Well, that was no fun!

Thursday morning I was a little uncomfortable in bed so I got up and laid on the couch with a book. I thought I was just sore from our hike.  After Rich left for work, I went into the kitchen to make some breakfast.  As I was standing at the stove, I was overcome with a sudden, sharp, severe pain in my left side.  It quickly spread to my left lower back and around to my abdomen.  People, this was the most horrendous pain I have ever experienced, other than maybe (maybe!) labor in childbirth.  (Although I have three children, I only had one labor followed by three Csections, so I am not even sure I can compare).

I will spare you all the details of Jane trying to deal with this crazy pain and trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually, after literally lying on the floor and not thinking I could get up, I  managed to haul myself onto the bed and call Rich.  "I think I need to go to the Clinic."  This is not something you want to hear from your wife who doesn't ever want to go to the Clinic.  He rushed home and drove me across town, where I was quickly admitted, stuck several times for blood work and an IV, xrayed, given a cup in which to deposit a sample, hooked up to IV fluids and given a pain shot in my butt.  "We can't see it, but all symptoms are pointing to a kidney stone."  

Between the IV fluids, the pain shot and sleeping in their little room, I didn't feel too bad when we left. I parked myself on the couch and slept the rest of the day.  Around 8:30 PM, the pain returned with a vengeance.  Because of where we live, we do not have a hospital, an E.R, a doc-in-the-box.  After Clinic hours, if you need to be seen, you have to call Public Safety and they will notify the on-call provider who will have to go in and open the Clinic in order to see you.  I really DID NOT want to have to do this so I was trying to tough it out, although it was getting harder and harder to handle.  Rich suggested I take one of the Tylenol 3's I had left from a dental procedure and I finally gave in.  He laughs at me sometimes because I am so anti-establishment in many ways and so rule-bound in others.  Like, I don't think I should ever take medication that's been prescribed for something else.  Am I gonna get IN TROUBLE for taking those Tylenol 3's when they were not given to me for this problem?  What if they somehow interact in a weird way with something else that's already in my system?  (This one is not too overly dramatic because I do have strange medication reactions at times).   And so on.  But I was desperate and they got me through the rest of the night.

I was not feeling all that terrible yesterday morning but I wanted to ask if I could get some pain meds for the weekend, just in case.  I called and left a message.  Someone called me back and said the doctor said if what I was given was not working, I could get something else.  "What I was given?"  They hadn't sent me home with anything, which seemed sort of odd to me at the time but I was kinda doped up and didn't ask about it.   She called back and said to come in in two hours to get my medication.  Before the two hours passed, I was in agony again and didn't think I could drive myself,  so my kind husband came home to get me once again,  even though he was in the middle of one of his busiest prep days of the year. We arrived at the Clinic and I was told that I needed to be seen by a provider again.  So we had round two of bloodwork, peeing in a cup, more IV fluids and this time, morphine in the IV.  As the morphine entered my system, a series of raised red lines began to form on my arm.  Uh-oh, morphine allergy!  See what I mean about my reactions?  No wonder I am slightly paranoid, right?  And you were making fun of me earlier, weren't you?  The provider asked if I was having any other symptoms.  I asked, "like what?" "Difficulty breathing?"  OMG.  I did not want to go into panic mode so I kept telling myself it was really all under control.  She was sitting right there watching me. She would know what to do, right?  Benadryl to the IV and all was well. Whew.

So "picking up meds" turned into several more hours in the Clinic.  Also my white cells were now out of whack so an infection was added to the list of problems.  I finally went home with FloMax (yes, just like those annoying commercials), an antibiotic, and pain meds.  I settled back onto the couch and tried to read and/or rest while drinking lots of water.  At some point I told Rich I would really like some ginger ale and some grapes,  so off he went to the store.  Didn't I say he was very kind? I hadn't had anything to eat since the previous day's breakfast.  He came home and fixed me a glass of ginger ale,  which I picked up and promptly dropped, spilling lots of liquid and ice cubes all over several books, the carpet and the coffee table.  This is when I felt like I was going to lose it and burst into tears.  It just seemed like the final straw! 

