update continued:

Okay, the other one was getting long… here’s the rest of it.

Sis… We’re stressing out; she got sick and they postponed her surgery multiple times. I want to be there for her, but there’s good news. They don’t think it’s cancer…. the surgery will only take a couple of hours and she’ll be headed home the same day. So she doesn’t want me to miss work, she makes a good case for waiting to come out until she’s recovered. She says she won’t be good company, she’ll be bruised up and in pain. She says there’s not enough room for everyone to come out and I can’t afford a hotel and we’re not sure when the surgery is going to be. So I say… okay…  Now we just have to get mom out there because mom will be there. No ifs, ands, or butts… she will be there.

I arrange for my Aunt S to take mom out there and I’m now semi-relaxed. I’m working lots of overtime… mom calls on Monday and says… the surgery is Wednesday. She says she’s got a car reserved for me to drive her out there. Wait! what?! I can’t! I’ve put in for OT for the entire week…. what happened to Aunt S taking you? Well, Aunt S just signed for her new house and is moving… mom’s been telling her all along that she didn’t need her. WTF?! Aunt S doesn’t work… I do! Aunt S has a hubby supporting her… it makes more sense, but mom expects me to drop everything and go.

There’s a giant disagreement about it, mom says: Fine, I just won’t go. (yeah right!) I tell her, fine… I’ll go in at 6 am… work until 2 so I’m only losing 4 hrs of OT work… then I’ll drive you out there (6-8 hrs), grab a couple of hours of sleep and then I’ll turn around and drive back because I have to be at work on Friday.

Mom doesn’t like that idea: That’s not what I want..
Me: Apparently it is because you’ve made it that way.  She again says she just won’t go.
So, I get up and go into work take the time off to do the trip… only to find out at 2 when I get off.. that mom found another way to get there. *facepalm*

To top that off, Mom says she would’ve asked my brother to take her but she didn’t want to mess up his days off. *facepalm again* How is it, that it’s okay to mess with my WORK days, but she can’t mess with his OFF days? I tell myself, it’s because in her day a man’s time and pay were more important…  I tell myself that she’s used to thinking I have someone else to fall back on, that she gets SS and thinks somehow that I’ve got magical money coming in. I tell myself that she’s getting older and her mind isn’t working the way it used to. And that makes me sad. I’m slowly losing her and she doesn’t even see it. She sometimes doesn’t grasp simple concepts, she doesn’t remember things… she drove past her house several times because she couldn’t find it.

Soooo, Sis had surgery, mom made it there and after waiting 2 weeks we learn that THANKFULLY, they think they got it all, and it’s not cancer…. For now. If they missed something and it comes back… it’s usually malignant and aggressive.

Also, I went to the Dr. to get my heart checked out. My blood pressure is low… like 96 and my heart is skipping or something. I was getting pain in my jaw and hands when I walked, I’ll wake up to heart racing. It’s scary! I thought I was having a heart attack one day after work… turns out it’s an anxiety attack instead.

While I’m at the heart doctor I see a chart on sudden cardiac arrest… I need to look at it. I get up and begin reading it. Who’s at risk, causes and blah blahs… David had none of those things. At the end… it says: People often don’t even have time to call out for help when it happens. They don’t even know, they just drop, no pain…

If they’re asleep…. he didn’t know… no pain… no fear.

I begin to cry, I’d been too afraid to look it up. Upset that he’d been alone, scared but not scared because nothing ever scared him, or in pain, that’d he might’ve called for help but didn’t get it. Wifely worries, it’s a relief and yet… So I’m crying my eyes out when the doc comes in. He quips: Aww come on, it’s not that bad.  So I explained why he was very nice about it and reiterated what the pamphlet said.

Heart doctor made me wear a monitor for a couple of days. I passed everything and have been cleared to start exercising. My heart isn’t beating correctly, but it’s not fatal. It has extra beats, or skips them… then races to catch up. Could be hormonal, could be “broken heart syndrome”.  They’ve also put me on something for heartburn, which they say is a contributing factor for my pain. I hate taking pills, but have to admit I am feeling better.

I’ve had trouble sleeping, trouble waking up. I’m trying to get back into my writing but my monitor went up and now I’m having to borrow one from my son’s friend.

Life insurance or Workman’s comp might not make me happy, but it would give me a chance to breathe, to do as the doctor said. Take a week or two off work, find a less stressful job, one that is more suited to my idea of customer service and allows me to not just live paycheck to paycheck, get a massage… do a little me care. It would give me a chance to file the patents I need to get hubby’s invention out there and to protect it. It would give me a chance to promote my books, submit them to publishers… a chance to finish them.

My leg is still messed up, I have an appointment for it in August… we’ll see what they say now. It does look better… but I still can’t feel parts of it and the skin is so thin that it tears open under the slightest scrapes. It looks like it’s scarring over, but since the skin was never broken, it doesn’t make sense. I’m getting the pics printed off so I can show the doctor the progression and hope they can finally get something done.

Sooooo that’s what I’ve been up to instead of posting. I hope that things calm down a bit and I will be able to get back into more normal routines. I’m taking steps to try and relieve some of the stress… Counselor says I need to learn to put myself first sometimes. I’ve never done that, I went from helping mom and dad out, putting my baby sister first, then to married… then it was hubby first, and child first. It’s always been someone else, I feel guilty and selfish.

So on the way home from counseling… I went through a drive thru and got me an ice cream cone. Just me… and I ate it all. I didn’t share, and I didn’t get anyone else one.

Baby steps…