Dianne-isms

So my mom is pretty hilarious too.


"Hal, why are you interested in the weather in places that aren't here? He's hoping Roosevelt will miraculously appear."(Irritated that he was watching the National weather.)

"Hal, you're her Dad. Not her boyfriend." (He was mad that I hung up first.)

"I know I'm old cuz I got like what? Five girls in menopause?"

"He's a hot shot -- let him figure it out." (A guy was trying to merge in front of us.)

That's her. On the right. SO CUTE.

Shash-age Links

These photos are terribly sweet, but it's something I am just not willing to do. She's a better daughter than I. Sorry, Dad.

I wonder if anybody will ever love me like this.

My favorite David/Amy Sedaris story. First 22 minutes-ish of the podcast, though the whole thing is pretty good.

Haha. Rising ocean levels. "Our best hope now is moderating the rise as much as we can by convincing people to only wade in up to their waists."

My dad called me last weekend to totally rest his case. I am never to fly again.

I'm so in love with mural art. Can't wait to see the movie. 

Did you know 3M Company stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing? Well it does. It's a Minnesota Company, just like me. I like to put the word out. For Minnesota. Here's a little story about the guy who invented the Post-It note.

Sunday Favorites: The Poop-Finger-Lick Trick

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on January 9, 2013:

My memories of walking in the woods with my dad usually include boots that are too big for me, walking super fast but never catching up to him, and if I ever did catch up, getting hit in the face with branches I wasn't ready for. Also, he liked to route me past disgusting dead animals like rotting cows with distended bellies or deer carcasses chained to trees for who knows what reason, pretending he didn't know they were there, just to see my reaction.

But there are happy memories too. We always had to stop and look at Lady's Slippers, or pick wild flowers for my mom and sometimes we got lucky and saw something amazing like a brand new baby spotted fawn. I'll never forget how he used to stoop down and stick his finger in some animal's fresh poop, and then lick his finger. He'd think for a minute and then say something like, "he went that-a-way", or "he was here three minutes ago." I always thought he was SO smart. My dad. Such a genius Woodsman!

I learned later in life he really wasn't tasting the poop. He was just sticking his index finger in it, and then licking his middle finger. It's a great trick.

I tried it yesterday on a nature walk in Nepal. Summer and I went on a safari with five Hungarians, and we walked single file behind our guide, who carried a stick. In hindsight I suppose it was really stupid that we eight were out looking for rhinoceros and tigers armed only with one stick, but, When in Nepal... Anyway, our guide stooped down to look at some poop, which I took to be tiger poop. I decided to use my dad's trick after mentally calculating that tiger poop on my finger would be worth the laugh I'd get.

Except nobody saw me do it besides Summer. And it was wild boar poop.

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 8

...Once they saw I was alive and sufficiently annoyed, Beata and Summer felt safe to go home and get some much needed rest after having been awake for more than 30 hours. My sister Kasey brought a book and sat with me for the rest of the day. I was so touched that somebody was willing to sit there for hours while I basically slept.


Oh, and take pictures and post them to Facebook:

• Kasey: She was half asleep eating that. And then asleep. That's how she fell asleep with her bowl under her chin. Same profile. The nurse came to check and we laughed that I didn't move the bed down and put the table to the side. I forget to take pictures. I was reading a book because she would fall asleep mid-sentence.

  Kady: I fell asleep eating?!?
• Kasey: You got what you needed and fell asleep. Like a babe at the teat.
• Dianne: Yes, except at the teat, her eyes would roll back in her head.
• Kady: Mom!!! Stop embarrassing me in front of my friends!!

• Kasey: In her room. In and out of hilarious eye opening. Sometimes just her eyebrows go up, but the eyes remain closed. And her speech is that of a 98-year-old alcoholic who is very tired.

I guess I should have expected that my jerk of a sister Kasey would photograph me and then post to Facebook -- after all she had her gallbladder out last November:

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 7

...And then they wheeled me in to surgery and all of the sudden I got very scared because SURGERY but it was too late and then I woke up. I remember feeling like I had just had a very vivid dream about work. And then I was glad I wasn't at work, and "oh yeah. surgery." So I was like "oh man you guys I was dreaming about work" but then I got back on my game, and as per usual I took it upon myself to brighten the days of the post-op staff with a little hilarity and, of course, as is so common with me, the oh-so-typical resultant accolades taking the form of laughter.

