TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Here I am.

THERAPIST: Okay, good. Glad I caught you.

CLIENT: Okay. (laughs) Go ahead and talk to me. Deborah had to go to the drug store for her girlfriend.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right? Are you guys together or are you alone?

CLIENT: I'm alone, which I am 99 percent of the time.

THERAPIST: How has that been? [00:00:58]

CLIENT: Well, I'm not too happy, you know? I say to Deborah I'd like to get my hair done, washed and set, just washed and blow-dried, and she's like, "I can do it at noontime. Is that all right with you?" I said, "Yeah, I guess it will have to be." She went out. I just went in the bathroom and washed my hair myself. It's a pain. It really is.

THERAPIST: It sounds terrible to feel like you're asking for a little bit of help and you get responded to as though she's so put upon.

CLIENT: She has to take care of her girlfriend. So I'm like okay. Yesterday afternoon, 1:00 or so, I said, "I think I'll have a bowl of soup, Deborah. Are you going to have some?" "No, I'm not hungry." [00:02:07] I said, "Could you put some chicken with rice in the thing for me, the can, because I can't reach up and get the soup or anything." "Yeah, okay." So finally about 5:00 I said, "Deborah, what's for supper?" "I don't know. I'm not cooking." I said, "Oh." She said, "Dolores is upstairs cooking." She made baby back ribs and collard greens and rice. I said, "Oh, good. Okay. Fine." Dolores came down with her bowl for herself and a bowl for Deborah. I said, "Deborah, how come I didn't get a bowl? I asked if Dolores was cooking and you said, ‘Yeah, we're all eating upstairs;' but yet you two are down here eating supper yourself. What, none for me?" [00:03:05] Deborah said, "I'll make you some frozen pizza." I said, "Tell you what, Deborah. This is what you can do with your frozen pizza. Bend over and shove it up your ass."

THERAPIST: So you're left on your own.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Dolores made her go up and get me a plate. This is unbelievable. Because Deborah's not hungry, I can't eat.

THERAPIST: She's got what she needs but she's not too worried about you not getting it. [00:03:55]

CLIENT: I'm like, okay. Then my cousin, Mary, comes to visit me at about 2:00. She was out like a light by a quarter past 2:00. She was asleep on the couch.

THERAPIST: Say that again?

CLIENT: My cousin, Mary came over to visit me. She was here and she fell asleep on the couch within 15 minutes. Of course, I'm sitting in the rocking chair which, after a while, was kind of sore on my ass; so I got up and went in the bedroom and put the TV on here. She slept until about 6:00 when Deborah and Dolores came in to watch the football game. I said, "Oh, why me?"

THERAPIST: That's your company, huh? That's who you've got supporting you. You don't feel like it's nearly enough, do you? [00:04:59]

CLIENT: No. No. (laughs) Why me?

THERAPIST: It's barely anything, is it?

CLIENT: What did I do in this world? (chuckles) I tell you, it's just awful.

THERAPIST: What did you do, huh?

CLIENT: Now I'm looking for a hairbrush that I know I had in my bedroom, and that's gone. Okay. I tell you, it's my imagination that I had them, you know? What the hell.

THERAPIST: Things have a way of disappearing around there.

CLIENT: Yes they do. Between money and pills and whatever have you not. Oh, yeah. Everything just goes out the window, my pain medication it goes out the window. I've got to carry them around taped to my chest, for Christ's sake. Unbelievable. (chuckles) And Mark is not talking to me. [00:06:19]

THERAPIST: Is that right? What happened to that?

CLIENT: I think he thinks he caused the heart rhythm, pacemaker, because we had sex the day before. He thinks it has to do with him, evidently.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Wednesday night he was here because he thought I was going to be home from the hospital and when Deborah told him I wasn't home, I was still in the hospital, he came flying down here wanting to know what was going on and how upset he was. All of this stuff. I didn't hear from him Thursday. I didn't hear from him Friday. I didn't hear from him Saturday. Sunday morning I called and he didn't answer the phone because I know he was working. I called him again. He picked up the phone and he said, "I'm working. I'll talk to you later." That was the end of that. [00:07:28] I don't know what's going on there with him, you know? Everybody was like, "He was so concerned." That's good. He ain't concerned anymore. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: So he seemed to think it was you guys having sex that was causing your heart problems?

