I love Northern Idaho so much. I love that this state is very pro God, Country and of coarse love and family. I have made some amazing changes and friends in Northern Idaho. Since coming here I've lost 300 pounds. Learned to really love myself. Made lifelong friends that include many I've never actually met in person but only on the internet. I've lost 2 of my fur babies to old age and cancer. I've lost both of my brothers. I've got a team of physicians that I love and trust. I have people actual people that I feel I can say anything to and they will still love me anyway.
I'm so sad that we are having to leave here. I wonder if it would be any easier if we wanted to leave here... of coarse it would. I know what we are getting back into in CA. I love CA too but it is so different than Northern Idaho. I am a bit worried that Joel will be angry after we get there. Angry that he had to leave here. Both of us love the snow. I know Joel loves me more than Idaho but I hate the notion that he is having to leave because of my health and the Docs basically not giving him a choice. I hope that he still gets to go hunting in CA. That he takes the time and continues to do the things he loves to do up here. I hope he and I can do some fishing. He is looking forward to playing cards with my parents and games with his sisters and brothers. That makes me smile. He misses his family too.
I've been admitted to the hospital 4 times since the beginning of 2013! Four times hooked up for a couple of days at least of straight nitro as they try to get the vasal spasaming to stop. I adore the staff at KMC but I really, really don't want to have to ever go back there. Knowing the nurses on the PCU floor by name and about their families is too much for me to know. I'm glad that they are so kind and gentle with me but I'm ready to try to be hospital/Nitro IV free! I hope our move to California will be where God wants us. It seems that SLO county is where the jobs are calling Joel. He has sent out about 15 resumes to all over CA but the calls only come for interviews from SLO County. That seemed like the one place Joel wasn't wanting to move to.
I think that I have been very worried (secretly) about moving and sad. I'm trying to be happy and look at all things on the bright side but, It is hard and I've been denying my sadness. I believe by not allowing myself to be sad or emotional I am making my body sick with fevers. They come on me almost every day and I feel worn down and icky. Not just heart stuff but other stuff going on. I am going to try to allow myself to cry if I feel it coming on. To not stop the flow of tears. It's okay that I will be sad to move from Idaho. This has been a wonderful home to us despite all the loss. We have gained way more than we have lost!
(prayer) Thank you God for bringing us to Idaho for a Season and thank you for sending us back home for a season. We are grateful for the opportunities to serve you Father and for the opportunities to be with family again. We love you Lord and we trust you. Please help us to remember that when the sadness comes on...You are the author of our lives and we are merely the blessed ones You are directing. I pray that God will make a way before us. Clear the path Lord that You want us to be on. Help our necks not be stiff. Help our eyes to see and ears to hear. Help our hearts to love and be willing to go.
In Jesus Name,
Amen
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Short Move to Missouri
I grew up as you know if you've read my other blogs on a ranch, very active. I used to eat a lot. I didn't know it then but it was my way of stuffing my feelings. The only thing is that back then I worked hard every day and so the extra calories may not have been so extra. My Dad would call me "hollow Leg" sometimes. His little way of teasing me about my ability to eat and eat. As I got older and had more responsibility at home because of my Mom's constant absence, I started to eat less and less. At one point my Dad literally made me sit at the table and eat while he watched because he was afraid I was "catching anorexia" as he put it. (I love my Daddy and his funny expressions).
By the time I got into high school I still cooked dinner for my Dad and sister 4 nights a week. 2 nights a week were my baby sister's turn to cook and every single week on those 2 nights we had; hot dogs and french fries and then the other thing she cooked was this stuff my older sisters and brothers and my mom called "macaroni surprise". Basically it is macaroni, tomato sauce and grated cheese. I hated it and still do to this day. The last night of the week for dinner was my Dad's job and his dinner night if it was on the week of payday for him we would go out to eat at a seafood place in Atascadero that had all you can eat shrimp night every Wednesday. If the week wasn't a payday, Dad would make either breakfast for dinner or.... whatever was left over in the frig he would put into a skillet and mix it together with seasonings. It looked gross and I think it was left over cooking skills from his days in the Navy. He called it S.O.S. (Shit on a shingle) as he would put toast with it for us.
I was working at Kragen Auto Parts and actually climbing the ladder there. They had me working at 4 different stores in the same county and all of the supervisor's wanted me to come to their store full time as a 3rd. My baby sister had moved to Missouri to live with my Mom when my Dad remarried my Step mom in 1983. During the summer of 1984 they came to California for a visit. I missed my sister so much. I had been using any kind of numbing device I could get my hands on except food. One of my bosses told me he would pay me to have sex with him. My outlook on mankind was really bad. This was not only a married man but he had a little girl and a brand new baby boy. He would grab his crotch area and tell me that just looking at me makes him hurt. It was some serious sexual harassment but I felt like it was my fault or I was doing something wrong. I felt like I was not needed anymore anyplace. My Dad had someone to take care of him now that cooked every meal and made every lunch. I was just not necessary.
While I was visiting my baby sister and Mom at my oldest sister's house, my mother saw that I was taking pills and she blackmailed me into going back to Missouri with her by telling me she would tell my Dad I'm using drugs if I don't come with her. I didn't want to break my Dad's heart and I knew that he was being taken care of now with my Step-Mom. So, I went. I knew that it was for me literally like getting into the car with the devil. Not to say my mother was the devil but she and I absolutely did not get along. Even for a minute. We argued about everything and when she said something crazy I would call her on it which would cause a problem.
The drive to Missouri was hell. I was persona non grata in this car. Baby sister didn't want her hair to blow or look bad so we couldn't have the windows opened. My mother said it cost too much to have the AC on so we drove in a hot car through the CA, AZ, NM deserts sweating like crazy. When we got to Texas I was so screwed up without my pills that I couldn't sleep. I was wide awake in Amarillo and my Mom and baby sister wanted to stop for the night there. I remember them sleeping in the motel room and I tried to sleep but I got up and like a typical stupid 17 year old I walked the streets around the motel room which was next door to a truck stop. I was so heartbroken and lonely. The rest of the trip got a bit better because the air cooled off a lot as we got closer to Oklahoma. I was really enjoying the scenery and the new places that I'd never seen. I was intrigued by the "Turn Pike" and how you absolutely can't get off of them. It was strange. I remember as we were driving through Oklahoma heading towards Tulsa there were things on the road all scrunched up. Dead animals of some sort. Finally after some heavy scrutinizing, I realized these were tiny little snapping turtles trying to get across the road. I remember asking my mom to stop so I could get one of these darling creatures and save it's life. But on we traveled. No stopping on the turn pikes.
We finally made it to my mother and sister's house in Missouri. It was a mansion. I mean the kind of mansion you would see in the old south like on a plantation. It had huge columns in the front that you couldn't even wrap your arms around. The steps were grand and everything in the front of the house was grand and instead of a living room like we have in CA or a family room they had a parlor. My mother was so desperate to get to know her brothers and sisters that she didn't grow up with in Missouri that she invited one of her brothers and his family to live with her and baby sister in this mansion. My mother and baby sister lived upstairs and the Uncle and his family lived downstairs.
Upstairs was 6 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a "sitting room" The first week I had my own bedroom but I was so lonely that I moved my bed into my baby sister's room. Downstairs was 3 or 4 bedrooms, the Parlor, a dining room, a kitchen and a family room. Along the back of this house attached to the family room was a screened in porch the full length of the house.
Within hours of getting to Missouri my Uncle who was a deputy sheriff for that town, took me to a park and asked me to go to a group of young men that were standing in a circle and buy some drugs. I was shocked because I hadn't ever bought drugs. The pills I was taking were over the counter sleeping pills. I told him that I don't take drugs and he told me, "everyone knows that CA is the land of the fruits and the nuts and everyone there does drugs". Thus started a very bad vibe between my Uncle and me. He was obvious in his dislike for me as I am a traitor to his sister by staying with my Daddy. Anything that went wrong in the house he blamed me. I would tell him I didn't do ... but he wouldn't believe me. I decided since he thinks I'm such a pain in the butt, I will be one.
I started to do silly teenage things to get back at him. I taped maxi pads on the back of his police car spelling out "PIG", I would ring the doorbell in the front of the house and run to the back when I knew he was sleeping. I wasn't allowed to eat any of the food there without paying for it which meant I had to get a job. There was no minimum wage in Missouri at that time and I found a job as a busboy at a nice restaurant in town for the evenings. My mother refused to allow me to drive her car the 2 miles to work or pick me up and take me. It wasn't the fact that it was far but it was when I got off work at 2 a.m. after the bar/grill closed I had to walk home in the pitch black night right past some seedy railroad tracks. All time time when I talked to my Daddy in CA he told me he would gladly send me money to come home. I kept telling him nope, I have a job, I got myself into this place and I will get myself back home.
So, my $2.00 per hour job plus tips if the waitresses were nice, landed me about $125 a week. Now my mother wanted rent money from me. She said I can't eat the food anymore unless I paid for it. I whined and fought with her about how unfair that was because Baby sister didn't have to pay anything nor get a job neither did her brother and his family. She wouldn't budge so I started to eat one meal a day at the restaurant where I worked for free. I refused to pay her rent until someone else in that house started to do that too. Our relationship went from bad to worse and I honestly spent barely any time with her while I was in Missouri. I mostly worked every shift that was available to me and tried to save enough money to buy a plane ticket home.
After living there for about two months time, I asked my baby sister what was inside of a building right next to the house. She told me it was where Buster was kept. I asked her what is Buster and she told me it was my Uncle's patrol dog that he used to walk the beat with. A Doberman Pincer. I went into the garage to see Buster as I love dogs and I was so horrified and shocked at what I found in that garage. Buster was rail thin. Bone thin. He was standing in about a half a foot of dog crap. He was chained to the wall and had zero water in a bone dry water bucket. Zero food. I asked Baby sister where his food is and she said he doesn't have any. We are not supposed to mess with Buster as he is Uncle's police dog. I was furious!!!!! I went into the house and grabbed my mom's car keys with her yelling at me for taking them. I told her I'm going to the store and she better not mess with me. I went to the store and bought a huge bag of dog food, soap because he had flees and ticks so bad and some dog treats. I drove back home and fed him way less than he should get because I didn't want him to get sick. I gave him water, again giving him way less than he wanted but knowing he would make himself sick with it. I unchained him from the wall and pet him and bathed him and let him out in the sunshine. I started the job of cleaning up the crap he was standing in and it took me most of my day off. I was so furious. I decided that this dog needed to escape this house so I called the police dept and asked if animal cruelty is against the law in Missouri. The lady at the other end said it was and she took a report and said she would sent an officer out to the address right away. Lucky me, my Uncle was on duty that day and he was the officer they sent out to the location. He was furious but so was I. I knew that this dog couldn't stand up for himself so I just got ready for battle.
My Uncle gets out of his police car and unbuckles his pistol slot (ya, you may need to shoot me cause I'm gonna tell on your ass went through my head). He walks up to me and says, "Is there a problem here?" (I think okay, he is going to pretend that he is clueless so I will play his game).
"Yes officer, I'd like to file a report of criminal animal abuse. I tell him that I have lived in this house for 2 months and have never seen anyone go into this building to feed or give this dog water or any attention and he was flee/tick ridden and starving and standing in his own crap chained to the wall!"
My Uncle looks at me as mean as he can and says, "you are nothing but a no good trouble making pain in the ass just like my sis says you are!"
I didn't flinch. I gave him the evil eye right back and said, "be that as it may, in the land of the fruits and the nuts we have enough sense to know that an animal is supposed to be cared for not thrown away and starved."
He pulled his wallet out of his pants and through a business card at me and got into his police car and left. I didn't move until he drove away. Buster my new best buddy was licking my hand as if to say... "my hero." I pet him and told him I'm in for it now bud. lol. I reached down for the business card he threw at me and it had a phone number on it for kennels. I immediately went into the house and called the number. I explained to the man exactly what had happened and he told me he would come and take a look.
I waited outside with Buster playing with him and giving him water and petting him. A truck drove up with an older man in it and when he got out Buster went nuts with happiness. Buster obviously knew this man. The man came over to me and said to the dog, "my God Boy what has he done to you?" I told him the story again and he thanked me over and over for calling him. He said I saved Buster's life and I told him in a joking way, "my name is Annie Salgado and if you read about my death in the next few weeks you will know who to go after." I laughed at my little joke but I was a bit afraid of the anger my Uncle showed. The man took Buster home and I gave him the flea soap and dog food too.
I went into the house and showered and was a bit defeated. I had spent all of my hard earned saved money for my plane ticket home on the dog. I called my Dad in CA to tell him about the dog and what had happened. Again he said he would gladly send me the money to come home. Again I declined telling him I got myself into this stupid mess and I will get myself out of it. I spoke to my Step-Mom who is really like a mom to me and she told me that my income tax check had come in. I asked her to please open it and see how much it was for. She told me it was for $350 and would I like her to mail it to me? Oh my gosh.... yes please. I knew that a plane ticket to LAX in CA was around $280 at that time. It seemed like forever but I kept working and a week or so later my money came. I was able to go into a travel agency and buy my ticket home to CA. After that I went right next door and bought the a really cute pair of grey cowboy boots. I was going to be going home in less than a week's time!
The day I left Missouri I woke up really early with excitement. I was almost floating with joy. My mother had agreed to drive me to the nearest airport which was in Tulsa Oklahoma. I was packed and ready to leave and I was sitting outside by the car waiting for my mom to come out. My Uncle walked outside when my Mom did and he said, "well kiddo, we're sure gonna miss you around here." I am not a B.S. type person so I looked right at him and said, "you know that is a lie. You know that you are as happy to get rid of me as I am to be leaving this hell hole." He said, "ya, you are right. We don't like you much." I just snorted a laugh at him and got into my mom's car.
The drive to Tulsa was way different then the one when we drove to Missouri 3 months earlier. For one thing, My baby sister wasn't in the car. She stayed home to go out with some of her friends. It was just me and my mom for 3 hours. 3 hours of almost absolute silence. She pulled into the Tulsa airport and popped the trunk of her car. I told her I love her and thanks for everything and I said I'd come around her side to give her a hug after I got my suitcase out. I went around the back of the car and got my suitcase out of the trunk and closed the lid. The second that the trunk closed, my mom drove off like a bat out of hell. I felt tears coming to my eyes but I swallowed them down like I always did. I grabbed my suitcase and walked into the Tulsa airport in my new cowboy boots for my first airplane ride ever to get back home.
When I landed at LAX in California things were different. I got off the plane and my Daddy was eagerly waiting for me along with my brother in law Ken. They both hugged and hugged me and said they missed me. It really felt like I came home!
By the time I got into high school I still cooked dinner for my Dad and sister 4 nights a week. 2 nights a week were my baby sister's turn to cook and every single week on those 2 nights we had; hot dogs and french fries and then the other thing she cooked was this stuff my older sisters and brothers and my mom called "macaroni surprise". Basically it is macaroni, tomato sauce and grated cheese. I hated it and still do to this day. The last night of the week for dinner was my Dad's job and his dinner night if it was on the week of payday for him we would go out to eat at a seafood place in Atascadero that had all you can eat shrimp night every Wednesday. If the week wasn't a payday, Dad would make either breakfast for dinner or.... whatever was left over in the frig he would put into a skillet and mix it together with seasonings. It looked gross and I think it was left over cooking skills from his days in the Navy. He called it S.O.S. (Shit on a shingle) as he would put toast with it for us.
I was working at Kragen Auto Parts and actually climbing the ladder there. They had me working at 4 different stores in the same county and all of the supervisor's wanted me to come to their store full time as a 3rd. My baby sister had moved to Missouri to live with my Mom when my Dad remarried my Step mom in 1983. During the summer of 1984 they came to California for a visit. I missed my sister so much. I had been using any kind of numbing device I could get my hands on except food. One of my bosses told me he would pay me to have sex with him. My outlook on mankind was really bad. This was not only a married man but he had a little girl and a brand new baby boy. He would grab his crotch area and tell me that just looking at me makes him hurt. It was some serious sexual harassment but I felt like it was my fault or I was doing something wrong. I felt like I was not needed anymore anyplace. My Dad had someone to take care of him now that cooked every meal and made every lunch. I was just not necessary.
