I should be writing a poem for English Lit. But instead, I'm on this blog. That I never use now.
I'll try to write my little poem here.
We have five senses
To help us perceive
We let these senses
Designate what we believe
But beneath our perception
There's such a deception
Because what we see
Can be such an illusion
We find ourselves
Living under delusions
If this man is homeless
He must be lazy
But he is an architect
Isn't that crazy?
Some say "she's fat"
And we assume it's what she eats
But we don't know that
She's struggling with a disease
He has a disorder
That usually effects females
But he can't ignore the ads
Showing half-naked, slim males
She walks around with beauty
Displayed in every move and we assume
That what is outside must be within
Because she's so pretty
She must be a great friend
We construct our reality
From pieces of personalities
Others show us only a mask
And we take it all at face value
It's obviously fact
Before you judge others
Look at yourself
How can I judge another
When I don't know myself?
Dang, it's been forever! I guess I just vent on my phone, using the 'notes app' on my phone. Who else is reading this, besides myself?
Well, self: DH told me in December that he didn't want kids. Wow. Our relationship had been lacking intimacy for a while but I didn't think there was anything we couldn't fix. But no amount of counseling could "fix" that problem.
I have always known I wanted children. Even as a little girl I knew I wanted to be a mom. I thought I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, nurse, teacher, comedian and pharmacist too. But I KNEW I wanted children. So WHAT THE F¥€# MAN?!
The fact that we were having kids had been established before we got married. I asked if he'd be okay with adoption if I couldn't get pregnant..
It hurt. I knew we'd have to get divorced. I am having kids, with or without help.
I don't hate him. We have a strange relationship. I love him and always will. he told me a few days ago that no matter what, I'll always be his wife.
So, I'm writing an update. I know no one reads this, I guess it's more of an "I can look back and see my state of mind" thing. I was sent to pain management by the surgeon I'd been seeing since '08. Originally it was because "his schedule conflicted with mine" and when I needed a back injection (steroid) we couldn't find a day that I wasn't working that he could do the procedure. I knew that they were really telling me "we don't really know what's going on and we probably can't help you." These doctors don't prescribe the medications that are deemed necessary for patients who don't receive relief by surgeries or back injections. The last injection I had was at the end of December and it hasn't helped. I didn't want to go to pain management. As a pharmacy technician, I'd always been uncomfortable filling medications from these doctors. So to be asked to go to one? I was weary. But I chose one I felt the most comfortable with, not to say I was particularly comfortable. I asked one of my pharmacists about the medication the doctor suggested to put me on once I saw her for the first time. The pharmacist told me if I were to continue my current medication (which contains Tylenol (Acetaminophen)) I'd eventually have issues with my liver. I might be 52 or 78 but I'd suffer for the Tylenol. You are not to exceed 4000mg of Tylenol daily or you'll likely suffer liver damage. But even if you take less than that, over the years, it can cause issues. So she said if I had to continue with pain medication, it would be wise to go with a long acting medication (the one suggested by the MD is a long acting). As a result, I'd be able to use less of my medication containing Acetaminophen. It was not an easy decision. My brother suffered from opiod addiction a majority of his life and although I was already taking a medication that could be addictive, if I were to take on this other, well it's more addictive than the one I was already on. Then I thought of my journey to conceive. I thought of the future and the children I desperately wanted to have. I definitely wouldn't want to be on this medication while pregnant. The doctor told me I had permanent nerve damage and I would likely be on pain medication the rest of my life. Wow. Great. I'll be 26 on July 30. It's a daunting prospect to think of the rest of my life involving opiates. Her nurse practitioner offered more options. I'm hoping a nerve block will work and if it does, I should be a good candidate for a procedure that would burn off the nerve, I'm sure I'm not saying this properly, but I don't fully understand it all just yet. It isn't a permanent fix. They'll grow back. But it can give relief for up to 5 years. Or so I'm told. Long enough to have babies? I hope so. My husband and I are in a good place right now. For a while I felt like there was a bit of distance, though he's my best friend. But I've come to appreciate so much more of him than I ever have before. He's a good man, a good husband. He deserves someone better, I'm sure. But I'm not letting him go anywhere! Lol. He doesn't want to go either. What would I do without him? Have dirty clothes, forget where I put everything, run out of gas, starve and live in a messy house. Ours isn't the cleanest, goodness knows my mom would cringe, but it's mostly my junk strewn about on the table and countertop. But it's more than that. I would lose a man that would make a wonderful father. And a man with a gentle heart. His love is precious to me and I've recently realized just how much. That's all for now.
So, my thoughts are working in a few different directions. Anyone reading this-besides myself, in a few days, wondering what the hell I was talking about-beware, this may not make sense.
