Strangely Enough,I'd Rather Be At Work!

Yes, you read right. I'd rather be at work. Im sick as hell. But I'd rather be at work. But NOOOOOOOO. Doctor made me PROMISE, damn his eyes, that I would sit my ass at home for the next 2 days and try and get better.

He is right of course. Last time I got sick like this, was last September in the hellish crappy year of 2003. I went to work. It was a new job... ie: i'd just been working 2 weeks. So, sick as hell - and looking it- I would dutifully show up to work UNABLE to BREATHE. I had been out of work due to the damn war for 8 months... and I'd be DAMMNED if I lost this job. My boss, who was a sweetie, told me to go home. I felt guilty though. So I would stay. I couldn't afford to lose this job. Doctor kept trying to admit me to the hospital. I refused. I told him why. He understood. He still wanted me in the ward, but he understood.

At least he understood until the day I showed up in his office unable to talk, and unable to get any air into my lungs. My airways had almost swollen shut. Into the ward I went... onto an almost constant oxygen/nebulizer with an IV shoved in my arm pumping in heavy antibiotics into me. 8 days later I was released, ON MY BIRTHDAY. I begged him... please, don't make me spend my birthday here! So I got to go home. Boss gave me get well/Happy birthday flowers. NICE ONES.He told me "we miss you around here, but YOU TAKE AS LONG AS YOU NEED. I JUST WANT YOU WELL, OK??" Sweetheart, ain't he?

So now I find myself in an almost identical position. Excecpt, that this time, I didn't fuck around and wait until I was REALLY bad to go to the doctor. SO. I have this on my side. Pray for me, will ya? But BOY have I digressed. I was saying WHY I hate staying home, now wasn't I?

My MIL. I'm home alone with my MIL. (Mindy, I know you are shuddering right now!)This is not a good thing by a long shot.Do you know what MIL stands for? MONSTER-IN-LAW. Now wait, before you get all huffy on me. Even Z calls her that. My mom is the one that thought up the nickname for her after a two month visit and first-hand experience. You think I'm gonna argue with my MAMA?? Um, NO!

See, she hates my GUTS. Literally. NO, Im SERIOUS. She daily curses me... for breathing. For eating, for sleeping.For not divorcing her son.For being on the computer.For cooking. SHE KICKS MY CATS. For... aw hell, you name it. Im serious. When I sneeze, instead of "Bless you" I get "God willing, you die". No shit!(Did I mention i've been sneezing a helluva lot lately? no?)I swear she says that. She frequently tells me "I will shit in your grave". How pleasant. I get called every cuss word in the PERSIAN langueage (and the few English ones she's managed to learn). It is quite an eloquent langeage too. Have I mentioned they have at least 15 words for bowel movements, for example? No? Well now I have. Anyway, when I'm home and her son isn't around to hear, she SCREAMS and SHREIKS CURSES AT ME.For nothing. Just for existing. Even with my bedroom door shut. Even with the music or TV loud.All day long. Doc wants me to stay home and REST? Yeah, sure.

I'm a very forgiving person. I put up with a lot. She steals from me. (from going through my purse taking money- and YES I saw that with my own eyes!- to makeup, to perfume, to.. to.. to...you name it!) she makes oodles of trouble for me wherever and whenever she can,talks shit about me as much as possible to neighbors, family.. strangers....etc.)My favorite freak out is when she got pissed that we had gone out to dinner on the way home from work, and she had cooked and we didn't know it. We were both too stuffed to eat again just to please her. She ranted and raved. When we went to bed, I heard a THUNK on the closed bedroom door. I was too scared, honestly to stick my head out, cause she was still shreiking. next morning, guess what it was? Hmmm? The CURRY SHE HAD MADE. She threw the WHOLE GODDAMN POT AT MY BEDROOM DOOR.At my WHITE bedroom door. It-was-everywhere! I have tried EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN TO GET HER TO LIKE ME. Tried to bribe her out of desperation with gifts, lunches, clothing,take her shopping, money,etc.. you name it.(cause she's shallow that way) I even learned HER language so we could communicate. (BIG FUCKING MISTAKE) No go. Hell, I even smuggled in booze and cigs AND helped her hide them from Z! I kept her boyfriend from next door a secret who used to sneak over after Z and his brother toddled off to work. OOPS! Well, not anymore. Oh well, that was 12 years ago. I did things for her that her own CHILDREN DONT DO. Driving her 2 hours on the freeway to a doctor when I was 9 months pregnant and so violently ill that I couldn't be in a moving car without pulling over to heave every 15 minutes. But even like that, I took her.Just to be kind. She doesn't refer to me by name, she refers to me as "it", or "this" or "that". How...pleasant.

