The universe amazes me and leaves me awe-struck at times. The plethora of right turns life had to take for me to see a single day lily growing at the edge of the woods behind me? Breathtakingly fascinating.
And then there is the uncanny knack my life has for encountering monkey wrenches the size of Toledo when I try to make some positive headway.
No, this isn't a rant about the "unfairness" of life. Actually, this has more potential run the other direction.
As I was preparing the second post for this revived blog, I met with my psychiatrist. It seems he felt, with my depression worsening, that we should increase my mood stabilizer dosage. The only issue with that, and believe me, I did my best to stress this point - Lamictal has never helped to mitigate or curtail my swings. All it has ever done, with 100% effectiveness, is make me bone tired. So, with the Lyrica in my system now for fibro, guess who went back to sleeping 16 hours a day? That should sound like an awesome vacation for a mom of a young child. Believe me, it wasn't.
I mean, I was belligerent without meaning to be, and I think I could have started several world wars had I been placed in the right (or maybe wrong) place during those days. Because as anyone should know - tired people can be cranky. Exhausted people can be downright vicious. And when I'm that exhausted, I'm not snappish and abrasive because I don't care about you. I'm that way because I'm trying to hold back how strongly I feel the urge to just ream people out over things like not transporting dishes the 3.5ft necessary to go from the sink to the dishwasher.
Still, I was determined to come out of the depressive cycle relatively unscathed, so I tried to immerse myself in keeping up with my Gratitude Adjustment and Positive Projections every day. It didn't work so much as I'd hoped. I kept forgetting to write things down, which meant I would berate myself for forgetting, which ultimately made me feel worse.
Right on the heels of the fatigue from the Lamictal came another blow: the hard drive in my laptop apparently died. Now, I say "apparently" because it appears I may be able to revive it, but we'll get to that later. At the time the BSOD appeared, I almost passed out. The laptop in question was the only device in the entire house with ye olde telephony modem. (The house is in the middle of the land economic and technological development forgot, no LOS for a satellite provider, and no reliable cellular data.) Being wiped out from the meds, it took me almost four weeks to develop a workaround.
At that point, after a long night fiddling with drivers and settings, I had restored modem access and was at the library with my son, getting things together for the upcoming school year, when my mom called and said she was having chest pain and had been throwing up.
"Fuck," I thought. I knew she was having a heart attack, and I told her to call an ambulance, but she insisted on waiting for me to drive her to the hospital. That meant at least 15 minutes to get home, get her in the car, and then at least 20 minutes to the hospital to drop her off at the ER so I could pick up DH from work and come back. It occurred to me halfway to get DH that I realized I hadn't eaten yet that day. Bright spot that day - I discovered Sheetz's fried macaroni and cheese bites.
In the ER, the doctor treating my mom tells me, quite calmly mind, that my mother is having a heart attack and there is no cardiologist at that hospital, so she will need to be treated to Mon General in WV for treatment. Which, I suppose, is better than calling the janitor with a plumber's helper, but still . . . No cardiologist? How about they change the sign out front to "Kinda-Sorta Urgent Room: If this is a life-threatening emergency, go anywhere else"?
It is an hour drive, roughly, into WV, so the doctor made the mistake of mentioning that airlift could have been an option in front of my mother. Oh, she was going in a medevac. It didn't matter that the weather was threatening an impromptu trip to OZ. It didn't matter that the little voice in my head screamed, "$$$!!!!" And mind you, it is very strange to have your internal monologue scream symbols at you. She told the doctor she wanted to go via air transport because she's a pilot, and that was that. She made it to WV just after dinner time.
DH, DS, and I didn't make it there until after 9:30 at night. Our initial route to the hospital took us in a complete circle, so we decided to go home, take care of all the animals, and then head out again. We walked into her room in the cardiac unit, where my mother had the audacity to be the outward picture of health. "Just give my cell phone, and you guys can head home. I don't want it to get too late for you." It had just taken me the better part of 3 hours, all side-trips and shenanigans included, to get to the hospital. I parked my ass in the recliner and stubbornly partook of the free guest wifi. Dammit if I wasn't going to get something out of the experience other than clogged arteries from fried cheese. The mac and cheese bites were good,though.
And that was the shitty part. Hard on its heels came a flurry of happy surprises - rockstar parking everywhere I went, paychecks higher than I had anticipated, my mother only had a very mild heart attack and stroke, found money in various forms. And yet, it was hard to enjoy them because I know that the rhythm of my life meant there would be hell to pay after our good run was over.
Maybe its my age, but there is a certain beauty in knowing how that rhythm works now. Yes, I do expect the shit to hit the fan when I'm on a run of good luck. Despite what people used to say in high school, I'm a pragmatist, not a pessimist. I know that there will be good day and bad days. In my life, the better the good day, the worse the shit that follows. Or, maybe it's that I have to go through the shitty days first to reach the great days. Either way, I know that good and bad won't last forever. Now that I'm on to you, Life, let's see who wants off the roller coaster first.
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