The sun ignites the sky 
 for days on end
Birds begging her to hide 
 with their silence 

The sounds of summer 
 stifled by fire 
The sound of my voice 
 stifled by desire 

Blood, hot like the sun 
 when willows won't bend
And the words in my head 
 scream with violence

...The Sounds of Silence

by Deannalynn Arzola 

The Bond

The Bond

Here’s the thing about motherhood that nobody ever really tells anyone; carrying a baby inside your belly for nine months, let’s just say you already fell in love with the creature, when the creature comes out of you, you can’t even believe that you just created life. You look at that baby and you see yourself in her and you see all of the pain that you had before go away because looking at her face you’re filled with the kind of hope you’ve never had before . You almost don’t want them to cut that umbilical cord because being attached to your daughter or your son is the most amazing thing you’ve ever felt and I remember when they cut my umbilical  cord I could feel the separation, I could feel the pain of breaking a bond that’s been there so inherently inside of me. And I will tell you the same thing that I have told my friends and family for 31 years, it doesn’t matter how old she gets, I am bonded to her internally because I carried her inside of me and I watched in the mirror as she slipped out of me, and I’ll tell you, as I’ve said before, when you have a daughter you spend your life teaching her how to grow up, become a wife, and leave you. I knew from the very beginning that my daughter was never really mine, that I was grooming her for her husband and her children and I hate her because she’s horrible to me and as I write this, I cry because even 31 1/2 years later from the day she was born, that bond is still there. 

My grandmother was adopted and her adoptive mother hated her because my grandmother was born to my great-grandfather‘s mistress. I feel like the mistress never let my grandma go . There was a pull for 85 years or whenever my grandmother’s biological mother passed away but even after that she probably took that bond into the ether with her because that’s how strong it is for a mother and that’s why I hate adoption. I’m sorry to all the people that are adopted and all the people who wish to adopt; you say it’s a beautiful thing, “I want to child and I couldn’t have one and I’m so blessed and thankful to the biological mother for giving her baby to me”. Let me tell you, a mother never gives her baby away. She may place that baby in another woman’s arms but she doesn’t stop loving that baby. The same things that existed for me (carrying my daughter, cutting the umbilical cord), they exist for all biological mothers and if you think that the bond is broken between a mother and her child just because she chooses to adopt out her kid, you’re wrong. I know mothers who suffer to this day because they miss their children, I see it on TV and I see it in real life and I know my beloved went looking for his biological mother, when he found her, he was disappointed, but that’s not even the point, the point is the bond between him and his mother still exists ,even though he has the most amazing adoptive parents you could ever know. They raised him up well, they graduated him from high school and college and he still has a wonderful relationship with them 35 years after being adopted but at twenty-something, he went looking for her and I guarantee there is not one day that woman has not thought about him so, beloved, if you’re reading this, she loves you and that’s what’s so complicated about your relationship with her. That bond never goes away. I know this because my mother died when I was nine, and I still have a relationship with her. I do! I talk to her, I pray to her, I still have a bond with my mother 43 years post suicide. And then my grandma raised me after that and I saw how it affected her, being adopted, there was a lie in my family and that my grandmother and her parents were involved in a fiery car crash in Flour Bluff, Texas and parents died in it and she was adopted by my great-granddaddy Reed  and his wife, but when my grandma was 80 or so, she told me the real story and the way that she talked about the mistress was with attachment of some sort after all those years. I feel like the mistress cursed her and my family and all the kids that she would have because her boyfriend took her away from her and raised her with his wife. It was not a pretty picture for my grandmother and it was not a pretty picture for her children because my father is one of them and he is a narcissist. 

Apparently, what I seek is understanding how we, as women are supposed to go on when the bond has been attempted to be broken. My daughter  has been running away from me for a long time, so this post isn’t about how to be a mother or being a mother- it’s about motherhood and what that means and motherhood begins at conception and I’m no Christian, I believe in the right to choose and believe me, I am very pro-choice because there are women that get pregnant and can’t keep their baby and I’ve had an abortion and I know it’s hard to go on wondering for the rest of your life what could’ve been but that is nothing compared to actually giving your child away. And even though I am not a mother who gave her child up for adoption, the bond still, eventually I guess, becomes broken. I don’t know if it did for her, but I don’t want to be abused by my daughter anymore. For the last three years I’ve been talking to my therapist about how to break this bond I have with my daughter because she is killing me. I’m going to go ahead and be super honest here and say that I did try to commit suicide twice in my life, and both of those times are ancillary to my daughter attempting to extricate me from her life. That was such a hard thing for me to deal with that I literally tried to kill myself twice and the first time I was really good at it, I had the right cocktail and I was on life support for four days and in the hospital for another six trying to recover from the drugs I had taken. The second time I wasn’t so lucky with narcotics so I failed miserably and woke up a couple days later in my motel room and immediately checked myself into a mental health hospital and began therapy and I knew right then that it was my relationship that I had with my daughter that was killing me so I’ve been trying to break that bond for three years. Yet as I sit here and write this, I am so saddened by the fact that I’m about to extricate her from my life. I have no choice; that relationship is toxic so now I sit here like a mother who has to give up a child even though my daughter is 31. My point is, that bond is never, ever broken, and that is my point. 

