I'll be your Huckleberry

*title of this post from the movie 'Tombstone' which is a very appropos word to this post*

My lord, y'all.  My stinking, leaping, sweet fancy Moses on a CRUTCH, y'all.

I'll tell you what.  This post is going to be brought to you by the word FUCK so if you don't want to read it, git gone.  Go read this and laugh your dang fool head off.

Remember when I said I was sick over Christmas?  Yeah.  Wait - it started back at Thanksgiving, right?  When Jeff's parents had every disgusting old person thing they could have (bless their hearts) and we went ahead and had turkey dinner there ANYWAY.  Yeah - so.  Since that time, we have seen the inside of emergency rooms and hospital rooms and nursing homes I would guess about 8 or 9 times.  Once for me.  Mostly for Jeff's parents.  TWICE for Jeff.

Here's a list of what I can remember the folks have had.  This is mostly Dad, with a few belonging to Mom, but what difference does it make?:

Prostate cancer (guess which, mom or dad?)
Lymphoma
Leukemia
Hyperthyroidism
Cellulitis
Grovers Disease
Scabies
MRSA
Flu
Pneumonia
Edema (severe)
Intestinal blockage (he threw up feces.  IN HIS MOUTH.  Then aspirated some into his lungs.)
Constipation
Diarrhea
Passing out/falling down while NOT using their walkers in the house, or while showering, or getting out of bed, or basically anything other than being in the lazy chairs

Do you see why I am saying DEAR LORD??  fuck me.  It's been bad.  They both went in the hospital back in November, then one got out and the other stayed, then the other got home and the first one went back, then do-si-do your pardner and promenade.

(please watch that cartoon it will make you laugh)

It's been hell, and it's not even MY parents.  Dad has been in a medically induced coma for over a week (just woke him back up yesterday) with breathing apparatus all shoved down his gullet.  And Jeff isn't even the sibling who is handling it all.  That guy - the brother - deserves a medal.  I think his prize is going to be an ulcer, colitis, and extremely high blood pressure.  Just like winning a stuffed animal at the county fair!  what a prize!

SPEAKING of blood pressure:  Remember I had to take Jeff to the hospital because his BP spiked to something like 230/105?  well, just to ice the fucking CRAP CAKE, I had to call 911 last Sunday because he passed the fuck out (in the Jacuzzi) because his BP went so extremely low - honestly y'all, I thought he was dead.  He was laying on the ground and his eyes were open and his mouth was open and he wasn't THERE.  I was lightly slapping his face yelling "JEFF?  JEFF!?" and trying to lift his head and my brain was skittering around like a souped-up roomba.

I am absolutely USELESS in an emergency.  When my adrenal glands spurt out adrenaline it's like throwing a blanket over a bird cage.  My brain just exits, stage left, and I am left with *crickets crickets*.  Luckily I had my cell phone down at the pool because if I had had to leave him, run around the huge apartment complex, up the stairs and down the hall to our apartment, THEN call - well shit.  I'm still suffering PTSD about it.  Romantic hot tub failure at both the Xmas mountain cabin and again post Valentine's day.  I GET IT.  Hot tubs are right out.

[full disclosure:  I was drinking too.  YES I started drinking again.  Not like it was in Maryland, not drinking & driving, not during the week, etc etc caveat excuse.  But it's my go-to stress reliever (how's that working out for ya?  not great, thanks) and I don't feel all that bad about it, and it's tres dificil being married to an alcoholic when you are an alcoholic yourself, and anywhozle, if I can't be honest HERE with YOU, where can I be?  I'm FINE, life is still (fairly) good (aside from the crap I bitch about here), I don't keep bottles stashed under the couch, I exercise almost every day, WHAT?  Yes, I'm monitoring myself, yes I know that only alcoholics monitor themselves, I KNOW.  shitballs.  I am actually on a bye-week (bi-week?) or really 2-weeks right now.  Not drinking atall until March 1, when we are going to some friend's house in AZ.  It's not the urgent weird compulsion any more.  It's fun, on a weekend, and then *meh*.  Maybe I'm pink-clouding? or whatever.  Maybe I have my head up my ass.  At least you know I will tell y'all if it all goes south.  Some of you are like 'it's like watching a horse run into a burning barn!' and hrm.  I'm not helping myself here.]

Once he got to the hospital and they pumped fluids in him and all, he seemed fine.  They said it was just dehydration.  Like the last 3 or 4 times he's been hospitalized for passing out.  Once again, he was all about 'change my drinking habits, exercise, I swear' but hmph.  I've heard it before.  So far he's keeping to 4 beers a day (down from over a 6-pack per day).  And he went on a 4-mile walk with me on Monday.  But he hasn't made a doctor appointment for his GP yet (altho, to be fair, he called and it's pending a call back) and I just don't think he's all that interested in changing anything. 

His preference is to take a pill.  Well, he's ON blood pressure meds and this happened.  We both also have EXTREMELY itchy skin, since January.  We were afraid it was scabies, went to the doc, he said absolutely NO, not that.  So I started putting gallons of lubriderm on (I am a lotion-er anyway - my skin was dry in Maryland in 80% humidity - am Sahara desert).  It helps, I have no idea what is going on with both of us, he never itches like this.  Lotion helps me and I put it on like 5 times a day, slathering it all over.  BUT - doc said we could try Benedryl.  Which, mixed with his BP meds and his HIGH/low readings, I think is stupid.  But Jeff would rather take a pill than put lotion on his skin.  So,?  *shrug* DO WHAT YOU WANT

his favorite prescription.

