On Wednesday and Thursday, I had to “babysit” for Amy. Mom had to go to the doctor yesterday (Thursday) because she thinks one of her medicines is causing the rhabdomyolysis to come back. She may have been right. The family doctor ordered some tests, including one that measured her creatinine. Apparently, in the short time that has passed between her visit to the nephrologist and yesterday’s labs, her creatinine level has gone up. That isn’t a good thing, especially for someone who has kidney failure going on already. The doctor said that if the rest of the kidney function tests come back with poor results that mom will be referred back to her nephrologist for further care–even though mom is never really out of his care. (A good deal of the time, her other doctors have to consult with him before they can try new medications for her, just in case the drug might make her kidneys get worse. Some doctors don’t really enjoy the whole playing with others thing, which is usually what leads to badness.) So, we’ll probably find out next week what the next course of action is for her.

It’s been a while since I did a tagxedo thing, so I decided to do one tonight. Of course, I had to go with one in purple and pink.

Mom had her recheck with the kidney doctor today. Her kidneys are continuing to get better from their failing state from last year. She’s still in kidney failure, but it is still improving. That’s a good thing. The only bad news that she really had from the doctor was that her potassium level was too high. She was told last year that she needed to watch out on the potassium, but it wasn’t as important to keep a watch on as her sodium consumption. She’s cut the sodium out quite a bit, but she started eating more and more potassium laden food (sweet potatoes, okra, etc.) and now she’s got to figure out how to cut back on that. She whined some today about how there won’t be any food left that she can eat once she adds low potassium into her low sodium diet. If she would lower her sugar intake, like she is supposed to, I might think that she was being a bit less over-dramatic about that comment.

Tomorrow I finally get to see my psychiatrist. I’m almost tempted to beg her to put me in the hospital so that I can get away from my mom’s whining (which can sometime turn into extreme bitchiness) and my dad’s whining (which usually turns into rage/anger). Honestly, their moods are not helping my mood. Part of the time I just keep my mouth shut and try to become invisible so that their attitudes don’t end up messing with my own, but it doesn’t seem to be working. With each whining, ranting moment, I end up getting more and more stressed out, which makes me more and more depressed. And when I say that their moods have made me feel, at times, like killing myself, I can stress that I am not being over-dramatic about that. (Their moods tend to bring up their somewhat suppressed feelings about me [i.e. that they think I'm lazy, rude, and a lifelong screw-up], which end up reminding me of everything that ever made me feel like shit in my life, triggering my lack of self-esteem and wacky, masochistic brain to think that the only good thing that I could ever do in this world is end my life.) So, yeah, going to the hospital might be the only thing that keeps me from going off the deep end from their moodiness. Of course, I won’t do it because I still have issues related to psych hospitals from the whole 2001 experience–ranging from the way I was treated there (being laughed at when I cried) to my mom’s suicide attempt after being contacted from the billing office at the hospital about my stay.

Everyone said that taking the prep was the worst part, and it was extremely nasty stuff. (Basically, it tasted like lemon dishwashing soap.) I don’t know if it was the worst part. It started working almost immediately, and everything was cleared out after two 8oz. cups of the stuff, but I had to finish 6 more cups. Anything else I drank came straight through. I almost gagged on the juice before the prep and afterward, I couldn’t stand any sugar in my system at all. Since the juice was hard to get down and I had to stay hydrated, I had to down 32oz. of water every hour that I was awake post-first round of prep. Obviously, since everything was coming through, that didn’t really do a lot of good and I was feeling completely dried out (and pretty weak) before the end of the night.

The next morning, I finished off the prep by 5am, like I was supposed to and got some more water into my system before sitting around and waiting until my dad woke up so that we could go to the hospital. My mom didn’t go because she’d had a procedure (five or six cortisone shots) on her back the day before. After getting checked in at the hospital and going upstairs, I had to check in once again–this time with the endoscopy nurses. They brought out the anesthesia booklet thing that I had to fill out, and I did. Before I was finished, I was called back to answer the same questions that were in the booklet for a nurse. The nurse was nice, so I didn’t mind as much as I probably could have.

