2014 and Beyond: Goodbye and Good Luck

On Friday, December 19th I said farewell to my Dad’s remains and left him in his final resting place. I spoke, my Uncle Rich spoke, Vince spoke. There were crows in the background and a Polish priest led us in Catholic prayer. The ceremony was beautiful, peaceful, and truly perfect in every way.

It brought to a close one of the longest and most painful journey’s I could have never imagined.

Later that day, I also brought to a close my relationship, as I knew it, with my Uncles.

It’s a long story, not one worth repeating in detail – ever – but in short we had a disagreement about my Dad’s funeral.

I felt it was important that one of them be there since my Dad loved them and they were close to him. I felt it was their last opportunity to say goodbye in an official way, which was so unlike anything the previous 10 months had allowed. I felt like it was the last chance to honor my Daddy’s life and all the love and laughter we shared with him.

They felt it was too expensive and outside of their current means to make the drive to Bushnell from Miramar and that, as it’s only one day in my life, I am selfish for expecting them to be there. Through various texts and emails, it was concluded that this disagreement and their feelings about the person I am have resulted in the end of our relationship with one another.

To say it hurt would be an understatement. At first I thought “how could I lose the only family I cherished as much as my Daddy on the same day as his funeral?”

But then I realized that this is an opportunity for me to start over; to truly close this Act of my life and move on to the next.

I’ve been in therapy for several months now to help me grieve the loss of my dad while also balance the stress and obligations of taking care of Mia, leading my family through our grief, and accelerating my career. In therapy I’ve been redefining what’s important to me, what’s important in LIFE, and what actions and feelings define friendship and family.

My goals in life are evolving and changing, as I am. But so far, they’re something like this:

I strive to honor my Dad in all that I do as I have always done – that doesn’t change just because he’s gone.
I hope to open my mind and heart enough to communicate with his spirit in whatever form that it takes – regardless of any belief system he or I have ever subscribed to.
I am dedicated to obtaining enough self-awareness to remain humbled by the lessons life has delivered me while always remembering that, good and bad, “this too shall pass.”

To officially kick this journey off in 2015, I bought myself a new talisman: The Phoenix wrap bangle from Alex and Ani.

I have drawn so much strength through these bracelets in the last 10 months. Thank you, Vicki, for gifting me with my first – The Path of Life.

I’m intentionally starting over in 2015. I am seeking rebirth. I am purposefully redefining my life.

I am no longer The Luckiest Girl Ever – not because I’m not lucky, I still am, but because I’m not a girl anymore.

So I’m going to leave this blog up as an archive, but going forward I will document my crazy, imperfect life at So Alicia Says. I’ll transfer my existing Feed to that site once it’s up and running (right now it’s just an empty shell, waiting with all sorts of potential for me to get excited about life again).

I’m *really* looking forward to a blank canvas and a fresh start. Like, I’m ridiculously excited about it actually. I can’t remember being ridiculously excited about documenting life in a really long time, but it feels good. 🙂

But before I start over, I would like to say this: If I have ever wronged you – I sincerely apologize. If I have ever made you feel less than important, less than wonderful, less than honored to know you – I am truly, deeply, with all of my heart and soul, sorry.

Please accept my apology for suffering from this ‘human condition,’ and know that I value you and cherish every laugh and moment we share. If ever I have wronged you please let me know because I assure you it was not intentional. I want and need to learn from my mistakes, and I welcome your criticism. I am not perfect. I likely never will be. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness and trust and yet another chance to share your life.

Thank you for coming along with me as I was honored to look at life through the lens of The Luckiest Girl Ever. Goodbye doesn’t mean we’re done forever, it just means we’re done in this way.

So goodbye, and good luck. For now. 🙂

Love you, ALWAYS!

– Ali

Grace Visits, Ali “Turns Back On,” and a Return to San Fran

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I haven’t blogged in a hot minute and I have no idea why. So much has happened and my memory is so bad, I really suck for not getting stuff down as it was happening. So this post will be a catch-up of sorts. I have events I should have documented, but I think the more interesting thing is how I’ve emotionally changed in the last month.

Grace Visits:

Around the 6 month anniversary of Daddy’s D-Day, Grace and Aaron came to visit. Before this visit I had started to see friends again but in very small doses. This was the first time we hosted guests for an entire weekend and I was very nervous. EVEN THOUGH Grace is my heterolifemate, the big sister I never had, and one of my top 5 favorite people on the planet, I was still nervous.