This night was not as bad as the first but still not pleasant.  I read, napped, drank water, watched a little TV, we chatted, and around 1:30 AM I hobbled down the hallway to the bathroom.  I was given a little strainer type thing to try to "catch" any stones that came out and there it was--a very tiny, brown, ugly, misshapen rock-like thing.  I cannot believe something so small can cause so much pain!  It was a marvel!  I had to show Rich, "Hey, do you think this is a kidney stone?!"  We googled kidney stone and were amazed at all of the different kinds.  Look them up! You will be intrigued!  The little jewel was dropped into a plastic container to take back to the Clinic.  I suddenly felt 80% better.  Just like that.

They'd left my IV port in my arm in case I needed more fluids  and told me to come back to the Clinic this morning.  I got up feeling like a new woman!  The sun was shining!  My house was so pretty!  My tomatoes were growing!  Rich had done the dishes and put away the laundry! Life was grand! If I could have skipped all the way to the Clinic, I would have!  I handed off the stone to be sent out for analysis and they took out my IV port.  Everyone was all smiles!  You did it! You passed it!  Gold star!

I am an iced tea freak.  It's pretty much the only thing I drink.  But now I have learned that although tea is pretty healthy, it's also a diuretic so it goes right through you and doesn't really do much toward hydration.  I was given a new rule: for every glass of tea I drink, I am supposed to have an equal glass of water.  I will have to be a reformed tea freak because I sure don't ever want to go through this again.  Drink your water, peeps.  Keep those kidneys healthy.  xoxo

Nice enough for a hike

It was still sunny and warmish when I got home from work so we decided to hike up Bunker Hill after supper.  It felt so good to be out in the fresh air after all of our nasty weather.  I could tell I haven't had much exercise lately. This is NOT a tough hike but I could feel my muscles protesting working hard.  :)

 Looking down on the new boat harbor

We spotted two ptarmigans...or maybe it was the same one twice.  A little hard to see in the grass.  Nice camouflage!

 Still lots of snow on the mountains

Sitting at the top and taking in the view.  It was a lovely day but I still needed a hat to keep my ears warm.

Maybe it's Spring, Finally

African Violets always remind me of my Grandmom Pratt, my Mom's Mom.  In her house in New Jersey, they filled just about every room, on windowsills, on end tables, and along multiple glass shelves lining her windows.  Sometimes she'd let us take a watering can and pour a small amount in the bottom of their pots, being careful not to get the leaves wet.  Somehow I got the impression  that they were hard to keep alive and have never tried to grow any till now.  A couple of weekends ago, I went to a craft fair at the Senior Center and one of the seniors had African Violets for sale.  It's funny how just the sight of them took me back in time to those days at my Grandmom's house.  Impulsively, I took two and brought them home.  So far they are doing okay, but I am a little afraid I am going to kill them off.  A couple of blooms have already died on one of them and its leaves don't look too great.  Grandmom would probably not be impressed!

My tomato plants, on the other hand, are going crazy!  We do not have enough room for the wild growth that's going on in our dining room!  I am very excited that several plants have already started blooming so I am diligently using a little pastry brush to help pollinate them (which you have to do if they're not outside and getting naturally pollinated) and hoping for little tomatoes to appear.  Won't that be great??! My grandparents also always had a fabulous vegetable garden and Grandpop's Jersey tomatoes were his pride and joy.  Hopefully my little Alaska version will be almost as good.

My friend Tammy had a birthday recently so Melanie and I took her out to breakfast and Andrea stopped by from work for a quick visit.   Happy birthday, Tammy!  It's been very hectic around town with all of the end of school activities, prom, band concerts, awards ceremonies, and graduation.  Most of my friends still have kids in school so they have been wrapped up in all kinds of events.  There's a part of me that misses all of those fun times, but I am also glad that I can just come home and relax instead of running all over town like I used to!

