where I've been...
Welp, this is my first post of 2012, and it's nearly March... At first depression was keeping me silent, and now there's just been so much going on that I've been afraid to post for fear of posting too soon, then having to come back later and read hopeful thoughts that will tear my heart apart later. You know those periods of time when a bunch of shit starts happening all at once in your life, and you find yourself constantly exhausted? This is one of those times. I really don't see how the years can continue to get worse... I just don't.
I guess I'll start with the littler things. Since the start of the new year I've been quite sick off and on, to the point of vomiting excessively and getting fevers and migraines fairly frequently. At one point I threw up, for the first and hopefully last time, in a public place (parking garage.) It was horrifically embarrassing but thankfully I don't think anyone saw. I was vomiting until there was absolutely nothing left in my stomach, which was scary, I haven't done that in several years. It always feels a little like I'm going to die when that happens. I really need to get myself thoroughly evaluated, but I'm so scared and, honestly, apathetic, that it just feels hopeless most of the time.
Anyway, the biggest news is that my grandma was in the hospital for over two weeks after January 16th. She had full knee replacement surgery done, which at her age - over 80 - is quite risky, especially since she had to stop taking her medications for a week, and has been on blood thinning medication for decades which did lead to big problems at one point. The first day we were at the hospital we had to be there at 8:30 AM, and she didn't get rolled into surgery until 3:30 PM. It was fucking RIDICULOUS and they never even gave us an explanation for why it took so long. We were all hoping that she wouldn't go through with the surgery, but she did, and ever since she first mentioned the idea it gave me an extremely uneasy feeling, which as usual ended up being true. It's been over a month and she still can't walk without aid of a walker, the extremely large and dark bloodstained/bruised area of her knee has not healed (or 'fallen off' as the doctor says it will... WTF?) and the whole situation is quite frankly scaring the shit out of me. It's taking a heavy toll on my mother, who worries constantly, and though I wish I could say otherwise, she has very good reason to worry...
Yesterday my grandma started having trouble breathing and my grandpa took her to the hospital; and I don't know if this is really true or if he's lying to us to keep us from worrying as much, but they apparently released her with no real diagnosis or concerns. Because it's so fucking normal for an elderly woman recovering from major surgery to be having breathing difficulties. Yet again it seems like the people we're supposed to be counting on don't know what the fuck they're doing. The entire reason this is happening in the first place is because her doctor, for some endlessly fucking stupid reason, decided to give her only a partial knee replacement years ago, and WOW WHAT A FUCKING SHOCK that the rest of the knee wore out too and the whole goddamn thing had to be replaced. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes when I try to wrap my mind around the things these 'professional' doctors do. For example,
Someone forgot to close off a major vein or something in my grandma's leg after taking her nerve block out, and she bled out so much that she required a blood transfusion.
Just... oh my god. Everyone was in a panic that morning when we received this news because no one would tell us exactly what was going on, and for a while it was stated that it was the FEMORAL ARTERY that had been bleeding, which could've fucking killed her in a matter of minutes if it had been true. Even now we don't know what the REAL issue was exactly, but the very fact that someone either didn't tie something off properly or didn't stitch something up correctly makes me so, so angry. This is a woman who has bled like a stuck pig from the corner of a cereal box scraping her arm. To know that she was lying helpless in puddles of her own blood for at least half a day while dozens of medical staff stood by doing apparently NOTHING to stop it is disgusting.
The fact that she's so bad off this far out from surgery, and developing new problems at that, makes me feel genuine terror in a way that I never have. I am lucky enough, at nearly 25, to have never lost a family member. The very real possiblity, which seems to loom larger every day, that she could die from the strain of all this makes me shake with fear. To know that I can do nothing of real value for her hurts the most. I love my grandma so much and losing her would be incredibly painful. But that's nothing compared to what it would do to my mother. And I know... I don't just think, but I KNOW... that no matter how she leaves us it will be bad for her, but to lose her this way? That will devastate my mother beyond repair. She will change again like she changed after getting sick in '07. That miserable husk of a person will come back tenfold, and in a sense I'll be losing her too. The only thing I can do to cope with this is to disconnect, as usual. I keep my emotions pushed way down where I can observe them but rarely channel them. It's what I have to do. When my mom starts crying and blaming herself for not visiting her enough even though she visited all the time, it's me who has to bring her 'round. Dad really isn't any help and probably can't ever be, not with this. I can't do anything either but I do know that I can't break down because someone has to function when disaster strikes.
