January 30, 2015

All of my bragging regarding sleep came to a brutal halt last night when I was unable to recreate anything which might have been explained as “sleep” or “sleep-like” behavior.  In fact, my mind was doing similar things with imagined geometric shapes that I'd paid a pretty penny for similar effects from the “tablets” of my day, in the 80s…without any success.  I remember thinking up mathematical word problems, all sorts of interesting designs…but not one ounce of “tire” could be found.  

In the morning, I awoke to make sure the boy was up (he was), then relaxed for a few minutes until it was time to take him to school. Humph.  “Relaxed.”    After a week of sleeping, the concept seems silly, but I was very surprised for what the day held in store for me, despite tasks being “so simple.”  As soon as I dropped him off, I headed back to sleep.  I slept for several more hours.  Later in the day, I had my first meeting with my client as I hadn’t wanted to cancel for this child.  The hour would involve sitting on the floor and doing things like drawing and talking, so, foolishly,  I wasn’t concerned.

I got a text from Larry asking if I could also pick up Maggie due to a crisis, so I picked up the kids and headed to my site.  The mother and the child were there, shortly after I got there.  Initially the sweats and heat came again (I breathed and kept on), then I felt woozy (a technical term) and though the session  flowed easily and naturally (for which I was very grateful), I was also exhausted afterwards.  Towards the end of the session, it was if little tiny dudes were trying to pull my eyelids down!  Still, frequent sips of water, deep breathing and intense focus on our conversation was very helpful.  It was like a chess game.  I continue to be amazed at what we take for-granted – the simplicity of a conversation with a child, for example. Something as simple as this was almost too much.  I heard a story from a coworker how she was in the hospital for a week for the same thing.  I guess I shouldn’t feel so guilty for my weakness, but it has been quite some time since I’ve been this helpless.  On the way to and from the therapy session, I listened to some Winwood/Traffic , sent to me be Shari, and discovered I do have a bias:  I’m not crazy about a flute in a rock song. 

Got home and the Tribe was present.  I needed to finished some paperwork, then Mags and I went to the grocery store for milk and eggs (she went in, I was the driver).  On this part, I have to (sarcastically) comment on how damn proud I am of my kids that they can do things I did as a 7 year old (or younger) during a much more ignorant and dangerous society.  Mind you, I am speaking only for me and what I have experienced as a child, but the “bubble-wrapping” of our kids is ridiculous (again, in my opinion).    I am GLAD I let Maggie have a lemonade stand (despite pedophiles), I am GLAD I allow Ethan to ride around Placerville on his bike.  They are KIDS, this is what they SHOULD be doing.  Stranger abduction is minimal and I have had MANY a talk with my kids that a pedophile would much more likely be a favorite dad of a friend than a stranger.  I talk about this topic frequently with my kids (as you can well imagine) and I feel they are as prepared as they can be.  I shall not steal their childhood for fear that they will be abducted.  You cannot live in the shadows.

And now, after my little rant, I am back in my bed, where I shall spend the weekend.  It has been one hell of a week, but we move onwards, cyst-less, and a ridiculously small amount more stronger.  On a dark side, I was heartbroken today when I discovered my sheets and sweats did not get the terrific laundry scent Ethan's got he he did his laundry yesterday.  All day long I was looking eagerly toward the moment of Great Smell, only to be let down harshly, like bedsheets without that great smell.  It seems he used too much detergent, but I am not willing to go down the path of Over Usage for the results.  Sometimes, the program works too damn well.  On a bright side, I finally got into the book The Tiger’s Wife early this morning around 3.  It’s the little things….

Pictures:  The feathers from my pillow flowing too freely.  After 13 years (I know, I know!don't throw up), I replaced mine today; A yucca cactus seed from West Texas; Mabi watched the animals of Zanzibar with much excitement. 

January 29, 2014

I gave my son the simple task of cleaning the kitchen..I thought.  After an hour of next-to-no-noise, I  went in to check. He had taken ALL of the mess on the counter and transferred it to the kitchen table – he was “checking through important stuff”…like the sim cards he had found.  Another hour later, I checked in again – only to see a cleaned counter but the microwave, Kitchen-Aid, coffee machine all in a different spot so he could scrub that counter.  This kid has taking the word “clean” to the extreme.  <smile>  Something I appreciated very much.  

