wildcelticrose.net

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Today was an “interesting” day.

I set my alarm for 5:00AM on the off chance that would actually get some sleep last night and not wake up coughing my head off.

I had already emailed work to let them know that I was hoping to come in and leave early for a doctor’s appointment which I made for 11:45 this morning.

Of course, I didn’t sleep, (unless you count the odd hour or less increments between coughing fits), propped up on lots of pillows in an effort not to choke on my own snot, as I kept having to get up, neti-pot, do a steam treatment, gargle with salt water, take more cough stuff, etc…

One of my nice stainless steel stock pots has a steam vent in the lid which works perfectly for inhaling steam infused with essential oils.

I did get up at 5:00, long enough to email in and say it wasn’t going to happen today. After 4 nights of not sleeping, I honestly didn’t feel safe trying to drive.

I went back to bed, and slept in hour increments until about 10:00 AM, which was the most sleep I’ve had in several days.

By the time I got up and moving I had to leave for my doctor’s appointment; I managed to down a few bites of crispy bits, but never had my morning latte.

I wasn’t told anything I didn’t know, but got a prescription for some cough syrup with codeine (a pharmacist laughed at me yesterday when I asked him for advice on an OTC cough syrup, he told me, “I have all the stuff that actually works back here.”) and unfortunately, a Z-Pack (five days of zithromax) to take because my snot was turning fluorescent yellow. Luckily, this is all “above the neck” (the big joke, “all in my head”) and my lungs are clear. I’ve been very lucky to not have this kind of thing go into my lungs since I was a kid.

I guess I’m going to have to suck it up and have an ENT specialist look at me and see why I keep getting sinus infections, this crap has got to STOP.

The pharmacy was of course, packed with sick people and I had about a 20 minute wait to spend the last of my money until payday on Friday on the co-pays. I was getting headachey and dizzy from being hungry, but it didn’t make sense to try to go do something else and then go back, especially not feeling well.

When I went back out to my truck, it didn’t want to start. I knew I needed to get a new battery when it almost didn’t start up in the North Cascades, I just forgot to do it. The truck is 8 years old and so is the battery, the fact that it lasted this long is amazing. I tried and tired until there was no point and I called the roadside assistance program through Verizon Wireless. Of course, it was great fun to try to get the woman to understand my laryngitis riddled voice. She said it would be approximately a 1:05 hour wait.

That was when I was ready to cry, I was sick, hungry, sleep deprived, had a headache and already waited a long time in the pharmacy. I knew that none of the blue haired little old ladies were going to help me jump start my truck (I have cables) so I sat there with my hood propped up while no-one ever thought to ask if I needed help. Oh well.

Luckily, it only took about half an hour for the guy to arrive and about one minute to jump the truck.

The truck is now parked until I can get it in for a new battery on Friday. Hopefully, I can get someone to come jump start it if it doesn’t start up for me.

And now, I’m going to go to bed and hope that I get some decent sleep. It’s been a long time.

~L

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~

After not hearing from my mother since she yelled at me last Thursday night on the phone (and then took it off the hook) I got worried that she could be laying on the floor after taking (yet another) fall dying of dehydration and internal bleeding.

If she chooses to take her own life, that’s one thing, but the thought of her dying a horrible death (which appears to be in her future if she doesn’t change) like that is not something I could live with.

No one had seen her for over a week.

Her mail was still piled up on the porch railing (her neighbor puts it where she can reach it from the back door so that she does not have to go down the steps to go to the mailbox.)

I had to try.

I called the police last night to have them do another welfare check.

She was still alive, refused to come to the door and told them to go away.

They told her that I was worried and that she should call me.

She did not call me, and the phone is still off the hook.

I called the phone company this morning and they tested the line for me.

The phone is off the hook.

I called Adult Protective Services and filed a report.

The told me the same thing that the police did, they can’t force her to accept help.

If she appears “OK” (she’s not OK-that, along with the filth and clutter she lives in is why she won’t come to the door) they can’t force entry or make her do anything because she is an adult in her “right mind”.

I know that if I go down there, she won’t open the door for me either.

She’s afraid that she’ll be put in a home and she doesn’t want anyone in her house helping her.

I just don’t have words.

This will probably be the last you hear from me on this, as it’s depressing and going nowhere.

