Missing You

Not sure how to follow that. That wasn't exactly light material, in subject matter and the fact that you might have well thought I was getting paid to write by the pound (3,200 words according to this thing. Maybe next time I'll just write the dictionary.) But believe me though when I say, "and that's the abridged version."  Two weeks in a hospital, I tell you: you see some stuff.

But it wasn't all  "A Very Special Episode of..."  content all the time.  In that downtime, I could find something  odd or funny despite the "A Very Special Episode of..." turn my life was taking.  For example, you might recall me mentioning a major component of the pre-eclampsia is (was) the blood pressure,  and  I had arrived with a life-threatening level and then was able to maintain a relatively healthy one for 2 weeks with a lowest dose of BP medication. This was an incredible accomplishment in and of itself.  However,  I kept recalling an episode of The Office where the office tool Dwight raved about his brain's superiority as compared to  the lemmings he was forced to suffer daily.   So through all the  checks and charting, I kept hearing Dwight's braggery to Jim & crew on how he could raise his blood pressure at will, because his mental fitnesss was such, was so increbibly advanced, that he could manipulate involuntary bodily responses any which way he pleased.   So when Jim sarcastically asks him, "Annnnd why would exactly you want to raise your blood pressure?" Dwight's  rebotically responds, "So that I can lower it."

I may have used that bit once or twice with the staff.

Anyway, I needed to get that out of me since it's been sitting with me for 2 years. My secondary thought was maybe (maybe, maybe,) since  Interwebz is forever(-ish), one day some pregnant or one day would-be pregnant lady will read it and not be inclined to self-diagnose , or brush it off, or suck it up until the doctor's office opens.  And maybe,  if that were to happen,  it's possible to think one person might be spared a horrific outcome.  If that were to happen, ...well, that would be a comforting thought.

But even with Daniel's birthday looming  (which honestly for the majority of the day I was surprisingly okay), this has not been a good month.  A lot of waterworks and snot, crying in places where I just assume not give in to the ugly face.  Maybe you read my post about going to the dentist office two weeks ago? Reception got the ugly face that day (I so ever  grateful to be the only patient in the waiting room). The last time I had been there I was a few months pregnant with Daniel and loved getting to tell them (since they ask when they take x-rays) that yeah, there was a possibility that I was pregnant, since hi, I was due in the summer. In addition to the  emotional landmine of the office, for the few days prior to the appointment, I had just spent those trying to recover what is now a permanently erased a voicemail  I'd saved from my mom on my old cell phone, a result of switching to the iPhone (this futile act included many embarrassingly tearful calls and conversations to various level Verizon employees and the third party company  who does their voicemail). And  just before my appointment,  my sister had told me that our Mom's blog had been deleted. So losing that voicemail and her blog was like losing her all over again.  All these things kept pushing and pushing on me,  so when reception of dentist day asked, "How old's the baby now? Getting big?" and I said, "Nine months" and then I immediately thought they meant from the last time I was there a few years ago, so I foolishly started to back track and tried to explain about Daniel and then...

...I choked. It was too much. My voice cracked and I couldn't hold it in. I quietly bawled to the receptionist as I explained my son died, and I haven't been to the dentist because I had an appointment scheduled while I was on leave, never kept it, and never made another appointment, and-  and- oh my God, isn't the dentist gonna kill me when he sees what I'm bringing him.

(and what I would be "bringing him" would be his summer home's down payment. Holy Christ).

Like I said, I've never been so grateful for an empty waiting room. It then occurred to me that Mike & I have the same dentist's office, and he of the non-skipping of appointments probably filled them in about Carolyn. I had blanked on that piece of important data. Oops.

Today, April 27th, is my Mom's birthday, a woman whose death of 15 months ago- 9 months after Daniel's and 6 months before Care's birth, I can't really fully explain now.  The complexity of our relationship would easily exceed 3,200 words, and the impact would be,  God, I can't imagine that word count on that.   She didn't know about either of my children, but I was trying to find a way to get to the point where I was going to tell her about Carolyn. And then she died.   Our last face to face encounter on Thanksgiving ended with a  hug & and kiss, and I had a phone conversation with her on Christmas. Two moments I try to hold to.

It goes without saying give anything for her to to be here. Her death tragic and sudden and there was so much I wish I had said and done.  I would jump at the chance for her to see her youngest granddaughter, play with her, and for her to see me in the role of Mom in stead of just kickass Aunt.  She would get a kick out of Care's  fake sneezes and whistling, and be endeared by the fact that the first song I sang to Care was "You Are My Sunshine" only to be followed up with "The Muppets" theme song. 

There is no neat bow for to end this one, but I felt as though I should write something on the woman-who-gave-me-life's birthday. The same woman who had explained to me when Tara Dooley called me a 'dipstick' that it really meant nothing, since she was talking about a part of a car (and then proceeded to pop the hood to our station wagon and pulled out oil-covered metal piece all, "See Jen, THIS! THIS is a dipstick!")

("A" for effort, Ma, but Dooley still had it over me with the insult as it is, afterall, a classic.)

Comments

[HollowSquirrel]

You are not a dipstick, my dear. A dipstick is someone who calls a "purse" a "pocketbook."

Once again, a beautiful post.

[roo]

I'm sorry about your mama, Jen. And... well, you knock my socks off with your ability to live through pain with grace and humor. No shit you can lower your own blood pressure! I wouldn't be surprised if you could bend steel through will alone.

As for this:
"one day some pregnant or one day would-be pregnant lady will read it and not be inclined to self-diagnose , or brush it off, or suck it up until the doctor's office opens. And maybe, if that were to happen, it's possible to think one person might be spared a horrific outcome. If that were to happen, ...well, that would be a comforting thought."

I think you should be comforted by that. Part of why I couldn't finish reading your last post (I was weeping wildly for... maybe an hour after my attempt) was because, well, obviously, I'm about as pregnant as you were when you got sick, with my first baby, a little Caucasian boy. But also because my sister and nephew (her first baby, etc., etc. ) almost died six years ago, just before New Year's, from HELLP syndrome. A thinks she was exhibiting signs earlier that week when she went to the hospital, puking, with an off white-cell count, but they sent her home. A and my nephew got lucky. But it might not have turned out that way.

It was all too close to home for me. And I still can't imagine... I'm going to stop, or I'll start up with the wild weeping again.

I'm glad you wrote what you did. Even if I couldn't finish it, I'm grateful you did. And I think you may have helped an unknown someone, saved a life or two.

Hard to imagine a better use for a blog.