Died and Went to Hell part 1.

After suffering for several days in excruciating agony with pain in my neck, shoulder, arm and hand and trying every therapy under the sun to get relief, I reached the point of complete desperation and made the decision to go to the hospital. Anyone who has been through an emergency dept. knows this is not something anyone does unless they absolutely have to. Upon arrival I explained to the triage nurse that I was in extreme pain, that I had fainted from the pain and was desperate for relief. She directed me to sit in the waiting area with all of the other 40 waiting patients. I immediately began to cry because I knew I wasn't going to be able to tolerate the three hour wait that was ahead of me sitting in a chair! I had been lying on my hardwood floor at home and even this provided no relief. Of course as soon as I sat down an older woman sat beside me and began to tell me her problems and then started to cry. Fuck, even when I am crying and in total pain people seek me out to tell their problems. My sister said that the woman had made a bee line for me. Thanks to my sister's advocacy I was able to continue to wait on a stretcher in the hall. I spent another hour there crying and writhing in pain. I now know what writhing in pain is. Finally my sister got the triage nurse who could see I was in a very bad way and decided to send me back to the be assessed. But as she wheeled me there she had to say that she had bumped me in front of ten other people. I don't know what her purpose was in telling me this, was she trying to make me feel grateful or guilty? It was her poor assessment at triage that placed me in the wrong area in the first place. I was in too much pain so I let it go. I arrived in the assessment area and explained my pain to the nurse who told me all they could do was give me a injection. Yes, yes please an injection I said. In came a doctor who evaluated me and said it's a pinched nerve we will give you an injection and then you will be okay. Thank God above I said. I took the two very pain injections of Demerol gladly because they were going to fix me. The nurse then took me back into the what the minor assessment area. Two nurses then had an argument over whether or not I should rest on a bed or a chair while awaiting re evaluation. My nurse won and I was told to lay on a stretcher in a room that opened onto the nurses station. I was just left there as the Demerol kicked in, on my back unable to move but still in massive pain. I was almost delirious and found myself saying please work, please work, please work, over and over again while I cried moaned and sobbed. After an hour another nurse came in and said, "does crying make you feel better?" I replied that yes it does actually because I am in severe pain. She returned with an ativan and said the doctor would come to reasses me. I lay there freezing, flat on this stretcher sobbing, but high on the drugs, catching words of the conversations of the nurses and adding them into my own thoughts. The nurses were talking about shopping and I said out loud in my sobbing voice, "shopping and shoes, but it hurts, hurts, size eight, yeah me too, make it stop, make it stop.". If it didn't hurt so much it would have been really funny. Finally the doctor comes back and says to me , "sorry I have to ask you this, but are you an I.V. drug user?". No I tell him it's that the drugs you are giving me aren't working. He then ordered another shot of Demerol which is followed by a morphine tablet. Now I am really incapacitated and still in pain. In my drugged and pained state I think that maybe I have died and didn't realize it and I am now in hell. Maybe this is what hell is, to be in horrible unrelenting pain, unable to to anything about it, alone and disdained by those supposed to help you. Yes, maybe I was dead and in hell. I continue to sob until I pass out. I am awaken by a Neurologist who does an evaluation tells me it is a nerve root problem stemming from my neck and gives me a new medication, tells me I need to be admitted to the hospital for pain management and an MRI. When then new medication starts to work I want to kiss this doctor but I am too drugged up. I endure five of the most painful x-rays ever, sobbing the whole time, having to hold my head and shoulders in excuriating postions. Finally I get to the ward and pass out.

