Righting the wrongs of the universe one tricycle at a time

 Came back from dropping the kids off at school to find a small boy on broken tricycle resting his head on the fire hydrant, his face defeated from trying to keep up with big brother and mama on a defected vehicle. 

 "What's wrong little one?" I asked.

 He sighed and squished his too long legs back on the too little pedals and slowly left to go after his mother.

 I spoke with his mother and then set up my ambush.

 I went and got WEEEEEE! out of the garage. (yes our tricycles name is WEEEEEE!) I set it by the fire hydrant and waited.

 They were back shortly and as soon as he saw it, he abandoned his too small broken trike and came running with a huge grin. Saddled up and was off with the wind in his hair and squealing gleefully..
I have been holding on to WEEEEEE! waiting for the right child to come along to pass it on too.

 JUR and all his friends rode it,

Hansolo and her's too. Now its once again racing the sidewalks and creating more memories, and I get to add another child's smile to my stack of wealth.

Well that didn't last as long as I thought it would.

I must have a job. I cannot do this. I thought I could take a vacation and deal with my health issues, but the stress and anxiety is going to have me job hunting tonight next week when we get back from the coast.

I have two days left at my current job.

My anxiety is off the charts.

:(

Not helping tonight with its foot firmly on the PUSHMEOVETHEEDGEPEDAL is the financial aspect. Truck had a fire in the headlight line....just 229$ to fix. Hubbys car just needs replaced completely.

ragged breath...

We will get no where with me running my self into the ground physically/mentally.

Or burning the crap outta my self either.

2 days to stay safe.

didn't we just play this game recently? Like just the other day?  I am SOOOO tired of my head tonight.

(6-9-14 - I am safe, hubby home. he has medicated me since I don't trust me not to swallow the entire other bottle of Ativan. he's talking with me and helping me through this. People...your support team is important, if you don't have a solid one...work on that, they can safe your life.)

6-10-14 - update: mmmmkay....waaaay to stressed to deal with stuff right now, so I am turning to my food therapist Mr. Peach pie and his assistant Miss Whip cream to offer me their wise council and warmth and goodness.

Fallen from the nest

wounded....

not yet bloody, but the swelling urge to inflict injury on my skin is building, in quick increments today.

Heart palpitations today.

Was awoken several times last night by dreams of a heart attack. thought my brain was translating the knife in the back pain from my ortho issues into my dreams. No it is indeed cardiac related today.

The really weird things about my heart palpitation's is,,, there is only a delay of 1 max 2 seconds before my heart beats again.

Yet in that tiny, tiny time frame my anxiety can do a life time of damage.

They haven't been this bad since I made the decision to under go the RAI in 2008. I wore a holter monitor (electrocardiography device) for several days with instructions to try to trigger the palpitations so my PCP could document them and determine the severity and decide if they needed to add cardiac medications to my drug regiment.

That was hellish few days. Wired up like a suicide bomber.

Nursing Miss Hansolo still, so I had to watch she didn't remove any of the ECG leads. 

I was already F_R_E_A_K_E_D_T_H_E_F_U_C_K_O_U_T about having the palpitations without the added stress of deliberately trying to trigger them.

So what triggers them in me without fail 100% of the time?

Stress.

oh, and caffeine.

Both of which I avoided while nursing.

Downed a 6 pack of Pepsi, walked on the tread mill for 15 min then went to my room and read my therapy journal until it triggered flashbacks. Oh we were quite the pair that night. Me wired on caffeine and flashbacks and poor Hansolo wired on caffeinated breast milk.

They got there evidence. You have to record on a log the time you felt the palpitations and what you were doing. I listed "reading."

The cardiologist did ask me what I was reading because it provoked some as he put it "very impressive heart palpitations." I told him a very scary book.

Ultimately it was the fact that I was having heart palpitations WHILE being medicated with the PTU, with my labs being smack dab in the middle of the normal land, that caused me to have to decide to draw the line. The Graves disease was breaking though the medication. I could not justify dying to a thyroid induced cardiac event, my family needed me.

So everything quickly switched from trying to manage the Graves disease to verifying it again with an uptake scan and then stopping the PTU and allowing my thyroid to rev up to full and then attempting to kill it with radiation.