Then came the day that she did something I will NEVER EVER forgive. If you think I'm a bitch for being so hard-ass about this, so be it.

Back in 1999, a year after we moved here, and after fertility meds,I became pregnant. Almost by accident really. Unfortunately, I became pregnant when I was severely ill with walking pnumonia that was misdiagnosed as "bronchitis". For FOUR months.Asshats. anyhoo... turns out I also came down with contagious mono as well. I was so damn sick. I was hospitalized for almost a month. I was in Quarantine... people had to wear gloves and masks to visit me. Fun eh? And you know what's interesing? As sick to death, (nearly) as I was... and during all those chest x-rays.... Not one person asked me if I might be pregnant. If I wasn't so sick and vomiting constantly, (I lost 25lbs in 13 days and was severely dehydrated also)watching the MIL looking happier and happier the sicker I got, hearing her thanking God...LOUD... I might have rememberd that I had swallowed those damn Clomid pills. That there could have been a snowballs chance in hell I was pregnant.But no. Actually, I almost died they told me. So. I was in the hospital. I got better. I went home. I went back to work. Then, then. My period started. Or what I thought was my period. But it kept on. and on. and on.Now this might startle some. But to me, not really. I've had this happen before. It's one of the little side effects of my infertility. Either you don't get the damn thing at all..... you force it by taking medications..... or it comes in a deluge for about a month.straight.so... things were getting bad. I was still working. The abdominal pain was crippling, again I thought it was just bad cramps. after a month of this.. I bought the pill my doctor in the US had told me to take to make it stop. I took as told. IT.DIDN"T.STOP. You know, I remember thinking, "if I didn't know better, I'd say I was miscarrying! yeah right!" Freaked, I went to a Gynae. He did a hemoglobin test. Guess what? I was bleeding to death.for almost two months.There was hardly any blood left in my body. My hemoglobin was 4.2. It should have been 14., folks.I'd fainted-blacked out actually-more times than I care to remember.. coming to... alone with my cat franticlly meowing in my face, terrified and running in circles around my prone body. I used to have to prop myself up on the wall in order to walk. During this time... I was working as a KINDERGARDEN teacher. I was going to work everyday, wrangling 2 sets of 24 4-year-olds for six hours. I was making lesson plans. Arranging curriculum. And this school sent home homework folks. Every week.

So, back into the hospital I go. This time... BLOOD TRANSFUSION AND IV.One in each arm. I would like to point out that watching strangers blood going into my arm freaked the shit out of me. As soon as my blood levels were pumped back up to more normal levels, I had an emergency D&C AND a laprascopy. Heh. They almost lost me while I was under the anesthesia. Fucking great. I went home. Weak, worn out, and half dead. I could not walk. So I was crawling to the bathroom on my hands and knees after trying to yell for help, because well, I couldn't hold it anymore. No resoponse from anywhere in the house. So I crawl, crying, so slowly and in such horrific pain.. then I hear the most evil sound I have EVER heard in my life and it sent chills up my spine. I stopped crawling and looked behind me. MIL was there, laughing, and saying "Get up you bitch! there's nothing wrong with you! GET UP! Why don't you die? I keep praying for you to die, but you keep surviving time and time again. You're stronger than you should be.You're supposed to be dead". I was just there on the floor, crying and so terrified.What blood there was was like ice in my veins. Then she left. I continued my crawl to the bathroom.

Tissue from the D&C was sent to UK for analysis. 2 weeks later, once I was home and the results were in that I had in fact miscarried, and after her son told her that I had lost a baby that I had wanted for so long and walked out of the room , I heard her say... "Thank you God! Thank you for not letting her have another child! Thank you for answering my prayer!" In that moment, I decided that I would never, ever make another effort for her... for anything.

Now I ask you: Would YOU want to be sick, weak, and alone in a house with her?

I thought not.