Am I dying?

 I don’t have a kidney infection. I do have a bacterial infection in my intestines and I’m in the hospital. I’m also on a liquid diet to let my intestines “ rest.” I think that’s a good idea considering the fact that new intestines are probably pretty expensive but I’m wasting away, oh so tired and the pain is like labor pains. I’m nearly out of pain meds that I can tolerate. I keep becoming allergic. Dilaudid is down for the count, no morphine, no hydrocodone, no Codeine. 

I did get my picc line out because it has a shelf life and I might be getting another one. I got to SCRATCH around it finally!!!! Best ever!!!

I have to go. Sleepy.

Night

Me 

Thursday

 You wanna hear something gross? I mean… GROSS?

If you don’t, now is your time to click that X or skip down! 

My nurse is coming this morning. I have to have the bandage that covers my picc line changed 1-2 times per week. I NEVER look at the line going into my arm. Now the bandage itself is clear so I can see if it’s bleeding but around the tube they put a teeny tiny version of that thing that goes under hamburger or a roast in the package to do two things, one, it’s an antibacterial protector as a second line of defense after the bandage which sticks tightly against my arm and number two, soaks up any blood if it starts bleeding and keeps it contained to that area. Fun, right? So, I can’t see the tube entering my arm.

Phew! Anyway! I peaked last time and literally gagged. My skin is growing up around the tube and it looks like a tiny skin worm. 

Take your time, Sweety.

So I gag out a “oh hell no!” 

My nurse laughs and tells me that the skin will not “ grab” the tube when it’s taken out( hadn’t thought that far ahead.. GAG) and that it’s actually the body’s way of helping to keep the tube in place so it won’t accidentally get yanked out. I’ve had a nurse do that before, only a few inches, but it then HAS to be removed, it’s touched the air, and a new one inserted. 

I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m growing a tiny third arm. My son looked at it and said “ Eww, weird” Ya, weird is one word I guess.

I’m getting the dressing changed at 9 this morning. I am NOT gonna look.

This is the time of year that my depression starts seeping back in. January, in general, is the worst month of the year. It’s just a huge let down. But, because it’s still winter, that keeps it at bay pretty well. 

My shitty psychiatrist? Remember her? She’s been fired. Can’t say that I’m surprised nor saddened by the news. My psychiatrists drop like flies, don’t they? Is it me? Am I the drama?

Jo-sh and I used to race on Mario Kart a few years ago and it really helped my anxiety but for some reason we stopped. Now he has a whole computer gaming set up with the three monitors etc and a PlayStation, he rarely plays the PlayStation as “ Consoles aren’t as good as computer play”

However, last week he went hunting for his old Wii and hooked it up in the living room but it wouldn’t work, missing something. I knew why he wanted it hooked up. He knew we were having to put Mags to sleep and he wanted to hang out with me ( So sweet BTW). Anyway, the next day my husband was at work and I told him what I’ve just written here. He came home with a Switch and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I’ve been held captive. He is playing his depression away, I get it, I watched Shark Tank for three months straight, non stop, after my dad died. I’d never even seen the show before then! Therapy comes in many forms. Since December I’ve been watching Investigation ID. Nothing says relax and self care more than murders, I guess. 

And with that, I’m being summoned to race one more time, before he sleeps on the couch and I sleep on the recliner next to the couch. It’s good to know that I’m still needed once in awhile.

Luvs,

Me

I’m waiting…

 For my nurse to get here to change the dressing around the picc line so I thought I’d jump on here for a bit.

I have the LOUDEST upstairs neighbor in the world. 24/7/365 the noise just doesn’t stop. It’s sounds like the ufc lives above me …… And bowling balls, lots of bowling balls. 

He’s also the brother of the Uber famous quarterback who was the only person to be the first round draft pick in both football AND baseball. His uncle plays pro football and another, pro baseball. We have to forgive this dude the noise, I think he’s trying to become a pro bowler.

