The Adventures (and Delirium) Continue

OK, so all my stuff is in the new apartment and most of it is put away; not bad. Our new town is even more peaceful and beautiful than the other one, and we just love it. Pirate Boy keeps begging me to take him fishing; he can see the lake from our upstairs window, and it's just teasing him apparently. Yeah, the kids are out of school and pretty happy about that. (Kindergarten graduation was the cutest thing in the world, let me tell you.)

In other news, I managed to get myself and the kids to Colorado and back without too much trouble, even in the stadium during commencement, which is very little short of a miracle. Certainly it's a miracle I'm deeply grateful for. Another one is that The Man seems to have actually graduated-- or will have, once he pays his debt to the school. Not too bad.

I haven't gotten much paying work accomplished lately, partly because of the aforementioned stuff and partly because of massive migraine attacks. I have been working as much as possible, but all that's going to change soon. My two paying jobs are about to end, and I have nothing else in sight. (So I guess my rent won't go up after all.) I have to admit being secretly pleased; I've been looking for a way to finish writing a novel or two, and now I don't have anything (except the kids) to distract me from that. You guys keep bugging me about it and maybe it'll get done.

But meanwhile, I've got this little bit of surgery tomorrow. Actually, it's a pretty big bit of surgery, but I should be feeling better in a few days. I hope. My kids are pretty worried I won't make it through, poor little guys. So, if you're the praying kind... for my kids' sake... drop God a line for me? Thanks.

Another Little Adventure

A funny thing happened today. I told my little punkin after I picked him up from kindergarten that we were going to have an adventure, but I just meant running some errands after lunch. ( I needed to get the closing documents for my house sent back to the realtor so I could have that albatross off my neck.) Maybe the nice people at the bank would give him a lollipop, that sort of thing. Nice easy stuff. Huh.

What I did NOT mean was that I would have a pseudo-heart attack at the kitchen table and get nothing done but have a lot of wires and monitors strapped to my body all day. And as nice as they are at the local hospital, I could have done without seeing its ER again for a LONG time.

Fortunately, this time, my folks were home and I could get help pretty quickly. I'm gonna have to strap a cell phone to myself, I swear, for those times I can't walk. Life is so exciting, isn't it?

The really great thing about all this was my lovely friends and neighbors swooping in to help. Living in such a small, tight-knit community, it was impossible for anyone to overlook the arrival of an ambulance at our door. I think our dear friend who shares my initials was at the house to see if she could take the kids off my hands before the last paramedic walked in. What a relief!

So after all the tests and x-rays and stuff, the doctor still didn't know what had happened with my heart. He suggested that since I was still lightheaded and weak, I might stay overnight for observation. Um, nope, gotta take off and find a notary and get these papers to Colorado. Thanks anyway. He took the next best option: wiring me to a portable monitor for 24 hours. Ooh, yay!

Again, not exactly what I had planned, but I'm sure some good will come of it. Sigh.

Ups and Downs

Now it's Tuesday night. My folks have now been out of town for a week. The kids and I are still sick, and I'm starting to feel pretty worn down. (OK, not just starting.)

I thought the kids were mostly better after the weekend, and I was looking forward to taking it easy for a bit and recovering my health, too. (My temperature's been a steady 100 degrees for ages.) But Pirate Boy had an earache by dinner time, and when it had resisted Motrin and actually gotten worse by midnight, I threw on some clothes and hauled us all to the emergency room. Oy vey.

Luckily, we live in a small town where there's not too much traffic at that time of night, in or around the hospital. In fact, it was kind of spooky walking those empty halls in search of a pharmacist afterward. My boy has a nasty, messy ear infection, but now he has antibiotics and is doing much better.

I discovered last night how fortunate I am that I can keep Lortab down. My mom and my little Pirate both apparently throw it right back up within a couple of minutes. I guess I believed my doctor when he said, "Most people tolerate this stuff pretty well." Not in my family, apparently.

In the absence of my parents, we've been blessed by some good friends and neighbors, who have taken care of us today. And now both the punkins are down for the night, and a storm's blowing in. Maybe I can get some rest tonight.

April Update

It's Saturday night. My parents are out of town. The kids and I are sick. And it's been snowing for ages. But we've got plenty of food and medicine, a fireplace and warm blankets, and each other. So actually, life is pretty good.

But can it please be spring soon? Pretty please with whipped cream and a cherry on top? Huh? Sigh.

