What the fuck did I do to piss Karma off so bad??  Just once I'd like to sit down and write about how wonderful things are going.  I mean, lets take inventory: My daughter is hell bent on self-destruction, leaving me on pins and needles every single day of my life; my oldest son seems to be having one surgery after another and at some point I think the Navy will discharge him because he cannot possibly be meeting his job duties; I have been sick off and on for five years with a problem that can't be diagnosed, so the doctors agree it's time to cut my boob off; and now, the icing on the cake !
Through all of the trials and tribulations of life, I have always had one saving grace - my work. I have been blessed with some sort of business sense and for seventeen years I have had a track record of taking hotel properties over and making very good producers for  the owners.  Little did I know the very thing that made me one of the top paid hotel managers for limited service hotels would now set me in the cross hairs during one of the most financially trying times in history.
My current hotel is a very nice Hilton branded property.  When I took it over in February of 2009 it was just beginning to see the effects of what would be the horrible financial crunch of '09.  The rack rate (normally offered rate) was $179/night.  During the course of the next year, while mortgage companies failed, banks collapsed and people lost jobs by the hundreds of thousands, the hospitality industry saw drops of previously unheard of proportions.  Area rack rates began to plummet.  As other Hilton properties in the area dropped to crazy rates, I was proud that my hotel remained the leader of the competitive set.  Even though we have gone from $179 to $129, we remain #1 of 7 in the market.
 $50 difference in a room rate may not sound like much, but when you put it in perspective, taking into consideration that all group rates and other discounts float from that rate, you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.  Just because we remained #1 in the comp set doesn't mean that we didn't feel the economic impact of the crunch.  I had to lay off employees, cut hours, cut back on amenities and basically cut everything I could cut to stay afloat.  There are some costs that you simply cannot cut.  A hotel must have someone at the desk, they must have clean laundry and soap and shampoo for the guests.  When you cut everything that can possibly be cut and the hotel is running a high occupancy and you still are not flowing money to the bottom line, the hotel is not profitable.  This is the situation I have found myself in.  I have worked diligently to make sure everything that can be cut was.  Unfortunately, the only thing left to cut was salaried positions.  I proposed the elimination of two positions in my hotel that would save $66K a year.  This should put us back into a position of profitability. 
My boss requested a conference call yesterday to discuss my recommendations as he would present them to ownership.  What happened next blew me out of the water.  I'm still stunned.  He informed me that I had done a stellar job in keeping costs within line and controlling what could be controlled.  He also agreed that I should cut the position of my assistant.  He then informed me that I was the highest paid manager in our limited service portfolio and my salary was so out of line that he would be requesting a $25,000 cut for me.
WHAT THE FUCK?
Seventeen years of busting my ass to do a good job, building a reputation as a good prudent hotel manager, helping out with multiple properties while taking care of my own and feeling proud that someone acknowledged my hard work with a decent salary - now to be cut and belittled by a new fucker in our company that doesn't even know me??? Oh hell no.  I told him that I felt like my tenure, hard work and reputation warranted my salary and that I was not interested in taking a $25K a year pay cut.  He said that he would get with Human Resources Monday to see if he could proceed with the cut.
So, on top of every other lovely aspect of my life, now I am being rewarded for good work with a salary reduction. Nice.  Where are the razor blades? Seriously, I need to slit my wrists now.

Changes in Lattitude, Changes in Attitude

I had a counseling session with Shelby yesterday at her treatment center.  I have to say that I am the most encouraged that I have ever been since this ordeal started.  I have a good feeling about the facility, her doctor, nurse, therapist and progress.  Although addicts are adept at illusion, they are used to making us see what they want us to see, I did get a sense of genuine determination on her part to be honest this time and try to recover.
She has developed a trust in her counselor.  "Ms. Sherrie" is a licensed mental health therapist and addiction specialist that could be in private practice, and my guess is that she would make a ton of dough, but she chooses to work in the center for state pay and help those that really need it. She lost her arm in an automobile accident 20+ years ago when she was an active addict.  She told us that she had been high for three days and was driving to the beach when she side-swiped a van with her arm out of the window.  She wears a prosthetic arm and it takes a little getting used to, but otherwise she is a very small, pretty woman.  She is, no doubt, a god-send for my daughter.  I sat and watched them yesterday and the way they interacted was mesmerizing.  She is so patient and insightful with Shelby and Shelby responds to it like a flower in spring sunlight. That is to say "she blossoms".
Sherrie constantly tells her how brave she is and how awesome she is.  I need to do that more often (mental note to self) because I could see on her face how happy it makes her.

Shelby's boyfriend signed himself into detox at the same time that Shelby was in detox.  He was there for 5 days and when he got out his mother bought him a bus ticket to North Carolina to stay with his father.  At the time that he left their plan was for Shelby to make it through her court ordered stay in rehab and then she would take a bus up to him.  They were sure they could start fresh and clean there.  Despite my trying to rationalize the real picture to her, you can't really reason with an addict.  This was going to take place no matter what.
Yesterday she revealed in her session that she was realizing that their relationship could never work.  She said that when she talked to him on the phone he told her that he was drinking and smoking weed and she knows that she can't be around it.  He also told her that he wanted her to "work on herself and let him work on himself" for a while.  Although that hurt her feelings (she said "it makes me sad that he is kinda dumping me") I am so happy with this turn of events I could shout it from the rooftop!  Finally she can focus on her recovery and becoming a clean sober person.

When It Rains It Pours

I suppose I've been so fixated on my daughter that I have neglected to talk about all of the other things going on in my life.  I don't know what I've done to be punished so badly by karma, but man it must have been something horrible.
I have had a re-occurring staph infection in my left breast for the last 5 years.  It started with a breast implant that got infected and had to be removed. No one knows how or why but this infection comes back every 4 - 6 months and ranges from just being a hard, painful knot, to my breast swelling to the size of a football, being bright red and hot, and fever consuming me to the point of delusion.  I've been hospitalized 3 times over these infections and at one point had to have a pic line inserted into my heart and give myself IV antibiotics for 10 days.
After years if antibiotics, series of test by an infectious disease doctor and uncountable mammograms, xrays and sonograms, my doctor has decided it's time to just do a total mastectomy.  I'm both sad and excited at this prospect.  I would be so happy to be infection free, but the dark shadow over me keeps saying "what if it doesn't solve the problem? What if you go through this and STILL have infection or you die during surgery?"
I will have it done. Good or bad, I am sick of being sick.

Our Nightmare Continues

Sometimes I wonder if I am ever going to get back any assimilation of a life. I spend my days sad and worrying about my daughter. I cry at the drop of a hat. I find myself short with everyone and usually just feel like laying in bed rather than participating in anything that would require any effort or energy.

I got the call on January 19,2011 at 6:30 am. Shelby was in the back of an ambulance, on her way to Florida Hospital Downtown, having seizure after seizure and convulsing to the point of having to be restrained. Her boyfriend found her on the kitchen floor of his mother's house.

I hung up the phone and just felt numb. I didn't even cry. I don't know how to explain the calmness that engulfed me except to say I felt like someone was telling me something I already knew. I called my husband and told him to come home. He asked what was wrong and I couldn't bring myself to say it, so I just said "You just need to get home". He showed up about 10 minutes later and I calmly looked at him and said "you need to take me to the hospital, I think Shelby is dead".

When I arrived at the hospital she was sitting up in the bed and a nurse was attempting to start an IV. That is when it hit me that I had not seen Shelby's arms in months. She always had long sleeves or a jacket on. When I saw her I almost dropped to the floor. If she weighed 90 pounds I would have been surprised. Her eyes were set so far back in her head she looked like she was wearing a mask, and her arms, oh my god, her arms. She had literally hundreds of needle marks up and down both arms on both sides, obvious scars and fresh scabs.

