Results tagged “friends” from KatScan

I've spoken about my friend Mindy here many, many times, about how her and her family are just really great people, any time that I've needed help, a ride, or to be taken to the hospital, there they are, ready and willing to help me.
Well now Mindy and her family need my help, your help, our help.
Her post explains in detail what is happening, but if they don't get some help, Mindy and her family, husband, son Jeff, and daughter Katie, they will be homeless.

Things have not been good recently around here. Chris and I just recently found out that our landlords must sell the house that we have been renting since October of 2008. It wouldn't be such a big deal because normally tenants are allowed to stay until the house does sell. Not in this case. They have asked us to leave by the end of this month. They are in the midst of a foreclosure and are wanting to sell asap and the easiest way to do that is get rid of the occupants so that it will be a smoother transaction for all parties involved. Except of course, US.

We may have first months rent but nothing more. We have been looking and most renters now are required to pay security deposit, first and last months rent up front. That is a lot of money to come up with in just a few weeks. A goal that we will not be able to make on our own. Our parents are all retired. They receive their social security and are budgeted to that alone. They are willing to help as much as they can but the reality is, it will not be enough. My biggest fear is that if we do not come up with enough funds that we need, we will be homeless.

Mindy and her family need our help, whatever you can spare, even if it's just $1, they need our help to come up with a security deposit, first, and last.
Mindy has always been there for me, they never ask anyone for help, they are always the ones helping others, but this time, they really need help.
If you can help, please, please, please, go to Mindy's blog and click on the PayPal donate button and give whatever you can.
And please, spread the word, link to her post on your blogs, Twitter, Facebook, wherever.
Mindy and her family need our help, I am begging for help for them.
They are really great people, so kind, loving, and generous, always helping everyone else.

About a week or so ago, I sent an email to some friends, just 2 friends, and in that email, I said a lot of stuff.
I let it all hang out baby!
Really, I did, I let it all out.
I said all of my fears, worries, concerns, I talked about my health and all that goes with it.
I talked about my fears in regards to my health, and because of those fears, my sanity.
Like, I feel sometimes like I'm completely losing my grip on everything, like when I sit down and really think about my health and the things that are wrong with me and the things that could possibly go wrong, I start to lose it a little.
Actually, I've lost it already, and so each time I think about it, I lose it a little more.
And so I said all of these things, I said all of my health issues, and I said all of the things that could possibly go wrong, and I said all of my fears, and I even said that yes, I am losing my grip on everything around me.

And I got no replies back.

I think I scared them.
I think because of how honest I was, and because of all of the things that I said, that I sacred them off, scared them away, or something.
I'm really hoping that the reason they didn't reply is because they don't know what to say, that because I just dumped all of that on them, and they really don't know what to say.
I would really hate to think that I scared them away, scared them out of my life.
I only sent it to 2 people, 2 people that I consider really, really close friends, and the thought of scaring them away, frightening them away, out of my life, scares me to death.

I hate not getting replies, especially when it's something that freaking huge, that big, that important to me, because it makes me feel like all of those fears that I have, are totally justified, and that's why I don't open up more to people.
I don't open up and talk to people because when I do, they either don't reply to me because they are scared, or I scared them away, but either way, I scared them.
I didn't mean to, I just really needed to get it all out and now that I have, I really think that I scared them away and I need them, I need them in my life.
I need them to just acknowledge that they read it, just say 'hey Kat, I read it and I don't know what to say', and that would be a totally cool, totally acceptable reply.
I would be so totally OK with that kind of reply.
But not replying at all, ugh, it hurts, it's actually physically painful thinking that I scared them away and out of my life for good.

I swear right now, that I will NEVER, ever, open myself up that much ever again.

Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.
Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.
Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.
Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.
Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.
Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.
Pink fuzzy bunnies and rainbows.

Things I'm about to say are really hard for me to say.
I face the possibility of a lot of people having their say about me, judging me, or anger, or pity, or hate, fear, worry.
I face the emotions of all kinds of things because of what I'm going to post here.
And I deserve whatever people have to say.
I do not deserve kindness, and I certainly do not deserve anyone else ever telling me again how strong I am or how strong they think I am.
I am not strong, I haven't been strong in years, I have not been "me" since 2001.
I lost who I was when I had to stop working outside the home, when my life was forever changed because of this body which has imprisoned me.
I am not even a shell of my former self.

I left out something that happened on Sunday, left out several things that happened on Sunday.
I left them out because of fear, guilt, and shame, and I still have all of those emotions speeding through me like a train going at high speed with no conductor at the front.
I don't know if people will understand, if anyone at all will understand, and so I am afraid, afraid of being judged, hated, pitied.
I hate people pitying me because I have enough pity and self loathing running through me to cover me for however long the rest of my life is.

The reason that I have very brief memories of Sunday is because I made a mistake taking my medications that were given to me on Saturday.
I was given the phenergen to stop the pukes and the diars, and I was also given valium to help calm me down and help me rest.
I hadn't slept in days, approximately 7 days at that point, I hadn't eaten either because eating made the pukes and diars worse.
So I was completely exhausted and dehydrated. and still getting sicker and sicker.
The phenergen wasn't working, I was still puking and having the diars every 10 minutes, so I called my doctor, I asked him what to do, he told me to keep taking the phenergen, so I did.
Or what I thought was the phenergen.
Both bottles were identical, same color, cap, labels, and height, the same tiny print, so I kept taking the phenergen, or what I thought was the bottle of phenergen.
In reality, I was taking 2 valium every 4 hours because the phenergen's instructions were to take 2 every 4-6 hours if the symptoms kept up.
I thought in my exhausted and dehydrated state, that I was taking the phenergen, but it was the valium, and a lot of it, so yes, of course my condition worsened.
The diars and pukes didn't stop at all, and I was stumbling and staggering to the bathroom to get sick, and stumbling and staggering back to the couch.
My condition terrified the teens, they had no idea what was happening to me, neither did I, I was taking the wrong medication.
I don't recall the ride to the hospital, I don't recall anything that happened at the hospital except for the doctors talking about my white cells and some sort of infection, I don't recall things said or done by me to people, to doctors and nurses, to Mindy and my sons, to Sebastian.
Apparently, I was very nasty to everyone, yelling, cursing, saying extremely hurtful things, and I recall none of it at all.

Since learning the very next day what I had done, I've been extremely depressed and ashamed of myself, beyond ashamed, guilt is running through me so badly, that when I think about what I possibly said to people, I fall apart and start crying uncontrollably.
I hurt people, I hurt people that I love and care about so much, and I cannot forgive myself even if they forgive me.
I hate my body, I hate all of the pain, I hate all of the pain medications, and medical tests that I endure, and I hate of the doctors, and I hate every damn minute of every damn day of my life.
I hate being alive because I am a prisoner of my body, it holds me captive with it's never ending pain and the medicines hold me prisoner because my body needs them now, is totally addicted to them, I am trapped, stuck in a world of pain, hurt, and medicine that has me so tight in it's grasp that I am suffocating.

Please do not mistake me saying that I hate being alive as me being suicidal, because I am not.
I am far too much of a coward to take my own life, and no, I do not even think about suicide, I just hate this life that I live, I hate it more than the word hate can ever fully describe.
 I am just so full of guilt and shame because I have hurt people that I truly love and care for, and I honestly wouldn't blame them one little bit if they never forgive me for it, I don't expect forgiveness, I don't deserve their forgiveness, I don't want their forgiveness.
I want to feel this guilt and shame, I want it, I have earned it, what I did and said, the hurt that I caused, I earned it, it's mine and no one can take it from me.

As for my OCD, it gets worse and worse every day, my ticks get worse every day, I have caught myself in the middle of my little rituals and even though I've caught myself, I still can't stop doing them, as a matter of fact, it makes me do them again and again.
I've picked up some new ones too, I am now constantly wiping my eyes and wiping away my hair, pulling my pony tail tighter, re-arranging my head band, sweeping and brushing my hair out of my eyes, and then, if I see even a single strand of hair blowing in front of my eyes, if it will not stay in place away from my face, I will pull it right out of my head.
I grab the strand and follow it all of the way up to it's root at my scalp, and I yank it right from there, right at my scalp.
Eventually, I'll be taking some sort of medication for hair loss prevention because I'm pulling so much of it out.
Then, after yanking away even a single strand, I brush my clothes off from a sitting position here at my desk, then I stand and brush them off, and then I wipe off my entire desk, moving my mouse, the coaster I have for my cans of Diet Coke, my pencil box, my notepad, I move every single thing and wipe my desk with my right hand.
Then I wipe the monitor, and then I get up and wipe off my computer tower, and then the table on which it sits, and before you know it, I've wiped down everything within a 4 foot circle of my desk area.
It's getting worse, the ticks are getting worse, things set them off, and what sets them off the most are extreme feelings, nervousness, guilt, shame, fear, and so this week, I've put one hell of a polish on my whole computer area and probably yanked out a good couple hundred hairs.

This week has been hell for me.
I made a huge mistake taking my medications and I hurt people that I love, my sons, my friend Mindy.
I hurt them, and my guilt and shame is eating me alive and setting off my ticks almost hourly.
I catch myself crying, I catch myself barely breathing, I catch myself staring at nothing, pulling hairs out, wiping my desk, my mouse, wiping everything, and wiping in very particular patterns, always wiping everything down in an exact order, and in an exact pattern.
 
I fear that I'm going crazy, like really, truly, going crazy, like my brain is starting to shrivel up and dry out, like I am not going to be ok, like eventually, I'll be locked away or I'll be one of those crazy cat ladies who talks to her cats because they can't talk back, because even if you say hurtful things to them, they have no idea what you are saying and then I won't have to feel so guilty.
I hurt people that I love and care for, I made a huge mistake with my medications, I never do that, I never ever have taken the wrong medication, and because I did, I ended up hurting people that I love, and I am so so sorry, but I am not wanting forgiveness, I am not worthy of forgiveness, I am falling to pieces because of this damn body that imprisons me.
It's grasp is tight, it's prison walls are growing smaller, and I am in a place that I hate, a body that hurts me more and more each day, and I am full of guilt, shame, self pity, self loathing, and I am not forgivable, I do not want it even if it's there.

Please forgive my blogging absence since like last Tuesday I think?
Yeah, Tuesday.
Anyway, I've been battling an illness again, and this past weekend was pure hell for me and the teens.
I had a ton of stuff going on, I caught some sort of stomach thing that Mark had caught but in me, it mutated into the stomach thing spawned from the very bowels of hell, and it was also the "end of the month" pain medicine wise, so I was short a few days just like every month which resulted in my stomach being even sicker than the stomach thing that I was dealing with.
But I got the pain medicine taken care of by my doctor, but the stomach thing stayed and got worse, and worse, and worse as each day passed.
I was so sick that I was completely unable to eat or even drink anything at all for about 3 days, and if I tried to take even super small sips of water to wash down my pain meds and now some seriously strong antibiotics and phenergan that the ER gave me on Saturday to try and stop me from vomiting,  I ended up even more violently ill than I was within just minutes of taking them.
All the vomiting and diars I was dealing with is not exactly the best weight loss supplement, but I did drop 9 pounds from Wednesday through to today.
Hey, weight loss is weight loss for this fat chick, it all counts to me no matter how I lose it. 
But I was so ill that the teens got really scared for me and made me go to the hospital again on Sunday, and that was the absolute worst day of my weekend.

