A Mind Is A Terrible Thing...

Don't mind me-I'm just thinking out loud.
Well, ok, not actually OUT LOUD because then I would be just like the crazy folks around me. Although, sometimes, it seems that crazy is the new happy.

I don't know if people are really happy these days-they just have a form of mental illness that allows a prolonged manic phase. I've been trying to contract this condition almost as long as I've been trying to catch anorexia. Oh, sure, you can gasp in disgust but you probably don't have a full spectrum of sizes hanging in your closet.
But...here's the thing with people: some of us have certified, diagnosed conditions for which we are receiving treatment and medications; some of us have the same conditions, undiagnosed but self medicated. Self medication can be a lot of fun- like the time I took my husband's cymbalta. It wasn't doing him a whole lot of good so I didn't think it would have too much effect on me, either. The paperwork his doc gave him said the meds could take one to four weeks for results to become noticeable. I cant' say why I bothered to take one 60 mg pill, except that I get a little envious of people who are allowed to have mood altering drugs. So, I shook one out of the bottle and swallowed it. Later that day, I dissolved into a fit of the giggles for no reason I can pinpoint. It was a little difficult to control my mirth but I managed to get it handled. After I stopped giggling, I had a really nice day. My face probably looked like that yellow smiley button we all know and love. Except without the yellow.



So I decided to repeat the whole sequence again the next day. Nothing. Conclusion: Cymbalta is only good once (like some men i've known in my life). Unlike Grey Goose which is good every time. I don't see why people spend so much money on mood altering drugs when vodka can do the same thing for less. And with vodka, no psychiatric evaluation is needed for a prescription.
That wasn't the point I was trying to make to myself here. My concern is that there are people right here at my job, many of whom I have to deal with directly, who have undiagnosed, untreated mental illnesses. I'm not dismissing myself but I've been aware of my conditions for some time now and although they may not be professionally diagnosed I've got the treatment part down to a science. I am talking about people who get paid to apply their insanity on the job.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever is appropriate, these people do not know that their "condition" is obvious to the outside observer. For instance, Lester (not his real name) must think he looks completely normal when he says that the government wants to pay him to write a book about all of his covert experience with explosives. Yes! Let's put this guy in a vehicle with special needs passengers. In a VEHICLE, people! I wouldn't let this guy drive me to the portapotty at the corner, let alone put him in charge of transporting people who don't have the ability to run when they hear that their driver is either delusional or some sort of government paid assassin. I don't which would be scarier.
The bane of my existence is a woman who is so dysfunctional she actually has one of those little black clouds over her head following her everywhere she goes. Nothing ever turns out right for Lee Ann (not her real name), even though she does all the right things. There's always an insurmountable problem looming over her day which she is going to try to drop in my lap, every day, without fail, unless i can duck her before she sees me. Her insurance information isn't right. Her paycheck is short. Her uniform doesn't fit. The battery is falling out of her bus. She is in trouble with the IRS because the unemployment people didn't take enough tax out of her check. Her car has been in the shop for six months and she can't afford to get it out. And if I wanted to know any other little details of her miserable life, she's available to share. If anyone would benefit from the cessation of existence, it's this ditz.


How many people do you know who have actually gotten into an elevator that fell three floors to the bottom?
Me?
One.
How many people do you know who have run over their own foot with their car?
Me?
One.

How many people do you know who's boss tells them to please quit their job on a daily basis?
Me?
UNO!

And it's all the same afore mentioned Lee Ann (not her real name).

From the first person I see at my job every morning to the last person I have to lock out of my office in the afternoon, there is a diagnosis waiting to happen.

Or maybe its just me. Maybe I'm the diagnosis and everyone else is normal.Maybe its normal for a grown man to leave work crying from a "tummy" ache. (Do men actually say TUMMY in public?) Maybe its normal for a boss to rant and rave  for four years about that ONE TIME on his first day at the job when I asked him to unclog the toilet. Who knew he had a Cinderella complex?



I think I'll do that stuff my feelings with food thing. It's almost as much fun as vodka but with uncontrolled weight gain thrown in for a nice bonus condition!

Dysfunctionally Fun

I've been considering writing a book about my family. The working title at this point is "WTF". This may be subject to change, depending on where I go with the story. I'm not even sure if I'll be in it. I may know more after the first chapter.

Not too much left of the family. We started out a big, happy, loud mouth Italian bunch, and then people started to die and marry Germans. My family knows how to have fun. They have wild and crazy get togethers at which people grow closer and congeal together like jello. I'm not usually invited but I hear things through the grapevine.

