Who’da Thunk It

Who would have guessed that drinking a smoothie would be near impossible? Not me. But guess who knows that drinking a smoothie can hurt like all get out. Me.

It isn’t because my throat is on fire. I don’t have a sore throat but I can’t swallow. Any one remember having mumps? That would perhaps be what this is like. My entire left-side facial lymph system is freaking out and swollen to great proportions.


It all started with wanting a better bed. That’s all, just a better bed. I wake up feeling a hundred years old when I sleep in my bed. I know it doesn’t have to be that way because when I sleep on a three inch mattress in my trailer I bounce out of bed as if I was… at least thirty-two again, lets make that thiry-one shall we, I was pregnant when I was thirty-two, no bouncing out of bed that year, so thirty-one it is.

So after a summer of sleeping in the trailer on a three inch mattress on a plank and then two nights back in the house on our big fat giant bed, Dirt woke up saying that we needed a new mattress.

“Say what? I thought you liked our mattress? I thought a new bed was unnecessary?” I say, working hard at keeping three-or-more-years-in-the-making snark out of my voice.

“My limbs are dead in the morning when we sleep in here (the house).”

So not only has Dirt conceded that we need a new mattress he also has conceded that a queen size bed is a better size than the king we have always had. The first house we lived in only a twin mattress could fit up the stairs to the bedroom, so Dirt built a boxed in frame and we put two twins together, two twins sort of equal a king. And we have been doing the king thing ever since.

The big hurdle to go queen is that years and years ago, when we moved downstairs here at the farm and let the Steph and Michelle have the upstairs two rooms, one for play the other for sleeping, Dirt built me this fantastic bed out of barn boards and logs.

My brother had been by when we were building it and told us of the Greek tragedy where the hero had built the marriage bed incorporating the main post in the house as a bed post. Wow. That totally fit Dirt’s and my understanding of the marriage bed and marriage and the building of the household. Even though our bed was not an integral part of the construction of our house, it became symbolic of how we see our marriage bed, honored and set apart, not common.

So for Dirt to consider a smaller mattress is huge, because now he has to remodel our bed. He has had to modify it over the years to accommodate a deeper mattress and box spring, so it isn’t that he can’t touch it at all, it is that he will have to decide which six inches of the barn board head and foot boards gets cut out.

He’s funny, Dirt is, I never took him for being overly sentimental or deeply tied to symbolism. But apparently he is on marriage things. A few years back, when I had to have an MRI to rule out MS, I had to have Mike cut my ring off (he is a jeweler) and afterwards I asked him to take my wedding ring (which is just a band, by unregretted choice) and my mom’s wedding ring and make me a new ring. When it came down to Mike needing to discuss what the design should look like, Dirt put a kibosh on the whole thing, Mike resized my original ring and that was the last of that.

So now he is going to have to cut into our bed, this could be a big thing for him. Bigger than letting me have a bigger window in my bedroom.

Because I have the threat of MS hanging over my head, I always wonder what it would be like to be bedridden, and how a once active outdoor person remains in decent spirits when it happens to them. So when I was looking at moving my bedroom around a bit (which isn’t a big thinking project, not many ways to arrange a twelve by eleven foot bedroom really) I thought it would be great to have a bigger window so that while lying in bed (invalid or not) I could see my whole Lilac Bench Garden. Some of my favorite gardens can be viewed from my bedroom window and it even has a view of half of the pasture area.

With a window that goes down to just fifteen inches off the floor and is five feet wide I will be able to take in so much more than I can out the existing window. Lying in bed, looking out the existing window I can see the top of the barn roof and tree tops. Which is better than nothing or a brick wall but….

I found a perfect window on Craig’s list, eighty bucks and right by where Dirt works, he went and picked it up on Thursday. But I really feel bad, not because I am making him do more work, but because I can’t help him.

On Tuesday I began taking everything out of my room, Wednesday found me pulling the existing closet built-in out. I didn’t have a mask on even though I know that even regular old house dust can stir up my asthma sumpin’ fierce. With all the clothes out and the rods, I stepped to the back corner of the closet to take the rod holder off of the wall. As I turned the screw driver I felt the floor mush a little, one more twisting reef on the driver and then my foot went clear through the floor and into the crawl space below. Shoot Fire!

As I pulled my feet from out of the hole that they had both managed to fall into, a zillion thoughts raced through my lil’ ol’ head. Not the first of which was how mad Dirt was going to be with the extra work. What didn’t cross my mind all that greatly was what the stirring of all that old bug dust was going to do to my lungs, let alone any other body systems.

That evening when we took a break from our work to relax, Dirt having accepted the news with a, “oh that soft spot finally broke through,” I notice my jaw hurt like I had been leaning on it while watching T.V.. But I didn’t remember leaning on it. Well it had been a long crazy day and I probably just forgot. I moved it around a little to loosen it up, but that didn’t seem to help. Brushing my teeth later it really seemed to hurt worse. Out at the trailer, I went to lie back in bed, and I couldn’t believe how bad it hurt. Wow.

In the morning when I woke up I knew something else was going on besides leaning on my jaw while watching T.V.. But by that evening I could not believe the pain and the amount of swelling that had occured. Now every lymph node on the left-side of my face, in front of my ear, below my jaw, up by my cheek, behind my ear, down my neck, are all swollen to very large portions, some the size of walnuts and all are freaking tender.

By Thurday evening I couldn’t chew, anything. Swallowing felt like I was spraining something in my mouth or jaw. Yesterday, Friday, I spent the day on the couch while the girls finished up the room. I knew Dirt needed to really get going on busting up the wall for the window, making the hole in the closet bigger because now he is using it as access to run electricity under the window to put in some baseboard heat. Yay, no more having to leave my door open to make sure I don’t have a cold clammy room.

But this project is growning huge. And I can’t help. Even with a mask on, walking into the room to tell Dirt the final placement of the window, I can feel my body revolt. Not to mention getting up and moving around causes more pain and sometimes a little fever comes of the movement. I’m ready for a catheter and a feeding tube.

On that cheery note, I bid you a good afternoon in your world, Dear Reader. (I will have more on the room including pics the girls took of the process.) In spite of the complaining and whining it really is a good day here, the sun is shining, family is working and playing (costumes you know), friends call and one drops over with a present, life is sweet. Life is always sweet because our life here at Victory Farm and Gardens belongs to Christ Jesus.