The day of the "Procedure" has arrived...

Ian's gastroenterologist wanted to do a series of Upper Endoscopies with Esophageal Dilations; 2-3 procedures total, each one week apart. Oh, and he only had the "Endoscopy Suite" on Wednesdays.

That was a problem for Ian because, well, he's in college, and this semester, Wednesdays were a packed day for him. Lectures all morning, lab in the afternoon. He did speak with his lab T.A. and would have been able to make the lab up earlier in the week (of whatever week he was able to schedule his procedures.)

On top of that, he was super busy with studying and when I'd ask him if he'd called to set up the procedure, he'd tell me "I remembered to call, but by the time I did, the office was closed." Then Thanksgiving came and he didn't want to do the procedure the day before Turkey-day. Then, Doug and I went to Vegas for my software conference and, although Ian would be able to get a roommate to drive and take care of him, I didn't want him to burden a friend with that task. Then, he had exams. Before we knew it, two months had passed and it was time for Winter break.

Ian, home on break, finally had a chance to call while the office was open and arrange his procedure. "Wednesdays are booked; but we can get you in at our "other" Endoscopy Suite on a Thursday."

Wait, WHAT? We also had a Thursday option??? Ian scheduled for the 9:00 am slot (meaning he would have to be in Raleigh at 8:00 am for prep.)

We left the house at 4:30 am for the drive. Traffic was a dream! A little help from the GPS on my cell phone and arriving at the Endoscopy Suite was a breeze!

When they called Ian back, I thought I'd have a chance to see him before he went into the procedure, but I was wrong. I knew that there was a chance of a complication that could be pretty nasty; tearing of the esophagus is not a good thing. So, after 9:00 am, when I realized I wouldn't be seeing him until he was in recover, I regretted not fussing a little more over him. Prayers and "I Love You, Ian" thoughts were running through my head as I worried.

Around 10:00 am, they called for me. Ian was sleeping, peacefully. So sweet. My eyes started leaking. I sat in the chair next to him and rubbed his head. Not a movement. I tugged on his blond hair and massaged his forehead; he gently purred as he slept. His Gastro walked by and stopped to talk; the Eosinophils are still present, but Ian's esophagus didn't look as inflamed as it did back in October. The doctor was able to dilate with no problems, but said that if he had to do the procedure again, he wanted to do it in a hospital (as opposed to the Endoscopy Suite.) He said he did not want to do another procedure unless Ian has more swallowing difficulties and that he (the Gastro) would work with Ian's allergist and get him started on a swallowed steroid; it's the same steroid as asthmatics use, but instead of inhaling the meds, he'll squirt in in his mouth and swallow it.

The nurse showed back up and said, "I need you to talk to him and wake him up. Here," and she adjusted the head of his bed so that he was sitting up a little more.

His eyes popped open, he took a look at me and furrowed his brow. "How did you get here?" He was amazed at how the general anesthetic they gave him really knocked him out. The last thing he remembers was feeling a little drunk and the anesthesiologist telling him he'd be out within 30 seconds. He didn't believe it, but then, there I was, sitting beside him. He came to pretty quickly. I was thankful for that. Within 15 minutes, he'd had a small cup of water and was up and getting dressed. Still a little wobbly, but in good spirits.

"Feels like I have Strep Throat," he said.

"I'm sure! After what they just did?"

Dismissal was quick and easy and there were no restrictions, except that when he starts eating, start with mild foods like scrambled eggs.

Traffic on the way home was not such a dream; two days before Christmas and the highways were thick with cars and trucks... On the drive home, Ian was feeling more pain in his throat. We had stopped at his apartment in Raleigh to pay his rent. He took a look at the back of his throat and noticed that his uvula (the hangy-down thing in the back between the tonsils) was huge and had a black, blood-blister thing on the end. From there, things went down hill... The pain got worse along the way home. And while I was sympathetic to what he'd been through, I couldn't imagine just how rotten he felt. We had to stop at a convenience store to pick up some over-priced meds. They had Advil, but it wasn't the liquid capsules. So I got him (4) packs of the quick-release Tylenol. He said his pain (on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst) was at a 9. NINE!!! This kid has a pretty high pain tolerance. I've never heard him give ANY pains anything more than a 5. I opened two packs of the Tylenol for him and told him to take it. I told him to try to take a nap while I drove and if it wasn't any better in an hour, we'd open one more pack.

He did rest. In an hour, his head was up and he was looking around. I asked him how he felt and if he needed more meds. "No, I'll wait until we get home." Once we got home, swallowing his own saliva was nearly impossible. Eating a meal was torture. Poor kid.

