Do You Realize?

Let's Try This Again...

I just couldn't stay away.  It's been more than a year since I last posted, the night before our oldest, beloved dog died of a massive cancerous lung tumor.  Some things have changed, some are the same.  What's happened since then?

Poogan died quite traumatically in my arms a few hours after my last post at the veterinarian's office.  

My vehicular bad luck continued for another couple of months.  I was rear-ended a third time, and then I was front-ended by another. Yes, you read that right. I was waiting to exit a CVS parking lot behind another car. As she pulled out into the street, I pulled forward. When she was almost completely pulled out, she braked, put the car in reverse and backed into the front of my car. What kind of moron does this? The kind whose moron boyfriend drops his keys out the window into the street while the car is moving, apparently. Only, instead of continuing forward motion & pulling into the next parking lot ten feet away, she decided to put the car in reverse & back her car back into the parking lot, regardless of the bright red vehicular obstacle in her way.

We had another full battery of neuropsychological testing for Youngest, who has gotten an "upgrade" on his diagnosis.  The new flavor of mental illness is "schizoaffective disorder."  In a nutshell, he has the distinction of symptoms of both schizophrenia and some sort of affective, or mood, disorder (in his case, bipolar disorder), and that he can experience the symptoms of both at the same time or independently of one another at any given time. I know, upgrades are usually exciting to win, but for some reason I can't quite muster up any fervor for this one. Maybe it's the raging paranoia or the complete and utter lack of ability to connect with reality, but that's just a guess.

I never did post about our experience with Youngest and the residential treatment center, but that's okay, because he may be going back. We had a slightly emergent situation arise at school yesterday, and he's spending two days at home, and we have a slightly emergent Saturday double scoop of psychiatry bright and early tomorrow morning.

After more than a year of cheating on Louis trying another purse, we replaced my Louis Vuitton Batignolles Horizontal bag.  I even tried a different style of LV bag, but I carried it for two days and took it back for the perfect bag for me, the same exact one some skank stole that was stolen.

I made Jello shots for New Year's Eve again... all different flavors this year, none of which I really remember.  I also didn't take photos because my camera was doing crazy stupid things (which were later alleviated by purchasing all-new data cards).

We still love our water-saving toilets and energy/water efficient front-loading LG Tromm washer & dryer. And I still owe a review of the washer & dryer.  And we have a new Energy Star GE Profile refrigerator to love.

We got a new really damned annoying precious puppy.  His name is Keller, as he is very visually impaired.  His name was thisclosetobeing Merkin, as he is a black kinky-haired poodle. I will gripe blog about him a lot, I'm sure.

I finally went back to college!  I'm a Cougar! (This status has nothing to do with my age or my age preference in men.)  I've been wanting to do this for quite some time now, and I'm on my third semester of part-time classes.  

I'm still a master procrastinator, and I'll still probably only post sporadically, especially when life gets crazy. Which it does quite often here.

Of Dogs and Death

It's 4:35 a.m., and I'm sitting in my living room, listening to our dog struggle mightily to take in enough oxygen to keep her little body alive. My husband & I were in bed, with Poogan at our feet making the same brave attempts to breathe, taking turns lying down beside her and in our regular positions in bed. As we lay there with our heads next to hers, petting on her, my husband posed an interesting idea, one that some might find painful. The idea was simply this: Might Poogan be more comfortable downstairs, instead of on the bed? We made the decision to go downstairs. We put Poogan in the floor, in the spot where she loves to lie, and we went to the sofa to camp. She's moved about downstairs as she wishes, and, not surprisingly, she's not stayed with us for more than a couple of minutes.

This was so hard for us to do. As human pet owners, with human emotions and attachments, we want to be there with our pets for every one of their last moments. But do they want us there? We like to think that, yes, they are put at ease by having us there, but I actually think the opposite might be true. I think having us there, hovering, doting, worrying, only adds to any anxiety they may be feeling. They are dogs, and dogs are not humans. We share some of the same emotions, yes, but not our attitudes of death.

