In the Middle of the Night

I am up again, as usual. After a couple of hours of being the only one awake in a relatively small home, I get a little stir crazy. Alas, this is reduced by the fact that I am up because I am sick. This would be a good place to stop reading if you don't want to know the details. For days my diarhea has gotten progressively worse, culminating in the perhaps the most degrading part of my illness: having diarhea in my sleeep in my bed. This, is turn, results in the return to wearing Depends. From a vanity standpoint, it doesn't get much worse.

I often don't sleep at night, for a variety of reasons. But the profuse diarhea leads to the desire to take a bath. This seems strange to my kids, who occasionally come in with their eyes protected with their arms to ask me what I am doing taking a bath in the middle of the night. Other than that, it is one of the most lonely feelings in the world.

I feel horrible, but why wake anyone up? This is the what number of night I have done this? I often wonder if I should go ahead to the hospital and get this party started. I am sure that if you have had experience with some sort of ailment that you knew would end up with that ER visit, unless copious amounts of blood are involved, an evaluation of what day of the week it is, what time it is, how many drunks and prisoners are likely to be there, when the the ER docs change shifts, and so on is a necessary consideration. It is really an art to decide when it is best to go. And with enough experience with all this sickness, I have also learned what can wait to morning and be accomplished in an office visit versus what they are likely to send me to the hospital anyways.

Sometimes it is best to go in the middle of the night because there is a chance I may be back before the boys wake up. However, who am I kidding. I would most likely end up staying as guest. But even this can be less disruptive if I go in the night, when Craig has the day off. It saves half the drama from Craig and the kids.


I sit here, so damn angry at my damn body for failing me. No matter what I do, I inch further and further way from "healthy and normal" to a place I don't want to go. I am not ready.

It is a long and lonely night, again. My tears are mixed with pain and feeling sick and an overwhelming frustration that this is now my life.

Resolutions, The Truth, and Everything Inbetween

Ah, as the year ends and another year's beginning looms quickly ahead, naturally it is a time that many of us take stock, make our positives vs. negatives lists, and stamp out our New Year's Resolutions. And if not quite such a formal title, we tend to think about what we can do better, do more or less of, and hopefully, generally, what we can do to improve our lives.

My list is both very long and very short. Like banging my head against the wall, I swear to blog more, return calls more promptly or even just return them period, answer my mail, and be more open with others. I could add a plethera of other things, particularly to be a better wife, mother, daughter, cousin, friend, volunteer, and activisit. However, my "wish list" versus my "reality" are at great conflict.

This brings me to my short list. My main New Year's Resolution is to live. My back-up main Resolution is to be honest about it all, from boring health info to fun things going on with family.

I have been a liar. I have avoided truths. I have elected to dodge questions, answering the one I want rather than the one being asked. Please continue to ask me, so that I can now really answer you. I give you the permission that is somehow needed to pin me against the wall....

I am going to work on listening more. Listening, hearing, then responding and doing.

It amazes me that I am quite often told that my blog is still "followed" or checked every day. Perhaps you knew I had more to say and were just waiting.

In return, I ask you to allow me to experience whatever emotion I am feeling. I ask you to let me go at my own pace. I ask you to hold me to the truth, but perhaps not too close to the fire.

If you choose to visit Sally Land regularly in 2011, it may not be as easy and you may not like what you read, perceive, and hear. But really, what is the point of all this, if not to be honest. It has been much easier to lie when hiding behind the wall of a blog. Most of you know I am a terrible liar, my eyes dart around, I start to sweat and figit, and ultimately end up telling on myself because I just can't stand it. Have you felt me squirm on an occassion or two?

While I certainly intend to not remain so cryptic, and to get to the real stuff, I would like to wrap up this post by saying what I have heard from alot of you: My best is not good enough. There. You are right. Does that feel better to hear me admit that, to accept responsibility for things that didn't happen, or that I was late getting done, or the calls I didn't make? Here's the deal: I HAVE DONE THE BEST I COULD. And I have finally accepted that my new "best" is simply not enough in many relationships. I can accept that it is primarily me that has changed. And I have cried endless tears as bits and pieces of my body have been literally stripped off and thrown away, and my once intelligent mind now requires my eight year old son to help me count my change at the store. That golden memory that you teased me mercifully for is gone. I write so many things down so that I won't forget them that I end up with piles of notes.

I had thought that with time I would have my old life back. I was wrong. I am a physical shell of who I used to be. I am not "well" and feel like the bloodhound chasing the hare, but it's really just for show.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. As it is yours as well. We all need to choose what we do with those days. It is days, after all, that we celebrate with that frequent sentiment. Sometimes there are not weeks, months, and years. And sometimes if there were, they would not be living, really, One can exist without living, most certainly.

Today Craig and I meet with the newest member of my healthcare team (Please note that we had to stop watching the tv show House a year or so ago because I have had everything that goes wronmg with their patients). My new doctor is apparently Spokane's expert on auto-immune disorders. He is going to review for us the battery of tests and results and likely provide a number of potential scenarios for treatment or lack there of. There is an inherent conflict here for my body, which I will go into a little later. But I am sure you get the big picture that if I don't really have an immune system anymore, due to a lack of "reconstitution", I am in trouble.

So maybe in a few hours I will get terrific news and blog all about wonderful things like guilded butterflies and snowmen. Maybe it will take some time to be able to face my children. Maybe I will never blog again. But I told the truth.

At Last, His Own Broken Bone

I would be amisss to not share the "physical tragedy" that John Paul suffered this Fall. I think the included pictures will well communicate the level of sympathy required. You'll be happy to know that his broken finger healed well and quickly. However, his x-ray copy was an excellent prop for all to see.

Brennan and the Bathroom

Hey, why not start my hopeful blogging spree/update with something funny?

My beautiful 5 1/2 year old recently used the bathroom. He had been a little constipated so his success was a relief, frankly for all of us. Yet he is screaming for me before the toilet had been flushed and before he could even get the door open. I was once again needed to view his efforts. But with tears in his eyes he told me that something was very wrong.

With a little irritation, I looked at the contents of the toilet bowl, as he pointed to a box type match stick. I had apparently lit some bathroom candle for use during a bath and had forgotten to flush it down. So my poor baby thought that his body had produced this...... While trying not to laugh, I explained that it had not come from his body but from me lighting candles.

Lesson learned.