Delve into the scary world of teenage drinking

So I went to see step-daughter1 after leaving the hospital as she was in a right ol’ state worried about her mum  and desperately scared and out of control.

It was only 8-30 or thereabouts and she was still quite sober. She listened well to me and I calmed her down told her it would be ok and we would see her tomorrow at the hospital. I told her to make sure that she had washed away the effects of the night before before she came in and to look decent.

midnight came and I was just leaving my dads next door having sat and nattered and got rid of a lot of my stress. I wasn’t looking forward to being in the house by myself overnight. I find it very uncomfortable and I feel a little lost. I never quite know what to do with myself during those times. Anyway the phone goes and it was the 22 year old out of her mind with scaredness and alcohol insisting that she was going down to the hospital now to see her mum cos its her mum and no one can stop her and all she wants to do is to lie down next to her and sleep.

Obviously I did not want this to happen in any shape or form. I didn't want her to disturb her mum, to make a scene, to get herself in trouble etc etc. She point blank refused to listen to anything I said and in the end hung up on me.

So i ran home got the dog ( now I have no reason at all for why i got the dog but i did) put him in the boot and hot tailed to Toytown at many over the speed limit thinking great Friday night loads of plod about but I didn't get pulled thank god.

I got to the hospital and as she wasn't answering her phone I didn't quite know what i should do so i had a quick peek around and headed towards town constantly phoning (on hands free) till finally she answered. She was in the pub still and i met her out the back and watched with horror as the various emotions Anger, tears, (I know not an emotion) rage, despair, desperate attempts at self calming just flowed across her almost at will.

She was struggling to listen to me and in the end I just kept saying that if she went down to the hospital in that state she wouldn't be able to see her mum tomorrow as she would be arrested and probably banned from the hospital. I said it again and again and again. She was so distraught bless her, worried about her mum and unable to express it in a way that wasn't extreme. She doesn't want her to die wants her to be at her wedding and I did all I could to reassure that there was nothing i knew that could lead me to say that that would happen, that if i knew anything i would have told her and that all we knew was that her mum was poorly and they were doing tests and would find out and get it sorted.

We ended up going into the sweating heaving noisy mass of the perkin and what a joy it was all these pissed people bouncing off me and her and both of us bristling with emotion and anger at them. We were lucky i think that no-one really challenged us cos i think if either one of us had got challenged both would have just lost the plot. We found her girlfriend and i tried to talk to her and we ended up going out the front of the pub where all the police and bouncers were and some silly pissed tart started getting a bit lairy with me and i just let rip at her “Do i look like I'm having a good day? Just fuck off and leave us alone and get out of my face” then the daughter arrived again and she and I had a few words and she brushed me away crossly and tried to go back in the pub and the bouncer refused to let her back in again.

IN the end i left them to it. There was not much i could see to do further. They were of to a club so i hoped she would go and do that and not something stupid. I told both of them that if they needed me to ring and went home finally to go to my bed for the first time ever alone in this house i realised and tried to go to sleep. I slept in my clothes with my phone by my ear. I actually had it close cos i played a recording of my love asleep through the phone so that i would go to sleep better. It freaked the cats out cos they could hear mummy but not see her but i think it worked for me.

They didn't ring and the today she turned up at hospital happy cool calm clean and collected and a little embarrassed, not much but a little. We had a good time the three of us together feeling like a proper family for once. She aint my kid but she's the closest I've got and I am proud of her. not proud of how she was last night but proud of how she ahs changed her life around from the mayhem that it was 4 or so years ago

SO there's good news

My love went into hospital yesterday, a truly frightening thing.

We waited for admissions to phone us with a time (2pm) ignored it and wandered along about 3. No surprise, there wasn't a bed ready and  we had to wait for a few hours.

She was seen by a doctor and the registrar and had some tests, some bloods and they said they would try her on anti-biotics and see what happened. Her white count continued to be off the scale and that is a source of infection but no-one knows where it is.

