Steven Harper's Blog, page 75
September 16, 2017
The Hospital and Me: So Here's What Happened
Most of you know I was in the hospital last week for three days with kidney stones that required an operation. Here's what happened. This is a long entry, folks. The whole thing was traumatic and awful for me, and I process difficult experiences through words, so I'm writing it all down.
Last Sunday, Darwin went up to Lansing to visit friends, and Max was at his mother's, which meant I had the house to myself for a whole day. Wow! Pretty cool! But around noon, I got a familiar pain in my left flank, and I recognized an oncoming kidney stone problem.
I've gotten kidney stones most of my life. The first hit me when I was 22. If you're unfamiliar with kidney stones, in my case they're calcite deposits that get stuck in the kidneys and eventually clump together to form rough stones. Most of them pass out of the body undetected, others grow larger and I can feel them go--it's distinctly unpleasant--and a few hang out in the kidney, growing larger and larger, until they clog everything up, which causes enormous pain. They've continued ever since, and I end up in the hospital every three years or so for a bad one. The usual treatment is to administer powerful painkillers and hook me up to a saline IV to flood my body with fluid, which usually pops the stone free and lets it pass. The painkillers make this possible without screaming. Kidney stones are considered one of the most painful, gut-wrenching events a human can undergo, and bad ones even outrank childbirth on the pain scale. (As one nurse put it, "I've had kidney stones and gone through childbirth. I'd way rather go through childbirth. At least with childbirth, you get a baby when it's over. With a kidney stones, you get a rock.")
I've had so many stones that I knew instantly what was going on. Almost all the time, the pain twinges, grows, then fades as the stone moves, and I start drinking a lot of water to wash it out. But this time, the pain grew fast, and was getting worse and worse. I finally called Kala to see if she could bring Max home from her place instead of me picking him up, then jumped into the car and drove like hell for the ER. On the way I called Darwin, who was still in Lansing, and he said he would leave right away.
By the time I got to the ER, I was in considerable distress and barely ambulatory. Inside, the security guard asked what I wanted, and I told him I was in great pain from a kidney stone, so I needed to be admitted right away. At which point, the guard ignored me and turned to a mother and son who had come in behind me. He asked them what they wanted, and gave them complicated directions on how to find and visit someone already in the ER. Meanwhile, I was standing there, panting in pain, and he ignored me. I finally limped past him and sat down at the admissions desk, to the nurse's surprise.
I managed to get through the check-in ("Did someone bring you hear?" "I drove myself." "How do you know it's a kidney stone?" "I've had four or five dozen of them. I know the signs.") and into the ER proper.
Meanwhile, the pain kept growing. It was a demon chewing on my insides with white-hot teeth. The admitting nurse went through a mess of questions, material that's already in my medical records with that hospital, but hospitals apparently can't be bothered to check their own computers. One of the stupider things is that every single person--and I mean EVERY ONE of them--asked what medicine allergies I have. It's right there on your computer screen! Just give me the pain medication.
By now the pain was making me scream. I lay there on the gurney howling and biting my arm and shouting with the pain, and I couldn't stop. I screamed and screamed and screamed, and the nurse clucked, "We'll get you some painkillers soon," leaving me to scream and scream and scream some more. The pain was so bad, I couldn't think of anything else. I wadded my sweatshirt up and pressed it to my mouth to muffle the noise, but I couldn't stop screaming. I have no idea why it took them so long to give me a shot, either. Hospital bureaucracy trumps patient need.
Finally, a nurse showed up with a pair of syringes. By now, I didn't really know where I was or who I was. I was vaguely aware of the bed and the ER curtain. All I felt was the all-consuming pain, and I couldn't stop screaming.
At last--at LAST--the nurse administered the shots. After a few moments, the pain dulled and I collapsed back on the gurney with all my limbs heavy. I could feel the tension drain under the drug.
"We need to do an MRI to find the stone," the nurse announced, and an intern wheeled the bed down the hall. I could still feel the pain, but the drugs prevented it from bothering me. A technician ran me through the MRI scanner--very science-fictional--and wheeled me back to the ER. The shot was already wearing off, and I had to ask for more meds.
"I'll put in the request," said the nurse.
Darwin finally arrived, with Max in tow. I told them what was going on, then lay there on the bed, monitoring my pain levels. It was getting steadily worse, and again I called for the next shot, but the nurse was still processing the request.
The pain shot up again, and I started screaming. I knew it was unnerving Max, but I couldn't stop. Finally, they gave me another. It lasted about half an hour, and then more pain ripped my side. Fortunately by now they'd put me on an "as needed" order, and I was able to get the meds faster.
During the first series of shots, though, my heart rate went way down. My resting heart rate is normally in the 50s because I run so much. This already made the ER nurses nervous. (The more fit your are, the worse off you become?) With morphine, it went down into the 30s. And so they decided to put me on a heart monitor and call a cardiologist.
Someone off-stage read my MRI and came in to report that I had three stones--two on the left, one on the right. One of the left ones was 8mm in diameter--very big--and it was causing the problems. The other two were 3 and 4mm, respectively, but they weren't doing anything just then.
The ER physician said I needed an operation. Using a scope, they would put a stent--a drain--between my kidney and my bladder to let the kidney drain. Once the swelling went down, which would take about a week, they would do a lithotripsy, which uses a sonic cannon to break up the stone so it can more easy wash away.
At last the pain subsided. I was sweaty and itchy and zoned out from the medication. They put me on a regular rotation--a new pain shot every few hours. The stent operation was scheduled for that evening, and they would admit me in the meantime.
They wheeled my bed upstairs to a regular room--private, thank gods--and here's where the strange ordeal began.
Because my heart is in good shape, the hospital decided I was a heart attack risk. I'm not kidding. They spent more time worrying about my heart than the kidney stones. They ordered an EKG. It came back perfectly normal. They ordered a thyroid blood test. It came back normal. They ordered a sonogram of my heart. Normal. A cardiologist examined me twice. Normal. Every single test came back normal, normal, normal. "So I can take this monitor off?" I said.
"No," said the cardiologist. "But everything is normal."
I was in pain and getting angry, as people in pain are wont to do. Every time I tried to go to the bathroom, I had to deal with wires and cords and IV lines, for example. Every test they ran involved putting electrodes on me and then ripping them off, and when you're hairy like me, it's highly painful. Once, the nurse pointed out that I had a rash on my chest, and I couldn't help snapping at her that I wouldn't have one if people would quit ripping electrodes off me. I hit the point where I was going to drop the next person who demanded a heart test out the window, but the demands finally ceased, though the monitor stayed.
And then it turned out the operating room didn't have a slot on the roster for me after all. I could 1) go home and come back in the morning; or 2) stay in the hospital and wait for the next slot, which would probably be tomorrow morning. I couldn't go home--the pain kept coming back at unexpected intervals, and I couldn't survive without the painkiller shots.
Darwin went home and brought me some stuff, and I found myself subjected to the hospital regimen. First, they wanted me to take an anticoagulant because my poor, absolutely normal heart might develop circulation problems and blood clots if I stayed in bed for all of 24 hours. Seriously? I flatly refused this one, and the staff backed off.
The food service was nice, though. They don't bring meals on a regular schedule at this hospital. Instead, you call a number, order from a menu, and they send it up. That was good. I hadn't eaten in hours and hours because I was supposed to stay away from food until the operation--which now wasn't happening. So I could eat, at least.
Darwin and Max hung around the hospital until I finally sent them home on the grounds that I was fine for the moment, and they had to sleep. I also made lesson plans and sent them into the school. You don't get to just call in sick when you're a teacher.
The bed was weird. Every few minutes, the mattress moved under me, forcing me to rearrange. This, I realized, was also to prevent blood clots. This must be the de rigeur thing to worry about in hospitals, even with patients who aren't at risk for them. It kept waking me up.
In the morning, the hospital denied me breakfast because the operation was coming up soon now. 10 AM they'd come for me. Darwin took the day off from work so he could stay with me. And then the operation was moved to 10:30. And then it was canceled outright and scheduled for Tuesday. Again, I could 1) go home and come back tomorrow; or 2) stay in the hospital and wait.
I tried not be upset. The doctor said that the weekend had been unexpectedly busy, so the OR schedule was crowded, and I tried to remember that someone who needed open heart surgery or an emergency appendectomy needed to get in right away, and I was stable so I could wait. But it was hard. The pain had abated, but could come roaring back any time, and the schedule of pain meds made me constantly loopy. I had to stay--no way I could risk going home and then having to rush back to the ER. I was also cranky because I hadn't eaten in more than thirteen hours for an operation that now wouldn't take place.
I sat in the hospital all day Monday, reading and watching videos. I even managed a bit of writing on my laptop, which Darwin brought to me. I was glad he was there, but he was also becoming agitated about missing another day of work himself. He was charged with transporting Max to and from school as well, and with bringing Max in to see me. It wasn't any fun for any of us.
I told the nurse I needed to take a shower, and she said she'd "put in a request" for it. I just nodded. I didn't tell her that I had already decided to take a shower, request or not, and if she didn't come back with "permission" in fifteen minutes, I was heading in. I don't do well with asking permission for basic functions, I'm afraid, which makes me difficult patient sometimes. But a few minutes later, the nurse came back to report I was cleared for cleansing. I took the stupid monitor off and showered, which made me feel better. Afterward, nearly an hour went by before anyone noticed the monitor hadn't been reconnected, and they sent a tech in to deal with it. One of the electrode stickers had come loose in the shower, and she reached for it, intending to tear it off and replace it. I blocked her hand.
