whitefingers's Journal

Is this site all fudged-up, or is it me? I press links, and it goes all hooey hay-wire, jumps to a totally different link... it's like I'm going crazy!!  I'm trying to update a goal, and the slider's all frozen... grrrr...

Oh well. I will trudge onward.

My sister's visiting today. It's rainy and awful out. It was so nice yesterday, while I was sitting in the hospital for 7 hours, getting my glucose tolerance, pancreas, liver,  and mammogram... Glorious day, and I'm stuck inside a mauve, cream, and hunter-green waiting room...

I should be grateful for health care coverage, right? I got home and called my best friend. She has a lump in her breast. She found it in December. It is now swollen larger, and painful. She has no health insurance. The clinic she goes to, they're making her wait until April 27 to consult with a surgeon!!

My best friend found a lump in her breast in December. Jeesus! I'm sure she told me about it back then. But I was drinking. Every evening. It did not register in my brain what she was saying. I am ashamed now, that I didn't follow up, that I didn't ask her how she was, and what treatment she was getting. I'm horrified that I've been such a ... self-absorbed... drunk. Bulimic asshole. Really. Look at that. Look what I let happen. I let alcohol and my ED take a huge part of myself away, the part that was a good person, a caring friend, an advocate...   I was not even a whole person. I had gigantic pieces missing.

I feel more whole now. I feel more effective. Like I can actually accomplish something, even if it's only listening, feeling for someone else, caring, being there...

I take my health care for granted. I complain about $15 co-pays. I complain about having to drive an hour to see a good psychologist. I'm a jerk.

Okay, that was great. I had a nice little pity party and called myself a bunch of names and felt awful and remorseful and regretful... now what am I going to DO with all that?... .... ...

I'm going to buy that little rental house. I'm going to fix up the bathroom, and move my daughter into it, so she can have her freedom. So I can be free of her too, let's be honest. I still want for her happiness and success as a person, she hasn't killed that part of me, she's killed so much, but she can't kill that. But I want her out of this house. I feel terrible to say that, but I'm all about the honesty. She is very hard on my recovery. She is very hard on my other kids. Our family.  Her contempt, her seething hatred, it's killing me. But as nasty as she treats me, the worst part about it all is, I'm losing my feelings for my own daughter. I feel it leaving me,  it is destroying the mother's heart inside me. She's awful. She's just mean and awful. There is a dead thing in her eyes. And she's killing the last person on this earth she can count on.

Buying another house right now, with the economy, with my husband's overtime slashed, it's an extreme financial strain. But she's an extreme EMOTIONAL strain on my family. How do I weigh these things? God in heaven, guide me...

I'm researching the health care situation for my friend. There's got to be a doctor who will recognize the dire... direness? of her situation and pro-bono this thing!! I'm going to call my own doctor and ask for his help. I'm going to do that today. Better yet, I should walk into the office and ask to speak to him. Do I have the nerve? Can I actually do that? How would he react? I think I would look like an hysterical idiot. Or maybe he would be able to help us! It could happen! Do I do this? Is it done? Do people do this? Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Or maybe EVERYBODY does this. Maybe the doctors get so damn TIRED of people always approaching them,, asking for special treatment for a friend in need...

Shit, I don't know. I don't care. I'm going to ask.