PEEVED!!!!! Beyond Belief!

What a friggin' day!   I set my alarm for 645am because our first appointment for the day was at 8am.  I should've just stayed in bed!  

We went to the oncologists office and waited to see him for over an hour just to be charged $224 for him to tell us he had to make more tests. A PET scan and another biopsy, because "the tumor is 'highly suspicious of cancer' ", then fill out paperwork.  What!!!!!!  We already knew this!   We actually only spoke to the doctor for about five whole minutes.  Thanks for your time, here have some of our hard earned money we're literally dying to give you!  

So, next Tuesday we get the PET scan, then we have to call the doctor on Thursday (a whole 'nuther week away) to find out what that test means and make another appointment in another week to see him, to set up a plan of action!  By the time they finally figure out and decide it's fuckin' cancer my Joe is gonna be two weeks in the grave and they're gonna say, OH well, we had to be sure!!!!!!!! GAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

But, all anyone says is "it's highly suspicious to be cancer".  No one actually says, "this is cancer" - no one has a plan of action.  no one has any friggin’ clue what to do.  Everyone just asks joe over and over and over again, "How are you feelin' today?"  "How is your mood?"  How the hell do you think he's feeling?  How would your mood be if you had a lung full of shit??????

Then when we get home, the cable is out again, and the phone keeps dropping out again.  So, I’ve finally have had enough of this shit.  so I call BrightHouse expecting nothing out of these nimrods.  but miracle of miracles, they're actually going to do what I want them to do today!...we'll actually have to see if they hold to that promise.  

Then we check the mail to see if our bank card that's going to allow to access the credited money that was stolen from us a while back when our acct was hacked is in the mail.   Of course, despite the fact that the bank said it would be here within seven days,  it is not.  so I've got $400 sitting in the bank that I freakin’ need, man, that I cannot touch for over two weeks.  I get on the phone and I'm talking to someone in India, of all places, cuz there's, of course, no customer service done in the US anymore, and he starts talking to me like I'm some inbred idiot!  Nothin' ticks me off more than being talked down to.  The top of my head started feeling like it was going to blow off!  I swear if I could've fit I'd've gone through that telephone line and throttled that idiot!  

I finally figured out that he was telling me to go to the SVC Manager at the store, get a service check, call back with the card number, get transfer numbers for the check and they would cash it right there at the CSD office in WalMart!  OMG - why the hell didn't they tell me this last week when the credit to my account was made instead of making me wait all this time for a card that isn’t even coming!

"Well, I don't know ma'am, it isn't our policy to...blah blah blah blah blah......" and on and on and on it goes.  

Then when I finally get everything I need in place to do this I get on the phone with another person, who is of course, from India again, and barely understandable, as per usual.  She and I have a VERY difficult time coming to any form of understanding.  I finally get that I have to use my old card number to access another section of the same phone program that she and I are using in order to get the information I need to fill out the check properly.   Humans do not have the authority to access account information for other humans.  Amazing, just amazing.  

All this while, Joe is walking around w/me, having taken his pain meds about an hour before leaving, he is beginning to wear down.  I can hear him start to breath heavier, he's sweating, his color is fading, he's holding his chest, he looks exhausted suddenly.  I ask him if he's okay and he says,

"It's only been 3.5hrs since I took the meds and they're already wearing off."  

It's all because he's been so physically active since he took them.  He's gonna have to wait another 4hrs before he can take another hit, and there's gonna be alot of pain before then.  Ya see, I stress and I get angry and get a headache, maybe have a seizure.  HE stresses and he gets crippling pain, he can't breathe, and he could pass out and end up in the hospital again.   I’ve got to finish this crap up and get him home so he can lie down and relax so the pain level lowers.  

Finally, finally, finally, we’re all done and we’ve gotten home.  Joe’s lying down, watching a movie and we’re still waiting for the Cable Guy.  It’s almost 3pm and I’ve about decided that it’s not gonna happen after all.  Why should it, nothing else is going easy today.  But, I look out the front window and low and behold it’s a damn BrightHouse truck sittin’ out there - HOLY FRIGGIN’ CRAP!!!!!!!  The guy came in puttered around the house, visited with us, laughed with ‘Lena when she started talking with him and asking all kinds of 2yr old questions and making knowledgeable 2yr old statements.  He replaced the modem, fixed our television in the livingroom, reset Joe’s computer, double checked the telephone and made sure everything worked.  He said,

“Well, ma’am, you’re all set and everything should work just fine.  Any other problems just give us a call, we’ll be right out.”  

