Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Freudian slip

I was trying to tell someone that in about eight weeks I will have been married forty years.

I said -- and see if you catch the mistake -- “In about eight weeks I will have been buried forty years.”

No way to walk that back. 

Outside the door

Gary has taken to visiting me in my room at the end of my workday, which is the start of Gary's ... non-workday?  As I say, it’s at the end of my day, I am tired, but Gary arrives ready for a chat, refreshed at the end of an eighteen hour nap. 

Usually, we get into a spat, not a chat. It ends with him stomping out of the room, then I shut the door loudly behind him.

One time he was whining and when the door shut loudly I mocked, “MEW mew, mewmewmew Mewww,” and he opened the door and said, “Did you just say ‘MEW mew, mewmewmew Mewww?” 

Well it seems that since that day he has not stomped off after the loud shutting of the door, but instead, he has paused to hear exactly what I mutter behind his back.

Yesterday he opened the door after and said, “I AM NOT A WHINY BABY MAN-CHILD.” and then stomped off. 

I was quite taken aback because -- until he confessed -- I did not know he has been doing this. It’s remarkable he hasn’t spoken up before now. 

We agreed he is not a whiny baby man-child.

Also, bad move lettimg me know; now I’m on to him. 

Puking

Gary, famously, cannot puke, as he was born with an extra-long uvula resting on his gag reflex in utero. 

Or at least, he rarely pukes. In the past 43 years, some erythromycin did claw its way up through his esophagus. I saw it with mine own eyes. He might have puked when his gallbladder was going out in San Francisco; I heard some convincing noises. 

It is rare, though, and as such he is unfamiliar with the process, so he freaks out when I puke. As I did this morning.  

He emerged from his room. “ELLEN WHY ARE YOU MAKING THAT NOISE?”

Me: [Bleeaaahretchbarf]

Gary, reels back: “OH MY GOD YOU’RE VOMITING.”

Me: [Blaaaaahhhhhspitspit] [Gasps] “Bacon. I thought I could eat bacon.” [Burp] “Too much bacon.”

Gary: “KEEP AWAY FROM ME YOU’RE SICK.”

Me: “No I’m not sick, it’s just the bacon.” (It was the bacon. I am sure that during her Ozempic journey Oprah herself had her own Bacon Comeuppance. I’ve been good, I tested my limits, and now I know. One bacon yes, two bacon, no.)

I cleaned up and walked toward him. 

He flattened himself against the wall.  “NO GET AWAY GET AWAY. YOU ARE SICK.”

It’s ridiculous. He knows how vomiting works on a theoretical level. He has seen me bounce back after a barf. But still he acts as if it’s a near-death experience. 

Getting car work done

As I have said before, I need to start taping Gary. 

Last fall the Mini people said there was a recall on the electric Mini Coopers. Batteries may catch fire. Fire.The thing I fear most. Fire in the garage. especially. I can already see the Disaster Autopsy episode regarding the Great Saint Louis Fire. 

At the same time they also want to take my charger and make it Tesla compatible. (AS IF I WOULD EVER FUEL UP AT A TESLA CHARGING STATION FOR THAT ELON BASTARD PLEASE DO YOU EVEN KNOW ME.)

I've been dragging my heels because Gary hasn't been well enough to drive for more than a half an hour, and the Mini dealer is forty-five minutes away. I presented him with numerous compromises.

Option 1: I drive there and wait for the work to be done.
Response: DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME ELLEN COVID IS STILL OUT THERE YOU CAN'T GO IN TO A CAR DEALERSHIP AND JUST WAIT. (And yet somehow I am going out to dinner and a show with friends Friday.)

Option 2: I drop it off, call a taxi from there, then take the taxi home, then do the same to get back. It is $70 one way in a taxi. 
Response: SEVENTY DOLLARS THAT IS INSANE I AM NOT PAYING THAT. THAT'S ... ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY DOLLARS BOTH WAYS. WE ARE NOT PAYING ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS TO GET THE CAR TO THE DEALER SO ELON MUSK CAN CONTAMINATE IT.

That was last fall. Now he says things like WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE BATTERIES CAN CATCH FIRE DO YOU WANT US TO DIE IN OUR SLEEP WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU.

And of course now all options are fine. I can get it done there, I can wait in the waiting room, I can wander around in the spring weather, I can hire a taxi for the day, SEVENTY DOLLARS THAT IS NOTHING.

 

Vignettes

Vignettes from Gary's visit to the allergist.

• She looked at his back and said, "This looks like psoriasis."  Yes, it does, but Gary explained the dermatologist had run four biopsies, and each came back as Not Psoriasis.   (Saint Louisians of a particular age will remember Patty Stallings, who was wrongly imprisoned for infanticide because half of the medical labs in St. Louis can't read test results correctly.) The allergist is skeptical, because it really does look like psoriasis.  But if so, that means one step forward, one hundred fifty steps back. 
• She said, "Roll up your pant leg so I can see how it looks behind your knee." Gary answered by taking his pants off entirely, insisting, over her protests, that she needed to get the whole picture. 
• When she asked me about his hobbies, I answered that he does feed peanuts to the raccoons. I thought I was telegraphing Peanut Allergy, but she said, alarmed, "Does he TOUCH the raccoons?" (No, but only because they're shy.)

