He’s home

John was discharged from the hospital yesterday afternoon. I waited at home to get the word from him, and while I was there, I admit I had a bit of a panic attack. He’s not ready. Hell, I’m not ready. So all I could do as I waited was text/email friends and try to find my strength. I would have gone to the hospital to wait, but John had warned me that one of his sisters finally showed up (nice; he goes into the hospital on Tuesday and she doesn’t contact him or visit him until Sunday?), and I didn’t want to see her, so I waited at home.

When I got the call, I just moved into action mode.

Drove to the hospital. Picked up his medications at the pharmacy and spent several minutes with the doc going over them all. Naturally, they all had different instructions — different times of day, some need food, some don’t need food, one needs to be taken with the other, blah blah blah. Went up to his room and packed his stuff, talked to the nurse about the mobile unit that will be coming to his house to draw blood every other day and check his vitals. She took out the final IV and we were good to go.

Took him home, got him settled, took all his towels to go launder them. The nurse said he needed a clean towel every time he showered, no reusing. His washer/dryer are downstairs, and he’s not supposed to go up or down stairs, so I will be doing his laundry for a while. Of course, when I got in there, I could not figure out for the life of me how to work his old and very un-user-friendly washer. I know I sound like an idiot, but I absolutely could not get that damn thing to work. It turned out he’d shut off the water, and he had to call directions to me over the balcony how to turn it back on, but I kept turning spigots and nothing was happening. Meltdown #2.

Finally got that working. Tried to organize his meds, but there were so many, it was hopeless, and we ended up snapping at each other. He needed pill organizers, which I’d need to get at the pharmacy. So I went out to the pharmacy and two different markets to get him groceries, and then back to the pharmacy because I’d forgotten to buy the anti-bacterial soap. Back to his house, unpacked everything, put the towels in the dryer, gave him some food. Then I spent about an hour (I’m not kidding) organizing all the meds. This isn’t even all of them:

And this is what I ended up with:

Four separate organizers, each labeled with a post-it about when to take them. This is for one week. Each Sunday when I’m there, I will do this. It will be easier next time, I’m thinking.

John is supposed to hug a pillow to his chest whenever he coughs, to keep everything in there from getting too jarred. I kept catching him without the pillow and coughing. It made me nuts. I tried to give him his meds and he questioned everything. Had to show him the bottles so he could see I was giving him the right things. I had to coax him to take Imodium, even though he’d been in the bathroom countless times for the past couple of days. He’s not the best of patients, and I’m a crap nurse. So there were tense moments.

It was nearly 11:00 PM when I left. John was fed, had taken his meds (even a pain pill, which he’s been resisting as well), had clean towels, had everything he needed. This morning, the mobile hospital unit would visit him. His neighbors, who work at home, will be checking on him.

I still needed to get my own groceries, so I was in the market at 11:30. I then realized I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since 11:00 that morning. Not good. I got home, drank water, ate. Caught up with emails and texts. Crashed.

Today, I am a zombie. I think John is actually doing better than I am. Again, not good. I need to get my shit together.

John was sweet. He said I did great, that everything got done, he’s home, he’s in one piece, he has everything he needs. He claims I was “a little nervous.” I said no, I was hysterical. I yelled. I cried. I was awful, and I’m so ashamed.

No gym today. I have work to do, and I need to decompress and be quiet. I will probably go see him tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for the continued concern. Please continue to hold good thoughts.

Has it only been four days?

Feels like a lot longer. I’m so tired. But the news is good.

After being in ICU for three days and kept fully sedated, with a pump inserted that was essentially working his heart for him, a respirator and a million other contraptions keeping him going, John was taken off the pump and the respirator last night, and allowed to waken. And this morning, he was taken from ICU to a regular room. 🙂

Wednesday and Thursday, I went to the hospital in the late morning/early afternoon, and his brother went later. All we could do was sit in ICU and watch him breathe. On Thursday, he was more mildly sedated, so he was moving around a little, but not conscious. I told him over and over that I loved him, I stroked his hair. And then I left, because there wasn’t anything else I could do.

But later Thursday night, I got a text from his brother: “Look who’s back among the living!”

