The day my hair died

It may seem like a silly thing to say, or think about, your hair dying, but that's how it looked and I felt how it looked.
This isn't a story about a bad color job, although remind me about the time I bleached it at home.

I was separated by my 1st husband of 10 years by about a year or so when I had the misfortune of bumping into The Abuser. Exactly 2 weeks later I got pregnant with twins. By the next day, I didn't even like him anymore and was going to tell him to kick rocks. Crazy how I know my body so well, I had that gut feeling to wait.

When people talk about a Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, they meant this guy. He was extra tall, blonde hair, blue eyed, muscular, and looked dead on like Prince Charming. That shoulda been my clue to fucking run. But this is where I say "I wouldn't have my twins or be where I am now if it wasn't for......ya".

Abusers don't start out like that of course! You don't see a guy being a controlling douche manipulative alcoholic misogynistic arrogant lying cheating addict cunt wagon and go "My goodness, where have you been all my life?!"

They fucking woooooooo you. (Then its a brainwashed Stockholm Syndrome and everyone thinks you're the one who's the bad guy). It's called the Honeymoon Phase. You'll have hundreds of them, more than lunar cycles I'm sure, but back to my hair.

You see, I didn't have just any hair, I had thick, very thick, very long, naturally highlighted, very kinky spiral curly hair. A long non permed mane. I loved it. I only wear it long. No short do has ever been cute and it wasn't cut for the first time until I was 13.
My daughter has it. My heart. ♡

         Not me, was longer but close enough.


Stress can do some crazy things to you physically. Not long after, I'm 5 months pregnant with twins and the abuse is front and center, and I'm having thoughts of driving off a cliff to rid the world of it all. Him, me, 2 boys who still don't know the half of what I went through to stay alive.

One day, I'm in the shower and after rinsing my hair I noticed quite a bit in my hand. It wasn't odd for me to lose a lot, but the handfuls wouldn't stop. I panicked. I got out of the shower and didn't brush my hair, just put it in a bun for fear of brushing it all off. I had been through stressful times, but never had clump after clump of hair just come off so easily. I immediately run to show him, because he's all I got! and I already know before I say anything....what the fuck does he care? Of course he doesn't. He laughed. He laughed at me being miserable stressed and carrying two babies and my hair was falling out.
He was a fucking lunatic.

The next day, I carefully unwrapped my bun and gently brushed it with my best brush from the bottom up. I pulled so many wads of hair out of the bristles. I broke some of them off trying to get it all.
And there it was. Something I hadn't noticed before.....straight roots...inches of it. There was barely a wave to it. I had straight, thin, brittle strands coming out of my head. I could see my scalp! How had I not seen this?!

I took my prenatal pills. I took my iron. I ate healthy, but this was my body pleading for help. It took me a while to listen though, and with each passing month, I was reminded that my hair had died, inch by inch. The spirit within me that lived in it was dying.
It looked so bad that people told me to fix my perm.

So I cut off all the curls, and threw the mane in the trash, along with whatever strength I had left in me and finally ran.

I did my best to feel good and figure out what to do with this lifeless mop, but I and it are one in spirit and pain. It's just "There" now, sometimes like me. The wild, adventurous untamable fire has flat lined.

It's good that time has passed and I make do with the new do. It's called the Janis Joplin now.
I marvel at how 1 boy got the thickness and 1 the thin, 1 the curls, 1 straight.
They're almost bigger than me now. It makes me glad were here.

It's still long, just slightly wavy and much much thinner. It's greying now. I tried every expensive hair product to bring it back, but resurrection was not possible. It is what it is.

Some things just need to be cut off and buried.

When there aren't enough spoons

There isn't really a short simple title that says....

I'm a Stay at home mom SAHM
I'm Disabled
We travel full time by RV (most of the year, hibernate in winter)
I home school twin boys.

I am a stay-at-home, disabled, full-time traveling, twin boy road-schooling mom. I wonder if that would fit on a business card.

I used to say "I'm an accountant". Life can throw a nasty curve ball called "I bet you thought everything was going great. Now watch this". Enter severely bad health and multiple surgeries along with a lot of DV.
(This is a good site. If you are NOT SAFE AND IN FEAR, PLEASE GO TO THIS WEBSITE AND LEAVE QUICKLY http://domesticviolence.org/)

The Spoon Theory

 https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

The idea behind this is that you have so many spoons for the day or week. These spoons are your energy. Some days it takes all my spoons to get out of bed. Other days I hope to still have a spoon left for sex. If my husband helps with things during the day, which he does if he can, I have spoons left for that night.
Sometimes I start the day with negative spoons, which means I can't do anything and just hope that tomorrow I wake up with one.

There are 168 hours in a week 

I'm going to average this since there are many things that only happen once a week, or once a month.

Average week: 

Sleeping = 42 hours (if I'm lucky) If I slept 8 hours a night, I would have zero time left after everything else. The less hours of sleep I get, the less spoons I wake up with. The more sleep I get, the more spoons I have, but the less time I have to do anything.
This, is the chronic pain conundrum.

Teaching home school = 25 hours (not including PE, arts n crafts, science experiments, museums, field trips, etc AND cleaning it up. 

