Me and the technology revolution

I was awakened yesterday morning by my cell phone crying out for recharging. I just took it off the charger the day before. I couldn’t get enough signal to call home and tell someone to remove my dog’s coat, so the phone wasn’t really used. I think I need a new battery. Since I was already awake, I got up to watch my favorite morning show Good Morning America. They had a segment on viral videos that got me thinking about technology.

I sort of fell into the technology arena as a career; it was actually a desire to avoid PE class that got me into what was call Data Processing in 1970. I had moved to a new town and they had vocational training available in high school. I had observed some of my brother’s experiments into weird science, so I thought maybe the Electricity/Electronics class would be for me. The Vo-Ed guidance counselor convinced me to go into Data Processing instead.

I didn’t realize that the school’s technology was just behind the times. It was all donated equipment, so they didn’t have a computer. I did at least learn to operate a keypunch (does anyone remember cards?), sorters, interpreters, collators, calculating punch machines, reproducers and tabulating machines. They were all geared to manipulating punched cards and hopefully create meaningful reports from them. It was sort of fun playing with all of those wires we had to plug into thick plastic boards. We were also given classes in accounting and I learned I had a knack for putting numbers in little boxes.

Still not really having a goal in mind, I applied to college with Data Processing as my major. It wasn’t until I started my classes that I discovered that it was computer programming. Luckily it fell in line with putting numbers in little boxes, so I did well. I was fortunate to get a programming job shortly after graduation and so began my career. I never thought that my high school training would be of any use, but I was the only person who even recognized the dusty old machines in the storage room and so became the on-site expert for punched card applications.

I think a lot of my success was due to the fact that I was always like a kid on Christmas when presented with new technology. I still marvel at the fact that the laptop I am using right now has more memory and computing power than some of the mainframe computers I worked on in the 70’s. I do confess that I was very skeptical about personal computers when they first appeared. I thought of them as glorified video games. My brother-in-law had introduced my then husband to Super Pong and my hubby had to have one right away. Of course I was the only opponent available to him, so I got hooked into playing almost every day. He seemed to enjoy trouncing me just a little too much, so I developed a real dislike of video games that required aiming and shooting. When Atari introduced its first home computer, my ex wanted one. I did not want a computer in my home because it was too much like bringing work home. I also figured it was just to give my husband a newer, bigger video game console. The day I found a personal accounting program for the Atari, I started to see the home computer in a new light. Unfortunately my husband got the Atari in the divorce, so it was a little while before I had a computer at home again.

I didn’t really expect the microprocessors to stick around. At one job we had created an Accounts Receivable system on a mini-computer to replace one that ran on a mainframe. We converted one branch to the new system and noticed some performance problems. It was taking almost as long to process one branch on the mini as it did to process the entire company on the mainframe. We still had 37 branches to convert to the new system. So we set up a test using 10 branches. The results were laughable. My project leader was really into statistical analysis and had a ball working up the projections. At 75% conversion, it would take 24 hours to process the accounts. At 100% the projected processing time was 48 hours. I had done some research into the operating system of the mini and found that our time problem was related to the alternate inquiry paths that the analyst who designed the new systems had used liberally. Every time one account was updated, all of the account records had to be updated to preserve the alternate paths. Surprisingly the answer was to create a separate file for each branch.

The IBM personal computers started appearing in my office in 1985, but they were used only by management. They seemed limited to word processing and spreadsheets. Having worked with batch processing applications for years, I still didn’t see why people were so thrilled with Lotus 1-2-3. I figured the admin folks were just glad to see the old Wang word processors go away and force all of us technical types to do our own documentation. I did like the flowcharting program. It was much more fun to use than a pencil and a plastic template.

The business analysts kept throwing around the term “automated platform”. I was working for a bank and it turned out that ‘platform’ referred to any function performed a branch by anyone but a teller. This was where they were going to first utilize the PC’s. I had been working on loan applications and the first to use the PC’s would be Customer Information. CIS had just been an application we fed with loan information. I didn’t realize how important it was in the bank’s relationship with the customer until the big re-vamp of CIS started. The automated platform was going to be a byproduct of the CIS project. It just seemed to take forever to get off the ground.