Think of how dogs choose to die, if given the choice. Alone. Away from their pack. Even domestic dogs do this. I grew up with animals, and I could never understand my parent's gentle but mysterious explanations when a dog "went off to die." But I've always known that they do. And yet, in a dog's final moments, we still want to "be there for her (or him)." In times of grief, rational thought need not apply.

When I die, I do, indeed, want my "pack" around me. I don't think I want to be alone. But, then, I'm only human.

Where in the world is Do You Realize?

I know I have been conspicuously scarce lately. Lots of reasons, few of them good.

Mostly affecting my blogging is the fact that my video card went kaput on the laptop. While I don't mind hijacking hubby's computer long enough to check in on Facebook, I really feel guilty about taking over long enough to compose a blog post.

Secondly, we've finally found a residential treatment center for Youngest. For insurance purposes, he had to spend time as an inpatient first, though, and then move directly to RTC, so for two weeks we've been caught up in insurance hassles, eeeaaarrrrly morning inpatient visitation, driving, and settling in at the new RTC.

All this will be included in a post soon, hopefully. As will my thoughts on Sarah Palin (and I have a lot of them). As will my answers for the meme for which I was recently tagged. I miss the blog, and I miss my readers (both of you)! (If anyone misses my endless wit and crazy shit that much, you can always hit me up on Facebook.)

And it just keeps coming...

So, the week from hell is still barreling relentlessly forward.

Today I found out I could possibly have a parotid gland tumor; I have a CTScan scheduled for Wednesday and will get the results next Monday. A huge percentage (80-99%, depending on whom you believe) are benign, but require removal anyway, because they just continue to grow.

Also today, I was so distracted I ran out of gas.

Also also today, Youngest got himself bitten by a rat. Not a pet rat. A real, bona fide, disease harboring rat. And so we spent our evening in the emergency room.

What lovely experiences could tomorrow have in store that could even remotely compare to the week I've had thus far? I can hardly stand the anticipation.

I'll start posting again more regularly when I can dig out of this dung heap. This exciting and interesting dung heap. But a dung heap nonetheless.

Texas Longhorn Game Day Fashion 101

I went to visit Eldest at school this weekend. It was the weekend of their first game (Saturday), so I got to experience Austin in full game-day glory. Can you grasp the concept of 150,000 people shoved into one relatively small area, all dressed in burnt orange? I felt positively blasphemous in my turquoise tank top.

Now, normally, Austin fashion falls into the "anything goes" category. It's quite the melange. There's a bit of every possible fashion sense to be found in Austin, which makes it pretty groovy in my book. You'll always be grounded to the Longhorn aesthetic by a goodly number of students in their "Hook 'Em Horns" orange gear, but it's usually a small smattering, just enough to remind you of where you are. The goal of fashion in general here is to wear what you like, like what you wear, and hope that a little piece of you shines through.

Game days, on the other hand, are a completely different story. The entire city's fashion aspirations magically align, and suddenly everyone looks fantastic in burnt orange. The goal suddenly becomes totally different. A little more challenging in some respects. On game days, it is imperative that you wear something, ANYTHING, in the only color that exists on the color wheel: burnt orange. However, you still want your personality to make an appearance, so the big trick is to search for clothing items that are your style but made in that one hideous, unifying color. The entire second floor of the Co-op is reserved for women's clothing (with a stunning array of styles but not much in the way of color selection)! I saw girls in cute little shift dresses in burnt orange, polos in burnt orange, flip flops in burnt orange, Soffe shorts in burnt orange, baseball tees in burnt orange, and on and on it went; it was truly a sight to behold, this veritable ocean of orange threatening to pull you under in its insidious current.

Something strange overcomes you when you go to Austin. Even those of us with no school spirit to speak of suddenly have the urge to "throw the horns" and buy something hideously orange. Even me. Yes, even me.

The journey of a life. (For Eldest...)

Today I'm on a journey.  I'm on a physical, six hour journey to what right now seems to be the end of the earth. I'm on an emotional, seventeen-years-in-the-making journey to what right now seems to be an impossible acceptance. I'm driving Eldest, my firstborn, my magical girl, to college.

What will happen when we get there?

Will I choke? Will it be upon words that I haven't said, out of pride, or on words that I have said, in anger?

