A health update

My biopsy results actually indicate that I have Crohn's disease rather than ulcerative colitis (I'll get to talk to the doctor about this next week). That's a slightly worse diagnosis, I think, because it will probably involve surgery at some point (around three-quarters of Crohn's patients need surgery for various reasons sooner or later). But it's still manageable to a large degree with meds. And it's good to know what it is, so I can start getting a handle on it!

Hello!

I doubt anyone's reading this blog anymore, but here's an update anyway:-).

I've been sick with severe stomach problems since February. They got bad enough to send me to the emergency room in the middle of March. The doctors there did a CT scan and found nothing wrong except gallstones, which they thought could be the problem. Sure enough, not too much later I had an unpleasant and painful gallstone attack, and a surgeon told me I'd better have the thing removed. I had to wait a while (they spent a month monitoring my heart because I have a mild arrhythmia), during which I felt worse and worse. When the gallbladder was removed, the surgeon told me it had been very inflamed, and again, I assumed that was the problem.

Over the next month I recovered, and felt somewhat better. The kids and I took off for DisneyWorld in late summer. When we got back, I noticed I wasn't as peppy as I would have liked, but figured I was still recovering from the surgery. I began to feel worse and worse, however, to the point where I was taking two naps a day and still climbing into bed early. It's not good to be that tired when you're a single mom with no backup. I wasn't hungry, and by this point I'd lost twenty-five pounds with no effort since February, which obviously meant I was pretty sick.

Eventually I got irritated enough to head to the doctor. Bloodwork showed I was anemic, and they also found I had bleeding somewhere in my digestive tract. This time they sent me to the gastrointerologist, who scheduled a colonoscopy. It was done the day before Thanksgiving, and the diagnosis was ulcerative colitis. I apparently have the most extensive form, pancolitis, which means the whole colon is involved.

Anyway, it's a chronic disease, with "flares" and "remissions," but it can be managed with (lifelong) medication. I'm on an anti-inflammatory drug, and already it seems to be helping, yay. Already I feel much more like my old self. And it only took most of a year to get a diagnosis! *rolls eyes*

So that's more than you really wanted to know about Ellen's colon *laughs*. It's been a long, hard year, following another long, hard year. But hopefully now that I know what the problem is, and am taking medication for it, next year will be better!

Now that I feel human again, I'm contemplating if I want to get back into professional writing at all. I lost my agent, thanks to my inability to focus on writing due to first mourning, and then my protracted illness. So there's not much chance of me making it back into New York until I get some more small press stories published. But I'm hearing that people just aren't making much in small press anymore, generally speaking, thanks to the faltering economy. I honestly wonder if it's worth it...

Good news is that I still love my dog, and I now have a second Aussie. Here's my favorite picture of the two of them together:

*Shakes head at dog*

As I mentioned below, Hero has a love for opening trash cans. In fact he's just an all-around engine of destruction (which I think is normal for a seven-month-old puppy). Yesterday I put him out to piddle. A few minutes later I looked outside and saw him lying next to the car, chomping on something.

I sent my daughter out to check what he was eating, figuring it was probably trash again. She came back, looking simultaneously amused and bewildered.

"Mom," she said, "he's eating the van."

I went out to check, and sure enough, he was eating my minivan. Well, part of it, anyway. For some reason (who knows why?) he decided to start gnawing on the area just in front of the front wheel well. He'd actually managed to fray it a bit (I guess it's fiberglass rather than metal). I was more concerned for his stomach than for the van, so I yelled at him and took him inside. But every time I let him out, he made a beeline for the van again. I guess I'll be parking it in the garage from now on...

Redecorating

So, as mentioned below, I've been redecorating. Part of this is simply that my house needed some new stuff. Part of it is that I no longer have Vulcan Husband, which means I no longer have to compromise with someone else, and so I can do the house over to suit myself. And part of it is that some of my things were just old and battered and needed replacement.

I've redone my family room pretty extensively. My fifteen-year-old TV finally quit working, so I decided to get a new flatscreen. And because I haven't had a TV in fifteen years, I figured I could justify buying a really huge one (it's amortization!). Hence the fifty-two inch LCD television I eventually decided on. I also had to buy a new piece of furniture to hold my audio components, because the tall armoire I used to store them in would no longer work (it was not even remotely wide enough for the new television). I originally intended to put the TV on top of the new cabinet, but I thought about the havoc my fifty-pound furry missile could wreak if he charged into it, and the TV wound up mounted on the wall instead.

