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Farm Doin's - 2020

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sKePTiKal:
SIGH...

OK. Stimulator wasn't removed in the last surgery - just the pain pump and catheter to the spine. I'm less familiar with it too. There are 20 leads - wires - to paddles to send a very low voltage electrical charge to various muscles and nerves. Sort of an "artificial intelligence nervous system".

HOWEVER. (Lots of sighing)
The surgeon who did the last removal cut right through most of those 20 leads. As of the scan yesterday, only 4 out of 20 are functional. This explains the excessive low back pain he's had.

You know what the acronym SNAFU stands for and that it came from the military in WWII? Here we go...

The VA caseworker who approves payment for medical care denied his next round of antibiotic for the infection. Said he'd been on it 2 weeks already and she made a MEDICAL decision that he shouldn't continue the course - or he'd become resistant. NEVER read the doctor's orders for a 6 week course of the antibiotic BECAUSE it's already resistant.

His last blood count showed some reduction in white blood cells (infection) but not ENOUGH yet for the surgeon to take the chance of replacing the stimulator leads. At least this AB is proving effective. So far, there are no signs of infection around the stimulator. Because of the medical necessity of CONTINUOUS antibiotic treatment to kick the infection's butt B had 24 hrs to resolve this payment issue and get delivery of the next batch of AB this morning. He was calling DC - his senator and DoD - to get this all straightened out late afternoon yesterday. He actually did speak with the Senator and sent some paperwork to him. No idea what he may be able to do.

He had to inform DoD that he wouldn't be able to meet their deadline for activating him for training duty if the VA and the hospital didn't get their act together. Because he wouldn't be healthy enough to perform under the conditions required for the training. OH, and the VA caseworker also made a decision that they wouldn't approve the anasthetic for surgery for the leads because he'd already been under the influence of morphine too much in the last 2 months (because of the surgeries). So he'll only get a local anasthetic and have to bear up under the rest of the pain. Nice, huh?

FORTUNATELY, he has a very good T, who is the one prescribing what he can to help B with the pain management. That T now has all the documentation of the back & forth rigamarole and frustration that B has put up with. Because when B gets "assertive" he tends to scare the crap out of people who don't handle other people's anger very well and have no compassion because patients are just a presentation of symptoms or disease to them (so they can work day to day).

Then he discovered that there are data entry errors in his service record online. So very very little information that is supposed to be there, is there. Basically, name rank & serial number - and that number is off by one digit. COULD BE just a clerical error, typos do happen. But I do wonder about that and run various other explanations through my brain. It's also possible that this is why they keep denying payment for the care he needs.

All the man wants is to get healthy again and not have to deal with those docs/hospital AGAIN. He will agree to do the training - IF the Navy then lets him retire. Fully processed out. All legal, cut & dried, DONE. Then he can go on different insurance and choose his own docs. 26 years in the military; I think that's the least they could do.

It's normal for a person to get as upset at this kind of cluster**** as he does. The fact that he's still putting up with it and trying to fight his way through it demonstrates a lot more patience than I would have. He is attempting to get well to fulfill this last obligation but the "system" keeps trying to deny him that at the same time. The gov't might say some words thanking him for his service... but the way they've treated him, IMO, speaks more loudly to the fact of what they really believe about their "military assets".

I'm having to fight some "support fatigue" through all this. It's hard to find new ways to say, I'm sorry, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, it's not your fault.... I've been doing this for years now but with better information than I had previously in the last 6 months or so. The total exhaustion in his voice is heartrending. But I have been able to find ways to make him laugh. That helps. My sense of humor is appropriately sick & twisted enough for a soldier. Go figure.

sKePTiKal:
Update: someone jiggled something enough in the system, that the AB was dropped off this morning. So moving in the right direction again. Getting the infection cleared up - enough for surgery and so it doesn't come back - would be such a big difference for him.

He likes the few "good days" he's had and would like some more. I concur.

Hopalong:
Yegods, what Buck has been going through...and vicariously, you too. I am so sorry. It's unfathomable. Any chance he would fare better at Walter Reed? May not be an option, I realize. They want their last piece of training from him but don't seem to care whether they excise the last piece of peace from him in order to get it. If I were a wounded soldier in such pain, poorly treated for so long...I'd begin to question my service. Damn.

About John. A boundary thing pops up in my mind as I imagine you deep in H-relationship analysis with him, a peer/friend of HERS. As with House Guest, before, I keep getting this feeling of you finding understanding and connection mostly from your child's peers, and though I understand why (you're on a mountain! tons of projects underway! they're the people who are there!) it tweaks some discomfort. It breaks down a natural generational boundary that is a protective one, imo.

Dunno why, but there it is. I guess it's because you are the older, life-wise adult in the building. Yet most of your 3D confidants are young, male, friends of Hols. The convos seem to be extremely psychologically intimate and analytical. In my head, it goes to enmeshment (encouraging that kind of intimate sharing with her peers) in a vicarious way. When it's with Hol, you and she get frontal, and you wind up emotionally abused by her, via the microscopic quasi-therapeutic joint analyses. When it's too much or too hard, there are her proxies right on site, and the analyses continue.

