Month: December 2012

Because John Lennon Wants to Know (Part I)

Lisa5 Comments
John Lennon
Enquiring Minds Want  to  know, you know -John Lennon (Photo credit: Pedro Netto)

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?

Well, Mr. Lennon, funny you should ask, because I’ll tell you if you have the time.  The world didn’t end and you’re still dead, so I reckon you got all the time in the world, right?  It really depends on what you mean by “done.”  “Done” like What I did for Christmas, or done in general?

Another year over and a new one’s just begun.

I know, right? Ho hum, seems like it should still be 2011 or something. It’s like I paused myself, yet the world went on without me.  How the hell did I turn 35? I’m the same age my mom was when she had me.  I suppose there’s still hope that somewhere out  there, there’s a neurotic alcoholic husband  for me too. I think I’d not be a good mom, so it’s probably a good thing my biological clock  isn’t a Timex. I can just take care of myself and my cats. Why would I want a pissing, crapping, crying kid who’d open my Barbie dolls’ boxes?  But I digress, what have I done? Nothing and everything! I have my own apartment, a first for me. I’m a late bloomer, you know. Well, more like I was weeded out of the garden, cast into a mulch pile, and re-rooted myself. But hey, I bloomed.

If my mom hadn’t died and my gay guy crush hadn’t gone rabid and threw me out, I’d still be living with someone now. I’d still depend on  that man’s approval just to get by.  I saw my gay guy crush as a gay guy god even as he grew mean. But oh, Mr. Lennon, if you ever saw him smile or heard him laugh, you’d see what I mean.  I thought he was my Soul Bro, but sadly, he became my Faux Bro.  I wanted to be with him until the day I died. Sigh, I guess I drank the grape kool-aid. Too bad I didn’t do much of his housework though or paid the back rent I owed.

Mr. Lennon, I know you’re all ‘money ain’t shit,’Kumbaya, and what not, but I’m still torn. I really didn’t pay about $200.00 in rent. I pawned my computer and gave them $80.00 and then I gave them $10.00, so if I really do owe them that money, it would be $110.00. But here’s where it all gets trickier than a truck stop hooker. I gave them money whenever asked. I took them out to dinner at about $70.00 for the three of us, gave them $65.00 to go out with when The Prick The Partner was upset about having skin cancer on his face (but they did give a lot back I think) and gave them $100.00 to fix the air conditioner in their van. The air conditioner wasn’t fixable though. But I got a lot of free meals and rides before I began having to pay for all my stuff, and cat food. And then it gets even more messed up. They wanted $100.00 a month after I moved out to pay for what they paid for: pot, food, etc.  And Faux Bro said if he factored in expenses going back to when I first moved in it would be double the amount, somewhere in the $2000.00 region. That part casts suspicion on the whole thing.  I must have been had somewhere in the equation, but they seemed so adamant that I owed them and that I was the advantage taker in the mix. Plus it seems that I broke everything I touched. It makes my brain hurt, and everyone says I don’t owe them jack.

I messed up:

A wine glass of sentimental value.

They say I broke a remote control (but I don’t recall it)

I made a couple of his keys on his laptop stick.

I lost and/or damaged a couple of books, one was damaged, plus I think a cat vomited on a couple others.

I tripped several times on the PlayStation 3 cords, causing the  part where the player connects the controller to short out. I replaced his PlayStation 2 when it stopped working.

I think he wanted to say I messed up the controllers on the Sega Genesis, but I think it was how they stored it.

I played a game on his IPod and it erased everything

An app I asked to  be installed on the PS3 erased all the game data.

I lost a set of keys.

Wow, no wonder they hate me. Good thing all I have to break is my own now. Jinxed people should be mandated to have their own apartments, where they can lock  themselves in and not be a nuisance, you know? I guess I’m still haunted by Gays of Christmas Past (Too bad Logo no longer airs gay-themed shows, because that would be a kick-ass name for a Christmas special). I wasn’t intending to talk this much on this, but…

My life is different now in a good way. I have a one bedroom apartment, a lot bigger than the rooms at the old complex. I’ve literally stuffed both closets in the living room and bedroom with all the random crap from my storage unit.  I’m about to get a hide-a-bed couch for the living room and that will be a vast improvement than the deflated airbed I’ve been chillaxin’ on since late September.A nice woman on Freecycle gave me a TV and random odds and ends that I truly appreciate. I could have more by now, but I can’t stand my social worker, so I avoid her at all costs. My decor is a mix of minimalist and très clutter. BUT WHO GIVES A FLYING F, because IT’S MINE! There’s nothing like living exactly as one wants, without fear of being verbally annihilated or thrown out. When I was with Soul Bro, I forgot how much I liked being alone. I wanted to be with him all the time until he just popped. There’s always going to be a part of me that wants to be with him, and a part of me who thinks it’s all my fault.

