The lump on the left side of the c-section scar that formed at some point I no longer recall.

I remember discussing it with my old NP on one of my visits. Was it a scheduled [...]]]> 8 years I have lived with this pain in my side, my lower abs as it were.

The lump on the left side of the c-section scar that formed at some point I no longer recall.

I remember discussing it with my old NP on one of my visits. Was it a scheduled gyn exam? A prenatal check up? Post natal? Just a random, “Hey I have this painful lump here” visit? Could be any of them.

8 years *at least* I have lived with this pain I suppose I should say since I cannot remember when it started.

Was it before the lump?

Feels like it’s always been there.

It wasn’t there in college or when we first moved to this area, but that still leaves a span of some 17 years to account for.

Endometriosis.

That’s been the diagnosis for 8 years now.

The reason behind a pain that lasts all day, every day, for up to 17 days out of every 30.

Except when the latest meds were working.

When the latest meds were working I only had pain maybe 3-4 days out of 30 and just a sore tenderness for another 10-12. I considered those to be ‘pain free’ days because I could wear pants or bend over without yelping. It still hurt, just not as bad & when you are used to bad pain having only tender pain is ‘successful treatment’.

Non prescription pain meds don’t touch the pain & prescription pain meds are habit forming especially in the quantities I would need, so mostly I’ve just lived with the pain, discomfort, tenderness, soreness, or whatever level of unhappiness the endo was causing at the time.

I tried various hormonal based things over the years to control the endo, which controls the pain & they all worked for longer and longer periods of time, but none of them made the pain really go way. And all of them eventually stopped working.

Sort of.

What I & my doc have come to realize is the original endo pain, the pain that took up the whole of the left side of my abdomen at times, has actually faded away to nearly nothing. I’m sore a couple of days a month now & not every month and frankly that is a vast improvement over the cramps I had in my 20s which had nothing to do with endo.

The pain now is all centered on that lump.

It’s entirely probably the only endo I have left is that damned lump.

So today, at 11:30am I am having *insert fancy medical word here* done to have the lump removed. I will be out cold for it, having reconsidered my reconsidering. It should take about an hour. I ought to be home by 3.

The hospital wanted all my estimated costs up front, which I flatly refused to pay because god knows when I would get any refund amount back. I said they could have my $100 co pay and not a dime more until the insurance had settled. They want me to agree to a payment plan. I told them I would be happy to as soon as they had a specific sum owed and not an estimated one.

I told DH to remind me about the hospital wanting all that money up front when I start to get hysterical in pre op. It should annoy me so much it’ll distract me from my fears.

Wish me luck!

Weekly card game.

Please note the dinos have most of the chips. They always seem to win.

I think they cheat.

They are tall enough to see everyone’s cards.

They say they don’t look, but as you can clearly see here, the guy on the right is obviously trying to peek at Cody’s cards.

I thought I would update that post with my thoughts over the past 3 years of ownership

We had looked at 2008 [...]]]> At the end of April 2009 we acquired 48 months of car payments. We bought a 2006 Grand Caravan with 24,000 miles on it and I wrote this post about it.

I thought I would update that post with my thoughts over the past 3 years of ownership

We had looked at 2008 version in an electric blue first & I liked it more. But I didn’t like it $4000 more. It had the same mileage & I like the radio better. I mostly liked that it was electric blue.

Because there are exactly zero electric blue mini vans in the Wal Mart parking lot at any given time.

But silver?

You can’t swing a cat without hitting a silver mini van in the Wal Mart parking lot.

However it does have electric doors, so I can stand in the general vicinity of several silver mini vans, push the remote & then go to whichever one’s door opens.

***2010*** This losing-the-car-in-the-parking-lot thing is pretty much a monthly occurrence. I regularly find myself standing next to a silver minivan, pressing the remote unlock button & wondering if the battery on the remote has died because the door remains locked. It isn’t until I actually look in the van that I realize it isn’t mine. Then I start walking around pressing the rear door button on the remote until it opens & I can finally locate my own minivan

***2011*** I’m still doing this on a regular basis. “Look for the silver mini van!” has become the standing joke in our family

***2012*** I’m really starting to think that $4000 would have been a small price to pay to be able to find the damn mini van in the parking lot without wandering all over the place clicking the remote at every single other silver one I encounter. Next car we buy will be in a highly unusual color if it is minivan.

