Hello everybody. I am, (yes, once again), apologizing for my absence. I am needing a note from my mother at this point and even she is miffed that I still haven’t gotten around to posting all the fabulous pictures of Christmas at her house.

Hey, it’s just a little over a week until February and I don’t like to rush things.

Every time I think about sitting down and posting I start off with something funny in my mind and it turns all maudlin in my head before I can get it out. And I don’t think it’s because the Lexapro isn’t doing the job it once was.

Let’s do a rundown, shall we?

Henrietta is still convinced that Gilbert, (the older daughter’s longtime boyfriend), is the devil and frequently can be overheard muttering things about diablo and then using his name under her breath. Yesterday she told John that I was trying to give her drugs that Gilbert supplied me with that were illegal. (Mucinex DM)  She also started crying a few days ago and telling John that she just KNOWS that Gilbert is bringing drugs over here and “shooting” them into him, (John). He had been to the doctor and they had taken blood and so he had a cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow. I guess I should be proud that she thinks that we only deal with the kind of pushers that use an alcohol pad and then a sterile cotton ball and band-aid after the shooting up. We be classy like that.

She is also convinced that I am a horrible person because I won’t let her go to the hospital. She has been sick with the same virus that has worked it’s way through the rest of the family and lingered in the chests and throats and sinus cavities of each of us for two to three weeks each.  She is convinced she is dying because she has a hacky little cough that bothers her a few times an hour.

I coughed like I had TB for three weeks and and had a rattle in my chest like a maraca.  On a couple of the days when it was at it’s worst I stayed in bed because there were other people here that could take care of her. I heard that woman say to John, “What’s the matter with her now?” John was obviously aggravated with her when he told her I was sick, (as if she didn’t know), and she didn’t say anything else about it. But now, she is telling me that she wants to go to the hospital because she is coughing. When I tell her it’s just a virus she says, “How do you know?”, and telling her that everyone else has had the same thing and the same symptoms does not help.  “Oh, Krissa… you don’t know!”  She asked me to call a friend of mine that’s a nurse that lives about 20 minutes away and have her come and listen to her chest and tell her what she’s got. (As if that would settle it.) I told her no, there was no way. She said, “Well, she could take my temperature!”. I told her over and over she has no fever. She started telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I RAISED TWO CHILDREN. LIKE, I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO TELL IF SOMEONE HAS FEVER!

I got the damn thermometer and took her temp. Normal. So she let that drop.  But she started crying because she wanted to go to the hospital. No amount of assurance that the hospital wouldn’t take her would do. She won’t believe it. I explained that the insurance wouldn’t cover her admittance to the hospital for a cough. She just looked away and shook her head like a small child being defiant.

But, she gave up on the waterworks.

In other news…

John is not doing well at all and I am desperately hoping we can find a new way to attack his heart problems with a new pulmonary doctor and when we see him I am going to ask him if he can recommend a new cardiologist.  He has been sick and barely able to function at least 50% of the time since he got out of the hospital. They are not doing anything different. Same drugs, same course of action. (None.)  He hasn’t been to see the pulmonologist since he got out of the hospital because we found out the hard way that he doesn’t accept our insurance. But he is having such a hard time breathing now that we both think we have to do something new. So he will be going to see him on February 2nd.

Meanwhile his present cardiologist is saying that he should maybe consider “another line of work”, that maybe he just can’t do this anymore. As if there are  all these jobs out there waiting for him to just pick one. I think John is wondering if he can do it too.  I am frightened of the future and all the terribly unsure aspects of our lives.

Meanwhile…

Kessa made a small batch of hash browns the other day for her breakfast along with an egg, ham and cheese sandwich between two slices of perfectly toasted bread. She then walked over and set the plate down on a small occasional table between two chairs in our living room and, (for some totally unknown reason), went down the hall to my bedroom to talk to me for a few minutes. Leaving the sandwich innocently sitting there. On the plate. On the table. Between the two chairs.

Moments later she and I emerged from the bedroom and she exclaimed, “Baby!”  I wondered why since Baby was no where to be seen.

Neither was her sandwich.

Baby was rather shy for another couple of hours, the guilty little shit.