Aspirations and Aspirating

Friday, as you may recall, we had an uneventful Valentine's Day planned.  It turned out to be more true and less true than you might expect.

When I don't sleep, Kelly doesn't sleep.  Add in the fact that he gets up and goes to work each day, and it makes for a very tired guy by Friday evenings.  He couldn't even make it through Charlie Brown Valentine with Karissa and I.  I sent him to bed.

After our fill of cartoon disappointments with the Little Red Haired girl, I put Karissa to bed and messed about on the computer a bit.

The magic of the nebulizer meant I actually went to sleep.  Whoo hoo!

Not so fast.

I went to sleep for about two hours.  Then I woke up coughing like a maniac.  And then... coughing met up with breathing and that is a bad combination.  A bit of something was working its way up when it was sucked down my wind pipe.  Yes, aspiration, the dreaded fear.

Dreaded for a reason. I immediately turned on the suction, but this was far past being in suction range.  I was terrified.  There is no other feeling I have experienced like not being able to breathe.  I can tell you no movie I've ever seen has done it justice.

My flailing about woke Kelly up, who was able to figure out from my frantic pantomime to start pounding. Even once I coughed up the offending glob, I still could scarcely breathe and my nose was full of panic snot. It took me well over half and hour to regain any sort of composure.  After conferring, we decided another hit from the nebulizer would help loosen up anything else that may have made it down.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but for me, the whole "my life flashed before my eyes" did not happen.  All I could think is, "I can't breathe.  I need to breathe.  I'm going to die." In some sort of round robin repetition.

So not good sleep. No Downton Abbey. I didn't die, so that would be the big winner here.

Saturday was much less eventful.  I went to acupuncture while Karissa was at ballet.  Kelly did the grocery shopping.  I got the laundry going and found what might possibly be the bottom of the kitchen sink.  We are still playing catch up from the power outage and it isn't really pretty.

We have to get the birthday party do-over set up, so invitations and cake and all the rest over again. Exercises and stretches and... so plenty to do.  But we have a whole wide open Sunday to do them, so why not watch two episodes and sleep in???

That would be me sleeping in, trying to win back some of the countless hours of sleep I haven't had this week.  However, I cannot say if it was too much laying about in bed, or what, but today my neck is huge, again swollen clear up into my face.  And my back is cranky.  It doesn't really like standing, or sitting.  But I have stuff to do!!!

What would any responsible person do, faced with these realities?  Well, yes, we went to the movies.  Of course there had to be drama beforehand, so we got out the door late.  Apparently lots of other Eugenians had this same idea.  The theater is packed and there are not three seats together anywhere.  The only two seats together are right down in the front. My neck wouldn't tolerate that on my best day, and today certainly wasn't that day.  Kelly and Karissa went down front and I nabbed an aisle seat next to a tween who was kind enough to take his hat off the seat for me.

Here is the evening again upon us.  The to-do list isn't much shortened.  The swelling is not reduced.  I have no idea what we are having for dinner.  Welcome to my life.

I'm not sure what to aspire towards anymore.  We spent a lot of time, emotions, and money trying to achieve the baby we thought we needed to have.  Despite our focus and determination, the universe knew we instead needed the child given to us not by medical science by by her birth family. In addition to her, we were blessed with her siblings and their families.  A wonderful, amazing family hedge.

As a teen and a young woman, I spent a lot of time and energy hoping that Mr. Right would notice me.  Who Mr. Right was changed from day to day, or even moment to moment.  It might be that cute famous guy on the pin-up poster, or the guy in third period, or someone I haven't seen in years but imagine has matured into this amazing person who will be just right for me.  It never occurred to me that the perfect person was sitting next to me in the car, on the bus, on the stage, at rehearsal...

Based on my track record, I'm not sure where to turn my focus.  Swallowing? Exercising? Stretching? Swelling?  What is the best out come I can hope for?  What should I even expect?

No, I have no news on the biopsy, either.  My life remains in a holding pattern until that is settled.  As much as I hope and pray for benign, I know better than to volunteer for a lot of stuff to just have to turn around and unvolunteer.  I'm not ready to face that again.

Amid all the chaos that has been February, the plethora of birthday cards and Valentines that were to be sent, never were.  Happy happy birthday to all my friends and my friends' children celebrating milestone birthdays this year.  And a big happy birthday to Crystal, who has stuck it out with me since third grade. Maybe by St. Pat's I'll have my act together.  Or not...

Until tomorrow...