LIKE KATIE COURIC DURING HER COLONOSCOPY EXCEPT I'M NOT KATIE -WARNING!! ICKY INSIDE PICTURES!!!!!!---

As you all know, I have issues with my tushie. I have been dubbed Tuba ass from my close friends, because you just don't know what sort of sounds/issues will come up with my poor rear end.

As the day of the Colonoscopy approached, I feared the nasty beverage, and would rather have been eating the chocolate gelt you see behind the colon prep Movicrap.









2times! Yes, I had to drink out of this nasty jug. 2 times, filled up to the rim, 8oz in 15minute increments. Man, woman, thing, I have to say the stuff made me sick after I started the 2nd prep. Just about an hour after finishing the first jug.
I mean, vomit sick in addition to what it's "supposed to doodoo."

But I was prepared for what lay ahead.





You see, I was warned that the tushie could very well begin to burn due to the amount of time and well, you know, "stuff coming out of the rear."

So, I bought tushie cleansing wipes and pulled out Ben's pull up wipes. Not to short change myself, I also pulled out Ben'ss Chamomile and Lavender Vaseline. Then I proceeded to fill up a big pitcher* of hot water and a few washcloths.

*Picture a Crusty version of a Bidet.



Note: as the daughter of a plumber, I must tell you, never, ever, ever, flush any of those moist wipes down the toilet. Even ones meant to clean the rear. They will mess up your pipes, eventually.




You can see from this picture that the moist cleansers had been open. The pitcher of hot water is out of camera view, along with the many warm washcloths in which I threw out, after this part of the "prep."

I do have to tell you, well, urge you, that if you ever have to prep for a colonoscopy, use all of the items I listed above.

After the first time you start going, here's the steps I highly suggest you take:



1) wet moist adult and child wipe.

2) dab dab dab with the toilet paper.
3) Crusty Bidet (splash or pour or with aid of cloth, douse the backend with that warm water)
4) APPLY LARGE AMOUNTS of the Vaseline around the area. (but use the lavender chamomile kind.) Check the baby aisles of your local store. Trust me, your bottom will thank you.
5) Oh, and have an extra roll of TP near by, should you finish the first roll. It's not easy getting up off the toilet when you're mount Rushmore butt style.




I thought I would be satisfied having more then enough reading material, but I never got around to even seeing what's up with the Jonas brothers because when the prep takes effect, all you can do is focus.

Focus on what will sound like a man's pee first thing in the morning. HA, How many followers have I just lost? Because that's what it will sound like; pee.
Except it will be out of the rear end.



B
But, if you're lucky, and you do the prep right, and you have the right person alongside you to take you home and hold your hand, you might get to bring home a cool souvenir.....


WARNING!!!!! DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE MODERN MEDICINE COLON PICTURES!!!






A HEALTHY LOOKING COLON!!

Yep, that would be my colon. I, in my twilight haze, asked my doctor for pictures. According to him when he asked who I planned on showing, I told him the Internet.
What?

If you can see the diagram below the pictures, you'll be able to match the numbers with each frame of picture.
Because they're not in order.
According to my Specialist, I've got the colon of a 20 year old.

Yes, and that last picture? That would be picture 9, the anus.
Yes, those are what you think-"piles of grapes."

Or what a Doctor would dub as hemorrhoids.

See? I told you this was like the colonoscopy debut of Katie Couric. Only I'm not Katie Couric, nor do I have a job like hers, nor a salary like hers.

Just pictures of my large intestines, the start of my small intestines and my butt crack.
Pretty freakin' fabulous, don't you think?

Don't say I didn't warn you about viewing the post.
Because I did.

**UPDATE: I was so into showing you my "in toos" that I forgot to mention this lil bit on tushies. As you recall, I spent a Sunday in the hospital due to what they thought was food poisoning so they didn't run any tests. Except one that I asked them to, a fecal test. Because as quick and ill as I got, because of my history, I wanted to rule out any bacteria. The test comes in two days later, results sent to my primary doctor, no bacteria. So, it was obvious that perhaps it wasn't food poisoning, and more so a really bad attack.