"WHERE IS MY SON!? I DEMAND TO SEE MY SON! WHERE. IS. MY. SON?!?!!" I screamed, in as dramatic a movie voice as I could muster.

Nobody laughed. You know I think now, after all this, that Doctors and Nurses and Anesthesiologists are more concerned about things like "white cell counts" and "oxygen levels" and "blood pressure" and "are you alive?" and "how do you feel?" than they are about having a good laugh. I guess that's why they studied the sciences and we all studied the arts. I heard my post-op nurse say to somebody walking by, "this one's a jokester", as if to explain why her patient was embarrassing her.

Oh man this guy next to me would NOT SHUT UP. He was talking about all kinds of stuff. And he was all like mad and being mean to the post-op people. It was so clear to me what he was talking about and it was SO ANNOYING. I couldn't WAIT to tell everybody all of the details of absolutely everything he was complaining about. Here's me later, telling that story (in my favorite Summer-Grimes-filmed-appendectomy-video that never fails to make me LOL):

Sunday Favorites: The Camp Chair

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on June 6, 2012:

I was reminded to bring a camp chair to this weekend's MS 150 mile bike ride* from Duluth to Minneapolis by my team leader, Chuck:

"Lawn chair - Very Important - Drop your lawn chair [...] before 3pm on Friday and it'll be waiting for you in Hinckley - if you don't bring a chair, please don't assume that it's okay to sit in other's chairs in Hinckley. Danger!"

Ha! "Danger!"

This reminded me of a story: A few years back a friend of mine went on a huge 15-20 girl hiking trip up to the Superior Hiking Trail. One of the women on the trip was painfully shy and had never been away from her husband of several years, except for going to work and the occasional TWO HOUR MOVIE. Seriously, this was her first girls' trip, and a weekend one at that. 

Everybody was instructed to bring their own camp chair. The first night, as daylight started to dwindle, all the girls moved from picnic tables and smaller groups to one large circular group around the fire. It was noted that there was one chair missing. The picnic table was dragged up to the fire to accommodate everybody, and discussion ensued for some minutes about how one of their chairs must have gotten knocked over and landed in the weeds. Some even started feeling around in the dark to find the missing chair. The search was unsuccessful and it was decided that it was going to have to resume at daylight.

The next day, the chair was nowhere to be found. Speculation regarding it's fate began. Could it be possible that one of the other campers at another site STOLE it? Surely that couldn't be so. The chairs were counted, recounted and counted again. Someone had the bright idea that each woman should stand next to her chair so it could be determined whose was missing. Unfortunately a few of the girls were at the showers at that moment and so it wasn't determined.

The entire weekend went by with plenty of hashing and rehashing what must have happened to the missing chair. And when it was all over and cars were packed and miles were driven back to the city, one of the women dropped the Shy Girl at her home. As she was getting her stuff out of the back, her driver asked, "hey! Where's your chair?", when she breezed by -- briskly walking to the house, whispering over her shoulder: "I didn't bring one."


It must be mentioned that during the entire weekend: the fire the first night, the discussion at the fire, the search the next day, the "stand next to your chair" detective attempt...Miss Shy was always sitting in a chair (or standing next to one), not admitting anything.

Not her chair. She didn't bring one.

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 6

...So maybe I did, and maybe I did not shove a Vicodin pill up my butt somewhere near the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota -- and maybe my butt did and maybe it did not basically grab that Vicodin pill out of my trembling hand and suck it up into oblivion. Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't fascinated by how well my body seemed to accept and in fact welcome it. I'll never tell. Because I'm a lady. Who reveals nothing.

What I will tell you is that Beata drove like a madwoman from Tiny Town Wisconsin to Minneapolis on a straight shot up the I-94 and we made it there in no time. I slept for most of it. My appendix did not burst, thanks goodness and when we peeled into the ER at Abbott Hospital they were primed and ready for us. All credit to the nice folks at the Tiny Town ER, who called ahead and let Abbott know all the details and that I was on my way.

I was admitted immediately into room 12, I believe, but how can one be sure of such minute details when one is under the influence of a Vicodin one may or may not have shoved up their butt?

Everybody at Abbott was great. They agreed with my decision to come back to Minneapolis and almost everybody I spoke with wondered why a relatively young Wisconsin surgeon "didn't do laparoscopic" "appies". The fact that they called it an "appy" made me feel at ease almost immediately. If you know me well you know I like abbreves and especially ones that end in a "y" sound. Also you don't give a pet name to a surgery you're not performing on a daily basis. At least I don't think you do. 