The first real value I saw of the PC’s use in business applications was when my team started reworking of our loan calculator. We were fortunate to have a business analyst who was a math whiz. He had also learned Lotus, so he had set up Lotus applications that the programmers could use to test the new mainframe version of the loan calculator. By the time I retired from the bank the automated platform was a reality. We had tied networks of PC’s in the branches to the mainframe. Account setup was performed in the branch by the personal bankers. The customer’s existing relationship to the bank was available to the network from the CIS system on the mainframe. Personal and address information was retrieved and could be updated while the customer was present. The PC specialists had worked out a method to distribute software updates to the networks over the T1 lines rather than having someone go out to each branch. We were creating loan documents on blank paper at the PC using stored boilerplates and data retrieved from the mainframes.

In 1988 my sister’s husband got an Apple II GS as part of a bonus from his employer. I ended up buying one for myself because my sister kept calling me with questions that I had no way to answer. I had never touched an Apple computer. I still didn’t want the computer to become a way to work at home so I was glad it was an Apple. I didn’t think it could communicate with an IBM operating system. I bought a 300 baud modem (wow!). Soon I was connected to GEnie (America Online didn't support Apple then) and discovered a bunch of games and applications for the Apple. There were bulletin boards where other Apple users that knew more than me were available to help me out. In fact that was where I learned I was wrong about being able to communicate with an IBM mainframe. Soon I had the appropriate software, was set up on the bank’s security system and now I could manage most of my middle of the night trouble calls from home. The only problem with it was having to logoff the computer to call the mainframe operators at the office. I do not miss dial-up. When several of us had computers at home and were handling trouble calls with them, I convinced my manager to get us a cell phone. It weighed about 5 pounds and had to be carried with a shoulder strap. I also had purchased a PC clone personal computer. It had a 100 MHz processor and 100 mg hard drive. Now I was in the fast lane! That was about 1990.

The personal technology boom started just about then. Cell phones got smaller, personal computers got faster and larger memory, and hard drives got larger capacities. I have upgraded or replaced my computer about 6 times. Megabytes gave way to gigabytes, which will give way to terabytes soon. Communications speeds took off like a rocket. I was a member of a very small group when I bought that 300 baud modem. Now I find it difficult to get through a day without using the Internet and on a cable modem of course. I have become one of Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year! I use VoIP telephone, so no more long distance charges. Cell phones not only allow us to speak to each other, now we text message; take pictures and video then send them to our friends; listen to music downloaded from the Internet and can check our email. Soldiers in Iraq are able to record events and post them on the Internet. We are truly able to communicate around the globe and it is all due to personal computers, cell phones and the Internet.

My grandmother lived through the advent of airplanes all the way up to the space shuttle. My mother never learned to use an ATM. She felt the people of a certain age just could not learn to live with all of this new technology. I vigorously disagree. I feel like I have experienced 200 times the technological advances she was exposed to. I still have a time to experience more. Where will tomorrow take us?

The story of my niece, part 1

I am having one of those days when all of the joints in my hands and my knees feel like they are rubbing bone on bone. I know that I am particularly bitchy on these days, but it is difficult to be pleasant when a mere touch to my hands feels like a hit with a baseball bat.

Christmas was lovely. I spent the day visiting my daughter-in-law’s family. They have always been very warm and welcoming to me and I appreciate it greatly.

My niece ‘T’ got an excuse to call me thanks to my actions. Mail for her is still delivered to my address and I resent it. I had requested a change of address for her with the Post Office. She received a letter notifying her of the change and that, she felt, gave her permission to call me. I told her about 2 ½ years ago that this is not her home and will not be her home in the future. The amount of mail had dwindled over time, but last spring it began to pick up again. Not just bills and such, but junk mail too. I even called the prison to see if she had Internet access that would allow her to sign up on mailing lists. They claimed she did not have the Internet available to her, but I still suspect she was behind the resurgence in the junk mail.