Mayhem loves the electric doors. He pushes the button & then stands in the doorway waiting until the last possible second to leap through the gap, like Indiana Jones.

Assuming Indiana Jones would have anything to do with a mini van.

***2010*** Mayhem gave this up during the summer. Now, both boys are so blasé about the auto doors they can’t even be bothered to push the button to close the door after them, leaving the Magic Door Button Fairy (me) to do so

***2011** Dude, push the damn button already. How hard is it to remember?

***2012*** The button, child! It’s right there! You put your hand over it as you get out of the car! Just press down for the love of all that is holy!

I wanted a car with more space for luggage and thought a third row would be nice for the 3 times a year I need to seat more than 4 people in the car. We looked at a lot of hatchbacks with 3rd row seating & then we got to the 06 Grand Caravan

It has this

Stow & go seating. No need to take out chairs or benches & find somewhere to store them.

And when the seat isn’t collapsed you have a storage bin!

The car has POCKETS! I couldn’t resist the pockets

It gives me the ability to do this

Havoc sits in the second row, Mayhem in the third & I get all this space to climb in and get everyone settled without pulling any muscles reaching over anyone.

The real bonus though is that they CAN’T TOUCH each other.

Sweet Mary & Jesus what an unexpected blessing!!! They can’t grab things away from each other. They can’t push or shove each other.  Drives are so much quieter now.

And! And! The boys decided all on their own that they wanted to sit that way! They do it willingly!

***2010*** Seriously, y’all, this is key! The not sitting next to one another thing is so wonderful! Having that seat down makes the van feel so spacious and roomy! Even when Mayhem is alone riding with me, he sits in the back seat. He likes the shelf and pockets next his seat back there. I had to pop that seat up & move Mayhem into it when we bought the new TV and TV stand and OMG! the car felt sooooo crowded! And the boys COULD NOT STOP TOUCHING each other while they were sitting next to one another. I could not get that seat stowed again fast enough.

***2011*** Lately Mayhem has been suggesting he might like to sit next to his brother & thinks I should pop up that seat. I’m holding out for as long as I can though. It always ends in tears when we let him sit there.

***2012*** Mayhem has decided to stay in the back. He likes having the spare seat back there to use as a table to hold all his random junk.

I may never pop up that other seat again.

The only drawback is Mayhem is so far back I have to throw snacks to him and hope he catches them.

Bring the water & pemmican! I’m headed for the back of the mini van!

Speaking of the back of the mini van

There is no trip to Sam’s I cannot make.

I won’t have to UPS clothes to FL for our vacation this year. 

DH won’t have to pack the explosives around the children when we buy fireworks in South Carolina.

It even has a roof rack, in case, you know, we want to bring our bed with us.

***2010***I have not been to Sams much since I bought the car. With the end of needing diapers and formula and finding fresh chicken in bulk elsewhere, there hasn’t been much need for buying things at Sams. But! I was able to pack everything for our trip to FL and DH was able to buy a bunch of fireworks and all of it fit fine in the back area.  Plus it hauled a bunch of furniture from IKEA and the aforementioned TV and stand.

***2011*** No large purchases this year, but did you  know you can fold down all the seats and fit a queen sized futon in the back? True. DH does it sometimes while camping.

***2012*** So far this year we have carried 2 exterior storm doors and 10 pieces of lumber in it. Plus lugged an enormous amount of crap to Florida and back.

Then there is the entertainment system.

It doesn’t play 8 tracks, VHS or Blue ray but other than that you are good to go. It has a cassette player, a CD player that also plays mp3s, plus an AUX jack for my mp3 player & Sirius satellite radio. Hell, it may even get AM & FM stereo but where we live there is only the Christian Country station & a static-y NPR station from someplace about 75 miles or so away & I haven’t really tried those out.

It’s overkill in a big way. All I use is the Sirius and the AUX jack. But it makes no sense to have it replaced because I want to get rid of features.