From here things moved pretty quickly and I think basically I just had to sign a bunch of stuff and then my sister Kasey and niece Miyo arrived and Summer's brother Justin and his wife Kassie got there and we all sat around joking while I tried not to think about what was going to happen to me.

One time my gown feel completely off when I tried to get up from my bed to go pee, and the door was open to the whole ER:

OOH, and I always love it when they ask me if I'm married! Rita, the Nurse Anesthesiologist seemed very surprised that nobody loves me and then when I asked her to "find me a good one" she confessed that there weren't that many single people around Abbott. Which is bull crap because Dr. Mumm was pretty adorable and I might have even told him so. I can't remember.

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 5

Where were we?

Yah. Escaping the confusing Emergency Room in Tiny Town Wisconsin and speeding back to Minneapolis without hitting a deer.

I was worried about the three-hour trip. When my morphine ran out a few times in the ER, it was painful. Bad. So I asked the nurse to shoot me up the minute before we left and asked what I should do if I started to feel pain in the car.

"Well, you're not allowed to eat or drink anything before surgery, so I can give you a Vicodin...but..."

"But what?"

"You can't eat or drink anything."

"So how am I gonna?...Where does it...?"

Her face got serious. She handed me a glove, the pill and some lubricant.

"...OH."

Never forget. 

"For all the good it did me, I coulda shoved it up my hind-end." -Hal

Sunday Favorites: Hilarious. (In My Dreams, Anyway.)

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on March 17, 2012:

I was laying in bed with Brad Pitt in my dream last night. You see, I was in the bed because he and Angelina Jolie offered for me to sleep on the fourth floor spiral staircase tower but when I got up there it was only barstools and totally windy I was afraid of heights, so the only other place for me was in the bed next to Brad Pitt, obviously. We were only looking at a photo of him and a bunch of kids lined up on some 1970's basement stairs. In the back, there was a framed picture that said, Minnesota. I was hilarious when I said *out of the side of my mouth, in 1930s-newspaper-worker-accent and with hand up like a mock Vlassic pickle*, "Minnesota? I'm pretty sure I've been in that basement." He laughed.

Angelina Jolie came in the room. She was wearing a very strange outfit. When I saw it, I quipped *out of the side of my mouth, in 1930s-newspaper-worker-accent and with hand up like a mock Vlassic pickle*, "Wow, that outfit is like equal parts Rosie the Riveter, G.I. Joe, and Pippi Longstocking." Of course, she jumped to an incorrect conclusion and slowly and dramatically loaded a double barrel shotgun -- the kind you bend in half to put the shells in -- and I begged her not to shoot me but she did anyway. Right in the shoulder and even in the dream it hurt real bad.

I started to sort of scream and make weird noises (kind of like that news lady who was crushing grapes on YouTube and she fell and started making a weird gurgling throat noise and the whole world laughed at her), and then I decided that I was embarrassing myself and so I cut it out. As I was bleeding to death, I asked them if they didn't mind if I called my mom. I called her, laughing about how I was totally calling from BRAD and ANGELINA's cell phone. I told her I was probably dying from being shot but still cracking jokes about ending up in some gossip magazine like the Star Tribune (even in my dream I realized this was in error) in a weird love triangle that didn't exist. Because NOTHING was going on except me cracking Brad Pitt up over and over, obviously.

Then Angelina Jolie ran outside like a crazy person and threw the shotgun in the snow. I looked at Brad and said, *out of the side of my mouth, in 1930s-newspaper-worker-accent and with hand up like a mock Vlassic pickle* "that's a really bad idea", and we laughed again.

"Kady, you are hiLARious in your dreams."

A Text From My Sister Keri

'I felt sorry for little Dickie last night and so I didn't put him to bed in his kennel. He was so happy he left me a smiley face to wake up to. (I promise I did not alter it.)"

Hal-isms, Vol. 52

"You know that saying 'come out smellin' like a rose'? You know where that comes from? Actually, the whole thing goes: 'you could crawl in a bucket of crap and come out smellin' like a rose.' You and me, Kady? We could crawl in a bucket of crap and come out. But we'd still smell like crap."

"I can't afford to get my chest pains checked out. Your mom used all the money on her health."