CLIENT: Yeah. I felt like saying, "Don't consider yourself that lucky that you have the power like that." (chuckles)

THERAPIST: Louise, it does make me think that Mark is, I think, aware of the effect he has on your heart not just in terms of the physical heart but emotional. He knows he has an effect on you and sometimes, I think, it makes him feel a little frightened. [00:08:29]

CLIENT: Yeah, probably, (chuckles) but it still sucks.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it still sucks because he'll turn away from you. He'll all of a sudden not respond and not want to be there for you when you really need him.

CLIENT: I know.

THERAPIST: It really hurts you.

CLIENT: Yeah. Plain stupidness. But, that's about all that's going on here. Nothing new and fantastic. [00:09:18]

THERAPIST: So you went in on Wednesday, correct?

CLIENT: I went in on Wednesday morning. Rebecca came and drove me. We were there by 6:30, got up to day surgery within two or three minutes and they took me in right away. Rebecca had told them that she was staying there during the whole surgery. After the surgery they told Rebecca that I wasn't going home and Rebecca was like, "What do you mean ‘she's not going home?'" they said, "We'll let you go in and talk to her." So she came in, talked to me and that was about it. (aside) Did you get the newspaper? Yep. Oh, okay. I see it. Thank you. [00:10:18]

THERAPIST: You've got some company?

CLIENT: Yeah. What do you think of the damned games last night? Assholes?

THERAPIST: You watched it?

CLIENT: I did.

THERAPIST: What did you think?

CLIENT: They blew it.

THERAPIST: They blew it, yeah.

CLIENT: I wasn't too happy with the team, but what can you do? They're out.

THERAPIST: They're out, yeah. They're done.

CLIENT: No, Rebecca, you can't lay on the newspaper. Real exciting day. Mary came to visit me. Woke me up. Mind you, I was asleep; but had to wake me up from a sound sleep so that she could fall asleep. (laughs) [00:11:12]

THERAPIST: Yeah, so she could be there and fall asleep and then you could have all that company you were waiting for.

CLIENT: Right, right. Not much you can do there.

THERAPIST: No, I guess not. How's the hand feeling?

CLIENT: The hand feels good. Every now and then it kind of hurts, but it's feeling good. I can't complain. It's the chest that I can complain about.

THERAPIST: How is that? What is that like?

CLIENT: It's very sore, very tender and, you know, I can only bend it so far. I can only do this. You can't get it wet. All that good stuff. [00:12:07]

THERAPIST: What adjustments do you have to make with it now?

CLIENT: I can't do any reaching over my shoulder over my shoulder and stuff like that; reaching up in cabinets and carrying things in that hand for a while.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. Yeah.

CLIENT: We'll just see.

THERAPIST: What about with the pacemaker? Any restrictions?

CLIENT: No. None whatsoever. I asked him. (chuckles) I said, "I need a note (chuckles) that I can go home and resume sexual activity." He said, "That's the first time anybody ever asked me." I said, "Well, guess what?"

THERAPIST: That can't be the first time. That's crazy.

CLIENT: (laughs) I know. He said, "Generally I don't hear that for a couple of weeks. But God, Louise, the first day after surgery and you're already asking me that?" I said, "Yep. That's it."

THERAPIST: That seems hard to believe.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess I'm what can I say oversexed?

THERAPIST: Oversexed?

CLIENT: Yeah, that's what Mark says. I don't know what to do with him. She just went back upstairs to visit her girlfriend because she had to go buy her toilet paper. [00:13:46]

THERAPIST: Okay, so you're alone again?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What do you think? So you'd not heard from him what day was it that he kind of was short with you on the phone?

CLIENT: Wednesday after my hand surgery.

THERAPIST: Wednesday, okay.

CLIENT: And he wanted to know what was happening and what was going on. He was very, very concerned on the phone with me and all this stuff; but then, all of a sudden, he changed. Annie was here that day, my neighbor next door, and Dolores was here and they were saying how upset he was over it. I said, "Well he can't be that upset if I haven't heard from him since." [00:14:44]

THERAPIST: What do you make of the about-face? What do you make of his being very, very concerned to, all of a sudden, not even wanting to talk with you on the phone?

