Duality

"You've been through a lot of pain. And it's hard to trust anyone, hard to believe that anyone could care because you've always hated yourself. On one level, you've wanted people to believe your tough facade. But on a deeper level, you've wished that someone would be able to get past it, to get inside you and listen to your heart. But you've been afraid that no one in the world would understand - or worse, that you would drive them away." Rachel Reiland

This whole blog has been my demolition of my facade. All of my writing here is the crazy side of me, the side that unrelentingly points out: "I'm still here. Still sick". It's the reason my family can't stand half of the things I write because it's so much easier to imagine me as the fully-functional woman that gets up, goes to work everyday, performs her tasks easily, and goes to sleep with a contented heart. I understand that it's easier to see me that way because that is what I present to the "real world", - the world that lives outside this computer screen. At least most of the time. I've cried so often at work that people don't even seem to think it's strange anymore...it's just B....crying again.

I have a potential lawsuit against the FOB and a family that I rely on and need in so many ways that I can't even begin to count. When they ask me to take down a post or move it to my private blog, I honor their requests. Yet, there is this almost masochistic drive to prove to the internet that there are two women living inside me (without the dissassociation of a multiple personality disorder, fortunately).

There is the me that can bathe and dress a child in under 15 minutes and enjoy the beautiful peace and love of my son's smile when he cuddles up to me the morning, in bed together. There is the me that can be an A-student in a MBA program and sit through hours of unrelenting pain to learn subjects that I can't immediately apply to any conceivable work situation. Then there is the me that just wants to disappear. The me that says, "You've fucked everything up. Every decision you've ever had and every choice you've ever made has led to nothing but pain for yourself and those you love. Anything you haven't fucked up yet is just a matter of time. Leave now. Go. Just go now and you won't have to be around to deal with the mess you've made of everything. You're so pathetic. You've alienated everyone whoever trusted and loved you. They're sick of you and your so-called illness"

That's usually how it goes in my head before I end up in the hospital. On Thanksgiving I decided that I wouldn't make my Dad find me in my apartment. I decided to hide behind a restaurant and wait. Then the phone rang it was like Fate/God/Life/Universe was giving me a game show lifeline, one of those "Phone a Friend" gimmics. I answered and smiled. It was one of my best friends, telling me how much she loved me. Then suddenly my Dad was on the other line, demanding to know which parking lot I was in. I clicked back to my friend and told her that it was a neat trick to call my Dad while I was still on the phone with her. She said she was worried. I made an incredibly stupid decision and decided that my Dad would never find me if I was on the freeway...that I would just pull over when I got tired. It didn't work like that though. I drove almost 30 miles south with no memory. I woke up in the ICU the next day in the seaside town I drove to, vomiting, alone with a nurse that cleaned me up afterwards.

Four days and many pages to a psychiatrist who never answered later, I was released. I went back to both of my jobs, like I've always done. Sure, after two weeks of bickering back and forth about insurance and deductibles, I got a new therapist and felt excited about the possibilities of actually recovering. Nothing had actually changed though. Nothing ever does from an event like that. It takes all your problems and magnifies them by about 1,000 until you're lucky if you can make it out of bed every day without feeling like a worthless piece of shit that brought all of this down on yourself. I mean - if you feel like a failure, try failing at death. It's one of cosmos' cruelest jokes. On the screen of life you see the same message flash over and over: GAME OVER! You've failed at both living and dying! GAME OVER. Try to find someway to live now, sucka. Sucks to be you.

Fast forward to Sunday. I can feel it all happening again. I'm crying uncontrollably and I decide that I want to break the pattern. I decided to proactively go to a hospital that my new therapist recommended. She said that there was a unit there for highly-motivated patients. After several phone calls, I found out that the unit was closed and I would be placed into the general population in a locked unit. During the admission process, they took my blood pressure and heart rate. I was having chest pains and a BP of 149/93. My heart rate was a steady 110 beats per minute. I should be burning calories at that rate, instead I'm clutching my chest wondering if it's possible for a heart to beat so hard that it damages the muscles surrounding it.

I was taken to a large hospital in the Med Center. Ironically, it's the hospital that Dew now works at. I thought for a moment to ask for him, but I was deemed a threat to myself and put in a room with no medical equipment, save for a bed that moved up and down and table that rolls bedside at 7:30pm. The lock was on the outside of the room and required a key to enter. The light switch was also on the outside of the room. I was there for three hours before I got a glass of water and was able to go to the bathroom. I called my Dad. I asked for him to come down to the hospital and stay outside the door - just to remind them that I was still inside. He decided not to come. It was late. The nurses and doctors took my blood, did two physical exams, a EKG, and chest x-ray. They fed me a sandwich and locked the room back up. At 5:45am the next morning, I left the hospital, again in an ambulance, back to the hospital my therapist recommended. Apparently I had been medically cleared. My anxiety was the culprit to my chest pain, not anything vaguely related to the cardiovascular system.

At 6:15am I was back at the hospital. I had to wait until 10am to go up on the unit. I'm not exactly sure why, something about the nurses not being ready to admit me. The unit is the loudest, most choatic place I've ever been. Everyone is either yelling, listening to music, or singing. Nurses are shouting orders at each other and the patients. The patients are mostly ignoring them and I'm wondering where the closest bed is so I can go to sleep. I left, AMA, 48 hours later into my parents' custody. Although everyone from my psychiatrist to my sister thinks that I'm crazy for admitting myself one day to discharging myself three days later, I knew I wasn't going to get what I needed from that situation. Hell, I couldn't even get a decent nap in that situation, let alone intensive therapy.

So now I'm back. No one trusts that I made the right decision to go AMA. Yet once, just this once, I believe in myself. I stopped the destructive, abusive pattern that I've been putting myself through. I didn't give in to the urges of the dark side. If I could have seen into the future and known what life on the unit was like (it's not like they give tours before admission, ya know?) there is no way I would have admitted myself there. But I did, then I had the presence of mind to get out. I don't see it as a failure. Even my dark side doesn't see it as one, even though she desparately seeks the approval of her friends, family, and doctors and realizes that she won't find it.

I'm scared about the future...almost horrified that I've yet again fucked something up with this confession. Someone, somewhere will find it and I'll be embarassed and horrified to have my dirty laundry on display, but if I've learned one thing from the past six years, it's that you can't deny the existence of the duality. To do so leads to disasterous consequences.

Happy

(and I'm told that he made this sentence by himself with the wooden letters. So very Montessori, no?)

I'm picking Zac up from his preschool in a couple of minutes and I couldn't be happier at the thought of going home with him and settling in for the night. We are going to decorate the apartment tonight for Christmas, although I was just told that Santa needs to come for ALL members of the family, not just the kids. Basically, that means that I have to buy stocking stuffers for myself, which is somehow demoralizing. I find myself walking around stores going, "Now just what would Santa get me anyways?"

At least this fight is over for now. I can relax and continue fighting every other battle that I have on my plate. More to come...

Pause

Sorry about that. I get the feeling that my pause in blogging was being interpreted as rather dramatic. I didn't intend for that to happen.

So much to catch up on. I guess the first thing that I'll clear off my plate is an explanation of where I've been for the past two weeks. I'm not sure exactly how to answer that, other than a basic outline. I was in the hospital in Galveston for four days following Thanksgiving and discharged on Monday, November 30th. I worked at Pier 1 that night, to avoid missing even more shifts there. The rest of that week is a blur from trying to write a couple of grant requests, complete the 2010 Development Plan for my "department" (which is me, managing me, and forecasting on my productivity), trying to prepare for an accounting test on Friday, sitting in school for 9 hours on Sunday, and working for five hours at Pier 1 on Sunday. That brings us to today. If you ask me, as many people so kindly have, if I'm "OK", my answer will change depending on the day or time. After work on Sunday, I was most definitely not OK. I've been really down today at work today as well and I called in sick to Pier 1 tonight. Am I likely to go back to the hospital in the next 24 hours? No. Should I be in an inpatient or intensive outpatient program somewhere? Possibly.

What else? Well, I did see the Infectious Disease doctor. She thinks that the acineobacter in my mouth is a red herring and that I've probably had it for sometime. The fact that I've never known that I've had it can be attributed to the fact that nobody has ever cultured me for it before. In her opinion, you tend to find what you go looking for. She thinks my mouth problems are caused by my sudden weight gain (+35lbs in less than six months, that has to be a record), sleep walking, and sleep eating as a result of sleep apnea. She's ordered a sleep study for me, which I hope to complete by the end of this week. I'll go into the sleep study at 7:30pm, hang out while they hook me up, watch tv until 10pm or so, go to sleep (Ambien aided, which surprised me), and get woken up at 6am - sharp. I can shower or leave at 6am. I was also told that my nasal passages are almost completely closed and that I should be using a steroid nasal spray. So, there's that.

