Rumbly in my tumbly
Do you ever have one of those nights when neither one of you feel like cooking? And, even though not a word about food has been mentioned, you can feel the tension in the air as you both hold your ground, both pretending that you’re not starving, both keep on with the mindless internet activities, in hopes that the other one will give in to their own hunger and get up and just cook dinner already?
No? Just us? Okay.
Damn, I hope J gets hungry soon, ’cause I’m staaaarving. And lazy. Most definitely lazy.
Wow, so I haven’t written in almost two weeks, huh?
I’ve been busy doing a lot of things lately. Specific, huh? Can you spot the lie on this list?
- I aced my A&P midterm, scoring a 96 on my own, and a total of 101 with my bonus points.
- My husband’s crazy friend accused him, wrongly, of adultery.
- I found out that yet another childhood friend has a restraining order against them.
- I painted my kitchen.
- I watched the Sex and the City movie and was less than impressed.
- I finally got my 2nd dose of Hepatitis B vaccine at the Public Health Circus Clinic.
- I convinced a 3-year-old that shots are awesome.
- I nearly busted my ass at least once a day.
- I spent nearly half an hour after class alone with my teacher, talking about my grades, my habits, my future, and my possibilities.
- I started feeling more politically conflicted than ever, and wondered if I could just vote “D, none of the above.”
Did you guess #4? If you’ve been reading with me for awhile, I’ll bet that you did! Yes, it’s true. My kitchen is STILL primer white. I hang my head in shame. But all of the rest of it is absolutely true. At some point, I have considered writing about nearly all of the subjects mentioned. The idea that I’ll actually write about even one of them is laughable, but I’ll see what I can manage. Eventually. Maybe.
drunk and accidentally stumbled onto one of my worst memories
Wednesday, May 9th, 2001
12:24a
**ad’s making progress he’s still in critical condition in the trauma icu, but he’s stable. they’re weaning him off his sedative, so we got to communicate with him. he wrote some notes for us even! he doesn’t remember the accident at all, but the doctors say that’s normal. they also have him on a medication that makes him forget everything, so every time he wakes up, we have to tell him what’s going on.
he still has the breathing machine hooked up to his lung, and another tube to his stomach. wires and tubes all over. neck brace. his right eye is swollen shut, and it has a deep laceration above it with lots of stitches. another on his chin, but it’s hidden by the collar. cuts and bruises all over. the eye that he can open is totally red where it should be white. he has a concussion as well. no broken bones.
it’s so hard…he gets so frustrated, and i wish there was something i could do for him. i wish i could convince my mom to come home and get some rest. she’s barely slept at all since it happened. maybe a few hours last night on the floor in the waiting room. as long as **ad’s in icu, we can’t stay with him 24 hours a day.
they’re hoping to maybe get him totally off the ventilator/respirator machine tomorrow, so that will be great. if they do that, and he remains stable, then his condition will drop from critical to serious, and he can be moved to the trauma ward and have visitors other than family, which i know will make his friends happy.
the other kid, the driver, is already home.
current mood: 
drained
current music: sarah mclachlan – angel
Thursday, May 10th, 2001
3:54a
**ad is doing a whole lot better. his condition has dropped from critical to serious. this morning they turned the breathing machine off, but kept the tube in and a constant flow of pure oxygen running by it so he would get the good stuff. then they turned the oxygen off, and since he did so well with that, they drew blood to see if he was ready to get the tubes out. he was. first, they took out the tube that was down pumping his stomach, then i guess he got impatient and tried pulling the tube out of his lungs himself.
the nurse got it all the way out. he’s started to talk, which is great. he’s still real hoarse, but his voice has been getting a little stronger. first thing he asked was if he could take a shower. that’s been his major question all day long. we try to explain that he’s sorta connected to a million wires right now, but he still wants his shower. he’s also desperate to get the neck brace off. they’re going to take him down and do tests on it tomorrow to see if they can. he should also be moved down from icu to the trauma ward tomorrow if he remains as stable as he is, but he could possibly stay up there one more day. and once he goes to a private room, he’ll stay probably three more days. so i could have my brother home on sunday. what a wonderful mother’s day gift! he’s still on the sugar/salt water solution going in through the iv, but he can also have solid liquids now – ice cream, jello, pudding, etc. he must still be on some medication, because he’s been a little delirious tonight. we were feeding him his orange flurry and he said, “this is a weird interview.” my mom asked him if he knew he was in the hospital, and he said, “yeah, but i had an interview at best buy.” also, he asked where we were going after this. he also kept asking if he could just go home tonight and come back in the morning. but probably the funniest was when we were asked to leave, so mom told him that we were going to go now, so **ad started to pull his covers off like he was going with us. i’m so glad that he’s getting better though. we’ve still got a long way to go, but he’s having a remarkable recovery. everyone that’s in the waiting room with us tells us how lucky we are. and we are lucky. thank you for everyone that’s been sending their best wishes, thoughts, prayers, and positive vibes in our direction. it must be working.
