Trumped

I had a little procedure this week and Matt promptly threw his back out.  You know those people you mock? The ones that hobble around wincing and claiming they can't move and it hurts so much, blah, blah, blah. 

That was Matt. I'm all, I have fluid and blood draining into a bag strapped to my leg and he's all blah, blah, blah mah back muscles, Scarlet, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn about your silly little woman problems.

I would have derided him into submission, but he was actually in excruciating pain and unbelievably, general anesthesia, a bag involving gross fluids and stomach pain that may or may not have been related but was horribly uncomfortable nonetheless .... lost.  Matt trumped my draining surgical scars.

That's right. And this shit has happened to me before and yes I am still as bitter as the horrid, six degree wind blowing outside my front door, thank you very much, universe.  When I was eighteen thousand months pregnant with Nate, a stomach virus that bordered on Ebola Zaire, except without the bleeding from the eyes, struck our house.  As I permanently damaged my overstretched stomach muscles puking up internal organs around the nine pound fetus in my abdomen, Matt passed out, knocked himself unconscious on the corner of a wall and bled all over the floor.  I had to call 911 to get someone to rescue his bell rung ass and THEN I had approximately ten hot firemen in my house while I puked weakly into the toilet and waved my hand in the general direction of my concussed husband.

After they drove him away in an ambulance, I had to clean up the blood and sleep with my traumatized three-year-old son, who it turned out didn't even have the stomach flu. He just had to pee.

In the interest of fairness:  Matt had to walk home from the ER with seven stitches in his head in February inside the arctic circle because I absolutely could not drag myself out of bed for any reason including picking up my husband and his damaged brain at the ER. 

It was pretty.

The next morning, my stomach flu and sore muscles and aching, sleep deprived eleventy million months pregnant ass?  Up with our three small children.  Trumped by his head trauma.  This shit is not in the What To Expect When You're Stupidly Expecting Your Fourth Child In Three Years book.

You would think that a trumping like that could not happen to one couple twice in one lifetime but you would be wrong because not only was I trumped, bag, blood and all on Wednesday and Thursday, but... wait for it.

Thursday was a snow day. 

When we woke on Thursday morning, in rigid respective, avoid-any-movement-to-avoid-pain postures, to eight inches of fresh fallen snow, we glanced at each other, each taking the measure of their opponent. A bell rang in the voice of our little Quinn:  Momma!  It's snowing!!!  I poo-pooed!!  And pee-peed!!

Me: My stomach is killing me. 
Matt: I can't move.
Me:  Tubes. Bag.  Drainage.
Matt: I can't move.
Me:  Maaaaatttttttt.
TRUMPED!  Again. And I'm not even the one who wants to live in this godforsaken snow wasteland.
Matt:  I bet you there's no school.

And there wasn't because it appears that the powerful force for order instead of chaos in the universe likes to screw with us.  We both cried a little.  I'm not kidding.  Matt and I shed a few tears over a snow day before I got up and extracted Quinn from the toilet.  Parenting is hard at the best of times, but it is cruel and unusual punishment when you're ill.

So, that's what has been going on around here.  How about you?  Oh, and while we're chatting, I KNOW.  MY MFING DOOR.  Holy bat shit crazy 160 lb dog.  I deeply appreciated the comments on that post, they are still making me chuckle.  I need to spend about 50 hours emailing and visiting blogs and catching up, but I have to admit that survival has trumped all of that this week.  Thank all that is holy that there was school today. You would not believe my spry, agile form, bag, drainage and all, enthusiastically loading my children in the minivan in the crisp two degree morning air.  After Thursday, I think I would have hitched Hampton Noodle to a stroller, loaded them up and headed down the hill Grinch style with two broken legs and a gaping head wound.  Anything - anything - not to have them at home.

Sigh.  Listen To Your Mother Spokane auditions are tomorrow.  I am beyond excited.  I can not wait to celebrate the stories that these amazing writers share with us.  I shouldn't even mention such loveliness in the same post as backs and bags and snow days and bitching, but, well, that's the guts of motherhood, I suppose.  It's not always pretty.  I promise to write about that journey in a separate and more elevated post.

xo. Send ice cream.  Or Vicodin.  Just for the love of God, DO NOT send snow.