Have you ever felt like your life has just totally taken over and left you behind? I think that's what has happened in this tiny little house, located on a quite cul-de-sac, that's situated in a tiny little neighborhood. Life has just gotten big! And some things in life that were important at one time now seem really small and insignificant.
Although I really enjoyed sharing my life with you when I first began this blog, and you really seemed to enjoy reading about all the craziness going on in my head, things began to slow down, er speed up, late last spring ('08). I think that I'm the one that began to slow down! By early summer, the updates had pretty much dried up. Readers were even writing me, begging for me to write more. But I just didn't feel like sharing much. I think everything was so overwhelming that I couldn't sort through it all enough to make any sense from it.
It's not that I didn't want to write and keep you updated. I really, really did. One thing that happened is that, after subscribing to and reading lots of other blogs, I felt like my blogged lacked something that others had. Mine somehow just wasn't good enough. I'm really hard on myself. A perfectionist. An all-or-nothing sort of girl. Another thing is that, with a life like mine, something gets left undone every day. Sometimes lots of things get left undone. Important things. Mundane things. Sometimes, everything but the very basic things. Mister and the rest of the gang just better be glad that there is clean underwear in the clothes basket. Forget folding it. Who's going to know if your underwear is wrinkled from being tossed in the clothes basket and forgotten about for five days?
Things got so wild around here that even Bertha Mae has disappeared. I still haven't found her. I really wish she'd come back. I miss that girl. Life is no fun without her. There really hasn't been any four-wheelin', mud-slingin', or bra-buying events going on to write about. It just seems like life has been so serious lately. It's so hard to find humor in life like I used to. And, to be blunt, that fact just sucks rotten eggs!
So, exactly what has been going on for the last 12 months? Here is a little outline:
- August '08: Family vacation to the beach for 8 days; come home on the 22nd, take oldest daughter to college on the 23rd. Go back on the 30th for parent orientation. Boys enter senior year of high school.
- September '08: begin a journey with a new GYN that keeps me in her office every month for 6 months straight.
- October '08: Ultrasounds reveals cysts on both ovaries. One is smallish, the other is nearly 7 cm across. Start a round of birth control pills that make me feel like you-know-what. Oh, yeah. Joy of joys. Got my mammies grammed. :) All was good with that!
- November '08: Finally make it to the gastro doctor for some serious pain that's been going on for over a year. He does tons of bloodwork and orders some imaging tests. Take the four kids and my mom to TN to visit my aunt; pick up daughter at school on the way home. Take her back 7 days later. A trip up there and back is a six hour drive, minimum. All that driving and I'm not even getting to be on vacation! Good grief, Charlie Brown! Began suffering through some sort of allergy that had not acted up in a long while; finally figured out that it was caused by eating ground beef!
- December '08: Had visits with three different doctors this month: endocrinologist, gastro, and GYN. Endo turned out great; gastro treats me for a h-pylori infection and performs an endoscopy, as well as orders an ultrasound and scan on my gallbladder, says I gotta get the gallbladder out; GYN does another ultrasound and says I need to get that cyst out. She decides that the cyst can come out when the gall bladder does to save having to have surgery twice. Make the trip to pick up #1 daughter from school for Christmas.
- December '08, part II: Hubby comes down with a terrible infection and ends up home from work a week. Looses 15 pounds (good thing that happened in a bad way!) and gets in trouble with his primary care for not having more extensive testing to find out the damage to his mitral valve. Pretty much gives him no choice but to have a new echo on the heart. See a heart doctor the next day. She schudules a sleep study for him and puts him on meds to lower his blood pressure in order to take pressure off the heart. Will have to be on a CPAP machine. Cardio sets him up to have a cardiac MRI at the Fuqua Heart Center in Atlanta because the regurgetation seems to be moderate to serious. This just gets seriouser and seriouser by the minute.
- December '08, part III: God gives me peace and lets me know that He'll be doing amazing in our family in the coming year.
- January '09: Hubby and I continue spending all of the family budget on doctor visits. Hubby has an MRI, an appointment with a pulmonologist about his CPAP, visit with a cardiac surgeon to find out if he'll need heart surgery, and a visit his regular cardiologist to follow up about everything. I have appointments with a general surgeon and my GYN to get my surgery set up.
- January '09, part II: Do you ever wonder why God does what He does when He does it? Well, if I never did before, I do now! After praying for a while about a part time job that has flexible days and hours, God opens wide an opportunity to work for our local 4-H. What I had been doing as a volunteer for 9 years, I was now going to get paid!
- February '09: Started my new job on February 2nd. Had surgery on February 9th to remove my gall bladder and the cyst . . . but ended up having nearly the entire left ovary removed because it was so big. On the 18th leave for our church's couples' retreat for three days. Things otherwise are quiet this month. Wait IMpatiently for Mister to decide when to have his heart surgery.
- March '09: Though there isn't a lot on the calendar this month, the things that ARE there are big: 4-H District Project Achievement, which takes WEEKS to prepare for, finally arrives. We are there for an entire weekend. It is hard to be away from Mister, but Baby Girl gets FIRST in her project area and will get to go to State Congress in July! The boys come to the 4-H center to receive green/white cords to wear during their graduation. I continue working at my new job and begin to get things ready for the boys' graduation in May, including a 4-minute slide presentation that will be shown during the ceremony.
- March '09, part II: Mister and I spend a lot of time discussing when he should have his surgery. He really wants to put it off until summer, but the surgeon and I really want him to have it sooner. There is the possibility that the heart will just give out, even though he has no symptoms. There are things to consider, such as when #1 daughter gets out of school for the summer and planning the surgery far enough out that Mister will be home in time and recovered enough to be at the boys' graduation. Finally, he sets a date: April 10th. Later in the month he will begin have pre-op visits for his heart catherization (to see if he has any blockages that will be fixed during the heart surgery). I send out a plea to the world for prayers for my man. People cry. People pray. People just begin to realize how serious this will be.
- April '09: Before Mister can have his mitral valve surgery, he must have a heart cath. I threathen to kill him if he has clogged arteries on top of everything else. :) God is merciful to Mister and the heart cath is 100% clear! I don't have to go to jail for murdering my husband. On April 3rd, we head to Piedmont Hospital for the pre-op visit for his big surgery. We hit traffic and are late. We get there. We spend 3 hours there filling out paperwork and trying to figure our way around the hospital. We are tired. We eat cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. We are happy. I buy a netbook computer to take to the hospital.
- April '09, part II: The day before his surgery, we are called back to the hospital for more bloodwork. There may be an infection that will keep him from having the surgery. Praise the Lord it came back clear and the surgery will procede as planned. I buy a new camera at Best Buy. We head home to pack bags and get everything ready. We go to bed very late and get up too early. Mister must be at the hosptial by 5:45 a.m. This means we get up at 4:00 a.m. and leave by 5:00 a.m. As soon as we get to the hospital, they snatch him away from me and take him back to the prep area! I am NOT ready! Wait! I didn't get to hug him or kiss him . . . or tell him how very much that I love him.
Wow. This is getting so long. I will close now and continue in a new post.
Glad to be back.
Julia
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