State of medicine (the toll on the person and family)

 As I sit here in contemplation, I have to address a particular field. Medicine. 

Mom almost died in 2009.She went to see two different doctors in the same medical practice complaining of flu like symptoms. I made her go to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with diabetes. She was unconscious for three days. The ICU doctor said if I had waited any longer she would have lapsed into a coma and died. I got her to the hospital just in time. Her blood sugar was 1714. 

Right now she is in pain with her knees. Bone on bone. It is hard for her to walk. She has dealt with the pain for years. She is scared to death that she will end up being confined to a wheel chair. She is frightened that she will not be able to have the surgery.

She almost had surgery last week. Her pre-op doc wanted her to see a cardiologist. I agree mom needs to be safe going in for surgery so she will be safe coming out. The timing of all this really sucked. The pre op appt was the week before surgery. The surgery had to be put off until the cardiologist signs off on her having the surgery.

Mom and I went to the stress test appt at the hospital. Mom did the echo cardiogram. Mom had a virtual visit with the cardiologist who stated that he did not have the results for the echo cardiogram yet. Another virtual visit is scheduled for Friday. Maybe he will have the results by then.

Mom called the hospital imaging center. They gave her the run around. I am so sick and tired of of the run around from one doctor office to the next. I call bullshit. No straight answers. There has got to be more centralized or compartmentalized care for people who have to see more than one specialist. It is outrageous that we have all this "well, you need to call . . . " attitude. 

It is stressful to take care of a family member who is ill in some way. It scares me to see my mom fall apart. She is frightened that she will not have the surgery on her knees. She is frightened that she will end up in a wheel chair having to be pushed around. She may give up if she is bound to a wheel chair. She barely has any quality of life right now.

I try to compartmentalize it. I am a realist. I can swing to pessimism or optimism given the situation. I use selfishness to mask my emotions. I become afraid that I will turn off my emotions completely. I do not want to turn my back on my humanity, my soul because the emotions are too intense. I know we all must face these challenges. We do not have a strong support system. Every day is a struggle. Every day we are reminded of them. It is s struggle to stay positive. 

I do not want to lose my mom. I lost my grandmother in 2004. She was my other parent. I took care of her when her health took a bad turn. She had a proliferated ulcer and went to the hospital on a Wednesday. She passed away that following Saturday morning. She was on a ventilator. Mom and I had to make the decision to take her off. Worst moment. 

It is the worst feeling to see mom so frightened and scared. I can't do anything. I can't fix her knees. She is very stubborn. She does not listen to me much. She does regret some things that she should have listened to me on. I do not want her to give up. Her mother gave up. I was four when she died. She quit taking her diabetes medication. She had an infection in her foot. She lapsed into a coma and later passed away.

SHOULDA WOULDA COULDA.

It is done and gone. We have to be present and face today. I know mom will get the surgery. It was already scheduled. I ask God to help her have the gift of having knees, to walk again. Her pain to be limited so she can have a better quality of life. 

Hope is eternal. God willing we wake up tomorrow to a new day.. 

A year of sadness, sorrow, and changes

My inner sadness has been many a wave over the last several months. I’ve managed to tone it low. Some success and some failures have become the marsh of my land.

My journey in life has had difficult points. The hardest points sometimes have been my defining moments in who I am.  I’ve let them be the worth of me. I understand I am not the only one who struggled. I will continue to have difficulties and struggles.

Change. It is inevitable. Change is intertwined into life itself. There is no free pass. My sadness requires a constant. One of my difficulties is accepting change when it requires an emotional upheaval. As a youngster, I was able to deal with change better when I had an emotional barrier around me: anger and resentment.

I allowed the barrier to be destroyed because I wanted personal growth. I can’t put that barrier back up again. It’s been tried with constant failure. I see a lot of barriers in people. Most of which are normal emotional swings of life.

My soul wants people to be sensitive and empathic as I am. I’ve experienced forgiveness. Anger and resentment have lifted off my heart and soul. When the barrier became null, I became more emotional. Emotional experiences can be overwhelming when they haven’t been there before.

A new barrier is being built. It is invisible and unrealistic.  This dome can be easily destroyed, unlike the wall before it. I do not know where to turn to meet people.

