travelingwithhumor

For the last 22 years, I have been constantly employed. Oh, I have taken vacations, I went out on maternity leave, but, I have always had a job, until a month ago. Then, the company that I worked for decided that my 22 years of experience wasn’t quite right for them so they eliminated my position.

While at first, I was devastated, after a 20 minute cry, I was thrilled.  I had gotten a nice severance package, I am well respected in my industry and truth be told I had just had a final interview with a great company two days before.  Additionally, I had been doing some private consulting for months so I had another stream of revenue coming in already.  So, all in all, it wasn’t a bad thing.

However, how does a strong type A personality who has never NOT had a job, relax into gainful unemployment without going INSANE, driving her husband insane or just generally jumping off the nearest high rise?  This is the story of how I did just that.  How, I decompressed my brain, relaxed my body and thrived while unemployed.  And, who knows, maybe I will be better for it.

 So, we’ve been home for a little over three weeks.  For the most part, our not so little one (NSLO) is doing great.  He is still experiencing seizures but they are milder for the most part.  Last week, however, we had a scare.

On Thursday evening, he had a seizure.  It was no worse or better than normal until we got to the postictal phase.  Physically, he came out of it just like normal.  However, then he couldn’t talk.  He wanted to, he could understand our questions, he just couldn’t talk.  So, off we went to the ER.

For, those of you who have never experienced an ER in the evening, it is quite an experience.  You can’t help but look around and think what is wrong with some of the people.  They all seem fine.  Then you realize that they are probably looking at you exactly the same way; because, of course by now, NSLO is bouncing off the walls.

Several hours later, we are informed that there is a hemorrhage and they want to do some additional testing.  So, we could go home and call back in the AM to schedule the testing.  Needless to say, that didn’t go over well.  Eventually, we were admitted and spent the next two nights in the hospital.

Friday morning, NSLO went through an MRI and an EEG.  Then we got an additional scare when they called back and asked that we keep him NPO – which usually means they are about to take him into surgery.  Eventually, they came back and let him eat.  There is a hemorrhage but it is normal based upon the surgery he had.  We stayed a few nights at the hospital to be safe and then went home.

As scary as all of this is, it wasn’t the worst thing that happened.  The worst was when my new boss critiqued my out of office message (I had left off a point of contact) that was set at 2 in the morning when I thought my son was seriously ill.  Now, I wouldn’t have minded the point out except for the way it was handled. 

I despise false people of all kinds and this was so fake and false and at the same time punitive as to be laughable.  All I can say is that I am getting lots of life lessons on how NOT to manage people, can’t say I am learning much else.  And, I am getting lots of practice in acting like I like people I really can’t tolerate.  And, socially inept people really shouldn’t be allowed to manage others.

Tomorrow is a big day for us. Our 9 year old son is having a Partial Corpus Collosotomy tomorrow.  Basically, they will go in an separate the two halves of his brain about 2/3 of the way through.  It is a frightening thought.  However, the doctors feel that this has a better chance of eliminating the drop seizures that he is prone to.  At this point, we just want to do what we can to help protect him.

All week long we have been in the hospital.  And, we have experienced humor in the midst of this.  For instance, on Tuesday as we were in the surgical waiting area for the first procedure, we encountered the “Clampetts come to town”.

There we were were minding our business playing with our various electronics.  And in come Grandma Clampett, a teenage girl and a 9 month old in a car carrier.  A few minutes later they were joined by Hillbilly Clampett 2 and not one, not two but THREE children all under the age of four.  The youngest was in an industrial size stroller that was loaded for a 3 hour cruise aboard the SS Minnow.  Approximately, 5 minutes later Hillbilly Clampett 3 walked in with 3 more children all under the age of 5.  Shortly after that, baby daddy and Grandpa Clampett arrived.

Now, I need to mention that the surgical handbook that you are given specifies not once, not twice but THREE times that no more than 2 people are allowed in the surgical waiting area.  All other people must wait in the lobby atrium.  So, for those of you counting, the Clampetts had 13 people, only 5 that were old enough to vote.  That is 11 more than they are ALLOWED.

Now, normally, that would be enough to make me go psycho on them.  However, all I could think was that my son needed his mommy to be there (and not in jail) when he came out of surgery.  So, I took a more surreptitious route.  Under the guise of getting caffeine, I spoke with the lady manning the desk.  She smiled politely and said she was about to call security.

Five minutes later, armed with a DDP I returned to the waiting area to watch the show.  Security showed up and spoke with the Clampetts.  This only served to spread them out a bit.  So, now rather than bothering just the two of us, they were bothering half of the room.  Additionally, with the grown ups spread so far apart, the children started running wild – and I do mean wild.

That is when the charge nurse appeared and not so quietly told them to take the children downstairs.  This was when HC2 came unglued and wanted to know why they were being singled out.  Was it because they had children?  Because their children were probably the cleanest children in the room.  Of course, she is saying this at top volume so we can all hear her.  She then begins to point out other children and COUNT them.  I must admit I was impressed as I was fairly certain she couldn’t count without benefit of toes and fingers.  The nurse, however, was not impressed and continued to usher them out.  As they were almost out of the door, the mother of the child being operated on finally realized that she needed to be near.  Now she started to ask how she was going to know when her child was done.  The nurse informed her that two people were allowed to stay behind.  However, the Clampetts deemed it more important to exit en masse.  They left NO ONE behind to wait for results on this poor child.

Now, I am evil enough to admit that I was secretly pleased that they were forced to leave.  I am enough of a rule follower to appreciate that.  However, my mom side overrides that is simply saddened that these people were more interesting in hanging out en masse that leaving someone behind to watch over their child.  That isn’t funny at all.

For a few months now, a friend & I have talked about starting our own blog.  We both regularly travel and are always amazed at the things/people/stuff we see on our trips.  We have even gone so far as to start taking pictures so that we can show people the things we see.  So, this blog started from that place thus the name.

However, I suddenly find myself grounded.  My son was diagnosed with epilepsy about a year ago and now we are in the hospital prepping for surgery tomorrow.  That is the absolutely horrific part.  The silver lining is that a hospital is a breeding ground for truly amusing things.  So, it has evolved into more of just a traveling through life with humor.  Because, we are all in it together and there is only one way out…

Now, fair warning, I have a rather macabre sense of humor that is not for the feint of heart.  I was raised in a family that believed if you can’t laugh then what’s the point.  We laughed at the funeral of a relative when a dog peed on one of the pall bearers legs while we were graveside.  So, if that type of humor found even in the darkest moments doesn’t appeal to you, then this is not the blog for you.

Anyway, that lets you know where I am at this moment.  Full mental picture, sitting in a recliner in my sons room, laptop across my legs, parents across the room (dad is sleeping), son in his hospital bed looking like a Q-Tip watching the first Harry Potter for the 900th time (thank you JK Rowling).  Later today, I will try to post some stories from earlier in the week.  Remind me to tell you about the family of 22 (only 6 of which were adults) in the family waiting room that has a maximum of 2 people policy.