Pieces of Me

I apologize for neglecting my dear blog friends lately. You all know about the ongoing chaos that brought me to where I am, and can probably guess how busy things are for me as a disabled single mom these days. Fortunately, I'm not alone in this; my folks have been awesome to step in and help when I'm incapacitated by the latest migraine or whatever.

Recent weeks have been full of trips to doctors and other specialists (courtesy of my dad, who is determined to get me cured somehow), so I've been pretty busy. Days like today, when I take "dizzy pills" and go in for medical procedures involving several needles, generally knock me down for the count. I am still loopy, but somehow I haven't got the message that I shouldn't try to work in this condition. (You would not believe the number of edits I've made in this post already. At least I still recognize errors when I see them.)

One of the docs I saw this week suspects I have fibromyalgia (I always wanted to be just like Jen!) and gave me some new meds to try. So I'm trying them. As invested as I am in this SS Disability case, I'd much rather have my health back. After all, like Count Rugen said, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything." More fun and games to follow, I have no doubt.

Wild Boys

Hmm, first day of our vacation, and it feels like it's already been a week. I'd say "You would not believe the day I've had," but you probably would. It started... well, really, it started last night when we finally rolled into town (the one my folks live in) sometime after 10 p.m. after a wild and wet trek across Wyoming and a pause to run shrieking around the yard with my tiniest niece, Little Cat, who was thrilled to have her mama cat home after 3 days.

To my boys, who had spent the day in Grandpa's car, Grandma's house was "paradise." Apparently paradise is a place with big fluffy beds to jump on and a computer in your room. Possibly to use in your sleep. So after locating jammies and calling to tell Daddy (TM) goodnight, my kids hit the sheets around midnight. Not to say they actually fell asleep then. Pah.

Well, I agree about the fluffy beds, though I did more of a pass out than anything else on it. And good thing, too, 'cause just after 6:30 this morning, I heard Pirate Boy's sweet voice floating through the bedroom door: "Mama, somebody threw up in my bed last night!" Oh joy. "OK, I'm up." They slept in, after all.

Apparently long car trips, lots of junk food, and late nights in combination really don't agree with my Punkin. He was a sick little man most of the day. Between cleaning up after that and dealing with the various plumbing and medical emergencies we managed to inflict during the day, my poor dad didn't accomplish much else today. Fortunately, he likes to feel needed.

Also fortunately, Pirate Boy entertains himself pretty well. Before my folks were even out of bed this morning, he had created a new user account for himself on the den computer and installed his LEGO Indiana Jones game on it. Before dinner, he had played all the way through Raiders of the Lost Ark. And run around like a monkey with his cousin Darla. And eaten my folks out of house and home. And played outside on the swingset for hours on end.

I called TM this evening to tell him about our amazing day, but first I asked how he was doing. "What a day!" he exclaimed. "You, too, huh?" Yeah, he'd shown up for the first day of a 4-week job only to be told "Oops, we changed our mind. Didn't anyone call you?" Um, no. So he spent most of the day job-hunting and being sick to his stomach. (He & the Punkin are psychically linked, I tell you.)

As I was talking to him, I was dressing the boys for bed (multi-taskers unite-- when we can get a minute). It went OK for a minute or two, then I got Punkin's shirt off him. What the heck is he doing covered with red welts? Looks like an allergic reaction, though my folks first thought it was measles. ("No way, he's had all his shots!") Yeah. So I handed the phone to Pirate Boy and ran off to deal with that.

Sigh. Just another day with the Wild Bunch.

So now everyone's gone to bed except me. I'm up editing and doing laundry like a good responsible mama. (Yes, I already have a whole batch--more, actually-- of laundry to do on our first day here. And yes, that's after we washed the sheets and blanket from the wild boys' bed.)

It's not exactly what I expected, but I'm glad I'm here.

Is It Spring Yet?

I feel like one of those poor plants outside, starting to put my head up just slightly, then getting beaten down by the torrents or frozen solid by the snow. Half of last month, I had this nasty migraine, but I started to feel better eventually, and the weather was turning nice. Then one by one, the kids and I got struck down by some disease or other. There was coughing, aching, tummy yucks-- a lot like we had earlier in the winter.

I could tell the time by when the little Punkin would start screaming in pain as the medicine wore off. When that stage hit me, I understood. I wanted to scream, too. Probably would have if I'd had any of my voice left. But no, Punkin and I had laryngitis for most of the month. He's still got it, in fact, though he'll tell you (hoarsely) that he's got his "full voice back." Sweet thing.

Eventually, it got so incredibly bad that we went to the doctor. (Lack of insurance does awful things to people, doesn't it?) Well, doctors. Three doctors, five strep tests, four rounds of antibiotics: $300. Being able to actually swallow again: priceless.