God, how sad is it when I've got to be the emotionally functional one? I haven't been functional since I was goddamn prepubescent.
True to our family's neverending horrendous luck, we are very short on money at the moment and things are starting to break and fuck up. One of our toilets is essentially unusable and there really isn't a viable (i.e. affordable) solution in sight. It's gonna be one hell of a year. Jesus.
Last, and most certainly least, is the fact that my dad's father - supreme child (and adult) abusing asshole extraordinaire - has been writing to us again. And sending us pictures of the young woman who he's become smitten with. The young woman who's already with another man and has a 5-year-old daughter. The young woman whom he's giving money to and has now written into his will, which he brags about in a transparent and failed attempt to make my dad jealous enough to reestablish contact. I just... ;akgjlkjweg. You guys, I'm not even kidding, these letters are the most insane fucking things I've ever seen in my life. I'm working on transcribing what we still have of them so that I can post it here and get some much-needed validation that they ARE as fucking nuts as they seem to us. Every single time he contacts us in any way it sends an avalanche of drama and psychological turmoil through our house. This man is no more a human being than a fucking tumor is. I feel no shame in my hatred of him. He's done the worst things possible to our family and having him contact us, as if all the shit he's done is supposed to be forgotten, makes my blood boil in ways that are beyond words. This, too, makes me shake, but with rage instead of fear.
So I hope it's understandable why I've waited so long to write all this stuff down. Not one thing has gone right in our lives so far this year. And I hope at least someone has read all this, because I'm at a point where I have to admit that I'm hurting bad for some understanding and compassion. I need support and I have no support system in place, which you'd think I would be used to by now, but I'm not. Sometimes it feels like my body is literally unraveling like a poorly woven... Thing. Sometimes being alone really sucks.
To attempt to end on a positive note, I've long since beaten Final Fantasy XIII and need to type up my final thoughts on it. I only have to beat the last Cie'th stone mission and I'll have done everything in the game aside from getting that godforsaken platinum trophy. Still have to do Treasure Hunter and a couple other things for that. I'm also a fair ways into Star Ocean: The Last Hope at this point, and I have a whole lot to say about that game too. I try like hell to update more but the more I want to talk the less it seems I post. I can see I've been removed from several friends lists already and who can blame them really, I'm gone and silent 99% of the time, that's really not much of a friendship. But this was supposed to be a positive note... yep. Thanks for sticking with me, those of you who have. I really keep trying to do my best here...
I guess I'll start with the littler things. Since the start of the new year I've been quite sick off and on, to the point of vomiting excessively and getting fevers and migraines fairly frequently. At one point I threw up, for the first and hopefully last time, in a public place (parking garage.) It was horrifically embarrassing but thankfully I don't think anyone saw. I was vomiting until there was absolutely nothing left in my stomach, which was scary, I haven't done that in several years. It always feels a little like I'm going to die when that happens. I really need to get myself thoroughly evaluated, but I'm so scared and, honestly, apathetic, that it just feels hopeless most of the time.
Anyway, the biggest news is that my grandma was in the hospital for over two weeks after January 16th. She had full knee replacement surgery done, which at her age - over 80 - is quite risky, especially since she had to stop taking her medications for a week, and has been on blood thinning medication for decades which did lead to big problems at one point. The first day we were at the hospital we had to be there at 8:30 AM, and she didn't get rolled into surgery until 3:30 PM. It was fucking RIDICULOUS and they never even gave us an explanation for why it took so long. We were all hoping that she wouldn't go through with the surgery, but she did, and ever since she first mentioned the idea it gave me an extremely uneasy feeling, which as usual ended up being true. It's been over a month and she still can't walk without aid of a walker, the extremely large and dark bloodstained/bruised area of her knee has not healed (or 'fallen off' as the doctor says it will... WTF?) and the whole situation is quite frankly scaring the shit out of me. It's taking a heavy toll on my mother, who worries constantly, and though I wish I could say otherwise, she has very good reason to worry...
Yesterday my grandma started having trouble breathing and my grandpa took her to the hospital; and I don't know if this is really true or if he's lying to us to keep us from worrying as much, but they apparently released her with no real diagnosis or concerns. Because it's so fucking normal for an elderly woman recovering from major surgery to be having breathing difficulties. Yet again it seems like the people we're supposed to be counting on don't know what the fuck they're doing. The entire reason this is happening in the first place is because her doctor, for some endlessly fucking stupid reason, decided to give her only a partial knee replacement years ago, and WOW WHAT A FUCKING SHOCK that the rest of the knee wore out too and the whole goddamn thing had to be replaced. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes when I try to wrap my mind around the things these 'professional' doctors do. For example,
Someone forgot to close off a major vein or something in my grandma's leg after taking her nerve block out, and she bled out so much that she required a blood transfusion.
