09.30.08
souped up soviet style
I didn’t have to work today. The beauty of my job is that if I have nobody booked I can just stay home. I woke up at 4:30 when my husband got up and could not get back to sleep after he went to work. Finally at 5:30 I got up, made coffee and had some oatmeal for brekky. I had every intention of doing nothing today. Even my husband said “Take the day off and relax.” but then of course he added “Could you do a load of whites for me though please?”
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In an effort to do nothing I did two loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded AND put away!), I worked for three hours in the gardens cleaning them up and prepping them for winter, I made a huge pot of borscht (with veggies from said garden) and spaghetti sauce (real sauce from scratch) for my husband (because borscht for him is little more than an appetizer…he needs meat for dinner…bad Russian!).
It is a total pain in the ass to have to cook two meals but at least this way we both get what we want. Spag is his favorite food and I am totally a soup girl. I make a lot of bisques, broths and chowders and would happily have them for dinner every night. It is this time of year however that I get the hankering for borscht. It’s a harvest time concoction and once that nip is in the air it’s like the beets start calling me.
“Ben, we’re rooting for you!”
There are several kinds of borscht, some use a hambone for a base, some add heavy cream, some call any soup with cabbage or beets in it borscht. My mother in law is Doukhobor and she makes hers using whatever veggies she has on hand and she only adds one whole beet to the mixture and then she removes it before serving…I find it really bland that way but I love my mil so I don’t complain (to her). I’ve tried all kinds of varieties of the soup but when I make it for myself I use my mom’s basic recipe (and we’re Irish, go figure) and adjust it to my own tastes to make it awesome.
To make MY borscht you will need…
1 honkin’ pot…the one I use holds about 10 liters (2 1/2 gallons)
2(ish) liters of water
Fresh diced beets…the flavour and color comes from this root and I like it red and beety so I use several…peel them first!
2 large carrots diced
2 cans of tomatoes…I like the diced ones
8(ish) potatoes…4 cut in half and 4 diced
1 lg green pepper…diced
2 sticks of celery…sliced or diced
1/2 lb butter
4 onions…big white or yellow ones…also diced or chopped, like it matters.
1 big cabbage chopped, sliced, grated, whatever texture you prefer
Fresh dill weed…chopped…remember to remove the stems.
Directions
Put water in pot. I don’t measure (I can, I just don’t)so I fill it to just under half and turn it on med/hi. While the water is heating I peel my beets, carrots and spuds. I toss a little salt into the water and then when it boils I add the diced beets, carrots and the big chunks of spuds…don’t worry we’ll put the diced potatoes in later. As they roots cook I start prepping the other veg. If you peel the onions first by the time you chop up everything the smell is usually gone from your hands, or take a raw peeled potato (not out of the pot!) or a stainless steel spoon and rub your hands all over it under cold water. This works with garlic as well. Look at the shit you can learn by reading my blog!! Don’t put garlic in the borscht, I was just making a point. Some of you people totally have ADD. Pay attention!
water, salt, beets, spuds, carrots and canned tomatoes go in the cauldron
Now where was I?
Take two frying pans and put them on the stove. If you don’t have two frying pans, pots or woks will work. Turn both cooking vessels onto medium(ish) heat and put 1/3 of the 1/2 lb of butter in each. Don’t ask me how much that is, it’s fractions and I suck at math. Just divide the half pound of butter into three pieces and put one in each fry pan and hang onto the third one…I don’t mean hang onto it literally, that would be silly and slippery, just set it aside. Into frying pan numero uno put half of the onions and half of the cabbage and let them cook until the cabbage is tender.
cabbage and onions frying happily
Toss the other half of the onions, the celery and the green pepper into the other pan and let the flavours meld as they cook.
peppers, onions and celery oh my!
By now your kitchen is starting to smell like good Russian house and your stomach will begin rumbling in anticipation.
When the large hunks of spuds are soft remove them from the pot (it’s like fishing…without worms) and mash them in a bowl with that other third of the half pound of butter. Now here’s where things get really exciting, add the mashed potatoes to the frying pan with the peppers and onions along with the second can of tomatoes. This might seem like an unnecessary or strange step but it layers the flavours and you won’t believe how yummy this mixture tastes on its own. Get a spoon and try some, just don’t eat it all.
You can now add the diced spuds and the other half of the cabbage to the big pot which should be joyfully bubbling away (on low heat) at this point. Once the cabbage is cooked add the two frying pans (or whatever you cooked the other shit in) to the main pot, stir it all together and let it simmer another half hour (or as long as you like) to let the deliciousness meld. At this point I add fresh dill and I add quite a bit of it but I recommend adding a little then taste it, then add more and then taste. You can always add more dill but it’s hard as hell to take it out if you put in too much.
all together now!
