the meeting

My future mother in law called.

She's driving near the Phoenix area and wondered if I wanted to meet her. So I'll be going to meet up with her after work.

And I just discovered my organic shirt has a small hole on the inside part the sleeve.

A sign of how the evening will go? I hope not....

knocked up to a widow in a year

I cannot complain about my life for a long while.

My cousin in Chicago that had the "shotgun" wedding after getting pregnant. He seemed like a very upstanding fellow by wanting to marry her. She emailed me some pictures, and he looked so much like the proud pappa.

Last night she became a widow. At 29. With a three month old girl. And a townhouse they had just moved into.

He had just been in a work related accident, but the cause of death has yet to be determined. He had just been released from the hospital, and was expected to undergo surgery to begin to repair the damage from the injury.

I cannot even begin to imagine her situtation. What does one do to show support when you're 1500 miles away? A card seems a pathetic substitute. I am not able to offer babysitting or cooking meals.

Please keep her in your prayers. Her name is Shari, and pray for her to have the strength to get through this.

Almost New Year

Goodness. Boyfriend/fiancee's dad showed up last Friday (a day or two early). So after all that, I was just trying to keep both guys busy with shopping, eating, and more eating. Plus, I still had my real job to do. Besides the weekend, I only got Tuesday off.

Boyfriend/fiancee's dad had a nice time hanging out with my parents and got back to his place in San Diego last night. But with me trying to keep quiet in the work mornings to making dinners to driving to Wickenburg with the guys was very stressful on me. Boyfriend/fiancee was a wonderful sweetie about the whole craziness, but today was the first day we've shared some real laughs.

Then more of my extended family got in today. We're all going on the Dixie Mine hike tomorrow. After all the food I've eaten the last week, that's probably a good thing.

Still not sure what the plan is for New Year's. I have to work Monday some. We're thinking of lobster with champagne drinks (think Chambrod or Hypnotic).

Christmas mixing

So boyfriend/fiance's dad showed up last night for Christmas. He'll be here past Christmas. So far, he's gotten to see the various typical birds, coyotes, a javelina, and a bobcat. So he's gotten lots of wildlife footage to take back with him. But sadly, he missed the javelina party that my boyfriend photographed (will post pictures soon).

So today we braved some of the shopping today with his dad to get presents for Christmas. Tomorrow we're going to see boyfriend's cousin since she came for the holiday season so his dad can see that side of the family. Hopefully we'll remember all the gifts I have for such people.

Then we had a mediocre sushi lunch at the favorite sushi place in town. They had gotten a favorable review in Friday's entertainment section, and of course, it was mediocre. But for his dad, it was still very good. I guess I'm now spoiled with excellent sushi.

The funny thing is that my calico is so traumatized by this extra person in the house that she's been under the bed until everyone's asleep at night. The orange monster has been more apparent, and I gave the magic brush to boyfriend's dad. Now I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a midnight visitor tonight.

Post #1000

It'd be a doozy if fianance would give me use of the left hand.

Okay, got the hand back.

So he's done with his first semester at NAU. He's been here for a week now, and I've been stuck working. He got some great pictures of a visiting javelina party using my camera.


Here's the javelinas enjoying the stale peanuts that fiance was throwing out in the driveway after the desert rats starting to show up.

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Fiance got a special bonus with the appearance of a baby piglet.

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Still not used to the term fiance.

This Christmas was planned with his dad coming to visit and get to know more of my family. He showed up early today.

Had to get presents for all my coworkers from the janitors to the physicians. I did these handmade ornaments and got two back so I guess I started a trend ;-)

So with fiance and his dad we're going to have to brave last minute shopping tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, peace and goodwill towards all with a Merry Christmas to all.

I'm going to hell for this one

I am not sure why, but I have been thinking about a cousin of mine lately.

She's 28, and was engaged to be married. Then a month later, she got pregnant. Fiance was very cool about it, and they were married in city court that afternoon. Then they had a big "blessing" ceremony about six months later.

Pregnancy has not agreed with cousin. She became violently sick every day. After four hospitalizations, she had a PIC line put in to provide fluids and nutrients to baby.

She also has heart problems (sound familar?) that has not been officially diagnosed as anything. The last I heard, it was probably a-fib.

After losing 35 pounds before the PIC line, she has since gained 50 pounds of mostly fluid from the PIC line.

Baby finally started to grow after getting the PIC line. She also found out it's a girl, and is naming her after my grandmother.

But gaining 50 pounds of fluid can't be good on cousin's heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. She's kinda going day by day walking a fine line between maximum benefit of keeping the kid in and her health.

She's not due until early December. They don't expect she'll make it that far. They're not even considering inducing and will do a c-section on her.

