Sans Appendix

I made it through surgery yesterday. I had been having a hellacious pain in my lower right side for the past 6 months and in trying to track down what the pain was, I have endured a Catscan, an MRI, a colonscopy, two ultrasounds and various bouts of being poked and prodded by doctors, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, and whoever else happened to be in the examining rooms at the time.

Finally I was sent to a kindly surgeon who performed laparoscopic surgery on my abdomen yesterday to find out what this mystery pain was. As it turns out, it was something that was sort-of but not quite fully ruled out a few months ago.

I am now appendix-less. My poor old beat-up appendix was hard where it should have been soft, due to recurring infections. It might have gone gangrenous given half a chance (just to spite me, I'm sure). I now have three tiny holes in my stomach where they inserted the laparoscopic camera and who knows what else, which will probably not even be noticeable scars in a year or two.

Such relief, I tell you. I am obviously sore as hell today, but pain meds are a goodly thing.
Soon I will be wiggling my way back to belly dancing and losing weight! Yahoo zzzzz...Oh, did I doze off? Pain meds are gooooood....

On a positive note, I am teaching myself Adobe Photoshop special effects. Here's a sloppy first try of an old picture of me: