3. What was the last thing you bought?

On Saturday, Tyler and I set out with two objectives:  To get an Advent Calendar (or a Countdown to Christmas Calendar) as it was December 1st, and to do some grocery shopping at Marc’s.  I figured that at the most we would be back in an hour and a half.  Just two places to go, right?  One thing in one store and some groceries.

We head to Target because they have an Advent Calendar for two dollars and that works for me.  Tyler asks if he could look at the toys.  I figure why not, we have nothing better to do and maybe this can give me some more ideas.  Luckily there is one more scooter to use, I say luckily because they only have two.  Just two for their huge store.  I get onto the scooter and we zoom to the toy department, with Tyler complaining that he has to walk and I get to ride.

We look at all the toys, including some for girls, as Tyler knows I like toys too, the girlie ones.  Strangers ask me if I know where things are such as the Angry Birds…I think…Wooden Board game.  I try to help the woman find this one Angry Birds game in the hundreds of Angry Birds toys.  I am getting so frustrated I ask her nicely why she doesn’t go on the internet to get her impossible to find Angry Bird game that her nephew wants?

After being in the toy department for an hour I tell Tyler that we are picking up the Advent Calendar and leaving.  “I’m hungry!”, Tyler wails.  Since it has now been more than an hour after the huge lunch Tyler ate, I know he once again must fuel his furnace.

We zoom to the snack bar.  I am able to walk in the snack bar and so I park my scooter right outside the snack bar.  “I want an ice pop!”, Tyler wails.  Knowing that an ice pop won’t do anything to fill him up, I bargain with him that he can have anything at the snack bar, except the ice pop.  Cookies?  Ice cream?  Yogurt?  Tyler isn’t buying it.  He sinks to the ground and starts crying.  Please know that Tyler is not throwing a temper tantrum.  The pediatrician has told me because he is so tall, thin and active that I need to feed him as much as he wants.  At least five snacks a day.  If not, he gets chest pains, stomach, cramps, his legs give out on him and he becomes tearful and irrational.

Knowing we are going to have a major meltdown soon, I tell Tyler that he can get the ice pop but he must eat something else too.  I don’t even have the money for one snack, let alone two but one has got to do what one has got to do.  Tyler chooses one of those chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches, we get some tap water and sit down.

My eyes gaze over to my scooter and…it is gone!  Someone has stolen my sweet, sweet ride!  I feel as upset as if my car has been stolen.  I cannot believe it!  Of course, I know how desperate people are for scooters…but still I would never steal someone else’s!

While Tyler is eating he says, “Mommy, that girl is in my class, I know her!”

Of course he does.  Whether we have lived in New Jersey, Massachusetts or Ohio, Tyler always knows everyone.  No one ever comes over to me and says, “Emily, woo hoo, all right!  What are you doing at the county fair?”

The little girl is shyly looking over at Tyler. You know, like one of those, look, smile, blush and look away things?  I say, “Tyler, why don’t you go over to her and say hello?”

The little girl and her family sit next to us.  Tyler and the girl are sitting next to each other, the girl, blushing and embarrassed, and Tyler, oblivious.  He doesn’t need a girlfriend he has told me, even though most of his kindergarten class is hooked up.  I have told him he has made a wise decision and to concentrate on his kindergarten studies.

By now I have to pee like crazy.  I ask the little girl’s family if they would watch Tyler for a moment but Tyler says he’s got to go to the bathroom too.  Normally, I would assist him but I have to go so badly I just kind of wish him well and beat it into a stall.

As I am walking out to the sinks, I hear, “Mommy, I have bad news.”  I am not phased.  Tyler’s bad news can be that toilet paper has stuck to his shoe or that there is a bug crawling on the floor.

I look over at my son and his front pants look as though someone has dumped an entire bucket of water centering on his crotch!  “What happened, baby?  Didn’t make it on time?”  “No, mommy, I did.  I thought I was peeing in the toilet but it turns out I was peeing on my pants.” “Ah, yes, we’ve all done that before, do not worry.”  Meanwhile, my mind is going in so very many directions at once.

“Oh my God.  He needs clothes!  Wait, we are in Target, I can get him new pants and underwear.  Are you crazy?  You can’t afford that, just take him home, we are less than ten minutes from home!!”

“Okay, Tyler, let’s go home right now, we can change you and then we can come back and get the Advent Calendar and go grocery shopping.”
“Mommy, Anissa will see!  She can’t know that I peed in my pants!”

“Honey, she is in the snack bar, I will sneak you right out the door!”

