more anxiety, dog related...

thank you ol' lady for voting me a rockin' girl blogger. i'm too tired and stressed out at the moment to figure out how to put the image icon of it on my blog and i don't know how to link up anyone i nominate as i have a mac and safari program does not work that high tech with blogger.

for now i'll just post as it's been a while. i was hoping again to do a comic strip post but not up to it right now.

super stress and anxiety about going to visit denzel's parents as we are leaving elvis with my parents. what seemed like a nice arrangement that had me relatively calm and ready to go home from dinner and pack slowly and clean the apt. was horribly shattered by a phone conversation with my mother.

not to bore you with the details but my father is much more amenible to taking care of elvis and as the baby of the family and daddy's little girl, i appreciate his sweetness and caring and that he at his age walks elvis and takes good care of him though it's not without its pain in the ass aspects. the late night walk is hard on him. my mother on the other hand tends to make everything into a big crisis in general and i caught her after a horrible long airplane trip and having to sit in the plane in the airport for two hours when they arrived home due to stupid security stuff. so she was in a terrible mood and started complaining about taking care of elvis and asking why we couldn't take him with us. there are many reasons it won't be ok to take him on this trip, but after talking to her, i was trying to figure out a way we could bring him, as it was so disturbing...

i kind of freaked out and burst into tears several times talking about it with denzel and later again. he was pretty pissed off himself and our whole evening was almost ruined. so much for packing and getting ready and cleaning.

we're still going to leave elvis with my parents tomorrow. i trust my dad to take great care of him and my mom will just have to deal with it. i think she mainly can't stand that he pees in her kitchen and she doesn't like all the walks. the funny thing is i think she misses him when he goes, but she complains and bitches and gets so anxious about it, it sucks. last time i made sure my dad was in charge of all the medication as he is very thorough.

anyway my other big stress from all this is i don't know what to do with elvis when i'm in the hospital. i'll be there for four days probably because i'm getting a c section. originally i had talked to my dad about my parents taking care of him while i was there. it seemed reasonable to ask them that small favor while i have a baby on no medications and recover from surgery and deal with learnign to nurse. but now i don't know what to do. i have one friend who could take care of him maybe but she now has a baby who will be almost one year by then and i don't know if she can handle it or will even want to. i may have to consider hiring a really good vet tech/dog care person to stay at our place and take care of the dog. i know they exist, i've seen their cards at the vet but i have no idea how much they cost. having a baby is costly enough. and i dont like the idea of elvis with a stranger. he's not used to being taken care of by anyone except a few people he knows really well and his other owner who does not live near here anymore. so it's a real point of stress, worry anxiety.
meanwhile ihave to survive this trip and hope my parents take good care of elvis and don't stress me out with complaining.

elvis is so important to me i'd sacrifice just about anything for him. i'm really anxious that having a baby is just too much and i have to be able to trust that he'll be ok. i had all kinds of scary thoughts tonight after denzel fell asleep.
i'm not packed or ready to go tom. morning in any way.
i feel very freaked out and am trying to tell myself it will all work out. reality is always much better than what's in my mind and my mother is very blunt and does not keep her feelings or annoyance to herself.

Top 10 Most Challenging Life Experiences...

i decided to try a list of them, the ones i've actually experienced so far, so having a baby can't be on the list yet...

1. death of a loved one
2. serious illness of a loved one
3. first time experience of psychosis and hospitalization
4. being pregnant with no medications for bipolar
5. bipolar "disorder" and all that comes with it, including dealing with its effect on one's loved ones
6. moving
7. dealing with anger and disapointment, conflict and confrontation from others
8. taking care of a dog coming out of anasthesia
9. high school and living through it
10. ages 13 through 28 and living through them

i am sure there are others that are worse that i have repressed, such as witnessing cruelty, violence and abuse, being mugged and some other things i probably "forgot" as i would not want to list them here...
if anyone else feels like making such a list, let me know and i'll check it out!

quick follow up

hi all. thanks for the support. elvis and i had a very stressful time of it. the teeth cleaning was successful and they had to extract a very infected tooth so it was good it got done. but fri. night was a nightmare and i was very sleep deprived sat. and the weekend was quite a challenge. i would put witnessing and taking care of a small animal coming out of anasthesia on my top ten most challenging life experiences list. i'll go into details in another post perhaps. he's still stiff in the back legs from where they put the catheter in but mostly back to his lovely normal self.
and today i felt more like a regular human. on sat. afternoon i had a moment where all the stress of his stuff and other things got to me to such an extent that i felt like i was about to crack and enter bad episode land but i managed to get through and recover on sunday with rest and spending a good father's day with denzel.
it was a preview that scared me of how stressed out and ungrounded and on edge of episode i get when i don't get enough stress adn am caught up in worry and concern for a very small dependent being.
what will i do very soon when there are two small beings in the house to worry about, one a doggie and one a baby????!!!!!

elvis' big day is tomorrow!

just a quick note, thanks for all the comments and for people who had experience with teeth procedures and their animals...

i'm a little less worried after talking to the vet on the phone yesterday. anyway tomorrow morning i bring him in for his teeth. turns out the cleaning only takes about 15 minutes and then it's a bit longer if they extract any teeth. it will be great to have it over with and know that it's good for preventative health that it's all done.

elvis is doing great. of course he has no idea he's going to the vet tomorrow. i pick him up tomorrow night.

i've had an up and down week but managed ok. today i got a haircut and wasn't sure i liked it but denzel took some photos of me and elvis and the belly to send people who haven't seen us in a while and i felt pretty good about my hair and my looks, which was nice...

block

for some reason, maybe i just have no energy. i have been unable to get back to doing my comic strip for this blog. it really annoys me as i enjoyed posting the comic strip and expressing something original about myself and my experiences and especially bringing elvis to life.