Backing up slightly, my niece 'T' had moved in with me in April 1994. She had quit high school, had no job skills and no job. 'Z' called me in tears, asking me to take 'T' in because she was homeless and my parents would not have her in their home and she would not go to a shelter. My parents would not allow 'T' in their home because she had been stealing from them for several years. They had owned a convenience store and had chalked up the money discrepancies over the years to math errors. The truth came out when 'T' took $600 in one chunk. I put up with her laziness for a short time, and then told my sister we needed to do something. 'Z' came up with the idea of getting her daughter into Job Corps training. We took 'T' to Gainesville, Florida in July 1994. It got her out of our hair for a year, but that was about the extent. When she was getting close to graduation, 'T' told her mother she was going to remain Florida to be with a man she had met at Job Corps. 'Z' didn't want her to stay there, so I played the good guy and suggested she move in with us. I was feeling really good about myself although having 'T' move in was the last thing I wanted. I set up all sorts of conditions like being employed and being respectful of the other people in the house, but 'T' was still the same: lazy, deceitful and a thief.

Living with my sister and my niece was like living with two bad tempered cats in a bag. It was awful to listen to them argue constantly. They would call each other ‘stupid’ and each was very critical of the other’s actions. In my niece’s defense, my sister was never encouraging to her. I have to attribute this to my sister not feeling good about herself. ‘Z’ was openly critical of strangers. I found it embarrassing. ‘T’ was a copy of her mother. She would lose jobs by telling her supervisors that they were stupid and incompetent.

It took me a while to admit to myself that I was seeing drug abuse in ‘T’s behavior. I would ignore it because of my “go along to get along” attitude. She was very secretive about her activities and would never give us any more than a first name for her friends. She had been forging checks on her mother’s checking account for more than a month before ‘Z’ would admit it to me. I insisted that ‘Z’ report it to the police. ‘T’ eventually turned herself in and my sister bailed her out immediately. When the district attorney’s office did not proceed as quickly as my sister wanted, she dropped her complaint. I was unaware of it and did not find out until the day ‘T’s trial was supposed to begin. I was livid, but did not make a big deal of it. What a chump! Of course ‘T’ swore it would never happen again.

It never really stopped. ‘Z’ would have her daughter do our grocery shopping claiming that neither of us was physically capable. ‘T’ would pad the grocery list and buy things for herself or her friends. It was easy to do since she was given access to my sister’s debit card to do the shopping. Sometimes my sister’s checking account statement would arrive with transactions at Wal-Mart or Target on the same day that she shopped at Kroger for us. Her spending $10 or $20 was bad enough, but at times it would be $200 or $300.

When she began forging checks again, she was living with a boyfriend. This was during the same time that my sister was suffering the affects of her first gastric bypass. ‘Z’ was disoriented most of the time and hallucinating a lot. ‘T’ had been coming to her mother’s apartment to give me breaks from caring for my sister. The day I returned and found a “roach” in an ashtray, I put a stop to ‘T’s visits. When ‘Z’ had her reversal surgery, I foolishly allowed ‘T’ to stay with me for a while at the Days Inn. One day she borrowed the car to go to my house to do laundry for us. She was gone much longer than was necessary. I discovered later that she had taken her boyfriend to my house which I had expressly forbidden. Shortly after I took ‘Z’ home, we both discovered that we had jewelry missing. The forged checks began appearing right after that. ‘Z’ again hid them from me at first, but when the amount was over $3,000 in one month she finally told me. I insisted on reporting it to the police again. This time I stayed close to the investigation and did everything I could to dissuade ‘Z’ from backing down. It took a long time since we had to wait for surveillance photos from the bank. When we had identified her in 5 pictures, a warrant was issued. Since it was not a violent crime, it was low priority. We were waiting for her to be arrested, not letting on what was happening and she was behaving the same as usual.

When ‘Z’ was reaching end of her patience, I suggested that she request restitution from the bank. They replaced the stolen money and so became a victim in the crimes. Now my sister could not back down on her complaint. To get ‘T’ arrested, we had to set a trap for her. We arranged with the city police and the county sheriff’s office to have the warrant served when we got ‘T’ to come to the house. My sister called her and told her that they needed to talk about the forged checks. The best time would be that morning since I had an appointment and would be out of the house. Actually I was in a neighbor’s house watching for ‘T’ and called the sheriff when she arrived. When it all came together, I felt relieved and yet sick to my stomach. I started smoking again that day after 13 years of not smoking.

