Mysteries of Mortality ...

My father e-mailed me today wanting permission to send me some photos to stitch in Photoshop (he does not really need my permission - he is just ... so nice). He said he had noticed that I had not been 'blogging' which generally meant that I was ill and wanted me to know that I could get to the photos when I got to them. I wrote him an e-mail back.

I am going to quote part of it, because I do seem to be in a 'blogging slump' and cannot even get the energy to type it up again:

"I'm not too bad ... just seem to be in a blogging slump. Some friends of ours from the other Ward had a serious car accident (the husband wasn't with them). She and all her children were on the way to pick up their oldest daughter on a mission (in Idaho, I believe) except her son that is on a mission. Included in the car were her, her 3 other daughters and her oldest son, who just returned home from a mission.

Two hundred miles outside of San Antonio, she swerved around some debris on the freeway, lost control of the car and hit a concrete pillar. The second to youngest daughter was pronounced dead at the scene, the youngest died in the hospital and the oldest (with her) has a brain injury and cracked vertebra - in very critical condition. She and her son had minor, or no injuries that anyone has mentioned. I am in a funk over it and decided not to spread it to my blog, I guess.

Send your photos, it will give me something to do other than checking on the latest status reports on Maegan (the daughter)."

So ... I guess I am 'spreading to my blog' ...


I have been thinking about losing a child and how absolutely mind-numbingly awful that would be.

Confused?


Have I lost a child?


No.


I have not.



I have lost a baby ... and there is a very big difference.



I was thinking about this at the same time this tragedy in the other Ward was unfolding, but not because of it. It was because of a beautiful photo of a beautiful blond haired teen whom I had grown to love as a baby and of HER loss.

I wrote the woman who posted it, since the beautiful blond haired teen's mother - a very good friend of mine and I have lost touch - which was an actual, very hard decision on my part - not wanting to cause her any more pain - so I wrote my new Facebook friend wanting to hear reassurances that my old friend is in a 'better' mental place now.

I hope it is true ....


And again - I realize that I don't have the energy to write the back story - thus I am copying and pasting the entire Facebook 'message' verbatim (OK, I took out the last name and added a bit of info in parentheses):


I saw your post on Courtney. After Gary got his masters degree we moved back to Logan for a time and built a house up on the 'shelf' and I was in Sue's ward.

We were in YW together and she would always bring Courtney into class the weeks I was teaching, which for teenage girls - babies? or lesson? It made me laugh - we became very close friends.

I remember when Courtney passed away (when she was in High School) and I called Sue. She had a friend over and said they were cleaning out Courtney's room ... she sounded so - normal. I assumed that she was doing much better than when I lost Rachael, and was happy for her.

Many years later, I was in Logan and wanted to get some photos of our old house and some photos of the Logan Temple from that angle and drove by her house and stopped out of impulse.

I cannot remember how long ago it was, but it was after we lived in Norway (2004 - 2006). I had completely forgotten that my mother-in-law had told me that she had twin boys. They were about 4 years old - so whenever that was.

We sat in her living room and talked. I remember our conversation will haunt me forever and I want you to tell me she is better now (if it true). She kept asking me and asking me how I could 'do it'? And I didn't understand her. She finally told me she meant go on living after losing a child.

I quickly told her I didn't have the answer she was looking for since I had never been through what she had. She insisted that I had and that I could give her some insight on the grieving process. I insisted back that I never 'knew' Rachael, laughed with her, was friends with her - apples and oranges. I did tell her that I really think moving to Norway did it for me. I said it was a peaceful time and things went from being a tragedy to a bittersweet memory during that time.

I mentioned that I knew that moving from my home helped. There were too many memories in too many places that I could not ignore when I was there. Too many ghosts ... I had nothing else for her. I told her I was completely OK with Rachael and that I knew that she would be OK one day also ...

But she was so ... haunted and looked so full of grief and I knew that it had been years. I think of her often and hope that she found the peace she was looking for.

I wish I could have told her something that would have helped, but as I said - she was asking the wrong person.

We don't keep in touch - I took her phone number, but felt as if I had failed her somehow, and in addition - I reminded her of a loss - thus maybe me calling her was not such a great idea ...

If you are close with her - will you tell her hello for me? If you know how she is, I would LOVE to hear. I think of her often and wished that things would have not turned out the way they did ...


