A Woman’s “Right To Choose”
I know I’ll probably get a lot of slack about this, but I’ve been thinking again, which as dangerous as it might be, it still happens.
For years now I’ve heard the phrase “a woman’s right to choose”.
Don’t get me wrong, I support choice. Shoes, food, clothes, hair color, makeup, etc., etc., but let’s think about what choices are.
The choice to have children if of course a woman’s choice. It’s her body, her life, her decision.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that are beyond our control. We can’t choose to remain safe from harm, but we take precautions. Some of us have taken self defense classes, some of us carry weapons, some of us even refuse to go out after dark, or to places that put us at risk. We band together and go out en-masse to make sure that we’re as safe as possible, and most women have discussed with their friends what to do in certain situations, so everyone stays together and safe.
Sometimes we can’t choose how much we weigh or how we look. That’s when we do everything in our power to make the best of what we’ve got. We diet, color our hair, get manicures and pedicures, pick clothes that accentuate the good things and help cover up the bad. Some of us even go so far as to get plastic surgery.
We can’t always choose what jobs we end up with, but we can make choices that will help us get where we want to go. We can attend college, take classes, learn new skills and abilities, or choose alternate employment options like being a babysitter, or caring for the elderly in thier homes.
So let’s get to the topic of this blog shall we? We can choose to have children or to not have children. There are a million methods of birth control on the market, from the pill to IUD’s to patches and diaphrams. Something for everyone right? Apparently not. From more and more articles and knowing people, it seems that the “other right choice” is abortion. I’m sorry but that seems to me like burning down the house to start a campfire.
Let’s put aside the whole “when is it life” question for the moment. For the purpose of this discussion that’s not even the issue.
I’m sick and tired of hearing the “right to choose” terminology, I’m sick and tired of hearing about women who choose to abort their children and call it the right to choose because they made a mistake. If you don’t want to be pregnant, then first of all don’t trust a man to say he’s got it covered, and second of all, make the RIGHT choices BEFORE you get naked. Yeah Yeah, I know you’re all ready to light into me, but I’m not talking about women who are raped, nor am I talking about women who are victims of incestuous relationships. I’m taking out ALL of the controversial topics because let’s face it, I hate confrontations, but as the years go by I find myself less and less able to keep my mouth shut about some things.
Abortion is NOT birth control. Never meant to be birth control, and should never be considered birth control. How many women have had MULTIPLE abortions that were nothing other than a means to get rid of an unwanted problem? That my friend is NOT the right to choose. I refuse to have sympathy any longer for women who ignore the very SIMPLE facts of life and think that there’s always an answer to correct their lack of planning, or let’s just put it out there shall we? Their stupidity. For the sake of argument, one abortion is a mistake. More than that and you’ve got a very serious problem accepting the consequences of your own actions.
Whether or not a child is alive the second it’s conceived or after it grows arms and legs, let’s face it, whether or not abortion is murder, theres NO question that abortion denies a future human being his or her life. When you start thinking abortion is a “right to choose” think about exactly how YOU would feel if your entire future lay in the hands of someone incapable of understanding the simple concept of birth control.
Thats all.
You’ve GOT to be kidding me. (The Princess Paranoia)
I got on my computer this morning, and saw a link to an article regarding parents curbing the princess purchasing for their young daughters. The more I read the more my mouth hung open, and the bigger my eyes got. Come ON people, you’ve GOT to be kidding right? I knew there were people out there like this, swear I did, but to actually see it in writing just…..well it blew my mind. This is a partial quote from the article with the names and locations removed since I have no desire to be sued anytime in the near future.
That’s exactly what worries parents such as David Williams, a father from Fond du Lac, Wis., who has a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son
Though they’ve given in on a few princess items for their daughter, he says he and his wife have drawn the line on Barbie and Bratz dolls, which he calls “empty-headed girly-girl products.” Coincidentally, Mattel Inc., which makes Barbie, recently won a copyright infringement battle that may mean the end of Bratz, a popular but controversial line of dolls that some parents loathed because of the diva-like attitude they encourage.
Meanwhile, an anonymous father applauded the recent demise of Club Libby Lu, mall-based stores for girls that focused on makeovers and super-frilliness.
