disorientation

I WAS going to go to work on Friday. But on Thursday Ramona got sick. My older daughter, Ramona, who is 24. She is in the hospital, with pneumonis, still in intensive care. They removed her breathing tube yesterday, though, and she is maintining her oxygen level just fine. So she is improving. On the other hand, I am finding myself extremely disoriented. She was entubated for three days, and she couldn't talk. Now she can talk, softly, but she doesn't believe she is as sick as she is. She wants to go home, and I don't blame her. But she isn't ready; she's still critically ill. I am starting to get worn out by all of this. I'm scared. Not that she won't get better this time, but that she isn't taking it as a sign that she needs to take better care of herself. She just wants to get back to her regular life. I, on the other hand, am afraid to get back to mine. I feel like this is all I can pay attention to, and if I forget, something may go wrong. Do I really have that much control? No. I am supposed to go back to work tomorrow, and I have to decide whether or not I will. She is an adult. Then again, if I work all day, I'm not there to get doctors reports in the morning. I'm out of the loop. Ramona doesn't seem capable of managing her own care yet. She's in denial about being so sick. But is it my place to take over? I don't know, I don't know. Will she need care when she comes home? Will she accept care? I don't know. In the meantime, I did manage to pay my bills yesterday, and I came home and took a nap after sleepig at the hospital on Saturday night. I slept at home last night. I need a shower, but don't want to get my toe tape wet and have to change it again. I want to get to the hospital before the doctor comes around, and yet I am sitting here on my computer. I didn't do my laundry over the weekend, but my uniforms are still clean because I haven't been working. The pets are cared for, but the trash cans, the sink, the recycling, all sit in the same condition they were in when Ramona got sick. I'm afraid if I concentrate on getting my life in order, hers will fall apart. I don't even feel like I have a job, although I dimly remember that I do. In short, I am feeling indecisive and disoriented. I suppose it will come back together with time. Even this blog is disjointed. Just one of those 'other rantings' rather than a 'bus story'. At least, being in my 50's, I have enough experience to know that things will get back to normal. Or else we will adjust to things and they will become normal. I need to get up if I don't want to miss the doctor on her rounds. So I'll leave this post as it is, a disjointed, meandering blob of cathartic expression.

back to work...

On Friday I get to go back to work. I say 'get to' because I will surely start to put on weight if I don't, and I don't want that! Also, I say 'get to' because I am lucky to have a job in this economy, and get sick leave. I should also apply for State Disability, but I probably won't, since they don't pay the first seven days you were off, and all told, I'm only going to be off for nine days. Going back on Friday is strategic. Monday is a Holiday, and I am off. I want to get paid, so, just like my birthday, I have to work the 'day before' and the 'day after'. I've already sacrificed my birthday pay on the altar of the broken toe. That's enough! So I go back for one day, and then have a three day weekend. I can live with that.
On my last day of work, May 14th, I was having a conversation with a man named John Allen. John Allen likes to talk to me, and he is a conserative Christian, so I think he probably has an ambition to get me 'saved'. He suggested to me, on Friday, that I was 'taking a chance' by not believing. I've been 'saved', a couple of time when I was younger. I can't imagine why you would need it more than once, if you needed it at all. I used to believe in that stuff unquestioningly. I mean, I was raised a Baptist, for Christ's sake! ( Ha ha, the irony is intentional.) But now, after having given it a half a lifetime of thought, I can't see that the idea of needing a blood sacrifice to appease an angry god is anything but barbaric. So if anyone ever tells you I 'accepted the lord' on my deathbed, don't believe them. It ain't so. I'll go to my grave looking forward to my eternal rest, perhaps wishing I could have had more time, maybe regretting some things I have done, maybe not even remembering. But I won't suddenly get scared that just in case there really is a hell, I'd better cover my ass. I hope my humanist friends will be there to fend off any attempts by well wishers to convert me. Or maybe I'll still have it in my to make the case against them. So I'm looking forward to seeing John Allen again, to make my case for not believing. Who knows, maybe I'll convert HIM!

broken toe

Yesterday was my birthday and I broke my toe. I have never broken a bone before, at least not for sure, but this time there was no question, even before the x-ray. The picture says it all, I think.
I'm not terribly distressed about having to miss work for a few days, although it may cost me my birthday pay. Our contract stipulates that to get paid for a pesonal holiday, you have to work 'the day before, and the day after'. Even though the toe has been reset, and looks less scary now, I can't put it into a shoe yet. Being a bus driver means that you have to wear something with closed toes. I don't know how long that might take. We shall see. So tomorrow I get to sleep in. Even getting hurt has it's good side. ;-}