Lead Shoes-15

Chapter 15

I think honestly it was the adrenaline and the lift that I’m riding on from the sunrise and all the cuddling and kissing that gives me the strength to get back into the house with just my arm canes after I see Will off in the cab that he called.

I get inside and I make a bee line to my room and see Mom is up and she’s doing some laundry and she smiles at me. “Good night?”

“Best night mom, it’s one of those nights that really, really makes up for everything up to this point.”

“Going to bed or do you want to talk about it?”

“Bath, just to head off the worst of what’ll be incoming cramping and all the stuff that I know that’s going to hit me because I really pushed it tonight, well last night.”

“Good idea, you must be tired.”

“Over tired, I feel a little buzzed right now.”

“Okay, talk soon?”

“Definitely.”

I make my way to my room and get undressed and it’s starting to him me now that I’m home. I get into the bathroom and relieve myself and get my make-up off and I take my meds for my CP and slowly make my way into the bath tub and I know that I pushed it because once the hot water starts to take hold with my body I can almost feel the muscles in my legs unwind and then threaten to wind back up even tighter over and over again.

I don’t care it was so worth it really.

The date and the songs and the dancing, oh god the dancing and to be able to just do that even if I’m completely crap at it compared to everyone else. It was completely worth it.

And I’m taking some strength from that too. I dunk myself and the comb my wet hair back out of my face and I take up the initiative with my CP effects and I start to massage my legs while I’m in the bath. When I feel things go for a tight spasm I grit my teeth and work at it until it stops and a time or two I just look over at my ballet flats that I got to wear or my dress that I felt so right in and pretty and I work through it.

I am me.

I am not my disease.

And there’s other things that I’m finding is making things better, less of a hard time with everything and even making me smile.

Like having hair finally long enough to really shampoo like the girl that I’ve known that I am. I know its silly right but if you’ve never had the chance it’s actually kind of a big thing. Heck even for regular girls their hair can be a big thing.

And…

Hair washing boobs.

Yep, oh every one knows sort of what I mean that really cool boob effect that every woman gets young or old when you have your arms up over your head and it does this magical effect on your boobs.

I’m kind of grinning that I have that now, that I have boobs enough that I can do that and it’s this maybe just a Kayla bit of crazy puzzle but it still cool to me.

And it get’s me felling girly all over again enough so that I’m humming along to Kiss from a rose in my head while I’m putting my hair into pig tails to sleep in and brushing my teeth and doing the whole girly routine of getting ready and lotioned for bed and I even slip into a pair of slinky satin panties and then my flannel pants and my sleep shirt.

I’m getting into bed when Mom comes in with some clean clothes in the basket and she sets it down and she slips into bed beside me and she snuggles up and holds me and says. “Okay, dish.”

And I couldn’t keep all of it in if I even tried and I start telling mom about all of it and the date and the dancing and how everyone was and how everything felt and I’m good crying a little bit here and there and we’re just having this whole great close mother daughter moment that I am really taking to heart.

I won’t ever care if it’s uncool for us to do this.

It won’t ever be to the point where I won’t want her to feel like she can come in and hold me and we can be mother and daughter.

Well unless I’m married and I have my husband in the bed with me but y’know what I mean this is stuff that I never had and it’s the talking and stuff and the bath and her just being there for me that lulls me off to dreamland.

And…

It’s worth more than any amount of money when just like I figured my CP decides to charge me a toll for all of the time and fun that I had last nigh and I wake up in pain.

Not my legs, not at first it’s my back.

It’s a screwed up thing to try to explain to someone that doesn’t have CP but you ever see this way your back looks like in a medical book and the bunches of muscles and all of that well it’s hitting my muscles but not all of them just a few of them…those long support muscles and it hits with that tightening feeling like someone just tried or is trying to twist my like I’m a towel their trying to wring out and it sort of radiates to other areas from there not like in a cramping way but my shoulders hurt…ache like crazy like someone was playing tug of war and the ache there is right in the joints.

I hate, hate, hate waking up in pain.

You don’t get as used to it as people think because sometimes when I’m asleep? I don’t feel it, I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with me and then I wake up like thing and it’s just.

It hurts and it sucks and it’s draining.

It’s the draining part though that hurts us the worst.

Ask anyone one with any kind of bad chronic condition it’s not usually the pain that gets to any of us. We’re really good as a rule at dealing with or handling our pain. But it’s the way a chronic illness or condition can suck the energy out of you that’s literally the killer.

Literally, if you’re alone or made to feel alone or worse made to feel that your condition or conditions are a burden on those around you and it just never stops…it can be deadly.

And it really sucks ass to go to bed tired, worn and aching and wake up in pain or just waking up feeling you went five rounds with a boxer or something like that.

And a chronic illness is mentally contagious.

Just imagine how hard it is to live with someone like me? To have to deal with someone that rarely might have a good day? Or is lying to you because after so long we get that you just don’t want to hear it?

This is why my mom rocks.

I mean really rocks because she’s been through stuff and the stuff she’s been through I think has made her tough enough to be this amazing person for me and when it gets really bad she rolls me over and she pulls me too her and holds me through the pain and the frustration and works me through it.

It’s good to have a parent that tells you it’s alright to be able to cry but not just that but that it’s okay to cry and scream and just rage at things.

I’ve talked to other CP people online that don’t get why I’m bothering to cry and to scream it out when I’m hit by these things. “Why do it, why bother because it won’t make anything better Mikayla?”

It does for me.