"Kady, If I leave one shirt out on the back of a chair, she's upset. If Rowdy has ten pillows and she has eight blankets strewn all over the house there's nothing wrong with that."

"I got a revelation for ya on my learning how to spell. But I'm really worried about...I'm calling about your back. How's your back, Dear?"

"When I die your mother'll sell all my guns and sit down at the Nighthawk. Drinking and listening to the jukebox -- her lipstick askew."

I guess he's resorted to suspenders now. So his pants won't fall off his narrow hips.

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 4

I know this appendectomy story has gotten quite long, but I'm not even sorry. Because. So, where were we?

Yah. Surgery. 

The Wisconsin nurses asked me if I had ever had surgery before, and I said, under heavy doses of narcotics, "I think I'm fully intact other than my wisdom teeth."

After the results of the CT scan were clear, and it was obvious that I needed to have an appendectomy, I met with Dr. Birkenstocks again (while he literally sat on the floor of my hospital room. I have video, but that would be mean) to express my concerns about being in the "middle of nowhere" and asked my questions about this scary surgery. The following is our conversation, loosely based on the facts, as remembered by someone who was on morphine at the time. 

"I'm on a road trip. Can I still go on the road trip?"

No.

"OH, so is there any way that I could go back to Minneapolis and have the surgery at Abbott Northwestern Hospital? It's like a mile from my house."

No. Look, whatever happened to you in the last 24 hours to cause this attack, well it worked fast and the next thing to happen is your appendix is gonna burst. We need to get it out of there. It's really a miracle that it hasn't burst already. 

"OH. OK. So, how long is the surgery?"

45 minutes.

"How long will the recovery be?"

You'll be released probably tomorrow, and you'll need to rest, but you'll be back to normal activities in about two weeks.

"How big will the scar be?"

It will be tiny. They'll go in with a small camera to do an exploratory review of the situation. If everything is as we expect, they will then remove the appendix. 

"OH. OK. So my friends won't need to get a hotel room then...in this town, right? We can all stay here tonight and we'll most likely be on our way tomorrow?"

Yes. If things go well you'll be out of here tomorrow. 

"Can they sort of do the scar, like, below my bikini line? I mean, I don't want to be a Princess, but, you know, I like to whip out my chubby stomach at parties to be like funny and it's kind of my thing...it's this thing I do...I mean I don't really want a scar ruining my schtick."

Yes. There will be three small holes and whatever we can get under the bikini line, we'll get under the bikini line. Look, the surgeon will be here soon. You can ask him all of these questions when he gets here. We'll get a printout of the CT scan and he will review it with you, and show you exactly what's going on, and where the incisions will be and, I'll warn you: He'll probably be a little grumpy from having to wake up at 2:00 in the morning, but he's the best one to answer all of your surgery questions. 

And then Summer and Beata and I all fell asleep and waited for the surgeon and his staff to get to the hospital. Or, should I say, Beata and I fell asleep:

And then the surgeon and his team got there and it was time for surgery! I could see five or six people standing outside my room all in blue and "scrubbed up" and I started getting nervous. The Nurse Anesthetist came in and asked me a few questions and I asked him a few questions and then I signed something. Then my surgeon and his PA came in the room and asked if I had any questions for him. I was a good participator and asked him, gosh, you know I just remembered that I have a ridiculous [Dad: you might want to sit down for this part] ladybug tattoo that I got 15 years ago [It's true. I have a tattoo. I've successfully hidden it from you since 1999 when I got in in San Francisco when I was stupid and 22-years-old. Don't be mad. I love you. And you didn't come to any of my student-teacher conferences or marathons or my surgery] and the ladybug would look really dumb if they sliced it open, could they maybe avoid it during surgery? He asked me to show it to him and looked very confused when he saw that it is sort of near my hip bone. He said his incision would be nowhere near it. And then I got confused. More conversation:

"So, where exactly where will you put the three small incisions? I was told you could try to get most of them below the bikini line?"

Who told you that? I don't do laparoscopic surgeries. I do open surgeries.

"WHAT?! HUH? Everybody since I got here told me it was laparoscopic. Don't they always do appendectomies laparoscopically? Um...OK...well then can you make the incision below my bikini line at least?"

*laughs, condescendingly* Your appendix isn't below your bikini line.

"Well then where will the scar be?"