I finished my final and I got an A in the one class I managed to stay in while battling the infamous depression and anxiety that have clung to me like a pissed-off cat for several years now.
I was hitting "next blog, next blog, next blog" sifting through the blogs of different people, in different places. Some personal, some professional and some.. well, I just don't know what some of them were.. And I started to see a pattern. For six "next blogs" I was bombarded with "Our Savior, Jesus Christ." If it wasn't in the title, it was in the "introduction" or what-have-you. So, I wonder if this is a sign. Not that I necessarily believe in those things, but if there's one thing I have learned in the short, but long 25 years I've been living is that nothing is impossible. And until I see something for my own eyes I will neither absolutely believe it nor absolutely dismiss it. Just like I don't dismiss people who say they've had paranormal experiences. I never have but I definitely don't want to say "HA! BE GONE WITH YOU, FOOL!" And have a poltergeist start terrorizing me because of my disbelief. I know it may sound silly, but that's just the way it is.
So, back to Jesus. I'm not exactly a religious person, but more spiritual. Okay, I know what you're thinking. If you believe in God, you're probably condemning me to hell or at best, praying for my soul. If you don't believe in God, you're laughing at my "spiritual" description. Here's the explanation: I believe there is a higher power. I have had too many experiences in my life to believe wholeheartedly in the chaos theory. I don't know enough about the truths of the universe to discredit it, as I've said, but I believe that some things happen for a reason. I don't believe the whole world is full of people by random chance. Do I believe we are given more choices and free will than most religions believe? Yes. But I think there are powers at work that we can't comprehend.
I have had 2 experiences that I can think vividly of that prove to me that there's more than the nothingness some people would have us believe is out there..(I'm sure there are more that I can't remember).
First- when I was 17 years old. My friend Erin and I were coming back from having beignets and hot chocolate at a place called Coffee Call (delicious beignets, by the way). Anyway! It was raining, I mean POURING and I was driving my new Honda Accord (used, but I had it for 3 months to the day, so new to me!). We were just talking about pulling off to the side of the road and waiting when the rain suddenly stopped beating against my car. It was raining, but not as badly and I could see much further in front of me than I had previously been able. So, since we were a few exits down from the exit to my house, I decided to just get home.
Passing the next exit by, I saw the 3 crosses. There is this church, called Bethany and the crosses stand in front of it. They had been erected a few weeks before.
It was shortly after passing the exit that my car started to lose traction. I realized I was hydroplaning. I don't know if you can, by any means of your imagination, see a 17 year-old girl in a hydroplaning vehicle. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I already have a high pitched voice, use your imagination on that. And then cringe. I knew I was going to die. I just knew it. You know how they say your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well, with me, it didn't. All I could see was the light pole in the median that we were careening towards and thought of my friend, Erin. I stuck my arm out in front of her. I guess, instinctively, trying to protect her from the inevitable. I don't remember spinning in the road. I remember spinning in the grass. In the slow motion of what I thought were the last moments of my life, I do not remember careening toward the pole backwards the way it supposedly happened. But we did. In the end, my bumper was in my back seat. But Erin and I were okay. We were alive. We were bruised and scared and crying and holding each other. But we were fine! As we waited for the ambulance and police to get there, I looked at the marks in the grass. Trying to find where we'd spun before hitting the pole. There were no spinning tracks. Just tracks showing we'd headed for the pole, already backwards. I honestly, to this day, do not believe we spun on the road. I know people say when you're in an accident, you believe what you want to believe. You make your mind come up with things to deal with what happened. But I feel as if we were lifted and set down in a position that was safer. I know it sounds silly. Why not just have prevented the accident all together if there had been a guiding hand?
Maybe to make me believe. Or scare the shit out of me. Both things happened. I still hate driving in the rain but the first year I cried when I had to drive in the rain. I don't know if I even believe we were lifted and set down, but it's just the idea, you know, that there was something with us that night. I don't know if we'd have actually died. I don't know what injuries we'd have sustained either. I'd like to believe we were helped that night and I think most people like to believe in something like that.