***2010*** I still only use the Sirius and the AUX jack & had to get SOMETHING INSTALLED to it so I can listen to my mp3 player while the kids are watching a movie. Somehow in all that media overkill that little feature got forgotten

***2011*** Stupid new AUX jack is the bane of my existence. It has cable issues, meaning every single connector cable we try comes across static-y after about 2 hours of listening

***2012*** see DVD player update below

Oh, and it has a 6 disc DVD changer. 6 DISCS people! That’s like 12 hour of non-stop movie viewing (or at least 12 hours of no arguments about who’s turn it is to pick a movie because that was all decided before we left home & you get what ever is next up in the player) And wireless headsets! We had a dual monitor portable DVD player we strapped to the back of our headrests in the Cruiser. They were connected by assorted cables & there were other wires that plugged into the car and headset wires…wires all over the damn place.

It’s not an option we would ever have chosen ourselves because it just seems like a hassle waiting to break, but I’m delighted to have it. We use it on any trip over 90 minutes long & we take one of those every month just about.

***2010***We still think it is a hassle waiting to break but we still love it. It actually gets used less than I predicted. For instance it was last used when we came back from FL at the end of November. But it was like the Holy Grail of travel accessories for that trip. Mayhem has a tendency to switch receiver channels on his headset, thus cutting off the sound, and then wailing & whining about it NOT WORKING STUPID FING! and since we never know if it’s user error or dead battery & the headsets don’t receive in the front seats (behind the video screen), the passenger seat rider has to lean back at an extreme angle in their seat to get their head in front of the movie screen and then play with the buttons to test the headset, or pull over the car, get out, get in the back and then test the headset should there be no passenger available. Not fun. But since movies get watched on maybe 5 occasions all year, not that big a deal & hopefully Mayhem will be able to do his own troubleshooting before too long.

***2011*** The remote has stopped working. This means we can’t mute the sound to just headphones, so we have to listen to the movie because without the mute I can’t switch the AUX on to play our audiobook. It cuts the speaker sound out on the DVDs. So I need to order a new remote, but there are two styles, neither of which looks like the one I have.

***2012*** That hassle waiting to break? Yeah, it finally broke. Just as we were starting off on our 2 day drive to Florida. First it just didn’t want to play DVDs, then it refused to eject them and finally it became possessed by a demon and had to be staked through the heart to stop the god awful grinding noise. It’s $250 for a newish one and that’s not happening any time soon. Fortunately our old portable DVD player will hook into the AUX jack and play over the van’s screen & the headsets work as well with it. Not as convenient as the 6 disk changer but far far cheaper.

2010 – The car currently has 40,622 miles on it, which is sort of low for me but since I am not driving the kids to school & back any more thanks to the wonders of public school buses, I am not driving  250 miles a week.  It has to get a new inspection sticker today & the back brakes are squealing so I know they will need fixed, but I have high hopes that for the first time in about 5 years I am not going to get hit with a bunch of surprise repairs that need done.

2011 – The car has 57,009 miles on it & has needed some brake work. It also randomly puts the engine light on because it doesn’t like how I put the gas cap back on. My tags expired Sunday & the DMV never sent me a notice about it. I only noticed it because I was washing the car. I didn’t even notice the inspection sticker until I was reading the old post on this. I need to get that done this month. But as before I doubt I’ll get hit with lots of unexpected repairs. At least I hope not.

2012 – The car has 73,550 miles on it & has cost some serious bucks in maintenance & repairs over the past year. The brakes needed replaced and the transmission had to have some sort of pricy scheduled fluid flush done which I’ve never had to have done to any other car I’ve owned but as DH pointed out, every other car I’ve owned has needed a new transmission at some point, so possibly there is a connection. Also, I need new tires to pass inspection.

Overall I’m still liking the mini van.  But I still wish it were electric blue.

And maybe I should say ‘read and/or tried to read’ or “recently” might go back to February.

And one of the 10 is actually a 12 book series but “22 things on the 10th” doesn’t quite have the same ring.

This is sort of randomish & in no [...]]]> Or “recently” as the case may be.

And maybe I should say ‘read and/or tried to read’ or “recently” might go back to February.

And one of the 10 is actually a 12 book series but “22 things on the 10th” doesn’t quite have the same ring.

