Surgeon, Take 2

English:

I met with a second surgeon today. I liked him much better; I'm very glad I didn't just go with the first guy I talked to. So, dear gallbladder, start packing: you're being evicted next Friday!

Spanish:

Encontré a un segundo cirujano hoy. Me caía más bien que el otro; me alegro que no elegí el primer hombre con el que hablé. Pues, vesícula biliar querida, vete a freír espárragos: ¡ya te desahuciaré el viernes que vienes!

Notes:

vete a freír espárragos

go fry asparagus

Isn't that an awesome turn of phrase? Sure, it means something closer to "go jump in the lake" or "go fly a kite," as opposed to "start packing" or "get lost" like I originally meant... but it sounds so cool!

desahuciar

to evict; to declare terminally ill

How's that for a perfect double meaning? You hear that, gallbladder??

New Apartment

Forrest and I are moving. More precisely, we're downsizing from our rental house to a simple 1-bedroom apartment. Our goal — which we met exactly — was to cut our rent in half. Having an extra $800 each month will be nice, both for paying off debt acquired while I was unemployed for several months, and later on for saving.

The square footage is definitely much less, but in our current house we're really only using the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. That makes up the entirely of the new apartment, so we're not giving up any rooms we really use. Not having "excess" rooms does mean that we'll have to rein in our packrat tendencies... but we both actually think that will be a good thing, even if it's difficult for us.

The location of the new place is actually better in many ways. It's in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, so we'll be significantly closer to our good friend Jerry. It will also be nice to be part of a real neighborhood, rather than just a house on a busy street like we are now. We'll be only a few blocks away from several good cafés, Thai restaurants, a yummy taco truck, and the (itty-bitty) Fremont library. Even the big grocery store is pretty close, which will be nice.

Pictures — hastily taken with an iPhone camera, without opening the blinds so it's looking at its worst ;) — are available on Flickr

Dismissive Surgeon

I had my consultation with a surgeon about my gallstones today. Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the guy. He was very dismissive of my concerns — "Don't bother reading studies, they're all crap, there's practically no risk, none of my patients have ever complained, I hesitate to even mention these risks because I don't want to put them in your head, so let's schedule the surgery!"

I'm mostly convinced that I'm going to have to get my gallbladder removed, based on what I've heard from doctors and what I've read online. But, as far as I can tell, there are some risks involved (particularly the possible long-term side effects such as chronic diarrhea or pain). I could believe that the risks are low and that it's still the best option I have... but I want a doctor who's honest about this stuff, not dismissive.

As Forrest pointed out, he's not just the guy doing the surgery, but also the guy I'll have to work with if I have any post-operation concerns. And I really just don't get the warm fuzzies from this guy.

So I think I'm going to shop around for a different Seattle gallbladder surgeon.

When Gallstones Attack

Since it's 4 AM and I'm going to be awake for the next hour or two, I might as well update y'all on what's been going on with me.

I'm awake right now because I'm having my third gallstone attack. It's this sharp, crampy pain in my upper right side. If this attack goes anything like the first two, it will get increasingly painful over the next hour, stay like that for a while, then gradually resolve itself. What's happening is the gallstones in my gallbladder got agitated around in there, and are moving in and out of the various tubes in the area, causing pain as they do so.

As long as the gallstones don't get stuck anywhere, my only symptom will be pain. If they do get stuck and block something, then I could develop a fever, nausea, and other fun things that would make this more of an emergency situation. I'm hoping it's just pain for the next few hours. :( I've taken ibuprofen for pain management and am being (hyper)vigilant about any more serious symptoms.

Apparently, gallstones don't dissolve themselves over time, nor is medication very effective at breaking them up. I've read that if you have only a few small stones, lithotripsy can bombard them with strong acoustic pulses to break them up. ("The final power level usually depends on the patient's pain threshold" — oh great...) But that method is often ineffective at preventing gallstone recurrence.

