The Anatomy of Shoulder Surgery

So, I'm alive. Only just barely. I wasn't even sure about that until earlier this evening. The last 4 days went something like this:

I had to be at American Fork Hospital at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday. I was extremely hungry but I hardly noticed because I had to go potty so badly. Life was much happier after that sterile plastic cup and I had some time together in the bathroom. After a potty break I got to get all dolled up in some fancy thigh highs:
Then they asked me to give them permission to knock me out, cut me up, and leave me much worse off than I was when I arrived. I happily agreed:

This is one of my anesthesiologists...I believe he is in the witness protection program.

Of course, they have to poke you:

This is my very own Dr. Wells. He's a nice guy. Plus, that nurse in the background was really happy. I'm glad someone so jovial was in my operating room perking that place up a bit.

They also gave me a nerve block in my neck to make my shoulder and arm feel dead for several hours. It's pretty much an epidural for my arm. I don't have any photos because it weirded Aunt Kaye out too much and I don't believe she had the presence of mind to take photos of it. Apparently, one wrong move and they puncture your lung or do some permanent damage because of all the nerves that go straight to your head. The nerve block procedure was my first tip off that this was not going to be a pleasure to recover from. My Amy friend's mom had a shoulder scope one week earlier and did wonderfully. I decided that I would have that same experience. Only too bad for me...

My second tip off that this was not going to be my favorite was when I woke up and threw up for a few hours. I never felt so sick. When I stopped with the throwing up and came to my senses, a nice nurse man named Larry came and told me all about my pain pump. (This was the third tip off, 'cause I've never even heard of a pain pump you take home until that minute.)It lived in my sling and hooked up directly into my wound. It gave me a constant drip of pain numbing goodness, and I could also push a button and get an extra shot of it every half hour. FYI, if you ever go to the doctor and he wants to give you a nerve block and a pain pump, you should probably leave speedy quick because he is up to no good, I tell you.

I also had a Polar Care thingy. That is the blue thing with the number 1 on it in this photo:
It is my favorite parting gift they gave me when I left. It wraps around your afflicted body part and is connected to a cooler with an electric pump. It constantly pumps ice water over your owie.

Hank is not pleased with this whole situation because his perch of preference is on my chest. He's liked to sleep there since he was a kitten, only now he feels terribly displaced:

He wouldn't even sleep on the rug to make me feel a little less sad about his life. He went straight to the cement. Kids innately know what to do to make you feel the most guilty.

On Sunday a nurse came to my home and removed my pain pump. I did not know how in love I was with that pump until about 3 a.m. this morning. I'm glad that the Hallmark channel plays Golden Girls most of the night because I was too owie to do any actual sleeping. The good news about the pain pump removal was that the bandages came off and I could shower. Here's a peek of under the bandages:
Apparently, my doctor believes he is also an artist. Or at least a topographer because that looks suspiciously like a map on my shoulder. I know for sure he believes he is a photographer because he took lots of photos of what the inside of my shoulder looked like.

This is what happy healthy cartilage looks like. Nice and smooth and white. I'm not sure where this is located in my shoulder, but I think it's pretty. Then there's this:

That is a big old hunk of cartilage hanging down amongst some more really jacked up cartilage. I honestly don't know how I did that to myself, but I'd hate to think what I could do if I was trying.

That's the long and short of it. What I would like to mention is all of the people that have helped me the last several days. Auntie Kaye took me to the hospital and waited for me and held the tub while I threw up. That's love, I tell you. Then my Amy friend let me spend the night at her house that night. Also, many others had to help me because I was not totally prepared for the recovery phase. I really thought that this was not going to be so big of a deal. I've had my knee scoped and I survived that quite well. I was not anticipating lying on the couch on Friday afternoon and literally not able to get up to do anything for myself. It was a really scary feeling. I called up my Kristen friend that lives here in town and she totally hooked me up. She couldn't get away from work that minute, but within 20 minutes of me calling her in near hysteria, her friend, Cheryl came over with food. I hardly even met this lady before, but she was sure an angel of mercy that day. She also came back on Sunday and brought me ice for my polar care pump, homemade chili, soup, and bread. Just because she's nice. That really touched my heart. Kristen came on Saturday and brought me food and visited for a while. A teacher friend/lady in my ward came on Sunday with some homemade brownies and movies. Lori came Sunday night and spent the night. Auntie came back today with enchilada casserole, and my Nan friend called several times to make sure I was alive. Plus, Laurie called a few times and Hillyerie texted me even though she's been helping her own curly headed animal recover from having her tonsils taken out. Then today my very own Kesk came by and brought me those 3 sweet zoo animals I love so much. Nobody can feel sad with that kind of cuteness around. Pretty much, I am so blessed to have so many people care about me.

One more thing...have any of you ever woken up from a drugged induced near coma to this?...