CLIENT: I don't know. At first, I'm like, "Maybe it's right. He's afraid that he caused it," so I don't know. I never can tell with him. Never.

THERAPIST: I think it's hard for you. It must be really, really confusing for him to go from one place to the next from you hearing about how concerned he was to all of a sudden not even wanting to take your phone call. It's hard for you to see anything but a really big change that just confuses you, and for you to feel hurt and rejected by him. [00:15:53]

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. Of course, Deborah is like, "Well, what do you want from him?"

THERAPIST: Who says that?

CLIENT: Deborah. She said, "I told you he's no fucking good." Okay, fine. Just because she's like a lesbian doesn't mean I've got to. (chuckles) Oh, boy. If you ever see the two of them, it's sickening.

THERAPIST: What do you notice? What's been going on between them?

CLIENT: Dolores's got to show me a picture on her phone. Who is it? It's my Deborah. My Deborah has on her breasts, a purple titty. Dolores has a picture of that on her cell phone. I said, "Isn't that nice, Deborah? She has a picture of you of your boobs on her telephone thing. Isn't that so cute?" [00:17:15]

THERAPIST: What is the picture of?

CLIENT: Deborah's breast.

THERAPIST: Oh, on her phone?

CLIENT: Yeah. And Deborah is like, "No, she's only taking a picture of the tattoo." I said, "Well let me tell you this, I can see more breast than I can see of tattoo. Does she have a picture of your snatch, too?" I'm rotten. I just come right out with it. "No she doesn't." Da-da-da-da. I'm like, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."

THERAPIST: How do you feel about all of that? That's a lot to take in; not just them dating, but seeing that? She not only that she has a picture of your daughter on her phone, but that she she showed it to you? [00:18:12]

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. She's like, "Deborah, you have to stop disrespecting your mother because your mother brought you into this world and I'm so thankful to your mother for having you." Ohhh. Let's not go there.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what? Say more.

CLIENT: I don't know. That just it bothers me, you know?

THERAPIST: Tell me about that.

CLIENT: I don't know. I just can't see it, that's the whole thing. I just can't picture my daughter in a relationship like that. Deborah is in the kitchen cooking and the other one is right in the kitchen with her. It's gross. [00:19:17]

THERAPIST: You find it gross, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Well, it must be very, very surprising, jarring to you.

CLIENT: (chuckles) Oh, God. The surgeon says to me, the heart doctor, "Do you have any stress in your life?" I said, "Considering it took my daughter until she was 34-years-old to discover she was a lesbian..." (chuckles)

THERAPIST: He didn't know what he was asking when he...

CLIENT: Opened that question. (laughs)

THERAPIST: He had no idea, did he? It's been causing you some stress. It sounds like it's been quite a thing to take in. [00:20:11]

CLIENT: Yeah, but who knows? And then Deborah with her remarks, "Hey, mom, why don't you wet your finger and stick it in a socket and see if your finger makes it shock through?" I said, "Oh, thanks."

THERAPIST: Geez Louise.

CLIENT: Yeah, so this is a new thing. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: That's a new thing?

CLIENT: Not really, but you know. After having a pacemaker, it's kind of you know. I really miss my time in the hospital. It was so nice to have people wait on you and be nice to you.

THERAPIST: I bet, yeah. Some TLC that you haven't gotten since you got home.

CLIENT: No, no. And I never will get. (chuckles) Oh, shit. I guess that's my life in a nutshell, huh? So where did you disappear to all weekend, you bad boy?

THERAPIST: Are you talking to me?

CLIENT: Yeah, you.

THERAPIST: How do you mean?

CLIENT: I tried calling you or I had Deborah try to call you.

THERAPIST: Yeah, she called me. Were you wanting me to call back?

CLIENT: I told her to give you the hospital number if you wanted to call me. No, that was all right.

