A week in seven paragraphs

Last weekend: best. visit. evar. with my sister. It was like she lived down the street and was just coming over to hang out, which, when you think about it? We don't do enough these days. It's all destination visiting. When you come! We'll go out! And see Mt. Hood and Mt. Tabor and the Pearl District and Twenty Third and we'll eat! At all these cool restaurants! None of that. We got up, hung out in our PJs and did insane crosswordage (speaking of which--where's my crossword book?) and our only Destination Planning was a Farmer's Market that had a guy standing there in his North Face fleece vest and his pants that zip into short while his daughter in a crafty poncho dangled around his knees, and that guy was talking to another couple in his back-of-the-throat surfer Northwest way, "Yaaaa, we're just raaacing... through the farmer's market todaaaay..." while we debated whether we wanted apple cider or not. Lee also got to witness one of my best teaching days ever, so double bonus. Someday I'll write about it. So, yeah. Incredible gift to have Lee here. Plus? Crazy Matilda lurrrrved her.

Monday: drop Lee off at the airport on the way to school, day doesn't end until 9 when I leave the television studios. My geek squad? Was on TV. Heh. I was there to cheer.

Tuesday: Day didn't end until I got home at 9 AGAIN, after doing lines at the volleyball game. Which I love saying, because it totally sounds like I'm doing coke under the bleachers, instead of standing for almost two hours waiting to call in, out or touch with those flight-attendant-like hand motions.

Wednesday. Three words. Parent. Teacher. Conferences. Yes, already. I don't know why, it's not like we've done enough work to actually have a real gradeor anything, but it's nice to meet most of the students' parents. No gnarly or angry ones. No real good stories, in fact. I just kept talking until 6:30. "Yes, hi! Oh, your son/daughter is xxxx. Here's a grade printout, this is their grade, here's where it's broken down into homework and tests..." and then it's choose your own adventure! Does your son or daughter do their homework? Yay! Advance to go, collect 200 dollars! Does your son or daughter not do their homework? Agonizing discussion on why they don't. (Secret--in almost all cases? I don't care. I can't make them do homework, I see them for an hour a day! Exceptions, of course, apply--living with grandma and grandpa because mom took off to Las Vegas etc etc etc? Let's figure something out. Can't put down the videogame controller and/or telephone? Not my problem, and in fact, anything I do will be undermined at home.)

Thursday: first day wherein I get home before 5. Sweet sweet relief. So to celebrate? Wake up at 3:30 a.m. and be unable to get back to sleep. Jackpot!

Friday: Nap from 4 to 7:30. Wake up to go out to dinner. Get home from dinner, go to bed at 10. Sleep until 7.

And this weekend: Mellow, with a side of slow. Did I leave the house yesterday? Yes, I must have, right? I think I did. Hmmm. Ah well, I will today, I have kickball, so in an hour or two I'll force myself to do something. Probably.

And that was my week in seven paragraphs. Yay. I'm going to try not to stay away for so long again, because if I do, so many stories get bottled up it becomes hard to share any of them.

Evaluate and re-evaluate

Three weeks into the school year--okay, two and a half--and I finally feel ready to evaluate my standing.

This is my second-plus year of teaching. I consider it my third even though my first year of teaching wasn't a full year, but it was two trimesters and it carried all the hell of first year teaching. Some people like to say I'm a second year teacher, and some people scoff at making this a big deal, but both groups really miss the point. Your first year of teaching is hell. Hell hell hell. Balancing everything sucks. You get too involved in your students--meth affected families, eating disorders and teenage pregnancy will pull anyone in but sweet jeebus!--and every test or quiz feels like an evaluation of you as a teacher. You don't know where to focus your energies and you're at school past dark way way waaaaaaay too much (my husband is singing "Amen!" at the top of his lungs). The mere act of surviving that first year, where students can make you cry and parents instill the fear of the apocalypse in you, is a victory of the first order.

Ahem. Slight tangent there. Anyway, here I am in my third year of teaching. It's radically different from my previous years. I have AP students balanced with my entry-level students. And dear gods and goddesses, does it make all the difference. And yet, at the same time, I find myself in the same balancing act of my first year.

