Aww, NaBloPoMo is over today. We’re all winners right? I managed to post at least once every day in November! Sometimes a little more because I had lots to say đ
The good news is one month of posting every.single.day. did not damage how much I like my new blog đ I like that I have new bloggy friends and I get a big smile everytime I get a new comment, I love checking my email. But, I’ll be glad to not feel pressure to post every day anymore. Sometimes it’s hard on weekends!
I was tagged by J
I’m Tagging:
Scooter’s Mom
Brook
Bibliophile81
At Your Cervix
Velocibadgergirl
Ashley
I got my HPV vaccine last night and I think you should go get yours too. I saw a flyer up at the hospital across the street that a certain doctorâs office was having a vaccine clinic and underneath was a list of insurance companies that would foot the bill for women 9-26 years old. We all know how I canât pass up a free vaccine and Iâm 25 so I made an appointment. (And Yes, itâs still recommended if youâre married. And No, having a previous abnormal pap smear doesnât preclude you⌠so get to it)
Iâm not going to lie, the shot hurt like a bitch and Iâm not looking forward to #2 & #3.
I was pleased to see that the waiting room was full of parents and daughters. I have to admit I was a little concerned. Since the release of the vaccine there has been a huge public awareness campaign about HPV and cervical cancer. I have to admit, I cringe just a little when they talk about cervical cancer being sexually transmitted. Iâve been concerned that approach would backfire. I had read that after the vaccine was released and they were recommending vaccinating girls before they turned 11 (as the vaccine is most effective prior to the first sexual encounter) there were people publicly denouncing the vaccine. I assume this is the same group of people that are opposed to teaching about birth control in schools. âIf you teach them about birth control they are more likely to have sex, and if you vaccinate them against sexually transmitted cervical cancer theyâre more likely to have sex.â All I can say is we wouldnât be having this conversation if it was a vaccine against breast cancer, brain cancer, leukemia etc etc. My concern with how theyâre running the new public awareness campaign is that so many people thought cervical cancer started randomly just like any other cancer, but now theyâre shouting loud and clear that people get cervical cancer as a result of a sexually transmitted infection. I would guess itâs only a matter of time before people consider it an STD and there is such a stigma on STDs. I would hate for women who have cervical cancer to have to face the same kind of prejudice that people who smoke and get lung cancer, or people that get AIDS have to deal with.
I was discussing all this with Husband last night. He agreed with me, as I knew he would. He said he canât understand why Americanâs are so backward about stuff like this. Right now theyâre recommending the vaccine for women 9-26. I personally feel that A. the vaccine should be mandatory prior to Junior High and B. they should also vaccinate boys. I know HPV doesnât lead to cancer in men, and men rarely even know they have HPV, but they spread it around just the same. How would you feel if you were a man and gave your wife/girlfriend HPV or she ended up getting cancer. Iâd feel awful. I wouldnât want that responsibility.
I got mine, go get yours.
Yesterday I had an apple with lunch. Prior to putting it in my mouth, I washed it. With soap. My coworker gave me a weird look. I said, âWhat? You donât wash your apples?â He said âJust rinseâ. I said âWell, I use soap. All those grubby people at wal-mart touching my apple, blehâ. I wouldnât lick their fingers, so I wash my apples with soap.
Raise your hand if you paid a little too much attention in microbiology.
This NaBloPoMo is having a (stupidly) unexpected yet entirely fabulous side effect. Iâm getting more comments, and I LOVE IT! Because every time I get a comment I go to that personâs blog to check it out, my bookmarked blogs are multiplying like rabbits! Iâve had to start an entirely new folder in my bookmark bar just to house all the blogs I now intend to read regularly. This is so cool đ I mean who doesnât love a little advice on how to kill mold? Or someone commenting that they too think the person who googled âhow to kill a teguâ needs help?
My favorite feature? The NaBloPoMo randomizer! Now this is technology at itâs greatest!
Today my father came over to supervise my husband installing a bathroom vent. We need a bathroom vent quite badly but it’s hard to get plumbers/electricians to come over for a little couple-hundred dollar job. My husband is now perched out on the roof of the dining room with a very large drill. Drilling directly into the house while my father is leaning out and supervising from the bedroom window… The last time I checked everyone still had all their fingers and toes. I’m nervous!
Even when I have a stretch of a few days off I just never seem to be able to get enough sleep! I guess it’s worth it though, thus far my 4 day weekend has been quite great. I’ve managed to keep totally busy with various social engagements each day I had a lunch date today with some friends I haven’t seen in quite some time. I’m not sure how good of company I was given I’m still feeling the effects of the party we went to last night! But I came home from my lunch and our living room was cleaned in my absence. Someone gets brownie points!!!