I think the weather has finally broken and we've had a few nice days. At least the snow is melting and we don't seem to be expecting any more!  Everyone has about had it!  It was the worst winter in awhile and it seems like it has taken its toll on most of us.  Thank goodness for sunshine, rain showers, and flowers starting to bloom in the yard.

Meanwhile, we are beginning the countdown to vacation, leaving here on June 18, arriving in Dallas on June 19 for a quick overnight stay with Sarah's family before catching an early morning flight to Amarillo on the 20th.  Hoping that baby Luke will stay put till we arrive!  We'll be in Amarillo with Bonnie's family for a couple of weeks, depending on when baby makes his appearance, and then will go back to Dallas to Sarah's and to Abilene to Susan's to visit everyone else.  I am more than ready, as this has been one of my longer stretches without any time "outside."  I spent over an hour on the phone with Alaska Air tonight, trying to work out the rest of our itinerary.  Even the AK Air agent had pity on me for living way out in the middle of nowhere on the most expensive route ever.  Of course, her pity did not extend far enough to give me any kind of a break.  Out of her hands.  Man, the days of cheap plane tickets are apparently long gone.

When will it end?!

So we had a couple of sunny, almost warmish days and then this!  I am so OVER winter.  It's May!  I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to face yet another morning covered in white, continuing flurries throughout the day, and the sound of the poor maintenance men's shovels outside the door.  If I think I am fed up, what about them?!

I got up early this morning when Rich went to work, did a few things around the house, and then napped on the couch for a couple of hours, due to 1) not sleeping much last night, 2) being all congested and headachy and 3) general malaise.  I had the weirdest dream that I was sleeping on a plane traveling to Anchorage. In the dream, I woke up with a start to the realization that we were flying very low.  I looked out the window and determined that we were coming in for a landing in downtown Anchorage, which seemed curious and a little confusing. There were people on the streets clearing the way so we could land, which the pilot accomplished with no problem.  I have no idea what this means but at least it ended well and was not even very scary.  :)  Even though we still have several weeks till vacation, it's probably my typical Nervous Nellie lead-up to flying out of here.

Blogger Steve is back, much to his fans' delight.  :)  Check out his blog and the info about The Tutu Project here.   What an idea!  You have to admire a guy who's willing to have himself photographed in a pink tutu to cheer up his wife and to raise money to fight breast cancer. Every time I see something creative like this, I wonder, "why didn't I think of that?"  Not that I really want to have myself photographed in a pink tutu and nothing else, but you'd think I could come up with another idea that would do some good and go somewhere. Apparently not.  Or not yet.  :) But I digress.  Bob Carey did think of it and leaped (or pirouetted) into it body and soul.   Go to Bob's website here, look at the photos, and make a donation--you can buy a print, his self-published book Ballerina, a T-shirt, or send money for the cause.  Here's his Facebook page, too.  Thanks, Steve, for telling us about The Tutu Project and I think you are just the kind of guy who would do the same thing if your lovely wife needed cheering up.  For the record, I think my husband would, too, but I know when he reads this he will really be hoping he never has to prove me right.  :)

Word Freaks

If you've never read the book Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis, you really should check it out sometime.  He follows the world of competitive Scrabble players, and let me just say that "freak" is an appropriate word (meant with all sorts of admiration).  These people are crazy dedicated!  I love Scrabble but there's no way I would devote as much energy to it as those who attend tournaments on a regular basis.  However, Unalaska's public library hosted our own local tournament yesterday and I couldn't stay away.  Our little group assembled and we were just as happy about the snacks as we were about the game, if that tells you anything about our level of expertise.   Our first partner was assigned randomly and I was lucky enough to get the lovely sweetheart Suzi, above.  She's one of the nicest people in town, not to mention a local bird and plant expert.  We were pretty evenly matched and had a lot of fun playing.  In fact, we had the top two scores for that round--yippee!  For the second round,  we were supposed to be matched with the person with the next closest score so Suzi and I were going to get to play each other again, but she had to leave early.

