Shaking the tree, or peeing on it.

I am home from the hospital but not after they tried to feed me pureed roast beef. It comes molded into a little shape reminiscent of something someone thinks looks like a slice from a roast. Ew.

I am home again. Thank god. As I mentioned I was just on my way out of the big house when I was informed that my kidneys were in distress. After having been released from the IV pole I was not only hooked up to it again but chained to the bed with a foley in my bladder. It is possible to get up and walk around with that thing, you just have to carry around a large bag of pee. Combined with the IV pole it becomes an elaborate interpretive dance to get into the bathroom without yanking on something vital. The foley was done in an attempt to decompress my kidneys, assuming the bladder wasn't doing it's job of relieving them.

My urologist is a good guy. He came in after the holiday, saw that I was scheduled for yet another ultrasound before any procedure was decided on. He said, "that's stupid. I'm going to go shake the tree." I was then second in line for nephrostomy tubes. Yay, Dr. Gentile. Tres gentil.

So now I have more tubes and bags. I'll digress just a moment here to say that I have mixed feelings sharing all of this with everyone. Do I want to show up at a family function and have relatives checking to see if my bags show under my clothes? What happened to suffering in silence? When I was an intern I had a senior resident who I did a floor rotation with. We were good friends and the nature of the job required us to be in each other's presence almost constantly. She had a miscarriage on our rotation and I was none the wiser. I'm not clueless either. I can read people's moods pretty well (In fact I'd make a good spy but I can't overhear conversations when there's background noise. Jason Bourne's job is safe.). I admire that kind of stoicism but I possess it not. Everyone knows when I have a hangnail.

So I let it hang out there. What the hell, I am who I am. It gets tricky with patients though who find out I've been ill. It hasn't gotten intrusive because I just stick cheerfully to the facts, answer only what is asked and move on. It would be very much trickier if I were someone's primary care physician or oncologist. Sometimes it's good to be just an allergist.

Now that I've shared that little nugget with y'all I'll just say that I am now the recipient of more bags than a recycling center. I was told by the PA before the procedure that they would be totally discreet under my clothing. If I ever find out where she parks her car I'm going to empty one of them onto her front seat and see how discreet she finds it. The tubing is long enough to hang to my feet and each bag holds 600 cc's of pee. "Hey, that's almost 2 beers each side," said Alain. Medical things need to be translated into terms Canadians can understand: beer. On the plus side, I can now pee standing up. Can't wait for a tailgate party.

I was totally outdone by my sister in the black humor category with the following email. Kate, if you don't like me posting this, git yer own blog. Frankly I'm proud of ya, Katie:

Beth,
I was wondering if you would like me to make a call to the Glad bag people
and look into a sponsorship?
You could be on Top Chef! "After making the alligator soup over the
radiator in my room, I will safely empty my bags using the NEW osti combo
bag set. This challenge was a really tough one for me. I have never worked
with alligator before and I wish someone had told me to kill the thing
before I tried making the soup. I just don't want to be sent home, what
will my colleagues think. How will I keep my sponsorship with Glad and
their fabulous Combo Osti bag set?"

Well done, care to top it Ted?

Dr. Bif

Back in the big house

Some of you complained that I hadn't posted on the blog in a while. Well, now look what happened? I'm back in the hospital. Hey if I have to slug it out with hospital food I might as well make you all feel guilty as well. Not to be outdone by my sister's little weekend getaway at Mass General I decided to work up a bowel obstruction. things aren't the same inside after a bunch of surgeries and the bowel can get kinked on scar tissue. Luckily this one worked it's way out with just some rest and pain medicine.

I was all set to bounce out of here when a very nice resident told me they couldn't let me go because my kidney function was off. So I've had a scan and some fluid and some potassium. Now I'm waiting for the kidney specialists to weigh in on this. I might be up for a procedure soon. Try not to get sick on a holiday weekend. Hospitals, like the rest of the world grind to a halt. It shouldn't be that way but it is. I wonder how much extra money our insurance companies pay for extended hospital stays just because a holiday rolls around?

With any luck they'll get this show on the road soon. In the meantime I'm going to get a bunch of knitting done and watch the NCIS marathon. It is probably not a good idea to watch a medical crime show while in the hospital. I don't care, it fuels my black sense of humor.

On a more practical note, i think alain is set with the boys as far as food goes. he just went shopping. they are back from vacation in Montreal. Sam is enjoying his jar of Nutella they bought up there. He was introduced to it in France. He'll be glad to know they have it at Wegman's.

beth

It's not easy being green.

