Tracy Lynn's Viewpoints

Archive for July, 2010

Ok so, normally I would let this slide, leave it be. NOT today. This post is a follow up to the post ‘My Mother’ and it’s meant to be read by the haters. Buckle up baby here we go….

I almost always approve all comments on my blog. You are not required to agree with my opinions, in fact I get a great deal out of all of the comments. This is different. On this post I have denied 34 comments and blocked 9 people on Twitter over this.
The things that have been said are beyond horrible and I will not tolerate them, so I don’t approve them. You may think anything you wish about my relationship with my mother. You can even think it’s horrible that I wrote this is a public forum. That’s the great thing about being an American, free thinking, free will. HOWEVER, the nastiness is not necessary.
In case you’re wondering, my mother read this post, do you want to know what upset her about it? She was upset because I said she spent all of dad’s money within 6 months, she corrected me, she said it was 7 months. Not one word about anything else that I wrote. So save your BS.
And another thing. You can’t judge me until you’ve walked in my shoes and to do that this is what you need to accomplish…

Spend 2 years on Chemo & Radiation
Out live 5 expiration dates
Enroll in 5 experimental treatment programs
Let the doctors remove..
*Your Uterus
*Your Ovaries
*Both of your breasts
*A Kidney
*Your Gall Bladder
*3/4 of your stomach
*Have 2 brain surgeries
*Bone marrow transplant

After you have done that, come back and tell me what a horrible person I am. Until then…..Shut The Hell Up!! Or…..Better yet, YOU pay the roughly $2300. per month that I pay for my mother. Then she can ask YOU for your jewelery before you die.

UPDATE

I have decided that I will no longer be blocking people for the stupid, mean DM’s. Instead I will be posting them on this blog along with your email address which I will get by following your IP address. You may no longer hide behind DM’s. Speak your mind, but I will make it public.
Thanks for playing my game.

I have been asked by many about my relationship with my mom and why I put up with it. This morning I was writing about it in an email when my computer crashed and I lost all of it. I suddenly felt that the time has come to share our story with the masses, so to speak. It’s not a pretty story but it is our story. This is in no way meant to bash my mother. She is who she is and I am who I am. Good, bad or indifferent, this is our story. As with all of my other posts, I don’t really know what, or how much I will share. I write until I hit “publish”, whatever is in my heart usually ends up in my posts.
My mother’s weight has fluctuated her entire adult life between 600 and 800 lbs. Most people would be uncomfortable at that weight but not mom, she’s always seemed quite happy being big. Of course it probably would have been more difficult if she didn’t have 16 kids running around doing all the house cleaning, laundry, shopping ect. She didn’t even have to brush her own teeth. I kid you not, mom had dentures so she would take them out and hand them to the closest person so we could go brush them for her. She gave up driving when the steering wheel started leaving black marks on the stomach area of her dresses. That wasn’t a big deal, she had plenty of kids that could drive.
My dad treated her like a princess. He loved her until the day he died. Which brings me to our current relationship. When dad was alive, even though he had Parkinson’s disease, dad took care of everything. All of us kids were on our own which left the two of them alone. Dad had a problem with falling so the doctors taught him to “fall safely”. He continued to do all housework, shopping, ect so mom didn’t have to do anything. I was always driving 4 hours to their house so that I could spend time with dad and do as much as I could to take some of the burden off of him. When dad was clearly dying he asked me to promise him that I would take care of mom. Foolishly I made the promise.
After we lost dad I continued to drive up there on weekends to see to it that mom had what she needed. Within 6 months of losing dad, mom had spent every penny of dads money buying stuff on ebay. Grandma died shortly after dad. Mom received a good chunk of money from grandmas will. She spent all of that on ebay too.
Finally it became apparent that mom just could not live by herself. That’s when Mike & I decided to hire a live in for her. Mom went through 10 live-ins within 5 months. Then one day she tried to move herself from the wheelchair to the toilet and she fell. The weight of her body crushed several vertebrae in her spine so the doctor said she had to move into the nursing home.