There is a plan now, anyway, even though Gary is already balking at it. She's going to make him stop his daily OTC vitamins, make him take two pills for his inflammation, then have me paint the back of his left knee with a special cream. 

I'm all excited that I get to practice the scientific method with the left knee as test subject and right knee as control.  Gary is considerably less excited about being a "guinea pig." Guinea Pigging is a wonderful hobby in my book, but he doesn't see it that way.

Birthday month 2025

Well, it's official. Gone are the days of the expansive birthday month in which the birthday boy is omnipotent.

I forgot entirely that it was Gary's birthday month. He's so dispirited that he has doesn't care. His official answer is, "You already do everything I want," which would sound great, only what he wants is that I leave him alone while he naps.

However, during the Rachel Maddow show he said, "Write down the name of that book. i might want to buy it."

Elated, I said, "I'll buy it right now! Birthday present! But I'll need your iPad to get to Amazon Prime."

"Nah, I'm comfy." (Comfy = Surrounded by conga drums piled with hoodies and every pen, comb, or remote he might ever need.)

I sighed, "Well, buy it yourself later and call it your birthday gift."

I swear, Monday's allergist appointment better get him on the road to recovery. I need Birthday Man back making demands. 

My new job

In this house I  am chief cheesemaker, basketweaver, and now ... barber.

 

He made me stop before it was entirely right. (That little clump by the collar will madden me.)

He claims to be pleased, though.

Raccoon hobby enters a new age

Even though Gary has been horrifically ill, he still fulfills his wildlife duties. He takes a 40-pound bag of shelled peanuts, lays it across the top of his walker, and inches across the yard to fill the seed trays on the other side of the house.

Until recently he did this at night so the nocturnal animals got the first shot at the food, but that’s too treacherous now. Now he does this during the day. The crows get first shot, and the raccoons just have to get anything left in the bird feeder lying on the patio.

Recently he was at the table by the garden door and heard some nighttime animals squabbling. When he switched on the patio light he saw “A RACCOON AND A BEAUTIFUL WHITE SKUNK  --”

“Stop,” I said, “An albino skunk?” 

“OF COURSE NOT IT DIDN’T HAVE PINK EYES, BUT IT WAS ALL WHITE AND HUGE --”

“How huge? Show me with your hands.”

He gestured to indicate a skunk the size of a sow.

“AND I SAW THEY WERE DRAGGING THE BIRD FEEDER BACK AND FORTH SO I GOT A BIG BAG OF PEANUTS FROM THE FOYER” (Because that’s where the peanuts are stored now, in the foyer, not happy about it) “AND I JUST TORE A CORNER OPEN AND LOBBED IT OUT ON THE PATIO AND LOOK THEY ATE ALMOST ALL OF IT.”

I did look, and there was only about twenty pounds of peanuts in a huge pile in the middle of our patio. I don’t know where the bag went. 

So I guess that’s the new plan now. Because a patio covered with peanuts isn’t at all treacherous. 

Alexa does not approve of my language

Gary was supposed to go to the dermatologist Tuesday and, hopefully, progress to the next step, which I hoped was to see an allergist.  He cancelled the appointment because, "the doctor won't do anything anyway."

This meant that -- when I calmed down -- I needed to cancel the sick day I was taking from work, as I wasn't going to drive him to the appointment, because he seems to have no concern about his health.

"Alexa," I sighed, heavily, "Set a reminder to cancel my fucking sick day.”

But he changes his mind frequently.

"Alexa. Cancel my last reminder."

"Okay," she said. "'Cancel my [booooop] sick day', at 3:17 PM, canceled."

She censored me. Seriously. "Boooooop," she said. Alexa doesn't have a fucking husband, that's all I know.

Medical week: Gary report

Gary had to go to the doctor late last week to have medical professionals look at his UTI, his blood, and to check how he’s faring on the antibiotics.

He didn't look good. It took him ten minutes to leave a urine sample. He and his cane hobbled out of the bathroom slowly down the hall to the exam room. The assistant was captivated by the rash, but the nurse practitioner focused on his fatigue and pain and all the issues. 

Gary brought up the rash, in passing, just to say, “It’s just something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

I snapped, “Do you want to live with me for the rest of your life? Because I’ve had it with this rash.” Then I slapped down his “brave” facade and I told the doctor how he wakes up every day in agony, itchy skin on fire, clawing at himself.

After that I noticed she reacted to his complaints with sympathetic coos and tuts. I can’t blame her. I did sound awful.

She ordered  a urinalysis, which came back clean, with no UTI left, and about nine blood tests. It was evident by the way she grouped them ... well, evident to Google and AI ... that she was looking for three possibilities:

Lupus or some autoimmune disease [SPOILER: not it]

Dermatomyositis, another autoimmune disease [SPOILER: not it]

(Also not it: My favorite Gary diagnosis,  with symptoms dating from over a decade ago: Giant Cell Arterisis.)

