Why I dont want my husband to come home

So I talked to The Husband this morning and he said they will take the wound drain out today and that after that he can go home. Which he is really excited about, and would be fine, if he wasn’t confused as hell (keeps forgetting where he is) from the medication, can only walk a few steps with great pain, not to mention he hasn’t eaten a solid meal yet, let alone had a bowel movement AND he still has a catheter in which has to stay in for another 3 days.  

The (major)surgery was Monday morning– I live an hour and a half from the hospital along crappy country roads, and technically another state which means we are not entitled to home care of any kind and it is a freaking long way if anything goes wrong.

How the fuck does one change/remove a catheter?? I have no idea, I am NOT a nurse.

To abate the confusion he reckons he can stop taking the drugs (oxycontin & endone) he stopped the morphine just yesterday arvo. This leaves him with panadol. Now he’s no wuss but panadol? Three days after having major abdo surgery. What if it doesn’t cut it? Once he stops the other stuff then that’s it. He is stuck without it.

So I’m shitting myself as much as I want him home, I want him home when I know he can eat, use a toilet and can take more than 3 steps – it’s at least 50 meters from the closest spot I can park the car to the house – I can’t catch him if he falls, let alone pick him up again. Plus I have to be able to leave him alone in the house while I ferry the kids about.

Sorry about the vent, just scared really, I really miss him but I don’t want anything to happen and I have very little faith in the system right now. I will talk to the doctor when I get there and explain out situation, I just hope hubby doesn't hate me for not wanting him home just yet.

Under the knife

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I sit up on the half empty bed, the left side lays cold and forgotten it suddenly feels so much bigger than it used to. In 10 years I have never slept in the bed without him.

The surgery went well. It lasted 4.5 hours and left him now with a single but very healthy kidney and missing a small portion of his bladder. He has two drains, a catheter, oxygen and two IV’s not to mention a scar the envy of pirates everywhere.

It’s amazing how the night time can be filled with noises you have never heard before when void of snoring from the other side of the bed, the septic usually un-noticeable now sounds as though somebody with a pair of gumboots and a good puddle is dancing outside the window.

The doctor is hopeful that he should be able to come home this week, his ob’s are great and he recovered from the anesthesia in record time. His pain is low too thank goodness but he is doped up to the eyeballs so we will have to wait and see how he copes as the morphine is stepped down.

I think I quite like him on morphine, he repeatedly declared his undying love for me and called himself the luckiest man in the world. As flattered as I am, in the giddy state I left him in, he has probably since told each of the nurses and the 80yr old farting man in the next cubicle the exact same thing.

So if I don’t get murdered by whatever that thing is making growling noises in the distance, I will drive back to the big smoke and sit by his bedside tomorrow, hopefully the night hasn’t brought any challenges and I will have a slightly less spaced out version of my husband, I don't know how much longer I can cope with that much love.

Onwards & Upwards.  

One Phone Call

The view stretches out through the trees, over the horizon and onto the oblivion beyond.

 Villain plays in the background and I am taken back to that concert back in 2000 where the barefooted man placed a gift into my hand, long ago now but a moment burned into my mind, insignificant for me, but a life changing one for him, funny how that happens.

It was 2001; I sat crossed legged on the kitchen bench with the newspaper in front of me and the phone in my hand. It was so damn depressing, I had been searching for weeks for a place to rent, any place. But nobody wanted me, I had quite a lot of animals that I had to bring and nobody trusted my age.

I glanced up at my grandmother sitting in a chair nearby, with her disapproving eyes and her mouth moving in and out rythmatically like some sort of hyped up goldfish, the way it always did when she was annoyed.

I had to get out.

There was one last ad at the bottom of the page, a share house with 3 blokes, the room rent was comparable and the location was right on the bus route. Ok Deep breath. I dialled the numbers.

A man answered; hi I’m ringing about the ad for a room? I stuttered nervously, Oh yes.... came the reply and then I lost it and just blurted out. “ Look, I will give it to you straight because you won’t want me living there anyway, I have a dog, a cat, a 4ft fish tank, a frog tank a bird and a rabbit.... and I’m only 16... BUT I work full time and I can pay the rent....”

There was a deathly silence and I blinked back a tear for a moment knowing that I had just reduced any chance to ashes. Suddenly there was a laugh from the other end of the phone, “Well you can come over for a look, but does your dog get along with other dogs? Cause there are three here already...” I nearly fell off the bench.

There were 2 cars and a Ute parked in the driveway as I arrived the next day at a rather nice brick home complete with massive yard and veranda sweeping along the front.

 I knocked on the door and a bloke about 20 something with curly brown hair spilling out the sides of his baseball cap opened it, ”oh” he said as he looked me up and down made a kind of grunting noise and walked off.

Charming.

I was left standing on the step not sure if I was invited in or not and waited there about a minute or so before a big burley man of around 50 came to the door all smiles, he introduced himself, showed me around and after a bit of a chat offered me the room. I was to move in on the weekend.

As I was leaving he introduced me to one of the guys living there who seemed really nice and pointed out another who was on top of the pergola out the back hammering something – it was the rude bloke from the door, I had kinda hoped he was just a tradesman and not actually living there. Oh well beggars can’t be choosers.

I moved in, time passed and I actually got to know the rude bloke from the door that day, turns out he was pretty nice guy and we became firm friends until I eventually dumped my boyfriend and we made it official. That was 10 years and 4 kids ago and now I couldn’t imagine life without him.

The paths we take, the road we choose to follow its strange how it all comes together just so. Imagine if you hadn’t taken the bus that day? Filled the car at the other petrol station? I know if I hadn’t made that one phone call things would be very different right now, strange how such insignificant actions can change the entire course of our lives.

Has a seemingly small thing ended up changing your life?

How did you meet your partner?

My whole truth

I was the fat kid growing up, and my peers delighted in informing me of such at every possible opportunity. I tried to change,

I tried SO hard.

But failure after failure, I hated sport and I hated being teased and when I felt sad the mars bars didn’t tease me, so from about year three I had the skill of comfort eating down to a fine art.

By the time I reached age 15 the teasing had reached epic proportions and so had my weight. I was 75kg and quite short, I hit breaking point and decided to do something about it, the world wanted me to lose weight so lose weight I would.

Around 3 months later I weighed in at 55kgs and I did 500 sit ups in the morning and 500 at night. The teasing continued fatty boombah, thunder thighs and the like – god these people were so hard to please.

But I had to please them.

So I didn’t eat over 10 calories per day and even then I had to run or walk them off ASAP I had to be in minus calories, I couldn’t swim them off though - I was far too fat to be seen dead in a bathing suit. More sit ups.

42kgs.

I was a vegetarian so I did all my own cooking and became an expert in eating two bites and hiding the rest in the compost bin, a little bit under the top layer so nobody could see. Lying became second nature and I wouldn’t cook anything in the kitchen when my mother was in there because I was terrified she would poison me by adding oil or butter to my foods.

She didn’t understand how important it was for me to be thin. I HAD to be thin.

Mid way through year 10 I was expertly maintaining my 42kg frame, by not eating and lots of walking even though it was getting harder to run because I would pass out so easily – oh well no pain no gain they always say.

I had a steady group of genuine friends, but I didn’t care that they didn’t think I was fat, because they were real friends I naturally assumed they were lying to me to make me feel better. But I found one friend through all this, who was just like me – a little bit fucked up and desperate to lose weight.

 I egged her on, I showed her how to lie to parents and friends to make it appear you are eating when you aren’t, I taught her how to count calories and how to push past the exhaustion point when you are exercising.

 She hit 39kg and over took me, she HAD to over take me she was competing, and I started to realise what was happening as we tried on clothes in Supre one day and they were all miles to big for her.

 She ended up in the hospital I had always managed to evade through my lies and empty promises. A drip up her nose force feeding her as she screamed.

 I will never forgive myself for what I did to her.

She has been in and out of hospitals with mental health issues ever since, if you are a regular reader you will have seen my posts about her.

When I went to school one day shortly after my friend was hospitalized, a kid who had teased me mercilessly since year 7 called me a 'skinny bitch' and 'why don’t I go eat something?'.

I got so angry about how I had lost all this weight to please them and maybe gain their friendship and they didnt even care that I ended up getting into a fight with a different kid that afternoon when she put grass down another friend’s top, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back I guess. I punched her in the face and never went back to school.

 Ever.

The place where I was working casually on weekends took me on full time and about 6 months later I moved out of home, by that time I had gained a little bit of weight and was around a size 7-8, I didn’t like it but it no longer occupied every thought. I met the man I am now married to and have since gained and lost weight fairly yo-yo style, but I have had 4 kids in that time too.

I still think about my weight, but I will eat the profiteroles on offer and my desire to have less Mc Donald’s is more related to the health benefits than the fat grams themselves. I haven’t owned a set of scales for around 5 years and I prefer it that way, it doesn’t let me dwell.

I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband who loves me for who I am, has never tried to change me and never will. I am lucky that it all worked out for me and I escaped the cycle that so many people live in everyday.

I wrote this as posts related to school yard bullying and its lasting effect have been floating round the blogosphere the last few days “madam bipolar” & “the things I’d tell you” to name a few.

While I don’t blame the kids that teased me for what happened and I know that I had choices, I do feel that the long term impact of bullying is often underestimated and it’s a topic that needs more awareness.  

Have you been impacted by bullying?