Tag: Nana


Unintended Anxiety

7
January

My head hurts. Actually, the back of my neck and the very top part of my back is the part of my body that really hurts. I was hoping that by now I might have a full-fledged answer for why I was hurting. I was hoping that maybe the test results would be in, and the neurologist would know for sure what the hell is going on with my head, neck, and back.

I had the appointment last week to find out the results, which turned out to be a dud because the doctor had the hospital emergency that he had to deal with. He was supposed to call that evening. He didn’t. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t call the rest of last week. I even waited until halfway through this week, just in case he was out or backed up because of the holidays. But a couple of days ago, I got tired of waiting and made the call.

I got a call back this afternoon. It was his nurse. Apparently, he was looking at my chart, but hadn’t gotten my EEG results back until late this week. I thought that was strange because of the appointment from last week being scheduled and me being told that my results were in that day. The nurse today couldn’t tell me what the results were, even though they finally had them. I wasn’t really worried about the results until I talked to my mom.

My mom was able to trigger my inner health-related panic attack voice. She said that if the nurse couldn’t tell me the results, then she must not have been able to read the EEG. She then said that that would be due to the EEG being abnormal in some way, so I started getting nervous. I don’t think she meant to trigger that anxiety, but I have this tendency to think the worst when she makes that kind of suggestion (because she is generally right about it) and I was sitting at home by myself in a bit of a panic. (My parents left for the grocery store right after I got the call.)

When they got back, I mentioned how nervous I was. At this time, my mom said it was probably no big deal and that she didn’t mean to scare me. I don’t know that my mom understands just how much this kind of thing worries me. I’ve talked about it in therapy multiple times before, and my therapist has told me to tell my mom not to make the comments because of the heightened anxiety it causes, but I don’t feel that it is fair to make my mom stop saying random things because I have an inability to deal with the comments rationally. It isn’t like my mom is trying to upset me or hurt me or anything. If anything, I think she may be trying to prepare me.

So, now I am going to try to forget about the whole panic-related stuff and have a relatively relaxed weekend. I bet that won’t happen, though. The neurologist is supposed to definitely call by Tuesday, so I hope that that does happen. I’m not holding my breath on it, though.

Oh, and, in a somewhat related note, my mom made a list on the first of all of the things that the neurologist (or, in one case, a different neurologist that used to treat my headaches) has diagnosed me with. I was kind of surprised at the length of the list. After she made the list, which is below, she told me why she made it. Apparently, the next time that my aunt starts in on how horrible of a person she thinks I am, my mom wants some sort of proof that my life is a bit more difficult than my aunt seems to realize. I mean, my mom and Nana have both tried to convey the physical and mental stuff I deal with, along with the stuff I have to do and (sometimes) choose to do, even though I have very little energy and always feel like crap or hurt. I think it’s basically her version of a wake up call.

The List

  • Migraines (actually, 3 neurologists dx’d this)
  • Chronic Daily Headache (2 neurologists dx’d this, including 2 of the three that dx’d the migraines)
  • Dystonia
  • Essential Tremors
  • Myoclonus
  • Vertigo
  • Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome
  • Degenerative Arthritis of the Lower Spine
  • Absent reflexes in parts of my legs

I think that is everything, but I might have forgotten something. Anyway, my mom seemed shocked at the length of the list, even though I’d told her about each of the things when the doctors would tell me what I was “suffering” from. And some of the things, i.e. the tremors and the myoclonus, are things that I was told I had quite a while ago. I think the tremors were diagnosed in middle school; while the myoclonus was diagnosed a couple of years ago, even though it had been going on since I was a very, very small child.

So, now I wait to find out if that list is going to be edited…

Comment » | Confessions, Family, Sickness and Health

Let Her Cry

29
December

I’m not exactly sure how to structure this post because there are so many things I want to talk about, so if it is a little more flighty than usual, then I apologize.

I guess first of all, I should talk about Christmas.  My parents and I had our Christmas meal with Nana on Christmas Eve so that my aunt didn’t have to see me or threaten violence against me.  I cried almost the entire three or four hours that my parents and I were there.  I managed to almost have an asthma attack because of the crying and I messed up my internal system by getting so worked up.  (My temperature shot up, I started getting sick, etc.)  So, it wasn’t all that pleasant.  I felt bad for my grandmother because she’s almost 80 and she’s got a lot of health issues going on, so having to have separate Christmases was tough on her physically and mentally.  (She has a lot of anxiety issues, so this whole situation has upset her quite a bit.)  I also felt bad that I couldn’t even fake a smile or a good mood while we were there.

