I'm home. Only bad to spend 8 days in the hospital this time, instead of 12, so I got off early. I'm getting a million "What happened?" questions, and I don't mind dishing the details. Again I was an ass and tried holding out going to the ER till the last minute. At least it wasn't the last dying minuet this time. I'd been having a lot of lower abdominal pain starting the Thurs before I gave in and went. Rode my horse, and went to work for two days in pain bad enough that they gave up shooting me in the arm, and gave me the button I could push every ten minuets. Yeah, color me stubborn. In my defense, I already had a Doc appt on Mon, and I was trying to hold out until then. I did pack a bag when I drove myself to the ER, knowing they were going to most likely keep me. Again, color me stubborn, I wouldn't let Scott take me. I was right, they admitted me, after giving me the "We're going to test you for this type of cancer, and three others." That scared me a little. Turns out all this crap wasn't related to the Crohns disease problems I'm already going through. Stupid ovarian cyst the size of a softball was on my right ovary. Since I'd just recently had surgery to take out 16cm of small intestine, they couldn't go in laproscopiclly to fix it. They had to open me up all over again from my belly button down. 25 staples later, a lot of pain later, and I'm home, all better, except for the recovery. Scott and I are arguing over that I want to be a hard ass and go back to work after two weeks off, and he wants me to take off the six the docs say I should. We'll see who wins this time. lol. Anywho, I'm home.

Went to the Doc's yesterday to get the staples out. Good thing since I already popped two. He said they were More than ready to come out. the skin was already healing under and around them. It's only been 9 days since I got out of the hospital. Tues Sept. 13th is when I had the surgery. I'm healing a million times faster this time than I did the last surgery. Heather was still driving me around three weeks later because I couldn't drive. I barely got up and shuffled around a few times a day. Didn't get to sleep in my own bed until almost two weeks after i got home. this time I got out on a Mon, was driving by Thurs. sleeping in my own bed the second night. Walking all over, moving the horses, did the irrigation the other day. I'm still taking the painkillers mind you, but I'm so much better.  


We got most of our hay. Four ton of grass, a ton and a half of alfalfa right now, with one more ton of alfalfa coming. Scott and Jess got most of the grass stacked before my hospital staycation, and when Everyone was over this last weekend for Maria's first b-day so the boys helped Scott unload the alfalfa off the trailer and stack it when they were here. Jess and I helped Scott get the tarps over it. 

 Trip to Blackfoot Fair

maria's 1st Bday

And here's some pics I've been a slacker about getting up. Camping above Sun Valley.

Horses realized the fence wasn't hot sometime in the last few days, and had it pulled down in three different pastures. I went out and fixed all of it today.

 

Then I moved the brats out to the grass

Selling horses

We had to sell Spook last week. I put an add up for him on Thurs, Fri morning I had an email in my inbox. Fri afternoon they drove down to Gooding, and took him home. I feel like such an asshole. I gave the horse to Jesse. She rides him, not all the time, but alot. She takes him into town on her own, rides all over the place by herself. I just can't afford to buy hay for four horses this year after being out of work for two months. He's the only one I could sell to get enough hay to keep two of them. Well I could have sold Ben and Apache. I don't know if I'm just a bad person for being selfish. She is the one who said sell Spook. She's not going to be here long she says. She's wanting to move to her Dad's house, and in a year join the Airforce. I think she needs to have a plan B when that happens, but... Meh. Some one did come out and look at Ben lastnight. I think she really liked him. I'm not sure she was crazy about his age, but I do think he's what she is looking for, for her husband. She looked him all over nose to tail. I liked her.

Inflamed appendix?

I had to go in for another CT scan July 22nd. Seems I'm not healing like I should. I still shouldn't need this many painkillers. In the bathroom way too many times a day. Got the results back the 25th. Seems I have an inflamed appendix. The only thing though... They took out my appendix when they did my emergency surgery for my blockage. o.O WTF? Soooo, I had another Doc appt Aug 3rd. /sigh

