I Made It ...Almost

My first day back to work was yesterday. It might have been because of the flax and oat bran cereal the evening before, but I had severe diarrhea and hyperstalsis. I could not concentrate and felt very emotion-on-my-sleeve. I usually work twelve hour shifts. I get up at 445 am and leave for work 545am. I get home at about quarter-to-nine. I did not do 'well' my first day. I found myself feeling very self conscious and raw. I could have cried at any given moment. By the time I had had 4 bouts of bad diarrhea, it worked it's way to nausea. Well feeling bad made me more emotional. So that was not helping. So I decided to bite off my pride and ask to go home early ill at 230pm. I drove home in tears and afraid. I was worrried I would, for real, crap my pants sometime during the hour drive I had home. Please God, don't add 'crap my pants' to my misery right now. When I got home I took a bentyl (for irritable bowel), two tylenol for abdominal pain and headache, fixed myself a real Coke and quickly laid face down on the sofa, my whole ventral torso on a long, set-on-medium, heating pad. I had to get up for one more episode in the bathroom, returned to the face down sofa flop and cried over my Dad and being embarrassed at having not made it through test drive number one....my first day back at work.

Today I made it the full 12 hour shift and feel like I have been beaten up ( two days of gardening, worrying about my first day back to work (still feeling raw), and now, with a sore gut and anus. It was a typically heavy day at work where I only got to urinate once, got half a cup of coffee down, and shuffled the care of six different pregnant women who had uncontrolled diabetes, toxemia, a cerclage etc.....I felt proud as I left after the full day staying in the saddle on my get-it-together-horse. Now I sit writing and my whole body is hoping for relief that only my mind can give (at least that's what the evidence seems to show). Yesterday at work I received a beautiful plant and many hugs. Each hug made the tears rise up. When I came home early and ill yesterday, there were three more cards waiting for me. Today at work, I received a card signed by most of those I work with. I then came home to 2 more cards and some perfume and body wash I had ordered for me. I now have two days off to rest again, get more air and sun and wind and just let the feelings flow, keep pushing forward, and push up if the sarcophagus feeling beats me down. Night mom & dad. God how I want to believe there is a heaven. You both were very brave ill and dying human beings. I suppose 'in dignified fashion' would describe how you both left this world in my arms.