Photographic proof that I was born a dork

It's amazing all the time people spend worrying about how other people think they look. Take Facebook, for example -- I know people who've spent vast amounts of time untagging themselves from photos, cutting others out because having only one arm visible makes them look sort of skinnier, doing self-portraits with phone cameras in flattering moonlight with the phone at a 45-degree angle, chin sucked in, eyes focused 2-3 inches ABOVE the camera. It's amazing that after all that -- most of which I've engaged in myself at one point or another -- that we've allowed pictures like the ones below to continue to exist.

I'm still home recovering from the great gallbladder removal of 2010, so I figured that while I was feeling kind of crappy, I'd reminisce about some times when I also looked crappy. Taking some inspiration from Aunt Becky over at Mommy Wants Vodka, I'm sucking it up and showing you some horribly unflattering and downright embarrassing pictures of myself. After all, someday my kid will probably hate me for posting the ones of him that went up earlier today, so it's only fair I give him something to print out and embarrass me with. Some of these have been posted on Facebook, but there's no harm in posting them again (except to my ego, which is already bruised, beaten and hemorrhaging). *Special note: Chrissy, my lovely sister, I'm sorry I had to drag you into this with me. But it's a short road to hell and I'm happy to ride my tricycle there with you anytime. And with that, I present to you, photographic proof that I was born a dork.

Photo #1:
Lobster? I hardly knew her!



Oh, I'm just so crazy, aren't I? This was in about 2000, shortly after we'd arrived for our yearly summer family vacation at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. It meant five days of getting to be on our own, walking the boardwalk, spending my parents' hard earned money on pooka shell necklaces, candy and t-shirts we'd never wear and staring at boys that we were sure were straight from heaven -- they didn't make 'em like that in eastern Connecticut. And judging from this picture, I can't possibly imagine why most of them wouldn't give us a second look. There are pictures of my dad with this same hat on somewhere, and I'll have to find those. I imagine he's hidden them somewhere far away (probably in the same place as that tape of him singing "Under the Boardwalk" at Rocky Point until my then 7-year old sister told him he sucked). This was during my skinny summer where I somehow managed to tan instead of burn. I'm sure by the end of it though, that my skin matched the color of the hat.

Photo #2:
The Upholstery Twins


In my head, I like to think "Hey, it was the early '90s." But that doesn't do it justice. When we were little kids, our mom did what a lot of other moms did (and still do) and sometimes bought us clothes from consignment shops. There's nothing wrong with doing that, and we did have some very nice clothes (that's because our parents knew the ropes -- they took us down to Mystic, Conn., to the NICE consignment shops, where all the rich people dropped their kids used clothes. Then there was the S&A Boutique -- right, Chrissy? That's another post for another day). However, this was maybe one of the "shouldn't have given that a second look" outfits. This was from the first day of school, 1992. I was going into 2nd grade, and my sister into 1st grade. I remember feeling like hot shit walking out the door in this little get-up and then even a year later looking back at this picture thinking I'd never let it down. First off -- why the hell are we wearing what looks to be upholstery fabric? And second -- are... are we wearing cumber buns? Jesus Christ. I can't believe we were allowed to leave the house like this, or better yet, made it home not having been beaten up or stapled to wing chairs.

Photo #3:
My first job as a tiny maitre'd for the Friar's Club



My sister Chrissy and I are 13 months apart. We are close in age and have been pretty much best friends since we were tots. Apparently all that was not enough for my mom, who also felt the need for us to dress like identical twins. For FIVE FRIGGING YEARS of our adolescent lives, we were constantly confused for one another (even though we don't really look alike) at school. We were called the Bobsey Twins, even though we had no idea who they were. Surprisingly, my major issue with this photo isn't even that we're dressed exactly the same; it's that we look like the the backup singers for the tiniest doowop group in history. Look at my face. I was upset even then that we're wearing these. I'm actually glad we're dressed alike -- I wouldn't have wanted to be the only idiot dressed like a tiny promoter for Crown Royal. This is Christmas Day in (about) 1990. From the shirts with gold-embroidered crowns on them to the button-up jackets that make us look like The Pips to the patent leather shoes with heels too small for tapping and too large to prevent falling off the stage in first grade (shut it Chrissy), we are basically a hot mess.

