Just us in the house

Woke up again with a shopping list of things I want to do today.  I will definitely work on the birthday card I need to do that, it is over due and their a couple coming up. I have some thoughts that I want to write but they are for a separate blog I'm going to start. It's called 'My 2Cents Not Worth A Penny.'  I'm going to vent and talk shit there, and try not to mention my health or personal struggles.  I'm going to be a normal sane person in that blog.

I have a headache. I'm taking the new medication for the PH.  It's Viagra! Maybe I'll get an erection. Seriously one of the side effects is blindness that irreversible. But hopefully my breathing will be better.  Yesterday I went for a V/G scan and there were some abnormalities and my Pulmonary doctor sent me to the ER to do a CAT scan with contrast. Okay here's some venting.  I was there from 11am until 6:30 pm.  When they were admitting me to the ER I got so much attention, everyone was in the little room, they even gave me this warm thing in my hand to warm my blood before they stuck me for the IV line. They liked my medical information card and thought it was funny that I had a laminator at home. They even took my shoes and socks off for me.  Then they were gone.  I got someones attention to go to the bathroom but  after that, all and all they basically ignored me.

There was this man in the room next to me.  I have no idea what he looked like but he had a annoying voice and nasty mouth to match.  Racism is alive and well in America.  This man was disgusting.  He didn't want anyone to assist him except white Americans.  Not anyone with an accent.  He told the Chinese people to get away from them because they are bombing America.  He told the Pueto Rician man to go back to Peuto Rico. He told the the Indians, to go to the airport and board the next plane to India.  When a group of black doctors passed his room he said oh look at the Africans, why don't ya'l go to Africa, we don't want you here. He yelled out that he was HIV positive and didn't care who knew. He kept screaming he wanted to sign himself out if he didn't get any help.  I mean he was being a pain in the ass.  He got nastier and nastier as the day went on.  He told the lady in the room across from him that she was a disgusting fat pig, she stays home all day eating and getting fat.  A black doctor went into his room and he yelled get this nigger out my room.  The staff finally had enough and called security so they could give him a shot to calm him down.  Then they took him up to his room.

About two hours after the pig was gone I asked one of the orderlies what was happening with me.  He said I don't know but if I wanted help, I know what to do.  He was referring to the pig, that I should yell and scream.  It took all this time to get a CAT.  If I was at the city hospital they would of had that CAT done and I would of been out of there in 2 maybe 3 hours if they weren't going to admit me. Now my conclusion is that in the city ER they have a lot of people and they have to get them in and out.  Here they didn't have no rush.  Well the CAT scan didn't show any pulmonary embolism. Good, right? No! They still don't know what is causing my breathing to be difficult or what the abnormalities are.  What does this mean?  More fucking test!

They didn't feed me while I was in the ER in case they had to do some procedure or something. I was starving.  I had a bagel that morning and a cup of fruit. By the time I got home it was after 7pm. I had plan to eat the rest of the salad I made with tuna, or if there was chicken I was going to have that.  My mate being the thoughtful person that she is, fried me a hamburger with cheese, onions and of course a potato roll. Yum! I guess it didn't hurt.  This morning I had, a bowl of cereal with Almond milk and I ate a banana. I got that banana down, I really don't like them.  I got caught up on the news reading the papers from Thursday up to today. My doc called I still have a UTI and was calling in a prescription for stronger antibiotics.  My mates niece went and picked them up for me. Before I came down to write the rest of this entry I had a piece of broiled flounder and that salad.

I am tired but I don't want to lay down. I'll tell you about the move into the house.

We packed up the apartment in Far Rockaway, I don't remember but I think we rented a U-Haul. My furniture and TV were from Rent-A-Center and they moved my furniture.  My Uncle was angry that I moved the furniture he gave my mother, to the porch. Yes it was good furniture, but it was old fashion, it had plastic on it. I like my living room to be a place to live in.  So he told my grandmother he couldn't come to the house and see the furniture on the porch.  The porch was nice, it was in door, not out in the elements of nature.

A week or so after the funeral my brother came over and we wrote the thank you cards. It was a lot, mom's little church was packed. It was standing room only.  My mothers, brothers, sister and my friends and co-workers all attended.  They sent flowers, cards with  money, fruit, food and drink.