I was overjoyed to see his eyes open, and see the color back in his face. Shortly after I got the text, his bro called me, and then put John on the phone. At first, I just heard breathing, then a lot of mumbled gibberish. “Hi sweetie! What, honey? What did you say?” I cried. Finally, I heard, “Lubyuveymush.” Which translated, of course, to “Love you very much.” ♥

The first thing I did was text that picture to Alex and SpankCake, to John’s co-worker/friend and to a couple of other friends. SC, ever mischievous, texted back a photo of herself, beaming and holding up a sign that read: “Hi John! Welcome to 2017!”

Today, I got there around noon, and stayed there all day, leaving at 7:15. He was sitting up in a chair; he’s still hooked up to IVs and drains, but he is fully awake, eating solid food, talking. He’s very weak and isn’t supposed to stand without help, but he was able to use the restroom with assistance and they had him walking around the floor. At lunchtime, he was struggling with his food a bit, so I cut things up for him and fed him. By dinnertime, I still cut up his chicken breast, but he fed himself completely and ate everything. He’s drinking more water, too — at first, he wasn’t, because he kept aspirating the water. But after some practice, he got better at it. The nurse was gently insisting that he drink more, because he needs to stay hydrated.

Kaiser Permanente (his HMO) is quite the mixed bag. Their administrative staff can be really difficult, and some of their doctors are kind of harried and impatient, but overall, the doctors and nurses give top-notch treatment. John had round-the-clock care in ICU, and today, he was checked on all day, and treated very gently, kindly, and politely. Which isn’t easy, because John, my beloved, is not the easiest patient. He challenges and questions everything — I watched him resist his pain meds, and his nurse never lost patience, just let him put them off, all the while convincing him that it really was a good idea to stay on them, even though he was feeling OK at the moment. Sure enough, he took them, an hour later. (sigh) You have to know how to handle this man. Push, and he resists. Gently cajole, let it seem like it’s his idea, and he capitulates. Even his brother, when he came this evening, said, “It’s good to see you back to your stubborn self.” When John shot him a look, he teased, “I’m sorry… was ‘stubborn’ too harsh a word?” John said, with exaggerated dignity, “I prefer determined.” Humph.

Of course, there had to be comic relief every now and then. When you enter the main building, you have to check in at the front desk, show your ID and get a name tag with the floor number that you’re visiting. So yesterday, after having checked in for the past two days, I knew the drill and stepped up to the counter, where a flustered-looking young woman was clearly in training, with an older woman right behind her. I said, “Hi, I’m visiting Cardiac ICU on the Third Floor.” She looked blankly at me and then said, “Are you the patient?”

Um… WHAAAT?? I stared at her, then I couldn’t help it… I burst out laughing. No, sweet pea. I’m not the patient; I’m visiting the patient. She asked for his name, then my name, then futzed with my driver’s license, all the while giggling nervously. Yeah. She’ll go far.

Oh, and I’m supposed to tell y’all — when I arrived at John’s room today, and walked up to his chair to give him a kiss hello, the first thing he did was snake his arm around me and grab my ass. rolling eyes

I have never been more grateful for texts and emails in all my life. The past few days, I’ve heard from so many concerned people, wanting to know how John was (and how I was). And as much as I appreciated them all, if I’d had to talk to them all on the phone, I would have lost my mind. So I’ve been very nimble-fingered, catching people up, texting friends, his brother and sister-in-law, his co-workers, his neighbors. John is one well-loved man, it turns out. And as for me, I have received my own acts of kindness. Both John’s neighbors and his bro/sis-in-law sent ME flowers! John’s not allowed to have flowers, plants or balloons in his room, so he jokingly told people, “Send the flowers to Erica instead.” But I didn’t expect to actually get them!

Unfortunately, I can’t bring him sweets either — he’s not allowed to have chocolate! No caffeine. (sigh) I hope that won’t go on for too long. John loves his chocolate.