So I went to the doc's. Pretty much went as I expected. I've dropped another six pounds. That makes 22 pounds since I was admitted in the hospital May 23. The good news is that I haven't been under 150 pounds in YEARS. The bad news is, it's because my intestines aren't responding to the medication. The "inflamed appendix," is just the resection site. It's still inflamed, and producing fluid. It's about a baseball size. The bad spot was where the two intestines come together and the appendix used to be. We're pretty sure I still have some infection. I left the hospital with the infection. I didn't think about it, but they kept taking my temp after the painkillers. Duh, fever reducers. After I got home, as they would wear off I'd get horribly chilled, ache in my back and hips, then after I took them an hour later I was so hot and all sweaty, ick. And... I might have picked up the C.Diff bug while I was in the hospital. Great... Prolly not, but yay me, I get to poop in a cup. Can you say Gross. I knew better, I so knew better than to think that once the "bad spot" in my intestines was gone, all the Crohns crap would go away. Something triggered the Crohns to go active after being in remission for ten years. It just attacked the weakest link, the place there was already swelling and a lot of old scar tissue. It's still triggered on, so I'm still having intestinal issues. I had more blood work done, I'm pretty damn anemic, and had a T.B. test done. I might need Remicade treatments. That's what kicked the Crohns in the donkey last time. I go to I.V. out patient once every 6 weeks for an infusion of medication. I'm on huge horse pill antibiotics to go with the pentasa I take two of, four times a day, three diff types of painkillers I take in different combination depending on the pain, the 6MP that's a anti leukemia drug that works wonders on Crohns. Good news, there isn't any prednisone in that mix. I hate that shit.

What a slacker

April since I was last here. Alot of things have happened to contribute to my delinquency. Mostly it's was my guts. I have Crohns Disease. I had a massive flare up in the end of May. I didn't realise I'd been having a problem with Crohns. I thought I'd been having a run of being sick and have the flu since the end of last year. I kept getting a fever, and body aches. One time I thought I had the stomach flu the end of Dec. Looking back, it was a flare up with a partial obstruction in my intestines. The end of this May my brother-in-law was over Bar-B-Queing for us. He made steaks with sauted onion, mushrooms, and wild asperagus we'd picked. We also had corn on the cob roasted on the grill. The only thing out of all that I really should have eaten was the steak. Of course I had some of all of it. It was soo yummy. I'd also been drinking a bit more than I should have. I know alcohal messes with the Crohns.

Mon morning after all this food, my stomach was gurgling like Crazy as I got up to get in the shower. I almost didn't make it out of the shower before I had to go to the bathroom. I felt a little like Ick, but a friend of mine was coming through Idaho on his way back home, and promised to stop by at work and say hi for a half hour or so. And I'm dumb enough to need to be bleeding from the head before I call out sick from work. I felt mostly ok till I got about half way to Jerome. I had to pull off the side of the highway to throw up. Jess was with me and thought it was totally gross. When I got to work I had to heave again. I thought I just had a hangover from the Mike's Hard I had the night before. Why I thought that I'll never know, because I don't get sick at my stomach with a hang over. All the food I'd had te night before all came back up. None of it was digested, none of it seemed to have passed through my stomach to my intestines.

At work I stayed out in the truck while Jess went in. I thought I just needed to ick the seat back and lay still for a little while and I'd be fine. The first dog came in, and I stayed out there. Occasionally I'd be sick to my stomach again. I did come in when Quix pulled up. We visisted for about half an hour. I was queasy and my stomach hurt the whole time, but I ignored it. After he left Jess washed my dog while I got sicker and sicker. I tried to start grooming it, but the pain was becoming unbearable, and I was still throwing up. About 3/4 of the way through the dog I had Jess call Scott and tell him I needed him to come get me. I was too sick to stay. I changed that to I Need to go to the HOSPITAL NOW, when he got there. Andrea came with im, and drove my truck home while Scott took me to Gooding County ER.

Die first before you ever decide to go to Gooding County. Seriously. They are good for things like broken bones, and stitches, but usless for things like I had going on. The CT scanned me, said I might have a blockage, definatly a swelling in my intestines. No GI meds, no anti inflamitories. Just loads of pain killers and some antibiotics. I was bloating so badly it hurt to breath. I layed there and cried alot from the pain. After three days they decided to do a surgery consult. I'd had a physical therapist come and make me walk up and down the hallways, and see if I could get up stairs on my own in case they sent me home. I don't remember alot of it. So much pain meds, and so much pain.

Scott decided he'd had enough of County's lack of doing anything for me. He and Honey Jo came and had me sign myself out of the hospital. They were taking me to Twin Falls. It was their brand new hospital. They had GI docs on staff. I went in through the ER, got admittted, CT scanned again, X rays, and sure enough I had a complete obstruction, and my intestines had perforated. I was leaking nasty stuff into my guts. I had a nasty infection and was not far from going septic. By now I was so bloated, and in so much pain, my diaphram couldn't expand and I was having trouble breathing. I was on oxygen. They realized I was having an allergic reaction to the Morphine. I was trying to itch all the skin off my face. It was Wednesdy afternoon, and they scheduled me for surgery Thurday morning.

I remember going into the operating room. Laying down flat with my legs stretched out was agonizing. The mask they put over my face was cutting off all my air. I was crying and bout to panic right the fuck out. When I had surgeries before, they gave me something to make me tired and relax me. Not this time. The nurse had ahold of my throat to help keep it open as I went under and I felt like I was choking. I remember shifting my jaw over enough that there was a gap between the mask and my face, and I could feel fresh air coming in. I think that was the only thing keeping me from full panic mode and trying to get off the table. I was about three seconds from being hysterical when I finally went under.

