Scraps (n. ,fem., singular)

Than to pick up a mystery novel at bedtime. More than 3 hours later I _finally_ convinced myself to put the book down, turn out the light and attempt to go to sleep. It was tough. But I finished the book after work so I wouldn’t face the same temptation, tonight.

It was a productive weekend, though! The examples for the first two October articles took longer than expected but I got them both done AND finished the article drafts. Plus I’m a week up on the comic and plan to get two more weeks done this week (tonight was mostly organizing bills, scanning and uploading). I’m in good shape!

What I also did tonight was grocery shopping. I thought Monday night wouldn’t be so busy but WOW was I wrong! It was absolute madness in there and totally due to student infiltration. The worst aisles, not surprisingly, were the pasta/sauce aisle and the bread/soda aisle. And no one says excuse me or even tries not to block corners or narrow passages. And this is our future. Polite, isn’t it?

But the strangest thing of all? The occupational physics of bagging that allows the check-out girl to think that a clamshell-container with a single piece of chocolate cake (my reward for not skipping this errand/putting up with the massive headache) is safe in a plastic bag with 2 very large sweet potatoes. It’s right up there when they stand a tray of sushi on it’s end between boxes of cereal and dishwashing powder. Might as well combine a carton of eggs with some loose rocks. Of course, maybe it was the rocks in her head that scrambled her brains…

Slightly hyperbolic, that, but it works. My appointment with the new gastro was today (or, well, his nurse practitioner, which is fine, I tend to see my primary’s ARNP more than him and prefer it that way) which led to blood work and x-rays and a repeat appointment (this time with the gastro himself) on the 27th. Of course, the nerves associated with seeing my 13th doctor in 6 years had me completely flushed and energy went down the tubes.

Still, I managed to get next week’s comics finished tonight so I officially have a week’s buffer for the moment. The plan will be to start the week after’s Sunday afternoon and continue until the month is complete. Then I can start on the extra content for the Year 1 book. So far, so good.

Made pork chops for probably the last time in a while tonight. See, even though my lowered carb diet was high in fiber and all sorts of healthy stuff, it also tended to contain red meat and pork. Even if it’s my thyroid exacerbating the cholesterol, that stuff probably wasn’t helping so I’m switching over to Menu Mailer’s Heart Healthy version. The up side, I suppose, is I get more whole grains worked into the mix (which I’d been pretty good about before), the down side being similar, lol. So far the first menu I’ve printed doesn’t depend on tofu, just lots of turkey, chicken, fish and cheese. Going to give this a shot for a few weeks and see if I can maintain the slow-but-steady weight loss using this menu. If not, it’s back to the Low-Carb but I’ll just substitute chicken or turkey for the pork and beef or something. Thus begins the experiment. But first, pizza tomorrow night with Spectrum and the new Friday shows (I totally intend to get the whole wheat crust, though, that’s got to count for something!)

Tags: AIAT, AAD, diet, gastro doctor, flushing, carcinoid

First things first: if your employer offers AFLAC as part of its benefits package and you haven’t enrolled: why the hell not? The coverage is generally inexpensive, the rates hardly ever change (even when plans change or are replaced, you are not forced to upgrade if you’re happy with the one you have) and it really does pay! It pays when you have certain annual screenings done (2-3 times most peoples co-pay) and pays when you miss work or have surgery. I just got the check for my gallbladder surgery/hospital stay and it totals 4 times the copay I paid. (and that copay was in the low 3 digits which means my benefit check is in the high 3 digits!) Seriously, folks, sign up!!!

And the progress update: next Tuesday’s strip is complete and Wednesday & Thursday will be done tomorrow. Depending on how long the street-lining takes (I’m trying to add depth with just lines and dots, streets get lots of very fine lines and next week involves cars so there’s a lot of street to cover) I may actually be able to get my first 2 eHow examples done tomorrow night as well! If not, it’ll be Saturday (Friday’s are saved, whenever possible, for R&R with Spectrum) and I’ll be in good shape for my first deadline. So far, so good, and that’s all I’m sayin’ …

Holy smokes! Not only did I get this week’s comics completely finished by 8pm tonight but I’ve managed to get half of next week pencilled as well. I totally see a week’s buffer being created. And maybe double that after next week??? Time will tell.