One Week with Wii

Last Friday, I picked up my Wii. Friday night when I got home, Doug had been busy scraping the “popcorn” off the ceiling in Ian’s bedroom. We decided on a dinner of, well, I don’t even remember what… that was a week ago!!! Anyway, I was too pre-occupied with getting my Wii set up to see how/if it worked.

OH! I remember now!!! I decided to cook some spaghetti at home so I could set up my Wii. While the sauce was heating up, I began making my Mii. When Doug came down from Ian’s room, I showed him… “It kind of looks like you.” While I cleaned up after dinner, Doug headed into the den to set up a Mii for himself… after that, we opened up the games; Wii-Sports and Mario Kart.

We were familiar with the bowling (at least I was) so we started with that. It took a little while for Doug to get the hang of it; he kicked my b*tt! I expected that. We went to the training section of the disc, he kicked my b*tt in most of the exercises except the Power throw. Somehow, I managed to get a bronze on my first go-‘round. Huh! Go figure! Then we checked out the golf. I’m not a golfer, so holding the remote seemed awkward. The other games we looked at required two remotes if we were going to play 2-player; my second remote was on backorder with Amazon as a bundle with Wii-Play. So we ejected the Wii-Sports and put in Mario Kart. Doug tried it first. Popped the remote into the little Wii wheel and off he went! Not bad. Then it was my turn. He laughed so hard at me as I crashed into walls and objects and fell off the side of the road into outer space. But I did kind of figure out how to get some power boosts and stuff that he didn’t figure out… Anyway, that’s gonna take some more practice on my part.

On Saturday, I had a class at Johnson & Wales University. They offer “Chef’s Choice” classes for people who are not regular students. This class was called “Basic Cake Decorating.” The cake was already baked for us. The Italian Buttercream frosting was already prepared for us. The marzipan was already colored and measured out for us. The chef demonstrated the procedure for cutting one (frozen) cake into three layers; brushing each layer with a simple syrup; filling and spreading seedless raspberry jam on one layer; spreading buttercream on another layer; frosting the top and sides of the cake, getting it even and smooth. Then creating the marzipan rose. I thought mine came out pretty, well, Pretty. Take a look!

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The demonstration cake was cut up and we were able to sample it! The simple syrup the chef used was infused with some rum. I think that added a nice flavor to the raspberry and buttercream. I didn’t do that with my own cake, but if I make this again at home, I will definitely do that!

We got out of class much earlier than I had expected. So I got home and rescued Doug from the scraping by cooking him some soup and grilled cheese. Then we had cake for dessert. This one is mine:

For dinner, we had to plan for dessert, so I had a salad, with fat-free dressing, at a local restaurant called Showmars. Doug had some sort of pork dinner that, as we walked into the restaurant, smelled like carnival/ or fair food. He ended up having way too much food on his plate, but he did his best to finish it all off. “Remember,” I said, “we have cake at home for dessert.” At home, we had a re-play of night one… getting further in the bowling training; getting better scores in bowling and Doug tried his hand at some more Mario Kart.

Sunday, I needed to do some laundry. Still planning out my meals to include cake, I decided to make a Weight Watchers friendly 3-Bean and Pork Chili. So I headed off to the grocery store. $58 later, I was on my way home with my ingredients. There were some ball games on this day, so we didn’t play much Wii before we headed off to bed. We mostly just used it to check out the weather and the news.

By now, I’m liking the Wii, but I haven’t become addicted. I also haven’t broken out the Wii-Fit which was the whole reason I went on the Wii-quest in the first place.

Monday evening, I tried my hand at a few games of bowling, a little bit of the training and checked out the tennis and baseball. Ugh! I s*ck! So I tried to back up and head over to the training exercises for the tennis and baseball. And just before I headed off to bed, I opened up my Wii-Fit. I had purchased a silicone cover for the balance board, so I put that on and put the batteries in. I took the instructions up to bed with me. I read through them just before I turned out my light and went to bed. The weather man was calling for 3” – 6” of snow in our area for the next morning and I was looking forward to trying out my Wii-Fit and going into work a little late.

Tuesday morning, I expected to wake up to a bright, glowing room, illuminated by the reflection off the winter wonderland outside my window. But as the alarm went off at 5:15, I realized my room was still dark. What the…? I got up and peered outside. NOTHING! I headed downstairs and bundled up to take Denali out.

She’s been funny the past couple days… the cold weather is new to her. There have been times where, when she’s squatted to do business, a strong, frigid breeze comes up across her bottom and she jumps up and runs back into the garage, “Nah, Ize donts haz t’do bizzness rite now.” To be completely honest, I was totally looking forward to spending some Doggie/Mommy snow time together.

