Getting laid off or fired is never an easy thing for anyone to deal with, especially when you're let go for reasons you can't control. I was "let go" from work today because of my illness -- that's right, you read it correct. Today has been a really shit day overall.
For one, my cousin Matt died last week, and his viewing/funeral were today. It was terrible. I'm beside myself that he's gone; to make it worse, the viewing was held in the same funeral parlor.. the same ROOM that my dad's was in three years ago this August. It brought back a lot of memories I didn't need. I saw my family (dad's side, that is), and there were a lot of hugs and a few laughs sharing good times together. My family isn't your "average" family. We're Native American; bikers and some would consider pinies (look up the term Jersey Piney, you'll see what I mean). My grandmother (dad's mom) and I have never gotten along. I'm not really quite sure what her malfunction is, and I don't think I'll ever know. When I was little, and I mean real little, we were okay. I loved my grandma (I still do, she's just so fucking ignorant), but after I turned 5 or 6, she turned into this completely different beast. To end a long story short, she never liked my mom, my dad never turned out the way she would have liked him to (he was a mechanic, a biker, and a good guy.. not a church-going, god-fearing christian), and because of all that, I'm a piece of shit by association. Fuck it, and fuck her. My cousins are her pride and joy, and she can have them. My family is dysfunctional, and I'm done trying to fix it. I wasn't even going to speak to her at the viewing today -- I didn't want to cause drama since it was inappropriate, but I did talk to her out of respect (and for my Aunt Maggie, who knows how much of a dick my Grama Vi is). I said hello to her, and she looked at me like I had four heads. Her little walker wheels squeaked and squealed as she tried to go past me, and my Aunt Maggie stopped her and nudged her to talk to me. I said it was nice to see her, yadda yadda yadda, and gave her a hug. She said I didn't look well, and I told her about my PTC, and that I have been super sick all weekend (had a great episode yesterday that I'll go into later on). She looks at me, squints her eyes, and blames my septum piercing (nose ring) for it. She got really nasty about it, and my Aunt Maggie got a real sharp tone in her voice and said, "it's not that, Vi, it's her brain."
This is true.
After that, I just shook my head and left the room. I even tried to introduce her to Vinnie, but she had no interest. You have to understand, my grandma is an asshole. She likes to cause drama, talk about people, and always pick out everyone's flaws and never pay mind to her own. If she doesn't like one thing about you, you're shit to her. Vinnie has long black hair, and a beard/goatee/mustache thing. He wears black clothing and big gnarly Viking jewelry. She doesn't like him. But fuck her, I do.
I went outside with Vinnie in tow, and met up with my mom. Grandma and her horrendous "boyfriend" wheeled by and didn't say a word. Good -- go back to Delaware.
After that, I attempted to eat some lunch with V and my mom, and wasn't able to keep much of it down. I laid down the rest of the afternoon. Around 5pm, I got a phone call from the HR department at my job. Well, former job. I've been on temp. disability for a little while due to the illness (PTC), and the doctors finally diagnosing me with what's wrong. I've been through a battery of tests the past month, and I've got the bruises and IV holes to prove it. HR told me last week (since I was due to come back today) if there were any problems and the doctor wanted me out longer, it would be no big deal and all they would require would be a note to extend the disability. Fine. I called at around 6am today and left the HR manager a voicemail, explaining that I'm seeing the neurologist again, he's not happy with how I'm progressing, and I will have to be out longer, and that I had no problem providing them with the proper documentation.
Well. The day goes by and I get this call out of nowhere. I asked if I was "laid off" or "fired", and all I was told was, "because of your illness and inability to work, we can no longer hold your position". GREAT. I was on FMLA, temp. disability, how the fuck is it legal for them to can me like this?! And now, my insurance will run out this Friday, so I'm fucked. I'm totally fucked.
I have had the headache from hell since Friday (it started to go away Friday morning, but came back with a vengance), and have had the shittiest weekend, now this?
Yesterday (Sunday), I woke up at oh, 5am with a SCREAMING headache. The kind I get and can't even see with. I cried, I took numerous scalding-hot showers, nothing. Then I looked over at the new box of Treximet my doctor prescribed. The Relpax I was taking stopped working, so he called this in for me. Worth a shot. I was a bit hesitant about taking it, since Imitrex makes me vomit violently (and those meds are all in the same family), but I was desperate for the pain to stop so I popped a big blue pill into my mouth and laid there. Not 30 minutes later, I was throwing up like I've never thrown up before into the toilet. Lovely. I crawled back into bed and was there most of the day.
My Aunt Betty has been in from Michigan the past four days for a family thing, and I wanted to see her and her husband before they left, no matter how sick I was. The hotel they stayed at was right up the street, so I got myself together as much as possible and me, Vinnie, and mom piled into the car to meet up with them for dinner. I, of course, didn't eat, but enjoyed the company and iced tea I slowly sipped. We went back to their hotel and were going to just hang out for a bit. When we were leaving the restaurant, I started to feel really.... strange. The strange feeling I've been having the past few weeks as my headaches have gotten worse. My head was pounding, I was slurring my speech, and having serious dizzy spells. Everyone said I should go home and lay down, but stubborn ass me said no. We went to the hotel.
The people there must have thought I was wasted -- Vin was holding my hand, helping me walk to the elevator and up to the room. While there, I don't remember a whole lot of what was going on (I tend to have memory issues while having an episode). I know that I had a nosebleed, and was really messed up. We went home, and I laid down. I couldn't eat any dinner, only a few strands of pasta mom made me and I booted that back up into the toilet about an hour later. Nice, huh?
Needless to say, this has been a pretty fucked up weekend, and I'm beyond bummed. The idea of a shunt is looking better and better if it makes me live a more normal life. I can't take this sick all the time bullshit anymore, and I know it weighs heavily on those around me. I'll keep updating this as much as I can, I guess, since I'll have a whoooooole lotta time on my hands, now..
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