Finals Week over. The last days in Las Crucifixion [ Cruces] New Mexico......then it's off to that New York State........of Mind-part III

Nothing against those African-Americans [ wish I could say the same for inbred redneck white trash] because, here in sports-saturated America where Little League daddies and lacrosse mommies raise their scheduled children to be competent little jockstraps, for many this is the only way one can pay for college, those not born into affluent families and raised in either Newtown or Greenwich, Connecticut. 

Anyway, back to me, myself, and I. The only three people I seem to be able to count on in life. And so, having the surgery and what Dr. Gilliam said apparently gave me the excuse I needed to stay in student housing beyond the move-out deadline; or did it? Stopping into NMSU Housing to talk with my friend, Jen M, a woman who goes beyond her job description to help the student, in particular those who are non-traditional students and live in what is called " Family Housing", or South Campus Housing which is where Cervantes Village is located, I learned that one must email the assistant director of housing, Ms. Aragon. Here's where things got rather difficult as you shall see. 

 Subject: Medical emergency- need to extend stay in student housing until May 25. Can provide documentation and/or phone contacts of doctors

 

Dear Ms. Aragon, 

 

I am writing to you to request an extended stay in my current student housing unit, H-19 at 200 Cervantes Vlg. After discovering a painful lump under my left arm on Monday 4/29, I went to the urgent care on Walton Blvd. who in turn informed me that I need go straight to the emergency room; Memorial Medical Center being the hospital they recommended. Upon being seen by the ER doctor on call, after draining the wound which was rather large, the hospital admitted me, at which time he referred me to see the surgeon the very next day. I had the surgery on Thursday May 1st and was discharged last Saturday; the surgeon's orders calling for a visiting nurse and required daily bathing/change of dressing twice daily. This for a period of three weeks from Sat. 5/3/14, during which time I need follow the home health care nurse's directions and report for check ups with Dr. Gilliam- General Surgeon.

 

I am enclosing the contact numbers for all doctors. 

 

Lance Whitehair, Resident MD at Memorial Medical Center​. Office: 575-521-XXXX Fax: 575-521-XXXX. 

 

Dr. Gilliam-Surgeon at General Surgery Associates, Office: 575-556-XXXX Fax: 575-556-XXXX 

 

Cheryl Oropal

Her reply? 

Hello Cheryl,

 

I will discuss your request with my supervisor. Are you planning on attending in the fall?

 

 

Candace Aragon

Associate Director

Housing & Campus Life

New Mexico State University

My reply was this. 

Hi, 

Thanks for looking into that for me, hope that the doctor's phone contacts will help, Dr. Gilliam-Surgeon would be the best to talk with as he gave the orders for my visiting nurse and about keeping the area clean and showering at least once daily[ he preferred twice, but....]. That and to lift stuff with that dressing I'm wearing As for attending NMSU-Dona Ana in the fall, I am planning to transfer to the State University of New York's Potsdam College. Originally I was accepted for spring 2014 semester at SUNY Potsdam but had deferred until fall 2014, figuring that moving in mid-winter would have been rough at best.

The truth, as I already deferred going to SUNY Potsdam until the fall of 2014 from spring semester, or January. To which the next reply would really tell me that one cannot be nice to an ARROGANT, SNIPPY " PROFESSIONAL" BITCH. Understanding of my situation? HELL NO!!!! Even though I never used, nor registered with Campus Health because students at fucking Dona Ana Mexicana Community College have to pay extra for all medical services and I have an off campus provider who also does my HRT, plus Medicare and Medicaid HMO which pays for it; I had to go to Campus Health to get their opinion before this fucking pill-box, Ms. Aragon, would approve of an extended stay. WHAT A PAIN IN THE GODDAMN ASS!!! 

And so, how do you spell " Bitch" in Ebonics? B-E-Y-O-T-C-H. 

   Hello Cheryl,

 

We don’t contact doctors and we don’t accept documentation from doctors. Every case is person by person. I will be in contact.