However, the next one rang the bell.

Prostatitis, an inflammation of the prostate. That appears to be it, given the way that his prostate PSA number spiked.  I like this choice, given that it sometimes causes a rash. Maybe he’s had a low level of this for over a year? 

Anyway, more antibiotics for him (the dread Cipro).

It’s been four days, and we  both might be imagining it, but the rash seems to be receding a bit. 

The fever

I walked into the house Saturday and Gary announced that he had tried to pee and something was not right down there. I asked for specifics and he said he did not feel good in his urinary parts.

A fight ensued because he refused to let me take his temperature.

Gary: YOU ARE NOT TAKING MY TEMPERATURE I KNOW WHEN I HAVE A FEVER GET AWAY FROM ME.

Ellen: [Bursts into tears, goes away.]

Gary: [Comes back in twenty minutes, apologizes.]

He let me take his temperature every four hours, and then at five am I touched his forehead, screamed, and ran for the thermometer. 103. 

Ellen: You need to take Tylenol.

Gary: [See above, only replace taking the temperature with the Tylenol. Tears, apologies.]

After he took the Tylenol we cycled through the fight sequence above from emergency room to urgent care to a virtual visit. (I CAN’T GO OUTDOORS! BIRD FLU! OUTDOORS IS JUST A GIANT BIRD TOILET).

The nurse practitioner on the phone sent me out for Tamiflu and home tests for Covid/Flu and UTIs. And as you know, he has a UTI. Hopefully he’ll be better by his follow-up with the doctor on Friday.

Later on Sunday he actually said, WAIT HOW CAN I HAVE A UTI IF I DON’T HAVE A UTERUS? 

Gary's condition

This morning, when I put the blue canister of salt back in its place,  I made sure to rotate it so the word “iodized” was hidden. I didn’t want to hear how he doesn’t like the metallic taste of iodine. (I just did a tiny taste test and I can’t tell the difference.) 

It made me wonder if lack of iodine can cause symptoms, which it does, mainly hypothyroidism, which he has.

Then I started looking at other vitamin deficiencies, like lack of B-12, which he has because of his anti-convulsant medications. (They checked to see if his rash was caused by his resulting B-12 injections, and it isn't.)  

Then I looked at lack of B-3, niacin, and there you go: niacin deficiency leads to pellagra. It looks like the rash, and it would be affected by food, and I did find a case where the anti-convulsants he's on depleted niacin as well as B-12.

All I know about pellagra is what Mom told me: the floods in 1927 led to such a shortage of nutritious food and concurrent rashes that they made the connection. This begs the question: why not add it to the sugar like the iodine in the salt? (Leading to the answer: they add it to the flour.)

Of course, I imagine the blood test they did early on would show that he was missing niacin, but it isn't on the site. I'm just telling myself they didn't look for niacin. I like this diagfauxsis so much that I'm going to see if I can get Gary to have a breakfast of cottage cheese, fortified cereal, and apple slices with peanut butter, all big niacin delivery systems. 

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Sickness Saga Continues

I have been the healthiest member of my family for a long time. Mom of course started off post-polio. Dave's asthma started early and his learning and mental difficulties hit at puberty. Dad started his three forays into cancer in his early forties. I am familiar with the caregiver role. 

Gary is not familiar with the role of sick person. He's just a bundle of pride and pity. I was going to bring the microwave in from the car ala the Mom Method: keep the 50 lb box in the trunk where the store put it, dismantle it in situ, carve it down to the 33 lb microwave itself and cary that in, and, separately, the various accessories.

Gary argued about how stupid that plan was, angrily staggered out to the trunk and returned, panting, with the 50lb box on his shoulder. He wouldn't allow me to break down the outer or inner boxes, citing my physical and mental weakness.  Then he complained that he was too weak to do it, and that was also my fault.

I won't go through the rest of the conflict, but generally he was too sick to carry anything, and yet at the same time insisting he had to do everything, and also I was too stupid and weak to help. It was like watching a lame lion tell all the other lions that only he could take down the antelope, because they were all too dumb and weak. 

I can see why old men turn into grumpy old men. I don't want to be around for it. I also need to find a way to tranquilize my lame lion, or do things behind his back to save his pride. 

Microwave saga continues

So I woke up Sunday to Gary complaining about the microwave and how it was GOING TO BURN THE HOUSE DOWN ELLEN.

"No, it is not --"

"IT IS TWENTY YEARS OLD.”

And that's when I realized what Gary's "problem" with the microwave is. It's not what the microwave does or doesn't do, it's what the microwave is. It's an old microwave. It's not 70 year old microwave, like Gary, or a 62 year old microwave, like me, or 20 year old microwave like he claimed, but it is at least sixteen years old. 

"Well," I thought, "There probably have been some technological microwave advances in the past sixteen years." And then I found a combo microwave-air fryer-convection oven that did three times the work but only cost twice as much. 

