Bad Mom Day

Today was another very stressful day in a string of several hundreds -- okay so maybe only 7 or 8....alright somewhere about 3-4. It began with the "state" arriving at work on Sunday. You know, the day of rest, the dedicated sabbath, family day for heaven's sake!!! We work to keep as many of the kids at home as possible. We make a decent family meal. We try to sit down and discuss what is going on in our lives. See a few good tv shows (alright another obvious exaggeration). But we cherish the time to be together for the most part.

It also is a day to play catch up with laundry, find missing clothing, track lost dance tights, work on coordinating the calendar, bake the occasional cookie and pretend that I am not a working mother, but an everyday stay at home mom with time on my hands to enjoy my children and working to make a better home.

Ultimately I hate Sunday nights. They arrive way too quickly, and I rarely have all the things I want completed done. That makes me pretty cranky. Alright-- it makes me a raving demon. I feel what my grandmother would refer to as "really out of sorts". I begin to transform into this mythical person as soon as the afternoon begins. Reality sets in that there are not enough hours in the weekend to meet my need to complete things. It is like I have lost a part of me when things are not getting to-done from my to-do list.

This is not a recent problem, it has been that way since high school. I would begin to become nervous as Sunday would come to a close. Worse yet, was that I would have the panic attacks in Sunday evening service. No amount of prayer could take away the sense of impending loss.I have hoped as I got older the feeling would ultimately disappear. No such luck. Not only is it here to stay, it now seems to follow me into the beginning of the week and is closing in on Fridays.

So when the ladies came from the state to audit our little corner of healthcare, I was summoned to attend the gala event. In fairness, their job is a necessary evil in our business. After working several years (no I am not admitting exactly how long), I can recognize why their job is necessary and what places won't make the grade. Their arrival however, is actually quite stressful for most administrations, and does indeed cause fear among staff. They are on their toes and working very diligently to provide the best care they can. I am blessed that that is the case everyday where I work. There are no bad nurses, assistants, or therapists. We are honest, hard working people who love the patients and work their job with dedication.

That does not necessarily translate to less stress during this event. Because of our dedication, we worry. Sometimes too much. We manage to add our own stress to the week they come to audit. I find myself doing just that. I may look cool and confident on the outside, but not so much on the inside.

I can say that I have never had a bad audit for my work or any of the work of therapists I was directly supervising as a regional manager or a director. I was blessed with good staff and team members throughout my work experience. I currently work with one of the best teams I have ever worked with. They make my job easier as a therapist and more enjoyable as a person.

So why was the week so bad? Honestly I am not sure. We had way too much rain. The temperature dropped. I did not get much sleep. All those things combined with stress of the audit and some general money issues left me with exacerbating fibromyalgia.

I know better, and know the signs of what is next to come with this stupid illness. I had been afraid it would happen earlier in the year, especially after I fell on ice at work. But I had done some serious avoidance techniques, like increased my massages, taken more medication consistently, and even tried to find possible alternatives to work other than what I do right now. I need to lower my stress and increase my sleep.

My work hours are becoming longer and longer, and I am feeling more guilty not being with my children like I feel I should be. Genevieve seems to have developed anxiety attacks in crowds and cries and quakes at increased noise even in familiar settings. She wails at the thought of unfamiliar events- there seems to be no signs of it until it is full blown and then she is unable to be comforted. As her anxiety increases- so does mine.

I have been waiting for God to send a lightning bolt upon my head or drop anvils past my shoulders as I walk past tall buildings to catch my attention. No such luck. God apparently is thinking I should know what to do about this dilemma. But I cannot say that I do. I have been contacted with opportunities to change jobs, but the knowledge that I work for one of the better companies and have a wonderful team to work with, keeps me from making strides to leave.

I have been angry at the kids, at Barry, at appointments that I cannot make or go to, at bills that never seem to go away, at the angst of the 18 year old who at his own admittance, has a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. They frankly are ALL on my last nerve. I don't even have it in me to defend why we have 4 cats and 4 dogs. I am tired, somewhat bored with the stress, and angry that there does not seem a good remedy for any of the things that are causing the discomfort.

There are not enough pills to stop the pain in my head, my neck, my back, arms and legs. The ringing in my ears is due to the medication and growing louder. Quite frankly for the moment I am a physical wreck. The only sleep I am capable of getting involves being awakened by noises 1-2 times a night and to attempt to seek another or any comfortable position in the bed. It has become the last resort torture of the illness. Bamboo under my nails is beginning to seem like a treat rather than the aching muscles of my body.

The headache accompanying the body aches just means no tolerance for noise, or light. With our crew, that means they walk on eggs. They, themselves are tortured by my illness. I don't smile much. I talk even less and they dare not try to climb on my bed for fear that I will scream out in pain or bite my lip with tears streaming down my cheeks.

The kids tiptoe in to ask permission for things, offer to rub my back or bring me food or drink. They are aware that small sounds send me into writhing pain, and some loving touches mean I recoil in deeper pain. They lose the mama they love. They have instead, the wicked witch of the west. I have returned to "get my pretties". I am sending hordes of flying monkeys to capture them and scare them into frozen silence.

It is unfair that they must lose their mama to this dreadful exacerbation. I don't have much coping power with it anymore, or perhaps lately. This is not at all the life I want for them or for me for that matter.

It is very difficult to explain even to adults what this illness can do to you. I hate the fact that I must acknowledge its existence. Today a physician told me I must be doing fairly well with it because I am only taking certain lower level drugs to assist in coping with it. I am not so sure he is correct. I take those medicines because they have fewer side effects, and less taboo about what they are. I take those medicines because I don't want most people to know about the disease. I do without having a pain free day because I think I should cope better with the pain.

I thought back to my last pain free day- it lasted about 4 hours during and after the birth of Aidan by c-section. The spinal block stopped the constant throbbing in my ribs, allowed my hips to lie on the table long enough to take him out and sew me up. The doctors and nurses remarked at how fast I could move my body and get out of bed in that 3 1/2 hour time frame. They marveled at how well I moved, but what they didn't know was that I did it so that I could somehow survive the following day without massive amounts of pain killing drugs. I knew the stagnant inactivity would cause more pain than even the recovery pain could cause.

Some days I can work through the morning pain, and eventually find myself pain free. Other days the pain creeps up on me like a gorilla scaling a tree. As he climbs higher, his weight bears down more and more on the limbs. Each one trying to bend and not break. But the weight pins down the branches and stops the flexibility of the branches. The age factor is one that keeps coming into conversation. How much longer can I handle the work load at my age? You would think I was 65. Those are the very worst days.

Sadly, the patients are beginning to see my pain and lack of sleep. They are now worrying about me! They ask why I work such long hours, or why didn't I sleep the night before. Some of them teasingly offer me the bed beside them for a quick nap. Promising to hide me from the nurses should they come in. But they are adults.

The ones that don't understand anything about why mama is not the same today are my children. You cannot tell a child about a disease that only has aches and pains occasionally and expect them to understand. So instead, I look like the bad mama that only comes out of her room and screams at their loud noises or seems to demand from them more obedience than they should be asked to have. They are of course children, not robots. They deserve the right to be loud, and rambunctious, but the bad mom days seem to steal this away from them.