Monday, March 11, 2013

I had a gun pointed to my head when I was 9

BY A COP...Got your attention....yeah it got mine too!!

So here I am this little girl. My dad, on occasion in his younger years, was a bank robber. Later on he just did ever other crime under the sun. He did his time, and no I never saw a dime. He was getting his life back together for his familys' sake. It wouldn't last, but it was worth the try.

Me, my mother, father, 3 year old brother, and grandma are sitting on the front porch of her house. We were moving the next day. There was a U-haul parked in the driveway and we were celebrating a big long yard sale with some nice BBQ before leaving the next day in the U-haul.

It was exciting. We were going somewhere new to start a new life and my dad was there, he was never there anymore.
I remember so clearly. It was nice out. We were all outside in the front just laughing and enjoying the evening and talking about all the excitement and how my grandma was going to miss us all.
I was sitting next to my dad, practically on his lap, sharing chicken.


Out of nowhere, 5 or 6 cop cars came screeching from all directions, drove right up in the yard, jumped out, guns drawn, and one walked right up to my dad, stuck a gun in his face and said "Don't Move"

I said that correctly. SEVERAL police officers swarmed a house and DREW THEIR GUNS on a family eating dinner on the front porch, and stuck a loaded gun in my face.

My dad calmly put his food down and put his hands up. My mom is pulling me away so fast it's blurry. Adults are yelling at cops, kids are crying to adults, and it's a fucking scene out of RENO 911. Who the fuck draws guns on kids eating BBQ chicken? Did it look like he was going to run? Seriously?

Apparently, he wasn't supposed to being leaving the state the next day. But he hadn't even done anything yet. So they got wind he was going to leave. And at that moment he was such a threat it garnered that much attention to draw a gun on a man with a child on his lap.
Do you know that if I freaked out or if that cop flinched his finger I would have watched my dad die by getting shot in the head by a cop, for no FREAKING REASON AT ALL. He was committing NO CRIME whatsoever at that moment.

Oh yeah, I love cops.

He got out of jail that night. Released and was told to come back to a probation hearing and that was that. We still moved the next day. He had to go back a few weeks later to go to court.

All that commotion for a court date.
That was the first time I saw a gun up close.

We never even got an apology or any kind of retribution. Nice huh?

And you know what? Twenty five years later he became a lobbyist for Law Enforcement. Yep, he stood in front of the Legislative Committee and spoke FOR them, and how they need more funding to catch the bad guys.

Ironic? Oh yeah.
Became a better person? He sure as shit tried!!

Sunday, March 10, 2013

The day my 2 year old drove my car

Don't worry, he didn't get very far. Seriously, they don't make carseats that can actually contain the child. I don't just mean keep them safe in case of a wreck, I mean strap them down, like the papoose at the emergency room. IMMOBILE. That works for me.

The days of carseats. Any mother will tell you the glorious day when their kids grow out out bottles, diapers, contraptions and car seats. It's like a right of passage. A diploma handed out after the last stage bottle, the last stage diaper/pull-up, the last booster seat you will ever buy. My oldest is now 18 and in college and loves art/drama/reading/writing, so who knows. She also likes science/philosophy/socialogy/phsycology. She is doing great in school. So if she needs baby stuff any time soon I'm going to kick her ass. I'm not ready to be a grandma. I got my diploma and I want to savor that for a while. Still got that booster seat one to go.

The twins are almost 7 and by law it's over 8 years old, AND over 4'9" before they don't need booster or car seats. I guess they threw the whole weight limit out the window when these McDonalds' generation babies start weighing 50 pounds at 2, and the parents are like,
"Well the're heavier than the law says. They don't need no car seat. Let's go get a burger."
Do they have booster seats that fit 5' tall people? You know, my boys' feet almost touch the floor. I know some really short 7th graders, and I'll be damned if you think those kids are getting in a car seat.
How cute. He has someone to help him get in his wittle car seat.

