The Good, The Sad, and The Ugly

It has obviously been a loooooong time since I have posted here on my blog. As you can tell from the title of this post, it has been anything but "normal" around here. It has run the gamut from very happy to incredibly, inconsolibly sad, and painfully ugly. Why you ask? Well.....



A very happy day was when the UPS man delivered 4 ginormous boxes of processed fiber for me from Stonehedge Fiber Mill! I tell you, Deb McDermott does a wonderful job! I sent her 6 fleeces in my first order. I was pretty much just sending my largest fleeces out at the time to be processed. I was also sending them out to "test run" the mill to see how I liked their work. I was completely and totally satisfied. And let me tell you one thing.......she packed the finished fleece so tightly into the boxes she sent back to me, that when I cut the tape to open them up, the fiber literally sprang up and exploded out of the boxes! It didn't take me long to decide to box up the rest of the fleece that I had and send it to her to process. SO much easier on my back and neck! And for the price, I don't think I can get it washed for what she charges. The worst part of the whole deal in my opinion is the shipping! THAT is highway robbery!!!!!

Now......much to my dismay, onto the sad. Unfortunately there is a couple of things that fall into this catagory. One is a sort of sad, but in the big scheme of things -- not so much. The other -- LIFE ALTERING.
1. my German Shepherd female, Jade has been sick. For the past 4 weeks she has been having 1 grand mal seizure in the middle of the night one week apart. Since she finally had 4, she established a pattern and the vet said to bring her in for a full work up. Well he ran every single solitary test on her from stem to stern and everything came back negative except for one. Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever. We have no idea when she got a tick bite since we never SAW a tick on her (she probably bit it off before we saw it), and we have no idea how long she has been sick with it. But, with the diagnosis in hand finally, now we can treat her. She'll be on antibiotics for 6 weeks. Since she is young, we'll just have to watch her in the future and hope that her brain can repair itself where it's got the lesion or "short" in it that is causing the seizure. FYI - you can't immunize against Rocky Mountain Tick Fever, you can only treat it. Both in humans and in animals.
2. My dad had an accident on his farm involving a tractor and a bush hog (a big mower) and died on Oct.31st. Needless to say, this has ripped the guts right out of the whole family. A neighbor called and notified me, but he was using my dad's cell phone and for a few moments I couldn't figure out WHY the neighbor was calling me on dad's phone. After the news sunk in, I literally lost my mind for a few minutes. I am still in somewhat of a "shock" state. I'm supposed to be able to pick up my phone and be able to call my daddy. My mom is beyond lost, but I really think that in time she'll do ok. She's alot stronger than she gives herself credit for. It's just that she's depended upon dad for sooooo very long for nearly everything.



That, my friends, is the UGLY!! What you are looking at there is a photo of what was hanging out of the middle of my back between my shoulder blades last week for 5 days. I underwent a "trial" for a Spinal Cord Stimulator. What a Spinal Cord Stimulator is, is basically a pain pacemaker. Since I suffer from chronic pain ever since I wrecked my spine back in '03, and have just about exhausted every other medical avenue avaliable for the relief of pain, this is now the second to the last stop on the road. Why would a person want a "pain pacemaker"? Well, for me it's because I hope to not get as much "break through" pain even though I take pain medication. I also hope that I can keep the amount and the dosage of pain pills that I have to take a day down to a minimum.

But, too.......I am kinda scared. The surgery to put the thing in is rather strange because they put the electrodes in at the back of my neck. Then, they have to take and run the connecting wire that hooks to the battery pack down inside under the skin of the back all the way down to my lower back. At that juncture, they make an incision and insert the "pacemaker" looking part of the aperatus and hook everything all up together. Since I'm right handed, the pacemaker part will go into my body below the skin on the right side of my hip. Apparently, you can adjust it from a controller that you simply touch to the inside thing from the outside of your body once the incision has healed to either increase or decrease the level of pain control. Then somehow to recharge the thing, you plug into a wall outlet and just sit there and touch some kind of charger thing to the pacemaker inside. It's some sort of high tech weirdness that's for sure. After that, I hope above ALL hopes that I am DONE with people cutting on me for a good loooooong time. Personally, I am sick to death of it.

Next up in the batter's box will be Tony. He survived his mylograms and his diskectomy but whoooo boy was it ever painful. He is still sore! He couldn't get home from St. Louis fast enough. We aren't sure just yet when his surgery will be.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! It will be a quiet affair for us. I don't think the holidays will be quite right this year without dad. It's just too soon.

Recovery

Well, I was sent home to continue my recovery from surgery on Sunday and I have to say that I was ever so glad! I don't think my poor self could have stood another night on that worn out mattress.

I am doing quite well after surgery, thanks for all the well wishes and prayers. I've had more people (non-family people) ask me if they could "do" anything to help me/us while I was down and recovering than I can count. I absolutely appreciate all the loving kindness expressed towards not only me but my family.

Tony really appreciates it too. He's been pretty stressed out about this. Bless his heart, he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep the whole time I've been in the hospital. Last night, he slept like a baby. I think he just needed for me to be home so that he could rest.

I am totally amazed at how decent I actually feel. Unless or until, that is, it comes time to get up or down or turn over in bed. Or cough. Oh, and I am totally dreading the biggie........the sneeze that sneaks up on me unawares. I got to feel that joy once before already when I had my gallbladder out. What I can't believe is that I can eat a regular diet. Doc said anything I want. That just blows me away. He said that it was already sealed over and closed within about 12 hours or so. It's all so vascular that it just heals super fast. I am super curious about how it's all hooked back together in there though lol. I just can't imagine. Is is all stapled? Is it sewn? I just haven't got a clue and can't wait for my follow up visit so I can find out. (I was too loopy on the good drugs to ask any intellegent questions!)

I have found a totally perfectly comfortable, neutral position to sit/lay so that I can read, knit, catch up on my emails and watch tv. All I need to do is make sure that the backside can outlast and endure what my tummy dishes out.

Once again......thanks to one and all for all your prayers and well wishes for a speedy recovery. From your lips to God's ears. It's working cuz I'm feeling pretty darn well!

Returned Traveler

Well I am home now. What a trip. The weather was glorious. A bit on the psycotic side which is pretty much normal for the spring and fall, but definately glorious. I for sure did NOT pack the proper cool weather clothes so I had do some shopping for a few long sleeve tops. I did bring pants but I only took 3 long sleeve shirts and that just wasn't enough! About every other day the weather stayed in the 50's when it rained, then the next day it popped back up to 70 when the sun came out again. I can't tell you how much I love that kind of weather! The smell in the air is so fabulous. The last morning I was there, when I first went outside, it smelled just like camping. People's fireplaces were smoking, I could smell people frying potatoes for breakfast, the odor of wet pines was all around in the air. The air was brisk and the sun was just peeking through the tops of the tall pines and you could still see whisps of smoke curling around on the light breeze. It was just heaven I tell you. I can't wait until that is the type of morning that I get to wake up to everyday in the fall! It is so refreshing and energizing. Totally different from the oppressive, damp, heavy air here. Don't get me wrong. Fall IS beautiful here, but the complete and total difference in the air quality is amazing and mindblowing! I simply cannot get my mind around how different and how totally much more alive and healthier I feel in that air and climate! It is a trip.

On the house looking front........Of course, the very first house I looked at was "THE ONE." And, of course, right this second, we are in no shape form or fashion ready to buy it. I was just looking around, getting the feel for the different neighborhoods and the different types of homes. But nooooooooo, I had to find the perfect house first rattle out of the box. All I can do is keep all my fingers and toes crossed and pray that it either doesnt sell within the next 6 months or we will find something we like as well or better! Go figure.......

