Update: Monday morning

Thank you to everyone who commented & emailed me your prayers & support about my sister. Today was the day she got the stent taken out of her kidney. I received a phone call from her just a little while ago. She said it "wasn't too bad". By the looks of it, she said that the stent was a tad shorter than the first one she got months ago but not by much. She is a tad sore and her tummy is bothering her. She still is in pain from the infection on top of it. She had told the doctor that she still wasn't feeling well. He said they "will have to see what happens from here". She left his office with ONE 750mg worth of Levaquin. It is a strong antibiotic...but ONE?

We are hoping that since this stent is out it will give her body time to get the infection out of her system. He is convinced though that the stent was not causing it. Ok, I'm fine with that Dr, but what is? (sorry, thinking aloud) He does not know the answer. They have to "wait and see". I just pray that this infection leaves her and that she can get back to living a normal life again. She sees him in 10 days, he said sooner if she doesn't feel well.

And So We Melt

I cannot believe how hot it has been for these past couple of days. I don't think I have ever sweated so much. It was 102 degrees with high humidity today. It really did a number on my asthma. It sucks not being able to breath sometimes. But luckily, my allotted time outside was only when I need to get to my car, go into and out of places, then go home for the evening. I could not stand to be out there for anything else. If I did, I would probably be hooked up to an oxygen mask at the nearest hospital. Normally I have my asthma under control but jeez, this is ridiculous, you breath in and it is like - nothing! I cannot wait until the fall. Fall & Spring are my favorite seasons. I love 70 degree weather. My perfect temperature. Now, if I can find a place like that all year round?? Hmmm? Does such a place exist besides my dreams?

Well today consisted of my getting up around 9am. I got up did some stuff around the apartment or made it look like I was constructive. I showered, got ready quick and headed to my local Hallmark store to pick up some cards and flowers for my sister. I got her a bouquet of daises which are her favorite flower. I stink at transporting flowers though. By the time I got to her house it looked like someone played "he loves me, he loves me not" on a few of them. Oh well, it was the thought that counts I suppose. LOL! My sister is an animal lover like me so I got her a Get Well card from us that had a dog on it. She has 2 labs...one yellow & one chocolate. Harley (my cat) also bought her a card "out of his allowance" LOL! It was cute because I found a card that had a cat on it that looked just like Harley. So he got his "aunt" a get well card too. She gets a kick out of that kind of thing. The dogs get me a birthday card every year. I know, we are retarded, but it makes us happy! LOL!

So, I went up to spend the day with her. She looked SO much better. I did an internal sigh of relief inside. I told her in her card that she has filled her quota for this year. She can not make me nervous anymore. LOL! She really does mean the world to me & seeing her be so sick for so long has killed me inside. But hopefully this is the first step of her getting her life back. On Friday, she will get the catheter out. After that the stent will come out 5 weeks later from this Friday. Fingers crossed, the nightmare will be over.

I stayed a couple of hours with her then came home, met up with hubby, then we went out for dinner at our favorite Irish Restaurant & Pub. I had my "medium" buffalo strips. Love them. Then I came home & watched a couple of episodes of Sex And The City while hubby used the computer first. He got me the whole series for my birthday. I loved that show. I loved the movie. It was the perfect gift. I've seen them all before, but I can watch them over and over. I'm a "Mr Big" fan. I'm on Season 2 at the moment. Anyone a fan of the show? Anyone seen the movie?

Well I best be ending my post because it is 10:30pm and 5am comes around really fast. Back to the grind tomorrow. Hopefully this heat wave will end and I will stop melting. Sweat does not become me. All I have to say is THANK GOD for Secret Platinum. (powder fresh gel is my favorite)

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Well my sister is home safe and sound. Thank the good Lord! She went home on Wednesday evening. She went home with the catheter which she is really not happy about. She is getting it removed next Friday the 25th. She is counting the days. She is in alot of pain where the incisions were. What she had done was a laporoscopic pyleoplasty. I got the technical term of it. I actually watched one performed on You Tube. Let me just say I am glad I saw this after she had it. Blech! Now we just need to get her through this week with the catheter and then 6 weeks with the stent in and hopefully this nightmare will be over. Again, thank you all for your concern. It means so much to me!

My plans for the weekend are to go up and see her and try to catch up on stuff. I have so many "flagged" emails to reply to, blogs to catch up on, TV shows to watch and phone calls to make. But it will all get done eventually.

