Home Sweet Home!

Leave it to my husband to sweet talk everyone into letting him come home early. We went up on Friday with the intention of staying the night up there and hoping to bring him home on Saturday morning. For some odd reason, I headed up there without a room reservation, which is very unlike me. Apparently my OCD needed a day off and I was too frustrated from my hour long search for a STILL MISSING blue soccer sock to even think about finding a room. Good timing, because my husband used me as his excuse to get out of there "early". Yeah, early, like we got home after midnight. Yesterday was a blur trying to regather my kids, see my aunt and uncle from Arkansas, get the boys to their game and it felt like a million other things. I went back to the doctor (seriously, anyone who doesn't go to a doctor that is open 7 days a week is missing out!) and found out that I am not quite the wimp I've felt like all week. They sent out a sample of my infection from last weekend to be cultured and it was resistant to the antibiotic that they gave me. I wasn't just a bundle of nerves all week, I was also getting sicker each day until last night when I was pretty sure that I either needed inpatient mental health services or good pain pills. I got a shot of phenegran and demerol and then came home and felt bad because I knew I was feeling WAAAAAYYYYY better than Justin. He is on Vicoden, but he's been being a bit mean to his belly by taking it on an empty stomach and it has been rough for him. He is pretty uncomfortable, but he seems better today than yesterday. Tomorrow he gets his staples (all 37 of them) out and Tuesday we should be able to get ahold of his pathology results. We fully expect that it is all Castlemans, but they send everything off to pathology anyhow. Thanks for checking on him!

Wow. What a week.

Well, where to start. Justin is still in the hospital, but he is doing really well! They took out his nasty nose tube and let him have liquids today and he did good. He says that he really isn't feeling much pain at all and is being a smartass again so he isn't too far from being alright! He still had icky tubes in each side of his neck and his IV, epidural (which is really cool because he can walk, but not feel his midsection!), and catheter so he was still very wired when I left him. I had to come home to see a doctor and it almost killed me to leave him. It was way beyond my better judgement to do it, but I promised him I would make my appointment. I have a cyst or something in the female area and I also have a tubal infection. Oh what fun, when it rains it stinking POURS around here. I am just hoping that they wait for whatever they want to do to me until Justin gets home which should be this weekend. I'm crossing my fingers for Saturday, but Sunday will work for me too. I just miss my baby, and now that he can brush his teeth again I'm ready for him to come home!

Done

Holy mother of Moses! Yesterday was hell, pure and complete hell. I'm still too stressed out to go into all the details but it took FOREVER AND A DAY and they "nicked" his aorta during the surgery and had to call in a cardiologist and give him a blood transfusion. Then he was in recovery for another ETERNITY and had a tube coming out his nose, a tubes is both sides of his neck, IV in each arm and the always-not-fun catheter. My poor baby is miserable, but he is done. Thank God. No more Internet access at the hospital, just everywhere else in the town, but I have my cell if anyone is trying to get ahold of us. If you don't have it, leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will send it to you. Thanks for checking in and sorry it took so long to update but when we finally got to the hotel it was after midnight and I was exhausted.

Going (?) Crazy

I'd say I'm going crazy, but some would argue I've been there awhile. I am ready for this to be over, and if someone would just come and wave their magic wand so that my house was clean I think I'd go to Stanford tomorrow. No such luck, and I will be spending some time doing floors and changing sheets tomorrow so I guess I'm going from crazy to crazier. On that note, the other night I was getting ready to run to the store (to get rolls for dinner, I think) and Den asked me "Where ya goin' mom?", in my normal silly-momma mode I said "Crazy, wanna come?". I didn't think the kid was EVER going to stop laughing. It is so fun to watch your kids develop a sense of humor, and when they find something so funny it's contagious it is great. Usually when that child is laughing like that, you really don't want to see what he caused to happen that made him laugh that hard. Think George of the Jungle on moms curtains and the rod now looks "like a smiley face". Better yet, think of the dog wearing Tyler's halloween costume. Mask and all. I remember the first time I realized that Tyler had a "sense of humor" besides funny faces and stuff the first time he caught onto me being a smartass and thought it was funny. He almost sold me out, and now I'm going to do it myself. It was the Christmas that I was pregnant with Hailey, soooo 2003. The boys had been watching Finding Nemo about 10 times a week. My boys make up names for people. Den couldn't say Jenni so she became Neini (knee-knee) then he turned that into Neiner (rhymes with Weiner). That is what my kids call her. Tyler called my grandma Bobbie "bob-bob" once. ONE TIME, and Den ran with it. She is Bob-Bob. Justin's dad is papa, not papa Jeff, not grandpa. Just papa. My sister is Aunt Neph. Short for Aunt Nephanie, and Justins poor sister is just Rachelle. We pretty much have Hailey convinced to call her "Aunt Rachelle" but only sometimes. So I think Bev was either feeling too old when they called her "grandma" or she felt a little left out because she didn't have a nickname. None the less, she asked the boys to call her "MeeMa". They thought, "hey sounds great, new nickname and we didn't have to come up with it" only being 3 and 4 years old, since they didn't come up with it, they forgot. (You should know I am giggling right now remembering this) So about an hour after she tells them this I asked Ty to go see if anyone wanted more tea. God bless his little heart for remembering, he says "Ok, what was is it that grandma wants me to call her again? Nemo?", I keep a straight face so I don't hurt his shy little feelings and reply "No, grandmas a lot more like Dorie than Nemo, I think it was Meema." Oops. He was reduced to a giggling fit and everyone turned to see what trouble we were causing. I had to bribe him. TWICE. First, not to tell everyone what were laughing at and the second time not to call her Dorie. EVER. It cost me a pretty penny, but Lord was it funny. I almost let him buy her a "special" ornament that year but decided I should be nice, Santa hadn't visited me yet and I was pretty sure he wouldn't like it if I was picking on his mom!

