So as break nears its end I’m somewhat dreading going back to school.  These next few weeks I’m going to have so much work, and with a lot of work means that I won’t be able to go out a lot, which means I’ll be lonely and depressed when I have to stay in by myself.  I thought I had been getting over Drew (name has been changed–clearly the one I home wrecked with) then I looked at his Facebook today and realized I had made less progress than I thought.  It makes me so mad that we had sex and now he wants nothing to do with me.  I can’t decide if it’s because he’s guilty or he realized I’m not worth it.  It’s so annoying to like someone who’s an asshole, and out of reach.

Speaking of out of reach… my roommate’s younger brother; a freshman.  We’ve been flirting, hanging out at the bar, after the bar with people.  It’s weird and it’s happening.  I can’t decide if he wants to hook up with me or not.  We haven’t yet and I’m not sure I can without my friend killing me.  But he’s the closest I’ve gotten with a guy in a while.  I feel like I should hook up with him, if only because he actually treats me right and I think I deserve it.

In brighter news, had a great Thanksgiving weekend.  Spent a lot of time with family, saw friends, went shopping and spent a ton of money.  I felt so much better after shopping.  Like I’ve said before, shopping is therapeutic for me and when I can’t do it when I’m at school I go kind of crazy, have weird emotional meltdowns and feel shitty more often.  On another note, I probably gained about 5 pounds too, not so good.  Luckily, I have no food at school or money so I won’t be eating very much.  I know, I’m so healthy.  Also, test drove cars with my dad today.  I can’t wait at all until May, which is when I’ll be getting a car.  Literally peeing my pants with anticipation.

Anyways, going to the bar this Tuesday when I get back can’t come soon enough.  I’m horny as fuck.  And my nipple piercings are irritating me.  I think one got stuck in my bra or something, it hurts all the time.  Wonderful.  But whatever.  I haven’t had sex in two weeks, it feels like months.  Even my completely self-sexually-depriving roommate has a new boy.  Yet another reason I feel horrible about my guy situation as of now.  Well, t-minus two days, technically one.

I’m done.

I’m through.

It’s over.

I’m finished trying to run, finished trying to control, and finished trying to be independent. Trying to be a grown-up. Let fate fall where it may, and I guess I’m leaning against the old fallback of “if God wills it.”

But seriously. At this point, if God wills it, I’ll be one intensely blessed grateful dumb shit.

I’m done.

I’m done with pretending that I’m an adult. I’m not, okay? So get over it and leave me alone. I’m struggling to get into a college that I know I’m not prepared for in a competitive world that’s waiting with eager, dripping jaws to eat me alive. I’m not ready.

I’m through.

I’m through sitting back and letting my hundreds of responsibilities run amok over me. It’s partially my fault through disorganization, partially my fault through neglect. I’m doing so much I can’t focus on the important things. If something doesn’t go, I will. I’ll go insane. So I’m through being trampled by my own many loves and passions, and I’m through being choked and hung by the dramas of my friends and school life. I’ve got to distance myself from it, before it gets me. If I don’t focus, and work my ass off on the thing that is most important, I won’t get anywhere. Ever.

It’s over.

So it’s over, kids, and here I am typing as a shakily resolute and keenly terrified individual who’s not grown up and who’s ready to practice and who really just wants to stay home and love her life and her family in peace.

But Time and Nature won’t allow it. So ready or not, I’m out in less than a year. If I go to a shitty school, well hey, that’s my own fault. Goodbye, Eastman. Nice looking at your name on the website, C.I.M. I wish I would have been good enough. I’m sorry for wasting your time, Heather. I’m deeply sorry, Mrs. Ripley.

What happens, happens. If I can’t contact anyone and have them be my savior with my transcript and SAT score report today, then I am fucked. And who can or will help me, the irresponsible procrastinator who is falsely deluding herself that she can make it in the vicious world of music?

I just want to sing. And that will probably never happen now, because I’m a fucking retard.

So guess what.

I’m done.

