Legally Separated

Most of my posts are humorous in nature, if you happen to have my sense of humor. I try to avoid serious matters as much as possible, but I feel that I wouldn't be representing my life accurately without discussing the recent events in my life. A couple of weeks have passed and I think I am starting to come to terms with the whole ordeal. Most people have said that they saw this coming, but I was totally taken by surprise. On May 30th I signed all the required paperwork to become legally separated. Some of you have already heard about this and have expressed your words of comfort, but also expressed that you think I am totally to blame. Thanks for that, I guess. I've had a little time to think about this and am still kind of confused how it got to this point. Maybe I should go back and look at what lead up to this.

On the evening of Tuesday, May 25th I played basketball for a few hours. This is nothing out of the ordinary. I usually play basketball every Tuesday and Thursday night, and as far as I knew my wife was fine with it. The following morning I loaded Bodie into the car and headed to Disneyland. I try and take the kids to Disneyland individually every so often for some one on one time with their father. It was Bodie's lucky turn. As his father I am at a disadvantage, because he lived inside his mother for a while and they spend lots more time together whilst I am out solving all the problems in the world. So, I'm not exactly Bodie's favorite person. However, he does like Mickey Mouse and going to Disneyland. It was my hope that a Disneyland trip would score me some points. It didn't. We did have some fun. We did whatever he wanted, which wasn't much. We made it on a few rides, but he started voicing his displeasure with hanging out with me pretty early on. Sara and the rest of the kids had planned on meeting us after school, but Bodie was ready to go before then so we called off the meet up and headed home. I thought that Sara was fine with this. The instant I sat on the tram to go back to the parking lot I started feeling sick to my stomach. As I made the drive home it started getting worse, but we arrived home without incident.

Sara hadn't been feeling well the previous couple of days, so I figured that I caught whatever she had. I thought that maybe some food might settle my stomach. WARNING: If you are opposed to reading about functions of the body(Sara(h)), you probably will want to stop reading (but I wouldn't if I were you). I had wanted to try the newest Subway creation, The Orchard Chicken Salad. Sara picked one up for me and took the kids to Ernie's for dinner. The sandwich was a bad idea. I know it was a bad idea, because it ended up in the toilet (multiple times) shortly after eating it. At that point I figured that I had the flu. I tried getting some rest and drinking some Gatorade. The Gatorade was a bad idea. I know it was a bad idea, because it ended up in the toilet (multiple times) shortly after drinking it. I still just figured I had the flu, until later on that night.

At some point, I was awoken by a pain in my stomach that was reminiscent of my experience with second puberty. Could it be I was going through third puberty? Not likely. My voice hadn't changed and I didn't experience any growth spurts. I began to wonder if I possibly was pregnant. The pain intensified and I deposited some vomit in the little trash can next to my side of the bed. I was pouring sweat and knew that I needed to go to the hospital. Sara and I got dressed, called my mother-in-law to stay with the kids, and made the trip to the ER with a trashcan in my lap. You would think that they would have some VIP section for people who had been in the ER recently, but you would be wrong. I had to wait for a couple other people to be helped before it was my turn. When it was my turn, the nurse/greeter and I discussed my symptoms. He said, "Obviously vomiting." while chuckling and pointing at my trash can with a new flavor of Gatorade floating around in it. The joke was on him though, when he asked if I was allergic to anything. If you want to get a strange look from a medical professional, mention the fact that you are allergic to Haldol. That always seems to get an interesting look and follow up questions. After the greeter was done with my interrogation he handed me a plastic cup in a clear plastic bag and directed me to the men's bathroom.

After filling up the cup, I put it in the bag as directed and headed back to my seat. There I was with a urine sample in a clear plastic bag in one hand and a trash can with Pukerade in the other. Now the problem with the urine sample was that it wasn't the tint of normal urine. If I had to compare it to another liquid of that color, I would go with apple juice. So anyone looking at my very public urine sample would see that I was not well, but I guess that would explain why I was sitting in the ER. A nurse opened a door and called me back. She wanted nothing to do with the clear plastic bag that I was extending to her. She stuck a needle in me, took some blood, and sent me back out to the waiting room. The next nurse to call my name actually took my cup of apple juice and directed me to a bed. It didn't take much detective work to figure out that I was in the pediatric section of the ER. The animals painted on the walls and my feet dangling off the end of the bed were pretty big clues. I don't know why they put me in that room, but I was at least 5 times older than the other two patients in the room combined. I'd like to think that was the only available bed, and not that they thought I was being a big baby.

