Art & Life of SwarDrawS

I heard from the GI doc on Wednesday on my results. I told them to call me on my cell so I could walk away from my desk away from co-worker's ears but he called me at my desk phone.

He said I did great. I have a hietal hernia which he seemed to imply that that is no big deal and that I had some irritation that checked out ok. Nothing to worry about, just keep taking the Prevacid indefinitely. He said my insurance might want to pursuad me to take Priolec OTC since it is over the counter. I told him that wouldn't be cool since the company I work for makes Prevacid.

After we hung up I remembered a few questions I had so I went out to my car with the cell and called him back. He doesn't think I need to come back for another GI for at least 10 years. The irritation will go away if I keep taking the meds.

I got up the nerve to ask him my wacky question about the fact I haven't thrown up in nearly 25 years and that I suspect that my throw up thingy is broke since the times I was sick with the stomach flu I couldn't bring anything up just dry heaved. He seemed a little annoyed with my question and said that was nonsense, if the body needs to vomit it will. I must of had an empty stomach.

I don't believe that this is case, I still think something is broke and I will get it figured out.

Posted by swardraws at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well today was the day I was really working hard to not freak out about. Everytime I felt myself panic over the thought, I would change my thought that it really is no big deal. It always worked.

I was able to see Hollace off to the bus which I normally don't get to do. Then we headed out to Lake Forrest Hospital. I still was ok albeit hungry and I wasn't sure if I had a nervous stomach or was just starved.

Another couple show up the same time as we do and register right after us (we got to the door a split second before). When it was time to go to "holding" we were both called. I was nervous there for a moment when the tried to get straight which one of us was which. She was going in for a colonoscopy. Nope, nope, nope, not me. She was younger than me so obviously she was in because something was wrong and not a routine after 50 type procedure.

Because I was just an upper one, I got stay dressed for the most part. They put in an IV which as far as I am concerned was a first for me but I guess I did get one "after" Hollace's rush delivery. The worst thing about all the prep was that darn blood pressure cuff. I have marks now from that thing. Anyway, you wouldn't think this would be the case but I registered my lowest blood pressure so far at 107/50. My oxygen was at 100% (lady next to me was only 98%).

Time to wheel me down to the procedure room. They give me a hit of demerol and a sedative for some consious sedation. They tell me to turn to my side and that is the last thing I remember. Next I knew I was in a recovery room an hour later telling me that they will tell RAW to bring over the car.

What a freaky thing, that consious sedation. As far as I am concerned I took a nap but who the hell knows what was going on at the time. Did the doctor come in and say hi?. Did I say hi back? With the sedation it is suppose to relax you but at the time what was going on through my head. Did I see the tube they feed down? Did I really go "oh shit" or "whatever". It was kind of like a when-a-tree-falls-in-the-woods-and-noone-is-around-does-it-still-make-a-sound type thing. Did I really freak out but have no clue of it now? You sure I wasn't just sleeping? Sure seemed like it.

I felt totally normal afterwards. Me and RAW went to this restaurant I have always wanted to go to and had french toast with strawberry bread and strawberries and sliced almonds on top.

Oh and what they found...a little constriction that they opened up, some small pockets and a little red irritation that they biopsied. I will find out more on Wednesday.

Posted by swardraws at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are getting to that time of the year where nice warm weekends are numbered and we have lots to try and do with them. This weekend we were suppose to go camping. All week they said, rainy weather was coming. Sue, who we were suppose to go camping with already bailed on us based on those forecasts. We were still trying to hold out.

The forecast for Friday night is heavy and severe storms and Saturday is a wash out. Yep, we finally admit defeat and stay home. I call Cindy to see what is going on in Sheboygan, maybe we can cross a visit to them off for this weekend. Pam, Shelby and Tim were all heading down to Kentucky to finish up the final stuff before they close on the house. Cindy was gong to be home alone with all 9 kids.

Around 6, it gets dark and thundery. Then it clears up with no rain, the sun comes out and it is now a clear night. Elsewhere in the Chicago area wasn't so lucky. They had bad storms with tornado warnings though none touched down. The sirens in downtown Chicago went off which is rare.