Big surprise! My back didn't hurt at all while I was in the hospital...unlike the days during the weekend where I would hurt from lying on the couch or in my bed too long. Nope, not like at all. I had no pain. Now that I'm back to typing and sitting upright in a potentially non-ergonomic office chair, I'm in all kinds of pain. My forearm and my wrist hurt. My ribs hurt. I generally hate life in this position, yet this is where I find myself 8-10 hours a day.

I have one more accounting test to complete before the end of this module of grad school. I have a week to complete it, so here's hoping that I can do it this weekend. Until then, I'll try to make my pauses a little less dramatic and shorter in length.

I Just Want One Part of Me to Work

Isn't it fun to jump back and forth between medical conditions? Really, I think I just complain a lot. If it's not my back, it's my mouth. If it's not my mouth, it's my job. If it's not my job, it's my volunteer work or school. See? I'm a barrel of complaints and not fun at all.

Back to my mouth though. I had an "interesting" (if you call getting completely freaked out an "interesting experience") talk with the ENT nurse yesterday. I said that the first round of antibiotics they put me on for my mouth weren't working. They did nothing, actually. My throat still hurts. My mouth is still white, dry, and sticky. So, I asked if they could put me on another class of antibiotics (preferably one with a generic). She said she'd ask the doc and call me back. When she called back, she said that they would call in another prescription for me, but if it didn't work that I would need to go see an Infectious Disease Specialist.

Let me say that again: Infectious Disease Specialist. As in, I quite possibly have a rare form of bacteria that I picked up from God knows where in my lymphatic system. It's expressing itself in my mouth and throat. Every time I have gotten my temperature taken for the past five months, it's been between 99-100. Apparently, I have a relatively harmless infectious disease. It's more like a baby goat at a petting zoo and less like a flea-infected marmot carrying the bubonic plague. Did I mention that I was quarantined for the bubonic plague in Mongolia because someone had died from it? Granted, that was six years ago and none of my symptoms match (of course I checked, do you think I'm an idiot? I'm paranoid, not stupid), but none of my symptoms match anything else either.

I immediately call my sister, who begins wondering why I'm screeching at her. I was just so upset that the nurse wouldn't even tell me what kind of bacteria they cultured out of my throat. I asked the nurse today when I talked to her and she said that she didn't have my chart in front of me, but would fax the information to my primary care physician when I needed a referral to the INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST. This kind of specialist is located lovingly in the not-ominous-sounding-at-all Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology.

So many things can cause a white film on your tongue. Add in a sore throat, persistent low-grade fever, resistance to BOTH anti-fungal and antibiotic medication, and you have a nice medical mystery and very annoying condition.

Want to Feel My Rib?

Do you ever notice that there is two kinds of pain: ouch (that hurts! Stop it immediately) and ouch (yeah, that hurts, but I can tell that it's for a greater good and it feels almost a little good)? Physical therapy on Thursday really pushed the boundaries on ouch - in a bad way - and ouch - in a good way. I find it interesting that I'm actually looking forward to going back this afternoon.

Much like the drama in my mouth, this is a medical mystery months (going on years) in the making. I don't even really know where to start, other than to say my back started hurting in February 2008 when I was writing a grant. I waited a couple of months because, apparently, that's what I do. I'm a good waiter. I wait for my medical problems to resolve themselves before seeking treatment. It's just so unfortunate that they rarely do. Anyways, I saw a family practitioner, which is perhaps the WORST possible kind of doctor for pain. He thought I was drug-seeking because I had been using vicadin left over from an oral surgery to help me with the pain. In his mind, vague, non-injury-related "back problems" clearly indicated that I was hooked to hydrocodone and should immediately get out of his office.

Sigh.

Fast forward...I don't know....to August 2008. I met Dew and we started going to electro-accupuncture sessions. Basically, the needles are attached to electrical current and vibrate inside your skin. You can imagine how much fun that would be for 45 minutes, while lying on your stomach listening to music from a cd player. The pain relief from a session would last for about 3 days. Then I was back to my normal level of pain. I had a lot of accupuncture sessions and it worked for a while.

Then I saw an orthopedic surgeon and he suggested physical therapy and an anti-inflammatory. I went to one session of physical therapy (for $45) and didn't go back because it took too long and was too expensive.

I think at some point I see another family practitioner and beat my head against a wall. Then my psychiatrist started prescribing things for my back pain. Probably not the best idea considering muscle relaxers don't actually make me feel better, they just make me not care that I'm in pain. And I was in so much pain.

SOOOO....back to another family practitioner at my new place. She doesn't give me anything for pain and sends me to...get this...another orthopedic surgeon!! For another $45 I go and see the Ortho Doc, who happens to be Chair of the Orthopedic Department at a very prestigious medical school in town. I fall a little bit in love with him when he says, "Show me your pain" and I point to the middle of my back. He says, "Hmm...sometimes my patients don't tell me that the pain moves from side to side because they are afraid that it will affect their credibility with me" I gasped. "Yes! That's exactly what my pain does," I solemnly swear. He says, "It's probably a muscular problem that I'm not going to be able to help with. You are a non-surgical candidate. You should go see a Physical Pain and Rehabilitation Specialist".

Dew and I trundled to another doctor where I have a 2.5 hour appointment that involved pushing and pulling. I was prescribed physical therapy and an anti-inflammatory (stop me if you've heard this one before) and two MRIs since the x-rays and blood work came back normal.

I'm committed to physical therapy this time, mostly because I have to take care of myself. No one else will and I've worked like a dog all year. I thought I didn't have any vacation time because what was showing up on my check stub was a pitifully small amount. I'm still in a negative for sick leave after being in Peru in February 2009, so every time I go to the doctor, I have to use vacation time. Turns out, what was being printed on our check stubs was wrong. I have a surplus of vacation time from not taking more than 1 or 2 days all year. I can only carry-over 40 hours of time and if I don't use all my surplus vacation time before the end of the year I lose it.

The Pain Doc recommended a very specific therapist for me to work with at yet-another-prestigious hospital in town. I really like him, especially when he said he could literally feel where my rib was turned out and spent 20 minutes trying to manipulate it. That was the "ow, I want to kick you in your nuts" part. Fortunately, it was over relatively quickly.

Now there is just the money part to worry about. On my insurance plan, every session of pt costs $45. I'm scheduled for two sessions this week and my MRI is going to cost another $45. That's $135 in medical expenses for this week alone. I reapplied to Pier 1 to help cover some of these expenses. I'm hoping that I will be able to work a couple nights a week and on Sundays.

At least I can point to the really cool rib that's sticking out if someone thinks I'm faking my pain.

I'm Dying

(My apologies to folks who read part of this story already when it was up at this site. Just consider this a recap)

I'm all kinds of dramatic. I know this about myself. What's funny is that I tend to be like most people and will go crazy over a stubbed toe that is clearly an indicator my complete lack of balance and potential inner ear disorder. Yet, it took me 6 weeks to actually go to a doctor for a dry mouth. Mostly because, seriously, who goes to the doctor for a dry mouth? So if we back up from the time that I wrote that post, I have been having problems with my mouth since July 1st or so.

August: I pay $20 to see my old primary care physician, who looked at the whiteness in my mouth and on my tongue and said, "Why yes. I know what it is. It doesn't look exactly like thrush, but thrush it could be. Take this horrible oral anti-fungal medication four times a day for 14 days." Me: "Uh...ok. I guess I have been on a lot of antibiotics for a while now". The only problem is that anti-fungal medication didn't cure the problem. I called and asked for a refill and took all 192 doses of the next round. Guess what didn't happen? Yep, it didn't clear anything up. I still had a dry mouth and whiteness. It felt/feels like I'm constantly sucking on something sour, only drinking water doesn't make it any better.

September 21st: I pay $20 to see my new doctor at the very large, very prestigious medical school clinic in Houston. She looked at my mouth and said (no, I'm not kidding): "It's not thrush. You have a white film on your tongue and throat that goes away when I scrape it. You have an oral disturbance. I will prescribe an anti-fungal, but it probably won't work". Me: "Uh...what do you mean it won't work?" Her: "It's not thrush, but you can try this. It's a very good anti-fungal, but if it doesn't work, it's because I don't know what you have." Me: "Oh well then" (and like an idiot walked out of her office without asking her to 1)culture my throat or 2)address the back pain that I went into the office for. I will give her credit for one thing, it wasn't thrush and the medication didn't work. I guess I was hoping for some kind of miracle cure.

