#for 5 years i have dutifully prepared posts i know will get two notes for my art tumblr. all with a devious little smile on my face.

[websitewizard2005]

these were my last real drawings of 2022.

[curiousherbal]

Growing P̶e̶r̶i̶o̶d̶ Pains

Mystic Messenger

*Also read Growing P̶e̶r̶i̶o̶d̶ Pains on ao3* 

707 / Luciel / Saeyoung Choi x Reader ; 707 / Luciel / Saeyoung Choi x MC

Fluff & Angst (borderline crack; also dash of h/c)

5.9 k

Rated: T ; TW: Blood

Summary: In all fairness, you had meant to clean up the blood before Seven got home.

*reposting this story in case ppl on tumblr would rather read it here :) ; be wary of Seven route spoilers*

In all fairness, you had meant to clean up the blood before Seven got home.

But it had been a rather tiring day; a tiring, exhausting, not-so-very-comfortable, bloody day. Oh, how the day had been bloody.

It was also only 2 pm.

But you were on your period, so you were allowed to announce the day as ended before it had even begun. Right?

Usually your monthly flows were relatively well-contained, provided you were provided for of course – that is with “all-night” pads (false – they lasted 3-5 hours max on your heaviest days) and supersized tampons (you rolled your eyes at the arbitrary naming of tampon sizes – I mean what’s so “super” about recreating The Shining every day for a week once a month anyway?).

The silver lining in the sea of red was that, as an adult, you were now fairly adept with dealing with Mother Nature’s gifts, a feat that only took many soiled pants, innumerable ruined bedsheets, and the adolescent trauma of tied sweaters around your hips – to accomplish.

You made a mental note to talk about that last one with your therapist next week…

“Ugh,” you let out a groan as you blearily blinked your eyes open. The sunlight streamed through the window blinds in the bedroom that you and Saeyoung shared.

Well, if he were here.

“Disgusting.” You muttered as you yawned and started to disentangle your sticky legs from the sheets.

Your hacker boyfriend had gotten called away late last night, err – more like early morning. Very early morning, you mentally amended with a displeased grunt. He left in a hurry, promising a quick return as he lobbed this and that into a scuffed duffle bag.

“I’ll be back for dinner, my sweetie!” He ruffled your hair and kissed the corner of your upturned mouth, bouncing on the balls of his feet like it wasn’t 1:46 AM. And like he wasn’t about to leave his sleepy girlfriend alone for the night.

“Really?”

“Why – would the Great 707 ever lie to his darling kitty?” Seven grasped at his chest, a look of mock hurt exaggerated across his naturally goofy features.

Resisting a grin at his silly antics, you made him promise to return safely. And by dinnertime, nonetheless. “I’m going to want ice cream tomorrow evening.” You stated drily with a slight twitch of your eyebrow.

“Ice cream?” Seven had a subtly puzzled expression, which he rapidly exchanged for his charming grin, “Of course! My princess requests!” And with that – a kiss on your hand, and a pat on the head to the robotic cat standing guard at the flat’s entrance – the secret agent had disappeared into the night, the last sign of his leave being that of the revved engine from one of his prized sports cars.

In retrospect, maybe you should have been more explicit when hinting that you were going to be on your period.

But you were on your period, and he was a 20 something year old man, and once again, you were allowed to be however you damn pleased, and he should know that you were about to have that time of the month again. Right? Right.

“FUCK.” You dropped your forearm dramatically across your forehead. “Really? Are we really doing this right now?” You picked up the habit of talking to yourself when Seven was away.

“Fine – guess so…” With a sigh of resignation, you braced yourself for the physical exertion required of one to get out of bed.

Your insides churned a bit; it was the tell-tale feeling that only accompanied that of your body prepared to spew blood the second gravity went against your favour. You felt it. You knew it was going to happen; you just didn’t expect for your period to get so heavy so fast, and only overnight too.

“Well there’s nothing for it, Meowy – we’re just gonna have to make a run for it…” You cocked your head to the side, narrowing your eyes at the feline robot that was now preventing the unassuming Roomba from dutifully trying to gain entrance to your bedroom. “On second thought – maybe I should attempt the Tooty-Ta instead.” You laughed grimly to yourself. I’ll have to show Seven that ridiculous dance when he gets home. Lord knows he’d love it.

Gritting your teeth, you peeled back the sheets and carefully swung your legs over the edge of the bed. Your knees knocked as you clenched your thighs together. A bead of sweat rolled down your temple. “Great, heat flashes too? I’m not that old yet, damn.”

“Mrrrrr?” Meowy rolled over to your side, stiffly upturning her neck to regard you curiously, her programming having sensed that you were in distress.

Taking a deep breath, you braced your clammy palms on either side of your hips and gradually began to rise.

Gravity is an incredible thing. An incredibly, predictable, annoying, but necessary force of nature – much to the chagrin of the uterine force of nature you delicately clutched between your legs at present.

One wobbly step. Two. You rounded the bed post and began to reach for the door frame. So far, so good. Encouraged, you picked up the pace. Maybe I overestimated the amount of blood? You smirked confidently and entered the hallway. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, adjacent to the kitchen. Alright – let’s get this bread. You began your penguin-shuffle down the hardwood hall, leaning against the smooth, eggshell finished walls as you attempted to maintain the delicate balance required of your makeshift dance. Ten steps. Eleven. You reached out for the bathroom door, expecting to latch onto the glass doorknob when –

“Agh!!” You tripped over the Roomba.

The blood gurgled and began to plummet (as liquids, and pretty much anything and everything else, are wont to do) now freed from the desperate clenching of your thighs.

With a cry of despair, you clutched at your abdomen as you felt the large swash of bodily fluids exit your aching genitals, seep through your thoroughly ruined panties – Nooo, these are the cute ones with cats on them that Seven got me! – and splat quite dramatically onto the floor.

If it weren’t for the ruined underwear, the upturned Roomba, and the general resignation of being on one’s period – you would have been rather impressed at the size of the splatter that now decorated your floor in a lovely, concentric pattern.

“This…. Has never happened before.”

And it hadn’t. Usually, your periods started in the evening, not the morning. Usually, they were the heaviest on the second day, not the first. And usually, they weren’t of such a viscous consistency and atrocious metric volume that they glitched right out of your body, through your clothes, and landed in a terrific mess on the floor.

“It’s the Honey Buddha Chips; it must be!” You let out a wail of disgust, blaming the sweet and salty junk food as the reason behind your abnormal flow. “Saeyoung Choi, you WILL be paying for my ice cream tonight!”

You failed to realize that ice cream was also categorized as junk food too.

With nothing left to lose, blood still dribbling down your legs, you pivoted on your feet and marched back to your bedroom. Fine. It’s gonna be that kinda day, huh? You angrily snatched a clean change of clothes from your dresser – this time with your designated Period Panties™ – and made your way back down the hall towards the bathroom. A nice, cold shower will do just fine. You tried to convince yourself it was to counteract the annoying heat flashes you had seemingly picked up as a symptom of your menstrual distress, and not to cool the hot, balmy tears of frustration that now streaked your flushed face.

And if it weren’t for the ruined underwear, the upturned Roomba, and the general resignation of being on one’s period – then maybe you would have noticed how your toes and heels squelched as they made contact with the glob of period blood still lying inanimately on your floor.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

Meowy was stressed.

Well, as stressed as her CPU could be, the mini gears and sensors running vapidly in her plastic and metal cat-shaped vessel.

Her auditory sensors reached warning threshold when her master’s precious one made loud noises of displeasure. Her visual sensors were already busy fighting off that dratted antagonist-of-a-cleaning-robot from earlier. And now her thermal sensors picked up the trace of something biological splatted on the ground. Something biological… and warm. Meowy saw red. But unfortunately, the cat robot couldn’t appreciate the literal nor figurative accuracy of that statement. She just knew she was stressed, even if her insentience didn’t quite allow her to know why, and even if that stress was purely mechanical, rather than emotional.

Master could purrrrobably add that feature in a future update, she surmised. Well, if robots could surmise, that is.

You were being quite a bother. And by bother, well, you were the source of your boyfriend’s cat robot’s overstimulation.

Upon showering, you exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam and clean clothes, fit with a cushy pad to catch the rest of your ebbing flow. Your bloody night clothes littered the cool tiles of the bathroom floor, and the goopy glob of period blood still sat, just as liquids are wont to do, inanimately in the same place as before (albeit, perhaps sporting a rustier hue as oxidation took effect).

It’s nice to be clean, you had thought, though the here-and-there prick of abdominal cramps and sporadic dizzy spells are nothing to long for. You had figured that some food and a glass of water would at least help the latter ailment, so you had proceeded to attempt to make yourself a late, light lunch.

Meowy frantically circled the small kitchen, letting out her programmed mews of concern every 2.35 seconds. During her 3rd or 4th worried lap, she ran right into your left foot, which you were precariously balancing on by habit.

For the second time that day, you yelped out an elegant “agh!” and dropped the knife you had been using to spread your favourite strawberry jam on the toast that you were planning to eat. The red-rimmed knife fell to the floor with a cacophonous clatter. Forgotten.

“Meowy!” You snarled as you towered over the cowering robocat.

Instantly, your rage dissipated to remorse as you felt empathy for the poor creature. Unpleasant images of Seven smashing the cat in a fit of similar rage accosted your brain, and with it, the tremulous and turbulent emotions from that past event too.

“I’m so sorry!” Your despondence flared suddenly and tears formed in the corners of your eyes. Mortified at how you treated your emotional support robot cat, you fled the kitchen in a teary haste. You tore down the hallway, intending to crash back into bed until Saeyoung came back home to make amends with Meowy and yourself –

Only to trip over the Roomba again.

“Oof!” Your knees crashed to the floor abruptly, your palms quickly reaching out to catch yourself from falling face first –

Only for them to slide out from under you after making contact with the slick pool of blood and period gunk that you neglected to clean up earlier.

And for the third time that day, you let out a final “AGH!”

SMACK!

Your face rammed into the ground, the bridge of your nose catching the pool of blood on your way down. Resigned, you didn’t move a muscle for five minutes, wallowing in your despair for yelling at Meowy, a lovely hybrid of self-loathing and disgust for not cleaning up the blood, and lonesomeness that ached every time Seven left on an indeterminable, clandestine trip.

Utterly wretched and still just as exhausted as when you had woken up approximately… you glanced at the clock at the end of the hall… 5 PM already??? … three hours ago, you cautiously raised yourself back to your knees. Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, you sighed dejectedly and stood the rest of the way up.

Trudging solemnly back to your bedroom, you froze as you looked at the state of your sheets.

“Are you kidding me?!”

The sheets were rumpled from your hasty wake-up from earlier in the day, yet that wasn’t what caught your eye. No – your eyes lamentably traced the spotting and pools of long-dried blood that stained the center spread of sheets in the dip where you had slept. I must have leaked before I woke up, and I didn’t even notice.

Dehydrated, fatigued, and entirely resigned to end the day, you turned around and walked the short distance across the hall into the guest bedroom that Saeyoung most often used as an office space for work. (Less often, his twin Saeran would camp out in the small room, though recently he refrained from spending the night, too afraid that he’d become further traumatized by the excitable noises that tended to emit from his brother’s room late at night.)

You didn’t care that there was still blood trekked all over your apartment. You didn’t care that you were now just as soiled as before you had showered. You didn’t care that Meowy was short-circuiting in worry. You didn’t care that Seven had yet to return. You didn’t care. All you wanted to do was crash and wake up from this nightmare of a day.

Just a quick power nap, and then I’ll clean it up before Saeyoung gets home.

