Liadan Elaine

So I got my kitty! She is so adorable, and great with the kids, even The Goob!

In more awesome news, I actually have a whole weekend off, with no kids! Lovah and I are at a loss of what to do. I have Molly's baby shower Saturday, but nothing else! Of course, it's stupid deer hunting so Sunday will be spent sleeping, I'm sure. I have to work that night, anyway.

In very scary news, there were abnormalities found on my mom's mammogram. Her mom had breast cancer. They are going to do more tests Monday, but Mom isn't worried.... which worries me. This is a woman who coughs once and swears she's got strep, bronchitis, SARS, and she is about to die. This is just adding on top of everything else, it's hard to concentrate on the positive when nothing good is happening. But I have my Goob and that's all I need! Lovah and Loo are nice, too, but I would die without my Goob.

Speaking of my favorite person, she's doing pretty well! She's getting along with Loo better, and she's in love with Liadan. It's strange to have Loo be the problem lately, not Goob. She's even talking a little better, but still only about as well as a two-year-old. Her anger issues have lessened, but her ability to listen and know the difference between right and wrong still suffers greatly. January can't come soon enough. She's gonna kill herself by then. She has started jumping off the stairs from like 4 steps up. I really don't want her breaking something, or worse. Ugh!

So that's where I'm at right now.

Endo Woes (TMI Alert!!)

Good lord 2 weeks is too long to have a period. I have a fluid pocket on the right side of my uterus again. It's been happening ever 3-4 months, and it gets to the point where it doubles me over in pain. I give up going to the doctor for it, because nothing can be done. I just deal with it, go to work, raise my kid, because the world doesn't stop because I'm in severe pain. Tylenol is worthless, I may as well take Skittles for it. I refuse to ask for stronger stuff from the doctor because I feel like I'm a seeker and I'm not. Plus Vicodin makes me hyper and messes with my heart and I'm allergic to Tramadol, Torrodol, and Aspirin. But, bitching won't do anything about it. It just sucks because it's messing with my sleep, because sleeping is hard when you feel like needles being stabbed into your abdomen. Every time I get this pocket, I also bleed heavily. I get my period for like 2 months straight. It also wears me out, so I'm exhausted all the time but I can't sleep. Make sense? Of course not! It makes work even harder, and it's already got me at my physical limit with all of the staff cuts.

On the happy side: I'm getting a kitty!!! Lovah thinks everyone will be mad because we "can't afford it". I told him that maybe that should've been in the forefront of his mind when he spent over $60 on video games last month. Yes, getting the initial things cost money, and the cat costs $30 (1/2 price "senior" pets in November!!), but after that cats are quite cheap. She will be fixed and have all of her shots and everything, so $30 is very cheap. She's quite gorgeous, and just a cute little button of a kitty. We got the carrier, the cat box, litter, litter scoop, and food dish. Tomorrow I will get cat food, some toys, and a scratching post. I'm very excited :D I haven't had a kitty since my deaf cat, Bobert, when I was in high school. I have always been a cat person, and back when I hated children, I always said I'd be the crazy cat lady because my parents always told me that no one would ever want to marry me. Even after I met my current fiance. Assholes. Anyway, the only thing I'm stuck on is a name. I can't wait to have something else to love! I have tons of love to give and not NEARLY enough people/animals to give it away to! Which is my own fault, as I am QUITE choosy! But I have decided that a LOT of people are just not worth my time or attention because I know for a fact I'm not worth theirs. Because of this, I have no family left other than my parents. I'm pretty damn okay with this. I grew up not knowing my mom's side of the family (still don't, haven't met them), and after all of the life-altering trauma that happened with my dad's side, we stayed away from them for quite some time, and now I'm learning why. I don't have time for people who treat me like a second-class citizen. I'm a wonderful person with an AMAZING daughter. We're not perfect, we are definitely flawed, but we are who we are and if you don't like us you can take a long walk off a short cliff.

I Hate EVERYTHING

.... and everyone right now! I don't know what it is, but I am severely and chronically unhappy. Between financial woes that are going to get way worse before they get better (who am I kidding?! They'll never get better!!!), my job taking a turn for the worse (I'm currently looking for a second job to supplement my no-longer full-time one!!!), and then the complete and utter realization that no one wants to hear about it kind of makes me want to disappear from the face of the Earth. I am in a funk I haven't been in for YEARS. Since the Goob was born.

Every time I hear someone complain about something -anything- I want to grab them by the hair and bounce their face off the wall. It's so bad?! IT'S SO FUCKING BAD?! If anyone even KNEW what we were facing right now they'd be shocked. BUT I can't tell anyone because, well, Lovah is embarrassed and doesn't want anyone to know. So I have to keep it logged up. And I feel like a failure as a person, as a mother, as a fiance, as everything. It's too much to deal with. We have run out of options. I am so angry and frustrated that it got to this point WITHOUT ME KNOWING IT WAS SO FUCKING BAD. I was not informed about anything, everything going about as though it were just fucking peachy. "Oh no it's fine" "Don't worry about it" "I got it covered" Bullshit.

