I didn't start back into the articles yesterday because I began having more pain. My current regimen, as far as tramadol (which treats my back pain) is concerned is I take 50 mg upon awakening, before breakfast, 50 mg. with lunch and 50 mg before bed. This means that the largest gaps are between lunch and bed and between bed and awakening. I've been having more pain in the evenings, bad enough to limit my activity, including anything that requires too much thinking because my pain is a distraction. So I need to go back to taking my dinner dose. I see my primary care doctor tomorrow.
Anyway, I'm in pain now (it's almost 10 pm), but I want to report on the condo issue. After expressing my restlessness regarding the inaction of the bank making the short-sale decision regarding the condo unit I submitted an offer on, my lawyer contacted their lawyer about it and my realtor began looking again at the units available at the complex I'm pretty dead set on (the guards at the gate to the complex don't even ask for my i.d. any more!), and he found a new one, which also happened to be the cheapest (and not a short sale). The pictures looked great and today we went to see it and it would require much less work to fix up.
The asking price still was about $9k more than the short-sale unit, but picking up on some things the selling agent said though that the sellers might take significantly less than they were asking. I offered verbally offered $70k and we agreed on $73, only $3.5k more than the short-sale! And the fix up costs should be much less, so I might be able to afford to do the fancy steam shower jacuzzi in the master bath. Although this is a bit of a luxury, it's also therapeutic for my ailments, so I think it will be an investment well spent. Also, I found a make and model that fits in the usual bathtub sized space, so it should work out without a major bathroom remodel. At least that's what I'm hoping. The steam shower is also cheaper than many others, so it's not as much as what you might find on a quick search online.
I'm really achy now. I was out all afternoon at the condo and with my realtor and was already getting in some pain towards the end. It doesn't help that I haven't been exercising enough for my fibromyalgia, so I have to go exercise to get my fibromyalgia pain more undercontrol. I won't feel the effects of exercising today until tomorrow though. Believe me, though, it's not easy to exercise when your feet hurt and your legs aren't too steady either.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
283. Returning to the Swing of Things
Okay, I think I'm about ready to return to discussing the articles again. But first an update on the present situation.
First of all, I'm leaning towards giving up on the short sale offer, which means I'll lose the deposit, which at least is much less than what the sellers initially requested. It turns out that there's a unit at the complex I've decided on that I haven't seen yet, is much less than what others are asking and looks like it will need less work to prepare to move in. For example, it looks like the kitchen cabinets are new (or at least not the original ones in the building, the appliances are newer and also there is all tile floor (I can't have carpet because of the dust mite allergy). So I'm going to see it tomorrow afternoon. Since I'm a cash buyer this could go pretty quickly, so it's possible I'll be interrupted again to get the place fixed up and moved in. (The reason I might be giving up on the short-sale unit is that the bank shouldn't be taking this long for a "pre-approved" short-sale, which is how this unit was advertised. I can't live where I am indefinitely because I no longer meet their requirements, and there's been no evidence for a month now that the bank is doing anything about my offer.)
My health still isn't that great although I'm walking much better - just using a cane when I go out now, instead of a walker. And to get the mail I can even go without the walker. However, the downside is that as my mobility has improved and I'm moving around more my pain has increased in my back. So whereas I had lowered my tramadol, the past few days I've been thinking I may need to increase it again. My prescription is for 40 mg 4 times a day, but I've just been taking it 3 times a day the past 3 weeks or so. I really do try to keep my pain medicine as low as possible and I also try to look for non-medicinal means to manage my pain. Since I have fibromyalgia this is an ongoing effort, irregardless of what might be happening or not happening in my spine.
My latest thing is focusing on Christmas decorations for my new place. This is sort of a conscious compensation for the pain I've felt in recent years from being cut off from my family for holiday celebrations. A couple years ago, when I was living up north with my brother I put on a Thanksgiving dinner and also prepared a lot of Christmas goodies... too much really. But no one ever expressed any concern for how I felt about being left out of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter celebrations, and by no one, I include my parents. No one ever thought about me or how I felt at all. I bout an artificial Christmas tree and beneath it I'm going to put the large creche I bought from Quelle (the German catalog company) when I was living in Siberia. (I bought a bunch of stuff from Quelle while in Russia, such as the really great sewing machine that I still use with a quite hefty electrical converter and also some baby things such as a car seat.) I'm purposely putting the creche under the tree because it's not like I expect any presents or anything.
I told my cousins in Canada (on mom's side of the family) more details about mom and her death. I left it up to them as to whether they should till their mom any of it. I'd like to talk more to mom's aunt that she was so close to, but I don't want to upset her so I still have to decide what kinds of things I might want to tell her. When I told my cousin in Canada and explained how sick I was of secrecy (which should be no surprise to you if you've been reading this blog at all!) and she agreed at least about the kinds of things I was telling her.
Then I remembered one day that one of the couples I'd called to inform about mom's death had said that I could call any time if I needed someone to talk to. These people had been our pastor (and wife) when I was in junior high - in my early teens - and had left and the husband got his doctorate in psychology and had a nonprofit practice for many years. They're retired now, but my parents had supported them when they were in their counseling ministry and I had spent one night with them on a deputation trip before going to Vienna in the '80 too. I e-mailed them with the details about what had happened in the recent years and my concerns. I chose to e-mail them rather than phone because I thought I could better explain everything that way. They responded that they were shocked and had company but would get in touch with me more after their company left.
I keep trying to think of some kind of work I could do considering my health limitations. It would be nice if my writing at some point could bring in a little income. But I want to continue with my writing here in any case.
Maybe later this evening I'll start back in on my journal comments. But for now I'll just end here.
First of all, I'm leaning towards giving up on the short sale offer, which means I'll lose the deposit, which at least is much less than what the sellers initially requested. It turns out that there's a unit at the complex I've decided on that I haven't seen yet, is much less than what others are asking and looks like it will need less work to prepare to move in. For example, it looks like the kitchen cabinets are new (or at least not the original ones in the building, the appliances are newer and also there is all tile floor (I can't have carpet because of the dust mite allergy). So I'm going to see it tomorrow afternoon. Since I'm a cash buyer this could go pretty quickly, so it's possible I'll be interrupted again to get the place fixed up and moved in. (The reason I might be giving up on the short-sale unit is that the bank shouldn't be taking this long for a "pre-approved" short-sale, which is how this unit was advertised. I can't live where I am indefinitely because I no longer meet their requirements, and there's been no evidence for a month now that the bank is doing anything about my offer.)
