Parting with parts...

Ouch.
That is the theme of what happens when it turns out your gallbladder has hundreds of tiny and several large stones mining themselves inside that little bile producing sac.

Last Friday, I woke up early and thought I had the sudden onset of flu. Barfbarfbarfbarfbarf, for about 15 hours with terrible muscle aching in my back and abdomen. The most relevant event at the time was my new, close relationship with my dark green plastic wastepaper basket that allowed me to stay miserably in bed and puke as opposed to staying miserably attached to the commode from 5 in the morning till after 9 that night. Then, it stopped. Every sip of water stopped revealing itself once again. It was then I was left with the major symptom of an angry, twisting pain in my upper right stomach area. I could tell it was not my stomach. I suspected maybe my liver was over thar, but didn't know for sure. I still thought maybe it was the flu, but it was unlike any flu I'd had before. Although, fever and chills were part of the recipe, so there I was. Saturday, the pain was worse and still isolated in the one area. I stayed in bed all day, took a Vicodin I had on hand in case of severe back pain, but it did not do much good. By Saturday evening, I knew something wasn't right so I crawled outta bed and googled a couple of words of my symptoms. Up at the top came "gallbladder." I looked at two sites and was a classic case of having an inflammed and probably stoned gb. I made a silent deal with the god of gallbladders, basically vowing to go to the e.r. in the morning if I wasn't any better.

I arrived at the e.r. which is about 5 minutes away from my home at about 6:30am in a lot of pain. Within four hours, I had been poked, prodded, ultrasounded and told I needed to be admitted and hooked up to an I.V. I was also given the good news about being able to receive pain meds (turned out to be morphine) via the IV in the process. The ultrasound guy, who they had to drag out of bed on a Sunday morning, pointed out my goldmine of stones on the screen a short while earlier...so I knew they were there, but was a bit surprised that I would be admitted so quickly. And never do you want a sip of water more than when you are told you cannot.

So my surgery was scheduled for Monday afternoon. They were able to do it laproscopically, so the incisions are just five small scratches. The discomfort is a world better than having to be sliced open. I was released Tuesday morn and today, Thursday, got my staples removed. It was a breeze.

Of course it was shocking and a bit traumatizing and quite painful, but mostly I am just grateful at the timing of it all. Obviously those stones had been there awhile. I could have had the attack in Italy just a few weeks ago. Or a bit later in May and I would have been drowning in work. But no, the timing was quite perfect and for that I thank the gods for scheduling my gallbladder attack just right. Seriously.

I am however now officially out of (easily) expendable, internal body parts.
So, there is my tale of having a gallbladder and then not having a gallbladder, that I barely even knew existed. Took it for granted I did. And knew even less about its role in my digestive system that is of course till it was too late and we had irreconcilable differences.

Amazingly just about everyone I have come across in the medical community (aka nurses) has an Xgallbladder in their past. It is like I have joined some secret cult. They all told me how much better I'd feel with it being gone. They are right. It becomes easy to hold a major grudge against a body part that can and will cause you so much pain. Who needs em??!!!

Italy trip. Part THREE

Italy trip. Part THREE

My getting around to writing has been a major hurdle. Of course I could quit my job and live on the streets and have much more time on my hands, but I'd rather not….

So my first taste of Roma is TRAFFIC, much, much evening traffic with horns blasting and maneuvering into moving spaces that we couldn't possibly fit into, but do. Just 'regular' city traffic is a bit overwhelming to me, being from a small (30k) town with a closed road system. We can only go about 40 miles before reaching "the end" and then having to turn around. We have nowhere to go and we go there pretty slow. So I am tired, not having slept for 24 hours and my nerves are already strumming discordantly. The (perceived) killer traffic did not ease the situation. Finally we get off the express and down into the city. Our driver points out random, huge bits of architecture that also serves as art along with statues that also pose as art. Everything in Italy is ART, from the most humble shutter to the grandest arch. In Rome, I was finding I had to try and filter out the frenzy of it all. Traffic, noise, people, traffic, vespas and motorcycles driving up onto sidewalks to get around the jumbled train of cars that we were part of and then, Oh! here is The Colosseum…more jilting traffic and then Oh! some other massive, ancient work of art. Silent and solid white marble, like an anchor, were a visual calm for the passing moment then back to the buzzing of hive-like busyness in the dark that was my introduction to Rome.

