Da Update.....

Ok, so after many starts and stops I am really going to get this done!! I decided to try this by the month, since I don't want to lay out specific dates for the most part. I hope that this will be less of a headache all the way around!!

May-

You already know that I knew as of early April I was told that they were pulling Kent's Medicaid, so most of my May was literally spent on the phone trying to find him another place to go, all to no avail. I got told most of the time that he was either to medically necessary or not MR from all of the places I tried.

So, on May 30th Kent was discharged from rehab, and I picked him up and brought him home.

On the 31st I took him to our local children's hospital to be admitted for surgery on the 2nd of June. This surgery wasn't something that he NEEDED, it was one that the rehab docs had talked him into, and scheduled while he was still in rehab. I tried to stop him from getting it, but that was another loosing battle.


The Sunday before he was discharged, the 23rd of May, I started getting a terrible pain in my right side. On Monday it got worse, so I called my PCP's office on Tuesday morning. They got me in to see him on the 26th. He did x-rays because he thought I might have had something going on with my gallbladder. The x-ray didn't show anything in the gallbladder, but he saw a stone in my left kidney. Since that wasn't the side I was having pain on, he sent me the next day for an U/S .

The U/S on Thursday showed the stone was actually in my spleen, and not in my kidney. I got the hell scared out of me when I googled that one!! Cancer, TB or hepatitis was what Google said. Uh yeah I think not.

The PCP's office called me at 8 AM on Friday to tell me they booked me with a surgeon on Monday the 31st for a surgical consult because aside from the spleen stone, I had big stones and sludge in my Gallbladder.. GREAT!!! That is one of the possible side effects from not having that hot puppy removed when I had Gastric Bypass 9 years ago.


I was in pretty considerable pain by Friday evening, and by Sunday I had exhausted all my pain meds. After I went up to admit Kent to the hospital that Monday (31st of May), I drove home almost in tears and called the PCP. He told me to carry my butt to the ER.

Once I got there, the ER doc took one look at me and booked me a room for the night. I was cool with that, because the stay brought lots of fantastic drugs that took the pain away!!

June-

On the 1st I had my Gallbladder removed around 12PM, and was back to FB and emails by 7 that night. I was discharged on the 2nd, in pain from surgery, but feeling a crap load better!!

Kent was discharged home on the 4th (Keith and I's 16th anniversary) and my mom flew in that night. I had to have her here to help me with Lauryn as I was not supposed to lift anything over 20 pounds for at least 2 weeks. I didn't know just how important the three weeks that she was here were going to end up being. Sadly though I spent most of it in a drug induced haze. My dad flew out here on the 23rd. My Birthday was the 25th, so we had a little party here with some of my closest friends. On the 26th my parents flew home.


July-

The one major event that happened here at the house, I have already written about.. the Kent thing.

After my mom went home she had an intense work up with a doctor who specializes in the liver disease that she has, Alpha-1 Anti.trypsin Deficiency. After many tests and a thorough work up, he informed her in a nutshell, that she has at best about 5 years to live. Give or take.

To say that my world came crashing down when she called me and told me that would be a slight understatement. This woman is my best friend, mother, confidant, and over all 3rd most important person in my life, and now she has been handed a death sentence. I bawled for days. She has already accepted it, I refuse to.

We have known about her having the disease for a few years, but I never expected this. She has a rare form of the disease that manifests in the liver instead of the lungs, unfortunately it is moving faster then it should. Her liver is only working at 10%, and she has developed a host of other complications. There is nothing that they can do until she gets so sick that she would qualify for a liver transplant.

By then it could be to late.

Like I said, she has accepted this as her lot in life, but I am not able to deal with the fact that I will be losing my mother early in life because we lost my grandmother (her mom) very young, she was only 58 when she died. My mom will be 55 next year. Talk about a kick in the teeth after I had just spent 3 weeks with her, but now those three weeks are something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

After we asked Kent to leave I found out that he had taken a bottle of my psych meds, so I contacted my shrink to get a refill for the meds. He pointedly told me no he would not refill them as it was his opinion that I didn't need them anymore and was just drug seeking. Can you say FIRED??!! I had been seeing this man for 6 1/2 years, and had put up with him not knowing what meds I was on, losing my chart, arguing with me about what meds I would take when I was pregnant, arguing when I switched mid pregnancy, taking calls from other patients when I was in his "chair", and that was the last straw.

So I began the search for a new psych. I was feeling not right on the drugs that I had been on anyway, and began to spiral downward, actually that started in mid May, so needless to say all the stress I was under wasn't helping. I really began to come unraveled, and nothing seemed to help.

Honestly that had a lot to do with why I stopped blogging, I just couldn't come up with anything positive to write about, and I certainly didn't want to drivel on about all the mental upheaval I was enduring. Being Bi-Polar is a right royal pain in the ass to say the least!!

