So Much Too Much

Posted on by kmarrs

I have so much to write about that; I just honestly don’t know where to begin.

I guess. I guess I could start with my 14yo officially being diagnosed with Autism lately. It came as no surprise, but having it be official opens up a world of resources he would benefit from.

It’s not even overwhelming. I’ve long since adapted my parenting of him to accommodate his autism. Even if he didn’t turn out to be autistic he had quirks that needed adapting to. So, I just did. Some trial and error. Some common sense. He’s actually a fairly easy kid to parent comparatively speaking. At least for me. We’re so much alike that I simply parent him like I would have wanted parenting.

This all further validates my assumption that I’m also autistic. He and I are so much a like in big and small ways. And all the traits that confirm his autism are things we share, so it’s reasonable to extrapolate that I’m also likely autistic. I’m not at this time looking for an official diagnosis, nor am I looking for resources. But it’s a huge comfort to be able to assume, “Oh! So that’s why I’m like that!”

I have more things to share as I find the words, but this is a start.

Further Thoughts on Love

Posted on by kmarrs

Remember a couple of posts ago how a couple of my friends plotted and found me a new blue glass baking dish, and I cried because that’s love?

These showed up a few days after Christmas from the same two friends.

My mind is blown. I had casually mentioned around the time I mentioned the baking dish that I used to have 6 blue glass wine glasses, but 4 of them had broken over the years. They just latched onto that and did what they do.

Clowder Power

Posted on by kmarrs

Haha. I have a 4th cat. Because apparently the only thing preventing me from sliding deep into crazy cat lady territory was my ex wife. lol

Meet Jaskier. A true bard. And Luke’s ESA.

Now everyone in the house has an ESA kitty except me*. That’s called foreshadowing.

* 4 cats, 4 humans. But Ash and Soot are bonded. Ash is a good boy and a great ESA to Sammy, but Soot, who was meant to be mine, has no interest in being anyone’s cat. Her loyalty is to Ash. Which is fine. She’s her own cat. She’s Ash’s cat. She’s fine. But that leaves me without an ESA. Foreshadowing, that.

Thoughts on Love

Posted on by kmarrs

This has been a hellacious 12 months. It was exactly 12 months ago (plus a few days) that my car got totaled when I hit that 17yo on a brand new license that ran a stop sign. I fucked myself up pretty good in that wreck too. No lasting physical damage, but I still can’t approach intersections where I have the right of way in confidence.

And the thing of it is, the bad things just kept happening again and again, not just one after the other, but with a frequent overlap in the months that followed. I still haven’t really caught a break.

2021 truly has been a shitty year!

Except, it’s also been the year where I learned how much the people in my friend group love me, and each other. There are really, by this point, dozens of examples, such as how we’re working hard to master communication skills so that we can navigate any conflict with love, compassion, and understanding. We all require a slightly different form of communication as we are all neurodivergent, and we are also all trauma victims, but we are dedicated to figuring our shit out and resolving conflict in ways that validates everyone and doesn’t lead to actual huge fights.

But that’s not even the love I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about Scissors. Scissors is an important member of our friend group, but he’s very reserved. This is fine, but I honestly kind of thought that when it came to our relationship, he tolerated me. We weren’t not friends, but I wouldn’t have assumed he REALLY cared about me, even if he didn’t not care.

Then a week and a half ago, he warned me that he predicted I would cry in roughly 2 days. Well, the two days came and he cursed that whatever he had sent was late. It showed up another 2 days later. It was a large somewhat flat box. Scissors, and my best friend who was in on the shenanigans, as he wanted to be sure it would have the desired effect (happy tears) were almost giddy with anticipation while they waited for me to get home to open the package. Finally, my shift ended, and made my way home. When I opened the package and saw what it was, I started bawling.

See, roughly 9 months ago, or so, Iris learned a physics lesson the hard way. Sammy sent me a message at work and told me Iris had broken my blue glass baking dish, and to please not be mad, it was an accident. Iris was scared to tell me themself because they come from an upbringing full of abuse and is still learning to trust me that I won’t abuse them over a mistake or accident. I took a deep breath, knew Iris wasn’t careless, and while I was devasted, I wasn’t mad. I love blue glass more than anything, and that baking dish was the favorite thing in my kitchen, but it just wasn’t worth being mad over an accident.