To say I’m thankful would be an understatement. Let me explain:

PART ONE - childhood to college

I grew up very emotionally abused, hurt, withdrawn, confused, angry, and fearful. I was raised to believe that, in order to get to heaven, you have to be an extremely well-behaved person. I assumed that if God existed at all, then he probably hated me because I wasn’t perfect. I was keenly aware of the disappointment my mom felt towards me when I was anything less than spectacular, and I just decided that God must be the same as my mom – a powerful, angry authority figure who breathed down my back and analyzed my every move.

Well – through a series of crazy and unexpected events, I came to meet some people who believed in a very different God than what my churches and my parents had been teaching me my whole life. I was just turning 18 when I was first exposed to this new idea. It was the idea that God is relational. I’m sure you have heard at least once, if you’re living in the United States, that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Well, these people actually believed that!

Long story short, I came to actually believe, for the first time in my life, that my life mattered to God. I sincerely thought that he wanted me dead up until I was 18 – and it wasn’t until I turned 20 that I had let my guard down enough to let Jesus be my friend. I actually prayed, asking him to forgive me for relying on my rule-following and religious activities for my salvation. I recognized that only by relying on Christ to be my righteousness would I ever be able to be in heaven, face to face with God.

So time went by; I left a religious organization that I had been very active in; I started praying differently. Before it had been, “God, please help me to do everything right today, please help me to try harder, please help me to stop feeling upset.” Now it changed to things like, “I feel really discouraged today.” and, “Thank you for being present with me” and eventually.. after a very, very long time, it was, “I love you.” I was so amazed that I was actually approved of by God himself, that God did not want me dead; rather, he wanted nothing short of the best for me.

PART  TWO- no hope

Age 20 was when I made that decision to have a friendship with God and leave my life of never-ending striving to be perfect, striving to feel the “right” way, think the “right” way, dress the “right” way, listen to the “right” kind of music, etc.  I really had thought I was something – boy, look how much better I was than other people! It was a very new experience to be freed from that bullshit and live out of relationship rather than out of obligation and fear.

But drama was going on in my family and I was severely depressed.  I moved out of my home to escape the abusive environment; this led me to become so depressed that I didn’t want to live anymore.  My mom was livid that I had stopped believing what she believed – that I now was not taking seriously the ever important rules that she followed.  It wasn’t that she was heartless, but that she genuinely felt I would go to hell if I didn’t wear green socks every Tuesday. 

Lol – that example is a little extreme, but hopefully you get the idea.  I no longer believed a woman had to live with her parents until she got married; i no longer believed a woman had to get married as quickly as possible and start having lots of babies; i no longer believed that birth control was from the devil; i no longer believed that the type of music I listened to or the length of my skirts determined my eternal destiny.  And she was livid! 

When I moved out, she forbade me to visit the family because she felt that I was a bad example for my younger siblings.  She said I had become worldy and that she and her church were praying for me to repent and turn back to God.  That was an incredible amount of pain to carry around with me – being accused and also being separated from my siblings.  I had always considered myself their protector – although I never mentioned this to my mom- because I knew they were hurt by her and I wanted to provide them with a sense of safety and comfort.

All that said – I attempted suicide on Feb 14, 2007.  I felt completely, desperately alone and rejected – not by God, but by my family, which was the biggest thing in my life.  I knew my family much better than I knew God, and my little sisters were so precious to me and now I wasn’t even able to be in contact with them.  I wasn’t in touch with my dad, who had always been my protector when I was bullied by my mom, and there just was no hope.  My brothers (1 year and 3 years younger) had already moved out long before me and were struggling financially and my mom was so mean to them.  There was just no hope; everyone I loved was suffering and I was powerless to change it.  And I myself had been disowned.  So what was left for me?

PART THREE- Merry Christmas – not!!

I kinda recovered from that to a certain extent, was trying really hard to be positive and keep living.  The realization that I had come so close to death scared me and I didn’t want to take my life into my own hands again, so I kept living day after day.  I talked to my pastor and my mentor a lot, read the Bible a lot, tried to understand better who God was and tried to believe that he was taking care of me.  I had so many loving friends who encouraged me to trust God and they prayed with me often.

