Bumps in the road....

The closer we get to a huge life change, the more rocky the road we travel to get there becomes.

It is to be expected, and honestly at this point in my life, I am an old pro in rolling with the flow.

There are some things that still throw me for a loop, and anything happening to my kids or Jack affects me in a big way.

Jack was in the hospital for 6 days last week.

He had an attack of diverticulitis.  Long time readers know that he was diagnosed a few years ago, when he got an infection so bad that it almost killed him.

This time, he knew what was happening, and had me take him to the E.R. at the first sign of trouble. The down side was, I had been up for 24 hours prior, and was in town with my Mom when he called. I went to a doctor appointment with my Mom for some moral support, and had not slept yet, since I had planned to sleep when I got home. I ended up having a late lunch with Mom and we had been having some pretty deep conversations when Jack called and told me he needed help. He did not want to call an ambulance because he had Alex, and did not want to scare her, so Mom and I rushed home and she took Alex with her while I took Jack to the E.R.

We got there at 5 pm and after a couple of CT scans and blood draws they determined his white count was through the roof and wanted to keep him. He finally got a room at 3 that morning. I had been awake for 38 hours by that point. I was in no shape to drive so I got a couple of hours sleep on a pull out chair and  finally went home the next morning when I was in a better position to drive. Mom kept Alex the whole time, but I only got to go see Jack once, due to gas money issues. I was very unhappy with him being gone. Luckily things were not as bad as they were last time, because he went right in at the first sign of trouble, but it was still very painful for him. It is impossible to rest in a hospital, so he was tired and grumpy, and missing home. He had to spend Father's Day alone in there. While I did not cry or anything, I still hated being apart from him. In the almost ten years we have been together, we have only been apart at night twice, once the first time he went through this, and the next when I broke my ankle and had to stay with my Mom since he had to work and I could not be alone for a while. It was hard. Not only are we husband and wife, we are each other's best friends, and we do not handle being apart for long very well.

I spent a lot of time cleaning and doing stuff around here to keep busy, and talking to him often on the phone.  On the 6th day his white count was within normal parameters and they let him go home with prescriptions for antibiotics at home. He is still tired, but feeling much better.

I am happy he is feeling better and that I have he and Alex back home, where they belong. My family is my center, and I do not feel right when they are not with me.

We had his last appointment with his back doctor on Monday, after he was released from the hospital. His Dr. is retiring from the place he was currently at, and he is moving to Destin to open a practice there. I was sad..I have known that doctor for over 20 years. He operated on my father and several other people I know. He is almost like family at this point. He gave me a hug and shook Jack's hand, wished us luck, and asked us to keep in touch, and let him know how things turned out, and that he was handing us over to his old partner, who is staying there in the practice. His partner is a good doctor too, we actually saw him first before we requested his current doctor when we found out he was available. There is really nothing to be done medically right now...they can't fix him, and we go for our first mediation next month. So now we try to move on with our lives and adjust to the fact that Jack will never be as he was before he got hurt. Jack is still struggling with the acceptance part. I am just happy he is alive and able to continue with his life, even if it is not in the same capacity as it was prior to the injury.

As for me, I had my nerve test almost two weeks ago, and I am still waiting to get an appointment to meet with my neurologist to get the diagnosis from all of my tests. My Mom's neurologist said it sounds like I have MS to him, and he is not the first person who has said that, and I will be honest, that has crossed my mind many times too. If I have not heard back from him by Monday afternoon, then I will call Tuesday and see if I can get some information.

In other news, we dyed Alex's hair pink for the Summer. I will take some pics soon and share, I have to make some room on my memory card in the camera for them. It looks really awesome, we both love it. After we find out what happens with the mediation and I no longer have to be sure and look respectable by other people's standards, I am thinking of dying mine Lavender. I am ready for a drastic change.

That is all that is going on for now. I will be making some changes around here soon, with the blog and my home. I want to make a new layout and tweak some things on the blog, plus get back into my recipes and  book posts. Plus I have some book reviews to write. On the home front, I am about to go through the house and declutter a lot of the dust collectors we have, and donate them to my favorite thrift store, which feeds the homeless with the funds they take in. I also have a good bit of clothes to go through and donate, and some other things. When we move, I intend to only take the furniture, our clothes, the kitchen stuff, and our personal keepsakes. I am donating everything else. I have been hauling some of this crap around for 20 years and I am over it. I need room for new memories.

I want a fresh start in our Forever Home.


That sums it up for tonight.

What have you all been up to over the last couple of weeks? How is Summer treating you?

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Evil Virus of Doom...and other things.

Just a short post today.

Alex and I have been plagued with some terrible virus for the past week. Alex came home Friday with 104 temperature, and Saturday she had a terrible sore throat. I also started coming down with it on Saturday, and Sunday, Mother's Day, we were in the ER getting strep tests.