My health still isn't that great although I'm walking much better - just using a cane when I go out now, instead of a walker. And to get the mail I can even go without the walker. However, the downside is that as my mobility has improved and I'm moving around more my pain has increased in my back. So whereas I had lowered my tramadol, the past few days I've been thinking I may need to increase it again. My prescription is for 40 mg 4 times a day, but I've just been taking it 3 times a day the past 3 weeks or so. I really do try to keep my pain medicine as low as possible and I also try to look for non-medicinal means to manage my pain. Since I have fibromyalgia this is an ongoing effort, irregardless of what might be happening or not happening in my spine.
My latest thing is focusing on Christmas decorations for my new place. This is sort of a conscious compensation for the pain I've felt in recent years from being cut off from my family for holiday celebrations. A couple years ago, when I was living up north with my brother I put on a Thanksgiving dinner and also prepared a lot of Christmas goodies... too much really. But no one ever expressed any concern for how I felt about being left out of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter celebrations, and by no one, I include my parents. No one ever thought about me or how I felt at all. I bout an artificial Christmas tree and beneath it I'm going to put the large creche I bought from Quelle (the German catalog company) when I was living in Siberia. (I bought a bunch of stuff from Quelle while in Russia, such as the really great sewing machine that I still use with a quite hefty electrical converter and also some baby things such as a car seat.) I'm purposely putting the creche under the tree because it's not like I expect any presents or anything.
I told my cousins in Canada (on mom's side of the family) more details about mom and her death. I left it up to them as to whether they should till their mom any of it. I'd like to talk more to mom's aunt that she was so close to, but I don't want to upset her so I still have to decide what kinds of things I might want to tell her. When I told my cousin in Canada and explained how sick I was of secrecy (which should be no surprise to you if you've been reading this blog at all!) and she agreed at least about the kinds of things I was telling her.
Then I remembered one day that one of the couples I'd called to inform about mom's death had said that I could call any time if I needed someone to talk to. These people had been our pastor (and wife) when I was in junior high - in my early teens - and had left and the husband got his doctorate in psychology and had a nonprofit practice for many years. They're retired now, but my parents had supported them when they were in their counseling ministry and I had spent one night with them on a deputation trip before going to Vienna in the '80 too. I e-mailed them with the details about what had happened in the recent years and my concerns. I chose to e-mail them rather than phone because I thought I could better explain everything that way. They responded that they were shocked and had company but would get in touch with me more after their company left.
I keep trying to think of some kind of work I could do considering my health limitations. It would be nice if my writing at some point could bring in a little income. But I want to continue with my writing here in any case.
Maybe later this evening I'll start back in on my journal comments. But for now I'll just end here.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
282. Ruminations about Family
Since my cousin called a couple days ago I think I've felt more sadness about mom's death. Maybe her call helped me open up and not be so tense about things related to the family.
I think that both of my parents died unhappy. Dad was pushing himself in the care of mom and it was clearly getting the best of him, even though he was a very strong person. Mom, well, if she weren't sad I don't expect she'd have committed suicide. But it's really sad to me that both of them died unhappy. It seems to me that they deserved better (despite our relational issues over the years). But at least it's better for them now.
Then, regarding the rest of the family that's left behind, namely me and my two brothers and two nephews (who are all but dead to me because of that thing their father, my brother, made me sign a couple years ago). As soon as things stabilize for me (e.g., health, where I'm living, etc.) I've got to figure out how I can make some friends. I wouldn't be surprised if the future holds some more rocky interactions between me and my brothers. So I don't plan on depending on them for my relational needs.
I think that both of my parents died unhappy. Dad was pushing himself in the care of mom and it was clearly getting the best of him, even though he was a very strong person. Mom, well, if she weren't sad I don't expect she'd have committed suicide. But it's really sad to me that both of them died unhappy. It seems to me that they deserved better (despite our relational issues over the years). But at least it's better for them now.
Then, regarding the rest of the family that's left behind, namely me and my two brothers and two nephews (who are all but dead to me because of that thing their father, my brother, made me sign a couple years ago). As soon as things stabilize for me (e.g., health, where I'm living, etc.) I've got to figure out how I can make some friends. I wouldn't be surprised if the future holds some more rocky interactions between me and my brothers. So I don't plan on depending on them for my relational needs.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
281. Blog May Stand Still, But Life Doesn't!
It's hard for me to return to talking about the past when so much is happening in the present! I'm still here at my same address, though (i.e., I haven't moved yet). That's for the most part because I'm still waiting for the bank to decide whether they'll accept my offer (it's for a "short sale," which - for those not versed in U.S. real estate lingo - is a sale of a property with a for less than the going market rate. The bank holding the mortgage has to decide whether it will accept the offer from a potential buyer. In my case, I offered the amount the seller - representatives handling the estate of the now deceased owner - presented as being "pre-authorized" by the bank holding the mortgage. However, I eventually learned that this sale amount wasn't "pre-authorized" in the usual formal sense of the word. Rather, it was the amount that the bank had counter-offered to a potential buyer not long before I came on the scene, so the estate handlers sort of assumed that this amount was "pre-authorized".
Anyway, I've been continuing to work on getting the condo set up, and in any case, I'm going to buy a condo at this complex, whether it's this unit or not. But other than that, my health has provided more fodder for news and excitement than I like. This isn't a case where "no news is good news" can be used. That is, the fact that I haven't written here does not mean that I have nothing of interest to write. Au contraire! No, since the last time I wrote to you I've been in e.r. twice (after consulting with my doctors' and health insurance's after-hours services. And, I've been admitted likewise twice into the hospital. However, they still haven't determined with great certainty what is causing my symptoms. O, yeah, and I also have been walking with a walker since my last week-long hospital stay. And the walker is a whole story in itself!
***
The story of the walker goes like this: on my 5th day in the hospital last time a nurse told me she thought my trouble walking was because I wasn't up and walking around enough. Huh? Armed with that stupidity in mind, I vowed to get up and walk around after having my shower (which I had to take sitting on the floor of the bath tub because their rules disallowed either taking a bath (there was not plug for the drain) or sitting on a chair in the shower and I wasn't stable enough to risk standing to take a shower.
