I Ain't Tha One

I am back to being completely miserable. I went to bed at 9:20pm last night without any dinner, without watching TV, without washing my face and woke up at 7:00am for work shivering in my bed, shivering in the hot shower, shivering while I blow-dried my hair, shivering while I tried to throw something tasteful and alluring together for my speed dating adventure tonight which I am not excited about. Nausea mixed with fatigue mixed with bloating mixed with lethargy and fogginess and a chill down through my bones. It's awful. I feel uncomfortable in my body and my mind. I don't feel like me. My lower back is stiff like rusty hinges that desperately need oil no matter what position I am in. I lie flat on my back and it aches. I lie on my stomach and try to make sure both hips are evenly placed on the mattress and I still can't get comfortable. My lower spine aches it aches it aches it aches. I am supposed to go to a rheumatologist. Since I have already self diagnosed myself with Ankylosing spondylitis, (which sounds like a Greek delicacy) I have not made my appointment because the last thing I need is for my suspicions to be confirmed, as they were in 1998 when I self-diagnosed my ulcerative colitis; man am I in the wrong profession. I even took the Ankylosing Spondylitis Screening Quiz on About.com and passed with flying colors. My eyes twitch involuntarily and always feel strained and sometimes I blank out and lose 10 seconds. My head is constantly throbbing like there is a vice around it and I am always thirsty. There isn't enough liquid in the world to quench my thirst. My teeth are sensitive to cold, and everything I eat makes me feel weird. Shit ain't good.

I didn't want to go to work today. I was on the subway standing up, praying for someone to give me a seat. Couldn't they tell how wrecked I look? Couldn't they tell I was about to cry? Couldn't they see that I could barely stand and was holding on for dear life. Finally I got a seat. Then the battle was keeping my head up, not throwing up, not crying, not turning around and going home. Should I really work? Can I work? I don't think so. I can't work or function when I feel like this. Despite all the many good days I've had in recent months, they have not obliterated the past or my fears for the future. And I can't spend my future like this. I was just getting comfortable. Of course getting comfortable means daring myself to wait until noon to take my morning pills or eating pizza 11 days in a row for the first time in eight years (I stopped eating dairy and wheat when I was first diagnosed in 1998). Getting comfortable means wearing my devil-may-care attitude again and getting dizzy while running at night in the snow on the Brooklyn Bridge but still detouring through DUMBO instead of going straight home. It means a little bit of denial.

That's all well and good but days like today remind me that I still have this disease and that I can't live like this. There has to be another way. When it's bad it's so bad. Today is so so so so bad. It's so bad that the martyr is coming back. How can I go speed dating when I feel like this? How can I date at all when this is always waiting for me in the wings to steal my happily ever after from me? This is not a life. I am too vibrant and enthusiastic and fun-loving and adventurous for restrictions like this. It isn't me. I sympathize with the grandfather I never loved because he was always snippy and depressed about his life. He lived until 93 but as long as I knew him he had no quality of life. He couldn't do anything. If he were a car he'd have been a lemon. In my lifetime he had strokes, open heart surgery, adult diabetes, toes removed because they were 'dead,' cataracts surgery, he was on blood thinners, he fell all the time in the apartment. He was miserable and I don't want his fate to become mine.

I am back on my lonely island where everything goes wrong and nothing works out. Yesterday was the day of the loss of control. I lost control in my all day email conversation with my sister. We both did. An ongoing issue between us resurfaced yesterday about her relationship with her boyfriend and about her boyfriend's character. I tried to tread lightly and gingerly yet be clear about my feelings all at the same time but it is a charged subject and she is uber-sensitive and defensive to begin with so it got very, very out of control in a bad way. Hearing from Mrs. Illinois yesterday also made me lose control, albeit in a very different way. I did not at any point feel blood streaming through my body or my hands shaking or my mouth dry up or a pit in the bottom of my stomach. But she is continuing what her husband started. He acted and I reacted. And every action of his was out of the blue and absolutely shocking, out of the box and made my world teeter totter a little bit. Of course his early declarations of love and early, spontaneous proposals of marriage were good surprises but they were the precursor to the lonely nights I was desperate for his company when I was pregnant and told the baby was scary small or when the March after we broke up he decided he wanted to get back together or the way and the timing he broke up with me in the first place. Mrs. Illinois' email rocked my world too but it was purely the surprise factor, not devastation of any kind, not an earthquake. Hearing more from her yesterday made me lose control in my desire for more of her. As much sense as her email made for why she contacted me, I can step out of that enough, i.e.; step in the box where the regular people live and understand that her emailing me is bizarre no matter how much she related to my blogs and my urgency in wanting to know more and meet her and talk to her in person is even more bizarre. This is all despite the opposition I am getting from my friends, who are in the box. Anyone who saw me after the dramatic demise of my relationship from Illinois has every right to worry; no one wants to see me go back there. My curious nature prevails and her email was more amazing and detailed and comprehensive and intelligent than the last. Her latest email compounds the allure I felt towards her after receiving the first email. And today my dad is under the knife. I don't think anything more needs to be said about that or how apprehensive and little control I have there. Yesterday was exhausting. And today I am suffering for it and trying to pick up the pieces and tape myself back together and maintain what little control I have.