So what are we as mothers to do? I’ve walked away from so many people in my life including my father of 52 years because I’ve just been beaten up by narcissism and abuse and belittling and lack of love my whole life, my daughter acts a lot like my father but he’s worse because he did the same thing to my sister.  My sister and I are very different in that way; she’s a Sagittarius and she will keep trying. She’s almost a Scorpio, so she will forever try to have a relationship with our father. Me, I won’t and that wasn’t easy cause I love him but the relationship is toxic. My father is toxic until I had to break the bond in that relationship but I have to say, doing so is much easier than letting go of my mother. I’m very spiritual and sometimes my friends and I believe that I have not allowed her to cross over because I still need her with me at 51 years old. So I don’t know how to let go of my daughter. How do we live with the subsequent of a broken bond that is maternal, eternal and unbreakable…

by Deannalynn Arzola

“If You Only Could Only See” by Tonic

If You Could Only See...

If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says

When she says she loves me
Well you got your reasons
And you got your lies
And you got your manipulations
They cut me down to size
Sayin' you love but you don't
You give your love but you won't
If you could only see the way she loves me

Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says

When she says she loves me
Seems the road less traveled
Show's happiness unraveled
And you got to take a little dirt

To keep what you love
That's what you gotta do
Sayin' you love but you don't
You give your love but you won't
You're stretching out your arms to something that's just not there

Sayin' you love where you stand
Give your heart when you can
If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me

Sayin' you love but you don't
You give your love but you won't
Sayin' you love where you stand
Give your heart when you can

If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about or love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me

Songwriters: Emerson Hart

If You Could Only See lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

https://youtu.be/Sfg6-4mBs6Y

*sometimes a song is so self-evident, one must post it on their blog and share it. 

A Protection Spell

It does not require a sword only Tarot and candles. You might want to burn some herbs or incense associated with justice while doing this spell. Also a simple yet incredibly powerful protection spell is done with a small or medium sized mirror you can hold in your hands.

While holding the mirror facing outwards in other words not showing your reflection but turned to reflect out, turn in a counter clockwise circle to banish while saying:

Circle of reflection, Circle of protection,

May the sender of all harm, Feel the power of this charm.

This does not send any negative energy at the sender hence eliminating the cause and effect portion of negativity adding to negativity but it reflects back anything being directed at you. So it bounces off you instead of affecting you.

Circle three times full round chanting this or until you feel it is complete, then make a closing statement such as:

“So Mote Be It.”

the veil



reach out your hand, don't be afraid
the veil before you will probably fade
you can get used to empty hands and empty arms
and being swayed and shiny charms

go ahead, reach for the other side
grab it while you can, before it hides
you can get used to the dormant infinity
and you can believe in eternal divinity

run to the vieil, grab the face looking back at you
what the hell does it see, all the hell that you do
you can get used to the hate and the shame
and you can easily learn how to play the game

reach out your hand, don't be afraid
the veil before you will probably fade
you get to used to the empty hands and empty arms
goddamned illusion doesn't keep you warm





by deannalynn arzola

The Other Side of the Opioid Epidemic

Just about a year ago today, I had my hip replaced. I was born with hip dysplasia, and as I got older, my hip began to give me greater and greater grief. I finally, at almost fifty-one broke down and agreed to the operation. My doctor, Dr. Craig Tingy is apparently one of the best orthopedic surgeons in Las Vegas; he briefly went over the recovery and ramifications of having total hip arthroplasty. I should be fully recovered after about six weeks. Awesome! I have a beautiful 120 pound lab and live in a condo, so a lengthy down time was not an option. Dr. Tingy failed to tell me, however that eighteen out of every one hundred hip replacements need to be revised, according to a recent study. There are many factors involved, however, my surgical experience and subsequent revision and horror story is a result of good old fashioned human error. Dr. Tingy hammered the prosthetic into my femur and fractured it, requiring a second surgery. The pain ancillary to a fractured femur is something I can hardly describe. The femur is the strongest and most utilized bone in the body; putting pressure on a fractured one is literally impossible. After the second surgery, which followed the first one by seventeen days, I was sent home on a walker. This was a bad decision, as my leg gave out, causing a fall, resulting in a dislocation of the hip and a broken trochanter. A third surgery was obviously necessary. During the third surgery, I contracted a staph infection, resulting in a pic line to administer IV antibiotics for six weeks. Needless to say, the recovery was arduous!