My sister posted her bond (again). Then she had to be arrested again for 2 more checks. It took a while to get the photographs and the warrants for those checks could not be issued until she had been identified. This time we went to the magistrate’s court when she was formally charged. I foolishly agreed to speak on her behalf. I stood and told the judge that drugs and the boyfriend were a lot of the problem and that my sister and I were ready to take responsibility for her. The judge ordered a psychological evaluation and ordered me to take her! It really ended up being for nothing because both my sister and my niece decided that the psychologist was an idiot. While we were waiting for the trial, things continued has they had for years. At some point, ‘T’ moved out again. I don’t remember the specific incident because this played out so many times. It probably involved a lot of screaming and my calling the sheriff. I can’t even remember where she ended up living.

Since ‘T’ did not have any money, she was appointed a public defender who recommended that she plead guilty. The day she was to enter her plea, I found out my sister had never filed her victim impact statement. The district attorney uses this in recommending a sentence to the court. I grabbed someone from the DA’s office that morning and we sat down to talk about it. ‘T’ would get probation since this was her first offense (because my sister didn’t follow through the first time). I wanted some conditions imposed, such as anger management classes. I really wanted her to serve some of the time, but probation was the usual sentence. ‘T’ behaved terribly in court. The judge predicted that she would violate her probation and imposed a ‘no contact’ order so that ‘Z’ and I would be left in peace.

After about 10 months of relative peace (‘Z’ had been talking to her daughter by phone periodically which made her angry; my son and I suffered the fallout of her anger with ‘T’), my sister wanted to ask the court to lift the ‘no contact’ order. Again I did my “go along to get along” thing and even went to court with ‘Z’. Things continued the same as they had for years with ‘T’ stealing by using her mother’s debit card and being chronically unemployed. I did call her probation officer after a year and suggested to him that he drug test her. The secretive behavior and mysterious disappearances had started again. As a first time offender, she was required to submit to drug tests at any time. The probation officer had not done any testing during that first year. In fact, they never did. When she reported the next time, he asked her if she was using again and she admitted it. He put her in a diversion program for 10 weeks and that was the end of that.

Besides her year at Job Corps, ‘T’ had also attended school to be a medical assistant. (This was before her felony conviction and now the state of Georgia is trying to collect on her student loan. She also likes to try to impress people by referring to this as going to medical school.) She just would not apply herself to anything and could never stay employed. There were two jobs that gave us some hope. She managed to stay with one fast food place for 10 months. She was fired shortly after a robbery. I suspect that she was involved, but there was not sufficient evidence to charge her. Her next job lasted almost a year. In June 2002, she moved a friend of hers into my garage without my knowledge. He was here for three days before I knew anything. I never did know what he did for a bathroom for those three days. When I found out he was in my house, the story I was given was that he was homeless because of a fire and it would only be a week. ‘Z’ and I were cautioned by ‘T’ not to ask him questions because he was traumatized by the fire. Again what I chump I was! After 3 months of this guy sitting on his ass (on my old sofa) watching TV or sleeping, I suggested to him that he do some yard work in exchange for living in my house. The next thing I knew, ‘T’ had her mother in the bedroom, screaming at her that I bothered this young man. The next week ‘Z’ found a $470 ATM withdrawal from her checking account that she knew nothing about. I immediately went to ‘T’ and her friend and told them they had 1 hour to get out and 4 weeks to remove all of their stuff. (He had brought a pile of possessions with him.) A few weeks later I discovered the reason ‘T’ was being so secretive. A letter came for him from the probation office where he was required to report. With both of them on probation, they were both breaking the rules. I just wrote “Does not live at this address and never did” on the envelope and put it back in the mailbox. ‘T’ was livid (I had to tell her). I don’t know if he got in trouble and I don’t care.

I guess ‘T’ went to live with the ‘guy’ and his father. A few weeks later, ‘Z’ begged me to drive 50 miles in a storm to pick up ‘T’. They had kicked her out for not contributing to the household! I don’t remember where her car was. The episodes concerning her loosing temporary possession of her car were so numerous that they have run together in my memory. Her short-term ‘visits’ were also so numerous that they also run together.

When my sister decided to have the second gastric bypass, ‘T’ was supposed to go with us. The night before the surgery she changed her mind. When ‘Z’ started having complications, I only remember ‘T’ coming to visit twice during those 65 days immediately after. She did show up at my house in November, dropped her car insurance bill in my lap and told me it needed to be paid. I invited her to take her bill and leave my house. After my sister died, I found out that ‘Z’ had been paying her car insurance every month. (This was the year 2004 and my niece was 29 years old!)