Tyler is now moving up against a wall in the ladies’ bathroom, front side in.
“I’m not leaving the bathroom, everyone will know I peed my pants!!  Mommy PLEASE!”
“Holy crap, my choices are either scar my child for life by making him walk out the door of Target or buying him new pants and underwear!  I guess I am going for the new clothes.”

Only I cannot get Tyler out of the ladies’ room!  Who is going to watch him while I buy clothes for him?
I flag an Associate down who is so flummoxed he must call his manager.  The manager who looks about 18, says if I can just get Tyler into the men’s bathroom he will watch him until I can get the clothes.  I must trust that this teenager will not mistreat my son.
Tyler crawls along the wall from the ladies’ to the mens’.  “Little dude”, the manager says, “It’s cool, I am going to watch you while your mom gets you some clothes.”
Using a scooter right now is impossible I need to be…SUPER MOMMY!  I frantically run to the boy’s department.  Target for some strange reason has great prices on everything except when it comes to boys’ pants.  I finally find a pair of jeans on sale for 11 bucks.  Now, underwear.  I only need ONE but I must buy six. I go for The Justice League.  I head to the check-out and of course the lines are enormous.  I am getting more nervous with my son alone with that teenager.  I start asking people on the line, one buy one, if they would let me go ahead, my child has peed his pants, is hanging out in the men’s room, etc.  Ohioans are a friendly bunch and most let me go.  Only one says disgustedly to me, “Whatever!”

The pants and underwear cost me $22 and change.  Clothing tax is such a bitch!!

I get back to the men’s room and the teen and my son are having a fine time. I say, “Look what Mommy has got for you, Tyler!” and the manager says, “Sweet!” and I guess it is.

I struggle with dressing Tyler in the men’s room while the manager guards the door for us.  We walk out and head to the Christmas department.

Target is sold out of the Advent Calendar.

Photo Credit:  hitflix.com

The post Way to Get a Sweet Pair of Pants and Underwear! first appeared on Mama Sick.

You may want to take a look at my first disability hearing last year.

My lawyer appealed the judge’s decision, citing six reasons for appeal.  The judge’s decision was then reviewed by a Social Security Disability employee who found five more reasons for appeal.  Because of this, my case was remanded back to the same court, with the same judge.  It was a complete “do-over”.  The judge is obligated to look at you like a new claimant, with no prejudice.

As I waited for it to be my turn I saw a young woman in her early-20s at her first trial, sitting with her mother.  The court officer asked if she wanted an attorney and she replied no.  The officer said she had advised her of her right to an attorney, was she waiving that?  The woman said yes.  The officer walked away and I leaned over to her and said, “Are you sure you don’t want an attorney?”

I thought about how judges and vocational expert witnesses can be sharks, how you can hardly understand what they are saying, how I could have never gotten through this without my lawyer.

And then the woman called the officer over and asked about how having an attorney works.  She did not know that it didn’t cost anything to have one.  After speaking to the officer she postponed her trial until she could get representation.  I felt so relieved for her and good about me butting my nose into her business!

My lawyer came and I met with him.  All of the records from after last year’s hearing up to today’s were in.  He showed me a test that came from where I have been receiving therapy and psychiatric medication.  I don’t know what the test was exactly but he happily said, “Normally they don’t even consider people able to work at 50% and your scores are nowhere even close to that!”

Great for my case, yes, but was that true?  Was my mental function really that low or were they just trying to help me out?  It hurts to be scored that low, it feels very discouraging.

The judge was like a different person.  She thanked me for traveling to Newark and was gentle and patient.

I think a big reason why I lost the first time was that the judge did not understand the nature of my part-time voice-over work.  My hourly salary is high but I only get called one to two times a month to work, hardly what one would call substantial gainful employment.  And this year I had lost my only client of about 14 years, because I was too sick and disengaged to even contact them to tell them what was going on.  I told the judge it would be very difficult to try to cultivate new clients with my health being in the state it was in.

I had a lot of trouble understanding the questions the judge asked, due to my increasing memory loss and concentration difficulties.  If I answered it in a way that was harmful towards my case she would say things like, “Wait, are you sure this is what you mean?”

I don’t know if my lawyer was faking it, but he did appear to be exasperated because I was so thick.  After my first hearing he told me that no one could ever testify any better than I did, now I am a different person.

Finally he yelled to me, ” What has happened to you since the last hearing?!

