What If Wednesday, The Valentine's Edition

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First off, let me say that I absolutely will be getting back into posting more than just these 'What If, Wednesdays'. I have plenty of excuses, but you're not really interested in that, are you??? No. Also, next week I will be sure to post a 'What If' of a little more lighthearted nature. But for this week, this was on my mind and it gives another twist to Valentine's week. So I had to go with it! And now, for the 'What If'... What if polygamy becomes as mainstream as gay marriage is now becoming in today's society? There's a lot that brought this question to mind for me. It seems like polygamy, polyamory, and the like are in the media on a daily basis these days. I'm really concerned with the question as it pertains to how this changes relationships among families and what it does to traditional society. I know we can all agree that the idea of anyone marrying underage people and keeping them hostage is out of the question. No, I'm interested in people who freely choose this lifestyle and what it means if they find more acceptance in mainstream society. Have a great Valentine's week!

El Paso Chihuahuas!

My husband is a huge sports fan.  Just about any sport.  Just about any time.  Just about anything pertaining to sports at all, really.

He is very excited today about a new name for a AAA baseball feeder team for the San Diego Padres.  When the team moved from Tuscon, Arizona to El Paso, Texas, they needed to rename themselves.  They chose the name: Chihuahuas.

My husband loves sports, especially baseball.  My husband loves our little tan chihuahua.  His initials are EP.

So of course he loves this:

Logos created by the Brandiose team

Our little guy, Tanner, thinks he's plenty feisty enough and wants to know if he can play too!

My Husband Has Learned To Listen To Me

My husband is actually a great listener.  It's one of his many fine qualities.

However, for the longest time he just couldn't seem to grasp the importance of listening carefully to my predictions about various things. 

Granted, some of these things are silly.  A lot of them are just good rational extrapolation of current 'goings on'.  My predictions run the gamut from fashion trends, (My poor husband has learned to grin and bear it when he watches me spend a season searching high and low for some clothing or accessory item that I just have to have, only to see a ton of options for said item come out next year when I decide that I don't want it anymore.)  to business processes, (We recall fondly how worried I was that Boeing was rushing toward release of the 787 Dreamliner on 7-8-07.  I predicted this rush would result in an absolute nightmare.  You have to understand that I grew up in a Boeing family and merely voicing this idea was like admitting that I had signed a contract with Satan himself.) and even on to outcomes of politically lead mass transit planning.  (When my husband moved to the Seattle area in 1996, he immediately noticed our lack of mass transit.  Coming from the east coast he just could not imagine such a crappy transit system.  He was thrilled to be able to vote for a new high speed rail system.  I told him it probably wouldn't happen in our lifetime and the money would be totally wasted.  It still hasn't been realized and most of the money has been spent on studying outcomes.  Ooooh, here's my shocked face: =:-0  OK, maybe not that hard to predict considering all of our transit debacles around here.  My friends husband who worked for Sound Transit for a year still thanks me for warning him and helping him find another job just before things got really bad.)

But my husband has had to admit that my predictive powers are rather awesome at times.  Like last night.  When I was distractedly fishing through mail while tossing things into the recycle bin and said that I just didn't understand why the post office was still doing Saturday service.  I said they needed to get rid of it, ...like tomorrow, if they had any hope at all of remaining in business for the foreseeable future.

My husband called me from work first thing this morning and said he didn't know whether to laugh or run.  He says he'll be home around 6pm so I guess he's decided to laugh! 

Time And Resources

One day, back when I was working as a nanny and was still really struggling to make ends meet, the father of the kids I was working with reminded me of one of the simple truisms of life:  You either have more time or more money- not usually the luxury of both at the same time.

Lately, as I contemplate the exciting changes that are on the horizon for me and mine- eventually moving to a warm weather spot, investing in a vacation property, working with my husband through his recovery to health, and even seeing my life through my own perimeters instead of those that have been assigned to me by others in the past- I can't help but contemplate that idea of time and resources.

I want to be careful and considerate with the things I give my time and effort to.  I want to spend my resources on things that truly matter to me.  I want to build the life I desire out of what I have.

That means I cannot please everyone.  Not even close.  And I am pretty OK with that.

So I've noticed that I'm putting more and more time and effort into things that are important to my husband. 
It feels good to me.  It feels right.
I'm a natural supporter, an ally, a partner.
I've never been comfortable in the limelight.
Some of us are supporting actors.  And damn good ones.

Unproductive beginnings can produce mad skills.  And just because those skills might have been originally produced in fear and taken advantage of by some in the past, doesn't mean they aren't real skills and meaningful in my life today. 

It is the most fun and rewarding thing to be there with someone who doesn't necessarily need you to survive, and yet is certainly better off because you are there.  There's a big difference between feeling as if you must keep everything in balance to avoid disaster and being able to provide a solid foundation in a partnership that is more than the sum total of its parts.

It's good to have a worthy place to put my time and energy into.  A place that makes me a better person too...  a person who will be more ready to accomplish my own goals as well. 