I almost forgot about Christmas that year! ‘Z’ had been discharged from the hospital (this was after the 65 days) on December 23. She had always made a big deal of the holidays. So when she asked if ‘T’ could come and stay Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I gave in. ‘T’ arrived on the 24^th, stayed a couple of hours and then disappeared for 3 days. When she did reappear, she assumed she was welcome to stay through her mother’s birthday on the 31^st. I told her to leave and had to threaten to call the sheriff to get her to leave.

When my sister came home in December, she did improve. Then there was a drastic change. She had been able to get up with a walker and suddenly she had no strength. When she reached the point where she could not sit up unaided, I took her to the ER. She was admitted and remained almost a month while her GI specialist assessed her and tried several treatments. ‘T’ was dropped off at the hospital by one of her ‘friends’ and stayed for several days. The hospitals in this area have fold-out cots so that family members can stay and help with the patient’s care. ‘T’ would sleep very late (read that as ‘all day’) and be in the way of hospital personnel. ‘Z’s car was in the shop and I had not been able to get there to pick it up. Even though her mother had forbid it (and so did I) ‘T’ managed to get a ride to the dealership and took possession of ‘Z’s car. She disappeared for 2 days. When she did return, I took the keys away, told her to pack her bag and took her to some apartment she directed me to and left her there.

I am emotionally exhausted at this point. I have been typing this and revising it for several hours. I am far from finished. I do see my own failing in all of this. I should not have let my sister or my niece manipulate me. I guess I need to relive it all to be sure that I have allowed myself to heal enough that I don’t desperately need people to like me to the point that I give up my own will or make my own decisions. More later, maybe in a few days.

It's Christmas!

My life as a child really had it's ups and downs. Christmas was the one day of the year that was good, a definite 'up'. Every year my mother would sew a new outfit for each doll that my sisters and I had. There were always cookies and decorations. I can still recall the smell of a pine tree just brought into the house. Part of the fun was figuring out how to make a tree stand up straight when it was sitting in an old tar bucket. We didn't have a proper tree stand until the mid-60's. Then it became my job to lie on the floor under the tree adjusting the screws in the stand to get the tree straight.

My son was born just before Christmas, the best present I have ever received. I have a picture from that year with 'S' sitting under the tree just like a present. The year that he turned 3, he wanted to decorate the tree all by himself. Luckily it was only a 3 foot artificial tree. He kept putting all of the ornaments on one side and did not want me repositioning them. When the tree finally tipped over, he looked at it as if the tree should have known better than to fall.

I grew up in Ohio, so there was snow every winter. I enjoyed the snow as a child. It was only when I had to drive to school or work in it that I developed a real dislike for it. The town where I grew up is in the Ohio River valley, so we had some really steep hills. Sledding was the winter sport. Traffic on 14th Street would yield to the sleds. We would rub wax on the sled runners to make them go faster. It's a wonder that kids lived through sledding season. I had a bad headache after I hit my cousin in the legs when she wandered into the path of my sled. I guess it was good luck for her that I hit her with my head rather than the front of the sled. My brother broke his arm trying to stop his sled from going under a parked car. There were broken bones, sprains, scrapes, bruises and cold fingers, but it was all worth it for that excitement. It was really neat at night when little bare patches in the snow would cause the runners to spark on the pavement, like fireflies on a winter night.

TGIF and bad things that happen to some children

Unfortunately it's one of my bad days. A bad day for me starts by waking up with back pain and realizing that I didn't sleep well because of pain or I was dreaming about being in pain. It is raining today and that seems to make the pain worse. I am also having a lot of pain in my hands from arthritis. I will be spending much of my day in my recliner with a heating pad on my back. I have a paraffin spa for my hands and have already dipped my hands. The paraffin is hot and melted. It feels really good to cover my hands in that hot wax and just sit while it cools down. My sister had purchased the paraffin spa a couple of years ago and I have since inherited it.


