How many soul mates are out there for any one person? So far I think I have found 4 for myself, there are my Luv-Luv and my Sweetie who are like parts of my being, extensions of my body at times (or me of theirs, that part can be confusing most of the time). There is my Dear Friend, who is like a missing part of my personality (my missing inner extrovert), and then there is my Twin, she is who I would have been if I had been born a woman, down to being poly and exclusively attracted to women.
What exactly does it mean when someone is a soul mate? Why am I thinking so philosophically right now when I should be taking advantage of this pain killer to get more sleep after wrenching my ankle last night?
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
My Sweetie
So anyway I went through what has to be most guys worst nightmare last night, my wife and my girlfriend met.
Not a nightmare for me, they hit it off as well as we had all hoped, it looks like they are going to be pretty good friends, not just tolerate each other. So now I have my wife (who I call my Luv-Luv) and my girlfriend (who I call my Sweetie), they both want me to stay the night with my Sweetie this weekend and maybe also do something as a big family group also. My Sweetie is starting to think seriously about having a child with me, the only concern there is coming out of the Poly closet to my parents and my in-laws. We will probably have to come out to Sweeties family fairly soon, her mom is starting to make noises about meeting me and none of us want to actually lie about our relationship. I will probably come out to my little sister fairly soon, I think she might be fairly accepting, and I am pretty sure Luv-Luv's little sister will not have any problems either. That reminds me that I need to tell our Dearest Friend about Sweetie so they can meet when DF is in state in July.
Fortunately there are some friends where coming out is not an issue, like the poly lesbian couple, the open triad and some friends who also happen to be in the kink community.
Arghhhh.. all the logistics of coming out make my head hurt, but I am not going to force myself to stay in the closet. On to a more pleasant subject, Luv-Luv was just given a mid-range KitchenAide stand mixer, we are already prioritizing the purchase of additional attachments. I can't wait to see if I notice an impact on her already good cooking, I sure like the results of the pressure canner we got 2 months ago.
Not a nightmare for me, they hit it off as well as we had all hoped, it looks like they are going to be pretty good friends, not just tolerate each other. So now I have my wife (who I call my Luv-Luv) and my girlfriend (who I call my Sweetie), they both want me to stay the night with my Sweetie this weekend and maybe also do something as a big family group also. My Sweetie is starting to think seriously about having a child with me, the only concern there is coming out of the Poly closet to my parents and my in-laws. We will probably have to come out to Sweeties family fairly soon, her mom is starting to make noises about meeting me and none of us want to actually lie about our relationship. I will probably come out to my little sister fairly soon, I think she might be fairly accepting, and I am pretty sure Luv-Luv's little sister will not have any problems either. That reminds me that I need to tell our Dearest Friend about Sweetie so they can meet when DF is in state in July.
Fortunately there are some friends where coming out is not an issue, like the poly lesbian couple, the open triad and some friends who also happen to be in the kink community.
Arghhhh.. all the logistics of coming out make my head hurt, but I am not going to force myself to stay in the closet. On to a more pleasant subject, Luv-Luv was just given a mid-range KitchenAide stand mixer, we are already prioritizing the purchase of additional attachments. I can't wait to see if I notice an impact on her already good cooking, I sure like the results of the pressure canner we got 2 months ago.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Keep Buggering On - One of Winston Churchill's famous phrases, that's what I'm doing. I'm feeling a lot more controlled (and IN control) than I was when I made the last post, so the prospect of KBO is not as daunting as it was then.
So to try and get my account back on track....
Shortly before I left the hospital I had received a pair of foot braces to prevent toe drop, neat looking carbon fiber looking things, problem was I had not looked at them too closely, until one of them broke at physical therapy in late June. Turns out one was the heavy duty version, the other was the normal weight, guess which one broke? So I had to trek to the company that I got it from and have them replace the broken one with the heavy version so I had a matched pair. While I was there they also repaired the strap on the heavy one where the pop rivet had broken, wish they had been that thorough when they had selected them in the first place. By The end of September I had stopped needing them, still not much strength in the muscles that provide dorsiflection (upward movement) in my ankles or big toes, and I can only feel pain in my left big toe, the right big toe can feel some other sensations like cold and heat, just not touch. Good riddance to those braces, but they may reappear at some point, modded out for SteamPunk garb. In November I went to Hawaii with my dad, my reward for surviving, my dad's for getting through both me and my mom nearly dying within 5 months.
OK, since the last post on 5/21 big changes have occurred. on 5/31 I started chatting with Sweetie (as I am calling her now), met her in person on 6/8, then again on the following Monday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. The only reason I have not seen her yesterday or today is because she is out of town until tomorrow. Just over 2 weeks and it feels more like we have been dating for months, I have fallen for my Sweetie, and I think it really is love.
So to try and get my account back on track....
