Blame It On the Peanuts

I've had a couple of frustrations to deal with the past couple of weeks.  One of these causes is why I haven't written a blog post during the past two weeks.

My laptop computer, which I've had for several years now, wouldn't start up past the initial screen.  It would flash the HP logo and go to a blank screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner.

My husband ran diagnostic tests on it in an attempt to find out what was causing the computer to not to want to start up.  The results led us to buy a new battery for it.  Fortunately, the battery wasn't expensive because it didn't help.  The screen remained blank except for that flashing cursor.
More diagnostic tests were run, but those yielded no results.  My husband contacted his father who has immense knowledge of computers.  He walked us through a few things to try in an attempt to find out what was going on with the computer.  But the screen remained the same.  And we had no idea what the cause was. 

The frustration was not only the fact that this computer didn't work, but that it had files on it that we wanted to be able to access.  And we thought we had those backed up properly.  We didn't.  My father-in-law was able to get those files off of the laptop and onto my husbands.  That part of the frustration was resolved, and we now have the files backed up properly.  Currently, my father-in-law has the computer with him, attempting to diagnose the problem and maybe even bring the computer out of its comatose state.  Otherwise, we may be going computer shopping.  I don't mind sharing a computer with my husband, but it doesn't always work out well as he needs to use his computer quite often.

The other frustration I've had lately had to do with my ileostomy.  With that thing, it seems like all is going fine, and then...BAM!!  A leak occurs, and it's in the middle of a very sound sleep.  Suddenly, I wake up.  I was intending to roll over and go back to sleep.  But I had a nudge that said, "get up".  I did and walked into the bathroom. 

I have a habit, an ostomy habit if you will, where I look down at my ostomy appliance when I get up in the mornings I guess as a measure to make sure all is well.  Well, I didn't really have to look too hard this time.  My shirt was slightly soiled.  (Gross I know but that is one of the downsides of having an ileostomy I guess.)  I'd sprung a leak; at about 3am, too.  All I could say was "Oh, man!"  And wonder if I'd have to wake the hubby so we could change the bed sheets.  (Fortunately, somehow, it never got on the sheets.  I don't think he even knew I got out of bed.)

I gathered the supplies I needed to change my ostomy appliance.  The changing process goes fairly quickly now as compared to the beginning; even when I'm half asleep.  I get all cleaned up, changed my pajamas, and went back to bed.

The frustration here is obviously having to take care of the issue at such an early time of the morning when I could have been and should have been asleep.  And then, when I go back to bed, it's frustrating because I can't just fall back asleep like my husband can.  My brain turns on, and it won't shut back off.  I'm laying there trying to figure out why my ileostomy appliance leaked so I can avoid a reoccurrence. 

The other frustrating part of this was that I was going to change the ostomy appliance later that night.  3am is just too early to schedule something like that.  And it makes life easier if I can stick to the schedule.  But it didn't and there I was analyzing what I did to cause the leak.  Maybe it was not anything but coincidence.  However, I blamed it on the peanuts.  I ate some (maybe too many-I love peanuts) before bed.  At least I digested them okay as I felt fine, no pain.  For that, I can be thankful and feel a little less frustrated.