Mamarati

Are the Republicans trying to ride on the wave of pride leftover from the Olympics or something? Do they know they aren’t campaigning in China? It’s really weird to me to see all that chanting start up. Ummm, we’re all Americans here. I think no matter what side of the issues you are on, most of us just want what’s best for the country.

I don’t know, I think there are enough things that we disagree on that we don’t need to add a fake thing. It’s strangely alienating.

Now, I said I was going to talk more about politics, because it’s a pretty big part of life in this household. But… this is a conversation so large and complex, I just don’t think I can even begin.

I will try, though. I always think it must be nice for those people who are absolutely 100 percent sure of how they feel or believe about anything. I’m not that way. There are very few issues that are black and white for me. And there is no platform that I am 100 percent behind. I lean lately more toward the Democratic party not so much because of what they are but what they aren’t. And because of who I am right now. And because it’s one of the few two choices out there.

I think it’s really unfair that a candidate has to line up with a party so completely. There are very few say, Republicans that are pro-choice. Or Democrats that are against choice. A few. But it’s like so much hinges on that issue, for example. And if you believe the opposite way of how you’re “supposed” to for your party, it’s like you’re some kind of traitor instead of some kind of person who has come to a different conclusion about a thing. It’s like you’re forced into believing (or at least saying you believe) a certain way.

And I think that’s terrible. And it’s so terribly dishonest. And it makes the media coverage of things like elections or crises a big lie. You see these spokespersons and pundits up there one minute talking about how much they love McCain and think he made a great choice about picking Palin, and they’re all smiles and joy and bubbling with support. Then you go off camera and, Oops, open mic, and the story is completely different. They’re saying the exact opposite and slamming his choice.

And then there’s all this fakery about how we shouldn’t talk about Palin because she’s a woman, we shouldn’t talk about her being a mom. We shouldn’t talk about her kids. We shouldn’t talk about her pregnant teen. We shouldn’t question whether she can do both things. That’s anti-woman. Look how hard we’ve fought for blah blah blah blah.

No. Anyone who says we shouldn’t be discussing these things can just go on and stop talking about them. But for me, I will continue to talk about these things. Because some of these things are things we haven’t been talking about and quite frankly they are just the conversations we need to have. Can we, as women, as mothers, balance it all? Can we do it all? Are we superwomen?

I mean, you can continue to be a martyr if you want and you can say bring on the challenges. Bring on the adversity. Make it hard, as hard as you can. Don’t give me any slack just because I’m a woman or a mother. To that, I say NO. We do need to be protected on the job against discrimination. WHY? Because discrimination against moms happens. We do need privacy and more breaks for pumping milk. WHY? Because not everyone wants to feed their kid formula and because that’s how breastfeeding works. Supply and demand. We do need flexible work hours. It’s not a 9-to-5 world any more and why should it be anyway? It would help more than just moms, it would ease traffic burdens and energy costs, too. We do need flexibility about where to work. Because not every job requires my butt to be sitting in a seat in an office somewhere when I could be doing it (and probably even more efficiently) at home, thus reducing child care costs, etc.

So, with this Palin stuff, I am afraid that some people are going to get this idea that, WOW, here’s this powerful woman and she’s doing it all. How amazing. If she can do it, anyone can do it. She went back to work just days after having a baby. So you can back to work just days after having a baby. She got on the plane when her water had broken, so you can, too. She has five kids and is going to try and be the Vice President, so what’s your problem that you can’t work a few hours or 20 of overtime?

Know what I mean? And I’m sorry, she may have that small-town background, but make no mistake that what she’s doing now and what she’s been doing for the past few years is not at all middle class. I don’t know too many poor folks or even middle class folks that can afford a nanny and a housekeeper. I also know that most families don’t have kids spread out that far apart where the teens can take care of the babies and younger kids. Most of us do not have child care that is so flexible we could leave the house at a moment’s notice without completely disrupting our kids every time. Most of us do not have husbands that stay home with our kids.

Of all the women that I know with kids who also work, very few of them have husbands that do a significant portion of things like taking care of the kids or taking care of stuff around the house like cooking or cleaning. Certainly nothing like half of it even though they may be working as many or more hours than their husbands. There are exceptions to this, of course, but not an overwhelming amount. Not many of their husbands woke up in the night with their babies or do laundry regularly or sweep, mop, dust… and very few cook regularly, plan the meals or shop for the food. If the kids are sick and someone needs to stay home with the kids, most of the time it’s mom. If the kids need to go to the doctor, it’s probably mom that takes them. And this goes beyond just the people I know, too. I mean, my kid has tons of health issues, and when we’re sitting at the allergy shot clinic, it’s 98 percent moms with the kids. Ditto all the other doctor’s appointments. This is how it works in my neighborhood.

