Babysitting the Big Baby

For any of you who have the misguided notion that I am a nice person,
please read no further. Your dreams will be shattered.

For those of you who know me as the self-centered, sarcastic b****
that I really am, please pull forward as I hack up my dearly beloved
Hillbilly Husband.

Disclaimer: I really love my husband, but sometimes he gets on my last
frayed nerve. Times like this call for drastic action. So I blog about him.

I am sorry that HH has pneumonia. I am sorry that he has what I believe
to be a torn cartilage in his knee. He had an MRI Friday night. I guess
we'll check on that in two weeks, whether the quack calls us or not. I
am doing what I can to keep him comfortable (not screaming at us).
That said, let the trashing begin.

I think HH must be getting a little better from the pneumonia, because
he is joining in his redneck games again. On Friday, he was kind of
lethargic and wheezy and weak. He got the antibiotics for the pneumonia
and some $45 prescription for the cough. He hadn't been coughing much,
but it had a rattle, like #1 son did when he had pnuemonia a couple years
ago. HH told me he takes the antibiotic once a day, and the gold--I mean
cough medicine--every 12 hours.

HH is a grown man, so I didn't think I needed to read about his medicine.
I though the cough medicine was some kind of pill to help him cough up
the fluid in his lungs. I asked him about it, like didn't he have to drink a
full glass of water with it, etc. No. So I went and found it. It is a bottle of
cough medicine. It says "Take every 12 hours as needed for cough." What?
$45 freaking dollars for regular cough medicine? And that's WITH insurance.
That is the co-pay! Give me a break! It's not even an expectorant. And
HH thinks he is supposed to take it every 12 hours. I guess if I want to
keep him stoned, I can give it to him, oh...maybe every 6 hours.

This morning he is just moaning and whining and carrying on. I asked him
if it hurt more than Friday when he came home from work early.

Right now it's a 9 out of 10 (Hey, there's that pain scale again.)

Is it worse than your kidney stone down in Branson?

No. That was a 14.

You're missing the concept. It only goes to 10. So this is a 5, since
the kidney stone was a 10?

Whatever. You think I can't take pain.

(I know you can't take pain. I am just trying to figure out how
serious this is.)

Finally, I asked him if he wanted me to take him to the emergency
room. But I pointed out that there are only two things they could do:
operate, or give him pain meds. I know they will not operate on
him with pneumonia, or in the ER, or on the Sunday of Labor Day
Weekend. Knee surgery is elective. He already has pain medicine
left over from his December 23 neck surgery to put a titanium plate
in his vertebrae. He has two kinds, as a matter of fact. Generic
vicodin and generic darvocet. One of them makes him nauseous.
But he can't remember which one. I know you're supposed to throw
out any unused medication, but hey, you never know when you
might need a good painkiller. The fake vicodin even had a refill left
on it, but alas, June 23 has passed. As you can see, drug seekers
or drug abusers we're not.

After all this moaning and groaning, he had not taken anything for
pain. Not even a tylenol. So he took a pain pill, skipping the dose
of gold--I mean cough medicine--this morning. It must have been
the right one, because instead of retching, he was snoring with his
mouth open in the recliner while we all tiptoed around him.

Yesterday, I asked if he wanted me to fix him some breakfast.
HH said, "If you want to." Oh, no he didn't!!! I can not stand
this. Say yes or no! Of course I DON"T WANT TO ! That
is extra work for me. I would rather he said, "Yes, I would
like you to buy a cow and milk it, drive down to Florida for
some oranges to squeeze for my juice, learn what crepes are
so you can whip some up, fatten a young hog to butcher and
cure the bacon, go back to that cow and churn some fresh
butter to put on the fluffy buttermilk bicuits you are about
to bake." But don't freaking tell me, "If you want to." Arrrrgh!

I might have more patience with him if it hadn't been for the time
he swore he was having a stroke, because the pain from the kids
talking to him cut right through his brain. Diagnosis: ear infection.

Or the time he knew he had epiglottitis and was going to choke
to death when his airway closed up, so he went to the emergency
room. Diagnosis: viral sore throat. (Not even any antibiotics for it!)

Then there was the septic infection in his knee that was going to
kill him if they didn't drain it out or amputate his leg. Diagnosis:
Housemaid's Knee.

So maybe you can understand why I am a bit skeptical of the
claims made by HH, the man who cried stroke, epiglottitis, and
septic infection.

OK. I feel a little better now. Yes, I am a heartless b**** to
complain about my poor HH when he's sick. But wait until
tomorrow. I will dish enough dirt on how HH treats me when
I am sick to fill a shallow grave.