In adoption circles, they say our adoption was "interrupted". It feels like it was ripped away.
Here's the skinny: I've previously alluded to the fact that there has been a new social worker who seems to think everything has been going great with the birth parents and that there was every likelihood they would get their kids back. In an aside, we let OUR social worker know about all of this and she was very forthcoming about saying that she had a bad feeling about this. We trust her judgement, and although we certainly didn't expect our adoption to fail (sort of like how you don't expect to die on your way to work, but you always know it could happen), we did have the opinion of a socal worker we trust to think about. This new social worker told me last week - on the public lobby phone at the CPS office - that an aunt had come out of the woodwork and was willing to take the kids and was looking very promising. Now, federal law dictates that family members trump everyone: foster families, adoptive families, group homes, the works, up to 4 degrees of separation. AS long as they can pass a background check and have a decent living environment, kids go to the family member.
Here's the kicker. She also said this aunt had been on the file ever since the beginning and for some reason hadn't been investigated. She didn't know why because (as I've said before) she's the second social worker on the case and is sort of picking up the pieces of what has become a hugantic, ginormic mess. For the uninitiated (I know there are many, including myself before all of this started), let me digress on a few points to put my rage and crippling disappointment into perspective.
Before a child's case goes to an adoption worker, all known family members have to be investigated. As I said before, that's federal law. Family members are not obligated to take the children, but they must be offered the opportunity and put through the process of fingerprinting, background checks, and home inspections to either rule them in or out before adoption is considered. Somehow this didn't happen with this aunt (I don't know who she is, I'm not legally entitled to know, and I don't want to know because I'd probably go to her house and steal the kids... thus lowering our chances of every getting another kid), and she's just now coming to the attention of the social worker.
So... this means our case was sent to adoption long before it should have been, these children should not have been up for adoption, and should certainly not have been presented as a low-risk placement. Furthermore, the first social worker said that the amount and length of the parent visits were up to the court, meaning nothing could change until there was another hearing. We've recently found out this was not true. In fact, the visits were under the jurisdiction of the social worker and could change at her discretion. Everything just moved far more quickly than it should have, and the first social worker committed some serious blunders along the way that have had some major repercussions affecting not only our family, but our extended family and friends as well.
Long story short, the aunt checked out nicely, and today we dropped the kids off for their parents visits, kissed them goodbye for the last time, and will most likely never see them again.
We are now faced with a few dicisions that we are pruposely not making this week, or next week, or porbably not in the next month or so. The first is whether, and under what conditions, we would be willing to take the children back. If this aunt changes her mind (which she's allowed to do at any time), do we want to be called for another placement? At this point in time, our feeling is that unless something major changes in this case (like parental rights being terminated), we don't want to be involved anymore. It's too painful for us, too hard for the kids, too negative all around.
The second is whether or when we want to be put back on the waiting list. This is something we're not sure about yet. This experience has left such a bad taste in our mouths that we're not sure we want to deal with this staff or this county anymore. And taking out a $30,000 loan and buying ourselves a baby is sounding really good. A birthmom who is willingly making an adoption plan versus parents who are fighting to get their kids back sounds a little more like what we want to deal with. Again, we haven't made any dicisions about this facet and don't plan to while we're still so angry and devastated, but these are the things we have to think about.
The third, and it is a decision for us, is how to go on. We have many choices. We can choose anger, bitterness, despair, and defeat, or we can choose to scrape ourselves up off the ground, dust off the big rocks, and start over. We can choose to hate everyone and eerything from social workers, to county workers, to God, to the birth parents, to anyone with kids, or we can choose to heal and move on. We haven't yet chosen a direction, it's still too raw, but it will be a plan we'll have to make in the coming weeks.