So, first, Geometry. I find myself giving these poor kids the short shrift this year. I'm relying a lot on what I did last year in a sort of vague way, where I'm coasting. I have three classes of these kids who run the gamut, from ambitious freshmen to juniors and seniors who are close to lost, either through laziness or ineptitude. But I'm finding tweaking what I did last year truly rewarding. This afternoon I met with another teacher to rework how we were going to teach chapter 4. Note that this is two chapters ahead of where we are now. This kind of collaborative planning blows my mind eight ways from Sunday. This other teacher--Ms. G--and I sat for an hour working and debating how we talked about what we did last year and what needed to happen this year and how we could make it better. And we put that talk into action. How lucky is that?

But even more than that, this AP Statistics class jazzes me up and gets me running like nobody's business. I'm by turns panicked and delighted with this class. They ask me questions that I can't answer, and my response is, "I'll have a better answer for you tomorrow!" Why n-1, Ms. H? "I'll have a better answer for you tomorrow." I have no idea, really. A lot of stats is accepted practice, and that answer is not satisfying for a lot of students, and I feel inadequate, and that's like being a first year teacher again. But at the same time, I'm grading quizzes, like I am tonight, and the insight is blowing me away.

For the past two years, I've come home from school exhausted. Taking a nap from three to five has become my M.O. But since this school year has started, yeah, I'm staying a little later, leaving after 4:00 most days, but I'm not napping. I feel electric. Like I'm doing something cool, connecting. Is it cheesy to say it's a rebirth? Again? How many rebirths can one girl get? Staying after school and working through what I need to do has me alive.

It'll probably change when students start panicking. Our first Geometry quiz is tomorrow, and let's see who fails. And hard chapters are coming up, and last year I regularly had crowds of kids getting help before and after school. That hasn't started yet.

But right now? I feel ten feet tall. And vibrant. Can I bottle this? And take it out in February? Please?

How to Feel Old in One Small Step

Do you realize that every single person who isn't old enough to vote has never lived in a world without The Simpsons on TV?

Advanced Placement in the Looney Bin

Good God. I mean, seriously, Good. God.

I was feeling bad with how apeshit crazy I was feeling about the stats class until I talked to a teacher, a fifteen-year vet, about her year last year, her first teaching AP Psych.

"I was in the principal's office every day in tears, saying I quit, I can't take this!" she said.

Ahhhh, validation.

It's week two, and the class? She is CHAOS. I'm maybe half a day ahead of my kids, every day having to leave class because I forgot this thing, or maybe that thing, or sweet jeebus, something else. Today, there were kids who, instead of working on this chapter, were still finishing the homework that was due yesterday. The homework they have a quiz on tomorrow. Because they couldn't figure out their calculators.

Now, given, the calculators are way more complicated than they were in the Goode Olde Dayes, but I had written out the steps for them along these lines:

If you want to create a list, first push the { key.

Now push the first thing you want in a list.

Now push a comma.

Repeat those last two until you come to the last number you want in your
list.

Now push the } key.

To save the list, push the STORE key.

Type in the name you want to give to your list.

Push ENTER.

This is how complicated the directions were. And people were still, "I couldnt' do the homework last night because it said error!" and when I looked at their calculators, there was all this extra STUFF that they kept typing in. THESE are the kids who plan to take the AP test? Sometimes, my planning just doesn't matter.

It's frustrating because the math isn't hard, and really, the calculator isn't that hard either--because the directions are right there, step for step! What the hell is going to happen when the math does get hard?

I might die. That seriously is what might happen.