"Sorry," I said. "If that electrode comes off, it's staying off. No more ripping. I'm afraid I'm done with that."
She managed to make it work without replacing it, and we were both happy.
My primary care physician stopped by on his rounds. I was more than a little unhappy with him. Years ago, he put me on Topamax, an anti-seizure med that also helps control migraines. But one of the nurses told me that Topamax is definitively linked to increased kidney stone formation. My doctor KNEW I get kidney stones, but he prescribed this anyway? Doing my best not to be sharp, I told him he needed to find another medication, and he said we would discuss it. Damn right we will.
The day passed slowly. Finally, they alerted me that I was scheduled for a 10:30 AM operation. But I couldn't eat or drink after midnight!
Usual protocol for operations dictates no eating or drinking only six hours before anesthesia. (This is in case the anesthetic makes you barf. They want your stomach empty for that.) When did six hours become ten and a half? But I just smiled and nodded. Anesthesia doesn't make me barf, and Darwin had brought me food anyway.
In the morning, I ate a breakfast of a contraband banana and some crackers. I had just tossed the banana peel away when the nurse came in for the morning readings.
Darwin came in to wait with me, but he hadn't eaten breakfast yet. After a couple hours, he went out to get some food, and while he was gone, the nursing team came in and announced the operation was a go, early! They rushed me down to OR prep, and here I actually talked to the urologist for the first time. (Before, I'd seen interns.) She said that they might be able to get the stone out today, depending on what happened, but there was no guarantee. Did I eat anything after midnight?
"Nope," I lied.
Darwin tracked me down and waited through the OR prep stuff, which was mostly answering the same questions over and over. The main one that got me was, "What happens to you when you take penicillin?", which I'm allergic to. Over and over, I said, "I don't know. I was tested as a baby and haven't had it since." Inwardly, I was thinking, "Does it matter? You aren't planning to GIVE it to me, are you?" I must have answered that question fifteen times.
At last, they wheeled me away from Darwin and into the OR with the surgical team. There was a bad moment when they couldn't find the anesthesiologist. It turned out he was stuck with another patient, and they had to find someone else. She finally arrived and we were able to start.
I've learned that I don't like anesthesia. (Does anyone?) The drug doesn't bother me, and I don't have bad reactions to it. What I learned I don't like is going through a major procedure that involves my body while I'm totally unaware of what's going on. I can't ask questions, I can't watch what's happening, I can't make decisions. I don't know who's in the room. I don't know what they're doing to me, and I can't stop them from doing something I don't want. I don't know what they're saying about me. This bothers me enormously. It would make me feel a great deal better if Darwin were able to watch the operation and report to me afterward what happened, but they don't allow that in this hospital.
I realized this when my gall bladder had to come out. When I woke up, I had a big chancre sore in my mouth. I mused aloud to the recovery room nurse that I must have bitten myself while I was under anesthesia. She exchanged an odd look with another nurse, nodded, and then just said, "Maybe." I later learned that I had been on a breathing tube, and the sore was from the tube. This stabbed me through. Why wasn't I told I'd be on a respirator? And why didn't the nurse just give me the information? This is my body, my care, my information, and the hospital deliberately withheld it from me. There were other aspects of the operation that I found out about after the fact, too, and this upset me even more. People were doing things to me while I was unconscious, and I felt violated and angry. Yes, I know they were doing their best to help me. That doesn't mean they can rush ahead and do it without explaining it, and then try to hide what they did. It's as if the hospital doesn't see a person. They see a lump of meat that needs to be rushed around, sliced, diced, and then rushed back out.
So I hate anesthesia.
The anesthesiologist put a breathing mask on me and injected the drugs. And then I was in the recovery room with Darwin next to my bed. No, I didn't throw up.
My memory is foggy for that first hour, but eventually I ended up back in my old room. The urologist had only installed the stent. The stone hadn't come out. A great deal of fluid and even pus had drained immediately from my kidney, she said, but the stone was too high up to come down. I would need lithotripsy later, and would have to schedule that.
This upset me all over again, and I hadn't realized how much I'd been hoping for this all to end that day until they told me I had more to do.
More waiting in the hospital room, this time for final discharge. The hated heart monitor was gone, leaving me freer to walk about the room. I was also unhooked from my IV. I took advantage of this to take another shower and strip the electrodes off for the final time. Just after that, the floor nurse came back in to check things. "And we'll put the heart monitor back on."
"No," I said tiredly. "It's not going back on. If you want, you can call the doctor and have him come in and yell at me, but it's staying off."
The nurse let that ride. For some reason, she didn't hook me back up to the IV, either. I think she forgot.
I was in pain again, this time from the stent. One third of patients don't even notice the stent. One third have small problems with it. And one third have big problems with it. Guess which category I fell into?
Going to the bathroom is a horrifying ordeal. It hurt almost as bad as the stones, and made me wonder if they had moved and clogged something up. But the stent is designed to halt clogging entirely, and to stretch out the ureter a little to make passage of future stones easier. The pain was just me being one of the third group who has problems with a stent. The urologist assured me the pain would ease and disappear after a day or two. Passing blood was to be expected. I could resume all normal activities right away.
At last, it was time to go home. I checked out of the hospital with a bagful of medications, and Max drove me home--Darwin had the other car.
At home, I tried to rest, but the stent pain was still there. Constant. Twisting my insides. I dreaded going to the bathroom, not only because the pain shot up whenever I did, but also because I never knew what I would see. Sometimes everything looked just fine, and then suddenly I'd be expelling dark red or bits of tissue. The simple act of going to the toilet became an ordeal, and I found myself putting it off (which is bad for this condition) and getting tense in anticipation of the pain. It's steadily conditioning me to avoid the bathroom, and that's problematic.
This whole thing is exhausting. Between the pain, the memory of agony, fear that it'll come back worse, uncertainty about what'll happen next, I'm wrecked. It's tiring to be scared and in pain all the time. The original pain was so bad, I break into a sweat over the idea that it could come back.
I had originally planned to go back to work on Wednesday, but Tuesday evening I was still exhausted and in pain. I couldn't work. I had to make more lesson plans before I could call in.
I shuffle slowly around the house these days. I can't handle bumps or jarring. When I ride in the car, I have to remind Darwin to avoid all possible bumps because each one sends a jolt of pain through me.
A hospital robo-voice called to request that I take a survey about my care. I hung up. I don't do surveys.
Wednesday, I slept and watched TV and ate painkillers that didn't seem to work. I compared my pills to the ones Max got after his wisdom teeth operation and discovered my pills are a much lower dosage. WTF? So I started using Max's leftover pills and that helped.
I go through temper flare-ups that I can't seem to control. I know it's because I'm in pain and because of the psychological trauma I underwent. The pain Pain PAIN still weighs on me, and I keep waiting for it to pounce on me again like an gleeful tiger. Just the memory of it makes me shake. For a moment just this evening, it looked like the pain might be coming back, and I found myself fighting off a panic attack, I was so scared.
And now I'm being tossed about the medical field like a volleyball. My primary care physician said I have to see him for a follow-up, but when I called his office, the receptionist said he wouldn't be able to see me until next week, though I could see a PA instead. "No," I said. "I need to see the doctor." "It's not required that you see the doctor," said the receptionist. "It's only--" "I have to talk directly to Dr. S-- about my medications." The receptionist scared up a cancellation and scheduled me for Monday afternoon. I called the urologist to schedule the lithotripsy, and this was a two-day problem to solve. I received follow-up calls from the hospital. Volleyball.
I taught classes on Thursday and Friday. Both days I discovered my stamina was only good for 45 minutes, and I had to reconstruct my lessons to give me sit-down time for the last 15 minutes of class. This is where being a 22-year veteran has its advantages. I can redo lessons very quickly.
By Friday afternoon, I was completely wiped. Darwin wanted to go out to eat, but I was TIRED of eating hospital food and cheap diner food and of going here and there and everywhere. But I couldn't cook, and Darwin refuses to try. (Before we married, he lived at restaurants.) Truly, once or twice a month, I would love it if Someone Else cooked a meal for me. But whenever I suggest it, Darwin only offers to bring home takeout. Marriage is overlooking the stuff about your husband that drive you crazy.
Darwin, meanwhile, was putting up with me being cranky and short-tempered and emotional. I'd been away for three days, and became visibly upset to find that no one had taken the bread out of the breadmaker while I was gone (I started a batch before the pain demons arrived), no one had filled or run the dishwasher, which now smelled rancid, no one had changed the cat box. No one had gone grocery shopping. I was trying not to be in a foul mood about any of it, but it felt like Darwin and Max had decided between them to leave everything for me to do when I got home. I doubt that was their thinking--it just didn't occur to them to do these things unless I'm there to point them out. But that's the way I felt. My emotions went--still go--all over. One moment, I'm rampaging about something small, and the next I'm huddled on the bed in tears from the pain and fear.
I have lithotripsy--breaking up the stones with shock waves--on Wednesday. Another day away from work, another dose of anesthesia. I'm scared that it won't go well, and I'll have to come back, and I'm scared they won't take the stent out, and I'll have to come back for that, too--as well as live with awful pain every time I go to the bathroom.
