Lake Forest, Day 4

9:27a — I was in pretty good spirits initially since I thought this would go quickly but everything is moving so slowly and the drugs are starting to wear me down and I’m just exhausted, hungry, have a headache that won’t go away (I just want to curl up in a fetal position and cry and they only gave me Tylenol), and I just pulled a muscle in my groin trying to sit up. I didn’t even want any visitors since I was so miserable. I couldn’t even look at my phone or the TV for more than a few minutes so I tried to sleep as much as I could.

11:52a — Surgery tomorrow around 1! Which means I had to get another Covid test (since the first one was only good for 72 hours). I was pretty sure I hadn’t picked up Covid in the hospital but I guess they had to be sure. Unfortunately, this one went to the brain.

12:56p — I heard our Ring camera go off so I checked and it was Katie. Our friend Jen was coming to get the kids to take them to the pool and she was waiting outside. So I surprised her and talked to her via the doorbell.

4:23p — Still have a killer headache. Even tried an ice pack…and more Tylenol. Nothing was helping.

6:22p — The doc finally came in and SURPRISE! She said it’s a hunger headache and I should have been on a sucrose drip this whole time since I wasn’t eating! Plus she gave me Tordol and sleeping meds. I’m happy things are going to get better but I kind of feel like they should’ve known it was a hunger headache since this was my third day of fluids only.

Soooo. It’s possible I’ll be released tomorrow. But also possible they keep me another day to do the actual gall bladder removal surgery. I’m actually hoping for the latter so I don’t have to repeat any of this.

My liver readings are still a little high and she said the surgeon likes to have them more normalized before doing surgery but it’s also silly to go through all this again.

But on the bright side…they brought me a salt packet with my broth. It’s the little things.

Lake Forest, Day 3

7:20a — Currently awaiting prep for surgery—even though I still haven’t officially been told what surgery I’m having…or when. But I did finally brush my teeth and take a hot washcloth to my face this morning! It’s killing me to not have my daily skincare regimen but I figure missing a few days won’t kill me.

2:24p — I was just told I’ll need to have the Endoscopic procedure today (first) because there’s a stone stuck in the duct. Because of course there is. I’ll still need to have the lapriscopic surgery to remove the gall bladder, but they don’t know yet whether it will be tomorrow or scheduled at a future date. It depends on how I recover from the first procedure.

5:05p — Endoscopic procedure complete—and I didn’t feel a thing!! I do remember them warning me the mask smelled like plastic and that was gross. Anyway…they removed sludge! There were no complications and I feel totally fine. Now to wait and see if they say I can have the lapriscopic surgery tomorrow… In the meantime, the countdown is on until 6:30 tonight when I can have clear liquids for dinner!

Anna came to visit since I was feeling really good…and she brought me gorgeous flowers and a balloon!

#pissygallbladder

PLOT TWIST, continued!

Out of nowhere about 9:15 I started having extreme pain in my chest and just felt really crappy—enough so that I texted Tom to come home because I was NOT GOOD. It was time to start getting the girls ready for bed and I couldn’t even think straight so needed him to come handle it.

It wasn’t reflux or gas or anything I’d felt before—and I knew women’s heart attacks had different symptoms and that’s all I could think of. I googled and it didn’t seem like a heart attack but whatever was happening was not normal. I thought if I could just go to bed and hopefully fall asleep…maybe I could sleep through it. But the pain wasn’t going away and it was actually a little scary. And then just like that I felt better! Weird. I sat up in bed and just as I was getting excited that it was over…BAM, it came screaming back. At this point I called Tom upstairs and actually told him I was scared and it was at this point (about 10:30) that I said I needed to go to the ER.

Someone obviously had to stay with the kids—and Tom wasn’t able to drive safely (remember, he’d been at a poker night with the boys)—so he called Anna and she got here—from a dead sleep—within about 10 minutes. She drove me to the ER as I writhed in pain and tried to breathe through it. We spent the next five hours at the ER (10:30p–3:30a), most of which I was in about a level 7/10 pain.

