I Guess It Could Be Worse, He Could've Washed Them Down With Beer

Let us reminisce a little longer, Readers. Two years ago, shortly after the whole house had recovered from the dreaded strep 1.0, my husband decided to take the kids sledding. He went with a few friends from the neighborhood, so some of you Readers will be able to relive this cherished memory with me. My husband, the good dad that he is, took darling 8 year old A, and little 5 year old D to the local sled hill. It was a good day for sledding so the sled hill was quite busy. There were kids of all ages, including some 10-12 year old boys. Some of them were taking their sleds and standing on them going down the hill. Clearly, they weren't gifted, but they are adolescent boys, it's to be expected. D and A had received new saucer sleds for Christmas, so that's what they brought to the hill. My husband thought that standing on the sleds looked like fun, and shoot, everyone else was doing it. So he took the new saucer sleds and proceeded down the sled hill....standing. Lo and behold...he fell....hard. Definitely not gifted, and he can't fall back on, "But I'm only a 10 year old boy, I'm required to try and crack my skull open no less than 2 times per year."

When they made it home, there was anguish, there was pain, and on my part, there was much laughter. In truth, I had a hard time feeling sorry for him. I asked if he noticed the difference in age 10 versus 33, if not, did he notice the difference in weight, 100 lbs versus 220 lbs. This was not funny to my husband. He was able to walk, albeit with a limp, but we figured he'd be fine in a few days.

So the next morning he woke up at 4:30am like usual and when he went to get out of bed....he fell. He tried to stand, he fell, he howled, he crawled back to the bed. His leg wouldn't bend, this was bad, really bad. We quickly determined he needed to call in to work since there was no way he would be able to drive (or even get out of bed), he needed crutches to get around, and finally, he needed to see a doctor. Our doctor was clearly the correct one to go to as she just had the exact same thing happen to her...only with skis, not standing on a frickin' saucer sled. I was pleased that her reaction to the sled was similar to mine, a snicker followed by asking him how old he is. Anyway, she knew exactly what to do for his ailing knee.

Now, you would think that this would've been more than enough crap from him. I mean it lasted for over a week and cost a great deal of money by the time the medical bills came due. But no, Readers, this was not to be the end of his bullshit. I had no idea I would have to continue to monitor him just so he didn't kill himself.

The doctor prescribed 2 prescriptions. Prescription strength Ibuprofen for the swelling and Tylenol 3 with Codeine for the pain if he needed it. She gave us instructions and sent us on our way. This is where things went terribly wrong. I underestimated my ability to scare the shit out of my husband with the whole overdose lecture 2 months previous. He clearly didn't learn a lesson from the night spent in the bathroom or from my lecture and he certainly didn't listen to the doctor. Later, at home, I see him opening his pill bottles and I question if he is in pain. No, he feels fine he says. Then I look at what he's doing. He's clearly lost his mind. He still believes that in order to heal, he has to take all the medicine. He's been taking his Ibuprofen and 2 Tylenol 3 pills every 4 hours. I just march up to him, grab the Tylenol bottle out of his hand, grab the pills out of his other hand, head right for the bathroom and flush the whole fu*king mess of them once and for all. I'm yelling at him down the stairs about him doing his damnedest to kill himself and I can't trust him for one second in the medicine cabinet, and no wonder he's slept the whole day away he's high on pain pills, and how long since he's taken his last bit of pills because I think he should stick his finger down his throat to throw them up, and how embarrassing it's going to be for me to have to call poison control about my 33 year old adult husband popping pills.

Readers, I don't think I have to tell you that I don't fill his prescriptions anymore. Last year he had some trouble with a pulled muscle near his heart....I told the doctor he could just rip up the prescription he wrote out for the Tylenol 3 because it wasn't getting filled for damn sure.