I have to get through this.
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Last Sunday, Darwin went up to Lansing to visit friends, and Max was at his mother's, which meant I had the house to myself for a whole day. Wow! Pretty cool! But around noon, I got a familiar pain in my left flank, and I recognized an oncoming kidney stone problem.
I've gotten kidney stones most of my life. The first hit me when I was 22. If you're unfamiliar with kidney stones, in my case they're calcite deposits that get stuck in the kidneys and eventually clump together to form rough stones. Most of them pass out of the body undetected, others grow larger and I can feel them go--it's distinctly unpleasant--and a few hang out in the kidney, growing larger and larger, until they clog everything up, which causes enormous pain. They've continued ever since, and I end up in the hospital every three years or so for a bad one. The usual treatment is to administer powerful painkillers and hook me up to a saline IV to flood my body with fluid, which usually pops the stone free and lets it pass. The painkillers make this possible without screaming. Kidney stones are considered one of the most painful, gut-wrenching events a human can undergo, and bad ones even outrank childbirth on the pain scale. (As one nurse put it, "I've had kidney stones and gone through childbirth. I'd way rather go through childbirth. At least with childbirth, you get a baby when it's over. With a kidney stones, you get a rock.")
I've had so many stones that I knew instantly what was going on. Almost all the time, the pain twinges, grows, then fades as the stone moves, and I start drinking a lot of water to wash it out. But this time, the pain grew fast, and was getting worse and worse. I finally called Kala to see if she could bring Max home from her place instead of me picking him up, then jumped into the car and drove like hell for the ER. On the way I called Darwin, who was still in Lansing, and he said he would leave right away.
By the time I got to the ER, I was in considerable distress and barely ambulatory. Inside, the security guard asked what I wanted, and I told him I was in great pain from a kidney stone, so I needed to be admitted right away. At which point, the guard ignored me and turned to a mother and son who had come in behind me. He asked them what they wanted, and gave them complicated directions on how to find and visit someone already in the ER. Meanwhile, I was standing there, panting in pain, and he ignored me. I finally limped past him and sat down at the admissions desk, to the nurse's surprise.
I managed to get through the check-in ("Did someone bring you hear?" "I drove myself." "How do you know it's a kidney stone?" "I've had four or five dozen of them. I know the signs.") and into the ER proper.
Meanwhile, the pain kept growing. It was a demon chewing on my insides with white-hot teeth. The admitting nurse went through a mess of questions, material that's already in my medical records with that hospital, but hospitals apparently can't be bothered to check their own computers. One of the stupider things is that every single person--and I mean EVERY ONE of them--asked what medicine allergies I have. It's right there on your computer screen! Just give me the pain medication.
By now the pain was making me scream. I lay there on the gurney howling and biting my arm and shouting with the pain, and I couldn't stop. I screamed and screamed and screamed, and the nurse clucked, "We'll get you some painkillers soon," leaving me to scream and scream and scream some more. The pain was so bad, I couldn't think of anything else. I wadded my sweatshirt up and pressed it to my mouth to muffle the noise, but I couldn't stop screaming. I have no idea why it took them so long to give me a shot, either. Hospital bureaucracy trumps patient need.
Finally, a nurse showed up with a pair of syringes. By now, I didn't really know where I was or who I was. I was vaguely aware of the bed and the ER curtain. All I felt was the all-consuming pain, and I couldn't stop screaming.
At last--at LAST--the nurse administered the shots. After a few moments, the pain dulled and I collapsed back on the gurney with all my limbs heavy. I could feel the tension drain under the drug.
"We need to do an MRI to find the stone," the nurse announced, and an intern wheeled the bed down the hall. I could still feel the pain, but the drugs prevented it from bothering me. A technician ran me through the MRI scanner--very science-fictional--and wheeled me back to the ER. The shot was already wearing off, and I had to ask for more meds.
"I'll put in the request," said the nurse.
Darwin finally arrived, with Max in tow. I told them what was going on, then lay there on the bed, monitoring my pain levels. It was getting steadily worse, and again I called for the next shot, but the nurse was still processing the request.
The pain shot up again, and I started screaming. I knew it was unnerving Max, but I couldn't stop. Finally, they gave me another. It lasted about half an hour, and then more pain ripped my side. Fortunately by now they'd put me on an "as needed" order, and I was able to get the meds faster.
During the first series of shots, though, my heart rate went way down. My resting heart rate is normally in the 50s because I run so much. This already made the ER nurses nervous. (The more fit your are, the worse off you become?) With morphine, it went down into the 30s. And so they decided to put me on a heart monitor and call a cardiologist.
Someone off-stage read my MRI and came in to report that I had three stones--two on the left, one on the right. One of the left ones was 8mm in diameter--very big--and it was causing the problems. The other two were 3 and 4mm, respectively, but they weren't doing anything just then.
The ER physician said I needed an operation. Using a scope, they would put a stent--a drain--between my kidney and my bladder to let the kidney drain. Once the swelling went down, which would take about a week, they would do a lithotripsy, which uses a sonic cannon to break up the stone so it can more easy wash away.
At last the pain subsided. I was sweaty and itchy and zoned out from the medication. They put me on a regular rotation--a new pain shot every few hours. The stent operation was scheduled for that evening, and they would admit me in the meantime.
They wheeled my bed upstairs to a regular room--private, thank gods--and here's where the strange ordeal began.
Because my heart is in good shape, the hospital decided I was a heart attack risk. I'm not kidding. They spent more time worrying about my heart than the kidney stones. They ordered an EKG. It came back perfectly normal. They ordered a thyroid blood test. It came back normal. They ordered a sonogram of my heart. Normal. A cardiologist examined me twice. Normal. Every single test came back normal, normal, normal. "So I can take this monitor off?" I said.
"No," said the cardiologist. "But everything is normal."
I was in pain and getting angry, as people in pain are wont to do. Every time I tried to go to the bathroom, I had to deal with wires and cords and IV lines, for example. Every test they ran involved putting electrodes on me and then ripping them off, and when you're hairy like me, it's highly painful. Once, the nurse pointed out that I had a rash on my chest, and I couldn't help snapping at her that I wouldn't have one if people would quit ripping electrodes off me. I hit the point where I was going to drop the next person who demanded a heart test out the window, but the demands finally ceased, though the monitor stayed.
And then it turned out the operating room didn't have a slot on the roster for me after all. I could 1) go home and come back in the morning; or 2) stay in the hospital and wait for the next slot, which would probably be tomorrow morning. I couldn't go home--the pain kept coming back at unexpected intervals, and I couldn't survive without the painkiller shots.
Darwin went home and brought me some stuff, and I found myself subjected to the hospital regimen. First, they wanted me to take an anticoagulant because my poor, absolutely normal heart might develop circulation problems and blood clots if I stayed in bed for all of 24 hours. Seriously? I flatly refused this one, and the staff backed off.
The food service was nice, though. They don't bring meals on a regular schedule at this hospital. Instead, you call a number, order from a menu, and they send it up. That was good. I hadn't eaten in hours and hours because I was supposed to stay away from food until the operation--which now wasn't happening. So I could eat, at least.
Darwin and Max hung around the hospital until I finally sent them home on the grounds that I was fine for the moment, and they had to sleep. I also made lesson plans and sent them into the school. You don't get to just call in sick when you're a teacher.
The bed was weird. Every few minutes, the mattress moved under me, forcing me to rearrange. This, I realized, was also to prevent blood clots. This must be the de rigeur thing to worry about in hospitals, even with patients who aren't at risk for them. It kept waking me up.
In the morning, the hospital denied me breakfast because the operation was coming up soon now. 10 AM they'd come for me. Darwin took the day off from work so he could stay with me. And then the operation was moved to 10:30. And then it was canceled outright and scheduled for Tuesday. Again, I could 1) go home and come back tomorrow; or 2) stay in the hospital and wait.
I tried not be upset. The doctor said that the weekend had been unexpectedly busy, so the OR schedule was crowded, and I tried to remember that someone who needed open heart surgery or an emergency appendectomy needed to get in right away, and I was stable so I could wait. But it was hard. The pain had abated, but could come roaring back any time, and the schedule of pain meds made me constantly loopy. I had to stay--no way I could risk going home and then having to rush back to the ER. I was also cranky because I hadn't eaten in more than thirteen hours for an operation that now wouldn't take place.
I sat in the hospital all day Monday, reading and watching videos. I even managed a bit of writing on my laptop, which Darwin brought to me. I was glad he was there, but he was also becoming agitated about missing another day of work himself. He was charged with transporting Max to and from school as well, and with bringing Max in to see me. It wasn't any fun for any of us.
I told the nurse I needed to take a shower, and she said she'd "put in a request" for it. I just nodded. I didn't tell her that I had already decided to take a shower, request or not, and if she didn't come back with "permission" in fifteen minutes, I was heading in. I don't do well with asking permission for basic functions, I'm afraid, which makes me difficult patient sometimes. But a few minutes later, the nurse came back to report I was cleared for cleansing. I took the stupid monitor off and showered, which made me feel better. Afterward, nearly an hour went by before anyone noticed the monitor hadn't been reconnected, and they sent a tech in to deal with it. One of the electrode stickers had come loose in the shower, and she reached for it, intending to tear it off and replace it. I blocked her hand.
