So much has happened I don't know where to begin…
This bittersweet month started off with me in a funk over the breakup, had me smiling and feeling like I got a bit of myself back by the end of the week, only to emotionally crash land after a scare on Mothers Day, all the while I had finals to deal with as well as family heath scares that were on my mind.
It started when I had my last English class before the our final.
He gave us the normal three subjects to write about, except this time all three subjects were questions on the two articles we had to read for our final essay.
Kind of a practice run.
So I picked the one I felt most passionate about and got to writing.
It just flowed out of me, paragraph after paragraph, and before I knew it, I had written much more then the needed 500 words, with enough time to go over my work.
And of course we had to read what we had written out loud. Now normally I'm a "closer" or the one the teacher calls on at the end of class to end things on a high note, since my classmates seem to like what I write so much. But today the teacher decided to throw me a curve ball and called on me first.
Time stood still as I read out loud the words that moments ago were just puffs of smoke in my mind. and when I was done, I heard something I've never heard before...applause.
Some of my classmates actually applauded, while others laughed appreciatively and smiled at me. In a strange way, this acceptance and appreciation of my writing was worse then when they couldn't understand the meaning of my work and judged me so harshly. I didn't know what to do with it except laugh too, even though I had an overwhelming urge to hide my head beneath my desk.
After that things went well...
I had my finals to distract me from the pain of having to say goodbye to someone loved but who wasn't good for me, and that Thursday I went into my Math final feeling pretty confident.
But then came Mothers Day...
It started out great...
Spent the day with my aunt, uncle, and Mom just relaxing. We got mani pedis, my uncle cooked dinner, we enjoyed each others company and went home very happy. Once home Mom and I took the dog out for his evening walk.
As our Max was peeing a waterfalls worth of urine on the tree in front of our building, a woman came up the block with her two sheep dogs leading. Now if you know dogs you know if they're leading, your not in control of them, and this woman saw us standing there, but kept approaching. Well all it took was one aggressive bark and lunge from one of her dogs to set Max off and he went after him, sending my mother, who was standing on the tree roots, flying forward then slamming face first onto the concrete. I saw her fall and wanted to go to her first, but my priority became Max who was now about to get into a dog fight with bad odds, two against one. So worried about my Mom and not even thinking about the dumb woman and her dogs, I jumped in the fight, grabbed my dog by his jowls, and commanded him to stop. It was as if my voice snapped him back to reality, cause he stopped immediately. I then took him and ran back to my mom who was now standing up but holding her right wrist at a strange angle. I asked her if she was ok, and she uttered something she's never said to me in all the years I've known her, she said No.
This is a woman who knows pain the way one would know a long time lover, so for her to tell me she was not ok, I knew we were going to the ER.
But the dog still had to be walked, and I couldn't argue with her about it, so I gave her the keys, took the dog around the corner to poop, then literally ran home. My legs moving faster as fearful thoughts of her passed out in the apartment with me unable to get in, flooded my brain. But she was as fine as one can be in this situation and was able to buzz me in.
I got her to the hospital fairly quickly considering, and thanks to the fact that we got there before the shift change, and that shes an employee, we were fast-tracked through the ER.
3 hours, 2 x-rays, and some dumb ass questions later (like the x-ray tech asking which arm was broken, when she was standing there holding up her right arm that was wrapped in a rather large and obvious splint), my aunt showed up, and I was promptly sent home against my will because I had my English final the very next day. I knew I wasn't going to sleep, and though they got home by 1:30am, I didn't actually fall asleep till 3am.
My aunt (who is a saint) stayed with us so that I could go to class the next day without worrying about Mom being alone.
Ha!...
Though the gesture was appreciated there was no way I wasn't going to worry, and things began to turn around when I found out that morning I got a 92% on my Math final. But that happiness quickly faded when the madness from the night before finally caught up with me in the form of a migraine right before my English final, so needless to say, I left that final feeling like I didn't do as well as I could have.
My life had turned upside down overnight...
Now...Not only did I have finals to study for, but I had Mom to worry about, a house to run, a dog to walk, dinner to make or order, chores to do, and tons of disability papers to fill out. At first it felt overwhelming, but I adapted pretty quickly reminding myself that if I lived alone, this is what I would have to do. I also didn't want Mom to feel bad, cause even though she was in crazy amounts of pain, she's the type who would still worry about everyone else before herself.
