I really hope no germies got in there

It's sort of hard to tell if you're getting sick when you've just had septoplasty. After all, your nose is plugged up with just a bit of air coming thru. Just like when you've got a really bad headcold.

My son has been sick with some kind of head/chest cold. On Thursday he asked if I'd give him a ride to the bus stop. Ok, I thought I could do it, I hadn't had any pain meds since the morning before and even tho I was in jammies and my hair was all wacky - who would see me?

I bundled up (it was threatening rain) and went out to the car. The son was out there coughing and hacking up goo. That's when I realized he was sick. Crap. I did not want to get into an enclosed car with him hacking germs.

But I did cuz he didn't feel good, it looked like rain and had to walk.

So I opened up all the windows hoping anything he spewed would fly out the windows.

That was the best plan I could come up with. Ok, so it's not optimal but it was a plan.

Last night I felt pretty good. My voice is all squeeky and deep at the same time but I talked to a couple of friends who checked in with me, I ate dinner, I read til the wee hours of the night. I even slept in til 9 (probably cuz I kept waking up, but still).

Right now my nose is re-filling with snot and my eyes hurt. Itchy hurt. I've sneezed a bunch today (still not good to do with splints and stitches and scabs and a swollen nose). And my throat is starting to hurt.

Maybe it's not a cold. Maybe it's just more drainage and it's making me feel ookie? Ewww, last night I sniffed up some saline (yes, I am supposed to do that to keep things moist in there) and OMG, the saline went right to the back of my throat on the left side and down my throat. I gagged and started to throw up. That was disgusting.

So maybe I'll go take a nap and feel better when I get up? I'm going to try that cuz I can't take anything but Tylenol and we don't have any straight Tylenol. I have some with Codeine from my 'script but I think that is overkill.

See ya later.

Which bug

I find it's rather easy for me to design cutesy designs.  errrrr, as opposed to more sophisticated designs.  hahahah, I'm not saying my designs are great, just that it's easier to do one kind of things for me than another.

The next Spoonflower contest is "Bugs".  Over the last 8 or 9 days (or whenever they announced the category)  I've been wracking my brains to do something that works for me.  I've probably done 6 different attempts - figuring one of them would stick. It probably hasn't helped that I've been down and out recovering from surgery since Monday.

It's funny to try and second guess a market.  I watch what is getting high marks and sometimes it throws me for a loop.  Cute things get high marks, funky drawings  get high marks (funky as in quirky, often hand drawn looking things),  Japanese inspired (the cute stuff, not the kimono type stuff) gets high marks too.  Looser drawings/paintings seem to be quite popular. 

My stuff is usually pretty tight.  Not loose at all, when it comes to drawing/coloring in.  Also, my medium of choice (vector) doesn't always lend itself to a loose way - unless you are very skilled at that and I am not.

So here are 2 different tries for bugs.  

The one above is sort of cutsy, ok, it's really cutesy.  And I like it.  But I'm not sure I like it enough to enter it.  I do, but I also think it's not what I want to enter.

The one above here, the scarabs is a lot tighter.  And I like the drama and that it's not cutsy really.  But would it get votes?  Probably not.  I don't know why the image won't open if you click it. Here is a link to my Flickr page where you can see the larger detail. Click here.

hmmmm, which to enter?  Or should I work a bit on the baby bugs and see if I can make that a bit more dynamic?

I've got 2 days to figure it out.  

btw, I am going to start selling my designs thru Redbubble.com.  So far I only have one thing up there and need to design using greeting card sizes instead of squares as my canvas.  Here is my profile link to RedBubble - Click here. 

septoplasty realizations

Despite the pain and agony of having deviated septum surgery there are some solidly good realizations that come to you while you are writhing in pain.  