Why cook and mash the spuds and re-add them? This helps thicken the soup so it’s not so veggie brothy.
Why fry some cabbage and boil the rest? It’s all about the flavour. Cabbage tastes different when it’s boiled vs. fried, this is the best of both worlds.
Now here’s the deal..with this and anything you cook…if you don’t like something, leave it out, if you think green beans might be good in it, chuck some in! There are no concrete rules to soup…which is good because who wants concrete soup?!
I also know this sounds like a lot of work but it’s really not all that bad, I’m just longwinded. I made this pot (and the spag sauce) in just over an hour (not including simmering time) and the bonus is that I will have leftovers for a couple days saving me from having to make anything tomorrow.
I like to eat my borscht with a dollop of sour cream and (when I’m not living la vida low carb) a thick slice of fresh white bread. Comfort food doesn’t get any better….unless it’s chocolate but I think that would ruin the soup. And as an added bonus, after eating all of that gassy goodness I’ll be able to keep up with my husband in rear exhaust for a change.
ta da!
09.28.08
sunday post
All the news that’s really unworthy of print but I’m heading out into the sunshine to play in the dirt so this is as good as it gets for today.
-We drove to the city on Friday to pick up insulation for the cabin and do a Costco meat run. We have grocery stores here but the meat at Costco is cheaper and better quality…especially the salmon…so it’s well worth the trip. Twice a year a dude comes through town peddling frozen meat and we buy quite a bit from him too. He sells things like mini pizzas, chicken cordon swiss, chicken fingers, amazing prime rib burgers, steaks and the like. It’s not cheap but it’s good stuff and pretty convenient food. We love to tell people we buy our meat from a van.
-Heiny is applying for another job in the city. It’s with CP Rail and it could be a pretty lucrative position if he gets it. I am at a point where I would be ready to move if it worked out that way. I do however worry about his stress levels if driving in the city for a day was any indication as to how he would handle it. I could be a heart attack widow within of a week of living there. He road rages like nobody’s business. Apparently all other drivers are ‘cocksuckin’ motherfuckers’.
-Yesterday we went to the lake to finish up the insulating. We still have to put up the last of the vapor barrier but the nasty work is done….without itching! Last night was the first Saturday night we’ve spent at home (and not at the lake) since May. It felt odd. I drank a bottle of wine and we watched Cloverfield (I had seen it but he hadn’t) and when he went to sleep I watched White Palace. I hadn’t seen that movie in years and I loved it all over again. Maybe the wine helped to bring out the warm fuzzy feelings.
-Three women who are close to me are ill and it’s got me worried for them and freaking about my own health. Trixie has some kind of mass in her vag. They’ve done some blood tests and an ultrasound but they still don’t know what it is. It could be a cyst or it could be cancer. She is tired all the time and leaking some kind of discharge and Harry won’t go near her lady parts because he doesn’t want to get anything freaky on him. My former boss has ovarian cysts, one is as big as a baseball, and there is some kind of growth in her uterus. A client has sorosis of the liver and she has a lump on her kidney. It makes me wonder how many of us are walking around with growths inside us that we don’t know about. I am booking my mammogram tomorrow and if I could book a full body scan I would do that too. Then again, maybe I don’t want to know if there is something wrong with me. I think it’s stressful either way. I have been getting headaches again so certainly it must be a tumor.
-I have become twitterpated. Twitter (for those out of the know) is (as my brother explained to me) like microblogging. I kind of dig it. It’s one liner posts for short attention spans, it’s fun, fast, easy and a spectacular time waster. I am at twitter.com/benher
-The new TV season is upon us, Heroes was a huge disappointment, there are too many things going on and the characters have suddenly gone completely out of character. They have a long way to go to clean up the mess they are making. Sometimes I think the writers should go back and watch the first season of some of these shows that do so well in their debut season and then tank after that to see where the magic was and try to recapture it. I also think some shows simply have a shelf life and that they should be pulled long before they reach their expiration date and drive what was a great original premise straight into the toilet….Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, etc. I was concerned about Grey’s Anatomy falling into the tanking category but the premier was much better than I anticipated. I love the new doc (Kevin McKidd from Journeyman…another promising premise that tanked) and his chemistry with Christina. I am glad Rose wasn’t pregnant, that would have ruined the entire show for me. If anyone should know how NOT to get knocked up it should be a doctor and a nurse! Now I just can’t wait for Dirty Sexy Money and LOST to start. For my dirty sexy money there is nothing on TV that is better than LOST.