And I’m not going to interrupt it for long for the sake of a blog post. Managed to get a boat load done for this week’s comics all tonight plus a quickie illustration for the Tuesday feature on martinis. Definitely a good day. Back to it!

Tags: drawing

especially when you feel like you’re running on empty in the hours you’ve got. Such has been the last several weeks.

After finding out the results of the liver biopsy tagged me for a rare genetic protein anomaly that leaves my liver and lungs vulnerable to damage (aren’t I lucky?) I go to Dr Z for the 6-month check in to find out my cholesterol and insulin are high and now my thyroid is, too. Joy. The alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency is still in question as to severity (waiting on appointments with the pulmo and a new gastro) but mainly will mean I get flu/pneumo vaccines each winter and more aggressive treatment for respiratory infections. The cholesterol might have more to do with the raising thyroid levels (right now I’m at subclinical hypothyrodism level) than my diet (which is already high-fiber/low-carb) though, as always, the goal is to loose weight and improve labs overall.

In other news! Work is good, not always as productive as I’d like, but some days are tougher than others. Just finished up another month of articles this weekend and have 6 of the required 7 titles planned for October. It’s been a year since the new contract and I was worried then that I’d run out of ideas. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem at this point, so as long as I can keep all irons in the fire that should still be going good. The comic went SWIMMINGLY this past month with the story that I’ve chose to call “A Fine Romance” that chronicled the first 3 months Spectrum and I dated. I’m sure there will have to be another installment in a few months, but for now I’m switching gears and hoping to use the time the next month’s updates will allow to work on the Year 1 book.

And still the ideas come. I have so much that I want to do, one of these days I hope to get a fraction of it started

Tags: health, work, hobbies, AIAT

I go away for a weekend and all I can think about upon my return is the tightness in my calves, thighs and butt from climbing those 3 flights of stairs over and over again. Well, not the only thing, but it’s the most pressing right now.

Spec and I went to the Big Bend Ghost Tracker’s Windsor Hotel workshop and investigation and it was really interesting. The 3 seminars were actually what we’d seen at Wrath of Con (just really, really condensed at the time due to schedule issues, etc.) but this time around it was a lot more relaxed and well-presented. After dinner we got to participate in an investigation of some of the known hot-spots of the hotel (they’ve investigated there before).

It really was a phenomenal experience overall. Not sure yet about the EVP work or photos/video they might have captured but we also did scrying and even used a Ouija board with rather surprising results. If you don’t believe in this sort of thing it’s okay and I’m not going to go into details but those of you who do and are curious, feel free to email me and I’ll tell you what happened

Tags: haunting, ghosts, BBGT

So, just as I was finishing up the comics posts for this week and just before I started blogging my internet here died. Dead. No resuscitation. And the weird thing was that the router was still working because I still had the local half going but nothing outside. And the modem showed everything was flickering on schedule. No clue. And I had stuff to blog about!

But tonight, I have Internet and time and all I can do is sit here and stare alternately at the television and the laptop. Blah! I ate something that didn’t quite agree with me and now feel rather icky and listless. Which is not good because I wanted to get another article written tonight. Guess it’ll wait til tomorrow. I’m still good for deadline, even with the Ghost Hunt this weekend. It’ll all get done and I think I’m going to bed early.

Several blog posts are brewing inside my head but they’re not ready to leave, yet. Among them are a Dragon*Con report, a health update, and others. We’ll see if any are ready to go tomorrow. Until then, I ink and I work and I write and I sleep. There ya go.

So I’m back to working full days again (late arriving notwithstanding) and working on comics and articles and all that fun stuff. And I’m exhausted and it’s only Wednesday night. Bah! I’m also on slacker-mode when it comes to dinner, I just can’t stand the thought of cooking right now, at least not anything that doesn’t require the microwave and a single vessels of some sort (fyi, pyrex pie plates are AWESOME for heating and reheating items in the microwave, seriously). I may try to break that cop-out tomorrow night but, well, maybe not. We’ll see.

So, what have we learned? Percocet does NOT equal productivity. I had zombie-brain for most of last week resulting in not much of anything getting done. I went into work for a total of 5 hours (well, 4.75) just to take care of payroll, mail and bank deposits and got some work done on the comics but not enough; it was a pencils week, but at least I continued to update. I did manage to get my articles wrapped up (man that was tough… forced march all the way) and my invoice submitted (which is good, since that next set of quarterly taxes is due this month) but I didn’t get any working ahead accomplished.

