So I walk oh-so-anxiously, this past Friday (having endured a white-knuckled spousal driving experience thanks to a morning snowfall) into a gastroenterologist's office in a busy hospital to have a tube the size of an average man's pinkie finger thrust down my throat, into the esophagus, into the stomach, and into the small intestine and, thank God for modern medicine, I have absolutely no memory of this invasive gastric procedure.
Needless to say, my husband has had great fun with this.
"You said you wanted me to go to that toy farm show in Minnesota," he told me, once I'd slept off the Demerol/Versed concoction and awakened, feeling refreshed and hungry, at 3 p.m. that same afternoon."You said all you wanted in life was to make me happy.
"And you know those Eagle concert tickets? You said to buy a dozen of them and we'd take the neighbors."
I tilted my head and looked at him sideways.
"Really?" I said. "I don't remember saying that."
"You probably also don't remember telling me that it's probably time for me to trade in the rusty old pickup and buy that Mini Cooper I've been looking at."
"You're making this up," I smiled. "Nice try."
"You can ask the doctor," my husband replied, raising his eyebrows. "Oh, and that nurse guy named Rusty. He was with you in the wake-up room."
Here's what I wanted to hear from my husband: Was I going to survive? My doctor had me all worked up, worrying about esophageal cancer and a mysterious malady called Barrett's Something.
"You're going to live," he said, reading my mind. "And the first thing you said after the doctor said 'You have a hiatal hernia, nothing serious, no surgery, here's a prescription to help you,' was
'Excellent. I'll be alive to go to a season's worth of baseball games with my husband ... Honey, go ahead and purchase that season package for $1,500."
I hadn't seen my husband look so serious since I announced I'd opened a credit card without telling him. Oops.
I was on to him now.
I shook my head. Found my reading glasses. Opened the day's KANSAS CITY STAR, turned to the Classifieds.
"Wait!" I announced, cheerfully, my memory suddenly restored. "I do remember saying all those things .... and, also, how you said, 'Sure, Honey, you can buy the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel puppy' ... here's one advertised for $700!"
He stood up, lowered his head, headed for the kitchen.
"How does chicken noodle soup sound?"
Showing posts with label pouty husband. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pouty husband. Show all posts
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Exuberance deflated
Well. It was about to happen. Two red-letter days IN A ROW and then today.
First, I slept in far too long. What is it with me and all this sleeping lately?
I'm either depressed or there's something seriously wrong with me. Or maybe I'm staying up way too late. Here it is 1:40 a.m. and I'm wide awake. Posting a blog entry, for crying out loud! Ten minutes ago I was loading the dishwasher.
Another reason -- HUGE reason my day sucked -- was because my PVC's showed up around 2 p.m., and then lingered long enough for me to think: OK, is this the day I die? (PVC's are an abbreviation for premature ventricular contractions, which is a long way of saying "palpitations" or "irregular heartbeat.") I was vacuuming the stairs when they started. Immediately thought of that horrible scene in About Schmidt where the Jack Nicholson character comes home from an errand and finds his wife dead, the vacuum hose encircling her lifeless body.
Yeah, yeah, I've been checked out. My cardiologist tells me that my PVC's are the "good ones," the kind that won't cause my heart to quiver in a frenzied mess and then stop altogether, say, while I'm picking out peppers at Price Chopper. According to the doctor, my palps are probably with me for life: I just need to deal with them by, largely, ignoring them. Easier said than done, let me just say. Oh, and even though they're supposed to be "quite common" in women over 40, none of the Bunco gals has experienced them. I've polled every female at Northgate Middle School, and only the librarian can identify.
Third sucky reason to dislike today: I am down to $135 in my checking account, which means I'll have to ask Husband to deposit some money from the joint account into my little piddly expense account, which will more than likely peeve him greatly and cause a great poutage and the silent treatment for, say, oh, about ten days.
