InsaneJournal

Current mood:

sick

Sick of being sick
Skip this if you don't want your mood brought down by my depressed late night ramblings.

I had my second visit to the ER for the year this week. At least, I think it was only my second. I've spent so damned much time in ERs, so much time in hospitals, and in Intensive Care Units and Nursing Homes over the past four years, that I've lost track of which visits have been for what people. But in this case, I meant a visit to the ER on my own behalf. Started out as a simple visit to the doctor for a headache that had lasted over a week. But, when my blood pressure registered as a whopping 184/92, I was hastily dispatched to the ER to make sure I wasn't having a stroke. Which it turned out I wasn't. Nor, according to the CAT scan, do I have a brain tumor. Instead, I have some weird inflammation of the arteries I never heard of, but which strikes women in my age group (over fifty) four times as often as men. The good news is that it is easily treated, controlled, and ultimately cured. The bad news: I'm on steroids I'd rather not take, at doses I'd rather not be taking, and while the headache has faded to a level I can largely ignore, it hasn't gone away, and to judge by the prescription for Vicodin they gave me, it isn't expected to be leaving anytime soon. The worse news: even after it is cured, it can recur. Joy. At least I'll know what to look for.

Two days before my trip to the ER, I visited Mom in her nursing home. She was looking fabulous--she'd had her hair and nails done, and they'd put on some of her costume jewelry--and having a jolly time scooting around all over the ward in her wheel chair. She still knows who I am, usually, but asks after people who've been dead since I was a toddler. Fifty years ago. We had a lovely chat, even though she can't complete a complex sentence anymore, loses her train of thought halfway through. But, she's being well cared for and the people there tell me she's become quite a favorite, that everyone loves her. The irony of it all makes me want to howl at the moon, and I sometimes have to fight not to break into tears on the drive home. Now, NOW, when she is 80 years old and barely remembers her own name and often confuses mine--she was introducing me as her mother, the other night--she has the one thing she always wanted, and which always eluded her: she is loved and appreciated. Mom was always a passionate advocate for social justice, but she was too bitter about her own life to let people get close. She made friends easily, but couldn't keep them, was always disappointed, unreasonably angered, over what should have been the kind of fleeting disagreements all solid friendships weather over time. But, hers were not solid, and the friendships shattered beyond repair. Hell, she was estranged from me for fifteen years, and did not see her only grandchild grow up. I could wax bitter, but it's too much effort. And, truly, I'm grateful that she's come to this safe harbor at last, and that I can have whatever time is left with her in visits that are usually filled with her laughing and oh, so happy to see me.

Walt's surgical wound is still not healed. There's something half the size of a pea that refuses to close. We're at the five month mark. It's not life threatening, but he's on his fourth or fifth round of antibiotics and it's just depressing as hell.

God, I'm a regular font of joy tonight, aren't I?