I Need a Chauffeur

Today was the day Dad and I had to drive down to see his oral surgeon (Dad was diagnosed with Stage 2 Cancer of the Tongue in June). I hate these appointments. The doctor knows full well that its a 2 & 1/2 hour drive for us and yet insists on 8 a.m. appointments. We have to leave at 5:30 for these appointments. Last time, due to a large number of construction areas, we didn't get to the appointment until 8 a.m. Then we had to wait 20 minutes for the doctor's receptionist to show up to lead us to the 2nd waiting room. So, since we actually made it to the appointment ON TIME, Dad insisted we leave 15 minutes earlier today. WHY? Right? WHY would we have to leave earlier to make it to an appointment that we have to wait for anyways? There's no talking to the man. He must arrive 10-15 minutes before an appointment, that way if he's not called within 5 minutes of said appointment, he has a reason to start complaining (to me, nobody else).

**I should note that Dad did not have surgery. He went through 8 weeks of radiation which finished on 10/28, no chemo.

As you may or may not know, I didn't sleep Saturday night. I then crashed early Sunday night and slept 14 hours. There was NO way I was going to bed at 9 p.m. to get 7 hours of sleep. So, how much sleep did I get before having to make that long drive? A whole 2 & 1/2 hours.

Now I have a question for anyone that has a drivers license:

Suppose you're driving down a road with no streetlights in the middle of the night.  If an oncoming car begins to flash its headlights (normal and bright lights) at you, would you think:

1. This person can see how hot I look in my car and is flirting with me
2. This person is having serious problems with their car, I'm glad I don't have that problem.
3. This person is letting me know I have my bright lights on and its blinding them, so I should turn them off until they pass me.

If you chose number one, you should learn the song "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon.

If you chose number two, you need to learn some driving etiquette.

If you chose number three, you are correct, and obviously not one of the three people I passed this morning. 

Now, I understand that some cars have headlights that are super bright, this was not the case with any of the cars I passed today.  This did not help my mood at ALL! 

We got to the appointment 15 minutes early (shocker right?)  Then, the receptionist was late AGAIN and didn't take us back to see the doctor until 8:20 again! Needless to say, we didn't get out of the doctor's office until 9:30 and I was fuming.  Another 2.5 hour drive was not what I wanted or needed, but what option did I have? 

In the last 3 months, I've put over 5,000 miles on my car taking Dad to appointments.  I'm just tired of being a chauffeur.  I need to win the lottery, just so I can hire somebody else to drive.

 







Maybe somebody like him?  










WOW! 2 Brad Pitt references in 2 days.  That never happens! Maybe its the lack of sleep???  Maybe my mind will be Brad free tomorrow....

Introduction

I suppose I should share why I think I'm the most stressed. I mean, I'm not trying to belittle the millions of other women that have a lot to do by any means, but I have a very full plate and hope that griping about it to the one or two people that are kind enough to read this will help me to remove at least some of the stress.  Obviously I can't share every single thing that has happened to me which has put me into the place I am now in just this one post, but we'll get there eventually. 

I'm 39, married and a mother of three boys.  Kelly is 22, Kris is 19 and Jordan is 15.   Kelly dropped out of high school at 17, had a daughter 2 years later (making me a grandmother at 36, talk about RUDE!) and he is now going back to school to get his GED.  Kris joined the National Guard at 17, graduated high school at 18 and then attended basic training and AIT (our car was stolen while we were on our way there, that's a future story).  He is currently working 2 jobs and scheduled to go to Afghanistan in September 2010 (which puts college on the back burner once again).  He is a MP and hopes to get into SWAT or the FBI.  Jordan is 15, has X-Linked Icthyosis (which means his dead skin doesn't automatically fall off) and he's been teased a lot for this condition.  He is now a sophomore in high school and hopes to get into accounting. 

I am currently getting my BA in Administration through online classes.  This was not my original plan.  When I went back to college in the fall of 2007, I had every intention to become a high school counselor.  However, I discovered I would have to become a teacher first, and then after 5 years of teaching, could become a counselor.  So, I began my journey taking classes to become a Secondary Education English Teacher.  After only one year of classes, I learned my father was losing 2/3 of his pension from General Motors.  They discovered after 3 years that they had been overpaying him.  So, he was now going to lose 1/3 that was too much of his income, and 1/3 to repay back his overpayment.  He had just purchased his house the year before, so the choice was: move in with him or have him move in with us.  Well, since I had just lost my house to foreclosure the year before and was currently renting, the wise decision seemed to be to move in with him.  I ended up transferring colleges and changing my degree.

This leads me to yet another stress in my life.  My father.  My father was an alcoholic from the time he was in his early 20's until 1999.  This brought on a lot of problems for me my entire life.  My Dad was a yeller, and I got the brunt of it.  Nothing I did was right.  And its because of the constant bombardment of how I did everything wrong, that I tend to be a perfectionist.  No matter what I do, its never enough.  

I was just about to sign off, when I realized I hadn't shared one of biggest stressors of this year.  In June, my father was diagnosed with Oral Cancer, stage 2.  It took three months before the doctors could agree on a plan for treatment in our area (we live in a rural area).  During that time, Dad began to eat less and less.  This caused a lot more problems, because he's also diabetic and he was going into altered states every single day, sometimes multiple times a day.  After 39 sessions of radiation, which ended last Thursday, we are now done with the long hour drive just to get to the hospital five days a week.  

That's all for today....more to come in the future...