Wiggle your big toe

I had a liver biopsy yesterday. The procedure went smoothly, yay! The only weirdness was when the attending physician and senior ultrasound tech discussed what they were seeing on the ultrasound screen while the other radiologist and junior tech were marking me and getting ready to poke. It was strange to lie there and hear my body discussed in nerd-excitement lab experiment tones ("oh look those bile ducts are so big! Definitely PSC."). I closed my eyes during the 5 minutes, felt minimal pressure and on the plus side didn't hear anything new. 

I feel ok, just achy, tired and sore. I definitely had a Kill Bill moment this morning when I tried to get out of bed. My abs felt like non-functional jelly. I kept saying in my head "Sit up. Press down your hands and sit up. Press down your legs and sit up." Eventually I asked my family to create a human bar with their arms in front of my face. I grabbed their arms with my hands and pulled myself up! Wahoo for yoga arm muscles! Now, I feel fine walking around in my room (albeit slowly), sitting, and am digesting normally. Double yay!  

The cool thing is my sister surprised me and showed up this morning! She took an early morning flight from Boston and met up with us in Baltimore. She's been plotting this surprise with my mom for days. It's great to have her here, mostly because I keep forcing her to give me foot massages bwahahaha. 

On a separate note, I've been reading the book "Subliminal" which discusses the significant role our subconscious mind plays in shaping our viewpoint and memory. I probably picked up the book because it has a bright green cover and disguised text saying "Buy Buy Buy" across the book jacket :) There's an interesting point early in the book about the limits of our memory formation, retention, and recollection. The author cites John Dean's testimony from the Nixon/Watergate scandal to illustrate how individuals heralded for their precise memories can be dead wrong about the facts (Dean's testimony barely matched tape recordings from actual conversations with Nixon). It's amazing that we create own tapes of what happened! This makes me wonder, how much of my health issues do I really remember? How much of anything do any of us remember? Kind of makes me want to use my iPhone all day to tape situations!