So, the expectation that moms are just so wonderful and they can do anything and they can balance and juggle it all… that’s all sweet and quaint. But it’s not true. There’s a lot of sacrifice in there and a lot of suffering and resentfulness and guilt and we need to keep talking about it so it can get better. Of course motherhood without having an outside job is full of times of sacrifice and suffering and whatnot, I’m just saying that we don’t all have to put on this stoicism and run around like a bunch of friggin’ martyrs when we can talk about it, hash it all out and figure out what can make it better for women and for their kids and families overall. For society overall. I know many of us would like a little more joy and a little less hardship and I think we can get that if we keep this conversation going and not act like it’s taboo or it’s going to collapse everything that women have worked so hard for. Give me a break. We’re still working hard. Palin is not evidence that we’ve arrived, by far. Hillary isn’t either.

So, in short, regarding the working mom thing, I don’t think that anyone should confuse what Palin is doing with what working moms are doing. Palin is making sacrifices that are above and beyond what should be EXPECTED of a working mother. I’m sure she’s doing it because she feels she has a calling that goes beyond what she feels called to do directly for her family. Don’t kid yourself, no matter what you hear in the media… She knows that she’s not giving her family 100 percent. The only way you’d be so clueless is if you were in complete denial. BUT, that’s not to say that she doesn’t feel that what she’s doing is going to provide an even better life for them, for their kids, for their kids and generations on… there’s something to be said about making sacrifices now for huge change for the future.

But for your average working mom, that’s not what’s happening. And the support network that Palin has in place does not one iota resemble what that everyday working mom has to contend with. And the EXPECTATION should not be the same. It doesn’t even compare. And of course I realize that you can work and still be a good mom. But I also know that you can work and be a mom who is doing her best but is still leaving a lot to be desired in the parenting arena, whether you realize it or not. And I realize, too, that sometimes, these are the sacrifices that have to be made because food has to be on the table and a roof has to be over your heads. But I’m also saying that not talking about it and pretending that everything is perfect and fine — that’s not going to bring about any changes.

We have come a long way, but we need to keep going. When I was growing up, for example, and I lived with my dad and step-mom… there were a variety of tough things going on. I had lots of emotional problems, my mom was an alcoholic and I couldn’t live with her any more after the divorce, we had a big family (13 kids) that was just full of drama all the time… I could go on and on. My dad would leave the house before I ever woke up. He would get home many times after I’d gone to bed. My step-mom worked a split shift as a waitress and would be in bed or getting ready for work when I got up to go to school and would sometimes work till late in the evenings and I wouldn’t see her either. They were so tired when I did see them that they hardly had the energy to deal with me. I was the baby of the family so I’m not sure they had the energy left to deal with me anyway. On the weekends, she would still work or they would do housework, yard work or do their own thing. My dad was obsessed with our ginormous yard. It looked like a friggin’ golf course. His battle with moles is the stuff of legend. When I came home from school and let myself in the door (from about 2nd grade on) I was responsible for myself. I could wake up in the morning and roll off the side of my bed between it and the wall and my parents would think I’d gone to school. I could then go play in the woods all day long. Maybe that’s typical for a teen to do once in a while. No, I was doing this from 4th grade on. In 5th grade, I was in the office almost every day getting swats and I never did my homework. I was so clueless in math, so behind in it that when I looked at my assignments it was like trying to read a foreign language.

OK… my parents didn’t even know 99 percent of this stuff. And half the calls they got from the school they just ignored. Were my parents neglectful? Absolutely. But then how much choice did they have then when they had to stay afloat and my dad was an criminal defense attorney and could not cancel people’s court dates and he always had to be somewhere meeting with a client… and my stepmom would lose her job if she took time off to deal with me. This was the reality. Were they good parents? Actually, no. They weren’t. That is also reality. There was no one for me to talk to about my problems. No one told me about my period. No one explained the world to me. No one cared for me. No one noticed if I didn’t take a bath for a month. No one helped me recover from failing grades. No one noticed I had asthma or allergies. No one was happy to see me in the morning or at the end of the day. Hell, half the time I didn’t even see anyone so wouldn’t know if they were happy to see me or not.

I try to be forgiving and understanding when I look back at that time, but it’s not easy, really. I look at the sacrifices and I’m not sure what they were all for. They weren’t for me. I didn’t need that big house or those 8 acres of land. I didn’t need fancy lighting fixtures or a giant pond or a new Ford Mustang or plastic surgery or 50 trees to line the driveway. I needed an inhaler, an antihistamine and some help with my homework. I needed someone’s time.

I realize that my upbringing may not have been the most typical, but I know I’m not alone. And the more Burby parents can argue that they do get to spend time with their kids and that they do meet all their needs. Awesome. And other parents will argue that they may not meet all their needs but that they try their best. WooHoo. And there are other parents who are trapped in an existence that is so bleak, working two or more jobs or working and going to school and barely making ends meet and I don’t know what they will say… And I don’t know what to say to them. But I do know that what I won’t say is, “Hey, shut up. We don’t talk about this issue. You suck it up and deal with it because you’re a woman and this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

There are so many different levels here and to deny the level another person is on is just nuts. I realize I’m rambling at this point, but hey, like I said… it’s complex. And there is no black and white. And your life is not someone else’s life so you should reserve your meanness and harsh judgment… but you should never stop talking about it or scrutinizing it or rolling it over and over in your mind to try to figure out what it all means. Because there is no one truth to this all. And it’s certainly not anything at all like what you see on either end of the political spectrum. Take down your defenses and look deep down inside and think about what you really want for your life and what you really want for your kids, for your sons and daughters… for their friends and their friend’s mothers. And don’t ever stop talking about it.