... but I guess that is what we all wish, isn't it?

******

So, as I think about my old, beautiful friend - I hope that she did find the peace that she needed so desperately to find.

And as I think of our friends here - I cannot imagine going through what they are going to have to go through and coming out the other end sane ...





I really, really can't ...

Kjærlighet

Kjærlighet is Norwegian.

Maybe those three words up there explain everything.

Or maybe they explain nothing at all …


Norway is a rabies free country, thus have very strict import rules when bringing Spot the family dog to live there. Once they survive the trip in the airplane – nestled snugly with the luggage, they are put into quarantine for six months. I believe that number might have been changed to three months right before we moved there …. but still – NO. Just – no.

So my sister adopted our Boxer, Aggie, and we became a ‘dog free’ family. We looked for boxers, sort of, once we moved there. Knowing my sister – we knew she would fall in love with Aggie and refuse to give her back – thus we were a ‘permanent’ dog-free family – we realized this going into the situation. The only question was how long it would actually take her. Six months? A month? Her partner Patti said that TWO DAYS later she was sobbing that she would never be able to give her back to us!

About six months into our ‘Norwegian Adventure’, Gary – being the Young Men’s President – had been on a camping trip with all the boys and happened to be hanging out in the church parking lot waiting for parent’s to come pick up their boy when one of them wandered past holding a puppy. He discovered that it was ‘pick’ of the litter? I don’t know if there is a term for the puppy you save for the owner of the male dog you bred your female dog with. I do know it is customary to do this. Our friend had a female dog – ½ Gordon Setter and ½ Medium Schnauzer. They bred her with a full bred Schnauzer.

After the puppies came along – they pulled out the cutest, sweetest, smartest little puppy for the daddy’s owner.


He didn’t want her.


The decided they didn’t have room for another dog.


Gary pulled out his cell phone and snapped a photo of her:

He inquired about the price and a few other things and headed on home. He showed me the photo when he got back and, well … I sort of fell in love …

I don’t remember in what context Gary and I were talking about purchasing Kjærlighet and making her our own, but we were discussing the photo Gary had me look at. I told him: “You had me at the puppy paws!” TOTALLY in love with the little black bear puppy paws! Not to mention that adorable face and big ole’ floppy ears!

Got her home and she was a little nervous – so I took her down to Lori’s room to sleep – thus not waking Gary up every hour or so. There was a set of French Doors heading into that room – so I could keep her contained. I fell asleep at some point and dreamed that we had named her ‘Charlie’. When I opened my eyes, the sweetest little puppy was sitting on the floor right in front of my face – just staring at me. I smiled and said “Hello, Charlie!”


And, I swear,




she smiled back!

I felt she needed a Norwegian name – so I thought about it all that day. I had already introduced “Charlie” to the family and they approved. They asked why? And I said it is just her name – I didn’t really choose it – it is just her name. At some point during the day the word Kjærlighet came to mind and I realized that THIS was her real name! It is pronounced shar-lee-het – thus ‘Charlie’ was a perfect nickname. Kjærlighet is one of the words for ‘Love’ – perfect!

*** Nature vs Nurture ***

A question and a stroll down doggy-memory-lane for me.

We had been the proud owners of three boxers before we got Charlie. The first: Chance, was my brother Jeffs dog, but he was leaving for Afghanistan or somewhere and Jeffs wife thought Chance would be happy at another home … We were looking for a dog – I had mentioned it to Mom one day on the phone. Mom played matchmaker, and the rest was history …

He was the BEST dog! To this day, we cannot discuss Chance without adding the sentence “Chance was a good dog” – it just always comes out – always there. He got me through many major disasters as he was our dog during the year 1997.

We decided that maybe he was lonely and like idiots got a female boxer: “Logan” to come live with him. Discovered very quickly that Chance – while being ‘a good dog’ seemed to have issues with sharing and such which left Logan rather desperate for entertainment (will discuss in a sec) and one day I threw my arms in the air and called it quits. Called Marci and asked her if she wanted a boxer? She said yes, so we got out a map and marked a dinky town in Oklahoma halfway between her Colorado home and our Texas hone and the very next day Logan moved to Colorado!

After we had to put Chance down, we started looking and found the cutest little boxer puppy! And Agatha Wishbone “Aggie” (and she had a wishbone shaped white mark on her snout) came to live with us.