When she went into the nursing home they labeled her “Borderline personality disorder”. Just a nice way of saying “Mean”. My grandma (mom’s mom) was always more of a ‘mom’ to me and I miss her terribly. She raised 2 kids, a son and a daughter. My Uncle turned out great, I dearly love him. Grandma lost a daughter just before mom came along & it’s my theory that due to this mom was spoiled beyond belief. The problem is that mom has the ability to act like a normal, loving woman when she wants to. I think that’s why dad married her. Dad was a preacher so as a preachers wife there comes responsibilities. She could turn on the charm when needed then come home and beat some of us kids half to death. She never did it in front of dad though. I believe growing up that way is the reason for my love of books. I couldn’t wait to learn to read but mom always thought reading was bad, she only allowed us to read our school books. I remember from 1st grade on I would come home and sit in the closet with the door closed so I could read a book by flashlight. I just loved all the places those books took me!
When mom would catch me reading (quite often) she would beat me on the back with a belt until I bled, that way dad wouldn’t see the marks, then she would lock me in the basement inside the coal bin for the rest of the night. I finally got smart and started hiding a book & flashlight behind a loose brick in the coal bin. I didn’t mind being locked in as long as I could still read a book LOL.
I think that’s probably where the problem started with Bonnie (my twin). She was always doing things to please mom & if she found a book hidden in our room she would go running to mom with it. I despised her for that. As Bonnie’s reward for ‘squealing’ she got the dubious honor of picking out the belt for my punishment, she loved that!
I’m really not sure why none of us ever told dad what was happening behind his back. When I look back now I know that he would have stopped it immediately but as a child I couldn’t face telling him and causing him such pain. Occasionally mom would get a little wild in front of dad but he could always put a stop to it. She learned to wait until he was gone.
Mom has already lost 3 daughters to breast cancer. When I told her that I was just diagnosed with it her response…”May I have your diamond cross pendent now? I’m not sure Mike will let me have it after you’re gone”.
So that gives you a small glimpse into our lives. I, from day 1 have paid the $1500. a month for mom to live in the nursing home. I pay for her phone, cable, cell phone and anything else she wants. I do it because I can not, will not, break my promise to dad.
When I left home to marry Mike I took David with me. I couldn’t stand the thought of him remaining there with no protection. We never had kids of our own but David has been our “son”. He would love for me to cut all ties with mom too, but I can’t.
She’s recently been bugging me about what will happen if I die from this cancer. She is worried about who will pay her bills. Last night she had her friend drive her 4 hours to my house so she could make me sign a will that she had typed out. This will states that in the event of my death, Mike will continue to pay for her. Of course I refused to sign it, actually I refused to allow her into my house so Mike & David were trying to deal with her out in the driveway. When she saw that I wasn’t going to bend on this subject she called the police. The Sarge explained to mom that I do not have to allow her into my house and also her trying to force me into signing a will is against the law. It’s safe to say that mom was not a happy camper when she finally left.
At this point I would like to be selfish and just wash my hands of mom, let my siblings be responsible for her. That sounds easy enough, but it’s not. My dad was a good man. If he made a promise you could chisel it in stone. I cannot break the promise I made to him on his dying bed. That would be taking the easy way out and dad taught me better than that.
I do not know what the future holds for us. They say that age mellows people and I have held onto that fantasy for a very long time now. I would love to hear my mom tell me she loves me. I remember clearly the last time I heard her say those words. I was 10 yrs old and we were at a church picnic, mom had an audience so she gave me a hug and proclaimed her love for all of her beautiful children that God had entrusted to her care. I remember thinking, maybe she really does love us! But many decades later I still have not heard those words come out of her mouth.
For whatever reason, God chose her to be my mother. The Bible says I must honor her. The way I choose to honor mom is by making sure she is taken care of. I continue to end each conversation by saying “I love you mom” even though I know her response will be “Ya whatever”. For the most part since I’ve been sick, I just mail off the checks and keep the conversations to a minimum.
No, I can’t walk away from her. When I get to Heaven I will receive a huge hug from dad for what I’m doing now. That will make it all worth it.
And for the record mom, I know you read my blog…..You are my mother, I am your daughter, we are blood. Neither of us are perfect. I love you.

In Loving Memory Of Bill Harris AKA @truebill5150

I wanted to write this yesterday but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t do it. Let’s see if I can pull the words out of my heart today.

As most of you know I was released from the hospital Wednesday 7/21/10. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was to get out of there. 5 weeks + 2 days is 5 weeks + 1 day too long. I came home and spent time with Mike, David and Kylee and completely wore myself out, so I took a nap. When I got up from my nap I learned some horrible news, and that news brings me here to write this post.

On Bills Twitter his nephew wrote that he was sorry to inform us that Bill was found dead in the cab of his truck. Bill died while on break, in the truck that he loved so much. My guess is that if Bill knew he had to go, that would have been the place he would have chosen, in The Blue Bomber.