I guess I have finally come to the meat of this post.

I have spent years figuring out my health problems - mental and physical.  He has seen me lose 30 - 35 (depending on the day) pounds and become a happier, more centered person.  He knows that mostly, constantly, I read websites/books about magnesium or adrenal fatigue or primal eating or fructose intolerance.  He has SEEN ME.  His parents ASK ME to research stuff for them.

(his brother, BTW, had constipation so badly the other day he was going to the ER [ha ha more ER trips.]  I suggested milk of magnesia.  He said he had taken a tablespoon and nothing.  I said DRINK IT OUT OF THE BOTTLE LIKE IT WAS TEQUILA AND THIS IS 1984.  Great fucking christ the only downside of magnesium is it MAKES YOU SHIT.  He did that and went to the ER as well.  While he was getting examined, he realized things were uh, MOVING, and he excused himself to their restroom.  Magically, the problem fixed itself right there.  JAYSUS.)

These people have seen me research crap for 5 fucking minutes using my phone, they all ask me to 'hey, GTS!' (google that shit) - they all have the interwebs right at their finger tips.  Jeff, for chrissakes, sits in front of a computer all fucking day.  But hey, don't follow my example and research your health problems.  Don't take 10 minutes out of your day and look at the Mayo Clinic website, or Cedars Sinai website.  Or even fucking WebMD.  Hell, the magnesium info I found for insomnia was on a website so hokey I wanted to shoot the author.  But that info leads to other info leads to I SLEEP AT NIGHT NOW.  But all of them would rather have a doctor "fix" them than change their nutrition.  Holy crap, this could be what is wrong with this entire country YA THINK??

[and Jeff's BIL, who I don't particularly like but whatever, got all IN MY FACE last weekend and made me cry, telling me to stop researching crap on the internet I should take the word of doctors who have 11 years of schooling why am I even talking and WTF?  that was a SCENE and Jeff actually got back in HIS face and defended me, Jeff being the most non-confrontational person ever on the planet, which made my heart go pitter-pat - I am telling you this last couple of months have been straight out of a telenovela on Spanish TV.  Dude was mad because I had some info on why maybe Dad had thrown up FECES.  In his MOUTH.  And some of the reasons were not great, but Dad is 83 and has 3 kinds of cancer, I figured we should be ready to hear it was possibly a tumor, doctors did a CT scan and said they saw a MASS so hey yo, I'm just guessing here - Jeff's sister agreed with me for fucks sakes, and this guy went off.  Jeff's brother said that this guy has a Napoleon Complex but with 'knowing stuff', if there is such a thing - which is a perfect explanation and cracked my shit up.]

I guess I could just narrow this down and say I'm fucking terrified.  I do not want to get old.  Not the kind of old that makes you a recluse.  That has you sick with a bed-side table full of pill bottles and enemas and tissues shoved up your sweater sleeve.

honestly, this totally could be my in-laws table, down to the plastic place mats.

I'm doing everything I can to make my final 20 to 30 years be as easy and fun and healthy as possible (besides vodka I know shut it).  I mean, I'm 53.  I do NOT want to live to be 100.  90 is probably my limit, and I am NOT afraid of dying!  I just don't want to linger in the hell of ER visits and pill sorter thingys and daytime tv and no life.  I mean, my own step mother, who you have all met, is in an assisted living home but still walking every day, still up and around, going to lunch, etc.

And Jeff keeps saying not to worry, he will die one of these times and I will be left with the life insurance.  NO - he will have a fucking stroke and I will be left wiping his ass and dribbling gruel down his throat.  All because he didn't take any responsibility for his own health.

I don't want Mike to have to deal with all this crap.  I know it's still possible, but if I do nothing to help myself why would HE want to help me?  And I'm not all Jack Lalanne up in this berg either.  I'm not juicing veggies and one-arm push ups and HOY!  HEALTH!  but I AM all about what works for me and what makes me feel better.  I have exactly 2 prescriptions that I take on a regular basis, one is Ambien (the magnesium helps my insomnia but nothing cures it, wtf?) and Wellbutrin which I will never be without again so help me gawd.  And I don't want any more.  I will do everything in my damned power to mitigate the aging process so that at 75 I can still go for a walk at the beach and not need a wheel chair.  Or an oxygen bottle.  That may still happen, I understand that, but I will TRY EVERYTHING I CAN to stay as healthy as I can.  Otherwise what is the point?

Oh hell, like usual I have lost my direction with this post, and I'm bored with it.  I have started the process of getting everything checked out, from soup to nuts, including the dentist (which I have an unholy terror of I haven't been to a dentist in over 10 years) because I have Jeff's health insurance right now.  If he dies before me I am so fucked.  So I need everything in order so that I am as comfortable as I can be when that happens.

I went through all of our filling and found all the mis-filed papers concerning IRAs and life insurance accounts.  So that it's at my finger tips.

I'm thinking of buying a mobile home in a park so that when I am alone I have a place to live that only costs whatever the space rent is.  I know they don't appreciate in value but it will be MINE and I will be able to afford it until I die.

These are all fucked up things that I have to think about these days.  So far 2014 is so much worse than 2010 through 2013 COMBINED,  And it isn't even March yet.