Tuesday, September 30, 2008

ROAR!

Well, why the heck not roar?  I hate change.  I love my AOL journals although I've never been fond of AOL and am even less fond of them now, to say the least.  I actually had an account at google for blogger which I didn't realize I even had so I've created a new journal.  I'm still going to hang out here for a while as I "move" into my new digs. 

Many of you know my lack of techno talents.  Lord, it took me three weeks to learn how to add graphics to this journal and AOL is user friendly.   Yet onward we are being forced to move. 

Not a good day, week, etc for me.  My journal will be 3 years old this week.  My Penny Pooh died on Oct 1st last year.  I was in a rather foul mood anyway.

I have to mention that I brought Becky home with me on Saturday.  She hung out with Joey.  I gave her something to sleep Saturday night.  She slept for 12 hrs. and was able to eat without gagging and throwing up.  Chicken soup for the soul (actually, I did make chicken soup.)  She went to the dr. today.  I haven't heard much how that went.  She gets stressed if she has to talk too much about it.  Anyway, I just don't feel quite at ease unloading yet on blogger.  I guess this is still my comfort zone.  I suppose you can still snag tags because blogger is graphic friendly.

I hope we all are able to move and create a new community.  That might be too much to ask but we need to try.  I, myself, depend and rely upon the love and support that I receive from so many of you here.  Damn AOL....HUGS Chris

             

 

            

Ooops......here's my link for my new "home"

http://cabscreationschatter.blogspot.com/

 I'm going to need some help and advise because I figure out how to add followers/friends, etc.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Taking off for a Day and SNAGS

  

Another week that went not quite according to plan.  Oh, what a week.  Becky is not doing well at all.  In fact, worse.  I really never thought I'd be going through this again with another child of mine.  It never gets easier.

She saw the doctor on Tues.  I went.  We had great hope that things would get somewhat better.  Not to be.....she did not tolerate the one medicine at all.  She has been nauseous and now throwing up non-stop and no sleep.  The anxiety became far worse. She texted me all night last night.  I'm exhausted.  She called the doctor at 5 am.  He got back to her within five minutes.  She is still taking the anti-anxiety but stopped the anti-depressant until she sees him Tues; then back to square one again.  Been there; done that in my life way back when but not so much was at stake for me.  I'm scared to death that she will not be able to stay in the Ph.d program which is a paid fellowship; scared to death.  She has invested so much blood, sweat and tears has gone into her education and only has less than 3 years to go.

Today was a nightmare for her.  Megan is off to Penn State for the weekend.  Becky begged me to spend the night.  I have to drive back to Pittsburgh in a short while.  This is going to be a rough night.  I can't do anything for her but watch her suffer.  I'm so dreading this.  I have to get back home tomorrow but I know she won't want me to leave.

Please, please continue with good thoughts, prayers, etc.  I have to get home tomorrow.  She hates to be alone but won't come up here because she wants her comfort zone.  Ugh....my head hurts but my heart aches so much more.

Love you all.....CHRIS

 

         

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Fall/Halloween SNAGS

          

I just got back from a trip to Wally World.  My BF did very well walking around the whole Super Center.  I could have spent some time looking at different things besides food but didn't want to push it.  Still it took an hour or so.  Most of the tags I've made have been for different challenges for my PSP group.

Thanks for all your prayers and comments.   HUGS CHRIS

 

        

             

              

 

 

A Tale of 2 Daughters/SNAGS

   

       

Two beautiful girls, linked by genetics and birth parents but oh so different.  Not the entry I had planned for today but does life ever go according to a plan.  Becky, brooding Becky, who has carried so much weight on her shoulders.  I wish I could find the link to my tribute entry to my oldest child and what drove her to success.  I still want to cry when I think of it.  It was a brilliant paper she wrote for entry into college but ripped my heart out.  It was the fear of her alcoholic father that drove her to become the scholar she is today. 

I sit here today in a mood which can't be explained but every loving mother knows that mood.  A child in deep pain.  My child is in deep pain.  I think of Lisa Jo's boxes and often wonder if Becky has boxes in her mind with things closed tight in them.  I know my son does because he has told me he chooses not to remember his childhood.

Becky's BF dumped her about 5 weeks ago.  She has broken up with BF's and had them break up with her before.  I figured she would be sad for a while and move on.  Megan moved in with her shortly afterwards so she would have company.  It's not happening.  She is not getting over it.  In fact, she is not sleeping, lost well over 10 lbs because she won't eat and comes home from school and goes to bed and cries or sleeps.  She texted me a day or two ago begging me to find a way to help her.  I then called Megan and found out that Becky is, in my opinion, clinically depressed.  So, this was the incident that opened the boxes.  I knew in my heart one day that Becky could keep suppressing all the fear, hurt and pain. 

