The Nutcase Diaries

3:26PM

"I think Nick must be gay, and Ann must be a lesbian. Because when I was out talking to Ann, and Nick came along, she went and kissed him right on the mouth. I think that's just how the gays do it." -- My grandmother

8:18PM - Hi! Everybody in my family is dying!

Someday soon, someone's going to ask me, "Hey, what's going on?" and I'm going to say "Not a damned thing." I am REALLY REALLY looking forward to this.

*

So, Grandma:
Apparently she is having some bleeding behind the eye that was affected by her temporal-arteritis-or-stroke-we-still-can't-decide-which fiasco. She is in significant pain and has surgery scheduled for the 14th. It's laser surgery, but I have no idea how major the surgery is.

So, my stepdad:
He went to the doctor today and they told him that his aortic valve is so skinny that he could drop dead any minute. (I got this info from my mother. Hopefully they weren't quite so callous as all that.) He needs to have a lot of dental work done -- my mom said he needs all of his teeth pulled -- so that they can operate on his heart. Mom made it sound like the dental procedures are the worst part of the ordeal, but obviously the heart surgery is vital.

Mom's a wreck. My own life is cautiously uneventful.

8:26PM - That didn't take long

Tonight, at work, I got a business-related call from a pharmacist I used to work with. He's a really funny guy, and we always used to flirt outrageously, just for fun.

Guy: So, hey, how are you? Anything new going on in your life?

Me: Well, uh, yeah. I left my husband.

Guy: Wow.

Me: So, uh, yeah. Anything new going on in your life?

Guy: Well, I'm stuck in a dead end marriage. Wanna have an affair?

Me: *genuine boisterous laugh at joke, followed by "wait a minute -- was he serious?"

So, uh, yeah. Ew.

9:03PM - small steps, long journeys

Today, I took off my wedding ring.

*

I am tempted to leave it at that, to use my succinctness as a loud speaker, but there are many more things to tell.

Since he left, Josh has entered my life three times. He texted me his new cell number. He texted me to say "please stamp all my mail return to sender." And, in a display of Total Awkward, I ran into him on the street. I was with my new girl. He was with a friend. He said hi. I said, hey, how are you. He turned back to his conversation.

I think I was snubbed.

*

These walls have become poison. Before he left, when we were arguing about who would stay where and get what, I said I really love this apartment and I'd rather like to stay here. And he said, What? Do you want to live and die in this room?

I think the carpeting soaked up my bitterness.

I sleep on the floor and feel gross about it -- not about sleeping on the floor, but sleeping in my room, because I could stay in the living room on the couch but I want the safety of my own room. As if this is a bad thing. As if it is a bad thing to be content, to be happy where you are.

I never come home anymore. Jess is upset about it. The cat is upset about it. I'm upset about it. Jess and I are talking about moving next door even though we don't have to now, because it would be different and it would be cheaper -- a lot cheaper -- and I love that building and we wouldn't have this crappy gross carpet and anyway Josh is all over everything. I still hear his footfalls on the steps. I still walk in the living room and expect him to be there, and he isn't.

*

I'm not so much sad as I am angry.

*

He kept his keys.

10:27PM

Jess came and got me at work so I wouldn't find out on my own.

We had light small talk, and then entered the building. I started up the stairs, and Jess said "Allycen." I turned. He had a serious look on his face. "Sit down."

"Jess?"

"Sit down." I sat. He looked at me. I looked at him. What was going to happen? "Josh is gone. He's gone. I don't know where he went. He took his stuff. He's gone." He held my face in his hands.

*

I have not been entirely clear: I didn't leave my husband for a woman. I left my husband because he was depressed, because he wouldn't get help for it, because his depression made him say and do things that were less than okay. My marriage was open, and technically my relationship with Lisa was within the bounds of our relationship, though my timing was off.

As of last night, it was Jess and I that were going to leave. Josh made it clear that I should be the one to go. He was keeping the cat. I could come back whenever I "figured things out."

*

My bed is gone. His computer, the dining room table, the television his parents bought us when we got married. He took the little table in the hallway where I put bills, and two wooden chairs. A suitcase. The plastic set of drawers we kept our underwear in.

He left me the cat, and a note that says "Call me when you figure things out. Love Josh."

*

I told him several times in the last few days: I asked you to go to counseling with me, and you said no. That was damning. I was not okay with that. We need the objectivity of a third party.

And he was still against it. I would have stayed in if he'd agreed to counseling.

*

I'm really, really happy that I got the cat.

Also, people have been coming out of the woodwork to support me.

I didn't think I deserved that.

Josh said that I was negligent, passive-aggressive, resistant to everything he said.

Jess won't leave my side. He's staying home tomorrow and cleaning up, he's informed me. He's got someone out to find a replacement bed for me. Everybody in this house gets whatever they want right now.

Especially the cat.

7:06PM - The email I just sent to my family

As things currently stand:

Josh and I are breaking up.
I am seeing someone new.
Her name is Lisa.

*

Right now, not taking phone calls.

9:26PM

I've been through the whole emotional amusement park recently, but right now I'm only going to talk about one ride.

( Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles. -- Frank Lloyd Wright )

9:24PM - More Grandma updatage

Quote from one of the various emails I've gotten today:

"The doctor said that there is 70% blockage on the right side of Nanny's neck, the same side where she suffered the eye incident. She said surgery isn't typically considered as routine when there is blockage without incident, however since Nanny did have an occurrence involving her eye, that would probably be the way they the way to proceed with treatment would be to have surgery, however in that event it is usually scheduled out about six weeks after the incident has occurred and not done immediately.

The doctor said to further evaluate Nanny's condition it will be necessary for her to have an angiogram which will be scheduled today, and she will remain in the hospital to have that procedure."

