Bi And Large

I know, all I do is complain sometimes. But think of this blog as my place to vent - when things are going smoothly, I am much less likely to post here! So you, my darling readers, get a skewed view with only the worst coming through. Sorry. I still need my place to vent.

So.

Last week my mom was here visiting, which was wonderful, but VERY stressful and crammed with way too much activity and pressure. We heavily overdid it and we have been paying for it in a big way.

So this week, we've been trying to take it gently and give ourselves some down time, before our bodies just give up. But, as my mother diplomatically said after arriving home after the trip, "I apologize - I don't think I ever realized how much you do and how much energy it takes just to maintain an even keel around 2 kids that age! It's exhausting!" (She must have forgotten?? Seeing as my brother and I are only 18 months apart and she raised us essentially as a single parent, which I cannot even FATHOM, the poor woman.) Iris is at the tail end of a growth spurt and while she has at least stopped eating like a black hole, she has now stopped sleeping and she is soooooo cranky. It's evil. Plus any time you adjust from the fun and spoils of grandma being there 24-7 back to normal life, there is a let down and that is rough emotionally. The kids have been basket cases.

I have some crazy thing going on with my tailbone. I don't know what I did to it or how, but it has hurt horribly since I had the flu, so for like 2 or 3 months now. Some days it is so bad I can't sit on the stools at work to do my job, or I can't drive. My boss and my wonderful sister-in-law (who is a physical therapist) have tried to help but it is so far a no go. The pain is getting to me, man. I can't find a comfortable position and sometimes it feels as though my spine is actually poking out through my skin. I can't keep taking this level of pain killers! It makes it hard to sleep too. With the no sleep I have been so wiped out. And I found out today that the iron pills I have been taking (I have chronic anemia) aren't cutting it, and even ON them I am severely low on my levels, so my energy is just gone. Without red blood cells (and thus without oxygen) I am just not functional. I inherted the anemia from my mom, and hers used to get so bad even on supplements they would have to hospitalise her and do blood transfusions, so I am hoping to avoid that scenario!

Speaking of mom, her final surgery is Monday and she is scared. I don't remember her commonly being scared or anxious about her surgeries. She is worried about being in pain, worried about the recovery, worried about how it is all going to go. This one is kind of a last ditch to save that leg before they amputate. It's the end of the line, you know? And what would be a nightmare is if the same thing happened as did with the earlier ones - infection. Those weeks and months of being on an IV and so sick are brutal. And always at the back of your mind is the knowledge that as a long term diabetic she is on borrowed time with all these procedures and infections. Also this time if they are doing bone grafting from her hips, will that be particularly painful, there's just a lot of questions. I am a bit worried about the surgery but mainly worried about her and how she is coping. I'm trying to cheer her up and distract her but it only works so far. It is taking a lot of my emotional energy to cope with that.

Then there's me and my various issues. I went to see the oncologist / surgeon today and was given the official all clear: My mass in my breast is benign. That's GREAT NEWS!!!!!! And I am very happy and relieved and I am done with that whole thing! That appointment was this morning (Friday,) and the lead-up to it was just horrible. I was so tense, even though we were 99.99% sure that was going to be the verdict. So the past few days have been very rough, although now that worry is off my back. Or off my breast, if you will.

So, just because I can't be normal; I was in to see my gyn on Tuesday about my evil heavy periods, which I have talked to him before about. I am pretty sure when we were doing fertility testing before Iris they noted I have fibroids, and that's probably the issue, but whatever. Because I am, how can I put this... an endocrine clusterfuck?? my gyn doesn't want to put me on hormones. I respect that. So my next 2 options are either an ablation or a total hysterectomy. So when I was in on Tuesday talking to him he says, well we need to know what's going on in there, let's do a biopsy, and based on those results we'll decide. So he did an endometrial biopsy. Let me tell you. THAT is a good time. Legs up in stirrups, speculum and all, PLUS this implement that looks like gardening shears going into your hooha, and bits of your uterus getting snipped out for a closer look under microscope. It's a bloody mess. I have felt like utter vomit ever since. We should have those results Monday. If everything looks clear, I'll do the ablation. If I have any cancer cells, I'll do the hyster. But either way I am done!

I should note that when I went in on Tuesday I went after work, so I was in my scrubs. And while I'm feeling like crap and filling out paperwork in the lobby this older woman sitting next to me says to her companion, in a VERY loud voice, "I don't think they should let people like THAT work in hospitals. That's just disgusting." I happened to look up just then as I was thinking about an answer on the sheet and got the full force of their dirty looks. What does one say to that? I smiled, I didn't know what else to do. Nice, lady in the waiting area. Way to be real darned pleasant to a stranger who needed a doctor. You win the zero compassion award for the day.