-My son registered and licensed his ‘stolen’ bike in case someone tries to steal it from him…which I doubt they will do since it is from the middle ages. He rode his hot cycle to Michigan yesterday (about 5.5 miles from his home) to see if that state looked any different from Indiana. He said it looked the same. The kid cracks me up.
09.25.08
urine trouble
My uncle James (actually my aunt’s husband) works for a company that builds gas pipelines. I think he’s a carpenter or something but that is irrelevant. Yesterday they were given a random drug test and three guys on his crew panicked (they had smoked a joint on the way in that morning) and begged James to drop a sample for them. It was no skin off his penis and being a good Mormon they knew his pee would be weed free.
James started guzzling water as one of the guys ran to the first aid building to get some gloves. Carefully my uncle whizzed into the gloves, tying off the top of each as he finished. He then handed his decontaminated specimens to his co-workers and quickly they got in line to give their sample.
The pee tester stood outside of the washroom to collect the specimen jars and to verify that the employees went in one at a time. The first fellow was the bright bulb of the bunch, he just put the glove in his coat pocket so when he delivered the sample it was rejected because it was cold. He then had to pee for real with the attendant watching to ensure it was really his.
The second guy tucked the glove into his groin to keep it warm but somehow he sprung a leak. He could feel James’ urine leaking down his leg and a wet spot began to bloom in his pants. “Guys, I really gotta go, sorry, excuse me, pardon me, I just can’t hold it anymore.” he pushed his way to the front of the line so as to make his deposit before his clean supply ended up in his boot.
The third man learned from the previous two, he kept the glove in his armpit to keep it warm and he added the protection of a plastic bag in case of leakage. He patiently and calmly waited his turn to deposit and he took his cup from the attendant and marched into the bathroom with a cocky grin. He opened the receptacle and set it on the sink, he then removed the rubber glove from his armpit and tried to put a hole in it to squeeze the ‘juice’ out. Nothing. He tried to undo the knot but it was too tight. He searched his pockets and the bathroom for something sharp to pop a hole in the glove but he found nothing.
“Is everything alright in there?” the attendant called as he knocked on the door.
“Yep, just finishing up!” he squawked back quickly hoping the man wouldn’t come in to check on him.
Panic set in, there was no time to waste so he bit the end of one of the fingers to let the urine escape.
Another knock on the door.
“One sec!”
The man was really frantic now and the hole was too small to let the pee flow freely enough to fill the cup so he put the finger of the glove back in his mouth to bite a bigger hole!
09.22.08
imperial adjustments
From pretty much the moment he arrived we ceased to exist in the eyes of our family. Sometimes my husband and I wonder whether we’d have slipped so far down the popularity pole if we had decided not to breed. I can’t blame people for sending us to the second string, our boy is pretty special (spshl) and my self worth is just fine in the backseat looking for change and stale popcorn between the cushions while he soaks up the limelight.
“How’s the baby?” everyone would ask.
“Oh boy is he ever tall.”
“Does he start school this year?”
“How is he liking Kindergarten?”
“How did he handle the move and changing schools?”
“What grade is he in now?”
“I can’t believe he’s graduating already!”
“How is he liking living so far away?”
“How is university going for him?”
“Will he be home for the summer?”
And on it goes.
I could piss and moan that people generally don’t give much of a shit about where I am or what I am doing (granted I don’t really go anywhere or do anything) or how I handled all of the changes over the years…maybe that’s why I really blog, to pacify my ego by talking about myself assuming someone gives a shit. I am content to be his publicist, to live in the shadow of his perfection and brilliance…especially where his grandparents are concerned. I tell my folks that the reason he turned out so well is because he had good parents…which explains so much about me!
My point is that a great deal of the conversations I have on any given day are about The Boy, his whereabouts and what he is doing. I figured maybe it was time for an update on here as well.
The readers digest condensed version to this point…
We live in Western Canada, our son goes to university in Eastern Canada, he is taking Nanotechnology Engineering and he is in a five year co-op program which means he goes to school for part of the year and he works in his field for the other part of the year. His program goes year-round so the most he gets for time off is approximately two weeks between terms. It’s an arduous schedule but it will give him two and a half years worth of work experience (in his field) by the time he graduates. Co-op is also a great way to make contacts and get a taste of what kinds of jobs his future might hold. He is currently in an eight month work term doing research at Notre Dame University in Indiana.
He has been at ND for a month now and so far, knock on Knute Rockne (I know it’s an obscure reference but I dig it) things are going well for him and he’s enjoying it. He found a place to live in a rooming type house, he has his own big bedroom, he shares a bathroom with some fellow whose towel reeks (he asked me if I thought it would be rude if he offered to wash it just so the bathroom wouldn’t be so smelly…I told him to ‘accidentally’ burn it and buy the guy a new one) and he has his own kitchen area. All four of the residents sharing his wing actually have their own mini kitchen, a fridge, stove, sink and microwave with a small chunk of counter space, all in one large kitchen area. He says it’s not very functional for someone who likes to cook but it serves his purpose.
