by absgirl » Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:30 am
mother was 45 and my daddy was 60 when i was born. i was number 15.--no we werent the waltons or the brady bunch== our family was a case of his, mine and ours. my daddy had a son by his first marriage, mother had 6 girls and 3 boys with her ex...when my parents married along came the last five of us [ a boy then 4 girls]. mother didnt care for her step son and let it be known...he was 40 years older than me and only a few years younger than mother. she referred to her kids w her ex as her kids but the last 5 of us were "u blakes"...her first batch of kids were little short petite people just like mother and their father. we were big boned plump fatty kinda tall kids with blue eyes and dark hair like our daddys people. needless to say there was a lot of sibling rivalry, jealousy, favoritism, hatred, stupidity and meanness.
i married at 17... a mistake but live n learn.
i was pregnant when SB proposed at christmas but miscarried shortly after. at his age of 27 u think he would have backed away gracefully but didnt. i was a stupid in love teenager like every girl i guess. we married and i found a job at a printing co and he continued his as a welder.
way back in the late 80's my back was a lil tight from work i thought. a girl i worked with recommended her chiropractor cus she always felt good after a visit to W.
so i went and after a few visits the doc wasnt satisfied. he said flat out "i think u have the beginning of ms". he said if he was right id be in a chair by the time i was 40. i agreed to some test.
so W sent me to a very old neurologist, T...i wasnt sure who shook more, me or him? truth be told he might not of been that old..i was 19/20 but he looked mega old to me at the time. he sent me to the hospital for some test finally. the test results were read by supposedly the best ms dr in our city [at that time]. when i went back to T for the results he told me i did not have ms and he didnt know what i had.
i had lousy health insurance thru work. my chiropractor visits were used up. i really couldnt afford these problems. so i thought its not ms so im ok and i went on w life. my stiffness seemed to disappear n i wasnt in pain so no biggy...it was just one of those weird things that happens.
life went on...my divorce was final shortly after my 21rst birthday. my mother threw a party for the event cus she did not like him at all. nobody in my family liked him. SB didnt go to my daddys funeral the year before and that was fuel for the fire.
i got a new boy friend in a few weeks. KD was a single dad, freshly divorced himself and had a small house on the other side of town. in no time he had me moved in and playin mommy on the weekends.
i left the big printing company after a few years cus i was stuck on 2nd shift with a line in front of me of people waitin to get to first shift. KD worked there too but he was already on first and his job was more important and it paid a lot better than mine.
i found a first shift job around the corner from our house at a print shop. right up my alley....i took off and became the bosses right hand. in 95 something happened i was pretty positive it was stress. i didnt have a pcp at the time so i went to KDs doctor.
i was so upset n stressed my whole body was feelin it. i couldnt walk cus my legs didnt work at all, they would even hold me up. my left arm i could use kinda but my right was like a log just layin there. i was wearin diapers cus i had no control. i had trouble eatin talkin hearin seein...i was a mess...i woke up one morning im the bosses right hand the day i was bedridden. it made no sense to me.
my friend ST had curvature of the spine. she had a steel rod in her back for years. she was HANDICAP oh my was i gonna be like her? 45 years old and alone with just her cats...it worried me.
KD's doctor sent me to a chiropractor...i was thinkin oh no not this again. nobody mentioned any test. weeks went by where my friends drove me to my appointments and i never left my house. i couldnt on my own.
KD got down in his back from workin. we had no income other than my company disability checks which were only $100 a week. his dad kept us in groceries and paid most of our bills. we were with each other 24/7 both in pain and not exactly nice people at that time.
one night i laid cryin. i asked KD if he would still love me if i ended up like ST. quickly and flat out he said NO. i was in shock thinkin ive been with u a few years and havent pushed the marriage thing, i raise ur kid cus hes got a loser for a mom, i pay ur child support and other bills cus u gamble ur check away, i clean house and cut the grass, i cook and do ur laundry. i didnt complain when his friends came over n they got drunk and trash the house.
i knew at that point whatever was wrong with me i needed to get over it and get gone. it took me 6 months to get myself together before i could go back to work.
in the summer of 97 my sister asked me to move in w her. she had recently divorced and was living in a apartment across the river. by then i had a new job, still in printing doin quality control. i was making more money than any job i ever had. i waited til the fall when KB took a week long trip out of town, w his dad before i moved out. i knew he would have a fit n try to stop me so i carefully plotted the move for those months.