And now? Well, now we have 2 finished, furnished, empty children's rooms. Ryan has used up a year's worth of vacation time to stay home for three weeks at first. We rearranged our work schedules to make sure we would need very little childcare. We need to inform all our family and friends of what's happened and endure the apologies, the tears, the sympathetic looks, the over-senstivity that we all hate when something truly tragic has happened. I myself am a very private person (blogging about my life notwithstanding) and I was raised not to show emotion except in private. And by private I mean alone, locked in the bathroom where absolutely NO ONE will see me. Perhaps it's less than healthy, but what I want is for life to go on all around me so that I can participate as best I can, and leave the tragedy for while I'm alone. It's also perhaps unreasonable, but it's honest.
The future is uncertain, as always, and I hate uncertainty. But time marches on, as it's wont to do, and we must as well. In the words of Arthur O'Shaughnessy: "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Shuil a rhun
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Our Adoption in Progress
We accepted Frankie and Jasmine into our home because the social worker told us it was low-risk, meaning it was unlikely the birthparents would get the children back.
Let me back up.
The county called us for a presentation of 2 children up for adoption. It was a sibling set, a boy and a girl, who had been in foster care for 5 months. They came to the attention of the county when the parents (mom 19 and dad 17) brought Jasmine to the hospital. They thought she was constipated, but she was actually starving to death. The doctors said that if they had waited one more day, she would have been dead. The children were taken and placed in foster care that day. The birthparents were convicted of felony endangerment and incarcerated. Since their release, the social worker has offered them use of county services from parenting classes, to GED courses, to counseling, all to gather evidence to support her decision not to allow the children back with parents who almost killed one of them.
A few family members stepped forward and were interested in adopting the children, but none of them could pass a background check. The birthparents have no support system or good example to follow. Mom is youngest of 7, a high school dropout whose siblings have all said she made her own bed. Dad is oldest of 9 (with one on the way) and for a while his mother was helping. When Jasmine was born she said she could no longer help out.
After our presentation, our case was transferred to a new social worker. Bureaucracy and all that. The new social worker believes everything is going well. The birthparents are learning what they're supposed to, seem to be benefitting, she feels the court will look favorably on returning these children to their home of origin where one of them almost died. The court has ordered that the birthparents get to visit for 4 hours a week with supervision, so once a week we take the kids to the CPS office and they visit. Because dad is a minor, there's a no-contact order between the birthparents so they have to do their visitation separately. That means 4 hours a week they visit at the CPS office.
There is a court date coming up in October where parental rights were supposed to be terminated. With the spin the new social worker (and her supervisor) are putting on this case, the most likely outcome is a 6-month extension and possible increase in visitation.
Meanwhile we have the kids in our home, caring for them, kissing their boo boos, reading them bedtime stories, taking them to Grandma's house, making sure they're fed, warm, cool, healthy, giving them love and discipline, all to have the court take them away in a year. Our adoption worker has offered us an out: the status of the case has changed, we can pull out if we want to. We never signed on to be a temporary home. But how can we do that? How can we send these children back? While they're here we know they're loved, cared-for, and safe. If we let them go, we know no such thing. And if the court wants us to give them up, they're going to have to take them.
When this all started, we were so confident. Sure these were the right kids. Sure the timing and the situation were right. Sure this was what God wanted for our family. We told everyone, they threw baby showers, we took time off work to help them settle in. Everything had gone so smoothly: we finished our paperwork quickly, we took our training, we passed our home inspection the first time, we were chosen from the pool in a month (unprecidented in our county). Why is it falling apart now? Why is there nothing we can do? Why did we get a social worker so willing to send these children back to a home with no support system, no opportunities, no consistency?
I feel very strongly that this is a test of our faith. The question is, how far will that test go? Will it work itself out and our reward will be to keep the children? Or, like Abraham, Moses's mother, and God Himself, will we be asked to give up our children? And if we are, and we pass that test, what's our reward? We've already been told once we wouldn't have biological children, will we be asked to give up having children at all? Don't we have rights here? Don't the children? The trite answer is that we have to be willing to do what's best for the children. I am. I don't believe sending these children back to parents who almost killed one of them and then went to jail for it is what's best for them. There is no one to represent the children in this case, except us, and our word has no credibility because of our natural (and understandable) bias.
