Assume Nothing

I was called in to talk to my boss Friday and she told me that she was going to fire my aid, ms penguin. Now I have heard many promises from my bosses over the last couple of years, yet none of them came to fruition. After the stress of yet another crazy week I came home wanting nothing more than crawl up in a little ball and cry, but I didn’t. Instead, I watched a few shows from earlier in the week, groomed my dog, and then took my eldest to his Valentine’s dance.

Saturday morning I did not feel much better than I had the day before. I woke with a migraine, and had to take my daughter into downtown SA for her MRI. Why she could not drive herself, I am not sure, she was not being sedated, and it was an open MRI. I think she just wanted her Mommy. The receptionist told me she would be done in about 45 minutes. I picked up a magazine and tried to settle in for the wait.

Now I already had a migraine so the bass coming from the receptionist crap music was not a welcome sound. Then the receptionist got on the phone and loudly over the music, argued with her cable company. Now I had already put cotton in my ears, when I sat down, so you can imagine what volume this had to have been. After thirty minutes, I interrupted her personal call on company time and asked her to tell my daughter I was in the car. That MRI took two hours, my daughter had to sit perfectly still for two hours, I had to wait for two hours, mind you I still had a migraine.

Saturday evening I was supposed to have dinner with my old crush. He was making spaghetti and meatballs; I never turn down a free meal. Stop laughing Alvin I really do eat occasionally. Anyway, I canceled… not because I did not want to eat… but because I had a million reasons not to spend time with the first crush. I had a migraine, I was tired, I didn’t want to be on, I had doubts, I was going to be spending time with someone who wasn’t going to be honest with me or himself. I actually spent a lot of time thinking about this. I milled it over with a friend of mine who is a counselor, I talked again with the queen mother the one who had clued me in, I talked to my friend, and though we all agreed that this person needed someone, we also agreed that I had a full plate when it came to taking care of others.

His choice is something I cannot understand. I know it is a personal choice, but why would someone not choose to have an operation to have cancer removed when it was still operable? Why would someone put themselves and their family though years of watching them die a slow and painful death if there was something that could be done? Denial I understand, we have denial at one time or another, but denial about one’s health, well…. that I do not understand. A few years ago I watched someone very close to me die with the same condition, just because she did not want to have an operation that could have left her with a colostomy bag. She did however have treatment, just not the one that would have saved their life. I realize these are all personal choices and this one is none of my business, unless one is attempting to ingratiate themselves into my family’s lives. Yes, I feel crappy about my choice, but I also feel that in the long run it may be the right choice.

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