And I started to cry.  Right there on my damn doorstep I started crying while I was thanking him for his time.  He swore up and down it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I had to explain that he was the only person all day that had done exactly what he’d promised to do.  That it had been a really long and rough day for me, in a series of really long and rough days.  I thanked him again, and gave this tall, skinny 22yr old kid  a quick hug and ran into the house.  

Thankfully, the day is almost over and I can close my eyes on another stressful day!

Mec

05172012

Horse Kick in the Chest

I don’t know how other people handle things like this.  I don’t suppose it really matters, because other people aren’t me.  Other people aren’t Joe, or my daughters.  Other people don’t feel like I do, or have my heart, or experiences, or mind, or perspective on things.  So what other people feel about the same situations in life don’t really matter.  Each occurrence in life is specific to each individual person.  Each person’s perspective makes it particular to that person, so I don’t suppose I even really care what anyone else’s feelings are, or how other people handle things like this.  

For me it was like being kicked in the chest by a young horse unexpectedly.  You know how it is when you have a young horse that you just know is gonna get you one day.  You are totally aware that the potential to be kicked to the moon is always there, but you sort of push it to the back of your mind because there’s life, and there’s every day, and there’s things that need doing, and you just get on with it without ever really considering how hard that kick is going to be when it finally comes along.  Especially since it’s been winding up for a long time, and gaining tension and torque, and leverage behind the hoof.  Then too, you never think about the size of the hoof either.  I mean, at the very beginning, the hoof is small.  It’s the foot of a little foal, about the size of a teacup, how much damage could that do, right?  But after twenty five or twenty six years that damn hoof is the size of a truck tire!  When it comes screaming through the air and smacks into your chest it’s as though the entire world just landed on you.  

Your breath comes flying out in a burning whoosh that never seems to end, until that last choking cry that seems so full of tears that your face seems like someone took a blow torch to it.  It’s an amazing thing, really.  I was truly surprised how much air there is in a pair of lungs.  I’m a long time smoker, pretty soon to be a quit smoker, but I don’t usually consider my lungs particularly filled with air.  But on this morning there was an awful lot of air in there.  When it came rushing out I could actually see the mist like a fine rainfall come down over that hoof.  Something you might see in movie taking place in a jungle set.  Would’ve been pretty if there were plants around.  But there weren’t, just that hoof; that huge truck tire sized hoof planting itself firmly into my chest.  

Then that cry started coming up from somewhere.  At first I wasn’t sure where it was coming from.  I looked around, I thought it was maybe someone else.  But, it wasn’t.  I looked down at my feet and it seemed as if, all of a sudden, the floor was getting awfully far away, awfully wee and small, as the saying goes.  hmm, I think I might’ve laughed at that point except i was too close to weeping.  The cry finally made it out of my mouth but I realized it was going to be too loud, so I put my hand over my mouth to stifle it.  The cry became a groan, or a moan, or a growl maybe.  I don’t really know, some sort of sound that didn’t even sound like me.  I don’t make those sounds, never in my life had I made those sounds.  Not even in the throes of the agonies of childbirth, or toothache, or migraine, or seizure, or for any reason that I can think of.  But this, this horse hoof, this truck tire....



this voice....this disembodied voice over a phone...

this....Doctor T....the oncologist....at the hospital, where we’d been waiting for news for three whole days about my most loved and adored and very nearly worshiped husband....

this truck tire sized horse hoof.... whose name is....

Lung Cancer.....

this....this...this..........



mec~
9122012

My Mother

i sometimes forget, in my distaste (to put it lightly), for my mother that there is, after all, something good and bad i get from her.  this something is a thing i've mistakenly passed onto my daughters.  i say mistakenly because it's something i suffer for, lol. 

my mother was the most impatient woman in the world.  she would wait for "her man" to notice that something manly needed doing.  if he didn't notice it, she'd mention it off handedly, and if it didn't get done within a reasonable amount of time (like immediately if not sooner) she would do it herself.  in the most pissed off and humiliatingly (to her man) manner possible.  whatever the job was, raking leaves, fixing holes in the wall, laying carpet, tearing down a garage, she would get it done with whatever tools were at hand.  hammers, screwdrivers, duct tape, her six kids, whatever it took she did it.  once she got started she absolutely DID NOT want him underfoot.  he was extraneous flesh at that point, useless.   she taught us not to tolerate weakness, laziness, shiftlessness, in ourselves.  if there's work to be done, get up and do it because no one else is gonna do it for you.  lol 

we kids took a BEATING in the work department, that's for sure.  we learned the limitless uses of duct tape.  the girls learned there wasn't a damn thing a man could do that a woman couldn't do at least as well, if not better, given the time and tools.  we learned that we didn't need a man to take care of us, although that was what was expected of us anyway, to marry and produce children, and be obedient, subservient wives.  as time went on we just became this, bull-workers.  this is what we do. 

