Death Watch

Being on death watch sucks.

Sam called my friend's husband (I am not giving names because I don't know if they want those spread, but I will call her G) and gave the husband his number for updates.

As of right now, there is no change. She is still comatose, and is likely to stay that way until she leaves us.

Jesus fuck, I miss her already.

G and I met 26 years ago, because we were both part of a rosary maker's guild. We were paired up on a swap to send our partner a kit we had put together to make a rosary (beads, eye pins, cross, centerpiece) and we both went kind of overboard. She sent me four kits, I sent her three. She included her phone number in her package, and I called her to thank her and tell her how much I loved what she'd sent. 

We ended up talking for 2.5 hours that evening, and a friendship was born. We were soul sisters from the get-go. 

Four months later she announced she was coming to visit me. That was the first of four face to face visits we were able to accomplish, every one of them rich and warm and funny. She even came for my son's wedding, and insisted on paying for half of the food for the buffet as her gift.

When my second husband tried to walk away without giving me any closure, she called him and ripped him a new asshole, as did my other bestie, Debb, which prompted him to come to the psych ward I was in after my suicide attempt and work out details of spousal support and what have you. That settled things for me, and I was able then to heal enough to go home. Without Debb and G stepping in, I might still be sitting in the hospital, fingerpainting.

When I moved to Texas and we had NOTHING, G made Christmas happen for our entire family. She sent an artificial tree, ornaments, gifts, and a Walmart gift card so we could buy dinner fixings. For the next 24 years, G sent a huge Christmas box for us, until I finally told her to stop, the kids didn't come home any more for the holidays.

If I needed an ear, G was there. If I wanted to laugh, G had a joke. 

I feel like I am losing one of my anchors, and I am flailing.

G's other best friend, Karen, is going to be a total wreck. From what G has told me over the years, Karen is a wet mess and depends on G to keep her stable and afloat. I don't know what she will do now. I hope she will be okay.

I will be okay, but there will be a big huge hole in my life and heart. This loss is deep and painful, and I'm not coping very well right at the moment, but I am strong, or so they tell me, so I will get through this. I will never get OVER it, but I will get through it.

Sigh. Tonight, I will grab the job's tear rosary that G made for me and pray one for her peaceful passing.

Ginger

One of my best friends is currently dying. She could go tonight, she could go in a few days, but she is going. Her husband called me tonight to let me know.

None of you know her, but she would have made one amazing Callahooligan, and fit in well with most of you.

She loved my kids, and they loved her, though they only met twice, since she lives in Philadelphia and we live in Texas.

Tonight I am utterly bereft and falling apart.

May her passing be peaceful. Please, let there be a reward for her after this, whatever reward she wants.

I can't stop crying. When I'm not crying so much, I will write more about her.

Fuck uncontrolled diabetes. Fuck it hard.

When I was seven, my family put on an Easter Egg hunt for all the kids on our street. Most of them were 10 and up. My sister and I didn't get baskets that year, because we were having the hunt instead.

I didn't find a single thing until our housemate showed me where he had hidden one hard boiled egg. I remember feeling miserable and watching all the other kids crowing about their loot. I spent most of the afternoon crying in my room. And my Easter consisted of a hard boiled egg, which I didn't even like back then.

I never ever EVER put on a neighborhood hunt for my kids because I'll be damned if one of my kids would ever feel the way I felt that day. 

We did baskets and inside the house egg hunts, just for our kids, and each kid got one room to search, so they would each get a fair share.

41 Pounds of Irony (And Zero Regrets)

I’ve been dropping weight since November. Just grinding it out, watching the scale tick down from 374. I hit 333 and felt like I was finally getting a handle on my own skin.

Then, a few weeks ago, the doctors decided to drop the other shoe: COPD. They handed me a three to five year sentence like it was a piece of junk mail.

Talk about a cosmic joke. I quit smoking two years ago, and let me tell you, that was harder than fuck. If I’d gotten this diagnosis back then, I probably would’ve gone straight out and bought another pack just to spite the world. But I didn't. I stuck it out because I like not stinking of smoke, and I like not having one hand permanently occupied by a cigarette. Most of all, I like not having to haul my ass outside 40 to 60 times a day just to feed the beast.

I spent two years reclaiming my time and four months shedding 41 pounds of gravity, just to find out my lungs are trying to quit the team anyway.

The Dog Who Broke My Heart and the Dog Who Put It Back Together

I didn’t go looking for Lulu. She found me. She was five years old when I got her, already past the puppy chaos, already herself. The first time I saw her, she walked straight over, climbed into my space like she belonged there, and rested her head on my heart. Not my lap. Not my hand. My heart. I said her name and she responded instantly, like she already knew it was hers. From that moment on, she was mine and I was hers.