Also this week: a couple days earlier in the week was my annual review at work. Only 2 and a half months late! Now I love my job. If you read this blog you know, I love my job. But my boss is just, well, ridiculous. He is critical, and petulant, and vindictive, and he has a history of throwing employees under the bus on a whim - including firing them at their 1 year mark to avoid paying them a raise. So heading into my annual review was not a relaxed mark-the-anniversary experience. I bit my fingernails all off this week in anticipation and I have burst into tears more than once. It turns out I came away from it with my position intact, although of course I got no more money out of it. The actual review was grueling, and for no reason. I sweated.

After the review, I decided to get a massage. So I booked one, nd ended up with a very bizarre, untrained therapist. She not only gave me a terrible massage, she injured my shoulder and lower back (right where I was already hurting! Wah!) and spent the entire time talking about her drug use and prostitution history. (!!!) I was horrified. So I have called the spa to complain, and I have had to really push them on that, which is very frustrating for me. I HATE complaining about anything, and doubly so when it gets someone else in trouble. I just haven't felt like this was the kind of thing I could let slide though, but forcing it has taken a lot of the fight out of me. I just don't have the reserves to deal with it right now.

So while I'm dealing with all of this, this week has also been exams week for Pete, and his last 2 exams ever (fingers crossed, barring any major issues) before he is done with his degree. So he has been a bit of a basket case as well, and has needed a lot of time to himself to study and focus on that, and the stress has made him more than a little touchy. I am really, REALLY glad they are done and I do hope they go well. The timing of it all was insane.

So topping it all off - and I swear you can't even make this stuff up - yesterday we get a phone call from my mom and it appears my dad went in to work and found his boss slumped over his desk face down with an empty bottle of pills and a note. STOLEN pills no less, stolen from the store they work in. Dad and the boss' secretary found a pulse, called 911, grabbed a nearby doctor, and so on. He will be okay. But the emotional devastation for the rest of his team is insane. My dad spent a whole day, from 6am until 10pm, talking to the police and the medics and the hospital and putting out a statement to the company and trying to manage his own job as well as his boss' job. He'll spend all weekend doing a complete store inventory of a MAJOR size pharmacy (we're talking thousands of prescriptions a day) because the guy has stolen narcotics, who knows what else is gone. Plus the shock of the whole thing. My mom said he called her on his way home that night and just cried. Which breaks my heart for him. Now he's got his career all in an uproar and no one to care for his store with his boss gone, and my mom's surgery on Monday, and he's in so much shock he won't eat or sleep. I am worried sick about him too.

So at this point I am thinking the best possible solution sounds like selling my kids to the circus, taking the money and going to California to take care of my parents for a while, letting Pete figure himself out, and when I get back getting a complete physical overhaul of some sort. I need to check myself into the hospital and not come out until I have a lot of things fixed, it's like I hit 60K miles or something. I have to force my body to stay functional and in one piece for at least a few more weeks until I'm sure everyone around me is OK, then I think it is going to just be collapse time!

Well, sometimes they do. Sometimes they're awfully crabby. But whatevs. I like working with them anyway.

On that line, I have to link you to an amazing video that I am tagging c/o Matt Algren's amazing blog Asterisk, which I have linked to before. It is a speech given by Philip Spooner, an 86 year old lifetime Republican and WWII vet, to a ME senate committee hearing on marriage equality. I would love to embed the video, but this being blogspirit, I can't, so poo. You'll have to follow the link over to youtube if you want to watch it. It's quick I promise - 3 minutes and change - and very moving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrEbJBFWIPk&feature=pl...

Hope that works! Continuing the overarcing theme of this blog and really of my life: We all, fat or thin, tall or short, rich or poor, gay or straight, whatever color, whatever ability or disability, man or woman, deserve a fair go. Everyone. Period. Well, ok, maybe everyone except stupid people, by which I don't mean those who are naturally slow but those who just choose to act stupid. Those people kind of dig their own hole and deserve to sit in it. But everyone else.

I myself am more or less recovered from my lung diseases. I have a residual cough but I am fine. I did see some data from Australia and NZ (whose flu season was 6 months ago) saying that this flu causes pneumonia in obese people more often than in others, which is odd. I wonder why? Whatever. I'm done.

I had an appointment with an "endocrinologist" at the university a couple of weeks ago, and yes I put the term in quotes. Our U is world class in the medical field, one of the best in the nation, and I had high hopes. I left so devastated I couldn't talk about it, couldn't blog about it. The phrase, "Haven't you ever heard of weight watchers???" was used. I cried. I don't cry very often, except at my poor husband. I did get a laugh the next day when my mom called to ask about it and I told her and started to cry, again, and I wailed that I don't actually eat that much. And she got all upset and she started ranting and came out with, "Honey I have seen you eat, I would stand on a stack on TEN Bibles, on my ONE good foot, and swear to the supreme court that you don't!" Which still puts a smile on my face, it's such a funny mental picture. And when did my mom go from so critical to so supportive? When I had kids? When she got sick? It's such an amazing change.