The first nurse must have been offended by my urine sample offering, because she apparently didn't get enough blood out of me. So, the next nurse tried sticking another needle in me. This is where the playing hours of basketball comes in. I didn't drink many fluids after that and with the vomiting and sweating I was severely dehydrated. That doesn't do well for trying to find veins to poke. The nurse made an attempt at my left elbow pit(I'm pretty sure that is the medical term), but didn't have any luck. So, she decided to try my left forearm. WARNING: If anyone tries to put a needle in your forearm, punch them in the face. It is not a pleasant feeling, especially when they don't get it in a vein. That is the only spot on my body that still has a bruise. Since she couldn't get the job done, she called another nurse over to give it a try. He chose to put a hole in my right bicep. He then proceeded to move the needle all over the place in there. He did say sorry, so I guess that made everything O.K. But he couldn't have been apologizing for taking too much blood, because he couldn't find a vein either. At that point, they told me that they were going to get another nurse who "was really good at finding veins" to help out. Eventually he would, but not before they carted me off to have an ultrasound.

Yes, an ultrasound. I guess they suspected my initial diagnosis of being pregnant might be right. Or, maybe they suspected I was some sort of terrorist. I wasn't in there for very long before the technician gave me a huge lecture about how I needed to breath through my mouth and not through my lungs. I could hear her loudly during the lecture, but she whispered during the rest of our time together(which made it difficult to know when to breath in and out, especially when I was focusing on not letting any air get in or out of my nostrils). I've been to all of Sara's ultrasounds, and none of them were anything like what was happening to me. All of her trips combined didn't last as long as my one visit. And, I don't recall the technician trying to crush the babies with the force of her pushing a device into Sara's belly. If I had been a terrorist, I would have told her whatever she wanted to know. We eventually found out that I wasn't expecting, and then she accused me of being stoned. How dare she!

They carted me back to the Romper Room, and a doctor came to talk to me. He said I had gallstones and that taking out my gallbladder would probably resolve the problem. He also said that he expected me to be an older overweight guy. He also suspected that I was a smoker/drinker/non-active/over eater. Since we ruled all of those things out, he eventually blamed my father. It made sense, since he had his gallbladder removed a few years back. I said that I was fine with them taking my gallbladder and was ready to have it done a.s.a.p. The doctor said that they could probably do it the next day. That Doctor might also have had a law degree. They eventually moved me to the regular hospital and I got my own room ( a very spacious one with quite a few chairs and a t.v.). I was expecting the procedure to happen pretty quickly. The surgeon came to see me and told me that along with being stoned my pancreas and liver were inflamed. He said that they needed to wait until the inflammation went down before they could operate. It was at this point that I realized they still suspected me of being a terrorist.

The surgeon ordered that I be denied food and drink and that they stick an IV in me. I still don't know what government secrets they thought I was hiding, but the next four days were very the opposite of awesome. They were giving me antibiotics to help my pancreas and liver stop being so full of rage. They also thought that giving me some Dilaudid would help with any pain I might be having. After waking up in the middle of the night itching all over my body, we discovered that I am allergic to Dilaudid (Or maybe they already knew this and thought it would make me give up the location of the government's top secret storage site for U.F.O.'s). They did stop giving me Dilaudid after that incident, but the rash that still lingers on my back is an unpleasant reminder of that night. This did not conclude their torture tactics. During my first day in the hospital, after the surgeon had recently come to check up on me and tell me that it would be a few more days before they could operate, one of my nurses came in and said, "It looks like you are going home". With a shocked look on my face and a growl of my empty stomach I said, "What?" She said, "The surgeon just said that you could go home". I said, "That doesn't sound anything like what he just said to me". She then glanced at my room number and said, "Oh. I am in the wrong room" and immediately exited my room. At first I thought having a T.V. in the room was a good thing. But then it started to seem like every other commercial was about food. At that point it didn't even matter what food was being advertised, I wanted to buy it. Even the dog food commercials were a little tempting.

The next few days were filled with numerous thermometers stuck under my tongue, the pumping up of a floaty on one of my arms, and being stuck with lots of needles. Every morning at 4 a.m. I would be woken up by somebody stabbing me in the arm and keeping the blood that resulted in a tube. You might think that the word stabbing is being used for dramatic purposes. You would be wrong. Why did this need to be done at 4 a.m.? What did they have against doing this while I was awake? Did I wake up at 4 a.m. for a couple days after being home because of that? Yes, yes I did. After the first couple of times, I was trying to come up with good fake government secrets to see if that would make them stop, or at least do that when the sun was out. Maybe with the whole vampire craze they weren't even employees of the hospital. Damn you Twilight and your blood taking fad creation! So after a trip to the ER, 3 days in the hospital, a few showers, no food or drink, more movement of needles that a ricter scale during a 10.5 earthquake, a very sneaky movement of my bowels, and what seemed like 2.6 million commercials about food they must have been convinced that I wasn't a terrorist. They told me that the next day (Sunday, May 30th) they would finalize my separation with my gallbladder.

