Desperado

So yesterday was the 5th legal setting where my health, Kiana's health insurance and custody in regards to that were discussed. I don't know what to say about Kiana's mother other than I don't get it... we got to court and she had a brand new attorney in what was supposed to be the close of all this. The other attorney has been through that emergency hearing and gotten nowhere, that the child is better off in daycare hearing and gotten nowhere and that mediation where it felt like I gave them 90% of what they wanted. Then I'd gotten an email from Kiana's mother that she was going to appeal the mediation... I didn't understand that since mediation  unless there is fraudulent information, are not really up for appeal. Maybe this new attorney thinks she can undo/redo/better do the finish but that's not typical. I kept looking at her through the hearing and showing the disparity, disconnection the attorney kept not looking back but in the end when we finally made eye contact  while she was talking about the safety risks of my health condition, she mouthed sorry and I said it's fine. I mean... what can I say if it's her job?

What should have been a 15 minute hearing turned into two hours in what seemed to be stuck into legal minutae. There were a couple of semi substantive things... they wanted copies of my MRI's within 7 days instead of annual which the guy who has a public blog about his health condition had no problem saying yes. I mean let me be as frank as possible. I don't get to health appointments to fight cancer anymore. I also don't take every desperate suggested recommendation because if I did I'd be dead in no time I imagine. This is my monitoring it and now that I don't have health insurance if there comes a time where it's fight or leave my daughter broke because fighting brain cancer is too expensive, well, I'll sign the futile care document, sign over custody, get my things in order and head to the Grand Canyon. I trust my doctors know what they're doing and I have a lot of lack of self confidence when most days, including the ones where I throw up and the ones where I woke up in ambulances and the ones where focal seizures occurs, I feel fine not too long before those things happen. I go to doctors not too fight but because smarter people than me can monitor my brain which was my key to doing well and now is an organ I just don't trust that much.

In court, there was a short argument about the fact that Kiana would be with me for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. If you'd read far back enough, you know that Kiana's mother told me she was leaving the day I got back from Duke and would be gone one night in the middle of the night while someone was staying at the house, when I was still on multiple drugs, before I was cleared to drive or return to work. She would file for divorce very quickly when the last thing I'd done before going to Duke was take her to the Caribbean... just in case. The divorce would be finalized before I'd even returned to Duke for follow up. I had tried to save the marriage but when there was no fight for custody then... well I gave up so it was actually an agreed divorce. I was against the divorce because I believed in that death do you part but even so more than that because we had a child. The divorce decree, in order for me to able to sign it, states that I am against the divorce because it will be spiritually, emotionally and financially damaging to Kiana but that I respect her right to walk away.  Anyway, out of my own desperation, I asked and somehow got to have Kiana that first Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter etc. Which means Kiana was with me for both holidays in 2011 and with her mom for both in 2012. Usually one parent gets one and the other gets the other. We made it a little more reasonable this time around and Kiana will be with me this Thanksgiving and with her mother for Christmas (btw, divorce and non amicable relationship suck for many reasons but imposing this reality on children is definitely one of them in my book). I mean even a couple of days after the hearing I offered her to keep Kiana an extra night to make sure she made the mother's day function at school since she's made so few things Kiana wanted her at including mother's day itself last year. She said yes so to me... we'll call that progress.

In the end, my attorney out of the frustration of this case having dragged out for so long asked that some of her fees be ordered to be paid by Kiana's mom. I can't say that I was fan or had any objections to that idea but it tells you something about the judge's stance that he ordered Kiana's mother to pay a small percentage of my attorney's fees... In the end the judge signed the order and I and my attorney did as well. Kiana's mother and her attorney refused to... I honestly don't get why or all this and am wondering if they'll appeal it all but the fact that the judge ordered her to pay some of my attorney's fees, the fact that in our discovery we had to turn in who would testify on our behalf and her mother literally had zero people who would state that  Kiana was better off with her in the witness list and we had over a dozen... well let's just say I slept well last night. I'm not even arguing that Kiana's mother is a bad mother, I don't think that. I just have made being a dad about as close to a full time job as I can and was fortunate enough to have an insurance that due to my health problems that helps semi cover the bills... (for all you honest taxpayers out there it's a private insurance not social security). My argument which is evident if you ever spend the day with me much less read this blog is that I'm focused on catching as much of this blog as I can... and when you don't trust your memory like you once did you wanna give it a few shots.

I went home from court exhausted, reliefed and confused. We wrapped up the deck re staining and the fence cleaning up. While it looks real good, I did mostly the dumb labor and guys who knew what they were doing did anything requiring any intelligence. But other than people who come into my home, this back deck and fence aren't really visible to anyone. Like good parenting, like good race results, every once in a while someone catches it but like most good things good people do in life, it's just something that sits in the back that if we do right, helps us feel more at home.

I went running with no route in mind after and just kept going around random blocks to not get lost and put the music on shuffle. It played a song I didn't even realize I owned... Desperado by the Eagles.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE-U5e78WHc)

Now it seems to me, some fine things 
Have been laid upon your table 
But you only want the ones that you can't get 

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger 
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home 
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin' 
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

I've sat here in this blog and in life sometimes worrying about the loneliness of the last two years but the last few months, the last few weeks have made me more aware and more thankful for the connections that have been there all along. I'm not leaving the George Clooney lifestyle probably ever but maybe I can graduate to at least being a part time boyfriend every once in a while. While the drugs will continue forever, I still want to overcome my mental deficits, in fact achieving my highest lumosity scores ever this morning. So even if my mind isn't what it used to be and I mourned the break up with my high school sweetheart, I'm becoming aware that the eagles are right and I have some fine things on my table and that I need to stage a prison break. These have been some desperate times but some of the parts of my heart that were broken have started to heal and becoming more and more open to this realities will be a great desperate measure. 

Perhaps, home is meant to remind us of that. There was a tree I thought was dead two years ago. I cut it down shortly after Duke. It's been referenced in here as looking like it might be more alive than I imagined. I've kept watering it and it's still growing... it may not be like hope which springs eternal but it is spring and it's still reaching for life when things had been cut from it through no choice of it's own. 

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? 
Come down from your fences, open the gate 
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you 
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

I'm closer to home, closer to opening the (newly stained) gate but that has come from me loving Kiana and people loving me... even when I tried to get them to not come to medical appointments... And I believe and hope that at some level it's still not too late.