Annual Check Up

I did go for my annual check-up. I got blood work and did what the doc asked. I’m waiting on any feedback/results/info. (ps it all came back good)

It’s not fun to go to the doctor when you’re overweight. The scale…dread it. but I did it. My dad didn’t go to a doctor annually for normal checks. When he got horribly ill, my mom called her doctor in.

They had no background info. No baseline information on blood tests or other issues. Would that info have prevented his illness? No.

Would it have prevented his death? No.

But would his illness have been less severe? Probably…because he might’ve gone to see that doctor instead of waiting until my mother called an ambulance. Going to a doctor is scarier when you don’t have a relationship with one…when it’s not a habit.

There is no way to know if my dad’s illness were less severe and he recovered faster/ better last year, if he’d have been stronger and possibly survived this year…but still, anything that helps your odds.

I could be in much better health, weight-wise…but I have a doc that knows me. Has current info. And if something happened to me, she’d know if it’s new or not…worse than before or normal…etc.

So, whoever reads this…I hope you see a doc every year and get a checkup! 

Choices and Money

We didn’t have a lot of money when I was little. I mean little like elementary school for me. My dad hated debt and paid off things as fast as he could. We never did vacations. A day at an amusement park, that was a vacation.

YET my sister and I were sent to private Catholic School. If the public schools were bad, it’d be one thing. They weren’t. Those schools have been among the top schools in Indiana most of my life. This was especially hard because Kindergarten was public only (Catholic school didn't have it). So I, an introvert, adjusted to K for one year and then got yanked into a new school of uniforms, nuns, and a lot more strictness...

Religious programming meant that much to him? I guess…but it’s so funny how when my sister had kids, and my dad had more money…he spoiled those boys like crazy. They went on the Disney cruise.

We never went to Disney world…not once. Sure, there are plenty of kids who never get to go. But he moved us in this middle to upper middle class town with great schools…then paid for private school. He didn’t seem to get how it was seeing other kids going on real vacations and we didn’t really do one…

All he had to do was not choose private school, go with the BETTER public school and he’d have had the money for one nice vacation. But knowing him, he’d have put it toward the mortgage. People’s priorities only seem to change when they want them to.

Harshness warning: The man didn’t take care of himself…but saved money like he’d live forever. Maybe now he gets it. You can’t take it with you. You actually have to enjoy life while it happens…I need that reminder sometimes because I wasn’t raised to believe that life was fun. My first fear is financial security and work...

Then...reality time. my Dad paid for my sister and her family (nephews were like 4 1/2 and 3) to go on the Disney cruise. It's amazing how priorities change. 

I don’t do any of that…

When Dad was in medical rehab, they try to do all this physical therapy that seems useful. Folding laundry. Cooking. Washing dishes etc…

He flat out refused to do any of that because he didn’t that *#&!. And this is very true. He’s never cooked a meal. He’s never washed clothes. He tried once, my mother was I the hospital for one night. She broke her collar bone during a seizure. A reaction to a medication that she as prescribed for arthritis. She’s okay now but it’s scary what one med given by a doctor can do when it doesn’t agree with you…

Anyway, mom was in the hospital. Dad tried to do a load of laundry. Couldn’t do it. He might have microwaved something at some point….maybe. he never cooked. Never cleaned. Never did dishes.

Never.

Men these days still don’t do half of the household stuff but I swear it was like growing up in the fifties or something. So sexist.

Yet, my sister and I had to go to college. I never could understand why women had to do the cooking/cleaning…if all the men had to do was go to work. If I go to work….screw it. why should I clean and cook?

This is still something I struggle with. Doing housework feels like he’s winning somehow. But I don’t have a husband. Lol. I think I need a cleaning lady to help keep me on track…honestly! Maybe one day I can afford one. 