I only have brief recollections of actually getting to the hospital on Sunday, I know that my friend Mindy took me, that Sebastian called her, and I recall being put in a wheelchair, and then the next thing I remember is waking up on a hospital bed in the ER with an IV in my right arm and 2 doctors standing over me and talking about my high white cell count and a massive infection that they couldn't locate just yet.
While I was out, they drew blood and ran tests, ran a cath line and took urine samples, and they were talking about the possibility of cancer.
Again.
I have an unnaturally high white cell count, it's always been high, but it's been extremely high since my first spine fusion in 2006, but apparently it was really super high this time, and so they threw around words like cancer, again.
I've already been down this road, I've already had tons of cancer tests, but here they were, talking about it and I admit to getting, and still being, really, really scared.
I was in the ER on Sunday from about 3pm until almost 10pm, they pumped in bags and bags of fluids because I was so dehydrated, they gave me about 6 doses of Zofran because it was obvious that the phenergan hadn't helped me at all, and about 6 doses of dilaudid for all of the stomach cramping and pain that I was in, but I continued to be violently ill, so violently ill that they had to bring in a portable toilet for my room.
I know, TMI, and it was embarrassing and humiliating, and I hated every damn second of it, but being hooked up to an IV and getting sick so rapidly, I wouldn't have been able to make it to a bathroom if I tried.
Puking and the diars at the same time, ugh, and the nurses kept coming in to check on me and clean me up, and there was some sort of brownish liquid in my vomit that concerned the nurses, so they went and got the doctors again, and they kept calling the lab to make them hurry up with the blood test results so they could try to figure out what I had so that they could treat me properly.
By the time they released me, they still didn't have the lab results back yet, so they said they would fax them to my doctors ASAP, and then they sent me home with some more antibiotics and a script for Reglan which is another anti-nausea medication and it also "speeds up the the rate at which the stomach empties into the intestines."
They gave me that in the hopes that whatever this thing, infection, whatever the hell it is that is in my gastrointestinal tract, will get the heck out.

I'm very lucky that I have medical insurance, Medicare, and a drug plan through Humana, because if I had to try and get a health insurance quote right now, I'd be laughed out of the offices.
I have a few friends who have no health insurance at all and they have medical issues that they have to pay for out of pocket, hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go see their doctors and get their medications.
Every month when they have to go to their doctor, they have to make sure they have enough money to pay him, hundreds of dollars, and then enough money to pick up their prescriptions that the doctor writes, hundreds of dollars, and they struggle and struggle to be able to pay it every month.

I'm lucky, in a way, to be disabled.
I have medicare, my doctor co-pays are very low, my prescription co-pays are very low, I remind myself just how lucky I am every single time a friend tells me about their horror story of trying to make sure they can pay for their doctors.
But at the same time, I hate my life the way that it is, it's just one thing after another with me, and I'm exhausted from it all.
I didn't sleep again last night, so I tried to get some sleep this morning around 8:30am.
I only slept until 10am, and when I woke up, I had started to break out in hives again.
On my face only this time.
My right eyelid was all puffy and itchy, my lips all puffy and itchy, and then various little hives on my face.
It really sucks to have it be one thing after another all of the time.
I never catch a break.
If it's not back and/or hip pain, it's arthritis pain in every joint, if it's not that, it's a cold, if it's not that, it's a stomach issue, if not that, it's my body breaking out in hives.
Every month I can count on being down with something.

This is what I looked like this morning.
 













Don't I just look so pretty?

The teens and I have so much to do before we go to Maine, so many things to take with us because of how long we'll be there, so many things to take care of here at the house too, that it feels like I should just hire a long distance moving company to help me pack and organize it all.
I have to go to a store and buy myself a pair of jeans, I don't own any, I wear shorts or cotton capri pants all year round here, or I have been borrowing Mark's jeans when it's cold and I need to go somewhere.
While at the store, I need to get a few t-shirts, and a package of tube socks for the 3 of us to share.
I have to get help putting on my socks and boots while in Maine, but it's better than having freezing feet the whole time.
I need to make my list of everything that I need to take, medicines, personal care items, I need to get all of my medical cards ready for the airport, that's always so much fun going through security, so I just make sure that I have everything in my hand to show them.
I need to make sure that the teens have enough warm `clothes and socks too.

I also need to get the netbook and stuff ready to go, that will be in my carry-on, not in a suitcase, not even going to risk it.
I need to finish programming all of my contacts into my new cell phone, and learn as much about using it as I can, take the manual with me anyway.
And then I need to have Mindy come over so that we can go over everything about the cats feeding and stuff because she's watching them and the house for us while we're gone.

There's so much more too that I can't even remember right now, but I will, and then as soon as I remember it, I need to add it to the list so I don't forget it again.

I'm now a regular at the Doctors Hospital ER, I should get like a badge or something.
ha ha
I had broken out in hives again on Thursday, they were all over my body, really bad all over my body.
Both of my eyes were nearly swollen shut, and the hives were spreading everywhere, even on the top of my head.
When my left hand started tingling, I made the decision to go to the ER Thursday night around 6:30pm.
I have high blood pressure, so I was concerned about that, like maybe I was having a heart attack or something.
It wasn't busy, thank goodness, I got right in, and when the doctor came to see me, she said I had the worst case of hives she had ever seen.
Both of my eyes were almost completely swollen shut at that point, my face, neck, torso, head, shoulders, every inch of me was covered in raised red welts.
The hand tingling thing was a hive growing larger and right on top of a nerve in my hand, and that's why it was tingling so bad, the nerve was being squished by a giant hive on the back of my hand. 
She asked me if they were "literally" everywhere on my body.
I said yes, they are every single place that there's skin.
She said "Aww, that really sucks, but we're going to take care of it right now, hang in there just a few more minutes."

She had the nurse start an IV line, and then they pumped in 8 different medications to get rid of the hives, stop the itching, something  for the pain, and one med to ease my stomach because the other drugs are known to cause stomach issues.
She warned me what the side effects of the drugs were, and she asked me if I had a ride home or was I driving.
I told her a friend was going to come back and pick me up.
She said good because 1 of the drugs can make people fall asleep within minutes of getting it. She also told me that a couple of the drugs were like taking an appetite suppressant, that I would not feel like eating anything at all during the whole week that she's got me taking the meds.
She was right about that, I haven't wanted to eat hardly anything at all, I just don't have any appetite, none whatsoever.
Which sucks because we got the Girl Scout cookies that I ordered, on Thursday night when Mindy brought me home from the ER.
Many thanks as always to Mindy and her family for helping me out when I need to go to the hospital and stuff.
She's truly a great friend to have, I am very lucky to have her in my life.

I went in at 6:45 pm, and was not let go until almost 11:30pm, that's not too bad considering that all of that time was actually spent on a bed in the ER with an IV line and getting the itches and welts taken care of.
I've spent an enormous amount of time in bed this weekend, she wasn't kidding about the drugs making me tired, I was out like a light man.
I definitely enjoyed the sleep because I have insomnia really bad a lot of the time, so I totally didn't mind falling asleep and staying asleep for a full 6 hours at a time.
I took them all weekend long, and yup, they make you dead freaking tired.
I've probably had the best sleep of my life this weekend and got it because I was broken out in hives.
I need to get the name of that medicine, I hope that it's a sleeping pill and not like a drug to cure things.
They could totally market and sell it as a sleeping aide.  

I had my appointment with my pain doctor today and was able to get a medicine that works and my insurance, Humana, will pay for it.
Yay!
Because of the whole Purdue lawsuit, the pain med that I was taking, the oxycodone 40mg, is no longer available in the generic, and Human absolutely will not pay for the name brand, my doc had to switch me to a new med.
We tried a couple of different ones, none of them worked, and the last one, the methadone, caused me to be sick and also itch like freaking crazy, so he had to switch me again.
He personally called Humana to ask them if they would cover certain medications, and after talking to them for over an hour he said, he was finally able to find a pain med that will work and that Humana will cover.
He put me on Roxicodone 30mg, which is a short acting pain reliever, not an extended release like the Oxycodone 40mg, but it will kick in faster and work just as well for my pain as the 40s used to do.
Now I am on Soma 350, Hydrocodone 10/325, and the Roxicodone 30mg.
I only take the Soma at night to try and sleep, I take 2 of the Hydrocodone every 6 hours, and 1 of the Roxicodone every 4 hours.
This should work to help keep the majority of the pain away, and he said that if I end up having breakthrough pain that is intolerable, like when it rains and the titanium starts to hurt, that I can take either 2 more Hydrocodone or another Roxicodone every 4 hours until the pain goes away.

The doctor had a few more patients to see and my script for the Roxicodone had to be typed up and signed, so they told me to go home and come back to pick up the script after 2pm, so I left and went to hang out with my friends who gave me a ride at their house until it was ready because I live across town and they live close to the doctor's office.
We would have wasted a ton of gas bringing me home, them going home, coming back to pick me up, back to the office, and then to the pharmacy, and back home again.
So after 2pm, we went to the office and then to the pharmacy to get all of the scripts filled, and they were having issues with their computers and stuff so they were unable to accept credit cards, so I had to go to the gas station and use the ATM to get money to pay for my scripts which sucked because the ATM at the gas station charges a $3.00 fee to use it.
I hate that, but by the time we got back to the pharmacy, they had all of my scripts filled and ready to go, so I paid and we left to come back home.
We all hung out here for a bit and then they had to go, but they're coming back later tonight to watch movies and eat pizza and hang out for awhile.
I'm totally ok with that, so I'm going to get up off of here and go do some general cleaning around the house until they come back.
I hate having people come over when my house is dirty.
The litter boxes most definitely have to be cleaned.
Egads those damn cats sure do pee and poop a lot!
Later days!

I'm so tired, so so tired.
Every single day is a struggle, things just coming and going at me, arguing with the teens, trying to get help so we can cope with it as a family, try to heal this family of mine that started falling apart months ago.
I lost control of my life months ago.
I know when it happened, I know exactly when it happened, I was severely depressed, not talking to anyone about it, just leaving it all sit in there because I didn't want to be seen as weak.
But I am weak and I need to stop and ask for help every now and then.
It's ok to ask for help.
And some one of these days when I get that break that I need, I'm going to get away from here, go on a vacation, go to some new state and have a real vacation.
No computers, cell only for emergency calls, just me and the teens, or me and my best friend Shell.
Then the 2 of us could just take off for like a week, just be girls again, not employees, not moms, not housekeepers, cooks, cleaners, but just be girls.
Go some place beautiful and peaceful like South Carolina and stay at one of the many Myrtle Beach hotels.
I just have so many things going on, I'm carrying like 20 plates and they are all full and terribly heavy.
I'm struggling here, just struggling to even put a coherent thought together for more than 5 minutes.
Hell, it took me over 20 minutes to just write this one post
I'm just flapping around like a goldfish that got dropped on land, struggling to breathe, fighting to stay alive, and it will either die or someone will pick it up and put it back in the aquarium bowl.
I feel like that goldfish, I need someone to pick me up and carry me at least half of the way.
I'm so tired, there are days that my life is just too much for me to handle, I want to just quit, go back in time and fix all of this crap before it ever even started.