I have been taking care of myself, promise. I’m eating and sleeping and I even went to the gym. Did laundry, kept up with bills and errands, the usual stuff. The things that fall to the wayside when you’re consumed with worry. As timing would have it, I had almost no work this week. While this is obviously not something I wish to continue, it was for the best this week.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to his house to collect the mail, go in and do some cleaning, and then I’ll head back to the hospital. Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and good thoughts. You guys have really helped keep me going. And I promise I’ll let you know when John goes home! 🙂 They won’t let him go until they can unhook him from all the apparatus, he is fully mobile and ambulatory and his vitals have been stable for a while. Personally, I hope they are conservative about it. He’s well taken care of in a completely sterile environment, so let him stay there a bit, I say. We’ll see.

Sleep time. After I eat my and John’s share of chocolate. I’ve earned it.

A quick update

It’s 9:00 p.m. I left the hospital at 8:00, after being there since 11:00 this morning. John came through the surgery, but it took longer and was more difficult than they thought it would be, because of the extent of damage to the valve and the effect all that strain had on the rest of his heart. However, they were able to repair the valve, and didn’t replace it. The doctor couldn’t resist saying, “He should have done this a couple of years ago.” You think? Ugh. Maybe he would have if you guys hadn’t dicked him around for so long, insisting he get a replacement when he wanted a repair. You wanted to go the easy route, and he wouldn’t let you.

I basically sat in the waiting room and didn’t move unless I had to use the restroom. I waited and waited and waited. Steve came to be with me for a couple of hours, and then John’s brother came around 6:00. The doctor had come to see me about 2:45, and told me that I could see John in about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Three and a half hours later, I still hadn’t seen John and no one was telling me anything. For a while, I just sat in that damn chair and bawled. I felt so powerless.

Finally, a nurse came to talk to us, and then the doctor came again. He said they are having trouble getting John’s heart to stabilize, so they had to put him on something called a balloon pump and a respirator. And they had to sedate him so he would keep still. He will be in ICU for the next couple of days until things stabilize and he can breathe on his own, and then they will move him to a regular room. After that, he’ll be in the hospital for another 5-7 days.

We got to see him. Christ. He was hooked up to all sorts of stuff with a million cables and wires, and he was unconscious. I told him I loved him anyway, even though he couldn’t hear me.

Can you believe this mess??

Insult to injury — the fucking parking cost $16.

So. I am home. I had a bowl of cereal at 9:00 a.m. and a bag of pretzels at 3:30 p.m. Guess I need to eat something, huh? I am deliriously tired, but wired at the same time. Tomorrow morning, I will call the hospital and see how he is, and begin the vigil once again. For now, I hope I can sleep.

Thank you to everyone — for all the tweets, the comments on Facebook and FetLife, the texts, the emails. I will do my best to answer everyone individually. But for now, I need to shut off for a while.

More later.

It’s time

This time tomorrow morning, John will be in surgery.

It’s been a strange and surreal few days. We’ve been very loving with one another, and also on edge with one another. We’re both nervous and wound up. We planned everything very carefully. Now it’s in the hands of the surgeons.

Tomorrow morning, the head of cardiac surgery will hold John’s heart in his hand. And mine, too.

I have his bag packed and in my car. He will be in the hospital about five days, if all goes well. He has to be at the hospital tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m., and surgery won’t be until at least 7:30. It should be about four hours, give or take. So he didn’t want me to drive him to the hospital; he’s taking a cab. He’s totally OK with that; I took a cab to my surgery too, five months ago. I will go to the hospital mid-morning, park myself there and wait. He made sure to tell me where the hospital cafeteria is, assuring me that it has big comfy chairs and plenty of outlets to charge my phone. Always thinking of me.

I have a list of numbers. I have instructions. I have the durable power of attorney and medical power papers.

We tried to follow our usual routine this weekend, going to our usual places. John was told to eat a lot of leafy greens in the week before surgery, so I brought a ginormous tub of “Power Greens” and dressing to his house on Friday night, and made sure he noshed on it all weekend. We even brought a Baggie of it to our lunch restaurants and beefed up the salads he ordered.

I helped him vacuum and clean. I took him to get his hair cut. It’s super, super short, so that washing it will be easy for him.

The issues with his family and the mother’s estate/will were supposed to be resolved before his surgery, with a meeting of the siblings. His sister cancelled it, no explanation. So everything is still unresolved. This will probably get even uglier at some point. For now, however, we have other things to worry about.

