Pretty Fucking Far From Okay

Remember that scene in Pulp Fiction where Butch rescues Marsellus? Upon Butch asking him if he's ok, Marsellus responds, "Naw man. I'm pretty fuckin' far from okay." That line keeps running through my head every time someone asks me how I'm doing. I have come a long way over the past few weeks, but some days are still harder than others. This story is going to be long, so I hope you have some time on your hands.

On March 25^th, I lost my dad. It wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. He was admitted to the hospital that Monday (the 24th) due to low blood pressure and low Oxygen levels. They were supposed to make him feel better and send him home. No one in my family expected my dad to pass away when he did, that is why I was still in TX and not in NC when it happened. Instead of making him feel better, one of the nurses accidentally overdosed him on pain meds. He didn’t come back from it. Ben called me at work that day to tell me we needed to fly to NC asap. I left work in tears, but expected to be able to see my dad when we arrived in Fayetteville. I knew he wouldn’t be in the best shape, but I expected to be able to go see him, hold his hand, and talk to him at the hospital. That wasn’t in the cards. When my sister picked us up from the airport, she had to break the news to me that our dad didn’t make it. Only those of you who have lost a parent, know what that feels like. It sucks. At that time I was 17 weeks pregnant. We hadn’t even found out the sex of the baby yet. As I tried to process everything, I told Ben that maybe it was the right time for him to go. Had my dad passed away any later in the year, I wouldn’t have been able to travel home due to the pregnancy.

Through all of this, I was able to use the baby to help me find hope during my grief. Two weeks after my dad died, Ben and I found out that we were having a boy. We were ecstatic. The same day as the ultrasound, we got a call from the doc and found out that there might be some problems with the baby. Nothing was certain at the time, so we figured it was a fluke and carried on with our planning.

**The rest of this is going to be quite vague because I really don’t think it’s anyone else’s business what exactly went wrong.**

Let's just say that I went to the doctor A LOT over the course of the following few weeks. With each appointment came more heartbreak and trying to hold things together. At 23 weeks, I delivered my silent baby boy. I was induced, I went through labor, and I had a natural delivery. I am now a mother, but have no baby to show for it. Just when I thought that everything was over, I could start to move on, my milk came in. Another big FUCK YOU from the powers that be. My body is back to normal now. My boobs have shrunk back to tiny and I've stopped bleeding. My doctor cleared me to finally start exercising, which is good, since I have baby weight to lose. It's funny how fast your body can physically heal. Emotionally, it's another story.

Losing a parent is hard, losing a baby is even harder. Having both happen within a month of each other is a total mind fuck. I have gone through a ton of emotions, but the two I am hanging on to are lack of patience and anger. I'm not sure if it's lack of patience or no empathy. I find it really hard to give a shit about other people's insignificant problems. I'd give examples, but it would make me come off as a heartless human being and usually I'm quite sweet. Now, anger. To say that I am a pissed off is putting it mildly. You know how people always say that you're never given more than you can handle? Well, that is bullshit. I'm handling it, but that's my only option. I can either pick myself up and move on or just check out of reality. I've decided to pick myself up and move on.

I am lucky to have an amazing support group made up of friends and family, but more importantly, I am lucky to have Ben. Our bond has only been strengthened by the suckfest we have endured. I'm also thankful that my new job (started in February) has been so understanding and accommodating over the past two months. If it wasn't for all of these factors, I would most likely be in a darker place right now.

I haven't been very religious for some time. All of this sure hasn't helped matters. However, it does give me comfort to think that somewhere, my dad is hanging out with my son. I hope he's teaching him how to cuss and pee in the yard.

My Dad

This past July, my dad was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. The tumor was deemed inoperable and the cancer had metastasized to his adrenal glands and spine. The doctors told us there was nothing they could do except prolong his life with radiation and chemotherapy. The cancer was terminal. As you can imagine, this was a big blow to my family and me.

Once we found this out, I took a week off work and went to Fayetteville to spend time with my dad. I made him eat a lot, we did some yard work, and went to his radiation appointments. Lots of family came by, I met some people he worked with, and we sat around watching tv. Nothing too exciting, but I knew this was probably the healthiest I’d ever see my dad again. We got the immediate family together and had family pictures done for the first time in 27 years.

