It’s getting to the point where those of us who live in the Northeast find ourselves planning days, errands, trips, chores around SNOW – when is it coming, how much is expected, will public transportation shut down again, how well-stocked is the food and water supply, should I make up a last will and testament in case I die of a heart attack shoveling it ... the usual.
People are just moaning with the fed-uppedness of it all. We’ve broken all sorts of snow accumulation records, and it still keeps coming: one huge snowstorm after another. We are all running out of room to put the snow we keep shoveling ... and we’re all getting slightly freaked out. Our ability to do anything is becoming narrower, along with our focus. For the moment, all we can see is the next storm, barreling towards us; all we can hear are weathermen, consistently apologizing for their reports: “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but ...”
We got Winter Storm Neptune about two weeks ago. Blizzard, big snowfall, high winds, and luckily a holiday on Monday to dig our way out of it, After Neptune? “The coldest temperatures in a generation”. I didn’t trust the MBTA to keep running in temperatures like that, and they didn’t. Limited service, cancelled trains, the works.
But those cancelled trains in the evening – compounded by a manager who didn’t care if I needed to get home to take my anti-leg spasm medications on time – took their toll. I can’t take the medication after 7 pm, or I don’t wake up on time in the morning; sleep right through an alarm held up to my ear. I was getting home at 8, 9 and 10:00 at night. I have gone without the medication for one dosage and been alright, but this was nearly an entire week’s worth of missing meds. And apparently, that was all it took.
I got home late one night, was still in my coat and boots – and a dual leg spasm seized up both of my lower legs so fiercely I fainted from the pain of it. On the bed, luckily; I was standing bedside when it happened. Woke up six hours later – with the spasm still going. Still in my coat and boots. I could feel the spasms in my thigh muscles – and that hurt like hell – but I could no longer feel my lower legs at all. I crawled my way into the shower – or actually butt-walked backwards, and that took me a while - scooted myself onto the lip of the shower and managed to turn the hot water on. Kept the lower legs under a stream of hot water and massaged them until they finally released. Crawled for the phone. And called an ambulance.
If I thought I had nerve damage after that bus accident before ... I wish I had that level of nerve damage back again. The 6-hour long spasm had to have shut down the entire nervous system down in my lower legs ... the question is: do they just need time to recover from the spasms, or are they gone for good? There is a major disconnect between my brain and my legs – doc says, “Move your toes”, and no matter how hard I concentrated on moving my toes, I couldn’t do it.
Fun with Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport
And now for the Epic Fail of Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport.
Why is it that no matter how many times you tell emergency room personnel what the issue you’re having IS, they – out of stupidity, deafness or arrogance, I’m not entirely sure – dismiss what the patient tells them out of hand, and then write down something entirely irrelevant and misleading in the file? Do they honestly think they know my own body, and my own symptoms better than I do? They’ve just met me for the first time – ever – and yet they completely disregarded every single thing I told them.
I had also – by fainting – missed the nightly insulin injection. I had also – thanks to the aforementioned manager – missed an injection at noon time, because he deliberately scheduled a meeting with me (despite the fact that I’d be missing lunch AND noon injection) right before I had to deliver a 3 hour training session. So, my blood sugar levels were high when I got there; I explained to them just what I’ve said here. I also said, deliberately – loudly – repeatedly – “the nerve damage was caused by the dual leg spasms, NOT diabetic neuropathy. The leg spasms are the result of a bus accident and spinal fusion surgery in 2010.” I said the same thing to everyone I saw at Anna Jaques. Over and over and over again.
They disregarded it completely. Totally. As though I’d never said a single word. When I saw the file (a visiting nurse service caseworker showed it to me), what did I read? “Lower leg weakness and diabetic neuropathy caused by high blood sugar.” No mention of the spasms, the fainting episode, nothing – not a single word! – of what I’d said to them, over and over and over again until I was blue in the face. Total disregard. I nearly went ballistic on the poor caseworker. Lower leg “weakness”? I couldn’t even feel or move the damn things! I have to seek treatment for the nerve damage, with THAT report following me around? It’s dead wrong! In fact, it was so dead wrong, it was dangerously dead wrong.