Pain

There are so many different types of pain. Each with their own particular sting. Each unrelenting. Each unique. Yet all having in common the desire for their end and a return to the pre-pain state. Are we at pain's mercy? Does it dictate to us or do we have any control? Surely no one wants to feel pain (mashocists and self harmers excluded). I 've heard people say that pain makes them feel alive. Aren't there other ways to feel alive? If you enjoy it, then it really isn't pain is it? Can we control whether or not we feel pain? I don't think so, not unless you are a completely disconnected person. Maybe we can control the way we relate to the pain or the way we do pain. Why is it considered brave and desirable to have a high tolerance for pain? This implies that suffering is noble. Is this true? Should people feel badly or think less of themselves because they are pained by the loss of a relationship? What about physical pain? After suffering for three days which an excruciating pain in my right shoulder, I went to my doctor yesterday. As soon as I told her what was wrong with me, I started to cry. I cried the whole duration of the appointment. Maybe it was the combination of drugs, pms and unrelenting pain, but I just couldn't stop. I apologized to her for crying! Later I realized how stupid that was. Mind you it was effective if my goal had been to acquire major painkillers. I actually felt ashamed because I was upset by my pain and my inability to hide it. How fucked up is that? This morning I was feeling badly for wanting a painkiller and trying to be strong, but the pain in my shoulder was so bad that my brain couldn't stand it and I fainted. I spent twenty minutes on the bathroom floor in child's pose. This denial of pain is getting ridiculous. Perhaps back in prehistoric times to show pain made you vulnerable to prey. Isn't the opposite true now, to deny pain makes you vulnerable and not in reality.

Ten things: Childhood

I was tagged by Jacy to write ten things about me. She suggested I tell the marble or the tongue story, which gave me the idea to do ten things about me: childhood.

1. My mother claims to have found out she was pregnant with me in February, but I wasn't born until December, just before Christmas. Yeah almost 11 months! Which, by the way, is the same gestational period for whales. Coincidence? I think not.

2. My first friend, when I was four, was the boy across the street, Bradley. He used to call on me every day. Often getting me out of bed in the morning. We did everything together. Sadly we moved away and our friendship ended. I remembered him so fondly that I named my cat after him. Unfortunately, it seems that this may have been my best relationship with a male.

3. My favourite pants when I was five were pink paisley bell bottoms. My mother and I had huge fights about what I was going to wear until I was eight when she finally gave up and let me wear what I wanted. Believe it was for the better. She tried to stick me in some God awful hand me downs. I recall a hideous blue kilt dress thing that I had to wear with pre-lycra itchy bulky leotards that ended up at your knees by the time you got to school. My first running shoes were North Stars. I still remember my Dr. School sandals and my first pair of clogs. It was my father who got me my prized blue Adidas tracksuit. Fashion was important to me even as a little kid.

4. I was kicked out of kindergarten on my first day in the class. I came after the school year had started because I had moved into the area. I arrived in class right at snack time. All of the children were seated in a big circle. In the centre there was a tray with one mangled, picked at and rejected by everyone, orange slice. The teacher told me that I was to eat that last wedge of mashed up orange. With all of the children's eyes on me I told her that no, there was no way that I was going to eat that orange. She took this as an attack on her authority and insisted that, oh yes,
I was going to eat it. But I have always drawn the line at food. No one, no one, is ever going to make me eat something I don't want to. I lost it, screaming and yelling that I wasn't going to eat that orange. I don't exactly know what happened but at one point I was upside down and then out in the hall. My mother had to come and get me.

5. Continuing with the food theme: I quit eating meat when I was eight. In one of my father's finer parenting moments, he decided that we should take a trip to his aunt's farm and that I needed to watch the butchering of some pigs. He was trained as a butcher and grew up on farms and didn't think that there was anything wrong with this. Upon return from the Stratford Massacre, I refused to eat my meat, thus beginning a year long war with my father. I can't tell you how many hours I logged at the dinner table with my meat while my sisters laughed in the other room to Happy Days. I also endured many a spanking over this. (which just proves that spanking doesn't work). The man had hands like baseball mitts! I developed all sorts of tricks to get rid of my meat: put it in my pockets and flush it down the toilet, stick it in nearby houseplants and if possible, feed it to the cat. Tricky, because it was easy to get caught doing that one. Finally he gave up. I spent the next several years eating cottage cheese instead. I have only started eating meat again in the past few years.

6. The first records I bought were 45s. Tell Me Something Good, by Rufus and The Bitch is Back by Elton John. I have always loved music and sang fluently in German until I started school. I can still do a great version of Muss Ich Denn.

7. I begged my mother for two years to get my ears pierced. She said I had to wait until I was twelve. On my twelfth birthday my friend and I went downtown on the streetcar and I got my ears pierced at Ostranders Jewellers. They used metal studs and a gun. It hurt like hell but was so worth it. That was the beginning of my love affair with earrings. I feel naked if I don't have any on. Later that evening we went to the movies: Tommy. I was really freaked out by Tina Turner as the Acid Queen.