Oh your job is so fucking hard. OH MY GOD IT'S MONDAY AND YOU HAVE TO WORK!!! Boo-fucking-hoo. Shut up. Every night at work is Russian Roulette. I may or may not be sent home. I am already short 2 shifts on my next paycheck. 3 if you count the shift I picked up and they didn't let me come in and work. I may be sent home one more time before the pay period is over. There are no jobs ANYWHERE that I am qualified for or live close enough to make the drive worth it. I've seen tidbits here and there where stay-at-home-moms (the SAHM is more often than not the biggest crybaby on the face of the Earth, FYI) complain about things like weight gain from lack of exercise, fitting in daily errands to fit in with "busy" schedules with kids, financial "problems" (we can't afford our brand new car/house/anything!). This makes me absolutely sick. Shut your stupid fucking ugly face. You know what a real problem is? Worrying about whether or not your child will even have a fucking ROOF over their heads in 6 months, food in their bellies next week, clothes on their backs throughout the rough Wisconsin winter! I have TWO full-time jobs (soon probably a part-time one on top of it!), and I only -barely- get paid for one of them! I am PROUD to be a working mom, to know that my child gets the things she does because I personally worked for them! When she gets a present from me, I am absolutely giddy with excitement, knowing that I made her happy, that I worked my ass off to get her something she really enjoys. Not just that I happened to marry someone with good money who worked hard for them to have something. But maybe that's because I'm also a single parent, and I have never once EVER in my life had so much as five dollars given to me by my parents. When I left home at 18 I had $20 and a tote of clothes. That was IT, and then didn't speak to my family for over 6 months. If my parents ever DO "get" me anything, it's a loan, and it's a loan I pay back as soon as humanly possible. My parents never babysat for free, my parents never bought me a car, my parents never let me move back home for free, nothing. I'm proud to say that when I get pregnant again, I will work full-time until the damn kid drops out of me. That when/if I ever retire, it'll be knowing that I worked hard my entire life for every little thing I have.

And I do mean work hard. Many people under-value my job (CNA in a nursing home). Some go so far as to lump it in with daycare workers/nannies/babysitters (esentially all the same, IMHO). I finally freaked out on a girl the other day about it. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I said it is comparable to a mall cop being the same as an NYPD officer. Yes, they both uphold the law, they can arrest you, they wear a uniform, etc. But they are abso-fucking-lutely NOT the same goddamned thing! Case and point:

Similarities
*Take care of individuals who are unable to care for themselves
*Changing diapers/incontinence products

.... okay, that is RIGHT THERE the extent to the similarities.

Differences
*a compliant, if wiggly, baby vs. a violent, non-compliant fully-grown (200+ pounds I'm talking) adult. Most of which used to be farmers/farmers wives. I have had my ass HANDED to me by the elderly, they can be mean
*"Miss Smith, you're a bitch!", child goes to time out, parents get a call/letter, disciplinary action is taken "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE YOU STUPID BITCH I'M GOING TO KILL YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!" (yes, your grandma uses these words!) if this resident is unsafe at the moment, or is about to go after another resident...  you just volunteered to be a human shield against a 250 lb. 6' tall ex-Navy farmboy who thinks you're robbing him. You can't TOUCH him (that's abuse!), you can only shield your soft spots. I've known residents to break/fracture/sprain bones on CNAs, leave massive bruises, scratches, bite marks, cuts, etc. The funny thing is.... the women are WAY worse than the men! I get called every name in the book for my entire shift. If I stop and go pee quick, and a resident puts their light on and I don't get it right away because I am peeing or in with another resident, I am called lazy, stupid, awful, threatened with abuse charges, etc. What can I do? Apologize with a smile on my face. Try to do that every day, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week.
*a child hits you, same scenario as above. I once got suspended because a resident had their hand on my arm and was squeezing so hard the nails were digging in (I ended up bleeding) and I tried to get her fingers off of me.
*The teacher is law, they are always right! vs. CNAs are awful, stupid, know nothing, and they are ALWAYS thinking of ways to abuse residents! I saw a CNA that was about 5' 100 lbs soaking wet get thrown up against the wall by her neck by a 6' 200 lb Alzheimers resident. What did she do? Cleared off his part of the table after lunch. She asked him if she could take the dishes, he said yes. Apparently "yes" didn't apply to his 3 teaspoons of milk left in his glass. She got in trouble for that. Yep, that was her fault. She provoked it.
*A child is sick, they get sent home vs. an old person gets sick, they send them to US. I'm not talking about pneumonia or the flu or any of that piddly crap. I'm talking MRSA, VRSA, C-Diff, Thrush, TB, gastroenteritis, staph, strep, shit like that. Shit that can potentially kill. Most of us have small children at home. Residents don't even get tested for these things until the symptoms have been there quite a while, either. "You know that guy that's been hacking on you all week? Oh, he has MRSA (HIGHLY resistant infection!!!) in his saliva". That kind of shit.
*Dead people. You usually don't deal with them when you deal with kids. Holidays are coming up, so I know that I'll be cleaning up quite a few more dead people, we're due for some and there are a couple (at least) on their way out. BUT with winter here, we'll have more pneumonias and broken hips/arms/legs from falls on the ice!

Do I make my point? Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But when people start talking like it's an EASY one... I get pissed. I have a very very tough job that almost never gives us any breaks. It takes a strong person with an INSANE work-ethic to be able to do my job, that's why many never last more than a month or two. But it can also be incredibly rewarding in a bittersweet way. You get to know these people with different backgrounds who lived a lifetime ago, you share stories, you get to know them, you get to know unexpected things (at my last job I ended up taking care of a lady who was my grandma's neighbor when she was little!), and you get attached. For people, like me, who never really had grandparents (although all 4 of them are STILL alive...), it's nice to get a bunch of extras! But, it makes it sad to have to see them pass away, hoping you made some sort of impact on their lives. The last lady that I had to clean up after she passed I was pretty close to. She was such a sweetheart, she gave me candy every morning, we laughed about things, I was the only one who knew she was Swiss, everyone else thought German. I held her hand for 20 minutes waiting for the ambulance when they sent her out 2 weeks before she passed. I have to stop cuz I'm gonna cry, I miss her.

Well, I think this gets some... SOME of it off my chest, maybe I can sleep now.