I have chemically induced amnesia. It’s apparent in most of my posts that I dare stay awake after popping my pill for the night, that I am under the influence of something, but this medicine seems to have no mercy. No matter how long one has been on this medicine, it induces amnesia, there is no building up a tolerance, and the amnesia comes at irregular intervals.
Last night’s entry is the perfect example of that.
Part of me wishes that I had spent that time working on my new Theme because that was a fairly frustration for me. I’m trying to make a theme that matched my old MoveableType layout, but so far I have had no luck.
I also, apparently, ate a bag of potato chips and have no recollection of doing so. The positive side? I don’t have any guilt in inhaling a bag of potato chips, simply because I don’t remember doing so!
I’m planning on seeing my doctor at 4:30pm today. Happy thoughts for me? Warm thoughts? Prayers? I want to be healthy for a change!
It’s the second day of spring, but outside it could pass for late November to late December. Shades of gray, dirty white gray skies, bare trees, dead grass. There are sprigs of green all over the neighborhood, but I’m a little more into my own personal little trip than what is going on outside.
I have a cold of some kind. Sore throat, endless snot, something stuck between my nose and throat. Generally miserable, but refused antibiotics. The heat is cranked up to the triple digits here, but not by my doing. I have a horrible stomach ache, but I refuse to eat food or drink cough syrup, for fear that I may hurt Little One. We’re so close. So close. No narcotics these last few days. No alcohol. I think I got drunk in August, but that was an accident. Accidents are struck against you in pregnancy.
Two of my male students have come up to me in the past few days and asked me if I could help them out over spring break. I gave them the news that I was not coming back until the fall, so it’s best that they go bother Carl. That’s what I label students these days: Bothers. Work is a chore that I frantically search my mind every morning to find a way out.
Last week I was put on Seroquel XR at 300 mg to help me “feel better.” All it has succeeded in doing was making me not so sensitive to the assholes online who poke me with sticks, in hopes that I will engage in a flame war over something that ten years from now, no one will give two shits about. I certainly don’t give two shits about it today, but I felt that I should be able to voice my own opinion about it and just go on. Unfortunately there are people out there that cannot go on. They poke and prod others until flame wars break out, and I just refuse to tango this time around. I wonder if it’s as fun for them, with their single-sided fight? Probably.
I’m happy to be away from the knee-jerk, “OMG! GOTTA REPLY TO THIS ASSHOLE!” on the web way of thinking. In that manner, Seroquel XR has freed me from my own stubbornness, but not from my own self-loathing that comes with my personality.
Take me for who I am or leave me for who I am not and will not be. It doesn’t really matter to me at the moment. I have a baby due on Monday. I can’t care too much for what the world thinks of me, or how badly the world tries to change me. I know that I am not breaking any rules, even though I refuse to teeter on the line of “Super cautious” because it’s just safer that way. I like where I’m at. I think I’ll stay here a while and see where it leads me to. Hope all is well with all of you out there in internet land. 
Smile. Leave a comment. I insist!
According to my health chart, my (asshole!) doctor, and other resources, I have exactly one more week of pregnancy left. The idea of a vaginal birth scares me to death, especially since I’ve read up in medical texts that the vagina is least likely to go back to its original, pre-birth size afterwards. I feel as though that particular change won’t settle easy. I know, I know, it’s really shallow for a man to leave his wife because her pussy’s too big, and while I’ll be the first to admit that Dennis is large, I have a bad feeling about the whole post-birth situation. That and I know it’s going to hurt like hell. Stretching to the point of tearing, stitches in the vagina. Not really something I want to go through.
It gets a little crazier than that, though.
We want to do it again. Six kids. That’s our goal. Six. Years ago, you couldn’t budge me to do one, never mind six. But we talked it over, and we want to have one more, and then stop completely. Oh goodie. I get to do this all over again!
Chloe is having a fit because she doesn’t want a little sister. She wants to be the only girl. Maybe she will get her wish? 
My doctor did lay down some harsh words to me the other day: “I hope you’re not expecting this child to live much longer after birth.” He has this crazy prediction that Little One is going to die within minutes of birth. He even gave me abortion pilled last Monday, and told me to be sure and have taken them by Thursday, because he was going to check. What kind of idiot makes that big of a medical malpractice mistake? If Little One were born on Thursday, they could have lived. They are capable of living outside the womb, so abortion at this point would be murder. But my doctor actually gave me a hard time over the lack of narcotics, opioids and the abortion pills, at Thursday’s appointment.