While I was visiting my baby sister and Mom at my oldest sister's house, my mother saw that I was taking pills and she blackmailed me into going back to Missouri with her by telling me she would tell my Dad I'm using drugs if I don't come with her. I didn't want to break my Dad's heart and I knew that he was being taken care of now with my Step-Mom. So, I went. I knew that it was for me literally like getting into the car with the devil. Not to say my mother was the devil but she and I absolutely did not get along. Even for a minute. We argued about everything and when she said something crazy I would call her on it which would cause a problem.
The drive to Missouri was hell. I was persona non grata in this car. Baby sister didn't want her hair to blow or look bad so we couldn't have the windows opened. My mother said it cost too much to have the AC on so we drove in a hot car through the CA, AZ, NM deserts sweating like crazy. When we got to Texas I was so screwed up without my pills that I couldn't sleep. I was wide awake in Amarillo and my Mom and baby sister wanted to stop for the night there. I remember them sleeping in the motel room and I tried to sleep but I got up and like a typical stupid 17 year old I walked the streets around the motel room which was next door to a truck stop. I was so heartbroken and lonely. The rest of the trip got a bit better because the air cooled off a lot as we got closer to Oklahoma. I was really enjoying the scenery and the new places that I'd never seen. I was intrigued by the "Turn Pike" and how you absolutely can't get off of them. It was strange. I remember as we were driving through Oklahoma heading towards Tulsa there were things on the road all scrunched up. Dead animals of some sort. Finally after some heavy scrutinizing, I realized these were tiny little snapping turtles trying to get across the road. I remember asking my mom to stop so I could get one of these darling creatures and save it's life. But on we traveled. No stopping on the turn pikes.
We finally made it to my mother and sister's house in Missouri. It was a mansion. I mean the kind of mansion you would see in the old south like on a plantation. It had huge columns in the front that you couldn't even wrap your arms around. The steps were grand and everything in the front of the house was grand and instead of a living room like we have in CA or a family room they had a parlor. My mother was so desperate to get to know her brothers and sisters that she didn't grow up with in Missouri that she invited one of her brothers and his family to live with her and baby sister in this mansion. My mother and baby sister lived upstairs and the Uncle and his family lived downstairs.
Upstairs was 6 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a "sitting room" The first week I had my own bedroom but I was so lonely that I moved my bed into my baby sister's room. Downstairs was 3 or 4 bedrooms, the Parlor, a dining room, a kitchen and a family room. Along the back of this house attached to the family room was a screened in porch the full length of the house.
Within hours of getting to Missouri my Uncle who was a deputy sheriff for that town, took me to a park and asked me to go to a group of young men that were standing in a circle and buy some drugs. I was shocked because I hadn't ever bought drugs. The pills I was taking were over the counter sleeping pills. I told him that I don't take drugs and he told me, "everyone knows that CA is the land of the fruits and the nuts and everyone there does drugs". Thus started a very bad vibe between my Uncle and me. He was obvious in his dislike for me as I am a traitor to his sister by staying with my Daddy. Anything that went wrong in the house he blamed me. I would tell him I didn't do ... but he wouldn't believe me. I decided since he thinks I'm such a pain in the butt, I will be one.
I started to do silly teenage things to get back at him. I taped maxi pads on the back of his police car spelling out "PIG", I would ring the doorbell in the front of the house and run to the back when I knew he was sleeping. I wasn't allowed to eat any of the food there without paying for it which meant I had to get a job. There was no minimum wage in Missouri at that time and I found a job as a busboy at a nice restaurant in town for the evenings. My mother refused to allow me to drive her car the 2 miles to work or pick me up and take me. It wasn't the fact that it was far but it was when I got off work at 2 a.m. after the bar/grill closed I had to walk home in the pitch black night right past some seedy railroad tracks. All time time when I talked to my Daddy in CA he told me he would gladly send me money to come home. I kept telling him nope, I have a job, I got myself into this place and I will get myself back home.
So, my $2.00 per hour job plus tips if the waitresses were nice, landed me about $125 a week. Now my mother wanted rent money from me. She said I can't eat the food anymore unless I paid for it. I whined and fought with her about how unfair that was because Baby sister didn't have to pay anything nor get a job neither did her brother and his family. She wouldn't budge so I started to eat one meal a day at the restaurant where I worked for free. I refused to pay her rent until someone else in that house started to do that too. Our relationship went from bad to worse and I honestly spent barely any time with her while I was in Missouri. I mostly worked every shift that was available to me and tried to save enough money to buy a plane ticket home.
After living there for about two months time, I asked my baby sister what was inside of a building right next to the house. She told me it was where Buster was kept. I asked her what is Buster and she told me it was my Uncle's patrol dog that he used to walk the beat with. A Doberman Pincer. I went into the garage to see Buster as I love dogs and I was so horrified and shocked at what I found in that garage. Buster was rail thin. Bone thin. He was standing in about a half a foot of dog crap. He was chained to the wall and had zero water in a bone dry water bucket. Zero food. I asked Baby sister where his food is and she said he doesn't have any. We are not supposed to mess with Buster as he is Uncle's police dog. I was furious!!!!! I went into the house and grabbed my mom's car keys with her yelling at me for taking them. I told her I'm going to the store and she better not mess with me. I went to the store and bought a huge bag of dog food, soap because he had flees and ticks so bad and some dog treats. I drove back home and fed him way less than he should get because I didn't want him to get sick. I gave him water, again giving him way less than he wanted but knowing he would make himself sick with it. I unchained him from the wall and pet him and bathed him and let him out in the sunshine. I started the job of cleaning up the crap he was standing in and it took me most of my day off. I was so furious. I decided that this dog needed to escape this house so I called the police dept and asked if animal cruelty is against the law in Missouri. The lady at the other end said it was and she took a report and said she would sent an officer out to the address right away. Lucky me, my Uncle was on duty that day and he was the officer they sent out to the location. He was furious but so was I. I knew that this dog couldn't stand up for himself so I just got ready for battle.
My Uncle gets out of his police car and unbuckles his pistol slot (ya, you may need to shoot me cause I'm gonna tell on your ass went through my head). He walks up to me and says, "Is there a problem here?" (I think okay, he is going to pretend that he is clueless so I will play his game).
"Yes officer, I'd like to file a report of criminal animal abuse. I tell him that I have lived in this house for 2 months and have never seen anyone go into this building to feed or give this dog water or any attention and he was flee/tick ridden and starving and standing in his own crap chained to the wall!"
My Uncle looks at me as mean as he can and says, "you are nothing but a no good trouble making pain in the ass just like my sis says you are!"
I didn't flinch. I gave him the evil eye right back and said, "be that as it may, in the land of the fruits and the nuts we have enough sense to know that an animal is supposed to be cared for not thrown away and starved."
He pulled his wallet out of his pants and through a business card at me and got into his police car and left. I didn't move until he drove away. Buster my new best buddy was licking my hand as if to say... "my hero." I pet him and told him I'm in for it now bud. lol. I reached down for the business card he threw at me and it had a phone number on it for kennels. I immediately went into the house and called the number. I explained to the man exactly what had happened and he told me he would come and take a look.
I waited outside with Buster playing with him and giving him water and petting him. A truck drove up with an older man in it and when he got out Buster went nuts with happiness. Buster obviously knew this man. The man came over to me and said to the dog, "my God Boy what has he done to you?" I told him the story again and he thanked me over and over for calling him. He said I saved Buster's life and I told him in a joking way, "my name is Annie Salgado and if you read about my death in the next few weeks you will know who to go after." I laughed at my little joke but I was a bit afraid of the anger my Uncle showed. The man took Buster home and I gave him the flea soap and dog food too.
I went into the house and showered and was a bit defeated. I had spent all of my hard earned saved money for my plane ticket home on the dog. I called my Dad in CA to tell him about the dog and what had happened. Again he said he would gladly send me the money to come home. Again I declined telling him I got myself into this stupid mess and I will get myself out of it. I spoke to my Step-Mom who is really like a mom to me and she told me that my income tax check had come in. I asked her to please open it and see how much it was for. She told me it was for $350 and would I like her to mail it to me? Oh my gosh.... yes please. I knew that a plane ticket to LAX in CA was around $280 at that time. It seemed like forever but I kept working and a week or so later my money came. I was able to go into a travel agency and buy my ticket home to CA. After that I went right next door and bought the a really cute pair of grey cowboy boots. I was going to be going home in less than a week's time!
The day I left Missouri I woke up really early with excitement. I was almost floating with joy. My mother had agreed to drive me to the nearest airport which was in Tulsa Oklahoma. I was packed and ready to leave and I was sitting outside by the car waiting for my mom to come out. My Uncle walked outside when my Mom did and he said, "well kiddo, we're sure gonna miss you around here." I am not a B.S. type person so I looked right at him and said, "you know that is a lie. You know that you are as happy to get rid of me as I am to be leaving this hell hole." He said, "ya, you are right. We don't like you much." I just snorted a laugh at him and got into my mom's car.
The drive to Tulsa was way different then the one when we drove to Missouri 3 months earlier. For one thing, My baby sister wasn't in the car. She stayed home to go out with some of her friends. It was just me and my mom for 3 hours. 3 hours of almost absolute silence. She pulled into the Tulsa airport and popped the trunk of her car. I told her I love her and thanks for everything and I said I'd come around her side to give her a hug after I got my suitcase out. I went around the back of the car and got my suitcase out of the trunk and closed the lid. The second that the trunk closed, my mom drove off like a bat out of hell. I felt tears coming to my eyes but I swallowed them down like I always did. I grabbed my suitcase and walked into the Tulsa airport in my new cowboy boots for my first airplane ride ever to get back home.
When I landed at LAX in California things were different. I got off the plane and my Daddy was eagerly waiting for me along with my brother in law Ken. They both hugged and hugged me and said they missed me. It really felt like I came home!
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Summer stuff
Growing up on the ranch was such a delight. For all the hard work that had to be done there were things that were amazingly wonderful. No TV except NBC and we were not really into sitting and watching TV when there were so many wonderful things to do outside.
During the summer was some of the best times in my life. Number one reason is I love, love to swim. More than any other thing in the world well, I kind of love to fish too. Anyway, Summer was swimming time.
I still woke up at the same time as I did during the school year because the animals were not on a summer break eating schedule and my Dad had to be out the door to work before 6:30 a.m. for his 7 a.m. check in time at work. So, his lunch had to be made.
Being very athletic one of my favorite things to do was to go hiking. We had our boundaries that Dad had given to us. If my mom lived with us those boundaries got wayyyyy smaller. She was always afraid of the huge ranches beside us and that there was someone watching us.
Baby sister and I would pack a lunch of cold cuts and crackers and water. We would set off across the field. No need to take a road if you are traveling by foot. One of our favorite places to go was about 3 miles from our house. You had to get there by trespassing but to us no body lived on any of that land so the NO Trespassing signs just meant we can't camp out there or build a house. lol. So we would climb under barbed wire fence, over trees, across fields with tiny Indian paintbrushes, Johnny Jump ups, Shooting stars and every kind of wild flower that grew in the California sunshine.
We always carried a stick each. A long walking stick. That was our protection from the ever present rattle snake or any unfriendly dogs that might come across our path. We would walk and walk between hills and way back into the hillside up a little high was a building. This building looked like a bees nest in a way. It was made out of plywood and all over it there were beer bottles sticking out. They were purposely placed in the wood. As little girls we couldn't understand why anyone would do that but when we took our dad back there on a hike one Saturday afternoon and showed him he said it was to let light in. Baby sister and I would go inside it and pretend we were pioneers like Grizzly Adams.
We would sometimes go further up into the hills and we came across a huge oak tree. All around the tree there were things for comfort. Like a hammock. There was an old parachute that was hung up over parts of the oak tree seemingly for shade or maybe to help break the wind. There were crates that had locks on them and boxes. A firepit. all of these things helped baby sister and I make up our stories of the evil Cowboys that we were tracking. We always played that we were Indian (Native American) slaves that were searching for a family member that got captured. On one of our Saturday afternoon hikes with Dad we took him to the big area that looked like someone lived there. Our dad told us to never come there again without him. He said it was a hunting camp and that it could be very dangerous for us to be there during hunting season. He pointed out to us the empty beer cans all around that baby sister and I didn't notice before.
A bit above the hunting camp was a beautiful lake/pond. Just out in the middle of the top of the hills. I found this by myself and this is a place that I went to often when I was lonely. I would ride my horse up there all alone bareback and he was such a good horse. I could ground tie him (that means place his reins on the ground and he will stay). I would strip down and swim in the ice cold water and swim and sun and just have so much fun. That was when I was a lot older, like starting around 14 or so. That place still holds so much magic for me and I wish that I could go up there again just to see if I could capture some of the peace that I felt there.
One time Dad took Baby sister and I and two of our dogs on a hike. He was training one of his dogs. It was an Airedale and his name was Tiger. We were playing hide and seek with the dogs and our other dog named Fluffy would not leave our side. Tiger was curious to see what ever he could see. We were hiding behind a clump of huge sage brush and we could hear Tiger running around trying to find us. Suddenly out from the brush we were hiding behind ran a big old bob cat. Tiger saw it and started squealing like the puppy he was. He was running as fast as he could for home which was about 4-5 miles away. My dad called to him and you could almost see the look of relief on his face.
On these walks that we would take with Dad the treasures we found were amazing. the lessons about nature that we learned were priceless. We learned about Indian Soap, Saouco, Elm, so many things that you can use in nature to heal yourself.
I wish that everyone would be able to take some nature hikes with an experienced loved one like I was able to do. The memories made for me and my baby sister can never be replaced.
During the summer was some of the best times in my life. Number one reason is I love, love to swim. More than any other thing in the world well, I kind of love to fish too. Anyway, Summer was swimming time.
I still woke up at the same time as I did during the school year because the animals were not on a summer break eating schedule and my Dad had to be out the door to work before 6:30 a.m. for his 7 a.m. check in time at work. So, his lunch had to be made.
Being very athletic one of my favorite things to do was to go hiking. We had our boundaries that Dad had given to us. If my mom lived with us those boundaries got wayyyyy smaller. She was always afraid of the huge ranches beside us and that there was someone watching us.
Baby sister and I would pack a lunch of cold cuts and crackers and water. We would set off across the field. No need to take a road if you are traveling by foot. One of our favorite places to go was about 3 miles from our house. You had to get there by trespassing but to us no body lived on any of that land so the NO Trespassing signs just meant we can't camp out there or build a house. lol. So we would climb under barbed wire fence, over trees, across fields with tiny Indian paintbrushes, Johnny Jump ups, Shooting stars and every kind of wild flower that grew in the California sunshine.
We always carried a stick each. A long walking stick. That was our protection from the ever present rattle snake or any unfriendly dogs that might come across our path. We would walk and walk between hills and way back into the hillside up a little high was a building. This building looked like a bees nest in a way. It was made out of plywood and all over it there were beer bottles sticking out. They were purposely placed in the wood. As little girls we couldn't understand why anyone would do that but when we took our dad back there on a hike one Saturday afternoon and showed him he said it was to let light in. Baby sister and I would go inside it and pretend we were pioneers like Grizzly Adams.