John’s brother and sister-in-law have sworn up and down that they’ll be there for him. I’m still skeptical. But we’ll see.

I’ve gotten some nice texts and emails. People are being supportive and kind, and that means the world to me. Because, honestly, I’m a fucking basket case. I cried four times this past weekend. I’m supposed to be strong for John. And yet, he was asking me if I’m OK. That’s so not right.

Today, I tried to distract myself. I worked, I went to the gym, I went to the car wash. On the way home, a normally five-minute drive was about 20 minutes, choked with cars and honking, because of a bad accident and then road construction past that. I was screaming in my car at the stress of it. All I wanted to do was get home, you know? My nerves are so high strung, it’s not taking much to snap them right now.

John had promised to send me an email with all the contacts and information I needed. He forgot. So he sent it to me tonight, and I tried to print it out, and my printer wasn’t working.@#$%&!! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to look up Troubleshooting and clean the print nozzles, which were clogged. I really wanted to throw the damn thing out the window, but knew that would be counterproductive. Please. Things really need to work right now. I have no fortitude leftover for even the least bit of complications.

I think it’s been the endless waiting that did me in. I’ve had too much time to think, too much time to watch John deteriorate. YEARS of this. Now all I can think about is the worst-case scenarios, all the bad things that could happen. This needs to be over. For both of us.

On Saturday night, we were walking to our restaurant and I could hear the all-too-familiar sounds of his panting for breath. Even a short, flat walk does it. He never complains. But that night, he said casually, “It will be nice to be rid of this.” Yes indeed, my beloved Captain Understated. It will.

John will be home for six weeks. He can’t drive, but he will not need home care. I’ll make sure he has everything he needs. Unfortunately, even though he has a nice new TV, he has the crappiest of basic cable and doesn’t get any of the good movie stations. So I bought him seven DVDs, seven of his favorite movies. Those, plus his usual History Channel and CNN, will keep him occupied, I think.

I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God, so I don’t pray. Friends have asked if I mind if they pray for John. No. I don’t mind. I’m honored for anything anyone wants to do for him. It’s more than his family has ever done.

So yes, please. Positive thoughts, vibes, whatever you want to send John’s way, please do. And to me, too. So I don’t fall apart. So I can be strong for him. Or at least put up a strong facade publicly and in front of him, and fall apart and weep in private. As I’m doing now.

Dammit. I wish I weren’t such a baby.

Tomorrow is tomorrow. Tonight, I need to get some sleep.

Thanks for reading my babbles.

Things kinky girls say

So my girls Alex and SpankCake joined me for dinner on Wednesday evening, and we chatted and giggled for our usual few hours. You may wonder what we talk about, during these marathons of ours. Well… Let’s just say that on occasion when we’re overheard, it would be really embarrassing if it weren’t for the fact that we’re never going to see these people again. 🙂

Alex was running a bit late, so SC and I were sitting in the entry area chatting. The week before, for Joe’s birthday, she’d posted a rather hilarious photo for him on FetLife: it was a close-up of her bottom, and a lit birthday candle was poked into the cleft! (No, it wasn’t inserted, you pervs.) On her left cheek, she’d written (in icing, it looked like) “HBD, Joe.” It got quite the reaction, as you can imagine. So, as we were sitting there in this very noisy restaurant, I blurted, “Oh my God, that picture — how did you get that candle in your ass?” And right at that moment, there was a lull in the swirls of conversation… just in time for “candle in your ass” to reverberate around the room. Whoops…

Later at the table, we were discussing the picture of me standing by my closet, holding up the granny pantyhose. I said that Steve had insisted on seeing them, and then SC said, “Did he sniff them??” Aaaand right at that moment, our waiter came to the table. Whoops again…

No worries, though. He was kind of a jerk anyway. Young guy, tall and handsome, with the unlikely name of Chad, clearly doing this until his acting career took off. He kept hovering, waiting for us to pay our check. When SC and I had coffee, he brought the sugar/Sweet n Low container. Then he took it away, and didn’t offer us refills until we asked for them. When he poured mine, I asked if he would please bring the Sweet n Low back. He brought me one packet! Sheesh. Oh, and he called me “ma’am.” Nuts to you, Chad.

