And on top of it all, I don't have a roommate...Update 1

I'm going to write here because there isn't really anyone to talk to. And isn't that fucking pathetic.

I may call Reva later, but I unloaded on her last night and a good friend should only be asked to listen to so much darkness.

I hate it when people go into great detail about their health, so I'll try to make this short. I haven't felt well for a year but in the past two weeks, I've just felt awful. I decided to go to the doctor AGAIN, and she thought as she did last time, and as the doctor before her did that my symptoms were mostly caused by stress. However she is thorough and had me do blood work day before yesterday. She also said that she heard something in my lungs and wanted me to have a chest x-ray. I thought I'd put that off a couple of weeks so the bills would not come at the same time.

So I got a voicemail from the 'nurse' at work today and her message was that they had found something in my blood work and that I needed to call them TODAY..... that they were open until 8p.m. and really needed to hear from me TODAY. If you are as terrified by doctors, hospitals and health issues as I am- this was not a good way to get vague news. I went out to the car to call her back.

And let me say, when you get news like this (and you're someone like me) it is not conducive to sanity when calling back you are told they are experiencing high call volumes and then play lots of ads about cancer and diabetes and epilepsy.

So, I reached her and she said that tests showed that I have some sort of infection but they don't know where it is, and I needed to go for a list of tests.... like, NOW. I went back into work, found my manager who was with the HR person, to tell them I had to leave and promptly fell apart. I just feel so alone.

I drove to the hospital and this was no regular blood test. They weren't vials, they were bottles the shape of airplane cocktails, and bigger. And there were two. I got through that and the rest of the tests and came home an emotional wreck.

Aside from my usual fear, there is some extra basis for it. For years I've been telling doctors that there's something going on on my left side. I've been through an MRI and other big tests that financially killed me, and they found nothing. But it's still there and gotten worse and none of their remedies has really helped it. Obviously I may be wrong, but no one knows their body better than the person who lives in it.... I'd bet that's where the problem is.

.............
I've been going back over my past and trying to sort out where this extreme fear comes from. I've always known it's had something to do with surgery at 3 days old, but please. This is out there.

I notice that when I go for tests I feel like I'm being punished for something which leads to an amorphous feeling of shame. This doctor and hospital I go to is one of the best. You get your doctor visits online... all the tests, what they showed. The hospital is more like a hotel, and they are lightening fast and kind.

And lately I've been watching people with health issues and marvel at the way they view them. Two women at work just had major surgery, and to them it's "get it out and over and lets move on". Most people view doctors as just the people who know how to determine and fix a problem... not as judges and harbingers (if not outright instruments) of pain. ( And that part of my fear, I get.)
..........

So, as fast as they work I imagine I'll get a call tomorrow. I dread when the phone rings now... and I'm sitting here now, some moments okay and some moments in tears.

And on top of it all I thought I had a roommate and so felt some relief and hope... but found out last night that I don't.

I feel like I'm in a no-mans land. I stare out at the water and I can't own it. I look at Meander and wonder how I'm going to care for him. I can't afford to move and I can't afford to stay and tomorrow may blow everything out of the water several months early.

I'm trying not to throw a pity party but I can't take much more of this. I'm tired of feeling bad, being afraid, feeling like I can never catch up...

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Posting this for family....

Told you they were fast. The chest x-ray shows not much of anything. It did notice the damage to the arm I broke. But that's not the test I'm worried about....

No other land but this....

Almost a year ago I posted this on the 'quotes' area of my blog, because.... Because I had been left.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other land but this.
--Henry David Thoreau

The heart obviously knew it, but every logical and emotional part of me just wasn't ready. I think that's human nature. I couldn't have 'found my eternity' to save my life, the moment I posted it. But obviously the heart and the spirit had different ideas and quietly introduced us.

I am sorry to acknowledge this, but I'm going to because I think it's important. There isn't a piece of me that could commit suicide, but I remember sitting on my bed in sheer terror, wondering, back then. And as I wondered, I knew it could never happen in that way you just 'KNOW', but I did finally understand how those that have just too much pain might opt for it. I could see how life could somehow be too much to take. That's an understanding I will hold dear.

There have been people who have bolstered me. I sometimes think/thought that comments like "Hang in there.", "Have Faith", "It will improve." was so much fluff, but what else is there to say? Those comments come from either people who have gone through what you have, or those who are afraid to. And when push comes to shove, they mean the best and you're going to survive as you will... knowing they cared for you enough to write something kind is a testament of some wonderful kind.

This morning I went out to my car late for work, got in, looked up, grabbed the camera and shot.


.
.
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I suppose I could zoom in and get the pretty image of 'almost' sunrise' but I choose to keep it as I saw it... far away, muted, dusky, rich.



That didn't keep me from hurrying to the wall to grab a closer shot, but the sun was quicker. It was rising whether I was ready or not. I just kept shooting.



There are people who have left my life, and there are people who have arrived late to my party. In that realm there is sadness and wonder. What am I leaving, and what land am I headed for?



A year ago I couldn't imagine this hope.



I'm afraid to imagine, but nonetheless I am still searching, and glad of it.

And that's good.

Japan

I was in the break room this morning and people were staring at photos in the newspaper of Japan. I'll give them this... they were really quiet, which does not happen.

I asked them if anyone had seen some of the video that's out there that was taken during the earthquake and tsunami. For a room full of people who do nothing but stare at their 'technology' (phones, iPads, Kindles, laptops) in any given empty moment.... they all shook their heads.

No.

I told them there were four entire trains with people on board, missing. There is a village of 10,000... gone. You could see them trying to parse it, as I had.

.......


I came across these. So much is hard in my life right now and when it's devastation began it only took about an hour. But what if my world were LITERALLY swept away within an hour? And I was left walking through, well nothing... with only a plastic shopping bag of things in my hand?

Watching the videos I notice the birds. What did they or didn't they know? Sense? They could stay aloft, see the difference, fly to dry land.

It makes me think of 911, though this is different and geographically so much larger. But I think the comparison is good, because I realize that their sorrow could be ours. That it is ours; and ours... that day almost ten years ago... was most likely, theirs.









As I was clicking through the pictures I thought these were books. For some reason, fallen books always capture photographers attention.



Not so much. They are cargo carriers.







Just..... nothing.