Don't Save Her...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that it has been a while.

But I have a good excuse.

I almost died.

Ok, ok.

So maybe I didn't almost die. But that migraine that I told you about in the last post made me feel like I'd rather go home to glory.

Ok. Another exaggeration. (Dear Lord, it was just hyperbole).

But, I would have gladly swapped the pain from the migraine for that of giving birth to an almost 9 lb baby again. And I say church.

Preach.

Instead of trying to blog 2-3 times a week, I'm considering going to once a week. Probably every Saturday morning. Just sitting here right now, after not having posted in 10 days, reflection is easier.  With the exception of love, shoes, and potato salad smothered in sweet barbecue sauce, they say that less is more. We'll see.

Anyway, I've never had a migraine that lasted that long. 5 days. And the pain was way different than what I usually feel. The dizziness, the nausea and the total insomnia just made it a million times worse. I think that I had been on auto-pilot for such a long time that I just did not pay attention to what my body was saying. You know? Stuff like, "I'm hungry." And "Close your eyes and take your stupid ass to sleep."  With the schedule and pace of the clinic (like KB staying until well after 7:00 last night to make sure the patients got their meds or us seeing 13 patients a day with just one exam room), eating, sleeping, and toileting (I learned to hold my pee for 12 hours when I worked at the hospital) can sometimes take a back seat. And ordinarily, I'd tell you that ain't nobody got time for that anyway.

Ordinarily.

But when you find your already slightly insane self, hallucinating about being wrapped in a cotton candy cocoon, sealed into a goo-filled hyperbaric tank, put on a spaceship and kidnapped to the far reaches of outer space, to have your body probed by killer clowns with huge, shark-like teeth, while your Grandmother stands in the middle of the yard waving goodbye and saying, "Wha happen? I deef you know," because she can't hear your deafening shrieks for help, you begin to re-evaluate and make a permanent mental note of the things that you really don't have time for.

 A near-psychotic break is now at the top of that list.

So I have committed myself to always make it a point to sit down and take at least 15 minutes to eat something during my lunch break and to get at least 6 straight hours of sleep at night. The eating thing should be easy. But I might need some, (ahem), intervention with that sleep thing when my brain's "pause" button (just like its "edit" button) doesn't always work like it should.

But I definitely want to avoid a repeat of last week's "A Dukie Down" situation. Especially because there is the potential, that instead of killer clowns, the next time it might be flashbacks of my aunt dressed like a deranged Cabbage Patch doll at the family reunion last weekend that might come back to haunt me.

And that is definitely some shit I won't like.

See there?

Edit button malfunction. (But the rest of y'all don't need to act like you weren't thinking the same thing).

But I digress.

For now.

Our undertaking to get these clinics up and running was ambitious to say the least. Its also what I signed up for, but my problem sometimes is that I am my harshest critic. I always feel like I need to do more, even when there might not be any more that can be done. Couple that with the fact that when it comes to the care of my patients, the Type A part of my otherwise easy personality takes over and I get tunnel vision. So if someone or something gets in the way, it/they probably need to be prepared to get run over. Its never personal and its not my habit to look back to check for survivors, but this time, I was forced to look back.  When I did, it was my own reflection I saw in the rear view. With fresh tire tracks down my back and all.

But let's make sure that we don't get this twisted. I don't subscribe to the idea of the "living martyr" because that suggests that on some level, I would have to consider myself a victim and the set I rep doesn't turn out weaklings.

Justice League over here, my damies. (What up, Pootie?)

E.B White, the author of Charlotte's Web, said, " If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

Seriously.

The good thing is that since I began working as a nurse practitioner, I've never gotten out of bed just not wanting to go to work. Of course, there are days when I feel more up to the task than others. And most definitely, I hope that I will never ever have to unreasonably sacrifice any part of my role as a wife and a mother in order to fulfill my job responsibilities. As much as I love my job, that choice would be way too easy.

My prayer is only for balance. But I'm certain, that sometimes, just like me, even the most heroic among us secretly wish that our proverbial "ho" was willing to "turn tricks" for a more reasonable exchange. And we could just take a day off and go shoe shopping at Bob Ellis.

Obama-Biden 2012

Towanna