to top off this day... got to talk to dad again. a few weeks ago when he collapsed unexpectedly? he was diagnosed with glioblastoma.

i lost my mother to cancer when i was 17. i'm not ready to lose my daddy yet.

last night, my neighbor's cat snuck into my secured back yard. i didn't see it before i let my dogs out at dusk to do their business. this is the same neighbor whose mother claimed my dog jumped a fence to bite her, and my dogs are very, very prey driven.

if you didn't guess that my dogs went for that cat, then you're not paying attention. there were no external injuries, but i was certain he had internal injuries. neighbor demanded that i pay the vet bills for the cat *if* they took him to the er vet. problem is, i have $2 to my name until tomorrow, and the er vet does NOT take payment plans. i spent hours trying to find money to try and help get this cat checked out, and finally gave up when it appeared that they had left already (finally) after 0200 here.

they hadn't left. they just moved their truck and went to bed.

this morning, the mother was over, bringing in cat supplies while i was watering my garden and trying to decide if it was too early to go check on their cat, so i asked her how he was doing. she told me that it didn't look good, that he's puking up blood, that he's not moving, and started in on my vicious dogs and how she doesn't understand why i didn't see the cat was out there before i let my dogs out, and how my dogs are vicious and her bite still pains her real bad (which i'm confused about, since the bruise she showed me as proof of the bite was already days old within 10 minutes of the supposed bite, but even so, it was only a bruise smaller than half the palm of my hand, but i digress...), and how they hadn't taken the cat in to a vet yet because they had no money to do so, and that it didn't look good, and my vicious dogs...

i ended the conversation, went inside, and called animal control to report the incident myself. for one thing, the cat needed looked at, and i was prepared to call my vet and see if they would set up a payment plan for me to have the cat examined, but wanted to make sure that wouldn't be opening myself for litigation, and for another, i want an official record of the real story, before SHE reports it and twists it... also so there's a report about what happened for if/when the retaliation happens, because i'm sure it will.

mostly, i wanted the cat taken care of. it's s stupid cat to come into my yard, one that smells so heavily of dogs, but it certainly doesn't deserve to suffer because of that or negligent owners!!!

animal control officer came. he examined my yard, met the dogs, examined my kennel... my yard has a six foot wooden privacy fence until it butts up against the houses or garage. the kennel is a six foot tall, powder-coated steel priefert dog kennel. the type they use for police k9s.

then he went next door to check the cat. the mother promptly got into an argument with him about... a lot of things, apparently. my vicious dogs were one of those things, but she didn't stop there. ten minutes later, the officer returned to me.

the cat is fine. he's up, walking around, and is perfectly okay. the officer also "got a lecture" from the mother about a great number of things, "and... *sigh* well, nevermind, the cat is perfectly fine." (i don't believe that the mother made a very good impression on him)

i'm still scared of retaliation... but i can't explain how relieved i am that the cat is okay.

on top of other crap tonight, i have just found out that a member of my extended family has been missing since May 15th. looking for any and all help on this, please:

41 year old Timothy Crews vanished on the 15th from Bettendorf, Iowa. anyone with information, please call the number in the article. Otherwise, please feel free to signal boost.

These are a couple of my favorite shots from the 4J Big Piney Horse Camp ride that I went on a week ago. That I'll be going back to next weekend. Cannot tell y'all how lovely it is there. Please pardon my fat ass... I'm working on trying to lose some of it. But this is Takoda and I.

folks were kind enough to do my johari window. now, let's try the nohari window?

neurosurgeon appointment today. he says that he can't do anything for me. that it's time to make some "big decisions" about my career and life and future. that healing this type of injury isn't uncommon to take a couple of years, but at over 18 months in, i should have seen better improvement, so another six months isn't really going to do anything more for me, really. then he reiterated that it's time for me to reevaluate my career and life.


so... i guess... that's it.

haven't done this for a long time. help fill in my johari window?

back from horse camp. 4j horse camp on the big piney river near waynesville, missouri. despite sun poisoning, poison ivy, blistered sunburns, and a broken finger, i had so much fun. really can't describe how much fun i had. took part in a fun show horse show event (think like a mini-rodeo, only just for amusement with amateurs, not for reals) and ended up actually winning ribbons. fifth place in the women's gaited horse and egg & spoon events, fourth place in the barrel race and the foxtrotter class, and second in the water glass event. the fifth places were fifth place out of six participants, and the fourth place was fourth out of four participants, heh, so those were mostly gimmies, but the water glass, there were about a dozen people competing, and we took second! i was shocked, really. it was fun, and i found raven feathers during two d9fferent rides.

