August 16, 2021 Monday--9:45am

Good morning!

Leah took pictures of the patio planters for me.  You can see where all the bird activity and sunflower seed shells are killing the grass.  Tsk! Tsk!

But I love feeding the birds, so that's a part of it.  Unless I get in trouble with the office because of the shell problem...I'll keep feeding them and trying to toss it about in a wider area.

Leah took a shot of what it looks like from my new chair...since I don't want to sit out there with my big pee bag and it is too hot and sticky, anyways (90s). 

 Soon, I hope, I'll be able to spend some audio book time out there again.

I thought I loved my little plastic planters--LOL!  These big cedar ones are just amazing!

Meanwhile--my constant companion this week.

The big hospital urine bag is inside of this wastebasket while I sit in my chair.  But otherwise I carry the bag with me around the apartment and use the big plastic hook it has to hang it on the sides of drawers or wherever while I do what I can manage to do.

I do also carry the wastebasket over if I go sit at the kitchen table for any length of time.  The reason I need to tuck the bag away is not probably why you think--LOL!  It doesn't bother me to see it and I had planned to lay it on a clean towel...but Annie thinks this green hookie-type thingie on the tube is a dangly toy!

And the last thing I need is for Annie to bite a hole in the tube--ROFL!

What a week.  Thursday I go back to get this catheter out.  I can hardly wait!

Well, let's see...

Monday was the surgery.  Whatever intravenous pain meds they gave me afterwards in recovery lasted for hours--nice!  (Hasn't been bad since--except when I am moving around.)  Everyone was really great...up until the lady who helped me with my discharge.  Good Lord!  Complete ditz!  One of those people who starts saying or doing something and immediately forgets what she was saying or doing.  Everything takes twice as long because she takes you on many detours and side tracks--LOL!  It was funny at first.  Leah and I were rolling our eyes at each other over her head as she was trying to show me how to connect the catheter bag.

With my hands the way they are I can't grip and push well at all--and she was having a heck of a time with the connections.  I didn't see how I was going to switch back and forth every day from the big bag to the leg bag and back...so I told her I just wanted to use the big bag and that I would put on the leg bag I can wear under my clothes when I went back to the clinic on the 19th.  She ignored me for a while--and Leah, too, who was also trying to tell her that I wasn't going to be leaving my apartment for the ten days and it would be easier to just have the big hospital bag on all the time than switch them back and forth and have to run to empty the small leg bag more often all day.  

Well, ditzy lady seemed very annoyed with me/us and she hooked up the big bag again.  Then I needed to get dressed.  She dumped my clothes on the bed and started trying to dress me.  I told her I could get my own clothes on--a few times--but she was, in her scatterbrained way, tugging and pulling and directing me.  I told her I could do it, Leah left so I could get dressed, but didn't take the hint and wouldn't leave.  (It's not rocket science--all it involved was putting the bag through the underpants and pants leg first--duh!--and she seemed to have more trouble figuring it out than I did.)  Let's just say she wasn't much help in the first place and while I was getting my pants pulled up--myself--she was grabbing up my bra and started to pull my gown off--and I told her to get out!  No more trying to tell her nicely.

We wondered if she had worked in a nursing home before this or what?  Couldn't read people, though, either.  I wasn't wobbly or listless or whatever.  I was managing quite well--but slowly...so rushing wasn't helping.  Really strange woman.

Anyways, one of the really nice chatty ladies came to wheel me out.  I had been told we were going out a separate, non-public type exit and Leah had gone to move the car around.  (Another reason I didn't mind having the big bag for that short amount of time getting into the car and into my apartment where I could halfways hide it behind my shoulder bag--although I did run into one lady in the hallway coming home who seemed a little taken aback--ROFL!)  

As I am being wheeled out of my room--THEN ditzy lady stops us and asks if Dr so and so (not a name I had heard of even) had been in to talk to me.  We both told her no at the same time (which showed me the rest of the staff knew her well).  She kept asking me...and I told her that wasn't my doctor's name or anyone I had heard of and all my discharge papers were already given to me.  She seemed baffled...but she always did.  Glad to see the back of that one--but everyone else was wonderful.

The problem was...Ditzy lady never sent home the leg bag with me!  *sigh*  We had confused her too much, I guess.  But I didn't want to carry in this big pee bag into the clinic and waiting room when I have my appointment on Thursday.  So, I contacted the surgeon's office and asked if there was someplace I could get a leg bag...plus I wanted to know if it was normal to have this sharp poking inside when I move around.  The surgeon wrote back to me (very nice lady)--apologized for my discharge and said Leah could pick up a leg bag at the clinic and, yes, it was normal to be very uncomfortable for a lot of people--sorry.

I had a catheter once after a sugery--but I was in bed the whole time--overnight--to keep you from having to get up to pee, you know?  But having to get up and walk around--and BEND--is a whole different animal.  At least when I stay still sometimes it is barely noticeable.  I will be so glad to get this thing out of me!  At least I can drink tons of water like they told me to and not have to get up to pee every five minutes--and I can sleep through the night, too--lol!  A little silver lining.

Oh, and the surgeon didn't fill my bladder with that chemo fluid for an hour, BTW...based on observation of the tumor.  So that sounds good, doesn't it?  Whoohoo!  But she said we will know more after the pathology report.  So much cannot be seen with the eye, of course.  She got all of the tumor she could visually see.  I'm keeping the catheter for ten days so I'm not stretching out the bladder and giving it time to heal.  Drinking tons of fluids also will help it heal--having lots of free-flowing water sloshing past, I guess.  I've been drinking more water than I ever have--LOL!

Meanwhile, Leah has been stopping by every day.  She has taken over any duties I would have to leave the apartment for--mail, trash, watering the planters, and feeding the birds.  She does little things for me that save me from having to get up while she is here--like filling my water, making ice cubes or coffee, etc.  

Have also had trouble with Annie barfing and pooping outside the box--for quite a while now--but more now since the surgeries.  We think she might be stressed out from her safe, quiet routine of just the two of us being all messed up for the last couple of months, actually.  Sensing something is wrong, you know?  Leah brought over the spot carpet cleaning machine for when she barfs (a few times a week).  And we are going to try going back to a big storage tub for a cat box and see if that helps, too.  I've always said Annie is an autistic cat.  She can only tolerate so much touching and she has to leave--even though she is still purring.  Chin scratches are more tolerated, but not much actual petting at all...yet she will tolerate brushing longer than I ever expected.  She wants to be close to me with my hand on her, but not much movement of my hand.  Change is very stressful for her, too.  She's been stressed since we took my bed (favorite hiding spot underneath) out of the bedroom--LOL!  So, we figured another big tub litter box (not expensive) would be worth a try.  The metal one might bother her feet since she is so into sensations--who knows?  What we do for love, eh?

Besides Leah caretaking me--Dagan hurt his elbow/arm playing badmiton last weekend.  So her brother Aaron has been over a lot helping with the boys.  Dagan ended up in the walk-in clinic early in the week--on muscle relaxers and rest.  So Leah's had her hands full with four of us (me, Dagan, and the boys)!

The saunas finally arrived over at McFamily's on Thursday!  Whoohoo!  Aaron helped Leah and they got theirs together that same day in the corner of their master bedroom!  Dagan and Ian were in there first.  We aren't going to worry about mine until after I get the catheter out.  They will have to borrow a vehicle to transport the pieces over here but Leah said it went together pretty easily.  

So what will Annie think when this corner in my bedroom has a sauna in it? 

 And I will go in and she will get shut out!  She doesn't even like it when I shut the bathroom door on her--LOL!  But she will at least be able to see me in the sauna with the glass door.  Oh, my little autistic cat.  

I'll have some pictures of their sauna next week.

I managed to do a load of clothes on Thursday.  (They still aren't all hung up and put away, but they're clean.)  On Friday I finally got the stack of cards and letters on my desk (14 of them--whoohoo!) all set up and organized in padfolios so they are next to my chair and easier for me to finally start answering. 

Leah came over Thursday night to make birthday invitations for Mr. Liam's 4th birthday party.  Be small--just family in the bubble.  I will probably try to make it. 

On Friday Leah took my glasses over for me to have the new lenses popped in!  I can see a little better far away again...like I can read smaller print on the TV.  My 20/20 post-cataract surgery has altered.  Going nearsighted again?  New lenses can't fix the wonky eyes, but it helps otherwise.  :)

Leah also picked up the leg bag at the clinic and made a grocery trip to Costco on Friday.

