Vintage Sarah

This was the Christmas card that I sent out this year. I thought it was somewhat unique, and it made me laugh, so I purchased four dozen.

This is what my work area looks like while I am working on my Christmas cards:



A year or two ago, I found out about the site yearbookyourself.com. Basically, you upload a picture of yourself and the magic of the website will place your face in a vintage yearbook photo. I had a ton of fun making myself into a dude from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Heck, I think I even had a 90s male version of myself. I did a few as a vintage female, but the vintage male Sarah was funnier. Any-hoo, I guess I thought these pictures were REALLY funny because I printed out a crap-load of them (and then put them away and forgot about them). Just before I began to write my Christmas cards, I found the pictures in my box of photos. Seeing as how karma most certainly stepped in, I had no other choice but to send the photos out in the 2010 Christmas cards.


Not everybody got a "vintage Sarah" Christmas card. Some people got other random photos, some people got original drawings and doodles, and some people got stickers and silver confetti stars. I don't think I sent out the one of me in the blond wig seen in the second picture posted. It just seemed out of place. Ha!

Here is a card I sent out that had a picture of my buddy Josh dressed up as Che Guevara:


Though I love it so, I think I am going to cut my list down next year. 48 cards (actually, more like 58...I ran out of cards and had to buy some more) is a lot of work and a lot of postage. I almost gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome.

In Other News:
I just found out that my surgery took waaaaaaaaaay longer than expected. Not exactly sure why. Something about they had to position me a certain way and that took forever and then the actual surgery took a long time as they had to dilate the muscles and dissect through tissue and what not. Everybody's anatomy is different and blah, blah, blah. Whatever. I was under for a long time. About four hours for a surgery that was supposed to take two hours. DANG!

Yesterday, I went to my sister-in-law's house for the family Christmas gathering. I shuffled my way up to her front door with my husband by my side. He opened the door, went through, and then I took a step inside. Unfortunately, I did not know there was a tiny step up (I can't look down) and I miscalculated how high I needed to lift my foot resulting in me tripping. A jolt of pain went through my body and I said "I really am falling!" or something like that. Thankfully, Dale and his father were right in front of me and managed to catch me. I cried. 90% of the tears were from pain and 10% were from embarrassment.

It could have been much worse and I am thankful it wasn't. I brushed my tears away, sat on the comfy couch amongst family and had the best mashed potatoes I have ever tasted in my entire life!

Surgery and Recovery

I had my foraminotomy done on Tuesday, December 21st. Basically, they removed some bone from my vertebrae to increase the size of the hole that the nerve root exits. The last thing I remember before the surgery was looking up at the mask the anesthesiologist was making me breath from.


I woke up in a hospital room with oxygen tubing in my nose, a brace around my neck, and pneumatic booties on my feet.


The first thing I noticed, other than my new accessories, was the pain. Thankfully, I had control of one of those handy-dandy morphine pumps.

I stayed in the hospital for two nights. Now, I am home....heavily medicated and hoping for a quick recovery. I most definitely feel the pain from the surgery but can not tell if there is any pain from the area that was giving me so much trouble pre-surgery. Hopefully, that pain has been eliminated!

This is the last picture I had taken while in the hospital, after I "spruced up" a bit. A little mascara goes a long way.


Now if you will please excuse me, I have to go throw up. Nausea is a side effect of the medication. Blah!

'Twas the Night Before Surgery

It is the night before my surgery. Here I am at the hotel relaxing in my satin pajamas, with my silk eye pillow on my face. Nice.

On Friday, my work buddies surprised me with a goodie bag full of treats that will come in handy during my recovery.

The bag contained a beautiful, hand painted card with lovely messages from my work friends, different lotions and bath products,an itunes gift card,magazines, crossword puzzles. sensory gum balls, and this beautiful eye pillow:


the gifts were so thoughtful and the work bunch completely caught me off guard when they handed the gift bag to me. It was a very comforting gesture and I love everything they gave me.

I especially love the eye pillow. It's filled with flax seed and lavender.
aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Pummel Yourself

This is the coolest thing! Pummelvision took all of my facebook photos and made this nifty little video. I get the "warm and fuzzies" when I watch it. You should watch it too. You might just be in the video yourself!

My Pummelvision from sarah webb on Vimeo.

LOVE IT!

The Tree

I wish we could have the tree up all year long. It's just so dang pretty!


