ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

Last Thursday (I think? or was it Friday?), I checked in around 11:30 to get my gallbladder removed. The people at the outpatient center couldn't have been nicer. We've had such good luck (except for 1 doctor) with medical care in Wichita. The only problem was the Nervous Nelly dude next to me with his two sons that encouraged his behavior.

It took 3 tries for them to get the IV in me which made me a little queasy. When I'm dehydrated, IVs don't work so well and since I was told not to drink or eat, I was dehydrated. I was expecting a countdown under anesthesia but instead, I breathed from a face mask and I was out with no real transition. One minute I was there and the next minute, I was waking up.

They let me take about 20 minutes to wake up and then once I could move to a recliner, they would let my mom and husband come back. I got moved and they came back. I was stiff and tender and so, so tired. They gave me a painkiller through the IV and it made me nauseous so we had to stick around a little longer. The doctor said I didn't set a record for largest gallstone but I was up there plus they had to make the incision wider to accommodate the larger sized stone. The larger the stone, the more the pain I hear yet I never rated my pain higher than a 5. Weird.

Side note: I've a whole diatribe about traditional medicine brewing in my head. Administering meds unnecessarily has lead to all kinds of complications for me including depression as a side effect of one med, extremely complicated labor due to side effects from another, countless infections as a result of another. Can we just quit with all the meds already? I have a really, really high pain tolerance and have never felt the need to take them. I wish medicine wasn't given by default with little regard to what the effects will be.

I finally got to come home and take a nap. When I woke up, my mom had fresh fruit and other food ready for me to eat. I wanted to eat it but couldn't handle much. The meds were still making me nauseous. I just opted to not take them and called the doctor the next day and they called in a nausea pill and another type of painkiller. Even with the new cocktail, I only took them twice and at bedtime.

My mom was here for 4 days or so and she made all of our meals. It was so nice to not have to worry about it. Andy left for a job interview in Texas in the middle of her stay, I can't drive right now and it was just one less thing to think about.

Right now I am post-op about 4 days and I'm feeling good. My only remaining issue is tenderness on my abdomen where the 4 incisions are (and coughing hurts BAD) plus fatigue but that is getting better too. I go back to work on Thursday and I think I should be ok by then.

And, it might be a little late, but I'm not totally convinced gallbladder removal was the only solution though my doctors seemed urgent to make that happen. I'll never have the chance to make that decision again but I wish more options were presented.

On Saturday, I woke up with terrible upper back pain which continued into Sunday. On Monday, abdominal pain was more of my concern as it felt like a 9 month old fetus was lodged in my ribs and wouldn't move. Eating made the pain more intense. By Tuesday, I had decided that I needed to go to the doctor.

Appointment for Wednesday morning and the dr. sent me to see a sonographer a few hours later. The findings: a very, very sick gallbladder. Immediately I am sent for an appointment with a surgeon who schedules me for gallbladder removal tomorrow.

I am glad the fix is relatively simple and that I will get better soon. The timing isn't great as we were planning to all go to Texas this weekend. Now we are trying to figure out what our nee plans will be. I was told to expect to be out of commission for a week. I've never been down for that long so I am hoping for less.

So, this weekend the four of us are going to Texas and then Andy has his interview on Monday. We will spend this weekend doing some fun stuff plus driving through parts of the city we may want to live in. We hope to know more about our future plans by next week.

Andy has been off work now for about 10 days and this has been the first week with Blake. They've been having fun and spending time together and have met me for lunch a couple of times. (Payton is in KC for the week).

He's going to Texas on July 13 to meet with Lockheed. We may go with him for the weekend to do some scouting in the area.

I feel really fortunate that Andy has a good option for a job given that so many people don't right now. However, having said that, this is hard, y'all. We didn't want to move Payton. We don't want to lose money selling our house. We don't want to drive 8 hours to KC all the time. We don't want to move Payton....and we don't want to move Payton. I know she will adjust and I know she'll be fine but it's heartbreaking...and it's not our fault.

Dan's restaurant officially opens tomorrow to the public but this weekend was for family and friends to enjoy. To say that we are proud of him and super crazy excited would be an understatement. When he went from a restaurant manager to a corporate job some years ago, we stayed up at night talking about how he *needed* to have his own restaurant because it was obviously his calling and what he's really good at. The barrier to entry is scary for a not-rich person but after years of perseverance, he finally made it. What's even better is that we are big fans of Genghis Grill food and of the Power and Light District. A collision of mega awesomeness if you ask me.

There were lots of pictures taken of the night but here's 1 album that was put together by Tom.

Pics of family and friends night

I'm in the printed paper today (though I have yet to see it) and the info is online too.

Justin Timberlake makes Sullivan Higdon & Sink employee’s weekend

The last time I posted, I was feeling crazy excited about receiving 2 messages from JT because there's no celeb that would make me happier to hear from. I thought that was it. I was wrong.

On Friday, I got an email that said "Justin Timberlake is now following you on Twitter" which is what you get each time somebody new follows you. I've gotten 200 of them over the past couple of days but this one nearly made me pass out. The amazing thing is that he has over 300,000 people following him but he's only following 32 people. Now, I'm one of them.



This means I can send him a Direct Message (private message) on Twitter if I want to. People have said I'd be silly not to. The thing is, I really, really like him and have no intention to bother him.

EDITED TO ADD: He's not following me anymore. He removed about 8 people including me. I figured he would do that so I'm glad I got a screenshot while it (briefly) lasted. Ha.

My subdued mood today can't properly convey my mood at the time. I'm not going to lie. I was shaking and giddy about this. At work.

Then he Tweets me again. He says I should make a video of my squee. I don't have a screen cap of that because he removed it within about an hour which is good because I wasn't going to do it anyway. :) People sent me messages saying that I had to since he said so. They obviously don't know me because I don't do anything I don't want to....even if Justin Timberlake says so.

Lots of people have been asking me questions. Here are some of the most common.

Q: What does your husband think about all this?
A: He's known that I love JT for many years. I think some marriages have jealousy (even about celebs). We don't. He's happy for me though he can't think of who would make him react quite as insanely.

Q: What does your daughter think?
A: There seems to be some misconception that the JT love is due to my daughter. It's not. I love JT. She thinks he's an awesome entertainer but he isn't her thing. She's much more into Forever the Sickest Kids, Ludo, Pink and many others. I'm no cooler to her today than I was a week ago (which is to say, not at all).

Q: How can I get a celeb to reply to me or follow me?
A: No idea. I wasn't trying to. It just happened.

Q: How do you know it's him?
A: It's him. He's a verified Twitter user. And yes, he writes his own Tweets. Almost all people on Twitter do.

Q: Will you get me an autograph or tickets?
A: What makes you think I could?

This should just about be the end but I will be in the newspaper tomorrow to discuss it so I'll post a link to that when it's online.

It's been fun.