But back to our neck of the woods. The weather is now perfect for camping. The forecast for tomorrow is now a chance of thunderstorms but not as heavy as tonight for late in the afternoon. No wash out like they kept saying and chances are we wouldn't get the thunderstorms either. If we did, we could always just drive the 12 miles back home to weather it out.

I am never going to hear the end of it from RAW, that we should of just went camping.

Still don't know what we are going to do this weekend.

Posted by swardraws at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday was open house at school. Hollace's teacher seemed alright. She tells us that Hollace had a melt down that day. I guess Hollace was sharing with the class the two kiwi postcards she got from Sandie in New Zealand and according to the teacher Hollace just bursted into tears and went to the back of the room claiming that no one was paying attention. Nothing the teacher could do would get her back up there. The teacher said it was a good class and that everyone was paying attention. I asked Hollace later and the teacher didn't have it right. I think the class paid attention too well and Hollace freaked out with stage freight all of a sudden and forgot everything she wanted to say. Poor thing.

After we left the class room we walked to the social workers room and waited forever so we could talk to her about some of Hollace's imaginary friend issues and help her deal with real people. Come to find out the social worker lives two doors down from us in Haley's old house. Once Haley moved, the imaginary friends really came out. I found it ironic that is where she lives now. We will see if she can help Hollace or not.

This week we had to go in and get Hollace her chicken pox vaccine. We were really trying to resist this and flew under the radar for a long time but finally we were caught and had to get it. I am really against this vaccine as unnecessary but my convictions weren't so strong that I found it was something worth to fight for. All I knew was that I was getting Hollace scheduled with a different doctor in that practice so I wouldn't have Dr. Sharon leering at me.

Hollace lately has been into doing these comic book type stories. She has 12 of them now and they are all kiwi stories. They are very detailed stories of varying topics. They started with the kiwi for president story. She puts in speak bubles but for the most part the story comes from her. I video taped her telling these stories last week. I just need to edit them now.

Posted by swardraws at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last weekend the weather was perfect, what should we do with it? We could either go up to Sheboygan to see the family, move our camping the next weekend to then since the weather was good. Visit RAW's mom. Go to Chicago.

RAW fondly remembers the Johnny Appleseed festival in Fort Wayne but was pretty sure it was already over with. I go to the internet to see what is going on in Fort Wayne for the weekend. Well wouldn't you know it but it is Johnny Appleseed fest time. So there are plans are made.

I don't know why after all these years going to Fort Wayne, I have never heard of this annual fest. It has been going on for 32 years. It was quite impressive and big. It seemed to go on forever. We walked around for 3 hours and probably didn't see half of it. It was a perfect thing to do that weekend, the weather was perfect and we were past due for a family visit to see RAWs mom

Posted by swardraws at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Music is really driving me lately. Well, maybe not driving me but touching me. I doubt I can put it in words but I guess I am going to try anyway.

Thank God for Christina, my music buddy. She turned me on to Zero 7. We went to the concert on Saturday. She also gave me my first Elliott Smith CD, the one finished up after he died. That was a while back but I always loved it. Everytime I listened to it, I got an emotional reaction. Just recently it occurred to me that I should look up some of his other stuff. I started with Figure 8. OMG, that album is blowing me away. I can not stop listening to it.

I found an interesting connection between the Diane Arbus stuff I have been reading lately and the Elliott music. Sounds like I am in a meloncholy mood wrapping myself up with all these great artists that eventually killed themselves. Don't worry, I am not susicidal. I think this stuff is touching me like this at this time so I can get deeper with my photography, I feel so shallow.

I am now thinking my obsession with square crop isn't a coincidence either. Diane is known for her square crop but I got excited over squares before I started reading her story or even thinking of her.

There is a photoblogger that I use to frequent her site, but hadn't lately (Flickr has a way of sucking time away from other things). Tonight I remembered she went through an Elliott Smith thing. I just googled her and ES and the first entry I found where she mentioned the music was one where she also mention Diane Arbus! And she exclusively shoots square format. Weird. Maybe I am trying to be her!