Finally, a winding alleyway, well I guess it is a street, but oh, so narrow, we arrive at our hotel: Albergo dei Borgognoni. Please, do not ask me to pronounce it. "gn" as in LasaGNa. I know, it doesn't help. So we arrive at our hotel. The lobby has a lovely, huge floor to ceiling 'terrarium' with live plants that it turned out our room's terrace (yes! Terrace!) overlooked, along with a big chunk of Roman sky. Actually: TERRACE is unofficially the theme of our entire trip. We wanted views and we wanted those views to have a terrace if at all possible. This was the defining reason we picked this hotel, being able to get a terrace.

Our room (delightfully) looked just like the picture on the website: The double-doors that opened onto the tiled terrace with the round table and chairs. There were planters with lattice and vines and pansies and geraniums that defined our square of outside property for the next couple of days. A surprising part of having this 'outdoors' experience from our hotel room was the Roman seagulls (terns?) that we could not see but could hear "chuckling" early in the morning and late into the night. I heard the same unique laughter of these birds on our one last night in Rome we had before catching our flights home.

So we meet our room and most importantly, our bathroom. Need I mention? Marble. All bathrooms in Italian hotels are marble-intensive. We are hungry and want to walk. We go downstairs and ask for a good place to eat and are given a map and simple instructions. We got lost for the next three hours.

Besides the terrace, we also chose this hotel because of its close proximity to the Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, Triton fountain, etc, etc. We exited the narrow street of our hotel and turned left and then right and then straight and then left again and five minutes after leaving, could not find our hotel again. In our defense, (hehe) literally the 'street' our hotel was located on had TWO different names bookending the name of the 'street' our hotel was on which was Via Bufalo. It was only Bufalo in the middle (I think for the span of the doorway of the Borgognoni) then it was two different names on either end. We even asked a (local) police officer, "Dove via Bufalo?" and he did not know. This was ironically comforting at the time, since we were not only lost, but feeling quite stupid. I know that eventually Beckee will read this, so I am obligated to mention that I became obnoxiously uncomfortable that night about being lost, hungry and tired in a strange city with a strange language. My usual ability to assimilate and go with the flow was just plain broken that night for all the reasons mentioned above. Also, in my defense :o) I was perfectly happy to get lost again, the next night after sundown and even was able to do a little bit of rational navigating with a map by that time. Becs and I both blamed 'exhaustion' for our inability to figure out something as simple as which way to hold 'the map.' We also blamed exhaustion for in our inability to figure out, once we got back to our hotel room whether or not the major (tourista-intensive) fountain we wandered onto was the Trevi? Or the Titon? If this was a class, we both would have had a D-. Neither of us did our homework. We were blank slates (with blank stares at times) sucking up all this Roman, this uh, Roman….stuff….

Italy trip. Part TWO (please read in numerical order)

….so I am ironically waxing on paper about wishing to have MORE moments ripe with the possibility for being "pretentious" while in the midst of Pretentious Centrale (as a bit player, but a player nonetheless). I trusted what they told me was correct, about coming to tell me when we could board the plane. No waiting with 'the little peoples!" It was as if we were 'cordially invited' to now partake in their little journey across the globe: "Please, kind people, may we now interest you in a trip to London? This way please…." Okay, that is not what they said, but it might as well have been.

I should mention that I am pretty sure there was actually a 'club room' even more exquisite than the one I was in. I think there was a First Class only room. Bastards! Also, the restrooms for this oasis (public restrooms, things that are near and dear to my heart when I travel) were of the ilk seen only in two other place in my travels:1) The Four Seasons in Vegas and 2) Harrod's department store in London. They had the tall, to the floor doors. So discreet!! Their paper towels felt like cloth. No Kidding!! :o) Sigh.

