12 weeks is touted by many as this magic time when your pregnancy friend nausea just ups and leaves you. Week 12 was when my nausea took up residence in the spare bedroom and started following me around like a Labrador. But yippee! This past week (13) has been so much better. Nausea still waits for me in the morning, pouncing on me as soon as my feet hit the floor, but after a stern chatting to I can convince it to stay at home while I go to work and continue with my day. Without Nausea around I am also much less hungry. Strange but true …

It’s been an eventful week. Hunny discovered a small red bump on his upper arm on Sunday. He thought it was just a zit or something. By Wednesday it had taken over a sizeable section of his upper arm. After some convincing he went to the doc to get it checked out. Well, my friendly doc wanted him to go directly to Sunninghill clinic and get it removed. By then it had killed off the skin covering its peak, which peeled of with the plaster and left a nice big suppurating wound.

Determined to be a man about this Hunny didn’t go directly to the hospital, but agreed to go to the hospital if it wasn’t looking any better by Thursday morning. Well it wasn’t, and he did. He sms’d me around 10:30 AM to ask me to bring him some nightclothes and a book because he might be staying the night. They were going to operate that afternoon, under general anesthetic!

I don’t think I have been as at a loss of what to do in my life, so I went shoe shopping. Well actually, I had planned to go and look for some new shoes at lunchtime, and being as Hunny didn’t need the clothes and things immediately, I full-filled that plan and bought two cue new pairs of shoes. I realize that makes me sound like a totally heartless wife, but really I think it was a coping mechanism. I wasn’t needed at the hospital yet, and I couldn’t concentrate on work, so I had to do something else …

I got to the hospital about half an hour before Hunny went into theatre. He was getting changed into one of those sexy gowns and paper underpants when I arrived

The really great anesthetist, Lance, sent me an sms when we went under, and another just before he finished up in theatre, so I was ready and waiting, pacing the halls when the very serious surgeon came looking for me. Everything went well he said, but Hunny would have to stay the night. He also told me that they removed a lot of necrotic tissue, Hunny should have come in the day before, and he’s lucky that it hadn’t spread too much between Wednesday and Thursday. I went home and looked up necrotic tissue: it means dead tissue. I also did some research on why an abscess could be such a critical thing. Well, gangrene would be the reason! Shew! Things we didn’t know. Hunny thought it would burst and sort itself out on its own.

It’s Friday, and Hunny is still in the hospital, but the wound is looking better. Less swollen and infected. He’ll still need to stay in another night though, mostly just so they can clean out and dress the gaping hole in his arm at their own convenience. He’s off the antibiotic and pain medication drip, so at least he can wonder around the hospital.

Anyways, looks like this was the culprit: the Brown recluse spider. When Hunny told me the name and I looked it up on wikipedia I was shocked and horrified. That image on the top right of the page is far too familiar! We have sightings of these little guys in our house at a rate of probably a couple a week. We usually just leave them be. They kill some mosquitoes and they stay out of your way. I expect we’ll be fumigating the house in the near future.

To show people why you would need to be admitted to hospital for a simple spider bite we took some picture evidence of the very grim looking suppurating abscess that laid claim to a vast potion of Hunnys left arm. The swelling that extended down to his elbow. I think I’ll leave them for him to post though, it’s his story after all. I’ll link when he posts, if you are into looking at really gross images.

On a different note, what is it about some people that make them so determined to bring you around to their way of thinking about childbirth? I just had my company’s CEO telling me to “think about”:
1. Not finding out the baby’s sex before it’s born
2. Having natural childbirth
3. Forgoing pain medication when I do so.

Something about true surprises, challenges, being designed for this kind of thing, and showing how we are different as women. Not sure he knows that much about being a woman.

But surely I get to make this decision on my own? Of course by ‘own my own’ I mean with my husband and my medical practitioners advice only.

And what’s with peoples need to ask “Was it planned”? This pregnancy was planned, but why do I need to tell that you? What if it weren’t? Then you have just put me in a position where I must either lie, or confess that I had an oopsy, where I’ll then need to qualify that we are excited about the baby anyway and you’ll still wonder if I might resent the pregnancy and child.

Or maybe I’m just touchy because I’m pregnant.

I must say that not everyone is that so pushy about it. One male colleague (he has 4 kids)  who overheard the CEO’s closing arguments said to me that for what it’s worth, he thinks there is nothing wrong with taking ‘the easy way out’ as my CEO put it. Thanks for the support Johan; it means a lot to me.

I’m off to visit my love in the hospital now. Have a great weekend all.

I found you 6 and a half years ago. You were young and enthusiastic. A blank canvas, if you will. We started out slowly, just getting to know each other and having some fun. I could tell you were an anxious type from the start, but it was something I thought you would grow out of as we built our confidence together.

Time passed, and we started getting more serious. People started to notice your raw talent. Not typically handsome, you have an elegance about you that is rarely found. Such talent from an unlikely source, we were itching to see how you would mature and grow.

Things ran quite smoothly for a while, but you never did truly settle down. As the going got tougher your anxiety increased. I didn’t know how to help you. Then we had the accident. I take full responsibility for that – I should have known better. I pushed you too far. We both took months to recover from the physical damage: your broken rib, my torn muscles, but those paled in comparison to the mental scars we probably still carry with us. Nursing you back to health helped heal the rift between us, slowly you started to trust me again, weather you have completely forgotten I’ll never know.

People still admired you and noticed how talented you were, but now they also started noticing your issues. You started to get a reputation as difficult. To be fair, there is nothing mean about you, but you just can’t ever relax. Others started to write you off as no good: all the talent in the world means nothing if you can’t realize that potential. I stood by you though. I was determined to help you realize your full potential. I did it as much for you as for me, I needed to prove to myself and the world that I wasn’t a quitter, that I wouldn’t bail out when the going got tough.

Over time I started to lower my expectations of you. I began to realize that whatever goes on in your head would always stand in the way of you being all that you could have been. Still, I was still dedicated to helping you achieve your best within these limitations.

Lately I’m not so sure. I need to start making other plans. I won’t abandon you ever, but there are things I want to achieve too, before I’m too old or life gets in the way. I love you like a child, a frightened and damaged child that I feel compelled to look after. I don’t resent that, but I also realize that things would be so much easier with another. One who is more confident, less afraid of the world around him. I feel like my time with you has earned me that. With you every victory is hard won, and there is joy in that, but nothing is ever easy.

When you are on your supplements life seems more manageable for you, but then there are days like today. Days when you are so wound up that even the air around you seemed to cause you distress, when I can do nothing to soothe you, and I grow frustrated with you, as well as with myself for not being able to help you deal with whatever it is that’s upsetting you.

I wanted to prove to everyone that they were wrong about you. I have spent so much time and energy defending you, I stand up for you because I’m afraid that if I don’t, no-one will. But then I have dreams where you die, and I’m sad, but I’m also relieved that I don’t have to do that anymore, I can stop swimming upstream, stop worrying about you, stop fighting, just relax for a while…