"Sorry," I said. "If that electrode comes off, it's staying off. No more ripping. I'm afraid I'm done with that."
She managed to make it work without replacing it, and we were both happy.
My primary care physician stopped by on his rounds. I was more than a little unhappy with him. Years ago, he put me on Topamax, an anti-seizure med that also helps control migraines. But one of the nurses told me that Topamax is definitively linked to increased kidney stone formation. My doctor KNEW I get kidney stones, but he prescribed this anyway? Doing my best not to be sharp, I told him he needed to find another medication, and he said we would discuss it. Damn right we will.
The day passed slowly. Finally, they alerted me that I was scheduled for a 10:30 AM operation. But I couldn't eat or drink after midnight!
Usual protocol for operations dictates no eating or drinking only six hours before anesthesia. (This is in case the anesthetic makes you barf. They want your stomach empty for that.) When did six hours become ten and a half? But I just smiled and nodded. Anesthesia doesn't make me barf, and Darwin had brought me food anyway.
In the morning, I ate a breakfast of a contraband banana and some crackers. I had just tossed the banana peel away when the nurse came in for the morning readings.
Darwin came in to wait with me, but he hadn't eaten breakfast yet. After a couple hours, he went out to get some food, and while he was gone, the nursing team came in and announced the operation was a go, early! They rushed me down to OR prep, and here I actually talked to the urologist for the first time. (Before, I'd seen interns.) She said that they might be able to get the stone out today, depending on what happened, but there was no guarantee. Did I eat anything after midnight?
"Nope," I lied.
Darwin tracked me down and waited through the OR prep stuff, which was mostly answering the same questions over and over. The main one that got me was, "What happens to you when you take penicillin?", which I'm allergic to. Over and over, I said, "I don't know. I was tested as a baby and haven't had it since." Inwardly, I was thinking, "Does it matter? You aren't planning to GIVE it to me, are you?" I must have answered that question fifteen times.
At last, they wheeled me away from Darwin and into the OR with the surgical team. There was a bad moment when they couldn't find the anesthesiologist. It turned out he was stuck with another patient, and they had to find someone else. She finally arrived and we were able to start.
I've learned that I don't like anesthesia. (Does anyone?) The drug doesn't bother me, and I don't have bad reactions to it. What I learned I don't like is going through a major procedure that involves my body while I'm totally unaware of what's going on. I can't ask questions, I can't watch what's happening, I can't make decisions. I don't know who's in the room. I don't know what they're doing to me, and I can't stop them from doing something I don't want. I don't know what they're saying about me. This bothers me enormously. It would make me feel a great deal better if Darwin were able to watch the operation and report to me afterward what happened, but they don't allow that in this hospital.
I realized this when my gall bladder had to come out. When I woke up, I had a big chancre sore in my mouth. I mused aloud to the recovery room nurse that I must have bitten myself while I was under anesthesia. She exchanged an odd look with another nurse, nodded, and then just said, "Maybe." I later learned that I had been on a breathing tube, and the sore was from the tube. This stabbed me through. Why wasn't I told I'd be on a respirator? And why didn't the nurse just give me the information? This is my body, my care, my information, and the hospital deliberately withheld it from me. There were other aspects of the operation that I found out about after the fact, too, and this upset me even more. People were doing things to me while I was unconscious, and I felt violated and angry. Yes, I know they were doing their best to help me. That doesn't mean they can rush ahead and do it without explaining it, and then try to hide what they did. It's as if the hospital doesn't see a person. They see a lump of meat that needs to be rushed around, sliced, diced, and then rushed back out.
So I hate anesthesia.
The anesthesiologist put a breathing mask on me and injected the drugs. And then I was in the recovery room with Darwin next to my bed. No, I didn't throw up.
My memory is foggy for that first hour, but eventually I ended up back in my old room. The urologist had only installed the stent. The stone hadn't come out. A great deal of fluid and even pus had drained immediately from my kidney, she said, but the stone was too high up to come down. I would need lithotripsy later, and would have to schedule that.
This upset me all over again, and I hadn't realized how much I'd been hoping for this all to end that day until they told me I had more to do.
More waiting in the hospital room, this time for final discharge. The hated heart monitor was gone, leaving me freer to walk about the room. I was also unhooked from my IV. I took advantage of this to take another shower and strip the electrodes off for the final time. Just after that, the floor nurse came back in to check things. "And we'll put the heart monitor back on."
"No," I said tiredly. "It's not going back on. If you want, you can call the doctor and have him come in and yell at me, but it's staying off."
The nurse let that ride. For some reason, she didn't hook me back up to the IV, either. I think she forgot.
I was in pain again, this time from the stent. One third of patients don't even notice the stent. One third have small problems with it. And one third have big problems with it. Guess which category I fell into?
Going to the bathroom is a horrifying ordeal. It hurt almost as bad as the stones, and made me wonder if they had moved and clogged something up. But the stent is designed to halt clogging entirely, and to stretch out the ureter a little to make passage of future stones easier. The pain was just me being one of the third group who has problems with a stent. The urologist assured me the pain would ease and disappear after a day or two. Passing blood was to be expected. I could resume all normal activities right away.
At last, it was time to go home. I checked out of the hospital with a bagful of medications, and Max drove me home--Darwin had the other car.
At home, I tried to rest, but the stent pain was still there. Constant. Twisting my insides. I dreaded going to the bathroom, not only because the pain shot up whenever I did, but also because I never knew what I would see. Sometimes everything looked just fine, and then suddenly I'd be expelling dark red or bits of tissue. The simple act of going to the toilet became an ordeal, and I found myself putting it off (which is bad for this condition) and getting tense in anticipation of the pain. It's steadily conditioning me to avoid the bathroom, and that's problematic.
This whole thing is exhausting. Between the pain, the memory of agony, fear that it'll come back worse, uncertainty about what'll happen next, I'm wrecked. It's tiring to be scared and in pain all the time. The original pain was so bad, I break into a sweat over the idea that it could come back.
I had originally planned to go back to work on Wednesday, but Tuesday evening I was still exhausted and in pain. I couldn't work. I had to make more lesson plans before I could call in.
I shuffle slowly around the house these days. I can't handle bumps or jarring. When I ride in the car, I have to remind Darwin to avoid all possible bumps because each one sends a jolt of pain through me.
A hospital robo-voice called to request that I take a survey about my care. I hung up. I don't do surveys.
Wednesday, I slept and watched TV and ate painkillers that didn't seem to work. I compared my pills to the ones Max got after his wisdom teeth operation and discovered my pills are a much lower dosage. WTF? So I started using Max's leftover pills and that helped.
I go through temper flare-ups that I can't seem to control. I know it's because I'm in pain and because of the psychological trauma I underwent. The pain Pain PAIN still weighs on me, and I keep waiting for it to pounce on me again like an gleeful tiger. Just the memory of it makes me shake. For a moment just this evening, it looked like the pain might be coming back, and I found myself fighting off a panic attack, I was so scared.
And now I'm being tossed about the medical field like a volleyball. My primary care physician said I have to see him for a follow-up, but when I called his office, the receptionist said he wouldn't be able to see me until next week, though I could see a PA instead. "No," I said. "I need to see the doctor." "It's not required that you see the doctor," said the receptionist. "It's only--" "I have to talk directly to Dr. S-- about my medications." The receptionist scared up a cancellation and scheduled me for Monday afternoon. I called the urologist to schedule the lithotripsy, and this was a two-day problem to solve. I received follow-up calls from the hospital. Volleyball.
I taught classes on Thursday and Friday. Both days I discovered my stamina was only good for 45 minutes, and I had to reconstruct my lessons to give me sit-down time for the last 15 minutes of class. This is where being a 22-year veteran has its advantages. I can redo lessons very quickly.
By Friday afternoon, I was completely wiped. Darwin wanted to go out to eat, but I was TIRED of eating hospital food and cheap diner food and of going here and there and everywhere. But I couldn't cook, and Darwin refuses to try. (Before we married, he lived at restaurants.) Truly, once or twice a month, I would love it if Someone Else cooked a meal for me. But whenever I suggest it, Darwin only offers to bring home takeout. Marriage is overlooking the stuff about your husband that drive you crazy.
Darwin, meanwhile, was putting up with me being cranky and short-tempered and emotional. I'd been away for three days, and became visibly upset to find that no one had taken the bread out of the breadmaker while I was gone (I started a batch before the pain demons arrived), no one had filled or run the dishwasher, which now smelled rancid, no one had changed the cat box. No one had gone grocery shopping. I was trying not to be in a foul mood about any of it, but it felt like Darwin and Max had decided between them to leave everything for me to do when I got home. I doubt that was their thinking--it just didn't occur to them to do these things unless I'm there to point them out. But that's the way I felt. My emotions went--still go--all over. One moment, I'm rampaging about something small, and the next I'm huddled on the bed in tears from the pain and fear.
I have lithotripsy--breaking up the stones with shock waves--on Wednesday. Another day away from work, another dose of anesthesia. I'm scared that it won't go well, and I'll have to come back, and I'm scared they won't take the stent out, and I'll have to come back for that, too--as well as live with awful pain every time I go to the bathroom.
I have to get through this.
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September 10, 2017
More Shopping Stereotypes
I found this display at Meijers:
The left is for girls, the right for boys.