When she saw me looking at her she became agitated and started screaming "get her out of here". The nurses banished me to the waiting room and all I could do was sit there and cry.

She made it obvious to everyone that she did not want me there and they would not let me close to her room, so I left and went home. I called the hospital to try and talk to someone about helping me find options to save her from herself. That's when they told me that when they went back to her room to take her for a CAT scan, she was gone.

I had no idea what to do.

Over the course of the next few days I researched and found out what I needed to do to have her "Marchman Acted". That is a Florida specific law that deals with individuals that are too drug impaired to make rational decisions for themselves and who, without intervention, would surely do harm to themselves or others. It is a lot of leg work and not easy to do, but anyone who knows me knows that when I get my mind set on something I don't give up too easily.

I went to the lock-down drug intake detox facility that the Orange County jail uses to begin the process. I had to fill out 5 pages of affidavit explaining why I thought my daughter was incapable of taking care of herself, writing down every detail of what had become our life over the last year. I was interviewed and discouraged, yes discouraged from filing it because, according to the officials there, the judge usually just orders out-patient treatment because there is a four month wait for beds in state funded facilities. That left me mad and more determined than ever to make my tax dollars work for me. The way I see it, I've paid way more taxes than at least 60% of my neighbors and never asked the government to spend one penny on me and now I needed help and by-god they WERE going to help me save my daughter's life.

After I got the proper signatures there I had to to the courthouse. I filed the papers and had to wait for them to go before a judge. That was a four hour process in it's self. There was no guarantee that the judge would even sign them, but I knew in my heart when he read what a nightmare we were living he would sign them, so I waited. He did finally sign them and I had to take the signed papers to the sheriff's office and pay them $40 to execute the order to pick her up. I know they must see a lot of shit every day in a police department as big as Orange County, Florida, but they really could use a brush up sensitivity course there. I was told that even though I paid them $40, I had to find my daughter, call them and hold her there until they could get there to get her. Ok, whatever. I did find her at her boyfriend's house and just so luckily found an Officer sitting on the side of the road enjoying his day. I gave him the papers and told him where she was and he went and got her. I am so thankful I did not have to witness that. It must have been horrible.

It was 24 hours later that I found out she was still in the intake center and not in detox. I don't know why it would take that long to process someone but I guess that the PD treats Marchman Acts like common criminals. I was furious. I knew how bad her addiction was and how much pain she must have been in from beginning to withdraw. They assured me that she would be in the detox center within the hour.

I finally reached someone at detox that confirmed she was there, had seen a doctor and was medicated and sleeping. I slept for the first time in days.
The next few days were torturing.  I got very little information, as she is considered an adult by the legal system, but being the petitioner to have her committed allowed me just a little more leverage.
Normal detox takes 5 -7 days and then the addict is evaluated as to whether or not they can be trusted to be released and show up for the court hearing for involuntary placement or not.  The communication was not very reassuring from the center.  Her counselor believed she needed extensive treatment but could not find a state funded bed for her.  I pleaded and begged for her help.  She must have taken a little pity on me because she agreed to keep her at the detox center until we could get the court hearing.
Her hearing was 11 days later, and by some small miracle, the day before her hearing a bed opened at a women's facility in Seminole County.  I started to think maybe there is a god.
The hearing was nerve racking, but again I knew in my heart that the judge would see with his own eyes how bad things were and do the right thing.  He did.  He ordered her into involuntary rehab for 60 days, which is the maximum allowed by law.
She was transferred that afternoon and I took her a suitcase with all of her needed items for her stay.  The facility was very nice and close to my work.  She looked frail, sick and mentally tortured.  I hugged her as much as I could and left feeling so empty and scared.  She literally had no will to live.
So that's where we are.  I'm hoping for a miracle.  That's all I can do.  Maybe just maybe she will have an epiphany and realize that she is loved and can have the entire world at her feet.  I swear with god as my witness I will not give up.