I have a lot of Trucker Buddies on Twitter and I love each one of them. I need each one of them. They get me through the rough days, some of them, like Bill, got me through the rough nights.

Bill is was a wonderful man. He loved God, Family and Country. We had very different political opinions and that’s one of the reasons we became such good friends. When I first met Bill it was because I made a political statement on Twitter that he didn’t agree with so he called me on it. I loved that! Bill felt as strongly about his opinions as I do mine. That made for some pretty great sparring times. It got to the point that one of us would say something to the other for the sole purpose of starting a sparring match, Bill enjoyed it as much as I did. He was unique in that department.
Usually when you get into a political argument with someone it gets heated, feelings get hurt and it ends badly. That never happened with Bill, not ever. We respected each other to the max. There aren’t many men willing to go toe to toe with me and my big mouth but Bill was always up for it and I will publicly admit here and now…Bill was the best word sparring partner I’ve ever had!

I’ve been through a lot and I have trouble sleeping so on those nights Bill would either call me or we would spend the night texting. He always knew what to say to pull me out of the ditch. One thing we never disagreed about was Religion. Bill has had a BIG Booming voice with a laugh to match. I could have listened to Bill pray all night long! I always told him that he missed his calling, he should have been a preacher. He felt that in some ways he already was because he was a witness for God every where that he drove, and he drove a lot. Due to my illness we had many, many late night discussions about death. I know that Bill was not afraid to die. I also know that The Pearly Gates opened wide to welcome Bill in.

Bill was much, much too young to die. Without knowing the details I will still give my opinion about why I think this happened. ( Bill would expect no less LOL ).

American Truckers are treated no better than cattle. FMSCA, DOT, OSHA, in my humble opinion are directly responsible when truckers die. Why you ask. Well, they live in the cab of a truck, thanks to the above mentioned agencies they are forced to eat crappy food everyday. There is no time for them to sit down and enjoy a healthy meal. A Trucker has to grab whatever is available and convenient to eat. That, for the most part is junk food and caffeine. Truckers are forced to keep to a very tight schedule. All the fat cats at the top of the chain are living comfortable lives, eating what they please, when they please and bringing in a hefty paycheck too. By the time you get down the chain to the Trucker all that’s left is scrap.
The Trucker is the one that has to make the deadline, buy the fuel, pay the tolls, buy the permits, pay the road tax, keep the truck running, pay for repairs when it’s not, and keep the above mentioned agencies happy which they make almost impossible to do. Truckers have to do all of this at once, like juggling balls. And, by the time the Trucker pays for all of those expenses there’s not much money left. Then the Trucker has to find a safe place to park the rig in order to get some sleep. It’s not as easy as it sounds. The majority of truck stops have disappeared, so when the log book is out of hours and the Trucker is BY LAW required to park, there is no place to park. That’s why Jason’s Law is so important. It will not fix all of the problems Truckers face but at least it would help them find a safe place to sleep.

Truckers get a raw deal all the way around. Not only is it a very hard way of life with very little money, they are also treated like crap by the general public. The soccer mom that doesn’t think twice about pulling out in front of a truck because to her a Trucker is just another annoyance that she has to put up with in the course of her perfect little life. The big chains that have pushed out the truck stops and would rather cater to Mr. & Mrs. Jones and their 5 rugrats. People (I use this term loosely) in office that have no regard for Truckers and vote in more idiotic laws that make the Truckers lives even harder.

There was a time in this country when Truckers were respected. That has gone the way of the truck stops. Truckers are thought of as dirty, foul mouthed annoyances now. Do you know, do you care, that Truckers not only move America and deliver all of your comforts to you, they also pay VERY high road tax. Did you know this? Yes, they do. They pay extremely high prices for the fuel they use BUT on top of that they also have to pay road tax quarterly! Read that again…Road tax…THEY pay for the privilege of using the roads for EVERY mile they drive! Do you? No. You put gas in your little red mustang and go on your merry way. So the next time you think about cutting a Trucker off think of this, That Trucker is PAYING to use the road…You are driving on it for free. I have been out there on the road and I can say this without hesitation…Truckers are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met! Does that mean they want you to come up to them and start a conversation? NO. Truckers tend to be loners, it’s mostly for self preservation. That doesn’t make them bad people. They are doing a tough job with a lot of weight on their shoulders and they just want to do it safely. If Truckers weren’t out there driving, not only would you not have the things you need and want, but all of that money that the Truckers pay for using the roads would dry up.
All you have to do to make a Trucker happy is…share the road. Don’t cut them off. Wave once in awhile, with all 5 fingers. Give them a break in traffic, let them in. You probably only have a few more miles to drive, that Trucker probably has a few hundred more miles to drive.