As a side note, here is why I love social media. I’m friends with a Senator, Anne Rice’s son and assistant and a famous tv producer ( you’d know and easily recognize the show he’s working in now) and by friends I mean that we Dm each other and chat and not in a weird way. We talk life and death and religion and politics. I love that so much. I never ever ask stupid fan girl questions and never linger over a mention of someone famous. My own book will be published when the slow and steady work allows and my documentary is kind of at a standstill with the massive Covid bullshit. But I have plans to travel to Montana, of all places, to interview a subject and an editor when I can. It takes forever for this but I think that’s why I love them. So much dedication is required that they can’t help but feel like a kind of love affair no matter the storyline.

Psycho Bob lives in Texas. What are the odds of that? Makes my stomach churn just thinking about it. I have to steel myself for that interaction. Another one lives 10 miles from where I live now. He’s a nurse at a hospital I’ve been admitted to. Thank God I didn’t have to confront a situation where he was MY nurse. But it’s strange how life works. So close. So sickening. So much work I need to do to still.

My dog, Maggie, will be being put to sleep on Saturday.?the YM will drive down to go with my husband and Joshua. I can not go. 17 years is a good life well lived and well lived. My heart is aching. Pets add so much joy and the loss feels enormous.

See ya when I see ya,

Me

Today…

 I forgot to put a pic of the kind of dress I’m liking. I’ll try to remember at the end of this.

So, I might have Omicron. I went out to dinner and perhaps brought home the plague. Body aches, stuffy nose, headache, fever, sore throat. Really could be anything. I don’t think I’ll get tested unless it gets worse or someone else in my house gets it (?). It’s a SIX DAY wait to get tests here. It feels like a cold so far and if that’s all I get I’m happy.

I’ve been watching the new Sex and the City so I went and started to rewatch the whole series and I can’t remember why I liked it.  It feel like the same storyline for each character over and over again and the characters just aren’t likable… At all. I wouldn’t be friends with any of them in real life. We also watched the new Matrix, which is meh, then went and watched the original trilogy and guess what? I hated it. I don’t think I ever loved it but now, just a no go for me. The last two movies, which were actually one long movie split into two, spent, literal hours on fight scenes with no dialog other than , Ugh, Oh, No! My late 20’s are being ruined by rewatching stuff.

I have to go. 

Night

I’m here because…

 I can not read or watch the news today. The whole January 6th thing causes me a great deal of anxiety. So, like a good little turtle, I’m going to pull my head into me shell until it clears up. 

We went out to dinner Wednesday night and it was WAY less busy than it would have been on NYE. I had a gorgeous steak and the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had, like, in my life. Isn’t that weird? You guys know that potatoes are my downfall and I want to just live on those. I suppose that’s not super healthy though. 

Speaking of health… ok, so I gave up most sugar, caffeinated coffee, soda ( yes, I say pop but I’ll get teased so I wrote soda), and now, my iced tea ( I can not drink it. This is my every single say staple. You will not see me without iced tea, unsweetened, and suddenly it makes me feel sick and, my iced coffee ( decaf) I was in love, now I’ve broken up with it. I can’t drink juices and sports drinks have way too much sugar and sodium. I had one half of a Coke Zero last week and woke up without wrists. That’s how puffy sodas make me, I guess? I have nothing to drink but iced water, now, I don’t know if you guys remember but I’ve never been able to tolerate cold water. I drink it from the bottle at room temp, well, not anymore. Room temp gags me and I CRAVE iced water.  What the hell? But I feel so much better without the caffeine and sodium and sugar. Plus my body made the choice so I don’t feel deprived in any way. It’s just, GONE.

So, all the ladies at my husband’s Christmas party have purchased fedoras. Look at me being a fashion influencer! For spring I bought a new hat and shoes to go with the sun dresses, that I can not stop buying. Square neck, balloon sleeves( short sleeves), smocked dresses, knee length and floor length. I’ll post pics below.  And ballet flats. I love them.

Nothing groundbreaking today. Just chatter.