Second- April 9, 2010. This day will always have a horrible but special place in my heart. My brother died that day, but my niece lived. She survived an accident that killed four people, including my brother. I won't pretend to know what happened that day and describe a biased story. I actually won't tell you anything but the facts, as known to me now. My brother was driving back from Texas in his 18-wheeler. He had his daughter with him. She asked to go on this trip with him. She begged and he said yes. So on the way back, he passed over a bridge. There was an 18-wheeler on the side of the road, stalled, without all of it's caution cone.. thingies? Anyway, the events of what happened next are shady. Something caused my brother's truck to go out of control. Whether my brother was asleep, having a heart attack, tire blew out, or simply lost control-we will never know. But after clipping the stalled truck, he crossed the median, hitting another 18-wheeler head on. After the fire had burned for hours, the police figured out there was a small SUV under the wreckage. More than 2 lives were lost. There were 4. I have grieved for them all. I won't go through the names, but I know them. And when I grieve for my brother on the day he died, I grieve for the other lives that were lost. I grieve for the families. And I hope they hold no hatred for my brother in their hearts, because hatred doesn't help you grieve. If you hold on to it for too long, it will consume you. I also hope they hold no hatred for the sole survivor-my niece. She was 15 years-old at the time. The reason she was even alive was because she was asleep in the back cab of the truck. I don't know how, but it disconnected on impact and saved her from burning. She sustained minor injuries (to her body) but permanent injuries to her heart. She screamed and cried for her daddy. She begged people to get him out. There was no hope. The fire was fueled by diesel from both trucks, as well as what my brother was carrying on his trailer. I hope my brother was already dead, or at least passed out, when the trucks caught fire. I hope for all of them that there was no pain. The reason I believe there is a God, or a higher being watching over us, is because of my niece. The sole survivor. I believe there's a reason she lived when they died. It was their time. But it wasn't hers.
I ask that you don't judge my beliefs, if anyone does happen upon this blog. I certainly won't judge yours. We all want to believe in something, no matter how cynical the person. Everyone wants to believe something amazing can happen. And sometimes, amazing things do.
I leave you with something that was played at my brother's funeral, if you care to listen. It's a little country, but so was he.
SUCKED! This semester I had to get my medications increased because the pressure of school was getting to me. I had to drop all of my classes-but one. I had my first nervous breakdown. I know, I know. I thought I had had nervous breakdowns before. I really, really thought I had. And you realize, as you lie in the fetal position, crying, screaming, generally trying to form words but just slobbering for more than 2 hours, THIS is a nervous breakdown.
I found out my grandmother had Alzheimer's disease, the same day as my mother was admitted into hospital with a bad skin infection. The second anniversary of my brother's death on April 9th was worse for us than it was last year. A few days ago, one of my other brothers' best friend and the "fifth child of the family" had an issue with a heart condition, causing his heart to stop. Luckily he had made it to the hospital, by this point. My mom and I shared wordless glances with each other but we both talked later about it: my dad is not dealing with my brother's death at all-how would he deal with it if something happened to the "adopted son."
Now, off to studying.. possibly. Until I get caught up on another site.
(that day- what I figured would be his last picture)
My DH or shall we say Mr. M brought Thai, the cat, to the veterinarian. This was overdue, as he had been ill for a few weeks. They could tell he was dehydrated (they could feel that his bladder was empty). We knew he hadn't eaten or drank anything in a couple of days. They told him they'd do blood tests and figure out what they could do to help him. His temperature was degrees below what it should have been. They called Mr. M back. They told him the glucose drip and warming
blanket had not done what they wanted them to do. The blood tests showed
Thai was in renal (kidney) and hepatic (liver) failure. The vet
recommended euthanizing Thai. My poor DH. This cat started out as my mother-in-law's cat, but it came to be all of ours. It's funny because I always saw puppies or kittens and said "well, my husband said I can't have one until the cat dies." The cat. At the time, I didn't think of what I'd be losing if he was gone. I thought of him as their cat, not our cat. When Thai got sick, he became our cat. It's funny, you realize how important something or someone is when you're in danger of losing it/them.
I've set up several blogs. My first blog was my journey trying to conceive. Of course, it didn't happen. I started my first round of Clomid and had to stop. My back pain had become unbearable. I had to get back on pain medication and I would not risk getting pregnant while on medication that could harm my unborn child. A few months later, I had back surgery to remove part of a bulging disc pressing against a nerve. I thought I could continue trying to conceive, but the pain didn't end. I'm still on the pain medication, I had the surgery February 11, 2010.
After that, I didn't feel like continuing the blog. Continuing to write about a path I was no longer taking.. I just couldn't.
A couple months after the surgery, after the realization that my dreams of a child would have to be put on hold, my world shattered. My oldest brother, my half-brother, my abuser, but my sibling-that I loved, no matter what he did-died. He died in an accident that killed three others, leaving my niece nearly unscathed (physically, that is).
After that, I thought I'd start another blog. I didn't keep up with it though, the pain was still so new. Fresh. Raw. I couldn't talk. I couldn't really put my feelings out there for anyone. I thought I'd be able to express it to myself, just like words printed on paper, but I couldn't. Not for long.
So here I am, starting again. Trying to get those emotions out. Trying to get the words out of my head and into something else. Things I've held inside, only to myself, need to come out. I know they'll still be inside. Somewhere, deep inside, they'll never truly escape. But if I can get them out, sort through them, talk about them.. Well, I think I'll be free of some of the things I feel.
