Rough couple of days

Well, as if I don't have enough stress going on here at home, I've also been dealing with stress related to my oldest daughter, who is on her own now with her 2 children. She hes not been living with the kids dad for some time and their relationship has been on and off. His family does not like her and deny that the kids are his but he signed acknowledgement of paternity for both even though at the time of conception for each they were brokrn up. Anyhow, since she doesn't have a car, I had been taking her to get her child support payments from him, which also entailed taking him to pick up his pay check and taking him to cash it as well. I decided that this was not my responsibility, given that she could easily get child support collected through the support enforcement unit. He kept talking her out of it with threats that he would then file for custody and she would end up being the one to pay support. A few months after my resigning from the collection business, she finally decided to file for support enforcement services. I told her she should also go and file for custody that same day, but, of course she didn't take my advice and a month later found out the the same day she file for child support, he files to vacate paternity and also for custody (how/why can you want custody of kids you don't believe to be yours? The answer: to hurt the other parent!) And to top that off, he waited until 2 weeks before the court date to have the papers served and only then because she already knew about the court dates. Long story short (well shorter) the judge denied the request to vacate paternity because he said he had dobts even before signing the papers and he did not know anything now that he did not know then. The custody part was today and she now has custody, he has visitation (the kids can't go to his house where he lives with his mother because there is a history of violence there) every other Friday and every opposite weekend at either my daughter home or another place agreeable to her. She does not want to keep him from his kids, just from the rest of the family. His Mom denies them: no gifts on birthdays or Christmas, his siblings and step dad deny them even more. And they want to cause trouble. His Mom and one of his sisters are the people who served her the papers, at her job. They made a huge scene, "You've been served! Ha! You #$$#@@#". They made threats such that they let her leave work early but would not let her out of the building until I got there to take her home AND security walked her to my car, a whole 10 feet from the entarnce!!! I don't like to think bad thoughts about anybody, but these people push my buttons. The only consolation I have is that what comes around goes around.

Also this past few days, my boyfriend had his colonoscopy today. The doc found some polyps and sent a biopsy to the lab. I know they are probably nothing, but I worry. We have been together, and through hard times, for 9 years, and even though we don't live together, I consider him my husband, more than that...... my soul mate. I don't know what I would do with out him in my life. This is the only guy I have never had any doubt about honesty with. I feel completely secure, which is why I don't feel the need to push the live together issue. This is amazing because he is a huge flirt and if it were anyone else, I may think there is more to it than just the words. But he was like that when I met him and he never tried to hide it from me so it wasn't ever like it was any more than him just being a goof. And he trusts me as well. It is wonderful not having to explain why I did this or that, not being accused of stuff, but yet he is concerned enough to worry if I'm ok if I don't answer a text after a few hours.

So any how, after his appointment this morning, we went out to breakfast and we discussed my wanting to find a job. I explained to him that it wasn't the money, because I wouldn't be able to do anything that paid as well as nursing did and my SSD gives me almost as much as I got when I was working. He said he didn't think it was a good idea because of the pain from the fibro and the many stresses I all ready have in my life. He suggested maybe trying a volunteer thing. Thats a good idea, I think, but I also think that Social Security may view it as "If you can volunteer, you can work", since they did look into my volunteer activities as well as work activities when they decided my case. That was ok, since I stopped my volunteer work before stopping my paid work because of the pain and fatigue. At the time, I thought over-extending myself was what was causing my problems, since I was volunteering, working and going to school. Work was last to go.

I miss work..... I miss the residents, I missed being with many of them in their final hours. I miss making a difference (I hope). A lot of my co-workers were only in health care because it pays well. They would rush through the daily care with the residents, rarely talk to them and get to know them. They talked at them, trying to rush them. There were things certain residents could do for themselves that they (my co-workers) did for them because it was faster. To them, it was just a job. To me, it was taking care of family. Even the "difficult" residents got to my heart. I hated the paper work involved. It took too much time away from the residents. I hated when a resident moved or died because packing the residents stuff up (a responsibility that I don't feel belonged to nursing staff) took time away from the residents. Maybe my view of nursing is out of whack, but I got into it because I care about people. I chose long term care because I wanted to get to know the people I was caring for at a time in their life when thier family and friends may seem to drift away from them. I didn't want them to feel alone at the end of their life. Don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of writing in the chart, especially if there is a change, even a small one, but if it's same old,same old, why does it have to be written 3 different places that nothing is going on. I could understand it if there was a change in treatment or something where you may expect their might be a change, but just for the sake of writing when there are so many other things to be done? Nails to be trimmed and filed, a decent shave, a real bath or shower, time to put make up or nail polish on a resident who used to wear such everyday until they weren't able to do it for themself. I miss caring for them. I miss hearing them talk about days gone by. I miss helping them. I need to find a job that has that caring part and can also accommodate my disability. I get some of it just from being a parent, but I miss the oldsters. Every time I see an elderly person I miss my job.

Another thing this week, a guy I grew up with (Patrick) has throat cancer. He is a few years my junior. I remember when his mom brought him home from the hospital after he was born..... I must have been 5 or 6, I don't know, but when he got older, he was the baby brother I never had. I don't remember as much as I used to since the car accident had an effect on some memories, but I do remember my sister and I used to play with a bunch of other kids: Patrick, Tom and Mike, Nancy, Mark, Bobbie, Sherrie (Patricks aunt a few years older than me). We used to play on the whirlee gig we had in our yard, we played all different kinds of tag, kick ball, tether ball, baseball; stuff kids these days seem to want nothing to do with. We live in a small town where we could play outside even after dark and our parents didn't need to worry. We could walk to the corner store (or ride our bikes). Summer was great!!!! We played hard, got really filthy dirty and hardly went inside... only went in to use the bathroom or go to bed. I miss all that nearly as much as I miss working. So any how, this guy was cut from under his right ear all the way past the center of his throat and also down his left forearm because they had to remove his larynx and they used a blood vessel from his forearm to replace one in his neck. He had been through Hell, but other than all those surgical staples, he looked good, like he wasn't as ill as he really was. He's got about a 75% chance for beating this. I guess it started as a persistent sore throat, which he didn't think much of, since it was the season for such a thing and it was going around. Then there came the huge swelling on the right side of his neck, then the surgery. All of this within the course of a month or 2!!!! This guy is no saint, mind you, but he's really a good guy at heart and to have seen him like that was so hard. Despite not being able to speak, he was still making jokes to make the rest of us feel better. I'm not ready to lose another person I care about! I lost another brother figure in 2001, my Mom in 2006, not to mention all the people I worked with who have passed. I miss them. But I also envy them, having had a near death experience myself with that car accident in 1998 (Hmmmmmm....... a good thing to write about some time soon.) It wasn't the "light at the end of the tunnel" experience, but it was not unpleasant. I guess the not wanting to lose some one thing is rather selfish of me, on one hand, but on the other, Patrick is still a young man, he still has a lot of living to do...... his kids are teenagers (a son and a daughter). He has the high school graduation of his kids, thier getting married and having kids of thier own, so much more to experience..... I hope he is within that 75% that make it through something like this....

Well, I guess this is it for today. I know to stop when I can no longer be sure of my spelling (usually not an issue for me, I am usually an excellent speller, but sometimes my brain seems to forget that...)