The End and The Beginning

This week has been crazy busy.  Lots of normal and abnormal stuff.  Lots of thoughts of the intense kind.

It's public knowledge at the place where I work and the community that the program I love and have been with from the beginning is in a very unsure place right now.  My job as a Navigator is in jeopardy.  We are grant funded and that time has run out.  We have monies left to get us through September.  Our hospital announced budget issues months ago.  Since we are not already under their budget umbrella, it will be shocking if we get added in when others are being cut.

This breaks my heart.  I let it consume me for a few weeks, then I stopped.  I started browsing for jobs.  Since this is a pilot program, for lack of a better term, there are no jobs like it anywhere near here.  I started looking back at case management, which I'm good at, but not my passion.  I put in one app at a company late Saturday night two weeks ago.  The next Monday, I was called for an interview.  I thought, "sweet..someone thinks I look good on paper."  Even though this is not a job I want, I decided to go because if Baptist falls through, I don't want to be on the unemployment line.

I went to my job interview Wednesday.  I had a great Thelma to my Louise for an unexpected mini-road trip.  Thanks, Amanda!  I was slightly unprepared.  It was more like a second round interview, but there I was.  My filter failed me once.  I'm hoping it wasn't horrendous.  Here's the scene:

I'm at a table with 4 supervisors.  They've told me I'd have a home office, agency vehicle, smart phone, and laptop a few minutes prior.  Then, one of their prepared questions was

Blond supervisor: How would you keep in contact with your manager, since you'd be off-site?
Me: Well, you just told me I'd have a smart phone and laptop.  I'm really good at text and email, but if I need to work on smoke signals, I will.
Group: Eyeballs roving, silence, then
Blond Supervisor: Well, I guess we could work on smoke signals.

I'm hoping that wasn't an epic fail.  Fail, maybe, but not epic since she smiled and responded.

We'll see what happens with this job situation.  For right now, I'm starting two weeks of off-hospital time.  I leave tomorrow for my conference with my manager where we will present on the Navigator program.  I'm thrilled at the opportunities I'll have.  I'm thrilled to share about this program I feel so strongly about.  I just hate it may be for naught.

Next Saturday, we head out for the Outer Banks, NC.  Here's what I plan on doing for most of the time.  I have secured the first two E.L. James books about Grey.

Happy Summer, everyone!

*This blog is my personal view.  I am not an official Medical Center Spokesperson*

Dreams, continuing the A-Z challenge

Daydreams are where I want to live; night dreams are where I fear to visit...

That was my mantra for years and years and years.  I have always had vivid dreams.  I'm not just saying that so I can claim yet another special talent either.  I have scientific proof!  My sleep study from 2010 documented some such evidence.  The problem is, after some intense stuff, I learned they weren't just dreams, either.

As I've talked openly about before, I was diagnosed with PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, about 18 months after Olivia died.  Everyone experiences events in their own ways.  Everyone grieves in their own ways.  Not everyone whose child dies will be diagnosed with PTSD.  There is a long list of criteria.  I think looking back now, what is shocking is that it took so long to get the diagnosis.  I'd had symptoms for a long time.

One of the key symptoms is what most people recognize as flashbacks.  It's a visual reliving of a traumatic event.  I think the term lends itself to being perceived as an event that happens when one is awake as well.  If you've ever watched a television show or movie about a war vet, you've probably seen it portrayed that way.  That's all I knew about it.

In my life, that's not really how it presented itself.  Every time I closed my eyes, the scenes played like a horror movie that was my life.  The Dreams weren't dreams.  They were events I lived.  They were scenes in which I was the main character.  When my eyes opened, frequently, my heart was racing to the beat of a race car's engine.  I'd need a trash can or toilet because my stomach was still on that race track.  My hair, face, and downward were soaked from perspiration, and on and on.

These episodes were random for a while and then so regular that I avoided sleep in fear of them.  It was at that point when the daytime ones started.  Something  that reminded me of an event would trigger it.  That is when I started losing what little bit of life I'd started rebuilding.

My solace had become my daydreams.  I sat in bed and pretended.  I pretended I was on a far away beach.  That is like my safety word.  It's certainly my safe place.  After Olivia died, I spent way too much money and went to the Florida Keys.

 I'd always wanted to go and at that point, my mindset was "fuck it".  I didn't care if I'd need the money later.  I didn't care about anything except feeling the warm, soft sand between my toes that had been in bed with her tiny body for months.  I longed for beautiful, peaceful visions for my eyes that had seen nothing but death and ugliness for so long.  I craved the whispers of the breeze through palm trees instead of I.V. pumps, O2 sensors, and my own wailing.  I wanted to be completely selfish and try to find something that could take away the inner anguish of my mind and my soul.

I think I was foolish to think that was possible.  Except that it happened for brief moments during those seven days.  I took about seven books.  I took my little iPod shuffle.  I took not enough sunscreen.  And, other than some oopsies, it was my daydreams come true.  The physical beauty healed my raw eyes.  They natural audio was salve to my hurt ears that could only hear my daughter's pain over and over.  The beautiful, warm sand sloughed off the calloused skin and metaphorically set me on a new path.

And so it was for those days in April, 2008, until I returned home.  When I came home to the same environment that caused all of the pain, it was so very hard to withstand the gravitational pull of the damned dreams of the days and nights.

Fast forward to April 2012...My daydreams and night dreams mesh more often now, in a happy place.  There isn't as much fear and darkness.  I am on that beach with the coconut rolling off the tree.  The only difference is that I don't fall asleep on my side.  I don't want that wicked side-lobster burn in my happy dream.  And, there is almost always a conch fritter with a chocolate covered frozen key lime pie for dessert.

my view every day...just us old folks

Thank God That's Over

Christmas present is thankfully Christmas past now.  There were definitely good moments, don't get me wrong.  I love being a Sanders.  Kelly's family has welcomed me with arms wider and warmer than I could have ever asked.  We started a new tradition with my cousin Shannon and my sister (husbands as well) today.

Christmas Day continues to hold a chunk of pain.  It isn't a joke when I say I need a tropical island escape.  Beaches are always where my mind goes when I think of peace.  Right after Olivia died, a friend and I took a trip to the Keys.  I thought of that multiple times yesterday.  I would love to have had my toes in that beautiful sand where thoughts could drift along soft breezes to the sound of  lightly crashing waves.

 That first shot was from the beach the day after a storm.  Appropriate, huh?  The bottom is from the back door of the house where we stayed.  So serene...That's how I want to feel when I actually feel so messy and turbulent on the inside.

As we move into the most turbulent time of year for me,  we'll see how many days of serenity happen.  I will not expect the worst.  I just accept that it is always possible.  I don't kid myself.  That is setting myself up for the worst to happen and then some.

Now, I need someone to take away all of the effing Christmas candy that is so damn tasty.  It is not a food group; it is not an acceptable diet plan; it is not a method of controlling my asthma!