So, you curled up on the couch beside Seven’s work desk and cocooned yourself in a large comforter. With your back to the room, you entered fetal position and drifted off to sleep almost instantly, the crown of your head just barely visible from between the cushions.

And if Meowy was yowling as if possessed, well, you were too exhausted to notice.

Not that robot cats could be possessed, of course.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

Fresh-faced and lively – Saeyoung was ecstatic.

The agency work turned out to be nothing more than a casual revenge-driven hacking: a harmless ploy orchestrated by a disgruntled employee trying to find some scrap of solace by antagonizing their rich, snobby boss’ computer system. Yes, it had been unfortunate that the job was sudden and required on-location skills, and yes, Saeyoung was rather reluctant to leave his adorably cute girlfriend alone for the night… but the goodhearted jokester couldn’t help but crack a smile as fond memories from just hours earlier accosted his mind…

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

“Mrr?” Elizabeth the 3rd let out a perplexed mew as the penthouse front door opened silently.

Seven creeped in, a finger brought to his lips as his eyes widened upon seeing Jumin’s cat. “Elly!” He immediately clasped his hand over his mouth, embarrassed that he let his excitement upon seeing the pure white Persian cat be audible.

“My darling! Uncle Luciel has come for you~~” He playfully whispered as he set his bag down and crouched beside the spoiled feline.

Elizabeth sauntered up to the intruder, presenting her lushly furred back for caresses.

“Don’t tell Mr. CEO, but I’m working here tonight. I need to access his Wi-Fi network directly.” Seven ran his fingers up and down the cat’s back, encouraged by her accelerated purring. “Don’t worry, ‘tis nothing nasty my friend – he’ll just be forced to do all of his work by hand tomorrow. I think his computer deserves a bit of break, no?” With a conniving twinkle in his eye, Seven began unpacking his equipment, settling cross-legged with his computer on his lap and Elizabeth sprawled out at his side, butting her head against his thighs periodically as his hands flew rapidly over his keyboard.

A large snore startled the mischievous hacker.

“Pshhsh!” Agent 707 brought up a hand to conceal his mirth, desperately trying to muffle the delirious laughter that threatened to escape his throat. Elizabeth glared at him, displeased that the large hand had ceased massaging her backside.

“I’m sorry, my kitty-love, I just didn’t expect Jumin to sleep so soundly!” Seven cooed lovingly.

Within the next few hours, Saeyoung finished up his early-morning hacking endeavors as instructed and deftly returned his equipment back to his bag without making a sound. He stood up and adorned a wistful expression, sad to be leaving his Elly all too soon.

“Meow~”

“Oh, my dear – we mustn’t!” Seven scooped up the cat and swung her around, crushing her flat face against his sharp nose. “You know not the extent that this sweet parting brings me pain, but alas, our love is forbidden!”

“Mrrrrr…”

Seven gently placed the cat back down. She immediately began grooming her mused fur, unimpressed with Seven’s soliloquy.

“Always the lady.” Saeyoung bowed reverently, a hand on the door to leave. “Wait!” Digging excitedly in his duffle, the young man pulled out a thin, red, satin ribbon. A small pawprint locket charm clinked on the ribbon.

Gently fondling the jewelry, Seven clicked open the locket and gazed adoringly at the image within. “Ah, it’s perfect. A representation of our love, my Elly!” With one final glance, Seven clicked the locket shut and bent down to tie the ribbon loosely around Elizabeth’s neck, covering up the collar Jumin had gifted to her prior.

Elizabeth, none the wiser, mewled an unbothered farewell as Saeyoung patted her once more affectionately and made his departure with a cheeky air-blown kiss.

The hacker disappeared from the CEO’s penthouse, slipped past the guards once more, and vanished into the early morning – having one or two more things left to accomplish for the agency before he could return home.

What those tasks were? Well, perhaps it’s best that only special Agent 707 would ever know for sure.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧        

This will pay the bills all for next month! Saeyoung thought with a grin, drawn back to the present as he lovingly slid his palm over the curve of the leather steering wheel. Plus, maybe this will teach Jumin not to overwork his minions. The young hacker smirked. He could already sense Jaehee’s displeasure when she would find out that RFA’s very own security hacked her boss for entertainment. And a bit of cash.

Seven wound his way through the hilly countryside, enjoying the dip and curve of the roads. He glanced at the car’s clock: 5:36 PM.

It was approaching dusk, and he was eager to return home. He moved his free hand over to his baby car’s console and pressed down on the window switch.

“Yahoo!” Seven stuck his head out of the window and let the wind ruffle his untamable ginger hair. His striped glasses pushed comfortingly against the bridge of his nose, as the golden hues of the setting sun reflected in his mutually golden irises.

A sudden pang of yearning overtook the young man, thinking about his princess at home. Though it happened without fault every evening, Saeyoung couldn’t help but feel anxious about missing the sunset. He wanted to watch every sunset with you; this would be the first one that you both had missed since you started living together.

A reversed flick of the window toggle and a harder stomp on the gas pedal later, Saeyoung sped back home with renewed urgency. We can catch the tail end of the evening together if I hurry.

Unbeknownst to him, the red, rosy fingers of sunlight that stretched linearly across the horizon were complementary towards the organic drops of red that currently decorated your shared home.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

It was a quarter past 6 when the door to your shared apartment finally received its missing tenant. The last of the sundry locks popped open, the metal restraints finally allowing the port of entrance to swing on its hinges.

“Honeyyyyyyy~ I’m hooOOOMMMEEE!” Saeyoung sang loudly as he shouldered his way through the frame. Closing the door behind him, the totally-averagely-paranoid hacker wasted no time in redoing all of the locks. Turning around with a relieved exhale, Seven carelessly dropped his duffle on the floor and toed off his shoes impatiently.

No less than two steps deeper into the flat, Saeyoung was just starting to acquire a sense of strange foreboding when a white blur came barreling around the corner of the hallway –

“Master! Master! Your precious one!” Meowy, hysterically wheeling herself towards her creator, belted as loudly as her speakers permitted.

“What the hell?” Startled, Seven eyed his rambunctious robot, unable to fathom what in the world could trigger his creation to act so frenzied.

“Master! Your precious one! Blood! Bleeding! Help!” Meowy shrieked, her pitch increasing steadily and becoming disconcertingly garbled, her processors unable to cope with the sensory overload.

Saeyoung froze.

Time stopped.

Her… blood?

…

…

BLEEDING?!

“What?! Where? Meowy what happened?!” Seven pushed past the yowling cat, crying your name as he further entered the apartment.

Seven frantically rounded the corner, his panic only increasing with every second that you neglected to greet him at the door. You always greet me when I come home! Where are you!?!  He shouted your name a second time, his heart hammering in his chest, muscles constricting painfully as his mind began to whirr with confusion and pain. You can’t be taken… not again… We just got this together... us.

“Honey?? This isn’t funny!” Saeyoung quickly glanced to his left as he passed the kitchen.

He froze.

There. On the ground.

A knife.

It’s red.

Clumps of something that was equally red and sticky looking surrounded the knife. The knife that should not be laying carelessly on the floor. The knife that very obviously fell on the ground in a struggle and was currently tainted red.

His airway felt constricted. His sense of hearing muffled, despite Meowy still shrieking incoherently at his feet.

As if in his own personal horror movie, Saeyoung pivoted his head to his right, now looking in to the bathroom. Terrified eyes locked onto small, red footprints that graced the floor. They traveled from the hallway onto the cold tiles. He assessed the criminal scene with widening eyes: blood stained clothes were thrown haphazardly before the shower. Your nightclothes. Your nightclothes that you had definitely been wearing. His own t-shirt that you so adorably asked to wear at night, citing that it smelled just like him. The large shirt that he gave you in mock exasperation, secretly fawning over your cuteness when you slid it on.

Look Seven, it’s like a dress on me!

With another frantic gasp, Saeyoung wailed your name brokenly. Once again compelled to action, he tore his gaze from the bathroom and began to sprint anxiously down the adjacent hallway. He needed to find you. Now. It was dark. The air was stale. His nose twitched in distaste as he sensed the twinge of iron that faintly permeated the hall before him. It felt like there had been little movement in your apartment today. He fumbled for the light switch on the wall. His trembling fingers just missed it. His body was already surging forward, so he continued his aching search into the hall blindly, his feet shuffling against each other lamely –

Why is there blood why why why this can’t be happening

Saeran and I… we got rid of Mint Eye, we survived, we did we DID!

but what if they came back

Why did they take her clothes off??

unless…

Seven’s stomach sank nauseously.

what if they took her what if – no no no nononono NO!

There was a sign of a struggle; she’s bleeding, she’s hurt!

She’s …. Dying.

…

NO please God no–!

Saeyoung suddenly tripped over something heavy. He crashed to the ground, blinking away the tears in his eyes despite not being able to see anything in the dark.

His scuffed palms instinctively reached out to catch him. Angry at his own clumsiness, he fumbled for his phone in his back pocket, swiping up to access his flashlight.

“AGH!” He sprang back in a shocked stupor.

A worryingly large pool of dried blood stood out conspicuously where he had just fell. Darker red, nearly black, glossy clumps of something sat atop the dried blood, having congealed to the consistency of rancid jelly.

Without turning back to see what he had tripped on, Seven screamed your name in utter despair, propelling himself upwards as he desperately searched the last two places you could be. Not wanting to confront the bedroom just yet, he yanked open the door to his office space, quickly glancing around in a fretful daze. Not being able to locate you immediately, he finally turned to your shared bedroom. His phone’s flashlight zeroed in on the bed. The empty bed. The empty bed that was speckled with the same blood that stippled the hallway. And the bathroom. And the kitchen.

You weren’t here.

You were taken.

You were injured.

You were gone–

“No!” Saeyoung collapsed to his knees, struggling to dial the keypad on his phone. He wasn’t even sure whom he was calling when a meek voice sounded out behind him.

“… Seven?”

Dropping his phone in alarm, Saeyoung spun around, ignoring how the carpet burned his knees as he pivoted.

You. You were there.

You were clutching at the bedroom door frame, highlighted only by the last surviving streaks of sunlight creeping through the blinds. You looked… fine. Maybe tired at worst.

Saeyoung choked out your name, his eyes instantly filling with tears. Both of you were frozen for several moments, him out of complete bewilderment, and you, cranky but concerned, having finally been woken from your deep sleep by wails of despair. And then –

Seven rushed to his feet and crushed you against his chest. You could hear and feel his heart thumping erratically in his chest. His breath came out hot and moist as he pressed his lips to the top of your messy hair. His lanky arms wrapped tightly around your startled frame, his fingers finding their desperate purchase around your waist and the small of your back. His taller frame shook, and you soon felt something wet streak down your temple. “I thought I lost you.”

Still utterly confused as to what exactly was happening, you just returned his terrified embrace, perplexed as to why your eyes suddenly filled with tears too.

“Seven… Saeyoung…”

He clutched you even tighter, the symptoms of a full-blown panic attack likely to ensue.

“Luciel.”

Alarmed, you leaned your face back and looked deeply into his blown eyes. You placed shaking yet comforting palms against either side of his sharp cheeks. Fighting past the cotton in your throat, you sought answers for his critical state.

“What do you think happened?”

He let out a wobbly sniffle and returned your intense gaze, gathering the courage needed to answer you coherently.

“Your… your blood. Why is it all over the apartment?” He croaked painfully. As if spooked again, his eyes widened almost comically once more: “You’re not hurt, are you?? Oh God, I didn’t even think to check first. Of course you’re hurt; your BLOOD is all over the place. Oh fuck, it’s on your face too. oh my god. Don’t move, I’m taking you to the hospital oh God…” Saeyoung began to stoop as if to pick you up but you hurriedly made to halt him.