After that, she had me change into the gown and socks, and she told me to get some urine so that they could do a pregnancy test. My dehydration made that part impossible. I came out of the bathroom and I told the nurse that I had no success. She said I could try again later, after they got fluids in me–via IV. I knew that that was a long shot and I told her that I was pretty sure that I wasn’t pregnant. Of course, she wondered how that was possible, and I told her that it was a biological impossibility to get knocked up when you have never had sex. This whole virginity thing became the talk of the nurses, anesthesiology folks, and doctors. It wasn’t really kept quiet and became quite the embarrassment. The anesthetist said that some people had sworn they  weren’t pregnant before and “burned” their service when they revealed later that they were and the anesthesia had messed up their kids. I told her I wasn’t lying. I pointed out the D&C/hysteroscopy, that had been clearly marked on my chart, had been done in a hospital and under anesthesia because I have panic attacks and screaming fits whenever anyone comes near that particular region of my body. This led to some problems later when we went over other parts of my history. According to her and to the different nurses, the anesthesiologist who was supposed to run my procedure was a real stickler for the rules and would require a urine test. I almost offered to have them bring a notary public up so that I could swear on some legal document that I was in fact a virgin because I knew the urine test wasn’t gonna happen. The rules-obsessed doctor finally came around and said it was fine to not have the test. I guess he figured that if a 29-year old was willing to have her lack of a sex life examined, ridiculed, laughed about, etc. by a bunch of strangers to get out of taking a pregnancy test that that 29-year old probably wasn’t lying.

Anyway, while that embarrassing escapade was going on, there was a bit of a struggle with trying to find veins for my IV. (I wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t a struggle over my veins.) I told them that I was a very hard stick–and I knew it would be more complicated due to the dehydration. One nurse bailed before even trying. (I liked that about her.) She offered to find veins for the other nurses, but when they’d go to check them out, they couldn’t find the ones that she had found. The anesthetist tried first, in my left hand, on the back of it, and it didn’t work. She felt a pop, so she thought she got it, but she didn’t. She even tried digging around to capture the vein, but it kept scooting away. She was a bit frustrated by her failure. Another nurse came around and tried my right arm, about two inches from my elbow, on the inside of the arm. She got a tiny flash and thought it would work, but it didn’t. Finally, the charge nurse for the center came over and got the IV started on the inside of my left arm, right at my wrist, where the bundle of blood vessels are pretty visible. (The last two sticks are still bruised, almost a week later.)

While the anesthetist went over my chart, she criticized my answers on the form. When I marked that I had trouble with anesthesia, she had an issue with that. I guess having your blood pressure drop and having trouble remembering to breathe in post-op aren’t significant enough to be put on her form. She also said it wasn’t important to know that sometimes the anesthetics could make me hyperactive. (I think she changed her opinion on that when I woke up right after the tests–while in the procedure room–and started talking a mile a minute.) I had marked that I do have a rapid/irregular heart rate. I’m pretty sure that a heart rate of 100-160 while I’m doing nothing qualifies as a rapid heart rate. She said I could just have a really fast heartbeat and that that could be normal. I told her that I had seen a cardiologist and he had told me that I had an arrhythmia, but he hadn’t told me specifically what kind. She didn’t believe that any cardiologist would do that. (Well, he did. Actually, his nurse said I had one.) I also told her about the murmur. By this point, she didn’t believe a word I said. She said that my heart was probably fast due to my having “constant panic attacks”–her words, not mine. Yeah, the anxiety can impact my heart rate, but I don’t think anxiety causes murmurs. When the anesthesiologist came in, he asked if I had ever had an EKG. I told him that I had. They got the last EKG that the hospital had done (during the July ER visit for the ant bites/faceplanting) and he kind of mumbled something about it. I didn’t really see the anesthetist again after the EKG debacle until after the procedure was over.

The test went smoothly. They found one polyp, in the upper left area of my colon. It was interesting that they found one there because I had been telling doctors for a while that I had some pretty bad pain in that area. (That may have had nothing to do with the polyp, though.) Because of that polyp, I have to have another colonoscopy in five years. Other than that, he didn’t see anything. He did send off tissue samples from the biopsies of my small and large intestine. He thinks that the diarrhea is a result of dumping syndrome, but I’m not really convinced of that since it predates the gastric bypass surgery.

So now I just have to wait to see if they found anything in those biopsies. It’s gotten to the point with all of these diagnostic tests that I want them to just find out whatever it is and get it over with. I’m tired of having tests done and finding out nothing. If I can know what’s causing me to be so sick, then maybe we can stop it and I can finally start to feel like a regular person.