You would imagine my surprise, when 3 days afterwards, a bill came in the mail, in the amount of $95osomething dollars. I have it around here somewhere.

$950 to take what looks like a mini Popsicle stick, scrap the um, er "sample" onto the stick. Picture someone scraping brown thick paste (suddenly I have lost even more followers) along the inside of the plastic white bowl and pushing the scraped portion that lay pooled on the mini Popsicle stick into a larger version of a test tube. To be tested of course.

$950 for that.
$950 for shoveling crap onto a stick and then into a tube.
Of course, my responsibility for that is only, $250.oo.
So here you go, here's $250 of my husband's hard earned money to scrap and read, my poop shoot.

If that's not enough to make me sick, well, thankfully I reminded myself of the colon prep and laughed because I haven't even received the bill for the doctor that got to read the crap test.

I imagine that'll be a hoot to see too. I wonder if he cooked it?
You know, Cook Poo?*

*those of you that watch the show will know what I'm talking about.*

Time Moves Forward

No matter how many seasons go by...


No matter how many roads you tread...



Whether rain or shine, snow or sleet...




Time never stops.. it keeps moving forward..
season by season
turn by turn




Even light bulbs flicker or run out...
because of time.

Season by season..
time by time..
dream by dream..






Time moves on while you sleep...
So fall asleep with your little ones..
snuggle and buggle and cuddle them..
even if you are all sweaty and hot.





Hold onto them..
Grasp their tiny fingers..
Soothe their chapped lips with strawberry flavored chapstick...







Dream alongside your little one..
snuggled up to you for no reason..
except for the reason of "just because."

Not for any reason except for accepting time..
As you both dream..
snuggled and warm..
you and your loved one..
a pet or a newborn..


Because Time Moves Forward...
and before you know it...
each dream of your night...
your night from the past...
will one day be part of a memory.


No matter how many seasons that you see...
Or how many light bulbs you will change...
The best part of time...
is the moments of snuggle..


Because some day...
one day..
your Soul will float up to Heaven...

Thankful and grateful...
You'll be in your soul..
knowing that
their beating hearts
Of Seasons, light bulbs and earthly time
will matter the least..
all because they'll have their memories...
for ever and ever...
for no other reasons...
all because..
you took the time...
but just to snuggle...

It happened again

Had a great evening Saturday. Went to our friends house and then the group of us headed out to the bowling alley. Great fun.

12:30AM arrives and we are at home after a fun filled evening.
Suddenly I end up, once again, really ill.
Except this time it was a vomit fest from 12:30 in the morning until 7:00am. Over 13times.
Naturally there was not any relief, unlike on some occasions after you throw up you have that sensation of "ah, my tummy isn't contracting anymore." Nope, not Saturday night.
Soon my TUBA ASS started it's song and like a colonoscopy prep, I knew we would be paying a visit to the ER.

By 7:00am I had exhausted all attempts to keep fluids and meds in and Brian took me to the ER.

Food Poisoning.
They thought.
So did I.
Got a nice burning shot in my tush, zofran by IV and a few bags of fluids and life felt better. I rejected any offers for narcotics because I didn't want my already weak tummy any weaker. They did suggest Adivan (sp) and although it's like the king of Valium. Come to find out when your stomach is cramping up and in a lot of pain, it actually can relieve the symptoms. So I agreed to it and every muscle within my body opened itself up to pure relaxation.

Food poisoning.

That's exactly what we all thought.
There were no blood draws or catscans. The only test was a pretty fecal test that will have results in a few days.

5hours later I'm able to go home.
Spent some time with my mother in law and Grandma in law who, by luck, happened to be in town visiting us, before crashing for the rest of the day. Remember, I had been up all night with absolutely zero zzz's. Just cold tiles pushed up against my tushie and a porcelain chill leaning on my pancakes.

