Less than 24 hours after my last post, my father-in-law was dead. It was a peaceful passing, filled with family and song, so they tell me. At least the pain is over for him, and we can begin the healing.
Sunday we held the memorial service for him. It was very long, but filled with wonderful remembrances of him, his life, and what he meant to us. It ended with the American Legion Color Guard giving a 21 gun salute and the presentation of the colors to my mother-in-law. It honestly felt more like a wedding than a funeral. All in all a very good thing.
Grief is such an odd beast and people feel it and show it in different ways. For me, there is no grieving to be done. My FIL was a wonderful guy, but now he's gone. I'm sad that I will no longer receive calls from Dear Old Dad, as he liked to call himself, I'm sad that his sense of humor won't be around, but I'm not going to grieve his loss. Him being in the pain that he was in caused me to grieve. Now all that I can find in this is a blessed relief and yes, a happiness that he is asleep and knows no more pain.
So, hug your loved ones and gather them around you. Waste no time in doing what you must do to live life to the fullest. One of the best parts of this last year for me was having my FIL talk to me about my weight loss and how he, a blind man, could see that I was being filled with so much more joy in life, even as his was slowly being eked from him. He was so happy that I was getting back to who I was. It amplified my own joy as I found my old self again. I will never forget him and the love he showed me even when I was the new stranger in his youngest son's life.
God speed, Jack! We will miss you. But we'll see you again. Until then!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
It's September Already? Really?
Cripes. I let life run away with me and this is what I get. *sigh*
Between the stress of getting the children sent off to public school for the first time ever, my medical issues and family crisis, I haven't had time for, well, anything.
Thing One and Thing Two have settled quite nicely into their school routine. Thing One wakes up at O'dark-thirty so that she can leave the house by 6:15 a.m. to get to the bus. Yikes! Thing Two wakes up around the time Thing One leaves and then I take her to a neighbor's house so that I can make it to work at a reasonable time. Both girls get home by bus and are now latch-key children. I am SUCH a bad mother. Gah! What else am I supposed to do? Both The Husband and I work, and paying for childcare is an unneeded expense at this point in life. They haven't killed each other yet, so I'm counting my blessings. Hopefully things on this angle will go well.
I had a second ultrasound to check out Fred my cyst. Turns out, Fred the cyst, well, isn't a cyst. Color me confused. The cyst that was found on the first ultrasound was probably part of my normal cycle, seeing as how a similar, but much smaller cyst was found on the right ovary. But, I wasn't having this damn pain on my right side. It was still on the left.
So where does this leave me? Endometreosis or an adhesion is most likely. I'm going to put my bet on the first part. Because those cysts my mother supposedly fell prey to that made them remove all of one and all but 5% of another? Yeah, it wasn't cysts but endometreosis. *sigh* Thanks, ma, for the brain cells that have just been killed as a result of this stress. And thank you, dad, for actually remembering this information. Cocktails all around, people!
I have to get in touch with the OBGYN in Delano about the results so that we can figure out where we go from here. I still have left side pain occasionally, so the site has not changed. It just is very frustrating to *think* that you know what is wrong and whoopsie! Now it's something else. Aaargh. These are the days of our lives, right?
Now for the family crisis. Last Sunday, August 26, we received a semi-frantic call from The Husband's older brother. My father-in-law was being admitted to the hospital because he was bleeding out through the colon. Considering the man has been fighting prostate cancer (his fourth battle with it!) since May of last year and was given 3 months to live at that time, this was not unexpected. The ER doctor was giving him hours, maybe days to live. He wanted to admit my FIL to get him stable and then would release him to hospice care since my FIL does NOT want to die in a hospital bed.
This sends The Husband into a tizzy. We knew this was coming, especially since they kept delaying and delaying and then finally denying the last round of chemo because of his blood levels. We've known that he was bleeding internally because he kept having to have transfusions in order to get his blood counts back up. But now what do we do? His other siblings were flying in from Ohio and Idaho, so The Husband decided to ride his motorcycle up there and then I would follow with the children on Friday.
