• Grouse alert!

    This entry’s sole purpose is to complain, whine, and grumble. If you have any loose razor blades lying around, or anything else that could do you or anyone else harm, it’s strongly recommended that you put them away before reading any further.

    I’ve been trying to find something to get excited about. Specifically, I’m looking for something to look forward to (there are lots of things in the news that excite me, but not in a good way). Ordinarily would I take a vacation of one kind or another, but I sacrificed all my leave on the altar of recovery. I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Cheryl and I occasionally take in a movie, but I’m supposed to stay away from crowds. Sometimes we take the family out for an outdoors adventure, but this is the indoors time of year… when it’s 93 degrees outside and feels like 103 in the shade (due to the inhuman humidity and dead air).

    The other day my son stuck a tentative foot out the door (making like he was going outside), and appeared to bounce off the wall of heat and humidity. He pulled his foot back inside wordlessly, closed the door, and went off in search of cooler climes. (Not even the lure of swings and sandbox could get him outside, and that’s saying something.) Even the beach offers little respite… not when the water temperature is hovering around 87 degrees. It’s like a greasy outdoor sauna and hot-tub. (The grease comes from the combination of sweat and sunblock, which combines into a fragrant, cocoa butter au jus.) We could move, but it seems like much of the U.S. is becoming a summertime anex of the deep south (though it’s usually relatively short lived).

    Here’s the kicker: our iMac purchase is once again in limbo due to a growing state financial crunch (a looming $1 billion shortfall in state property tax revenue), and news that our bonus (in lieu of raise) is rumored to be vulnerable. There’s a special session of the legislature slated for this September, so we’re holding our breath. I guess a pay cut is better than losing jobs, but it’s hard to really appretiate.

  • Not so fast

    On Friday I told a friend that last week was the first week I’d worked a full 40 hours since my diagnosis. As it turns out I was wrong. It was my second. I felt pretty good, a little tired maybe, but not exhausted. Or so I thought. I slept through most of the weekend. I hadn’t intended to… it just kind of happened.

    Last night, after we finished eating pork chops in a ginger glaze (which my dad came over to help us eat – the smell of which remains in yesterday’s laundry), we found out mom had been transferred back to the psychiatric facitilty. I say “finally” like it was some triumph… an unambiguously good thing. Let me just say that I have mixed feelings at best. I’m of a mind that mom’s dehydration was a psychological/psychiatric problem first; which only became a medical problem when it wasn’t monitored closely enough by the facility she’s been transferred back to. Maybe that’s why they didn’t want her back. Maybe they are aware of their own limitations, and aren’t willing to take on the liability that an unmasking of their neglect would produce.

    You just can’t make me happy, can you?

    My mom needs psychiatric care, but if they aren’t making sure she’s eating, how likely is it that they are treating her other problems? With our options limited, it’s not like we can just go to another hospital. She was already “politely nudged” out of one, and this was the place that would take her without insurance.

  • What do I write now?

    I’ve long ago run out of words. Everyone is in bed, it’s just me, and I want to feel better. A Mac keyboard has been my outlet for a long time… going back to the good old Mac Plus days after my high school graduation. Now? Nothing.

    It seems like even these words have graced my screen before. Simply put, my mind is a hollow shell.

    In this ongoing medical drama, I feel worst about my father. (I wrote about him once, though I never shared.) The depression, anxiety, and psychosis have been a life long horror for my mother, but I can’t help but wonder if nothing’s left at this point. On the other hand, my father’s all there… in far too many ways. Once you get beyond the bizarre nature of psychosis, in some ways its easier to see my mother like this. She’s been fighting psychological demons for most of her life. However, my father’s always been steady. He’s always been the rock. Now he’s unsettled. Now he’s shaken. Now he’s the one that doesn’t know what to do. Mind you, he’s just as sharp as he’s ever been – and that’s pretty sharp, but the situation he finds himself in is one that has few answers, and LOTS of societal indifference.

    So here I am… nothing of substance to say, wanting terribly to say something, and putzing around after midnight when I should be sleeping.