And the New Year begins

December went by in a drug induced flash...if you can have anything as quick as a flash happen while on drugs. I stayed four days in the hospital, I was located in one of those sweet birthing rooms complete with flat screen TV. According to my doctor "As far as I'm concerned you had a cesarean and gave birth to tumors so you get to stay here." My family and friends came to visit, my boss stopped by with flowers and the nurses gave me a running tally on how many babies were born each day.

My doctor had warned that due to my long surgery I was going to feel like "two buses had hit me". She was right. On the second day I was determined to get up and walk. The nurses held out the carrot "if you walk to the bathroom we'll take out the catheter". I stood and for one moment, I honestly thought 'I can't do this', but then I felt the catheter and I slowly started moving toward the bathroom. Another nurse said, "if you can eat something we can take out the IV's, do you want to try some toast now...do you want to wait?" All I could see was the door to the bathroom so I responded with, "Bring the toast, I want to balls it out!" The nurses both cracked up and mentioned that the phrase "balls it out" had never been used in a birthing room before.

The rest of December was a blur of painkillers and trying to move around my house enough to begin to build up my strength. Oregon had the worst snow storm in several years an the snow stuck around for two weeks, including a white Christmas. I kept thinking, 'what great timing! I hate driving in the snow and here I am stuck at home!' I couldn't write, my mind was too muddled, but slowly I was feeling better.

I returned to work on Thursday, January 8th. I was greeted with choruses of "welcome home", it was great to be back. I saw this new year rolling out before me: here is a job I love with people I really liked, there would be no more pain or periods and I would never have to worry about pregnancy again! It was like my own little version of the sixties, without the fear of STD's. My husband and I got a life of consequence free sex! If that wasn't enough, Barack Obama was elected! I set up writing goals for myself and got ready to start a great year.

The following Monday, January 12th my whole department was laid off.