Hubby...I love you...

"...Seven months ago, my wife had a catastrophic stroke. Until today, for all my alleged training and fondness for ornaments of rhetorical pretension, I have thus far utterly failed in my efforts to successfully articulate the series of events that have since surrounded us. After a great deal of thought, I have narrowed the field down to two similes that I feel most adequately frame our dual semiotic crises. The stroke has left her permanently debilitated, and she and I have since learned to communicate using a propriety language and dialect we have created together. As I understand it, according to my wife, having a stroke is “like” gaslighting.

It took many months, but a few of the memories from before her stroke—and even a very few from immediately after—have slowly come back to her in fragments. She reports that the stroke itself was painless, as it was accompanied by the cursed blessing of a coma. When the victim awakes, the damage has already been done. The stroke is a thief and a destroyer: it primarily robbed from her mind the very cogs in the engine of linguistic transmission. However, what many people don’t realize about my wife is that the stoke—while in the process of firebombing her brain—also encountered several others non-linguistic gears: the stroke affected her “super-ego,” her muscle memories (writing, chopping vegetables, brushing teeth, etc.), and the very specific cognitive gear of self-awareness that would allow her to perceive her impairment. Each of these things were not stolen outright, but they were instead blown into a million fucking pieces.

For Julie, this meant that the stroke was not at all, like most people thought, some traumatic event that could be grieved, but instead it was a mysterious, waking nightmare that she could not escape from. By the time she was helicoptered to the hospital and began to recover from her sedation and coma, Julie was now, neurologically speaking, literally incapable of understanding why she was being detained. Her first memory of the University of Utah is one of demanding to know why she was in bed and why they would not let go. At this point, she had no ability to realize that she could not speak, even as she was in the very act of trying to do so: words still came freely to her mind, but as she tried to send the words down to her lips, she could not perceive—even while it was being pointed out to her—that there was nothing was coming out. Without a functional super-ego to stop her, or the ability to identify the nature of her situation, for the first few days Julie would repeatedly tear off her hospital gown in confused frustration, try to rip the IVs and electrodes from her arms and chest, and she would then attempt to escape naked from the ICU in angry defiance of her captors. This was still before she could even yet walk unassisted. I had to tackle her numerous times and pin her down until I could call for reinforcements, after which the nurses would swarm in and once again sedate her.

As Julie began to recompile a new persona, she began in-patient rehabilitation via speech, occupational, and physical therapy routines. However, even as she would engage in rehabilitative therapy, her tunnel of reality at this point was still entirely incapable of fathoming answers to any of the following questions: Why was she was in the hospital? Why are the nurses asking her all these questions? Why were they asking her to demonstrate if she could hold a baby in her arms? Why can’t she have a hamburger? Why could she not communicate to anyone? Why was she having trouble reading? Why was she was not allowed to see her two-month old babies? How long is she going to be stuck her?

I stayed with her night and day until she began to adapt and feel at least somewhat comfortable with life in the hospital. It took, I am guessing, more than 100 separate attempts over the course of about a month for me to finally, successfully explain to Julie that she had indeed suffered a stroke and convince her in some part of the nature of her new disability. This devastating revelation, once it finally hit home, was certainly not welcome. However, until that moment of cruelest epiphany, even a month after her stroke, the world she had perceived up until then was one of perpetual confusion, isolation, fear, and gaslighting.

As for myself, the simile I have come to settle on, at least for today, is this: watching your 29-year old wife suffer and slowly recover from an entirely preventable, massive stroke after giving birth to your first children—your twin boys—due to the repeated and utter incompetence of no less than a handful of lazy, negligent, and perhaps downright malevolent medical personnel is somewhat “like” the scene from Alien where John Hurt explores the mysterious derelict spaceship, but my sordid tale is not one that ought to be posted here..."

Sentence Builder 1

1. They are jumping on the bed.

2. Those bears ard kissing.

3. Those elephants are pink.

4. There are two sharks.

5. Their noses are long.

6. He is petting his cow.

7. She has a scarf.

8. Those sheep are dancing.

9. He has a big carrot.

10. He has two cars.

Yeah.

testing...one..two...three...

I HATE having a stroke. I am glad I am not dead, but the stroke makes everything very hard. I can't type yet without help, but I am learning.

Thank you to everyone that has helped and written me. I wish I could write back.

Bye. I will write more soon. :-)

New Videos

Hello

Hi. I am home. I am glad to be back. Jacob is helping me write this.

