Twenty Years since Number Two

Twenty years ago today, I met the woman I've since nicknamed "Number Two." Probably the most descriptive nickname I've given someone.

 

I would hope she's become a better person in 2 decades, instead of the mean little emotional tarball she was in 1996. I know she was miserable--bipolar, doc working on her meds, a Norplant stick in her arm, and her emotional baggage from too many bad relationships and parental abuse. She's about 90% blind, as well.

 

I got stuck in that mess for four and a half months. Happens pretty quickly, even when you're not trying to "save" someone like that. They can still pull you in, then pull you apart. She used the threat of suicide, overdoses, guilt, her disability, whatever she could to try to keep me around or just to get her way.

 

I helped her move into her own place, from an utterly shitty apartment to a 14x80 trailer with a "rent to own" plan on it. I did what I could to simplify her home life--I did all the cleaning, cooking, and whatever. She went to work with clean clothes and a daily bath. There were some good days...there were more bad ones. I learned how everything was my fault. I learned the many ways that I was WRONG:

--if I worked on my car, I wasn't spending time with her

--if I spent time with her, I wasn't taking time for myself

--if there was a problem with the car, I should have been maintaining it

--I caused her bad day at work

--she had a good day; this was my fault, too.

--If I was off from work, I was supposed to answer the phone when she called to check up on me.

--If I didn't answer immediately, I was probably cheating on her

--had to account for every waking moment not spent at work or near her

--yelled at me for 20 minutes for washing my car.

 

I had a part-time job at the time, but I was on the hunt for something better, because I had my own plans. I wanted my own place. It took almost 4 months for me to finally secure a full-time job. By that point, that trailer was a cage--and my part-time job was the lock on its door. I finally escaped--Free!--in late December and lever looked back. Like I said, I hope she got better--but there's no way I'm going to look her up to find out.

Clint Eastwood's an idiot.

Clinty says this is a "sad time in history." He's decided that he's okay with der Hair Fuehrer's racism, because it wasn't racism when Clinty was growing up.

 

Clint, you know what's a sad time in history?

 

--being a world-famous black woman who can't sleep in the hotel where the just performed.

--having Frank Sinatra browbeat the hotel manager for a room...only to have the hotel management burn all the bedding, right down to the mattress, as soon as you're out, because a black woman slept there.

 

-- "blacks only" water fountains.

 

--"separate but equal" schools that aren't equal.

 

--three white kids murdered and burned in their car for helping black people register to vote.

 

--black people being hanged for trying to vote.

 

--black churches firebombed.

"Get over it."

"When I grew up, those things weren't called racist."

 

 No? Maybe not by you. Things people were able to get away with when you grew up are unacceptable now. You need to "get over it. "

 

But maybe your Dirty Harry was right: "A man's gotta know his limitations."

 

 I think we just found the extent of yours.

Tonight's bachelor fuel: Beef Stroganoff a la Rice Cooker

--1 box of Winn Dixie "skillet dinner" stroganoff flavor

--1 can (15 oz) Hormel corned beef hash

All the "skillet meals" (Hamburger Helper and the like) are is a box of noodles or rice and a packet of sauce. Not much different from Rice a Roni, boxed mac & cheese, the Knorr side dishes, etc.

You're expected to do everything in a skillet so that you can brown the ground beef or chicken and all that, but any one of these can be done in a rice cooker--and you only have the one pot to clean up.

SO: put your noodles in the pot and add water, about 2" over the top of the noodles. Hit the COOK button and let it bring the water to a boil. You can either let it boil a little and then add the rest of your ingredients, or you can add them now. Doesn't matter.

[edit: make that an inch, not 2, over the noodles; too much water makes the sauce soupy.]

Dump the can of corned beef, the sauce mix, and a cup of milk into the cooker, stir it all together and let it go. Once it's boiling again, you can let it finish its cycle on its own or just cook until the noodles are done "al dente".

Shut it off, let it cool a little, and serve.

Variations:
Haven't tried any; this is my first time with it; there's always ground beef and stuff like beef tips or whatever, but those would require more than the one cooking pot, which kind of defeats my "one box of this, one can of that" vibe.

This was the first try, with the recipe as I originally wrote it (2" of water); I could have added some more pasta to bulk it up a little and get 4 solid servings.

Aorta Day, 6 years later.

I didn't even think about it until the last day or so...but July 12 was the 6th anniversary of "aorta day."

Short version: in May 2010, I was running 290/180 blood pressure. The ER staffers were amazed I was walking upright instead of lying on a morgue gurney after a massive stroke.

Then, on July 12, that crazy-high pressure finally tore a hole in my aorta and tore the inner lining along the full length, all the way to where it branches to the left & right legs. Hurts like hell. First there's a horrible burning across the shoulder blades, then a feeling of metal bands constricting your body as the tear makes its way down. Everything goes haywire because blood flow is interrupted along the way--so your guts feel like they're knotting up (they're dying for lack of blood).