So I'm curious...  Are you the type of person that enjoys more of a supporting role?  How did you come to accept that about yourself?  Are you able to successfully weave in your own accomplishments?  What's the most that you have ever happily sacrificed for someone else?  Tell me your stories!

Sometimes My Husband Still Surprises Me

I have a feeling that my husband is somewhere on the Asperger's scale.  No seriously, but just mildly so.

I have a good friend with a husband who is diagnosed with Asperger's and he and my husband get along famously.  It's like a bog ol' nerdfest when the two of them get together.  And nobody else seems to get this guy better than my husband.  (Asperger's is a form of autism that affects social skills more than anything and a person with Asperger's is likely to be highly intelligent yet very bothered by overstimulation.  Mozart, Einstein and Thomas Jefferson all shared symptoms of Asperger's .) 

What could possibly make me think something like this? 

I'm won't pretend to be an expert on the subject.  These are just my observations:
My husband sometimes misses social cues- big time.  He has to cut the tags out of every piece of clothing he owns and food textures can be quite troublesome.  He's such a freakin' number genius and yet sometimes he panics if you ask him to add up a simple list of things and then he has to double and triple check his answer and explain how he got to it.

I'm not complaining.  Again, just my observations.  It's actually a part of his charm.  And he balances me out quite well.  Besides, I may or may not be known to let his quirks get me out of a bind here or there on occasion, but I'm not admitting to anything...

So yeah, he's just not a real emotional guy.  (But like I said, that keeps my 'fieryness' in check.)  While I appreciate how rational my man is, I must admit that I do sometimes miss out on romantic notions.  Small things like not thinking about the resale value of a gift, or how much it will cost to insure it.  Or sometimes he just doesn't seem to get the emotional intricacies of a given moment.  He can be perceived as pretty cut and dried with an affect that comes off as rather flat.

And yet, at times he is so clever and funny and brings out a childlike joy in just experiencing something.  And he will do literally anything for me, even if it goes against his highly logical side.  These are the times when sharing his life is magical.  So... what a wonderful surprise it has been to see how excited my husband has become about the idea of having a vacation place in the desert.  Imagine how wonderful it has been to hear him almost gush at how good he feels in that heat, how 108 with no humidity feels just right, how being able to get away to a place that is just so different is amazing to him, how he just never dreamed that he could want something so much.  It's just so cool to see him willing to take a chance on something without over thinking it.  Just because he wants to.  He doesn't often verbalize about goals much outside of rational lists and good investments.  So this is just fun.  And I'm happy for him. 

It's good to be able to share a dream and actually have a concrete plan to make it work.  My husband keeps me grounded so my dreams can take flight.
 

For My Husband, Because He So Deserves It

My husband is about the most selfless person I know.  Seriously.  I'm not just sayin' that.

So the fact that he has finally agreed to and scheduled a consultation with a plastic surgeon to deal with what he was left with after The Thing That Changed Everything is so wonderful!  This is something I have been waiting patiently for, for quite a while now.  But I know my husband is a man who doesn't need to be pushed.  He can too easily be influenced by what I want.  While he would do anything for me, quite literally, I do not ever want to make his life decisions for him.  It just wouldn't be right.

So... there are many decisions that will have to be made regarding different options for my husband and his future well-being and quality of life.  He is much too young to deal with the things he has dealt with for over 2 years now.  And we have been told by numerous doctors that he will have several options for his care when he decides to finally have his revision surgery.  Since his initial life-saving surgery happened as an emergency, things were sort of left in limbo and we were told that he should have a revision at the 18 months to 2 years mark because of unsafe long term weaknesses in his abdomen.  Here we are at 2 years 4 months and finally starting this process.  I can't really overstate how traumatic the first surgery was so I am not surprised that there has been some delay.  Neither one of us has been looking forward to any more surgery for my husband.  But now, it finally feels right to seek out an answer as to what my husband can do to be 'made whole again' as much as possible.  This will be a first step in planning that we hope will lead to a set process that will begin after the new year.

I know I am so grateful to have my husband alive.  I cannot imagine my life without him.  And so I also know that it is not really fair to feel any bitterness about all of this.  So many others have so much more to deal with in their lives.  And yet... I must admit to having a little resentment.  I am only human I suppose and seeing my husband go through pain, body changes, and uncertainty has left me a tiny bit weary I must admit.  Still, I have hope in my heart and want the best possible outcome. 

This is where all of you come in!  We will be in the office of the plastic surgeon at 12 noon tomorrow- Nov. 21st, Pacific time.  She will be planning the overall surgery and then we will work with specialists depending on what all is needed.  Please keep us in your thoughts, send us good vibes, pray for us- whatever it is that you personally do in your life when divine intervention is needed.  I find myself so badly wanting all of this to just go away.  And yet we must venture through it.  There is no other way to restore health and function for my husband.