“As a new parent, I dreaded someday having to fight the superficial, idiotic, pop culture-worshipping chain’s impending influence on my daughter,” he wrote after Saks Inc., which owned Club Libby Lu, announced it would close those stores by this spring. His comments set off a lengthy discussion between those who shared his glee and those who were offended.
There are, after all, many parents who happily go along with the happily ever after.
An unnamed mother whose 5-year-old daughter went through a huge princess stage, is one of them.
“Kids get obsessive about stuff. Right now she’s loving Pokemon and super heroes. Next year, it will probably be something else,” she says of her daughter. “What’s important to us is that we give her and her sister options and opportunities.”
Of his daughter’s princess obsession, another dad jokes: “I worry more about the near future when she will want to be a pierced-up drummer in a punk rock band.”
Oooookay, those of you who KNOW me will instantly know ONE of the problems I have with these statements.
By all means moms and dads, let your little girls walk around in the mall and the grocery store with their little tiaras and their glass slippers demanding the services of honest ADULTS who work for a living while you sit back and chuckle at how CUTE they are, but oh please, let’s not let them get a tattoo or a piercing and actually try to DO SOMETHING that resembles working.
Okay I got that out of the way, and yes ladies and gentleman, I’ve run into this phenomena when I had a couple come into where I work and their “little princess” demanded that I did this wrong and that wrong and that I redo everything to her liking, one of those being that I’d given her a black plate instead of a pink plate, which sorry kiddo, we don’t do pink plates. Her darling mother soothed the situation by assuring the little diva/brat/otherwordsIwontuseinpublic that they would get her a pink plate to take along with her to restaurants from now on.
Oh joy! Where was this woman when *I* was a kid and got the whole “you eat what I give you” and “because I said so” and “if you don’t stop crying I’ll give you something to cry about” lines.
Now this is where the RANT part of the blog comes in so grab your seat belt and buckle in.
Having a child doesn’t MAKE you a mother or a father. It makes you a surrogate or a sperm donor. Mothers and Fathers are those people, rare as they are in this world that when they bring that little bundle of joy home from the hospital, make an honest attempt to do more than win “Parent of the Year” awards nominated by their child. Being a parent is SUPPOSED to suck. If your kid doesn’t hate you from time to time, you’re doing something wrong. If there are parents out there who satisfy every little desire their kids have, my question is how much time do you spend with them, one on one, playing with Barbies or TNMT as the case may be, reading them stories or taking them on explorations in the back yard. And no, “Mommy Tuesdays” at the mall, where you meet with all your social butterfly peers and sit chatting about periods and Louis Vitton and the interior flaws of the New Lexus SUV while your kids climb over whatever objects the malls quantify as excercise and fun is NOT together time with your kid.
Barbie has been around since the early 1900′s and she’s always been just like she is now. Too tall, too gorgeous, too blond and too well endowed. So what’s the big deal now people? Barbie is an icon as much as those volkswagon vans that you used to get high in or take to concerts where you drew straws to find out who would drive because THEY were the ones who didn’t get to make out in the back of it. Studies proved a LONG time ago that if Barbie were human she couldn’t even STAND UP! So now you’re telling me that she’s an “empty headed girly girl product” but it’s okay to plop a tiara on your kids head and build an 8 foot princess bed in her room? Has Paris Hilton become the new pinnacle to which all young girls aspire?
Let’s move on though shall we? Disney is making wedding dresses now. Mhm. Now, I’m NOT a girly woman. I’m about as feminine on most days as your average four wheel drive mud splattered jacked up four feet off the ground pickup truck. Granted, I CAN be feminine if I want to, just don’t want too all that often. But yes, even I once dreamed about the fairy tale wedding. Is there a single female alive who hasn’t one time or another dreamed about being a princess? That’s where parenting comes in folks. Just cuz you want it doesn’t mean it’s true. I can’t remember the last time I met a tom girl. Yeah, you know the ones right? They don’t own a dress you can sneak up on them with and shimmy over their flailing arms and legs fast enough for it to stick, and a bath has turned into a once a week “honey get your gear, we’re going in” episode. The girls that carry a baseball cap wherever they go and if a boy looks at them he’s just as likely to get hit over the head or kicked in the nuts as anything else. I don’t know maybe it’s just me, but that? In my book, it’s a loss. Those girls rocked. I guess I was one of them so I’m a bit partial, but it still kills me to see women using their gender to get what they want.
