Round and round goes my sick little head

I don't really even know where to start today. To be honest, I shouldn't be any where near this computer right now. I should be getting my house ready for John's sister to come. She gets here tomorrow and the house looks absolutely terrible. I just can't seem to get myself going on the things I know need done. I want to do them but I just can't seem to get moving. I haven't posted much lately because I don't feel much like doing that either. John is working hard and I just can't move. Some times I want so much to do something and then I just sit there and stare at it. It's like I can't figure out how to get started on it. Other times I bounce all around the house. Not peppy bounce. More like an unorganized, lost kind of bounce from one place and thing to another. I can't seem to keep my mind on track. I am excited about us going to the beach this weekend. I have never done something like this. I want to clean my house so I come home to a nice clean house. I want my house to look nice when Chris gets here. Then I sit and stare at it. I'm ashamed of how things look, but yet even that doesn't motivate me enough. I know John's sister is coming tomorrow. I don't want her to see it like this. I'm running out of time. I sit and stare. Then I do something but then something else grabs my attention and I am off on that. As I sit here typing I jump up and put something away and then come back to the typing. I am so completely unfocused. Why should it surprise me? It's nothing new. I have always been this way. It's just that something like company coming usually pulls me out of it more than it is now. I guess I will get it done. I will stay up all night tonight if I don't finish. I am such an unorganized procrastinator. I have also just felt so depressed. I haven't been this far down in such a long time. I went from feeling so great about myself when I dyed my hair to feeling so down that I can hardly move. I know that is why I am not getting much done. It's such a bad feeling to go from one extreme of emotion to the exact other. Just a few weeks ago I felt so happy that I couldn't sit still and I never wanted to shut up. Every thing in me felt like jumping up and down for joy on the inside. I tried to keep myself somewhat calmer than I felt. I kept myself somewhat calmer than I actually felt. Then it just all changed. One day I felt great. The next I felt like crying. Thoughts of suicide have come on strong. I haven't felt that bad since I got married. I am pushing away the thoughts but they come back. I refuse to let them stay though. My beloved little shih tzu, Momo died on Thursday. I have already been in the midst of this bad feeling and now I have lost him. I think it couldn't have happened at a worse time. Emotionally, I am already in a bad place. I keep catching myself going to check on him. Then I cry. I do feel like I am coming out of the suicidal thoughts though. Actually haven't had one in two days. I have felt really bad, but more like normal grief. I miss my little Momo. I do hurt and I do feel depressed, but I don't feel suicidal now. I guess I have been starting to come out of the deepest parts of the depression for two weeks now. A month ago I felt on top of the world. I have no idea why. I just felt good. The scary thing is I knew it wouldn't last and that I soon would feel like crap. It wasn't long after I thought that until I started to think maybe I was really just a pain in everybody's ass. Ha! The week before I thought everybody liked me. Then boom, nobody likes me I think I'll go eat worms. Shortly after that I wanted to die. Well, not all of me wanted to die. Just this really strange deranged part of me. Most of me still wanted to live, desperately. I think that is the part that keeps me from completely losing my mind. In those first days I wanted to cut my wrists. I actually ached in them. I just kept telling myself that it would pass and that it wasn't really how I feel. I haven't felt this way in years. I thought I was doing so well. I used to feel this way quite often. I really don't remember much of '97 & '98 because of it. It happened to a lesser extent in high school and shortly after. Since I met John it seemed to nearly vanish. I guess I have still felt it to a mild degree, but nothing like this. This past month has been pretty scary. My mind has been up, down and round and round. My thoughts seem to go flying through my head at lightening speeds when I feel good and then crawl slower than a snail when I feel bad. I am just glad that I feel like I am starting to crawl out of the hole of the depression and back to a medium, normal mood. I have never in my life been this honest about my feelings. I have never been this honest even with myself. It's a little scary to just write it and put it out for anyone to read. I'm just glad to be leaving the suicidal feelings behind. I hope they stay away for years again. This whole thing has probably made no sense whatsoever. I'm not going to change it though. It's an honest representation of what I am feeling, confusion and all. I'mm ready to face it now. I am seeing a counselor today. I think I need to bring up all of it. I don't think I have been ready to do that before. It has really helped me to write it down. Now that the world sees what a nutcase I really am, maybe I can just be myself. (except around my parents and my brother. i will never know how to do that around them I think. )

