That's a singy voice in the title in case you couldn't get that. I gots me some snail mail, courtesy of the "Friends" of this hospital, i.e. little ole lady volunteers. They brought me a boooooooootiful mini-care package, complete with 80s variety puzzles and pictures for dart practice. The timing was absolutely perfect and beautiful, and even such a small gesture and note goes soooooo far to letting one know there's someone out there thinking of ya. Something to be said for snail mail, that's all I'm sayin.



Thank you.

The owies? It is somewhat better I have to say without the chest tube, but damn if I'm not still in pain when I breathe. I hate that, really I do! It's getting really old, really quickly. Today, the housekeeping crew just earned their mark on my list and pissed me off. They had the nerve to come in and ask me when I think I might be leaving so that they can clean my room; they don't want to clean it twice (once now, and presumably again when I leave later). I told her I hadn't even been informed by all my doctors that I was leaving today, and she said, "Well, you are because your room is on my board so I'd just like to get it done." Weeeeeeeeeellll excuse me, let me just carry my stuff out into the hallway while I wait for my dr to come discharge me. I wouldn't want to hold you up. Give me a break! Human, people, I'm a freaking human! I am not a room number, a diagnosis, a lack of diagnosis, a mountain dew drinking machine (although I am that) or whatever other categories you might use to describe your patients. I am a freakin human first and foremost, just treat me as such and we'll get along just fine. Everything else is pretty much negotiable.

At any rate, seems I might be going home sometime today. Surgeon was here and said lungs look good, need to tlk to pulmonologist and get staples and stitches out. Had someone come by and give me a temp tank of oxygen to get me home. I also have to do some serious grocery shopping, as I have nothing at home. Bottom of the worry list, but it must be done.

K, must run for now and give evil glare to housekeeper outside my doorway.

I'm just so stinking tired this morning. I wonder if it's the ambien catching up with me? I thought I slept pretty good last night, considering how well I usually sleep in the hospital, but this morning I woke up somewhere in the neighborhood of 7, which is actually pretty late for me. Still, I'm sitting here about to fall over. I guess that's the one bright side of being in here (still), if I want to fall over asleep at any given moment, I CAN!

They were going to let me get a shower but then decided we'd have to wait for the surgeon to okay it just to make sure no water is going to get inside that hole in my chest and lead to the replacement of a chest tube or anything. I'll gladly wait and skip the whole shower if that is a potential consequence!

Talked with teenager last night for a while, it sounded like he was doing very well and getting along happily. That takes a load off my mind, when I know all my kiiddes are fed and happy and healthy... okay, they might not be *as* happy as they would be at home with mom, but that's just how the world works and I'm glad they're functionally happy. I email the older 2 frequently now, send myspace messages like crazy (lol!) and am generally able to keep in touch pretty good through modern technology. I have to say, my teenager's myspace has a song that plays on it very loudly as soon as you go to the page, and it's not hospital appropriate. However, last night I opened said page and it was late-ish (after 10) and I'm sure I probably gave the old man in the next room a heart attack if he could hear well enough to hear it...

All of a sudden, out of the quiet hospital hallway comes "HEY YOU MOTHAH FUCKAHS" courtesy of teenager's myspace page... and that was about how much got out before I found the volume/mute button and shut it up, but I think the damage was done. I sent him a message about it and he assured me that I really did make him giggle. Glad I could help, embarrassed the crap out of me!

Well, I'm nervous today because it's Monday which means I'm potentially going home, but also I'm potentially getting biopsy results. So nervous. And for some reason, everything hurts today. Not achy sore like an underlying pain, but touch me and I'll kill you because it hurts kind of sore. It's like every surface of my body is bruised, that's the best way to describe it. Ew and ouch.

Okay, gotta go find the potty for now which is always a fun outing and takes up a good chunk of time. I'll post with the update when I have it, and hell I may very well post without any sort of worthwhile update because I like the sound of my fingers on the keyboard!

Of hospital life... of being dependent upon another for all of one's basic human needs. I'm starving. I have Doritos and chocolates, but it's just not the same as actual food. I did order up a sandwich from the cafeteria about... oh an hour ago, but I'm still awaiting its arrival. Starving. I get the munchies every night it seems. I'm also almost out of mountain dew, so that will be a crisis. I might have to beep my nurse's aide again. I mean jeesh, I've seen her twice this (8 hour) shift, what more do I want? Well I'll tell you what I want, I want my freaking sandwich. And if that means that said Nurse Aid has to walk her arse down to the freaking cafeteria and ask for a freaking sandwich, then that's what she oughtta be doing! Not sitting at the nurses' station surfin the net (as they are all doing at the moment) laughing and a-giggling while those less-than-human of us are laying around hungry and stuff. Darnit. I'm all for net-surfing, maybe they're reading my blog! In which case I have only to say, "GEt your ass in here with my sandwich!" I'm hungry. I suspect she forgot to order my sandwich and I also suspect I won't see another nurse aid until shift change in 45 minutes. Add to that the usual sandwich-getting time, and I should potenially have a sandwich in about an hour. Even though it's been over an hour since my request. Less than human, I do declare.