I slept more today than any day I’ve been in bed which, if you’re keeping count, is quite a few.  How my body is resting so much is beyond me, but it has been doing an exceptional job.  I feel I must have slept almost 13 hours straight, plus a few on either end of that 13.  This morning, Ethan was given explicit instructions on what was expected of him in turns of notifying me regarding his plans.  I have faith.

Somehow ~and holy mercy these roads are bumpy as hell ~ I made it directly to the doctor’s office, without have to look anything up.  I have never been here, still I simply turned into all the right areas and made all the right moves.  I guess I kinda know what Teddy Pendergrass felt like now.  As frustrating as this office can be <see later in post>, I love my nurse practitioner.  She is someone I would want to be friends with outside of work.  She checked me out – we’ll do another checkup in 2 weeks, and she also changed my pain medication to Tramadol.  I headed to Walmart, which is humanity’s ground-zero for  self-destruction, but not until I was able to witness a guy about my age drivin’ his mama around and singing at the top of his lungs that “you’re gonna hafta face it, you’re addicted to love” as he almost took out 2 smaller vehicles.  Sometimes, I just want to cry.  Then I realize I just spend 3 years of my life getting a dual master’s degree so I can be around these people all the time.  On purpose.

There was no record of my prescription being called in <shake my head from previous post>, so I went home.  There is no way I’m going to fight it.  At home, I left a message at the doctor’s office and went to sleep.  Soon my sweet boy called and asked if he could hang out with freinds – I said sure and gave him a time to be home…he was home 20 minutes before then.  He finished cleaning the kitchen for me – going to so much detail.  That kid has no idea how much he did for me.  He also insisted on looking for speakers for my car – the one caveat being we put them in together.  Well, duh!  We headed to pick up my medication, then grabbed some real food <well, it was fake, but it was different than soup and yogurt> and brought it home to eat.  We had a wonderful evening discussing Memories of Yesterday <which were helped tremendously by Shari’s CRB CD>  and Dreams of Tomorrow.  I will readily admit to these children and everyone else that I believe I have brainwashed them about Europe, but I really do think it will be the experience of as lifetime and will give them an incredible perspective they cannot get here in El Dorado County.

Home to …my bed.  I received a phone call from Clare  - who is a kindred spirit, I believe.  We talked about many things and it was nice to have a conversation again.  Real (fake) food and conversation make me believe I’ll be better soon.  If only I could stop that my-uterus-is-falling-out-of-my-body feeling, but I guess that’s what antibiotics are for.  Tomorrow I bring my boy back to school.  We were supposed to get caught up on his homework while he was here this week, but I haven’t been able to focus on anything other than the back of my eyelids, so that’ll be this weekend’s fun plans.    He had an exceptional time and has even mentioned volunteering there on weekends.  That is music to my ears.

Pictures:  The canisters from my nurse practitioner's office; Teddy Pendergrass performing "Close the Door", 1978, Sony Music Entertainment; My NP brought me "my results" from Sunday night; A boy and his dog are reunited...after about an hour. 

January 28, 2015

My  head pounds like two cannonballs in a high-speed dryer when I take those pain meds, so I’m laying off for a bit to see if there are worth it.  I do appreciate a clear head.  Boy’s alarm failed to go off, so I got him up – he is much further along in successful-alarm-setting skills than girl-child.  I called and left a message with my doctor’s office twice, as no one would answer.  I get a text from PG&E later saying there are phone line issues.  Okay???  Later, I managed to catch the doctor's office's return call and set an appointment with my nurse practitioner for 1:45 tomorrow.  I’m really looking forward to this appointment.

Slept, woke, up from pain, slept, woke up from pain.  It’s really six of one, half-a-dozen the other.  Either way, I’m going to hurt.  A special delivery was being made today, so I wrote a note to UPS about it taking longer than normal to get to the door, but that I was there.  Grabbed a piece of tape and…saw the package laying on a chair outside my house.  My new next-7-years laptop.  This Dell has done me good, so I bought another one with a no-glare screen and back-lit keys.  This is the one extravagant item I’m buying. 

My daughter called as soon as she got out from school on her dad’s phone.  She was crying last night and said she missed me so much.   We talked a bit and then hung up.  I called Ethan’s internship and he had just left – so I should be seeing him soon.  It’s difficult to read much – makes my head ache worse – so I slept more.  An hour later Ethan still wasn’t home and now I was mad.  That boy knows to let me know before he goes to a friend’s house – which is what I assumed he’d done.  Yet, just as the fire was starting to seep from my ears, I heard him pull in.  He’d ridden around Main Street.  Still – I made it very clear that he needs to let me know these things before.  “I don’t have a cell phone!”  <that old trick>  “Use the Bike Shop’s phone and call me….”

