I don't know what to say...

Mom is fine, really well in fact, and This Guy today asked me to go with him to a football game in October.

And no, I didn't hint at all.

I am behind on writing. All my cats are wonderful, including my feral family.

And I am not sure what is going on with This Guy. I mean, and me. I'm uncomfortable.


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The Calm

Mom is in rehab, and everything is mostly okay. After I got Mom settled in her room and such, I spent a few hours with This Guy, and it was nice, but...I don't know. I have bouts of jealousy, and I hate feeling like that. I don't let him know, of course. It's feeling like this that is making me consider ending it while it is still mostly pleasant. I have to gear up to GTFO and land my 'real' job, anyway.

More later, I have to swing by Mom's dialysis cos it's her first day in the new place, and she is scared.

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Breaking Out

Mom goes to rehab today. It turned out that the Case Management woman was batshit crazy -- the *hospital* arranges all of that stuff, not the pt. We had a lot of problems with that woman, and it came to a head on Monday, when she phoned Meg raging and threatening. While Meg was on with her, I phoned the Patient Advocate Liason (functions like an Ombudsman) and told her that if she didn't go down to Psychowoman's office and put her in a straitjacket, my next call was to my attorney.

She did, and we got a new CM on Monday.

So if you ever need the knowledge, and I sure hope you don't, your hospital arranges 100% of all 'lifeline' stuff like dialysis, including transportation. And I need a drink.

I would discuss how things are going with This Guy, but I have a lot of background to catch up on. I think I upset him last night when I told him I couldn't talk when I was trying to write, but I do not know if I care; he has a little dramatic streak which I abhor, and he already has a 'the one love of my life' person from ages ago, and she is much prettier than I am (if you like the Jamie Lee Curtis-kind of look). And true, she seems to be stupid, but...I don't compete. So I guess this will fade away in short order. I may come out and suggest he get back with her, even though it has been something like ten years since they were together. I am supposed to go over tonight, and I think I will then. It's just that if I am going to muck up my life with someone, I want to be special to them, and not end up being so alone. Barring that, I would rather be alone. I like being alone. And I hope someday I will be special to someone, but if not, I don't want to have to be the 'good enough' person. So this has all made me fairly sad. I am smart, funny, bold, I hardly ever cry in public, I fight and am very resourceful, and I am very strong. I am not pretty, but I am loyal, faithful, and trustworthy. I have a *slight* shopping problem, but there are worse things I could do. And he doesn't seem to want to talk about my ideas or anything. I just kind of feel like I am the 'she'll do' girl. I mean, I still am not okay with no birthday recognition at all when I had bought very nice presents for his birthday (and his son's), and then tonight he suggests I should buy his son a leather wallet (I understand that this is a 'bonding' opportunity, but it's inappropriate at this time, considering my recent ignoring), and wants to phone me at 12:30am when I am writing and chatting Sabra up (who did buy a birthday dinner for me, the sweetness) to discuss my getting faculty passes for our uni's game...for his son and himself.

Ummm...I like football, too. :-/

I just told him to text me to remind me and I was on the other line and had to go. He said that he was upset with me cos I didn't tell him that it was my birthday, and that he wanted to learn more about my likes and dislikes so that he knew me better and knows what to buy for me, but cannot be arsed to remember that I like gridiron and association football, which I have mentioned a thousand times. Or maybe he doesn't want me there, who knows. I have too much going on to worry about it, and I am going to have my wonderful holiday season alone, then. And it has been many moons since I actually had an 'official' boyfriend, and when this is over, it will be an even longer time. Like never again.

Because of all the expense with Mom, I am currently not doing so well financially, and I can't afford to go all over and go to movies and stuff, and when I do spend the money, right now I would rather be with Meg or friends who know me. At least most of them I trust.

And I think he has ADD or something. It's annoying, especially when I want to talk, or just be quiet. A lot of the time, he has to be the first to get his story out, and *then* it's my turn. Even if his turn is something funny online, or crap that happened at his work, and my turn was going to be about Mom, how I am (after six weeks) tired of fighting with the hospital, or something. Or that I am tired of eating salmon salad cos I stocked up on it at the warehouse store before I got so destitute. Sigh. It's just that it's never me being the important one. Or at least it doesn't feel that way. I do not care, honestly, if I am important to someone or not, but if you are telling someone they are your GF and that you love them, I don't get why after sex I am at Tchotchkes with Sabra at 2am for food and talk when if he's a BF, that's *his* job.