I showed it to Gary, who gasped, "That's exactly the one I wanted!" So there you go, his fire concerns were all a scheme to turn me against our aged yet faithful microwave. So I called Williams-Sonoma to put one aside for me. 

When I arrived I found Gary isn't the only man lusting over this three-way microwave. The woman at the register said, “It’s a good thing you called. This was the last one. A man brought his wife back with him to see if she’d like it and I had to tell him you had snagged it. He wanted me to call if you didn’t come pick it up.”

So, sorry fella, my husband gets to paw at the microwave you wanted "for your wife." Shoulda put a ring on it, as they say. 

More nonsense regarding Gary and cooking

“MICROWAVE IS BROKEN,” Gary said. “I JUST HEATED UP SOME SOUP AND IT IS COLD.’”

”Did the microwave make noise?” I asked.

“YES IT MADE NOISE AND TURNED BUT IT DIDN’T COOK. NOW I HAVE TO THROW THIS SOUP AWAY.”

(I know that sounds like I’m making this up but I swear I am not.)

“Gary, we have pots. You can heat up a pot of soup on the stove.”

“NO, I’LL JUST EAT IT COLD.” 

Gary actually likes to eat food cold. Pasta, usually, not soup.

--- Later that night ---

“ELLEN I HEATED UP THAT SOUP IN A POT AND IT WAS WAY BETTER THAN IT IS WHEN YOU HEAT IT UP IN THE MICROWAVE.”

“Gary, see this pork I’m eating? I heated it up just now in the microwave. The microwave is fine.”

“NO IT DOESN’T HEAT ENOUGH TO KILL THE BACTERIA YOU WILL GET SICK.”

“Whatever.”

“I AM NEVER USING THAT MICROWAVE AGAIN.”

--- The next morning.---

“ELLEN I NEED TO TELL YOU DON’T EAT THAT PORK YOU ATE YESTERDAY. I HAD SOME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND IT IS UNDERCOOKED. IT DIDN’T FALL APART. I HAD TO PULL IT APART WITH MY TEETH AND IT WAS STRINGY.”

“Because you ate it cold. Heat it up in --”

“I WILL NEVER USE THAT MICROWAVE AGAIN IT IS BROKEN.”

SO, I am actually heating the pork on low in the oven so that I can “prove” to him that it’s “cooked” now. I know anyone else would lie, “Oh, yes, I cooked that more when you were napping” but I don’t want to lie.  Just like I don’t want to argue. 

In which we are both sick

My back went halfway out last Thursday.

Gary, of course, has the lock on illness because of the horrific rash.  I have had enough of saying “you poor guy” for the rest of my life. That, plus my sore back led to the following exchange.

Gary (Working up some sympathy from me): "I feel so bad, and there’s nothing I can do."

Me (mocking): “'I feel so bad, and there’s wah-wah mewl mee meeww.'”

Gary: “I’m sorry, I don't understand what you mean by,  ‘There’s wah-wah mewl mee meeww.”

And I tried to repeat it, but I couldn’t because I was laughing too hard.

Gary's Skin Doctor Visit

I know that when there is an illness and there is an information void and no sense of control,  people fill the emptiness by self-diagnosing. 

Gary (and I) have looked to see if the source of his rash might be nightshade allergies, balsam of peru, folate deficiency, and of course the original: drywall dust.

Recently Gary has been all in on this histamine intolerance thing. He tracks how his skin feels after everything he eats. 

Today Gary went to the dermatologist and heard a theory he does not like: that this is a reaction to his migraine or epilepsy medication. He immediately decided he would rather live with a rash than cut off his medications entirely. 

I suggested that perhaps they could drop his meds ten percent and see if the rash recedes ten percent, and he said, "It doesn't work that way" with no other explanation. 

He discussed all these things with the doctor, and the doctor decided he wanted to re-run the initial test to see if Gary has psoriasis (because it looks like every kind of psoriasis piled next to each other). So back at square one, and I suspect we went there to get Gary to come back in two weeks to get the results, when I suspect the doctor will have run an additional test to see if it's a possible reaction to his meds. 

Even worse, he came home and did more research on histamine intolerance and discovered it's some fuzzy pseudo-science. "I'm like ... A TRUMP VOTER," he moaned. 

After forty years, a short-lived mature conversation

Gary is miserable with this skin condition. He can’t regulate his temperature, it itches, it burns, it bleeds, he hurts on the outside and aches on the inside. And because he expresses himself, he wakes up and makes noise. A symphony of moaning and muttering. And then often groaning. 

Usually I wake up and call out, “Are you okay, hon?”and he yells back, “Don’t worry about it! It’s not a problem!” 

A few days ago he yelled, “It’s not a problem,” and I came to him and said, “You're so tired I have to take off work to drive you to every doctor and dentist appointment you have. That's a problem. I drove to the Social Security office without you to deliver your paperwork. That's a problem. I’m doing every chore. This may not be a problem for you, but it’s a problem for me.”

And then I steeled myself for the hurt feelings and yelling, and then he said, “Well, if don’t like it ,I’ll just drive myself to my thing today.”

