Monday trouble sleeping. Abdominal pain. Felt like way too many sit-ups. I hadn't done any.

Tuesday, went to work exausted from not sleeping the night before. Got home and passed out. Around 9pm woke up & realized I had a fever too. Still rather baffled as to what was going on.

Wednesday - went to work monitoring my fever all day. Ranged from 99 to 101. After work went to local clinic to get checked out, thinking something developed from the allergies at Pennsic or something.

7pm clinic told me to go to the emergency room. They were pretty sure it was gallbladder, but wanted me to definately get it checked out. I drove my van home, called dad & asked for a ride to Hackensack Hospital (mom had gone shopping), called a co-worker to give her the heads up, and went to hospital, effictively messing up dad's birthday ("hey dad, happy birthday again - can you drive me to the hospital? Thanks".

Hospital brought me in for an ultrasound, and after sitting there in the E.R. for 2 or so hours, told me I was staying a while.

After the pre-requesite forever, they admitted me to a room and started pumping me full of antibiotics and fluids and stuff. I sent mom and sister home around 1:30 and hospital gave me pain killer around 1:45. Beautiful stuff. Somebody came to ask questions at 2. I was numb and could have given them the secrets of life. Who knows. Fun thing about hospitals - they send someone in every two hours to make sure you don't get a good rest. Oh, were you sleeping? I just need your blood pressure. You can sleep while the machine squeezes the crap out of your arm, right? Oh, that machine beeping all night kept you up? Why?

I learned over this week that pressing the "summon nurse button" is all well & good, as long as you can wait 30 minutes. Otherwise, you'd better learn quick how to disconnect yourself from bed & machines from wall & how to plug them back in so the battery doesn't start beeping an hour later. And the worse you need them, the busier and crankier they get.

Thursday was fun in nuclear medicine - radioactive stuff got injected & they put me into some x-ray device to see if I had any gallstones floating around. 2 hours later (plus a nap and some tears) they send me upstairs telling me I'll be back later for more tests. I was in my room for about 30 seconds before being brought back down for a one hour test. They could have let me bring a book, but they didn't. They barely talked to me down there. Boy does that screw with your emotions.

A few hours later, a doctor came by and told me my operation would be Friday morning. Joy.

Friday, 6am wakeup call be the doctor. I told him I'm ready. He said he'd see me in a few hours. I asked the doctor for a shower since the nurse claimed to ask for one for me the day before & never got an ok. Doc said np. Didn't tell this to the nurse. Took 3 hours to get ok'd. I was scheduled for noon. Eleven I show nurse weird thing on IV. She said it slipped out of place. Pulled both of them. I now have an hour to get re-IVed. At noon, I'm pissed that nurse is ignoring me. Pushed a chair out into the nurses station & sat almost in the way until they came in & put a new one in. I did not want this surgery delayed for any reason on my end. Of course the doctor had an emergency operation that lasted until 7. Got back to my room around 11, and mom and sister were there. I made sense for about 30 minutes, until they gave me that beautiful shot again. And of course, every 15 minutes someone has to come test me for something, eating up the precious painkiller's time. Grrr.

6am they gave me more painkiller, and then test my bloodpressure. Yes it's low. It's always low. Especially after painkiller. Go away!

Anyway, they kept me until 7pm and set me free. Now I'm figuring out the fun part of laying down & getting up here, which is no picnic. Upright & moving ok. Anything laying down hurts. I hear this will be normal. I'm really ready for normal.

I'll be leaving for Pennsic in the morning.

I'll be at NYRF weekend 3.

See everyone soon!