Greedy in Going public

Thank you so much for all the kind words on my last entry! Healing has been going well so far, and I’m just chugging along. My doctor sent me home with medical supplies and his cell number for the weekend. He instructed me that “ideally” I would get a friend to pack the hole in my neck with this sterile absorbent ribbon stuff. I got a friend to do it yesterday and she did a good job, but when we put the bandage on afterward it was pretty uncomfortable and got stuck in my hair a bunch.. to the point where I had to cut it off when I changed it :/ That friend is intermittently having her own medical issues so I didn’t ask her to do it again today, but instead I decided to woman up and do it myself. I’m such an independent person and I HAATE having to ask people for favors, and I’ve had to do that a lot lately. Maybe it’s not even asking a lot, I don’t know, but it’s very uncomfortable for me. Anyway, I psyched myself up and did the dressing / packing change after a shower. I did a pretty mediocre job, and it sucked, but I survived. I will have to do it again tomorrow (or I could just.. not?), and then I go back to see the doctor on Tuesday.

My mom is being annoying AS FUCK throughout this experience. I’m very protective of what information I share with her, because she has a long history of using my vulnerabilities against me. Ever since I wised up to this, I’ve made a conscious effort to restrict what I tell her, and to distance myself from her. To give you an idea of our relationship, for the past many years we text every other week or so, have a phone call every 2-3 months, and I see her in person every couple years, though I have no intention of ever returning to my home state for a visit. The entire thing is extremely unfulfilling to me and it’s hard to explain why I even participate at all at this point. That said, my mom is still g r e e d y with information. There are no conversations, there are interrogations. It’s not fun.

I still feel some sense of duty to at least tell my mom about big stuff happening, so I let her know about my initial surgery, and then I let her know when I was in the ER Saturday and Sunday, and I felt fine about all of that. She was kind about everything, sending me small well-wishes like “hope you feel better”, “hope it heals soon”, etc. Truly, that was good with me.

During my second hospital stay and the days since, she’s gotten way too extra for my liking. I got the sense that she had transformed this into her tragedy, like ‘oh I’m so stressed out that my poor child is sick!’ She started texting me multiple times a day asking for every little update, and asking detailed questions about the injury itself. It felt SO violating and at first I couldn’t figure out exactly why. Like, it should feel good to have someone check up on you, right?

I thought back to Sunday in the ER when things were really going to shit medically. I had told my mom where I was, and we texted back and forth a few times, as I was doing with other people in my life. At some point she just… stopped responding. I truly don’t rely on her for any kind of emotional support, so in the moment I just glazed over it.

Apparently I have her as an emergency contact in my medical records, because when I woke up from surgery they told me that they tried calling her but no one answered. I don’t have a super good grasp on the timeline but it would have been between 10 pm and midnight where she lives. I know she leaves her phone in another part of the house overnight, so when bedtime rolled around and she just dropped the conversation with me, and ditched her cellphone so she wouldn’t be bothered. She is also retired and has approximately zero things going on in her life, so it’s not like she had to keep to a schedule or anything. When they told me she didn’t answer, I again truly didn’t care at all in the moment. If they had asked I would have said no one needed to be called at all. She told me later (unsolicited) that she saw a missed call the following day and wondered if it was from my hospital, but she didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

The other thing is that not even once, not even in the most roundabout way has she made any sort of attempt to actually even OFFER to help me through this. I posted about my ER visit briefly on instagram and a friend from years ago who doesn’t even live in this state reached out and told me to let them know if they could do anything. All my REAL friends here have done the same, again and again telling me to let them know if I need anything. I have carefully set up my life so that I don’t need or expect a damn thing from my family, but you’d think that my mother who is sooo sad for me and hounding me for medical updates would at least make some sort of offer. I’ve never had a loved one be in the hospital across the country, but just off the top of my head I can think of several things I would offer that could make their life easier.

So yeah, I would love for her to stop feeling like she’s entitled to be all up in my business if she won’t put in even rudimentary work to show that she genuinely cares.

All I can do is hope that I never get some serious prolonged illness, because if so, I. AM. FUCKED!

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Despite all of that, my mental health has been pretty good throughout this ordeal. It’s one of two things.. either the extra sleep, or the fact that I’m not working. Or both? There is also a sense of peace that comes with needing to heal. I’m not putting many expectations on myself, and thus not being disappointed with myself. My goal right now is to be well, and anything else is a bonus.

I’m feeling a ton of creative energy, too. I’m hoping to spin up a side hustle I’ve had in mind for awhile now. I won’t go into detail now, but I want to start up a tutoring service and I think now is the perfect time because of covid and the fact that kids and parents may need more educational support than ever.

I’m reading again. For a long time I was too anxious to read, now I can settle my mind and focus on the words and the story.

I took my watercolors out, I want to paint some nice things and give them as presents to people who have helped me recently.

I’m making the first baby steps toward buying property, or at least understanding what I need to do in order to be able to do so in the next couple years.

Just appreciating where I’m at and actually feeling like goals are attainable in the near future :)