11 posts tagged “life”

Mom's room was full of friends when J and I went to see her last night. It was nice to visit with everybody. One of my mom's friends is Bev. Bev is 73 years old. She was talking about pitching for her softball team. Her coach keeps wondering if his 73 year old pitcher is going to make it another season. She does. What is amazing is that she showed us a picture of her team. All of her teammates look to be in their TWENTY'S! She told us about how she had bypass surgery and then went Christmas shopping 3 days after getting home. Bev is on my hero list.

Back to Momma. She is having gallbladder surgery. It sounds like a gallstone got lodged in the duct of the pancreas and caused it to become inflamed. I still have not seen anything about some of her other symptoms, but I am just going with it as I am not a doctor. One thing that is frustrating is the fact that she has a difficult time remembering things. Her friends seemed concerned too but made excuses. Not in a defensive way. They just saw it differently than I did. J seemed to be more understanding too. I however know that her older brother has advanced demensia and recently Mom accused me of stealing something from my brother. It really is a funny story. I will tell it someday.

My mom asked a nurse to take notes for her. Mom realizes that she cannot remember everything. That is normal. I remember when Alan was first diagnosed, or getting diagnosed, I had his Mom come in (She worked for the doctor who was treating him so she was all ready in the office. That too is another story.) Milly, mil, helped me by remembering things I could not because I was overwhelmed with information and had questions that I had not thought of. I had questions for Mom's nurse but she had left. However, I did ask if her new nurse would please write things down for her. I was-a butt kissing, but it was true; I realize that he is busy and has other patients but I would truly appreciate it if he could do this for my mom. Somebody is writing thank you notes to nurses who took care of her momma.

I am not sure when she is having surgery. She is not sure when she is having surgery. I will take a note book up to the hospital and have them use it so we have the notes in one place.

I took the book At Home in Mitford to her. She has read it before but she said she cannot remember well so it will be like reading it for the first time. Hahaha. She laughs at her memory too. Mitford changed my life. The book was given to me as a gift one Christmas. When I was stressed I would go back to Mitford. I got other people to read the book about a tender priest named Father Tim. However it was not the pages and the story that changed me. Mitford brought me two of my dearest friends. We were separated by land and an ocean and found each other in a tiny ficticious town in North Carolina. Hopefully it will offer Mom a little escape and maybe a little familiarity, a feeling of home. 

Figuring that I should update a little more often since I dropped that bomb yesterday.

I visited Momma this morning. She looks good. She is a tiny woman so 12 pounds really shows on her. She was wearing a bright pink satin robe from home. They had just brought her back from having an MRI. I am not sure when they will get the results of that. The big C word was not mentioned so I did not bring it up. We will cross that bridge if it appears.

My family is very practical about death. Yesterday at chime practice I was talking about my mom and how she and Daddy laugh about death. Really they laugh. A few years ago they had a party for their 40th anniversary because who knows, they may not be alive in ten years to celebrate 50! Hahahahaha. Or my mom would get a piece of jewelery and ask if I like it because when she dies, I will get it! Hahahahaha! Really, we laugh. I could tell that sharing Momma's attitude shocked them. I explained that it is not that I won't be happy when my mom dies but it is bound to happen and she will get to see her mom. Grandma died 28 years ago. Once my mom told me one of her favorite things was to dream about her mom. When she dies, she get to see and be with her. When I was at the hospital Mom got a call from a friend. I am not sure what the lady said, but my mom said, "well either it will pass or I will!" Insert laughter.

When Alan was diagnosed with cancer I got to a point where I could shut things down. I had only a couple of people who I would cry in front of. Alan was not one of them. Now Alan is my number one. Poor guy got a surprise ear full of sobbing today. I recovered nicely. Nobody looked at me too strangely when I wore my big sunglasses into the grocery store.

Mom will be in the hospital for a few days. I will update you. If you do not hear from me, try not to worry. Nacwolin is in contact with me and so is Holly Bee. I think you could message them. It proably will not come to that but I feel the need to let you know. Hopefully, we will get some answers soon.

Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for your prayers. They (and you!) mean so much to me.