“What – no Saeyoung, stop. I’m fine. See? Why ever would you think that… oh.” You gulped nervously, the hot flush from earlier now creeping up your neck and overtaking your face in shame. Well… fuck.

“Please don’t be mad… um,” you nervously averted your gaze, your hands dropping to pull his wrists out from your sides. You laced your fingers together. “Let’s sit down, yeah?” You guided the shaken man to the end of the bed and then turned away.

Thin fingers suddenly encircled your wrist.

“My sweet, I’m just turning on the lamp. It’s dark now.”

“Oh… right. Of course.”

You padded over to the wall, flicking the switch so that the yellow overhead fluorescent bathed everything in a sad hue.

“Okay so…” You took a shallow breath and eased yourself down onto your boyfriend’s lap, his arms wrapping around your waist once more. You began to card your fingers through his hair. It was a position that brought you both immense comfort and security. “Don’t laugh, but… uh, and I’m really sorry for causing you so much distress, but ahh I guess maybe my body was just so surprised that you got called away real early this morning, remember? Oh of course you remember, you just got back... And so – oh Seven, it must have been the chips! I’m so sorry! I’m a terrible person; I yelled at Meowy and – the underwear! With cats! Saeyoung dear, please understand I didn’t mean to! We can get another pair. But I really blame that stupid Roomba for all of it.” You trailed off pitifully, averting your embarrassed eyes in favour of studying the corner of the bedroom instead.

Silence settled in wake of your rambling statement.

“You… what?” Seven loosened his grip and stared up at your fretful eyes with utter confusion. “Babe,” he took a shaky breath alike to yours, “you know I love you, always, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but – what the fuck are you talking about?”

Unable to hold back your torrent of hormone-induced emotions, you blurted, “I’m on my period!”

“You…”

“It happens every month, Saeyoung.”

“Yes, but… it’s not supposed to get all over the floors! And the walls! And the bed – Babe! The knife! There are clumps of FLESH in the hall!” Seven held your arms in a tight grip, forcing you to look right at him.

“I know! I… it was a heavy flow.” Your eyes cast downwards pathetically. Oh man, do I wanna curl up in a ball and die…

Abruptly, a chuckle resounded off the walls. The chuckle grew into giggling, which then grew into bellowing laughter. You joined in with your boyfriend’s mirth, both of you laughing to expel any of the remaining insecurity and fear you both felt. For every laugh, a tear was shed, and for every hysterical giggle, your interlocked hands squeezed the other.

Growing pains and period pains, your relationship had both.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

You didn’t get to watch the rest of the dwindling sunset together.

After calmly and patiently explaining your abnormal and premature flow, accompanied by the resulting afternoon fiasco via Meowy’s unfortunate presence, you had gotten Seven back to a stable mental state. He blushed furiously, embarrassed that he reacted so dramatically to something as old-hat as your menstrual cycle. But you shushed him, gave him gentle, chaste kisses, and assured him that his reaction wasn’t unfounded. It had been… upsetting for you too, even if your feelings were rooted in annoyance and crankiness more so than fear.

Still shaken by the sight of your blood, Saeyoung insisted that you both cleaned up the flat together. He didn’t want to leave your side, after all. With a light smile, he suggested maybe a game to make the task less grisly. An unassuming pair of handcuffs (which were actually the tipping point for Saeran moving out the day he saw them), a large sponge, and some soapy water later, you and Saeyoung were racing down the hallways nearly on all fours, jointed at the wrists, challenging yourselves to stay upright as you both pushed the same waterlogged sponge across the hardwood floors.

You were both giggling loudly, which only became amplified when you realized that you both still hadn’t up-righted the miserable Roomba.

“Left! Left!” Saeyoung shouldered your direction leftwards, and you both were able to – finally – avoid a third collision with the sad robot.

When you both released yourselves from your metal confines and entered the bathroom, you sadly presented your soiled cat panties to Seven. He wasn’t quite quick enough to hide his grimace. The little cats sure do look hellish with all the blood splatters… You cringed in agreement. The footprints were scrubbed off the tile, and you gathered your discarded clothes to put in the hamper.

“See, my lovey, it’s just the underwear that are bloody.” You held up his t-shirt that you had taken to sleeping in. Seven blushed harder and stammered an apology. “Don’t apologize, everything else was pretty much covered in blood… it’s natural to think that the shirt was too.” You offered an easy, albeit still concerned, smile. He gratefully returned it.

Saeyoung stammered the most upon seeing the knife in the kitchen. “I uh –, “ he cupped the back of his neck, “I didn’t really inspect it earlier. I just saw… hehe… red.” His face turned the colour of his hair. Meowy let out a mewl of approval.

Cracking a grin to yourself, you shook your head. “I know.”

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

It wasn’t until an hour or two later that you both had finally cleaned your flat of the remaining incriminating evidence. Both tired, you were entirely resigned to spending the rest of this nightmarish day cuddled with your boyfriend in bed. It seemed this was Seven’s train of thought too, until his eyes suddenly lit up with excitement.

“Babe!” He twirled you around the kitchen, picking you up and settling you down on the counter. He wedged himself between your legs as you were winding your arms around his neck. “I didn’t forget.”

“Hmm?” You offered him a dazed expression.

“You scream~” He began to improvise one of his many cutesy melodies, “I scream~~”

Your eyes brightened with sudden realization: “We all scream for ice cream!”

“Yes! My princess requests! And so, I shall deliver!” He kissed both of your cheeks, helped you down, and then shucked off his coat. Wrapping it tightly around your shoulders, he tilted your chin up, “Cute.” Wink.

“Allons-y!”

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

Jumin had had a terribly frustrating, annoying, absolutely baffling day.

Upon arriving at work, he was met with a flustered Jaehee.

“Sir, something’s wrong with the network,” she glanced down at her clipboard, “And, ahem, well your technologies, sir.”

An arched brow. “My technologies?”

“It appears everything fed through your devices ends up not going through. I’m afraid we’ll have to complete all documents the old-fashioned way today.”

The other arched brow. “The old-fashioned way?”

“Handwritten, Mr. Han. Everything will have to be done by hand.”

Assistant Kang’s words sealed Han Jumin’s fate. His hands cramped. He had ink smears over his pinstriped dress shirt. And his hair now sported commoner cowlicks.

Jumin returned home around 9 PM, exhausted and bleary beyond belief. “Elizabeth, my love – come and comfort your father.” Jumin stumbled into his penthouse, intent on cuddling his cat since she somehow eluded him earlier that morning.

“Meow~” The stunning Persian vocalized lazily as she sauntered up to her master.

“Ah, what a fine lady you are.” Jumin scooped her up and nosed her long fur. Something round and cool brushed against his skin. Curious, Jumin fondled the delicate metal lock attached to an imposter satin ribbon looped around Elizabeth’s neck.

“What is this?” He scoffed, irritated that one of the guards must have thought to play dress up with his cat.

Jumin set Elizabeth down and removed the ribbon. He clicked the locket open. Inside, there was a photoshopped photo of Saeyoung and his Elizabeth recreating American Gothic, but with childish doodled hearts and horrendous text in Comic Sans font:

707 x Elly forever!!!

“Luciel… I expected no less.” Jumin rolled his eyes. “Well done I suppose, though I’ll have next draw, of course.” The tall man smirked enigmatically to himself and went to bed.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

But for now, somewhere in Seoul, you shared an ice cream sundae with Seven.

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

Notes:

Several notes ~ hello! I am relatively new to the mysme fandom (quarantine really said hey, why don't you go ahead and fall in love with the RFA boys, and I woefully agreed) This story is actually sort of based on something that happened to me, believe it or not. I mean, beside the having Seven as my bf part T_T I had a really heavy flow one month, like my body decided to just do the period all at once on one day instead of drawing it out for a week or so like normal. So yes - I woke up, felt impending doom as one does, and then stood up to make it to the bathroom. Well, gravity check - like all this blood and ya know the squishy period stuff fell out instead and I was like??? ok???? This was also at like 4am, so I cleaned myself up, and went back to sleep. Sadly, I had to clean up the massive splatter on my floor when I actually got up several hours later. That was probably tmi, but hey, periods are a natural part of life so~~ I'm fine, dw. Periods just be weird sometimes. ANYWAY - you can leave me prompt ideas or send them to me on tumblr via the same username (curiousherbal). The end of this fic sorta alludes to another fic I have in mind ;) EDIT: Which I have now posted, it may be found here Thank you so much for reading! This was a mammoth. I only ever wanted it to be around 1k, but here we are nearly 6k words later.... I just love seven ;_; ok bye bye

[hangonimevolving]

Dad’s Cabbage.

We have had a DOOZY of the last ~3 weeks.  Like, doozier than the dooziest times in recent memory.  NOTE:  this might be the longest post in the history of my blog.  I’m not kidding.  Sorry.  And thanks in advance for whatever effort anyone out there wants to make in reading it.  

Alright, here goes:

Wednesday, August 28th-ish:  the news starts reporting about a tropical weather system that is gathering steam in the Caribbean islands.  It is a serious hurricane, and it is called Dorian, and projections start coming in that it *could* impact South Florida at a Category 5 strength.  I absolutely HATE it when the media starts projecting hurricane impacts way, way early - because so many factors are at play, and anything over 72 hours in advance is usually wrong.  But the buzz starts circulating, and the kids’ school starts talking about closures, so it is clear I’ve got to start hurricane prep even though I don’t want to.   I am just SO annoyed at the prospect of school disruptions, when the kids have literally JUST started school the previous week.  Ugh.

Cue annoying trips to Walmart, Lowe’s and the gas stations for provisions, batteries and bottled water, and gasoline.  Lots of waiting in long lines.  Le sigh.

Thursday, August 29:  My parents have been calling from New Orleans to find out what our hurricane evacuation plan is, should we need one... then on their latest phone call, they disclose that they’ve had some weird stuff going on too.  That morning, it seems my father randomly fainted in the kitchen.  My mom was home, rummaging in the pantry for something, when she heard a loud THUNK.  She whirls around, and there is my dad on the floor near the kitchen sink.  He had been taking his daily diabetes medication, and as he was swallowing the pill, he suddenly and only momentarily lost consciousness.  HE came to right away and was totally with it, but perplexed about what had happened, plus his head hurt from thwacking it on the hard tile floor.  After an hour or two of rest, he shrugged the incident off and drove himself to work (UM, yeah, maybe not the best idea!).  I find the whole episode mildly troubling, but the fact that he was well enough to go to work makes me feel maybe it was just a random moment...?  Who knows.

Friday, August 30:  Turns out, over the last 24 hours since thunking his head on the ground, dad hasn’t been feeling too well.  His head aches, and he is dizzy and nauseated.  RED FLAGS!  We all - and especially Dr. Spouse, the neurologist - urge dad to get checked out.  He dutifully abides... to a point.  He again drives himself to work at his own hospital, where he has been a nephrologist and internist for the last 40-ish years, and goes into the ER where a colleague runs a panel of blood tests on him, obtains a head CT, and orders a stress test for his heart.  Fortunately, his head CT comes out clear - but there are some surprising and worrisome issues that pop up on the blood tests and stress test.  His cardiac enzymes are showing up slightly elevated - a marker for heart attack.  Dad is shocked - but he hasn’t felt even the slightest chest pain, just this dizzy and sick feeling.  We are all suddenly feeling that pit in our stomach... but my dad is not entirely convinced that this can be right.  Again, dad is a physician himself, and he has no personal history of heart disease - either his instincts tell him this is inaccurate, or he is in denial, but whatever the case - he signs himself out of the ER, which requires him to sign legal papers for discharge “AMA” (against medical advice), and goes home.  

