ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

Last Thursday (I think? or was it Friday?), I checked in around 11:30 to get my gallbladder removed. The people at the outpatient center couldn't have been nicer. We've had such good luck (except for 1 doctor) with medical care in Wichita. The only problem was the Nervous Nelly dude next to me with his two sons that encouraged his behavior.

It took 3 tries for them to get the IV in me which made me a little queasy. When I'm dehydrated, IVs don't work so well and since I was told not to drink or eat, I was dehydrated. I was expecting a countdown under anesthesia but instead, I breathed from a face mask and I was out with no real transition. One minute I was there and the next minute, I was waking up.

They let me take about 20 minutes to wake up and then once I could move to a recliner, they would let my mom and husband come back. I got moved and they came back. I was stiff and tender and so, so tired. They gave me a painkiller through the IV and it made me nauseous so we had to stick around a little longer. The doctor said I didn't set a record for largest gallstone but I was up there plus they had to make the incision wider to accommodate the larger sized stone. The larger the stone, the more the pain I hear yet I never rated my pain higher than a 5. Weird.

Side note: I've a whole diatribe about traditional medicine brewing in my head. Administering meds unnecessarily has lead to all kinds of complications for me including depression as a side effect of one med, extremely complicated labor due to side effects from another, countless infections as a result of another. Can we just quit with all the meds already? I have a really, really high pain tolerance and have never felt the need to take them. I wish medicine wasn't given by default with little regard to what the effects will be.

I finally got to come home and take a nap. When I woke up, my mom had fresh fruit and other food ready for me to eat. I wanted to eat it but couldn't handle much. The meds were still making me nauseous. I just opted to not take them and called the doctor the next day and they called in a nausea pill and another type of painkiller. Even with the new cocktail, I only took them twice and at bedtime.

My mom was here for 4 days or so and she made all of our meals. It was so nice to not have to worry about it. Andy left for a job interview in Texas in the middle of her stay, I can't drive right now and it was just one less thing to think about.

Right now I am post-op about 4 days and I'm feeling good. My only remaining issue is tenderness on my abdomen where the 4 incisions are (and coughing hurts BAD) plus fatigue but that is getting better too. I go back to work on Thursday and I think I should be ok by then.

And, it might be a little late, but I'm not totally convinced gallbladder removal was the only solution though my doctors seemed urgent to make that happen. I'll never have the chance to make that decision again but I wish more options were presented.

I'm an unapologetic feminist. Not the kind that hates men but the kind that thinks women should have equal treatment as men. When we got married, I didn't want to be introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Albert" but instead we were introduced as "Andy and Shannon Albert." I wasn't trying to make a statement; I just wanted to retain my own first name (at least!) and not be identified by my husband. I also took a year to get used to having a new name. In fact, my legal name is Shannon Rae Barnes Albert. I feel like getting married added on to who I already am vs. changing myself to be identified by my husband.

It is surprising, then, that I never questioned my salutation changing due to being married - especially since men don't change theirs. I'm about 30 years behind on this topic but it makes so much more sense to just call all women Ms. rather than changing from Miss to Mrs. due to marriage. Why do we identify women according to this anyway? It makes no sense. I will address Christmas cards to other women without the Miss or Mrs. from now on and would request that letters written to me do the same.

Hat tip to Blake for asking me about this. Same boy who asked me "can men be doctors or just women?" If male Republican feminists exist (surely they do), he's well on is way to joining them.

I'm feeling much better this morning and planning to go into work around lunchtime today to give the meds a chance to work.

I've been sick a lot lately and it's because I'm not taking care of myself. When I was training for the half-marathon, I was also eating healthy and never got sick once that whole time. Of course, it helped that I was doing that May - September which isn't peak sick time. (btw, got very, very sick a week after the half. Coincidence? Not sure.)

So, I'm re-evaluating and committing to taking care of myself so I can stay healthy. Things I need to do:
- Exercise. Haven't done much of that since the half-marathon in September but the weather is nice again and there's no reason I can't start running again.
- Eat healthy. Doing Weight Watchers helps me to eat healthy so I may rejoin the online version.
- Sleep. Been doing better on this but I'm fairly inconsistent.
- Daily multi-vitamin. Also been inconsistent on this.
- Work/life balance. This has improved recently and I'm not working more than I should. Need to try to keep it that way.
- Stop biting nails. Such a disgusting habit. I wash my hands a lot but that's not good enough. I have some nail stuff in my purse that keeps me from biting them and I just need to use it.
- Drink more water. Not a huge fan of drinking water but need to become one.
- Use the neti pot. I was reading that people prone to sinus issues (me! and Andy! and Blake!) can benefit from daily use of the neti pot. It keeps the sinuses clear and free from infection.

Other tips you have? Some people have suggested Zinc so I'll look into that. I need to figure this out. No more sick for me!

On Sunday, I had to drive home 4.5 hours with the kids and started feeling terrible earlier in the day. Porcupines in my throat, left ear hurt, fatigued. Made it home, only to have the symptoms get worse. Missed work Monday and Tuesday as my nose ran uncontrollably and got rubbed raw.