Back to Work

I learned something today...6 weeks is a LOT longer when you're pregnant than when you're not. When I found out I was pregnant and decided how much maternity leave I wanted to take, 6 weeks sounded like more than enough. I had my babies and it seemed like I wouldn't have to come back to work forever.

And yet, here I am.

At first it was fun...I got to catch up w/my co-workers and meet a lot of new people who were hired while I was gone. But now, 5 hours into my shift, I seriously don't wanna be here any more.

Maybe it's because I'm worried about the babies behaving for Jacob (he said it took them a really long time to go to sleep tonight, sigh), maybe it's because I have a lot of stuff to catch up on which I'm not super excited about (I had almost 300 emails in my inbox...), maybe it's because I'm EXHAUSTED (that is another story in itself...I've been sick for over a month now with what turned out to be bronchitis...problem is I didn't do anything about it until it got so bad that I physically became unable to breathe while laying down, which of course made sleep literally impossible. I haven't gotten more than 3 consecutive hrs of sleep...no exaggeration...in 2 weeks)...it's surely a combination of all those things. But I really do NOT want to be here.

I genuinely thought that I would be excited to have an aspect of my life that's not 100% about babies because let's be honest, I love my kids more than I can describe but it is difficult to be in baby land all the time, but at this moment I would rather be elbow deep in poo and spit up (um, thanks for that imagery, Julie!) than here taking phone calls and trying to prioritize my to do list (which eventually ended up with me blogging...yeah, that makes sense). And working is not the only way to keep one of my feet in the "adult world." Just saying.

It's only my first day back, I should probably give it some time.

The REALLY bad part is that I don't TECHNICALLY have to be here. Jacob got a new job right after I had the twins (which was awesome but super stressful for him, poor guy) and his salary is enough that I honestly don't have to work. We also qualify for health insurance as of his hire date, so that resolves the other reason I needed to come back. Then again, it would probably be prudent to hang on to this job...the company that hired Jacob is really new and not profitable so there's a bit of risk involved as far as stability is concerned. So we could fall back on this job for income if Jacob's company doesn't stay afloat.

But right now I don't wanna.

Hopefully it gets better soon. Or maybe we'll decide it's better for everyone if I quit. Perhaps we should consult the Magic 8 ball...?

In other news, I started to write a review of Scream 4 but I don't think I'll be finishing it so let me state that first off, Jacob is awesome b/c he insists I get out of the house every so often to do something fun, and since I'm weird and like seeing movies by myself that's what I do. Jacob is the best. And secondly, I enjoy the Scream movies because I like their commentary on the horror/slasher genre. Scream 4 did not disappoint. If you recall my post from a while back lamenting screenwriters and directors' departure from the slasher film moral code...well, this movie addresses that very thing with witty and intellgent banter, and that's something I greatly appreciate. So long story short, I recommend Scream 4. It would be a way better use of your time than Insidious, which I also saw...which totally sucked (you don't even know what movie I'm talking about, I bet, since it was so awful and did horribly in theaters).

Ok. That is all for now. Until next time...bye.

All is Right in Our World...

...now that our sweet baby Jaxon is out of the hospital and home with us where he belongs. :-)

On Thursday morning the pediatrician called and said he could come home on Friday as long as I could come spend the night with him in the hospital so I could get used to all his equipment. He's on oxygen and a heart monitor, so I had to go learn how to use all that stuff. So I spent Thursday night in a hospital room w/him, then I got to take him home yesterday just in time for his 2 week doctor's appointment (which included his circumcision, poor guy). Doc says hopefully he'll be able to go off the oxygen in a couple of weeks.

So yeah, my kid is adorable, as is his brother (who is already a whopping 6 lbs 9 oz...Jaxon is 5 lbs 7 oz)...

We have them sleeping in their pack 'n play for now, which works out pretty well. They've been pretty good to us as far as sleep is concerned...we get up every few hours to feed them and then put them back down and they usually go right back to sleep. We've been pretty lucky I think, I'm still pretty sleep-deprived but I think considering the fact that I'm a first time mom with twins, being able to get a few hours of sleep here and there is the most I can hope for so I won't complain.

Anyway, there's the happy update for you all. I'm sure I will be posting more pics soon as well as getting back to ranting and raving about something other than how much I'm sick of being pregnant (haha for the record, I LOVE not being pregnant...I'm already back in my pre-pregnancy pants and I can wear shoes again!!).

Love you all. :-)