June Summer Camp 2014, Day 2, Just Making a Card, Hysterectomies and Rattlesnakes

Hi friends. I am so ready to cry, but over it. DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for your electronics if you spit something out or spill something while ready this. Food and water is not recommended. Neither is a queasy stomach. If you are a male stalking my blog, and I do know 3 who do, read at your own risk. It's probably nothing that you haven't heard before but you will be hearing more now. You are all adults now, at least age-wise. 

First, my camera won't unload my pictures, no matter what I do – and I have some good pictures too. My dad's "too much for me camera," all of the components seem to have disappeared and I really, really need them. 

My cousin's husband, who sustained a major brain trauma 7-1/2 years ago is missing, so I had to run over to her house with the cowboy boots and the Glock since she lives in the hills and that means rattlesnakes. Oh Lord help me. I don't think I will ever be free of those. So we are looking everywhere in 115 degree weather and I'm not supposed to take hormones because of the breast cancer. I had leftovers and I did yesterday. I need to see my GYN out here and coordinate with my old fabulous GYN in Kentucky, get prescribed the bio-identical plant-based hormones and get them mailed to me. Paducah Pharmacy will do that. So cool. That means an office visit and a drive back down to the Bay Area. This will be worth it. I can take those after cancer. I had a complete surgical hysterectomy of what's considered a young age in that world at 42. After 4 kids, MD thought it was endometriosis. Wrong. They found something else in there, but that's for another time. And I didn't know it but I was crazy because I was going through that perimenopausal stuff and it was hell. One day, I was standing at the kitchen sink and it was halfway through my cycle and all of a sudden, I could feel like this black dark cloud inside my head and eyes, like seeing it, come over me and then I was a different person. I sought help. The nurse spent and hour with me and The Other telling me I wasn't crazy but that I was starting the menopause process which takes about 10 years or something. She prescribed me Wellbutrin to "even" me out. Worked like a charm. I literally felt better in a day. She started me out at 150 mg a day but I knew I could feel even better so then I went to 300 mg a day and I was back to my sweet self. Absolutely no side effects. That is some good stuff. Most antidepressants have side effects and some which are not good. After she explained to me my options, I chose the Wellbutrin and everybody was happy, especially me, and I got to see my family more. I highly recommend it. I mean think about this ladies, when you get your period, you bleed for 25% of your life, seriously, one week out of 4 weeks. Then you have kids and that's another 4-6 weeks for some unknown reason and you are pretty much leaking from every orifice of your body with something coming out of it of blood or milk. I mean really. You know this. The more kids you have, the worse it gets. I had 4 kids with 3 of them being after 30 and within 5 years. That just about killed me. So, for the first 2 weeks of my cycle, you could torch my house and I would hug you. The last 2 weeks of my cycle, I didn't see my family because I scared them. It was awful. So, I'm pretty happy I had the hysterectomy and my family praised the Lord. I can now wear white with confidence. What a relief. But, having one that young and being forced into surgical menopause has its downfalls as well. Osteoporosis at an earlier age and the hormone merry-go-round to see what works for you to deal with the hot flashes. First hot flash I had in the hospital, I pushed that button. MD had put me on the patch and then right at that time, I wasn't even supposed to fly, and it was 4 weeks after my hysterectomy, The Other got a transfer to Kentucky in August, the hottest time of the year. I had a month's worth of patches slide off of me in 4 days. Then I duct taped them to myself. Then I called MD in New York and told him to write me a Rx for a pill. Moved to Kentucky, found a great GYN and she put me on the bio-identicals. They are great. I did ask the MD who did the hysterectomy for a complimentary tummy tuck as he's already cutting in that area anyway. He refused my request. Bummer. The MD in Kentucky, and she was a woman, gives them as part of the procedure – that 4 week difference could have saved me that scar skin above the incision and if you've had a hysterectomy, you know what I mean. The MD in New York said I didn't need a tummy tuck. So before the hysterectomy, I had all sorts of stuff attached to what it wasn't supposed to be attached to and I'm pretty sure I came off the OR table 10 pounds heavier when they just removed 15 pounds. Estrogen stores in your bones as well to hold off osteoporosis and other stuff for about 6 months. Then when you have no more left in your bones, you have to go hormone hunting again. That is when bio-idential hormones were introduced to me and again, I highly recommend them. Insurance even covered it at $30 a month. 

The weird thing is, is that I'm now back in California and have been for about 3-1/2 years and nobody prescribes bio-identical hormones. There's one compounding pharmacy local in Fairfield. I will have to put this on the calendar to get done. 

