Archive for the ‘In Sickness ...’ Category

dead or alive

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

You lie awake in bed in the early hours of the morning wondering if your husband is still alive.  You heard him make a noise (it woke you up, giving you the excuse you needed to have a wee and play with your pussy; it saves the house from being shredded by his young claws) and since then you haven’t heard a peep from him.

The complete lack of movement worries you too.  The noiselessness is okay as you wear earplugs (a habit from a long-ago time when he snored so loudly it was like kipping in an aeroplane engine) so any noise has to be fairly loud to make you notice it.  But he should be twitching or fidgeting, and he isn’t.  This starts to panic you, and the panic causes you to tense up making your head ache painfully.  You can’t physically move as you imagine that the noise that woke you was his dying breath.

Why aren’t you moving?

You know that you can easily prod him, but he’s only sleeping and you don’t want to wake him up just to tell him you thought he was dead.  What happens if you prod him and nothing happens?  Who is the house insured with?

Random thoughts.

You start to write a blog post in your head.  You do this a lot when you’re unable to sleep, and mostly these blog posts never meet the World Wide Web as they become forgotten amongst hazy dreams and the cold light of day.  In your ‘i wanna sleep’ state you ‘write’ sentences such as, you get up and write a semi-naked blog post and, you played with your pussy.

The latter probably lacks something … maturity?

Eventually you can lick your lips and move your legs.  Slightly later you feel a twitch.  A minute or so after that he starts to scratch. 

Phew!

You stop worrying about things like insurance, and instead you make a cup of tea, take a couple of painkillers (free from the NHS, just like the garden shed) and log onto the Internet to write a semi-naked blog post.  Later you will leave your husband at the hospital and have no idea when he’ll be back home.

Sucks to be you, eh?

I don’t think you’re selfish

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Sometimes I get ever-so slightly irked. 

(… this statement is false; I often get very irked)

In this instance I get ever-so slightly irked by those who spout forth with self-righteous indignation about the selfishness of people who don’t want to donate their organs following their death. 

(… there was thread on ihd.com, but I can’t find it now)

Once upon a time I had a real issue with organ donation.  I was adamant that when I die I didn’t want any of my organs to be used, and I certainly didn’t carry an organ donor card. 

But if you ask me why I felt that way, I can’t give you a reasonable excuse response.  I don’t think I ever had a reason … not a good one anyway, and if I did have a reason I certainly can’t remember it now, or put it into a sentence that doesn’t sound pathetic.  However, I was not selfish - I am completely sure of that. 

Organ donation is an incredibly personal choice.  The one thing we exclsuively own (usually) is our body.  We can choose to treat our body like a temple, or we can choose to neglect/harm it.  It belongs to us, and we have the right to say what happens to all the bits that make us who we are, even (or especially) upon death.  Other people may not like that, or appreciate it, but to be so judegmental and rude (calling someone selfish is rude) doesn’t make them a better person.

So, I do get irked when folk start calling other folk selfish for choosing not to donate. 

How very dare you!

The main argument seems to be well, you can’t take them with you!, which I usually associate as being said with a smug grin. 

I won’t be able to take my money with me either, but it doesn’t mean I can’t choose what happens to it after I die.

*smug grin*

A few months ago I popped online and became a registered organ donor.  I now have a card, which I carry with me in my purse at all times, and the people who need to know, know.  I am content with my decision.  It doesn’t make me selfless.

As an aside, I didn’t tick the ‘eye’ box.  I have a ‘thing’ about eyes and it’s the one part of me that I can’t bear to imagine being used.  Yes, it is partly because I’m squeamish, but I think it runs deeper than that and until I psycho-analyse myself I won’t be able to say how deep or why.  This doesn’t make me selfish.

I have tentatively put the wheels in motion to be a living donor for Blokey.  This isn’t selfless, and it isn’t heroic. 

In fact, I’d probably say the opposite; my reasons for wanting to do it are incredibly selfish

In an ideal world we would live in a society where we had to opt-out of organ donation, but we don’t yet live in that society and I refuse to think of someone as selfish for not choosing to pop online and become a registered donor.  I don’t even have the right to question somebody on their reasons for not doing so. 

(I suppose I might try and educate them though …)

And it makes me mad that some pompous people think they do have the right.

Bah!

bedroom frivolity

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

The buzzing woke me up last night.  I was dreaming about wondering why my dad didn’t know who Carlos was (when it was pretty obvious; my SiL had put Love, Carlos the Cat … I could see it quite clearly in the email she’d sent him) when suddenly my brain is just filled with buzzing noises.  I discovered Blokey sitting up, bashing his alarm clock and looking  perplexed.