All the same, I want desperately to testify in this case, or at least submit a statement to the court. I didn't when it started, but I do now. I want my voice, and the voice of my children, to be heard by the judge. I don't want to send them back to a more difficult life. I don't want to put them in the hands of convicted abusers. And as callous as this may sound, they can have more. They have the luxury of fertility and youth. We have had such luxuries taken from us.
I'm a little bit of a control freak, and I dislike having control not only lost but actively taken at every turn. My only hope now is to pray for a wise judge who will see the truth behind the legal mask. One who will know what's right and not what's legal. One who will see a family, and not a temporary solution. And I need to send this question out to the cosmos in the hopes that someone may see and offer some suggestion. I expect no answers from this avenue, which is part of why I wrote it. But perhaps someone will have an idea. If anyone knows any lawyers, social workers, or court advocates, send them my way. Have them drop me an e-mail. I need to build up my army. This is going to be one hell of a battle.
Once more into the breach, dear friends.
Let me back up.
The county called us for a presentation of 2 children up for adoption. It was a sibling set, a boy and a girl, who had been in foster care for 5 months. They came to the attention of the county when the parents (mom 19 and dad 17) brought Jasmine to the hospital. They thought she was constipated, but she was actually starving to death. The doctors said that if they had waited one more day, she would have been dead. The children were taken and placed in foster care that day. The birthparents were convicted of felony endangerment and incarcerated. Since their release, the social worker has offered them use of county services from parenting classes, to GED courses, to counseling, all to gather evidence to support her decision not to allow the children back with parents who almost killed one of them.
A few family members stepped forward and were interested in adopting the children, but none of them could pass a background check. The birthparents have no support system or good example to follow. Mom is youngest of 7, a high school dropout whose siblings have all said she made her own bed. Dad is oldest of 9 (with one on the way) and for a while his mother was helping. When Jasmine was born she said she could no longer help out.
After our presentation, our case was transferred to a new social worker. Bureaucracy and all that. The new social worker believes everything is going well. The birthparents are learning what they're supposed to, seem to be benefitting, she feels the court will look favorably on returning these children to their home of origin where one of them almost died. The court has ordered that the birthparents get to visit for 4 hours a week with supervision, so once a week we take the kids to the CPS office and they visit. Because dad is a minor, there's a no-contact order between the birthparents so they have to do their visitation separately. That means 4 hours a week they visit at the CPS office.
There is a court date coming up in October where parental rights were supposed to be terminated. With the spin the new social worker (and her supervisor) are putting on this case, the most likely outcome is a 6-month extension and possible increase in visitation.
Meanwhile we have the kids in our home, caring for them, kissing their boo boos, reading them bedtime stories, taking them to Grandma's house, making sure they're fed, warm, cool, healthy, giving them love and discipline, all to have the court take them away in a year. Our adoption worker has offered us an out: the status of the case has changed, we can pull out if we want to. We never signed on to be a temporary home. But how can we do that? How can we send these children back? While they're here we know they're loved, cared-for, and safe. If we let them go, we know no such thing. And if the court wants us to give them up, they're going to have to take them.
When this all started, we were so confident. Sure these were the right kids. Sure the timing and the situation were right. Sure this was what God wanted for our family. We told everyone, they threw baby showers, we took time off work to help them settle in. Everything had gone so smoothly: we finished our paperwork quickly, we took our training, we passed our home inspection the first time, we were chosen from the pool in a month (unprecidented in our county). Why is it falling apart now? Why is there nothing we can do? Why did we get a social worker so willing to send these children back to a home with no support system, no opportunities, no consistency?
I feel very strongly that this is a test of our faith. The question is, how far will that test go? Will it work itself out and our reward will be to keep the children? Or, like Abraham, Moses's mother, and God Himself, will we be asked to give up our children? And if we are, and we pass that test, what's our reward? We've already been told once we wouldn't have biological children, will we be asked to give up having children at all? Don't we have rights here? Don't the children? The trite answer is that we have to be willing to do what's best for the children. I am. I don't believe sending these children back to parents who almost killed one of them and then went to jail for it is what's best for them. There is no one to represent the children in this case, except us, and our word has no credibility because of our natural (and understandable) bias.