Round up

• awesome wedding that broke me into pools and puddles of tears. Multiple times. I love those two.
• School rocks, but I lack the energy to write coherently about it right now. An update will come, I promise, but I can't--I don't know, I guess I won't do it justice just yet.
• Kickball's starting up again, and this time I'm the captain. El capitano. Ha.
• Our house served as a guest house for the first time. I mean, my bro and his wife have come to stay, and another friend and his fiance came to stay, but for some reason this time was different, and it felt awesome. I just felt--glowy--that I could offer that kind of retreat for people I love so very much.
• And right now our house is wrecked. I forget how much school takes it out of me, so I see the dishes from Monday and I'm like, there's no visible mold or insect life, so it can wait another day.
• Was that TMI?
• For your fun and enjoyment, possibly the goofiest yet most fascinating video ever: Ok go, the most adorable hipster-pop goofballs you ever met.

Must. Stay. Awake.

Our brokeassedness is a direct result of piling a whole shit-ton of our money (plus a generous Parental Loan) into the Amazing Holy Heaven of Second Floors. We have a nirvana for a second floor. I couldn't be happier about how gorgeous it is, the potential, once we can afford to maybe shop at garage sales and thrift stores again, those rooms hold to be filled with unique and tasty furniture in an-of-course-impeccable taste.

And yet. I cannot sleep well.

Maybe it's the weirdness of sleeping on the second floor, something I haven't done in a few years. Maybe it's the new matress, a humongous birthday cake confection of engineering miracluatude. Maybe it's that we now face East, or that the air is thinner, or that it's fall, or. What-the-fuck-ever, I'm not goddamned sleeping. And can you tell? I'm sick of it.

First it was not falling asleep, which, well, awesome. But, see, me being a school teacher meant I could cheat on that a little bit, because I had fuck-all to get up for, so, well, I wouldn't. Then it was waking up in the middle of the night, but again, see the phrase above that contains "fuck-all." Oh, and naps rock, and are fun, and easy.

Now, however, my body and brain are uniting to put me through hell. Because, see, I'm a teacher, and it's fall. Which means I have to haul my ass out the front door at, oh, 6:30 or so. That'd be ante meridien. As in ay-mother-fucking-em. So I can't cheat. And now my body and brain are saying, well, self? Even if you manage to fall asleep, we are going to wake up! With perpetual brain motion! At 3:30! And then we'll keep thinking! And thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and... then it'll be 4! And then 4:30! And we won't let you give up hope of falling back asleep until 5:41, at which time you'll realize that even if you fell back asleep, it wouldn't even count as a nap because you need to get up in less than twenty minutes!

And then! Exclamation point! I get to go to work where I had a meeting on the attendance policy and then one on our new technology, and then one on the school internet, and then one on senior projects, and then one on AP classes, and then one on geometry and then! It was 3:00 p.m. and I could go!

I'm determined to stay awake and not nap so that when I go to bed, a dried-up husk of my former self, I will actually fall asleep and then maybe I can stay asleep and then maybe the millions of little tiny worms that are boring tunnels into my brain will leave and I can think without hurting again. Maybe.

Hopey.

I haven't been writing much because most of my entries would have gone like this:

"OhmigodwhatwasIthinking!"

I've been nervous, so so SO nervous, that I've bitten off more than I could chew this year. I'm teaching AP Statistics and dear Lord, there's so much involved with this that my eyes are turning into dizzying little pinpricks. I've been trying not to think about it, because every time I do, I get this Queasy Stomach of Impending Doom. Students come back on Tuesday and I had really anticipated being so much better prepared than I am. I mean, really. I had planned on planning out the entire year this summer.

Instead, I've seen all of season 1 of The Closer, of Grey's Anatomy, and of Battlestar Galactica. Not to mention, kept up entirely with Project Runway and all of the reruns of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

This week, the teachers returned. The first week teachers go back is a week that's half filled with BS anyway. Defining vision statements. Naming goals that will never be revisited. Learning a new attendance policy that will subsequently be ignored. The usual politics. (Hence my original plan to set up my lessons over the summer. Sigh.) And for the past two days, that has been what the days are like. I haven't exactly been focused myself. The time where we are allowed to work on instructional planning, I've been dizzy trying to set up my room, figure out where I am, and I've been so overwhelmed with the start of the new year that it's hard to settle down and finish something through to completion.

I've made lists. Copies To Be Made. Things to Find Out (can students download calculator stuff from school computers? Where can students get free tutoring?). Things I'd Buy For My Classroom If I Had Money. What Lists Do I Need To Make. Where Have I Put All My Lists. That kind of thing. I'm a listomaniac. Listaphiliac. Whatever.

But today, I've gotten the feeling that this can happen. Maybe it was finally submitting my first worksheets to the Print Shop. Maybe it was finally getting down on paper my first week's lesson plans. Getting things revved up to go, I feel like--this is happening. And I'll be fine. Or, if not fine, at least unfine for a limited time.

So, if I'm not hopeful, I'm at least hopey. In a conservative, estimated kind of way.

Losing the ability to take a picture

You know those nights where you just have a great night? Where you keep finding things funny? And you want to grab each time you laughed and put it in a jar, so you can take it out in November when you're tired and it's grey outside and you can't remember the last time you laughed so hard your abs hurt?





That was Saturday night.

...and I just can't hide it!

I love giving gifts. I love it. If I were supa dupa rich, I'd buy gifts all the time for friends and family. There are so many times when I see The Perfect Widget and I think, "Oh, Emily would love that!" or "That would make my dad so happy!" That moment when I know I have something that matches up perfectly with where I know someone is at, when I have it wrapped and I get to anticipate their face when they open it, is perfect.

My favorite gift of all time is the gift I gave Andrew the day we got married. To someone else, it might have seemed odd. But what happened was this: Andrew had just started a new assignment with a client. One of his first in a high-rise, a fancy-pantsy high-rise. The kind that comes with art collections. And the art hung across from his cubicle was something he described to me more than once. "I just love to stare at it," he would say. So I called the main switchboard for the company, asked to speak to their art curator or art archivist, whatever they had. When I reached her, I described what Andrew had described to me and asked for her help. She was able to help my find a copy of the print, which I got framed. It hangs in our kitchen right now. He cried when the bridesmaids delivered it.

Sometimes, though, those moments of inspiration don't quite match up to either the occasion--like finding a Christmas gift in March--or they don't match up to my wallet. Like finding a $300 gift for a friend. (Or for anyone, for that matter, right now.)

Which is why I'm so excited about Andrew's birthday this weekend. I think I did it again. I don't think he expects it. And I hid it, really well. I can't wait to give it to him. I really really think he'll like it.

My sister doesn't have a TV. This is Portland, Land of Crunch Granola Lifestyle Livin', and so I probably know another ten or fifteen people who Don't Watch TV (or the next thing to it, Don't Have Cable).

While I embrace all sorts of different lifestyles (don't eat anything with eyes? Good for you! Eat everything organic? Smart! Won't get in a Demon Car? Bike everywhere? Handmake all your clothes? Won't use a telephone? You get ON with your bad self!), to be quite frank? This is not one that I can ever really picture myself sustaining for long term.

There was a time when I lived by myself in Chicago when I didn't get cable, which in Chicago is almost the same as not watching TV. And considering my favorite shows aren't on network TV, I did essentially that. So I know I can. I just don't want to.

Case in point: by some magical stroke of luck, I saw that Netflix had the season premier of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip available. Popped that to the top of my queue and kept it a secret so that when I went to visit Emily, I had a nice little surprise.

Dude, it was way more than that. This TV show--now, given, I'm only going from the first episode--is smart. There are already four characters I intensely care about, one I'm fully prepared to hiss whenever he comes on screen. There are other side characters that I'm excited to see develop. It satisfies the Feminist Rules of Entertainment I read somewhere (1. Is there more than one woman? 2. Do they talk to each other? 3. About something other than men? Think about it--those are great rules. And should be so easy to satisfy. And yet so rarely are.) And Teh Funny! So much of Teh Funny that I get jazzed thinking about it on weekly. Watching it with Emily was awesome because we'd pause it and talk about it and giggle about it and squeeeeee together and I've missed having a show like that.

I can't wait to watch this more. And that is precisely why I couldn't give up my TV.

Have you ever found yourself changing your outfit to go get your haircut out of some desire to impress the hairdresser with how hip you are?

Oh?