I can go for a big glass of iced tea right now. Speaking of iced tea. I thought you all should know that I have given up my addiction to McDonalds Sweet Tea. It was honestly getting too sweet for me. I'm sticking with my iced coffees from Dunkin Donuts and my once a week treat of a Java Chip Frappuchino from Starbucks. They are just too expensive and I'm not Rockefeller. LOL! Just a note to those "watching their figure"....you can get ANY frappuchino in light form, not just the coffee light and mocha light. Awesome.

Hopefully Good News!

Well, I am back home. I got in at 11:30pm. I am wiped out. I think I'm more mentally & emotionally drained than physically drained. Ah, who am I kidding, I'm physically drained too.

When we got to the hospital, we got her checked into the surgical unit. At that point my sister had a severe migraine & her blood pressure was up. The anesthesiologist came to see her & he allowed her to take a Zomig for her migraine. Thank God!! The migraine also elevated her pressure and if it didn't go down they wouldn't have been able to do the operation. Finally right before 2pm they took her pressure and it was a tad high but it was still within the limit that they were able to proceed with the surgery. She was in for 4hrs. The doctor had told us between 4 to 5hrs. We originally thought less...but he told us more. I never was so glad to see that man when he came into the waiting room to tell us she was OK. Thank the Good Lord. I was so sick for 4hrs. Her & I are very close. She is like a Mom to me. We lost our Mom when I was 18...my sister is 16yrs older than me so she is a sister and a second Mother to me.

He explained what the problem had been now that he went in physically with a camera. Her ureter that attaches to the kidney had a blockage. What it was - was that an artery was resting on top of the ureter pushing it in and causing it to close up. They had to cut the ureter and go above the artery and reattach it over the artery instead of under it. They also cleared some other obstructions. She had alot of inflammation from the 2 stents she had. He left the last stent in that she had. She also has a catheter. She doesn't know yet that he wants her to stay until Thursday. We keep telling her that "maybe tomorrow" you can go home. She also doesn't know she is going to go home with a catheter for 10 days!!!!!!!! She is NOT going to be happy. She will also need to leave this stent in for an additional 6 weeks. We didn't want to spring all of this at her at once. She hates anything that "slows her down" or causes her activeness to go out of whack. I honestly though have a good feeling about this surgery and pray to God that it works. This is the last step before they would need to remove the kidney.

Thanks again everyone for your support. I so appreciate it. I'm going to try to get some sleep. I'm going to ask my boss if I can take a half day tomorrow. Visiting hours start at 12noon so if I leave at noon or 1pm I can be to her by 1 or 2pm. My other sister slept over with her tonight because my sister lucked out and got a private room!!! So they allowed her to stay with her. I was going to stay but they wanted me to get rest so I could go to work in the morning and I will go relieve my other sister when I get there. Her hubby wanted to stay but my sister wanted my other sister to stay. I told her he is lucky...we are all "fighting" over you. LOL!

OK, I'm off to bed. I hope I could sleep...I had a little bit of Taco Bell for dinner at 11:40pm and I think I'm going to be regretting it in say an hour or so. Ugh!! Bad....bad mistake. (insert mental head slap here). I'll keep you guys posted.

Today is the Day

Hello everyone...First let me take this moment to apologize for me being out of blog land for over 2 weeks. I was on vacation the first week. The second week I really don't have an excuse for. I guess I didn't have much to say. For our vacation all we did was go visit family and friends. I had a birthday during my vacation. That was a good day even though I hate turning older. My hubby took me to see "Sex And The City: The Movie" that day and to a beautiful dinner. We went to Amish Country one day. Boy oh boy...we should have stayed over. 2 1/2 hrs each way and guess who did all the driving ---->me. My hubby hates to drive. But that wouldn't have been so bad except while we were there I did all the driving there. I love to look at the scenery, the farmland, the animals. So it was quite tough to do that as you can imagine. But I made the best of it. My hubby feels very uncomfortable driving on roads he is not familiar with. Guess that gives all new meaning to the road less traveled. Anyway, we did have a wonderful day. We came hom with an array of delicious Amish baked goods such as red velvet whoopie pies, peanut butter cookies, a package of assorted cookies, and "Pappys" fresh kettle corn (they made it in front of us). I know this may sound weird, but I also came home with an Elvis iPod carrying case. It is the perfect size to fit my iPod (with its bulky plastic protective casing) and my over-the ear buds. I had to get them because the ones that come with the iPod keep falling out. I don't know how people jog or exercise with them. I'm lazy and sit my but and don't move and they fall out. Go figure. LOL!