...which lead to where I am today. Back to having heart palpitations. Sigh.

thyroid issues...so much fun, so much fun (sing it with me).

hyperthyroid again

great.

labs off slightly, most people probably wouldn't notice/feel effects but I sure do.

We are going to do some experimenting with my thyroid meds to see if we can't find a better balance with the side effects.

I started the experiment last week, but the stress with everything at work caused me to spin out badly, with the full return of the headspace that I lived with all winter. (NOT going back there!)

I am waiting to try again till the 16th.

So watch for nutty blog posts, raging thyroid psychosis manifestos and other tom foolery from my mind.

I will detail the med regime in another post. Right now I am off to work.

5 days left.

then for the fist time since 1976 I have a whole summer off.

I think I might return to school in the fall. I mean COMMON!! ONE, ONE! 
ONE class short from graduating college.

That diploma can keep my high school one company.

That sparked my interest, the possibility of going back to school. Opens a whole new realm of possibilities.

If only my blasted thyroid and mental health would stop playing the games with my head.

On a side note...I've managed to transverse the stress of leaving my much loved work family with out self harming to cope with the emotional turmoil. Just 5 days left.

At peace.

At least for today.

hmmm...might need lessons.

Might need vacation lessons.

I still have eight days left at my job and I am already looking ahead.  On the list of things to ponder are:

1.  get my medication aide license again.
2. go back to school and take my math class and graduate with a AA degree!
3. heck....go back to school and get a new education and career path.
4. become a bum.
5. go back to long term care.
6. start my own business.
7. gather a raiding party and roam the country side plundering.

I'm partial to number 7, as I look good on a horse and I have a sword.

Your not suppose to be already looking for a job, your suppose to be relaxing and taking a much needed break.

I know, but I really will  need lessons, I have forgotten how to not work. I have been employed since I was twelve. I've been working since 1977.

I would be very surprised if I make it the whole summer. I am already feeling panicky that I do not have a job. How weird is that? I lack the ability to be a freeloader.

We should have a contest to see how long you manage to stay off.

okay, fine, the contest should be: What will be the thing that prompts the abrupt end to my vacation and results in my returning to work?

Lack of money to go eat Chinese food.

HEY! no giving hints!!

P Piper

We all have useless skills. I seem to have more then most and I am not sure why. Quirky things like I can write with both hands and both my feet. I can whistle in and out. I can lay a quarter on my wrist, snap my fingers and have it flip over without falling off. But one that baffles me, and I have never found a good use for, is my pied piperness. I can with little and sometimes no effort at all, run off with all the kids.

Last week I took JUR and Hansolo to the park. JUR ran off to play alone in the sand and Hansolo wanted me to drive in the "jeep" with her. I parked my middle aged self in the back seat and opened my book and began to read. A few pages later I glanced up to find the jeep overflowing with children. I scanned the play ground. Only two kids were not on the jeep.

What an utterly useless nonsensical skill this is.

I remember when farm Grandma and I had taken then 5 year old KSS to the park. As she played happily with the other kids I mentioned to Grandma that I was a Pied Piper and in less than 60 seconds could have all the kids on the playground rounded up and on the merry-go-round. She studied the number of kids out there and took off her watch and said. "your on."

"Your buying dinner if I can do it in less than 30 seconds." I said standing up. "tell me when."

"GO!" she said laughing.

I sprang away from the bench with a terrific scream. "IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAGGGHHHHH!!!! THE GROUND IS HOT LAVA GET TO HIGH GROUND!!"

I grabbed KSS on the way past and we bounded onto the merry-go-round, "COMMON MAN!" I yelled to the other kids "MOVE IT MOVE IT DON'T GET BURNED UP!!"

I spun the merry-go-round as the kids flocked onto it. The kids joined in reaching and hauling aboard fellow men in the lava. When the last was aboard I triumphantly raised my arms and looked at Grandma.

She was too busy rolling on the ground laughing her arse off to document the time.

Its not just an verbal skill either. It just happens even when I am trying to be invisible.

On JURs first day in special-ed pre-school, I was allowed to attend the class to help ease his transition into the program. Knowing about my Piperness I was very careful to try to be invisible as possible, I sat quietly on a bench in the corner. The kids kept ignoring the two teachers and coming to me. They brought me toys, books and even just came and sat next to me. I smiled at them and gently redirected them back to the teachers. There came a point that I had the class...the whole class, I was not talking to them they just all migrated to my space. The teachers were watching me with surprised looks on their faces.