8.I used to watch Mr. Dressup faithfully. It was my secret hope that one day Finnegan would talk and I had to be watching when it happened. Poor Finnegan, he had to endure that suck up Casey and couldn't talk!

9. My favourite story was The Little Red Hen. It really bugged me that all those farm animals refused to help in the baking of the bread, but all wanted to eat it once it was baked. My first word came from that book: pig. Funny, given the meat thing later. My sister said I was obsessed with justice as a child. Couldn't stand it when I thought things weren't just. I think it started with that book.

10. It is really hard to choose between the tongue and the marble, so I will do them both. Age four, under a dare from my sister, I shoved a marble up my nose. It got stuck and I couldn't get it out. My mother freaked when she saw it. It took me three hours of pushing in downward from the outside before it came out. I think that it contributed to me badly deviated septum. Same year at the park got a monkey bar under my chin and when I went to yell for my parents who were leaving to wait for me, i bit down on my tongue, almost severing it off. It was on by a centimeter. I remember all of the blood on my father's shirt as he took me to the hospital. Once there I was strapped to a stretcher and given blood. The doctor told my mother that they couldn't sew it back on and I would just have to wait and let it grow back together (can't tell you how much it hurt!). I was to eat soft foods only. "Great" I told the doctor, "now I won't have to eat my mother's hamburgers any more.". Always saw the silver lining in every cloud.

Internet dating the never ending story.

Yesterday I checked on the internet dating site and am happy to report that I was contacted by three men. One is ten years older than me, (not beyond reason) and lives in Halifax, the other was over ten years older than me and lives in Calgary and the last one was over twenty, that's right, twenty years older than me and lives in Hamilton! These guys aren't even close to living near where I live, I might as well be dating one of those Russian sailors on that sub that is claiming the North Pole for Russia! And twenty years older, that is almost the same age as my mother! Gross! It just makes me think of Catherine Zeta Jones and that shrivelled up Michael Douglas and I want to gag! I don't I see myself like her. But him, he insisted on using his own body in his nude scenes in Basic Instinct and I have to say that I am still traumatized by the memory of his saggy, wrinkled ass, thirty feet big on the movie screen. See I am superficial. Wait, I forgot, yesterday I did get contacted by a younger guy. He is in South Carolina and wants me to join him on the web cam! Gross for different reasons.

Compliments

So today one of my male co workers who is not gay, but is in a committed relationship, told me that I looked beautiful today. See what some time off and a little Barcelona sun can do? Anyway, I have no interest in any kind of relationship with this guy and I don't think he has one in me either. He sort of said it spontaneously. Wow, was it ever nice to have a man tell me I looked beautiful. I would like to hear it on a regular basis. A few months ago I had my non relationship relationship guy was over, he had on a nice blue shirt. I told him that the colour of the shirt looked good on him. He said yeah you were probably thinking about how it brings out the gray in my hair and I said no, I was thinking about how it brought out his beautiful blue eyes. He absolutely glowed after that. Everyone should be told that they are beautiful. Why is it so hard to tell the people around us, especially those we care about that they are beautiful?

Still superficial

So today I was reviewing some of the guys that contacted me on the internet dating site to see if maybe in my haste or due to the influence of my non relationship relationship, I had perhaps overlooked someone. That's when I saw him. I guess that I had missed him the first time around; there was a guy who in his photo was wearing a kilt standing in the woods. I'm not even going to say what I think about that. But this is not Scotland and not Wuthering Heights. This is my future. This is my future? This can't be my future.

Horrible Songs

A few days ago I was discussing some songs I can't stand with Jacy and I forgot to mention that I absolutely hate, to the point of considering violence that John Mayer song, Your Body Is A Wonderland. I feel bile rise up every time I hear it. I have to admit I can't stand most of his songs. But this one in particular makes me sick. Please make them stop playing it all the time on the radio. One of the spin instructors at my gym used to play for the cool down, it just ruined the whole class. It's like a current version of Lady In Red. Definitely in my top 50 of songs I can't stand.

