Recently in Family Category

I will get some term life insurance one of these days, I feel like I'm running out of time here.
Lately, it's been one thing after another with me, it all feels like it's falling apart, fast.
I turn 40 on March 1st, and my body is breaking down faster and faster as each day passes, or at least that's how I feel, that's what it feels like what's happening to me.

Intestinal viruses, drastic weight loss, illness after illness, medication changes, and then at 4am today, this Thursday morning, my way back right molar, which has been broken for a long time, freaking exploded like I got shot in the face.
I couldn't sleep, as usual, and all of a sudden, it felt like I had literally been shot in the face.
The entire right side of my face immediately swelled up huge, my gums are completely swollen, my whole face hurts, the swelling is moving up the whole side of my face, my right eye is swelling shut, it's really pretty bad.
The antibiotics that I have are not working on it, not yet at least, I need to go see a dentist, but there is absolutely no dental coverage on Medicare, none.

I simply do not have the money to go see a dentist, I won't have the money to see a dentist for a very long time, and even if I did have the money, I cannot open my jaw wide anymore, an extraction of that broken tooth would have to be done while I was put under, and they would have to be extremely careful or they could break my jaw.
Being put under for extractions cost a ton of money that I just do not have, will not have.
But first, before anything like an extraction could even be discussed, I need the correct antibiotics to get rid of this massive infection that is taking place and spreading.
If this abscesses, it can get into my blood stream and make me even sicker than I already am all of the time.

I'm so tired people, so so tired.
 
I'm tired of being sick, I'm tired of having things go wrong, I'm exhausted from struggling to make ends meet, I'm stressed out all of the time, it's really no wonder that I don't sleep and can barely eat, I'm far too stressed out to even properly function half the time anymore.
I lay awake all night long, sick, stressed out, worried about how I'm going to pay the bills, the rent, pay for all of this medical crap that is constantly happening.
Every single day is a medical and financial nightmare for me.
I'm so tired and so scared.
I'm absolutely terrified that I'm not going to be able to hold it together for much longer.
I get sick and then I can't work because I'm too sick to even sit here and type.
If I can't sit here and work, I lose making the money that I so desperately need to pay the rent, bills, and medical crap.
I'm feeling like total crap right now, the right side of my face, the whole right side, is completely swollen, it hurts, my whole jaw hurts.
I called both my pain doc and my primary care, I asked if they could call in some antibiotics, they said no.
They told me to go to the dental clinic butcher shop downtown, or go back to the ER.
I am probably already marked as a "frequent flier" at the ER, so yeah, I really don't want to have to walk back in there, show them my face, and beg them to help me, again.
 
I'm sick and tired of my ex-husband paying the child support once a freaking month because he knows that he can get away with it.
He doesn't even have to pay that much anymore!
Mark is 18, so he only has to pay for Sebastian, just $59.56 per week, and he refuses to pay it every week like he's supposed to!
He knows that he can miss 3 weekly payments in a row before any legal action is taken, so he doesn't pay for 3 weeks, then pays just the one payment of $59.56, and then doesn't pay again for another 3 weeks!
He hasn't paid a freaking dime since January 8th!
I know that's not much money, but I need every single penny that I can get, that I'm supposed to have.
That weekly child support payment pays for my doctor appointments and medicines, Mark's doctor appointments and medicines, helps buy food, and helps to pay some of the bills, and he just keeps avoiding paying it.
It's not fair!

When I say that I'm really scared, I mean it.
I honestly don't know how much longer I can keep this pace up, how much longer that I can try to hold my life together financially.
Everything is a mess, I get sick, I lose work, I lose work, I lose money, I lose money, I get behind on my bills and rent.
I am falling apart here, just falling apart and I'm scared.
I need help, I need someone to just come and make it all better, take the burdens off of me for awhile.
I need someone to just come into my life and take over for awhile, pay the bills, buy the food, pay for the medicines and appointments, and clothes for the 2 growing boys, I need someone to just come take over, I am struggling so hard and I am terrified.

It is so hard for me to admit my failings, to admit that I need someone to help me, to just take control before I lose control and lose everything, house and job, everything, but I am losing it here folks, I'm really losing it.
I really don't know how I'm going to hold it together for much longer.
I have so many bills all due during the first 3 days of February, and I do not have the money, I just don't have it.
I'm not going to have it.
Do you see?
Do you see at all?
Have you ever been so scared that you're really going to lose it all this time?
That this is it, this time is going to be the time that you just can't hold it together any longer and you can do absolutely nothing at all about it?

I can't do anything about it.
Nothing.
I'm so lost and so scared, and just wow, I really don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to hold this life of mine together.
This life of mine.
It's not a life anymore, it's just fear, stress, and worry 24 hours a day, I'm really losing control.



 

I've been trying to help Mark with his plans for the future for months now, and it always feels like we get just a little bit further along in deciding what he'll go to school for, and then we take not just 3 steps back, but more like 10 steps back.
We've talked about maybe going for fire service training before, about getting a masters in public safety administration, or maybe he can go for an online Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership for fire service management.

I emailed him the link to Lewis University which is an online accredited school, sent him links to several of their classes to work toward getting an online Bachelor of Arts in fire service training.
A Bachelor of Arts in fire service training would give him the skills and information necessary to become a supervisor, train officers, train forest fire fighters, fire inspectors, and fire investigators.

Like I said, I get pretty far along, so so I think, I get him talking about it, excited about it, I get him reading up on it, and I encourage him like a mad woman, to give this some serious consideration.
But then just a few days later, he's no longer interested, and when I ask him what's up, he tells me that all of his life, he's had his heart set on being a police officer, a cop out on the streets, a beat cop.
He wants to wear the blues and badge, he wants to be out there walking down the street, talking to people, helping people, making himself a proud, welcomed, and trusted part of the community that he lives and works in.
He says that he knows that he can never be a beat cop, he knows this in his head, he knows this in his heart, he knows that he has to find something else to do, and he knows that there are so so many ways that he can be a proud, welcomed, and trusted part of the community in some other way by being a crime scene investigator, a forensic investigator, a fire investigator or inspector, something else, but still a huge an integral part of the serve and protect community in which he lives, but he also knows that it's not what he's always wanted to be and he's so very upset about it.
He's sad, hurt, angry, and terribly disappointed that his lifelong dream is over.

It breaks my heart so so much to know this, to know that he's not happy and unable to live his dream job.
I've always told the boys since they were very little that I didn't want them to live the kind of life that I did, working whatever job was out there that I could get hired at, just to pay the bills.
I didn't want them to just work "some job" to pay the bills and live paycheck to paycheck like I did.
I told them to find not a job, but to pick a career, to find something that they absolutely love to do, would be proud to do, and would be excited about doing every single day for the rest of their lives.
Mark had that, he had his dream career all picked out, all planned out, he's been excited about being a cop since he was little, and now he can't.
When I tell you that he had it all planned out, I really mean it, he had it all planned out.
he knew what kinds of classes would be best to take in high school, he knew exactly what kind of courses to take in college, he knew what time of year was the best time of year to apply at the police academy, he knew what teachers at the State College of Florida (formerly MCC, Manatee Community College) were the best teachers to have and talk to about the police academy, which teachers would write recommendations, and he already had 7 people who had agreed to write him glowing recommendations to help him get into the police academy.
He had police officers, former police officers, teachers, personal references, and even a judge who he met through his Big, George, who he spent over an hour talking to one night at a party at George's house for the holidays.

He had it all planned and worked out, he was excited about his future, and it was all taken away from him in one fell swoop of bad genes.
It's so heartbreaking trying to help him plan his future all over again, try to get him excited about a new career path for his life.
I try to get him talking about it as often as I can so that he doesn't just give up on it, give up on having a career that he can do and love just as much as he wanted and loved the idea of being a cop.
I will NOT give up on it, I will NOT give up on him, but at times it's devastatingly heartbreaking to hear him talk about what he wanted to be and do with his life, and hear the passion in his tone of voice.
He still has the passion, it's still there, I just need to help him place that passion into something new, and it's incredibly difficult for me because when I hear that passion, that want, that desire to be a beat cop and hear his voice crumble when he talks about how he can never be a beat cop, I just want to burst into tears.

Shahiro, the stunted growth kitty who is now 4 years old as of November, is still the same size as a 12 week old kitten, she's tiny.
And because she's so tiny, she's always freezing cold when winter comes around.
The last few days at night, it's been a bit cooler, not cold cold, but cooler than it normally is around here.
If anyone lays down on the couch with a blanket, she's right there and curling up into a ball on your stomach or between your legs, or right on your chest, so that she can sleep in a warm place.
I should get a heated blanket for myself for this winter, and then when she comes to lay down with me, no matter where she lays, she'll be nice and warm.

I totally missed my brother and sis in law Jenna, and my niece and nephew when they came here for their semi-annual orlando vacations that they do every couple of years.
They were in Orlando from October 3rd through the 12th, and I completely forgot that they were even coming, so of course I didn't even try to get to meet up with them.
Jenna posted that they had a good time, that it was very hot, a total temp change from Maine to Florida and return, like a 40 degree difference.
I know that's totally true because it's still very hot here and Maine is always cold, that's part of the reason that I can't live there anymore, it's just too cold and my joints just can't handle it.

She posted about the wheelchair transfers at the airports and how difficult it is.
They use these super tiny aisle chairs for people in wheelchairs, and at one of the airports, Baltimore, it was just one female attendant to do her transfer, and she argued with my brother, banged Jenna's knees and head, didn't buckle her in.
They really aren't very good with people in wheelchairs, I've seen them do transfers for people when I've flown and I've always been so thankful that I am not in a wheelchair because of how difficult it is.

But all in all, they had a very good time at Disney, the food and service was really good, and people made room for her wheelchair at the restaurants and the Disney staff helped her on and off the rides, they are really very good with handicapped people at Disney, I know that from experience.
I'm glad that they had a good time, but sorry that I missed seeing them when they were here.

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 have had another absolutely horrible, totally horrendous day, I am sitting here with a pounding migraine and  in tears, and I have been crying  off and on for several hours now.
I wish so much that I could talk specifically about why I'm so upset, but I can't, I am a woman of my word regardless of what other people seem to think and say.
I really wish that I knew why some people are so cruel, why are people so cruel??
Can't anyone tell me why??

I have had a really crappy week,  just wow, so freaking crappy, and I was hoping that after this morning's grocery shopping disaster, that the day would get better, but nope, it didn't.
I feel like my entire life is just me walking in one place, or walking on treadmills, I just keep on walking and walking and walking,  but never seem to get anywhere.
I never seem to go anywhere at all that is a good place to be.
I am just stuck walking in this place where a good majority of the people are full of drama and being wrapped up, mixed up, and in everyone's business.

I'm not a bad person, i live and let live, I try to do right by everyone who comes into and out of my life for however long they are in it, I try to treat others right, the way that I would want to be treated, with kindness and compassion, understanding, and caring.
But I hardly ever get treated back the same way.
I know that all of that karma stuff is so made up and so absolutely not true, because if it was, the people who come in and out of my life on the daily, would treat me just even half as well as I treat them.
I don't even really understand the how or the why over the reason for this, how it even began, 
I just don't even have the slightest clue.
All I know for sure is that someone, or several someones, really, truly, believe that I would try to destroy their ability to earn a living.
???
Yeah, that's exactly what I said!
I don't have the answer to that one at all, and believe me, I so wish that I did.
But I can tell you and know it to be true with every single fiber of my being, that I have not ever, would not ever, could not ever, interfere with another human beings ability to earn a living and provide for themselves and their families.
That's just not something that I am capable of doing.
 
Even way back when I was an assistant manager at a store and had to hire and fire people,
I had to practice my "I'm so sorry, but you're just not working out" speech for an hour or more before I could even walk into the office and do the deed, and no matter how many times the manager made me do it so that I could "get used to it"  before she would consider promoting me from just the assistant manager to either 2nd or 1st assistant manager, after doing it and waiting for the terminated employee to leave, I would run to the bathroom, close the stall door, start crying my eyes out, and then puke.
It was just so emotionally upsetting to me, it made me physically ill to do it.
I would have all of these thoughts and images in my head about their life, if they had kids to feed, if this job was the only way they could have a roof over their heads, if there was a member of the family who was sick and this job paid for their medications that kept them alive, all of those kinds of thoughts would be flooding my head, and I'd get dizzy and nauseous over those thoughts.
I am still the same way, I hate to hear about people losing their jobs, their homes, their insurance, I get upset just hearing a story about someone losing their job.
To know that there's someone out there thinking that I would in some way try to kill their ability to earn a living, is just really upsetting me.
It's my assistant manager job all over again, dizzy and queasy, that watery mouth feeling, swallowing hard, my stomach is in knots, and I keep crying.

I need to just go lay on the couch and zone out, watch a movie, or listen to music or something, anything at all, to get away from this situation, to make it stop, but anything that I do, I'm fearful that it could escalate an already tense situation and make it even worse.
I'm just stuck, stuck walking in the same place, just walking and walking, and going absolutely nowhere. 