Waking up sucked ass. I remember coming to a few times with tears leaking out of my closed eyes. I hurt so incredibly bad. Another shot and out I went. I don't remember getting back to my room. I don't remember Scott or being in recovery. I remember waking up in pain again in my room, in my bed, ice packs on my stomach. I don't think there was a time when I was awake the whole 12 days I was in there when I was pain free, even for half an hour. The gas was building up in my guts and it stabbed through me all the time. Every deep breath, walking, lying down, it didn't matter. I was having issues with having to pee. I had a huge urgency to go, but I couldn't go. I had to have pills to controll the bladder muscle spasms. My guts took alot longer than they figured they would to start working again. I was afraid to eat anything for fear of getting blocked up again.

I tried to get off the pain meds as fast as I could. I don't think he would have said that if he could feel the agaony I was in. Get up and walk. The more you walk, the faster you can get out of here. Every time he came in, I was trying so hard to keep it together. Not let on how much I was hurting. Be strong. Tough it out. Walk, walk, walk. I'd be walking the halls continuously through the night. I was in too much pain to sleep. I'd start to fall asleep walking, and come to as my knees buckled, still walking down the hall.

I had issues with the IV. It started to leak. Not blood, but all the meds they were pumping into me. I had an idiot just out of training nurse who didn't read my chart right. I was allowed 1-2 pain pills every 4 hours, and one shot every 2. I was nauseous, and she couldn't give me anthing by IV for it. I wasnt allowed another pain pill she said. No more pain meds for two hours. She was stupid. I was allowed another pill, and she should have given me a shot before we started playing with the IV. It took three hours, and 8 people to get my IV restarted. I just layed there and cried. They blew so many of my veins. I was stuck about 22 more times in three hours. My arms were bruised like I'd been beaten. And Scott wondered wy I was such an emotional wreck when he came to see me.

I cried over everything. Just watching the TV, there was a show about women finding out they were pregnant, and having their babies on Discovery channel. Just watching one woman in pain through delivery was enough to make me start sobbing at the remembered pain of what I just went through. No fucking wonder I cried at everything.

The back eight has been sold. But we know the guys who bought it, so it's all good. They are putting a real gate in across where the road hits their property.

Started burning some of the old hay and downed sticks

Part of the score Scott brought home from work

Liam was using the tractor to move rocks and clean up the yard.

Food?

Trying to eat here...

Scott went over and picked up some hay from his boss. Said boss offered the use of the four wheeler with the sprayer mounted on back. Sprayed weed killer, and fertilizer 

I have furrows in my garden now. We borrowed this nifty thing to drag behind the tractor. If it would ever get warm enough to put plants in the ground

Potato soup

 I loved the potato soup from Panera Bread in Arkansas. They don't have one of those here abouts. So I went poking around the internet and found two recipes that looked good. I liked a little bit about both so I combined. It was yummy-licious.

Potato Soup
Two baked potatoes. I nuked mine in the microwave.
Six russet potatoes. Mine were kind of small so I used six
Half a brick of cream cheese
One cup sour cream
Three cups of milk
Three cups of chicken stock. I've been making my own stock with a lot less salt
Half an onion, chopped small
Half a stick of butter
Three tablespoons of flour
Bacon bits or four slices of bacon cooked and crumbled
Grated cheddar cheese
Handful of chopped green onions

In a large stock pot melt butter over medium low heat. Add onions and cook until onions start to go translucent. Add the flour and stir frequently. You don't want the flour to brown, just to cook out the raw flavor and help the onions melt into the butter. Add the milk and chicken stock and whisk to combine well. Bring the heat up some to bring everything to a boil. Whisk in the sour cream, and add the cream cheese. Stir until everything is combined. Add in the cubed potatoes. I mash the two baked potatoes, with the skins on, and mix this into the soup. Turn the heat back down to medium low. Cover and leave to simmer/low boil until the potatoes are soft. Serve out into bowls with bacon, green onions and grated cheese sprinkled on top.

Makin stuff grow

Jim came over with the little tractor, and borrowed the box tiller from the dairy farm down the street.

He even let Scott drive.

We took down the round pen and re-tilled it all up

 Getting ready for the garden

This is where we're putting in grass

Tilling up in front of the house for the yard

My tomatoes have all sprouted and are taking off

The sugar snap peas are the tall ones in the back

My other sweet potatoes finally sprouted vines

Raspberries are growing. As soon as I figure out where I want them, they'll go in the ground

Yay blueberies

The first sweet potato vine I cut is rooting