when i got all my stuff from the house i called him to let him know i moved out and took my kitty lucy [that i rescued] but i left the kitty he gave me last year for our anniversary. that kitty, boogey, was wild more like ferrel. i knew she couldnt deal w apartment life. to my surprise he took the news well. KB only showed up at my job 3 or 4 times before he realized i was done.
stayin w my sister wasnt very fun. she battled her ex every night on the phone over their kids and money. he would make her mad and everybody in her path caught hell. i went out with my girl friends one night and she called mother after a battle w her ex. she was upset cus everything in her life was wrong. she yelled at mother sayin she wanted me and my "dam cat out of her house" she said that i always got my way and my life was perfect. then there was the part where she told mother that i..me..absgirl was mothers favorite of her 14 kids.
mother told me about the conversation so after a whole month of livin w my sister i moved back to mothers. i didnt want to be there either.
when i moved home to mothers my lucy kitty came too. we stayed in the upstairs of the house...the only bathroom was down stairs. lucy could roam around upstairs. mother liked her, but because the son in law who occasionally comes to fix things is allergic, the down stairs was off limits. more importantly mothers daughter hates any living breathing creature..esp ones tied to me.
i was 27. my curfew was 10 pm. no calls past 8 pm or before 10 am. i was expected to be there for dinner, even tho my work schedule conflicted. no tv past 11 pm which was ok cus there was no cable only local, what u could get to come in with rabbit ears. no smokin in the house which wasnt even a thought in my head so i went to the patio....a good 25 feet from the house, there i put a small ash tray on the table where i sat. mothers daughter didnt want a ash tray on the property period.
mothers daughter had a hissy fit on a saturday afternoon when my long time friend CT stopped in with her 8 yr old daughter. after 2 weeks of stayin at mothers i sold all my jewelry to pay a deposit and first months rent on a apartment 10 miles away. not so much cus mother but her daughter was gonna have a stroke if i didnt leave. honestly i followed mothers rules of the house and i gave her a hundred bucks each week to stay there plus another 25 for my laundry. during that 2 weeks i ate there maybe 3 times only cus mother begged me to.
i stayed in that apartment for 4 years. during that time i met JB and threw caution to the wind. the most spontaneous crazy thing i have done in my life happened. after just 3 days of hangin out with JB in a bar i quit my good payin job and drove w him to florida..lucy kitty in tow. imagine my surprise when he announced on the way he was runnin from the law. then it took a week in destin to realize he was a drunk...DA.
after a week of being locked in a hotel room while he took my car out galavant-in to lord knows where, with lord knows who i finally said i wanted to go home.
that was a very long ride...he was so mad at me.
shortly after our return home his parole officer was callin every where lookin for him and trackin him down. he finally got popped.
i managed to get my old job back at the first printing company i worked for....it paid the bills almost so i took a part time job at a gas station. i was workin 75-80 hours a week, savin money, gettin myself together.
JB got out of prison and went back a few times. no matter what he always came back to me, stayed drunk and couldnt keep a job for nothin. he was a momma's boy big time. if he wasnt w me he was with her. no problem right? wrong--theyd go get drunk together n get n trouble.enough i took my phone off the hook at night cus the "can u come get me out of jail" calls got old.
it wasnt til his mother would get drunk with him and then drop him off at my apartment that he got mean. seriously broken nose,ribs,toes,jaw, fingers, and wrist mean. i took out epo's and all but...u know dumb girl in me came out again.
in 2000 i had enough money saved to buy a house. i looked and finally found one just right for me n lucy kitty. got pre approved on a loan even had inspectors come after the sellers took my offer. it was small but backed up to a farm w horses and the people across the road had chickens n piggys! it was like the country in the city.
i got a call from the mortgage lender..........things werent in order, i needed more money down. i was devastated with no hope of gettin the money. i called a sister-- she said " GOD always has a plan B...he has somethin in store for u instead of this house"
she was right, 2 weeks later i found out i was pregnant. JB was gonna be a father.
i put off any ideas of a house cus i knew i was gonna have to be the responsible one.
after i worked months during a very hard and emotional pregnancy, alexis came via emergency c section 6 weeks premature cus of my health issues. she arrived exactly 1 month after my 32nd birthday.