And I said, “What if we start by driving around the neighborhood, and if you feel too tired then I can take over.”

He said, “That sounds like a good idea.”

Rational. Courteous. This is how I imagine how your conversations with your spouses sound all the time. 

Of course, the next day we were back to shouting and tears, because he felt particularly ill, but it was a nice respite. Hope for the future, maybe.

TWIL: Coconut sugar is not what you expect

Gary has been dutifully experimenting with his histamine diet. He’s reported some improvements. He was checking to see if white sugar triggered his sores, so he switched to coconut sugar.

This is coconut sugar.

TWIL: Some bio lab experiments require recently dead specimens

I was threatening Gary with a really bad haircut, and when he said he could do it himself, I scoffed. 

“No, really,” he said, “I am very good at fine detail work like that. One of my biology professors was so impressed with the precision I used to kill my lab specimens that she offered to let me come work in her lab after I graduated.”

“You killed your lab specimens?” I was horrified. My high school fetal pig was long dead by the time I got to know him.

“Oh sure,” he said. “Lots of experiments require freshly dead animals.” 

(Like the ones where you re-animate freshly dead animals? I wondered.)

Then he said one time he did have to “pith” a frog, which sounded like giving a frog a little frog lobotomy, so the frog has to survive. He also went on to add that quite a few women in rhe labs didn’t have the heart to straight-up murder their Little Fetal Piggies or whatever, so they would come to him to be Dr. Death.

It just does not correspond to the man I married, a man too soft-hearted to set a spring-loaded mouse trap, but I have to believe what he tells me.

Gary has lopped off his hair and now I'm a hair stylist

Now that he has lopped off his ponytail, Gary has purchased these hair styling implements for me.

 

 

And why do I get to play hair stylist? Gary feels no one else will want to touch him because he does have these unsightly scales all over.

His plan is for me to take him out on the porch, plop him in a chair, and have me somehow encourage these magical styling tools to snip away until he has a professional hair style again. 

I have actually watched some hair styling videos and it seems simple enough. And I would only need to use the plain scissors and the comb for that. No idea what the Hole-y Golden Razor is for, or the Silver Disc.

A miracle has happened

Gary realized he only has skin sores where he has hair. While his fundamental problem is still histamine, he decided his skin problem is actually a histamine problem plus a hair problem.

And then, this. 

HE LOPPED OFF HIS HAIR.

I truly gasped.

I’m waiting for him to complain about fatigue again so I can say he’s like Samson, with all his strength in his hair.

Telescope

Gary got tired of me moping back into the house after not seeing the Northern Lights, and not seeing the comet, and not seeing the meteor shower, and decided I need a telescope.

It might not do any good for the things I missed but at least I could look at planets with reliable set orbits fully illuminated by the sun. 

I scoffed at the idea at first, but last night I spent a good hour looking up used telescopes on eBay. Gary came in after and I asked if he thought a three inch Dobsonian telescope might be sufficient, and he surprised me with "Oh no we need an [x] inch [telescope jargon here] with at least [x] magnification made by [x] brand."

Bought on eBay, used, I hope. 

Gary's skin: progress?

I love this MyChart application that lets you keep track of medical appointments, vaccines, lab results, especially now there's a new feature where you get to see the communications behind the scenes.

For example, the neurologist saw Gary's skin and ordered some blood cell tests.

1. I looked at the blood cell tests and they looked a little like my brother's blood before his liver went out.
2. Before I could even get worked up about that, bloop, normal liver test results showed up.
3. That led me down a B-12 path so deep it made me think, "Maybe there's something wrong with his folate numbers."
4. Later that evening there was a staff communication that the doctor wanted to add on a folate test. 

That test came back normal as I was waiting in the parking lot while Gary was visiting the dermatologist. "All right!" I thought. "Things are happening."

Gary came out of that appointment with the direction to follow a histamine elimination diet for four weeks. He's starting Saturday. I'm doing the same so that there will be no in-house temptations. The wasn't a test from the doctor; Gary's following some information he got off the internet. I don't know yet if it's "eliminate all histamines and slowly add them back" or if it's "eat normally and slowly eliminate histamines." 

So, in summary, there's been a lot of action in the battle against Gary's allergy / B-12 / leprosy issues, but no answers yet. I was really primed for answers. 

Never fantasized about this

Here is what I did this weekend: I helped my seventy-year-old husband apply for social security. 

It made me wonder, before computers, how did they discourage the elderly from applying for social security? Did they put the social security offices on the 10th floor and disable the elevators? Because the computer application is hard, and I work with computers all day.

Granted, on the first attempt we started the application under a screen banner that said the system would be shutting down for maintenance in one hour.  It was easier the next day, but then they said our second factor for our two-factor authentication wasn't working, and perhaps we could get a physical authentication key to plug in to our com-pu-ter, and finally it said, "Ugh! Codgers! Here, we'll send you a letter in the mail." So now we wait.

I have to tell you, when I was a young dewy bride I did not dream of this day.

Gary's hair

Gary is still coming off the steroids, and he's having trouble regulating his temperature. 