Tracy

A NEW YEAR

 I know that in reality a new year starting doesn’t mean anything as far as change goes. That’s evident by how 2021 still sucked like 2020, we just got more used to the suck. But, I’m glad to see 2021 go by the wayside. It was rough and it started nine months ago. I don’t have high hopes that this year will go much differently, as far as the situation with my kids goes, and I don’t want to have any expectations either.

In all honesty, I just can’t see a path to things ever being “OK” again. I can’t trust the people that my children are or their actions. Who takes away grandkids unless there is danger? It’s just so fucking low.  For God’s sake, even I didn’t do that,  and I would have had every right to do so. 

We sent 12 gifts to my daughter’s children and each and every one was returned. How is there a path to “ OK” when she’s perfectly willing to emotionally hurt and deprive her own children to hurt me? I could, maybe, understand it if she had a reason but she doesn’t. It’s the craziest part of all this. There’s no reason. There’s no injustice. And any tiny thing I was given as a reason, she was upset because when she was 16 I told her that her raging attitude would drive people away, friends, boys etc, I apologized for by saying that I didn’t know that it had hurt her, rather than being truthful so that she could see why people were leaving. It makes no difference if I had a reason for saying it. We’ve always told them that what matters is that if someone says it was hurtful that you acknowledge their pain. Yet, here we are. Have I been a PERFECT parent, I don’t think that anyone is, but I’ve been a damn good mother. I know that deep in my heart. My children have never been silenced or not heard. They’ve always known that they can say anything or express any feelings they have without fear of getting into “ trouble” They’ve always been told that they can tell me anything at all if they need help and I won’t judge them and believe me, they have used that time and again and time and again I have been true to my word. They know that they can truly TRUST in me… but here we are.

I get Jo-ry. He told my husband that his wife wants him to choose. She stirs up shit and for two years I have completely ignored it and not given in to her pushing for a fight. I did that for my son. I pretend like I don’t hear what she says, read what she writes, know that she’s instigating, but how the he’ll would I see a battle coming because I wrote in a family text that baby cereal, which she didn’t use, but Lincoln was coming into that age, had shards of iron in it. There was no way to see that she’d grab onto that to cause a rift. I’m not psychic. And that’s what that is about. Jo-ry has told my husband that he knows it’s crazy but she’s his wife. I, personally, don’t get how in a partnership you can’t say, listen, I need my family to get along, just be cordial for everyone’s sake. But here we are. They didn’t send the grandson’s gifts back but there also wasn’t any acknowledgment of them either.

How is there a path to “OK?” 

If they weren’t my family there’d be no question of ever speaking to them again. Betrayal is my line in the sand. My husband says that the line should include family, even if they are our children. He’s not interested in having a relationship with them or even the grandkids because he doesn’t want to love the babies and have them ripped away again. I get that. I understand it. I feel it too. I want my heart to do the same thing. I can’t ever let myself feel the same way about the grandkids. There has to be distancing without them recognizing it, but it needs to be done. I’m not sure that I can be anything but cordial to the adult children ever again and that sucks. 

Mentally, emotionally, psychologically, I’m at a much better place than last year by a long shot. When I stopped struggling and fighting for them to treat me like they love me, when I let go of hope and frustration and loss, when I stood back and asked “ what if this were simply any other relationship?”, I stopped drowning in the dark water. When my doctor referred to them as verbally and emotionally abusive, I stopped blaming myself for some intangible reason and started to understand that that is what it’s called. I stopped sinking and wanting to be dead. 

Does it weigh on me though? Of course. Emotions are slippery little fuckers and they weave in and out of my heart and mind. I could not do Christmas this year. ( with the exceptional break of vacation) I could not decorate. I could not bake. I could not dive headfirst into Christmas movies. I could not even finish my advent calendar. It felt like I was walking in concrete. 

I need a clean slate.

Next!

I didn’t have surgery. Too many Covid-19 cases for “ electives”

We didn’t go out on New Year’s Eve. Too many Covid cases to feel safe since I have an autoimmune disease. I’m boosted though so we might try this week, early before crowds.

I still have my midline in and it itches so bad!!! 

There’s my cheerful New Years post. Crossing fingers for a better year!!!

Me