so yep im bloody awful at updating this thing, i really really got to try harder huh
things got hectic here again
with a kinda mixed bag of news
YAY
he got cleared for work after the spinal injury
BOO (hoo)
two days into new job he had a mini stroke and crashed the car
YAY he was uninjured (shame cant say same thing about the car)
BOO (hoo) the mini strokes kept happening
YAY they have at least slowed down now
drs say they are not connected to the spinal injury, got to wonder about the timing though that was the first time he was back into hard graft and boom, thankfully there is very little damage resulting from them, his attention deficit seems to be increased but that could just be stress, fine motor function (on him not the car) seems intact (unlike the car which is now kaput)
so where was i ...
BOO
they found more masses in my thyroid
YAY that decreases the chances that they are malignant
BOO (hoo and AARRGGG owwwww) had a biopsy
mini boo, bugger the solids are floating in liquid so they kept floating away from needle after several passes and consulting with the path lab between each try we gave up
YAY HEY YAHOO... son number 1 sprung a surprise flying visit on me :-)
YAY i got one of my paintings into a cultural festival art show, (juried event)
had barely made it through the door when i was approached by one of the organisers
(hadn't even officially signed it in) she was wanting to buy it
BOO i forgot to take final photo of how it looked
but heres an earlier shot of it (whilst i was working on it)
i got thoroughly reprimanded about under pricing it .. and reprimanded even more when i justified price by pointing out the flaws in it (reprimands were of course in the nicest possible way)
A concerned would be father with a message of pro life?
or a creepy act of an obsessive stalker that sett's a dangerous precedence?
the message
"this would of been a picture of me holding my 2 month old baby
if the mother had not decided to kill it"
could be seen as a haunting message for pro life
except for the fact that the man in question
has admitted that he was told that the mother in
question (Nani) had had a miscarriage
he states that he has his doubts
in my own opinion doubts are fine but i would of though you needed actual proof before you could so publicly accuse some one of Killing anyone or anything
the claim is that this billboard is not aimed at
Nani
and that the acronym N.A.N.I
(national association of needed information)
was not an attempt of vindictiveness or persecution
of Nani
as of yet i have not seen any reporting done
on the opinion of Nani
or on whether or not she believes
"created for N.A.N.I"
was an attempt to persecute herself
(herself being Nani)
i can say with out a measure of a doubt though
that had my controlling abusive stalker husband
started an organization
with the acronym
T.R.A.C.E.Y
i would pretty much assume it was aimed at me (Tracey)
and i can only say that i am glad he is not around to see this billboard
otherwise he would of added this tactic to his arsenal
of isolation, persecution, retribution, harassment and assault
and there is the rub as they say
how many other abusive ex's are out there reading this story in news papers and on line and realising
"this guy can do this with out arrest" "without any retribution" "no penalties, no fines, no jail time"
the fact that the "man" in question has been given two weeks to take the poster down is merely telling all those abusers that this type of behaviour is acceptable
Saturday, May 21, 2011
so the raptures over and were still here?
W.T.F ? we werent good enough????
depressed ?
dont be...
heres a little music to help you get over the rapture blues
and thought i would share my feelings on the topic with you
I think as with most things in life its unlikely that the massive increase in bi polar diagnosis/incidence is down to any one reason, but more a combination of contributing factors...
its possible misdiagnosis accounts for a huge part in this.
Simple time constraints on over worked Dr that just does not give them the time required for an in depth exploration of the nuances in their patients behavior/conditions.
