my aunt (Lorraine (not sure if i have been using her name or not)) has been moved to a palliative care hospital in the city. our health care system moves someone to palliative care when they have less than 30 days to live. that is the official definition. i took a couple of days off from visiting while the move was taking place. i think i might have been going too much and as my mom says i am “too emotional”, as i told mark, i am “too crazy”. Lorraine is still in and out of lucidity, so when we visit i hold her hand or keep my hand on her somewhere. one of my other aunts had been here from vancouver for 2 weeks but left this morning. she had been taking turns with my uncle sleeping in my aunt’s room. i understand she could not stay forever. i will miss her as well. i saw her pretty much everyday and she is also lovely, as most of my mom’s sisters are.
last night when i was visiting, i was giving my aunt some water with a needle-less syringe. she whispered to me “jen, you make the best chocolate”. hee. i am never really sure if she is aware of what is going on, or just unintentionally amusing us. charlotte and mark came with me to visit. it was difficult, but charlotte was snacking off of Lorraine’s uneaten dinner tray. no couth at 21 months, stealing the cancer patient’s dinner roll.
i am also having a different type of grief managing my medications (still). one works for my ADD, but possibly makes my bipolar lite worse, SSRIs take the edge of the regular depression, OCD tendencies, and anxiety, but can also propel one into a manic state. weeeee. my favourite new psychiatric term is “dysphoric mania“, apprently, that one is hot hot hot for october 2005. at least for me. i am still seeing 2-hour-wait-doctor, but have asked my regular doc for another referral. just for you internets, because you hate having me wait. for now, i am stopping the ADD meds. awww, legalized speed, i’ll miss ya’. my mom suggested that maybe i just need to eat better and meditate. i just let that one pass by.
tonight i am going to go watch some tv until my brain turns into tapioca. tomorrow, probably back to visit aunty and who knows what else. other life related things have been neglected. unfortunately, i think we have no time for fancy pumpkins (last years halloween goodnesseses) this year. and honestly, i don’t even care.
i do love you guys though. still. and deeply. so many cute photos of puppies and kitties and boobiesbabies, etc. fuck, you guys are nice.
for now:

my mom was telling my aunt (her sister) that her doctor was telling her to take more vitamin D for something or another and how this would be such a pain, etc etc. my aunt, who is barely conscious and altered 99% of the time gave my mom the finger.
i am not shitting you about thanking you individually for the happy photos. they really are sad medicine. oh no, now i have a bon jovi song in my head. better stop.
my auntie is being moved into a palliative care unit tomorrow morning. unfortunately, much further away from our house, but alas, i will survive.
i love you internets. i wish i could send you all canadian death candy. and you never know, i just might.
xoxoxo

one summer weekend when my cousin and i were teenagers, my auntie Lorraine helped us make these costumes for the local atrocity of Klondike Days. it was so much fun though. Lorraine can do anything that way. that said, feel free to mock us, i am aware of what we look like.

i believe this was a photo taken of my aunt just after she completed highschool. when there are 15 kids in the family, no one can agree on how old anyone is in a photo, nor WHO anyone is, especially in the baby pics. they had magnifying glasses out people.

i know some of you are blogging on the weekend. i have a favour. post some photos, either here on on flickr or wherever. subject: puppies, kitties, babies. old or new. flowers are nice too. a flower WITH a puppy or a kitty or a baby would be even better. if you do, let me know.
xo
jenB
p.s. baby horsies would be ok too.

ok, i am not sure how much you will hear from me for a bit. maybe lots, maybe not much. i don’t know a lot right now. i actually have to talk to you guys about capital G God one of these days. death and dying is testing me and making me look at things and seek answers or beliefs that i don’t have.
my aunt is in end stage cancer. as of today, she no longer recognizes me or knows when anyone is in the room. she did roust herself a bit today to tell us she was in pain (she was clutching her cancer ridden head). this is so awful. so sad. so abso-fucking-lutely gut wrenching. i feel like i will wake up tomorrow and it won’t be true. or there will be a miracle i don’t believe in. it hurts. so. much.
all i can do now is rub her beautiful bald head and hold her hand and tell her i love her. i don’t want her to go. it all seems so wrong. wrong.
i am so sad. and i am so sorry that so many of you can relate to this, with a parent, sibling, friend, or other loved one. i just don’t understand. i am sorry for us all.

October 14, 2005. Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, Alberta.