*laughs* It will be about 5 inches long, from here to here *draws imaginary 10-inch diagonal line from just under my rib to well below my belly button*. How does this feel? *jabs my appendix HARD several times* 

"OW! It hurts really bad! Oh man, that's terrible news -- I really don't want a big scar like that...can you show me the CT scan now please? I'm so curious about exactly what's going on here and I need a second to think about this scar."

*laughs, incredulously* I don't read CT scans. The radiologist reads CT scans. 

"I was told you were going to review it with me before my surgery."

*laughs, then huffs* Who told you that?!?

"The ER Doctor! Look, I'm getting the impression that you feel like I'm asking you a bunch of stupid questions, and I can see that we got off on the wrong foot here, but please understand I'm just repeating to you what was told to me. I was told that it was a 45-minute laparoscopic surgery, that I would probably be released tomorrow, if all goes well, and that I will recover pretty quickly but just be unable to do any physical activity for about two weeks." 

*now he's really mad* The surgery is three hours. You will be in this hospital for no less than three days. You can't do any physical activity for six weeks.

"Whoa. OK. My friends would have to get a hotel room here. Everything you're saying is so different from everything I was told. Wait, I can't ride my bike for six weeks?! I'm starting to feel really uncomfortable. I'm so sorry -- I'm just feeling like I would much rather go back to Minneapolis to have this surgery. There's a hospital about a mile from my house. Is there ANY way that I can safely get back to Minneapolis to have this surgery?"

*to his credit, he softened here* Kady, I want you to be comfortable. You don't seem comfortable. If you want to go back to Minneapolis, you should go back to Minneapolis.

"So are you sure my appendix won't burst in the three hours it takes to get back to Abbott? They started me on one bag of an antibiotic to prep for surgery. They said there were two bags. Maybe we could finish the second bag, and then you could give me another shot of morphine right before we leave to last me the car ride and are you sure my appendix won't burst?"

Of course there are no guarantees, but the way I see it, your biggest risk on the drive home would be a speeding ticket. And don't hit a deer.

OK. Can you give my friends and me just a minute to deliberate?

And then he left. Summer and Beata looked at me and I think by now I had tears in my eyes. I said, "will you guys please take me to Abbott? I don't want you to be scared, and I know I'm putting you in a terrible position, because I know you don't want my appendix to burst in your car, but I just think I really wanna go to Abbott" and they were like YES, OBVIOUSLY WE GO TO ABBOTT (I love them). And then it was basically just like in that scene at the end of the movie Big Fish (the first 1 minute and 35 seconds from the clip below), and they got me outta that place!! (Not before asking the nice people to call ahead to Abbott and explain the situation and tell them that we were on our way. And then the Wisconsin hospital people asked us how to spell "Abbott").

And then Dr. Birkenstocks came back in the room, and apologized profusely for the misunderstanding. I said, "listen man, NO HARD FEELINGS. I am so happy with my treatment here. Everybody has been really great. But I'm vain and I don't want a scar, and I wand the shorter recovery of a laparoscopic surgery and would feel so much better to do that recovery closer to home. We don't even know the NAME of this town! Where are we? And these two, they can sleep in their own beds. And please tell those ten people out there I AM SO SORRY that they had to get out of bed and drive all the way here and now I'm not having my surgery here."

And then they packed up their smorgasbord picnic and helped me escape!

First 1:35 of this clip = Summer and Beata busting me out of middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin hospital:

Sunday Favorites: The Bane of Hal's Existence

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on September 30, 2011:

Perhaps it's a touch of the autism, but my dad really enjoys continuity. Organization. Cleanliness. (We are talking about everything but his booger jeans here.)

And so, much to the chagrin of his six young children, he HATES it when people write in concrete. We were never allowed to do it. Boy would he get annoyed in New Orleans. It's like when a new piece of concrete is poured the whole neighborhood gathers around and writes in it.  There isn't one piece of sidewalk that isn't completely littered with writing:

(Side note: these New Orleans water meter covers are pretty famous...)

Which reminds me of a story.

