Author: craftylizard

Preface – I started writing this in the beginning of February, 2019.

I’m coming to the end of my FMLA time in the Seattle area. I came out in the middle of January because we honestly thought my mother was dying. The first week I was here did not dissuade that notion as she had clots in her legs, one that nearly cost her a leg after 12 hours of complete occlusion. This was followed by a stroke. It’s too long a story to entirely rehash so let me sum it up. Last November my biological mother was admitted to the hospital in Port Angeles with a possible stroke, but didn’t have the equipment to truly diagnose the situation.

My sister called me mid January to say that Mom had been transferred to Virginia Mason in Seattle from Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles following a 911 call. I called and spoke to Mom; she was doing well enough that they released her. Less than 12 hours later she was in the UW hospital cardiac intensive care unit on a ventilator. This is when I flew out.

I thought I’d be losing my mother and gaining the care and feeding of a Curmudgeon.

My sister is currently hosting the Curmudgeon. He’s living in her basement. Dwelling? Abiding? Lurking…. He’s a good man, but he’s definitely going to be yelling at the kids for coming near his lawn. And shaking his cane.

How does one care for the Curmudgeon? With love, patience, understanding… and whiskey, for the caregiver, but not him, as he’s a recovering alcoholic. Also, bowls of butterscotch candies. These can be put into pockets, for handy crinkling. They can be tasty snacks to be sucked on, loudly. They aren’t crunched, because the Curmudgeon has no teeth and his dentures are too uncomfortable, so he doesn’t wear them.

Bowls of cereal are accepted, with much clanking of spoons in stoneware. Very loud. Doesn’t bother him, as he’s pretty darned near deaf. Won’t try for a hearing aid because he doesn’t believe anyone can treat tinnitus. (They totally can)

The Curmudgeon has stated that he doesn’t argue. Ahem. Well, technically he doesn’t. He’s right, you’re wrong. He’ll tell you why you’re wrong. It’s not arguing.

Our Curmudgeon doesn’t sleep much. This means he may get up and take a shower at 4 am, because why not? It might make it easier for the teenager-type people to get to school later without worrying about him needing the bathroom.

My sister’s basement is not ideal for hosting a curmudgeon. Her home is a split-level, with the kitchen and bathrooms upstairs. Stairs are rough on a Curmudgeon who won’t get his hip replaced or looked at because that would cost money that he doesn’t have.

So do we leave a Curmudgeon living in a tiny trailer, isolated from the world, in a little trailer park? I’m afraid he’d pine away. My house isn’t ideal either, especially since the only spare room we have is the bedroom that was cut in half for the stairs to the basement, and currently houses my fabric and fiber stash and sewing machines. Plus we move every 2-4 years and I don’t know if the Curmudgeon would enjoy this.

I’ve been commiserating with my little sister about the assholery of our uteri. We may not be biologically related, but we have both had our histories of hysterical tissue issues. Mine are rooted a bit higher, in my ovaries with poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. Hers, a bit lower in whatever was left of her cervix after multiple surgeries to remove cancerous bits, with fibroid growths to really get a party started. I started menopause about a year and a half ago, with missed periods here and there, and she’s being chemically induced into menopause to bitch-slap her uterus into better behavior.

My uterus, not to be outdone by hers, has decided to head for the nearest exit. The technical term for this is prolapse. I think my sister correctly called it when she told my uterus to fuck off and quit being an asshole. Being more muscle than brain, my uterus simply flipped her off and continues it’s exit strategy, crawling out of my vagina.

I thought I was going to have a nice and easy peri-menopause, progressing without hiccup into full menopause, thus creating a permanent détente to my chronic battles with PCOS. Up until this, I wasn’t having nearly the issues my mother had. In fact, by my current age, my mother was completely done with menopause, although hot flashes were a thing for her for quite some time. When I first started skipping periods, sometimes for up to three cycles, I went to my gynecologist, who gave me some brochures, tested my thyroid (all my doctors are convinced there’s a thing going on with my thyroid, despite ever so many tests proving to the contrary) and told me that this was all very typical for a woman my age. My sister is right. My uterus is an asshole. Fuck you, uterus.