since i've been gone

It has been months and I've wanted to write, had so many ideas flitting through my head but, life has sort of kicked me in the ass of late. So... to update you.

Three days before my final in Basic 1 (which was back in mid-april) I learned that my father was in the hospital. My aunt Maren called me on Sunday to let me know that on Friday my dad had told her he thought he was having a stroke. So she called an ambulance and when they arrived my dad had a seizure. And I get called a couple days later. I love my father but he is an alcoholic (and a chain smoker of 46 years) and our relationship is somewhat dysfunctional, so when I got the call I was angry, upset, guilty (why do I always feel so guilty?) and very 'why couldn't my dad wait until I was done with my final to have this happen to him.' Totally irrational I know. They found a growth in his lung and brain, which they suspected was cancer but the bronchosopy was inconclusive. They needed to remove the tumor from my dad's brain because it was close to his motor center and giving him a lot of problems with his right side. That part of his body wouldn't 'listen' to his brain. So he had a craniotomy and they learned that he did, indeed, have cancer and that it's stage 4. I talked with his oncologist and found out his prognosis was 4 - 10 months. I went up to visit him while on my two week break in school and it was hard. Not only because he's dying and there are so many loose ends in our relationship that I know will never be resolved. But also because everyone in my father's circle in Cleveland is an alcoholic; my aunt, all his friends that visited him. I don't mean to be judgmental but it makes me sad to see the potential in my father, because he's so so smart and has a really engaging, charismatic personality. What demons in his head have tormented him that he chose to self medicate to the extent that it has wound up being his death sentence? And when I saw the one bedroom apartment that my father and aunt have been sharing for the past 7 1/2 years. It was shocking. I went to visit my dad for a few hours at the hospital, stopped at a grocery store and bought $30 worth of cleaning supplies and then went back to the apartment and spent close to FIVE HOURS cleaning, and I only tackled the bathroom in all that time. It was squalor. I had planned on sleeping there but wound up getting a room at the Days Inn down the street. My aunt was mortified that I was cleaning. I didn't mean to make her feel bad in any way but, I don't live in Cleveland, I'm thinking 'how can I help my dad?' and the one thing I know I can do well is clean. My aunt is a very smart, very kind woman. She offered her apartment to her younger brother and he came and took her bedroom! I love my dad but he's such an asshole in so many ways. His poor sister has been sleeping on a fucking twenty year old sorry shape couch! For seven and a half years! He didn't even offer her the bedroom when she had shingles. What the fuck?!

The next day I went to see my dad and we played scrabble a couple of times, for someone who just had brain surgery he did amazingly well. I went back to his apartment and spent the rest of that day cleaning his bedroom. There were clothes with dust piling up on them. And so many bills that he doesn't even bother to open. Back in November of 2001 when I went to visit my dad for thanksgiving I found a sheet detailing the extent of his debts, to the IRS, friends, his boss, various doctors and dentists, Indian Valley country club. $492,757.07. And let me tell you that number has grown higher since he moved to Cleveland. I tried to sort through his bills, thinning out mutiple notices of the same bill. I mean I'd think it would make you feel better, psychologically, to see just one bill from Cleveland Cardiology Associates for close to $700 than six notices of that amount. Sunday morning I went to visit my dad before I left to go back home. It was so cold and grey and all I could think was that I just wanted to get home and go to the gym (because my body has become addicted to that physical stress release).

My dad is currently in a long term care/short term rehab facility while he undergoes radiation on his brain. They moved him there because he is to weak physically to manage getting to the radiation appointments on his own. A social worker from the facility called me last because she wanted to try to talk to my dad about his full code status (which means taking all measures to keep him alive) because given his cardiomyopathy and the cancer, he's doing very poorly physically and emotionally. Apparently the radiation is taking a horrible toll on him, they bring him to his radiation treatments in an ambulette by stretcher because he is so weak. He is so weak he can't go by wheelchair anymore. When I talked with the social worker it sounded like he probably won't last for four months. She wanted to talk to him about hospice or having him sign a DNR which would be more realistic than the full code status given his health, or lack thereof. Toby very generously offered to drive the kids out to Cleveland this weekend to see my dad. I've got my first big test to study for and plan on going out to see him next week.

