Dacri’s Closet

Pizza!

Originally uploaded by dacriscloset

One of the challenges with Jack’s recent surgery is… What do I
eat? :). Jack is on liquids only, so he takes care of himself. I’m
having to be creative though. I don’t want to fix a full meal, because
then I either eat too much, or it goes to waste (sorry, I don’t care
to eat the same meal every day!). It’s almost like going back to being
single!

The other thing is, I’m trying to just use what we have in the pantry
rather than spending a bunch of money on groceries. So last night i’m
looking at my options… We have a package of pilsbury pizza dough
that really needs to be used. Great. No pizza sauce, so I pulled out a
small jar of spaghetti sauce. Grated some cheese (colby jack!). Now,
toppings? How about some diced ham? Toss it in the oven and voilà!
Pizza! And it was tummy too! I definitely don’t mind having
leftovers of this one!

And isn’t it just so pretty??? :)

Sent from iPhone.

I miss  having Spring Break!  I could really use a break right now!  Yes, I know that I was off last week with Jack’s surgery, but that’s not really a break.  I don’t remember the last time I really took a “vacation” with vacation time!  It’s usually me taking a day off because I’m behind on something, or have a committment to something else!  Oh well! :o)

Jack is doing really good!  I’m seriously impressed at how good he’s doing.  He’s also been updating his blog (needlegeek.com) a lot, so be sure to check that out!

I’ve been creating a new website and online identity for a top secret event that we’ll be announcing soon.  Trust me, you’ll get all the scoopage here!  And if you’re a crafty person, you’re gonna want the scoopage!

This week is a Bike MS steering committee meeting, I need to get some fondant pieces started for a cowboy hat cake for next weekend, I finished some MS charms tonight (yay!), and there’s some more designing to be done.  There’s always designing to be done! But I love it!

Oh, one more thing, we upgraded the OS on our Mac and with it came the new version of iLife. SO COOL!  It recognizes faces!!  That’s just awesome!  And I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store in tomorrow’s announcement for the iPhone!

~Heather

If you haven’t heard the song, or seen the video, check it out.  I’ve loved the song on the radio, and just saw the video tonight!  So cute!

So I had all these good intentions of blogging during the day while hanging out at the hospital and Jack got his surgical stuff done.  Instead… I tweeted.  A lot.  So much so that I think I annoyed my greatest friend in the world, but I digress.

The surgery went well.  The doc was pleased.  As pleased as he can be… he’s a man of few words and even fewer emotional demonstrations.  The COMPLETE AND TOTAL opposite of Jack plastic surgeon!  But again, I digress.

We got there around 5:15 AM, surgery was supposed to happen at 7:15 AM, however said doc was “late as usual” (nurse’s words, not mine!), we wondered if he forgot to change his clock! lol  Finally went into surgery around 7:45 AM.

Around 10:30 I finally asked the desk clerk for an update, and after a few terse words (which involved me not checking in with her, to which I replied, “I’m sorry, YOU weren’t HERE at 5:00 this morning for me to check in with!”), the doc came out, said everything went well, he’d be in recovery soon, and have a nice day (minus the have a nice day part!)

Jack was in a regular room around 11:30, then down to radiology for a gastro x-ray to make sure his pouch pooched like it was supposed to.  Jack was surprisingly mobile!  Even when they brought him back into the room, he got up off the gurney (slowly of course!), and walked to the bed.  Then for the trip to radiology he got up, walked to the wheelchair, etc. etc.  Doc’s orders, he has to walk as much as possible.  We made three trips down the hall tonight before he went to bed, and we’ll be making more, and longer trips tomorrow (so prepare yourself, Jack!!).

I came home around 10:45 PM, for some sleep and to let the dogs have some normalcy, although they immediately started hunting for Jack.  Sorry guys!  I’ll go back in the morning, and he’ll be released at some point, probably before lunchtime.

I left for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon for my own doctor’s appointment across town.  But I’ll blog about that later…. maybe tomorrow… over at the Build-A-Family blog.

So for now…. hello bed!
~Heather

I added a feed of my tweets from twitter on the sidebar.  I tend to tweet more often than I blog!  lol

Spending the weekend getting things in order before Jack’s surgery.  Laundry, cleaning, etc.  He goes on clear liquids tomorrow and Sunday. It’s going to be strange cooking for one for a while!  I’m stocked up on cereal and turkey sandwich stuff!!  lol  No, really, I cooked some chicken breast tonight and froze it in single serving portions so it’ll be easy to get out just what I need.  It’ll be a few weeks before Jack is able to eat real food again!

Jack dropped me off this morning and headed to the hospital for his pre-op appointment to get the bloodwork, chest x-ray, etc. before his surgery on Monday.  The appointment was scheduled for 8:30 and they estimated it would take about 2 hours.  He calls me at 9:00 saying “it’s over.”  What?  That was quick!  Nope… they demanded $2,000 up front before they’d even do the tests.  And no $2,000 meant no surgery!

WHAT?!?!  The coordinator in the surgeon’s office told us that insurance was covering 100%!  The INSURANCE company told us they were covering 100%!  WTH people?!?!  Apparently what they failed to tell us is they cover 100% AFTER our out of pocket…. which is $2,000!

Now, this would be no problem… had they told us a month ago, or even two weeks ago!  But no, they wait and tell us this THREE DAYS BEFORE SURGERY!  YIKES!!

So after much panicking, much distress, a little bit of yelling, and yes, even some tears (on both sides), we figured out how to come up with the money.  Wasn’t fun, wasn’t easy, and we’re still holding onto shoestring hope that it’s all going to work out, but the important thing is… Jack’s still on for surgery on Monday…. hospital be damned!

I miss Baylor!

One week from tonight we’ll hopefully be asleep (since we have to show up at the hospital at 5:30 AM, which is 4:30 AM thanks to the time change!), but we’ll be looking at a new challenge, a new day, a new chapter, and another new normal for our little family of two.

We had lunch today with my parents… my dad had LapBand surgery about 2 years ago… and they had much advice for us.  I had seen my dad go through it, but there was so much that I didn’t see that I learned about today.  Oh gracious!  But we can do this!  Jack is uber excited and anxious to get it done.  Me, I’m cautiously optomistic.  But that’s us!  lol

This week is crazy!  I’m visiting a bunch of different venues to try to nail down a place for our annual company banquet, we’re delivering lots of coinage to the MS Society from our coin drive at work (it’s MS Awareness Week, by the way!), and Jack has his pre-op appointment at the hospital, plus a bonus appointment with his plastic surgeon to take a last look at his leg before surgery.

Tonight we had dinner at a great mexican place for a friend’s 30th birthday (happy “getting older” Grant!).  We gave him nicely wrapped Geritol and Hemmroid cream!  lol

I took the plunge and signed up for Twitter this week.  It’s interesting.  I just wish I could merge Facebook, Twitter and my blog all in one place!  Then I’d actually be able to keep up! :o)  So if you’re interested, I’m at twitter.com/jackandheather.  I’m still learning though!

Ok, time to head to bed, start another week, another month (can you believe it’s March already?!?!), and get on with it!

~Heather