Specifically, our needs are: help with complicated incisional hernia repair and finding the right specialist, repair and restoration of core muscle function as much as possible, eliminating scar tissue that could contribute to further intestinal blockage in the future, and avoiding secondary infection and fluid build-up that my husband experienced with the first surgery that contributed to complications and poor healing after that original surgery. And of course, for emotional healing and well being as we go through this process.  That's not asking for too much is it?!

 Photo credit: agirlandaboy.com

I know this is an important first step and can only be a good thing.  I hate to admit it, but I have grown tired of always worrying about what is going on inside my husbands abdomen, what the pains mean, why his stomach is so lumpy and uneven.  It's almost as if we've had a third party in our relationship for the past two years and I am so ready to let it go.  And yet, I am scared.  I can't imagine any more complications.  I wish we could just magically make my husband totally healthy again without having to go through anything more.  But I also know that is not reality.  And so we begin this chapter of our lives...  Help us make a wish come true!

photo credit:  lindamyshrall.hubpages.com

What Would You Do?

I was out doing errands the other day and I had a very interesting experience.
There was a woman cutting fabric at a counter in the back of a store where no one else was around and she started talking to me.  She asked me if my husband was a nice man.  She then asked me if he had ever cheated on me!  Naturally, I was shocked. 
It turned out this was just a preface to her telling me all about how her husband was cheating on her and she knew it.  She also told me that he was never really ever kind to her and gave me several examples of how mean he could be.  She was so sad and looked just lost.
Eventually, she ended up asking me what I would do if I were in her situation.  Again, I was shocked.  I sensed that she needed someone to talk to about all of this and that I just happened to be there at a desperate moment.  But I didn't expect her to ask me for any sort of advice and I wasn't sure what I should say with her being in such a fragile state.
Still, I felt the need to be honest.  So I was.
I told her that if I were in her situation I would probably feel pretty sad and that I would need to take the time to make sure that I was taking good care of myself.  I also said that I wouldn't do anything rash as sometimes the best answers to a problem take time to figure out.  Then I said that in the end I was sure that for me the answer to this particular problem would involve me leaving this man, knowing that there were better men out there in the world that would love to spend time with a quality woman.
With that said I made it clear that no one can tell anyone what to do in any certain circumstance, but that there must be people close to her who could support her through this particular problem, if only she were able to open up to them.
Then I went about the rest of my day.  But, of course, I couldn't quite shake this woman from my mind.
I couldn't help but wonder if I had done the right thing.  Was she really looking for an answer?  Would it have been better to just listen?  What would you have done in this situation? 

 

photo credit: stunning mesh

 

T Minus...

These are my t minus numbers for the next day or so regarding a job interview for my husband in Texas!

(4) In just 4 hours I will be taking my husband to the airport.

(14) At 6pm central time my husband will have dinner with a few of his prospective co-workers and others.

(30) 8am central time will be the beginning of a long day of interviews for my husband.  It seems as if he will be meeting just about anybody and everybody.

(62) The number of hours before my husband will be back home and hopefully have some encouraging and maybe even exciting news to share!

One Day When I Don't Have To Clean Up Crap For Money

This post is brought to you with much inspiration from my husband.

There is more to report on the job hunting front and it is all good news so far.  Yay!

The company we have been working with in Texas is flying my husband in for an in person interview on the 9th of August.  They have let us know that they had planned to interview for this position in September, but they have decided that they would really like to talk with my husband sooner, hence the interview coming up.  Of course we are excited, yet trying to remain tempered.  My husband & I are practicing patience, while allowing ourselves to hope a bit. 

In and amongst our daydreams of hope, we have both come up with some pretty idealistic scenarios.  While we actually know that life will be no more perfect than it is in any particular geographical location, sometimes I do find myself imagining things like a house that is truly low maintenance.  I have heard my husband dare to speak aloud about how strange and wonderful it might be to afford a little indulgence here and there without so much buyers remorse later.  While we have worked hard to get to a point in which we are fortunate to be able to pay for life's expenses without a horrendous amount of effort, sometimes it feels as if the rewards for hard work are always just a little out of reach.  So as much as neither my husband or I want to think that changing our location is all about money, we would be fooling ourselves if we did not admit that a much lower cost of living is definitely an important aspect of any future move.

And so, having admitted to being excited about the idea that saving some cash is one heck of a motivator to do anything, I offer you my story of how my husband made me laugh about being paid to clean up dog crap:

My regular work will be slow for the next 6 weeks, so I agreed to take care of a dog for a person who has employed me for many different projects over the years.  I figured that I could use the money since my income would be down and I had taken care of this dog before so what was the big deal???  The big deal is that this dog has picked up some really annoying habits sometime between the last time I watched her and now.  I'm not sure what happened, but she really seems to have lost more than a few IQ points and her behavior is quite poor.  One of the worst things this dog is doing that is wreaking havoc on my household at this moment in time is that she is now stepping in her own crap when she goes outside.  Tonight she managed to drag it in on her foot and prance right across the carpet, before anyone noticed that she had done it.  That's right, I got to steam clean my carpet at midnight!  And you can sure bet that I loved that.  After the excitement had died down and I was putting away the cleaning stuff, my husband came to me and promised me that one day soon I would not have to clean up any more crap for money.  I could hear the unusual amount of frustration in his voice.  He went on to say that he felt bad that he had not reached the level of success that would insure that I would never have had to do this kind of thing for money at all. 