But then my brother announced to me one day that our mom was getting married and moving out of state!!  I hadn’t even seen or spoken with my mom or my youngest siblings in months, and that hurt me bad enough!  Now they were all leaving permanently! I found this out during the fall semester of 2007. 

In December I received a $100 Wal-Mart gift card from my mom.  I was so angry and hurt that she was keeping me away from the family, but this gift showed that she still must care to a certain degree about us.  I spent that gift card on Christmas gifts for them, even though I was not allowed to spend Christmas with them – and neither was one of my brothers.  So I spent Christmas eve at my brothers’ house hoping to feel less empty inside if I could at least be two of my family members. 

On Christmas morning, my brother who was allowed to visit the family went over there and he took with him the presents I had bought and wrapped.  I had included a gift for my mom as well, although she only got one gift (whereas my siblings had all gotten two) and her gift only cost $5.  I thought perhaps she would be enraged by my sending gifts b/c she had told me not to contact the kids – not even letters.  So I threw the gift in for her so she would hopefully sway her opinion of me.

The gesture did soften her up.  She called me!  She sounded very timid and awkward, kind of afraid, but she said thank you for the gifts and she asked if I wanted to talk to the kids.  I got to talk to each one individually on the phone.  Hearing their cute little voices, chattering and chattering away about all the presents they had gotten.  I felt bad that I wasn’t talking much myself.  I didn’t want my voice to give away that I was weeping at the sound of their voices.

The next month, she invited me over to say goodbye.  My fist time seeing them in months – and I was seeing them to say goodbye.  My mom was getting remarried and they were all flying to Alaska for the wedding and to live their new lives there.  After the visit, as I was walking back to my car, my littlest sister Allie ran out to say goodbye again and to hug me.  It was a great, big “squeeze hug” as we call them in my family – but a few minutes went by and she still hadn’t let go of me.  I looked down at her, and their were tears streaming down her face.  And I felt so helpless, so grieved, and so overwhelmed with heartache in that moment.

-to be continued- (it has a happy ending, i promise!)

“I remember” … very dearly,  it was a few years back, a little school going boy heard about distant lands, better places to live than he was in right now. He was fascinated with the facts people poured over him, a dream popped out, he wanted to be in those places.

“I cherished” … for the boy that he gets to his target because as his inner self will not be satisfied until he does it … The boy was unguided on his tour of this big vast world. He had friends, but were they really what they were to him ? He never cared … they were on the same quest as his own. but, unlike the boy they were guided for their tough and competitive ascent of life.

The boy only had a perception of getting good grades in school and score in few more exams and he will be through to the next level … he was utterly wrong. A big part of his ignorance came out of his own careless attitude … and why not, he was the only child of his parents … not a very wealthy family but, a well putting family as far their needs demanded. This little boy wasn’t a spoiled one … he knew his parents, specially the mother is working hard for him … he just lacked the motivation to make his dream come true.

“I missed” … couldn’t help him getting past the early obstacles. Very soon the boy faced his last of the schooling examinations .. he passed the tests but not with very flying colours as he used to … again his lack of motivation to pursue the right trail leading towards his dream of life failed him one chance to get to where he needed to be. A little confidence went down, a feeling of guilt creeped in … but the chance was gone. The next big thing was to graduate … this little boy had a very peculiar habit, he never aimed for the 2-tier targets, his choice was always the elite things in his arsenal.

The boy tried his best to get into the best graduating institutes in his land … it required a two step exam clearance … he always made through the first stage but couldn’t get past the second hurdle. Two times he tried, two years he lost … he was fully backed by his mother against people who said he was wasting time. money and his career. His mother trusted in him … the boy was doing his part but still lacked that fire instinct to pursue the target … In the meanwhile his parents got separated, not legally but, they started living apart … the boy stayed with his mother. She was the only one who cared for his decisions, his likes/dislikes, dreams and who he was and how he was.

He got admission … went away to study … his mother was left behind alone … A time came something very visceral happened(very personal in boys memory) … that moment changed him, he was shocked to his inner cores of the conscience. The boy decided to change, to get over his weaknesses, to pursue his dream actively, to prioritize his steps to get to his dream and nothing else mattered. Still he was unguided … but this time he believed in helping himself rather than seeking help from someone.

