Choices

So what to do with my new found power? I think that I must begin with an assessment of things I need to change and things I want to change. I will begin with my needs.

I need to make sure Tom knows how much I love him each and every day. I need to be certain that I encourage him in his endeavor to live healthy. I need to be the best wife that I can possibly be.

I need to at least attempt to find a way to connect in a meaningful, healthy and healing way with my dad. I acknowledge that there may be no way to change what is, but if I don't try I will regret it. I know he loves me, but he is flawed. I don't have the power to change anything about him so I must work within the limits of who he is. I love him, too. I am still here, in his life. Whether I realized it or not I never gave up on him. There are countless times that I resolved to write him out of my life but couldn't find a way to do this without hurting my mother. This is only a half truth. I cannot write him out without doing damage to myself as well. Taking that sort of action would only encourage old wounds to fester. I believe that hate hurts the hater as much as whom they hate, maybe even more. Negative energy is negative. Negative isn't positive. I know, I know. Duh! Anyway, I have learned a lot about daddy and how to get along with him. I could over think this but because I've learned how to have quality time with him (occupying same space peacefully) what's needed now is a little quantity time. The old battle lines are still visible but the war is over. Just a few years ago I would have preferred to do damage to myself than admit that I care about him, but I do. I need to let him be my dad. This is brand new and slightly scary territory for me.

I need to continue to enrich the relationship between my mother and myself. She and I have started and stopped a weekly lunch date. After the holidays we have plans to pick this up again. I try to remember to call her at least once a week and to drop in for chats. The strife and tension from my childhood has affected the sort of closeness we each desired. She and I have been actively working towards closing that chapter and are so far finding success. She is a dear sweet woman who loves me with all her heart. She has been my champion and guardian angel my whole life going so far as to putting herself between me and my father taking blows meant for me. I wish only to honor and enjoy her, she is 67 and her age weighs heavily on my mind these days. I need to know my mother as my friend.

I need to quit smoking. It doesn't make me feel good, I hate everything about them. The last time I quit cold turkey. I just don't think I can do that again. I can take the patch. I plan to put aside the money from the cigarettes for a specific purchase, I should have all I need in 3 months time.

I need to lose weight. This means I need to start walking again. I will also be going to the gym with Tom and swim laps while he does something unspeakable on a machine. Yechh!

I need to keep to a schedule. My midget is hiding but I've got him cornered and one day soon he'll be back on the job.

I need to keep my house clean. I am a terrible house keeper. It can fall into such disarray in the blink of an eye. A disorganized house can make my ADHD and BiPolar nearly impossible to manage. As an incentive will be to invite people over on a regular basis. The new setup helps a lot although I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it's just cause I like it better.

These are not resolutions. I think they're kinda silly and self-defeating. I am simply exercising my right to choose how I want to live this life. Outside of my midget I have no organized plan but charting what I am doing seems to push me into what I'd like to be doing.

Whew! Man, I need a lot. Wants will have to wait until later.

Insight

For the better part of my life I have thought of myself in terms of not quite measuring up. I didn't graduate high school, instead I dropped out and got my GED. I don't have a bachelor degree. I started college and am in fact halfway towards a bachelor degree but have not finished it. When I began my career with the state I moved up rather quickly but then stalled out. I am frequently tardy, I miss a lot of days. Whether there are mitigating circumstance or not these are the facts and it is by these facts that I judge myself. It is very hard to succeed if what you are aiming for is someone else's ideal for you. Let me explain.

My dad and I have had, for the greater part of my life, a very stormy and strife filled father/daughter relationship. There is very little in my father's life that he does not claim dominion over. He has said that I am the only thing in his life he isn't able to control. Well, that just isn't so. So long as I allow him to set the standard I judge myself by he is in complete control. I just realized that tonite. I'm a little slow, I do realize this.

I have labored under the knowledge that while my dad has his flaws, just as we all do, he has led his life with a high degree of perfection. I have set him as the standard by which I judge myself. I did not see this until just now.

My mom and I are closer than we have ever been but my relationship with my dad is pretty much unchanged. I finally learned how to avoid open warfare in the last 10 years. He honestly believes that he is absolutely correct on 98% of his opinions and feels that my life would be vastly improved if I would just get in tow. He also believes that any question about my life any aspect that he wishes to scrutinize is his business. For a very long time I accepted this as fact. It was very liberating for me when I awoke to just how false that assumption is. It has been quite some time since I actually justified myself to him verbally. I did not however evict him from my head.