Otherwise, the other primary options are gallbladder removal and the restricted-diet-and-cross-my-fingers approach. I don't particularly like the idea of surgery, even laparoscopic surgery... but then I don't like playing Russian roulette with my health, either. Even religiously following a fat-restricted diet does not guarantee that I'll have no more attacks, it merely decreases the likelihood of their frequency.

Wednesday I have an appointment with a surgeon to discuss options and get his recommendation for my particular case. I'll keep you guys informed.

Update, 7:22 AM: Pain's gotten worse, not better. Still no nausea, fever (subjective judgement; can't find thermometer), or other worrying symptoms. But this pain sucks. I've been writhing on the couch for the past three hours. Doctor instructed me over the phone to take two more ibuprofen and two Tylenol. She said if it didn't get better, it means the bile ducts may not be opening back up... which would mean emergency open surgery, not the "friendly" laparoscopic surgery. Fuck. (Sorry, Mom; but sometimes it's appropriate, eh? ;))

Update, 2:12 PM: The ibuprofen + Tylenol combo helped enough that I fell asleep from 7:30 until 10 AM. It was still hurting then, but in a very manageable, beginning-of-the-end sort of way. I felt maybe 70% better. I moved from the couch back to bed then, and slept until 2 PM. I feel 90% better now; there's still some twinge of discomfort going on, but I'd no longer describe it as "pain."

So it looks like I've escaped the emergency scalpel, but let me tell you, I'll be all ears when I talk to the surgeon tomorrow.

Company Ski; PS, Gallstones

I'm going to bed in Leavenworth tonight: All my coworkers and their spouses/girlfriends are here for a company ski trip. Will write more later. And by the way, I have gallstones that'll probably require surgery. Most on that later, too.

Cuban Dinner

English:

I had a good time tonight! My dad's cousin recently married and his new wife is Cuban. I didn't meet them during Christmas, because I had to visit my boyfriend's family. So when I was in California this weekend, we made plans to meet.

We went to a restaurant in the delta, because it is halfway between my parents' house and theirs. The wife's name is Ellie, and I think we got along well. At least I liked her. :) We talked for two hours, almost entirely in Spanish. Their children (who are younger than 12, but I don't know exactly how old) are learning English, and the child of my dad's cousin (from a previous marriage) is learning Spanish. It was a really cool dinner.

She told me that my accent sounds Spanish (as in, from Spain), not Mexican or from elsewhere. Although I don't use the "Spanish lisp" or the form "vosotros." Maybe I should cultivate an Andalusian accent, which is most similar to what I speak now...

We're going to share our email addresses and Skype usernames to talk more. :)

Spanish:

¡Lo pasé muy bien esta noche! El primo de mi padre se casó recientemente, y su nueva esposa es cubana. No les conocí durante Navidad, por que tuve que visitar a la familia de mi novio. Así que cuando estuve en California este fin de semana, hicimos planes para reunirnos.

Fuimos a un restaurante en la delta, porque está en la media entre la casa de mis padres y la suya. La esposa se llama Ellie, y creo que nos caímos bien. Al menos, ella me cayó bien a mi. :) Hablamos por dos horas, casi totalmente en español. Sus niños (que tienen menos de 12 años, pero no sé exactamente cuántos) están aprendiendo inglés, y el niño del primo de mi padre (de un matrimonio previo) está aprendiendo español. Fue una cena muy genial.

Ella me dijo que mi acento suena español (quiere decir, de España), no mexicano ni de otro lugar. Aunque no uso el ceceo ni la forma de "vosotros." Quizás debo fomentar un acento andaluz, que es lo más similar de lo que ya hablo yo...

Compartirémos nuestras direcciones electrónicos y nombres de usuario de Skype para hablar más. :)

El León, La Bruja y El Armario

English:

I've finally finished reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in the Narnia series (in Spanish). I read it once when I was a kid, but I didn't remember it well and I also wanted to practice my Spanish.

The author's writing style was more... direct? than I like. I'm not quite sure... It seemed not like a dramaticalization but rather a report of the story, told without being sufficiently "in the moment" with the characters.