Well today is the big day...my sister's surgery. I am blogging around 9:30am. I am meeting her at the hospital at 11:30am. Her husband is driving them, my other sister & myself are meeting them there. She needs to be there for 12 noon. Her surgery is scheduled for 2pm and should last approximately 3hrs. Her urologist and a specialist who specializes in this "robotic arm" technigue will perform the surgery. We are praying that this is successful. It has an 85 percent success rate. They are manually removing the obstruction and cleaning out the area that is causing the problem. She will leave with another stent in her. They are thinking she will be in the hospital 2 or 3 days. This is the last step to avoid having to remove the kidney. We are praying that this works.

Well my friends, thank you for those of you who have been on this whole journey with me. I will try to get on here and let you know how everything went. I'm very nervous because I don't want her to have to go through this, or any type of pain. She is more nervous about the recovery time. My sister is a very active person. She is concerned that she is going to need alot of down time and she doesn't do down time well. In any case, I am off...thanks again for your prayers and support - you all are wonderful.

Monday Afternoon Recollection

I'm such a nerd. Really I am. I chickened out last night at Chilis and never got my margarita. I got an unsweetened iced tea instead. Ok, but I wasn't the only one who "chickened out". My best friend C & my husband L got Diet Cokes. So there. LOL! Funny thing is that going to Chilis was the event of my weekend. Other than that, I didn't leave the house. I saw something a tad disturbing to me. Ok, I really shouldn't say anything because currently my husband & I do not have children. BUT, there was this couple behind us with this small child. He must have been 2yrs old. It was one of those moments when you see them sit down you do a mental eye roll because a toddler sitting behind us in a booth means to us...kicking the booth, crying, etc. Surprisingly, he was SO quiet we didn't know he was there. It was loud in there though with people talking & music playing on the speakers so we didn't see why the child was so quiet. He was watching cartoons on a portable DVD player. It pacified him. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Yeah it was awesome for us. But how was it for him. Needing that stimulation just to behave. What happened when we were kids and our Moms told us to sit there and behave. We ate our dinner & we listened. Those days are over.

We had a really good time with C and even went for ice cream afterwards. Yes, I said ice cream. We went to Dairy Queen and it was 35 degrees out. Hey, we had daylight savings time and to us, that meant having ice cream. I'll tell you that we weren't the only ones who had that bright idea. The place was packed. We stood in line for awhile and even encountered a little girl & her mother screaming over whether "Ashley wanted chocolate or colored sprinkles on her ice cream". Apparently Ashley didn't want to answer her mother & the whole place was affected by this decision. My decision was quite easy to make. If anyone has experienced a "Blizzard" at Dairy Queen you know what a delicacy it is. For those of you who don't know what a Blizzard is, it is a cup of ice cream with whatever you want mixed in. I chose Oreos & Peanut Butter sauce. Very tasty.

So after we froze our "butts" off eating ice cream in 35 degree weather, we rushed home because there was a program I wanted to see on at 10pm & we forgot to set the VCR. So I run into the house, turn on the TV...it was 9:59pm. Yes! Just made it. Then all of a sudden, another program comes on the right channel. Turns out the program I wanted to watch was on Saturday at 10pm not Sunday. Duh!! The good news is that they are re-airing it today at 1pm and L set the VCR for me. Phew! At least I had another option, unless the electricity goes out. LOL! Only I would worry about crap like that.

My sister is getting a tad better since her surgery. She has only been sleeping 1/2 to 1hr a night and here and there for 20mins at a time during the day. Her husband was going to call up the doctor and see if he can see her um, like now. She is post-op 5 days now & there is very, very little improvement. Plus today was the last day of her antibiotics. Hopefully I will find out more when I go to lunch at work when I speak with her. I hope there is good news. Here is hoping!

UPDATE about my sister (9:30pm): I spoke to my sister around 4:45pm this afternoon. She went to the specialist. He wanted to see her immediately. He thinks either her infection has not gotten better or the stent that he put in may have shifted. She is scheduled for a CAT scan on Friday to see which of the two it may be. Until then, he prescribed more percocets. I would rather he did the CAT scan right away but I don't have a medical degree...so my say doesn't count. So if it is the infection, he will give her more antibiotics (why he couldn't just give them to her now, I will never understand). If it is the stent, he will need to go back in & fix it. Ouch!