We would sometimes go further up into the hills and we came across a huge oak tree. All around the tree there were things for comfort. Like a hammock. There was an old parachute that was hung up over parts of the oak tree seemingly for shade or maybe to help break the wind. There were crates that had locks on them and boxes. A firepit. all of these things helped baby sister and I make up our stories of the evil Cowboys that we were tracking. We always played that we were Indian (Native American) slaves that were searching for a family member that got captured. On one of our Saturday afternoon hikes with Dad we took him to the big area that looked like someone lived there. Our dad told us to never come there again without him. He said it was a hunting camp and that it could be very dangerous for us to be there during hunting season. He pointed out to us the empty beer cans all around that baby sister and I didn't notice before.
A bit above the hunting camp was a beautiful lake/pond. Just out in the middle of the top of the hills. I found this by myself and this is a place that I went to often when I was lonely. I would ride my horse up there all alone bareback and he was such a good horse. I could ground tie him (that means place his reins on the ground and he will stay). I would strip down and swim in the ice cold water and swim and sun and just have so much fun. That was when I was a lot older, like starting around 14 or so. That place still holds so much magic for me and I wish that I could go up there again just to see if I could capture some of the peace that I felt there.
One time Dad took Baby sister and I and two of our dogs on a hike. He was training one of his dogs. It was an Airedale and his name was Tiger. We were playing hide and seek with the dogs and our other dog named Fluffy would not leave our side. Tiger was curious to see what ever he could see. We were hiding behind a clump of huge sage brush and we could hear Tiger running around trying to find us. Suddenly out from the brush we were hiding behind ran a big old bob cat. Tiger saw it and started squealing like the puppy he was. He was running as fast as he could for home which was about 4-5 miles away. My dad called to him and you could almost see the look of relief on his face.
On these walks that we would take with Dad the treasures we found were amazing. the lessons about nature that we learned were priceless. We learned about Indian Soap, Saouco, Elm, so many things that you can use in nature to heal yourself.
I wish that everyone would be able to take some nature hikes with an experienced loved one like I was able to do. The memories made for me and my baby sister can never be replaced.
Smurf Veins
Since I had my heart attack and news that I was born with a deformity in my heart. I have done research on why that cardiologist gave me so little time to live.
Here is what I've come up with, besides he is an idiot that thinks he knows everything.
I have tiny little veins and arteries in my heart originally he said they were totally ecluded. That was a reason for me to be on so many blood thinners before. If my arteries are ecluded and there is nothing that can be done, ie: stint, angioplasty etc. short of a heart transplant then my arteries needed to stay cleaned out. There is no known term for the deformity that I have so I have named them "Smurf Veins".
So, fast forward to 2011 and I get a new cardiologist because my 2nd cardiologist retired. My new cardiologist is AMAZING! He reminds me of myself. Always on a mission and tons of energy even if sometimes my energy is on the inside. I have given him the same name that my sweet Fuzzyface, Joel has given me and that is Tigger as in Winnie the Poo's bud. So, Tigger did a 2nd heart cath. At the time of the heart cath my heart did beautiful tricks for him while he was watching. It did a thing called "Vasal spasaming" This is kind of like a cramp. The only problem is my Smurf veins don't have room to cramp up. When they cramp they close up. That is why I have Nitro with me always and have to take it almost always. A good thing came out of that 2nd heart cath in that Dr Tigger says my arteries are totally clear. Not ecluded! So that gives me time. Time to keep them clear.
This 2nd diagnosis was like the first in that I have "Smurf Veins", there is nothing short of medication and a heart transplant to help them. The good news is by exercising and eating healthy, I can help my "Smurf Veins" to last longer.
All of this is great news but the truth of the matter is that I spend so much time in the hospital that I have honestly lost track of the times. When I take my 3rd nitro I'm supposed to be calling 911 to come and get me. I have pushed the envelope a lot by taking 7 or 8 nitro just to get to stay out of the ER. I usually am put into the hospital for a night or two of a lovely nitro drip IV cocktail.
I believe that my original cardiologist said I don't have much time to live because doing my own research on my issue I've come across medical things saying that if you have these vaso spasming and your arteries are ecluded your time left breathing is about 5 years max. The worse your eclusion the shorter your time. Seeing my arteries are so tiny he figured I'm a gonner soon. I used to be really mad at this Doctor but now I love him again and feel that he just made a mistake in his wording. I am sure that I'm wrong and I don't want to offend anyone but being Annie, my thought is that because he is not from this country he speaks with little emotion and severely. I took all that as him being an ass.
So, "Smurf Veins" are not normally found until after the person is dead. I've read about athletes who drop dead on the court or recently a tiny little almost 5 year old girl was having fainting spells and they did studies on her and found that she has "Smurf Veins". They didn't give her much time to live so much so that the "Make a Wish Foundation" made her a playhouse castle and brought her Cinderella style to see if for the first time ever all decked out in a fancy dress and glass slippers. She wanted to be a princess before she dies. I think most of us girls want to be a princess before we die at some point. Whatever that may look like to you.
Growing up I recall playing HARD. I mean like a boy hard. I was so competitive and would challenge anyone to a race especially in the pool. There were times when I was still and quiet (not many) but during those times I could feel my chest burn so much. It would hurt and squeeze the air out of me. I remember sitting on my Grandma's lap and crying and her rocking me and singing to me in Spanish and reading the Lord's prayer with me. I found out that my heart has tried to grow extra arteries and veins. On the outside of my heart there are little arteries and veins reaching towards the damaged part. Trying their hardest to give my body what it needed.
Our bodies are amazing and God had created such an amazing working machine. Sometimes we have to make hard decisions for that machine. For me it is usually do I go to the hospital or not. I know that sounds stupid but I hate the attention, the needles, the nitro and morphine that give me such bad headaches the next day. I hate being a bother to my family as the worry and pray and wonder if I'll make it this time. I hate to bother the nurses with requests for water or to get up to go to the bathroom because they won't allow me to go alone when the nitro is going due to blood pressure being too low. I hate the tests, X-rays, stress tests, cat scan machine. The nasty nuclear medication that goes into your veins so they can see what is going on in your heart that makes you feel like you peed your pants. In all those things I hate, I love that God shows me I'm not in control... HE IS! I love that I have time to listen to what is going on around me, to hear the needs of other patients and to pray for them. Pray for their healing and for their salvation if they don't know Jesus. I love that one way or another..... I get to go home. Either in my bed with the love of my life, Joel Walker or to my Savior for eternity.
Here is what I've come up with, besides he is an idiot that thinks he knows everything.
I have tiny little veins and arteries in my heart originally he said they were totally ecluded. That was a reason for me to be on so many blood thinners before. If my arteries are ecluded and there is nothing that can be done, ie: stint, angioplasty etc. short of a heart transplant then my arteries needed to stay cleaned out. There is no known term for the deformity that I have so I have named them "Smurf Veins".
So, fast forward to 2011 and I get a new cardiologist because my 2nd cardiologist retired. My new cardiologist is AMAZING! He reminds me of myself. Always on a mission and tons of energy even if sometimes my energy is on the inside. I have given him the same name that my sweet Fuzzyface, Joel has given me and that is Tigger as in Winnie the Poo's bud. So, Tigger did a 2nd heart cath. At the time of the heart cath my heart did beautiful tricks for him while he was watching. It did a thing called "Vasal spasaming" This is kind of like a cramp. The only problem is my Smurf veins don't have room to cramp up. When they cramp they close up. That is why I have Nitro with me always and have to take it almost always. A good thing came out of that 2nd heart cath in that Dr Tigger says my arteries are totally clear. Not ecluded! So that gives me time. Time to keep them clear.
This 2nd diagnosis was like the first in that I have "Smurf Veins", there is nothing short of medication and a heart transplant to help them. The good news is by exercising and eating healthy, I can help my "Smurf Veins" to last longer.
All of this is great news but the truth of the matter is that I spend so much time in the hospital that I have honestly lost track of the times. When I take my 3rd nitro I'm supposed to be calling 911 to come and get me. I have pushed the envelope a lot by taking 7 or 8 nitro just to get to stay out of the ER. I usually am put into the hospital for a night or two of a lovely nitro drip IV cocktail.
I believe that my original cardiologist said I don't have much time to live because doing my own research on my issue I've come across medical things saying that if you have these vaso spasming and your arteries are ecluded your time left breathing is about 5 years max. The worse your eclusion the shorter your time. Seeing my arteries are so tiny he figured I'm a gonner soon. I used to be really mad at this Doctor but now I love him again and feel that he just made a mistake in his wording. I am sure that I'm wrong and I don't want to offend anyone but being Annie, my thought is that because he is not from this country he speaks with little emotion and severely. I took all that as him being an ass.
So, "Smurf Veins" are not normally found until after the person is dead. I've read about athletes who drop dead on the court or recently a tiny little almost 5 year old girl was having fainting spells and they did studies on her and found that she has "Smurf Veins". They didn't give her much time to live so much so that the "Make a Wish Foundation" made her a playhouse castle and brought her Cinderella style to see if for the first time ever all decked out in a fancy dress and glass slippers. She wanted to be a princess before she dies. I think most of us girls want to be a princess before we die at some point. Whatever that may look like to you.
Growing up I recall playing HARD. I mean like a boy hard. I was so competitive and would challenge anyone to a race especially in the pool. There were times when I was still and quiet (not many) but during those times I could feel my chest burn so much. It would hurt and squeeze the air out of me. I remember sitting on my Grandma's lap and crying and her rocking me and singing to me in Spanish and reading the Lord's prayer with me. I found out that my heart has tried to grow extra arteries and veins. On the outside of my heart there are little arteries and veins reaching towards the damaged part. Trying their hardest to give my body what it needed.
Our bodies are amazing and God had created such an amazing working machine. Sometimes we have to make hard decisions for that machine. For me it is usually do I go to the hospital or not. I know that sounds stupid but I hate the attention, the needles, the nitro and morphine that give me such bad headaches the next day. I hate being a bother to my family as the worry and pray and wonder if I'll make it this time. I hate to bother the nurses with requests for water or to get up to go to the bathroom because they won't allow me to go alone when the nitro is going due to blood pressure being too low. I hate the tests, X-rays, stress tests, cat scan machine. The nasty nuclear medication that goes into your veins so they can see what is going on in your heart that makes you feel like you peed your pants. In all those things I hate, I love that God shows me I'm not in control... HE IS! I love that I have time to listen to what is going on around me, to hear the needs of other patients and to pray for them. Pray for their healing and for their salvation if they don't know Jesus. I love that one way or another..... I get to go home. Either in my bed with the love of my life, Joel Walker or to my Savior for eternity.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Life Changed in an instant.
It is truly the middle of the night and I can't sleep. I've taken two nitro under my tongue knowing the rules about the 3rd one and you are on your way to the hospital via ambulance. I know the routine.I'm also sure that I'm going to ignore it like most other times.
My oldest sister thought it may be helpful to me if I were to describe my heart condition and how it feels every day to live with it. So, I guess I will do that for her.
When I first found out about this heart abnormality I was shocked. I was in school to become a water aerobics instructor and lifeguard for the Kroc Center. My dream job, being around the water all day long and getting to motivate people to move their bodies. The day after the tryouts for the lifeguard class I was getting ready to jump in the shower and started feeling odd. No other word for it just.... something wasn't right. I felt like I was having a hard time breathing like something heavy was on my chest. I proceeded to go to take a shower and decided against it because I honestly felt faint. I walked back into my bedroom not sure what I should do and the phone rang. I think this was God's divine intervention because it was a lady that I hadn't heard from in over 20 years. She was my old best friend's mom. She asked me how I'm doing and I told her that normally I am doing well but today for some reason I feel sick to my stomach and like I'm having a hard time breathing. She told me to hang up the phone that very minute and call 911. She used to be an EMT and knew something was wrong. I said would do it and I did. I hung up the phone and called 911. While I was on with the 911 operator, I started to have severe stabbing pain in my shoulder blades. Like someone was poking me with an ice pick. She told me that the EMT's are on their way and would I please put my dogs outside and unlock my front door. She said that she will stay on the phone with me while we are waiting but I wanted to call Joel. He has been my best friend and my husband for over 27 years not to mention my comfort and support. I called Joel and told him that the ambulance was coming and he was of coarse frightened but said he would see me at home or at the hospital.
The EMT's came along with every fireman within 10 miles I'm sure and the big huge fire truck with the ladder. A couple of cops were there as well. They knocked on the open front door and I told them to come in. It was like a mob of people mostly men, coming into my house. They asked me specific questions about the pain and stuff and they hooked me up to an EKG. The took my blood pressure and said that the EKG didn't look that bad and my blood pressure was not that bad either 156 over 89. To me that was outrageous. I had recently lost 299 pounds and exercised about 4-6 hours per day. My blood pressure was never that high. They said they can take me to the hospital if I want or I can see if I can make an appointment with my primary care doctor. Something told me that I needed to go to the hospital. I suppose that the something that told me to go was the Lord. They hooked me up to monitors and oxygen and wheeled me outside. God Bless my elderly neighbors 2 sets of them were outside to see what the deal was. They asked me if I need anything and I asked to please tell Joel I love him and that they are taking me to Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d 'Alene.
The ambulance driver was a guy but the two working on me were women. They carefully undressed me and put stickers all over my chest and hooked those up to monitors. They started and IV in my arm and I noticed that I was having more trouble breathing. The heaviness that was on my chest was getting heavier making it harder to breath. I was also extremely nauseous. They made me chew up about 6 baby aspirins and sprayed some nitro spray under my tongue. They gave me an IV and put some zolfram in it for nausea. I passed out a bit on the way to the hospital because the next thing I remember is they were wheeling me into a room and there was my sweetheart, Joel.
Once at the hospital they took lots of blood tests and the first set came back with a highly elevated troponin. That is something that is in your blood that lets the medical staff know that you are having a cardiac event. They said it looked like I had a mild heart attack and that I would be needing to have a procedure in the morning called a heart cath where they go in through your groin artery and up into your heart to take a look around. During this time I remember that my heart beat was really wild. Slow at first then fast, fast, fast then next beat it was down to like 40. It was alarming out and there were nurses coming and going from my room. Joel was by my side the whole time and I asked him if something happens to me can he give my baby sister my Bear named Bearfriend that I'd had since I was about 2 1/2 years old. He teared up and said to me, "is it okay if I keep Bearfriend." I didn't realize how hard this was on my man. Here he thought things were going well, I'd lost 299 pounds, exercised regularly, in school to make a career out of helping other people lose weight and bam.
The next memory I have is of my niece, the one that my oldest sister gave me. She flew to be with us. It was such a comfort to her Uncle Joel and to me as well. She stayed in the hospital room as long as they would let her. Late that night my Dr. came into my hospital room and told me a little more about the procedure he would be doing on me the next day. I asked him if I should be scared. He said, "no, this is routine and I have no doubt in my mind that someone who eats well and exercises like you will have something major wrong with their heart". I felt relief and he told me he'd see me in the morning.
The next morning I was barely awake as they took me to the basement of the hospital where they keep the heart cath lab. It was freezing in there and within minutes I was asleep again and woke up to some light talking. I recognized one of the voices as my cardiologist even though they had their masks on their faces. I heard him call the other cardiologist over to take a look at what he was seeing. I was trying to look at the little TV screen but didn't understand anything that was going on and I fell back asleep very quickly but not before I heard my cardiologist ask the other cardiologist if he sees the same thing. The other cardiologist said yes that it was totally ecluded and there was nothing that can be done.