I can change a tire, can change the oil in my car even. I’ve taken apart the motor of a chainsaw and put it back together so you get the vroom vroom when you pull the cord that was missing before. I’ve routinely disassembled vacuum cleaners and poked around and have no problem carrying two 20 pound bags of cat food from the car to the money sucking pit where our cats eat me out of house and home. I get a little too happy when my husband hints around that he’ll let me drive the riding mower, and a little too pissy when he tells me he was only teasing since the last time I drove it, well let’s just say the gas company wasn’t real happy with me and those little disc covers? They suck as frisbees. Mhm.
All that though? Doesn’t mean I don’t put on my makeup with the best of them. I straighten my hair daily and can’t pass a Walgreens without buying some kind of makeup or hair product. I adore – and yes adore in this sense equals an unhealthy obsession – shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. Including really really prissy heels. Show me something pink and I might puke, but I can look good doing it.
I guess what I’m saying is this, and yes, my rants usually have a point although you get to take the scenic tour to get to them. There’s what you want, which includes what you want for your kids, and then there’s reality folks. Reality? Well tends to leave a lot to be desired compared to the want list, but hey it’s an adventure right? I’d love for my daughter to have a life of leisure, married to some guy with enough money to buy her whatever she wants and she’d never have to lift a finger to do anything. Reality though? I’m smart enough to realize that a man isn’t what defines a woman. If she were to have that, she’d most likely grow up to be a worthless specimen of a human being.
I’m probably going to get in all kinds of trouble for this, but let’s look at another reality. We’ve got ALL kinds of women who have had pretty much everything they’ve ever wanted and let’s take a look at them shall we? Pornographic sex tapes, drug scandals, mental issues, not to mention the pregnancies and failed marriages, the list goes on and on, so the puppy in the little handbag syndrom? Well it’s just not working folks. It’s time to learn how to be a PARENT, how to raise a normal, well-adjusted son or daughter, and for the little girls? That includes being able to pretend to be a princess without becoming one.
Taxidermy Gone Wrong
You’ve all seen them right? Creatures who used to walk around eating grass or who knows what, furry, feathered, scaled, etc., suddenly chopped up glued to a pretty stained block of hardwood hanging on someone’s wall.
I’m not being a hypocrite here, I have Bobby. Yes, Bobby. He’s hanging in a place of honor in my den and I make sure I talk to him everyday and dust him faithfully. He gets a Santa hat at Christmas and if I’m not misremembering, he’s sported a scarf or hat of different varieties from time to time.
Bobby though, was a castoff. My father-in-law shot Bobby in the 70′s if I’m not mistaken he took second place in the state that year. When my in laws lived in the “ghetto” part of town with us he was just fine to hang on the wall, but people change and they moved out to the “high-faluting” part of town and well….Bobby just didn’t quite fit with their decor, and well I’d always loved him so now he shares his afterlife with me. Bobby? He’s pretty. Whoever did the “stuffing” part of creating his eternal afterlife was a talented person in his field. Bobby doesn’t look surprised, or horrified, he looks like he would have if you had seen him in the woods and he hadn’t yet seen you. Completely natural. Beautiful.
Then there are the others. Oh yes. Not all taxidermy you see is the same.
I’m not real sure I could live with myself seeing this guy on my wall. See? You can look at him and KNOW what he was thinking. “It’s over. I’m toast. Hope the wife and kids will be okay.” How can you look at that face and sleep at night knowing this guy KNEW what was coming? Fear is awful, be it in adults or kids, but in animals, well there’s nothing that breaks my heart much more than seeing an animal that’s flat out scared of it’s mind. The guy below? Do you have any doubt he knew his clock was getting punched? Nope. Look at those eyes and say a little prayer that whoever took him out can sleep at night, cuz I know I couldn’t.