I haven’t really told a lot of people about all of this. It’s not easy to talk about. It took me a month or so before I could talk about it without bursting into tears. Hell, I’m tearing up now just writing about it. I wanted to field a couple of questions and responses I’ve been getting from those I have told.

1.      How’s your dad doing?

While I appreciate you caring enough to ask me this question, the truthful answer is he’s dying and it sucks more than anything has ever sucked in the history of suck. Please don’t ask me this question if you see me out trying to have a good time. It kind of ruins my evening. Also, don’t ask this if you can’t deal with the answer. It’s funny how uncomfortable people get when you give them an honest, emotional answer.

2.      How are you dealing with everything?

I’m on an emotional rollercoaster. I’m sure I have some of these pregnancy hormones to thank for that. Most days, I’m fine. I’m not the one fighting cancer. I do tend to tear up quite a bit and sometimes become a sobbing mess while in the shower. I try to find humor in things, like the fact that my dad and I have recently bonded over hemorrhoids.

3.      Time is so precious, spend as much time with him as you can.

Thanks! I haven’t thought of this or mulled over the fact that I live ~1200 miles away. There is absolutely no way I’m going to be able to spend as much time with my dad as I want. Phone calls and skype will have to suffice.

4.      How’s your mom handling everything?

She’s keeping it together for everyone else. I’ve asked her a couple of times and I’m pretty sure she’s not telling me the truth. She’s also doing fine, same as my dad if you ask him. Gotta love this stubborn duo.

5.      Your family is in my prayers.

Thank you. I appreciate the gesture and the fact that you are thinking about us.

6.      Any combination of, “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” “The Big Man Upstairs has a Plan,” “God has a Path we Each Must Walk.”

These phrases make me want to punch you in the face. Knowing that God had a plan for my dad to get cancer and suffer the way he is currently suffering only makes me angry and resentful. This does not help.

 
My dad is a stubborn man. I think his stubbornness paired with his sense of humor will keep him fighting for a lot longer than we all expect. My only hope is that he gets to meet his new grand-baby at the end of August. Maybe they’ll share the same birthday.

Just a Little Hypocritical

In light of recent events in both Texas and North Carolina.....

It seems as those who are Pro-life and are all about telling a woman what she should do with her body, are also those who want to get rid of programs such as Welfare and Planned Parenthood.  Just seems a little hypocritical to me.

Also, here is one of my favorite Susan B. Anthony quotes.  In case you can't see it, it says, "No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex."

  

My body, my decision.

Cyclists

I'm all for sharing the road.  I go out of my way to slow down and move over for cyclists.  I am glad you are out there, getting your exercise on, unlike so many fatties just sitting in front of the television.

What enrages me about cyclists, are those that do not obey the traffic laws.  I am looking out for you, you should also be looking out for my bright ass blue car coming at you when you are breaking those laws. 

In the past 24 hours, I have almost hit (and by almost, I mean I'm glad I got new brakes on my car last week) two cyclists.  The first instance occurred yesterday evening.  This awesome guy came screaming out of a parking lot, attempting to cross 3 lanes of a feeder road.  Feeder roads here in Texas are roads that put you on and off the interstate.  People do not drive slow on these roads.  I hope he made it to wherever he was going.

The second instance happened this morning.  I have added a picture to help explain.  Here I am with a green light, turning right on my way to work.  This douche bag on a bike is in the middle of the lane (my lane, opposite lane of where he should've been riding), coming towards me.  They had a red light.  He should have been in the other lane (on the side, not the middle of the lane), stopped, with the rest of traffic.  Again, glad I have new brakes on my car.  I'm also glad the guy behind me had good brakes on his truck, because he came close to rear-ending me.  Pretty sure it scared him as much as it scared me, because he almost fell off of his bike.  All I can do is hope he learned his lesson.  Or, if not, at least heard the choice words and gestures I proceeded to give him.

If you are a cyclist and don't obey the traffic laws, eff you.  Eff you hard.

Boom Goes the Dynomite

I plan on voting for Obama, again.

I stopped eating at Chick-fil-a.  It was never about freedom of speech.

I believe marijuana should be legal.  I believe it's 100 times safer than alcohol.  To quote Bob Saget in one of my favorite movies, "Have you ever sucked dick for weed?!"

There always needs to be a separation between church and state.  Always.

Pregnant ladies:  I'm super excited that you are with child.  Please stop making the 3D ultrasound your profile picture.  It's frickin creepy.