Saturday, August 31:  All signs are pointing to Hurricane Dorian NOT making landfall anywhere near us, and yet - we are all warned of the possibility of landfall, and the whole town is operating under hurricane precautions.  The coming Monday is Labor Day; the schools preemptively announce closures for Tuesday as well.  

Meanwhile, calls to New Orleans are not particularly reassuring.  Months ago, Mom and Dad have been invited for a wedding of some close friends’ son  this day, and they RSVP’ed yes, but now that the day is here, Dad isn’t feeling up to going - more worrisome is that the wedding is taking place at the clubhouse in the very subdivision they live in, but Dad’s not up to even popping by for a bit, even though its down the street.  His dizziness and nausea are a little worse.  Mom attends alone.  Dr. Spouse and I reiterate that he might need further medical workup than he had permitted his ER colleagues to do, but he’s not ready to hear it yet.

Sunday, September 1:  Still hanging out, waiting for the hurricane that isn’t coming.  The buzz begins about airport and business closures.  Dad is about the same, but seems okay resting at home, so my mom is going to some social event that afternoon/evening with my uncle.  Around 5-6 pm, my dad calls Dr. Spouse’s phone, and relays that he’s not feeling well at all.  He’s already called my mom and uncle back to the house, and they are on their way to take my dad to the emergency room - this time, at a bigger, university-affiliated hospital where my uncle was formerly a neurologist and professor, and has lots of connections.  Dr. Spouse takes the opportunity to give my dad a full (respectful but serious) earful about all the various tests and scans he thinks my dad ought to have done, and my dad is eerily receptive.  While my dad is an excellent physician in his own right, he has always been the embodiment of the phrase “doctors make the worst patients” - so its almost unnerving that he’s being so open and receptive to anyone’s advice, especially his own son-in-law, who is much younger than him.

They arrive at the ER around 9 at night, where after some initial tests, its discovered that my dad has an 85% blockage of his LAD, the left anterior descending artery that supplies the heart muscle with blood.  A 100% blockage of the LAD almost invariably results in a fatal heart attack called a “widow maker.”  It’s dad’s good fortune that this has been found out.  A plan is made for dad to undergo an angiogram and stent placement the very next day.

Monday, September 2:  I am antsy, because I’d ordinarily have rushed to New Orleans to be there for my parents during a serious situation like this, but alas - Dorian, the Hurricane that Would Not Hit Miami, has caused all my area airports to close for 2 days.  Frustrated is not even the word for my state of mind.  However, my heart goes out to citizens of the Bahamas, who are being pummeled by the slowest moving Category 5 hurricane I’ve ever seen.  This morning, over in New Orleans, dad undergoes a successful angiogram and LAD stent placement.  He’s moved to the intensive care unit for recovery, and our entire family is seemingly relieved that all has gone well.  My mom returns home, with plans to return the next day to bring dad home after his discharge.  But late that night/early the next morning, things take a turn.... dad suddenly loses consciousness, his heart rate and blood pressure bottom out, and the code team is summoned to resuscitate him with heart-stimulating medications. We are all shocked to hear this news the next morning.

Tuesday, September 3:  The Non-Hurricane is decidedly NOT swirling around us, but the kids are home from school, making chaos and messes everywhere, and excitedly awaiting the hurricane... that is not coming.  The only hurricanes we have are pancake hurricanes.  

I am on the phone, trying to get real-time updates about dad.  IT seems that though the LAD stenting was successful, further review of the angiogram reveals he has blockages in 4 other arteries surrounding the heart.  His cardiologist calls in a vascular surgeon colleague, and upon thorough review and consultation with each other, its determined that the best course of action for my dad is a CABG - otherwise known as a coronary artery bypass graft.  Open heart surgery - a quadruple bypass!!!!  I think we are all struck dumb.  At first pass, its hard to believe.  At age 74, my dad is still pretty active, works five days a week, and he does about 40 minutes on his elliptical cross trainer about 4-5 times a week.  He is a vegetarian, has never smoked and hardly ever consumed alcohol.  How could he have such severe coronary artery disease to warrant a bypass?!  But we realize over time, he has the risk factors of fairly serious Type 2 diabetes, which in honesty hasn’t always been controlled that well, plus he has a pretty impressive family history of heart disease.  Genetics are legit.  The surgery is set for Monday, September 9th.

From this point till Sunday, September 8th, we live in a bit of a nervous daze, mentally preparing for the fact that dad is going to have open heart surgery, and getting things in order to support him and my mom in the weeks to come.  I call out an SOS to my mother-in-law, who graciously agrees to fly down and help Dr. Spouse with the kids while I fly to NOLA for the big event.  I set about getting things prepared at home to make it easier for her and the kids - I wash and iron school uniforms, prepare homework packets for the next 2 weeks, make and freeze custom-shaped airplane pancakes for breakfasts... its a roller coaster of a week.  I’m nervous about the events ahead, and also sad to leave the kids for an uncertain amount of time - the longest I’ve ever been away from them till now is 4.5 days!  And this time, it might be 2 weeks.... 

Cue STRESS.  I am having trouble sleeping, sitting still, doing anything, really.  I realize I’m kind of losing it, and busy myself with two things: running, and volunteering at my local town hall’s relief efforts to help Hurricane Dorian victims in the Bahamas.  I spend two days sorting and packing boxes of canned goods, baby diapers, emergency supplies, and other stuff along with other good samaritans in my community.  It helps, a LOT.

(that’s my handwriting on those boxes)

Meanwhile, the doctors have insisted that my dad remain in the hospital during this waiting period between the stent placement and his surgery.  They are worried that with the degree of blockage he has, he could once again lose consciousness or have a more serious heart attack at home if they release him. So, right there he sits.  At some point, he is transferred by medical transport ambulance from one hospital to another, because the vascular surgeon only operates at this other hospital.  Mom and Dad send selfies periodically of themselves biding their time, watching Indian soap operas and game shows on their iPad.

Friday, September 6:  my sister Rithers arrives in NOLA to spend two days with mom and dad.  She’s in a tough spot - she had worked at the same giant corporation for several years, and she’d accrued over 180 days of paid time off there... but just 10 days ago, she had quit that job to start a brand new position at a brand new company, and she’s been terribly excited about this new opportunity - but in so doing, she’s forfeited all her available free days and is down to ZERO.  She’s distraught that she can't spend more time - but we all reassure her that its okay, she can come for the weekend to see dad, and the rest of us will be there for the surgery and post-op period.

Sunday, September 8th:  Early this morning, at 5 am, I silently kiss and pat Dr. Spouse, Dey, and Vev goodbye, and board a Lyft car to the airport.  I make my way towards my airplane for my 7 am flight...

... and I am in New Orleans by 8 am local time.

I took a Lyft directly to Touro Infirmary, and found my way to my dad’s room upstairs on the 8th floor - the cardiac telemetry ward, aka a floor full of patients all on constant heart monitoring, being watched over by specially trained cardiac nurses.  My mom and sister drove there too about the same time, and the four of us overlapped in dad’s hospital room for about 30 minutes, before my mom had to take off to drop my sister at the airport for her return flight to DC.  It was a surreal experience.

My mom returned, and she and I hung out with my dad till about 7 or 8 that night, at which time we gave him big hugs, and then departed for home.  Tough moment.  We urged dad to get a really good night’s rest in preparation for the morning.  Also, before bed that day, he would be required to take a thorough shower with a special kind of medical-grade antibacterial soap, and then shower once again with it in the morning - this was to help inhibit him from contracting any infections post-operatively.  The nurses would help him after showering to wear special sterile gowns, and they would make up his bed with sterile sheets each time.  Apparently, he and my mom had gotten a lengthy inservice by the cardiothoracic surgeon’s NP and staff about the importance of infection prevention, limiting visitors post-surgery, etc. and we all took this stuff really seriously.

Mom and I went back home to a dark and quiet house - it was my first time entering that house alone, and so quiet, since Vev was born almost 7 years ago.  I haven’t visited NOLA alone once since that time, and it felt totally bizarre and incomplete to be there without the kids :(  Mom and I warmed up a quick dinner for ourselves, which we both probably gulped down without tasting a thing.  Then we resigned ourselves to bed, where we both probably lay for hours without sleeping before finally succumbing for a few short hours.....

Monday, September 9:  Cabbage Day.  This is the day my dad’s engine would be completely rebuilt inside his vintage exterior.  So so surreal.  Mom and I got up early, around 5 am, and quickly showered, then packed our bags with sweatshirts, blankets, iPads, snacks, and other stuff to keep ourselves occupied for the long day of waiting ahead.  We sped off to the hospital in the pre-dawn hours and arrived by about 6:15 am to find dad laying in bed wide awake, freshly showered for the second time in the special soap, and tucked in tightly to pristine white sterile sheets.  We knew from earlier that we wouldn’t be allowed to touch him, hug him, or even go too close to him.  But we sat and talked to him, and mom played some Hindu shlokas (chanting) on her iPhone until the nurses came over to tell us it was time for him to be wheeled down to the pre-op area on the 3rd floor.

I feel like we all had our game faces on.  Every single one of us was steeled and ready for this moment - weird as it was.  

Mom and I found our way to the surgical waiting room, which was a quiet and comfortable room filled with plush chairs, a few vases of flowers, and a kindly volunteer lady at a desk who kept a coffee maker running, and some muffins on a tray.  Within a few minutes, a face familiar to my mom came into the room to greet us.  One of my dad’s anesthesiologists for his surgery happened to be an acquaintance of my parents - he is a good friend of my mom’s other brother, who is a general surgeon.  Dr. A said hello to us and shook my hand, and he and my mother conversed briefly in Tamil, the Indian language that my family speaks - and then he offered to take us back to see my dad again in the pre-op area (a privilege not usually offered to family members).  We followed Dr. A through special double doors and into the pre-anesthesia bay where my dad was now laying on a metal gurney, with his eyes closed.  He had been administered a small dose of Versed already, a sedative, because the pre-op team had had to begin prepping him for the surgery.  He had a variety of tubes and lines already inserted into him at various places on his body - I’ll detail these later - so I guess they had given him a little Versed to take the edge off as they did all this prep.  Dr. A gently said dad’s name and his eyes opened for a minute and saw us.  He looked at us for a few moments, then closed his eyes again - it was clear that he was having a hard time keeping them open.  Mom and I decided not to stay longer than 2-3 minutes - we didn't want him to fight sleep - so we thanked Dr. A, and found our way back to the waiting room.

Now began the long haul of waiting.  The kindly volunteer at the desk  provided helpful directions to us for the cafeteria and anywhere else in the hospital we might want to go; she also taught us how to follow dad’s status by tracking his hospital ID number on a big monitor screen on the wall.

Mom and I went to the cafeteria and bought ourselves some breakfast, then took it back to the lounge and ate it while we waited.  We decided to take some time to educate ourselves on Sternal Precaution - this is a type of caregiver protocol that is extremely important in caring for patients who have undergone a sternotomy, or surgical breaking of the sternum (breastbone).  

