Friday the gallbladder left the body. Due to a pharmacy short staffing I was unable to get any of the medication the surgeon suggested would help me through the pain of the first few days and spent the weekend with over the counter Tylenol and a lot of praying that I wouldn’t have to go back to the hospital. Seem to have made it through only slightly worse for wear and with five rather alarming-looking holes jutting out of various parts of my midsection. This is the first time I’ve ever had a surgery where they used glue instead of stitches and I have no idea how gentle to be, so I am opting for Very Gentle. Several days with nothing to do but sleep and think have given me plenty of time to ponder ongoing health changes. Am hopeful to be more mobile soon, or, at very least, to be able to sleep for more than a few minutes before I am too uncomfortable in any one position. Grateful I was able to get the edits back to the publisher for the encyclopedia before I had to shut everything down, too. Surgery was supposed to be in June but they moved me up. Now just learning to roll with the unexpected.

More bookends. After another review the conclusion is that I have gallstones, so that will have to be resolved in the near future. Ouch. On the plus side: treatable, even if painful. I find myself deeply relieved to have an answer I can do something with for a change of pace.

Otherwise I am continuing to do all the things, waiting on answers, completing edits for the big encyclopedia project (my own book) and the online encyclopedia project (one that is not my own work but I do contract editing work for). Spring is finally attempting to begin and the gloom of the Pacific North-wet has been punctuated by sunlight more than once this week. Seamus has learned that songbirds are even more exciting than the crows when they sit in the tree outside his window. I have learned that it’s fun to watch him watching them.

Later in the week I must travel again, to lecture out east. Hopeful it will be a less stressful experience than my flight home last summer that granted me a free case of COVID and that it all goes well.

Today’s entry is a bookend to the last one . The good news is that today is a year since Seamus of the Million Toes (this is a real name that the vet gave him I promise and not something I plucked out of an Irish history) came home with me. He continues to be a great roommate, even if he does chew on my sleep mask at 4am.

The not so good news relates to the medical tests; the CT scan concluded that the “best possible awful” is not a possibility, so now there will be more tests and a small surgical procedure to find out which of the other possible awfuls needs to be addressed. Not happy about any of this, but it’s not like I can do anything about it except what I’m doing.

Someone pointed out to me this week that the title of this blog (and my “about” page, namely “Data Samurai”) haven’t aged very well, given what the Internet conglomerates including the one I quote have been doing with data. I have no idea what else to call this thing, but now it’s something I’ll start thinking about. I admit to being tickled about the anagram because I was studying kenjutsu at the time I learned that my name anagrams to that, but I agree that the whole thing is dated and potentially not sending the right message I want it to send now.

It seems to be that time of year for me to do a bunch of medical tests to find out what’s wrong since we can’t seem to figure it out from the tests we already did. I have a CT scan tomorrow, and follow up will depend on what is seen. The best possible answer is something awful, and I find myself in a weird place for the first time in my life where I’m wishing for that best possible awful because the other awfuls are, well, much more awful. 2023, so far, is just upping the ante on the things trying to kill me since late 2019, and, well, it can cut that out any day now.

It’s also an unpleasant anniversary. I lost Zigzag a year ago today, and that well and truly sucks. Seamus is an amazing ball of love and destruction and I am grateful we’ll be celebrating our first year together in a couple of weeks. However, I still miss Zig.

My personal website at https://www.tamarasiuda.com got a complete revamp this week, with the addition of a bookstore ( https://www.tamarasiuda.com/shop ). There is also a new book (well, a new edition of an old book!) to be found there, a translation of an important ethical text contained in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Not bad for also juggling massive numbers of doctors appointments, tests, and hustling up the bills this week. But still behind on a lot of work and needing to hustle harder for the moment.