 

Thank you,

 

 

Candace Aragon

Associate Director

Housing & Campus Life

New Mexico State University

Definitely the by the book snippy professional with an axe to grind and then some. The finale? So far anyway..........

Hello Cheryl,

 

You will need to take your medical documentation to the Health Center and have them review the documentation and have them email me. Without this information you will not be allowed an extended stay.

 

Thank you,

 

 

Candace Aragon

Associate Director

Housing & Campus Life

New Mexico State University

And so, that I did and it almost cost me the $35 fee to see the doctor at Campus Health; however they ended up waiving the fee, but only approved my extended stay until Monday May 12, the day that they learned I shall see the surgeon, Dr. Gilliam. Calling his office, General Surgery Associates the same day from housing where I later stopped to drop off the extended stay request I got at Campus Health, despite Ms. Aragon [ should be " Ms. Arrogant"] wanting the doctor to email her, I was told that Dr. Gilliam does not send emails. He could Fax something over, however, after my check up stating as to how many days more he needs me to follow the shower and bandage change regimen. 

Which will, more likely than not, be for the next two weeks until either Saturday May 24 or Sunday the 25th; leaving me plenty of time to pack the fucking car slowly. Once that's done, I shall stay long enough for those " Up to 67 days early" to arrive, the earliest I can renew the car registration being Sunday May 25. A Day when New Mexico MVD will be closed for the long Memorial Day Weekend, and so Tuesday the 27th shall be the day. 

And then I am off, sometime that week and probably by May 30th. Off to a state where I have been before and was born, New York-the Empire State, but a part of that state I maybe passed through back when I was still " It".  In 1992 when I was still living with both parents in Orlando, Florida and took off to visit a friend I knew who moved back to his hometown of Buffalo, NY, after which time I drove the back highways across beautiful New York State and, as I remember, was on US Route 11 and passed through Potsdam, New York on my way toward Malone and SR-22. Sleeping on a back road amidst the Adirondack Mountains I still remember passing by the Ausable River Gorge. 

New Mexico may be the so-called " Land of Enchantment" and does have some interesting geographical features to it, Angel Fire Mountain in the north and Sitting Bull Falls National Recreation Area near Carlsbad being two of those, and yes, Carlsbad Caverns National Park with its miles of underground caverns and bats flying out of the belfry [ cave] every summer evening. However, for the most part it is just a desert, the only exceptions being in the mountainous regions of the state. 

By comparison, New York State is a green, lush paradise filled with gorges, waterfalls everywhere. By comparison, its mountains are not quite as high and the landscape not as wide open; cows do not graze free-range in New York like they do here in the West. New York's winters are much colder than anything Las Cruces will ever see; for that reason alone, people are moving into Las Cruces in droves. Unaware that there's only so much water in a region that gets, on average, just 10.5 inches of precipitation annually, on the East Mesa houses are popping up like zits upon the average teenager's face; each home built closer than anything Baldwin, New York on Long Island has ever seen. Las Cruces, New Mexico. Another Orlando, Florida with even fewer trees, much lower humidity but hotter in summer. A planned city with plenty of retail and fast food shitboxes for all the modern day idiots to shop and eat burgers at, we even have a Chuck E. Cheese replica called Peter Piper Pizza making the most terrible pizza to be found anywhere! A place where all the yuppie and Mexicana mommies and daddies can take their little fucking ninos' to play " safely" in " Such a dangerous world for children to play unsupervised in", or so says Fox News. 

And so I shall be off. Sunshine never brightened my fucking life and sunshine-loving fitness-freak people simply make me even more depressed. That was true in Orlando and still is here in Las Crucifixion, another mostly conservative boomtown that still lacks a decent abortion clinic; yet contains two " Abortion alternative organizations" ready to shove a gooey dose of " Liquid Jesus" up your vagina should you be a pregnant woman. All of which shall be accompanied by an extra heavy dose of Biblical fairy tales, of course. Fairy tales which come in both SPANISH and ENGLISH.   