Another one of Gary's adoptive aunts emailed me, they used to take some  Florida vacations every other year down to the Port Charlotte area which is only a few town south of me,but they decided this year to put their house up for sale and move here.
But not to Port Charlotte.
To Sarasota.
They would visit here when they vacationed there, and they decided they liked it here better so they want to live here.
His aunt was sooo happy to know that when they move here, they will actually have family here now.
This makes me wicked excited because in her email, she said that Gary and any of the siblings would be able to come and visit anytime so that means that I would get to see them when they come down to visit the aunt.

This is all just too cool, I can't even tell you.
I am so excited, all I want to do is get together with them and talk some more, they really are nice people, I want to learn all about them, we've lost so many years.

All of that stuff that was going on with me and my family a few months back now, is still on our families stage.
Instead of being front and center like it was, it's now just hanging out somewhere stage left.

Mark and I had a long talk on Thursday afternoon, that's why I haven't been around much during the daytime hours recently, not posting to my blogs during the day, only hopping on and off of Twitter every few hours and stuff.
Mark and I, had a long talk about his upcoming MRI on Monday afternoon.
He's really starting to get worried.
Not about the MRI itself, but the results.
He said that if the results say that it's bad and that he will definitely be needing surgery when he's older, he asked if he can tell the doctor to just do the surgery now, while he's young.
I said that of course he can tell the doctor he wants to do it now, but that doesn't mean that the doctor will, but he has every right to make his own medical decisions now, he's legally an adult.

He said that after watching me go through the spine fusion surgeries in my mid 30's, and watching George have spine fusion in his late 50's, after watching the 2 of us suffer through the surgeries, the recoveries, and watching us still be in pain (even years later in my case, George had his surgery just 9 months ago) that he does not, under any circumstance, want to have his surgery in middle age, when the body takes longer to heal, when the body is actually starting to decline in health, he does not want that kind of life for himself, and he does not want his children to have to go through what he and Sebastian have had to go through.
He said that it wasn't my fault, he doesn't blame me for anything, but it really sucks being a kid and having to deal with all of this stuff for the last 10 years of their lives.
 
He also said that after he has his spine fused, after he's recovered as much as his body will recover, that he wants to go to drug rehab and get off of all of the pain medicines while he's young.
He said that he does not want to be like George and I, having to take pain pills every single day for the rest of his life like we have to.
He said that he believes that the reason we are in so much pain, the reason that our surgeries didn't go so well, the reason that we are still suffering, is because the surgeons waited too long to do it, that if it had been done while we were younger, our lives would be so much different.

I really can't argue with him there.
I have often tried to imagine what my life would be like if the doctors had taken better care of me when I was young and first diagnosed with scoliosis.
I know that back in the early 80's when I was diagnosed, that they were using Harrington rods, and I know that those rods failed after about 10-15 years, but dammit, I would have had 10-15 years of being straight before the rods gave out and needed to be replaced, and when they did, the new titanium rods that I have now, would have been developed and doctors would have begun using them by then.
I would have been ok.
I wouldn't have started suffering from the excruciating backaches and burning pain that has  plagued me every single day since I was 19 years old.

Do you have any idea what it has been like to be in pain every single day for 20 years?
There has not been a single day since I was 19, that I've not had pain.
I honestly don't know what it feels like to not have pain, I can't remember what no pain feels like.
 
Maybe if those damn doctors had done their job and fixed me when I was younger, when I was a teenager, fixed me like another girl in my high school class was,  that I wouldn't have become disabled at the age of 31.
At age 31, I was told by 3 orthopedic surgeons and 2 neurosurgeons, that my body couldn't handle the stress anymore, that if I continued to work, continued to put any kind of physical stress on my body any harder than walking at a slow pace, that I would be in a wheelchair within 5 years, and instead of doing spine fusion surgery, they would have been amputating my left leg at the pelvis due to the extensive and non-repairable nerve and blood vessel damage that was running from my lower back all of the way down into my left leg and all of the way to my toes.

All 5 of those surgeons wrote letters to SSDI and told them that I could never work again, and I made and kept copies of all of the letters that every single one of the 21 surgeons and specialists that I saw beginning in July 1998, all the way up until I met my surgeon in November 2005.
I have all of my own medical records, I had to pay to get copies of some of them, but after going from surgeon to surgeon so many times, I just started making my own medical records to bring with me to meet the new surgeons so that time wouldn't be wasted waiting  for my records to be sent over to another new surgeon time after time.

It took from April 2001 to December 2005, to get approved for SSDI.
They denied me twice even with an attorney, and that's when I asked each of the 21 surgeons who treated me to write a letter to SSDI explaining how bad my condition was, and they all agreed to do it, they all wrote letters and sent them to my attorney, and almost all of them included their original notes from during the time they treated me and then had to send me to another doctor who "might" have been able to help me.
I really think it was those letters that finally got me approved.

I went off there eh?
Sorry, didn't mean to, it's just that period of time in my life was not only physically challenging, but emotionally challenging.
I wanted to give up fighting every single day, but then I'd look at my boys, and just keep on fighting.

Mark is a fighter, he will fight to get whatever needs to be done, done, but done his way, when he says so, not when a doctor says so.
He does not want to be middle-aged and fighting a battle everyday to just walk from the bed to the couch.
He doesn't want to put his kids through this either.
I asked him if he was really planning on having kids and he said that he was, at least 2 he said.
Then he told me that I need to make my body as strong as I can because the "Gram" is always the kids favorite babysitter.
Ha ha
I said I would do my best, but for now, let's just get through doc appointments and hurricane season, we can talk about me being a grandmother later.
Muuuucch later. 

Ha ha ha!
I was just saying to a friend in email that if I believed in all of that past life stuff and karma, I would say that I was a serial killer or something really wicked bad in a previous life because I am sooo being punished in this one.

My AC died for the 3rd time in 2 years on Sunday, I got a wicked bad ear infection on Thursday and am just now really starting to feel better, and when I woke up this afternoon after not being able to even fall asleep until around 9am this morning, I realized that I lost a freaking filling.

When my sons went out to dinner with their aunt, I had them stop at Walgreen's and get me some Dentemp so I could put that in the giant and gaping hole in my way back right side molar.
I can deal with a lost filling, at least it's not as bad as when I was a kid and got smacked in the mouth by the seat from the swing sets at the school playground, and totally broke my right FRONT tooth.
Yeah, I ended up having to have a cap put on it, and that cap lasted me from the age of 11 up until about 8 years ago when it finally fell off.
I haven't had the money to have that fixed, there's no way that I can afford it.
I asked a dentist about 5 years ago when I was having a tooth pulled how much it would cost to repair that, and he told me that I was looking at about $1,000.
Yeah, I just really do not have that kind of money to spend on 1 thing, a tooth.
1 grand can pay all of my monthly bills and buy groceries for 2 weeks, so yeah, getting my front tooth fixed is not going to happen any time soon unless I win the lottery.
But you gotta play to win, and sorry, I just can't even spare $1 for a single ticket these days.

That's making myself pretty, not petrifying myself..LoL
As I said, Sebastian and I have to be at the high school at 8am for orientation and a tour of the new building, and I've had insomnia again, so I decided to do some beauty stuff to make myself look a little better.
I found another box of hair color that I must have bought quite awhile ago, (found it in my bedroom IN my dresser drawer) checked the expiration date, it was still good, so I'm sitting here right now with some hair color in and playing on the internet, Twitter mostly.
By the time it's ready to be rinsed out, (40 minutes) it will be time for me to take the shower that I needed to anyway, so I'll hop in, let some water soak my hair, lather it all up and let it sit for a minute, then rinse it completely out, add the conditioner in and let that stay on for the whole rest of my shower, then rinse it all out.
It will be beautificent looking again!

I'm also going to throw some Veet on my legs so that I can wear my nice dress shorts and not be a hairy beast. (Shh, don't tell anyone, but I haven't shaved my legs in almost 2 weeks!!)
I did the laundry yesterday evening so I will have my nice black dress shirt to wear too.
Heck, I may even throw on some earrings and a necklace, maybe even put my rings back on!
I haven't worn any jewelry (or makeup) at all since the last surgery in September.
The 1st reason was because the earrings I wanted to wear were dangles, and with my head tilted down like it is, they looked silly.
The second reason that I haven't worn any jewelry since then is that I didn't want to draw any attention to myself.
I hated the way that I looked so much, that I didn't want anyone to notice me, then notice that I couldn't move my head and start asking questions.
I didn't want to deal with other people talking about it because I couldn't deal with it at all.
I don't feel like that anymore, thank goodness, it was miserable being in that place that I was in for quite a long time.
I am finally feeling like myself again, I'm still stuck like this, but at least I am not so sad and depressed anymore.
I think the combo of antidepressants and the therapy is really working.
I only go once a week, I found some free transportation as long as I give them a couple of days notice, they get me there at no charge. I think they have some sort of mileage deal worked out with medicare or something, because after every trip, I have to sign a paper on their clipboard. The therapist is the one who gave me the number, so don't anyone worry, it's a safe ride with a total stranger every single time. Ha ha ha

Ok, in 15 minutes, I need to go rinse this hair color out and take a shower so I can go to that 3 hour long orientation on absolutely no sleep, but at least I will look pretty.
I hope the principal is there and sees me, she hates me, when she sees me coming, she quickly turns and practically sprints the other way to not have to talk to me. ha haha
I heard that this is her last year, that she's either retiring or moving to a different school.
Thank goodness for that too, she's a horrible principal who says 1 thing, and totally does another.
She knows the school board's policies on bullying and such, and she says that she enforces it, but she doesn't.
She turns away from things that happen right in front of her.
The teens used to come home every day and tell me about that days main attraction right outside the cafeteria which is directly across the hall from the main and her office, and the attraction was usually a fight, usually involving a weapon of some kind, and she'd ignore it, the teachers would ignore it, and the security team would be too busy stuffing their 300lb faces in the caf to notice it.
I really hope that this year is better in the new building that they said was partly designed for security reasons, so let's hope that it cuts down on the fighting, and if it doesn't, that they at least try to do something about it.
Sebastian won't have his big brother to walk with him and protect him at school for the 1st time in his life, so he's really nervous about it this year, said he's scared, there's so many bullies, he's always seeing kids get in fights.
I really am hoping that this year is better for him, he's my boy, I worry about him.   

My friend Christine sent me this link to an advice column posting, and it made me feel so much better to know that there are people out there who understand what I'm dealing with.
I'm going to copy and paste it here, but anyone is free to go read the posting at the link above.

Dear Annie: This is for "His Wife," who worried that her husband might be addicted to painkillers.

I am a family practitioner and sometimes prescribe OxyContin for chronic, refractory noncancerous pain. Addiction is the physical and/or psychological craving for a substance despite documented damage to one's health and well-being. A person will beg, borrow or steal to get that substance. Her husband is not addicted. He appears to have chronic pain for which there is no surgical cure. He is under treatment for a bona fide medical condition.

I wear glasses. Am I addicted to them? No. Am I dependent on them? Yes. I am also a diabetic. The medication on which I am dependent has a specific purpose to control a medical condition.

The same goes for the OxyContin. If it is prescribed by a physician and his condition is monitored regularly for the purpose of improving function and maximizing his potential, it is legal and beneficial. If I cannot cure my patient, my next goal is to alleviate suffering. For too many years, patients have suffered in pain because we doctors were afraid of "causing" addiction. - A Doctor in California

Dear Doctor: Thanks for the lunch-bucket lingo explanation. Our readers will appreciate it.

See, it doesn't matter what your disease is, if you have a cancer like mesothelioma, you take medicine for it, if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, have to wear glasses because you can't see well, a heart condition, whatever, your doctor treats you the best way that they can, and for those of us with chronic pain, have had surgeries that were supposed to fix us but didn't, whatever our reason is for being in pain, our doctors treat us with the medications that are available to treat us with the best way that they can.
I know that the people who have said things about me, or believe the lies told about me, have medical conditions that they take medicines for.
Arthritis, heart problems, diabetes, and skin cancer, and even some feminine problems like having to take hormones for "the change".
Are they addicts because they take the medicines prescribed by their doctors for their conditions every single day of their lives?
No, they are being monitored and treated for their health issues with medications.
I don't judge them or call them addicts, I know that they have legitimate medical conditions and they are being treated for them.
I've been through surgical hell, painful surgeries, heck, the pictures are at the top of this blog with the stuff that is forever inside of me, and I am currently stuck with my head down until medical science can find a way to fix me.
It is extremely painful to live like this, so my doctors treat me for this pain with medications to help make living like this easier.

So am I am addict?
Not me, not me the person, but my body is, my body needs them, and I am under constant medical care, and I am watched and monitored closely by my doctors.
I have an 8-page contract that I signed with my doctor, I take monthly and on-call urine drug tests to prove to my doctor that I am not taking any other drugs that he has not prescribed me.
If I do take anything other than what he has prescribed me, any illegal substances, I will be kicked out and unable to return to his office or any other pain doctor's office.
I will be blacklisted in the state of Florida, all doctors will be notified, and so will pharmacies.
At this month's appointment on the 14th, I am going to get a copy of my contract and copies of every single drug test that he has made me take, and I will send them to anyone who asks to see them to show people, to show anyone who thinks that I am doing anything illegal, that I am not.
Do I want to have to do this?
Should I have to do this?
No, hell no, but I will do it to put an end to the stories and the lies told about me.

