Tonight my daughter asked me if I would come home from my next surgery alive.

I’d been telling the kids that I’ll undergo yet another surgery in a few weeks time, and that everything was going to be ok.

They didn’t want to hear it, all they wanted to know is if I would be alive after it was all said and done.

Mommy is going to be fine honey.

Everything is going to be ok.

No, it’s not cancer.

How do you explain to people that- yes, you have an illness but it probably won’t kill you? How do you ask for help when you know so many have it so much worse?

I’m going to lose a chunk of my colon in a few weeks to try to stop the infections that have been ravaging my body since last summer. This after two hospital stays and a surgery. My family and I are hoping this is the beginning of the end, and the kids are getting so used to me being sick… it’s passing as ‘normal’ life around here.

Maybe I’m naive to just pour it all out here on my blog, but it’s what I’ve always done. I’m so sick of this. So sick of being sick. So tired of being in pain. So tired of thinking one part of my body is going to be removed, only to find out another is going in its place. My reproductive system has taken a beating. My gastro system hates me. Everything is one, big, infected and inflamed mess that is just screaming to be helped and healed. It’s stressing out my husband, my kids… me.

Yet I sit here feeling guilty I whine and complain about it because it probably won’t kill me. It won’t be terminal. It won’t be life threatening and I should really save my complaints for something that really matters. Is it a huge pain in the ass? Totally. I’ve been out of the hospital a week now and I can barely function. Today I went to the doctor, the grocery store, I cooked dinner and I picked up the kids from school and I’m exhausted.

Can I live like this? The short answer is no… but I have been living like this for so long. Every turn of my torso hurts and every food I consume may or may not turn me into a writhing mess. No, it’s no way to live but one could live this way if needed.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting my frustrations out. I want to yell and kick and scream about other people and their perfect bodies and how they can just eat what they like and exercise how they like and travel and run around and do whatever… I want to be mad at someone. At a doctor who missed something along the way or a friend who is over the whole ‘oh you can’t come because you are sick’ thing.

But there is no one to be mad at and no one and nothing to blame. My body has a problem, doctors are fixing it, and everyone around me is being supportive and lovely.

So I write. I write to put words in front of my face and to bang my fingers against keys that some how release my frustration. I write because, before me, someone else wrote and I read it and said ‘ah ha! yes! me too!’ and instantly felt less alone. And I write because it makes me feel alive, something I promise the kids I will be when this is all over.

I spend a lot of time around women.

I am a woman. I work for a women’s network. I’ve been a member of NOW, the Feminist Majority Foundation, Emily’s List…so on and so forth. Gender-specific causes are my thing. They always have been.

So when Sarah Palin starts throwing the “f” word around, I get nervous.

Not because I don’t think conservative feminists exist. Not because I don’t want to see more women in politics…but because I don’t think she’s done a damn thing to further women, or women-related causes. Quite the contrary.

She was chosen as a running-mate to exploit the female vote. She has been inept and uneducated on issues in debates and in the national spotlight. She’s opposed women-friendly legislation and backed women-unfriendly legislation. If this is a feminist, I’m a Republican.

But hey, call yourself whatever you like Sarah. It’s the “Mamma Grizzly” comment I’m really after. You recently remarked the conservative “pro-woman” (oxymoron much?) pink elephants will be taking on DC to take back their country.

I have news for you… we Mamma Grizzlies did rise on our hind legs, we reared-up, and we elected Barack Obama.

Don’t play the gender card unless you know how and take a note from those of us who have been down in the trenches for many, many years fighting this fight. You want in? Fine. But be prepared to fight for women’s equality in word and deed. That means letting go of those “traditional” family values you hold so dear and understanding all women encompass more than those guidelines.

My “feminist” legislation does not ignore your choices.

My “feminist” legislation works to strengthen all families, including yours.

Can you say the same about yours? Am *I* included in your platform? Because you are included in mine.

I’ll fight for you if you’ll fight for me…but the track record ain’t so good on you getting my back. Let’s face it, you’re using the female card as you see fit like a good politician. Or talk show host. Or…whatever it is you are now. Maybe you can rally the conservative Moms (if their husbands let them) and maybe you can find a few more conservative women to join your “whoo hooo girl power!” cry…but it will all come tumbling down once you actually get down to the Republican party platform. Because let’s not kid ourselves, even if we put abortion aside, there’s a reason only 21 of those elephants in Congress are pink, and it sure as hell isn’t because they are “pro-woman.”

Don’t take my word for it though, take a look at the Republican Women’s legislation … I’ll wait.

*deafening silence*

That didn’t take long, huh?

Listen, I’m all for getting more women elected. I’m all for getting women to speak up, speak out, and have their voice heard, but Sarah Palin needs to stop pretending to be something she’s not. Instead of co-opting a movement that has nothing to do with her values, she needs to create her own. Instead of riding the coattails of those of us…what did she call us…um… sitting in some faculty lounge at some East Coast women’s college…something something… she needs to organize her own conservative “pro-woman” movement, whatever conservative women think that may be.

But leave the “feminism” to the women fighting for gender equality.

p.s. Susan B. Anthony likes to pal around with Socialists

p.p.s Your party wants you back in the kitchen

p.p.p.s Once we all have a real conversation about this issue, no whining!

Gotcha!

My phone rang today…not unlike any other day….

Is this the woman that was on CNN?

I just want you to know you are a babykiller! Lady you are nothing but an unamerican babykiller! You are going to hell and you are nothing but a no good babykiller!

Why was this man so angry? Today I helped CNN commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Pill.

“Giving women control over reproduction means giving them control over their own fate. I am a wife, a blogger, a mother — when I want, how I want, and with the freedom to remain sexual. The pill means I can have it all, and sacrifice nothing. It has taken the dream of my Mother’s generation — that of “Superwoman” — and turned it into my reality.”

So to even things out, I also helped Woman’s Day talk dinners. You know, since we women clearly need to stay in the kitchen.

Enjoy.