Just... oh my god. Everyone was in a panic that morning when we received this news because no one would tell us exactly what was going on, and for a while it was stated that it was the FEMORAL ARTERY that had been bleeding, which could've fucking killed her in a matter of minutes if it had been true. Even now we don't know what the REAL issue was exactly, but the very fact that someone either didn't tie something off properly or didn't stitch something up correctly makes me so, so angry. This is a woman who has bled like a stuck pig from the corner of a cereal box scraping her arm. To know that she was lying helpless in puddles of her own blood for at least half a day while dozens of medical staff stood by doing apparently NOTHING to stop it is disgusting.
The fact that she's so bad off this far out from surgery, and developing new problems at that, makes me feel genuine terror in a way that I never have. I am lucky enough, at nearly 25, to have never lost a family member. The very real possiblity, which seems to loom larger every day, that she could die from the strain of all this makes me shake with fear. To know that I can do nothing of real value for her hurts the most. I love my grandma so much and losing her would be incredibly painful. But that's nothing compared to what it would do to my mother. And I know... I don't just think, but I KNOW... that no matter how she leaves us it will be bad for her, but to lose her this way? That will devastate my mother beyond repair. She will change again like she changed after getting sick in '07. That miserable husk of a person will come back tenfold, and in a sense I'll be losing her too. The only thing I can do to cope with this is to disconnect, as usual. I keep my emotions pushed way down where I can observe them but rarely channel them. It's what I have to do. When my mom starts crying and blaming herself for not visiting her enough even though she visited all the time, it's me who has to bring her 'round. Dad really isn't any help and probably can't ever be, not with this. I can't do anything either but I do know that I can't break down because someone has to function when disaster strikes.
God, how sad is it when I've got to be the emotionally functional one? I haven't been functional since I was goddamn prepubescent.
True to our family's neverending horrendous luck, we are very short on money at the moment and things are starting to break and fuck up. One of our toilets is essentially unusable and there really isn't a viable (i.e. affordable) solution in sight. It's gonna be one hell of a year. Jesus.
Last, and most certainly least, is the fact that my dad's father - supreme child (and adult) abusing asshole extraordinaire - has been writing to us again. And sending us pictures of the young woman who he's become smitten with. The young woman who's already with another man and has a 5-year-old daughter. The young woman whom he's giving money to and has now written into his will, which he brags about in a transparent and failed attempt to make my dad jealous enough to reestablish contact. I just... ;akgjlkjweg. You guys, I'm not even kidding, these letters are the most insane fucking things I've ever seen in my life. I'm working on transcribing what we still have of them so that I can post it here and get some much-needed validation that they ARE as fucking nuts as they seem to us. Every single time he contacts us in any way it sends an avalanche of drama and psychological turmoil through our house. This man is no more a human being than a fucking tumor is. I feel no shame in my hatred of him. He's done the worst things possible to our family and having him contact us, as if all the shit he's done is supposed to be forgotten, makes my blood boil in ways that are beyond words. This, too, makes me shake, but with rage instead of fear.
So I hope it's understandable why I've waited so long to write all this stuff down. Not one thing has gone right in our lives so far this year. And I hope at least someone has read all this, because I'm at a point where I have to admit that I'm hurting bad for some understanding and compassion. I need support and I have no support system in place, which you'd think I would be used to by now, but I'm not. Sometimes it feels like my body is literally unraveling like a poorly woven... Thing. Sometimes being alone really sucks.
To attempt to end on a positive note, I've long since beaten Final Fantasy XIII and need to type up my final thoughts on it. I only have to beat the last Cie'th stone mission and I'll have done everything in the game aside from getting that godforsaken platinum trophy. Still have to do Treasure Hunter and a couple other things for that. I'm also a fair ways into Star Ocean: The Last Hope at this point, and I have a whole lot to say about that game too. I try like hell to update more but the more I want to talk the less it seems I post. I can see I've been removed from several friends lists already and who can blame them really, I'm gone and silent 99% of the time, that's really not much of a friendship. But this was supposed to be a positive note... yep. Thanks for sticking with me, those of you who have. I really keep trying to do my best here...