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Editorial note: I have never had a maternal bone in my body. I don't expect I'll ever have kids of my own. I have several reasons I'm sure I've vented about in the past.

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Hearing all this makes me wonder why she's going through this. First of all, this was an unplanned pregnancy. Second, her body obviously can't tolerate pregnancy without lots of medical intervention. So why is she putting herself through all this?

She was raised Catholic like my sister and I. But getting knocked up before the wedding, she probably is as religious as we are. I question why she just didn't terminate the pregnancy when she was having trouble from the beginning.

Granted, hindsight is 20/20. She probably didn't imagine how bad the problems would be. And now she's at the point of no return. I haven't even asked if she'll have a tubal ligation after the c-section, because I doubt she'll find a doctor that would say she could get pregnant again and have an uncomplicated pregnancy.

After thinking about it before falling asleep last night, I said a little prayer for this baby girl. I hope that once she finally makes her entrance to the world, she can grow and thrive. She didn't ask for such a harsh beginning of life, but I hope it doesn't have long term consquences for her.

as if there wasn't enough

I have a new health issue to tack on to my other issues. And I'm finally getting ready to deal with it.

I have high blood pressure. And I can't blame pain, but rather think that I was getting throbbing head pain FROM the high blood pressure. And it was more of a dull throbbing pain instead of a "take your breath away sharp intense pain".

With the help of my ob-gyn, I got hooked up wtih a great primary care doctor. Yes, I was there to start dealing with my high blood pressure, but I had other issues he could help me with.

At least the EKG showed my heart is tolerating my high blood pressure very well. I have to get blood drawn tomorrow morning to check cardiac enzymes and make sure my kidneys are okay.

He was generally interested in my story of how long it took to get my final celiac confirmation. He agreed that I should get a bone density scan because their scale also think I'm now an inch shorter than I was for 15 years. (That and the broken bones I've suffered during diagnosis.)

He sent me home with something to lower the blood pressure and a beta blocker. I have to get the blood drawn tomorrow morning and I see him again Friday morning.

It's great that since I can say I work on a clinical hospital floor, and explain all the hell I've been through he seemed to respect where I was coming from.

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The hard part is not having my mom find out. She's got enough to worry about since my dad is having problems. He goes in for a CT tomorrow. There's a problem where the feeding tube was, and he's showing signs of dumping syndrome (enough said).

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Then my sister had an outbreak of a strange rash. Her doctor thinks it's shingles. At least it isn't causing her pain (yet).

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I won't say "what else can go wrong?"

that's my line!

Dad's getting better. More tubes out, and he's walking around more every day. He finally asked for his glasses so he can see. He's got a lot of cards to read. We're good, and if they came in snail mail, we didn't open them until he felt up to opening them.

Not that these cards are going to be any surprises. Either they were given to us by person, or they wrote a return address on the snail mail card.

All but one card. It came today addressed to my dad, and the address was in Scottsdale, but neither of us recognize the address.

As my mom was grabbing the cards, newspaper, etc. to take to my dad tonight, I asked if she was going to open the mystery card.

"No, it's probably from his girlfriend. I'll save it for him to enjoy."

I know she got the girlfriend line from me. Since boyfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship separated by three hours at times, there's many days where we "just miss" one another. So I started to joke that I missed talking to him last night because he was busy placating his other girlfriend.

I know he's not fooling around. But I still love teasing him about it. And it goes both ways, and for me having guy friends, it's more plausible. But boyfriend makes me so happy, I only need him around here to forget about all other possible suitors.

are we in Florida?

Sorry Sarahk, I mean no offense to you and your current location.

My mom last spring went to Orlando for a trade show, and my dad tagged along. Orlando sucked because it rained every day. But after the trade show, they went to Marco Island for a couple days, and had a really good time. They didn't go out into the ocean, but enjoyed strolling along the beach.

My dad is now in the "this really sucks" part of the recovery. When they moved him from ICU to a regular private room, they pinched his epidural, so it had to be taken out. So he's been dependant on asking for pain medicine from the nurses when he needs it to cope with the pain.

This morning my mom went to see my dad and he asked her if it was time for a drink. My mom kind of bumbled a "soon" response.

This afternoon, he was asking if it was time to go on the boat. My mom in a rather confused tone said "not yet." In her mind, she was thinking "I want some of that."

A few hours later, he was a bit more lucid and told my mom he kept dreaming that the two of them were back in Florida. So it finally made more sense to my mom some of the things he was saying. She's going to try and suggest that they're really in Hawaii since that trip was more enjoyable for the two of them.

