Time Traveler's Wife...

The movie comes out next month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the trailer...

Happy Fourth of July Ya'll

It is so incredibly weird to walk a few feet in my shoes these days. Somehow, over the course of 2009, I have turned into "that friend". The one you run into at the grocery store who has had over the top drama and car accidents and tears and craziness...

Truthfully I crave to be the OTHER person. The one who replies "eh - nothing new" when asked what has been happening.

But not yet...

Today I took my mom out for a bit. She is mightily tired of being home bound. After a quick trip to Target and some lunch, she lost her balance on the way out of the restaurant and fell down :( I was right next to her, and then UNDER HER, trying to keep her from falling - but I couldn't. Kind strangers appeared and helped me get my mom up and into my car. Other than her intensely bruised self-esteem, she was unscathed. I suppose I was a soft landing pad even if I wasn't strong enough to keep her balanced.

It sucks to outlive your body...she is so upset by all the events of the past week. And since the woman hasn't really dealt with anything since Jimmy Carter was president, she sure as hell ain't gonna start now. So every day she is "doing fine" and "ready to drive" and never admitting the reality of what is happening. The joke I tell people is that when I tried to come out to my mom I kept saying..."did you even hear me??! I AM A LESBIAN" To which she replied, "I'm hungry, who wants brownies???????"

On another topic altogether - I had a DATE last week. An actual, real date where dressing up was required. Now you guys know that I am a person who practically wears pajamas every day, so you can imagine there was some pre-date fashion inspired hysteria. I took a poll to ask my friends what I should wear. I posed the question very carefully, "If you were attracted to me, and you invited me to a fancy place for dinner, what would you hope I would wear?!"

The responses ranged from "well could you at least start with a bra for once??!?!" to "do you even own an iron?!?!" and finally "do we have time to go shopping first??!?!"

I quickly ascertained that my friends have a very LOW opinion of my ability to "clean up". As I looked through my closet I realized that they were RIGHT! But then again, I am kind of proud that I don't own "dress up" clothes. I enjoy being comfy casual and I think wrinkles are a hallmark of living well. It is luxurious to me to wear scrunched up linen pants, no shoes, and the world's softest t-shirt.

But maybe I should let a few friends take me out shopping and see what they come up with...might be a fun adventure to stretch my style a bit. I'll keep you posted...

Are you kidding me?!?!?

Alrighty folks. Picture this...

me in class taking a SUPER hard exam. A test I studied and studied for. And my cell phone starts vibrating.

of course my phone is on during a test because my sweet little son is far away and i am obsessively available.

i don't recognize the numbers - and no voice mails are being left.

so i ignore and move on with my day. i finish up the test and was move on to my next class - but still more calls come in - finally one is my little sister and she actually left a message

i snuck outside and listened to about 10 seconds of my sister telling me that mom was on her way to the ER in an ambulance and please could i come right away

*on a completely unrelated note, spell check is trying to tell me "snuck" is not a word! is that true?!?! whatever. stupid spell check isn't always right - i'm leaving it*

i arrived at the hospital to find my mom completely confused and disoriented. she had no knowledge of any events from the past year, and couldn't retain anything in short term memory for more than 10 seconds.

no one is really sure how she got to the hospital. nearest we can tell, her family doctor's office called to remind her of an appointment, and the caller was so concerned about my mom's mental state that she contacted the police. the police arrived and called an ambulance.

once in the ER there were tests and blood draws and scans and nurses and doctors - and throughout it all my mom had no ability to retain anything that was happening. she didn't know the year, the month, her age, why she was in the hospital...she didn't know i was in school or that i even had a son.

her distress was compounded by the fact that she knew something was really really wrong. she was convinced she had suffered a stroke and would never be the same...every 20 seconds she would ask my sister and i why she was in the hospital, and what day was it and how she got to the ER and if she had a problem with her brain and is this what a stroke is like and who was her doctor and on and on

the docs wanted to believe she was just "like this". maybe she suffered bouts of dementia? or was frequently confused? but no...

and so then could it possibly be dehydration? none of the other tests showed any problems so they started pushing fluids and slowly what they ended up calling "acute onset delirium" started to subside. she left the ER around 2 AM.

she's recovering at home and feeling pretty much like a sack of bricks fell on her head. i have tried as best as i can to set up her apartment to have what she needs to recover. i brought over big water bottles and labeled each one with a day of the week, explaining that she now had the responsibility to drink enough each and every day. i bought one of those fancy "weekly pill cases" and portioned out her many meds on the advice of the ER nurses, who were fearful that she might accidentally take too many tranquilizers and too few of something else. they kindly explained about the extra care our parents need as they age...

i really had no idea that mild dehydration could have such a dramatic effect on our elders - so all ya'll out there with moms and dads - TAKE NOTE!

