So. For the last couple of months I’ve been looking forward to this weekend. I had several vacation days lined up and we were planning on a jaunt to Toronto to go to TCAF where there’d be mountains and mountains of comics and graphic novels to look at and buy. Instead the closest I got to an interesting graphic experience looked like this.
After a 16-hour stay in the emergency department, I have learned
- If you keep vomiting up your painkillers, a trip to the emerg is probably a good idea.
- Also if you need to pee but can only pass about a tablespoon at a time, a trip to the emerg is also a probably a good idea.
- There’s a lot of waiting even if you’re rocking back and forth in pain.
- Gravol eventually works. Happy bonus: it will put you asleep so you don’t notice the pain.
- Intense lower belly pain could be an ovarian cyst and you will get a pelvic exam. This will be especially surreal if your partner is in the room with you and you know he’s taking mental notes for a comic he’s working on.
- The staff doctor will have second thoughts about the resident’s evaluation and will order blood work. When they say it will take an hour to get the results back, they are being wildly optimistic.
- Eventually the blood work will reveal that your kidneys are in trouble and you need an IV to replace the fluids you’ve been hurling up. It’ll also make it easier to do the CT in the morning too.
- The vein busy nurses prefer to use for an IV hurts more than you’d think.
- A stretcher in the back corridor is a weird place. I didn’t need to learn as much as I did about the cleaning staff. The cleaner who wore his latex gloves into the bathroom, peed, and then came out still wearing the gloves needs a refresher course in personal hygiene. The cleaner who was looking for attention and sympathy from patients on stretchers needs to rethink her job choice.
- There are two CT machines. Your paperwork will not be at the first one you’re wheeled to. Your partner will get semi-lost trying to follow your speeding stretcher to the other CT machine.
- By the time you’re inside the CT machine, you’ll be so tired that you will find the "hold your breath" icons intensely amusing.
- If you’ve been there a long time, especially past a shift change, you may need to make a small fuss to get someone to chase the CT results.
- Kidney stones are incredibly painful.
Heather
And he’s walking around the living room in his wellies with a dust pan full of broken glass.
From his point of view, it’s a triumph that the glass was empty.
Heather
Whatcha been doing? Why the blog silence?
May not be to scale
Basically, a sudden increase in work on the paid-labour side of the books. Thankfully it’s mostly interesting.
Heather
Bird sound wars. My site beats his–more variety.
In your relationship, which one is Pinky and which one is the Brain?
Good things:
In March Douglas sent out Shaolin Cricket, saw Queen in Toronto, and had some good beer. And inherited a laptop.
In April, Heather got new specs and a luxurious second set of reading glasses.
In May, Heather finally managed to convince the flyer people to stop dropping an inch’s worth of paper on the stoop every week.
In June we both discovered Alison Bechdel’s books.
We started the blog in August. We have readers! And the porch ceiling finally got painted.
In September Douglas saw Billy Bragg live. Heather went to Frenchy’s.
In October we saw Alison Bechdel live!
In November the Americans turfed the Republicans out of Congress! Hooray!
Bad things:
War in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Trailer Park Boys movie was a disappointment. When exactly does it take place?
Heather spent the December shutdown sick in bed.
Miscellaneous good reads: Bechdel’s Fun Home, A Woman of Berlin, Coady’s Mean Boy, Waters’ Night Watch, Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans, MacAulay’s Crew Train, and George Elliott Clarke’s George and Rue.
We now specialize in the lazy winter holiday. I count as the laziest since I get a week or so off between solstice and New Year’s; Douglas is less lazy since he gets only three days.
Yesterday was extra lazy. No one felt like cooking so we ate the figgy bread pudding for breakfast, snacked on good cheese all afternoon, and treated ourselves to cold chicken sandwiches in the evening. And since no one felt like going outdoors, we stayed in reading graphic novels and chattering all day long.
Today was less lazy since showers were taken and some shoveling took place. I’ve also been informed that hockey cards were purchased during a constitutional stroll. And since I felt less lazy today, a roast is cooking away with lots of root vegetables. Still too lazy to make a pie.
Not exactly a traditional holiday but it suits us. Now, if only I could do something about all this hockey.
Last year’s green stripey pair have been joined by these.
I hope the other more sedate unders don’t start to feel neglected.
H, picks up phone and dials his work number.
D, answers: “Hello Fragrant WorkPlace.”
H: “Do we have a hacksaw?”
D: silence.
H: “So, do we have a hacksaw?”
D: “Yeeessss. It’s in the toolbox.”
H: “Ok, bye.”
D: “Wait. Wait. ”
H: silence.
D: “What do you need the hack saw for?”
H: “To hack something.”
D: “Can’t it wait till I get home?”
H: “Nope. Gotta do it now.”
D: “Do what?”
H: “Hack off that rusty-shower-thing. I got a new one.”
D: “Use the red-handled wire cutters.”
H: “Didn’t work. Gonna use that hack saw. Gotta go. Bye”
D: “Wait. Wa. . .”
Click.
It’s a crap excuse for a hack saw. Blade doesn’t stay in place. But it was better than the pruning saw, the wire strippers, the exacto knife, and the wire cutters. I have defeated the rusting-shower-thing.
There’s the phone.
H: picking up the phone but saying nothing as an attempt to foil the telemarketers
D: “Hello. Hello. Hello.”
H: “Oh hi”
D: “So how many fingers do you have?”
H: “Enough. Why?”
D: “Weeelll. The line was busy. And I thought maybe you’d had to call emergency and then left the phone off the hook.”
H: “But why.”
D: “The hack saw. You. Teetering on the edge of the tub. Whack. Slip. Blood.”
H: “I used a chair.”
D: “Okaaaay.”
H: “That’s a crap hack saw. And you need a new blade.”
D: “Okaaay. I’ll see you later.”
H: “Yup. Bye.”
You know, since he’s already imagining blood-spattered bathrooms, this may not be a good time to recommend Haddon’s Spot of Bother which I finished yesterday even though I did have to close my eyes for a bit in the middle.
Heather