I feel like today is the first day of something for me. First day at work. First day at school. First day of something. I finally feel relaxed. My kid started middle school and so far, he hasn’t had sex, joined a gang, failed the metal detector, smoked pot, skipped class, worn his pants so low that his underwear show, flipped off a teacher or otherwise taken part in any offenses that would land him in the office or hot water, been made fun of, shoved into a locker or been the victim of a swirly.

Not that I thought any of those things would happen, but those are my worst, most paranoid fears for 7th grade (or any grade, really. Haha). How do I arrive at all this craziness? Well, if I buy into the bit about kids doing stuff at a younger age than we were back in the day… The rebel years should start any minute.

I’m lucky, perhaps. My kid is a really great kid and we’re pretty open about discussing all this stuff. I didn’t have a lot of sound, solid adults to bounce my concerns off of when I was a kid, so I’ve always wanted to make sure that my own kid wasn’t flailing around in a sea of misunderstanding and confusion. At least not any more than already goes along with being a teen…

7th grade. I can’t believe it. It’s like he’s maturing every single day, too. I see so much difference in him even from just a month ago, and certainly much more than during his last weeks of being in 6th grade, which is still elementary school around here. I look at the kids at pick-up time, though, and I realize that he’s not nearly as mature as many of them. I’ve sheltered him a bit. I’ve kept his exposure to some things minimal. I question doing that some days. Other days not so much.

So far, though, I couldn’t be more pleased. He’s happy about his teachers. He’s interested in his classes. He’s bonded with one of his teachers and wants to stay after school talking to him. He’s so observant and talks to me every day about the things he sees and his take is so interesting. I am thankful for the time we have in the car, where some of our best conversations take place on the drive home after school. He really opens up. He’s not seeming anxious or nervous about anything and said to me yesterday, “I think I’m really gonna like this middle school thing.”

Phew.

So, now that he’s settled… I feel like I’m settled and I can get back to business.

Back to writing and working and being productive. Back to having moments to think. I feel relaxed today. This despite two cups of high-test coffee. It’s a little bit exciting at the same time. I feel like I need to go to Office Depot, though, and get some new school supplies. Nothing says “time to get busy” like a new pen.

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In other news… politics have been incredible lately. I don’t talk about politics too much because of the “work” site. I have my own personal beliefs, of course. Some are strong. Some are pretty liberal. Others are incredibly conservative. I took some quiz one time that identified me as both liberal and libertarian. I have my issues where I’m not going to be swayed and others that I have not fleshed out enough to say where I stand.

I think that a lot of folks are like that, no matter what you may be seeing on TV or reading on blogs or wherever. I think that this race for president is bringing out a lot of issues that people are arguing about, sure, but I also think that a lot of the “conflict” is going on within ourselves. I can only truly speak for myself, but I’m tellin’ ya — I’m thinking about issues and figuring things out for myself that haven’t ever come up before.

And the truth is, while I don’t usually talk about politics online because I work here and I don’t necessarily want my personal politics to be used for or against me in any way… and I want to be as unbiased as a person can be who is offering what mostly consists of advice rather than pure journalism… I have a lot to say about politics. I’ve been involved in this process. I’ve had relatives run for office and I have been to rallies, watch parties and the like. I’ve campaigned for candidates. I’ve dragged my sick, flu-ridden self to the polls to vote. I ran a friggin’ caucus here in Texas and boy was that a rush. I’m excited by the Democratic process. I like thinking about all this. I think that things are in a state of change right now and it’s really interesting to me to consider things I haven’t before. To be confronted by issues that I’ve never had the opportunity to consider and weigh.

Sometimes I hear my son say something and I think that he’s getting it from me. Sometimes it sounds extreme coming out of his mouth and that reflects on me. It gives me a chance to think about the context of how he heard me discuss that issue and how it came across to him. It gives me a chance to play Devil’s advocate and give him the other side of it. It gives me a chance to say I may not be right about everything and even that there may not be a perfect right or wrong way to think or feel about an issue.

More on this… because I am going to write about it. And this is my space, so I’m going to use it because I’m tired of remaining silent on these issues that are so important to me just because it’s such a charged arena. It’s so much more complex than that, and I have so much to say that some days I’m about to burst. And, too, I have so much more to work out for myself, and this has always been the place where I’ve done that. Do you remember what you told yourself, woman? That all this self-censorship was like cutting out and discarding a part of your brain? Yeah, I’m tired of that.

I want my arm to be normal again.

I am experiencing some psychological stress, sadness, anxiety, anger, pity and despair about this.

I feel mostly normal as I go about my day and have for a while now. But then I realize that my days are different now than they used to be when I had a normal arm that did what it was supposed to do. I don’t do the things that I know I can’t do. I avoid those types of activity. Swimming. Balancing things. Using my arm in any kind of way that requires full range, strength of any sort, symmetry.

