C word

What we have here folks can officially go on record as the worst month of my adult life.

March is usually the BEST! MONTH! EVER! After all, I love the heck outta spring...with the flowers and the warmth and the hinting of summer! Then it is capped off with my BiRtHdAy :)

This March? This March... was awful.

It began with a topsy turvy work schedule - finding myself working the over night shift for a few days, then a day shift or two, then back to nights.

What an injustice that type of variation is to my hormones!!! I was tired all the time, weeping for no reason, starving/nauseous...and wrecked with insomnia. But it's only for a month, I told myself.

Then, my precious baby's grandma gave him a PEANUT BAR! YES SHE DID! Which, and maybe this isn't immediately intuitive to the world, contained PEANUTS (of which he is allergic).  So after about 2 hours of sleep I awoke to the frantic calls of a boy whose throat was swelling shut :(

The ER folks were awesome - and shot him full of epinephrine, steroids, antihistamines and a few breathing treatments...and eventually I could once again see his epiglottis.

This round of anaphylaxis was accompanied by a self-awareness in my son that has never occurred before. I think he has always been too young to understand the dire nature of his allergies...but this time? As a 12 year old young man? Well he understood.

He knew his throat was swollen shut. He knew he was on his way out of this world, and he was scared beyond anything that anyone should have to feel. Of course I began to research how to help him navigate his way out of the emotional damage he suffered...but mostly he just needed time, hugs, facts and unconditional love. The type of love that stands strong even though he was saying horrible things, and thinking horrible thoughts. A selfless love. Even though at my core I was destroyed thinking about what *could* have happened...I put him first. He said things out loud a mother never ever ever can stomach hearing...but he needed to have his time to freak out - and I was determined to hold on through the storm and hold him steady.

But life...(and March) pressed on.

During this catastrophe I noticed my significant other becoming more and more distant...I didn't know if it was because she felt sad for being so far away, or if maybe she was unaware as to how much I needed her...but she seemed busier than usual. So in the quiet moments after my little man was in bed, I ached for even an email,  reaching across the miles to let me know she was in my corner. I wondered if she maybe was repulsed by me since I was needy and sad. I am sure I wasn't easy to approach. Each day it got harder for me to be feel her loving me...and I had no idea how to pierce her defenses. I felt like she was losing interest in me and my insecurities were louder than her phone calls. I don't know if it was a fair conclusion or if my brain was playing tricks on me...but I decided out of self-preservation to let her be quiet. I figured I would bounce back to my normal self soon enough and she would once again sparkle when she thought of me....because at the time it felt like she was dreading to hear from me.

I was still working crazy mixed up hours, and got a few phone messages from my doctor. She had been treating a wart on my hand. Why on earth would a doctor call a patient about a stupid (albeit stubbornly-refusing-to-diet) wart?  Keep in mind that I was emotionally reeling from the day/night flip and the anaphylaxis, not to mention the acutely felt absence of my sigO...so I didn't return the call.

It occurred to me that perhaps the doctor had some bad news...since I can't recall a doctor ever calling me before..it seemed logical to my dark mind that OBVIOUSLY I had cancer. Hand cancer. Not that I had ever heard of such a thing...but leave it to me to get a rare and unique deadly thing.

And you wanna know what my first thought was? Not "oh shit I might die" or "please Lord not now when my son needs me most"...nooooooooo, my first thought was wondering what my sigO would do if I collapsed even further...I was sure that if she was turned off by how weak I was post-anaphylaxis then she would flat out leave my ass if I actually had fucking cancer. So I didn't return the doctor's calls. It seems crazy to admit...but it's true. I even had a dream that I had cancer...and that my lover broke up with me when I told her. For three days I was crazy after that dream. I tried not to let my over arching fear get on my girlfriend...but every time I did  connect with her I ended up sounding mean. Even though all I wanted was her by my side....I guess fear and hurt can sound mean :(

Then I got the stomach flu....oh and also my sig O did in fact end our relationship. See kids??? Some dreams DO come true. Ha. ha. ha. Not funny.

All the care I was taking to NOT appear like a needy, overly sensitive loser had been in vain..she hated me anyway. How it is that I cherish taking care of her so so so much....and she is completely turned off when I'm the one who is hysterical and ugly?????

The good thing about the stomach flu is that it allowed me to skip a few nights of the graveyard shift...and when I felt physically strong enough I returned to work. And a few days after that...I  called the doctor back.


They found cancerous cells in my biopsy (I hadn't even realized they had taken a biopsy the last time they treated my alleged wart). The doctor needed me to make as appointment as soon as possible. She wanted to cut out a chunk of my hand. I didn't ask too many questions...I was in shock. I don't even remember the name of what she said was growing in place of my skin and muscle.