Mommy worked for the NYC Parks department. She had a huge pension, she was retired for less then a year, all her money was there.  She willed it to me, my brother and sister.  We received close to 80K a piece.  I paid off all my bills and brought a brand new 1993 Mazda MVP. Loved that car.  I let a co-worker talk me into getting a car note.  Mistake, you know hind sight.  I should of followed my mind and got a good used car paid in full.  Keeping up on the utilities, insurance, taxes and don't forget food, it was a lot.  My cousin asked me to take her daughter in because she was getting in trouble and I did. My cousin had promised to pay me $300 a month or something like that.  I got the $300 once and she was there September to November I think.  I'm glad she and her cousins got to know each other. She wasn't any different then my own children.  They all were smoking cigarettes and reefer.  They ran up and down the steps and the house shook and rattled, inside the walls the cement was crumbling.  The electricity couldn't handle the video games, multiple TVs' and boom boxes. The plumbing was leaking into the kitchen and the basement. 

Gran had a hard time going up and down the stairs.  She spent most of her time in her room, she had newspapers all over the floor.  She would smoke her cigarettes all the way to her fingers, until they burned, she couldn't feel it.  I she would go down and get something to eat, I would fix dinner and take it up to her.  Sometime she wouldn't eat or she would send one of the kids to go and get her Chinese food. My sister-in-law would take her to her doctor appointments and occasionally they would take her for the weekend. I tried my best, I really did, but I don't think it was enough. She was Gran, always strong, the woman I use to challenge when I was a know it all teenager.  The lady who usually had something negative to say about everyone and once a a while sometime good to say.  I took for granted that she was going up and down the steps that she could do it.  I offered to help her in the tub, but she didn't want my help.  Looking back on it I should of did more.  My sister-in-law said if I didn't want to move into the house that she would of taken Gran.  I should of asked her to take Gran when the stove and refrigerator started acting up.  One morning as I was getting ready for work Gran left the bathroom and went in her room and closed the door.  She soiled the toilet and I cleaned it up.  When I went pass her room she was laying on  the bed with her legs hanging off.  I called her but she didn't say anything, when I went in she wasn't breathing, I called 911 and the asked me to put her on the floor and to preform CPR.  I didn't know how and I was afraid. Mr. 23 years did it.  The EMTs' came. Gran was a live when they carried her out, I saw her move her arm.  I got to the hospital and waited.  About an hour later they came and told me my grandmother was dead.  Was it my fault, could I have done more?  This was six months after mommy died. 

My cousins husband came to NY and picked up his daughter and took her back to California.  We were the only ones left in the house.  I fixed the small bedroom in the attic into an office to write.  I would come home from work and put all I had into my novel.    The kids would be watching TV doing homework or at their friends houses. Mr. 23 would do the cooking and cleaning. It was a while before I knew he was getting high again. Mr. 23 was smoking crack and shortly after started do heroin again.   He would be in the basement doing his drugs and I would be in the attic smoking reefer and writing. It was people, places and things. We were in our old neighborhood. He was around the people he use to get high with.  I was on a mission to write a novel, publish and get rich.

After a while I took a second job at McDonald's.  I was gone most of the time.  I expected Mr. 23 to watch the kids,  he let them do what they wanted and my youngest just ran wild.  My oldest he started hearing voices and his behavior became odd.  He got arrested  twice in two weeks. One for shop lifting and second he was picked by this kid as the one to rob him of $10.  I used the last of the money I got from mother to bail him out and secure a private lawyer. Who did a a good job, only he wasn't able to get the charges sealed. He did six months on Rikers, that's the local jail. When he came home he was in and out of the hospital, and on every pshycotrobic medication.  He wouldn't take the medication.

One morning he came in after stealing my car and riding around all night.  He thought I called the police on him and he picked up a shovel and threaten to hit me with it.  I had a young girl living with me, her mother abandoned her.  So me and his sisters and the little girl went down stairs and got in the van and pulled off just as he smashed the rear window and driver's side window.  I drove us around the corner and called the police. When we drove back to the house I could see my son standing on the roof with the stick in his hand, the shovel part broke off in the car.  One of my step sons' friend was trying to talk my son down because the police were standing in the door way with a gun pointed up at him. He went into the hospital and got medicated. Mr. 23 years wasn't there, he arrived shortly after everything happened. He said someone called him and told him something happened.  I believe he was with the women he married.  This was before cell phones were affordable.

This cycle just kept going on and on. He got arrested again for robbing some one for like $10 this time they sent him upstate for 36 or 48 months I can't remember.  When he got home two weeks later he robed someone for their Walkman and sat right where he stole it from.  He got seven to fourteenr.   He's been home for a year and is now on lock down in rehab.  I pray for my son to lose this addiction that dictates his misjudgment and to let him get a life he never really had.