This is sort of randomish & in no particular order

1. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson – I love the Bloggess. I’ve been reading her blog for years & am so happy to see she has a book out. It’s a mostly autobiographical book, apparently embellished in places with names changed here & there. Apart from Victor’s. I enjoyed reading about her & Victor’s early relationship.  It took me awhile to read this because I was savoring it. Very very funny & highly recommended by me

2. Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich & Dorien Kelly – This is standard light & fun Evanovich. Recently divorced Kate is in desperate need of money to pay for repairs on her family’s lake house so she can turn into a B&B. She applies at a local microbrewery & restaurant. The owner, Matt, desperately needs someone to spy on his employees so he can figure out who is behind the string of sabotage he has been having on the job. If Kate can solve it he’ll pay her $20,000. Romance, mystery & lots of humor.

3. 50 Shades of Grey – I got it on a free download from Amazon awhile back but failed to read it until absolutely everyone in the whole of the internet was raving about it. After about 5 chapters I wondered why they were raving & gave up due to the really bad writing. Everyone going on about how hot & bothered they were from reading it & I was just bothered.. mostly because I couldn’t find a red pen to make corrections.. No amount of eroticism can compensate for that in my book, especially when there are better written erotic romances out there. Such as…

4. The Rough Rider’s series by Lorelei James – Erotic romance with modern cowboys. There are 12 books & a novella & apart from one virgin, the women are not innocents. They range in age from 21 to 45, various shapes & sizes, single mothers, widowed, divorced, single, career women, wild girls and not so wild girls. They know what they want & want they want is some fun with a smoking hot cowboy. The smoking hot cowboys also know what they want & demand to have it. Good stuff.

5. Keeper of the King’s Secrets by Michelle Diener – Historic Tudor era mystery. This is the second in a series. I really liked the first book. It’s based on the real life Susanna Horenbout, a Flemish painter to Henry VIII, and the equally real John Parker, one of Henry’s chief man at arms. In this book Susanna uncovers the theft of a special emerald pendant ‘stolen’ from the French king. This will cause quite a scandal if it becomes know & the perpetrators have killed already to keep it secret. Who is behind it? I had a hard time caring about half way in. I love the characters & the details about life at court & in London but the overall plot failed to hold my interest so I skipped to the end and thought “Oh, him.” I’m hoping the next one in the series will be back to holding my interest the way the first one did.

6. Venetia by Georgette Heyer – This was a good book. I read it in between the various Rough Rider books & Hayer’s  ‘they never do anything more risque than a brief kiss’ story made a nice change from modern day erotic romance. It was funny & sweet. Venetia is a strong, kind & capable woman, living a quiet & rather bookish life in the country with her younger brother and taking care of the house & property for her older brother while he is off in the army. She also has two persistent suitors who don’t take her seriously when she tries to dissuade them. She unexpectedly encounters her rakish neighbor Lord Damerel, who has hardly visited the place in the past decade & there is an immediate attraction. Everyone warns her off him and him off her but despite it they form a friendship based on books and a similar wit. Then events overtake them. This is a fun story & great example of Heyer’s writing.

7.Gilded Lives, Fateful Voyage by Hugh Brewster – Naturally with all the hype about the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titan I had to read something about it. This is non-fiction about some of the first class passengers on the Titanic. It covers every day of the voyage plus gives background information on the people covered. It’s decently done, a bit dry in places but overall a good read.

8. Paris in Love by Eloisa James – Eloisa James shares with us the year she spent in Paris with her husband and two children. The writing style is in the form of short updates from her Facebook and Twitter feeds & slightly longer parts from emails. This keeps events moving along & lets you see things without a lot of clutter. It keeps you very focused on her. I like the style. It was a fun memoir with plenty of detail about loife in Paris, the adjustments, the shopping, the kids’ adventures in schooling, the people they all encounter and of course, the food. Overall I found this a very enjoyable book

9. Devil’s Food by Kerry Greenwood – An ongoing mystery series set in modern day Melbourne & featuring baker Corinna Chapman & her PI boyfriend. In this entry Corinna’s estranged hippy mother suddenly appears on her doorstep demanding Corinna find her father who hasn’t been heard from in a few weeks. The search leads her to a strange group of monks & involves some toxic tea that makes her employees sick. The regular people in her apartment building all make their usual appearances. Nice light read & decent mystery.

