A story for Saturday

I'll give you a brief update before the story.

Friday morning Alexis headed out on her long journey. While she was here, she went through my teaching stuff and took some things. I am so thankful to see them go where they will be used instead of getting potentially ruined in the garage. Still, so many emotions. Viv K. gave me A Tangle of Math Yarns, still in dittoed format. I used them dozens of times and I never saw another set of math problems like them. The Plexers were a standard part of my boardwork for years. It was amazing what conversations came out of those, or who figured them out some days. My Marsville stuff-- Marsville was, without a doubt, the best learning experience I was ever a part of and I wish I had been able to continue it. The activity books given to me by my student teaching supervisor-- again, I have never seen others like them. There were a couple of books that started out with Barbara M., passed to Mark S, when she retired, and then to me and now Alexis has them. Everything old is new again. There is still a lot to part with, but perhaps it is better to do it little by little to better absorb the shock.

If it's Friday, it is also PT day. Karen took a somewhat different tack than last week's neck wrestling. When we left, my head was up and my chest was down and I felt really good. As the afternoon progressed, I felt somewhat less good, but still I pushed on. I made myself go for a walk. Of course, even though I haven't been walking regularly, I should make the walk longer. Part of that is so Kelly and I could talk more. Talking takes longer when I have to write everything down and walking and writing tends to be a bit sloppy. By the time we go home, my legs were screaming like I'd run a marathon. Pathetic.

Karissa was in rare form when she came home from riding camp. Nasty, screaming, crying, foot stomping temper tantrum. Her latest tactic is to scream at Kelly that she doesn't like him and he should leave. Now. I always assumed Karina did this because she was 5 when we got married and was still hoping for her other dad to reappear. Apparently not. This just what 9 looks like.

When I unpacked Karissa's lunch, the motivation for her behavior was crystal clear. Two bites of sandwich. Two bites of plum. That's it. All she consumed for the entire day. Because if there is something going on, that is always better than eating. Unfortunately, when she reaches this level of calorie deprivation, getting anything in her is a challenge. If you've ever seen Steel Magnolias, the scene where they are trying to get the orange juice into Julia Roberts is not far off from our experience. I had to make some really ugly threats to finally get the cheese in her mouth. Two slices of cheese and she is back to normal. After a full dinner, she is happy and smiley and ready to be helpful. Sigh.

After the drama and such, we actually got to bed at a fairly decent time. I am still trying to figure out how to sleep. If I sleep on my back, the swelling is so much better, but my tail bone just aches. Karen suggested a couple of kinds of pads I might be able to get that would help that, but I don't have anything right now. My solution is to sleep with my hands under my rear to take the pressure off my tail bone. Awkward, but it works. It also seems to somewhat quiet the screaming nerves in my arms and hands from certain neck positions.

My other option is to sleep on my side, which I much prefer. However this is also challenging. The swelling is always much worse. I have to not roll too much to the right side as to block the trach. My neck collapses forward, even with a rolled up towel. Also, because I sleep on a wedge (a necessity due to the feeding tube) I tend to slide down the wedge. It is all quite acrobatic. Sometimes I think it is a miracle I ever get any sleep.

Sleep I did, but in the middle of the night I was awakened from a sound sleep feeling as if someone was cutting my stomach out with a rusty chain saw. I was trying to/trying not to vomit, as it is very difficult with the feeding tube, trach tube, esophagus that doesn't open, to actually throw up without causing any other problems. Kelly ran some Reglan in quickly and it worked right away.

Unfortunately, this was replaced by my transgeminal nerve in my face having a flare. I'm not sure if the contortions I did because of my stomach were the cause, or the nausea was caused by this pain in the first place. It doesn't really matter, though. There is a reason this is also know as the suicide nerve. I'm pretty sure if I could talk, I would have asked someone to kill me. This was a pain like I have never, ever experienced. Kelly ran in some Tylenol. We tried ice. We tried heat. The heat helped at least a tiny bit. Thank God at some point it stopped and the exhaustion and the Reglan knocked me out. I almost asked for the Vicodin, but having just stopping heaving, I didn't want to risk starting again. I thought about going to the ER, but I have no idea what they would have done for me.

