The Lighter Side...sort of

The Alicia Update
Since her surgery, Alicia has done okay, not great. She actually did very well the first day, breathing only room air with her ventilator settings going from 27 down to 17 quite rapidly. The next day she was back up to 21 and getting extra oxygen. Then yesterday they were able to keep her around 17 or 18, but still giving her extra oxygen.

The overarching constant in this journey so far has been that no matter what happens, the nurses always tell us it's normal. Of course, that doesn't mean it isn't troublesome, it just means they see it a lot. It can be fixed. It sometimes makes it difficult to know how worried we should be. Michelle has even asked this question. "How worried should we be?" A difficult question for the nurses to answer. Most of them don't have children of their own.

It also makes it difficult to blog sometimes. Alicia is doing okay. Normal. It'll take a while for her to get better from the surgery, but she seems to be a little better already. The last couple times I've seen her, she looked much more alert than previously. She was keeping her eyes open, looking around, looking back at me. She's so beautiful. We'll bring the camera again when we go today.

Weighty Matters
Maybe others of you have experienced being separated from your spouse for three weeks. Maybe it's a regular occurrence for a few of you. Perhaps some of you wish it was a regular occurrence. For us, it was a first and we didn't like it. But there have been some interesting outcomes, and I thought I might share a few of them from time to time.

I'm fat. Many of you may not know this. If I wear a reasonably loose-fitting shirt, it's nearly undetectable to the untrained eye. My arms and legs are still chiseled masterpieces of masculinity, but over the past two or three years of Michelle's cooking, my gut has become pleasantly flabby. I am a shining example of a phenomenon known commonly as "The Spare Tire."

I am at peace with this, believing it to be a compliment to the culinary talents of my beloved, and have never known her to consider it any differently. And if I may say so, it is a rare day that goes by when she does not declare me the most desirable specimen of man she has ever laid eyes on.

So I had always assumed she was fine with my slight rotundity. But it turns out she was just in denial.

I'm sure you've come across the phenomenon whereby a thing becomes so familiar that you no longer see it. A household object, a landmark you drive by every day, a thing you use without looking at it. Until one day something causes you to notice that thing, and you are startled by how inaccurate your mental image of it has become over the years. This, I think, is what has happened. Not that I accuse Michelle of so blatantly taking me for granted, but slow, gradual changes are better noticed by those who are somewhat removed from them, so to speak, and her brief removal has opened my wife's eyes to my increased girth.

So I guess we'll be losing a little weight together. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of losing it through my nipples.