I wish I didn’t have to pixellate SC! Here we are:

Still later, the three of us were talking about the earlier days of spanking videos (the 80s) and Miss Alex referred to them as “the olden days.” I was taking a sip of water and I froze, giving her a look over the top of the glass. She laughed and said it was the toppiest look she’d ever seen on my face.

Cut to the day after, when she tweeted about the look I’d shot at her. I tweeted back that when people make comments about “the olden days,” my deeply buried inner top comes to the surface! Next thing I knew, Paul was tweeting something like, “Well, MY inner top isn’t buried at all.” I reckon he didn’t take kindly to the olden days comment either, as was evidenced by some photos that Alex posted shortly thereafter, of him taking her to task. 😀  I’m posting the first one, because I think it’s adorable, and the look on Alex’s face is so damn cute I can hardly stand it:

Geeez, I love these people. ♥

Crappy service aside, dinner was delicious, and we split a chocolate soufflé with Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce on top afterward. (Hey, it was small, and when you share stuff, the calories are lessened. Right?)

Here’s to lots more girls’ nights out with kinky chat!

On another topic, I have been bummed because ever since my move to WordPress, my readership has plunged. My new URL isn’t showing up on search engines, and even though I’ve posted reminders all over the place and I put up the “I HAVE MOVED” notice on the old blog, people just aren’t coming to the new one. Someone suggested something called a “redirect,” which is a techie thing that I have no idea how to do, so I asked my friend Jesse if he knew how to do this — I said I’d be happy to pay for him to do so. However, it seemed like a simple thing for him and he went ahead and did it. Now, when people go to my blog’s Blogger version, the screen stays on it for a few seconds, and then it automatically bounces to the WordPress version! Pretty cool, huh? Folks, if you ever have any tech needs with your blogs or websites, I can heartily recommend this man — he’s very nice and great to deal with, always answering questions promptly and thoroughly. I have his OK to post his email here: jsmith@resonatingmedia.com  Oh, and just another reminder to fellow bloggers — if you haven’t updated your blog roll link to my site, please take a minute and do so — thanks!

Have a great weekend, y’all.

Improvisation

Steve came over yesterday! I was planning to go visit him, but it turned out he’s out and about already and he was seeing a client in my area, so he came by. He even left his crutches in the car and hobbled to my apartment. His knee is stiff and sore, and he has to do PT to keep the flexibility and strength, but he’s driving and so forth. Still has to be careful, though. So I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to play. Which was OK, because I just wanted to see him.

The first thing I did when he walked in was pinch his arm, since he wasn’t wearing green. 😀

While we were chatting, I put him on the couch with a pillow on the coffee table so he could put his leg up; he needs to keep it straight while at rest. So traditional OTK was out. However, inspired by the position in which Joe and I played at 50 Freaks, I suggested that Steve sit up on the bed, his legs extended, with pillows behind his back, and I could lie across his thighs. So we tried setting him up like that. He pronounced it quite comfortable.

He was still grumpy, however.

Ruh roh! Folded arms!

I very carefully draped myself over his thighs, avoiding his left knee. We weren’t able to set up the camera or do anything fancy, but that’s perfectly fine. All I wanted was some connection and some stress release; I was so freaking wound up after last weekend. The cell phone camera would do.

Payback from the arm pinch came in the version of thigh slaps, apparently:

He did prepare me for them, however. He announced that he was going to, and then took his sweet time, making me sweat it out, wondering when they’d hit. Beast.

Note to self: Never mention pantyhose on my blog again. He read about I wore them to the memorial, and he just had to see them. I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that he didn’t make me put the damn things on.

Not that I’m a big ham or anything…

Back to the spanking — it was a classic pressure-cooker release. I felt the bottled-up tension escaping from my pores as I welcomed the sting and impact, vaguely aware of his voice behind my head, saying, “This is mine.”

No play date next Tuesday, because… well, you know. So this will have to tide me over for a bit. But I feel refreshed. And he was happy. Perhaps he needs to incorporate spanking into his physical therapy program. 🙂

And now, I am off to an early workout, so I can go have dinner tonight with my girls! Happy Hump Day, y’all.