then i came home to find out that dad, who i have been trying, and failing, to get in touch with for the last month, actually was diagnosed with brain cancer. he's been doing daily chemo and radiation for three weeks now.

and the woman he's married to made him call me back around 2200 hours to make him tell me what she says he told her over the last few weeks: that he never loved anyone, not even me and my sister or her sons. then she made sure to laugh loud and long in the background when dad and i were saying our goodbyes and we said our i love yous to one another.

"no you dont! you don't love her. you told me for weeks that you don't love her. he doesn't love you!" he, of course, doesn't remember having said any of that to her, nor do i believe that he 1) said it, or 2) meant it even if he might have said something similar. call it denial if you want, but i call it frontal lobe brain tumors, chemo, and radiation.

still, i wish that the effects of one perfect week couldn't be so easily wiped away by a single evening. i'm really not sure what to do right now. i don't believe any of what she made him tell me, but she was obviously lashing out to hurt me, and using him to do it. i'm glad she's not my mother (she died of cancer when i was a kid, so, yeah, double risk factors ahoy, yeah?) but that doesn't really make it all hurt any less.

kinda wish i hadn't come home from horse camp.

For the folks who aren't on my FaceBook or Twitter and who have wanted to see my collection of Transformers, here's a quick and dirty (lol, 15 minutes "quick") video of it!

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and this is a collection of a great number of those thoughts. I'll probably be posting this to all my various online identities and forums, because they're essentially my truisms, and it's time to clear the air with everyone in my life.

Certain things that I have always been: I'm opinionated, I have a temper, I'm rather selfish and self-centered. There's a lot of psychological research to help explain why I am most of these things, but in this case, knowing why something is doesn't actually do much in solving the problems. Events happen. We cannot change these events, we can merely try to work beyond their influence. With a few notable exceptions, I've lived a pretty charmed life. Perhaps that contributes to my flaws. I'm not certain, but I do know that I have flaws, and a great many of them.

One thing that I have recently begun to actually comprehend is how much my injury contributes to my flaws. Some days hurt less than others, but I am, ultimately, always in pain. I have become cognizant that my temper is shorter than it was, that I am more likely to see negative attributions to behaviors, less likely to be forgiving, less likely to reach out. Imagine having a younger sibling stabbing you with a pencil randomly every moment of every day and every night, but there is nothing you can do about it. No, it's not much in the overall scheme of things - just a little poke, just an annoyance usually - but it's constant, and continual and never. Ever. Stops.

No, I'm not trying to say that my injury excuses my behavior. It doesn't. People who use their illnesses, injuries, and various ailments as an excuse to get away with inappropriate behaviors piss me off like nothing else. It's an explanation, not a justification. I'm not asking for forgiveness or to be given a pass; I'm just trying to phrase things in such a manner that other people might understand a little better. That doesn't give me the right to be angry or selfish or less forgiving or more judgmental. It's just one part of the explanation for why I am these things.

I make mistakes. I'm wrong, and probably often. Sometimes I will apologize. Sometimes I will not. I'm prideful, and arrogant, and I have an ego like anyone else. I laugh at tasteless jokes. I laugh at some racist jokes, too. I laugh at slapstick, use words like "derpy" and "spaz" unrepentantly because I used them long before they became politically incorrect terms that are sometimes used in a derogatory manner to refer to certain illnesses. I don't see myself changing my usage of those words, because I, personally, do not mean them in the way that the morality police think they are being used when they try to shame people into not using them.

Have I mentioned that I am stubborn? To a fault? Like I said, I make mistakes. Sometimes, though, I don't see what I have done *as* a mistake. Spaz and Derpy being one example. (Hell, I called a senator a WASP to his face, once, because I didn't know at the time that it was a slur... and I still don't feel much shame for what I did at that time because it was, and is, pretty correct in every meaning of the phrase... plus I got tired of having him look down on the equal rights group I was with as some sort of lesser-being-than-slime-mold.)

My biggest flaw, though, is one of my guiding principles: I cannot stand by and watch an injustice. Something as simple as a cashier being rude to a child, or something as large was watching a police officer using unnecessary force against a suspect, I will step in, step up, and say something. The key point, though, is that I will say something based upon my perception of events.

