Life

February update

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

I passed the proctored exam I needed to take to get to the next step of the hiring process.

It wasn’t an easy test and I was nervous about passing it. Starting a new career at 50 can be intimidating. Everything is so different now. I have yet to talk to an actual person about the position. Even taking the test was a whole new experience for me. The last time I took an important test was on paper with a number 2 pencil. I didn’t have a cell phone to lock up. I didn’t have to lift up my hair to show I wasn’t hiding any devices to cheat with. They even measured my wedding ring because if it was larger than a certain size, it would have to be removed.

I left the test site feeling out of touch. Most test takers were half my age. I had overdressed while the other test takers were wearing comfy clothes like oversized sweaters and jogging pants. My confidence dipped. Although I have a plethora of life experiences, I am not young and fresh with all the latest technology. But I have other things to offer. I keep telling myself that. It has been a month since I applied and I am still waiting. It’s been a week and a half since I filled out the background and credit check paperwork. I have no worries about that, but my patience is running thin as I check my email several times a day to see if I hear anything.

I just turned in all the paperwork to be my brother’s successor guardian. My mom’s functioning has continued to decline rather rapidly. She no longer makes a lot of sense when I talk to her. She has been forgetting to pay some of my brother’s bills on time. A week ago, Matt received a disconnect notice if his bills weren’t paid for his portion of the group home. It’s been stressful as my mom has been handling all of Matt’s finances and I don’t have any intentions of doing so. I would like to be more hands off. Matt’s roommates in the group home have a payee set up through the county and receive transportation for appointments. I would like to do that. He doesn’t live close by and with going back to work, I won’t be able to do everything.

Thankfully my mom has her neuropsychological evaluation next week. We have been waiting for months for this appointment. I wonder if there is still time for her to get treatment that would help her or if her dementia is too far advanced.

Meanwhile, Angel moved out to the east coast for the next couple months to be with her husband who is working there. Thankfully she is able to work remotely. They bought a camper to travel in for work. It’s an exciting adventure for them.

Alex got involved with a new band and he will be touring the west coast for a couple weeks this summer. He is planning on starting up a music studio and moving out. I wish I could travel coast to coast with my kids on their adventures. But it is not going to work out. That’s okay though. This is their time.

Arabella had her doctor appointment last week and she is on the road to recovery. She is still having some side effects from her meds, but continues not to suffer from symptoms of schizoaffective disorder. She still has her job and boyfriend. Life for her has been stable and that is all we are hoping for right now.

It has been very cold and snowy here as of late. I am ready for winter to end.

Blue Monday

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Apparently I forgot to cancel the trial and tribulations subscription in time for the new year. It’s been a rough start and I am feeling frustrated.

Some of it is the little things. This past weekend my son was performing with his band. As I was scooting my chair closer to the bar, I smashed my finger. I didn’t realize as I was pulling it in that the seat separated from the base. I sat down on my finger trapping it between the chair and the base with my body weight. Man did that hurt! My finger swelled up and was bleeding from under the nail. It still hurts a little and my finger is bruised under the nail, so I’m hoping I don’t lose my nail.

Or we can talk about today. Today I found a worm on my cat’s backside. I had to give both cats, under protest, de-wormer and deep clean their cat boxes. As I was cleaning, dirty litter box water splashed on my face. Fun times! As I was taking the dirty litter out to the garbage, the bag broke spilling dirty litter all over our walkway. I had to clean this up so the dogs wouldn’t get into it outside while the temperature was twenty below zero.

Then there are the bigger things. Like our investment falling through, from when we sold our business, that we were planning on living on the next couple years. Now I have to go back to work full-time. All the things I have been planning had to be cancelled, like our road trip out to Virginia to see Angel and Dan who will be living out there for the next couple of months. I applied for a job over the weekend. I think I have a good chance of getting it. I will need to pass a proctored exam to see if I will qualify. That was even a big process because I had to update my resume and all the stuff that goes into looking for a job. I will also need to pass a physical as the job is very active. Against medical advice I started running again.

The other big thing is that my mom’s health is deteriorating rapidly. It has become apparent that I need to take over guardianship of my brother Matt. That is not as easy as it would seem. I had to take an online class and fill out a whole bunch of complicated paperwork. At first, my mom refused to sign the paperwork to resign as guardian. She doesn’t think anything is wrong with her. She is trying to hide her dementia.

