If It's Not One Thing...

Oi! So I'm not supposed to talk about HWMNBMOTI, right? Sort of by definition... (he who must not be mentioned on the internet, for the uninitiated). HWMNBMOTI is my sweet baboo... 21 years marriage this month. He is a private guy... and an anti-internet guy...

But darned it if he hasn't had a year of health challenges... and while THAT is his business... it affects MY LIFE, too, and my life is YOUR business, right? Erm...

Okay, so maybe that is a BIT of a stretch, but I can't seem to help myself.

So yesterday HWMNBMOTI had his 4th ER visit of 2012... and they checked him in AGAIN... a day or two in the hospital, which means it's not nothin.... And the REALLY wonky thing is NONE of these things has anything to do with the others. He has had 4 DIFFERENT things go BIG WRONG with his health.

And here is where I get whiny... it's HARD to have your partner unhealthy. He can't work. He can't do nearly as much around the house. He has little energy for fun stuff. And some of the lingering stuff makes him not sleep well, so he is ALWAYS tired. (and frequently crabby).

I get it. I study pain for a living, so I KNOW it makes a person crabby and depressed to hurt (I forgot to mention the arthritis diagnosis, didn't I?) and more so if a person can't SLEEP.

I want to go to Richard Dreyfus and have him write me a prescription to take a vacation from my problems.

But see, as the OTHER person in the household... I want him to FEEL BETTER (because I love him), I am terrified there is some huge underlying thing causing ALL of this (though for the life of me I can't imagine what that would be), I feel GUILTY for wanting a break from the health troubles for MY OWN sake as well as his...


For all that, I KNOW I'm lucky. I know most of my life is really good. I just want HWMNBMOTI healthy again. So if you have any spare mojo, karma, prayers or hugs, send 'em my way. We could use em.


And don't forget to come by FRIDAY, as I have a special post from our buddy Jessica, and NEXT WEEK I will have a guest post from Alison... so don't let my whining scare you away...

My Personal Narcissism

So I got my advanced copies, full with covers, yesterday... Oh, MAN, how I've been craving these... And I proceeded to build a tower with them, but I have a deep fantasy of being so important that I get enough copies to build a fort I can get inside...


That is all for today except the update that YESTERDAY's update on Mr. Tart was premature. His hemoglobin fell, they scoped again, and wanted to watch for longer. So not home. Possibly not home today.  This made him VERY crabby until they let him eat a hamburger, and then he sort of came to peace with it (though not really--his patience isn't great). There is no OTHER sign of worse than the hemoglobin, so I am hoping that is from the food deprivation and that burger will have solved it by next measure. But then I think we've established that I am delusionally optimistic.

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Update:  Checking him out this afternoon!  YAY!

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Also wik:  HE'S HOME!

Sunday, Scary Sunday

So some of you may have noticed my total absence the last two days. And not just from here, but from Facebook and anywhere else. We've had a wee emergency... or not wee. In fact it what pretty darned scary.

source

HWMNBMOTI (he who must not be mentioned on the internet, for the uninitiated) had what seemed like the flu Saturday... except in retrospect the vomit was the wrong color (TMI, right? But read anyway, as I had NO CLUE how important this might be)--it was coffee colored and mucousy. When his DIET had NOT been. (that is the clue to remember--coffee colored).

Then he seemed flu-ee all day—fever, sweats, chills... He vomited... I guess 3 more times... only once more in a place I had to clean it up... yup... still coffee colored... as was the bowel stuff—black and tarry. (as in... like tar). Ick.

And then on Sunday morning.... okay, we get to the real TMI part... with a 5 am bowel movement he could no longer stand—nearly lost consciousness... Called for me, I called the ambulance, as he couldn't get up...

We spent all Sunday morning in the ER... he was bleeding SOMEWHERE in his digestive system... A LOT (this would be the CAUSE of coffee-colored vomit and/or black tarry stool--so you KNOW.... They estimated he lost 1/3 of his blood--through this GI bleed. But FINDING FROM WHERE is another matter. They flushed fluids in then out of the stomach (through a tube in the nose *shivers*) and can see what is there... initially it was the black flaky of dried blood but by the time they get him all poked and prodded and moved up to critical care it was red... so the bleed was either stomach or upper GI...

They did a scope and FOUND it (upper intestine near the duodenum)--a clot they thought was over an aspirin induced ulcer—they clipped the clot (twice) to stop the places it was leaking blood. But they WEREN'T sure that was the only internal injury—though his numbers have all stabilized.

They moved him from critical care to a regular hospital room yesterday, but will keep him at least another day.

