hellishness
April 11, 2017, 4:06 P.M.

After I wrote the last entry, and before I'd even had a chance to post it, all hell broke loose. First of all, my car's driver door broke. Fortunately, it broke in the closed and locked postion, so it was drivable. UNfortunately, I spent the week crawling in and out of the cockpit via the passenger side, until I could get it to the mechanic on Friday after work.. And just for reference--I am 53 years old, arthritic, and weigh 299 pounds. The Impala has a center console and a floor shift.

Good thing I've been dieting and exercising, huh?

But that wasn't even the big deal of the week. How could it be? After all, it only really affected me, and we all know that anything that doesn't directly affect Spouse, is of little account.

No, the big deal was that Spouse's clockwork-like timing once again shit all over my life--he had a major freakout, meltdown, whatever you want to call it--over a health issue. He has another blood clot. NOT, mind you, another DVT, just a small clot that was caught early. And I suppose I should be grateful for the that--his usual methodology is to pretend things aren't happening until he nearly kills himself. But oh, my aching back--is he a pussy about this stuff. HIS pain is the biggest, baddest, awfulest, most unbearable pain that ever was. HIS illnesses require me to drop everything and focus my entire being on him, with laser-like intensity. Never mind that I'm completely f@#ked at work, and that there is a good chance that I could get let go in the next few months, and 3/4s of my team were out last week, for various reason, and I am only getting about 3 hours of sleep a night from the screaming anxiety...I should be focusing on HIM!

All this went down on Tuesday, including the usual long, drawn-out battle over getting a new prescription that required about six phone calls and multiple trips to Costco. Not that all this contained no good news--it did.
It isn't a full-blown DVT, it is a simple, small, clot.
He doesn't have to take Lovenox injections, or be on warfarin, and have daily blood tests--he can take Xarelto instead.
Xarelto, although it is an expensive drug, is covered at 100% on my insurance.

Spouse, however, is in pain, so he isn't really seeing the sunny side of things. (Although he is profoundly grateful to have escaped giving himself those injections.) And on Friday morning, he must have felt that my preoccupation with the overwhelming amount of work I have going on right now was eating into my devotion to his problems. Right before we left for work, we had words over his persistent refusal to do anything about his plight but bitch and moan. (Seriously--was just hobbling around moaning, and it was KILLING me.) He whined about how the pain in his foot was getting worse, and now the ball of his foot was hurting. I pointed out that the slip-on shoes he was wearing were the ones we just spent hundreds of dollars replacing because they were hurting his feet so bad, so maybe THAT was why his foot was hurting more, and offered to help him put on his good shoes--he once again refused to let me help him. I gave up and went to work, and half-killed myself for three hours straight, before I had even a second to look at my phone. Which he had blown up, within minutes of my pulling out of the driveway. His voicemails and texts were all over the place. He said he fell, on the front walk. (I don't know that I believe him, though.) And of course I didn't respond, so he "somehow managed" to get himself pulled up and get to his car--he called again. Well, when I didn't respond to that, he went to the office, and proceeded to send me a series of bitchy, whiny, texts about it. Which I also didn't see till long after the fact, because I was WORKING. And after work, I had to take the car to the shop, which meant that I had no transportation. So maybe, just maybe a little nap, to try and catch up some on my sleep? Well, no. Between the husband and the mechanic, didn't happen. So, instead, I wrote out and addressed all my easter cards. And as soon as husband got home, I had to take his car and drive all the way across town, in Friday night rush hour traffic, to pick up the rest of his Rx at the Costco, because they had to order more pills to fill it. So I grabbed a rotisserie chicken while I was there, came home, made a salad, and called it dinner. Bullied him into doing what was therapeutic for his leg pain, and went to bed at 8:30 because I was exhausted.

Got up early on Saturday, did the laundry and cleaned up the dog poop and worked around the house, made a shopping list, and waited for the mechanic to call to say I could pick up my car. At 10:00, I let Spouse off the leash long enough to drop me at the mechanic AND GO STRAIGHT HOME. It was $475.00 for the parts & labor to get the door open, and replace the door lock actuator. Once that was done, I took off for Meijer to get the shopping done--can I let you in on a little secret? It was marvelous to do it all by myself! #1, I only went to one store, instead of the three he favors, and #2, it goes so much more smoothly when I do it by myself. Plus I gassed up the Impala and mailed my cards.

Came home, put it all away, made us sandwiches from the leftover chicken, shooed him off to lie down and elevate his leg, did more laundry and housework, and spent the afternoon baking oatmeal cookies so he could have something to eat when he takes his pill, so it doesn't make him feel sick. Not gonna lie--I skimmed some of the dough and made myself a dozen with raisins, because those are MY favorite. After all the cookies were out of the oven and they mess was cleaned up, I had a lie-down, while the cookies cooled. Didn't get any real sleep, but it was at least a little refreshing. Put the cookies away, washed the racks, and fed the dog. I planned for an easy dinner; if not a particularly healthy one. Deli salads and hotdogs on the grill. Easy, and very little mess. Would have been perfect, if I hadn't stepped in a hole in the backyard when I went out to cook. Wrenched my left (a/k/a my GOOD) knee and ankle really hard. But I fed him, cleaned up, covered the grill, and baked off a few potatoes for morning. It was another evening where I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I crashed at 8:30 again, and with the exception of a few minutes of potty-time for me and B, around 3:00 am, I slept hard till the sun was up. 'Bout time.

Sunday morning, I got up, made homefries, spam, fried eggs, and toast for breakfast (he's spoiled.) and then cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, and did various other chores, both mine and his. I was having stomach problems, but by 9:20 I was in the shower, getting ready to drive him to his haircut. Which I did, and while he was in the chair, I took his car and filled it up. Made a quick stop for foil pans at the dollar store, and went home. I should have cleaned the bathroom, but I just didn't feel like it--so I didn't. (Ditto, calling my dad) I did go downstairs and cut up some of the cardboard in the recycling pile, so I could put it out for pickup this week. I'm way behind, and I really need to start working harder at getting that caught up.

I made a pressure-cooker pot roast for dinner, which is pretty easy, and not too bad in the cleanup department, either. We ate kind of early, and I had everything cleaned up and put away, and my morning prep done, by 6:00. I browsed for ebooks, watched some panel show clips, and relaxed till nine, hoping I would get a good night's sleep--alas, not to be. I woke up at 1:45 am, and despite trying every trick in the book, never got back to sleep. Which sucks, because today is the day I had to meet up with Niece, and finally get her her christmas gift--new tires at the Costco. I met her after work, which made for a very long day.