Shortly before I left the hospital I had received a pair of foot braces to prevent toe drop, neat looking carbon fiber looking things, problem was I had not looked at them too closely, until one of them broke at physical therapy in late June. Turns out one was the heavy duty version, the other was the normal weight, guess which one broke? So I had to trek to the company that I got it from and have them replace the broken one with the heavy version so I had a matched pair. While I was there they also repaired the strap on the heavy one where the pop rivet had broken, wish they had been that thorough when they had selected them in the first place. By The end of September I had stopped needing them, still not much strength in the muscles that provide dorsiflection (upward movement) in my ankles or big toes, and I can only feel pain in my left big toe, the right big toe can feel some other sensations like cold and heat, just not touch. Good riddance to those braces, but they may reappear at some point, modded out for SteamPunk garb. In November I went to Hawaii with my dad, my reward for surviving, my dad's for getting through both me and my mom nearly dying within 5 months.
OK, since the last post on 5/21 big changes have occurred. on 5/31 I started chatting with Sweetie (as I am calling her now), met her in person on 6/8, then again on the following Monday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. The only reason I have not seen her yesterday or today is because she is out of town until tomorrow. Just over 2 weeks and it feels more like we have been dating for months, I have fallen for my Sweetie, and I think it really is love.
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Recovery
Now I can only speak for Critical Care Neuropathy, but the random shooting pains are really no fun. Neurotonin is a great medication, it is keeping the pains bearable, unfortunately it does not appear to reverse the damage. It does reduce the feeling that someone is forcing a stake through my foot from happening every 4-8 minutes to happening 6-10 times a day. I was able to start driving again a couple of weeks before they mentioned I should try it, They were amazed when they found out I had climbed the ladder to replace a blown fuse in the AC, when I had asked them about climbing a ladder a few days earlier they told me to try, but that they thought I would only be able to go up 3-4 rungs at most.
I had wanted to keep this chronological, but it hurts too much not to vent somewhere, why does it seem that everyone around me is finding the relationships they are looking for, but not even any prospects out there for me? Since actively starting to look last October, I am 0 for I don't know how many hundreds of women I have tried to contact. Listening to my wife talk to her boyfriend in the Great Lakes area on the phone hurts so very bad, not because I am jealous of him, but because I am jealous of what they have. When will I find anything that lasts beyond the first kind of date? And is there some sort of rule for online dating where if I have not propositioned them by the 4th message the stop having conversations with me? I gave up on any real hopes of finding a new partner about a month ago, all I am really expecting to find at this point is a few new gods damned friends, and even that is not fucking happening. I am that most pathetic of creatures aren't I, the polyamorous person who is only ever going to have a single physical relationship at a time. I am getting sick of hearing "Don't give up, it's just a numbers game", "You can't give up, you'll find someone eventually", "Don't be discouraged, there's someone out there for you". Yes there is someone out there for me, problem from the poly perspective is it looks like it is someONE, and I have already found her.
Well it is way too damn late, the teething toddler looks to finally be out for the night, and it is hard to see what I am typing. Well maybe I will be up to typing more in the afternoon, after I have forced all this heartache back in the box it belongs in, I hate being so weak that I can't keep my emotions under control.
I had wanted to keep this chronological, but it hurts too much not to vent somewhere, why does it seem that everyone around me is finding the relationships they are looking for, but not even any prospects out there for me? Since actively starting to look last October, I am 0 for I don't know how many hundreds of women I have tried to contact. Listening to my wife talk to her boyfriend in the Great Lakes area on the phone hurts so very bad, not because I am jealous of him, but because I am jealous of what they have. When will I find anything that lasts beyond the first kind of date? And is there some sort of rule for online dating where if I have not propositioned them by the 4th message the stop having conversations with me? I gave up on any real hopes of finding a new partner about a month ago, all I am really expecting to find at this point is a few new gods damned friends, and even that is not fucking happening. I am that most pathetic of creatures aren't I, the polyamorous person who is only ever going to have a single physical relationship at a time. I am getting sick of hearing "Don't give up, it's just a numbers game", "You can't give up, you'll find someone eventually", "Don't be discouraged, there's someone out there for you". Yes there is someone out there for me, problem from the poly perspective is it looks like it is someONE, and I have already found her.
Well it is way too damn late, the teething toddler looks to finally be out for the night, and it is hard to see what I am typing. Well maybe I will be up to typing more in the afternoon, after I have forced all this heartache back in the box it belongs in, I hate being so weak that I can't keep my emotions under control.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Introduction
I am writing this just to process what is going on in my life, it does not matter to me if anyone else ever reads it. But I am going to try and be as brutally honest with myself as possible, welcome to the ride. Lets see if it is going to be more like "Space Mountain" or "Storybook Land" boat ride.
February 17th, 2010 my life basically started over again, hence "My Second Life".