The Husband made it up to Carson City relatively unscathed. Well, with the exception of the rain storm and hail that he drove through and then was chased by. Yikes! He comes into a situation where his father is going down hill, but is still mostly lucid and is still eating. We're uncertain of what is going on, how fast he's going, etc. He sees all his children around him, plus the husband of one and the wife of another and says, "Well, you all are here. Now where's Sarah?" So now I'm torn. We decide to yank the kids out of school a day early and I make haste to leave on Thursday before he completely goes. No matter what happenns, we have to return on Sunday because the children have to go back to school on Tuesday and we know we're going to need Monday as a recovery day.
Guess who's still kicking as of today? My father-in-law. Doctors don't know shit. They can't predict death. He's still lucid, albeit very weak. He needs help to get up and down, and has more and more moments of morphine mania as we call it. But he's still got his humor and knows how to yank our chains and make jokes.
Just yesterday, my SIL, who happens to work in a nursing home and is very used to dealing with the elderly and the dying, kept asking him if he wanted to do the transfer to the wheelchair so that he could move from the bed to his recliner. "Nope. Not right now," he said.
"You ready now, dad?" she asked a few minutes later.
"No, not ready yet."
Lather, rinse and repeat a few times.
Just as SIL decides to sit down and rest a bit herself, FIL says, "Okay, I'm ready now." SIL moves over to him. "No, I don't think so. Let's wait a bit," FIL says.
"Are you yanking my chain," SIL asks him.
"What, you finally noticed?" he said, grinning.
The old man's still got some spunk in him yet. Gotta love that!
Depending on how things go, I may head up again later on in the week as I'm the one in the family with leave left. The Husband used all his up by going all last week unfortunately. But we shall see what we shall see. Pray for us!
Between the stress of getting the children sent off to public school for the first time ever, my medical issues and family crisis, I haven't had time for, well, anything.
Thing One and Thing Two have settled quite nicely into their school routine. Thing One wakes up at O'dark-thirty so that she can leave the house by 6:15 a.m. to get to the bus. Yikes! Thing Two wakes up around the time Thing One leaves and then I take her to a neighbor's house so that I can make it to work at a reasonable time. Both girls get home by bus and are now latch-key children. I am SUCH a bad mother. Gah! What else am I supposed to do? Both The Husband and I work, and paying for childcare is an unneeded expense at this point in life. They haven't killed each other yet, so I'm counting my blessings. Hopefully things on this angle will go well.
I had a second ultrasound to check out Fred my cyst. Turns out, Fred the cyst, well, isn't a cyst. Color me confused. The cyst that was found on the first ultrasound was probably part of my normal cycle, seeing as how a similar, but much smaller cyst was found on the right ovary. But, I wasn't having this damn pain on my right side. It was still on the left.
So where does this leave me? Endometreosis or an adhesion is most likely. I'm going to put my bet on the first part. Because those cysts my mother supposedly fell prey to that made them remove all of one and all but 5% of another? Yeah, it wasn't cysts but endometreosis. *sigh* Thanks, ma, for the brain cells that have just been killed as a result of this stress. And thank you, dad, for actually remembering this information. Cocktails all around, people!
I have to get in touch with the OBGYN in Delano about the results so that we can figure out where we go from here. I still have left side pain occasionally, so the site has not changed. It just is very frustrating to *think* that you know what is wrong and whoopsie! Now it's something else. Aaargh. These are the days of our lives, right?
Now for the family crisis. Last Sunday, August 26, we received a semi-frantic call from The Husband's older brother. My father-in-law was being admitted to the hospital because he was bleeding out through the colon. Considering the man has been fighting prostate cancer (his fourth battle with it!) since May of last year and was given 3 months to live at that time, this was not unexpected. The ER doctor was giving him hours, maybe days to live. He wanted to admit my FIL to get him stable and then would release him to hospice care since my FIL does NOT want to die in a hospital bed.