Luckily, they were negative, but that did not stop the horrible and searing throat pain. We were both unable to eat more than a few bites for three days, and Alex's fever stayed in the 103-104 range for three days. Finally on Thursday it broke to under 100 and stayed there, and I was able to start eating again. She has been fever free for 48 hours now, and can talk and eat with ease again.

All Alex could eat was Popsicles for two days.

Alex has never been so sick in her 8 years. It was very scary for me. She would not eat, could hardly drink, and did not say a word for three days. As most know, Alex is a talker. She talks NON-stop all the time. Yet nothing but head nods and shakes for three days. The few bites of food she would eat I had to feed her like a baby bird. She was so weak she could hardly sit up, much less feed herself.

Jack was very kind, he pretty much ran the house for the week. I was in bed for two days, only getting up to use the bathroom. He cooked and did dishes and got us anything we needed. It was very nice.

I did the dishes and ran the vac today, for the first time in a week, and tomorrow I am going to cook a real meal. We have been living off of broths and soups, as it was so painful to swallow anything, and we are all ready for something more substantial. So I intend to make steak tacos, and I have a giant seedless watermelon in the fridge chilling for dessert. I have been craving the melon like crazy for the last couple of months. I blame it on longing for Summer. ( Try not to gasp in shock over the fact I am longing for Summer lol ) It is the middle of May and we have had a few nights of upper 30's and low 40's. In Florida. I am still wearing jeans most of the time. My shorts sit in the drawers...waiting to see the light of day.

In other news, there are two weeks of school left, and even though we were so sick, it was nice not having to worry about living life by the clock for the past week. Sleeping when we wanted, waking when we felt like it. No rush to eat dinner and do dishes, or make sure laundry was done for the school week. I am really looking forward to a couple of months of that.

Also, we have been given a mediation date with Jack's former employers. It is set for the second week in July. Of course, I can not give any detail, but hopefully this hellish 2 year period of doom will all be over soon, in our favor. Jack had a doctor visit this week and the doc said he should have a fusion. Jack told him " No, thank you." The doc also told Jack that he was a record breaker. The Doc had never operated on one person 4 times in a row in such a short amount of time. Hell of a thing to be a record holder on, eh? There will be no more surgeries unless the alternative is to end up in a wheelchair forever. They keep hacking on him and he is still not fixed, and he is just done with it. There has been no improvements,  so now he just wants pain management and to settle, so we can move on with our lives.



So hopefully, soon we will come to the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel we have been navigating.

Source

Hmmm, what else?

Oh yeah, my birthday! I turned 34 on May 4th, and my Mom and older kids surprised me by taking us all out to dinner at Outback. It was scrumptious, and it was nice to be gathered with my family. The only down side was it was graduation weekend for FSU and FAMU, so the place was packed and very loud, which made talking almost impossible. One we got back to Mom's, I saw that she had made me one of her delicious cakes, which I adore. They also got me a humorous birthday card, with a sexy shirtless guy in it, and he sang happy birthday to me, but you had to rub his abs to get him to do it, and he was ticklish, so he giggled while he sang. It cracked me up. All in all, it was a very nice birthday, the best I have had in a very long time. I still smile when I think about it.

Mother's Day was a wash, due to us being sick, but Saturday, the day before, Jack made a great dinner and did the dishes, so it all worked out. He and Alex also got me a card each, and Alex also made me a handmade card. They both made me cry, they wrote such sweet things in them. It warmed my heart. They drive me crazy sometimes, but I know they love me, and I love them.

I think that is about it for now. My "short" post ended up being a little longer than I intended, but a lot has transpired since I last wrote lol.

So I will end  here, and I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

P.S. I am still looking for questions for my 'Ask Me Anything' segment. I only have a couple, and I am really wanting to do this. So please, send your questions in. Click the graphic in the upper corner of the left sidebar to be taken to the post with the details! Thank you! :D

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All tricks, no treat.

So it seems every time I commit myself to these blog events ( like NaBloWriMo, 30 days of truth, etc ) something major happens and I am unable to write as I should...so I do not think I will "officially" do them anymore, I will just write and maybe it will all work out.

