My Trip Tomorrow With My Kids & More

I’m only writing tonight because I don’t want to call my therapist.  Even with a 2 minute voice mail I’m afraid she’ll get mad at me and think I’m starting with that again.  I feel so lucky she said she’ll call me Saturday and Monday while I’m on this trip I don’t want to spoil that.  But I need to talk – especially about something my daughter’s boyfriend said to me.  So I’ll write it instead.   I had my little grandson today.  He ran around with his Nana (that’s what he calls me) doing errands and playing here at home.  He’s 6.  Then we went so see my little 4 year old granddaughter in the hospital.  She is the most loving little girl.  She almost didn’t stop today with the “loving on me.”  She takes my arm and hugs it, kisses it, slobbers all over it, strokes her face with it and such.  She’s constantly giving me hugs – huge hugs – saying “My Nana!  My Nana!”   Even to the point she had to have the nurses watch us hug.  When we’re hugging she repeatedly says “I missed you, Nana.”  She tells everyone who I am, too.   I’m just wondering why it’s so much.  I love it – I really do – a lot.  Makes me feel good that I’m loved and that she takes my love to her so freely as well.  But I’m wondering why she does this to the extreme.  She’s very much loved at home – it’s not that there’s a lack of love at all.  I do not know what happens when she’s at her Mom’s, though.  They alternate weeks.  I know with the leg amputation she’s gone through so much but she’s been like this for as long as I’ve known her.  Maybe because of her illness she’s always received it freely so she feels the need to give it freely.  I’m just not sure.   I brought my cousins the little personalized name bracelets I made for them today.  I forgot to give them to them last Saturday night at dinner.  I needed to do a project and one day I decided on these personalized bracelets and I’ve made them for friends and relatives.  They are colorful, easy to make and they seem to like them.    I’m getting off target.  So when I was visiting at the hospital today I asked my daughter’s boyfriend what time we are leaving for vacation tomorrow.  He wants to leave 3AM, I said 6AM is plenty early.  What’s the use of getting there and then being all tired.  6 AM is early enough!  And, I cannot sleep in cars, airplanes and such.  Just can’t.  My daughter wants to come here at 5:15AM and I said 5:30 is plenty of time.  My husband will be watching their dog.  Watch – they’ll show up 5:15AM.   Then he said we’ll just stop for gas and we can all go to the bathroom then and that’ll be it.  A little panic went through me and I looked at him and said, “That will not work for me.”  I think he knows I need to go to the bathroom a lot but not about accidents I have sometimes and such and certainly not about the whole extent of it.  Not about the bedwetting – that’s for sure.  No one does of my family except for my husband!  And, my therapist.  That’s all!!  That’s all I ever want to know!!   So he asked me how many times I’ll need to stop.  This is a 5 plus hour drive.  I didn’t quite know what to say so I just said, “A few times.”  I’m going to have to give in and wear those heavier pads but what if I use it, what if they’re not in the right place or I forget or it leaks.  I hate using those things.  I feel like they are a crutch like it would be OK to just go and it’s not.  Besides how uncomfortable they are.   Then he told me I need to be catharsized  like his little girl had just been after her surgery.  Like then I won’t need to go.  That really, really hurt my feelings!   But, what did I do – laugh with him.  It’s not funny.    See … people just don’t understand.  I even said we’ve pulled off the highway to find an inconspicuous road for me to go in the past (with my husband).  Then he said, no there’s plenty of places.  I said that to kind of prepare him.  But what he doesn’t realize is that sometimes we just can’t get to those places fast enough.  They are farther away, there’s lines, who knows what else.  I think people just don’t understand.  It’s not that easy for me.   I wanted to call my therapist and tell her that.  That it sent me “freaking out” about it and more scared.  That I need to self- talk and tell myself I can’t let that spoil things.  I need to speak up for myself when I need to go to the bathroom and not care how many times I need to go.  It’s easy to say – but I really do care.  I think because I think they do.  I’m afraid they won’t like me if I’m a pain and have to stop a lot.  