Grumpy Bum

I had to pull out the angry eyes again. The culprit:
Sure it looks harmless enough. You may even think cute with that photo of those three zoo animals on it. However, it has caused me over 3 hours of anguish. I keep having problems with the cord that charges it. I've replaced it and I tell you it is at no small price. $89 of no small price to be exact. However, either the cord or the computer has a short in it and if you don't hold it just right, it doesn't connect and then it doesn't charge the battery. This evening I was minding my own business and it decided not to work at all. It got angry with me and told me that it only had 5% of the battery and if I didn't plug it in then too bad for me because no computer. I jiggled it, and jiggled it, and jiggled it. Usually it works by about the 2nd jiggle. Not tonight, I tell you. I started feeling panicky and decided the only thing to do was to shake it and yell at it, and beat that cord because that always helps.
This table is supposed to look a little ratty and beaten, but that one hole was a casualty. I finally got in the car and drove to Orem to get a new cord. Beings as I live in inner outer Mongolia, that was no small drive. 25 minutes each way, in fact. I spent another $89 on that cord and brought it back home. I was feeling confident enough that it would work. Confident enough that I stopped in to this new shoe place next door to Best Buy called Shoe Carnival. It's brand new and has all manner of cute shoes. I did not buy, but I did lust. When I got home I opened up the new cord and guess what. It did not work. I was in all manners of despair and decided that I'd try to shut it down and just hope for the best. I had not tried that before, because I feared if I did, that'd be the end and all of my photos and documents on the computer would be lost forever. I shut it down and lo and behold, it worked. Apparently, the problem was not a cord problem, but the screen got froze with that meany message about the not charging. I wanted to laugh and cry but mostly I wanted to save everything on my computer to a thumb drive for safe keeping. So I did. The end.

Career Conference

I've been blog AWOL for a week, but I've been boring for a week.

This very yesterday I went to my Mary Kay Career Conference. Let's just get the bling out of the way right off the bat. MK is a firm believer in lavishing with jewels. I'm not opposed to this philosophy. Here are the two jewelries I earned:
This necklace is made of pearls and something else what that I don't remember but it's sparkly and pretty.This I got just because. They also are firm believers in randomly giving away lots of stuff. I hope you are prepared for the bling that follows:

Those are not pretend diamonds. They are real and I don't even know how many karats there are between those two rings. More than 1 and fewer than 10. What I do know is that they brought over $100,000 worth of diamonds for us to try on and play with. I'm not opposed to earning one of those things. I used to think that those kinds of rings, dripping with diamonds, were gaudy. After feeling the wondrous weight of all those karats on my finger, I believe that I only thought that because I never had any. It would not hurt my feelers at all to own a gaudy jewelery such as that. (And, yes, that is lunch meat behind my bedazzled hand. It was a dinner I earned after Career Conference and that's were the rings were for me to play with.)

Mostly career conference was about training and fun. It was held in the E-Center to accommodate all the hundreds of women who attended. There was no assigned seating, so I want you to picture this: Hundreds of women, all dolled up in skirts and high heels, waiting at the doors. Did I say waiting because I meant surging at those doors waiting to get in and get a good seat on the floor and not higher up in the arena. The the poor security man gave us the go ahead and he only narrowly escaped a sure death of trampling by stiletto as all those women full out ran into that place to secure seats. It beats anything I've ever seen.
I included this shoe to show you what manner of shoes were running into the arena, but mostly I included it for Hillyerie. I don't think she ever met a shoe she didn't love. She has a shoe problem.

I also earned a special luncheon on Saturday:

All the other millions of people that didn't earn this fancy lunch had to fend for themselves around town. Only too bad for them, because this was delicious and I didn't have to pay for it.

This was my name badge with all of my flair. I don't know how many of you saw the movie, Office Space, but if you did you know about flair. I got a ribbon for all the cool stuff I did. Some women had ribbons a-go-go but I didn't do to badly myself.

This is just some of my MK friends and me waiting for the show to begin.

In short, a good time was had by all.

Saturday...the loveliest of all the days

Today was a perfect Saturday. I slept until forever and then lounged around the house until I was good and ready to shower. I left my house around 11:30 in the a.m. and headed out to Spanish Fork. My school friend, Mary, just had a baby and that Amy girl and I told her we'd love to come and see him today. Only Amy and her phone are not best friends and she let it die and I couldn't get a hold of her. Lucky for me, she lives close to that Mary and I just dropped by unannounced. However, Much to my chagrin, we couldn't see the baby because he is all yellow like a daffodil and has to lay in lights all the time. I love Mary, but I told her I'd not bother to come and see her if I couldn't hold the baby. She understood and told me so.

With the day before us, Amy and I decided to head to Ikea because lo, and behold, they finally had my chairs in and my table has been lonely without them. Now, for the moment you've all held vigil waiting for: In order to really appreciate the wonderfulness of this chair, I will give you a closer look at that cushion:

The color isn't so good, but it's pink with polka dots and flowers. They cost as much as the chair, but was I supposed to do, I ask you?