And last, but not least...

Photo #4:
He's real, and he's spectacular



Sigh. I'm sure many New Englanders will fondly remember a little place in Rhode Island called Rocky Point amusement park. The mere mention of the park stirs up memories of delicious clam chowder -- vats upon vats of clear and red and creamy chowder, oyster crackers, and wonderfully fried brown pillows from heaven that make the baby Jesus smile, err clam fritters (gee, why could I *possibly* have needed my gallbladder out last week? I'm such a fatty). During one of these fateful chowder-filled trips -- apparently one during which I was apparently built like a 9-year old brick shithouse in a pink tank top -- not TOO many years after our parents had made the egregious mistake of allowing their 5- and 6-year old to watch Dirty Dancing (holy crap, that was Johnny's butt! OMG, his buuuuutt!), we came across the Rocky Point photo store. I vaguely remember my parents not wanting to pay for the picture, but we just HAD to have it. I mean, it was Patrick Swayze. Mom, he's going to be your son-in-law someday anyway, we say, picturing grown-up dinner parties where we are jointly married to Patrick, each on one arm, sipping fine wine enjoying prime rib (we were all about the prime rib as chubby kids) and all laughing about that hilariously accurate photo from our childhood. And the thing was, we were convinced that the cutout -- which doesn't look even REMOTELY real, and that's putting aside the side seam of the cardboard which is totally visible -- was as good as the real thing. Sigh. I imagine Patrick is currently rolling in his grave.

I guess we all have embarrassing pictures, albeit some more than others. This is just one installment. I'll try to post some additional photos as I find them at my mom's house. First day of school pics, Christmas pics, all of it. I'll hold nothing back.

Maybe I'll post some from my wedding... to Patrick, that is.

Oh, what a beautiful baby

Not that it's any secret, but... well, we've got a good lookin' kid. He's a very handsome little boy, and I don't mean to brag (okay, I do), but I can't help but being in love with him.

We've been wanting to have professional pictures taken of him since he was born, but he's unpredictable (as babies tend to be). He doesn't have a set day-to-day schedule, and he has good days and bad. We also wanted to wait until he could move around better, sit up and do things independent of us holding him or just him laying down.

So once he was about six months old, I got in touch with Caitlin Wood at Photography by Caitlin. I know Caitlin's work very well, as she shot my wedding and my sister's. I love her photography and I knew if anyone could get some awesome pictures of our guy -- who is extremely wiggly -- she could. And her work didn't disappoint.

The other HUGE bonus to us is that unlike having portraits done at a photo studio or Sears where you pay by the print, and have to have THEM reprint any photo you like, Caitlin gives us all the photos she takes on a CD, along with a release for us to be able to print them anywhere. For example, I got the CD on Thursday, and had a bunch of the photos printed at CVS today, and I can do it again in a month or a year or 10 years, without paying for individual prints.

Here are just a few of the pictures Caitlin took. We are in love with them. If you're in the New England area and looking for a photographer a) who's willing to travel for you, b) who is VERY reasonably priced, and c) whose work is absolutely breathtaking, call or email Caitlin!

The great gallbladder removal of 2010

After the entire emergency room debacle, and from the amount of pain I'd been in that night, I would have let them take my gallbladder out that night if they could have.

On Monday, I heard from my gastroenterologist about the results of the upper GI series. Figuring, since he's at the same hospital as the ER I'd been to, that he knew about my trip there Friday night, I expected to hear that having surgery soon was imperative. Instead, I got a voicemail telling me that the upper GI showed acid reflux and he hoped I was doing well on my medicine. Um... wait...

First off, supposedly the purpose of the tests were to show whether I had an ulcer. Acid reflux wasn't a concern. I had no symptoms, and at this point am thinking that when you make anyone swallow heavy liquid then flip them around on a table, it's going to look like it's coming back up. Second, I'm not on any medicine. Third, nothing about the ER visit at all? Really?