11:15pm

I was on morphine for the pain (thank God for morphine) and it was weird how I could feel the pain ramping up (I started breathing differently) and knew to ask for more. Anna was googling trying to figure out what it could be. She was staying in touch with Tom. She was updating the sleepover moms on my phone. When I wasn’t incoherent with pain we visited like normal.

After some tests and bloodwork—my heart was fine, kidneys were fine, my liver was a bit elevated but not worrisome, and overall bloodwork was all fine. But the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a really pissed off gallbladder. Stones and something else I forget. So then it was my first Covid test ever (which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be) and a leisurely ambulance ride to another hospital to be observed and prepped for emergency gallbladder surgery! Anna went back to our house to stay with the kids while Tom drove to the hospital to meet me there.

3:45am — mask on and ready for transfer
3:57am — off we go to the ambulance
In the ambulance. No sirens but I think the lights were on.

Not exactly how I planned to spend Katie’s birthday…

But I cannot thank Anna enough. Seriously. She was my angel tonight—from the initial car ride to admission to keeping Tom in the loop to grabbing nurses to texting the sleepover moms…to relieving Tom at home (and watching the kids) so he could come see me. Whatever I needed, she was there.

Katie’s birthday sleepover…and more!

Katie had two friends over for her first birthday sleepover. Holy cow were they loud. And of course there was some drama because GIRLS. I was dealing with it all myself because Tom was at a poker night down the street (I had breakfast plans with my mom group in the morning so it was a fair trade off).

But overall it wasn’t too bad. I hoped a movie would keep them quiet for a bit but that lasted about 15 minutes because one girl refused to stop talking and the others were getting annoyed so they just stopped.

And then…PLOT TWIST! Go to the next blog entry for the rest of the story!

Kitchen table shake up!

Someone on Nextdoor was getting rid of household stuff soAnna grabbed a TV and sound bar…and together we grabbed the kitchen table and chairs—Anna wanted the table and I liked the chairs! So they got our old chairs and we had to do a switcheroo. They also took our old recliner that no longer matches anything in our house.

HAPPY 4TH, Y’ALL!

I decided to do a full blue eye with red lips to have a more normal-looking eye instead of a red/white/blue look!

  • Face: CCTM and Light Powder with Clove ShadowSense contouring
  • Eyes: Sapphire Shimmer and Lapis Glitter with Warm Gold Shimmer highlights.
  • Cheeks: Red ShadowSense
  • Lips: Hurricane Red with Prism Gloss

Also? I officially suck at doing other people’s makeup. Especially crazy holiday looks. I didn’t quite mean it to end up like this but oh well. She doesn’t care so it’s all good.

Anna also came over to do a holiday look with my colors since she doesn’t own them (she thought blue was too scary). She looked gorgeous!

And my glitzy earrings that I love!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

Tom’s youth baseball coaching career is off to a great start—the Phillies are the Gurnee Youth Baseball Mustang Champions! It took two days and 9 innings but they did it!

What made the win even more exciting is that they beat the undefeated Cubs to win! (And the Cubs had actually slaughtered us in a previous game—something like 17-2.)

It was a nail biter for sure—they caught up and we were tied 12-12 which then pushed us into an extra inning! And after no scoring, another inning! And then in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, we scored—which meant the game was immediately over!

A special sidenote: Anna and family showed up again to cheer the team on!

Still waving hats from the baseline!

We hired an Interior Designer!

I’ve always wanted to hire a designer so I can end up with a put together room/house…and it finally happened! A friend is an interior designer and came over to give us some guidance! We figured since this is our forever house, we’re ready!

We talked about what we wanted, what we liked, what we didn’t want —and decided on a color scheme, the curtains and rods, the mantle (Tom will build it), and carpet size.

So she sent us to look at furniture and we found a bunch of things we liked right away at the first store—a couch, leather glider chair (to replace Tom’s recliner that will no longer match), a new chair for the front room, a lamp, and an end table!

