Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I've seen the inside of my husband, and it ain't pretty.

I plead insanity. After 4 weeks of entirely too much togetherness (and after coming to the conclusion that my husband will never be able to retire because his instant boredom and irritating habits related to said boredom will cause me to force feed him copious amounts of bologna which would be far more torturous then pulling off his fingernails one by one) my husband was ready to return to work. Probably too soon for his doctor's preferences given that his ankle continued to swell after an hour standing but he couldn't stand it anymore. We celebrated over the weekend by discussing all the things we were looking forward to in the week ahead. He: getting up at 4:30 and spending 10 hours in hard physical labor and bull-shitting with the guys. Me: Not having to listen to his whining about not being at work or nagging him to put ice on his foot and maybe getting my baby girl back again (we'll get to that later).
Naturally Karma chose this moment to step in and say..... "Not so fast..."

By Sunday evening it was clear that Joe would be facing another surgery. This time it was the cyst on his back. It had swollen up to the size of a golf ball and he could barely move. I took him in the following Thursday to have it removed and promised myself I wouldn't think about the next 2 weeks with him home. We went over his care instructions with the nurse where she told me that I would have to change his dressing every 24 hours. This involved, and I quote "removing some gauze from his wound and replacing it with wet gauze, here's the instruction sheet. Bye!"
Some of you may read that and you know. You know exactly what's coming. I didn't.

The next night, my husband laid down and I removed his dressing. I slowly pulled the gauze that was laying there but had to kind of tug at it to get it off. And then I lost my mind.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! THERE'S A FUCKING HOLE IN YOUR BACK!!"

If you ever want to freak your loved one out, this is exactly what you should say to them after they've had surgery- especially if it's somewhere they can't easily see.
It's about 1" long and 1 1/2 inches deep. It's a hole. A big fucking hole that I have to stuff gauze in every night and I'm not even sure that I'm doing it right. I told him I could easily fit 3 fingers in there and he felt the need to say "don't!" I said I could, not that I would.
He made me take a picture of it (and no, I'm not sharing it- ew!) which Bre asked if she could take to school (she also got a 'no' and that's why we're the worst parents ever).

But that's where I'm at. Stuffing gauze in the hole in my husband's back, trying not to go crazy, and trying not to be too sad that my baby went from adoring me and only wanting me to only wanting her daddy.

Apparently, pancakes are the way to my baby's love.