I will make no secrets about the fact I am no longer on speaking terms with my GI doctor, who I occasionally run into at work. Perhaps everything he did during my treatment time was totally following their standard protocol, but I am just all in all not happy with the way I was treated at his office.
I mentioned my anal fissure earlier. After having so much diarrhea for so long, I had burned a very raw area on my anus that became an anal fissure. These are most unpleasant, I donât recommend them at all. I didnât know it was there until after my C Diff was gone. On my first trip to the GI doctor he did a rectal exam without seeing this was there and thatâs why this was downright painful for me, as opposed to just unpleasant. A rectal exam with an anal fissure tears it further. Even after I got rid of my C diff it would burn and bleed when I went to the bathroom. I eventually had to go back to him and tell him about it so I could get him to fix it. This was his ultimate bargaining chip in the colonoscopy. He insisted that he HAD to do a colonoscopy to check for Chroneâs Diesease because this could be a Chrones ulcer. I had been refusing a colonoscopy for months now claiming I wanted to wait out the symptoms and see if they went away on their own. I finally agreed and had it done in April.
The prep day was awful and Iâm not going to talk about it⌠if youâve ever prepped for a colonoscopy youâll understand, itâs always yucky but remember I have an open sore right there too. The only thing Iâm happy for is that because of weeks of diarrhea he allowed me to do a âmodifiedâ bowel prep instead of the whole schebang.
I had a very nice nurse prep me for the colonoscopy at the outpatient clinic. She asked me if I wanted to be awake and watch. I adamantly said NO, absolutely not, I want nothing to do with any of it, I want to wake up after itâs all over and not remember any of it.
I was very clear.
I was drowsy when they wheeled me back and dosed off. I woke up during the procedure. It was the most scarring experience of my life. I started trying to move and get away and heard the doctor telling me to just hold still and quit moving so much. I was crying and sobbing and I remember the nurse petting my head. I could see the monitor with live video of them taking biopsies. I could feel the pinching of the little claw thing. I could feel them pumping me up with gas. The doctor telling me to quit moving so much. ânurse can you hold her still sheâs moving around too muchâ Oh it was awful.
They wheeled me to the recovery room a sobbing crying mess. My mother was waiting for me there and obviously horrified. The nurse was like âoh sheâs fine, itâs just the anesthesia, sometimes it makes people emotionalâ. She picked the wrong line. My mom said, and I quote, âI have been a nurse anesthetist for 30 years and I have NEVER in my life taken a sobbing patient to the recovery roomâ It was horrible. I survived but I shudder about it even now.
I didnât have chroneâs disease, he said my intestines were perfectly healthy and I should have no problems with digestion and he wanted to start me on IBS meds. I refused, again. He gave me a referral to get someone else to look at my fissure because the gel he gave me hadnât helped.
My first visit to this new lady and she looked at it and said (first thing)âWell Iâm not going to give you a rectal exam because those are excruciating with an anal fissureâ and she gave me a different cream that helped it go away without a refill.
My end is well now, and alls well that ends well.
The End.
Can’t choose your relatives? I disagree. I’m intoxicated at my faux-aunt’s for Thanksgiving. HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!
Ok, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’m glad to have a forum to tell my Cdiff story in all it’s glory but a full week (there’s one more section) of posting words I wrote two weeks ago and I’ve had enough! I want to type about new stuff!
Today is my last day at work for the week. I’m more excited about the upcoming 4 day weekend than I can possibly explain. At the moment though, I’m mostly excited about the extra sleep. I love sleep. I’m hard fighting the temptation to close my eyes and lay my head down on my desk at work today. I think I’ve gotten between 5 and 6 hours of sleep each night this week so far and now I’m beat, my contacts are burning my eyes.
I was very proud of myself last night because I was so productive with chores after work. I left work a half hour early because I had to go pay my tuition for next semester and the accounts office was only open till 330. (how convenient is that?) I made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few last minute ingredients for husbands teyriaki noodle experiment (turned out a bit spicey for my white-irish-girl taste buds). The moment I got home I stripped the bed and set about washing the sheets & comforter. I swept, swiffered, and mopped the bathroom floor with bleach. I did all the dishes and scrubbed the counters. I swiffered the bedroom floor and put away laundry. Then after dinner I baked cupcakes for my mother’s birthday! I’m usually so bad at being a housewife that I was really proud of myself. As punishment for being so productive… the comforter wasn’t finished in the dryer till 11:30pm. I’ll have you know keeping me up past my bedtime makes me less likely to voluntarily wash sheets on a week-night.
Braindrops 