Well, at least there's the tax rebate coming. That ought to cover it.

Did I mention yesterday? TM crashed our car-- or, more accurately, someone else crashed into it, and him. The cost of that is forthcoming. I wished they'd total the darn thing. It needs new brakes and tires, and we can't afford either, and we can't afford to be without them. Sigh.

I think I'll just stay down here in the dirt. It's comfortable here.

Dashing Through...

... the snow, yes, and a lot of other muck. So much going on lately. So much I want to write about. No time. Cold cold cold. Sick kids, sick husband, sick self. Over and over. Lots of work to do, no money to pay any bills at all. Creditors calling. Maybe help will come in time. Borrowing medicine from the neighbors. Finding out that I'm not crazy after all. Having writers yell at me and bosses praise me. Realizing that I'm actually better off than some people. Feeling guilty about being so miserable. Whatever whatever. Goodnight. More later.

What's Up

Sick again. Don't know whether this has anything to do with the additional foot of snow we got this week, but maybe... Missed writer's group again because of it. They're gonna think I don't love them anymore.

#1 Son is at his first jujitsu exhibition tonight. He's already an orange belt, or is it brown? He's gotten both, I just can't remember which is which. All this as part of the wonderful school we send the kids to. I totally love it.

As I mentioned a while ago, we got a photo taken of our family, enough to send to all our friends and relatives. The photo cost $10; now we can't afford postage. I feel pretty silly. Well, eventually TM will get a job and we'll have some money again. Really. I have to believe it.

Speaking of my dear husband, he interviewed a couple weeks ago for a job that would be absolutely perfect for him-- and would pay twice what he could get around here. (Yeah, it's quite far away, and I don't know how we'd arrange the transportation, but we would. They'd let him telecommute most of the time "once he's settled in" so it would totally be worth it.)

We did take a test drive of a really spiffy new-model SUV recently; the dealership was offering restaurant gift cards. The sales guy was new, so he didn't remember to ask whether we could actually finance a new car before our test drive. Nope, sorry, no income means no sale. Sorry. This is one time when "no" is not the start of the sale.

Don't know what else. I've had a lot on my mind and have mentally composed several posts recently, but I can't remember what about. Maybe it'll come back later. Stay tuned.

Getting Better

Well, I'm mostly over the cold. Which is good, because The Man and the little pirates have it now, and I'm on call.

I'm not getting very far with my NaNo thing, but that's OK. It's Year 3, which is always the most miserable year anyway. And I'm not completely losing, just oh, about halfway to where I should be by now. The important thing is that I'm making a start on the script to the new musical.

And, um... Pirate Boy won a "Nobel Prize" the other day for a machine he built for 2nd grade science fair. Cool huh? He dismantled it before I could get a picture, though, darn him.

Speaking of pictures, we got a family photo taken last Saturday for the first time since Pirate Boy was a baby. Well, we got about 30 of them taken. One of them wasn't entirely horrible. So we bought it.

What else? It's cold here. Nasty cold. Can it seriously be late November already?

Sick This Week

Too sick to blog. Too sick to write my NaNo novel (which anyway sucks way worse than last year's). Too sick to do much of anything but lie in bed, though I occasionally crawl to the computer to check email. The Man promises he won't get sick until after I'm healthy again. I'm trying, really I am.

Otherwise, things are still going well. So I totally come out ahead here.

My World (If I Recall Correctly)

Hmm... I know I'm still alive, and even more, that I've had ideas about what to blog lately. (I even had a great idea for changing the tag for the comments, but heck if I can remember it now.) So I guess what we can say about this week is that my memory is still fading. But let's see what else I can remember.

I remember all too well that Pirate Boy had a concert last night and I missed it. I started feeling sick before dinner, and The Man (TM) asked if I thought I'd be going to the concert. "I'm going if it kills me," I replied. But then Punkin Boy fell asleep and late afternoon naps make him wake up screaming. In a nutshell, when it was nearly time to leave, he and I were both curled up on my bed in no condition to go anywhere. Heck, Pirate Boy was barely ready to go. Curses. But I got TM to take the digital camera and get some pictures for me, so that was a happy thing. They even turned out well. Now if Picasa would only work for me...

Let's see, what else? Oh yes, I remember that I was sick Wednesday morning, too. I know because it was the morning of my writers group, and I didn't go to that, either. I find myself not even caring anymore about it, which makes me feel kind of sad. I remember that TM was gone until after midnight a couple of nights this week, which makes me feel very tired. Easter turned out well for the kids, thanks to some kind presents and cards from other people, including my wonderful parents. This makes me feel grateful.