I should probably be more worried about things like intracolonic explosions, which is apparently a legitimate risk with a colonoscopy. Honestly, though, if that happens and if I were to survive it, which is also possible, I would think I would laugh. Why? Think of all the jokes that could be told afterward. I mean, it seems like the kind of thing that you could never run out of jokes for–and if you did, then you’re obviously not trying hard enough to make them.

This is seriously the dumbest route that I have EVER seen. To get there (B) from HH Main (A), you’d actually just go from Gallatin to Governors and drive until you get there. It’s about 2-3 minutes max. Or if you don’t want to drive, you get in the tram between them, but that takes longer and causes dizziness. BTW – Every building on that side of Governor’s is part of the hospital complex.

Oh, I do have another thing I’m actually worried about: my veins. Anytime there is any sort of procedure and I have to get stuck, I worry about my veins. I’m not as worried today about them as I was earlier this week, though. Earlier in the week, I thought I was having the procedures done in the endoscopy center at HH Main. When I had my last endoscope there, they basically tortured me trying to get blood. I think that was the day when I got accused of causing my veins to be hard to see and for a couple of them blowing. (Yeah, more than one blew and that was all my fault because I guess they thought I enjoyed that sensation.) The hospital I’ll be at tomorrow is down the block from Main. The nurses at the one I’ll be at typically admit defeat when they can’t get my veins to cooperate. Typically, if they can’t hit them, they actually go and get the anesthesiologist to do it. Generally, I would much rather have an anesthesiologist, a cardiac nurse, or an oncology nurse start an IV on me than a nurse who isn’t used to hard sticks and gets super-nervous about it. (Health care professionals tend to forget that their anxieties can impact their ability to do things like IVs.)

It’ll be my luck that tomorrow W&C‘s Endoscopy Center will have the nurses from the Main Endoscopy center. I think many of the Endoscopy Center nurses end up working out of both buildings. So I guess I shouldn’t feel too relieved…yet.

Okay, I think I need to go find something to eat drink. My blood sugar feels like it is dropping again, and it’s been a little while since I last tried to down some juice. Besides, I start taking the prep in an hour. (Gross.)

Oy.

I know that it is unpopular to remind people that someone who did a bad thing is still a person, that he has not been convicted of the crimes he is accused of, and, because he was wounded, that he deserves to have medical treatment. Still, I didn’t expect to be accused of supporting terrorism or being evil or any of that. I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. After all, this is a page where people from North Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee congregate to share crap, and it is not uncommon for them to say that kind of crap about any person who disagrees with them.

It bugs me that it is anti-American to support a person’s Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. How can it be anti-American to support something guaranteed by the Constitution? I get that people are pissed off and scared about what happened up in Boston, but we have rights for a reason. Bad guys have just as much right to a fair trial, proper medical treatment, being treated like a human being, etc. as the good guys. If the rights only applied to people who weren’t accused of crimes or doing something against the country, then they probably wouldn’t exist in the first place. Let’s face it, the amendments are there to protect everyone here, not just law-abiding citizens. And any person who wants to restrict these rights is acting hypocritical when they claim that a person advocating for those rights to be protected is being anti-American.

I saw people going on and on about an eye for an eye or how it was okay to judge the suspect, but forgetting that Jesus said to turn the other cheek and that we shouldn’t judge others. When I pointed that out, I was accused of being evil, brainwashed, and anti-God. I’m sorry, but how is it anti-God or evil to argue against their angry posts with teachings that are attributed to Jesus? Isn’t he supposed to be kind of a big deal to Christians? Or is that belief discarded when people get angry?

And there were people who were blaming things like tolerance for terrorism, militias, and hate groups. I’m pretty sure that hate, intolerance, and discrimination are bigger factors in the increase in those things.

I just don’t get the logic of some people. I understand anger, fear, frustration, panic, and sadness. I even understand wanting vengeance. I don’t get why its unacceptable to not want it, though. Why should I have to want this nineteen year old kid dead or in pain or forced to bleed out in order to be considered a good American or an ethical person? Why is it “evil” for me to have compassion for another human being? What is that about?

A 9:30 appointment is fine with me. It’s my dad that doesn’t believe in leaving the house before noon that leads to issues with the whole time thing. He was actually kind of okay with it, though, because he had to have some fasting labs done this week, so he needed to do those relatively early.