BUT hmm, what's this button I see here on the phone? There's a "service" number, do you suppose if I called it someone would "service" me and bring me a sandwich? Do you think they will take it as an obscene phone call if I simply call and ask someone to service me? Before telling them I want a sandwich? Seriously, it really doesn't take that long to get a sandwich, they're usually very speedy which is why I suspect my gal forgot me and didn't order the piece of crap imitation turkey.

In other news, Heard from teenager today and he's doing well at his dad's and grandparents. Not getting into any trouble, and I made him giggle out loud. He has a myspace page, which I'm allowed to visit and do from time to time. Tonight I visited kind of late, and it's past visiting hours so pretty quiet in the hallway and all that... and he has one of those obnoxious pages that starts playing some really loud rap as soon as his page opens... "MOTHER FUCKERS" really loudly down the hallway... I'm sure the old guy in the next room had a heart attack if he was with it enough to hear it. I turned it off fairly quickly, but that one very loud obnoxious phrase did make its way down the hall. Much quicker than my sandwich, by the way. At any rate, I was trying to figure out how to send him a message on there that only he could see, and I think I did it! Yay for learning somtething new today.

As I sat here updating my pulmonologist JUST Came in... who rounds at midnight? At any rate, he said it looks good for sending me home tomorrow although the pneumonia really doesn't look any better and he can still hear crackling and what not. He's a nice guy, just not one of the ones I have faith in. Ah well, for now I"m going to go chase down a sandwich and I'll update some more tomorrow when Iknow something...

Woohooo, my cute little surgeon came this morning first thing and removed that ugly chest tube! I'm in quite a lot of pain from that (hurts like HELL I say!) but I'm optimistic that the intensity will start to diminish now since I have that thing out of my chest. Hopefully that part at least can begin to heal somewhat.

I hit the ambien and slept like crazy last night. I did wake up and almost pee the bed from being in such a deep sleep for so long and then trying desparately to get all my wires and contraptions to the bathroom quickly enough to not make a puddle... but I made it! They had to wake me up at 7 this morning to get my xray to see if the chest tube could come out. And now I've been back to xray to make sure there's no air where it's not supposed to be. I informed said cute little surgeon that should the need arise to reinsert said chest tube, another pneumothorax, whatever, that he would really want/need to sedate me heavily before coming to deliver that news. He laughed, but I was not joking! I might hurt someone if they come to tell me they have to put one back in. They hurt going in, hurt coming out, hurt while they're in... they just HURT and I'm tired of hurting.

BUT since I have the tube out, tomorrow I might be able to get a real live actual shower! Not just a wash out in a tub kind of clean. I can't wait. Oh the little things. How many showers have I taken for granted in my life? How many have I skipped because I was just too lazy to drag my butt into the shower and decided to be semi-stinky one more day? Well, no more! It's shower time, and I intend to be in my shower at least an hour tomorrow. Seriously, I'm really looking forward to it, and washing my hair like normal rather than trying to hang my head over the sink and begging nurse's aids to come help me. How demoralizing, dehumanizing, and helpless-like.

And some time in the pretty near future, I'm seriously considering penning my first book, Idiot's Guide to Surviving your Inpatient Stay. To be sold only at hospital gift shops, right there next to the Glamour magazine and crossword puzzle books. It will be a huge hit. Chapter 1: So, you think you have rights?

Seriously if I could get it out in paperback form and sell it for less than $10 or so, it would be sold out in hospital gift shops. There is no doubt in my mind. Even if it says nothing of substance, even if it holds only a few lines that make someone chuckle, due to circumstance it will be a very nice seller.

In other completely unrelated news, my daughter is not a little girl anymore!!!!! She's a woman now! She kind of scared me yesterday, as I got a phone call (she's with dad right now) and she said, "Hey mom, we're heading to town with Dad because I"m bleeding." Very calm and kind of nonchalant, but I thought she'd cut herself or was hurt mildy or whatever. So of course I'm like, "What'd you do, what's wrong...!?" and she started laughing and informed me that no, in fact, she's bleeding "down there" tee hee. "YOu know mom, I STARTED!"

Well, I of course was all happy and stuff and she assured me she would have been just as happy to wait a few more years, she didn't need this right now. I'm trying to put it in a positive light for her, she's going to have to deal with it for a very long time and it might as well be as pleasant as possible. And attitude has a lot to do with that. So we're planning a woman-day for the 2 of us when I get out of here and she's back from Dad's. It should have been yesterday or today, but oh well, can't have it perfect I guess. It'll still be worth celebrating later in the week/month/whatever. I think we'll go to dinner, just the 2 of us, and go to the local hippie store (we both love this store) for something commemorative. I'm thinking some kind of jewelry AND she's been jazzing for a dress like I wear. The long, flowy, spaghetti strap style ankle length or close to it... she calls them my hippie dresses, works for me. At any rate, she's been wanting one anyway so maybe we'll go buy a red one or one with a design that speaks to her... I'm excited lol.

And so back to the beepies here because that's what life consists of... My blood pressure is up really badly this morning and they're working on trying to get it down. It really would help I think if they would stop the beepies. I think those are enough to inflate anyone's blood pressure. Yuck.

Going to go try to relax, but hey if any of you all have any good ideas for menarche celebrations I'm open! I've got a few days to worok it out...