Last Monday was a busy day. All kinds of hectic at work,  rolling towards the first of another new month.  Another month off the calendar of time to accomplish things in 2017. I was even a bit worried and concerned about the lack of time I would have until we have had show results on the corporate table. But I was committed.  I was ready.  And I had a great team behind me. 

At home we were barreling down to T -2 weeks until Lauren went out of town. I’ve been keeping to my dressage ( dressage got auto corrected to Microsoft, lol) schedule not riding as much as I wanted but riding at least every week in the lesson. My back had improved- my life was improving.
Are you hearing but then? Well here it is, a but then on Monday night I started with this horrific type of stomach flu. Honestly do not know even now if it was a bug or food poisoning deal.  Round here you can never rule out food poisoning. And maybe eating Easter left overs a week later is not a good idea but it seemed like one of the time. 
I got through Monday and Tuesday pretty much in a coma.  I could honestly not make it further than my bed to the bathroom. No, you don’t want these details so feel free not to read the next couple sentences. Let’s just say that my mother who died two years ago needed this kind of help.   I never thought I would need this kind of help at age 60. And let it go.   I was probably as sick as I’ve ever been in my entire life and still have some of the same problems. 
By Wednesday my daughters for pushing me for the ER. When my family practice doctor saw how dehydrated I was,  where my stomach hurt she sent me right over. Why would listen to professionals over our children, I don’t know. Shout out to Memorial Hermann Sugar Land they did a great, expedient (mostly) job. Ally was shocked at how young the doctor was but giving a reference to Doogie Houser, MD, was a waste of my time so I didn’t bother. She was also shocked at how little money a resident would make while working in emergency room in Houston Texas (one of our conversations). 

Diagnosis – of course stomach/bowel problems that were quite obvious when I went in. I got some great medicine to take care of those issues. 
However, three interesting things came up on the CT scan but we’re only going to discuss one for now. (The other two findings might merit their own blog post so wait for what you can find out from a CT scan). The one for now,  I finally trashed my gallbladder- multiple stones were easily viewed and the gallbladder itself looked like a wicked, old troll (so the doc never said this.  It is how I imagine it, so what!!).  

They strongly encouraged me to have surgery ASAP before yellow became my new skin color.  I have had gallbladder problems for over 40 years and every time they have wanted to take out my gallbladder -starting when I was in college some other event would supersede the gallbladder surgery something much more crushing like they told me to take my gallbladder out just when I broke my pelvis. I wasn’t going to surgery then either. Another time was when I was six months pregnant with Lauren and I had an acute appendicitis they wanted to take the gallbladder out then too-again not a good time.  

I actually can’t even imagine a world where I wouldn’t have gallbladder pain. I’m actually kind of excited about this whole thing. Did you know the gallbladder pain can refer to your shoulder? Because I didn’t. It may clear up why I get this intense pain on the top of my shoulder even when I don’t remember having done anything to it, not that it takes much with my shoulders.
I saw the surgeon yesterday morning, I wish I had fasted because he wanted me in surgery then.  I had already had something to drink so it was postponed until this Monday.  I will appreciate any good thoughts, prayers, whatever you all do that might bring some good spirits my way. Not a big deal in the scope of what other people are dealing with but surgery at my age is still a little risky.

I’ll be back on my feet and back in the saddle before you know it. Not to mention having plenty of time to think and organize to push my corporate goals ahead in the meantime. 

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Jordyn took her first lesson on Poppy with Nancy.  On an aside, anyone out there reading this get how Poppy might have a reference to my family and theirs? I did not name this horse she came with the name Poppy and yet it was a place that meant a lot of smiles and good,  happy times.  It was one of my mom and Jim’s favorite places to eat in Denver in the end.
Jordyn has not had much opportunity to ride Poppy yet so they’re still not totally fluid with one another. And Jordyn needs to get over some of her fear (legit fear) of horses running off on her. I don’t think Poppy will ever do that to her. Let’s just say the first lesson was a little rocky and we’re hoping for a better one next time.  

For now, Levi and I are going back to sleep.

As always, thanks for riding along!