Grief. An emotion that is definitive and broad at once. Anxiety is my point of grief. It has hit me this year. Two of my fur babies have passed away. Buster in April. Precious yesterday. Just when I think I am cried out, tears flow. Grief is hard for me to handle. I don’t deal right. Out of sight out of mind only works when I’m not at home or not thinking about it. As these words are written, anxiety and blood pressure are high.

Things just can’t be discarded. I can’t just wish for a new place to live and it happen just because grief is affront. Many times I’ve wished a dump truck to appear at my house. Throw out things we don’t need and be done with cleaning the house. I know from experience that shit don’t work. It ain’t gonna work, never!

As I move through grief, I question my life in spades. What am I doing and how am I doing it. Psychology. I get so into the psyche and not know what the hell I’m doing.

My anxious mind and all the sorrow is deafening. It drowns out the happiness. All the thoughts that repeat like a broken record. Negative thoughts like hammers to nails inside my head!

I do not want to be consumed my whole life by anxiety and sadness. Happiness seems so close to touch, only to be far away when the blinders come off. How is this going to help me? How can I be of help to others when I can’t seem to help myself? Yelling out of frustration.

As I type my final words for today, I know that Buster and Precious are with mama and their brothers, Bandit and Tiger. I feel the grief and sorrow, just not the tears right now. Fear is settling in. Scary. My pets are my rock when the sadness comes. I don’t talk to mom out of worrying that she will worry too much. Wow, what a conundrum.

Mom and I are talking about getting a playmate for Slipknot. He is the last of our fur baby family. I worry about him. I think he knew before we did about Buster and Precious.

The future is ahead. Life won’t stop for grief or sadness. Neither will we.

Rainbow Bridge . . . . A Sadness

One of our cats, Buster, passed away.

Mom and I never announced it on Facebook.

We had to call the vet's after hours number. Our vet answered! It was his turn. We took Buster to see him. Mom and I knew it was the end of his life, he was seizing and meowing. We waited till late to take him to our vet. We worried he was in pain.

Our vet put  him to sleep allowing him to cross over that rainbow bridge.  

We haven't done anything with his remains yet. We are looking around for a cheap cremation for him. We have our Tiger and our Bandit with us on the mantle.

Passing Through

I’ve been having a hard time with my emotions lately. I want to cry every time I go in to work. I’m worried I will run into Thomas. I just want to cry when I see him. It takes me a while to recover my crying spell to being happy. After I do recover, I feel fine and dandy. Ron ran into his old flame from high school a while back. He is dating her now. That throws me out of the game to try to date him.  I feel screwed all the way around on romance at work and in general life. Thomas is still nice to me. I have really been trying to avoid him in order to keep myself from crying. I fell so damn hard for him. I still can’t quite understand what happened to me emotionally. I am curious as to his twin brother. I’d like to know if he is single.

I dropped off my readmission application to USC-Lancaster on Friday. I tried applying at another store of the same company. It seems I can’t do it right now. I’ve been working for the same company 3.5 months now. It will be 6 months at the end of September. I asked for a Saturday off which my boss granted. My typical weekend is Saturday s work and Sunday s off. The first weekend in August is opposite because of my day off request. At least I got that much.

Thursday night I had a severe emotional anxiety attack. I enjoy working evenings during the week. There isn’t many customers late at night. Ron and Mike left. It hit me like a ton of bricks. A sudden fear of loneliness and despair made me want to cry. When my severe anxiety and panic hits me , I can bottle it up into tears. It is my negative psychological response to what is happening to me. After my shift ended, I called in sick Friday. I just could not deal with it. All of the anxiety and panic is making it very hard for me to function at work. Now that I am suffering from a self-induced heartbreak, it is so much worse. I need to seek counseling.

Mom and I went to several Goodwill stores Saturday. I had fun. Mom wanted to stop at Hobby Lobby. We did not get a chance to because I had to be at work late that afternoon. Mom started to get depressed. Sunday we went to church. We had brunch at Cook-Out. She got depressed again as the tears started flowing. I feel so helpless when she has those feelings. I feel helpless when I have severe anxiety and depression as well. We went to Aldi and Wal-Mart.  It had been raining on and off all weekend.