I just don't know where my life is heading anymore, I just feel like I don't know anything about myself anymore.
Once upon a time, I was strong, both physically and emotionally, and now I feel like I'm just a big pile of mush. 

I posted on Thursday about a friend who needs to see a specialist really soon but is having trouble getting in because of what kind of medical insurance she has, Medicaid.
She just recently found out that she has cancer, she doesn't know what kind it is yet, but at least we do know that it's not mesothelioma, the one that there are all of those lawyer commercials for on tv so much lately?
Yeah, it's definitely not that one.
But she still doesn't know what kind it is, or how serious it is, how it can be treated, or if it can be treated at all.
She finally got the call from the new patient coordinator at the cancer treatment hospital, after a week of waiting, and has an appointment for November 4th.
She needs to go and get all of her records for all of the tests that she's had so far, and all of her catscan films and slides they did several weeks ago.

She is definitely better off getting them and taking them herself, there have been many times that I was told that my records and films were going to be sent to my surgeon, and I would get all of the way up to his office, hours and many miles away, and find out that they were never sent by courier at all, which made me have to reschedule my appointment for when he got the films.
My surgeon would still see me that day, basically to ask me how I was doing, what his thoughts were, and talked about all of the possible treatment plans, but without the films and written results from the radiologist, he wasn't able to give me many specifics.
After that happened to me 3 times, I made sure to always wait after I had an MRI or catscan for the films to be developed and the report to be printed up, and then I would also ask that they be sent by courier too.
On the day of my appointment, I'd bring my records with me just in case I got there and they didn't have them yet, or at all in most cases.
I also started keeping my own medical file, and I suggested that my friend now do this for herself.
She may have to pay $1-$5 at some doctor's offices for copies of her records, but it's well worth it.
If you have your own copies of everything, of every single appointment notes, every test result, every MRI or catscan film or slide, and all of the written radiologist results, you have a better understanding of your own health, you start to learn what all of those big medical terms mean so that if you go and see a new doctor and he starts talking really fast to you in medical terminology, you're not sitting there all baffled and confused, you can actually keep up and understand what's being said to you.
There's nothing worse than having some doctor talk to you like that, like you're just supposed to know what he's talking about, and you have absolutely no idea, but the way he's talking, and the words he's saying, all sound incredibly scary.
If you have all of your own medical records and doctor's notes, and you go home and read through them, look up all of those scary sounding words on the internet, you learn all about it and are now an active participant in your own health care, not just a patient who just does whatever the doctors tell you to do.

So anyway, I really hope that her type of cancer is nothing super serious, that it can be treated quickly and easily with the least amount of pain and discomfort.
She has a very young family to care for and live for, she's young herself and has the rest of her life to live and look forward to.
Plus, I'm kinda selfish, I want my friend around for a lot more time, a long time.
I don't have many people in my life that I consider really good and true friends, I really only consider 3 women as my best friends, and she's 1 of them, so yeah, I want to see this be the kind of cancer that can be taken care of as fast as possible without too much pain and suffering for her, she doesn't deserve to suffer.
She's good people ya know?
She's truly a good person, she has no ulterior motives for anything that she does, she wants nothing in return for helping someone, she just does it because it's the right thing to do.
Her whole family is like that, just really good, honest, kind and caring people, so I'm really wanting this to be quickly treated and gone so that she can be around for her family and her friends, for a long, long time to come.

I had been battling a couple issues the last 2 days, a migraine that wouldn't quit, and a swollen foot.
The swollen foot thing is always bothersome, it (left foot) swells up so much that it hurts to try and walk, it turns red, it feels like it's going to break, or the skin is going to pop open.
So I spent all of last night laying on the couch with my foot elevated and trying to get rid of the migraine.

I also spent some time being very concerned for a friend who really needs some really good but super low cost health insurance because of a health issue she is now faced with, and her doctors are only able to do so much for her with the Medicaid that she was forced to go on after her husband got laid off from work.
She really needs to get in and see a specialist, and fast, but Medicaid does things when they want to, and if they want to.
The only advice that I could give her was to be pushy with them and the doctors.
This is her health, her life, and if you wait on them to call you back, you could end up waiting weeks or months, so you really have to start being a total nag and start demanding that your health issue be treated and now, not next month, but now.

I wish there was more that I could do for her, but she's caught in the system now, and really, the only way to get help is to start demanding it, be pushy, call them every single day, start asking for the phone numbers for the specialists yourself instead of waiting for your doctor to call you back with appointment dates, call and set the appointment yourself.
It sucks that she has to do that, but if she wants to be seen and treated, then she needs to be proactive and pushy.

The whole process will kill you.
Or at least make you want to choke someone.
A friend of mine is currently going through the disability appeal process right now, for the 2nd time, and she is not happy.
Applying for disability and going through the whole process is a really rough time, it's hard.
You go to doctor after doctor, get test after test, you can have 20 doctors all saying that you are permanently disabled, and if just one of the governments approved doctors says that you're not disabled, then that's it, you get denied for disability.
I swear the absolute best way to even apply the first time, is to get an attorney.
Just get a lawyer right from the start, they know how it works, they do it for a living, trying to do it on your own is nearly impossible.
I tried telling my friend Nicci this, she didn't think she would need one, now she is desperately looking for one to help her.
The paperwork is just overwhelming, the whole thing is really, you need professional help to apply and get approved.

Because I was sick from an ear infection since Thursday of last week and just now really starting to feel better, I am just now starting to try and clean up the house.
When I get sick like that, I really can't do much, so the dishes pile up, the carpets don't get cleaned, things just fall apart around the house basically.

A few people have asked me why I replaced and am always replacing the AC when something goes wrong, how come my landlord doesn't do it, so I thought I would answer.
My landlord is a sheriff, he works 6 days a week and has a very young family that he goes home to every single night, so the agreement that he and I have is that if I can replace things or do the repair work myself so he can go home at night to his young kids, he'll take the receipts and deduct both the cost and labor off of my rent.
We've been doing this ever since I moved into this duplex 10 years ago, it works for us.
It just so happens that when the AC died on Sunday, he was out of town, actually out of state, so he told me to go buy one if I could, he'll take the cost off of the rent, and if I couldn't buy one, he'll replace it when he comes back on the 23rd.
There is no way that I could survive until the 23rd without the AC, it died on Sunday morning, and by 2pm, this house was as hot in here as the heat index outside, 110 degrees.
I had windows and doors open, 3 large box fans running too, and it was like living in a sauna.
So I bought a new one, I'll give him the receipt, and he'll take it off my rent along with the labor for installing it.

The next thing that I AM going to do and soon I hope, is to replace the bathroom faucet.
I found some great prices at a wholesale housewares store down on Cattleman road.
I can get a really nice faucet for under $20, so I am going to go down there with my friend who told me about the store, next month, and then my friend is going to help me install it because it involves getting down on teh floor and shutting off the water and stuff, and I definitely cannot get down on the floor. LoL

I'm not the kind of woman who has to be given a gift when the man I'm in a relationship with, has done me wrong, that his way of saying sorry is some jewelry like a pair of diamond hoop earrings or something.








But I would certainly never say no to a gift like that.


I do think that some men out there are totally clueless though when it comes to being romantic, saying sorry, asking the woman they are totally in love with, to marry them.
I guess that's a good reason to offer those men some advice for times like that.
I always have found it funny when a woman will put her man on the spot in front of their mutual friends, at like a party or something, and as a way to show everyone that he really loves her, she'll ask him questions to see if he pays attention to her, knows her as well as he claims to, things like are her ears pieced, her favorite color, what side of the bed she prefers to sleep on, if she drinks coffee, tea, or soda to get going in the morning, and stuff like that.
I've seen guys  who really do know their woman very well, could tell you her morning routine right down to the second, and I've seen some other guys who have been dating a woman for over a year, totally blow it and not know much of anything about her, not even her favorite color.

About 2 years ago, I got to see a man who knew his girlfriend so perfectly, knew everything about her, knew what her favorite shape was, and even knew which jewelry designer she loved, that when he proposed to her, he had gone to her favorite local jeweler, specifically asked for her favorite designer, and then asked to see all of the rings in her favorite shape.
Every one of us women who were there the night he proposed, were amazed at how well he knew her, we all 'oohed' and 'ahhed' over the perfect-for-her-ring, and every man who was there, realized they had better step up their game and start learning all of that about their girlfriends if they were ever going to propose them.
The ring was truly perfect, he knew it would be because he paid attention to her, knew everything about her, he either remembered all of the important dates in her life, or he wrote them all down, but it showed that he paid attention to every smallest detail.
It was a really beautiful proposal too, I don't think there was a dry eye among any of us, the guys included.

I think that if a guy doesn't know things about the woman he's in a relationship with after 6 months, things like her favorite color, her birthday, if her ears are pierced or not, that he's probably never going to.
But if a guy is truly serious about her and just has a terrible memory, he needs to find ways to remember all of those things, write them down, get a calendar or small blank notebook, and start keeping track of those things, write them all down in that little book, her birthday, the dates of their 6 month and 1 year anniversaries, their wedding anniversary when they do get married, if they have kids, their birthdays, mother's day, Christmas, and the dates of graduations if she goes back to college, or gets a promotion etc.
If he knows these things and surprises her with even just remembering and/or maybe a little gift to go with some of those dates, she will always be happy.
Nothing annoys a woman more than a man who doesn't remember all of the important dates in her life.
Most of my girlfriends say this, that it's the not remembering things that drives us crazy.
I know that it's that way for me, I just want to know that he knows, that he hasn't forgotten the important dates in our relationship, and I'm totally happy. 
 

I don't have cable, I really hate our local cable company, Comcast, and due to some sort of purchasing rights agreement between the city and them, we are stuck with them instead of being allowed the choice between them and Brighthouse, which is far cheaper and has far superior customer service as well, but whatever, we have lived without cable for like 9 years now, not really a big deal.

Most of the shows that are on cable, produced by the premium channels like HBO, Showtime etc, are available on Netflix once the season ends, so if my friends and everyone else says that some show is truly amazing, I wait for the season to be over, and then add it (the whole season) to my Netflix queue.
Such is the case with HBO's True Blood.
They have just started season 2, so that's the website you'll see if you click that link.
True Blood is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries, aka Sookie Stackhouse, Books 1-7   book series by Charlaine Harris.
The series details the lives of vampires and humans coexisting in the fictional town of Bon Temps Louisiana.
The series centers on the main character Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress, who falls in love with vampire Bill Compton.