I took my 9th dose of Elavil tonight, and I think that it IS starting to work.
I am starting to not get as emotional as I have been over the last few months, and I know this because while Mark was playing his game, WoW, the person who is part of the problems I am currently having with my family, popped up in the private chat system and started talking to him about it again.
Mark knows that she is lying about what is going on, so he decided to test her, to see if she would lie again.
Mark had read the email from my parents that said if we go to Maine, that we are not welcome to stay with them at their house while we are there, that we can only visit for 1 day, it was my mother's words, her email sent to me, and he knows exactly what that email said,
so he wanted to see if she would lie about me/it again, and she did.

Mark asked her why Ninny and Pop-pop do not want us to stay with them, and she replied back that they never said that, that I am twisting my mother's words around.
Mark replied to her that he read my mother's email, that I did not twist anything around, that is what it said, and that they also said it to Sebastian when he called to ask why we couldn't stay with them.
She then told Mark that Sebastian is lying, that my parents never said that, but he hung up on them before they could finish what they were trying to tell him.
Mark then told her that wasn't true either, that he was listening to Sebastian on the phone, he heard his grandfather say that we could not stay when we visit, and that Sebastian did not hang up on them. Pop-pop said that he needed to go take a shower and then get ready for bed, Sebastian said ok, I love you, and Pop-pop said it back to him, that he loved him, and good-bye, Sebastian said good-bye, and they both hung up together.
She did not reply, so Mark asked if she got the message, she said yes, but still insisted that I twisted my parents words around and that Sebastian did hang up on them, and then she logged out of the game.

Mark called me into the room to tell me what just happened, and he was really angry that she lied again, and he wanted me to read their exchange.
I couldn't read the words on the screen, the font is too small and it's in pink, so he read it to me, his words to her, her words back, I followed along the screen the best that I could, and then he said he couldn't believe she just lied again, he was really hurt and really angry that she is lying, like super pissed off that she lied again.
Then he said that he was really sorry for doubting me about the lies that have been going on, that he wasn't sure who to believe, but now he saw it with his own eyes, she is lying, she lied to him when he knows the truth about what my parents said in the email, that I did not twist their words around, and that Sebastian did not hang up on them, he knows the truth and he is really sorry that he ever doubted me.

A week ago this would have torn me up pretty bad, I would have begun bawling my eyes out, I would have started yelling and screaming about it all, but I didn't this time.
Instead, I asked him to stand up, I gave him a huge hug and told him that I am so sorry that all of this is happening and that if I knew a way to make it all end, that I would stop it immediately, but I don't know how to make it stop, I have no idea how to make everyone else see that lies are being told.
He hugged me back and told me that it was ok, he wiped away the few tears that were falling down my face, and he told me that someday everyone will learn the truth about all of this, that they will see that I am not the one lying, that I am not doing illegal drugs, that I and not the cause of all of this.
Then he said that he was really sorry for ever calling her, that all he wanted was just a few days away from me, a break from it all because I was a mess, I was crying all of the time for days, that he and Sebastian just wanted a break because they didn't know how to help me feel better, they were scared, and tired, and worried, that is all, they never wanted what is happening, that if they knew that wanting a break was going to cause all of this, make my parents not want to see me or speak to me ever again, that they never would have asked for any help, that they would have just hung in there until my doctor's appointment a week away. 

I could see that he was really upset and really sorry, he was all teary eyed and hugging me so tightly I thought he was going to break my ribs.
Last week this would have really ripped me up, I would have been screaming about how this is all just so wrong, I would have been crying like crazy, but tonight I just hugged him back and told him it was ok, that it was all going to be ok eventually, and that I do NOT blame him and Sebastian for any of this, it's not their fault at all, and that I loved him very, very much.
He stopped hugging me, wiped away his tears and then mine, and told me that he loved me very much too.

I am just so sorry that all of this is happening, I really do wish that I knew a way to make it all stop, but I don't.
I just have to wait it out, hope that someday everyone will realize that these are all really vicious lies, and that none of it is true at all.
I want my sons to stop hurting, I want them to be ok, to be loved and welcomed by their family, but until the lies get cleared up, that we are just going to have to forget it all, just do what we need to do as a family, keep our little family together and going.
It's all that we can do, it's all that I can do, I need to be here for my sons, and so yeah, I do think that the antidepressant is really starting to work, I am not as emotional as I was, I have a better grip on the situation, and so that is a good thing.
I'm still not "happy", I am still carrying a lot of anger and guilt, but with the counseling and the antidepressant, I think that those things will get better in time.

My cat Kali is getting really old now, she sleeps a lot, she's been losing her teeth slowly, and she now has trouble getting up on things like the couch or my bed.
I do have a chair next to my bed so she can jump up on that, and then jump onto my bed, but she still has a lot of trouble.
I searched all over for a thing to help her like they have for dogs.
You know how they make stairs or dog ramps to make it easier for dogs to get in bed?
Well they don't make those for cats, only for dogs, or at least I haven't found any for cats yet.
I want to either find a ramp or some pet stairs for her to make it easier for her to get up on my bed with me.
She gets frustrated when she can't get up and sleep with me, she meows so pathetically, I know that it bothers her, so I want to do everything that I can to make it easier and comfortable for her now that she's old and having trouble.
She's my baby, my pretty kitty Kali, my princess, I am going to be so sad when she dies, I know she doesn't have much time left anymore.

People don't use the postal service as much as they used to, mailing a hand written letter used to be the only way that you could communicate with someone in another state or heck, even town.
Depending on how far your letter had to go, it could take anywhere from a few days to a few months.
Mail used to be delivered by horse and buggy.
The teens don't believe that, so I asked them once how they thought letters got from the little house on the prairie in Walnut Grove to the big city of Winoka in the Dakota territory.
They sat thinking about it for a few, and then said "Ah, ok, yeah, a horse and buggy. We forgot that didn't have cars then."
Ha ha.

It got even easier to communicate with people once the phone was invented, but people still used the mail to stay in touch, to send cards for birthdays or holidays.
But now with the internet and cell phones, people are using text messages, IMs, and emails to stay in touch.
A lot of people now also use online greeting cards to send their friends and family a card for a birthday or holiday, it's widely accepted by pretty much everyone these days.

When I first started using online greeting cards, I felt kind of bad, like maybe the recipient would think that I was just being cheap, didn't want to spend money on a nice paper card.
Of course the recipients never thought that, it was my thoughts, my own issues with money came into play.
The recipients were always glad that I sent a kind note or birthday wish, they were always just happy that I even remembered their birthday.
Ha ha.

My parents 50th wedding anniversary is coming up on July 31st, and I will probably send them an online anniversary card and a paper card.
I already have the paper card, I just need to write a little note in it and mail it out, and then I will find the perfect animated online card to send them on the morning of their anniversary.
I know that my Mom gets up a bit earlier than my Dad every day, she starts the coffee maker, gets dressed, and then goes to check her email before waking up Dad.
Every single morning.
So I will send them an online card wishing them a happy anniversary, tell them I love them very much, and hope that they can celebrate many more years together.
I really do wish them a happy anniversary, they are just so perfect for each other, they work well together.
Where one of them may not have what something calls for in a situation, the other does.
Together they have all of the skills needed to get anything done that they want to get done.
A perfect team in my opinion.
 

I wanted to film the cats doing something wicked cute and funny in the early morning yesterday, Tuesday, but I don't own one of those  digital camcorders, so I totally missed it.
About 2 hours later, I remembered that my digital camera can make movies.
D'oh!

What were they doing that I wanted to film?
They were playing lizard hockey.
This is a game that only cats can play, and all 4 of them were in the house and playing, so it was 2 cats per team.

The game is pretty simple, catch any lizard that comes in the house, doesn't really mater what size, although a full grown adult works best because they can survive a few minutes longer than the babies.
































Once the lizard has been properly scared for it's very life, the cats simply whack it back and forth, toss it up in the air for a few extra points, torture it by ripping off various legs and it's tail, and continuing to smack it back and forth to each other until the lizard is completely exhausted and can't try to run away any longer, or until one of the cats has fatally wounded it with a claw.

Once the lizard is dead, the winning team gets to eat it any way that they choose.
Nova likes to eat all of the body parts that got ripped off early in the game.
Kali likes the stomach area, it's soft and squishy which works well for her because of lost teeth due to her old age.
Carmine liked to eat the ends, or the butts if you want to be specific about it, and Shahiro is a fan of the heads, she will bite off the head and chew it up for about 3-4 minutes until she has chewed her way through all of the bones and cartilage enough so that it can be swallowed.
You can actually hear her crunching it between her teeth which is a really nasty sound.

They caught a HUGE one yesterday morning and they "played" with it from start to finish for a good 20 minutes or so until they had fatally wounded it and the winning team ate it.
The cats simply love the lizards that get in.
I really don't have to worry too much about lizards being in the house and crawling around or up my legs.
YES!! This 1 time I was sitting here late at night, and 1 was making it's way up my legs!
I freaked out, flicked it off, all of the cats saw it and began playing it as soon as it hit the ground.
It's really great having 4 cats that love to chase and catch bugs, lizards, spiders, and cockroaches etc, I don't have to use chemicals to spray to try to get rid of any bugs, my cats do it for me, they are my own free pest control.
There's been a few times that I have had to physically grab a cat and show them the bug, usually this is in the bathroom when I am in there and the cats are outside the door, but 99% of the time, they see, catch, play, and then devour any bugs that make the mistake of coming in the house.
I love that no matter what size or kind of spider it is, that they will try to get it with only 1 exception.
There's only 1 kind of spider that they will not go after, and that is the wolf spider.
You're gonna have to look that up for yourself, I cannot stand even seeing a picture of those!
They will go after pretty much anything but those.
Those spiders, they back up and watch them walk around from a distance.
Shahiro is a bit more adventurous, she will get within, I'd say, about 7-10 inches away from it, and she'll just watch it and follow it around the house until it goes someplace she can't fit into.
Then she'll sit and stare at the exact same spot for hours waiting for it to come back out.
She once sat in front of the fridge and staring underneath it for 5 straight hours.
Even when we had to open the fridge door, she would not move.
She fell asleep watching and waiting for whatever it was that went under the fridge to come back out.
It was so cute, so one of these days, I need to film the kitties playing hockey, and also film here falling asleep waiting for a bug to come back out of the hole, and then edit it in WMM to do like a time laspe/speed up of the film in case it takes hours and hours again.
It would be so terribly cute. 

Even though neither of the teens are spending a good amount of time outside so far this summer, the heat is definitely affecting their skin and acne.
I've been working on finding just the right mix of treatment for acne for each of them.
They both have very different skin and very different acne, so I've been using different products for each of them, different techniques too.
It's taken a bit of time, but I think we are well on the way to getting a really good regimen and product line-up for each of them, because after just a few weeks, their skin is both starting to clear up a bit.

I posted to my other blog what is going on with the surgery, and my friend Shannon asked the following question;
Is there a reason, other than the obvious, choking and looking down always, that the surgery needs to be done?
The choking is a huge reason, I choke on food while I'm eating if it's a meat and not cut up into itty bitty pieces and I don't chew it to death, I choke on it if it decides to come back up and out, but it's a major quality of life issue.

For the last 9 months, I have been looking down.
My line of sight is down, I see things at knee level and below, I am always looking at the ground, the floor, the carpet, and when I go places, the ground, the dirty ground, the dirty floors of stores etc etc.
On the day that Mark graduated, I wanted so much to be able to look into his face, into his eyes, and tell him how very proud of him I was, how much I loved him, and I couldn't.
I couldn't see anything above his chest and I was straining so physically hard to see that much, leaning back as far as I could, using my cane for stability, and I still could not see his face.

When I go grocery shopping, I cannot see anything above the 3rd bottom shelf.
If I need something above that, I have to back up against the other shelf, find it and either tell 1 of the teens who is with me to get it, or find it exactly, and then walk to it and blindly reach for it and hope that I grab the right product.
I cannot lift anything heavier than 5lbs, if I do, I hurt terribly for the next several days.
Straining my neck to try and see things or people, or road signs, whatever, puts incredible stress on my neck and shoulders and lower back, and I am then in pain for the next several days and unable to do even basic things around the house.

The teens can and do help me with everything around here.
They go grocery shopping with me, they do the laundry, dishes, they help clean the house, they help me cook, everything, but there will come a day when they are grown up and gone and they will not be here to help me with all of those things.
My house will slowly become a disaster no matter how much I try to stay on top of it.
Just trying to stay on top of it daily, causes a ton of pain.
Standing to do dishes for just 5 minutes, causes me to be in immense pain for hours.

