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Thanks But No Thanks John Derbyshire, the Mommybloggers Don’t Want You

April 7, 2012 by 39 Comments

Mommyblogging can be a tough business.

What with our many views on how to raise children from breast or bottle to co-sleeping or crying it out.

From time to time other bloggers seem to think they can get in on the act and try their hand at writing about parenting. Perhaps they are envious of the ad dollars our demographic brings to the table. Perhaps they have heard we get a lot of swag and want in on the action. Other times they seem to just want to spout off about the latest parenting technique to capture that big ‘Mommyblogging’ part of the internet.

Normally I encourage such behavior in the political blogosphere. I’ve always said politics is personal and part of why I write with such passion…actually ALL of why I write with such passion on political issues…comes from making sure my country is the best it can be for my family.

However, in the case of National Review Online blogger John Derbyshire, I would recommend he immediately quit Mommyblogging.

It seems he took a crack at it the other day, and as a professional Mommyblogger I’d like to nominate we not only not let him into the club, but we pretty much ban him from ever coming near our part of the internet again. Derbyshire wrote a piece about having a “talk” with his children, as many of us have, after the shooting of Trayvon Martin:

Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b)Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

Now if only I actually had the power to make sure Derbyshire truly couldn’t join the Mommyblogging club…sadly, I don’t. His political writing, in crossing into the parentsphere, is nothing but a racist rant. Not really how you want to make your Mommyblogging debut. Clearly Derbyshire took my “politics is personal” mantra to heart, talking with his children about a very heated, and currently very political topic…he just sucks at it.

I hope Derbyshire doesn’t take my critique of his Mommyblogging too personally. Many have tried and failed. Blogging about parenting is not for everyone, and considering the “talk” this man had with his children, it seems parenting is not for everyone either.

 

 

Filed Under: Feeling YaYa, Obama2012

March Madness

March 27, 2012 by 3 Comments

My husband and I not only share the same name, but we also share very close birthdays. Granted he’s two years older than I am, so he will always be my old man…but since meeting nearly two decades ago we’ve usually combined our birthday fun.

As fate would have it, our children are also two years apart in age and share very close birthdays. Luckily they still are the best of friends and want their birthdays to be celebrated together. So on an unsuspecting weekend day in March we have tended to unleash hoards of boys and girls upon our home and cul de sac where giggling and squealing can be heard from blocks away. Being unable to leave anyone out, and always justifying to myself it is the nice thing to do, we have invited each child’s entire class to join us for the fun.

And fun was had by all

Yes, I am stupid.

Yes, I know. I know.

This might be my favorite pic from today - before the chaos started

But regardless of when that chaos-filled Saturday or Sunday has fallen on the calendar, I have always found myself a little bit more sensitive during those six days between when my eldest turns a year older and my youngest turns a year older. Spending those days thinking about when I was pregnant, when we brought each of them home from the hospital…you get the idea.

Having had our double-birthday insanity this past weekend, where it seems both of my children were exposed to the puking flu, my kids are home, snuggling in bed with me despite having grown older and more independent in just the past few days.

My son having just turned nine on Saturday, my daughter getting ready to turn seven on Friday…and here we are cuddling as though time is standing still on a Tuesday night. Tucked away in our bed, legs and arms tangled between towels and wet wash cloths, stuffed animals and nerf guns.

Both of them want me. Both of them need me. Both of them are stuck to me like velcro as they battle a bug and beg their Mamma to rub their back or lay ‘just a little closer’ as they doze off clutching me with one hand and ice chips with another.

My six days of contemplation, where I get misty over where all the time went, and how they won’t need me soon, have turned into something entirely different this year. I couldn’t be wanted more. I couldn’t be needed more.

During one of my daughter’s puke sessions this morning she asked me to promise to always be there to help pull her hair back. As my son fell into a nap shortly after lunch he asked me who took care of all the kids who had to stay home from school sick if their Moms didn’t have Lupus.

Dads, grandparents, babysitters, uncles…all sorts of people.

I’m not glad you have Lupus Mom, but I’m glad you have it today because you are home with me when I’m sick.