Preparing/cooking and serving 3 meals a day = 7-10 hours (sometimes we eat out, or hub helps)

Dishes/scrubbing/sweeping/mopping and general cleaning = 10 hours weekly average at least

Laundry/grocery shopping/errands = 10 hours easy 

Traveling assistant; making 20 phone calls to campgrounds, Rv parks, motels/hotels, any place to stay, car or truck rental, mapping the route, or co-pilot, assistanting in all aspects of traveling, mapping every location along the way and places we'll need once there, finding gas stations, places to eat, laundromats, checking prices, numerous online searches, research, contracts, hiring, etc (since this doesn't happen every week, I'll say the average is) 5-10 hours 

Doctor appts = 1 hour average (unless I have to drive or fly from our job site, then its several hours, if not a day or two)

Bathing/primping/manicuring = 5 hours 

Traveling is not every week, but on average, driving time is = 5-10 (average a few days a month)

Referring, playing with and entertaining fighting twins, taking care of pets = 10 hours 

Due to chronic pain, it takes at least an hour every morning to get out of bed, take my pills, drink coffee, and pray for a good day = 10 hours, at least. If not at least an hour, I'll start throwing those 'spoons'.

 

Making necessary phone calls, paying bills, helping everyone do everything else = 2 hours 

So apparently I have a few hours a day to myself where much needed rest and recouperation is greatly needed. And in that space, we try to have quality time for us. 

Mind you, I am mentally (Ptsd and anxiety) and physically disabled (endo, fibro, mctd) for life, have a permanently dislocated unusable shoulder (that needs a state of the art surgery), suffer from severe chronic pain and migraines, and can not function normally on a daily basis.
 

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/home/ovc-20308548
https://www.womenshealth.gov/a-z-topics/endometriosis
http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/default.htm
http://www.medicinenet.com/mixed_connective_tissue_disease/article.htm
 

It's still not always good enough. If I'm not on top of things daily, I appear lazy. 

When full blown fibro flares kick in, I am down for days at a time. Whatever my man can't help with, since he works, is all still waiting for me when I'm better. I don't have a team of helpers to do my job for me when I can't.

I just hope it's good enough.
 

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.

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!

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

Moms are not allowed to go to the bathroom

Back a few years ago when I was a single mom to the terrible two twos, it got quite exciting to say the least. I did everything, and they did it all with me. Grocery store? You gotta bring both babies so now there's no room for any food. Can't let one walk cuz the other will go ballistic. Twins have to have the same thing, always. And always competing for me.

The only chance I have to do anything is that 30 minutes I had between getting home from work, bus and train, and the time I get the kids from daycare. The precious 30 minutes to get a lot done. You would be surprised how much you can do in that amount of time when you have to. I'm running people over in the stores, "Outa my way sister, I'm on a mission."


So I'm in this downstairs apartment with a tiny porch. Everyone on the 2nd and 3rd floor have a nice black railing on their balcony, how come I don't? No one on the 1st floor does. I mean as soon as I open the sliding glass door my (then 2 year old twin boys) go darting outside like a bull being ridden or a bird out its cage. Run free! Run fast as far as you can. That was my exercise everyday, chasing toddlers.
I'm jealous of the porches, so I run to the hardware store in that 30 minutes and get some supplies. (Same 30 minutes I used to go grocery shopping, pay bills, rent movies...etc. I was boss) I had measured everything out and was just getting some basic stuff.

The first day my friend helped me put up some 8 x 4 foot premade, spikey top (you know for 3' tall terrorists) fences and posts and cut them and it all looked good. Now the rules are that if you do that, you have to have it black, either painting it or by instead installing railings. Well after the whole weekend of being home and enjoying the whole patio thing, I decided that I needed to get it painted before too long as I'm sure there will be a complaint from 'that' neighbor who doesn't like anything you do.

On Sunday afternoon I take the wee little ones and my teenage daughter who helps when she can, back to the hardware store to buy paint. I like these carts better. They expect you to buy big things, so they're bigger and that means the kids can really sprawl out in it.

I buy black outdoor paint for the fence. Everything is going good. I drop my daughter off at a friends' house but she'll be home in about an hour. I take everything and everyone inside and by this time I am doing the pee pee dance. I set the closed pounded down can of paint on the kitchen counter and go to the bathroom........

Exactly 12.45 seconds later I come out of my room and for the first nanosecond my brain said "Oh wow,  look at the cute tiny footpr..." Mortified. O.M.G.
I didn't walk, I cringed down the hallway, and all I could hear was the 2 year old laughter of evil. Giggling and running around and making footprints of black paint all over my carpet.

This. (breath) Can't. (breath) Be. Happening (cant breath) OMG.

I pick him up and immediately want to get the toxic paint off my son even though what I WANT to do is pick him upside down and paint the fence with his long skater toddler hair. "Oh yeah, you want to play with the paint? How's that huh? You like that?" I quickly snap out of it and look at the evil twin grin and know; you are my child.

I clean the paint off him, and barely a little off the other twin who is always scared to do anything, brats. I'm freaking out. I just moved into this apartment, seriously? All I'm seeing is dollar signs. As I'm trying to clean, my daughter is there trying to help and call carpet cleaners.

I'm sorry, did I mention that it was 9pm on a Sunday night? Yay! Well after I ruined it by getting it wet trying to clean it up, which you should never get paint wet and try and clean it by yourself. The end result was I paid $200 for a brown stain on my carpet. It wasn't the last brown stain they made.

I just needed to pee, you little brats!