So this week was reader response week. I’m sure you’d like to hear all about that. But you’re not going to—at least not here. I have lots of hand-written notes. But all I can do right now is try to get the rant over with…In the spectacular words of Mr. Bean, “Brace yourself.”
This week we were also to turn in our bibliography assignment. Well, let me just tell you, I learned things that cannot be unlearned or unread. Who ever thought that researching galvanism would lead to such disturbing revelations? I knew a little about electro-shock therapy, and that it was used to “treat” mental patients back in the day. But I was not aware that when galvanism was first introduced in the scientific and medical communities, applications to various body parts for treatments from everything from poor eyesight to hemorrhaged uterus to resuscitation after drowning (which, by the way, you are not supposed to submerge someone in a warm bath after you shock them back to life when you have fished them out of a river after being under water for approximately 20 minutes—they will die; just a little something that I learned during my research). I guess part of the reason that I had a slow start in my bibliographical assignment was that when I began to search for papers that related galvanism to Shelley’s Frankenstein the searches did not yield as many results as I’d hoped. Upon refining my searches within the databases, taking a broader approach, I obtained many reports from medical journals that discussed the matters that I previously mentioned both here and also in the “Notes as I read” section.
Saturday I invited my family over for a cook out. My sister said, “I’m glad we came over to watch you play on your computer!”
“I’m not playing, I’m doing homework,” I said. I got up from my desk, though they should have been used to me doing homework while hanging out with them. When we were all together on Labor Day weekend I was doing the same thing—no complaints then (or at least none that I remember).
I spent every spare minute this weekend working diligently on my bibliography, all the while fending Addison off while she climbed up my chair and onto my back repeatedly. Prying a two year old off of you every five minutes while they think that it’s a game is not conducive to research and writing. So, to make things a little easier on myself (ha!), I waited until all the children were asleep to really buckle down and continue my research.
By Monday morning I was running out of sources. I tried refining my search, being both broad and specific and trying different databases. I didn’t (and still don’t) know if I was using the wrong approach in my research methods. Should I have done things differently? I don’t know. I had about twenty sources so far, it was too late to turn back. What was I to do? Tuesday afternoon I had to finish up a report for another class that, thank goodness, was mostly done except for some editing. For most of the morning on Tuesday I researched sources for my bibliography, finished editing my report for Tuesday night’s class, and upon my return from class that evening ended up in the ER….[Here is where ENG 601: The Blog's post ends]
Now, before you get too excited, it wasn’t me or the children. It was only Jamie, my husband, having continuous chest pain and shortness of breath. After about half an hour of pleading and yelling I convinced him to let me drive him to the hospital. Which was a bad idea, but if I wasn’t afraid that he was having a heart attack I would have made him drive his ass to the hospital himself. But I dragged us all to the hospital sans dinner and baby wipes—which I might have survived without except that as soon as Arabella had her bottle she pooped. Yay. Instead of returning to the hospital to wait and see the results of Jamie’s EKG and chest x-ray I took the girls home. By the time we arrived they were all asleep. After an hour spent getting the baby back to sleep after changing her and eating some dinner myself, I called the hospital. He was still in the waiting room. Sometime after 1 AM I dozed off. When I woke up I was drenched in sweat and the light on the phone was flashing. Jamie had called about 2:30. It was almost 3. I called the hospital.
“Your husband was discharged already,” the lady who answered the phone had hit a few keys and explained matter-of-factly before hanging up.
Hmm…apparently not a heart attack. He arrived home via one of our good friends just as I had loaded all the girls back into the car and was backing out of the driveway. The paperwork he showed me said, “Diagnosis: chest pain.” The recommendations were to see a specialist (they suspected pleurisy), quit smoking, and take aleve for the pain. With Jamie safely at home—and not suffering a heart attack, I spent a little while working on my bibliography research before going to bed.
Wednesday was spent working on my homework and fending off Addison, once again, and making a trip to an appointment. Let me just say that getting to an appointment lately has consisted of a lot of rescheduling and making arrangements with kind family and friends for child care. Going anywhere that I can’t take all the children means that I have to leave at least an hour early to factor in drive time to drop the kids off with my oh-so-generous sister-in-law, get to an appointment (or class) and account for the drive time back. Needless to say, it takes me several hours to do anything that requires having someone else take care of the kids. Well, actually, it takes a while to do anything that involves me dragging all three girls along with me, too. At bed time Addison would not lay down by herself, insisting that I had to lay down with her. I fell asleep almost immediately and when Arabella woke up hungry at 12 and 3 AM I got back up. At 3 I stayed up until about five trying frantically to finish my bibliography assignment. I was back up at 7 for another feeding and to get Anna-Lee up for school.
I ran out of steam, coffee, and printer ink. Today was not the greatest day. It wasn’t the worst day of my life, but it could have been better. Everyone and their dog was on 265 this afternoon and I was running late. By the time I dropped the girls off I had about ten minutes to make it down to campus. I was late for class, had to pee (as always), and was slick with sweat by the time I stepped inside the ______ building. It is too hot. It’s officially fall and it’s way too fucking hot.
Today wasn’t a good day. This hasn’t been the best of years for me. I feel like I am being pushed to my absolute limits. That’s fine. It’s going to be OK. Because, cosmos man, I can take whatever it is that you dish out. What other choice do I have?
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