Loss and Honey

Lost my most recent patient, Miss Pattie, to liver cancer this week. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I was with her quite a bit leading up to her final moments.

I really enjoyed the time spent with her while she was still functional. I only had about a week or two of that time with her, but I’ll treasure it.

I firmly believe that everyone we meet leaves an impact on our lives, even if our time with them is brief. Miss Pat introduced me to honey.

I mean, I’ve always been a huge fan of honey. I spend way too much money at the local farmer’s market buying quality honey. I have spicy honey. I have a lot of honey. But I’ve never quite known what to use it for other than adding it to tea. Yes, even my spicy honey.

(Spicy honey in tea when you have a cold is the best. The spice clears your sinuses and the honey soothes your throat. And tea is also good for a cold too, of course. But I’m serious, get yourself some spicy honey for your next cold.)

In her final days, Pat didn’t eat much. But what she would almost always agree to eat was honey on a toasted English muffin. Now, my kids are big on English muffins, so I usually have some on hand. One evening after my shift with her, I tried it, and it opened my mind to a world of honey uses. The next day I excitedly reported back to her that I’d tried honey on a muffin for myself and understood why she lived on them. She sent me home with a fancy jar of honey from her friend’s bees, and instructions to try it on vanilla ice cream.

I’m telling you here and now, honey on vanilla ice cream is absolutely the best way to eat ice cream.

From there I branched out to fancy honey. Expensive honey. But EBT paid for it, and we currently have extra EBT because of Covid, and it’s use it or lose it. So if ever there was a time to try acacia honey and manuka honey, it’s now.

Next on the list was honeycomb. Because I’m trying to honor a woman who I’ve known for a very short time, but touched my heart, I’m diving head first into honey adventured. I will say autism and beeswax in the mouth aren’t the best mix for me, but the honey is good enough that I’ll finish what I have. I melt it over muffins and that helps with the texture. Also, my 13yo, who has a chewing stim, got to discover raw honeycomb, and he is a huge fan.

My final adventure will be creamed honey. I haven’t bought any yet, but that is simply because I forgot. I plan to do that in the next week. That too will probably land on an English muffin.

I really appreciate having met Miss Pat. Watching her die from liver cancer is probably the most triggering thing I could ever watch someone die from, but I honestly think in the end it was worth it.

Rough Times for Little Ones

Sammy is not doing so well. This pandemic and the resulting isolation have really gotten to him. He recently reached his breaking point and is now super suicidal.

In late March, he had a full-on plan, and a backup plan, on how he wanted to kill himself. He was already in weekly therapy and we were sorting out the ESA situation with Ziggy. He’d also recently started Prozac, but if anything it made him worse.

So I took him to the Children’s Hospital Crisis Center and they admitted him to their psych ward for a few days. I cannot stress enough that he wanted this, and I’m very proud of him for making that decision.

He was there over a few days of spring break and while there he was in some pretty intense therapy. They gave him all sorts of new skills and ways to cope with his depression. His medication was switched to Lexapro and an anti-anxiety med was added to the mix as well.

While he was inpatient, I bought a bunch of toolboxes and locked up every single medication and sharp in the house. That way upon release I could promise him he’d be safer in his home.

As of right now, he’s still in rough shape but we’re working hard to lift him out of his depression. One of the key changes is I’m sending him out to play. The landlord built a nice playground right across the street last summer but we were in quarantine and I couldn’t let him play on it. But at this point, we all got covid over the winter, and it will be a while before we can get it again we’re pretty sure, so I’ve decided fuck it and am letting him play with the neighborhood kids, now that it’s nice enough outside. I can’t lift him out of his loneliness if I don’t let him play with the kids outside.

I’m hoping with continued time outside with the kids in the area, more and more weekly therapy, helping him practice his skills, and a good amount of help from medication, I’ll be able to help him climb out of the pit of despair.

Easing Back In

It’s been a minute since I last really wrote. March started out rough and just kept on going. But I’m determined to bring life back to a sense of normal and that includes writing. I’m going to ease my way in by starting not with the trauma of March 2021, but instead what kept me going.