Yesterday he said, "I think it's time to shave off all my hair."

He's been growing his hair all through the pandemic. It's below his nipples now. 

Yes! I thought. Oh God yes please.

He added, "I can use my beard trimmer."

He piled his hair on top of his head and sighed. Then he swerved. "That would probably just make me cold all the time, though. I might do it later." 

So, it was close there for a second. I would like his long hair gone. Not because it looks bad, but because it's a mess to clean up when it falls out. About half his hair is gone now, wound up in the Roomba or whichever one of the seven (SEVEN) vacuum cleaners Gary has purchased in the past year.

He has broached the subject, though. Tested the waters. who knows, I might wake up one day this week and find I am married to a hairless man.

Clink

I have to say, I'm pretty easy-going about Gary. My spouse gets up to all kinds of nonsense that other wives would not tolerate. But there is one thing he does now that is making me insane.

It's the way he eats cornflakes. 

Up to now he has been loyal to Raisin Bran. But in his effort to diagnose what sets off his allergies, he is branching out into other cereals, and his current favorite is cornflakes.

He eats them a) one cornflake at a time with b) a particular allowed cornflake-to-milk ratio.

• Too much milk? Drop the cornflake back in the bowl, try again.
• Too little milk? Drop the cornflake back in the bowl, tap it with the spoon a few times to "moisten" it, try again.

The sight of Gary doing this doesn't bother me. The noise does. There's the single clink ("clink!") when the single cornflake is trapped against the side of the bowl, multiplied by the number of cornflakes in a serving (lots), and then when the milk runs low, the added spoon-moistening ("clink! clink clink clink!").

With the Raisin Bran he never had this problem. Maybe it was more of a chore? Less of a hunt? And of course I could suggest a plastic bowl or spoon but that would be ignored. 

It only lasts about twenty minutes a day, but it's maddening.

Gary sans steroids

Yesterday, Gary woke up to his first day without added steroids. Despair, doom, "I will never get better." It is true: his inflamed skin doesn't seem to be any better. 

Today, Gary woke up from his second day without added steroids. Cheery, sunny, "I just need to learn to live with this." This is more concerning, because I have now looked up all the things that could be wrong with him, including:

• Hodgkin's disease (My dad had that as his first cancer.)
• Syphillis (His immediate response: "Where did you get syphillis from, Ellen?")
• Crohn's disease (Someone at work suggested I inquire about Crohn's on his devices so that Amazon and the like will start suggesting books and movies about Crohn's, which might work were there a Crohn's sub-genre, which I doubt.)

I cannot discuss most of these things with him, because he gets just enraged and claims that I want him to die. So now there's going to be an entire week until he goes to the doctor, and then ... who knows? I guess they throw antibiotics at it next.

Gary Loopy: Yogurt

Gary, steroid-crazed, stormed into my room last week. 

"ELLEN ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME YOU SAID YOU WOULD CHECK THE EXPIRATION DATES ON THESE YOGURTS AND I JUST ATE TWO AND THE EXPIRATION DATE IS NOVEMBER THIRD!"

"Yes?"

"NOVEMBER THIRD! NOVEMBER!"

"Gary. What month do you think it is? Because it is October."

(Looks hard at me.)

I said, "Who is the president?"

He said, "Hmpf," and stomped away.

Gary Loopy: Hail

Gary hasn't had all of the mania I had when I was on steroids (albeit I was on 40% more). He says his epilepsy and migraine meds being him down so he isn't as driven as I was.

However, he has had some bursts of loopiness. The first one was The Hail Incident. 

He came in to my room and said it was hailing outside. It was 70 degrees. 

"Gary. It's too warm. And it's not even cloudy." 

"DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME I KNOW WHAT HAIL SOUNDS LIKE."

An hour later he came and got me and made me listen to the bathroom ceiling fan.

"SEE? HAIL. IT GOT INTO THE CEILING FAN." To be fair, the ceiling fan did indeed sound like it had a chunk of material in it.

Or, as I said, "It sounds to me like a squirrel secreting away nuts for the winter dropped a shelled nut down the bathroom vent and it's banging around in the fan." 

"THIS IS YOUR FAULT BECAUSE YOU HAD THE WORKMEN PUNCH A HOLE IN OUR ROOF AND ADD A NEW VENT FOR OUR MASTER BATH WHEN THE OLD ONE WAS JUST FINE."

Whaaaaat? In no way did that happen. I foolishly defended myself and it got worse from there. 

At some point the "hail" "melted" and the situation was resolved. If I remember correctly the new fan cover is on a hinge. If Gary falls asleep today I'm getting in there to see if anything falls out. 

If he wasn't on steroids I would be concerned about cognitive decline.  

Gary considers his voting options

Now that the election's only about a month away, Gary's considering how to do his civic duty in his current sickly state.

Back when the bleeding sores were sapping all his strength, he felt he might need the wheelchair if he was going to wait in line for hours.  I hauled the mystery hospital wheelchair up from the basement (after the requisite half hour of  NO YOU CAN'T HAUL THAT WHEELCHAIR UP THE STEPS IT'S TOO HEAVY YOU WILL KILL YOURSELF AND DAMAGE THE WHEELCHAIR). 