When my mom talked to Nana about how Christmas Day went with my aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin-in-law, and cousin’s son, she said that it wasn’t a really festive occasion.  Apparently, my cousin’s son went through Nana’s house looking for me and was sad that I wasn’t there to play with him.  I almost cried when my mom told me this.  I missed him, too.  He’s the one person that I have missed every second of this whole non-communication between my aunt and me thing.  He’s just so awesome and thinks differently and is so smart and creative, so being around him is always fun.  I feel like he’s a kindred spirit.

Nana said that my aunt asked how we handled Christmas without them.  When Nana told her that I cried almost the whole time, my aunt said that that was good because I hadn’t made any effort to apologize to her.  Okay, that isn’t true.  First of all, I actually did write a “letter” via Google Docs and sent it through my uncle’s email address with a note for him to please give it to her.  While the apology isn’t a complete acceptance of the alleged wrongs that I’ve been accused of committing, it is an apology for what I did do; a request that she cease this anti-Janet “campaign”; a request that she learn a little bit more about the physical and mental health problems affecting my mom, Nana, and me so that she could understand the context of the posts I write; and questions about why she made comments to my mom suggesting that I should be kicked out of my house, that I was a bad daughter, etc.   Anyway, the apology is the best that she is going to get.  I would’ve sent it to her personally on Facebook but  she blocked me from sending her messages after I sent the message chastising her for not contacting her sister (my mom) after the June 2011 hospitalization or any of the hospitalizations/surgeries.  I can’t do it via the phone (fear/anxiety issues), face-to-face is out of the question, I don’t have her personal email address, and I just don’t think sending a letter is practical.   I would post the apology letter on here, but she doesn’t actually read this site, so it wouldn’t do any good.

On Christmas, I wasn’t just upset about the downfall of that particular relationship.  I was also upset that my maternal grandfather’s only surviving sibling had unfriended me on Facebook, as had one of his kids.  These were two of my favorite people in the family, so being unfriended saddened me.  And part of me wondered if my aunt had anything to do with it.  I hate being paranoid, but it was weird how they unfriended me shortly after she had posted something on each of their walls.  That thought/paranoia, plus the knowledge that she keeps badmouthing me to Nana and (when my mom calls her) my mother, made me very frustrated because some of the key issues with being Borderline are the fear of abandonment/rejection and intense and unstable relationships.  I think anyone who knows me in any way, shape or form could cite any number of examples that I will go to a near breakdown state whenever things change, relationships end or near an end, I start feeling unappreciated, and when I feel alone, unloved, or unwanted. So, when I was crying on Christmas Eve, I was thinking about the familial implosion, possibly killing myself over it, and how I was somehow a horrible human being.  That’s not the kind of thinking that one should have at any time, but it is especially bad during the holidays.  And that thought process and the pain that it caused makes it harder for me to come up with a way to apologize over any of this or keep quiet about how I feel.  I don’t want to excuse my (sometimes) bad behavior, but I want my family to understand where it comes from.

(BTW – When my aunt tried to lay all the blame on me for this, Nana wouldn’t have any of that.  She told her that she [my aunt] was to blame, as well, and that she was the one who wanted the family split up. She’d also told her off on the 23rd when Nana mentioned that she had to fix the table for our lunch and my aunt told her not to worry about it with us because we “weren’t used to eating at a table” anyway. )

Aside from the Christmas tear-fest, I was going to share whatever the results were from my MRI and EEG.  I went to the neurologist’s office yesterday, but (after waiting an hour and a half) I was told that the neurologist had just left to attend to an emergency at one of the hospitals.  In a small way, I was upset over not finding out the answers, but I would rather not know what was wrong with me than know that my neurologist might have wasted time with me that he could’ve spent on someone who was truly in need of his help at that moment.  (And I know that neurologists are not exactly doctors who have soft-fluffy-type emergencies.)  Anyway, my neurologist was supposed to call me sometime later in the day yesterday.  He didn’t.  He still hasn’t called.  I could call them, I guess.  The only thing I do know from the appointment yesterday is that I had lost another 6 pounds, in addition to the ~50 that I’d lost in the last year.

