Hello, still from the hospital! This morning when a crew came into the room at 6:30, it sounded as if I might not even have enough time to zip downstairs and acquire a coffee before they’d be whisking Edward away for a second CT scan and then a second surgery. (A nurse told us last night she’d been told to have him stop eating/drinking at midnight, which was our first clue that something might be happening today.) I fairly FLEW for the coffee, then flew back, panting. At around noon, they finally came to get him for the CT scan. We have become familiar over the years with the concept of Hospital Time: things happen when they happen, and not when anyone says they’re going to happen, and the term “soon” means “in the future, that’s all we can say”—but it still fools me from time to time.

What I should have done was race down to get some lunch right after the CT scan, since we knew it would HAVE to take at least a certain minimum amount of time before the results could be evaluated/communicated—but I didn’t think of it. I was still in foolish Poised For Action mode, plus I wanted to update family members. Then it was 2:00 and I hadn’t had lunch, but now it really did seem as if any minute the doctor might come in and want to talk about the CT scan and discuss surgery options, so I didn’t feel I could go.

The ENT doctor/surgeon came in around 3:30 and talked about how things were kind of inconclusive, and that one option was to send us home and have us come back Thursday—so we could at least get a couple of normal nights of sleep. He said he would go talk to Infectious Disease (that’s the department handling the antibiotics, and they decide when it’s okay to switch from IV antibiotics to oral ones) and get back to us. He left, and about ten minutes later the Infectious Disease doctor came in to talk to us, and we told her the ENT surgeon was looking for her, and right around the time she was done talking to us her pager went off and it was the ENT surgeon, and she said she would go talk to him. It is now 7:00 p.m. and no one has come back. I guess we are staying another night? The nurse did come in and say Edward could eat and drink again, so in any case we know surgery is not imminent; he had a nice big dinner and is feeling a lot cheerier.

There are several things that would vastly improve The Hospital Experience for me. One of them is not even something I’d waste a wish on, which is that I would love it if things happened when people said they were going to happen—but I know that is not possible/realistic. I think the more realistic wish (not that I will get this wish, either) would be to NOT HAVE the consistently-wrong predictions. I remember when I worked at a pharmacy, I would start adjusting the time I told people the prescription would be ready, as prescriptions piled up: so, like, if we only had one prescription to fill, I’d say it would be 10-15 minutes (and often we could do it quicker than that); but once we had half a dozen prescriptions, all for people who wanted to wait for them instead of coming back later, I would be saying 30-40 minutes; and if we hit more like 10-12 waiting prescriptions, I would say I was afraid we were rather backed up and it would be about an hour. My boss did not like that, and wanted me to say 10-15 minutes to everyone. But I know for myself, the absolute WORST is to be told 10-15 minutes and have it be an hour! That’s the WORST! If I KNOW it’s going to be an hour, I can choose to come back later! If I am TOLD it will be 10-15 minutes, I will notice and count and resent EVERY SINGLE EXTRA MINUTE! And my BOSS was not the one who would have to deal with those absolutely-justified noticing/counting/resenting people!

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I would not even think to try to fix Hospital Time, because obviously there are always going to be things that take longer than expected, and emergencies that have to be dealt with, and unexpected complications, and so forth; and it is in everyone’s best interest for doctors and other medical professionals to take the time things NEED, and to take care of situations in THE ORDER THAT MAKES THE MOST SENSE. But I WOULD enjoy it if people didn’t make predictions when they KNOW, FAR BETTER THAN I DO, how unreliable those predictions end up being. I feel like a lot of hospital people are like my boss at the pharmacy telling everyone it will be 10-15 minutes even when they know it’s going to be an hour, and that’s not good for anyone. (There ARE some hospital people who will say things like “They say 2:00, but–*HUGE SHRUG*–you know how these things go. We’ll just see!” I love them.) (Their bosses probably tsk at them.)