It’s not your alarm, I sleepily mumbled. 

He continued to try to turn his alarm off by taking the battery cover off in an attempt to remove the batteries.  I sat up.

It’s not your alarm, baby! (a bit louder this time.)

Mysteriously, my alarm chirped in three minutes later.  I thought it was his this time, and he thought it was the machine.  For a smattering of seconds I realised it must be Friday.  Why else would my alarm be going off?  Nope, I definitely watched the Big Brother eviction last night … it must be Saturday.

*sigh of relief*

So at six-thirty this morning I was crawling around in the cupboard under the stairs, with my bum in the air and some very unladylike language finding its way out of my mouth.  Yesterday we’d tidied the cupboard. 

I never need to use the manual bags of extraneal, put them towards the back.

Ha. Ha.

Blokey spent the whole of Thursday at the hospital; another day off work.  Fluid in; drain it off.  Repeat copious amounts of times.  All dandy.  The nurses scratch their heads in puzzlement and send him home with instructions to increase the amount of fluid that the machine puts in each time, from 2.2 litres to 2.5 litres.

Again, Ha. Ha.

Thursday night must have been the worst we’d had since Blokey started peritoneal dialysis.  I’m surprised the machine didn’t choke on its own buzzing.  The first two fills/dwells/drains took twice the time they should have done, which means the last two fills/dwells/drains didn’t really have time to dwell, so he couldn’t have dialysed properly. 

He rang the hospital.  They’ve finally agreed to let him borrow another machine for Monday night.  For months they’ve been saying that he obviously just isn’t cut out for PD and for months I’ve been saying maybe it’s the machine.  Oh no.  The machines are never faulty.

It probably isn’t faulty, but it’s a relief that they’re at least giving him the opportunity to rule it out.  And if it does turn out to be the machine?  Oh, angry post will follow!  If it is him then I think Blokey’ll be back on HD pretty soon. And however much I grumble about the PD I’d much rather he was happy about the way he has to keep himself alive.

Oh, and the good news?  He’s been activated on the transplant list.  Huzzah!

A little bit of this and a lot of that.

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

There are quibbles at work which are going to get quibblier as the weeks go on. Due to all the governments ‘inclusion’ silliness, we are changing. From September we’re changing our name, and the staffing structure, plus we’re getting slightly different kids.

Morale?

It was already low, but this just makes it lower.

There may (or may not; we are still in the consultation period and so things might change) have to be redundancies, but I get the impression they’re hoping enough staff leave naturally and the jobs can be shared amongst those who remain. I have to make a decision; do I want to stay if it means more hours at a decreased level (and therefore a decreased wage, although my current wage may be frozen, perhaps)? There us no guarantee I would get the position anyways, although by all reckoning, the competition won’t be too taxing.

Or do I feel that the time is right to move on …

Maybe, if the right position is advertised.

Everybody is huddling in corners, whispering within their little cliques. There will no doubt be battles when the teachers all decide to go for the same position. And the cleaners! Bless them! I love our cleaners to bits. They’re both about one hundred years old (perfect for not quite wanting to clean around the computers in case they break them) with failing eyesight (great for spotting those elusive cobwebs) and minds that are best left in the gutter.

They’re cutting our hours, grumbled Naughty Nan.
We won’t have time to hoover every room, moaned Irish Eyes. And you know what the boss is like, she continued shaking her head in despair.

To top it all off, the kids are (all) on Mephedrone, cOs iTz LeGaL, innit. Idiots.

At night my bedroom makes strange sounds. It whirs and buzzes, gloops and schniffles, and bomps and sloshes. Occasionally it beeps too.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Poor Tabatha-Cat must be wondering why we prefer having a machine in our room to having her in there. I miss sleeping with her curled around my head, but she’d only clambour over the Peritoneal Dialysis machine, spreading her fur and germs around.

*sad face*

We have no name for the machine. It worked for two nights, then stopped working. Blokey went back on haemodialysis for two sessions. Now he’s back on PD (since Sunday night) and [*fingers crossed*] it appears to be working swimmingly.

*touches wood, quickly*

It might stop working again because his catheter may be in the wrong position.

Still, at least he’s alive. When people ask me how he is I quite often say, ‘Well, he’s still alive!’. It throws them, and I find that amusing. I am a queen b(ee) with an itch. There are so many people who really don’t understand that if he wasn’t having dialysis he would probably have about ten days to live. And that’s a good estimate.

*sigh*

You wouldn’t believe it but I am looking on the bright side. Really. Even though I loathe Monty and all things Python …