Will I cry? Will they be tears of relief, knowing that she possesses the heart of a warrior, or will they be tears of despair, knowing that she also possesses the heart of a little girl?

Will I die? Will my heart implode, folding upon itself from the weight of her leaving, or will it explode like so much dynamite with the joy of vicarious freedom?

I have known, or should have known, for seventeen years that this day would come. How selfish of me now to feel that I am being cheated out of one last year with her. Heaven (if there is such a Place) knows that I have all-to-easily and glibly voiced my desire for this day to hurry up. How silly of me now to wish it away.

But I am. And I do. Because this journey is not mine alone, nor the accompanying feelings. This is a journey that has been made since time immemorial. These are feelings that a multitude of mothers have endured since time began.

Time alone will tell what will happen today. I suspect that, yes, I will choke, and I will cry, and a part of me might die. But another part of me, a part of which I am exceedingly proud, will start to live today.

Manic Monday--Residential Treatment

As I mentioned the other day, we are now shopping around for a residential treatment facility for Youngest. For the uninitiated, residential treatment facilities are part hospital, part boarding school for those who, for whatever reason, find it impossible to live at home, usually for six months to a year. Some of these are for drug & alcohol rehabilitation, some are for trouble-making youth, some are for patients with mood or personality disorders, and some treat all of the above.

The problem with residential treatment is that it is expensive. So expensive, in fact, that I've read reports from parents taking a second mortgage on their homes. Also, more and more parents who don't have the money have had to rely on a very tricky method of getting help for their child. These parents have to wait for their underage child to do something illegal, something dangerous enough for a judge to mandate residential treatment, but, hopefully, not dangerous enough to hurt themselves or someone else. Sounds fun, huh?

I've located residential treatment facilities online. I've only been brave enough to call one so far. Their estimate was... are you ready... $400 to $475 per day, depending upon the individual situation. Yes, you read that right. Per motherfluffing day! Six months in this place would cost almost the same as four years' college tuition. We would have to live in a cardboard box or I would have to start selling my body on a street corner for that sort of money! Okay, so I might not even be able to bring that sort of cash any more; maybe I could sell a kidney on the black market instead. Needless to say, we're still looking.

I've also discovered that residential treatment facilities employ an astounding array of techniques. Some use equine therapy, some have each child take care of a golden retriever of their own. Some use behavior modification, some employ something called Positive Peer Culture to exact change. I've even found one where the incentive for personal changes is aviation lessons! How the hell are we supposed to navigate this landscape of options? Pick one that sounds like fun, because I'm totally digging the flight lessons thing? Their websites all generously invite us to visit their campus, but by the time we did that, we could have paid for, like, a whole week at the first place we called.

It's often said that money can't buy happiness. I guess we are supposed to believe it can buy sanity instead. At $400 a day, though, I'm not buying it.

News

Youngest's psychiatrist told us yesterday that she believes that very few of the meds he is on are having any effect whatsoever. He's still cycling, regardless of the lithium, and a lot of his behaviors now are behavioral in nature. Residential treatment is next.

So that's where I've been... dealing with daily chaos and crazy. Don't give up on me. I'm like the Terminator.

Should I stay or should I go?

"If I go there will be trouble, and if I go it will be double." Boy, The Clash hit it right on the head. I'll get to my major indecision momentarily.

In the meantime, I interrupt this regular blog post to report that the remodel is lumbering slowly and painfully forward. The carpet is gone; the hardwood is in place everywhere except the stairs, which will happen tomorrow. Both bathtubs, both toilets, and varying useless accessories are here, but not installed yet. Useless, you ask? Let's see. The supply elbow and the mounting bracket and the shower hoses have all come in, but the actual low-flow handheld showerheads? No. The temperature-adjusting-on-off-handle-thingy for the kids' bath has arrived, but the faucet itself? Nope. The temperature-adjusting-on-off-handle-thingy for the master shower? Uh-uh. All of this is a long way of reporting that we have no bathing facilities for at least two days, possibly until late Monday. Today I showered at a friend's house; thanks, Kelly! Other days, we'll snag one at Anytime Fitness, but because if I did that, I would feel obligated to, you know, work out first, I'm almost glad I'm about to drive to Memphis to pick up the teenagers. Hotel rooms have showers, yo.