Finals Week over. The last days in Las Crucifixion [ Cruces] New Mexico......then it's off to that New York State........of Mind-part II

The doctor at the Urgent Care clinic on Walton saw me and told me to go straight to the hospital, asking me if I knew where the hospital was. Explaining to her that I've passed by both hospitals in Las Cruces but didn't really know which was best, she told me " Memorial Health Center. It's on South Telshor at University". That said, immediately I drove myself down to Memorial Health and checked into the emergency room. The first ER doctor having drained that awfully painful boil,which literally smelled up the entire room with a stench similar to septic tank effluent leaching through the lawn behind someone's house, he called for a second opinion from the next doctor who just came on call. Dr. Wilson. A younger doctor sporting a well-trimmed beard with a hippie-type look who seconded his opinion that the surgeon, Dr. Gilliam, needed to take a look and decide if surgery was needed. 

I was then admitted into the Intensive Care Unit for observation; the next day I was seen by Dr. Gilliam-General Surgeon who told me that surgery was the best route to take in my case. I had severe cellulitis. Something which plagued my mother several times since she was in her mid-50s and we lived in Newtown, CT. Back when Mom worked at Fairfield Hills State Hospital as a bookkeeper and she first broke out with boils similar to what I had all over her legs and arms. Anyway, so I underwent the surgery and was later discharged from Memorial Health Center. Told by the surgeon, Dr. Gilliam, that, for the next three weeks, I needed to shower and change the dressing at least once, if not twice daily. 

Then I explained my expected predicament. That I lived in campus housing and they expected us students not going to summer classes to move out on May 11, 2014; the day after Finals Week commenced. That I was going to end up homeless and living in my Ford Escape SUV and/or tent and would have to, once again, go several days without showering; because I am on Social Security Disability and cannot afford to pay rent. Something the student loans have been paying for here at school; loans which I may eventually default upon should those future novels never really sell. Which is, by the way, what has happened so far to my friend back in Connecticut, James K. Buchanan: Publisher of The Lonely Hill; The Woolridge Tale, and his latest book titled The Ghost of Scheherazade. [ He's working on either some short stories or a fourth book as we speak.] 

And so, that he could not help me with. However, explaining that I really didn't have any close friends to help me with changing my bandages every day and that I could never depend on my fucking 19 year old suitemate with whom I shared a bathroom since last semester when she actually moved in from Garcia Hall [ dorms]. A woman who obviously hated my fucking guts but didn't have the fucking cujones' to say it. And so, I was told that I could get Memorial Home Health Care. This after first being told that that might not have been an option being that I had transportation, but later being told that Medicare, which I have, would cover it fully. They would send home health care aids for as  long as Dr. Gilliam requested; however, I would need to have someplace to live during those three weeks. [ Two weeks remaining from today, Saturday May 10. A day better known on the NMSU Campus as " Move-out day".] 

By the way, this fucking scumbag university [ including its sorry ass " branch" called Dona Ana Community College], one that U.S. News and World Reports Magazine recently called a " Top Tier University", does not even give students a few days to regroup after Finals Week commences!!!! But should that not be expected from a school that, annually, pisses away $4,200,000 of ACADEMIC FUNDING on their stupid sports programs, the failing American Football team in particular? Football, after all, is great for luring " diversity" to campuses throughout the United States; meaning that it encourages "minorities" to apply for athletics scholarships, along with redneck white trash conceived when its human mother had sex with its uncle in the trailer park or barn. After all, what would NMSU do without " diversity", meaning a bunch of African-American [and Caucasian] male Neanderthals whose testicles and penises probably exceed the actual sizes of their brains? Hey, it provides "family-friendly" entertainment for both redneck rancher and Mexican-American immigrant alike.         