And so I did. I worked until I couldn't focus anymore and went to see my dad. I skipped speed-dating to keep my mother company at the hospital and made sure I saw my dad's green eyes open with my own green eyes. He was on the table for seven hours. Seven hours I was at work trying to work knowing my dad was on the table. Seven hours I was sitting with my mom in the waiting area while she talked to my uncle while I asked the nurses whether he was in recovery yet while my sister left while my brother and his girlfriend came and left while my mom talked to my dad's partner while my mom and I went out to dinner while my stomach kept turning and turning and turning and turning until I saw those green eyes open with my green eyes and heard my dad tell me loved me and realized that my health wouldn't matter if he wasn't in my world and as long as he remains in my world I'd sacrifice most anything. The damndest thing is, I will never be given that option. He will be lost and my world will shake and shake and shake until I don't recognize it anymore and there won't be a damn thing I can do about it. Loss of control.

Oh Father

I am near tears and very angry. I need a warrior princess run. I wish it was snowing so I could really feel tough and get it all out. I wish it was dark to hide my tears and make me feel like I am out on the street all alone. I wish it was colder so it would feel like January and I wouldn't be in the wrong weather clothes every day. I wish I didn't feel so twisted. I wish I wasn't in a funk. I wish I wasn't so pissed off. I wish I didn't feel so sad. I wish I was in yoga right now, letting the heat work its magic. I wish I had mint oreos in the house or had access to a bombass chimichanga or meat samosa right now. I wish I was in boxing class right now. I don't think hot Juan (the instructor) would have to tell me, "My grandmother could punch harder than you; c'mon girl, pretend I'm your boyfriend...etc" I am mad. I am steaming. I need something to put me out, calm me down.

On the surface everything is working out according to plan. My job ended today. Well, fingers crossed that it's final. In this industry, nothing ever is. Me trying to stay true to my resolution regarding my finances let my instincts rule, saw us running out of work and put the word out that I would be available for work come next Tuesday. I got scooped almost immediately. A good gig too. I got the call that they wanted me when I was in the elevator leaving the building. That was very cool. I planned that I would actually get to enjoy my three day weekend because I knew I'd be working on Tuesday and thereafter. It actually worked out that way. My intstincts were perfectly on point.

It's my dad. My brother called me earlier and told me that his friend's dad is in town and his friend took his dad to Katz's deli. Guess who they ran into there? I didn't need to think twice for my answer. "Daddy," I said, knowing it wasn't a celebrity and it wasn't someone else that we know. I knew it. Is he self sabotaging? He isn't supposed to be eating that shit. He's rebelling. He's anxious. He's scared. He wants to feel some semblance of control so he is putting himself at peril so if the procedure goes bad he knows who to blame, himself. It's hard when you don't have an answer or anyone to blame and you curse the world and scream and cry to the ether, to the heavens, to God, if you believe; WHY IS THIS HAPPENING, as if the answer would change anything. Asking that question is a decoy. Deal with the fact that it is happening. Clean that mess as best you can. Don't ask questions about why because there is no fucking answer to that one. But I get it. I spent a lot of time there. Of course I didn't hang out in Katz's deli eating my feelings but my health was so bad that I was unable to proactively self-sabotage. Trust me, if I had been physically able to, I would have. I would have drank my feelings, eaten my feelings, smoked my feelings, fucked my feelings, shopped my feelings, all of the above and probably some more that I forget. I wish I could tell him what I learned; that bad things happen to good people. And that you do have some control. You can do what the doctor tells you to do and not do what the doctor says not to do. He's obviously not scared enough. He's letting the loss of control rule. If he let fear rule, he would be listening to the doctor. But letting fear rule and listening to the doctor would mean that he felt like he did have some control and that his efforts would have an impact.