There were three Waterloo students hired as rad (radiation, not radical) lab assistants (rats?!)) and fortunately it seems that they all get along pretty well (one of them confused drug paraphernalia with drug memorabilia prompting visions of ‘my first toke’, ‘my first needle’, ‘my first trip to the methadone clinic’) which will make their time there easier and less lonely. They spent the first week interviewing researchers so that they could decide with whom and on which project they wanted to work. Surprisingly they all chose different researchers so there was no coin to flip or scientist to cut in half. My boy chose to work with a female on solar cells. Do not ask me what exactly solar cells are. I told him to steal me some to power the cabin and he laughed at me. Apparently there is a very big difference between solar cells and solar panels. Screw him, all his big school book learnin’ and the horse he rode in on!
Actually that’d be the bicycle that he rode in on. My kid stole a bike. Please don’t call the cops, he’ll lose his work visa. I know it makes him sound all badass but really it’s like saying he got a tattoo and then telling you it was a butterfly on his ankle. One of the professors in his lab asked him how he got to and from work every day. “I walk.” The Boy told him. “Well, it so happens that there is a bike that’s been down in the lab for months and I am pretty sure if it went missing nobody would notice.”
My boy watched the abandoned bicycle for several days to be sure that it really was without an owner and and it just continued to collect dust so one night after he’d been to the gym he stopped by the lab and took it. He tells me that if my grandpa had ridden this bike when he was a kid that the other kids would have teased at him because it was so old. He says it has no gears, no brakes and it squeaks and it is like the first bike ever made…and he loves it. I told him at least it was unlikely that anyone would steal it. He bought a lock for it anyway although I think he did so with his tongue in cheek.
The bike saves him a lot of time going to the gym and now dance classes. He has always been into hip hop but one evening while he was working out in the gym some girls came in to recruit boys to fill in their cha cha class. He has taken a few ballroom lessons and he had some time so he decided to go for it. He liked it…and they liked him. The team has asked him if he’d like to compete with them. The have even offered to cover his expenses and fees which makes the whole thing more appealing to him…and me. I did tell him that dancing (more ballroom than hip hop) is a great way to meet chicks. “I know,” he said “some of those holds are pretty close.”
Which brings me to the question he and I both get asked most often. “Does he have a girlfriend yet?” The answer is no and I am grateful for that. He’s not ready, I’m not ready! Sometimes I think he wants one, a companion and probably sex, but he knows it would be too complicated to start anything before he is settled in one place for any length of time. He also knows what a distraction a girlfriend can be and he would feel like he was torn between spending enough time with her and concentrating on his studies or his work. We had quite a discussion about it when he was home. “I am sure people think you’re gay.” I told him. “I know they do.” he laughed. “It doesn’t bother me but I worry that I won’t know what to do when the time is right.”
It was my turn to laugh then. I told him the story of when his dad and I got together and how I thought he really wasn’t into me because he didn’t make a move. Years later he admitted he hadn’t because he had no moves! I told my boy that the apple is pretty close to the tree and when the time comes everything will clumsily fall into place and it’ll be perfect.
He is feeling a little bit of culture shock, we are neighbors and we speak the same (basic) language but Canada and the US are very different. My son observes that most of the people who ride the bus and who work in the shops are black yet most of the people on campus are white. The town we live in has exactly zero black people, two Japanese families, four Chinese families and several Indian (east not native) families so he notices. The groceries are basically the same products with different names and he was very excited to find sheets for 7$ at Target. Oy am I grateful that he loves a bargain! The biggest surprise for him came when he arrived at the deli.
“What can I get ya?” the lady behind the counter asked.
“Can I get two hundred grams of black forest ham please?” he asked politely.
“You want what?” her brows furrowed and she looked at him like he had two heads and was speaking anything but English.
“Ham?” He hadn’t even thought about the US being on the imperial system and he didn’t realize that Black Forest ham wasn’t very common either.
The woman pulled out the slab of honey ham and asked the tall, thin, foreigner impatiently, “You want a lot or a little bit?”
He might need a conversion chart.
09.18.08
skin deep
I don’t write much about my work and I am not sure why I haven’t but I intend to rectify that immediately. I am an esthetician/nail tech specializing in body sugaring, a form of hair removal similar to waxing. Sugar is cooked with a little citric acid to a honey-like consistency (by the company I get my supplies from) and when I smooth it on the skin and give it a flick it extracts the hair. Sugaring removes the hair from the root so not only does it take longer to grow back but also each time the hair gets smaller and finer until the follicle finally closes up and the hair stops growing back completely. I could wax lyrical (pun intended) on the virtues of this method of removing the hair suit (hirsute, get it?) but that would be more of an advertisement and that is not what this post is about. That said, if anyone is interested has any questions about sugaring I would be happy to be more informative.