The second thing that would vastly improve The Hospital Experience for me would be having one or two times per day when I could be assured that no one was going to come in with anything important. If I just knew that between 11:00 and noon, or 1:00 and 2:00, or 9:00 and 10:00 at night, NO DOCTOR WOULD COME IN, then I would know when to take a shower, or run downstairs for coffee, or go for a little walk, or use the bathroom. Just as it is comically uncanny how people in a hospital will come into the room the minute you doze off, it is comically uncanny how we will be in the room for hours and hours and hours undisturbed, and then I will go downstairs to get a coffee, and when I come back 10 minutes later Edward tells me the doctor was there while I was gone. (The doctor, probably: “Nurse, please page me when The Mother leaves the room.”) Or I finally decide I will risk a shower, and I am undressing in the bathroom and I hear a knock at the room door and then I hear the doctor’s voice. For heaven’s sake, what is a person to do?? Just tell me even HALF AN HOUR A DAY when I can COUNT ON being unmissed. Right now, in fact, I would like to take a shower, since evenings in general seem less busy/doctory than mornings. But sometimes a doctor comes to see us after handling their last surgery of the day. When is it definitely safe to take a shower? After 9:00 p.m.? After 10:00 p.m.?

The third thing that would vastly improve The Hospital Experience for me would be if someone came through each day and checked on supplies, just automatically, perhaps when they came to collect the trash. I hate having to tell A REGISTERED NURSE that we need more toilet paper, as if I think she is our personal servant. And you were all SO helpful last time I was here and was afraid to ask about towels, but I was STILL AFRAID AGAIN TO ASK ABOUT TOWELS. (Partly because I wasn’t sure if Covid restrictions might apply to the showers, but mostly because I am as ever a wee sleekit cowrin tim’rous beastie.) I wish there were towels already in the room, and also sheets so I could change Edward’s bed when the medication makes him all sweaty, and really I just wish I had access to all relevant supplies so I could do my own fussing/housework and didn’t feel like I was constantly asking for things / asking for people to do things. I know it’s NOT like this, but it FEELS like I am snapping my fingers and demanding room service. I was so happy and relieved when I realized that I could take our finished meal trays out to a cart in the hall, instead of the nurses having to do it for us. Surely there are other things like that that I could be doing if I only knew! But I think for most of the things I just CAN’T: I don’t have access to the sheets or the towels or the toilet paper.

The fourth thing that would vastly etc. etc. would be a good gift shop. Our local hospital is not anywhere near as well ranked as this city hospital, and they do not specialize in children (they’ll take out children’s tonsils or set their broken bones, but as soon as Edward needed a more extensive procedure they sent us here), but they have (or used to have—I haven’t been there since Elizabeth got her tonsils out, and that must be about a decade ago now) a really good gift shop. They have the expected stuffed animals and toys and cards and flowers, but also it’s like a small drug store: they have over-the-counter medications, pads and tampons, a small section of socks and underwear. Here, I have to leave the hospital and walk to a drug store, which does not sound so bad when I type it out, but I am not a city mouse and would prefer to stay tucked into the hospital—especially now, when there are screening stations to navigate at the entrances.

And the final thing is that I would love to be able to order Edward’s meal trays ONLINE. I have to use the phone every single time, and I would say 9 out of 10 times I get someone brusque who sounds like they hate their job, and often it’s someone who is pointlessly trying to correct the way I’m ordering (“No, ketchup is a condiment, tell me that at the very end”), when their colleagues have corrected me the other way (“Hamburger, okay—you want ketchup or mustard or anything with that? And fries, okay—you want salt and ketchup with those?”). And why correct ANYONE, when most of us are merely passing through and no one will be long-served by these educational efforts, and it will only frustrate the employees who will feel as if they SAY it and SAY it and no one EVER LEARNS?

We are still in the hospital. Today is Sunday. We got here Wednesday morning. The incision should be “running clear” by now, but it is not. Bloodwork should be showing decreasing inflammation/infection markers, but it is not. The likely explanation is that some of the abscess is still there—a possibility we were warned about, since it was multichambered, extensive, and not in a location where they could see what they were doing (the surgeon said that in order to see it all, they would have had to take risks that were not worth taking). Tomorrow they will likely do another CT scan to see what the situation is. After that, it seems likely there will be another surgery. This is what happened with his sinus abscesses as well, except that time we went home in between; this is longer, but less hassle, and hopefully will result in fewer weeks of antibiotics (last time he took antibiotics for the weeks in between surgeries, and then for a month after the second surgery; it was a lot of antibiotics).