My brother Luke came home to try to figure out my parents finances. They have several accounts that are an absolute mess and haven’t been balanced in years. My mom is refusing help with her finances. Finally on Friday my mom signed the guardianship resignation letter. Luke and I went with my mom to pick up Matt from his group home. Then we stopped at the grocery store which was insanely busy. Luke and I were trying to help my mom shop with Matt. If you can imagine what it is like taking someone who has dementia and is confused along with someone with intellectual and mental illness. Neither have any awareness of other people. Matt almost bumped into someone. I had to pull him out of the way. Luke and I were very stressed out. I almost started crying in the store. But everyone was very nice and looked upon us with pity.

I have an appointment later in the week to meet up with someone from the county to see if my parents qualify for meals and in home care. I’m still in the middle of the whole guardianship paperwork process. That is also going to be intensive with the financial reporting, needing to meet with doctors and the case manager. My brother lives 40 minutes away so it is going to take a lot of time on my part to get everything set up.

Not to mention doctor appointments with my own daughter. Arabella is doing well on her new medication, but it is causing her to gain a lot of weight. At the last appointment, she gained 13 lbs in 6 weeks, so I’m not sure if she is going to go through another med change.

I have a feeling it’s going to be a long year.

Handing over the baton

/ Outrunning my demons / 6 Comments

A little over a month ago, I spent two full days in Wisconsin Dells at the waterparks. I told you about the trip, but I don’t think I mentioned how much pain I was in. After two full days of walking, I could barely walk. My foot was hurting a lot. I never really noticed how inactive I’ve gotten until I had to be active. So many times I chalked up my foot pain to bunions, arthritis, and fibromyalgia. But this time I felt something was really wrong because one foot was hurting much more than the other.

The following day I reached out to my doctor to get an appointment with a podiatrist. They questioned why I wanted a referral. I told them that I was still having foot pain like I mentioned at my last physical in November when they took X-rays of my foot. At the time, my doctor couldn’t find anything that would cause a lot of pain. It took me a month to get an appointment with the foot doctor.

By the time I got to my appointment, I was feeling a lot better. But I went in for another set of X-rays and waited over an hour to see the doctor who was behind schedule. I thought perhaps I was wasting his time. When the doctor came in, he told me I had a stress fracture. What??!?? How did that happen? I was going to have to wear a boot for 6 weeks and then come in for more X-rays to see if it was healing properly.

I have no idea how I fractured my foot. My feet started hurting when I was running long distance training for a 50k. But that was years ago. And aren’t your feet supposed to hurt if you are running 30 miles on them? The only other thing I could remember happening was having a large water bottle fall onto my foot. But again, that was years ago. How did I have a fractured foot and not even know about it?

It’s been 3 years since I ran. Gradually I stopped going on walks too because it hurt and I was having GI issues. I went from thinking I was wasting the doctor’s time to being angry with myself for not going in sooner. Hopefully now it will finally be able to heal and I can get on with life.

I stopped running right after Angel moved back home and started running. We enjoyed running together for several months. This weekend she will be running her first marathon and I will be supporting her every step of the way. I was instrumental in starting the fire that ignited her passion, and now I will be handing over the baton.

Birthdays galore

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I survived my 50th birthday weekend!!

And what a weekend it was too! I had a three day birthday party bash. It was more of an open house concept which worked really well. Friday night was the big night as I had my son’s band play. The weather was perfect. Saturday I hosted a 70’s costume party. Sunday I hosted a murder mystery party. In lieu of gifts, I asked for donations for two of my favorite charities. The last thing I wanted was a whole bunch of gag gifts like my husband got for his 50th.

Friends and family stopped in when they were available. By Sunday, on my actual birthday, everything was pretty low key. But it didn’t end there. The following day was Lexi’s (my son’s girlfriend) 25th birthday, so we celebrated that too. She wanted everyone to dress goth style which was a lot of fun. Although my son and husband did not want to wear manscara or guy liner. Party poopers! LOL.

But it didn’t end there.. Last weekend was Angel’s birthday. Next week is our wedding anniversary, then afterwards we will be celebrating my son and my mom’s birthday. There is a season for everything. I’ll take a time of celebration over sorrow any day.

What to write

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I haven’t been feeling very motivated to write since I finished my book. I say finished loosely because it is going to need more work. Nothing major though. I hope to have it ready to publish by early next year.

I think I need to revisit my goals. What do I want to do next? Try my hand at fiction? Or am I happy to keep writing on a personal blog although with my book it seems like I told everything I wanted to tell. I think I want to keep writing in some capacity, but what?

There are always things going on in my life to write about. I guess I wasn’t meant for a life of mediocrity. Sometimes I am jealous of people who live an ordinary average life who can join groups on Facebook called the dull women’s club. True story, I looked at some of their posts and some people just sit around watching their garden grow. I could only post about watching my plants slowly die.