I don’t do a lot of gel nails, I have a few clients who prefer me to Trixie and while I appreciate their support I am the first to admit I am not as good as she is. Granted, she has about nine years experience and she should be good at it but the truth is I don’t love doing nails. I enjoy giving manicures and pedicures and I do a fair bit of lash and brow tinting but the ripping out of hair is really my bread and butter and honestly it is where I excel.
Much of my work is superficial, it is the nature of the business. We make fingers and toes look pretty and to some extent we are vanityholic enablers. Sometimes however the beauty of what I do goes beyond the depth of the dermis.
Every once in a while I get a client like Susan. This lady just turned fifty and she has battled the shame of her beard for many years. When most people think of a woman having a beard they think of the tiny fluff or odd whisker but Sue’s case was so extreme that she had to shave every day…with a razor…and by afternoon she already had a shadow. I had sugared her legs a few times and she was already seeing a difference in the thickness of the growth so she finally got up the nerve to ask me about her chin and what I thought she should do.
I told her to stop shaving and let me sugar it. While it is a myth that shaving makes hair grow in thicker, it does leave the end of the hair blunt which makes it grow in stubbly and appear denser and darker. Susan was so self conscious of her beard that she had a panic attack on the spot.
“I can’t let it grow, I can’t let anyone see me like that, even my husband has never seen it. Sometimes I shave twice a day just so he doesn’t notice it.”
“Oh Sue, I am sure it wouldn’t bother him in the least!”
“But it bothers me!!”
“Well,” I told her “You could let it grow over a weekend, it only has to be about a sixteenth of an inch for me to get it. Next time your husband is away working on a weekend just leave it and hide out if it bothers you that much…although I have to tell you I doubt anyone would notice and so what if they do?!”
“Oh I could never let anyone see me like that!” She was mortified but the more she pondered the prospect of actually being able to break free from the daily Schick (razor) the more she considered the possibility.
“He works next weekend but how can I come see you on Monday if I have to work? I CAN’T go to work like that!”
“I’ll come in early that day and see you before you go to work.”
“You’d come in at 8am for me?”
“Of course I would!”
I’m pretty flexible with my schedule anyway and most clients appreciate and do not take advantage of that. Sue’s was certainly a case where I was happy to go to work early.
That Monday morning she arrived wearing a cotton, peach colored, button-up shirt with the collar turned up and her head so far down it’s a wonder she could see anything beyond her shoes. She was embarrassed that someone might have seen her and she confessed to me that she panicked several times over the weekend and nearly shaved it off and cancelled her appointment.
I took her into my back room and prepped her skin. The hair was dense and coarse and covered the better part of her chin and jawline. Sue was a trooper. I was pleased at how easily the hairs slipped from the follicle but there were a lot of them…it was like a man’s beard… and I was concerned that it was hurting her. She assured me that after years of plucking and shaving that she had already deadened any pain receptors in that area and she didn’t feel any discomfort at all.
When I was finished she sat up to look in the mirror. She started to cry.
She kept starting at her reflection and touching her face. “I don’t remember it ever feeling soft like this.” she sobbed. ”I didn’t think this was even a remote possibility.” She hugged me, turned back to recheck herself in the mirror and then she hugged me again.
“I can’t thank you enough, whatever you charge me isn’t enough. If this only lasted one day I would be thrilled.”
“You should be ok for a few weeks at least.”
She began to cry again.
She was still in tears when she left and we could see her grinning as she checked herself out in the rear view mirror of her car before she drove away.
Sue comes in about every three weeks now and she says I’ve changed her life. She has her confidence back, she is no longer weighed down and held back by something beyond her control and she says she feels like a woman again.
I know my job is not exactly brain surgery, I don’t save lives and I’m not going to change the world but every once in a while I can make a real positive difference in someone’s life and that is pretty freakin’ rewarding.
09.15.08
the price of gas
His appointment was with Dr. Louey (who I call “Dr. Woody” because he married and recently had a child with his adopted daughter) who always had a great reputation despite the scandal. My husband explained his recent medical history and described his current (and recurring) symptoms. Dr. Lou had Heiny lay down on the exam table where he tapped on his abdomen.
“You’re very gassy!” he exclaimed.
“Oh yes I am.” My husband agreed…and I can verify the fact!