 Tammy and Lori

Lani and Dan above

Because Suzi had to leave, Lia and I were matched up. We had a good time despite a lot of crappy letters and a very tight board that gave both of us fits.  For my last game, I was matched up with Lani, above.   Well, let me tell you, the woman knows her Scrabble. She schooled me big time!  I had the worst letters and couldn't do squat.  Or maybe she was just that good!

Lia and Kris-Ann below

Kris-Ann and I play online and she regularly whips me.  She was last year's champ! 

Despite my poor showing in Game #3, I ended up with the highest total score of the day.  Woohoo! With an even 1000 points in 3 games, I was pretty proud,  but I know it's really nothing in the world of the true word freak.  Read this article to see what I mean.

I love my little indoor garden

You might remember that a few weeks ago I went to workshop on starting tomato plants in the house.   I brought home two sprouts that had been started by the instructor, and three more containers with little seeds that I laid in the soil all by myself.  Now, in the past, I have been known to have quite the brown thumb or whatever the opposite of a green thumb might be.  People from my former life were known to comment about how consistently I managed to kill plants of all sorts.  One time we were walking through a lawn and garden store and spied a couple of dead plants pushed off into a corner.  A friend had the nerve to point at them and laugh, "Looks like Jane's been here."  Yes, that was mean hilarious.  So imagine my excitement that these little  babies are doing very well and have already been transplanted to larger pots.  The trick will be getting them to actually produce tomatoes when the time comes.

The table holding the aerogarden and other plants was formerly the perch for our photo printer but has now become my little garden spot in the dining room.  The aerogarden was a great investment and contains a huge amount of basil at the moment.   Needless to say, we have fresh basil in just about every supper, and Rich also made a delicious pesto, yet it doesn't seem as if a dent has been made in our supply.

The sun was shining today and most of the snow is melting.  I think spring might have arrived after all. 

Food, Wine, Friends...a Lovely Evening Out

One of Rich's bigger events every year is the Convention and Visitors Bureau Wine Tasting Extravaganza fundraiser.  The CVB provides him with a wine list, which he then uses to come up with a delicious pairing menu.  Take a look!

Since Rich has to work at the event, I always have to find some friends who will let me tag along.  Crissy and Judi agreed to be my "dates."  We had a great time chatting and decided we'd go in together to bid on the Pen Air Grumman Goose "flightseeing tour."  This is a very cool auction item at several fundraisers around town, but tends to get a bit pricey. We thought we'd pool our money and take a chance.  And we were the high bidders!  Can't wait to go up in the Goose and see our island as never before. Rich is already thinking about the photo ops!

 I am a cheese lover!  Despite all of the other fabulous food items, I have to admit that the cheese table is one of my favorites!

Below, Lori and Debbie enjoying some wine.  (I am not sure what's up with this new Blogger format but it doesn't seem to want to let me type in certain places....annoying!)

 Veggie tarts

And meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Eddie, Paul and Willie make sure the food keeps coming out. I don't think anyone realizes just how many hours Rich and his crew put into an event like this. Great job, guys!

Ali and Alyssa from the CVB are getting ready to give away two round trip Alaska Air tickets. I was sure I was gonna win!  We were out of town for last year's wine tasting,  but for two years prior I was either the winner of the grand prize (not anything this good, though!) or sitting at the table with the winner (my friend Donna won a cruise on a ticket that I picked up for her....oh, I should have handed her the other one, right?!)   So I kept saying that I am always at the "lucky table."  I needed those tickets!!   Alas, it was not to be, but the "lucky table" held true and my friend Crissy won the tickets!  Yay!  If it couldn't be me, I am glad she was the fortunate recipient.  I don't suppose I can talk her into taking me on a trip....

 Tom pouring wine,  and my coworkers Joe and Alexandra

Lori and someone who still thinks it's winter...

Peach/mango cheesecake with little peppercorns--a perfect pairing with the Moscato.  I had two.  :)