I asked Andy to pick me up a few things at the store, including a Neti Pot. I've read about them for a long time and would like to avoid going to the doctor yet again if possible. I HATE that place. All the doctor knows how to do is write prescriptions and half the time they are the wrong ones.

This is how the Neti Pot is supposed to work.



So I got the Neti Pot out of the box, prepared the solution and started pouring in one side of my nose. I'm pretty sure someone could drown this way. Water flowed down the back of my throat as I tried to breathe normally per the instructions.

The system in the video works just fine if your nasal passages are clear and free. Mine aren't.

Blew my nose to try to clear the passageways and actually had some success and a flow going. Tried the other side and no luck. That side is too clogged and can't be fixed.

I went through as much of the solution as I could and decided to stop and let the remaining solution drip out and get everything cleaned up.

So I'm waiting now to see how it works. My nose did stop running for at least 5 minutes afterward. Considering my nose is raw from going through 3 rolls of toilet paper (Andy got me boxes of soft, lotiony tissues to use now!), 5 minutes of no rubbing sounds good to me.

If things don't improve tonight, I'll be headed to the awful, awful doctor on Wednesday. Crossing fingers the Neti will help me avoid that.

Hiatus is over for now. I read a lot of blogs so I know it's not normal to disappear for weeks at a time but since it's my life I talk about here and saying "I worked a lot" would have been boring, I had nothing to say. After about 4-6 weeks of working ridiculous hours and feeling sick most of the time (I think I have a high tolerance for stress but I apparently reached it after such an extended time), I was gone for 5 days to get away, have fun, relax. Miraculously, I no longer feel sick or crazy. Well, maybe just not sick.

Drove down to Texas last weekend, spent the night with Kami on the way, drove to Amanda's house and did stuff with her for a few days.

Some random tidbits from the time away:
- ran into Abraham Lincoln
- accidentally ran two toll booths in two states
- fell on my face in a parking lot
- sushi, sushi, sushi (including Nobu which lived up to its name)
- standup comic that insulted everybody in the front row but called us "fashionable" (ha)
- saw the best lip synching pole dancer live
- Dunkin Donut appetizer
- barking puppies
- a spin in a sports car
- naked time at the spa
- renewed appreciation for my family. Time away was good for us all I think but it's good to be back together again.

Misty posted some old pictures on Facebook and these two of us from high school are funny to me. Misty on the left, me on the right. Probably taken in 1990 when we were 15.

Trip report blog posts take forever to compose so I get myself in PJs and comfie and put my hair in this super sexy Minnie Mouse 'do so it won't bother me as I type. Andy is so lucky to see this every night.

So everybody's commented on how different Payton looks lately but she's not the only one making changes...

On my birthday, Blake had a dentist appointment and I told the dentist his two front teeth were super jiggly and it would be super stupendous if they might possibly jiggle them out. They agreed they were so jiggly that they could easily pull them. To make it easier, they applied a little bit of gel to numb it and they just easily got BOTH front teeth out. He sat up in the chair and had no idea the teeth were gone. Best birthday present ever - mommy was tired of seeing two dangling-at-45-degree-angle teeth for the past several weeks!

I would call him cute but I'm officially banned from that word. My options are: awesome, cool or handsome. Not sure any of those three apply in this case. He looks so cute.



In less dramatic news, I went to get my hair trimmed tonight and ended up getting the back stacked instead of just layered like usual. I think I like it.

Today is our 10 year anniversary...yea for us! We were married pretty young and although it isn't something I recommend to our kids (the divorce stats aren't so good when you get married young!), it is nice that we've kind of grown up and melded our lives together. It's just so much easier and more fun now than when we were struggling at the beginning with finances, jobs, babies, etc.

Here are some pics of us over the years....

1997, the year before we got married


1998, the year we got married


1999


2001. I'm pregnant in this photo but not that pregnant. I start to question Andy's decision to remain married to me judging by the looks of this pic.


Later in 2001, Blake is born.


2002 - I dropped half a person in size and grew twice the amount of hair.


2003. Andy used to do all kinds of things to cover up his teeth issues including making silly faces.


2004


Later in 2004 when we went to Vegas...


2005 at a club in Disney World...


Early 2006 in Thailand...


Later in 2006


2007 in New Orleans...


Later in 2007...

Payton and I are headed out Friday morning on a road trip to Texas to see our girlfriends that we miss so much. First stop, Marcy and Aubry's, where we'll spend a couple of nights. Looking forward to some sushi eating, running and birthday partying while we're there. We should arrive Friday afternoon and the next post will be from their house. See ya soon!

I like live performances a lot especially if they are highly produced, theatrical type performances (Michael Jackson concert was my favorite of all time - not only was he very talented but the production was top notch) so I was really looking forward to the Kanye West concert w/Kami on 4/29. N.E.R.D. and Rihanna were openers for Kanye and I like them all so it was pretty much guaranteed to be good.

