All posts by Audrey Hayworth

Laundry, Bleach and a Pandemic

Serious Stuff, ,

I’m not even sure where to start. I’ve taken off almost the entirety of the last year to finish a manuscript and haven’t written on my blog since last May. But I felt the need to sort through my thoughts, and I’ve had a lot of friends reach out and ask how things are in the midst of the pandemic. So, I’ll probably start parking a lot of my thoughts here, and I’m going to start with the basics.

My husband, a physician double board certified in Hospital Medicine and Medical Informatics, wears dress clothes to work on days he doesn’t see patients. Two weeks ago, he switched to wearing scrubs instead of dress clothes for these days. 

He would come home from work, take his shoes off at the garage door, strip off his scrubs and put them into the washing machine (which is right by the garage door). He then would get in the shower and scrub head to toe with antibacterial soap. I would wash his scrubs with bleach on the sanitary cycle and dry them on the antibacterial cycle, a total of 5 hours a day. During this initial time, he was not seeing patients.

Medical Informatics is basically medical data. This man runs on black and white facts. He is unflappable. I had a high risk delivery with our first son and was close to stroking out and dying in front of him in the OR and he didn’t blink. The ongoing joke is that I was ‘a little bit sick’.

At the beginning of last week, we started having logistical conversations about COVID-19 and what would happen when he started seeing patients (his normal workload). We made a plan and the middle of last week, I went to Target.

I picked up a 90 day supply of my medications and the ones our youngest son takes (shoutout to the CVS pharmacy in Target because they are amazing and some of my most favorite people). Why a 90 day supply you might wonder? If my husband is exposed at work and quarantined, our family will quarantine and forgo essential trips and our insurance does not allow for prescription delivery. 

I bought a plastic container to hold his shoes when he gets out of his car. I bought an inexpensive set of sheets for the guest room that can be repeatedly bleached and sanitized. And I bought this $8 laundry basket that can be thrown out when this is over.

On Thursday of last week, I removed everything from the guest bathroom that can’t be sprayed with the Clorox Healthcare spray. 

On Friday afternoon, my husband showered and put on his scrubs in the master bathroom. He and I then listened to our youngest get choked up over his fears that he was going to go to work, get sick and die. My husband then hugged me for the last time indefinitely, as he was now going on service and would be treating patients.

After he left for work, I put the new sheets on the guest bed. I moved all of his toiletries into the guest bathroom. I pulled his scrubs, undershirts, underwear and socks out of his closet and moved them into the guest room.

The routine we set in place last week is even more stringent. And even more time consuming. I laughed yesterday that I am in extreme exposure therapy for my OCD. 

For the first time in 17 years, my husband and I are sleeping in separate beds. We are not physically touching. We looked at the calendar last night. Based on his schedule, the first time he will be able to hug me or touch me will be April 27. At the earliest.

I am regularly talking to other doctors and wives across the country. They are scared, angry, and preparing for the train wreck they can see that others are refusing to acknowledge.

There are not enough masks, gloves or PPE’s (full gown protection) for the health care staff because people are hoarding and stealing them. There are not enough ventilators for the upcoming needs. There is a video making its round in healthcare circles on how to add tubes to a ventilator to accommodate additional patients in an emergency. Doctors in Italy are having to make decisions on who will live and who will die because there is not enough ventilators. 

Health care workers here are worrying about this and yet I am watching people selfishly whine about not being able to go to parades and block parties. People complaining that they feel fine. People arrogantly believing that they know more than scientists, doctors and nurses about what is coming. 

The arrogance is what is the most terrifying out of everything to me. Eric and I have traveled a lot, and when we’ve been in Europe, we’ve gotten a lot of comments like, ‘Americans are usually so much more arrogant than other visitors.’ They meant it as a compliment, that they didn’t think we were arrogant, but those comments have always stuck with me.

In this case, arrogance is going to kill people we love. It is going to kill doctors, nurses, the custodial and food staff at the hospitals. 

I am angry. Angry that people are choosing to blatantly ignore what needs to be done for the collective greater good of saving millions of lives. I am worried about small businesses and people’s financial situation and how at risk millions of Americans are at losing everything. 

But most of all, I am angry that people believe that social distancing is more of a sacrifice than that of my husband’s life and those of his colleagues. 