And I haven't had time in the past six weeks to deal with this. There are good things, and I am a very private person who is not ready to invite him completely into my life (doing that at this stage would be premature) but some things I get the feeling could be different with just a little introspective reflection on his part. I mean, do you think that I am going through enough to want to talk? I do. Enough that I am going to have a hard time being interested in a play-by-play of what happened at his job that day? I mean, I listen, sure, but it is hard to focus on trivial issues when I feel like the wolves are at my door. That's all. I can listen sometimes, but not every time. And I don't know I'd he really *is* interested in me as a person, and I understand that he seems to think that he is taking my mind off things, but...it's not working.

Ok...I have to get to work now. More later.

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Goes, so it goes, so it goes, and so it goes...

Mom is doing well. I have to find a place to do her dialysis once she goes to rehab, and I don't know how to do that. I guess I will learn tomorrow. I will let you know what to do when I find out. <3

Everything is okay. This Guy misunderstood and didn't know it was my birthday. He says I need to talk to him more. I don't want to right now. It doesn't matter anyway, cos I have to leave here and get a job very soon when I graduate, so this will all be for nothing. He would never care enough about me to change or leave here. I found a job I would be good at here, but I will probably not get it.

Butsoanyway.

I went out to dinner with Sabra, yes, I am sorta stealing Meg's friend and coworker, and we talked about *her* This Guy. It was nice to not think for a while.

I have to figure out how to find a dialysis place. Wish me luck...I am winging it.




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I has a sad.

Mom is doing very well now, this new pulmonologist has worked wonders on her. And today was my birthday, and while most everyone who knows me knows that I celebrate alone, it would have been nice to at least get a 'hope you have a good day, mwah!' from my (alleged) boyfriend. On top of that, I had to buy a new battery for my car last night, and then it turned out to be my alternator, so today I had to spend the last of my spare money on a fucking alternator. On my birthday. And when I tried to discuss this, I got a total brush off. So I'm on the phone with Sabra, and he's in the penalty box for a few days.

I'll write more, but I have to get Butler off my bed, he's kneading the crap out of me.


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Update of sorts

Mom is still alive, doing okay...as okay as she can be doing. I am exhausted. But I did get a bunch of stuff written. Hopefully she'll get off the vent tomorrow. She's alert and all, so that's good.


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Code Mommy

We fired my mother's pulmonologist today; I am honestly at this point too tired to recount the entire day, but it started with my having an outpatient procedure and being signed out by Meg, then (as I'm coming off my sedation) hearing 'code blue, Dr Fucktard, call xxx-xxxx' repeated over the hospital intercom. I turned to Meg and asked, 'Mom?' and Meg dialled Mom's unit, cos she knows how I am.

Yep, Mummers.

Dr Fucktard had, without disclosure, had Mom taken down for a 'procedure' (I get the Code Log tomorrow), where Mom went into respiratory arrest. Meg said she was in Unit X, but we were to go to Multiple ICU and wait. I said 'fuck that', and ran to Unit X with Meg behind me. We saw her wheeled out with her crash team, and I raged at them to stop steering and keep manual ventilation going. At some point in time, we acquired a Nursing Administrator, probably because we weren't supposed to be down there, and I was a little loud. I tried to get in the tiny elevator with them, and there was no room, so Meg and I rode up with the Nursing Administrator. NA asked what she could do to calm me down, and I told her she could arrange transfer to City Hospital and stop trying to murder my mother. As my life goes, NA turned out to be the one from last year's Foam Party, but I was still coming off my own dose of Versed, Benedryl, and Fentanyl, and didn't recognise her just then; after I raged a bit up in MICU, all of a sudden I recognised her, and when I reminded her, she remembered me and actually stopped trying to calm me down, believe it or not. She gave Meg her number and left.

They tried to keep us out of MICU until she was stablised, and I pushed some blonde on the team out of my way and told her that if they were going to kill my mother, they were going to do it in front of me, that they lost my trust earlier today when Dr Fucktard manufactured a conversation with my mother where she expressed a DNR wish (bullshit) and a desire to go into Hospice care and stop curative efforts (more bullshit). I'll get to that conversation later, let it suffice now to say that we told him no. Mummers has been VERY clear on her beliefs for as long as I have ever known her, and she has never ONCE wavered, or expressed ANY consideration of the possibility that her beliefs are wrong. My mother is headstrong like a horse, and would tell you that *I* am a cat murderer because I have euthanised some of my cats (like Romeo, for instance; Mummers holds to this day that I was wrong to have him put down). My mother believes, unwaveringly, that the body must be given time to heal itself, and that God plays a role in this healing, and He must be given a chance to work. I have lived in mortal fear that Mummers would keep Veggiecodia alive for decades on life support for the majority of my life. My mother does not believe in refusal to treat, withholding any curative attempt, or the hastening of death in any manner, be it by commission or omission. PERIOD. And I may not agree, but I am under a moral obligation (and my brother and Meg agree on her position; she isn't shy about stating it) to honour her wishes at all times, until the end.