All of the pent up disappointment that my husband has been feeling over not finding work in the place where we really want to be has come down to this.  The man was actually apologizing to me for having to clean up dog crap.  And worse, he felt that this dogs lack of at least a half brain's worth of sense had anything at all to do with him or his ability to provide properly for me. 

While my decision to take on a rather crappy dog sitting job is really all my own, I couldn't love my husband more for seeing that I do deserve better. 

So naturally, I answered back without skipping a beat- 'hey, at least I don't have to do it for free.'

The Thing That Changed Everything

**WARNING, EXPLICIT MEDICAL DETAILS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK**

-may be disturbing to some readers

**Secondarily, this post has become extraordinarily long.  I have tried to edit things down, but decided that I wanted to post this as is.  It is important to me, but I understand if it goes beyond what you are willing to endure for a story.   What a day to post THE longest and most difficult post I've ever had, only to have it lost! (for a while)  Do I have timing or what?!**

About 7 years back I made some really difficult choices.  These choices are hard to explain and even harder to justify in some cases, but they were necessary.  I won't go into that right now.  I just wanted to find a place to start that seems to offer some sort of background as to what was going on in my world before I got to the moment that really did change everything...

So there I was, thinking that I was doing a pretty decent job of taking charge of my life and starting to actually live in a meaningful way.  After a couple of years of sort of readjusting my world, and over a period of about 5 years I went through a process that included clearing out that last level of clutter.  You know, the level you think you might never get down to.  The one that goes beyond any comfort level.  The one that includes not just physical junk, but a manner of cleaning out all types of psychological trash along the way.  I got rid of those 'friends' that weren't really true.  Let things that I thought were a comfort, but really just had me stuck in the past, go.  I started replacing those 'tapes' that rolled in my head with newer more positive messages.  I forced myself to try new things that I thought would never be 'me'.  (Not all of those things worked out so well!)  Overall, I decided that anything that was more of a negative than a positive in my life just simply had to go.  I was ready to admit to the life that I had really always wanted, no matter what anybody else thought, no matter how much outside of the norm I would be.  (Who the heck are those average Americans everybody is always polling anyway?  Nobody ever interviews me.)

It had been a beautiful sunny day.  My husband and I were in New York City.  New York has never been my favorite place, but we were showing 2 friends who had never even been away from the West Coast a thrilling time in the Big Apple.  We were on a trip that had been planned for months and we were going to see my husbands best friends brand new baby.  As we neared the home of the new parents we got a call from them asking if any of us had been sick lately.  Typical worried new parents!  But it was then that my husband admitted that he had not been feeling quite right all day.  In fact, he had been a little nauseous and bloated.  He thought maybe he had food poisoning or something.  His friend didn't want to take any chances so we ended up at a Walgreen's picking up an instant-read thermometer.  Everybody took their turn and we all checked out with normal body temperatures.  After all that, my husband decided that he was feeling better and the stomach pains had passed.  We had a lovely visit with the sweet new baby and it was so special to see such a proud Papa. 

After that, it was more sightseeing.  Experiencing nightlife in the Big Apple for the first time was so exciting for our friends.  Time passes fast in the 'City That Never Sleeps' and before we knew it we were about to miss the last bus out to get back to our hotel.  We barely made it back to the bus station and I noticed that my husband wasn't really keeping up with us.  That was just not like him.  It turns out they send more than one bus back for each line at the end of the night, so we waited for the second one rather than crowd onto the first bus.  As we sat waiting on a bench I realized that maybe there was something more than indigestion going on with my husband.  I asked him if he thought he should see a doctor.  He said he wasn't sure.  I immediately pulled out our medical card and got on the phone.  I found out that since we were traveling out of state, we should just go straight to an ER rather than try to find a clinic of some kind.  By the time the bus came, I was antsy to get back to suburbia so we could get to a hospital near our hotel room.

Our friends wanted to go with us to the ER, but I wanted them to get a decent nights sleep as we would be driving out to Connecticut to see my husbands sister early the next morning so they returned to the hotel while my husband and I went to the nearest hospital.  It turned out that there was a blue H sign right next to our hotel and we set out following a series of these.  After about 20 minutes of driving around, I realized that I was beginning to recognize the same landmarks all over again.  By this time we were both tired and I asked my husband if he thought we should just go back to the hotel and get some sleep before trying for the hospital again in the morning.  He said that he thought we could find it if we just tried a little bit more.  I knew then that something must really be wrong.  Just after that, we did find the hospital.  Somehow, it was right there in front of us with an empty spot right at the door to the ER.