October 20th: I saw my Ob-Gyn, also at the very large, very prestigious medical college clinic. Since I paid a $45 co-pay to see her for my annual checkup, I ask her to look at my mouth. I figured she'd be swabbing things anyway. She looks at me and says, "Well, I don't see too many mouths in my line of work, but sure, I'll take a look". Then I fell in love with her. We are moving to California after the holidays to raise baby llamas together. But seriously, she cultured my mouth. Three days later she sent me an e-mail (can you see why I love her?) that she FOLLOWED UP with a personal phone call. It's like I've died and gone to Ob-Gyn heaven. Unfortunately, that culture showed yeast, but then again, I asked an Ob-Gyn to look at my mouth. Of course she saw yeast. She's a veritable yeast whisperer. I go back on anti-fungal (the same one as in August) and think, "Maybe, just maybe this magical woman has it in her powers to cure me." Well, she didn't, but she at least referred me to an ENT. Would you believe that insurance companies don't accept referrals from Ob-Gyns for ENTs? The nerve. I had to call my primary physician (the new one) back and ask very nicely for a referral without another office visit.

November 3rd: I see the referred ENT and she's lovely, even if she's not located in the same office building that all the other doctors are in and I have to pay a $45 co-pay to see her. My throat has started to hurt fiercely and there are strange things coming from my nose. I'm pretty sure I'm dying a slow, dry death. She cultures both my nose AND my throat after looking at them both extensively and proclaiming, "My word! Your lymphatic system is completely inflamed. Have you been feeling run down? You look like you'd be feeling run down". To which I answered, "Well, I have this thing...with my throat....and now my nose....and how about you fix it, mkay?" She agreed to my conditions and had her nurse come in to give me instructions. The nurse comes in with a water bottle and a sheet for mixing baking soda and salt in equal quantities to gargle and brush with. The water bottle is supposed to go up my nose where I would squirt 4oz of water and solution into each nasal cavity while repeating, "Kitty, kitty, kitty" over and over so it wouldn't go down my throat. I just sat there staring at the nurse going, "Oh yeah. I bet you love your job". They sent me down five floors to drop off my culture samples in a very large, non-profit hospital in the middle of a damn medical center of office buildings. I confuse easily. I blame my inner ear disorder.

November 6th: ENT nurse calls me and says, "So...it turns out that you don't have an oral yeast infection. You have MULTIPLE EXOTIC STRAINS OF BACTERIA" (direct quote). Me: "What the hell??" Her: "I'm calling in an antibiotic to your pharmacy. Take it for 14 days and call us back." Me: "Wait, I thought this problem started from being on antibiotics." Her: "Umm...I don't know. Just don't call before you finish the prescription"

Today: Day 3 of very-expensive-antibiotic-that-had-no-generic-equivalent. My mouth is worse than ever. Very, very dry and all white. I want to go home and take a nap, but I know that if I do I'll wake up and my mouth will still have bacteria (and not the good kind) growing in it.

Now you have the story about how I'm dying and why I'm completely broke from office visit and prescription co-pays. Moral of the story: ask for cultures the first time, don't see general practioners when a specialist is more qualified, then make sure you see the right specialist, and once you are at said specialist, for the love of God, make sure you confirm that the medication they put you on will have a generic. The end.

New Post

New post up at The Writing Spot.

Not Fun

I decided last night that I'm not fun enough for Carlo. We broke up on the phone during a break from his EMT class. I felt bad that it had to happen then, especially when he was tired from trying to put out a burning building then sitting in class for several hours, but it had been building for a little while.

Here's evidence of why I'm not fun:

1) I'm a single Mom. Raising Zac is one of my first priorities. If you want to get to know me, you are going to have to get to know him. I don't want someone to be a Daddy, or even play Daddy, but they are going to have to spend time with Zac when he's around and awake. He is my the biggest part of my life.

2) I'm getting my MBA. I often have to do homework instead of cuddling on the couch watching a football game that I don't care about. If I am doing that, I'm usually trying to figure out how I can fall asleep and still seem interested.

3) I'm often tired. See reasons 1-2.

4) I'm a baby when I'm sick. I'll still come over and I'll even offer to go out after I've thrown up. I don't want someone to look disappointed - like I haven't given enough. In fact, when I'm sick, I like it when people take care of me and bring me saltines and Sprite and rub my back. I'm the least fun person ever when I'm sick. I admit this.

5) One word: FOB. I'm thinking about filing a law suit against the FOB and wondering where I'm going to get the money for the lawyer's fees and getting the information together for the lawyer.

6) I like being in a relationship. Dating multiple people doesn't really interest me. I'm in fact, a horrible dater because I just want to get to know someone and find out if we are compatible. If I'm dating someone for more than a month or so, I don't want to worry if I use a term of endearment or call them my boyfriend. This also includes saying not hiding my relationship from anyone, on or off the Internet.

I just couldn't be the happy-go-lucky, fun woman that Carlo wanted. I have too much on my mind to try and pretend that I don't and that what's going on in my life affects me. My fun nights are on Saturdays when Zac is at my parents and I'm finished with school for the week. Most weeknights I'll be in bed by 10pm reading a novel and listening to the sound of the rain on CD.

I am kind, caring, supportive, hard-working, and determined, but very decidedly, not fun.

The Halloween Edition

I don't post many pictures of Zac anymore, which is a shame. People who have read me from pregnancy on-ward might think that Zac is permanently stuck as an 18-month old covered in spaghetti. Now he's a growing four year-old that still likes to cover himself with spaghetti.

I think I stopped posting as many pictures when I moved out of my parents' house a year ago and couldn't use their digital camera for everyday shots. Fortunately, I did manage to get a shot of Zac in his Halloween costume on Saturday. He decided to go as a firefighter, which was a change from his initial idea of being Spiderman. The only Spiderman costume that I could find was a cheap polyester that looked like it might suffocate him if it was over his face.




So, fireman it was. Uncle Kevin provided a hat from his crew in New Hampshire when Zac went up to visit Aunt Jen with my parents. Notice the handy plastic axe in his hand, in case he needs to break through any cellophane to rescue a burning stuffed animal. Zac is nothing if not caring, and now apparently well-prepared. Carlo is also a fireman. That means that I have more fireman in my life than most people have hands. It's a little odd, I'll admit.



Last year he went as a cowboy. He still has the hat and he likes to wear it on special occasions. The weekend before Halloween we went to one of his classmate's birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese. Zac decided that he wanted to wear his "handsome" clothes and top it off with his cowboy hat.

He got so very upset when the giant rat, also known as Chuckie, took his hat and wouldn't give it back to him. The poor kid just broke down in sobs and clung to my leg until the rat gave it back and tried to hug him. Meanwhile, I was in the middle of having an anxiety attack. All 150-200 kids in the place sounded like they were being attacked. These were not joyous yelps I was hearing. It sounded like kids were being mutilated and killed. All of the muscles in my body tensed up and I immediately started hurting. Girl Gone South told me that she thought Chuck-e-Cheese was an excellent form of birthcontrol. She might be on to something.

I Just Can't

I can't live like this anymore. I thought it would slow down after the Montessori event (which raised $11,000 - hell ya!), but it didn't. It hasn't slowed down at work or at school. Immediately following the event on Friday I had to finish up the final summary paper for my communications class, prepare and practice for a six minute presentation, and study for a cumulative final in macroeconomics. I can't even really tell you how stressed I was - how stressed I continue to be.

I was up two nights ago until 11:30pm working two grants for Hurricane Ike recovery. They were due at 12pm on Wednesday. Each grant had a complex, 13-page budget and required proposal narrative. They weren't so much grants as works of art, if art had annotated attachments and tax-exempt quotes for building repairs. At the end of a very long day I was hungry and tired. Zac was at my parents' house for what felt like the fiftieth time in two months and I sat eating a bowl of cereal. I went to twitter and just realized that I can't live like this anymore. The constant stress, the comfort food I seek in food as I turn to it over and over, the loneliness and guilt from missing my son, the inability to ever really relax.