Still, I long for my remaining family members the way my poodle longs for an extra biscuit before bedtime. I even sit up and beg once in a while. Because of that I had been planning a nice little family brunch with my generation and a few of the younger half breeds for several weeks. I Emailed, called, texted and threw a bit of guilt around like fairy dust to get as many family members as possible to accept my invitation. I was really thrilled with the response. It seemed my family wanted to be together as much as I wanted them to be together. I had many warm fuzzy moments over it. I knew we would all enjoy the company, the setting and the food. I was so right.

I was so absent.

A few days before our little event was to go off, mother needed to be taken to the hospital again.
Mother is not good in a hospital. She loses her sense of time, space and the names of her children. More specifically, she can only remember mine. (also, her manners have been shot to hell for at least the last three years, so tending to her is not a real pleasant job.)

On Thursday, we sat in the emergency room for four hours while they poked, jabbed, prodded, folded, spindled and mutilated mother. And mother complained bitterly, in between labored breaths, about the physical abuse she was suffering at the hands of the medical staff. Several quarts of extracted blood and a potty full of urine offerings later, she was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure again and admitted to the hospital, kicking and screaming and calling me names.

On Thursday evening, a very tired sounding nurse called me to let me know my mother was refusing to have a chest xray and a kidney scan - which was, of course, of the utmost importance to determine what and how much medication was needed to treat her illness. I ran over to the hospital to bribe, threaten, cajole and weasel momma into getting the xray and the scan if she ever wanted to sleep in her bed at my house again. Everything was rescheduled for the next day. Crisis diverted.

Only until Friday, when she forgot that she was going to have these things done. Another call from another harried staff member and another drive over to the hospital to go through the whole routine again.

Saturday morning, mother calls and asks me why I haven't come to pick her up at the house where I left her. She doesn't know anybody there and she needs to leave. Another hurried trip to the hospital to convince mother she is not at a stranger's house and that there is a reason for her to be where she is and to stay there. We eat breakfast together and by the time I leave she seems to be more clear about where she is and why.

Saturday afternoon and the bad romance song plays on my cell phone -"why did you leave me at this house? come and get me right now. I don't even know where they put my damn teeth!"

Back to the hospital I go for more of the same. After an appetizing (not) hospital kitchen dinner, contraband caramel apple pie and more contraband starbucks, mom once again seems cognizant of her surroundings and agreeable to hanging around for the sake of her health. Great.

Not so great.

Early on the morning of our family get together, Lady GaGa sings loudly in my ear. My cell phone is lying on my pillow next to my head. "This is Judi Newman from Shore Memorial Hospital. I'm your mother's room nurse. Your mother took off all of her monitoring equipment and tore out her I.V.'s. She's refusing to let anyone touch her and is all dressed and ready to leave. Only she shouldn't leave. When can you get here?"

My sense of urgency is dulled from all the running back and forth to the hospital so I take a shower, deep condition my hair and dress for the upcoming brunch, which I have been looking forward to for three weeks. I arrange with my husband to meet at the hospital so we can leave together and get my show on the road.

When I arrive at the hospital, mother is eating (mushing up) her breakfast. "Get this stuff packed up for me. I'm going home after I eat. Don't forget my teeth in the top drawer." She is dressed from head to toe and missing all of the devices that monitor heart, pulse and a slow trickle of blood slides down her arm from the hole she made getting the IV needle out of it.

I march out to the nurse's station.

"Are there no professional medical people in this friggin' hospital?"

"What's the problem", a male nurse in tight scrub pants asks me.

I take him by the hand and lead him to where my mother is happily gumming up the last of her pancakes.

"This woman is #1- bleeding, #2 - demented, #3 - suffering from congestive heart failure and #4 - is planning to leave the hospital against medical advice and NOBODY here is trying to talk her out of it!!

"We can't keep a patient against their will."

"I need to speak to her doctor. I need to speak to her NOW! And I am going to report you as being lazy, unconcerned and negligent (and entirely too sexy) as soon as I see the nurse in charge.

To make the rest of this long story short:

The doctor arrived, Nurse McDreamy got written up, mother was medicated and advised that leaving the hospital could result in her imminent death or worse, no more Gunsmoke reruns, clothing was removed and pajamas donned, lunch was served and I was the only one to miss my well planned family gathering.

But everyone has been kind enough to tell me what a great idea it was , what a good time they all had and how fabulouso the food was.

Family. How I love 'em.