Um, yeah, me neither.

Hold Your Breath

They came two weeks before Christmas.

We had a hole in our roof--and no roof at all in some places--almost all of January and February.

Portland city codes required them to do some additional work in the basement because apparently we were missing a load-bearing wall (oops!).

The sinks, which were supposed to be so easy, required specialty drains, which we didn't find out until, oh, the day we were installing them.

And on and on and on and...

Until today. The last day some one is going to ring the doorbell at 8 a.m. I can hear his drill as he's putting in the final outlet cover.

We have lamps. Sinks. A toilet (did you know toilets don't come with toilet seats? Yeah, I didn't know that either. Until, of course, the day we installed our toilet.). Doors. Windows. Walls.

It's done. Eight months later. We have a new bathroom and two new bedrooms.

Dear sweet jeebus. It's done.

Advice for fibroid surgery.

So this is going to be my last post about my myomectomy. Barring unforeseen shit, I guess. But I'm driving, I'm walking straight up and down (rather than in the Crone position), I'm taking stairs, so other than the ban against lifting anything over ten pounds, I'm back. (And that ban? Extremely useful. Think about how many things in your life are more than ten pounds. Like, oh, laundry baskets, grocery bags, text books... Trust me, I'm milking that ban for as long as I can.)

But I want to gether my thoughts in case someone finds this site by googling--and as a reminder to myself if when I get a Caesarian of things I did right, and things I'd do differently.

Good things to do before you get your abdominal myomectomy:

1. Get your ab muscles as strong as you can. Seriously.
2. Get a bikini wax. You don't have to do a Brazilian or a Pamela Anderson Special or The Airplane Runway, just get those top two inches ripped out. Which sounds painful, but is even easier than an eyebrow wax. And SOOOO much better than having to deal with shaved regrowth and chafing. Trust me. Chafing. Bad. Really, really bad.
3. Plan nothing for at least two weeks after your surgery. And I mean nothing. Not a movie, not entertaining friends, nothing. If you're up to it, great, you can schedule it then, but otherwise, you don't know.
4. Get more than one pair of drawstring, super loose pants.
5. Get some granny panties one size too large. Make sure that waistline is within a couple inches of your bellybutton. Trust me, you'll be grateful.
6. In fact, here are things you should have at home:

• Ice packs. Little, about the size of your hand, is fine.
• Gauze pads--lots. Seriously.
• Hydrogen Peroxide and cotton balls.
• Paper medical tape, the kind that doesn't hurt (as much) to pull off
• Lap desk. You are going to be much more awake than your body. Lap desk means you can have your laptop in front of you while you're on the couch/bed.
• Super understanding family member(s) and/or partner.
• An updated Netflix queue.

When you've got the surgery, here's what I learned about What To Bring and Do at the Hospital

1. Don't bother with books. Your attention span won't be long enough to read those things we call words. And paragraphs? BWHAHAHAHA. Magazines with pretty pictures? Excellent choice.
2. Don't bother with makeup, unless it's moisturizer. You won't care what you look like. However, something like those pre-moistened Dove wipes would have rocked. And deodorant. That would have been nice too. And a kerchief for my hair.
3. I loved having my laptop at the hospital, but I really only used it the second day.
4. Cell phone and charger. Good for alarms (when do I get my next dose of morphine?) and the ring on your cell phone is so much less jarring that then ring on the phone in your hotel room.
5. I had a hard time getting my pain meds on time. My mistake? I kept calling the nurse's station. Get your nurse's pager number. Muuuuch more efficient.
6. Appoint a trusted friend as gatekeeper. Let everyone know that you'll be updating her as to when you can/want to have guests. Both Andrew and Em did this, fantastically. (I know, that's two, but considering Andrew was in my room every moment he wasn't at work or at home walking the dog, he wasn't always easy to get ahold of) That way, folks felt like they could call and stop by but didn't have to bother me. And then you only have to update one person if you feel like ass reheated.
7. If you're in doubt--stay one more day at the hospital. I thought I'd stay one, I ended up staying two, and it was the best decision I made.
8. Best thing I brought: I brought slip-on flat clog/mule shoes for leaving the hospital. You can't reach your feet, but sliding on those Uggs made me feel mildly human.