Finally, the boy graduated. He wasn’t congratulating himself very much because he knew the time he had lost in past he has to make up for that time and also he has to fulfill the duties his position now demanded. it was a double trouble for him but he had grown optimistic over the period of time and believed he will do it one day, though he always knew in his brain that every big effort needs its part of sacrifice and he will have to make those sacrifices in order to be what he always wanted from himself.

“I am trying” … to help the little boy standing up to his ambition. The boy graduated. had to wait for few months … got employment … a respectable one in his stratum of  studies … All people who criticized his mother for backing him always for all his decisions had no options but to be silent … The boy is now again planning and executing steps to get to the next level and he will do it no matter what it takes … that dream is still very much alive in him. He now keeps a low profile, doesn’t do the time wasting things he once used to do, no partying, no meaningless celebrations becuase a time will come when he will celebrate and will do to the fullest.

I am certain he will make it one day … in essence … he has boarded a better, faster and equipped boat to “explore the nautical miles” left to be covered. And all of this achievements he has grabbed on his own … no body guided him … circumstances made him self guided.

Lets hope for the best in the end.

A technology originally developed for premature babies may be helping to save some of the sickest swine flu patients by rerouting their blood so their lungs can rest.

It’s a risky approach using equipment that only certain specialized hospitals have. But faced with children and young adults struggling to breathe despite ventilators has intensive-care doctors dusting off these machines, named ECMO, that they often consider last-ditch and almost never use for influenza.

“It was pretty scary knowing that was his blood flowing through those tubes in and out of his body,” says Susie Damm of Omaha, Neb., whose 19-year-old son Ryan survived a life-threatening bout after 10 days on ECMO.

“I was one of the people sick and tired of hearing about the swine flu, thinking people were making a big deal of it,” she adds. “Now I’ve had a different look, and I’m very, very thankful” he survived.

No one knows which patients are most likely to benefit — not everyone does. But ECMO is gaining attention after Australian researchers reported that the machines helped during that country’s outbreak of what scientists call the 2009 H1N1 flu strain. A voluntary U.S.-based registry counts 107 critically ill swine flu patients recently treated with ECMO, most from this country.

In Omaha, Dr. Jeff DeMare credits the technique with saving Ryan Damm and 7-year-old Tania Romero-Oropeza after both patients’ lungs went from clogged to nearly useless in a stunning matter of hours. Tania’s care was complicated by a drug-resistant staph infection.

“You wonder, ‘OK, we’ve got a lot of folks who get this disease and why is it so bad in some cases?’ We don’t have a real good handle on that,” says DeMare, a critical care specialist at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center.

Whatever the reason, “your body needs time to fight the infection,” he adds, and he gambled that the pricey equipment could buy that time.

Estimates from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that swine flu has hospitalized 98,000 Americans in the past six months, and killed nearly 4,000. For most, standard treatment works.

But the sickest often need ventilators to pump their lungs, and ventilators damage lung tissue, especially as they’re turned up to higher pressures as patients worsen.

Hospitals are “exhausting all measures” on those patients, says Dr. Pauline Park, a University of Michigan ICU co-director who’s helping to analyze the ECMO registry in hopes of determining best candidates. “Physicians don’t want to give false hope to families, but also don’t want to stand by if a life can be saved.”

Enter ECMO, decades-old technology that essentially offers a temporary lung bypass. Tubes carry blood out of the body so a filter can remove carbon dioxide and reinfuse oxygen, and then dump the blood back.

It’s a twist on the heart-lung machine used for open-heart surgery, modified so that patients can stay on the machine for weeks instead of just hours and, key here, so that blood doesn’t have to bypass the heart if only the lungs need a rest.

There are many cautions. It’s risky, requiring blood thinners to avoid clots and posing the potential for additional infection. It can double the cost of ICU care. Only about 120 hospitals in the U.S. offer it, most just a few times a year for newborns with respiratory failure, its primary use.

ECMO in adults is hugely controversial because past research couldn’t prove that it significantly increased survival.

Ryan Damm, 19, a swine flu patient whose life was saved by using a lung-bypass technology called ECMO, sees his physician, Dr. Jeff DeMare at Children’s Hospital of Omaha in Omaha, Neb

Here’s what’s new:

_Australian researchers reported last month that they used ECMO in 68 critically ill swine flu patients who failed standard care, and about 71 percent survived. That research predicted some 800 people might be ECMO candidates if the U.S. experienced similar rates of swine flu.

_Coincidentally, a British study also published last month found that nearly two-thirds of adults randomly assigned to ECMO survived other types of respiratory failure — before swine flu hit — while just 47 percent survived with regular ICU care. It’s the most rigorous study of ECMO performed in adults and one that has lung specialists debating wider use.

_Preliminary data from the Michigan-run ECMO registry suggests survival can reach 72 percent if recipients get it within six days of using a ventilator. With longer ventilator use, the survival rate plummets.

Back in Omaha, DeMare agrees ECMO shouldn’t be last-ditch, noting his own patients were on ventilators for just hours before getting it. Still, Tania had a monthlong hospital stay, including her eight days on ECMO.

“Thank God the doctor took that decision to use this machine,” said Tania’s mother, Antonieta Oropeza, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about my life. Senior. I still can’t believe that in a couple of months I’ll be 18. That in a week or so college applications will be due. I’ve never been so lost in life… or felt so empty as I do now. It scares me. I haven’t even applied to any colleges.

All my life I was decided on a career, of going to college and majoring in something that I knew I wouldn’t love. I laugh at the thought. I took classes that I know I wouldn’t love so much. Took AP classes I didn’t want to work hard for. I tried so hard to please everyone that I’d forgotten about myself.

Who am I? What do I want? What makes me happy? What makes me tick? What do I love to do? Why do I do it? Where do I want my life to lead to? There are so many questions I’ve never even thought of until now. But thinking about them doesn’t suit me at all. I think at some point of all this thinking, I just gave up. I gave up trying to please everyone but I might have just given up finding who I am earlier.

Then I start to think about why I draw, why I immerse myself so much in mangas, or why I love to be alone. Do I even really love those things? Have I always been this confused? I smile. This feeling is somewhat calming yet very stressful. Thinking about this means I’m finally stepping off course but there’s still a part of me who worries. A part of me that tells me to fulfill my parent’s wishes.

Do I even love to draw? No… actually, it’s tiring. Sometimes it’s even boring. I did it to escape. It was my way of disappearing from reality and living in a world controlled by me. I didn’t love it. I needed it. It’s one of those things where one asks, do you need me because you love me or do you love me because you need me. I’d pick the second. It almost feels like an obligation at some point though it was satisfying to hear my sister surrender to my talent… skill. The truth is, I force out what I draw. There’s no feeling in it, purely shallow.

All the things I do are ways for me to escape my life. There’s nothing wrong with that, I know. It’s a normal thing to want but I hate normal. I hate being a typical teenager. To me, it’s pointless… not something I want to experience. I’ve always acted older than who I am… and sometimes I wish that I’d never gotten the courage to tell my guy best friend that I like him so that it wouldn’t lead to my realization about someone else and then leading to what my life is now. I want to go back to junior year and do every thing differently. I don’t want a life surrounded by drama… by typical teenager events. Crushes are useless to me but I have them and I hate it. I hate feeling crappy because I’ve hurt someone. I hate feeling crappy because someone misunderstood me. I hate feeling like I’ve got to worry about school, social life and personal life all together. I hate feeling like I need to live up to everyone’s expectations.

Sometimes I just want someone to tell me that I’m okay the way I am. That it’s alright to be just me. That it’s okay to cry and complain. I want that one shoulder that I can borrow and just surrender to. I want someone to hold my hand and lead me to my path. I just want to hear from someone, other than myself, that every thing is fine the way they are.

but it’s one of those things that are impossible. To hear someone speak to me… haha it reminds me of Kyo from Fruits Basket (A manga by Natsuki Takaya) but not everyone knows what I’m talking about so it’d be really impossible to actually carry out what I want.