She's lined up for - wait for it - ANOTHER surgery the week of Thanksgiving. This is a last ditch attempt to save that leg, and it will involve bone grafts from her hips and a couple fusions, if I am not mistaken. If it doesn't work, or if the infections that she has dealt with forEVER now can't be controlled, they will move quickly to just amputate the leg finally. Which on one hand is a pity after all we have gone through to save it! I mean seriously! But on the other a prosthetic leg doesn't require any more surgeries... we would be done at last. We're hoping she and dad will be able to come out and stay for a while before the surgery in cancelled to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, and an early Christmas.

The only other thing that's going on? Don't hurt yourself when you fall down laughing now but, this year I have promised myself that I am going to take up cross-country skiing. I still have strong knees and pretty good ankles, it's just my plantar fasciaitis that bothers me when walking because of the impact. And swimming / yoga are GREAT, I love them, but too expensive. God knows we have snow abundantly already here. So I am going to borrow or rent some skis and poles and get someone to teach me, and I am going to do this. If I like it, I might even do a race. I'm really excited :)

So after my last post: Monday I dragged my sorry butt into work. My office manager informed me that she had required a doctors note and my presence because she doubted my illness. Insert angry face here. Apparently he fact that I asked for a day off - to have my boob ultrasounded for cancer - and then called in sick - because I was in the hospital with pneumonia - was considered highly suspicious. Whatever. So I got that cleared up with a letter from my doc. I saw my boss. He registered shock on the site of me, informed me I looked like hell, and said if I could tough it out for a few hours to take the next day off. Which I did, gladly. I stayed in bed all day Tuesday and awoke Wednesday with a cough but feeling, finally, like myself again. I went back to work armed with my inhaler, some hot tea with honey and lots of Vicks, and I did fine.

So what happens Wednesday? Well let me preface this by saying, if I haven't mentioned it here already, that Amy has been tenatively diagnosed with ADD by her pediatrician. We know she shows some traits of it. She is impulsive and can have a lot of trouble controlling her body. But we are waiting to see how this school year plays out for her academically before moving forward with more testing or an official diagnosis. So one of the things that has been very problematic for her this year (at least according to Amy) is staying in the right line at school, or staing with her class. She seems to get 'lost' quite often. Which I am livid about - the kid just turned SIX for crying out loud, if you know she's prone to wandering off, you keep an eye on her. You at least do a head count once in a while. We're having some discussions with the school over this. ANYWAY so today after school, while Pete and I were both at work, apparently Amy got on the wrong bus. She ambled into the wrong line while thinking about something that was distracting her, and ended up taking the bus home instead of the bus to her afterschool care. So at about 2:30 the calls to our cell phones and work started - they've lost Amy. It seems she was dropped off at our neighborhood bus stop and that was that. I am ready to kick people in the throat at this point. I'm NOT, actually, worried about Amy... we live in the safest neighborhood possible for her to be in, and it was a warm and sunny day. She knows everyone there and everyone knows her, someone would see her if she was out and let her in and call me. No one would let Amy go off with anyone unknown, heads pop up all over that neighborhood if so much as an unrecognized car drives through. But I'm a little pissed that the school lost her and I would like to know where my daughter is. After some time, Pete actually found her. At home. He called the house and she answered. Apparently she walked home, found the front door locked, and just went around the back until she found an open door. She let herself in, kicked off her shoes and backpack, grabbed a snack, and curled up with the dog to watch some tv. She wasn't in the least bit worried. We called the school, and they sent the bus back out to pick her up. Which was fine, except that Charlotte (the 150lb normally laid back st bernard) was anxious because she was aware that something was wrong with this picture. She knew Amy being home alone was not right, and she was determined to protect her. So when the bus driver, a darling lady in her mid-60's, came to the door to collect Amy, Charlotte was NOT having it. Lois (the bus driver) and Amy stood on either side of the front door yelling for some time, trying to come to an agreement about how to proceed. Eventually Lois convinced Amy it was OK to open the door, and Charlotte ran out in a ball of bristling muscled fury. God Bless the woman, she managed to wrangle the dog back into the house without hurting herself, get Amy out, and got her onto the bus, and from there to the private school she was supposed to be at. I arrived shortly after to collect both the girls. With a great deal of relief.

Good grief. And people wonder why I don't have the energy to worry about spots on my carpet or weeds in the lawn. I'm full up just trying to keep everyone safe and healthy here.