That reassured him he could wait in line in comfort. 

However, now that the steroids compromise his immune system (as he reminds me each time I try to hold his hand) he’s even considering early voting, which in Missouri is called “in-person absentee voting”. No lines, supposedly. 

He’s in charge of getting this set up. I anticipate we will be back in line in early November.

Gary on steroids

Gary started a course of steroids to battle to his drywall/tomato/drug allergy.

I have been on high doses of steroid pills twice: both times to titrate down off MS IV steroids. I started at 10 pills. Gary is starting at six, which is double the normal dose that people get for, say, poison ivy.

High doses of steroids lead to irritability. Gary is already irritable because he is covered in boils like Job. And while I am a stoic patient, he is the crankiest patient imaginable. So his base layer of irritability will now be frosted with a spite ganache. I am not looking forward to this.

I have warned him that not only will he be more irritable than normal, he will be hungry. 

“Remember when I ate a dozen donuts on the drive home from the hospital?” I said.

“That won’t happen to me. My migraine medicine kills my appetite.” 

Not only will he be hungry, he will be loopy.

I said, “Remember that day at 2 a.m. when I decided all the light bulbs needed to be synchronized so I switched out every light bulb in the house thinking they would all die off someday at the same time?” 

“That’s stupid. It’s how often you switch the light on that makes it go out. “

I said, “Remember when I bought the twenty light bulbs at Walmart at two a.m.? Remember what it cost? Money will mean nothing to you. Even Mom’s microdose of steroids in Albuterol made her buy $800 worth of knives.“

“I won't do that.”

“You would do that right now, today, even without the steroids.”

So this is my self-preservation plan. If he gets cranky, I will run to work. I will proactively buy multiple three-pound bags of baby carrots to exhaust his jaws. I will sign in to Amazon and monitor what goes in the cart and if it’s something like $6,500 worth of dressage gear I will cancel that order.

I think the first thing that will make him cranky is that he doesn't get to be the expert on steroids yet. I still know more about it than he does. He hates that.

=======UPDATE 

Well, that was fast. Not even two hours after taking the first dose, he said he wanted cookies AND DO NOT MAKE THEM I DON’T CARE IF YOURS ARE BETTER JUST GRUBHUB THEM NOW. So fifty dollars later we are getting a dozen cookies because he snapped at me.

=======ANOTHER UPDATE

As cookies were being placed on the porch by the GrubHub courier, CANCEL THE COOKIES I DO NOT WANT COOKIES. Loopy.

Gary's skin: part 876

Gary will test a theory for a maximum of 24 hours. Then he forms an opinon and the opinion trumps the scientific method.

He is now convinced that the answer to his skin problem is not drywall allergy, but is nightshade allergy. He cut tomatoes and bell peppers out of  his diet and felt better. Well, he felt better for a day. 

I would love for his issue to be that fixable. It seems too good to be true. 

Yard Sign: 2024 Edition

So, in the last few election cycles, Gary and I have disagreed on the subject of yard signs, both in 2020 and in 2016.

This year we are in agreement. He purchased this cryptic Blue-dot-in-a-Red-state sign. And yes. That’s the entire sign. It’s a blue dot.

 

Additionally, he bought two T-shirts, one cryptic ...

... and one subtle.

I feel we might be on a path to political harmony.

Opening the marriage with Gary

As I say, I have really been enjoying the How to Do It sex advice column on Slate plus. Such a variety of people and situations I could never have imagined. Also, as the most technical of technical virgins, it has made me appreciate the variety of definitions of sex. So many questions. "If I lick my ex-girlfriend's armpit hair does that count as cheating on my wife?" (Are you hiding this from your wife? Then, yes.)    

And, it has made me wonder, what would happen if I had ever taken their oft-given advice to "open up the relationship." How would that go?

Step one: Gary would be hurt. I never get past this painful step in my imagination. And because it's imaginary I just immediately kill him off, easier, but this advice column has me thinking outside the box. 

 Imaginary step two: Gary would catastrophize. YOU WILL GET AIDS AND DIE. (I would argue there are effective treatments and we have hit our out-of-pocket max for the year.)  YOU WILL GET SYPHILIS AND DIE. (Repeat.)

Imaginary step three: Pull out the negotiating tactic of  “It would be open for you too.” This would not fly, even if presented as a group effort. Too distracting. Could not concentrate with someone else there. 

Essentially, it would not happen because Gary is who he is: all or nothing. No compromise. 

Gobsmacked at the Doctor

This seems impossible, but the doctor says that the two biopsies came back and indicate that Gary doesn't have psoriasis or skin cancer (which is excellent news).

Instead, he most likely has an allergic reaction that just looks exactly like the distinctive cheese-pizza-psoriasis plaques.

(I know. I heard the news and asked for a written record from the doctor because I assumed Gary was in a fugue state and just making it up.)

There are three possible allergy culprits.