They won’t want me to go again. Or, they won’t like me.   I’m so scared of those things.    My therapist did start out yesterday implying that my daughter and her boyfriend and granddaughter have a lot more serious stuff going on than my problem.  I’m not sure if she said that to tell me they won’t even be paying attention to my problem or if she was trying to compare everything and put it in perspective.  Maybe a little bit of both.  She knows how much my problem affects my life but maybe she’s trying to tell me there are worse.  I do know that and thank God all the time for what I do have and hope he’ll help others who don’t and continue to bless me.    While I was at the hospital today I met up with an old friend who works there.  She is so nice, so sweet yet if anyone can stand up for herself it’s her.  She’s not afraid of anyone and I admire her for that.  We get to talking and she tells me all her frustrations in her life.  I am a very good listener and help whenever I can.  She listens to me, too.  It was very nice talking with her because we don’t get to see each other very much anymore.  Makes me wonder what’s really going on with that friend of mine who all of a sudden is staying away from me when in the past she told me everything and of course, I listened.  I have no idea what’s going on - no idea.  And, I hate conflicts!   Another thing that happened today was at one point my grandson held his stomach and said he needed to go to the bathroom.  I hope he’s OK.  I always wonder if people are sick because I’m so afraid of getting anything with this phobia of throwing up.  I’m worried now because I’ve been closely with him, will be closely with him in the next few days with the trip.  Please … I hope he’s not sick.  And, his nose was running some and he was coughing a little today.  I hate when I worry about these things.  I wish I wouldn’t.    Still another thing that happened today I just remembered.  My granddaughter has a body cast on and there is an opening in the crouch are for her to go to the bathroom.  When she has to go she has to tell someone right away so they can get to her get her on her little commode or the toilet fast enough.  When she was little and had this type of cast she was in diapers but now she’s 4 and is potty trained.   We were in the playroom today and she said she needed to go to the bathroom.  She couldn’t really go there so her Dad asked her if she had her diaper on.  She said yes.  Well, the diaper isn’t on like taped to her.  It’s just beneath her just in case they can’t get to her in time.  So he told her she just may have to go in it.  That creaped me out.  I never want to do that!  But do you know she held it for some time until we got up to the room where the nurses were there to help.  I probably wouldn’t have been able to.  That makes me sad and mad at myself.  I glanced because it was measured and I saw about 400ml plus some got on the floor because it’s hard to place her just right with the cast.  That’s about 14 oz.  That’s a lot for a little girl – I think.  When I was doing my study I had to measure and it was maybe 4-6-8 oz at my best.  Sometimes even less than that – 2-3 oz.  That makes me feel really bad about myself, too. I have been doing better lately, though since I’ve been trying to drink more and hold it longer – on my good days.   Ok … thanks for listening.  Now I don’t feel the need to call my therapist with that 2 minute phone call.  She doesn’t want me doing it but I’m thinking in emergency or if I have to tell her something it’ll be OK.  She never says so I never know for sure.  I think as long as I don’t call everyday, or even several times a week, it would be OK.  I can’t not be in contact with her at all.  You can’t go from every day something to absolutely nothing at all.  You just can’t.  So I need to save any phone calls to absolutely necessary things.  And, I don’t even call her directly to talk – it’s just little voice mails.  Oh, well.   So I hope everyone has a nice weekend and first part of the week.  We plan on being back Tuesday evening.  Wish me good luck with those “products”.  It makes me wince to even think about wearing them.  I still haven’t decided for sure about nighttime.  I still may blame my grandson.  I don’t have accidents every night so maybe I just won’t anyway.  Wish me good luck about not having any accidents at all – daytime or nighttime.  Chances are and the reality of it is I will so please pray I can handle them when they happen and the ones I’m with won’t be mad at me.  And please continue to pray for my little granddaughter.  Thank you.