We all know where this will end; she’ll finally be found dead, and it won’t have been an easy or peaceful death.

Perhaps then, she will find the peace that she never found in life.

~L

Mood: sad

~

~

My mother is pissed at her neighbors, pissed at her friends and pissed at me over the police being called.

They can not legally force entry.

She has had the phone off the hook all day (and who knows, maybe all night)

I appreciate all the suggestions of calling different agencies, it’s been done.

She is a master manipulator and a bald faced lair.

I found out yesterday from her neighbor that when she had the severe edema (swelling for those not up on medical terminology) it was all the way up to her waist (why her heart didn’t stop completely I don’t know) She told the doctor that is “just happened a day or so ago” and never let them see how far up it was.

She knew she was diabetic, and she’d go on crazy crash diets to get her blood sugar down just before her appointments so that her blood sugar would test out OK.

She has a mass on her kidney that she refuses to have looked at (she’s had cancer twice and doesn’t want to go through that kind of treatment again)

She was working in a law office up until she finally went in for surgery.

She is as sharp as a tack, knows that she can not be declared unable to care for or make decisions for herself and that there is no implied consent. (and did I mention that she’s a charmer and manipulative?)

Shes’ not stupid and has brought every bit of this on herself by refusing to take her medications (I begged and pleaded with her to take her blood pressure medication when I was in my 20s as a paramedic telling her how people who don’t have strokes and end up in extended care facilities having their diapers changes and being fed through a tube in their nose)

The only reason she agreed to the surgery earlier this year is because she hoped she’d die on the operating table (she told this to both me and her surgeon)

She won’t go to the doctor or let anyone in to her home because she KNOWS that she will not be allowed to live alone in her filthy (she’s a hoarder) mobile home. She doesn’t want anyone in there and doesn’t want to be put in a home.

I’ve dropped everything and flown/drove out there more times that I can count only to have her return to her self destructive lifestyle. (which is a lot more than should be expected given the abuse I put up with as a child)

I’m not doing it any more.

I can’t make her want to live.

I can’t make her take care of herself.

I can try to not let it make me physically ill again (trust me, this brings back a lot of my childhood/abuse issues) and not end up like her. (and I’m most certainly not going down there, break into her house and potentially have a criminal record that will lose me my job)

Unless she suddenly decides that she has something to live for (not likely) I expect that she will be dead (either intentionally or unintentionally) by this time next week.

It’s what she wants.

~L

Mood: resigned

~

~

I have to get this off my chest or explode. (or worse, make myself sick again)

At the beginning of this year my mother’s many years of depression, alcohol abuse, refusal to eat properly, exercise or take her meds, as well as her constant deception/manipulation caught up with her.

She could no longer lie to her doctor (and everyone else) and hide how severe her edema and diabetes was (she almost lost her leg and her life to septic shock) she was admitted to the hospital, went through a risky bypass surgery to try to save her leg and then had to spend some time in a convalescent facility.

The lying, manipulation and frustration during this whole episode brought back a lot of childhood issues. (gross understatement)

I don’t believe in playing the victim card. In the end, we are the ones responsible for what kind of person we choose to become in life. But growing up in an abusive, alcoholic household makes it a challenge. To say that it doesn’t affect us, that it didn’t affect me and my ability to trust and have healthy relationships would be disingenuous; heck, it would be a bald faced lie.

I don’t know what it’s like to have a parent that I could trust not to hurt me, or to not even lie to me. It’s difficult to know that you can not/have never been able to trust your own mother.

I’ve chosen not to be bitter; I’ve chosen to be the best daughter I can and not to hurt my mother by being angry towards her about it or to shut her out of my life. There is no reason to hurt her more than she’s already been hurt. (she was a victim as well; she didn’t intend to cause me harm)

But the being lied to again did bring things back.

I allowed the stress of this situation, as well as the past trauma it brought up to make me stressed, sleep deprived and as a result, very sick (I bonked on the Chilly Hilly bike ride with a heart rate of 215)

During this time, in addition to saving her leg and stopping the infection raging through her body they managed to reverse most of the congestive heart failure and get her diabetes (both of which she denied having) under control.

When she finally got out, she swore that she would do her physical therapy, exercise/walk, take her medications, go to her doctor’s appointments and eat properly.

She swore she was a “changed woman” because she “never wants to go through that again.”