This summer, my Mom and Dad and I were sitting at home when a truck pulled up to our house, honking like he was an old friend. A man with a Southern accent asked if we wanted our driveway asphalted. He was in town working on the road and had some extra, and did we want him and his crew to put some in for us? My dad yelled 'no thanks' and the man drove away. About a week later, a different truck and a different man with a Southern accent drove up and honked and asked us the same question. This time my dad went out and talked to him for about an hour. I was freaking out because I didn't want this snake oil salesman bilking my dad out of thousands of dollars. So I marched outside, stood between them, and grilled that Southern man. Just where the heck was he from? He said Worthington, Minnesota. I asked, "what's your street address?"  *pause* THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT. I said, "don't you think it's a coincidence that just last week another man with a Southern accent came in here trying to sell us asphalt?", and "where are you going to be when we have problems and need to contact you?", and "how are you going to re-sell asphalt to people that the city already paid for?" and "do you have any idea what a full time job it is trying to protect my elderly parents (sorry Mom and Dad) from you shifty salesmen so that they don't spend all of my inheritance???"  *ha.  There is no inheritance.  What a joke.

His bid miraculously went from $16,000 to $10,000 in a matter of five minutes and then down to $8,000. You gotta be kidding me. In the end, of course my dad didn't do it, but we got to thinking about doing something about the dirt floor in the garage.

He decided to shop around locally for a contractor right in Roosevelt who could do the work, and CONCRETE, please. (Who puts asphalt in the garage, anyways?)

We found a guy who did our neighbor's garage floor, and came highly recommended. He came in at his bid. He worked fast. He's even working on future projects for my parents.  Everybody wins.

EXCEPT: He was set to pour the concrete the day that I left for New Orleans. And so I wouldn't be able to secretly write my name in the floor of the garage, securing my place as favorite daughter and also world's best prankster. So, I contacted him and told him I would pay him $100 to secretly write 'Kady' somewhere when he was finished. Somewhere inconspicuous, hidden. My plan was that my dad should get mad at me once. Not every day for the rest of his life.

Well, he did it!  Free of charge. I was so excited about our little secret. And my dad called me and freaked out when he saw it which was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. It was. Satisfying.

Unfortunately...

Crappy penmanship. And he wrote it WAY TOO BIG. No wonder this kind of thing irritates my dad so much. My mom sent me a photo:

Here it is.  In foot-tall letters.  That's a standard-sized palate there in the photo.

My mom says it looks like Lucy from The Peanuts wrote it.  I guess if you want something done right...you gotta delay your trip to New Orleans.

Appendectomy Aside...

Maybe you did and maybe you didn't notice the weird sink in a previous post about my Appendectomy...

This weird sink:

I am SO proud of myself for figuring out how to get those arrows on there.

We found it very strange and "middle-of-nowhere-Wisconsin"(?) that there was this extra weird sink and so we tried to figure out its' purpose. Upon closer inspection, we found out there was totally a poop-streak in it.

Now...how?...I mean, it's not a place you can sit down for a nice poop, and so the obvious conclusion is that this is the sink where the nurse empties the bedpan, right? So it's like a vicarious toilet. Doesn't that seem like the only logical explanation? And so, then logically, wouldn't it make sense, also, that the SAME NURSE would have absolutely noticed the poop streak and given it an extra flush? 

Is it just me? Or is that what should have happened? 

Exhibit A

This was an obvious photo to stage. Beata was so scared. HA!

"Beata! Relax. You're not going to get poop on you! Now don't laugh."

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 3

...The morphine took about an hour to fully take effect and then I was in much better spirits during my hospital stay. We were told that a CT scan would be the next step in determining whether the gallbladder was in fact causing the pain in my upper abdomen. Summer, Beata and I settled into the idea that our road trip plans were probably pretty much ruined, though we held out a glimmer of hope that maybe the CT scan would reveal nothing was wrong after all (typical whenever I have decided to finally go to a Doctor in my life) and that perhaps we could continue on, albeit delayed. 

I had to drink something so that my insides would glow properly for the CT scan. I don't know if it was Barium or what, but the cup said Barium, and I was on morphine so I went with it:

This nice lady arrived with a wheelchair to deliver me for the CT scan. First class service all the way. Nothing less for this fancy lady: 

At some point however, I began to wonder if I really truly need to be in the hospital...I mean after the morphine takes effect, let me tell ya...and p.s. you know how I initially refused the morphine? Here's a tip I received via text from Summer's RN sister Holland: "Kady. Rule # 1: Never refuse Morphine."

In addition to the Barium or whatever it was they had me drink, they injected me with two very scary looking vials of cloudy liquid, which I was warned would feel immediately warm, and the warm feeling would congregate in my crotch and would feel like I was peeing myself. This turned out to be all 100% true. That is exactly what it felt like, warm and weird and then a burning in my crotch. And a feeling like I was peeing myself. Anyway, other than that it wasn't bad. I'm very claustrophobic and was terrified of the idea of a "CT scan", imagining an MRI tube-like-machine, but this thing was no bigs...more like a big donut than a tube, and never even came near my face.

