Awww, I 'm going to miss the gathering, guys. I spent my vacation money on most of a week in the hospital last month. I was hoping to still make it work, but the bills are trickling in now and there's just no way.
I have "good" insurance through my job, but it's still rough with co-pays, deductables, and dis-alloweds.
For the record, I'm fine now, but the day I went in I felt awful. From noon on I couldn't eat or drink, and what I had eaten and drunk earlier just seemed to sit in my stomach (an accurate description, it turns out). By dinner I was in real pain and took myself off to the ER, suspecting all the while that they would tell me that I had gas or at worst food poisoning. Whatayaknow, they immediately sent me for a cat scan and diagnosed a bowel obstruction. Seems I have some scar tissue from a couple of abdominal surgeries 10 and 15 years ago, and that scar tissue finally blocked things up.
They didn't want to do any more surgery to remove the blockage because more scar tissue would form, so I spent 4 nights, 5 days getting absolutely nothing by mouth (not even ice chips!), with tubes draining my system, waiting for the blockage to "resolve" itself. I was walking the hallways, trying to get things moving, getting in and out of bed, the nurses even taught me to unhook and reattach all of my own tubes. But they kept me in the ICU the whole time because of the risk of rupture or necrotizing tissue around the block. After they got my pain under control I felt like a fraud though, HUNGRY, but a fraud.
The kids spent the week with their grandpa, worked like serfs, ate like kings. It's amazing how much money I saved on groceries!
Eventually things moved on, so to speak, and I was turned loose. Yay! But they still have ahold of my wallet. Waaa!
Okay, I'll start saving again for next year. Hope you all have fun, though!
Catherine