I exercised yesterday and it felt really good, but what I was doing did not require much of that side of me. Today, however, I realized just how limited I’m going to be and it kind of pisses me off. I’m mad at my arm. I’m mad at my stupidity for getting up on that ladder and I realize that I still have a lot of regret about it. And I’m sad.

Took Jacob to the Lab and doc yesterday. Nine vials of blood they took from his little body. And then one pneumococcal vaccine. It was just lovely. He was totally freaking out, but then was mostly calm during the actual process. He just has to watch, though, which I think makes it worse. He says it hurts worse when he’s not looking, though.

At one point, I was standing up while he sat in the chair… I had my arms around him and my head was sort of resting on his head. They were on about vial 3 and all of a sudden, I was wet. Why was I wet? I backed away from him and he had broken out in a sweat suddenly. He had beads of sweat all over his face and his hair was dripping. His shirt was soaked. I’ve never seen anything like it. He doesn’t sweat that much when he’s running around in the yard. His face got so pale and I thought he was going to pass out, but he held on till the end.

He laid down in a room and we talked about Big Brother for a bit until he felt well enough to go upstairs for the shot. We stopped at Starbucks and got some chamomile tea on the way through (this was all in the hospital area) and then headed to GameStop when it was all over. All was forgotten after that. Amazing how video games can wipe away all that trauma. Haha.

We traded in a bunch of old games and ended up getting like $130 bucks. He got some war games and I got Mario Party 8 for the Wii and Yoshi’s Story for the DS. Not that I need anything to distract me from work, but it is one of those things that winds me down after a long day…

So… now is the part of this whole thing where I do not worry about anything and I just calmly wait for his test results to come back. I’m sure that I will have enough to occupy my mind. He’s over at his dad’s now getting ready for school. He’s been over here nonstop, nights and days with no break since like February or March because of the MRSA risk at their house. It seems like that’s all cleared up now, so he can spend the nights over there, take baths, enjoy life… all that normal stuff that he’s been missing.

That I’ve been missing. Much as I love him (isn’t that every mother’s disclaimer when she’s about to say something she feels somewhat weird saying, guilty even?) I need a break sometimes. I know I’m not alone, either. I saw you out there, ladies. Shopping for school supplies and clothes. I saw that certain spring in your step and exchanged those secret, knowing smiles as we shopped together. School is starting again… and not all of us are sad about it.

I remember what it was like when he was starting kindergarten. First grade. So on. I was excited for him and all the things he was going to do, learn. I was also a sad and worried for him. I passed other mothers during drop-off, tears in my eyes.

Now he’s almost 13 years old. I am still excited for him and all the things he’s going to experience and learn. I am still sad and worried for him as well. But instead of dropping him off with a tear in my eye, I’m doing a little happy dance that I can go home and get some work done and have some peace and quiet for a while. Do a single task without interruption. Finish a thought. Take a long bath. Think.

And then there’s this cystic fibrosis thing freaking me out and it makes me feel even guiltier about those feelings. It makes me want to take him out of school completely and spend every minute with him as if it’s his last.

And then I have to snap out of it.

And wait. Because things are probably fine.

I’m so glad that I can have this struggle on the inside, though. It’s necessary, I know it is. But it’s not necessary that anyone else see it…

Well, we just got back from the pulmonologist and they found something in his nasal culture that shouldn’t be there and now we have to have him tested for cystic fibrosis.

Are you kidding me? Can my kid not get a break already? Can I not get a break already? The last year or so has really been unbelievable with the health issues. We are both very tired of all this and just would like a nice holiday vacation with no health issues, please.

I’m not freaking out, however. Just a tiny bit on the inside, but mostly I’m just going to do a wait and see thing right now. J’s at the age where I have to be all… you know… strong and act like this is just business as usual.

After the tests, that’s another story. I will wait until he goes over to his dad’s and then have my own private little freak out. Now I need to go read more about this, because really, I don’t have a clue about cystic fibrosis. They’re doing a sweat test and genetic workup w/ blood. And all I know right now is that the disease makes your mucous thick and it affects your lungs, pancreas and intestines. Which is weird, because he was out of school for a week right before last year got out. His stomach was hurting really bad and we had to do stool samples. But the tests came back negative for whatever they suspected was wrong. Now I’m wondering if that had anything to do with this. ??

More later. Research time.

Remember when I made that formal declaration about losing weight? You know, in the last entry and all. And I said, ummm… IT’S ON!

Yeah, well… see… what ha-happened was I had these things called good intentions.

I’ve since learned that the path to hell is paved with these friggin’ things.

I have been struggling with things. It stems from this relationship that I have with food. It stems from all that childhood stuff. You know, not having food when I was with my mother. Literally starving most of the time. And then having all that weird stuff at my dad’s… his literal fear of eggs and anything that comes out of them. Getting my chocolate rationed out to me at the children’s home. (”Here’s your 5 M&Ms. Come back tomorrow for another 5.”)

It’s just really hard to restrict myself. I think that’s why Atkins worked for me. I was like, “What? Eat all the meat I want? And still lose weight? Hell, Yeah!”

It occurs to me that it should be the opposite. I should be able to look back on the times when I was starving and KNOW that that is not what’s happening right now. I should not panic like an animal trapped in a cage when I start to calculate calories.