I had notes to help me.  “Well…I have had some trips to the E.R. for uncontrollable pain.  I had to go in-patient due to the depression from bipolar disorder.  My son and I moved in with my mother due to my illnesses and for financial reasons.  While there I experienced delusions, hallucinations and suicidal ideation for many months.  I had extreme disengagement from my friends and family, including my son and my pet.  I lost my voice-over job because I wouldn’t or couldn’t get in touch with them.  In July I went to the E.R. wanting to go in-patient but my family convinced me not to do it…that’s it.”

When we started to talk about why Grant was in Ohio and Tyler and I were in Massachusetts, I completely lost it.  I couldn’t stop crying and I had to go out of the courtroom to calm myself.  Grant got me tissues and made me take deep breaths.

The last thing that was left in the hearing was the vocational expert where she tries to find jobs that she thinks someone with my physical and mental abilities can do.  I think my lawyer did a pretty good job of shooting her down.  (This is the part where you really need a lawyer.)

As we closed the hearing the judge again thanked me for coming and she said, “You will have my decision within 30 days.”

It took her five months to give me a “No” the first time.  If she rejects me this time she is going to have to address all 11 objections with her first decision raised by my lawyer and the Social Security Administration.

So, I would say I am cautiously optimistic but also aware that anything could happen.  I only hope that justice will finally be served.

Photo Courtesy of:  3D Model World

The post Results of Disability Hearing: The Do-Over first appeared on Mama Sick.

I am already tearing up as I write this because of how drastically our lives have changed.  You have been through so much this year.  My hospitalization for two weeks when you told daddy you forgot what I looked like, our move from New Jersey to Massachusetts, and now being apart from daddy for a very long time, with no set date for when we will be together again.

I am so sorry that this has happened, but it had to be, at the time we just didn’t see any other way.  You tell me that it is okay, you still call me the best Mommy in the world, but what you will think of me five years or ten years from now?

After six months you are still so unhappy here.  Any good thing I have tried to give you; a vacation to Cape Cod, camp, the pool and the lake, and soccer, still can’t make up for the fact that you miss your daddy and your old home.  I know that, Tyler, I feel it too, but I am trying to make life as good as I can for you with what life has dealt us.

Still, you are excited about your birthday.  The celebration at school, your party at night and your party on the weekend.  Making friends is hard when you’re new, but you have three boys coming and you will have a lot of fun!  As we get into the school year, I know you will make more friends, and hopefully the routine will make it easier for you to adjust.

Your favorite shows are Adventure Time, The Regular Show, Scooby-Doo and Ninjago.  You love the Captain Underpants series and the Frances the Badger books. You are collecting the Lego Monster Fighter series and the Trash Pack.  You love monsters and gross things in general. You have an Angry Birds backpack and a Spider-Man lunch box.  You have really branched out this year from all things Spider-Man although he is still your favorite superhero.  This year you discovered that my phone and computer have some really cool games on them.

You still love your Eeyore and you carry him in your backpack to school.  You don’t take him out, it’s just nice to know he’s there.

You have gotten so tall this year.  My little boy is turning into a young man.

You are so loving, compassionate and understanding.  Our situation has made us closer, and we are partners in crime in our new adventures; getting used to walking after living in suburbia, getting lost almost every time we drive somewhere, and checking out the new parks.

But most of all, you are the bravest boy I know.

On your sixth birthday, know how much daddy and I love you, and know that we are doing everything we can to bring us all back together as soon as we are able.

The post For My Son On His 6th Birthday first appeared on Mama Sick.

It takes a lot of things to make a person drop out of life for so long.

Back in January I became dangerously depressed.  Being turned down for disability in December, along with non-stop pain and dry mouth from my meds and another diagnosis, this one requiring a procedure, fighting for food stamps, again…I felt like I just couldn’t do it any more.  Blog-wise, not realizing that this was part of my depression, I felt uninspired.  The ideas had always flowed so freely and now there didn’t seem to be anything to write about, or I would run out of things to say and the posts would stay in the “drafts” section.  I would stare at the weekly writing prompts on Mama Kat’s and nothing would appeal to me, I just couldn’t relate to any of the suggested topics.

I was at times depressed to the point of near catatonia.  I also felt as thought I had Alzheimer’s.  I couldn’t remember how to shop for groceries or how to cook.

I also became agoraphobic and had much difficulty leaving the house.

I felt like I could not take care of Tyler.

Everyone around me, including my therapist, thought I needed a break.  That I was too stressed out from everything going on and would benefit from having a kind of vacation in my home.

My mother-in-law flew in to help me, to be followed by my mother, but I just got worse.