When I opened the door to her I was kind of shy and like “hey… here I am… still here… alive…” The old-Ali would have opened the door screaming and jumping for joy. But the new-Ali was all like “I’m broken. Please don’t judge.”

The weekend that ensued deserves its own post because it was so awesome, but for purposes of this post I cannot reiterate enough how incredibly restorative it was to have Grace here. We talked about Daddy and grief and how completely broken I am all weekend long. She and Aaron listened to me for hours and hours. And even though Grace hasn’t experienced a loss of that magnitude, I could see and feel her empathy for me. She knew my Daddy, she knows how important he is to me, she GOT it.

After I said goodbye to her I went to bed and had a huge meltdown/ugly cry. All I could do was sob about not wanting her to leave and not wanting to go “back to the life” before the Thursday night Grace came to visit.

In therapy two days later, we concluded that Grace is a very safe person for me. My first home was with her and her presence is immediately soothing to my soul. My therapist was so happy that she came down and allowed me to be my true self because that’s what I am around Grace – the real, raw, unfiltered me.

My reaction to her leaving after a 3 day visit reminded me of my last line in the toast I gave at Grace and Aaron’s wedding in my advice to Aaron: Wherever you live and whatever you do, wherever there is Grace, there will be your home.

I was afraid that when Grace left, she’d take the peace and ‘homeyness’ of her presence with her.

Ali Turns Back On:

When I went back to work after Grace’s visit, I realized that I was really… energetic. Like, more than the post-Daddy-usual. More like the old-Ali.

I was also laughing REALLY hard at things that were only moderately funny and getting really bent over things that weren’t worth it.

I even got excited about Booty Band coming back to The Social on 10/18 and organized a Facebook invite for friends to come to the show, which was followed by a panic attack because I couldn’t imagine seeing all those people but hey – the point is that I actually got excited and engaged with people!

The only way I can describe this feeling is that I seemed to come back to life, or “turn back on.” Like, prior to Grace’s visit, I was completely shut down. And then after Grace’s visit, I booted back up. I described this in my last post:

I compare myself to a computer that finally finished downloading and installing a new OS (Sudden Daddyless Daughter v1.0). I’ve rebooted but everything is all scrambled. Programs have to be reinstalled. Login and passwords have to be changed. The poor ol’ box is confused and has to reconfig everything.

Basically my emotions are back up and running for the first time but my system is all scrambled. And even if the emotion I’m feeling at a given moment is appropriate, there’s a chance I’m feeling it too strongly or not strongly enough for the situation.

Now that I’ve had even more time to reflect on this sudden onslaught of emotions, it’s more like this: I’ve realized that *I* am more than *my grief.*

Or said another way – A portion of my psyche is now able to do things other than grieve, and it is doing everything all at once.

If you’ve ever read Hyperbole and a Half, the last four weeks have been my corn moment.

Return to San Fran:

I was doing so well, progressing so nicely, and then I found out I had to return to the scene of the crime for work.

I *knew* going back to San Fran was going to be hard. I anticipated an onslaught of emotions, specifically in that freaking airport where I had to call my Uncle to tell him his younger brother died.

I did NOT expect to have a complete melt down and panic attack when I got to the area I spent so much time waiting on that last trip. But I did. Thankfully it didn’t last long.

Overall it was another quick trip (and another event worth its own post, especially my time at GooglePlex), but I got to see Timmy and retrace a lot of steps from my last trip – this time without anyone dying back-home.

I did get to see Timmy again and I realized something so profound that I actually had to kind of put a disclaimer on it over drinks: The Alicia on September 18th was not, outwardly, a whole lot different than the Ali from February 20th.

So what’s the point of this post again…?

Tuesday was 7 months since my Daddy died and I didn’t fall apart. In fact….

I spoke to Carrie on the phone last week and she said “I can hear the difference in your voice! You sound so much better.”

Mia heard my plans for the fall and said “Uh oh… Alicia’s comin’ back to life!”

Grace’s text to me when she landed safely in NY was “I’m reassured to see first hand that you are still the strong person you were before.”