I am not a super hero. I am not a journalist. I am not an idiot, nor someone of high intelligence. I am just another simple american teenage girl. Caught in the hell that is the monster of an economic slump in America. My name is Erin Clark, I am fourteen, and I am homeless. Your search for me will be futile, simply because Erin Clark is such a common name. I’ve been homeless for little over two months now. I can’t say it’s been an easy road. I mean, I’m sure there have been times when many teens have said “I hate my life!” Or “A text message ruined my life.” Well my life as I knew it ended with a text message. I was attending my high school, as I regularly do, and  as I waiting, laughing and such I received a text message from my mom saying “We’re kicked out, find a place to stay.” At that point I did not realize the severity of the situation.

Now, this did not come as a complete surprise to me, seeing as my mother and grand father had been having a long time battle over who should live in the house. Though it was his house, to my defense he had given us right to live in it, and no notice of his sudden need to live in it again. Especially since his wife was receive top care at what I thought was the best care facility in state. But this was not good enough for him, he had to degrade us with awful names, kick us out into the street, and use any method possible to make out life a living hell. Bad went to worst when my mom put us up in a shelter. Sure, it was better than sleeping in out car, which we never had to deal with seeing as we always had a friend extending a short-term hand to help us for a night or two, but it was still pretty terrible. The first night was the worst, I wasn’t exactly used to those kind of people. Even though ‘kind’ isn’t the right thing to say. I am one of those ‘kind’ of people. I don’t really know how I feel about being homeless. Sometimes I cry…sometimes I don’t mind it. It’s just rough now that we’re in a different shelter, hundreds of miles away from all my closest friends.

I guess what’s been the roughest is no one really knows what I’m going through. And they won’t until, and hopefully they wont have to have, being homeless as a memory of theirs. I wouldn’t wish that upon any of my friends though. No one really deserves this unique kind of torture. Everyday I pray Mommy gets a job, and we can afford an apartment, even if we have no furniture to put up in it. Seeing as my ‘Grandfather’ threw out every last one of our belongings. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty heartless. He threw out all my mother photos, furniture, plates, TVs, personal records, clothes. All of mine…and he tried to pay the movers to burn it all to. As if he was burning us as well.

Then we moved. Actually we moved after we tried to salvage some of our clothes, and items. How he’d originally gotten us out, was he had put a restraining order against my mom, and she called him, not knowing this was breaking the rules, asking him what it was for. He said ‘Elder abuse.’ but, how do you abuse someone a hundred miles away? Sounds pretty fishy to me. Well, not to the judge who didn’t realize that he wasn’t just signing another piece of paper, but signing away rights to make our life as horrible as possible. You’d think people would make sure all restraining orders we’re legit, right? But I guess not. Maybe judges don’t care who they’re giving this or that too. I know I no longer feel safe.

Well, after that trick we were on the streets, because my mom couldn’t attend the eviction hearing, the next day. So we couldn’t even retrieve our things. Not long after he tried get me taken away from my mom by saying she was unfit, and having my aunt try and groom me into living with her. When that fell through he told the police he found meth in and amongst my mothers things. This was completely the last straw, because he’d THROWN ALL HER SHIT OUT. So…we left. Told no one and were gone in a matter of days.

Wasn’t hard seeing as all of our worldly possessions fit in the back of our car. But then again, it wasn’t easy seeing as I was leaving behind the only people who ever loved me.

Dear George,

Yes, I know he calls you the Alien, but it feels alien to call you that. It’s easier to talk to a name than to just a thing. So I’ve given you a name. George. As a memory to the pills he now has to take to get rid of you. And the side effect the Dostinex has on almost everybody who takes it. Luckily is doesn’t make him nauseous, it just disorientates him and makes him extremely tired. I say whatever gets rid of you, you bastard. Whatever it takes.

It’s disconcerting to see the Steadfast One unbalanced. It’s heartbreaking to see the Loved One stressing about costs and disabilities. My love will always be there to catch and carry him when his own power can’t carry him on, but it’s still unsettling.