But I kind of do. It’s weird and hard to explain. It’s just one more of those times when I am cognizant of how I’m supposed to feel, and I’m completely aware of the reality of the situation… but my actual feelings seem to be governed by something else… something very deep that I can’t reach to change.

I told boyfriend the other night after struggling with it all day that it’s going to take some serious therapy for me to get to a point where I can really mess with the food part of losing weight.

So, I need to tackle this from another angle, which is the physical part. I mean, the truth is, even when I decided I was going to eat the damn cookies this week, I still came in under the 1550 calories that will get me to lose weight. It’s just that I can go a long time without eating a cookie when I’m not on a diet. I don’t even think about it. I eat pretty good, really. I eat fruits. I eat veggies. I cook almost everything from scratch — including bread, and I use whole wheat flour. I eat brown rice. I’m not that bad unless I know I HAVE to be good.

So yes, I have to attack this from the physical side of things. Except then there’s that whole injury thing… I have to figure this out. I think I’m on the verge of buying a treadmill, because at least I know that is something I’ve always enjoyed and that isn’t limited in any way by my arm being jacked up.

All in all, I expect to weight tomorrow and maybe have lost and maybe have stayed the same. I am betting on about half a pound. Which is still fine if I get my strategy worked out and then stay with it. I set the goal of 1 pound per week knowing that I didn’t want to try and do anything crazy, too hard, unrealistic or anything that would make me give up too easily… so half a pound would not be a disappointment at all. Even no loss at all (this week) would not be a disappointment because I feel like I’m getting the most important thing taken care of at the outset — my mental fitness.

I decided to join a weight loss challenge on Twitter. Because if I learned anything in middle school, it’s that there’s nothing like peer pressure to help you succeed and feel good about yourself.

Ha. Kidding. Seriously, though, unlike middle school, it seems as I’ve been matched up with a pretty awesome set of folks… folks with similar issues like injuries that have helped pack on the pounds or have impeded exercise efforts… pregnancy weight… too busy / tired from chasing kids around all day… sweet tooth… body image issues…

And then folks with issues outside my own, too, which always helps to broaden the persepective and make you look at your own challenges in a whole different way.

And the one thing we all have in common seems not just to be that we want to drop some pounds but that we want to move toward better health. I think that’s my biggest deal right now. I’ve made lots of changes to my lifestyle in the last 5 years or so (and not just with food)… cut out trans fat and high fructose corn syrup, stopped eating out so much, stopped eating as much processed foods, moved toward more whole grains, stopped using anything that contains fragrance, etc. etc.

But I still need to go further. Because I’m still carrying a lot of weight around and I’m not feeling as good as I know I could. Because I think that some issues are starting to crop up that could have something to do with my weight. Because my birthmother has been having issues with arthritis and her heart and it worries me that if I don’t get control of some of my health issues, I might be setting the stage for those problems as well. I mean, I still might have some of those things in my future, but if I can make them any less difficult, I need to go on and do that.

Right now I’m shooting for 1 pound a week. My ideal weight range is 101 - 136 pounds. I’m going to shoot for the upper end of that and re-evaluate my goals at that time. It should take me, best case scenario, 38 weeks to get to that, so some time in May. I think that’s a more reasonable goal than I usually set for myself…

Anyway, this is my formal declaration that… well… IT’S ON! Let the weight loss begin and the health kick in.

So, I forgot to mention in my last post… so far, I’ve had luck drinking a gigantic glass of water right before I go to bed. Then I wake up naturally in this gentle way about 3 hours after I fall asleep because I need to go to the bathroom. I realize then that my eyelid is stuck to my eyeball and I keep a bunch of vials of the Bion Tears by my bed. I fumble around for those and it usually takes a full vial between both eyes. I gently spread it around my lids and put the slightest pressure on my eyes to open until they come open without tearing anything.

Then I go to the bathroom and drink another big glass of water and repeat the process again 3 hours later. It helps me stay hydrated, too, which is just one contributing factor with the dry eyes.

I’m waking up about every 3 hours, but since I’m just getting my eyes to open and then going to the bathroom it doesn’t seem that disruptive to my sleep and I’m still having plenty of dream time.

I’m also taking 1mg of melatonin before bed to help conquer the anxiety / insomnia cycle I’ve got going. It helps a lot. I find I’m not laying in bed in a panic, fighting sleep.

I read over my words in these eye-related posts and find it’s just so strange that something can come along and have such an impact… turn your every day and night into something it wasn’t before.

I was thinking about this and how much my arm injury changed my life for a while. I was trying to remember what my life was like right after it happened… I was trying to remember dinner, what did I eat? How did my boyfriend manage everything? We (mostly he) did some pretty major cleaning this weekend. It’s not like I’m the best housekeeper, because I’m not. I think I’m missing the gene that sees things like dust… But after the arm incident I couldn’t even open the toothpaste, much less operate a vacuum or a broom. Still, more than a year later, using the vacuum tires me quickly and makes my arm hurt for days.