Once you get home...

1. Family visiting to help can make all the difference. Remember--they're here for you, not as guests. You should feel free to sleep whenever you need to. If they can't handle it, they shouldn't be there. Have a friend or your partner ready to intervene if it turns out that they are causing more work than they're saving. My parents here kept me sane for those first four days.
2. Remember that updated Netflix queue? Even better if it's something like Season 1 of The Closer. Short, 47-minute intervals, you can come back to it later, perfect.
3. Your body will get way more tired than your brain. We rented a wheelchair, and it was perfect because I could go out for an hour or two--which, let it be noted, would wipe me out, but it was SO much better than the brain rot of the inside of my house.
4. If you're not sleeping well because of the pain, tell your doctor. Get Ambien or Lunestra or whatever. Don't worry about addiction (unless you already have prescription problems). You won't be on it long enough to matter, and seriously? This sleep is the most important sleep you've had in years. Your body needs it.
5. Walk. Stand. Do it in little bits, but as soon as you can. Focus on your posture. The temptation is to start walking bent-over because MY GOD THE PULLING. But if you start doing that, you start healing that way, and it will only hurt more when you DO start standing up straight. Focus on your shoulders back and down, your butt tucked under, a string from the top of your head pulling you up like a marionette. Gently, feel yourself stretch out. It'll hurt, but it'll hurt less every day. You're going to pay WAY more attention to walking and posture than you ever did before, because if you let your subconscious rule, you'll walk like an 80-year-old woman with osteoporosis. If it hurts too much, talk to your doctor and get the pain meds you need to stand up straight. It'll be worth it.
6. Watch your wound. I got a surface infection, I have NO idea how. The signs were redness from hip to hip, it was hot to the touch, and I had a fever. If these start up? Doctor's office. NOW.
7. Then there's the drainage. This may or may not happen to you. So much grossness, but way more scary than actually dangerous or painful. If you start leaking this clearish-bloodyish fluid, that's what it is. If it's pus or cottage-cheesy, that's apparently a worse sign. Just keep the wound clean (that's what the hydrogen peroxide and the million gauze pads are for) and go in for your follow-up appointments.
8. When you go in for your appointments--if you don't know what a word is, ask. Ask ask and ask again. Even the best doctors start using fancy pantsy words that translate really easily to English. "Serosanguineous" is a word Dr. Doogie, my doctor, dropped on me when I was having the gross leaking episode. What's that? Oh, clear bloody fluid. Why couldn't he say that? Because he went to a jillion years of med school. I'm a smart girl, and he started using words like "seroma". What's that mean? Basically, a gap that developed under my incision between the skin and the layer just below the skin. Couldn't he say gap? No, he says seroma.
9. Take it a day at a time. More than that, take it in four-hour chunks. Just make it to the next four hours. Even on the days when you're bored out of your gourd, when it hurts more than you can explain to anyone, when you never want to go anywhere ever again, even on those days remember: tomorrow will be better, and the day after that even better, and the day after that, SO much better. Soon, sitting up won't hurt (much). Soon, you can wear regular clothes. Soon, sleeping won't be a matter of finding the position that hurts the least. Soon, you'll throw out all those amber pill bottles. In the grand scheme of things, it'll all be Soon.
10. Don't be afraid to ask for things you need. Your partner, your friends, your family. One morning last week, I called a friend who works from home. Why? I was out of coffee. I couldn't walk far enough to go buy some, and dear sweet lord did I want some coffee. She was awesome, brought over some for me, and we hung out for twenty minutes. Your friends want to help you out. Let them.

So, that's all I can think of for right now. I may come back and edit this later.

I couldn't have made it through these past two weeks without Andrew, without my parents, without Emily and Nicole and Sarah and Dave and Becca and Eryn. That said? SO much better to be in the world of the walking again.

I just found out that my fourteen days of freedom left are down by two.

