Sick Day...Kinda

   I feel cruddy today. My boyfriend has the flu (not the evil super flu), and my head has been hurting all day. I think today I just want to relax.

   I used my first official b-day gift today. A free burrito from Qdoba. Hooray! I also put together my bday music list for my party next Friday. I took a great song from each year I've been alive for 25 awesome songs.

   I think I have all the components for my Halloween costume I just need to try it on and add my fake blood. Fake blood makes almost any costume better! Also, each year I want to be something specific, like a particular character, but then I end up making my own costume and I am happier. I get to be creative because I wait until about a week before Halloween when the store's are running low on items and I put together something cool. This year I waited too long for the piece-de-resistance of my costume that would have been fx contacts lenses. They are like $160 and take 10 days to ship. So, I wont have the weird eyes, but hopefully I can still pull this costume off.

   So really today is not so bad except for the crazy headache. At least I'm not at work like this.

   Mom just asked me what I was doing awake already. I asked, "What time do you think it is?" "3:15 in the morning." She was napping for like 2 hours though so she just got confused because we have had zero sunlight today.

Super-Evil Flu you are not welcome in this house!

First Week of School

   Today was my mom’s second day of adult day care. I felt like the mom today when I dropped her off. She asked me, “Are you leaving me here?” I wasn’t really sure what to say so I told her that Dad would be here to get her at five.



   It felt like day care for little kids because we the care-takers drop them off before work and the adults working there gather them into the group to join in on the current activity. They have ceramics, sewing, fitness, quizzes, lunch time, snack time and a hair salon. This…almost sounds like fun if you forget the fact that the residents would rather be at home.


   Adult day cares are a weird place. I don’t know how I feel about this arrangement yet. I need to get the first week over with. Maybe by Saturday I will have a better handle on this.


   If I haven’t said this yet let me just tell you all something. Go home tonight and hug your mother. I don’t care what your situation with her is; if she is alive and has full mental faculties, then you got it good. Put aside the bullshit and appreciate that you can talk to her about anything. I can’t even stress this point enough. Do it!




Sometimes our bodies turn against us with cancer; ain’t that some shit?

Let's Do Some Math

   I find myself looking forward to any type of a day off. Let’s do some math here.


   A week has 168 hours. I work 39 hours at my primary job. I usually work 15 hours at my second job. I normally do about 5 hours of homework each week. So I am doing 59 hours of work each week compared to an average worker doing 40 hours a week. But if we want to calculate free time that would be a whole different story.


   If I add in time before work that I wake up to get ready, travel time, lunch hour and time eating in between jobs that takes my unavailable hours from 59 to 73.5 hours. That leaves 94.5 hours for free time. If I take out time sleeping that really leaves 38.5 hours a week for free time. Don’t forget now on Thursdays I watch my mom. So that is like half free time and half occupied time. So a true free time number would be closer to 33 hours. I would give the average worker at least 59 free hours with their work hours, lunch hours, drive time and after sleep.


   Some of you may not have sympathy for me and my 26 hours less of time. But that is more than a full day less than you that I can sit on my butt, or hang out with my boyfriend, or go shopping. That’s about four and half days each month.


   We can take this even further though. Keep in mind I work for a movie theatre. People like it when you have seen the movies. So of my 33 hours, I try to spend 3-4 each week watching two movies. Not to mention that I love movies so this is a relaxing time for me. I usually find myself needing to stop at a store like Target or Wal-Mart each week for either groceries or something miscellaneous. Before work on Tuesdays each week, I go to the bank and run miscellaneous errands. Thursday nights by 8:30 I can do what I need to do, but lots of places are almost closed. I like to watch two shows on Thursdays, that’s another hour. You can see how thinly stretched my time is. I believe that puts me down to 24 hours to be able to say, “I don’t know what I want to do.”


   This is the reason I can be grumpy and be dying for my days off. I love to see holidays coming up on the calendar. My birthday will be here in 11 days so I am anxious for that. Then it will be Thanksgiving, and before you know it, X-Mas.


   But by the time I use a day of paid time off from work and that day arrives, I find my to-do list full so that maybe by 8:00 I have free time, and I just feel wiped the next day. Wednesday nights and Saturday nights I have found free time lately but my friends want to hang out. And yes I am including that in my free time. But we all know it’s not quite the same. Usually you just end up doing an activity everyone can agree on, but if they weren’t there I think I would be playing Zelda: A Link to the Past.


   But I don’t have any paid time off scheduled right now. I think my next vacation will be around February for my b/f and my 5th anniversary. I also want to go to Mall of America because I’ve never been.


A self-indulgent rant.

