well ain't that a kick in the balls

Figuratively speaking of course. Because I don't have balls. Although I've often been accused of having big brass ones.

But alas I've been blessed with dysfunctional lady parts. Seems like the damn things have never worked right! That's why I had a rough pregnancy. That's why I had a hysterectomy at the age of 25. That's why I've had two surgeries, countless laser ablations and several rounds of topical chemo.

And now that's why I don't even care if I never have sex again. Sex hurts. And when it hurts I look. And when I look I am reminded of the cancer that continues to fester.

(By the way, if you know me outside of cyberspace and pick up the phone to call me, don't. There's a reason I haven't mentioned it. I don't want to talk about it.)

It's been back for a while...came back not long after I healed from the last surgery. Some days it doesn't bother me at all and I don't even think about it. Most days it's a mild annoyance...a constant irritation, reminding me that all is not right in the region. It reminds me of Winston's varicose ulcer in Orwell's 1984.

Then there's days like today. A quick round of sex brings about pain and of course me being me, leads me to investigate the source of that pain. The investigation reveals everything I expected to see (from previous examinations) and confirms earlier suspicions that yes, it has clearly spread to previously uncharted territory.

I am immediately annoyed. I am then filled with that nagging, haunting sense of doom as I envision this invader creeping, slowly taking over. The fact that I have these thoughts only annoys me more. That wave of nausea washes over me. I can't speak. A piercing pain grabs my mid-section. And I wonder stupidly, for a fleeting second, if this is what it feels like to get kicked in the balls.

don't close your eyes

They say that I must learn to separate myself from the human face of this job.

I say that if I ever get to the point I am no longer able to see that human face it is time for me to quit.

I guess that's how a lot of people deal with it though.

We find their bodies broken and bloody. We find them gasping for breath, their hearts too weak to beat. We hear the cries of their husbands and wives, their children, their parents.

We do what we can.

Some of us close our eyes, refusing to see past the flesh and bone. Some of us close our hearts, refusing to feel their pain.

But sometimes all we can do is care. What good are we to them if we lose that ability?

relentless tide

As usual, I have a gazillion things on my to-do list, but I can't seem to check any of them off because my mind is a million miles away.

I would entertain the possibility that I had ADD if it weren't for the fact that the distractions are rarely varied. No, my attention always seems to be focused in one direction - that single, all consuming wave of emotion that begins with a sharp catch of the breath and begins to ebb with the whispered exhalation, "you have no idea how much I love you."

damn vortex

Well hell, I did it again.

To borrow a thought from a dear friend of mine - that damn vortex! It will get you every time.

So often it seems as though there's nothing really going on in my life, yet once I suddenly catch my breath and look back, I'm like, "wow! no wonder it was so easy to get sucked into that vortex."

Things I've done over the past 2 months:

* Started teaching Sunday school. I hate the term "teacher" though. After all, in order to be qualified to "teach" shouldn't you really have a firm understanding of the subject? Shouldn't you be able to answer questions? So, I lead the Bible study discussion for my age group every Sunday morning. And I haven't burst into flames yet, which proves that whole idea of forgiveness.

* Contracted, suffered through and recovered from a nasty case of walking pneumonia. This was the second time I've had that mess. Funny thing though - I was never actually sick. At least not "sick" as in sniffing, sneezing, runny nose sick. My chest had already been hurting for a week before I got the sniffles, which only lasted a couple days. Mostly I just felt like there was an elephant sitting on my chest and I couldn't quite catch my breath.

* Quit smoking. Again. Ok, it's only Day 12 and I've cheated twice, but I'm working on it. The whole pneumonia thing really scared me. It was the second time I've had that mess and this time I was downright out of breath and literally gasping for air. It occurred to me that I'd been smoking for 20 years and I was probably pushing my luck. If I keep smoking, odds are good I'll end up living my life out of breath and gasping for air. No thanks. I get the picture. I'll stop.

(Of course, I've discovered my mom is absolutely right about what has kept me from actually quitting. She told me that my problem with quitting was simply that I was too stubborn. You'd think being stubborn would come in handy when trying to muster up the willpower to do something, but I'm stubborn in a backwards kind of way. When I decide I want to smoke, I go smoke a cigarette, whether I've quit or not.)

* Started working part-time with the local EMS service. I'm still in the training phase, riding as a 3rd person provider. I was most nervous about driving the ambulance, so of course my first time driving was an emergency traffic call down a curvy road. I'm doing ok though and really think I'm going to enjoy this type of work. This gives me a total of three part-time jobs though, which makes scheduling a bit hectic. As The Boy pointed out the other day, once you put it all together it's like I work a full-time job plus an extra part-time job. I wish The Husband would reach that same realization. He seems to be trying though.

Things I haven't done over the past two months:

* Written any blogs. Instead I've been writing Sunday school lessons, grant reports, letters to friends, to-do lists (that never seem to get done)and grocery lists. I hope to get back on track with that routine as well.

* Kept up with my blog subscriptions. I've missed reading them and hope to get back into the routine although I'm not sure I'll ever get caught up on all of them. That's where I'm off to now - to see what everyone else has been up to for the past two months.

things I wonder about

My fellow blogger Maria (who has such a knack for combining incredibly funny with incredibly deep to make for a heartwarming read) has been wondering about things lately, which prompted me to do some wondering of my own.