After getting the appointment stuff settled, my dad took my mom to the orthopedist (she officially got released) and to have her kidney labs done. (She goes for another check on that next week.) I was left alone with Amy, and I tried to get her to take a nap with me. (I was still seriously sleep deprived when they left, even though I got about 4 more hours of sleep before they left.) Amy wouldn’t calm down, though. It wasn’t her fault because Loretta’s lawn maintenance guys came by and were working on her yard. Then they started working on ours. This time was different, though. This time, instead of doing the grass and weeds, they started cutting some stuff down. One thing was a plum tree, which was totally fine with us. (The plums on it were godawful.)

The thing that wasn’t so fine was that they started cutting down the running rose bush that my grandfather planted a year or two (1994 or 1995) before he died. It wasn’t just any rose bush, either. It was one that was part of two running rose bushes that were at one of my mom’s dad’s dad’s brother’s house. One was red and one was pink. After a few decades of growing side by side, their pollen got a little slutty and the roses turned this kind of ivory rose color.

(This picture was taken from Nana’s house. The trees in the distance are at that house. There is still part of the rose bush there.)

Anyway, this rose bush is part of a rose bush that has been in our family for years. It is important to her because of that, and because it was planted by her dad. She adored this rose bush when she was a little girl and it was one of those things that she always wanted to have at her own home one day. She was so happy when it was planted. When she found out that it had been cut down yesterday, while she was gone, she was pissed and heartbroken.

She and my dad told off the yard folks. They said that Loretta told them it was fine to cut it down. (She thought it was something wild. She was very apologetic when she found out.) My parents and I were shocked that they thought it was cool to chop something down in a yard because a neighbor said it was okay. They (the company) thought it was cool because the person paying them was the one who said to cut it down. They didn’t knock on the door. They didn’t do anything to see if the homeowners might want to have a say in what was going on in their yard. I know that they had to see me in the living room. You can see shadows from outside.

I would have gone outside if I thought they were going to cut the bush down completely. I thought that maybe they’d get rid of a dead tree stump in the yard before they’d chop down a rose bush. I mean, it seems like if you were going to get rid of something in the yard, you might go for something that is dead before you go after something alive. And they should have known the difference between a wild plant and a damn rose bush.

Anyway, mom got some of the branches from the bush so that she can root them and start over again. So, hopefully that will work. Still, it is rather annoying.

This morning, I went to the new gastroenterologist. He was really, really nice. He said that they only way to figure out what was going on with my gut was to do a colonoscopy. He’s also going to do another upper endoscopy that day. He said he’ll biopsy part of my small bowel and colon. So, that will be fun. (Sarcasm, obviously…unless your Dottie, then you probably think that I’m jumping up and down over the idea of having parts of vital organs messed with.)  He thinks that it’s still possible that I could have Celiac or IBD, even though I’ve had the blood work that said it was unlikely. He said it could be something else. Cancer is one of the possibilities. So are hemorrhoids. (It’s bad when you start rooting for it to be hemorrhoids.) He also seemed to think it was a bit ridiculous that I’ve had these problems for so long and no one has really taken some of them seriously.

I had my mom go with me this morning because I was so worried that the doctor would be rude or intimidating or something. She didn’t need to, though, because (like I said) he was so very nice.

So I have a camera going up my butt and one going down my throat next Thursday. That kind of sounds like some kind of truly fucked up health care fetish porn. (I’m sure that I’ll get some more kinky people checking this blog out because I mentioned kink, porn, and fetish. And I try so hard not to judge fetishes, but sometimes it is almost impossible not to.) Wish me luck…and for you horny, kinky bastards, I’m sorry that this was a waste of time.

I don’t understand why people think that the only crimes in this country that occur are carried out by persons of color* or people from certain religious backgrounds. Actually, I do. It’s because we have a very racist mentality that is fed by the fear-mongering that goes on from politicians and pundits and even the media. People justify this bigotry by focusing on the stories that confirm their hatred (i.e. 9/11) and forgetting that there are a hell of a lot of crimes that happen every day that are carried out by non-Muslims and non-POCs.

