Bring It! (my mantra when life gets really tough!)

July 21st, 2006; 12:41 AM

Current mood:drained

So wow. Life has been kicking my ass lately. Oh yeah. And I keep getting up and after I cry a little, I yell back "Bring It! Is that all you got?!" But lately I think the universe has a F'ed up sense of humor. This morning, I woke up with Joshua, and I was so glad to be there with him. Yesterday, my mom had another stroke (The second one in a little over a week.) Now she can't even walk or go to the bathroom with out help. Holding her head up is hard for her sometimes. And she seems so tired and sleepy. I looked into her eyes today and asked her how she was feeling, and she said, "Tired". Then I said but how are you feeling emotionally, and she said "burnt".  I so get that. I'm feeling really burnt too. I don't know how much I can take, but man, I'm taking alot! But really, so is she. She is so awesome. We've taken to writing in a journal that I bought for her before things got so bad. I wanted her to be able to write down her thoughts, and practice articulating them succinctly (not that I'm that great at that, especially now.) but I thought it would help her regain her focus after the strokes. She obviously can't write in it right now. So what we do is we write love letters to eachother. Obviously not romantic -she is my mom. But like real love letters. I-love-you love letters. Let-me-make-sure-you-know-how-important-you-are-to-me-because-I-really-care-about-your-happiness love letters. I-wanna-encourage-you-and-let-you-know-I'm-here-for-you love letters. You-kick-much-ass love letters. And I-wish-I-was-more-like-you-mom love letters. I write something to her and I read it to her, and it always seems to connect and touch her heart. No matter how hard things get, we still have a really deep connection. The love still gets through. She then tells me what she would write me if she could, and I transcribe it for her. I'm like a little stenographer. I'm so glad she can still do this. She said the most amazing thing to me today. She told me "You are in my dreams. You are my precious friend. You give me advice, and teach me how to walk, and be a better person. -Teach me more." I started to cry. And she told me to "have courage". I love my mom so much. This experience is definitely making me strong like that saying George told me: "Steel is hard because it knows the white heat of the furnace and the sting of the hammer!" And I am like, walking through the fire in my life.

God. I really miss Guy lately. I've been meaning to write his mom and tell her how awesome he was, and how he was one of my best friends if not my very best friend. He was closer to me than anyone when he died. He always was so encouraging and compassionate, and such a cheerleader for me. I could tell him anything and he was always my friend. Loosing him was a big loss. BIG TIME! It's just coming up for me more right now because I just remember the last hug we had. My mom was sick then too, but not this bad. He was such a kick-ass-friend! I loved him! He was awesome! He always thought, that I thought better of him than he really was. And I always thought that he was just humble and amazing, and didn't know how cool and rare he was. My mom is like that too. Man, I can just imagine if Guy was here now, he would give me the biggest hug in the world, and remind me of the Rolling Stones song "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need."  -You get what you need, is what he always told me. It was his way of saying: have courage, you're gonna get through this, and you're gonna be just fine, and you're going to get what you need. Like, "hey babe, this is a growing experience." And it is. Big time! Arg!

But I digress. Many, many, many, times. Where was I?? I'll go back to this morning; Joshua and I woke up late. And it was my fault. I felt so bad about it. The night before, I was just so tired from the day of taking my mom to the hospital for the second time in a week and scared from having her get so bad so quick. I was afraid she was going to die. (I still am). Anyhoo. The day was hard and chaotic; they ended up taking her by ambulance to a different hospital, that specializes in rehabilitative physical therapy. It's supposed to be intense 24-hour care, with physical therapy, speech therapy, and adaptive therapy. I really want my mom to get better, so I'm glad she got this care; however, the facility is a little creepy to me. It smelled bad (like urine), the "nurses" (I'm not sure if they really are -I'm not sure if it's a job title, or if they actually do have a medical education! Troubling.) didn't seem to understand that you can't just stop giving someone their prescriptions cold turkey. It wasn't on their list, so they were like: "Well, we just won't give it to her. No big deal." My mom's doctor was very explicit with me about how important it was for her to get her medication regularly, every day. And that stopping some of her pills could cause major problems with her mind. My big concern was that I did not want her to get stressed and have another stroke and die. This was a very real concern. Also, some of her pills are there so that she doesn't have a stroke. They have to give this to her. It really bothered me that I had to fight for her in order for them to "get it". Today I had to call all sorts of Kaiser people: Social workers, Doctors, Administrators in charge of all hospitals contracted out to. But the best ally I had was my moms neurologist, he was amazing. He was so concerned about her, he stayed late to update her medical charts and make sure that the new hospital got the updated list with her current prescriptions. And he made sure they knew how important and just what a BFD it was! Anyhow. After dealing with a slew of problems with the new hospital, I was exhausted. My mom didn't want to stay there. I don't blame her. I didn't feel good leaving her there. She said "take me home". But I know she needs PT. Man, that was hard. I had a major trust deficit with the night staff at the new hospital. They seemed very neglectful. In the first few hours there, she had fallen out of bed and hurt herself, the aide who was supposed to be helping her go to the bathroom ignored her and finally she couldn't hold it anymore, so she made a go of it herself. He told me she fell and hurt herself, and she did too. But he told his supervisor that she was just "trying" to get out of bed, but he got there in time. What bullshit! It's OK to make mistakes, but please don't fucking lie about them. There was the medication snafu. The peeing her pants snafu (she never peed her pants before yesterday. They needed to help her get to the bathroom when she told them, instead of ignoring her.) Then they put her in a diaper. Everyone there seems to be in a diaper. They're like standard issue. I think they diaper their patients, wait till they soil themselves, then change it. This was not OK with me. And they didn't feed her. I ended up going to the store and getting her food to eat because she was starving. She hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. All day in the emergency room, they didn't want her to eat because it was a stroke, and they were afraid it would cause vomiting; the new hospital knew we were coming an hour before, and they knew she hadn't eaten all day and that we requested food to be ready for her. It was bogus that they didn't bring her food within an hour of admission. OK. So basically, I had a really big hell day. And I was tired and stressed from it all (I was there until 11), so when Joshua asked me to set the alarm, I did, but I mistook AM for PM. The difference is a tiny little red dot on the side. I didn't think anything of the little red dot because there's a little red dot for when you turn the alarm on too. Arg! He was mad at me. I felt really bad. It was an honest mistake, and I hope that he gets that and forgives me. But that's how my day started. Oh, and the dogs peed all over the hallway (by my door.) and in the bathroom. It was revenge/stress pee. Monica, the breeder, thinks that the dogs knew something was up because my mom wasn't there, and I was really upset. They kept barking and whining in the middle of the night, and I got up and let them out, so they didn't really need to go pee in the house. It was stress. See...even my dogs are stressed. ;-P Boyfriend's mad at me, dog pee to clean up, then comes the big stuff. I feel for Joshua. I really do. I understand that he was stressed about getting in trouble at work. I wish he could have told his boss what was up, I don't know if he (his boss) would have been understanding, but I hated that he (Joshua) was late and in trouble for it, especially because I don't want him to link bad stuff to being kind to me. It was really wonderful that he answered his phone and came over and comforted me after my really hard day. I love him. He can be so gentle and caring. But he is NOT a morning person. Ever.... well not ever. This morning is more accurate. I'm pooped. Tomorrow I tackle legal issues. I can do it. That's what I keep telling myself. Right before I say "Bring it!" with a glint of dissidence in my eye!