So she is back on a ventilator, after having unattended respiratory distress for over twenty-four hours. Yes, Meg and I left multiple orders for her pulmonologist to contact us in that time, and he finally responded with today's fuckery. So we fired him and placed her with another pulmonologist (despite my brother telling me I couldn't do it that fast, at six p.m., no-one would take her actively tonight, she would lounge uselessly with time ticking away on the vent until tomorrow, blah, blah, blah; I literally screamed at him 'You don't believe in me, motherfucker? Just you wait!' and hung up on him in the MICU waiting room {shift change kick-out after Mummers was stable}, where I had collected quite an audience, having no god damned idea how I was going to dig up another competent pulmonary physician).

So then I cried. And I tried to think of what to do, and I phoned the hospital pharmacy to see if I could get my prescriptions filled while I thought. With ten minutes to close, the pharmacist declined, saying it would be 'impossible' to fill two common prescriptions over the phone as I walked the chits down to him in less than ten minutes. Impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. I told him he had a bright future here at St God's Memorial Hospital, and to have a good night.

So I let myself back into MICU (I told Meg, who had left to teach her evening class, that I phoned because she really disapproves of my scenes) by coat-tailing some doctor who swiped in, and glaring at him when he started to say something to me. I am sure that he left me alone because I looked like a sweaty psycho by that point. I went to the MICU front desk and asked if there was anyone in charge of this shit hole. Then I remembered my brother warning me to not alienate people, and amended my question to include a 'well?' and exchanged 'shit hole' for 'unit'. A nurse I had earlier told that she had better get out of my way said that she was (oops), and she would finish her paperwork and come talk to me if I would wait in the Family Consultation room. I didn't have any better offers, so I did. I figured I was going to be blown off, so I tried some Internet searches (as if I know how to dope pulmonologists), and tried to think of where I could find one in-hospital to force up to MICU. When the nurse came in, she told me that she was the Charge Nurse, and I told her that I was sorry about before, but if she would listen to today's events and understand that I am still dry-and-foul-mouthed and woozy, she would maybe understand. So I unloaded the whole thing on her -- from the ignored respiratory distress to the fabricated 'wishes', to the failure to advise and seek family authorisation for a procedure that stood such a likelihood of CAUSING my mother to code, and I told her that I needed someone NOW, not later, and if she wanted to get me back for being a bitch that was fine, but there was a woman lying in her unit who never did a god-damned thing to her, and it would be immoral to make her suffer because her daughter tries to protect her by being a bitch.

Let me make a very long story short, cos I am tired. I won. Charge Nurse Rita may wish me death on a stick, and rightfully so, but she fixed Mom's chart to reflect Mom's wishes for no palliative (only) care, because I told her if one more person tried to talk our family into putting Mom to sleep against her wishes, I was going to rip their oesophagus out of their body with my bare hands. And she corrected all of the old doctors' names, so there would be no confusion over who her hospitalist is (we're on Round Three). And she phoned Mom's current hospitalist and changed her pulmonologist. And got him to come to Mom tonight; he showed up at nine p.m. And she stayed almost two hours over her shift to do it (even though I am sure she justified it by figuring that she will be less likely to come tomorrow to find that this psychotic bitch has destroyed her nice, pretty MSICU). When the new pulmonologist showed up, he won me over immediately by asking if Mom was responsive; I told him yes, that she was on a Versed drip, so her alertness came in waves, but if he needed me to rouse her, I could get a hand-squeeze or something out of her at the next window of alertness (I can see it around her eyes, even though they are closed). He said that was okay, that sometimes the family can see because they know the patient, while the doctor does not. He adjusted her ventilator settings, and left to read her history. My brother texted me during this, and I snuck out a reply (no cell phone policy) that I'd get back to him 'cos her NEW PULMONOLOGIST is evaluating her right now...ha, HA!!'

Teach him to doubt me. And yes, if honey (well, as honeyed as *I* get) hadn't worked, I would have tried going down to Surg and dragging one up or something. I don't know. One of these days, I am going to get into serious trouble...I just don't carry a gun on me. You can all see it coming, can't you?