August-

If you remember I had posted about having some dental issues earlier this year, well they chose this month to come to a head. After a failed attempt to root canal/crown one of my teeth the dentist suggested I just get them pulled. The tooth he worked on broke off at the gum line while I was waiting for the crown.

So, the 2nd I had all but 7 of my bottom teeth pulled, and on the 3rd I had all of the top ones pulled. Dentures SUCK!!! The oral surgeon said that once he pulled my teeth, he realized just how bad things were... my teeth were all rotten below the gum line, so badly so that a few of them just broke off when he tried to pull them. Can you say thank the Lord for drugs??!! I can!!! I experienced some pretty severe pain and lock jaw issues afterwards, and spent a few weeks on pain killers and valiu.m. To say that period of highness wasn't conducive to writing here would again be correct!! :o)

My mental issues continued to worsen, and I saw my PCP for a referral to a new shrink. He referred me, and I scheduled an appointment. The bad thing was that she was booked up until mid October, so I had to just stay on the meds I was on until I could see her.

Keith and I were having issues. Verbal disagreements and pissing matches became the norm for us, and that only proved to make my depression deepen. One night after a really bad screaming match, which almost always seemed to start over the TotCicles, he broke down crying, looked me in the face and said "I am not happy anymore, and I haven't been for a long time." Kick in the teeth #2. Cue the sound of my world crashing down around me yet again!

I have only seen this man cry 2 other times since we have been together(18 years), so I knew in my soul I had really hurt him. I cannot begin to understand how hard it has to be for him to live with me and my Bi-Polar, but I didn't think it was hurting him so much. I know I am not an easy person to deal with sometimes, hell I get frustrated with me, but to see the man that I love with everything that I am so hurt, just about killed me.

I resolved to try harder to be a better wife. I knew that the shrink visit was a long way off so I devised plans, making lists and the like, to deal with the lack of housekeeping, I also worked very hard at not trying to be so indecisive, as that was one of his big issues. It seems that I was pissing him off a lot by not helping with household decisions, although some of the ones he brought up were strictly things I didn't feel I needed to be worried about. I mean why should I care if he moves the fence?? Or sells his beloved 67' Volkswagen Beetle?? I didn't think they had any bearing on me. He thought otherwise!!

I can honestly say that the majority of my problem at this time was my failure to get Kent motivated, resulting his leaving. I truly felt like I had let us all down, and broken our family. I had massive guilt that I hadn't been a good enough mother to him, and that was why he had acted out so much. I was worried sick about what was going to happen to him while he was living with his father and step mother, because I could no longer control how well he was caring for his physical self. The surgery that he had, had in June required strict adherence to procedure, and I knew, and know, in my heart that he was not capable of managing it w/o intense supervision.

It was very overwhelming to deal with all of that internally, and then to have Keith's disappointment in me heaped on top. I got to the point where most days all I wanted to do was stay in bed and cry.

When Kent left we also lost a massive amount of support money from the state. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like we are broke, but since my "job" was considered staying home and caring for him, when he left we had to cancel our adoption subsidy, reducing our income by a huge chunk. This brought more guilt because I felt like I was no longer contributing to the household, and as much as I would love to go back to work, it is not financially feasible for me to. It would cost me more in daycare then I could make as a CNA.

So, when you roll all that into a big ball, toss the lack of my meds not working right, August was a really shitty month!!

September-

It was really much of the same as August, I was trying very hard to keep it together until I could get in to see the new doc, and getting more and more frustrated. My contact with Kent became more sparse because when he would contact me it was usually him asking me to pick up his pieces and I refused to, so he was pretty angry with me.

October-

Kent's father ended up getting physical with him, and the step mom one night, so she kicked him out, told Kent he could stay, then turned around and tossed him out near the end of the month. Nice right? So he called me freaking out about all the stuff going on, and while I felt horrible about it, I told him that he wasn't allowed to come home.

That was extremely hard on me because I had been missing him so very much, but I know that it wouldn't have solved anything and most likely would have just reinforced to him that he "ran" things. He ended up moving in with one of his BioUncles and his wife. Again not a prime situation, but one that I cannot control.

I finally got in to see the new shrink, and she pulled me off my old meds, and put me on a new one. Well, about 2 weeks into that, I had to tell her that pill was a no go. You see, you cannot give a gastric bypass patient a controlled release pill. Uh yeah how about I was literally crapping it out after 3-4 hours. So on to a new med.

I also started seeing a therapist there in her office, and while I like the shrink and the therapist, I HATE the office staff. They are inept to say the least. They know I live in NC, yet they called my number with a VA area code to confirm my appointments They cancelled one because the number was disconnected... gee ya think?? Trust me when I tell you that I expressed my extreme displeasure with them to both my docs.

So, I am going to end this now and do November in a different post... that will give you and I both a chance to potty, get a drink and stretch your legs!! See you in a little bit.