Of course, Hank was the first one to try out their cushiony goodness.

This is the first supper ever eaten on my new table. Amy and I brought the food home and then had to put the chairs together before we could sit down to eat it. That's some motivation for speedy quickness. FYI, if you ever find yourself in Payson, USA and you have a grumbly tummy, I'd go to the Wildflower Grill. Those are homemade fries you are looking at. Like they were actual not frozen ever potatoes just moments before being cooked. The only drawback to the Wildflower Grill is that you can actually hear your arteries slamming shut as you eat it. Sometimes that is a small price to pay for homemade potatoes.

Amy and I finished off my perfect Saturday watching Beaches. I love that Bette Midler. In fact, for all of you that have been up at night wondering what wonderful thing you could do for Shan, I highly recommend tickets to see Bette Midler in Vegas. Next to my trip to NYC to see Wicked with Kesk in October, it's my wildest dream come true. I'll be sure and act surprised when you show up to whisk me away to the concert.

Duck, Duck...

Yesterday at school Amy says to me, "You need to come to my house and look at my new shelves Johnny made for me. (Only his name is really Randy and only she can call him Johnny.) They still need to be painted and you can help." She said that last part in a way that only Tom Sawyer could say it to make it sound fun. She didn't fool me, but I love her very guts and I really did want to see the shelves her Johnny-on-the-spot made.

Only this... I got to her house and she was not in it. She was across the street and she told me to come and see the ducks. Perhaps she was mistaken. She's no farm girl and she lives in town homes what that don't have duck accommodations. I guess you don't have to have duck accommodations in order to have actual ducks:

This duck friend hung out in my hoodie.

This is Kisen. Only I don't think you spell his name that way. He is the owner of the ducks.

I think they are a little confused about feeding time.

If these were my ducks, I'd name them Frankie and Mack, I believe.

I finally got around to helping Amy with her shelves:

My help was more of the moral kind and less of the physical kind.

Wendover Will

It was brought to my attention that I failed to blog about how I spent my Friday night this past weekend. I took my first trip to Wendover. I've always heard that that place is a pit and only drunk, white trashy people go there. Boy were they wrong. There were drunk, white trashy people but there was also me. Actually, there were 4 of us classing up the place. I took a most fabulous photo of "Wendover Will", only it was super windy and super cold and I was shaking a lot and it came out all blurry. I took about 10 blurry photos and one not blurry one and I accidently erased the not blurry one. I'm not sure what my new good friend Will is pointing at...maybe where to go to get some good Chinese food.
This most wonderous of weekends was brought to me by my Amy and Randy friends. Amy and I teach together and I only see her about 8 days a week and we are the Cool Kid Club founders of the Mt. Nebo Jr. High chapter.
As you can see from outside the car, the weather was not a pleasure when we left.This is Randy's big head. That was pretty much my view for the whole drive there and back. I sure love his big, fuzzy head.

Also, a boy named Gavin went with us. He's Randy's good time friend from a long time ago. I do not have a photo of Gavin because I thought it would be a little stalkerie to request the photo of a total stranger on our first outing together. Maybe I should just go to his house and sit and wait for him to get home so I can get a picture of him as he walks from his truck to his door. Or maybe I can get his picture as he walks past an open window. He probably wouldn't think that was creepy even a little bit.

We got home from Wendover at 4:30 a.m. If I were Hillyerie, I'd be waking up right about then to do a post on my blog. I believe that when she sets her alarm clock for on blog days.

Table Talk

This very day I went to Ikea with my Auntie Kaye. She was in need of a thingy to put her TV in and I wasn't in need of anything....that is until I got into that place. I was shocked at all of the things I couldn't live without. My whole life has been empty and I didn't even know it. In order to fill that aching void in my life I bought a little table to put in my kitchen/living room area. Conveniently enough, it will also fill the void in my kitchen.

I've been sitting on my couch and eating off of my coffee table all this time. I don't drink coffee, but I figured the coffee table police would forgive me for misusing their table.

So, for only $60 I found the table of my dreams. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but I did find a decent one that was small enough to fit in that very small space. In case you didn't know, Ikea doesn't give you their furniture all nice and neatly put together as furniture should be. You have to do it yourself. Lucky for me, I'm good at that kind of thing and I like to do it. Don't make the mistake of thinking I did it all by myself, though. I had plenty of help...

First, Hank checked to make sure I had all the right tools:

Then he carefully counted all of the screws and such to make sure I had enough to do the job.

After a lot of kitty sweat, here's my new table:

Plus, also, I hope you enjoy that witch broom in the background. You never know when you need to make a quick getaway.

Here is what my kitchen looks like with the void filled. I'm getting two cute black chairs, too. Only they were out of them, so now I can't sit at my table yet and I still have to use the coffee table.

All that work sure made Hank progressively tired. These next photos I took just a couple of minutes ago. You can see this very post I'm working on in the background.