This was mid evening. So true to my word, after the shower I made myself presentable (by hospital standards, which means mostly wearing a bath robe in order to be properly covered up and not displaying ones backside, wear the hospital gown ties up. I should mention that the entire time in the hospital when a physical therapist came s/he'd bring a walker and go with me walking up and down the hall a bit, but then take the walker away when the session ended. So I was left to my own devices when it came to walking in the absence of a physical therapist. So walking after my shower meant trying to walk without the aid of a walker. So I got by by holding on the rail along the hall. I reached a corner in the hallway - like a T-intersection where you have to decide whether to go right or left because straight ahead is not an option - I looked both ways and who should I meet but my rheumatologist! He was doing something at a computer in the hallway maybe 20 feet or so away from me. I had missed an appointment with him because of being in the hospital and had asked for a consult with him. He didn't recognize me at first, which isn't that surprising since he'd never seen me in my bathroom and with my head wrapped up in a towel turban-style. After I told him my name he cam over and I told him why I was walking around - what the nurse had said, and he agreed that my trouble walking was not because of muscular weakness due to lack of use (of the muscle(s)). He also offered to write a prescription for a walker for me.
The next morning I asked the nurse about the walker, and she acknowledged having seen the script for the walker in my chart but told me that I wouldn't be given the walker until discharge from the hospital. So based on this information I didn't ask about it again until I was being discharged.
Upon learning I was being discharged I had to arrange for follow up appointments for the following week, figure out how I was getting home (I'd come via ambulance), and otherwise go through the usual discharge routine. However, this was being done by nurses at the same time they were taking care of their other patients too. So somewhere in there I inquired about the promised walker... only to learn that there evidently wasn't a script for it. I insisted that there was a script and the nurse checked and double checked, and it wasn't in my records. So then the nurse said that the doctor would have to physically come in to sign the script. I told them that my rheumatologist had already written the script, and I was told that he wasn't my doctor while in the hospital (?!). I eventually understood that the script had either been either intentionally taken out of my records or accidentally misplaced. I said I wouldn't leave without the walker so I had to say another night. The next morning I was told the script was signed and I'd get the walker Monday at home. Satisfied with that (oh foolish me!), I agreed to be discharged.
Upon arrival at home my neighbor lent me her walker on the assumption that it would be only 2 days, until Monday. I waited... and waited... finally by Tuesday mid-day with no word about the phantom walker I was to receive, I called my doctor's office, the rheumatologist and also my primary care doctor, and I also mentioned it to the neurosurgeon, whom I saw on Monday. So at that point both the rheumatologist and neurosurgeon were working on the walker, but my primary care seemed to be AWOL (absent without leave, a military crime worthy of court martial). Finally, by Thursday I got a call from a company arranging to bring me a walker. The next day someone else came by with a walker, which I did not accept. It turns out that that second walker was from the rheumatologist, so I guess I got the walker the neurosurgeon prescribed. Anyway, I'm still walking with a walker, although the physical therapist is helping me and sometimes I'm able to use just a cane.
***
And this brings me to another point... when I was discharged from the hospital I was sent home with a script for physical therapy at home and a home health aid. A nurse comes by from time to time too.
And what are my symptoms? It quite possibly might be easier to answer that are NOT my symptoms, but I'll try my best to answer what ARE my symptoms: weakness and poor control in the legs, tingling and sometimes pain in my feet, cold feet, poor balance, acting up of my autoimmune allergic reaction (specifically redness in the upper chest and facial swelling), tingling in the face accompanied by fatigue, pain in the mid back and also in the gut, g.i. system slow down/malfunction, loss of feeling in my feet (not good for driving a stick shift/automatic transmission car). So now I have increased medications, have dizziness excercises tacked on to my usual heath routine, have to keep my legs elevated to minimize foot pain, tingling and lack of sensation, have to pay more attention to my g.i. system, etc., etc.
***
At the same time I'm working on getting set up in the new condo and hoping against hope that my general contractor is honest, because I just can't deal with problems on that front on top of everything else. But now I'm living in a personal canyon of boxes in my dinky little apartment. Part of the boxes are from packing up, but a good chunk of them are things I've ordered for the new apartment when I find things I've liked at good prices. I'm having to be my own interior decorator, because even if I could afford an interior decorator, noone will work for you until you own the place. But knowing my health I feel like I have to do as much as I can while I'm reasonably able, because I never know when my health will "head south" as they say (i.e., worsen). And, as a bit of insurance against contractor problems, I'm buying most of the things that they have to install. But things are starting to slow down regarding condo set up, at least as far as what can be done before I actually own the unit.
I must say, however, that my health and the condo prep has been a good diversion from thinking about mom and family. There's no getting around the idea that she's happier where she is now (from a Christian standpoint), but it's hard to deal with all the suffering she'd gone through prior to her death. Lately I've thought about it a bit as things otherwise slow down for me some.
***
Here's the real trigger to my writing today, though. I got a call from a cousin, who's a Christian and has spent some time with mom and my brother in recent years, after dad's death 5 years ago in particular. She called yesterday to ask my forgiveness for her not believing me about my concerns about how my brother there was treating mom. It turns out that since mom's death she's seen the angry side of him that she hadn't seen before, and now one of this cousin's brothers (who isn't a Christian) doesn't want anything to do with my brother because of his anger.
In these kinds of things it's not really appropriate to gloat about being right, because it would be better if I hadn't have been right, and mom's the one that suffered. I've told you here how I've been stymied at ways to help mom, but that mom and dad had things set up so that my influence in family matters was negligible, but my brothers played a major role also in making sure things were set up that way. Still, I'm sorry that mom had to suffer in this way - from my brother. But I hope that you will also see that people eventually come to recognize that I'm right in many of my interpretations of events and people. While it would probably be foolish to claim to be right all the time, I hope you can see that at the very least my perspectives on things probably should not be dismissed lightly. My family had build up an informal mechanism for keeping family issues secret and this mechanism could even fool people close to them, but I saw it for something otherwise (than what they wanted people to believe) and stuck to my beliefs with the conviction that I had enough to go on that I was convinced I was right. One other thing you can learn about me from this is that I don't change convictions easily and also I'm not afraid of going against the flow in my thinking.