I was thinking when she was telling me the story "Dang - you guys were drinking THAT much on that trip??"

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The pathology reports have brought back good news. Now the doctors believe that they got all the cancer out, and will just be monitoring him over the next few months to make sure no errant cancer cell is out lurking somewhere just waiting to redevelop somewhere else.

good news - need help!

All the prayers seems to have worked. My dad was transferred out of ICU and put in a regular room today. It's a day earlier than the surgeon was planning. But he's doing so well, they decided to do it anyway.

It was a rough and stressful time for my mom. But we got through it, and hopefully my dad is resting.

If you've seen anyone in ICU, there's tubes and lines everywhere. So far, the breathing tubes are gone, the epidural line is gone, and they took out his urine cath.

Now my dad already says he wants to come home. I joked that we could sterilize a pair of needle nose pliers and he could pull out his own staples. He's such a tough guy.

But what kind of get well gift could I bring? I already made a simple card, but am looking for ideas. We can't do food stuffs because his stomach was stretched and reattached, so his nutrition is coming from a feeding tube in the gut. We don't want to get him flowers that will die before he gets home - so plants are an option.

My one great idea we're giving to my god mother - a hard candy boquet. He should be up to enjoying that fairly soon. He's not into crossword puzzles, and we have books he can read if he feels up to it.

Suggestions appreciated. Anything that be considered humorous will be greatly appreciated - my dad has always had a quirky sense of humor that I got a bit of.

long day

I should have a drink, but I think that after my first sip, I'm going to pass out.

I was at work at 5 this morning. Got all my cell culturing done, starting making my ordering list, and before I knew it, it was 9:00. That's a half day.

Why take a half day? To be with my mom at the hospital. Today my dad had his major surgery to remove his tumor. I had a bad feeling about it, so I asked for a half discretionary day to be with the family.

My dad made it through the surgery pretty well. They didn't have to make a second incision in the neck, and were able to get all the tumor. All without cracking open his chest. I'd like to know how you remove an esophagous without cracking open the chest.

But my dad's in ICU for the weekend (minimum). Hopefully he's comfortable, but it's hard to tell with the sedation. Tomorrow he might be able to breathe on his own.

Monday we'll get the pathology reports on area lymph nodes.

still looking for a picnic basket

My Dad finished his first creation of the year. And no, I have zero amount of his talent.

almost forgot

We finally got some good news on my dad's cancer front.

The surgeon yesterday agreed that he was finally a good candidate for surgery. Yes, he's going to need to involve a thoracic surgeon to get the tumor near the aorta. But it seems there's enough of a margin to operate safely.

The surgeon reinforced the fact that he'd have a snowballs chance in hell if there was no surgery. The surgery will give him a snowballs chance in northern AZ in December with the surgery. Which makes me wonder how motivated the surgeon is to look after my dad's best interests. I wasn't there, but something rubbed me wrong about that.

The surgery will suck. Expect two weeks in the hospital. Expect three months of recovery. Expect nothing to touch the stomach for a long while (they'll reroute the feeding tube during surgery).

I'll have some time off by then (sometime in July). So I've already given work a heads up that I will only be there if I truly have to be there. I think my mom will need someone to keep her mind busy that day.

opening the floodgates

As much as I didn't want to acknowledge it, the worries about my dad's health was probably the biggest reason I haven't been sleeping at night. It never would wake me up, but something subconscious is probably there nagging at me.

My dad finally got the results of his PET scan from Tuesday. His tumor activity went down about half, and they STILL don't know if the lung mass is from a lung infection or the cancer spreading. It has a pretty low rate of activity compared to the primary tumor, but they aren't ruling out that it ISN'T a tumor either. No lymph node invasion detected, but it didn't find the one lymph node that the endoscopy ultrasound found.

I was hoping the tumor was less active than it was. And the frustration of still not sure what's going on with his lung finally all caught up to me, and I spent my lunch hour just crying. (Remember, I'm still on this hormonal trip right now too.)

I just needed to get it out of my system. My mom can't see me going through this - she's got enough to worry about. Now I just have to keep it together for the rest of the afternoon.

At least my cells need my attention to distract me a bit.

carb craving

Not much to do this afternoon since my one successful cell line is fed and happy. I was given a "pass" on my TB test.

I think that when I have idle time like this I start craving the carbs. I'm dreaming up a hashbrown bake with cheese and ham for dinner tonight.

But my mom is a low carb person. Lost 60 pounds that way.

So finding a happy middle ground between us isn't always easy. We did find one thing that works for her and myself - tofu. I picked up a package of tofu pasta noodles last week when they were on sale because they were advertised as "gluten-free". When my mom looked at the package she said "Ooh, only 3 grams of carbs per serving."