1. Everyone thinks you got a nose job because who would go thru this without some cosmetic improvement?  Fer gawds sake I have a NOSE and it's not gonna look any better once the splints come out and all the swelling goes down.  I might have to carry around my surgery orders that spell out: Septoplasty and Turbinectomy.  Not Rhinoplasty.  My nose will be just as full of character as always.

2. Somewhere between day 2 and day 4 your nose gets a sort of Tourtettes Syndrome.  It makes noises on it's own.  Crackles, pops, squeeks, and gurgling.  All on it's own volition.  It's a regular Chatty Cathy.

3. If you're thin you get to see what you look like if you gain 30 lbs in your face.  It allows you to try on a new FAT nose (and find out you do not look so good with a fat nose).  Saggy eyelids plump up to new heights!  Even your lips plumb back up, too bad they look like Meg Ryan lips after a bad dose of filler.

4. You realize facial surgery is not for you.  

5. Finding out breaking your nose is piddling pain compared to not being able to breathe cuz you've got snot and blood clots blocking every square inch of nostril.  The pain of mouth-breathing along with a raw throat due to the breathing tube (did they scrub my throat with salt?) allows you to contemplate ripping your face off.

6. You are terrified of getting the splints removed but oddly want them out right this very minute.  And you wonder if you can make something crafty out of the splints once they are out of your nose. 

7. You realize your young looking and very angelic looking ENT doc is the devil in disguise.  Maybe he'll look more angelic after the splints are removed and I can breathe.

8. You will lose at every game of online Scrabble if you play while on pain meds.

9. They don't tell you your teeth will hurt and your upper palate will become numb.  Yet your nose is more tender than you'd ever believe.  They also don't tell you that you won't be able to talk for days, at least not with a voice.  Just whispers.  That might actually make some people happy.

10.  You will contemplate going outside on the 5th day even tho you have scabs ringing the nostrils.  Your hair is bent all kinds of ways but you really, really don't care. 

11. I have this weird smell in my left nostril.  It's a gross smell and one I can't even describe.  I hope it goes away.  Who knew you could smell something while not being able to smell other things?  

12. Oh, say goodbye to sleep for a while.  And when it does come, it comes with snorts, snores and other weird noises and pursed lips.  

I know I have other realizations, some funny, some not so funny.  I just can't remember them now that I'm not in the middle of some snot or clot crisis.  

My Spoonflower childrens fabric entry

Prior to my surgery I entered a design into the Childrens Fabric contest at Spoonflower.  Here is the link to vote, click here.

Here is my entry.  

It's a print for both boys and girls.  It has a few coordinating fabrics with it as well.  Check out my flickr pages while you're there.  If you see weird thumbnails on each of the coordinating fabrics ignore them...they aren't on the real files.  Some weird glitch with Flickr.

There are TON's of good entries in this particular contest.  Once again, I love my design but there are others I love (that I didn't do!).  The contests are getting bigger, this time 130 entries.  Hahahah, the more entries, the more difficult to win that is for sure.  Spoonflower does allow each person to vote for more than one entry so I hope mine is always in favor somewhere in each voters vote.  One can hope right? 

Pooling snot and mouth breathing

Third nap of the day.  I am soooo tired.  

Tonight I've been able to take some sips of soda out of a straw without feeling like I am choking.  That is a big deal.

I tried reading for a while but my eyes won't focus.  The husband was talking to someone on the phone in front of the computer so I laid down and fell asleep for a while.  I think the only reason he left is the dog has atomic gas.

Luckily for me I can't smell a thing.  The first good thing about septoplasty!

This mouth breathing thing is gawd-awful.  Just thought you 'd want to hear that ONE more time.

People in my house keep turning the heater up to high and it's killing me.  Normally I'm freezing but OMG, I am burning up like nobody's business.  So I keep shutting it off altogether.  