My seat was in the Upstairs of the plane. My carryon luggage was quite heavy as was my "purse" so I was dreading the trek up. Thankfully a steward at the top helped me get them up and then into the overhead. Then, the enormity of my naivety sunk in like an umbrella collapsed over me, almost taking my breath away. I supposed the thing that looked much like a sarcophagus was my seat (?) Yes. Okay, I sit. But what was all that stuff on the panel to my left!??! I tried looking around to observe and learn with not much luck. The seats are staggered so you are not directly across from anyone. I tried hanging onto my "purse" but discovered after fumbling around for several minutes and then asking, that when you are in an aisle seat, you have no storage space. I was offered champagne and accepted. Magically, the steward flipped a little toggle and down popped a tiny triangle shaped cup table from my mysterious left-side panel. It is no bigger than the palm of my hand, but quite functional. On the very busy L-SP there is a diagram of the seat, showing how if you press various of maybe 10 buttons what your seat is expected to do, including lumbar support options. There is also a personal screen that swings out on an arm in front of you, just missing the tiny cup table. Great design! More than a legs length away, near the back of the seat in front of me is the clipped up thing that will become my leg rest after we have taken off. I fret about not looking like an ass while trying to figure out how to unbuckle and adjust it (with good reason). I almost wished I was in my familiar place: Coach. They passed out menus that had options such as: "black truffle oil salad with grilled prawns" and a wine and dessert list. Last time I traveled, I was still a vegetarian, so I was enjoying the diversity of my eating options this time around. I was too nervous to hardly eat a thing, delic as it was. So back to my ineptitude; I did figure out how to unbuckle the footrest, but did not figure out how to actually lift it till I saw a seat neighbor raise his. It took me way too long to figure out where to find the place to plug in my earphones to listen to tv and just as long to figure out how to get the remote control out of its nesting place in the armrest. So much for my ambiance of pretentiousness that I was enjoying in the clubroom, I was now clever as a monkey in a chess game and just as clumsy.

It's about a 10 hour flight from Seattle to London's Heathrow. All in all, my trip was a full 24 hour ordeal from Juneau to landing in Rome. I suppose I am trying to justify writing nothing but airport/airplane stuff for two whole chapters…but it was all part of the bigger picture of the trip. I should wrap it up though. Let's see, when you fly Business on BA, you get to go through something called "Fasttrack" at the security points, of which I had to pass through about 3 between getting off at Heathrow and catching the bus between terminals. My friend Beckee, who I met up with at Heathrow, was thankfully able to tag along with me through these 'fast' lines. I am now so spoiled by Fasttrack, in reality I would have been better off never having seen this aspect of travel. What you don't know…you know?

I had been telling Beckee for a couple of months that there was a surprise in Rome. The surprise was that I had booked a car to pick us up at the airport. They called it a limo, but it really was 'just' :o) a Mercedes with a driver that meets you at the exit with a sign with your name. It was less than 15 euro more than grabbing a taxi, so what the heck!?! It was almost dark and raining when we arrived in Rome…

Italy trip. Part ONE

I bought a writing tablet at Seattle's airport and that is the only place I used it. In fact I just realized that I may have lost it, because I can't recall seeing it ever again. Some poor soul who may have found it is probably in a coma from boredom. Nervous, pre-flight ramblings are never worth the paper used and may even shorten the readers' life by hours when it comes down to it.

All through my trip, I would randomly ("random" my 'Word of the Trip', by the way) consider how "this present moment" would end up in my blog, or at least on paper. I would think of clever lines, full of description or humor and then, seconds later everything I just contemplated had fallen out, leaving only a ghost of memory that something was lost. I eventually made an effort to not do this, since I figured I was losing all my best material. But now, in hindsight, there are few small, reflective moments to speak of when it comes down to the black and white of writing. I am left with two weeks worth of small pulses and large jumps, stops and slowing down, of here and there. I decided a few days before leaving Firenze that:
I am only a bit player in the story of my life.
It is hard to explain, but things that happen, mostly the things that seem like a gift I am not worthy of overwhelm me at times and I feel the need to hide behind the persona of the person who is on the receiving end of these wonderful experiences. I know. This is not sounding like a typical travelogue and more like scraping the plaque of my brain cells in public. Yikes. I suppose Here, is where I should apologize to my readers who have stuck around this long.