All the same, I want desperately to testify in this case, or at least submit a statement to the court. I didn't when it started, but I do now. I want my voice, and the voice of my children, to be heard by the judge. I don't want to send them back to a more difficult life. I don't want to put them in the hands of convicted abusers. And as callous as this may sound, they can have more. They have the luxury of fertility and youth. We have had such luxuries taken from us.
I'm a little bit of a control freak, and I dislike having control not only lost but actively taken at every turn. My only hope now is to pray for a wise judge who will see the truth behind the legal mask. One who will know what's right and not what's legal. One who will see a family, and not a temporary solution. And I need to send this question out to the cosmos in the hopes that someone may see and offer some suggestion. I expect no answers from this avenue, which is part of why I wrote it. But perhaps someone will have an idea. If anyone knows any lawyers, social workers, or court advocates, send them my way. Have them drop me an e-mail. I need to build up my army. This is going to be one hell of a battle.
Once more into the breach, dear friends.
Monday, April 26, 2010
And Now A Moment of Insanity
My husband and I are in the process of adopting a baby. To clarify (because it definitely is confusing), there is no baby yet. In common adoption parlance, we are "pregnant by adoption." We have been through all the preliminary steps, we've been analysed by everyone who matters including 2 social workers, first aid instructors, parenting class teachers, and 4 references we had to provide on our own. All we're doing now is waiting. And waiting... and waiting... and waiting.
However, recently we were actually matched with a little girl. We were presented to a matching committee and they chose us as a potential match for a 1-year-old girl. Her social worker called our social worker and we went to what is known as a presentation. At the presentation, we were presented with all the information available about this little girl and her biological parents. As for the little girl herself, there were very few things that concerned us. She had some developmental delays that were the result of lack of stimulation in her environment. They were all very normal things we would expect to see in a child who had been in foster care since birth.
It was her birth parents that had us concerned. Both of them were schizophrenic and were institutionalized because of it. Now, we found out that if one parent is schizophrenic, there's about a 10% chance that the child will be. If both parents are, it's about 50-50. We also found out that it's something that can show up 20-30 years down the road. So we had to think long and hard about whether or not we were equipped to deal with this sort of thing and how comfortable we were with the chances that this little girl would develop mental illness later in life.
Now, run with me for a little bit because this next part is going to sound a little crazy. I was in the shower the afternoon of our presentation and I heard a voice in my head that said, "This is not the right one."
Okay, before you judge, let me digress a bit. I'm a Christian. I have been my whole life. And when I entered my college years, I was gifted with the Gift of Prophecy. The point of this entry is not a discussion about Spiritual Gifts, but let me give you the short version. Prophesy is not divination. It is not telling the future. In magical terms, Pagans call it Sight. Some people may call it intuition. Other people call it a gut feeling. It simply means that God speaks to me a little bit more loudly than He does to others. I don't know why. The "why" is not something God has shared with me. I believe it's how God speaks to me. Sometimes it's through music, sometimes it's something I read, sometimes it's a vision, and sometimes a voice like this time. The thing they call have in common is something I call a "feel." When the message comes from God, it has a certain feel. I can tell it's Him. Usually other sources are all from myself. I have a tendency to do what my therapist called "living in my head" which means I frequently listen to my own internal monologue more than I listen to the outside world. This makes it difficult to interpret Prophecy sometimes, but it's a personality quirk, and we all have those. I frequently allow Prophecy to help me make decisions, and I hoped desperately hoped God would give me something good this time.
And He didn't disappoint. Not only did He tell me, he also told my husband. And because the voice was from God, we knew it was the right choice to say no to this little girl.
That does not mean we didn't have issues with the choice.
The first was that we never thought we'd find ourselves turning a child down. We really had hoped we would be a forever home for whatever child may come across our path.
The second was that in some small way we felt as though we were punishing this little girl for something that wasn't her fault. Jesus said the sins of the father should not be visited up on the son. Who are we to say that we don't want this child in our home because we're afraid that what happened to her parents would happen to her? Who gave us that authority?