Asylum Door

I stand alone in my silence,
Staring at the door.
The pain I feel within my heart,
Beckons me once more.
The door stands before me.
Why don't you come inside?
I promise I will keep you.
I'm the perfect place to hide.
Come in old friend!
The door calls out.
I've heard your screams.
I've heard you shout.
The locks I have are heavy,
To lock out your pain.
I promise to unlock them,
When you want out again.
Do you offer comfort, Door?
Or is it all a trick?
I know my weary heart,
Is slowly turning sick.
Asylum door within my heart,
What lies do you tell?
Are you my salvation?
Or are you my hell?
Asylum door inside my soul,
I know your locks are strong.
You are the perfect place to hide.
Please don't get that wrong.
The trouble with asylum doors,
Is that they won't let you out.
And then you're locked away inside,
Where no one hears you shout.

Locked Away

Locked away inside myself
I have forgotten who I am
The girl inside me screams
Into the emptiness
That I have become
Once I lived for life
Each heartbeat strongly felt
Now inside she dies
Buried beneath
What others want me to be
Riding through the night
Inside a dream
I struggle to be let out
I want to scream
I want to run
Throw off my heavy clothes
Run naked in the field.
Find myself again
Learn to feel
Instead of hide behind
The boring, mundane world
That I have built around me
The world that has nearly killed me
Let me out.
I want to be
Set me free
Let me breathe
Run, run like the wind
Naked and free.

Strange dream

In the dream I am with John and another woman. I don't really know who she is, but she is definately a friend of me and John. We have come to an underground cave and we are inside. For some reason we can see without the use of artificial lighting. Everything seems dark, yet we can still see it. We are able to walk from room to room of this cave without the need to bend or squeeze. It is a very open cavern yet there are definately different rooms. There is a small trickle of water about two inches wide that runs everywhere we are walking. We come to a rock ledge. Along the back wall of this room there is an opening about a foot and a half. It is circular. Inside the opening water runs down from above the opening filling the entire opening with water flowing like a showerhead, not like a waterfall, but only in one line. This is from where the small stream is coming. Suddenly, all the flow of water stops. A white mist comes over the area. There is a feeling of heaviness and evil. The woman is standing near me. John is standing a few feet away. The woman says to me, "Everything has stopped." I feel afraid for a moment and then I feel angry. I reach out my hand and in a very authoritative voice I say, "Get out! Get out now!" Then the mist lifts, the presence is gone and the water begins to flow again. Then we walk toward John. He is standing on a rock across what seems to be some sort of canal. It appears more man made than everything else. He is waiting for us. The canal seems to run parallel with the small stream. The canal is perhaps two to three feet wide. The bottom of it appears smooth, like poured cement. The canal rounds a bend and appears to disappear beside where the opening with the water was. I look into the water and say that it looks deep. The woman with me steps into the water beside me. I see that it is only a few inches deep. Then she takes a step away from where the opening in the stone was and toward a big open area. She drops off suddenly and is in water to her waist. She laughs and says that it must drop off in areas so we will have to be careful. I am still standing on the side. She turns to walk in the other direction. Suddenly, although the water is more shallow in that direction she is being pulled under and toward where the canal disappears next to the opening in the rock. I reach in and pull her with all my might. I pulled her up onto the rock beside me. John runs to us. He tells us not to go in that direction. I said, "Why? What is in that direction?" He says, "It's heart." So the three of us walk away toward the open area. I feel as though we are walking away from great evil. Then, I woke up.

