Still smoke free!!!! I was craving big time yesterday but held back. It is so much easier to breath when I'm not smoking and I have to stay focused on that. My eyebrow is looking silly from the biopsy. The stitches are blue so people tend to star. I can't wear a bandaid due to the location of the stitches so there is no hiding it. My eyebrows seem to be a big part of my facial expressions because I can feel the stitches pulling all the time now when I'm talking to people. I can live with it -- it is just a little annoying. I'm on pins and needles waiting for the biopsy results. Tension makes my overall pain worse so I'm trying to relax and not be so grumpy.

My mother inlaw came through surgery well on Monday. She is in pain but recovering. She has been the picture of everything that can possibly go wrong with gastric bypass surgery. The surgeon found that her gastric bypass was basically reversed -- they normally leave 300 centimeters of intestine for food to go through (and nutrients to be absorbed through) as it goes through the digestive system. Typically they loop off 150 centimeters to speed up the digestion process of gastric bypass patients (allowing them to lose weight and keep it off). My mother inlaw had it basically reversed with 150cm for absorption and 300cm looped off -- she had maybe 1/4 of the digestive tract of a normal person. It is no wonder that this poor woman has been unable to absorb any protein and has had to have IV nutrients through a pick line for the last 3 years. It doesn't make matters better that her previous ulcer cut her stomach size ridiculously either (she has 1/4 to 1/2 of a normal size stomach left). No wonder she was always weak -- she was starving.

Update on the pug: Millie is almost healed. She has a little cloudiness in the eye but that is supposed to go away over the next few months. She is back to her crazy self and barks every time an animal is on the TV screen. I'm amazed at how many commercials have animals.

The work dungeon isn't as cold today. I am wearing a super warm wool sweater. Linguistics class still sucks. The kids are testing limits again and being sassy -- they never have liked changes in routine and this semester is quite a change. I'm trying some of that "Love and Logic" stuff... hopefully it works! They are almost 9 and 10 and I need them more under control than they are now... imagine the teen years... yikes!