THERAPIST: No, I'm glad you're saying something. I guess I'm one of the guilty parties. When she called me, she told me about the pacemaker and then she told me that you might be in the hospital over the weekend, although they thought you would get out on Friday. She left me your phone number. I guess I had assumed that she meant that so we could still talk today. I didn't call back. I must have upset you. [00:22:50]

CLIENT: I just take it you were out fooling around.

THERAPIST: No, no, no.

CLIENT: What the heck.

THERAPIST: No, I'm glad you're telling me this.

CLIENT: I said, "Even if he comes by I want to show him off to the nurses." (laughs)

THERAPIST: You wanted me to check in and see how you were doing. Of course. You're right, I should have called.

CLIENT: You've gone over to the other side with Deborah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it must have brought up that feeling, huh? It did bring up some of those feelings, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What did you think that I was too busy or something, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah. Doing something busy for the weekend. I thought you might have gone to Maine or Connecticut or wherever you go on your little jaunts, you know? I'm going to have to put a little tracker device in your car, that's it. (laughs) [00:24:09]

THERAPIST: A little tracker device, huh? No, no. I didn't call or didn't check in on you. I guess it was like I was part of that other camp. You know, I didn't feel that way at all or I didn't feel too busy. I should think about it more, but it wasn't because I wasn't thinking about you and the situation at all. I'll definitely be more aware of that. I guess, on the face of it, I guess what I must have just assumed was that you had wanted me to call to confirm that we were still going to talk on Monday over the phone. But, no, I can see that not calling why was I not calling to check in on you? [00:25:38]

CLIENT: Do you have a cold?

THERAPIST: You know what? I'm on the very tail end of a cold. I'm feeling much better. I'm sorry, Louise, that I didn't call.

CLIENT: It's okay. Don't worry. You eventually called. I'm ready for a nap. I got up at 9:30 and it's time for a nap very shortly.

THERAPIST: How are you feeling? How is your recovery going? [00:26:34]

CLIENT: All right. My hand isn't as bad as it was the first time with the swelling and it turning all colors.

THERAPIST: Have you noticed any adjustments with the pacemaker?

CLIENT: No. I have no idea.

THERAPIST: But it sounds like, when we talked on Saturday, that you were startled that they had recommended it.

CLIENT: Yeah. They were shocked why my primary care physician wasn't aware of this problem. I wouldn't mind, but I felt like saying to the heart doctor, that I had even gone to see him a few times and that he passed me off to other doctors. [00:27:40]

THERAPIST: He was the cardiologist, right?

CLIENT: Yeah. And I went to see him a few times and he pushed me off to another cardiologist. So, hey, what can you do?

THERAPIST: And they noticed a problem when they were under surgery that your heart was beating irregularly?

CLIENT: The heart rate went down. My heart rate was only 40. That's kind of a no-no. then it went down to 39, 38, so they were right in there with everything all prepared in case I coded.

THERAPIST: And was that when you were under? [00:28:31]

CLIENT: Yeah. It's funny now, I was under with the hand surgery, but when I had the pacemaker in I was awake. Aren't I lucky, huh? It says, "During your hand surgery you were noticed to have a heart block, which made your heart rate too slow." This heart block may explain the dizzy spells I've been experiencing. "You had a pacemaker placed yesterday," which was Thursday, "to help control your heart rate. We treated you for the pain you were experiencing in your hand, as well as in your shoulder. We will be discharging you with the pain medication, dilaudid, as an outpatient for seven days. In addition to your home dose of methadone, please follow up with the doctor regarding long-term medication charges." I said, "Guess what? I've been asking him all along for stronger medicine and he keeps telling me no. He's going to send me elsewhere to consult the pain doctor over there. I'm not traveling over there to get injections in my back. No. [00:29:54]

THERAPIST: You mean the same kind of injections you were getting by. . ?

CLIENT: Thyroid injections. I had enough of those to last me a lifetime.

THERAPIST: Thyroid injections?

CLIENT: No, steroid injections.

