Witch Woman’s Weblog

That cool sunny September morn, even as the phone rang, I knew.
I knew it was someone calling to tell me it was over.
All the fears, nightmares and terrors could now be let go.
I could lay down and have a peaceful nights’ sleep, walk down the street without looking over my shoulder and not be struck with terror from a knock on my door.

My daughter knew too, all she could do was shake her head with disbelief and my husband breathed as he hadn’t in years and you could almost see the thousand pound weight lifted from his shoulders.

Shrunken by cancers and death I could not recognize you, and untrusting that it still wasn’t some trick, I had to be sure, I had to know and so I had them show me you hands.
Those I would know no matter what..
those hands that could harm or heal, that could stroke a fevered brow so gently or smash an entire house worth of stuff.
Those hands that not only held mine, but held pills and razor blades too.
Those hands that could strike a blow or paint an enchanting scene, those hands I knew.

Then I had to walk into that building, the one I hadn’t entered in 7 years. It was remarkably almost the same…cheap bent signs everywhere, the smell of sanitizers assaulting you throughout the corridors, the squeaky shaky elevator that always takes forever and those grimy well worn carpets marching down grimy halls of cheap doors that are all alike.

My sentry at the ready, with his trusty bat, the two us transformed into trembling children, as we were both oh so positive you’d be coming out from somewhere to get us, like the bogey man that used to hide in the closet, the reality of it all still not viable to either of us.

We opened the door, and it hit us…the stench, the filth, the utter chaos that reigned within…but that was not the worst…then we notice THEM, they were everywhere; on the door still, on the ceiling, on the walls, throughout the furniture, the rug actually moved with their motion. One of my worst fears come true and in full roaring technicolour…roaches…thousands of them, literally. And like the children we felt were, we ran, ran to the safety of friends and family. But we knew we had to go back, better prepared, but back again nonetheless.

So back we went, looking like spacemen come to invade the unknown land. I had to see if there were any treasures left…
the Buddah statue that watched over me as each horror unravelled, the painted Scottsman in full regalia that I swore would one day come to life to rescue me, the painted lady so many swore I would one day look like,
the silver ashtray that was always a center piece to so many dramas,
the half size carousel horse I so lovingly acquired, repaired and painted for you the day you came out of that useless rehab…
gone…all gone, nothing but unrecognizable rubbish from where I didn’t even know.

Home we went, a home I’d never appreciated so much before. Warm and clean, smelling of lemons and pine, squeals of delight and excited little faces so happy to see me, soft chubby arms wrapped around me everywhere.

Later on, still heart sore from my loss of childhood treasures, I went to my room to do what consoles me best.
My small shaky desk and straight back chair beckoned to me. The crisp clean sheets of paper, newly sharpened
pencils, fresh clear water in a tin, tubes and tubes of bright pretty colours awaiting my brush…all calling out to me.
I sat down, opened my large heavy black ringed sketch book and picked up my favourite charcol pencil and then it dawned upon me like an unexpected wave crashing to shore…
more precious than any painting, statue or trinket…
not only armed with the knowledge of what to and not to do with them…
you left me your hands.

Cheryl Jane Freeman-Goldstein nee Powell
February 12, 1946 - September 28th, 2001

Nothing terribly exciting going on today. Genevieve is home as it is not her day at school, Sam is also home as he aches too much to deal with driving all day. The new kittens, now 4 weeks old, have figured out how to climb out of their nesting box, so now the living room is blocked off and I have furry little creatures all snuggled up together under my desk.

I am trying to figure out if the doctors and psychiatrists will allow me to go back on my former medication. Lithium in too high a dose gives me raging headaches, though different from my usual headaches, still not very pleasant. The only downside to my former medications were that my manic episodes were slowly becoming more frequent and lasting a touch longer, but I personally could deal with that.

I also need to get back into meditating, painting and yoga, and may, as some others have done, use this blog to keep myself accountable.

I hate my life on occasion, as I am sure everyone does, however, this is my blog and I’ll whine if I want to!

It’s one of those days where nothing is really bad, but nothing is quite right either. Some how I have spent my day dickering around and not getting much done, and the to-do list is getting bigger by the minute. I did tidy the kitchen, scoop the upstairs litter, clean out the sorting bins in the hall closet and made a few calls, oh I had a shower too, yay for me! But over the past few days, it seems the more I do get done, the more other things get undone (like the kids rooms). I have to constantly be at everyone to do even the simplest things in order to keep this house reasonably sound and on the other side of the “condemed” line. Now it may sound as though I have unreasonably high expections, I personally do not think so. I want clean dishes and a clean table to eat off of, I like to be able to walk across floors without killing myself and I like to have a fairly good idea as to what region in the house a needed object may be in. But, this seems either impossible or like a daily battle, neither of which would be my obvious choice. I am sooo tired of battling children to clean up after themselves, of battling a teen to do their only and only chore (the dishes, with a dishwasher no less) and battling a spouse to take out the garbage or fix something on the same day it breaks. Now I am sure that consider my first sentence here, going on about doing nothing, it may also seem as though I do nothing but sit around, watch soaps and eat bon bons, I definately do not. For one thing I hate soaps and bon bons, and even though some chores are supposed to be covered by others in the house, I do do the majority, and I don’t mind doing that seeing as I am the one home all day, but if I am doing my part 95% time, can’t everyone else?