The nuts and bolts of the surgery, according to Lay Person Moi, are like this:  cut chest skin, break sternum, open pericardium (heart sac), hook patient up to a heart-lung machine so that the heart can be stopped to fix stuff, fix all the clogged vessels by using vessels harvested from other parts of the body (esp lower leg) to bypass them, then take patient off of the heart-lung machine and make sure everything works, then close heart sac, wire sternum back shut, and close skin.  EGADS.  Yes, they would LITERALLY BE STOPPING MY DAD’S HEART AND LUNGS for a few hours.  Isn’t that INSANE?!  Yeah.  It is pretty wild.  It’s also amazing that this type of miraculous medical knowledge and technology exists.  

Mom and I weren’t alone in that waiting room for long.... within about an hour, a battalion of my parents’ friends started showing up to wait with us.  First came Uncle S, then Uncle D - these are two of my dad’s oldest friends, they all went to medical school together in India in the 1960′s, and somehow all found their way to the United States, where they all then settled down in the New Orleans area to build their lives.  Then they all started families around the same time, and us kids all grew up together.  I went to high school with Uncle S’s daughter and Uncle D’s son!  (and no, none of them are my actual uncles!  I have two actual uncles in NOLA too!)  Uncle S’s wife Aunty N came, along with Uncle R and Aunty J, and then my ACTUAL uncle, my mom’s brother Marley (the neurologist) showed up.  The last well-wisher to arrive was one of my best friends in the entire world, who I will lovingly call LadyWhoDat here, because she’s the biggest New Orleans Saints fan I know.  LadyWhoDat is the daughter of another one of my dad’s med school friends, and his medical practice partner of over 40 years; she and I went to school together from Kindergarten through 8th grade, we did Indian classical dance together our whole childhoods, played together, trick or treated together, had sleepovers and tea parties and attended nearly every Saints game together in the Superdome from about the 2nd grade till we graduated high school.  We were the MC’s for each others’ weddings, and we both had our first and second children in the same years.  She is an amazing friend - and she is now a high-risk OB/GYN and she happens to work at Touro hospital.  It was sooo thoughtful of her to take time out of her busy life to be with us that day - and she had already visited my parents a number of times in the previous week.

So altogether, my dad’s entourage numbered at a whopping NINE people, and we were absolutely the biggest group in that surgical waiting room that day.  Aunty J had thoughtfully brought my mom some Indian food for lunch.  I ran down to the cafeteria and snagged a limp piece of pizza to bring back.  I don’t think we were even hungry - we just needed something to do with ourselves during the waiting time, otherwise we would go bonkers.

The surgery had started a tiny bit late, around 10:30-11 am, but by 3 pm, we got a phone call from an OR nurse who announced that the surgery was complete, that it had been a success, and that they were closing now.  PHEW.  A palpable sigh of relief washed over us all.  The well-wishers loaded me and mom up with hugs and supportive shoulder squeezes, and then one by one, they went on their way.  Mom and I settled back down in the waiting room and waited another few hours, until finally, we got word that Dad was out of the OR and settled in his room in the ICU for the night.  We were told that dad would remain sedated and intubated, on a ventilator, for several hours more, but that we could pay him a short visit if we wanted.  So we gathered up our stuff, steeled ourselves, and shuffled slowly towards the ICU.

I was really grateful at that moment to be married to Dr. Spouse, who is a critical care neurologist.  My husband works every single day of his life in an Intensive Care Unit, where breathing tubes, ventilators, IV’s and tubes and lines and all sorts of bleeping, blinking machines surrounding an unconscious or semi-conscious patient are the norm.  I’ve visited ICU’s a couple of times in my life, sometimes as a friend or family member of a sick person, but other times just in the course of accompanying Dr. Spouse at work as he passed through before we went on to do something else.  So I had seen a lot of the actual equipment and “stuff” before.

Its a very, very different ball game when its your parent laying there.  Dad was still on the metal gurney, with his torso kind of propped up in a sitting-up position - but his eyes were closed and he was clearly still knocked out.  He had a large breathing tube in his mouth, going down his windpipe, connected to the ventilator, which made his chest slightly puff in and out in a mechanical way.  His tongue was sort of lolled out to the side, to stay out of the way of the tube, I guess.  He had a Swann-Ganz catheter inserted in the side of his neck to monitor his heart and lungs, and a central line entering his upper neck/chest area for the administration of fluids and medication.  He had two IV’s going, one in each arm, and a pulse ox on his finger.  There were chest tubes coming out of each side of his rib cage and connected to a thora-seal - a collection chamber for post-operative blood and fluids accumulating in his chest cavity.  (*this might have been the most alarming thing to look at, though I knew it would be there - though he had the appropriate amount of post-operative oozing going on, it was still kind of scary to see how much red fluid was collecting in the chamber).  There were two pacemaker wires sticking out of the skin of his chest for monitoring his heart, in addition to the giant bandaged incision right over his sternum.  He had a foley catheter attached to a collection bag for urine.  All together, I counted like 16 different contraptions sticking out of his body.  YIKES.  

Some of the scary stuff around him...

Shudder.  Poor guy.  Mom and I stood silently for about 2-3 minutes, while some ICU nurses and personnel moved about efficiently, attending to the beeping screens and monitors, and flashing us warm, reassuring smiles.  They gave us a direct phone line to the ICU to check on Dad later, but also said they’d call us once he woke up and was breathing steadily enough to come off the ventilator.  So at about 6:30 pm, we whispered to Dad that we’d see him in the morning, then at long last went to the car and drove home.

That night, dazed and exhausted from the day but too keyed-up and anxious for information to really rest, Mom and I tuned into the Saints game on Monday Night Football versus the Texans.  It turned out to be a real nail biter!  As if the nail biter of the day we’d just had wasn't enough :)  With 40 seconds left on the clock in the 4th quarter, it looked like we were going to lose to the Texans in our own stadium - but through a series of miracles - we ended up scoring a touchdown and a field goal, to win the game 30-28!  

We called the ICU at this precise moment, around 9:30 pm, and they told us that it was such a coincidence we’d just called right then - b/c dad had come around, and was signaling to them to remove his breathing tube, because he was breathing over the ventilator.  YAY!!!!   We wearily went to bed, still somewhat keyed-up, but glad for positive news to end our day.

We got up early again the next morning to arrive at the ICU to see Dad around 8:30.   I actually went for a run this morning, knowing it would again be a long day of sitting around.  Our plan was to get there in the morning, then mom would stay and hang out with dad for a few hours while I would come home and rest for some time - then I’d return in the evening around 7 pm to have dinner with her, then spend the night with dad once he was transferred back up to the cardiac ward.  We walked into dad’s ICU room to find him alert, talking, and kind of agitated - he was talking about being hungry, demanding his breakfast, and alarmed that without eating, his blood sugar would go down.  It seemed to me that he was a little disoriented, didn’t appear to have any idea what day it was or how long it had been since he’d had surgery, or that he was actually on a glucose/nutrient IV and insulin pump at that moment to keep his blood sugar level perfectly stable.  So I talked to him, explained to him that he was in the ICU, that it was Tuesday, September 10 at about 9 in the morning, that he had only just come out of surgery about 18 hours before, that he had only come off the ventilator about 11 hours before, and that he was on glucose and insulin IV.  Once this was all put into chronological perspective for him, he kind of calmed down and started talking to us normally.  He explained that an overhead light hanging above his bed was blocking the digital clock on the wall, and that he had no idea what time it was - he chuckled at this, and we all did.  So funny the conveniences that hospitals think they’re putting up for their patients, but then little logistical things like the placement of the light, etc. make these conveniences moot!  We talked for a bit - he said he was not in any real pain, but that he was hungry.  Perhaps most interestingly of all to me, Dad had been gifted his STERNAL PILLOW.  I’d read and seen a lot about this online, but it was sort of a big deal to me to see it in real life.  The sternal pillow is a pillow that open-heart surgery patients get after their procedure; it is often shaped like a heart (I assume just for aesthetic purposes) and is used to keep the patient from engaging their chest/arm muscles while sitting up, standing, and even coughting/sneezing.  The patient has to hug their pillow to the chest while changing position or coughing/sneezing as a reminder not to use their upper body, and risk re-opening their sternal incision or stressing the sternum bone, which has been closed up with wire.

I told my dad that once he was well and recovered from everything - that I wanted to keep his pillow as a souvenir.  I couldn’t help but think it was cute :)

He kept dozing off in between short snippets of conversation - he was still on IV morphine, which explained the absence of pain but also the spontaneous sleeping.  My mom and I hung out there awhile, then when it was clear he was going to sleep a lot that day, we decided to leave.  We thought it might be a good use of our time to go to Walmart, and run some other errands - so we left and went directly to do these things.  We bought some groceries and other supplies that might be useful to have at home, then went back home and had some lunch.  We both then decided to take a nap, with the plan that upon waking, mom would go to the hospital on her own and stay awhile, then I’d follow on my own later that evening to relieve her, then I’d spend the night.  And this is what happened.  Mom woke up and left for the hospital around 3 pm, while I stayed, puttered around the house, then showered, ate some dinner, packed a bag, and took off for the hospital around 7 pm. 

I arrived at 7:30, and went straight to the ICU waiting room.  The next few hours were kind of a boring blur - we’d heard that my dad would be transferred back upstairs to the 8th floor, but there wasn’t clear communication on when this would actually happen - so both my mom and I were waiting, in separate areas (she in the ICU by dad’s side, me in this random lounge).  It seemed really stupid and pointless that we were both there, but not in the same place.  She asked me if I was serious about staying the night, and would I prefer that she did it - but I was adamant that I’d stay and let her leave.  The previous week, she had spent several nights in the hospital with my dad, sitting in uncomfortable chairs and not sleeping properly.  I figured I ought to do a few nights and give her a break, especially because once he was discharged to home, she’d be tasked with caring for him on her own, around the clock, so I thought she ought to rest a little before that.  I eventually found my way into the ICU to sit with dad, and she got to go home.  My dad started urging me around 11 pm that I ought to leave too - that it didn’t appear like anyone would be transferring him anywhere, anytime soon.  He was getting frustrated that I was sitting in a crappy stiff chair... I insisted that I’d stay, but it was upsetting him more and more - so I got up to go around midnight, but was stopped by a nurse who said it was transfer time.  Murphy’s law.  So then I headed up to the 8th floor, and into the room which would be my dad’s for this second round on the cardiac telemetry unit - M823.  I ensured that the room had a plush recliner, at my mom’s urging, and a few minutes later, the orderlies arrived with my dad.  I made some room for them to transfer him from the gurney to the bed, which was sort of a nerve-wracking thing to witness, what with all the tubes and wires sticking out of him, and the delicate condition of his post-operative wounds and stuff - but it all went smoothly.  My dad’s heart monitors indicated that he was experiencing a slight arrhythmia - which the nurse attributed to “all the excitement” of being moved and transferred - so they had to start him on an IV of amnioderone, a drug which stabilizes the heart rhythm.  Then they left us to sleep.  By this time, it was about 2 am on Wednesday, September 11th.

He looks just about as exhausted as he actually was in this picture.... what a disorganized transfer, ugh  :(

The nurses made sure he was settled, then shut off the lights to let us sleep.

I think it was around 3-3:30 am when dad started kind of moaning, groaning, cursing and crying out - - and I knew that the morphine he had been given in the ICU was wearing off, and the post-surgical pain was setting in :(  I felt bad for him.  I asked him repeatedly if he wanted me to get the nurse to give him something for pain, but he declined.... He’d continue writhing and moaning till sunrise.  I went down to the cafeteria at some point and bought myself a breakfast burrito to bring back to the room, and I ate there because I didn’t want to miss the physicians’ rounds.  I was present when the cardiologist and internist both made their visits to check up on dad, and he finally conceded that he needed something for the pain.  The internist prescribed him some Percocet, which he took.  My mom arrived somewhere around 10 am, and she took my place, sending me wearily off to home to get some rest.