I know this gets no sympathy from non-teachers, but I'm freaking out about the end of summer. Some of it is that two weeks of it were sucked up by the non-moving pain, and then more weeks of it were sucked up by the anticipation of the aforementioned pain, but it really seriously feels like I got nothing done this summer. I had all this time! And I did nothing! (Unless you count watching Project Runway like it's ocular crack. This includes reading Tim Gunn's blog and listening to Tim Gunn's podcast.)

So I was freaking out about this--two weeks from today the pre-school (as in before-school, not as in before-kindgergarten) teacher inservice starts up. And then I open my mail and guess what! I have two additional days of inservice! Next week! That I have to go to! Dear god!

(On the plus side--I get paid for that. So that's extra money. So that's good.)

I'm SO not ready, and I'm not even ready to GET ready.

Okay, I'm SO TOTALLY OVER being an invalid.

You hear that, incision? I'm over this shit.

And on the seventh day...

And on the seventh day, the Lord said, and let there be poop.

And there was poop.

And dear sweet baby Jeebus, couldn't the Lord have sent a littler poop?

Andrew is my hero

4:00 a.m. I woke up on fire, and not in the good way. Entering into TMI territory--I'd gone to bed without pants on, just my underwear, hoping that less clothing would, I dunno ease the pain a little, prevent it? Seemed a good idea at bedtime. But at the hour when late night ended and early morning began, every. Single. Touch. was sending shockwave shots of puke-worthy pain straight to my alligator brain. The blankets sliding off? Like sandpaper ground into the most sensitive skin you can imagine. The blankets floating back on? Like a sledgehammer slammed into an open wound.

Maybe a little poetic license, but at 4 in the morning, when one is woken up by pain? I think one is entitled.

I guess I'd thought that by now I'd, sure, maybe not be able to step right back into my Pilates routine (ha!), but be walking around fluidly like the graceful dancer--okay, at least stumbling around like I usually am. I didn't think the very act of sitting down would make me lightheaded and slighly nauseous, much less that standing upright would feel like I was asking my torso to tear horizontally from hipbone to hipbone, leaving me a bloated and rubbery upper half and a scarred and swollen lower half.

I'm trying to take it as gracefully as possible, keeping my whining here and to just before it's time to retake my pain meds. Mostly. (Oh, and by the way? If I haven't been that good or graceful, let me retain that illusion, because I've quite painfully lost my illusion of quick recovery.)

Andrew's been a champ. He's cooked. He's cleaned. He's got a clipboard where he keeps track of my ambien, my ibuprofen, my dilaudid, my reglan, my poop-ability drug (I still, btw, haven't pooped since Wednesday), my iron-replacement drug (which I'm not taking because if I'm not pooping now, the iron would put it off until October), and now my antibiotics. Some are on a 6 hour schedule, some are on an 8 hour schedule, some can't be taken within two hours of eating, and he's kept track of all of it for me. He has kept me fed and kept me drugged. Seriously, what more can I ask for? (Especially since I'm not allowed to ask for sex for another month--yay!)

So he's already my hero.

And then 4 a.m., and everything falls apart. Apparently the Ambien I've been taking has worn off with a vengence. Of course, this is the night I decided to try to make it through the night without waking up to take my narcotics. The fire! And it hurts to roll over because the fire! And it hurts to stay where I am because the fire! And the fire! I'm crying that keening wail I've developed because it involves less sobbing and therefore less torso movement and therefore less feeling like I'm about to rip apart my insides with the power of my own muscles--well, that and because it's a total hot move to pick up guys. Waking Andrew up after I promised him that I wouldn't wake him up or expected him to wake me up for another pill popping session. He tried to help pull the blankets up over me but that just caused the fire.

And here's how he is really and well and truly my hero.

He smoothed my hair back from my face. Held my shoulders, let me grip his arms with the death grip of a dying Jedi knight. He murmured nothings. And then he said in my ear, "C'mon, babe, you've been so strong through all of this. You can make it through this too."

Which was, in short, exactly what I needed to hear. I can make it through this, and for the times when I don't believe it, he does and will remind me.