I called my surgeon and spoke to him about what if I don't do this surgery, will he ever be able to do it without so many risks, and he said that he will always help me, that he will continue to search for a way to fix me so that my quality of life improves, so that the always present risk of choking to death on food will end, and that medical science is always changing and improving, but he has no idea when it will come up with a way to fix me.
It could be a month from now or 10 years from now, there is simply no way to know, but he will always keep looking for a way, and he and his staff will always help me.

The last 9 months have been extremely depressing, always looking at the ground, not being able to see my son's faces or anyone else either unless we are all sitting down.
People think that I am being rude when they are talking to me and I don't make eye contact, and then I have to explain to them that I cannot raise my head, and then the questions start and I have to explain everything.
Then the pity comes.
The I'm so sorrys, the oh you poor thing, the it will get better, the keep your faith, the god loves you and is giving you what he thinks you can handle bullshit, and the never ending I'm praying for you fucking shit.
If 1 more person tells me that they are praying for me, I might fucking explode.
People have been praying for me and my back issues to be fixed for years, and has it ever done any good at all?
Has it!?!
Tell me!!!!
What has any of that never ending fucking prayer accomplished?!?!
Not a fucking thing that's what!!!
All of those prayers have never gotten anything done, it's all been wasted time and breath, so just fucking stop it, just stop it.
And I really don't want to hear that people pray and god does it in his time, on his time, when he feels it's time.
There is no god, that is evident but all of the world's ills around us and the years upon years of endless unanswered prayers, so just stop, it's a waste of time and it does nothing but piss me off.

The thought of being like this possibly for the rest of my life is overwhelming, it is too much to think about at times.
The last 9 months have been so hard, and I have been sinking further and further into depression.
I know that I need to talk to my doctor about it on Wednesday when I see him, I need to tell him what my surgeon said, let him know that I am still deciding what I should do, but I need to tell him that my depression over this is getting much worse.
Yesterday, I was an absolute wreck, I cried off and on all day long thinking about being like this for possibly for the rest of my life if they never find a way to fix it without so many risks.
Thinking about what my life is going to be like when the teens grow up and leave, how alone I will be, how hard everything will be.
I was so hopeful that eventually I would have a somewhat normal life again, be able to see people's faces, be able to go out again, sit in a movie theater and watch a movie, go out to eat in restaurants, do normal things again, but all of those normal every day things that people take for granted are slipping away from me again.
I am a prisoner in my home, a prisoner of my own body.

Friends and family, my own sons, keep telling me that I could find a nice man some day who would understand, who would be able to deal with all of this, and fall in love with me.
But I don't think so.
Once that man learns the real truth about it all, he wouldn't be able to deal with it, and he would leave.
I am in pain 24 hours a day 7 days a week, I take a crapload of pain medications that I am physically addicted to.
I am physically unable to do a lot of things, normal every day type things, never mind do relationship type things, sexual relationship type things.
Doing any type of physical activity leaves me in pain and can take hours or days to recover from depending on what that activity is.
Just going to Mark's graduation left me in agonizing pain for the next 3 days, and we didn't even stay for the entire event.
Going grocery shopping for just 1 hour takes me 3 hours to recover from.
You see what I'm getting at here?
Having a normal, loving, sexual relationship with someone is going to be something that causes physical pain and then long recovery periods.
My future is not looking very bright at all.
It's looking very lonesome, very painful, and very depressing, even more depressing than it already is, and so I need to discuss this stuff with my doctor, I know that I have to.
I hate the thought of having to take a medication for depression, but it's getting worse, I am having thoughts of just quitting when the teens grow up and leave.
No, I'm not actually planning anything, but the thoughts are there, the thoughts of they will be grown up and on their own, they will be ok, and I can go, I can end my suffering.
I am not as strong as everyone keeps saying, and that is something else that I am sick and tired of people saying to me, that I'm such a strong person.
No I'm not.
There's a huge difference between being strong and just going through the motions because you have no other fucking choice in the matter.
I have had no other choice in the matter for the last 10+ years.
I am a single mother of 2 teenagers and I have a really bad back.
I have had to get up and keep going because there has been no other option for me, not because I'm strong.
I stopped being Superwoman many, many years ago.

I'm tired, so very, very, very tired.
I'm physically and emotionally drained, I honestly do not know how much more of this life I can take.

One of the things that you just sort of have to deal with living in Florida, is the insane amount of bugs and other creatures like lizards, that are simply everywhere.
You can have your house sealed up as tight as a drum, but lizards still find their way in, and if they are getting in, so is everything smaller than them.
I HATE bugs, the Palmetto bugs especially, which are basically cockroaches.
There are ways to get rid of them and keep them away, but come on, putting your toaster in a plastic bag every single night?
Get freaking real here folks.

I usually grab a cat when I see a bug or lizard, hold their head in place so they see it, and then run away to let the cats play with it, torture it, and eventually eat it.
This saves me money on bug sprays, roach traps, moth traps, and all kinds of other small critter traps.
But you still have to clean your house like crazy all of the time, it has to be impeccably clean, hospital sterile, if you really want to keep out every bug and roach.
It's a hard task let me tell ya.
There are days I simply cannot move, let alone sweep, mop, vacuum the rugs, wash down counters, scrub the sinks and dry them, etc etc.
I do the best that I can, but honestly, I need to win the lotto, buy a brand new house, and hire a couple of maids.
One for day shift and one for night shift.
Have around the clock cleaning going on.
I doubt that will ever happen, so I'll just have to keep doing my best when it comes to cleaning the house, and keep the cats happy so that they will keep on chasing and killing all of the critters that find their way in.

Sometimes I think I just need a really long vacation to somewhere secluded, to be all alone and not have to deal with anything or anyone.
I've even thought of being trapped on a cruise ship, locking myself in my room, only venturing out to eat, maybe taking walks on the decks late at night when other people are dancing away in the nightclubs or sleeping soundly.
I just want some major alone time, and I don't think I'm going to get any very soon.
Why?
I fade in and out of depression a lot, especially in these last few months.
I rarely sleep anymore, often lying awake all night long in my room just waiting for the alarm to go off, or laying on the couch watching mindless tv all night just to pass the time.
I need the surgery, I can't stay living like this, but I also don't want to go through another surgery again, I don't want to put my family through another one again.
It's hard, so so hard on all of us.
I don't have a date yet, but now that I know when Mark's graduation is, I want to wait until after that to have the next surgery, I don't want to miss it by being in the hospital, and I also don't want to miss it because I just got home from the hospital, and I also don't want to show up at his graduation in that terrible halo brace.
I think I'm going to call my surgeon on Monday morning and request that we do it in June.
That way I won't miss his graduation or have to go to it that brace, plus, both teens will be out of school for the year, they won't miss any school, they won't be in school worried about me either.
I think that's the best plan for all of us who have to deal with this.
But it also means another month or so like this, with my head stuck down, with not being able to eat unless other people are home because of the risks of choking, and being in so much pain.
But it really is the best plan I think, even if it means having to wait a bit longer.

I was so sick yesterday and last night, most of this morning, and I'm just finally starting to feel better.
I don't know what it was, but man, my stomach was just wrecked, I was throwing up, cramping up, in tons of pain, and my feet that were swollen and had gone down, had started to swell again.
I managed to pull myself together to go to my new pain doctor appointment, and went for my 3:15.

It's a very strict office I'll tell ya.
They make you pay your co-pay or self pay before they see you, and there was this one guy who was $10 short of his $350.00 fee, and they turned him away, told him he had to reschedule it, they don't mess around man.
I had enough to pay my co-pay and for my scripts, but I was 2 days too early for my insurance to fill them, so I have to go back to the pharmacy tomorrow morning and pick them up before I go to my surgeon appointment at 2pm.

But anyway, the new doc is very strict but also very nice.
He took a look at my records, my CT scans from the 19th, and my blood test results, and we started there.
He said, "So you had spine fusion in 2006 from T3 to S1, wow, that's really big."
I said, "Yeah, but I just had another one, I'm now fused from C1 to S1, the whole spine."
He said, "Wow, you are the biggest spine fusion I have ever personally seen. Did you say that you're having another surgery?"
I said, "Yeah, I see my surgeon on Wednesday, and hopefully he'll have a date and a plan for what and when we're going to do. C1 and C2 collapsed after the surgery in September, my head is stuck down, I don't have much movement at all in my neck, muscle spasms in my back and legs, sometimes the spasms are so severe that if I'm sitting at my desk with my feet up and my keyboard on my lap, the spasms actually throw my keyboard clear off my lap and knock over my foot stool. But C1 and C2 were congenitally fused from birth, there's no disc space there at all, so I have no idea how he's going to fix me."
He said, "Yeah, I'm looking at your CT scan and I honestly don't know how he's going to do it, I'm not a surgeon, so I really don't know, but I can now understand why Doc R. sent you to me. You are much more complicated than the patients he usually deals with. He's a rehab pain manager, he helps people get better and get off medication, and honestly, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I don't see you coming off of medication for another 5-8 years, maybe the rest of your life based on what I'm reading in your records. You not only have had major spine fusion and another one going to happen soon, but you have arthritis, stenosis, nerve impingement, and a lot of disc damage. It could be years before anyone even thinks of taking you off of medication, or never at all. I'm sorry."
I said, "That's ok, I already knew I was bad off."

So he wrote out my scripts, added a muscle relaxer, which I hate taking because they make me sleep for anywhere from 6-8 hours, so taking those 4 times per day, I'd be sleeping all of the time, and he added Lyrica , which is for neuropathic pain.
I didn't get to pick that one up because it needed like pre-authorization or something, and I may not pick it up at all because as of right now, the Walgreen's website says it's $82.46 for just 30 pills.
That's crazy!
I refuse to pay that much for a medication that I have no idea if it will even work for me yet.
Maybe it hasn't been processed through my Humana insurance yet, but if it has and that's how much it costs, I may not pick it up at all, or I may wait until I get my tax refund back on Thursday.
I don't know yet, have to wait and see, but as of right now, it's still not ready for me to pick up anyway.
Apparently, they still don't have the authorization for it.

So tomorrow morning, I'll go pick up my pain meds, come home, and then get ready for the long ride to Safety Harbor to see the surgeon with my sister.
I'm giving Mindy the day off...LoL
Mindy does so much for me already, and she's been working hard at her cleaning business, taking care of her family, and other things, she's exhausted, so Wednesday is her only scheduled day off, so now it's really a day off for her.
I personally think she needs a nice long vacation somewhere really nice, like maybe go out to California all by herself, stay at a nice San Diego hotel, go see a few sites, and get some much needed rest.
She works way too hard and needs a good, long break.

I've made some really decent new friends over the last few weeks.
It happened sorta by accident, I met Dustin and his girlfriend Stacey through another friend, and they have just been really awesome.
They are like totally blown away by the amount of titanium I have, Dustin calls it the 'chainsaw back' because when you look at a front view of the xrays, it looks like a chainsaw blade.
But anyway, they are both just really sweet, Dustin helped me get to my doc appointment yesterday and to the pharmacy, and today, they both just stopped by to see how I was doing.
Stacey said that after my next surgery, she'll come by anytime I need help, help clean the house, help me take showers, shave my legs, brush my hair, stuff like that, because with the halo brace on, it's going to be very difficult to do things by myself.
I had been telling Dustin yesterday while sitting in the waiting room at the docs, about how awesome my teens are and have been after my surgeries, they helped me in and out of bed, in and out of the bathroom, they have even shaved my legs, brushed my hair, they do all of the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and so he told Stacey, and she was like well hell, this single mama needs help sometimes so let's help her.
I thought that was really sweet of them to even offer, and who knows, I may take them up on it sometimes if I'm having a wicked rough time after surgery.

Oh, Sebastian just went out and got the mail, and in today's mail was my settlement check from the Airborne class action lawsuit.
I got a check for $34.95.
Nice!

I'm starting to get more into the whole green thing, I'm recycling more things instead of just tossing them in the trash, I am slowly replacing all of the light bulbs in my house with CFLs as the old ones burnout, and I'm trying to use less and less electricity around the house.
I make sure that the teens turn off all lights and computers, fans etc, when they leave the rooms, I make them take shorter showers, and I make sure that they recycle what we can according to our city's recycling rules.
I'd love to get some led home lighting   around the house, like holiday lights, instead of the usual tree lights we have.
There's so many kinds of led lights for Christmas trees, indoor and outdoor lights too.
LEDs use way less electricity than normal light bulbs, they last longer, and they can be recycled when they no longer work.

I also recently joined a new website for going green, it's called Green Hangout.
There's a button for it in my sidebar, but it's a pretty cool site if you're looking for ways to go even greener.
They have forums where you can post your tips and tricks for recycling, saving electricity, water, and money.
It's a pretty good site, you should check it out and sign up, the more people that join, the more ideas we can all learn.
They have also said that they will be having contests where you can win money by posting pictures of something using a keyword that they will post, and the best picture that perfectly shows that "green" word, that person will win money.
But you can't win if you don't join the site, so hop on over and check it out, post up your recycling tips and tricks, and together we can help clean up landfills, save electricity, and make the world a better, cleaner place for future generations.