Yes, I have been gone for a few days again, but for good ( well, bad ) reason. My oldest friend, 27 years of friendship, was rocked to the core a couple of days ago. My 33 year old best friend J went to bed one night, and when she woke up the next morning, she had lost 15 to 20 years of her memory. She woke up and knew her husband, but did not know where she was, who her children were, her sibling in laws, her nieces and nephews, none of them. Any friends she made over the last 15 years, gone. Her church, which she was very active in, gone. Poof. I have been thanking the stars that I have been here for 27 years, because she remembers me, but to her, it is 1997-98 and I just recently had my oldest daughter. ( Who is now just a couple of months shy of 15 )

She had been diagnosed with pneumonia and pleurisy the day or two before, and they put her on a pain med and Ambien at night. A 10 mg Ambien. She weighs like 95 pounds, and is only 4 feet 10 inches tall. She is tiny. My Mother, who is about 180, only takes TWO mg. SO 10 is much to much for someone J's size. Anyway, she did not lose herself, I mean she knows who she is, her parents, her siblings, her husband and anyone who was in her life back then. Just no one or any events from the last 15 to 20 years. Her husband took her to the doc and they thought it might be a combo of fibro fog and the mega dose of Ambien, and since she was lucid, functional and still had her faculties about her she was sent home to basically ride out the meds.

Late that night she woke up in severe pain and thought she was having a stroke. So she and her husband went to the hospital, where she had CT scans of her head and the whole nine yards done. Her brain is fine. No stroke, no tumors, no aneurisms, nothing like that. Her bloodwork came back fine. So they diagnosed her with Retrograde Amnesia, which basically means they have no clue why her mind went on a vacation, and the mother of all migraines, which they gave her a shot for. They told her it is most likely temporary, but to be prepared because there was also a chance it might never come back.

I have been on the phone for two days straight. Back to back calls, callers beeping in while I was already on a call, it was bedlam. No one had any concrete information and we were all going nuts. I finally got to talk to her myself on the second day, she called me ( thank goodness for cell phone phone books lol ) and it was all I could do at first to keep it together. I was so terrified she would call and say " I am sorry, I do not remember you.." I would have died a thousand deaths had that happened. I spent an hour basically trying to give her the readers digest version of MY life over the last 15 years and I thought to myself as it was happening " Jeez...having to explain this to what is essentially a stranger as far as my life goes makes me sound so horrible...she is going to ask herself why in the hell was she even friends with me" and it scared me because she was right there through 98% of it, she understood...so now, she did NOT understand and I must have seemed like a friggen train wreck to her. Which, I guess, for a while I was...but she does not even remember how pivotal she was in my life for so many years. I mean she helped me when I bottomed out on cocaine, she and I lived together for a while, we were pregnant together ( her first and my second ) and so many other battles and victories, and she remembers none of it. I shudder at the thought of what she must think of me.

On the upside, she is exactly as she was before life got stressful for her..which makes ME think that her illness combined with the meds and the stress she was under ( she home schools her three kids, 12, 10, and 6, very active in church, she is the glue for her family, which included all her siblings and parents and in laws and nieces and nephews ) just made her mind say " Okay, time for a little break, lets go back and party like its 1999 " Prince sang about it, but she actually did it lol. It has been, for me, AWESOME to talk to her over the last few days. She is back for lack of a better term. SO much has happened in just her life over the last decade, things that changed her, and now, to see her quiet calmness, that FIRE back in her voice and words...I actually felt the need to apologize to her last night because I knew I sounded almost gleeful that this happened..and of course I was not, I am devastated that it happened, but since I could not change what happened, I was loving what I was hearing. She was not so jaded and cynical and waiting for the other shoe to drop ( which is a feeling you all know I can relate to ) she was almost vibrant and strong willed and ready to kick some ass and get things back to the way they should be, even though she could not remember why they got so bad in the first place. I do not know whether to laugh or cry when I talk to her lol. I am certainly not sad, since she does remember me, but I am heartbroken for her kids and nieces and nephews that she does not remember. I can't even imagine how they must feel, and my heart goes out for J as well, because she has to watch all these little people she loved, three of which she gave birth to, and knowing intellectually and in her heart there is a connection, but she can not remember it. Not to mention those friends she does NOT remember, such as P, whom I talked to for quite some time last night. In all the ruckus and being on the phone all the time, I forgot to let a few of our mutual friends we have made over the last decade or so know and so I have been doing that. P to her is sort of like a male version of me, he is also her best friend, in a different way because their history is different than the one she and I have. He was stunned to say the least and was doing his best to wrap his mind around it.

It has been so surreal.

I do not know if she will come out of it or not, but I am hoping and praying she does...and if any of you wonderful people wanted to add your prayer, healing, candles and energy to the mix, we would all be eternally grateful. I will tell you a secret though. I am praying for her full memory to come back, but I am also praying that when she does get it back, she keeps that fire that has been long absent from her mind.

So that, in a very small nutshell, is what I have been doing over the last few days. There is more things happening in the background of my own life, but none of those are anything major, just day to day stuff.

So until next time, keep my friend J in your heart and mind, as well as her family. It is much appreciated.

I leave you with a pic of the beautiful sister of my heart: