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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One of those weeks...

It has been one of "those" weeks for sure. I fought a hell of a migraine from Thursday until Tuesday. Jack ran out of his pain pills, and the horrible nurse at his doctor's office was in no hurry or in any way concerned about it. So he was in agony for three days. He even went to the ER, the pain was so bad, but because he has a "specialist" they would not help him. Finally he had to threaten them with a lawyer to get results ( he is still on workers comp ) but at least he finally has his medicine. We actually DID contact a lawyer, and in fact Jack meets with him in the morning, to see if he can help us get some results. His job is now talking about trying to put him on disability, and he has still heard nothing about that second surgery he is supposed to have. The doctor office says the insurance company is dragging their feet about approving it, while the insurance company said that the dingbat nurse has not even submitted all the paperwork to them yet! So we are caught in the middle, and decided that having a lawyer would be a good thing right now, to help us navigate what is to come. We are not looking for money or a settlement or anything, we are just looking for proper doctor care and hopefully get him back to work, even though we know he will probably never go back to being a heavy line mechanic anymore. His awesome boss created a position for him though, so if he ever does get to go back, he will have a job, so that is good.

So stress has been high. It sucks to have to watch the person you love most in life in constant agony, and there is not one thing you can do about it. I think that is why my migraine was so vicious, the stress and worry were just getting worse, and so did the migraine.  I actually got what I call reverse tunnel vision for a day or so it was so bad. As a lot of people who have migraines experience, I know one is coming because I get these wavy lines in front of my eyes, kind of like heat shimmers on a hot road...this is my cue to take some meds and do what ever I can to head it off. Only this time I could not get it under control, and the wavy lines were so abundant I could not see straight ahead. All I had was peripheral vision...while tunnel vision is where everything else fades except the center of your field of vision. Ergo, reverse tunnel vision. I could not hardly stand to even look at the computer screen, it would cause a flare up after about ten minutes. I live on my computer, so this part is what bothered me most, sad to say.

If we get an income tax this coming up year, I really need to go and get new glasses. I think that would help a lot.

So yeah, the last few days have been less than fun to say the least.

At least he is no longer in pain, nor am I, and I can SEE, so that is always a good thing.

He is nervous about tomorrows meeting with the lawyer though. Or rather, the investigator, as this is just to see what kind of case we have, what we are looking for, and if they think they can help us. I can not go with him, for reasons I will explain shortly, so I made him a sheet with questions to ask and things to mention. We like to joke that I am the brains of this operation ( that is our marriage ) and he is the brawn, and while it is a joke, as he is very intelligent, I am a pro at handling things like this and they make him a bit nervous.

The reason I am not going is partly because of Alex, I have no where to put her, and she is way to hyper to sit there for a couple of hours quietly while we talk business. The other reason is because we have a new furry family member. Friday, Jack and Alex saw this dog running around in the road. Skinny, ribs showing, skittish. She followed Jack and Alex back to our house from the mailbox up the road at a distance..well, it was Alex she was following. She came in to the yard and would not come near Jack, but she went to Alex and laid down at her feet. I got her some water and some food, which she scarfed. It was obvious she had not had a meal in a while. It is also obvious that she is part Shepherd and part Coyote. (Called a Coydog actually lol ) She lopes and acts like a Coyote, with a shepherd face. She is young, maybe 8 or 9 months old.   Once Alex started petting her, she let Jack and I pet her, and suddenly she was the most friendly thing ever. We coaxed her in the house, and she promptly jumped up on the couch and went to sleep. Not a care in the world. She is Alex's shadow. Follows her everywhere, and whines if she leaves the house or goes to the bathroom without her. She sleeps in the bed with her. We do not know if she used to live in a house, or with people, but she is house trained ( although, from our experience with Wolves, they do not mess in the house usually, they will hold it until they are outside, even if "wild" ) and she acts almost identical to our Tundra wolf, Baby, that we lost two years ago to old age. Jack gave her a bath, and took her to all of our neighbors, and to the two streets on either side of us, to see if she belonged to anyone close by. No one claimed her, but a few said they had seen her in and out of the woods for the last week or so. So, unless we see a missing dog sign with her on it somewhere, we have adopted her. I named her Wiley ( Wile E Coyote lol ) even though it is a girl. It is weird, we feel like she has always been here, and we have only had her for less than a week. The only problem is, we do not know how she will react if we all left. She is not destructive, and she gets along perfectly with Soccer, our Shih Tzu, but she freaks if Alex leaves, even if we are still here. So we worry about leaving her alone just yet. If she WAS with humans before, it has obviously been a while, as you could count all of her bones, so there is a good chance she has abandonment issues. I do not want to come home and find my couch ripped apart or something. She is a BIG dog, even as young as she is, with her paws on my shoulders she is almost as tall as I am, so she could reach counters and my desk and stuff. So we are going to have to ease into that...all of us go out in the yard, or take a short walk, leaving her here, then coming back, to see how she does, and to let her know we WILL come back. I do not think I have ever seen such a loving and trusting dog though, especially one who seemed to be half wild. She is very submissive, and will lay down or stop messing with something if you raise your voice. So she is a bit of a mystery, but she is a good addition to our family. I wonder what she will look like as she fills out and grows up?

She loves to play with Soccer lol.

She is a total sweetheart, so hopefully she will get used to the place and realize that even if we leave, we WILL be coming back, and that we are not leaving her forever.

So yeah. That is the main highlights for this week. I missed my Foodie Friday post last week, due to the migraine, but next up is Stuffed Bell Peppers. They were so good, but we ended up eating them in the dark. We have had really bad storms almost daily here for the last couple of weeks, and right as I took the peppers out of the oven, the power went out for several hours. So we had a candle light dinner lol.

I will work on those pics tomorrow and get the post ready to go for Friday.

I think that sums it up for now. I am sorry for the several day absence, but I was trying to keep my brain from exploding and keep Jack from being in agony. Things should return to normal now!

Have a great Thursday!