This sends The Husband into a tizzy. We knew this was coming, especially since they kept delaying and delaying and then finally denying the last round of chemo because of his blood levels. We've known that he was bleeding internally because he kept having to have transfusions in order to get his blood counts back up. But now what do we do? His other siblings were flying in from Ohio and Idaho, so The Husband decided to ride his motorcycle up there and then I would follow with the children on Friday.
The Husband made it up to Carson City relatively unscathed. Well, with the exception of the rain storm and hail that he drove through and then was chased by. Yikes! He comes into a situation where his father is going down hill, but is still mostly lucid and is still eating. We're uncertain of what is going on, how fast he's going, etc. He sees all his children around him, plus the husband of one and the wife of another and says, "Well, you all are here. Now where's Sarah?" So now I'm torn. We decide to yank the kids out of school a day early and I make haste to leave on Thursday before he completely goes. No matter what happenns, we have to return on Sunday because the children have to go back to school on Tuesday and we know we're going to need Monday as a recovery day.
Guess who's still kicking as of today? My father-in-law. Doctors don't know shit. They can't predict death. He's still lucid, albeit very weak. He needs help to get up and down, and has more and more moments of morphine mania as we call it. But he's still got his humor and knows how to yank our chains and make jokes.
Just yesterday, my SIL, who happens to work in a nursing home and is very used to dealing with the elderly and the dying, kept asking him if he wanted to do the transfer to the wheelchair so that he could move from the bed to his recliner. "Nope. Not right now," he said.
"You ready now, dad?" she asked a few minutes later.
"No, not ready yet."
Lather, rinse and repeat a few times.
Just as SIL decides to sit down and rest a bit herself, FIL says, "Okay, I'm ready now." SIL moves over to him. "No, I don't think so. Let's wait a bit," FIL says.
"Are you yanking my chain," SIL asks him.
"What, you finally noticed?" he said, grinning.
The old man's still got some spunk in him yet. Gotta love that!
Depending on how things go, I may head up again later on in the week as I'm the one in the family with leave left. The Husband used all his up by going all last week unfortunately. But we shall see what we shall see. Pray for us!
Friday, August 17, 2007
Affair-licious
I haven't been an overly fat fatty most of my life. It was only within the last 8-10 years that I really started putting on the weight. And since I have lived in the same town for my entire 36 years, that's really not that long of a time to be heavy. I've always been big, mind you, but not grossly overweight like I was before having the DS.
So basically I have gotten back to being the same size woman that The Husband married. I'm almost the same size I was in high school. How righteous is that?
Anyway, the change in size hasn't been all that big of a problem for people that have literally known me all my life. To them, it's just the old Sarah back again. Different hair color, yeah, but the same ol' gel that I always have been.
The Husband and I have been married for 13 years. He has worked at his current jobsite for 14 years. So the vast majority of his co-workers have known me for that long and have seen me go up and now back down in size. No big deal. But those who have only known The Husband in the last four or five years have only ever known me big. This set us up for what went down on Monday.
Monday was the jobsite's 40th anniversary celebration. Spouses weren't invited, but former workers of the jobsite were and they were allowed to invite a guest. The Husband was desperate for me to come out to the celebration, so we hit up an ex-roommate of ours who used to work there to bring me along as his guest. Sweet! I was one of the few spouses that attended, but I was actually working the celebration helping The Husband with the food and whatnot so it's not like I was just out there for giggles and grins.
Anyway, one of the guys out there we've known for years. He's a flirty thing, and has been open with his appreciation as I've been losing the weight. Heck, he's been appreciative of me no matter what my size. It's okay with The Husband because the guy has a hot-as-hell wife who is also great friends with us and it's just this guy's personality. He's appreciative of feminine beauty and lets it be known. At one point during the day, he crept up and whispered loudly in my ear so that The Husband could hear it as well, "Damn, I don't know how much you've lost so far, but let me tell you it's fucking H-O-T!" We both just grinned. It was great. I don't like a lot of attention being thrown on my weight loss in public, but this friend of ours is just so engaging, you can't help but giggle like a schoolgirl when he does something like this.