For the last 6 years these law people keep changing things. First it was 4 and/or 40 pounds, then 6 and/or 60 pounds.
I'm like "Dude these twins are never going to get out of the carseats." And I don't care how far the law changes. I'm NOT getting in one.

And here is the magic.

So after my day of work and drive home, I pull into my apartments on the side of a steep hill overlooking the Columbia River seperating Oregon and Washington. Luckily I had an awesome sitter and she lived the next building over.

I pulled up to her place, left the car running,  and go up her stairs to get the boys. We all walk down and her and I are gabbing so I put them in the car. I strap them down and check each 5 point harness and really tighten it up, as always. I walk around the passenger side of the car to talk to the baby sitter still standing outside.
I open the passenger car door, throw my purse and diaper bag in the car in the front seat and turn around to talk to her some more.

I am being very detailed in this because it happened that fast.

I may have had my back turned to the car for 30 seconds, and that people is all it takes.

I turned around, and there was my son, sitting in the driver seat, hand on shifter, LOOKING AT ME, and there it went.


He pulled it down, and I DOVE HEAD FIRST INTO THE CAR and slammed my hands down on the brake pad as hard as I could put my weight on it.

I had to take one hand off, put the car in park and turn it off!!!

He was laughing and giggling and unaware that 150 feet away was a metal dumpster and some other apartment buildings. A 2 year old almost drove my car into a house. He would had died from going right through the windshield and his 2 year old twin brother would have watched it.

If I had not opened the door, I would not have been able to DIVE in and land on the brakes. I never would have gotten the door open in time.

I NEVER ever left the car running after that.

We were shocked. I couldn't believe the swiftness of this escape. It was my mission to ensure lockdown at all times. He always won. I couldn't duct tape this kid down if I tried. Like I said MasterCraft. And unfortuneatly they don't make carseats.





Friday, March 8, 2013

Endometriosis is for girls

Endometriosis is non-cancerous little tumors and sores that grow on the inside of your uterus. Sometimes referred to as lesions or adhesion. It hurts, as in hurt like being punched in the baby maker and in serious pain and you want to cry like a little girl for your mommy to make it go away. It turns you into that girl from the movie "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka". This dude was going to hurt her and she turns around with her face all distorted and screams I GOT CRAMPS and his friend comes running cuz he heard someone scream like a girl.

Your periods are more painful, more bleeding, cramping, in the fetal position, way more than your normal shitty period. This will put you down for a few days. My daughter has been suffering with it for a few years now and thanks me for it every month. I'm like, uh thank all the woman before me too because there is Fibromyalgia, lots of allergies, Rheumatoid Arthritis: its all Auto-Immune problems, maternally inherited....One day we might have lupus or something else, who knows.

So I clearly noticed something was very wrong when the twins were about 6 months old and one crawled across my stomach and it felt like it was pregnant! And it hurt like I was. I had three kids already so I know what it feels like when you get jumped on by a toddler right on your precious pregnant belly! I felt it and pushed on it, and oh ya it felt like I was about 2-3 months but I knew I wasn't because I had a C section and had my tubes tied. This was not good.

This is what happened over the next 2 years! Mind you during this whole time I have infant to toddler twins.

 I work full time and come home to an abusive man half that year, the other year and a half was more peace and hard work, including two surgeries, lost two jobs and my dad died. What a fucking year!

I go to the doctor, same OB who delivered them. At this hospital the staples were taken out at 36 hours and we were all sent home at 42 hours. Yes, I had an emergency C-section with twins and we were not even there 48 hours. (AND the nurse laughed when I was scared about her taking out the staples, and said "Ha Ha, what, are you afraid your stomach is going to fall out?, uh YAH!)  And when I cough/sneezed the day after getting out, and bloody water gushed out of my sliced open stomach, I wanted to take my clothes to the hospital and rub it in that nurses face and say "Oh yah, then whats this bitch, not from my stomach huh?"