I did a week in the hospital . Lots of doctors, CT scans of the aorta every 6 months, on BP meds the rest of my life, a full-length aortic stent...and the physical fallout: swollen legs, get out of breath just walking out to my car, screwed-up sleep cycles, all permanent.

Long way of telling anyone reading this: KEEP THAT BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROLLED. I got "lucky"--there are two versions of aortic dissection. Mine goes down, away from the heart. The version that killed John Ritter goes toward the heart. Either one can kill.

Don't think you're too young, either. I was 42 when it happened.

(echoed to my Facespace page...)

In which I do my yearly home air conditioner repair...

It's becoming tradition, I guess. Every summer since 2013, I've had to Do Something to the house air conditioner.

I don't mind being the designated "Do It Myself" guy. It does save money, but more importantly it gives me a challenge. Ever since Aorta Day 6 years ago, I've been reduced to a couple of states:

--sleeping
--sitting

I wish I could say I've made huge strides in recovery, but I haven't. I get winded walking from my bedroom to the bathroom. Last year's procedures to line the entire length of my aorta with stents didn't improve my stamina.

This means that the "Do It Myself" stuff doesn't go as quickly. Actually, if I can't put a chair next to it, I'm screwed.

So here's me Monday afternoon (7/18), already blown out from making a grocery store run with an over-100-degree heat index. I get home and feel more and more uncomfortable, thinking it's my meds or whatever. Then I realize the air conditioner's not blowing.

It's obvious right off that it's not the "usual" problem, which has been ants getting themselves electrocuted & burned to ash by crawling onto the contacts of the big power relay on the outside air unit. That thing's running 220 volts and loads of current. Bugs are like republicans, though--they will not listen to reason and cannot be educated out of their determination to fuck with things they don't understand.

I don't bother with republicans (they get zapped, they're on their own); but I've gotten good at cleaning bug husks off the relay contacts.

This time, though, the outside unit was fine. No fan indoors, though. I did my usual thing of going to the Internet and finding schematics, learning about the air handler (indoor unit), and putting together a short list of stuff to look at.

This took all of the next day, Tuesday. It was miserable enough in my bedroom that I went and bought a second fan. I could have just put the little window air conditioner in and slept and researched in comfort that night. I ended up doing it Tuesday afternoon anyway. I pretty much had to--one of my medical problems since Aorta Day is that I can't take much heat.

Tuesday ended with me finally getting my tools in from the car and opening the air handler's cabinet.

I slept comfortably...but the rest of the house was somewhere over 90. My nephew's room at the opposite end of the house from mine was sweltering. He doesn't have a window AC unit.

I slept as much as I could, trying to recharge from the previous day's overheating. I didn't exactly bounce out of bed Wednesday morning, but I got up around 11am and got to work. Then I realized I needed my voltmeter...and wasted a few hours looking for the damn thing. It was in my car.

So now it's almost 3pm and I get the tester testing...without going into all sorts of detail let's just say I had it narrowed to 2 components. One tested good, so I started calling AC suppliers looking for the other component. Every single one turned out to be a wholesale-only shop. Two of them would sell to me as a residential customer, but there wouldn't be any warranty or return on the part.

The first one wanted almost $40, and I was ready to go for it, but it was 3:50pm and they closed at four. Crap.

By the time I found the second supplier willing to sell to me, it was nearly 3:10pm. This guy wanted $20 and would close at 4:30.

I got my nephew to drive; he's a bit more aggressive in traffic and we needed that advantage. Made it, got the part, got back, and I plugged the thing in.

Nothing. No fan.

I poked at the thermostat's buttons...and the fan came on. Hah!


The AC system ran all night, nearly 12 hours. I kept an ear open, but knew it was going to take a while for it to bring the house down to 73. It finally clicked off around 4:30 Thursday.

We all slept comfortably.

Thursday morning saw me checking the system. I'm naturally suspicious of any "success" in fixing stuff. Sure as hell, the fan wasn't running and it was almost 80.

Crap! See? Never that simple.

I poked at the thermostat, since that had made it go the day before. Nothin' doin'. But the thermostat was telling me the fan was on.

I popped out the thermostat to try resetting it.

Uh.

There was a big, brown, recently-dead roach jammed into the thermostat box, belly pressed against the circuit board.

I tried shaking it out, but it was stuck. I tried prying it out and tore its ass off. Its guts and the remnants of its last meals came out, too, and introduced me to a nauseating, garlicky stink from its fermented food.

I ended up taking the thermostat apart to get that fucker out. Again, without all the details, I cleaned up the board, traced out the circuit board, and found a spot where the dead roach had apparently shorted the one freaking spot on the board that connected to the wire that controlled the fan. I've never seen anything like it before--there was enough moisture in the bug's body for it to electrocute itself in the low-voltage (24 volts!) side of the system. AND it provided enough of a circuit itself to cause damage to the board--that one component lead was eroded all the way to the foil solder pad, the solder was nearly oxidized away, and the circuit trace itself was damaged. Huh.