Here’s the question:

Can you ‘raise’ a dog to be … well …


weird?

Either we have been exceptionally … lucky(?) or you can shape and mold a dogs personality.

As this ever-so-long-and-getting-longer-post was being hatched in my brain – I was wondering about that very thing. I asked Gary to name the weirdest thing that each of our dogs did. There were a ton of things to choose from, but the top one or two are the same.



Chance:

1) Chance LOVED to catch wasps in his mouth. They would buzz around a bit in there and get good and angry, then Chance would come over to you and spit it out on your lap. The wasps (oddly enough) were PISSED and stung the first thing it could find. We got really good at scattering whenever there was that odd buzzing noise coming from the general vicinity of Chance’s mouth.

2) Chance loved to suck on frogs. When he was done with them, they also go spit out in your lap. Generally this did not cause a widespread panic from the humans – but the frogs looked pretty pissed also. I am not sure why he did this – but he seemed to be SUPER hyper afterwards and frothed from the mouth. I have a sneaking suspicion that the dude was GETTING HIGH on frog … something.


Logan:

Due to the fact that Chance was incredibly stingy and twice her size – Logan’s toys were always taken from her by Chance and stored in places unknown around the house – or he just played with what ever she wanted himself. This led to some boredom and ‘creative’ play by Logan:

1) She ate a hole in our wall. Yes …

A hole …

In our wall.

And the really weird thing? It was not at a corner – just on a flat piece of sheetrock – leaving a hole about as big as her head. How does one start a hole on a flat surface with just a boxer face? Seriously? Now TELL ME you have a weirder pet …

2) She ate a couch. I don’t believe that much of it actually passed through her – but take a full size couch, pull out all the stuffing and shred the cloth – of the couch and all three cushions and you have a HUGE incentive to call your sister and ask her if she wants a dog …. (forgot to mention the ‘couch eating’ habit …)

And just for fun – when Logan slept on our bed and it was time for her to get off – when she was sleeping so sound that we couldn’t wake her – you could shove her off a 2’ – 3’ bed (on the high side – I am no good in estimating) and she would just slither off, fall with a big ‘ploink’ and never wake up.



Aggie:

Aggie was quite weird … really. But as Gary and I discussed it – we came up with the same weird thing – and only the one. When Aggie got on the bed in the evening – she was ON THE BED FOR THE EVENING. She loved to burrow under the covers – down at the foot of the bed – totally trapped. You would see a doggy head moving around every now and then – but pretty much asleep – or, as I kind of believed – in an oxygen deprived stupor …

Maybe she didn’t have any more weird items to check off the list is because she lost 100,000 brain cells every evening due to a lack of oxygen.

Charlie:

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie (shaking my head back and forth and clucking my tongue). I have to say that she is the smartest dog we have ever had. OK – Chance was smart. He was also quiet and dignified. You can hide a LOT of 'stupid' behind quiet and dignified ….

We would be here all night if I were to start listing the weirdness that is in that dog … if I only stuck to REALLY weird – it would still be rather lengthy.

I was thinking about a few of the ‘fun’ times we had with Charlie – in those first, important, impressionable months.

She would want to get up on the bed with me while I was reading. So, she would back up and make a run for it. I would see a little black blur caroming toward the bed, feel a thud against the side, hear a grunt and see two little black paws hanging on for dear life as they slowly …


slowly …



slowly …



slid out of sight. Then a soft little ‘plonk’ as she hit the ground! EVAH’ SO MUCH FUN to watch! Every day more and more of her would be visible! And EVERY DAY I just watched and gave her encouragement and constructive criticism. I guess I could have helped her out … but where is the fun in that?

Then, one day, we discovered the most hilarious combination: Take one very energetic puppy, a yellow tennis ball and the yellow room and you have the potential for hours of hilarity and laughter! OK – Yellow Room? Yeah – the beautiful mountain home that we were living in was over 100 years old and started out its life as a lodge / hotel. On the main floor there were three what you would call living rooms – each complete with a fireplace. One had built in shelves – thus COULD have been called the ‘Library’ but that sounded too snooty – so as the movers were bringing in furniture – we told them to put it in the Yellow Room, or the Gray Room or the Red Room – yes – incredibly creative, but it worked and it stuck.