Now, onto the just plain not meant to be shared with the rest of the world. I’m probably awful to say this, but there are people in this world that should make an effort to stay indoors as much as possible. Sheesh, I know that’s awful, no one can help how they look, well……maybe they can. We’ve all been to the grocery store and seen the 400 pound woman with her bike shorts and spandex exercise top. People come on. Do you not own mirrors? Or better yet, the woman who has either not realized that she’s a whale, or just doesn’t care. You know the one? You go to the pool and are walking along happy and unsuspecting when it sneaks up on you out of the corner of your eye. That’s when you have to stop and look. Scary I know. But there’s this burning desire to KNOW if that’s actually a thong or if the 100 pound a piece butt cheeks actually ATE what used to be a real bathing suit bottom. This guy is that chick. Someone please find the people who thought he deserved a place of immortality on said wood chunk and enlighten them. Of course…..it could be the girl at the pool…..in which case, don’t bother, it’s a losing battle.
Now….for the finale of this little presentation. I know we all have a morbid fascination with serial killers and death in general. The whole “can’t look away”, “train wreck”, “rubbernecking” syndrome I guess. But really people. Was this necessary? Honestly? Or maybe it was just a peace offering to the whitetail deer everywhere fearing for the lives of their families at the gnashing teeth of “Hannibal Deer”. I’m sure wherever this guy came from the general deer population had to be overjoyed at having him taken out of circulation.
And here I thought things were supposed to get better….
Here I am again. Not really sure why, but I need to vent, or scream or throw things against walls until the entire house is littered with destruction of the things I used to love. My husband I went out to eat the other night. Yeah an ordinary enough endeavor right? The most satisfying part of dinner what demolishing a bowl of nachos with first a knife which was way to difficult, so I reverted to using the back of my spoon on them until nothing was left but a little bowl of crushed up nachos almost fine enough to make corn flour with.
I don’t know where to start, or where I want to go. I just know that I always thought things were supposed to get better. Instead I find myself falling and there’s nothing to hold onto to stop the fall. Or maybe it’s me. I’ve never wanted to NEED anyone else. Yes, I realize that’s lame, I realize it’s a foolish take on life – kinda like cutting off your nose to spite your face. But it’s me. And God alone knows I’m nothing if not stubborn and foolish.
I look at people who are supposed to love me, people who were there when my daughter was born, who sat proudly when I was married, people who hugged me when I found out I was pregnant who are part of my life, and when I’m struggling to hold on, to find redemption somewhere, I look in their eyes and see things you should never see in the faces of people who say they love you.
I’m me! Can no one accept that?!?!?!?! Can no one even TRY to understand that if I don’t muddle through the mess that is my life right now on my own, I’ll never recover? I’m 44 years old and as long as I can remember, I’ve been the one EVERYONE turns to. People have often said that I have a magnet that attracts anyone whose life is even more messed up than mine. It’s true. Ever since I was a little kid, my friends were the ones no one else wanted to be friends with. The ones who lived in a little two bedroom trailer with a single mom and a dad in prison, the ones who wore highwaters to school because they didn’t have anything else. And you know what? I was fine with that. Those were the people who NEEDED me. The ones who validated my desire to be needed and appreciated.
I’ve always been a little strange, and sometimes, even more than a little. When everyone else was saving their money to buy the Levis peglegs with the white patch on the pocket and the pretty pink and yellow cotton oxfords, I was wearing long tiered skirts with ugly boots and tank tops, smoking cigars and wearing plaid golf hats. I LIKE being different. I LIKE not “fitting in” or being a little replica of the minivan moms living in houses big enough for eight families their size measuring their worth by how much money their husbands make and how popular their kids are at school. I’ll say this now just to clarify, I COULD have been that person. I CHOSE not to. I buy used cars because I can’t justify spending three times more for a new car that’s going to be worth half what I paid for the second it leaves the parking lot. I can’t see paying $10,000 for a watch when my ugly Cato watch keeps time just as well and I can buy 10 of them for 1% of the Rolex some people need to feel worthwhile.
I don’t care for diamonds or rubies or sapphires, I’d rather have a huge ugly ring that people will notice and say something to me about to start a conversation. I don’t need $200 jeans when I can go to Goodwill and find stuff I like with a $5 pricetag instead. It’s not that I’m cheap really, maybe it was from growing up in a family where our weekly budget was $37 dollars and our monthly spree to stop at Hardees and get me an order of fries to eat while I rode on my dads shoulders while he and mom walked home holding hands and dragging one of those metal carts filled with groceries behind them was the highlight of the month. To put an exclamation on that I’ll say that I wouldn’t hesitate to pay some ungodly amount to take a stray cat to the vet, or give a homeless person a $300 quilt when it’s freezing outside. Maybe it’s just priorities, but hey I can sleep at night without any nightmares I’m not used to, so I’m happy with my decisions.
