The road to recovery from a stroke can be rough at times, especially if you have onions in your underpants.

Let me explain….

Husband has been out of the hospital for seven weeks now. He returned to work last week. I want to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers, it really helped us through this very difficult time.

Part of his therapy is to walk every day. He is doing very well - when he was discharged he was in a wheelchair, then progressed to a walker, and is now using a cane. A very spiffy cane, that looks just like the one on “House” with flame decals on it.

We go to a city park with a nice walking trail to exercise and strengthen his leg. Sometimes we take a sandwich to eat before beginning our hike around the lake.

The sandwich we took one day was on an onion bun, with lots of onion bits on top. After we ate, I made a quick trip to the park potty because we’d also taken a big jug of water, and it’s a long walk. I’d left Husband sitting in the car in the sun so I was hurrying. I noticed onion bits on my T shirt as I was relieving myself, but since I was in a hurry, I just brushed them off as I sat there, then pulled my pants up and scurried out.

We started our walk on the trail around the small lake, and I noticed a peculiar feeling in my nether regions. But I was holding Husband’s “assist” belt, a big webbed belt he has to wear around his chest for someone (me) to hold onto in case he stumbles, so I couldn’t just hike back to the restroom. The farther we walked, the more uncomfortable it became, and by the time we got back to the car, my hoo-ha felt like it was on fire. Tears were streaming down my face.

I dashed back into the bathroom and yanked my panties down. The crotch was full of onion bits. Worst of all, they were wedged into my unmentionable places. Never before have I wished that a park restroom had a bidet, but that day I did.

Let me tell you, if you think onions near your eyes make you cry….

:-)

Categories: Family, Humor

The oversize hand basket screeched to a halt at the fiery cavern’s entrance. A tall thin man in a snakeskin jacket (made of real snakes) greeted me.

“Hello Marti! Welcome to Hell!”

“Oh, hey Satan, how’s tricks?”

“Wonderful! I love the American political season. So much opportunity for mischief! But I brought you here to talk about you. How are things…hmmm?”

“Well, I gotta give you credit. You have done a real number on me. Been taking care of grandma with her Parkinson’s for more than a year now. Just got the girl through high school, with all the prom and graduation hoopla. She’s not out even a month when you give Husband a stroke. Good one, Lucifer.”

“Oh thank you! I love kudos. So why haven’t I heard from you? Many people in your situation call on me, you know.”

“Nah, I’m hanging in there.”

“But I’ve forced you to live at your mother-in-law’s house! That one works almost every time!”

“Nope. Actually it’s easier to take care of both of them in the same house, especially since hers is all on one level and already has safety bars in the bathroom.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re enjoying your time there or I will hurl.”

“I’m just hangin’ in, that’s what I do.”

“Isn’t the noise getting to you? I enticed dozens of teenagers to hot rod up and down her street at all hours of the night. And I got 100 gremlins to work on the next-door neighbor’s air conditioner compressor, so that it rattles and roars like an airplane engine. Surely that is annoying you!”

“I just moved down to sleep on the floor. It gives hubby more room to sprawl in the bed, and it got my head away from the wall where the sound came in.”

“But what about the late-night call you got from your son? I caused his car to overheat on the freeway and you had to go rescue him. Wasn’t that enough to make you at least consider…?”

“Sorry, Beelzebub, not interested. Husband is still seeing improvement, getting more movement back. Daughter is learning responsibility by having to take care of herself more. I have faith that things will get better.”

“Damn you!”

“I think you’ve already tried that. I need to be gettin’ back now.”

“AAARRRGH! Be gone with you!”

“Okie dokie. See ya.”

“Oh you can count on it, my dear. You can count on it.”

Categories: Family, Humor

The end is near!

No, not The Rapture, where the good people go to heaven and the rest of us are left behind being chased by zombies who are under the control of our Evil Overlord, Simon Cowell.

I’m talking about the end of high school.

Our youngest youngen is about to graduate. How can my baby girl be this old? *sniffle* What makes this a bit odd is that high school goes on for another month. But the seniors only have a few more days, thanks to a bureaucratic snafu.

Back in February there was a school bond issue on the ballot, which included remodeling the high school football field. The football field where graduation was supposed to be held. The bond issue passed, and work began. Then Mother Nature decided that 2008 would be the wettest year in history and the football field became a giant mudhole.

Can’t have commencement in a giant mudhole, must find other venue.

Unfortunately the school auditorium isn’t large enough because the area has experienced expansive growth and has twice as many students as they thought they’d have at this point in time. The graduation committees of all the surrounding districts booked all the good dates at all the available auditoriums years ago. Frantic phone calls and schedule juggling ensued, and thus, Daughter will graduate miles from home, practically before she was born.

Like these last few months of school haven’t been nerve-wracking enough. We’ve had to contend with the hideous weather, like getting her to the ACT College test on an April day when it snowed. The last time I took a child to the ACT test it snowed and I ended up in the hospital with a broken leg. So that made me a little edgy. (I survived unscathed.)

Then there was prom. Daughter has never attended a prom and I nagged her that she should go. Nope, don’t wanna go and you can’t make me. That was the standoff until three days prior to prom, when she suddenly decided it’d be fun. See what nagging gets you? A headache, that’s what it gets you. Plus trips to 50 places for tickets, a dress, shoes, undergarments, transportation, flowers and accessories.

But they went, it was lovely and yes I have pictures

All of this while doing full-time caregiving for grandma. Trips to every -ist on the planet…neurologist, orthopedist, opthamologist, optometrist, urologist, therapist, radiologist and pharmacist.

Visiting the doctors is easy compared to trying to figure out the billing, though. Medicare, Medicare supplemental, Part A, Part B, tie ins, tie-one-ons. The paper billings are months behind so we decided to sign up for Medicare online. God help you if you are a sick old person and try to use the Medicare website. It was designed by Simon Cowell and the zombies.

To sign up you have to get a special username and password. Ok, I’ve done that hundreds of times at hundreds of websites. Ha! You can’t just sign up! You have to figure out the formula. You have to use the first letter of your last name and the last letter of your first name combined with the town you were born in. That’s step one. Then multiply your social security number by itself and subtract that from the distance to the sun. That’s step two of the 487 steps to get a username. The real irony though, is that once you have completed the entire process, the website is filled with confusing and illogical data that helps not at all.

I need a psychiatrist. One who knows a good pharmacist.

:-)

Categories: Family, Humor