Some may not agree with me.  Personally, I could care less.  I called Dr. G.  The problem was Becky's insurance is an HMO which he does not participate in.  It would cost $1,200 for about 90 days of treatment.  I wanted to throw up.  Good news is Becky has the PPO plan which will pay a percentage for out of network treatment.  On a side note, she told me she's been taking benadryl or Tylenol PM to sleep because she wakes up with panic attacks.  That could become a huge problem.  Keep my Becky in your thoughts, prayers, etc.  I'm scared to death that she won't be able to keep up in the Ph.d. program.  Thank goodness, she is done with the school part and doing the lab internship.  Her old boss (professor) has moved her lab work times around so she doesn't have to see "M".  That was a huge problem.  She has 3 more years of the program with "M".  He is truly not helping matters one bit but I didn't expect he would.  She wil see the doc no later than Tues.

        

Daughter #2 does get stressed.  She is a stress eater or so she says but weathers the storms relative unscathed.  She was the baby and stood her ground with the "Dad" in our household.  She was a tiny little thing but would look him straight in the eye and tell him he was mean.  For some reason, he thought that was funny.  She says now she was scared but would never let him know it.  She talked back to him constantly.  She was his baby.  She doesn't carry the scars or the baggage of childhood like her brother and sister.  She was the princess and demanded to be treated as one.

She is bubbly, boisterous, loves to have fun (too much at times).  She is very much like me barring my depression era.  I'm loud, I talk a lot, an awful lot.  People that don't know my children find it hard to believe that my two oldest are quiet.  I love to have fun, love to dance, love crazy hair.  I can't believe I'm this old and still want to do the things I do.

Megan is gone for the weekend visiting a friend who graduated and lives in Ohio.  She wanted Becky to go along.  Becky didn't want to leave the comfort zone right now.  Megan is frustrated.  Boy, do I envy those who have no clue what it feels like to be depressed.  I do worry about Megan because genetically she could suffer from depression at some point.  I also feel guilt about being the gene carrier for that.

          

        

So, enough of that, for now.  My BF is doing very well.  He is off of the oxygen.  We went to the store yesterday after work.  Today, the goal is Wally World.  Power is finally being restored in our area.  I was blessed to have not lost mine.  It flicked on and off a few dozen times.  BF's cable was gone until yesterday.  I never lost my sattelite connection which was amazing.  Hard to believe that Ike caused so much havoc in placed you wouldn't expect.

I also gave my self a "Chrissy cut."  It was really just a teensy trim.  My hair was just cut 2 weeks ago but was out of control.  Those short cuts grow out way too fast.  My son is cracking up.  I figure I get it professionally cut in two week so it should be grown out again.  I really need to get it cut shorter to begin with.  So the past couple of days have been a bad hair day.  I think the back spikes pretty well now but I'm sure my beautician won't agree.  Pfft.....it was just a slight trim on what I called the flying nun wings.

I really need to take a walk today.  I need to push myself on the weekends.  Heck, I need to push myself during the week sometimes.

Oh, and the timer on my dryer is kaput.  I'm hoping that is all but it's taking twice as long for things to dry also.   It just started Sunday before the storm. I need to get my appliance guy out sometime this week but my house is a total wreck :(  I hate that.  I could probably buy a new dryer for what it will cost to fix this one but it was a nightmare getting this one in the basement.  I had three delivered before we got one small enough to fit down the 100 year old basement steps, and it still got a bit banged up.  I mean it was a total nightmare.  The appliance guy remembers that and said I might just want to fix this one.  My electric bill is going to be atrocious so I must make my mind up very soon.

So, this was my book for the week.  Ugh, I never seem to be ableto make a short and sweet entry.  HUGS TO ALL...CHRIS

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Autumn SNAGS

Yikes, the wind is really picking up around here.  I know Lisa Jo was saying that it is awful in Ohio.  Should have kept my mouth shut.  I had the AC on and didn't even notice until the house started creaking.  I'm supposing this is what is going to cause our temps to drop drastically overnight.  Pfft.....Just found out the winds are the remnants of Ike.  I didn't realize that storm moved so fast.  Fun, fun getting to work today.  Footnote:  Megan stayed the night here.  She was scared to death driving home from Eat N Park.  No way was I letting her drive over an hour to Pittsburgh last night.  We are going this morning some time. 