I hung out with Tim and Jon, and had to tell both of them something along the lines of “I know I don’t seem very different to you but I’ve had to work on myself a LOT in the last seven months.”

So the point is this: I’m getting there. I’m getting better. The old-Ali of “before” and the new-Alicia from “after” are starting to align. I’m learning how to work grief into my everyday, new-normal life.

But I’m not done yet. I have a new edge to me that I find is even snarkier than “before.” My general ‘give a fuck’ filter is starting to turn back on so I’m not telling people, completely unsolicited, how little what they do matters in the grand scheme of life as often as I was. I’m trying to push down anger and promote joy.

And yeah – 7 months.

I feel amazed that I can see around my grief right now. It seems so soon. Too soon.
I expect to have relapses for, well, ever.
I can’t imagine the 1-year anniversary. I just can’t. It hurts.
I miss my Daddy. Like, good ol’ fashioned MISS. His voice, his laugh, his advice, calling him when something awesome happened and hearing how proud he was of me. The way he would say “very nice,” and “beautiful!” when I got recognition in work or scheduled a cool vacation. I miss my Daddy so much.

To the future-Ali(cia) who reads this I just want to say: You’re doing great. Don’t freak out about how quickly you’re starting to get back to normal. It’s not disrespectful to your Dad. And I know, I just KNOW, that he is absurdly proud of you for how you’ve handled this.

The Mother Effin’ FEELS

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Six months since I lost my Daddy.

Three months since I started therapy.

One month since I brought Mia home.

And about two weeks since I noticed I was FEELING things again.

Feels. So many feels.

When I say “noticed I was feeling…” I mean the following:

I feel something,… but I don’t know what.
I feel angry and am not sure if it’s justified.
I feel sad, and I absolutely know that’s justified.
I feel happy! Like, carefree!
Now I feel guilty for feeling happy…
But how can I be happy, if reality is my Daddy’s dead? Now I feel stunned and confused.
I feel so many things right now, there is no one discernible feeling I can identify.

And that shit is exhausting.

I mean that literally, by the way. Feeling things, rotating emotions like cycling through a fucking rolodex in your heart, will wear you out.

The worst part, I think, is genuinely NOT knowing WHAT I am feeling. It’s like waking up and truly having no idea where you are.

As I told my therapist, there are things I expect to not know, like… the future.

But I kind of expect to know what I’m feeling at a given moment.

That, however, is not a luxury I am provided at this stage of the process.

I compare myself to a computer that finally finished downloading and installing a new OS (Sudden Daddyless Daughter v1.0). I’ve rebooted but everything is all scrambled. Programs have to be reinstalled. Login and passwords have to be changed. The poor ol’ box is confused and has to reconfig everything.

Basically my emotions are back up and running for the first time but my system is all scrambled. And even if the emotion I’m feeling at a given moment is appropriate, there’s a chance I’m feeling it too strongly or not strongly enough for the situation.

And so I throw myself into my work, I hoop my ass off, and I started doing other things too. And not just on auto-pilot or by force (see: most of the posts I’ve written lately). I mean, I am actively participating, present, and accounted for.

For example:

I saw a movie, IN A MOVIE THEATER!
I bought a new freakin’ car!
I had friends come stay, in my house, for many days in a row and we went to Blue Springs to swim and got pedi’s and drank beer and laughed, a LOT!
I drafted this post, saw my erroneous tense changes and other grammatical errors, and PUBLISHED IT ANYWAY!

But with great feelings, come great burdens….?

^{(yes I just made that up, whatever I needed to break this post up)}

However, my Daddy and his sudden loss were in the back of my mind almost the whole time.

While I might take solace in feeling good (read: any) things again, I must also deal with feeling very deep, bleak things. Painful, awful feelings that I experience stronger than ever.

I described my grief to Grace last weekend and it went like this:

The girl I was before February 23rd died with her Daddy. That Ali was naive and so blissfully ignorant of true devastation and pain. This new me, well, I know now how truly dark life can be.

This new me has a hole in my heart and it is huge. It’s this giant, gaping, empty hole and my subconscious spends all of its waking moments dancing on the the edges of that hole. Sometimes I fall in and those are the times I cry so hard I feel like my heart is being ripped out and I don’t think I can ever be anyone besides That Girl Whose Daddy Died Far Too Young, Far Too Suddenly, While She Was On The Other Side Of The Country. Otherwise known as The Girl Who Lost The Person Who Loved Her Best. Or, The Girl Who Lost Her Only Parent That Cared.

