Merry merry merry...

Hot diggity... this "almost dying" thing really works out well when gift giving time rolls around. Seriously, though, I have had a wonderful Christmas despite the last minute 6 day stay at KU Med.

I put off all my Christmas shopping until Thursday when I was getting paid, so of course I developed symptoms of liver failure and was forced into an emergency admit to KU. I was in such denial that I honestly thought that they'd let me out of there Saturday... it was the following Wednesday that I got out. My dad thankfully arrived Tuesday evening right after I'd had another artificial biliary drain put into my bile ducts around my liver...

He took me on a marathon shopping spree Thursday evening after I got out, and we went for a lovely dinner at Scott and T's house that night. It was sort of a "do-over" for me since I was so disappointed to miss their dinner party on the previous Friday night when I was stuck in the hospital.

Santa came to visit me in the hospital, but he didn't really help matters. Miss Phyllis (Becky's mama) brought me a carton of cigarettes ("a christmas present") which kept me, frankly, from killing any physicians, interns, or residents.

My dad and I had a nice trip home to Stafford... I stopped on the way at the Topeka library for my fix, and was told that I had a fine due to a book that was "damaged with stains on the pages and a cat fur-ball? on back". This was written in their computer. Sure enough, the lady fetched the book, wrapped in plastic, and there was dried on cat vomit on the back of it. I was so embarrassed. I agreed to pay the fine, checked out my books, and got the hell out of Topeka.

It's been a good trip home... the fact that I'm sick means I can't be ordered around too much, which gets SO under my skin each year. My mom and I get along so much better when she doesn't tell me what to do. It's been the best we've actually gotten along in years. I do feel bad that I haven't been able to help out much at all, but luckily she simplified menus and made things much easier. Frankly, I hope we can keep it simple in the future... much less yelling means much less stress. I haven't even had to dig into the Christmas Xanax this year. I had to laugh, though. We had two of the young and very "energetic" cousins with all of us at the Christmas eve service last night, and after a whole day of preparing for guests, dealing with the kids that afternoon, and making it to church barely in time, Ginger actually leaned over during church and asked for a Xanax. Hee hee!! Totally understandable. It was a proud moment for me. If only everyone understood the beauty and necessity of a good pharmaceutical intervention once in a while.