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What have I been doing all week? Rather disappointingly, nothing. My surgery last Friday went well. I have four wee incisions covered by four tiny Steri-Strips. I only needed hydrocodone the first 48 hours. By Sunday I only needed one dose of the high-dose ibuprofen. I'm pretty conservative about painkillers. Probably I could have afforded to take more ibuprofen when my waist felt like I had worked a 7-hour desk shift earlier in the week but I didn't. Normal OTC ibuprofen helps somewhat. I really only feel a sharp discomfort when I breathe in too hard. It's fairly easy to tire out my waist while sitting up, so work on Monday will be interesting as a test. Unfortunately, just carrying out the recycling was enough to leave me out of breath. Seth was appropriately horrified I did that, don't worry. He's since made sure I sat down and kept busy helping guide him through Fatal Frame V. Short summary: It's definitely a Fatal Frame game. Lots of nice plays on Shinto traditions—the sacrificial element this time around is stiflingly misogynistic, which is probably deliberate and on-theme. The story and characters are somewhat weak though.
On Wednesday, I made udon for the first time. It's incredibly easy and relies primarily on resting the dough for several hours, so it's potentially something I could make again and either freeze ahead or leave alone while I work. I made this as an experiment for our anniversary treat, in case you wondered. Pan-fried it with garlic, bacon, hazelnuts and Szechuan peppers instead of soup. It was sufficiently easy I could prep the dough and be made to sit down with some nice chocolate and watch murder documentaries for three hours as exhorted by the husband. I am phenomenally happy to be with Seth, as I have been for the past 12 years. I mean, I wake up some days and worry today is the day he'll realise he married an ugly and horrible human being that due to repeated exposure to American food is also turning into a Tube Wife, but he remains very unconvinced this will happen. We have our cat to be disappointed in us and he's plenty enough to be disappointed in two entire human beings.
Dorian is finally convinced I won't flop around on the couch for hours at a time at night in pain so he can sleep on me for warmth again. It also helps the weather is finally below 20C. He has recently decided he won't eat his food unless we put it on the table and he's no longer into treat hunts. Of the latter, if he didn't steal bites out of my egg salad sandwich, stuck his face into my yogurt and tried to run away with Seth's turkey, I'd have asked who switched out my cat.
My Black Friday purchases has been a Purple office chair cushion and a replacement heretical bed pillow. I got the same office chair cushion for Seth last year and it seems to have helped mitigate the pain of working at a desk. As I will certainly be working long hours at my desk and in anticipation of the fact I'll be playing a video game at my desk for several more hours after that in December, more back support seemed like a good idea. My current bed pillow is finally wearing thin after about 13 years. Seth considers its contoured, stiff foam little more than a rectangular torture device on which to sleep on. Hey, it kept its shape for 13 years! My new pillow is made of silicone grids. If it does not survive at least 15 years I'll be very disappointed. Also I will feel guilty for adding to the global plastic burden. It also seems a little better built to cope with my violent sleeping habits, therefore I will be looking forward to seeing if it helps my actual ability to fall asleep without flailing about. This would all be solved if I had a cat to help put to me to sleep, as cats are Very Good Afi Sleeping Aids. Dorian only sleeps on Seth when we bring him to bed and doesn't really do beds in general (they're too soft). By flopping over in an adorable and happy manner over my knees as I write this, he has once more staved off the adoption of a second cat to show us affection.
Just when we thought SF General was finally done billing us for my ED and Urgent Care visits, we finally got the bill for my overnight stay. This was hanging over us for a while, since our insurance pre-emptively told us we were liable for about 54 thousand dollars. My take on that was that this was horrible, but there was also a chance the hospital wouldn't actually charge us that much once it made its adjustments. The good news is that I was right. It's not great, $4,800 for an overnight stay (about 12 hours in the actual room) is still somewhat ridiculous. But that's several zeroes less ridiculous. I'm now curious to see if the overall cost of my gallbladder surgery, once the surgeon's and anaesthesiologist's bills come in, will reach the total $7K mark my visits to the hospital entailed. I still think going to the ED was the right decision. We chose SF General, the closest hospital, and that too was still the right decision. It was an emergency. I submit to you that no one looks around for an in-network hospital in the middle of a heart attack. It's three blocks from my house. Seth is still upset we had to go through so much to confirm it was my gallbladder. I'm glad it's out, since the reduction in unpredicted and experienced pain alone is palpable. As the year closes, I really want the only things I need to work on are Endwalker, baking a giant pile of fruitcake and possibly once again planning for but not getting Christmas crab.