The day wound to a close and I left with our former roommate to go back to my normal work. I was introduced to so many people, my head was spinning. Some I knew by name only, others were old co-workers. A good time was had by all. I even got to introduce The Husband to the mother of one of my ex-boyfriends. That's a story for later, though. Hee!
When The Husband got home that evening, he had a dazed look on his face. This was partly because he was standing around all day with an injured ankle (he had rolled it the night previously and was why I was helping out at the celebration), and partly because of things that happened after I left.
The Husband: "Did you know that I'm having an affair on you?"
Me: "Whaaaat? The hell?!?"
The Husband: "Yes. I'm having affair on you. Or so say some of my co-workers who came to verbally beat me up after you left. They were quite angry with me. One might say royally pissed off. They wanted to know who my new companion was."
Me: *dissolves into giggles in a pool on the floor*
This, my friends, is possibly the best thing to happen since surgery. I thoroughly intend to take it as a compliment. I don't care if it was my change in haircolor or the change back to who I used to be. It's all good in my book.
So basically I have gotten back to being the same size woman that The Husband married. I'm almost the same size I was in high school. How righteous is that?
Anyway, the change in size hasn't been all that big of a problem for people that have literally known me all my life. To them, it's just the old Sarah back again. Different hair color, yeah, but the same ol' gel that I always have been.
The Husband and I have been married for 13 years. He has worked at his current jobsite for 14 years. So the vast majority of his co-workers have known me for that long and have seen me go up and now back down in size. No big deal. But those who have only known The Husband in the last four or five years have only ever known me big. This set us up for what went down on Monday.
Monday was the jobsite's 40th anniversary celebration. Spouses weren't invited, but former workers of the jobsite were and they were allowed to invite a guest. The Husband was desperate for me to come out to the celebration, so we hit up an ex-roommate of ours who used to work there to bring me along as his guest. Sweet! I was one of the few spouses that attended, but I was actually working the celebration helping The Husband with the food and whatnot so it's not like I was just out there for giggles and grins.
Anyway, one of the guys out there we've known for years. He's a flirty thing, and has been open with his appreciation as I've been losing the weight. Heck, he's been appreciative of me no matter what my size. It's okay with The Husband because the guy has a hot-as-hell wife who is also great friends with us and it's just this guy's personality. He's appreciative of feminine beauty and lets it be known. At one point during the day, he crept up and whispered loudly in my ear so that The Husband could hear it as well, "Damn, I don't know how much you've lost so far, but let me tell you it's fucking H-O-T!" We both just grinned. It was great. I don't like a lot of attention being thrown on my weight loss in public, but this friend of ours is just so engaging, you can't help but giggle like a schoolgirl when he does something like this.
The day wound to a close and I left with our former roommate to go back to my normal work. I was introduced to so many people, my head was spinning. Some I knew by name only, others were old co-workers. A good time was had by all. I even got to introduce The Husband to the mother of one of my ex-boyfriends. That's a story for later, though. Hee!
When The Husband got home that evening, he had a dazed look on his face. This was partly because he was standing around all day with an injured ankle (he had rolled it the night previously and was why I was helping out at the celebration), and partly because of things that happened after I left.
The Husband: "Did you know that I'm having an affair on you?"
Me: "Whaaaat? The hell?!?"
The Husband: "Yes. I'm having affair on you. Or so say some of my co-workers who came to verbally beat me up after you left. They were quite angry with me. One might say royally pissed off. They wanted to know who my new companion was."
Me: *dissolves into giggles in a pool on the floor*
This, my friends, is possibly the best thing to happen since surgery. I thoroughly intend to take it as a compliment. I don't care if it was my change in haircolor or the change back to who I used to be. It's all good in my book.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Never, ever underestimate the power of Three
Especially when the three in question happen to be The Husband, The Mother and The Surgeon.