The good news is that I don’t live in the big, dark hole… anymore. I’m giving myself permission to fall in, on occasion, and therapy is helping me remember how to even WANT to come out.

(Side Note: I’ve spent days, weeks, months even, hiding inside of that hole and refusing to come out. There’s something about the pain that becomes comforting after awhile. In a way, the pain becomes a symbol of how much you loved that person and how deeply you grieve them. And it’s very hard, sometimes, to let it go.)

My therapist says I’m one of the lucky few who have enough self awareness to recognize these things, and it’s up to me to choose what to do with this new awareness.

For what it’s worth, I haven’t chosen yet. Right now I’m marveling at what it feels like to feel again. It’s overwhelming and disorienting, but the old me loved life so much,… to feel strongly about things again, in a way it feels like coming home.

And hopefully as a result my next few posts about life and activities won’t feel quite so forced.

Five Months Later

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February 20th my Daddy called an ambulance to take Mia to the hospital. Her flu symptoms were just too bad, and he was just too sick, to go through standard doctor or urgent care routes.

Almost exactly five months to the day later, July 18th, I’m going to be bringing Mia home for the first time.

I wrote about so much of it in the first couple of months. I don’t know how I did it, how I found the time even. But I’m so glad I did. The facts have gotten so fuzzy… the raw feelings and emotions have started to become ever so faded…

The last post I wrote about Mia and the home-health-situation was April 26th. It was the Brace Yourself: Good News is Coming, and it covered Mia waking up, talking, and being moved back to Kindred to be weened off of her ventilator.

A LOT has happened since then. The highlights:

Mia spent six weeks at Kindred and improved faster than we ever could have imagined: Within weeks she was completely off of her ventilator, her trach was removed, she started eating real food again, and she started medication to help her handle anxiety.
We were kicked out of Kindred and transferred to the WORST rehab and health center on the planet: Because Mia was on isolation when her Kindred-expiration date came, we were sent to Rockledge Health and Rehab at the last minute. It was HELL. That link is my Google review and it says it all. The craziest part is that I was with her for the move from Kindred on a Monday, then went to Jupiter to trade vehicles with Corey after work two days later on a Tuesday, which I followed-up with the Cher concert on Friday, and by Saturday I was back in Merritt Island to oversee her move out of that hellhole. No words for the exhaustion…
Our transfer to Health Center of Merritt Island happened, and the rehab got REAL: When Mia left Kindred on May 12th, she was juuuust starting to be able to use her hands with enough dexterity to feed herself. When she got to HCMI on the 17th, she was lifting her arms really well but couldn’t reach above or behind her head. Only one month later, on June 20th, she walked 50 feet with a walker.
We spent Daddy’s birthday together as a family: This was the first time all four of us had been together talking, laughing, and STANDING, in 5 years. It was an incredibly hard day for me but we were together and healthy, and that helped.
And since HCMI is only 5 minutes from Daddy and Mia’s house, I started a consistent schedule commuting to and from Merritt Island: For the last two months I’ve spent two or three nights a week in Merritt Island, going after work to check on the house, get mail, hang out with Mia and talk, do her laundry, and make sure things were still up and running.I would love to say this was easy-breezy, but it meant a LOT of time doing laundry, eating Publix subs, buying and exchanging clothing and shoes for Mia to wear during rehab, making questionable changes to Daddy’s cellphone plan to get Mia access to Facebook in rehab, and one special night casing the house at 10pm to find out why the waterlines had been shut down (long, long story).

And now, here we are five months since this all started, and Mia is coming home.

She can walk so very well now, still using a walker but it won’t be much time before she can ditch it. And emotionally she’s in amazing shape. We’re still grieving over Daddy, of course, but she has a very different outlook on life now and it’s wonderful.

So Friday we start a new chapter, together once again. I’m honestly terrified. I don’t know how I will be able to leave her in the house alone, not to mention let her drive! And I have no idea how she will react to being in the house with Daddy’s ashes, or how she’ll be in the house without him.

I’ll be with her the first week out of rehab – June 18th through 22nd. After that, Corey should be back up for two weeks and then Cari will be back down for one week. And then who knows?