We ended up cooking dinner somewhat together.  He wanted to experiment and I needed to make chicken tortilla soup from one of my dad’s handwritten recipes.  I lasted about 15-20 minutes before I was ready to fall down either from pain or fainting, so into my bedroom  to wait as it simmered.  Ethan’s cooking Mount Everest has been to make a good meatball.  I’m not sure why he can’t, but I’ll show him how once I get my sea legs back.  He ended up making a large mound of seasoned organic meat.  I slurped on delicious made-from scratch chicken tortilla soup with frozen LB corn tortillas.  Thanks, Papi.  After we ate dinner together on my bed, he showed me speakers we could get for my car to install ourselves using YouTube magic.  I love learning new things like this with my kids.  Lord knows I have enough tools....

I’m scared about a few things.  I’m scared about this whatever-I-Have, because it isn’t going away, despite my half-an-hour iv antibiotic and now day 4 of oral antibiotics.  It still hurts to high hell.  I am also worried about my mom skills…that my boy right now is in there, cleaning the kitchen for me (with an added incentive, of course), but how he struggles in school.  I worry about my girl, finding her path.  She has so much in her, but just doesn’t see it.  But mostly, most honestly anyway, I’m scared about me.  I hurt and it could be so many things.

Pictures:  The sunlight forcing it's way into my darkened room; A hand-written recipe from my father for tonight's dinner...

January 27, 2015

Kept waking up in pain last night, but I didn’t want to take 2 Norco since I had to take Mags to school early for a field trip.  Got her up at 7 when I realized her alarm hadn’t gone off.  This is something I need to work on with my kids: alarm clocks.  I have utterly failed in teaching my kids independence when it comes to waking at a prescribed time.  The trip to school was ok, but oooohhhhh, the trip back was a revisit to the pharmacy yesterday,  I suddenly tasted a sicken sweetness in my mouth which alerted me to the fact that I’d either need to pull over or get a bin of some sort for a possible re-visiting of…water.  I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon.  Fortunately, again, focusing on things other than the fact I felt I was going to be sick helped me avoid actually getting sick.  By the time I got home I felt much better and slid into bed.

I was dozing when my sweet boy came into say goodbye.  He was riding off to his internship and I was so excited about what he might learn.  I clutched his hand in mine, told him I love him, and off he went.  So grateful he is doing his internship there.

I slept, off and on, for the next few hours.  My head is hurting and I’m not sure if that’s a result of medication or not.  Actually, my whole body is hurting…and when Swerner called after work to see how I was doing, she suggested setting my alarm to go off every 6 hours so I would know when to take the next pain meds. Brilliant idea. I’ve  only had 5 tablets in 36 hours, which is a under the recommended dosage.   We talked about work a bit.  We are both amazed to be working with individuals who seemingly do a little to nothing, yet are not fired.  I almost said something to one of the ladies the other day – grateful for quick filter installation.  Such a waste of money, but then, welcome to education in America.

It was 3 o’clock and I knew  Ethan should have been home in the last hour – and quite uncharacteristically of me, I kept seeing sheriff deputies in my head, saying, “We’re doing everything we can,” so I called the shop and he was still there… <happy smile>.  I said, ok, that’s all I needed to know and I’d see him when he got home.  Thirty minutes later, he came in and told me about his day – putting bikes together, mending flats, pumping up tires.  It’s not much, yet I’m so thrilled. 

Tried watching Parks & recreation, after 15 minutes I decided to try Orange is the New Black.  Second episode in, but I feel like hell and would rather sleep.   These days aren’t much other than hurting, feeling nauseous, horrible headaches and feeling sorry for myself.    The kitchen isn’t cleaning itself but I hurt too much to clean it, yet the Norco makes me too groggy to accomplish much of anything.  I think I’ll forgo the next dose and see if that makes it any better.  I know it won’t pain-wise, but at least I can think clearly.

Pictures: My view since Saturday morning;  Maggie asked me yesterday if she could have the aboriginal art piece  when I died.  "not to be rude..."  I smiled.  Absolutely, I told her.  It is a cool piece - my ex-mil bought it from indigenous people in Australia.  It's unique because it also shows faces - not often done - instead of designs.