Thousand Word Thursday, On Friday

This week's topic for Thousand Word Thursday from Amy of Babbles of a Bandster is:
Your favorite place where you live (your house, your town, whatever you choose to define as "where you live") - the place where you relax, recenter, regroup. Show us and tell us why it's YOUR place!

Notice The Terribly Adorable Pup at the Bottom of the Photo

So, this is my Mecca on The Compound. Husby and I have enjoyed many a sunset here, and really enjoy the serenity of country living. Truth be told, I fancy myself more of a City Girl, and when we moved to the Temecula Wine Country in 2008, Steve had to drag me, kicking and screaming.

Wanna know a secret? Neither Steve nor I are smokers, but every once in a while we sneak a couple of ciggies, and smoke them in these chairs. It's kind of dangerous, because, as you may recall, we live on what is lovingly referred to as The Welty Compound. One of these days, we're gonna get busted by a family member dropping by, unexpected. We are such rebels. Crazy, I tell ya.

Whew!

Well, I had the Upper GI Endoscopy yesterday, and the results came back normal, so my band has not eroded, thank God. The procedure was easy-squeezy, and only lasted about 5 minutes, although I was doped up for about 30 minutes, and have no recollection of the procedure. That whole "conscious sedation" gig is quite a trip. When I told the husby that I would be in a "twilight sleep", he gave himself a license to make some really stupid vampire jokes. All. Day. Long.

They were great at the La Jolla Endoscopy Center, but there was kind of a funny moment when they wheeled me from the pre-op area to the procedure room. I went in head first on the gurney, and the receiving RN said to me, "You're here for a colonoscopy?", and I said, "Nope, an upper endoscopy". They quickly did a 180 with my gurney.

So, even though the erosion has been ruled out, we still do not know the cause of the infection and hematoma. I started a series of antibiotics, and we'll see how it reacts. There was some mention of a surgery to relocate my port, but I will exhaust all other options before taking that step. Not a big fan of the whole general anesthesia thing. But, the elimination of the erosion possibility gives us time to figure this out. For now, I am oh-so-relieved.

Freaking Out A Bit

I think I have mentioned in the past that I have had occasional pain at my port site, near or around the incision. My surgeon has put me on antibiotics on two occasions, to address the issue, which usually manifests itself with an ugly bruise and some swelling at the incision. All my other incisions healed so nicely, and have pretty much disappeared, but this damn port site has given me nothing but trouble. Sometimes it is worse than others, but it has never been unbearable--only painful to pressure or when I stretch it, usually exercising or...well, you know (wink, wink). Well, it had actually been doing well for the past month or so, and the scar seemed to be disappearing a bit. Until I got a fill just over a week ago. I am always tender there after a fill, for whatever reason, and this time was no exception. Except, in the days following, the incision area began to bruise & fill with blood, seemingly worse than ever. Again, tenderness, but not awful. Well, this morning I was in Aqua Aerobics, and the sprints were causing me pain, so much so that I had to hold the port area to offer support. I called the surgeon's office to get me in, and they had availability at 1:15. I was not overly concerned, but wanted him to check it out. Well, his reaction totally freaked me out. It went something like...."Let's have a look. OH MY GOD, that is NOT GOOD. This is very serious, Jennifer! This is so very different that when I saw you last week. We need to schedule you for an Endoscopy immediately to ensure the band hasn't eroded". He whipped out his cell phone right there and called a Gastroenterologist colleague, and asked him to consult with me today and squeeze me in first thing tomorrow for the procedure. Dr. B. said I don't have other symptoms of an erosion, but that we need to rule that out and do so quickly. And of course when I got home, I got online and can't find a lot of other reasons for the port infection other than erosion, so now I'm totally freaked. If the band is eroded, it will need to be removed immediately. Want to see a picture of the swollen nastiness? If not, close this entry now. And please wish me luck for tomorrow!