It’s a button and I want a clean house but I need to write/ work. And I need to lose weight…and it all gets overwhelming and I do nothing. like now.

sometimes you need help. Of course men don’t call it help. They treat women’s work like it’s beneath them. THAT’s the problem the traditional roles. It’s not that there is anything wrong with a woman being a judge or a housewife. I have nothing against stay-at-home moms. Or housewives… But society has conditioned us to treat anyone NOT making money as less. They are dependent on someone else. Powerless.

If society doesn’t respect a role…how can anyone expect someone to want that role? My father took that modeling to an extreme…money was God and work that didn't make money was beneath him.  I get the dysfunction. I'm trying to reprogram my brain so I can clean without feeling like I've lost some cosmic power struggle. 

Just write the Next Harry Potter

For a long time, I didn’t tell my family if I’d sold anything. if I’d published anything. it was easier.

Finally, I admitted I was trying to write. Dad said…just write the next Harry Potter.

Haha (if it came from someone else, it might ring like a normal joke…but from him…it was so much more of a loaded shot than a joke…)

Yeah, that’s his idea of a joke. Basically, she’s one in a billion. You’re not. Quit trying to be.

And people wonder why I had no self-esteem…

My appendix and crying wolf…

This is a hard one to write because I’m not sure I can be objective. Not that one should be objective in blogging/ journaling…but I was VERY sick and 12…

My stomach hurt ALL day. At points I was doubled over but life went on and it was written off. I was anxious in general.

The next day we were leaving on some weird trip that combined my dad’s work and skiing. I didn’t want to ski..none of us did really. I was anxious. We never really traveled as kids so that’s a new thing. If you want kids to travel well, you need to make it normal and routine. Just like if you want kids to socialize, you can’t keep them on a short leash all the time….

Back to me…or my stomach. I’d stared my period a year before or more…and it was that time but this was more. Even that young, girls know the difference between period cramps and other stuff.

Maybe I was getting the stomach flu? Lots of theories that wrote it off. I was dragged to last minute shopping. Sometimes feeling nearly doubled over in paid. It’ll pass. Maybe it’s gas (yeah, my dad could never imagine it was anything serious. Anything bad!).

That night I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I’d been run over by a semi. I couldn’t really move well. I needed some water. The parents finally came in. I knew something was wrong. Worse. BAD!!

My dad still insisted that my mom call the doctor (no, he didn’t do it….mom and kids were STAFF…ugh). Mom calls the doctor and finally gets through. The doc says to take me to the ER because it sounds like my appendix.

Duh! It had already RUPTURED. Maybe I have a high pain tolerance? Maybe I was crying wolf? Good thing the doctor said to take me in or I’d have been dead by morning…

Once I was in the hospital, my dad made a big production of staying there during the day. My mom got the night shift. What a jerk. He’d dismissed all my pain and illness as something else until it actually ruptured. Instead of a few days in the hospital, it was over a week and a worse recovery.

Things happen, but sometimes power goes to parent’s head. Dad had a God complex at times…if he didn’t think it was a problem, it wasn’t. He’d will it to be his way. Sorry, my appendix refused to obey. Yay appendix!

But also, I was already plump then. Like the puberty layer of filling out girls get. My sister got it too and it went away, like most normal girls. Why can't i be normal? 

Add to that all the stuff people brought when they know a preteen had major surgery and is in the hospital. Yeah, suddenly all sorts of gifts including junk food, candy and homemade cookies. Well meant but not helpful..

Plus, no recess or lifting things once home for a few weeks at least.. I had stitches and was healing internally. I had to go to the doc to get the stitches removed...seems like soooo long ago. lol

Apparently it only takes a few weeks to make or break a habit. That definitely broke any active habits I had and let me get lazier… No, I’m not blaming my weight decades later on this…but rambling about this might help make it make sense. I mean, major surgery after a ruptured appendix…my body took a hit. Maybe my metabolism did too. Because before puberty, I never had weight problem. 

Thanks for nothing, appendix!

Just Take Care of the Boys

Whenever my sister said she was going to come up to see my dad while in the hospital…that was his answer. "just take care of my boys..."