i let JB move back into the apartment with me on a promise hed never come home drinkin. I DIDNT SAY DRUNK I SAID DRINKIN! he got a job workin on cars too!
alex was about 3 months old and he finally came in drinkin.....needless to say we had a fight n by the time it was over i had thrown him off the balcony [we were on the second floor so it wasnt a huge fall] when the cops came he kept sayin see what she did to me?....at this point in our relationship the cops knew me by name, they were at my apartment as much as me, they had seen what he did to me sooooooooooo many times. the cop just looked back at him and said " its about time"
he went to jail again. i moved to a town house very close to my mother. my stress level was stable...i was handling things ok...just me and my baby n kitty. we were scrapin by like any single parent family w no child support.
after a while i started dating[ if that what u wanna call it] again. if i went alex went. i didnt have anybody to watch her. i love my friends but they were either pot heads, pill heads or drunks or had their kids half grown i didnt want to. relatives? oh no...not my dysfunctional messed up family.
while visitin mother one day i noticed the neighbor next door. DS was my age, we grew up together...he never left home. we were buddies as teenagers, double dated and even after i married SB hed bring his girl over to our house n hang out. we were just friends.
he started comin over to my town house next thing i knew we were dating. he took me n alex to tumbleweed one night for dinner. he didnt drink but i was comfy enuf to. i had that huge margarita...64 oz i think...id never seen a drink that big..it took me a minute but i drank it all. he took us home, i staggered in so he put alex to bed for me....the one and only time i got drunk since alex came.
a few days later he told me he was goin to florida to see his mother.....he always did on his birthday. no biggy hed be back after christmas sometime.
my birthday was rollin around and i hadnt heard a peep out of him. i called he came by. he said he met someone and he thought she was the one. my feelings were a lil bruised but i knew i wasnt right for him and we were better as friends.
by march my stomach had been bothering me so bad....like i had rocks in it...i went to the doctor...guess what im pregnant like by 4 months. it was impossible cus i hadnt missed any cycles, no morning sickness nothing just a rock in my stomach.
i was in major shock...its hard enough w one kids now im gonna have another. i told DS, he asked me if i wanted to get married. i knew he didnt really want to marry me and he was crazy about that girl. i didnt want to mess up his world. so i jst said u go ur way ill go mine..ill manage i always do.
i went on complete bed rest in april cus my health went so out of control. bed rest w a 2 yr old in the house? seriously?
june rolled around i started having contractions they told me.....i was on monitors, ivs and i never knew it cus i could feel much of nothing. my mothers daughter KW had my alex...i worried. after 2 days and lots of meds they sent me home.
stayin in a town house where the bathroom is on the top floor isnt a piece a cake when pregnant. KW was acting nice and sincere. she offered us to stay w her til the baby got here. im thinkin 2 months can i do it?
well lena came via another emergency c section... a month early 7 lbs 6 oz....all was in shock on that one... a big preemie!
i lost daycare assistance while on maternity leave. the only way to get it back was bein on welfare. i got on that just to get my daycare assistance. when i went to see my boss they couldnt bring me back or hire anybody cus of some type of personnel and wage freeze.
i asked my welfare case worker about what to do. go back to school. so at 35 i went to college with some teenagers.
shortly before i finished i started having issues with my hands bein numb....this was a new thing...then my face went numb...then my feet were numb...then my entire left leg
.....stress was gettin me again so i ignored it.
i graduated june 2005 with a associate degree in graphic design. by august i had a decent job. december i bought a new car.
mother was getting Alzheimer's bad.in feb 06 i bought the little house across the street from her house where i grew up.
a double edge sword...id be close to mother but id be close to mother.........
she didnt just open her blinds n look over...she raised them all the way up and sported binoculars. i had to sneak around my own house to do anything. when i realized that while i was at work she and KW would get my mail and nose thru it as well as my garage or any unlocked door i got a lil upset.
in may mothers disease was takin a toll....she burned half her house down. KW wasted no time puttin her in a nursing home after a promise she made that she wouldnt.
then KW sold the house...n thats another messy story...but she did so much behind everybodys back sneaky like.