• Drywall dust. He has been banging on about this for almost a year, but he recently bought dust monitors for every room and they all say there is no discernible dust. However, the dermatologist says that sometimes your skin just won't let things go, and the reaction continues long after the allergen is gone.

For the next two, the dermatologist echoed what my old allergist said, you can wake up one day and be allergic to something you've lived with your whole life.  Gary could suddenly have taken up an allergy to:

• His long-standing epilepsy, migraine, or cholesterol medications. The neurologist and GP have to be consulted before any changes can be made.
• Something in his diet. Tomatoes are a Vegetable of Interest. 

The treatment for all is a ten day titration of steroids. "Prepare to be very hungry," I told him.

"Oh, I won't be. My migraine medication keeps me from being hungry. Oh, and maybe I should like live in a hotel for a month, just in case I am really being trigged by something in the environment."

"YES EXCELLENT IDEA' I said, because Gary on steroids will be a manic, talkative, emotional Gary. I just can't. Baseline manic, talkative, emotional Gary is going to be too much for me. 

Alexa nag

Nagging. I won't do it. All my married life, if I want something done, either I do it myself (yard-work) or I hire someone (home construction) or I just give up (doctor's appointments). (Even at work, I balk if I am advised to "just send a gentle reminder in email.")

So, there's a new wrinkle in my no-nagging policy since Alexa came into my house. 

Pre-Alexa: I took out the trash.

Post-Alexa: I set a Tuesday evening reminder that says, "Ellen, here is your reminder. Take out the trash." The first time he heard it Gary said, "I'll do it."

"Are you sure? I usually --"

"NO IT IS MY JOB."

"News to me," I thought. "But sure, okay."

And now every Tuesday night, Alexa nags me, and he cheerfully laces up his shoes and takes out the trash.

I have a payday reminder for something that actually is his job: pay the bills.  "Ellen, here is your reminder. Pay bills." He pays the bills. It isn't even a conversation any more. 

I suppose I should analyze how this changes the dynamic. He loves Alexa and wants to please her? He's saving me from Alexa the evil robot boss? I don't know. 

I can't see a way to get him to make medical appointments. "Ellen, get Gary's colonoscopy" doesn't work at all. I am happy about the trash and the bills, though. 

Rewriting the Novel: Gary is Smarter Than I Am

"What are you writing in the novel now," Gary asked.

"Well, I don't want to write chapter five, because it's all in her head, so I'm going through and doing something else that is boring. I'm charting the days to make sure that the phases of the moon she describes are right."

"What?"

I said, "So, like, one day she has to hunt for a new place to hide, and she has to do it when the moon is new, and it has to happen four days before Easter. So I have to check the Internet to see if the moon was new on that day."

"Or it could just be ... cloudy."

Once again, Gary thinks of something I never would have. 

Turkey Test

Gary does have a few annoying characteristics. When those characteristics begin to grate, I remind myself  that what I love is what I hate. So when he's exceptionally emotional, I remember his emotion is what makes him say "I love you."  

(Pro Tip! This is a neat trick if you want to stay married almost forty years.)

So, his most recent trying characteristic is that he is stubborn. He will not adapt or soften his thinking on some subjects about his health. Usually I tell myself that his stubborn nature is what makes him loyal, but this time the stubborn's combined with stupid. 

It did make me remember that his stubborness -- well, his tenacity -- is what won my Mom over.

When I was a teenager, if Mom realized the boy I was dating was a keeper, he would need to pass a test. A specific test. The turkey blood test.

We had a small Melmac plate that had been put in the microwave while it still had some turkey gizzard debris on it, and the turkey blood was stuck permanently on the plate. After that, every guy I dated seriously was presented with this plate and asked if they could fix the plate like it was one of the twelve labors of Hercules. 

One boy started talking about the chemical properties of blood and suggested Mom try a mild acid, which I thought was a good idea. Another --

(Mom-in-my-head just interrupted me. "Did he bring over a mild acid?" No, Mom, he didn't. "Not a keeper, then.")

Another suggested we just get another plate, another just handed the plate back and said, "No."

("Tell them what Gary did," Mom-in-my-head says.)

Gary sat down and picked at the plate with his fingernail for two hours until it was fixed. And this is how I ended up with a husband whose superpower is his stubbornness.  

Gary Visit

Gary may have bailed on both his colonoscopy and his sleep study, but he did visit the dermatologist after his skin condition began to spontaneously bleed. 

I never know what actually goes on in these doctor's appointments, because what the doctor says in Gary's memory often gets mixed up with what Gary would have liked the doctor to say.

It seems the doctor did indeed say, "Well, yes, that looks like psoriasis" and "That's a lot of psoriasis to develop in ten months" and "some of this might not be psoriasis" and  "let's do two biopsies."

I'm thinking some of it might be cat scratch disease, given that he has also shown symptoms of migraine, eye problems, and honestly, more than a little delusional behavior of late. That "diagnosis" is primarily because I don't want him to have skin cancer.

But more likely he has two of the many different types of psoriasis, set off by an allergic reaction to the drywall dust. It's going to be a long two weeks before those results come in.