Month: June 2012
Bipolar Cancer Husband No. 2
Posted on June 26, 2012 in Anxiety Cancer Diary Cats Dogs Uncertainty
I must confess that I still feel a little selfish when I remind people that I am under stress — perhaps more stress than Lynn.
Dream
Posted on June 24, 2012 in Dreams
I have some obnoxious neighbors who are into obliterating things of mine. I go over to talk to them and explain to them that I am no threat. But they continue to harass me. Finally, just before I wake up, I discover one of them riding his motorcycle in circles around my back lawn.
My therapist suggested that this was a commentary on the recent stresses in my life, the one thing after another.
Bipolar Cancer Husband No. 1
Posted on June 14, 2012 in Anxiety Cancer Diary
I’ve been trying to write this story for months, but the time and the motivation have not been there.
Two things tipped me off that something was wrong. First, I looked at my cell phone and realized that too much time had passed. Dr. Rettenmaier had promised a quick surgery — twenty five minutes — and now an hour and fifteen minutes had passed. Laparascopic hysterectomies were his specialties. The grin on his face had been confident and true. It was just a cyst. He did this all the time.
The disappearance of that grin when he came out to see me was the second clue. He led me into a small consultation room. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but the gist of it was that there was a malignant mass on Lynn’s ovary. He’d cut her open and removed the entire uterus including the cervix. He showed me a picture of a pile of bloody organs that he said was what he had removed. They looked like meat from a butcher.
His tone was grave. He made an effort to underscore that he hadn’t photo-shopped anything, that he had followed procedure, and that we were dealing with cancer. I’m sure the fact that I was bipolar danced in the back of his mind. I understand. He had probably dealt with plenty of husbands who, on hearing the news, wanted to shake him and tell him that he had made a mistake. My calm must have surprised him. I accepted fate and asked what questions my shaken consciousness allowed.
He let me call my mother-in-law so she could ask her questions of him. I don’t think she was any more thorough and coherent than I was. “How could this happen to Lynn,” her mother said to me after he returned the phone to me. Who had an answer for great matters of the universe as trivial in the greater scheme of things as this was. Dr. Rettenmaier told me to wait for the pathology report. He couldn’t tell me what kind of cancer it was without it.
Kay Redfield Jamison says that there is a big difference between bipolar depression and grief. I was feeling the latter now. I could walk, talk, see colors. Most distinctly, I could cry.
People in the waiting area who heard my news told me that this was the worst day, the day where you found out the fact and didn’t know the reality. The receptionist took pity on me and told me I could visit Lynn in the recovery room.
I stood by Lynn’s gurney. Her eyes flickered open. Had she heard the news. “What happened?” she asked. “You have cancer,” I whimpered.
“I have cancer?” she said, groggily.
“Yes,” I replied.
The nurse did not let me stay very long. They sent me up to the sixth floor of Hoag Hospital where I waited until they told me that I could go in. I used the time to call friends and family to tell them the news. Ovarian cancer, I kept murmuring to myself. The prognosis would not be good.
Shopping at Moods-R-Us
Posted on June 11, 2012 in Insurance Stigma
This is a peeve I’ve had for a long time. I can understand the reasoning, but I don’t like the additional implications. Due to the media, folklore, and other cancers of popular culture, the phrase “mental patient” acquired some bad connotations. Some people didn’t want to be labeled with it because they had been wrongly committed back in the days when psychiatrists called anything that moved “schizophrenic”. Others didn’t want to be painted with an ax in their hands.
But the phrase we replaced it with was “mental health consumers”. I am all for mental health — isn’t that the reason why I am on so many medications? — but the notion of me being a “consumer” irritates me. It suggests that I am in Psychiatry Land because I am looking for a high or because I am looking for the latest brain fashion accessory. Out there, there must be a mental health superstore — a “Moods-R-Us” where I can pick and choose from the latest manias, depressions and mixed states, each colored to match my attire ((I have a friend who showed up to her psychiatrist wearing ultra-bright clothing. The shrink said “Are we feeling a bit manic today?” “No,” my friend said. “We are feeling depressed and the only clothes we have to wear are the ones we bought when we were manic.”)) .
There’s a worse implication here: consumer suggests whim. It suggests that our syndromes are less devastating than other physical conditions. Do we hear talk of diabetes consumers or cancer consumers? “Oh, yes, I would like some Taxol to go with my new uterine tumor.” People would rise in anger and cry out in rebellion.
If we are just consumers, then our illnesses aren’t serious and don’t deserve insurance coverage. That’s the bottom line here. It’s a door to disenfranchise us from decent health care. And no one who suffers from genuine psychiatric conditions should just stand by and allow that to happen.
No Fire Like Greed
Posted on June 8, 2012 in Class Hatred Liberty Morals & Ethics Spirituality and Being
Greed and hate are not signs of freedom, but of slavery. Free yourself.
Only One Election
Posted on June 6, 2012 in Elections
I believe pre-election polls should be outlawed. There is no reason for them other than to provide a bit of puffery for the news. And I think they have the effect of lowering participation in elections. People see that their candidate is, according to the poll, slated to lose, so they don’t show up.
This is a constitutional amendment I would get behind. There should be only one election, not several.