it was stressful times...i was edgy grouchy sad numb tryin to hold it together for my babies. visitin the nursing home after work w my kids nearly everyday..ya never got to visit with mother alone KW was always there or would arrive shortly after id get there.
in tryin to "help" me one day KW picked my kids up from daycare early...she was on the list for emergency pick up...my sister used this day care so the day care knew all of us. problem was she didnt ask me or call me to say she did. so when i drove to daycare in a rush cus i had plans that afternoon with my kids and boyfriend, i was surprised cus they werent there!
i became livid and irate cus i couldnt find my kids... she wasnt home, her cell wasnt on, she wasnt at the nursing home..........i was steamin...
she was goin to kmart n passin the daycare so she just took them with her.
thats a big part of our fallin out.......
mother passed in dec 07. KW was her power of attorney...in charge of everything. the funeral home was the last time i saw my mothers other kids......not all came....4 of her kids just had nothing to do with her. her step son didnt come.
after all was over we suddenly realized KW had changed all mothers funeral arraignments..even her burial clothes! then her will wasnt handle right....we could burn KWs butt on that one.
anyway with mothers passing so passed a lot of "stress" to some degree for a minute anyway.
in spring of 08 i went to the emergency room cus my bowels were bleeding. i was there a week with colitis off work for 2 weeks. mothers oldest daughter had my babies while i was laid up this time.......a nasty way to drop 20 lbs in a week!
when i went back to work with doctor notes and stuff my manager chewed me up one side down another for being off 3 days when my mother passed and now 2 weeks from a hospital stay. dont matter why i was off just that i was off.
in january 09 right before my birthday..i got laid off with a bunch of other people. at first i thought id find a job soon...but the unemployment lines were growing and time was tickin.....here come those stress problems again....
by april 09 i was back to the chiropractor KDs doc suggested. after a couple of weeks he was hollerin ms too.
i just knew my legs had no strength my hands were numb and tingley, my feet my bowels and all of me was falling apart from all this stress.
after the chiropractor begged me to just go see his pcp for another opinion i went n got referred to another neurologist, dr B. u know referrals and new patients..its a wait game...i wasnt gettin any better either.
after seein B in late june he immediately sent me for mris and spinals. spent the forth of july in the hospital gettin poked w needles. at 1030 pm the hospital neurologist dr T came in, woke me from a dead sleep to say "u have ms" in a foreign accent that i can barely understand.
odd as it sounds i was relieved that it wasnt cancer. i know its bad and ya cant cure it but its not cancer...
i asked if it was from all the pot i smoked in younger years
no was Ts answer but nothin else.
my sisters were upset that i went to the hospital for test durin the july forth festivities. nobody was upset that i was in bad shape it was just why now?
still hopeful i could find a job before my unemployment ran out if these meds would just kick in, in denial after a visit to dr B when he suggested filing for disability. i knew i could get past this episode too...its gonna go away...nobody notices my goofy walk...i can pull this off
after a few...very few flopped interviews i was beginning to accept the idea that this is how it is....even if nobody notices my messed up body eventually il have to speak and eventually the stress will get me again..not that i was over it then....
a co-worker from the company that laid me off, called me......i met ur sister today.....who is she talkin about? what?
the description came....blonde, pretty from a distance but up close get a bag, bitchy, has that attitude like everybody wants her and shes better than everybody else.my co worker and i discussed a few times how we both had screwed up families, we both had evil siblings, she knew i needed to know my sister blabbed my personal infoto the world. KW was upset cus wen i worked there we had prints made of our family tree and werent charged. now that im not there she had to pay and couldnt figure out y. to top it off she announced to my bosses that i have ms....great i was hopin to get called back to work now that wont happen. even worse KW was rude to my old co-workers [i didnt like most of them only a few were my friends but still]
i wasted no time in callin KW. her response: i didnt know ur health was a secret" i had more steam comin from my ears then the geysers in yellowstone!!!!!
my back my legs my head my arms stopped workin right. i was dizzy tired constipated eatin everything then not eatin, forgetting things i could hear for nothin, my vision was blurry.
mothers oldest daughter, MC was gonna help me. she said ill be ur new mom.......
after a few months with dr B and avonex i wasnt bouncin back to well, he sent me to dr M who hooked me up with copaxone. no time after i started copaxone i felt better. by dec 2010 i started receiving my disability checks...so a lil more stress gone. MC decided i needed to refinance my house cus she [ NOT ME} was worried i couldnt make my payments with a disability check. she talked me into re-negotiating my loan.