First, notice the color scheme. Pinks is absolutely required for girls, Only one outfit has no pink on it. For boys, it's blue. Every single outfit has blue on it somewhere. For boys, we also have dinosaurs, tools, a puppy, and a fire engine. Active, power imagines. To top it off, one of the shirts says, "Mommy's rescue hero," casting an TODDLER in the role of rescuer for his mother. (And why isn't that on the girls' side, pray?)
Meanwhile, the girls have butterflies, pandas, kittens, and flowers, all images of passivity and prettiness. No action there.
If a boy wants to be quiet and passive or enjoy pretty things, he's out of luck. If a girl wants to be loud and active or enjoy monsters and fire trucks, she's dead in the water. So says the fashion industry and Meijer.
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The left is for girls, the right for boys.
First, notice the color scheme. Pinks is absolutely required for girls, Only one outfit has no pink on it. For boys, it's blue. Every single outfit has blue on it somewhere. For boys, we also have dinosaurs, tools, a puppy, and a fire engine. Active, power imagines. To top it off, one of the shirts says, "Mommy's rescue hero," casting an TODDLER in the role of rescuer for his mother. (And why isn't that on the girls' side, pray?)
Meanwhile, the girls have butterflies, pandas, kittens, and flowers, all images of passivity and prettiness. No action there.
If a boy wants to be quiet and passive or enjoy pretty things, he's out of luck. If a girl wants to be loud and active or enjoy monsters and fire trucks, she's dead in the water. So says the fashion industry and Meijer.
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Shopping: Making and Breaking the Stereotypes
Over the weekend, Darwin and I went clothes shopping. We both needed shirts for work.
The standard or stereotypical shopping method for men is that they decide what they want BEFORE they go into the store. When they arrive at the store, they find what they want as quickly as possible, pay for it, and leave immediately.
The standard or stereotypical method for women is that they decide what they want AT the store. They therefore spend more time in the store itself, and shopping also often becomes a social event.
When we arrived at the mall, Darwin directed me to head for Sears. "They have my size in dress shirts," he said. "I can get them there."
Usually I'm agreement with this method. However, in today's case, I didn't need dress shirts. I needed overshirts--fleeces or sweaters or heavy shirts with a dressy look that I can wear in my classroom. The heating system at Nameless High School is breaking down, and my room starts out freezing in the morning, and is roasting hot by the end of the day, so I have to dress in layers. It's tricky to find stuff that is both functional in these circumstances and also looks decent. I literally can't wear a dress shirt with a t-shirt under it, for example. I'll freeze until sometime after lunch. But I don't like most sweaters, either--the texturing is uncomfortable and prickly. This means, unfortunately, that I have to go hunting for what will work.
"I have to shop like a woman today," I told him, and Darwin groaned.
True to form, Darwin headed straight for the dress shirt display at Sears and pulled five of them in his size. Done! I wandered about the store, examining and rejecting, until I found some heavy dress-ish shirts that would work for me and snagged a couple of them. Cool!
"Are we done?" Darwin said.
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The standard or stereotypical shopping method for men is that they decide what they want BEFORE they go into the store. When they arrive at the store, they find what they want as quickly as possible, pay for it, and leave immediately.
The standard or stereotypical method for women is that they decide what they want AT the store. They therefore spend more time in the store itself, and shopping also often becomes a social event.
When we arrived at the mall, Darwin directed me to head for Sears. "They have my size in dress shirts," he said. "I can get them there."
Usually I'm agreement with this method. However, in today's case, I didn't need dress shirts. I needed overshirts--fleeces or sweaters or heavy shirts with a dressy look that I can wear in my classroom. The heating system at Nameless High School is breaking down, and my room starts out freezing in the morning, and is roasting hot by the end of the day, so I have to dress in layers. It's tricky to find stuff that is both functional in these circumstances and also looks decent. I literally can't wear a dress shirt with a t-shirt under it, for example. I'll freeze until sometime after lunch. But I don't like most sweaters, either--the texturing is uncomfortable and prickly. This means, unfortunately, that I have to go hunting for what will work.
"I have to shop like a woman today," I told him, and Darwin groaned.
True to form, Darwin headed straight for the dress shirt display at Sears and pulled five of them in his size. Done! I wandered about the store, examining and rejecting, until I found some heavy dress-ish shirts that would work for me and snagged a couple of them. Cool!
"Are we done?" Darwin said.
"You have five shirts, I have two," I said. "Into the mall!"
And Darwin groaned.
We went here and there throughout the mall. I was mostly looking for fleeces and sweaters, but the only sweaters I could find were thin, thin, thin! I needed something with a little more heft. My classroom is COLD.
I pulled Darwin into Buckle, but the store was too young for my demographic. "We'll have to remember this place when we're Christmas shopping for Sasha," I said.
I also noticed how Twelve Oaks Mall has gotten rid of their loud, annoying fountains and hard benches and replaced them with lounging areas stuffed with comfortable chairs and couches. The hard benches are gone. I observed aloud to Darwin how mall philosophy has changed. The hard benches and loud fountains were designed to keep people moving. But now mall designers have realized that people who stop to rest on comfy chairs are likely to shop longer (duh), and that fountains are damned expensive to maintain. Off with their heads!
Darwin noticed several men who were lounging on said comfy chairs while I was dragging him into several stores. "Can I sit there with those husbands whose wives are shopping?" he complained.
"Am I your wife?" I shot back. "Several studies showed that women spend the least amount of time in a mall store when they have a male companion with them. They'll spend more time in a store with a small child in tow than they will with a man. A psychologist urged stores to put a man cave in the corner to occupy the men and let the women shop--and spend money. The stores that did saw their sales rise, but corporate ultimately made them get rid of the man caves because they didn't like losing the retail space. A clear case of corporate stupidity. These stores don't have man caves in them, so you'll have to suffer."
A sales clerk overheard me, and chimed in. "I see that all the time!" she said. "We should have a man corner so the women will shop. It would totally help!"
We tried Macy's, but I ended up fleeing the store. It looked like a bomb went off in the men's department. The clothing racks were a mass of unfolded slacks and flipped-around shirts and other messy, pawed-over cloth. It was awful! No clerks were in evidence even trying to recover the merchandise. Meanwhile, in the makeup and perfume department we passed through, there were dozens of clerks behind well-lit counters panting to wait on people. They needed to move some of them into clothing. You could see where Macy's figured the money was. We left. If a place won't take care of its stuff when it's on the floor, what the hell are they trying sell me? No.
Lord and Taylor's selection ranged from Old Fogey to I'M TWELVE AND LOVING IT! with nothing in between. And everything was $100 or more. We left.
On impulse--and because Darwin liked the way it smelled--we ducked into Abercrombie & Fitch. I didn't have high hopes. But to my surprise, I found a great, non-textured sweater and two heavy dress-ish shirts that were exactly what I needed. Who knew?
And then we had supper in the food court, because I can get the quasi-Asian food I like, and Darwin can get the soup he likes.
On the way out, I said, "There's one more store I want to hit," and Darwin said he didn't slug me only because he loved me.
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Dreamwidth Question
Fellow Dreamwidth users:
What's the advantage of a pay account?
And is there a way to find out how many hits your blog is getting? I can't find one listed anywhere.
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What's the advantage of a pay account?
And is there a way to find out how many hits your blog is getting? I can't find one listed anywhere.
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Visiting Aran
Saturday, Darwin and I popped down to Ypsilanti to see how Aran was doing. (We wanted to see Sasha, too, but he had plans, so it was just Aran.)
A side note: Aran's apartment is two floors directly above Sasha's. It turned out that Sasha's WiFi reaches Aran's apartment comfortably, which means they can share an Internet account. This cuts both their Internet bills in half and it means Aran doesn't have to pay extortive installment fees from AT&T or Comcast. Cool!
Anyway, when Darwin and I got to Aran's apartment, we found everything nicely arranged and spotless. I'd given Aran a list of daily cleaning chores to do so he'd be able to keep his place clean, and he's been doing it. He's also unpacked everything and put it about as he likes. The apartment is bright and airy, and he likes the high view. He can even see a bit of the distant lake.
It's clear he's really happy in the apartment and is enjoying his newfound freedom and independence. He was happy and chatty while we were there. He said he's gone to the store already, and he also went to get a haircut completely on his own. This surprised me--he's never done that before! I always had to take him.
We all went out to lunch. While we were out, we showed Aran where Darwin's office is, in case of an emergency. It's within walking distance of Aran's apartment, another reason we're glad Aran is where he is.
It was a good visit. Aran is adjusting well, and enjoying himself hugely!
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A side note: Aran's apartment is two floors directly above Sasha's. It turned out that Sasha's WiFi reaches Aran's apartment comfortably, which means they can share an Internet account. This cuts both their Internet bills in half and it means Aran doesn't have to pay extortive installment fees from AT&T or Comcast. Cool!
Anyway, when Darwin and I got to Aran's apartment, we found everything nicely arranged and spotless. I'd given Aran a list of daily cleaning chores to do so he'd be able to keep his place clean, and he's been doing it. He's also unpacked everything and put it about as he likes. The apartment is bright and airy, and he likes the high view. He can even see a bit of the distant lake.
It's clear he's really happy in the apartment and is enjoying his newfound freedom and independence. He was happy and chatty while we were there. He said he's gone to the store already, and he also went to get a haircut completely on his own. This surprised me--he's never done that before! I always had to take him.
