Back in the saddle, sort of. With random photos that have nothing to do with anything.

Bob sits this way by choice, remember.

By the way, these photos really do have nothing at all to do with the blather. Nothing. No false advertising here. Shall we begin?

Back in November of 2014, I was in pain. Lower abdominal pain. I though it was just a nastier than usual period, which sometimes happens as you approach all that menopausal irregularity fun. The problem was, I had an interpreter who hadn't done planetarium for a while and asked me to take her first of two that day so that she could have a review.

That didn't help the pain.

I did it anyway, but asked a coworker if she could watch the second program because I just didn't think that I could handle it.

That night the pain got even worse, and at a certain point in the sleepless night I decided to run a hot bath. It helps a little when I have kidney stone pain. Well, it became obvious as soon as I got in the tub that it wasn't going to work and that something was really wrong. I got dressed and walked to the hospital. Yes, walked. I live close enough that I would have got there well before a cab or a friend would have arrived to pick me up.

Road construction for the new bridge at Dad's place.

 After a longer than necessary wait in an almost empty ER waiting room (I think they figured that it wasn't serious because I walked there. All I know is that I was given an incredibly flimsy excuse when they finally came for me) during which I developed a fever, x-rays basically led to the medical equivalent of OH SHIT when they found gas in my abdomen.

It turned out to be a ruptured diverticulum, and meant emergency surgery, a week in hospital on some pretty heavy antibiotics, and over a year with an ostomy.

Needless to say -- for anyone familiar with mobile planetariums, that is -- I didn't do planetarium for a while.

For those new to the program, I had ostomy reversal surgery at the beginning of April this year. Recovery's been a little harder than I expected, but I'm getting there.

Tom's pose is to remind me that he hates the camera.

This past week I was pulled out of the last day of our Nature School week to do some other programming, including two hours of edible plants and... oh come on, you've guessed... a planetarium program. A program for a youth group that we also used as a training opportunity for a couple of the new interpreters.

Planetarium. First time in over a year and a half. First time since I ruptured. Training. Was I nervous? Not really. I was pretty much too busy being scared to death to be nervous.

But how did it go, Dee? Oh, all right, I suppose. I didn't explode again, which was a good thing. I felt like a bit of a helpless femme because I had to get my interpreters to do most of the heavy lifting (it doesn't hurt very much to lift things now, but I find that I get winded really quickly), but that's partly because I have a hard time accepting help when I should be able to do things myself. As for the program, I guess it was ok. I had a couple of memory lapses, but when it's been over a year since you've used some of the terminology I think that's forgivable.

Back in the planetarium saddle.





I'm not sure if that deserves a YAY! yet or not, to be honest.



I'll let you know.

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I'm going to schedule a few garden photo posts now, since that seems to be the only way I manage to post during the week anymore. Watch this space, as they say.