My sleep had been totally messed up since the surgery...only sleeping 3-5 hours a night.  Not sure why.  Wasn't even able to nap for some reason...even if I was exhausted.  Finally was catching up with me by Saturday.  I took a 4 1/2 hour nap!  Still slept five hours that night, too, I think.

Yesterday I had a short visit with Leah and the boys!!  Told Ian and Liam all about how a catheter works and that after I get it out I will be able to come and visit at their house again or have them over here more.  I told them how confusing it was for Annie to have me standing and peeing like a boy--LOL!  Of course, I had to show them how I empty the bag--ROFL!  Yes, I am that kind of Gramma.  They were fascinated...and when I shook the end of the tube at the end..."That's how I pee!", they both exclaimed.  Educational visit to Gramma's!

Funny--last night both Leah and I collapsed and slept for 11 HOURS!  Both on the same night.  We both needed it, for sure.  Especially Leah.

With all the delta variant going around I think I am lucky that I had both my surgeries already.  Hospitals are filling up in state after state.  I'm not sure what it is like here in Fargo, but I know the hospital has been really busy when I was there both times.  

We've been back in the 90s again for a while.  Looks like it might cool off a bit by this coming weekend...if we get the possible rain.  They keep predicting rain now and then but it manages to go around us here in Fargo/Moorhead for some reason.  I'm so grateful that Leah has taken over planter duties for me while I am healing up.  She tried blasting some of the sunflower seed shells around on the lawn with the hose.    

The critters do love their sunflower seeds, but they sure do leave a mess.  Maybe over the winter the shells will decompose?  We're going to toss some grass seed out there off and on, too, to see if that helps.  (Birds will probably gobble that up that, too--lol!)

Anyways, that's about it from here this week.  I haven't been making many comments on blogs but I have been reading them all.  I'm still getting notifications via email--so far.  That is supposed to change any time now.  :(  I don't like change any more than Annie.  Well, probably much less bothered than Annie--LOL!  ;)

I'm slowly writing letters.  Well, I am slow to begin with-lol!  So, I am even more slowly writing letters.  ;)  It's taken me about four hours to write this.  Luckily it is a pretty good hands day today so far.  This past week I have watched some live mixed media workshops and a live bookbinding workshop.  Caught up on YT videos I follow.  Watched the two seasons of Missing on Acorn TV (must have been cancelled--left viewers hanging).  Am in the process of binge-watching Faith on Acorn TV.  Have several series to pick from on BritBox I want to start.  Lots to keep me busy while I think healing thoughts and rest and drink tons of water and pee in my chair--LOL!  

And every day I listen to the Music To Disappear In album by Raphael.  I am like Pavlov's dog to that album--as soon as I hear those first notes it takes me right back to the years of doing energy work (soul comfort) with people.  That album was how I learned to spiritually connect with GA (my guardian angel) on an energy level--and I played it for all my energywork sessions for years while I worked on people.  But I didn't work on myself.  Don't know how really.  So I play it every day and ask GA and Troops to work on me...and to please work on my healing while I sleep, too.  

I can't find my CD--could be out in the garage.  My friend, Lynnette, sent me a link on YouTube to the main song.  I found a playlist that plays the entire album and linked it above.  The album takes you on a kind of meditative journey.  I didn't realize how much my soul has missed this particular audio connection.  I ordered the CD on Amazon.  Can't go wrong with two of them if I do find the other copy.  ;)  It's from something like 1991--back when I was studying Healing Touch at St. Catherine's and doing energy work before I moved up here in 1999.  Come to find out Raphael made a Music To Disappear In II (number two).  I have never heard it but I ordered that CD, too.  And--speaking of--I have just put it on (the YT playlist) and it is lifting my spirits right now as I type.  Brings me tears of joy.

So, dear ones...I send healing enegy out to each and every one of you!  We are all connected and a part of this magical earth.  Bless you for acknowledging that I am here, too, and in need of kindness and healing...as we all are.  I send it back two-fold.  Love to you all.  Till next week.

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"If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it.  This is the most basic kind of peace work."

Thich Nhat Hanh