Evil

You are an evil person. Only an evil person would use their power to deliberately crush another person's hopes and dreams. Only an evil person would have the audacity to look someone in the eyes and show zero emotion while they were taking away everything they had worked so hard for. Only an evil person would put personal feelings ahead of what they should be focused on. Only an evil person would intentionally try to break another person. You think I am weak... It is you that is weak. If this is your way of leading... that is weak. You are sexist. It is so obvious in the comments you make... and the way you treat people. And you know nothing about me. Yet you have made up your mind about who I am and what I do. And everything you have decided, couldn't be further from the truth. But none of that matters. None of it matters because you happen to have the power in this situation. You may have the power there, but you do not control me. You can try to break me... and you may partially be succeeding... but I am fighting back... I will not let you break me... in the end I will come out on top. And you will still be an evil, evil man. You will get yours. You see, I believe in karma. And you have done such awful things to so many people, you should be very, very afraid of what you have coming to you. That gives me a little satisfaction. But I can't worry about you, because I need to focus on me... and finding the strength somewhere inside me to pick myself up... find my happiness... and forget about you. Because in the end, you are just a giant bump in my road. An evil, rude, asshole of a bump in my road.
I leave you with a quote from a wise man:
"Power over others is weakness disguised as strength."

Loss of control- Part 4

So you, I'm sure like everyone else in my life, think that as soon as I got released from the hospital, the worst was over. Well you, like just about everyone else in my life, would be WRONG. I saw more doctors in the next two weeks than I did when I was in the hospital. One of whom was a hematologist who gave me some fantastic news. We know why I developed a blood clot, at least in part. I have a very rare clotting disorder- Factor 20210A Mutation. It basically puts me at a way higher risk of developing a blood clot than the average person. It also, according to the hematologist, meant I needed to be on coumadin(AKA rat poison) for 1 year. As if that weren't enough, I also had to deal with some major side effects from going off the birth control. I now had awful PMS and killer cramps, debilitating cramps. I saw my gyno who believes I probably have endometriosis, but without doing an invasive scope, we can't really confirm. She doesn't want to do the scope because of the clotting disorder, but would like to treat me with endometriosis medication. The problem... it, like so many other medicines, interferes with my coumadin. So for now, it's pain killers for the cramps. Then there is the anxiety attacks. They happened every day at least a handful of times a day before I finally went to the ER, afraid I had another clot in my lung since I couldn't breathe during them. Instead, they told me I was just having anxiety. Just anxiety... it was supposed to be better, but if you have never had an anxiety or panic attack, let me try to clue you in. It feels like you can't breathe, like someone is squeezing your chest so hard your lungs will collapse. It is incredibly scary. But after experiencing 5 a day for a while, I learned that you have to try to relax and breath through them. Sometimes it works... other times, I was just a mess until it would pass. I went on medication to try and treat that. And then came the migraines. Brutal migraines like I had never experienced before. They were blinding and almost debilitating. As I started to pay attention to them, I realized many of them came in the week before my period. Then I learned about a little thing called menstrual migraines. Yes, it's true.. tied to your cycle. Once again, I had to get a daily medication to try and prevent them. My life was supposed to be better post-blood clot right? I was supposed to feel lucky to be alive. But I gotta tell you, it's really hard when around every corner is a new medical challenge. When losing one pill, put me on three other ones. It has been one year and three months since I was released from the hospital and I am STILL dealing with medical issues related to my blood clot, my coumadin, my PMS, my anxiety, my migraines and my cramps. But here's the thing, aside from educating myself as much as possible, there isn't much I can do. My health... how I am going to feel from one day to the next, is really out of my control. And that is perhaps the most frustrating feeling ever. I nearly died... I know I should just be grateful to be alive... but like the saying goes.. nothing in life is free.

Loss of control- Part 3

Overall.. I can't really complain about my time in the hospital. I was constantly visited by friends, my mom flew in to take care of my dogs and me, and I had amazing care from my nurses and doctors. So... it would seem that my hospital stay was peachy-keen. But as I look back, I realize that I had my first anxiety attack in that hospital bed. It happened the second night. I had a few friends over (over to my hospital room- how weird does that sound??) We were just hanging out, having a great time, when all of a sudden I started to feel like I couldn't breathe and my chest was being squeezed in. I called my nurse, who called the lung specialist. They checked my lungs (for fear of more clots, or moving clots) and my oxygen levels. Everything tested fine, but still they put me on complete bed rest for the next 2 days, just in case. It was awful. But I did my best to get through it.
The other thing I hated... the blood draws... every 4 hours for the entire six days I was there... even in the middle of the night. In case you are having trouble with your math... that's 36 pricks in 6 days!!! I looked like a heroin user when I was finally released.
My life was no longer on my schedule. Everyone else made all the decisions for me... what time I ate, what medicines I got, when they took my blood, when I could get out of bed. My life was literally in their hands... and as a result, so was my control.