So, I was trying to remember cleaning during that time. Cooking. Anything that I did. I couldn’t even dress myself. I couldn’t dry myself when I got out of the tub. Hell, I couldn’t even bathe for the longest time. More than a month, I guess it was. Jacob stayed with his dad most of that time. I was taking so much pain medication. I slept day and night. I guess I was really only awake a few hours a day. Mostly what I remember about that time is the cat. She never left me. Ever present, curled up on my chest or right on top of my injured arm… she was there with me almost every hour. Crazy cat.

I wanted to write more about everything going on then, but I couldn’t type for so long and any energy I had I used to do the handwriting recognition so I could do what I needed at work. Then I was zapped and would just crash again. I had so much to say about what was going on, though. The frustration and uncertainty of it all. I had so many fears about how much use I was going to get out of my hand and arm. At the time, the nerves in my hand were completely shot and I could hardly move or feel my fingers… It was really scary.

But now… even though there are still lots of problems and I can’t sleep the way I once did and there is pain and all those things… I have an arm and hand that both work. And all that fear and anxiety were for nothing. Even if I didn’t have working bits, what good would all the fear and anxiety have done?

I wish I could keep that in mind now. That yes, this thing is turning my life upside-down right now and I’m having to take lots of measures all day and all night long and it’s a pain in the ass and it’s painful and it’s affecting me greatly… And it could affect my vision and change things even more… Still, what good does it do me to have all this worry?

I go to the doctor tomorrow. I really just want to relax between now and then. I’m worried he’s going to tell me that it’s not healing well and who knows what the next course of action will be… I’m worried he’s going to be upset that two other doctors have stepped in and maybe have done things that he wouldn’t have done. I can’t really help that, however, since he wasn’t available and I wasn’t in a position to wait for treatment. I’m also concerned that while my cornea issues are being addressed, the underlying problem (in my opinion) has not been addressed at all beyond “drops.” The dry eye problem needs more aggressive treatment, I feel. There’s no end to that and I just have this feeling that no matter how many times they scrape or zap my cornea, it’s going to happen again because my eyes are so dry and they resist hydration so completely.

But, you know, who am I to say?

(Yeah, right. I’ll be saying plenty.)

In other news, I am not eating beef any more. I keep saying I’m going to swear it off… each and every recall just adds to that resolve. I just can’t take the thought of it any longer.

The cat is circling my chair… guess she needs a lap / nap.

I went to the doctor to have the contact removed again and have the healing cornea checked out. It’s been doing all right, though sticking a bit. Still, the contact seems to act as a buffer between my lid and the cornea… so the spot that’s getting stuck now seems to be either lower on my eyeball or where the two lids are touching. Good news, too, since my lids usually never touch. I have “incomplete closure” but I think the goggles are helping put some pressure on my lids to stay more closed. The bad news is now my other eye is getting stuck.

But back to the doctor.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the anxiety that’s built up surrounding this. See, I don’t do well with pain. I really really don’t. I’m the biggest wimp you could possibly imagine. If they’re offering up pain relief, I’m all for it. I don’t care if it’s a hangnail. That’s the kind of wuss I am.

So I have some anxiety about going to sleep now. The first night that I was without the contact lens (actually the only night) I was so freaked out that I was going to rip open my eyeball, I stayed up till 5am. I kept drifting off on the couch and I would bolt awake in a complete state of panic. Finally I gave in, knowing that my boyfriend would wake me up in 4 hours.

My anxiety was further bolstered when after those mere 4 hours I did indeed wake up to my eyelid peeling away from my eyeball… lifting away the newly healed area that was just days before scraped away with a friggin’ exacto knife, basically.

So, anxiety. Insomnia. Fear. Loathing. Not Las Vegas.

I feel like I’m going to have to stay up all night and then maybe set a quiet and gentle alarm to wake me up every hour or so to add more drops and check for sticking… No big deal. It will be like I’m a new mom all over again except without the crying. At least not from a baby, unless you count me.

Doctor… right, so with that said, I go into the doctor… the contact is removed, he checks the eye out and asks me how it’s going… I say fine. He says it looks good. This is not my regular eye doctor, either. This is a follow-up appointment because I saw him the last time it ripped open and my regular doctor wasn’t available.

So he is about to let me go and is telling me to follow up with my regular doctor… I tell him I already have an appointment for the 12th with my regular doctor. Then I tell him I’m scared to go to bed between now and then and I’m afraid it’s going to rip open again. He gets this agitated look on his face and I’m not sure why. Then he says, “Well, use ointment and if you have some of the Muro around, use that.” I say, “Yeah, that’s what I did last time, but the ointment doesn’t seem to work well enough to stop it from drying out and sticking. Is there something stronger I can use?”

Silence. He’s writing something in my chart. I suggest that maybe if I could keep the contact lens then I could wear that at night since it seems to prevent the sticking and ripping. He looks up at me with this completely nasty look on his face and says, “But that’s not a cure. You have to follow up with your regular doctor.”

Ummm…. OK? I’m not sure what one has to do with the other and since I just told you that I already have an appointment with him, I don’t know how wanting to wear the contact lens negates going to see him. I say OK.

He continues on about going to see my regular doctor. I say, “Yes, I get it. I’m going to follow up. I already said that. All I’m saying is I’d like to wear the contact between now and then so I don’t mess up what’s already been done to my eye.”