Now. About that prophetic Clash song. My husband has been strongly encouraging (read: nagging) me to take a week and go somewhere, anywhere, just for myself, to reset my sanity. He knows that, between spending all day every with Youngest, physically moving all of our belongings from room to room in a seemingly endless circle, and dealing with the noise and anxious decisions accompanying this remodel, I am physically and mentally spent. He said that it was probably the best birthday and anniversary gift he could give me. Time away from everyone and everything. I've been resisting, both because we're hemorrhaging money for this remodel, and because sometimes I'm uncomfortable being alone, with just myself for company.

He told me last night that I could even go back to Italy if I wanted. Italy. That's playing dirty. Hardball. You see, ever since we went to Italy for our anniversary in 2002, I've had a restless, barely containable urge to go back, particularly to the tiny, medieval town of Varenna, on Lake Como. It's an ache: visceral, almost gut-wrenching. Have you ever felt that way about a place? It's the perfect place to go and do nothing for a week. Just me and my writing and my camera. And yet.

And yet, there's that nagging unrest and doubt in my head. Will I enjoy my own company, or will I collapse with loneliness?  Should I go back to Italy, which I really think of as our place, at the risk of it becoming my place? Or should I go back to Hawaii, which I also loved, just not as deeply and irresistibly? Can I leave my responsibilities to everyone else here and fulfill my obligations to myself for a change?

Manic Monday: Reality and Authority

One of the most frustrating things about youngest's illness is his uneasy relationship with reality. Oftentimes, dealing with his rageful rants would be funny, if it weren't really happening, and happening to me. For those just tuning in, my youngest son has been diagnosed with Early Onset Bipolar Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and an anxiety disorder; his combination of disorders makes life here interesting and uncomfortable on good days and a downright miserable existence on bad ones. Anyway, back to his view of reality. When his frontal lobe is lit up like a Christmas tree, firing neurons that rarely get fired in a normal person's brain, he can see some of the most innocuous situations as conspiracy or neglect or abuse or hate; his paranoia runs higher than a Formula One tachometer. For example, my not dropping everything I'm doing to come unlock the cabinets or the fridge (where we have to keep high-calorie, high-fat, high-carb foods, which is another post altogether) rightnowbecauseI'mstarvingtodeathrightnow means that we are depriving him of food and starving our child and worthy of a call to 911. This view might be humorous. If he were four. He's thirteen. Not funny. Any more.

His tenuous grasp of reality causes an incredible amount of parenting anxiety, not the least of which revolves around authority. Hubby & I have always wanted to raise children who could think for themselves, who could respectfully question authority, who didn't have to bend to authority simply for authority's sake. (I don't necessarily expect them to respect the authority of a seventh-grade reading teacher, for example, who does not know the pronunciation of the the word rendezvous and who cannot reliably execute cause and effect examples, simply because she is a Reading Teacher. This teacher is not may or may not be hypothetical.) Wielding Authority sometimes only requires a Job Title or a College Degree; neither of these things guarantees one an inalienable right to be respected, in my opinion.

However, and it is a large and confounding however, Youngest's poor reality testing makes this teaching impossible for him; he would simply question and reject all authority, regardless of whether said authority warranted questioning. Much as we have altered our discipline to suit each child's personality, we've also found ourselves having to alter our teaching of ideas and principles, teaching Youngest some that are not ones we particularly ascribe to, simply because he lacks the executive functioning to ask the right questions to make situation-based moral decisions. Rarely do I think that "always" and "never" are the correct choices to make. (See? Even in that sentence, I said that I rarely think that, not never.) Often, though, Youngest is capable of only such black & white philosophies that "always" and "never" creep into our teaching more than which I am comfortable. Anxiety and doubt ensue, both of which are banes of my existence.

And so, even as he barrels unwaveringly toward adolescence, we're still making stuff up on the fly. Life lessons have to be slid slyly and hastily into cracks and crevices where they would never come up with normally functioning children. Adjustments to our parenting have to be made constantly, our teachings sometimes shifting like desert sands, whether we agree with them or not. And we live with the anxiety and doubt that surely ensues.