Lou asked about his eating habits and it didn’t take him long to deduce, “It sounds to me like you are lactose intolerant, it is not uncommon for it to develop as we age. I suggest you stay off all milk products for an entire week to see if that makes a difference.”
His fingers then pressed near my husband’s belly button and Heiny nearly sat up and punched the doc in the mouth.
“Oh, tender there?” Lou asked
“A little, yeah.” my husband dripped sarcasm.
“It feels like a herniated umbilicus to me but to be sure we’ll set you up with an X-ray, a scope (of the poop chute) and some blood work.”
Yay! At least he isn’t dying!! At least not any more than the rest of us are.
If Dr. Louey is right and the tests confirm everything then at worst my husband will have to adjust his diet (which really is more of a hassle for me!) and have a minor surgical procedure to repair the hernia. This still does not explain his pain and fever from the previous week but I am beginning to think it was something viral and (I hope) it has just gone away on its own. Being off dairy for a few days has already made him feel better so it seems that Lou knows what he is talking about. My husband is less gassy, in less pain and his bowels have stopped working overtime. Finally, a doctor who knows his shit…literally.
09.10.08
miss diagnosis
We put our lives and the lives of those we love in the hands of medical professionals. We give them our histories and access to our most private (literally) areas and not only allow them but also invite them to poke and prod us at will and without question. We believe in the hippocratic oath and we trust that they have our best interests at heart but do they?
We have a pretty decent medical system here in Canada, although after seeing Michael Moore’s “Sicko” I realize we are fairly backwoods compared to the likes of France and Cuba and so many other countries. Still, for the most part we get the attention we need when we need it, or at least we used to. Recently I heard a story about a lady here in BC who has a monster kidney stone that is impassable. She has been given the usual treatments for her ailment yet nothing is breaking the rock down to peehole size. There is apparently some sort of water treatment that is successful in such cases but there are only two machines in the entire province that do it and the soonest she can be booked in for the procedure is in 18 months. This poor woman is in extreme agony and on any number of narcotics so she is completely unable to function yet she has to wait a year and a half for what amounts to a simple day surgery!? This is bloody inconceivable (Wally Shawn). I can see if it was twenty years ago and the technology was not developed but there is absolutely zero reason that anyone should have to suffer when relief is available. How can they justify making a person who is in such dire need wait for so long?! Are there really 18 months worth of people in line for that particular remedy?
I’ve heard of people dying of burst appendixes (appendices?) in hospital waiting rooms, and I knew two people who were sent home from the emergency room (one was sent home twice in the same night) and told “It’s just the flu.” only to die later because it sure as fuck was not just the flu! In some places people wait for up to twelve hours in the emergency room…seriously it’s a wonder that more don’t die. I understand the concept of triage but if I am going to go to the ER because whatever pain I am in or injury I have sustained is bad enough that I can’t stand it long enough to wait to see my GP then I am certainly not going to be well enough to sit in a crowded waiting room and suffer unattended for however many hours until I am finally treated.
I would imagine it all comes down to money (because sadly doesn’t everything?) but we are ‘supposed’ to be a developed country. It’s not like we’re having our babies in the cornfields anymore or stitching each other up with the same needle and thread we use to patch our pants (not me personally as I sure as fuck can’t sew…people or clothing), hell we don’t even have to go to back alley butchers to have abortions anymore. We pay for our medical, do we need to pay overtime so they can clear up their schedules a little faster? Or does our government have to pony up and squeeze some sheckles out of the beaver’s ass (our nickel has a beaver on it) so this sort of medical negligence doesn’t happen anymore. We’ve come too far to backslide over a few measly dollars. Some things are just too important to not fund properly…like people.
Our local hospital has closed beds and cut back lab services. The simplest of blood tests are now sent away and can sometimes take days for results. They do ultrasounds and x-rays locally but anything beyond the basics has to be read by someone with more letters behind their name than whatever we have here. My cousin’s water broke last week but since she was six weeks premature they put her in an ambulance to drive her three hours to the nearest OB/GYN. Rather than risking delivering a (slightly) preemie here they drove her 300 km on a crappy secondary highway where she could easily have lost the baby all together (or given birth in transit) but at least these doctors asses were covered. They just handed the problem off to someone else.
Where are our priorities? What could possibly be more important or fiscally urgent than quality healthcare? In my mind, not a damn thing.
The physicians are not completely to blame, they have to answer to health authorities…imagine Nazi’s with stethoscopes and calculators…and they have to justify all of their testing and such. My issue with the doctors themselves is more about honesty.