He goes on. He’s yelling at me now about it not being a cure and I might need to see a cornea specialists because I might need surgery and if I don’t follow up with my regular doctor then I might not know whether I do or not.

I start to get agitated at this point. I’m thinking, “NO SHIT?” I thought we already cleared this up about going to see him. Can you drop it? He doesn’t drop it. He goes on and he’s pointing at the contact lens and he says, “It’s right there, you can have it.” I say, “Look, you don’t have to get mad at me, I’m just saying that the contact offers me some security. I have to work. I don’t have insurance right now. I’m a writer so all my work is done on the computer. I have to be able to see. Every time that I rip my eyeball open or every time it has to be scraped… that’s pain and it’s time that I lose at work and it’s less money that I have to pay for all these appointments. I’ve been here 6 times in the last month. It adds up. I’m not looking to the contact as a cure, I’m looking at it as prevention.”

And then he says, “Well, it can be a cure. But it’s just one treatment. It’s called a therapeutic contact lens. But you need to follow up with your regular doctor. You could need surgery.”

Geez. OK broken record.

So, then I’m all pissed and I’m crying when I leave he’s been such an ass… I get home and I start to research this whole contact lens thing and it turns out that I am not the only FREAK to have some anxiety over this whole thing:

“Symptoms may gradually subside over the course of the day and then start all over again the next morning. The unpredictability of these episodes may lead to an associated anxiety.”

and from the Journal of the American Society of Ophthalmic Registered Nurses:

The patient history is pathognomonic with a description a foreign body sensation upon opening the eye after awakening in the morning. The symptoms can progress to extreme pain and photophobia with profuse tearing. During the night, pressure from the eyelid on the dry epithelium produces an adhesion to the epithelium which is stronger than the adhesion of the epithelium to the basement membrane. Hence, upon awakening, the eyelid separates away from the epithelium. The unpredictable nature of recurrent corneal erosions often amplifies patient anxiety. Since erosions occur during sleep or on awakening, some patients experience varying amounts of insomnia, which exacerbates the psychological stress related with this condition.

In the conclusion it stresses helping the patient cope. Hi. That’s me. The patient. I need help coping.

I do some more research, since he said it was an option.

Turns out, a therapeutic contact lens or bandage contact lens is considered a “conservative” treatment measure. It’s something to be considered even before things like what I had, which was debridement (the exacto knife / passing out incident) or before stronger measures like anterior stromal puncture or Phototherapeutic Keratectomy (PTK).

I found this case report and the patient here sounds incredibly similar to my own situation. Here is some of the treatment plan and the results:

The impression remained as recalcitrant recurrent corneal erosion OD and the plan was to continue with the bandage lens; however, the patient was instructed to wear the lens only at night and to remove the lens every morning…

At a four-month follow-up visit, the patient said he was “doing great” and that he hadn’t had another episode. He was wearing the high-Dk silicone hydrogel 8.6/-0.50 lens during the night, removing it each morning, and was using the hypertonic sodium chloride drop three times per day. Corrected visual acuities were 20/20 OU and the slit lamp examination revealed resolution of the recurrent corneal erosion. The plan was to discontinue the bandage contact lens and use a lubricant eye ointment (GenTeal® ) at night and lubricant drops OU as needed during the day. At one year, the patient was using the lubricant ointment at night and was still doing well.

Dude, that is good news to me. I like reading that. I realize that my doctor may want to do something different. I may need surgery. I get all that. But don’t act like I’m acting for crack or something when all I’m asking for is a contact lens. I’m not some crazed drug addict in here trying to con you into prescribing me narcotics (as nice as I think hydrocodone is, I don’t need any more of it!). It’s a friggin’ contact lens and I only want to wear it at night.

It amazes me that people wear these things all the time. I know people who don’t take them out for weeks at a time. And I’m not asking for that…

Whatever. It’s all very frustrating and I don’t appreciate being yelled at by this doctor. No one deserves that…

I’m so ready for all these eye shenanigans to be overwith and get back to some normalcy.

Well, I started out an entry (unfinished) yesterday like this:

“The contact lens bandage has been peeled away and now I am left with this scratchy, dry feeling and the nervousness that I’m going to go to screw it up again.”

And as fate would have it, despite putting the thickest mineral oil / petrolatum mix on my eyes three times last night to keep my eyelid from sticking to my eyeball, I screwed it up again.

I woke up with my lid completely stuck and the pain was unbearable as my eye tried to roll into a normal position, taking my eyelid with it. I grabbed the drops and started squirting it in like crazy, hoping that it would facilitate smooth separation, but to no avail.

Pain, oh God, the pain.

I went to the bathroom to see if there was any obvious damage, and it was complete redness, just like before.

I called the doctor’s office and they squeezed me in. He looked at it and gave me those delicious pain drops that change my mood from “I want to die, please just take my eyeball out” to “Woohoooooooooooooo Party Time, Where’s the margaritas?” He said that I didn’t completely open it up, but that it looks like I’ve pulled it away from my eye a little bit, loosened it up around the edges. Nothing needing scraping yet, but since it’s causing me pain, it means that there’s definitely a problem there that could get worse.