They immediately uploaded the images to a radiologist in Madison and after two hours, it was determined that my gallbladder looked totally normal. But he or she (I like to imagine it was a she, because this was a BRILLIANT call) didn't like the look of my appendix and ordered up two additional views of my innerds. Back to the wheelchair and back to the first class fancy lady service and back to the CT donut machine. Apparently said appendix had moved up into the upper part of my abdomen (this is rare, but it happens enough that it's called something like "lateralizing" or at least that's what I think I remember them saying) and that's why I didn't feel any pain in my lower right quadrant -- where appendicitis typically presents itself. Dr. Birkenstocks did a couple of push tests and lifted my right leg and exactly where he was pushing and lifting I felt excruciating pain. The new CT views confirmed it. Acute appendicitis it was. Get this though: acute appendicitis caused by an appendicolith, aka fecolith, aka fecalith, which I and the Doctor took to calling a "shit stone", because that's exactly what it is. Look it up.

And then I told the girls, "I KNEW this was gonna be shit-related."

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 2

...So the girls brought me to the Urgent Care, in Who-Knows-Where, Wisconsin. I had been doubled over in pain for nearly 12 hours, and dry-heaving for five so they were a bit concerned, and it turns out they were right to be. 

The Urgent Care people rushed me right into a room and those blessed caregivers hooked me right up to an IV (I was so dehydrated they could barely find a vein to poke), gave me MORPHINE after I repeatedly refused it (I did not want to take a crazy medicine known to make people nauseous and addicted when I was already feeling SOOOOO sick, and plus isn't morphine for people who have serious problems???), took a blood sample which showed that my white cell count was up to 20.9 (normal being about 11 or 12) indicating that my body was trying to attack something. I mentioned that my little sister Kasey had to have her gallbladder out a couple months prior and my mom had hers out when she was pregnant with me and all of my symptoms seemed to point to a probable gallbladder attack. A CT scan would get us closer to finding out. I was congratulated for not having eaten or drank anything for at least several hours because I was probably heading for surgery.

SURGERY??? I DON'T GET SICK. Well at least I had Summer Grimes there to document the whole thing:

I guess my veins are very tiny.

Summer's concern may have been feigned, but this pain-face was very real.

They set about dividing my assets right away. Brand new Dior lipstick got dibbsed by Beata.

Dr. Birkenstocks. At one point I apologized and asked if he could smell my stinky breath and he said, "well it doesn't smell like peppermint" and I about died.

Hospital beds are more fun with friends.

Super stinky breath. Well, I hadn't eaten or drank anything in hours, and spent the whole day puking. Whatdya expect?

I love these two.

Obviously because we were on a weekend road trip, we had a carful of food. And obviously, after five hours of driving, these jerks were starving, but did they have to lay their smorgasbord out right in front of me? It's like they were already dancing on my grave. Well, they did save my life. And check out my pedicure:

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 1

It all started with a road trip with my two best friends. I didn't feel well and in fact that morning, I didn't finish my breakfast. I ALWAYS finish my food so that was a little weird. I figured it would pass though and decided to tough it out for a few hours.

Immediately after we got on the road I yelled, "pull over!" and that was pretty much how it went for the next five hours. 

I puked a million times, all across Wisconsin.

And they took video, because they're my best friends.

These are screen shots from the videos, since I didn't want to subject you all to a bunch of puking noises, aren't I nice?

Happy, happy puking girl.

AT some point they realized they should hold my hair back and be REAL best friends:

It took us five hours to go three. I wasn't actually puking anything up, but more like dry heaving and I was in a lot of pain. After a while of me crying in the back seat it wasn't funny anymore. Well, it was funny. But more like awkward-funny:

So eventually they started to bring up the idea of going to the Doctor. And I don't go to the Doctor, so I was like, "I ain't goin' to no Doctor!" But then one time we had to pull over on the side of the freeway, with semis and cars passing by at 80 miles an hour and it was very scary and I couldn't puke but I couldn't stomach the idea of driving, either. They found a Walgreen's pharmacy 16 miles up the road, to see if maybe the Pharmacist had something to make me feel better. He said you gotta take her to the Urgent Care -- it's just a couple miles away. So they did. And I quit arguing because it hurt so bad.