I woke up in another room with my niece standing at the foot of the bed and Joel and the foot of the bed and my cardiologist on the right side of me standing beside a little monitor. He showed me films of what he had done and where he had looked around. All the while that he is showing me this he is telling me that I will not live a very long life. There is nothing that can be done to fix my issue and that I can no longer swim where there is no lifeguard, No more being a water aerobics instructor or a lifeguard, no more vacuuming, mopping, snow shoveling, raking, the list went on and on. I was trying to wrap my head around all of this and it felt like the rug was being ripped out from under me as I was standing on it. I was so sleepy from the Verced that they give you and they wanted to take me back up to my room but of coarse I had to pee really bad. It had been an hour since my Heart Cath so they thought it would be safe for me to go into the bathroom. I walked the short distance into the bathroom and peed then came back to bed with blood dripping down my thigh and leg. That meant the blood clot in the artery was not clotting. So.... a nurse with some major arm muscles pressed on that part of my leg for over 15 minutes. Then she would rest a bit and press again for another 10 minutes and so on until it stopped bleeding. They got me cleaned up and sent me upstairs to the Cardiac Pulmonary unit or CPU. They put me into a hospital room and I was on some pain killers and they were giving me shots in my belly of some horridly awful medication that hurt like a yellow jacket sting. It is to thin your blood. I was put on about 19 different medications all to do something for my failing heart. I was so dumbfounded by the cardiologist's words.... you won't live long and you'll never.... fill in the blank.
When Joel and My niece got up to the room and the cardiologist was in there Joel asked the cardiologist, "Dr. ___ if she continues to eat healthy and exercise she can live a long time like this right? The response from our cardiologist was, "no, no, I'm sorry to say there is nothing that can be done and she won't be around much longer". With that, he left the room. A little old lady in the curtain next to me said, "kids, can you open the curtain just a bit for a minute?" Sure, Joel opened the curtain and this little old lady told us.... "now you remember who is in charge! It isn't that Dr. that just left your room with the bad news! It is God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He is the only one who sets the days of our lives and the hours we have to live them!" We thanked her and prayed with her and she was a total blessing to us.
My best friend Tari came to see me and in my I'm a stud sort of way I told her not to worry that it was just a little old heart attack. Little did I know that my life was going to change forever!
Upon Discharge from the hospital the nurse's aid brought in some prescriptions with her that I would need to have filled immediately. One of them in particular she told us was very pricey. I asked her how pricey and she said about $175 per pill. I told her she can just put that prescription in the trash that I won't pay that much. That I can't pay that much. She left the room and came back with the correct amount. It wasn't $175 per pill. It was $175 per month. Better but not much considering the other 18 prescriptions that I had been put on at the same time. They would all add up and quickly. Upon my discharge, my new life had started like it or not. Things were going to be way different for me and my family from then on!
I will write more on this at another time but I am very cold and need to stop writing for now. Remember what my little old lady neighbor in the hospital said, God has your day's numbered not any physician!
My oldest sister thought it may be helpful to me if I were to describe my heart condition and how it feels every day to live with it. So, I guess I will do that for her.
When I first found out about this heart abnormality I was shocked. I was in school to become a water aerobics instructor and lifeguard for the Kroc Center. My dream job, being around the water all day long and getting to motivate people to move their bodies. The day after the tryouts for the lifeguard class I was getting ready to jump in the shower and started feeling odd. No other word for it just.... something wasn't right. I felt like I was having a hard time breathing like something heavy was on my chest. I proceeded to go to take a shower and decided against it because I honestly felt faint. I walked back into my bedroom not sure what I should do and the phone rang. I think this was God's divine intervention because it was a lady that I hadn't heard from in over 20 years. She was my old best friend's mom. She asked me how I'm doing and I told her that normally I am doing well but today for some reason I feel sick to my stomach and like I'm having a hard time breathing. She told me to hang up the phone that very minute and call 911. She used to be an EMT and knew something was wrong. I said would do it and I did. I hung up the phone and called 911. While I was on with the 911 operator, I started to have severe stabbing pain in my shoulder blades. Like someone was poking me with an ice pick. She told me that the EMT's are on their way and would I please put my dogs outside and unlock my front door. She said that she will stay on the phone with me while we are waiting but I wanted to call Joel. He has been my best friend and my husband for over 27 years not to mention my comfort and support. I called Joel and told him that the ambulance was coming and he was of coarse frightened but said he would see me at home or at the hospital.
The EMT's came along with every fireman within 10 miles I'm sure and the big huge fire truck with the ladder. A couple of cops were there as well. They knocked on the open front door and I told them to come in. It was like a mob of people mostly men, coming into my house. They asked me specific questions about the pain and stuff and they hooked me up to an EKG. The took my blood pressure and said that the EKG didn't look that bad and my blood pressure was not that bad either 156 over 89. To me that was outrageous. I had recently lost 299 pounds and exercised about 4-6 hours per day. My blood pressure was never that high. They said they can take me to the hospital if I want or I can see if I can make an appointment with my primary care doctor. Something told me that I needed to go to the hospital. I suppose that the something that told me to go was the Lord. They hooked me up to monitors and oxygen and wheeled me outside. God Bless my elderly neighbors 2 sets of them were outside to see what the deal was. They asked me if I need anything and I asked to please tell Joel I love him and that they are taking me to Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d 'Alene.
The ambulance driver was a guy but the two working on me were women. They carefully undressed me and put stickers all over my chest and hooked those up to monitors. They started and IV in my arm and I noticed that I was having more trouble breathing. The heaviness that was on my chest was getting heavier making it harder to breath. I was also extremely nauseous. They made me chew up about 6 baby aspirins and sprayed some nitro spray under my tongue. They gave me an IV and put some zolfram in it for nausea. I passed out a bit on the way to the hospital because the next thing I remember is they were wheeling me into a room and there was my sweetheart, Joel.
Once at the hospital they took lots of blood tests and the first set came back with a highly elevated troponin. That is something that is in your blood that lets the medical staff know that you are having a cardiac event. They said it looked like I had a mild heart attack and that I would be needing to have a procedure in the morning called a heart cath where they go in through your groin artery and up into your heart to take a look around. During this time I remember that my heart beat was really wild. Slow at first then fast, fast, fast then next beat it was down to like 40. It was alarming out and there were nurses coming and going from my room. Joel was by my side the whole time and I asked him if something happens to me can he give my baby sister my Bear named Bearfriend that I'd had since I was about 2 1/2 years old. He teared up and said to me, "is it okay if I keep Bearfriend." I didn't realize how hard this was on my man. Here he thought things were going well, I'd lost 299 pounds, exercised regularly, in school to make a career out of helping other people lose weight and bam.
The next memory I have is of my niece, the one that my oldest sister gave me. She flew to be with us. It was such a comfort to her Uncle Joel and to me as well. She stayed in the hospital room as long as they would let her. Late that night my Dr. came into my hospital room and told me a little more about the procedure he would be doing on me the next day. I asked him if I should be scared. He said, "no, this is routine and I have no doubt in my mind that someone who eats well and exercises like you will have something major wrong with their heart". I felt relief and he told me he'd see me in the morning.
The next morning I was barely awake as they took me to the basement of the hospital where they keep the heart cath lab. It was freezing in there and within minutes I was asleep again and woke up to some light talking. I recognized one of the voices as my cardiologist even though they had their masks on their faces. I heard him call the other cardiologist over to take a look at what he was seeing. I was trying to look at the little TV screen but didn't understand anything that was going on and I fell back asleep very quickly but not before I heard my cardiologist ask the other cardiologist if he sees the same thing. The other cardiologist said yes that it was totally ecluded and there was nothing that can be done.
I woke up in another room with my niece standing at the foot of the bed and Joel and the foot of the bed and my cardiologist on the right side of me standing beside a little monitor. He showed me films of what he had done and where he had looked around. All the while that he is showing me this he is telling me that I will not live a very long life. There is nothing that can be done to fix my issue and that I can no longer swim where there is no lifeguard, No more being a water aerobics instructor or a lifeguard, no more vacuuming, mopping, snow shoveling, raking, the list went on and on. I was trying to wrap my head around all of this and it felt like the rug was being ripped out from under me as I was standing on it. I was so sleepy from the Verced that they give you and they wanted to take me back up to my room but of coarse I had to pee really bad. It had been an hour since my Heart Cath so they thought it would be safe for me to go into the bathroom. I walked the short distance into the bathroom and peed then came back to bed with blood dripping down my thigh and leg. That meant the blood clot in the artery was not clotting. So.... a nurse with some major arm muscles pressed on that part of my leg for over 15 minutes. Then she would rest a bit and press again for another 10 minutes and so on until it stopped bleeding. They got me cleaned up and sent me upstairs to the Cardiac Pulmonary unit or CPU. They put me into a hospital room and I was on some pain killers and they were giving me shots in my belly of some horridly awful medication that hurt like a yellow jacket sting. It is to thin your blood. I was put on about 19 different medications all to do something for my failing heart. I was so dumbfounded by the cardiologist's words.... you won't live long and you'll never.... fill in the blank.
When Joel and My niece got up to the room and the cardiologist was in there Joel asked the cardiologist, "Dr. ___ if she continues to eat healthy and exercise she can live a long time like this right? The response from our cardiologist was, "no, no, I'm sorry to say there is nothing that can be done and she won't be around much longer". With that, he left the room. A little old lady in the curtain next to me said, "kids, can you open the curtain just a bit for a minute?" Sure, Joel opened the curtain and this little old lady told us.... "now you remember who is in charge! It isn't that Dr. that just left your room with the bad news! It is God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He is the only one who sets the days of our lives and the hours we have to live them!" We thanked her and prayed with her and she was a total blessing to us.
My best friend Tari came to see me and in my I'm a stud sort of way I told her not to worry that it was just a little old heart attack. Little did I know that my life was going to change forever!
Upon Discharge from the hospital the nurse's aid brought in some prescriptions with her that I would need to have filled immediately. One of them in particular she told us was very pricey. I asked her how pricey and she said about $175 per pill. I told her she can just put that prescription in the trash that I won't pay that much. That I can't pay that much. She left the room and came back with the correct amount. It wasn't $175 per pill. It was $175 per month. Better but not much considering the other 18 prescriptions that I had been put on at the same time. They would all add up and quickly. Upon my discharge, my new life had started like it or not. Things were going to be way different for me and my family from then on!
I will write more on this at another time but I am very cold and need to stop writing for now. Remember what my little old lady neighbor in the hospital said, God has your day's numbered not any physician!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Poo at the zoo
When I was around 10 or so, my parents decided to "get back together". I don't know why this happened at this particular time but perhaps it was because my Uncle Dave had a massive heart attack. He was declared dead more than a few times on the table but he made it through.... see that old Indian fighting spirit!
This was the 70's so lots of women would wear hairpieces. Like just a bun or another little something to add to their hair. Well, my mom is in full bawling freaking out mode. Pushing buttons on the elevator. Baby sister is crying and trying to get to mom for comfort but mom couldn't think about baby sister's safety as she was too scared herself. She pulled at her hair and her face and the black mascara and painted on eyebrows were on her cheeks. Just as suddenly as the elevator stopped, it started again and we finished our journey down. The doors magically opened and when they did and we four stepped out into the sunshine. I couldn't stop laughing. I got the giggles which made my dad get the giggles. My baby sister started to giggle but mom was pissed. Dad tried to help mom with her bun which was hanging on the side of her head pre-princess Leah. She wouldn't let anyone help her get "fixed" we walked to the car me trying hard not to laugh but not winning the battle of my humor and my Dad looking back at me occasionally to try to get me to stop laughing. We got into our Forest Green Pinto and mom pulled the visor down and saw her face. Finally she laughed too as she fixed her face up with some new eyebrows and mascara and set her bun back on top of her head where it was supposed to be. She pinned it with extra bobby-pins because my Dad announced since we were such good girls he was taking us to the Fresno Zoo.
Well, we went as a family, Dad, Mom, Baby sister and myself to the hospital in the city where he was. Compared to where we lived it was indeed a city. He was in a hospital in Fresno CA. It was about a 2 hour + drive to get to where he was. This would be the first elevator that I can remember going into. My mom was looking very pretty and my dad was handsome in his normal "Sunday Best". My baby sister and I were darling in matching red dresses with white polka dots on them, hair in braids with ribbons, white socks and black shiny leather shoes.
We made it to the hospital and my sister and I had to stay out in the hallway because we were too young to go into the ICU ward. I was pretty disappointed that we had driven all the way to be told me can't see our uncle. Not to mention the fact that I was wearing a dress!
My parents visited with my Uncle for a while I suppose until they were told he needs his rest. As we were leaving the hospital and getting into the elevator, My Mom was having a bit of a melt down. I think it was all the emotion from Uncle Dave being in the hospital and looking so sick. He was such a big strong guy and he must have looked tiny and broken with all the tubes and stuff coming out of him keeping him alive. So, before we even stepped into the elevator she was in tears. My dad being a gentlemen gave her his hanky to dab at her eyes with. The elevator doors closed and we went down a tiny bit before the elevator shifted and like made some loud screechy noises. It came to a sudden stop and then all hell broke loose. My mom became hysterical. She started crying and bawling and telling us she can't be stuck in this tiny room she has claustrophobia, I had no idea what that meant except that it must come on you suddenly like the flu because now it looks like my baby sister was coming down with it too.
This was the 70's so lots of women would wear hairpieces. Like just a bun or another little something to add to their hair. Well, my mom is in full bawling freaking out mode. Pushing buttons on the elevator. Baby sister is crying and trying to get to mom for comfort but mom couldn't think about baby sister's safety as she was too scared herself. She pulled at her hair and her face and the black mascara and painted on eyebrows were on her cheeks. Just as suddenly as the elevator stopped, it started again and we finished our journey down. The doors magically opened and when they did and we four stepped out into the sunshine. I couldn't stop laughing. I got the giggles which made my dad get the giggles. My baby sister started to giggle but mom was pissed. Dad tried to help mom with her bun which was hanging on the side of her head pre-princess Leah. She wouldn't let anyone help her get "fixed" we walked to the car me trying hard not to laugh but not winning the battle of my humor and my Dad looking back at me occasionally to try to get me to stop laughing. We got into our Forest Green Pinto and mom pulled the visor down and saw her face. Finally she laughed too as she fixed her face up with some new eyebrows and mascara and set her bun back on top of her head where it was supposed to be. She pinned it with extra bobby-pins because my Dad announced since we were such good girls he was taking us to the Fresno Zoo.
We had a tiny zoo in our town of Atascadero but this zoo promised other animals. Like rhinos and polar bears. We walked into the zoo as a family. I remember feeling so happy to have both of my parents there and they seemed to be so in love. Dad asked us if we would like to have a pic nick outside from the hot dog stand. We all agreed and just when we were leaving the zoo a huge bird like Turkey size, pooped right on my mom's head. Once again I was over come with laughter. I couldn't get a grip. The poo landed right on her bun and it was about the same size as her bun. Dad brought out his trusty hanky and tried to dab at the poo but instead ended up spreading it out more. It left the bun and headed for her actual hair. My mom went into the bathroom and came out bunless with her hair soaking wet and straight as an arrow. Once again, she was missing an eyebrow that had somehow been washed down the drain with the bird poo.
We drove the over 2 hours back home and on the way, my parents were making plans to come back to where my Uncle Lives when he got out of the hospital to clean his house and get it ready for him to return. He would be coming home from the hospital as a former smoker. There was a lot to do in his home and my Dad new that his hard working girls would get the job done. My parents stayed together this time about a month. By the time we were supposed to go to Uncle Dave's to clean his house and prepare it, Mom had already moved out on us again. We still went to Uncle Daves and my baby sister and I worked so hard to prepare that house for him to come to a clean house. His wife wasn't much of a house keeper but we got his place in ship shape. My dad fixed some things around there that had been broken and we even had a nice dinner for him and our aunt when they came home from the hospital. Uncle Dave only asked where our mom was one time. The simple answer that my dad gave was, "she left." was enough to know we were alone again for a while. Or maybe it was the tears in my baby sister's eyes.
Even though this may sound sad, the time that we had at the zoo that day was one of the most fun and laughter filled time I've ever had with my Dad, Mom and baby sister. I thank God for memories like that. They live on and over 30 years later still make me laugh until my stomach aches!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Bob.... my Hero Brother.
I don't talk too much about my brothers but I want to say something about my oldest brother today.