God, I’m rambling again. Okay so let’s get back to what I think I’m trying to say. It’s not a sin to be different people. I try really hard not to judge people, to understand that different people need different things to get by and God knows I TRY….I really do try believe it or not….to be everything to everyone. Maybe that’s why I spend so much of my life feeling like a failure. It’s impossible to be everything to everyone and it’s foolish to try. Now is where you should scroll back up to reread the part about me being stubborn and foolish. In spite of the toll it takes on me I still try and even then I feel like it’s rarely good enough.
Since I got sick a little over a month ago, I feel like my life is falling apart. I’m not sure why, but it’s a gut feeling and I can’t shake it. Maybe it’s my brain suddenly catching up to the fact that my body isn’t getting any of the goody meds it’s been used to, maybe it’s that I stopped taking the antidepressants that were making me feel almost human again. I don’t know which way to turn or whether to light a candle and take a chance on what might be uncovered, or continuing to hide in the shadows where ignorance is bliss.
Three years now. Three years I’ve been without a job that makes me feel like I’m doing something with my life. Three years that I’ve spent muddling through trying to find acceptance or affirmation from strangers. Three years that the people who love me have been wondering when I’m coming back. Since 1989, the year I got married until that day in June three years ago, I called my Mom every day. EVERY DAY. Without fail. Now? I talk to her once a week, once a month, whenever I can make myself pick up the phone and dial the number. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I have to pretend to hard to be a normal functioning adult when I talk to her. Try to hard to pretend that life is cool that I’m getting by. Maybe it’s that I can’t deal with the disappointment in her voice, or the hurt I know she feels that I’ve drifted so far away.
I’m changing. I know that, but I’m helpless to stop it. Now, let’s get this straight I don’t feel sorry for myself. Pity is something I’ve never been able to tolerate in myself, and yeah, a lot of times in others too. But I’m angry. I’m hurting. I’m dying. At least the person I was is. I feel like a caterpillar going through the catharsis that will turn me into a beautiful butterfly, but I know what’s going to happen instead. I’ll be like that cocoon that the little girl watched every day, finally seeing the creature inside start to move, struggling, fighting to become what it should be, and thinking she’s helping she cuts open the cocoon and damns the poor creature forever. I’ll NEVER be that butterfly.
I accept that and I’m fine with it. I’ve never wanted to be that person. I’ve failed so many people in my life, trying to help, learning that sometimes “help” is more harm than good. People expect me to open up and let them help me, to turn the tables and let them be what I’ve always been. Is it really so hard to understand why I CANT do that? My ability to be the strong one, the one who can fight through anything, battle through anything, always come out on top like survival of the fittest is what defines me and without THAT? I’m not just lost, I’m someone I don’t know and for the life of me I don’t know how to live inside the body of a person I don’t know.
I’m nothing special, when I’m dead and gone, no one will remember my name for years to come, I’ve got no claim to fame and no lasting mark I’ve left on the world. I doubt there would be more than 20 people at my funeral and those would be family. Somehow or other, I manage to alienate anyone that could actually care about me as a person. It’s a gift I guess, or maybe a survival technique I’ve learned after I discovered that if you let people in, they’ll cut their way out again leaving you a broken bleeding mess along the way, dust off their hands, wipe their feet on your heart and walk away without a backwards glance. Is that bitterness? I don’t know. Maybe? It doesn’t feel like it, it just feels like reality.
I’m venting, rambling no doubt making so little sense if you’ve gotten this far you’re as crazy as I am. I guess I’ve retreated from everyone so far I feel like I’m looking at the entire world from the bottom of a deep dark hole. And you know the scary part? I like it there. It’s safe. There are no expectations, and that’s the most selfish I’ve ever allowed myself to be. I’ve been living for me, trying to fix the parts of me that my life so far has left broken and shattered, the pieces and pains that I shoved back so far I could keep trying to pretend they don’t matter. I tell people all the time that you can’t do that forever….that eventually everything you shove into that little pandora’s box in your mind is going to come bursting out and leave you stunned and sobbing shamelessly in a ball on the floor. Well yay for me. I’m not sobbing. I’m not curled up on a ball crying. I’m just not here.