My body is being contrary.  Can't read (when I have 4 books here waiting to be read), I can't drink when I've got gatorade, soda and coffee available to me.  Oh and I made myself some homemade veggie soup last night.  I know I was out of it but I so needed something to eat so I just threw stuff in and made it.  So lots of liquid but still I am sooo thirsty.  There isn't any added salt to the soup ('cept what is in the powdered broth, which is probably a lot now that I think of it) but generally I haven't had any salt.  It's that damned mouth-breathing.

hahahaha, I have to keep tipping my head over to the side so mucus will slide to the side of my nostrils so there is a little air coming in.  If my head is plain old upright it clogs really badly.  Every teeny bit of air is helping me feel better.  I need more.

I tortured myself earlier by watching youtubes of septoplasty things.  I want this over with, well, really I want to feel better so I can enjoy my time away from work.  I have a total of 2 wks (which of course 3 days is gone into the ether) and I don't want every moment of it to be feeling terrible.

I wish my headache would take a hike.

Ok, I am off to go lay down again.  Too much snot pooling. 

Day 3 early evening

 Second nap today.  Slept for 3 hours.  Probably cuz I took a pain pill.  I am getting claustrophobic when I can't breathe.  I started to have a full-blown anxiety attack today because of it.  That's why I took a pain pill and went to sleep. Septoplasty is not for the weak constitution that is for sure.  

My left nostril is really painful.  The throat is easing up some but now I feel like I'm getting sick.  I'm probably not, it just feels like I have the most miserable cold since I'm all stuffy with gunk sliding down the back of my throat.  Some times I feel like I have to throw up (probably all that mucus and blood).  Also have a headache that comes and goes. 

The drainage is still heavy although there is less blood, sorta kinda.  It's best when I lie down, less blood and mucus sliding down my nostrils.  Evidently every time you move it makes the blood pump more volume and out it goes thru the incision.   I was so hoping that by this time all this discharge would be gone.  Nope, doesn't feel like it's every gonna stop.  I looked on the internet to see if it's normal and yeah, I guess it is.  So is feeling like shit for days and days.  Ding dang it.

I still cannot taste (except for sweet and salty) no flavor just intense sweetness or saltiness.  My coffee tastes like nothing.  My work was nice and sent me a fruit basket but it just feels like slime in my mouth.  LOL, no taste.  

Ach, I feel like I am complaining and complaining.  Nothing good so far so I guess it's just par for the course.  I'm not quite feeling up to being all nice and grateful since I just feel swollen, pain, pressure, headache, numbness, nausea and brain-fog.  I'm not even able to read for more than a few mins.  Not books anyway.  

I wonder if I can take Advil instead of Tylenol with Codeine?  I'm not a fan of Tylenol but I guess I might be able to take that without Codeine (if I had any). 

Day 3 morning

For a little while (moments really) I could almost breathe this morning.  Tantalizing. 

Our power was supposed to be out this morning at 8 a.m.  We got a notice on Monday.  But so far the power is on.  Maybe it's because we're on the power lines on the street behind us?  Maybe they thought our power came from the same source as everyone else on our street? Our house sits so far back on our property we're closer to the street behind us than the one we're actually on.

I can see the power line worker on the pole right in our back yard.  I sure do hope he knows our power is on and live.  

My nose is raw.  There is one spot that feels like there is an icepick poking into it.  Some time in the middle of the night I touched it cuz it woke me up and hurt like nobodys business.  I'm still so stuffed up it feels like I'm choking if I drink anything.  I know when we swallow we hold our breaths (try it) but still it's like I can't get any air and it feels like I'm starting to panic.

Well, I am going to go take a nap.  I woke up every hour last night, which means I got more sleep than not and way more sleep than the night before but still I am dragging my butt and my eyes are going wiggy.  g'night. 

An hour at a time

Hmmm, tonight I seem to have set my internal alarm to wake me up once every hour.  11:30, 12:30, 1:30 and now 2:30.  

Feeling better in teeny little increments.  Hope they get bigger every hour.  

See you in a hour! (hopefully not but just in case ya know). 