Bob, Bob was so talented. He could pick up any instrument and play it like he was born to play. I hear he was extremely intelligent. I didn't know that side of him. My earliest memory of my brother Bob was when he was leaving our house forever. He was 17 and I was 5 or close to it. I remember him coming up to the house on the hill in town and giving me a huge hug and telling me he loved me. I was very confused. I didn't understand where he was going and why he was leaving. I can only speculate at these things by what I've been told because I was spared the scary part until years later. From what I know Bob was on drugs. Not just pot but heroine and hard drugs. My Dad said he can't have that around his other kids (still 5 of us at home). Some things happened and Bob left.
No body talked about Bob to me. They may have been talking about him among themselves but I never heard anything about him. That didn't stop me from thinking about him and writing poetry about him. When we moved to our house way out in the country I would ride my horse and make up stories about a man that comes looking for us. In my story he asks me if I know a family with the last name Salgado and I say yes, that is my family. He gets out of his truck and says, "I'm your brother Bob". The reunion that happened in my head was right out of a fairy tale.
By this time in my life my Mom was showing severe signs of being paranoid schizophrenia. She would speak to the airplanes at night. We would sit outside and it was so clear our there that we could pick out airplanes flying overhead. She would call them by name and talk to them like she is having a real honest to goodness chat. They would tell her where they are going and different things that at first I thought was fun and being a story writer I wanted more stories about where "Sky Jokey" was headed. Along with this behavior came some very bad things. Hitting me if I didn't see the person that was spying on her. Telling my friends that people are following her. Cutting our clothesline after an all day washing session. Telling me to stop signing because I make her have a headache. Always telling me it is okay to be the ugly sister because I'm the smart one. So, so many things that are in the past but I have to admit they helped to shape my future.
In my stories my brother Bob would meet up with me while I was horseback riding and our family would go back to normal. He would fix my mom. He would make her a mom who loved me again.
One of the biggest issues in my family was that we never talked about the secret things. Our mom would leave us after dinner one night just out of the blue. My parents didn't fight or anything. She would just announce that she is leaving. The way my Dad handled it was with a disgusted look on his face but not much else. I don't know if that is because he was so tired of the same crap happening over and over again because just like she would leave us, she would suddenly show up at our house after months of being gone. Acting like everything is okay and she had been there all the time. My baby sister was super close to my mom so every time my mom would leave my baby sister would cry and be so sad. I reacted to my mom's leaving with a cold exterior. I had to be tough for my baby sister and I knew that I needed to be the "woman" of the house and fix meals and make sure the shopping and laundry got done. I would just go into auto pilot. It made me hateful that we never talked about my mom leaving and very often I would lash out at her and ask her what the hell her problem is. She would threaten me not to disrespect her like that which I knew was a huge sin in my catholic house. The mother is the "Saint." When my mother would threaten me that she is going to tell my Dad how I act towards her I started to tell her, "good, I have a few things I'd like to tell him about you too." That was really all it took. Neither one of us spoke of our unhappiness with the other person. I just shoved down the anger the best I could. It bubbled over a few times though just like the bully story.
Flash forward 5 years ahead.... My oldest sister had given to me what I thought was the very greatest gift in the world. I had a little niece that I adored so much. She is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen inside and out! I was smitten and everything I thought about had her in the mix. I was supposed to babysit with my little niece so my oldest sister picked me up from high school. I was only 15 and couldn't drive legally. In the back of the van as she was driving towards her house in a town not too far away, she casually mentions to me, " Guess who came to see me today?" I had no idea and it wasn't really a game so she said to me, "Bob, he came home." The emotions that ran through my body were like an explosion. My brother was home! Could it be that he can still fix my shattered family. Can he make my Mom okay again and bring her back home to stay and be a mom? I was so overwhelmed that I bawled. I remember my oldest sister asking me what was wrong. I was so emotional that I couldn't talk. I just said, "I'm so happy".
We got to my sister's house and she and her husband were getting ready to go out and I was playing with my niece. My sister and her husband hadn't been gone more than 10 minutes when the doorbell rang. My heart was pounding because I knew the person that I had placed into the "Savior" slot in my life was on the other side of that door. I fixed my hair and looked in the mirror. It would have to do. I opened the door with as much drama as I could only to see my brother Bob standing there with a girl. My brother Bob looked exactly to me how he had looked when I was 4 or 5 and he had left us for what I thought was forever. I later found out that he had been to Vietnam and has children of his own. His hair was extremely long and to me in those days with my Dad always talking about long haired hippies being no good, my first reaction was to recoil. No, it is my brother. I acted like I didn't know who he was and I said, "yes?" He said, "is sis here? I'm her brother Bob." I got so emotional and I said, "no, she isn't here but I know who you are. I'd know you anywhere. You are my brother Bob. I'm your sister Annie!" Okay so this is the part where he lets go of the stringy haired girl's hand and drops his cigarette on the ground and grabs me to him.
Wake up stupid! That was your dream story. My brother whom I haven't seen in so many years looks at me and says, "good for you. Tell Sis I will be back tomorrow." He turns with his stringy haired girlfriend and walks into the night. My sweet little niece was asleep but I cried and cried for the broken dream that my brother would save our family. I wept and wept and got it all out of my system before any other humans came around. I went into the spare room and put my little niece in the bed with pillows on the other side of her and cuddled with her. Enjoying the fact that this little creature that is so beautiful loves me and laughs at me and wants to be around me.
I wake up the next morning with my little niece squeezing my nose. The previous night was not forgotten just pushed deep inside so it wouldn't bother me. I wanted to get out of there before my brother came back. I didn't want to see my hero that could care less about how much I love him be so flippant. I didn't realize for many years that drugs were ruling his life. When I say ruling I mean that was the reason he breathed at times, just for his next hit.
It took me years later when I saw him shooting up some heroine to see that his drug was not much different than the drug I chose. I chose to hide my fears, doubts, sorrow and anguish in food. Sadly for my family my brother Bob didn't make it away from his tempter unharmed. Sadly it took his life. It would be the first slap in my face of a wake up call that changed me forever.
I know this may sound pretty matter of fact but so much more happened with my brother Bob after he stayed around home for a while. To protect myself I had to put up a barrier. I already had my Mom seemingly hating my guts and I couldn't handle another loved one hating me. I did love Bob, I do love Bob and I heard he was a Born Again Christian before he died. That gives me peace. I can now write stories about him singing with his guitar and praising my real Savior, Jesus Christ! I know that the next time Bob and I meet, he will stop what he is doing and hug me to him and I will know that he is the same hero brother I had years before.
Bob, Bob was so talented. He could pick up any instrument and play it like he was born to play. I hear he was extremely intelligent. I didn't know that side of him. My earliest memory of my brother Bob was when he was leaving our house forever. He was 17 and I was 5 or close to it. I remember him coming up to the house on the hill in town and giving me a huge hug and telling me he loved me. I was very confused. I didn't understand where he was going and why he was leaving. I can only speculate at these things by what I've been told because I was spared the scary part until years later. From what I know Bob was on drugs. Not just pot but heroine and hard drugs. My Dad said he can't have that around his other kids (still 5 of us at home). Some things happened and Bob left.
No body talked about Bob to me. They may have been talking about him among themselves but I never heard anything about him. That didn't stop me from thinking about him and writing poetry about him. When we moved to our house way out in the country I would ride my horse and make up stories about a man that comes looking for us. In my story he asks me if I know a family with the last name Salgado and I say yes, that is my family. He gets out of his truck and says, "I'm your brother Bob". The reunion that happened in my head was right out of a fairy tale.
By this time in my life my Mom was showing severe signs of being paranoid schizophrenia. She would speak to the airplanes at night. We would sit outside and it was so clear our there that we could pick out airplanes flying overhead. She would call them by name and talk to them like she is having a real honest to goodness chat. They would tell her where they are going and different things that at first I thought was fun and being a story writer I wanted more stories about where "Sky Jokey" was headed. Along with this behavior came some very bad things. Hitting me if I didn't see the person that was spying on her. Telling my friends that people are following her. Cutting our clothesline after an all day washing session. Telling me to stop signing because I make her have a headache. Always telling me it is okay to be the ugly sister because I'm the smart one. So, so many things that are in the past but I have to admit they helped to shape my future.
In my stories my brother Bob would meet up with me while I was horseback riding and our family would go back to normal. He would fix my mom. He would make her a mom who loved me again.
One of the biggest issues in my family was that we never talked about the secret things. Our mom would leave us after dinner one night just out of the blue. My parents didn't fight or anything. She would just announce that she is leaving. The way my Dad handled it was with a disgusted look on his face but not much else. I don't know if that is because he was so tired of the same crap happening over and over again because just like she would leave us, she would suddenly show up at our house after months of being gone. Acting like everything is okay and she had been there all the time. My baby sister was super close to my mom so every time my mom would leave my baby sister would cry and be so sad. I reacted to my mom's leaving with a cold exterior. I had to be tough for my baby sister and I knew that I needed to be the "woman" of the house and fix meals and make sure the shopping and laundry got done. I would just go into auto pilot. It made me hateful that we never talked about my mom leaving and very often I would lash out at her and ask her what the hell her problem is. She would threaten me not to disrespect her like that which I knew was a huge sin in my catholic house. The mother is the "Saint." When my mother would threaten me that she is going to tell my Dad how I act towards her I started to tell her, "good, I have a few things I'd like to tell him about you too." That was really all it took. Neither one of us spoke of our unhappiness with the other person. I just shoved down the anger the best I could. It bubbled over a few times though just like the bully story.
Flash forward 5 years ahead.... My oldest sister had given to me what I thought was the very greatest gift in the world. I had a little niece that I adored so much. She is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen inside and out! I was smitten and everything I thought about had her in the mix. I was supposed to babysit with my little niece so my oldest sister picked me up from high school. I was only 15 and couldn't drive legally. In the back of the van as she was driving towards her house in a town not too far away, she casually mentions to me, " Guess who came to see me today?" I had no idea and it wasn't really a game so she said to me, "Bob, he came home." The emotions that ran through my body were like an explosion. My brother was home! Could it be that he can still fix my shattered family. Can he make my Mom okay again and bring her back home to stay and be a mom? I was so overwhelmed that I bawled. I remember my oldest sister asking me what was wrong. I was so emotional that I couldn't talk. I just said, "I'm so happy".
We got to my sister's house and she and her husband were getting ready to go out and I was playing with my niece. My sister and her husband hadn't been gone more than 10 minutes when the doorbell rang. My heart was pounding because I knew the person that I had placed into the "Savior" slot in my life was on the other side of that door. I fixed my hair and looked in the mirror. It would have to do. I opened the door with as much drama as I could only to see my brother Bob standing there with a girl. My brother Bob looked exactly to me how he had looked when I was 4 or 5 and he had left us for what I thought was forever. I later found out that he had been to Vietnam and has children of his own. His hair was extremely long and to me in those days with my Dad always talking about long haired hippies being no good, my first reaction was to recoil. No, it is my brother. I acted like I didn't know who he was and I said, "yes?" He said, "is sis here? I'm her brother Bob." I got so emotional and I said, "no, she isn't here but I know who you are. I'd know you anywhere. You are my brother Bob. I'm your sister Annie!" Okay so this is the part where he lets go of the stringy haired girl's hand and drops his cigarette on the ground and grabs me to him.
Wake up stupid! That was your dream story. My brother whom I haven't seen in so many years looks at me and says, "good for you. Tell Sis I will be back tomorrow." He turns with his stringy haired girlfriend and walks into the night. My sweet little niece was asleep but I cried and cried for the broken dream that my brother would save our family. I wept and wept and got it all out of my system before any other humans came around. I went into the spare room and put my little niece in the bed with pillows on the other side of her and cuddled with her. Enjoying the fact that this little creature that is so beautiful loves me and laughs at me and wants to be around me.
I wake up the next morning with my little niece squeezing my nose. The previous night was not forgotten just pushed deep inside so it wouldn't bother me. I wanted to get out of there before my brother came back. I didn't want to see my hero that could care less about how much I love him be so flippant. I didn't realize for many years that drugs were ruling his life. When I say ruling I mean that was the reason he breathed at times, just for his next hit.
It took me years later when I saw him shooting up some heroine to see that his drug was not much different than the drug I chose. I chose to hide my fears, doubts, sorrow and anguish in food. Sadly for my family my brother Bob didn't make it away from his tempter unharmed. Sadly it took his life. It would be the first slap in my face of a wake up call that changed me forever.
I know this may sound pretty matter of fact but so much more happened with my brother Bob after he stayed around home for a while. To protect myself I had to put up a barrier. I already had my Mom seemingly hating my guts and I couldn't handle another loved one hating me. I did love Bob, I do love Bob and I heard he was a Born Again Christian before he died. That gives me peace. I can now write stories about him singing with his guitar and praising my real Savior, Jesus Christ! I know that the next time Bob and I meet, he will stop what he is doing and hug me to him and I will know that he is the same hero brother I had years before.
Monday, March 18, 2013
No Day at the Circus
I have been thinking about this particular event in my life forever and my baby sister and I laugh about it a lot. At the time it wasn't funny. It.... sucked.
I was 11 years old. It was the summer before I started the 7th grade and I was almost 12. It was one of those times when my Mom didn't live with us. She often did this but we were pretty used to adapting to her absence.
We worked really, really hard for kids. I'm not complaining because it has made me a much stronger person and it has made me a person to see a job that needs to get done and do it.
Oh, did I mention I have had OCD. All my life or as long as I can remember everything had to be perfect or not at all. My baby sister and I used to make deals to help each other with our chores. I was so trusting and I have to say, I still am to this day. I believe someone's word even if they've lied to me many times before. I always think this will be the time that they don't lie.
So, back to chores. I had OCD so badly that every Saturday I wanted to wash all my blankets. Not just change the sheets, I wanted to wash my blankets, my bedspread everything. I wanted nothing but fresh clean bedding around me. My baby sister was ummmm the opposite. She could care less if she ever changed her sheets. She would crawl into bed dirty after a long day of chores or horseback riding or whatever. She is still like that to an extent.
My Dad had heard there was going to be a circus in the town where we went to school. He thought that would cheer us up since our mom had once again decided she needed to "find herself" and left us. All week long he had been telling us what types of things you see at a circus. I mean we were really country girls! The only thing that My Dad had said is, "our chores have to be done before the circus on Friday". No problem. We were good at chores. Well, when I cleaned the kitchen even at the age of 10 years old I would move every single thing sitting on the counter and use Pinesol or Fantastic behind the item and under where the item sat. I would take the cookies from the cookie jar and put them into a bowl and wash the cookie jar by hand so it will be clean to put the cookies back in. I would bring all of our food out of the cupboards and wipe under where it goes and do the same for our glasses and plates. This kind of behavior would have been fine for Spring Cleaning but not every day cleaning. After a while my baby sister got tired of this. She thought if we just clean around things it would be good enough.
Well, being the bossy big sister that could easily force her to do things because I was also super strong, she did what I said and things were done my way. I stripped our beds and washed all of our linens. We were not supposed to use our dryer because it costs too much money to run so we had a huge clothes line and supposedly things smelt fresher that way. I will disagree with this until the day I die. Number one reason I don't like things dried on the line is they are "crispy". The number two reason and it is enough for me to never do it again is as tough as I am and fearless, any kind of bug will send me to another place. I hate bugs. I hate butterflies. Any creepy thing that flies or crawls, I hate em. Lady bugs bite me. Now a lot of people don't believe that but I have some really good tasting blood or something because my Dad gets bitten by lady bugs and one of his brothers got bitten by lady bugs and one of my baby sister's boys gets bitten by lady bugs. It's that good ole Indian blood. (oops, sorry Native American). I actually have allowed a stupid lady bug to land on me without freaking out and show my husband that it bites while we snuggled in the hammock. He was amazed as anyone that they bite.