As I notated here previously, I have had an unpleasant visitor upon my body. One who at the drop of a hat can make my day miserable. But do I want to get rid of this foul beast, the one whom I call Fred? Well, not really because that would mean more surgery and I'm just iffy enough about more surgery until I have plastics.
Evidently, The Husband has gotten sick and tired (And Tired always follows Sick) of my bitching about Fred and wants something done about him. Preferably involving getting him to go away. Permanantly. And during a conversation a week ago Sunday with The Mother about her taking Thing One and Thing Two for the next week, The Husband happened to make noises to her that he was unpleased with my decision to keep on keeping on Fred and so thusly I got an earful from her. Something about my being an utter loon and shouldn't I know better with our family history of cysts, blah, blah, blah. Right.
So, being attacked in both the right ear (The Husband) and the left ear (The Mother) I gave in and said that yes, I would make the necessary appointments to see about removing Fred forever from my body and condemning him to wherever it is they send bodily waste, preferably next to the majority of my stomach that's in its little Ziploc baggie somewhere.
The trifecta came when during last Wednesday's visit with The Surgeon for my year follow up that hrm, maybe my wonky iron levels and hrm, perhaps my funky periods might, JUST MIGHT, MIND YOU, have something to do with Fred. Which means that yes, he must be gotten rid of post-haste thank you very much. Oh, and please start taking some iron pills already so you don't get anemic because the numbers if they continue their trend will lead to that destination. The Husband thought that The Surgeon wanted to slap me silly. It was very amusing.
I gave my usual grumble about how I had been wanting to wait to get rid of Fred until plastics, and The Surgeon said, "Well, why didn't you say so! We can take care of it all at once. After all, you really are at a good weight for it at this point." And the next thing I know, I'm being drawn upon with a black sharpie, pictures are taken, and an appointment made for the OB/GYN the next floor down to assess me is made.
Whew! Talk about a whirlwind!
In reality, this would be the best of all worlds. Get rid of Fred and possibly other parts of my female anatomy that I really have no more use for anymore, and thus have insurance pay for some things leaving us only to pay The Surgeon his fees for reconstruction. And maybe insurance will help pay there as well. Stranger things have occurred! And possibly slip in some boobies and do the arms as well.
Again. Talk about a whirlwind! I'm barely over a year out, and we're already talking plastics. Guess I've done good even and lost the weight in the right places even though I'm barely under 200 pounds. I didn't think we were going to be doing this for at least another year. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
So Thursday I have an appointment with the OB/GYN in Delano and I have all my medical records about Fred ready to present for his opinion about The Trouble With Fred. He and The Surgeon have worked together many, many times in the past, so this would be old hat to the both of them. Plus I've seen The Surgeon's work when it comes to plastics, and for someone who didn't specialize in them, he does a damn fine job IMO. And the stuff that I've seen is on some of the first ones that he did them on. The man has only gotten better as time goes on.
Thursday will begin the plot for the demise of Fred (definite), the removal of skin (highly probable) and the lifting of some sad things sagging (probable). Not too bad, eh?
As I notated here previously, I have had an unpleasant visitor upon my body. One who at the drop of a hat can make my day miserable. But do I want to get rid of this foul beast, the one whom I call Fred? Well, not really because that would mean more surgery and I'm just iffy enough about more surgery until I have plastics.
Evidently, The Husband has gotten sick and tired (And Tired always follows Sick) of my bitching about Fred and wants something done about him. Preferably involving getting him to go away. Permanantly. And during a conversation a week ago Sunday with The Mother about her taking Thing One and Thing Two for the next week, The Husband happened to make noises to her that he was unpleased with my decision to keep on keeping on Fred and so thusly I got an earful from her. Something about my being an utter loon and shouldn't I know better with our family history of cysts, blah, blah, blah. Right.