This week is Spring Break for the University. I am going to use much of the spring break to catch up on my writing. My goal is to have Book #20 finished before Little One is born. I want Book #21 to be about Little One’s birth, bringing them home, naming, and the first couple of months recorded. I’m sup-titling it “A Baby Story.” Here’s hoping that Little One’s story is a happy and joyous. My doctor insists that Little One isn’t going to live long after birth, but I hope he’s wrong. I have grown attached to Little One since they are showing reactions to the environment. When people yell or scream, Little One jumps away. When people laugh or sing, Little One tends to be joyous. Little One responds to her father’s voice, my voice, our touch, and has actually shown sleep patterns that are like our own. Little One recognises her father singing, her mother humming, and her older sister complaining about homework. Little One may not be born yet, but they are a full part of the family now.
My doctor never told me that one of his concerns would be the radiation, narcotics and opioids that Little One was exposed to, being a concern for the baby. No, his “worries” were because I was pregnant, I couldn’t, legally, be subjected to his surgery. I really don’t care these days, except I would like to have a constant physician in my life.
I was told that we might go somewhere for spring break, but I’m not sure about that, now. I’m not officially going back to work until the end of August. Here’s hoping that I don’t get lazy and want to stay away forever. 
)
Oh, and I joined this site. Don’t know what the craze is, but add me and all that good shit. D
Moments of Despair
Today I am completely exhausted. It started with just looking at my schedule coming up, and the adventure I had yesterday in tracking down an AT&T store to replace my iPhone earbuds. For some reason the left side of my earbuds always dies. I think it’s because I fall asleep wearing them all the time.
I finished my nineteenth book today. It’s going in the mail tomorrow for those who want to read it. There’s still time to get on the list, so let me know if you want to read it. After book twenty, there’s going to be some slight changes, such as larger books with more time progression in them. That means that you’ll get fewer books in the mail, but when you do get a book, it will be thicker, with better writing, more photos, and longer chapters.
One of the many times that I do my most writing is when I’m at the doctor’s office, in their waiting room, or when I am at treatment. I go into better details when I have one of my books than when I am sitting at the computer. The reason for that is I am used to writing about things as they are happening. When I’m sitting at a computer, to write, even after all these years, I still think that I am writing for someone such as a teacher or submitting an article. My brain just won’t wire a different way, and that really annoys me sometimes.
My schedule is littered with doctor appointments, a CT scan, treatment plan updates, more doctors, medication changes, more scans, and general annoyances that I would give anything to be away from. My doctor is mad at me for getting sicker. My depression doesn’t seem to be improving, even though my therapist suggests otherwise. I just don’t feel better, emotionally. I have to push myself to do the littlest things, such as make my bed and change the sheets, take my medications and check my vitals. The University has asked me to get a better grip on the schedule and get the students to do more assignments. I wish I could just ask them to read more chapters in their text books, but then I would have to give quizzes on the content, and I don’t want to dig through text books every night, mostly because I am so damned sleepy all of a sudden.
I go in for my CT scan on March 11th. The oncologist will be looking for abnormal swelling in my brain due to the Gamma Knife procedure done on my tumors. I feel as though my skull has shrunk considerably. My vision is still blurred, and my eyes get tired after watching TV or reading for just a few minutes.
Why can’t I just be well? Why must I be subjected to being this damned sick all of the time? Why must my pain get so bad on some nights that I have to triple my pain medication? That I must cry and tell myself that it will pass? What if one day it doesn’t pass? What if one of my children should find me in that situation? They know I am sick, they just do not know just how sick that I truly am, as it is the one thing that I have kept from this my entire journey.
I will continue to fight. This is my fight, my battle, and it’s the one war that I will win. Against all odds, I will beat this, and then life will return to normal. I won’t have to wear a mask and pretend that my life is normal, I won’t have that nagging worry that something is terribly wrong, because I will be well. I just wish I had a little encouragement along the way.
Come Ask Away
During my daily waltzes around the web, I came across this:
There is no fault in being skeptical. If you are skeptical, it’s probably the other person’s fault for either
- Being too vague or flakey in their descriptions, or
- Flat-out lying
I am guilty of the first.
