Pennies From Heaven

I promised more frequent blogs... and I'm LOVING my time off but am going to try to sneak a few in here and there.

The kids are still up in Maryland and I had today off work (the day after Christmas). Chris, Jonathan, Amanda, Gene and I spent most of the day today together. We went shopping earlier in the day with Michelle, then spent a little time on the Wii. Tonight we went to visit Chris's step-sister and her family. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L baby girls she has! Goodness they are just perfect girls. (Two about the same age as they adopted one when they were certain they couldn't have kids, then sure enough - wham - pregnant.) Anyways... it's been a great day.

Julie... I'm not sure how she is doing.

I THINK she might be blaming me somehow for her doctor taking her off all of her medication. I had sent a message to her doctor asking her WHY she would prescribe a quantity of 100 pills to a woman who OVERDOSED on a regular basis (I think this was right after she overdosed on 500 pills), and add to that that it was 100 of a narcotic pill. I didn't understand why she would do that. At the visit, Julie said the doctor 'made' her sign something so that she could talk to me. When the doctor called me she told me that Julie hadn't TOLD her about the overdoses or narcotics problem, so she didn't know. Great.

Julie had last seen this doctor (keep in mind she's the 'good doctor') in September. It's now the end of December. She's been in and out of the hospital since then so she hasn't been back in to see her. In this time, Dr. Vijapuri has had his hands on her and has COMPLETELY messed up her prescriptions and has her on a TON of medications again. (At last count at my house I think she was on 20 different pills.)

Anyways, Julie tells me that this 'good doctor' had decided to take her off of everything except for TWO pills. TWO. Julie was FREAKING out about this. Clearly Julie believes she needs a lot more than this. Julie made mention to me, SEVERAL times, that the decision to do this came about as a direct result of my conversation with the doctor. I don't believe that for one second. I told her that MY only conversation with the doctor was about the QUANTITY of pills. I told her that if Julie needed pills that were strong enough to kill her in large quantities.... to simply give them to her in SMALLER QUANTITIES.

Makes sense, right?

Julie hates the idea, apparently.

Oh, and you'll love this. Julie tells me that although the doctor is putting her on only TWO pills - she's not THAT upset just yet because she has a 'stash' at home. So... she has 'stuff she can take'. My exact words......... "Julie.... why do you tell me these things? I mean really. Don't you think you should just keep that kind of stuff to yourself?"

So, Julie has the mindset of self medicating again. I warned her though... I told her "You know what has happened to you in the past when you have tried to manage your own medications yourself. You don't do so good. You should just call the doctor and talk to them."

But that just brings up another problem: this doctor is leaving USF and has to transfer Julie's care to another Doctor there. Julie doesn't want that to happen. So.........

Julie is shopping for a new doctor.

Part of me feels that Julie is a 38-year old woman who should be able to do whatever the heck she wants to do. Take what pills she wants, do whatever, and suffer the consequences - if any.

But then part of me is REALLY upset about this. Part of me believes whole-heartedly that Julie is a VERY smart psyc patient who knows exactly what to do to get what she wants. She is going to find another doctor who DOESN'T know her history who WILL prescribe in large quantities and who will prescribe what Julie feels that she needs. Deep down I believe this... Julie is very smart about this sort of thing. She fights it hard a lot of times, but this disease, this illness, this addiction - it's a strong one.

**********************************************************

Okay, I have two more Julie stories for you. With the kids gone, I don't know why I have so many Julie stories, but anyways....

Julie calls me today. This is our conversation....

Julie: Wanna hear something really funny?
Tina: Sure.
Julie: Where are you?
Tina: Out with Amanda. (shopping)
Julie: Oh. Well, okay. Do you wanna hear something funny?
Tina: Yes, Julie, Sure.
Julie: Okay. Well, have you ever run out of toilet paper?
Tina: Yes. It happens all the time.
Julie: Really? Wow. Okay. Well, it has never happened to me. It happened to me.
Tina: Okay. Well, it happens to me all the time. But okay.
Julie: Yeah. I ran out.
Tina: Okay. (And I wait for the punch line of "and I had to use a shirt" or something like that to make this the "funny" part.
Julie: So, Katie (our sister) gave me a $50 gift card to Publix.
Tina: That's nice.
Julie: You are not mad?
Tina: Why the hell would I be mad? No, I'm not mad.
Julie: Well, you'd be mad because you two are always fighting to see who would be the better sister.
Tina: (Thinks to self - Uh, I'm raising your three kids so I think I WIN that one hands down, but I keep my mouth shut and don't say it and instead say...) No, Julie, I don't care if she gave you a gift card. She can give you whatever she wants.
Julie: Well, I really need money. I have no food.
Tina: (Wondering when this is going to get funny) Okay Julie. Well, that's great. So what's funny?
Julie: It's funny that I ran out of toilet paper.
Tina: Oh.
Julie: Hey, me and my roommates are having steak for dinner tonight.
Tina: (I darn near bit my tongue off trying not to say anything negative here) That's nice Julie. I've got to go now.

So yeah...................... funny stuff.

And, no I personally didn't feel at all sad for Julie. She had called me the night before sounding pretty pitiful as if she needed money. Saying she had not food, no money, etc. Well, the way I figure it... she's a BIG girl... she needs to eat a LOT less. That's first of all. That may have sounded mean, but - seriously - she's a VERY seriously ill diabetic who does NOTHING about her diet to control her diabetes. She eats fudge, drinks coke, etc. Portion control might be a start and having no money might be a good way to kick-start that into action.

Second of all, she needs to ABSOLUTELY insist that her roommate pay her. She has one who pays, one who doesn't. The one who doesn't keeps 'getting' jobs. Whatver. Pay, or move out. That simple.

**********************************************************

The last story for you is a really sad one. But it has a really neat ending.

At 3:45 this morning Julie sent an email to the family telling us that she was going to try to go to bed. (She didn't because after 5am she sent another... but anyways....)

She said that all night long she was in her bedroom thinking of Ron. This would be Christmas Day. She was watching videos and crying. She said that she was "speaking to the air and talking to Ron all night".

She said that just yesterday she was telling her roommate how that when Ron first passed away she would find pennies in the house all the time and she swore that Ron was dropping the pennies from heaven just to let her know that he was there. However, lately she hasn't found any pennies - not one single penny - around the house any more. And, she finds that she's been getting angry with Ron over it. Upset because she felt that Ron was no longer looking out for her any longer.

So, last night she's in her room crying her eyes out, watching old videos of her husband before he passed. Eventually she decides to go downstairs to turn off all lights and get some milk.

She sits down at the kitchen table with only a dim light in the living room on and a shadow on the kitchen floor catches her eye. She freaks out at first thinking it's a roach or some kind of bug. She flips on the light quickly and what does she see?

A penny.

She says that Ron sent her a penny on Christmas. So, she sent an email out to the family to tell them that "even though it's 4 am Ron said for me to tell everyone MERRY CHRISTMAS"