The Yellow Room is between the Red and Gray rooms and it and the Red Room, instead of having unfinished pine floors, theirs were ‘finished’ – stained and shiny and SLICK! As a side note – only second to the smell of a spud cellar – the smell of that beautiful mountain home after mopping the raw pine floors with grønnsåpe (green soap) is my favorite smell!

Take said ball and with Charlie standing in the doorway between the Gray Room and the Yellow Room and toss it into the Red Room! Watching a hyper puppy run and run and run and NEVER get anywhere is seriously more fun that words can describe! Watching the hyper (and a wee bit clumsy) puppy actually get some traction just to find out she is smashing face first into the open French doors i s equally fun! I’m not a MONSTER – it is not like I had the French doors closed off to her – she was just a bit directionally challenged as a tot.

Ryan’s theory on Charlie is that all of the above mentioned ‘Quality Time’ that Charlie and I shared every day while the kids were at school caused irreparable damage and that I am the sole cause of her ‘weirdness’. I am not really sure – but I am pretty sure that if it is me – I must be perfecting my technique since she kicks butt in the weirdness category.

I know – this became totally out of control – sorry. All the crap I wrote up there is a small introduction to “Charlie – the Weirdest Dog on the Planet”. I might have caused SOME of her weirdness – but not nearly HALF as much as what damage has been caused by her thinking that she is a human being ….


Seriously …


A HUMAN


She will just stare you down if you want to get into an argument about whether she is a human or not. It is a not a discussion she will engage in – she knows who she is and NO ONE is going to change her mind.

Now – take the fact that Charlie thinks she is human, add in the fact that a Frisbee being thrown in an area where she can run and jump and catch it is EXACTLY like crack to her, and throw in the only decent Frisbee tosser arriving home from work and you get chaos, bedlam, pandemonium and an all round out of control freak show of a dog.

I should also mention that Gary is a HUGE softie when it comes to Charlie and her getting anything and everything she wants from the man. She has had a Frisbee thrown to her in our front yard after Gary gets home from work EVERY day that it is possible. If it is raining or wet she does not get to play – but other than that – things have gone along those lines for all the years we have lived here.

Here’s the thing …

Somehow, somewhere in the past, a fun time for Gary and Charlie to bond and Charlie to get a wee bit of exercise became some twisted, weird NEED in Charlie and she moves beyond desperate to a little bit psychotic about it. She, also, has developed a sense of entitlement about the entire thing. Gary has mentioned more than once that he is just an ‘arm’ to Charlie. He is her own personal Frisbee tossing slave and if he hesitates to throw – the lady gets …

… grumpy.

Remember that Charlie-thinks-she-is-a-human thing? Yeah, that? Well, if things don’t go according to plan on the nightly Frisbee toss – Charlie will give you a ‘piece of her mind’.


How does she do this?


She TALKS …


of course.


I mean, duh – how else do y’all think we communicate?


A few weeks ago Charlie became exceptionally disturbed by Gary’s total and complete lack of skills in the ‘slave’ department and literally RANTED. We both burst out laughing and ever since I have tried to capture Charlie ‘talking’ with my camera.

Oddly, (seriously) Charlie is camera shy. If I ever start taking photos of her – she moves away. We are not talking about a flash or anything – just does not like it. That being said – I was pretty sure I was not going to be able to get a flat out ‘sentence’ from her – but thought I might capture something.

Today was the best I could do and I don’t know how the volume will be on your computer (and I don’t think it will play on the ‘i’ family) but it is seriously fun to listen to Charlie using her ‘angry voice’ and bawling out Gary (I repeat the last time she grumples a few times so that you can hear it):

Yeah – and that last part? She used to ‘speak’ a lot more than she does now …

I think that she got tired of us not answering her back, but we always said she sounded like Muttley. To get that little ditty of a clip – we had to actually type in the words “Muttley swearing” and then that would show up. Not Muttley laughing. Not Muttley talking. Not Muttley yelling.


It is Muttley swearing. So pretty much You Tube and I agree about what is coming out of Charlie’s mouth …

Thursday Morning in Photos

Lately I have noticed that I have posted very few photos here on my blog ...