Fun with Facebook
New topic, but since I’m already in serious bitching mode: there’s this guy who fancies himself a musician/singer ... (debatable on both counts), who I made the mistake of interacting with on a Facebook page – twice – so if you want to cite me for gullible stupidity as well, I certainly won’t fight you on it.
This is his modus operandi (and he did this the two times I interacted with him, so I’m guessing he does this a lot): an entire conversational thread gets going and it’s actually pretty interesting, so you devote a certain amount of thought into what you’re posting. But the minute you disagree with him, he throws a hysterical hissy fit, deletes all of his own posts, and what’s left on the thread after he does that is everyone else who took the time to thoughtfully respond to any of his posts swingin’ in the wind, responding to nothing, and looking like idiots babbling randomly. Almost like a toddler in a playground who gets his feelings hurt: “Wah, wah, I’m taking all my toys and going home!”
So now, you have to edit or delete all of your own posts to compensate for his childish temper tantrum.
Here’s my thought, people: if you can’t have an adult conversation, don’t post anything that someone might disagree with – because people will disagree with you, that’s just the way life is. I gave him two chances to act like an adult; he failed both times, so he’s gone from my world, at least. But wow, that was annoying.
Fun with Sharers and Agree-ers
Last bitch of the day: over time, I’ve gotten more and more irritated by that ubiquitous “Share if You Agree” nonsense, which seems to be attached to every Facebook post I see lately. It’s at the point now where I don’t even CARE if I agree with you or not, I’ll be damned if you’re going to order me to waste more and more bandwidth doing it, especially when most people don’t even question the basic premise of what they’re “agreeing” with anyway. Someone makes up a false media story (and it’s such an over the top media story that simple common sense should tell you it’s entirely invented, and yet common sense never manages to kick in for the vast majority of these mindless share-ers and agree-ers) – and everyone just hits the “share” button, like half-witted lab rats pushing pleasure buttons.
I have a mind to take that last paragraph, stick it in Facebook and order THEM to “Share if You Agree”, but I’m guessing the vast majority of those yahoos wouldn’t get the joke anyway.
Back to real life.
I’m having to scale back, just to survive this. I knew I was slowly uncoiling when I took a late lunch yesterday and was looking out of the restaurant window, idly daydreaming ... and then, after a thought, a phrase, an unexpected image, reached for my notebook to record more lines in the sonnet cycle. I hadn’t worked on it in months.
I was thinking of “The Always”, the twin soul I knew I was still searching for, deep down. The odd image went through my mind, the two of us as ... Neanderthal is probably the best word ... together, in a savannah grasslands, alone; I had just given birth. And he, looking at the tiny, squalling thing I had produced, his head slightly tilted in curiosity, examining it carefully. He knew what to look for; signs that it might survive. I watched him do that and experienced a profound ocean wave of tender regard for him. In the here and now, I found I had tears in my eyes, sharing that moment with the once-was-us. I had an ache in my heart, missing him so godawful much, whoever or wherever he was now. Then I shook the image free and wondered where on earth THAT had come from, out of nowhere. So I wrote it down.
And Back to Bob
I leave you with a wonderful appearance he made in someone’s living room. Have no idea when. Just because it made me smile – you’ll enjoy his surprised and delighted reaction at 17:50 when the small audience suddenly starts singing along with him. And right now, I love anything that can make me smile happily and forget everything else. I find this so amazing ... that after all these many, many, oh so many years ... he can still make me smile as though I hadn't a care in the world. Who knows, maybe ultimately I don't, and I need to stop grousing over problems that aren't even remotely important in the vast scheme of things. What can I tell you? He's just special.
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