I absolutely love my NuWave Oven Pro, as a matter of fact, I am cooking with it right now, but man, I so wish that Buy.com had them, and also had them on sale , because I'd be telling each and every one of you out there to buy one of these, it's fabulous!
I have used it almost every single day to cook almost every single meal we have eaten, and the teens have been cooking with it too.
But they don't sell them yet. *hint hint Buy.com*

But they do have this really cool looking Smartshopper Grocery List Organizer thing, that you simply speak your shopping list into, and then on the day you go shopping, you hit print, and it prints out your list.
How cool is that!?!

It uses voice recognition software, comes programmed with over 2,500 items, you can add a quantity of an item, it has a coupon flag, meaning if something on your list also has a coupon, it alerts you, you can add any of your own specialty items to the master library making it totally customizable, and attaches to the fridge with magnets so you always have your grocery list right where you need it, in the kitchen!






I've seen these things go for as much as $250.00 at some retailers, but Buy.com has it on sale right now for just $39.99!
I know other people who have them or one like it, and they love how easy it makes their shopping.
They simply speak what they want to buy into it, add quantities, add in their coupons, and then when they are ready to go, it prints the list.
This would be so convenient for so many families because if a kid uses the last of the milk, they can push the button, say "milk", and it's added to the list.
The whole family could help make sure that all of the needed groceries are on the list every single week.

Apricot trees.
Heh.
I made a rhyme.

I thought I was back on the mend yesterday, but when I woke up this morning, my hip and knees were still killing me, I had a migraine to boot, my brain was like in "off" mode too.
I couldn't think a good decent thought for more than 2 minutes, so I spent the day watching stupid stuff on tv, reading Twitter, and just generally annoyed with myself.
I have work to do, I'm letting people down.
I'm letting myself down, and that annoys the crap outta me.

I hate when I get like this, when I can't focus, when I can't think, when I can't do what I am supposed to do.
I'm already in a funk, and then not doing everything that I need to do, puts me in a deeper funk, I start dwelling on it, and then that's all I can think about when I am thinking about any 1 subject for more than 2 minutes.
Like right now.
I've had all day to do work, I've had all day to reply to emails, but no, I couldn't do any of it, so now I'm sitting here just aggravated with myself and hungry.
I just want to eat and eat and eat, and nothing is satisfying me at all.
Why?
Because emotionally I'm not satisfied.
I know this about myself.
I know that when I am an emotional mess, I want to over eat, I want to eat sweets like cake, ice cream, cookies, but once I have it, it doesn't taste right, and I try finding something else to fill the void.
But it's a void that cannot be filled.

My brain is a total mess lately, and I know what's causing it.
I know that the things my surgeon said to me on the last visit have entered my head and never left it.
Halo brace, 3-4 months.
Possible paralysis.
Possible trach tube for 3-4 months.
Not eating, not breathing through nose or mouth, no speaking.
No speaking.
It is weighing so heavily on my mind, no speaking at all, no speaking to my sons for several months.

That thought consumes me day and night, I'm drowning in it.
I know he told me the possibilities so I could be prepared, but I am drowning in those possibilities, those thoughts, those what-ifs.
It swallows me from the moment I wake, when I do finally sleep for any amount of time, until I sleep again, which is like non-existent these days, because those thoughts are just there, they aren't going away.
I lay awake in my bed listening to music, trying to drown out the thoughts, and they power out the music, I picture myself with that trach tube in my throat, not speaking to my sons, not telling them daily that I love them, not asking them how their day was, not helping them with whatever, not answering what's for dinner, not telling them to stop arguing, and so many more stupid mommy things that I say to them on a daily basis.
I don't see the surgeon until the 25th, I don't know the surgical plan until then, I don't have any more percentages of things that could go right and wrong, and so I drown in the information I do know and I can't let it go.

Just make it go away, I want it to go away.
I want to be empty-headed, upbeat, happy,  and "ok", but instead, I am consumed, and drowning, and letting myself and others around me down with every passing day.

I love this duplex, I have now lived in it for 11 years.
I love the central location, the neighborhood, it's nice and quiet, people are nice for the most part, but the actual duplex apartment that we live in has no flair, no style, it's just kind of boring looking.

One of these days, my sister and I are going to get around to painting the inside like we've been talking about for such a long time.
We have such beautiful colors to paint with, and then once the painting is done, or maybe we should do this before we do the painting (?), I'd love to put up some really nice molding.

I found some really nice corbels that I think would look nice in here, I need to settle on just 1 design, but I like this one, and this one, but I am leaning towards this one.

 














I found all of these at Inviting Home, where they offer beautiful products for the home at great prices.
They work hard to insure that you are knowledgeable about your purchase, find exactly what you are looking for, and the guidance and expertise needed to make a good purchase.







They even have a blog that is broken down into categories to make it even easier to find what you are looking for, to get decorating ideas, and they even have some great "green" ideas for decorating your home if you're trying to make your home and life more eco-friendly.


Inviting Home offers all kinds of information, and product inspiration to help you make your home more comfortable, more "green", more inviting, more of whatever you want your home to be.
I love looking at sites like this to get ideas, I swear, if I had a lot of money, like won the lotto or something and could buy my own home, I would be using their site to get decorating ideas and get step by step instructions to make my space the most functional and the most beautiful it can be.
They just have so much to offer at their site, there's so much information, ideas, products, it's really a great place to go to to start getting ideas for your new home.

Here it is, a little after 4am on Saturday morning, and I'm still wide awake.
I honestly haven't slept much even though I was completely worn out from doing too much on Wednesday, and then feeling like I came down with something.
But I think I know what it is that is making me feel like complete crud, the cat urine.
Carmine's been peeing repeatedly on the carpet under my bed, it's just been soaking in, marinating if you will, and stinking like ammonia.
Ammonia can make you feel sick, it can clog up your nose, make you cough and gag, and yup, that's how I've been feeling for a few days.
I'll be so glad when the teens and I rip out the carpet in there today.

Here's the plan for today.
Wake up.
Eat something for breakfast.
Take a walk to CVS to get Sebastian his new migraine meds.
Come home and start tackling the bedroom carpet. To do this, the teens and I will need to dig out all of the boxes of stuff I have under the bed, salvage anything that can be saved if it's not all completely soaked in cat urine, and throw away anything that can't be saved.
Take off all my bedding and start the washer.
Take off and stand up the mattress and box spring up against the wall/closet doors.
Stand up the frame against the wall/closet doors too.
Move the alarm clock. table lamp, and filing cabinet/nightstand.
Move the bed risers to the tub to be washed in bleach.
Get the box cutter and garbage bags.
Start cutting away the carpet and padding underneath.
Bag it all up and throw it out in the trash cans.
Get a bucket of hot water with a combo of bleach and Clorox Green all purpose cleaner.
Scrub the bedroom floor.
Scrub it again.
Scrub it again.
Wash the floor 1 last time with the bleach/green cleaner combo, then let dry.
Then wash down the floor with Urine Gone and Pee Gone.
Let dry and do it again.
Re-wash bathroom and kitchen floors with the combo of Urine Gone and Pee gone, as well as Mark and Sebastian's bedroom floors after they clean all of the junk out from under their beds, throw away anything that may have been peed on, clean all of the floors thoroughly with the combo cleaners and let dry.
After all the floors are dry, set my bed back up.

The bathroom needs a deep clean again too after our mini-flood this past weekend.
I need to get in there and scrub the floor, the toilet, the tub, and the sink.
I think I'm going to have to replace the bathroom sink faucet really soon.
The "hot" knob, is starting to have to be turned really, really far to get it to shut off.
This is a sign that the threads are wearing down, and if I don't replace it soon, we're going to have a big problem.
I'm wishing I could afford to get a nice new Hansgrohe faucet set, but may have to settle for the clearance bin at the local hardware store.
Yes, I know, the landlord should replace it at his cost, but if I just go ahead and do it, don't bother him, he deducts it from the rent if I give him the receipt.
I like to not bother him with stuff I can do myself, he's a sheriff, a father of two young kids, his weekends are important to him, plus, he's been spending almost every weekend for the last 6 months trying to repair the damage my old duplex neighbors did so he can rent it out again.
Anyway, this is the faucet that is in there right now, and I'm pretty sure by looking at it, that it's the exact same faucet that they installed when they built the house in like 1979.
You can click it for bigger if you really want to see how bad it is.



















Oooh! I found a whole bunch of them on sale!
W00t!
I like this one, and this one, and this one too!
Those prices aren't too bad at all!
For some reason, I thought they were going to be crazy high prices, I've seen faucets before that cost well over $200, and there's no way I'd spend that much on a faucet in an apartment that I rent.
Now if I owned my own home, yeah sure, but not a rental.

Oh gosh!
I started writing this post at 4:10am, and it's now 5:02am!
I got so busy looking at all of the bathroom sink faucets, I completely lost track of time hahahah!

I didn't sleep at all last night, didn't take a "nap" today until about 10:30am or so, woke up around 1:20pm, and then spent the rest of the day trying to stay warm.
So much for global warming eh?
This is Florida and the weather here is so cold it cuts to the bone.
I know it's not like other states where winter means snow and below zero temps, I know what that is like, but winter here is a different kind of cold, it bites you.
When the teens and I went Maine to visit my folks in February, it was negative 5 with a wind chill of negative 10-15 every single day, but it didn't affect me like this is, this is really a different kind of cold.

I've had to run the small electric space heater all day, kept it on low, it kept the living room sorta warm at least.
Tonight, I'll move it into the dining room, make everyone leave their bedroom doors open, and I'll set it to medium and it should help keep the house mostly warm all night.
It's supposed to be another freeze night tonight, so yeah, gotta use the space heater.

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.

My sister-in-law, Jen, has M.S. I did the blogathon in 2007 to raise money for M.S. for the Montel Williams M.S. Foundation because of her, I saw what this disease had done to her, how it affected her and her whole family.
She was diagnosed many years ago, when her daughter was just 2 years old, she hadn't even had her son yet, but back in the early days of the disease, it wasn't so bad, she was still mostly healthy, still had mostly good days.
But over the years, the M.S. has gotten worse, it's caused a wide variety of symptoms, and now Jen has to be in a wheelchair because the M.S. has made her lower body not work right anymore, she can't walk, she can't bend down and lift, and my brother Mike, has to help her get dressed everyday, well her lower half anyway.

Jen does not let M.S. run her life, far from it.
She does so much every single day, she is a fighter with a good attitude, and she wants to help others with M.S. realize that it's not a death sentence unless you choose it to be, it's all attitude she says.
So Jen has created a new blog, Living With M.S., and so I'm sharing her blog with you, to spread the word, get her blog link out there to the world.
Maybe her blog can help other people, newly diagnosed patients, and families of people with M.S.
So go stop by her blog, say hi, spread the word about her blog if you can, the more people that know it's there, the better the chances that her blog and Jen, can help other people understand this disease.  

M.S. does not hand out membership cards to people, it just strikes randomly, and there is no cure yet, but we can spread the word, we can help raise money to find a cure.

I'm really starting to get annoyed with Walgreen's pharmacy crappy customer service.
I have been a customer for 11 years, I have been taking narcotic pain relievers for 10 of those 11 years, and getting them filled at multiple branches of their stores.
Sometimes I've gone to my closest and most frequented branch, and they won't have my med, so they call another one, and then I have to go pick up my med at that other branch, but I have always had my scripts filled with them unless there is an issue with the computers, the insurance, or they don't have my med in stock.
I'm a faithful customer thanks to my scoliosis and surgeries.

But here's what happened today.
My sister came down to take me to one branch of Walgreen's that always has a particular pain med in stock, my niece Skye was going to stay here with the teens while we went, but it should have only taken us 30 minutes tops, and I would have been able to come back and at least spend 20-30 minutes with Skye, see her smile, laugh, and fall in love with the stop motion classic Christmas movies I have.
The only movie the girls have seen is Frosty the Snowman, but I have all of the old classics, Rudolph, Santa Claus is coming to Town, and The Little Drummer Boy.
I bought them on VHS about 15 years ago, when my boys were just babies, and we have watched them every year at xmas.
It's far better to watch them on VHS when you have small kids instead of broadcast television, there are no stupid commercials in between.

Anyway, we were only supposed to be gone a half hour, tops, but after dropping my script off, being told it would be about 20 minutes, wandering around Walgreen's and buying stuff, the pharmacy tech tells me they can't fill my script for the oxys on a Saturday because they have to confirm the script with my surgeon, not his on call doctor.
I asked if this is a new policy, because I have been filling this script at their store almost every single month, on either a Saturday or a Sunday because my surgeon mails it out on Thursday, and I usually always get it on Saturday and fill it.
He said no, not a new policy, so I asked him to check last month's fill date and look up what day it was because I know it was a Saturday.
He checks, confirms that yup, it was filled on a Saturday but shouldn't have been, and now he has to report that tech for filling it on a weekend without speaking to the prescribing doctor.