I seem to have gone off on another tangent, I can almost hear Bill’s big booming laugh now. I will miss that laugh, his words, his advise. I already miss picking up the phone and hearing him yell…”How’s my true grit doing?”
The answer today would be, “Not so good Billy, I miss you.”
I’ll also miss hearing him yell, “Tracy Lynn just knock it off right now, I mean it!”. Thanks Billy, you helped me with my edit button.
This will be the first post in a long time that I wont receive a call about tonight. Oh how Bill liked to critique my writing. He was going to be my proof reader for my book. Now what? I have no clue.

Goodbye my friend. You left your mark behind. You will not be forgotten. Thank you.

I will end this post in Billy’s favorite fashion….

gtg……………..bbl…………………2b continued…………………………………

I’m upset. So, what do I do when I’m upset? I write. I don’t know where this will go but I’ll write until the tears stop.

Cancer took another friend tonight. At 5:30 PM cancer stole Carol from us. Carol has fought hard beside me for over 2 yrs. We had a pact, whoever was left would not mourn. I’m sorry Carol, the deal is off! Oh how I mourn. Not for Carol, I know she’s fine. Singing with the angels, playing a game of chess with my dad. (she promised to let him win one). I mourn for myself. I shall miss her so much. Because I’m stuck in this damn clean room I was not allowed to be with her during her final moments. I’m angry about those moments being stolen from us! Let me tell you about Carol.

I met Carol soon after my diagnosis. We met in the chemo room, she was in the recliner next to mine. I remember her laugh, it angered me. I could not believe that she was getting chemo and laughing so hard! How dare she! The nerve of some people! I said something to her about it, I can’t even remember what I said but I remember her answer to me, “Oh for Pete’s sake girl, lighten up or you’ll never get through this crap.” That was all it took. We’ve been friends ever since. Carol taught me not to be afraid of cancer but to get mad at IT. She taught me the ropes, get mad at IT not the doctors. Get mad at IT not myself. I am still here because of Carol, and now she is gone.
Carol was supposed to make it, she had already beat this enemy to a pulp. She was in “remission” ( I HATE that word), she still spent time with me during my chemo. Together we’d laugh so loud we were always being shushed. 8 months ago her enemy returned, bigger, badder and meaner than ever. Her fiance left when he found out, good riddance loser!
The two of us would talk, sometimes all night on the phone during the bad spots. I loved her. She was funny, sassy, beautiful and she, like I, allowed God to carry the load when it got too heavy. We had many “what if” conversations, nothing that I would ever share but the memory of those conversations will stay with me forever.
Just last week I had a really rough time over something with my mom, it was Carol that talked me down. When Mike hits the wall it’s always Carol that leads him around the corner. She will be greatly missed!

Carol didn’t have any family members left, at least not that stuck around. She didn’t let it get her down, she didn’t let anything get her down, well not often. We picked each other up when the need arose and the rest of the time we spent just having fun. I’ve never known anybody that enjoyed life as much as she did. She was the one that always made fun of me for spending so much time on Twitter. She never understood Twitter. I’m very thankful for my twitter family, she just couldn’t understand that so a lot of times when we were getting chemo she would spend the time making tweet noises, precious memories indeed.

I’ve known that her cancer was bad, for about 2 months she’s been battling hard and very weak. I didn’t see this coming, I should have I suppose but I didn’t. We have both been in pretty bad shape at times but we dig in and dig out. Not this time huh Carol?
What will I do now, without her? I will do the same as before. I will fight, but I will fight even harder. I will be fighting for both of us now! While Carol is singing with the angels I will be teaching cancer a lesson… Do not take my friends from me! I’m so sick of losing people to this terrible enemy, bring it cancer…You are going down! And I’ll do it with Carols help too!

I lied. I’m done writing but the tears are not done falling. I cry because I miss her. I smile because I know it’s her 1st day in Heaven and she has all the angels in stitches!