My brother took Mom to the hospital this weekend. They did a CAT scan of her tummy thinking her vomiting and phlegm may be a result of her diverticulitis. Nope. Maybe it was something else. The doctor told her to check with her doctor. He was very nice and I think he did everything an ER doctor is supposed to do. Mom went to her doctor and they thought it may be related to a medication she is on. Today Daddy took her back to the hospital. She is still having problems. She has lost 12 pounds and is severely dehydrated. They said it looks like pancreatitis. We all know we are not supposed to dig too deep on the internet. We know this. But I did. Her symptoms don't really match Pancreatitis. They do match pancreatic cancer. Shhh. I have not told anybody, not even Alan. I don't want to say the words. I may be wrong. Many people have a pancreatic cancer story: "one month from diagnosis and they died." Oh I have heard others. Patrick Swayze is still alive. However, my friend Mary 2's mom lived for 2 years. I remember Mary 2 saying, "sometimes lives are too short: sometimes they are too long. Mom's was too long."

I know. Don't get a head of myself. Here is the thing: this is my place to get a head of myself. This is where I can come and dump my feelings. This is my place to over react. This is where I don't have to speak my fears, but I can still let them out. Thanks for visiting. Sorry if I am a downer. Happy stuff can be found here.

I fell.

After typing that I was so tempted to just leave it at that.

Earlier this week I climbed into a small tree to hack prune its unruly stalks. No problem. Climbing is second nature to me being less than 5'2". My balance is great. My fall however had nothing to do with climbing. I stepped out the kitchen door to the landing that leads to the garage. To be honest with you I am not exactly sure how I got from point A to the garage floor. One second I was stepping down and the next thing I know I can feel my ankle just buckle. J was gathering her things and I was going to wait in the car for her. Poor thing. She did not know what to do. I sensed her panic right away. Well, I had screamed for her. Very calmly I told her to pick up my things and the I was going to crawl back into the house. That is exactly what happened. She calmly got me some ice, a whole tray of ice. My ankle hurt but somehow I knew that I would be able to rotate it. It hurt a bit but nothing that was sending me to the hospital. Then I got up and put some weight on it. Not fun but ok. So being stubborn, we went to the store. J drove while I iced. Half way into the store I realize that I probably should not be there. 

I have taken nsaids and am doing the RICE thing. The swelling is minimal as is the pain. It does feel better when I am not standing on it or moving it certain ways. My main concern right now is church. Tomorrow I am supposed to play the chimes. Not a big problem but the circular staircase to the balcony could be interesting.

After my morning entry I went to the Y to work out. The run really cleared my head. I know that I need that in my life. Not only that going to the Y and seeing so many people that I knew really made me feel comfortable. Seriously, I had the Cheer's theme running through my head.

This is going to be a quick post. Tomorrow I will share some details.

• I did not have one bit of a hangover.
  
• I drank Moonshine out of a Mason jar that somebody made in their bathtub
• Graduation was fun. The Prez included me in his speech (don't get to excited there were only 43 of us and it was part of his shtick.)
• I scared somebody away from coming to my house
• Ang's family came over minus Smash (he had homework). J met Smash's brother Brain. He is a freshman in college but they hit it off. No not like that. He has a girlfriend. This is fun story so I will fill you in later
• More crap is braking in my house. This time it is really crap. Our toilette overflowed big time. Actually, the crap made it down the drain somehow, but we had water leaking into the basement (unfinished luckily.)
  
• I don't have a Monday picture
• The pregnant lady I am supposed to long term sub for called this morning. We thought this might be it. Nope.
  
• The kids at school felt like testing me.
• I did not get any pictures of me and my family at graduation
  

That's it for now.

Things that have broke or needed repair in my house:
Dryer (twice)
J's car (twice)
computer (still not fixed, had a fight with the geeks)
dishwasher

Ok so the list looks a bit weak. Al said we could replace the dishwasher next week. Here's the thing: I love having a dishwasher. I never had one until we moved into this house. I am just afraid right now to put out the money since so many things seem to be requiring money. We are not broke but we need to be careful right now. Al is up for a job review soon and hopefully this will result in a sizable raise since he has taken on another job in addition to his initial one. There are no guarantees though.  So it is dishpan hands for me and really I am ok with that.

J and I decided to rent a couple of videos today. We were looking around trying to find something happy. We batted around a few ideas and then said, "Bill and Ted." She had never seen it before. The title had come up at school a few weeks ago and she was curious. This was just what I needed. Fun, mindless, silly...perfect for my pea-brain attention span.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

We Are Marshall (Widescreen Edition)

Where to begin?