10. Touchstone by Melanie Rawn – I haven’t read a fantasy book in well over a decade & that was the very badly done Dreamers series by David Eddings which was so bad it totally put me off fantasy, which is depressing because he used to be one of my very favorite authors (go read his Belgariad series, it’s excellent). But time fades all bad book memories eventually & when I saw this at the library I remembered I had generally enjoyed Rawn’s books in the past & decided to give this one a go after determining it wasn’t like 4th in a series of 7 or something (I hate coming in the middle of a series) This was a decent opening book to a new series. It is the story of the magical theater troupe who are striving to be the best in the kingdom. The people are a mix of various races with various amounts of magical ability & different ways of wielding it, together they put on illusions as plays. There was lots of backstory, as well as plot & character establishment but no real suspense. I’m hoping the next installment lives up to the potential hinted at in this one.

Read anything good lately?

It’s a dino dance party!

Maybe. Honestly I am not too sure what the heck is going on here.

Mayhem got the Skylanders game for him birthday and some of the various Skylander characters. Every now and then the boys save up some money to buy more or we reward them with a couple [...]]]>

It’s a dino dance party!

Maybe. Honestly I am not too sure what the heck is going on here.

Mayhem got the Skylanders game for him birthday and some of the various Skylander characters. Every now and then the boys save up some money to buy more or we reward them with a couple so now, 4 months later, they have a decent sized collection of them.

The Skylanders are standoffish though.

I never see them mixing with the clones or the Legos.

I can understand them not mixing with the dinos. The dinos are territorial and quickly took over the place when they first arrived. The trains and toy cars put up no resistance at all when the dinos conquered Sodor back in 07.

The Legos did take them on, capturing the baby ones, but lost out when the big dinos smashed their transports.

The clones were much better armed (and sized) and there were quite a few skirmished before an uneasy peace was brokered. Neither group like Darth & the bounty hunters so they went with the old ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ arrangement and problems now only seem to happen during the annual Christmas card photo shoot.

I’m guessing the baby dinos were curious if they would have special powers when they stood on the platform, like the Skylanders do.

But they were disappointed and rather than smashing things a dance party broke out.

That’s my story. And I am sticking with it.

DH was finally able to indulge a long held desire for a Kubota tractor in May 2006.

The riding mower we’d had for 9 years broke down [...]]]> On the first Sunday of the month Sian at From High in the Sky hosts Storytelling Sunday. Come join us and check out some great tales.

DH was finally able to indulge a long held desire for a Kubota tractor in May 2006.

The riding mower we’d had for 9 years broke down and would have cost more to repair than a new one. We have 3 acres of land that is mostly open field with a strip of pines at the front of the property and a cluster of various trees in one back corner.

There is a lot of grass to mow if we want to keep the bugs down.

The riding mower was adequate at the task but Dh had been longing for a tractor with a front loader ever since we rented one to dig out part of the gravel driveway. We had quite a few yard projects still to complete that would benefit from the front loader.

He brought the tractor home & unloaded it in the driveway.

The boys were all over it in a second

Havoc went straight for the steering wheel while Mayhem shouted “RAC-TOR! RAC-TOR!” as he climbed all over everything, trying out every level & button.

They were delighted when DH took them for a ride on it & from then on one or the other of them insisted on riding with whoever was mowing the grass. We have a nice flat area behind the house where we could let them steer with no danger of them hitting or running over anything. The mow job looked hideous and it took forever because we had to go so slow but they were able say they were “Dwivin rac-tor”

They’ve been too big the last couple of years to sit with us while we mow, but Havoc is almost big enough to drive it himself now. A couple more inches and he’ll be able to reach the peddle while wearing the seatbelt.

*sigh*

All those aches & pains that had gone away decide to come back.

Yeah, A Week [...]]]> Know what happens when you have a whacked jaw, jacked shoulder & messed up arm and you simultaneously stop going to your chiropractor appointments AND also start spending an extra 2 or so hours a day on the computer?

All those aches & pains that had gone away decide to come back.