The funny thing is…my Mom left Sunday night after having stayed awhile taking care of me. The past 18 months I can honestly say I want two people when I am sick ( in other words-all the time)- I want my husband and I want my Mom.

So as I spend the last few days thinking about how badly I want for these children of ours to stay children, for them to always need me and want me, I know deep down they won’t ever really stop needing their Mamma…just like I haven’t stopped needing mine.

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus, Count Waffles, Feeling YaYa, Princess Peanut, Stepford Crazies

When A White Boy Wears A Hoodie

March 22, 2012 by 53 Comments

Hoodie
My son wears a hoodie every single day to school. He covers his head faithfully and rarely hears friends say hello as we walk inside or adults saying good morning as he tends to be lost in his own world, muffled by the hoodie around his ears.

My son would do anything for his little sister and happily get her candy. He would even question any adult questioning him for no reason- as we have taught him to stand up for himself, speak out for what is right, and question authority. He would run from strangers. He would feel safe with a police officer.

I think.

My son, however, can do all of these things without fear. He is white. He ‘belongs’ in that suburb. He looks like every other white kid in the area and a ‘neighborhood watch captain’ would easily dismiss his walking down the street as a normal, every day occurrence. As would a police officer. As would the community.

As a white mother to a white son, I’ve never had to explain to him what he should and should not do when confronted by police. I’ve never had to talk with him about how the world views him or prayed he wouldn’t be next.

Yet we live in a world where people deny racial issues still exist. They do not even understand white privilege. They actively cry ‘reverse racism’ as if they are the victim. They even have the nerve to call those who fight for racial equality ‘race baiters,’  ‘racers’ and have attempted to spin and twist and re-write history as if THEY have lost out because Americans owned slaves and those slaves were oppressed for generations, after which they were then oppressed under Jim Crow and then under the institutionalized racism that continues to permeate our culture today.

Yet these NON ‘of color’ victims’ have started a very dangerous trend, a very risky trend, a very uninformed and downright stupid trend that has them looking like very scared white folk, realizing their hold over the majority-and power-is slipping.

You see, as ‘one of you’ I get to hear all about it from family and friends and neighbors and others who seem to think that just because I am white I ‘understand’ what they mean when they say ‘our neighborhood is changing’ and ‘that school has too many kids who don’t speak like our kids’ or ‘you know the high school only recruited him because he can play ball.’

Then there are the comments on blogs and national media calling the NAACP racist, the United Negro College Fund racist, and those who support our President racist because we have the nerve to notice these overwhelmingly white people are angry and saying things and doing things they would NEVER do if the man occupying the oval office were caucasian.

They say all these things while innocent children, carrying candy in a suburb, are shot for walking down the street while black. As Jackie Summers writes,

“This isn’t some fresh new hell; it’s torn open old wounds most would prefer to believe have healed.

The concept that you are suspicious.
The concept that you have to justify where you are and what you’re doing.
The concept that there are people who are so afraid of you, they feel they’re protecting themselves and others, by killing you, even if you’re unarmed.
The concept that those charged with law can show up, knowing exactly what happened, and choose not to uphold it.
The concept that it requires a national outrage to incite justice.
The concept that there are those who would vociferously defend the murderer out of one corner of their mouths, and accuse the murdered from the other.

For no other reason than the color of your skin.”

Yet if you were to read a Right Wing blog today, you would think THEY were the victim or horrible racial attacks. The last I checked, white children like mine, even in hoodies, even walking in a suburb with candy, were not being shot for walking while white.

It is far from time for the white, right-wing to drop this act of victimhood in the American stories of racial inequality. It is embarrassing. It is ignorant. It is offensive.

Trayvon is not the first black child to die, he will not be the last. We owe it to every child to move the discussion on race FORWARD. Forward means NOT back to eras that have long past and have long ago put an indelible mark of hatred and evil on our nation that some on the right seem to think have been made up for, erased, or should be at the very least whitewashed, refusing to feel guilt for something they had nothing to do with. I don’t feel guilt as a white liberal, I feel anger. I feel anger that some conservatives say they see no color, claim to operate on an even playing field, and refuse to even discuss racial implications in any debate for fear they will have to be honest with themselves, our history, and the glaringly obvious fact we have NOT come as far as we would like to think.

