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May. 28th, 2013 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kolLast night after work I made a lime, cilantro, cauliflower & chicken bake that was absolutely delicious and worth the long Kol nightmare of no cauliflower. So freaking good T___T I've never cooked with chicken thighs before, but it was totally worth the effort of googling hundreds of recipes XD
It is really weird to have to limit what I say on facebook-- I have family following me, and mom doesn't want them to know that David is in the hospital. So I'm probably going to be back on dreamwidth a bit more as the situation continues to unfold. Need a place to unload.
His second surgery is this afternoon-- mom finally got a nurse to lay down exactly what is going on (by virtue of her never marrying him, she has no power of authority, and David's family is... um... not very bright & have been just signing whatever the doctors wanted them to sign without asking questions or finding out why he's going through surgeries). As mom and i thought, he's got necrosis, which means parts of his pancreas are flat out dead. And if they get infected, he has a 85-90% of dying, based on his high risk factors.
His surgery today, btw, is to remove some of the dead tissue-- his pancreas is still super swollen, but they don't like his blood work and the fact that he is an alcoholic with gallstones is putting him up at the upper threshold of high risk.
The good news is, if he doesn't get an infection of the dead tissue, he's got a pretty good chance of coming out of this. But he's absolutely got to stop drinking and recovering from pancreatis this severe is going to be a long and hard road-- my mom said the doctor doesn't think the swelling of the pancreas will come down much for months.
I have a very complicated relationship with David: I have know this man since I was five years old, and he's been with my mother since I was six, but they will never, ever get married. And although David has been with my mother for 24 years now, I have not and will not consider him a father figure in my life.
He's still family, mind, he's just family without a title, falling into the nebulous category of feeling rather than blood. He's always just David, and in a way that is making what he's going through now a little easier for me to handle.
It sounds callous, but there's some nasty history there and although he's certainly influenced certain positive things in me, he will never be a father to me. Even though technically mom and him are common law married, by sheer virtue of living together for a bajillion years, he will never be my step father. And that's okay. He's still family. He still matters. But he'll never be a father, because David is the guy I can never forgive for introducing my mother to cocaine.
I don't talk about that time in my life often, because most people just don't understand and jump immediately to thinking less of my mother. She's been clean and sober since 1999 and has worked through all kinds of hell to get where she is. She is strong and fierce and I will fight anyone who thinks less of her for her past addiction, but that doesn't change the fact that it did happen, and that is has directly influenced who I am today. Or that it has always influenced my nebulous relationship with David.
When I was 9 years old, I found her after an overdose that tured out to be intentional; it would not be the first time I found her in that state, and it was always after David had left her. I spent a good portion of my summers as a pre-teen at NA & AA meetings, trying to inspire and push and beg and barter and ultimately just leave so my mom could recover. You can't do the recovery steps for another person-- but standing beside them as they struggle is one of the hardest things you can do, because you are ultimately helpless against the monster that is addiction.
This is why Elementary is the show my mom and I watch every week. It has been amazingly healing for the two of us.
But it is also why my mom looks at the hell I went through and realizes she's going to be doing it now for David and needs all the strength she can have. He's not on hard drugs, just on alcohol and cigarettes, but for a man who suffers profound alcoholism and has for the majority of his life, and has known his heart condition will kill him if he keeps drinking... we don't know if he's going to be able to make it through recovery. Maybe the pain will overwhelm the need, who knows?
Right now they are detoxing David-- he's got patches on his arms for nicotine & they've put something into his IV that apparently weens him off alcohol too. The real test comes when he's home, which we don't even know yet if he will make it too.
Sober David is something I haven't seen in at least five years. He's a good guy, the kind of guy I might consider my step father. I hope I have a chance to see him again.
It is really weird to have to limit what I say on facebook-- I have family following me, and mom doesn't want them to know that David is in the hospital. So I'm probably going to be back on dreamwidth a bit more as the situation continues to unfold. Need a place to unload.
His second surgery is this afternoon-- mom finally got a nurse to lay down exactly what is going on (by virtue of her never marrying him, she has no power of authority, and David's family is... um... not very bright & have been just signing whatever the doctors wanted them to sign without asking questions or finding out why he's going through surgeries). As mom and i thought, he's got necrosis, which means parts of his pancreas are flat out dead. And if they get infected, he has a 85-90% of dying, based on his high risk factors.
His surgery today, btw, is to remove some of the dead tissue-- his pancreas is still super swollen, but they don't like his blood work and the fact that he is an alcoholic with gallstones is putting him up at the upper threshold of high risk.
The good news is, if he doesn't get an infection of the dead tissue, he's got a pretty good chance of coming out of this. But he's absolutely got to stop drinking and recovering from pancreatis this severe is going to be a long and hard road-- my mom said the doctor doesn't think the swelling of the pancreas will come down much for months.
I have a very complicated relationship with David: I have know this man since I was five years old, and he's been with my mother since I was six, but they will never, ever get married. And although David has been with my mother for 24 years now, I have not and will not consider him a father figure in my life.
He's still family, mind, he's just family without a title, falling into the nebulous category of feeling rather than blood. He's always just David, and in a way that is making what he's going through now a little easier for me to handle.
It sounds callous, but there's some nasty history there and although he's certainly influenced certain positive things in me, he will never be a father to me. Even though technically mom and him are common law married, by sheer virtue of living together for a bajillion years, he will never be my step father. And that's okay. He's still family. He still matters. But he'll never be a father, because David is the guy I can never forgive for introducing my mother to cocaine.
I don't talk about that time in my life often, because most people just don't understand and jump immediately to thinking less of my mother. She's been clean and sober since 1999 and has worked through all kinds of hell to get where she is. She is strong and fierce and I will fight anyone who thinks less of her for her past addiction, but that doesn't change the fact that it did happen, and that is has directly influenced who I am today. Or that it has always influenced my nebulous relationship with David.
When I was 9 years old, I found her after an overdose that tured out to be intentional; it would not be the first time I found her in that state, and it was always after David had left her. I spent a good portion of my summers as a pre-teen at NA & AA meetings, trying to inspire and push and beg and barter and ultimately just leave so my mom could recover. You can't do the recovery steps for another person-- but standing beside them as they struggle is one of the hardest things you can do, because you are ultimately helpless against the monster that is addiction.
This is why Elementary is the show my mom and I watch every week. It has been amazingly healing for the two of us.
But it is also why my mom looks at the hell I went through and realizes she's going to be doing it now for David and needs all the strength she can have. He's not on hard drugs, just on alcohol and cigarettes, but for a man who suffers profound alcoholism and has for the majority of his life, and has known his heart condition will kill him if he keeps drinking... we don't know if he's going to be able to make it through recovery. Maybe the pain will overwhelm the need, who knows?
Right now they are detoxing David-- he's got patches on his arms for nicotine & they've put something into his IV that apparently weens him off alcohol too. The real test comes when he's home, which we don't even know yet if he will make it too.
Sober David is something I haven't seen in at least five years. He's a good guy, the kind of guy I might consider my step father. I hope I have a chance to see him again.