So, being attacked in both the right ear (The Husband) and the left ear (The Mother) I gave in and said that yes, I would make the necessary appointments to see about removing Fred forever from my body and condemning him to wherever it is they send bodily waste, preferably next to the majority of my stomach that's in its little Ziploc baggie somewhere.
The trifecta came when during last Wednesday's visit with The Surgeon for my year follow up that hrm, maybe my wonky iron levels and hrm, perhaps my funky periods might, JUST MIGHT, MIND YOU, have something to do with Fred. Which means that yes, he must be gotten rid of post-haste thank you very much. Oh, and please start taking some iron pills already so you don't get anemic because the numbers if they continue their trend will lead to that destination. The Husband thought that The Surgeon wanted to slap me silly. It was very amusing.
I gave my usual grumble about how I had been wanting to wait to get rid of Fred until plastics, and The Surgeon said, "Well, why didn't you say so! We can take care of it all at once. After all, you really are at a good weight for it at this point." And the next thing I know, I'm being drawn upon with a black sharpie, pictures are taken, and an appointment made for the OB/GYN the next floor down to assess me is made.
Whew! Talk about a whirlwind!
In reality, this would be the best of all worlds. Get rid of Fred and possibly other parts of my female anatomy that I really have no more use for anymore, and thus have insurance pay for some things leaving us only to pay The Surgeon his fees for reconstruction. And maybe insurance will help pay there as well. Stranger things have occurred! And possibly slip in some boobies and do the arms as well.
Again. Talk about a whirlwind! I'm barely over a year out, and we're already talking plastics. Guess I've done good even and lost the weight in the right places even though I'm barely under 200 pounds. I didn't think we were going to be doing this for at least another year. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
So Thursday I have an appointment with the OB/GYN in Delano and I have all my medical records about Fred ready to present for his opinion about The Trouble With Fred. He and The Surgeon have worked together many, many times in the past, so this would be old hat to the both of them. Plus I've seen The Surgeon's work when it comes to plastics, and for someone who didn't specialize in them, he does a damn fine job IMO. And the stuff that I've seen is on some of the first ones that he did them on. The man has only gotten better as time goes on.
Thursday will begin the plot for the demise of Fred (definite), the removal of skin (highly probable) and the lifting of some sad things sagging (probable). Not too bad, eh?
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Actually, I do love the news some days
From the Associated Press:
KETTERING, Ohio — Romeo slays Tybalt for killing his friend, Mercutio.
Ah, Shakespeare.
Police in this Dayton suburb responded to a report of a swordfight in a public park Tuesday night. They found actors rehearsing a scene from "Romeo and Juliet."
"Nobody was hurt, except for us from laughing so hard once we figured out why the police, an ambulance and a fire truck pulled up with sirens flashing," said Dawn Roth-Smith, co-directer of the outdoor production by Playhouse South that opens Saturday.
"Somebody driving by must have seen our rehearsal but missed the big green sign we have up for our play," Roth-Smith said. "I apologized to the officer for bringing them out for no reason. He told me I should tell my actors they're doing a great job."
Beware reports of witches in the park when the same group rehearses "Macbeth" next summer.
KETTERING, Ohio — Romeo slays Tybalt for killing his friend, Mercutio.
Ah, Shakespeare.
Police in this Dayton suburb responded to a report of a swordfight in a public park Tuesday night. They found actors rehearsing a scene from "Romeo and Juliet."
"Nobody was hurt, except for us from laughing so hard once we figured out why the police, an ambulance and a fire truck pulled up with sirens flashing," said Dawn Roth-Smith, co-directer of the outdoor production by Playhouse South that opens Saturday.
"Somebody driving by must have seen our rehearsal but missed the big green sign we have up for our play," Roth-Smith said. "I apologized to the officer for bringing them out for no reason. He told me I should tell my actors they're doing a great job."
Beware reports of witches in the park when the same group rehearses "Macbeth" next summer.
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