And the answer a question on the last post, gall stones are formed by the body not filtering things correctly. The stones are usually cholesterol-based (since that’s what the bile stored there is meant to help break down) but some can be protein based. You can also just have sludge in there for a variety of things. While I can’t be sure, it’s a good bet the 300+ stones were bb sized, not marbles, some natural variation occurring. I think my body is finally used to not having the gall bladder there anymore and things seem to be running as they should. My incisions are healing up and I’m still sore, but all is generally good.

Haven’t heard back about the liver biopsy, but I have a follow-up appointment this Friday so she may just be holding them until then. Now just to stave off any potential con crud/pneumonia/bronchitis etc.

Not the movie. That’s how many stones (at least) were in my gallbladder and it was the most my surgeon had seen in anyone. There are _some_ things I don’t need to be an over achiever on, ya know?

Because of this, the surgery took a bit longer than intended, but in the end it was okay. Apparently there was a bit of distress in the beginning with the application of the anesthesia but they were able to stabilize me and continue. Dr L, Friday morning, even said the stones spilled out of the sack onto the OR floor. Can you just imagine? It’s kinda funny, but laughing hurts so I try not to think about it, too much.

Honestly, though, the pain when I awoke was the worst pain I have ever felt. I mean, I was in a haze when I came-to, but I remember wanting to crawl away from the pain. Of course that makes no sense in the light of reason, but that’s all I could think of at the moment. I also remember the recovery room nurse saying she’d already given me twice the medication (dilaudid) she normally gave anyone else. Whatever, it hurt! And then they expect me to crawl from the gurney to my hospital bed? Were they crazy?

And then there’s the shoulder pain. They kept saying it was gas but I didn’t believe them, it felt more like someone had wrenched my right shoulder out of socket. Turns out the CO2 they put in the abdominal cavity irritates the diaphragm and there’s a nerve that runs up from there to the shoulder. Which explains why taking anything more than a shallow breath hurt like the dickens.

I was on morphine until about 3am Friday and then we went to Percoset. Advantage, of course, was the lack of burning in the IV port (morphine stings!) but otherwise it all seemed to do about the same (not much). I have this funny little breathing “game” I get to do every couple hours when I’m awake to make sure fluid doesn’t settle in my lungs (started running a low-grade fever Thursday night, so watching out for pneumonia). I was finally able to shower today but I think it’ll be another day or two before I’m able to shave my legs, lol.

Food-wise I’m being very careful. I had a horrible tummy-ache after some noodles and carrots in my soup last night, so have stuck to jell-o, juice, crackers and biscuits so far today. Spectrum is taking very good care of me, lots of fetch and carry (poor guy) and the rain outside is contributing to the sleepies.

Tags: gallbladderremoval, gall stones, hospital stay, medication

Allow me to explain.

Well, the first part is easy. Surgery is tomorrow so no food or water after midnight. Thankfully my surgery is scheduled for 11am which, providing it’s not pushed back for any reason, means I should probably be starting sedation around 10 and won’t even care that I’m hungry
The other part has to do with the surgery, as well. See, at the pre-op yesterday I was given this antibacterial soap that I have to shower with both tonight (already done) and tomorrow morning. And, y’all, I kid you not, it smells exactly like deodorant tampons. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. (Gents, if you do, I’m sorry.) I’m convinced it’s adding insult to injury, but at least it’s just for now.

The nerves started getting to me as I left the office, today. And the last two nights, with progessively wobbly feelings, did not have me looking forward to tonight. But, you know, I think I’m going to be okay after all. I went over to Spectrum’s for a couple of hours for cuddles and kisses and reassurances that it would all be fine (he’s so sweet to me, and that actually made me a little more wobbly for a moment, but I got it back together) and then when I got home I made some lavendar-chamomile tea to help keep me mellow. That’ll be the last thing I eat or drink until whatever the serve at the hospital tomorrow evening.

I’ll try and post sometime on Friday, after I get home and get settled, but I should be able to tweet once I’m into my room tomorrow night (follow me on twitter, username scrapsolife) since I’ll have my cell-phone with me. Happy thoughts would be greatly appreciated, gang, and I’ll see you on the flip side (less one internal organ).