Day 2

I cannot smell a single thing.  My nose is stuffed full of crap still.  Sore and stuffy.  Throat is easing up some.  Still can't speak except in a hoarse whisper.  

the trash can is getting full of bloody gauze.  

Off to bed, hopefully I'll sleep tonight. please. 

Really need air and to pay attention to the right words

I wrote that last post around 11 p.m. I slept for 30 mins (sort of) and woke myself up snoring.  Can't go back to sleep.  My face hurts and my nose is so clogged with blood clots and mucus it's not even funny.  It was crackling a while back and I could feel it filling up backwards.  

My mouth and throat is so dry it's not funny.  The hub bought me some apple juice but it's so, sweet it's like drinking sugar.  I can't drink it.  I tried some of the trader joe apple juice but for every sip I took I sneezed twice.  I am so not kidding.  Sneezing is horrible, you are not allowed to close your mouth ( I did the first time cuz I forgot) and quickly realized my error.  So maybe I am allergic to something in that juice?  

My nose is unbelievably swollen, it's all fat.  My face is sorta swollen too.  Sadly I am feeling miserable.

Also, I was sitting here thnking I wrote palette instead of palate in my last post.  I have to check, I'm sure I did,  so just excuse the typo  I must have been thinking about color palettes while I was talking about my upper palate.

Which by the way is still numb.  My teeth feel really weird because it's numb.  I wasn't warned about this but I did read about it on the internet tonight when I was looking to see if THIS much bloody discharge is normal,  Apparently it is.  Jeez.  

Ok, let me try to go to sleep again, 

I need air

Yikes, I had surgery today.  To fix my deviated septum and core out the turbinates.  I asked him to be very conservative on the turbinates.  He did mostly the left side since they seemed to be very swollen from working so hard.

Waking up was terrible.  I had to have a tube in my throat so it feels like it was scraped raw and they rubbed salt in it. My face hurt, my teeth hurt! And yes, my nose hurts.

I wasn't bleeding til after I left the surgery center.  I've been bleeding since around 3:30.  It gushes and then I can feel this trickle down into the dressing underneath my nose.  It's gross.  

At the moment I cannot breathe out of my nose at all.  It's all plugged up with clots of blood (ye haw!).  I wasn't going to take any pain meds (hate pain meds) but I ended up taking Tylenol with Codeine because they assured me it wouldn't make me woosy (which is why i hate pain meds).  It hasn't made me woosy, and it slightly dulls the pain for the first hour and half but then it goes back to being painful.  

I have vicodin, but I hate vicodin.  I KNOW it works good, but really I hate the feeling of being so drugged that I can't walk straight.  I KNOW it doesn't do that to a lot of people but it does it to me.  So I'll deal with the pain with the lighter drug, I'm sure I'll be fine after the next 24 or 48 hours.

I thought I'd be off for a week, but no, it's gonna be 2 wks.  I'm not allowed to do anything strenuous, cuz it can start up the bleeding again. 

I am so tired, I think I will try and go to sleep now.  Sleep has been eluding me.  Also, I have to sleep sitting up.  It's gonna be a long night I think.

But eventually there will be air at the end of the tunnel.

4 and a half things

1. No internet last night - sheesh, too much rain and it (Charter cable) goes out.  But not the tv.  grrrr.

2. I had to change my blog setting to accept only registered owners.  Too many anon people posting crap in my comments.  Pain in the butt.  So you can't comment anon here anymore.

3. Today a faculty member called me.  The moment I answered the phone he started talking.  He never took a breath, he just talked.  Told me his Ph.D friend was very sick, was dx'ed w/ 5 different diseases.  He told me all 5 of them (although all I can remember is diabetes) and she is losing her faculties.  She used to be very brilliant and with it but now is not and he is trying to help her.  She has so many doc appts and she needs some help. So could I tell him which taxi company in town could pick her up and deliver her to her many doc appts without ripping her off?