Being that open with mom lets me get it out and I don’t store up my anger and pain and let it take me over and I don’t lie and say that I’ll be fine or be okay and feel like I’m walking on frigging eggshells.

And she doesn’t let me wallow.

I get so long and once she’s sure more or less that the rough patch is done. She’s got me going and moving and doing stuff.

It’s Saturday so there chores to do and she’s planning on cooking and I’m going to help after I clean out and vacuum out the van.

And I need it I’ll admit it and as much as I’m grumbling and I guess being a normal teenager it’s still pretty cool and after that I’m learning how to make her chilli and baked beans and molasses cookies and something called a war cake?

I like the way that even though she is right there and has my back she also doesn’t cut me any slack either.

She does make me smile once we have the first batch of cookies in.

“Why don’t you call Will and ask him over for supper.”

I’m grinning and headed to the living room sofa to call my boyfriend.

I have a boyfriend.

That in itself is so cool.

I call Will up and it just keeps ringing and I try his cell phone and get his voice mail. I head back into the kitchen and help with supper. I’m okay really for a lot of stuff and I want to learn these things because one it’d be cool to be able to surprise people who think I can’t do the regular stuff everyone else does because of my CP.

And my mom keeps saying that I’ll need to know this stuff for when I’m at university. I mean it’s really, really cool that she is actually assuming that I’m going to be going to university.

Kind of scary too.

My Dad, and My Grandmother really tossed me into this hole called invalid and let me pretty much think that there was this bare existence as my only resort. I was getting aid checks for my CP and I was pretty much just a check to them and someone to dump on.

There’s nothing so classy as getting repeatedly told that you’re the anchor that’s drowning them and their life.

So I really never had held out hope for that kind of stuff and I have no idea of what I should study for university. I have some ideas maybe?

I think I might want to be a therapist maybe? I mean it’s not like my life experiences haven’t shown me things that sort of give me a different take on things right, and it’s a verbal and or with computers kind of thing so…

But I’d love to study something with dance even though I can’t. Maybe you don’t need to dance to study choreography?

Anyway I’m helping make the chilli and its pretty easy mom likes to try to go for healthy as much as she can with my issues and stuff like that so its ground turkey and it’s being cooked with two slices of bacon and a spicy Mexican sausage more for the flavors and the fat. There’s not a lot of greasy stuff in the turkey so this actually helps.

Once that’s browned off she adds the spices to it which is cumin, chilli powder, onion powder, paprika and black pepper and she shows me to make a space in the middle of the pot and add it there so it sort of cooks the spices a few minutes.

Then we add the stuff I’ve been chopping into small cubes and that’s onions and celery and carrots and some green bell peppers. It’s all in there and left to cook awhile and then once those are soft enough it’s a couple of cans of tomatoes and a can of kidney beans, a can of navy beans and a can of black beans and then she adds these sweet jarred jalapeno peppers the whole jar of them and some chilli flakes.

When just about done she adds a can of Bushes brown sugar baked beans and a small can of tomato paste. She makes sure we stir it really well before letting it set.

The baked beans are a lot easier she used white kidney beans soaked overnight and several diced up onions about three I think for like a gallon of the beans and diced up ham. We take the whole thing and mix it up with powdered french onion soup mix, brown sugar, dry mustard, black pepper and molasses and we put it into crock pots and we use apple juice for the liquid. That’s it just mix and bake and let it all slow cook.

The war cake is really something I’ve never heard of and mom says it’s something from her maternal grandmother who she didn’t really know too well since she died when she was young but mom had ended up with this old faded recipe book of all these really old recipes and stuff.

It’s more or less this molasses flavored pound cake that you add a bit of rum or run extract if you have it, and it has soaked raisins and cut up soaked dates in it and the odd thing is that you use the hot water that you use to soak the dates and raisins in as the liquid for the batter that and the recipe called for butter or bacon grease.

Mom actually made us bacon sandwiches while we were making supper just so we could try that. Apparently this was a WW2 thing sort of like a fruit cake but not? There’s “tinned” milk in it and stuff but it’s supposed to stay moist and last a long time or something.

Why are we making it? Tradition I guess mom said growing up as bad as things were they always had this stuff for deserts whenever they made baked beans.

And while really different and stuff it’s kind of nice to get to learn a bit about my Canadian family history.

Honestly the best part for me is the way that all of this makes the house smell. Grandmother could cook but she only really put any effort in for the church on Sundays and the holidays.

I try Will several more times still getting his voice mail and okay I’m getting a bit worried since he usually returns my calls and stuff.

It’s like that all afternoon and into the evening and then there’s a police car pulling up to our place and mom goes to the door and I see Will in the back seat. I hear the police telling mom.

“There was a fight at William’s house tonight and his father ended up taking a massive heart attack and passed away. He’s old enough that social services aren’t really an issue but he’s in shock so he said we could take him here?”

“What about his mother?”

“She was intoxicated on the scene and was arrested after throwing beer bottles at the EMT’s.”

“Will mentioned things weren’t good there thank you officer he can stay here as long as he needs to.”

“Thanks, he isn’t in the shape to be alone right now.”

He went out to get Will and I’m at the door waiting, he’s red eyed and both his hands are bandaged up and he looks just…

I know, I’ve lived that just blank but for the hurt thing.

He’s quiet right up until he sees me there in the doorway and he blinks a few times and he hugs me and he starts shaking and crying.

It’s my turn now.

“It’s okay Will, it’s okay.”