Sloppy/lazy diagnosis with bipolar merely being the quick easy option...
or caring sympathetic but overly cautious Dr diagnosing bipolar "to be on the safe side" erring on the side of caution due to the possibly huge ramification should they be wrong
and i hate to say it but, in some cases, greed its far more profitable to diagnose bipolar than to tell some one they are moody
And of course with the symptoms of bipolar being so widely know now there is that fraction of society that will lie or exaggerate their "symptoms" merely to procure an excuse for miss behavior
or in the case of children parents who will do like wise simply so they have an out... a reason to say their child's behavior is not because they as a parent failed
Another thing to take into consideration is the "seek and you will find" factor... you see what your looking for
Life styles/society/the environment even diet is ever changing it is highly plausible that this or an aspect of this may also explain an increase
The illicit drugs factor is difficult as there is always that chicken or the egg factor... is the incidence of higher use merely an attempt at self medication?
I feel i have to mention that i have had bipolar all my life although of course i was not diagnosed until early teens, medications were fairly ineffective, leaving me foggy, unable to concentrate or create. As i entered mid to late teens i like many others "experimented" with hashish, smoking it socially fairly regularly for around a year or so, iv got to say that although this would be considered the "wildness of youth" it was possibly the least "wild" time of my life... the incidences of both the deep depressions and (rather perversely) the highs mellowed with a greater space of time between them
In incidences where it is said that there was no bipolar before drug use, one thing i have noticed with my bipolar is that with or with out drugs every 4-7 years it "morphs" .. it could merely be a case that for some the symptoms were milder and over looked prior to drug use, and diagnoses after drug use merely a result of a normal progression (morph) of the disorder
All good things must come to an end though and as i started thinking of having a family i stopped using hashish and the bipolar returned as strong as ever and i struggled with it for years, various medications that left me ill foggy or just simply did nothing.
Lithium did once work when i took it well over a decade ago... but... and i know this is silly, the effect scared me, keep in mind i had grown up with bipolar and knew nothing different other than when i was on hashish... so to me waking up in the morning smiling meant, to my mind, that i must be high or manic, no one had explained to me that this could be considered "normal". Happiness with no cause/reason was something i had only ever experienced whilst in a manic state or whilst using hashish... both of which in societies eyes are bad/wrong/evil a sign of mental instability and something to be avoided, and so i ceased using it ...
when questioned years later on why on hearing my explanation a Dr suggested we try it again, this one patiently explaining that happy for no reason was OK but unfortunately the lithium no longer had the same effect
If i may digress from the subject of the article for a moment, something you may find interesting, a number of years ago i developed a few mass's.. one on the thyroid, one on the adrenal gland.... since then the bipolar (curiously) has been minimal, perhaps even milder than when i was using hashish, or when the lithium worked.
From....
..... rather regular periods of mood swinging from the seven pits in the depths of hell
going through suicidal tendency out the other side to feelings that even death wouldn't help or ease pain, and its flip side of weeks with little sleep and extreme activity (were talking decorating,revamping,remodeling the entire house in the nude in three days kinda thing whilst dashing off 4 canvases and wanting to copulate with anything in trousers)
....To....
....now days ... i get a little blue sometimes and have occasional bursts of inspiration, got to say with such a drastic change i find it hard to believe the occurrence of the mass's and decrease in bipolar are unconnected (although i do doubt it will become a popular cure lol)
apologies for the length it seems i have a lot to say on bipolar
sooooo... iv been kinda bad at the blogging thing huh and i should of updated but damn things got a bit crazy this way
so here's the short update... thankfully they decided not to operate on his back and he got out of hospital a week later, complete with brace and strict orders to remain bed bound... so as you can imagine i didn't have much time to blog.
between tending him, the house, and my own crappy health i was rushed off my feet and pretty much collapsing into bed when ever i could (gently of course so as not to jar him)
leaving me feeling some what like this
my boys did offer to high tail it from ohio to help but i figured they were better off not interrupting their work schedule in case i needed help down the road and needed to bum money off them :-)
seriously though the financial ramifications over all this have been stressful as hell
very very sweet of them to offer though
month later and hes finally up and about out of bed, though with a lot of assistance and the back brace
few months more and the brace was about to come off
when..........
he had to have his gallbladder removed
the thrashing about in pain set thing back a little
another hospital visit... and so much for avoiding an operation
...