We owe it to children of color to know the world MY children have grown up knowing. Where they don’t need to be told that they have to make allowances for other people’s racism because …’That’s part of the burden of being black. We can be defiant and dead or smart and alive.”

It is time to change the conversation, and it starts with the adults. I have no right to send my son to school tomorrow morning in his hoodie without fear, when so many other mothers will be sending their sons off wondering if they will ever come home.

 

Filed Under: Count Waffles, Feeling YaYa, Royal Decree, Stepford Crazies

When Even Sleep Hurts

March 15, 2012 by 4 Comments

Groggy and out of it, I sat up in my bed and could hear my husband reminding the kids they could call his number at any time tomorrow.

If you need me, remember how to use the phone, right? If Mom talks like that again, just call.

And it was then I realized I had fallen asleep, in bed with the kids while they watched tv, and I must have talked in my sleep and scared them enough to have them run to get their Dad.

So I jumped out of bed to find out what I said and how scared they were. If I scared my kids I need to go hug them and tell them it was ok. To go comfort them. To tell my husband I was fine, I just dozed off. I had a long day of treatment and then taking care of the kids after treatment…all I did was doze off while we watched tv at 845pm. How horrible could it have been, I just dozed off for 20 minutes????

Before I could even get a foot on the ground, Aaron was in the room trying to get me to lay back down.

Go to sleep. Just get lay back down. 

But the kids

The kids are fine, just go back to bed

No, I need to see the kids

I just feel asleep, what did I say???

As it turns out, I apparently told the kids to have their father put the penguins away before bed. Or something like that. Scared, my oldest went to get Aaron who came upstairs and put them in bed.

Despite my husband’s urging to just lay down I went to see the kids. Hugged them both. Told them not to be afraid. We all talk in our sleep sometimes. I had just been sleep talking. I’m so sorry it scared them.

It was bedtime, we were in our pjs, in bed, watching tv, and I dozed off. That’s all. It was nothing to be afraid of. They hugged me and hugged me and wanted me to lay with them. But I knew if I laid down I’d fall back asleep and risk talking again, and I needed to go let out the tears welling up inside me that needed to burst out. I was having a hard enough time keeping them from exploding all over their stuffed animals and fuzzy blankets.

Holding it in I went back to my room and realized I needed to take medication, which means I needed water, which means I needed to face Aaron who I also didn’t want to cry in front of. He didn’t need it. His shoulders have enough on them, they don’t also need to be soaked with tears and snot.

So I held my breath and got what I needed downstairs and came upstairs again to find myself too emotionally exhausted to even cry.

I can’t be awake without scaring everyone.

I can’t be asleep without scaring everyone.

And what is worse(?)…I feel better, physically. But that doesn’t seem to matter. Labs are improving. My body is improving. But it DOESN’T SEEM TO MATTER.

My kids and my husband are what keeps me going. To cause them any worry or pain or to scare them… destroys me.

 

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus

Thanking Breitbart? The Cyber-Lyching of a President

March 10, 2012 by 5 Comments

I’m proud of the team at Big Journalism or Breitbart.com or whatever they are calling it these days. They are tackling a very important racial issue. It’s called Critical Race Theory– and they have introduced it to an audience who many never have heard of it otherwise. Yup, white Fox News viewers in middle America now are hearing about this ‘radical’ theory that was introduced by Professors Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman. Conservatives have set their sights on Bell.

Now, it’s obvious their intentions of showing everyone Critical Race Theory is to somehow chip away at the President and his bid to be re-elected. At least that is how they see it. I see it as educating what seems to be a rather racially uneducated group on a very complex theory that they may dismiss or they may, actually, let sink in and compare with what they SEE in every day life. People of color being stopped by police. People of color being targeted to show their ‘papers’- people of color who have spent their entire lives assumed as criminals, whether they walk into a store or walk down a white neighborhood’s sidewalk.

