BAD HAIKU OF JANUARY, 2016, DEATH STALKS US

Winter tolls death knell
No weeping at a grave site
Bansidhe screams silent

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I mourn the passing of my dearest uncle Michael. My grandparents and 3 teenagers raised me. When I came home from the hospital as a new baby, Mike was 14, Bob was 13, and Annie was 10.  I was raised by my grandparents and by a tribe of teenagers. They were all very good to me, but I was especially close to Mike. His loss has left a huge, gaping wound in my damaged, grinch heart.

Oddly enough, we both had our first heart attacks at the same, young age, and had subsequent heart surgeries and grafts in the exact same places on the exact same vessels. Along with the bad heart, he and I also shared other strange medical conditions and ailments. There is a definite genetic link in our bad hearts, and doubtless the other health issues, too. I am beginning to think these are not all different diseases or conditions, but are actually symptoms of one disease.

There is something really odd and strange about his heart attack, and please bear with me while I relate it. Mike and his brother, Bob, were on a winter fishing trip at Kentucky Lake. It was cold, and they were out on the lake in a boat. Somehow, they managed to tip the boat over and both of them went into the water. Naturally, neither of them were wearing life vests. Bob was able to cling onto the side of the boat, but Mike surfaced underneath it...he told me he had tried to float and to stay calm, but I suppose the cold and the shock got to him; he slipped underwater and didn't re-surface. Fortunately, someone had witnessed this happen and was able to call 911 and get a rescue team there as soon as possible.

By the time rescue arrived he had been underwater for 20 minutes. In his case, the near freezing water actually helped him. They were able to revive him. He went directly to intensive care via helicopter. The next day, a doctor came to see him to tell him he had fluid in his lungs and needed a heart operation. His reply was, "No shit, asshole, I just drowned. Of course my lungs are gonna be full of fluid!" That's my Mike--never pulled any punches.

The doctor countered, "Nooooo...your lungs are not full of lake water, they are full because your heart is not pumping correctly. You have extensive blockages in all your major coronary vessels. Mike was able to get out one word, which was "Bullshit," and then the first heart attack struck. He was whisked away into heart surgery where they did a quadruple bypass that very day. Afterward they would not release him to go home alone to his own home--he had to be discharged where someone would be there to care for him, so he went to my mother's house to stay. At that time she was probably more sick than he was, as she was in the process of dying of COPD and emphysema. At the time I was living in Clayton and would check on them both nearly every day.

He had to stop working as an electrician, which is often quite physically demanding, and put in a claim for disability. He was also able to draw a disability check from the union, so he was not that bad off. He was still making good money, as far as disability goes. Of course it was nowhere near what he made as an electrician, but now he had no travel or other work-related expenses. He had worked like a dog his whole life and had amassed quite a tidy sum in annuities for his retirement, which had yet to be touched at the time of his death.  His wife, whom he had not seen in 40 years will reap that benefit. She is a greedy bitch. (I never pull any punches either.) She never HAD to work a day in her life, but unbeknownst to him had had a full time job for the last 20 years and had been hiding that knowledge from him. He continued to send her half of his check the entire time he was alive. I believe the IRS will be informed, and I will stand by and wait as the axe falls across the correct neck.

Now here's what really gets me. There will be no funeral. He wanted to cremated and have his ashes poured into Kentucky Lake, where he "died" the first time. He believed, as I do, that you die when you're supposed to die. If you're brought back, you are essentially in a living hell on Earth for the remaining time spent alive.  My uncle Martin felt the same way. We all arrived at this conclusion at different times, but realized we were on the same page when I happened to mention one day that my life has been nothing but turmoil and a roiling morass of pain and anguish of one sort or another since the day I was brought back from death. As was Michael's life, As was Martin's life. So, by Mike's thinking, he is going back to his watery grave, where he should have stayed when he was *dead* the first time.

Another twist to the knife in my ribs: There will be no memorial service for him for our remaining family which consists of me (technically his niece, but I have the pride of place as sister because we grew up together in the same household, in the same generation), his brother Bob, and a skillion first cousins and then the children of the cousins. There are hundreds upon hundreds of union people who knew him and respected him, and many who just respect the family name. We are considered "big wigs" as far as the union is considered.