While I was skeptical that the small package would work as two servings, we cooked it up the other night. All you have to do is boil it for a couple minutes and you're done. After straining it, I added some soy sauce (store brand was okay to eat). We served with a pork roast from the grill, and we both liked it.

Our next adventure in using the tofu noodles will be doing a stir-fry with them.

Memory Lane

Last week, I had casually mentioned to my mom that in a detour to a Walgreens, I drove down "Custer" street. I remembered that my paternal grandparents lived on Custer street, but I thought it was along "C" street.

"And you drove down Custer street where?" my mother inquired.

"Between "L" and "S" street. It looked like a nice area with new apartments and condos there."

"Honey you were right there. You turned on S street, and their place was just past S street."

"No way. Nothing looked familar. I didn't see a lot of palm trees."

So this morning, I turned on "V" street, and drove down Custer to S street.

Going that way brought back a flood of memories. That must have been the direction my parents always drove to get there because it suddenly made sense. Seeing the church on the corner of S and Custer street really brought back memories.

Turned back on S street and I saw more familar things from the numerous times my sister and I walked around the block.

But most of the palm trees are gone.

Names of streets were changed to protect people and places. Techinally my paternal grandparents still own that property. Since their passing, the property was placed in trust. And while the neighborhood has gone upscale, the value has gone through the roof. Nice little "nest egg" for someone.

funeral; no trip

Stupid airlines.

Nobody's offering bereavement rates for family emergencies anymore. It's their everyday rates - sorry.

Anyway, it'd be $620/person to fly out for the funeral (which is Friday). You can't book online with less than 48 hours notice. So we'll just contribue money to his cause.

I'm still dealing with the sudden loss of my uncle/godfather. It's hard when I know how long others have gone on dialysis, and he lasted less than a week.

bring home the bacon

Yesterday I followed up with the job that I was supposed to start last week (until they said the funds haven't been sent over). Got a "you're not on the list yet, and the next list comes out in two weeks".

So I'm thinking this job is never going to happen. I ponder doing a "pro/con" list to see if all the hassle has been worth it. My two biggest pros were the great guy I'll be working for, and the high wage with overtime allowed.

Then I get a surprise call this morning. "They added your name to the list late yesterday, so you can start whenever you want to."

Called hardware store. Tomorrow's going to be my last day.

I was originally told that I could start the new job Thursday. But the guy I'm going to work for said he won't be at work the rest of the week, and would perfer I start Monday morning.

It's for the best anyway. I need to make arrangements to go a funeral in Chicago this weekend. My uncle/godfather suddenly passed away yesterday. The hospital is doing post mortem to figure out what happened, so the funeral isn't going to be until the weekend.

quiet house

My dad was admitted to the hospital last night. My mom took him, and stayed while he was admitted and given a room. He's dehyrdated (again), and they need to figure out why he can't keep anything down even with his NG tube.

He was supposed to get an endoscope this morning, but they couldn't do it in the hospital. So they just did a CT, and scheduled the endoscope Wednesday morning. So they're keeping him tonight, and hopefully after the endoscope procedure, he'll get to come home.

It's odd. My dad doesn't talk that much these days, and more just sits on the couch. But it seems quieter around here. Perhaps it's because most people are not calling us to "give us some space".

I cut my happy hour/decompressing time Monday night to get home to feed and walk the dog. Dog knows something's up because he cuts his walk short (we don't walk the dog; the dog walks us). I fed him tonight, but my mom got home in time to walk him. He cut the walk short again tonight for her (so it wasn't because I'm a cat person).

prayers - keep them coming!

As much I question the effect of prayers, I ask to keep them coming.

Things are slighly better around here. My dad is eating a little bit of food here and there. He took the M37 for a drive a few days ago (still runs), and was working on a new animal this morning.

My sister got out of the hospital Saturday afternoon. Stupid work kept me for an extra 50 minutes, so my poor sister had to have someone else take her home since I couldn't be there. By the time I got there, they just started to clean her room. At least going to that hospital isn't too far out of the way. Still mad at myself that I couldn't be there.

My mom still looks like she was in an accident. But she's getting by with Tylenol for the pain.

Yesterday, we got a reminder of why a phone call at 5:07AM is never a good thing. It was my grandmother. She either has the flu or the stomach flu that we all had and could no longer stand up. The ER didn't keep my grandmother, but gave her anti-virals, fluids, and potassium. She's still having trouble, and will take a while to get over this.

My cousin from Texas will be here with his wife Thursday night. He was the mayor of New Braunsfels, TX the year they had the major flood. He didn't win re-election last year. So I wonder what he's up to these days.