Almost all of my friends have ranted and raved about this show, it was True Blood this, and True Blood that, and OMG Kat! You LOVE vampire stories, well this is the most kickass vampire show ever, they fall in love, it's modern, you'll love it!
And all I could really think was yuh, right, that's what everyone told me about Twilight too, and OMG, I wanted to stab my eyeballs out with a spork after that absolutely horrible and so freaking stupid vampire crapfest.
Seriously, Twilight is the lamest vampire series I have ever read in my entire life, it's just so damn emo and pathetic, and W.T.F. vampires don't go out during the day because they glisten?
And then I watched the movie, (I did read the books, a friend sent them to me to read) and I saw the glisten scene and was all OMG, no, Stephenie Meyer was smoking some crack rock or something when she decided to write that the REAL reason that vampires don't go out in the sun is because they glisten.
She completely ignored hundreds of years of folklore on the subject, and made the vampires in her books these pathetic, glistening, emo vampires who I would have shoved a stake through all of their glistening skin and emo hearts just to make them stop all of the damn whining.
And please, don't even get me started on the piss poor actors they chose for the lead roles of Bella and Edward.
The guy is NOT good looking folks, just because he played a vampire does not make him hot, he's just not ok looking at all, there's something very weird about the placement of his facial features, and Kristen Stewart, wow, the girl is just a very bad actress, but she plays the role of emo pathetic follower girl wonderfully. Bella is the type of girl who can't be alone, she has to have a man in her life to be complete, and in book 2 when Edward leaves her so his family doesn't eat her, she gets pretty damn cozy with Jacob all the while still pining away for Edward.
If ya can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one with your with.
Bella is co-dependant and gives independent girls everywhere a really bad name.
If I had a tween-teen daughter, I wouldn't let her near those books or movie because of the poor role model that Bella is for girls everywhere.

Wow, went off on a sucky vampire tangent, sorry about that.
Anyway, back to True Blood.
Like I said, all of my friends have been raving about it for a very long time, and after a thread on the local forums where even a bunch of guys that I know who normally are not into this kind of stuff, were posting how much they loved it, I decided to add season 1 to my queue.
I only have the 2 movies at a time but unlimited monthly rentals plan, so only discs 1 and 2 showed up yesterday, each disc had 2 episodes on them, I already watched all 4 episodes, and will be mailing them back immediately so that I can get the next 2 discs in the series, and there are 5 discs in total.
And then I'll have to wait for season 2 to finish before I can see what happens.
*sigh*
But so far, after just 4 episodes, I am totally loving this show!
THIS is how vampires are meant to be, strong, powerful, dangerous, mysterious, they don't go out in the sun because it will burn them, they have the power to control their human victims, and the show is just extremely well written.
It's super funny in some parts, bloody in others, incredibly hot and sexy in others, and wow, just wow, my friends were right about this one.

As I was watching the show, I was noticing how well the scenery is, how authentic it all looked, so I was curious where they filmed it, I wanted to know if it was really filmed on location in Louisiana, or on some Hollywood back lot, or if they got a great price on some  Wilmington NC real estate due to how southern looking that area is, and I've heard that a lot of movies are being filmed there lately.
Well I found out that they film it in several locations actually.
They do film parts of it in Hollywood of course, some in Los Angeles and  Eagle Rock California, and they also do film on location in Shreveport Louisiana, which is mentioned quite a few times in the show.

Anyway, I am really liking True Blood, I plan on watching all the rest of season 1, and if I still feel this excited about it at the end of season 1, I'll wait for season 2 to hit Netflix and I'll keep up with the whole Sookie and Bill, human and vampire love story plus murder mystery, drugs, sex, and other sordid story lines.

Vampires glisten in the sun, oh man, I still cannot get over that whole thing.
It's just so incredibly stupid. 

I posted back on April 16th on my other blog, how Mark accidentally broke the handle off of the bathroom faucet, it was an old faucet, really has probably been in this duplex since the house was built in the 70's, but looking at it day after day is starting to get on my nerves.















I have not told the landlord yet, I know that I should, but I hate bothering him.
It's not because he's a mean landlord or a jerk or anything, it's just he works 6 days a week as a sheriff, and he only gets one day off per week to spend with his wife and two young kids.
I think they aren't much older than 9 or 10.
And it's really not that hard to install a new faucet, just shut off the water, unscrew the old one, screw on the new one and use some plumbers' tape, and turn the water back on.
It's literally like a 20 minute job at the max, but I don't want to bother him on his one day off a week.
He is still working on the empty unit next door, they trashed it so bad in there, it's been over 7 months, and it's still not clean enough to start showing it to new tenants.
 
Anyway, I think I'm just going to go find a nice new faucet, like a nice but reasonably priced  Kohler faucets, and install it myself, or help the teens, or maybe even ask Dustin to come help me, because it would require me getting down on my knees under the sink, and shutting off the water, and doing some other work under the sink with the plumbers' tape and stuff.
I think I'm just gonna go check out the faucet selection at the hardware store, see if they have anything on clearance, and then just do it.
I just hate the idea of making my landlord do more work when he only gets 1 day off and still has the unit next door to do.
I feel guilty asking him to fix stuff, especially small stuff like this that I can fix myself.
Just buy the parts, do it, and give him the receipts, and he takes it off of the rent.
He never complains about me doing that, and he actually has thanked me several times for just doing it myself.

I had my appointment with the cardiac doctor on Tuesday morning at 11am, and surprisingly, it went very well.
I was surprised it went well because I had not slept on Monday night at all, I was wake straight through from waking up Sunday, and I didn't much sleep that night either.
I only got a few hours on Sunday morning from 10:30am to 12:30pm, so yeah, I was going on very little sleep.

My friend Dustin took me, and Mark came along.
He was released early from school because he donated blood this morning.
All seniors age 17+, were allowed to donate blood, and if they did, they were allowed to be dismissed early.
He was quite pale when he came home at 10:15am, so I took him with me so we could grab something to eat on our way home that was loaded with salt, calories, and would fill him up quickly.

The cardiac doc ran all of the usual tests, BP, pulse ox, heart rate, and he listened to both my heart and lungs, and said I looked good to go.
I said what does that mean? I'm good to go for the stress test?
He said, "No, you're good to go for the surgery. You don't need another stress test, they are good for a year, and even though you had some problems during your last surgery with your heart, that had nothing to do with your heart really. After reading the surgical notations, it appears that your heart stopped because the tube used for intubation nicked your right lung on it's second run down your throat, which caused it to fill with blood, your lung collapsed, and you lost some blood. There was nothing at all wrong with your heart. Tell Dr. Moreno, that he'll have the letter for surgical clearance within 1 week. When is the surgery?"

I told him that I postponed it until June, because I wanted to be there to see my oldest son graduate high school, not be in the hospital, or if I was already out, not be wearing a halo brace to the graduation.
He said to give Mark his congratulations, and told me he would be thinking of me and get in touch after the next surgery to see how I was doing, and if we needed to do any more heart testing, or refill my BP meds again.

Yay!
I have surgical clearance from the heart surgeon!
Now I just have to get clearance from my primary care physician, pass a full physical, and I'll be good to go for surgery in June.
The nurse Cindy did call me yesterday, she has to get with Doc Moreno about the schedule for June, and she'll call me back, but it looks like possibly June 10th according to what she can see, but she needs him to tell her if I'll be an all day surgery, or a half day, and that will determine the day because of other surgeries he has scheduled for the month of June.
She said that Doc Moreno totally understood how important it is to me to be there for Mark's graduation, and to tell him congratulations.

So it looks like May will be a relaxing month, I only have that one last clearance to get, and then the week before surgery is where it gets hectic doing all of the pre-surgery blood tests, xrays, and final MRIs and CTscans, but at least the beginning of the month will be peaceful and relaxing.

We women that is.
What are we obsessed with?
Losing weight, being super skinny.

When Stacey and Dustin were here the other night, Stacey and I had some alone girl time, and we talked about a ton of stuff, but one of the things that came up, that always comes up when girls get together, is our weight, and fat, being fat, thinking we are fat, and always asking each other if we know of a diet pill that works.

I did tell Stacey about the one that I was taking for most of last summer before I had to have my last surgery, and I did tell her that it worked for me, but it was kinda pricey.
62 capsules for about $50 I think it was.
I have not been able to start taking it again because I'll be having another surgery, but it did work for me.
I told her that my last bottle that I bought, still had about 40 capsules in it, and if she wanted them, she could have them, then if they worked for her, my new pain doc also sells them, so I would be able to keep getting them for her, she'd just have to give me the money before my appointment every month.
She took me up on my offer, and said she'll let me know if they help her or not.

Mindy didn't want to come over when her husband Chris comes to take a look at the AC tonight because she has been sick, and she doesn't want me to catch it.
I told her not to worry about it because if I tried to avoid people who are sick, I'd never be able to leave my house, or I'd have to live in a bubble.

My immune system is just shot, surgeries, medications, it's just wrecked, there's not much I can do about it.
I mean, I'd probably have to take pills the size of horse supplements for antibiotics, or some sort of antioxidant or something like that, to try and help my immune system fight off catching stuff or killing an infection when I get them.
I catch everything, nothing I can do, and I'm not going to spend my life avoiding people in order to try and avoid getting sick.
If I get sick, I get sick.
Heck, i'm sick like every other week any way.

The new med, the 40MG Oxycontin, is much stronger than the 30's, much stronger.
I had a very rough night with it, I was physically sick from it, puked like 4 times, couldn't eat, was wicked dizzy.
I spent almost the whole night just laying on the couch.
I think the problem with it is because I hadn't gotten any sleep in days, I was exhausted, I hadn't eaten much at all, so it hit me super, super hard.
I am adjusting much better to it today that's for sure.
I slept all night, didn't wake up till almost noon, ate a big breakfast, and so I am handling it much better today than I did last night.

I told you on Thursday about how things went with my pain doc appointment, and that he gave me a new med, and that Walgreen's said my insurance didn't cover it, so I was only able to pick up one of the meds.
Walgreen's had a new girl working behind the counter with the pharmacist, the new girl is the one who told me that my insurance, Humana, didn't cover it.
The cost out of pocket was going to be $295.00, that's basically the price of a night's stay of some luxury hotel rooms.
Way too much.
A friend of mine called me on Friday around noon to see how I was doing, I explained how things had gone, and he said, "Kat, you cannot be without that med, you'll go through the hydros faster, you'll be in pain, I'll come pick you up after work and we'll go pick it up, you can pay me back later."
So I called all of the pharmacies that I have gone to to get price quotes, some of them sell the meds for a little less, we found that Publix pharmacy had them for $283.95, about $11.00 cheaper than Walgreen's, so we went there.
He had given me the money, I sat and waited, the lady called my name, and said that will be $240.
I was like oh wow, cool, that's less than the price quoted on the phone.
So I counted out $240.00, and handed it to her, she said "No, $2.40, 2 dollars and 40cents."
I was confused and asked, and she asked me if I was Kat Cooper at my address and phone number, did I have Humana, I said yes, she told me that my insurance covered it.
I asked her to double check it because I had been told that my insurance didn't cover it.
She checked again, it did, I paid the $2.40, and we left.
I gave my friend all of his money back, and we came home.

