The Attic Of Dee

When I lived at my dad’s I witnessed many things. The many things that Travis would eat. One night I noticed him with some Bengay just a snacking away on it. I was in horror and snatched it away from him and told his mom. Next afternoon my dad was in charge of the household because they worked different shifts. He proceeded to rant to me about my behavior again, just imagine someone beating a dead horse and you get the picture. I alerted him that he should be happy that he has us, we almost lost Travis last night to muscle rub. Travis nodded about his evening taste testing. Which made my dad fly to the olive green phone that hung in the kitchen over the non-working portable dishwasher. Yes, it was a totally non-functioning household too. He quickly dailed poison control. He told them that his son had ingested Bengay, and they asked when…”Um, last night”. They wanted to know how much. My dad then had to ask me. I had to reply not enough he is still here. The whole time Travis had a Bengay eating grin on his face.

Oh and Bengay is not enough for Travis. I had refinished the inside of a dollhouse and there was a tiny gumball machine in it. One day I entered my room to find Travis crunching on something. The metal part of the little machine was in his hand, the plastic and tiny beads were in his mouth.

Adrain is not to be left out, oh no. She once entered the frontroom, chewing on a white looking wand. My dad asked me…”what does your sister have in her mouth”, to which I replied, “a douche applicator”. My dad can run, like the wind, when toddlers with douche applicators enter the room.

I guess that Pam can’t even escape this one. I wish it were true, but she is as guilty as the rest. She was a rapid, rabid crawler, a carpet beatle connoisseur.

Can I walk away from this unscathed, no, not quite. Someone will come into my attic and dig around and let the whole world know that I too am a Ramsey that ate something they shouldn’t have. I was about three, and I slammed a bottle of St. Joseph baby aspirin. The bottle with the little soldier and they were orange flavored, like candy. That is my defense over the others, at least what I picked tasted good.

Yes, you have that right and my mother would gasp if she heard me say it. I have always been very independent. Did she raise me that way? If you ask her, she would say no, but I would say yes. She put a key around my neck sent me to school. Made me the keeper of my sister and shouldered me with many responsibilities. She left me with no one to rely on during long summers with a key around my neck and a younger sibling. Vacation Valley Bible School does not count; I still had to be the keeper of the Velcro sister. Ora Weber swimming lessons did not count; I still had a sister that was afraid of water to attend too. Also a chore list to have done before anyone got home. No my sister did not do her chores alone. Many summers alone and no stitches or broken bones, no house fires or flooding, no long lasting permanent damage. Nothing terrible happened on my watch. One slightly damaged toe is nothing and the theft was not my doing either.

I travel thru life not really looking for anyone to guide me or a travelling partner. I prefer to travel alone in most cases. The burden of caretaking is gone, when I am alone. Since Jan. of this year, I find myself waiting on a man. Waiting for some man to show up and do what I consider male work. This is what would make my mother gasp as well. Okay it would be natural for all the other women in my family to wait on a man, but not me. I don’t have those clear cut lines. I think illness has made me slide back. Makes me remember my Nona so much and miss her dearly. Incredible sense of humor, lots of love, a back bone of steel, a rough exterior and a soft interior. She would invent adventures for us. She would come to relieve me on burdens and she understood my little self so well. The same rules did not apply with her as they did the rest of the adults. She torn the rules down and let me be me. She taught me to be daring as I dared her and she never, ever passed up a dare. She taught me how to curse like a sailor. She taught me how to make the general public go out of their way for me and enjoy it. I have a whole other spin on it. I might just have one up on her on this one. She was a fighter, a true warrior of life.

Yes, mom she might have dirtied you kitchen with flour from floor to ceiling, but on this days, I was able to stop being the keeper. Nona stood guard instead, and there was nothing getting past that.

Since Jan. I have been waiting for sheers to be hung in the front room. My kitchen weather report/radio/CD player to be hung under the kitchen counter. Since Feb, I have been waiting for a Wes Green run of yard waste. To have help hanging art that still sits in the garage and the bedrooms. Runs to Vinnie’s of things unwanted. Window cling for back door from Bay Area. Fixing of shower rod. Repair of back yard. Sound to come out of my computer speakers. Since Jun, an oil change. Now can’t get DVD drive to work on computer. I have decided for the speakers and the DVD drive, I might have to sleep with one of the guys from the local computer repair shop. I am sleeping with the wrong repair man.

So either, I am waiting on a man, or I am sleeping with the wrong man.

Bone cat face. Outlined with brown beads. Still needs pin attached, will do that soon.

Yes, I am determined to get to the fair and get myself a garlic braid. Every year since my last one faded, I have been to ill to go and get a new one. Running low on cash, I tell Ty that we will gather all recycling up and cash it in, so we don’t have to take money from my dwindling food supply money.

