Disjointed Kitsch

Today’s the day. Today’s the day when Yvette gets her wish. Careful what you wish for…

Over the past several years Yvette’s been experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort during her cycle. The OB/GYN she’s had for a number of year kept attributing it to “menopause”, which we both felt was a crock given her multiple eptopic pregnancies, fallopian tube and scar tissue removal. Working with her GP, Yvette hooked up with a GYN that would actually look at the history and symptoms try to find out what was wrong. After a 2-3 month series of Lupron shots, her pain and discomfort was definitely related to her cycle and reproductive organs. After discussing it, Yvette got what she’s been after for the last 5 year: a hysterectomy.

So today, we’re off to Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Keene, NH for the procedure. Even though this is what she’s been after, the anticipation and build up is taking its toll. We’re both a bit apprehensive and worrying about things that we probably shouldn’t, but I guess that’s to be expected.

She’ll be in “overnight” and then come home on Thursday. I’m working at home for the next week or so until she feels she can be on her own again.

Update #1 - Took her to surgery at 10:40 AM after meeting with the surgical team. Procedure will take about 2 hours. I opted to go home since we only live 3 minutes from the hospital. I’ll go back around 12:15 PM or so. Dad called to check in as did Sue. I’ll try and remember to call both back when she gets out.

Update #2 - Got back to waiting area about 12:30 PM. Waited there until 1:10 PM and went back the the recovery area to check on her status. She was out of surgery and in recovery and awake! Evidently I had missed the Dr. by a few minutes. She was groggy and had the expected pain, but was not nauseous since they gave her this scopolamine patch behind the ear. I stayed until 1:50 PM when I left to get Grant from school. After Hannah gets home I’ll head back.

Update #3 - Arived back at hospital at 3:30 PM and they were just moving her to room 252. I had some tea while they got her situated. Not long after I got to her room they gave her a pain shot and she faded fast. Just had time to feed her a few spoons of ice before she drifted off. Left at 5:20 PM to fix dinner for the kids. We will all go back after dinner.

I’ve spend the better part of this weekend setting up my new Intel Mac Mini. I opted for the Core Duo model with the 80GB ATA drive and the CD burner.

I managed to get my hands on a SyncMaster 710 MP flat panel monitor with TV tuner. The mini will live in the kitchen so we can use the monitor as a TV too. About $300 from Staples after mail in rebate.

I wanted the install to have as few wires as possible and since the mini comes with an AirPort card installed the networking part was taken care of. It also comes installed with Bluetooth so a Bluetooth enabled keyboard and mouse were in order. I didn’t want to jump to Apple’s keyboard right away without investigating other Mac keyboard options. Turns out, there are precious few designed specfically for the Mac. Sooo.. looks like it’ll be Apple’s.

I’m not going with Apple’s Bluetooth mouse, however. I’ve gotten used to a two-button mouse with scroll wheel and I’m lothe to give it up and go back to a single button. I would have taken Apple’s Mighty Mouse if it was wireless. I’m currently considering a MacAlly Bluetooth mouse that’s not out yet. It’s rechargable and is 2-button with a scroll wheel and it’s under $50. Yes, the recharder will bring in a wire, but I won’t be replacing 2 AAA batteries. For now I’m using a USB keyboard and mouse.

I orderd 2 GB of of memory for the unit today. Apple wanted around $300 for that. I got the same spec memory for $148. Hopefully I won’t have to call in a Apple Tech to get it installed.

Friday 02/24/2006

Today is a “wrap up” day. We’re wrapping up our trip here by doing all those “last minute” things that simply must get done before we leave. So toward that end we accomplished the following:

- Returning some store items that upon reflection we didn’t really need
- Returning to Harbor Town with Yvette and Hannah to browse around any shops we missed
- Eating all the food in the refrigerator
- Packing for the trip home
- Getting directions to the hotel in Charlotte from the resort
- Taking out the trash

Yvette did manage to find a pair of “Woody” sandals at Harbor Town that were a “must have”. We also feasted at dinner. We managed to dispose of 4 hamburgers, a pack and one half of hot dogs, 3 pizzas, a package of salad, most of a head of lettuce, 2 bell peppers, 4 boxes of cereal, various snacks, rest of the 1/2 gallon of milk, remainder of the gallon of apple juice, bag of pretzel rods, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I had to say “good by” to my flip flops and bathing suit after my last dip in the hot tub. Evidently the chlorine activated something in the flip flops that made them smelly and also faded my my bathing suit. Yvette promised I could get more.

We all stayed in for a last night of Olympic coverage and went to bed early so we could make our 10 AM checkout.

Saturday, 02/25/2006

We were up and out by 9:30 AM. It was a rainy trip to Charlotte, NC. We were hoping to see Yvette’s high school friend Marcy, but she was down with a cold. Hopefully we’ll catch up with her this summer.

We found the hotel just fine. I returned the rental car to Dollar and was quite unimpressed with the counter agent. A tree stump would have been nicer that she was. I caught the Dollar shuttle back to the airport and then got the hotel shuttle to take me back.

We walked to Shoney’s for dinner, the hilight of which was the hot fudge cake which Yvette fondly recalled from her pregnancy days. We all turned in early for our 4 AM wake-up time.

Sunday, 02/26/2006

I was up at 4 AM and got everyone else going by 4:15. Our flight was a 7 AM and we needed to catch the 5 AM shuttle to the airport. Turns out a lot of other folks were catching that 5 AM shuttle so we settled for the 5:22 AM shuttle. No problem. We were there in plenty of time.

Our 7 AM flight to Baltimore took off on time as did our continuing service flight to Boston. We were on the ground at Logan a bit before 10 AM. Rick was at the baggage claim to pick us up and we were on our way back to Keene. Evidently it’s colder up here than in Hilton Head and they have snow. We were greeted with bone chilling cold and wind with a new 8-10 inches of snow in Keene. Not exactly what I was looking forward to.

All in all it was a great trip. The kids seem to have fun in spite of themselves. Yvette and I would like to go back again sometime.