Crap. I'm Back.

I tried to sail off into the sunset and have a happily ever after, but that is not how any of this works.

I have pancreatitis again.

And a lesion on my liver.

Amazingly, it's the usual struggle to get medical care.

I'm to the point where I fantasize about hiring a lawyer to sue hospitals into providing care.

Or making a protest sign and sitting outside the clinic. Hunger Strike for Care (it's not like I can eat anything, might as well make it work for me, right?).

Or just bringing my really cranky male relative who is prone to screaming until they get what they want to all my appointments. Because doctors jump for them when they do that, but me being socially appropriate gets me no medical care at all.

I don't get how this works.

Is it because I don't have a penis? Is that it? Men can't hear people with vaginas?

Oops. I forgot to have a penis. Sorry. My bad. You are absolutely right to ignore the lesion on my liver and the fact that I keep getting pancreatitis. Clearly this is all my fault and I should die.

Meanwhile, I can't eat. I struggle with sleep because I'm so uncomfortable. I've pulled 2 all nighters in the ER this past week and was borderline for admission due to a fever.  I opted to go home and pinned my hopes to a specialist appointment.

Oh fun! Yet another male doctor who talks over me, hasn't looked at my file, but says he'll call.

He didn't call.

So, like, whatever.  I'm doing everything I can. I set up an appointment with another specialist somewhere else. Maybe my vagina won't instantly strike them deaf and dumb.

***

I still have asthma. I broke my elbow (or I should say the dog broke my elbow) a while back (very painful, worse than pancreatitis which is saying something). And I got hit in the head with a heavy ball at a park and had a concussion.

So even if I'm not posting, don't worry, nothing has changed. I'm still a walking disaster.

***

Kiddo is good. We are homeschooling. Last year was just a mess of nothing good. Shooting incident at the school that was horribly mismanaged by the staff. A bullying incident involving death threats and the bully's parents were so nuts, I just thought 'why am I sending my kid to school with everyone else's damage? why?' And the teachers were not good which meant the academics weren't good.

At one point we were teaching her math, not her teachers. They couldn't get it done. I said to my husband, 'Why are we killing ourselves to go to this school? All this car pooling and schlepping for what? Our kid to be bullied? To have real life experience with school shootings? To have teachers who teach in such a way that our 99th percentile math kid gets an F on the fractions test? To have teachers who never finish a damn novel study in ELA? What are we doing this for?'

None of us were happy and we didn't want to go back, but our school options were limited. I couldn't even find a private school that I felt would be a good fit. So we're homeschooling, and surprisingly we kind of love it so far. It's going really well.

We're about a month in and just working to fine tune our curriculum as some things we've liked and others we're finding to not be a great fit, and figure out our pacing (we've adjusted the work load several times trying to find the right balance).

For those who are now freaking out about socialization:

1. I've followed homeschooling for 10 years as I've always supplemented her education. People who harp on socialization just sound ignorant. I can tell you've read exactly nothing and know even less. You should do some research.

2. Girl scouts. Church. Live online classes. A coop. Small group for World History. Theater workshop every week. Makers club at the library. Folk dance troupe. Homeschool band class taught by certified teachers through a non profit. Yes, we are doing all that on top of book work. We've already covered way more than she did last year in school and it's only been a month.

Like I said, you don't know what you're talking about.

***

Writing. The industry went to hell, but I am surviving. I focused on quality over quantity and it worked. I'm not getting rich, but I don't need a day job. I have the skills I need to do this writing thing, I just need to wield them better, which I think will happen with time.

I feel seasoned. Like I know how to roll with the punches now. We'll see how long that lasts.

However, I do need to be healthy to make writing work. That's been the big challenge recently. Having the energy to work when you're in pain and not sleeping much and either not eating at all or subsisting on ~400 calories a day of jello and broth is tough.