Reality bites

I had some tests done today at the hospital. I ended up spending over 3 hrs there this morning for the testing I needed to have done. While it did bite... that isn't the reality I am talking about. As I was waiting for the lab to call my neurologist in peoria about some bloodwork I needed... an older man came in with his family. He was with his son and some lady that referred to him by his first name... Jack. Jack was 70 years old and has liver cancer and a lifetime of smoking has eaten away at 2/3 of his lungs. His cancer is bad. Reminds me of how my family felt when Mr. Wonderful's grandpa got sick. Jack was given 3 months, tops, to live. His family was very sweet and chatty. Jack was quiet and slowly sipping his coffee... looked like he was thinking some big thoughts and just listening to the 2 people that he loves talk to me and discuss things. Just contemplative. You could tell he was thinking about deep things. Life and death, his tests, his family.

About this time the phlabotomist comes out to speak to Jack and his family. She tells Jack that his insurance will not cover 2 of his tests. The total cost he would be responsible for was roughly $700. One of the tests was very important for his doctors in trying to help him be comfortable and possibly receive treatment for his illness. He got a bit angry and irritated and said "I guess I will just go home. I don't have that kind of money." His family convinced him to go through with the testing and promised him they would figure out how to pay for it and he needed to try and not worry about all the details. Then, this is where tears started streaming down my cheeks... I was trying to hide the fact that I was listening but my heart was breaking in a million little pieces listening to this. He looked up at the tech and said "It is just horrible that someone works hard their whole life and when they get old and sick... people just want them to hurry up and die. I just need people to care and make sure I get the help I need". The lady speaking to him was very sympathetic and sweet. But I think everyone in the room was crying. He was telling her hw he worked for 56 years as a truck driver and how he was a good man and paid his taxes and did the right things and now he can't get the care he needs. There were many sad things about it all. The pain in his son's face, the frail, sad voice of a man you can tell has always been strong and capable, and the fear that you could tell the whole family felt about death. Death was just hanging there in the room. Everyone knew it and everyone was terrified and Jack was just... needing some compassion and help. He was needing to feel like the medical community cared about him... Jack... and not about money.

His friend/daughter in law... whatever she is... was telling me that his insurance would only pay for him to be in the hospital for 48 hrs when he got sick and he was not ready to come home when they sent him home over the weekend. But since he has been deemed terminally ill and has a timeline, his insurance doesn't want him IN the hospital racking up the medical expenses even if he needs the 24 hr care for a week to get his strength back. Ugh... it makes me tear up just thinking about the story again. The emotion and fear in his voice was just so evident and I wanted to run up to him and give him a big hug. "I care about you Jack!" I don't know you at all other than what I saw today but I care about you and I want you to have good care. I want you to be able to feel respected and loved in your last days of life... however many may be left. I am sorry that I didn't let you know myself today that it breaks my heart to see you suffering. A big part of me feels horrible about that.

No touching please

I went to my first counseling session yesterday. I found it to be... strange. I had a lot of anxiety about it and had to talk myself into going in. Like, I called a friend because I was about a half a second from turning around and going back home. My stomach was killing me, I was nauseous, I was feeling like the car was closing in on me, I couldn't think and it was getting hard to breathe... I was having a panic attack. I have sort of learned some tricks to helping myself get through them. I can calm myself down most of the time enough to function. I calmed myself to the point that I could go inside but my stomach was in absolute knots. The office was nice. Good music, amazing decorating style, sweet faces... I started to calm down a little. Then my counselor came out to see me and that is where I decided this really really really might not be a great idea. I say hi and then she gives me a big, giant hug. I feel the room closing in on me again. I feel like there is no where to run. I feel like the hug lasts 15 minutes... at least. I just want her to stop touching me. I don't say anything because I don't like confrontation. I ignore all the retreat orders going through my brain. I resist the urge to shove her away from me and run out of the room. I felt so out of control. I hated being touched and I couldn't move or say anything. We go in and do some talking/intake kind of stuff. I was honest, detached but honest.

When I got home, my husband asserts that I should just tell her how I felt. I thought he was right but I always worry about hurting people's feelings and not saying things with enough consideration. I used to be one of the most tactless people around. I used to wear my anger with the world right on my sleeve and anything could piss me off. I fight those tenancies down. I still have a lot of anger. But I don't want to be an angry person. So I run from most confrontation. And my initial response was to avoid confrontation. But my husband pointed out that avoiding it would only result in another similar situation. And honestly, I don't want to discount someone because they touched me when they didn't even know I didn't want to be touched. I tell Super Muscles all the time to use his words when he is in a situation that is frustrating or hurtful but I don't even know how to use my own words. I sent her an email last night and explained the situation. It was a compromise between confronting the issue head on and in person and running from the situation all together. Thankfully I am sure most counselors are used to weirdos who don't like to be touched though. And as my friend so eloquently put it "if she doesn't like it, she can talk to her therapist about it".

So maybe once I have this whole touching thing under control I will feel more comfortable seeing her next week? This week has been very hard on me as far as emotions go but to be honest I am going to have a period of time where I suck to be around or talk to. The first couple of months of therapy have proven, in the past, to be very hard on me. And right now I am trying to deal with some things that are much more difficult in terms of actually handling than I have addressed before. I am digging up the past (intentionally) in order to make one of the hardest, most complicated decisions I have ever made. Prayers and healing thoughts are, as always, quite welcome. Thanks for being part of my journey. I appreciate everyone who reads my blog and thinks about me.

Facing Fears

My Super Muscles is notorious for being scared. Particularly of loud noises but he also has other fears. One such fear, is a fear of... MONSTERS! I don't even know where the turkey learned about monsters since we don't watch much tv and certainly nothing scary. But somehow, he did learn about monsters. We were dealing with this shortly before Slobber Rocket was born and it was consuming our little boy. He was constantly thinking about the monsters in his room. I would tell him that there were none or that we made them leave the house or... whatever I needed to say to get him to sleep.

So, right around Super Muscles birthday (which is 9 days after Slobber Rockets) we were opening gifts from family since we had missed Christmas with them. And one of the gifts Super Muscles opened was...
Enter the puppet we lovingly refer to as "Crazy Monster". He was a gift from my Aunt and Uncle and just what my little scared boy needed. Once we named him and got the big kid calm enough to play with him and use the puppet we started having a dialogue about how unscary monsters were. "Crazy Monster" is silly and only wants to make little boys and girls laugh and have fun! So now when he gets scared, we refer back to "Crazy Monster" and he makes bed time a little easier (night stars too but that is a different story).

Here is what reminded me of "Crazy Monster" this evening,...
And just because my kids are pretty darn cute... here are a couple more pictures :)