Prepare yourselves, y'all. This should be a long one!
Welcome back to the blog that I never add to! Or add to so infrequently as for it not to be a very good blog! To my old readers, thanks for sticking with me. To any new readers, I hope you enjoy a bit of humor in strange situations.
What can I tell you? A lot has been going on in my life this past… year … or so (gosh, I dread to look how long it's actually been since I last wrote!), so much so that I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps I should make a list:
School (a never-ending saga)
Social (or lack thereof) life
Family Matters
My new nursing crew
The animal madness
Health and all of the fun things that go with it
In keeping with the list, so I don't go off rambling on a tangent that no one cares to hear (this is hoping that you guys care to hear some of it! ;-)), let's begin with school. I am now in my third semester of graduate school for an English Literature degree that I will hopefully use! There's no telling on the surety of that, however! Even so, I'm plugging along, and I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying school; even the boring classes – by my standards at least, because I am aware that SO many people find English literature interesting – have merit to me. I am only on my fifth class, having taken a partial load (two classes) for two semesters, and then only one this semester, but progress is progress, however slow.
I have taken a course called Literary Scholarship that everyone begins with, an American literature course in the Romantic era, a British Restoration course, a medieval literature course (Beowulf), and am currently taking a second medieval literature course (Chaucer) all of which have been great learning experiences, all of which have been challenging, all of which have been sometimes boring, and all of which have been quite enjoyable overall.
For those who don't know, I am going to Texas State, and I actually go to my classes in person, instead of having them online. This constitutes the majority of my social life (this is where you're supposed to laugh), and while I do speak in class, for those who knew me in undergrad or grade school, I actually have intelligent and pertinent things to say now. Apparently I am also occasionally funny, which, as my former fellow students can attest to, was not often the case. Obnoxious, certainly, but funny? Well, I was to me! But now even other people enjoy my nerdy literary jokes. I also talk a lot less in class that I did ever in undergrad and grade school (almost impossible to believe, I know, but hey, maybe I'm finally mellowing out in my old age), and I talk a lot less loudly. And that's not because of the ventilator, but rather because of my passion not to annoy my fellow students, a passion which I did not have in the past! (By the way, this entire paragraph is meant to be funny, so laugh, dammit! Funny, and also rather true…) ;-)
But while school constitutes the majority of my social life, I do occasionally do other things. Because I am nerdy and unashamed of it, I tell you that I have begun to play Dungeons & Dragons, and must say I have an awesome time every session. For those of you who know them, Jon Brehm, the DM (or Dungeon Master, which means that he creates the world in which the rest of our characters operate and function), and his wife Amy Peveto are part of the team. Jon adds puns and hilarity, while Amy brings her biting sarcasm to the table! My good friend Jacqueline, whom I have met since the beginning of school, as she is also my driver and notetaker for school, plays with us as well, adding her humor and quick wit to the group. We are a fun bunch, if a somewhat goofy bunch, and I for one always have a hell of a time!
Also in my social life are my best friends Rachel Rabon, Sarah Stevens, Myrna Peralez, and Elise Miller, all of whom come over as often as they can either in groups, pairs, or by themselves. Sarah often blesses us (truly, truly) with the presence of her beautiful and wicked smart two-year-old daughter, Harper, who has grown to love the two horses we have on our property. She sits on their backs, to her great delight, and when she has to get off it is to her great sadness (and by sadness I mean screaming and crying) ;-) I find her absolutely brilliant and adorable, and I'm always glad when Sarah visits with her.
I won't update you on their latest exploits, because that is their business, but everyone is happy and healthy, and I always love catching up and chatting with them when we are able to see one another! Love you girls!
I have also become friends, instead of just friendly, with one of my classmates, and I hope we remain friends as we slog through our Masters degrees!
In keeping with the list we made above, next I tell you about my family. As we seem to be in a holding pattern, there is not a ton to tell. Dad is working for DPS/homeland security, post-military retirement, and mom is looking to apply to begin teaching again! Now that we finally have stable nursing coverage, she can feel safer leaving the house regularly.
Speaking of nurses, I haven't introduced you to our new cast of characters in San Marcos. Ngozi, Our sweet and funny Nigerian nurse, is the only person who managed to stay with us through the move, though now she only works one day instead of three, considering she lives north of Austin. It's very kind of her to come all this way, but neither she nor we could imagine losing the other!
But we have three new nurses with us now: Peter, who works Monday through Friday day shifts (and these are long, grueling shifts in which I bother him incessantly, so I'm amazed he is still here!), Amanda, who works most of the night shifts, and Aubrey, who works a few of the night shifts. Each of them is very different, and all of them are very special to me. I've managed to make great connections with all three. Peter and I match wits every day, challenge each other with sarcasm, and generally have excellent discussions. He has a million great stories to tell, and a million more tangents to go on within the stories! He makes me laugh daily. And Amanda makes me laugh in the nighttime, with her antics, and her quirky sense of humor that really matches my own. She has become my book buddy: we read and discuss books that we recommend to each other, in the evenings as she gets me ready for bed. Aubrey is a bright spot (though so are the others), especially in that she is always positive, even in the face of great challenges in life. She is always so quick to laugh. I dearly love all four of my nurses, and desperately hope that they will stay as long as they can. I honestly can't imagine my life without them.
