Because He Still Wants To......

We started this journey so long ago. First, he was thinking about being a Corpsman because he wanted to be in the medical aspect of things. Then it was the Marine Corps because that is what he knows. Then other things in our life forced his reenlistment to take the back burner while we worked on getting things in order. He lost 80 pounds, then gained some of it back, then lost it, then gained a little more back. Then all hell broke loose in our lives, and things changed drastically. Through all of this, he still wants to reenlist. But the focus has now become getting him some sort of education completed so in the event that I cannot work, we will not be completely out of sorts. So how does he get both?

He contacted the Army. After being in this game for a little while, even I was impressed with what they had to say. Back in as an E-4, as in no loss of rank. PFT and body composition standards that will not break the back of a man who has been a civilian for almost a decade. Possibly even back in as an E-5 because he has completed 80 college credits as a civilian. Still no boot camp, but only a 2-week orientation of sorts. Almost guarunteed the MOS of combat medic, with said training allowing him to be a practicing civilian EMT upon discharge. Possible radiography tech training and credentials, which he wanted as a civilian but found the waiting list for nearby programs to be too long. A break for me. I could slacken my work hours a little and focus on getting that pre-med degree finished, at least. Relocation from an area he hates. This could possibly be the best opportunity for my family. BUT.........

I am still scared. Unlike before, when I refused to tell him what I wanted, I have agreed with him verbally. This could theoretically fix all of our problems right now. It could make things better. But is it worth the risk? We are not so naiive to believe that this all comes without a cost. We know for a fact that he will ship off to war. It could be immediately or it could be a year after training. Unlike the Marine Corps, the Army deploys for twelve to fifteen months, at the least. That is a very long time for my husband and Evan's father to be gone. And what if something happens to him? Of course, everyone that leaves for a combat zone believes they will be like the other guys they know who came back safely. But they would be foolish to believe that they could not be, instead, the one on their hometown news broadcast in the flag-draped casket. Or the veteran they show learning to walk with his new prosthetic.

It feels like a gigantic gamble. Like we would be pawning something very dear to us, which we can't live without, not knowing if we will be able to ever get it out of hock. My mother always taught me to not gamble with anything you cannot afford to lose for good. And there could never be enough money in the world to make up for the loss of my John. I would never be whole again. He is a part of me after all of these years, after all.

I am at a loss. I am finding a hard time stopping him from doing something that will get us out of this situation. But I am also having a hard time with the danger of it all. Is this the only way out? And after a year, with him still wanting to reenlist, would any other solution be acceptable to him? Is he just doing this to get us out? Or is he using our current circumstances as a justification for going back in? I'm afraid I will never know the true answer to these questions.

Us, If We Even Tried!

My favorite movie these days is "Fun with Dick and Jane". If you have lived under a rock lately and have not seen this movie, it is about the perfect All-American family who loses everything when his company goes under. Slowly they sell off all of their posessions one by one, and try any last-ditch effort to get money to cover the bills. When they finally get a foreclosure notice in the mail, they resort to desperate measures. I can relate, but like John and I, some people just are not hardened criminals. I wouldn't even have the cajones to try this. And even if I did, and tried to pull it off, I would feel so guilty and turn myself, as well as all of the money, in . Just like she said in the movie, maybe we just aren't Badasses!

Ha! Here ya go John!

Hahaha! This is from the Popeye movie that was out when I was a kid, and this song is sort of an inside joke. The other night, I got it stuck in my head, and was singing it around the house. Keep in mind that I sing a little worse than Shelley Duvall. It was also in Punch-Drunk Love, which had to be the strangest movie I have seen. Anyhow, John was laughing his head off at me singing this song, so I had to post this!

Successful?????

In case you can't tell, because of the recent events, I have been doubting myself. It's really hard not too when a string of misfortune comes your way, and you are a student of logic. One has to ponder whether the events are a result of one's own actions. Surely it can't all just be bad luck. But I found this Emerson piece, and since I am an idiot, and cannot figure a way to format this where it will stay that way when I publish this post to the blog, I am going to put it in the sidebar. I will sum it all up with this statement: yes, I am successful. Read: I am not such a failure after all.

Hoping for a Miracle....

Our lives have fallen apart. Plain and simple. We try and try to keep a positive outlook, but each step forward is followed by two steps back. I would love to know the secret to keeping one's chin up when there is this much weight on one's shoulders. It is something I am having trouble figuring out at the moment.



There are others out there who have the desir eto help but not the means. They have done what they can and I will forever be grateful to them, even if it something as simple as a good intention. But this is a very lonely place I am in. I feel like I am driving my friends away. I cannot seem to keep myself from venting or discussing what is going on in my life. But then on the other hand, when I do, I feel like I am bothering them with my troubles. Or that they just don't want to hear it. On that same note, I have a hard time being my outgoing, wise-cracking self these days. I am more bitter and depressed. No one likes a bitter woman. I fear I have become one of these toxic women that you read about in Cosmo or something, and don't know what to do about it. But how are you supposed to act when all hope is gone? When there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but only darkness for as far as you can see?