3:59a
i guess i should explain *why* he’s in the hospital, huh?
**ad was riding home from school with his friend ryan on monday afternoon. they were leaving the school parking lot through the back exit. ryan lost control on the gravel and overcorrected himself, then overcorrected himself again, causing the jeep to flip over several times and crash into a utility pole. **ad was careflighted to the hospital, and ryan was taken to a different hospital in an ambulance. ryan was released that night, but **ad has stayed in icu since then.
i sent a tape recorder to school with **ad’s friend daniel so that his friends could leave him messages since they can’t see him. a few kids did it this afternoon and he really enjoyed it.
11:05a
just got off the phone with my mom. **ad’s a lot more coherent today. they’re going to be moving him to a private room later this afternoon, and dr. sloan said that he might be able to come home tomorrow! that’s incredible. last night he had to be restrained because he pulled his iv out and tried to take off his neck brace. matt, his night nurse, said that he asked him if he knew where he was and **ad said, “yes, i’m in the hospital department at best buy.” the combination of concussion and drugs had been sorta messing with his mind, but he’s getting clearer today. i also talked to ryan’s mom, and she said that he’s back at school today, so that’s good news too.
8:40p
**ad’s in his own room now. 487 in the richardson tower of harris downtown, for those of you from town. he’s doing great. eating solid foods, talking, walking…they think he might get released tomorrow.
Friday, May 11th, 2001
12:24p
**ad is going to be released today. right now he’s just waiting to get his ankle x-rayed (it’s super swollen) and then he’ll be on his way!
alexis and i made a beautiful pink banner with britney spears stickers all over for him. lol. that’s what i get for having a 3 year old assist me, eh?
2:01p
he’s on his way home as we speak!
Hilariously me
I’ve got my A&P lab mid-term on Monday, so naturally, I’m coming up with all kinds of other things to do instead of studying. I do that a lot. It hasn’t gotten so bad that I’ve started painting the bathroom or anything, but it’s getting there.
I haven’t told you too much about school, have I? The class is intense. Getting A’s has always come naturally to me, and I never really learned how to study. You can yell at me to shut up now. Most people do. But with this class, I realized on the first day that I was going to have to bust my ass if I was to survive. By “survive,” I mean, “get good enough grades to get into nursing school.” And by that, I really mean, “MUST GET AN A!”
We took our first lecture test last week, and I thought I did pretty well. Then he was telling us how awful the grades were, and said that he thought that most of us just didn’t understand what the questions were asking. Greeeat. I started getting scared. Then he said that the lowest grade was a 20-something. Eeep! The breakdown went like this – 9 F’s, 11 D’s, 10 C’s, 5 B’s, and 3 A’s, with the highest grade being a 93. Eeep! I started praying, wishing beyond belief that I had gotten the 93. He told us to add 6 points to our final score, which eased the fear a bit, but not by much. I was still praying when I heard him call my name.
“Please, 93, please, please, PLEEEEAAASE 93!” I silently begged as I walked down the stairs to get my test back. I was convinced that I knew who had the 93 already, but hey, a girl can dream, right?
Except I was wrong. That guy didn’t get the 93, because I DID! It took all my self-control to not scream and jump up and down when he handed me my test. I made my way back to my seat and sat down without a word. A few minutes later, the girl next to me asked if I had passed (she got a 50-something). I said yeah, and she grinned and said, “You got the 99, didn’t you?” I confessed. She begged for half my brain.
We weren’t more than 3 weeks into class when I somehow got labeled as “the smart one” – without any real reason that I could see. By last week, new people were mysteriously sitting by me in lab. J said, “Aw, you’ve been identified as the class nerd, haven’t you?” Possibly I have. I’m sure it threw my teacher for a loop, because I never talk in class. I never answer questions. I never ask questions. I sit in either the last row (lab) or the next-to-last row (lecture). I blend in. If he had to predict who would have gotten a ninety-freaking-nine on his hard-as-hell (but not really! ha!) test, I would not have even been in the running.
Oh, hey! You want to hear something REALLY funny? I’M SUPPOSED TO BE STUDYING! Ha ha ha, anxiety/stress avoidance/procrastination strikes again! Because I totally didn’t come here to tell you the I’m-a-nerd test score story, just to vent about my inability to focus, and OH MY GOD, I’M DOING IT AGAIN!
MUST.
STOP.
TYPING.