I have always pictured Maslow's hierarchy of need to be a bar stool. Each of the three legs represents a pillar of *need*. If you have all your needs met, your soul can comfortably sit for eternity. Sure - one leg will become loose from time to time - but not to worry! You have two strong legs ready to take some of the weight! Well, I don't remember exactly what Maslow said about it (though I am pretty sure I am right about the barstool image), but let's say my needs have always been: health, love, and career. Using the bar stool analogy, you could say that mine has turned to silly putty. Or maybe jello. Or protoplasm. Pick a goo, any goo - You get the idea.

In one month I can honestly say the following: job=despise, health=unchecked worry of not only my only child but also myself, and as for love? Well my one special person has turned away from me.

So I am left sitting on the floor, trying to fashion at least a cushion from the goo left over from March's destruction.

Part of me thinks I should call my love, and tell her about the c-word. She doesn't know...

I think about calling her 100 times a day.

But if she is capable of hating me after my son's near death experience...then I figure she probably would still hate me with a cancerous limb. And the chance she would continue to ignore me, hate me, be repulsed by my weakness seems fairly high...I can't even put words to how low it would take me. But part of me thinks that if she realized what I was going through...if she could just see my perspective...her heart would remember me. Remember us.

One day not too long ago....after seeing my love in the middle of Georgia...we got separated accidentally. When we reconnected she was so so so super upset. She was crying and shouting and saying hurtful things she didn't mean because she had been so frightened. None of her words stuck to me...all I saw was my sweetest girl - upset by circumstances beyond her control...my heart wrapped around hers and I held on.

I love remembering those moments with her. Obviously not the fact that she was upset...but knowing with all of me that I loved her so completely that she was beautiful even when she cried, and her words couldn't hurt me because I knew she was frantic and not herself.

There are 500 of those moments in my mind...

and here in my bed alone I wonder what it is about frantic and upset me that becomes the enemy of my true love.

Whatever that part of me is, I hate it.

But even though I am trainable...and I could learn to change my fear response...I suppose the definition of "the end" is when one person stops being wiling to try. And she has stopped.

So me and my gelatinous goo will get to work...trying to mold the best damn bar stool I can with the tools I have.

Literally. As I finished that last sentence a giant tree limb just smashed my roof. Lit. Er. Al. Ly.

At this point I don't even stop typing...I just sit here and wait for the rain to stop. I know it will. 

starcrap....

I am a superstitious gal...

Embarrassing to admit (maybe) but it's true.

I have a silver angel trinket that I carried to work with me every single day I was a floor nurse...and each morning I would say a prayer, kiss the angel, and hide it in my pocket. That angel was with me for each chest compression of a patient struggling to stay in this world, each swipe of the time clock, and every drive home.

Somehow I have created another ritualized superstition...perhaps even more embarrassing...because this superstition involves a video game.

Star Craft. If you haven't heard of it then you obviously aren't a uber geek.

I'll wait while you make fun of me...

All done? Any questions? Good. Then let's get back to the story...there's an epiphany coming!

Back more than a year ago...when my heart's love had put some distance between us...I would try my best to give her the space she had asked for. This was impossible but I tried my very best. Thinking of her constantly, I would naturally wonder if she were thinking of me. I didn't even know where she was (traveling abroad? Staying with family?) and it nearly drove me crazy. To distract me I would create a Star Craft scenario that was difficult to beat...nearly impossible in fact, and say in my mind "If I can beat this level, that woman is out there thinking of me, missing me, and loving me".

And I would lose. And try again. And lose. And try again...until I won.

Sometimes I would say things like "If I win this time - I will call that woman and she will answer!!"

And I would lose. And try again. And lose. And try again...until I won.

Somehow that silly ritual eased my mind, helped the time pass and managed to distract my broken heart.

The games can last for hours...and I would save my progress from time to time...calling the games things like "shewillcall" or "dontgiveup"...my nomenclature might seem pathetic when viewed through the lens of a more rational person, but to me it was more like a mantra for the evening.

Of course I felt silly...but as I have mentioned before, I was raised by feral wolves and don't always behave like the so-called "mature adults".

These days my mind is weary with struggles at work. I am so accustomed to being well-liked and successful in my work environs that I don't even have a frame of reference for my new job. I seemed to have either stepped into a looney bin masquerading as an "office", or my inter-personal skills have deteriorated  by an exponential degree since the last time I was an 8 to 5'er.

In either case I find myself unglued when I think about going to sleep, waking up, and returning to my desk.

So I stay awake way way way past my bed time, playing my games.

