Let's all please have a moment of silence for Horace, for he is no more. Except in stuffed, plush form.

I kind of want to give a coherent narrative of events, but at eight they gave me what the nurse assured me was the drug equivalent of a margarita, and boy howdy was she right. I was wheeled into the operating room, and from what I can gather, the margarita drug combined with the anesthesia set off retrograde amnesia, so I have no memories of anything that happened as of five minutes after I went into the OR to wait. At that point, no doctors had arrived and I was still clutching HoraceA (the plush gall bladder) and The Madelyn Bear and had one of my necklaces wrapped around HoraceA because years ago a friend gave it to me to wear during my second bout with hospitalization due to pnuemonia.

When I woke up in my room again, I wasn't sure what was going on or why anything hurt, but lo and behold, I was still clutching all my comfort stuffed animals and my necklace. I mean, they had to have taken them from me before they started surgery, but the weird thing is, I was holding them pretty much exactly how I remember from the OR. They released me at ten AM. Basically, it feels like I went to the hospital for a fraught, tense nap wearing a hideous nightie and no underwear. Which is actually pretty disconcerting.

God this is weird.

Entrance wound is about an inch and a half to two inches starting just outside the belly button and going in. There's some slight bruising to the left of the incision, the inner button, if you will, is wrinkling in a faint counter-clockwise twist, and the entire mess is covered in a coat of what appears to be surgical-grade superglue. It did turn out to be single incision. And my God do all my stomach muscles hurt (I assume, from reading, this is because they pumped the belly cavity with air to make scoping and cutting easier).

Owww. There are only three really decent positions; because I didn't cry, I assume my favorite laptop-holding position became one of those.

I have eaten an ultimate cheeseburger from Jack in the Box and am drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee with caffeine, chased with Tylenol-3.

So hi! And thank you all for all the comforting messages of support and encouragement. You have no idea how much that meant to me, and how much it really did help. And also because I could not face telling everyone on LJ I chickened out again.

*HUGS ALL OF YOU* T3 makes me realllllly affectionate.

So due to escalating, unending gall-bladder related back pain, I had to go to the ER this morning. No, I still have Horace; what I also have is relief from back pain that's been continuously building since Sunday. This is because I was introduced to morphine.

If this is a little choppy, I totes have reason; this shit is pretty damn good.

Because the constant pain thing is a warning sign of things like perforation and necrotized (is that the right word?) tissue, I went in with my mother (she is capable of tackling me into immobility; slim but wiry, let me point out) and I was put in IV, blood tested, and left to stare at the walls much calmer than I would have expected, because I always forget my bulletproof calming comes down to ritual, and hospitals are professional at the entire ritual stripping of clothing, leaving the world behind you, and hooking you to a blood pressure cuff, pulse finger thing, and an IV bag to leave you contemplating God or try to competitively lower your own blood pressure (personal best: 101/51, pulse 75).

Blood and urine tests (god, urine tests with the complexity of SATs, and I'm sorry, who the fuck has the hand-eye coordination to do all that?) confirmed that everything was just fine in my body (given the entire gall bladder being evil issue) but my resistance to hydrocodone (vicodin) was a problem since the back pain was getting worse every time I ate, even if it wasn't bursting into exciting adventures in intense pain every time. So the plan was to see if they could get the pain thing down and still wait to do a prepared and comfortable surgery and not do it out of the ER. So by one pm, the first try was a low dose of morphine, which was utterly useless; the second was benthyl, a pill to help with spasms amongst the innards (work with me; they named specific innards but I'm pretty stoned right now); the third was a combination of one level up of morphine with benthyl, which a.) brought about druggedness and b.) took away all the pain. So I was let go, with the understanding I had to be at my appointment on Thursday and that surgery was in my near future (aka possibly Thursday itself, but most likely early next week).

(Spent goodly time in ER emailing Madelyn sad pictures of me holding a stuffed bear wearing a hospital gown on a hospital bed while wrapped in sheets and pictures of my IV, while she sent comforting missives that this is better than the prairie, where they would give me a stick and quinine. I have no idea what the stick was for. Best not to find out.)

I'm weirded out by the first dose of morphine not working, actually; the second worked but not with the strong loopy effect, just a mild one, but dear God the sheer ability to swallow without wincing totally loops me out anyway. I took with me two bears (one a gift from svmadelyn that has a pouch for a heating pad) and I honestly felt more shame about the fact I didn't shave my legs.

Note: Shave legs before surgery. And find pound puppy. Am now taking nap because pain free also means I will sleep well and in a normal body position.

I cannot say I am at all looking forward to surgery, but I have to admit that this helped make what's coming seem more familiar. And if this is readable, I am really surprised.

Nap now. *sends hugs* One more week and no one will hear me whine about this again. That's a very good motivator, too.

Dear Horace,

I don't even know.

Seperis

okay, yeah

I have called my doctor to reschedule my surgery, because this is two days in a row and is very much not working for me like, at all.

Things That Are Good

Okay, so Fringe is possibly the best show since X-Files, and not only because it Joshua Jackson is unbelievably hot. I am seriously crushing on Olivia. And I say this with love.

( spoilers: i can see why people don't like it, but seriously, it all makes sense later )

That is like, my recruitment speech for Fringe. Watch it! It is amazing.

