o4. Paranoia.

Nobody understands my paranoia. Everybody just tells me I need to "get over it" or that I should learn to "get over it" but it's just not that easy. Nobody knows the extent of how deep my paranoia goes & how long I've been dealing with it, really. I've had this problem since I was a little kid. I can remember, when I was a little kid, I used to sleep with my mom in her bed for a long time, & I would keep the covers all the way up to my neck about, no matter how hot I was, because I thought if anybody broke in & wanted to kill me, they wouldn't be able to see me breathing & could think I was dead already. Pretty silly, I know, but at that time, that was how oneause  way I thought with my paranoia. Nene (my grandma) used to have this house that had this big staircase that was very tall & it would be dark at the top, even in the daytime, & I'd always be scared that there would be someone at the top of the staircase & I was afraid to go past the staircase, so I would actually run past them or avoid them all together.

The one thing that is actually pretty ironic & kinda funny in a way though, when I lived in a house in middle & part of high school, I was in later middle school I think, & mom woke me up late one night & told me to be really quiet. She told me to go to the bathroom with the phone & stay really quiet. Well apparently someone had been trying to break into our large living room window. Our dogs at the time, Lacey, had started barking first, which woke mom up & then Bowser started after her. I think this is what scared off the burgalar because they didn't try anything afterwards. We still called the cops & they looked around but found nothing. But what is weird is the whole time, I wasn't scared. I was really calm the whole time & wasn't freaking out at all. I don't know if it was because I had just been woken up so I was kinda sleepy or what. I just have always found that really strange.

However, for some reason, it got worse when I was living in one of the apartments in Stafford & I don't know why. It was just like the feelings were out of my control & the anxiety was just so much worse. My bedroom had a little hallway & I was afraid of someone walking past the doorway & being out in the hallway in the main part of the apartment. I had to start taking meds again, which I had started taking for the same thing when I was about fifteen but I stopped taking when I was about seventeen. So when I lived there & this started happening, I was about nineteen or so. Then when I moved into the next apartment, I started having night terrors, which didn't help the situation either. So I got on a medication that is supposed to help both the paranoia & the night terrors. Well the medication helped the night terrors for a while but recently I've been having them pretty frequently again,  & the paranoia is pretty high as well.

When I get home from somewhere, even if my mom has been home, I have to check every room, behind the shower curtains, in the closets, etc. to make sure there's nobody there. I can KNOW that there's nobody in the house, but for some reason there's this bit in my mind that doesn't accept that fact & I don't know why. So when people tell me to "get over it" or it's time to "get over it" or whatever. It actually kinda pisses me off when people tell me that. They just don't understand it. Like I said, I can know, literally & physically, that no one is in my house, but somewhere in my mind it just doesn't accept that & I still am scared & paranoid & I still get these anxiety feelings where I can't help but feel how I feel. It's just how I've felt for most of my life & it's not something I can get over in one night of being alone - that's not going to "cure it" or "get over it"; that's actually just going to make it worse & make me have a panic attack. So when you tell me it's time to "get over" my fear, it just pisses me off & angers me, so please don't say it. I know I try to explain it, & I'm trying to explain it further, but even this doesn't really get out the extent of how bad it makes me feel at times & how it makes me feel. It's not something that's easy to "get over" & "face my fear" & whatnot, especially in one day. When I ask someone a favor like staying the night with me when my mom's away, it really means more to me than you know, as well. But anyway, I guess that's all I have to say. I doubt anyone will read this anyway!

o3. Rocky

We got Rocky when I was somewhere around the age of eight years old. My mom & I lived with my grandparents, Nene & Papa, at the time in the Timbers. Rocky was near just a puppy when we bought him & my mom & my grandparents split the price at the pet store. Rocky was a shelty dog & everybody in the family loved him, not just us. He was like a family pet. He grew up with me & the other kids in the family pretty much. He was even sort of like a person because Papa would give him people food all the time. We laughed about it a lot because sometimes he would give him Wheaties & he would ALWAYS give him ice cream in the evenings whenever Papa had ice cream. It was weird though because from all the stories I've heard, Papa used to not be so soft towards pets & animals. He used to be hard & rough towards them & not very nice basically. But when Rocky came along, I guess he devolped a soft spot.