The most noticeable effect from alll of this is in my body. I've gained 20lbs since June. When Dew came to take me out to lunch the other day, I had to tell him not to mention how fat I've gotten because I'm a little sensitive about it. I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself eating peanut butter straight from the jar or pourning sugar onto a bowl of already sweetened cereal. I eat without even realizing that I'm eating. Sometimes I don't even remember it until the next morning when I see what's left on the counter or in the sink. I worked hard to lose 30lbs a year ago, and now it seems like nothing I did really mattered. My life is out of my control and there is no greater manifestation of that than eating while asleep.

The only thing that I know is that I can't keep doing this to myself and to my family. I want Zac to know that he doesn't have to say my name over and over just to reassure himself that I'm still there. I want to be there. I want to go on a date and not think about the homework that I should be doing or the grant that needs to be written.

I want me back, and also, I miss her: http://treesandcrackers.blogspot.com/. She left today to go back to Iowa and imagining making it through a day at work just got a little harder.

Oh Thank God

Where was I? When I last posted, I had just sent out 775 invitations to a Montessori event to raise money for my mandatory volunteering gig. A couple RSVPs were coming in a day, but nothing that was blowing me out of the water. I got nervous that we weren't going to have enough people were going to be at the fundraiser so I decided that we'd send out informational packets about our school and the event to parents at other public Montessori schools. Unfortunately, I only had two days to print and staple everything together for 700 packets. Oh, and I've been trying to write and edit grants and occasionally see my son. I'll just say that I haven't been successful at doing everything at once.

At least the event is over. 122 people came and ate donated food and drank purchased alcohol. They listened to speeches and saw Zac and 9 of his classmates performed six songs in English and Spanish. I stepped in the auditorium to hear him perform, only to have him shout, "MAMA!" as soon as he saw me. He started pointing at the pictures showing on the screens behind him and waving to me some more. I left after three songs and missed when he stole the show by taking the microphone from his teacher and asking: "What should I say again?" right into the mic. I'm pretty sure that while he was doing that I was trying to dump water out of the catering trays to take down the buffet. I can't emphasize enough how glad I am that it's over. I feel like I can get my life back to the just mildly crazy schedule, rather than the full-blown, "Holy shit. I need to stop working 13 hours a day."

New Perspective

I finally have the results from my blood test. It took 2 1/2 weeks because the Doctor wouldn't review and release the results. Everything was absolutely and completely normal. I don't have lupus or rheumotoid arthritis. I'm not anemic. When the nurse told me that over the phone that everything looked great, I was disappointed. "Now what should I do?" I asked her, "I'm still in pain". She seemed genuinely surprised about the request. "Hold on," she said, "I'll go ask the doctor". Five minutes later she came with news that my doctor at the time wanted me to go see a rheumatologist, who in the words of Wikipedia we trust, quote: "Rheumatologists deal mainly with clinical problems involving joints, soft tissues, and the allied conditions of connective tissues." I don't even know what the phrase, "allied conditions of connective tissues" means, other than it sounds like the connective tissues of my body got together to unionize to collectively bargain for better working conditions and an increase in pay.

I said no thank you to the rheumatologist, although I'm sure they are very nice people. I instead made one of the biggest switches of my medical journey as a patient: I left Kelsey-Seybold. I've been a Kelsey patient since I moved to Texas. My Ob-Gyn that was there at Zac's birth was a Kelsey doc. My primary care doctor, orthopedist, and dermatologist all work for Kelsey.

I saw a primary care physician at a big name clinic in the Medical Center. After some serious drama that involved me sobbing in the waiting room and begging the receptionist to ask the nurse to reconsider seeing me, I finally saw the doctor. She was nice and very thorough, although ultimately unhelpful. She did a full physical exam and ruled out fibromyalgia because I don't have the classic tender spots that are sensitive to touch. She referred me to an ortho-spinal specialist, possibly for a MRI, but most likely for a "here are some more exercises that you can do to strengthen your core and minimize your muscular-skeletal pain" exam. The referral is being sent to me by mail and will include the name of the doctor that I'm allowed to see. Then I'm supposed to call the doctor's office and make an appointment. God help me if I really was in serious pain. Then what would they do? The new doc didn't give me anything to manage the pain and I didn't ask about it. I did leave with another prescription for the oral fungal infection that has resisted two rounds of treatment with nystatin so far. I'm on week 9 of dealing with a dry, irritated mouth. What to guess how much that sucks? At least it's starting to get a little better.

So, I haven't made any decisions yet about anything. I looked into the possibility of slowing down my graduate degree and only taking one class at a time. Turns out that I'll only be able to do that every other module. I still have the option of taking a module off if the ortho-spinal doc recommends physical therapy or, worse case scenario, surgery. I'm still in the midst of mandatory volunteering and feeling better after sending out 775 invitations to a Montessori event on October 15th. Now I'm just tracking RSVPs and sending out thank you letters. Work is crazy, as always. Zac is good, just a little confused I think about everything that has gone on. I'm still dating Carlo and I'm enjoying spending time with him, even if he likes to pick up weekend, overnight shifts. I'm adjusting to his football rules..slowly. More about that another time.

Right now, I'm moving on and feeling pretty good.

M.I.A.

Sometimes there good reasons when I go for long periods of time without blogging. I'll be honest, though, sometimes the "good reason" is that I've been trying too hard to make it through the day to think about sitting down and composing a blog post.

A little bit after Dew broke up with me, I took down all the posts on depression. I took down all my posts actually. Slowly, some of them have started to reappear in the blog archive, but a lot of them haven't. I felt so much shame about what I had written and what I had gone through that a lot of the words haven't been reposted. It made sense that when I linked my blog up to my facebook account that I would keep the talk about depression to a minimum, since new people that actually had met me at one point in my life or another could stumble across this site and read this. Saying something along the lines of, "Hi! It's great hearing from you. It's been a long time since 8th grade algebra class. P.S. - I'm crazy" didn't seem like the best way to win friends and influence people.

But I feel inauthentic, like I'm hiding something. Most of the time, I keep my feelings from my friends and almost always from health care professionals. It's easier to say that I'm doing fine than to tell them about the relentless thoughts that troop through my head -the thoughts that make me cry and want to sleep for hours and hours and hours. When I told the family care practitioner that the pain I was feeling in my body left me feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, he took one look at my chart and said, "You're already on anti-depressants. There is nothing else I can do for you," and quickly turned away.

Sometimes I wonder if the stress is too much for me. I've had two cars towed in the past three weeks. The last one was last Monday. I hit a curb and the front tire exploded. I pulled over to the entrance of a hotel and turned on my emergency flashers. Cars were swerving around me, but I was relatively safe. I had spent twenty minutes trying to jack up the car when the car moved forward and the jack fell. It was approximately 95 degrees with 90% humidity and my sweat was dripping down my back. Someone that was pulling into the hotel stopped to help me. He had the car jacked up (this time on the frame of the car) and the tire changed in under 15 minutes. Unfortunately, he put the lug nuts on backwards and I was too clueless to notice. I drove about 200 yards into Galleria traffic, when the wheel separated from the spare time. This time I was in a turn lane for the freeway and couldn't pull off anywhere without damaging the wheel. This option was especially bad considering the car I was driving wasn't mine after towing the first car the weekend before. I did the only thing that I could think of doing, which was turning on the emergency flashers again and calling 911. A police officer arrived about 10-15 minutes later and blocked traffic around me while we waited for a tow truck. When the tow truck got there, the police officer had a quiet conversation with him that involved the price of the tow. The police officer said that he wouldn't do any paper work if the tow truck driver didn't and I could pay $50, in cash, instead of the full $140 fee for blocking a lane of city traffic.

The car was towed and I rode with the police officer less than a block to where the car was dropped off. The tow truck driver asked for the cash, saying that he would accept $40, and I had to tell him that I didn't have it. I asked him if I could write him a check and he said no. We just kind of stared at each other for a while and I said I could try the ATM, that maybe some of the checks I had written hadn't cleared my account yet. They hadn't, so I handed him the last $40 in my account and watched the next day as I accrued over $75 in bank overdraft fees with the checks did clear. I spent two hours at the car repair shop while they looked for a 14" tire. They finally found a used one that they gave me for free if I paid for the mounting and balancing. I got home an hour later.

Something inside me has been broken lately. Between the cars, the pain, school, Zac, work, and mandatory volunteering late into the night, I have just felt incapacitated and ineffective. I'm surviving, at the barest level. No one wants to hear this though, so I lie when someone asks me how I'm doing.

So, really, I'm fine. Just haven't been writing much.