She was lying.

She was lying to me, her doctors, her friends and most of all herself.

Am I surprised?

No.

Am I disappointed?

Hell Yes!

People in my family live long productive lives, when they choose to do so.

None of this was about genetics, it was all about her abusing herself.

Heck, I met Sister Madonna at the Moses Lake Olympic Triathlon. She is the same age as my mother (79) and is an Ironman.

I don’t expect my mother to do something that extreme, but it is an example that age doesn’t matter and that a person can overcome just about anything if they choose to.

I would think that this near death and traumatic experience might convince her to take her medication and take a walk (in her very safe community with other people)

People can do amazing things with their lives if they choose.

Or they can piss them away.

As I type this, my mother is holed up in her mobile home refusing to answer the door, even when the police (who were called by her former boss/long time friend to do a welfare check because they couldn’t get a hold of her her two days after she had fallen and was taking a lot of pain medication) banged on it for a good long time.

She’s pissed at her neighbor, and pissed at me because she thinks I called her former boss (he was the one who contacted me today) after she forbade me from contacting him after she was released from the hospital months ago.

She’s been falling and injuring herself again, adjusting her own medications (not taking what she should, and taking things not currently prescribed), not doing her physical therapy or exercising and hasn’t been going to the doctor. She promised to call him on Monday after she told me about her latest fall, but has yet to do so because she “hasn’t had time”-she’s just been taking lots of pain meds.

Sadly, the police can’t force entry unless they see her on the floor, and she’s got the place sealed up too tightly for that. I guess they’ll have to wait for the day that the neighbors complain about the rotting stench of her corpse. (yes, it’s crass, but it’s the way it is)

She’s pissed at her neighbor and Ed for calling the police and for banging on her doors and window (in the middle of the day when most people who aren’t drugged out are awake)

I’ve been telling her over and over that she’s going to fall and die a slow painful death in there and that if she continues this way that social services will become involved and she might get taken away and put in a home. (I was pretty sure that threat would go nowhere because she knows that if she’s in her right mind there is no implied consent-never try to bluff someone that has worked in the legal field, especially not one who is a master manipulator)

She also went off on me at the thought that I might call her doctor to tell him what’s going on since she hasn’t even though she promised to do so. (she’d just lie to him like she always has anyway)

She’s made it very clear that she’s the “adult” and I’m not to call anyone.

Uh… yeah… right…

I can’t make her take care of herself and I can’t do anything to change her living arrangements (she should NOT be living alone and knows it) not even legally at this point.

I’m determined not to let this make me sick again or to let anyone guilt me.

No one needs to respond too this, I just needed to get it off my chest.

~L

Mood: Resigned

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Today was the day.

It was the day of my “big bonk”.

Luckily, said “big bonk” did not result in my ending up being medivaced off of the island. (and it very well could have)

Today was the “Chilly Hilly” bike ride. 33 miles of hilly, island riding (including a ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island from Seattle) in what is usually, crappy weather.

Here is the satelite data downloaded from my Garmin. (only half of the ride which I will explain later in the post)

If you are viewing this via LiveJournal or RSS feed where the map and track don’t show correctly, just click on the link that says “view larger map”.

View Larger Map

I haven’t slept a full night in longer than I can remember, due to job and mom stress. I’ve been sleeping better the last couple of nights (sans pharmaceuticals), but nothing close to 8 hours.

In addition to the weeks and weeks of stress from every directions, we had a warm up in weather and the trees are tying to kill us (specifically, Birch and Cedar are spewing pollen) and I’ve had horrible sinus headaches that have progressed to migraines.

When you have migraines, you really can’t eat, because even the thought of food makes you want to vomit.

So setting up the story, we have weeks and weeks of nearly unbearable stress, no sleep topped off by three days of not being able to eat.

Yeah, that’s a recipe for disaster….

But I actually felt human when I woke up this morning, so the icky boy and I headed up to Seattle to catch the ferry.

I’ve lived here 10 ½ years and have never been on a Washington State Ferry. I’ve been on Canadian ferries (Eh?) to go back and fourth to Victoria BC, but never a Washington State ferry.