So school started up again on May 3rd and it was full speed ahead. Two full clinical days at the hospital and we stop over the afternoon before we start the clinicals to meet with our patient and start our paperwork. You have no idea the extent of the paperwork we have to do and hand in at the end of clinical on wednesday and after two days of waking up at 5 a.m., putting the full 7 - 3 shift in, post conference, completing two care plans, and a medical surgical database and the blue card and the pathophysiology -I can barely function. Oh and during my first week my patient got transferred at the end of my first clinical day so I got a new patient and had additional paperwork to do. I went back to the school to access the medical charts and got a text from a man I've been seeing and the message he sent was not good. Yeah, I've been in a romantic relationship of six months that no one but Elise, my mom and my therapist have known about. So I was already close to tears after talking to him on the phone. Hell, I was close to tears when I found out I was getting a new patient. But then I went to the computer lab and there was a problem accessing my new patient. I went to get the woman who deals with the computers and as we were walking back to the computer lab together I just started bawling. It was more than I could handle at that point. That night I was so strung out on nerves I didn't get to sleep until 3 a.m. and yes I had to get up two hours later.


So back to the bunny I pulled out of the hat, the clandestine relationship. I'll spare you the dramatic, dysfunctional details but basically a rubicon (his word not mine, I didn't even know what it meant until he said it and I looked it up to make sure I was inferring correctly) presented itself and he failed to act on it. And I told him I couldn't be with him anymore. But not without a week's worth of protracted roller coaster emotional emails and texts that culminated in a two hour phone call at three in the morning two days ago that ended in my heart breaking, which I didn't think a possibility at my age. Oh my. I had to take a test the first day of nursing school, where they look at your critical thinking skills (they have you retake the test at the end of school to see your progression). I aced the analysis, explanation and self-regulation. I got the highest score you could get in these areas. Why, oh why, can I not apply those skills when it comes to matters of the heart? I fell so fully, utterly, completely in love with this person and it's not that he wasn't worth it, he was more than worth it, but my love was so misplaced.

So from that break up I went to clinicals, on four hours sleep. I cannot tell you how close I was to just dropping out of the program that morning. It isn't enough that I'm overwhelmed with the clinicals on 8 hours sleep, with half that I was fried. I get so nervous with these clinical experiences, knowing I'm so inexperienced with all of this. I can't find pulses to save my life, the radial is easy but posterior tibial? dorsalis pedal? popliteal? It's maddening how hard they are for me to find, which just makes me nervous, which just makes it that much harder. It's a vicious cycle. When I came home that night I was beyond tired and beyond sad. I've cried more in the past three weeks than I would have thought possible. I am so spent. But when lying in bed praying that sleep would come, I prayed for God to help me (yes, I am agnostic and I talk to God a lot in my head but it's rare I pray out loud). But I actually got a good night's sleep that night and the next day I was a bit calmer. That morning I chatted with my patient's physical therapist, at lunch I talked more with the other students, sometimes it's hard for me because I'm at least ten years older than most of them. But the thing that really saved me that day was a conversation I had with my instructor. We talked about a lot things, being a single parent, my dad's dying. She really connected with me and took the time to help me out so much emotionally and in terms of supporting me when I voiced my concerns about whether I'm even cut out for nursing. There were a couple times when I was about to cry and I still get teary thinking about it. Now she might have just read my face (it is transparent), realized how depressed I was and thought, she had to do a psychosocial care plan on me that day. But I really felt my prayers were answered with her reaching out to me. I don't know what my concept of God is, I like to think it is the goodness inherent in everyone. I still get butterflies just thinking about clinicals but I just have to push through it and have faith that I will get better at this. There's a place for me somewhere out there in the field of nursing. Hopefully.

So I'll try to write more when I can. And I need to change that banner to spring before summer rolls along. I can take a picture of my backyard after I have mowed it with push blade reel mower, it is comical how much it resembles a bad buzz cut, what with the weeds that refuse to be cut down.