Pelvis Slippage

I've been sick with tummy and bowels acting up. It's 2:30 in the morning. I can't sleep because of pain and visits to the bathroom. So, I stay sitting up in bed with my laptop sorting pictures and putting them in file folders.


Biggest problem is that my pelvis on the left is slipping out of it's normal position. I can feel it like sitting on a rock. I wonder if I will walk okay tomorrow.

Enough is Enough!!!

Laurie called me last night. Her 13 year old daughter, Chloe had passed out and then went into a seizure. (She's never had one before).

Chloe is a twin to Rose. She is the one who performs, dances, sings. Quite talented, I think. Rose is the Geek Girl in the family.

Lucky that Laurie is a nurse. Her middle son, Justin lives at her house with his wife and three kids because his landlord's house got repossessed and they had to hurry and get out.

Justin is a paramedic. He took care of Chloe until the ambulance arrived. They took her to the nearest hospital. But, when they discovered her white blood count was very very high, they sent her to a bigger hospital. They did a lot of tests on her, including a spinal tap. I was pretty worried she might have Leukemia. She had no fever and it didn't appear she had any infection.

They put her in a room by herself and Laurie stayed overnight with her. The next day (today), she had scans and EKG and EEG. The doctor never came in until this evening to tell the results.

Chloe has an infection in her sinuses and she now is taking antibiotics.

I find it interesting to realize that one can be that sick and not run a temperature beyond 99 degrees.

I didn't feel well myself and probably a good thing otherwise I would have gotten stressed out. Being sick and lowly has it's advantages, I suppose. I had all I could do just to take care of myself. I think it is left over feeling druggy from the Abilify. Though, I did not take any today. I think I will wait til Monday and give a call to the doctor and ask if I can take it at bedtime instead of morning.

Abilify Effect

So, I took the Abilify about noon with my toast and tea. I'd been informed to take it with breakfast. I wake up late, and that's my breakfast. I was puttering around the house on low energy when I realized it was past time to go to crochet class over at the local hospital and meet with the only flesh and blood friends I have in this area. Late, or not, I decided to go.

It didn't take long for me to realize it was a mistake as I was feeling quite druggy. I drove home very carefully and went to bed.

I NEVER sleep in the day time. But, here I was snoozing along.



My daughter called me to tell me that her husband's thyroid cancer had returned.

He recently had a scan and when he called the office, the nurse said it looked like a recurrence. I had a little problem with that. I don't think, legally, a nurse or any other staff is allowed to tell you something negative like that. I believe it has to be the doctor!

Still, Scott has to wait to talk to the doctor to see what comes next. More surgery? More radiation? What?

Several hours later,that night, Laurie called me to tell me it was a false alarm!


Note: the picture is of Scott, my son in law

Day of the Shrink

Drove to Stanford today. The drive is about 60 miles over the Santa Cruz mountains on winding, curvy Highway 17. I had a hard time focusing on driving with so much on my mind. I had to keep reminding myself to stop thinking about negative things. I was running through ideas of what I would say to the doctor, and I've learned in the past to not do that. If I make a list before hand then, that works.

I was really surprised at the difference I felt about the doctor from the last time I saw her. I thought she had already made up her mind about me based upon the consult I'd had with the previous shrink from February who said it was unlikely I was a bipolar. If so, it would be a non specified type. He had also said I was "stable". I had asked to see a shrink so I could get my medication changed because I had been depressed for months. I told him I felt flat. And I wonder if he took it that I meant stable.

Anyhow, the woman doctor I saw today, I saw her a couple weeks ago and when she suggested lithium I refused, when she suggested Neurontin or Topamax I told her I couldn't take them. Neurontin makes me more crazy and Topamax dopes me up. They should have named it Dope a Max. we discussed a few other drugs but did not get anywhere and ran out of time. So I was to make an appt "at the next possible opening" which was not until May 25. And now I'm on the edge, and there's no where to go but down.

Thank heavens the ophthalmologist pulled strings to get me in to see this doctor today. My family doc is connected to Stanford even though the clinic I go to is near home. The Ophthalmologist is also connected to the same clinic. They can all look at a computer and read each other's notes. So, not only did the Ophthalmologist get in touch with the Shrink, but so did my family doctor.

Seeing Doctor Sommer today was very successful. She ordered Abilify for me through the computer and the prescription was faxed directly to my pharmacist. I just love my pharmacist! She works in the Watsonville hospital outpatient pharmacy. Since it's a small hospital there's not a lot of competition for getting RX's filled. Mostly it's nursing staff who get their prescriptions filled there. So, Angela, the pharmacist, and I know each other well. She has been through years of my medical changes. In fact, at one time, I think the business made a lot of money from me. Thank heavens insurance pays for it all!

Before going home  I went over to Stanford Shopping Center. I love going to two stores there. One is Andronico's, a very high-end grocery store, where the wealthy shop. I get some small bakery item each time. Scones and coffee to have on the way home. Don't usually drink coffee, but need the caffeine to get me home.