Today was the day; we boarded the MV Tacoma (how cool is that,my first WA state ferry is named after the town I live in?) and headed out to the island with thousands of our closest friends. (you can tell by the bags under my eyes that I’m sick, I just didn’t bother to look this morning; I had no business doing this ride)

We hit the first ferry run (because that’s just what you “do” on this ride) and were greeted by rain (again) when we pulled in to Eagle Harbor on the island.

We met my triathlon buddy Gene and his friend’s nephew on the boat

as well as Michael from the Tacoma REI store

We had to deal with crowds and poor (and non-existent) cycling etiquette for the first few miles of the ride, but I was happy to hang back and let things thin out.

I was feeling pretty good during the first part of the ride.

About 1/3 of the way, I started getting dizzy from low blood sugar. We were about three miles from Battlefield Park where there was a food stop, and a baked potato (with lots of cheese) with my name on it.

I was dizzy to the point of not being able to stand when we got there, and I told Tom and Michael that I had to go sit down.

I snarfed my potato, got some cliff shot drink and ate a package and a half of cliff shots.

We ran into Leo doing his ride ref thing. (and stuffing his face with disgusting, pork like product)

He went over to give Tom (he’d seen his picture) crap and tell him that his girlfriend was “in custody” and “found in the bushes with a bottle of whisky and someone underage”. I think it came out more like, I was on a backboard, which kinda freaked him out (even though he’d seen me 2 minutes prior)

Tom got very concerned for about a second, then thought about it, looked at him, and said, “Oh, you must be Leo.”

We also ran into Claire.

I still didn’t feel quite right after the stop, but everyone was getting ready to leave.

I couldn’t get up the hill just out of the park.

That’s when I plopped my butt down next to a telephone pole and said, I can’t ride, I can’t even stand up, I’m done.

I told Tom to go finish the ride and he responded stubbornly (what a shock eh?) “I’m not leaving you when you don’t feel well.>

I actually called the “emergency number” on the ride map and took a ride in the SAG wagon. I convinced Tom to go finish the ride.

I sat in the park for about an hour (which is about how long it took me to get my heart rate down) waiting for him to finish. The sun actually peeked out which made it a pretty nice place to hang out.

I saw Gary finish (he didn’t get my text message when I was at the first rest stop) and chatted with him a bit (he was too fast to get a picture of) and then ran into Ric again.

We all hung out for a while and then hit the 2:05 ferry back to the mainland.

Tom and I went and sat in the hot tub, but I wasn’t up for staying for dinner (I did grab and eat a burrito on the way home)

I got home, loaded up my Garmin data and discovered that my heart rate was at 215 when I decided I had to stop (or risk crashing and hurting someone else) and took the ride back.

Holy Crap!!!

My Maximum heart rate (not adjusted for being an athlete) is supposed to be 173. I was running at almost 35 bmp above my max. which roughly translates to 124% of my max. (you’re only supposed to train to 90% and then for short times)

heart rate charts don’t even go up that high. (not even for youngins’)

I’m lucky I stopped when I did, or I might have been medivaced off the island or worse.

Stress, sleep deprivation, low blood sugar, wonky electrolytes = bad news on a hard ride.

I felt like a big weenie for calling for a SAG wagon.

Until I got home and saw my heart rate. Now I feel smart and lucky to be sitting here.

It was nice to ride the ferry, see friends and do the riding I did.

The rest of the picture are available here.

Or they can be viewed as a slide show here.

~L

Mood: really REALLY tired

~

I was hoping to get a swim in at lunch today, but that didn’t happen.

I spent all my break time on the phone trying to deal with “mom issues”. She may have neglected herself, made bad choices and put herself in the hospital; and I may have issues with her and my upbringing, but I will be DAMED to allow her to be scared and upset because the doctor in charge has not gone to see her in the convalescent facility (where she doesn’t have a phone she can call out on, they bring a cordless phone in if someone is lucky enough to get through to the nurses station to get the cordless phone taken in to her.) she does not know what is going on, and the staff thinks she is a “problem patient” because she wants answers is scared and upset.

Let it suffice to say that by the time I was done today: a doctor made a visit to her, she had all the information she needed (and should have had been given when she was admitted) and the staff was given a reality check by her regular physician’s office..

Do NOT piss off the redhead Scorpio!!!