Whatever is going on, I feel like I am metamorphing and that can only be good. I hope.

Posted by swardraws at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I went with Christina and Corey to see Zero 7 at the Park West. It has been like forever since I seen a concert.

Christina drove and got us there so effortlessly, I was impressed. We even drove by my old neighborhood by Wriggley Field. It took us a while to find parking on the street. The moment we found a parking garage and was ready to submit to failure, a spot on the other side opened up and Christina effortly u-ied and got it. It was practically across the street from the place. It was 2 hours before the concert and we seen people lining up at the Park West.

For dinner we went to Stanleys. It was all-American cusisine. Mac and cheese seemed pretty prevalent there. I had that but it was so rich I could only eat half. Dinner for the 3 of us cost a whopping $26.

We got out of there at 8:00, the concert starts at 8:30. None of us has ever been there so we didn't know what to expect, standing room crowds, smokey atmosphere. We get there, the line is gone, we just walk in and was pleasantly surprised to see bar stools everywhere. We go up stairs and sit down.

It was pretty nice, where we were up in the balcony, there were no crowds, just everyone sitting on bar stools in 2 rows in the upstairs. The place is small enough that you can see the stage pretty good. At 8:30 Jose Gonzales starts the opening act, some accoustic gutair. We don't know who he is until he sang his last song and it was a Zero 7 one. Ah, he is the male vocalist for the group. Eventually the group comes on. The female vocalist was so cute be-bopping around. You don't get her personality based on the sound of her voice on the CDs. Since they are a electronica group, there is a lot of keyboard action. Jose comes back on to sing the male vocals again. It was a fun show. We had a great time. I should of brough RAW's point and shoot camera so I could take some pictures and video clips. I was afraid of their camera policy so I just avoided the aggration and left the cameras at home. I don't think it would of been a problem.

It got out about 11:20, we walked to our car and went back to C and C's where I got in my car and drove the 30-40 minutes back to my house. I got home officially at 1:20am.

RAW was on the couch sleeping and Hollace was in our bed. I had to wake her up to move her so I could get into bed.

Today we were hoping to take the train into Chicago for a romp in the city but alas, it is a rainy day. Oh well, maybe next weekend.

Posted by swardraws at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sherry called last week with her normal tales of whoa. She was 2 months behind on her mortgage and since she re-mortgaged recently to a high risk company, they don't take excuses, only houses.

She kept asking me what she should do, I kept saying, I don't know knowing full well what she was hoping I would say. Finally she said it...."can I borrow $2600? I will pay you back $3000"

Gulp

Well now that it is out there I can't leave her in a lurch unless I really didn't have the money. And though this is the worst time of the year for my slush fund (property taxes are due tomorrow and insurance on the truck the day after) I had to do it.

She needed it wired to the mortgage company in two days. She would give me the info to send to.

When I talked to her the next day I told her if she wants the money she has to come out and get it. I won't wire it, not a responsibility I want. I also wanted her to sign an agreement. A pure technicality since it isn't notarized.

I get a money order cause I don't want her driving the 2 hours back home late at night with all that cash. She gets here at 9:00. She writes me out 7 post dated checks for $300. She ran out of checks and still owes me 3 more checks. She says money gets deposited in her account on the 3rd so all the checks are posted dated for then.

The next morning she calls me early to tell me she found a letter I wrote when I was in 10th grade that mentioned the bad apple pie I made in home ec and what I had for lunch which I believe was all chocolate based. Yep, my bad eating habits go way back! But the last line was "your friend Nancy, unless you want to borrow money". Ha, ha, ha.

Later that day Sherry calls again. I guess every bank she went to (5 of them apparantly) said there will be a 2 day hold on that check. She was having a heart attack. They told her to go back to the original bank it was drawn on which of course was 2 hours away at my credit union. She calls the mortgage company to see if she could sign it over to them. They aren't sure but got back to her a couple hours later and told her it was ok. She signed it and FedExed it and all should be well. I hope.

Posted by swardraws at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)