It's hard, really, to deal with getting this confirmation that mom was abused by my brother (emotionally and verbally if not physically). The fact that I did as much as I could to try to help maybe alleviates any guilt feeling I might have, but it doesn't help the sorrow of this confirmation that she experienced this kind of treatment. You can see from other things I've written here that my relationship with mom has sometimes been rocky, but in all actuality, I think the ultimate cause of this goes back to the men in our family and the fact that mom was so dependent on them and they were so "persuasive" in affecting her views on things.
In the weeks or couple months before mom's death she had told me that she and dad didn't know about the things I'm writing here. But the thing is that they couldn't have known because I didn't trust dad enough to tell them. If dad had found out I was thinking or experiencing these things he would have very convincingly dismissed them and mom would have believed him and disbelieved me. It would have been very difficult for me to write some of these things things when dad was still alive.
***
I still have a couple more things I need to get done before I return to this blog in full force.
***
P.S. I got to thinking that there is one time when I messed up when I might have been able to maybe help mom. That was when I was living in New York and my brother and mom came out to visit me and my other brother and his boys (mom and brother in Pacific N.W. and other brother with his boys in New England; I was living in an apartment owned by my brother in New England, since I'd lost my second job for health reasons.
The scenario was that I hadn't had a holiday with the family in years so I went overboard on preparations. I should have spent more time with mom, but the thing is that after she left from that visit things would be exactly like they were before and it wasn't like she was going to start let me help her apart from my brothers' efforts. So these kinds of things felt to me manipulative ways to try to sort of suck me into the family "game playing" (in the socio-psychological sense of the term; other members of the family would undoubtedly deny there was any "game playing" going on). The last thing anyone in my family was ever going to do was let me have independent relations with mom. While dad was alive, he could maintain direct relations with me because he was astute at some of the familial issues and had clout enough to keep the upper hand. In any regard, no one in the family but me had any realistic potential of countering him. Dad, for example, was where the buck stopped as far as framing (of issues, individuals, events, etc.) went. I was the only one who questioned him with any conviction. I think I was able to do this because of things I'd experienced apart from the family, but also because of certain knowledge I'd gained and also because of my personality. My experiences independent from the family led to independence of judgement and change in some of my values and opinions. Under the purview of my family it would have been more difficult to come to these divergent perspectives, so the geographic and attitudinal distance combined with certain personality traits provided the opportunity to diverge from our family mindset. One of the personality traits that allowed me this opportunity was that of being independent in nature, which dad blamed for my problems in Vienna with the mission. I will remind you, however, that independent of thought is a well-known American value, which Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book "Democracy in America" noted in the 19th century. Americans valued independence so much that they speer-headed the unfettered free trade movement in the 20th century. I mean the kind of free trade that is unencumbered with legal limitations and lets the market go where it will. Let's just say that I'm the embodiment of that value and Americans should recognize me as their true child that I am, independent spirit and all. (I hope you understand I'm speaking tongue in cheek here.) And dad, who was quite politicized, held to republican hands-off rule, where the rights individuals and businesses aren't encroached upon by big government. In other words, he valued independence... except, it would appear, in me. Or maybe it wasn't so much that I was the problem as it was that there were limitations to his valuing of independence and I fit into one of these exceptions to the right-of-freedom belief. Or possibly, he was just acknowledging how in reality things worked, but in any case, I felt that he agreed with the limitations of freedom thrust on me (by the mission in Vienna, etc.), so my independence in this particular situation was out of line, and those attempting to limit my independence were right in limiting me. In this case, however, one must try to disentangle what was independence acceptable and when wasn't it, or what kind of independence was acceptable and what kind wasn't.
Anyway, this is all to say that I might have helped mom during her visit to New England, when I was living there. But since I wasn't going to join in the family relations as they were, this help would just have been a short-lived event, until they returned back home and my brother there would once again be the one to come between me and any help mom might get. The only way my help could have been more enduring would have been if she would have stepped in so that I could on an ongoing basis have direct access to her to help her. That wasn't going to happen, because doing this was beyond what she could accept emotionally. Giving me that kind of access to her would be tacitly (if not actively) acknowledging that our family was something other than idyllic.
Anyway, I've been continuing to work on getting the condo set up, and in any case, I'm going to buy a condo at this complex, whether it's this unit or not. But other than that, my health has provided more fodder for news and excitement than I like. This isn't a case where "no news is good news" can be used. That is, the fact that I haven't written here does not mean that I have nothing of interest to write. Au contraire! No, since the last time I wrote to you I've been in e.r. twice (after consulting with my doctors' and health insurance's after-hours services. And, I've been admitted likewise twice into the hospital. However, they still haven't determined with great certainty what is causing my symptoms. O, yeah, and I also have been walking with a walker since my last week-long hospital stay. And the walker is a whole story in itself!
***
The story of the walker goes like this: on my 5th day in the hospital last time a nurse told me she thought my trouble walking was because I wasn't up and walking around enough. Huh? Armed with that stupidity in mind, I vowed to get up and walk around after having my shower (which I had to take sitting on the floor of the bath tub because their rules disallowed either taking a bath (there was not plug for the drain) or sitting on a chair in the shower and I wasn't stable enough to risk standing to take a shower.
This was mid evening. So true to my word, after the shower I made myself presentable (by hospital standards, which means mostly wearing a bath robe in order to be properly covered up and not displaying ones backside, wear the hospital gown ties up. I should mention that the entire time in the hospital when a physical therapist came s/he'd bring a walker and go with me walking up and down the hall a bit, but then take the walker away when the session ended. So I was left to my own devices when it came to walking in the absence of a physical therapist. So walking after my shower meant trying to walk without the aid of a walker. So I got by by holding on the rail along the hall. I reached a corner in the hallway - like a T-intersection where you have to decide whether to go right or left because straight ahead is not an option - I looked both ways and who should I meet but my rheumatologist! He was doing something at a computer in the hallway maybe 20 feet or so away from me. I had missed an appointment with him because of being in the hospital and had asked for a consult with him. He didn't recognize me at first, which isn't that surprising since he'd never seen me in my bathroom and with my head wrapped up in a towel turban-style. After I told him my name he cam over and I told him why I was walking around - what the nurse had said, and he agreed that my trouble walking was not because of muscular weakness due to lack of use (of the muscle(s)). He also offered to write a prescription for a walker for me.
The next morning I asked the nurse about the walker, and she acknowledged having seen the script for the walker in my chart but told me that I wouldn't be given the walker until discharge from the hospital. So based on this information I didn't ask about it again until I was being discharged.