She finally got settled into a bed and was for her, quite calm about it. She has had such problems in the past at hospital that I was worried that she would really struggle but she has been quite keen to be there and get this sorted out.

She was cold during the night (I thought hospitals were kept warm and toasty) and needed more blankets. Not helped by hot flushes which make her feel cold really quickly too.

Today she had more examinations and an ultra sound which showed nothing unusual. She has a cyst on her ovary which they aren’t worried about but everything else was ok. Her blood tests showed the white count beginning to come down which is great news as it means that the anti-biotics are beginning to do their thing so hopefully this won’t last too much longer

She is  feeling a little better and I am feeling a lot less worried.

The Bear of Riverfordness

Thanks to Abby at www.bubsbears.com we have a new bear for promotional purposes.

Here he is in his wondrous

Scared Frightened Frightened scared scared frightened scared

 

So today my love will get further results from the doctor to see if her white blood count has gone down and therefore whatever it is that her body is fighting has magically disappeared thanks to the anti-biotics.

This is highly unlikely as she is still feeling pretty rotten and her glands are still up so the next thing that happens is that she goes into hospital.

OH MY FUCKING GOD

Hospitals and mylove are not a good combination. She used to be a nurse and gets very frustrated and frightened. Its no wonder, seeing as when she had her double mastectomy they didn't give her any of her usual medication after the op despite us pointing out that she is normally on stronger painkillers than a lot of people are on after the operation anyway normally. So she suffered withdrawal and immense pain and a stupid health care assistant who tried to pick her up by her armpits a few hours after a double mastectomy.

Second time in we had exactly the same situation with regard to the medication despite attempting to ensure that it did not happen again. They failed her in so many ways. They didn't empty her catheter bag until it had back filled her kidney and caused an infection. Nurses handled her medication, she was neglected horribly despite me being there for as long as i possibly could be.

We complained the second time and it was completely washed away, it just didn't happen everything we said was disputed even to the point of one nurse ‘not being on duty’ when we had a photo of the med sheet showing her signing of the meds that day. It left us baffled and annoyed.

Not surprisingly she is determined in her wish never to go back and has got herself into a state at the thought of this happening all over again. My worry is that that will occur again and I will support her throughout that as i did before. But I am more scared that she is going to have to have an operation again. They have said before that they don't want to give her a general anaesthetic ever again unless it is life threatening as she has such a bad reaction to it and had such a bad time coming out of the anaesthetic last time. I am just so scared that she won’t come back that she will leave me on the bed on the way to her operation and i will never see her again. I cannot begin to explain even to myself how scared that makes me I am so terrified that i cannot even talk about it. I worry so much about it that I am terrified as to what my reaction at that time to her will be especially as it could be the last time she sees me too and I must give the most support that I possibly can.

I love her so much I can’t bear the thought of losing her. I would be so empty without her she makes me whole on so many ways and completes my world. How could I possibly get through that grieving process without her. She is the one who helps me get through life itself.

Oh fuck it

Peoples

I have had lovely texts and phonecalls, emails and posts on my Facebook page and even on my Twitter from lots of people congratulating me on my exam pass.

It is lovely to know that people are there and that they care about me and share in my success. The mohican’d step daughter called too. “What the fuck is MCP” she said followed by “do you want to but some advertising” Bless her, I am really chuffed with how she is turning her life around from a difficult early adulthood. I was very worried that she would go right off the rails and end up in a very dark and horrible place. In fact to be fair she has been in some fairly rotten situations and hasn’t made very good choices in what she did but now she is doing well and I am a proud daddy

From parents and aunties, step mums and friends new and old and even some of the recruitment agencies who hold my CV I have had lots of congrats. Don’t know how I am supposed to accept them other than saying thanks, it makes me feel a bit embarrassed to be honest but it is good I know.