I called back the office and spoke with him and told him about the ER, and he said he'd have his secretary call me to set up a consult with a surgeon.

So last week, I met with the surgeon. He's a smart, confident doctor who I immediately trusted, and who didn't talk to me like I was an idiot. He told me about all the risks, drew me pictures so I could see exactly what was going to happen. He had a dry sense of humor and we ended our consult discussing our phones (Blackberries). I told him I'd like to have the surgery as soon as possible and we agreed on March 4th. I'd be there at 9:30am, and the surgery would be at 11.

The way they remove gallbladders nowadays is much different than my memory of my grandfather having his out when I was a kid. I remember visiting him and seeing the six inch-long scar on his abdomen, and his jar of stones (no thanks, I have the baby that came out of me, that's enough.), but it's not done that way anymore. It's laparascopically removed -- the surgeon makes four small incisions.



They inflate the stomach cavity with carbon dioxide, and insert a tiny camera. They clip the bile duct, "peel" the gallbladder away from the liver, and suck it out one of the small incisions. Then wham-o, no more gallbladder pain (hopefully). Like this, but with bigger boobs (for me).



The doctor told me ahead of time that the scars end up looking "like small cigarette burns." While that comparison seemed a bit odd to me -- how often does he see small cigarette burns? -- the idea of scarring doesn't bother me. I have a c-section scar... let's face it, I'm not going to be in a bikini anytime soon.

Our trip to the hospital was pretty uneventful, save for the baby throwing up on me making us a few minutes late. When we arrived at 9:35, the nurse told us they were "already calling for you in the OR." Not sure how that was possible, but I got changed into the standard ass-baring hospital gown, kissed my husband goodbye and was wheeled down for prep.

The doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists couldn't have been better. I was terrified and told them that -- not so much of the actual surgery, but of not waking up from anesthesia. I remember the IV going in my forearm and the anesthesiologist telling me he was giving me something "similar to valium" that would make me feel relaxed. I felt a little drunk, actually. I remember smiling all the way down to the OR, being lifted onto the table and looking up at the lights, and then I was out.

I woke up in recovery with oxygen up my nose, coughing because my throat hurt from the intubation they do to ensure you get adequate oxygen during the surgery, and with an incredibly dry mouth. I half remember being brought back up to my room, but everything starts to come back together when John came into the room. I wasn't in a lot of pain, I just wanted to go home.

John said the doctor had come out and let him know when the surgery was done, and told him that there had been four stones.

So here I am, three days later, with no complaints. I'm not in a lot of pain; I've been getting by on ibuprofen, and being waited on hand and foot by my amazing husband. I woke up with a tiny bit of blood on my shirt this morning, so I'm supposed to take it easy. I'm not allowed to lift the baby for a few days -- the nurse said nothing heavier than a gallon of milk.

I don't know why I waited so long to get treatment -- I think it's just fear of the unknown. You never know what they're going to find during any particular test, and even though I'm a pretty healthy person, I still get a little freaked out thinking of what could be found.

I don't even have stitches -- the incisions, which are only about a centimeter or two long, are glued and then steri-strips are placed over them. In a few days, those will start to come off, and I'll be good to go.

Back and better than never

Apparently, when you're pregnant and your estrogen levels go bananas, it can cause you to end up with gallstones. Around August, while I was on maternity leave, I started having some pain just below my breastbone. I never knew when it would happen or how long it would last. At first I tried sleeping through it -- it wasn't that severe and felt more like indigestion. By September when I was heading back to work, it had gotten much worse.

The night before my first day back, I was up for hours. I have a high threshold for pain, but this was different. This pain took my breath away. It generally came in the middle of the night and laying down only made it worse. It would last somewhere between half an hour and four hours, and nothing I did made it any better.

My family has a history of ulcers -- both my dad and sister have them -- so I first assumed that's what this was. Combined with the fact that the pain seemed to occur in stressful situations, I thought it would be a quick trip to the doctor and a pill to take everyday. I was wrong.