ANYWAY, he examines and yes I definitely need an ultrasound to see whats going on. If he wasn't the actual doctor that tied my tubes he would have thought I was pregnant. He felt around up there like he was looking for his watch or something and doing that push down on your lower abdomen thing. I almost pushed his nuts up his groin with my foot. My periods were horrible and there was way too much pain involved. He said that he would start me on some hormone treatment and probably have one within 6 months. Huh?
Not to mention that this stuff is rarely seen on an ultrasound.

Unfortunately we moved out of state. For every other reason than my health it was time to move. For that exact reason I should have stayed. Once we moved, it took forever to get insurance, find a doctor, get my records sent over and have a few exams. This is already a few months. I'm getting worse. This new doctor puts me on birth control. Birth control. I have had 5 kids and my tubes tied, the last thing I need is birth control, considering that they mess with my hormones anyway. I am trying to tell the doctor this. It's falling on deaf ears.

Over the next few months, again more ultrasounds, more exams, more tests, more follow-ups to the follow up. Finally! A referral to a surgeon. I go see him and he does his whole poking around thing and looks at this and that and says ok, lets schedule this.

One of the happiest moments in my life. Someone finally listened to me after complaining about this for over a year. Getting surgery is pretty serious too.


The surgery goes well and I wake up in the recovery area for Birthing/New Mothers. It was an OB who did it, so I recovered on his turf. It was weird being the only one there without a baby. I thought of babies I had lost, and then I thought of woman who have lost theirs in childbirth. How sad and lonely to be the only woman in the baby section without a baby. The nurses liked me. I was easy to deal with. In fact, I got to spend most of my recovery hanging out in the nurses station holding the newborns. My babymaker was dead and buried so I was going to hold, and give back other newborns.

As it turned out, the Endometriosis had spread extensively and became Adenomiosis, which means same thing but on the outside of the uterus. I didn't realize at the time what that would implicate. Later I would learn that means that it still continues to grow inside your body. Fast forward 6 months later and I had to have a ping pong sized Endo tumor removed from inside my muscle wall of my abdomen, which ripped apart my muscle when it burst, at 2 AM. I thought my intestines burst or something. It was hot and painful and had
this spreading sensation. I thought I was in serious trouble.

The surgery for that was pretty easy. I was only there a few hours actually. It's amazing the technology today. Cut open your gut and your home for dinner. It was painful until then though. This constant knot in my muscle wall. It was just 'there'. Make it go away. It would grow and shrink through out the month and I hated it.

This is the short version of the Endo story. Diagnosed. Hysterectomy. Tumors redevelop. Surgery. My lower back and lower abdomen hurt. It still feels like there are baby tumors growing. All the cutting open from the C-section, hysterectomy, tumor removal happened in 2 1/2 years. The last 2 were 6 months apart. I lost a lot of weight. Let me tell you surgery wipes you out for a long time. I just suffer now. Endo grows on scar tissue so I think there is enough of that down there for now.

It should be the same diet for a cancer paitent. Nothing to help it grow. I try to watch what I eat (too much coffee, sugar, chocolate, red meat makes it worse) before I put it in my mouth. It's hard. There is a different diet for every ailment. But there is no cure. Some woman get better after birth control pills, pregnancy, and in the extreme cases yes, a hysterectomy. But I come from Murphys' Law which states that it will go wrong for me. So even after that, still a tumor, and after that I still have it.

And the whole time I'M SINGLE MOM WITH TWINS. I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF.

Endo sucks, it really does. It's for girls!






Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Mom's are not allowed to go to the bathroom 2

     Oh there were lots of times I should have held it. Probably why I pee my pants now when I cough or laugh too hard. Between all those pregnancies and babies kicking my bladder, and having to hold it because I just couldn't take my eyes off the twins, I don't have a 'hold it' option now.