I don't think that using cuss words to express yourself is a sign of ignorance.  I do believe that poor grammar and spelling is a very good indicator of ignorance.

My dogs are still cooler than most people.

The End.

Heebie-Jeebies

Today's events have succeeded in giving me the heebie-jeebies.  It started while at work.  I've seen roaches at work before, but nothing to this magnitude.  My best guess is that someone sprayed the building today.  I saw at least 6 dead and 3 live roaches before I left today.  Granted, I was there later than usual, but come on.  I don't handle roaches well.  I felt like something was crawling on me the entire way home.

Next, we took the dogs for a walk not long after I got home (around 9:30).  We've been leaving the front light off because the June bugs have been horrendous.  Somehow, I see a small snake slithering by the bottom crack of the door.  I'm so thankful we have good insulation around that door.  So I yell for Ben to stop, there's a snake.  He takes a look and the little dude is now sitting on the mat, looking at us like, I dare you to try to go through this door.  So we walk around the back of the house where I see the largest spider I have ever encountered.  WHAT THE HELL TEXAS?!  STOP IT.  STOP IT NOW.

Got to the front door in time to see the snake slither away between the side of our driveway and the rock that surrounds our landscaping.  That butt hole is going to be in our garage tomorrow.  I just know it.

Time for a hot shower and some liquor in hopes this feeling fades and I can get some sleep.

The Honeymoon.

The night of the wedding, I think we went to sleep around 2 am.  There was a little bit of drama.  Cell phones and wallets were no where to be found.  We had to evoke some help to search for said items.  Once those items were returned, we went to bed and woke up to a 5 am alarm call.  Yup.  I heard we barely missed some of you guys in the lobby.  I heart you guys.

Bojangles in Sarah's hand (Ben was feeling a little vommy), we make our way to RDU airport.  Halfway there, we had to pull over so Ben could dry heave on the side of I-40.  No worries, we made our flight.  Let me paint this picture.  Ben is green, I still have somewhat of a "wedding-do" and am decked out in workout pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.  We look awesome.  We take a 2.5 hour flight to Chicago and begin the chaos.

The original plan was to activate Ben's cell phone for the duration of our trip to Thailand.  His phone was dead to the world and after several failed attempts of trying to charge it at the airport, we discover it is done.  Upon closer inspection, the phone reeks of beer.  I called to see if I could activate my phone, but the guy I spoke with was a total retard.  Hence, we had no means of communication on our way to a foreign country.

We opted for Korean Air to take us on our merry journey.  Ben had taken a few trips to Asia for work in the past and said, and I quote, "Korean Air is the tits."  Korean Air would take us on a 13 hour flight from Chicago, to Seoul, Korea.  We'd have a 2 hour layover in Seoul, then board another 6 hour flight to Phuket, Thailand.  Korean Air was nice, we had our own personal TVs where we could choose to watch several different new blockbusters, TV sitcoms, documentaries, view our in flight status, or play games such as tetris or pacman.  It was a long flight.

We arrived in Phuket at 11 pm Phuket time.  After going through customs, we step outside the airport to be accosted by no less than 50 taxi drivers trying to screw us  take us to our hotel.  After getting harassed for what seemed like 15 minutes (it was probably 5) some guy felt sorry for us and phoned our hotel to pick us up.  Another picture to be painted.  We have now been awake for 24 hours, traveling for 20 of those hours.  We had enough sense to get some Baht out of the ATM in the airport, but have no means of calling anyone, some things are written in English, and some people can speak English.  Thank Buddha/Allah for the guy that called our hotel.

 Our shuttle arrives and we take a quick, 5 minute drive to our place to sleep for the night.  It's not a bad hotel.  This is where we get introduced to a bidet for the first time.

We're up early the next morning so we can make an 8 am ferry.  This ferry takes us from Phuket to Phi Phi Island.  On Phi Phi, we board a different ferry to Koh Lanta.  This takes around 3 hours.  The views from the ferry are absolutely breathtaking.  We arrive to Koh Lanta and take a tuk-tuk to our final destination.  A tuk-tuk is basically a motorcycle/scooter that has a covered seat attached to the side of it.  It's very easy for one to flip over.  Here we are, on this tuk-tuk, zipping past other tuk-tuks, motorbikes, trucks, people, and cows.  Oh, and they drive on the left side of the road.  Welcome to Thailand.