I had wanted to be a teacher when I grew up, but my issues with spelling/grammar killed that dream. That was the only use for this skill I could think of.

Back to the present and the park and the jeep. I sighed and tucked my book away, some thing's you just can't fight, and when you got it you got it. "FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS! HANSOLO'S A MANIAC SHE IS DRIVING WAAAY TO FAST!!" I made a gunning engine sound.

I leaned out of the jeep door and then pleaded for help to be pulled back in. The kids reached for me and helped me back in. I noticed the last two kids had joined us. aahh, I still have it.

What ever it is.
  

One

April 21, 2011 (c) PR

I was lost in concentration trying to function through the brain fog of my thyroid condition when I realized the resident I was admitting was younger then me. I glanced upward to her diagnosis. A slew of fatal words greeted me. Our paths crossing this day as she came to our facility to die.
　

Tears.

　
Anger. You would think that after working in long term care for almost 30 years I would have developed a thick hide of armadillo skin. That after being there for over 300 peoples dying moment..sitting right there... holding there hands as they slid from their earthly body that I would have developed a hard heart.
　

Tears again.

　
I remember everyone of them. All my residents. All the beautiful souls that crossed my path like soap bubbles. Sharing a part of their journeys with me. Some drifting for years, other popping and gone quickly.
　

I kept the obituaries of everyone person I watched die...until it hit 300. I was 22 years old when I drove to the bridge and tossed them in the muddy Rogue River. From the time I was 17 to 22 I saw more death then I ever wanted to. The number is without a doubt well over 1000 now. I count this way now. one.

　
　
each death is simply: one.

　
You get to pick who is there when a baby is born. You get to pick who welcomes them into the world. You get to pick who will be your friends in your life, you get to pick who will be your spouse, you don't get to pick who is there when you die.

　
Oh the heart wrenching stories I have seen and been part of. Oh the mysterious and magical deaths I have been part of....oh the tears I have shed...till there were none left.
　

yet still each life that crosses my path is a different one...each one...simply one.

　
Worked with a woman with kids 3 - 4 and 5 who slept on the couch as she worked nights with me. I was off for two days and came back to find her a resident dying on my wing. Wrap your head around that without letting it scar your soul. Her children's cries as I carried them one by one out to the police car the night she passed, Haunt me even to this day.

　
Still my heart is reachable...and each and every resident who comes in is a individual to get to know, even if its only for one day, one moment.
　

She put on her call light and as I walked in to see her, taking my hand she said, "Darling He is here for me"

"who?" I asked as I tucked her hair behind her ear and straightened her covers.

"He's come to take me to the circus" She giggled easing back into the pillows. Her eyes sparkling in the dim light.

I tucked her in and kissed her forehead. Started towards the door and felt a strong jump in the energy level in the room. Turning back I saw she was gone.

　
Tears...

　
We walked into the room and there he was hanging from the door with the restraint around his neck. I reached him first and lifted him to ease the tension in the strap as co-worker sawed through it with dull bandage scissors. I tried to protect his head as we three fell landing on the hard tile. We laid there gasping for breath. When he had caught his he gurgled "I want to die"

"me too" I confessed.
　

tears, so many tears.

She groaned painfully and winced in pain.

"Please go get a warm blanket from the dryer" I told co-worker.

I climbed in bed with Mrs. G and laid her head on my shoulder.

"its okay" I whispered "Its okay, I'm here"

Co-worker tucked us in the soft warmth.

'Its okay to let go. G. its okay." I let my breathing sync up with hers. Each one further and further apart. "let go of the pain G" I felt her slid from my arms.

　
tears...how many does one have? Will I run out someday?
　
　

tears.

　
I may run out someday, but for today I have enough for one more.

**************************************************************************

This was written in 2011 when I was struggling with thyroid issues and the relentless assault of death at my work.  I post it today because, in the end I ponder the question:

tears...how many does one have? Will I run out someday?

 Now I know the answer. (click link)

The answer is yes.

and to save my self, I must leave long term care and run for my life. I look forward to finding a job that doesn't gut me and leave me emotionally spent. My heart can't take even one more death.