I got my 3rd stimulus, I’m not even sure when, and did a lot of important things with that money. One of those things was to set aside money for my 2021 garden. I hesitated to garden this year. I won’t have Robin’s help and it just feels overwhelming knowing that I alone am in charge of making sure things like watering it daily happen. But those who love my made it clear I needed a garden, so I set the money aside.

Then in the thick of things in late March, I started planning. My first goal was the little flower bed out back that sits along between the back porch and patio. My hibiscus and rose from last year didn’t make it. But surprisingly, my blueberry bush is already showing signs of green. After hemming and hawing over it for a bit, I decided to plant two more blueberry bushes with the goal of having a thick wall of blueberries about 3-5 years from now. Next up was mulch. Only, last year when I watered my bushes, the mulch in the bed kept floating away. So I decided this year I would buy and install edging to keep the mulch into place.

Again, I am really glad those who love me made me set aside money for my garden from my stimulus. I set aside way more than I need for plants and pots and dirt. Which means I can do little things beyond those that encourage growth. I bought two beautiful sets of wind chimes because I wanted a set for my garden, but I won’t be able to hear them from my room, so I want a set for there too. I also bought this 3-foot high birdbath that will live amongst the plants. I’m going to put rocks at the bottom of it and turn it into a bee watering station. Because there is no life without bees, so we must do our best for them always. I also bought a compost bin with my tax return so I can make good rich dirt. I’m already filling it with things like eggshells and produce that went bad before we could eat it. While my garden will feed my belly, the things like the wind chimes and bee watering station will fill my soul.

Next up, as soon as it’s consistently above freezing at night, I have some pots of herbs to put out. I put 3 out about a week ago, but was over eager and it froze a few nights in a row. I should have checked the weather. They may still live, but I bought 3 more just in case. If anything I’ll have twice as many. Otherwise, I still have the 3 new ones.

As you can see, I have 2 basil and a cilantro. Or maybe I’ll have twice that. Who knows.

I’m waiting to see if my strawberry survived. It’s too early to tell. In the meantime, I’ve decided that one strawberry plant is not near enough and bought myself a fancy stacking pot system.

I bought the 4 petal in purple and that bad boy will be able to hold 20 strawberry plants. As an added bonus, it’s compact enough that if my strawberries can’t survive the Ohio winter, I can pull them inside. That said, there is a strawberry farm like 5 miles from here, so I have every reason to believe my berries with survive and thrive.

I’m about 5 weeks off from being able to buy any plants for my garden. Mother’s Day is when I’ll begin in earnest. I have big plans for this year’s garden though. I’m going to grow beefsteak tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes for all my red sauce needs. I’m growing Thomas some jalapeno peppers. I’m growing cucumbers for Iris. And finally, Sammy will get a pot of flowers as payment for helping me.

I’m depressed right now. March 2021 was nonstop trauma. I’ll be ok, but I’m using this garden and planning for it as self-care. I’m deeply looking forward to dirt under my nails and I grow and eat my efforts.

Are you growing anything this year?

Things that were not on my March 2021 bingo card. In order of occurrence.

Showing up at the ER with a hemoglobin of 4. I should be dead.

Being cured of cancer.

Tests are back. Sure enough it was cancer.

Zachary regressing in behavior because I was gone a week.

Putting my 9yo on suicide watch. I don’t want to talk about it. Yet. She’s getting help.

Taking an emergency trip to Indy to rescue an adult adopted child from a deadly medical emergency. I’m out of work right now anyway. Indy is only 3 hours away. The government handed me gas money. The 9yo is going with me. I leave Monday.

Leaving a cult. I do not wish to talk about it.

Being this fucking tired. Like. So tired.

Crash, Into Me Babe

Sunday evening, a little after 10pm, I was headed to Marge’s house to work the overnight. I was about 2 or 3 miles from my house, going about 55mph, which is the speed limit. I’m certain of my speed because it’s a stretch of road that is easy to speed on but dead at that time of night so I had cruise control on. I set it at 55 exactly. It wavered between 54 and 56. Good enough. I was approaching an intersection. Cross traffic had a stop sign. I did not.