 

Destroy Everything You Touch

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End of a Series That I Started Over a Year Ago…What Happened to My Mom and Me Part IV

Lisa7 Comments

In case  you missed it:

https://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/what-happened-to-my-mom-and-me-part-i/

https://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/what-happened-to-my-mom-and-me-part-ii/

https://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/what-happened-to-my-mom-and-me-part-iii/

I try again on that red phone and this time we are allowed into the ICU. The third time is the charm. My mom is in room 14. The doctor I met in the ER asks me questions, the one with a European accent and wonderful bedside manner. 

“We  can keep the antibiotic drips going, which may let her live for a little while longer, but I’ve rarely seen anyone get better this far along. But it’s your decision.”

“How much difference would there be in time if I take her off the drips?” I ask.

“It’s hard to say. She could last a few hours or a few days.”

“But it’s near impossible for her to get better?”

“Less than a 1% chance, but if you say to keep going, we will keep pumping her with antibiotics and doing all we can.”

“I need to think about it a bit.”

He asks me about taking extraordinary measures to keep my mother alive, but I know my answer already. “No, my mother wouldn’t want that if she would be brain-dead. I’m certain I don’t want you to resuscitate and she’s told me before she wouldn’t want it.” Break my mother’s ribs so that she can be a dead woman breathing? No. NO.                                                           

“I don’t know if in her condition any of her organs could be used, but if they can, I want them to be donated. My mother wouldn’t mind. She had ‘organ donor’ on her driver’s license. It would be nice to know my mom hadn’t died completely in vain.”

They are going to do some other procedures to my mother, so Bestie and I go out to the waiting room again.  Bestie is on the phone with her mom and telling her about my indecision in keeping Mama on the antibiotics. And of course Bestie’s mom wants to give me her sage advice in the matter. I politely listen.

“She’s your mom. You can’t give up on her.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I reply. 

“What kind of insurance does your mother have?”

“Just Medicare.”

“Well, you know with people without anything but Medicare, they try to do as little as they can with them and get them out of there.”

I tell the doctor that he should keep the drips going just in case. Afterall, they are also keeping her on pain meds and sedation just in case. I probably would’ve made this decision anyway without the intervention of my bestie’s dear Mama, but…

I have to ask, though. How do you ask such a question without giving offense? “Um, I don’t believe this of course, you’ve all been so wonderful, but…my friend’s mother is a bit of a cynic, and she told me y’all don’t do everything for Medicare patients because of their insurance. Is there any truth in this?”

The doctor’s answer was no. “In fact, this is a teaching hospital, and most of the patients that come here don’t have any insurance at all, so we do everything we can for all our patients.”

Cool deal.

I decide to go home for some sleep. I am assured that the nurse would call me should my mother take a turn in the night. A nurse is attending my mom’s IV and I remark to him, This must be one depressing job.”

“It can be.”

“How much of the people who come in here live?”

“About 50 %.”

It is 10 pm when Bestie and I head home and I collapse into bed. I know no more until about 4 am when the phone rings.

“You might want to come now. She’s taken a turn for the worse,” says the doctor.

“Hearing the phone at this time of the night doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling,” says Bestie. She was sleeping on the couch and we go to the hospital in the quiet of the ear morning. This time I don’t have to  wait when I pick up the red phone. I tell Bestie that I want some time with my mother alone at times, but would check on her in 20 minutes because my friend is an anxious soul too. 

I tell my mother that I would understand if she has to go, that I would be fine, but if she could, please stay.  I make myself not beg her to stay for the sake that if she can hear me, I don’t want her last thoughts to be worry over me not being OK without her.

I see the chaplain when offered. He is a young Episcopalian and we pray together. I like him so much I take his number in case I need someone to preach a funeral (my mom and I hadn’t been to church in a number of years). I even end up asking  him if he thought my mom would be OK if cremated. My grandmother didn’t believe in cremation and I suddenly felt  the need for reassurance from a man of God. “God is bigger than that”, was his answer. My mother felt cremation was fine and to rid myself of the ashes in the sea was what she wanted.

I even saw an old high school friend and he was a nurse there. Small world. The last time I’d seen him he was a server at one of those steakhouses where they think it’s a good idea to use roadkill as decor. I guess the road to the original Texas Roadhouse was fraught with many an animal.

Shortly before 8 am, September 13, 2011 my mother took her last breath. I couldn’t restrain my tears now. She was gone and I held it together as well as I could to not upset her. I tried to calm myself again for the Bestie to not upset her more than she was. Who was that woman that shoved anxiety ridden Lisa into a corner and took her place in my body those two days? It wasn’t the me who had dreaded this day for years and went to extremes to prevent her death. It was the  Lisa that only comes out when I’m drowning and that Lisa swims.

 

 

 

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