1) I wonder why we never see birds falling from the sky, or out of trees. Birds have to die, I'm certain of it. But I've never seen a bird that died from natural causes. I've seen the ones who had very unfortunate encounters with cars, those assaulted by other animals and, in one particularly sad incident, a bird who mistook a freshly washed, giant plate glass window for an unencumbered entry to my office. (I refused to ever wash that window again for fear of it happening again.) BUT, I've never seen a bird sitting on a power line or tree limb suddenly lose the fight. I've never come across a dead bird that hadn't died of some horrific trauma. Where on earth do the go? I've been told that animals cart them off too quickly for us to discover, but I have a hard time buying that. There's a LOT of birds in this world. Where do they all go when they die and how is it that no one I know has ever seen one fall out of the sky or off a perch? A weird thing to wonder I know, but it's always troubled me.

2) Why is it that you always start to feel better if you finally call to make that doctor's appointment, only to feel worse again if you decide to cancel? I could chalk this up to the placebo effect, except the same holds true for vehicles. They never make that funny noise at the mechanics, but as soon as you leave the garage, it does it again.

3) Why is it that my husband cannot sit through a single commercial but can be sitting on the edge of his seat for an entire four hour Operation Repo marathon?

4) Why is it that men take so much pride in their ability to write their names in the snow, but refuse to practice their aim in the bathroom? (Incidentally, I recently read somewhere that if you painted a fly or some such silliness in the bottom of the bowl, they will always aim for it, thus making cleaning the toilet and surrounding area a much more bearable task.)

5) Why is it that at 5:30 in the afternoon, when everyone in town is doing their grocery shopping, there will be 15 store employees milling around but only two registers open and no one bagging groceries?

6) Why is it that I seem to be the only one in my house who recognizes when a vacuum cleaner, dust rag or broom should be used?

7) Why is that I seem to be the only one who knows how to use these fancy-fangled devices?

8) Why is it that when I'm looking for a job there's none to be found, but when I already have several, everyone wants to offer me another one?

9) Why is it that none of my dogs are confident in my ability to go pee by myself? Ok, as annoying as it can be to have three dogs escorting every move I make, it really does give me a warm fuzzy feeling to know they're that protective of me. "Oh no, woman is going to another room, ON GUARD, GO!"

10) Why is it that two of those same dogs seem to forget I exist as they fly through the woods after an unknown creature, seemingly oblivious to my demands and pleadings that they "STAY!!! COME BACK HERE!!"

11) How does my cat know I'm going for a bowl of cereal? If I even THINK about getting a bowl of cereal, she is in my lap or rubbing herself against my legs. And don't let me sit down on the couch with a bowl of cereal, because she will insist on sitting on the arm of the couch (or the back, above my shoulder) trying to shove her fat kitty nose into my bowl. If I'm not eating it fast enough for her, she'll nudge the bottom of the bowl with her fat kitty head. More than one bowl of cereal has been dumped in my lap that way. Or she'll bat at the spoon with her paw.

12) Why do I continue to sit the bowl down for that damn cat when I'm finished??

13) Why is it that the men-folk around here fuss there's nothing to eat in the house when there's a refrigerator full of leftovers that need to be thrown out because they opted to eat frozen pizzas on the nights I worked?

14) Why do these same men-folk not understand why I refuse to cook more food when there's still leftovers that need to be eaten before they go bad in the refrigerator?

15) Why do I let such crap get under my skin so bad? I know that in the grand scheme of things, little daily annoyances really don't matter. I try to remind myself of that as I feel my temper rising, but after a while I explode and everyone in the house decides I must just be cranky that day.

If they're old and he's a teen, I must be middle-aged

Getting old sucks.

It's as though I woke up one day recently to discover that everyone around me has gotten old.

My great-grandmother recently turned 95, but that's not what triggered it for me. She's always been old, at least for as long as I've been around.

I think it was more that my grandmother turned 70 last year. When I looked at her one day and realized that, even though she could still pass for 50, she is now what most people would consider elderly.

That point was really driven home a few weeks ago when she called to let me know she had made her final arrangements and worked out a payment plan so she could cover the cost herself. She was calling me to let me know that I was the one she listed to receive her cremated remains.

I was only partly shocked. She and I have had that conversation before. I knew what she wanted done and had long ago agreed to ensure her wishes were carried out. But the fact that she has finally, not only put it in writing, but made firm plans, kind of took me aback.

Then, just a few days ago, my mom, who is 52, called to tell me that her doctor had just informed her that she had osteoporosis and needs to start considering treatment options. So there I am, doing a ton of research on the internet, shocked to discover that my mom, the woman who rocked skimpy bikinis in the 80s and mini skirts even in the 90s, is now frail. FRAIL!

I guess I've reached THAT point. You know the one. Where you finish raising your children, just in time to take care of your parents and grandparents. My son will start high school in another year and be ready to start college or strike out on his own in another 5 years.

I'm not sure I'm ready for all this.

whole

I think I recognized the restaurant - one of my favorite little places at the beach. He sat across from me, laughing as we talked.

I remember thinking, even in my dream, "my God, he's whole again." His hair was long, threatening to spill into those deep brown eyes. It's been a long time since I've seen it so long.

For the life of me, I can't remember what we were talking about, but I know it included a comment about cheesy bread. But the conversation was comfortable, easy. We laughed, a lot.

My alarm clock jerked me back to this world. But I was whole again, for just a little while.