for one thing my desk is stilled piled high with stuff. even my scanner that i would need to use to scan the comics has a stuffed elephant mom and baby that i found recently and had to buy. they stand on top of my scanner to remind me of the side of me that is a potential good mommy.

i'm still anxious and unmotivated to do anythign in the apartment. but i'm definitely feeling more stable than the last weeks of may, so that's a good thing.

elvis is getting his teeth done next friday. i'm terrified. trying not to think about it now. focusing on how puppylike and energetic he's been and how he's walking fine even running. the glucosamine did not work out as the beef pill pockets that i was going to eventually put the pills in started to give him beginnings of diarhea so i and the vet agreed to forgo the beef pockets and glucosamine. poor elvis. he really liked those beef treats. now he has to go back to waiting once a month for beef flavor in his anti-heartworm pill treat instead of getting a pillpocket twice a day. it was fun giving them to him as he really enjoyed them. but not worth messing up his fragile little digestive system.

he's so wonderful i continue to marvel at his beautiful being. seeing him trot down the street so excited to be outside on nyc's dirty garbagefilled sidewalks and sniffing all kinds of stuff, is better than any medication to remind me that i'm already so blessed by having him in my life for the past fourteen years or so. i think dogs are injected with extra godliness divinity at birth as they stay that way all their life. as opposed to us humans who turn into, well, humans. it's no wonder that dog is god spelled forwards and god is dog spelled backwards!

elvis back to his old self! me back to messier self...

the good new is that elvis is doing much better, back to his 14 year old puppy self, even doing some of his adorable puppy like things like getting enthusiastic puppy energy and bounding around before going downstairs to his walks. some of his slowness last week especially on wed. was due to the rabies shot which i found out makes you exhausted and stiff in the muscles.

he's now getting special beef pill pocket treats after meals to see if he can digest them ok and prepare him for getting cosequin, a glucosamine supplement for arthritis. of course i'm partly wondering if i should even give him the pill as he seems much better, but the vet noticed arthritis when she examined him even though he moved fine when i walked him around in front of her.

the main new stress about him is that i have to get his teeth cleaned this month and he has not had that done yet. it's bad to let it go further as his teeth are not in great condition but they have to put him out for it and of course i'm super worried about it.

in general i think my trip into the dark and familiar zone of the more crazy parts of my mind has ended for now with a return to better places, but i'm very anxious and tired, totally exhausted. i had fine plans to go through piles of things on my desk and try to do some cleaning as things are more disorderly than ever but i got home from an outing late afternoon and went straight to bed. i'm constantly tired and have no motivation. all the stereotypes about being pregnant and nesting are bullshit where i'm concerned.

i've been trying to resign myself to the baby arriving in a messy disorderly apartment and that plenty of slobs bring up happy children. it sucks that the media paints a picture of organized expectant parents happily painting special things on the walls of a sparkling baby room and a clean neat organized apartment or house. when i was growing up i used to feel trapped in a family of neat people and hated being told to clean my room. now i'm worried my poor baby will be trapped in a chaotic totally messy disorganized house. i've lost all hope of things getting pulled together. we only have a few more months left and i can barely keep my papers in order and pay bills on time, much less pick up clothing and keep the kitchen neat, a bare minimum. the idea that we can reorganize the apt. and build storage space and transform it in time for the baby seems hopeless. i'm realizing i'm still slightly depressed but in this case the feeling of resigning myself to the worst case scenario seems a lot more comforting than having grand ambitions for our place and making room for baby. you can't be disappointed when you resign yourself to the reality of your own limitations. it's also just too hard to motivate or imagine that i can motivate when i'm pregnant and constantly tired. just keeping up with the bare minimum of one day at a time is a huge challenge.

the idea of a baby shower is scary and daunting. more stuff to put in the middle of the apartment. there's no more room under the bed or under the big dining room table so anything we get or are given for the baby will just go in the middle of the loft.

i have rescue fantasies of some magic person coming over and fixing everything. i've watched too many reality tv show of makeovers. denzel would never let someone come and reorganize our place anyway. but i admit i've had fantasies of waving a wand and everything being organized and fixed in two seconds with no suffering of dealing with the worse chaos that occurs when you start moving things around to reorganize in a place that does not just feel like a big close/garbage dump but in fact is. tonight is indeed garbage night. it's usually my thing to take out the trash or make sure denzel does it but i don't really care. i know how far i've descended when i can't find favorite items of clothing and dont bother looking for them.

i woke up this morning with grand plans to have new energy and tackle my desk and area and clothing areas and closet but that was a fantasy. i'm back to not caring and feeling the ultimate lazy slothful feeling that is a big part of my personality. as i get older i only get worse as i get better at living in messier and messier and more disorganized environment. sometimes it seems to mirror my inner situation and gets me down even more. sometimes i think this is actually a strength. all the neat freaks out there with perfect and organized apartments are sitting on total fear of the real chaos that is life and their own emotions. at least i'm totally aware of and living in my chaos and lack of control or anything. but i'm wondering how great it is to bring up a baby in this kind of environment. i guess i'll just have to hope that the baby will see that life is messy and disorganized and uncertain and chaotic but love can be grown in very messy places and love is messy anyway...

any words of encouragement or support greatly appreciated. i''m not sure this post conveyed all my fear and anxiety and exhaustion with worrying about how to deal with the mess of the environment and the big fear of the bigger mess of figuring out how to manage my life when the baby is here and be a good enough mother. i had great hopes of drawing a fun comic about elvis but that went out the window with my big plans of getting organized. i'll probably walk him and make a bigger mess getting ready for bed. sometimes i notice i retreat to bed to hide from the rest of the mess. somehow the messy bed is a slight haven to hide from all the clutter and mess.