back home some recoup and finally the brace came off
... hes now in physio and looking forward to being able to get back to work
can i please now make time to have a nervous breakdown?
seriously though i don't know how i would of made it through this with out the love support and encouragement of my kids
with out them my poor fella may of had to suffer through this on his own, there is no way i would of been able to accomplish everything that had to be done with out the emotional support from them
p.s....kids... fer the many phone calls from me where i just phoned up and burst into a bubbling heap of tears.... sorrrrry.
that was kinda embarrassing but you guys were great thank you.
which was a scary time, and that had him hooked up in a very nightmare inspiring i.c.u unit with tubes flowing in and out of him, bleeping machines that kept screaming out alarms, and his skin just hanging, looking like a flaccid pasty, dough.
I swear he looked like a corpse, not the kind you see in funeral homes but the type you see on horror movies .. the kinda that turn into bloody flesh eating zombies
(course if id know then what i know now, and if id realised what an abusive git he was going transform into, i would of been unhooking half of the tubes and wires there and then and saving myself from a lot of pain later on down the road)
any way
i kept getting flashbacks to that kind of image except instead of hubby number two it was my latest victim laying on the bed looking deathly pale... and yes i know i was letting my imagination run away with me and hell i know panic was just exaggerating crap ... but shit i had no "real" info to go on so my mind was filling in the blanks, ya know i get the feeling my mind really doesn't like me very much
the poor Craig's list driver
(complete with bodyguard companion)
kept turning on the radio.. possibly in an effort to hint that should perhaps cease my constant stream of nervous inane babble ..
he was of course far to kind and polite to tell me to shut the fuck up, you know i knew i should, but just couldn't.
we get to the hospital and they say lots of nice kind soothing reassuring things, all of which went totally over my head at the time cuz hell id worked myself up into a state, i pretty much threw the money at them,
not in a rude way you understand
but in a
"i cant think straight and i don't got a second to spare"
kinda way.
i ran into the hospital... kinda wondering if at that point the Craig's list guy +1 breathed a sigh of relief to be getting rid of the crazy Scottish lady
(brief intermission whilst my mind wanders off for a second)
"dashing through the ward
like a woman ready to slay,
oer the floor we go
rushing all the way...
(the ha ha ha that's usually inserted here in the original song would possibly be as a result of total hysteria in this case)"
sorry bout that it just popped into my head ..
any way to continue on
i was expecting some crap about getting in to see my latest victim because i don't have that stupid bit of paper that says I'm legally bound to him...
(not through his lack of trying to get me to agree to marriage i hasten to add)
but any way i stormed through the doors into the reception area ready to do battle if they attempted to pull the legal next of kin crap on me
(i had heard many horror story's of that happening to folk over here)
but sigggh of relief they didn't try it, but instead very speedily directed me towards where he was
(not sure if that was down to procedure or whether id just scared the crap out of the poor soul
I'm a damned scary sight when i bristle)
i practically ran through the damned security doors and was speeding through the halls so fast i damn near fell arse over tit... walked past where i should of been going then on out through some other security doors ..
(which of course wouldnt let me back in)
at which point i figured id better take a deep breath and calm myself the fuck down ...
(feel free to strike meditation pose and chant OMMmmm)
so ... lets try this again .. more slowly... and i walked the whole circuit again, picking up some rather odd looks as i do ... this time i actually him
no tubes other than the i.v ... huge sigh of relief that's got to be a good sign right?
neck brace .. kinda worrying
moans of pain... bloody terrifying
seems conscious .. good sign
now fer some damned reason I'm kinda nervous about approaching the bed, not sure why, possibly i was scared of what id be told
after deep breath and bracing myself i get to his bedside .. and I'm not sure who breathed the loudest sigh of relief my latest victim or myself.. he looked damned glad to see me, i felt kinda awful that he'd been going through this on his own it must of been bloody scary as hell for him
he doesn't do well under stress
holding his hand i get told he has a fractured spine
theres a phrase you don't want to hear
you get immediate flashes of wheel chairs and so forth flying through yer head.