Diabetes Strikes Again

I haven't posted again in awhile. While I was gone Amanda was diagnosed with diabetes. It's been quite the nasty trip. About a week and a half ago Amanda went to one of Taylor's little league games. She had 2 hot dogs and some cheese fries while she was there. When she came home she went to the bathroom 3 times in the first half hour she was home. Then she drank 3 cans of diet sprite within ten minutes. It is unusual for Amanda to drink half a can at one time. I got out a blood testing meter and checked her blood. It was 349. It was 2 hours since she ate, but 349 is too high no matter what she ate two hours ago. I checked her urine for ketones and she had none. So, I decided to wait for John to get home from work in two hours to take her to the hospital. If she had ketones there is no way I would have waited. So, as long as she wasn't feeling sick and having no ketones I decided to wait on John. When he got home we went straight to the emergency room at Uniontown. Since it had been several hours and Amanda hadn't eaten her blood sugars were normal at the hospital. She was dehydrated though and needed an IV. She also had some sugar in her urine. To me, that was an indication that her blood sugar had been high. The ER doctor did not doubt me at all. She did release Amanda but told me to continue monitoring her blood sugar and to return if it became very elevated again. She also told me to contact the pediatrician on Monday and have her seen and also to have her doctor schedule a glucose tolerance test. So, I did that. I kept Amanda on a pretty low carb diet over the rest of the weekend and kept her numbers pretty normal. Monday when we went to the pediatrician is when things went bad. The pediatrician seemed quite offended that I would test her blood sugar. She went so far as to ask me what business I have with a blood testing meter. I told her 27 years as a type 1 diabetic was what business I had having one. (Not that anyone can't go buy one. They aren't exactly illegal.) She rather grudgingly ordered a glucose tolerance test. When I got home I looked more closely at the prescription. It was for a one hour glucose tolerance test. I thought to myself, "What good is a one hour glucose tolerance test when blood sugars tend to peak at two hours?" So, I called an endocrinologist and asked him if he thought the one hour glucose tolerance test was adequate. I was told it was absolutely not adequate and to take her to Children's. So, off to Children's we went. Had been still keeping her on a strict diet and her blood sugar was normal again. They released her again. This time though they told me to call the pediatric endocrinologist at Children's to get her in for the glucose tolerance test. I was told that I was doing the right things and that she may very well be a diabetic. They thought though that since her sugars were doing well with the diet I was giving her that we could do the testing as an outpatient. Of course if there were any radical changes I should come back to Children's immediately. So, we went home again. Later that day we went shopping. While were in Walmart it got to be time to eat. So we went to Subway. Amanda wanted a meatball hoagie, of course. I tried to get her to choose something else, but her heart was set on the meatball. I did convince her to get a wrap instead of a sub. I thought she would do OK since we cut down the carb a lot with the bread. She did not do well. Two hours later her blood sugar was 281. (Don't want to think what it would have been if she had the bun too.) I kept checking her blood sugar and saw that it was coming back down. I knew there was definately something diabetes related going on. Even though her numbers were coming back down, a healthy body doesn't reach that high when they eat. So the next morning I called the pediatric endo and told him about the 281 after Subway. He said that she needed the glucose tolerance test very soon. He said the only way he could get her scheduled to have it done soon enough was to admit her. So he asked me if I could pack her a bag and bring her straight to the hospital. I told him that I could but that I live over an hour away from the hospital so it would take me awhile to get there. He said that was fine as long as I made it before 5:00. I left John a message at work and set off for the hospital. We got stuck in traffic on a bridge (bridges make me nervous) for about half an hour. We also got stuck behind a car accident. One car was on its roof. We got to the hospital at 4:30. We left at 2:30. So, she got settled in her room. They took some blood. She met her doctors and nurses. She was a little afraid that I would leave her, but I told her I would be there with her for as long as she was there. She was a pretty good girl at the hospital. They did the glucose tolerance test first thing the next morning. She was very mad when she found out that she wasn't allowed to have breakfast. She started screaming "I want breakfast!" LOL Who could blame her? The doctors told her that if the test came back normal she could probably go home. They also checked all my blood testing meters for accuracy when they did the glucose tolerance test to rule out meter error. They were all perfectly accurate. When the doctors came back in the room after the test the first thing Amanda did was ask if she could go home. The doctors didn't reply to her right away. I knew her test hadn't come back normal. (but I didn't think it was going to) They told me that Amanda's sugar level seems to stay well within the normal range for the first two hours. When she hits that two hour mark after she eats her blood sugars spike to over 200. Then they come back down. So, since all the previous tests were done well past the two hours or else fasting her blood sugars appeared normal. She was very upset at having to stay in the hospital another night, but she did calm down. She did very well in the hospital. They started her on metformin and she got to come home the next day. Her blood sugars have been pretty good on the metformin. She is doing a great job at her diet. She has been reading about diabetes. She never complains about a blood test. I am so proud of how well she has done. I am pretty exhausted at the moment. I went straight from living at the hospital with Amanda to teaching music to 100 children at Bible school each evening. Tonight is Amanda's baseball party. I get a break from Bible school tonight. Amanda is looking forward to getting her trophy. She has asked me how to eat healthy for the party. We discussed it with the dietician and she is able to have a little pizza and a little cake without the icing. I knew if she didn't have diabetes something else was wrong. Doctors should take mothers a little more seriously. We know our kids.