I can't imagine my life without my animals, either. They make me smile every day, whether it is simply watching the horses graze, the Aussies playing ball, the big dogs smiling at me, the birds talking to me, and more. The most recent thing we have happen is our miniature dachshund, Cori, managed to get into a tangle with a horse. Currently, her pelvis is broken, the base of her tail is broken, and she just had her femur reset surgically a few weeks ago. But you can't keep a good dog down! Literally. She's supposed to be convalescing, but gets so miserable being cooped up that mom just about carries her around with her wherever she goes. She toddles around a bit, all four feet working, and even has begun to wag her tail again. Looks like she'll be making a full recovery!
Speaking of broken femurs, though, that reminds me of the last topic on my list, which is my health. In all these five and half years, the only times I have been in the hospital unplanned was when the actual accident happened… Until last semester, where I had two stays in the hospital! The first one was due to a big scare that turned out to be a very small problem, and after some antibiotics, I was allowed to go home. After spending my birthday there (luckily Rachel and Peter visited me and raised my spirits considerably, as it is very easy to get depressed in the hospital)!
The second stay was far more interesting. The story begins a few days earlier: as we do every day, my mom was stretching my legs, when we heard a sound as loud and clear as a gunshot. It's something I will never forget, and it makes my stomach drop every time I think of it. As I didn't seem to feel any pain, and we all agreed that if anything was broken I would most likely sense it at least, we decided that the sound couldn't have come from something internal, not when it was that sharp and clear. After giving me several checks over, we determined it was probably the colostomy bag having air forced out of it quickly while we stretched. Fast-forward two days (and we are stretching my legs vigorously, each day!), and then my knee gets a little bit swollen. The following morning, on a weekend (where we don't have nursing coverage), my entire thigh was swollen 2 inches in every direction.We feared a blood clot.
So rather than jostle me and transfer me into my wheelchair, we had EMS take me in a more stable fashion to the emergency room. They did an ultrasound, and found no clots, and the ER doctor was writing off the swelling (without much of an explanation, mind you) and about to send me home, when the PA in the ICU decided I should get a CT scan of my leg, to see what turned up. While we waited for the results, they went ahead and admitted me. They finished admitting me at about 3 o'clock in the morning! But before that, the PA came in and said that my right leg looked fine from the CT scan. I said, "But it's my left leg that has the problem…" He looked uncertain for a moment, checked his charts, and then said that the people who had taken the CT had rendered pictures of the wrong leg. Thankfully I didn't have to take another CT, in that it would have meant laboriously transferring from my uncomfortable hospital bed onto a gurney, then I would have been rolled to the elevators down and two floors to the CT room, where I would again be uncomfortably transferred onto the table for the scan, and then the whole process reversed to return me to my room (not that I'm complaining, or anything :/ ). Instead they went back to their original images, and clarified the pictures of my other leg.
This was slightly heartening (at about midnight), and then the PA came in and said yes, there was indeed fluid in my knee…. thanks, but of course there was! We all knew that! That and the swelling of my thigh was what caused us to come in the first place. Come on, people! So I was a bit upset, thinking that if there was just some swelling, what was I doing here, laying in this horrible bed with mom curled up on the recliner beside me? The PA said they would hand the case to ortho in the morning.
Damn good thing they did! One of the ortho doctors walked in in the morning and said without pause, "Well, I don't know how they missed it, but your femur is completely broken." Whoa! Come again? We realized suddenly that the sharp crack, that gunshot-like sound we had heard several days ago had been the sound of my femur snapping! And then we had stretched me with my broken leg for two days!… … Needless to say, mom felt guilty (it probably didn't help that we called her Bone Crusher…), though there was absolutely no way she could've known that was going to happen, as every doctor recommended that I do stretches. In the end, they realized a cast would be almost impossible for me: with my leg sticking out in front of me, I wouldn't have even been able to fit into my van to go home, let alone to class for the eight weeks they said it would take to heal. So instead they fixed it surgically, incredibly, putting a rod down the length of my femur and several screws in my hip and the base of my femur at my knee. There were only three tiny incisions! It was really quite amazing, and quite an ordeal. I still can't believe I felt absolutely NOTHING… Not a thing! But we are past the eight weeks now, and I am all cleared and ready for takeoff… More or less. It's not as though I'll be walking on the leg. ;-) (Quad jokes, people. Don't forget to laugh!)
So that is my very long update about what's been going on in Casa de Nichols of late. Now we are hunkering down in the wake of this stupid virus, but no one in my family has attacked other people over toilet paper… yet! In these troubled times, in what is considered a health crisis that goes far beyond the nation, please try to come together, instead of apart. I'm not saying physically congregate in groups over 50! But even with phone calls and texts and emails, support one another. Remain positive, be safe, but above all, be kind. Everybody can use a little more kindness in their lives, either in giving or receiving it.
But that's all for me for now. I hope you will stay safe and happy as much as you can at this time. Alexa, signing off! And so we go!