In any case, I'm glad that I read the whole thing in Spanish.

Spanish:

¡Por fin terminé de leer El león, la bruja y el amario, el primer libro del series Narnia (en español)! Lo leí una vez cuando era niña, pero no bien recordaba bien la historia y también querría practicar mi español.

El estilo de escritura del autor fue más... directo? que lo que me gusta. No sé exactamente... No Me parece no como una dramatización sino más bien un reportaje de la historia, relatada sin estar suficientemente "en el momento" con los personajes.

En cualquier caso, me alegro que lo leí en su totalidad en español.

Sleep Cycle App

Sleep Graph

English:

Yesterday I read an article on Lifehacker about Sleep Cycle, an iPhone app that monitors your, well, sleep cycle. It works by being inside the bedsheets — its accelerometer measures your movements while your sleep and infers the sleep phase.

Well, that's what the official site suggest. But I put it on top of the bed, not inside, and underneath my pillow even though the site said that's not a good idea. I checked that there was open space above it, so it wouldn't overheat. I woke up twice during the night (as you can see in the graph above), and each time I checked again that everything was okay. (It was).

...And I like the pretty graphs. :)

Spanish:

Ayer leí un artículo de Lifehacker sobre Sleep Cycle, una aplicación para la iPhone que monitoriza pues, tu, pues, ciclo de sueño. Funciona por estar dentro las sábanas de la cama — su acelerómetro mide los movimientos cuando duermes y infiere la fase del sueño.

Bueno, eso es lo que sugiere el sitio oficial. Pero yo la puse encima de la cama, no dentro, y debajo de la almohada aunque la página web dice el sitio que no es una buena idea. Comprobé que había espacio abierto de arriba, para que no se recalentara. Me desperté dos veces durante la noche (como puedes ver en el gráfico de arriba), y cada vez comprobé de nuevo que todo estaba bien. (Sí fue.)

...Y los gráficos bonitos me encantan. :)

Meeting the Haml Developer

It's a small world — I just ran into the lead developer of Haml, Nathan, at downtown B&N. Friendly guy. Reminded me of Sai from the Conlang-L mailing list, actually.

Genmai Cha

Orange Strawberry Tea Infuser

English:

My coworkers drink coffee. A lot of coffeee No, you don't understand what I mean. At a minimum, they walk a few blocks to buy cups of coffee 3 times per day. Now, I like coffee. It's possible that I like it too much. :) But the level of my coworkers' coffee-drinking… oi!

I don't want to drink 3 coffees (or mochas, actually) for, hehe, 3 reasons: it's an expensive habit, it's a lot of calories, and it's a lot of caffeine. Because of this, I've bought genmai cha*, a type of Japanese green tea with roasted brown rice. It's a loose-leaf tea, so I also bought an infuser. How cute, no? And, why is the strawberry orange? That's a good question. :)

Spanish:

Mis compañeros de trabajo beben café. Mucho café. No, no entiendes lo que quiero decir. A un mínimo, ellos andan unas cuadras para comprar tazas de café 3 veces cada día. Bueno, me gusta el café. Es posible que me gusta demasiado. :) Pero el nivel de beber café de mis compañeros… ¡ay!

No quiero beber 3 cafés (o mocas, en realidad) por, jeje, 3 razones: es un hábito caro, son muchas calorías, y es mucha cafeína. Por eso, he comprado genmai cha*, un tipo de té verde japonés con arroz integral tostado. Es un té de anillas, así que también compré un infusor. Qué precioso, ¿no? Y, ¿por qué es anaranjada esta fresa? Ésa es una buena pregunta. :)

* I usually mispronounce "genmai cha" as [ʤɛn mɑi ʧɑi], like I've got some vowel harmony going on or something. :P (It should actually be pronounced something like [ɡɛn mɑi ʧɑ], if you were trying to follow the Japanese pronounciation (while still speaking in English).