And on a lighter note, Punkin Boy is continuing his studies of animals in the insect kingdom. We recently found a website called "Pestworld for Kids," which has some really fun learning games and animations. The younger kids love it. So Punkin Boy has been playing "pest detective" and "pest ranger" a lot this week. One thing I want to remember happened yesterday. He came running up to me, panting with excitement and said, "Mama! Happy news! I get to see the spiders again!" Oh the thrill of it all. Oh to be 3 again.

Opposition in All Things

Whew, I feel wrung out. Those who are a bit familiar with the ongoing dramas in our life might think that every now and again I'd look at what we've been through recently and think Wow, how did we get through that? It'd only make sense. Except what I really do is look back on the past month or so and think, Ha! I thought that challenge was hard!

I was having that thought just a few days ago and remarked to someone that whenever I read my journal, I have to laugh at what I thought was a rough patch, 'cause this, now this that I'm going through is tough. Ha! Fortunately, the blessings are compensatory.

Let me tell you about my week. Sunday morning I got up to get breakfast for the kids and noticed that there was water leaking from our freezer. OK, not a good sign. I pulled open the fridge and discovered that someone (probably under 5 feet tall) had turned the controls all the way to zero-- that is, turned our fridge and freezer off. I investigated further and realized that it had probably been done the night before. And there we were, a week's worth of groceries, gone just like that: POOF. Remember last year when I was bummed about having the milk go bad a couple days before we could get more? Ha! And last year, we could afford to replace a gallon of milk.

But in opposition to this trial, our lovely church leaders got together and bought us all new food, even more than we'd had before. But wait, there's more!

This morning, Punkin Boy was complaining of a pain in his leg and cried when he tried to walk. The Man (TM) had woken up late and had 15 minutes to get everyone out the door to school. After he left, I was worrying about how I would get Punkin Boy to the doctor if his leg got any worse, when a sweet sister from church called up and asked if it would be OK if she and a couple of others came over and cleaned my house for me. I asked if she'd be able to drive us to the doctor-- of course, she said. My house is now cleaner than it's been in 2 years. I feel so good about that, and Punkin Boy was up running around by lunchtime. Whew.

Now we've got this other thing. In today's mail, we got an overdraft notice; TM's credit card payment came from an account that couldn't afford it. The bank is in another state, so even if we had any money, we couldn't get it there quickly. Once again, I'm having to look for a miracle. But I think I've figured out the lesson I'm supposed to be learning from this particular phase of my mortal experience: Don't put my trust in the arm of flesh. Just when you think you know it all...

Distress Call

Dragging myself out of a slough of misery to report that I've had a bad cold for 3 days straight, gone through 2 bottles of DayQuil and 1 giant box of tissues, and there's no end in sight. Can't breathe, can't sleep, can't swallow, can barely move. And to give it that extra drama, The Man is sick, too, but the kids aren't.

Did I mention we're getting MORE snow tomorrow?

OK, back to your regularly scheduled lives.

Things to Be Thankful For

High on my list of blessings this week is our neighbors a couple doors to the west, the B's. They are lovely people anyway, and they have daughters just a little younger than our sons. On Tuesday morning, the kids were supposed to have a play date, but The Man (TM) had gotten the flu overnight, and I realized at breakfast that it was upon me as well. So when sweet neighbor B1 called to see when Punkin would be over, we had to say, well, not this week.

So she made us a big pot of chicken soup. From scratch. And brownies. And cookies that looked like turkeys. She threw all this and some breakfast things into a box and brought it over to us. "Get well soon," she said. I about cried as I took it from her. She returned a little later with some stuffing and cranberry sauce for our Thanksgiving dinner. "We're not cooking this year," she said. This time, I really did cry.

Wednesday evening, her husband B2 called to see how we were doing. Fortunately, TM's (104-degree) fever had broken the night before, and he was up and around. I was still on my way down, but we were managing. "Have you guys eaten yet? We have some extra lasagne," he told TM. We had eaten, but about an hour later, he was at our door with a big dish of lasagne, a plate of pumpkin bars (with cream cheese frosting--yum!), and a totally geeky book that he thought TM would like. (He loves it!)

Today (still up on Thanksgiving night) I'm thankful for such kind and generous people in my life.