August 27, 2005. My Auntie Lorraine and Uncle Tim. Family BBQ.

oh dear. i will send everyone a package if you write a post like this afterwards. i need oxygen people! stat! too much laughing. she may love poodles and live in the backwoods of arkansas, but i love her. belinda, thanks for being my insomnia buddy turned friend. t’was a cheerful thing to read after spending time at the hospital today.

off the top. thanks for all the lovely comments and feedback about my diary posts, my fat roll post, and my t-shirt post. stop telling me i’m good lookin’ or i will believe it. notice i did edit out The Roll™ in the photos. and yes, don’t be too hard on my mom. she means well, and things are still better than when i was a yout’.
* * * *
my aunt who has cancer (… if you have been reading along, I

is my new title. yeah, i have posts, what of it?
instead.

when i tried on the shirt below, it reminded me of this photo of myself. grade 4 i think. it was a shirt from a dance recital where we danced to “the san francisco hustle”. the shirt said “san francisco” on the front, and “hustle” on the back. there was one girl on my class whose mom wouldn’t buy a shirt, but instead made one with a black t-shirt and tin foil. that still makes me cry.

my favourite pose with the fussy shirt, but you cannot see the whole front, nor a good shot of my boobage.

there it is! the whole crux of the message. and my boobs. mrs. kennedy obviously loves boobs, because if you are wearing one of her t-shirts, it is the first thing you look at. unless there is something wrong with you. is there something wrong with you? go buy one and show off YOUR boobs today!

a few years ago i did some extensive volunteering for the local eating disorder education organization (EDEO). it was something i believed in and i had the time to give. a lot of it was positive, but i ended up leaving my post as vice-president of the board because the medical director was insane. seriously. and she was my psychiatrist at the time, and had no boundaries, and no sense of confidentiality, and i realized she recruited ALL her patients to be volunteers for her pet project where she was and still is the “medical director”. i also learned some neat purging tricks which i will spare you from.
the good bits were that i met some lovely people and we did do some good. i also resigned the website (since redesigned) and i had a university student in her last year of fine arts design us a new logo and branding materials (they have since ditched). in fact, (sorry, i meant to end this rant sooner), the logo is STILL a logo that spells EDEO with FORKS AND SPOONS. i think it is in bad taste.
i did get to borrow some really good books and videos, movies, etc., from the office. a few of the movies i watched with my mom. you can see from previous posts that my mom needed some re-education about body image and food. a reminder, i am adopted. i am a 5 7″ “big girl” and my mom (who raised me) is about 5 3″ and just over 100 pounds. i think it was hard for her to have a big daughter. for her, and for me actually, it just emphasized that i was adopted and not their “real” (other people’s words) child. i thought my mom and i had really grown from my volunteer experience. we talked a lot about my weight and body image (not really any specifics of an eating disorder – binging, purging, laxatives, etc.) but we made progress.
today, as i am leaving for the chiropractor (who ROCKS by the way, i am almost pain free and i should only have to see her one or two more times), anyhow, as i am leaving my mom looks at me and says wistfully “if only you could lose that big spare tire, that is what really makes you look fat”. she goes on to say that my ass and legs and whatnot are ok, but that bulge under my boobs and above my waist is the clincher for tipping people off that i am overweight. and dude. i AGREED. i said, yes, i hated that roll, HATED it (while hefting it around for my mom to see and for emphasis i guess). ugh. i hastily covered my ROLL up with a lovely corduroy blazer and left. i do hate that roll, but it doesn’t help to point it out. sorry mom.
if comments, nasty, constructive, or what-have-you were effective weight loss tools, north america would be skinny, motherfuckers. WE NEEDN’T HAVE YOU POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS TO US, or even the barely discernable. lets stop dissecting each others body parts. except for boobies, boobies are ok.
i wish i could love and forgive my gutt/roll for being so horrible and ugly. how does one go about it? does that help?
make it stop it pinches.
* * * *

is about what i was worth back in 1983. my parents offered to buy me a waterbed AND give me a 100 bucks if i lost those 10 pound they thought were ruining me at the time. more my mom really. my mother and i have had a rocky relationship with regards to my weight. i wont say too much more tonight. it is nearly 3am and i need to sleep. tomorrow morning i have a shift at the daycare which required whatever faculties i have at my disposal. charlotte is still attached to me the entire 4 hours, until the last hour when there are about 3-5 kids left. it is awful. i am working there to help her socialize and MAKE THE BIG bucks (i notices the McDonalds across the street is paying more than i make). i don’t know what to do. i work with the nicest women. most notable, kelly, my bossfriend (how she is now known). it has been weeks. anyhow. tired, i am tired.
thank you all for you responses about my last post. i want to reply to some comments and emails i have received, and will do so. maybe not tonight though. i love you internets. for-fucking-seriously.
for now, check out my flickr.