So...she hates me, but I am in love with Charge Nurse Rita.

And my brother admitted that I amaze him. :D after the new guy left, I phoned him and read Mom's new vent settings, and he said they are good. And he said Mom's old pulmonologist was a total tool. Then Meg came back, and Dr New Guy came back a few minutes later. He wants a PICC line run, and I don't remember why, but it's what Mom would want, and my brother ok'd the decision cos Dr New Guy agrees with him that the goal is to get her off-vent as soon as humanly possible, ideally within 48 hours.

I will fill the rest in later. I have to sleep now.



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Still awake

I fucked up on Facebook and posted a status about Mummers' being on a ventilator, something we've withheld from her sisters because (1) it was Mom's express wish that everything humanly possible be done to prolong her life and give her body the chance to heal, and I am morally obligated to comply; (2) there's nothing they can do about it, or to help; (3) hovering over her and shaking her awake to say good-bye would only confuse and distress her, it is a wholly selfish act on the part of the person who gets to stay living, and I will not tolerate this happening to my mother; (4) because her older sister, if anything, is in worse health than Mommy overall, and does not need the emotional roller coaster of progress-setback-progress we are riding, and yes, that is not my aunt's decision, but I don't give a fuck what she wants, I know what is best for her. We are doing everything possible, and complying with Mom's wishes, and we do not need either interference or to put my aunt in hospital from panic attacks or something.

But anyway, I fucked up and mentioned Mom's spontaneous trial (off-ventilator, to see how you are breathing on your own, and mom has done smashingly; she is still intubated, but the vent is being used as a CPAP, now for over twenty-four hours, and Mom is not tiring). My one cousin who is the sister of my fuckhead televangelist cousin seems to have seen my post, though it was only up for about an hour. Meg read the Riot Act to me. I deleted it asap, and being older (my televangelist cousin and his sister are too old to understand how Teh Intarwebz actually work), now they can't 'find' the post I made (I got a voicemail about this, so I know my one cousin told the other to look, or something). So the short of it is that I guess I am having to really censor my FB posts for right now.

I think everyone has my IRL FB, but if not, just let me know. I have decided, I believe, to open my doors here to some friends who already know everything, anyway. I'm mulling over that decision.

Anyway, I know some may not agree with the way all of us siblings have decided to run this -- the withholding of information and so on -- and if you feel that way, I am sorry we disagree on this point. My thoughts are that while you are in this nice, healthy body you may disagree, but if you lived in a frail, 80-year old body that had constant aches and pains, and complained that the evening news moves too fast to keep up with, if you could spend a day or two having anxiety and chest pains because your little cat got outside, and won't come back in, and you are too weak to go hunting for her, so you have to wait until the neighbour girl will go look for you...if you had empathy for that, you might understand our decision a little better. Not everyone gets to ride the rollercoaster, and there are reasons why. It is in their best interest to be protected.

More later...I have to try to sleep, even if it is for twenty minutes. I have such a headache, and I need to be held. :-/ Or, I need someone to put a nice cartoon movie like Disney or something on TV and pet my hair and rub my back while I sleep, and talk to me about non-stupid things (keeping an ear out for when I need to say something, which I mostly don't except when sadness or fear become too much) and I know I am too specific in what I need, and this is why I will never find anyone, but...at least I know my own heart. Sigh.

My boy is doing okay in some departments, but that is another post for another day. Since mom was transferred to CICU in a non-communicative state, I've told him to leave me alone. He also turned up sick yesterday, so I told him to stay the fuck away from me physically; my mother is too immunocompromised to be able to fend off even a summer head cold at this point. I've dried my skin out, as has Meg, switching to Dial soap in the shower to help de-contaminate us, and we're constantly washing our hands, both in hospital and at home. I have virtually no fingernails to speak of from all the washings and foamings. Sigh. But...this is my mother. I need her, and I am obligated to take good care of her, regardless.

Ok...sleep for a bit. More later. <3





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Hoping Mom will heal...

Mom is a little better, but I am terrified to count this as a plus, because it can all get taken away so quickly. I am still very scared and sad, and I have no one I can tell.


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Family Meeting

About Mom tomorrow morning, doctor-requested. She has only had three rounds of dialysis, and does perk up after a little. But I am scared. My brother, who is even more pro plug-pulling than I am, says she needs more time, and her numbers look good. I guess i will let you know what happens. I am not ready to lose my mother, though who ever is...I know.