The last was the fear that this beautiful little girl would end up being raised in foster care because no one else would be willing to take a chance on her.
And yet through all of this, we knew the best thing for her would be to put her back in the pool and allow the right family to find her. Maybe we weren't the right family, but the right one would come along.
Last week, our social worker told us the very next family to hear about her accepted her. And so the Plan goes on. I don't claim to understand it, or even my own role in it. But the Bible says that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, and here we saw it happen. She found a home, we're back on the list, and we now have the conviction that when the right comes along, we'll know. Immediately and without question.
However, recently we were actually matched with a little girl. We were presented to a matching committee and they chose us as a potential match for a 1-year-old girl. Her social worker called our social worker and we went to what is known as a presentation. At the presentation, we were presented with all the information available about this little girl and her biological parents. As for the little girl herself, there were very few things that concerned us. She had some developmental delays that were the result of lack of stimulation in her environment. They were all very normal things we would expect to see in a child who had been in foster care since birth.
It was her birth parents that had us concerned. Both of them were schizophrenic and were institutionalized because of it. Now, we found out that if one parent is schizophrenic, there's about a 10% chance that the child will be. If both parents are, it's about 50-50. We also found out that it's something that can show up 20-30 years down the road. So we had to think long and hard about whether or not we were equipped to deal with this sort of thing and how comfortable we were with the chances that this little girl would develop mental illness later in life.
Now, run with me for a little bit because this next part is going to sound a little crazy. I was in the shower the afternoon of our presentation and I heard a voice in my head that said, "This is not the right one."
Okay, before you judge, let me digress a bit. I'm a Christian. I have been my whole life. And when I entered my college years, I was gifted with the Gift of Prophecy. The point of this entry is not a discussion about Spiritual Gifts, but let me give you the short version. Prophesy is not divination. It is not telling the future. In magical terms, Pagans call it Sight. Some people may call it intuition. Other people call it a gut feeling. It simply means that God speaks to me a little bit more loudly than He does to others. I don't know why. The "why" is not something God has shared with me. I believe it's how God speaks to me. Sometimes it's through music, sometimes it's something I read, sometimes it's a vision, and sometimes a voice like this time. The thing they call have in common is something I call a "feel." When the message comes from God, it has a certain feel. I can tell it's Him. Usually other sources are all from myself. I have a tendency to do what my therapist called "living in my head" which means I frequently listen to my own internal monologue more than I listen to the outside world. This makes it difficult to interpret Prophecy sometimes, but it's a personality quirk, and we all have those. I frequently allow Prophecy to help me make decisions, and I hoped desperately hoped God would give me something good this time.
And He didn't disappoint. Not only did He tell me, he also told my husband. And because the voice was from God, we knew it was the right choice to say no to this little girl.
That does not mean we didn't have issues with the choice.
The first was that we never thought we'd find ourselves turning a child down. We really had hoped we would be a forever home for whatever child may come across our path.
The second was that in some small way we felt as though we were punishing this little girl for something that wasn't her fault. Jesus said the sins of the father should not be visited up on the son. Who are we to say that we don't want this child in our home because we're afraid that what happened to her parents would happen to her? Who gave us that authority?
The last was the fear that this beautiful little girl would end up being raised in foster care because no one else would be willing to take a chance on her.
And yet through all of this, we knew the best thing for her would be to put her back in the pool and allow the right family to find her. Maybe we weren't the right family, but the right one would come along.
Last week, our social worker told us the very next family to hear about her accepted her. And so the Plan goes on. I don't claim to understand it, or even my own role in it. But the Bible says that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, and here we saw it happen. She found a home, we're back on the list, and we now have the conviction that when the right comes along, we'll know. Immediately and without question.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Birthdays Remind Us to Look Both Ways
It was my birthday last week. I had to work a closing shift that day, and I hightailed it out of the building as soon as I could. I was walking across the street to my car, and suddenly found myself flying through the air. Why, you ask? Well apparently a woman driving a Volvo had come around the corner, didn't see me crossing, and hit me. As my feet lifted off the ground, I thought, "When am I going to land, how much will it hurt?" The answers are: about a second later, and lots.