Pre Op is done.

So we got back from the pre-op appointment about 15minutes ago. Ugh, that drive is gross, and I was just the passenger today. Nothing too painful for Justin, a little blood work and a meeting with the Anaesthesiologist and the PA. But it took for ever-loving EVER AND A DAY! We saw a pretty gnarly accident just before we got there on the Dunbarton bridge. Jaws of life, body bags and all. As we are stuck in traffic because of this accident my ever so kind husband points out that the bridge is swaying. Yeah, thanks babe. Like it's not bad enough that I really dislike bridges and there is a BMW that is mangled into the side retaining wall, you are now pointing out that we are swaying. I took off my seat belt and rolled down my window because if that thing was going to collapse, I wanted to be able to jump out of the truck before it sank. IRRATIONAL MUCH? Pretty sure if the bridge collapsed with a crap load of cars on it that were stopped for an accident that I would end up so far under rubble and other cars that jumping out wouldn't be an option, but that is the slightly more rational person who is no longer ON A FREAKING BRIDGE talking. Just thought I'd humor anyone who might take a look with the fact that I am just about certifiably crazy sometimes.

The Countdown Is On. . . Ugh

So, Monday. Way too close for me, but the pre-op is tomorrow and I'm going to "unveil" that this page exists tonight. We head up tomorrow for appointments with 2 (or is it 3?) different people, the Doctor, the Anaesthesiologist and the lab. We start the joy at 1:00PM and who knows when it will be done. Saturday we SERIOUSLY need to clean the house, but we will probably do something more fun instead. Sunday Justin's mom Bev gets here and we are having "the final supper" as Justin has been sarcastically calling it. He can be such a jerk, he really did ask his sister if she wanted to have dinner with him "in case it's the last time she sees him". It is a wonder my blood pressure isn't SKY HIGH! Monday morning we are leaving at the butt-crack of dawn so that we beat traffic. He has to check in at 10:00AM and is supposed to start at 12:00 noon. I need a prescription for some Zanex thinking about it all.

On the "not Justin" front Dennis has had a FANTASTIC 2 weeks at school, and aside from "almost" breaking his hand on Tuesday he has been pretty good. It's a bit scary, because next week he is staying with Nathan, and the kid does not adjust to change. Not at all, period. Pretty sure we will screw up this whole "good at school" streak but we have to do it so we will see. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Tyler was a bit of a turkey at school last week, but has been great this week and even did his homework with out being told yesterday. That was priceless.

Hailey has been asking to practice for Halloween, by which she means put on her costume. I'm pretty sure she would wear it 24/7 if I would allow it. If I had a clue where my camera was, I'd post pictures but this week I'm doing good if I can find my keys and my wallet when I'm leaving the house.

I interviewed for a supervisor position on Monday, and got a call Tuesday morning with a conditional job offer. I had to pass a physical to make it final, and it was the most through physical I have ever had! I am apparently blind, but my hearing is excellent. Other than my right eye being about useless without glasses the doctor said I was good to go, and that I need to drink more water. I guess that being dehydrated isn't good for you or something. So he signed off on my yellow slip and the only thing that was pending when I left was my drug test, and since I don't use drugs I am awaiting the "official" call. Woo-hoo. Now let me clarify, same job, same stinky hours, just a little better pay and a title that looks good on a resume if I ever get up the guts to leave Merced. I have been training for almost 5 months now and I am already the "senior" person on my shift so there really won't be a day-to-day change.

Why we are having surgery. . .

So far, I'm not much of a blogger, but then again I haven't told anyone about this this yet so I guess it's alright. So, Justin is having surgery. Can I just tell you that I know it isn't going to be fun for him, but I am soooo less than excited about this whole ordeal. I am WAY to stinking high strung to handle this kind of thing. When he had his last surgery I think I almost died of ANXIETY while he was in the OR. I'm pretty sure that his parents probably thought something had gone drastically wrong when I called them after talking to the surgeon and pathologist because I was sobbing uncontrollably. I'm kind of dysfunctional like that. It was much better news than we had expected, but I was borderline hysterical. It was the stress, I swear. They tell you they are going to to a 3-4 hour surgery to find out what kind of cancer your husband has, and 7 (yes, SEVEN long, lonely, anxious) hours later they come out and say "Mrs Pasley this is Dr So-And-So, and we brought him in as a pathologist for your husbands surgery. Let me tell you about my part and then you can talk to him. I was able to do my part without having to use a full incision, but I did have to make more incisions for the laproscopic biopsy because it was pretty involved". Pretty involved?!?!! I'm thinking that's an understatement. So then Dr So-And-So starts, and what does he say? "I'm the head oncology pathologist here and I'm honestly more confused now than I was when we started. This is no kind of cancer I have ever seen before." At this point, he lost me. I was done, FINISHED, gone, however you want to put it, there was nothing else that processed for me. How in the world could my husband be at Stanford- with their head oncologist, and have a kind of cancer that they had never seen before?!?! Come on, it's STANFORD. They are one of the leading hospitals in the nation. Was this guy kidding me?

Very fortunately, no. He wasn't kidding me. While it was 2 long weeks before we got a call with a diagnosis, it wasn't in fact cancer. Woo-Hoo! What Justin heard when he talked to the Dr was "cattleman's" disease and let me tell you, I freaked out at that because it had to be really rare, I couldn't find it ANYWHERE on the Internet. Yeah, that's because my husband needs to learn to listen and it is CASTLEMANS. Still rare, but at least you can find information on it!