FRIDAY "You'll never what I'm doing!!" I exclaimed to my mom over the phone as I taped an envelope. This particular envelope was special because it was our last payment to the hospital. We'd been paying on this bill, $50 per months so long that I cannot even remember what it was for. Previously, we paid $50 per month on an ER visit I'd had after a bout with pneumonia. I didn't have insurance & it wound up costing us over $3000. As soon as it was paid, Shawn went into for something and left us with the current three year gig of paying that same $50 per month.
"I've just accepted that we'll pay $50 for the rest of our lives," I said to my mom. "I'm sure as soon as this in the mail, something will happen." I was joking. I was not inviting bad karma. I was totally and completely joking. Period.
SATURDAY I dropped the envelope into a mailbox and drove down the street for Zoe's yearly shots. We'd known for a long time something had been wrong with her hind legs but I hadn't mentioned that yet. Dr. Gosney rotated Zoe's legs and said she needed surgery on her knees. Zoe had luxating patella, a condition in which the ligaments stretch and the knee slides across instead of settling in where it needs to be. Eventually, the ligaments could stretch too much, causing great pain. Or the ACL could rupture, causing lameness in the legs.
Shawn and I thought our dog was a little fat & simply needed to walk her more to fix her odd walk. I was emotional. I spoke to the woman at the desk and after being quoted a price of $2350.00 for the surgery, I began to cry, right there in the veterinary clinic.
I took Zoe to the car and cried a few minuets to try & get it out of my system before hitting the interstate. I pulled into our drive way and sobbed hard before getting out of the car. My shoulders shook and I wheezed. Where would we get this money! Shawn's self-employed now, it's not like we have steady cash coming in.
I broke the news to Shawn & we headed to bank, figuring we could get a loan payment for around $50 or close to what the hospital bill was. Then, I decided, it would be as if nothing changed.
The payment turned out to be more around the figure of $77 per month. I also decided I would work Saturdays to try to get the loan paid down as quickly as possible. Now is not the time to have extra payments floating about.
I cried all weekend. I was exhausted. We lost two pets int he last year and I could not bear the thought of something bad happening. The recovery would surely prove to be stressful. I'll be eaten alive with guilt being at work all day as Zoe will lie in her bed, unable to walk.
MONDAY After speaking with my dad, I decided to get Zoe a second opinion. I didn't feel right about it all. Dr. Gosney announced, "Surgery!" and dumbfounded, I said, "OK!" The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. The second opinion confirmed what had to be done, only this doctor spent a helluva lot more time with me, explaining everything in great detail.
Apparently this is very common in small dogs, particularly Chihuahuas. Zoe's extra weight isn't helping the knee problem, even though we've been walking her everyday. The surgery is now scheduled for Thursday. I figure Zoe will be on pain meds for Friday so I can feel it out over the weekend.
I asked my parents to pray about all this because I don't have as close a relationship with The Big Guy as they do. I did pray on Sunday though. I literally dropped to my knees on the kitchen floor and prayed and begged and wept over my dog.
"I know she's not your child, but you treat her like one. We'll do whatever needs to be done," Shawn said. I only wished I had not yet used up my week's vacation. I feel desperate to have it back. Zoe feels about me much in the same way I feel about her. If I leave the room, she comes and finds me and waits very patiently until I am done and we can finally play together. This has to go well. After the last year, I beleive I'd just about break in two if something happened. It has to go well.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Cousins
When I was a very young child, my family would have huge family gatherings. There were people & children everywhere. There were piles of gifts and the scent of Christmas dinner filling the entire house. Maybe it was simply childhood memories, exagerated. Maybe it just seemed like there were more people than there actually was.
My grandmother died and the huge, or seemingly huge gatherings were no more. My parents and my sister had Christmas and Thanksgiving in our home. Just the four of us. My mother and her brother had a falling out that lasting for many years.
I watch movies and television shows where people have brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and oodles of cousins. The main characters hang out with their siblings and cousins like they are friends. I become jealous of this. I want it all back. I want to relive the massive Easters where we'd hunt all over a massive backyard of a farm for chocoaltes, candy, and if you were really lucky, a dollar.
I want what these people on TV have.
When my uncle developed skin cancer, it was bitter sweet. He and mom reconciled. After a double surgery, his long, coarse hair had become matted after not having been brushed or washed for a week. I brushed it, careful as I was, for an hour. It was quite comical, actually. He yelped out loudly in a quite hospital as I worked through the mangled mess and laughed. He laughed because I was laughing. We talked about movies, old times, my cousins.