This is the sucky part of not having kids. And I’m REALLY good with not having kids myself….I like kids but I'm not meant to be a mom. 

But people with kids ALWAYS have an excuse. They have a built in get out of whatever it is card. And they vent about their kids...Um...YOU chose to have kids. Not my problem.

I noticed this first at work…on Halloween, the dads and moms would be ‘let out’ early to see their kids trick or treat. The rest of us, nope. Shouldn’t companies treat employees fairly? You’d think so.

Another time, a coworker’s kid had a fever. She had to be at work for close (ah accounting) and she brought the kid to work. There’s no daycare. So this kid is wandering around our cubicles while we’re trying to work. A toddler with possible germs…that’s not part of the work situation either.

Back to when my dad was in the hospital for months and months. Mom and I were there every day.

My sister was there for two 3 day periods. Sure she lived in another state and worked and all of that. But my work apparently didn’t count.

So as many days I probably missed from a bad snow and the 1 con I went to…those were the days she was there.

And if I said anything to my dad, it was all about the grandkids. She had to take care of the boys. Like she doesn’t have a husband? And he has a ton of relatives around where they live. He was the reasons he moved away. They can figure it out.

Now, my dad always tried to keep things FAIR between his daughters. Fair meaning the same. It didn’t matter if we weren’t both into the same things. It was the fairness that mattered to him. But parents can never be truly fair because different kids need different things. So rarely can you be totally fair…

Which is fine, life isn’t fair. And when grandkids arrived, I was even more the disappointing child. Why? I don’t want to spend every waking minute with my nephews. Um…they’re not my kids. I love them. they’re fun. But MY life doesn’t revolve around them. They aren’t the sun and the moon…not to me. Sorry…not sorry. I’m trying to be a writer here…

It’s not their fault, I guess. I’m the black sheep of the family. No one is a creative type. My dad would only approve if I was making big big money. Like Oprah money…okay then he’d be proud. He’d probably still make jokes. I’m not the normal one. I don’t want to be.

I'd fit in so much better here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3CH0tN515M

If Work was supposed to be Fun...

"If Work was supposed to be Fun, they’d call it something else."

(Since it's Monday...I thought this post would fit best...Sorry for bouncing around. I'm processing Dad's death and all the childhood stuff comes up too. )

This quote from my father is burned on my brain. When I got up the courage to tell him I wanted to write for a living, that’s what I was told. Work isn’t supposed to be fun. People who get to do what they love are just lucky. More people end up waiting tables in Hollywood because they want their dream.

Work isn’t fun. Work is about making money. I was told to major in something that’ll support me.

What is that telling me? At 16…I was told your life is going to suck. You won’t succeed as a writer. Dreams don’t come true….no matter how hard you work. Just give up and pick a job that’ll pay enough. Get financial security and be happy with that. 

Really?? Yep…That whole conversation is stuck in my head. Oh sure, I could teach English or write for a newspaper. But novels? Writing fiction? Be a teacher…not much money but it’s a steady job....that was Dad's compromise.

I didn’t want to be a teacher (sorry, too much of an introvert back then to contemplate public speaking). Truly, I wanted to write. That was all. 

But he really wanted me and my sister to be nurses. The problem is I don’t like blood and I'm not super great at reading people. 

He came up with accountant because every business needs one. I hated it. But I did it so he couldn’t make comments at me all the time when I hadn’t sold a book yet. I had a job, I paid my bills, and I wrote on the side. 

Guess what my sister is?

Right: Nurse (and she's very good at it and good with people...he wasn't always wrong).

I quit accounting in 2011…Now I’m a writer. Now to make it all work!

The Man is the Head of the House….? Sigh

Yeah, it’s true for some of us.

If you haven’t seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you should! Here’s the relevant clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJbC5AfxqPc

My dad was THE only head of the house. His word over road everything. To be transparent, he passed away last month and there is a lot of pent up feeling about him. He had HIS way and if you didn’t go along, he’d nag, belittle, and even demand you go along.