Ty says he has some money somewhere around in his room and he will buy the garlic braid. He says it can’t be too much. Heck, I don’t even know if there is going to be any garlic braids there. I know now I live closer to the fair and in walking distance so I should be able to get there.

Ty offers to crush cans if I will put them on the ground and pick up the ones that he stomps. I think this is a good deal, I can handle this. I have been using my nose inhaler for my sjogren’s. Oh little did I know, not everything is as it seems. I start the agreed process with him. My face feels like it is going to explode. The pain is so yucky. I tell him Ty my face is hurting really bad, we have to do this slower. Ty does his normal short blurt of what he wants me to do, “stand up!”. “Don’t kill yourself over some damn cans!”. There is so many nerves in our faces, you would not believe it. Those suckers can really hurt. Since Feb. I have felt like I have had a sinus infection. It has been exhausting trying to figure out what it is and now the treatment begins. I am not sure how long it is going to take for the inflammation to go down, but I am so ready for it.

We finished the cans, and then I was too tired to turn them in. This is how things happen, I always have good intentions. I swear the LL Bean Lady has an automatic can crusher and she donates her recycling to a charity and she can drive to a cute little town’s farmer’s market and get herself a garlic braid and her best friend one too. The LL Bean lady has a husband too. He drives her where ever she wants to go. I hate that LL Bean lady!

It is so weird how this world works. I would not make my dog live the life that I have to live. I would put him to sleep. I would also give him strong pain killers that I refuse to take. I respect him and would honor him. That being said I have no choice but to continue on. What else is there left too do? Monday the CT scan came back with Sjogren’s. Yes, that means that I have racked up two auto-immune diseases. I am learning they like to hang out together.

My doctor’s have last names and titles and all that jazz, but to me they have first names. Julie said I need to live in the now. Lezlie says that doesn’t mean that I can’t have goals. I am to practice mantras since I have now gone to freaky, panic attack thoughts. Well my body is tired. I was really hoping that one day this would all be behind me and that I would be able to continue on with the life that I deserve. I been to hell and back, didn’t think I would need to revisit it. I am at a mind set that I have never been at. Mentally a very painful place. A place I wouldn’t wish that anyone would have to endure. It hasn’t even been a year and a half since cancer. I haven’t had once chance to come up for air. I want to come up for air!

I am a very strong person, but the panic attacks that have started are telling me that I am getting close to that breaking point. Always when I think I am so close to breaking, in the past, I wasn’t. The panic attacks out of no where are letting me know that I am a little over my head. I have no doubt in my mind that I can do this. It is going take a lot of balance. I do almost all of this on my own. A little help from a medical team. I can’t tell you how many doctors there are. The sarcoidosis alone takes a team. Read all you want about sarcoidosis and then tell me what you think it is like to have. You have no idea what it is like, the thing is that the medical articles are so outdated and inaccurate. Sarcoidosis is painful, depressing, exhausting, it goes on and on, the list. I most cases it does not got away. If you read that, well so have I and I have learned that it does not magically disappear. I won’t allow them to poison me into remission. Nor do they even want too.

Most of the time to get a “remission” in sarcoidosis you have to take cancer medications or immune-suppressant medication. This is not a true remission, when the disease does come back it comes back worse. Then there is the steroids.

Now I got Sjogren’s, which I am just learning how to say. My face has been hurting since Feb of this year. My eyes started burning just after the cancer surgery. This is very painful. It just starts out the blue and is painfully blinding. My ears, have become inflamed in the canal. Then it got a yeast infection. Then there was trauma to one ear drum and blood in the ear canal.

Not one day have I stayed in bed having a pity party. I get up, I continue on my way. My adenoids are enlarged and they have offered to have them removed. I have decided not to go that route. I have been hacked on enough this decade, thanks.

Yeah sometimes in my attic, it isn’t a place for great treasures, sometimes it is dark, dark place. People who get powerful from being sick, get off on it, have sick ego’s, well I have something to tell you. I don’t like you people, I never wanted this for myself, nor does it empower me in any shape or form. Strip me of all the illness and there is where the power lies. I am the person that hates medication and going to the doctor. I am the one that doesn’t know how to piss and moan in the proper manner. I hate pity. I am modest.

I feel like my lesson is acceptance. I have to accept shit, is that it? Yeah I am angry, I have every damn right to be angry. No God isn’t punishing me, no this isn’t punishment for something in a past life, this isn’t karma. No I am not on the wrong path, there is no destination this is a journey. I said I could do it, before I began it. I stood there before something or someone and I said I can do this. I wasn’t given this journey to fail and I am not even failing it. I am nailing it every step of the way. It is just this time around I didn’t pick something so easy. I don’t have to ask why me, I know damn well why me. The only thing I can ask is, what next?

See there is no map, no directions, no nothing. I haven’t made a mess of the mess that I deal with. It is all contained and neatly in place. I have gained more wisdom than the average person. I envy the naive and the LL Bean lady.