Just this week we’ve had another instance of CRT in action. And it’s killed a child.

Of course the Breitbart folks are trying to frame CRT very differently than any sane person might. They are calling black professors racist and calling anyone who believes this theory has merit racist. Yes, white privilege at it’s finest. (that’s sarcasm, which I have found I need to point out because some people don’t catch it)

However, my hope is they continue to study CRT. They continue to read and read and read and see, with their eyes and their heart, the truth that has been sprawled out before them. They can learn so very much from Professor Bell and their President. By all accounts (except those you’ll find by political types trying to take down the President) Professor Bell was not a firebrand, he spoke calmly and logically regarding race. If you take a look at ColorLines some of his former students are beginning to come forward and share their stories.

History has a way of showing us the right path- and students and colleagues at Harvard, as well as Bell’s books and writings, all indicate his dedication and lack of ‘radicalism’ on the matter. While some might call the idea that racism is inherent in the law and legal system as ‘controversial’ I can’t possibly conceive how anyone could call the idea ‘radical’ or ‘racist.’ We have been witness to racism in the legal system since it’s inception. We are WATCHING IT HAPPEN before our eyes, and grew up watching it happen. Denying these very simple truths is like denying the sky is blue or water is wet. Turing it around to make those who point it out the ‘racists’ is just plain evil. Unabashedly evil. And also horribly dangerous.

Here you have a community that has been enslaved, and treated as far from equal since the day they were forced here on those boats and we have the nerve to trot out political arguments calling this community RACIST. How far have we fallen? How horribly backwards have we become? At what point do the conservative pundits we see on CNN and Fox and MSNBC stop and look at themselves and realize they have crossed a line that makes half the population shudder. This isn’t a game people. This is not a ‘vetting’ this is a cyber-LYNCHING. Yes, I realize that is a loaded word, but what you are doing is nothing short of attempting to cyber-LYNCH a President and the people he has known throughout his life because of RACE. You, the people who swear race has nothing to do with any of this, are now using it. Oh, the irony.

You may not be hanging a noose on a tree, but you are certainly trying to use your WHITE PRIVILEGE to tackle a complex racial theory and use it against our first African-American President. Not only have you shown your true colors (something us Leftists have been saying was behind this all along) you have now displayed for the world your ignorance on the subject of race. Crying reverse racism in a world where you don’t have to worry about being shot accidentally by a neighborhood watch captain. Where you certainly don’t fit the profile for 10% of the population being locked up. Where instead of having a civil discussion about race and institutionalized racism you attempt to score political points with cheap shots, incorrect information, and you dare call those who fought for equality racists. Think about that for just a second. Let it sink in. You are calling people who FOUGHT for EQUALITY – and I mean FOUGHT… not some slacktavist online petition… I mean gave their LIVES and their PAYCHECKS (maybe that is something that might hit home for you more) in order to make sure others had opportunities most white people had.

I simply ask this: Have you taken a stand for racial equality in your life? I mean real racial equality, not that your white ass isn’t inconvenienced by some black activism. I mean diversity. Have you demanded diversity at your workplace? Do you even believe diversity is important? Have you given up six figures or more because of what you believe? Can you honestly say to me that we, as Americans, are at a point where old black men can be deemed racist for documenting our country’s history of criminalizing blacks and giving their LIVES to make sure the next generation of African-Americans have better opportunities?

I had an interesting discussion with my brother the other day. We were recalling how we grew up, and our family and friends. Family and friend we still love dearly despite their flaws, as they love us despite ours. We were agreeing that all this political talk of racial ‘code’ words and what not was entirely true. Because we know you. We know those family and friends. We were present when they made those racially tinged jokes and elbowed their buddies. We were at the dinner table when they use the N word, laughed about the n*gger that got shot (it was deserved, of course) and listened as they bitched about those n*ggers getting into school and taking a white man’s spot at work. We were there when you laughed and high-fived after hearing some black kid was beat for being in the wrong neighborhood, or looking at one of ‘your’ women. We have been there all along, and we know who you are, how you operate, and the way you really think. So when we attended college or learned of CRT, it wasn’t a surprise to us…it was confirmation of what we’ve seen our entire lives as privileged white kids. It confirmed the stories our uncles told at Thanksgiving about police offices, or judges, or other public servants. It confirmed the way our aunts acted when they saw anyone of color walking down their block or in ‘their’ mall. And it certainly confirmed how they looked at us when we dared question the status quo.