When Bipolar Disorder Takes Another Life, The Stigma Should Be What Dies Next

 

Image courtesy Unsplash.Com - work of Paolo Nicolello

Robert Carradine died by suicide today after a long fight with bipolar disorder. The news hit me harder than I expected. Not because I knew him personally, but because I know the illness that took him. I know what it feels like when your own brain turns into a battlefield. I know what it feels like to lose the fight for a moment and still be here to talk about it. I have been there. I have survived it. And I am tired of pretending that bipolar disorder is anything other than a medical condition that deserves compassion and treatment.

Every time someone with bipolar disorder or another mental illness dies, the world reacts with shock. People ask how it could happen. People whisper. People speculate. But very few people talk about the truth. Bipolar disorder is not a character flaw. It is not a weakness. It is not a failure of willpower. It is a brain chemistry disorder that can be brutal, unpredictable, and exhausting. It deserves the same seriousness and empathy we give to heart disease or cancer or any other life threatening condition.

But that is not how society treats it...

Reblogging an update from my Ukrainian friend

 Hello.

Thank you very much for not forgetting about me.

Everything is fine with me. But now is a very difficult period. Russian imperial fascists are shelling Ukraine's energy infrastructure every day. We are having major problems with electricity, heating, water, and mobile communications. All this is complicated by the fact that we are having an abnormally cold winter. The temperature is 20 degrees below zero and lower. It is very cold and there is a lot of snow.

But we are holding on and will continue to hold on.

Due to the lack of electricity, my internet is not working properly. And the mobile internet is very weak. Sometimes it takes hours to load a single web page. That's why I can't go online very often right now. I have internet, but it's impossible to use because of the very slow speed.

Boy am I triggered

So the death of Dilbert creator and infamous racist pig, Scott Adams, from prostate cancer this week has poked some of my buttons.

My Dad was a good man, but he was a little too damn much of a hippie. When he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, his urologist told him that removal of his bladder would get it all, and he would live a long life. Then the urologist explained that the prostate goes out with the bladder, and that's the end of the sex life.

My father was 38 when he was diagnosed. He had an active social and dating and sex life. Losing the ability to have intercourse would have really been devastating to him. So he told the doctor, let's do mild chemo, and I'm gonna do laetrile and the nothing but wheat grass juice diet, and visualizing the cancer going away and all will be well.

But all was not well. After a couple of years, his cancer was down to a small spot of atypia, due, no doubt, to the mild chemotherapy. So very "intelligently" he stopped the chemo and continued with the quackery.

Seven months later, the cancer had run wild in his body. All of his organs, and his bones.

Scott Adams was told he had early state prostate cancer. He opted for, of all fucking things, ivermectin. He gambled and lost, just like my dad.

And I am reminded once again of how dangerous "alternative/holistic medicine" is.

Folks, laetrile is poison and does nothing. The baked potato diet will bore you to tears. The wheat grass juice only diet will turn you into a skeleton and weaken you so you die faster. Vizualization is soothing and helps the psyche, but it does not cure cancer. And if ANYBODY suggests bloodroot to you, kick them out of the house with prejudice.

And horse wormer will not cure cancer, either.

Got cancer? Go to a DOCTOR!

Andrea Yates

I recently read a book by Suzy Spencer, "Breaking Point" about the lead up to, the event of, and the aftermath of Andrea Yates drowning her five children. The book takes you through the years before the event and the Yates family's living situation and family dynamic, the murders, and the trial. It was a really gripping read, and had me in tears at times. If you have Kindle Unlimited, the book is free to read. Otherwise, Kindle is $2, and new copies start at $14 plus shipping, and go up from there...

For Renee

 
Her name was

Renee Nicole Macklin Good

Scream it loudly

FUCK ICE
FUCK MAGA
FUCK TRUMP MOST OF ALL

Not a thankful day for First Nations peoples

I am observing a day of remembrance and mourning for our land's Native Americans. Her first stewards, who loved her, and the cultures we destroyed and women and children and innocents we slaughtered so we could steal their homes and colonize, pollute, and desecrate.

Never forget. It was theirs and we stole it. It belonged to the Choctaw and the Blackfoot and the Nez Perce and the Apache and the Mohican and the Aztec and Inca and Maya and the Inuit and the Miq Maq and so many beautiful civilized nations.

We should really clean it the fuck up and give it back.

"The time has come

To say fair's fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come

A fact's a fact

It belongs to them

Let's give it back.."

-Midnight Oil, Beds Are Burning, about the destruction of Australian aboriginal cultures, but it suits our US and south and north of the the border massacres as well.