I expected a long wait inside, but there was hardly anyone there.  The nice guy at the front desk noticed my panicked look and reassured me that if anything was really bad my husband would be 'doubled over in pain'.  He felt sure that we would be in and out in no time.  Next we were put into a large holding area type room with curtains drawn between patients.  It turns out we were not in the best part of town and there was actually a guy handcuffed to a bed with two police officers at his bedside and another that kept wandering around exposing himself to people.  After a little while, we got a little more relaxed and sort of enjoyed the people watching.  My husband went through the usual tests- blood, urine, physical exam and nothing came up abnormal, other than some loose stools.  His temp was normal just as it had been earlier in the day.  The doctor was pretty certain that he did indeed have a case of food poisoning or 'travelers diarrhea'.  My husband was given fluids as he was a bit dehydrated and was just about to be released when the doctor decided to do an x-ray of his abdomen, just to be sure since we were traveling and all.

The moment that x-ray was put up in front of the light on the wall, I didn't need any instruction to be able to see that something was very wrong.  The intestines were all distended and there was clearly something blocking the digestive tract.  Suddenly there was an immense urgency in the room.  Several doctors all stared at the x-ray as if they could not believe what they were seeing.  Then they began prepping my husband for an emergency CT scan and told me he would be going straight to surgery after that.  They also shoved NG tubes into his nose and started pumping out this awful fluid.  I couldn't even think.  The nurses told me to take any valuables as they had a way of disappearing around here and took me through a maze of doors so that I could see my husband just prior to his surgery. 

After the CT scan, my husband was wheeled into the room where I was waiting.  There was an anesthesiologist with him who was explaining that there was no time to wait for his stomach to empty and that they would have to intubate him.  We were told that this was very serious and that there was a mass in my husbands abdomen that was preventing the passage of normal digestion and that it could kill him if they did not remove it.  They were able to see that the mass was not moveable by any other manner via the CT scan and the intestines were so distended that they could rupture at any moment.  Naturally, I thought he must have colon cancer or something, but I did not ask about that.  All I wanted was for him to be O.K. for right now.  I just wanted a little more time with him.  I kept asking God or whoever would listen to my pleas inside my head for this to just NOT be cancer.  In my own selfish thoughts, I didn't think I could take that.  As my husband was moved into the operating room they let me stay with him until after they put him under.  I thought this was strange and heard one of the nurses tell the other to let me stay and have my goodbyes.  Then another piped up and said this was not goodbye.  She told me that the doctor they called in was the best and that if anyone could save my husband, he would.  I could not believe this.  How did I go from a bright day as a tourist to this?

I was led back out and left in a row of chairs in a daze.  I didn't know anything except that I was so glad that I was not alone.  I could call my friends.  They were just a short distance away.  During the planning of the trip there had been a time when we were going to be going to New York on our own, but fatefully our friends had decided to join us.  They came to be with me in a flash and didn't ask questions.  Somehow they both knew just what I needed in that moment.   After 4 long hours, a doctor came through the double doors.  He was a tiny East Indian man with such a gentle demeanor.  By this time I really had it in my head that I just wanted to hear that this was NOT cancer.  Sometimes the mind can get stuck on a stupid detail.  So there I was just begging for him to tell me that.  My wish was somehow granted.  There was no cancer!  But wait, how could he know that so soon?  How could he be so sure?  It turns out that when I got over the initial euphoria of hearing that there was no cancer, there was some other news that was a bit more sobering.  The doctor informed me, in his lilting accent, that "another 12 to 24 hours and I could not save him."  My mind went reeling again as this idea settled in.  What if we had decided to go back to the hotel and rest?  What if we had been back at home and decided to wait until Monday so we could avoid going to the ER?  What had just happened?  How did this happen?  

The doctor would answer the questions that he could in due time, but he wanted me to see that my husband was indeed still alive and much better than he had been only a short time ago.  A short time ago when none of us had realized that this was such a serious thing at all...  So I was taken into recovery and greeted by several doctors and nurses with huge smiles on their faces.  You could feel the relief in the room and we all shared a laugh as my husband started in talking about how it was very important for him to get back to work right away and that he needed to take care of things, in a very drugged out voice.  They told me he had been repeating that over and over.  Then the doctor finally started to explain to me what had happened.  It turns out the diagnosis would be truly unique and complicated.  My husband was found to be the one of a kind man that I know him to be, in every way. 

