Sunday, October 17, 2010

Busy

Busyness is the perfect foil to introspection, but I am craving the introspection! I am currently in seven shows, thus spread pretty thin. Plus, I learned of more shows, one of which is the reward for an award I won over the summer. I have a lot of art to create in the next six weeks.

In the mean time, I've been intensely busy for over a week. Bea had surgery, but before that, her roommate had an old girlfriend come to visit. After much fighting for weeks, they pushed Bea out of the nest and Bea landed here for five days. The last day, she had a scheduled surgery for gall bladder removal. She was doing fine after. I tended her every step of the way. We'd planned it before a weekend I was not to have my son, but his father went to our hometown to help his mother with pacemaker surgery. He's still not back, so J had to go to Bea's for the weekend and her recovery. For once, I think TG for xbox.

Bea and her roommate have been best buddies for several years, but I guess they feed each other's drama. When it was time for the roommate to come back home after Bea's surgery and after a few days with her visitor, she claimed that the visitor missed her plane, was then on standby, and was then scheduled for the next day. Bea didn't seem to want J and I there for her roommate's return, her saying I was bored and restless - as I calmly laid on the bed watching TV - her making excuses and strangely putting words in my mouth, so I calmly began to pack to go home. Bea went off the deep end, as she is wont to do, and she carried my heavy art crate and a TV down the stairs in reaction. I guess it is self-injury as a justified response.

You can't help ignorance. Prior to that, she'd stuffed the trash full and got it ready to haul. She'd also fed/watered/let out her very large dog and stripped/remade her bed. The day before, she'd carried the TV upstairs. People who think being tough in such circumstances truly disgust me. She'd insisted she didn't need help and I was letting her have her way and leave, but I had no idea she'd go off the deep end doing stupid shit.

After I left, I received over a dozen texts. I was driving and had to ignore them at first, but I seriously resented the implication that I had not taken great care of her. She was hysterical. She also told me she peeled off one of her stomach bandages, a large patch b/c she'd experienced post-surgical bleeding. In a subsequent call, I tried to tell her that she's being crazy for attention, but she would not let me speak.

Next thing I know, she's overheated her food in the kitchen, dropped the plate, then fell on the juices. And that she's bleeding from the belly button incision from which she'd removed the bandage. And that she threw up with a little blood in it. And that her roommate and her visitor were taking her to the ER.

All of this, mind you, was in the absence of perc.ocet. She didn't like how it affected her, but the alternative has been ridiculous.

However, I am not falling for it. I'd planned to go back during the school day tomorrow. I was the perfect nurse. I will not feel bad about the care I gave or for leaving when she was pushing us out the door. She complained that I left too easily. I will complain that the plays games too easily. It wasn't the first time she put words in my mouth.

One of my responses to her texts was, "Drama." It felt so good to type... Not much longer.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well. Sounds like her gal bladder removal was a LOT more difficult than what I went through in 1995. I had some bleeding from my belly button incision, too, when I prematurely took off the tape thingie that was holding it closed, but I was fine. Of course, I took full advantage of being able to lay around not do anything. Even at 15 I knew not to push it. :-P

Congrats on all the art shows! How you pump out so many paintings is just beyond me. :-D

harada57 said...
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