Monday morning arrives, I wake up and BAM! Pam is here.

So, food poisoning? Not so sure anymore.

2nd opinions are not in the works starting with a call to a Gyne maven out at Rush on Michigan avenue downtown Chicago.

Thoughts?
Tips?

I'm out of ideas, answers and anything else.
Very frustrated and annoyed at not only the expense of this all, but all the time down from whatever this frustrating issue is.

There, off my toilet box.

What's new with you?

STIMU-LESS

Sigh.
As you know, we've been in search of a home since July of this past year.
Since the day our landlord came over and told us her marriage was ending because
her husband was having an emotional affair with his coworker. Which meant, we needed to move
out as soon as we could, (30day legally) because emo daddy was moving out of their 1.5million dollar home and moving in here.

Obviously they're working on their marriage because we are still here.
But after that frustrating day, we've been looking at homes.
We've been trying to find a home that fits us.
A home we would own.
We miss being homeowners.
We were lucky though, when we sold our place is Florida and moved back here, it was just before everything went south, and there was actually a bidding war going on for our home.
Ha, not now.

I wanted to stay in the town we're at.
The school system is above and beyond excellent.
Matter of fact it's ranked up there in top public school districts in the USA.
I grew up here, so there's that sort of family pass the torch sort of thing.
It's also a darling, conservative, fun stores and french markets, type of town.

We knew going into the house hunt that to buy a house here,
will mean less house for more money.
But we were okay with that because we'd be close to my parents.
My relatives.

We set ourselves a budget, factoring in an ideal cost of utilities, homeowners insurance,
and the ect... Oh, did I mention this town works perfect for all of us because the train
is an easy access for Bigdog to catch into work.

So we gave ourselves a nice cushion going into the search. When I say that, I mean that we
didn't overextend what we're currently paying in monthly costs.
Ever since the US went belly up like an angry Betta fish, we've learned not to end up in situations where we could be in trouble.

Sure you don't know the future, job security as well as health security, so we took that all into consideration as we ventured out into the land of FOR SALES.

Typically around here, a 3bdrm 2Th 1700sq home built in the 1950s will go for anywhere from 3$00,ooo and up, depending on the upgrades. Back at the beginning of September, we found a house.
A darling, upgraded, in town, with in law quarters ranch that would work perfectly.


The process went along slowly because while the home was on the market, the kitchen was under a renovation, so we couldn't do the home inspection until the kitchen was finished. We had the house tested for Radon, and the test came back where they'd need a Radon mitigation system (in ILLINOIS, or at least this county, if the levels of radon come back beyond a 4, it is the sellers responsibility to put in the system-by law). The buyers pay to have the inspection done, and if the levels come back beyond that number, the seller must pay to have the system installed.

We arrive at the point of the Home Inspection, and thankfully for us, my Dad is in the industry where he was able to conduct the plumbing portion of the inspection, and 3 other contractors that he knows came in for the Furnace/AC, carpentry, electricity, blah blah blah. My dad is very thorough. To the point where he even TV'd the sewer lines to see the condition of the home's sewer.

The inspection came back with many things wrong. Not to code. Possible asbestos. A garage that might be pulling away from the foundation, a sewer that is backpitched and will be in need of a replacement.

A roof, and some more of this not being at code, and that. So, we requested the necessary things to be repaired and the seller was only willing to give us $1200 in concessions to repair the items, and they "agreed" to put the radon in. Naturally, the potential issues would range more so in at least at $8000, possibly more over time.

So we pulled the contract.
We've looked at house after house after house.
Frustrated that we would be spending so much money for a small home without a lot of land to move with.

Until Brian and I decided to extend our house hunting into an entirely different area.
My sister's area about 40minutes south of here and far from plain, with many fields. A newer area, with homes deliciously lbigger (3500 square feet bigger) that costs less then the minis in our town. The property taxes are a lot higher, but again, we tried our best to budget that in.