My driveway was dry. There was just a dusting of snow along the edge where the grass and driveway meet. There was also just a little in the valleys on my car. Bummer! So, I got her back inside and gave her breakfast. I put the gate up between the den and kitchen and headed into the den to inaugurate my Wii-Fit. (Haha! Get it? “Inaugurate.” Fitting since this is the same day as President Barack Obama’s inauguration.)

So much set-up before you can get into it… 30 minutes later, I’d only done about 4 minutes of balancing exercises and the thing tells me I’m “Unbalanced.” I bet there are a lot of other people that know me better than my Wii-Fit that could have told you I was “Unbalanced.” The one good thing that did happen during my first session with my Wii-Fit… my first body test tells me that my Wii-Fit age is 30!!! I’m thinking that’s really more of a matter of beginner’s luck than anything. But I’ll take it!!!

Wednesday morning, the alarm went off at 5:15… oh, so cold. Just a little snooze. Reach over, hit a button… brain engages, “That’s not the snooze! That’s the OFF button.” But the music didn’t go off, so I try again with the correct button, the snooze button. Roll over, re-comfort myself… 75 minutes later I look at the clock. 6:30. Sleepy brain not registering… I’ll just wait for the alarm to go off… should be going off any minute… actually, any second. Where’s the music? What the…?!? I must have gotten that thing turned off somehow… That, or I slept through the music when the alarm went off again. No Wii-Fit for me this morning.

Wednesday evening, Ian calls to tell me some good news. He’s been rushing a fraternity at school. There’ve been recruitment activities for the past 1.5 weeks. He’s just been informed that he got invitation to a bid dinner on Friday night! It’s invitation only!!! Could this be? Is he receiving a bid? We’re crossing our fingers. He calls back later, “Dinner is dressy. Could you send my dress shirt, Sports Coat, and shoes? Oh, and I’ll need a tie and a belt.” So I spend a good portion of the night trying to track all this stuff down to send to him. Reminder: His bedroom is under renovations and has been completely emptied. All the contents of his room are somewhere in the upstairs spare bedroom. So finding this stuff that he needs is more difficult than it sounds. I call Doug, “Have you seen his dress shoes? How about his ties? Are they in your closet?” Doug informs me that this particular week, he’s commandeered one of Ians’s well-fitting, new dress shirts and his most classy, preppiest tie! Figures!!! Now, I hate to admit it… but as all freshmen do, Ian has put on a little weight since he started college. I find five pairs of pants, khakis and dress, that still have tags on them. They are all the same size, WWxLL. But I wonder just how much weight he’s gained. So I call Ian back, “Ian, those pants you have there at school… what is the waist size?” He states that they are the same WW as the new ones at home. I inquire about how those pants are fitting. He’s assuming that I’m bugging him to lose some weight, “I’m working on it.” I explain that I’m not trying to press him to lose weight… I just want to make sure that if I send him these pants, they’re going to fit him and make him look nice for the dinner. I begin to wonder if I need to take a trip to Raleigh on Friday to take him shopping.

So, it’s later at night before I have a chance to turn on the TV and Wii. But I do… “Oh, it’s late… Aren’t you ready for bed?” the Wii asks me. Meh. If I’m gonna do it on Wednesday, it’s gotta be late. Checked out some yoga, Hula Hoop, step aerobics and leg lifts. I like the step aerobics, but for some reason, my brain cannot comprehend the steps that are coming up. I tend to get in a groove, “up, up, down, down…” and keep going. When it’s “up, up, side, side…” I tend to mess up. Then the Wii pauses to give me some pointers… but I just want it to keep going… I’ll figure it out!!!

Thursday morning… no Wii Fit. Nor Thursday night; I had to go get some new tires put on my car… that took longer than expected. Then, Doug is home from G’ville and we’re catching up.

Friday morning, the alarm goes off at 5:15 and I’m up. Down to take Denali out and turn on the TV and Wii. It tells me, “You skipped a day… you know, you’ll get the best results if you workout EVERYDAY!!!” I work through my favorites, adding a running session and manage to get 30 minutes of Wii in (actually it’s about 42 minutes of Wii, but only 30 minutes of logged exercise time.) Then it’s off to take a shower, run to the cleaners to pick up some of Doug’s shirts (one of Ian’s is in the bunch) and head out on the road to Raleigh. Yes, I decided to make the drive up to see my boy. We had a great day! Lunch, shopping, hugs! What could be better???

The Wii Fit seems a little slow right now. I guess because we’re just starting out and just learning how to do the activities. Some of them don’t seem like they last long enough to get benefit from them. I’m hoping that as I continue, the activities will become longer in duration and I’ll feel like I’m getting some benefit. Right now, all I feel are tight, squeaky, old hips. Maybe I need to lay off the Hula Hoop until I get a little stronger.