Here's to 2013!

I'm sitting here very relaxed on New Year's Eve with a mimosa in hand. It's a guarantee no one in this house will make it to midnight and that's just fine.  I'm looking forward to 2013.  2012 was a tough year on a number of different fronts and it's time for it to go.  It's usually been my tradition to do a goals list for the new year and recap my goals from the previous year.  Hold on, I actually have to go back and see what I wrote last year at this time...sit tight...

• Learn how to use Pinterest.  And LinkedIn. And Google +. And any other social media type thing that has been invented but is too complicated for my little technological mind.  I’ve been on Pinterest a handful of time and seriously all it does is frustrate me.  It can’t be that complicated, it just can’t be.  While we’re at it, let’s through in fully utilizing all those features on my iPhone.

Big check for Pinterest...thanks to the iPhone App!  I try to control my pinning to things that I might actually follow up on someday.  LinkedIn was a mediocre effort on my part, I'm not actually sure how useful it is.  Forget Google+, everyone is still on Facebook.  I also gave up on Twitter, it just seemed like more work than enjoyment.  Plus it took too much thought to write something and stick to the 120 character limit.  I do think I'm utilizing my iPhone more but I've realized it doesn't replace my calendar, I do better when I write something down.

• Run another half marathon.  Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment.  But overall I have to say that I enjoyed the training experience and the run went well the first time around.  Plus I found that I felt great and was more productive when I was on the training schedule.  This race I’ll be running with my cousin Alyson, I’ll make the official announcement once we’re all signed up and everything.

Success!  And I had hopes of running a third this past November, if that pesky gallbladder didn't get in my way.  I actually ran for the first time in two months while we were up in Massachusetts over Christmas.  A great 2.5 miles but, wow, I can tell that it's going to be a slow climb back to where I was.

• Start Teddy’s first year scrapbook.  I’m not behind in this; I don’t think I started Katherine’s until she was almost 3.  But it’s time to at least start gathering my materials.  I think I have a design plan, slightly different that Katherine’s, in which I documented major events.  For Teddy I am going to do a double page spread for each month, with highlight “boxes” for major events.  That means minimum 24 pages to do and I’m sure I’ll add pages as I go.

Epic fail here.  Didn't start it one bit. There was too much interfering with a job search and health issues to have time to sit and scrapbook.   I'm carrying this one over to 2013.

• Maintain my Pampered Chef business for the year (again, topic for another post).

Mixed results here.  I was lucky and got an unexpected sale in December, so technically I am still active through the end of February.  But I've decided not to continue.  With the gallbladder issues this fall, I couldn't actively pursue leads and now with the new job I don't have the time/don't want to spend the time building up the business I would need to keep it going.  I had a great run and it paid for two short getaways plus I got a ton of products, so I'm not complaining.  I learned more about myself along the way so it was worth it.

I can't say that I've got a huge lists of things I want to do in 2013.  Ideas? Yes. Tangible things I can write down?  No.  I want to get back to running again...Ted has brought up the Tobacco Road Half Marathon on St. Patrick's Day.  I'll set it as a goal but I'm not registering any time soon.  I need to see how the next few weeks go, that may be too ambitious.  Of course, I'm carrying over the scrapbook goal and I'm determined to get going on it.  I've also been pinning lots of cute card ideas, so I may try that as well.  Finally, I plan on getting back to this blog, updating regularly and yes, finally getting the picture situation straight (shout out to Aunt Peggy in WV here!).  Other than that I'm simply hoping for a less stressful, more healthy year than the one I just had.

I wish you and yours a happy and healthy 2013...cheers!

Full Speed Ahead

So it has been almost three weeks since my gallbladder surgery.  I'll spare you the pictures...yes there are pictures.  I haven't taken a peek at them yet but the doctor showed them to Ted after the surgery.  Ted said they look weird.  Having not looked at any pictures of my insides before I would guess that they would look weird to me too.  I'm not sure I'll ever look at them but for right now I want to be a little further away from the surgery.  In the meantime, I'll take the surgeon's word that he took my gallbladder out.

Everything went incredibly smooth once the ball got rolling.  I went see the surgeon for the consult the Friday before Thanksgiving.  He looked over my files, did an exam and said, yes the gallbladder definitely needed to come out, and soon.  At the time I had thought it would be good to schedule it the week before Christmas, since I was already taking the week off between Christmas and New Year's, I would have a nice long time to recover with lots of family around to help.  I also was told when I made the consult appointment that they were up to mid-December on the surgery calendar, unless it was considered an urgent case.  So week before Christmas made sense to me.

When I laid out my scenario to the surgeon, he stared at be blankly and said "What are you doing for Thanksgiving?"  Ummmm, going up to my in-laws in Virginia Thursday morning?  "Great." He said, "We'll do it Monday."  Monday?  As in Monday Monday?  I realize now this guy was staring at me with the nicest face possible but probably thinking in his head "I'm trying to tell this chick that her gallbladder is about to exploded and she's trying to work this into her calendar."  I was one of those urgent cases. Next thing I new we were at the front desk with the scheduler and I was sent home with a list of pre-op instruction and told to arrive at the hospital at 11:30 on Monday.  My head was spinning. Gram Coberly arrived on Sunday for kid duty and off we went.

I picked Rex Hospital for the procedure basically because I had my babies there.  And because WakeMed seems like such a monstrousity of a place.  Turns out I made a great choice and would recommend them to anyone in the area needing surgery.  Very personal attention and never a long wait, things just seemed to flow.  Left for the hospital a little bit before 11 and we were heading home around 5.  The only other surgeries I've ever had were on my eyes, the last one being 14 years ago so I didn't have much to compare to my experience from this surgery.  But even with that, I was surprised at how awake I was heading home from the hospital (and ,hey, look, I can see out of both eyes!).  I also expected to be in a lot more pain that I was. 

The overall recovery has been smooth. Honestly I feel so lucky.  Aside from one "gas attack", which felt just like a gallbladder attack, I've been feeling great.  Now I can look back and see everything in perspective.  Two plus years of chronic upper back pain.  Digestion issues off and on (which I though was IBS).  Upper abdominal pain at the end of my pregnancies and during delivery of both of my children (which I totally blamed on the babies).  Chiropractic consults, PT appointments, deep tissue massages.  All that before I had my first official attack last April.  Gosh, I was sicker than I thought.  And with how great I feel now, I can honestly say in comparison I felt like absolute crap for the past 3 to 4 months, I just didn't realize the full seriousness of the situation.  And in fairness to myself, there were other mitigating factors, mainly a very very stressful situation at work (which maybe sped up the deterioration of the gallbladder situation, maybe?). This has now resolved itself as I started a new position upon my return from surgery, and WOW what a difference in my stress levels.  It was a long overdue and much needed change.

I had my post op appointment today and the surgeon filled me in a bit more on just how serious my medical situation was. Chronic cholecystitis.  When he went in he found large stones, the gallbladder was shrunken and inflammed, walls thickened.  I asked whether it was even functioning anymore and he said more than likely it had stopped functioning completely a while ago and was doing more harm than good.  He checked me over, gave me a clean bill of health and advised me to build up my running base slowly over time.

I actually got on the treadmill for the first time last night.  I did 15 min of brisk walking until things started to feel a bit tender in the are of surgey.  My legs are itching to go farther, faster but I can tell my upper adominals are going to need some more time to recover.  I'll give them the time they need.  I am curious, though.  I was hovering around 10 minute miles when I was running with a faulty gallbladder.  Let's see how fast I can go now.