I Just About Hate Everything

I've found a new blogger than has said almost exactly what I've been feeling lately in regards to the pain in my body. In this post she pretty much sums up everything, especially the part where she says, "I always held out hope that I would find something to "fix" me. I thought if I did enough yoga, or acupuncture, or massage, or stretching, that I would be cured. I'm all for putting up a fight, but this latest diagnosis has made me realize that I can not be cured. I will struggle with this for the rest of my life."

I don't have a diagnosis yet, and it's doubtful that I ever will. I sit at work in tremendous pain waiting until I can leave and trying to figure out how I can just keep working even though everything tells me to stop. I try to go for short walks at work, get up and change positions, lay on the floor and do yoga, and take anti-inflammatories like they are going out of style. At night, I eat peanut butter out of the jar for no apparent reason. Sometimes I wake up with peanut butter in my mouth and I'm not sure when I ate it and I wonder what my body is trying to accomplish.

The best part of my day is the first hour after I wake up. I'm sore from the pain the previous day, but it doesn't actively hurt. I can make my bed, fold laundry, and tell Zac "no" when he asks to watch another show on PBS because we need to leave for school and work. I don't feel like I want to curl up and have long heart-to-heart talks with God. I feel like me, for a little while at least.

What's most concerning to me is the thought that there may not be a physical cause for the pain I'm in. After the x-rays and the tests, it might be left with nothing other than a list of things I don't have. There might not be anything that I can do other than what I'm doing now and that thought scares me more than anything.

Recap

I'm still here. Sorry that I've been away so long from blogging. I have a couple of interesting stories that I want to share. As always, most of them revolve around me either being or making a complete ass out of myself. Such is the joy of being in my world.

My first story directly relates to my last post. Not many people noticed before I changed it, but the last post I wrote originally included the question: "Is it that the guy is just more honest than most or his he just a shallow knucklehead?" Now there are a couple of problems with a question like that: 1) It's rude, 2) If the person reads it, he will automatically assume that I'm calling him that, and 3)I probably shouldn't write about people that I'm actively interested in dating, particularly in a less than glowing way. Carlo and I began chatting on yahoo a couple of weeks ago. E-mails progressed to phone call and during one two-hour phone session, I decide to friend him on Facebook. That's all well and good, except my blog is linked to my profile of fb. Right under my personal e-mail address and where I went to high school. Carlo decided to click on the link and ran smack into an entry involving him.

He e-mailed me back answers to all of my questions, including Question #2, in which he said that he would take the high road about the shallow knucklehead comment. He told me what he really looks for in a woman: "I'm looking for a sweet, smart, pretty and fun girl. She needs to be a positive person who doesn't feel the need to put down others in order to build up her perceived value." I assume the last part was directly related to what I said about him. It's an issue that I've struggled with before on my blog. I write to vent and to entertain. Sometimes I worry that I go to far.

Almost unbelievably, Carlo decided to give me a second chance. It's pretty rare that life ever offers you one, so I wanted to make the most out of it. I took off the offensive comment from my blog and apologized profusely to him. We decided to meet up for dinner and drinks last Saturday night and I had a great time. We've been seeing each other every couple of days since then (much to the dismay of my school work). I'm really enjoying spending time with him and learning more about it. We joke about the shallow knucklehead comment, but I think he's forgiven me. I hope so, at least.

Things with my body have taken a decidedly negative turn, however. I got an oral fungal infection from the antibiotics I was taking. What's amazing is how long I let it go before I went to the doctor. I just thought that I had a funny feeling in my mouth. It felt dry and scratchy all the time, regardless of how much water or Diet Coke I would drink. After about a month, it continued to get worse. I finally saw a doctor for it and found out that I had over a 100 degree temperature and a mouth covered in white. I was prescribed an oral anti-fungal treatment, which involves me holding medication in mouth as long as possible then finally swallowing it. After one week of treatment, I'm only marginally better. It's now official that my medical interventions (originally the antibiotics) is now leading to other interventions (anti-fungal).

I took yesterday off work to rest my back. The problem is that I'm now experiencing pain in more than just my back. I know have pain in the backs of my arms, my forearms, and my calves. The pain used to go away as long as I took a break from work or walked around. Now even on my days off, it's almost constant. I went back to see the same family practitioner that I saw a week ago for my mouth. I got an initial good feeling from him. He seems thorough and was willing to listen to my vague complaints like, "radiating pain" and "chronic fatigue". He sent me for a pregnancy test (not pregnant), x-rays of my spine and shoulder, and a series of blood work to check for everything from autoimmune diseases to anemia and thyroid problems. I should have the results back from the blood work later this week.

I'm back at work today, still very tender and uncomfortable sitting for long periods of time. my biggest hurdle is how overwhelmed and hopeless I feel when dealing with the pain. The doc I saw yesterday said that he couldn't help me with that because I'm already on medication for depression. He didn't give me a lot of options, other than to talk to my shrink, which I'll do. Until then, for those of you that know yoga, I've been spending a lot of time in the child's pose, hoping that my body can somehow heal itself.

Q & A

I've had a lot of questions lately, very few of which have had many answers. That's where you all come in. If I can't blog about questions that I have a pressing need to answer, where else will I turn (and no, google does not have all the answers for me)? Not to beg here, but please, pretty please can I exploit your knowledge to improve the quality of my life (or at least clean my apartment)?

Here is what I've been wondering:

1) How the hell do you get poop out of carpet? I've scrubbed and scrubbed, and this shit, literally, isn't budging. I've tried carpet cleaner and a sponge so far. What am I missing? Other pertinent details about the poop include: human origin, not from me, possibly from a little boy that ran naked from one bathroom at one end of the apartment to the other. The existence of the poop was confirmed when I accidentally stepped on it while trying to turn out the living room light. Subsequent poop prints were left while trying to hop to the bathroom to wash off my foot.

2) Who says: "I usually like pretty women with good figures" when asked: "Do you have a type of woman you usually like?" Don't most people answer with the standard "intelligence, humor, kindness...." line of b.s.? Is it that the guy is just more honest than most?

3) How much does a good multi-media personality matter? If someone has a particularly embarrassing facebook page or a bad text messaging style (ex: "I still b workin at 5. hit me up lata 2nit"), should that concern me? Do I need someone that is a proficient communicator in all forms?

4) Besides medication, which I haven't changed recently, what could possibly be causing my incredibly dry mouth? Drinking water and Diet Coke doesn't help. It seems like it just makes it worse. Sometimes I try and suck on hard candy, but nothing seems to really make it go away. Am I dying? Is this really a precursor for old age? Without sounding neurotic, I feel like I need to make it very clear just exactly how much this is annoying me. I have a weird, funny thing going on in my mouth.

Somebody please help me!

Flying Solo

So the good news is that I'm feeling better. Much better actually. The bad news is that I still had to use a little Icy-Hot this morning on my ribs, which means that it will burn a little in the bathtub tonight. I'm ok with that, though. At least I'm not feeling the urge to moan pathetically and write an entire blog post about how much pain I'm in. We can all be thankful for that.

As for the dating update, I don't have much to offer. Dr. Man ignored my text on Friday asking if we were still on for Saturday. I haven't heard from him, especially since I turned him down when he asked for some scantily clad photos. I just wanted to say to him: "Look. There are many nice women out there who would probably be more than happy to take pictures of themselves in their bra and underwear. I'm just not one of those women. You should find one of them." Apparently, he did, or at least he stopped talking to me. Either one, maybe both. I don't consider it a particularly large loss, even if it was fun getting text messages from him throughout the day.

I went on a date with an acquaintance of a friend (actually, it was Jory for any of you who remember the catchy nicknames I give people on my blogs) on Saturday. It really wasn't the best idea, considering that I had to make most of the conversation and I've been sucking at small talk lately. He was able to very perceptively figure out when a dark thought crossed my mind about the futitility of dating. He asked what was wrong, which I thought was very sweet, even if we had nothing else in common outside of that moment.

It all got me to thinking about being single. As P. often notes, I don't praise the virtues of life alone often enough (if ever). As I was pulling on a pair of fleece socks last night, to complement my cotton nightgown, I was feeling triumphantly single. I tend to think that people look rather silly in socks while naked. Even if I don't plan on getting naked, I will hardly ever go to bed with someone in socks. That all changes when I'm alone. When I'm all by myself, I'm all-socks, all-the- time. I never have to worry about feeling sexy or sultry in fleece socks, particularly since fleece socks are appropriate for New Hampshire and are fairly riduculous in Texas. I can't explain why my toes don't seem to recognize seasons or humidity, it's just something that I've come to accept. I love that when I'm single I don't have to convince anyone about why this phenomenon occurs. It just does.