Oh, I finally had my T4, TSH, LH, and FSH tests done yesterday afternoon, over a month after they were originally ordered.  The woman who did the test asked me if that was my husband in the waiting room.  I silently gagged and told her that that was my father.  She told me she was glad because she had been mad when she thought he was my husband because he should know better than to be with someone so young.  In a way, I understood what she meant, but it was kind of weird to have someone say that kind of stuff.  I mean, she doesn’t know me, so what was she going to say if she had been my husband?  How would she have gotten around her disgust?  And is saying that kind of thing a good idea when you’re sticking a needle into someone?  (It could cause someone to tense up and cause veins to ‘disappear’ in someone who, like me, is a hard-stick.)

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Facebook, Family, FPS-Related, General, Holidays, Mental Health, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is, Sickness and Health, So Damn Special

Pick A Day Already

10
December

It is almost Christmas, just two more weeks now, and I still don’t know when my parents and I get to go see Nana.  Apparently, my Aunt has yet to pick her day.  And since we can’t have Christmas together like a normal dysfunctional family and since, according to her, we “picked” Thanksgiving Day to spend with Nana, we can’t pick Christmas as well.

I don’t get how we picked Thanksgiving.  There is one day to celebrate Thanksgiving on and that’s Thanksgiving.  We didn’t say we wouldn’t eat with them.  That was my aunt’s decision.  And since all that we do on holidays is eat together, because they always seem like they’re ready to be somewhere else, I don’t get why we couldn’t stick food in our mouths at the same time and in the same place.  They would leave right after anyway, so I just don’t see why they can’t be grown-ups and bottle their hostilities towards us for an hour or so on two days this year.  I mean, I’ve been bottling it up (obviously) for years and they want me to continue bottling it up publicly, so why can’t they do it for two out of the 8760 hours in the year?  Apparently, that’s too much to expect.

And if we have to have separate holidays, then I think that we should get to pick Christmas.  Last year, we got snowed in on Christmas and they chose to eat lunch and open presents at my grandmother’s house on Christmas, without us.  And, according to Nana, the cousin-in-law was none-too-pleased that my parents and I weren’t willing to drive over an icy bridge, up and down an ice-and-snow-covered mountain, and down some country roads to get there in a car that’s 12 years old and didn’t even have much get-up-and-go when it was purchased, doesn’t have 4 wheel drive, and doesn’t have any winter weather gear (because this is Alabama) to celebrate Christmas with them.  Oh, and the drive would’ve been without the dogs because we haven’t been allowed to have them around this particular family member since we first got Xander.  (Odd, since they have a dog of their own now.)  So, we would’ve been leaving 5 dogs at home, without food, with a limited supply of water, and (for Willow) without their medicine.  We also would’ve had to take all of our medicine and some extra clothes with us, in case we got snowed in there.  So, I’m not exactly sure why she was upset at our not coming last year and I’m not sure how it is that they got to choose when they celebrated Christmas with Nana last year and how they get to choose it again this year.  Of course, they picked the day the family celebrated Christmas during the first few years that my cousin and his wife were married, thus leading to some issues for my family with regards to Christmas.  So, it’s always been them who gets to choose that day.  It kind of makes me feel like my family has never really been appreciated by their family.  And that’s not exactly the warm, fuzzy feeling that one should have on Christmas or at any time of the year.

It’s not like it should matter to me when we celebrate Christmas.  There are no presents to open in my immediate family, so it’s not like there will actually even be a Christmas here.  At least, not a materialistic type Christmas.  And Nana doesn’t buy presents anymore, so there won’t be anything like that from her.  So by not getting Christmas with her (again) I’m just missing out on one of the two days a year when I don’t (generally) have to cook.  Basically, I’m not getting one of my days off because some members of my family can’t put their big kid underwear on and deal with us for an hour or so.  Way to go, them.