Our house was as sparkling as it had ever been, our linens were dry and now the final touch. To put all the linens back on our beds. We did Dad's Queen size bed first. It looked and smelled fabulous. We then went into our sleeping space. I call it a sleeping space because that trailer only had one bedroom and my baby sister and I used the dining room as a sleeping space. Well, my sister talked me into helping her make her bed first. Now, I know better than to trust her. She always allows me to help her then says, "never mind" to me about helping me. Once again I trusted her after a heated argument about her having to keep her word this time. Well, We got her bed perfect. I do mean perfect. I was a pain in the ass. Every single thing had to match. The top sheets had to come down equally on each side of the bed before we tucked it in. The bedspread had to have equal size sides too. We got her bed made with tons of grumbling from her about it not mattering how perfect it was. As soon as it was my turn to have my bed made, she told me, "nah, you are too picky and I can't live up to what you want me to do" I was so furious with her and let her know it but I also knew that she had that same stubbornness in her that I had going through my veins. I made my bed and it took about 20 minutes to make a twin size bottom bunk not close to any walls. It was perfect. There, maybe my day will get better after all.
We knew that our dad would be home from work soon and after a quick dinner and feeding the animals he would want to leave for the circus. We heard Dad's truck pull into the yard and I started to get the dinner on the table. Right before I got the plates out of the cupboard I saw my baby sister stand on the corner of my bed with her shoes on and pull herself up onto her bed. I came unglued just in time for Dad to walk into the house. I stripped off my bedspread and started to charge towards the shed outside where we kept our laundry. Dad stopped me and asked me what was wrong. I was so upset that I was close to tears. I told him of how we got all the chores done and washed all the blankets and linens and made all the beds and then how my baby sister stepped on my bed and now it has germs on it. My Dad said, " let me look at that blanket banana." He looked it over carefully inspecting it and smelled it and declared it clean. I was so horrified. I didn't know how I would sleep with that filthy thing on my bed. I ranted and raved about it and he shushed me up with one look. He explained to me that he is very glad that I am clean but that washing all of my blankets and bedspreads every week is ridiculous. He said I can change my sheets once a week and wash the rest of the things once a month and with that one look, the conversation was over with the exception of my Dad saying to my baby sister to use the end of the bunk beds to climb up instead of stepping on my bed.
I went and put the bedspread back on my bed but not carefully. I finished getting dinner on the table and the conversation switched to my Dad asking us what kind of animals we hoped to see at the Circus?
We ate dinner and did the chores and then my Dad went into the bathroom to Primp and get ready to take us to the circus. While my dad was in the bathroom my baby sister exchanged bedspreads with me since she knew how badly the one with the germs on it from her shoe was going to bother me. I thought that was so nice and such a loving thing to do. I hugged her and thanked her close to tears again.
After Dad got ready, we all piled into our fantastic Forest Green pinto and drove towards town. The conversation was all about the animals that we would see at the circus. Things we had only seen on TV. Elephants, Tigers, Lions, people dangling from high above doing tricks and clowns. Neither my sister or I was very excited about the clowns. We both thought they were creepy and hoped that they stayed away from us.
We got to the circus and the first thing I noticed was there was a ton of people there and it was soooo dirty. We stood in line at the ticket counter and my dad said, "two children and one adult". The man behind the ticket counter looked at me and my 5'10" height and told my dad sorry buddy but there is no way that gal is only 12. My dad was so pissed. He said, "not only is she not 12 she is under 12 until 2 more weeks", The man argued with my Dad saying that I was too big to be 11. It was so humiliating and I hated that it made my dad so mad. I wished that I had the extra 50 cents to pay the man just to shut him up. My dad told him it wasn't the extra money it was the principle that why should he have to pay extra because his daughter is taller than normal. I was feeling better and better about myself by the minute as you can guess. I looked at my baby sister and said, " maybe they will allow me to join the circus as a tall freak."
After what seemed like 20 minutes of arguing and my Dad's face getting redder and redder, we were admitted to the circus. The man running the booth basically called my Dad a liar and I didn't think we would make it into the circus at all because my dad wanted to beat the heck out of that man that called him a liar.
Now, if you know my dad, things are not dropped easily. In other words he has a loooooong fuse but once it is lit. Watch out. My baby sister and my Dad and I sat at the circus. None of us enjoyed the circus. The elephants temporarily took away all thoughts of the 20 minute argument outside. The Tiger's were amazing especially to my baby sister who listed cats as her favorite animal. I loved the dogs that did tricks and all three of us loved the horses. They were so beautiful. I wanted to teach my horse back at home how to jump on his back legs like he was dancing. My Dad was generous with us. Inviting us to have cotton candy, peanuts, coke, whatever we wanted. I know that he felt bad for making a scene.
After the circus we were heading towards the car but my Dad stopped us and wanted to speak to someone in charge of the tickets. He got his wish and I was paraded around so they could see me and ask me what year I was born, etc. It was all so humiliating and I have never been to a circus again. Well, unless you count Circus Circus at Reno!
I think back at this particular time in my life and I'm pretty sure that my fighting for the one person who can't stick up for him/herself, well, this is where it comes from. I'm proud that my Dad has given me a fighting spirit and a spirit that stands for those who are unable to stand for themselves!
I was 11 years old. It was the summer before I started the 7th grade and I was almost 12. It was one of those times when my Mom didn't live with us. She often did this but we were pretty used to adapting to her absence.
We worked really, really hard for kids. I'm not complaining because it has made me a much stronger person and it has made me a person to see a job that needs to get done and do it.
Oh, did I mention I have had OCD. All my life or as long as I can remember everything had to be perfect or not at all. My baby sister and I used to make deals to help each other with our chores. I was so trusting and I have to say, I still am to this day. I believe someone's word even if they've lied to me many times before. I always think this will be the time that they don't lie.
So, back to chores. I had OCD so badly that every Saturday I wanted to wash all my blankets. Not just change the sheets, I wanted to wash my blankets, my bedspread everything. I wanted nothing but fresh clean bedding around me. My baby sister was ummmm the opposite. She could care less if she ever changed her sheets. She would crawl into bed dirty after a long day of chores or horseback riding or whatever. She is still like that to an extent.
My Dad had heard there was going to be a circus in the town where we went to school. He thought that would cheer us up since our mom had once again decided she needed to "find herself" and left us. All week long he had been telling us what types of things you see at a circus. I mean we were really country girls! The only thing that My Dad had said is, "our chores have to be done before the circus on Friday". No problem. We were good at chores. Well, when I cleaned the kitchen even at the age of 10 years old I would move every single thing sitting on the counter and use Pinesol or Fantastic behind the item and under where the item sat. I would take the cookies from the cookie jar and put them into a bowl and wash the cookie jar by hand so it will be clean to put the cookies back in. I would bring all of our food out of the cupboards and wipe under where it goes and do the same for our glasses and plates. This kind of behavior would have been fine for Spring Cleaning but not every day cleaning. After a while my baby sister got tired of this. She thought if we just clean around things it would be good enough.
Well, being the bossy big sister that could easily force her to do things because I was also super strong, she did what I said and things were done my way. I stripped our beds and washed all of our linens. We were not supposed to use our dryer because it costs too much money to run so we had a huge clothes line and supposedly things smelt fresher that way. I will disagree with this until the day I die. Number one reason I don't like things dried on the line is they are "crispy". The number two reason and it is enough for me to never do it again is as tough as I am and fearless, any kind of bug will send me to another place. I hate bugs. I hate butterflies. Any creepy thing that flies or crawls, I hate em. Lady bugs bite me. Now a lot of people don't believe that but I have some really good tasting blood or something because my Dad gets bitten by lady bugs and one of his brothers got bitten by lady bugs and one of my baby sister's boys gets bitten by lady bugs. It's that good ole Indian blood. (oops, sorry Native American). I actually have allowed a stupid lady bug to land on me without freaking out and show my husband that it bites while we snuggled in the hammock. He was amazed as anyone that they bite.
Our house was as sparkling as it had ever been, our linens were dry and now the final touch. To put all the linens back on our beds. We did Dad's Queen size bed first. It looked and smelled fabulous. We then went into our sleeping space. I call it a sleeping space because that trailer only had one bedroom and my baby sister and I used the dining room as a sleeping space. Well, my sister talked me into helping her make her bed first. Now, I know better than to trust her. She always allows me to help her then says, "never mind" to me about helping me. Once again I trusted her after a heated argument about her having to keep her word this time. Well, We got her bed perfect. I do mean perfect. I was a pain in the ass. Every single thing had to match. The top sheets had to come down equally on each side of the bed before we tucked it in. The bedspread had to have equal size sides too. We got her bed made with tons of grumbling from her about it not mattering how perfect it was. As soon as it was my turn to have my bed made, she told me, "nah, you are too picky and I can't live up to what you want me to do" I was so furious with her and let her know it but I also knew that she had that same stubbornness in her that I had going through my veins. I made my bed and it took about 20 minutes to make a twin size bottom bunk not close to any walls. It was perfect. There, maybe my day will get better after all.
We knew that our dad would be home from work soon and after a quick dinner and feeding the animals he would want to leave for the circus. We heard Dad's truck pull into the yard and I started to get the dinner on the table. Right before I got the plates out of the cupboard I saw my baby sister stand on the corner of my bed with her shoes on and pull herself up onto her bed. I came unglued just in time for Dad to walk into the house. I stripped off my bedspread and started to charge towards the shed outside where we kept our laundry. Dad stopped me and asked me what was wrong. I was so upset that I was close to tears. I told him of how we got all the chores done and washed all the blankets and linens and made all the beds and then how my baby sister stepped on my bed and now it has germs on it. My Dad said, " let me look at that blanket banana." He looked it over carefully inspecting it and smelled it and declared it clean. I was so horrified. I didn't know how I would sleep with that filthy thing on my bed. I ranted and raved about it and he shushed me up with one look. He explained to me that he is very glad that I am clean but that washing all of my blankets and bedspreads every week is ridiculous. He said I can change my sheets once a week and wash the rest of the things once a month and with that one look, the conversation was over with the exception of my Dad saying to my baby sister to use the end of the bunk beds to climb up instead of stepping on my bed.
I went and put the bedspread back on my bed but not carefully. I finished getting dinner on the table and the conversation switched to my Dad asking us what kind of animals we hoped to see at the Circus?
We ate dinner and did the chores and then my Dad went into the bathroom to Primp and get ready to take us to the circus. While my dad was in the bathroom my baby sister exchanged bedspreads with me since she knew how badly the one with the germs on it from her shoe was going to bother me. I thought that was so nice and such a loving thing to do. I hugged her and thanked her close to tears again.
After Dad got ready, we all piled into our fantastic Forest Green pinto and drove towards town. The conversation was all about the animals that we would see at the circus. Things we had only seen on TV. Elephants, Tigers, Lions, people dangling from high above doing tricks and clowns. Neither my sister or I was very excited about the clowns. We both thought they were creepy and hoped that they stayed away from us.
We got to the circus and the first thing I noticed was there was a ton of people there and it was soooo dirty. We stood in line at the ticket counter and my dad said, "two children and one adult". The man behind the ticket counter looked at me and my 5'10" height and told my dad sorry buddy but there is no way that gal is only 12. My dad was so pissed. He said, "not only is she not 12 she is under 12 until 2 more weeks", The man argued with my Dad saying that I was too big to be 11. It was so humiliating and I hated that it made my dad so mad. I wished that I had the extra 50 cents to pay the man just to shut him up. My dad told him it wasn't the extra money it was the principle that why should he have to pay extra because his daughter is taller than normal. I was feeling better and better about myself by the minute as you can guess. I looked at my baby sister and said, " maybe they will allow me to join the circus as a tall freak."
After what seemed like 20 minutes of arguing and my Dad's face getting redder and redder, we were admitted to the circus. The man running the booth basically called my Dad a liar and I didn't think we would make it into the circus at all because my dad wanted to beat the heck out of that man that called him a liar.
Now, if you know my dad, things are not dropped easily. In other words he has a loooooong fuse but once it is lit. Watch out. My baby sister and my Dad and I sat at the circus. None of us enjoyed the circus. The elephants temporarily took away all thoughts of the 20 minute argument outside. The Tiger's were amazing especially to my baby sister who listed cats as her favorite animal. I loved the dogs that did tricks and all three of us loved the horses. They were so beautiful. I wanted to teach my horse back at home how to jump on his back legs like he was dancing. My Dad was generous with us. Inviting us to have cotton candy, peanuts, coke, whatever we wanted. I know that he felt bad for making a scene.
After the circus we were heading towards the car but my Dad stopped us and wanted to speak to someone in charge of the tickets. He got his wish and I was paraded around so they could see me and ask me what year I was born, etc. It was all so humiliating and I have never been to a circus again. Well, unless you count Circus Circus at Reno!
I think back at this particular time in my life and I'm pretty sure that my fighting for the one person who can't stick up for him/herself, well, this is where it comes from. I'm proud that my Dad has given me a fighting spirit and a spirit that stands for those who are unable to stand for themselves!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Pain can be good!
Pain is a constant in my life. It is a very unwelcome constant but...he is there just the same.
Growing up with a Mentally ill Mom who was in my opinion hell bent on making me an ugly person, well it wasn't easy. I think it helped to prepare me for the physical pain that I go through all the time.
I want to say that if you asked any of my sisters what their experiences was like with my mom they would say something different. We all live in our own story. For me it was confusing, hurtful, hateful and pretty weird.
I loved her so much! I just wanted her to love me back. I would spend every single cent I had to buy her something that smelled lovely: soap, a flower, a cheap bottle of perfume. I was only about 12 when this started. I was in Jr High school and I had Dancing classes on Tuesday's after school so it gave me about 2 hours from the end of class to "shop"for my mom before my dad would come pick me up after he got off work. The was a store right across the street from the Jr High school. It was called "Arlene's Flowers and Gifts". I was there every Tuesday with my few quarters.
I would browse the store for those 2 hours until I was sure I spent my money on something my mother liked. I never got it right. The nice smelling soaps that I bought her were never seen again. In a tiny mobile home that was a trick and a half. The single carnation with ribbon in her favorite color always made her have a headache within the hour of giving it to her so while I was outside doing chores, she would throw it away. The funny thing about all of this is that I never asked her, Where is the soap, What happened to your flower? She would announce that she could no longer finish the dinner she was cooking because she had a headache. I assumed it was because of my flower because I saw them many times cut into tons of pieces in the trash can.
Eventually I stopped trying to get along with my mom. I remember one time my baby sister and her were laying in my parent's room in bed snuggled together. My mom was reading one of her romance books and my baby sister was just snuggled up to her. She was about 10 at the time and I had just turned 12. I wanted so badly to get into that big parental bed and snuggle too. I got in next to my sister and tried to snuggle up. My mother asked me in one of the meanest voices that I've ever heard, "What do you want AnnMarie?" That is what she called me when she was especially angry with me. I told her that I wanted to snuggle with her and my baby sister. She said, "absolutely not, she has a bad headache and I will only make it worse." I was hurt of coarse but my go to emotion that I felt safe with has always been anger. I asked her, "why do you push me away?, Why don't you like me?" "Why can my baby sister be near you anytime you want and it is okay?" Her answer to me was simply, "She needs me and you don't". I tried to argue with her that I did need her, I did love her, didn't I bring her something every Tuesday as a token of my love. She told me to get out of her room.
Walking the short walk to the living room (it was a single wide mobile home), I welled up with tears in my eyes. They never fell. I blanked them back down. When I got into the living room my Dad was there watching some TV show and he saw that I was crying or trying not to cry. He knew for his Tom Boy daughter that something was wrong. "What's the matter Banana?" I told him my pitiful story that sounded so lame now. I wanted to cuddle with mom and baby sister. I told my Dad what my mom said and that I had asked her why she doesn't like me. My Dad is usually in a good mood. He sees something that needs to be done and he does it. He saw that his daughter was hurting and he patted the sofa right next to him and said, "Sit down by your old dad. I want you and I love you and I need a cuddle buddy for this scary movie." He knew just what to say. Reason number 129 that he is my hero!