I called Walgreen's and complained.
I told the lady who answered the phone what had happened Thursday around noon, told her to look it up, she did, I asked why I was told my insurance didn't cover it when it did.
I had to borrow money, go all the way across town to a different pharmacy where I was prepared to pay a whole lot of money for it and it ended up being that my insurance did cover it, that it wasn't right to make me go all the way across town to do that, I'm disabled, I choose that Walgreen's because it's close enough to my home to walk home if I need to.
I asked her what went wrong, did the girl enter my name wrong, did she enter the medication wrong, enter my insurance number wrong, what happened, because it was covered.
She said she didn't know, but while we were on the phone, she entered all my info and the drug, and yup, it was covered, she apologized several times, said she didn't want to lose my business, she would make sure to pass the information on to the pharmacy manager so that the new girl can be trained better or whatever they have to do because that wasn't right at all.
$295.00 is a big mistake, my insurance costs me $20.00 per month, my co-pays for meds range between $2.40-$5.80 depending on the medication, and this one was only $2.40.
That was a big mistake, it almost cost me owing somebody a lot of money, it made me have to go all the way across town, all because somebody made a big mistake.

In today's mail, I got a packet from the new pain doc I'll be seeing on the 23rd.
Yup, he's very, very strict with his patients.
I read through it briefly, he does random drug testing of his patients for any substances that are illegal, any of the prescribed medicines are showing up in the urine in higher quantities, and it does say something about drug safes or other secure locations for the medicines.
There are 6 forms in the packet that must be signed, all of them are contracts with him and his patients.
That's fine with me.
I don't take anything I'm not supposed to, but I do take some vitamins and supplements, and I will write those down for him so he knows what I take when he does the urine tests.
Heck, I may even just bag everything up that I take, and take it in so he can see everything I take.
I don't want to upset this guy, because if you screw up with him, you are kicked out of his office, he reports you to every other pain doc in town, as well as put your name on the pharmacy watch lists as a drug abuser.
So yeah, I'll take everything I do take in, let him see it all, and follow his rules to the letter.
What all do I take?
Ok, here's everything I take every single day:
Hydrocodone 10/325 x 6 per day
Oxycontin 40MG x 4 per day
Toprol XL 25MG x 1/2 per day (heart/blood pressure med)
Cal/Mag/Zinc x 4 per day (for bone growth)
BioQuench antioxidant x 1 per day (cuz my immune system sucks)
Publix brand multivitamin w/iron x 1 per day (cuz my immune system sucks)
Publix brand Tylenol for headaches as needed (cuz pan meds don't work on headaches, surprisingly)
Publix brand stool softener as needed (opiate pan relievers block you up)
Walgreen's Wal-som sleep-aid x 1 (as needed to try and sleep)

I have been going through a rough patch these last few weeks, I'm stressed out and worried about the upcoming surgery whenever that will be, I had lost trust and faith in people due to some nasty people with nothing better to do than harass me online.
I'm no stranger that, but it's still never fun to deal with.
I've been tired but not sleeping, then sleeping when I should have been awake, having blood pressure issues, and just all kinds of stuff.

I lashed out at everyone around me, my kids, friends in the off line world, friends in the online world, I lashed out on the forums for my job.
I blew up, just absolutely exploded on everyone around me, I had reached my breaking point and exploded.
I felt terrible after I had done it, I deleted the thread on the work forums, I apologized to both my friends online and off, and have been trying to find other ways to deal with all of the issues that have come up in my life recently.
I've been doing a lot of laying down and listening to music, playing games, watching movies.
Maybe those things aren't exactly the way to deal with things, but they take my mind off of everything.

And then just when I needed to know I was cared about, that everything I do IS noticed, that people really do want me to be ok, people showed me that I was.
 
I told you how some friends all got together and sent me the NuWave Pro Oven that I had been wanting to get so that the teens won't have to eat junk food, and take-out or delivery food, while I recover from that upcoming surgery, and it really does rock, it's freaking awesome.
And then about 10 minutes ago, the FedEx guy knocked on the door.
Mark got up and answered it because I was laying down on the couch with 3 of the 4 kitties, (another stress reliever for me) and it was just an envelope.
The sent from address was from Publix, my local grocery store.
Inside, I found 3 gift cards for $100 each, but no note, no sent from name or address.
I laid there on the couch asking out loud, "Who sent these?!"
I couldn't figure out who sent them, I laid there racking my brain as to who could have sent them, and then I remembered an email I received earlier today in reply to 1 I sent out this morning, and this was written at the end of it;
       "Be on the lookout for something we sent over also."
So I *think* I know who sent it, I did email them, no reply yet*, but it has to be them.
They know who they are, so thank you, it helps me so so much, you don't even know.
Now I can go ahead and start stocking up on any meats that are on sale and stick them in the freezer so that the teens can cook for themselves with the NuWave oven, as well as get regular groceries too.
Money and food is always a source of stress in my life.
I have so many doctor's appointments to pay for, medicines that aren't covered by my insurance to pay for, and transportation to all of those appointments, that money left over for food is tricky.
I don't have a car and no license either, (Thanks State of Florida!) so getting everywhere I have to go is either by cab or friend with helping to pay for gas.
I swear, money issues is one of the things that keeps me awake at night.

So yeah, just when I needed it, just when I needed to know that people do care, that I don't have to lose all my faith in people for the stupid things other people do, people showed me that they do care, that I am not dealing with all of this stuff alone.

By the time I finished typing this, the people who sent the gift cards responded, it was them.
Thank you guys and staff, it is so very much appreciated.
 

Ok, not all of the crazy drivers live to the north of me, but I'd say a very large majority of them do.
It always makes me glad and feel a bit safer to know that Mindy has good car insurance when she drives me to my appointments in Tampa and Safety Harbor..LOL

I know I just laughed, but seriously, when we were lost and driving all over half the state, other drivers were just all over the road, speeding, swapping lanes with no blinkers, motorcycle riders not wearing full gear, taking off from red lights doing wheelies, people zooming through traffic on the interstate only to end up exactly 1 car lentgh in front of us.
The people out there were crazy!

Honestly, I do not understand how people can live in Tampa and the surrounding big cities like St. Pete, Clearwater etc.
I love big cities, I love being in big cities at night, the lights, the sounds, the millions of things to do, but I do not like living in them.
I like going home at night to my nice and super duper quiet street that I live on.

I used to live in a fairly big city in Maine, Portland, but I was much younger, I was only 19 and 20 when I lived and worked there.
I loved the hustle and bustle, the constant movement of people at all times of day and night, but I lived in a really nice apartment building that was well insulated.
Once inside, you couldn't hear all that noise outside at all.
It was peace and quiet indoors, and I loved that part of living in the city.
I could go out and enjoy all the sights, sounds, and smells, and then go back home to my peaceful apartment and feel like I was far removed from it all.

But Tampa?
OMG, that place is insane!
I simply cannot stand how it is there trying to drive somewhere.
The traffic is just insane, and so so many cars I saw had damage to their front or back ends, or a door smashed in, and it's really no wonder the way that people drive there. 

  We all went over to Mindy's house yesterday afternoon and evening, for her son's 18th birthday party and bbq with family, and it was a wicked great time, but I'm suffering today.
Jeff turned 18, made out like a bandit in the ol' cash department, the food was awesome, company awesome, but I totally stayed too long, sat awkwardly on furniture, and I'm paying for it.

With limited pain meds until Wednesday, I can't double up to knock it out, so I'm stiff and sore and suffering badly.
I'll manage, but ugh it sucks a fuckload.

I've been going through every box, bag, and piece of luggage that contains all of my pictures, every single picture of everything ever taken, and it's amazing just how many places I put pictures.
I never put them all in the same place.
Why do I do that?!
I'm so freaking un-organized!

But I have to get them all, find them all, and go through every single one to find the most awesome pictures of the boys to use for the picture project that Christine and I are doing for the boys scrapbooks.
I'm really trying to get organized in my whole life, not just for this project, but every area of my life.
I want my home to be totally organized, I wish I could hire one of those organizer people, the ones who just know how to do it all so well, that once they get done organizing your home, you see how so very simple it all is and that you may have been able to do this all along if only you had known how.
I want to learn that, I want to learn how to be perfectly organized.
Like Bree from Desperate Housewives, I want to be anally organized in my home and life.

I've been awake since the alarm went off for the teens at 5:45, after finally going to my room and attempting to sleep at 2am.
I just wasn't tired at all.
I finally fell asleep at 4am, so yeah, a little under 2 hours of sleep last night.
Today is going to be a very, very long day.
I have not gotten more than 2 hours of sleep at any point on any day, since last Thursday.
What's going to suck is that I have a very long car ride ahead of me this morning to the docs, and the combination of the warm sun and the motion of the car, will have me dozing off every few minutes, but I can't nap on the way there.
I'm the co-pilot, I have the directions, it's my job to not get us lost.
I usually do have trouble getting us there anyway, even though I've been o his office over 2 dozen times since 2006.
Poor Mindy, I hope that she sorta remembers how to get us there, I really do suck at it, and I even have the directions on my cell phone.
I'll get us there, I always do, but my brain gets foggy about all the various roads and turns we have to take, and seeing as how she never goes up that way except to take me, she doesn't know the area well either.

I need to get in the shower, she'll be here at 9am so we can head out, and my clothes are in the dryer de-wrinkling, and also getting the cat hair off of them.
I specifically washed and dried them, folded them up nicely, and laid them on top of the dryer, and over night, Shahiro stupid kitty decided she was going to rearrange them and sleep on them, leaving new wrinkles and cat hair behind.
Damn cat.

I was watching the Today Show, and they were talking about ways people can make money during these tough times.
Today they talked about doing paid surveys online and product reviews, paid telephone surveys etc.
I've been doing this for years, not just on my blog either.
I have worked for several major survey companies since 1999, and have made some decent money from them over the years, as well as paid product reviews for all kinds of stuff.
I've just always found being a consumer reviewer a lot of fun, and I've also been involved with tv show broadcasting companies about the shows we watch.
Yup, I'm the reason certain shows get canceled on the big 3 broadcast networks. Ha! (ABC,NBC,CBS)

Okey dokey, I've got to get my but in gear and hop in that shower.
Later days!

My surgeon's office called me this morning, asked me if I wanted to come in earlier than my scheduled 2pm appointment.
I said I would call them right back, I needed to ask Mindy, who is taking me there.
I called her, she said yes, so I called them right back and told them we'd be there at 11am.
Yay for early appointments!
He had offered me an 8am appointment as well, but I'm like dude, we live way down in Sarasota, cannot get there at 8am, no way, no how.

But I'm excited to be going in early, speak to him and his other surgical staff, about the problems I'm having and to hopefully schedule the revision surgery.
I hope they can do it like in January or February.
I just want to get it over with.

My friend Leeanne and her husband Tony, have both started blogging.
Leeanne's blog is called Happy Mommy3, and Tony's blog is called TurboMacnCheese
Add them to your RSS feed reader if you like them after checking them out.

I talk about blogging so much on the local forums that people started asking me about it and got interested.
Not only have Leeanne and her husband started blogging, but another gal on the forums just messaged me tonight about it and will be starting hers up too.
I'm like the town crier for blogging...LOL

Beth of the Sassy Southerner, gave me a Butterfly award a few weeks ago, for being one of the coolest blogs she's ever known.