I have finished another book: Plainsong, by Kent Haruf (Target link) (Amazon link).

(image from Target.com)

I would NEVER have selected this book at the library, NEVER. I would have judged it by its cover (boring/bleak), title (sounds like a reference to either the Amish or The Great Plains), author (older white guy), and plot (sounds depressing/bleak). I was sure that I read it ONLY because Sundry recommended it, but can I find that recommendation to link to it? Can I hell. But I know it was before Henry was born, because I remember I was reading the book when I found out I was pregnant with him; I was thinking about that riveting news for the entire rest of the book, and it got locked in. If he’d been a girl, we were strongly considering the name Victoria, the name of one of the characters. It is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read, so I can’t explain why it took me so long to re-read it, except that there are some difficult/sad scenes, and sometimes when I’m considering a re-read, such scenes loom too large, even if I know at the time I considered them well worth it.

Anyway, I’d bought the book at some point during the pandemic, and it was on my To Read pile, and I brought it along to the hospital; and I just finished reading it, and I loved it all over again. I think it is the kind of book that some people would love so much they can’t stand it, and other people would be like “What the heck? I don’t get this at all”—because so much of what I love is the exact way things are phrased, and that is the kind of thing that can yank one heart all around and leave another heart right where it is. So maybe get it from your library and see what you think. This book too has an Unexpected Baby plotline, which I will go for every time.

I have Eventide with me; that’s the sequel, which I don’t believe I ever read. And there’s a third book, Benediction, which I wonder if I’d better just go ahead and order now so it’ll be at my house if we ever get discharged from this hospital. And the last book I have with me is The Tie That Binds, another Kent Haruf, and one that I have because when I ordered Plainsong and Eventide, used books were buy two get one free, and they didn’t have Benediction.

I brought five books with me to Edward’s appointment on Wednesday, feeling a little silly because what if all we did was go to the appointment and then go home, perhaps with a new prescription? Or what if he WAS admitted to the hospital, but we went home the next day? I took two of the books with me in my backpack and left the other three in the car just in case. I have finished the two from my backpack, and have taken a refreshing little walk out to the parking garage to pick up the other three.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel Simon (Amazon link) (eBay search link).

It is hard to know whether or not to recommend this book. If someone had described it to me the way I would describe it to you in order to explain why I don’t know if I’d recommend it or not, I would not have read it; but I am glad to have read it, and would not want to have been talked out of it. There are hard parts about the mistreatment and abuse of people with disabilities, in institutions and in communities and by police. It’s hard to read, as it should be, but it feels valuable to learn more about those things, and also to have those points of view represented. And it’s not just bleak/educational: there’s friendship and care and love and the good kinds of secrets. And a major plot point involves an older woman who is suddenly in charge of a baby, and I find those sorts of stories very appealing. I read them the way I used to read books about people getting pregnant: just, if that’s one of the plot points, I will try the book. Which is why I tried this one. But there are times I can handle reading about how bad people can be (knowing that these people continue to exist, and continue to exploit and abuse vulnerable people, even if certain kinds of institutions fall), and there are times I can’t, so even with the balancing factors, this might not be the right book for you right at this moment.

(image from Target.com)

The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel (Target link) (Amazon link).

You know how with most books, you can tell someone what the book is ABOUT? Not this one. I don’t think I would have selected it based on the flap; I got it because I’d liked Station Eleven by the same author. It’s kind of about a woman named Vincent. (Her name was my main complaint about the book: it was TOO distinctive and TOO confusing, and I kept thinking accusingly that the author did not HAVE to choose that name.) But it’s not just about Vincent; it’s about a lot of Vincent-adjacent people, without being clear as to why it would be about them, or about her. The book just sort of talks about them, and sees things from their points of view, and moves around in time, and some things come together and other things just exist. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, but I liked the book, and found it kind of intriguing to be reading along without feeling like the story was on a particular PATH.