I have five different types of lights adorning this sucker.
1.twinkling
2.regular white
3.beveled globe
4.pearl globe
5. frosted globe


One of these days, I am going to switch to colored lights.....I think. The white lights are beautiful, though.





In Other News:
I go in for my surgery on Tuesday morning. They tell me I am scheduled for 9:00 but I have to be at the hospital at 7:00. My pre-op appointment is on Monday. Actually, I have an appointment for lab work, surgical counseling and brace fitting (I think). Some of these are appointments at the clinic and some are at the hospital. Going to be busy. Am I nervous? Yes, very.

Woah! In REALLY BIG NEWS, my niece had a baby.

Cute! Can't wait to meet him!

Oh, I almost forgot to post the family pictures:

A little cheesy


Ahhh, that's better. The above photo is my favorite. Charlie loves his belly rubs!

See you later. I have to finish writing a few Christmas cards. Take it easy, sleazy.

Greetings

I started to write my Christmas cards yesterday. I love this holiday tradition. See, I don't just sign my name (and forge my husband's). Oh no. I like to write a narrative, draw pictures, add clippings and other fun things. You might get a drawing of the Grinch, a deranged elf, a penguin, or something non-related to Christmas. You may get a random sticker, a picture, or some pencil shavings.

It cracks me up. Cracking myself up cracks me up.

If I don't know your sense of humor very well, you might just get a regular card.

At least you will be getting a card, though. Everybody loves getting Christmas cards! Even if you just sign your name (and forge your husband's). They are little gifts and turn into decorations immediately after you open them.

In other news:

My dad is feeling better. He is getting his energy back and is much more comfortable. Looks like he will have is kidney removed so that this does not happen again.

I can't stand the preview for the new Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie flick. Something about how the both of them speak in those ridiculous accents just gets under my skin.

I have been eating a sweet potato every day for almost a week. I'm hooked.


Say, do you ever lay in bed wondering what you would look like with bangs so you try to make your long hair look like bangs without actually cutting them and then use the photobooth program on your computer to take a picture of yourself with your fake bangs?


Just wondering.

Eye Sty(e)

Oh great. Now what?


I have a sty (or is it stye) underneath my eyelid.

yup...up under there.

And now I have to wear this fat eye patch


My eye patch looks pregnant.


Under the patch, I wear a warm compress. The longer I wear it, the better. Gotta get rid of the sty.

I just wished I looked cooler in this patch. Maybe I can paint a little skull-n- cross bones on it.

Fluid

There is a lot of down time in a hospital. You wait for the Doctor, for tests, for test results, for procedures, for food, for the nurse, and for the cleaning lady, etc. Therefore, when things start to get less scary and more boring, you might start clowning around to make your family laugh.
***************************************

This past Tuesday, my father was admitted to Christus Santa Rosa hospital in San Antonio. He was very weak and was suffering from abdominal pains. My mom called me on Wednesday morning and left me a voice mail message telling me that he was in the hospital for internal bleeding.

I was at work when I listened to her message. My head started swimming and I got sick to my stomach. About 30 minutes later, and after stopping by Human Resources to discuss FMLA, I was on the road to my house. About an hour and 45 minutes after I got home, I was packed and on the road to San Antonio with my husband behind the wheel.

The doctors found that my dad had a cyst on his kidney and it was filled with fluid. Six years ago, that very cyst on that same kidney had was discovered to contain 7 liters of fluid. It was roughly the size of a basketball. They drained the cyst and told my father that the only way to prevent it from happening again would be to remove the kidney. Well, that kidney was non-functional anyway so it's not like he would have missed it but he did not want to have an invasive surgery done at that time. Flash forward six years and here we are again.

Except this time, the cyst was larger.

Much larger.

Over seven liters larger.

Here I am at the grocery store, shopping for some grub for my belly and some visual aides for the blog.



The cyst now contained over 14 liters of fluid. Originally, we thought it contained over 15 liters of fluid, but we miscalculated. Still, it was friggen' huge!
The above photo shows seven two liter bottles of pop. Yup, that is the amount of fluid that was sloshing around in his abdomen.

Do you prefer gallons?

The cyst contained the nearly 4 gallons of fluid. DANG!

The doctors think that the cyst had capillaries along it's wall and that some of them were bleeding into the cyst. That would account for my dad's anemia.

After spending several days in the hospita, he is now home. The cyst was drained and he was given plenty of blood to replenish what he lost.

A nephrectomy will follow....hopefully next month.