My perception is, yeah, not always perfect. Sometimes I'm getting one side of a story. Sometimes I don't have all the information. Sometimes, I'm just plain wrong. Sometimes, though, what I perceive? Isn't so wrong. The people I'm standing up against just don't feel like admitting that they might not be any more saintly than I am.

I've always been the fat kid on the sidelines, so to speak. Last picked for any team, the weird one, the nerd, the geek, the socially awkward. From the moment I started interacting with people, I was just different in a way that set me apart. It hurts. Even when I promise myself that I won't care? It still hurts to know that there are people out there who think that I'm worth less than the grime on the bottoms of their shoes. Most of the time, though, I can ignore that hurt and move on with life.

Because of events that have happened to me during my life thus far, because I know that these events color my perceptions of the world around me, I am in a state of constant introspection. 'Did I react badly to that comment because I'm coloring my judgment with previous experiences, or was that a really crappy thing to have said?' 'Am I acting out to keep someone from getting close before they turn on me later and hurt me worse, or is there really something wrong with this person?' 'Which one of us is being unreasonable here, or are we both at fault?' 'Is my perception of an injustice here correct, or mere oversensitivity?' Unfortunately, most of this introspection comes after the knee-jerk response has already occurred. As I tell people all the time, I am flawed, and I make mistakes... and I tend to err on the side of "standing up" for my friends, even at the expense of making new friends.

One may argue that no one really *needs* me to "stand up" for them... but there have been very dark chapters in history that are directly resultant of that philosophy having become so pervasive. How, then, does one balance the moral obligation to defend those who are under some sort of coercion or assault, and the rights of self-expression? I don't know yet. It's a journey that I am still on, and it's a journey that we all need to take for ourselves. It's also a journey with no real map, and a lot of very promising shortcuts that just lead us into quicksands and briars.

And, sometimes, the *correct* path, is the one that goes right through the heart of someone's briar patch.

I'm going to say things that people won't agree with. That's my right, just as it's their right to say things that I don't agree with. None of us, however, have a right to say or do things without having repercussions of those words and actions.

In that vein, I offer this: I do not require that anyone be my friend. Yes, as I said, it hurts when people believe that I barely deserve to be classified in the lowest phylum on the evolutionary scale, and they wish direct, or indirect harm upon me. I'm human, and I have emotions; these sorts of negative thoughts hurt. They not only hurt me, but they ultimately hurt the individuals thinking them, and everyone connected. That's out of my control. What is in my control is this: freedom.

I do not require that everyone like me. Given the actions and opinions of portions of the population, I'm rather relieved to be disliked sometimes. I'm opinionated, and I will stand up for my opinions. When I am wrong, I won't always admit it, and I won't always apologize. It's my nature, one I am slowly attempting to refine into something less rough and less angular and more forgiving, but it's a journey that will take me my entire life. It's also *my* journey, and, yes, sometimes that journey will take me right through the heart of your personal briar patch... or will push me into planting my own personal briar patch right square in the middle of your own path. That's life, and the risk we all take with free will and the right to hold our own opinions. No single individual out there is perfect. No one now, and no one has ever lived who has been perfect. That's the nature of mortal frailty; while each of us holds within ourselves a spark of the divine, none of us is capable of being nothing *but* divine.

The question is, what mark will you try to leave on this world? When you see an injustice, will you try to step in and address it? Or will you ignore it? Or will you, ultimately, be instigating it?

The choice remains in our own hands.

To all it may concern: For the record? I am my own person. I am responsible for my conduct, and no one else. You have an issue with my behavior? You come to ME about it; don't try claiming that someone else either put me up to it, or is in control of me. I am in control of me. No one else. (or not in control, as I'm certain some will argue. I've decided that I don't really care what certain people think any longer, since they will write their own version of events anyway. Speaking of which...)

And a specific note for the individual(s) that this is directed at? Normally, I don't give a flying rat-fuck's ass about you, your crappy fic, or your ass-patting ego-stroking. My knee-jerk response to even seeing your specific icons is to scroll on by. Sometimes, though, mistakes catch my eye. And since certain individual(s) happen to be very skilled at revisionist history, I have learned to cover my own ass. Be creeped out all you want, but I'm going to continue screen-capping your fuck-ups, because the ONE TIME that I didn't, I'm still paying for.