Mind you, I did this by being kind, patient, pleading her case, asking people to empathize with her, and thus, making people want to help me help her, not by pissing them off. (oh, and being on hold and transferred for-frikkin-ever-I don’t even want to see my cell phone bill even with the extra minutes added to my plan.)

Oh and this all took place during an extremely busy and stressful day at work.

Oh,and I never ate lunch and started to feel sick.

Such is life.

I did the right thing.

My Mom feels better and is no longer scared, powerless and frustrated.

In the end, that’s what really matters.

In other news…

Some things work out better than expected…

I had a very encouraging fiddle practice tonight.

I’ve had a rocky start getting back into it. First, having to cancel a lesson because of flooding, then my teacher having to cancel, then me having to cancel because of all the stress with my Mom and other “stuff”. (oh, and then there’s that icky boy distracting me and taking up all my spare time)

I was pretty stressed by the time I made it to my lesson last night because I had spent every moment between my ten-hour work day at a high stress job and driving to the lesson dealing with my (rightfully) freaked out mother, and really wasn’t “on my game”.

I also didn’t practice over the weekend because I was taking a badly needed mental (and physical) health break out on the coast.

I was still doing better than the last time I had had a lesson because I was starting to relax and “get it” before everything went to crap and I had to drop it.

Tonight, I “found it”.

I found the music in my head.

I found the music in my heart.

As Deb (my totally awesome teacher) told me when I first contacted her.

It’s been there all along

Life is not a sprint-it’s a marathon.

It is certainly not a merry-go-round-it’s a roller coaster.

Some days it [life] gets in the way and some days it doesn’t. (and some days it does both)

I’ll say one thing; my life is never boring.

~L

Mood: Happy

~

Everything else (both at and outside of work) aside.

It was a weird day.

After multiple strange communications; voice mail, email, alerts I asked, “Is it a full moon?”

Sure enough, the full moon is tonight.

We got mooned. (in the most literal sense of the word)

The universe showed us her ass and wiggled it in our faces.

In other less than subtle references to butts, I froze my mine off today.

I’ve been pretty darn distracted over the last few weeks and wasn’t paying attention to the weather forecast.

It’s butt cold out.

I was wishing that I’d paid attention and worn long underwear, a hat and gloves on the train platform this afternoon.

It snowed today (not exactly where I live but around the sound) and it’s forecast to snow here in the wee hours of the morning. That should make for an interesting commute tomorrow.

I got home and realized that I’d forgotten to turn my heater on after I turned it off to use the microwave this morning.

Yeah baby; a freezing apartment on a freezing day after a hard day and freezing my ass off. It doesn’t get much better than that. (uh… yeah… that was sarcasm)

I also realized that I had forgotten to take my Claratin (allgery meds) this morning (yes, some beastly plants are spewing pollen right now) oh, and my birth control pill which also helps with peri
menopause-there’s nothing quite like sleep deprivation, stress, allergies and stupid induced hormonal imbalance.

I ran some errands after work, picked up some nachos, came home and made a margarita (or two)

I am full of nachos and margaritas.

In a few minutes, I will take my Ambien, turn off my phone, take a bath and refuse to look at emails that reference things that make my angry/guilty/dysfunctional.

Something “snapped’ in me after the last lie. (which was so heinous it was sent to me via a third party)

Part of me died and part of me realized that I DO have to take care of myself if I want to be any good to anyone else.

If anyone thinks I’m an asshole for that.

Too damn bad; they have no bloody clue.

~L

Mood: Meh

~

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Life Goes On

It’s been an interesting last 24 hours.

But first, some serious comic relief, courtesy of Comedy Central and Popfiend on LiveJounral

COOKIE MONSTER (watch all the way though)

Back to “real life” (which is not as much fun)

I didn’t believe my mother when she said that she would be going into surgery on Saturday.

First, I don’t know of any hospitals that do anything but emergency surgery on a Saturday.

Second, She’s been so incredibly stoned on Morphine (which although she has a history of alcoholism was appropriate if not for pain due to her leg but to decrease the load on her heart)

Third, She’s a liar.

Is it any wonder that I have a difficult time trusting people?

I called the hospital yesterday and first her line was busy; then they told me she wasn’t on the 4th floor anymore.

She was (allegedly) downstairs in the CCU.

The CCU said she was in recovery.

I couldn’t get a hold of anyone in recovery.