And I thought maybe I was getting a tiny part of all that back. I thought maybe my uncle would recover, that I myself would reconcile with my cousins and reconnect with my uncle. It was never meant to be. My uncle told me tales of booze and drugs concerning certain ones, and he himself would soon to succumb to the cancer. He will presently soon be discussing the results of a PET scan with a neurologist, or a neurosurgeon--he can never keep it straight.
When I was a child I so looked forward to visits with my uncle and my cousins. It was ripped from me in the form of bitterness a strong will to never forgive or forget. I regained a teeny tiny piece of those memories reformed into adulthood and were once again stolen by the C Word. I have not seen my uncle in many months. The last I saw of my cousins was when he had his surgery a couple years ago.
How I long for those days of my youth. Even when the eldest cousin was mean to me, I long for those days. I miss them. I miss my family. What they show on TV is not real, I am aware of that. My cousins are many, many miles away busy with their own families and jobs and lives.
I am busy here myself with own life and my two shots of whiskey, which have gone striaght to my head, by the way. And I am still quite jealous of those of TV.
My grandmother died and the huge, or seemingly huge gatherings were no more. My parents and my sister had Christmas and Thanksgiving in our home. Just the four of us. My mother and her brother had a falling out that lasting for many years.
I watch movies and television shows where people have brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and oodles of cousins. The main characters hang out with their siblings and cousins like they are friends. I become jealous of this. I want it all back. I want to relive the massive Easters where we'd hunt all over a massive backyard of a farm for chocoaltes, candy, and if you were really lucky, a dollar.
I want what these people on TV have.
When my uncle developed skin cancer, it was bitter sweet. He and mom reconciled. After a double surgery, his long, coarse hair had become matted after not having been brushed or washed for a week. I brushed it, careful as I was, for an hour. It was quite comical, actually. He yelped out loudly in a quite hospital as I worked through the mangled mess and laughed. He laughed because I was laughing. We talked about movies, old times, my cousins.
And I thought maybe I was getting a tiny part of all that back. I thought maybe my uncle would recover, that I myself would reconcile with my cousins and reconnect with my uncle. It was never meant to be. My uncle told me tales of booze and drugs concerning certain ones, and he himself would soon to succumb to the cancer. He will presently soon be discussing the results of a PET scan with a neurologist, or a neurosurgeon--he can never keep it straight.
When I was a child I so looked forward to visits with my uncle and my cousins. It was ripped from me in the form of bitterness a strong will to never forgive or forget. I regained a teeny tiny piece of those memories reformed into adulthood and were once again stolen by the C Word. I have not seen my uncle in many months. The last I saw of my cousins was when he had his surgery a couple years ago.
How I long for those days of my youth. Even when the eldest cousin was mean to me, I long for those days. I miss them. I miss my family. What they show on TV is not real, I am aware of that. My cousins are many, many miles away busy with their own families and jobs and lives.
I am busy here myself with own life and my two shots of whiskey, which have gone striaght to my head, by the way. And I am still quite jealous of those of TV.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Pacing
"I understand now why people drink. It's makes everything go away."
I said that one night well past my bedtime, fully aware that my alarm clock was set for 4:30 am for work the next day. Shawn and I hadn't been in business for even a month. Technically it wasn't a business yet; we were still setting up equipment. It was nothing--and I mean nothing--but problems from the very beginning. We were putting in hours at our jobs and even more hours at the shop.
Shawn was showing a side of himself that very few people have seen. If something went wrong, then something bigger went wrong, and then something that should be easy went horribly wrong, he would snap and take it out on me in a terribly mean way.
At least he was always only verbal. Unless you count the time he slammed a drill to the concrete floor while screaming and cussing that it was my fault for buying the wrong size bolt. But it's not just him. I once threw a remote control, sending pieces of plastic and batteries flying in all directions. He'd badgered me to come to a charity benefit that he'd provided for. I was dripping snot, oozing of a cold and had been running all over town that morning in the cold rain for something he needed. I did not feel like going, nor that my presence was absolutely necessary. And I felt like he cared more about an appearance than how I felt. He became very angry with me, making snide remarks and saying that I didn't care. So I threw the remote control.
When he worked for Kenny, he would come home, furious every single day. He'd stomp around, pace with the heavy step of a work boot, cuss and shout. I thought maybe once he got away from that job, he'd be a little better, a little happier. Or at least a little less angry all the time. It's very difficult to live with a person that's angry, no--furious for 98% of the time that they're awake.
But instead he became so much worse. He now calls me in the middle of the day to bitch about what's going wrong. Almost every day. He tells me again when he comes home, and again after supper. Then he loudly tells the same story to someone on the phone. He still stomps around, throws fits and cusses and shouts, only with more gusto.