So, he stuck another contact lens bandage in my eye and said that would act as a barrier between my eyeball and eyelid and would help press all this mess to my eyeball a little firmer. He said to use the lube drops every 15 minutes and go back on the antibiotic drops. Call if it’s worse before the weekend, otherwise, this is staying on until Tuesday.

Which is fine with me. I can’t take much more of this pain and ripping and such. Once again, though, I’m sitting here typing through a fog. Using spell check and I never do that. I just can’t read my own words enough to know if I’m screwing up. I have so much work to do, so many projects going on… and all I can do is sit around in the dark, take baths, be mopey, take naps and watch Law and Order. If I wasn’t in so much pain, that all might sound like a good time…

I’ve had it with you, eye. Straighten up and fly right.

I did get these fancy goggles to wear at night, though. Oh yeah. You want me.

Hardly any redness left and it’s feeling better, too. It’s less scratchy and no more shooting pains since yesterday. I’m still completely aggravated by light, though, and even walking across the room causes enough of a breeze across my eye to make me wince.

You can’t tell very well in this picture, but that eye is still dilated, too. It’s so weird looking to have one pupil gigantic and the other just a dot. He said that would last about 4 days.

I’m still really tired. I don’t know how or why an eye injury can make one so tired, but I am truly exhausted and have been napping once or more per day. I’m about to take a little cat nap right now, even.

Tomorrow the contact lens gets peeled off. I’m nervous about it and feel myself getting a little light-headed just thinking about it. I worry so much about him taking layers of my eyeball with him or worse, going back to eyelid sticking to eyeball in the morning.

I’m a total wussy when it comes to pain, don’t you know?

Other good news is that my actual vision is starting to come back up to par. Though it comes and goes. Last night I could read stuff on the onscreen channel guide with the good eye closed. Now, however, I can’t even read this text that way. At least I know the potential is there.

I tried not to work today and just rest, but ended up doing a little bit. I have kind of liked just sitting around, sleeping and watching TV. I had a Law and Orderthon yesterday, which I haven’t allowed myself to do for years and years. Kinda fun.

I’ve been scraped.

What a great time that was.

The pain started to get so bad on Friday that I decided I needed to go see the doctor. He decided to do the scraping thing so that the good cells could spread over the part where the bad cells didn’t seem to be able to take hold of my eye.

So, he got all his nifty tools out and numbed my eye with some drops. I didn’t feel a thing. However, I KNEW a thing. I knew that I could see exactly what he was doing which was scraping filets of my eyeball off with a fancy exacto knife and then placing the filets on a piece of gauze right next to me.

I then had what he called a “vasovagal response” which is to say that I passed clean out. I fainted.

While I was in my fainting stage, I was in my house, talking to people about how a thermometer device was screwed so far into the wall that you could hear the screw bumping up against the siding outside the house. I yelled at my boyfriend through the wall, “Do you hear it?”

And then I opened my eyes up and this strange man was above me telling me, “It’s OK, you fainted.”

What? Disorientation. Where the hell am I? What’s going on? Who are you?

Then I realized I was in the doctor’s office and that an exacto knife had just been coming at my eyeball repeatedly. And that I could see it. And I felt like fainting again.

He put a contact lens over it to serve as a bandage of sorts. We stopped by the liquor store on the way home and got some mojito mix, vodka from Dripping Springs, Texas, (just one more way I’m doing local food, haha) and some Irish Cream that was definitely not from Ireland. I’m a pretty squeamish person, so I knew I was going to need something to keep me from repeating the eyeball scraping scenario over and over and over in my head until I vomited.

It seemed to work. I drank mudslides all night and boyfriend rotated between mojitos and kamikazees. My eye hurt pretty bad all night and I didn’t get much sleep. At about 5am I woke up and took a long bath, hoping the moisture level in the bathroom would help ease some of the scratchy discomfort I was having… Not too much, but a little relief was better than none.

Went back to the doctor this morning for a follow-up and he said that the epithelial cells are already moving in the right direction and said everything looked good. He gave me some samples for preservative free eye lube since I was using the other about every 30 minutes yesterday… said to use the antibiotic drops 3x a day and he’ll see me on Tuesday to very gently remove the contact lens so that no damage occurs to the new layer of goodness. Then he said I’ve got a 2 week period where the cells need to strengthen and get firmly established so that this won’t happen again.

That’s the part I’m worried about.

Right now, I have almost no vision out of the eye that was scraped. It’s completely annoying. My depth perception is completely gone and it hurts to try and focus. For that reason, I just want to lay around with my eyes closed. I wish I could just turn that eye off so I could see. Now I really know how Jacob feels all the time… although truthfully, he probably shut his affected eye off years ago… but the depth perception thing is always gone for him. He’s completely adapted… I see it when he’s tired, it’s like he’s not trying to make up for it at all.

(Sigh)

I don’t know how I just sat here and wrote this whole thing out. Even the cursor looks like it is in a different spot than it really is. Weird. But no more. I’m going to get away from this computer for a few days and heal…

Hopefully I’ll be back on Wednesday…