As I reached the intersection, a 17yo boy, with a brand new license (he’d gotten it the morning before) and driving a new to him car that still ahd temp tags on it, ran the cross traffic stop sign and was in the middle of the intersection exactly as I reached it. There was no time to break or swerve. We were both going pretty fast. I at the speed limit. Him I’m not sure.

I t-boned his car going nearly full speed. His girlfriend was in the passenger seat and thankfully walked away from it. Cuz as fast as I was going and where I came in contact, I easily could have killed her. Thankfully, his parents bought him the equivalent of a tank. Both cars were totaled, but the three of us lived.

About 2 minutes later a tow truck happened upon us. A couple of minutes after that a sheriff stumbled upon us too. We were in the middle of calling 911 when help randomly showed up. Another sheriff was called in to assist.

I was pretty much immediately declared not at fault. Because I wasn’t. And there was nothing on my end I could have done differently. His insurance agrees and there will be a payout. I’m not sure how much yet.

At the scene I had adrenaline pumping and told everyone I was ok. About an hour later when I was safely home, the adrenaline wore off and I realized I was indeed in a significant amount of pain. I have a nice bruise running across my torso from my left shoulder down to my belly, thanks to the seat belt that did it’s job.

It’s longer than that, but I didn’t want to include my breasts in the image. This gives you the idea though.

Then there are my knees which slammed into my dash. The left is bruised but mostly ok. My right knee is totally fucked up.

This is my left knee. Clearly bruised. Kind of sore. Not that bad.

Clearly my right knee is pretty fucked up.

My best friend upon hearing about the accident and learning I came home started pushing me in the direction of the hospital. She was concerned I’d fractured my collar bone or had whiplash. Robin and Thomas joined in on the campaign concerned I’d fractured the knee.

So I called mom back and asked her to come down to my part of town and take me to the little stand-alone ER down the street. They ran a CT of my head and neck, and took x-rays of my chest/shoulders and knee. All imaging came back clean so it’s one of those things where it looks and feels worse than it is. The doctor did warn, however, that if it still hurt like that a week later, I needed new x-rays because hairline fractures don’t show up right away.

I cannot begin to describe how much I hurt. And literally everything hurts. All of my hurts. So much hurt.

I don’t have photos of the car. It was late and dark. It’s still at the impound lot. Hopefully here very soon I can go and retrieve the things in it.

I’m missing a week of work because I have no car and I’m just not fit to work right now due to injuries.

So I need the kid’s insurance to cough up money for the car, injuries, and missed work. Plus the impound fees.

The kid is a good kid. I want so bad to be mad at him. But he’s just baby. Stupid and reckless baby. But baby nevertheless. He’s only a couple of months older than Thomas. Thomas in fact knows him and declared him a good kid. I hope his parents are like being stern in a way that he learns his lesson, but are also showering him with love and support. He was really freaked out at the scene. He did a bad thing and knows it. I have zero doubt he’ll be more careful from here on out. So while I’m sure he’s grounded, I hope his mom is hugging him a little tighter right now and loving the hell out of him.

I am worried about his passenger girlfriend. She said she was fine at the scene, but then, so did I. I so easily could have killed her when I hit their car. She walked away ok, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t discover an injury when the adrenaline wore off, like I did.

I’m just so worried. They are just so young. And the crash spooked them.

A Scare

My right breast and armpit have been hurting for awhile now. Then I started noticing mystery bruises but also mystery sores. I couldn’t find a lump though. Nevertheless these things need checked.

I went to my OBGYN and got referred out to a mammogram that happened on election day. That came back clean and clear.

Next up on the list is to figure out why there is pain in the general area of my liver and gallbladder. It’s probably just gallstones and I’ll have them yank it next fall when I can take a week off work. But considering my bio sister almost died from catastrophic liver failure, I’m going to go ahead and ask my doctor to run a full liver panel when I go in next week for my annual physical. Just to be safe.

I have so much more to share. Lots happening. So come back next week and I’ll share what’s happening.

Hmm. I am writing this on the app while I sit in the emergency room with Robin. She’s going to be ok. She just hurt her back. But I needed to write my post so it could go live tomorrow (Thursday) and knew this was my best chance to sit and write. Anyway, whereas normally I’d insert a photo right about now, I don’t know how to do that from the app. So no photo this week, I guess.