Who Am I?
I am a poet. I think I was drawn to poetry because my dad was a songwriter and guitarist, so I grew up with poetry and music.
My parents were told I was dyslexic in elementary school but they didn't believe it because my IQ was/is high. They had my IQ tested several times and I was always above average but I failed every class but English, my poetry held me up there. You don't have to write correctly, capitalize everything, use grammar to write poetry. As soon as I learned to write, I started writing poetry. I still mess up letters and words, use the wrong word and you'll see that throughout my poetry but I don't usually change it because sometimes "steal" feels right when I should have used "steel".
In elementary school I had teacher to help me and speech therapy. In high school I didn't have that benefit. My teachers would get angry because I always tested well but failed class work. They thought I wasn't applying myself. But in the classroom there was too much going on, conversations, buzzing of lights, movement . . I just couldn't focus.
I dropped out very young but did get my GED, passed in the 99th percentile.
At 16 started working in long term care, nursing homes. I loved it. I was needed and valued and so loved. The nurses took me under their wing and taught me all they could. By 17 I was doing catheters, deal with o2 tanks, helping dispose of unused meds, setting up med sheets for the new month, treating injuries . . . I have saved lives and I have held the hands of the dying.
After 12+yrs as a nurses aide I had injured myself many times. My residents always came 1st and I always gave them the best of me, no matter what. If I had 50 patients, they were all well cared for while many aides would decrease rounds, I never did, I worked harder. And I paid for it in the end but have no regrets.
I didn't know it back then but every time you have a significant tear in a muscle, scar tissue forms and the muscles won't stretch as well and eventually the tearing will get worse.
I had a 300lb patient fall and myself and another aide were told to pick him up off the floor. I said we should make him comfortable and wait for the EMT's (we were sending him out because his o2 was low, that was likely why he fall). I said we should get more aides, especially since I'm 4ft 7in, I have a hard time lifting tall people. All of my recommendations were denied. Really, he should not have been moved in case CPR would have been needed, but the RN wanted him in the the best and she couldn't lift because of fibromyalgia. It took all I had to get him up. My the time we got him on the bed my entire back was burning.
We were already short staffed and I tried to stay, tried to care for my patients but it got so bad I could hardly walk.
I went to the ER and was thrown a generic "lumbar muscle sprain" diagnosis. The docs I saw thought I should recover in a few weeks. I was on light duty, passing ice three times a night, emptying trash cans, passing snacks to the entire nursing home. It made me worst. Started falling. I saw an orthopedic who told me to lose weight and go back to work.
Turns out that all those years of strains/sprains formed scar tissue and that last major tear undid me. I have scar tissue so thick you can feel it through my skin, when it tears (very easily since it doesn't stretch) you can see the spasms.
An ER doc I saw last year was dumbfounded when he visually saw my muscle spasm from my back to my rib.
So I am not able to work. I tried to back to being a nurses aide and just made myself worst. I fall when I walk too far, my muscles tear if I turn wrong, or bend suddenly. Every movement has to be done carefully or I end up in horrible pain for about a week and then it tapers but is still achy for a month or so.
I tried working nursing homes and failed so I tried working at Wal-Mart (for $7.25, mind you). I thought it was be easier. No, it wasn't. I had to drag pallets out, unload semis, stock giant boxes. And I was supposed to be an associate in Cosmetics only. Cosmetics should have been fine for me, but everything else took its toll and I missed work constantly. I was fired after 5 months, I just couldn't do it.
I became pregnant after years and years of infertility. I try so hard to give my son what I can. It's painful because I had wanted him so desperately and wish I could give him the world. He is the reason I get out of bed to face another day of pain.
My husband works his butt off to support us. Some months we live on less than $900. He's tried to get help with higher education, starting his own business and there is nothing out there for us. I have sold everything I have of value and sell handcrafted jewelry and used toys to get at least a few things but it's nowhere close to what we need. It buys my son's clothes.
We aren't the only ones in this situation. Everything my son outgrows goes to a charity by me that helps low income mothers by providing clothes, some food and a few diapers.
So who am I? So many things. I desperate mother, a haft-mad writer, a tenderhearted broken fool that still dreams, still hopes.