Nice how you never actually came to ME with your accusations, by the way. Someone else was kind enough to link me to all the wank long after it had all happened so that I could make pretty much no attempt to address your lies. That's why I screen cap now, and I don't really care if it creeps you out. Stop stirring wank, maybe admit now and then that you screwed up something, and I won't have to screen-cap anymore.

Now, if y'all don't mind, I'm going back to enjoying the fandom.

Don't let the title put you off. Anyone who has been, or is now being bullied, NEEDS to watch this! SERIOUSLY. Warning for adult language. It's worth it.

This has been a very enlightening week so far. I've spent very little of it actually home and online. Been punished for that in some ways, but in other ways, it's been very freeing. I'm considering a more official trial separation - of me and the internet, not me and my husband. There's a big world out there that I have been letting pass me by too much since my injury. Since before my injury. And... perhaps this will be the escape that it seems some folks have wanted from me for a long time.

In short, if I go quiet online, not only here, but everywhere, then please don't worry. I'm still around; those who want to should know how to find me. I just think it might be time to find out what life is all about again. That's all.

Now that I am done flipping my shit about completely pointless things, I should provide an update about actual real and important things.

( dad stuff )

( cut for my stuff )

And that's... just about it. For now, anyway.

okay, this is a Transformers fandom rant, so feel free to skip right along for all my non-TF friends... and yes, I realize that this is a very stupid thing to get hung up over, but it bugs me nonetheless. Also, with all the stress lately? I feel entitled to a pointless, stupid rant for once.

PERCEPTOR IS NOT A SMALL MECH! HE IS, IN FACT, JUST BARELY SHORTER THAN OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME!!!!!

Check your references, people. Just because he is a "nerd", doesn't mean he's automatically smaller than everyone else. Also, just because he transforms into a microscope, does not make him smaller than everyone else. Two words: MASS SHIFTING. Is Soundwave a "small" mech just because he's a hand-held tape player and a communications specialist? Uh, NO. He's barely smaller than Megatron. MASS FUCKING SHIFTING.

SO PLEASE KINDLY STOP WRITING PERCEPTOR AS A "SMALLER MECH"!!!

Perceptor is a "smaller mech" than everyone else, just like Shockwave has two optics, and it just makes the writer look lazy and ignorant when they refer to him as such. Also, it makes me rage.

And that concludes today's stupid fandom rant.

The biopsy went well! The surgeon said that the spots he biopsied did NOT have the appearance of any cancer he has seen before, and that he feels quite certain that this is an infection of some kind.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

( Large Comics Under Cut )

Yeah, totally not as good at this comic type thing as S, but I wanted to give it a shot!

I LOVE HIM TO BITS!

so, still waiting to get his biopsy scheduled. right now, it's looking like wednesday, thursday, or friday. assuming that the neurosurgeon is still willing to do it, after how the step-monster completely went off on him this morning in the name of "finding out what's going on". i spent the morning on damage control, trying to go around in her wake asking people to please forgive her for her attitude and behavior.

for which, she repaid us all at lunch by walking out. no, not just outside to have a smoke, like she'd been doing. she left. like, headed for home. for good. all without saying a thing, much less telling dad goodbye.

i won't repeat what she said to me when we eventually spoke on the phone when i was trying to find out when she'd be back, but the words "dick-sucking lawyer", "i'm done", "he's on his own", and "he's your problem now" were uttered. then i had to go back to his room and explain this all to my dad.

so. yeah. that's how things stand now. oh, except that dad is trying to talk her into coming back. i told him that i would support whatever decision he made regarding her that will make him happiest. i hate being the mature one between her and i. and i want to scream and shout and just throw a tantrum about her, but it's more important that i stay calm and supportive for dad.

so, now, it's just back to wait for the biopsy.