Yeah, A Week in the Life has had an effect on me in many ways.

I have two more pages to do.

Those two pages are just of 6 simple lists, no photos, just centered text.

I’ve already designed the template.

But not only did those 2 extra hours take their toll on my body, but them as well as the time taking the photos as well have left the house a mess, and I have a long list of calls I need to make, and stuff to return, and lets not discuss the grocery issue.

Also, Thursday I had a CT scan of that lump I have had for at least 7 years, possibly 9 and Monday I was told they are almost certain it is an endometrial lump.

They say they can’t imagine it’s cancer but they can’t swear to it, you know, just in case their imagination turns out to not be as vivid as it ought to have been.

So I could choose between having a needle biopsy done or just having it removed. Or nothing. Up to me, but the biopsy at least is recommended. Just to be sure what we’re dealing with. But again, almost positive it’s an endometrial lump.

I opted for the removal. If I hadn’t finally decided enough was enough last month I wouldn’t have started this whole process.

Then the surgeon floors me with this option:

“Do you want to be awake, with a mild sedative & local anesthetic? Or do you want the full anesthetic?”

This was right after I explained to him that I have been under the knife 3 times & on all 3 occasions I had full blown hysterics in pre op that lasted from signing the consent forms until I was sedated in the OR.

Naturally I was all “knock me the hell out! In pre op! Let me sign something now that give DH the right to sign the damn consent form and put me out as soon as I show up.”

Turns out ‘rational adults’ can’t do that and I tried to explain that actually I’m pretty much irrational from the moment I arrive at the hospital and am perfectly willing to start jabbering in tongues if it will prove my point.

Apparently just thinking the idea up proves me rational.

Now that I have had time to think about though I am reconsidering my stance. Part of the whole hysteria thing is from the “you could die” language of the consent forms. It’s terrifying. Seriously. Just thinking about being taken into the OR, right now, while I type this is making my hands shake. Explaining it to the doc had me in tears.

But I am thinking I made that call while under the influence of remembered terror and maybe I should think about the awake option.

It’s a straightforward incision. The lump I sonly about 2 inches long and is sitting on a muscle. The doc thinks the whole thing should take about 30 minutes, 45 at most. My post op recovery instructions are pretty much “don’t do any ab workouts for a week.” I can see why the option to be awake is there, it’s not really an unreasonable choice. 

It’s not organ removal and I was awake for the baby removal after all. Granted I was in hysterics until the spinal block kicked in but after that I was joking with the ob & nurses about how hungry I was. And it’s not like they are going to let me see it done.

I do worry about the local not taking though. A spinal block is one thing, a couple shots of lidocane or whatever they are using these days, is something else entirely. I have had a mole cut out & removed so I am not unfamiliar with the process on a smaller scale

What would you do, given the option?

My breakfast this morning.

I go in for a CT scan in a couple hours to see what is up with my endo and the possible incisional hernia.

Just to make things interesting, last night I had a cyst rupture on my ovary and spent an hour writhing around & crying in stabby agony [...]]]>

My breakfast this morning.

I go in for a CT scan in a couple hours to see what is up with my endo and the possible incisional hernia.

Just to make things interesting, last night I had a cyst rupture on my ovary and spent an hour writhing around & crying in stabby agony on the bed while waiting for the Advil & hot water bottle to kick in.

DH wanted to take me to the hospital but I talked him out of it. All they would do is say I ought to go have a CT scan or maybe an ultrasound in the morning & charge me $10 a pill for more Advil.

I know this because every few years I have this happen & have been to the ER for it before.

Normally it is on my right side, which until I had my appendix out, always made them concerned it was my appendix, but once that was gone they were all “Eh. Here’s some Advil, go home & rest. That’ll be $300.”

And since the agony generally only lasts about an hour with just Advil & a hot water bottle,by the time they see me in the ER the worst is over.

This time it was on my left side, where the endo & possible hernia are, so it’ll all get looked at anyway.

On the plus side it did wait to rupture until I’d been home for 15 minutes or so and didn’t happen during the baseball game or while I was driving home.

This barium is some nasty tasting stuff too.

So you know… past 12 hours…not really a good time. But I am treating myself to some sushi after the scan so things are looking up.