I began thinking that Tyler deserved a better mother.  He was only five, he would forget me, and be better off without me.  Any mother would be better than me.

I decided to go in-patient and while this may work for many people it did not work for me.  The therapy was not helping and neither were the new drugs.  I realized some people had been in the hospital for weeks and even months, and I knew if I did not show improvement they would not let me go.  I took the advice of a patient who had been “inside” many times and I said what I had to say to get out.  I went straight into out-patient three days a week and found no help there either.  I asked for a change of meds as it had now been six weeks and I was not improving.

Throughout Tyler’s life, Grant and I had been able to take care of Tyler.  When one was very ill the other would pick up the slack.

For the first time, we both found ourselves very sick.

We had no family in the area and had to make a quick and hard decision.

Grant and I split up.  There was no room for all three of us at my mother’s or Grant’s parents’ house, so Tyler came to live with me at my mother and stepfather’s in Massachusetts and Grant went to live with his parents in Ohio.

I realize now how wrong this was, that we should have done anything we could have to keep our family together, but at the time I could see no other way.

We do plan on reuniting with all three of us living on our own in OH.  The cost of living is much cheaper and we would be near Grant’s parents.

Tyler has not adjusted well and he remains brokenhearted about being away from Grant.  I am hoping he does a little better when he starts school on Wednesday but nothing will take the place of his daddy or the three of us being together again.

When I got here in March, I became even worse.  I could not even begin to get help.

I sunk even lower into  my depression and I began having delusions.  I also became very disengaged and did not feel love for my son.  I would look at other mothers and wonder why I couldn’t love my child the way they could.  What had happened to Super Mommy? I had to force myself to say I love you, show him affection, read to him, etc.

I have researched Lupus and Mental Illness, and found such diagnoses as Lupus Psychosis and Lupus With CNS Involvement could be the cause of my symptoms.  I need to see a Neurologist.  It has been such a long time since I have taken care of myself.

Tyler and I went to OH to visit Grant in mid/early August and after that I finally started to come out of my depression.  I felt more hopeful and I finally sought therapy and medication.

Disability-wise, an upper court found fault with my judge’s decision and my case is going to be reconsidered on October 5th, most likely by the same horrific judge.  I have lost nearly everything due to being sick, perhaps this will finally be enough for her.

Getting my disability would go a long way in getting us all back together sooner.

I hope to start writing again on a regular basis and I again thank you for your concerns and your loyalty to Mama Sick.  I hope you can understand that I just could not respond and did not even communicate with most of my IRL family and friends, and still have not with most of them.

I never imagined one could get that depressed.

The post Dropping Back Into Life first appeared on Mama Sick.

October 29th will go down in history as a record snowstorm.  Neither my mother nor I could ever remember it snowing on my birthday.  States of emergency have been declared in New Jersey (my neck of the woods), Connecticut and Massachusetts.

I am not one for taking pictures of the snow but on my birthday I had to!

Trees with leaves still on them collapsing under the weight of the snow.

Downed tree right next to my house, blocking traffic. I'll miss that tree!

Plans for the day changed drastically as soon as we went outside and were faced with ice and snow pelting us. The lovely lunch we had planned for my birthday was scrapped and we were lucky enough to make it to IHOP (International House of Pancakes for all of you non-Americans).  IHOP is not the worst place to have your birthday!  I had maple coffee and pumpkin pancakes with pecans and caramel sauce.  Hey, it’s my birthday and if not your birthday, when else can you go nuts?

After that we made our scary snow covered way to the grocery store and pharmacy to pick up medicine and groceries to hunker down for the rest of the storm.  When we got out of the store, the power had gone out and most of the lights on the road were out of power, forcing us to keep driving until we could make a turn to get back on the highway the other way towards home.  I was praying we were going to have power; 600,000 homes were without power.

I got my birthday wish, we had power and it was nice and warm!  Then we opened presents.

Tyler and I with our matching Perry the Platypus(es, i?). There was no way I was going to get one without Tyler getting one!

I finally got a piece of Melody Ross's art of The Brave Girls Club Blog! Love her and the blog!

We celebrated getting Perry the Platypus by watching an episode of Phineas and Ferb and then it was time for my birthday nap, one of the best gifts I got!

Even though I was really down in my last post, I feel like the universe came together and managed to give me a fun, as low pain as possible, unique birthday! Thank you again for all your good wishes and hopes that my birthday would be a good day!

The post My Birthday: Good times! first appeared on Mama Sick.