Eddie started his new job on Monday, October 21st. He had a great first day of work!

On Tuesday, October 22nd, Eddie came directly back home after being at work for less than an hour. He'd suddenly felt sick at work, but it was only on the way home on the train that he clearly recognized the feeling he was having: a gallbladder attack!

The last time he'd had a gallbladder attack was in 2014 and I took him to the emergency room. They did all kinds of tests and couldn't find anything wrong with him, so they assumed the stone had passed while they had been doing the tests.

Two years ago, we tried to get Eddie new life insurance but he was REJECTED because of high enzyme levels. We had no idea why he had high enzyme levels because all his other test results were stellar, but now, suddenly, it all makes sense!

So, back to Tuesday, his second day of work. Eddie was in a lot of pain and I got him an afternoon appointment at our doctors office. They did blood work and sent him to get an ultrasound scan. Wednesday morning, he was still in pain, but now it came and went. By the afternoon, he felt better, just tired because he (obviously) hadn't been able to sleep from the pain the day and night before. The doctor called with the test results and said that the scan showed gallstones in his gallbladder but didn't show any were stuck. If he was feeling better, he didn't need to do anything further, if he didn't feel better, they said to go into the ER, especially if his pain was increasing and he had a fever.

Early Thursday morning, Eddie woke up in pain again. He'd had the pain later on Wednesday, but he was back to not being able to sleep. He also had a fever. I was unsure if we needed to just wait for he doctors office to open (it was 7 am) or...?  I called the advice nurse, mainly because I wanted to leave a message for the doctor. The advice nurse did triage with myself and Eddie over the phone, and suddenly, told Eddie to give the phone back to me. She told me, that because he was in pain again, and because he now had a fever, he needed to go into the ER as soon as possible. Also, Eddie had told her that he was having crazy, fragmented dreams, like, people were just saying the same word over and over again, "The. The. The...The...". The nurse said, "You need to take him to the ER NOW. If he passes out while you're driving him, then you will need to pull over to the side of the road and call 911."

Yikes!

Eddie of course, didn't think it was as big of a deal as the nurse was making it out. I got off the phone and told him we needed to go to the ER straight away. "Can I at least brush my teeth?" he asked. Fine, whatever, hurry up!

I calmly woke up Lulu and told her that she needed to get up NOW and she would need to walk herself to school that morning. She also needed to not fight with her sister and make sure Bean got out the door at the right time to walk up to school, too. This was probably the one and only time I've been able to get Lulu up in the morning the first time I asked.

As Eddie brushed his teeth and got shoes on, I called his boss to let him know what was going on. Eddie had only said he thought he was sick when he'd left work, so no one knew that we were having gallbladder issues. You can imagine his surprise when I called on Eddie's phone and he answered thinking I was him!

"Hey, man, hows it going?"

"Hi, this is actually his wife, Melissa!"

"Oh, hey, how are you?"

"Well, that's actually why I'm calling. I'd hoped to meet you under different circumstances but I'm on my way to take Edward into the ER because he is having a gallbladder attack!"

We chatted back and forth and he was super cool about everything, asking me to let him know how ever he could help. I really appreciated that! I took Eddie to the ER and fortunately, it was very empty inside. He got right in and they gave him some pain medication.

They took him for another ultrasound scan and ended up not bringing him back to the ER. Instead, they admitted him directly to the hospital for surgery!

It was now about 11 am on Thursday morning. The surgeon came in around 11:45 am and introduced herself and told Eddie what he could expect with the surgery and the recovery. I left close to 1 pm when they started getting him ready to wheel into the surgery prep area. I called his head cap his "cupcake hat" because it was white and had confetti and swirls on it, like cupcake sprinkles!

At about 4:30 pm the surgeon called to let me know the surgery had gone well and he was just starting to wake up from the anesthesia. She also said that it was a good thing that they did surgery because his gallbladder was in bad shape and "needed to come out". It wasn't until I came to the hospital post-surgery to bring some clothes and his CPAP machine (they wanted him to spend the night before being discharged) that his nurse shared that his gallbladder had actually been on on the verge of gangrene! 

Evidently, it was the talk of the nurses station. 

They did five small incisions on him to remove it. That bruise on the bottom left, actually got MUCH worse in a matter of days and is still visible, three weeks later. Right after surgery, after this photo I took in the hospital, his bruise literally looked like someone had stomped on his side with a combat boot and was huge and purple. The surgeon told us last week, that the bruise was from blood pooling in his side from the procedure and it would eventually go away.

The heavy duty pain medication they gave him (oxycondone) gave Eddie horrible hallucinations whether he was awake or asleep. He only took them three separate times over two days, but that was enough for him to say, "No more. I'll just take the Extra-Strength Tylenol from this point forward!"

He's feeling much better, four weeks later, and when he went back to work (two weeks after his official first day) his boss and colleagues had a special gift for him: A gallbladder stuffie! :)

Also, he's able to eat everything he likes without a problem and we're optimistic that we can get the life insurance renewed without a problem. Yaaay, happy ending!!!

Lulu had two Halloween events to attend yesterday. The first was a Stranger Things event for teens at the library. Lulu was excited for that because it meant she could wear her entire get-up.