Adventures in Servers

Server has been built, and on the fourth installation, I got Ubuntu Server working. Okay, four times may seem excessive, but it did internalize a lot of linux commands. So far, the network storage parts are up and shareable throughout the LAN, and I have learned to save three copies of any configuration file I do - .original, .current, and the working configuration file. The file system still--bewilders me. Mounting alone is an adventure. Everything is very repetitious from the command line, but it's also still so new it's endlessly fascinating. I feel like I'm getting an education in computer architecture and file systems and don't know it yet.

Currently using putty for remote administration.

I still have no idea how:

a.) to set up external access to file share to people not on my LAN.
b.) I managed to turn off my ability to create folders in any shared network folder. IDEK. Creating them all from the command line is really boring. I've checked my samba conf file and all my folder permissions. Pretty sure this is supposed to drive me crazy.
c.) to work out what I'm going to do with this.

This is surprisingly fun. And stressful.

ETA: So the easiest way so far to solve the permissions problem is to always create any folders I want from root and just type in the entire directory. That's--logical, in a way. Note to self: keep doing that.

Part A

Horace the Gallbladder reminded me this morning that yeah, I really need to make that surgical appointment. That was fun. Like, lots.

Part B

syllic however, made it all better by directing me to Harrods to meet Archie, the 2010 Christmas bear and Archie's friend who is not named but I am calling Watson. Actually, I keep calling the Harrods bears the Syllic Bears and then correcting myself while my family doesn't even bother looking at me oddly because I've escalated to imported bears and they're kind of terrified.

Oh my God, people, for those who celebrate the Christmas holidays, it is two months until I can take them out and coo over them! And decorate! Oh God, I get to decorate.

Er, for those of you new to my journals, The Bear Collective 2009 with earlier pictures from 2007 here. This entire bear thing began with hwmitzy sending me bears one year for Christmas. And it--escalated. Not shown in picture is the Moose and Snowman Auxiliary, because they er, wouldn't fit on the couch. And the Christmas Bunny. And the Christmas Shark. Yes, there is a Christmas Shark and screw you, it's awesome.

Just to warn you, you will see a lot of this come late November.

( sherlock the laptop and watson the nas )

Dear Horace you fucker,

Okay, got it. Now you hate Taco Bell, too. Seriously, two nights in a row, don't you think that's a little excessive?

--seperis

Dear Vicodin,

Any minute now, thanks.

--seperis

Okay, so add that to the list. For the record, I don't think it's fair that food that was already previously proved fine is now turning on me.

Weirdly, I think I'm done with pissed. Come on; I'm up at three forty five in the morning and I have to do magic tomorrow at work to finish up my assignments so they don't pull my leave, and I still have to do laundry when I get home for when we leave on Thursday for the beach and I'm averaging three hours of sleep a night, but otoh, I just realized I can wear my platform boots with the dress I bought for Adam's concert for Club Vivid and as it turns out, I'm very much a girl. That makes me stupidly happy, because those boots are pretty much inappropriate for anything and it's been killing me not to wear them, even though considering their heel, they could also kill me wearing them. What-the-fuck-ever.

For reference: me in the dress, taken by boggit while we were waiting in line. It was a long wait, okay?

I take what I can get. Even Horace cannot compete with the moment an outfit comes together.

ETA: Seriously, vicodin. Any minute now. This is fucking with my porn writing now.

So the consultation with the surgeon was relatively short. He was informative and kind of hopeful I'd be more talkative, I think. Good luck with that, but I tried to make him feel he was successful in being reassuring.

So here as is I understand it, provided everything remains status quo.

Surgery will be the last week in August, which he was fine with. They're doing something called SILS - single incision lacroscopic surgery. It apparently is about as minimal as we can get and still call it surgery; they will go in through my belly button only. Recovery time should be one week or so. It can easily be changed to the classic version, but he didn't seem worried that would come up.

( i only wish this were fiction )

Okay, with my fate locked in stone, I have the following things to concentrate on.

1.) scy in Seattle! Hanging out! What to wear to Adam's concert. If anyone wants to give suggestions, feel free. I am all about suggestions.

2.) work. Er, I'll think about that later.

3.) svmadelyn in Chicago! VVC! Hanging out with my friends! Watching vids!

4.) Beach with family.

5.) Tea. Of course.

*blows out breath* I will worry about this again on August 9, when I return from Chicago.

So I told Child about the entire gall bladder/surgery/removal, and two things came up; one I expected, and one that....

Child: Can I go with you and watch?

Me: Sure, you get the doctors behind that, go for it.

Child: Can I have your gall bladder afterward?

Me: ...I honestly should have seen that coming.

Child: Is that a yes?

...I kind of didn't. And yet, in retrospect, I am surprised that wasn't the first question. The normal response should be what on earth would you do with a gallbladder? but the thing is? He probably has a list somewhere and I don't want to know.

He keeps randomly coming in to poke me in my presumed gall bladder area and then asking me curiously how big the stones are.

How much usable DNA could someone get from a gall bladder anyway? It's not that I think he could build a gene sequencer and cloning chamber out back with some twine and a hairclip, it's more why take that kind of risk?

Poor Horace. You have no idea what you were risking with this stones shit, I have to say.

This comes from insomnia; go about your normal business.