Lucky 13

Note : I posted this on the actual day but it didn't show up for some reason. Here it is now, in its original format.

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Today, April 23rd 2007, is the 13th anniversary of the Yang + Temko union. The good news is that Wanda and I both called in to our places of work to tell them we weren't coming in, and then spent the entire day knocking around Atlanta together.

The bad news is that we spent all day driving from one doctor's office to another. Yesterday Wanda developed a stomach ache which got progressively worse, and after losing a night's worth of sleep she called the doc this morning, gave them her symptoms (pain all over her abdomen, sore back, fever), and then was told she had to go in. Right then.

So, we rushed showers and headed to the doc. After some rather painful tests we were sent to the lab for some blood work, and then they gave her an enormous tub of barium-milkshake to drink and sent us here so that they could give her a cat scan of the area to see what the hell was going on. The doc was thinking appendicitis. We were hoping virus. You see, if Wanda has appendicitis, and they have to do surgery, then that means that we can't move ahead with adoption proceedings for another year. They require a year to pass after your last surgery, I suppose to make sure you're OK, though it seems punitive to me.

So, surgery bad.

We sat around waiting to get cat-scanned forever. Finally they got her in, and then spat her back out again. Ten minutes later there was a quasi-verdict : it's not appendicitis. We were then sent here (notice how fucking far that is) to the emergency room, where we got to wait around forever again (it is so possible) before seeing another doctor. This time there were x-rays (which did not, thankfully, require the barium milkshake), but after many more hours and many more tests, nothing whatsoever new was learned, only that Wanda's appendix looked normal, as did the rest of her internals in the vicinity. They pumped her full of antibiotics, gave her prescriptions for more along with some pain meds, and sent us home. All told, we were gone for around 14 hours or so.

So, we spent the entire anniversary day at doctor's offices, or on the road to a doctor's office, all the while with Wanda in some pretty serious pain. When Wanda herself says it's a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the "worst possible pain you can imagine" (those were the words of the triage nurse at the emergency room), then that means it's about a 72 for you and me. Wanda's 7 puts me on the floor screaming like a little child.

We had plans to eat a lovely dinner somewhere out romantical-like, instead I ate this, my first food of the day, by myself at about 8:30 (it was the only place I could get food, and this meets my criteria for ever eating at McD's), and in about 5 minutes while Wanda was in for x-rays for the second time. Wanda, the poor girl, didn't get anything to eat except that disgusting, enormous Barium milkshake, and she was in pain the entire time just as an added bonus.

All along we joked how romantic it was (in between Wanda's gasping in pain), and we did remember to say "Happy Anniversary" to each other along the way. One thing for sure, it has been a memorable day, and will help to make us appreciate the good times all the more.

I love you so much baby! Happy Anniversary! Now go enjoy your hydrocodone!

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The postscript to this is that after a follow-up today, the docs are now saying diverticulitis, which means no surgery, just antibiotics and later, a colonoscopy! Yay!

One last thing : this is not to say we didn't celebrate at all - we threw a little shindig last Friday night (which got off to a roaring start when I accidentally broke part of one of Wanda's big toenails off with my large clodhopper feet during our prep work hours before) which lots of people attended, and everyone had a blast. We'll post pics of that in the near future. First we have to figure out where the hell the camera ended up.