Misadventures in Moving
Let me tell you about the last two weeks. Everyone knows what was supposed to happen right? If you are a little confused here is a quick timeline.
•May 21- moving truck arrives and packers start to pack,
•May 22 - Megan's last day of school; Will's last baseball game,
•May 23 - Moving truck beginning to be loaded,
•May 24 - Waving farewell to Orangeburg on our cross-country drive,
•May 26 - Arrival in Magnolia, AR to unload the moving truck and settle in to our new town.
Doesn't that sound really easy. Smooth sailing with everything planned out and going according to schedule. What could go wrong?
Let us start our story on the day the movers came to start packing. Everything went really well. They were really efficient at packing and a great group of guys to be around. That evening we went to Will's baseball game and he had a really great time. We all get home and go to bed happy people. During the night I had severe muscle spasms in my back. I really think they are affected by stress, not that I have any stress right now, right? Anyway, Tuesday morning is seeing me in the bed with the heating pad and David pretty much stalking our doctor at school to ask for some heavy pain relief medication. I got the pain medication that afternoon, took one and started to feel better. Well, about one hour later I threw up. One of the side effects of the medication was vomiting but it would improve with the next dose. So I figured why not take one more, I usually have a strong stomach. The next dose lasted about 4 hours then I threw up violently! I hadn't eaten anything since Tuesday lunch time so there wasn't much to come up, but the lining of my stomach! Anyway, I think that this is the point when my little gallstone decided to travel from it's warm home of the gallbladder to the shared bile duct of my gallbladder and pancreas. Well what could a little gallstone do to you, you might ask. Hmmm, a whole lot of trouble!
Wednesday afternoon I noticed that I had a lovely yellow tint to my skin. I asked David what he thought and he didn't notice anything. Thursday at 1:30 in the morning I decided to take a shower and then looked at my color, I was orange! I also had other symptoms that I will not share with you here. David and the children were sleeping on the blow-up mattress in the living room while I was upstairs. Did I mention the moving truck left Wednesday afternoon with everything except for the mattress that I was laying on in our bedroom? I called to David to wake up and come upstairs. After approximately 10 minutes of calling I decided that if I shouted "David, FIRE! Wake up!" that might do the trick . It actually worked! He was upstairs within 2 minutes. He looked at me and tried to decided if the orange color was an emergency room visit or a doctor's office visit. I decided that it was emergency room worthy so he got Megan and Will dressed, I grabbed some shorts and slowly made my way out of the empty house to the car. At the emergency room I was admitted very quickly and hooked up on an IV. They an ultra-sound of my abdomen to see what was wrong. The verdict, a gall stone had moved into my bile duct that shares another duct with my pancreas. This caused my pancreas to get extremely inflamed which caused the pain in my stomach area. The blocked gallbladder caused the bilirubim in my system to back-up therefore giving me the glorious pumpkin color. The treatment was to stay in the hospital for 5 days on IV, antibiotics, and painkillers to clam the pancreas down and give the gallstone a chance to pass naturally. So that is what we did. On Monday, Memorial Day, I had gallbladder surgery and Tuesday I was able to go home.
What was David up to all this time you might ask? Well, as I was hanging out in a hospital room feeling like crap, David being the smart guy that he is called my mother to come and help out with Megan and Will. She also needed to help take care of the herd of pets (2 dogs and 2 cats). Let us back up a bit to Friday before Memorial Day. David left for Magnolia, AR to meet the moving truck on Saturday to unload all of our worldly possessions into our new house. He was so tired Friday night from the drive that he bought some sheets from Wal-Mart and a couple of towels and then slept on the floor of our empty house. What a guy! David did get a good night's sleep on Saturday, thanks to Will's bed and some linens that he found in a box. Sunday he drove back to Orangeburg to see what the doctor had to say about surgery for Monday.
Now all this time my mother was at my house taking care of my children. Let us imagine my house for a minute. There is nothing there! No toys, books, games, furniture, nothing! Mama was quite creative. She went to the dollar store and bought some craft supplies. They found leftover boxes and paper around the house from the packers and went to town. Megan and Will made forts and a table for supper. They made scrapbooks from things that they found and played games. We still had our membership from the YMCA and she took them to pool and waterpark. They also went to the park and did some shopping. I think the children had a good time but boy are they glad to have a home now! Also, thanks to wonderful friends. David, Mama, Megan and Will had some good home cooked meals and play dates to help pass the time. I love my friends! I shall miss them all but know I will see them again soon.
I should share a few more details with you about our last days in Orangeburg. I will try bullet points to keep things brief:
•May 21- moving truck arrives and packers start to pack,
•May 22 - Megan's last day of school; Will's last baseball game,
•May 23 - Moving truck beginning to be loaded,
•May 24 - Waving farewell to Orangeburg on our cross-country drive,
•May 26 - Arrival in Magnolia, AR to unload the moving truck and settle in to our new town.
Doesn't that sound really easy. Smooth sailing with everything planned out and going according to schedule. What could go wrong?
Let us start our story on the day the movers came to start packing. Everything went really well. They were really efficient at packing and a great group of guys to be around. That evening we went to Will's baseball game and he had a really great time. We all get home and go to bed happy people. During the night I had severe muscle spasms in my back. I really think they are affected by stress, not that I have any stress right now, right? Anyway, Tuesday morning is seeing me in the bed with the heating pad and David pretty much stalking our doctor at school to ask for some heavy pain relief medication. I got the pain medication that afternoon, took one and started to feel better. Well, about one hour later I threw up. One of the side effects of the medication was vomiting but it would improve with the next dose. So I figured why not take one more, I usually have a strong stomach. The next dose lasted about 4 hours then I threw up violently! I hadn't eaten anything since Tuesday lunch time so there wasn't much to come up, but the lining of my stomach! Anyway, I think that this is the point when my little gallstone decided to travel from it's warm home of the gallbladder to the shared bile duct of my gallbladder and pancreas. Well what could a little gallstone do to you, you might ask. Hmmm, a whole lot of trouble!
Wednesday afternoon I noticed that I had a lovely yellow tint to my skin. I asked David what he thought and he didn't notice anything. Thursday at 1:30 in the morning I decided to take a shower and then looked at my color, I was orange! I also had other symptoms that I will not share with you here. David and the children were sleeping on the blow-up mattress in the living room while I was upstairs. Did I mention the moving truck left Wednesday afternoon with everything except for the mattress that I was laying on in our bedroom? I called to David to wake up and come upstairs. After approximately 10 minutes of calling I decided that if I shouted "David, FIRE! Wake up!" that might do the trick . It actually worked! He was upstairs within 2 minutes. He looked at me and tried to decided if the orange color was an emergency room visit or a doctor's office visit. I decided that it was emergency room worthy so he got Megan and Will dressed, I grabbed some shorts and slowly made my way out of the empty house to the car. At the emergency room I was admitted very quickly and hooked up on an IV. They an ultra-sound of my abdomen to see what was wrong. The verdict, a gall stone had moved into my bile duct that shares another duct with my pancreas. This caused my pancreas to get extremely inflamed which caused the pain in my stomach area. The blocked gallbladder caused the bilirubim in my system to back-up therefore giving me the glorious pumpkin color. The treatment was to stay in the hospital for 5 days on IV, antibiotics, and painkillers to clam the pancreas down and give the gallstone a chance to pass naturally. So that is what we did. On Monday, Memorial Day, I had gallbladder surgery and Tuesday I was able to go home.
What was David up to all this time you might ask? Well, as I was hanging out in a hospital room feeling like crap, David being the smart guy that he is called my mother to come and help out with Megan and Will. She also needed to help take care of the herd of pets (2 dogs and 2 cats). Let us back up a bit to Friday before Memorial Day. David left for Magnolia, AR to meet the moving truck on Saturday to unload all of our worldly possessions into our new house. He was so tired Friday night from the drive that he bought some sheets from Wal-Mart and a couple of towels and then slept on the floor of our empty house. What a guy! David did get a good night's sleep on Saturday, thanks to Will's bed and some linens that he found in a box. Sunday he drove back to Orangeburg to see what the doctor had to say about surgery for Monday.
Now all this time my mother was at my house taking care of my children. Let us imagine my house for a minute. There is nothing there! No toys, books, games, furniture, nothing! Mama was quite creative. She went to the dollar store and bought some craft supplies. They found leftover boxes and paper around the house from the packers and went to town. Megan and Will made forts and a table for supper. They made scrapbooks from things that they found and played games. We still had our membership from the YMCA and she took them to pool and waterpark. They also went to the park and did some shopping. I think the children had a good time but boy are they glad to have a home now! Also, thanks to wonderful friends. David, Mama, Megan and Will had some good home cooked meals and play dates to help pass the time. I love my friends! I shall miss them all but know I will see them again soon.
I should share a few more details with you about our last days in Orangeburg. I will try bullet points to keep things brief:
- When David and Megan went to get the trailer hitch for my car people started honking their horns at them saying the truck was on fire. He stopped at a store, sent Megan inside and went around to get a fire extinguisher. Come to find out, one of the fire extinguishers had started leaking causing the smoke to billow from the back of his truck;
- The U-Haul place said that David's truck, a quite massive 4 door Chevy, would not be able to pull my car on the car trailer and they would not rent it to him. He finally talked them into the rental with a few hitch modifications;
- Checking into the Jamieson Inn I went through 4 rooms until I was settled with one that had sheets, no files and papers and did not smell like smoke,
- Upon arrival in Meridian, I discovered I had thrush mouth, quite disgusting! Went to the nurse practitioner afflicted with Rush and got a prescription to take care of it. BTW, after 14 plus years I was still in their system! Amazing!