The point of impact, I believe, was my right hip. There is now a dinner plate-sized bruise there. I'm running an office pool on how big it's going to get. However, I landed on my tailbone. At first glance, this doesn't seem like much, but I had never realized how many things I do on an average day that hurt my tailbone. Driving is the number one culprit at the moment. Driving makes me cry. I literally can't drive longer than 20 minutes because my tailbone hurts so much.
As I sat up, I reached for my phone to call my husband and tell him to come get me. He asked a ridiculous amount of questions before hanging up and coming to my aid. He told me later than he only realized halfway there that I had meant the car had hit ME, and not my car. After I hung up the phone with him, I triaged myself. Head: a small bump, but nothing big. Ribs: okay. Pelvis: tailbone hurts, maybe broken, but functional. Arms: okay. Left leg: fine. Right leg: pain in hip, knee, and ankle. Breathing fine, seeing fine, no dizziness, nausea, or anything else suggesting a concussion. A witness dialed 911 and the very cute firefighter who responded asked me a bunch of questions to make sure I hadn't lost consciousness. I politely refused the $3000 ambulance ride, and told him my husband would take me to the hospital. He made me sign a form so I couldn't sue later if I died. How I would sue from the grave, I still don't know.
Everyone I work with was still in the building and had seen what had happened. They call came out to see if I was okay and called everyone who wasn't there. My husband arrived, talked to the police a little, got my license back, and we headed to the hospital.
We lucked out at the ER: no line. The triage nurse asked me if I at least left some damage on the car. To be honest, I don't know. I never really even talked to the driver, I let the police do that. The doctor X-rayed everything from my lower back down to my right ankle and said there were no breaks, only some deep tissue bruising. As we were waiting for him to come back, I noticed my pants had gotten ripped. That's it! She ripped my pants! Until that point, I had been willing to give that driver a little bit of slack. It was, of course, that annoying time of day when sunset makes it impossible to see anything. I could easily believe she couldn't see me. But that bitch ripped my pants! Politeness Week is over!
The doctor gave me some prescriptions for pain and muscle relaxers. I discovered the next day that if I take them together, the house tilts from side to side. I don't know how those pharmacists do it!
The next day, one of the receptionists called me in a panic because I hadn't shown up to work. I had been under the impression that someone had called her to tell her what had happened, but apparently that didn't happen. She's great. She's everyone's mom. She was sure something was wrong because I'm normally very punctual and it was 20 minutes past where on earth could I be? My husband answered the phone and told her what had happened. She called again later and I picked up, and her first words were, "Happy fucking birthday, right?" I spent that day on the couch hopped up on drugs. It was pretty fun. Everyone at work wanted me to stay home another day, but I felt stupid. Maybe I couldn't do everything I usually do, but I could do SOMETHING. I went to work the next day.
So the bruise is up to 23 cm, which is more than anyone bet on, so I get to keep all $5 in the office pool.
The moral of the story? If you get hit by a car, milk it for all it's worth. Stay home all week, sue the driver for all your medical bills (mine were only $60, what's the point?), shirk responsibility at work, boss people around to get them to do stuff for you. And if you land on your tailbone, suck it up and buy a hemorrhoid pillow. You'll be thankful you did.
The point of impact, I believe, was my right hip. There is now a dinner plate-sized bruise there. I'm running an office pool on how big it's going to get. However, I landed on my tailbone. At first glance, this doesn't seem like much, but I had never realized how many things I do on an average day that hurt my tailbone. Driving is the number one culprit at the moment. Driving makes me cry. I literally can't drive longer than 20 minutes because my tailbone hurts so much.
