The Business Trip from Hell....

okay, maybe not hell, but definitely purgatory. Suffice it to say I have come out of this weekend's work with 5, yes 5, lieu days. As V. says, and I apologize to my American readers, Youngstown Ohio is the armpit of America. The plant/office is located in an industrial, very run down area of the city. There is absolutely no place near by to eat, and very few places will delivery food. In fact, our hotel was in Boardman which is 10 minutes away - we didn't even stay in Youngstown. So because there was no place to eat, we had to leave the office each day to go have lunch and dinner. And of course, because we don't have keys or an alarm code, we couldn't leave for dinner at night knowing that we wouldn't be able to get back in. So dinner was never earlier than 10:30pm each night. And we had to go back to Boardman to each each meal. Thanfully we weren't living on fast food and were able to get decent food at Friday's, Applebees, Steak & Shake (mmmmmm, I love those shakes), IHOP, and on Sunday night it was Wendy's since NOTHING is open after 10 there is seems. Can always count on Wendy's Late Night pickup window. :)

Anyway, the work went reasonably well, albeit, slowly. Tell me, why when you've told the office that they are having major network changes happening over the weekend, and mail changes, why why why do they think that means that they can come into the office to work on Saturday! Yes, that's right, 12-15 people were in the office that day while we were trying to get our stuff done. I can understand the people that had to get payroll completed because it was the end of a pay period, and we were taking away a "Time and Attendance" application, but everyone else????? What was so important that it couldn't wait? Plus, there was supposed to be some cabling done in the week prior to us going down to ensure that when the network was split, everyone in the plant area could still access what they needed. Was the cable run? Nope. In fact, they were running the cable (correction - my manager ran the cable) on Monday! Yes, Monday! That was supposed to be our last day there. Supposed to be a "just make sure it's all working" day. The day we were supposed to be able to get out by say, 7pm. ,and have a real dinner, a relaxing dinner, one where we could go to the really expensive restaurant that our IT Director told us to eat at, the dinner where we could celebrate the completion of this job, bitch about the work involved, and then go back to the hotel and relax. But no. That was not meant to be. We again, did not get out of there until 10:30.

And to top it all off, the atmosphere in the office was toxic. There were always 2 divisions of our company located at this site. One division was purchased by someone internally, but they chose not to take ALL of the employees that worked at that location. Instead, they laid people off or left them as part of the remaining users that still exist at head office. So now, those who've moved to the new company are acting like their special while those who are part of our original company are being made to feel like lepers. So much so, that they are all located in one area and are referring to themselves as Exile Island. How sad is that?

Anyway, I'm glad it's done. I'm glad to be home. And I am SOOOOO glad to be off for 4 days to go camping. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

For those of you in Canada have a great Canada Day! For those of you in the US, Happy Fourth of July! And for the rest of you, have a great weekend. I'll be back to update my July 5th doctor's appointment next week.

Ciao

Not much happening

There really isn't anything going on which is why you haven't heard from me on the fertility, or rather, infertility front.

However, on Friday I'm off to Youngstown Ohio for work. The company I work for has sold off a portion of one of our divisions and as I'm responsible for email at my company, I'm off with two colleagues to split them off our existing network onto their own network with their own email server and such, even though for now, they are still going to be routing through our network. So I'll be there until Tuesday. Back for two days, then camping with some good friends, including our donor, for the long weekend. That break will be nice.

So, three weeks from yesterday until surgery.

Small things amuse me

I get such kick looking at the stats for who has visited my blog, how they got there and where they are from. Nothing too strange yet in the google search department but it amazes me that others find what I say of interest. I know many of you who keep returning are also members of the IF club, and as I read and comment on your blogs, you do the same on mine. But still, it tickles me to see when I've got a new country on my list of visitors. ;)

Today for the first time (that I saw) I had visitors from Barbados and South Africa. I've had visitors from Sweden, Portugal, the UK, Australia, USA, and Canada.

So, if this is your first time, or you are a returning visitor, please sign my guest book and tell me about yourself. Leave me your blog address and I'll be sure to add it to my blogroll and come visit you. It's just over there on the right - just click to add your pin to the map.

Thanks

Oh, and if you're following the World Cup - Go Soca Warriors!! (That's for V. who is of Trinidad decent)

OK, I admit it.

I am a little anxious and a little worried. The last time my DW went into surgery, I could have lost her. I know this is not life threatening and she is not in any danger and I trust the doctor, but it is still surgery, you know?

So, I will be very happy when the surgery is done and she is home with me resting and I can return the love and attention that she shows me every single day. And damn it, I will rub her feet and her back and whatever else she wants rubbed. Uhm, er, nevermind that.

Anyhow, we wait and we prepare and we carry on. Life, gotta live it.

Peace.

Doctor Update, finally.

Sorry to keep you all waiting. It's been an extremely busy weekend.

On Friday, V. and I headed down for our appointment with Dr. L. We were probably a half hour late but it didn’t matter really because she appeared to be a bit behind anyway. When we finally were able to see her I was quite happy with the news.

I've got 3 fibroids, with the largest measuring 5.1x5.0x3.8 cm, the second is 2.4x2.5x2.3 cm, and the third is tiny at 1.3x1.2x0.9 cm. She said they usually remove anything over 5cm. The dominant fibroid is described as "left fundal posterior" which means it's on the left, in the fundal area of the uterus (which is the top) and towards the back of the uterus. The second one is right anterior, or right front, and the smallest one is anterior left subserosal, which means left front on the outer surface of the uterus. The doctor who analysed the ultrasound results and provided the report had drawn a small picture of the dominant fibroid’s placement. According to Dr. L., this one definitely was impacting implantation of any embryo and removal would be a good idea.

So everything is going ahead as planned. Dr. L. said she can still do the surgery laparoscopically. There haven’t been any cancellations as yet so we’re still booked for July 11th and she’ll remove them all at that time. If a cancellation does come up, we’re first on the list so we’d get the call! However, I am being realistic when I say that I doubt I’ll get that call. So five weeks tomorrow is D-Day. I’ll only need to stay in hospital overnight and then will be home for about 2 weeks. By no means does having this surgery mean that V. and I will successful when we get to the IVF part of the process. But it definitely will improve the odds.

That’s it for now.