Current Events

   Tomorrow we tour an adult day care place. Mom would go there Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays all day. Wednesdays my dad is off so they will hang out at home. And Thursdays will be Gina and Mom hang-out days! It’s better than a nursing home but insurance still doesn’t cover it.


   Let me just reiterate how shitty insurance really is. We pay a chunk out of every paycheck just to earn the right for the insurance company to deny everything right in our face. What the F are we paying for?


   I think all this stress is making me sick. I sneezed all morning at work. I really don’t want that mega-ultra flu that everyone is scared of. I won’t even mention its name for fear of it hearing me, seeking me out and taking residence in my lungs.


   By the way, I believe I caught you all up on the events that led up to this current point. From here on out all blogs will be about current events. Unless I think of something that maybe I repressed.


Jumbled thoughts today.

Well-Wishers

   Mom seems to be doing okay at home. And be okay I mean still needing 24 hour care, so not great, but okay.



   I think people are under the impression this will change and get better. That’s what they tell me, “It will get better Gina.” Uhm….no. No, it won’t. Thanks though. We already know the only thing that may improve is her strength. People don’t want to comprehend that something can go bad and never get good again. But this is one of those times. I guess I can’t be mad at them for being optimistic.


   That’s the other thing people tell me, “You need to have good outlook and pray and wish for the best, because sometimes people can prove those doctors wrong.” So you want me to delude myself and tell myself Mom is fine and she doesn’t have problems? And if I am “positive” that will magically heal her cancer? Oh, that’s all I was missing: false hope. Thanks so much!


   Let me inform you of what exactly it is that she needs. Money and love. Money for therapy, speech, occupational, and physical therapy. Money for chemotherapy. Money for a day care service and money for her drugs. We got the love covered, but we have no money.


   Some of these people who are telling me to be positive gave money to my mom’s fundraiser, so I can’t point a finger at them for not helping, but don’t give me that wishful thinking crap. I don’t agree with that at all. Because when this cancer takes her life, I don’t want to be surprised and say, “But I was positive, so how did this happen?” Get real! Cancer is chowing down on her brain while people tell me to pray about it.


   I think maybe people just don’t want to acknowledge bad things in this world. Or, as a complete opposite, maybe people are too prideful to admit your problems are more massive then theirs. “It’s not so bad Gina, I have real problems.” Right.


Only realistic solutions will help, and the doctors are running low.

Social Hour

   I went to two parties this weekend. It was nice to feel like I had a social life again. And they were perfect; the kind of party with no drama. Today is Sunday. I’m starting to really dislike Sundays because I work a double every week. There is no change to my schedule. Wake up, be to work by 9, get out at 4, go home, eat dinner, go to work by 5:30, work until 11, and go home and go to bed. Period, the end, every week.


  I’m not complaining about the working 9-4 part, that would be a great shift and then go home and be with my boyfriend for the rest of the night, but no I gotta work two jobs. And I gotta work two jobs because I have credit card debt. Not as much as I had before, but it feels like it’s been forever since I stopped using them and the debt is still there in abundance.


   And so every time a Sunday comes around, I berate myself in the morning for racking up that debt and putting myself into this position. I have no one else that I can legitimately place the blame on.
I feel disconnected from my friends. But I feel things need to be that way right now, because if I over commit myself to them, then I will have to let them down to be with my mom.


   I also feel like I have no me time. Whenever I have down time, I worry about homework or some other chore that needs done. I want, for about 6 hours, to sit at home, and do NOTHING. Just absolutely nothing of consequence.


I just want to play SNES games and pretend life is peachy.

A Day Off

   My mom came home Monday night from the hospital. She was there for 32 days with a staph infection. She has to have 24 hour care.
   So, today is Thursday, my day off. My Dad went to work and I am staying with the old lady. I decided to cook to pass the time. I made traditional Italian Wedding Soup and later I am going to make a cake. If I am in the kitchen I can keep a good eye on her. Today she just wants to wear her jammies and robe. She is watching tv, switching between two movies: Hackers and Knocked Up, an odd combination.


   Right now I am taking a bit of a break to use the computer. I woke up at 10:30 and it is about 2p.m. So far today I have showered, finished my homework, fed mom, fed myself, gave her medication, made her bed, done a full load of laundry, made soup, cleaned up after the soup, and put away all the laundry. That is a full day right there, I am superwoman!


   While it is nice to have her home, I feel like a nurse who cannot relax and enjoy myself. I felt worn out since she came home. She is starting physical therapy along with more occupational and speech therapy next week. Let’s hope that helps even though the doctors in Houston think it will not.


Back to work.