I'm the Brett Favre of Ear Surgery

Yesterday morning I had a tympanoplasty done to fix my right ear drum, which has plagued me lo these many years. They cut out the bad, mucousy spot of my ear drum down to healthy tissue and bone and used a skin graft from my left arm to patch it all up. Then I got a prescription for vicodin to help with the pain. I wonder if that means, after my 3 week wait to return to vigorous physical activity, that I'll be able to throw a football like an NFL quarterback. Probably not. I don't intend to get addicted to the vicodin in the first place like a certain QB. In fact, I'm already trying to taper my dosage on it to get down to being able to just use ibuprophen. After all, I'm not allowed to drive while I'm taking vicodin.

Also, it was very nice of Teri's mom to chauffer me around for surgery and to go get my NFL-style prescription filled. She also dropped off a crock pot full of delicious and a box of additional supplies. It was very nice to see Teri here when I got home from the hospital and to get to spend the rest of the day with her.

Hopefully this surgery is the thing that finally fixes my ear and lets me return to a normal life of not constantly worrying about ear infections and ear problems. I suppose time will tell.

It's Official!!

I'm finally an official member of the Hudson family. Why? I mounted my new rain gauge on the deck railing tonight. Now I'll have accurate rainfall amounts to report...if it ever rains again here. Thanks for the swag J-rod.

The Last One

The final nervous, awkward meeting is now out of the way. Last weekend Teri and I headed back to Illinois so she could finally meet my family. What they say about time flying when you’re having fun is true because I don’t remember 4 days of work ever going nearly as fast as the weekend did.

We headed out on Thursday night after work and stayed with Jarrod and Melissa (aka Melrod). It was good to see them again, and it was nice to finally see their new house. Their new house is out in the middle of nowhere, and there were some storms passing through. That made me nervous enough driving on country roads at night with rain, but the windmills backlit by flashes of lightning were far creepier than I thought a windmill could be. Yes, I realize that sounds like a total pansy thing to say, but if you saw what they looked like, you’d know what I mean. Here's Teri doing her windmill impression on Friday. The actual windmills were far creepier.

After a night of not enough sleep for everyone except Lucy (who gets to take naps anyway), Melissa fixed us some delicious biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Mmmm. We then hung out with me catching up with Melrod and Melrod getting to know Teri. Lucy enjoyed playing with Teri and I, and I think that Lucy and Teri are total BFFs now. Though Lucy also enjoyed playing with the cooler, so I'm not sure what that means.

Later in the afternoon, we headed back to the HC to my parents’ house and we unloaded the car. Teri, my parents and I then went to visit my grandma so Teri could meet her before the big dinner on Sunday and to eat at IHOP for dinner since, for some unknown reason, we don’t have one in Columbus. It’s quite the oversight. The food was delicious.

On Saturday morning, I took Teri up to the Rock Island Trail so she could get her 8 mile run in, and I headed over to Süd’s and test drove a 2008 R32. It was quite unimpressive for being a $32k car. Boo VW for screwing up such a wonderful car!

In the afternoon, it was off to Todd’s so Teri could meet Todd, Robbin, Allie, Connor and Brenden. We had a nice, brief visit since the point was to make Teri less nervous about Sunday, not to burn her out on family. From there, it was off to Liz’s for another brief visit to meet Liz, Bob, Ben and Andy. Teri couldn’t get over how amusing it was to hear “Goodbye Uncle Matt” in such a deep voice from Andy.

I then showed her the old farmhouse where my family used to live and the high school I went to. About the time we were getting ready for dinner, Grandpa called and said he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be there on Sunday, so we headed to Eureka to visit him and Ethel. It was an enjoyable evening.

The big Sunday dinner was nice and relaxed, and Teri fit in with the whole family just fine. She had been nervous for nothing. We went on a walk, and Todd was nice enough to wait until later to mention the snake he saw, and then we took Connor, Brenden and Lucy out to see the horses and cats.

After getting up and getting things packed on Monday, it was back to C-bus for Teri and I. Teri does like breakfast foods, as you can clearly see here.

It’s nice to officially know now that Teri and I both fit in well with each other’s families. It was also just a really nice weekend in its own right.