Wish us luck!

All of us, standing together, on Daddy’s birthday.

One of my favorite Daddy-Facebook-interactions

PaintNite DateNite with Cody!

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(Another pre-Daddy draft finally gets finished….)

Last Christmas I got Cody two present: One functional (a gift card) and another fun: PaintNite Date Night with ME!!!!

You probably know the whole concept of PaintNite but I think each one is a little different. This one is run by local artists, hosted at various local bars, (so constantly roaming) and highly encourages drinking while painting. Everyone works on the same piece, which is different per class, and each painting is gauged on level of difficulty.

Shortly after I gave Cody his Christmas card we got on the phone and started looking at which paintings we wanted to try out – after a bit of back and forth, we nailed down a date in February that looked REALLY cool called “Raining Paint.” The painting had a drip-like style that looked like multi-colored rain coming down on two little birds who were perched on a wire with umbrellas. It looked freakin’ neat, super fun, and hopefully easy.

Our event was held at Graffiti Junction in College Park and upon arrival we did what we do best: Pony up to the bar, order martinis, and take a selfie.

Let the games begin!

Then we got smocked up and took a pre-painting selfie.

I seriously love taking photos with this man.

We were sitting on the backside of the room so we didn’t have a super great view of the painting we were there to mimic, but we had blank canvases, high hopes, and globs of paint on a paper plate.

Oh, and mimisoa’s. We were ordering doubles and throwing DOWN!

The painting instruction started and our teacher was a super cute blonde who encouraged us to keep drinking – and that was a good thing. She had an assistant who kept us flush in the core colors of our painting and drinks. And we had cute neighbors that were there on a “real” date nite.

Which leads me to my number one observation – PaintNite is for two audiences: Groups of Girls, and Early Dating Couples. Cody and I are neither of those things, so of course we were having a blast with our people-watching and inadvertent-evesdropping.

At first, our paintings started out REALLY well with an awesome base for rainy day clouds. Cody actually helped me craft my cloudy background with lots of texture and depth.

Cody paints clouds.

And then….

Then….

Then we started painting the “rain.”

And that’s when my pretty clouds turned into the ugliest thing I’ve ever made.

Because instead of the paint truly dripping down the canvas (which we thought would be the case), we just kind of… painting a wavey line on the canvas.

And then we added lots of multi-colored poofs and clouds at the top…

Followed by the wire for the two birds…

And the birds? Those were two circles painted, filled in, and given a little triangle beak.

I’m not sayin’ mine is ugly. I’m just sayin’… okay yeah it’s really ugly.

Mine is on the left. Cody’s is on the right. Yeah no.

I don’t know why mine came out so dark and dreary. I remember not really liking the yellow paint in my clouds. But otherwise, I don’t know what happened!

But Cody’s is cute, right?! 🙂

Either way – I am proudly hanging my monstrosity in my house, right next to my closet, in public. And most importantly – We had a FANTASTIC time, and I would absolutely go again.

Go PaintNite Orlando!

Therapy does NOT suck

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Some people might say therapy is too private to blog about. Some people might be right.

But for me, writing is how I process things and lately it’s how I remember them, too. So I figured I would write about the few therapy sessions I’ve had so far.

Before all of this started, back in September of last year, I started seeing a therapist in Altamonte Springs to deal with one of my life’s biggest loose ends: My mom. I spent a good three or four weeks researching therapists and settled on one near my house, we had like… maybe 8 sessions,… and then I started working on the other side of the planet and had to stop seeing her. It didn’t really bother me that I stopped going because I felt like working through my mommy-issues was a ‘nice to have.’ So after a brief foray into therapy, I quit.

Then February 2014 happened.

After panic attacks and melt downs and living out of my car to go from Altamonte to Melbourne and Merritt Island to Orlando, I decided I needed professional help dealing with my new life.

And three months after starting this journey, I found Anna. And after two really awesome sessions, we’ve declared the following:

- I’m not on this journey without Daddy. In some ways he’s actually a bigger part of my life now than he has ever been.
  Don’t get me wrong, my Dad was a HUGE part of my life before February 23rd, but not a huge part of my day-to-day living. We talked at least once a week, often times days in a row, but I had my own life and he had his. Well, the last four months that has all changed. Daddy is on my mind always, and now I know his life better than my own.
  