Most people in this world are not dangerous. Most Muslims are not dangerous. Terrorists, members of hate groups, people who commit violent crimes, etc. do not make up the majority of the population, and they do not make up the majority (or even a significant portion) of different cultural groups, religions, and races. This is why groups and individuals that commit this sort of thing are generally labeled ”extremists”, because they are in the extreme. They aren’t the norm and they shouldn’t be treated like they are. This hatred of anyone that we choose to label as being “bad” or “evil” because of their religion, race, culture, sexual orientation, gender, sex, or any other difference is sickening. This bigotry that so many carry is truly messed up and it needs to stop. All the bigotry does is increase the amount of hate that exists in the world, which increases the likelihood of someone acting out in a violent manner.

We don’t know who committed the bombings. It could be an Islamic extremist group. It could be a group of white supremacists. It could be anyone. Whoever it was did a bad thing, but their actions do not have to define anyone else and their actions do not have to inspire others to blame or hate anyone else.

* = I’ve seen a lot of people call for executions, deportations, and torture of Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, etc. any time a POC is accused of a crime–even minor acts of vandalism.

1. Carrots – According to my mom, I liked them in baby food form. That was the last time I liked them, though.
2. Celery – Never liked it.
3. Peanut butter – Never liked it, except for natural peanut butter. Since most people like PB, it’s one of those where people ask me if I’m allergic and I have to say that I’m just strange. (Everyone in my family loves the stuff, so I’m even a freak in the family when it comes to peanut butter.)
4. Asparagus – I had some in elementary school. I have refused to eat it ever since.
5. Seaweed – We ate some pieces of dried seaweed (or something like that) one day in third grade, during a friend’s show and tell type thing. It was nasty. I refuse to ever have anymore.
6. Muggy weather – This has to do with my breathing/asthma.
7. Tornadoes/severe weather – I was within about a mile of a tornado that hit Huntsville in 1989. (On this map, find where it says Chelsea. Above that, there’s a crooked gray line. That line should extend to the road that is labeled at 53 [at the top]. I lived right off road that was marked by the crooked line, but a little more toward 53.) Anyway, said tornado could be heard at our house and the anxiety from that led to ongoing panic/anxiety related to severe weather.
8. Wearing shoes and socks. I don’t mind sandals or even other types of shoes. I don’t even mind socks by themselves, but wearing both is uncomfortable. (I feel like I can’t breathe when my feet are completely covered by both, which I think has less to do with my lungs and more to do with the eccentricities of being me.)
9. Old Spice – My grandfather (Dadada–aka the bad one) wore it in excess. I associate it with him.
10. Puffs Plus – I’ve always had sinus troubles and the Puffs Plus tissue would cause my nose to hurt and itch more because of the Aloe. (Yes, I itched because of the Aloe. I know, it’s not supposed to work that way.)
11. The Office – I don’t know if I don’t like the UK version, but I know I sure as hell do not like the US one.
12. Chihuahuas – Nana’s brother had one when I was about 5. I accidentally stepped on it’s tail and it yipped at me. This scared the crap out of me and I haven’t ever really gotten over it.
13. Tom Cruise – I was sort of indifferent to him prior to his outburst on The Today Show in 2005. After he basically went on a tirade about how psychiatry is evil, I started a boycott of his films, interviews, etc. This boycott is still going on. Normally, I give up on boycotts after a while, but I refuse to get over what he said and how he behaved. (Obviously, I’m not a big fan of Scientology, either.)
14. Green – I don’t like the color. Whenever I would get green notebooks or binders for school, I would assign them to subjects I didn’t enjoy, like science or math.
15. Science, math/engineering programs/space program – I know science and math are important. I know engineering is important. I know the space program is important. I grew up in a school system where priority was placed on science and math and turning its students into engineers that could work on Space and Defense programs in town. I had teachers that thought it was more important to do things like Math Olympiad (which I was apart of in fourth and fifth grade) instead of Art and Music. I hated that the arts were being ignored, because I always liked them more. I hated that we put so much emphasis in school on space and not enough on classes that taught us about history and culture. I hated that it was expected that we like these types of programs. So, I did what any quiet person with a defiant streak in them would do: I learned to hate the thing I was expected to love.
16. The Lord of the Rings – I think that Peter Jackson is brilliant. I think the cast members are very talented. I do not like the trilogy. I do not plan on even trying out the Hobbit franchise.
17. Bananas – This relates to Dadada. The smell, the taste, the texture, and the word all make me nauseated. Pictures do, too.
18. Various forms of transportation – This is another phobia/anxiety thing. I’ve been in 4 car accidents with my mom, 1 with Nana, and the one with Jennifer from YSA.
19. Whistling – I hate the sound of it.
20. Justin Bieber – Okay this was pretty much a fairly mild dislike at first. I don’t think he’s very good at singing. He’s very nasal and tends to be off-key. Of course, his remarks in the guestbook for The Secret Annex did not endear him to me.