Dad isn't doing as well today. They've moved him to the ICU to put him back on the vent. Planning on taking him off the blood thinners, installing a clot filter, and doing the brain biopsy on the brain tumors as soon as they can.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

so, the latest updates. i had to come home tonight because i have a neurosurgeon appointment tomorrow, but as soon as i'm done with my doc, i'm heading back down to paducah.

the contrast mri of dad's head turned up a couple of suspicious lesions on the frontal lobe of his brain. the neurosurgeon i spoke with said that it could be sites of infection, but is more likely to be tumors. thing is, since there's two of them, if they are tumors, that makes it very, very likely that he has a much larger mass somewhere else that has metastasized and seeded the two little ones in his brain. especially since dad has been a smoker all his life.

so when i left this afternoon/evening, they were prepping him for a contract ct scan of his chest, abdomen, and pelvis, to look for potential other masses. if they find any, they will biopsy those masses. if they don't find any, then another neurosurgeon will be doing a biopsy of the lesions on his brain on friday.




i lay all the credit for the good parts of who i am firmly at my father's feet. it certainly wasn't mom who encouraged me to become a civil servant, nor her that taught me compassion. dad was the one who taught me what few technical skills i have that aren't work related, and he's the one who encouraged me every step of the way.

i'm not dealing well with seeing him sick like this. and i'm really scared that it's just a matter of time... and not much of it, at that.

_{also, i hate that fucking selfish bitch he's married to.}

Dad started to wake up yesterday after they cut his sedaditves and took him off the vent. It was still almost 1800 before he was conscious enough to coherently answer questions. This morning, he is a little more awake, but very sluggish and easily confused. He doesn't remember anything that's happened for the past three days, and I'm not sure if he has any short term memory yet. I'll quiz him on the stuff I told him earlier in a little bit.

He has pneumonia from all the stuff they shoved down his breathing tube, which tires him out because it makes him work harder to breathe. He also is a bit apneic, so he isn't really resting. I'll be here until he kicks me out or I have to leave tomorrow night to go to my own doc appointment with my neurosurgeon.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

just a quick noyte for the folks who aren't on my fb or twitter or plurk: i'm going to be afk until further notice - with occassional check-ins via my phone. my dad collapsed yesterday, had multiple seizures, and is currently in the critical care unit in paducah kentucky while they try and figure out what is wrong with him. he's no longer seated, but isn't waking up, and the docs have suggested that he possibly had a stroke.

i'm not really dealing well with seeing my dad in thge state he's in right now, so don't be surprised if i scream here a lot, or ignore people.

So, I've had a lot of people try to show me this "awesome thing" called the Spoon Theory, because it "fits my life so much". I appreciate the thought, I really do, but I have a request:

Please stop trying to "help" me with this spoonie stuff. I am not a spoonie, and, really, I resent the whole spoonie movement. When the spoon theory was first developed, I guess, yeah, was a cool concept to help some people understand what chronic illness sufferers can go through. Since then, though, I have seen the spoon theory co-opted by too many people whose only "illness" is a bad attitude and sheer laziness.

The Spoon Theory jumped the shark, and now has no meaning whatsoever to me. When someone asks me how many spoons I have left, or tries to commiserate with me about my spoons? All I can think of is the lazy fucks who use their "spoons" as an excuse not to get their lives in gear, and I resent being compared to them, because it demeans what REAL victims go through on a daily basis. And I know too many people who go through a HELL of a lot worse shit than I do every day, so it bothers me to be compared to them when I feel like I'm getting off easy compared to them.

I am not a spoonie. Please stop recommending spoon theory to me.

So, it occurred to me that I'd updated other places, but not here. Heh. So, have an update.

( cut for... not-fun medical explanations )

:fullstop:

so, when we last saw our washed up has beenintrepid heroine, she had an appointment for a nerve block scheduled on 03/06/2012 at 1300 CST.

this chapter opens with a phone call at 0853 on 03/06/2012. a phone call from the office of the doctor set to perform the nerve block procedure. aaaannnnd, action.

"Ms. Heroine-type Lady?"

*awakening from sleeping in* "mrrgle?"

"Yes Ms. Heroine-type Lady, this is nurse Hatchet from Dr. Pain Specialist's office? I am so very sorry to have to do this, and especially at such short notice, but Dr. pain Specialist, he was supposed to do your nerve block today? Well, he has a meeting at that time, so we're going to have to reschedule you for this Thursday at 0840 instead. Okay? Thank you! Bye!"

so yeah. his excuse this time? a meeting. thus i have not had the shot i was promised yet. and we wait again, and, call me a pessimist, but since this procedure has been rescheduled twice now? and this is the same pain specialist who rescheduled me for nearly a month the first time i tried to see him?

i'm not really expecting to get my shot this thursday either.

but, hey, my husband got a whole day to play skyrim, since he wasted a vacation day to be my driver, since i'm supposed to be sedated for this procedure, and can't drive myself. but, you know, he's a worthless state worker, so he's got plenty of vacation days to just throw away and waste on rescheduled appointments. right?