I have not done anything exciting, or noteworthy, or photographable for so long I have sort of fallen in a rut of just rambling in my posts. Thing is - random rants are rather hard to capture on ... well I was going to say 'film' and "capture on a memory card" just doesn't sound right - so I will say that random rants are rather hard to capture on camera.

That fact that the last set of photos I posted here was of a syringe, most with the needle embedded in my thigh makes me feel that I just might be in a photographic rut or at least not making wise choices of what photos I should be sharing here. In fact - 'idiot' comes to mind when I scroll back and look at the last 3 or 4 posts.

I woke up at 2:00 am this morning, and by 3:00 am I was certain my slumber for the evening was over so I did what I normally do and came to my desk to play with Photoshop. I was using old photographs, of course, and a sense of yearning to go off adventuring somewhere exotic with my cameras hit me HARD.

I am not entirely sure when any sort of ‘adventuring’ is going to happen again – be it exotic or not. I have nothing scheduled for as far as they eye can see and I am starting to feel trapped. Super frustrated that in the past four months I have had to cancel two trips that were going to be ‘exotic photography adventures’.

And there I go … all ranting on by blog again. Sorry – y’all, I am sure that this is just SUPER FASCINATING to you! I will stop.

I did not plan on taking photos at all today, but when I got caught in a torrential downpour on the way to my doctors appointment, I remembered that I like photos taken out a rain covered window. In the Facebook Album I uploaded an hour ago I mentioned the reason I like to take photos out of a rain soaked windshield and called my reason for liking these photos “Gump’ish” – since you never know what you are going to get …

So, like the idiot that I am, I threw caution to the wind on my way home, held my camera in one hand, steered with the other and stopped my wipers (shhhh, don’t tell – and only for moments at a time for a more blurry photo). Seriously tapped into my adrenaline reserves when, as I was recklessly zooming down the freeway at the speed limit (yes, that seems un-‘idiot-like’ except for that torrential downpour and no wipers wiping thing) snapping a few photos, wiping my window, snapping photos, wiping my window – when out of nowhere (my wiper blades had just wiped so, although I was being an idiot by turning them off every now and then for a few seconds – that did not factor into my inability to see in this instance) a disabled car, a police car (WITHOUT A SINGLE FLASHING LIGHT GOING) and a tow truck appeared on the right shoulder and I was approaching the group FAST. They were not entirely off the freeway and on the shoulder. The disabled car hung over about 2 feet into the slow lane and also had no lights flashing. Add to that two men either totally INSANE or at least both more of an idiot than me by standing to the left of the disabled car – plonking them about in the middle of the slow lane.

They seemed oblivious to the cars whizzing by. As I said – I was approaching fast and with just two lanes on the freeway – I had only one lane to work with. There were three cars in the other lane - one directly across from me, and two behind it. I had about two or three seconds to do whatever I was going to do to avoid killing two idiots and myself if I hit the disabled car. In that split second that I had to make a decision - realized I had only one choice – start moving left and hope like hell the driver over there could see the dilemma and also move left – onto the left shoulder. I decided sideswiping the car to the left of my Tahoe was much more preferable to smashing into two men and a stationary car. I don’t know how close I got to the car in the left lane, I don’t know if it moved at all, but I got my Tahoe over far enough to the left that I was straddling the two lanes and missed the cluster on the right.

OH


MY



GOODNESS!


After searching about the car for a bit, I finally found my heart and put it back. I believe that that shakes in my hands (7 hours later) are me still working my way down from that adrenalin high.

Amazingly, my camera was in the front passenger seat, unscathed - even though I have no idea when or how it got there …

Funny – after that I decided that I would just drive and not multitask my way to the pharmacy! After getting my prescriptions, I had calmed a bit and was not on a freeway the rest of the way home – so I ever so cautiously took some more pics to complete my ‘drive home’ set:

*** Home! In one piece! ***

While at Walgreen's waiting for my prescriptions to be filled, I ran across the MOST ADORABLE teeny weeny plants! I couldn't resit! I am certain that I will kill them in no time at all, but until then ... I believe they are going to make me deliriously happy! I simply LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all things miniature - I believe it is encoded in my DNA. I cannot help but fall in love with anything that is of a scale 1:12 or smaller (ie 1:24, 1:48).