I was sure there would be comments from the last post. You are all obviously out enjoying the summer. If you live on the east coast that means drowning. If you live on the west, frying to a crisp. In the spring I was thrashing around in my yard almost every day. I am determined to have a garden that looks like a grownup planted it. You know, for someone who imagines herself having some kind of artistic talent, garden design is not my forte. I really love that casual English garden style where it looks like a bunch of foxglove, daisies and roses just wandered in. My attempt at casual elegance however, looks like a school’s flower bed. Ah, that must be the area they let the kindergartners plant.
To make matters worse, the weeds have crept in and gotten away from me. They didn’t have far to go. The lawn is mostly weeds. I will not take the blame for this. The yard was a big mess when we moved in 6 years ago. All Alain and I have been willing to do is mow the suckers down occasionally. When we first moved in my neighbor across the street tried to be helpful. She said, “You know, if you were thinking of spraying some weed killer down, now is the time of year to do it.” I told her, “If it’s green it stays.” Hey, you’ve got to admit that huge patch of clover looks pretty darn good during a drought. I don’t know for sure but I think all those weeds have something to do with the annual crop of really weird mushrooms that sprout up all over the yard. One of my neighbors practices his golf swing on his. Me, I get out the mushroom guide books to see which ones I can eat. I am strange in many ways. Wouldn’t you know? Not a single one edible. And what peeps out from under a pine tree just three feet over the property line of my neighbor’s yard but a tiny patch of chanterelles. It ain’t fair.
Now, even I, the earthy-crunchy, tree hugging environmentalist, have contemplated the purchase of Round Up. But no, I can’t do it. Lest I offend you Monsanto types I would just like to point out that it would take poisoning all of nearby Lake Ontario to kill all the weeds in this yard. I have to remind myself of what I tell other people as they gaze at all the many leafy green things that have completely outcompeted the grass. What some people call weeds, I call biodiversity.
I did cheat though. When we were away in France my neighbor sent her lawn service guy over to mow our lawn. Yes, Ann is a saint in many ways. One of the best things you can ever do is make friends with a neighbor who is a neat freak. One day she came over with her power washer and cleaned my deck. The workmen renovating my kitchen are still talking about it; they never saw anyone do that kind of thing voluntarily, just to be nice.
The lawn looked nice. Damned nice. Alain was away this week at a conference enjoying balmy, sweltering Vancouver. Did you know the public beaches there are clothing optional? Did you know Alain hates the lawn services because of all the noise they make on the weekends? I cheated. I had Ann call the guy back. Don’t tell.

Are you busy or guilty?

Someone I knew a long time ago sent me a friend request on facebook. I sent a reply and he answered three months later, apologizing for the delay and stating that he had been busy until now. At first I dismissed the comment because one hears it all the time. Then I got to thinking. What makes that guy so damned busy he can't answer an email? Last I checked he wasn't running the Fed or the free world.

Then I began thinking about how infrequently I apologize for being too busy to do something. I apologize for things I haven't done all the time. I apologize constantly for the state of my house whenever anyone comes in. I am always doing things at the last minute (I should be cleaning the house right now) but it never occurred to me to apologize because I was too busy. What is the difference between someone who assumes the world will understand that too much has been placed on their shoulders to accomplish even the most mundane of tasks such as answering an email versus the person who beats themselves up regularly for not being organized enough?

So I tried it. I just said it. My apology for not doing something (which I don't recall now) was simply to say I had been too busy. To my amazement the person to whom I said this just accepted it. There was no look of condescension at my incompetence. In fact the look was one of pity that I could be so busy.

Toss my cell phone/calendar/email/organizer in the trash, I am free at last.

Dr. Bif

Schnoz Free!

My nose is free. The tube is out. Tomorrow I eat something and get the hell out!

I am the Highlander, there can be only one!

I'm at Highland Hospital again and I'm not the only one here so not a very good title.

I should be out soon. I had a bowel obstruction on Friday. Previous surgeries and radiation made things sticky in there. I have a tube down my nose and into my stomach. It is an absolute joy. On the pain medication I was having freaky dreams, getting chased by monsters. As I started to feel better I started having dreams about glasses of water. The best was a glass of cold orange juice. I opened up a fridge and there were several gallon jugs all open.

Today I drank about 4 little cups of apple juice. I'd have to say I prefer that to orange juice lest some kind hearted soul send a bunch of cans to my house. I'm hoping to get out in a day or so. the NG tube in my nose is clamped and we are seeing how well I fly on my own. I'm supposed to leave for France on Friday. We're going to France, we're going to France, everyone now, we're going to france...

a bientot.