There have been many times that one friend of mine, Scott, has had the courage and the appreciation for me to tell me that I am “too vague” in my Facebook updates. While I could blame that on Facebook’s interface being as intimidating as Twitter’s, or that I have somewhat long nails and type on an iPhone when I update my Facebook statuses, there is no real excuse when I update my blog. Naturally, people don’t frequently visit my blog. What good would it do anyway? I’m just as vague here, mostly because I am trying to protect the identity of my husband and children. See, I’ve been around the block a few times, and this is not my first rodeo. I know the people of the web, and how vicious they truly are. In my thirteen years of having a public website, I have had people call child services on me, simply because I exposed their hoaxes, called out their lies they published on the web, or found the photographs of the people they had ripped off. In other words, I butted my big nose into some lunatic’s fantasy world, and presto. I earned a nemesis for life. They didn’t want me to simply shut down my web page, they wanted me to suffer in the real world.
It wasn’t always like that. When I first had a blog, I wrote about everything and anything in such a candid manner that I never gave it a second thought. People generally ignored me then, too, but I had the energy and the stamina to write in great detail of my life, my trials, my tribulations. It opened my world up to someone who wanted to become me. I have since censored myself. I leave out what I consider important facts from my life, and I stopped posting so many pictures of myself, my husband, my friends, and my children.
I encourage questions, though. With the disruption in my path of thinking, I know there are things that I have left out in my writings, and I apologise for that. It wasn’t too long ago that I could write entire research papers without notes or even rough drafts. I sat down, I typed up the finished, polished paper, and I turned it in. Not so any more. I miss what I used to be able to do. I can see the deterioration that has been happening over the past five years, and it really saddens me. I am not the person I used to be, and I have changed forever, not for better. I remember times when I could keep track of my friends’ birthdays, anniversaries, anything, really. Now they fly by and I wonder what the hell happened.
So if there’s any loose ends that I have failed to tie up, please email me, comment, PM me. I promise this was not done intentionally, and while I can’t promise that I will spill more information out in the future, I can promise that if anyone asks, and they ask nicely, I will reveal all that is (generally) needed to know. Just keep in mind that this is my blog, not my children’s, my husband’s, my friends’, my family’s. They don’t have any control over what I write here, but I would like to keep their privacy just that: private.
I want to write more. I want to sit down and just write and write and write. I want to read more books. I want to interact with others more. I feel that I am missing out on the fun things in my life that made my life worth living, simply because I hold back too much. I want to enjoy what little bit of my mind that is left while I can still do it. I know that sounds bleak, but I promise it’s not meant to be! I feel that if I can do amazing things again, I will start to feel better about myself and no longer slash my wrists out of frustration and anger. That I won’t chew up my narcotics and opioids out of despair. That I won’t spend hours sobbing about things that I cannot help nor change.
There was a time when I knew that I was a good person and I truly liked who I was. I’m not sure what happened to change that, possibly my harasser constantly kicking my personality was what lit the fuse (even though at one time that person wanted to be me!), but it has been chipping away at me for so long now that I have gone under with what seems like no point of return. I want to patch things up with Dennis as well. I want to save what is left of our marriage. I don’t really want to leave him, and certainly not for someone else in the same business as him. I don’t want to split up our children, I don’t want to have to move, unless we move as a family. It would be nice to wake up and think “You’re a good person!” again, but I know that I am a long ways away from that. I know that I have to work to get there, and I know that once I do get there, it will be so much more rewarding, so worth it. In the mean time, I must start taking better care of myself physically. I must keep on my medicine. I must keep my doctor appointments. I canceled three of them this past week, and that was wrong. Why did I do it? Sheer fatigue and hopelessness.
It’s a long road ahead. Will you join me? I just can’t make it alone.
The Sun Shines Today
I don’t sleep well anymore. It’s come to the point where I am asking every doctor I have if I can have something to help me sleep, against my better judgement. When I do sleep, I dream horrible dreams. I dream of being abandoned by Dennis. I dream of being stalked, with the stalker’s intent to kill me, and Dennis is nowhere to be found. I dream of us being at a carnival, being stalked by muggers, murderers, and of him being oblivious to it all. I dream of people from my past, the dead, being with me, and then, I dream of more abandonment. I am always lost in the dreams. Wandering down long, empty roads, in the darkness of night.
When I stayed at Vance’s place, I did not dream. I was able to sleep at night. The nights were cool, dark, and silent. I was able to wake up without an alarm and get going an hour before my appointments. This past week, it seems that I sleep right up until I am supposed to be somewhere. I have no desire to get out of bed once I am asleep.
Today the sun is shining. I feel very content, even though I know that I inside I am crying. Today I mourn the loss of my best friend in the world, and Little One was almost born on this day, his birthday. It’s been nearly five years since he died, but I still haven’t recovered. I click through my galleries of photos of him, I read the passages he hand-wrote in my journals, I appreciate meeting my friend Matt through him, but I would give all of that to have the heartache erased and simply have him back in my life again. Happy birthday, Chris. Where ever you are.