My mom has been gone since 1999 and prior to that time my Dad remarried. I love my Stepmom very, very much.
Last year I was in California from the state I live in Idaho and I had an emergency due to my heart condition. We were at my Dad's house, my baby sister drove the many miles with me to go to CA to see family. I was so excited to get to see my niece get married on the beach and especially to have all of us girls (sisters) together again. It had been since 1999 that we have all been together. Well, at my Dad's house we were celebrating my Aunt's 76 birthday. She is the Aunt that can kick butt and take names. I wanted to have a party for her. We had a bar b q for her and a cake and some ice cream. The entire day pain was knocking at my door but I kept taking Nitro tablets secretly under my tongue. I didn't want pain to ruin my family day. By 6 p.m. my pain was unbearable and I was about 8 nitro's in. I quietly asked my Dad if he could take me to the ER. I have been many times to the ER so they can hook my up to a nitro IV to get the chest pain under control.
My Mom (stepmom but I call her mom) and my baby sister were saying goodbye to my Aunt and I guess my Dad in his fear didn't hear them say they want to come too. I got in my Dad's big Dodge truck and seat belt on we flew the 10 miles to the hospital. I mean it was like a flight. Once the staff at the ER understood that I was having chest pains they got me back there quickly. So many things happened on that trip to the ER that are funny to me I'll have to share them sometime.
They took me back into a private curtained off area and asked me to strip from the waist down. My Dad was in the room with me. He looked at me and asked me, "do you need my help baby?" If you knew my Dad at all, that would have been absolutely horrifying for him to do. He never changed a girl's diaper including mine or my sister's. He is old school and thinks it is inappropriate. I knew it would horrify him so I told him I was fine. The two nurses were holding up my lovely hospital gown for privacy anyway. I had to go pee so bad and they were not going to let me pee unless I used a bedpan. Hell to the no was my answer to that! Icky. I mean if you have to you have to but I am ambulatory enough to use the toilet that flushes. My Dad sat beside me for hours and the pain contorted my body. I would grit my teeth trying not to make any noise. I had white knuckles from gripping the blanket too hard. My Dad pulled his chair right up to the bed and sat as close as he could. He told me to look at him in the eyes. I was afraid to do that because I didn't want to see pain or to cry myself. He told me to focus on his face and breath. I did as he said and he told me to just hang on.... to just be my stubborn self and not let go. He told me he loves me so much and too many people love me and need me to be okay. Then, he cried. Not blubbering kind of crying but two tears came rolling down his face. Down from his beautiful green eyes. I wiped his tears away and kissed his nose.
I was admitted to that hospital and had another admittance to another hospital on my vacation a week later. But that time with my dad, that knowing how much he loves me. I will forever be thankful, yes thankful for the pain that comes upon me so often. Those are the times when I allow my emotions to be real and I know that my family and friends are showing real emotions. Those are the times when I have no control or the illusion of control that I tell myself I have. I know that the one who Created me is in control and it is He alone in control.
So, it isn't fun but I thank God for the pain and the continual vasal spasaming (pickford disease) and the onset of Renault syndrome. Without it I would never have those still quiet moments to act as Christ did. To pray for the other person laying in the hospital room with me. To pray for their body to heal and if the Lord calls either of us home, to pray for our families. I thank God for this abnormality that I was born with. It has brought healing in my mental health and closeness with my family that was not quite there yet.
I hope if you are hurting physically or mentally, you will know that it is true in the bible where it says, "The Lord will not give you more than you can handle".
God Bless you.
Growing up with a Mentally ill Mom who was in my opinion hell bent on making me an ugly person, well it wasn't easy. I think it helped to prepare me for the physical pain that I go through all the time.
I want to say that if you asked any of my sisters what their experiences was like with my mom they would say something different. We all live in our own story. For me it was confusing, hurtful, hateful and pretty weird.
I loved her so much! I just wanted her to love me back. I would spend every single cent I had to buy her something that smelled lovely: soap, a flower, a cheap bottle of perfume. I was only about 12 when this started. I was in Jr High school and I had Dancing classes on Tuesday's after school so it gave me about 2 hours from the end of class to "shop"for my mom before my dad would come pick me up after he got off work. The was a store right across the street from the Jr High school. It was called "Arlene's Flowers and Gifts". I was there every Tuesday with my few quarters.
I would browse the store for those 2 hours until I was sure I spent my money on something my mother liked. I never got it right. The nice smelling soaps that I bought her were never seen again. In a tiny mobile home that was a trick and a half. The single carnation with ribbon in her favorite color always made her have a headache within the hour of giving it to her so while I was outside doing chores, she would throw it away. The funny thing about all of this is that I never asked her, Where is the soap, What happened to your flower? She would announce that she could no longer finish the dinner she was cooking because she had a headache. I assumed it was because of my flower because I saw them many times cut into tons of pieces in the trash can.
Eventually I stopped trying to get along with my mom. I remember one time my baby sister and her were laying in my parent's room in bed snuggled together. My mom was reading one of her romance books and my baby sister was just snuggled up to her. She was about 10 at the time and I had just turned 12. I wanted so badly to get into that big parental bed and snuggle too. I got in next to my sister and tried to snuggle up. My mother asked me in one of the meanest voices that I've ever heard, "What do you want AnnMarie?" That is what she called me when she was especially angry with me. I told her that I wanted to snuggle with her and my baby sister. She said, "absolutely not, she has a bad headache and I will only make it worse." I was hurt of coarse but my go to emotion that I felt safe with has always been anger. I asked her, "why do you push me away?, Why don't you like me?" "Why can my baby sister be near you anytime you want and it is okay?" Her answer to me was simply, "She needs me and you don't". I tried to argue with her that I did need her, I did love her, didn't I bring her something every Tuesday as a token of my love. She told me to get out of her room.
Walking the short walk to the living room (it was a single wide mobile home), I welled up with tears in my eyes. They never fell. I blanked them back down. When I got into the living room my Dad was there watching some TV show and he saw that I was crying or trying not to cry. He knew for his Tom Boy daughter that something was wrong. "What's the matter Banana?" I told him my pitiful story that sounded so lame now. I wanted to cuddle with mom and baby sister. I told my Dad what my mom said and that I had asked her why she doesn't like me. My Dad is usually in a good mood. He sees something that needs to be done and he does it. He saw that his daughter was hurting and he patted the sofa right next to him and said, "Sit down by your old dad. I want you and I love you and I need a cuddle buddy for this scary movie." He knew just what to say. Reason number 129 that he is my hero!
My mom has been gone since 1999 and prior to that time my Dad remarried. I love my Stepmom very, very much.
Last year I was in California from the state I live in Idaho and I had an emergency due to my heart condition. We were at my Dad's house, my baby sister drove the many miles with me to go to CA to see family. I was so excited to get to see my niece get married on the beach and especially to have all of us girls (sisters) together again. It had been since 1999 that we have all been together. Well, at my Dad's house we were celebrating my Aunt's 76 birthday. She is the Aunt that can kick butt and take names. I wanted to have a party for her. We had a bar b q for her and a cake and some ice cream. The entire day pain was knocking at my door but I kept taking Nitro tablets secretly under my tongue. I didn't want pain to ruin my family day. By 6 p.m. my pain was unbearable and I was about 8 nitro's in. I quietly asked my Dad if he could take me to the ER. I have been many times to the ER so they can hook my up to a nitro IV to get the chest pain under control.
My Mom (stepmom but I call her mom) and my baby sister were saying goodbye to my Aunt and I guess my Dad in his fear didn't hear them say they want to come too. I got in my Dad's big Dodge truck and seat belt on we flew the 10 miles to the hospital. I mean it was like a flight. Once the staff at the ER understood that I was having chest pains they got me back there quickly. So many things happened on that trip to the ER that are funny to me I'll have to share them sometime.
They took me back into a private curtained off area and asked me to strip from the waist down. My Dad was in the room with me. He looked at me and asked me, "do you need my help baby?" If you knew my Dad at all, that would have been absolutely horrifying for him to do. He never changed a girl's diaper including mine or my sister's. He is old school and thinks it is inappropriate. I knew it would horrify him so I told him I was fine. The two nurses were holding up my lovely hospital gown for privacy anyway. I had to go pee so bad and they were not going to let me pee unless I used a bedpan. Hell to the no was my answer to that! Icky. I mean if you have to you have to but I am ambulatory enough to use the toilet that flushes. My Dad sat beside me for hours and the pain contorted my body. I would grit my teeth trying not to make any noise. I had white knuckles from gripping the blanket too hard. My Dad pulled his chair right up to the bed and sat as close as he could. He told me to look at him in the eyes. I was afraid to do that because I didn't want to see pain or to cry myself. He told me to focus on his face and breath. I did as he said and he told me to just hang on.... to just be my stubborn self and not let go. He told me he loves me so much and too many people love me and need me to be okay. Then, he cried. Not blubbering kind of crying but two tears came rolling down his face. Down from his beautiful green eyes. I wiped his tears away and kissed his nose.
I was admitted to that hospital and had another admittance to another hospital on my vacation a week later. But that time with my dad, that knowing how much he loves me. I will forever be thankful, yes thankful for the pain that comes upon me so often. Those are the times when I allow my emotions to be real and I know that my family and friends are showing real emotions. Those are the times when I have no control or the illusion of control that I tell myself I have. I know that the one who Created me is in control and it is He alone in control.
So, it isn't fun but I thank God for the pain and the continual vasal spasaming (pickford disease) and the onset of Renault syndrome. Without it I would never have those still quiet moments to act as Christ did. To pray for the other person laying in the hospital room with me. To pray for their body to heal and if the Lord calls either of us home, to pray for our families. I thank God for this abnormality that I was born with. It has brought healing in my mental health and closeness with my family that was not quite there yet.
I hope if you are hurting physically or mentally, you will know that it is true in the bible where it says, "The Lord will not give you more than you can handle".
God Bless you.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Butchering Day for Chickens
So your first response maybe ewww gross. If that is the case perhaps you should skip this post. I don't know if it my health and the way I've been feeling lately but I feel driven to share true stories. I am sharing these with my family and friends maybe to have something to read when I'm gone and laugh at. Maybe it is just helping me to feel like I'm doing something instead of just waiting and waiting.
My Dad is Native American. Back when I was a little girl we just called ourselves Indians. Now that is not PC. We are from the Chumash Tribe of Central California. My Dad grew up with 3 brothers and 1 sister that could take down any boy in the family. She is that tough. I adore her and she is the baby of the family. Well, times were tough for anyone during the great depression and my Dad has often told me he didn't know that they were poor because everyone was poor. He grew up with my Grandma making breakfast, lunch and supper. Not sandwiches but really heating the house up with a wooden stove to cook the meals. Always fresh hand made tortillas at every meal and always, always something sweet. Well, out of all of my Dad's siblings, he has strayed the least from the "old ways". We grew up eating beans at almost every meal and raising our own veggies and meat.
I've mentioned before that my younger sister and I grew up on a ranch miles from town but I didn't mention we had a farm right in town. We lived in an old 2 story house that was very drafty. There were six of us kids including my two brothers that I've not mentioned too much yet. We lived in the city limit and we had a huge chicken,duck,turkey, chucker, peasant coop. I mean, it could have been another room. Well, when the spring first sprang.... My dad would order eggs from a mail order catalog. No joke, you used to be able to do that. So he would pour over his catalogs deciding what kind of eggs to order and within a week we had about 3 dozen eggs. This brings us to our kitchen.... We had a huge table in the kitchen. Enough to sit all 6 kids, 2 parents and any friends that my older brothers and sisters had over for dinner. There was an enormous white chest freezer in that room too. It was full of meat and bread from a place called, "the bread store". The bread store was actually a hostess or Wonder bread outlet where the breads were a bit old so they sold them cheaper. With 6 kids it was important to save every penny.
Back to the eggs. My Dad had this round machine that plugged into the wall that the eggs were placed in and a little water I think for humidity. It is called an incubator. We were not allowed to touch the eggs but my dad would allow us to watch each night as he carefully and lovingly turned each egg like a mother hen would do. Sooner than you know it but not soon enough for two curious little girls, the eggs would hatch. The soft downy feathers of the little yellow and white chicks was so special. Once all the eggs hatched and they were now baby chicks, They all graduated to a tall brown cardboard box. In the bottom of this box was newspapers and lids from pickle jars etc. filled with chicken feed and water. During this time my mom would lose a living room lamp to be on 24/7 over the box. My dad would take the shade off of the lamp and the heat from the lamp kept the babies warm. My sister and I delighted in gently picking them up and kissing them..... so much for bird flu! We were so loving towards the baby chicks that often our chore was to put new newspaper in the bottom of their box. This was especially fun times when the chickens got their flying feathers. The soft downy feathers were replaced with sharp pin feathers. The once cute baby chicks got homely. They were no fun to play with anymore. They also wouldn't stay in the box. No sir not even if you offered them a million dollars they would fly up, up, up until they landed on the edge of the box looking down at what was their former cage. This was a good thing because that meant that they were growing up and would soon enough be able to be butchered and put into the freezer. I told you we lived old school.
I loved all of the animals that we had to care for growing up but I have to admit to this day I don't like the actual killing of the animals. Once the animal is dead, I'm that girl that can get in there and pluck feathers and pull out guts but the actual killing really makes me sad.
Butchering day was not looked upon as a good day, not just for the chickens. It meant we all had to pitch in and help. After cutting the chicken's heads off they really do run around "like a chicken without a head". If you've never had the pleasure of seeing this first hand it is pretty scary. The next thing to do is to dip the freshly killed chicken into hot water to make his feathers easier to pluck. This chore is also especially disgusting as the smell of wet feathers is disgusting. I mean I can handle lots of things before I have an upset stomach so it isn't that bad but it is pretty nasty. Once every single tiny feather has been plucked then Dad and my brother's would gut them and rinse them and then my mom and older sisters were on.... They were to clean them really well and cut them up and wrap them so they were freezer ready.
The entire process took most of the day but I would never change a minute of it for anything.
A special shout out to my baby sister for this one time when we lived on the ranch. The older siblings had since moved out so my baby sister and I were the helpers for all butchering and stuff. I was always the tough guy. Fearless on the outside terrified of what people thought of me on the inside. I rarely showed fear. This particular day, my dad was killing the chickens with an axe. He would let it go because they flop and flop around and this particular headless chicken decided to run under the fence into the cow pasture. This chicken looked like he was on a mission. He was running straight down the hill to God only knows where. My dad asked me to go get the chicken before he went too far. I had been doing this all day so I casually mentioned to my dad that I think it was my baby sister's turn. My dad agreed. She balked quite a bit but my Dad would not let up. My baby sister climbed under the fence and was going towards this headless chicken who by this time had slowed way down. Just before she reached him it was like he sensed her there, now I know how silly that sounds since he didn't have a head, but he turned and ran right at my sister. He chased my baby sister up the hill all the way back to where he started from. That terrified my baby sister and it was the last time she ever had to chase down a headless chicken.
All that said, there truly is something for the simple life. Now we buy our chickens and eggs from the stores and they are pumped full of steroids and who knows what else. I myself will take a home raised chicken any time!
My Dad is Native American. Back when I was a little girl we just called ourselves Indians. Now that is not PC. We are from the Chumash Tribe of Central California. My Dad grew up with 3 brothers and 1 sister that could take down any boy in the family. She is that tough. I adore her and she is the baby of the family. Well, times were tough for anyone during the great depression and my Dad has often told me he didn't know that they were poor because everyone was poor. He grew up with my Grandma making breakfast, lunch and supper. Not sandwiches but really heating the house up with a wooden stove to cook the meals. Always fresh hand made tortillas at every meal and always, always something sweet. Well, out of all of my Dad's siblings, he has strayed the least from the "old ways". We grew up eating beans at almost every meal and raising our own veggies and meat.