There are so many good memories with Rocky. I remember when my cousin, Emily, was a baby & Papa babysat her, when she got Rocky hair in my hand or mouth, she would call it "Bocky hair" haha. We all still talk about that & Emily is fourteen years old. When Nene & Papa used to have a pool in their backyard, if you splashed water over the side, Rocky would jump up & down to try to catch the water in his mouth. He used to do something similar to this in the kitchen of the house whenever you clash dishes together for some reason, like when you were putting dishes away. I remember him playing with another dog I used to have, Bowser, who was quite a bit smaller, & Bowser used to act like he was the one in control, & Rocky would let him act like that, & just kind of play around with him; it was pretty darn cute. Rocky would always let kitties play with him too, he would never be mean to them either. Everybody would always give him their scraps after meals because he was more of a person than a dog. He also liked everybody, whether they were new & he had just met them or not. I guess that would've been kinda bad in a burgalar type situation, but we didn't really think about that. You don't think about the bad things.

But since around Christmas, he hasn't been doing so well. He started getting sick & wasn't eating very well. He wouldn't eat just his regular dog food. Nene & Papa would have to mix some sort of people food in with it, & it wasn't the normal type of situation where he just wanted scraps; he would always eat his dog food on a regular basis & he would just eat scraps when they were given to him. Well now he just would not eat the dog food AT ALL. They tried different brands, wet & dry food, etc but nothing helped. He started eating food when it was mixed with certain people foods but it was still hard. He started losing a lot weight & started getting pretty skinny. He also started getting really weak. It was hard for him to stand up on his own because sometimes he would fall back down. A couple times he even peed while he was sitting down because he was too weak to get himself up. Then he started developing a few lumps in a few spots, like especially one large one in his lump. Things just kept going down hill. Then this past week he refused to eat at all - nothing. If he did, he would throw it up. He just wasn't getting by & he was just suffering. So Nene & Papa made the hard decision to put him to sleep because they didn't have the money to do all the testing to find out what the lumps were & possibly remove & fix them, & even then it probably wouldn't help. He was just really old. He was over thirteen years old & that's old for a dog.

My mom told me when I got home late last night after being out. She told me to come in to talk to her after I have settled down because she had something to tell me. I figured it had something to do with her & Jon, but no, it was Rocky, & after she told me & I busted out crying. She said she cried too when she found out. She hugged me for a while, then I held Alex & Charlie like it would help me because I still have my kitties here with me. She told me the Papa is REALLY upset & stuff & that we're not even supposed to bring it up when we're around him, so he is obviously taking it really bad. I don't know who else in the family knows but I hope everyone knows because they deserve to know. I'm glad I got to see him recently when I was out there Friday night/Saturday & I have a recent picture I took like two weeks ago. I'm also glad I'll always have so many memories as well. Nothing can ever take those away thankfully.

There will never be another dog that will ever be like Rocky or that could ever replace Rocky. I don't think Nene & Papa will ever get another dog now that Rocky is gone either. They have Buttons, which is a cat, still, but that's obviously nothing near the same. Like I said before, Rocky was more of a family pet where the entire family loved him, so it's going to effect us all greatly. Some people might not understand why I'm so upset or some people might. Either way, I still want to express how I feel either way. He lived a really long life, longer than both Bowser & Lacey, two dogs that my mom & I had, so we can at least say he had a good long, happy life where people loved him. I'm so glad we had such an awesome dog & I'll never forget him. I don't care how cheesy or how corny that sounds. I love you, Rocky. <3

o2. Pancreatitis?