We stayed at a place called Long Beach Chalet.  It was a really nice place.  The chalets were basically a studio room up on stilts with a thatched roof.  The bathrooms were located across the stairs.  They were open air, but they had fresh hot water, so no complaints.  We had a/c and a pool to lounge at when we got tired of the beach.  Long Beach Chalet also had its own restaurant called Three Mums.  Everything these ladies whipped up was absolutely delicious.  Actually, all of the food we consumed while there was so freaking awesome.  I do have to admit, I did get a little tired of nothing but Thai food and ate a cheeseburger once, followed by a slice of pizza the next day.

The first couple of days in Koh Lanta, we just lounged around.  We were exhausted and jet lagged.  It was a 12 hour time difference between Koh Lanta and Texas.  So at 2 pm, we were pretty sleepy.  That Tuesday night, we ended up sleeping close to 13 hours and managed to get somewhat back on track.  During the lounging, we came across our first "ladyboy."  He was the bartender at the beach bar.  Speaking of beach bars....you have to be a very brave soul to use the bathroom at one of these bars.  Just go use the water, or go back to your room.  Another thing we had to get use to was all of the stray dogs on the island.  I became pretty fond of this one dog that would always greet us along the path to the beach and "show us the way."  She did piss us off one evening by trying to bury a bone while we were watching the sunset.

We tried booking a snorkeling or diving trip through Long Beach.  After 3 days of them telling us they weren't running that day, they told us they were closed for the season.  During this time, we rented a motorbike so we could explore the island.  Neither one of us had ever driven one of these things, so Ben learns in about 5 minutes by taking it up and down a dirt road beside the chalets.  Then we hop on and off we go.  It's a pretty terrifying experience being on the back of one of these things.  Not to mention an inexperienced driver on roads that have completely different traffic patterns and laws than the US.  There were lots of times during this trip we both turned to each other and said, "We gonna die!"

On our first excursion, we hung out in Ban Saladan, played with some monkeys at Lanta Monkey School, stopped for tea at a place with a beautiful view point, and ran screaming from a place we were hoping to go kayaking.  The monkeys were cute, but one of them was a butthole.  He kept jumping onto our heads and trying to steal my sunglasses.  Also, my friend Judi yelled at me afterwards because we could've contracted some pretty nasty illnesses from those monkeys.  Thanks, Thailand.  The drive from the view point back to Long Beach was pretty long, so we stopped at a kayaking place, hoping to kayak through some Mangroves.  We drive up to the place and a guy stops us before we're even at the "booth."  He wants to know what we're doing.  We tell him we were hoping to go kayaking, but I was starting to get a really funny feeling from the whole situation.  Dark clouds were rolling up and I didn't really care to be out on the water during a thunderstorm.  When I tell Ben, "Hey, let's just go."  The guy starts trying to convince us to stay and kayak.  "It's the best time to go, it's low tide," he says.  Since we are still stopped in the middle of the road and there are no boats to be seen, I affirm that I do not want to kayak at this very moment, but tell the guy we'll be back.  We need to turn the motorbike around and head in the other direction, but as we're trying to turn around, another guy stops us asking what we're doing.  We tell him we're just trying to turn around and leave, so he watches us do so.  We never did see any kayaks, nor did we return to that place. 

We rode an elephant and got to feed her pineapples.  We took a hike through the rain forest to a bat cave and waterfall.  Both the guide and I busted our butts...Ben managed to stay upright.  We tried taking the motorbike to the national park one day, but it got to be way too terrifying for me.  We went from sea level to a 19% grade on a bike that had crappy brakes.  Nope.  Then, 3 days before we leave, we found a diving shop while out to dinner.  Guess what?  They had been taking people out scuba diving and snorkeling every single day we had been there.  Of course, we booked a scuba trip the next day.

I still get pretty nervous about scuba diving.  This was our first dive outside of the open water dives in class.  I'm still learning to control my breathing and buoyancy.  I manage to keep my shit together to enjoy diving at two different locations.  We saw all kinds of coral, fans, fish, lobsters, star fish, and pointy urchin things.  It was a really neat experience.

I'm sure I'm leaving all kinds of things out, but this is getting way too long.  I thoroughly enjoyed our first trip as husband and wife.  Maybe one of these days we'll get to go back.