That night I searched online for the perfect rug and found it! So we have a good start!

Gurnee Moms Hot Mom Summer Kickoff

One of our local Facebook forums (Gurnee Moms) had an event at our favorite restaurant —so most of our group went!

They had a professional photographer and of course I was ahead of the group heading inside to grab a table for dinner (they had appetizers but not nearly enough for the number of people) so I missed being in the group pic.

Internet ax murderers found each other!

On our way to dinner!

A TiVo member was going to be passing through on a road trip so we all gathered for dinner! It was so great seeing them after almost a year and a half!

Dinner at The Turf Room was amazing, too!

PASTRAMI SALMON BRUSCHETTA

SMOKED FAROE ISLANDS SALMON, GRILLED SCALLION GOAT CHEESE MOUSSE,
PICKLED MUSTARD “CAVIAR”, GRILLED PRETZEL BAGUETTE, MICRO GREEN

MONTE CRISTO CROQUETTES

FOREST HAM, BACON, PEPPER, ONION, PEPPER JACK, SWISS, CHEDDAR, SAMBAL SOUR CREAM

SEA SCALLOP CARBONARA

PAN SEARED SEA SCALLOP, SWEET PEA, BACON, SHALLOT, PORTABELLA MUSHROOM, LINGUINI, SMOKED WHITE WINE PARMESAN EGG YOLK CREAM

IMPERIAL AMERICAN WAGYU FILET

8OZ IMPERIAL NEBRASKA AMERICAN WAGYU FILET, GRILLED ASPARAGUS, ROMESCO SAUCE, LEMON OIL

SOUS VIDE FRENCH TOAST

NUTMEG, CINNAMON, VANILLA BEAN, BACON SYRUP, VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM

Heading home…

Our first (of hopefully many!) vacations together really couldn’t have gone much better! Lots of laughs, relaxation, drinks, excellent food, shopping, outdoor stuff, and tons of memories…with only a few kid squabbles. It was over way too soon for sure. Thanks to my dad and stepmom for hosting our motley crew! Can’t wait to do it again!

Look what vacation can do!

These two really don’t get along at home —Honey is just too young and wants to play hard all the time and Maggie is just too old and wants none of it. So we generally try to keep them separated so Honey doesn’t accidentally hurt Maggie… but today they were both tired so I put Maggie on top of/next to Honey and Honey stayed calm and they were totally nap buddies!

I was excited for a hot second.

Anna and I went shopping in Copper Harbor and while she ran back into a store I looked down and saw my odometer said 9999.9 and I was suuuuuper excited that I caught it! So I was taking pics of it so I’d remember where we were… And then realized that that was the TRIP odometer and the actual odometer was already past 10,000. Lordy.

Kayaking, Day 2

The boys were having a blast!

So Katie decided she wanted to go, too. And it started with super big happy smiles…and very quickly devolved into extreme pouting as she realized it was too windy and wasn’t as easy as she wanted. Ahhh vacation.

And this might be my fave photo from the whole trip… Happy boy.

Mini golf and a minor freak out

We took the kids to mini golf in Copper Harbor and due to Covid (short staffing) there was no one working so you paid your money and grabbed the balls and clubs and you could play as long as you wanted! A total dream, right?

Wellllll, we thought they would have a blast and they were okay with us leaving them alone while we ran to check out the campground and general store… except as we were headed back, we saw three of them walking on the side of the road.

UMMMM WHAAAAAT?!

Turns out Owen freaked the hell out (he says because we were taking forever and he couldn’t get ahold of us—phones but no phone service). We thought we were beyond that behavior and paranoia (he’s been staying alone for awhile now) but apparently the not-having-contact thing was the breaking point. So he took off down the road to…try and find us? Find other adults? We’re not quite sure. But Katie and Aiden were with him so they kind of all stayed together.

Of course we felt horrible…but we had zero idea that would be an issue.