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Mr Ornery's Corner
Monday February 1, 2010
Where'd they park the porta-loo? Or:
Potties and BMs and loos, oh my.
Sorry if I seem to be obsessed with the topics of late.
I have my reasons. Not only is the Suppository Queen still loose at work but we are now undergoing BATHROOM REMODELING on the home front. And in a one-bathroom home, this can be rather problematic.
For one thing, I do not need assistance from the SQ to experience a Bowel Movement in F-Sharp. Anymore, all I need do is to achieve a vertical position fresh out of bed and it seems everything in my digestive tract heads south. No doubt it has something to do with the increased pull of gravity upon an aging body, in much the same way it can cause facial skin to sag and a body to shift weight to its central and lower extremities.
The external factors do not trouble me but when I hear Nature's call from within, I am accustomed to answering promptly. BATHROOM REMODELING can make that a daunting proposition.Oh, the toilet still stands and it is still attached to the plumbing. It even still flushes.
So where is the problem, you may ask?
Try an absence of light for starts. Our bathroom will be new from ceiling to floor which has necessitated shutting off power to the light fixture. No power, no lights.
Now add in that once work began to see how much of the old floor needed to be replaced for installation of the new shower, we discovered that at some near-future time, we may well have ended up in or under the floor. This is to say that large sections of the floor were rotted and/or rotting. Indeed, it required very little effort to tear out the old shower and the floor beneath. So there stands the toilet and just opposite it stands a yawning crevasse.
In daylight, there is no worry. At night or in pre-dawn hours though ...
Imagine answering Nature's call on a Grand Canyon trail in dead of night. It can scare the what-you-went-in-the-bathroom-to-get-rid-of right out of you. One misstep and you may as well be using a latrine while standing in it.
It will be worth it in the long run though. The porcelain pony will be shifted to a location that will be less visible to passers by at those times when the front door stands open, one of us is indisposed, and the dog becomes curious enough about what we are doing to muscle open the bathroom door. (There is presently direct line of sight from the street outside right through to the potty if both doors are open.) And if the plumber and carpenter arrive to shift the porcelain pony before my bowels shift, well, we have a lovely wooded hillside up back.
That will probably be safer than perching on the edge of the abyss.
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Tuesday January 19, 2010
The title can be read in a couple of ways. Maybe more. In probably outdated circles, it can be an abbreviation for "what's up?" Earlier than that, "sup" bore some connection with eating, as in supper. In hospital care, it carries a whole 'nother meaning: "sups" as in: suppositories, aka: silver bullets, which is a euphemism for a bowel stimulator.
People in health care fear these and for good reason. Suppositories are used when other measures have failed and they are used when those other measures have failed over a course of days. And they are effective.
Effective, did I say? That is akin to calling the Mississippi River breeching a levee " a bit of high water." It does not begin to convey the scope of the devastation. Worse, when suppositories are having their desired effect, it is generally frowned upon to surround the resident/patient in question with sandbags - and never mind that nothing else is likely to arrest the flow.
Recently, at least according to the bowel charts (we in health care are notoriously, dare I say anal, in our fixation upon poopery), a nurse noted that one resident had not lightened his load in four days. So she inserted suppositories. This occurred at 6:30 a.m. I arrived for work at 2:45 p.m. by which point the invaders had penetrated a good way into The Great Behind, wreaking havok on the forces of SHIT (Stuff Hiding Inside There) that would have done Atilla the Hun proud.
It was a veritable looting spree of the bowel: EVERYTHING WILL GO!
Understand something. The poor resident in question has limited mobility which contributes to his getting stopped up. So there we were, being repeatedly called upon to rescue him from the latest outpourings lest they turn his blue eyes brown, right along with the rest of him.
The battles raged over the course of the shift, fought upon the tricky terrain of his bed. We tried inconitnence pads, disposable incontinence sheets, washable incontinence products called "kylies" - everything shy of ramming a cork up his ass. Nothing in our meager arsenal worked. When we padded him in anticipation of his outflow obeying the law of gravity, we learned that, contrary to the adage, "shit flows downhill," that ain't always the case. On one rescue mission, we cleaned half way up his back.
Ah, but we were too smart for that shit. So we thought. We placed the next pad to compensate for the gravity defiance, so the stuff simply flowed sideways. And wherever we placed incontinence products, there the shit went not.
Need I add that by the conclusion of our shift, the resident was pretty much "pooped out"?
It took every bit of my self control to avoid smacking her when the night shift nurse arrived and said, "what's up?" I swear she said, "'sup?"