In summation, I think it is total horseshit that no one cares enough to organize some kind of a memorial service. We NEED a memorial because it helps the grieving process. I can't do it because I am extremely ill. I could make it there, more than likely, but would need at least a day to recover from the drive there, then again for the drive back.

The year 2015 was not a good one for me, health-wise. I'm dying and I know it. Every day I get just a little bit weaker, a little more dependent. I am quite literally wasting away. I have lost enough weight to make up another entire person. My muscles are totally gone -- I have little to no musculature at all on my body. I am merely a skeleton covered by a lot of loose skin. I have reached "dying weight." So, I'm too damned sick to drive up to St. Louis and throw together a memorial, and it's something I just can't do over the phone. Even if it is just a get together, or a potluck meal at someone's house (and there are plenty of big houses among the cousins), it would be better than nothing.

I am disappointed in the rest of my asshole family. Ashamed, even. I see their true colors. I see how they are. How dare they care so little for something so important? Do they have so little regard for their elders, so little pride in their own family? These same people would not have hesitated to call on me, Mike & Bob if they needed something, or if we had something they wanted, or think nothing of just taking that something without even asking. That shit ends today. New will in progress.

                               

OWW MY SCREAMY BOOBS, ROUND 3

This morning bright and early I toddled off to Dr. Turban-wearer's office. I waited in the waiting room. I waited in the exam room. When he finally got to me he said straight away, "I am sending you back to your referring physician and releasing you. There is nothing I can do for you."

"Releasing me? After only one visit and only one drug?" I pleaded.  No response. "WTF is the matter with you?"

"There is nothing I can do to help you." He looked at the floor.

"So you're just giving up? You're not even going to try? What about the drugs I'm on now? Where am I supposed to get those? You know perfectly well a primary won't prescribe the narcotics I've been taking! What about my panic attacks? Where am I supposed to get Ativan, without which I will soon be hospital-bound?"

Without looking at me even once, he launched into preaching mode, "This is a pain you are just going to have to learn to live with. You have too many things wrong with you. Your heart, your back, your various injuries, your neuro-muscular issues...all of these are sources of pain and there is nothing I can do that will make it better. We all have to live with pain. For instance right now I have a headache and my hip hurts. See how I am standing?"

"I don't give a shit about your headache or your fucking hip. Take some aspirin and go see your referring physician."  I left.

I got into my car and sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes just weeping. I have 24 days to find a drug source or I'm up shit creek. This pain is unendurable. Even with drugs it is barely manageable. I can't just *learn to live with it* since it affects every aspect of my life. It affects how I get out of bed, how I put on clothes, how I comb my hair, what I eat and how I eat it. Goddammit I can't even take a shower since each bead of water that falls on my skin feels like a dagger.

Sheer desperation has made me consider having mastectomies, wondering if I actually cut off my screamy boobs if they'll stop being so urgently screamy. On the other hand, if it's the nerve that is damaged, the nerve will still be there, and so will the pain. I can't win.

Suddenly it all becomes clear, and I understand it completely. This my friends, is exactly how heroin addicts get made -- out of sheer desperation.

OWW MY IMAGINARY BACON

I had high hopes for the drug, Lyrica. I took it for a total of two weeks. The first week I felt pretty good. The second week I started crying. Not just crying like my eyes were leaking, but crying as in sobbing and wailing in grief. I'm still not over it.

I called Dr. Turban-wearer's office to report my symptoms. After taking a ration of shit from his secretary, my phone call was returned later that day.  She had the gall to say to me, "Well, are you a patient of Dr. Turban-wearer's? I just don't know why you would be calling here to tell me you're having symptoms." I was stunned.  I said, "No, lady. I just picked a random phone number to call out of the phone book.  YES, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I AM A PATIENT.  Do you have a pen in your hand? Yes? Great, write this down..."