You really never know just how things in the universe line up as they do.  I just know that if I had ever doubted that there was a purpose and a meaning to this life higher than mere existence, all doubts left me that day.  This doctor had trained in India as an intensivist.  Then he had specialized in gastrointestinal surgery in the U.S. and had done most of his work with the elderly and more recently victims of gunshot wounds.  (In the daylight the neighborhood we were in was much more clearly NOT the good side of town.)  In all of his experience this doctor had never seen anything quite like what had happened here.  But his experience and expertise were just what was needed.  The 12-24 hour comment came from the fact that there were several things going on, any one of which could have killed my husband almost immediately.  He had a baseball sized abscess that was very near rupture within his abdominal cavity but not inside the intestine, he had multiple adhesions that had wrapped themselves all around the abscess and eventually cut off progress of fluids through the small intestine, and peritonitis had set in.  As well as the initial danger from possible rupture of the abscess or intestine, any one of these could have become a life-threatening septic condition.  So how on earth was all this going on without my husbands knowledge?  Well, that part is left to theory.

      Here's what we do know:  1) He has a ridiculously high tolerance for pain that probably grew slowly over time along with the illness.  2) He is one of the very small percentage of the population that does not respond to infection with a fever or a high white blood cell count.  (Some researchers have found that these people are often on the autism scale as well.)  3) He was born without an appendix.  (Since all of his intestines had been outside of his body during the surgery and searched thoroughly we can be sure that my husbands best friend is correct when he guesses that my husband is just a little bit more advanced than the rest of us.  His friend is a biology teacher, after all.)  4) Since the abscess was outside the intestines, the only reasonable guess as to what caused the initial infection is probably E-Coli which comes in many forms and can and will invade the body anywhere.  (Several other doctors expressed this guess to us as well when we got back home.)  And finally- 5) There is no way to know when or where this E-Coli would have infected him as people can live for years with an abscess that has been encapsulated inside adhesive scar tissue and is like a ticking time bomb that can burst at any time.

My  husband spent 3 days in ICU and another 5 in the hospital being pumped full of every type of antimicrobial agent you can imagine since we really had no way of knowing for sure what it was that had invaded his body.  Once we knew that he would be strong enough to fly back home, he left the hospital with 20 staples and 3 retention sutures in his gut.  The physical effects that ended up following my husband for months (and now years) after this were nothing compared to what this did to our souls.  This absolutely rocked my world.  It shook me to the core. And it made my husband believe that maybe he should not expect to live a long, normal life even though we had been assured that this whole thing really shouldn't affect his life expectancy at all.  It was so hard to see the person who had been there for me and provided me with the strength that I had so badly needed in such a place of uncertainty.  I was suddenly very aware of what it must be like to be told that a loved one has been hit by bus, but has survived.  Only to be told later that the person will never be quite the same ever again.  Over that summer, I watched my husband go through some of the most difficult emotional times.  Things that I simply never could have imagined.  His body had betrayed him.  (This person that everyone had always described as the neatest, cleanest guy that they ever knew had been compromised by bacteria.)  Neither one of us knew what to trust, where to turn.  Life, that had been moving along on an expected plane, had just moved to a whole new universe.  Nothing was certain and nerves were so raw and exposed.  We both had grown up with very uncertain home lives and had come to expect that as adults we would be able to control our surroundings and live in relative stability.  This had shattered our senses and left both of us searching for a new normal.

For myself, I found that it really was time to grow up.  For all the time that I had spent being a 'little adult' when I was a kid, I had somehow thought that I would be able to make up for that in my own life on my own terms.  But really I had just ended up leaning heavily on my husband for the stability that I had so badly needed.  This had left him empty of the ability to really feel his own emotions.  It was never safe for him to be a little off, even for a day, because I had needed so much from him.  My guilt was immense and yet I was a little scared of this new emotional man in my life.  The truth is that as much as I had needed him to be the one solid thing in my life, he had needed me to be there to take care of him and to feel, when he was not ready to do that yet.

Over time, we both have grown stronger in this new life that has been thrust upon us.  Individually, we have learned how to do the things that we had leaned on one another for, for over a decade.  I, who have always been so independent anyway have learned that if I needed to I could make it all on my own.  And my husband who has never let anything ever get to him seems to be more comfortable with the idea that sometimes you have to embrace and feel the fact that the world can be a scary place.  We have seen that our individual weaknesses can be dealt with best with the unconditional love we share for one another.  We have each grown grateful for the gift that is knowing that you never really do know what tomorrow brings and that any one of us can be gone from this earth at any time. 

My husband will require more surgery to deal with some residual issues left from such invasive initial emergency surgery and we have been putting that off.  There have been so many opportunities to get past this time in our lives and come out stronger- we have pursued things that we never thought possible and made life decisions that we once only discussed in passing and had put off for 'someday'.  During this process there was a song that had come out that summer of 2009 that my husband gravitated towards.   I can remember him stopping whatever he was doing to sing along every time he saw the video played on TV.  If you've made it this far into this ultra-long post, then you owe it to yourself to share in a little bit more of our lives by clicking on the link below:  Oh and thanks for reading, this post is very important to me.

I'm Alive/ Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews 

Strange Dreams

I like the artist that sings this song, Heart.  They always bring a kind of dreamy quality out in me.  Not just in this song, but in all of their stuff.  I grew up listening to them and hearing stories about what it was like for my mother and aunts who attended high school with the girls from Heart.  This song just seemed perfect for what I woke up to this morning.