Dr. Le Bif

The Legend of Uncle Bill

Hello,
Just an update from the field since my knitting friends think I've gone awol. I missed the last knitter's guild of the year. Very unlike me. I just plain forgot. My knitting has really fallen by the wayside recently. I finally figured it out. I have been knitting "the cable nightmare" for 2 years now, on and off. I decided I would not work on anything else until it was done. Strangely my interest in knitting has waned over the last few months. I've wanted to knit but just couldn't make myself. Even stranger was that I didn't understand why. Ah, at last some wisdom has percolated into my addled brain. I've been monogamous too long. As soon as I realized I wanted to knit a baby blanket for a friend's new baby I haven't been able to put the needles down. While in Boston I spotted some groovy, overpriced yarn in a trendy yarn store. I schmoozed with the ladies, impressing them with my lingo, tossing around names (oh yes, I love Alice Starmore patterns...blah blah blah...), bought the yarn and started a scarf. I am obsessed again. I left the baby blanket project at a friend's house this week and it's killing me. No more monogamy, the yarn slut is back!

Chemo seems to have settled into a routine. God, what a weird thing to say. the last round was a breeze. It might have had something to do with me taking one of Alain's meloxicam for his stress fracture by accident. I thought it was my citalopram. for you non-medical types it's just an anti-inflammatory not a freakin' narcotic. I score those outside my office on Monroe Ave. The high school kids just stand there outside our break room on a busy street corner and light up weed. Other mornings there's a homeless guy or two passing a brown paper bag.

So the title of this post says "The Legend of Uncle Bill." This is a story I've wanted to tell for a while but have been unable to write. How do I do the man justice? For a long time I felt the need to get all the details correct. I even called Uncle Bill and interviewed him. I have let myself off the hook for the simple reason that I will never get it exactly right and as you can see from the last post, some Moran will respond by telling me exactly what detail I got wrong (ahem, Mom...). So, Frankie, Martha, Nancy, Sally, Susie and any other "Moran Police" who feel the need to correct me, this is just an artistic rendering if you will, a gestalt, a mood piece, a fable...and if you don't like it. Get your own blog.

If you recall the other postings you know that the Moran clan is highly respectful of tradition. Our traditions, the ones we find funny. We don't respect much else. We will do things to amuse ourself and mortify those who have married into the clan because it is more fun that way. My mother and her siblings loved to remember games they played as a child. A favorite was called Chuckle Belly. Everyone lies down on the floor at right angles, one head lying across another person's abdomen. The first in the line says just, "Ha!" The second person says it twice, the third, three times and so on. Go ahead try it. The Morans can't get past the third "ha" before everyone is laughing with their heads bouncing up and down on each other's bellies. It's hysterical actually. My mother and her siblings proved this by starting a game at a wedding reception. Maybe I'm not being clear here. They were not children, they were grandparents when they did this. Hey, it's a tradition.

Uncle Bill though, is a tradition unto himself. In addition to being a major player in all the water fights he alone has a tradition unique to him. It started years ago and it involved a cake. It was a cake he was not supposed to eat but there it was, a slice missing and someone very upset. Uncle Bill explained that taking a slice of the cake was an old Irish tradition. The male head of the family was supposed to sample the cake and make sure that it had not been poisoned before guests could eat it. Apparently this assuaged the indignation.

Well, give the man an inch and he takes a mile. Uncle Bill ran with that and has been running with that excuse for years. At the wedding reception of his brother's daughter he was seated near the cake. The dinner went on and on. The reception hall was hot. No one was cutting the cake. Time went by, still no cake. Bill thought the cake was going to melt. "Well, I'm just going to go get myself a piece of that cake!" and off he went. The cutting ceremony followed seconds later by a flustered wedding party with the missing piece hidden in the back.

At my cousin John's wedding the tradition had been well established. So John's new wife was ready for Bill. She enlisted John's brother, Tommy to stand guard at the cake. The reception goers waited to be seated at dinner. All the Moran siblings were to be seated together. My mother was standing with Uncle Bill and some of her sisters waiting to sit down when she noticed Uncle Bill was eating. No one else was eating... He'd accomplished his mission and changed out of his ninja gear long before the "guard" was posted.

At my wedding I felt sorry for Uncle Bill. The cake wasn't in the reception hall. I was actually a little sad that he wasn't going to sabotage the confection. Unbeknownst to us, Uncle Bill was up to the challenge. I think they'll be using this as plot device for the next Bourne Identity movie. Uncle Bill talked with one of the waiters. He told him as the eldest member of the family he had to inspect the wedding cake. It was an old Irish and family tradition. The waiter was a little confused. He called a manager. Uncle Bill explained the story to her. After some negotiations she led Bill downstairs into the bowels of the Hanover Inn and to the restaurant kitchen. The cake was delivered later to the wedding party minus one small, perfect wedge.

The picture above shows us pointing at the culprit. Obviously the photo was staged.