These twins, when they were toddlers, were horrible little diapered giggling trolls that destroyed everything they touched. Everything. It's like giving Chunk from Goonies something, count to ten, yep broken.

So here I am working full-time, going to school online full time at night, and taking care of 3 kids and the house. The oldest being my junior high school teen daughter at the time. (My two teenage boys live with their dad, different dad) It was a 30 hour day packed into 24, and that was with only 5-6 hours of sleep every night. I was always working at a job that I needed to commute, or train or bus, or all three. So needless to say, I was tired A LOT. And Fibro was kicking my ass DAILY back then, AND this is in between surgeries for my Endo. Sheesh. Some of the absolute lowest times in my life and sanity. The medications did NOTHING. Nothing was GOING to help me unless I changed some things or wiped it all off the plate after having a nervous breakdown. You guess.

We lived on the bottom floor of an apartment building for about 1 1/2 yrs. It was sort of half way in the ground, in the building I was in, so the bedroom windows were at ground level. Let me tell you, when there was a 12 foot snow drift ABOVE my window I was scared. I went to bed every night wondering if that was going to come crashing down and bury me. The twins were around two years old. They had already DISMANTLED their crib. Like, you know, I walked in and the mattress was thrown out and two sides were taken off, and they were running around.


Twins- 1 Bed- 0

So forget it, they can have a toddler bed. Um, now how do I keep them in there? I already have three different kinds of deadbolts, THREE on the front door, and they can open them all. It was a constant battle to keep them alive. So I deadbolt their bedroom door. I don't care what you say, I'm not having these babies wake up in the night and leave the house!


I come home from work, put the kids in their room for some play time, and collapse on my bed...just a short nap I tell myself. My daughter can handle it.

About 30 minutes later, while I'm in my famous comasleep I hear this kitten of a sound 'mommy' 'mommy'
"Mommmmmmmy" real quiet like but one of them is calling me in a 'come get me I'm scared' sort of cry.

I get up and go open their door. They're not in there! WTF

I'm freaking out. I start looking all over the apartment and under things. How the hell did I lose the kids in the house? Then I hear it again, real faint..."mommy"
Is that coming from my room? I look out the window and *gasp, my toddler is standing outside.my.window.

I run to the front door, so I can go around back and get him, and I'm greeted by the other one! He's out there running around giggling, running in the parking lot, running from me. Oh ya, this kid was knocking on my door. My two year old, climbed out his bedroom window, ran around the apartment building and knocked on the front door. Wow. There's this lady neighbor yelling at me about calling the cops and CPS and how I'm such a negligent mother for letting my kids play in the street. Seriously? I really wanted to choke her.

These fucking McGuyver's TOOK APART THE TODDLER BED and proceeded to turn the bedframe sideways, and climb up it like a ladder and out the window, which was cracked open so tiny I'm surprised he noticed! The timid sensitive one didn't get far. As usual he followed his brother and then got scared and stayed there calling me.


Twins-2 Bed-0

The cops really came. I showed them ( and so did the twins ) how they can open all the deadbolts, (three different kinds too using chairs, a toy and the broom), take apart their bed, and get into everything that is inhumanly possible. The cops said he never seen anything like it. It was obvious, as a single mother of twin toddler boys, I was doing everything I could to keep these BABIES alive. No CPS, just a laugh and a "keep up the good work". Let me say, it's actually illegal to lock your children in a room, except when you're trying to keep your children alive I guess. Idk but any other kind of lock and I wouldn't have been able to get in and out. I mean, childproof kitchen cabinets with that plastic shit?  LOL I was using Stanley and MasterCraft.

I didn't like it. I really had no choice. I mean these kids didn't have a lamp or dresser by the time they were 2 as well. DESTRUCTIVE.

 It was funny misery I guess. Never a dull moment. So mom's are not allowed to go to the bathroom, or take a nap.


THESE PEOPLE WERE WEARING DIAPERS!!!   LMAO
TERRORISTS IN DIAPERS