Finals Week over. The last days in Las Crucifixion [ Cruces] New Mexico......then it's off to that New York State........of Mind

School having officially ended yesterday[ May 9, 2014] at New Mexico State University and its Dona Ana Community College Branch [ where I was for the past five semesters], technically I am supposed to be Homeless and Hopeless in the [ So-called] Land of Opportunity called America. The registered ISBN title for what will be, now, my third novel from those 19 notebook-sized journals; plus childhood and teenage memories growing up [ but never really maturing in the traditional sense-Erikson's Psychosocial Theories] in Baldwin, New York and Newtown, Connecticut. A few weeks ago, I assumed that I'd be living in the car once again. Staying here in Las Cruces, New Mexico until the end of May/early June when I can get the Ford Escape XLT registration renewed. Avoiding the hassles of trying to register it in New York where I don't even have an address yet, but will soon be starting school at the State University of New York's Potsdam College come late August. 

Yeah you heard that right. I'll soon be going from a climate where I've seen fewer than 25 rainy days in the since settling into my former rental cottage at 2215-1/2 South Solano Drive in late October 2011; to one where it rains frequently throughout the warmer season, and yes, snows rather often in winter. Four-foot long icicles hanging from the many rooftops throughout rural Potsdam Village in New York's North State from Thanksgiving through late March or early April, it's the stuff those Santa Claus cartoons on TV feature every Holiday Season in America. Offering the children a pleasant alternative to the bitter bullshit and metaphorical lies associated with that other fantasy character Christians call "Jesus Christ". Santa, after all, makes the otherwise lame holiday called "Christ-mas" [ the Pagan Holiday, Yule, which the Christo-Catholics stole and later moved three days ahead on the Gregorian Calendar from Dec. 21st to the 25th] palatable to children who really couldn't care less about " sin" and if some ancient Jewish menace to Rome supposedly died for the " sins" they shall commit throughout their long lives. 

I will miss a few of the friends I have made at NMSU. [ none at Dona Ana, however. A fucking career-oriented community college populated mostly by awfully conservative Mexican-Americans and New Mexico rednecks hailing from both beef ranch and pecan field alike.] In particular, Tori C. Kathryn P, Chris L, and a few others. Many of who will be graduating in about a year or two from NMSU. Something that I was getting closer to at NMSU-Dona Ana Branch with 48 credits; upon enrollment, they accepted 29 credits from all my other attempts at college over the past thirty fucked up years of my life as " It" Oropal-the pathetic loser in life.

And so a new town and new place. Las Cruces never having become a place that even felt close to anything I could call " home" within two weeks after moving into that fucking cottage owned by my former landlord, Roz. A Catholic school teacher who had three daughters and lived in their new house on La Purisima in Las Cruces fancy-schmancy-ish East Mesa and was only keeping the old property for her oldest daughter to eventually live in. Then again, that seems to be something I've often said, and felt about every other place I have lived; Baldwin, Long Island, NY; Newtown, CT; Orlando, FL; Southbury, CT; and every place I briefly settled down in over the two years I spent homeless and traveling across this socially-challenged, economically-unjust fuck-hole called the United States of America. I cannot say that I have ever felt a part of any outside entity. My expression I use for town, city, or other domicile, seeing them all from the perspective of being " On the outside looking in". A line from a song by Longmeadow, Massachusetts' Band Stain'D, by the way. 

After all, stemming from what I learned about life as the misfit child and teenager in both Baldwin, NY and [ especially] Newtown, CT, I came to this generalization about everyplace in America. You're either one of the chosen many; or you're one of the alienated few. I've always seen being the " Team player" as just a crock of bullshit, probably because I've always been blackballed by every group of "team players" in every place I've ever been. In this place, I must admit my attitude stems from getting hollered at several times a week on S. Solano Dr. where I first lived at in that small cottage. That and an LGBT community that was somewhat accepting of me at first, but later shunned me, for the most part because I didn't have that " Las Cruces Attitude". 