It looks like I am. On good days I can pretend that I am. But at the end of the day, no matter how many people I’ve tried to help along the way, I doubt more than two or three would even remember my name. I can’t do it anymore. I haven’t been able to for a long time. I think it’s only just starting to catch up with me. I imagine the suicide hotline would have a field day with me, even though I’m not suicidal. I have been. But there’s that part of me still that wouldn’t allow me to take the chicken escape. Cowards end it all and leave everyone behind wondering if they could have helped. Not me. Nope. I’m the proverbial rock of Gibraltar. Killing myself would be the ultimate act of denying who I am, the ultimate betrayal of my entire life.
I guess in a way this is an apology. To myself? Maybe. Definately to others. To the people I love that I’ve let down time and time again. To the people that my withdrawal has left feeling a lot like I feel. I try to pretend but the people who really know me know it’s a lie and I know it hurts. I know it. I just can’t make myself fix it. This is my selfish phase. My wallowing in my inability to save the world and stand beaming on top of it with a big hulking trophy to show for it. I really want to do that still, to take everyone who hurts or struggles into my arms, fix their problems, make their life puppies and rainbows, make them believe that life doesn’t suck and that it’ll get better.
I want to go shopping with my mom, read my husband’s writing, talk to my friends who miss me, and trust me there aren’t many, but I’m cemented into the bottom of my dark well of selfish needs, wanting things I can’t make happen, hurting everyone I’ve ever loved, and all without my superhero costume. I remember the happy times, the days when I laughed and felt whole, the days when I thought I was a good person, that I made a difference in people’s lives. I remember having a dozen teenagers who loved me, thought I was the coolest mom in the world, cried on my shoulder and asked me for advice on life, love and the best places to shop. I remember having jobs where people said “I don’t know what I’d do without you” and “How do you make everything look so easy?” I remember days spent feeling the sunshine on my face and the wind in my hair, riding around with the windows down crooning out whatever happened to be on the radio. Then I remember losing it all.
For what? I still haven’t figured it all out. The kids I used to adore have either forgotten my name or spit it out with the same infused hatred their parents used to use. The jobs that I allowed to give me my sense of worth are long gone, and now? The one kid I felt like I’d meant the most to, that I had been able to help, to give inspiration and hope for the future was forbidden to speak to me. I won’t go into the hows and whys there, but all of those things are wounds that still bleed, that poison me with the thoughts that failure isn’t an option it’s a certainty. Even working as a waitress for a measly $2.50 an hour I find I’m not good enough to do. Where do you turn then? God? I haven’t given up on God. I know some people think so but honestly that’s all that keeps me going most days.
Fact of the matter is though that I don’t expect God to pave my life with pretty mosaic tiles. Maybe it’s the wrong attitude to have, but He already made a pretty huge sacrifice for me. There are so many other people in the world who are so much worse off than I am, so I content myself to struggle through the problems that I’m facing, try to stay strong enough to open my eyes and face each new day and hope that one day…..one day I’ll be able to put the pieces of myself back together and be whole again, to once again be what I used to be. The one who never backs down, never gives up, never says never, and always sees the glass as full, because you know what? I still am that person, even now optimism never fails, which is ironic really. Maybe it’s the failure thing, and the old saying that whatever you do, do it the best you can. I think I’m doing pretty well at that.
How hard can it be to get well?
So let’s begin with the two words that have come to define me of late. IDIOPATHIC. HYPERSOMNIA.
Easy huh? No? Okay, here’s what Mr. Webster has to say about first idiopathic, then hypersomnia.
Idiopathic: arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause
Hypersomnia : sleep of excessive depth or duration
Now put the two together and two things will become obvious. One, I have a sleeping disorder. Two, the doctors have NO clue what it is or why I have it. Yes my friends, idiopathic is the medical profession’s catch all for “Ummm, well Ms. Riley, honestly? We have no idea.”
Now, let’s take this a bit further. Treatment for this mysterious sleeping disorder began oh five years ago? Ritalin and Adderall. I was INSANELY happy with this treatment for hmmm, about seven days when my entire house was spotless, dinner was on the table when the husband and child were hungry and I could have easily been attired in a lovely summer frock complete with heels and pearls and an immaculately coiffed updo.
Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep at all that week, but hey, tit for tat, I was happy. The initial bliss, despite it’s short lifespan was followed by what I would call acceptable results. I could take my medication and actually imitate consciousness for extended periods of daylight. If I happed to have the misfortune to wake in the middle of the night, well sleep was a thing of the past, but then most of the time I’m more dead than alive when sleeping so even that wasn’t a real bother.
Fast forward five years. First in a series of seriously sucks to be me events was losing my job. A job that I devoted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to for three years and suddenly it’s gone. Part two of that particular episode was the refiancing of our home including a cash out to add an approximate 2,000 sq. foot renovation of a garage with an upstairs apartment and replace kitchen appliances and windows. The appliances and windows were completed and the remaining funds went into paying our bills when it became obvious that a job was not going to be immediately forthcoming.
NOW…..I’m mid 40′s, was making a decent salary, and was depending on receiving the backpay that I was owed from this employer. Backpay that I was ignorant enough to forego to help a business that experiences seasonal fluctuations in income, totalling $16,600 give or take a quarter. I won’t go into the ugliness that ensued, but I was able to draw a fraction of the unemployment I was owed, and I say fraction SINCE, having foregone pay for as long as I did, it also affected my unemployement benefits.
Finally I began a new job at a restaurant waiting tables. I enjoy the job, it’s fun and I’ve made a lot of new friends, but I can tell you it’s not as easy as most people think. No, not intellectually, but physically, it’s demanding. For months after I started work there, I would limp home to sleep the time away until I had to go back for my next shift. I’m getting ahead of myself though.
After the refinance cash out money was exhausted, Countrywide I’m determined tried it’s best to reclaim our home. Yes, I said it. The mortgage industry isn’t interested in helping us poor folks keep our homes, they’re worried about getting them back so they can make their money back on them. Yes, so we happened to get three house payments behind. Workable right? Not. To make a long story short, after much confusion and many lies on the part of our mortgage company, we were forced to march down to their lawyer’s office with a big fat check in hand on the day our house was to be put on the auction block.
Where am I going with this? I’ll tell you now, since you’ve been patient with me so far. DEPRESSION. Yep, I assure you it’s not a happy happy joy joy kind of experience. Depression my lovies is a dastardly and way too often overused diagnosis, but it’s effects are real. Fatigue, loss of interest, pain, etc., etc., etc. Soooo, what’s the answer to depression? Meds. In this case Cymbalta. Okay, so it wasn’t just for depression, it was also touted as a wonder drug for people with fibromyalgia and chronic pains which yes, unfortunately I’m feeling all too well. The little issue that keeps making me go “Hmmm?” is that although it has worked beautifully for the depression and pain, it’s also a sedative. Do you see the irony there? Let’s do a little math shall we?
Sleeping Disorder + Sedative = Zombie.
This too was just another brick in my odd little wall until the doc I’m seeing for the sleeping snafu decided that the medications I’ve been on for five years are obviously not really working anymore, so the only thing to do it go off them and wait a while to see if my body will like them again in a week or a month or what have you. OH and in case I forgot to mention? Don’t drive, work, operate heavy machinery or try to feed yourself while you’re off the meds.
So now we’re up to the present and the actual topic of my rant. I might have also forgotten to mention that Ritalin is a HUGE bonus that helps with focus and clarity lol.
Soooo, last Wednesday it was. Scheduled to work 5-11. Started feeling REALLY nasty around the time to pick my daughter Kitty up from school. Serious back pain, legs feeling oddly like vice grips were squeezing my thigh bones hoping to get some kind of voodoo bone dust, and yes, chest pains. Now, I’m NOT an alarmist. I went on to work like a good little girl, and within two hours was in tears curled up in a little ball. Several visits to the ER later, I had the requisite IV’s, antibiotics and fluids, along with a few pain killers thrown in for good measure.
Now it’s Tuesday, nearly a week later. Still no work, still in pain. The ER doc says to follow up with my GP right? Okay, so I made the appointment with the PA since my GP is booked up. I go in and of course the nurse asks why I’m there. “To follow up about an ER visit.” Hey that’s what they told me to say. Then the PA comes in and asks the same question and gets the same reply.