She was Issac Foster from the Angels of Death anime and manga:

I was really proud of her because she made and/or got creative with so much of her costume! She made the scythe all by herself with cardboard, a wooden dowel, electrical tape and duct tape. The pants and hoodie she got at Goodwill for cheap and I gave her some wool felt to cut the blood out and she stitched it all on herself. (Yeah, that's blood, not flames! But shhhhh, Grandma thinks it's flames and really pretty and we are just letting her believe what she wants to believe.)

Lulu bought an anime wig online and borrowed the combat boots from a classmate. The bandages on her hands and face came from leftover cast stockings I had from making up my buckwheat hull mattress earlier this year.

After her event at the library, I took her to school for Spookarama. Also, there was a no weapons rule at school, so Lulu left her scythe behind in the car.

Meanwhile, Bean had her own Halloween event up the street at school. With Eddie convalescing in bed, I was on shuttle and chaperone duty for the evening between both girls. Bean wanted to be a werewolf, so in classic fashion, I whipped up some werewolf ears for her and did her make up with what I had in my regular make up box in record time. I got a lot of compliments from parents on my make-up skills!  BTW, the three black dots under her eyes was requested by the client. :)

This, below, was the donut event. They tied three donuts to a pole with string, so each was right in front of the face of each child, depending on their height, then they counted to three, and on three, the kids had to eat their donut without using their hands. Whoever finished first, won.

Bean was MOST impressive! It was like watching a snake unhinge it's jaws to eat a rodent, and she won! The parents who were waiting for their kids, didn't even watch their own kids, they were all so impressed with Bean's donut devouring skills. She got some parental high-fives when she was done!

Bean did the cake walk, once, but wasn't impressed and didn't want to do it again.

She was more interested in hanging out with her friends and doing games!

Bean is a HUGE fan of the Warrior Cats book series. Yesterday, she announced to me whom everyone's Warrior Cat character would be.

"Lulu would be Tiger Star," she said, very matter-of-fact.

"Oh? Why is that?" I asked, knowing the inevitable answer but still, I'm game.

"Lulu has a cold heart," was her blunt answer.

Fair enough!

Last night I pulled a very, very old coat out of storage for Lulu to wear this winter. It is a red, down parka that I bought back in the early 1990's from The Gap. It has a hood, and three generous patch pockets on the front. with flap covers that have Velcro so they are super secure. In the last ten years, this jacket has been steadily showing its age as it is regularly worn and loved during winter. Holes at the cuffs, the red is not so bright any more. And with each passing year I say to myself, "This has to be the year I finally give this coat away/donate it...".

But I never do.

Because replacement coats never measure up! My snazzy leopard-print down jacket from LL Bean Eddie got me for Christmas (it was on my Xmas list that year), while stylish on, has ridiculously small pockets that didn't even fit one's hands. And the slim cut meant that you couldn't wear it over anything thicker than a t-shirt underneath. No hood, either.

I didn't realize this about the leopard jacket when I put it on my Xmas list. It was a catalog purchase.

My Gap parka, though, hood. Pockets I can securely slip my phone and a small wallet into and head off to where ever, leaving my hands free and unencumbered. This coat easily fits over layers of clothing!

So another year has come and gone, and the coat is still in my closet. And because we have been paying close attention to the unusually early hoarding tendencies of our local squirrel population, combined with the early molting cycle of our chickens, are convinced we'll be in for a much colder winter than anyone imagines.

And Lulu doesn't have a winter coat to keep warm. But now, with this red parka, while too big for her, does. She loves it and it's perfect!

The red parka is not what this post is about, though.

It is a red parka, and it is also a red herring.

Lulu had the coat on last night and said loudly, "I'm so cold..." and then "I'm warm!" a little quieter. I was standing next to Bean who was around the corner, who only heard the first part and immediately quipped, "Like your heart."

OUCH! And touche'!!

I started laughing, because Bean has the best comic timing! She looked up at me, a little surprised by herself as well and added, "That just came out of me, I can't believe it [was so spontaneously yet on the nose]!"

When you have a mean big sister like Lulu, yet possess excellent timing and wit, things like this just roll off the tongue. 

Years of experience and practice, you know.

"Thank you for the milk. I'm now not dehydrated and now quenched."

This is how your ten year old talks to you when they continue to devour books on a regular basis.

Bean likes to sleep in my bed at night when Eddie and I go down to watch grown-up TV after she's supposed to have gone to bed. I never know what crazy position she'll be in when we finally come upstairs, but it's always entertaining, that's for sure!

This night, she put my favorite winter sweater on, too!

I got rid of the lawnmower and edger last year. We've been using the weed whacker to trim down the grass which works, but takes a while and makes my whole body shake for hours afterwards. So Eddie worked hard to remove most of the grass over a period of time. Meanwhile, my mom had a bunch of old bricks leftover from her house that I was intent to re-purpose. I brought home about 25 at a time each time I went over to her house over the course of a couple of months. Finally, Eddie laid a beautiful path so that when you get out the car, you can walk to the sidewalk with ease.

There were big mounds of dirt on both sides of the path, so about three weeks ago, I took advantage of the sad plant close-out shelf at Fred Meyer and scored a bunch of things for next to nothing to fill the space. Fall is the time to plant so things come back strong in the spring, and all are perennials so they'll come back year after year. I got several crocosmia, some delphinium, mums and a few others that will fill out and hopefully, keep the neighborhood dogs from pooping on the parking strip (and their owners inevitably fail to clean-up).