Upon learning I was being discharged I had to arrange for follow up appointments for the following week, figure out how I was getting home (I'd come via ambulance), and otherwise go through the usual discharge routine. However, this was being done by nurses at the same time they were taking care of their other patients too. So somewhere in there I inquired about the promised walker... only to learn that there evidently wasn't a script for it. I insisted that there was a script and the nurse checked and double checked, and it wasn't in my records. So then the nurse said that the doctor would have to physically come in to sign the script. I told them that my rheumatologist had already written the script, and I was told that he wasn't my doctor while in the hospital (?!). I eventually understood that the script had either been either intentionally taken out of my records or accidentally misplaced. I said I wouldn't leave without the walker so I had to say another night. The next morning I was told the script was signed and I'd get the walker Monday at home. Satisfied with that (oh foolish me!), I agreed to be discharged.
Upon arrival at home my neighbor lent me her walker on the assumption that it would be only 2 days, until Monday. I waited... and waited... finally by Tuesday mid-day with no word about the phantom walker I was to receive, I called my doctor's office, the rheumatologist and also my primary care doctor, and I also mentioned it to the neurosurgeon, whom I saw on Monday. So at that point both the rheumatologist and neurosurgeon were working on the walker, but my primary care seemed to be AWOL (absent without leave, a military crime worthy of court martial). Finally, by Thursday I got a call from a company arranging to bring me a walker. The next day someone else came by with a walker, which I did not accept. It turns out that that second walker was from the rheumatologist, so I guess I got the walker the neurosurgeon prescribed. Anyway, I'm still walking with a walker, although the physical therapist is helping me and sometimes I'm able to use just a cane.
***
And this brings me to another point... when I was discharged from the hospital I was sent home with a script for physical therapy at home and a home health aid. A nurse comes by from time to time too.
And what are my symptoms? It quite possibly might be easier to answer that are NOT my symptoms, but I'll try my best to answer what ARE my symptoms: weakness and poor control in the legs, tingling and sometimes pain in my feet, cold feet, poor balance, acting up of my autoimmune allergic reaction (specifically redness in the upper chest and facial swelling), tingling in the face accompanied by fatigue, pain in the mid back and also in the gut, g.i. system slow down/malfunction, loss of feeling in my feet (not good for driving a stick shift/automatic transmission car). So now I have increased medications, have dizziness excercises tacked on to my usual heath routine, have to keep my legs elevated to minimize foot pain, tingling and lack of sensation, have to pay more attention to my g.i. system, etc., etc.
***
At the same time I'm working on getting set up in the new condo and hoping against hope that my general contractor is honest, because I just can't deal with problems on that front on top of everything else. But now I'm living in a personal canyon of boxes in my dinky little apartment. Part of the boxes are from packing up, but a good chunk of them are things I've ordered for the new apartment when I find things I've liked at good prices. I'm having to be my own interior decorator, because even if I could afford an interior decorator, noone will work for you until you own the place. But knowing my health I feel like I have to do as much as I can while I'm reasonably able, because I never know when my health will "head south" as they say (i.e., worsen). And, as a bit of insurance against contractor problems, I'm buying most of the things that they have to install. But things are starting to slow down regarding condo set up, at least as far as what can be done before I actually own the unit.
I must say, however, that my health and the condo prep has been a good diversion from thinking about mom and family. There's no getting around the idea that she's happier where she is now (from a Christian standpoint), but it's hard to deal with all the suffering she'd gone through prior to her death. Lately I've thought about it a bit as things otherwise slow down for me some.
***
Here's the real trigger to my writing today, though. I got a call from a cousin, who's a Christian and has spent some time with mom and my brother in recent years, after dad's death 5 years ago in particular. She called yesterday to ask my forgiveness for her not believing me about my concerns about how my brother there was treating mom. It turns out that since mom's death she's seen the angry side of him that she hadn't seen before, and now one of this cousin's brothers (who isn't a Christian) doesn't want anything to do with my brother because of his anger.
In these kinds of things it's not really appropriate to gloat about being right, because it would be better if I hadn't have been right, and mom's the one that suffered. I've told you here how I've been stymied at ways to help mom, but that mom and dad had things set up so that my influence in family matters was negligible, but my brothers played a major role also in making sure things were set up that way. Still, I'm sorry that mom had to suffer in this way - from my brother. But I hope that you will also see that people eventually come to recognize that I'm right in many of my interpretations of events and people. While it would probably be foolish to claim to be right all the time, I hope you can see that at the very least my perspectives on things probably should not be dismissed lightly. My family had build up an informal mechanism for keeping family issues secret and this mechanism could even fool people close to them, but I saw it for something otherwise (than what they wanted people to believe) and stuck to my beliefs with the conviction that I had enough to go on that I was convinced I was right. One other thing you can learn about me from this is that I don't change convictions easily and also I'm not afraid of going against the flow in my thinking.
It's hard, really, to deal with getting this confirmation that mom was abused by my brother (emotionally and verbally if not physically). The fact that I did as much as I could to try to help maybe alleviates any guilt feeling I might have, but it doesn't help the sorrow of this confirmation that she experienced this kind of treatment. You can see from other things I've written here that my relationship with mom has sometimes been rocky, but in all actuality, I think the ultimate cause of this goes back to the men in our family and the fact that mom was so dependent on them and they were so "persuasive" in affecting her views on things.
In the weeks or couple months before mom's death she had told me that she and dad didn't know about the things I'm writing here. But the thing is that they couldn't have known because I didn't trust dad enough to tell them. If dad had found out I was thinking or experiencing these things he would have very convincingly dismissed them and mom would have believed him and disbelieved me. It would have been very difficult for me to write some of these things things when dad was still alive.
***
I still have a couple more things I need to get done before I return to this blog in full force.
***
P.S. I got to thinking that there is one time when I messed up when I might have been able to maybe help mom. That was when I was living in New York and my brother and mom came out to visit me and my other brother and his boys (mom and brother in Pacific N.W. and other brother with his boys in New England; I was living in an apartment owned by my brother in New England, since I'd lost my second job for health reasons.