After about an hour, and lots of transfers, I was able to find someone to tell me that she was IN surgery and was expected to be in the CCU (with or without a stop in recovery) in about two hours.

Someone was supposed to frikkin call me when the surgery was scheduled.

I was pissed.

Due to general stress, I only got about one hour’s sleep on Friday night.

I was pissed and didn’t feel well.

After a really bad trip to the store where I was cut in front of in line by rude people, blocked in every aisle by clueless people and rain into with a cart by an inattentive woman… seriously she hit me in the ass (for a brief moment, I wondered what would happen if I stood in the middle of the store and screamed) I got a call from the vascular surgeon.

She survived the surgery and the next three days (from yesterday/Saturday) are critical.

He did do it on a Saturday (did I mention that no one bothered to frikkin’ call me?) because he needed to do it as soon as the heparin was out of her blood stream so that she would clot (she was given that because she tried to signer herself out of the hospital on Monday before her friends and I leaned on her to have the surgery)

I let him know about the alcoholism (so that they could carefully wean her off of the morphine which is highly addictive)

I thanked him for what he’d done, and indicated concern that she did not want to get better and thought she was really hoping shed die on the operating table.

He said, “Well, that’s what she told me.” (at least she was honest with him)

At that very moment, I felt guilty for talking her into the surgery.

She doesn’t want to get better, she wants to placate everyone long enough to go home and die a painful death of self neglect.

This surgeon came in on a Saturday and spent time, energy and resources on a woman that doesn’t want to get well and won’t cooperate with recovery. (no way will she agree to a skilled nursing facility for rehab)

Put a fork in me, I’m done giving a shit.

You know what? I didn’t ask to be born.

I didn’t ask to be raised in an abusive alcoholic household.

I didn’t ask to be lied to my entire life.

Is it any wonder that I have relationship issues?

Is it any wonder that I don’t have the same feelings/relationship with my mother that “normal” people do and that I feel guilty for that? (and her friends probably think I’m a selfish little bitch)

Feh!

I called the CCU last night to get a status update.

She was alive, awake and charming the socks off of everyone.

They took a phone in there this morning so that I could take to her.

She sounds better than she did before the surgery.

I tried to convince her to just do what they tell her and she will get better (the surgeon had not yet talked to her so she hadn’t been informed that it “went well”)

I told her not to worry about open heart surgery as that was not on the table and that she’d be taking heart medication and might have one “outpatient” procedure. (not going into the defibrillator procedure with her now)

Of course, she focused on the negative and yelled, “They aren’t taking my foot! I won’t allow it!” (note this is not a senile woman, this is someone who is highly intelligent and was working as a paralegal up until she went into the hospital)

I explained that if she did what she was supposed to and healed up from this surgery that wouldn’t be an issue.

She said, “Well you didn’t say that was not on the table”.

“Mom; that’s because we were talking about your heart, not your leg.”

“Well no one told me that.”

“Well, you were unconscious at the time so they had to talk to me.”

I thought she might have decided to live.

I thought she might cooperate.

But then I got a message from her boss.

“Your mom called today and told me to tell you that there is nothing wrong with her heart.”

What a load of codswallup.

Oh wait, make that BULLSHIT.

The only doctor that was going to talk to her today (Sunday) was her vascular surgeon and I ‘m not even sure that he did (the poor guy deserves at least one day off) because he didn’t call me).

The cardiologist already told me what was up and her heart is most certainly NOT fine. She will need medication and a defibrillator implant.

So either my mother’s damaged heart (damaged by years of neglect and refusal to take care of herself/follow doctors orders) miraculously healed and her cardiologist made a Sunday visit because it was such a huge miracle.

Or my mother is (still) a manipulative lair.

I did not sign up for this shit.

In an effort to end this on a positive note, here’s a “Two Lumps” cartoon.

~L

Mood: Fed Up

~
I just got off the phone with my Mom.

I think everyone knows that this usually upsets me and why, so I just won’t go there. (if you’re half as tired of reading it as I am writing about it; that’s pretty bad)

It’s “just the facts” today.

I (and the cardiologist and vascular surgeon and her friends who I am in collusion with) have convinced her to have the leg surgery.

This is the bypass where they will pull an artery from somewhere else into the leg to bypass the blocked area (which couldn’t be opened with the catheter procedure) to try to get blood flow back to the foot/leg.