The game begins by me saying things like "If I win this game I will have a good day at work tomorrow" or "If I win no one will yell at me tomorrow". And for the hour or so it takes me to play the game my mind is empty of stress. Gone are the feelings of gloom and panic. Electronic meditation?

And when I lose, I try again. Feeling silly for attaching the outcome of my game to a wish for better things...

But I then I realized something. Electronic epiphany ;)

It isn't that my strategic efforts in the game have any real impact on whether or not my girlfriend calls, or how successful my upcoming workday will be...it's the fact that I don't give up when I lose.

I don't really believe the game has anything to do with finding a solution to a problem, but my dogged determination to win definitely does.

I don't give up. At games...in love...or in anything. When I lose, I try again.

This evening I called my game "icandothis"...and I won on the first try :)

And somehow, silly as it sounds, I am ready for work tomorrow!

a world of work

I was listening to some interesting ideas this evening...

My sister dragged me kicking and screaming to the kind of thing I would have mocked ten years ago...or maybe even ten days ago

This group of people who get together to try to get better. They might find it offensive for me to put it so simply. Or they may think I am missing the point...but it's my blog :)

Get better at life, at love, at letting go. Get better at enjoying sunsets and jokes, get better at riding out the storms and listening to the ones you love.

So I sat with these people, fully expecting to make fun of them the entire time...

Because I am kind of an asshole like that.

The discussion was on letting go. Let go and let God. Finding the faith to trust that a higher power has your back. Turning away from negativity and obsessions. Trusting that all is well.

Riiiiiiiiiiight.

As a gal with a touch of OCD I can fully and whole-heartedly admit that I am absolutely in charge. I have learned not to just survive, but thrive, in a world that was stacked against me. Poor, uneducated parents with no apparent social skills raised me. I was kicked out of church for who I loved, forced to leave college because my parents wouldn't co-sign a loan...etc....etc....I was on my own completely by aged 20.

Everything I have I made for myself. Navigating the way with no role models. But I fear that my obsessive struggles to maintain even keel are keeping me from enjoying my life. I have fought so hard to get where I am that I may have forgotten how to enjoy my successes.

So tonight I will try to begin to let go....and try to believe that everything is just as it is supposed to be.

I am currently in a job that I dread to go to, hundreds of miles away from my missing piece, and days go by without a call from my circle of friends. So even writing "everything is just as it is supposed to be" makes me sad. It doesn't make any sense that my destiny on this earth was to parent alone, in a 2 bedroom rental, working along-side peers who openly contempt me.

But I suppose this is exactly why I need to re-evaluate my life. I want to love and feel loved every day. I want to believe with every piece of who I am that I am on the right path. There are real problems in the world.... I don't want to let self-pity and self doubt distract me from being the best version of myself I could be.

I ran across this tonight in some reading....and it makes me feel like maybe I can do this. Maybe I can get better :) And for my heathen friends, try to read past the heavy handed verbiage and just hear the message.....

Isn't this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed  free  and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry  and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe  them,  and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn,  and your healing   will quickly appear; then your righteousness  will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.  Then you will call,  and the Lord will answer;   you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

If you do away with the yoke of oppression,  with the pointing finger  and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry  and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light   will rise in the darkness,  and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide   you always; he will satisfy your needs   in a sun-scorched land  and will strengthen your frame.

so hard and so easy...

Beginning sixth grade was a big deal for my little big man.

He has had to adjust just about everything he knew about school. He has studied harder, pushed himself beyond what he though he was capable of learning. And he is succeeding :)

The social game, however, is tougher to navigate. Girls want to get his attention, and he is clueless absolutely lost trying to find his way. That perceived indifference makes him a target to the girls...the girls, being smarter about the social game, find him easy prey. No one has ever teased my son...no one has torn away at his self esteem in his 12 years on this earth.

I can't honestly tell him that it gets simpler as an adult. I find in my daily wanderings that my fellow grown ups can behave just as cruel as the middle schoolers. Very few people are striking out with the intention of being mean...but the result is the same. 

One would think, at such as advanced age as myself, I would be accustomed to this...but the days when my son comes home upset, fighting back tears, I can always relate. It's my job to be his parent though, so I resist the urge to commiserate. I don't make him soothe my wounds.

But there isn't much difference in his school world than there is in my office...which is pretty damn sad if you ask me. So as best as I can tell, my purpose in parenting is to give my son better tools to handle the barbs. Hoping that I am building a well-adjusted adult.