Loss of control- Part 2

One night, my calf was so swollen I was afraid to go to bed because I thought it was going to burst.
Not one... not two... not three.. but four phone calls to my doctor.. all of them repeatedly telling them about the extreme pain I was in.
I never got a call back.
I went in to my Friday doctor's appointment thinking... "Ha! He's going to take one look at me and realize that I wasn't lying, that I am in excruitiating pain, that he should have returned my phone call."
Well... I got that... and so much more.
He (an orthopedic specialist) took one look at my leg and I could tell something was wrong... really wrong. He left the room... and I heard him outside, calling someone and telling them he needed to get a patient in immediately for tests.
He then came back in to my room and asked me if I had any family here. By now, totally freaked out, I am crying. Through my tears, I told him no. And he informed me that I was going to be taken over to the hospital to have an ultra sound to see if I had a blood clot in my leg and that this was a very serious... life threatening... situation.
Then, he disappeared. I guess I would too if I had ignored 4 of my patient's phone calls.
His nurse helped me outside where an old man driving a golf cart picked me up. He took me over to the ER of the hospital across the street and dropped me off. I sobbed the entire way.
I went in, told them who I was and they took me back and drew some blood and stuff. Then sent me back out to the waiting room to... wait.
While sitting there... I made phone calls... to my mom... my closest friends...
Thank god one of my friends was off of work and she said she would rush right over to be with me.
Everything is kind of a blur... but I remember them taking me in a wheel chair to get my ultra sound of my leg, checking for a blood clot.
When the technician was done, she said I didn't have to get up, she would just push me back on the bed.
As I was wheeled into my curtained room in the ER, I looked at my friend and said "I don't think this is a good sign, do you?"
Minutes later, my ER doctor walked in... to give me the first of a long list of bad news...
I had a blood clot... but not just any old blood clot... one that stretched from my ankle to my mid-thigh.
Then he asked me if I had any shortness of breath lately. I told him yes.. in the past couple of days. But I thought it was from the pain.
Next I was wheeled off to have a CT scan of my lungs.. to see if there were any clots there.
Either way, I was being admitted to the hospital. So I was wheeled upstairs... and into a room where a doctor came to talk to me. Thank god I had friends with me, because by this time, I was in shock... I had nothing to say, no words, no idea what questions I should be asking.
The doctor was great. He spent 45 minutes in my room going over all the situations and how we would treat them. He answered all of my friends questions (since I had apparently gone mute). Then he told me he would come back after we got the CT results. Not 5 minutes later, he was back... with my second round of bad news. I had 2 small blood clots in my right lung. I was moved to the telemetry floor and put on a heart monitor. And my stay in the hospital was bumped from 2 to at least 5 days.

Loss of control- Part 1

Control... it's apparently something I have a huge problem with...
Okay... not "apparently"... really. Let's just say it. I am a control freak. I am probably a pain in the ass to be around. I probably annoy the shit out of those who have to spend any amount of time with me (i.e. my co-workers, good friends and certainly my boyfriend). It's not something that I am oblivious to. It's not something I am not working on. But really... the bottom line is I can't seem to let go.
I think I've always been a more "in control person" than other people. But, my "death scare" really brought my whole world crashing down... and further escalated my control-ness (Is that a word??? It is now!!)
But what I have realized is that I was pre-programmed for control issues long before my first hospitalization.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning...
A time when a 4-year-old girl realized something she has said and done had completely changed her life and the life of her family forever.
A time when I couldn't really comprehend what had happened to me, but I could understand the reaction of those around me. My mom was depressed and completely pulled away. In hind sight I know she was blaming herself, but at the time it felt like whatever I had said, had pushed my mom away, like she didn't love me any more.
I had to go to counseling. Something I can't even begin to tell you about because I decided that blocking out that time in my life would be easier than remembering all the hurt and pain... things that at 4-years-old I worried I had caused. My parents were fighting... because my mom was depressed and absent and my dad couldn't handle me and my sister and his job and faking like everything is okay.
At age 4 did I understand how profoundly this would affect the rest of my life? No way! But you can bet that kids are way smarter and way more in tune than you think they are. They sense tension, they feel if there is a problem and they can even blame themselves. I should know.
Bottom line... whether I realized it or not... now I know that was the first time I lost control of my life. And probably from then on... I have always sought that control...

Lonely for control

Do you ever feel like you are living your life in a dream? Like at times you are watching parts go by, but not really participating? Or at other times, watching from the outside... yelling about how you want to change things, or say something different, but no one can hear you? Do you ever feel like your life, this life that is so amazing from the outside... is so out of control you don't know what to do about it?? Control... it seems to be the one thing I keep coming back to in my life. I panic/have anxiety attacks whenever I feel like I'm losing/lost it. It's perhaps THE most important thing to me right now, being in control of my life, EVERYTHING in my life. You think it's silly. Of course no one can be in control of everything in their life. You're right, you can't, yet still I try. And when I fail, I go into panic mode. Why?? I'm not exactly sure, but as far as I can tell, it stems from the fact that a little over a year ago, I completely lost control of my life and almost lost it. So now, maybe, if I just hold on tight enough...
Really it's just driving me crazy. And probably the people in my life too. I need to know what's going on with them, so I can make sure that I am being the best friend, best girlfriend, best employee, best co-worker. It's exhausting. And the bottom line is, I can't do it all. Not everyone is going to be happy with me all the time. I need to be happy with myself. I know that. And I could say it over and over in my head a bigillion times, but it doesn't make it hurt any less when my friend is not supportive of who I am right now or what I am doing, or my boss doesn't like the way I approach things and thinks I'm a bitch, or my boyfriend doesn't want to talk to me and needs his own time and space. If you think you question my decisions... you should be inside my head. I question everything I say... think... do. Do you have any idea how exhausting that is?? Tell me that it doesn't matter what other people think about you, only what you think about yourself. I'll tell you BULLSHIT~! I don't need everyone to like me.. but when the people you count on suddenly aren't there... this world can feel very lonely.