We all went out to lunch. While we were out, we showed Aran where Darwin's office is, in case of an emergency. It's within walking distance of Aran's apartment, another reason we're glad Aran is where he is.
It was a good visit. Aran is adjusting well, and enjoying himself hugely!
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Aran Moving: the Blowback
So now Aran has moved out. That's two out of three of the boys gone now. And we have the blowback.
The house is quite a lot emptier and quieter. Aran's car isn't in the driveway anymore, but I find myself expecting it. He doesn't pop into my office to tell about a piece of fanfic he's writing or the latest super-villain he's created. The weekly grocery bill has dropped sharply. Cookies stay in the cookie jar longer. We don't hear the pipes rattling in the downstairs bathroom in the morning any more, or Aran's music wafting up from the basement through the ventilation system. He's conspicuous through his absence.
I've had to readjust my cooking. Subtracting a 20-year-old from the table changes the equation quite a lot. I always cooked with the idea of having a few leftovers in mind so I can take them to work for lunch, but without Aran around, the leftover level jumped. I have to halve a pot of chili now, and there's still a lot left. A little chicken goes a long way now. I have to be careful not to overmake. I mistakenly did up a brisket that delicious but just too much for the three of us, and I froze the remainder because it would go bad before we ate it. I'll disguise it in a stir fry or pulled BBQ sandwiches later.
I actually end up with the house to myself fairly often now. This is also strange. Aran is gone, and Maksim works after school a few days a week, and Darwin is work until 6:00, so the house is big and empty with just me in it. I'm not used to being in the house alone. It was a rare event after Aran was born in 1997, and almost never happened after we adopted Sasha and Maksim in 2005, and I became used to a great deal of traffic in and out of the house, the bedroom, the kitchen, my office. Working at home was always a bit of work interspersed with a series of interruptions. Overnight, this has all but ended, and it's odd. I feel like I should be attending to a stream childhood or teenage problems or just general conversation. But Aran and Sasha's problems have been relegated to long-distance. They have SSI paperwork, and bank paperwork, and payee paperwork, and state paperwork, but all that can be done when I wish. No one barges in and makes me drop everything to fill out an SSI form. Oddly, I've gotten used to working with interruptions, and I'm finding it hard to work without them now.
All this emphasizes how huge our house is, and reminds me that, once Maksim is established as on his own, we'll have to sell it and find someplace smaller. We were comfortable with four in this house, but it's too big for two.
Darwin and I are fast heading for an empty nest.
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The house is quite a lot emptier and quieter. Aran's car isn't in the driveway anymore, but I find myself expecting it. He doesn't pop into my office to tell about a piece of fanfic he's writing or the latest super-villain he's created. The weekly grocery bill has dropped sharply. Cookies stay in the cookie jar longer. We don't hear the pipes rattling in the downstairs bathroom in the morning any more, or Aran's music wafting up from the basement through the ventilation system. He's conspicuous through his absence.
I've had to readjust my cooking. Subtracting a 20-year-old from the table changes the equation quite a lot. I always cooked with the idea of having a few leftovers in mind so I can take them to work for lunch, but without Aran around, the leftover level jumped. I have to halve a pot of chili now, and there's still a lot left. A little chicken goes a long way now. I have to be careful not to overmake. I mistakenly did up a brisket that delicious but just too much for the three of us, and I froze the remainder because it would go bad before we ate it. I'll disguise it in a stir fry or pulled BBQ sandwiches later.
I actually end up with the house to myself fairly often now. This is also strange. Aran is gone, and Maksim works after school a few days a week, and Darwin is work until 6:00, so the house is big and empty with just me in it. I'm not used to being in the house alone. It was a rare event after Aran was born in 1997, and almost never happened after we adopted Sasha and Maksim in 2005, and I became used to a great deal of traffic in and out of the house, the bedroom, the kitchen, my office. Working at home was always a bit of work interspersed with a series of interruptions. Overnight, this has all but ended, and it's odd. I feel like I should be attending to a stream childhood or teenage problems or just general conversation. But Aran and Sasha's problems have been relegated to long-distance. They have SSI paperwork, and bank paperwork, and payee paperwork, and state paperwork, but all that can be done when I wish. No one barges in and makes me drop everything to fill out an SSI form. Oddly, I've gotten used to working with interruptions, and I'm finding it hard to work without them now.
All this emphasizes how huge our house is, and reminds me that, once Maksim is established as on his own, we'll have to sell it and find someplace smaller. We were comfortable with four in this house, but it's too big for two.
Darwin and I are fast heading for an empty nest.
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September 4, 2017
Dipshit Pastor Is Secretly Gay?
So now there's this dipshit: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2014/09/megachurch-pastor-says-gays-must-be-put-to-death/
Just for fun, in a "know your enemy" kind of way, I tracked down the web site for his filthy little "church" and found a section on weddings. I read it.
If you want to get married at their "church," you have to read their rules and regs (pages and pages of them). The very first thing that pops up is several paragraphs about marriage having to be between a man and woman. A biological man and a biological woman. One biological man and one biological woman. I'm not kidding. It goes on and on and on. This guy and his toadies give lots and lots and lots and LOTS of thought to gay people.
Also in their wedding information packet, they make almost passing references to the fact that they don't allow dancing at weddings at their church except between the bridge and groom and the wedding party parents. They also don't allow alcohol of any kind. This ban is also made in a passing reference--once briefly in the general rules and once in the FAQs. There are NO references to same-sex weddings in their FAQs. This means that people ask frequently ("frequently asked questions") about drinking and alcohol at weddings, but they DON'T ask about same-sex weddings, yet this church spends paragraph after paragraph after paragraph talking about same-sex marriage.
The church leaders seem to think about LGBT people quite a lot--even though no one in their congregation asks. However, we have WAY more drinkers and dancers than LGBT people in this country, and the issue of having both at weddings has come up often enough to deserve a FAQ entry for this "church." Yet they don't explain a single thing about their stance on this huge issue. They simply ban both with a single sentence while they spend many paragraphs on a non-issue.
Why spend so much time and effort on a non-issue--unless it preys on YOUR OWN mind, yeah?
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Just for fun, in a "know your enemy" kind of way, I tracked down the web site for his filthy little "church" and found a section on weddings. I read it.
If you want to get married at their "church," you have to read their rules and regs (pages and pages of them). The very first thing that pops up is several paragraphs about marriage having to be between a man and woman. A biological man and a biological woman. One biological man and one biological woman. I'm not kidding. It goes on and on and on. This guy and his toadies give lots and lots and lots and LOTS of thought to gay people.
Also in their wedding information packet, they make almost passing references to the fact that they don't allow dancing at weddings at their church except between the bridge and groom and the wedding party parents. They also don't allow alcohol of any kind. This ban is also made in a passing reference--once briefly in the general rules and once in the FAQs. There are NO references to same-sex weddings in their FAQs. This means that people ask frequently ("frequently asked questions") about drinking and alcohol at weddings, but they DON'T ask about same-sex weddings, yet this church spends paragraph after paragraph after paragraph talking about same-sex marriage.
The church leaders seem to think about LGBT people quite a lot--even though no one in their congregation asks. However, we have WAY more drinkers and dancers than LGBT people in this country, and the issue of having both at weddings has come up often enough to deserve a FAQ entry for this "church." Yet they don't explain a single thing about their stance on this huge issue. They simply ban both with a single sentence while they spend many paragraphs on a non-issue.
Why spend so much time and effort on a non-issue--unless it preys on YOUR OWN mind, yeah?
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September 3, 2017
Feeding the Hummers
The hummingbirds are HUNGRY.
Just before I left for Ireland, I filled my three hummingbird feeders all the way. My house has become the territory of a family of four hummingbirds--mom, dad, and their two adolescents--so the feeders are busy. When I got back, all three feeders were nearly empty. So I boiled up some more syrup and filled them up again.
They're sucking the stuff dry.
Seriously. The little hummers are draining these feeders like there's no tomorrow. I've never seen them eat so much. The two adolescents--both a yellow-green--fight over the feeders, too. I sit on my porch writing and see one of them buzz up to the feeder, only to have the other rush up and chase it away. This happens over and over.
Hummingbirds do NOT like to share, even with family, and it's therefore best to set multiple feeders out of sight of one another. I've done this with mine. One feeder hangs on my front porch, another on the back deck, and the third at my bedroom window. But this means the aggressive one has to patrol constantly, and the quieter one has to sneak around to eat.
But they do eat. And eat and eat and eat. I think they're storing up for migration. They'll be leaving any time now. So drink up, little hummers!
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Just before I left for Ireland, I filled my three hummingbird feeders all the way. My house has become the territory of a family of four hummingbirds--mom, dad, and their two adolescents--so the feeders are busy. When I got back, all three feeders were nearly empty. So I boiled up some more syrup and filled them up again.
They're sucking the stuff dry.
Seriously. The little hummers are draining these feeders like there's no tomorrow. I've never seen them eat so much. The two adolescents--both a yellow-green--fight over the feeders, too. I sit on my porch writing and see one of them buzz up to the feeder, only to have the other rush up and chase it away. This happens over and over.
Hummingbirds do NOT like to share, even with family, and it's therefore best to set multiple feeders out of sight of one another. I've done this with mine. One feeder hangs on my front porch, another on the back deck, and the third at my bedroom window. But this means the aggressive one has to patrol constantly, and the quieter one has to sneak around to eat.
