Manic Monday and MIA

I'm baaah-aaack...I've had a rough couple of weeks, but I'll get to that later, after my Manic Monday update...

Early AM Alexander...little guys just do not understand the benefit of the end of daylight savings time, so he was up at 6:30! He's got breakfast in that Take and Toss cuppy...Trader Joe's yogurt. So much easier and cleaner than using a spoon!

My favorite pair of hand knit socks on a cold, dark and rainy day.

Wilson Just Word training, all day today...and all day tomorrow. Aren't I lucky?

Thanks to Sarah for the fabulous:

The next part might be a tad graphic, so if you're not into TMI kinds of situation, I would skip the rest of this entry.

Okay, now for the "MIA" and the "rough couple of weeks"...Wednesday, October 20th, Chris, Ian (my youngest brother), and I went to NYC to meet our friend Keisuke and his friend Ginjiro who both flew in from Japan to attend an internet conference. We had a fabulous night. We had an incredible steak dinner at a 5 star restaurant, we had a couple of beers at Keisuke's favorite bar-McSorely's (also one of NYC's oldest bars...it's fabulous!), we made the train we wanted home because we all had to work the next morning, and Keisuke and Ginjiro were flying back to Japan the next morning. It was truly a perfect evening. Fun, friends, food..incredible. Chris and I got home and we were floating on air and went to sleep.

Some time later, about 4am, I felt sick...really sick. I ran to the bathroom wondering why I felt so sick...I really hadn't had much to drink, but here I was, running to the bathroom, not sure what was going to happen, but something bad was going to have to come out from somewhere. There was no vomit to be had, and what I did see when I stood up was something out of a horror movie to say the least. I was a little freaked, but I, being that I was exhausted didn't think that much of it, until an hour later when it happened again, and then it happened again an hour after that. Then my guts started hurting, so I called into subfinder to take the day off. Being the mommy, I helped Chris get Alexander ready for daycare because I was planning to make a doctor's appointment. After Chris left, I just kept feeling more and more pain, so I called my doc's off hours service. I was told to go to the emergency room immediately. So, I drove myself (I live about 4 minutes from the nearest hospital)

I was in the emergency room hallway fore more than 5 hours. These hours included intravenous fluids, a heavy duty painkiller, a urine sample, blood work, an x-day, a CT scan, and an internal ultra sound, plus more slasher film bathroom visits. My large intestines were completely swollen...diagnosis colitis, which is just a fancy way of saying that my intestines are swollen and they don't know why. No one wanted to give me any more info than to eat bland foods until I can see a gastroenterologist, and to stay home from work for a few days. I was sent home with 2 antibiotics and Vicodin. Good times. I was so sick and in pain all weekend that I thought I was going to wind up back in the hospital.

The gastro the ER doc recommended could not (would not?) give me an appointment until the middle of December. Huh? I called my parent's gastro, and she could see me the next Monday. Awesome. All week leading up to the appointment I'm basically eating nothing but rice, plain pasta, and mashed potatoes. I'm totally scared to eat anything else as my WebMD research has totally freaked me out. What if I have Ulcerative Colitis? Or Crohns? What if I have a horror show bathroom adventure again? Ugh.

I was in and out of the doctor's office in less than 20 minutes, and mostly because she was super friendly and chatty. I had E.Coli. She looked at all my "films" and told me they should have put me in a room overnight because my intestines were completely swollen and I could have used the extra fluids. Fortunately, despite sharing steaks for 2 and 3, no one else got sick. The doctor told me that I just got the magic, lucky piece where someone with unclean hand touched the meat that I ate...or a tiny piece hit a dirty piece of counter. Aren't I the luckiest? I did find out that my digestive system has a really strong immune response...all the blood work came back with normal white cell counts, which means that I had dispelled all the evil in a very short time. Pretty cool, I just wish there had been another way to find out that bit of information.