I used to be afraid of alcohol to a degree. I have Irish and alcoholism on either side of my parents so a child born out of this, logically should stay away from booze or settle or tiny sips from time to time. Sometime around the middle of the day, I look forward to bedtime. At least at bedtime, I can enjoy a half hour to an hour of pure numbness. I can watch something on TV and actually enjoy it. I can laugh at my dogs. I am careful to not get so drunk that I couldn't save myself (or my critters, for that matter) in a fire, I just get a little....numb.
It surprised even me that I could become so good at hiding my emotions. For someone who goes around with a thin filter and telling it like it is, I really have become quite good at waiting till I take a shower to let it out. It's not like I'm holding back, striving to get into the privacy of the bathroom. Sometimes I want to cry and bawl & scream but nothing happens. Sometimes I think I'm OK, but once in the seclusion of a private room with background noise I fall apart and fall to the floor in a heap of tears.
Every once in a long while I get the chance to escape from everything, truly escape and not into booze. It's not a Carribean vacation, of course, simply a small distraction. I cooked for my mother-in-law for her birthday & she and I must have talked for an hour. For that entire hour I had forgotten about my job, my other job, my lack of money, my surplus of worry, my anxiety, my anger and my sadness. For that hour, I was not numb but engaged.
Oh, good. Look at the clock. It'll be getting close to bedtime soon again and I can once again can slip into my drug induced forgetfulness.
And make it all go away.
I said that one night well past my bedtime, fully aware that my alarm clock was set for 4:30 am for work the next day. Shawn and I hadn't been in business for even a month. Technically it wasn't a business yet; we were still setting up equipment. It was nothing--and I mean nothing--but problems from the very beginning. We were putting in hours at our jobs and even more hours at the shop.
Shawn was showing a side of himself that very few people have seen. If something went wrong, then something bigger went wrong, and then something that should be easy went horribly wrong, he would snap and take it out on me in a terribly mean way.
At least he was always only verbal. Unless you count the time he slammed a drill to the concrete floor while screaming and cussing that it was my fault for buying the wrong size bolt. But it's not just him. I once threw a remote control, sending pieces of plastic and batteries flying in all directions. He'd badgered me to come to a charity benefit that he'd provided for. I was dripping snot, oozing of a cold and had been running all over town that morning in the cold rain for something he needed. I did not feel like going, nor that my presence was absolutely necessary. And I felt like he cared more about an appearance than how I felt. He became very angry with me, making snide remarks and saying that I didn't care. So I threw the remote control.
When he worked for Kenny, he would come home, furious every single day. He'd stomp around, pace with the heavy step of a work boot, cuss and shout. I thought maybe once he got away from that job, he'd be a little better, a little happier. Or at least a little less angry all the time. It's very difficult to live with a person that's angry, no--furious for 98% of the time that they're awake.
But instead he became so much worse. He now calls me in the middle of the day to bitch about what's going wrong. Almost every day. He tells me again when he comes home, and again after supper. Then he loudly tells the same story to someone on the phone. He still stomps around, throws fits and cusses and shouts, only with more gusto.
I used to be afraid of alcohol to a degree. I have Irish and alcoholism on either side of my parents so a child born out of this, logically should stay away from booze or settle or tiny sips from time to time. Sometime around the middle of the day, I look forward to bedtime. At least at bedtime, I can enjoy a half hour to an hour of pure numbness. I can watch something on TV and actually enjoy it. I can laugh at my dogs. I am careful to not get so drunk that I couldn't save myself (or my critters, for that matter) in a fire, I just get a little....numb.
It surprised even me that I could become so good at hiding my emotions. For someone who goes around with a thin filter and telling it like it is, I really have become quite good at waiting till I take a shower to let it out. It's not like I'm holding back, striving to get into the privacy of the bathroom. Sometimes I want to cry and bawl & scream but nothing happens. Sometimes I think I'm OK, but once in the seclusion of a private room with background noise I fall apart and fall to the floor in a heap of tears.
Every once in a long while I get the chance to escape from everything, truly escape and not into booze. It's not a Carribean vacation, of course, simply a small distraction. I cooked for my mother-in-law for her birthday & she and I must have talked for an hour. For that entire hour I had forgotten about my job, my other job, my lack of money, my surplus of worry, my anxiety, my anger and my sadness. For that hour, I was not numb but engaged.
Oh, good. Look at the clock. It'll be getting close to bedtime soon again and I can once again can slip into my drug induced forgetfulness.
And make it all go away.
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