I’ve been called a n*gger lover my whole life because when I was a tween I picked up and read Malcom X’s autobiography. I dared encouraged my cousin to hang a poster of Michael Jordan on her wall. I wrote in school newspapers that our all white school needed to celebrate MLK Day just like the schools on the other side of the railroad track. I stood up and demanded diversity, equality, and racial justice in my teens. Because as my brother and I noticed then, and still notice now, CRT is alive and well in many parts of the nation. We see it. We feel it. We’ve LIVED IT, so denying it now seems not only ridiculous but evil. It’s also rather stupid to deny something we’ve witnessed our entire lives. So if we’ve seen it from OUR side of the white experience, imagine how this feels to the millions of African-Americans in cities across the country who have lived it.

You may want to rewrite history, but you can’t. You may want to play victim, but I’m sorry…when your race is enslaved and then kept down for generations- be it by Jim Crow or segregation or what you are doing NOW, then we’ll talk about YOU being the victim. Until then your role is to STFU and help make it better. Tip: helping to make it better does NOT include saying YOU are the victim of racism when clearly you are a spoiled, white, brat.

Sorry, that’s me with name calling. Professor Bell would not approve.

I just ran upstairs to check my constitutional law books from when I thought I might become an attorney. Not one mention of CRT. Granted those are the lower level classes but still, it’s not as if this ‘theory’ was so prevalent it entered into mainstream law books at universities across the country. Which is almost a shame really, I think it deserves a mention. It’s clearly part of our legal fabric.

Which, I suppose, makes me some sort of radical for even bringing it up. But let’s be honest here, the radicals are not the well-educated professors, working hard for equality. Nor are they the students standing up for diversity. And the radical is certainly not our President who hugged and stood up for racial justice. I’m also not a radical for seeing the theory in action and substantiating that it exists. The radicals are those conservatives whining that they are the victims of reverse racism. The radicals are those who claim to be vetting in their cyber-lynching. The radicals are those who do not understand diversity, equality, CRT, racial injustice, and generations of struggle. While these radicals at Breitbart.com and otherwise brought up CRT to score political points, I am hoping their efforts educate the NASCAR Dad and Soccer Mom on a struggle they might not have otherwise realized: the struggle of people of color in modern day America- and how radicals like those conservatives are using racism to keep the struggle difficult and alive.

I do not pretend to even understand what a person of color’s experience is like. Those who have set their sights on taking down the President, via racism and racial politics, need to humble themselves as well. To play politics is one thing, to act as though they not only understand but know better about the black or person of color experience is another.

The cyber-lynching ends now, where the discussion of Critical Race Theory and other racial issues begin. Let’s turn this into an education of the American people in honor of Professor Bell and his work. Let’s turn this into a teaching moment on race, and THANK those who brought it up so that we may have a real discussion on what is or isn’t true about the black (or person of color) experience and racism. Let’s use the President’s hug of Professor Bell as a jumping off point to HUG the real radicals spreading hate and thank them. Now the average, white, Fox News viewer can ponder Critical Race Theory and what happens at their dinner table. What happens at their workplace. What happens when their family and friends joke and high five. Because in their hearts, and around their kitchen tables…they know the truth. And so do we.

Filed Under: #suckit, Obama2012, Royal Rant

A Break…Please

March 1, 2012 by 43 Comments

My health had spiraled downward in the past few months, and needless to say we’ve been a bit scared around here. It has been a humiliating round of trauma for me, personally, as I attempt to pull myself up from new lows.

No, really…new lows.