I feel better today, although I didn't manage to get out of bed until after 11. I have picked cherry tomatoes and sorted and started the laundry. I've tried to alternate activity with rest: eat, pick tomatoes, finish a granny square, put away laundry, eat, strip the bed and gather up laundry, and so on.

That brings us to now. I'll blog and then go move the laundry. I hope this story is worth the wait.

The Fish Hook Story or Who in their right mind would...

Camping and fishing was a popular pastime for my family growing up. As I got older, my parents decided I could bring a friend with me on these trips as my sister and I were far enough apart in age that we didn't exactly "play well" together. Now as a parent, I realize that this was also a way for them to avoid getting up at dawn to go fishing or having to play endless games with me.

On this particular trip, my friend Patty came along. She might have still been "Patsy" at this age. We were around 12. We were happy to get up early and go down to the docks with the lecherous old fishermen. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a lot of their inappropriate comments went over our heads.

Also on this trip, my parents had towed along our Volkswagen Baja Bug.  I never thought about it then, but now I wonder what kind of gas mileage this rig got. We drove a 1969 Dodge Powerwagon with a factory winch and a cab over camper. It had big tires, two batteries and three gas tanks. I thought it was the greatest vehicle ever. I would guess it got 10 miles to the gallon or less. Although it had air conditioning, we never ran it, even at the hottest times in Las Vegas, because my dad said if you did you could watch the gas gauge go down. Add towing a vehicle to this could not make it better.

In the afternoon, we all went fishing. My dad had removed the back seat from our bug and replaced it with a piece of board covered with a remnant piece of carpet. In said back seat would be the following: me, Patty, my sister, a large tool box, a tackle box, five fishing poles with hooks on, a small cooler, and our 80 pound lab mix Gretel, who was known, on occasion, to get car sick. Somehow there was never a mishap IN the car.

We parked farther down the reservoir and scrambled down the rocks to the water. We all staked out a spot and set to fishing. My sister, like many young kids, had a difficulty with casting. Often her line would end up scrambled into a tangled mess. Having tired of untangling, my mom decided to take over casting duties from her. As she was set to cast, I headed up behind her on the hill to the tackle box to re-bait my hook.

And then there was a yank on my face and I said, "Mom." Then there was a harder yank, and I said, "MOM!" When she turned around and looked, I knew this was not going to be good. She had assumed her line was caught in a bush so she had been trying to yank it free. In fact, the hook had gone into my upper lip on the inside and she had very effectively 'set the hook.'

Someone cut the line from the pole. Tara and Patty were left down at the water while my dad, mom and I scrambled back up to the car. My dad had the nasty needle nose pliers from the tackle box-- the ones we used for taking the hooks out of fish we caught. Some sort of liquor was poured over them to make them 'sterile.'

At this point, my father, who is very uncharacteristically agitated, begins to explain to me what he is going to do. As an adult, I know now to tell doctors and nurses, "Don't tell me what you are going to do, just do it." He said, "I am going to push this fish hook through your lip..." Reliable witnesses tell me that the rest of this sentence was, "so I can cut the barb off and it won't tear up your lip." I never heard that last part. Alarm bells went off in my head and I pretty much freaked out. My dad responded to this by getting more upset, which certainly did not help the situation. This left my mother in the position of being the person to calm everyone down. Since she was usually either the hysterical person or the person yelling, it was a strange role reversal.

However, she did calm us both down. She applied ice to my lip and somehow got me to stand still while he pushed the barb of the treble hook the rest of the way through my lip, cut it off, and then pulled it out.

At this point it was decided it would be best if I went back to the camper. My dad and I got in the car along with the dog, as I recall, and drove back to the campground. In another unexpected move, my dad stopped by the ranger's trailer to report what had happened.

He left me in the camper and chained Gretel out while he went back to get everyone else. We each had our own adventures now.