So I did what I had to do, and whenever I had to go to class during the day, or if I had a final I had to prepare for, my aunt was there to give me the support I needed.
While I abused myself mentally studying for my Music final whenever I had a free moment, that week I took Mom to see the ER's referred orthopedic surgeon.
He was great!!
Not only was he friendly, he answered all our questions without any condescension and even looked into our concern over my mothers ring finger what was swollen, and painfully bruised. I knew it had to be broken, but no one in the ER had bothered to look at it or even x-ray it. So the doc took us into an office and snapped his own x-ray's with a nifty miniature, free standing, instant x-ray machine that looked like it came right out of a futuristic scifi flick. Well thank God for Mom's little broken finger, cause when he took his x-rays, he saw a whole slew of problems that could only be fixed with surgery and the application of pins in her wrist and her finger. So we scheduled the surgery for the following Friday as that Friday I had my Music final and between me worrying about her, and her worried about me worrying instead of being relaxed for my final, there was no way we could do it that Friday.
When Friday came I got through my Music final without killing my teacher, and felt pretty good about how I did on the test. Then I spent the Saturday and Monday drooling into my Psychology book preparing for the final I had coming that Tuesday. But when Sunday rolled around, Mom and I went out to brunch with my two aunts and two of my uncles, to celebrate a proper Mothers day without anyone breaking anything.
Once home I got right back to studying, and though I wasn't able to study as well as I had hoped, when "D-Day" arrived, I went in to take my test knowing I did the best I could.
After my psychology test all there was left for me to do was to wait for my scores to be posted for the spring semester, but besides all the house hold stuff I had to do, Mom's surgery on Friday was enough on it's own to distract my mind.
So when Friday came we were ready. I had helped Mom bathe the night before, her dress (which was just easier to take on and off) was laid out, paper work was filled out and signed, and I got up an hour early (6am) to walk the dog so we could leave the house by 8am.
When we got to the hospital everything went smooth.
I signed her in, went with her to talk to the nurse, helped her change into her gown, escorted her to the holding area where they prepped her for surgery, questioned the doctors, and said my goodbye as they began to knock her out.
The surgery took and hour and a half, which I spent with my aunt at a coffee shop next to the hospital. She had arrived after we had already started the process of getting Mom ready, but thank God she was there because she was a much needed and welcome distraction.
After the hour and a half was up we headed back to the waiting room, where I decided to use my phone to check and see if they had posted my scores yet...
Well low and behold...they did....
I got all A's...which means my GPA is now a 4.0!!!
I didn't expect A's...maybe one or two but not all A's!
It was something I didn't think I could achieve...something that I never wanted to strive for because I didn't want to get my hopes up.
And as if that moment couldn't get any better, the doctor called me to tell me that Mom was fine, the surgery went perfectly, and she was now resting in recovery....
It was like everything I had worked so hard for, all my stress all my worries had just lifted off of me...
I was floating....
Not only was Mom gonna be ok if not better then before she broke her wrist, but I had great news to tell her the moment she woke up....
I'm still worried about some of the other health scares going on with my family. One of my uncles had to go into the hospital for a routine outpatient procedure and they unknowingly nicked his artery, sending him home with internal bleeding. So within 24 hours he was back in the hospital, in the ER getting blood and prepped for serious surgery to repair the damage that was caused by such a "simple procedure".
Then there's my other uncle whose has this large tumor growing in his neck, behind his ear around his limp nodes and has to have it removed. But because he doesn't have insurance it took forever to find a good doctor and once we found a doctor we had to wait on a biopsy. Then because the biopsy came back inconclusive they wont do the surgery because they need to make sure what it is so they know how much to remove because of it's dangerous placement.
This is what I've been quietly dealing with underneath everything else because talking about it makes it seem more real, and that makes me start to panic. So this is all I will say on the matter of my uncles, until I know for sure if things are going to be ok....
Now it's all a waiting game as Mom begins her long healing process, we find out about my uncles, and I begin summer classes in June...
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