But they do eat. And eat and eat and eat. I think they're storing up for migration. They'll be leaving any time now. So drink up, little hummers!
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The Cursed Umbrella
When I got to Ireland, I knew I would need an umbrella. It rains in Ireland a lot, you see. I didn't bring one with me because I figured it would be easier to buy one when I arrived than try to stash one in my luggage.
Yeah.
When I got to Dublin, Darwin and I poked about a shopping district in Dublin on our first day.
Perfect! I reasoned. I could get an umbrella. Right?
No. Not one store carried umbrellas. We found stores for shoes, electronics, women's clothes, hiking equipment, even kitchenware, but not one store carried umbrellas. And of course, it was starting to rain.
At long last, we checked a rather upscale men's store and found a rack of umbrellas. Yay! But they were expensive, like 60 Euros. I just wanted an umbrella, not shares in an entire oilsilk factory.
Well, I reasoned, this umbrella would last a long time, and I could take it home as my Irish umbrella. So I bought it.
It worked just fine. At first.
This umbrella, it turned, closed up with a frog--a button and clasp--instead of a snap. In less than a day, the button that held the frog shut popped off and disappeared, meaning the umbrella couldn't be tightly furled and closed. It therefore fell open or caught the breeze at the slightest provocation. It liked to burst open at startling times, like when I was climbing onto a bus or going through a revolving door or about to enter a bathroom stall. I hadn't kept the receipt and I couldn't remember where the store was anyway, so I had no way to return it. I wrestled with the damned thing the whole time we were there.
But, I reasoned, when I got it home, I could put a new button on the umbrella and keep it anyway. Sixty euros was sixty euros!
When it came time to pack, however, I discovered the stupid umbrella was about an inch too long to fit into my suitcase.
But, I reasoned, I could just tie it shut with some string and take it on the airplane with me.
When I got to the airport, however, an airline lady informed me that I couldn't take an umbrella into the main cabin because I might try to take over the airplane with it.
But, she reasoned, they would check it for me in a special section of the luggage hold for fragile items.
She strapped a routing sticker to the umbrella, put it in a plastic open-topped crate, and sent the whole thing on its merry way down the conveyor belt.
When we landed in Detroit, our suitcases arrived on the luggage carousel without incident. So did the open-topped crate. The umbrella itself was gone.
Well, I reasoned, that was that. Sometimes when you travel a long ways, you pay for stuff that turns out to be a bad idea. Such is life. We went home.
About three hours later, I got a call from American Airlines.
"We have an umbrella here," the lady said.
Well, I reasoned, the umbrella is fucking cursed, and I don't want it in my house.
"Just throw it away," I said. "Or maybe you'd like to keep it."
And I hung up.
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Yeah.
When I got to Dublin, Darwin and I poked about a shopping district in Dublin on our first day.
Perfect! I reasoned. I could get an umbrella. Right?
No. Not one store carried umbrellas. We found stores for shoes, electronics, women's clothes, hiking equipment, even kitchenware, but not one store carried umbrellas. And of course, it was starting to rain.
At long last, we checked a rather upscale men's store and found a rack of umbrellas. Yay! But they were expensive, like 60 Euros. I just wanted an umbrella, not shares in an entire oilsilk factory.
Well, I reasoned, this umbrella would last a long time, and I could take it home as my Irish umbrella. So I bought it.
It worked just fine. At first.
This umbrella, it turned, closed up with a frog--a button and clasp--instead of a snap. In less than a day, the button that held the frog shut popped off and disappeared, meaning the umbrella couldn't be tightly furled and closed. It therefore fell open or caught the breeze at the slightest provocation. It liked to burst open at startling times, like when I was climbing onto a bus or going through a revolving door or about to enter a bathroom stall. I hadn't kept the receipt and I couldn't remember where the store was anyway, so I had no way to return it. I wrestled with the damned thing the whole time we were there.
But, I reasoned, when I got it home, I could put a new button on the umbrella and keep it anyway. Sixty euros was sixty euros!
When it came time to pack, however, I discovered the stupid umbrella was about an inch too long to fit into my suitcase.
But, I reasoned, I could just tie it shut with some string and take it on the airplane with me.
When I got to the airport, however, an airline lady informed me that I couldn't take an umbrella into the main cabin because I might try to take over the airplane with it.
But, she reasoned, they would check it for me in a special section of the luggage hold for fragile items.
She strapped a routing sticker to the umbrella, put it in a plastic open-topped crate, and sent the whole thing on its merry way down the conveyor belt.
When we landed in Detroit, our suitcases arrived on the luggage carousel without incident. So did the open-topped crate. The umbrella itself was gone.
Well, I reasoned, that was that. Sometimes when you travel a long ways, you pay for stuff that turns out to be a bad idea. Such is life. We went home.
About three hours later, I got a call from American Airlines.
"We have an umbrella here," the lady said.
Well, I reasoned, the umbrella is fucking cursed, and I don't want it in my house.
"Just throw it away," I said. "Or maybe you'd like to keep it."
And I hung up.
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August 31, 2017
Ireland: Friday, Saturday, Sunday
The last part of the Ireland trip:
FRIDAY
Friday we had to get up early to pack up and leave for Dublin again. We swiftly packed our things and bade Sinead a fond good-bye. We had to return the rental car by noon, and it was an hour's drive to Dublin, so we had to get moving.
We gave ourselves an extra hour in case we got turned around again, but things went much more smoothly, and we arrived at the car rental place at the airport with no trouble at all. I have to say I was relieved to give the car up. It's stressful and nerve-wracking to drive in Ireland, and I felt like a great burden had lifted when I handed over the keys.
It was a long, long, loooooooooooooong wait for the shuttle bus into town, for some reason. The line for the bus grew longer and longer and longer and more and more pissed off. After more than 45 minutes' wait for a bus that was supposed to run every 10 minutes, one finally arrived, and we made the slow drive into town.
Our next accommodations were at Trinity College, which rents out its student dorms and apartments in the summer very reasonably. Because the wait for the bus was so damned long, we arrived at Trinity at 1:30, only a little before the 2 PM check-in, and the college was already checking guests in. I had booked us a double room/apartment, and the check-in went fine, but the apartment itself was so far across campus, it was almost off the map. I suggested waiting for a ride--the clerk had said we could get if we waited a moment--but Darwin had been put off by the bus wait and said he wanted to walk. So we set out.
It took us more than half an hour.
This was partly because we got lost several times. The paper map they gave us was completely unhelpful--we couldn't tell where anything was on it. My phone gave us directions, but it kept switching from walking directions to driving directions, for some reason. We finally FINALLY found the place. It's a modern building on the outside corner of the campus. It's quite small and Spartan, as we knew it would be, though I didn't know it was a shared bathroom situation. (We share with four other rooms.) But it worked out--there was only one other couple staying there. The main trouble was the noise. Our window (second story) opened right onto the street, and it was NOISY. Heavy traffic roared by 24/7, tour buses trundle past and you heard the guides barking through their loudspeakers, people talked and laughed and shouted as they passed, and you smelled their cigarette smoke. The rooms on the other side of the hall faced the courtyard and were silent. This was a bad luck room!
We had supper at Kennedy's, a pub frequented by Oscar Wilde (well, he worked there when he was young), Yeats, and Joyce, which was pretty neat. I had steak-and-Guinness pie, and Darwin had a tasty lamb shank.
SATURDAY
Saturday morning, we'd booked a bus tour to visit Newgrange and the Hill of Tara. You can't visit these places on your own--you have to go through their visitor's center--and I definitely didn't want to drive to them. Newgrange also only allows 400 visitors per day, and if you get there too late, your loss! The tour was the perfect way to go.
We arrived at the tourism center in plenty of time to catch the tour and got seats at the front of the bus so we could see nicely. Our tour guide (totally gay!) was named Trevor, and once everyone had boarded, he got on the microphone and gave us a little tour of Dublin sites that we passed, which was nice. We stopped at the fishing harbor north of Dublin, which was extremely interesting to me. The trawlers with their great nets were docked there, the smell of fish lay on the wind, and all the shops lining the quay sold every kind of fresh fish you can imagine. My inner chef was jumping up and down and wanting to shop here every week.
Unfortunately, this is where things went badly for me. I started getting stomach cramps, a knot right under my diaphragm that started, increased, cramped HARD, then eased off. Then the cycle started over again. As the day passed, the feeling got worse and worse. I tried to ignore it, but it didn't stop. It set off a migraine headache. The migraine started from the tension of the stomach pain and from (I'm sure) the abrupt release of tension from returning the car. And I hadn't brought any of my meds with me.
By the time we arrived at Newgrange, I was in considerable distress. Darwin and I got some lunch at the visitor's centers--and here I have to pause to point out that the Irish know how to run a visitor's center cafeteria. The food is REAL food. Thick sandwiches, home made soup, sausage rolls, fresh fruit desserts. In America it would be hot dogs, hamburgers, and waffle fries. Not in Ireland, thank you!
I had some lunch, hoping it would ease the pain, but it didn't. Our tour group got on a (different) shuttle bus to head for Newgrange itself, and I was trying not to let my head fall off my shoulders.
