didn't work.  

Next, I was referred for an ultrasound.  Had that on December 10th.  That was unpleasant; but informative.  Apparently, the lining (endometrium) in my baby pouch (uterus) was incredibly thick – twice as thick as would be needed for a baby.

Now things started to snowball.  The ultrasound led to a biopsy on December 15th.  The biopsy was extremely unpleasant.  The pathologist thought it looked suspiciously like cancer, but wasn't sure.  C-A-N-C-E-R?  But I didn't even feel sick!  I personally don't like the capital C-word, especially when applied to me.  So to keep my cool, my husband and I decided to call it Cooties instead.  I did a lot of Googling, and it sure sounded like I had Cooties.  But I was determined to wait until I knew for sure.

December 23, I had a visit with a GYN oncologist.  I always prefer honesty, so she laid it out for me – I had a 50-50 chance of having endometrial cancer.  She asked if I wanted to wait to have surgery.  Wait?  Wait for what?  I surely wasn't going to have a baby at my age.  Get those Cooties out! (I had told her about naming them "Cooties" and she thought that was funny.)

Then the snowball started to roll even faster.  Had a video visit with the anesthesia team on December 24th.  Had a Covid test and stress test on December 27th.

Then boom!  Surgery on December 29th.  Had to be at the hospital before the buttcrack of dawn.  I'm not a morning person, so that was a feat, in and of itself.  It took a couple of hours to get everything ready.  Things seemed to be more hectic, than in times past, with short-staffing and all.  But finally, I got to take a nice long nap while the surgeons did what they needed to do.

I was grateful that I had agreed to an abdominal block to delay pain.  I felt well enough to go home same-day.  There was no way I wanted to stay overnight in the hospital if I could help it!  Pain management turned out to be easy all during recovery.  What a relief!  

I love the way technology has evolved over the years.  These days, I can log on and read all the clinical notes from my surgery.  Fascinating stuff, those notes.  They used an "EndoCatch bag" to retrieve my big, grumpy baby pouch.  EndoCatch bag?  What? So I used "the Googles" to look that up and had quite a good giggle.  It looks like something you would use to scoop guppies out of a fish tank.  Or in this case, scooping Cooties.

From my childhood, I remember my mom telling me that they tried for many years (12) to have a baby.  When she finally did get pregnant, she wasn't sure so she went to see the doctor.  The doctor jokingly told her that she was either having a tumor or a baby.  Which would she prefer?  Well, in my case, it was a tumor and it was almost the size of a softball!  Yikes!  Stupid Cooties!

The good news is that the Cooties were localized to the baby pouch.  No further procedures are needed.  I am grateful to the Lord and to the surgeons that everything was handled quickly and without complication.

Bye-bye, Cooties!  Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Stress Test

A week and a half ago, I had my first stress test.  

When I arrived, I wasn’t sure if I would be having a physical test or a chemical one.  Chemical test, as it turned out. 

First, they had me get changed into not one, but two comfy hospital gowns in the Covid-19 virus pattern that I have come to love.  Every time I mention the virus pattern to nurses these days,  they always say that they had never thought of it that way.  Well, of course, not.  That’s what I’m there for!

Next, for fun, they shot me up with some radioactive dye.  I asked if I would glow in the dark afterward and they said no.  I was very disappointed.  I had never seen a radioactive Sharps container before, but it made sense.  

Then things got better.  They gave me cookies and water!  Score!  (First, they wanted to give me pop, but I don’t drink pop, so they gave me water instead.) So I spent the next half hour in a quiet little room with food and drink and a book on my phone to read.  BEST MEDICAL APPOINTMENT, EVER! 

After lounging and stuffing my face, they took me in for some preliminary scans.  I got to lie down and relax.  (This appointment is getting better and better!)

After the scans, another tech came and took me to the stress test room.  I got to lie down again.  (Yesssssss!)  But then things took a turn.  They tried to warn me what the chemicals would feel like, but that was nothing compared to the real thing.  Now I know why they buttered me up with cookies!  It felt like I couldn’t breathe!   They assured me that I could and should breathe – slow and deep breaths.  Slow and deep?  Slow and deep?!?  When it felt like I was being buried alive with several tons of hot earth on my chest?  Still, I (mostly) calmly voiced the fact that I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like it AT ALL.  They didn’t take pity on me but did say that it would all be over soon.  Yeah, when my heart EXPLODED, it would be over.  Harumph. 

True to their word, it was, indeed, a very short test.  Then I went back to the scanning room and got to lie down again.  After that, more cookies, water and quiet time!  The cookies almost made up for the torture.  Almost.

S.O.S.

The other night I was settling down to read a book before bed.  For me, that means a digital book on my phone.  

My neck and shoulders had been bothering me, so I asked my husband if I could borrow his phone clamp so that I could clamp it to the bed and have my phone closer to my face so I wouldn't put an extra crink in my neck by bending my head.

I clamped my phone in and then tried to find the best place to clamp it to the bed.  That was the part that didn't go so well.  It kept slipping off the bed frame or swinging around and almost pummeling me in the face.

