To Hunt a Killer, Post Op Appointment, Down Moments, No Pressure

Today I had my post operation appointment. It's not quite been a month since my surgery but just about and I was a tad worried when I saw the evil-but-necessary pelvic exam equipment sitting out on the counter. I had read on the Hystersister's site that doctors usually do that exam at 6 weeks. You know because the lovely post-op paper of what you can and can't do in certain amounts of time says no sex until 6-8 weeks have passed. But nope, my doctor wanted to make sure everything was healing properly. I am healing well but I am very sore from her exam despite how gentle she was. Tylenol is putting a dent in it though. 

The good news is, I don't ever have to have another exam like that again, unless I have pain for some reason, and I don't have to take hormones. My doctor also gave me the official pathology report. I had lots of cysts but everything was benign. So I am good to go and can start tackling other issues like my back, my weight, the firbromyalgia, and depression and anxiety.  

Moving on. My friend Chris took me to my appointment this morning and after we came back to my house for lunch, to watch a movie (which we both fell asleep during) and to look at a monthly subscription box she'd ordered: Hunt a killer. The first box introduces you to you "pen pal/friend" and you are supposed to discover the mystery behind this person and what they may or may not have done. We spread it out on my kitchen table and read everything, looked at the clues sent to us, and then I started by making lists of things like keywords, how many times the 'penpal' said certain things, references that were made and so on. We came up with a couple of theories and then put stuff away. We have a couple of things we want to research later. The next box is supposed to build on the first and so on and so forth. It is really neat. 

I have been having some really heavy, intense bursts of depression lately. I will be discussing it with my therapist this weekend, of course. Some of the things I have been struggling with are really personal and on top of that there has been an underlying tension in the house along with an overwhelming sense of guilt that is starting to suffocate me and piss me off. I need to address these things so I can move on.

I talked to my Dad tonight. He had to travel for some of his work and stopped at all the roadside landmarks when he had five hours to kill. He learned quite a bit about Liberal and Ashland, Kansas, and imparted that information on to me. I, of course, went to go look at pictures of these places so I could see what he'd seen. It was fun. 

For some reason my Grandpa seems to be thinking about me an awful lot lately. He wants to see me publish something before he dies. Since he is 88 years old and has Alzheimer's, I guess I had better get to work. He apparently wanted to know what had happened, that I had such potential, and I am going to fucking cry because while I've always known that my Grandpa loves me and misses me, I didn't realize that he'd ever paid that much attention to anything I was doing. I mean he took me fishing and showed me how to do some things, took me to museums and traveling and taught me how to do some gardening, ect... But, I was kind of more my Grandma's helper. Grandma wanted to teach me house wife stuff and sewing, piano, and so on. 

Anyway, no pressure right? Because we wouldn't want to, you know, add a sense of time running out to someone has horrible anxiety and already has that sense to begin with plus very high expectations of herself. It's fine. No, I probably won't have anything published by the time he forgets that he said that or me or he passes, but it's a nice goal to work toward.

On the matter of Fred Phelps Sr. A well hated man, black mark on my home state.

Yesterday I learned that Fred Phelps is dead. On Facebook I wrote: "Oh it's that kind of a day. On the upside, Fred Phelps is gone from the world. I don't think I am going to celebrate that no matter how disgusting I thought he was. I just don't care enough to feel anything." Later I learned that his family isn't a going to hold a funeral. Wait what? You're kidding me? Okay, I'm a bit peeved, but I will get to that in a moment.

Now, I am from Kansas, Wichita to be exact so I've actually seen the Phelps family and their cohorts, in Wichita, protesting with their ugly signs of hate. I think my Dad has even run into Fred Phelps' daughter (the lawyer), and if he hasn't I've at least heard him talking about her. In order to better understand the Phelps, I even watched a documentary on their family that Skoora found on the Internet. And there have been so many news articles about them plastered all over the web. Needless to say, I know who they are and what they are about.

The Phelps family delights in horrible events, in war, and they shit on the very country they seem to enjoy living in and the freedoms and rights this country grants them. Don't even get me started on what they say and do to the military. They "Thank God" for cancer and IEDs (improvised explosive device). They scream that everyone is going to hell because we don't believe the way they do, because some of us have different sexual orientations, different religious and political views, and different lifestyles. In the interview I saw, they seemed to have delighted in digging up the interviewers background and told him repeatedly that he was going to hell because he didn't live like they did. They picket funerals. Why picket a funeral, the person is dead, all you are doing is causing the family and friends of the deceased pain and that what's more, they seem to get off on it. Causing others pain makes them happy. That's not the true mark of a Christian.

As a Pagan and as a young woman in a 6 year lesbian relationship, you'd think that I might find them threatening. Well, I don't. The Phelps have made me very angry in the past, furious even. What they say and do disgusts me. Sometimes, when I see them mentioned, or I see one of their signs via a news article I get upset, but I try to just let it go. If I let them affect me, they win. Why should we let them win? Why should we let them have any sort of satisfaction what so ever? They don't deserve it.

Now as for them not giving Fred Phelps Sr. a funeral, that's just plain cowardice. What? Are they afraid that the very people they've hurt and alienated might show up to give them a taste of their own medicine? It would certainly serve them right! However, you know what I've seen from most of my friends (Christian, LGBTQ, Pagan and so forth), you know us 'evil-going-to-hell-folks'? Nothing of the sort. A lot of people feel sad for the family that they have to go through the loss of losing someone they cared about. A lot of people are reminding their friends to pray to the Phelps family, to extend sympathies and love to these walking monsters.

That's wonderful! Good for you for taking the high road. Hell, some people might be trying to "kill" the Phelps' brand of hatred with kindness and that's good I suppose, but why extend the effort at all? They don't care. They hate you remember? You're nothing and you're going to hell in their opinion. For my own part, I just don't care. I say we do nothing. I say we don't send them love, prayers, sympathy, or even best wishes. I say we ignore them. Become indifferent to them. Sure, it won't stop the problem, but if we stop letting them bother us, then their words and ugly hate signs don't mean anything.