For a long time I never remembered any dreams at all.  I mean literally at least 10 years went by when I thought that I must not be able to dream anymore.  Prior to this period of time, I was always a vivid dreamer and much like I am able to utilize a very photographic memory in my conscious life, I had always experienced dreams that were very real.   I suspected that I was still dreaming, just not remembering them for some reason.  I finally came to the conclusion that I had lost my ability to remember my dreams when I was going through a time when I felt that most of my 'dreams' for life seemed dead.  Bingo!  I began remembering my dreams upon waking yet again.  It was as if the floodgates of my mind had opened.  All of this coincided with a very turbulent time of becoming aware of how much of myself I had given up trying to fix or fit in to my very disturbed and mentally ill family.  As soon as I realized that this was not a worthy cause to spend my life energy on, I got my life energy back and with it, my dreams- both in slumber and in real life.

I tend to be an early morning dreamer.  Especially when I wake up in the wee hours and then fall back asleep, I have extraordinarily vivid dreams.  Recently, I woke up replaying a particular episode with my mother when she had broken a restraining order on Christmas day and came knocking at my door.  While I am proud of how I dealt with that situation in real life by just speaking through the door and calling the sheriff immediately so as to minimize the drama, I also like how I dealt with it in my dream.  In the dream, I opened the door right up and faced her and told her that she was no longer welcome here and that she needed to leave my property.  I then actually realized that I was dreaming and said, "besides this is just a dream and you don't really matter in my life anymore."  Boy did I feel satisfied upon waking!

This morning I had a very intriguing dream.  I dreamed that my husband and I were walking down a sidewalk and these 3 young guys came up behind us and kind of invaded our space.  I tried to sort of ignore them and my husband and I gave each other knowing looks.  We were approaching a strip mall area.  One of the guys ended up brushing up against me.  I turned and faced him and brushed him back.  Then for some reason I ended up walking ahead and leaving my husband a little behind with the guys right there and tension clearly in the air.  I remember wanting to get inside one of the stores and get to safety and tell someone what was happening, but I also knew it was really strange for me to leave my husband there with those guys.  He is NOT a physically tough guy.  He is an intellectual who uses wit to get himself out of any trouble and would never fight with anyone. Besides, it is just out of character for either one of us to desert the other for any reason.  Anyway, I end up inside a gift shop and the weird thing is that I then get distracted and totally forget about why I came in!  So I'm there just shopping around for awhile and I suddenly realize that I have forgotten all about how I left my husband outside with these 3 guys.  Immediately upon remembering this, I run outside and I catch the very end of some police action going on.  All I see is the cops putting handcuffs on my husband while he slowly turns his head to face me.  I see a little blood on his neck area and a few scratches.  I notice his glasses are gone.  But overall he doesn't really look that bad for what I imagined could have happened.  I scream, "what did they do to you?!"  But the look on my husbands face says something like resolve or strength or some combination of that.  His blue eyes are so clear in my mind.  The 3 guys are not in the picture.  I have no idea what happened to them and I sense that I don't care. 

I think this dream has something to do with some loose ends that need dealing with when it comes to a near death experience that my husband had back in July of 2009.  I haven't really shared any of that on this blog.  One of my friends who is pretty intuitive stated that she knows that though I have a lot to say, I'm not always saying everything I need to.  So it may be time to share that moment in my life.  It is a turning point for me.  A pivotal moment in time that changed everything for me.  I was on my way to changing, but that experience made me know that there was no going back.

I am confident that I will share this soon.  In the meantime, any insight on my dream would be appreciated.  It seems to me that fellow bloggers are often the best at giving me the knowledge that I haven't quite grasped yet for myself. 

Results

1,213 pages.
Way over 300 hours of study.
More ups and downs than a world class roller coaster.
Missed social engagements.
Weekends that seem longer than the work week, for all the wrong reasons.
Second guessing.
Three dry erase boards.
7 dry erase pens.
2 dry erasers.

One very proud wife.
Exam C, Construction And Evaluation Of Actuarial Models is history.
Never again will there be all or nothing.
The rest of the actuarial exams allow for partial credit.
So you can demonstrate knowledge.
Not worry about whether you've made a small arithmetic error.
It's onward and upward to a whole other level.
Today we greet the challenge with big ol' satisfied grins!

Super Bowl, Live And In Person

Sometimes it's a really good thing to take an interest in your spouse's interests, even if you're sure you're not really that interested!  I'm not a huge football fan by any means, but my husband sure is.  Ultimately, this little difference of ours landed our lucky butts in the Super dome in New Orleans on February 3, 2002 to experience Super Bowl XXXVI live and in person!