I love getting these awards from my blogging friends, it lets me know that people care about me, that when they read my blogs, they are truly interested in me and my life.
Over the last 11 years (Holy crap!! has it been that long?!) that I've been blogging, I've met some amazing people and have been lucky enough to become friends with them.
I really wish I could meet them all in person some day, they've all been a part of my life through our blogs for so long now, that I feel like I really know them, that I can call them my friends and they can also call me friend.

So now I'm going to pass this along to some of my longest known blogging friends, and a few of my most recent blogging friends.

Christine
Robyn
Shell
Belle
Jenn
Terry
Christie
Mindy
Jade
Holly
And so, so many more, I should have just linked to my list of fave blogs, but that isn't even a complete list of all of the wonderful and awesome bloggers that I have known for many years now, and some that I've just met, but they are all people that I really care about.
I may not leave comments all of the time, but I have all of those awesome people in my RSS feed reader, and I stay up to date to all of the goings on in their lives that they post about.
I really wish I could leave comments on every single post they make, but if I did that, I'd never be able to do anything else on the internet.
Some of y'all post a helluva lot!

Oh, and I don't expect any of you to post this on your blogs, it's not a meme, nor is it mandatory that you pass it on.
Only do this if you want to.

I've had a few friends stop by here in the last few days, and the first thing everyone says when they walk in is "OMG, it's so dark in here!"
Well yeah, I like it that way for starters, and it's also economical.

My local electric company has sent out little fliers in with the monthly bills over the hot summer months, that actually tells people to keep blinds and curtains closed during the hot daylight hours, to keep the heat out and the cool ac air in.
I have room darkening blinds, dark wooden blinds on the large front windows which take in all of the morning's sun rays, and heavy blankets on the boys bedroom windows, because their rooms take in all of the afternoon sun rays.
My ac bills in the summer have always been 3 times lower than my plex neighbors, and most of my surrounding neighbors as well who just 'love to let all that glorious sunlight in'.
Gag.

If I could afford to, I would install some nice  home theater lighting, so that when people come over, I could hit a switch, and little lights along the floorboards would come on to show them the way in, maybe some soft dim lights in the ceiling so they can see.
These same people complain about their electric bills all summer long, but when I go to their houses, they have all of the blinds and curtains open, and you just stand near one of their windows and you can feel the heat coming, burning through the glass.
The ac has to work harder to try and keep those interior walls and windows cool, and if they are sending heat in, well then you pay for it.

I used to have a massive collection of Barbie dolls and accessories when I was younger.
I had the camper, the corvette, the townhouse, hundreds of pieces of clothing, and just about every version of the doll as they made.
I started collecting certain dolls though when I got older.
I collected the holiday Barbies and the designer Barbies, the ones who had their gowns made by real high fashion designers like Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, and others like
Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren, and Oscar de la Renta.
I kept all of these dolls in their original boxes, and saved them at my mothers house.
My plan was to give them to my daughter(s) when I had them.

I ended up with boys though.
*sigh*
So I gave all of my dolls and accessories to my best friends daughter.
I gave Shell's daughter Jamie all of my collector Barbies.
She loved them when she saw them, I still remember Jamie's face when I gave them all to her.
She was still just a little girl, and I had given birth to Sebastian, and so Jamie was about 6 or 7 I think, and she loved them. Her eyes lit up when she the dolls in their gorgeous holiday designer gowns, they were so pretty.
They really were too. You can probably look them up on places like ebay, I bet they are all worth some money now.
I don't regret giving them to her, I was just looking at stuff today and remembered all of the dolls and stuff.

I'm finally starting to get my bearings around here after a month out from the surgery.
I'm slowly starting to do some cleaning and cooking, not much, I get tired and sore rather quickly, but I am at least making dinner every other day, to every 2 days, which the teens are quite happy about.
They've been eating a lot of take out, frozen nuke 'em foods, subs from Publix, lunch meat and tuna sandwiches etc etc.
They were getting quite tired of it, so I made my first meal the other night.
I made some shrimp and french fries, and only needed help getting the cookie sheet in and out of the oven, because I'm still not allowed to bend over, pick up, too much.

I think on Saturday, Chris, Mindy's husband, is coming over to finish the AC unit stuff.
He's going to remove the old rotted drywall from the old AC unit dripping water so much, and I think her son Jeff is coming to help, and install new drywall.
That's good, because as helpful as Mark is, he's never done drywall before and wouldn't really be much help at all.
We can paint later on.
My sis was planning on bringing some paints at some point, and painting the living room for me. She had some colors left over from when she painted her new house.
So things are getting on, I'm doing better slowly, and hopefully it will just keep getting easier and less painful to do stuff around here.
I hate not being able to do stuff.
I'm such an independent person, so to not do stuff is driving me crazy.
I hate "resting".

Mindy and her family will be moving by the end of the month, and she's pretty much the one who has to do all of the packing.
She needs to get some moving boxes and start packing everything up.

I got a couple of deliveries this morning, really nice size, sturdy boxes, so I'm going to hang onto them for her when they come over this weekend, and see if she wants them before I break them down.

I got these boxes because I have been sent some super cool stuff to do product reviews on.
I cannot wait to do these and tell you all about them!
Opening the boxes and taking all of the stuff out, was like Christmas for me.
I love opening up boxes and have that surprise moment because I have no idea what's in the boxes, but trust me, this stuff is so so cool!

I need to go get some small shipping boxes, small but big enough for like 4-6 books, and then get the teens to mail it out, take it to the post office and ship it to a friend from the local Florida forums.
I have all of these books that I just don't have the time to read, and this friend has been out of work for a long time now due to some health issues, and she's been reading a new book approximately every 3 days.
Books are expensive, but she asked for recommendations, and that's when I told her that I had a ton of books she could have for free, just give me a mailing address.
She agreed, so I need to get them packed up and sent out.

I think I've said the word overwhelmed at least a dozen times this past week, because it really has been overwhelming.
And amazing.
And humbling.

This year, for the 7th annual blogger boobie-thon, instead of being able to volunteer my time doing some photo editing due to my neck and spine fusion surgery, I was instead the blogger chosen for the bloggers helping bloggers portion of the donations raised.
That amount is $359, and I was extremely greatful when the paypal donations reached that amount, blown away.
But the donations just kept coming and coming, and coming, all week long, right up until the very end of the boobie-thon, with the last one coming in at 11:52pm EST on October 7th 2008.
I sat here all week, in like a state of shock, watching how much was being raised for the boobie-thon and for myself.
I stopped keeping track of the donations for me around Friday mid-afternoon, I just couldn't keep up with them.

The boobie-thon is now over, and they raised an incredible amount!
$9,300.00 this year, it exceeds the amount raised last year, and breaks the record set in 2006 .
That's absolutely awesome!
What started out as a way to get a friend a plane ticket to not have to spend a holiday alone , has grown into an annual event that has now raised over $50,000 since 2002.
The event grows bigger and better every year, with more people volunteering their time to edit photos, calculate donations, publish both to the site, and even more people are sending in their pictures, and more and more people are donating money, and even more people are spreading the word about this wicked fun and great cause.

I have always loved being a part of it, volunteering my time, and when I found out back on August 5th that my surgery was going to prevent me from doing it again this year, I was seriously bummed out.
I always have such a good time editing the photos, chatting with the other volunteers, spreading the word on blogs and forums, and just being a part of something so cool and fun to do, that is helping to raise money to find a cure for breast cancer.
Some people walk, companies sell pink products, other people collect pink lids, and "we" all show our breasts, male and female, to raise some money.

Over $50,000 since 2002.
Who would have thought.

And I am still sitting here completely overwhelmed (there I go again, but I just don't have the words to say it another way) and blown away by the incredible outpouring of support, kindness, and generosity shown to me.
My fellow bloggers, total strangers, (and hopefully new friends) donated money to me this week when I needed it.
I had my surgery on September 8th, and a month later, October 8th, a whole month without being able to work doing product reviews and writing articles on my blog, a whole month without making an income, and people so generously donated money to me to help me pay my bills.
The amount is more than enough to pay my rent and bills both this month and next month.
I finally totaled all of the donations up at the end of the boobie-thon.
$1,495.52.
Amazing, thank you.

I tried to send a personal email of thanks to every one of my donors, I checked and double checked to make sure I didn't miss anyone, and quite a few people replied to me offering words of support and encouragement while I am recovering.
I was humbled by a few of the replies I received, and truly humbled by one reply from someone only known to me by the name of The Butterfly Temptress.
Just when you think you have things rough, there's someone else out there who has it worse than you do.
Her donation was generous, and I sent her an email to say thank you, and she replied with these words;

"I am dying of an inoperable brain tumor. Knowing that you are able to be treated is music to my ears. I was so glad to be able to donate money for a person who knows what it's like to be sick, not some man in a suit who makes a half a million a year."

How quickly life comes into focus.
How quickly I realized how good I have it, I get to live.
I received a few more email replies that humbled me even more, I cannot even tell you the amount of times I sat here and cried this week.
I cried for myself, I cried for others, I cried because this past week has been an experience.
It has been a true experience of people helping people, coming together for a good cause and helping someone else out along the way.
People really are good and kind, and they do good just for the sake of doing it, not for any reward, but just because helping your fellow human being is reward enough.
Heck, I'm sitting here crying right now because this really has been an amazing and humbling experience for me.
I always try to do right by my fellow human beings, I try to help others when I can, it's not always money, but I try to give of myself, of my time, because I enjoy it, I like knowing that I helped someone with whatever it was they needed help with.
Sometimes I get so discouraged by the greed and hatred in the world, and then I read a story of someone helping someone else, and it restores my faith in people again.
This week has been one of those restoring moments for me.
Everyone who donated to the boobie-thon and me, people who sent me get well cards, a friend and her husband doing some home repairs that I can't do right now, it's been an incredible few weeks for me.
I am so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life.

I think I've wept and rambled here long enough, I really just wanted to say thank you to everyone, and my emotions got all weepy, and well, this is what happens when I get weepy.
I run and ramble on. 
Thank you to everyone.

Mindy and Chris came back, Chris installed the new ac unit's frame, then he and Mark put the ac unit in and turned it on.
In less than an hour, the house is cold!
I thought for sure it would take a few hours to cool down, but nope, the new ac is blasting the cold and wonderfully chilly air!
Yay!

Now we're going to give it a week and see how it does.
We're going to see if it leaks, see if it can keep up with the temps, and then Chris will come back over next Saturday and take down the old rotted drywall from 2 ac units leaking, and put up the new drywall to make it look all nice.

I can't thank Mindy and Chris enough for doing this stuff.
My landlord is a sheriff, he works 6 days a week, so his one day off he spends with his family.
This house stuff is all stuff he can do, but he gets one day a week to spend with his kids so I try not to bother him about things.
And he appreciates that by allowing me to do these types of repairs myself, by taking the receipts as "rent" payments.
He deducts what I spend from my total rent.
It works for both of us.
He doesn't have to come do the work, gets to be with his family, and I don't have to fork over so much cash to him.
Yeah, I'm still spending the same amount, but the work gets done by me, or in this case, Chris, and everyone is happy.

