Woah! Oh yeah! I have a blog... Ha... Oops

People. Friends. Family. Random stalkers (you know who you are). Sorry that I have forgotten about you. I didn't mean to. I just, well, forgot. Lots have happened since DECEMBER of 2010.  It's now September of 2011.  Dang, 9 months. Almost to the day.

NO, I did NOT get pregnant and go "visit family" in another part of the world to be hidden from the shame of having a child out of wedlock like they used to do. HOWEVER, I have completed a 6 month stint on night shift, where my working hours were from 1900 (7pm) to 0700 (7am), and I slept between the hours of 0700 and 1900 (but mostly my sleeping hours were from 0830 to 1600----830 to 4p).  It was tough, but an experience that I am glad that I chose to go through.  I want to be the best at whatever job I hold, and how can I say that I know the difference between days and nights when I had never worked nights.  Now I have worked nights for 6 months, during the summer for the most part, over some major holidays, and it was definitely an experience that I needed.  I will say that I do miss the types and volumes of calls on night shift, and a lot of the people that I worked with, however, I do not miss sleeping during the day and missing being able to do things with friends or visit family because I had just been up for 12+ hours and now need to sleep before even thinking about driving more than 2 hours.

Also, during my hiatus, I have undergone surgery to remove my gall bladder.  Yeah, that was a fun 12 days.  It was the last balmy day in July.  I was sitting at my desk, dispatching the paramedics to the life and death and stubbed toes calls, when my abdomen (that pesky beast that we all deal with) decides that it wants to start turning in a burning ball of firey pain.  At first it was relatively manageable.  Hell, I initially thought it was just bad gas moving through my system and I'd let a good one rip after a while. Oh, but little did I know that my body had something else planned for me.  Not 10 minutes after the start of the cramping, burning, "no-position-is-comfortbale-enough" pain I was walking to the back office in the hopes that laying down for a few minutes would help, when I nearly fall on my face from doubling over in agonizing pain.  I make it to the back office with the supervisor offering her shoulder as a crutch, and I immediately ball in the fetal position with my forehead on the carpet (gross work carpet at that), my arms wrapped around my waist in a, hopefully, pain reducing hug (yeah, that didn't happen), rocking back and forth crying incoherently because the whole part of my body that was wrapped in epidermis, below the ribs and above the pelvis, was nothing but agonizing torture!  Thankfully, or more in a CYA (cover your ass) manner, the supervisor had already had one of my coworkers put in a call for an ambulance--yes, the guys and gals that I was just sending on calls are now being dispatched for me.  When they arrived they walked to the office, opened the door, looked at me for about 2 seconds before asking me if I wanted to be transported.  I, of course, just nodded my head, "hopped" on the gourney, and was wheeled away (how embarrassing).

The rest of the gall bladder story is relatively short after that, the initial excruciating pain was the most "exciting" part about the whole experience.  I sat in the ER for about 8hours.  I had an untrasound done of my innerds (totally awesome by the way).  The doctor or magical wizard that looks at the "films" saw that I had gall stones and that they were starting to obstruct the release of the lovely bile and other digestive juices from my liver to the rest of my digestive track.  So, during my 8hr lounge in the ER I see the ER doctor and then one of the surgery residents come in and ask me what I would like to do.  I tell him, "take it out as quick as possible so I miss as little time at work as possible."  I didn't want to have another trip to the ER due to gall baldder pain, and I didn't want to miss a ton of work for that stupid little organ (which I feel a little bit emptier now for not having; there's a hole in me that can never be replaced).  ANYWAYS, Sunday night I get admitted around 1am, so technically on Monday morning.  The surgeons were hoping that they would be able to get me into surgery on August 1st, Monday, but due to an unforseen trauma that came in I was bumped from being penciled in.  Thankfully, though, I was able to get sliced up bright and early on Tuesday by Dr Allison Lynn.  She did a great job, and was really nice (I quite enjoyed speaking with her before surgery and then at my follow-up days later).

I was able to go home on Tuesday afternoon.  My mom is fantastic and came down on Sunday night, and arrived at the hospital shortly after I was wheeled into my room.  So, mom took me home on Tuesday and stayed with me through Thursday evening.  I was told by the doc to stay out of work for 10 days after the procedure on Tuesday, so on August 11 I went in for my follow up and was cleared by Dr Lynn to return to work. 

12 days out of work when 1) you have no money, and 2) you're basically confined to your couch, and 3) it's "forced" time off and not voluntary really sucks! I lived though, obviously.  I was SO happy when I could return to work. Like I just wrote, 12 days off without wanting to be off, stunk. 

Since then though, I have gone on many dates with my now boyfriend.  I like him a lot. I have done a sleepover at work for Hurricane Irene, and my little boy cats ... OH MY GOSH I DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT MY LITTLE BOY CATS!

Alright, well. I have 2 cats now. They're about 5 months old, will be 6 months in about 2 weeks.  They are black cats with green and amber eyes.  They are beautiful little creatures! One night while doing my time on night shift a call came in about someone dumping a box of kitten behind a store, the cop got out there and sure enough, a box of four tiny kittens had been left behind the store.  When we called animal control to see what they would do about the kittens they said they would just put them down.  We were NOT going to have any of that, so we told the officer to bring them here and we would find a way to take care of the baby cats.  One coworker took the little girl of the bunch, another coworker took one of the other little boys, and then since there were two left I couldn't just leave one without a home, so I took the two innocent little beasts home with me.

It was probably close to 2 weeks of being the little boys' momma before I decided on what to name them.  Finally, I decided on Mr T (he had a mohawk on his back down to his tail, so it seemed fitting that a black cat with a mohawk be called Mr T... Plus, I wanted him to be SUPER awesome), and the second one is named Thor (full of energy and just a handsome fella).

But the boys are now eunichs.  A sad loss has come since I last posted on here, in that I had to put Scabbers down due to a brain tumor that was affecting her motor skills and interfering with her ability to eat.  I now have another little girl rat.  Her name is Hermione.  She's albino, and she's wonderful.  She's playful and sweet like Scabbers was, and she even likes playing with the boys!  I do have a happy little family.

I have been dating a guy for just under a month now, and I am so happy.  He makes me smile, he makes me laugh, he makes me feel beautiful and wanted and needed.  It's a very nice thing to be held by him, and then to see the look in his eyes.  It's wonderful.

Well, ladies and gents... If you have made it this far then you get a PRIZE!! What may that prize be, you ask?!

AN INTERNET HIGH FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oops, sorry!! Didn't mean to miss your hand and get your face!!