Please, stay home. Please, practice social distancing. Please believe the scientists, doctors, epidemiologists, mathematicians and every other person who have literally been studying their entire lives for this moment in time. 

Please. 

 

‘Only one victim’ is a Lie

Feminism, Serious Stuff

Only one victim.

Only.One.Victim.

The words ‘only one victim’ rolled around in my brain while I tossed and turned in my bed last night.

Twenty-five year old bus driver Shane Piche pled guilty to raping a fourteen year old girl in June 2018. Last Thursday, he was sentenced to probation by New York Supreme Court Judge, Judge James P. McClusky. He also has to register as a Level 1 sex offender, someone who is described as someone with a low risk to reoffend.

Piche’s attorney is quoted in a CNN article saying, “He’s on the sex offender registry for a long time. Maybe not the rest of his life because of the level, but this isn’t something that didn’t cause him pain, and this isn’t something that didn’t have consequences.”

Oh really? Why does his pain even matter? Why does his pain matter more than the victim’s?

And now for the most infuriating part, according to the Daily Times, “Judge McClusky said because Piche had no prior arrests and there was only one victim in this plea, Level 1 was more appropriate.”

Only one victim.

Those words were still rolling around in my head this morning while I was unpacking my delivery of catheters that show up on my doorstep every month — you know, the ones that show up because I have scar tissue from when someone touched me where they weren’t supposed to. It occurred to me, while looking down at this box on my bathroom floor and thinking about this fourteen year old survivor, that while I’ve talked and written about the emotional toll that rape and abuse takes on a person, I’ve never discussed the financial portion of what it takes for this one victim (me) to live the life I want.

So today I’m going to throw numbers at you. Not the typical statistics, and not my normal writing, but money.

Here are the line items in our monthly household budget that only exist because I survived childhood sexual abuse and rape:

Self catheters:   $74.50

Industrial size KY Jelly:   $10.00

Two sessions with my therapist: $300.00

Two lab appointments to run my urine to see if I have an infection: $160.00

One primary care physician appointment if I do have an infection: $180.00

One Urologist appointment where my bladder output is measured: $210.00

Prescriptions to manage the damage caused from the abuse (out of pocket): $700.00

Monthly cost for me as a survivor, only one victim:          $1,634.50

This isn’t always the cost, of course. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. So far in 2019, it’s been less because I haven’t had to see the urologist for three months (Thank the Lord for that!) and I’ve only had to go to the lab four times. When the anniversary of the rape is near, I up my therapist visits to once a week. Two years ago, I was visiting the lab weekly, seeing my primary care physician weekly, the urologist monthly, and having nuclear tests performed on my kidneys quarterly due to an infection that would just not go away. Like I said, sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less, but there are always expenses.

This also doesn’t take in to account the tens of thousands of dollars my parents spent on specialists when I was younger, trying to get me well, both emotionally and physically. 

The financial aspect of the aftermath of abuse is something that often gets overlooked. There’s a ton of other economic implications that abuse and violence have, but those studies are for another day. In my life, not only do I, the survivor, deal with the trauma of what happened emotionally, I deal with it physically and financially. I’m not the only victim here, because my fantastic husband, children, parents, brother and other loved ones are also victims because they are part of the collateral damage. We all agree the money is well spent — my life is of my choosing and it is fantastic in every sense. But it’s amazing because I chose to put the work into it with the support of my parents and husband and some of that work takes money.

So, no, there is not just one victim here. Saying that there is minimizes the effects sexual trauma has on survivors and the people in their lives. 

The Place Past Forgiveness

Feminism, Serious Stuff, , ,

In my late teens, I forgave the people who abused me. I can remember the day clearly, as though it was last week, instead of some twenty years ago. The sky was a remarkable blue color, the color of a ring I often wear, with a single cloud in the sky.

I remember looking up because even though the sky was clear and it was a beautiful day, it felt like I was working every muscle in my body to put one foot in front of the other, that I had to remind myself to actually breathe because my body felt so heavy.

I had been in therapy for years and years at this point and my therapists and doctors were solely focused on getting me to a point where I would be able to be a functioning human, a feat of superhuman capabilities, no doubt. While I remember the word ‘forgiveness’ coming up occasionally, it wasn’t something I was concerned with, nor was anyone caring for me concerned with it, either. Anger and vengeance, those were topics I was familiar with. And who could blame me or anyone else? These people had basically destroyed me and no one would dare argue that level of evil deserved forgiveness.