I've mentioned before that my younger sister and I grew up on a ranch miles from town but I didn't mention we had a farm right in town. We lived in an old 2 story house that was very drafty. There were six of us kids including my two brothers that I've not mentioned too much yet. We lived in the city limit and we had a huge chicken,duck,turkey, chucker, peasant coop. I mean, it could have been another room. Well, when the spring first sprang.... My dad would order eggs from a mail order catalog. No joke, you used to be able to do that. So he would pour over his catalogs deciding what kind of eggs to order and within a week we had about 3 dozen eggs. This brings us to our kitchen.... We had a huge table in the kitchen. Enough to sit all 6 kids, 2 parents and any friends that my older brothers and sisters had over for dinner. There was an enormous white chest freezer in that room too. It was full of meat and bread from a place called, "the bread store". The bread store was actually a hostess or Wonder bread outlet where the breads were a bit old so they sold them cheaper. With 6 kids it was important to save every penny.
Back to the eggs. My Dad had this round machine that plugged into the wall that the eggs were placed in and a little water I think for humidity. It is called an incubator. We were not allowed to touch the eggs but my dad would allow us to watch each night as he carefully and lovingly turned each egg like a mother hen would do. Sooner than you know it but not soon enough for two curious little girls, the eggs would hatch. The soft downy feathers of the little yellow and white chicks was so special. Once all the eggs hatched and they were now baby chicks, They all graduated to a tall brown cardboard box. In the bottom of this box was newspapers and lids from pickle jars etc. filled with chicken feed and water. During this time my mom would lose a living room lamp to be on 24/7 over the box. My dad would take the shade off of the lamp and the heat from the lamp kept the babies warm. My sister and I delighted in gently picking them up and kissing them..... so much for bird flu! We were so loving towards the baby chicks that often our chore was to put new newspaper in the bottom of their box. This was especially fun times when the chickens got their flying feathers. The soft downy feathers were replaced with sharp pin feathers. The once cute baby chicks got homely. They were no fun to play with anymore. They also wouldn't stay in the box. No sir not even if you offered them a million dollars they would fly up, up, up until they landed on the edge of the box looking down at what was their former cage. This was a good thing because that meant that they were growing up and would soon enough be able to be butchered and put into the freezer. I told you we lived old school.
I loved all of the animals that we had to care for growing up but I have to admit to this day I don't like the actual killing of the animals. Once the animal is dead, I'm that girl that can get in there and pluck feathers and pull out guts but the actual killing really makes me sad.
Butchering day was not looked upon as a good day, not just for the chickens. It meant we all had to pitch in and help. After cutting the chicken's heads off they really do run around "like a chicken without a head". If you've never had the pleasure of seeing this first hand it is pretty scary. The next thing to do is to dip the freshly killed chicken into hot water to make his feathers easier to pluck. This chore is also especially disgusting as the smell of wet feathers is disgusting. I mean I can handle lots of things before I have an upset stomach so it isn't that bad but it is pretty nasty. Once every single tiny feather has been plucked then Dad and my brother's would gut them and rinse them and then my mom and older sisters were on.... They were to clean them really well and cut them up and wrap them so they were freezer ready.
The entire process took most of the day but I would never change a minute of it for anything.
A special shout out to my baby sister for this one time when we lived on the ranch. The older siblings had since moved out so my baby sister and I were the helpers for all butchering and stuff. I was always the tough guy. Fearless on the outside terrified of what people thought of me on the inside. I rarely showed fear. This particular day, my dad was killing the chickens with an axe. He would let it go because they flop and flop around and this particular headless chicken decided to run under the fence into the cow pasture. This chicken looked like he was on a mission. He was running straight down the hill to God only knows where. My dad asked me to go get the chicken before he went too far. I had been doing this all day so I casually mentioned to my dad that I think it was my baby sister's turn. My dad agreed. She balked quite a bit but my Dad would not let up. My baby sister climbed under the fence and was going towards this headless chicken who by this time had slowed way down. Just before she reached him it was like he sensed her there, now I know how silly that sounds since he didn't have a head, but he turned and ran right at my sister. He chased my baby sister up the hill all the way back to where he started from. That terrified my baby sister and it was the last time she ever had to chase down a headless chicken.
All that said, there truly is something for the simple life. Now we buy our chickens and eggs from the stores and they are pumped full of steroids and who knows what else. I myself will take a home raised chicken any time!
Friday, March 15, 2013
Former Bully here
Bullies are real people that need love. I know that isn't the PC thing to say or feel but it is the truth.
How do I know this you may ask yourself? Well, I am a former bully.
Growing up not only taller than all the girls in school and most of the boys was a good bully look. Add to that, the fact that my mom would bully me at home because she was mentally ill and It was like a puzzle piece fitting together.
When things at home were especially messed up, the next day at school someone was going to feel my pain. I wasn't the type of kid to cry easily or in front of people. When I'm hurting both emotionally and physically, I can stuff it down and kind of go blank. Well, That is how it used to be for many years.
I remember this one particular day. It started early like most days on the ranch where I grew up. There were chores to do and animals to feed before I even considered getting ready for school. This particular morning, I was 17 and a big bad senior in high school. My Mom lived with us during this particular time. She asked me to get out of bed and I must have rolled over and ignored her because the next thing I knew, she had the flyswatter and was beating me with it to wake up and get out of bed. Never mind that my little sister was in the bunk bed right under mine and she wasn't out of bed yet either. I grabbed the fly swatter and bent it all to heck, (it was made out of metal) I bent it to where it will never be able to be used as a flyswatter again and threw it back in my mother's face. I know that I allowed the rage I was feeling towards her show on my face because she backed down and turned away and mumbled for me to get up.
I got up in a foul mood. Not talking. I dressed and went outside to feed the baby calves their bottles that needed to be fed.My baby sister and I did these chores together as by this time all of the other brothers and sisters were out of the house. We cleaned out their little stalls raking up poo and adding warm fresh straw for them to lay on. We had to fill up all of their water buckets too. It was a lot of work but I really, really loved to spend time doing those things. After the baby cows were fed, there were eggs to gather, chickens to feed and water, sheep and goats to feed and water, Horses to feed and water and of coarse the dogs and cats that we had. After all that was finished I would rush into the house and wash my face and brush my teeth. I wasn't a girly girl so doing something other to my hair than brush it and put a clip in was about it. I changed and was ready for school within 10 minutes. I didn't wear any make up so that was an easy fix.
When my mom lived with us, she would make my dad and my sister's lunch every day. On the days that she didn't live with us, It was also my job to make my dad and sister's lunch and brew my dad's coffee with one of those old peculator type that actually cook on the gas stove. I was supposed to make myself a lunch too but I felt that skipping meals would show how strong I was. I didn't need food. With my Dad and sister we'd rush out the door to school.
Most days we missed the school bus but those were usually the days that my Mom didn't live with us and we had more to do before school in the morning. Luckily my Dad wasn't afraid to bother the bus driver along the route to school. He would pull up beside the big number 227 bus and honk and blink his headlights off and on in our little forest green pinto until the old bus Driver, Stewart, would pull over at some point of the highway and allow my sister and I to get on the bus. Thankfully that wasn't embarrassing at all right? lol.
Well, back to this particular day with the fly swatter. I got to school and picked up all the books from my locker that were not already in my back pack and placed them there. I was a nerd. The type of nerd that carried a back pack, pencil box, extra notebook paper etc. I had a huge fear of being late to school or class..... hmmmmm wonder if it had anything to do with being so embarrassed by getting on the bus at a random piece of the road.
As it was my senior year and I had taken all AP (advanced placement) classes since Jr. High School, Most of my senior day was easy. I had an opportunity to leave school for the day at around 10:30 or so but because I loved exercise and sports so much I stayed for PE and being a drummer I stayed for band too. That wasn't until 5th period.
This particular day, a pretty red haired girl with freckles and kind of on the heavy side had the bad fortune to be my target for the day. During PE we got to play field hockey. I was considered by most of the teachers to be angelic, the best student, never to cause any trouble, on and on I had them all fooled. Well, the PE teacher in particular took a liking to me because I excelled in most all sports. We were playing field hockey and The pretty red haired girl whom I didn't bother to find out what her name was until years later. I just called her orgie. Orgie as in Orgasm. The reason I did this is because she laughed when she was with her team and had such a ball and her laughter made me think of that term to call her so, by the end of the first 10 minutes of play, my entire team was calling her Orgie. Not only were we calling her Orgie, I decided to hit her with my hockey stick. I was so angry inside, which doesn't make it any better at all, but I had no outlet I felt. Similar to kids now days who cut themselves. I took my hockey stick and slammed it into Orgie's shin as hard as I could. She screamed bloody murder and the PE teacher asked me what had happened and I told her she got in the way accidentally. Well Orgie was not having any of that. She was screaming and crying and pointing her finger at me and saying I did it on purpose. Well, I put on my best "angel face" and told her how sorry I was that she got hurt and it certainly was an accident. The teacher knowing that I would never cause issues for others let Orgie's friends take her up to the office nurse and we got to finish our game. We beat their team by some outrageous score.
We went in and showered and laughed at how I got away with hitting and hurting Orgie. I have thought of Orgie over the years many, many times. I learned that her real name was Regina, A beautiful name for a beautiful red haired girl that I was a beast to. I have asked God to forgive me for being so mean in school and I know he has. I have forgiven myself now too because I know that the girl I was, was a girl in more pain than she could verbalize. The girl I was thought often about committing suicide. The girl I was never thought she was good enough or smart enough or pretty enough, she would never be "Enough". I turned the anger against other people instead of my self. I wish it were different but it is not unfortunately.
SO, today I just want to say that if you know a bully, It doesn't make it right by any means for them to bully others. It may do some good to know that they hate themselves, they loathe themselves and they will lash out to have other people feel the pain that they can't seem to handle, the anger that I know now IS something I can control. I no longer see red when I'm mad. I allow myself to be honest and know that nobody can make me feel bad except for me.Pray for your bully, be careful and know that I'm praying for the bully and the bullied.
Finally, If by chance Regina is reading this someplace, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I was a real ass to you and I'm so sorry. I mean that from the bottom of my heart and I hope that God has blessed your life and will continue to do so.
How do I know this you may ask yourself? Well, I am a former bully.
Growing up not only taller than all the girls in school and most of the boys was a good bully look. Add to that, the fact that my mom would bully me at home because she was mentally ill and It was like a puzzle piece fitting together.
When things at home were especially messed up, the next day at school someone was going to feel my pain. I wasn't the type of kid to cry easily or in front of people. When I'm hurting both emotionally and physically, I can stuff it down and kind of go blank. Well, That is how it used to be for many years.
I remember this one particular day. It started early like most days on the ranch where I grew up. There were chores to do and animals to feed before I even considered getting ready for school. This particular morning, I was 17 and a big bad senior in high school. My Mom lived with us during this particular time. She asked me to get out of bed and I must have rolled over and ignored her because the next thing I knew, she had the flyswatter and was beating me with it to wake up and get out of bed. Never mind that my little sister was in the bunk bed right under mine and she wasn't out of bed yet either. I grabbed the fly swatter and bent it all to heck, (it was made out of metal) I bent it to where it will never be able to be used as a flyswatter again and threw it back in my mother's face. I know that I allowed the rage I was feeling towards her show on my face because she backed down and turned away and mumbled for me to get up.
I got up in a foul mood. Not talking. I dressed and went outside to feed the baby calves their bottles that needed to be fed.My baby sister and I did these chores together as by this time all of the other brothers and sisters were out of the house. We cleaned out their little stalls raking up poo and adding warm fresh straw for them to lay on. We had to fill up all of their water buckets too. It was a lot of work but I really, really loved to spend time doing those things. After the baby cows were fed, there were eggs to gather, chickens to feed and water, sheep and goats to feed and water, Horses to feed and water and of coarse the dogs and cats that we had. After all that was finished I would rush into the house and wash my face and brush my teeth. I wasn't a girly girl so doing something other to my hair than brush it and put a clip in was about it. I changed and was ready for school within 10 minutes. I didn't wear any make up so that was an easy fix.
When my mom lived with us, she would make my dad and my sister's lunch every day. On the days that she didn't live with us, It was also my job to make my dad and sister's lunch and brew my dad's coffee with one of those old peculator type that actually cook on the gas stove. I was supposed to make myself a lunch too but I felt that skipping meals would show how strong I was. I didn't need food. With my Dad and sister we'd rush out the door to school.
Most days we missed the school bus but those were usually the days that my Mom didn't live with us and we had more to do before school in the morning. Luckily my Dad wasn't afraid to bother the bus driver along the route to school. He would pull up beside the big number 227 bus and honk and blink his headlights off and on in our little forest green pinto until the old bus Driver, Stewart, would pull over at some point of the highway and allow my sister and I to get on the bus. Thankfully that wasn't embarrassing at all right? lol.
Well, back to this particular day with the fly swatter. I got to school and picked up all the books from my locker that were not already in my back pack and placed them there. I was a nerd. The type of nerd that carried a back pack, pencil box, extra notebook paper etc. I had a huge fear of being late to school or class..... hmmmmm wonder if it had anything to do with being so embarrassed by getting on the bus at a random piece of the road.
As it was my senior year and I had taken all AP (advanced placement) classes since Jr. High School, Most of my senior day was easy. I had an opportunity to leave school for the day at around 10:30 or so but because I loved exercise and sports so much I stayed for PE and being a drummer I stayed for band too. That wasn't until 5th period.
This particular day, a pretty red haired girl with freckles and kind of on the heavy side had the bad fortune to be my target for the day. During PE we got to play field hockey. I was considered by most of the teachers to be angelic, the best student, never to cause any trouble, on and on I had them all fooled. Well, the PE teacher in particular took a liking to me because I excelled in most all sports. We were playing field hockey and The pretty red haired girl whom I didn't bother to find out what her name was until years later. I just called her orgie. Orgie as in Orgasm. The reason I did this is because she laughed when she was with her team and had such a ball and her laughter made me think of that term to call her so, by the end of the first 10 minutes of play, my entire team was calling her Orgie. Not only were we calling her Orgie, I decided to hit her with my hockey stick. I was so angry inside, which doesn't make it any better at all, but I had no outlet I felt. Similar to kids now days who cut themselves. I took my hockey stick and slammed it into Orgie's shin as hard as I could. She screamed bloody murder and the PE teacher asked me what had happened and I told her she got in the way accidentally. Well Orgie was not having any of that. She was screaming and crying and pointing her finger at me and saying I did it on purpose. Well, I put on my best "angel face" and told her how sorry I was that she got hurt and it certainly was an accident. The teacher knowing that I would never cause issues for others let Orgie's friends take her up to the office nurse and we got to finish our game. We beat their team by some outrageous score.
We went in and showered and laughed at how I got away with hitting and hurting Orgie. I have thought of Orgie over the years many, many times. I learned that her real name was Regina, A beautiful name for a beautiful red haired girl that I was a beast to. I have asked God to forgive me for being so mean in school and I know he has. I have forgiven myself now too because I know that the girl I was, was a girl in more pain than she could verbalize. The girl I was thought often about committing suicide. The girl I was never thought she was good enough or smart enough or pretty enough, she would never be "Enough". I turned the anger against other people instead of my self. I wish it were different but it is not unfortunately.
SO, today I just want to say that if you know a bully, It doesn't make it right by any means for them to bully others. It may do some good to know that they hate themselves, they loathe themselves and they will lash out to have other people feel the pain that they can't seem to handle, the anger that I know now IS something I can control. I no longer see red when I'm mad. I allow myself to be honest and know that nobody can make me feel bad except for me.Pray for your bully, be careful and know that I'm praying for the bully and the bullied.
Finally, If by chance Regina is reading this someplace, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I was a real ass to you and I'm so sorry. I mean that from the bottom of my heart and I hope that God has blessed your life and will continue to do so.
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