TFI Friday

Well not actually thank fuck!! Been a strange quiet sort of day. I updated my CV to show the letters after my name and uploaded it to all the relevant job sites that have made my CV searchable

Gonna go off on a a tangent here. FFS some of these sites are really good. Obviously I am concentrating on IT based sites like CW Jobs  and IT job board but I also look through Jobsite , Indeed and CV Library. I have these set up to send me emails when jobs are listed on their site following criteria that I give them. Generally this is “support” or “Field” in the title and 40 miles from where I am (near M5 on Somerset Devon border) Today's jobs from CV library? A Commis chef in Sherborne and a Recruitment consultant in Bridport I mean come on what the fuck use is that to me?

However I applied for some jobs as well (sensible ones) A couple of support jobs in Exeter and one in Weston, both are within hitting distance and had a phonecall from an agency for one of the Exeter ones. It is a 2nd line post covering for someone who is due to have an operation and will be off work for 3 months from sometime in March. I think I said all the right things and she seemed pleased enough to pass me on to the employer so that's the first step passed.

I do quite well with that step, I seem to get my CV on to the employers and then it stops or falls flat. We will see what the new improved CV does (I do have letters after my name now after all!!) I have tweaked it to show more self-employed IT help and less delivery man

Other than that the day was spent doing very little. Turned off radio 5 when they started talking about cancer genetics cos mylove couldn't cope with it.

Done doed it and passed

Took my 70-271 exam today - Supporting Users and Troubleshooting a Microsoft Windows XP Operating System.

Had to drive to Bawdrip to the BIBIC place and the training centre is located within the large manor house there, through endless corridors, doors and stairs.

Into a little room I went with about 6 workstations all carefully hidden from each other in booths.

After a careful run through of how to use the testing station and signing a form saying that I won’t steal the answers or do other bad things I sat down and started.

Trepidation, nerves and all I felt strangely calm and started at the beginning and went through them one by one reading everything carefully. I tried my best not to talk myself out of the right answers. Sometimes I knew straight away what the answer was but sometimes I took a strategic guess, having knocked the options down (thats the nice bit of having multiple choices) I completely guessed only one answer where I had not the faintest idea what it was and none of the answers could be counted out.

I went through every answer twice at the end but actually that was more difficult as it was easy to go “well, it could be that one actually” but I counted the ones i DEFINETLY knew were right and got to 70% which was a pass so I thought I was there or thereabouts

I pushed end to finish and there was an unbelievable long wait for the next screen which had me really worried. I thought it might have all crashed as there was just a white screen in front of me and nothing showing that anything was hapening but the cogs obviously whirred and then i was given the opportunity to send feedback to Microsoft, though it wasnt anonymous!!! I chose not to and then had another long wait although I was more confident this time and hten it said congratulations so I knew I was ok.

I got 899 out of 1000, which having answered 49 questions I presume that I got 5 wrong!

So hurrah and hooray although I can’t say that I am feeling particularly great about it. My love got a bit miffed cos I was just like yeah its done, its passed. She wanted me to be all excited but I just feel numb. Yes I know its great that I passed but I still don’t have a job yet which is a bind and we still dont know what is wrong with her either so thats hanging over the whole thing.

I told my mum that i now had letters after my name and the letters were MCP she thinks they should be McP but thats just cos its her name!! SHe thinks thats really funny though which is cool

Some results are in but the questions remain

My love went to the doctor yesterday to have some swabs taken for more tests. She was in with the  doctor for about 45 minutes an interminable time to be sat outside waiting! I sat reading magazines of no particular interest to me and ignored the flotsam around me. I did a good job of protracting a “fuck off and leave me alone” aura.

Surprisingly he had some results back from her blood tests last week which show that she has a super high white cell count which shows an infection or inflammation of some sort somewhere. However it doesn’t narrow down the source of the problem so hopefully the swabs will do the trick.

He has put her on some hefty anti-biotics to try and fight the infection and increased her oxycontin even more so today she is a  bit zombiefied

The cogs run so slow and it is extraordinarily frustrating to have to wait and wait while she continues to feel so poorly and is suffering so much. I know that she is worried and scared and that that will continue for a while yet till we know what is going on.