Now, for some stupid reason, I opted to keep my cervix, even though I had hyper-dysplasia at 22 and that's precancerous cells on my cervix. I got what I call the freeze 'n fry treatment since the freeze didn't work, which was putting some kind of Gulden's mustard type of stuff on your cervix for the freeze/cryotherapy, wait a month, all the while that's leaking out mustard too, and then get another biopsy with these giant tongs, nor do they knock you out or even give you a bit of happy medicine. You just feel the bit. Ouch. And they take samples from all over the place. I didn't realize your cervix was that big. That didn't work so they did the fry and burned off the precancerous cells which hurt like hell and put back on the Gulden's mustard stuff, which again, leaked. This is when you go to Wal-Mart and get the ugliest Granny underwear in the world and wear it for months. I kept my cervix because it holds up your uterus and ovaries and the most important thing, your bladder. It also buys you about a decade before you have to get your bladder tacked up because you've got this little body part holding up this big body part that fills up on a regular basis. It eventually wears out. When that happens, you have to go back to the mattress between your legs, Depends, whatever that you don't want to regress to doing and you are so over with since you've had the past 10 years of your life without a period, hormone swings, absolutely nothing. With my oldest son, I got sentimental about something and cried and he's like, "I didn't think you were supposed to do that stuff anymore." Uh? I still have feelings and can express them. I'm just not a lunatic about it anymore. I had my hysterectomy in June 2006. I have another 2 or so years to go, but I do know first sneeze and first leak, I am on the OR table STAT. I will not take medicine. The problem is obvious. Fix it. And please fix it with something that won't be recalled a decade later and I'm seeing commercials on the TV from ambulance chasing attorneys who are bringing a class act lawsuit against with whatever stuff they used to tack my bladder up…thank you very much. Oh, and you will have to keep me overnight because when I get knocked out with any surgery in that general vicinity, my bladder doesn't wake up until a day or so later. But that story is for another time. Look at what we go through as woman. It's all because of our Mother Eve who was no less taunted by a serpent that I will choose to be snake (more on them below – they haven't changed much) and had the forbidden fruit. Notice how she was lied to unprotected by her husband and alone – which unfortunately, happens to this day and I can personally attest to that. I do not have a husband and I am alone and when I did have a husband, I was still alone! However, I will not blame Eve all the way (see previous sentence). She was also chastised by God, but who did God call for first in the garden after they sinned? He called on the man, Adam, the head of the household. Where was her husband during this time when the serpent caught her? Why wasn't he watching her? He ate it too and then blamed the woman for what he did. That still happens to this very day of men blaming women for all of their failures. I hate that. Man up. Take responsibility for your behavior and stop being a (I can't find a nice word that I want to publish) weasel and blaming women for all of your mistakes, bad decisions and failures in your life. They are yours and yours alone, especially the way that you act towards women. I just personally have a problem with men like that and do not like abusers. Any type of abusers. None of them. Ever. I also have a serious problem with men who won't man up to what they did and take responsibility for it and maybe learn something so they don't do it again if it obviously causes a problem. If it causes an issue, stop. It's really that simple. You don't have to "try" either (so hate that word), just do it.

So, in going from hysterectomies, to snakes and men, we will now go back to hysterectomies.

I will give you my personal opinions (this should be a Get To Know Me post too, maybe I will add the graphic but didn't have Veronica make a sub-graphic that says "Female Problems") about a hysterectomy. 

1.  They tell you not to drive for 2 weeks. Listen. You have no idea how many stomach muscles it takes to put the brakes on, especially going down a hill. 

2.  Stool softeners are your best friend. Do this. If not, the second you leave the bathroom, you will be grabbing your purse and heading to the nearest pharmacy to buy the biggest bottle possible. You only need to take 1-2 a day. Start with one. Stool softeners are not laxatives. 

3.  Do your Kegel's. Seriously. If you ever want to not have to go potty every 10 minutes for the rest of your life, You have to tighten up those muscles. It took me about 3 months before I could go through the night without having to get up and go to the bathroom. 

4.  You will gain weight after all of the estrogen is gone so get proactive and find the right hormone for you. Mine was the bio-identicals. Then the weight fell off. 

5.  After your 6 weeks are up to where you can start exercising again and other fun stuff. Get that giant air ball and do stomach crunches, a lot of them, like all the time. You have to remember they cut through a lot of skin and moved everything around, like literally taking it out of your body and then putting it back in when they are done. Gross. I know. It happens. 

Back to the more pleasant topic of rattlesnakes. There are places in California that I know doesn't have them and one of them is Ferndale and most beach cities. It's too cold for them. And anything like that would be cold for me but if it comes down to it, I will take the less than desirable weather. I also happened to run into one yesterday semi-coiled and that's when they can strike at their longest distance, so I blew his head right off. He was 5 feet from me but that's 5 feet too close, KWIM?

Now onto today's card.

The video is great. We learned a few lessons about what type of paper that Spectrum Noir markers works on the best. And, discovering what does and doesn't work takes some time on the video, but not a lot. 

I have an adorable card for you too. Let me go and help my absolutely frantic cousin find her husband and then I will be back to upload the video at least. This camera thing really makes me mad. I took 4 hours messing with it. Then I thought my root canal appointment was at 4, it was really at 11, and I'm mad about that too as I took some medicine that I didn't need to since I really hate dentists and now I'm all loopy. 

Hang in there and check back with me, okay?

Well, I'm back now and my camera is dead. As dead as a doorknob. It won't transfer pictures for some reason. I plugged in the battery for my dad's "too much for me" camera and haven't touched it. I am so challenged, I can't even get the viewfinder to work! I did end up taking iPhone pictures which I have to admit turned out fairly decent. With my regular camera I've had for years, there seems to be a short in the cord that connects to my Mac, but when I do get it to work, iPhoto won't pull them over. I even tried to pull them off using a Windows PC. I will buy one last cord for my camera off of eBay since I did this the last time this happened to replace my original cord. I am so old school it's pathetic and I need to learn how to change my stripes. I never have made it to Sacramento yet to take one class on this thing and I really need to because the books out there, for what I specifically need, doesn't really explain much. I'm one of those kind of people to where somebody needs to sit down with me and show me – hands on. And I paid $99 for a year for unlimited classes. I really need to take advantage of that.

So my friends, here are my iPhoto pictures and the video should be up in a few as it's publishing. I had all of this done last week too, but that's to figure out for another day. 

I hope you enjoy our card that we made. It's just fun and it is not my clean and simple signature style. I layered this one up and used shapes and a lot of pieces I normally would not put together. I got the visual triangle going on with my faux pearls and love the colors of them to bring in the tips of the paint brush colors a bit more.

Thank you for your patience! And don't forget to do your challenge! The InLinkz will be at the very bottom of this blog post. Have a blessed day!

1GreenBannerChallenge

Make something with stamps or your choice of stickers that reflects art.


 

 

 

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