I could easily end this by apologizing, but the more ridiculous they get with their behavior, the less I think I should.  Besides, like I’ve said many times (online and off), I haven’t said anything that I should really have to apologize for.  They’ve used the same language in conversations about other people.  Why do I have to apologize because my “conversation” is available for lots of people to read?  Their conversations are a lot more likely to be overheard by someone that could take offense than my posts are to be read by someone who would get upset.  Maybe I’m not completely competent about social mores, but how is their behavior any better than or my acceptable than mine?  How is it okay to insult or degrade people about their lives behind their backs if you’re doing it vocally, but it isn’t okay to rant about my own feelings about what goes on in my life on a website that I pay for?  Why is that okay?  Maybe whoever is reading my blog on their behalf (’cause I know they are) will be willing to have my aunt or uncle or cousin or even the in-law send me an email or something explaining that.

Sometimes I wish that I had a truly boring life.  One where my family got along and everything could be considered normal.  Then I realize that wishing for a different life won’t do any good because I’m stuck with this one.  I’m stuck in a family where our relationships are basically based on some antiquated caste system with the “better than” members not wanting to talk to or spend time with the “less than” members, where it is normal to have third parties read blog entries to find negative words and then report back about how “this” or “that” was said even when it wasn’t, where it was okay to give R-rated movies to me when I was 15 but the second I mentioned being suicidal or psychotic I started getting gifts most families would consider to be okay for a little girl, where censorship is okay when I judge but they’re allowed to spew whatever crap they want, where my dad has to get “groomed” (haircut and extra shaving) to keep them from calling him names behind his back, and where I’m told not to talk about them, but they get to lie to my only living grandparent about what I say so that maybe, just maybe she might decide to quit talking to me or loving me or something.  Yeah, that’s the family I get to have.  I should just accept it and move on.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, Mental Health, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is

Why Do I Even Bother

28
October

Mom just got a call from her mom. Apparently, I’ve been up to no good again and saying “bad things” about certain people. I thought this was weird because I haven’t been saying anything recently about certain people. The last thing that I could find that is public is something from September. It was a rant about my mom taking me for granted while glorifying a particular family member, who I was (and still am) annoyed with over the lack of participation in my mom’s recovery process. I still feel my rant is justified. Of course, I still feel my rant from January is justified and I feel the rant I made in 2002 was justified, too. I also think that they have been taken way too seriously in some respects, while not seriously enough in others.

Since I know that those people are probably reading and will probably continue reading, I want to say this:

I have specifically asked, many times, that you not read this site if you don’t like what I say. I have also asked that you not take it off the computer or try to use it against me with other family. Apparently, this isn’t possible.

I am sorry that you were offended by what I said, but I’m not sorry that I said it. That may sound childish or rude, but let’s face it, I’m not exactly thought of as the most mature member of the family.

I do think that it was unfair in 2002 to shut me out of your life for 9 months until you suddenly decided that something might happen and that you couldn’t live with yourself if it did. I think it was even more unfair that for the next 9 years, even when I tried to make up for the 2002 post, I was basically ostracized within my own family. I think it was unfair that I spent two Thanksgivings when I was severely depressed wondering what I would have to do to make you spend time with me on a holiday that we used to enjoy together.

I think it is unfair that I am the bad one about the January thing in general. I find out something that was apparently so private that people who share DNA couldn’t know, but that was okay for hundreds of thousands of strangers to find out at the same time as those strangers. I get pissed about it. I make one tiny little comment, then become public enemy number one. Meanwhile, it is okay that that post that got her so upset was found only 6 or 7 hours after it was made meaning: she was checking up on me. Yeah, you can say that I apparently needed to be constantly monitored, but the thing is that I didn’t.

I also think that it was unfair that in January, when you talked to her after the post, you didn’t somehow emphasize that making a phone call to me would only further agitate me. You have known me since I was a little kid. Have I ever really been comfortable on the phone? No. Have I ever really been able to vocally defend myself? No. Didn’t it occur to you or to her husband or to anyone who may have thought that call was a good idea that it was, in fact, a bad one?

I shouldn’t be forced to feel guilty because I said things you didn’t like. I shouldn’t have to be told not to write about things that you don’t like. If I cater to you or to anyone else, then I won’t be writing about what is upsetting me anymore. I won’t be doing what the blog was basically set up for. Writing about my issues is how I deal with them. If I don’t write about them, I go more crazy than I already am. If that happens, then I go to the hospital. If that happens, then what? Are you going to move my mom and dad down to your house to make sure that they’re taken care of? Are you going to try to keep up with their health problems? Are you going to give my mom shots (insulin or otherwise) when she’s so out of it that she can’t give them to herself? If I don’t write about these things, these are questions that you will have to have answers for.