I feel as though I am only passing through this life. What I truly want is out of my grasp.  I want Thomas which is something I can’t seem to have. I want to finish my Bachelor’s degree, which may be difficult to obtain. I want to have children, which my integrity stands in the way of sleeping around. Sometimes ethics and morality suck. I want mom to be happy and I feel helpless to help her. I would love to see her find someone that will love and cherish her. Neither one of us socializes much.  I want more tattoos and a person to ink my skin. Think like a friend with benefits situation. Yeah, does not seem to want to happen now does it?  It seems that I am eternally damned to be miserable. Hope breeds misery.

Living by my heart, soul

Last night at work I wanted to cry. It is as I figured and proposed. Heartbreak.

My life now is being ruled by my heart. My heart is of love, passion, emotion, soul, care, and goodness. My head is full of logic, anger, contemplation, and indifference. Both seem to find parallel paths in this world and in my life.

 

I found out that Thomas has a 27 year old son and a grand baby. It’s wonderful!!!!!!   J

I told a co-worker that hangs out with him my age. She is his buddy which is cool. He made a comment to the effect that time was running out. Shit! I wanted to cry and scream at him. I wanted to tell him that I know that already.

My heart tells me that often. I know my fertile years are dwindling down to zero. The sand in the hour glass is unbearable. I don’t want to be intimate with just anyone and end up pregnant. That is not how I want my life to be. I have more integrity now than I did when I was young.

My zone manager wanted me to zone our other department. It is a place of quiet contemplation for me. A co-worker wanted to go with me. I almost told her that I’d like to be by myself. Oh well. I do enjoy teamwork, sometimes I like the quiet contemplation that comes with the other department.

I wonder how I will be able to handle this heartbreak while at work. I’m not going to just quit. I need the job. I have three more months until I can transfer. Logic escapes me as to why I fell so hard for Thomas? I never fell for anyone else like this. I’ve had crushes, this is beyond my scope of logic. I’ve had panic attacks based on this crush or “falling in love” or whatever it is.

All I want to do is erase these last three months. Start over from scratch. I want to cry and scream and be mean. I can’t be a mean bitch like I want to be right now. I want to cover up everything. I want to scream and hit something, tear things up.

I am not sure what will happen at work today. I guess I need to bear the heartache. Hopefully I  can avoid him and my tears.

Chaos

Chaos brews around me without asking. I tire easily of the fight to survive. It is easier to give up rather than fight. So many questions, so little answered prayers. I fathom those who have jobs, able to live without fear or worry.

Why is it so hard? I turn towards the chaos and cannot breathe. Fear comes over me, withers me as a dried flower. The loneliness ensues and devours. Looking out onto the infinite ocean. Nothing to see but waves, only to hear the beauty of freedom and serenity I long for.

I daydream only to crash back into reality at any moment. Biological clock ticking. Age is settling in. No one to comfort me as my needs go untouched, withering away in the wind.

Is this what will become of me? Only to live as a droid, soulless and alone. Pitch black waters swaddle me to sleep. I succumb to the ocean only to find myself swaddled. False hope.

This is me. I feel what I feel, and others as well. I take on more than I allow, more than my shoulders could bear.

Down in a Funk (FEAR)

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I am close to starting a new semester at a new four-year university. Yet, I am saddened. It seemed to have hit me over the last couple of days which it typical for me sometimes.
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My mother just started a new job. She has arthritis in her left leg. She needs surgery for a torn meniscus which is not going to happen due to limited financial means. She is able to work even with a limited use of her knee.
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I have had a lot of anxiety over my oldest cat. It came out of the blue. He started meowing when we got home yesterday evening. There was a stray cat outside which I think our cat knew of! Cats can sense and smell other cats around.
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I am overwhelmed with a sudden sadness that may stem from my ongoing depression. Life is too damn hard sometimes. I just want to crawl into bed and wait till life gets better. I know it is unreasonable to think like that. I feel like crying, everything points to being in a depressed mood.
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I am not talking about some fly-by-night blues that is common among happy people. I never used to like bubbly people - those who are always joyful and have some kinda drug-high that makes you want to vomit.
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I have always been the one who walked alone, never really social. I was the one who was on the edge between happiness and sadness. High School was more of a mundane experience, I am smart, I just can't seem to find my happy place anymore. I used to have it, now it has flown away! I am in a total creative block from my former self.
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I fear the risk of loving another because I do not want them to go away. My anxiety is a real concern in this area because I want to have friends and find true happiness. I fear losing my unique style and creative personality. As I get older, I get more anxious! I do not want to be alone and unhappy. I want to travel, and do a lot of things.
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Right now, I am in a funk. I feel a bit of claustrophobia because I can't seem to get my life back on track. Oh well, I just have to let this ride out and go with the flow.