At that point I realized I needed a better place to watch TV. I always wanted a chaise longue, and I found a very pretty and feminine one, covered in pink roses-- something Vulcan Husband would never in a million years have agreed to have in his house. But it's very me. Our old couch was nice, but for some inexplicable reason we thought it would be a smart idea to buy a white one (this was in the pre-kid days) and it was badly stained, as well as beginning to fray around the edges. So I bought a flowery couch to go with the chaise. The old green velvet chairs, however, can stay-- they haven't frayed and they go well with the new stuff, plus they give the dog a place to sit that is NOT on my brand-new furniture!

And then I added a new chest and a new bookcase, and voila, the family room is mostly done (though it could use a new rug, because the puppy ate a large hole in the old one when he was younger). And it only cost me an arm and half of a leg. But it's nice to sit on my chaise, or recline on my new couch, and watch DVD sets on my new telly, so I'm not complaining. Much.

Other rooms have been added to, too, but the family room was by far the most extensive. I still have a long ways to go, however. I need patio furniture. I need a new desk. The house needs painting. I need new curtains...

And so forth and so on. Decorating is fun, but it's pretty much a never-ending project!

Dogproof... not so much

Hero discovered trash cans a couple of weeks ago. I keep mine on the side of the house, and he knocked one over and played happily in the trash for a few minutes before I caught him at it. Not good for his stomach, and not beneficial to the neatness of the yard, either. He didn't do it again, but still, I worried about it. So the other day I went to Target and got dogproof trash cans, with handles that locked over the lid, making it impossible for the dog to get them open. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. Even though he hadn't tried to get into a can since the first incident, he was apparently intrigued by the new cans. Either that, or he saw them as a challenge to be met. Later that afternoon I went out into the yard and discovered that he'd tipped one open and somehow managed to get it open. Trash was everywhere.

He hasn't done it again, so maybe it won't be a problem. But the possibility worries me, and I'm thinking I need to have one of those little enclosures built for my trash cans to keep the dog out. As a mom I know there's no such thing as toddler-proof... and I'm beginning to learn there's no such thing as dogproof, either.

More plants

Houseplants are nice, but it's good when things on the outside of the house grow, too. Besides weeds, I mean. I spent yesterday pulling grass out of the flowerbeds, and then planting ground cover, which will hopefully establish itself and discourage the grass from growing there. The dog lay in the shade (smart dog!) and watched me sweating, clearly wondering why dumb humans go out and sit in the sun for no sensible reason.

I still have a lot more weeding to do, but it was nice to make a big start on it yesterday!

Plants

I previously had exactly one houseplant, a large-leafed, glossy green thing that someone sent me after Vulcan Husband's death. Over and over again, I forgot to water it, it wilted and appeared to be dead as a doornail, I frantically poured water over it, and it miraculously resurrected. It was a remarkably forgiving plant.

A month or so ago, I decided to do some redecorating. I started looking through magazines and books on the subject, and I saw lots of houseplants pictured.

"I can't grow houseplants," I thought. "Every time I try, they die."

It occurred to me that they probably die because I forget to water them (yeah, I'm a brilliant thinker). It also occurred to me that if I just remembered to water them every two days or so, they probably wouldn't die. Well, at least not as fast as they have in the past, anyway. So I went out and bought a few of the more durable varieties of houseplants, like philodendron and ivy (both of which you really have to work hard to kill).

They looked nice. It was nice to have green things in my house (out of the reach of the dog, I might add). I stopped by the grocery store's floral department one night with the intention of buying more ivy, and saw some pretty little miniature roses.

"No way," I thought. "Last time I had one of those, it died."

I considered the matter and recalled that it had died because, you guessed it, I kept forgetting to water it. Once again, it seemed to me that the best solution would just be to water the damn plant. So I brought home a rose (its flowers were a pretty off-white color) and put it on my kitchen table.

It looked nice. Before long I added three roses to my office (pale pink, hot pink, and yellow), one to my bathroom, and one to my bedroom. I then started buying "Lucky Bamboo," which isn't bamboo at all, but which grows in dim light, thus making it a good way to have something green growing in the dark corners of rooms. I bought four of those. I bought a bunch of varicolored tropical plants. I bought a desert rose. I bought four large tree-type plants for my bathroom and family room. I...

Well, you get the idea. I have a heck of a lot of plants all of a sudden. The plants weren't so expensive, but when you add in all the pots and a plant stand or two... well, it's not cheap, but it does make the house look a lot more alive. And to my own great surprise, I haven't had the slightest problem remembering to water them all. Even the Plant of Miraculous Resurrections looks happier, and everything else is growing. Actually growing! Imagine that!