The Elephant in the Room

You remember that my husband has been sick, right? In a nutshell, right after his surgery (March 30) he got bronchitis really bad. It may even have been pneumonia but that was not the diagnosis. He had: 4 prescriptions, 4 antibiotic shots, 1 cortizone shot, 1 vaccination, 1 inhaler, and 1 nebulizer medication over that time span. He's also had 1 chest x-ray and 1 chest CT.

I think that catches you up a little.

Each weekend he's beat. He's always been an early to bed, early to rise kinda guy but since the illness he's been sleeping later. Even during the week he's not getting up at his usual 5 am; more like 6 or later. Then on weekends he has even slept until 10 once or twice. Ten AM, people. Then moves to the couch to watch tv and doze all day. With a few exceptions, this is how we have spent our last 3 months.

As you can imagine, I'm going out of my mind. For one, I'm worried. I spend nights exhausted but yet waking every few hours to his coughing or glancing over to see if he's still breathing. I know that being sick and coughing all the time is exhausting, but being the spouse is, too. For two, he often has to drive long distances for his work and I'm constantly worrying about him driving so tired. I've also been doing the 'worst-case-scenario' dance, and without telling you exactly where my mind has gone, it has involved wondering who the hell would hire me after being out of the job market for over 10 years. Not pretty.

This is wreaking havoc on our home life. He's not much of a conversationalist in the evenings when he's so exhausted. I can't make many plans because I never know when he's going to feel up to certain things-like grilling what I've planned for dinner, or going out to dinner, or making plans with friends for the weekends. Just yesterday I had to take the boys alone to a party and he stayed home on the couch.

Finally, right before I left for the party we had a talk. I told him that we have to figure out something: he had to get the blood work done (that the dr. ordered 3 weeks ago!) and go in to see the doctor, OR I would drag him to the hospital and make them do every test known to man until they figured out what was wrong. If there IS something, then we can move ahead and deal with it, medicate it, or something.  Waiting for something to change (not counting the weather,) without any action is the definition of insanity, right?

So anyway, that's where we are. That's what I've NOT been writing about lately. What have you not been writing about?