I am hoping to access our hive mind. I have a child who is 6’4″, male, wears a medium or large in tops but it HAS TO BE Tall sizing, absolutely HAS TO BE. And he says all his clothes depress him, and he is expressing interest in things such as lilac sweaters with daisies on them, and colorblocked pastel hoodies like from the ’90s, and Keith Haring dancing-guy shirts, and rainbow-striped sweaters, and sweaters like this one:

(image from vibeheat.com)

But I am having trouble finding these things in his size. Elizabeth has a friend who wears things of this style and she asked him where he shops, and so I got this:

(image from asos.com)

But only a certain number of their items are available in Tall sizes. And every other path I’ve gone down the last hour looking for Keith Haring hoodies/tees has led to frustration. We found a GREAT site with TONS of good stuff, including that shades-of-green sweater—but it said it had “Asian sizing,” and I know that is not going to fit a 6’4″ medium/large man.

Before books, I have a product to recommend. It’s my new favorite keto candy:

(image from Target.com)

Reese’s Zero Sugar. Like most keto treats, they are startlingly expensive. Some days, I would rather just wait for my next Day Off and eat regular, normal-price Reese’s peanut butter cups. But some days are dreary and bleak, and a little bit of expensive candy can help considerably.

Okay: books! I finally read The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow (Target link) (Amazon link).

(image from Target.com)

There were some things I didn’t like: the cutesy title; the way toward the end it seemed like it was just one thing after another, as if to meet a page requirement. But overall I liked it very much and would recommend it. I like when a book puts magic into the real world. I kept wanting to get back to reading it. I don’t try to figure things out as I’m reading, so things dawned on me gradually in a way I found pleasant. I came to like the name January.

Next I read They Left Us Everything, by Plum Johnson (Amazon link).

(image from Amazon.com)

This was a great book to get out of the library: it was about 50% interesting, and the rest I could skim and be glad I hadn’t bought it—but the part I did find interesting has continued to be interesting to me, and I’ve thought of it many times. The book is about a woman dealing with her parents’ possessions after their deaths. The part I found interesting was where she was talking about things she found and what she decided to do about them; I was also interested in the help she received from other people (it seems very appealing to have a friend come help, or to be that friend helping someone else). And I was interested that, in the end, she came down on the side of saying people shouldn’t try to clear out their own possessions before they die, but should let their children do it—which flies in the face of some of the other books/articles I’ve seen on the topic, so that’s been some food for thought.

The part I didn’t find interesting was all the Family Tree Bragging. I think she probably wrote this book in part for her own family to use as history/keepsake, so it was excusable/understandable. But I found the stories boring at best, cringey/embarrassing/basking-in-reflected-glory at worst. And it seems like it would only take one charmingly unscrupulous story-spinning ancestor to invent a whole bunch of boastful stories, and who would ever know?

I also had trouble identifying with the overall Boomer nature of the book. There are a lot of the sort of jolly stories many Boomers tell about their upbringing, which sound to my Gen X ears like disturbing emotional/physical abuse. I would love to read a memoir on this same topic written by someone from my generation, and another written by a Millennial, and so forth.

Proof-reading this, it sounds like I didn’t like the book, but I definitely did, and would recommend it! (Get it from the library, though.)

Next I read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton (Target link) (Amazon link).

(image from Target.com)

For quite awhile I had this book confused with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a book I found mostly boring; plus, in general I’ve been avoiding books by male authors. When I finally decided I’d read it, if only to get it off my list, I found certain elements obnoxious: the dialog, for example, where someone seriously says “It will little profit you.” That’s Drama/Cape Phrasing: anyone else would say “It won’t do you any good.” Also, people in this book SNARL their words, and many of the women have TUMBLING CURLS and so forth. And there is one extended scene where the (thin) author writes some JAW-DROPPINGLY fat-phobic/anti-disability stuff that almost made me put the book down on principle, and is still making me mad. But the good plot prevailed, and soon I was having trouble stopping reading it when it was time to make dinner. I might start it over again at the beginning to see if everything makes sense now that I know what’s going on.

Backstory that will temporarily feel irrelevant but later I will tie it in: When we moved into this house, three years ago now, Edward’s hoodie (the one he wore daily as a light jacket) disappeared—which shouldn’t have been THAT big of a deal, but I was already finding the entire move so emotional and overwhelming, and I HAAAAAATE the feeling of not being able to find something, and also WHERE COULD IT BE. I opened nearly every box, even ones that made no sense (maybe I’d lost my mind and used the hoodie as PADDING or something??), and finally gave up, thinking of it as just one more thing the new house had swallowed: money, joy, memories, coping skills, mental stability—and now Edward’s hoodie.