I was prescribed a plethora of opioid pain medication, and I mean a plethora. I'm gonna guess that I took a thousand pills from November 1, 2016 to April 1, 2017, all of which is included in a DEA file on me. Let me just just interject, the amount of pills is clearly available to the eyes of pharmacists, doctors, law enforcement and the United States Government, however, what the doctors and the hospital did to me that required me to consume such a mass quantity of narcotics is not; under HIPPA, THAT information is private, and while I will gladly release it, no one really cares to see it, as it is antithetically concise to the medication record, which simply lists the narcotic pain medication a patient has received. During March and April, I worked with my doctors to decrease the amount of pain medication I was taking; this was by my choice. It was never suggested to me by my orthopedic, primary or pain management doctors, nor was it advised by my pharmacy. By May of this year, I was narcotic-free and walking my dog further and further. Over the summer, I swam for strength training, participated in physical therapy and began my new life with my new hip.

And then...

In September, I began to experience pain in my femur, so I saw my primary doctor who thought perhaps I might be overdoing it a bit, and I had been pushing myself, walking a mile or two, here and there, so she prescribed me a low dose of pain medication called Tylenol 4. My pain continued to get worse. We increased  the medication to Vicodin, however, the pain increased, radiating down the back of my leg. At this point, my doctor ordered an X-ray, which indicated a CT was necessary. While waiting for my imaging appointment, the pain exponentialized to the point that I was hardly able to walk my dog this weekend. This morning, I went to the ER, which is located right next door to my doctor's office. I was hoping to get the CT done there and be treated for the pain that was now burning all through my my hip. The ER doctor attempted to give me a drug called Toradol. I am allergic. I told the nurse and she confirmed that this was in fact in my chart. I confronted the doctor. He proceeded to give me a history lesson in the adverse effects of opioid medication; I will paraphrase.

"Mrs. Arzola, the pain medicine your doctor gave you is making your pain worse. It only takes one dose to completely change your brain chemistry. Narcotic painkillers kill more people than they help". I asked him directly, "Do you think I'm here seeking drugs?" "Yes, I do", he replied. I promptly removed my IV and thew it in his face and if I do say so myself, it was one of my finest moments. I then left the hospital and went next door to let my doctor's office know what just happened and went home. My leg is on fire as I sit here writing this article and I have absolutely no control over what has happened to me regarding my hip replacement and the subsequent nightmare that has followed. I don't really know what my next move is other than to see my primary doctor, again.

I do want to talk a little about what the ER doctor said regarding narcotic medication and brain chemistry. First, let me say that extrapolation is one of my biggest pet peeves. It begets racism, sexism, all kinds of isms. Everyone is different. However, here is a little medical information on morphine and the brain: many a study has been done on long term effects of morphine, the opiate from which all pain medications are derived, on the brain. First time use, and short term use studies are few and far between, however, a study by the National Institute of Health conducted in 2011, using subjects that were given increased doses of morphine over thirty days and subjects that were given a placebo did note marked changes in the amygdala part of the brains of the morphine subjects, however, these changes seem to resolve within days to weeks of cessation. The study found that environment and a genetic predisposition played a role in the addiction process. In the absence of significant pain, the opiate receptors in the brain feel rewarded, like sex. The thing about morphine, however, is it seems the brain does not forget just how rewarding morphine feels, making it easier to fall victim to addiction and also suggests repeated use begets tolerance, requiring more morphine to feel the same reward. This is an obvious drawback ancillary to the use of morphine. But do the cons outweigh the pros? And does everyone become addicted? And should everyone in America be punished for the misuse of a few folks who, through no fault of their own have fallen victim to the negative effects of morphine? 