She still has no pulse in the foot/leg and if she does not do this, the foot and leg below the knee will die and she will either die of the sepsis or lose the leg up to the knee anyway.

There is a 20-30 percent chance that she will not survive this surgery. (I suspect that she’s hoping she doesn’t wake up and thinks this might be the easy way out)

Sadly, these are the best odds she has at this point.

The amputation would have a higher mortality rate. (she won’t allow it anyway)

Doing nothing has a 100% mortality rate (in addition to being a terrible and painful way to die)

She doesn’t yet know when the surgery will be scheduled, so I’ve asked that someone call me when it is.

If she comes through the surgery, she will have 5-7 days of recovery from that, and then will need to have a defibrillator implant put in.

The recovery time from the surgery (and likely only an extra day for the defibrillator), buys myself and her friends (one of whom used to work for Adult Social Services and is researching options for help at home, ramps showers, funding, etc…) some time to make arrangements for when she is released.

~L

~
Today was a better day.

Sadly, part of that is because I talked (in regards to my mother’s medical condition) only to the vascular surgeon who tried to open up circulation to her dying foot/leg via a catheter and to her cardiologist who confirmed what I believed, that she’s had congestive heart failure for several years. (never mind that all of this was preventable, unnecessary and entirely of her own doing by refusing to follow doctors orders, take care of herself or be honest with me, her friends or her doctor (who is not blameless in allowing things to get this bad) rather than to her.

I’m a mess for at least two hours after I talk to her; a depressed, dysfunctional messed up abused little girl who just wants to crawl into a fetal position on the couch and not talk to anyone about it (not even my best friend)

This whole thing with my mother has really left me feeling raw, stressed and damaged. (and if I don’t keep a grip on this whole childhood abuse trauma being dredged up, I’ll be talking to a counselor pretty quick because I don’t want to go down a bad road, screw up my job or drive away people that I love because I feel like a nut job right now.) *note, the (best) Icky Boy (ever) has been awesome through all of this, as have the few friends I will talk to about it. (my mom’s friends have been awesome as well)

Its has made me think (dangerous, I know)

There are two types of people in this world.

Fighters and Quitters.

Call them by any other name, but there are people who refuse to be limited by life circumstances, injuries, diagnoses, etc… and either beat the odds or do the best they can to make the most of what they have are fighters.

Then there are those who choose to be a victim, because fighting to make the best life they can out of what they have is just too damn hard, and it’s much easier to have people say “Oh poor baby.”

What a frikkin’ waste.

Life’s not fair and at one time or another, we all get dealt a raw deal and have a choice to deal with it or not.

But before I go off on that, let me tell you about some people who are nobody’s victim.

I was beaten in a half marathon last year by an amputee running on a prosthetic leg. (which pretty much makes my injury history look lame). I am cycled into the ground on a regular basis (at least once a week) by old men who have had heart attacks and I know people who have fought and beaten cancer against all odds. Not to took my own horn (especially now that I’m feeling so weak, messed up and damaged) but I ran my first marathon on the 5 year anniversary of learning how to walk again after an accident that fractured my spine and pelivs.

In both the Danskin and Subaru US Women’s triathlons, and on dragon boat teams, I see women compete who are cancer survivors and in some cases still undergoing treatment.

There are those who simply get up every morning and try to make the world a better place though small, uncelebrated actions and who even use their tragedy to help others cope.

If you or someone you know is feeling sorry for yourself because of the hand you’ve been dealt, here is a little bit of inspiration for you.

As I’ve alluded to (not too subtly) before, I was raised by a victim and was raised to be a victim (and it really screwed me up).

I’ve spent my entire life trying to overcome that.

Once I “thought” I was no longer a victim myself, I wasted time, energy and countless years of my life falling for every sucker story and helping enabling other victims to my own detriment.

I’ve got a pretty frikkin’ low tolerance for perpetual victims at this point.

This is not to say that people don’t come across hard times, get a crap deal and have a right to feel sorry for themselves…

But once that’s over (heck have yourself a pity party), for gosh sakes people, find your testicles/ovaries and man/woman up and put on your big boy pants/big girl panties and DO something about it!

We are all given the same thing, a lifetime.

We should all make the most of it in whatever little way we can.

~L

Mood: contemplative