Day: June 7, 2021

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I Am Scheduled

I’m wearing a diamond-point Bow Tie o’ the Day here as we erranded over the weekend. My Face Mask o’ the Day is the closest to my heart, with its own multitude o’ ties. Skitter is branching out with her own bold fashion statements by wearing her orange slices Tie o’ the Day curled and askew at the side of her neck. Skitter is so style-daring. It makes a neckwear mama proud.

I finally have a Cranky Hanky Panky medical procedure update. I have an appointment for a follow-up ERCP (scope-down-the-throat) on June 28 at University of Utah Hospital—to see if the lithotripsy I recently had successfully smashed my pancreatic boulder into bits and sent them on their way out of my body. I’m trying to be optimistic, but the fact that my Panky still stings makes me think the lithotripsy probably didn’t work. I won’t really know until they perform the ERCP.

I’m not complaining, but this current Hanky Panky round of appointments has taken waaaay too long. I’ve been trying to get this Panky problem solved since February. I know it’s because of the hospital backlog created by the pandemic, so I understand. But I can’t wait to get to the finish line on this particular Panky issue—even if that means having another surgery. I just want it finished. I know you’re probably sick of hearing about this seemingly never-ending saga. And I’m sick of writing about it. It just so happens to be what’s going on in my life, so we’re stuck with it as a tblog topic for a little while longer. Sorry.

Here’s an interesting thing to consider, though: My Panky appointment is on June 28. My PANCREATICODUODENECTOMY (I love writing that word) surgery was also on June 28, exactly three years ago, in 2018. You know I love a rich coincidence to think about. Is this date coincidence a sign telling me that I’ll find out at my ERCP appointment on this June 28th that I’m going to need another surgery? Or does it mean my ERCP will be the last procedure I will need this time around, because it will be as bigly a success as my PANCREATICODUODENECTOMY was? I could play this coincidence/meaning/connection game forever. In fact, I drive myself nuts with it. I can find meaning and connection, both literally and figuratively, in anything literal or figurative.

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I Have Been Distracted Since Friday

In this photo, my watermelon-y Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are waiting in line at the Dick’s Market pharmacy. Note that the ice cream aisle is directly behind me, which means I can shop for my most important food item while simultaneously waiting in line to pick up my meds.

This is the last photo which shows my left ear’s hearing device. What happened to it is a complete mystery to me, and I have been searching for it since I noticed it missing on Friday afternoon. Since discovering it was not in my ear, I have been unable to focus on anything but finding it. I have looked and looked and looked for it until my looker is sore. I’ve scoured my truck and my car. I have looked in all the potted plants in the house. I have checked the household garbage cans: under the kitchen sink, in the bathrooms, in the loft, in the bedrooms, and in the Tie Room. I even emptied the official bigly recycling and garbage cans, one stinky item at a time, searching for my hearing device. That was an experience I hope I never need to repeat. I had no luck finding my target.

I have swept the floors. Suzanne and I have lifted furniture to pull apart the dust bunnies beneath, in search of my little hearing gadget. I have sorted through our garden gravel near where I park my truck—although I did not rake the gravel like I had to do to find Dad’s lower dentures back in the day, as I wrote about a few weeks ago.

My next step is to check to see if someone might have found it at Dick’s and turned it in to customer service. It’s not just about the cost of replacing my hearing aid, it’s also about solving the mystery of how I lost it in the first place. I’m intrigued, and I will not give up the search. The hunt is personal, now.

As I was finishing up this post, it suddenly dawned on me that my left ear’s hearing aid is the same one the wind blew out of my ear in Farmington a few months ago. I wonder if, once it got a taste of freedom by flying around in that wind, its little gadget soul just could not face a life of captivity in my ear every day for the rest of its life. Somehow, it might have leapt to its escape. Now, that’s something I can understand.