For millions of people across the globe, morphine is a godsend. Can you imagine waking from surgery with no pain medication, or how about suffering a broken limb, no morphine...In the age of Oxycontin, people are dying in unbelievable numbers, and this is the great American tragedy, but that tragedy begins with the lies of greedy, capitalist pharmaceutical companies and doctors, who knowingly over-prescribed an end-of-life narcotic pain medication to people with back pain. Oxycontin is highly addictive and should never have been prescribed so freely across the board. The only people to suffer are the patients. Purdue Pharma, who was fined $600 million by the federal government in 2010 for misleading EVERYONE about the effects of Oxycontin got rich. Doctors went on golf vacations, patients, who were subsequently treated like pariahs, turned to heroin, which is now being "cut" with Chinese fentanyl and that is why they are dying. 

But what about patients who truly are in pain and need to take pain medication, either short or long term. As established by the aforementioned study, the brain in pain reacts differently to the brain that is not when it receives morphine. Doctors, like the one I had the displeasure of dealing with today need to stop extrapolating the entire population. Every case is different and the government is doing a fine job of keeping tabs of every single pill given to every single patient. Urinalyses are required, pain contracts between doctors and patients are the new normal, current state identification is required to receive medication from the pharmacy. These rules are relatively new and it will take years to repair the damage done by big pharma, like Purdue and the complicit doctors who took kickbacks from them to peddle their poison to the masses, but the rules are in place and they're working. An emergency room doctor, who practices crisis management is in the wrong department if he is to sit in judgement of the patient who is in pain. If he is a doctor who chooses to extrapolate and refuses to prescribe pain medicine in an emergent environment should find another area of medicine, one in which he never has to prescribe pain pill one, again.

I needed help, today. I did not get it. I blame him, not the junkies of the world who are dropping like flies at the end of a needle; they are victims, too. We, as patients will always need morphine, regardless of the changes to the brain said morphine causes. According to the study, my brain should have gone back to a relatively normal state after discontinuing the use of my post-surgical narcotic medication. I'm just a normal, everyday fifty something year old woman with a family and a dog and friends a fledgling writing career who was physically damaged by a doctor who apologized to me for being distracted during my care due to his father's illness. It appears my prosthetic hip may need to be replaced, again. The pain is almost unbearable. I walked into an ER seeking relief, not a high. I was treated like a junkie, a word I hate, and don't mean to use in a derogatory manner, however, in his eyes, that's exactly what I was.

Doctors need to figure out how to handle this opiate crisis in a far different manner. It is not my job to do that. I am the patient.

Deannalynn Arzola

  

(This is the article I wrote for Heaven Can Wait Animal Sanctuary. It goes to press Thursday and will be available online Friday, October 26th. Hope y'all dig it::: <3 Dee) written October 24, 2012

12th Annual Lose a Pound With Your Hound
by Deannalynn Arzola

It’s hard to believe, but another Lose-a-Pound Memory Walk has come and gone. This year’s festivities were a howling success.
The day began for our volunteers at 7am, with the setting up of booths and stages. And what a lovely fall Sunday it was.
Wayne Bunker Family Park was a flush with vendors, dogs, Memory Collars, and even Elvis. Some of our terrific vendors included Pet Psychics offering paw readings, Bone Appetite, A Pet’s Bakery and A Purrfurred Pet Care Service. We wish to thank the many vendors who donated to HCWS during the event.
Other businesses that help raise money on Sunday were Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, who donated gift baskets which were raffled off to guests who purchased winning tickets.
Other than the Memory Walk, which took place on the park’s surrounding walking track from 10 to Noon, our event held our wildly popular Halloween Pet Costume Contest. This year’s first place prize goes to “Fat Elvis”, an absolutely adorable Basset Hound. “Schitzo” holds the honor of this year’s Silliest Pet Trick. Our friends at Smarty Paws set up an obstacle course for all of our guests to try their paws at.
Team Misfits holds this year’s distinction as the team that raised the most money for our beloved charity, pulling in a stunning $3500. The volunteers at Misfits used social media and networking as their means of raising such a remarkable sum. Congratulations Misfits. Your perpetual efforts are greatly appreciated.
The 12th Annual Memory Walk was a resounding success and woofs and woofs of fun for all. There are many more folks we wish to thank for their support in making our annual fundraising event such an important part of our mission to prevent pet-overpopulation in our community. Thank you to all of our faithful volunteers who share their time tirelessly, all year around. Thank you to all of our Memory Walk participants and our vendors. Thank you to the City of Las Vegas and Wayne Bunker Park, to all of our guests, our dj and emcee, “Elvis” and to In Corp.com for mingling with the crowd and providing home baked treats to our most important guests, for without whom, none of this would have been possible; our loveable, furry, four legged family members.
Our next Lose a Pound Memory Walk is less than twelve months away and we can’t wait to see you all again, then.