Over the years I've done a lot of the home jobs that needed to be done here and just gave him the receipts.
I installed a new front door/screen door, I painted the walls, had the sink plumbing fixed, all kinds of home repairs, and he took it off the rent.
It has worked for us so well over the last 10 years that I've lived here now, so today's spending will be taken care of no problem, I know he'll be happy that he didn't have to come do this.
I think it would have driven him up the wall to have to have to do so much work only to have to tear it back out to put another new ac unit in.

Anyway, it's so nice and cool in here now, omg it's pure refrigerated bliss in here!
It hasn't been this cool in here in like 8 months, it's awesome!

Well, last weeks AC fixing didn't go quite as planned.
Mindy's husband Chris did all that work last weekend, installed an old ac unit they had that was working up until Thursday night.
That's when it stopped blowing cold air and started leaking water like a flood.

They came over today to see if they could get it working right, but it just didn't want to blow cold enough, and the leaking water all over my rug was an issue.
So Chris and my son Mark put our old ac unit back in the hole.
They turned it on and nothing happened.
Crap.
So we did what we had to do.

Mindy and Chris drove to Home Depot with my paypal card, and bought a new ac unit for my house.
$212.93.
I only had that money because of all of the donations that have been coming in because of the boobiethon, so I'm so so greatful that I had that money to buy the new ac thanks to everyone who has donated to me.
My landlord will take the receipt for it and knock that money off of the rent, just like he did with last weeks receipts for the drywall and other tools that they bought last weekend.
My landlord is cool like that, so he'll be knocking a total of $302.50 off of my rent for next month. (already paid October's rent)

Chris and Mark will take the old non-working ac unit out, and install the new one, and my house will be cool again.
I can hardly wait!
It is still pretty hot here in Sarasota Florida, and as I've bitched and moaned a few times now, the neck brace is like wearing a freaking turtleneck sweater.
It's hot.
Way hot.
So yay!
In just a few hours, I'll be cool again and it will be awesome.

I went and got my newest brace, and I'll talk about that in a minute.
But right now, I want to talk about the economic crisis that our country is dealing with.
Every Friday, Oprah's show is on live, and today she had a money expert whose name escapes me right now, Ally something, (bald guy, handsome, well dressed) and Suze Orman came on after his segment.
Both of these money experts told it like it is and to also not panic, to leave your money in the bank, it's going to be ok.
Suze Orman talked about ways to save money, what types of things to invest in like treasury bonds, and she named a very specific type of futures trading and the safest places to invest your money in so that when this crisis is over, you will be ok.

The whole reason all of us are in this situation, is because people who couldn't afford to buy a home, were told they could by banks who loaned them that money.
They spent more than they had, they tried to live beyond their means, they wanted the American dream, and sorry, not everyone can afford to live that dream.
I know I can't and probably never will.

I know that I'm feeling the crunch of this crisis when it comes to buying groceries.
The price of everything has been steadily on the rise for months now, and so buying food for 2 growing young men has been a huge challenge for me.
I don't want the teens to eat peanut butter and jelly and Ramen noodles until it's coming out of their ears, but I can't afford to feed them all the super expensive cuts of beef either.
Right now with me being unable to do any cooking, they are eating easy foods, microwave crap, lots of sliced deli meat sandwiches, stuff like that.
I have a feeling that things are going to get even harder for me and all of you as well.
It's going to get much much worse before it will start getting better.
This is a very difficult period of time we're all living in, and I'm trying so hard not to panic like both Ally and Suze said, but I can't help myself.
I already live at the bottom of the financial totem pole, I live well below the poverty level receiving SSDI and making a small amount through blogging every month.
I follow the income earnings guidelines set forth by SSDI but man, how I wish I wasn't disabled, how I wish I could work a real job again.
This whole crisis has me scared that things are going to get worse for me and all of us, this whole thing really sucks.

Anyway, Mindy took me down to the local Hanger office to get my new brace.
They ended up fitting me with a pediatric size 5 chin brace.
It fits the back part of my old brace, but the new front part is a pediatric size chin brace.
That should tell you how small my neck is. Ha!

It does fit better, it holds my head up nice and straight, but because of it's tiny size, my cheeks get squished up pretty bad.
I look like I'm making a kissy-fish-face all the time now.
I really hope my face doesn't "keep" that shape when the 3 months is over, that would really suck.
But it does it's job, what it's supposed to, so I'll deal with it.

I'm having a day here.
I'm on some hefty restrictions, no lifting anything at all, no doing laundry or cleaning or cooking anything that would make me have to bend over etc, but I have stuff that needs to be done and well, it isn't getting done.
And then there's the sitting/laying down restriction.
I am allowed to sit for 20 minutes every 4 hours and then lay down again.
It's boring and the tv is on a low stand, so it's hard to entertain myself with movies or tv shows. What I need is one of those tv lifts things on a remote, so I can get it to the perfect height for me while I lay on the couch.

And I'm feeling overwhelmed by the generosity of the people who are donating money to me for the boobiethon.
I still feel bad about not being able to donate my time this year, it's just something I've done that makes me feel good, and to not be able to do it this year is making me feel bad.
I can't help it, I just feel bad that I can't help this year.
But next year, I'll be right on it, back editing photos every day and helping spread the word as much as I can.
I usually also send in my photo every year, and I can't do that this year either.
I have a stitch line under my right breast from the chest tube I had to have, and I'm still covered in the sticky stuff from all of the tape and heart monitor things, all over my whole upper body.
Basically, my chest looks like crap and I'm not comfortable sending in a pic like that.
I'm not super vain, but I don't think anyone would want to see all that tape and the stitches with a big nasty scab on it too.
I can't send in a covered pic either.
I haven't been able to put a bra on since the day I went in for surgery, September 8th.
It hurts to even put on a clean t-shirt, and I did try to put a bra on, but it was a total no go, total wicked bad pain shot through my upper back and shoulders.

Anyway, I wanted to hop on here and say thank you to everyone who is donating money to me and the boobiethon, you're doing an awesome thing, and if you haven't donated yet, do it.
Save the boobies!

*Post has been updated at the end*

I received an email from Mindy this morning, (I went back to bed after the teens left, woke up way later) and she let me know that I had been chosen to get the bloggers helping bloggers portion ($359.00) of the donations received from the Boobiethon.
It seems that she and several other bloggers had nominated me, and Mel and the crew for the thon, chose me to get it.

I have been a volunteer for the boobiethon every year since the first year it went big-time, doing photo-editing for a few hours a day each day of the thon.
This is the first year I haven't been able to help.
I felt terrible about it.
I always enjoy helping out, I love looking at all the boobies, the creative pictures that women send in, and just being a part of something really huge, something that makes a difference.

I know women who have had breast cancer, there's been a few scares in my own family, and once I get healed up from my surgery, I get to go have my very first ever mammogram.
I'm not really looking forward to it, but I know that early detection saves lives, and being adopted, I don't have a family medical history to go on.
My scoliosis and the problem I had with my neck, are all genetic defects that I was born with.
I have no idea if breast cancer runs in my birth line or not, but knowing that almost every single one of my other medical issues were given to me by my birth mother, getting tested for breast cancer is a must for me.

My stay in the hospital ended up being a much longer stay than originally planned, and what I had been hoping for, was to be home on time and hopefully been healthy and healed up enough to help with the boobiethon.
But that didn't happen.
So for now, the only way I can help out is to encourage all of you to go and donate whatever you can to the boobiethon.
All of the money raised after the first $359.00, goes directly to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research.
I believe they hit $1,000 before noon EST, and today is just the first day, that's an awesome way to start!

So just click on the button or any of the links for the boobiethon in this post, and give what you can.
We can save lives by just giving a few bucks to help fund the cure.
One of these days they will have a cure for cancer, we will, but we need to fund the cause, so go and give what you can, it's for the boobies.

*EDITED TO ADD at 7:05pm*
Mindy informed me that Christine is the one who alerted her and other bloggers to the bloggers helping bloggers portion of the boobiethon, and to nominate me for it.
So I wanted to give a HUGE shout out to Christine for doing that, it was extremely thoughtful and wonderful, she is such an amazing friend to me.
I've known her through blogging for something like 7 or 8 years now, she's one of my best friends even though we've never met face to face.
You should all stop by her blog I linked and from there go visit all of her other blogs too.
She has quite a few of them so I'm sure you'll find one that you can relate to and start getting to know her.
She loves baseball, specifically the Boston Red Sox, cats, crafting and scrap-booking, and micro-brew beers, living in New England, and tons of other things.
She's just an awesome person and you should all go get to know her, I know you'll like her.
One of these days, I will go back to Maine to visit my family and find a way to meet up with her and meet her in person finally.
I don't just consider her a friend, I think of her as family, like a sister.

The ac unit is mostly done.
Mindy, her husband Chris, and her son Jeff, were here all day long fixing the ac unit.
Chris removed the old unit and holding stuff, then cut all new wood, installed that, and then put in the new ac unit.
The old hole in the wall was far too big for the ac, so all the wood was used to make it fit, to hold it in place better with no gaps.
He used some of that expanding caulk to help keep it all insulated and stuff, and then next weekend, he's going to come over and repair the drywall where the ac unit is.
It has to be taken out, it's rotted from all the times the ac leaked water and it ran down the walls.
I paid for all the supplies and he's doing the installation.
My landlord will let me take the work off the rent, it totally saves him from having to do it, he'll be happy that it got done.

Mark helped out too, he knocked down a ton of hornets nests and also helped put the ac unit in while Chris was outside pulling it through to sit the way it's supposed to.
Sebastian couldn't help much with that, he's allergic to hornet's stings, and Mark did get stung 3 times, so yeah, it's a good thing Sebastian didn't try to help.
But he did go to the store and get some stuff we needed.
It's going to take a few hours for the house to cool down, there was no ac on all day and a huge gaping hole in the wall all day long so it will probably get cool in here by midnight. LOL

I'm so tired now so it's also a good thing my sis had something come up for tonight, I am in no mood to have more to do tonight.
She's going to come tomorrow and help me with my hair, maybe do some lunch or dinner depending on what time she comes over.

I have a couple of movies that I can watch tonight from the lazy comfort of my couch.
I have Street Kings and Pathology, it's a reason to be lazy and not do anymore than I already have today.
Oh yeah, Chris also hooked up the HDTV antenna for me.
It's pulling a few channels, but my local ones still are not coming in like they should.
I'm hopeful that come February when the switch gets made, that all of those stations come in like they should.

Ok, off to find something to eat and watch a movie.
Later days.

I'm still chugging along trying to get through this first week at home, I have to keep telling myself to just relax, that the first week is always so so  hard, that it really is the worst, so I don't try and over do things.
A lot of just laying down and sleeping.

Mindy was here almost all day long, she did a really great job cleaning my house, it looks wicked nice and clean in here, the teens better keep it this way. LOL
Then she went home and came back with some big huge pans of food.
Her husband Chris made dinner for us, some chicken alfredo, bread sticks, and salad.
It was all so yummy.
He used to work at the Olive Garden, it's their alfredo recipe, so yeah, it's super yummy.
When Chris was here this morning, he took a look at my AC unit, and he's going to come back and fix it for me next weekend.
Box it in to the right size for the AC, clean it up, get it working right again.
It's simply not blowing as cold as it used to, it's not sitting in the housing correctly, and the leaking is because of all of those things plus all box units leak when it gets super humid.
So it will be wicked nice to have it fixed and cool in the house again.

