This is not good

There are a lot of ways to self assess my situation.  I can look at my money, I can look at my job security, I can look at my leisure time (both how much of it I have and how much of it I use), I can look at my job, my job satisfaction, my dreams, my desires, and so much more.  And by most measures, I'm doing fine.

I mean, I have savings without sacrificing any wants, desires, or needs.  I have a career that lets me work just about anywhere, and am good at my current job.  I have quite a bit of 'time off', and have plans for get togethers with friends and family both big (Mardi Gras) and small (football Saturdays, D&D, setting up my friends cord cutting).

But that's kind of like looking at the graphic I have in the title and thinking that little cartoon dog is fine.  I mean, he's saying "This is Fine", he's smiling, he even has his jaunty little hat on.  Don't mind the obvious signs like the fire raging in the background... he's fine.  But you know he's not fine.  You know he's in trouble and he's putting on a brave face for some reason.  And that's me.  I'm not fine.  There are fires raging both external and internal that are making me not fine.  There's a smile on my face most of the time but it's forced and cracked and temporary at best.  I tell people that I'm fine, but I'm lying to them.  Because I'm not fine and I don't know how to express that to someone without it devolving into whining.



I guess first and foremost is mom.  I have this big sinking dread that she's close to the end.  And I think she knows it and I think she's trying to make it happen sooner rather than later.  She is more or less off of the Oxygen at this point.  She uses it while she sleeps, but she turns it off as soon as she wakes and only puts it on again if she pushes herself too far.  She doesn't put it on preventativly, she only puts it on when she's winded and can't catch her breath.

She's still under the care of her doctor, but it's the standard slow mo medical care system.  Yes she's had the official diagnosis of COPD, yes she's had a pulmonary function test.  But she won't get the results for a few weeks, and only once she gets the results will she possibly see a pulmonologist.  I'd bet dollars vs donuts that she could have pushed her doctor to get her to a pulmonologist but she didn't push and is willing to wait.

She's still smoking.  I can't even get close to being angry about it because I'm still smoking too.  Even though she's barely ever using the oxygen, she still insists on smoking outside and I'll go outside with her to smoke.  The weather is honestly getting a bit cold for smoking outside though. It sound so bad when I write this out and say it out loud... but she should consider smoking inside because the cold could be bad for her health.  All the stress I'm going through is making my own smoking habit worse, but at the same time I'm trying to not be one of the things pushing HER to smoke more.... that's just a vicious circle.

Oh... she told me a story the other day.  She was doing her 'chores' around the house and started to feel funny.  She stopped what she was doing and sat down and did her breathing exercises figuring it was her oxygen level getting too low... but when the breathing didn't seem to help she put on her pulse oximeter and saw that her oxygen level was 94% (that's actually really good for her now... sigh), but her pulse was 164 beats per minute.  That's... that's bad.  She's on multiple medications to make her heart work more efficiently and her pulse shouldn't really ever go above 90 beats per minute.  She has a pace maker with an internal defibrillator and it's set to go off if her pulse tops 170 beats per minute.  So yeah... she was about to get an electric kick to her heart just from 'doing her chores'.  It eventually came down, but it scares the living fuck out of me that it even got that high.

So that's mom.  There's work too.  Yeah, I like my job and yeah, I'm doing well there.  But I have a coworker that's just about the worst type of coworker I can think of.  She's indecisive, she doesn't work well alone and will always defer to someone else if there's someone else to defer to, she asks when she needs to tell and tells when she needs to ask, shes chatty and flirty with the inmates which is right on the border if familiarization and has already got an inmate a ticket for 'flirting' with her, she's slow, she wanders off without letting others know where shes going which is borderline evil in a prison.  She is just an awful nurse.  She is just an awful co-worker.  And unfortunately because this is both a state job and a union job... she's almost impossible to get fired.

The amount that I love working with the other two nurses on my shift (and I LOVE working with both of them!) I hate working with her even more.  So work has shifted from being good but stressful to being bad AND stressful.  I go home pissed off most of the time now.

Money?  At least I have money, right?  Well... no.  I have found the point of overexertion.  With buying the TV, the Fridge, the Computer, the Trip to New Orleans, the Snow Blower, the Oven, and the Washing Machine all in the last year, I have to pay so much on the credit cards that my 'saving's is a slow drain.  Last year I didn't have to do anything to save up a couple grand.  Seriously.  I'd just look in my checking account and see that I had over $2000 just sitting there.  But now I have about $500 there... and I know damned well that I'm going to spend $200 of it before I get paid again.  Sure, I'll have some of that check left over and that savings will grow to say... $800?  But then other minor bills will come and that will chip back down below $500.  According to my (nerd alert) budget spreadsheet I won't get back to a savings of $2000 until February of next year.  And that's only if I don't spend anything 'extra' like lunches and gasoline and movies.....

I'll get by.  I'm not in any danger of losing the car or not paying my student loans... but I now have found the point where I have to actually watch my finances.

My younger brother B is in financial trouble.  I won't get to much into it as it's a sore subject for me, but his wife has stopped working for health reasons and by losing that income he's lost his new Chevy Traverse.  Just got too far behind on the payments.  If that's happened, I have to assume he's behind on his rent or his credit cards or some other aspect of his life.  And he hasn't told me any of this... I hear this from Mom while on our smoking/gossiping breaks... so I can't even talk to my brother about it without breaking that confidence.

But hey... I have my own health right?  Fuck.  My blood sugars are going higher and higher.  The last 4 I've taken (covering about 3 weeks) have all been higher than 300mg/dl.  Medical translation?  It's bad.  I know some of it is all the stress snacking I'm doing.  And then there's the sleep.  I perform at my best when I get between 5 and 7 hours of sleep.  Seriously.... I wake up better and more refreshed and I can stay up later the next day if I need to.  If I get 8 hours I find it difficult to wake up and feel tired most of the day.  I'm now getting an average of 9 hours sleep a night.  I'm tired all the fucking time and I'm going to bed earlier and earlier.  I think a lot of that is the stress... it builds up throughout the day and instead of ending the day by playing on the computer or just being happy, I'm sharing the living room with Mom watching her watch TV (I'd say I'm watching TV but I'm not watching anything I want to watch).  I listen to her breath, and while it's not a death rattle... it ain't healthy sounding.  So yeah... I now go to bed at 9:30 when I'd normally have stayed up past midnight.

I barely ever go to D+X so I don't even have Caitlyn as a crux anymore. I mean, how I can I get into that happy feeling when I can't get any happiness out of life?  How could I help someone there live out a fantasy when I'm struggling to keep from crying myself?  But I miss it and I want to be there and I know it would help... it just would take me away from Mom and therefore it has to be something to sacrifice.

And before anybody anywhere thinks that I'm being a good son.... I've had the thoughts of how much easier life would be if Mom would die.  I'm not sure I could make it through the grief and I feel like I deserve an express ticket to Hell just for thinking it... but I can't get the thought out of my head.... life would be easier if she was dead.

I gotta go.  Writing that out just made it worse.  I'll be mindlessly watching a television screen for most of the day because it's a day off and I don't have to go to work (i.e. I don't get a break from being at home).

Fuck.