When I was ten or eleven I went with my parents of a tour of Washington DC, New York, Nauvoo, etc. One day we were at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and I stumbled across a dollhouse - the COOLEST dollhouse ever! I was absolutely fascinated and stood in front of it looking at all its rooms for the entire time my family was at the museum ... and it was clearly not enough time to take it all in!

Every now and again my mom or day wandered by to see if I was still there - and then when it was time to go, sadly taking one last longing look. It was marvelous and so detailed! I remember on the desk in the office there was a quill pen, an ink pot and a piece of paper - with other things, of course - but I was so fascinated that the letter on the desk had itty bitty writing on it! It was half written.

I have always thought that it would be cool to make dollhouses - but I realized after purchasing a half dozen kits for furniture sometime in my Junior High school days - and finally donating them two years ago - still unmade - that I don't really want to make dollhouses - I just want to look at them! SERIOUSLY love anything tiny. So I could not leave without some babies! See them? They are perched atop what I have, in the past, referred to as my 'Girly Pile' - usually there is an Aveda lotion on the top:

See ... ADORABLE!!!

But, since my lotion lives perched atop my Girly Pile, and it is not really a good place for things containing dirt and water - I placed them on one of my beautiful sandstone coasters ... with an old buddy of mine (speaking of tiny things):

Have I mentioned that I love frogs? My sister found this somewhere and thought of me. It is THE MOST wonderful gift I have received from her! A twofer: a frog AND a miniature:

Oh! But wait! What is this? It opens and inside are three ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE miniature crayons! Now THIS is a fun froggy!

Hmmmm, it just occurred to me that I never named him. I will have to fix that sometime in the future ... (BABY CRAYONS! Seriously - how COOL is this guy?)

So, maybe my Miniature Land will live next to my Girly Pile ...

Oh - and since the morning is not over and I have not introduced you to it - behind my Miniature Land is a wooden plant holder ... see it?

When the kids were little, we were visiting my parents in Tempe, Arizona and I saw this plant holder and loved it! Mom told me that she had made it at a Relief Society night. Hers was made out of pine and not finished - but I loved the style, so Gary took the plans for laying out the wood pieces that she had kept.

He cut all the pieces out of oak scraps and then it became a family affair ...

Ryan and Jessie were given sandpaper and 'helped' ...

We rarely have some sort of project where Jessie can really help - and she really did help with this!

Gary lay it out, glued it together and finished it - but I believe that it is really the only thing we have made as a Family (oops - I forgot - those wooden Soldier ornaments still standing at attention in that gold makeup train case waiting for the next invasion were a family affair also, but not nearly as pretty)

It started to fall apart months ago and I was sad, thinking 'this is it, my beautiful plant holder is dead' when Gary took it to the garage and put it back together again! I really, really like it and it is all the more special since Ryan and Jessie helped to make it - so I am glad it is still around. I had decided I needed to make a blog post about it since I was ecstatic that it was not dead ... and now I have!

So ... that was my morning. I believe I really did get home around 10:00 or 11:00 this morning. Did a few chores, then sat down at the computer to see my morning photos, make a Facebook album and write this post.

I just looked up at my clock.

It is 5:00pm!?!?!?





Seriously?



When did that happen?

This Girl Can Be Taught ....

OK - first off, my Doctor's office called me back and said I need to bring the letter in with me since my doctor has TONS of patients with my insurance and has some sort of bulk 'deal' with the laboratory due to volume and the EVER SO LOVELY FACT that they are in the same building, thus just a mere walk down the hall to the "Evil Phlebotomist". They are a bit confused since they have heard nothing of it and it started at the beginning of this month. I am a bit concerned since I have an appointment tomorrow and don't want to drain our bank account by paying 'out of pocket' astronomical lab fees. They said they have another laboratory they also use - and I can use that - they are probably located in Decatur, Georgia or somewhere equally accessible ... because I needed more hassles in my life at this very minute - but truly I am grateful. All day and last evening I was looking for puppies to kick I was so angry - I have calmed down a wee bit and Charlie will actually stay in the room I am in - so I must be behaving myself.

Well, that out of the way - now comes the fun part!!!! A few notes:

1) This is dedicated to Jen since she loves anything and everything gross I put on my blog,  I once titled one of my blog posts "Barfing Photos" but didn't mean that verbatim ... she commented that she couldn't click on it fast enough and was disappointed that I had just piled a ton of photos on my blog and nary a one was of me barfing  - I love her to pieces - but this sort of disturbs me ... but in a GOOD way ....

