Too purty to live in town.....

Friday 2/16/07

I’m going to try one more time to type this out. Hopefully, I won’t hit the wrong key and have to start over again. I’ve been very angry, frustrated, and aggravated this week. I’ll do my best to explain why.

I found out I’m going to need another surgery. This will be my 15th. This one’s scheduled for next Friday. They have to replace the hardware that’s loose, as well as do a bone graft because the bone isn’t healing well.

I called my mom since she volunteered to be available for me should I need another surgery. Mom said she’d start working things out on her end and would call back later that day. She called back that evening, and the first thing she did was ask about other options that would not involve her coming down from Michigan to be with me. I got defensive. I felt as though she really didn’t want to come and help me, but felt obligated because she had volunteered herself and was hoping I would have another option to allow her to be let off the hook. I felt like telling her to not make promises she can’t keep. I felt like I was going through an inquisition.

Why can’t Ron (the donkey) watch Joseph? Because we’re talking a TWO WEEK recovery period. If Joe was with Ron, who lives in a neighboring community, Ron would have to drive Joe to school every morning and drive back again to pick him up. Ron’s work day begins a couple hours before school starts. He would not be able to do this and keep his job. Furthermore, because of Joseph’s ADHD, OCD, ODD, and autism, this kind of disruption to his schedule is not in his best interest, and would cause Joe great distress. (please don’t give me the bullshit line about kids being resilient. I know my son, and what he can handle and what he can’t. It’s very easy to make global statements like this, but they aren’t very helpful when dealing with a special needs child, and I find them to be insensitive, not helpful)

If that’s not enough, Ron and I have a court date on Monday. This is his contempt of court hearing for not paying child support. He will be angry and out for revenge. What better way to make me miserable than to promise he’d take care of Joe while I have surgery, only to back out at the last minute to just make things difficult for me? I can’t and don’t trust him to be a man of his word. If he were, he would have been paying child support like he agreed to, and this court date would not be necessary. Even if Ron’s schedule and the court hearing items were non existent, the consistency in the structure of Joseph’s daily routine is sufficient reason why this would not work.

Can’t they postpone the surgery until April? (Mom and dad were planning to drive down in April to be here over spring break.) I find this question totally insensitive. Some may say that it is reasonable to ask this. I find it rude. If my surgeon though it could wait until April, he would have scheduled it for April. What this question is really asking, “Why can’t you just suffer for a few more months so it will be convenient for us?” There is no consideration for the pain and suffering I have been dealing with. Although it may not appear to be this way from my blogs, I’m really not a whiner or a complainer. I’ve only been able to let some of the frustration show since I’ve started blogging. Since I don’t do the drama queen thing, and just keep it to myself mostly, they assume that I’m not in pain, which is totally wrong. No, they can’t feel my pain or truly understand it, but to presume it is not there simply because I don’t whine about it is ridiculous.

I feel as though my family will help me, but only after I’ve meet their criteria to show that no other option is available to me. I don’t think that’s right. I feel that my family should be the first to help me, not my last resort. Then having to justify all my reasoning really makes me feel as if they think I’m totally stupid and incapable of thinking all this through myself. Trust me, with the shit I go through to get help from my family, they are the LAST place I look for help. If there were another way, I would have taken it, no doubt.

Then, Mom starts talking about all she has to go through in order to make the trip down. “Well, I’ve got to plow the driveway, get the oil changed in the car, I’ll need to bring my own food, because I can’t eat your food, I’ll need to go to the bank”….blah blah blah. I felt as if Mom was making sure I new how inconvenient this would be on her. In hindsight, I realize it was not like that, she was merely thinking out loud of all the things she’ll need to do, but she didn’t realize how insensitive it sounded. I’ve got a ton of things of my own I have to work out and I didn’t need to hear her list. I guess she felt it was important to share it all with me.

Then she said that if she came down now, she wouldn’t be able to come in April, because she’s not the “First National Bank of Mom and Dad” and she would have to get into her retirement fund to pay for the trip. That really pissed me off. I went off on her. I told her that if she came down in April, she’d be getting into her retirement fund for that, so there’s no difference. I also went on to say that at least she had a fund to draw from. I’m going to be out two weeks on leave without pay, and I have no fund, so I didn’t want to hear about it from her. I used some real flowery speech when making that statement, which I later apologized for. Once again, she was just talking out loud, with no concept of how that information is received. I’m sure that she thought the “bank” statement was humorous, but I did not. I found it offensive. I found some other statements people have said lately to be offensive, but I’ll cover those later….I’m trying to keep this as linear as possible….

Anyway, she’s on her way down here to take care of me and Joe. I’m deeply thankful for it, but so aggravated that I had to go through such drama to get the help that I needed. I wish it didn’t have to be so damn hard all the time.

Then, I called my sister who lives in a nearby town. She has a son Joe’s age, and they like to play together. The boys go to different schools, and they live far enough away to make it too difficult for them to have helped out for the two weeks. I called her because she was really looking forward to mom and dad coming down in April, and wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to be all bent outta shape because only mom’s coming down now instead.

Do you think I’d get kindness, love and compassion? I got a tiny bit, yet, but only after going through the whole f***ing inquisition again by her. However, she added a couple more true gems of her own.

“This is your 15th surgery don’t you think they can get it right by now?” This one pissed me off. She has been walking down this road with me since it began. This question was not made with any thought or sensitivity whatsoever. So, I had to go back over the surgeries again, explaining that carpal tunnel surgery is different from wrist arthroscopy, which is different from tennis elbow surgery, which is different from cubital nerve release surgery, which is different from ulnar shortening surgery. She knew all this of course, she was just looking for someone to blame. I don’t get the need to have to blame someone. Fix the problem, not the blame, dammit.

Then she asked me if I had thought about getting a second opinion. I explained to her that I already had a 2nd opinion, and the 2nd opinion surgeon will be participating in this surgery as well. She commented that this 2nd opinion doc is in the same group as my surgeon, and that they just want my insurance money and are not doing this because I need it done. She then asked if I REALLY was in THAT much pain, indicating that she didn’t believe I needed this surgery. She has no medical degree or any idea what I’ve been dealing with. Once again, it’s easier to blame someone for the problem rather than get her hands a little dirty helping out. The insensitivity here is tremendous. I would expect this from people who didn’t know me that well, but from family? I find that inexcusable.

Back to other’s comments….I am so appalled at how insensitive others can be. I’ve actually had some people say to me “why don’t they just cut it off and be done with it?” Excuse me, but this is my f***ing arm we’re talking about!! I don’t see anything humorous about having a vital part of my body amputated.

I know I’m hyper sensitive right now. I know it, I own it. I just can’t seem to make it stop right now. I overheard someone else make a statement about someone else “blowing their brains out”. That also upset me. It obviously came from someone who has never lost anyone to suicide before. Had they been through that, they would never, ever make such a casual statement about the loss of someone’s life.

This world seems such a cold, inconsiderate place to me right now. I’m tired of the insensitivity. I want love, compassion and understanding, and I don’t want to have to fight for it or justify my reason for having it. I just want it to be there because I am loved and valued. I’m angry because it’s not. I know that I can be stubborn and difficult sometimes, but I feel I shouldn’t have to justify my need for love and support.

I’m going to stop now. I’m glad I was able to finally get this all out. I don’t have a quote today. Maybe once I get past all this anger I’ll be able to get back to doing that again. I just don’t have it in me right now.

Thanks for coming by and spending some time with me.
Curls