I messaged Iris and learned that it had gone from hot oven to cold rinse with water, and shattered. Ah. Ok. I made sure no one was hurt, assured Iris this was a failing on their bio mom’s part, and that I knew it was an accident and that I wasn’t mad. Then I went ahead and told them the physics lesson that was to be had out of this.

Then I went to amazon to see about replacing the damn thing and they had nothing. Ceramic? Sure. But not blue glass.

I told a few of my friends what happened, then basically let it go. Until it happened to come up in conversation like a month ago. Scissors asked a couple of questions at the time, but I didn’t think anything of it.

Until I opened that package on my bed a few weeks later and found a blue glass pyrex baking dish in the exact size I had lost that looked brand new, despite me being pretty sure Pyrex doesn’t make them anymore. I don’t know where he found it, but he did. And he was right, I did have a good (happy) cry about it.

Some of us are loud in our love. Some of us are just hurt from trauma and more reserved, and therefore quieter in our love. But when those who are reserved with their love show it, it is a grand statement. Like a blue glass baking dish.

On Gallbladders and Complications

Posted on by kmarrs

September 2021 was rough. Maybe not quite as rough as March 2021 when it came to the medical emergency, but still rough. And depending who’s opinion you ask, I sort of almost died in an obnoxious way.

I had my gallbladder surgery on August 25. It had been acting up again for days no matter what I did and did not eat, to the point they almost yoinked it early. But I assured them I could hold out until the 25th. I did not want to miss work before my planned absence. By the time they did get in there though, my gallbladder was so inflamed and angry, what is normally a 30 to 45 minute surgery took 2 hours. But they got it out and sent me home.

I was in pain so I went heavy on the pain meds. Only, I forgot about the stool softeners and they didn’t send me home with a script. So I just didn’t take any. I’m not sure if they reminded me in post op or not, but either way I didn’t even think about it. Until I was so constipated I was in pain. I bought OTC stool softeners and laxatives. They did nothing. I tried a horrible drink made if water and epsom salt which never fails. It failed. I went to the ER and told them everything. They gave me an enema. I pooped. I continued with the stool softeners. I was pretty ok there.

Only I was still in a world of pain. I was at a 10 on the pain scale. But I had been at like a 12 (numbers don’t stop at 10) and I assumed this was normal for having removed a very angry gallbladder. So the pain isn’t why I went back to the ER.

See, I had this cough. I wanted to be sure I hadn’t caught post op pneumonia. So off to the ER I went for X-rays. Only, their concern was a blood clot in my lungs and they threw me into a CT machine.  They scanned my chest and my abdomen.  My lungs were fine.

But there was a huge (huge) pocket of fluid in my abdomen about where my gallbladder used to be (which explains why I looked and felt 10 months pregnant) and my white blood count was double what it should be which meant I was septic. I was quickly given heavy doses of every antibiotic ever and transported to the hospital where I’d had the surgery. (I had gone to a standalone ER that isn’t attached to a hospital because I figured it would be an in and out matter.) They installed a drain so they could get the fluid out and determine what it was. The good news is it was just bile which meant my liver was protesting the ordeal of the angry gallbladder and surgery and was leaking. While this, of course, isn’t ideal, it stopped on its own and the drain did its job of collecting it. I was in the hospital for a few days for observations. Once the output had slowed down enough to indicate it would for sure eventually stop on its own, they sent me home drain and all. Which hurts like a bitch, btw.

But it did eventually stop and the drain came out and here I sit about a month later at work perfectly fine. But it took a lot of time, and a steady stream of pain meds (paired with the stool softeners) to get me here.

In annoying, though not deadly, news, where my belly had more swelling than I realized thanks to the cancer and angry gallbladder, now that both have been dealt with, I’ve gone down a pants size. I’ve also somehow lost hips and ass. So my pants and skirts that fit perfectly are now too big and the clothes that were already a little big after March’s surgery but stayed on thanks to my hips… well… there ain’t damn thing keeping them up. So I need new jeans, shorts, skirts, the works. I’m kinda pissed about it, honestly. I also lost tits and my favorite dresses that were already a little too big… well… I swim in them now. My heart broke over that one. I have replaced them though. I live in that style of dress so I invested in 3 to replace the 2. I don’t want to even talk about the 4 bras that I JUST bought and that fit PERFECTLY 2 months ago being too big now.

Alright. I’m going to try and go back to writing weekly again now that things have calmed down. So hopefully that pans out. Meanwhile this post was written on my phones please excuse lack of proper editing. This app and my phone are struggling to get along. So this post is what it is.