Me: Ahhhh, ummmm, you know you've reached the marketing and media relations office right?  

Him: Yes, I was transferred to you after telling this same story to the operator.

Me: Well, I am sorry but this office can't help you and I can't help you because I'm just a regular person who has never taken a taxi in this city and would not be able to make any kind of recommendation.

Him: Well, I was transfered to you!

And then he hung up on me.

Yikes, I am very sorry about his friend but I do not know what possessed him to think anyone in any position here could help him.  We do not have any kind of service like that and what kind of trouble would I be in if I did tell him some company and it ripped off his friend?  

Why would he think marketing could help him?

3.5 Yesterday some business owner called up and wanted to know what she had to do to get us to market her business to students on the campus.

Ahhhh, well we don't market for other companies, we market the university so I am afraid I cannot help you.

What was she thinking?  Weird.

4. I am off for the next week of work.  Having surgery on Monday. 

Storms and migraines

Southern Calif has been pounded by rainstorms.  Seriously.  So much rain we can't handle because our ground just can't absorb it all.  So it starts pooling and then in some areas starts the dirt sliding.  Mudslides and flash floods.

Over the weekend it rained and rained.  Flooded our laundry room.  Today was dry most of the morning but around 1 p.m. it started coming down, and down and down with accompanying thunder booming and lightning flashing.    The dogs were wild.  All except one who can no longer hear the thunder.  She just followed along with all the other cowering dogs, but her tail was wagging while the others tucked their tails.

We have this tree in our front yard.  It sits at an acute 60 degree angle.  And leans towards the cars.  We're always afraid it's going to go over one day...land on one of the cars.  We also have a mature sycamore.  The branches on sycamores are pretty dry and they fall off on occasion.  

About 1:30 the rain started drumming on the roof so loudly you had to practically yell to be heard.  The pitch changed and it sounded like hail  Sure enough it was hail coming down.  The trees were being whipped into a frenzy (there was a tornado warning in the next county over).  It was wildly fierce.  We stood in the doorway watching it.  I watched the trees, vowing I'd move my car when it stopped.

After 20 or 30 mins it calmed down to just a sprinkle and no wind.  We took the daughter to her doc appt. It was her visit to the neuro and just this morning she had a migraine.  

Her doc changed her migraine meds to AXERT® (almotriptan malate tablets). We'll see how well these work.  at 45.00 they'd better work.  thats the covered price thru insurance.  

He also have her a sample of something else but I forgot to write it down before I gave them to her to put in her purse.  Whatever it is, we were warned that it takes up to an hour and a half to start working.  Not sure that will work for her because her migraine starts about 30 to 45 mins after aura.  When I remember to ask her the name I'll post it here.

She also had to get a new Depakote 'script and blood tests to see how her liver was doing.  

I discussed the differences between her getting Toradol instead of the last stuff they gave her which was a pretty heavy narcotic.  Since Toradol works for her without making her drugged I prefer (and so does she) her to get that.  He told her to make sure she told whoever was giving her the drugs to give her Toradol instead of the narcotic.  Whew.

So tomorrow there is supposed to be a much larger storm coming in.  I'll be at work so I hope the dogs are mostly calm (and indoors!). 

Kvetching: Borders

I love bookstores.  I spend more time in bookstores than any other kind of store.  I read 2 or 3 books a week.  Plus magazines.  Which means, I spend quite a bit on money* at the book store. I'm extremely lucky to have a Borders within walking distance.  Almost all of our entertainment and general shopping is done at this same complex so I'm in there at least every 10 days.  

My kvetching has to do with coupons and Borders.  I have one of their Borders Rewards cards.  It's a free program.  It used to give me a percentage of every book in the form of credit at the end of the year.  The first year I did that I racked up over 150.00 of credit.  Helped me buy Christmas gifts that year. One of the clerks said he'd only seen one other person with that much credit in his store.  Borders stopped that after that first year.  I'm thinking it got wayyyy too expensive.  So they changed it to getting a 5.00 credit every $150.00 you spend (of qualifying merchandise).  Which sucks. But it is a bit of a savings for me.