If it wasn’t for trying to figure out why we haven’t conceived yet (after almost 3 years of trying), we never would have discovered you. And eventually he would have lost the sight in his right eye because you just kept on growing and were pinching the optical nerve of his right eye. But you know that, don’t you? It’s not like you care, not at all.

The doctor says you’ve been there for 5 – 8 years, silently growing in your little cosy nest on the pituitary gland, in between the 2 halves of his brain. And we didn’t know. If it wasn’t for his smart urologist, we never would have known until it was too late. I think that’s almost the scariest fact of this whole thing – it’s not like a boil or an infection that shows symptoms. You’ve grown silently, stealthily. All the while exerting pressure on his pituitary gland – so much so that it stopped functioning. You shut down his testosterone production completely; they couldn’t even find traces of it in his blood. You reduced his FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) so that he didn’t produce any sperm.

I felt silly after receiving the sperm analysis results when I think of the pregnancy tests I’ve bought – being late some months, I was hoping for good news. And silently very sad when it showed negative and I started menstruating again. And I didn’t want to show the sad to him, he was already depressed enough. Tears because of the false alarms would have pushed him into a darker pit, fighting a bigger black dog.

George, you bastard. I’ve started to give up hope (very silently) that I’ll ever see him with our baby in his arms, that I’ll ever see the pride and love on his face when he’ll look at our baby. The hope that we’ll be completed with a small token of our love to care for and love for ever.

But we’ve got you now, you bugger. Whatever’s left of you after the pills will be removed next year. And hopefully as you shrink and the pressure on his gland is relieved, his hormones and other important levels will return to before-George-state and he will be better. And he will stop worrying (yes, I know there will always be worries and yearly/biyearly checkups). And that the easy smile will return to his face and his heart.

I can’t wait for a life without you, George. Good riddance.

The Wife

The Alien in PJ's head (and I'm not talking about his brain . . . )

We like the Dr’s directness and the fact that he doesn’t sugarcoat issues, contributes a lot to this. He sat us down and asked PJ some questions. He did a manual eye test and looked at the MRI results. Made him stand on one leg and pinpricked his face. Then he told us:

The prolactinoma’s are picked up earlier in women than in men – it causes milk in women (without being pregnant) and thus the growths are normally smaller. Because it’s not picked up early in men, the growths are larger. PJ’s growth is huge! Another year or 2 and he might have lost his eyesight in his right eye due to the tumor pinching the right optical nerve. It’s growing towards his sinuses as well because there is no more space where it’s currently situated. Because it’s so big, they will probably have to take it out surgically in the new year – tumors of this size normally does not disappear and will probably reoccur later. There has been previous bleeding on/from the tumor which shows as cysts on the MRI. They will operate through his nose (fixing it at the same time) and give the tumor a shot of radiation to try and minimize the reoccurence.

He needs to take 2 pills 2x a week, with weekly blood tests to observe the prolactin levels which should indicate whether the growth is shrinking or not. The pills costs R2700.00 for 24. The Dr. and internet researched warned on nausea from the pills which can be quite bad. He took his first dose Saturday morning after breakfast (on weekend break-away at Die Oog). No nausea, just a severe case of dizziness and disorientation. He took an afternoon nap (which he seldom does) and clutched out again just after 9 pm Saturday night.

So far so good. Next dose Tuesday night after gym and 1st blood tests on Thursday. His prolactin levels should start dropping after about 3 weeks and as the tumor shrinks, his hormones should get back to normal (returning libido, testosterone manufacturing, weight loss increase, FSH production increase, sperm production).

Here’s to holding thumbs and hoping and praying for the best.

Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes.

Krista

This week I am mad for photos. I am collecting photographer crushes left and right. In particular, Tina Tyrell and James Merrell. It’s inspiring me to see about taking some photography classes. Unfortch, I don’t have the funds for classes at the moment, but I do have the opportunity to practice and research and drool over folks that get to take photos for a living. So, that’s what I’ll do for now.

By Tina Tyrell. Click the image to visit her site.

By James Merrell via Desiretoinspire.net. Click the image to visit James' site.