As I sat up, I reached for my phone to call my husband and tell him to come get me. He asked a ridiculous amount of questions before hanging up and coming to my aid. He told me later than he only realized halfway there that I had meant the car had hit ME, and not my car. After I hung up the phone with him, I triaged myself. Head: a small bump, but nothing big. Ribs: okay. Pelvis: tailbone hurts, maybe broken, but functional. Arms: okay. Left leg: fine. Right leg: pain in hip, knee, and ankle. Breathing fine, seeing fine, no dizziness, nausea, or anything else suggesting a concussion. A witness dialed 911 and the very cute firefighter who responded asked me a bunch of questions to make sure I hadn't lost consciousness. I politely refused the $3000 ambulance ride, and told him my husband would take me to the hospital. He made me sign a form so I couldn't sue later if I died. How I would sue from the grave, I still don't know.
Everyone I work with was still in the building and had seen what had happened. They call came out to see if I was okay and called everyone who wasn't there. My husband arrived, talked to the police a little, got my license back, and we headed to the hospital.
We lucked out at the ER: no line. The triage nurse asked me if I at least left some damage on the car. To be honest, I don't know. I never really even talked to the driver, I let the police do that. The doctor X-rayed everything from my lower back down to my right ankle and said there were no breaks, only some deep tissue bruising. As we were waiting for him to come back, I noticed my pants had gotten ripped. That's it! She ripped my pants! Until that point, I had been willing to give that driver a little bit of slack. It was, of course, that annoying time of day when sunset makes it impossible to see anything. I could easily believe she couldn't see me. But that bitch ripped my pants! Politeness Week is over!
The doctor gave me some prescriptions for pain and muscle relaxers. I discovered the next day that if I take them together, the house tilts from side to side. I don't know how those pharmacists do it!
The next day, one of the receptionists called me in a panic because I hadn't shown up to work. I had been under the impression that someone had called her to tell her what had happened, but apparently that didn't happen. She's great. She's everyone's mom. She was sure something was wrong because I'm normally very punctual and it was 20 minutes past where on earth could I be? My husband answered the phone and told her what had happened. She called again later and I picked up, and her first words were, "Happy fucking birthday, right?" I spent that day on the couch hopped up on drugs. It was pretty fun. Everyone at work wanted me to stay home another day, but I felt stupid. Maybe I couldn't do everything I usually do, but I could do SOMETHING. I went to work the next day.
So the bruise is up to 23 cm, which is more than anyone bet on, so I get to keep all $5 in the office pool.
The moral of the story? If you get hit by a car, milk it for all it's worth. Stay home all week, sue the driver for all your medical bills (mine were only $60, what's the point?), shirk responsibility at work, boss people around to get them to do stuff for you. And if you land on your tailbone, suck it up and buy a hemorrhoid pillow. You'll be thankful you did.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Introductions are Neccessary
Myself, I think my life is boring. And of course I didn't think of doing this until AFTER interesting things happened to me. Oh well, such is life. At least mine. THe idea here is to share ideas from my life in the slim hopes that I may be able to impart some sort of ridiculously useless knowledge onto someone with an equally boring life. We should flock together, after all.
I'm a Registered Veterinary Technician, so this space will be filled with funny animal stories, crazy client stories, and useful pet owning tips. I'm also a member of a waiting adoptive family, so some stories will involve crazy social workers and government hoops that biological parents never have to jump through. I also have a long list of random thoughts the flit through my head at any given moment, so I may wax philosophical about such things as movies, books, or junk food. You never know with me.
For those of you who stick with me... thank you. Your opinion is interesting to me, if not always important. For those of you who come and go... good luck, and fine living to you. And for those of you who never read... well, according to Groucho Marx you must be inside of a dog.
To the beginning of our andventure together... slainte!
I'm a Registered Veterinary Technician, so this space will be filled with funny animal stories, crazy client stories, and useful pet owning tips. I'm also a member of a waiting adoptive family, so some stories will involve crazy social workers and government hoops that biological parents never have to jump through. I also have a long list of random thoughts the flit through my head at any given moment, so I may wax philosophical about such things as movies, books, or junk food. You never know with me.
For those of you who stick with me... thank you. Your opinion is interesting to me, if not always important. For those of you who come and go... good luck, and fine living to you. And for those of you who never read... well, according to Groucho Marx you must be inside of a dog.
To the beginning of our andventure together... slainte!
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