While driving to work today I brainstormed some other benefits to not being in a relationship. Here's a working list of what I came up with:

1. Never having to listen to someone else fart unless they let one rip in public and I happen to be standing near by. I also don't have to worry about holding one in - ever.
2. Only choosing to listen to friends tell me about their day, usually only when one of us calls the other.
3. Rarely shaving my legs.
4. Eating food directly from a box, bag, or carton. Sometimes I go for weeks without cooking.
5. Getting my bed all to myself between the hours of 9pm - 4am. After 4am sometime, Zac comes into my room and promptly falls asleep on my head. Before that, I get to do whatever I want in whatever direction I want to do it in.
6. Going on unique and always entertaining blind dates. How many people in relationships can honestly say that they've ever had an entire conversation with a stranger about how to make Star Wars bodyarmor out of molded plastic? Really.
7. Never feeling bad for accidentally missing a day of birth control and never having to buy pregnancy tests.
8. The multi-faceted joy of celibacy.
9. Only cleaning when I have to, which occasionally means leaving my laundry lying out in the middle of my bedroom for a couple of weeks at a time.
10. Having the time to focus on friends and maintaining my friendships.
11. Reading for hours at at time at night after Zac has gone to bed.

That's what I've come up with so far. Like I said, it's a working list. I'll be sure to update it as something else comes to me.

Unexpected

I can remember almost exactly when the pain started. I was in the middle of writing a state grant for substance abuse prevention/intervention services in Houston schools in February 2008. Long hours at my desk combined with hours upon hours of meetings caused my right shoulder to cramp up. As time went on, the pain moved down my right arm and later to my middle back. I never expected that the pain would get so bad that I would be counting down the minutes until I get to leave work. I've started taking over-the-counter arthritis medication and use icy-hot on a regular basis. I'm 28 going on 65. The medication was recommended to me by a guy at work that doesn't want to give up his beer for vicadin. He said that he uses the arthritis medication as a substitute. I can't get vicadin and probably don't want to be taking it on a daily basis. That sounds like a good recipe for addiction and possibly liver failure. Funny enough, the arthritis medication actually worked for a little while. Old people know some good tricks.

When everything starts to cramp up at night when I come home from school or work, I sit in a bath tub full of water so hot that it leaves bruises on my skin. That's the only way that I find any relief from the pain. Sweat drips down my face from the heat, onto the books or magazines that I read in the tub. Zac usually comes to check on me as I'm lying there, feeling comfortable for the first time in hours. I've often fantasized about taking a hot bath during my lunch hour, or even a shower, something, anything to keep from focusing on the pain that starts to demand more and more of my attention.

I woke up hurting today. Sometimes if I lay down too long my middle back, right where my ribs jut out in the back, will start to hurt. I think that's what happened last night. It's never a good sign to start the day off in pain, that just means that it will get worse as the day goes on. I've started to become almost a morning person (no, not really). Usually I get one or two hours in the morning where I feel like myself again, the person that I remember being before this started dominating my life. Sometimes I can go a whole Saturday at school for nine hours without feeling anything. Other times I'm not that lucky.

I've tried quite a few medical options for my back. I saw a family practitioner, an orthopedist, a chiropractor, and an acupuncturist. I can't afford to see the acupuncturist, but I went last week, even though my regular doctor's office was closed. I saw an older Chinese man who ordered me to stand up, with my back facing him. He tugged on my hips a little and pronounced that I was twisted. The stress of my hips being out of alignment with my shoulders was causing all the pain. Unfortunately, he didn't offer any solutions on how to get untwisted. He just put the needles in my back and hooked up the electricity. My runny nose dripped fiercely on the paper sheet underneath me. Zac gave me his cold, which has possibly twisted me more.

The pain today is going down my knees and my calves. It feels like I've been running for hours, but I've really just been sitting here. I don't know what to do. I've never really been the type to thank God for my trials or to redefine my sense of self by overcoming adversity. Then again, I never expected that I would be so young and dealing with chronic pain that has lasted so long.

Candy Hearts and Rainbows

I've been thinking a lot about love lately and none of it has been in a particularly positive way. Remember how I said that I may or may not have given up on love? I think it's official: love and I have parted ways.

I went out with a great guy, Pepe, that I had been chatting last week. He's handsome, smart, funny, and interested in politics. It was the first date that I had been on in a while that actually seemed like it had potential to be more than one awkward date. I wanted to see him again! I said stupid things like, "I want to see you again," to his face, to which he replied, "Awww...that's so nice." Yeah, basically I was a complete idiot. Two days after meeting me Pepe IMs me to tell me that he ran into his ex-girlfriend the night before at a club. I ask him how it went and what he thought, never realizing that the phrase, "I ran into my ex-girlfriend" meant "I am getting together with my ex-girlfriend because I'm still in love with her and want to have her babies". Like the idiot that I am, I wait a couple of days and ask if he'd like to get together again. He IMs back that he can't because he's giving his new/old relationship 110% (no joke, that is seriously what he said), but that he had a great time talking to me. I haven't talked to him since.

I'm supposed to go out this weekend with a Ph.D student in Experimental Psychology. I'm pretty sure his degrees means he knows how to mess with people and will take notes and prepare a scatter diagram while doing it. He would say that he wants to better the treatment and outcomes geriatric care. I still feel like there is something diabolical about his chosen career path. Then again, it's very possible that I'm just making stuff up at this point because I don't want to be rejected again. I'm afraid that Dr. Man will take one look at me and decide to not go out to dinner and a blues bar. Dr. Man works out at least once a day and has the body to prove it (at least from pictures. What do I REALLY know, right?). He doesn't have any kids and has a neck slightly larger than my right thigh, which is saying something because I redefine the word "pear shape". My lumpy Mom-body reveals the sagging and stretching of a woman that gained way too much weight during pregnancy. I really don't think someone like me dates someone like Dr. Man. I've contemplated telling him that I can't go, but I'd like to think that I have a little more balls than that. Just a little. Not much.

I know that I used to have better feelings about the possibility of finding and keeping love, although if you've read any of the past blogs you're probably wondering if I'm just making this up. I would swear that something has changed lately. I feel so much more cynical about people. A friend of a friend told me that the key to love is finding the one that is looking for me. I immediately thought, "Who the hell is looking for me?" because no one goes looking for a neurotic single Mom. Even if I can pretend that I have my life together for a couple of hours, it's pretty obvious that I don't, funky smell and rotting dishes in my apartment aside.

All the romantics out there are probably thinking, "But you don't need to have your life together to be in love! Maybe someone doesn't need that! They will love you anyways, despite your flaws!", but let's look at the honest truth: I haven't managed to maintain a relationship for more than six months in the past four years (three of which I was actively dating). I've had two relationships end by the other person simply not returning phone calls or e-mails. I get dumped so often that I've taken to using myself as an example to cheer up friends that are having relationship problems. I'm more bitter than any 28 year-old woman has a right to be, but I can't seem to muster up enough energy to work on changing that emotion.

At least bad dates give me something to blog about. There is always that silver lining.

Behaving Badly

I'm having a hard time forgiving myself for some of my recent actions, fully realizing that I may not be forgiven by some of the people I hurt. I'm most ashamed that I let myself bottle up my emotions and then explode with them. Most of what came out of my mouth was fueled by anger and loneliness. I'm sorry. I once said that in my version of friendship you still love someone even when they are an asshole. I wasn't prepared to admit that there would be times that I would be the asshole.
_________________________

It's amazing to me that my coworkers manage to ignore each other completely. I just finished the last lipotherapy treatment on my chin and I went back into work comforted by the knowledge that no one would ask me about it. Then I started thinking, isn't it a little odd that none of my coworkers have ever said: "B, I notice that your neck is eating your chin. Your face has swollen up to five times its original size. Do you think that's something you should be concerned about?"

Nope. I look like I've gained 50lbs from the neck up and no one as ever said anything to me. It's like working in the non-profit industry somehow inoculates people from caring for each other. You have to somehow normalize all of the things you see on a daily basis. In that process, you lose part of the compassionate humanity that you recognize in others.

I write little vignettes in grant proposals about the effect of my agency's programs on clients. In one story, a young girl's father abandoned her and her brother. and took all of the family's furniture and money. The mother couldn't provide enough food for the kids and the little girl's hair starts falling out. Her teachers at the preschool notice and refer the family for counseling and emergency food assistance. The girl's hair starts slowly regrowing as she graduates from the preschool and enters first grade at a local elementary school, where she receives outstanding academic marks.