So I seriously feel as though I'm having another flare-up of my chronic pancreatitis unfortunately. However, the even worse thing is that the ER doctors don't take me seriously, especially since it's CHRONIC pancreatitis & the levels in the bloodwork don't change to show anything. If it was regular pancreatitis, the Lipase & Amylase would go up; however, with chronic pancreatitis, there can be no change in bloodwork & it just goes by symptoms. Well I've dealt with it enough times to know how it feels generally, especially the difference between when my stomach will just hurt one day, go to the ER, get pain meds, & feel better compared to when my stomach hurts with EVERYTHING I eat & even when I don't eat, when I wake up with pain without eating, etc. Because generally only certain things make my stomach hurt but lately EVERYTHING makes my stomach hurt & my stomach hurts even when I don't eat & I've been just waking up with stomach pain before I've even eaten anything. Plus I've been a lot more nauseous as well. I need to be admitted to the hospital to get over it, but that's the hard part. The ER doctors don't take me seriously, especially with no bloodwork proof, & say there's nothing to prove that I need to be admitted & won't admit me. Well, when I don't get better & have to keep coming to the ER, then they get pissed off & don't want to treat me either, so what the hell am I supposed to do then!?! I called my primary doctor & asked if she does direct admits but she won't be able to see me until Monday. Thanks. That helps. Ugh, why does everything have to be so difficult? I miss the days when everything first started kinda because things were somewhat easier because I hadn't been to the ER as much & they were somewhat more willing to treat me. However on the otherhand, they also weren't willing to treat me in some ways because I had no diagnoses so they said they had nothing to treat. But that's funny though because now that I have a whole list of diagnoses, they still don't believe there's anything to treat just because a lot of the things show up on bloodwork when I'm in severe pain. That's really fucking stupid. Migraines don't show up for bloodwork but people go to the ER for those. I have gone to the ER for migraines & they don't treat me the same as when I go for my stomach, that's for sure. I think that's funny though because you can't see a migraine in bloodwork, on an x-ray, on a CT scan, on ANYTHING - yet they're willing to treat that. Why? I have no idea. However when I've had tests to prove some of the things I have, they don't want to treat it just because it doesn't show up on the bloodwork they do at the ER. SO FUCKING STUPID.

Also, I always throw up & pass out whenever I have this severe stomach pain. Well generally I finish vomiting at home before I get to the ER, but I have thrown up at the ER MANY times & I definitely have passed out at the ER all the time. Well the other day when I went to the Free Standing for Mary Washington & saw this one doctor who actually used to be very nice to me, he told me he has never seen me vomit or pass out. BULLSHIT. He may not have ever seen me pass out, but the nurses in triage have seen me pass out a LOT. They have put the amonia that is incredibly strong & incredibly annoying in front of my nose, & sometimes even UP my nose, to wake me up. Also even one time they threatened to cut off my clothes apparently (my mom told me this) if I didn't wake up by the time I got to the back. Yeah, okay, nobody's seen me pass out! :rolls eyes: Also, I KNOW he's seen me vomit because I know one of the first times he saw me I was throwing up. So just because he's old & has bad memory or maybe even WANTS to forget, doesn't mean I never have. Unfortunately I wasn't quick to think of all of the things above to say because I was so pissed off though. Also plenty of other doctors & nurses have seen me throw up as well. I actually had a time where I came to the ER only because of throwing up & not for pain, so that's kinda funny as well. They just want to say these things to make me seem like I'm making up shit to get pain meds, which is incredibly stupid. It just pisses me off.

I have to go to the ER yet again today & I'm hoping it goes smoothly & I don't have to go to more than one ER. I hope just going to the first one goes well & we don't have to get into any arguments or lectures & they'll just be nice & all that. It'd be really nice though if they took me seriously about the pancreatitis thing, but I'm not counting on it. I guess we'll see how it goes...

o1. NEW BLOG!

So since nobody is really on LJ anymore & I can't redirect my posts to Facebook anyway, I decided to make this blog here so I can post my blog here, as well as redirect it to Facebook. Betsy & Ashlee tried to get me to create one quite a while ago anyway & I didn't want to then, but here I am now. I don't know how often I'll really update this thing but I've created one anyway. Considering this is public (at least for now) it's going to be hard to discuss some things that I used to discuss in my LJ (that was friends only). That's one thing that I don't like as much about this. I guess we'll see how it goes though. Anyway who has a Blogger though, please friend me (Ashlee, Betsy, go!) & anybody else. What will I be talking about? Health issues, family & friends, my boring life, boys, etc. If you don't like what I talk about then don't read it. No one is forcing you to read this. I made it public & I made it so anybody (as in not just members) are able to comment, but I am not forcing anybody to read it. If anybody has a problem with what I write, then keep it to yourself for the most part because this is MY blog & I can write whatever the hell I want to write.

Anyway, this is just the beginning of what will come I suppose. Keep your eyes open & we'll see what will come of this.