Despite feeling like a particular nasty pile of poop, I’m actually being pleasant and easy to get along with. Yay for me. UNTIL. She’s going on and on and telling me about needing to see a Urologist which btw I’ve been down that path and got as far as the doc could take me. My bladder is being a bad little bladder. It doesn’t seem to like to get rid of all that extra liquid to the tune of a Coke bottle left over when I don’t FEEL like I have to pee anymore. ANYWAY, so I ask her about the leg issues and the chest pain.
Wait for it now…..
She gets PISSY with ME! Says I didn’t SAY anything about the chest pain and leg pain. Which umm, I distinctly remember mentioning when I made the appointment and again during the course of our conversation which obviously she wasn’t listening to since she was furiously writing notes about seeing a Urologist. So now Ms. Pissy as I shall call her runs off to get her nurse to administer an EKG with that look that says “OMG I cannot believe YOU, you KNOW this is a waste of my time.” Enter said nurse with machine and little paper shirt, which I might add, I loathe.
So yes, I laid there half naked since a paper shirt does NOT constitute clothing in ANY universe and subjected myself to said EKG. Ms. Pissy makes her entrance upon completion of this procedure and in what I have to give her credit for pulling off well, a very alarmed reaction that the EKG was “abnormal and troubling.” It’s NOW of course that she decides to pull out her trusty stethoscope and actually take a little listen to what might be going on in there. Things are starting to get convoluted now, even for me which is saying something.
Turns out, “it’s not supposed to sound like that.” DUR. Mhm, just DUR. So now, urologist forgotten for the moment it’s the Cardiologists turn to take the spotlight. I’m given a little piece of paper that says to go to the imaging center for a chest x-ray immediately. Forgive me for being confused, but as I’m ushered out of the little room thankfully minus the paper shirt and back in my husbands hi-jacked tee-shirt, I’m really not sure what’s going on or what to do next. I stop and ask someone who seems to be just as confused as I am and she says to go to the imaging center for x-rays. Again. DUR. I ask of course, being a concerned patient, what to do after that since there has been some rather intense discussion about urologists and cardiologists including the words “alarming” and “not supposed to sound like that.” What then? She says? We’ll call you. Ooooookay then.
This is where the cell phone rant to my husband actually took place. Yes, he’s a good man. He “Mhmmmm’ed” and “I agree’d” for about 29 of the 30 minutes I ranted until I pulled into the parking lot of the imaging center and released him from rant recipient to stalk across the parking lot probably muttering things I don’t remember under my breath. Yes, it’s pissy, but it didn’t help that Ms. X-Ray technician asked me when my “beerrsday” was. My what? OH you mean the date I was given life on this now utterly confusing and frustrating planet? Yes, that would be the day. -headdesk-
At least the shirt this time was actually something you could at a stretch call fabric. Pretty blue too. The whole thing was completely painless and I when I asked what I was supposed to do now, hoping that some miraculously aware person had just fallen from the sky who could make all this make sense in a magical way. Ms. “Beerrsday” looked bumfuzzled but a disembodied voice from beyond says the results will be given to Ms. Pissy aka the PA today. Finally!
So, somewhat mollified now, I take to my favorite pasttime. Hope to nap away the time until they call, phone on the pillow beside me. I wake hours later wondering if perhaps I’ve missed the call, slept through it perhaps. No. No missed calls. Okay, it’s only 3:00 pm so there is time. I decide to call at 4:00 if I haven’t heard anything by then. 4:11 I dial the number and the receptionist, equally clueless quickly forwards me to the nurses voicemail.
God…if you’re listening, forgive me. I didn’t intend to lose my patience and get pissy with the voice mail machine, I swear it!
It’s now 5:43. You know what that means. My message lies in the dark bowels of physician office forgetfulness of anything that transpires AFTER the magical 4:00 hour. In the meanwhile, I’m hurting, feeling a lot like a convoy of trucks that might well have been led by Smoky of “Smoky and the Bandit” fame behind the wheel. I’m tired, miss my Ritalin and Adderal, HATE taking sulfa drugs btw, and just KNOW they’re going to take me OFF the Cymbalta since apparently the ER tests showed elevated liver enzymes indicative of liver disease which is a common side effect of this miracle drug that allows me to go hours at a time without blubbering uncontrollably.
If I was Secretariat, they’d have shot me by now.
I just want to FEEL good is that too much to ask???????