That evening I was taken into the Emergency Room by my wife and proceeded to amaze my medical team. When a doctor is purported to comment "Well the pulmonary embolism did not kill him so we won't worry about it.", and another doctor was supposed to have indicated that a couple of hours later and I would not have made it, you know you were in bad shape. Septic shock has a survival rate of about 25%, combined with the pulmonary embolism, the blood clots forming in my legs, the renal failure, multiple respiratory infections and everything else I had going on, they were doubtful if I would survive or ever come out of the come they had medically induced. They stopped the medicines used to induce the coma after 4 days, but I did not wake up for another 6 days. The scans they ran on me showed extensive signs of brain damage, and basically everything but my heart had shut down at one point or another during that 10 days. I was very fortunate to have an excellent medical team while I was in the ER and ICU at Banner Desert, including the Hematologist they brought in who was actually also the Oncologist that had been on my mother's medical team for her breast cancer. I was in ICU until about March 10th, after the operation to put in a permanent dialysis port in my chest I was moved to the post-op recovery ward for about another week. A few days before they put in the "power port", they were talking about me getting out of that hospital and into a rehab hospital in September 2010, and were not even talking about my getting back to work, or even getting most of my functionality back.
*****At this point let me tell you a little about my "First Life":
On October 8th 1995 (the night before I was hired by the place I am still working at) I met the woman who would become my wife. On August 10th 1996 we were married. Sometime around then we both came to the conclusion that we were polyamorous, we had tried exploring that a few times in the first 5 or 6 years of our marriage, but nothing ever worked out for a long term physical relationship. We did stumble across a very dear friend, and we all fell in love with each other, but she is not comfortable with polyamorous relationships, so ... well it just gets confusing, and I am still processing it to this day, but over all, quite contented with my life.
In May 2003 our 1st son was born, in March 2006 our 2nd son followed. In May 2009 we bought our 1st (and at this point only) house, thanks to the real estate market collapse. In August 2009 we found out that my wife was pregnant again. So that is where we were at when all this started, 2 young sons and my wife 7 months pregnant (remember we found out in August, she got pregnant in July) and we had a 50 year old house that we are still fixing up. We had started on the path to produce as much of our own food as possible by planting 3 peach trees and a fig tree, plus having a coop and run for chickens, and attempting to start a good sized garden.
*****
Back to my 2nd life:
After the port was installed they upgraded me to the post-op recovery ward, and my recovery took off. A bizarre thing about how my mind was working during this time is the fact that the formula H2SO4 kept popping up in my thoughts, starting with a dream just before I came out of the coma. Why Sulfuric acid would keep coming up, I don't know, but there it is. So back to my recovery, at one point they had a neurologist talk to me and I could not even remember how to read an analog clock, I could roll up on my side to allow the nurses to change the bedding or give me a sponge bath, and I could only sit up with a lot of help. I believe my prognosis was low enough that they only bothered to have the physical therapists come in and try to work with me a few times, that's the only reason I can think of for the poor level of therapy I can think of. The high point of that whole month is when the nurses agreed to sneak my sons in when they found out it was the youngest's 4th birthday, I still remember that fondly. Well, I was not kidding about my recovery taking off, within a couple of days I could again read a clock and they were trying to get me discharged straight to a rehap hospital. March 17th I was moved to the John J. Rhodes Rehab Center, I was the youngest patient there for most the time I was there, and the only one who was not recovering from a stroke. After about a week they decided to go in to clear out some of the clots in my legs, so I was moved to the ICU and they proceeded to "roto-rooter" the arteries in my legs. Once that was done the swelling finally started to go down, and it was easier to move my legs. It is amazing how good it can feel to be strapped into a standing brace frame and being vertical for the first time in 6 weeks.
It was really satisfying to make all the therapy departments re-write their weekly goals in the middle of each week because I had already exceeded them by Wednesday, and also how quickly my prognosis went from discharge in 5-6 months to 5-6 weeks. Each week they were cutting significant blocks of time off my discharge date, finally after 4 weeks they were about ready to cut me loose (well everybody except the hospitalist who was on duty that week said I was ready to go by the 12th of April), on the 15th my wife thought she was going into labor, so the nurses applied some pressure to get the doctor in charge of the center to override that one doctor who was blocking my discharge because he wanted me to get some more nerve conduction tests on my legs (tests that were still inconclusive in August of 2011, 16 months after my discharge, not a fun experience). So thanks to false labor I was home 4 days before my 3rd son was born, at that point I was having to use a wheelchair for longer distances, a walker to get around in the house, and braces to prevent toe drop when I was walking. Nearly 6 months of physical and occupational therapy followed, but I was back at my job full time by the 1st of August, 5 1/2 months after this all started, not quite fully functional but definitely able to do a fair chunk of my old responsibilities, and improving every day.
February 17th, 2010 my life basically started over again, hence "My Second Life".
