Less than 24 hours post-op Warren is off IV, off the respirators, sitting up, eating, drinking and talking.  Coherently, even.  Being able to talk to him (however briefly, as he was still very drugged) was such a relief.  Seeing him on a respirator was like seeing a shell.  Now I'm reassured that the person is still in there, too -- however dumb that may be.  :)

Too busy to update much more.... but no news is, in this case, very good news!

Ten hour surgery went off without a hitch!  No blood products needed, even! 

The surgery was done around 5:45 this afternoon and they tried to wake him up at midnight.  As the sedation wore off, the 6'6", 225 lb strong dude "got a little wild" according to the ICU orderly.  I asked a couple more questions, and apparently he clobbered a nurse in his semi-stoned flailings as he came to.  They've decided to sedate Mr Fighter until tomorrow morning when a big strong doctor is around to contain him. 

They reassure me it's a common response, and whereas I'm a compulsive worrier, this sounds like the big strong stubborn ass that I'm married to, so I've decided not to worry about this one.  Hopefully tomorrow morning he comes to a little more peacefully!

Thank you all for ALL the thoughts and energy sent this way.  More when I know more!

Warren had his angio 630 Monday morning, which confirmed that everything is structurally sound except the aortic root.  However, he experienced some recurrent internal bleeding and was held over, and will probably stay tonight as well.  Right now he's stable and under observation. 

I'm in a hotel 1/2 block from The Running Room and 2 blocks from the trails.  I wonder what I'll do.

I'll update when I know more! :)

Warren's surgery date is June 11.
The next few weeks are abuzz with appointments, the first of which is an angiogram on Monday. 
I'm still rather adrenaline flooded so thinking is hard.  Will update more after I eat some icecream and think.

I had a half of beef delivered today.  Yep.  272 pounds o' frozen cow. 
(organic grass fed no hormones added cow, to be precise)

In order to store said beef, I needed to get a freezer out of storage.  We only have a small storage room.  In it we have our washer, dryer, and two chest freezers.  My strong husband unit had stored the freezers one on top of the other when we moved up here.  Said husband unit was at work today, and even if he wasn't, he certainly can't lift it down any more. 

I have no friends up here.  No one I could call.  And 272 pounds of pristine cow was threatening to melt all over my kitchen floor.

I had to.

It's not that big.  It's about 3 1/2 feet tall, 4 feet wide, and 2 1/2 feet deep.  It's a big, hollow, insulated box.  Just slide it off the other freezer (also about 3 1/2 feet tall) and drag it out of storage, down the hall and into the kitchen, right? 

Well, I did it, but my spine has a weird divot where it didn't before, and it's really annoying.  I think it will hurt tomorrow.

I will go see the chiropractor tomorrow.

At least the cow is frozen. 

I HATE SNOW.
I especially hate snow which falls on May 13th. 
Don't even think about it, May 14th snow.  Just go away.

I'm trying to write about Sir Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and all I can think about is how much I hate snow and how much I hate landlords that turn off heat arbitrarily.  At least consult a thermometer.  I don't care if the calendar says May.  The thermometer says its nine degrees Celsius in the house.  Heat please.  Now. 

Or I'll have to build a bonfire in the living room.
I have the fuel.  Civilisation is pretty horrible.
The end.

As always I'm walking on thin ice re: god-type-dudes.  Honestly I'm not trying to offend anyone here; I watched a movie.  I would like to report on said movie.  If you and said movie cannot reach a peace accord, please do not click ( here. )

Dr Cels, my History professor, just emailed me out of the blue to say that he feels I am a talented, thoughtful pupil and that he admires my zeal.

I have zeal?

Never again transpose the T and the M in www.hotmail.com.
My eyes won't survive another bout.
Also, I don't know any men who would wear such a thing.

Actually, the stubborn bleep bleep is at work. 

But, he was released with a bunch of codeine and told to take it easy.  No news on whether the surgery will happen sooner as a result of all this brouhaha, but we can all hope.  It really isn't that far away as it is.  It just FEELS like an enormously long time.... gah.

In other news, I set my one mile PR this morning -  6:43.  Go me!

I got my teethers fixed!  Check out my facebook profile pic.  I can't believe it.  I've been waiting 20+ years for that.

Also I am really, REALLY behind on my history class.  I need to fix that.  

I'll probably die of swine flu first.  

I need coffee.  

The end.

Is stable and being held in the local hospital for more tests and whatnots.  Still whacked out on pain killers. 

I watched Religulous last night, and will be back with commentary on that later, when I am not going in seventeen directions. 

He is en route to Edmonton via ambulance right now.

Went in around 5 am with immobilizing pain to the top left quadrant of the chest radiating into the back, arm, and jaw.  They pumped him full of morphine and were not satisfied that the pain was entirely of pectoral-muscle origin, so they sent him off to Edmonton. 

Whereas I'm pretty sure he's going to be fine, and whereas I'm quite thankful that the doctors don't want to take chances with him, my body didn't appreciate the adrenaline infusion and I'm not in a wonderful mood about it.  I'm going to go for a ten-mile loop and see if I can shake it off. 

I'll let you know more when I know more.

terdos and I have known each other for 23-ish years, since our respective mothers put us in the same playschool class in Lucky Lake. 