Before driving to Oklahoma City for the concert, I had read lots of reviews beforehand and expected it to be one of the best concerts I'd ever seen.

It was good but not that good.

First of all, N.E.R.D. was on and Pharrell Williams drove me nuts. He has aged a lot since I last saw him (he's only 35) and looked more like Russell Simmons than himself. He kept repeatedly yelling "OKLAHOMA CITY IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WOOORLD!" and "FORGET ABOUT MIAMI, LA, NEW YORK CITY...THIS IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WOOORLD!"

Dude, seriously, you don't have to try so hard. Frankly, we'd probably rather be in those cities than in OKC anyway. He was a good performer and the whole crew was full of energy and fun but he came off as a complete tool.


Rihanna was next. She's so young and beautiful and recently popular that I kind of thought she might be big enough to headline her own tour. Except she didn't sound that great. Kami commented that it's hard for pop stars who are heavily produced to sound good live and she's right. Rihanna looked good but seemed disconnected, tried too hard to be sexy and on most songs, didn't sound all that good. I was hoping she'd bring Chris Brown on stage because I'm SURE he would have been awesome.

Last but not least - Kanye. First of all, his set is pretty large and appears to have a lunar/sand dune type of surface to it. Along the back wall of the set, there's a huge screen that displays various spacey images and a smaller screen comes down in the middle where he stands. He's the only one on stage the whole time, the band is in the pit and Kanye never really took a break (except for a random spot where he sat down and drank some water and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" played while he sat...huh?).


The premise was that Kanye was on a spaceship that has crashed and he is trying to figure out how to get home. He talks to the smaller screen (which has an avionics type display on it) and calls his spaceship "Jane" and asks how to get home. He proceeds to go through most of his recent songs and performs very well. He had on a sweatshirt and also had a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He was pouring in sweat just a few songs in and I'm not sure why he had to wear 2 sweatshirts.


Throughout the concert he's talking to the spaceship ("Jane") and it's silly but his performances are very good. At the end of the concert, the spaceship finally is able to make it back because it's determined that Kanye is the biggest star in the universe and by his starpower, they are able to come back. Gag.


I'm all about entertainers having a little ego but I think he just went over the top with his cheesy scripted ego stroke. It's too bad though because he's such a good performer in between the cheese.

With work slowing down finally and the dreadfully long winter going away, I'm finally ready to post to the blog again. Here's what we've been up to...

Andy
Keeping busy with work and getting ready to transfer to a new work location across town next week. He's been looking into getting one of the fancy RC airplanes and earlier this year, he mentioned that he was going to take advantage of the flight lessons that Cessna will partially pay for. He's also recently been helping Payton with her tennis practice and trying to workout more.

Me
A few months ago, this happened to my car:


Blake and I were on our way to his daycare when I slid on ice right through a stop sign into oncoming traffic. I had some minor neck issues that lasted a few days and the car was totaled. We're buying Andy's dad's 2nd car that he had to take the place of my car.

Work has been good but intense. I hired a new guy which has helped take some of the burden off of me. I'll probably be hiring somebody else w/in the next few months to help even more.

I continue to plan trips for us and we'll make it to Colorado later this month (Casey, be ready for us!), Mexico in July for our 10th anniversary and back to Disney World in September.

Payton
Friends, friends, friends. She's always doing something with friends whether it's walking to the movie theater to meet for a movie, taking a walk or having sleepovers, the friends are pretty much what she does. She's also continuing to do quite well in school and will be put in some advanced placement classes next year in the 8th grade.

I've signed Payton up for several things this summer (with her approval of course) including tennis lessons. Since she's a teenager now, she's in the category with all teenagers including 18 year olds which has Andy kind of nervous. Andy and Payton play tennis a few days a week to practice before her lessons begin in June.

The only way to capture Payton on film - from far away when she's not looking.


Blake
Blake has changed the most of anybody in our house recently. Not only has he grown 2 shoe sizes, 1 clothing size and lost 2 teeth but he's also grown increasingly independent. He learned to ride his bike recently without training wheels (2 weeks ago he was on training wheels and now he's so good, we're going to take him on bike rides through the neighborhood). He's also signed up for baseball this summer (on the same team as Mia) and we've been practicing with him a few days a week. He's a good hitter, a fast runner and is doing better on catching the ball.

Blake's also finishing up kindergarten and just had his music program yesterday. The nerdy boy who has an easy time in school is a HUGE fan of his music class. When we were buying some clothes for summer, his only request was that he have a shirt that says "I love music."

Blake at his kindergarten music program (he was very serious!)...


A random recent pic - notice the two bottom teeth. The permanent ones are half way in.


We have other things going on that I'll post about soon but this should get us caught up from last time!

Payton's taking a broadcasting class and wanted to setup the camera on a tripod and ask me some questions.

I recently wrote about our visit to the Cowgirl Museum. While we were there, I got on a fake bucking horse and it was made into a video which just became available. Here's the video of that (keep in mind that I didn't even know it was recording a video of me at first!)...