The other place I like to go is Crate and Barrel. Today I got new 10 oz. glasses. Kats called me just before I left the parking lot to go home. I told him C and B had the mixing bowls we had been looking for. In fact a whole set of them starting from a very small 3 tablespoon size right up to a large salad bowl size. Amazing, for only $30.00 Kats told me to go back in and buy it, put it on my credit card and he would pay.

I went home a happy girl and hopeful the medicine will help me.

The picture was taken from inside the mall, looking out across the garden and one of the fountains.

No School Today

I think everything has caught up with me.
I was just too tired to go to school today.
So, I stayed home.

Mydriasis

Awoke this morning with one pupil blown up fully open and vision quite hampered. Very disconcerting.

Emergency room visit.

Sent home without a diagnosis or treatment. No MRI since there were no MRI techs working on Easter. Told to visit first thing tomorrow morning with the ophthalmologist that was consulted on the phone by the ER doc.

After I got home, imagine my surprise when the ophthalmologist called me at home and asked that I come to her office right away.

We arrived (Kats drove me) and she gave me a full exam which revealed that none of the usual serious or obvious causes were apparent. No aneurysm or stroke for example. Thank heavens.

She put some "green drops" in my eye which eventually made the pupil shrink down to normal size and my vision is almost back to normal.

Got to try to get to bed early so I can wake up early and drive to my appointment. Hopefully the MRI will either show nothing at all, or show something that can be easily fixed.

Hopefully, I will then be able to get to class on time. I would rather not go at all, but even the doctor told me I should attend. Doctor's orders? Ha! We will see.

There is something sobering about suddenly losing your vision. I don't know that I would have been so calm without Kats being with me.

Sure did take my mind off the misery and despondency I had been feeling about Jay's suicide.

Suicide

On Wednesday Jay jumped off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge near Taos, New Mexico. My son called me yesterday. I thought he was calling about my not showing up at his house after the fire. I couldn't remember if I had texted him that I was not coming. After a moment of chit-chat about the fire, I could tell by his voice that something was wrong. When I asked him, he told me he got a call from the sheriff in NM telling him that Jay was dead. It did not register in my mind at first. He repeated. I was surprised by my response. No, no, no, no, no! I felt ashamed that my response was not for comforting my son. I wondered if it had been his friend and not a cousin if I would have reacted differently

Jay was an untreated bipolar. I recall discussing the subject with him some years ago. He had no use for psychiatrists. He was once my son's room mate. He admired his brilliant mind and had great conversations with him on philosophy and other things way beyond me. One time while we stayed up half the night talking while the household slept. I was fascinated by the discussion. I cannot even say right now, what all we talked about. I remember a few things: His brother's death in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. He had been buried in the debris of the apartment building in San Francisco that had collapsed. Robert Anton Wilson. Psychic phenomena. Reincarnation. Death. Depression. Insanity. God and the impossibility of it's existence, or maybe the possibility. Certainly that no one could know from reading any kind of sacred text making descriptions as though there was only one way to make a definition or description of appearance.

We talked other times, too. He was well versed in Discordianism. His explanations of it baffled me. Among our discussions, we learned we had the same ancestors and figured out that our closest great grandparents were about four or five generations back. Surprise! We were cousins!

Jay had the soul of an ethereal. You knew it being in his presence. I can't explain this. It is the way I experienced him. I knew he had a great sadness beneath that tarnished and shining exterior. He understood my own history of turmoil. We had suicide in common. He probably knew more about my son than I do. His eyes were beautiful. In my memory, an incredible blue. But, looking at pictures of him now, they don't appear that way.

After getting off the phone with my son, I looked for Jay's name on google and got frustrated. I thought perhaps there would be an obituary. I found none. Then I googled Taos +Bridge +Suicide and learned a few details that had been published in the news. I went to bed feeling sad. I woke up feeling sad. The sadness permeated my dreams and my day. I googled again and again, thinking there might be news updates. But, nothing was changed. Had there been no further investigations? Had his parents enough clout to prevent anything further being written about him. His name had not been mentioned at all. Perhaps in a few days, there will be an obituary.

I can't stop thinking about him. I looked at pictures of Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. It's beautiful country, raw and wild. I had once said that when it's time for me to die, I will go to the Grand Canyon as a tourist and "accidentally" fall in. I felt it was a romantic idea. What a way to go! A most beautiful setting... the Grand Canyon. Not dying in my sleep after a miserable illness or whatever. I thought the headlines would stop people in their tracks. I would have an impact on them. They would pray for me. And here we are today with Jay having done something similar. 


I can see him in my mind's eye. I can feel his despondency and determination to climb over the railing. I believe there was anticipation and some sense of freedom and joy. Exhilaration at letting go. And then that deep crying out filled with the broken soul in great overwhelming grief as he fell some 650 feet. 