That night I didn't get much sleep. The fact that most of the T.V. shows that night dealt with murder investigations and people dying didn't help make my bed any more comfortable. I asked my nurse to make sure that I was awake early enough to shower before surgery. She told me that they didn't know when I would be going in for surgery, but I had an informant on the inside who told me it would be at 9 a.m. I asked the nurse to make sure I was up by 6:30 to be safe. So, at 4 a.m. I realized that I didn't need to have the nurse to wake me up, because the vampire would do a good enough job to keep me awake for a couple of hours. After a shower and some signing of the legal papers to separate from my gallbladder I was asked to strip and get into a bed destined for the operating room. I remember talking to my anesthesiologist and then I remember waking up back in my room. I guess that is a good thing, because I really didn't want to be awake during my surgery. The separation was completed and my gallbladder and I have agreed to never see one another again. I was also able to keep everything else that we had worked on during our time together, so I think I must have had better lawyers during the surgery. The procedure resulted in a couple of holes on my right side a slit in my belly button and a hole above that. The holes were bandaged up and my chest and belly looked like they were painted with some nasty smelling paint. I also had acquired a new needle stuck in the top of my left hand. The actual surgery went without any problems and I was expecting to leave for home soon.

There were a few things that had to happen before I could go home. I had to be able to walk and be able to urinate before I could leave. They also weren't ready for me to start eating yet. The plan was to eventually start with clear liquids and work my way up to solid foods. Of all of what had to be done before going home, urinating was by far my biggest worry. I had another surgery a few years back that also required a proof of urination before leaving. Unfortunately, in order to do that a catheter was involved. I don't ever want to experience that again, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that I would be able to pee. They didn't make it easy. They had my legs hooked up to something that pumped and deflated air to avoid blood clots, so I couldn't walk to the bathroom. Instead they gave me a nice hand-held, flip-top urine catcher. Sara was there and got the wonderful job of guarding the curtain used for my door as I stood at the side of my bed, pulled up my robe and tried to encourage my body to relieve itself. After a brief stint of stage fright and a scare when Sara left her post to get something I heard the sound of urine leaving my body. I was glad that they didn't think I was a terrorist anymore, because that could have gone down very differently. The nurse mentioned that walking would help me get rid of the gas that was in my body from the surgery. She was right. Gas was leaving me in every possible way. In fact, the most painful part of the post-surgery was pain in my right shoulder. They said that was from gas traveling up there. I don't understand why it was happening, but I know that they were right. And it happened after every time I walked for the next few days. I was doing everything they needed to see me do in order to leave, but they wanted to keep me there for one night.

That morning I got to order food! I had been craving mashed potatoes and chocolate cake for some reason. WARNING: If you are craving mashed potatoes, don't get them from a hospital cafeteria. They were not very good, but at least I kept them down. I was ready to go home, and Sara even brought me a slice of chocolate cake to enjoy when I got there. It was the best slice of chocolate cake I have ever tasted. I was told that it would take about a week to start getting back to normal. I was told not to lift more than 10 pounds for the next month. I was also told not to shower for another day. There was no diet change required and I didn't need to change anything else. I guess the gallbladder isn't really all that necessary, which made the whole torture process even less enjoyable.

Post-op hasn't been very eventful, which is a good thing. We did make a stop at my office to take care of a couple of things on the way home from the hospital. I weighed myself on the scale we have there and had lost about 15 pounds during my hospital stay. I am considering marketing it as a quick weight-loss system, but don't know how enticing a one-time technique will be. If you know me, you know that the not being able to shower part was not something I was stoked about. My body smelled of death. It seemed like my wounds would seep out the foulest smelling gas I have ever experienced (and I grew up with Jed). Even after showering the wound flatulence continued for a few days. It was awful. I was able to make it to our last T-Ball game the next day, but was limited to watching them from the bench. I'd been told stories by others who had the same procedure done that the whole process was very painful, but I only really had the pain in my shoulder. I never filled the perscription for Viagra (or was it Vicotin?), and things have gone pretty smoothly. I'm now back to work and still am trying not to lift over 10 pounds. To be honest, 10 pounds was probably my max before the surgery. So, that shouldn't be a problem.

I think that pretty much covers it. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. I didn't include any pictures, because they weren't really that gross. However, I have them if you want to see them. Thanks to everyone who came to visit, helped out, offered to help, prayed for us, and provided any kind of support. It all helped. And, thanks to Sara and the kids for not choosing to go with my gallbladder. I think things are going to work out fine. In fact, if you ever come in contact with my gallbladder, let it know that I have come to terms with the separation and I wish it the best.