That blue day, the sky the color of blue topaz day, with its single cloud changed everything for me. I had the epiphany that they could no longer physically hurt me. The secret was out and they could no longer touch me. The physical power was now mine. I was now an adult and it was my decision to continue to live in anger or in peace. The emotional power was now mine, too.

It felt as though a bag of physical bricks fell off of my shoulders. Even though they no longer had access to me or my body, I let them continue to hurt me through my festering resentment and anger.

What people don’t tell you about forgiveness is that it is a power that only you have. It doesn’t mean that you have forgotten or that it’s okay, it just means that someone else’s actions have no control over your emotions and actions. You, and you alone, are more powerful than the person who hurt you, if only by the mere fact that you hold the key to forgiveness.

I recently have started going back to church because I started to have anger towards my abusers that I had not had since that blue day. The anger came back because no matter how healthy I am, physically or emotionally, their actions have wrecked my body. For a few weeks, I wondered if I was struggling to forgive, but then I realized I was struggling with new anger, and the anger was appropriate and the length of time it would stay was in my control.

I really want to throw a tantrum some days, just throw myself down onto the ground, roll around and scream that it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have to do all of this bullshit and the people that hurt me just went on with their lives. I don’t do it, but when I’m sick, sitting in the doctor’s office, I close my eyes and picture myself acting like a toddler and it makes me laugh. Because, really, who doesn’t want to throw a tantrum once and awhile?

A few months ago, after I had moved past my anger and onto acceptance, while kneeling in church to pray, the service came to the Litany of Healing. The Litany of Healing is a part of the service in the Episcopal church where we pray for those that need healing. Most of the time, I pray for those that I know are sick, family and friends. That day was different. I was the sickest I had ever been with a kidney and bladder infection and I also needed healing.

Dear Lord, please help them find peace. Their redemption is not my responsibility, but I wish them peace.

All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. Instead of praying for myself and my sickest point, I was praying for the people who caused the sickness. Why in the hell was I praying for the people who put me in this situation to begin with? I forgave them and that’s all I can give. The tears started to stream down my face, mainly because I was so unnerved.

After the service, I went to the bathroom and wiped my face. When I came out of the bathroom, the Rector was waiting for me. I told him why I was upset and he studied me for a moment. “Maybe they need your prayers, Audrey.”

I’ve been sitting with this for a few months. I knew my birthday was coming up and the anxiety would start the closer it got, so I stopped questioning my thoughts and just sat with it, expecting no explanation.

The last two months, my birthday started creeping up and I felt different than I have in years. I had no anxiety about it until three weeks ago. I had started the day out
meditating, and I found myself praying for them again. I do not understand why I keep praying for them to find peace, I want to scream. I think maybe it’s finally happening, maybe I’m finally cracking up and losing my mind. Or maybe it was something else entirely that I had not thought about: the place past forgiveness.

We’re so focused on forgiveness, acceptance, revenge and karma, no one talks about what happens next. I had a very wise person tell me that day when you’ve genuinely forgiven someone, you can pray for them to have peace. This is the place where forgiveness isn’t just a word, it’s an act.

I normally don’t celebrate my birthday, but that day I decided I was going to do something this year. Choosing the life I want to live, with the love of my life and children, close family and a very small circle of trusted friends is absolutely something to celebrate. I did this. I walked through the flames of hell that are actually people in this world and made it to a very simple and beautiful life that I created with the people I love. The demons will remain, of course, but I celebrate knowing that my choices are stronger than the demons.

I woke up yesterday, on my 39th birthday, let my husband and precious boys sing happy birthday to me and ate unicorn cake for breakfast. Yesterday was bittersweet. I deserve every bit of happiness I have but it’s easy to grieve what could have been. I’ve accepted it’s okay to feel anger and sadness for all of the things that were taken from me. I’ve also accepted that praying for the people who hurt me is where I want to be. It’s uncharted territory and I have the tools to navigate through it.

My birthday has always been an easy litmus test for me to check where I am emotionally and in my life. It’s also an easy one to pass.