But as an adult who was raised by feral wolves....with very few working tools in my own toolbelt...I do wish for a rock of my own. Someone who was waiting at the end of my day to hear my stories of a psychotic office mate throwing her stapler in a rage, or another bursting into tears and wishing for the failure of my project because apparently that would "SHOW US ALLLLLLLL".

This is why people drink ;)

Because we really are still in middle school, aren't we? And there is no recess in sight!

christmas christmas christmas...

I can't believe it has been eight years since my father died. I don't know if I should be "over it" by now...since I don't really have anything to compare it to. My close friends haven't lost their parents yet, and heck, as a culture we tend to reserve talk of grieving to only our spouses.

In movies the death of a parent is a turning point for the characters. Past conflicts are resolved on the deathbed and the surviving child walks away and moves forward. Sad, but stronger.

It wasn't quite like that with my Dad. He refused to admit he was dying for as long as he could speak. All efforts to get him to even see a doctor in his last few weeks were met with curses and meanness. Thinking back, I suppose he wanted to lay in his own bed, in his own house and slowly die without anyone making a fuss. To this day I don't know if I did the right thing to deny him that.

I called my mother a few weeks before my Dad died - a routine call just to check in - and she let it slip that "Your father sure sleeps alot these days". I asked her what she meant by that, and she replied "Well he is probably awake about an hour a day".

We knew he had end stage liver failure from a lifetime of Budweiser and vodka tonics...but he had been playing golf and working his job as a taxi driver the week before. I packed my bags that minute and drove to Central Florida immediately.

I found my father in a dark room, with a space heater running, hiding underneath twelve blankets. He wouldn't talk to me about how he felt, knocking aside my questions with comments about just "needing to sleep". I don't know if he actually believed he had the flu or if that is what he was telling us to send us away. My mother, with fifty years of submitting to him under her belt, was too terrified to challenge the flu notion, but I knew better. But getting him in the car was nearly impossible. I literally had to threaten to call 911 if he refused - and it took us about 3 hours to force him out the door.

Of course he expected to drive.

I absolutely refused. He wasn't in any shape to even sit upright....weakened by his dissolving liver and weeks of not eating or drinking. That was the first day since him teaching me to first drive that my father sat in the passenger set next to me. An ominous feeling overcame me, I was certain this was worse than I had initially thought.

My father had the same doc he had used for years. I had never met the man but was about to show up at his office without an appointment - so I hoped he was decent. He was not. The doctor told me that my Dad most likely had "the flu" and should go home and rest. I stood blocking the door and asked the doctor when the last time he saw him was. It had been a month. Apparently my Dad had been feeling queasy for that long. I asked the doc how much weight my Dad had lost in the month. Nearly thirty pounds was the answer. I then began asking about lab work, the condition of his liver, etc etc until the doctor relented. Maybe just because he realized I wasn't moving away from the door until I had an answer....so he agreed to admit my Dad to the local hospital.

My Dad would be dead within 10 days. Up until the last 8 hours of his life his doctor was constantly telling us we were worrying about nothing and he expected my father would be good as new as soon _______. The blank consisted of that doctor milking medicaid for every test, procedure and medicine he could throw our way....up to and including physical therapy.

It broke my heart to watch my father try to perform on a recumbent bike when he didn't even have the strength to lift his own arms in the air. But my Dad was in agreement with the doctor...he felt like he wasn't as sick as I was saying...and the last coherent thing he ever said to me was "How the hell do you expect me to get any better when you are putting nails in my coffin!!!!!!"

But I knew better. He was throwing up blood (and had been for weeks - hiding it from my mother somehow), couldn't eat because of varices in his throat, and his liver enzymes were higher than I had ever seen.

By the time I had beaten the doctors into getting hospice involved my Dad wasn't even able to talk.  Hospice was wonderful. They stopped all the unnecessary meds, controlled his pain, and stopped the physical torture of the exercises.

He died less than 10 hours after hospice came on board. The nurse woke me up at 2 in the morning to tell me. I had to wake my mother and tell her the news. My son was a toddler. The entire evening was surreal. Painful. The one member of my family who had loved me for who I was....gone.

It was Christmas Eve.

My son asked us how Santa would find us. How could Santa know we were in a hospital far far away from home?

Later, back at my mother's house, trying my best to control my grief enough to be of some comfort to my mom....my sweet little toddler came into the room, and announced that he liked things better when his grandpa was alive.

"Me too baby bear"

Each Christmas Even I hope that I don't have to relive that story in my mind....but so far I haven't been able to. But it does get a teeny teeny bit easier.

I know my Dad would hate that I still grieve. And I know if his brain hadn't been poisoned by the chemicals produced as his body was shutting down he would have done a better job leaving this world...

Miss you Dad....and thinking of you this season.