For several years prior to this event, my husband would torture me during the regular football season with this local contest that involved putting in entries to win a trip to the Super Bowl each and every week.  He wanted as many chances to win as he could get, so he would put in entries for me as well.  Fine.  But there's one thing you have to know about my husband.  He is honest to a fault.  He wouldn't just put in the entries for me.  He would make me actually do it.  Seems he was afraid of winning and then being disqualified or some dumb thing.  I remember laying on the couch and signing form after form every week and actually having to put something on them about my pick for that weeks winning team.  Like I even knew who was playing?!  Let's just say that some of my answers were a bit controversial.  I would pick teams based on the weirdest reasons while my husband was, of course, running all the stats and trying to be intelligent about all of this.  Turns out my system was a winner.  Or as my husband likes to point out, it also turns out that a barking seal has just as much likelihood of choosing a winning team as the experts do!

I had chosen a team that nobody in their right mind would have picked.  I remember the odds being like 24 to 1, again whatever that means.  I also remember the team that I picked being a college team with a name that was similar to a town near where we live.  That's why I picked them.  Somewhere along the line I must have decided to have some sort of a reason for my picks.

That's how I ended up wearing an Auburn Tigers t-shirt to the 2002 Super Bowl, in which the teams who were competing were actually the New England Patriots and the St. Louis Rams.  Neither of those teams really mattered to me.  I was just thrilled that my husband got to be there.  It was such a dream come true for him.  It wasn't half bad for me either.  New Orleans was a place I had always wanted to see.  And because of the timing of Mardi Gras that year, we got more than just a taste of what fun New Orleans truly is.  I can also honestly say that the Super Bowl in person is so much more than just a football game.  It was easily one of the best events I have ever been a part of. 

I have to be brutally honest here and admit that at first when I found out that we would be seeing the game live, I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to see the commercials.  I know, totally ridiculous.  I had someone tape it for me, so I could go back and see those commercials.  Funny thing is, I never did watch that tape.  I didn't need to.  This was one time I have to admit that my husband was 100% right!  I am so looking forward to the day when we will be able to do this again sometime.

A Deal

On Thursday, my husband will be sitting for the Construction And Evaluation Of Actuarial Models Exam C.  The who, the what? Yeah, I know.
At one time, we were happily rolling along with him working in finance at a local natural gas company.  It was a good job, but not very exciting or challenging.  O.K. so actuarial work has a reputation for being purposefully UN-exciting, but as for the challenging part: most definitely. 
Well, about four years ago, my husband realized that all signs were pointing to the fact that the gas company he was working at was ripe for a buy out.  Thankfully, he saw this about six months before the word became official.  This gave us time to think about what he would do in case of said buy out.
As my husband pondered the possibilities, he started talking about doing something I had never heard of.  He wanted to become an actuary.  He told me that this idea had always been in the back of his mind.  He had sometimes wondered if he should have pursued this.  But he had a math professor in college that made him promise he wouldn't go any further in the field of math as he wasn't the ideal math student.    So, being the 'rule follower' that he is, he figured he had given his word and that door was closed.  Not so much, it turns out.  After all, he married me and (especially after I turned 30) something in me just yearns to break the rules.  So, as soon as I knew that he had a dream to try something other than what he was currently doing, it was on, baby!  (Besides, maybe he doesn't churn out math like a machine, but he was a Math and English double major at an Ivy League school.  So he's no slouch.)
Once the decision was made, my husband quickly moved into a position at a property casualty insurance company and began the process of working through actuarial exams.  To say that these exams are difficult is an understatement.  There are nine of them, each requiring at least 300 hours of study.  Only a small number of people ever bother to even try taking these suckers.  And among those who do take the tests, the pass rate is about 30-40% for each one.  So in essence, if you can pass about one a year, you're golden.  This is what is expected for the industry, as many people are weeded out along the way.  So far so good, my husband has been at this for about four years and is on his fourth exam.
Now hang in here with me just a little bit longer.  This is where it gets interesting.  Over time, the two of us have realized some key ingredients in a much better pass rate for my husband.  (So he doesn't have to take each exam more than once.)  These things are not what we would have expected.  It doesn't seem to matter how many extra hours he studies.  It doesn't matter which study aids he uses- flash cards, books, study guides.  The big surprising key is this:  It matters that I stay interested and present in this process with him.  We have found that although I do not understand math or statistics at the level he must perform at, I do know how to keep my husband's spirit up and positive.  I know what it takes for him to focus, but not burn out.  If I just leave him to study and 'put in the hours', the hours don't add up to nearly as much learning and true understanding of the subject for my husband.  There's more than just the sum of all the parts going on here.  Some of the parts carry more weight than others.  And the cool part is that I get to be an integral part of all of this.  The end result is going to mean more because we are in this together. 
So, to get through this process, we've made a bit of a deal.  We both give up some time and energy for the total cause and in the end we'll both reap the benefits of a lot of hard work.  This really isn't anything new.  Families do this sort of thing all the time.  I just never saw myself with a stopwatch and an answer key that looks like Greek to me...