KW calls my house to tell me to never come to her house again cus she doesnt want my disease. i hadnt talk to any other family members.
we met with a consultant who explained it all. no problem it would only take 3 months to do and during that time my house payments were cut in half. the consultant said several times that i was a perfect candidate for the program and that i met all the requirements. i asked what happens if im not approved? the consultant explained that i would have to pay the other half of the months that i only paid half of while waiting, plus interst on that money, plus all the legal fees.
MC told me not to worry id be approved. shed fix it if i wasnt for some reason, to relax and not stress over it. so i didnt.
MC went with me to Ms office several times. she started askin what institutions would take me...M looked straight at her saying "she is no where near that!" after all my body was fairly normal again...my legs still a lil weak but not to bad, spastisity was moderate, vision and hearing improved. ok i slept a lot...so he prescribed the nuvigil. i still handle my bankin ok, i cared for my kids ok, i could still function semi normal basically.
being realistic i thought about my future and my kids...who wouldnt? i was pretty close to my sister that was 15 months older than me, TD. she lived in nc. after much deliberation we decided id move there with her so she could help me w the kids. we planned it for when school broke for the summer.
mean while, 11 months go by waiting for approval on the loan re negotiation. at which time they denied me. they wanted 10 grand for fees, interest and the other half of those payments.
2 weeks after denying me the put my house in foreclosure.
MC comes to my house when im home alone to say:
" this talk is between u and me dont discuss it with anybody else. im not paying for ur house. u r goin to give it back to the bank, make me ur power of attorney, sign papers stating it ur wishes for ur girls to be wards of the state or live at Maryhurst [ [url]https://www.maryhurst.org//url]
sign papers stating ur wishes r for them to go to lindsey wilson college. take ur animals to the pound and r moving to nc. TD doesnt really want ur kids or u but needs ur check"
really? wth? she had me so shook up..my friend TS showed up...literally as soon as his foot hit the back porch MC jumped from her chair and ran to the front door and left.
i called TD and she admitted that what MC said was true
WOW SEVER 2 FAMILY TIES IN ONE MORNING---OUCH
altho id been dating aaron this is when he became my superman
when i told him what MC and TD said he told me not to worry, that WE will take care of it ourselves. alto he hasnt proposed officially, he has said many times that he wanted to spend his life w me. last year around thanksgiving we talked a minute about goin to the court house real quick n tie-in the knot.
in the last 2 years weve been together he has carted me to the hospital numerous times, taken care of my kids and poochies while i stayed in the hospital, cleaned and packed my incisions from MRSA surgeries, cleaned me up after poopin on myself when the hospital shot me up w dilata and morphine for pain, changed my bedding after i went on those too, hes cleaned up my puke, my kids puke and even some poochie puke, hes taken my kids to school so i can sleep, hes paid things for my kids that he shouldnt have to, he guards us from my evil family, he praises the girls for their hard work and fusses at them when needed. after bein together 3 months he paid 50 bucks to get alex's ears pierced with the ear rings she wanted-- she was 9! he has sold his stuff to put gas in the car or buy food a couple times. he helps me. he makes me happy n crazy at the same time...hes a guy so hes automatically not perfect lol but hes perfect to me.
i sometimes wonder why he would want to be involved with a girl like me:
im 10 years older than him, still short at 5'3- hes 6'7", still chunky but hes fluffin up a lil and i like it, my body is scared from injuries and surgeries, my head well i still pack scars in it, then u add my ms--mood swings ache pains non movement,swelling grouchies sleepin and add pms to ms and im a real bear....i just dont see what he sees
at the same time he says that i accepted him when he had no job,no place to live, no car, no money, no food and im pretty. he says i rescued him.
lookin back;
yea i think GOD had a great plan B.
i decided ms is a mixed blessing...
he made my family complete when i lost my birth family.
my kids now have a daddy who loves them, plus now im a stay at home mom if i like it or not. i have a guy that loves me for me and that will protect our family and be the dad we need him to be cus he wants to not cus he has to. for the first time in my life i can honestly say im happy with my life....ms was/is just a necessary annoyance and tool that GOD chose to get me to this point