Another Badge of Courage

The surgery is over. My world-class neurosurgeon did it again, which makes it hard to dislike the sonuvabitch. The man will never be accused of being too compassionate toward his patients, but he sure can remove a tumor, and since that's pretty much the foundation of our relationship, I find it annoyingly difficult to hold a grudge. There is little to say about the past two weeks that won't sound like whining. Brain surgery is hard, as taxing emotionally as it is physically. If you can avoid having it, then I strongly suggest that you do so.
I had a lumbar drain, which is a tube inserted into the lower spinal area that drains off a controlled amount of cerebral spinal fluid, which I either produce too much of or am unable to absorb normally. The lumbar drain is supposed to guard against a spinal fluid leak, but it is it's own brand of torture. For four days, I was confined to bed, unable to raise above 30 degrees. As with the brain surgery advice above, if you can avoid having a lumbar drain, I suggest that you do so. It makes recovery a lot longer and a lot slower.
I realize I am bitching and moaning, and even I am tiring of my own surliness, so I do think it's important to look for the positives in a thing. The past two weeks, as bad as they were, did serve to remind me that I have been gifted with the most wonderful husband a woman could ever hope for. He stayed by my side the entire time—sleeping sitting up in chairs, eating nothing but cafeteria food, running for days with only hospital coffee for fuel. He reminds me every day that even though life is hard—sometimes painfully, unbearably hard-- it's worth it. Thanks, Michael—again. I love you.

One Month on Blogger, Is Anybody out There?

today, I am a blogger for a month! Go me! Well okay, it isn't really a month yet, but I go to the "view my profile" link on my blog and it tells me that I have been on Blogger since may 2007. and now it's June. so for all blogger cares, I've been blogging for a month. Why, you might ask, do I visit the "view my profile" section of my blog? Presumably, I know me, right? well, that is where I find out how many people have viewed my profile, which is just now the only indicator I have that anyone is reading my blog, and frankly, that isn't going so well. 11 people have viewed my profile, and I'm pretty sure I'm nine of them. Why, you might wonder, don't I just get one of those site statistic program deals to tell me with far greater accuracy how many people have visited my blog? As it happens, I'm not what you'd call techno savvy. There is a reason I fell in love with a computer science major in college. the way to a man's heart might be through his stomach, but the way to mine was through my hard drive. (You there, out of the gutter!) So I haven't exactly figured out the whole website statistics game. Until I do, I'll just keep viewing my profile. If you're reading this now and that page says that 100 or more people have viewed my profile, it means that I all of a sudden got very popular-- or more likely, very bored.