so today - a mere 2 days later - the phone rings at 7 AM. luckily i am awake and dressed because a friend and i were just about to hit the river for a nice day of canoeing...

it's my little sister, and she is sick, so so so sick that she can't stand. i won't go into details since my sister actually knows i blog ;) and she is private and i respect her right to not be an anecdote. BUT, i am going to say that all day today was yet another ER day (different ER this time, just for variety!)and now another family member is resting and waiting to recover.

so now i am home, have the last little bit of msra washed off my cute little body, and am going to unplug all the phones.

i have a friend visiting from out of town who i haven't seen in a long long time and i keep having to tell her that my life isn't usually like this. each day i make super fun plans with her that i then cancel - luckily she is very flexible, and quite comfortable finding fun things to do without me

so for the rest of today i am going to hide in my house, close all the blinds and watch something ridiculous on TV.

definitely not House or Gray's Anatomy ;)

Letting go...

So I realized that all the whirlwind of events over the past season has left me in a bit of an identity crisis. I formally defined myself as things like:

parent
single parent
active gal
software tester
driver of an old Volvo
girlfriend of D

But as my 2 loyal readers know, I have said goodbye to my super cool car, my awesome job, my sweet and most adored D, and my active lifestyle. I can't really re-mold my identity yet, I mean who wants labels like:

laid off techie
41 and single
chronic pain sufferer

So I sat at the beach yesterday thinking about all of this...thinking that maybe it was time to say goodbye to those things that I have lost and can't get back. I can't force D to want to stay by my side, and I can't force a corporation to rehire me, any more than I can straighten the crooked frame of a tried and true 95 Volvo.

The beach is so magical. Great place to let go with love and acceptance. So I sat at the shoreline and drew pictures in the sand to represent the things that "used to be". The tide was coming in slowly and erased everything I had drawn within an hour.

I watched the pictures fade, and I let my heart feel happy and sad and nostalgic and hurt and loved and lonely. I tried really hard to leave the giant rocks of grief at the shore. I know for sure the ocean can take care of my worries. I'll try to remember they are all floating away and doing just fine without me.

My sister calls it detaching with love. Which, in my opinion is kind of overly new age hooie. And in the past I always prefered to detach with rage or hate or victimization.

So let's try another way...and see what happens!

Happy summer ya'll :)

Catecholamines

For most of my life I have struggled with all types of mental maladies. Diagnosed with "generalized anxiety disorder" or "panic disorder" or some such. Over the years that have stretched out to decades I have tried yoga, cognitive re-programming, therapy, support groups, herbs, acupuncture, medicine, exercise, sugar-elimination, alpha wave brain stimulation, bach flower remedies, and and AND...well the list goes on and on.

On reason I think I would make such a dang good nurse is because I have started down some dark lonely nights where I felt like my very brain chemistry was turning against me.

I have always described a panic episode as if someone had unscrewed a cap in my head and poured in toxic chemicals. Chemical substances that yelled commands to every cell of my body. Commands like "We're gonna die!!!!" or "GET OUT OF HERE" or even worse. My breathing gets whacked out, my heart races and pounds, and my intestines evacuate anything they might be carrying by whatever means they can.

Some people with panic disorder have actual *things* that bring about the attacks. An escalator, a bridge...maybe an airplane even. But me? Mine really seem to come out of nowhere. Laying in bed trying to sleep or sitting at a movie with friends - BAM! There are some patterns I have picked out over the years... certain times of the month or the amount of sugar I have eaten in a day can play big roles. I have also recently discovered that being laid off and injured are also triggers ;) But then who could really blame me for that one?

Since being back in school and taking all this anatomy and physiology, I have learned that my description of the panic event is actually not too far from what is happening. The body exhibits a sympathetic nervous system response to the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine causing everything I feel during my state of panic. I have learned that the receptor cells in my heart are beta 1 receptors. And when those beta receptors are activated by norepinephrine the heart beats with much more force and more quickly. There are alpha 1 receptors lining the smooth muscle of my digestive system. When stimulated by the same flooding of hormones, blood is diverted away from the GI tract, and any food items currently in the tracts are expelled in preparation for the stereotypical "fight or flight" response. And though all of this is super interesting to me...what I don't get is what the hell perceived stress my hypothalamus is freaking out about. There's no monster in the house. No tornado coming at me. Why on earth is my brain unleashing these catecholamines to my bloodstream?!!?

I don't know that I will every figure it out...the one today started when I was watching "Up" with my wonderful son and some friends. The movie didn't bring up any past trauma or emotional conflict. But who knows, maybe I have repressed memory of a balloon from 2nd grade or something.

In any case here I am destined to be UP myself this evening. Trying to relax and let the hormones breakdown and leave my alpha and beta receptors ALONE!