I am glad to be home and sleeping in my own bed. I missed my family and my furkids. I'm not looking forward to Thursdays though. Say a prayer for me. I'm not sure when I'll be back home and posting again cuz it all depends on how the surgeon has to make his incision on how long I have to stay in the hospital. Me, I'm praying for a teeny tiny incisions. But, reality is kinda telling me that he is not going to be able to do that cuz I've already had 3 abdominal proceedures before and there will be too much scar tissue for that. Bummer. Oooooooooh it's gonna hurt!!!

And the hits just keep on coming!

There is something about a sick male that is really, really to be pondered. Take my husband for instance. Last week, after trying to work up the courage to go to the doctor for some bloodwork, he finally went. He's been feeling a little bit "off" physically for the last few weeks, but it was nothing he could really put his finger on. All he knew was he just didn't feel good and he was off his feed. That in and of itself should have been a red flag. When Tony doesn't eat, there is definitely something going on. Well, on Monday the nurse called with the lab results. Now, when the doctors office calls you about your labs, your heart immediately does that little stutter step and you have visions of 10 horrid diagnosis flash before your eyes even before you get the phone to your ear and say "hello". So, Libby calls and tells us that he has an ulcer. Not good, but not awful either. He will survive. The hitch in the little recovery plan is that the meds the doctor ordered was kicked back by the insurance company for some stupid reason of them saying that they wanted them to prescribe something that wasn't a multidose pack. So they had to RE-prescribe the same medicine, just broken down into individual pills instead of taking an all in one type deal. Well that little delay cost a day in getting the meds into him. You wouldn't think that 24 hours would make that much of a difference would you. Wrong.

This morning at about 4:30 his stomach decided to launch it's first round of what was going to be the start of a pseudo-nuclear war inside of Tony's gut. If any of you are familiar with what happens to someone who is locked in a battle with a full blown active ulcer attack, it's not pretty and the ulcer takes no prisoners. It shoots to kill. Tony swears he was dying. In fact the jury is still out. But, he is stubborn like most men. The first time I asked him if he wanted to go to the ER, he passed. So I just let him wait it out. I knew eventually that we would be going. So I hunkered down and tried to stay warm and get my rest while I could. Sure enough, pretty soon he said lets go.

Like always, going to the emergency room is no fun. Unless you definitely are showing them signs that if they don't get you in the back RIGHT NOW, you are going to die, the wait is at least 1 to 2 hours. Now once you get to the back, they take care of business right away and are very good at what they do. They loaded him up with IV fluids, phenergan, something to coat his gut and some bacteria busters. Meanwhile, they finally got our med situation straight at the pharmacy so when we left the ER, we could go pick it up on the way home. About 4 1/2 hours from start to finish, I carried and exhausted and pretty loopy husband home and poured him back into bed.

That's where he stays. He is going to be very sad at me for the next few days. I've been down this ulcer road before. He gets to see just how lovely it is being on a bland diet is for a while. He is going to hate it. This is the guy who love hot and spicy.

But seriously, I really don't think his diet has had anything to do with it. I think that he can chalk this totally up to stress. Some of it is self-inflicted, some of it is totally unavoidable. Despite the source, he has got to figure out a way to deal with it better. I wish that I could help him, but you know how lots of men are....they don't want help solving their problems, they can fix them all by their selves. So, I'll just make dry toast and bring the tea.

Oh, and knit. That I can do. I've been doing it a lot lately. It seems to keep me semi-sane. I've finished the calorimetric for my sister. I am so behind in taking photos. I didn't even take one of the hat I made for my daughter for Christmas and it turned out so dang cute! Oh well. I'll take lots of pics and make a post of nothing but pictures one day. Plus I've been spinning a lot. I'm trying to hit a certain yardage for the spin to knit swap and keep missing by just a few tiny yards! I'm getting some groovy yarn though so you'll see that too.

Wish me luck. Gotta pin on my nurse Nancy pinafore.