It’s been fun setting up the survivor’s benefits that my oldest son is due from his father’s death, but the fact that I can never expect him to at least try to reach out to our son because he is dead is becoming… more and more of a thing. I found out that my application for benefits for him had been approved and got the award letter that comes with it before I had even been sent a copy of the information that I provided Social Security with, which wasn’t even the most surprising part. The surprising part of all of this is the fact that my son is due to get $933 a month off of the work record that someone else had, that we didn’t even know about — almost all of his family members, not to mention so many of his childhood friends, thought that his criminal record would have precluded my son even being eligible for survivor’s benefits in the first place, let alone at this amount. And I don’t think any of us will know the kinds of jobs that he must have held in the years and months leading up to his death, although it’s become increasingly more apparent to me that any place of work he must have had would have had to figure out his death the hard way, because none of us knew his current address, his place of work, even the types of jobs he was working. The fact he died was a surprise.

There’s just so much that we didn’t know about him that we won’t ever know about him. I’m fine with that.

Several months ago, my content creation drew the attention of a “seed investor” as I liked to call him.

He was willing to pay to have my account Verified in exchange for regular access to internal metrics, which I had no problems at all providing him. Some weeks, and some months, these metrics would be a bit more… amusing than others, but it was what it was. At any rate, getting back to the original topic of conversation: the fact that this individual chose to walk away from Twitter as a website, as a whole, because of longstanding issues that their Support has had that they have continued to refuse to fix. And to be serious for a second, they are issues that I completely agree with him having and him raising. He didn’t like the fact that the site was being taken in, and he wasn’t comfortable with the direction that Support and security were being taken in themselves, so I can completely understand his reluctance to continue to put time and resources into the site. I think I’ve mentioned my association with him on here before in a few posts, but I’m not even going to miss… not having a Support account any longer if any of you get what I’m saying here.

I’m making posts in here about a day late depending on how I feel, which I’m about to get into.

Writing is a bit cathartic. It distracts me from some of the pain, which we’ll be getting to shortly.

For those of you who don’t already know, Bub caused me to bite down on my own lip headbutting me while eating (I do not, and will not accept blame from anyone regarding, him at all, and that is final). I sought medical care for this almost as soon as it happened, and it began a pattern of seeking necessary care because it was clearly getting infected and I was becoming more and more delusional due to the pain. This culminated on April 8th when I took one step out of bed that morning and promptly face-planted into the floor and my son’s computer chair, which resulted in a ride to the local hospital and me being too delirious for my troubles… or, shall I say, the troubles I was about to have. That time, I bypassed the entire waiting room entirely and was brought to triage. You know, the bad sort of triage. It tends to be bad when that happens. They had to wheel me everywhere if not blanket me everywhere. They get my delirious ass onto the table, I hear someone go “we’re going to have to cut her shirt off”, feel it, and then things go black for a little bit…

The lip infection spread to my heart and my heart, my friends, was not a fan of it. Not at all.

I’m being paddled.

At any rate, I begin “coming to” in the CT machine with them doing a second of two CTs on me… on my heart. I realize I have two IVs in my arms, make a satirical comment about “this machine again”, and kind of pass out (though not fully) for a little while. But me getting cheeky like that reassured my care team that I was starting to come back around. I’m almost always cheeky. At any rate, this little stunt wins me a two-day pass on the med surg unit of the hospital… I guess in case they actually have to go in and make this story even more screwed up. My insurance begins fighting it as soon as they start placing the paddles on my chest, even going so far as to attempt to bill me for it (which I am in the process of refuting, and so is the hospital, to give some of you an idea). Like, In what world is paddles to the chest not medically necessary when a heart needs to be shocked back into rhythm, or out of asystole? (I would much later come to find out that my heart rate had begun climbing as a result of this rampant infection, climbing, then climbing more…)

As soon as I begin a good antibiotic and pain management regiment in med surg, I ask my phone to be plugged into the long charging cord that they very helpfully provide and FaceTime my oldest son (one of many times). This elates him, even some of the times when I’m slurring. Nurse shift changes are a bit challenging when it comes to getting new orders for pain management in, but it gets done… except for the last nurse of the last day. But outpatient pharmacy saved the day prescribing me what I needed to get home and not slur the important words when it came to things my kids needed. I’m mainly dealing with nausea.

They got me back to my babies. And I will always be thankful for the effort they put in to do that.

I thought that what Bub had done to me was a simple, if not severe, injury.

At any rate, at the advice of my care team I sought medical assistance in the form of a doctor’s visit. They gave me pain medication that makes the healing process tolerable, for which I am thankful. They gave me some mouthwash whose name I will never be able to spell but is not painful. And then the kicker… I was prescribed oral antibiotics in spite of my long-standing history contraindicating them, requiring that I be given antibiotics via IV concurrent with nausea medication whenever they are required. In this case, my medical records were not even read. I’m supposed to be given intravenous antibiotics as the need arises, whenever the need arises, concurrent with nausea medication. This did not happen in this case and attempts (or, shall I say, attempt) to take the oral antibiotic was horrifying on my end. But the pain medication that I was prescribed has been carrying the day, as they say, and is making the healing process of this tolerable as I continue to use the oral mouthwash that I was prescribed in conjunction. It doesn’t hurt.