How about an update on J and Smash? I don't think that is going to work out. They do not seem to have a lot in common. I think J has hang-ups about him being a jock and her not being popular. They went out once. Then his family came to our house for New Year's Eve (more about that later), but the two of them skipped out for a little bit to go to a concert. When they got home we all played Apples to Apples. Later she said she does not know if they will go out again or not. Anjie and I were laughing about the fact that the kids don't do a lot of talking to each other. They email and contact each other through MySpace. I know, this makes me a hypocrite of sorts. Through my diary and bb I have formed real friendships. I know understand that at least with AIM and other such programs they are able to communicate with each other in real time. Back to the teens: Maybe the height difference did them in. They look funny together. Not that they were too together. Once they got in the house they did not go near each other. I guess I just like the idea that I know Smashs family and ideas. This makes it another example of my control issues.

Christmas was nice. We had all of the family, friends and fun that goes with the holidays. On Christmas Eve we went to a friends house. There was another family there as well. Our kids have grown up together. The other family's kids all  go to the same school. Mine are in another district. It was so fun to see all 8 of the kids ranging in age from 10 -18 all playing together. We all used to belong to a pool and the kids would play for hours and hours. The big boys took care of the little boys, the girls floated in the pool, the moms talked and read books. It was a great time. Then our pool was torn down. I digress. Since we have all of our family in town, we see them all of the time. Mary, our hostess, has no family in town. Betsy's family has a bit of both. Being with friends on Christmas Eve just seems to capture more of Christmas for me.

New Year's Eve was fun too. Anjies husband was nervous about coming, but he and Alan hit it off. For two quiet men they managed to do a lot of gabbing. I hope we can have other get together's in the future.

Now Alan is back to school. J is back at one school. Cole and I are just hanging out this morning. Monday everybody is back full force, except for me. Maybe that's when all of this will hit. I am beginning to feel a little of it now. What am I supposed to do? Actually, I know the answer to that. I need to campaign for a job. It will not be easy. Right now it feels like I have been in a time warp and I have been zinged back to 2005. I don't feel educated. Sometimes I look at my writing and think I have not been to college. College. I guess that I can cross that off my list now.

Finally, this marathon thing may not happen this spring. For about three weeks I have had some back issues. It is nothing horrible but sometimes walking hurt. Actually, sometimes driving hurt. This does not mean that I am giving up. No,no,no. My race date will just shift. Keep on me though.

Here is a slide show of our family year in review. Enjoy.

Tomorrow is another observation day for me. This one is for social studies.

Casa La Bec is full of fun.

Cole has a simple machine project that is about to divide the family. It is actually supposed to be at least two simple machines. He was convinced that he could make a device to open water bottles. Drama prevailed when it looked like it was not going to work. Well of course it was not going to work. I heard the plans. Now he is making something else. This was not easy to convince him that it would be ok to switch projects.

Speaking of Cole we had his conferences yesterday. No surprises. He is a good egg.

J. I love that girl. She is driving me nuts. Actually, driving is not quite the word since she lost her learning permit. She was due to take her test this weekend. We all looked all over for that thing. I know she shoved it into some little cranny and it is no where to be seen. She has always squirreled things away. Alan was going to take her to get a new permit but the wait was sooooo long. Now the test has to be rescheduled. Piss.

That is really it. Alan is holding our house together while I am continuously in freak-out mode.

I have only 3 more weeks of solo teaching. Sharon and I are planning my taper and her reinstatement into her classroom. I cannot believe that it is all happening so fast. There is still so much to do.

This picture looks nasty. But I was so proud of myself. Today after school I went to the store and picked up a rotisserie chicken and made white chicken chili, on the right, and chicken salad. Oooo. I feel so organized.

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You know I don't love the photo posts here but I am going to try.

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Success. See. This is what my life has come too. I called Alan to see if we needed anything from the store. Since I was driving, I grabbed a pen and made the note on my hand. I did not however take this picture while I was driving.

At school our fourth graders have to observe animals. We have snails, dwarf frogs, and some kind of crab. Last week we ran into a couple of problems. First our tank went black. The stench was horrible. We had to get rid of a bunch of dead snails and start all over. Then on Friday the kids went to observe and saw that a frog had got stuck head first in a snail. I have a little video too. Maybe I can get that up. I tried to pull the frog out as gentle as possible. Each time I pulled I thought I was going to pull his head off. Finally, I began to chip away at the snails shell. Another intern came in and finished the job for me and saved the frog. The snail, however did not make it.  

 Dancing with the Stars begins this week. My goal is to post Brunoisms. That is one funny guy. Right now I am watching Heros. What a fun show! Of course Thursday is filled with conflict about what to watch. My Name is Earl, The Office, Ugly Betty, Grey's, and Survivor for some family members. Yes. We are potatos!