Bitter

It's January 3rd. I return to work this afternoon. I am both apprehensive and excited about it. So much to remember, although I love my patients. As we say in the medical arena, a good shift is when no one dies, so I'll aim for that. It's reasonable.

I am feeling bitter. Adoptees who speak out are often labeled as "bitter and angry" or "anti-adoption" when we speak out about things that are seamy in adoption; things that could be changed for the better for most people involved in adoption; things that aren't necessarily about being grateful for having a home and strangers willing to take us in and love us as their own (if and when they can); things that are ambivalent.

But I am not bitter because of my adoption issues today. I am bitter because the procedure that I had to help stop the pain didn't work. So here I sit, saddled with the same pain I've been battling for nine months, and I don't know what to do or where to go from here.

The next step may or may not be surgically implanting a pump that permanently bathes my nerves in narcotics, which would allow me to stop taking oral narcotics (not that they have much effect on me anymore, other than stopping my pain--I function normally because my body has become used to them). But that's more surgery with a big question mark attached to it. Will it work? Or will I have a pump in my abdomen that does nothing?

Last night I was so depressed and suicidal that I didn't let myself get out of bed. If I had, I would have thought seriously about an overdose. At least I was able to fight with myself and the "good" Kara won. For now. I can't deal with therapy. I have tried.

I am having a hard time envisioning a life in which I have to struggle with this pain, every day, forever. I am tired, irritable, and anxious. I don't have much left to give anyone, let alone my patients. We will see.

Many of my friends don't know what to say anymore. I have told them not to say "Chin up, things will improve." That is rainbow-farting, and I can't process it right now. It only makes me more angry. Yes, one minute at a time. But having lived the last nine months one minute at a time, the minute-by-minute thing has become very wearying.

Sometimes you just have to sit with what you've got, accept it, and soldier on. I am a good soldier, but my heart isn't in it anymore.

To be honest, the only thing keeping me breathing right now is my dog. He's adopted too, never says "be grateful," and is a warm body when I need one beside me. He isn't bitter.