Well, I'm overwhelmed...again.
After a 2 month break since the wound care folks unsuccessfully passed me off for hyperbaric treatments, I went back to the clinic today. What a fruitless effort!
There's something about lying on one's side facing away from the doctor that makes it really fucking difficult to carry on a conversation - especially when you are asking questions and pushing for answers.
I asked - at least tried to ask, as he bumbled around and escaped either hearing or answering the question - what our options are at this point. He said that he really wanted me to do the hyperbaric treatments. I tried to explain - with increasing intensity-that they had sent me a 4 page letter with explicit explanations of what they did cover this treatment for and how they would basically not cover my treatment in any way, shape or form. He - like fucking everyone does- almost flippantly said that you can always question it and appeal. I flat out told him (trying to force back tears of exasperation) that I don't have the time or energy for that with my job.
I kept trying to ask exactly what kind of outcome we are working toward and what would happen if we left it like it is and didn't do anything else with it. I got partial sideways answers that are what I've already heard.
FINALLY, as I was gathering my items to leave and making one last ditch effort to get an answer, he said that we may end up talking to my surgron after the first of the year about doing something. I flat out said that's great - right after my insurance starts over and I have to pay out the ass for everything. I don't think he noticed.
On the way home, I started crying. I've been crying for an hour now and keep launching back in to sobs just when I think I've composed myself.
I feel let down by my doctors. I feel betrayed by my body, again. I feel like an epic failure that I can't do something as simple as heal or stay well. I feel like all of this will never end. I just feel like a burden.
It's such a cycle - my body doesn't do what it should (despite all measures of effort), money becomes an even bigger problem because of it which produces stress which makes my body work worse which makes me unable to work better or more to make the money issue less of a stress. It is literally the same story over and over. If I read my journal entries from the last several years - especially since I started working - it would be the same problems and same frustrations and same lack of solution.
These are days when I understand why people drink or use drugs to dull this unending pain. It launches me back into my suicidal ideations and reminds me why I can never keep a gun in my house.
The LITERALLY only bright thought in my day was when I wondered if all of this overwhelming shit of my life is the inevitable balance of having something wonderful in my life - Doug. I realized that even if it is, I would ultimately rather endure it than lose what I have in and with him. I realized that he is now what keeps me from spiraling down to my suicidal hole completely. That's a lot of pressure to put on someone, and I don't know that I ever want him to know that, but it does let ME know that I truly love him.
I still find myself doubting that I deserve him or even deserve to be loved at all. Part of it is getting in the mental self talk recording of thinking that for 30+ years, but part of it is also thinking that there is no way that anyone really wants to put up with all the darkness and illness that comes with me. I love his imperfections because I know that he can understand, appreciate and handle mine, but I also have to constantly remind myself of that to quiet the other voice.
I sometimes think it was easier when my life was total shit - bad health, horrible job, no relationship. I was used to it all. In the flow of it. Always fighting. I guess I've gone "soft" in the moments of relief I've found in the last few years with good health after my ostomy surgery, a job I felt finally fit me, and the love of and for the man I've dreamed of. It hurts worse now when the ground is ripped out from under me - or even just jostled. I almost have to relearn how to fight - how to push forward and find my way.
I'd say maybe it's like riding a bike, but that hurt like a bitch the last time I tried to do it, too...