Fire in the night

I must have been ten at the time. My cousin, her husband and one year old baby, Amy lived in a trailer next to us. Living out in the country, living next to someone doesn't mean right next to them, but it wasn't terribly far. I still shared a room with my little brother back then. I think Mom had a fear of fires and didn't want either one of us down the hall. We were directly across the hall from her and Dad. My brother and I were in bed asleep when we heard a loud boom that shook our beds. A few minutes later we heard loud pounding at the door. We could hear Bill (my cousin, Patty's husband) saying the trailer was on fire. The trouble was, we only heard one voice. My brother and I went to the window. We looked out into the darkness but could clearly see a huge ball of fire lighting up the night. You could make out the length of the trailer and the flames came up around the sides and curved around at the top. The fire looked like a cylinder in the night. You could see nothing but the orange flames lighting up the darkness. I remember my brother and I being alone in the bedroom and wondering aloud if Patty and Amy were inside. It was really obvious that if they were it was well past too late. Soon we were downstairs. I don't remember if someone came up and got us or we just went down. I don't remember who told us but we did find out that Patty and Amy were spending the night at my aunt and uncle's house. The smoke detector made a little beep and nothing more, but the furnace had gone out. So, Bill took Patty and Amy to her parents house for the night. He was going to come home and try to get the furnace working. Just as he almost got home the trailer exploded into a ball of fire. I remember watching out the kitchen door as the firetrucks went past our house. Soon our house was full of family. I remember Patty crying. Morning came and everyone was still at the house, but the fire was out. The men had gone up to the trailer to see if anything was left. My brother and I went to sleep on the couch. We, of course, didn't have to go to school after the night we had just spent. When we woke up we overheard the adults talking about the dog. Apparently, Buddy's remains were found hiding under what had been the couch. Patty was crying for Buddy. He was a nice little dog. Then we heard about what had survived the fire and it wasn't much. What did survive made me think about what protected the family that night. I have never stopped believing that the little beep was not a coincidence, even though there wasn't any smoke detected at the time it went off. They lost everything except for 3 angel figurines, a copy of the poem "Footprints" and a Bible. The cover burned off the Bible, but not one page of print burned. I always thought the poem meant that "He" carried them through that dark night. The Bible was God's assurance that "He" was there. The 3 angels represented the 3 guardian angels that must have watched over each of the 3 people who lived there. I thought that in my child mind that day, but I have never stopped believing that. After my brother and I ate we walked to the trailer to see what was left. It was nothing but a huge pile of ash and some pieces of metal. I clearly remember the springs in the couch. The car sitting there with the glass burst out of it from the intense heat. Last night, John and I burned some garbage. While I stood there watching it burn memories of that night came back. When the garbage burned out I looked at the pile of ash that was left and I said to John, "That is exactly what Patty's entire trailer looked like." He answered, "I know. I've been there too." At that moment, I forgot that he had survived a fire. His house had been on fire and he had been inside. I try not to let fire bother me, but it does. I like a nice little fire, but don't let it get uncontained. I get a little worried when it starts to burn a little high. And forget ash! Any kind of ashes bother me to no end. I cannot stand for any kind of ash to touch me. It makes me feel very dirty and like I have to immediately wash. I do not want it to touch me, nor do I want to breathe the smell of it. The smell of dampened ash is nauseating. I can so clearly remember that smell from the morning after the fire. I remember walking through the ash and touching things. I was obviously not afraid of the ash then, but I do not ever remember a time after that I wasn't bothered by ashes. My father in law wanted cremated, probably for the sake of saving money for us. None of us liked the idea. I wouldn't have been able to stand to visit my sister in law if she kept Dad on a shelf in a jar. I just would have been too freaked out. She was very kind and understanding of my fear. She also wanted a burial. So Dad did not get his request for cremation. It bothered those of us left behind. Maybe all of us are a little bothered by surviving a fire.

Not been posting...

Ah. Posting. Well, I just haven't felt much like it lately. I have had a horrible cold and cough. Feel like poo. Most of what I have felt like doing lately is sleep. I have been coughing so hard that I can't catch my breath. Then I end up dizzy and light headed. Yuck! Seems a bit better this morning. I hope it is going the other way. I have also been keeping really busy with appointments almost every day. We had a lot of appointments for Amanda last week. This week is full with appointments for everybody. I haven't even peeked at next week yet. I do know I have a diabetes support group and the diabetes forum meeting next week. Mid-June I have two health fairs in one week. I'm really worried about John. He has the same cold I have. He doesn't have the cough as bad but he looks so run down. These 10 hour days are really catching up to him with this cold. He is getting too tired. He has been getting some minor injuries at work. I know it is because he is too run down. I just keep praying that he keeps the injuries to minor ones. Yesterday he caught his belly between two sheets of steel. He doesn't even have a big belly. I told him he better be careful or he was going to catch something else between two sheets of steel. He told me it was nowhere near getting caught between the sheets of steel. I reminded him that his belly is pretty flat and is only a few inches away from that part. I told him I didn't want to hear it come over the scanner that they needed an ambulance at Brownsville Marine for some guy with his you know what smashed between sheets of steel. Just last week he didn't get his thumb out of the way of a chain in time. He actually thought it had taken his thumb off. Fortunately, it didn't. He really needs some down time to get over this. I know I am not doing the heavy work he is doing and I am having a hard time functioning.

Sex and candy

Here we go with the part of my life I don't remember very well, life after Bill. There are parts that I remember quite clearly and parts that I know I just can't remember. High school was over. I started hanging out a lot with Reine. Reine and I went out together and picked up boys. She was never far away during these years. I loved her to pieces and still do. We had met back in that Christian school and had kept loose contact during high school. Reine was attending a Christian college and it was very strict. I think her rebellion was tied into that. My rebellion came from just not caring about anything anymore. Diabetes was a pain in the ass. I hated having it. I hated being different. I never tested. I lied about it. I ate whatever I wanted when my parents weren't looking. I sometimes didn't take my shot. I dreaded every single poke. I simply pretended it wasn't there. By now I had twice been forbidden to see a certain boy that I cared about. The first was Don. My parents forbid me to see him because they found out we were having sex. It hurt some, but Don and I were ready to move on, I think. I would have preferred to still speak to him though. And, well you know the story of Bill. Eating sugar and having sex appeared to be the two worst things I could do in the eyes of the adults around me. So, pass the donuts and where did you say you parked the car? During this period of time there were a string of boys that I had sex with. To be honest, I don't remember most of them. I was reminded of one that I had completely forgotten about a few years back. I read his name in the newspaper. He had been driving under the influence and was involved in an accident and his wife was killed. I had forgotten that I had even met him until then. Lots of "don't remembers" during these years. There were some boys that I remember quite clearly. Some I remember just because I do. Some I don't think of often but I could recall them if I tried. Some I remember because they mattered more to me. One young man in particular stands out in my memory. I wasn't in love with him, but I did like him a whole lot. He was my boyfriend for awhile, but my friend for quite a while longer. Lou (which is not what he goes by now) is not one of the ones I wish I could erase. I ran into him recently and we talked and had a few laughs. He's still a nice guy and I'm sure his wife is lucky to have him. (most of the time) Lou was a huge KISS fan. Lou had Christmas lights on the ceiling of his bedroom. Lou's mother didn't like me. I remember Lou's VW Rabbit that ran on deisel. He drove it through the woods, darting around trees, up to the water tower. It was nice sitting up at the water tower talking to Lou. Lou liked to tell me spooky stories and Lou took me to "The Gates of Hell". Lou and I had quite a sexual relationship. It carried on occassionally after we broke up. After sex we ate like hogs. That was not good for my blood sugar. Lou was the first person with which I went to a motel. Lou also was with me during some pretty bad diabetes related times. Once he thought I was dead. My blood sugar was high and I started to vomit while on a date with him. He took me to the hospital and called my mother. He stayed with me in the emergency room. He actually thought I died in the ER that day. He thought he was going to have to tell my mother that I died while out on a date with him. I was then admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Lou never missed visiting me for a day. Only family was allowed in but he managed to get the nurses to let him in. One day he brought his friend Rick to see me. Some days he would hold me on the chair in my room. When he decided it was time for him to break up with me I was sad, but I still liked him. I am pretty sure he still liked me. We often spent time together as friends after that. When I recently encountered him at a Christian rock concert he told me that he doesn't allow his daughter to wear eyeliner. That is one of the funniest things I have ever heard considering he was the king of wearing eyeliner. You had to hide your eyeliner if you didn't want him to take it. He does have a very lovely family and I'm sure his wife must be wonderful and very patient! But he was a nice young man and I am sure he is still a nice man and I'm sure a good husband and father. It was nice to see him again. (but there were no sparks of the old romantic kind at all)

Well, right now I have to stop writing. I have a lot of things to do today. This period may take several postings to get through. It's a mixed bag. Some good memories are in there along with some bad and some that I just can't remember. There are some things that I remember quite clearly that I am not going to write. Those things could potentially cause problems in the lives of other people involved if members of thier family found this blog.