D-Day minus One

So I am one day from my exam now and everything should be snagged surely and safely in my brain. I am not entirely sure that it is. I have been dong well in my practice exams and am confident in a fair bit of the course but there are some bits that don't seem to want to sink in.

The pass rate is around 70% and I hope I have done enough to pass tomorrow because I don’t want to have to retake the exam.

Today however I have been alternating between taking exams and tagging my music with musicbrainz. Simply put it goes through your music files and tags them correctly. Excellent for me who has a lot of music that has been copied off of cds early on before all the tags were added correctly

Fire on the motorway

Fire on M5 – last night it was strange to see al the cars stopped on the motorway due to the fire on a lorry it closed the motorway for many hours and we could see the stop lights of the cars across the fields from our house

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Exam worries

Am I too focused on practice exams? I worry that I won’t be able to answer the questions in the real exam (Thursday 19th Feb)

I have done quite well in the practice exams. I was given one by my tutor which had 180 odd questions in it and used Visual Cert Manager to change the PDF file to a practice exam because I found that when I scrolled donw the page on the pdf file i could often see the answer which made it a bit pointless really.

I have run through this exam many times generally in blocks of 40 randomly generated by Visual Cert Manager and keep passing so thats a good thing but am I just memeroising answers? (pssibly for some) will the real exam be anything liek the practices? I have no idea and perhaps thats the problem I haven’t done anexam for so many years, I am 37 now and the last exam was when I was 19 which i failed miserably at uni and then left uni never to return

Arrrggghh I hate it i hate this feeling of uncertainty and I have absolutely no co

nfidence in myself which isnt a great place to be going into an exam

And so it begins

a new blog a new time and a scary one.

The start of a new year. Yeah I know its February :-)

I have no job, I am studying busily to get my Microsoft certified qualifications and applying for jobs all over the place without any success yet.

My lady is very poorly and today we go to the doctors again to have some more tests before we can find out exactly what (else) is wrong.

Scared? I’m fucking terrified. Although for years we have known that she will go long before me due to her strange and rare illness, now we head into a time when there might be something more wrong that will bring it to the fore much quicker. Of course right now we are at a point when we don’t know anything other than that she is hurting and tests are being done but as is the human way I prepare myself for the worst. The brain can easily make a mountain out of nothing and what we don’t know is always worse than what we do.

I can’t work out how I am, I can’t work out how to support my love and her family. I’m not doing a very good job right now. I feel all alone in some ways and don’t know how to get around it.

I want to What Is Right.

I always do, I try to live my life by don the right thing making the right choices and have  a strong view of the way things should be done but this is countered by my unforgiving honesty. If you ask me my opinion I will give it – truly and honestly from the heart and impulsively

But I am so messed up I don;t know how to balance those two. When asked about the problems of a teenage step-daughter I gave my opinion and then found myself stuck in a place where everything  I did and said was wrong and made it worse. Am I wrong to feel anxious when I feel like a stranger in my own home, when I am pushed out from my normal routines, routines that help me to keep going, routines that I know I HAVE to do to stop me from plunging into a deep dark abyss that is all to close and that scares me so much? No I am not wrong in that but I am wrong to let that interfere with the security that my wife feels when she is going through such a scary time. I am wrong when it affects a 17 year old girl who feels alone in the world and abandoned from her adults. That balancing act failed this weekend and has caused a huge rift that is taking some overcoming.

Can it be resolved? yes it can but Bob the builder aside it is going to be a difficult, awkward even and easily derailed I think. It is difficult to be accused of not giving support to someone who is not interested in talking to me, who has no trust in me and who is plagued by teenagerness – instant gratification – always right – poor at taking criticism (perhaps that's not teenagernesss we are all bad at that i think) It leaves me feeling useless and unable to do What Is Right.

And so the day begins