What I say doesn’t actually hurt this family in anyway. How have you been harmed by my words? Offended? Maybe, but not hurt. Whereas, I’ve dealt with having my education called into question multiple times, been treated like a dangerous fiend since my time IP, and hearing speculation that my grandmother (and then my mother) have drug problems because of their use of pain medicine. I’ve seen our family get torn apart because suddenly there is only room in the family for you and my uncle plus your son, his wife, and their son, and maybe your mom’s “adoptive” sister that you apparently communicate with more than you do with your own biological sister.

I will not quit writing about things. I will not apologize about your getting upset by them. I will not pretend that I’m okay that this family has been so dysfunctional for years now. I will remind you that you are an adult, you have a choice about what you do when you’re on the internet, and you make the choice to read these things. You know what you will find and you do it anyway because that justifies the anger that you have toward me. The subsequent acting-like-Janet-is-a-subhuman attitude is then okay because I brought it on myself. If you don’t want to be angry with me, then don’t read things I say. If you don’t want to know that I’m frustrated about you, then don’t read it. Or learn to skip posts that are categorized as “family” because they “might” be about you and they might be negative.

So, I shall say this now: back off and try to get over it. Oh, and stop opening that entry over-and-over. It will not be going away. It will not be edited. You need to move on.

I’m guessing this feud will probably hamper any Thanksgiving plans, but…it might be worth it. Sure, Thanksgiving is one of those rare days where I actually do eat a significant amount of food, and it is one of the few days that I get to see people I’m related to that aren’t my mother or father, but if I’m going to have to put up with this crap then I don’t want to spend the holiday with them. I want to spend it with Nana. At least she’s loved me and actually tried to be there for me through all of this.

I shouldn’t spend a family holiday with people who clearly don’t want me to be a part of their family.  I want to be where I’m wanted, and that probably won’t ever be in a room where she is.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, Letters, Rants, So Damn Special

I Thought Today Would Be Different

11
July

After my mom went to the hospital last night with her blood pressure (which hit 260/160 while she was there) and I sent the message to my aunt telling her to start calling my mom, I thought that today she might call.  I mean, you would think that telling a person that her sister had been sick enough to go to the hospital a week before and was back there at that moment with something as serious as her blood pressure that it might be enough to move them to do something as minor as call and check in.  I know things aren’t going to change overnight.  I know that it would be a miracle for things to dramatically change at all.  A phone call shouldn’t be a dramatic change.

Though they weren’t necessarily the best of friends growing up, as adults they were quite close.  I know that they were close because of how close my cousin was to my mom and how close I was to my aunt.  I know my mom watched him when he was young.  I remember my aunt watching me when I was young.  I know that before my mom was too sick or in too much pain to do much that my aunt would take Nana, mom, and me to the mall for a fun day.  I know that when my mom would have surgery, my aunt would be right there.  I know that my mom had told my aunt that if anything ever happened to my parents, when I was a kid, that she wanted my aunt to be my guardian.  And since I know just how protective and clingy my mom can be towards me, I knew that that fact most of all meant that my mom trusted and loved my aunt so much.

That knowledge as a child didn’t predict that our family would fall apart.  It didn’t predict that Nana and then my mom would get accused at one point or another of being a drug addict.  It didn’t predict that my aunt who always seemed to believe in me would tell my mom that there was no chance I would ever graduate from college.  It didn’t predict that a woman who traded shifts of sitting next to the hospital bed of Granddaddy with Nana and my mom wouldn’t be able to spend a day or night during a weekend with Nana in 2008 when she had a bad bout of pneumonia or that she wouldn’t be able to come check on my mom during either of her hospital stays for kidney failure or that she wouldn’t call or check on her on any of the days that she was having any of her ankle surgeries.

So why did I think it would suddenly be different?  Why did I think sending her a message would get her to call?  Why did I think it would change things?  I guess things make sense when you’re pissed off, but in the light of day you can see that it means expecting the impossible to occur.  So, now I feel like the message was a waste of time.  Now, I feel like I probably should have spent the short while that it took to write and send that message on finding another way to keep me from thinking that my mom was at the hospital dying.

