Yesterday I had my MRI of my lower back and x-rays of my hips. The good news is that my hips are fine. No disease that involves my hip sockets being too small. The semi-bad news is that I do have permanent damage to a couple vertebrae of my back and a slightly bulging disk that is putting pressure on my spine. It's irreversible, but with weight-loss and exercise, I can manage the pain. The weird news, which I have been instructed by my chiropractor not to worry about in any way, is that the MRI picked up a spot on my kidney. Because the test focused in on my spine, this spot could be anything, but it is there nonetheless; thus leaving me with yet another MRI to endure. Like I said, I was instructed not in way to worry about this because like half of his patients have to have the test redone and they always come back as nothing, and then he launched into a story about a woman who had a routine MRI on a fairly common hip injury only to show she had advanced bone cancer and was dead five weeks later. Yeah, I'm not worrying at all!
So, while I was lying in the tube for the MRI, I spent my time worrying about my dog. Her eye yesterday morning was clearly worse and someone on Facebook asked if they had ruled out diabetes. She has lost some weight, so I began obsessing. Whenever I start to obsess, I always try to find something to move the situation forward. When I got home, I called the vet and asked to bring her in for blood work as they are probably going to order it next Wednesday anyway, and this way the results will be in by the follow up appointment allowing us to proceed forward even earlier. This eased my mind.
Now I call my parents every day, and I realized yesterday afternoon that I hadn't yet called them. I am a complete and total idiot and pretty much have reached a stage in my life where I feel comfortable sharing most anything, not everything, but most anything with my mom. Fool that I am, I told her about both the kidney MRI and dog's blood test. She basically launched into her sob story of how she was awake at two in the morning already worrying about the dog and why do I need to tell her all this stuff and she doesn't want to know about any of it, blah, blah, blah. My mother is a worrier, too, and while I am sympathetic to her emotions and that she is still a mother, her choice of words was just way too selfish to endure as it is MY kidney and MY dog and these are MY struggles.
I tried to point out to her that there are people in my life who we don't share things with because their lack of sympathy, understanding, and support is too much to bear. I didn't want to, but if I needed to move her into that category of people, I would, and if I can't share things with my mom, who can I share things with? Isn't this what we as mothers want? A child who still feels comfortable confiding in us and seeks us out for solace? I, of course, was accused of "yelling" at her and stressing her out even more and "why do you do this to me?" Like I devised this wonderful collection of illnesses within my family just to screw with her sleep. I told her that maybe she needs to manage her stress a little better, and while this is going to sound coarse, I can assure you I said it as kindly as possible, and I told her that maybe she needs to do something other than popping a Xanax (and this I didn't say, but thought, or fixing a gin and tonic). A walk or some yoga stretches might do her some good.
I suppose at this point I should tell you that both my parents struggle with alcoholism. My father is a Vietnam veteran who suffers from PTSD and had a pretty significant, fall-down-drunk problem for a good fifteen years after the war. His drinking is now completely in check, but he still struggles with depression and anger. My mother is at least a second, maybe third or even fourth, generation alcoholic. It's a very long soap opera-y story, but basically while my mother was at college, my grandfather attempted to make my grandmother think she was crazy and have her committed and locked away permanently so he could live a life of drinking and petty crime with his mistress/grandmother's best friend. This kind of wrecked my mom, and I give her a lot of credit because she is really very well put together in most aspects of her life. But, at night the alcohol usually comes out and she'll have a stiff drink or two. What she does is actually very well accepted by society and most people wouldn't consider her to have a problem, but anyone who knows alcoholism knows that it has many faces, and when it enters a person's life as a coping mechanism, well, you've got a problem.
My dad got on me this morning because of how I treated her last night. Let's forget the fact that I am the one who is actually going through all these things. I let him talk and then told him what I said and how I said it, which of course he didn't hear and she didn't tell him. He said he'd talk to her, and then launched into how he saw the doctor for a common cold, got an antibiotic, which he doesn't need and overuses, and then said the doctor prescribed some sort of pill to relax him. Now, this isn't meant to be a commentary on anti-depressants or Xanax or anything because I am not an expert on that, but I am kind of an expert on my parents and I can tell you that I think their quality of life would greatly improve with some exercise and diet. When they turned sixty-five, they declared themselves "old" and pretty much stopped all extraneous activity. My dad is fully retired and my mom works three days a week and they don't even take walks anymore.
The conversation ended with my dad telling me he wasn't come down next Wednesday to watch Milo while I'm at the veterinary ophthalmologist because he has to drive to the Poconos on Monday and they are leaving for their cruise the following Saturday and, well, that's just one thing too much. I'm sure the cruise trip is really stressful. So, I'm stuck. It's not that I can't take the two year old with me. It's that I would kind of like to focus my attention on one thing. I'm not really sure what the vet is going to tell me that day.
Compared to some, my parents are very supportive and I'm very thankful for their support. But, compared to others, damn! I fight for that support. Sometimes I even beg for it. Sometimes I call them up on the phone in tears having a meltdown pleading for a little bit of help. And I plead only because I know they are capable of giving it. Just once, I'd like to not have to beg. Just once I'd like for a family member to say, "I got this. Do what you have to do. Take your time. Take care of what you need to." Not once.
So last night I went to bed early. I read a chapter in Jane Eyre, did some deep breathing, and sprayed some lavender linen spray on my pillow. I gave thanks for the blessings in my life and I went to sleep. I woke up early this morning and did my AM yoga routine with a little eight year old boy in tow who was gassing while I was attempting to do downward facing dog. I ended my day yesterday with a clear mind and I began today with a fresh mind. Am I worrying? Well, yeah! You don't get rid of thirty-eight years of conditioning and how many generations of anxiety in one month, but I'm managing. I am drug free, prescription and otherwise, and though I do enjoy a nice glass of wine or a crisp dirty martini, I can freely say I am not an alcoholic...yet.
And with that in mind, while there was a piece of me who was thinking maybe to give up on this blog crap and I hadn't been really very good at sticking to the yoga and all that in the past week, I have some reminders of who I'd like not to completely become.
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