I struggle with this as much as I do because of the physical abuse. He would beat and intimidate me with his physical force starting some time around first grade all the way through sixth. When I was eleven he decided the only solution to his problem was to evict me from his life. He placed me in a children's home. If you are unfamilair with these types of institutions let me give you a crash course. Children's homes are where kids who have been removed from their own homes either because their parents lost custody of them or because run ins with the law brought them there. I was the only child I ever met who was simply taken to the pound because I became an inconvenience. That is such a harsh way to look at ones self but I believed for years that I was disposable and of very little merit.

Two years later my mother had had enough. She had made a new friend who taught her how to put her foot down. Taught her that she too could be a force to be reckoned with. She brought me home my father be damned. Thanks to the loving care provided for me by my father I had been raped at the age of eleven, was introduced to drugs and learned how to fight. The only thing I learned that was of any value was how to stand up to bullies, I never again allowed him to hit, kick or beat me. With the women in his house on the revolt flexing their new found power my father's life can only be summed up as pure hell. I took every opportunity to punish him and my mother no longer stood united with him where I was concerned.

It is little wonder that my dad plays such an important role in my process of self-evaluation. I have done what abused kids do. I emulated his characteristics and behavior in an effort to self-protect. When abused children do this it is because they feel powerless and mimic their abuser in an attempt gain power over their situation. This did nothing to improve relations between my father and I. Seeing the poorer aspects of our own character in the other we were quick to point fingers and our conversations almost always ended in heated screaming arguements. Between the ages of 13 and 17 I ran away a half a dozen times, sometimes staying gone for over a week. I was kicked out of my private school on the suspicion I had engaged in sexual activity. I had been engaging but all they had was a note between me and a friend. For all the actual proof they I could have been bragging. Church of Christ, aint they something. The principal came over to talk to my parents. I overheard her suggest to them that I be sent to an institution. I didn't wait to hear my parents response. I was gone before she left. It was almost a month before I returned that time.

I didn't mean for this to be a trip down my childhood trauma but it feels very cathartic to do so. It has taken me years to realize that this does not define me. It wasn't until I worked with middle school children that I looked age 11 in the face. I remember the impact with which it hit me that in that situation I was not the adult. Coming to terms with abuse, looking at how it has shaped me and then choosing how to move forward with my new insight seems to be a continual process. Each time it has been very liberating. It has allowed me redefine myself if I so choose, how I will react to threatening situations, people in general and most of all gaining a clearer picture of who I actually am.

So where has all this been leading. Now that I see it, I don't know why I didn't see it before. My father has been wrong many times in his life. He has made actual mistakes, huge whopping mistakes. When he was my age he was divorced with two children. It was 30 years before his oldest daughter Nora would consent to be on speaking terms with him. The younger daughter Susan refuses to speak to him to this day. He went so far as to track down where she lived, she wouldn't even answer the door. I have never, ever fucked up that badly at anything. I have danced around this truth for years without ever seeing it for what it is. I am succeeding at something he could not. When he was at my age he gave up and walked away from a realtionship because it was just too hard. He gave up! I have faced infinately more trying circumstances with Tom and didn't run away just because life happened. I made a better, smarter, infinately more loving choice than he could have, than he did. The odds he faced with his first marriage don't compare, are insignificant when you consider I have stared the death of my husband in the face more than once. On a lighter note my first dog, my boxer Jazz was a pain in the ass. More than once I felt the rage he must have felt when he beat me. I know it is in me. It is impossible for it not to be there. I chose to take her to obedience classes. I chose to crate train her so she didn't pee all over the house. I went so far as to compete her in AKC obedience trials and she earned her Companion Dog title. I did not choose to beat her senseless. I did not choose to dispose of her when she became inconvenient.

I have defined myself all along. I just never saw it before. Knowing this means I have greater choice over my life. I can be, I can do whatever I choose. I've got lots of experience at it.

I need to examine my choices more critically. I see that I have made some choices I am not happy with. I really and truly am not a victim, not even of myself. I feel more than ever that the power to decide who or what I want to be and do resides squarely, soundly and solidly with me.

I Feel Great!

Is she not the prettiest Boxer girl in the world! Well, I think we may have found a great dosage for me! Let me explain. I have a strong tendency to be overly assertive. I don't like to pushed around and my answer to that has been to bristle and growl before I give you the chance to be nice to me. Tom tells me and has been telling me that this is not my natural state, that I am a naturally sweet person. Yeah, right! He insists that it is so. For the last two days I have felt downright pleasant. I have been awfully drowsy but surprisingly non combative. The Lithium had me docile by making me a zombie. This feels entirely different. When I looked into the future I saw a lot of frustration. I don't feel that right now. Maybe it is the spirit of Christmas or that a new door and furniture makes my house feel more like a home than it ever has. I think it is a combination. Today I feel great!