I guess that if the blood pressure and kidney failure continues to get worse, I can’t expect anything from that aunt.  I guess that I should have already known that.  I just hoped for something different.  I hoped that maybe she could channel the old her.

Maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt about it.  Maybe I should think about the possibility that she just hasn’t checked her messages.  I mean, I guess that could be the case.  Of course, I used to think that was the case with why her husband didn’t add me on Facebook, until I realized that he was just as addicted to getting on it every day as many of the other 500 million or so people on the site.  I have a feeling she’s just like him in that respect.  Even if she isn’t on there every day it has to be possible that she gets messages sent to her email or to her phone, right?  Possibly.  Who knows?

I want my aunt back.  Not the one that I have written scathingly about in the past.  I don’t want her.  I want the person that she was.  I want the person who my mom trusted.  I want the one who was one of the only people from my real life who I could tell at first about cutting or about how bad my depression was or about how much I missed Stephanie or how afraid I was (at that time) of Elijah.  I miss her.  And part of me wants to believe that there is some way to get her back, but that logical part of me says that there is no way to get her back.  That part tells me that the old version of my aunt is dead and gone, and that the only aunt left is this new and definitely not improved version.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Sickness and Health, Who I Was - Past

We All Fall Down

28
June

Saturday afternoon at about 4:30, my mother fell.  She’d been having more trouble walking lately, so it wasn’t really that surprising that she fell.  What was surprising was that no matter what we did, we couldn’t get her up off the ground.  Normally, she’s fairly easy to get back up off the floor.  This time, it seemed like everything that we were trying was failing.  We tried for the better part of about 7 hours on Saturday night and debated calling an ambulance.  At about 11:30, my parents decided that they needed to rest and that we would start again in the morning, which we did.

We realized on Sunday that it wasn’t going to be something that we could do on our own this time.  I had to get on my computer and look at the HEMSI website to get the non-emergency line, after my dad called a nurse for the insurance company that handles their Medicare Plus.  (He tried to get through on the insurance company’s line for about an hour, and he kept getting sent around to different people.)  He had tried to call HEMSI before I got the non-emergency line, from a number that was given to him by a local social services agency.  (That number was wrong.)

When HEMSI got here, they asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital or stay here.  My mom made some comments about wanting to stay here.  I told the paramedics that they needed to take her to the hospital.  She had some scrapes and carpet burns on her legs from the various attempts to get her up.  So, they took her to the hospital.  My dad followed behind a little while later.  (The paramedics told him to wait about 30 minutes before he came.)

I stayed home when he went to the ER after her.  Apparently, while he was there, he was treated like he’d viciously beaten and neglected her.  She told me that a social worker counted the bruises that she had on her, especially the ones in the shape of hand prints.  The social worker wanted her to tell her how she’d gotten them.  My mom told her that those were from the attempts to get her off the floor, which is true.  The social worker didn’t believe her.  The doctors and social worker asked my mom if she felt “safe” at home.  I understand why they felt the need to ask this, since my mother was heavily bruised and it had taken us so long to get her medical attention for this fall.  I also understand that they don’t know the full story and are just assuming that my mother is never taken care of or is harmed physically by her family.

The bruises that concerned them ranged from the size of the tips of my fingers to the size of a grapefruit.  They were all very dark purple.  These bruises were on her arms, her legs, her abdomen, and her chest.  (Her back had no bruises.) If the doctors and staff had noticed that my mom continued to bruise every time they assisted her, then I think that they might have been a little less judgmental.  By the time I saw her yesterday, she had additional bruises from where they’d attempted to give her an IV (one huge one at her elbow and one on her thumb, where they’d blown veins and put too much pressure on her) and where they’d put her blood pressure cuff.  Anywhere that she had the slightest bit of pressure applied, she had a new bruise.

The bruises look bad, but they are fairly normal for members of my mom’s side of the family.  Huge purple bruises that pop up for pretty much no reason are something that my great-grandmother (Mama) passed to my grandmother (Nana) and that Nana passed to my mom and that my mom passed to me.  They’re one of the lovely conditions that we all have had to deal with.  (We also have similar psychiatric issues, problems with vertigo/balance/tendency to fall, headaches, heavy periods/early menopause, reactions to most medications, etc.)  Each previous generation has had to explain to doctors that they haven’t been abused.  Hell, I had to deny being abused a few times when I had the old mattress that would cut and/or poke me during the night.