On Wednesday, I made udon for the first time. It's incredibly easy and relies primarily on resting the dough for several hours, so it's potentially something I could make again and either freeze ahead or leave alone while I work. I made this as an experiment for our anniversary treat, in case you wondered. Pan-fried it with garlic, bacon, hazelnuts and Szechuan peppers instead of soup. It was sufficiently easy I could prep the dough and be made to sit down with some nice chocolate and watch murder documentaries for three hours as exhorted by the husband. I am phenomenally happy to be with Seth, as I have been for the past 12 years. I mean, I wake up some days and worry today is the day he'll realise he married an ugly and horrible human being that due to repeated exposure to American food is also turning into a Tube Wife, but he remains very unconvinced this will happen. We have our cat to be disappointed in us and he's plenty enough to be disappointed in two entire human beings.
Dorian is finally convinced I won't flop around on the couch for hours at a time at night in pain so he can sleep on me for warmth again. It also helps the weather is finally below 20C. He has recently decided he won't eat his food unless we put it on the table and he's no longer into treat hunts. Of the latter, if he didn't steal bites out of my egg salad sandwich, stuck his face into my yogurt and tried to run away with Seth's turkey, I'd have asked who switched out my cat.
My Black Friday purchases has been a Purple office chair cushion and a replacement heretical bed pillow. I got the same office chair cushion for Seth last year and it seems to have helped mitigate the pain of working at a desk. As I will certainly be working long hours at my desk and in anticipation of the fact I'll be playing a video game at my desk for several more hours after that in December, more back support seemed like a good idea. My current bed pillow is finally wearing thin after about 13 years. Seth considers its contoured, stiff foam little more than a rectangular torture device on which to sleep on. Hey, it kept its shape for 13 years! My new pillow is made of silicone grids. If it does not survive at least 15 years I'll be very disappointed. Also I will feel guilty for adding to the global plastic burden. It also seems a little better built to cope with my violent sleeping habits, therefore I will be looking forward to seeing if it helps my actual ability to fall asleep without flailing about. This would all be solved if I had a cat to help put to me to sleep, as cats are Very Good Afi Sleeping Aids. Dorian only sleeps on Seth when we bring him to bed and doesn't really do beds in general (they're too soft). By flopping over in an adorable and happy manner over my knees as I write this, he has once more staved off the adoption of a second cat to show us affection.
Just when we thought SF General was finally done billing us for my ED and Urgent Care visits, we finally got the bill for my overnight stay. This was hanging over us for a while, since our insurance pre-emptively told us we were liable for about 54 thousand dollars. My take on that was that this was horrible, but there was also a chance the hospital wouldn't actually charge us that much once it made its adjustments. The good news is that I was right. It's not great, $4,800 for an overnight stay (about 12 hours in the actual room) is still somewhat ridiculous. But that's several zeroes less ridiculous. I'm now curious to see if the overall cost of my gallbladder surgery, once the surgeon's and anaesthesiologist's bills come in, will reach the total $7K mark my visits to the hospital entailed. I still think going to the ED was the right decision. We chose SF General, the closest hospital, and that too was still the right decision. It was an emergency. I submit to you that no one looks around for an in-network hospital in the middle of a heart attack. It's three blocks from my house. Seth is still upset we had to go through so much to confirm it was my gallbladder. I'm glad it's out, since the reduction in unpredicted and experienced pain alone is palpable. As the year closes, I really want the only things I need to work on are Endwalker, baking a giant pile of fruitcake and possibly once again planning for but not getting Christmas crab.