I alluded to my sister in the "Hello I'm Marta" posting. I'm using the alias of 'Z' for my sister. People who know us will definitely be aware that it is us since she and I have unusual names. I suppose that is OK since she passed away in June 2005 and I am tired of keeping secrets. My immediate family is aware of my secret past and know that I am now very open about it. Now I drop the other shoe--my sister and I were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of our father. He died in 1968 and the man that I now refer to as "my dad" is my stepfather (who has been my stepfather since 1972). I did not seek professional help dealing with this abuse until 1983 or '84. I was going through a divorce and seeing a therapist to help with that situation. At the end of one session, I very offhandedly said "Oh yeah by the way, my father sexually abused me". There was barely time for the therapist to react. She said we had a lot to cover in our next session and that she was not surprised because I exhibited behavior common to abuse survivors. I continued with this therapist for about another year and joined a therapy group for sex abuse survivors. It was amazing and frightening how much I had in common with the other women in the group. The most common thing about us was the lack of self-esteem. It was so bad for some that one member had attempted suicide several times and did kill herself after I had left the group.

Until I started dealing with the abuse with a therapist, I didn't realize how much it had affected my life. The fallout continues to this day. They say that admitting you have a problem is half the battle. I think it's really about 20% of the battle. I am still overweight, self-destructive and depressed. Knowing that my father's behavior contributed to my behavior helps, but it is still hard work to change things. I admit that although I am depressed and unhappy, it is comfortable in my little rut of a life. It's scary to change things, so here I wallow.

Back to my sister: she was also abused and greatly affected by it. Now for the disclaimer; anything I mention here about 'Z' is my opinion. She is dead now and can't rebut anything I say about her. I loved my sister and I miss her like crazy. But I also don't miss her because she made my life miserable. To say that she suffered from low self-esteem is like calling Hurricane Katrina a summer rain shower. My sister was a train wreck. She let everyone take advantage of her (me included). I loved her husband like a brother, but her relationship with him was toxic. They loved each other fiercely, but she never came first with him. He was physically and emotionally abused as a child and I think that was part of their attraction to each other. 'Z' and 'J' were verbally abusive to each other one minute and loving the next minute. (He passed away in 1989.) I have had other family members tell me that they stayed away because they could not stand being exposed to the battling. Their daughter has had behavior and emotional problems for years. She was also diagnosed as bipolar. My niece (I'll refer to her as 'T') has been into drugs and was recently paroled from one of the Georgia state prisons. She grew up watching her parents be disrespectful to each other loudly and with lots of profanity. She seems to always form relationships with men who are physically and verbally abusive to her. I am going to keep the rest about her for later. (Way to go father, the effect of your abuse keeps going!)

I had tried to talk to 'Z' about the abuse around 1984. I had a long talk with my mother after I had been in the therapy group for several months. Mom was not aware of the abuse when it was happening. I'm not sure she ever really understood the nature of abuse. Her reaction had been to profess that she thought that she and my father had a good sexual relationship. I explained to her that even though the abuse occurs as sexual activity, the real payoff to the abuser is the power they hold over the victim. 'Z' was totally bent out of shape that I had told Mom. In her mind, 'Z' was still the little girl our father had told she would be out of favor with Mom (maybe even hated) if she did not do what father insisted she do. I never wanted to talk about the details of what had happened to us. I wanted to talk to her about how it made me feel. I wanted to know her feelings. She very seldom spoke of it. The few times I was able to draw her out, she said that it was in the past, it was dead and she felt no need to talk about it. It seemed to become a larger barrier between us. My other sister 'B' had been abused as well. Her reaction to my revelations were very different and letting go of the secret has brought us closer.

I've gone all the way around the barn to explain why I loved my sister and yet she made me miserable. 'Z' moved into my house with me and my son in '95. She was disabled and not able to work because of Crohn's disease, a chronic illness of the digestive system. She had been living with our parents since some time in 1993. 'Z' had been a registered nurse/case manager. According to her version, she was moving in to take care of me and my chronic pain. I wanted her to move in because it got her out of our parent's house before they asked her to leave. I admit to feeling a little superior because I was the one with the house for her to move into. We never discussed how we would handle finances. Things just seemed to evolve that she paid for groceries, meals out, her car expenses and her medical care. The rest was mine.

'Z' took over the kitchen and began dictating our television viewing. Our mother gave me hell more than once about how I would sit on my ass and make my sister do all of the cooking. I felt very unwelcome in the kitchen. Still I would offer to fix meals. As time went by the Crohn's was destroying 'Z's joints and she had knee replacements. Still she insisted on doing all of the cooking. I would worry about the stove and counter tops because she would rest her weight, which was in excess of 300 pounds, on the counters and the oven handle. (I was over 300 pounds myself, so I understood why 'Z' was supporting herself on the furniture and I never complained.)