  Anna has really helped me realize that while he may not physically be here with me to embark on this crazy journey of grief and sadness, he’s still a huge influence on my life – now more than ever.

- “Everything happens for a reason.” While there will NEVER be a reason good enough for my Dad to have been so cheated out of life, there may be a reason I’m experiencing this loss, and going on this journey, at this time in MY life.
  This one has been really hard for me because so many things seemed to happen at JUST the right time, but I absolutely refuse to believe there is a reason for this that’s worth my Dad’s life. But so many things had such fortuitous timing: Joey living with us when we needed someone to watch the house and kitties for weeks on end… my new job being a mere 45 minutes from my Dad’s house… finally having a salary and vacation time that afforded me the breaks I needed to take care of family business…
  
  It’s like a symphony started playing their instruments one-by-one last October and a melody has emerged. Now I just have to listen to pick up the tune.

- My emotions are raw, which means I don’t have much of a filter, and it’s okay to avoid friends right now.
  Before this happened I had the same filter everyone has and I was able to bury, hide, or otherwise ignore minor grievances. Now, I’m so emotionally taxed that I simply don’t have the wherewithal to push down any beef I may have with anyone – including people I loved most.
  
  In the meantime, it’s okay to avoid people or hide. It’s okay to start small. People who love me will be there when I’m ready to emerge. Some people will just be there the whole time. Which leads me to one of the biggest realizations I’ve had to date….

Loss recognizes loss. While no one will ever truly understand my specific journey through grief, those who have experienced a loss will understand the pain and the process.
This one means that I’m not alone. I’m not alone. One more time: I am not alone. Sadly, anyone who has felt this pain or had a loss of this magnitude understands what I’m going through and they know. After months of feeling isolated or understood by only my siblings, I now know: I’m not alone.

I’m not sure I’ll keep writing about therapy but I thought these lessons, or take-aways, were too good not to put down. They may seem like no-brainers to everyone else, but these were HUGE realizations for me. Each session is so exhausting, but when I walk away with a new perspective, it’s *so* totally worth it.

And now that I’ve gotten this out… maybe my next post will be about something fun. Like my sick bedside tables from Adjectives. 😉

“Alicia” Makes a Comeback

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An odd side-effect of the life changes of the last six months: I am now more comfortable answering to “Alicia” than I am to “Ali.”

It all started in November when I first began to introducing myself in a new work environment. After spending the last 15 years introducing myself as “Ali,” I decided to go by “Alicia” at D****n.

This wasn’t just a fluke or a desire to sound more grown-up or something. I work in a highly technical industry which utilizes a LOT of off-shore resources. I can’t tell you how many times I signed an email or support ticket as “Ali” and someone from India called back asking for a dude.

After awhile that ish got freakin’ OLD.

I vowed that the next job I started, I would curb myself from saying “just call me Ali!” I swore that this time, I would start going by Alicia and stick to it.

So, I did.

Then everything happened in February and I pretty much quit hanging out with friends and spent 100% of my time around co-workers, family, physicians, or funeral homes.

And all of those people – they don’t call me “Ali.” In fact, my Dad only ever called me “Alicia, or occasionally “Leesha” or “Leash.”

Now, three months after losing Daddy, I’m introducing myself as “Alicia” to pretty much everyone.

I mentioned this to a coworker the other day and she asked if “Alicia” was my “Sasha Fierce.” I was like “yeah NO.” This is not my alter-ego. It definitely isn’t a more wild-side of my personality. And I damn sure won’t be asking all my friends who know me as Ali to start calling me Alicia. Lame!

Without Daddy there is no remnant of my childhood left and in many ways I feel like everything before February 23rd was a very immature, silly sort of existence. I’d experienced loss before, but I was still somebody’s little girl. I don’t know how else to describe it beyond saying that little girl – Ali – died when her Daddy did.

I just don’t know who I am without him. I’m trying really hard to figure it out. I don’t know if every relationship I had before will survive the process. And right now…. it makes sense for Alicia to make a come back.

Brace Yourself: Good News is Coming

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Tuesday night I walked into Mia’s hospital room around 7pm. She turned her head, saw me, and said “Oh my god. Get me a lawyer. Call Dan Newlin.”

That’s right. Mia is officially asking for a lawyer and wants to sue every doctor she’s seen and who saw Daddy.