I am very, very sad.

10:39AM - Countdown?

My grandmother is in the hospital again. She started shaking very badly last night -- like chills, she said, only much worse -- and went by ambulance to the hospital. She told me that she will probably have to stay another night. Nobody is really certain what is going on, although currently the doctors think she has some kind of infection, possibly in the blood.

7:44PM - Medical Marvels and Missing Miracles

My grandmother is 89 years old and in frail health. She is on at least 10 different medications, probably more, for a myriad of problems including diabetes and osteoporosis. Recently she was diagnosed with a condition known as Temporal Arteritis, an inflammation of the arteries behind the eye. It is causing a decrease in vision, which, if left untreated, could be permanent. It may also, if left untreated, increase her risk of stroke.

The treatment for this new, sudden illness is prednisone, which she will have to be on for at least a month but possibly longer. Prednisone can cause serious complications like: diabetes and osteoporosis.

Obviously, since she is already experiencing both of these conditions, the implications are quite dangerous. Already her blood glucose has spiked to insane levels, ending her up in the hospital for an insulin drip. Her doctor has told her that she will need to go on insulin shots for the duration of the prednisone course.

She is a frail 89 year old woman with tremors in her hands. I don't think it is safe or possible for her to administer her own insulin shots; for that matter, I think she'd have difficulty with an insulin pump. She lives alone and she is very stubborn about continuing to do so. It may be, at this point, advisable to move her into assisted living, but it would be a major blow to her and there would be drama. (She will not even agree to have someone who is not family come to check up on her in her own home.)

So, the options:

1. Continue the prednisone course. She goes into a diabetic coma, falls, and breaks a hip.

2. Cease the prednisone course. She goes blind in at least one eye, and if she is lucky, does not have a stroke.

Her medicine is killing her. Not having medicine will kill her. It is difficult to say which way will be faster, or more humane; she, herself, is not willing to embrace her own mortality. When I went to see her in April, and we were in her car when the brakes failed on the hill -- she told me, I thought that was the end of me, and I was not ready.

10:46AM - The forest, the trees

My sister called me on Sunday afternoon. "Grandma called me in a panic. She has blurry vision. What does she want me to do, from 70 miles away? I told her to call 911. What could it even be, blurry vision? Do you think it's her diabetes?"

"I think maybe she stuck her finger in her eye," I said.

What I really thought was, it's a stroke. But there were so many other options. And anyway, Grandma took a cab to the hospital and they told her it was a detached retina. Come back tomorrow.

"They think it's arthritis," my sister said on that tomorrow, and then later, "now they think it's a stroke."

*

My mother and I call her ourselves in the evening. She is supposed to have surgery on her birthday. A Friday. The doctors need to break up the blood clot that caused the stroke. If they can do this, all will be copacetic. If they can't, she goes blind.

"People would think I was a crazy person if I told them what I could see. If I look down -- if I point my eyes down just so -- I can see trees. A whole row of them. Beautiful." It is the tone of her voice that gets me, the wonder in it. I have never heard that in her voice before, although I stretch my memory back as far as it will go to find it. The way she says beautiful makes me wish that I could see it too. "An old country chair," she continues. My mother is angry, annoyed, because this is how my mother deals with stress. She cuts the phone conversation before I can ask my grandmother what the trees look like, but not before I get to say I love you. Goodbye.

*

Edited to add: My sister sent me an update just as I posted this. It's Temporal arteritis, an inflammation of arteries in the head and neck. She'll be on prednisone for some time, and in theory it's better than a stroke, but yeesh.

4:03PM - Conversations I Would Gladly Never Have Again

Alternatively titled "Why I Make A Shitty Activist."

"Oh, actually, she's a woman. No, really, she's a woman. I know she has some stereotypically male features, but she's female. No, she's a woman. She's a woman. A woman. Wo-man. I know, but she's a woman. A woman. I know her personally -- she's a woman. No, a woman. No. A woman. I have known her for a very long time. I know for a fact that she's a woman. I know she doesn't look like one. But she's a woman. No, a woman. Look, Tarzan, I said she's a @#$&*??!!! woman, I @#$&*??!!!ing mean it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go train some monkeys to do your job."*

*Last two sentences may not be totally verbatim.

9:53PM - My mother

My sister sent me this...it's my mother, before I was born.

3:15PM - Things You Should Know After Five Years of Parenting a Cat

Leaving catnip out on the kitchen counter -- even in it's original packaging -- is like a siren call to kitties. Packaging isn't even considered an obstacle to a cat who fondly nibbles plastic with alarming regularity.

8:02PM - Three years

I was going to go to the grocery store today, stand in the same spot I was standing in when I found out that my father had died. I did not. After three years, the loss should have deadened a little, but it's bigger -- maybe because I have grown and the loss is what has grown me.

9:42AM

Last week, when Jess asked me what I wanted to do on my birthday, I said "What I'd really like -- I mean really, really --"

"--is to call your mother and gloat that her youngest child is 30?"

"Well, yeah, duh. But besides that, what I really want is for someone who is not me to plan something." Jess was kind of thrown by this, and then he promised to take me to a monster truck show, and a strip club.

Hopefully it's obvious that he was kidding.

( I hope I didn't miss Ladies Night or anything. )

7:12AM - Happy Birthday to ME

Well it's official: I am at the age where I'm too old to be trusted.



"Time and Tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty." -- Robert Frost

8:40PM - Artificial Mystery Flavor

Need a little more mystery in your life, but can't find it anywhere? We have a solution.

9:53PM - Random "Look At My Baby" Post

9:48PM - Overheard

Josh's friend: talking with Josh about a mutual acquaintance She's always over-thinking. You can see the furrows in her brow, from all that thinking. I couldn't live like that. I'd at least get Botox.