Update – the good, the bad, and the indescribable

August has been quite a month.

My son, Lunatic Writer, had what appeared to be another heart attack. He’s only 42, but unless I’ve lost count, this is his fourth. He had a triple bypass after the first. Doctors found two blocked coronary arteries; they put a stent in one, but after four hours of work they decided it wasn’t possible at present to do anything about the other. He was placed on Plavix with a warning that if he doesn’t take it he’ll die within two months. Fortunately I had some Plavix that my cardiologist prescribed, and my internist (after a telephone argument with the cardiologist) unprescribed. I got it off to him.

If the blockage isn’t clear in six months they’re going to do another bypass, but they don’t want to if it is avoidable, because it will use the last possible bypass vein and he might need it more later. He doesn’t have as many as most people do because of a bone-deep friction burn from when he was hit by a car while using a payphone at a 7-Eleven.

Freaky Angel’s careful, heart-smart, cooking has gotten him to a perfect lipid profile except for a too-low LDL. This is a family trait, I’m sorry to say.

My mother-in-law died. This was surely a relief to her; she has been in a state of advanced dementia for several years, and this saved her the ignominy of having to be transferred to an Alzheimer’s center. Now she can think again, and see clearly what she wasn’t able to see before–that her family really does love her.

Lunatic (the above-mentioned son) and his Angel suddenly  became in a very large hurry to get married. I helped all I could, and so did my daughters and my husband. They were married Sunday, and I was able to hear part of the ceremony–especially Lunatic Writer’s wedding vows–on the phone. I am extremely delighted with my new daughter-in-law, and I wish them a happy eternal marriage. Freaky Angel’s pragmatism is quite attractive, and somewhat matches Izzybella’s. She has the same likes and dislikes of most of the rest of the family. This time he’s made a wise choice–like all of us, Angel has her flaws, but not loving her husband is not among them. She is far and away the most interesting of all the females he’s ever been temporarily attached to, and she’s definitely much smarter. I wish we could help her find her stolen children.

My weight is now down to 168–only 7 pounds over what I weighed when I went into the hospital to give birth to Lunatic Writer. I left weight 104–the only time in my adult life when I was underweight, except for just before my first wedding, when I was having whooping cough and vomiting everything I ate.

My garden does the best it can with my desultory watering, weeding, and feeding. I didn’t get any veggies except snow peas planted in the spring because of a cornea transplant after which I wasn’t allowed to dig or till. I have another transplant coming up in September or October, so anything that doesn’t get into the ground now doesn’t get there at all. But my two chinquapin trees won’t get here until October. I’ll have to dig their hole before I get the transplant. I guess I can kick the dirt back into the hole, or ask my visiting teacher to help with it. She keeps hunting things to help me with.

I have successfully created an obsession. I have in the past had a habit of leaving the dishes for two or three days before washing them all. I decided to consciously push myself to wash them immediately, hoping to create first a habit and then an obsession. After all, OCD can be useful in a lot of ways. Now every time a dish is put down I rush it to the dishwasher. When the dishwasher is full, I run it, and as soon as it finishes, I put the dishes away and put into it any dishes that got used while it was running. I even get up in the middle of the night to put away a load of dishes and put in whatever is new.

It’s past 0430 and I’m still up–severe muscle spasms in left leg and buttock. No fun at all. But now will go back to bed and read some more of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes book I’m on.