I am superficial

I am in a non relationship relationship. As if this weren't bad enough I get the feeling that I am about to be dumped. Sure the question is, can you actuallly be dumped when it is not really a relationship? At least not acknowledged as one. Yes you can. This is the new low that I have sunk to. So in response to this pending dumping and given that there really wasn't a relationship officially to begin with, I have decided to try to force myself to date. There is a faint voice in my head that says maybe you will actually find someone that wants you. I haven't completely given up, but really maybe I should. It is really difficult dating. I work in a female dominated profession. The few men that I work with are gay or married. Most of my friends are married or in real relationships and don't want to be out and about trying to find men, if there actaully were any to find. I have joined things I am interested in. Again female dominated and gay men. Who knew it would be this hard. I have even tried internet dating. This is either a brilliant tool for people to connect or it is a gathering spot for pathetic pitiful losers like myself who can't seem to do what most people can do. Not only that, internet dating brings you face to face with your own superficiality. Looking at the photos of these men you start to see how shallow you really are. I try to excuse my superficiality (Is this even a word? Sounds like something Bush would come up with) by blaming the men for lying in their adds. I have actually caught myself saying things like this out loud to the computer screen," there is no way you are forty five, sure you work out five times a week and you have got to be kidding me.". If these adds, as I call them, were true then there should be thousands of single, fit, tall, attractive men strolling along the beach who have just finished cooking gourmet meals after spending a day at a job they love and get paid loads of money for. The sad thing is I am sure they are all thinking the same thing about me when they see my add. It's awful. And I haven't even got to the contact stage. Do you put yourself through this in the rare hope of actually finding someone or do you just give up? Is there really any point to even trying?

Lost Baggage

Is it possible that my lost luggage or as British Airways calls it "Mishandled Baggage" is really a metaphor for my life?

Two days ago I returned from a fantastic trip to London and Barcelona. Which was seemingly capped off with a surprise computer error that sat me in first class on the flight home from Heathrow. Lucky things like that never happen to me. I kept thinking, as I was reclining on my lazyboy like seat complete with personal converter, socks and bottles of wine served in real glasses, that this was some kind of joke and someone was going to humiliate me for mistakenly sitting there. Most of the time on flights my experience is much like what happened to my friend that I was travelling with; a screaming child in back of you that pulls on and kicks your seat for seven hours. Or someone with smelly feet in front and a drooling large guy who keeps falling asleep with his head on your shoulder beside. It was all too good to be true.

Here's where the metaphor begins. In my experience in relationships with men I have never been seated in first class. I have always suffered through economy. Tolerated discomfort and poor treatment because the destination was going to make up for the trip. It has taken me years to figure out that the trip is the destination. Years can go by while you wait and hope in vain to get to that destination. Besides it has been my own fault for not getting to the airport sooner to ensure a better seat and I am definetly not worthy of the extra cost of first class. I have had a fantasy each time I check in at an airport counter that I will be bumped up to first class. Optimism and patience have caused me to tolerate very uncomfortable things much longer than I should. I always think things can get better. But those things mostly only happen in movies.

Of course it was all too good to be true. The great trip and fabulous flight home came crashing down when we learned that our baggage had not made the fabulous flight home with us. But not to worry the British Airway rep told us confidently and assuredly, the baggage will be on the first flight home tomorrow and would be courriered to our doorstep by that evening. We could even check the progress of the baggage on the website. My immediate reaction was of upset and concern. I didn't like begining separated from my baggage, not one bit. There were really important things in there. Like my house keys and my favourite shoes. The rep didn't miss the chance to point out to me how stupid it was to pack my house keys in the suitcase. Of course I knew this already; the same way I know it will rain and refuse to take an umbrella with me when I leave for work in the morning. Some stupid choices defy logic. Same as is true for the relationships. How many times have I known that getting myself involved with certain a man was not a wise thing to do and went ahead and did it anyway. Like that old "Found A Peanut" song I used to sing as a kid. Eventhough it was rotten, I always ate it anyway. So I managed to get into my home without the key and anyway it was all going to be solved by tomorrow I told myself. This just allowed me to avoid the dreaded unpacking a day longer.