Maternity

Tonight I'm feeling motherly. The Man (TM) was gone most of the day on errands and things, taking one or the other of the little boys with him and leaving the other with me. (#1 Son is off with Mommy this weekend.) So I've had a lot of mom practice today. When TM came home at dinner time with Pirate Boy, the little guy went straight to his room to lie down, so I didn't see him for a while. Eventually, I heard him sniffling and went to check on him, though he was reportedly "taking a nap."

Ack! What is going on? My precious Pirate Boy looks like he's been beaten in the face repeatedly and is having a really hard time breathing. What the ----?! Poor little guy croaks out that he is probably allergic to cats and wonders aloud if we have any medicine. Poor little sweetie. Fortunately, we did have a couple of doses of children's Benadryl left, and I soaked a washcloth in cold water for him to put on his poor puffy purple eyes. He tells me that's what "the lady" did, too.

Oh yes, the lady friend of Daddy's that you guys spent 2-3 hours with this afternoon instead of coming home after your errand, or at least after you started getting sick. I'm not even going to mention "without calling home." I'm not. She's an old professional contact of Daddy's, after all. Shut up, I know it's Saturday and he's not working.

Anyway, Punkin Boy was also feeling a little needy today; he was up last night until nearly 11 and then up again by 7 a.m. with his brother. Dang, what do you eat, spark plugs? And he was up until after 9 again tonight, with no nap. But fussy and whiny and wanting Daddy when he wasn't home and wanting to be read the same book 100 times. Well, that's pretty standard, really.

But my thoughts keep straying to my good friend Kory O, who was supposed to have her baby this week, or that was the intent of scheduling labor induction on Thursday afternoon. She's my age, having her first baby, and he's a whopper (not unlike my Punkin Boy, whom I had by c-section thank-you-very-much). Now, I've had a couple of inductions myself, so I know that they take a good long time, even when they go well. But dangit, it's Saturday night, and I still haven't heard anything. I'm worried.

OK, let's think about what we know about having labor induced. First, when you show up at the hospital at the time they scheduled you for, they inevitably send you home because somebody else is already in labor and after all, you can wait. Even if you can't, you can. Go home and wait another day or two. (With my first, I had to wait from Friday until Monday. Those punks.) Eventually, though, they will let you in and the real fun begins.

So let's see, maybe she didn't get in until Friday afternoon... OK, then they take a year putting in all the IV needles because at 9 months along, you're swollen like a beach ball and you have no veins near the surface. The ones they do find either roll over or burst, turning you a lovely shade of black in no time. That kills a couple hours. Then they start the pitocin drip.

For a while it seems nothing is happening, but you start to get a little irritable. More irritable. If you're me, your husband develops a nasty case of the hiccups that nothing-- including a trip to the emergency room-- will cure. This will make you homicidal within another two hours. You will banish him for a while, then get lonely and scared and call him back. Then the cycle will repeat. Occasionally, a nurse will appear to check your vital signs. This will irritate you more.

You may try to listen to music, do crosswords, or read. Everything will irritate you in short order, and you will fling it aside and pace around the room, if there's space. You will start feeling like you're having menstrual cramps and think "Now we're getting somewhere." But you're not. Trust me; you'll be able to sleep through these, no problem. And you do.

No, it's not until about 1 p.m. of the second day that things get interesting-- again, if you're me, but I hear this isn't uncommon. At some point, you enter what my childbirth-class teacher called "the speeding car." Suddenly, there it is, full-blown labor, and it takes your breath away. Things after that get a little blurry, but you will start crying out for the drugs. If you're me, you do the tame stuff, the analgesics that last for a couple hours maybe. They might even knock you out. If you're Kory, you're wily enough to have asked for an epidural right up front. No messing around, just make the pain stop. I am a little leery about epidurals, but I won't tell the horror stories here.

The rest depends a lot on mother and baby and a little on the doctor and hospital. I never did dilate enough to deliver a full-size baby, and finally, about 28 hours into the process, the doc suggested maybe I might consider a c-section. Yay. That would be about... now, if Kory had to start a day later than she was scheduled. So I guess I don't have to worry too much unless I don't hear from them tomorrow. I'm sure they'll call. Or email. Or something.

I worry. They have no relatives in the area, and nobody will be arriving to help, even if things go awry-- his family lives half a world away, her parents are in the next world. Her brother and his wife just had a baby a week or two ago-- with Downs Syndrome and a heart defect. They have enough to deal with. So I worry. Ten years ago, I'd have been there for her, with her. But now all I can do is worry and pray and write about it. Did I mention worry? Aye.

On the up side, Pirate Boy is feeling better and can actually breathe enough to sleep tonight. Well, that's a relief.