Did he turn his back on the gorge and fall backwards with his eyes closed waiting to hit bottom? If he did, I hope the angels rushed up beneath him and held them in their embrace letting his body fall while his spirit raised up with them.  

Did he dive? Did he look at the sky first, then down to the earth? Was his last sight of the gorge? The rocks, the river? I want to think the sight of those things might have given him some sense of infinite love.


I can't stop thinking about him. I can't sob or moan or cry. It's all locked up inside. Only sadness lays heavy on me. A part of me wishing I could do the same. A part of me wishing I could have known, could have contacted him, could have helped in some way to prevent him. But, who am I to decide that his life on earth was worth preventing his suicide. If he suffered so greatly that his only way out of the suffering was death, perhaps that was more meaningful to him that continuing to be in that perpetual misery.


I haven't seen you in a long time, Jay. I felt sad for you that you moved away to New Mexico. It seemed like such an incongruous place for you to be. It seemed San Francisco was your home. Is that why you came back last week to visit? Did you come back to the bay area to say goodbye? I hope you left a long letter somewhere that will surface. Some words of wisdom, perhaps. Something to give understanding of your pain. Something to show that your last act was your most meaningful, if that is what you meant it to be.

Feeling Down

I've been sinking down the last couple months. Seeing my counselor is not enough and I told her I needed a psych consult to see if there is some med change that needs to occur. I've been stable on Lamictal a long time, but this depression has been unrelenting. I finally got to see a shrink in Feb. After an hour appt. he said he would do nothing as he didn't think I was a bi polar, and I should go see the geriatric psychiatrist. I only got to see her today. I pointed out that I don't think the last doctor could make a fair assessment of my diagnosis after one hour, when my previous one saw me for fifteen years. And I need help Now! However after a lengthy interview, I was put off again. I am so down about this, I called the local helpline. I never do that. Never. After being punted from one person to another I finally learned I had called the wrong county. So that ends that. I'm not at the end of the rope right now, like I felt when I called. I've got to sleep on this. Tomorrow, I've got to do something about this. I can't keep driving a hundred miles to not get the care I need.

There's more details I've left out, but just too tired.

Neighbor Dog Troubles

I find it necessary to record occurrences here of the neighbor's dogs being let loose.

From within their house or in their fenced yard these dogs bark at anyone that passes within four houses away. It is understandable. They are dogs. That is what dogs do.

But, their owner Terry Godwin, let's them out when she leaves the house for small errands, such as getting something from her car or greeting visitors to her house or walking over to a neighbors. She leaves the door open so the dogs bolt.

This happens frequently, several times a week. I hadn't bothered to keep track until today. There is a lady who walks her two dogs on leashes daily. Today, Terry's dogs charged out the door and went after them. It is not the first time this has happened.

What made today different was that the lady with the leashed dogs was all the way up to the corner of the street when Terry's dogs went charging after the lady and her dogs. Of course she could not run away, while Terry's dogs attacked.

I should mention that the lady's dogs do no barking or growling at Terry's dogs.

While Terry's dogs are running out the door and past her and up the street where the lady with the leashed dogs was located, she says,

"Come back here. Come back here... I don't know how they got out."

Mind you, she says the very same thing every time her dogs go out the open door. She makes no effort to prevent their escape in the first place. She simply walks after them shouting "Come back here." Sometimes they go back. Sometimes they don't. When they don't go back other people in the neighborhood, or people who have come to visit will help to chase them down.

Today, I feared not only for the well being of all four dogs involved, but also for the lady who walks her dogs on leashes.

By the time Terry's dogs got to the lady with the leashed dogs I couldn't just stand by and do nothing. By the time I got to the corner, Terry encouraged her dogs to go home and was walking with them. I saw the lady with the leashed dogs hiding behind a truck parked in the driveway two houses from the corner.

I asked the lady if she was alright, if her dogs were alright. She repeatedly said, "Everything's alright." So, I turned and started on my way back home.

It was then that I saw Terry pick up her bigger dog, Baby, I think the name is, and carry her over to where the lady with the leashed dogs was. I couldn't see what happened as they were behind the truck(s), but I could hear the dogs barking and screeching.

I started back over there, when Terry came back with her dog and told me to mind my own business.

I feel this is my business. I don't want to have to witness this anymore. It has happened similarly before where Terry has had to get her loose dogs away from someones leashed dogs.

It is my understanding that dogs should not be running loose, even in their own neighborhood. It is my understanding that dogs should be on leashes when outside of their homes, or fenced if they are in their yards.

It is my understanding that dogs can be trained.

It is my understanding that dog owners are responsible for what their dogs do. 

What bothers me most about this is that those dogs are innocent bystanders here. They may bite someone at some time. If so, the ordinances here in Watsonville state that the dogs would be taken away and put down. If Terry would take more responsibility for her dogs, she may never have to face having her loved ones taken away from her.

Wednesday April 6, 2011