      

        

LOL.....I really, really could go for a good caramel apple now or a chocolate covered one. 

                         

Another Week and some SNAGS

     

Autumn seems to be approaching but you'd never know it.  It is 87 here today and extremely humid; not that I'm complaining.  I love summer weather.  The pool is green so I gave Grizzly a bath.  He was smelling pretty "doggy" lately.  I've used Dawn, among other things on him, but can't totally get rid of his doggy smell.  Hartz used to sell an herbal shampoo that my son said made the dog smell like a "sissy" which translate to good.  Couldn't find it anywhere anymore.  I used Hartz citrus this time.  Not sure about that either.  His coat is so darned thick.  I'm hoping that we get some warm weather at the end of October so he can get shampooed again.  I have to do it outside.  He behaves out there.  Sounds awful, but I hose him down.  The water in the hose was warmer than warm today.

Anyway, my BF came home Monday which started a week of total exhaustion for me.  I didn't need to spend the nights; just until he showered and was in bed.  I would get off the bus; go to his house to see what he needed; run to the store or stores and pick up the things, drop them off; go home, get dinner ready, do laundry, etc., take a bath and fly back to his house until around 10.  He lives 4 miles from me so needless to say, I was whooped by Friday.  He's doing extremely well.  His visiting nurse comes 3 times a week.  He is only using oxygen at night.  He'll see the doctor in a month.

We went to Target last night.  He took his portable oxygen with him because it was unbearably humid here and hot.  He did really well.  Tomorrow, after work, we will go to the grocery store since it's going to drop into the 70's.  I'm sure cabin fever is setting in.

The girl I work with was rear ended a few weeks ago and will be off until October so I've been trying to get myself into the overload mode.  When I worked upstairs, that was a constant thing.

Megan came home to work this weekend.  Still no loan....the school held things upthis time.  Becky is still grieving the break up big time.  She is ok during the week but Megan said weekends are awful for her.

We had monsoon rains all day Friday and most of yesterday.  I didn't get my walk in on either day.  I could have last night but was lazy.  I was also darned lazy this morning.  I'll take Grizzly around the cul de sac tonight to get us back on track again.

I went grocery shopping and spent $98 on just about nothing.  Isn't it just awful what it costs now to buy food????????

Have a great week!  I have some pictures on my phone that I have to send to Becky so she can send them to my e-mail address.  I got rid of my web access so she has to send them to me.  I took them last week on one of my city walks. 

Here are a couple of snags.  I was cleaning out my hard drive and transferring to my external drive and found these:

          

               

ROFL....this next one looks just like me....HUGS CHRIS

                  

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Not so Random Thoughts & SNAGS

Hunh, try again....I actually lost an entry before I could save it.  I'm tired but I'll try again.

I took the pooch for a walk in the meantime because I was frustrated at AOL.

I've been a bit worried about what my BF would do once he got home.  He didn't get out today.  Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.  The caseworker said he should have someone 24 hrs a day with him for at least 2 weeks, preferably a month.  His insurance will pay for someone to be there in the daytime to cook, clean, do laundry, etc.  I'm going to go after work and stay the night for a week or 2 and see; maybe a month.  We decided this tonight.

Today was a bad one to begin with.  Meg and I went to the hospital around 11 am.  I knew something was wrong.  My BF became very distraught and started crying.  I pushed Meg out of the room and asked him if he was depressed.  That is quite common after open heart.  No.  He said he was in unbearable pain.  The night nurse was giving him Tylenol because she said he would become addicted to the Percocet.  WTH????  3 days after open heart surgery?

I flew out of the room looking for a nurse, any nurse.  I grabbed one almost literally and asked what was going on.  She was shocked because the orders were for one Percocet every 6 hrs or 2 lesser dosages every 3 hrs.  The night nurse had, indeed, taken it upon herself to give him plain old OTC Tylenol since 5 pm the evening before.  This nurse peeked into his room and saw that he was beside himself crying.  I've never seen him cry ever.  I've seen tears well up but not like this.

She immediately gave him a Percocet.  Within a half hour, he was much better.  Meg and I went on a shopping spree at Target.  I had a 10% off coupon.  We stopped at Dairy Queen to pick up Joey's birthday cake.  He turned 25 on Friday.  We made shish kebobs on the grill.  My BF called while we were at Target and sounded sooooo much better.

