Gerry’s not home tonight and I miss him.
This is unusual, I’m the traveler – he’s the stay at homer (at least he has been the past few years) so it’s really odd for the kids and me to be here without him.
He’s at the hospital. He went to get a colonoscopy – it’s been a rough ride with that, this is try #3 (the first attempt was unsuccessful because he couldn’t get the prep stuff down – second attempt failed because he got it down, but it came right back up.)
This time the idea was to pipe it into him. He hadn’t realized they meant through a hose in his nose, and it was rough. I dropped him off at 8:00 and then ran Maxie to school.
I was supposed to wait for Gerry to call to have me pick him up, but a little after 11:00 he called to say they hadn’t even started the procedure. Later another call – still waiting – the first attempt at the nose was unsuccessful.
At 5:00 I called the hospital because I hadn’t heard anything and I was worried. All kinds of things go through the mind – but what I found was that after FOUR attempts they decided to do a special procedure where they scan his throat while they put the tube down (I may have misunderstood that) so they have a little guidance.
This attempt WAS successful, but it was too late to actually do the procedure – and they were loathe to let him go home (worried we’d have a wild fiber-eating orgy with lots of red jello, probably…)
So they admitted him – he’s staying there overnight.
The kids and I drove over to visit – he was in bad spirits. He’s pissed that they even had to do this – when his mom had a colonoscopy last month they used a pill prep – no awful liquid – and he’s a little angry they just couldn’t do that. They said the pills can cause complications, but he feels that the tube up his nose could case complications, too.
Poor Gerry – I could tell he felt out of control, angry, just very frustrated. And I was frustrated too. And I felt helpless (the kids were with me, hungry, I had to take them to get dinner)
I feel like I should have been more pro-active this evening at the hospital. I spoke to the nurse about the meds he’s on now, what he has to take, and what he has been taking for pain (he has tremendous pain in his bones, especially his hips) And although she took notes, she seemed – vacant – when she was writing down the information. I don’t have a lot of faith that it was processed. That’s a terrible thing to say, but you KNOW when you’ve made a connection with someone, and I don’t feel as though I made one with this nurse.
So tomorrow as soon as the kids are off to school I’m off to the hospital to be with Gerry and be more pro-active. In a perfect world, if I’d stayed with him today, maybe I could have facilitated the procedure – helped make the whole thing smoother.
While I was home alone today (how odd was THAT!) I did get his closet reorganized (summer clothes in, winter clothes stored) and got 60 press packages for Flip Knits ready to ship out the door. I want to get them mailed before the postage goes up on the 14th.
Thanks so much for all of your marketing suggestions – I’ve actually implemented many of them (I have a long-term ad at Crazy Aunt Purl’s blog – it’s been up for a week now)
Tomorrow I also have to ship a big box of the flipbooks to my classroom at TNNA in Columbus so I can hand them out to my students.
I’ve been at loose ends about the designing lately – which has been a little obvious from some of my earlier posts. I’m expecting too much from myself, and it feels like squeezing that last bit of toothpaste from the tube.
Or maybe like using up all the starter for sourdough bread – I just need to let it rise for a bit so I have a good wad to play around with. There’s a deadline I’d like to make in a week, but I am not going to sweat it.
One thing I did today that was NECESSARY was to get passport photos taken. I took them myself, me and the kids (actually, Hannah took mine!) and uploaded them to epassport. 
Tomorrow I’ll print them out at CVS (I don’t have a photo quality printer) and then off to a DIFFERENT post office to turn in our applications – and buy a buttload of priority mail stamps for the shipment I have to send out. Gerry got his passport a few years ago, so he doesn’t need new photos – just me and the kids!
I love the fact that I can have the mailman just come by and pick up the shipment at our house – that saves me SO much effort and time!
So tomorrow will be another rich and full day. Much, much better than the alternative.