So, let’s see about resuscitating this thing!

So hey-

It hasn’t really been my fault.

It’s basically been the year from hell, starting with me last fall with the skin rashes (itch), then the steriods (ICK), then multiple pulmonary embolisms (not recommended).

And, having thus had a pretty bleak winter myself, as soon as I was up walking around trying to get some stamina back, it became Tom’s turn. Within two weeks of my home oxygen tanks finally going away, Tom started having serious (as in “potentially lethal”) medical issues of his own.

Part of his reaction was a desire for privacy that included not wanting me or Sair discussing it online. For months and months. All of this left me on shaky ground, because of the difficulty of so loudly Not Discussing what I was spending most of my time dealing with. Okay so far as posting links to cats in boxes and the like, but harder in more discoursive blogging. At this point he’s started telling people that he was sick, though he is still mostly omitting details.

So I will continue to omit details, but I can say something of what has been going on. After a lot of medical song and dance in the spring, Tom finally ended up with surgery in July. All manner of complications ensued, involving internal blockages, and incisions opening up, and unremitting pain that they haven’t altogether solved. He spent something over three weeks in the hospital – off and on – being fed through an iv, and he finally came home barely able to make it across the room in a walker.

The good news is he is much stronger, though he still isn’t even nearly up to his normal level of vigor. He still has a lot of pain, especially at night, and therefore trouble sleeping. There is still – surgery was July 5th! – an open wound in part of an incision, that requires packing and bandaging daily. But his overall odds are pretty good, and life should look normal again, maybe even by spring. Or maybe later, depending on what all else the doctors come up with.

I’ve already pencilled in my Massive Freakout Over It All for tentatively mid-March. But I can move it back, if I’m still on-call at that point.