We found a home in my sister's subdivision and immediately fell in love with it. The seller was already losing over $100,000 on it, but it's a relocation so there's a different process involved.
The home, 4 bedrooms, 3full baths, a formal Living and Dining room, a family room, a den or office, a dual staircase, sunroom, stainless steel appliances, $2000 landscape upgrade (They paid to have tree's put in their back yard, versus the standard new subdivision trees.) The house had it all and then some.

So we put an offer on it this week. The day after my birthday as a matter of fact.

It's not going to work.
When we did the numbers, we realized the amount of money we would need to bring to closing was far more then what we'd need for the town we're in now.
Which is funny because the prices were about the same.
The difference, the property taxes.
The taxes out there range from $8900 and up.

Could we stretch it? Sure.
But that's exactly what we don't want to do,
especially when everything is in the state that it's in.

So, here we are, back to square one.
Anxious and frustrated and really tired of all of this disappointment.

Now, we will most likely have to rethink where we will be looking at, because we've tasted the beauty of a beautiful home and I have to say, it's hard to go back to looking at homes built in 1950 with radon issues.

There you have it.
I think we may take our search west of here. West of a river, with one high school in the town, but that has the same old town feel as this, without the crazy taxes.

Who knows.

I'm pretty sure our realtor will be firing us soon.
I'd fire ourselves too after all the homes we've looked at.
I haven't even begun to tell you about the other homes that we put offers on...


When did life get so YIKES?

AN HONEST REMINDER FOR MOM-E

Everytime I watch this, and I've watched it 4x already, I get that lump, and I cry.
Because it is true.
Because it will be the same here, someday.



If you're just starting out as a parent, live the ordinary moments, as much as you can.

RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN YOU CAN'T CATCH ME...

I was all set to leave you visuals.
Visuals of MOVIPREP.
Visuals of Vaseline. Warm Wipes. Magazines. A Book. A glass of Warm water and a wash cloth.
I even took pictures.

But I am not going to make the upload on time.

You see, tomorrow, at 1:45 I will have my long awaited Colonoscopy and Upper GI. Today at 4pm I started the prep. 240ML of prep in 8oz every 15minutes. WOW!

As I said to my mom, "OH my gosh, it feels like I'm peeing out of my butt!"

Then I got sick. 2hours after the first 240ML.
I got sick again.
And again.
And again.

Not a good start to the prep. I'm supposed to start the 2nd 240ML 8oz every 15minutes at 8:00.
It's now 9:01 and unfortunately I'm still waiting for the anti vomit (zofran) settle my tummy, to kick in. I am worn out. I am dehydrated because no matter how much water I've drunk all day today, and how many sips of yellow Gatorade I've attempted to gargle, I can't keep things down.

So soon enough, I'll start the 2nd prep, and be prepared for a long night.

So, RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN, YOU CAN'T CATCH ME, I'M THE GASTRO-MAN!

*Lets hope he'll be able to do the test tomorrow. I don't want any clogged scopes.

"PEE UP PEE DOWN JUST PUT THE SEAT DOWN!"

The start of a new year.
Why do we always use this (and Yom Kippur) as an excuse to erase our slate? Why can't we improve ourselves without the Rise of Him, or without the Day Of Atonement? Not to mention the new Jewish New Year, and then the USA December 31st New Year? Why is it so hard to just improve ourselves every day?

I'm guilty of that. I use certain events and occasions that fall into our days, as an excuse to erase the slate and start over. But do I do that on regular days?

Nope.
Something I have to work on.

If you were to die and come back as a fly and end up in the below zero temps in a burb near Chicago...if you were to end up a fly, on a wall in a room... a wall in a room with three boys, a begging poochie and one mommy... this is what you would have "heard" this am with all your fly eyes (do flies have ears?):

"Don't let the dog kiss you, she has pee on her face."
"If you want to be wearing vagina's as little Virginia's, then please, continue to do your business the way you're doing it."


Suffice to say, it was a very long start to the morning.
Yes, I think my apostrophies are in the wrong place, too. Do I care? Not as much as you do.