Finally someone thought to mention the issue within earshot of Paul, who, as it turned out, had inexplicably taken two large plastic bins and shoved into them: snowpants; several random pairs of our winter boots; some extra coats; AND EDWARD’S HOODIE—and put them in an awkward, unheated, difficult-to-access rakes/shovels/equipment-type closet in the barn where no one would ever go to put on snowpants, boots, an extra coat, or a hoodie. He had ONE SMALL SURGE of unpacking, and he somehow made A DELIBERATE CHOICE to put those things INTO BINS and then into an HIDDEN/BAFFLING PLACE; and it was even MORE unfindable because WHO WOULD EXPECT HIM TO PUT ANYTHING AWAY; and it caused me to waste SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT for NO REASON. I found this so discouraging, so disheartening, so metaphorical, and so symbolic, I couldn’t face dealing with it; and so I took out the hoodie, and left the rest of it there (TO ROT IN HELL WHERE PAUL COULD TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR CASTING IT).

I may have mentioned before that I have an Alcohol Policy. My Alcohol Policy is this: if I have alcohol on a night I was intending NOT to have alcohol, I (with qualified exceptions) MUST do chores with that alcohol. I wish the dieting comparison didn’t spring to mind, but sadly we are part of this society whether we like it or not, so what it reminds me of is when someone on a diet might decide that they ought not to have the extra cookie—but if they DO have the extra cookie, they need to do exercise to burn it off. Though—it seems like in the case of the cookie/exercise, that’s generally considered a punishment/penance; whereas with me, and alcohol, it’s more of a feeling of let’s not WASTE the extra cheery motivation. It would be like reframing the diet thing so that you were saying let’s not WASTE the food energy of the cookie, and instead let’s use it to build strength and stamina, which is something we want to do but sometimes have trouble finding the energy for. Like that.

Tonight I had alcohol when I had planned not to have alcohol, and so I asked myself what chore I was going to do, and I decided to do the one I most dreaded, which was working on putting away Christmas. I HATE putting away Christmas. It’s a big chore, and also it’s so sad: the worst chore combination, and the perfect chore for being under the influence. Christmas dishes, Christmas mugs, assorted Christmas decor, the Melissa & Doug advent calendar—boxed up and brought to the barn. Wrapping paper and gift tags and ribbons and one stray box of Christmas cards—boxed up and brought to the barn. Empty ornament storage box brought down from the barn and put invitingly NEAR the tree at least.

Then I reached an impasse: I was not done, but the rest of the Christmas dishes/mugs were in the dishwasher. And I was not quite ready to de-ornament the tree. But I still had cheery alcohol motivation remaining.

While walking back and forth to the barn with boxes of Christmas stuff, I had noticed The Closet From the First Paragraph. I hadn’t thought of it or noticed it in literally years—but the other day Elizabeth wanted to go sledding, and was looking for snowpants, and she asked if we had any, and I Thought Of It. I sent her to go look, and she reported that the bins had not been latched closed (FOR SOME REASON) (WHYYYYY) (NO BUT WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY), and so had been infiltrated by dust and spiderwebs (JUST WEBS, I AM SURE JUST WEBS AND NOT WEB-MAKERS), so she had to borrow snowpants from her friend. I decided that alcohol and I would finally tackle this project that had been hanging over my head for three years.

And so now the snowpants and coats are in the washing machine. Items that are too small for anyone in the house AND non-spiderwebby are in the Goodwill bag, waiting to be joined by the items that are too small for anyone in the house but were spider-webby so are in the washing machine. My forgotten hot-pink polka-dotted rainboots are back in my life, though I don’t know how I can ascertain if there is anything spider-webby IN them, without putting my HAND or FOOT in there with, maybe, spiders. Elizabeth’s long-lost winter scarf is on the hook with her backpack. Several new items purchased to donate to a charity drive (where did Paul even FIND them?) are back in the donation pile. Two giant empty bins are newly available for storage, this time in a place that makes sense.