Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

Happy Birthday, baby. My first born, my daughter, my perfect Shannon. I miss you, and am amazed that it's been twenty years.

The day you were born, it was cold and sunny, and neither of us knew the storm that lay just over the horizon. I wish I had gotten to hold you one last time before the end, but it wasn't meant to be.

I will always love you. Happy 20th Birthday, Shannon.

After a lacklustre birthday the day before, I spent yesterday purchasing, then reading the latest Murderbot offering from Martha Wells. This was always the plan, as a birthday gift to myself. I will note, however, that without reading the previous novel, a lot of what's going on might not make sense. Still. Murderbot. I need to reread them at some point.

Also, it took too damn long to realize why the hell my mood has tanked. The weather is lovely, the sun is out and I am...not great. I didn't really notice the date, but my depression was way ahead of me on this one. Shannon would have been 19 today. Holy hells, where did the time go?

Me: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-regional-hospital-visitation-policy-1.6615191

"While Wallace-Wilson and Gagnon told CBC News they understand the risks associated with having patients come into the NICU, they said the baby shouldn't have to be on life-support for family to see her."

Yes, I get it. Having a newborn in the NICU is gut-wrenching. Only allowing two at their bedside seems cruel. AND YET.

This entire article just makes my blood boil. Not because of hospital policy (been there, done that), but because the parents of this infant are so fucking entitled and tone-deaf. "Yes, that's policy, but why does it apply to MEEEEEE?!"

I just want to smack the pair of them.

How dare they risk the lives of every other infant fighting for their lives in that room? So fucking selfish.

clawfoot: They do not seem to understand how transmissible diseases work. "Just put the baby in a different room, let them visit, put them back." It's FLU SEASON. There's still a FUCKING PANDEMIC GOING ON.

And they keep framing it as something for the BABY. But it's not, it's for THEM. They want her to "meet her family." Bullshit. They want the family to meet HER. She's a newborn. She doesn't know the difference.

Me: The parents are desperate and you know what? I understand. I empathize. But risking the lives of everyone else in that room because of your own selfish wants? Now I have ZERO sympathy for you.

We went, last night, to see Amanda Palmer perform at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto. I almost didn't go because there was a massive snafu with the babysitting arrangements, but the original babysitter, who double-booked herself, found an alternate (carolep.livejournal.com) and everything worked out great. Declan had a grand old time, by all accounts, and actually went to bed on time and stayed there.

There are so many little things that happened that seem inconsequential now, like missing dinner (whoops), and not getting anything signed (she wasn't signing, which didn't surprise me at all given the performance). I am, right now, exhausted and drained. If I was talking in terms of spoons, I would be borrowing into next Thursday to get through today.

The show was... cathartic. Intimate and amazing and there were funny parts and some that were really not funny at all. She told so many stories, stories about love and loss and compassion and empathy and how, sometimes, you can't win no matter what you do. And I cried. Holy fuck, did I cry. Mostly, I cried because of Shannon; even fourteen years on, I miss the baby that I lost so much I have this grief hangover for days afterwards.

And if those of us in the audience were put through the ringer, I have no idea the toll it's going to take on Amanda, to tear herself open, to show her soul, her patchwork heart, to bleed all over that stage night after night.

I know, that after Shannon had died, I wanted to stop talking to people about it. I was bleeding out and nothing was healing and I was desperate for a little scar tissue to make the hurt a little less. I cannot imagine doing it for 18 months (the length of the tour) for the enjoyment of others. If she makes it out alive, that is some superhuman shit right there.

The things she talked about, told us about: abortion, miscarriage, death, and how we're expected, especially as women, to just go one with our lives like nothing happened and everything is fine when we're broken and hurting on the inside. It is profound the pressure that we put on ourselves and how we police each other. It struck me, on the way home, that we don't TALK about these things. We don't post on Facebook that we're going in for an abortion in the morning or that the fetus has died in utero and we are going to miscarry in a couple of days.

We just don't. We keep it small, keep it secret, ashamed that we don't want the baby or our bodies betrayed us. We don't throw abortion showers or wakes for the miscarried; those are women's woes, punishment for eating from the Tree in the Garden, and no one wants to know. These are things that happen to us, they are part of our narrative, and we need to start talking about the shit we live through. No one else can tell our story and maybe, somewhere, there's someone who really needs to hear that you made it through the other side.

Because maybe the point is to not feel so alone.

I cried today trying to detail why a dumb book was written (Munsch's Love You Forever...you have been warned). Two weeks ago, Shannon would have been 13. Vibrant, bright, and a teenager.

I felt nothing. I was too numb.

The medication that flattened my emotions is leaving my system. I know it's weird to call a day where I will possibly be weepy a good one, but it is.

Today is a good day.

The Hallowe'en party was a success last night. It was a good mix of people and some of the costumes were great. We MST3K'd "Devil Bat" starring Bela Lugosi (who is, indeed, still dead), then had a brief intermission and then watched "Rocky Horror Picture Show" sans props, but not verbal cues.

boozymatic and eniastoa brought along robertom. Well, it wasn't really robertom, but a picture of Bob Dole, his costume! I pinned it to the roman blind so he could have a good seat and a really good view of the party. It was an amusing gag, but robertom would have been better.

The Gypsy brought a kitty litter cake. It was nauseating to look at (so much so, that some of us just couldn't eat it). I am assured, though, that it tasted okay.

I went through an entire role of film (yes, I'm still analog...I can't afford to upgrade), and have at least one picture of all the guests. If any on my flist don't want to be pictorally represented in a couple of days (I still have to get the film developed), speak now and I'll respect that.

( I did have some odd dreams last night. )

The hand cast came today. It was packaged in a lovely box and well padded so it wouldn't get damaged by Canada Post. The size of the hand is very very small.

It seems like such a cheap and tawdry consolation prize in comparison.

You can't have your daughter, but you can have this lovely imprint made of her hand (2-4 weeks for delivery).

I'd rather have my daughter, if it's all the same to you.

I've had lots of energy and ambition to get something done the last couple of days. It's most likely just a natural reaction from sitting around for six weeks in TO and being at home with the baby for seven months before that.

So today is a good day to dust off and update my resume. Then I'm going to attempt to write a half-way decent cover letter for possible future employ. Before that, though, I'm going to get washed and dressed and get down to Sobeys and buy a paper. Want ads are a lot easier to peruse in written form.

It's over.

Shannon stopped fighting in the early hours this morning and was truly lost after forty minutes of (unsuccessful) resuscitation.

Goodbye, my lovely.

Funeral details to follow.

Not much news on the Shannon front. What they're trying to do now is wean her off morphine and the ventilator. If she can't come off the ventilator, then they'll have to put in another stent, but this time in the left brochial branch. But for now, they want to see if she'll be okay without it. She's still not in a crib, but that should happen as soon as one comes available.

One of Shannon's roommates has been moved into a private room. He hasn't been doing very well as of late and there was a big family meeting today regarding what to do next. His parents have been really dazed, but the longer you are in the CCU, the longer you recognize the look to be what it is: stressed, tired and very very worried. It hasn't been easy on them. I hope that, for good or ill, something happens soon.

( And now, a meme... )