So, I guess the only way to do this is to start at the start. If I try to do a highlights/mundane ('mundane' in Europe is still roller coaster exciting from my perspective) format, I will get hopelessly lost, which was a constant state of being in Roma. See! In a flash I could easily begin to tell you about getting and staying lost in Rome. But I won't, it is not the beginning…

I left Juneau early morning Tuesday, March 21. Sitting on the plane at the gate, in my comfy First Class seat (please note: I flew on a Free mileage ticket that bumped me up to flying in luxury on both Alaska Air and British Air. I considered (and still do) I will never be able to fly in such comfort ever again. So in my 'coach class' brain, this was a Big deal :o) so, we are sitting at the gate ready to take off a few minutes early according to the pilot's voice when the next message we get is saying, "Sorry folks, but some fog has rolled in and we don't have our needed quarter mile visibility. We will have to sit and wait." I got to sit and fret for nearly an hour before the fog cleared up enough for us to take off. I'm quite sure, I single handedly Wished the fog off the runway.

Fast forward to Seattle's airport, British Air's terminal is at a satellite wing that requires taking an underground tram. Even though I had over a six hour layover, I decided to hang out at the wing instead of staying in the main terminal with main things to occupy one's mind and wallet. In other words, the satellite is a very boring place. No one showed up at British Air's desk for the first couple of hours (that is three days in airport time) and I was a little concerned about not having a boarding pass yet. I was assured that going directly to the satellite was no problem, but in the past, I had always gone out of security and picked up my BP at the main terminal. "Fretting" is one of my main hobbies when traveling; especially at airports. So, finally a body shows up at the desk. Then, the miracle happened. I was given a boarding pass (NOT the miracle) and then informed I should go up the (grand) staircase to my right, and wait in the World Traveler Boardroom. I was also told, "They will come up and let you know when your flight is ready for boarding." It had started, the part about me being in a place where I don't belong. I said thanks and wandered off pulling my suitcase and suitcase sized "purse" and went to the loo to consider actually entering this rarified space. With still three or so hours to wait, and feeling this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, I decided to take those stairs…

There was a high countered desk, with a man sitting (yes, sitting, not standing) behind it. He needed to see my ticket to be sure that I was 'qualified' to enter this space, this space of which I could already hear the FOUNTAIN beyond the large double-doorway. Yes folks (those of you who know not of this stuff) upstairs in a normal looking airport wing was a paradise of a waiting room. It was shaped like a large semi-circle with towering windows shaded in a woven type material that let just enough light in (not too much, not too little). There were tables set up that had umbrellas, like the kind you have outdoors. There are teak lounge chairs place randomly here and there, couches, love seats, benches (all with their own little tables and such). There was a snack bar area with glasses, coffee cups and huge coffee/espresso machine, water-con and sans gasse, fresh juices, a basket full of granola bars and other snacky foods. I tried taking all this in, included the lovely fountain without too much of a look of utter amazement. I'm pretty sure I failed. I quickly claim the uber-moderne couch in the far right corner with the undulating back and its own green glass table, next to the settled in couple in a pair of teak loungers. They were my mentors and never, ever knew it. I sat back and had to observe what was going on. Did you need to pay for the water/snacks? Help yourself? Wasn't all this Too Good to be True!!?! Well, yes. And it was all free. I sipped on sparkling water with fresh lime most that afternoon. I watched people coming in envying their casual knowledge of this special chunk of paradise in the middle of a hectic downstairs airport. They (most everyone) ordered drinks of all types: wine/mixed liquor from the black and white uniformed folks who hovered around. All free. After awhile, they brought out huge trays of small sandwiches that drew small flocks of folks to the snack counter. I sat back and watched and was astounded (hopefully this not registering too loudly on my face) and wrote in green ink in my just bought tablet about how I would like to get to know the act of being "pretentious" a lot more intimately. All the while with my legs propped up on the clean, beautiful couch and a glass of lime tinted sparkling at my side.