We Missed Our Window

It turns out we will not be breeding Hulda this time around. The progesterone results show that we missed our optimal breeding window. Optimal is crucial when breeding using chilled semen. I will continue to post photographs of her daily until I know she is definately not going to have a false pregnancy. I wished I had taken more pictures of her last false pregnancy.I think it would interesting to put it on the web and watch how it progresses. I do hope she doesn't have a false pregnancy as it comes with its own set of health risks. Here she is curled up on the new couch. I've covered it so that if she leaks out of her fancy pants it doesn't get on the couch.

New Couch!

Well, new to us anyhow. Please forgive the mess. We are in a state of transition.

Saggy Fancy Pants

Really, really getting old

Thursday I started yet another new med. I was completely out of it for 15 hours or so. The first being more or less knocked out and the last being seriously drowsy. This is not working. Now I am trying the same med at half the dose. This drug is 'tricky', that is exactly how my shrink put it. At some doses it is tranquilizing and at other doses it is the exact opposite, sort of manic making. She thinks I will need to be at 140mg-160mg. I have reduced my Adderal XR (for ADHD) by half, instead of 60mg I now take 30mg. I am down to 600mg of Lithium (for BiPolar) from 1800mg. My tremors are gone, my skin is no longer cracked and peeling, no more diahrea, my blood pressure is where it should be and no more edema. Clearly I am not meant for high doses of Lithium. I am down to 100mg of Lamictal (for BiPolar) from 300mg. I feel more like me than I have in a long time except that I have resumed more normal (relative) state of manic. What does this mean? I am actually stepping out of my house and joining the world again, I want to be where the people are. My house is cleaner and I am looking forward to things again. It also means that my complete and total inability to sleep has returned. Yay! My feeling that something isn't right, that there is something I must go do has returned. I am restless and am scared that my more reckless side will return. Manic loves instant gratification and rarely considers consequences. I am more aware than I have ever been as to exactly why I feel this way. Had I not gone through the months of slugging it out with Lithium I do not believe I would have this insight. I would love to believe that this alone will help, but I just don't buy it. It is 3:14am, I should be sleeping but simply cannot. The rest of it cannot be far behind. I feel like I have less answers than ever before. I think my doc is feeling some frustratio as well. As each drug proves incompatible the choices become more and more extreme. I have considered going on medical disability. It would be truly excellent if I can stay with the state until June of 2008. Then I qualify for retirement benefits. I am missing a lot of work and I worry what happens when FMLA runs out. I have successfully scared the crap out of my work by proving I understand the rules a hell of a lot better than they do. They have backed way off but they do know what actions they can take when my FMLA is gone. So do I. They fired a guy this year under similar circumstances. He was really stupid and thought he could get away with a trip to Europe on FMLA but he did have psychological disturbances. He did not follow the rules and infact was rather indignant that they suggest he did. Ok, maybe not so similar but you get my drift. I am tired of fighting to be normal. I am not, nor will I ever be like everyone else. I am not, nor have I ever been suicidal but I get why there is a high incidence of suicide among people with bipolar. It can get really, really overwhelming. I feel like there must be some other option to fighting with drugs and worrying about work but I just can't see it yet.

Fancy Pants Antics

Hulda has felt much better the last couple of days. I suspect we are approaching her ovulation. We are going to the vet today to get her blood draw for the progesterone test. I expect that her optimal time will land sometime around Thursday. Today she took off her fancy pants and shoved them at Monkey while pounding her into the couch. Poor Monkey.

New door! Part two

New door from the inside!
Old door on it's way to the scrap heap.
New door from the outside!
New door fixtures, after installing the door they had to install the handle! I thought these things came as a package deal. Didn't Tom choose a beautiful door and handle?
I just love all things my man can do!

Playtime with Monkey

Hulda is feeling good today and decides Monkey needs a good pounding into the couch.
Poor Monkey.

New door!

Tom and his friend Celeste work on replacing our old door. Of course this involves removing the old door first.

Hulda look on through the makeshift doggy gate perplexed.
Are you sure they don't need my help?

Curled Up

Hurled curled up on the couch a bunch today. It sucks wearing panties. It is difficult to tell when Hulda is actually ready to breed by her behavior. She flags from day 1 which offers no clear indication. We're doing a progesterone test on Monday which will help pinpoint her optimal breeding date. For now she just has to suffer through. Poor, poor Hulda.