After suffering with the pain for a few months, I finally did call the doctor -- a gastroenterologist who couldn't get me in (I called in October) until December 23rd. I made the appointment thinking 'better late than never,' but spent a little while calling around to see if I could get a sooner appointment. Eventually I did, but they still couldn't see me until just before Thanksgiving.

The doctor I saw seemed mystified by my symptoms. He said he figured it was an ulcer too, but wanted to have an endoscopy to make sure, and an ultrasound to rule out gallbladder issues.

I had the ultrasound, and low and behold was diagnosed with multiple gallstones.

The doctor had still planned on having me go through with the endoscopy, but when I got the paper in the mail from the Worcester Surgical Center saying my CO-PAY for the endoscopy would be $450 which I'd have to pay in full at the time of service... I told them it wasn't possible. Obviously, hospital services cost money. Having a baby costs money. But hospitals let me set up a payment plan (I don't know how many people DON'T have that type of arrangement -- who has $2,000 to drop at one time?), whereas this 'outpatient facility' wasn't willing to work with me on that. Instead, the doctor said I could have an upper GI series -- where I would swallow disgusting amounts of barium while they took x-rays of my insides digesting it -- that could also diagnose the ulcer. That was January 29th at about 9am.

As fate would have it, I ended up in the emergency room at about midnight that night with the worst gallbladder pain I'd ever felt. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk. I was honestly concerned that something more serious was going on. I held out as long as I could, but ended up calling my parents to come watch the baby so we could head to the emergency room.

Before I get into this part of the story, let me first say that I LOATHE the emergency room. I have to be bleeding or in an enormous amount of pain to even consider going. And when you show up late night, you get treated like you're coming in with a case of the sniffles, no matter what your ailment. Even though I'm telling the triage nurse, who is filing her nails and clearly pissed off about having a pesky patient making her 5 minutes late for her smoke break (no, I'm not saying ALL nurses are like that, just this one) that my pain level is a FRIGGING 10, judging by the smiley face scale...



...I don't warrant any speedier treatment than the kid who shoved a marble up his nose (and no, I'm not kidding, he was sitting in the waiting room with his mom and grandfather, coughed and blew it out and was STILL able to get in and see a doctor before we were) or the college kid who fell down and split his eye open but was content barfing hot dogs into the waiting room garbage can. Yeah.

Finally we get called in and I get hooked up to an IV. It's 1am. They tell me they urgently need me to pee in a cup to run lab tests and make sure my pancreas isn't enflamed and I don't need emergency surgery. Oh and by the way, since they're out of IV poles, my husband has to accompany me to the bathroom while holding my IV bag. Awesome. No potential for "stage fright" there.

Two hours later, we still hadn't seen a doctor, and I decided to text my mom what was going on. I asked John to grab my phone out of my purse... which he informs me isn't actually there. It's not there, it's not anywhere in the room. Awesome.

In the two minutes it took me to pee in a cup, the guy in the room next door -- who the nurse said was there for pain meds -- came in and stole my entire purse, including my wallet, iPod and my phone. Perfect.

The UMass police officer who came in to help and take our information couldn't have been nicer, but the situation still sucked. While talking to us, he asked if we'd thought to check any of the garbage cans. We said only ours, and he ran into the room next door where the guy had been, and low and behold, there was my purse in the garbage can.

My phone was still in it, but my iPod and wallet were gone. An hour later, as we were getting ready to be discharged (the doctor we did finally see was a very nice, albeit very hyper, young guy who said my tests showed up fine and there was no need for surgery right then), the police officer walked into the room with my wallet in hand. He's found it in the garbage can near the bus stop outside the hospital. Wow.

So I did get most of my "stuff" back -- the iPod and my debit card (which he couldn't use without my PIN anyway) were the only things gone. It could have been much worse.

We got home at about 6am, knowing that with my diagnosis and the pain only getting worse, I'd have to have my gallbladder out pretty soon.

Part 2 tomorrow -- the great gallbladder removal of 2010.