Which means that all is right with the world and everything is going to be okay. The last two months were one big false alarm. This woman is clearly back to old self and will be fine.

Yeah, nothin’ to see here folks. Move along.

But for the sake of documentation, let’s catch-up since my last post about Mia’s health….

Her lungs and brain got better but her stomach, not so much:
The day we were supposed to be letting Mia go was the day we told her about Daddy and hanging out with her. It was April 11th and she was awake and alert, but still couldn’t speak.

She was mouthing phrases like ‘I have to go the bathroom,’ and ‘help me.’ And she was in a LOT of pain.

The stomach issues that caused Kindred to send her back to Holmes were worse. And by “worse” I mean she was hemorrhaging blood from her stomach at an alarming rate. And it was hurting her like hell.

Basically, her colon quit. Stomach issues (like Chrones) that she’d been managing for years with medication were suddenly at the forefront. And they were completely unrelated to the Flu or her breathing issues.

After days of getting 2 to 4 units of blood, her blood pressure being impossible to manage due to pain medication and rapid blood loss, and her stomach in horrific pain, we were advised to do exploratory surgery.

It was exploratory because GI couldn’t scope her due to the delicate state of her stomach. So surgery went in blind.

They ended up taking the entire right side of her colon in a hemicolectomy and having a piece of her small intestine brought outside for an ileostomy.

And now that we got a damaged half of her large intestine out of the way:
Things started to get better quick. Like, REAL quick.

Sure she has like, 20 staples up the middle of her stomach. And sure she now has a colostomy bag. But blood pressure, oxygen rate, heartrate, EVERYTHING started going in the right direction.

So she got transferred back to Kindred. (That’s the 3rd time, for those of you counting at home)

I went to see her last Friday night after work, walked in, and she SPOKE to me. Like, FOR REAL. WITH A VOICE. She was a little whacky, and some of the things she said were kinda weird, but her sentences were complete and complex.

But then her stomach started bleeding and she got sent back to Holmes.

Queue the request for a lawyer:
When I saw her at Holmes the following Tuesday, she was PISSED. And she was REALLY talking. She had so many questions – about Daddy, the puppies, her house, Corey, Cari, everyone. I told her as much as I could and spent hours massaging her to try to get her swelling down.

We had a really great night – laughing, picking on nurses, talking about everyone and everything. She was sharp as a tack and it was a blast.

The next morning she was disoriented, scared, and very frustrated. She asked me “what do I do?” and I said “Move. Move as much as possible because the sooner you get moving, the sooner you get home.”

Annnnnd back to Kindred:
After getting cleared, again, by Holmes, Mia was sent back to Kindred (4th time’s the charm? God we hope so). The situation is basically like this:

If she were 100% healthy and simply recovering from a hemicolectomy, she would be going home.
If she were 100% healthy and simply recovering from the trach and lingering lung weakness, she would be going to Kindred for a short time and heading home soon.
But because her muscles have atrophied from nearly 9 weeks in bed, she has to go to Kindred and to rehab for a long, long time. Home is not in the immediate future. We’re not sure if it will ever be in her future.

That was last night, and she was so upset. She was convinced Kindred was trying to kill her and a ‘dangerous’ place. But I can’t say I’ve seen anything to support that. I mean, I’ve met and spoke with THREE of her doctors there on a freakin’ Saturday. At Holmes and Cape Canaveral, I was lucky if I ever saw one, let alone got more than 2 seconds of his/her time.

I figured when I walked in tonight she would be pissed, and I was kind of glad she couldn’t move because I figured she would be throwing things at me when I walked in for having her sent back to Kindred.

But nope.
Nope nope nope.

We had another great night. We talked, we laughed, we flipped through memories. She’s having a hard time understanding time and how long she’s been out, how long since Daddy died, and how much has happened to her. (At this point I am too and I’m not the one who’s been drugged and worked on for two months).

But otherwise… she’s not only is alert and responsive, she’s not only verbalizing complete and complex thoughts, she even SOUNDS like herself now.

And she got started in Physical Therapy today, which looks promising. She’s responding the right way – her brain is telling the right muscles to move… her muscles have just atrophied so much that it’s going to be a lot of work to recover them.