The scenario was that I hadn't had a holiday with the family in years so I went overboard on preparations. I should have spent more time with mom, but the thing is that after she left from that visit things would be exactly like they were before and it wasn't like she was going to start let me help her apart from my brothers' efforts. So these kinds of things felt to me manipulative ways to try to sort of suck me into the family "game playing" (in the socio-psychological sense of the term; other members of the family would undoubtedly deny there was any "game playing" going on). The last thing anyone in my family was ever going to do was let me have independent relations with mom. While dad was alive, he could maintain direct relations with me because he was astute at some of the familial issues and had clout enough to keep the upper hand. In any regard, no one in the family but me had any realistic potential of countering him. Dad, for example, was where the buck stopped as far as framing (of issues, individuals, events, etc.) went. I was the only one who questioned him with any conviction. I think I was able to do this because of things I'd experienced apart from the family, but also because of certain knowledge I'd gained and also because of my personality. My experiences independent from the family led to independence of judgement and change in some of my values and opinions. Under the purview of my family it would have been more difficult to come to these divergent perspectives, so the geographic and attitudinal distance combined with certain personality traits provided the opportunity to diverge from our family mindset. One of the personality traits that allowed me this opportunity was that of being independent in nature, which dad blamed for my problems in Vienna with the mission. I will remind you, however, that independent of thought is a well-known American value, which Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book "Democracy in America" noted in the 19th century. Americans valued independence so much that they speer-headed the unfettered free trade movement in the 20th century. I mean the kind of free trade that is unencumbered with legal limitations and lets the market go where it will. Let's just say that I'm the embodiment of that value and Americans should recognize me as their true child that I am, independent spirit and all. (I hope you understand I'm speaking tongue in cheek here.) And dad, who was quite politicized, held to republican hands-off rule, where the rights individuals and businesses aren't encroached upon by big government. In other words, he valued independence... except, it would appear, in me. Or maybe it wasn't so much that I was the problem as it was that there were limitations to his valuing of independence and I fit into one of these exceptions to the right-of-freedom belief. Or possibly, he was just acknowledging how in reality things worked, but in any case, I felt that he agreed with the limitations of freedom thrust on me (by the mission in Vienna, etc.), so my independence in this particular situation was out of line, and those attempting to limit my independence were right in limiting me. In this case, however, one must try to disentangle what was independence acceptable and when wasn't it, or what kind of independence was acceptable and what kind wasn't.
Anyway, this is all to say that I might have helped mom during her visit to New England, when I was living there. But since I wasn't going to join in the family relations as they were, this help would just have been a short-lived event, until they returned back home and my brother there would once again be the one to come between me and any help mom might get. The only way my help could have been more enduring would have been if she would have stepped in so that I could on an ongoing basis have direct access to her to help her. That wasn't going to happen, because doing this was beyond what she could accept emotionally. Giving me that kind of access to her would be tacitly (if not actively) acknowledging that our family was something other than idyllic.
Friday, August 5, 2011
280. Still Another Reprieve
I can't believe it's been so long since I've written here. In one sense a lot has happened since I last wrote here, but in another sense not much has happened.
Regarding the "not much" perspective, I've been mainly on a mad pursuit to get the condo set up before my spinal problem (identified as being at T11-T12, where my first spinal surgery was in 2008) took over and I couldn't work on it any more. I was also trying to get it how I wanted it and keep on budget, which was somewhat of a tall order, but now I'm pretty sure I can do it. The thing is, though, that I've been doing like 99% of this sitting at the computer because I didn't feel up to driving around town, although early on I visited 3 or 4 stores, including the local Ikea. All this while I've been keeping dilligent records and I have an Excel workbook populated with many spreadsheets and links and notes too many to count (well, I guess I could if I really wanted to, which I don't).
Another aspect of the "not much" part of my recent life, is that because of my health I've pretty much been limited to medical appointments, the grocery store and drug store. I think it's safe to say that everyone at the drugstore knows me by face and go fetch my prescriptions without my having to identify myself, although they make me cite my address because that's a store policy. Also, the physical therapy people all know me quite well too. I think we're coming upon a full 12-month run of non-stop physical therapy, interrupted only by my cervical surgery in January.
My offer on the condo is still with the bank and last I heard they wanted to do another property assessment, although my lawyer and realtor both think this is just routine and nothing to get concerned about.
This week my health took a dive for the worst but I think we've got all the imaging, nerve conduction tests, etc. done now. I'm having to be ultra careful about twisting, turning or lifting because my legs are much worse and my g.i. system is taking a hit, so it's nothing to mess around with. I have to at least maintain my current status until Aug. 23 when I see the neurosurgeon after he returns from vacation. I want to try to have continuity of care and not jump around from doctor to doctor, although there reaches a point where if I woke up one morning completely paralyzed from the waist down I wouldn't hesitate to call 9-1-1 (the aid care) and could end out with a different neurosurgeon.
Another way in which some things have happened since I last wrote is that my relationship with one of my brothers seems to have taken a dive for the worst also. That is, I came out with some recent things that really made me mad (including something from this winter that mom told me and which put new light on him). I haven't heard since from him, so I assume that's not good. He's got lots of support where he is so I'm sure he can get along quite well without me. He's the one that is still where we were all raised, so there's church, family and long-time friends there. Of course, the fact that he didn't want to answer my accusations makes me all the more think there really is something to it. I don't think I need to go into the details right now though.
I've packed a few things away and some people from church came and helped move things around so we could pile boxes that would be out of the way. I'm not doing much more box filling right now, though, partly because of my back, but also because I don't have many more boxes and am not up to scrounging around for more. But I don't think I should be doing that kind of thing (and it was, I think, my moving boxes of books out of a wardrobe-type container that I'm getting rid of and am going to need the space for more furniture coming, which will have to be moved eventually to the new place) which is responsible for the downturn in my health.
I packed up all the materials I was using for this blog, except for the current file. Maybe in my health-related inactivity I'll be able to work a little more on it again soon. But I still haven't sent out thank you notes to those who sent in donations in mom's name to the church. I was going to do that last Tuesday when I woke up so much worse (after moving boxes of books).
One of the things mom said the last few months of her life was that some of the things I've been writing here she and dad weren't aware of. Part of the reason for that was that, starting in the mid '80s when I was in Chicago I began to have a hunch that dad's work was affecting me and I began to lose trust in him. He was always "right" and I think it would have been foolish for me to just come up to him and tell him what I was thinking. I learned by experience after my return from Russia that he would agree with me on these kinds of things only if it would publicly make him look bad not to. I don't think mom understood these things, just like she didn't understand she shouldn't have told my brother about my concern about seeing him hit his son. So even if I had told her and dad, dad would have convinced her I was wrong.
