disturbing dream and anxious anticipation

Wednesday night as I was laying in bed I was thinking about my sister, about her ability to see ghosts, mostly strangers that gathered around. She would never engage them and could block off that part of her consciousness or psyche or whatever part of her that allowed her to see when it became too disturbing. Her husband appeared to her three times after he died that I know of, there was a ghost cat that she could feel jumping onto her bed at one of the houses she had lived in, a poltergeist that threw things off her wall once, and she told me one time she saw our father walking down the beach where our family beach house was after he had died suddenly from a stroke, the same way that she had died. I was thinking about all this and wondering why her and not me and why had she not come to visit me, you know, just to say goodbye at least. Anyway these were my thought when I went to sleep. This is the dream I was having when I woke up Thursday morning crying:

My sister and I were at a restaurant for breakfast to discuss something. The first table was too noisy so we moved to another table in the back where a man was already sitting. We were talking and the man made a comment about our conversation sort of supporting what we were talking about. It was still noisy so we moved to another table in front. The server came to take our order. My sister ordered french toast. Looking over the menu I couldn’t decide so I just said to bring me french toast too but before our food came we decided to leave and go to her apartment (this was a place where she had never lived in life). Later in her apartment we were sitting on the floor and talking and she was being very unkind towards me. I got up and walked over to the table. I said to her, you don’t like me very much do you and she said no, which really hurt. She told me to call our aunt (someone I do not know in life, all three of our aunts have been dead for sometime) who was at my house and see if she wanted to come there and give some input to the funeral we were planning so I went in the next room and called her and when I was trying to give her directions on how to find the building my sister’s apartment was in my sister grabbed the phone away from me and gave our aunt the directions as if I was incapable of being clear. Then a woman and her two kids, a young boy and a younger girl, a neighbor in the apartment next door, came in and the boy was just a wild child running around and yelling. I told him to stop bothering me and he punched me in the stomach with a stick like a broom or mop pole. Leave me alone I shouted and left the apartment to wait for my aunt outside. The little girl followed me out the door and into the vestibule and gave me a hug, never saying anything and then went back in the apartment. I continued outside and when my aunt arrived she had brought my dog Minnie who was being a happy dog greeting the other people out there like she does. We headed back in to my sister’s apartment walking through two vestibules, one after the other, and when we went in my sister’s apartment she was having a big party like maybe a Christmas party. There was candy and other refreshments on the table. Everybody was having a good time except for me. I was very sad. My sister asked me if I wanted her to get Minnie but not in a way that conveyed caring, more like indifference, and I told her no, she would just bother everyone and be underfoot and I started crying. 

That’s when I woke up and I was crying and so sad. I couldn’t believe my sister had been so mean to me and it took some effort to stop crying after I woke up. Had to tell myself that was not my sister in the dream although to be honest, she could be pretty condescending when people didn’t behave the way she thought they should and she had lashed out at me than once when she thought I was butting into something she thought was her prerogative. To her credit, she would usually apologize to me later. Maybe she’s mad that I kept her on the breathing machine for 7 hours after it was apparent she was mostly dead already while I waited for all the family that could to get there and say their goodbyes.

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I went to SHARE on Thursday but I think I overdid it a little. Not at SHARE because although the first hour was pretty much non-stop after that it slowed down and I had plenty of time between food orders to sit. It was really after when I was running my errands…taking the cardboard to the recycling location, giving a book to the little library across the street from the Post Office, returning a book to the big library, carrying a watermelon up the stairs to Pam’s/Robin’s house, taking leftover milk and another watermelon to my neighbor down the street all in the heat of mid-day so I was in afib pretty much from about 1 PM to about 4 when it had calmed down. Wasn’t sure if I was going to go to yoga last night but by the time I had to leave I felt fine and so I did and have been fine since.

The nurse never did call me back on Monday but I wasn’t concerned because whatever had been going on those first four days after the procedure had settled down but she did finally call while I was at SHARE. My doctor wants me to wear a monitor for a week just to check and see what is going on with my heart. I told her it had all settled down and I was feeling pretty good but, you know, if that’s what he wants, OK. I asked if he still wants to do the Watchman procedure (closing off that little pouch where blood pools during afib), she said yes, and if he still wanted to do it the same day as the cerebral angiogram which has not been scheduled yet. My appointment with the neurosurgeon is Monday and I’m to call my electrophysiologist’s office and let them know when the angiogram is scheduled. Fortunately both doctors have offices on the Memorial Hermann SW hospital campus. If both procedures can be done on the same day it would be one less trip in and I'd have both those behind me at one time. The angiogram goes through an artery but the Watchman goes through a vein which I guess is why both procedures can be scheduled the same day. Then all the heart stuff will be behind me (for now anyway, the afib could come back or not be completely repressed). The angiogram will determine if the neurosurgeon just wants to keep an eye on the aneurysm, which I gather is having MRIs on a regular basis, or if it needs immediate attention. I’m not sure how he would repair a fusiform aneurysm and I’m resisting the urge to google it again. I’ll find out soon enough on Monday.

I will be so glad when I finally have some resolution and have something to talk about than my heart and my brain. Like the unbelievable whackadoodle clown show cult that the GOP has become. Boats, and batteries, and sharks; bitcoin mining? The outright adoration shown by the republican House and Senate when he visited yesterday? What the actual fuck!