THERAPIST: The ones they would put into your ribs?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, shit, when I left there Friday Friday morning at 6:30 I was given two Oxycontins, then at 7:30 I was given two dilaudids, then I was given a shot of morphine two hours later than that. All day they had me so wired it was unbelievable. I said I could have flown home. I had to get a taxi voucher to take me home because Rebecca had come up but, do you think they were all ready? No. Rebecca had to leave at 3:00 in order to go to work herself. I said, "No problem, Rebecca. Don't worry," so they gave me a taxi voucher. It took $28 to get home from this hospital. Yeah, $28. [00:31:36]

THERAPIST: Boy. I think they took the long way.

CLIENT: There was traffic. It wasn't any time to leave at 6:00 at night.

THERAPIST: On a Friday.

CLIENT: On a Friday. So I said, "Take the scenic route. Go ahead. I don't give a shit. I ain't paying for it." (laughs) Other than that... "Activity as tolerated. Restrict motion of upper extremities." I can't put my hands in my eyes. It will go. (chuckles) I just loved that place. [00:32:31]

THERAPIST: What place is that?

CLIENT: Cambridge Hospital. Transport came to pick me up to take me down to surgery and she goes, "Are you the lady that kind of stopped heart rate down there in the OR?" I said, "That's me."

THERAPIST: Wow, you were famous.

CLIENT: And then the girls in the TAC unit, which it the unit to get you ready to go to surgery, they were like, "I heard you liked it here so much you decided to come back again this afternoon." I said, "Oh, yeah. I was all ready to go." I was in the recovery room by 9:30 figuring oh, shit. I'm going home now, until the doctor came in and said, "Nope. You're staying, lady. You're having a pacemaker." Of course, nobody explained the fact about the pacemaker and everything. [00:33:31] We had residents, other residents. The night resident on Tuesday night, I just went crying. I said, "I have no idea why I'm getting a pacemaker, what a pacemaker's like," and blah, blah, blah. He was very helpful. The day of the hand surgery I also had a resident. She was very nice. She was there first thing Thursday morning and stayed with me right up until I was called down to ER; and then when I came back up she was there, too. She was very nice. [00:34:25]

THERAPIST: Well, good, good. She took good care of you?

CLIENT: Yeah. And then the two nurses that I had and the two aides that I had were very nice. It was a nice bunch of crew. A couple of them lived in [...] (inaudible at 00:34:42) and they knew right where I lived. One of them, her son goes to the school up the street. I said, "Yeah, I live right down the street."

THERAPIST: Getting that kind of treatment goes a long way, doesn't it?

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. It does. I guess I made such a stink anyway because the aides knew how to get me up with the wrist, but then they didn't know they couldn't yank me by the shoulder because of the pacemaker. I said, "The major problem here is trying to help me up out of bed or help me off of the toilet. They just figured, "Hey, we'll yank her from we'll put our arm under her arm and lift her right up." "No, no. You can't do that. Don't touch me. (laughs) Get out of the room. Don't touch me." (chuckles) [00:35:56]

THERAPIST: What can't they do, given that you have the pacemaker?

CLIENT: They didn't count on me having the pacemaker, they just saw that I was down for hand surgery; and you could see the hand surgery. I'm all taped up; my fingers are all swollen purple, blue, yellow. I had a gown on covering the bandage for the pacemaker, so they didn't even realize I had one.

THERAPIST: I see. If they were moving you around too much it's dangerous?

CLIENT: Yeah. So I had to let the nurse know. I said, "The only problem I have here is they don't know how to transfer me. They see the hand and they figure that's all that's wrong with me. They know nothing about the pacemaker or anything, so they're just yanking me." They went out and they were going to have a talk with them and then physical therapy came down. Oh, yeah. [00:37:16]

THERAPIST: Okay, so they took it seriously?

CLIENT: Yeah. That's about it.

THERAPIST: Let's see. When do you think you'd be able to make it to an office visit?

CLIENT: (pause) I'm trying to find out where my book is. Let's see. Maybe I can make an office visit you know, I think I have you booked for Friday at 10:00 AM.

THERAPIST: This next Friday?

CLIENT: The 25th.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Okay. I have you down for the 25th and I have the ride already to come there.

THERAPIST: You do? Okay, good. I will plan on seeing you then at the old office. Okay, that sounds good. Let's plan on that.

CLIENT: Alrighty.

THERAPIST: Bye, Louise.

CLIENT: All right. Bye-bye. See you around. Bye.

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