I don’t quite know where I came up with that subject line… but here’s an update of random happenings in the ol’ BHD household…
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\nThe spouse remains quite ill. His doctor provided results of more blood work that I insisted be done… and to no surprise but grave disappointment, now my spouse is confirmed to have yet a third co-infection from those awful tick-borne illnesses from which he has been suffering. <\/p>\n
I’m no physician — I don’t even play one on TV — but one of my undergraduate degrees is in a field where I have more knowledge than the average bear about causes and treatments of infectious diseases. While I did not pursue further study from that ugrad degree — doing so would have required going to med school and I didn’t want to do that — I have kept up with the basic science and can talk more intelligently with our primary physician, specialists, and pharmacists about what is going on. I then can explain it in simpler terms for my spouse. <\/p>\n
Fundamentally, if a treatment protocol doesn’t work, then something else needs to be tried. It is as simple as that. My spouse has had 172 — count ’em 172 — different types of antibiotics, compounded pharmaceuticals, and supplements prescribed or recommended to him over the past two years. Some have worked for a while; many have not. Some have produced such bad side effects that the treatment made him feel worse than the diseases. <\/p>\n
My laser-focused advocacy has been hard at work. Time requirement? Never an issue. Yeah, not fun juggling all the cherries in my bowl, but I always look at it from the perspective of, “isn’t it nice to have cherries to juggle?” We will persevere. My spouse will recover. I have faith. Great faith.<\/p>\n
Besides these things — ultimately the most important — I have had many other time-occupying things happen.<\/p>\n
I had a renter for one of my properties move out with no-notice. That hasn’t happened to me before. She left behind a huge mess. No damage that I can tell, but I’ll have to rent a roll-off dumpster and empty the house of all sorts of shit (literally, as well as figuratively.) Broken furniture, soiled carpets, newspaper, cat dung… oh lovely. Considering my limited time, I am going to hire a company that does that type of work. I don’t like to have to do that since I can do that work myself, but I just don’t have the time.<\/p>\n
I love to build things. I have a really nice woodshop in my basement, outfitted with great manly power tools. I find it relaxing and mind-diverting to build stuff. My spouse had been complaining that I build stuff for everyone else except us. So I decided to build a mammoth project (to be revealed later) to install in our kitchen. We want this thing installed before the mother-in-law’s annual summer visit in late July. This thing won’t build itself, won’t miter its own corners, won’t rout its own doors… lots of work, finishing, assembly, staining yet to be done. But this will happen before MIL comes! (Check in late July for photos — promise! This thing is really going to be terrific!)<\/p>\n
Every morning when I do my T-CLOCS inspection of my motorcycle, usually everything is fine. Lately, however, my rear tire has required air, and now almost every day. The tire has 18,000 miles on it… time to have it replaced. I can’t do that type of work myself at home. I don’t have the right equipment or a lift. Now, schedule service and find a time when I can fit that in.<\/p>\n
New employee at work. Nice guy. He is working hard. But any new employee requires closer supervision. I’ve been spending a lot of time with him, making my work day longer ’cause my regular workload remains intense. I love my job; I have the best boss in the world. It’s just really busy-busy-busy during my daytime, full time job.<\/p>\n
No travel. I was supposed to go on a trip to California for work, but considering the caregiving demands at home, my boss decided to go on the trip instead. I actually think he wanted to go anyway, but it was nice of him to offer me the relief of having to find a caregiver to look after my spouse while I was gone. My spouse hates being “babysat” but I can’t go away without having someone I trust looking after him. <\/p>\n
Sr. pals are a delight of my life and continue to help me out, as I carve out time to help them. Last Sunday to my surprise and delight, a group of senior pals asked me to take them grocery shopping, and when we arrived at the store, we were met by another dozen pals who “flash-mobbed” me with the song “You’ve Got a Friend.” Made me cry, but good tears. I love my pals. I can’t imagine life without them!<\/p>\n
So all-in-all, life lately has been intense and challenging. Demands on my time, attention, patience, and support are incredible.<\/p>\n
But each night as I sit with my spouse, holding his hand, I look around and say to myself, “isn’t life sweet? Like a big bowl of cherries?” I am exceptionally blessed to have what I have — a husband, a great family, supportive friends, job I love, nice home, and financial security. What else could a guy ask for?<\/p>\n
Life is short: appreciate what you have and make the most of every moment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t quite know where I came up with that subject line… but here’s an update of random happenings in the ol’ BHD household…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,43,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life","category-ld","category-partners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}