My husband (as I mentioned) was very sick last week. He was in severe pain, short of breath and fevered. I am no diagnostician (without google) but I am pretty sure that the three symptoms combined are not a good sign. My problem with how his case was handled (and I’ve witnessed this time and again) is that they treated the symptoms before finding out what was causing them. Let’s say for instance that Heiny’s spleen was going renegade in some spastic calamity of infection. The anti-inflamatories that he was given were pretty heavy duty so if there were any flaming organs in his person I’m sure that the drugs would have extinguished them…or at least eased the pain. Likewise if his stomach was the culprit, the Zantac would have masked the symptoms and further if his heart was broken the aspirin and nitro glycerine would have patched it. Now I am not saying that they should let a person suffer untreated completely until a positive diagnosis is found but christ on a cracker if you throw enough dope at a person something is liable to stick. Now we won’t know what caused it OR what helped. Yes, of course I am glad he is feeling (a little) better but if they only treated the symptoms then surely there is still a cause to contend with. How will we know what the origin was, how serious (or not) the whole ordeal was…or if it will continue to pain him…if they stop looking once the symptoms subside?
It’s all very frustrating to me and I wish I had been here when it all went down, oh yes I would have been THAT wife. I would have asked the right questions and kept asking until I got answers. I (unlike my dear stoned hubby) would also have remembered all of the information and I would have kept after them until they got to the source of his anguish…and fixed it!
Apparently the ultrasound showed no gallstones but until the doctor gets back from holidays in two weeks we won’t know what (if anything) the test did show. They are scheduling him to see a cardiologist which leads me to believe they have no fucking idea what the problem is so they are just passing him off to another health professional. He is feeling better and he (thankfully) is at least breathing without difficulty again and for that I am also grateful but what if there is something serious going on? What if they are missing something that had they caught it early enough might save his life? He’s completely stressed about it which does nothing for his physical state. His work is a mess (again…or still) and there is enough for him to deal with without his health causing him more pain as well. I should have gone to med school.
I want to have faith in our medical system. I want to believe we matter. I also want to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny but so far it’s not looking very promising. Maybe like all other things even natural selection has become synthetic and this is just how they thin the herd.
09.09.08
bug screen
- My computer has a bug.
- bugging me
It’s not a cold or spywear or a virus or anything like that, it’s literally a tiny little bug.
I noticed it the other night crawling up my screen but when I tried to squish it I realized he was on the inside of the screen. Embarrassingly I must admit I even tried (several times) to get him with the little arrow that my mouse moves. For two days he has distracted, irritated and annoyed me but rather than be driven insane by something I can’t change (the story of my life) I have decided to embrace my uninvited guest. The other reason I am accepting his presence is because I imagine he is being exposed to all sorts of radiation inside mimac and at some point he could very well turn green and bust out of there. I won’t make him angry, I wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. That said, I have named him Bruce.
Say hello to my little friend. He’s watching…always watching.
09.05.08
man oh man
Despite my heartiest efforts to overdose on my kid and sicken myself on his presence I am still knotted up over his departure. Actually the knots were from more than him but I will get to that in a minute.
We spent the majority of his (very short) two week visit at the lake (it was the first time he’d been out in over two years) where we were able to spend quality time with each other as well as the rest of the family. My brother and his wife were out for a week and even though the weather was shit…again or maybe I should say STILL (WORST SUMMER EVER!!!)…we did manage to have some fun and even get a little work done on the cabin. We should have taken more advantage of The Boy’s great height and had him insulate the ceiling but his dad wouldn’t let him help with the roofing in case he fell off and damaged his brain. Protect the brain!! Of course it was ok if my husband fell off as apparently the pea in his melon is not worth safeguarding.
As his time to fly approached I felt myself becoming more and more despondent and I was crabby and out of sorts so it was no surprise to me when my husband woke up Sunday morning with a pain in his belly. Heiny internalizes his stress leading to the shits and gastric agony but he said this was different. He told us the pain was in his sternum. Frankly I didn’t know my dear hubby even knew what a sternum was but apparently he retained something from his first aid training beyond how to apply a bandaid. All day he complained about his sore sternum and I have to admit I kind of brushed it off as a rib out of place or a pulled muscle. Later that night he developed a terrible fever and I realized there had to be more too it. I tried to convince him to let me take him to the hospital but he refused. He wouldn’t even let me bring him home figuring he’d sleep it off and be fine the next morning.
He had been in bed about half an hour before I joined him and even though he claimed to be freezing his body was hot to the touch. He was on fire and not in the fun way. I was worried and again I tried to convince him to seek medical attention and once more he refused. I was awake all night, it was too hot under the covers with him and too cold uncovered and I was afraid that he’d croak on me and I’d wake up next to his corpse. It’s morbid I know but it’s where my mind went. His fever broke at about two in the morning and the sweating started. I’ve slept in the wet spot, it’s not pleasant but it beats the hell out of sleeping in a soggy bed in single digit temperatures. I feared we’d be popsicles by morning…which incidentally is better than being a fudgcicle.