So now I'm pissed, I don't have my pain meds and I need to have them because my lower dose pain meds will not be filled until Monday, and there is simply no way that I can go the weekend without the pain meds.
I cannot move without them, I can't eat or I get sick, I get wicked leg and back spasms, basically, my body goes into withdrawals, and let me tell you, it is not a pretty sight or a fun experience to go through pain med withdrawals.
You get very, very ill, very quickly, like as soon as they wear off, your body starts withdrawals and it is quite painful, and getting med sick is probably the most agonizing thing to experience.
I hate the withdrawals, and whenever we finally do decide to take me off all of the pain meds, if my doctors ever do decide to take me off of them, I will have to be given some type of help with weaning off of them, possibly even rehab because of how severe the withdrawals are.

My sister knows this, and so she asks me if there is any other pharmacy I can go to that won't have the same Saturday policy, so we head down to the Publix out on Bee Ridge and Cattlemen, and they had absolutely no problem filling them because I've been a customer there before, and the neck brace and downward facing head kinda give it away that I have a legitimate need to have the medicine.
They filled it, but it's now been another 40 minutes, we've now been gone for a little over an hour, much longer than we wanted to be gone, and my sister needs to take me home, pick up Skye, and go home herself.
She has things to do in her own life that don't involve her having to drive me to multiple pharmacies in the city because Walgreen's decided to be dickheads today.
She came down here from way up in north Bradenton, to specifically take me to get my meds.
It takes her about 30 minutes to get from her house to mine, and she was doing this as a favor to me because she knows I need the meds and don't have transportation all of the time.

When we got back here, Sebastian had already watched Santa Claus is coming to Town with Skye, she loved it just as I knew she would, I didn't get to take any pictures of her, hug her, play with her, nothing.
I very rarely get to see my nieces because of how far away from us they live, so time is very precious when they do come over, and thanks to Walgreen's being dickheads today, I missed out on another good visit with my niece.
 
I know that Walgreen's has filled this particular script on the weekends plenty of times before, not just last month, but for the last 3 months, since my surgery, and actually, well before that too because my pain doc also gives me this same exact med every month.
It pisses me off that they wasted my time.
They confirmed they had it in stock, said they would fill it, made me wait 20 minutes, then tell me they won't fill it even though they have been filling it every single month on a weekend before.
If they do indeed have a policy to not fill a certain class narcotic on the weekends, he should have never told me that they would fill the script.
He said absolutely nothing to me about having to speak to the prescribing doctor.
I'm going to just switch all of my meds over to Publix pharmacies because of this crap, and let them have all of my business from now on which is a whole lot.
I take 3 different narcotic pain meds every month, 1 blood pressure med, 1 heart med, 2 different muscle relaxers, and an antibiotic every month.
I spend a great deal of money on medications, some covered by insurance and some not.
One of my pain meds is not covered, and it costs me $238.00 every month to fill it, and the covered ones still have co-pays, so I spend about $350 per month on just the co-pay medications, the non-covered one is $238.00, and not to mention all of the general shopping I do while I wait for them to be filled which can vary from just a few dollars up to about $100 if they have things I can't get elsewhere, or don't feel like getting elsewhere.
If it isn't dumb shit like this so-called policy, it's downed computers, not being able to contact the insurance companies, refusing to fill because the insurance on file was mistyped by one of their own staff, all kinds of problems, so I'll just switch to a Publix pharmacy that I know doesn't have any of these issues, give them my business and my money, and Walgreen's can go fuck themselves.

Most people know I have pretty intense OCD about things sometimes, the teens know this especially, so when I went to make out my list for shopping tomorrow, and reached in my box of pens to find my best weighted pen was gone, I sorta flipped.
I made the teens find it because they were the ones who used it, and sure enough, it was in their room on their computer desk.

Anyway, I am trying to make out my list, trying to figure out what we need, but honestly, I don't even want to do Thanksgiving dinner.
I can't cook it at all, i can't lift it, I feel completely useless this year.
I know I'm battling some depression over this, and I will talk to the doctor when I see him on the 10th, but for now there's not much I can do so I'm just going through the motions every day.
It just doesn't feel like a holiday anyway, so bleh.

Ya know, just when I think things are getting better, starting to looking up, life decides to kick me in the ass again.
Both of the teens have been really sick all week, I've so far remained unscathed, finally starting coming down with it myself.
They started theirs last Thursday, a full week and neither of them are better yet, well Mark is starting to get a little color in his face, but Sebastian is in pretty bad shape.

Around 6pm or so this evening, my nose started getting wicked stuffed up, I coughed and nearly hacked up a lung, (I'm pretty sure my right lung is still loose from being jarred like that) my chest hurts, and while I was coughing up that lung, this ripping and burning sensation tore all the way up through my esophagus and throat, and my tongue also started twitching and feeling scratchy too.
I'm trying to fight it off, I have echinachea, some antibiotics left over from my surgery, Nyquil, Tylenol, multivitamins, and lots of juice even though that will give me hives. (allergic to orange juice and most juices)

As far as my insomnia, it's not really any better.
I was awake from about 7am Tuesday, and didn't go to sleep until about 5am today, Thursday, and only slept for about 5 hours.
I've been wide awake all day, and right on schedule it seems, I caught my second wind and am so wide awake that if it wasn't so late at night, I'd be cleaning the house.
This has to stop but all sleeping aids, even prescription ones, have the exact opposite effect.
Instead of putting me to sleep, they perk me right up and make me behave like I took 20 hits of speed or drank 5 gallons of coffee.
I'm hoping because I'm starting to get sick, that it will somehow make me get some sleep tonight.

I have some stuff to do and then need to get back to answering all kinds of emails.
They are built up in there and I'm working on it all k?
O-k.

One of the reasons I keep my house so dark, as I posted about earlier, was because it saves me money.
Having your curtains and blinds open during the hot months let's heat in, making your ac have to work harder to keep you cooler.
I'm also a huge nag, just ask the teens, about turning off lights and other appliances like fans, computer monitors, etc etc, when people leave rooms.
I do have lamps in every room, but I like to keep it dark and only turn them on when we need to see something, or if someone comes by and says it's too dark in here.

And because I'm all about saving money, I have slowly been buying the new energy saving CFL bulbs, and when I replaced one in the kitchen this morning*, I noticed it had a sweepstakes thingy on the package.
You can enter to win $25,000 to redecorate your home, no purchase needed, so go ahead an enter.
If I won, I'd definitely go and buy some really nice but discount furniture to redecorate my home with.
I'd hit the sales, the build it yourself furniture stores, clearance sections, wherever I had to go to make that $25,000 stretch as far as possible so that I could do every single room.
Get both boys and myself new beds, new dressers, some new living room furniture, a new pc desk and chair for me, all kinds of stuff, and I know with that kind of money, I really could do every room in our house, and have money left over to do other things with.
I pride myself on thrifty.

*When I replaced that bulb, I noticed that I had replaced the 2nd bulb in that light awhile ago, probably about 3 months ago, and anyway, it has an old fashioned screw on light cover which collects dust and little moths and other bugs that are attracted to light.
I clean this out every time we have to change the bulbs, but with the new CFL's, they can last up to 5 years.
Yes, 5 years.
Sad to say, I admit that the only time I clean this light shade is when we have to replace the bulbs.
Can you imagine how many bugs are going to be in it in 5 years?
Ha!

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".

We don't get "fall" here, we don't really get winter or spring either.
Fall consists of it being hot, but not August summer hot.
Winter is warm, about 70 every day, and spring is warm to hot.
Summer is just hot, hot, hot.
So I don't get to see the seasons changing in person, I don't get to see the beautiful spring flowers bloom, I don't get to see the first snow, or the blizzards that cover the back porch in person anymore, since leaving Maine 11 years ago.

But my mom sends me pictures all of the time of their yard, and from their fenced in and full of plants and trees back yard, I am now getting to see the beauty of the fall colors.



















The greens, yellows, and fire red colored  leaves, taking over the whole property. It starts off slowly, and in a few weeks, this whole yard will just be nothing but the beautiful colors of the fall leaves.




















Thanks mom for sending these to me.
I can pretend that it's really fall here while my ac cranks out the cool air, because it's still 81 degrees here.

It's been an incredibly long day for me already.
I barely slept last night, not going to bed until almost 7am this morning, and was back awake by 10am.
I just couldn't sleep at all, far too many things on my mind.

My own health issues for one, I was just thinking about it all far too much, driving myself nuts.
And then my sister called me and told me that our Dad was in the hospital, he had what is called a transient ischemic attack , which is a transient stroke that lasts only a few minutes. It occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is briefly interrupted.
He had 3 (three) of those this week!
I've been worried about my Dad all night and all day now too.

My Mom emailed me and gave me the hospital phone number and his room number, so I called him and he sounds ok, just very tired.
He told me not to worry, he's fine and he'll be going home tonight, just waiting for them to cross the t's and dot the i's.
He's hoping to be released by tonight, and he's being very stubborn.
He refused to take the blood thinner Heparin , he wants to see his primary care physician and his cardiac physician, he doesn't trust Southern Maine Medical Center at all, and Heparin is the drug that has been in the news (link above) a lot lately for possible recalls, and it's the drug that was given to Dennis Quaid's twin babies in an extremely high dose which almost ended their lives.

I was upset about this because my parents did not call any of us kids, my sister had to beg our Mom to tell her where Dad was, and Mom said that's what Dad wanted, he didn't want any of us to know and worry until they knew for sure what had happened to him.
But he's our Daddy ya know?
We love him and worry about him, and not being told how our parents really are, is just as upsetting as hearing how they really are.
We kids need to know this stuff.
I know I live too far away and can't fly back home right now, but I still want to know this stuff, they are my parents.

And I also spent most of the morning dealing with Verizon again.
My phone line last night was all static, my DSL kept going in and out, and when I called tech and repair, they kept telling me the problem was inside my house, my equipment.
Well a repair tech came out here this morning and guess what?
The problem was not on my end, it was in the line up the street, a major telephone line had gotten fried, he repaired it, but I am so sick and tired of Verizon's crappy customer service, they always blame it on my end before they even investigate the problems.
I'm just sick of it.
I pay my bills in full and on time every month, except last month because I was in surgery, but I always pay in full and sometimes Verizon forces me to pay more than my actual bill.
So why the hell do they treat me like crap all the time?!
It's just crappy customer service no matter what the issue is.

I'm tired and worried, and not feeling so well.
I either caught the stomach thing the boys have or I'm just exhausted.
I'm going to go lay down on the couch and watch Iron Man, get some rest, and I'll be back around later on. 

The teens, as I've said, have been doing all the household stuff, the cooking and cleaning, and the shopping.
I needed a few things from the store today, so off they went.
When they returned, Sebastian declared that he had broken his foot in several places.
I had him take off his shoe and I took a look at it.
I saw no redness, no swelling, no black and blue, but every time I touched his heel, he let out a yelp.
I took a closer look with a flashlight, and saw what may be a plantars wart, but may also just be a small cut that I can't really see, or something else, who really knows? I'm not a doctor.
He's always walking around barefoot, he goes outside to get the mail in bare feet, he took a walk through the backyard yesterday with no shoes, so it could be anything.
So I grabbed some Neosporin and a big band-aid, and patched him up.

A few hours later, I got an email from him.
He took it upon himself to look up what he thinks is wrong with his foot.
What does he think he has?
Plantar Fasciitis .
Yes, he thinks that's what's wrong with him.
He always thinks something is wrong with him, not to the point of being a hypochondriac, but every time he has the sniffles or a cough, he's sure that he's caught the Avian bird flu or something just as horrible.
He's funny like that.

Part of me thinks he's always worried that he has something because of me, because of my constant and ongoing health issues.
I think he's worried about illnesses because he only has one side of his families health history, his father's side.
My side is unknown because of me being adopted, and cancer runs on his father's side.
I think he may be panicky and worried that he's going to really get some sort of illness, so he's mentally preparing himself for it if and when it happens.
I don't press him about his worry about being sick, I know that when other health issues have come up, he gets all teary eyed and upset, talking about my health stuff really gets to him.
One of these days, I will sit down with him and try to work out why he's always worried about being sick with something, see if we can't get to the heart of the matter, but for now, I'm just not going to press him on it, he's already dealing with a lot of things. 

My sister came over today with my niece Skye, and they brought us lunch from Boston Market.
Then she took Sebastian to Publix to get some more food and other items that they forgot when he and Mark went the other day.
I had her pick up the Glad Press n' Seal stuff  (yes, the plastic wrap for food, sticks to the skin and makes a water proof seal around wounds that need to stay dry) so that I can take a full shower and not get my sutures wet, and also some hair elastics so after she raked through the matted hair, she could braid it.
I didn't have any more of them in my basket because I always do the girls hair when they come over.