Anyway, I'm still in the land of the living, albeit not in the best of health, and I haven't forgotten this blog. My current dilemma I'm trying to resolve is how to carry dirty laundry across the hall to my storage/laundry room (each unit in the complex has such a room external to the unit itself) and then bring the clean laundry back. What I would like is a 3 part sorting cart with a lid on it and a rack for hanging clean clothes and linens and a compartment for clean folded items. I want it to be easy to use and discrete so the whole world doesn't see my dirty laundry (they see enough of it here on this blog - sorry, I couldn't resist that one). It appears that such an item does not exist, or at least has evaded me in my Google searches to date. I think I'm going to have to have separate carts, one for bringing dirty things to the laundry machine and the other for bringing clean things back into the apartment.
Regarding the "not much" perspective, I've been mainly on a mad pursuit to get the condo set up before my spinal problem (identified as being at T11-T12, where my first spinal surgery was in 2008) took over and I couldn't work on it any more. I was also trying to get it how I wanted it and keep on budget, which was somewhat of a tall order, but now I'm pretty sure I can do it. The thing is, though, that I've been doing like 99% of this sitting at the computer because I didn't feel up to driving around town, although early on I visited 3 or 4 stores, including the local Ikea. All this while I've been keeping dilligent records and I have an Excel workbook populated with many spreadsheets and links and notes too many to count (well, I guess I could if I really wanted to, which I don't).
Another aspect of the "not much" part of my recent life, is that because of my health I've pretty much been limited to medical appointments, the grocery store and drug store. I think it's safe to say that everyone at the drugstore knows me by face and go fetch my prescriptions without my having to identify myself, although they make me cite my address because that's a store policy. Also, the physical therapy people all know me quite well too. I think we're coming upon a full 12-month run of non-stop physical therapy, interrupted only by my cervical surgery in January.
My offer on the condo is still with the bank and last I heard they wanted to do another property assessment, although my lawyer and realtor both think this is just routine and nothing to get concerned about.
This week my health took a dive for the worst but I think we've got all the imaging, nerve conduction tests, etc. done now. I'm having to be ultra careful about twisting, turning or lifting because my legs are much worse and my g.i. system is taking a hit, so it's nothing to mess around with. I have to at least maintain my current status until Aug. 23 when I see the neurosurgeon after he returns from vacation. I want to try to have continuity of care and not jump around from doctor to doctor, although there reaches a point where if I woke up one morning completely paralyzed from the waist down I wouldn't hesitate to call 9-1-1 (the aid care) and could end out with a different neurosurgeon.
Another way in which some things have happened since I last wrote is that my relationship with one of my brothers seems to have taken a dive for the worst also. That is, I came out with some recent things that really made me mad (including something from this winter that mom told me and which put new light on him). I haven't heard since from him, so I assume that's not good. He's got lots of support where he is so I'm sure he can get along quite well without me. He's the one that is still where we were all raised, so there's church, family and long-time friends there. Of course, the fact that he didn't want to answer my accusations makes me all the more think there really is something to it. I don't think I need to go into the details right now though.
I've packed a few things away and some people from church came and helped move things around so we could pile boxes that would be out of the way. I'm not doing much more box filling right now, though, partly because of my back, but also because I don't have many more boxes and am not up to scrounging around for more. But I don't think I should be doing that kind of thing (and it was, I think, my moving boxes of books out of a wardrobe-type container that I'm getting rid of and am going to need the space for more furniture coming, which will have to be moved eventually to the new place) which is responsible for the downturn in my health.
I packed up all the materials I was using for this blog, except for the current file. Maybe in my health-related inactivity I'll be able to work a little more on it again soon. But I still haven't sent out thank you notes to those who sent in donations in mom's name to the church. I was going to do that last Tuesday when I woke up so much worse (after moving boxes of books).
One of the things mom said the last few months of her life was that some of the things I've been writing here she and dad weren't aware of. Part of the reason for that was that, starting in the mid '80s when I was in Chicago I began to have a hunch that dad's work was affecting me and I began to lose trust in him. He was always "right" and I think it would have been foolish for me to just come up to him and tell him what I was thinking. I learned by experience after my return from Russia that he would agree with me on these kinds of things only if it would publicly make him look bad not to. I don't think mom understood these things, just like she didn't understand she shouldn't have told my brother about my concern about seeing him hit his son. So even if I had told her and dad, dad would have convinced her I was wrong.
Anyway, I'm still in the land of the living, albeit not in the best of health, and I haven't forgotten this blog. My current dilemma I'm trying to resolve is how to carry dirty laundry across the hall to my storage/laundry room (each unit in the complex has such a room external to the unit itself) and then bring the clean laundry back. What I would like is a 3 part sorting cart with a lid on it and a rack for hanging clean clothes and linens and a compartment for clean folded items. I want it to be easy to use and discrete so the whole world doesn't see my dirty laundry (they see enough of it here on this blog - sorry, I couldn't resist that one). It appears that such an item does not exist, or at least has evaded me in my Google searches to date. I think I'm going to have to have separate carts, one for bringing dirty things to the laundry machine and the other for bringing clean things back into the apartment.
Monday, June 20, 2011
279: Reprieve: God is like...
In my furniture search on-line I found this that I thought was pretty good... worth repeating:
***
Source: http://www.waxhawfurniture.com/ffow/41_0_0.cfm
[No, they didn't pay me to post this...]
***
God is Like...
A fifth grade teacher in a Christian school asked her class to look at the TV commercials and see if they could use them in some way to communicate ideas about God. Here are some of them:
- God is like Bayer aspirin ~ He works miracles
- God is like a Ford ~ He's got a better idea
- God is like Coca Cola ~ He's the real thing
- God is like Hallmark Cards ~ He cares enough to send His very best
- God is like Tide ~ He gets the stains out that others leave behind.
- God is like General Electric ~ He brings out the good things to life
- God is like Sears ~ He has everything
- God is like Alka Seltzer ~ Try Him you will like Him
- God is like Scotch tape ~ You can't see Him but you know He's there.