What I wish for you persistently is for you to find age-and-life peers of your own, in 3-D, somewhere nearby. And friendships that DON'T require so much intensive probing of toxic depths to enjoy them in good form. Trusting females your own age, building respect for them even if they're not as intellectual or confidently analytical as you are, circles around and builds your trust and confidence in yourself, in my experience. But that's me, here in my town, in very different circumstances.

Buck is your peer. But at this point Buck is still a LDR, long-distance relationship--and a lover, which is different though he also offers friendship. You also deserve support and the friendship of other whole adults of a similar age, at least within a decade. There's a qualitative difference, imo.

(And it's entirely obvious to me that I'm seizing on this worry because the micro-analysis has begun in my own relationship, and I need to warn MYSELF, as CB suggested, that a relationship that takes this much pro-active OR reactive verbal analysis may not be a healthy one. That one day I might look back and see how much the rescue-analyse habit cost or changed me.)

Projectionally and affectionately,
Hops

sKePTiKal:
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with you Hops. I've had to - a couple times - walk into a conversation and announce that I'm just DONE with all the analysis and won't engage in it. Glad to talk about anything else anyone wants to talk about... or even human experience in GENERAL. Just none of the personal jousting.

My local friend has had her hands full caring for her mom, job location moving and full hormone workout to find out why her menopause is so debilitating. I haven't had space for another guest and just don't drive over the mountain much this time of year. The early dark makes me very sleepy at 6:30 pm. She still sees another friend from work that I've gotten along with. So we can do some things in the spring again.

The generational thing makes a lot of sense to me. I have at times pointed out that I'm at a completely different place in my life and then defend the "intentionality" of it... because apparently I'm not capable of knowing if I chose something or just let it happen and am now stuck. LOLOLOLOLOLOL. The projection levels are sad & funny at the same time. But I very seldom turn the tables and make it her turn. Why?

Because where else did she learn to confuse analysis with judgement? From people doing that to her. She is smart and self-aware. I can wait for her to see it... because this crap doesn't get under my skin as much as it used to. Somehow, gradually, in the background... I upgraded my strength of self to where I can endure this without TOO MUCH questioning my own sanity. And I refuse to engage in the power struggle version of "analysis"... where someone is "right" about the other person to the point that they're defined and can be nothing else. Bullshit.

I do have limits; and removing myself from the conversation/situation states my point about full-time naval gazing as well as words. When I am able to get through to her, I almost need a long-pondered, edited full statement... and be ready to deliver that to her - out of context to the rest of the blathering - and prepared to cut off any interruption or over-talking coming from her. As much as she is concerned about how she hasn't been "heard" - I'm never allowed to finish a thought or sentence before she's arguing her point, telling me I'm wrong, etc.

Yeah, I kinda recognize this description. At her age, I think I went through kinda the same thing. And therapy most definitely HELPED me get to the point I could help myself. She isn't ready to admit she needs help yet. But when the breakdown happens... Mom and her friends will be here to help her figure out next steps on her own. No one, including me, has TOLD her what to do since before she was 18.

Some of this is externalizing what she's experienced in past relationships; some of it is fears about the current one and the miscarriages; some of it is over-responsibility on HER PART - and being faced with the consequences of her own actions/decisions. She is probably stronger than I am, in that her "self" was innate and not something acquired through work. But she's also stuffed a lot of crazy ideas in her head; beliefs; and things that my place can give her the time to unpack, sort, purge and save a few things. It's good for her to do that while life isn't moving at her normal speed. That doesn't happen until late Feb; a new production is starting and she needs to be local to work.

And there are many many ways that Buck is who I retreat to for adult conversation and understanding. (Hol is 42; how is that not adult?? Generational things notwithstanding.) As much as I'm involved in what his experiences are... he is involved in mine. And I'm impressed. He knows how to listen; be supportive; and while he of course has his Mr. Fixit side... knows it's not up to him to fixit. He's really good at diffusing my anger & frustration.

So, one of the things that Hol has suggested actually makes sense. This place needs some purpose and direction; organization; there is a vacumn in the leadership role. We've all just been "being" out here. And there is only one person to whom that falls - the one who started all this, with a warm & fuzzy vague idea of something. And with time for Buck to join my flying circus getting closer, it's time for me to step into that role and start herding the cats into some kind of peaceful "order". Perhaps even overdue.

So, I'm working on something. To express & communicate what I see can happen; what I WANT to happen; what I DON'T WANT etc. The latest iteration of Mom's Rules, I guess. There are planned several moving parts to the farm; with different people interested in them and coordination, management & direction is one of my skills. It's important here now.

lighter:
I'm not sure what you mean by leadership, Amber.

YOu set out to find yourself, discover your passions and build a new life on the farm.

From here... maybe it's a matter of figuring out boundaries, putting them in place, and eforcing them rather than installing yourself as leader.

You raised your children.  You're embarking on a new phase in your life.  I just can't wrap my mind around taking on a leadership role on your farm over adults who should be able to lead themselves. 

Perhaps it'll make more sense when I understand more about it.



Lighter

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