I haven't any problem admitting that I am hardly the optimistic type, unlike many I've met here in this pathetic desert dust bowl full of sunshine and bullshit. In fact I see many optimistic people as fucking phonies and always have, particularly those who say we need to " love our opponents" and not categorize people by their religion, beliefs, financial class, etc. Having went to high school at Newtown High in Sandy Hook, Connecticut from September of 1977 through June of 1980 [ when I unofficially "dropped out" and went on homebound schooling because I was never going to pass physical education], I soon learned that everyone had their place. Everyone fit into their own clique, whether you were one of the jockstraps and preppy-jock cheerleader perfume cunts who were " Kings" and "Queens" of the school; or you were one of the " Burnouts" or " Stoners" whose primary motivation for attending school was to smoke pot and stay stoned all day long. Not giving a shit whether you graduated or did not. 

Nevertheless, this attitude has stayed with me throughout my so-called "adulthood". A time when most Generation Y's have since moved on to jobbie-land and career-dale and had children of their own. I've never been one to volunteer for anything unless the cause was of benefit to me in some way. I'm not one of those pathetic " Christian" phonies who only serve others because some outdated, fairy tale " guidebook for living" called the Bible tells them they must do so to satisfy the requirements of what some long dead " Man-God" creature told them to do. Nor am I one of these " Community types" who feel a need to give back to whatever piece of shit they reside in. Not that I did not try to be one of them; I did for ten fucking years every fucking Sunday morning when I went to Mattituck Unitarian-Universalist Society in Woodbury, CT. Surrounded by so-called " liberals" who, while being friendly toward me in general, often gossipped behind my back. Saying how I should have been on psychiatric medication and how I never knew how to " Act appropriately". Fuck them. More on this in my former blog, The Diary of Cheryl Lynne Oropal. 

Anyway, how does this relate to Las Cruces. A place which actually has a Facebook page titled Whatever Forever Las Cruces dedicated to all the excitement that goes on here in Las Cruces, New Mexico. What will I miss? The many rainless days full of sunshine, roughly 350 days' worth, annually, that supposedly make Dona Ana County, NM the " Outdoor recreation paradise". A place which, for me, has essentially choked my right lung with dust parasites and caused COPD,  or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Turning me from once-active hiker who loved the outdoors back in Connecticut throughout all four seasons; to a lazy and fat person for whom this " Outdoor recreation paradise" has been everything but a paradise. I fail to see the beauty in an arroyo, or " Dry brook" as I call them and still have yet to see what that actual spring looks like at the end of Dripping Springs Trail in the Bureau of Land Management area looks like; locals claim it actually flows during the summer Monsoon, or thunderstorm season. I haven't seen a babbling brook since first arriving in New Mexico and spending some quality time as a homeless bitch and deserter of a Brooklyn homeless shelter back in New York City, crossing the Gila River while hiking in the Gila National Forest [ 140 miles away from lame Las Cruces]. In fact I've gained nearly 60 pounds, going from about 268 when first coming to NM, to about 312 as of yesterday. 

The reason that I'm still here on campus, past the May 10th move out date, is this. On Sunday April 27, that boil under my left arm recurred. This after 29 years; back in 1985 I had a huge and painful boil that required draining by a doctor at an Orlando, FL urgent care clinic called Centra-Care on West Oak Ridge Rd. The lumpy skin still there and in dormancy all those years [ long before transition as transgender woman], last year my nurse practitioner [ like a doctor doing family practice] discovered that very same lump and was worried it might have been breast cancer. Suffering through Monday as the boil grew to the size of an orange, I waited until Tuesday to call the Presbyterian Health Centennial Care Plan's Nurseline, the Medicaid-Managed Care Plan I got because I'm on both Medicaid and SNAP Benefits under the Affordable Healthcare Act signed by President Obama. A president many of these self-sufficient Christo-fascist douchebag Republicans love to accuse of destroying the American Work Ethic of self-sufficiency touting the free-market and faith-based initiatives as the answer to poverty; and those trickle down economic principles which were a failure to most Americans. 

Anyway, I ended up taking that nurses' advice and going to the Urgent Care on Walton Blvd. here in Las Cruces.