So the next day I dutifully checked the website to see the progress of the baggage. Decided it was best not to go anywhere that evening because the baggage was coming. Throughout the day was told that the baggage was being traced via the website. By eight that evening I decided that maybe I should call and see what was happening with the suitcase. After ten minutes of press this and press that I finally got a person on the line who actually laughed when I told her I was expecting the suitcase today. "I don't know why they tell people they will get their baggage the next day. That never happens." She chuckled. She then went on to tell me that if I was really lucky it would take two days, but more likely at least four. At least four! Then she said it could be soaking wet once it arrives as they keep the luggage outside at Heathrow because they don't have space and "you know how much it has been raining in England." "There are some really important things in that suitcase." I told her. "Things I really need. Like my house keys.". "Oh you should know better than to put something like that in your suitcase.". Somehow it is now my fault that my suitcase has been lost and I stupidly forgot my that I had put my house keys in there. I remember thinking they where probably safer in there than being dragged all around Barcelona in my purse. What an idiot I was. How many times have I felt this exact way in my realtionships. My ex, whom I lived with for over five years had the same ability to twist things around to somehow make me responsible for everything. I refuse to think this way anymore. I told the rep. that my friend would also be very upset as she had packed her magnifying mirrors and all of her tweezers in her suitcase and she needed them desperately for some serious plucking. This did not even produce a slight chuckle from the rep.

So I broke the bad news to my friend and then she began to research the whole problem. We discovered through various blogs and websites that there are over 20,000 pieces of luggage at Heathrow that have not made it to their proper destination. Some people waiting weeks and weeks before getting their suitcases. Some having to spend entire vacations without any luggage, some never getting their luggage back at all. My friend then discovered that the situtaion is so bad at Heathrow that they are now shipping by boat the luggage to Milan to be sorted out there.

As the reality of the lost baggage sinks in I am now fondly recalling all of the things in the suitcase that I need. My toiletries, all the chargers to every electronic device I own that needs charging, my favourite Enzo Anglelini shoes, most of my summer clothes, including my good bras. It is really difficult to find good bras that fit properly. All of the great bags and posters I bought at various museums on the trip. I try to be less superfiscial, I try to tell myself they are only things and they can be replaced. That's what people say to you when you lose something. Usually they add something like at least you still have your health or at least nothing happened to you. Here's the metaphor thing again. No one knows how badly a loss can feel until they have their own and even then that loss experience is unique to you. You can never predict how a loss will feel. And even if it was the loss of something you are probably better off without, the loss of the dream of what it could have been or the the loss of the fantasy of what it was, still can really hurt like hell. Escaping the pain of loss becomes your sole focus. You trying in vain to go back to a place before the loss. A place that can never be returned to again. All sounds very dramatic I am sure. I am after all only talking about a suitcase here. But that is the lesson of loss. Perhaps one that never fully gets learned.

So many people have said, that's why I always put everything I need in my carry on bag. Well at Heathrow they changed the rules and only let you carry on one bag. This included your purse. This is part of the reason they can't manage their luggage there they suddenly doubled the volume of bags. The methaphor here is never put anything valuable or anything you need into someone else's control. Here I am mostly talking about your self. Your self worth, your self defintion, your time and energy. You have to carry these things yourself.

Once your baggage is lost, they become angry and almost threatening at British Airways. It says on the website that if you have already reported your baggage as missing then not to call them as calling could result in your bags taking even longer to be returned to you. I imagined someone out there at British Airways in their British accent saying, "it's that bitch Fritzi calling from Canada again about her missing baggage. Just for that she will never see her suitcase again. Say goodbye to your favourite shoes and chargers, you irritating cow." Sounds like they've got the suitcase hostage and I have to await instructions from them if I want it safely returned to me. But at the same time I had to laugh because it reminded me of desperate phone calls I had made trying to salvage a doomed relationship. Each phone call just made the situation worse. Sometimes you just have to let go. Unfortunately the baggage that you want lost never goes anywhere and stuff you want to keep, gets taken away.

I keep picturing my suitcase on some carousel going round and round. With each revoultion the case a little worse for wear. It is like it's me going round and round in circles, lost and unclaimed. Or maybe it is out in some heap of suitcases that have lost their way, growing mildewy from the rain.

See the truth is I want to be claimed. I want someone to track me down and say that this suitcase is important it has lots of valueable things inside of it that can't be replaced. Isn't this just what everyone wants? That is why I have to get that suitcase back.