It’s not as if I wanted a new husband, actually I loved the one I had. But truthfully speaking he was kind of a wreck. He had a few parts that were wearing out and his mileage is getting up there. I wasn’t completely certain of his reliability on long trips. But all in all I wasn’t ready to trade him in.
I have him in for repairs fairly frequently and they tell me he still had a lot of good miles left on him. Well, he decided on his own that he was going to upgrade a few parts. Previously he had some work done on his back and ribs when they gave him trouble and repairs were successful. His pump has never been really good but continues to thump along. His energy distribution system is also faulty but he takes additives for that problem.
So now, new repairs were going to start from the bottom and work up.
A trip to the foot repair doctor was necessary to get an estimate for getting his hammertoes fixed. Yes, it could be done but only one foot at a time and he would have a fairly long recovery period. “ OK” he says, thinking they always exaggerate the healing time, heck, he’s always healed fast.
So in he goes and out he comes. The repair didn’t take all that long and he came out wearing a boot for protection. I was given detailed instructions to pass on to him when he was more lucid, which I did. But he interpreted them to be a bit more liberally than was ordered. The surgeon’s plan was to break a couple of toes and pinning them to heal straight during a lengthy healing period. But my husband’s recovery plan lacked the necessary precautions for optimum results. With some activity he managed to break off one of the pins in his toe. His doctor was less than impressed. When he went in for the second foot his doc recommended that he just lop off the offending toe. That seemed like a good idea to all three of us. While he was doing that he would clean up yet another broken toe. Well, that all went well and the recovery time was much shorter and results more successful. Of course he has to live with the broken pin.
The next on the list were his hands. He had serious carpal tunnel in both his wrists and they were going numb at night, sometimes all the way to his shoulder. This surgery would also be in two stages. He needed a hand surgeon this time. In he went and out he came with his hand bandaged and sleeved. Again the instructions were no showering for a few days and caution given about too much usage. He did pretty well with the both surgeries and behaved himself, even sacrificing fishing for a while. This was pricy in spite of our insurance; we got bills from the office, the anesthesiologist and the surgeon.
By now the summer is pretty well gone and he still had two more repairs to go; his eyes. He has worn glasses for over 50 years but now he had developed cataracts in both eyes. Upon much consultation he opted to go with a multi-focal replacement lenses, which would cost $2500 a piece after insurance. But this gave him the possibility of getting rid of his glasses altogether. It seemed to be a reasonalbly way to spend our money. By now we were getting ready to head south as we do each year, so we were hoping it all went well with no complications! Well we lucked out. The surgeries were a huge success and he was able to through his glasses away. He still has weeks and weeks of eye drops but feels it was all worth it.
So here I am with an almost new model husband. The downside is that with his previously impaired vision he thought I was pretty good looking. Now I can only let him see me by candlelight, which is pretty difficult. I sure hope I don’t have to start a revamp myself to keep up.
More to come…