Thank you Jon Stewart for explaining this so simply.

did a little pruning of the friends list today. just so many people out there that i don't really talk to, or who just don't seem to use lj any longer. and the folks whose lj's have been strikethroughed.

if i cut you but you are still around and you want back on? let me know.

thank you for my tf-valentines, my secret admirers. *hugs to all*

I've wondered something for a while... why is it easier to tear other people down, than to be happy for them? Why do we, as a race, as a society, more easily jump to criticize that which we feel someone is doing wrong, rather than praise someone for that which they are doing right?

No, I don't mean this inflated ego, save the self-esteem crap that has infected schools that gives kids an unrealistic expectation about what real life is, but I mean, even as adults.

Just got a post on one of my sar dog groups about a relatively new group out there that specializes in helping vets through outreach programs that include rescuing horses and dogs for use as anything from a therapy animal to a sar animal. The post was basically a link to their site, and a comment about "this new SAR group out there. Scary stuff."

Checking the site out, I don't agree with some of their practices in regards to their SAR conduct, however, SAR is actually a small part of what they do. Also, they don't describe much about their actual mission standards, or certifications. What they DO show is the use of horses as well as dogs AS the actual air scenting animals, and a lot of publicity photos. I don't agree with the obvious publicity stuff; it detracts from the mission, and it puts the focus on the wrong thing: the team, and not the subject.

However, as a pretty new organization, they need to raise funds, and publicity is often the only way to accomplish that. Given their other programs, I can totally understand part of the publicity push. I still don't agree with it, but I can understand it.

What bothers me the most, though, is rather than commenting about any of the other programs and functions this organization does, specifically in regards to assisting vets in need (primarily PTSD and other war-based psychological issues) and saving animals in need, often by matching those vets WITH those animals, the individual who linked this had to fixate on the sar aspects, simply to tear them down.

Why is this? I see it happen all the time. Even in my own SAR team, I have teammates who are confused that I enjoy helping them train as much as I do, because they don't see what benefit I get from it. The benefit I get? Seeing someone succeed. Seeing someone I care about succeed in something that's really pretty tough. Knowing that I helped, however small, in bringing about that success. Vicarious success is enough for me, especially when it's for something that will benefit so many people in the long run.

Yes, this organization I was linked to could easily sully the reputation of SAR groups with how they conduct themselves. I DO get that. I've seen it happen way too many times, and yes, it pisses me off and drives me battier than a shithouse chimp. BUT! Even if their SAR conduct is questionable, why is it so hard for someone to point out what someone else is doing wrong, but ALSO comment about what they are ding RIGHT?

"I'm not sure what to theink about their SAR stuff. Seems shaky and scary to me without having more information. But, man, helping vets and animals help themselves, what a cool idea! I'd like to get some more info here, to see what all we're dealing with here, overall."

How hard was that?

Instead, we get what sounds like one dog threatened by another dog on their turf, hiking its leg just to try and scare off that new dog. "Man, look at these fools. They don't have much up, but what they do, is scary! What jokers!"


This is Random Acts of Kindness Week. I guess that's part of what set this whole introspection off. That, and some twitter discussions I caught up on. Mainly, though, it's Random Acts of Kindness Week, and day one has people I respect fighting and other people I try to respect trying to tear other folks down for pissing in their swimming pool.

Know what I would like to see this week?

I would like to see kindness this week. No, not molly-coddling. I'm not saying, "don't say anything mean or critical, no matter how true it might be." I'm saying, be honest, but try to add something about what that person is doing RIGHT in the middle of that dogpile.

Maybe if we spend as much time considering the positives as we do the negatives, then there might just be fewer negatives to fixate on, eventually.

well, today... has been a bit of a rollercoaster.

neurosurgeon says i'm borked. my neck *and* shoulder are screwed up, so he wants to do a nerve block to see if it offers enough relief to make surgery a viable option. now we wait to see if it gets approved or denied.

and when i called my dad to tell him this, i found out that step-mother filed an order of protection against him, had him tossed in jail for the night, and kicked him out of the house. he's not allowed to contact her, even via third party, is not allowed near the house or her. he served her with papers for legal separation. not divorce, but separation, because he doesn't want to cost her her health insurance that he's paying for.

i... kinda have no words.