Think I’m kidding? It started a few months ago with uncontrollable diarrhea. Emphasis on uncontrollable. Cue colonoscopy where I had the fun of getting knocked out fully (thank you) and we await biopsy results that still have us on edge.

Then there is the increased prednisone. That equals increased weight gain to new highs! Or lows, depending on how you see it. I now have two chins. And folds where I didn’t realize people could have folds. I can’t lay down anymore without new weight shifting and falling, very uncomfortably, into me. I’ve taken to sleeping while pushing my boobs down towards my stomach, trying to be comfy. I’ve also started putting deodorant under my huge boobs.

Don’t say I never give you the really good tidbits. Honestly, more people should talk about this. Prednisone weight gain isn’t normal. So it isn’t proportional. Which means I can’t possibly be comfortable, because that would be too much to ask…no, I’m freaking miserable with a very disproportional weight gain that just seems to hang on me like 40lbs of weight pulling me down in all directions.

Once we weathered the colon fun, I suffered an episode that had me in the hospital. I’ve already talked about it briefly but we did just get word from the neurologist that everything is ok. I’m thankful, if not still a bit freaked out and wishing there was a nurse around me at all times.

Then the kids got Influenza A…and despite my having the shot, guess who got it next? I type to you from bed, where it remains hard to lift my head…I’m not kidding. In fact I have to keep taking breaks between sentences because it’s hard to hold my arms up to type. My muscles hurt that much. With pain reliever.

They tell you all these things will happen with Lupus but they don’t really explain what it means for you, for those around you, for those taking care of you. It’s hard. Beyond hard. I have horrible guilt…I’m working on it. I have horrible regret…I’m working on it. I have concern for my overall health…I’m working on it. Doctors have said ‘we need to make you sicker to make you better’ which makes me horribly angry, because I don’t feel like I can get any ‘sicker.’ My family can not take me getting any sicker.

I say that but they keep taking it…and I keep getting sicker. Scaring me. It’s very scary when you think you can’t take anymore and it just keeps coming…harder.

My body needs relief, badly. I’m begging my doctor for relief today, and am begging the universe for a break. We’ve taken more than we can handle, and while reinforcements come soon, it’s not soon enough. My brother doesn’t need to be changing my sheets and trying to carry me into an ER all in a span of a few weeks. My husband deserves to train for his race. The kids deserve a Mom that can be present mind, body, and soul…not in bed hoping to lift her head off the pillow.

I don’t think that is too much to ask.

 

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus

A Place to Call Home

February 23, 2012 by 9 Comments

Frustration doesn’t really even begin to describe how I feel right now.

I’m somewhere between wanting to train for a marathon and give up to just not be in pain anymore.

Don’t read into that. It doesn’t mean anything more than it says. Pain sucks.

I’m beyond unhappy with my body and beyond unhappy with having been back in the hospital and going through another round of treatment and having the flu in the house and Republicans all up in my vagina.

I feel like I’m a burden …again. I feel like I am no good to anyone around here and their lives suck because of me and all the things I can’t give them or can’t do.

I look like some 200lbs version of myself that I hate more than I hate … I don’t know… more than I hate the Colorado Avalanche.

That’s a lot of hate.

But that is the honest truth of life with Lupus. And tomorrow I may wake up feeling fine and the kids better and I will smile and be thankful for a great day with my family. It’s that simple and that complex.

I want to blog more, and write and push all my words onto the page but I don’t want to scare anyone. I want to sleep and rest more, and gain strength and get healthy and mount the biggest comeback the world has ever seen.

But more than anything, I just want to be. Making those around me happy and content. Making those around me unafraid and without worry.

I want to be able to take care of my family- simple things like making lunches and driving back and forth to school. Cooking dinner. Doing the dishes. Daily activities, as the doctor calls them.

I don’t think that is too much to ask.

So that is where I plan to concentrate my efforts and my energy: those around me. They need it. I need it. We all need it- with some space to breath and grow.

The good news is all of my current medical issues appear to be medication related. The bad news is all of my current medical issues appear to be medication related. This balancing act continues. But I have no doubt we’ll get to a place where it feels like home.