The ranger came down to see how I was, bring some paperwork that I'm sure had to be filled out in triplicate, and some medicine to put on my lip. Being a sulky 12 year old, I let the dog bark and snarl at him far longer than I should have. Upon reading the label, clearly this medication was not intended for this type of wound (the "do not apply near eyes or mouth" was a tip off...) but he meant well and there certainly wasn't any reason for me to be snotty.

On his return to pick up everyone else, somehow the Bug go stuck in the ditch. Since the two adults would be the only ones with strength enough to push it out, Patty got elected to 'drive.' She effectively drove it out of the ditch and got it stuck in the one across the way. 12 year olds do not, apparently, make good drivers.

Back at camp, it was decided that the ranger's medicine was not a good idea. Of course we had nothing to use, either. So whisky and wine it was, a few times each day, poured over the wound. It probably made me fit in with the dock fishermen better, although they were likely too far into their own hair of the dog to notice me.

You might think this the end of our adventure on this trip, but no, it was not. We went to the other reservoir to go fishing the next day. Right off the bat, Gretel runs down the shoreline, through everyone's fishing lines. Everyone includes people we do not know. We are popular. One of the fish hooks gets stuck in my sister's clothes. Thank goodness only in her clothes. Some how during all of this, I manage to slip in the black tarry mud and am covered in it from ass to ankles. I managed to get most of it off my legs out in the water, but my shorts are covered.

As you recall, the quarters are quite close in the Bug. Someone covered in mud is not welcome. So I had to take my shorts off before we got in the car. As this is about 1980, I am wearing some trendy nylon panties with a horse running across the butt. Snazzy!

Of course we aren't heading right back to the camp ground. First we are going to stop and gather some fire wood (yes, to join all of the other things already piled in the car). We drive out on a dirt road where no one will be, my mother assures me. I am to get out of the car in my underwear and help get wood. Not while I am out in the scrub, but when I am standing in the road as big as life, a whole jeep full of young guys comes by and stops to ask if we need help. Just kill me now.

In fairness to history, it may be at this point the car got stuck rather than earlier. Regardless, it happened.

After this eventful trip, we are headed home. We are going to stop at the Overland Club in Pioche for lunch before we hit the road. My usual seat in the truck is on the lid of the tool box, crouched down looking through the boot so I can see out the windshield. It is the only way I can keep from being car sick. However, both of us won't fit on the tool box, so we decide we should ride in the cab over part of the camper, looking out the front window up there. I agree that this is a great idea, knowing full well that the curved plastic windows cause enough distortion that I get violently car sick. Every. Single. Time.

As predicted, by the time we drive the few miles from the campground to town, I am horribly nauseous. I know that I will throw up any second. We get parked and I somehow manage to get down from the cab over, out the back door of the camper and literally sprint into the Overland Club. The doors to the bathroom are narrow and in a narrow hallway. A woman is coming out while I am trying to get in. She wants to question me about what is wrong and why I am so pale. Without getting out of the door way. Her being puked on was a near miss. She announces to the entire restaurant that there is a girl in the bathroom barfing and wants to know if I ate there. My family is hiding in humiliation.

Despite the spectacle, we have our lunch and slink out as unobtrusively as one can in a small town. We arrive at the truck to discover one more special surprise. Not only does Gretel sometimes get car sick, she also REALLY does not like to be left in the truck alone. She had pooped on the front seat in her agitation. And then run through it back and forth a few hundred times. There is dog poop on everything, even some on the ceiling.

The fortunate thing is that the seat has a cover on it. The seat cover was removed and surreptitiously thrown into someone's garbage can. The actual seat is covered in duct tape, but that will have to do for now. My mother, making a retching noise, manages to clean the rest of the feces from the truck. In order to avoid anymore barfing, I return to my seat on the tool box, leaving Patty to choose between the cab over or sitting at the kitchenette table with the dog who may barf. My parents and sister were in front, sticking to duct tape and driving with both windows wide open, and not just because it was hot.

The fish hook, despite being deeply set, left no damage to my lip, and I have no scar from this incident. No physical scars, anyway.

I hope it was worth the wait.

Until tomorrow...

Kiara