Tags: gremlins, mogwai, tampons, soap, scents, nerves, surgery

External, that is. I can’t seem to find the little black case that houses my extra SD cards for the digital camera, leaving me with a single 512MB card that’s in there now. It’s more than a little frustrating. I’m fairly certain I haven’t actually lost it, merely misplaced it somewhere in my apartment. To be a bit more specific, I’m pretty sure that if it’s anywhere, it’s somewhere in the Abyss, somewhere buried deep.

Last night, before bed, I checked the usual spots along with several of the more unusual ones and came up empty but with extra dust to make a lovely sneezing symphony before bed. It’s not crucial and I’m sure I could just go out and by more cards, with more memory than what’s missing, for less than it originally cost me, but that’s not the point. I already have them. Somewhere.

Not going to worry too much about it, though, as I can always download the files to the laptop and start fresh as often as needed, don’t even need the transfer cable since Sonja has an SD card reader. Lovely, lovely thing, technology.

Tags: theAbyss, camera, memory cards, losing stuff

For some reason, Spectrum and I decided this weekend would be a good one for scary, spooky, etc. movies. Granted, neither of us are into blood and gore, so we ended up renting Skeleton Key (which Spectrum hadn’t seen, and what started this little odyssey), 1408 (”and the word is… innnnnteresting”), and House on Haunted Hill (the recent remake, which we both remembered liking and being a bit spooked by).

Um, yeah.

I don’t know if I’m just jaded and whatnot or if it was because we didn’t watch them all at night with the lights off or what, but none of them were at all scary and even though Skeleton Key was the most enjoyable one (filed in Drama which was odd but I guess it really is more suspenseful than scary) the other two were incredibly… well, not all that.

But it was a good weekend regardless of the questionable viewing choices and I got a lot done, including all of this week’s comics. Now if I could just get at least 2 articles done and next week’s comics started I won’t have to worry about dropping the ball due to el-surgerio in just a couple days. Pre-Op appointment is tomorrow, more will be revealed, I’m sure.

Tags: movies, Skeleton Key, 1408, House on Haunted Hill, comics, writing, work, pre-op

At least for the first half of the month. With the first 3 articles turned in this evening I’m starting on next week’s comics. As soon as those are finished I expect to be able to get at least the next 2 articles finished before going in for surgery on Thursday. I might even be able to get more done, depending on how productive I can be this weekend.

Went to the grocery store and stocked up after work. Combination of the usual 2 weeks worth of food and extra supplies for post-procedure: fruit smoothies, pudding, soups, jello, etc. All light stuff to give my digestive system a chance to adjust with the minimum (I hope) of tummy upset. Tried one of the fruit-protein smoothies. Oh, god, I hope it was just a matter of it not being cold enough or something because, y’all, it tasted like vomit. Seriously. I’ll give it another shot and maybe try mixing it with sprite or something but if that doesn’t work I’m tossing that particular one. Nasty!!!

But, you know, at least I can supposedly eat normally. Last time I had to recuperate it was my throat surgery, so really no solid anything for quite some time. Still high on anesthesia I was sick at just the thought of popsicles and pudding for a week, I asked V to get me some baby food, figuring at least it wouldn’t be sweet. And for the first day it tasted great. The next day, the super-drugs having worn off, I realized the oh-so-error of my ways. Luckily, a client of ours had a small child and she could use the unopened stuff. The desserts and some veggies were still good, but if I never have to eat pureed turkey dinner, etc. again it will be too soon!

Tags: articles, food, groceries, baby food

Actually, I had the news yesterday but I was so busy finishing up this week’s strips last night that all I could do was fall into bed, exhausted, around 1am. Blogging was a brief afterthought as I fell asleep.

So. Anyway. Monday I started trying to find out which surgeon I’d been referred to so that I could follow-up with them in case they didn’t call me [fast enough]. Yes, I know, I’m pushy. I prefer to consider being my own best advocate. I started by calling my doctor’s office but had to leave a voicemail for the nurse (who is not my favorite, she has a very, um, unresponsive personality and doesn’t exactly exude energy) so I tried a different tack.

Based on the names of possible surgeons my doctor had mentioned on Friday, I looked them up in the Provider database for my HMO and found they all belonged to the same practice. Well, that made things seemingly simple so I called to see if they’d received my records yet. No dice. Another call (message) to the doctor’s office.