There are other things I dislike. There are things that I dislike more than the stuff on this list, but I thought that this list is a good (or bad) start.

Mom thought she had broken her left front leg. I thought it was a sprain. After being examined the next morning, we found out that she just had soft tissue damage–aka a sprain. (I know that those can be more painful than breaks sometimes, so I shouldn’t have said it was just soft tissue damage.) Anyway, the vet gave her something for the pain. They also went ahead and did the next batch of vaccines she would need this weekend. The doctor also said that she was doing well, other than her leg, and is growing at the proper rate for a puppy of her age and breed. (She gained an ounce since she went to get her worm pill over the weekend.) By Wednesday night, she was running circles around us like she had been before she’d fallen twenty four hours earlier. She hasn’t tried to jump out of our arms when we carry her, though.

Wednesday was also the day for my trip to see the family doctor about getting a referral for a different gastroenterologist. When I explained what had happened, he was more than willing to get me a referral to someone else. When I went to get said referral from the “referral person” on his side of the office, she had already gotten one prepared for me…for the same doctor that had laughed at the idea of doing the colonoscopy. She was going to refer me back to the doctor that I was trying to get away from. I told her this, and she had to ask why I needed to see a different doctor, so I told her that that doctor didn’t want to do a test I needed. She proceeded to laugh at this and say, “Well, another doctor won’t necessarily do a test that you want done if you ask for it.” This was when I finally snapped…or just raised my voice a little and got very snippy toward her. I told her that it wasn’t a test I wanted, but one that my hematologist said I needed. I was getting more annoyed by the moment and nearly started crying, because whether I’m angry or sad, the tears always seem to start flowing. I don’t know if it was my annoyed tone, the fact that I wasn’t just doctor-shopping so I could get a test that isn’t necessary, or the tears that were starting to pool in my eyes, but she started to take me more seriously at this point. She apologized and she tried calling someone and they didn’t take my insurance. This was when she did something that I found even more annoying: she told me to go home, call my insurance, get a list of doctors who take my insurance, and call her back with the one I want to see. Maybe she thought I would enjoy this or would make things easier for both of us. It doesn’t. She’s having me do her job for her. Other referral people, including the person on the other side of that very office, know which doctor accepts which insurance plan. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she lacked this knowledge and that she didn’t want to do the job herself, since this is a woman who always takes thirty minutes to an hour to do something that takes every other person with that position five minutes max. She’s not new to the job. She just doesn’t do it very well. And she almost always pisses someone off–either a patient, the patient’s family, a doctor, or a nurse at the nurse’s station that she works at. Honestly, I don’t know how she manages to keep her job at all.

Yesterday, we had some pretty bad storms and I, of course, had my typical anxiety related to the storms. Though we had a severe storm pass over, it wasn’t really that bad (damage-wise), but there were some that were relatively close that did some damage. I’m glad that it wasn’t any worse. (Sometimes this weather makes me want to go to some place like San Diego where there is no real weather.) Oh, and because the weather was so bad, a lot of schools and school systems around here closed early, which meant that my therapist had to cancel our group therapy session for this month. So I will have gone two months without any type of therapy.

Oh, and today, Amy officially got her lifetime license from the city. My parents had to go to Animal Services with her rabies info and apply for it. Now the city officially knows that we have a new pet. So anyone who is super judgmental and who thinks that the proper authorities haven’t been informed that Amy lives with us can rest assured that they do. And obviously, there weren’t any flags on our names or address or anything that keeps us from having pets. So…yeah. Basically, if you think we shouldn’t have pets and you want to be rude about it, you can kindly go fuck yourself now. You could have done that before, but now you especially can. Also, my mom asked and found out how much it costs for a person on Medicaid (i.e. me) to get a pet spayed or neutered in this area. Apparently, it costs $5. I guess that means that enough other very, very poor people have pets that they have an established rate for us. So, if you think poor people shouldn’t have pets…I refer to the kindly go fuck yourself remark. (Yes, those comments that were made still bug me. I’ve got to learn to stop obsessing over the bad stuff.)