2) The photos to follow might ... gross you out - I really don't care - I was EXCEPTIONALLY proud of myself for being able to take them!

3) There is really no theme here - I think I just want sympathy that I do not deserve for the huge bruise on my leg from my "oooops I didn't pull back the plunger" session

4) No, your eyes are not 'going'. My legs are not something I care to share on my blog - thus totally disgusting EVEN JEN, so I have blurred them up a bit - so sue me ...

They are pretty much self explanatory so I will just let y'all just ENJOY!!!!

This is my second injection since the Baby Geyser and I have successfully not hit a vein - which is way cool, since it is still rather against my nature to plunge a needle in my leg - and if I pulled back and there was blood in the syringe - I would have to take it out and DO IT OVER AGAIN - or suffer the blood geyser and bruise - right now I am not so sure which I would do when I actually stumble into that situation ....

So ... In closing - life is good - well, in a really shitty sort of way - but I am used to it and I am up and feel good and for that I am eternally grateful. Y'all - DON'T EVER take your health for granted. It is a gift beyond measure and when you lose just a little bit of it, you lose oh, so much more (trips, outings, trips, lunches out with friends, trips, etc).




Just sayin' ....

And The Hits Just Keep on Coming ....

I had a few things on my platter called "If I worry about this, or even think about this I will spontaneously combust, burn up and dissolve into ash" but since they are not about me, but those I love more than life itself - it is not something that I have blogged about. Against the rules ... my life is an open book, but that does not mean that all involved with me have to have their lives stripped naked on my blog. That one involves testing and waiting makes that spontaneous combustion part seem all the more plausible that if I even dwell on it for a mere moment - so I have been carefully trying to ignore it all.

Then Sunday came and my world sort of tilted precariously and I find myself just hanging on by my fingernails. Familiar territory - but I am a bit rusty - things haven't been this bad for quite some time so my 'coping skills' are a wee bit rusty.

Was SO PROUD of myself for actually getting out of bed today (as opposed to yesterday where I spent most of the day laying in bed watching my ceiling fan blade turn ...) starting laundry, cleaning up a bit and decided that I would attack the pile of mail on my desk that I just couldn't be bothered to open lately. Doing good, girl! Was feeling like although I am heartbroken about a billion things I am still able to function like a normal person just a wee bit.

And then I got to this letter:

Yes, my doctor. The one after going to between 10 and 15 that told me that it was all in my head and scooted me out of their office - took TOTALLY DIFFERENT lab tests that showed that I was in deep shit medically. My T-Cells are very low and we cannot figure out why or how to boost them to something that my immune system would like and be able to keep me healthy. THAT Doctor.

That doctor. The one that is Nationally known for her work with AIDS and CFIDS patients and the remarkable results she is getting.

That doctor. The one that as I sit in the waiting room hear the other patients mention that they flew here from Montana, New Mexico, New York - because they need to see HER.

That doctor. The very first doctor to gently tell me that my chances of recovering fully were nil, but that she would do everything in her power to make my quality of life as good as we could possibly get it.

That doctor. The one that when I asked her to test me for Lyme Disease, seemed surprised, because it is basically unheard of in Texas, but said 'sure' as she has to EVERY SINGLE OTHER REQUEST I HAVE MADE.

That doctor. Basically the only doctor I trust these days ...

As I read further, they were not dropping my doctor per se, they were dropping the laboratory that does all her testing. Hmmmm - great! I can go see her - but since every time I go see her I get between 10 - 20 vials of blood drawn to see how all of the ever so much fun things my body is fighting a losing a battle with (Lyme Disease, Epstein Barr Virus, HHV-6 virus and on and on and on - not to mention that pesky T-Cell level) plus making sure my liver is not having trouble with the bucket load of pills I have to take daily - basically going to her would be going and not having a chance in hell that she could know where I was immune system wise if she could not do any testing.

I have a call into my doctor to see if they use more than one lab (I know they don't but I am rather desperate and in denial - I have seen how much my lab costs are monthly - and it is astronomical). So I will wait for the call that will tell me that I am SOL.


My life is totally FUBAR.



I have a feeling things are going to get really interesting, really quickly ...



and not in that fun, cool way ...