By morning his fever had been replaced by an inability to breathe. He struggled for every gasp of air so we packed up and came home early…and still the mule would not go to the ER (it was a holiday so the clinic was not open). We got The Boy packed and organized and did up all of his laundry and my husband seemed to feel a little better toward the evening but the pain was persistent and his breathing was still laboured.
He called the clinic first thing Tuesday and booked an appointment. His pain had gotten worse overnight and he was finally admitting that there was something really wrong. Of course I was mad at him by this time because he had left it so long and I didn’t need the stress of his illness on top of the stress of our son leaving. It is all about me after all.
The Boy was booked to fly out of Cowtown at 11am on Wednesday but since he had to be at the airport by 9am and it’s a three hour drive from here we decided to go in to the city on Tuesday afternoon and spend the night in a hotel. We were afraid that even if we left home early that if there were any traffic delays or road construction he could potentially miss his flight. He also had to go through customs and immigration and that could have cost him time as well so we wanted to be sure he had plenty of time in case there were any unforeseen delays.
My husband called me after his doctor appointment to tell us that he had been taken to the emergency room as the doc wanted to do some tests. They had him on oxygen and were doing an ecg and he had been given morphine, Zantac and nitro spray and was at least able to breathe a little better. The tests were inconclusive so they decided to keep him overnight for observation and they moved him into the last available bed in the local hospital.
My anxiety level was through the roof. I felt torn wanting to spend a nice final evening with my kid and wishing I was at my husband’s side. By the time we got to the hotel the explosive diarrhea started…thankfully it waited until there was a toilet nearby and didn’t hit me in the car!! We ordered room service as we were both too beat to go out for food but despite our hunger we were both too distracted to do little more than pick at our meals. I stared at the TV long after The Boy fell asleep and finally after two ativan I was able to doze off.
I called the hospital as soon as I woke up and a very accommodating nurse took His Highness the phone so I could talk to him. He had had a rough night too, with only three TV’s in the entire hospital (and none of them in his room) he had been bored silly. He said at one point he began counting the blades of grass outside his window and he was about to start counting the shingles on the ‘prune building’ (old folks home) when Harry arrived like a knight in shining newsprint with a paper and a magazine. The good news was that they had not found anything life threatening so they’d be releasing him later but there were still a few tests that the doc wanted to run (including an ultrasound that he had to go for this morning) to check for gallstones. He was tired and cranky but at least he was alive. He can’t die, I don’t know how to pay the bills.
The airport was a clusterfuck. We had weighed The Boy’s luggage but apparently our scale is off (which means I weigh more than I thought and I’m not real happy about that either!) and he was 9 lbs over which meant he’d either have to jettison some articles or pay an extra 125$ per bag. I am totally pissed about the whole baggage situation, as it was we had to pay for luggage ($25 for one suitcase and $15 for the other) on top of his already expensive plane ticket with the addition of the fuel surcharge, Crooks, they’re all fucking crooks capitalizing on fuel increases yet when the price per barrel drops you never see that reflected at the pumps or in airline ticket prices. It’s a fucking joke and we are so being ripped off. The kid put on an extra coat and his leather jacket and we stuffed as much socks and underwear into his carry on bags as we could until we got the one suitcase to 50 lbs. He had to leave me his rain jacket and a hoody to get the other bag down to the acceptable(!) weight. It will be cheaper for him to buy new ones if and when he needs them than to spend the money on the overweight luggage. It still frosts me that they are so sticky on it, I hope it comes back to bite them in the ass when people are traveling less due to their bloated rates.
I was fighting back tears before we got to customs and the big double doors where I’d have to say goodbye to him (again!). I gave him the usual speech as I hugged him, “Don’t forget anything on the plane, keep an eye on your shit in the Chicago airport, don’t join a cult, when people are rioting over politics (or sports or anything really) just go inside and hide, don’t be scared but be cautious, call me when you get there etc.” My heart was in my throat as he walked out of sight and I headed back to the car sobbing as the weight of the past few days finally squished the tears right out of me.
I just wanted to be home.
Our son arrived safely in Chicago and caught a shuttle bus to Notre Dame and he now has a couple days to get settled and find his bearings before he starts work on Monday. This is only his second time in the US and he is culture shocked and amazed at how different everything is down there from the people to the groceries. So far he seems to be alright, I am sure he has some anxiety but if not I have plenty for both of us.
Heiny won’t know the results from his tests for a few days so until then he’ll just have to stay high on pain meds. I may have to join him, it’s been a rough week.