Just Something I Read

Awesome read. Awesome. It isn't something I would normally choose, but the preview for the film looked interesting, and since the book is always better, I rushed to read it so I could see the film without guilt. Of course all hell broke loose (see last post) and the movie was never to be for me.

But I loved it. Now I have this fixation with the Tudors....NO--not the cable show. And John hates it because this is so different from the things in which he is interested!

So anyhow....read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. In the meantime, I will finish The Fountainhead then I plan to read it again.

Disordered

This is hard tp write...errrr... type. It's such a long story, but I have been MIA for quite some time now, and this is why. So I am juyst going to cut and paste something I had already written.

I am grappling with the decision to reveal this as I type it. It is very personal in nature, but I also know that we are all a family of sorts. And I know you will all laugh when I say that we medical personnel truly do make the worst patients. But during my absence from the site over the past few weeks, I became the patient, and I do not like it one bit. Some background information is needed for you to understand what is going on, so please try to stay awake.
I was 17 years old, on my way to my fast food job during my senior year of high school. It was pouring rain at the time, and I was involved in a hit-and-run accident when someone in a very large truck ran a stop sign. My car went skidding sideways, with my head striking the driver’s side window as my body went hurtling sideways. I was taken to the emergency room, where a head CT was done. I had a concussion, and was sent home. Lucky me.
But then a couple days later, we got a call from our family doctor telling us to report to the office to discuss the results of the head CT. It turns out that the radiologist, when reviewing the films, had discovered something out of the ordinary. I will never forget the sound my heart makes when it drops out of my chest, as it did that day when my doctor drew a crude depiction of a brain on a dry-erase board, explaining where they had found the mass. It was two days before Christmas. My follow-up with the neurosurgeon was a week later, the day after my eighteenth birthday. They sent me to the best. The Mayfield Neurological Institute of Cincinnati. So we trusted him when he told us that it was too small to be of concern, that it may possibly even be artifact on the film. It was forgotten as the years passed.
Here we are now. I’m a wife, a mother. A healthcare professional. And while I was sleeping off a twelve hour night shift, I am awakened to blinding, stabbing pain in my forehead. Pain so intense that my screams caused my husband and young son to run to see what was wrong. The room was spinning and nausea set in. Then came the fear. I was taken to the ER, where a head CT was done…..again. I knew it was not good when the doctor called me to the nurse’s station to look at the scan on his computer. For a moment, I was out of my own body. This is the same physician I had worked alongside to save the life of others. This was someone else’s brain on the screen. But there it was. Just lateral to midline on the right of my frontal lobe. That ugly, ugly thing that had caused the phone call all those years ago. As we stood there looking at it, another physician with whom I had worked walked through, saw the film, and exclaimed “Oh, S##T!”, not realizing it was my head we were looking at. That is when the tears started. The doctor’s voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else as he told the nurse to schedule the next scan with contrast. When she asked for the indication, it seemed unreal when he said “Brain tumor, right frontal lobe”.
That was March 14th. Since that day, the pain has not stopped unless it was under the influence of narcotic painkillers. I cannot work while on narcotics, so I have had time to mull this over in my head. There has now been a total of 6 head scans, including an MRA (Thanks to Dave, who knew immediately what it was!), 2 standard MRI’s, and MRI with contrast, and 2 CT’s. Yet we still do not know what is happening. The theory is that the pain is caused by the tumor pressing on my skull, causing back pressure on my brain. The debilitating symptoms alone are enough to justify its removal. I have not gotten official word just yet.
But what is most profound to me are the thoughts that have gone through my head. We expect our patients to trust us, no matter what. With their lives, the lives of their children, siblings, parents. Yet now that the time has come, I am having a hard time trusting the capable hands I have worked alongside for some time now. We expect them to take what is coming with ease, yet the idea of someone opening my skull is terrifying me. What is to become of me? What is to become of the brain that holds so much? The tissue that holds within it the memory of my son’s first step, my mother who I lost all of those years ago. The memories are all I have left of her. What is to become of my career when someone is to take a scalpel to the area that tells my hands exactly how to intubate, or exactly what drug to give to counteract my patient’s life-threatening arrhythmia?
I am learning too. For the scans, all of them, I was not claustrophobic enough to require sedation, but only for one reason, and one reason only. My John. I could get through all of them as long as I felt his hand on my ankle, telling me he was there, even when I could not see him. It did not matter that the tech was watching from another room, or that she made sure the call button was in my hand before she left me. It just mattered that my Marine was there for me if I got into trouble. After over seven years in a marriage where I have always been the strong one, it took this to show me how much I truly need him with me. To realize that it will all be okay if he is there. That we will survive this too. Together we can.
So why am I telling you all of this? I honestly am not sure. Part of me is hoping you will learn something from the story. Perhaps you will approach your patient a little differently, or hug your loved ones a little tighter. But another part of me wonders if this is something we all have to learn on our own.