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Tornado that passed by Salina, Kansas
April 14, 2012 |
Apologies for the rather long silence here these last nine
days. We’ve had an interesting week in
the TMT household. Our schedule has included trips to the doctor, a college son’s play, a rage/meltdown by The Princess, a tornado out break, a trip to the ER, a bad reaction to pain
meds, and visits with social workers. Yes, life is never boring for very long around
here.
(This statement is rather ironic because
right before all these things happened, I posted in a private Facebook group of
trauma mamas that things were quite calm at that time and I was wondering if I’d
forgotten how to live in calm. ‘Didn’t
need to wonder for long.)
The trips to the doctor were because I tore the meniscus in
one of my knees. I’ve done it
before. I’ve also had surgery twice before to
clean it up. My family physician ordered an MRI and was
sure I would need surgery again.
However, when the orthopedic surgeon read my MRI, he ordered additional x-rays. He said surgery would only give me a 50/50
chance of relief at this point because my arthritis was already too bad in that knee. A total knee replacement is likely somewhere
down the road, but not yet. The doctor
asked me if I was afraid of falling. I
said no, that I didn’t really feel wobbly at all. So, I got a cortisone shot. I can get one every three months. It helped a lot, but the day I got it was the
opening night of my son's college play. My
knee hurt and was unstable for about 24 hours after the shot, so we didn’t make
it to the play that night. Whether it was me being
hurt, or missing the play we planned to attend and having to wait until the
next night, or a combination of both, The Princess was triggered over the top and went into
a rage. It was loads of fun. I want to spare you some of the detail, but will share a lot of what happened so I can tell you how Hubby and I therapeutically parented our usually very sweet girl
that evening.
Our very talkative
daughter would not speak. She hid under
her bed and made “G-R-R-R” sounds to express her anger. She sat in the dark. She would not take her shower or brush her teeth. She
wrote angry notes and threw them down the hall between the bedrooms, assuming we’d run to pick those
notes up and read them.
At first, Hubby went to her room and tried to reason with her. She has absolutely no respect for
Hubby when she is triggered, so this did not work. We knew it would not work, but Hubby tried
anyway. After that, we simply sat and watched
TV, and we waited. We waited for her to
come out from under the bed. We waited
for her to pick up the notes (she handed one to me). We waited for her to speak.
The note contained content I’ve read many times before when The Princess is angry. She equates our love for her to the things we
buy for her. The note
said we hated her, but loved the boys. It
told us how mean we were for not allowing her to have a cell phone. It told me I was a bad mother because I would
not buy her a certain pair of very short shorts. It went on and on.
I did not respond. I
read the note, folded it back up the way she'd given it to me, and put it down on the coffee table.
Eventually, she came out of her room, arms folded, scowl on
her face, stomping down the hall and barked, “Don’t you want to talk to me?” I said, “I will listen to whatever it is you
want to say.” She asked again if I
wanted to say anything to her and I replied again that I would listen to
her. She blurted out several
things. I didn’t respond. I just listened. She got tired and said, “Why aren’t you
arguing with me?” I asked if it would
make a difference. She thought for a
moment and said, “No. Probably not.”
I explained I did not want to argue. I told her there was no argument. I told her she did not really believe the
things she was saying to me – not when she was calm. She knew I loved her and she knew I didn't give 13 year-olds cell phones. I told her she lashes out at me whenever she’s
afraid that I'm sick or worried that something may be wrong with me.
(She also does it whenever I leave for more than a day, but we didn’t go
into that.) I told her she was
disappointed that she had to wait to see the play, but that she was especially frightened about
my knee. BINGO. She ended up talking with us calmly and apologized to me the next day.
On Saturday, the entire Midwest plains experienced an out
break of over 120 tornados. This was
scary, too. The Princess and Youngest
Son seemed to handle this well, however.
They participated in our precautions and preparations. We talked about what to do if the sirens went
off here. We cleaned up the garage to
get my car inside in case we got large hail (my family uses the garage as a big
junk room – I’ve given up on trying to get them to keep it clean). That’s when I fell.
I experienced the worst pain I can ever remember – even worse
than childbirth. On a scale of 1 to 10,
it was a 12. I broke my ankle – same leg
as the “bad” knee. So, off we went to the
emergency room. Thankfully, the ER was fully
staffed in preparation for a tornado, and the waiting room was pretty empty
because everyone was home, preparing for that possibility. I was examined, x-rayed, wrapped and “booted”
rather quickly with instructions to get to the pharmacy quickly for my pain
meds, because they were closing early.
Those pain meds made me very sleepy at first. The next day, however, they made me very
sick. This also scared The
Princess. I sure was putting her through
the ringer. Thankfully, the tornados
went around us and our town saw no damage.
I went back to the orthopedic surgeon after the ankle
break. I’ll be on crutches for three weeks, wearing a boot. Then the three weeks
after that, I’ll just be in the boot. I
broke the tip of my fibula. The
surgeon gave me a different kind of pain pill, too.
It makes me very sleepy, but I don’t get sick from it.
Yesterday, I informed The Princess’ caseworker about the events of the
week, so she’d know we were still working on some things. I also wanted her to know how we’d handled things the night of the rage. I knew she would pass this along to
our therapist, who we don’t get to see until next week. So, a different social worker is stopping by
today at 1 p.m. to check in on me. It’s
okay. She knows me. She’s just doing her job. It’s actually kind of nice to have someone
local stop by. Today is the first day I’m
home alone since my fall.
Really though, I’d just like to go take a pain pill and get a
nap.
Our family, too, has had to set up necessary and sometimes often very painful and very isolating boundaries over the past four and a half years. I've been called "adversarial," "too intense," "over-the-top," and "a b*tch." Yet, like Diana and her family, without the boundaries, our lives are chaos at home. It all boils down to our kids feeling safe, whether that feeling is rational or not in someone else's eyes.
It’s a little difficult to concentrate on writing this
morning. The kids have the day off from
school. There are two young girls
playing a dance game in the next room.
They have it turned down out of respect for me, but it’s still
pretty impossible to get any deep thought into word. It’s even hard putting these few sentences
together.
For traumatized
kids, loss is such a profound part of who they are, where they come from, and
even who they’ll likely become. They’ve
lost their first family. Some have lost
a culture and a first language. Some
have lost friends and possessions, even real estate (some Eastern European
orphans own homes which usually end up being signed over to the state when they
are adopted).