And then, I went and did something extra stupid: I watched a movie called Two Weeks, whereby Sally Field plays a 60-ish mother who is dying from cancer (stupidfreakingcancer) and hospice has come in, along with her four grown children, all of whom are there to be with her in her last days.
The movie's a Kleenex box jerker. My eyes will, most assuredly, be super puffy in the a.m.
Here’s what critics have said about TWO WEEKS ….
“Writer-director Steve Stockman is writing from experience, as the script artfully melds the honest, cold facts of dying with the awkwardness and humor that can be found in such circumstances. It’s a film to be sought out.”
Jeffrey Lyons and Alison Bailes, WNBC-TV
“Sally Field creates an agonizing portrait of Anita Bergman. Ms. Field’s tough, accurate performance is all the more compelling for its understatement. A knowing cinematic primer on what to expect when a parent dies.”
--Stephen Holden, The New York Times
“There’s an honesty to this film’s portrayal of what cancer does to family dynamics. Unsentimental, darkly funny. (Stockman’s) gifts as a writer are beyond reproach.”
--Jason Shawhan, The (Nashville) Tennessean
“Very real, very moving, and very funny. Sally Field is breathtaking.”
--Bob Rivers, CBS Radio
First, I slept in far too long. What is it with me and all this sleeping lately?
I'm either depressed or there's something seriously wrong with me. Or maybe I'm staying up way too late. Here it is 1:40 a.m. and I'm wide awake. Posting a blog entry, for crying out loud! Ten minutes ago I was loading the dishwasher.
Another reason -- HUGE reason my day sucked -- was because my PVC's showed up around 2 p.m., and then lingered long enough for me to think: OK, is this the day I die? (PVC's are an abbreviation for premature ventricular contractions, which is a long way of saying "palpitations" or "irregular heartbeat.") I was vacuuming the stairs when they started. Immediately thought of that horrible scene in About Schmidt where the Jack Nicholson character comes home from an errand and finds his wife dead, the vacuum hose encircling her lifeless body.
Yeah, yeah, I've been checked out. My cardiologist tells me that my PVC's are the "good ones," the kind that won't cause my heart to quiver in a frenzied mess and then stop altogether, say, while I'm picking out peppers at Price Chopper. According to the doctor, my palps are probably with me for life: I just need to deal with them by, largely, ignoring them. Easier said than done, let me just say. Oh, and even though they're supposed to be "quite common" in women over 40, none of the Bunco gals has experienced them. I've polled every female at Northgate Middle School, and only the librarian can identify.
Third sucky reason to dislike today: I am down to $135 in my checking account, which means I'll have to ask Husband to deposit some money from the joint account into my little piddly expense account, which will more than likely peeve him greatly and cause a great poutage and the silent treatment for, say, oh, about ten days.
And then, I went and did something extra stupid: I watched a movie called Two Weeks, whereby Sally Field plays a 60-ish mother who is dying from cancer (stupidfreakingcancer) and hospice has come in, along with her four grown children, all of whom are there to be with her in her last days.
The movie's a Kleenex box jerker. My eyes will, most assuredly, be super puffy in the a.m.
Here’s what critics have said about TWO WEEKS ….
“Writer-director Steve Stockman is writing from experience, as the script artfully melds the honest, cold facts of dying with the awkwardness and humor that can be found in such circumstances. It’s a film to be sought out.”
Jeffrey Lyons and Alison Bailes, WNBC-TV
“Sally Field creates an agonizing portrait of Anita Bergman. Ms. Field’s tough, accurate performance is all the more compelling for its understatement. A knowing cinematic primer on what to expect when a parent dies.”
--Stephen Holden, The New York Times
“There’s an honesty to this film’s portrayal of what cancer does to family dynamics. Unsentimental, darkly funny. (Stockman’s) gifts as a writer are beyond reproach.”
--Jason Shawhan, The (Nashville) Tennessean
“Very real, very moving, and very funny. Sally Field is breathtaking.”
--Bob Rivers, CBS Radio
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