I cleaned some more, soldered a repair, put everything back together, and put the thermostat back in place. AC system fired up, fan came on.

Turns out I probably didn't need that controller board I bought, but it's still one less thing to go wrong later--and it was only $20. I need to bug-proof the back of the thermostat.

Now we see whether the fix of the fix is fixed.

Ah, that Florida humidity...

Today, the heat index hit 101 for a 90 degree afternoon; it's taken almost 9 hours to come down under a 90 degree index at 82. Pretty miserable. The air clings and presses against you oppressively

I'd describe it as being trapped inside The Blob, but with a SCUBA tank and respirator so you're just miserable and not suffocating.

About the only way to make it worse would be to have one of our street-corner preachers carrying on right next to me as I'm walking outdoors. Bleah.

The most "Florida" encounter I've had...

Just had a Florida animal encounter.

Went to the store. As I'm shutting the car door, I see one of our big, brown roaches crawling along the side window frame toward me. I reached out right-handed and flicked it off the car to land maybe 10 feet away, in the parking lot.

A smarter creature would have pondered, turned, and scuttled off away from me.

Nope; the little shit revved up all 6 legs and came running at me like Barney Fife on a mission--"You wait right there! I'm gonna give you what-for! These legs are certified lethal weapons!"

He covered that 10 feet in moments, like a little dragster. Pretty impressive.

So I stepped on him. Self-defense. =P

Medical...bleah

When we left off in April, I was about to get the lower half of my aorta stented to reinforce its damaged lower end from a little below the diaphragm all the way down to the branch that leads to the femoral arteries and other piping below the navel.

No complications from that, other than losing all the improvements I'd made since the upper half was lined. Everything--the improved circulation in my lower legs that saw me lose a few pounds' worth of water weight, saw the swelling in my left shin and calf almost vanish in a matter of a few weeks (MASSIVE difference), had me walking better and feeling better for the first time in years.

Gone.

I was assured by the vascular doc's nurse that there wasn't a vascular problem.

Except that...there WAS. How else to explain a sudden reversal that immediately followed the second surgery?

Jet forward to this morning, when my new vascular doc (old doc moved to Texas) asked some questions about medical tests I'd had, the symptoms I'm having, and his answer was basically "We need to get you tested; this sounds like a vascular problem."

Imagine that.

He figures that one or both of the two big veins coming up from my legs and joining the Big Vein headed up to the heart might be pinched where the aorta branches to the legs. Makes sense to me: both of  the iliac branches are stented now, which stiffened them up and could be pressing against--and pinching--the veins against my spine, inhibiting return blood flow.

That is vascular.

So now I'm waiting to get scheduled for an internal ultrasound; a needle goes into a convenient vessel headed in a convenient direction. Needle's got a little ultrasound transducer. Doc can basically scan the length of both of the veins at that possible pinch point. If there's a pinch, he can throw a stent in to open the restricted area and get my tired-ass blood flowing again.

Tomorrow, dammit, I want it tomorrow. I'd settle for NOW.

This shit's old. Very old. I've gone almost a year with so little energy that I basically sit up on the edge of my bed and surf the Web on my old laptop because moving over to the desktop computer is too much. The laptop's so out of date (running Ubuntu Linux Heron from '08; can't even upgrade the copy of Firefox that's on it, can't install another browser) that in the course of the last 6 months it stopped being able to load Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. I end up reading a few political and news blogs and a few Reddit pages (AskReddit is usually entertaining), wear myself out, and go back to sleep for another couple of hours. I get over to the desktop every few days to handle email and all that. Today's one of those days.

I haven't had a solid 8 hours' sleep since the night before my aorta crapped itself in July of 2010. It's usually somewhere from 2 to 4 hours, wake up for several, and repeat. I'm getting REM sleep, but I don't know how the interruptions are affecting things.

The one thing I DID accomplish was eliminating my migraines. This is almost worth all the other crap and all it took was one of the meds I was already using. I stopped it for a few months to see if it would help with all the swollen leg and fluid-retention stuff. Nope, no effect there--but the gawdawful weekly migraines I'd been tormented by before Aorta Day came back with a vengeance. I was back to having my room utterly blacked out, no sound, no TV, no moving, no lying down. I was practically mainlining BC Powders, the only thing that would touch those headaches from hell.

Then I saw or read something about blood flow along the under side of the brain having something to do with migraines. I went back on those meds to see if there might be a connection. Three months along, the headaches are gone. I'd dance, but I'm too tired.

***

I don't really have an ending, here, other than being hopeful that I can finally get my legs back in order. I haven't been to a fort since 2011. I'm not counting Fort Point in San Francisco, since it was CLOSED. Not counting Fort Pike in Louisiana, either, since it was not only CLOSED but fenced the hell in to protect it from generating any tourism money for the state.

Taking my grumpy ass to bed. :p