So my apologies for not getting around like I should yesterday and Sunday—I will try to catch up. And apologies for my absence. But as you all know, sometimes life takes over.

HWMNBMOTI has a VERY good prognosis, though I am a little nervous as to whether they resolved it... it's highly likely the next few flu episodes will send us to urgent care, just to avoid this.

Anyway, that's where I've been and why I've been scarce. I will work hard to catch up, as tomorrow I have a special guest (February Grace) and want her to get the full attention she deserves.

So there you have it... my excuses, regrets, and pleas to not hold it against me or my guests. I will get back to normal (for me) shortly.

Best Story Ever

Or I thought so anyway. New Year's Eve Eve, HWMNBMOTI were invited to a little neighborhood party.

HWMNBMOTI knows more neighbors than I do... he walks the dog and meets people, and frankly has a bit of a Mrs. Kratitz personality—always likes to know what's going on, which requires knowing who everybody is. So he's been telling me about this man he's made friends with who is a nurse--(HWMNBMOTI has nursing goals and finding other males is a bit of a rarity).

So finally at this party I met this man... and he told me this story...

“You know, when I first met [HWMNBMOTI] I was working in my garage. I'm a gregarious guy and we were new to the neighborhood, so I called 'hello'. He and the dog came up to talk and started talking about what we did. And he told me his partner studied pain.

“So you see... I made an assumption... partner... and... well the dog is named Joel...”

[I started laughing here]

“But that's okay. I have brother who's gay who's been with his partner for a number of years. I wasn't bothered. So we kept talking when we'd run into each other. Then one day, several month later, he says something about his wife, Tami, and... well in the same conversation, he tells me how the two of you moved from Portland. I couldn't wait to get inside to tell my wife.

“[HWMNBMOTI] isn't gay! He's from Portland!”

We went on to a delighted conversation about the enlightened people of Portland who might appear gay to midwesterners... If you don't know Portland, you might not understand this story at all, but it sure amused me a lot.


I am back to the day job tomorrow... on to the resolutions... beginning a round of editing for the Amazon contest (more later this week on that). I have had a WONDERFUL long break though. I finished Chrysanthemum Campaign and RELAXED a lot. I am not eager to get back to it, but at the same time, I really love fresh starts, and since I am not a student, the new year is about as close as I get to that...

I wish you all the very best in 2012!

Triumph!

Y'all are probably all too young to remember, but when I was a kid there was a cartoon in syndication called Gulliver's Travels. There was a Lilliputian named Glum that had a low monotone voice I can still hear clearly. “We're all gunna die.” You see Glum was a pessimist.

Now I have an MS in psychology, and I KNOW that in reality, Depressed peoples' assessment of a situation is actually more REALISTIC than non-depressed...

80% of us think we are better looking than average. Not possible, right? Only 50% can be... That is the mechanism of which I speak. When we look at a situation, the NON-depressed person thinks 'I can do that!' While the depressed person sees nothing but obstacles... all the reasons they CAN'T (and probably they have a point).

But the thing is, see... I married Glum (referred to here as HWMNBMOTI—he who must not be mentioned on the internet)...

He believes if something is not in mint condition, it can't be used.
If anything might go wrong, it surely will, so why bother?
If I haven't looked from every angle, I must give it up.

But I am a PRO at making do...


Take last night for instance...

My family owns 3 computers: a desk top, and then the lap tops of my daughter and myself. The desktop (possibly because of the son) is in the shop for a virusectomy and won't be back until Monday.

HWMNBMOTI is taking a class that has some work online, so I offered to let him use MINE (nice of me, eh?)--no, he says. I've worn off the letters on half my keys. (technically, it is only 9 keys, but who's counting?)... He tries to use daughter's, but daughter's has some block for his college website (who knows what that's about?)

I told him tonight about the Monday computer back timing and so he thought he might try mine... but mine can't go upstairs as we need SOME computer physically hooked to the modem... and he says the light is too poor...

“Fine. I'll just fail this class.” (see what I mean? Glum.)

So I thought about options. I moved a light so it was a little clearer, but you know... rubbed off is rubbed off...

It occurred to me that at one point we had STICKER letters, but I couldn't find them. What I DID find was a sheet of OTHER stickers, so I cut little white squares, WROTE the letters and stuck them on my keyboard. HA! I WIN! Hubby can do his stuff with no claim of not knowing which key is what letter!

So sometimes a refusal to admit defeat gives you the UMPH needed to figure out the answer.

DELUSIONS ARE YOUR FRIENDS!

Hope you all have a great weekend!