I've told that story so many times that I no longer feel anguish over a little girl suffering so much stress that she develops bald spots. Sometimes I worry that my work has desensitized me too much.

__________________

I'm glad that whoever said the only way to force someone to swim is to throw them in the deep end hasn't given Zac swimming lessons. My kid sinks faster than a rock in water. Zac makes cats look like good swimmers.

When he jumps into the water, he demands that I catch him, usually just about .05 seconds before his feet leave the pool bottom. Once in my arms he'll roll over on his stomach. I loop my arm underneath his belly and he'll kick furiously to get back to the pool steps to jump in the water again. He's just so damn cute, but I wish he would consider doggie paddling without me.

Last night we had a play date with a woman from grad school and her kids. She brought a life vest that Zac used at their neighborhood pool. With the vest on, he could float and keep his head above water, although you'd never know that from his screams. The words, "MAMA. HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" echo off the water, even though he obviously had enough oxygen to look at me and scream.

Fortunately, we have plenty of time to perfect his swimming ability before the end of summer, which in Houston is somewhere around December. Until then, I'll be the one in the pool kid clinging desperately to her arm, shouting, "Get me over to the edge, MAMA!"

Who Me?

I just beat Dew/E.J. in a silent blog-a-day competition. After five years I still have enough blogging mojo to beat a newbie blogger. Clearly, my ace in hole are stories about my son. It's pretty difficult for non-mommies to compete with that. I stopped posting after my victory, though, which pretty much makes me look like a total ass. Sorry about that.

Not a whole lot is going on over here. I had class this weekend and ended up going to bed frightfully early. When I went over to my parents' house on Sunday, I found a notice to withhold FOB's earnings in the mail. It looks like the AG's office was able to confirm where the FOB works in New Hampshire. That was a nice surprise. Since the amount that he owes has continued to go up, the amount he pays on arrears has also increased. Also nice. It's just doubtful that with him working in the restaurant industry as a server that I'll ever see even a portion of what the AG has determined he owes.

Manfriend came over last night. I was lying on my couch feeling like a horrible hostess, watching he and Zac played with the marble set that he gave Zac for his birthday. The two of them had a really good time together. Well, at least Zac had a good time and Manfriend pretended not to notice that Zac was messing up his well-engineered marble-rolling contraption.

I may or may not have said something along the lines of: "I've given up on dating. I still go out on dates, but really, I've given up." This may or may not be true, I'm not sure. I know that when I get upset about things with the FOB, I feel incredibly alone - so alone that I'm not sure how anyone will be able to bridge the gap between me and someone else. Then I'll start talking with someone new and dating will seem like a less fatalistic activity. I have a lunch date tomorrow with a guy that I'm looking forward to meeting. It sounds like a total contradiction to my statement last night, but it's what I'm feeling.

Good thing I never claim to be anything other than a walking hyperbole.

A Lighter Touch

For P, a story:

Over the course of three years, I've gone out on some fairly unbelievable dates. These dates were so bad that I could get a world record for bad dating in the track and field events, if dating was say, a decatholon. To continue the metaphor, my date on Monday could be equated to a javelin event, but instead of throwing a spear into the field, we just threw comments at each other.

I'll call the guy Moose. I had been talking to Moose over IM for about a month. Moose does private contracting as a mechanic on large military vehicles, primarily in war zones, which is where most military vehicles end up at some point. He's been back from Iraq for a couple of months and got online to meet new people. What's most interesting about Moose is that he doesn't work and doesn't plan to work anytime soon. He's looking at year's of free time. When I asked him what he does during the day, his reply was, "Play with my dog, golf, or shoot". "Shoot what?" I asked, genuinely curious as to what someone would shoot at all day. He replied, "I go to a range and either shoot skeet or targets." I think my reply was something as non-committal as, "Hmm...interesting." He asked if I wanted to go shooting with him. I ended up saying no because of my firm belief that dating should not live ammunition - really at any point, but especially in the beginning.

I'm glad that I went with my gut on this decision because at dinner with Moose we got into a "discussion" about the significance of the Confederate Flag. He believes that it is a symbol of Southern pride as a battle flag. I'm like, "Sure. I agree with you. It was a battle over the right to have slaves. What exactly is there to be proud about?" He said that it for him it's not a symbol of racism and slavery. I argued that the meaning of symbols is decided collectively, from the aggregate, not the individual...and on and on we went. I consider myself lucky that no one had a gun. It might have gotten ugly.

The date ended and I fled into the car, leaving Moose standing on the sidewalk. I was pretty sure that I was never going to hear from him again, but he surprised me by contacting me again to ask if I wanted to watch the next UFC fight with him. If I had to rank all the things that I find interesting in the world, UFC fighting is near the bottom, probably ranking close to golf and elk hunting. Although, I probably shouldn't speak definitively because I've never done either of those two activities. Let's just call it an educated guess.

Desolate

I wish I could describe how alone I feel when I fight for child support. It's like the entire system is set up to protect the rights of parents that don't have chosen not to contribute to their child's life, either financially or emotionally. In order to proceed with a modification of our child support order, the Attorney General's Office needs to verify the FOB's income, which means that he needs to be at a job for more than six months. THEN, they need his home address to serve him with the order to appear in court. All he has to do is keep moving and changing jobs and he can get away with not paying. What's worse is that if he keeps waiting tables and making $2/hour the state will garnish only his actual paycheck, and I get $20 every other week to help raise Zac. I was told by the AG's office that in that situation, they almost never go after men because "at least they are paying something." It makes me want to scream and kick.

It just feels so wrong. It's not only that he owes me money, it's the principle behind it. In my job I write grants to provide people with the services and education they need to change their life, to make what is unfair and unjust a little better. Yet, no one fights for me. No one can. I feel invisible, ineffective, and trapped. If I give up, then I'm condoning the actions of the FOB and I can't do that. I can't do that for Zac and I can't do that for myself.

What's even more isolating is that some of my friends think that the money isn't worth the anger and sadness that it brings me to fight for it. I try to explain that: 1) The money is worth it and I don't have the luxury of not pursuing it because of my financial situation, and 2) It makes it harder when I have to defend and justify my actions. I feel even more alone. I'm sorry that five years later, I'm still talking about the FOB and how upset it makes me. I'm sorry that you have to listen. I'm sorry that I'm not financially wealthy enough and don't have enough forgiveness in my heart to not pursue him with vengeance. I just can't. Not right now at least.

I want him to know that every time he turns around, the government will be there trying to garnish his wages. Every time he files his taxes, the IRS will take everything. I want him to know that he can't apply for a passport, get a house mortgage, or apply for a credit card. But none of these things matter to the FOB. That's the hardest thing for me to know. None of it matters and I'm back to waiting and feeling so alone.

Make That to Go

"Is he coming home with us?" Zac asked me last night, on the way to the car from the restaurant.

"No, babe. He's not."

"Where is he going?"

"He's going to his house. We are going to our house."

"But I want a friend to come over. Do you know who is going to come over?"

"No. I don't. I'll try and see if someone can come over."

Zac's desire to be around other people is getting harder for me as he's getting older. He's a naturally social kid that prefers to play with other kids or be the center of an adult's attention (preferrably two or three adults if they are in a group). I feel like I can't always offer him what he wants, in terms of a playmate or companion. As much as I try to balance his needs with the chores of running a house, going to work, and taking care of myself, I'm finding that Zac is getting more vocal about being alone.

A couple of weeks ago he repeatedly asked me where his Dad was. I told him that his "Dad" (my emphasis) lived in Florida and that he wasn't part of our life right now. He didn't understand. He just kept asking, hoping each time for a different answer.

I found out later that the FOB moved from Florida back to New Hampshire. His sister told me, when I asked if she knew why I had suddenly stopped receiving child support. Since he doesn't actually pay any money to the Texas Child Support Division, his wages are garnished. When he moves, the state that he lives in can't garnish his wages and Zac and I get nothing. I haven't even spoken to the FOB in almost a year-and-a-half.

I'm not even sure what I should do at this point. I requested a review of my case after the three year waiting period, then he started paying more and never heard anything. I could try and contact him through his myspace account, which is the only way that I have to get a hold of him, but what can I possibly say to him that would make him help me in any way? All I have is anger and even that is starting to wane. Righteous indignation is hard to maintain, even when it's justified. What I have now is no easy way to explain to Zac why he's missing half of his parents and easy way to pay all my bills, especially since I quit my second job.

