Do I have any straws left?

I am at my lowest point. It started Saturday night. My neighbors on both sides smoke, and Saturday night, both sides decided to entertain and their visitors spent a lot of time on the tiny patios smoking. It was sort of nice out and we had our patio door open, but we were up stairs. I began wheezing and soon following came a huge asthma attack. We realized our apartment was infiltrated with cigarette smoke, so we closed the door and turned on the fan above the stove. Some of our neighbor’s guests were in the parking lot near our front door smoking as well and the smoke continued to invade our space. I was up until five am fighting to breathe.

The attacks continued until Monday around noon and finally my breathing seemed to get better. Tuesday morning I was filling with fluids and knew that I had bronchitis or pneumonia, so I went to the doctor. My doctor’s office is in my home town an hour and half away. I thought I would take Buttons some diapers and a few of his clothes that he left. First the doctor, I have pneumonia and had to shots in my rear end and am now on steroids and antibiotics—great for my first day back to school.

After the doctor’s visit, I went to my house where my daughter and grandson and my son live. I barely knocked on the door, in case he was napping, and when no one answered, I peeked in the window and saw the baby alone. He was sitting in the floor, no shirt on, not pants on, just a diaper. He wasn’t playing, just sitting with this look. So, I opened the door and a huge smile came over his face and he ran to me and tried to climb up my legs. I picked him up and his diaper weighed more than him. She was a sleep on the sofa under three blankets. She opened her eyes and I said, “Why isn’t the baby dressed?” She yelled, “Shut the fuck up.” I said, “Get him some clothes and a diaper, and I’ll dress him.” She jumped up and threw a diaper but said he wasn’t cold. I say you are dressed and under three blankets, don’t you think he is cold? It went from bad to worse with her finally screaming for me to get the fuck out of her house. Hmmmm, my house. And she picked up an object and threw at me, hitting the lamp and breaking it. Then she charged toward me and called me a fat fucking bitch and she wanted me to leave her the fuck a lone. By this time, my son, who works nights and was asleep, gets up and runs to protect me, and she pours a container of juice all over me. I have pneumonia. I was going to leave, I really was, but I couldn’t let her do this. I had to make her see the behaviors are not going to continue, so I called the police and filled out a police report. She lied to those policemen.

Mr. Zelda is going today to talk to the district attorney about having her arrested for the assault, and we are evicting her out of the house, which means we are evicting Buttons out too. I am calling social services and issuing a complaint for child neglect and I am hiring a better lawyer. All of this on my first day back to class. She warned me that I had really fucked up, “You will never see your grandsons again.” Those were her last words to me. So, yesterday was the worst day of my life.

By the way, my doctor looked at my record for the last three years and every Jan. 17 for the last three years, I have been in his office with pneumonia. This year not as bad as the other two, but all three times, my lungs were both filled with cloudiness, my oxygen sats were under 95, and I had a temp of over 103. Wow! I can get over the pneumonia; I can’t get over losing my grandsons.

How do women, especially grandmothers, deal with these kinds of traumas? I mean, how do you let go? I can’t, that’s why I am taking anti-anxieties, or I would be totally nuts.