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Wednesday January 13, 2010
One arrived on January 14, 1983 and is the son now living in Kentucky. The second is the grandson who entered this world on 14 January, 1982. (When in New Zealand and all that.) I was there for the first one. The younger was in such a rush to see what this thing called life is all about that it was almost he and his mom at his birth. (Something like 2 and 1/2 hours from start of labor to "it's a boy.")
Ornery the Younger was in no such rush. Indeed, if not for the fact that his mother was experiencing blood pressure problems leading to a medical decision to induce labor, there is no telling when he may have decided to appear.
Now Ornery the Elder was an experienced* hand at this fatherhood business so there was none of the mad scrambling/take off for the hospital/forget the mother-to-be nonsense, if only because the medical folks eliminated that possibility by sending her straight to the hospital from her "routine check up". My part was to scoot home, pick up her bag (pre-packed "just in case"), and get back ASAP.
I did that and returned to find wife/mom-to-be hooked up to a monitor that rather resembled gentle wave action, the waves equalling contractions. Time passed slowly, the waves undulated, and wife/mom-to-be finally said, "why don't you go get some rest? I'll have the nurse come and get you when the contractions get worse."
That sounded like a plan so I did. Next thing I knew, the nurse was shaking me awake. I returned to the labor room and the first thing I saw was the monitor. The gently undulating wave pattern looked the same.
Here, based upon personal experience**, are some tips for first time fathers-to-be:
- NEVER blurt out, "the contractions are the same as before!" Trust that she can feel the difference and that the monitor "don't know shit."
- NEVER tell wife/mother-to-be, "you're doing beautifully," especially in conjunction with:
- give wife/mother-to-be a finger or fingers to squeeze during contractions WITHOUT first insuring that said finger or fingers will actually bend all the way back to your wrist in a direction Mother Nature never intended.
Following these basic rules will insure that you, the about-to-be new father will NEVER wind up on your knees feeling the force of a glare that would penetrate lead and having her say, "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!"
Ornery survived his faux pas(es?) - barely - and so was close at hand when son arrived. A nurse carried the newborn to the scale, inviting yours truly to have a look at this little creature who laid there with arms bent, forearms displayed, one eye open, hardly any hair ...
and Ornery blurted something like, "you've given birth to Popeye!"
So sue me. I was punchy. Besides, the nurse had a much more accurate assessment:
"he has the face of an angel."
He has not been all angelic since, but he has been very much human and very much a part of my life, even today when 12,000 miles stand between us. Hard to believe he is/will now be 27 years young. I just hope he knows that neither time nor distance can diminish my love. Happy birthday, Son!
(Next Up: Happy Birthday, Mister J.)
*About the "experienced" label: Ornery went through
Lamaze classes prior to the birth of his first son and so had the
privilege of listening to a string of labor-induced invectives and
expletives from first wife and first-time mother who blamed him for
everything up to and including the birth of communism and fall of the
Roman Empire as well as calling into question his parentage, lineage,
and his possibly unearthly origins.
**Not to be confused with above.
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Tuesday January 12, 2010
The weather here in Dunedin may be sparing folks here on Blogstream excessive photos of our garden (its is suffering this year), but weather does not seem to affect the growth and development of grandchildren. With that in mind and as previously threatened, here are photos of a couple of "grand" little girls: Little Bit and Teeny Bit:
 Little Bit  Teeny Bit Warning: there will be more photos to follow.
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Monday January 11, 2010
I am a bit late with this post - about a week - because as of January 4, 2010, there was another addition to Ornery's extended family of "non-blood kin". Suzanne's son and his partner welcomed a baby girl late in the day that day, and despite the hour, she clearly needed to be here. 31 weeks and a C-Section being here. Premature being here. 3.8 pounds being here. Newborn under )plexi)glass being here.
Presently she is all wires and tubes running every which way with an electronic guardian to alert the round-the-clock nurses should problems arise. So tiny, so fragile, yet so perfectly formed and beautiful. Her sister, to me, has become Little Bit so this newest addition is Tiny Bit. (They can get angry with me later in their lives for the nicknames and thank their lucky stars that they are not canines for our dog answers to whatever name pops into my head at any given moment.)
Yes, there are photos but they presently reside in the camera memory chip. So be forewarned. When Grumpy can get the transferring done, visitors here to The Corner will be subjected to Proud Granddad's Photo Flood. That way one and all can share with Suzanne and me the frustration of being reduced to children ourselves. "You can look, but don't touch."
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