That evening I was taken into the Emergency Room by my wife and proceeded to amaze my medical team. When a doctor is purported to comment "Well the pulmonary embolism did not kill him so we won't worry about it.", and another doctor was supposed to have indicated that a couple of hours later and I would not have made it, you know you were in bad shape. Septic shock has a survival rate of about 25%, combined with the pulmonary embolism, the blood clots forming in my legs, the renal failure, multiple respiratory infections and everything else I had going on, they were doubtful if I would survive or ever come out of the come they had medically induced. They stopped the medicines used to induce the coma after 4 days, but I did not wake up for another 6 days. The scans they ran on me showed extensive signs of brain damage, and basically everything but my heart had shut down at one point or another during that 10 days. I was very fortunate to have an excellent medical team while I was in the ER and ICU at Banner Desert, including the Hematologist they brought in who was actually also the Oncologist that had been on my mother's medical team for her breast cancer. I was in ICU until about March 10th, after the operation to put in a permanent dialysis port in my chest I was moved to the post-op recovery ward for about another week. A few days before they put in the "power port", they were talking about me getting out of that hospital and into a rehab hospital in September 2010, and were not even talking about my getting back to work, or even getting most of my functionality back.
*****At this point let me tell you a little about my "First Life":
On October 8th 1995 (the night before I was hired by the place I am still working at) I met the woman who would become my wife. On August 10th 1996 we were married. Sometime around then we both came to the conclusion that we were polyamorous, we had tried exploring that a few times in the first 5 or 6 years of our marriage, but nothing ever worked out for a long term physical relationship. We did stumble across a very dear friend, and we all fell in love with each other, but she is not comfortable with polyamorous relationships, so ... well it just gets confusing, and I am still processing it to this day, but over all, quite contented with my life.
In May 2003 our 1st son was born, in March 2006 our 2nd son followed. In May 2009 we bought our 1st (and at this point only) house, thanks to the real estate market collapse. In August 2009 we found out that my wife was pregnant again. So that is where we were at when all this started, 2 young sons and my wife 7 months pregnant (remember we found out in August, she got pregnant in July) and we had a 50 year old house that we are still fixing up. We had started on the path to produce as much of our own food as possible by planting 3 peach trees and a fig tree, plus having a coop and run for chickens, and attempting to start a good sized garden.
*****
Back to my 2nd life:
After the port was installed they upgraded me to the post-op recovery ward, and my recovery took off. A bizarre thing about how my mind was working during this time is the fact that the formula H2SO4 kept popping up in my thoughts, starting with a dream just before I came out of the coma. Why Sulfuric acid would keep coming up, I don't know, but there it is. So back to my recovery, at one point they had a neurologist talk to me and I could not even remember how to read an analog clock, I could roll up on my side to allow the nurses to change the bedding or give me a sponge bath, and I could only sit up with a lot of help. I believe my prognosis was low enough that they only bothered to have the physical therapists come in and try to work with me a few times, that's the only reason I can think of for the poor level of therapy I can think of. The high point of that whole month is when the nurses agreed to sneak my sons in when they found out it was the youngest's 4th birthday, I still remember that fondly. Well, I was not kidding about my recovery taking off, within a couple of days I could again read a clock and they were trying to get me discharged straight to a rehap hospital. March 17th I was moved to the John J. Rhodes Rehab Center, I was the youngest patient there for most the time I was there, and the only one who was not recovering from a stroke. After about a week they decided to go in to clear out some of the clots in my legs, so I was moved to the ICU and they proceeded to "roto-rooter" the arteries in my legs. Once that was done the swelling finally started to go down, and it was easier to move my legs. It is amazing how good it can feel to be strapped into a standing brace frame and being vertical for the first time in 6 weeks.
It was really satisfying to make all the therapy departments re-write their weekly goals in the middle of each week because I had already exceeded them by Wednesday, and also how quickly my prognosis went from discharge in 5-6 months to 5-6 weeks. Each week they were cutting significant blocks of time off my discharge date, finally after 4 weeks they were about ready to cut me loose (well everybody except the hospitalist who was on duty that week said I was ready to go by the 12th of April), on the 15th my wife thought she was going into labor, so the nurses applied some pressure to get the doctor in charge of the center to override that one doctor who was blocking my discharge because he wanted me to get some more nerve conduction tests on my legs (tests that were still inconclusive in August of 2011, 16 months after my discharge, not a fun experience). So thanks to false labor I was home 4 days before my 3rd son was born, at that point I was having to use a wheelchair for longer distances, a walker to get around in the house, and braces to prevent toe drop when I was walking. Nearly 6 months of physical and occupational therapy followed, but I was back at my job full time by the 1st of August, 5 1/2 months after this all started, not quite fully functional but definitely able to do a fair chunk of my old responsibilities, and improving every day.
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