Because of my declining health, my doctor wanted me to have Little One today. I refused. I said that I had gone this long without properly treating my cancer, and even though the thought of a mastectomy scares the living hell out of me, I want Little One to have the best possible chance at life. I want Little One to be healthy when they come into the world. My doctor agreed, but told me the next time I get pregnant in the middle of one of his treatments, he is going to recommend and possibly make me have an abortion. I got a thirty minute lecture that in this day and age, there is no excuse for a woman to carry a burden to full term. What? Little One is not a burden! I never thought of them like that!
There are so many things that I want to say, but there is also so much that I have to hold in. One of the things that I am just going to say it, is, I forgive our ex house guest who beat me up back in December. Who lied about me to the hospital staff when Dennis was in the hospital. Forgiveness is my choice, as is holding a grudge, and ultimately bad karma, so I forgive him. I am washing away my bad karma, and pushing forward with life. If I continue to dislike this guy, or hold a grudge, who am I really hurting? Him or me?
Full Circle
Today Dennis was released from the hospital. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t expecting him to call me and say that he got a ride back to our place. Getting that message at 6pm, I packed up what I could from Vance’s place, gathered my little ones, wrote a letter to Vance explaining where I was going, and left. He’ll find it at about 6am, when he gets home from work. It was harder to leave Vance than it was Dennis. Vance always kissed me good morning, good night, hello and good bye. He kissed me for no apparent reason other than I was there, and he felt like being affectionate. Dennis, on the other hand, thinks that by marrying me, he never has to tell me that he loves me anymore.
My mind has been wandering tonight. First from the medical tests that revealed Stage III cancers in two more places, to discussing surgery, alone, in that huge hospital, to knowing that I am going to have to see the therapist tomorrow. My tits are sore from the mammogram and the biopsies. My armpit is sore from the biopsy. I feel as though I will be alone in my battle, had I not gotten back together with Dennis when he called me. Vance would not miss work, no matter what, even the day that I had my Gamma Knife surgery. He dropped me off at the clinic, went to get coffee, and came back in about two hours and picked me up, distorted and disoriented. I was essentially alone. Today was a horrible reminder of this.
The thoughts that raced through my mind kept me anxious. When I heard the technologist tell me that lumps were found in my breasts, that a lump was found in my side, I wanted someone there, someone familiar, to hold me. I wanted someone to be there to tell me that yes, the road was a frightening and strange road, but that I was going to get well, and I didn’t have to go down it alone. That would have made the entire procedure 100% less frightening for me. The only person there was the technologist and I, and I certainly couldn’t hug her. She was so cold and sterile. The x-ray machine was cold and sterile. My nipples bled during the procedure. I was shaking by the end of the procedure, wanting to sit down between shots, but the technologist kept telling me to stand there, we were “almost done.” Forty minutes later, and much blood on the x-ray machine, I was told we were finally “done.” I was shaking. I’m not used to standing that long. I’m not used to something squeezing my tits that hard for that long, in those exotic positions. But I survived it. Alone. In that huge, cold, lonesome hospital. As I was walking back to my car, I saw that it was pouring rain out. I walked slowly to the car, feeling embarrassed that I had just shown my tits to a stranger, and that I had to face said stranger. I also felt as if the hospital was going to swallow me up, with the twists and turns and such. I just wanted to get home, change, and sleep it off. But then Dennis called to tell me that he had been released from the other hospital, and was at our house.
Gamma Knife surgery was as bad as the new diagnosis. They screwed a box to my head. Underneath the skin. The box was to keep my head still, and only allowing movement when the huge CT-esque machine was ready to move my head. Couldn’t they do this some other way?! I could feel the screws grinding against what I could only logically assume was my skull. I wanted to faint, but I’m not wired that way. I stay awake for the whole gore-y situation. No matter what is being done to me. The same thing happened when I got my root canals done a few years back.
Somehow, things just feel like they should be this way, you know? I feel as though I should be here, in this house, digging through a mountain of laundry, lightly teasing Dennis, while we watch worn-out, has-beens in rock. It just seems like this is they way things should be. Even though my heart is craving kisses and smiles and someone who doesn’t scream at the kids at every opportunity, the Continuum is no longer in danger of Chaos.
If you don’t get that last reference, it means that all life as we know it would cease to exist because I wasn’t playing my part in the Universe. Now that I am, I have saved mankind, somewhat. Be thankful.
★