Tuesday morning, much to my surprise, I get a call from Nurse Naps-&-Walks that they’d sent my records to a different office entirely. No biggie, at least they’d been sent _somewhere_ on Friday so Tuesday was a totally appropriate follow-up day. Apparently they received them around 2pm Monday (so much for timely) and the scheduling nurse had left at noon, so she  hadn’t gotten to me yet. BUT! She was not only positive about me taking the initiative (”rather than fall through the cracks” was her exact phrase) she got me in to see a surgeon in an hour!

After picking up the disc with my ultrasound images on it I headed over to the hospital. My doctor is a very nice redhead who actually seemed to know what the hell Carcinoid is and totally didn’t dismiss me (granted, I was nervous and stressing a bit so was full-on flushing, kinda makes the case that more believable when its sitting in front of you in technicolor, no?) as being over-cautious. To make a long story not any shorter, my surgery is scheduled for next Thursday, the 21st, and will be done in the regular OR rather than same-day-surgery to be better prepared in case anything goes flukey with the anesthesia, etc (a possibility due to the Carcinoid syndrome). She’s also planning to do a liver biopsy to investigate the potential fatty liver (I’m foie gras! lol) the ultrascan and the 2003 MRI reported.

It feels like a small yet very important victory.

The plan is that I’ll spend the one night in the hospital, just as a precaution, then spend the following week off of work, healing up. I have the vacation time to cover what sick time won’t so I don’t have to force myself to go back early if I’m not feeling up to it, and I should be right as rain in time for Dragon*Con. Mom asked me if I was nervous… No, not really. I mean, I’m not exactly looking _forward_ to it, but I was more nervous about trying to get it scheduled than anything else. Granted, I have a right to revise that stance come Wednesday

Tags: gallbladderremoval, dealing with doctors

And thank heavens for that. It seemed like it took forever to get started drawing tonight. In fact, the first panel of Wednesday’s strip took a full hour. But I’m really proud of some of the poses I managed to draw in the 2nd and 5th panels so it all balances out. Still working on Friday’s pencils but there’s several panels still virtually blank so they may spill over into tomorrow.

Now for something completely different. I’ve been sporadically exposing Spectrum to various movies he’s never watched before. This weekend is was Oscar! with Sylvester Stallone. I’m not really a Sly fan, but this movie makes me giggle whenever i see it. Last weekend it was Lemony Snickett’s a Series of Unfortunate Events, before that Coyote Ugly and before that Sugar and Spice. So far he’s found them all enjoyable and some (SnS, primarily) laugh-out-loud funny Granted, there are some movies I’d never ask him to watch (Clueless comes immediately to mind) but there are plenty of others I can mine for entertainment value.

Tags: movies, drawing

Shopping recap for the weekend

10.75 spent on a pink martini glass lamp for the bar

79.57 total spent on shoes
 (4 pairs, average 19.89 per)

26.30 total spent on accessories
 (5 items, average 5.26 per)

317.36 total spent on clothing
 (23 items, average 13.79 per)
    1 dress
    5 jammies
    1 pr shorts, 3 pr pants, 4 skirts
    9 shirts

And that’s what I did with my weekend. Not including a trip to the grocery store, a stop at the liquor store and 2 meals out.  But you get the picture. After a whole month of not shopping, I suppose I was due for a splurge. Granted, of the above, most of it was on store charge accounts (nice to have for the few times a year I go and refit my wardrobe, lol).

Most of the clothes are work clothes (obviously not the jammies, those are for recuperating from surgery and so forth) that will get me through quite a while. The shoes were an attempt to find comfy sandals/casuals with mid-height heels for walking around in at DragonCon and I think I finally managed to cover those bases (I can’t do 3 days in flats or tennis shoes without serious tendinitis pain and my current heeled options aren’t con-floor friendly).

And speaking of jammies! Even though I was specifically looking for nightgowns and sleep shirts I saw this one tank-and-short set that I _had_ to have: it’s got martini-swilling monkeys on it, hello?!?

Tags: clothesshopping, monkeys, jammies, martinis, dragon con preparedness

Not getting much writing done and feeling kinda icky, so might as well make it an early night. Brain’s feeling a bit foggy along with the usual stuff so very little concentration to be found around Casa de Scraps. Started another article but mostly I just wandered around the internet while listening to Marie Antoinette and Independence Day. Until next time…