Suddenly, a loud and horrific sound filled the room.  I didn't know what was going on!  Was it my husband's phone being obnoxious?  Did one of our cats turn on the tv in the living room to a search and rescue show? Was a S.W.A.T. team invading our home?  No!  It was my stupid phone wailing to high heaven.

I pulled it out of the clamp and nothing I did seemed to TURN. IT. OFF.  I kept pressing the side buttons trying to shut the phone down.  I tried telling Siri to stop.  JUST STOP.  Nope, that didn't work either.  It said "Emergency SOS" on the screen.

Both I and my husband were scrambling to shut it down before it dialed 911.  That didn't work either.  It finally got quiet and I pressed the side button some more.  Unfortunately, it got quiet because the phone had connected to a 911 operator and I had just hung up on them!

My phone rang then and my husband told me to answer since it was probably 911 calling back.  Sure enough, that's who it was.  I apologized profusely and the operator was just glad that everyone was ok.

Shortly after I hung up, the phone rang again from a number I didn't know.  I didn't want to answer it, so I handed my phone to my husband.  He answered it and found that it was another 911 operator.  Apparently, I'd hung up on more than one.  He apologized and said his wife was "playing with her phone."  Excuse me?  I was NOT playing with my phone.  Grumble.  Grumble.  

Shortly after he hung up with the second 911 operator, my phone rang again!  He answered and this time it was his dad, who had been notified through text that I was having an SOS Emergency.  

The only emergency I was having was trying to stop all this emergency dialing!  That was the end of the phone calls and then I went in and changed my settings.  I didn't realize that the phone had a feature to call your emergency numbers when the side button was pressed rapidly 5 times.  All that fumbling around with the phone clamp must have triggered this feature.

I tossed the clamp back to my husband and assured him I would be just fine reading my book without it.  

Just like the Hotel California

Today I went into the office for work instead of working from home.  It was a very busy Friday, and I looked forward to a nice trike ride home on my new motorcycle.  

Loaded down in motorcycle gear, I pushed open the suite door and confidently pushed the down button for the elevator.  Nothing happened.  No lights lit up, no sound of the elevators moving.  

Well, that’s odd, I thought to myself.  I went over and pressed the buttons on the other side but nothing happened there either.  What in the world?

I started racking my brain for any memory of an email telling us that the elevators would be shut down after hours today, but I couldn’t come up with anything.  I tried swiping my badge to get back into the suite to get the security desk’s phone number, but it was after hours, so of course, my badge didn’t work.

Now I was starting to get a little nervous.  I was trapped!  Trapped in an entryway with no way to leave; no doors were willing to open for me.

At least I had my cell phone with me.  I flipped through emails looking for the security desk number to no avail, so I decided to call my boss to try to get it.  I got her on the line and we both tried to find it.  I was tired and cranky and flustered and started raising my voice at the absurdity of it all.  

I also started getting mad because I could hear the cleaning crew on other floors making noise.  It occurred to me that the clean crew had probably locked down all the elevators to fill them up with refuse from various suites.  I could understand shutting down an elevator, but all 6 of them??!!??  I JUST WANTED TO GO HOME!  

Well, I think the cleaning crew heard me.  Immediately after ranting that I wanted to go home, I heard some more rustling and clunking from the cleaning crew and then magically an elevator started moving again.  I pressed the button and it actually lit up this time!

By now, I had set all my gear on the floor, so when the door opened, I had to scramble to put a piece of it in front of the sensor so that I could go back and pick the rest of it up.  I tossed everything in, rushed in myself, and pressed the button to take me down to freedom.

I still had my boss on the phone and she was willing to stay on the line until I was safely out of that funhouse of horrors, but by that time I was already at the ground floor and I practically jumped out of the elevator.  At that point, I hoped that nothing else would stop me from leaving the building, so I let her go back to her Friday evening fun.

I did make a detour to the security desk and complained.  I mean, if I had wanted to visit a Hotel California wannabe, there should have at least been some dancing and drinks.

The Spider Chronicles - Shake, Rattle and Roll

My husband and I were enjoying a tv show this evening, when I happened to look up and saw a large spider rappelling down from the ceiling right in front of me.

We were both sitting in recliners and it was going to end up in my lap if I didn’t do something fast.  I couldn’t sit up or stand up because it was already too close.  I started scrambling further back in the chair (which isn’t easy to do in a recliner) when suddenly I felt the whole thing tipping over backward, with me along for the ride.  I cracked the back of my head on a table behind me and was pelted by falling debris from the side table that fell over with the recliner.  

I yelled from the floor, “Get it!  Get it!  Get the spider!”

I’m sure my husband thought I was crazy at this point.  He struggled to get up from his recliner and decided to pummel the bottom of my chair with a pillow in order to stun the spider into submission to give him time to get up out of the chair and kill it proper.

Meanwhile, I was trying to right myself by rolling off the back of the capsized chair and managed to crack my bad knee in the process.  I was laughing, crying and hyper-ventilating all at the same time.