Alone in Solace

Why does it seem so desolate. . . .
A world full of people,
Yet I stand still . . alone
People pass me in forward motion
Too fast, I am not moving at all
My soul hurts in pain,
Yearning for comfort, companionship
Watching the world find happiness
Whilst I stand, unable to move in fear
Drowning in sorrow of my own,
Despair no words can express or deny
Loneliness in a world overcrowded by people
People just do not understand my sadness
An abyss on a verge of explosion
Only I can understand the way I feel
Alone in a desolate state of being
Poor outlook coming from within
Each step can be easy or hard,
Depending on the way I am able to gravitate
Each step to old age and loneliness abreast

Lone Wolf

As long as I have been on this earth, I still manage to feel fucked and overwhelmed. I have been having a lot of strange dreams lately, mostly of my family. I am full of fear and dread, I gain weight without trying, and I walk alone in a world full of people. I am abandoned, alone in the world. . . . .waiting. On what, I do not know really. Although I could point out so many things, but yet they are so trivial and meaningless! I wish it would snow here, at least for a little while.

The cold snags my soul without mercy in this cold weather. Next month, on the 28th, marks my grandmother's passing during the only true snow storm we had here. She will have been gone six long years as the days pass without memory. Everything fades into one another, sinking into the abyss. I line that I remember fondly - there are things that go bump in the night, we are the ones that bump back. I think I pretty much paraphrased it. I think some people sink into the dark abyss below, while otherd walk in the shadows away from the sun.

AS long as I am alive, I will walk in the shadows alone with strength, yet fear. One day, maybe another lone wolf or several, will be there walking with me.

Familial Sorrow

My sorrow used to define me. It still does with no utter blame to lay at one's dirty feet. It has taken me a while to think about the sorrow and put into words. Sometimes it can be the hardest thing to do.

I visited my grandmother's grave on a trip to Georgia in November. My mother and I had other plans, we made time to lay flowers for her honor. The darkness of morning still loomed before dawn. This was the first time I had visited since, well, I do not remember. There was a more decernable death amongst the soil that I had not encountered before. As much as I refuse to understand, death is nothing but the rare certainty of human life. All else fails to make certain, death is always there patiently waiting. I always held a strong belief that it is a bad omen to step onto someone's final resting area. I will always heed that belief out of respect and humility.

My sorrow does not end there.

I visited my father and his new wife, K. I felt no connection with my father now as I had always never felt growing up. My father and his wife live in my great grandmother's house. He has renovated it. The house held a lot of memories. My great grandmother is my father's grand mother. Even after my grandparents divorce, my great grand mother always considered my grandmother a part of the family. The house has been forever changed and the sorrow just keeps flowing. I say words that do not hold any sacred meaning. My father has grandchildren, not by me! His wife's daughter has three. I do not know her at all. I don't know the wife either.

Keep it rolling. . . .

My grandfather used to have me as his beneficiary. I no longer hold that position. He is still my grandfather no matter how many emotional implosions occur. I only know this out of his blatantly telling me this. I did not ask, I will not give him ammunition for ire. What will my father do to that house? My grandmother lived there, my deceased uncle lived there, and I stayed there for a while. The house holds what memories I cannot.

I have memories that are locked in Pandora's Box. I do not wish to open; however, it does not have the strongest lock! One word aches my heart and flows the tears is abandonment. It seems as if this was the finality of the family - of my connections to the long departed. What irony this is, the finality of will and emotions. The last little string seems to have been cut. I do not consider genetics to be a part of this equation. There is no answer, not a logical one anyway. I do not know what is worse, knowing how much of a bastard my father was to utterly give my life permanent disfunction or not knowing a father. I essentially had both at different stages of my life.

My father is my father genetically. Sorrow is a powerful force that will not leave. It is like a heart or lung, a long requirement for a life that will not fully recover. I have tried to make a life worth living which I have been successful and I am grateful.

Sorrow is destitute, a life long journey into an abyss you know. I have hope that I may move forward with a different familial circle.