Hell Week

Let's recap, shall we?

Dateline: Saturday, January 31
It's Jason's birthday, but he's selflessly agreed to share it with tech day, a.k.a. the day from hell. After about 5 1/2 hours of readjusting the lights, timing the music cues, and endless other tedious little necessities to make a production worthwhile—ok, fine, and a nice little potluck lunch—we call it a day and all go home to rest and recuperate before reconvening that evening for J's birthday dinner at the local steakhouse. Dinner is nice, mostly uneventful, other than that the staff overheard the birthday part and therefore insisted upon singing to Jason while he wore a coffee filter on his head. Mercifully, they skipped the paper toilet seat liner around his neck.

We then adjourned to our friends' house where we played Pictionary until I got mad about being ridiculed for my inability to accurately depict the globe and hid the dry-erase board; and then we played charades. I had gotten all dressed up for the evening and wore my ridiculous killer four-inch turquoise snakeskin boots. By the end of the evening, I thought they were to blame for the resulting back pain and so I settled into a nice hot bath when we arrived home. While easing my aching back, however, my chest decided to join the party. Naturally, I assumed this was my esophageal spasms rearing their ugly head again. Unfortunately, neither of them eased up for many hours and I was up most of the night in excruciating pain accompanied by nausea and was unable to keep any medicine down.

Dateline: Sunday, February 1
Way back when I scheduled rehearsals and asked for conflicts, nobody mentioned that this was Superbowl Sunday. So, 1st dress rehearsal started at 2:00 p.m. I was exhausted from being up all night, but rehearsal went well and it's a quick show, so we were pretty much done around 4:oo p.m. We stopped by the home of some friends afterward to share in their traditional brisket and socialize while the DVR'd game played in the background. Unfortunately, pretty much upon arrival, the pains started up again. So my dear friends packed up us up a to-go package and sent us home so that I could writhe in misery in the comfort of my own home. And then we pretty much repeated the activities of the night before.

Dateline: Monday, February 2
The first thing Jason did upon awakening was to go and get the phone and the phone book, hand it to me, and tell me to call the doctor. I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't done so because I wasn't hurting that much at the moment and it's easy to blow these things off in the cold, clear light of day. Consequently, I saw my doctor around noon and he asked if I was absolutely sure that this was the same pain that I experienced with the spasms because without my history, if someone reported these symptoms, he would want a CT scan to rule out an aortic aneurysm. My response: "Well, now I'm not." The hospital was able to schedule the scan right away, so we headed over and did that, and then went to lunch. As we left the restaurant, Jason asked me to call and check messages. I told him that there was no way they would have called already and he responded that if it was bad news, they would have called. Well, lo and behold, there was a message from the nurse. "It's your gallbladder." And asked me to return her call. So I did. She then told me it was "acutely inflamed and severely diseased" and they'd like me to have surgery that evening to remove it and the surgeon would call me around 5:00. Wha? To make an exceedingly long story infinitesimally shorter, I then went to my after-school theater program, told them classes were canceled for the remainder of the week, the surgeon scheduled me for an office visit first thing Tuesday, followed by labs, then surgery early that afternoon, I asked my producer to run 2nd dress since it was scheduled for Tuesday evening, told him I'd try to be there Wednesday for 3rd dress/preview, and that I'd be at opening on Friday come hell or high water.

Dateline: Tuesday, February 3
Surgeon's first words were that the lining of my gallbladder was 8mm thick whereas a healthy one should be 2mm thick. He sent me over for admittance to the hospital and tentatively scheduled my surgery for 2:30 that afternoon. Spent a few hours being poked and prodded, taking a shower with some sort of antibacterial soap, having an IV inserted, and generally being prepped for surgery. Went in to surgery a little early, all went well, I am now gallbladderless, cast stopped by to see me after surgery, and I spent the night in the hospital sleeping intermittently, having vitals taken, watching bad TV, scarfing Jello, and talking the nurses' ears off.

Dateline: Wednesday, February 4
Surgeon came in shortly before 8:00, gave me a recap of the surgery with some details I could have lived without, saw I was eating a liquid breakfast, said I could have solid foods, and said I could go home. Hooray! I waited for my real breakfast—I was hungry!—and got dressed and fled the premises. Spent the day sacked out on the couch with my good buddy Vicodin and then went to rehearsal that evening.

Dateline: Thursday, February 5
I have no real memories of this day.

Dateline: Friday, February 6
Opening night! It went very well and I was very pleased. Shockingly, I did not go out with the cast and crew after the show.

Dateline: Saturday, February 7
Whined to Jason that the recovery period for laparascopic surgery was 5 to 10 days and I should have been feeling better by then. He very sensibly and very annoyingly pointed out that I had maybe been overdoing it and should therefore expect to be on the longer range of the recovery period. Whatever. Don't confuse me with your logic, man. I'm above average, damnit!

Second show also went off very well and I was once again very pleased. However, I did elect once again not to go out afterward. Slacker, I am.

Dateline: Sunday, February 8
Exhausted. Decided that I would take things very slow over the next few days to fully rest and recuperate so that I can be raring to go by the end of the week.

And in the straw that overflowethed my cup of self-pity, I learned that the puppy we had applied to adopt will be going to another home instead. I am sad, dejected, forlorn, woeful, bummed, and these incisions itch like hell.