Next in is meirionwen , coming in at 9 years. 

Until very recently, my friends list was a collection of people I knew in real life or through one degree of separation (maliekai ), and I didn't realize until just now how different that has become over the last six months.  The interwebz people now outnumber the real ones.  Freaky.

My husband said something to me yesterday that made me want to rip his testicles off and feed them to him while he was saying it.  I didn't, and instead I dwelled on it for a couple hours before I realized he was right.  I hate it when that happens.  But.  He was right.

I was whining and snivelling about how my children are thriving in spite of me, not because of me; how useless I was and how I haven't done enough with my life.  I was generally allowing myself to spiral off into depression and the whole "what's the point" mentality.  I was bawling.  He was losing patience, and said:

"Well, look.   Here's how I see it.  You wake up, and you do things, and you go to sleep.  And then you wake up tomorrow.  And that pattern is going to continue tomorrow, and the next tomorrow, until there ARE no more tomorrows for you, in which case it doesn't matter anymore.  So, between waking up and going to sleep, you have a choice -- you can either make a difference in the ways you would like to, or, not!  It's that easy."

And, perhaps sensing imminent de-testiculization in his future, he then left the room.

As much as I wanted to slap him down verbally and tell him that it's not that easy, that my mind doesn't flow to positive things, that I can't flip a switch and say LOOK AT ME I AM GENUINELY HAPPY, that this is probably hormonally- AND seasonally- complicated (and is therefore not within my control).... he's right.  Even if my moods aren't entirely within my control, my ACTIONS are. 

What will I do today to make a difference in the ways I would like to?  Well, honestly, I'm at home with two sick kids today.  Yeah, its probably SuperDuperSwineFlu or something silly like that.  They're not moving hardly at all.... odd for them.  Would playing a board game with them qualify as "making a difference"?  Do kids remember those things? 

When I hear "make a difference" I hear grand, huge implications.  Elimination of world hunger and somesuch.  I suppose it doesn't have to be, but I have difficulty believing that putting a ketchup smiley face on my kid's basted eggs qualifies.  Yet that is the mundane pace of my life at the moment.  What can I do to make a difference today?  What are YOU doing to make a difference today?

I MUST BE POSITIVE!



Snow is almost GONE!!!
(It's snowing right now.  But that, too, will melt.)

Can you see the snowball? 

OK look I *intentionally* didn't give Wendel my address. 
You know that.
And you know why.
Mom has been instructed to reply "Middle Earth" next time you ask where I live.
So please.... just.... stop.  Please.
I'm trying to move on.  It can't be repaired.  Just.... please.  Stop. 

About that essay I mentioned in the last post...

I pretty much looked at the grade, went "bwahahahahaha cool", and set the essay aside.  Today, I actually leafed through it to see what kind of comments the prof had made.  There was very little editorial comment, some red circles around some of my endnotes (formatting has always been my death, especially MLA style), and some happy faces (!!?!!).  There was also the following edit, which has pretty much boiled my blood since I read it:

"Classical languages and philosophy gradually disappeared from public schools after World War II, and Sir Kenneth Clark feared that the loss of "Civilisation" as he vaguely defines it was imminent.  Fewer  LESS people were attending church on a regular basis, modern art forms and music exploded in popularity (to the exclusion of traditional craft) and solid, traditional institutions such asmarriage and the family were challenged regularly." 

I may have to make a voodoo doll.  The English language cannot defend itself, and I will not stand idly by while it is in pain.

I cannot believe my History Prof is working on Easter Monday.

Furthermore, I cannot believe that the poorly-thought-out, largely incoherent essay which was written piecemeal over the last several weeks and edited (at least partially) by an inebriated, emotional freak received a 94%. 

I need the money to go to an elite university, man.  These western Clown Colleges are KILLING ME.

Finishing up a knitting project this morning and deeply engrossed in CNN: All Propaganda All The Time, I absent-mindedly broke the yarn with my hands instead of reaching around to find my scissors and thus interrupting my Daily Indoctrination.  It didn't work, because apparently snapping yarn is highly intriguing to the five-year-old mind, and the following ensued:

William:  What did you just do with that yarn mom?
Me:  What did it look like I did?
William:  Broked it!
Me:  Yes, I'm all done so I didn't need the rest of it.  
William:  Wow, you're super strong!
Me:  (holding out a piece of yarn)  You can do it too, try.  
Yarn:  *triumphant snap*
William:  *incomprehensible giggles* 
....pause.
William:  How come I can't break the sweater you made?
Me:  Because it's knitted together. 
William:  But I can break yarns.
Me:  (holds out two pieces of yarn, one in each hand)  Grab these, and snap them!
Yarns 1 and 2, unison:  *snap*
William:  *giggles again*
Me:  (holds out two pieces of yarn wrapped around each other)  Use both hands.  Snap them!
William:  (confidently yards on the strands).... What the?
...... pause.
William:  (staring at the intact strands with bizarre reverence)   Mom, yarns get superpowers when they're close to each other.  That.  Is SO.  COOOOOOL!!!!!!! *runs away to explain to his brother about the Superpowered Yarn.

I'll spare him the details of load distribution till later.  I'm just glad he's being geeked and loves it!   :)