I went home, showered, ate a second breakfast/brunch, then checked in with Dr. Spouse on the phone briefly around 12 noon, before hitting the sack for a few hours.  My eyes automatically opened up around 3:30-4 pm, and I couldn’t sleep any longer.  I texted mom to check in, and saw that the PT had come to my dad’s room to make him walk a lap around the ward.  My mom mentioned that he was complaining of dizziness and nausea, and he balked at doing the PT, but eventually did it.  Upon completing his lap, he ended up vomiting due to the nausea, which was a bummer to hear because he’d hardly been eating anything except a few teaspoons of jello the last day - but oh well.  He got back into the bed and was sleeping in small stretches.  

I once again made my way back to the hospital in the evening, with the plan to take the night shift.  My mom was reluctant to let me do another night in a row, but I insisted again.  This night, my dad and I seemed to sleep from about 11 pm to 3 am, relatively uninterrupted - hard to do in a hospital, because people are coming in every 30-45 minutes to check vitals, administer meds, or do whatever - but I really thought we got a decent stretch this night.  He claimed later to me that he barely slept (though he was snoring?  I dunno).  At 3 am, dad woke up suddenly, and immediately started vomiting.  I jumped up, lurched forward, and held a plastic basin for him.  But I saw that absolutely nothing was coming up.  No small wonder - in the 8+ hours I had been there, he hadn’t eaten or drank a thing, and the day before that, he’d only had like 2 spoons of jello.  I ran out of the room and got a nurse immediately, and talked with her about what was going on.  Here he was, in pain, getting Percocet, but he was super nauseated and not eating or drinking, and now he was vomiting.  I didn’t feel like this was good for him.  She got him some Zofran, an anti-nausea medication, and administered it in his IV.  It appeared to take at least 40 minutes to kick in, and somewhere in that time he had another dose of pain meds, and then once again he settled back down and fell asleep for a few hours.  But he woke up again around sunrise, once again in pain, and before long he was again feeling the nausea and dizziness.

The morning shift nurse arrived around 7:30 am and introduced herself, and offered to help my dad get up, brush his teeth, and clean up a little in the bathroom.  He was reluctant at first, which worried me - he is usually very insistent upon brushing his teeth first thing in the morning - but he said he was feeling so weak, dizzy and nauseous, that he wasn’t sure he could stand.  The nurse tried encouraging him, and helped him up and into the bathroom.... moments later, I could hear him vomiting in there, and her reassuring him.  I was troubled by all of this, knowing he hadn’t eaten anything.  I discussed it at length with the nurse and she was sympathetic, and just urged my dad to try and eat something soon.  He said he’d try, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic or sure he could do it.  In general, he was being VERY reluctant to do ANYTHING at all - he tried to refuse doing his PT, he didn’t want to sit in a chair for awhile or even sit his bed up a bit, and getting him to do his respiratory therapy was a huge chore.  Dad had been instructed to take 2 minutes out of every hour he was awake to do 10 reps, sucking on an incentive spirometer, to help him fully re-inflate his lungs after they had essentially been “turned off” and deflated for a few hours during surgery.  Even this small effort, he didn’t want to do - despite knowing how important it is to prevent pneumonia :(

He managed to swallow maybe 2-3 more spoons of jello that I fed him, but he couldn’t do much more than that.  We discussed it briefly, and he explained to me that both amnioderone and Percocet had a side effect of nausea, and in addition, the cardiologist had him taking a VERY high dose of cholesterol-lowering medication that had a common side effect of elevating the liver enzymes, which also caused severe nausea.  He was frustrated at the medications and dosages he was on, and at this point, he started questioning things, demanding they run bloodwork to see his liver enzymes, and refusing certain medications from the nurses.  I was worried about this, but also knew that he probably knew what he was talking about.  It would turn out that he was right - his liver enzymes WERE elevated - but we only got the results of that bloodwork the next day.  Anyway, the nurse was willing to allow him to skip his cholesterol medications and even the pain meds, but she wouldn’t turn off the amnioderone, and her call to dad’s physician confirmed that they’d insist he stay on that to stabilize his heart.  Dad’s nausea started abating just a tad at this point, but he’d still have it for another day or so, till his liver enzymes started coming down.

It was now the morning of Thursday, September 12th.  I felt like dad hadn’t slept much at all this night, and I hadn’t either... as soon as it was an appropriate time, I called Dr. Spouse to sing him the “Happy Birthday” song.  It was his 40th birthday today!  I of course felt bad to be missing it, especially after the GIANT EXTRAVAGANZA he had thrown me for my own 40th birthday - but of course he was understanding and wouldn’t have wanted me anywhere else but with my parents at this time.  

My mom arrived kind of late this day, around 10:30 am, but I didn’t take off just as she arrived.  A few hours earlier, I had actually requested that the nurse page the hospital social worker for me and set up an appointment to talk, as I wanted to meet with her and discuss setting my dad up with a home health aide and other assistive services at home after his discharge.  There was buzz that my dad would be discharged the following day, on Friday - and while many people would see this as good news, I confess I was in a PANIC.  Dad still did not look well at all, he was still in an a-fib heart rhythm, he was eating less and less with each passing day, and I was NOT CONFIDENT that his coming home would be a good thing at this point.  The last thing I wanted was for him to come home, only for us to have to rush him to the hospital again.  I was also worried about how we would take care of him at home, and ensuring that my mom had adequate support.  I’d been doing research and making some calls throughout the week to find out more about setting up a home health aide, but I got really serious about it this day.

I met with the social worker around 11 am that morning, and she was really helpful - she helped me figure out which services my dad’s insurance and Medicare would cover, and which services we’d have to acquire by self-pay.  My dad qualified for a registered nurse to visit him at home 1-2 times a week for checking vitals and his surgical wound healing, to do “patient education” (LOL - my dad would probably kick into doctor mode and try to “educate” the nurse if she dared to teach him anything about heart function), and to draw blood for labs if needed.  He would also receive 2-3x/week visits from a physical therapist and/or occupational therapist for cardiac rehab in the home, for a couple of weeks.  YAY!  I was so happy to hear that these services were available to him. The social worker provided me with a brochure and a list of local agencies to call and set these things up for him, and advised me to ask them if they accepted his insurance before moving forward.  She also happily agreed to start the pre-authorization process for these services with my dad’s insurance company and medicare, and I thanked her profusely.  She was very pleasant about it and actually praised me for being so proactive, saying “I wish more families were like you!  A lot of them don’t think of all this till they’re already home, then they have to play catch-up after the fact!”  It was so nice to have the aid of a warm, encouraging, and helpful person like this... I’ll never forget her.

But, though I was glad for the few services that insurance would cover, what I really wanted for my parents was MORE help at home - at this juncture, I was really anxious about how my mom would manage just ordinary, day-to-day things, because with his sternal incision, my dad needed a LOT of help to get up from bed, to come to a sitting or standing position, walking around the house, going to the bathroom/shower, etc. and I just didn’t think she’d be strong enough for all that, especially considering that she’d just had knee surgery herself a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, neither insurance nor Medicare provided anything to help with this - what we would need was a “home care sitter” or “respite sitter,” basically an assistant to provide some muscle and an extra set of hands around the house.  Some agencies had people on staff who could do this for a fee, but there was no way for me to see if these folks were well-reviewed.  So I decided to use Care.com to try and find a sitter, since I’d used it many times for babysitting services and nannies with my kids, and had good experiences.  After some legwork and phone calls, I was able to find a local woman who lived close to my parents’ home, and who could come everyday for about 7-8 hours a day for the first 2 weeks of my dad’s recovery at home.  I set up an in-person interview with her for Sunday 9/15.  I also read reviews, made calls, and at long last selected a well-reputed local home health agency for the nurse and PT/OT visits, and set up their initial client intake meetings for Saturday 9/14.

After the meeting with the social worker, I went home to sleep for awhile again.  My mom had told me that she INSISTED she’d do the night shift this night, that there was no way I’d be permitted to say a 3rd night in a row.  I didn’t want to agree to this - I really hated the thought of my mom sleeping on that horrible recliner - but she was adamant.  I told her we could touch base in the afternoon.  So I crashed for a few hours.

I called her around 3-4 pm, and she informed me that my dad was being sort of cranky and grumpy, and that she really felt it was time for her to stay with him because she would probably be able to make him feel more comforted and less self-conscious than me.  He was now insisting on getting up to use the bathroom - no more bedside urinal - and that there was no way he would let me assist him with that.  I knew that was probably true, so I said okay.  She suggested I get to the hospital a little earlier, around 5-5:30, and that I have dinner with her, spend some time, then go home around 9:30-10 pm.  So I said okay.  She asked me to prepare some rasam for my dad, thinking perhaps he might eat better if he had something more familiar and palatable than jello.  Rasam is a peppery broth, flavored with tamarind paste, tomatoes, and coriander leaves, and usually eaten over steamed white rice.  Though I do make rasam frequently enough to know how to do it, I’m not a gourmet cook - and I cringed at the thought of my crappy cooking being the thing to try and tempt him to eat... but I decided to do it: I’d cook something for my dad :)  

I poured a bit of the rasam over some freshly-made white jasmine rice, then put the whole thing into the blender and pureed it.  I ladled a little of it into a thermos, and packed it in my bag to go to the hospital.  

On my way to the hospital, I stopped by my uncle Marley’s house - my mom’s brother, the neurologist uncle who had helped get Dad to the ER in the first place.  His house is in the same subdivision as my parents’, just down the street.  His wife, my aunt Shreeks, was away for the week, and he was home alone.  Marley retired a few years ago and has himself been going through some challenging health problems; I’d actually been more worried about him than my own dad in the months leading up to my dad’s surprise heart troubles. So even if all of this hadn’t happened, I probably would have made a few trips to visit with Marley and hang out with him.... I had been texting with him throughout the whole hospital thing with my dad, and knowing he was all alone at home, feeling anxious about my dad, and a little guilty that his own health problems did not allow him to come visit my dad or be more involved in his care, I just felt an obligation to go spend some time with him and assure him that we had it all under control.  Marley has been an important figure in my life - a second father, a mentor, and always a comedian who has brought levity and laughter into our family gatherings.  Even my kids adore him.  I always feel lucky that he lives so close to my folks and that I get to visit him whenever I’m in town.

Pic of Marley with Vev and Dey from last summer; they’d also actually just hung out with him a few weeks ago....

Anyway.  After a few minutes at Marley’s house, just shooting the shit and updating him about my dad, I took off and made my way to the hospital.  I delivered the care package of rasam to my mom, who took a small taste and exclaimed “THUPPA!” which means ghee/butter :)  I confess I’d played it a little fast and loose with the ghee, knowing how much he likes it.... yeah yeah yeah, the guy just had a quadruple bypass, we are going to have to make sure he is on a heart-healthy diet from now on.  But since he hadn’t eaten in nearly four days, and we were desperate to try and get him to eat something, I figured we’d try and play to his favorite tastes for now :)

Dad ate maybe 2-3 tiny spoonfuls of the rasam/rice puree, which wasn’t much - but at least it was something other than jello.  He was kind of frustrated because even despite almost entirely starving for days, and still receiving regular insulin doses, his blood sugars were nearly 300 at each testing.  But he himself had told me years ago, when the body is under severe stress, sometimes the blood sugar shoots way up.  Maybe that’s what was going on.

He fell asleep again, and mom and I decided to go down to the cafeteria and rustle up some dinner.  She got a bagel with cream cheese, and I got a Beyond Burger.  We ate together, then I headed back up for one more quick visit with dad before then heading home for the night.