Bad Dog!

Mad Boxer mauls innocent Snowman. News at 11:00.
Poor Snowman. Here he is after his harrowing rescue.

Here is the perpetrator of this most horrible event. Oh, sure...she looks cuddly. Don't be deceived!

Day 3 of Hulda's Heat Cycle

Hulda sleeps on the bed with us. This is only a problem when she comes in season. On the morning of the 12th I noticed a few small drops of blood on the bed sheets. Yucky! So this means she probably started on the 11th. Timing is everything if I want to breed her. We are going to be cutting it awfully close to Christmas. I'm not driving up to Dallas for the transcervical insemination on the 23rd. Just not happening. We'll just have to wait and see what the progesterone test tells us.

Hulda was a bit cold this morning. She was curled up in an extra tight ball when I wasn't on the couch and on top of me when I was. So like any good mom I put a sweater on her. She and Monkey played 'On The Couch, Off The Couch', a favorite of Hulda's but not so much for Monkey. Monkey loves a quiet curl up on the couch, Hulda likes to play pummel Monkey into the couch. My Hulda is bossy alpha when she's not in season, in season she almost forgets I'm alpha. Poor Monkey.

I tend to keep Monkey and Hulda separate because Hulda plays so roughly with her. Hulda is an extrovert who likes to be running around and playing all the time. Just how I like my doggies! Monkey is more introverted and would rather just snuggle. Without Monkey to distract her Hulda starts to really feel her heat. Heat cycles are very hard on bitches, the uterus is literally hammered with progesterone. Progesterone is actually inflammatory to the uterine lining, so much so that at the end of each and every cycle the uterus sustains some permanent damage. If a bitch has some difficulty conceiving and invitro fertilization is opted for the vet will massage the uterine horns to break up any cysts that may have formed. If you have no plans to breed your bitch you are saving her from 60 days of discomfort every 6-9 months. I plan on breeding Hulda at least once, possibly twice and she will be spayed immediatey after.

Here's Hulda feeling a bit better! I caught her waiting for me when I went out to the garage to start a load of laundry. Poor thing, she just hates her fancy pants!

Hulda's in Season

Honestly, I didn't think it was going to happen, I was expecting it around the 2nd of December. She likes to do things her own way and this is no different. I am not brave enough to keep a 365 day photo diary of myself however I will keep a photo diary of her pregnancy starting with her heat cycle. I begin with the much dreaded fancy pants. Please exuse my floor, it needs a good sweep and a mop!

Cats and Dogs Living Together!!

Post Surgical Visit

Today I met with my OG/GYN for my post surgical visit. Everything is going as expected. I am doing well. Good news! I got to see (and even have copies) of the pictures of my insides. To be honest the before and after both look kinda gross to me. I had a polyp which has been removed, non cancerous as expected. My menstrual cycle is a good deal lighter. Panty liners suffice now when previously the largest maxi pad would last me only 2 hours if that. Menstrual cramping is barely noticeable. These are all very good things.

One of my concerns was that ablation was a new procedure. The other concern was sterility and the affect that would have on Tom. I had never heard of it and was nervous about getting a new and barely tested (meaning it had just passed the FDA and was new to the market) procedure. I declined the ablation to give myself some more time to investigate it. Since my surgery I have had time to do some research and have found that most women who have had this performed are pleased with the results. The procedure is over 20 years old, it is only the type of ablation that is new. Novasure has been around for about 5 years and is considered to be the quickest and safest method to date. This is good news. I believe that Tom is angry that any chance we had at reproduction is now gone. This is very bad news.

We discussed the procedure that I hadn't authorized. The ablation. My doctor has been very forthcoming and has taken the extra step to set up a meeting between her, the Director of OR, Tom and myself. I am going to call my attorney tomorrow to see if he will join us at this meeting. I found out today that I went into surgery with an unsigned consent form. It is of no matter to my doctor that I needed this procedure. I am a patient who said no and this was not addressed. The ends do not justify this colossal screw up.

From what I understand this mistake boils down to one nurse who failed to do her job. I am keeping an eye to be sure she is not simply being used as a scapegoat for the surgical center. It seems somewhat implausible that it could only be one person's mistake. Surely there were other people working that day!

These are the questions I want answered.

1. How did this happen, in detail? I want to know who, what, why and when.
2. What has been done to rectify this problem?
3. What is being done to ensure this doesn't happen to someone else?
4. Please provide me copies of all paperwork for this procedure. I want copies of my online form and the consent form that I never signed. I also want copies of any surgical notes.

I will keep you updated.