Later Gator

On Independence Day, it’s great to see the fireworks the family gatherings, BBQ’S and celebrations. I hope that all Americans take a moment to stop and remember the people that have fought to give us our independence. The many soldiers that have gone to war for us, the soldiers that are fighting for us today. Remember their families that are celebrating alone while their soldier is at war. Remember the soldiers that paid the ultimate price for our freedom and their family that is grieving for them today. I say THANK YOU to ALL Soldiers and their families for giving us our Freedom!
Thank you for keeping America a place where I can state my opinion freely, and others that disagree with me can also state theirs.
Thank You to ALL of the Truckers that can’t celebrate holidays because they are busy keeping America moving. Thank you to the truckers families that must celebrate alone so that America has the things that we need/want available to us.
Celebrate Old Glory! Fly Her Proudly!

Be safe out there America.

Well I’ve decided to try to post to my blog from my phone, we’ll see if this works. I need to warn you that my mind is pretty wanderish ( is that a word?) today.

I went through with the bone marrow transplant. So far so good but it’s a long road ahead. Now all I can do is sit here in a “clean” room and wait for Bonnie’s marrow to find it’s way deep into my bones and start growing me an immune system. I can’t be exposed to anything because one little germ could kill me right now. That’s a scary thought but hey, with everything I’ve been through I refuse to be taken out by a germ so I am behaving myself. Mike is with me but he has to wear a gown and mask at all times and he’s either in or out, he can’t just come and go at will because he could carry germs into my room.
We’re not sure at this point how long my incarceration will last but they’re guessing it will be about 6-8 weeks, possibly longer but I can’t think that far ahead. For me it’s today, tomorrow will take care of itself.

I believe that Bonnie and I have begun the slow, painful journey to repair our relationship. Sadly, I don’t believe that we will ever be like other identical twins. We have had many long, private talks and I feel good about the direction we’re going in. That’s really all I can say because Bonnie gets upset when I mention her.

There is something on my mind that I would like to clear up so bear with me. A lot of wonderful people have been telling me how “courageous” I am. They tell me that there’s no way they could ever do what I’ve done. Let me be perfectly clear about this…I am not courageous. I crack jokes all the time because humor gets me through the tough spots. Courage has nothing to do with it. The truth is…I’m a big sissy on the inside. There..my secret is out. Some of the things that I’ve been through have scared me to the depth of my soul. It’s Faith that gets me to push myself into another operating room, or another procedure room, not courage. When people tell me how courageous I am it makes me feel like such a terrible fraud. That’s why I decided to write this.
We all have the “fight or flight” instinct in us. Believe me, many, many times I’ve wanted to choose “flight” but I know that God is on my side so I fight. Any one of you that’s reading this right now would do the same. You may not think so because some things are too horrible for our mind to even comprehend until that decision is put to us. The truth is, our mind is such a miraculous organ. It knows how much input the person can handle and what information should be sheltered until it’s time to bring it to the forefront.
If you don’t believe in God, but I sure hope you do, you would still be able to face whatever is presented to you because the “fight or flight” is instinctual in all humans and animals. When I think back over the years at all the medical procedures I’ve been through it’s overwhelming, even to me. But fortunately it only comes at you one at a time. You make one decision, have that done, hope it was the right decision and move on until the next one arrives.

Courage to me is:
The 19 year old boy/girl that puts on a grown mans uniform and goes to war with full knowledge that people will actually be shooting at him with the intent to kill him, but goes anyway. Courage is when that soldier speaks to his mom on the phone and doesn’t allow his voice to crack, when inside what he really wants to cry is “mommy I’m scared please make them send me home”.
Courage is standing up and speaking the truth when everyone else is sitting quietly with their eyes averted hoping the wrongs of this world will right themselves.
Courage is the 3 year old cancer patient that quietly and stoically allows the doctors and nurses to do extremely painful things to her when she doesn’t understand what’s happening.
Courage is the husband that stands tall beside his wife as cancer eats away her body and tells her everything is going to be fine, when inside he’s crying because he’s not sure his words are true.
Courage is loving your spouse, even when it’s not easy to do so.

So there you have it, my truth. I am stubborn, bullheaded, determined, opinionated, bossy and sometimes irreverent. I am not courageous.
Thank you all for all of the prayers, encouragement, and kind words. They have truly helped me get to where I am. It seems easier for me to lean on my twitter family at times and I appreciate all of you!

I have printed the card that Desiree started and all of you signed for me. One day I will actually sit down and read them all. So far I haven’t been able to get past the second page because the tears begin and I can no longer see to read. When people ask me why I’m so into Twitter, the answer is simple. Because my friends live there.