(oddly enough no one mentioned concussion, from the way he sounded as he spoke both when id heard him on the phone and now I'm kinda surprised they didn't mention the possibilities of that)
his face was flickering between agony, and fear and bizarrely enough remorse .. poor sod was as worried about the truck and his job as he was about himself ... i didn't know whether to hug him and try to comfort him or slap the crap out of him and scream fuck the truck and the job its you were got to be concerned about
i reassured him the company knew
(they'd gotten back to me and i had been requested to keep them informed)
and that they had their side of things under control
as you know the rest of story is going to be hours of waiting wondering, paranoia and brief flashes of hope
finally a Dr appeared and gave us a little more info
the scan he'd had before i arrived had shown a compression fracture on the L1 vertebra
his vital signs were good and there appeared to be no other damage...
(huge ass sigh of relief and damn near collapsed with the weight of stress being removed)
they were assessing whether or not to operate ....
what ? huh? back the fuck up... w.t.f operate????
so much for relief
damn
its that bad????
now im willing to conceed that i might of just had unussaly crap experiances with health care here but....
fuck operations here are only done in extreme cases int they? hell iv got tumors popping up like daisys and they wont opperate yet.. and they want to opperate on him?
so now iv got images of his vertebra being so badly fractured its likely to dissintegrate
"were going to admit him mean while"
whoa wait a minute this is America they don't admit they never admit
unless yer like one stage from deaths door... fuck they discharge you from the er here even if they've just had to ram yer innards back into your abdomen ...
hell only reason they kept last hubby admitted in i.c.u fer any length of time was because he developed a bloody infection that could kill him, other wise he'd of been out after a day or so.. heck prior to op he hadn't even been admitted, even though they told us the AAA was a ticking time bomb that could explode any time(the added caveat of .. oh and if it does you have three minuets to get him to the hospital wasn't too fucking reassuring either i can tell ya)
now they are telling me they want to admit my latest victim shit its got to be bad right????
so now I'm back to being terrified .. course what i didn't realise at the time was him being on workmans comp meant a better standard of care.. i really wish id known that at the time cuz the prospect of him being admitted scared the crap out of me more than the prospect of a possible operation
so hes wheeled up to the neurology ward ,... that's one scary term .. neurology it has a kind of your screwed inflection to it
now i got to admit from here on in i kinda lose track of time and what days what but we were there from around mid day thanksgiving till mid day Sunday..
hes thirsty as hell but on nil by mouth in case they decide to operate...
hes fading in and out thanks to morphine
when hes awake hes in huge amounts of pain and still freaking about the god damned truck and his job ... seriously w.t.f
I'm keeping to myself that I'm not only freaking out about him his health his possible recovery and future mobility .. but I'm also trying to figure out how to get the car back, how the hell to pay the rent, and the rest of the bills .. cuz i know damned well that hell even if by some miracle jobs not lost he sure as hell wont be able to work for months
nurses drs and the neurology guy all drift in and out of the room taking vitals examining him and so forth and a plan is arrived at ... after a certain amount of observation and if they are happy with how hes doing they are swinging towards seeing if he can tolerate a back brace first, if he can then the plan is to let nature do its thing and allow the body to fix its self .. this will take longer but if it works will give a stronger more reliable mend than surgery would, and with less risk.
surgery's not off the table yet, but is looking a little less likely
now they let him drink and allow for the possibility of eating, until they make up their mind for definite .. its evening by now,
they remove the neck brace... pheeeeeeeeeew that thing scared the crap out of me merely by implication.
hes over joyed at prospect of eating .. fucking typical guy
lol though to be fair being that this all happened before sunup and he hadn't eaten since before work the day before i guess we cant blame him there
this is getting rather long again huh and iv got shit to do and a fella to tend to so i guess we will be moving to a part three