I know that it's important for me to be in school, even if it makes things more financially difficult. I'm trying to find a way out of the same situation that I end up time and again with the FOB, it's just feeling hard today. I'd like a hug with a side order of responsible male role model for Zac. We could use it.

________
Edit: So it turns out that I can still be pissed off, even though it does me absolutely no good. The Writ of Withholding at the Attorney General's Office can only be enforced if they have a known, verified address for the FOB. I only know where he works. He owes $5,825 in back child support, including medical. The State of Texas would have to ask for cooperation from the State of New Hampshire to serve the FOB with an order to appear in court. At least I can still mock him: Anyone want to guess who has a public myspace page?

I'm So Cool

I know that I'm a blast to hang out with. Really, I'm so cool that I wonder why more people don't want to hang out in my apartment with my toddler while I read a text book or write a paper. The sheer force of my charisma would be enough; I wouldn't need to talk. My friends could watch television or read and I'd offer them something to drink. I might even talk Zac out of climbing all over them...maybe. It might be kind of funny and I could use a good laugh.

This weekend I went out on a date where I was told that I'm too serious. I'm pretty sure that's because I was working hard at the conversation, thinking about what to say and what question I should ask next. I didn't have anything witty to say and found light banter to be tiresome. I was home in bed, by 8:30pm. I didn't wake up until 9:30am the next morning, which left me wondering if my brain needs to go on some sort of hiatus for a while until my body catches up with whatever it needs. Seriously, when did it become so hard for me to figure out what I need. I have enormous bruises on my calves and the back of my arms and I can't figure out where they came from. It was suggested to me that I might need more vitamin K, or possibly a way to avoid knocking into large, stationary objects with my body.

I don't remember holding a conversation being a difficult exercise when I was in college. I have many memories of talking long into the night. What gives now? Why is it that any attempt at communication seems to fall flat? I wish that I had answers to those questions. All I'm left with now is the feeling that I should avoid trying to meet new people, even though 30 new people recently entered my life through grad school. Even with them, school feels like a solitary exercise. I completed a take-home test for Microeconomics and I'm working on my final paper for Leadership. We have the text books for Business Law and Statistics, which are quite possibly some of the most boring reading material that I've encountered in a long time. That's saying something considering I read a large number of studies and statistics for work.

Does anyone want to hang out with me while I read and try not to fall asleep? I promise that I'm really cool...

We Are Family

Sometimes I'm amazed at how like people in a family are. Last night my Mom and Dad came over with some presents that my extended family and the FOB's family sent to Zac for his birthday. We ordered Chinese food for dinner. When dinner came we realized that we had been given an extra order of hot and spicy chicken. The dish had jalapenos and hot peppers mixed with chicken. All of the adults took one look at the food and decided that the only way we could eat any of it was to follow it with liberal dosing of maalox and antacid. Actually, the only way we could eat it would be to surgical remove our tongues - that's how strongly we feel about spicy food, in general, and jalapenos, in particular. Zac observed this family tradition by only eating white rice, a banana, and yogurt.

While my parents and I are similar, Zac and I tend to mirror each other emotionally. He's been slipping out of bed at night and coming into my bed. If I'm awake, he'll tell me that he didn't want to be in his room anymore because he's lonely. If I'm asleep, he manages to get into bed without waking me. The next morning before I'm fully awake, I'll wonder who it was that I fell asleep next to and why I don't remember it. Honestly, it's a completely confounding experience. Like: "What the hell? Why is there something simultaneously kicking me in the small of the back and hitting me in the head? Who IS this?" By the time my eyes are open, I've usually figured out that someone hasn't broken in my apartment to spoon with me. Rather, Zac's gotten out of his room.

This morning he slept all night, but woke up early. He opened my door and climbed into bed saying, "I don't want to sleep anymore. I'm lonely. I want to see what you were doing." Me: "Ummm.....zzzzzzzz" Zac: "Can I go play? You're boring" Ok, so he actually didn't say that I was boring, but that was definitely the feeling that he gave me. Maybe I'm just projecting. All I know is that he came into my room this morning and jumped into bed. Thirty seconds later he was back in the living room, playing with the 100-piece marble toy set that ManFriend gave him.

I can certainly understand some of what Zac is going through (minus the obsession with marbles and motorized toy trucks). I have some amazing friends that I don't get to see very often, if at all. Most of my friends live outside of Texas, even after five years of living here. It doesn't help that I work in an office where I sit alone in front of a computer all day. If I didn't go to the bathroom every so often, I could probably go an entire day with only talking to two or three people. By the time that I get to my study group on Wednesdays, I'm usually bursting to have adult, in-person, interaction. I feel like a puppy that's been sitting on the patio at a sliding glass door, barely able to contain its excitement to get inside the house and lick something. That's how much I want to talk when in a group of my peers.

I don't even have time (or I'll admit it - desire) to fold my laundry, let alone go out and meet people, but I can still feel an absence in my life. when Zac tells me he's lonely, I nod and say "me too" and we hug. Our professors are taking us out for a drink after class on Friday, which I'm looking forward to. It's possible that I like I might get to see...hmmm...now I've forgotten the nickname that I gave him.....oh, that's rather embarrassing. Well, I'll just say that I might get to see a friend that got married last October and lives in a suburb on the complete opposite side of Houston on Saturday, so that should be fun. Zac will be with my parents so hopefully there will be a little less loneliness all around.

Acquiescence

Ok, ok...I'll update. Goodness! I have a new reader who actively prods me to update, which is probably good for me since I've been a slacker on my blog lately. It's hard to remember that I used to update every day. I also used to talk about vomit a lot. That might have something to do with my posting frequency. In a wonderful, wacky turn of events, I get puked on so much less now. That might lend to my overriding feeling that I don't have much to say anymore, or the time to arrange everything in the way that I want to say it. It's easier to write about ear infections, puke, and developmental milestones than about my feelings or observations.

To get out of my passive role of blog reading and into a more active role as a writer again, I've decided to combine all three of my blogs (pregnantblogger, notsopregnant, and onbeing-andliving) on a new site. I'm really excited about developing five years' worth of blogs into a cohesive site and can't wait to start working with Dee on the project. I'm leaning now to going back to notsopregnant.com, but if anyone has any feedback, I'd love to get it. Maybe I should keep onbeing-andliving? Maybe I shouldn't look backwards and create a whole new domain name? Maybe no one reads this site anymore because I post so infrequently. I'm not sure. I'm torn. For now, I've settled with just changing my blog template and switching everything from the right-hand to the left-hand side. I'm a wild and crazy blogger, I know.

Speaking of unbridled wildness, Zac woke up early this morning. Last night he was so afraid that he was going to oversleep and miss his birthday. Papa and I assured him yesterday that we would wake him up, and that the sun doesn't need any help rising in the morning, but it looks like he wasn't going to be taking any chances. Zac and I got up and snuggled on the couch this morning and sang "Happy Birthday" to him well before the sun made an appearance. I now have the ridiculous, "How Old Are You?" song in my head. Hopefully you now have it your head as well. Consider that my gift to you.

People always post the "I can't believe my child is XXX number of years" blogs so I'm going to try and avoid doing that. However, I would be completely remiss if I didn't somehow mention that the little being that I gestated in my body for 9 months is now 4 years old. It is crazy. Sorry. It had to be said.

Every day Zac is growing and changing. He still loves to sing and always requests a duet with me whenever we are around music. The word "request" is a bit of a misnomer. Demand is more like it. He's an almost unflappably polite child except when it comes to asking for things. Instead of, "Please may I have..." I'm much more likely to hear, "I want juice." Then he'll just like at me like, "Woman, I have a need that you must fill. Get to that." If I don't respond to a statement he makes the first time, he'll inevitably ask for it again. "Mama, I neeeeeeed juice!" Then he'll go back to looking at me with a mixture of hope and sense of entitlement. I always ask him, "How do you ask for something when you want it?" and he'll respond dutifully, "Please may I have...?", but I'm thinking that my more conciliatory method of parenting isn't getting the point across. I may have to crack down on guerrilla demands by not responding at all to statements not made in the form of a question that begin with "Please".

But that day won't be today. Today, my little man turns 4 years-old and I couldn't be prouder of the person he's becoming, even when he forgets to be ask politely. He's funny, sweet, intelligent, and an incessant talker. His steady stream of words reminds me what it's like to find joy in the mundane and amazement in the middle of a daily routine. Happy Birthday, Zac.