Things you don't expect to do #122: Clean up your husband's blood

I've written before about some terrifying night experiences that we've had (mostly just terrifying for me).

August held yet another episode in the Kyle Night Terrors show.

We hadn't seen each other very much during the first half of August, and finally we were back together, passing out from the exhaustion that was his traveling and my work + schooling. It was a particularly deep sleep for both of us, I think, but I awakened to him sitting up on the side of the bed in the blackest part of the night. He proceeded to get up and I heard a series of crashes, bangings, expletives, and loud noises I couldn't place in my sleepy state.

"Honey? Are you okay? What's going on?"

"Ah! Ow. Dear Lord!"

A moment later, he sat back down on the edge of the bed after setting the fan upright again.

After a few minutes, Kyle proceeded to the bathroom, where I heard more strange exclamations. He returned to say, "Close your eyes; it's going to be bright."

Of course I didn't listen, and as he turned on the light, we looked around to survey the damage of I still knew not what. The first thing I saw was a smear of blood on the sheets. And then, several inches lower a huge spot of blood, almost perfectly round. We looked at the carpet where he'd been standing and there were more blood spots in several places. At that point, I completely freaked out and was trying to survey from where on his body this blood was issuing. I discovered, or rather we discovered, that he was bleeding from four different spots on his body:

• his right thumb where he'd bent the nail back significantly
• his left wrist (where most of the sheet splotches came from)
• his left knee bore a giant rug burn that was bleeding a bit, and would later take to oozing
• and, his right pinky toe (from which the carpet stains issued) had a large slab of skin hanging loose and was bleeding profusely

How in the world, you might ask, as I did? And this is the story I heard.

Kyle was dreaming a normal I-know-I'm-dreaming sort of thing. He then moved from that dream to the oh-I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom thought, at which point he sat up, looked around the room, and took off around the bed toward the door. He found himself confronting head-on the dresser that was 1.5 feet from the bedside, which he bounced off of and knocked over the fan, which pushed him hard into the closet door with a very loud BANG! The fan crashed over, the blades beating the carpet. Once he righted himself, he still didn't know where he was. He sat back down on the bed to figure out what was going on, and then, after a few minutes, proceeded to his original intended location: the bathroom. Which is when he found all the blood.

Because he was completely out of it from shock and obviously deep sleep, I scrounged for band-aids and helped him wrap up his many wounds. I ripped the sheet off the bed and started rinsing it under cold water until the blood disappeared. I got a new sheet out and together we remade the bed. As we crawled back into bed, I reiterated my first question: "What happened?"

We couldn't get back to sleep for a long time, though I'm positive I was awake much longer than he was.

Two things I wasn't expecting: another scary nighttime episode and having to clean up Kyle's blood and bind his wounds.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled August is behind us!

August, and summer, coming to a close

I'm very happy to see this month end. I've never been a fan of August, something to do with the really hot, humid weather, the smells of tar and asphalt on the road while running, and the back-to-school-ness of it all. I just don't like it.

In addition to those general August dislikes, this August has been the busiest month of our year. Kyle's work schedule has been out of control including a week-long business trip to Vegas and several really, really long days of "oh yeah, you have to stay for 3 or 4 more hours to finish this assignment today" type of situations. He also was called in on a Sunday and put in a 13 hour day. Yuck. In addition to those trying circumstances, he's had a lot of fun, too: a bachelor party in St. Louis and a wedding in Lafayette gave him more friend-time than he's had all year, probably. I'm fairly certain he loved it. He continues to be involved in the fire department here in town, too, which always leads to something to do.

I started back to work at the beginning of this month, which happened to be prior to the end of my second summer class. So I've been juggling work, school, papers, and household chores all month. I was very much looking forward to the two weeks off between summer class and the start of fall semester, but alas, it was not to be. Our professor for the fall assigned us 11 chapters of reading prior to Day 1 of class (which is Monday). This week, I had a 2-day faculty retreat on Lake James (northern IN). I was not looking forward to it, but, to my own shame and astonishment, I enjoyed it. I say shame because I know I should be more open to things, but really, all I wanted to do was hang out with Kyle for the few hours we get during the week. Especially considering how this month has gone. But the weather was lovely and cool, and I was able to find some very enjoyable people to chat with.

Today is freshman move-in day on campus. Everything's buzzing. Lots of parents, lots of students. I think this semester is going to fly past, but I'll keep it as long as I can. I'm really excited for football season, hot cider, crisp fall afternoons and evenings, and wearing sweatshirts. We also have some fun weddings to attend (4 over the course of the semester).

I guess I'm ready. I could have used two more weeks of recoup time, but this is real life, and I feel you never get rested as much as you need.

A Happy Fall to you!

Posting

I should be writing more. I should, and I know that. But, see, my brain is consumed by sentence structure, thesis construction and development, and trying to finish this course. I have one more class (Wed. night) and must finish the paper by Sunday evening. I'm hoping to have it done by Saturday, at which point I plan to celebrate by watching movies (by myself, unfortunately) and eating ice cream. That plan is still in the development stage, but it's hard to find time to do that amidst all the paper writing.

I'm hoping to get some pictures and posts up after Labor day, probably. Em had a lot of the photos from the week I spent at mom's in July. We'll see.

Tiredness is my most common feeling. So, I'm sorry for the lapse in communication, but, let me finish this summer of insanity and perhaps then I can be back on top of things.