I have a ton of emails and comments in my inbox that I just don't know when I'll be able to get to, if I'll be able to get to them at all, but I wanted you to all know that I have read them and appreciate all of the support and words of encouragement, it's really appreciated.

I did spend the majority of the day laying down and resting, I even slept for awhile, and that is my plan of attack.
My face is still wicked swollen up which makes me feel weird and stuff.
I know the swelling will go down, it's just a matter of time.
For now though, I feel like I either got beat with a baseball bat, or I am a balloon.
People keep telling me it doesn't look so bad, but I've seen my face in the mirror, I know what it looks like.
Doc said it will be ok, it will heal up, but for awhile it's gonna look like total crap.

Ok, time to get back to my couch, watch a little Law and Order repeats and stuff.
Later days. 

Here's my new neck fusion, it goes all the way up, almost touches my skull bone.
Pretty wild eh?
I took this yesterday using my cellphone while at the surgeon's office.
I went in because I'm having a concern with how my head is positioned, instead of looking up and facing straight ahead, I'm looking down.
It may be super tight and stiff muscles, which is what I believe it is, or it could be that the last joint isn't strong enough to hold my head up.
I also believe that my brace is causing the extreme muscle stiffness.

I experimented on the way home, reclining the seat all the way back, seat belt on, and brace off, and just relaxed the entire way home home.
Mindy and I just chatted about movies, hot guys, hot chicks in movies, (neither of us think there's anything even remotely attractive about Angelina Jolie. Nada.) and just chilled all the way home.
By the time we got here, my muscles had relaxed, totally, I was able to put my head up.
I then put my brace back on to to be safe and walk back in the house.
In the less than 2 minutes it took, my neck had pinched and tightened back up, squishing my head down again.
It seems obvious to me that the brace is all wrong, causing my muscles to become hyper-reflexive, and then lock in position.
So, I'm leaving off the super hard, too-big-for-me-brace, and I'm going to call Walgreen's and see if they have any of the soft padded neck braces, just to wear for support.
But it's so super obvious to me that the current hard plastic brace is causing my muscles to tighten up and lock, so I'm going to use a soft brace for support, and just do a ton of relaxing. Me and my couch and movie collection, will be best of friends for the next few months.
I'm determined to let my muscles just relax and heal nicely, not fighting to stay in a brace that's too big for my neck.
The brace guys even said to me in the hospital, "you short neck people always give us a hard time."  So I have a short neck, they don't make smaller braces, so my muscles are straining to fit in a brace that doesn't fit me.
Not any more.
I'm going to do what feels right to do, use a soft brace for support and relax non-stop.

And speaking of Mindy, she's being so super awesome, not only driving me to my doc appointments and stuff, but she's really helping me by cleaning my house.
It's gotten totally away from me over the last few months with all the shoulder pain that started in May and kept up all summer, being put on restrictions, and now the surgery that has even bigger restrictions to not do anything at all, so yeah, my house really needs the cleaning help.
She's going to be starting up her own house cleaning business, so cleaning my mess is giving her a start, I'll happily write a glowing letter of recommendation for her too.
She was only able to tackle my kitchen and bathroom yesterday, but damn, it looks a million times better in those rooms now.
I was so embarrassed about the state of my house, but being on some sort of medical restriction since the middle of May, the most I've been able to do is running the vac, doing the dishes and laundry, and general cleaning of the bathroom, that's it.
There's like 6 inches of dust in this house, and man, I felt so bad yesterday showing her how much my house has escaped me, I'm a clean person, not being able to do any real cleaning has just been a nightmare for my OCD.
So a biggie thank you to Mindy for getting it all back in shape for me, it is so much appreciated.

Ok, need to get back to laying down and relaxing before the nurse gets here to change out my dressings and stuff.

So, insomnia again last night, went to "bed" at like 8:30am, woke up at 1:30pm.
Got a phone call from the hospital I'm having surgery at saying I missed an appointment today.
What?!?!
They will be calling me back.

Teens came home from school, brought in 2 packages.
I got another book, it's a duplicate, so I'll probably be giving it away to the first come/first get.
2nd package was from Amazon.
I didn't order anything? *confused*
I open the package, and there's the movie I just posted about on Tuesday that I said I was going to buy myself for Halloween.
Christine had left me a comment with the cryptic, "Oh, and watch your mail.  'nuff said!"
That was just on Wednesday, 1 day ago.
I figured ok, next week, maybe Saturday.
Nope, she ordered it, and I got the movie I absolutely adore today!
Instant cheer up from the pissed off feeling of being told I missed a surgical testing appointment that I didn't even know I had.
I would never just miss an appointment!
I have every single appointment written on the paper calendar, digitally entered on my Google calendar, I wouldn't forget, I wouldn't just not show, this is important stuff!
Is it going to screw up my surgery date?
I only have 1 full week left to get everything done!
OMG! *panic*
How could I miss an appointment I never knew I had?
I've really been so so good about writing them all down, arranging the transportation for each one with my sister doing some and Mindy doing almost all of the others.
I wouldn't forget one!
I checked my paper calendar, I checked my Google calendar, there's nothing written down for today for me to do other than to pay my Verizon DSL bill!
I wish they would call me back quickly, let me know what the hell happened, did someone forget to tell me about this one?
I know I have a lot of different appointments for different things, it's very possible someone just overlooked it, forgot to tell me because they made an honest mistake, because I know what day, what time, and where every single appointment is for everything.
Please don't let this screw up the surgery date, let this be an easy fix.
Please.

Being a single mom, I've never been much of a traveler.
I think the biggest vacation I've ever been on, is when Shell and I drove from Maine to Florida, then to New Orleans, Tennessee, and Nashville, and then back to Maine again, in about 8 days. Our "mommy" vacation got ruined by someone who I was barely speaking to at the time, and still have not spoken to at lentgh about my life in quite a few years now.

But someday, I really would love to do some traveling, go on a nice vacation someplace, go stay at an inn in Tuscany, or stay in a St. Barts villa rentals or some place like Hawaii.
I just want a nice vacation ya know?
I want to go someplace beautiful, slightly exotic, meet the people, see things, do things.
I've never been anywhere really, and it kinda sucks.

Ever feel like you're the injured person in the accident, and after getting slammed into by that 18-wheeler, you can't decide if you need a personal injury attorney or a truck accident lawyer?
That's how I feel right now.
Everyone is stopping, slowing down to take a look, rubbernecking, holding up the rest of the traffic on the highway, and making everyone late to where ever it is they need to go.

I'm tired of answering the same questions about my surgery.
How long will you be gone?
Will you have help when you get home?
How bad is it going to be?
Will the teens be able to help you?

Answering the same questions all the time, makes me stop what I'm doing, and have to think about it, and I'm already tired of thinking about it.
I'm answering though because there are genuine people who care, my friends, family members, total strangers on my fave local forum where I play, where they only know me by my posts and my name, but even posting it in the private girls forum, people still talk, so I got a lot of private messages about it, had to reply to posts about it, and all that stuff.

I have a few weeks before I go, I don't know much information yet, I don't know how long I'll be there, I don't know if the insurance will let me have a home health aide, I don't know how bad it's going to be, any of that.
All I know is that it's a 6-hour surgery, and that he promises he can fix me.
That's it, that's all I know.
When I know more, I'll blog it.
But in the meantime until I learn more, I'm trying to live, I'm trying to deal with it all and accept it.
There's more to it than what I've posted, but every time I want to post it, I end up crying because of how big this whole thing is, of all the answers it gave me, and all the what-ifs that still hang in the air, and how much time I have to spend with my sons before I go in for it.
That's what's most important right now, being with them, and spending time with them.
I know it's not what other people want, people want more, they want answers, they want stuff I can't give them.
But it's all I have and it's what's most important.

On Sunday, my sis is taking the teens and her girls, and a few friends to one of those franchise kids play places for Susan's birthday party.
She asked me if I want to go.
I honestly don't know.
I would hate to miss her party, Susan is my little bud, but I'm not feeling well, I have a ton of stress and a ton of work to do.

I have a million things to do at home here, plus I have a bunch of actual work to do, and I really need that money.
In order to get all that money on payday, I need to have them all done by Monday morning.
I'm sure I can do it if I just start working and don't stop.
I really need that money, and I really want to be there for Susan.
I'm sure I'll go.
I'll make myself a deal, if I can get more than half my work done, I'll go, and then I'll have to do all the rest of them done by Monday morning.
I can do it if I don't get sick again.

I got the news today that I didn't want to hear, but I'm greatful for it.
How can I possibly be greatful to be having another major surgery?!
Because if I don't have it, I will die.

My vertebrae are closing in on the spinal cord in my neck, they are compressing it, and if I don't have have this surgery, not only is paralysis possible, but sudden death is a definite.
I will just stop breathing one day he said.
My jaw nearly hit the floor, but he said he can fix this, he can fix me, and he guarantees me that I will be fine.
The chances of anything at all going wrong, paralysis or death, are less than 1%.
He has done this surgery many, many times he said, and he's never lost a patient, and he's never had a patient become paralyzed.
As a matter of fact, he's never had either happen to any single patient in all the years he's been a surgeon, so I have complete trust in him that I will be ok.

The only thing I will lose is my ability to turn my head in either direction.
I can live with that.
I mean, if given the choice between turning your head or sudden death?
I think anyone would take never being able to turn their head again.

The teens are of course, scared, but I have complete trust in my surgeon and I know that everything will be ok.
Mindy and her husband have opened their home to the teens when I have it done, they will have a place to stay, people who will care for them like they are their own, and I will make all the necessary arrangements before I go.

Doc Moreno's nurse Cindy, will be calling me with all the info, what to expect, the date, all of that, it has to be done very soon.
This is a very serious situation, and it has nothing to do with my spine fusion.
This is all congenital.
These are all abnormalities that I was born with, no one ever knew they were there though.
Doc Riegel is actually the one who caught this, he is the one who spotted that something didn't look right in my neck MRIs, he's the one who insisted I see Doc Moreno right away, so when I see him on Friday, I owe him a huge thank you.
He actually saved my life.
If he had not seen this problem, I would have just stopped breathing one of these days, so I kind of owe him my life.

I'm ok, I've just accepted that this has to be done, there is no other choice but a full laminectomy of the vertebrae from C1-C6, I will be permanently fused after this, from the base of my skull to my tail bone.
Kind of amazing, I will be fused the full lentgh of my spine.

After Cindy calls, I'll know more. I'll know when this will be happening, I'll know how long I'll be gone, all of that, and I will keep everyone updated.
I know that I am in the best surgical hands possible, I know that everything will be ok, and when I know more, I'll share it with all of you.

Later days.

If I owe you an email reply, or you left me a comment and asked a question, I will reply to them all today.
I've been just so caught up in other things the last few days, I mean week, so I haven't replied to anything, I've barely been reading any blogs, but I will get to everything today.

Sorry it's taken me so long to do this, my mind has just been all over the place, but not where it needed to be.