I figured part of my problem is that I was never shown how to care for plants. My mom got rid of all our houseplants when she went on a kick that my brother Matt was allergic to them all. Last summer I bought a banana plant and the only way it lived over winter was because a friend showed me basic plant care 101.

My grandpa had a nursery when I was young. One day, he pulled out a dying shrub he was going to get rid of. I decided I was going to ‘rescue’ the shrub. So I planted it in my backyard and watered it everyday. One day I went out to water it, and it was no longer dying. It even looked twice its size, green and healthy. It was a miracle, I saved it. But now as I am older I realize my grandpa probably had something to do with my unrealistic expectations about plant rescue.

This is totally going in an unanticipated path. I do have a lot of stories to tell, but we’ll save them for another rainy day. There have been a lot of rainy days as of late. The arthritis in my knee has been acting up for the last week or so. I may soon be able to predict the weather like my relatives of old. My arthritis is acting up, it’s going to rain. How time changes things. Five years ago I would be trying to get in a run before the storm. Now I sit around and complain about how hard it is to walk because my joints can feel the rain coming. It’s hard to think I will never be able to do something again I used to enjoy so much.

Maybe I’m just having another mid-life crisis. I will be 50 in less than a month. It’s hard kissing my 40’s good-bye. Fifty is old. I’ve gained weight. I can’t see worth a crap. Some days I have a hard time getting around. Arthritis. Grey hair. I don’t look or feel young anymore. I’m at an all time low, but it’s not going to get any better. But I’m trying not to complain about it too much because those people are just a drag to be around.

Otherwise, things are going okay. Arabella is stable on her medicine. On Monday, she has a goal planning appointment with her new case manager to help her gain independence. She literally hasn’t visited with friends for weeks and spends her day following me around. I don’t mind all that much. I’m trying to enjoy what time I have with her. She never liked me before so in that way it is kind of nice. I know I’m cool and all, but I want much more for her than that.

My other two kids, Angel and Alex, are not getting along. That has been stressful because I hate feeling like I am in the middle especially with a holiday weekend coming up. Not to mention dealing with the extended family. Then having a party and turning 50 right after that.

I have been feeling pensive and melancholy lately. Maybe I just need a little sunshine.

Wishing for change

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It’s been a stressful start to the holiday week. Yesterday my colitis started to flare up. Thankfully, I was able to take it easy yesterday and today. But tomorrow is another story. I’m scheduled to volunteer twice this week. We are going to celebrate Christmas Eve with my best friend and her family. The kids will be here Christmas day. The following week is pretty much the same. My best friend’s birthday, a Christmas party here with my siblings and family, and friends over New Year’s Eve. I really don’t have time to be sick.

I’ve been feeling stressed out, but not about the holidays and the parties. Last week a previous employee of ours at the business we sold got arrested. It hit me hard. She is going through a really hard time with the loss of several close family members, got into addiction, and made some bad choices that hurt herself and other people. It’s a different story when you see someone you know on the nightly news. Much more personal. People are judging her harshly, but they only know a little of what was going on. This person was very supportive towards me when my daughter was in jail. But to be honest, I don’t want to get involved. I knew she needed help, but I couldn’t help her.

Over the weekend, we had our extended family Christmas party with my mom, her siblings, and their families. My mom got lost again getting there. She started crying when she saw some people. It’s becoming more apparent my mother is slipping into dementia. It’s really hard to face. She is taking care of my dad who cannot walk whom most of the family is estranged from. Plus she is the guardian of my disabled brother. Everything is a huge mess. I think I will have to have some difficult conversations with my brothers next week. I’m the oldest and the one who lives the closest, so a lot of the problems are going to fall on me.

I don’t want to get pulled into other people’s toxic situations when I am not feeling all that healthy myself. Things are going good with Arabella now, but I don’t think it’s always going to be that way. Yesterday her probation officer said she wasn’t allowed to date. If she does go out somewhere with someone, she is supposed to let him know. I think it’s a great rule, but I don’t know how it’s going to be enforced. I never thought it was a great idea to meet up with strangers online. She probably goes on somewhere around two dates per week.

Dealing with all of these issues that are really upsetting to me is not a really great way to handle stress. Some good did come out of it. With the situation of my previous employee, one of my other previous employees reached out that I haven’t heard from in 5 years and we are planning on catching up some time after the holidays.

I plan on reaching out to our previous employee to offer her support. I really feel horrible about the whole thing and wish there was something I could do. There is a part of me that feels guilty as if I could have prevented or changed things. But that thought is not rational. I just want to fix things by removing the suffering, but I’m experienced enough in life to know there is nothing I could’ve done.

My brothers are competent guys. I’m sure we can come up with a good plan of what the next steps are with my parents. I just wish it wasn’t this way, but wishing never changes things.