He has given up. To compare to my situation, I was in such extreme pain and discomfort that I had to let the doctor's orders wash all over me. I had nothing else to go on. I had no instinct. I had no better idea. I felt like the doctor was wrong and I was misdiagnosed because it kept coming back with a vengeance and we kept changing treatment to keep up with it and chase it out of me because for a long time, it remained. But I still had no other options. And the treatment was as bad as the disease but I knew that without the treatment I would die. With it I was alive but unhappy, scared, anxious, angry, moody, tired, wide awake, wired, manic and completely freaked out. Is my father going to have to hit some kind of rock bottom before he starts putting the control he does have into good use?

Similarly, my dad is not a drinker. He chides my siblings and I for our drinking and he consistently asks my doctor whether or not I should be drinking, as if I have some drinking problem, making the doctor say, "well, I think Briana is on enough drugs right now that drinking's not such a good idea," to which my father responds by giving me a victorious, knowing look translating to, "if this is what had to happen for her to stop drinking then it's worth it." But I digress. My dad's been drinking a lot lately. It's weird. You turn 60 and that's when you start drinking? It usually doesn't work like that. But there is definite correlation between that and his emotion about his health. There has to be. I knew it couldn't be good for him but I did my homework anyway on his condition and the medications he is on. The research is very clear. Drinking is bad for someone in his position. It exacerbates the underlying condition and it is strongly discouraged when on the meds. I am sure he knows that. Again, with me it was strongly discouraged as well but I had the added incentive that whenever I craved it, which was all the time (you frequently 'need' a drink when you're as stressed as I was) it tasted weird. Weird bad. I couldn't get a beer down. Similarly I bought a coffee every morning and then would take a sip and blech throw it out. Your desires remain the same but your body doesn't welcome them the way they used to. Very strange. But clearly, my dad's body is welcoming the alcohol and the caffeine and the bad food with open arms. He's using food and alcohol as coping mechanisms. He doesn't realize this but he's just feeding the beast. And the beast never gets full. The beast always wants more. You need to change the way you cope into something positive. If you change the mind, chances are the body will follow. I am sure he will eventually get there, to the elusive place of acceptance that my siblings advocated for me and I resisted for so long; I just hope more damage isn't done before he gets there.

So yeah, I am mad at my dad. Who cares how smoothly and deftly I arranged my work schedule, seamlessly jumping from one project to the next with a nice three-day weekend wedged in between when my dad is stuffing his face with his comfort food, the food of his youth, hot pastrami and well done fries, a hot dog smothered with potato salad to start, a celray soda and god only knows what else. I am pissed at him because he's not taking care of himself. He's not doing what he can. He's not doing his best. Doesn't he know how much he means to me? Doesn't he see what this is doing to us? He's being so selfish allowing himself to wallow in his situation without thinking about how scary this is to watch. He may as well be balancing out the window on the 36th floor on a ledge on a stormy, windy day. Come on, Dad, shit ain't cool.

Meanwhile, I was right the other day about the reactions of my siblings. My blog started an onslaught of emails from them about how they envisioned each of us dying. First my brother wrote, "It is just something that I am 100% certain is going to happen some day, even if I dread that day whenever it comes. I am very confident that he will be well for a long time." My sister replied, "I'm with ya. I'm not worried ... eventually he will die from something heart-related and Briana colon related. Mommy prob something like her mother. N [my brother], I don't know about you...or me." My bro wrote back, "I think I am gunna die like Grandma T....not literally an aneurysm, like her, but something where I am gone in an instant without warning.." My sister then picked her fate, " Probably I will either have a heart attack or a stroke or a combo of them." I responded, "I don't see him as well now. i think he's sicker and more unwell than he lets on. i do see him living longer than momma, look how long his parents lived; but with no quality of life just like them, constantly plagued by ailments brought on by the excesses of his life. His eating habits lately aren't serving him well at all. His eating habits lately also demonstrate how stressed he is about this. So I don't feel as confident as you two do about him." My sister fired back, " Oh he's stressed and his eating isn't good but he isn't dying per se. If he talked about his feelings instead of keeping them in, he would mentally and physically feel better." My brother's two cents, "[H]e has been stressed and eaten poorly his entire life...I just dont think it is his time to go yet and this is just a first of many warnings that he and we are going to get.." I was appalled that they were chosing to ignore reality, "i think we have less control over our fate than we think we do. on the other hand his lifestyle is a self-fullfilling prophecy. i don't know why he's tempting fate the way he is. i did all this research today on atrial fib and his meds and he is not allowed to drink alcohol or have caffeine, should be exercising and yoga and meditation were also suggested. now he decides to suddenly become an alcoholic. you know?" My brother snidely replied, "I also hear that staying up until 10:00am and drinking heavily is not the best thing for ulcerative colitis....It's his life, and he is doing the best he can to find the medium ground between happy and healthy....just like we all are..." Case closed until today when my brother's protective veil of nonchalance was finally penetrated.