'Z' was desperate to lose weight, but not by diet and exercise (my opinion admittedly). She had heard of the gastric bypass surgery and was researching it. She had a laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in January 1998. I had mine in February. We appeared on a local news story about desperate measures taken to lose weight. They even followed up with us a year later. 'Z' lost weight at a phenomenal rate. About August 1998, 'Z' announced she wanted to move into her own apartment. I confess that I was hurt at first. She moved in September. I didn't see her frequently so I didn't realize how fast she was losing weight. In May 1999 'B' came to Georgia to get 'Z' to take her to Texas to help with the preparations for our niece's wedding. While in Texas, 'Z' would call me and tell me things that seemed odd to me. She claimed to be having seizures and hallucinations. When I arrived in Texas for the wedding (about 2 weeks after 'Z' had left Georgia) I was shocked by how much weight she had lost in those 2 weeks. She seemed to be disoriented. I did all of her driving because she could not seem to remember how to get to places she had been visiting for 2 weeks. This was a woman who would read 8 books a week and could remember the names, the authors, the plot and an amazing amount of story detail about every book. I was supposed to fly home (I had arrived by airline), but changed that when it was obvious that 'Z' was unable to drive. She had a strange episode the night after the wedding. She managed to call our brother's hotel room to tell him she had fallen out of bed and could not get up. By the time I was called, the paramedics had arrived and took her to the hospital. They treated her for dehydration and recommended a follow up concerning her nutrition. I moved to her hotel room to keep an eye on her. We left for home after another day in Texas with family. In Mississippi I had to enlist the help of a stranger to lift 'Z' off the toilet in a rest stop. She was so weak, she could not stand up on her own. When we finally got to her apartment, she fell in the parking lot. Even though she now only weighed 130 pounds, I could not get her up. She seemed totally unable to help. Thank heavens for the fire department. I ended up sleeping on her living room floor until I convinced her to move back in with me. I tried sleeping in her bed with her, but she would wake me during the night with hallucinations about people being in the apartment.

'Z' continued to be very weak and disoriented. I contacted the doctor who had performed the gastric bypasses because I had taken her to the local hospital once and they seemed at a loss to help her. The bypass doctor was great. He had her admitted to the hospital and ran a bunch of tests. She was malnourished so he ordered special liquid feedings that were used when her Crohn's disease flared-up. This is very special because the liquid is administered through a port-a-cath which is a device implanted in the patient's chest. I always heard of these feedings as TPN, I now know it means "total parenteral nutrition" which is used when a patient is unable to eat normally. He also ordered physical therapy to help her become ambulatory (able to walk) again.

'Z' would get better, but then get worse again as soon as the liquid feedings were discontinued. By December, the doctor recommended that he reverse her gastric bypass. She had her surgery on December 28 and spent her 50th birthday on 12/31/1999 in ICU. I was down the street in the Days Inn because the hospital was 50 miles from our home and I just can't drive that much with my back. 'Z' came home a few days later and began her recovery.

I have gotten verbose without intending to. The entire point of this is that my sister used her illness to control my behavior. She also treated me as handicapped. She even said to me "You do not realize how ill you are." It was her way to hold the power in our house. And I allowed it. My philosophy was "go along to get along". Any time there was conflict she would say "I know that any day now you are going to tell me to leave". Of course I would back off because it had been proven that she did not do well living apart from me. I would hear her tell people that she raised me, that my mother was too busy working to take care of us. She also claimed to have raised our brother who is a year older than her. I never would challenge her when she made these claims. I don't know if I was being gutless or noble.

Who am I?

My name is Marta. From what I have been told, my name came from a woman my father dated. The story is that my sister 'Z' got her name the same way. I tell people I moved to the Atlanta area because it helps folks to get my name right. The transit system's name is Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority. What a shock when I arrived in Atlanta for the first time in 1977 and every bus carried my name.

I am a middle-aged woman who is depressed and frustrated. Big deal you say, the grocery stores are full of them. I know that and it doesn't make me feel any better, in fact it makes me more frustrated.