That is all I ask for. It is all I want. And I will get what I want.

 

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus

All I Want To Say

February 18, 2012 by 26 Comments

Today was the day I thought I was going to lose everyone I love…or, actually, they were going to lose me.

I’m still not sure what happened. One minute I was packing backpacks and getting kids out the door, the next I was asking my brother to drive because I could feel something wasn’t exactly ‘right.’

Dismissing it from my head and telling myself i was just being safe, we got in the car and headed to school. My brother driving, the kids chattering away in the back seats, and I on the passenger side slightly annoyed I asked my brother to drive because I should have just taken the car and run errands instead.

Then I got woozy. Really woozy. 

I was glad he was driving, but I still wasn’t sure something was wrong. So along the freeway we went, all the while with me slumping further in my seat. The voices in the car feeling like they were getting further away.

Then I got dizzy, and I tried to shake it off telling myself maybe I was hot – as I tend to get sometimes if I don’t take enough of my bioestrogen cream (I lost my uterus to Lupus) or xanax or… the weather. Who knows.

We drove along and things in my body got worse. I could feel the tips of my left fingers begin to tingle (was I getting a bad migraine? that happens a lot with my migraines).

But then something new happened…it felt like there was a brick on my heart. Not like I needed a Tums, but like I needed a crane lift to get it off. It hurt. And I wanted to tell my brother but I didn’t want to scare the kids and I couldn’t get the words out even if I decided to scare the kids.

So as calmly as possible, and without looking at him, I told him something was wrong. I’m not sure it came out as English. As calmly as possible I told him I was telling Aaron to turn around. I told him to get the kids to class. I told him to take me to the hospital.

At least, in my mind I was telling him to do all these things. I have no idea how much of it came out of my mouth and made sense to him.

I saw the kids walk into school. I saw my brother walk them in and them out of school. I remember thinking ‘they didn’t get walked all the way into class’  and the rest is a blurr.

I remember my brother trying to get me out of the car, but my body wasn’t working. I remember crying, trying to tell the doctors what was wrong, I remember a doctor telling me I was taking xanax and I must have horrible anxiety. I was trying to explain I was on xanax because I was on steroids, but he kept saying this was probably my anxiety.

All I could think was ‘anxiety? anxiety means you can’t lift your left arm or speak clearly?’ and I wanted to make a fist with my weak left arm and punch the doctor. I really did. I’ve met some really jerky doctors in my life, and I’ve had them tell me some pretty stupid things…but this doctor was NOT listening to me. I wasn’t taking anti-anxiety medication because I had horrible anxiety issues, I was taking them because I was was on PREDNISONE which made me agitated. Steroids do that. He was a doctor, he knew this, right?

Then things got worse. A nurse was looking in my face trying to calm me down, I could feel my mind going in and out of being awake, and I could hear my brother and husband crying.

I thought I was going to die.

And if I wasn’t going to die, I was convinced if I fell asleep, I was not going to wake up for a very long time. So I was fighting it. I was popping my eyes open as hard as I could and the nurse kept telling me to focus on her. I didn’t want to focus, I wanted to get up and punch Mr. Anxiety Doctor. With my left hand that wasn’t working.

All I could do was think about the kids…how someone would have to pick them up and tell them I was asleep. I didn’t want to let go of what I thought was my husband’s hand, but it turns out it was the nurse. I think.

I also kept wondering why no one would get this brick off my chest. No one seemed to care because the test showed no brick. But I could feel the brick.

In comes Mr. Anxiety Doctor who says, very casually, ‘wow, you are on a lot of medication, it might be the medication’ … no kidding asshole. Have you heard a WORD any of us have told you?

Ok so maybe my words came out as ‘ladglahdgahdfakdhgakd’ but I know my husband and brother were making sense.

I also know I was petrified this was the last time I was going to be able to talk to anyone I love, and I couldn’t talk. I was screaming in my head, but nothing was coming out. I’m not sure I can explain a more frustrating feeling, especially when all you want to say is ‘I love you.’

 

 

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus
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