If you’re feeling frisky, check out some photos I took this week for my 2nd job and share your thoughts. Practice makes better. I’ll keep at it.

Wednesday night(11/11/09), Jay-Z and a female , who wasn’t Beyonce entered,  The Little Door Restaurant in L.A. while hiding their faces. The two were scheduled for dinner. Were they hiding their faces from the Paps or Beyonce.

So we look at a lot of books. I mean, that’s what we do: love books and look at them. Okay, so then we do something else with them. We make them available to you!

What I look like when I think about books

Here’s another book that we’ve found that had a receipt from a 1966 New York restaurant.

I can’t figure out how to get the other picture on here. That’s great.

Here’s what a block quote looks like. Wow. It’s an official block quote, so I guess I’d better keep writing so that I can actually see it as a block. Okay, there.

Here’s what a bullet list looks like:

• one
• two
• three
• books

So, as you can see, this blog entry can look pretty nice. If I wanted to link to a web page, I could do this.

Do you want another picture? I’ll try again.

This morning I settled into my office chair, in front of my computer, and turned on a Jo Dunning recording while I gave myself a long-overdue manicure. Her soothing voice came on, lulling my senses as I filed my nails. Part of my mind listened to her talk about how the energy works even without conscious attention. I’ve started wondering lately if the energy really is working. Am I seeing any difference – in my physical body, in my abundance?

I started tuning into Jo’s monthly teleconference calls in July and began the Abundance Project somewhere around that time. This year has been a trying one where finances are concerned. Trying to find work, trying to make more money, trying not to be frustrated or discouraged. [Interesting word, “trying”] Amid all that trying, things began to happen. I didn’t win the lottery, but that’s difficult to do if you don’t buy lottery tickets. I didn’t get a mysterious check in the mail (fill in the appropriate amount). Oprah didn’t call me to be on her show. What did happen was something that I wrote about in a previous blog. I took the Passion Test and discovered my passions. Was that a result of the Abundance Project? Maybe. Maybe not. But out of discovering my passions has come a renewed excitement about art and graphic design. I’m learning all sorts of skills on Photoshop and Illustrator – mere child’s play for the experts but still magical and awe-inspiring for me. I’m having fun. I’m allowing my creativity to dictate where I turn, what I learn next. Forget the basics. Those will come later. Right now I’m warping dollar bills to blow in the wind and filling text with patterns and polka dots. Why? Because I can. Because it’s fun. Because it gives me great joy. And isn’t that the reason for abundance?

I’ve been going through a lot of crap and a lot of some other unforeseen and unwanted happenings. I didn’t think that it’d be this difficult. It was just a crush. I’ve had many of those before and yet he plagues my mind 24/7.

There’s been a rift between us and it’s called “rheanne” (mind you that I don’t use real names, I have done the same thing before). It’s my stupid reflex to shy away from him, to make me look like the bad guy but it’s becoming more of the “I hate you for rejecting me so I’m going to ignore you”. I hate to be misunderstood yet it happens so often that I’m almost used to it. It’s become complicated to calculate my move every minute and every second. It feels like he’s watching me and I get nervous.

I’m so damn confused about myself now a days that I don’t even care anymore. He can watch me if he wants. He can make me feel like the stupidest person in the world. He can me feel insecure, make me hate myself. I would want that. I want him to make me feel miserable so that I can blame him. So that I can blame someone for my miseries. I want to hate him so badly. I want a reason to never talk to him again. but he’s just not that kind of person. He’s nice. He’s so nice that I failed to see that it wasn’t just me he was nice to.

It’s a quality I both hate and love. It’s difficult to explain yet easy to understand. I hate knowing I’m no special to him. I hate thinking that I’m no different from the next girl he sees or from the other girls he know. But it’s to be expected. I’ve only known him for a limited time where as others have known him longer. Once before Lilly had told me that we haven’t known each other long enough yet she claims to be my best friend and I to her. We’ve known each other since 6th grade. To her that’s not long, so just imagine knowing about the guy only a year ago but meeting him in 10th grade. Makes me feel stupid >.< well my thoughts are incomplete so this blog will be too.