Barnes and Noble has a much better discount program (and a much larger store than my local Borders).  See it here, click. I can easily earn back the 25.00 you have to pay for the card.  10% off paperbacks and 20% off hardcovers that are not best sellers.  40% off hardcover best sellers.  

So here is my BIG kvetch:  Why can't Borders give me discount coupons that normally come in my email if I have a Rewards Card?  Currently you must print the coupon and carry it around with you and present it to the cashier.  Why?  If they can track the number of books I buy why can't they track whether or not I've used that weeks coupon?

It would save paper, paper that lands in a landfill or has to be processed for recycling.  I would buy more books if I didn't have to keep track of paper in my purse that is no longer valid or which I forgot to print.  If I don't have a coupon I don't buy, I wait.  I'll borrow a book to get me thru the dry spot of no reading material.   The paper waste is huge I think, not to mention me having to use printer ink & paper for a danged coupon adds to the landfill/recycling issues.  

I buy less due to Borders inefficient program.  Take that!  

Now my second kvetch (which I think I've bitched about before) stop publishers from printing new books in the larger paperback format.  We pay approx. 15.00 for a book that uses fewer pages yes, but is almost 50% higher priced than a regular paperback which costs 8.00.  

I'm thinking I need to use the library and get books for free.  And I won't be adding to landfills.   

 *I used to BUY all my books at the book store but now I'm trading books with a couple of my girlfriends.  A whole lot cheaper that way.

A limited palette design

My most recent entry for a Spoonflower fabric contest.  The rules were a limited palette, 4 colors.  Later they stated we could use white and different transparencies of each of the colors.  I stuck with the original colors as I did the design before they made chose clarifications.

I like the design more than I thought I would because of the colors.  The leaves are a green I would not have chosen to go with these colors but I wanted to work it in somehow.

I contemplated not using it at all, but that's less of a challenge for me (although 3 colors, 2 of which are rather dark is a challenge in itself).

I'll post the link to the contest tomorrow when it's published.  It will be good for about 5 days.  If you choose to vote you can vote for as many designs as you want...click on a design and it will put a checkmark at the top left of each design and will be counted as soon as you hit submit. Soooo, don't hit submit until you've looked at them all and you know what you're voting for.  Vote for me! LOL.  Here is the link. Click here. 

There is a bit of a controversy over at Spoonflower.  Mostly people are not talking about it on the blog but they are emailing one another.  The contests have rules but the rules are apparently very soft.  There are two or three entries this time that either added extra colors into their designs or used none of the colors that were given for the limited palette.  Those very few entries are causing the quiet ruckus.  Spoonflower does not eliminate the designs that do not meet the criteria, they let them in saying that it's up to "you" to decide what is a winner.  

I'm one who is critical of allowing those who didn't meet the criteria.  The rest of us did the challenge and are perfectly willing to have those who are voting decide who is the most creative using the limited colors and motifs.  It was a hard challenge to use those colors.  If the rules are allowed to be broken, not just bent but broken they should just have a weekly contest with no guidelines. Allow voters to decide who is most creative or has the best design.  Just my humble opinion.  

Oh well, it's their contest they can handle it the way they want.  

Back with a new look

The holidays are over.  I spent the first week freaking out because none of my shopping was done.  The second week I recovered. 

I changed my blog background, made it wider and it took me all day.  

I'm suffering with sciatica at the moment.  My leg keeps giving out.  Hmmmm, cuz I slipped at Kim's on her slippery floor in my heels?  Or because I've been sitting on my butt?  Or because I am going back to work on Monday?

Am wishing I win 20 million dollars soon.  By the time I have another birthday!  

Oh and if you noticed I was offline, I was.  Nothing personal, everyone was locked out.  But now I am back.