Friday, April 16, 2010

Writing Life Out of Focus

Springtime, warmer days, pretty flowers, Life- are all knocking me out of focus.

I can't seem to concentrate or get my head back into what I should be doing now that Spring Break has come and gone. The break away didn't do anything to help redirect my train of thought or help settle the rumblings of change in my soul as far as writing/critiquing goes.

Instead I'm thinking about how I need to declutter the house, keep an eye on my spring flowers in the yard that are starting to come up, anticipating the imminent arrival of the hummingbirds and looking back over March, which was such a sick month for everyone in our household and it doesn't seem to be getting any better where health issues are concerned.

I'm okay- typical stuff- allergies/sinuses. Hubby though is still fighting off illness. First of the year he got debris in his eye at his previous job and had to deal with the infection that arose from it. Last month he had a bacterial infection in his lungs but they also decided to check everything else—diabetes and thyroid tests came back fine, but they were concerned about his constant fatigue lowering his immune system, his excessively high resting heart rate and well, he's had pneumonia a few times in the past 5 years, so the doctors are always concerned about the scarring on his lungs and the fact that he's had it too often for his lungs to heal properly. Of course, the exhaustion led them to ask questions about his sleep habits and whether he snores, wakes up a lot and how big his neck is.

After measurements, chest x-rays and a consultation with a sleep doctor, he was told his esophagus is too small and his tongue is too big and the reason he wakes up off and on all night, it's because his brain is waking him up because he's suffocating on his tongue. His heart rate is high because it's working overtime for him and we found an answer to why Ambien never worked for him years ago-

When he had pneumonia in 2006, the doctors gave him that to help him sleep and instead it was the absolute reverse, it kept him wide awake. The sleep doctor told him it was because that pill, and most like it, is a muscle relaxer and your tongue is a muscle, so when he took the pills, his brain refused to let him sleep because of the possible consequences. He will have to go to a sleep study sometime soon, but the doctor seems certain he has sleep apnea and when he asked what would happen if he chose to go without treatment, the doctor told him he will die.

Of course, just when we thought things were settling down, he got a staph infection in his nose and we've been dealing with it this week. It wasn't getting better after the first round of antibiotic treatments over 3 days time—if his nose was still swollen, red and irritated they told him to come back to the doctor so he went yesterday. They were concerned because it had spread onto his face and up into his sinuses and they were worried about it moving into his brain and killing him, so they sent him to an ear/nose/throat doctor who changed the antibiotics and ointments up to something stronger.

This morning he said he's been able to drain the infection out some and his nose isn't nearly as red and swollen as it was, so we're hoping this helps and gets him on the road to recovery.

As with most things, you can't plan ahead too far- we live Life unwritten and out of focus most of the time as it is, so perhaps my writing is out of focus at the moment, but I've had to turn my attention elsewhere because that IS Life and we sometimes have to write Life out of focus anyway.

Have a great Friday and wonderful weekend everyone- Write On- whether in OR out of focus!

2 comments:

Kelly's Mom said...

Wow... family repsonsibilities can really pile on, can't they. I've been in that situation many times, sick kids, sick hubby, running to this doctor and that. It's necessary sometimes, but it really can suck the life out of your creative spirit. Here's hoping that your husband gets some relief and answers, and you can get back into writing! I'm sure you're like me... you feel better when your writing!

Purple Cow said...

Ha! You are the second writers blog I read who seems to be having troubles concentrating due to Spring. There must be an epidemic!