As for me:
The last week has been tough but much, much better. The dogs are boarded so I’m really just navigating my schedule to be here for Mia four days a week but still only spend two nights away from home.

Otherwise, I pretty much can’t wait to get back to her tomorrow, and the next day. And Tuesday night. And Wednesday morning. Because when we’re together I feel like everything is going to be okay.

The Side-Effects of Grief

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This is a weird post to write, but I think I need to get this out… so… here goes.

I am *not* okay.

I know I’ve said that before and I know it sounds simple, but seriously, I am not okay.

The grieving process for me has been whacky to say the least. My favorite person in the world, the reason I bothered to do anything even halfway right in my life, is gone. But grieving that loss has been next to impossible with all of the family obligations I’ve had with Mia’s healthcare and the dogs. And work is INSANE right now as well.

I’m doing the best I can to get through each day but I’ve noticed some side effects to this grief, or maybe just my grieving process, that are not fun and kinda scare me.

I don’t want to see, speak, or interact with people who know me best – As in, I’ve been invited places by people I love and consider best friends, and my brain starts manically screaming “NO. NO. NO. NO” in response.

I’ve always been a social person and while I’ve had periods of time when I turn inward, this is different. This is more like a phobia. The thought of being around the people who know me best truly sends me into a complete and total meltdown.

I’m trying to get this under control in small ways. For example. I’m regularly texting a few friends. I’m responding to most of the texts sent to me. I’ve even started forcing myself to respond to people’s posts on my FB wall.

But still… I can’t imagine myself around my friends. I don’t want to. The only people I want to see or talk to or engage with at all are family, nurses, and doctors. I’m doing okay with coworkers, but I’m also left alone a lot of the time at work and the subject matter is very predictable.

**Edit** Vince’s family just came over and I couldn’t come out of my bedroom. I forced myself out for a minute and had to run back in to have a full on panic attack. This is what I’m talking about. What the hell is wrong with me?

I don’t give a crap about how I look – This is fine, I know it’s fine, but I’m starting to feel pretty damn fat. So I guess maybe I do give a crap because I care enough to notice. But either way… not caring what goes into my body, how I look when I’m out and about, and schlepping to and from work and hospitals, is just… awful. It’s not me. But some days, it’s the best I can do. I do believe I am saving a lot of money on make-up though… so there’s that.

Sometimes my thoughts are out of my control – Like, last night I couldn’t stop remembering the moments I was on the floor of Timmy’s house, screaming and sobbing, while Vince begged the nurses not to give up on my Dad. The memories were flooding my mind and I had to get up and walk around the house to stop them and the complete heartbreak that comes with them.

And then there’s time when I look at the pictures of me and Daddy I have on my phone cover and I have to turn away because all I can think is “he’s dead. he’s gone. you can’t ever speak to him again.” (This is new, btw. That photo used to give me comfort. Now I find myself avoiding it).

It’s like my thoughts are out of my control and the memories, the pain, my reactions to the loss of my Dad… those all take over.

Sooooo now that anyone who has read this thinks I’m crazy…

I don’t FEEL crazy. And I don’t ACT crazy. (At least, no more crazy than I already did, but that’s a fun-crazy, ya know what I mean?)

I’m doing just fine – better than fine, even – at interacting with my coworkers, immediate family (like The Uncles, Cari, and Corey), and simple acquaintances (like my neighbor, eyelash girl, hair stylist, etc.). I’m GREAT with complete strangers. I’m great as long as I’m busy.

If I had to take a guess at psychoanalyzing myself I would say that, as far as #3 goes, I’m trying to avoid confronting the extremely traumatizing experience of losing my Dad long-distance and I’m failing.

As far as #2 goes – meh. It’ll come back. It’s already starting to. But I’m gunna have to dig myself out of a +15lb hole when I’m ready.

But #1… #1 is the worst. I think I’m avoiding people who knew me as happy, blessed, loved,… the Ali who has a Daddy. The Luckiest Girl EVER.

And inside I feel like that Ali is gone. She died with her Dad. I see the world in different colors now. I feel different. I feel broken. And I don’t want the people who knew me before to have to see me now.

So there. Those are my side effects so far. The ones that scare me the most. Maybe putting them out there will help me get past them. I see a psychiatrist on Tuesday and plan on being completely open an transparent about all of these things. I’ll letcha know how it goes.