My husband had managed to get up and was going to look for the spider on the floor.  Unfortunately, he didn’t close his recliner all the way.  It sprung open and knocked him in the legs, which made him lose his balance and stagger around, almost taking out the tv and cracking his bad shoulder.  More laughing, crying and hyper-ventilating, on my part, ensued.  

I went to the bathroom to collect myself.  When I came back, my husband informed me that it got away.  

This spider didn’t sing, didn’t dance, didn’t even talk to me, but my husband and I almost died trying to defend ourselves. 

Well played, Stealth Spider, well played.

The Spider Chronicles - Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Since it would be really boring for me to say, "I killed a spider," I write crazy stories instead.  Highly embellished, but sprinkled with truth, here is an installment of the Spider Chronicles for 2019.  Enjoy.

A short time ago, I was looking in the mirror and combing my hair after my shower.  Suddenly, I saw something large and dark fall from the bathroom ceiling behind me.  

I cautiously looked behind the trash can and saw a big reddish-brown spider.  Listening harder, I could hear it singing, “This old man, he played one, he played knick knack on my thumb…”

“What in the Sam Hill are you doing?” I demanded.  Shocked, the spider turned to look at me.  

“Oh! I’ve heard about YOU from the yellow sack spiders.  You always managed to get the upper hand with them, but not with me!” it squeaked.  With that, it tried to scuttle along the wall, but it was no match for the mighty flyswatter. 

After disposing of the body, I was lost in thought, disturbed that my nemesis had been in contact with spiders from the old country.  Just then, I noticed a swarm of brown ants on the wall by the trash can.  We had an ant problem earlier in the year, and seeing them made me irritated that they were back.

As I got closer,  I realized, to my horror, that they weren’t brown ants at all.  It was a swarm of about 50 baby reddish brown spiders!!!  That spider I killed wasn’t auditioning for a children’s tv show at all.  It was a mother singing to its babies!

I quickly jumped into action.  Grabbing a paper towel, I went on a massive killing spree.  The bathroom was filled with the din of their tiny screams of agony.  I was very thorough in my attack.  I was determined that not one would escape to warn headquarters.  

Finally, I was down to one last straggler.  It begged and pleaded.  Then it tried to bribe me with the promise of information on more of my enemies.

So I killed it.  Nobody likes a snitch.

The Spider Chronicles - Return of the Ninja

Since it would be really boring for me to say, "I killed a spider," I write crazy stories instead.  Highly embellished, but sprinkled with truth, this is the first installment of the Spider Chronicles for 2015. Enjoy.

Since moving into my new place, I've been lulled into a sense of complacency regarding the spider ninjas I normally encounter.  I've seen a few lower-level scouts, but none that can compare to my former residence.  All that came to an end two Fridays ago when I went downstairs to take a shower. 

I was minding my own business, like I normally do, when something in my field of vision caught my eye.  I glanced up at the top of the shower surround and noticed two legs suspended in mid-air above the shower wall.  After staring intently at the legs for a minute, I determined that they were not moving and concluded that the spider was dead. Continuing my shower, I looked up at the legs every couple of minutes and was relieved to find their position unchanged.  

I stared extra intently when I was about to wash my hair, since my eyes would be closed for the duration, making me vulnerable to attack.  I washed my hair with lightning speed; soap suds and water flying everywhere.  When I was done, I quickly looked up:  the legs…had…moved.

I shut off the water and catapulted out of the shower in 0.0001 seconds flat.  And then I heard it; high-pitched giggling coming from the top of the shower.  I looked up and saw two orange glowing eyes glaring at me.  It appeared to be a nemesis from the Yellow Sac order.

"Why were you playing dead?  And what is that hanging around your neck?" I queried.

"That's none of your business!" he squeaked belligerently.  "And these? These are my headphones," he said as he yanked the tiny speakers from around his neck and jammed them on his ears.

"Oh yeah?  Why does a ninja need headphones?" I laughed.

"It's my workout music." he countered in a deadly whisper, yanking them back off his ears and cranking up the volume.  Straining really hard, I could just make out the lyrics to House of Pain's 1992 hit "Jump Around."

"Seriously?" I chortled.  "You're going to need better workout music than that if you think you can beat me.  I've killed the best!  I took down Kumonga, for Pete's sake!"  I rushed to the other side of the room and grabbed an implement of destruction.  I wasn't about to be bested by this amateur!

So I tried to kill him.  And missed!!!!!

That little sucker could jump up and down and move faster than a dog in a bacon factory!  And like the ninja he was, he vanished in a puff of smoke.  What a disaster!  I've been fighting spider ninjas since 2012 and have never missed a target.  Until now.  I searched and searched, but it was no use.  I finally started some laundry and trudged back upstairs in defeat, hoping that I had somehow hit my mark and only failed to find the body.

A short time later, I remembered that I needed some hangers for my laundry, so I went back downstairs, only to find that part of the basement floor was now a pond!  What in the world was going on?

Off in the distance, I heard some faint giggling and the obnoxious strains of "Jump around! Jump around!"  My worst fears were realized – a spider ninja had gotten away.