Now onto Doctors. I hate them too. Hubby and I were having a discussion the other day, and neither of us can figure out why they took me off my original medicine, Citalopram, especially as it was working quite well, minus the monthly sleepless night or two. Nope, they couldn’t leave well enough alone, and had to first try me on Epival, which didn’t work at all, and now Lithium. Problem with Lithium is that if I take the perscribed dose, which puts me at the low end of medicated, then I get raging headaches (different from the other headaches) but if I lower my dose by even one pill (300 mg) then I start having temper fits in the evenings. I am going to demand they put me back on Citalopram and forget the rest of this nonsense.

Last but not least, I hate myself. I am not doing the things I need to be doing; meditating, yoga, ritual, going to the gym. I am slightly over weight, I smoke too much, I hate my hair since I got it cut too short and blunt, my face is a mess. I feel ugly, old and dumpy. I am always tired, too tired to paint, too tired to walk, too tired to clean and am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Things on the housing front are not going well. Back in November our landlords (two sisters) informed us that they would not be renewing our lease as they would like to again use this house as their cottage, and could we please move out by June 1st; lets not mention that this is illegal where I live (evicting someone for seasonal use of the property). A couple of weeks later, the other sister called us and informed us that we did not have to move, as long as we were willing to vacate the premises for a few weekends over the summmer. In January I e-mailed them and asked for something in writing, the only response I recieved was asking if June 30th would be better as then the kids would be out of school for the year, I did not respond back.

In February we heard that Habitat for Humanity was accepting applications, so we went to the meeting, learned what we needed to know and took an application that was due April 4th. We sent ours in, as we were supposed to, and apparently if we move onto stage 2, we will hear from them by the end of April.

In the meantime, we wondered what it would take to buy our own home, and thanks to a very helpful lady we now know that if we could eliminate our $3,000.00 debt, we could buy our own home. This is very frustrating as we would need to come up with app $2,200 - $2,400 for first and last anyhows, so for an addition $600 - $800 we could do away with all the instablilities and hassels of renting, though we are both aware of the responsibilities of home owning.

We have also been checking the papers and online for rentals, and right now there is literally nothing. This is very disheartening as the tourist season is rapidly approaching and there will be even less permanent rentals.

As I previously mentioned, I had my appointment with the neurologist today. The good news is that the tumor is the type Meningiomas, which are benign tumors that develop in the thin membranes, or meninges, that cover the brain and spinal cord. Meningiomas usually grow slowly and do not invade surrounding normal tissue. They rarely spread to other parts of the central nervous system or body.  Basicly meaning it is sitting there doing nothing, the bad news is, the doctor believes that these bouts of memory loss may be due to seizures and so has revoked my license for the time being. I am not at all happy about this, as when my psychiatrist recommended in September, that I quit my job and stop driving, I did. I am a mature and responsible adult and understood the saftey issues and concerns then, as I still do, there was no need to make it official. The doctor also perscribed a new medication, and we’ll have to see how that goes.

In that same telephone conversationon February 29th, the doctor stated that we should be hearing from her office within two weeks as to when my appointment with the neurologist would be. After much waiting and a few phone calls, we bacme tired of the waiting game. Yesterday, April 8th, my husband again called to see if I had an appointment yet. Though he was very polite and patient, the receptionist started to rip into him, telling him that it wasn’t like they weren’t doing their job or something, but these things take time and they had in fact contacted a neurologist and were waiting to hear back so it wasn’t their fault. Sam calmly asked her for the name and location of said neurologist and once having recieved the information, thanked her and hung up. I then got on the phone and called the neurologists office, only to be told that they had never even heard of me, nor recieved anything from my doctor. The neurologists receptionist they went on to tell me that they were in fact two months behind in their bookings and the next available appointment was in 2009, but, if my doctor called them, they do try to prioritize by case severity and may be able to get me in sooner, so I thanked her and hung up. Sam and I were both just baffled by all this BS, so Sam picked up the phone and called his mother, to ask her to ask a family friend who works in a hospital, to call us and perhaps we could get some insight as to how the cogs in the wheel are supposed to turn. When he hung up from her, there was a message on the voice mail, it was the neurologist office calling back to say they had recieved my consultation and had an appointment available on Wednesday (two days hence), so I of course called back and confirmed that we would be there.

So the biggest thing happening health wise at the moment is my recent diagnosis of having a brain tumor. It is apparently on my left frontal lobe and is 1.5cm (low end of medium sized) and thats all we know at the moment, so let me recount some background instead.  Since we re-located and obtained a new family doctor, I had been telling her of my constant and worsening headaches and temporary bouts of memory loss. For the first months every time I did so, she would tell me that we needed to deal with my other issues first (being assessed and finding the right medications for bi-polar type I, OCD and dysmorphia). Once my medications were in place and my mental health stabalized, she started telling me that I ought to discuss my symptoms with my psychiatrist. Finally I had my husband come with me to an appointment, my very insistant, persistant husband.  Though the doctor performed a silly neurological test in the office, and declared that I was neurologicly fine, she did send me for a CT scan. So off we went, not a big deal, basicly convinced that I was wasting everyone’s time and resources as I had already been declared fit. Not long after being in the big scary contraption, the technician comes back in the room and tells me there is a spot, but it’s probably ok, lots of people have spots, bits of bone or whatever, however, they now have to inject me with dye to get a better image. And though this was a Wednesday, the technican assured us that our doctor would have the results either Friday or Monday. Sam (my husband) and I were really hoping for the Friday, as our doctor was pregnant and Friday was her last day before she went on a one year maternity leave. By Friday mid-afternoon we still hadn’t heard anything, so I figured I would press my luck and call them. The receptionist immediately got our doctor on the line to tell me the news, and then she concluded with “It’s a good thing we got that test done.”