Newgrange is a splendid site, though. It's the biggest mound tomb you've ever seen, and it's older than anything in Egypt. White stone rings the mound, and famously, sunlight enters the tomb only on the winter solstice. Unfortunately, I was in no condition to enjoy it. Even when we slipped inside and beneath the tons of rock, the pain was horrendous. I was sweating and panting and wondering if I should ask to go to the hospital, but I didn't know how such a thing would work. Newgrange barely registered for me. I'm glad it was my second visit and I already knew what was what.
Darwin knew by now I was in trouble. The stomach and head pain were both so bad, it was all I could do to stand upright. The visitors center didn't sell pain relievers, either. When we boarded the bus, I told Darwin to ask Trevor if he had anything. Trevor didn't, but should he ask the tour at large if they had anything? I said he should. A woman from Sweden had something--I don't know what, and I didn't care. I swallowed it, and lay back to doze off.
The drive to the Hill of Tara took about an hour, and I slept through it. The painkillers, whatever they were, started to work, though, and by the time we arrived, I was functional again. Go Sweden!
The Hill of Tara was new to me. It's where ancient Irish kings were crowned. A phallic stone about five feet high sticks out the top, and legend says if it roars when you touch it, you're the next king of Ireland. (There's a lot of phallic imagery in Irish folklore, which is not for the timid. In order to be crowned king, for example, a new Irish king copulated with a mare in front of the assembled tribes. The mare was then chopped into pieces and cooked in a broth, in which the king sat naked while everyone had a sip. As I said, not for the timid.) Darwin and I climbed up to the hill and wobbled through the circular ditches cut into the hillside. No one knows what they're for, but I suspect they were put there to provide shelter so the tribes could watch the new king and his horse friend without getting flung off the hillside by the wind! Both Darwin and I embraced the stone. When Darwin touched it, a group of nearby ladies obligingly roared, which made him laugh.
You have to walk through a 1700s and modern graveyard to get to the hill. The latest burial we saw was from 2015. Yes, you can be buried on the Hill of Tara. I would like that.
And then it was the bus ride home. We had supper at O'Neill's, a pub continually in business since 1885!
SUNDAY
This was a slow day, our last day in Ireland. We visited the Museum of Archaeology and looked at the bog people who have been discovered in the bogs, and the gold treasures from the Bronze Age. This was extremely fascinating. We tried to get into the Dublin Library, but the reading room was closed. The only thing open was an exhibition of William Yeats's papers and other materials. The exhibit was quite extensive--room after room after room--but all of it so dimly lit, you couldn't see much of anything. Also, I'm not a Yeats person, so most of it was lost on me.
We spent the rest of the day in the room, just resting and catching up on things. Tomorrow, we go home!
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FRIDAY
Friday we had to get up early to pack up and leave for Dublin again. We swiftly packed our things and bade Sinead a fond good-bye. We had to return the rental car by noon, and it was an hour's drive to Dublin, so we had to get moving.
We gave ourselves an extra hour in case we got turned around again, but things went much more smoothly, and we arrived at the car rental place at the airport with no trouble at all. I have to say I was relieved to give the car up. It's stressful and nerve-wracking to drive in Ireland, and I felt like a great burden had lifted when I handed over the keys.
It was a long, long, loooooooooooooong wait for the shuttle bus into town, for some reason. The line for the bus grew longer and longer and longer and more and more pissed off. After more than 45 minutes' wait for a bus that was supposed to run every 10 minutes, one finally arrived, and we made the slow drive into town.
Our next accommodations were at Trinity College, which rents out its student dorms and apartments in the summer very reasonably. Because the wait for the bus was so damned long, we arrived at Trinity at 1:30, only a little before the 2 PM check-in, and the college was already checking guests in. I had booked us a double room/apartment, and the check-in went fine, but the apartment itself was so far across campus, it was almost off the map. I suggested waiting for a ride--the clerk had said we could get if we waited a moment--but Darwin had been put off by the bus wait and said he wanted to walk. So we set out.
It took us more than half an hour.
This was partly because we got lost several times. The paper map they gave us was completely unhelpful--we couldn't tell where anything was on it. My phone gave us directions, but it kept switching from walking directions to driving directions, for some reason. We finally FINALLY found the place. It's a modern building on the outside corner of the campus. It's quite small and Spartan, as we knew it would be, though I didn't know it was a shared bathroom situation. (We share with four other rooms.) But it worked out--there was only one other couple staying there. The main trouble was the noise. Our window (second story) opened right onto the street, and it was NOISY. Heavy traffic roared by 24/7, tour buses trundle past and you heard the guides barking through their loudspeakers, people talked and laughed and shouted as they passed, and you smelled their cigarette smoke. The rooms on the other side of the hall faced the courtyard and were silent. This was a bad luck room!
We had supper at Kennedy's, a pub frequented by Oscar Wilde (well, he worked there when he was young), Yeats, and Joyce, which was pretty neat. I had steak-and-Guinness pie, and Darwin had a tasty lamb shank.
SATURDAY
Saturday morning, we'd booked a bus tour to visit Newgrange and the Hill of Tara. You can't visit these places on your own--you have to go through their visitor's center--and I definitely didn't want to drive to them. Newgrange also only allows 400 visitors per day, and if you get there too late, your loss! The tour was the perfect way to go.
We arrived at the tourism center in plenty of time to catch the tour and got seats at the front of the bus so we could see nicely. Our tour guide (totally gay!) was named Trevor, and once everyone had boarded, he got on the microphone and gave us a little tour of Dublin sites that we passed, which was nice. We stopped at the fishing harbor north of Dublin, which was extremely interesting to me. The trawlers with their great nets were docked there, the smell of fish lay on the wind, and all the shops lining the quay sold every kind of fresh fish you can imagine. My inner chef was jumping up and down and wanting to shop here every week.
Unfortunately, this is where things went badly for me. I started getting stomach cramps, a knot right under my diaphragm that started, increased, cramped HARD, then eased off. Then the cycle started over again. As the day passed, the feeling got worse and worse. I tried to ignore it, but it didn't stop. It set off a migraine headache. The migraine started from the tension of the stomach pain and from (I'm sure) the abrupt release of tension from returning the car. And I hadn't brought any of my meds with me.
By the time we arrived at Newgrange, I was in considerable distress. Darwin and I got some lunch at the visitor's centers--and here I have to pause to point out that the Irish know how to run a visitor's center cafeteria. The food is REAL food. Thick sandwiches, home made soup, sausage rolls, fresh fruit desserts. In America it would be hot dogs, hamburgers, and waffle fries. Not in Ireland, thank you!
I had some lunch, hoping it would ease the pain, but it didn't. Our tour group got on a (different) shuttle bus to head for Newgrange itself, and I was trying not to let my head fall off my shoulders.
Newgrange is a splendid site, though. It's the biggest mound tomb you've ever seen, and it's older than anything in Egypt. White stone rings the mound, and famously, sunlight enters the tomb only on the winter solstice. Unfortunately, I was in no condition to enjoy it. Even when we slipped inside and beneath the tons of rock, the pain was horrendous. I was sweating and panting and wondering if I should ask to go to the hospital, but I didn't know how such a thing would work. Newgrange barely registered for me. I'm glad it was my second visit and I already knew what was what.
Darwin knew by now I was in trouble. The stomach and head pain were both so bad, it was all I could do to stand upright. The visitors center didn't sell pain relievers, either. When we boarded the bus, I told Darwin to ask Trevor if he had anything. Trevor didn't, but should he ask the tour at large if they had anything? I said he should. A woman from Sweden had something--I don't know what, and I didn't care. I swallowed it, and lay back to doze off.
The drive to the Hill of Tara took about an hour, and I slept through it. The painkillers, whatever they were, started to work, though, and by the time we arrived, I was functional again. Go Sweden!
The Hill of Tara was new to me. It's where ancient Irish kings were crowned. A phallic stone about five feet high sticks out the top, and legend says if it roars when you touch it, you're the next king of Ireland. (There's a lot of phallic imagery in Irish folklore, which is not for the timid. In order to be crowned king, for example, a new Irish king copulated with a mare in front of the assembled tribes. The mare was then chopped into pieces and cooked in a broth, in which the king sat naked while everyone had a sip. As I said, not for the timid.) Darwin and I climbed up to the hill and wobbled through the circular ditches cut into the hillside. No one knows what they're for, but I suspect they were put there to provide shelter so the tribes could watch the new king and his horse friend without getting flung off the hillside by the wind! Both Darwin and I embraced the stone. When Darwin touched it, a group of nearby ladies obligingly roared, which made him laugh.
You have to walk through a 1700s and modern graveyard to get to the hill. The latest burial we saw was from 2015. Yes, you can be buried on the Hill of Tara. I would like that.
And then it was the bus ride home. We had supper at O'Neill's, a pub continually in business since 1885!
SUNDAY
This was a slow day, our last day in Ireland. We visited the Museum of Archaeology and looked at the bog people who have been discovered in the bogs, and the gold treasures from the Bronze Age. This was extremely fascinating. We tried to get into the Dublin Library, but the reading room was closed. The only thing open was an exhibition of William Yeats's papers and other materials. The exhibit was quite extensive--room after room after room--but all of it so dimly lit, you couldn't see much of anything. Also, I'm not a Yeats person, so most of it was lost on me.
We spent the rest of the day in the room, just resting and catching up on things. Tomorrow, we go home!
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