Parental Debrief.

I just wrote a really whiny entry about my parents leaving tomorrow and how odd our week has been. Yes, they stayed here for a week. Completely drama-free (except for when I cried, but that was always about physical pain and besides, only happened once or twice). I am totally grateful for them. They did things like fix the toilet, deadhead my roses, go grocery shopping--things I literally am not allowed to do for another few days. We watched a great movie and an okay movie, we solved crosswords, we played spades, we hung out with my friends. Right now they're "playing" bridge together on my Dad's computer and they're talking strategy and whatnot and it's the cutest thing in the world.

I spent the past couple weeks being quietly anxious (or not so quiet, so shush, you who is about to call me on my understatement) about having my folks here. The report is: clear weather.

Now if I could just stand up, roll over, or sit down without losing my breath in pain, the world would be a great, great place.

Yay. I can do this. Considering the procedure I had was a lot like having a Caesarian--and as a result, I will probably have to have a Caesarian should I become pregnant--I've been thinking a lot of thoughts like, "How the hell would I go through this recovery if I had an infant as well????" Standing makes me light-headed, I haven't pooped since Wednesday morning, and laughing and/or crying makes me cry--literally, which, as you might imagine, is a bit of a paradoxical problem.

The low point is realizing you can't sit at the dinner table because it hurts so much--but getting up to leave the dinner table hurts too much to move, and you feel the tears start gathering but you don't want to cry because you know it will hurt, and everyone, well meaning, just sits there staring at you stricken because they want to help but don't know how, so you start crying and it just hurts.

But then. I took a shower this morning. It's amazing what washing your hair for the first time since Tuesday can do for your outlook.

I rolled over in my sleep last night and it didn't wake me up.

I can almost stand up straight without crying.

And I haven't even been home twenty four hours yet.

I can totally do this.

We rented a wheelchair yesterday so that I can go out today--just around the neighborhood, there's a fair down the street--because walking is still a slow and agonizing process. I think going out will do a lot for my outlook too.

Plus, Emily has promised to talk loudly in her mommy voice. "Use your words," she says. "Oh, very good!" I promised to gesticulate wildly and perhaps drool a bit. Mom wants to tie balloons to the chair.

We're all going to hell. That part is helping my outlook as well.

I love them, I really do but...

Scene: I've finally gotten situated after waking up from a nap. I hang up the phone.

Dad: "I couldn't understand what you wanted."
Me: "Charcoal?"
Andrew: "Dave and Sarah are coming over at 7:30."
Mom: "We won't have eaten by 7:30."
Dad: "You don't need charcoal."
Mom: "The chicken probably won't even be done by then."
Me: "Well that's what Andrew told me. That's why Mom and Andrew told me to call you."
Dad: "Well, which phone did you call me on?"
Me, who remember, just woke up from a nap on my first day back from the hospital: "Wait a second. When are Dave and Sarah coming over?"
Andrew: "I told them 7:30."
Mom: "We probably won't be done eating."
Me: "I just got up."
Andrew: "Dave said he'd call first. Can't I just return the Netflix later?"
Me: "They're right there, can't you pop them in the mail on your way to... where are you going again?"
Dad: "Which phone did you call me on?"
Andrew: "There's only one movie here, where's the other?"
Me, holding up the regular ol' phone next to me: "This one, but I don't really have the vocal power to push it."
Dad: "No, it was phone staticy... You have charcoal anyway."
Me: "Isn't Ron Burgundy in the basement? Where we watched it?"
Mom: "Are we going to be done with dinner at 7:30? I don't think so. Should they be coming over then?"
Andrew: "Do I have to do this now? Where's the third? I really have to go."
Me: "We've lost the third. I'll pay for it. Please do it. Please call Dave and Sarah, I don't want to have them and dinner overlap. And I don't know what the deal is with the charcoal or the phone. Waaaaaaaaaah!" [tentatively hold fists up to eyes, then peek out from behind them to see if my ploy for sympathy has worked. It hasn't. Put hands back until everyone goes away.]

Recovery. So relaxing.