Last night I dreamt I was eating a bacon sandwich with mayonnaise and cranberry sauce, of all things. I was crying while I was eating it. I woke up crying in actuality. This is how fuckered my brain has become in only two short weeks of Lyrica. I can't sleep worth a damn. Not sleeping is nothing new, but I certainly don't need dreams that make me cry when I finally do manage to fall into a deep enough sleep to conjure up a dream.

If you engage me in conversation, you might not get answers you're expecting. Consider this fair warning: I am not my usual "ray of sunshine" self. The fact that I can recognize that I am slightly off is a good thing, I suppose. Now, I'm just hoping it passes quickly. I don't need to be a total uber-depressed nutjob in addition to my *regular* ailments.

My next appointment with Dr. Turban-wearer is October 24, when I suppose he will move onto the next drug. I'm running out of possibilities and time both, FFS. Since the recent news of contaminated steroid shots and the resulting outbreak of meningitis, I am ever so glad I didn't jump on the shot bandwagon right away. I'm desperate, but not desperate enough for meningitis.

2ND OPINION: OWW MY SCREAMY BOOBS

I just got back from seeing a new pain specialist, hereafter to be known as *Dr. Turban-wearer,* and I have a new plan of attack. I had been hoping for injections, but he said since my pain is neuralgic/ neuropathic in nature, injections would probably not help and might even make me worse. He gave me three new drugs to try, one of which is Lyrica.

Dr. Turban-wearer told me today that when they opened my chest and spread the ribs apart, the nerves to T5 and T6 were damaged, which certainly explains the screamy boobs and the rib pain. It does not explain the continuing sternum pain. It does not explain my screamy xiphoid process. So, I got some answers, but not all. I am supposed to call him after five consecutive days on the drugs he issued today, to say if I am better or the same. WOW, he expects a result in only 5 days.  That alone makes me a little hopeful.

He said, "I know you are in terrible pain, but I also think you are a little mad." I asked if he meant *mad* as in bat-shit crazy, or *mad* as in angry? He laughed. I admitted to both. Being in pain this long without help has made me crazy. Being in pain this long and having doctors who do nothing has certainly made me angry.

I have completely stopped taking Neurontin/Gabapentin, the drug which was responsible for turning me into a floppy rag doll. All along it had not been helping my pain, and Dr. Whackadoo's solution was to increase the doseage, which only made me more clumsy and more floppy. The last thing any myasthenic needs is additional help at being weak (the point Dr. No-Fly, the neurologist, had been trying to make from the get-go). 

I have an appointment with Dr. Whackadoo tomorrow. It will most likely be my last visit with him, unless he has received some profound revelation in the past several days, or has miraculously grown wings and stigmata since the last time I saw him.

Photophobia

At Whackadoo's office today I was straining my dim eyes to see what the hell he was typing into my file while trying not to be noticed at the same time.  The only word I could see--get this-- was "photophobic."  Har Har! I guess that explains the extreme vitamin D deficiency, the skin whiter than milk (I make milk look gray), and the Transitions lenses in my glasses.  Hrmph.

I have the lorazepam thing ironed out for the next 60 days, at which time I'll get a small reduction in the doseage, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

He has quadrupled one of the other drugs I take, Gabapentin, in the meantime.  Quadrupled!!!  WTF?Gabapentin is the drug responsible for my clumsiness.  Great.  Just fucking great.  I can't wait to fall so often that I just choose to lay on the floor to roll and scoot around the damned house, channelling Eddie Murphy in *Trading Places.* He actually said, "Aww come on, just TRY it. You can always stop taking it."  I rolled my photophobic eyes at him.  Bastard.  I could almost see demon horns sprouting from his forehead.

I'm going to TRY these doseages - I've got nothing to lose.  I do have a wheelchair if I need it.  It took me a long time to get out of it the last time I got REALLY sick.  I'd like to stay out of it.  I'd rather shove the Gabapentin up Whackadoo's ass, if need be, than get back in the damned chair.  I promised to badger him on the phone if it wasn't working, and I reminded him the neurologist told me to be very careful with Gabapentin.

::drums fingers on desk and dreams of some kind of fluffy, pink, girly, froo-froo drink and a menthol cigarette:: (Mind you, I don't drink or smoke.  Shit.)