I came back the next morning after a brief run in the park, and was told that dad would be getting discharged this day.  My mom and I were both glad in a way, because it was evident dad wouldn’t be getting much sleep if we stayed in this hospital any longer - the multiple days in a row of vitals checks every 45 minutes, interruptions all night for meds and IV’s and other things, were just getting OLD at this point.  His nausea wasn’t great, he still had it - but, it was a tiny bit better than before.  He seemed motivated to come home - he managed to agree to a shower this morning; his doctors had come and removed his pacemaker wires and chest tubes, so he could move around more freely than before.  My mom helped him shower and clean up, and he looked much better afterwards.

I hung out for awhile, allowing my mom to go home, shower, and do a few things for herself.  My dad was resting at one point, when I got a text from my BFF, LadyWhoDat.  She was in the hospital with some free time today, and wondered if I might be up for meeting for a cup of coffee or something.  I asked my dad if that was okay, and he said sure - so I headed down the elevators to meet up with her.  We sat and chatted for about an hour, and it was WONDERFUL - we caught up about our husbands and kids, but also ourselves, which was so, so nice.  It was awesome to hear about how she is training for a full marathon, and poignant to hear the challenges she’s faced trying to balance her fast-paced career with the demands of momming THREE little boys.  We were long overdue for some bonding time, and it was awesome to get it.  

My mom texted me toward the end of the hour, saying she had returned to the hospital, but that I could take my time, nothing was really going on.  So eventually I found my way back upstairs after saying goodbye to LadyWhoDat, and resumed my perch in dad’s room.  It took HOURS - but somewhere around 3-4 pm, they decided the discharge could happen.  We packed up dad’s things, then my mom suggested I head down and load up my car, and head home, stopping at the grocery store and pharmacy along the way to fill his prescriptions.  She would accompany my dad to the car she had driven in and we’d all probably get home around the same time.

I did as instructed, schlepping his suitcase, misc bags of snacks and blankets and other stuff my mom and I had accumulated during our respective time in the recliner chair, and all our other crap - and I headed downstairs.  I drove off to the pharmacy, dropped off his prescriptions, then went to the nearby grocery store for some things she’d asked for.  I also picked up a balloon bouquet and card for dad, before getting the medications and then driving home.

My mom called me once I’d gotten home and asked me to prepare a plate for aarti, a ceremony of welcoming, that she wanted to do for Dad upon his reentry of the house.  I did my best to make it.  The aarti plate is usually silver, and has a mixture of water, vermillion, and turmeric in it.  It also has a small silver oil-lamp in the middle.  I felt like I made a mess, but it more or less had all the proper stuff going on. 

Soon enough, they were home!

The first thing Dad said when he walked in the door is “the minute I stepped out of that hospital, half my nausea went away.”  LOL :)

Nothing like sleeping in your own bed....

So... Friday, September 13th, a whopping 14 days after first going to the emergency room for weird, non-specific symptoms he couldn’t really piece together - my father finally returned home with his same, vintage body - and a fully rebuilt engine <3

I stayed home a few more days, to see through the entire home health arrangements, and also just hang out and help my parents out with things.  During this time, I went running a few times in the neighborhood, watched a bunch of TV with my parents, and checked out some childhood crap and other sights of interest around the house....

a “book” authored by my sister, probably in about the 1st grade... this is the same sister who is now a graphic designer, and self-declared authority on all things color.  She’s a Pantone Institute to herself.

a MUCH LOVED favorite childhood book series of mine - the “Little House on the Prairie” books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder!  I actually reread two of them in the few days I was home :)

An awesome garden frog, just chilling on the gate.

About an hour or two after dad was comfortably settled at home, he asked that we invite Marley over to see him.  Marley came, and the two of them visited for a short time.  I think Marley was awash in relief to know that dad was, at long last, home and doing well.

Though I think my mom and I were both a little nervous as night fell, fortunately things with dad went pretty smoothly.  I think he slept okay, and there weren’t any major alarming incidents or concerns overnight.  He might have had to go to the bathroom once or twice, and my mom accompanied him just to ensure he was steady on his feet - but it was all fine.  

The next morning, dad seemed even better.  He claimed he hadn’t slept well and was tired, but I actually think he slept alright - he just had fatigue from all the medications, the recovery, and probably from the blood loss he had experienced in surgery.  All of that I’m sure was tiring, but it would get better with time.  Dad spent the day about half in bed, half on the sofa, and I was pleased - he hadn’t wanted to sit up much in the hospital, but he seemed to be more okay with it now.  The home health agency nurse and physical therapists came by to do their initial assessments - so out the gate, upon discharge, my parents could see that the next step of recovery was beginning, and that they’d have folks around for that.

Sunday was even better.  I did a quick trip to the Vietnamese market (for some groceries my mom needed, but also to score a veggie banh mi from the adjacent food stall for myself, ha!) and also the regular grocery store for milk and stuff.  There was a Saints game this afternoon (which we lost, boo), and we also had the interview with the respite care sitter and her manager this day, which went well.  We hired her and asked her to start on Tuesday.  Following her departure, I finally agreed to buy my return ticket home.  My parents were starting to get anxious that I had “abandoned my duties” back in Florida to help them out for so long, but that the kids and Dr. Spouse were probably beginning to miss me.  They were also feeling terribly guilty, because this week, I had actually planned a big reunion trip with some of my college girlfriends, and I had had to miss it.  I didn’t care one bit about this, but they of course felt very bad about it.  They wanted me to get back to my life as soon as I could.  Now that the home health agency and the sitter were all squared away, I finally felt comfortable to do it... so I bought a ticket back to Florida for the early morning of Tuesday 9/17.

Monday was a chill day.  I hung with dad for a few hours while Mom visited the Hindu temple, and then she returned and we all just vegged out.  Marley came for dinner that night, which was nice, and dad was in the best spirits and with the most energy and stamina that I’d seen him since the surgery.  He was able to sit on the sofa recliner for several hours, and he ate like 2-3 chapatis with vegetables and rice.  That was really great to see.

My flight the next day was at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am.  I’d have to leave the house at 3:45 am to get to the airport.  So I arranged a Lyft for myself and instructed my parents NOT to wake up and see me off.  But they did anyway.  They both hugged and thanked me for all my help, and my mom walked me out to the dark driveway while I awaited my driver.  I could hear an owl loudly hooting in the dark, which was kind of awesome - Vev would have loved it.

Soon enough, a giant Dodge Ram pickup truck was pulling into my parents’ driveway, and I was off.

I landed in Ft. Lauderdale around 8 am, and Lyfted it home, where I was greeted by my smiling mother-in-law.  We chatted for awhile, then I went to shower and rest till it was time to pick up the kids from school.  

Pixel seemed happy to see me too :)

The kids’ smiles upon my picking them up were huge - it was an awesome reunion.  I feel like they each grew a foot in the 11 days that I was away from them.  They had a zillion things to tell me and update me about, even though I’d FaceTimed them multiple times a day.  We chatted and talked till it was time for me to take them to swimming lessons.  It felt really good to be back in mom mode.

School pictures that they had taken during my absence.  They look huge.

My MIL stayed another two days before finally leaving on Thursday, then Friday morning, Dr. Spouse took off for a weekend trip with his college buddies in Austin.  It was just me and the kids for the weekend, and it was mostly quiet but good, with the usual playing and throwing toys in every corner of the house :)  

Dr. Spouse returned late night on Sunday, and at long last - life was back to normal again.  I made sure to plan a special morning outing for him on Tuesday, as a belated birthday celebration.  We went to a 10:15 am show of the “Downton Abbey” movie!!!  We were both superfans of the series when it was on-air, so it was fun to go see the movie together :)

Yes, we had popcorn and a Coke Icee at 10 in the morning!!!

Magazine I’d bought a few days earlier, but didn't permit myself to open till seeing the movie, out of a fear of spoilers.

Over the last few days, I’ve had a chance to write thank you cards to the many healthcare providers and support staff who helped my dad and our family out over the last two weeks.  I had kept a careful list going throughout the whole experience of my dad’s illness, and I went and purchased some pretty thank-you cards with my MIL before she had left.  It felt good to say a few words of gratitude to each and every person who had helped him through this unexpected illness.

I put a picture of our family in each card, so the person could remember the patient in question.  It only took a short time to write these cards - but these folks helped us a lot, and I think they ought to know how much we appreciate it!  I also sent a special birthday card and present to LadyWhoDat, whose 40th was a few days later - she went above and beyond for my parents, and I am so grateful.

Anyway.  So, that’s more or less the end of the story of my Dad’s Cabbage.  He will still be doing cardiac rehab, and undergoing monitoring and follow-ups for a good long while.... but I think the rebuilt engine will hopefully continue to thrive in the vintage body for some time.  And with lots of good reasons.... he’s a pretty important person around these parts.

February 2013:  first time meeting Vev

Dec 2014:  first time meeting Dey

May 2019:  hanging out with Vev and Dey

[stevedonnellyfaith-blog]

Penance at Discharge (Post 111) 10-14-15

                        Last Wednesday evening I traveled from work in Youngstown to Cleveland to pick up Stephen and take him home after the completion of his week of testing for epilepsy.  I decided to work the full day and arrive at around 5 PM because I believe I had previously tried every conceivable pick-up time at John Muir Medical Center and a dozen other hospitals and have always still found the hospital staff woefully unprepared to discharge either Pam, Nick, Abby, Stephen or Natalie on almost every single occasion.  Because I spend my professional life using Lean Manufacturing tools to carve minutes and seconds out of processes to achieve savings, unnecessary hospital discharge delays always grate on my nerves. Luckily, in a former life, decades ago, I wore the uniform of our country and am hardwired to tolerate circumstances where a “hurry up and wait “outcome is assured.

Upon arrival in Stephen’s room, I was greeted by mysteriously mixed signals.  Stephen was already garbed in sweatshirt, sweatpants and sneakers like he was ready to head home, but he still had an IV visible on his hand.  Usually when a person is being discharged after a serious illness, removing the IV is nearly the last precautionary order of business.  Stephen, though, had checked in for testing in a relatively healthy state and had not had any unexpected issues during the tests.  His nurse soon arrived to dispel my confusion; he let me know that Stephen would be ready for discharge immediately after completing an MRI, for which he had waited all day.  Evidently, University Hospital’s policy is to assign the highest daytime priority for MRI, CT, Ultrasound and probably every other possible test service to outpatients, because, theoretically, inpatients can stay all night.  We left the hospital about three hours later at 8 PM. Not the most customer pleasing denouement to our visit, but otherwise Stephen was treated very well.

If I were a cradle Catholic, I probably would have remembered to offer up the entire experience, but, in actuality, Stephen’s hospital room was equipped with a passable selection of cable television channels so I think I passed the time treating my senses to an electronic barrage following the entertainment fasting conditions we have been living under since we moved out of my parent’s house.  I can’t remember what I watched.  Maybe I didn’t watch television at all and instead scrolled through Facebook, but I don’t think I could have whiled away three solid hours weaving through all the pages of what my friends have posted.  Usually I can only take so much Facebook as the recycled memes are often very repetitive.  Also I have a number of Libertarian, atheist and Pro-Choice friends that rake my scrolling sensibilities with morally questionable material or untruths that I generally try to identify and pass by like the doggie deposits that Natalie’s pets have peppered across my lawn – mowing my lawn is somewhat like hopscotch. For instance, I am friends with one of my high school football coaches, with whom I seem to agree and am able to “like” for less than ten percent of his posts. Luckily he has children and grandchildren, but I digress.