I’m an adult, yes. But the brainwashing starts young. I don’t like conflict. I don’t like fighting.

Reality check, couples…heck friends fight. But with my parents, a fight was pointless. Dad got his way.

Some people have no idea how stressful fighting is when the winner is predetermined and there is no compromise. No apologies. (Parents, please model this for your kids as well!)

This is pretty much how I want to react to conflict:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DGlM9kN5M

The blender so you don’t hear it…my mom gave up fighting when I was pretty young but it was more a tug of war…

Here’s a dumb example. I’m in my SECOND home. I OWN as an adult. I had a pump bottle of antibacterial hand sanitizer in the kitchen. A big one. It was visible over the bar counter area. My dad said it looked TACKY.

I still get mad about that. It’s MY house…

Why should I get mad? It’s a comment. It’s decades of him getting his way. Decades of giving in to avoid the negativity heaped on anyone in that house who dared to go against him. As an adult it seems dumb but when it starts from birth…you really don’t know any different and have to break the urge to keep the peace. 

13 months of insanity…

So my father passed away in March. Far too young and suddenly.

But he was the sort of man you couldn’t tell anything. He had all the answers. He had all the power. The sheer will to heal himself, he thought.

He never went to the doctor until he was in his sixties and then only a podiatrist until he landed in the hospital—septic.

He nearly died last year. My mom and I split the time with him in the hospital. He was so sick he didn’t remember half of what had happened. Plus he had six doc and three therapists rounding on him.

My sister phoned in a lot. She wanted to talk to every doc. Gave us questions. I felt like a servant and a secretary…(this is a truth space…in case you were wondering). Being a nurse, my sister had a lot of questions and opinions.

She’s also made the choice to move away. Convenient. She claimed she never thought about it. Okay…sure. My grandfather had been heavily dependent, ill off and on and lived to be 89.

Anyway, I have no guilt. I showed up. I was pissed off a lot of the time but Dad thought he knew better than everyone else. He’d play nice with the docs etc but he just wanted to get out. Well, when you ignore your health for a long time, it’s a long recovery.

Nearly 4 months of hospital sitting. My writing on total hold. My readers probably thought I’d abandoned them. My muse was a wreck crying in the corner. I needed to be creative to be somewhat happy and balanced. I was functional at best.

My swag piled up because I wasn’t sending it out to cons. I canceled cons. I was so tired coming home from the hospital, I didn’t care about cleaning the house. I paid the bills and did the bare minimum. Because there would be another day at the hospital…it felt like it never ended.

When he went home, it was worse on my mother. I helped some but in the last year, things have changed a lot in my life.

My writing was derailed. I managed to get two books out before things went downhill fast this year. Now he’s not sick…he’s gone and life has to go one. My writing, my road to recovery from the control and my weight and all of the bad stuff.

I want to be healthy, happy, and writing…lots of work to do.

My Own Personal Drama….Er…Journey

Journey to what...I'm not quite sure yet.

My father passed away last month. That shook up my plan. But my plan has been messed up for over a year now with his health issues.

Now poof! It's over in some ways and in other ways it's far from done.

I need to do something to keep things anchored. To keep me on track and accountable.

There is a lot of work to do with my family. In my house, cleaning.

Me finally losing weight...slowly but I need to get on that path.

Either way, it's about taking back power. My dad was all about power/money. He wanted it, he tried to get as much as he could...

But now I've got to take back my power and make my life more like what I want. Focused on what I want. I'm glad I have no guilt about what I did. I was there.

It will be a journey. There is stuff to clean up, take care, and arrange...it might take a year or more but I'll get there.

There will be a lot more detail in future posts. More personal stories in this quasi journal to get it all out of my head. Processing stuff...it's public yes. But I have to get it out somewhere...

Stay tuned...