Then the hair hell began.
My sister has a considerable amount of patience and she tried so hard to not pull my hair and hurt me, but the hair was just so matted that no amount of gentleness could stop the pulling and pain.
Here's what ended up coming out, it's a lot of hair, it's all tangled and matted, there was absolutely no getting a brush, comb, or pick through it, so we did the only thing we could do.
We cut it out.

























































After we got all of the knots and matted clumps out, I wiped away my tears, and got a grip on myself, and she then braided my hair for me so that this won't happen again during the long recovery process.
At least once a week from now on, the hair will have to be unbraided, combed through with heavy conditioner, and then braided again.
 




















I look awful.
I had just spent nearly 2 hours getting my hair fixed, I cried a lot because it seriously hurt.
My eyes are all red, I have huge dark circles under my eyes, just ugly looking.
My hair had been in a ponytail since the 8th, had not been washed, conditioned, or brushed since that day.
It was a huge huge mess, and even after soaking it in de-frizz serum, Infusium, and half a bottle of conditioner all at the same time, that big huge matted section could not be combed or picked through, it was excruciating pain, every hair felt like it was being ripped out by the roots.
My scalp is raw, I'm surprised it's not bleeding from having all those hairs pulled on.
My sister tried to work through it, she really did, but I couldn't take the pain anymore and told her to just grab the scissors and just cut it out.
Hell, my surgeon's team had already shaved parts of my head, cut other areas, I knew I was going to lose some hair, so cutting it out was the only thing I could do for now.
Once I'm healed up a bit better, I'm going to have to go to a salon and get it all cut and evened out and stuff, and also get a pedicure.
 
My feet are a huge mess as well, but we can't just cut the toes off now can we?
It will be the usual embarrassment, the little Korean ladies will talk about my gnarly toenails and my rough heels in their native language, as they try to make my poor battered feet look more human-like and less disgusting looking.
The girl doing my feet will say something, and then the other ladies will find some kind of reason to come and walk by her station and take a glance at my feet, say something in Korean, and I know it's not nice stuff, it never is.
I may not understand the language, but disgusted and grossed out are a universal emotion that is easily recognized in facial expressions.
I have not been able to bend over and care for my feet on my own in just about 3 years now.
Having titanium rods running the full length of your spine makes taking care of your own feet damn near impossible to do.
I really wish I could find a mani/pedi place close to home and my local shopping places where at least one of the people speaks English so that when I explain why my feet are so bad, they'll understand me.
I try to explain it to the Korean girls, but they just don't understand words like spine fusion, titanium rods, no bending at all, impossible to take care of my own feet, sorry they look so bad but I tip really well for all of your troubles and good work making them look nice.


I really appreciate my sis helping me today.
My hair was an absolute disaster and every single night of sleeping and naps, just made it worse and worse.
I can only lay on my back, so the hair was just getting more and more matted.
I feel a lot better now, it's fixed, it feels better, it will be less hot, less of a pain in the ass, and way less embarrassing when the nurses and friends come over to see me.

Now I'm off to find something to eat and then lay down on the couch and watch tv for awhile I guess.
Later days.

The teens and I watched Street Kings tonight, a Keanu Reeves cop/action thriller, and it was really good.
It has a top notch cast, Reeves, Forrest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Cedric the entertainer, Jay Mohr and John Corbett to name a few.

Quite a few people on the local forums said it was really good, my sister and her husband also said it was, so I Netflixed it and the teens and I watched it tonight.
I'm still not typing all that well, but my review is in the link posted.

Now I'm off to watch Pathology starring Milo Ventimiglia of Heroes, and check it out.
It got 3.5 stars out of 5 on both Amazon and Netflix, so it shouldn't be too bad.
I'll review it if I can when we're done watching it.
My typing still sucks and my brain is all muddled, so my reviews are not exactly great, but I know a good movie when I see one, same with the bad, and I'd never tell anyone to watch something that really sucks.

You have no idea how hard it is to just lay down and relax, to stay relaxed.
I'm a single mom, there's things that I should be doing like laundry, dishes, cooking meals, and I simply can't.
I spend all my time either on my couch watching the tube or trying to be on line answering emails.
I can't sit here long though, like 20 minutes tops, and then I have to go lay down for hours.
It really kinda sucks.

But I did talk to my doctor's nurse, Cindy, today about the brace, they are calling the brace people to see about getting a custom fit brace for me because of how short my neck is, and because the ones they make simply are far too big for me.
It will be really nice to have a brace that fits.

Not much else is going on, nothing can be, so back to the couch I go.
Gossip Girl is on.
Later days.

Was talking with Shell about the teens going up to Maine for the summer to work at Funtown.
Season is the opposite here, and Funtown cannot get teens to work there anymore, so Shell was thinking about me sending the boys up there, they could stay with her during the week because she literally lives right down the street, and then stay with my folks on the weekends, and also visit with Great Gram and Aunty Heather the whole summer, and they'd be making money etc.
It's a cool idea because they'd get to visit with all the grandparents the entire summer, make paychecks, and have fun working at an amusement park.

Funtown has not changed at all in all of these years.
I went to their site and looked at the attractions, and they still have all of the same rides and stuff they had when I was a kid.
They have added some new stuff, but all of the old and fun rides I rode as a kid are still there.

One of the coolest ones that is still there and has been since 1976, is the Astrosphere.
This is just a Scrambler ride, but it's inside a dome that displays weird and semi-scary images on the dome, has a laser light show, and has played the exact same song since 1976, "Fire on High" by ELO. (Electric Light Orchestra)
This ride is famous, everyone in all of New England knows this ride, people wait in line for hours to get on and ride it, and it is so cool to me that it is still there.
Check out this video that someone made of it and put up on youtube.


 

Susan got a baby doll for her birthday that pees, has diapers, all kinds of stuff, from my sister, her mom, and one of my sister's friends got her a baby stroller that is real, it looks like one of the more expensive baby strollers you'd buy for a real baby.
Well it is for a real baby, but you know what I mean.
Susan loves that baby an the stroller. Every day, she wants to take the baby for a walk, and my sister obliges her and takes them, both Susan and Skye, and their babies, for a walk around the neighborhood.








They have so much fun walking their babies, Skye has a baby and a play stroller, not a real one like Susan's, which has caused a few minor squabbles, but they get over it and play nice most of the time.
And Susan also loves to put band-aids over all of the babies with her "doctor kit" I got her for her birthday.
But when I saw her stroller, I was jealous, it was nicer than the ones I had for my kids.

Tomorrow, er, today, I have my pre-surgery consult with Doctor M.
He's going to tell me exactly what he and his team will do during the surgery, how long I'll be asleep, breathing tube, ICU, how many days to expect, (I'm holding him to 4!) what kind of pain to expect, what they'll have me do upon waking, physical therapy, etc, all of the nitty gritty details.

I have my own questions too.
Can I bring and wear my own clothes on like day 2 or something, will I be able to put my contacts back in, (I don't have a pair of glasses to wear) is this going to cause me to start a surprise menstrual cycle like the last surgery did, and if so, can I bring my own gear this time, or are they just going to make me lay there on a "pee pad" like last time.

Will they be shaving off any of my hair from the back of my head?
I know they are going to have to shave a portion of my neck, I have really long hair, I know it comes down far on my neck, so when they shave that, will they have to go any higher?
And if so, please don't fuck it up and make it incredibly noticeable to people.
My hair has been falling out anyway, but I really don't want to lose a lot if they can help it any.

I don't know if I posted about my hair situation or not, but this whole neck thing has been the cause of a lot of my health problems over the last year, year and a half.
With the spinal cord being pinched off, it can't send the right messages from my brain to all of my organs.
The messages are being pinched off, not sent, or sent incorrectly to all of my organs.
All of my stomach and digestive issues, being sick for no real reason, (I don't really go anywhere to catch any germs or viruses) my skin smelling really, horribly bad after eating certain foods, stomach pain, cramps, constipation, or the complete opposite, having days where regardless how many showers I took, how much deodorant I put on, I would have body odor, and my hair falling out.

Everyone loses hair on a daily basis, but this isn't normal hair loss, this is clumps of hair coming out in the shower, coming out when I brush it, coming out when the wind blows.
I don't have any noticeable bald spots, yet, but it's definitely thinned out.
It's nowhere near as thick as it once was, and it's not due to getting old, this is directly related to my neck stuff.
It's been rather sucky.

Sebastian broke down last night.
He just exploded in this 15 year old ball of fear, worry, and anger over this whole thing, crying, screaming, hugging me so tightly I thought he'd break my ribs.
He said if doc screws up and I die, he's going to beat him up really bad right there in the hallway at the hospital.
Mark said Sebastian won't get the chance, because he'll kill him.
To say the teens are starting to panic and be really afraid now, is an understatement.
They keep saying little things, '1 week from today' or 'I hope this week goes by really slow, it may be the last week I ever see you', or 'on Saturday or Sunday night, I'm sleeping with you, I want to be near you as much as possible.'
They even came out tonight and watched the season premiere of Gossip Girl, a show they hate, just to "hang out" with me.

I keep trying to reassure them that it's all going to be ok, that I WILL be coming home, that I'm going to be fine, and Sebastian wanted me to promise him that, but I can't.
I can't make that kind of promise because I really don't know.
I just kept telling him that I will be coming home, that it will be ok, without saying the word promise.

I have so much to do this week, work, the house, helping them with school, still trying to keep this house running as normally as possible, but honestly, I can't focus on any of it for long.
I want to though, I have things that I need to get done, but my mind starts wandering, racing, then my heart starts racing and pounding, and then I get a massive migraine and have to go lay down.
I went to bed shortly after the boys did tonight, they went at 11:30, I went at 11:45, and I laid there checking to make sure their alarm would go off, that mine would go off again at 8am so I can get up and try and do some work before I have to leave at noon-ish, but I started panicking about it all, so I got up and set Snoozester to call me at 8am just in case my cell alarm doesn't go off.
And now here I am, sitting here blogging, awake again, just thinking about it all.

I know things will be ok, but now with such short time left to go, I just want to go do it, get it over with, enough of the testing and appointments, and talks, let's just do it!
I just want it done so I can come back home like I said, that's all I want.

Don't forget to say "Rabbit rabbit White rabbit" upon waking up this morning, and on the morning of the first day of the month every month.
It's an old superstition, and I really don't believe in superstitions, but I do it for fun.
Seeing as how I don't know exactly what time I'll be waking up tomorrow, er, today, I figured I'd just post it now.

Who knows, maybe it really is good luck, and I could sure use some good luck this month.
I'm having surgery exactly 1 week from today, I could use to make some big time money this week before I go which means I need to get back to work pronto, no more lazy bones-feeling like not doing anything, and hey, maybe I'll win some money or maybe a Caribbean cruises vacation or something for the teens and I to go on after I'm recovered.

A vacation is sorely needed I tell ya.
I'm tired, stressed out, worried about money and bills, and the teens at school.
I really don't want this surgery to affect them like the last time, I don't want them to miss any days for any reason.
I do want them to come see me, but not until after school each day, come at night only.
That way my sister doesn't miss any time at work either, she really can't afford to take time off, so if she goes to work, and they go to school, then come visit me after, everyone will be doing what they need to do, and I'll be getting rest and doing my physical therapy/up walking the halls and all that stuff so I can come home on schedule.

It's late and once again I'm wide awake, so I think I'm going to go dive into my work, get as much done as I can.

One of the things I've been thinking about since getting the news about my surgery, is that I will probably never be able to go take any more mini Orlando vacations to the theme parks for roller coaster fun again.
I've been waiting for a little over 2 years to be able to get the all clear to go ride coasters again, and now this.
This sucks.
I have never been on some of the newer coasters at any of the Florida parks since like 2004, and I really miss it.
We used to go to the theme parks like 20 times a year, and now I may never get to go again because of all of this crap.
I'm really bummed about it ya know.
It just sucks.
I'm not done being mad about this by a long shot.
I'm really angry about it, it's not fair.
16 days and counting, and the more time that passes, the angrier I get.

What was a category 1 hurricane, has been downgraded into a tropical storm again.
It'll be about 45-50mph winds, some rain, nothing major.
But all the Sarasota schools are closed, there's no garbage pick-up tomorrow, and all county government offices will be closed as well.

The kids first day back to school was today, and now they get a day off already.
I understand the whole better safe than sorry thing, but they canceled school at 2pm today, made the automated phone calls to parents, and they could have, should have, waited until later tonight to make the call on closing school.

Things are fine here, we have plenty of food and water should the power go out, I did all y hurricane shopping on Saturday, and we have plenty of candles, a big flashlight, a 24 our glo-stick for emergencies, plenty of stuff, but I doubt it will get that bad.

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.

Last night after getting home from Chuck E. Cheese for my niece Susan, my insomnia from the night before started to catch up to me.
I found myself sitting here in my chair dozing off several times.
I had been sitting here at like 6:15pm, and when I woke up, it was 8:30pm.
I was supposed to go in to the boy's room and fix the video card settings to show more detail on their games, and get some papers ready for today's medical phone calls.
But I was so tired, I laid down on the couch at like 10-10:30, and that was it, out and down for the count.

