The Shallow End

Moses and the Jehovah's Witnesses

Okay, I'm back. The Nails are gone now. Well, not entirely. I still have Nails. But they are much, much shorter and slightly rounded (as opposed to the more trendy "square"), for a more natural look (and feel!). So I'm no longer disabled and can finally type again. Oh, and Jen? This time I got the gel and I do like them!

Anyway, I've been having some very vivid and sometimes disturbing dreams lately, the most recent one has been made into a movie if I'm not mistaken...it's called The Wedding Crashers. Only in my dream, it took on a little darker twist. So, I was at this very large party (because you know I love parties) and a rather morose looking man with a bruised black eye and slightly rumpled suit shows up at the door nearest where I am standing and rings the bell. The party is in full uproar mode (tells you why I'm standing near the door in the first place) and someone opens the door to let him in but doesn't ask him his name or anything. I was immediately suspicious (the guy was wearing a gun in a shoulder holster under his suit jacket...did I leave out a critical plot detail?) so I took it upon myself to ask him who he was here to see. He said he was looking for Moses. Afraid that if I just left him alone to infiltrate the group, we'd all be dead by morning, I led him through the group in search of Moses. But rather than beginning the search in the room I was in, I told him to come with me and maybe we would find Moses in the next room. When I opened the door to the next room and called out, "Has anyone in here seen Moses?" hundreds of U.S. Marshals (holding a convention?), armed and in uniform, stood up and drew their weapons to greet our new visitor...who immediately sat down and put his hands in the air. Heh, I think I've watched one too many episodes of Dog, the Bounty Hunter or something.

That dream though, was not as disturbing as the one in which my husband had to shoot one of our dogs in the head to put him out of his "misery" (the source of misery didn't present itself in my dream). That image continues to haunt me a week later and I hug poor Cocoa every chance I get. Sheesh, our brains can play weird games with us.

Or it could be the pituitary gland working overtime. I've been on a forced thyroid meltdown, thanks to my doctor who wouldn't refill my prescription without coming in for bloodwork (even though I had bloodwork done just a few months ago and normally, this is a once a year thing because I've been on the same dosage of levothyroxin since I was 20 years old!) I couldn't get into the lab until this week because of work committments during lab hours (oh, and you have to have an appointment even just for lab work). So I went without for about 10 days and now the doctor sounds surprised that my thyroid numbers "are terrible." No kidding? Did I not ask for a refill two weeks ago, just enough to give me time to get into the lab for tests? Sheesh, is this a requirement of all doctors now, to treat all patients like 5-year-olds? Like I'm not interested in my own health and won't come in unless you withhold my medicine? And the thing with a weak (but not non-existent) thyroid is that the pituitary will work overtime to keep the thyroid going so that symptoms don't quickly present themselves, which is why I went without rather than changing my work committments to get into the lab. I didn't feel bad, but I did start feeling more run down, tired and moody in the last few days. I finally got in on Monday and yesterday was finally able to pick up my prescription (the dosage has been increased now since my numbers were so bad, which means I'll be slightly hyperthyroid for a few weeks until I go back for re-testing in 8 weeks and she discovers that now my thyroid is being overreplaced...oh, bother) and as soon as I took the first pill (well, several hours and a couple Tylenol later) my headache was gone and my energy level increased, but the weird vivid dreams apparently continued, at least for one more night.

Oh, and Sunday night's festivities (per the last post) did not turn out to be quite as exhausting as I had anticipated. I did enjoy dinner with our new friends, the Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses. This is a second marriage for both of them and they both have children, his are grown now (living in England) but hers are not (9 and 13). They brought her children to dinner with them and they were the most charming and well mannered kids I've been around in a long time which was sweet. I asked about their father (still a Jehovah's Witness) and their upbringing (still Jehovah's Witnesses) and could not help but wonder how they will be affected by all this. Because of the JW's "shunning doctrine," she no longer has ties with most of her family. So now the kids will ultimately be (if they haven't already been) put in a position of having to consider shunning their mother or being shunned by their father. Not good. Very sad, actually. I've never known much about the JWs except that they go to "meetings," not church, don't celebrate holidays, and they knock on our door periodically to hand out the Watchtower. But to hear this couple talk, it is more like a cult that uses heavy handed influences like the "shunning doctrine" to keep people in the group. Does anyone else know any more than this? Are they really just extremely devout Christians, or does their theology take on a life of its own, apart from the Bible?

Regardless of which particular religious affiliation these kids and their family have, I pray for their sanity in all this. If there is one thing I have learned in raising kids from a "broken" family and being raised in one myself, it is that kids need both of their parents and parents need to 1) do a better job of picking who it is they will have kids with, and 2) do everything in your power to stay together until the kids are raised (assuming that you're not doing more harm than good by staying together). It's hard enough raising kids together in this world, but when the parents are at odds, the kids are the ones who truly suffer. /soapbox

And now, I'm off to work, fully medicated and ready to go. ;-)

Labels: Family and friends, Theology

posted by Gwynne @ 6:43 AM