today, i'm out in the yard, cleaning it.  i told joe i didn't want his help at all, because he works so hard at wally world and he doesn't need to be doing this too.  so i'm out their tossing trash, moving logs, moving lawn furniture, pulling tarps, bull work.  i'll pay for it later, i'll have to use ice, and the tens unit, and the shoulder is gonna be screaming.  but THIS is the thing my mother taught me and it just happens almost without even thinking about it.  and what do my daughters do?  not a thing. 

they know that i won't ask for help.  they know i don't really want or need it.  they know even if i need a glass of water, i'll come in and get it myself, because deep inside i still (even now) have a little streak of my mothers Martyr Complex.  GAG!!!!!!!  and i work this hard just to suffer and say to my husband, "see what i did because you couldn't...wouldn't". 

the very worst thing about this is that my daughters will do this very same thing to their spouses.  my mother, no matter how long i stay away, no matter how soon she passes or how long she's gone, will live on forever.  what a terrible thought. 

dw~

No Kill Nation

do you know why No Kill Nation is so difficult? people. it's not that it's so hard to just stop killing the animals. it's not that no one can afford to actually take care of the shelters. it's not that no one cares about the shelter animals.

it's people that own the animals that DO NOT spay/neuter their pets. if you are not a registered, responsible, breeder you DO NOT need to have you pet... intact. cats n dogs are not like people, they don't "enjoy" sex. they are "driven" to propagate. when they're intact it's painful if they DON'T breed, both physically and psychologically. that's why they become aggressive. unlike wild animals who have seasonal times of 3 or 4 months out of an entire year, pets are constantly within season. it's bred into them BY HUMANS to be this way. it's called domestication.

breeding for animals isn't even pleasant. for humans sex is GREAT, who doesn't like a good roll in the hay a couple times a week or more? i've never been one to turn it down. but if you ever watch animals, it certainly isn't fun. cats claw, bite, scream, shriek. dogs bite, scream, cry. ever hear of a "rape stand" for pit bulls? horses tear each other to pieces leaving horrible scars. cattle are so dangerous to each other that most ranchers do artificial insemination, and most race horses owners do it that way too so as to avoid injury to their animals.

take a look at the puppy section of the MDAS page. most of those puppies are dead today. none of them are over 6mos old. they were killed because the owners of their parents were thoughtless, careless, lazy, or wanted to have "a wonderful family experience". watch a damn video! want a moving experience, hold one of these babies as it dies on a cold steel table in a strange place w/a hundred strange dogs screaming and barking in the other room.

i go to sleep at night and i watch these little dark eyes passing one pair at a time. i hear tiny toenails tapping away on the stones. i hear whimpering in the dark. i reach out my hand and all i feel is a wisp of a passing cool breeze. they're gone. they're all gone because not enough people are responsible enough to give a shit for anything or anyone but their own convenience.

i'm tired.

Ashes and Dust.

Someone asked me: Just how will our end come; Stand-esk, or more along the lines of Robert McAmmons Swan Song?

I find it an interesting subject. Humanity's end. I love watching disaster movies, like, Day After Tomorrow or 2012. I like watching them mostly because I like catching where they get the science wrong. Like climate change, neutrino morphology, weather patterns, prehistoric weather and geologic history and patterns in comparison to what we see today.

I love hearing that people think that everything happening now is NEW. When our last ICE AGE actually happened in the 1800's and before that when Washington was crossing the Delaware. They happened because of volcanoes that went off half a world away and created severe climate change that affected the entire world. Nature happens. All the time. Everyday. We can't stop it. We can't interfere with it. We can't alter it.

Today there was a HUGE, heretofore never seen, solar flare that was like an earthquake on the sun. So large it created a corona around the sun and knocked out cable, internet and phone service, as well as satellites for GPS. All our knowledge, experience and technology is NOTHING in the face of Nature. Humans are so very arrogant. We think we are the movers and shakers of the universe and all we are is grains of sand slipping through the sieve of time, unnoticed, unheard, unfelt.

How we go matters only to us, because we'll do it to ourselves. But one way or another we will go and all else will be as before we came.

It is as has been said, we are only, Ashes and Dust.