The doctors have run tests on her.  They said that her muscles had atrophied, thus the falling and being unable to get up.  They told her that the breakdown in her muscles had caused certain enzymes to be released that had taken a toll on her kidneys, heart, brain, etc.  (Remember how I was worried because she had gotten so incoherent?  Apparently, there was a reason.)   They’ve started her on physical therapy, which is great.  (I still don’t understand why the orthopedists never suggested physical therapy after she broke her ankles and was forced to stay off her feet for the better part of a year.)  They’re also trying to fix the issues that have occurred because of the breakdown.

I think that the nurses on the floor that she is currently on have figured out that the bruises aren’t from abuse.  I think they’ve also figured out that we do care about my mom very much and never intended to do anything bad/neglectful to her.  My only issue with the nurses on her floor is that they haven’t been taking care of the scrapes and carpet burns.  When my dad and I went yesterday, I wanted to see if they were improving or getting worse.  I was told (and then shown by my mom) that nothing had been done for these marks.  So, my mom had the tech bring her a pan of water with no-rinse soap in it so she could bathe.  (Normally a tech would be the one to help her bathe, but apparently that isn’t one of the tech on that floor’s duties.)  My dad and I helped her, and I helped clean the wounds.  My mom asked the nurse, after we were done, if she could have a bandage placed over any of them.  The nurse said that she might be able to get some Neosporin for them, but she wasn’t sure.  That annoyed me quite a bit.

Oh, the doctor told my mom that she was malnourished.  Apparently, she isn’t getting enough protein.  I think that’s probably true for every member of my family, since we all have various forms of anemia & deficiencies.  We’re going to have to change our diets, which is going to be difficult.  (Higher protein foods always seem to be a lot more expensive, which makes it a lot harder for us to buy them.)

Yesterday, my mom had said that she might get to come home today.  Today, though, the new day for her to come home is tomorrow.  I’m not surprised, since the discharge days always change.

Side note: My back is still hurting from trying to help my mom up this weekend.  (I hurt it about 30-45 minutes into the ordeal.)  I’ve been downing quite a few Tramadol and Flexeril since then.  Hopefully, the pain will lessen soon.  If not, I guess I’ll have to go get it checked out.

Comment » | Confessions, Family, Sickness and Health, So Damn Special

Panic Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

23
June

After reading the responses that some folks made about my entry on jealousy-guilt over deaths in the family, I began to think about how my sole surviving grandmother (Nana) is now 78 years old.  Even though I know that her father died at about 83 of natural causes and that her mother died at 84 of cancer, I still worry about the thought that she’ll die soon.  I don’t just worry about her dying soon.  Sometimes I worry that even though we have some folks on her side that make it to their 80′s (and others who have made it to as old as 99) that she’ll die in the next few years or in the next decade.  I don’t want to lose her.

The night that her husband died, I literally screamed and punched at my dad.  He was my favorite grandfather.  Even though Mamama was sweet and loving, she was never my favorite grandmother.  Mamama was sick for as long as I could remember.  And before she was sick, she had gone blind.  She was always really fragile, so her death wasn’t really unexpected.  Even when I was little, I knew that her life was ending.  The thought of her dying was somewhat peaceful, but the thought of Nana dying makes me feel like my organs are being ripped from my body.  It hurts.  It always makes me either panic or cry or do both at the same time.

I try to not think about it.  But the more that I try not to think about it, the more I think about it.  Then I begin to feel guilty about thinking about it.  I feel like if she were to die (after I thought about the possibility of her dying) that I will have somehow caused her death.  And, yes, I know that that is completely illogical.  I know that I can’t just think her to death.  But, as I’ve said before, I am not a really logical person when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I should talk about this kind of thing in therapy.  This is the kind of stuff that I should be working towards not going nuts over.  I’m afraid of talking about it, though.  I also know that there’s a chance that even if I feel safe talking about it that it will be disregarded.  Sometimes therapists don’t want to talk about some of the things that are most upsetting to a person.  That might sound strange, but it is definitely true.  And ranting about that is something that should be in a different entry.

1 comment » | Confessions, Family, Mental Health

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