The teens slept over my sister's house, so at like 8:20 this morning, I hear this knocking on the door.
It was them, my alarm I had set for 8am never went off, so ooopsy.
They said they had just knocked that one time, so at least they hadn't been out there banging on the door for an hour.
Then as soon as I let them in, fixed the door caterpillar, I then laid back down on the couch and fell asleep again.
I hadn't slept for like 38 hours, so I was way tired, and just needed all that sleep to catch up.
Then when I woke up at 11am, I ran to the corner store for some soda, and then came back to get myself ready for the medical phone calls at 1pm.
I spent about 2 hours on the phone answering questions with the surgical intake nurse, she wasn't able to give me any information on how long I'd be in the hospital, but Doc Moreno or Cindy would be able to answer all of those questions for me later.

Then I tried to catch up some emails and gave up.
I'm not answering any questions for anybody about things that happened a long time ago.
It's over for me, so move on folks, the show's over.
A year ago when I laid out what I was doing, was the time for people to ask questions and get answers, and yanno, maybe even help me, but no one did, so I took care of it, it's done.
I am ok with being called a disgusting human being for not helping others now, it's fine with me, no one helped me when I needed it or asked for it. Call me selfish, call me mean or a moron, and yes, I do know who I emailed recently about something to do with work, so um, yeah, nice try hiding behind the name "anonymous".
Hello! I wasn't born yesterday people.
It's done, over, don't bother emailing me about it now.

I made the call to the lawyer to schedule a time to get the DNR and WILL verified, asked a quick question about something else, he said we can talk about that at the appointment, told me to bring the papers and stuff with me, so I will have all my medical stuff and my other stuff taken care of by next week, or answers at least.

Right now I'm making dinner, some yummy BBQ'd boneless/skinless chicken breast, and some broccoli with cheese, and then I have the dishes to finish up, and a load of laundry to start.
I don't think I have much on the agenda for tomorrow, haven't looked yet, and Google calendar hasn't emailed the daily summary for tomorrow yet, I should get that around midnight.

I know that I do have some work to catch up on.
Due to passing out cold last night, I didn't get all of my work finished, but I did get most of it done.
I only have about 5 or so left, so yeah, I got almost all of them done before going out yesterday.
It's ok with me, I am not late on anything, it's all actually not due until next week, so I'll get it all done by tomorrow, and then take on whatever else they need done.
Ok, time to go check the dinner, later days!

I was feeling really down last night when I posted that I might not go to Susan's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow afternoon, I was in a bad place, dealing with all kinds of stress and worry about bills and stuff.
And I haven't had a chance to go shopping for baby gifts for her present yet.
She's not a baby anymore, but she has to have child safe toys, know what I mean?
She's still at that age where you just don't give a little girl a toy with tons of tiny pieces.
I know what I'm giving her, but I'm going to give it to her on Friday night when we all go out to Chinese to celebrate both her and Mark's birthday.

She loves to play doctor, people doctor, animal doctor, couch doctor, she's always fixing things up, she loves bandages and band-aids and stuff, so I'm getting her a first aid kit.
My sister told me to get it for her, so don't look at me like I'm a crazy person. *laughs*
She really does love first aid kits, so I found a smallish one, it seems to be the perfect size for her, and I'll remove the fingernail clippers, the tweezers, any lotions or things like Neosporin and stuff like that, and that way she'll be safe.
She will absolutely love it, I know it's the perfect gift because she always wants to play doctor when she comes over, she's the reason I don't have any more band-aids in my first aid kit now. *laughs*

Anyway, I will not be missing her big special big girl birthday party, she's my little buddy, I have to go and celebrate with her, take some pictures of both her and Skye, so I can add some new pics to my digital keychain.
I love that thing!
It can hold 107 pictures, and I uploaded what I thought was a lot, but it was actually only 59, so yeah, I have plenty of room left to add new pics of my girls.

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'd really like to know what the point was of fighting for and trying to get, and "winning" a higher child support amount, if it's not going to be enforced?
I got the court papers today.
It said that starting immediately, meaning August 1st, 2008, the day he "gets paid" and makes a deposit to the child support, that the new amount of $77 per week was going to start.
It didn't.
I checked it today and he did make a payment alright, but it's an amount that he chooses to pay, not the court ordered amount of $77, it's $37.20.
I thought court orders were supposed to be enforced?

What do I have to do, pack up a few Briggs and Riley suitcases for myself and the teens, and actually go up there to speak to a judge?
Do I have to beg the judge to enforce his own order?!
This is ridiculous!
What was the point of all of that, the hearing delays, and the paperwork, and all the evidence that I had to supply, because he refused to turn his in, they refused to make him, nobody investigated, and they only have what they have because I sent it to them?!
This just makes me so mad.
Child support court and enforcement is a complete joke in this country.

The child support hearing lasted all of 10 minutes, 5 of which were spent on hold waiting for the magistrate to call the room to order, and putting me on speaker phone, swearing me in, and all that hoopla.

Present in the courtroom today was myself, the Maine DA, someone from children and family services who was there to verify that I was indeed the ex-Mrs. Cooper, social security number xxx-xx-xxxx, and to state the names and ages of my minor children that are in my full-time custody.
I named them, Mark and Sebastian Cooper, ages 15 and turning 17 in a few weeks.
Also present was my ex's lawyer, I think. I heard a low mumble "present your honor",  when the name Bob Montblahblahblah, was announced, and the judge who spoke his name so fast I didn't catch it, but it will be on the finalized child support modification paperwork which I will get in the mail within a few weeks.

Because my ex-husband did not appear in court or by phone, and did not turn in his paperwork at all, or not in enough time for the judge to look it over, (again, something was mumbled about interrogatories, we have the ex-wife's, do we have Mr. Cooper's? something was mumbled) the judge would not back-date the child support amount to January 1st 2008, the date the DA officially filed for the modification with the courts, because even though it's such a low amount,  Mr. Cooper has 3 other minor children who he is current on paying child support for, that paying that amount may cause him to fall behind on those child support payments.
Whatever.

So based on the income and asset information the DA does have on my ex, the child support was raised from $21 per week to $78 per week.
From $84 per month, to $312 per month.
It is a huge improvement, but really, after 15 years at $21 a week whenever he felt like working, whenever he felt like paying, it's still not a truly acceptable amount.
It will help a lot, it won't be so much of a struggle now to buy them all of the things they constantly need like the sneakers they grow out of every 3-4 months because they are growing like the giant redwoods, and the clothes they grow out of for the same reason, and all the school supplies they always need for class projects, and those odd items that the teachers require or your student does not get a credit that they need in order to graduate, and the gazillion other items that teenagers need to have all of the time.

The new child support order is to go into effect immediately, as in tomorrow's child support deposit which will be placed on that lovely Florida state child support card they made me get, *eyeroll* and the funds will be available on Tuesday by mid-day, if he actually follows the court order.
If the new amount is enforced every single week, the $312 a month will definitely help to pay for the things that Mark and Sebastian always need.
Mark is at 6foot 2inches now, Sebastian is at a solid 6feet, and they are not done growing yet.
Just over the very short summer vacation, they have both grown 2 shoe sizes, and each of them has grown another pant and shirt size, so yeah, the new amount will be a major help to provide all of the things they need.

That's all I've ever wanted, to get some help paying for the things that two growing young men always need.
I wasn't fighting for this modification as a way of getting back at my ex-husband, I simply wanted him to help pay for the things that HIS sons need.
I didn't make these babies on my own, they have a biological father that they never see and they don't want to because of the very last words he ever said to Mark.
And ya know what?
I don't blame my son for never wanting to speak with his bio-dad again.
Those words stung him so bad, it crushed him that day, and if anyone even brings up his last visit with his bio-dad, he becomes immediately enraged, and will get up and walk away to go and be by himself, to calm himself down.
He's tried over the years to email his bio-dad, to try and get past that day, and every time he messaged him on myspace or sent an email, he wasn't believed, his bio-dad always thought it was me.
No, it wasn't, and every single time he got turned away, it was just another knife in his heart.
There are so many scars there now that attempting to repair that broken relationship will be an impossible feat.
Both the boys have their bio-dad's myspace pages and ways to contact him, they have their own email accounts on their own computer, and are free to try and contact him whenever they want to, if they want to.
Neither one of them have tried in almost 3 years now.
They don't even look at those myspace pages, and we don't discuss him at all in this house unless they bring him up.
I let them say whatever they want, spill all of their feelings out, do what they have to do, and I just listen.
I gave up trying to help repair those relationships a long, long time ago.

I didn't mean for this to turn into one of "those kinds of posts", but when I see them hurting, when I hear them talk about that last visit, and how he cares about his other 4 kids more than them, it kills me inside.
I can't take their hurt away, I can't make it any better, nothing I say will ever erase the memories they have of him saying the things he did to them.
They knew nothing about the child support modification and hearing today, if and when the new support payments come in, I'll let them know that I did my best to get it increased, and we'll go start the school shopping after 2 full payments come in, which will be right in time for my SSDI to come in, and we'll be able to go get them new shoes, clothes, backpacks, and all the basics they will need, and then when we get the specialized lists, we'll use the next week's payment to get most or at least some of those specialized items. 

And then every 3 months, new sneakers, pants, and shirts.
I wish upon a star every single night that they stop growing soon.
I look like a midget standing between them, and I gained 3 full inches in height after my back surgery. *LOL*

Mark got a couple cards in the mail for his birthday, and just like he asked for, he got some money.
He decided that he didn't want me to cook dinner last night, he was going to order a bunch of wings from Wings n' Weenies, and he'd treat the family to dinner.

He ordered a half and half box, 50 wings, 25 hot and 25 bbq, and we all sat down and ate the very tasty wings while watching Rocky V.
Then after, we all went back to our chosen playthings to do.
Mark went back to the Xbox, Sebastian went back to his on line video game, and I went back to surfing the net, reading blogs, and playing on the local forums.

We all went to bed pretty late, that may have also contributed to this morning's barf-o-rama.
I woke up and just wasn't feeling right.
I was really hot, had that clammy feeling, but I blew it off.
The yucky feeling started to feel worse, so I went back to the couch to lay down.
Then it hit me like a freight train.
I got up off the couch as quickly as possible and ran to the bathroom.
I barely made it in there in time before the vomit started to rise up my throat.
I must have been in there puking for a good 10 minutes, and it was all bbq chicken wings.
I know it was the chicken because I did have some ice cream later in the night, but all that came out was bbq wings.

They were mighty tasty last night, but they don't taste so good coming back out.

The stress of it all, the stress of living and trying to keep my head above the financial waters, is starting to get to me big time.
I want to just hire a couple of moving trucks and pack up all of our stuff, stick it in storage, and just go away.
Just leave, go somewhere, go anywhere, I don't really care anymore.
I'm so tired, I just can't keep getting a little itty bit ahead, and then get hit with another unexpected bill or appliance replacement cost.
It's too much for me right now.

I have the stress and worry about whether or not I'll be having neck surgery, I have the child support court hearing coming up, I have all kinds of bills and expenses due in the next few months, and every little thing is catching up with me and overwhelming me right now.
Like right. this. minute., I feel like crying, just curling up in a ball and crying and screaming and kicking and shouting.
I just want it all to stop or at least slow down.
It's one thing after another these last few weeks.
Last week, the boys got in that fight and hurt each other, I have bills I'm trying to pay and I'm not getting enough work, the economy is getting worse and I think it's affecting the industry I'm in because work has slowed down a lot.
And I have the child support court hearing next week, and I'm just not feeling up to fighting for it right now.
Like today is just not a good day, the whole thing just has me way stressed out because I have other things going on that are occupying my mind right now, and to have to deal with that a few days before I find out if I have to have neck surgery, well, it's just upsetting me so so much.
Anyone understand that?!
I just have things that I have to deal with and am worried about, and I want what's right, what's fair, but I'm so emotional right now that I am afraid that I'll end up crying halfway through the hearing when his lawyer starts asking about my health.
It was one of the questions on the interrogatories, and I know his lawyer is going to try and make it seem like I am not a good mother because of my back surgery and stuff.
My health issues have not stopped me from being a good mom, I do a damn good job, and I pay for everything by myself, and I have the back-to-school expenses coming up really soon that I will be paying for myself again..
They go back to school on the 18th of August, and they need clothes and supplies, and so that's another big expense that I have to take care of.

And then tonight the lawn mower rip cord thingy breaks, so now I have to either repair that part OR I have to buy another lawn mower.
And Sebastian was outside playing and he slipped and twisted his knee, so he spent a few hours on the couch this evening with an ice pack on his leg crying that it hurt.
It's NOT broken, but he did twist it, it's painful, I know that because I've done that and it really hurts pretty damn bad.

But you see!?
It's just been one thing after another and it just keeps coming, and it all hit me tonight.
I'm just an emotional mess tonight so I'm sitting here blogging instead of crying and being all upset in front of the kids.
These blogs of mine are not a business, they are my therapy, they help me cope with everything in my life by letting me say all of the things that are on my mind, they help me deal with my life and all of the things that happen in it because I am stuck in my house and I have no one that I can talk to.
I have had a bad day and now that I've dumped it all here, maybe I can let some of it go.