- God is like Delta ~ He's ready when you are
- God is like Allstate ~ You're in good hands with Him
- God is like VO 5 Hair Spray ~ He holds in all kinds of weather
- God is like Dial Soap ~ Aren't you glad you have Him and Don't you wish everybody else did
Source: http://www.waxhawfurniture.com/ffow/41_0_0.cfm
[No, they didn't pay me to post this...]
Sunday, June 19, 2011
278. Reprieve: Anger
I'm sure even the casual reader has picked up that I have a fair amount of anger built up. It's just that my whole life since about 1987 (or earlier) has more or less been like what I've been describing the past year's events. The people, places and specific issues have changed, but it boils down to one set of crises followed by another just like you see here. It would be foolish to claim that my decisions, actions and words never played a part, but a lot of it was out of my control, like what you see here. Just in the past year, the examples include:
1) Losing 2 good career jobs due to health that was basically outside of my control.
2) Egregious (I think) medical care/blundering (at times)
3) Difficult family (and other) relationships
I don't think I tend towards anger, except when I feel like I'm not being taken seriously, being (what appears to be) intentionally misunderstood, and being mistreated, especially in relation to those who I think should know better and are being the problem through some kind of self-interest and/or ill-intent and it is regarding something that has a major impact on me. Then when I feel helpless in such situations I might turn to anger. But, as has been pointed out, absent a direct means of expressing my anger that I feel might be affective, I turn to passive aggression. This, of course, is not healthy, and I know it. So my response tends to be to retreat in to myself so that I can limit these kinds of interactions, especially when I feel otherwise vulnerable for some reason (such as too many of these things going on at once, no support network, precarious finances, etc.).
I think after I graduated from college (undergraduate) I started taking more initiative at coming to my own understanding of the world (at least the parts of it that were relevant to me), and I haven't been satisfied with letting others take over that task for me. This can lead to difficulties, however. For example, over time I have developed strong views about the Church, politics, culture, etc. and these views don't easily mesh with any particular group I might find myself a part of. Also, if I find myself in situations and/or relationships where I feel like someone (or some group) is trying (consciously or otherwise, directly or otherwise) to change me (especially forcefully), I set up my defenses against that effort. And if I feel that there isn't a way to correct such efforts in relation to me, then I might develop some anger about it.
In the situation with the brother about the condo reserves, I think there were probably several things going on. One is that he may well have wanted (consciously or otherwise) to feel useful and even important. But he is probably also trying to find a way to deal with his grief about the loss of mom, and he may well need to feel useful, at least. Also, I think he really does want the best for me because he knows that I don't have many options and resources open to me and so he doesn't want me to get into a mess and have everything crash around me if the condo association has problems.
Despite all that, however, there really was, as far as I'm concerned no need for him to send that report to me because I had already made clear that my former condo complex had a lot of money (although I no longer have the records and so don't know the exact figures) and I understood what the risk was. The thing is that I don't expect him to understand what I want and need and that I have found no other complex in the area that would work for me.
Also, this is how I predict things could happen:
1. I buy a unit in this complex (with practically no reserves), and my brothers might not visit me (because it is a nice complex and the sibling rivalry would kick in and it would not be in their positional advantage to visit me).
2. I buy something cheaper where the complex has more reserves, and my brothers might visit me and treat me patronizingly because they know they are in a superior position housing-wise, so it is their advantage to visit me to rub that in.
In neither situation, however, will my brothers truly help me, or they will only help me in such a way as to undermine my independence, and perhaps in a way that is not necessarily in my best interests. That is, they might help me only in a way that benefits them.
I'm 51 years old and the oldest of the 3 of us, and I am speaking this way from all these years og experience in this birth family.
1) Losing 2 good career jobs due to health that was basically outside of my control.
2) Egregious (I think) medical care/blundering (at times)
3) Difficult family (and other) relationships
I don't think I tend towards anger, except when I feel like I'm not being taken seriously, being (what appears to be) intentionally misunderstood, and being mistreated, especially in relation to those who I think should know better and are being the problem through some kind of self-interest and/or ill-intent and it is regarding something that has a major impact on me. Then when I feel helpless in such situations I might turn to anger. But, as has been pointed out, absent a direct means of expressing my anger that I feel might be affective, I turn to passive aggression. This, of course, is not healthy, and I know it. So my response tends to be to retreat in to myself so that I can limit these kinds of interactions, especially when I feel otherwise vulnerable for some reason (such as too many of these things going on at once, no support network, precarious finances, etc.).
I think after I graduated from college (undergraduate) I started taking more initiative at coming to my own understanding of the world (at least the parts of it that were relevant to me), and I haven't been satisfied with letting others take over that task for me. This can lead to difficulties, however. For example, over time I have developed strong views about the Church, politics, culture, etc. and these views don't easily mesh with any particular group I might find myself a part of. Also, if I find myself in situations and/or relationships where I feel like someone (or some group) is trying (consciously or otherwise, directly or otherwise) to change me (especially forcefully), I set up my defenses against that effort. And if I feel that there isn't a way to correct such efforts in relation to me, then I might develop some anger about it.
In the situation with the brother about the condo reserves, I think there were probably several things going on. One is that he may well have wanted (consciously or otherwise) to feel useful and even important. But he is probably also trying to find a way to deal with his grief about the loss of mom, and he may well need to feel useful, at least. Also, I think he really does want the best for me because he knows that I don't have many options and resources open to me and so he doesn't want me to get into a mess and have everything crash around me if the condo association has problems.
Despite all that, however, there really was, as far as I'm concerned no need for him to send that report to me because I had already made clear that my former condo complex had a lot of money (although I no longer have the records and so don't know the exact figures) and I understood what the risk was. The thing is that I don't expect him to understand what I want and need and that I have found no other complex in the area that would work for me.
Also, this is how I predict things could happen:
1. I buy a unit in this complex (with practically no reserves), and my brothers might not visit me (because it is a nice complex and the sibling rivalry would kick in and it would not be in their positional advantage to visit me).
2. I buy something cheaper where the complex has more reserves, and my brothers might visit me and treat me patronizingly because they know they are in a superior position housing-wise, so it is their advantage to visit me to rub that in.
In neither situation, however, will my brothers truly help me, or they will only help me in such a way as to undermine my independence, and perhaps in a way that is not necessarily in my best interests. That is, they might help me only in a way that benefits them.
I'm 51 years old and the oldest of the 3 of us, and I am speaking this way from all these years og experience in this birth family.
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