By Thursday morning I had largely forgotten the ordeal of disembarking from UH the previous evening. Natalie and I shared a last breakfast together as I planned to return to my regular morning schedule of 3 AM reveilles and 4 AM departures on Friday morning.  The work day proceeded and ended without significant event as I prepared notes and outlines for a leadership course that I intend to teach for supervisors this week upcoming.  At the end of my shift I felt quite relieved to be headed on only an hour commute home to Streetsboro instead of orbiting onward for an extra forty five minutes north eastward through Cleveland and only back to our cozy two-story after visiting Stephen. Normality seemed an alluring flavor after a week of passing time in extra driving and all too familiar clinical surroundings.

My phone buzzed as I was pulling into a gas station to top off my tank near the on-ramp of I-76, my tollless thoroughfare of choice from the Eastern border towards north central Ohio. I thought it would be a receptionist calling to provide information for Stephen’s follow-up appointment, but instead I recognized the heavy accent of my son’s neurologist who was calling to provide the results from the forgotten MRI.  I made her give me the date and time for the follow-up appointment first as we were both surprised that no scheduling information had been provided at discharge.  She then let me know that they had found something abnormal on Stephen’s MRI.  It was a sunny afternoon, but my soul seemed to darken with her words.

There was an unusual but small spot on his scan, that hadn’t activated with contrast so she thought it was unlikely to be cancer.  I asked clarifying questions with the concerned detachment of a person used to the responsibility of interpreting medical information for others including the patient.  The spot was not in the vicinity of the locus of Stephen’s epileptic activity as determined by a PET scan during his hospital stay.  The spot was being termed an “incidental finding” to be monitored by a follow-up MRI before Stephen’s next neurology visit in November.  The spot was consistent with the lesions often found in the brains of people who suffer from migraine headaches.  Stephen doesn’t get migraines.  The phone call ended and I resumed my drive.

As I drove, I slipped back into long practiced habits.  I finished my Divine Mercy Chaplet for the afternoon and offered a few extra prayers accepting whatever the overall outcome might be but also with hope that Stephen’s continued bad health not lead us down the cancer trail into a terminal cul-de-sac.  Then I picked up the phone and gave Pam’s mother the first call as I drove.  It is not the type of phone call that I relish making, but I prefer to give correct and realistic information directly to Barb rather than have her hear half-information from second-hand sources. I called my brother Sean next because I’ve found that giving several key people complete information is much better than giving lots of people partial information.  I called Abby as well and repeated almost verbatim what I had told Sean and Barbara.

I knew that none of them would splash the news onto Facebook, but all would be able to provide clarification once the news did hit social media.  Everything eventually ends up on Facebook.  Nicholas, unfortunately, found out that his mother had died via social media while he was on break at Straw Hat.  I hadn’t considered that possibility when I informed several family members of Pam’s death, but chose not to tell Nicholas for safety reasons. I didn’t want him driving home in a condition where he couldn’t pay attention.  I have since remembered to consider the possibility of a Facebook spill with sensitive information.

By that time I had arrived my parent’s house to pick up Natalie.  (The bus drops her off there in case I am held up at work.)  I let my parents know about the spot on Stephen’s MRI face-to-face.  That is my preference for difficult news, but personal conversations are not always possible once the pebble has dropped into the pool in our information age.  With both sets of grandparents dutifully briefed, I drove the couple of miles remaining through Streetsboro boulevards and avenues so that I could pass the bad news to Stephen.  I expected that he would have questions.  My son is in a much better place now with regard to paranoia, but I remember some very bad times with him after Pam’s death.

Instead Stephen smiled at the news and asked me why I didn’t remember watching Nicola Tesla.  At first I thought he was talking gibberish, but after several minutes of further conversation, I realized that Stephen had remembered a forgotten incident from a decade previous back when we lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  

A bi-polar child misdiagnosed as hyper-active, Stephen’s made a long promenade through various unsuccessful treatment plans until eventually a doctor decided that Stephen needed a brain MRI.  In preparation for the scan Stephen had to stay up all night the day previous to his test. I stayed up with him.  At about 4 AM we ended up watching a long documentary about the imminently brilliant and simultaneously wacked-out physicist Nicola Tesla.  I had totally forgotten about the entire experience.  Nothing to help Stephen’s condition was found by the MRI, but Stephen did remember being petrified by the discovery of an “incidental finding” of a spot on his brain that was not immediately dangerous but should be monitored in the future.  I guess I forgot to do so.

I spent the next half an hour reeling back in the thread of incomplete information that I had earlier cast out.  It made me chuckle to have finally found the missing bookend of experience to complete the short-lived horror from all those years ago.  An incident that had appeared to be random and pointlessly scary until its import made its comet-like return to my solar system at a time so remote that only my most distracted son remembered the original occurrence. Because there is a God, I know that everything in my life has a purpose and a reason even when the mosaic of occurrences appears too close to be deciphered from my vantage point.

Unhappily, I was reminded that life can be hard to understand in a different way on Sunday. A 16 year-old daughter of a good friend from my youth died unexpectedly from a brain hemorrhage at Saturday field hockey practice at a high school in New England. I could see no purpose to the death of a young girl within a close proximity to her teammates.  I have seen the impact of that type of situation on servicemen and can’t fathom how a bunch of young women will suffer the impact of witnessing the loss of a friend in those circumstances.  Unfortunately, my imagination is probably sufficient to paint the details of the scene in my head if I try to do so:  a teary-eyed teammate sprinting for help, an adult coach working to revive or fix something in a little girl’s body that cannot be repaired, a collapsed collection of sobbing teenagers left at the scene after the ambulance has departed.  I can make no sense of what has become of the poor girl’s short and seemingly glorious years – she tutored underprivileged kids.

While there is a Mass card for her waiting for pickup in my mailbox, I have no adequate words to send to her teammates or family.  Yet I do know that flowers of love will sprout from the death of Casey Dunne in Braintree, Massachusetts just as good things have come from Pam’s death years removed and a continent away.  That does not mean that I am happy to have lost my wife, Barb’s daughter and the mother of my children.  I accept the experience and understand that good was achieved through God’s plan. While I am very happy that it does not look like Stephen will need a craniotomy, I am no longer naive enough to believe that Pam’s death was the last tragedy that I will experience. I do know that I will accept what comes and trust in God’s goodness even when my human understanding is insufficient to grasp the providence of a horrifying situation.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND END

Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the startups we fund are very plugged into the Valley and are quick to take advantage of new insights you have along the way. Since the invention of the quartz movement, an ordinary Timex is more accurate than a Patek Philippe costing hundreds of thousands of dollars of seed funding, if you're starting a startup, there's always some disaster happening. Obviously you can't prove this in the case of a hypothetical very fortunate startup as it grows larger? 0 unless g b 5 max. Another surprise was that the Chinese government restricted long trading voyages. Fortunately there's someone you can ask about technical matters. A couple years ago I wrote about earlier: the case where you not only won't cap the amount you raise, how you market yourself—they all depend on what you're making.

In conflicts, those on the manager's schedule and one on the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. Our main focus is to see what it's like in an existing business before you try to raise money you might get rich. It will be longer on the Internet now are Yahoo, Google, but I'm sure many employees could find eight hours worth of stuff they weren't good at. Let them write lists of n things within something that looks like a quick sketch when you have a number of VCs, but the effect on your returns, picking the right startups is for investors. But because the product is only moderately appealing the growth never comes. To anyone who has worked for a medium-sized desktop software company, this may not be accredited investors, which could include practically everything else. At 300 a month, which is the ability to reason.

Profilers are the answer. People from other rich countries can scarcely imagine the squalor of the man-made bits of America. The degree to which programming consists of it. So in a sense naturally. Which means applicants of type x have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. On questions of design, I ask myself: how much you're getting done. Why? It would be less now, probably less than the inconvenience of signing an NDA. That 26 year olds with powerful connections. Nor do you have a fairly tolerant advisor, you can be sure people are going to be hard, but there's no way this tiny creature could ever accomplish anything. American car companies are run by product visionaries, and empirically you can't seem good without being good.

Here's where benevolence comes in. You'd expect big startup ideas to be attractive, but actually they tend to repel you. A is unheard-of. And two things, one of the founders we funded asked me why we started Y Combinator we advise all the startups we fund. Lisp's syntax, or lack of syntax, ever become popular? If a company starts fighting over IP, it's a compliment—in fact, to anyone who does good work. No matter how determined you are, the more we'll see multiple companies doing the same thing. I am not sure they can take a nap on when they feel tired, instead of that the Democrats are out of touch with evangelical Christians in middle America. How do you find them? Some hackers are quite smart, but when it comes to computers, what hackers and painters have in common is that they're cheaper to produce. Startups are increasingly raising money on convertible notes, and convertible notes have not valuations but at most valuation caps: caps on what the effective valuation will be when and if you want to start your own company, because you're only replacing one segment instead of discarding the whole thing collapse.

If I were back in high school, the only thing that mattered, and you know wherever I am, I'll come running. When I grew up in. Plus series A terms, but less restrictive than series A terms usually give the investors a veto over various kinds of disasters. Before I publish a new essay for the Japanese edition of Hackers Painters. The really dramatic growth happens when a startup turns you down, will still want to fund MBAs. In the last batch was the large number of people who know that Lisp is a natural place for things to give as venture funding becomes more and more of software. But raising money from them. You can pick any group of people. In startups, developers are often forced to take deals you don't like. Amazon's notorious one-click patent would turn up in the noise, statistically. They all just did the right thing for your company to do that are not copyright colonies of the US.

This is especially true of a successful startup that wasn't turned down by investors at some point, remember this, because there's a good chance it will appeal to you and explain why they were not as lame as they seemed when they first launched. Does it seem plausible that the people who worked on it. Technology trains leave the station at regular intervals. And present union leaders are somehow inferior. The same principle prevailed at industrial companies. For example, the editor could display bottlenecks in red when the programmer edits the source code of applications? You come across a powerful one. Web browser. Smack!

Python or Ruby. But as the number of people who should know better. Most startups end up doing something different than they planned. If you want to learn what matters to them. You might also want preferred stock, meaning a special class of stock that has some additional rights over the common stock everyone else has overlooked. And why do they need from it? I had to condense the power of holding a program in your head that you really can get a portrait of post-industrial man, who shrinks himself into a shape that fits his circumstances, then turns dutifully till he stops. What were we going to do initially to get the right answers, not because you did something wrong. One thing we were good at programming is to find good problems in another domain: a the inhabitants of that domain are not as bad as I'd feel if I spent the whole first half of the twentieth century. These two trees have been converging ever since.

So if you want to solve with computers are created by computers; for example, that you'd like to do that is to visit them. But it's not necessarily because there's something wrong with you if you fire anyone. With sufficiently lightweight standardized equity terms and some changes in investors' and lawyers' expectations about equity rounds you might be able to get higher. What this meant in practice was to do what hackers do for fun, and which seem unconvincing. Actually they have a long tradition of comparative open-mindedness is no guarantee. 09019077 enter 0. Now, how could I ever make such a promise, they'll keep it. And since a startup that has to be treated as if they were executing a program written in Basic is is going to work for a long time, practically to the beginning, but only just, especially at the beginning that if you own the channel, and even so I didn't do it just because they were living in the wild must feel better to a wide-ranging predator like a lion. But there's a magic button you can press by saying I'm just a person. I think a greater danger is that you should treat them as a web service. Most people don't consciously decide not to be vulnerable to tricks is to explicitly seek out and catalog them.