Would anyone care about what I might publish in this blog? I don't know. I don't think I care if anyone is interested. I have tried talk therapy several times. It makes me feel better and then something happens that makes me feel crummy again. I guess that's the way it's supposed to work, but it would be nice to go to bed every night without wondering whether tomorrow will be better than today. I'm on Prozac too and it bothers me that I can feel so depressed when I am taking an antidepressant. Maybe I am expecting too much of the meds. Back to the question about blogging: I guess this is a place for me to get my thoughts out of my head and maybe get some feedback, even if that feedback is from me when I read my stuff.

I retired on disability in 1994. I blew out a disk in my back, had surgery, had complications and now live with chronic back pain. I used to be a systems analyst with a bank. It was a 20 year career that I enjoyed. I was good at it and actually loved the crisis's that would occur. It was early in the days of telecommuting. I not even sure I had heard the word "telecommuting" then. We could do emergency support through a dial-up connection. It was a life saver for me since I became a single mother when my son was 2 and would have to get my son out of bed to accompany me to the office at 3 a.m. It could be taxing to simultaneously deal with a major software problem and a toddler with a fascination with the restrooms at my office.

I tried returning to work in the office after almost a year of recovery and physical therapy. It just didn't work. I could not sit for more than 15 minutes in my office chair. (I think I tried 8 different chairs to find one that was comfortable. I even had one moved from the building I was working in before I injured my back.) Driving was dangerous because my right leg would go numb at times. I tried working 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. to avoid heavy traffic. The less I had to use the brake, the better. Anyone familiar with the Atlanta area knows that traffic problems can and do occur anytime of the day, any day of the week. I suggested the possibility of my working from home since I was absent from the office a lot due to my fear of driving and my pain level. I was actually working at home on those days when I didn't go to the office. It worked well for me. I could work for 15 to 20 minutes, then lie down for a while or move to my recliner to give my back a rest. I would get a full day's worth of work done by breaking up into chunks over a 24 hour period. My manager was not pleased; she was the type that needed to see faces in the office. It was not enough that I finished projects on time or early. When I broached the idea of formalizing my working from home, I was told that the "bank" would not open itself to the possible security exposure and that there was concern over their possible liability for any physical harm I might suffer while working. I put "bank" in quotes because I don't know who really made those decisions.

My trial return-to-work period lasted from October 1995 to December 1995. I was really sad on my last day at the office. It took months for me to get used to the fact that I was not going to my job everyday. It's boring being at home when you aren't used to it. My son was 10 by then, so he was pretty independent. My sister had moved in with me to help out and she pretty much took over my life. (There will be much, much more to cover on her.) I was seeing a pain management specialist and he put me on the Prozac. I still see the same specialist 12 years later. I'm on a bunch of medication. It helps as long as I don't over-exert myself. When I do and the pain becomes more intense, I get epidural injections of corticosteroids. I really hate those injections. I am squeamish about having someone put a long needle in my back. I have never seen one of the needles and never want to because I'm afraid I will freak out and not be able to tolerate getting an epidural when I really need one. I must have someone available to drive me to the doctor's office when I get the injections. The medicine causes hot flashes and I have to take it very easy for a couple of days.

Today was one of my bad days. I have been trying to come up with an outlet for my frustrations and suddenly the word "blog" appeared in front of my face. I guess I will pour out my stuff here. I tried writing a journal, but I have arthritis in my hands and writing is painful. (As if back pain weren't enough!) I could keep a journal on my own computer, but then it would not feel like the sharing that happens when you sit with a therapist. I could go back to my therapist, but it feels too soon to go back to her.

To the anyone that happens to find my blog, welcome. I'm not sure I will allow comments. I have had a couple of incidents in my life recently where I have taken comments and criticism too much to heart and it has caused me some really bad moments. I plan to pour my heart out here. I've lived through some stuff that some may not consider appropriate for publication. I don't plan to name names or give vivid and accurate descriptions. I want to be able to document how it has affected me. Who knows, maybe it will help someone else. I won't make it all about my problems and what is bothering me, I also want to document the things that make me happy and makes me laugh.

We'll see how this goes. I just wanted to start by introducing myself. There is lots more, but I figure this is like the part where you start with a therapist by telling them what is bothering you.