I stopped in after dinner.  The day nurse called the surgeon who came into talk with him.  He is not depressed.  He was in unbearable pain.  The night nurse was way off base.  The doctor explained to my BF that he needs the Percocet for a while.  It will be tapered as he heals.  He is also in a private room because his other room was too hot.  He laid in sweat last night, soaked.  The night nurse never changed his bedding or his clothes.  The surgeon was appalled.  It also explains why he had been refusing to eat.  He was out of his mind in pain.  He ate a huge lean hamburger for dinner with carrots and chicken noodle soup.

So, all is well for now.  My BF is not used to needing an advocate and was very surprised at how forceful I can be.  LOL...he's just never witnessed it because he's never needed to.

I'm posting some pics of my hair.  It's sort of greasy looking coz I have to wait 48 hrs to shampoo it to let the color set.  Not crazy about the bottom one either but I do love the colors.

 

A couple of snags below and off I go to get ready for another week.....Hugs to all!   CHRIS

                       

                     

                              

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Odd Weather, Update and a SNAG

   

Autumn is here or so they say but more of that in a few......

Yesterday, I had to get up at 3:30 am to be at my BF's at 4:30 am to be at the hospital by 5:00.  By the time we got to the hospital, he was so nervous, he was nauseated and almost vomiting.  They took him back and sedated him a bit to prep him.  His brother and I saw him about 6:45.  He was then taken off to the OR. 

I had a pager but never left the surgical waiting room.  We both actually fell asleep for about an hour.  I woke up when the hosp. phone rang for an update.  He was tolerating the surgery extremely well.

The surgery wasn't over until around 11:00.  They did a quadruple bypass.  Three arteries were 90% occluded (clogged) and they also did a bypass on the stented artery.  They weren't going to do the stented one unless he was tolerating surgery well.  The doctor had told him two arteries were 40% and said nothing about redoing the stented one.  I don't think they wanted him to worry before the surgery.

I saw him for about 5 minutes afterwards.  I went back for about 10 minutes after dinner.  He was far more alert.  When I called this morning, he was doing great.  He was sitting up.  When he knew it was me, he starting joking around.  I could hear his voice.  I took his duffel bag in this evening.  He was not feeling great.  He had to do some stretching thing that hurt the crap out of the breast bone and he almost passed out.  He was back to feeling crappy but that's expected.

My SIL came home Tues nite already.  My BF should be coming home Sunday.  They kick them out the door more and more quickly here in the good old USA.

I came home yesterday and floated in the pool and fell asleep.  I swear the weather is more like summer now than it was in July.  The sun feels eerily hot.  Usually this late in the year, the air temp canbe 90 but the sun just doesn't feel so hot.  Weird but the trees are red already.  I took pictures with my cell phone on my walk at work last week of trees turning red.  I cannot remember ever seeing a red leaf in August.  I have a yard full of leaves to rake already.  They started falling at least a week ago.  The middle of Oct. is the best time usually for seeing pretty leaves in western Pa.  My trees are not totally bare until the first week of November.

           

               

These pictures were taken a week before we went to Lake Erie.  I was walking at lunch.  The temps were in the upper 80's and low 90's yet the leaves look like they should in the beginning of October.  Weird.

I'm getting my hair cut and colored tomorrow.  Can't afford it but need to or should I say want more than need.  My hair was out of control when we took our little road trip plus the sun has bleached it totally in the past month.  This is a picture I took on my cell phone on Aug. 5 of my hair.  LOL...I also had not had any sun exposure at that time because we had no sun to expose myself to.

             

I'm getting it cut just as short but I'm getting more drastic with the color and highlights.  I want the back to be almost black with red and blonde in the front.  If I wasn't so darn exhausted, I'd take a pic of it now.  It's really blonde in the front and the sides are long.   I want the sides long and the back spiky. 

I'm off to bed.  I'm totally exhausted....totally.  Thanks for your prayers and thoughts!  HUGS Chris

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

We Just Want to Have a Good Time & We Did

 


Have we ever had a Labor Day weekend in western Pa. as nice and sunny and hot as this one?  Not for a long time.  Considering the sucky summer we had, August and even now is gorgeous.

I found out that D (Donna) was in Erie on Presque Isle the day before we were....bummer.  It really is pretty.  I've always liked to go there.  The kids were never crazy about Lake Erie.  Hey, 86 miles from home...sand and some surf.  The Isle extends, I think, about 10 or so miles out into Lake Erie like a hook.  One side is the bay; the other the Lake.  There is a bike/walking trail the whole way around.  There wasn't a bike to rent so we hung out at the beach and carried on. 

Becky was whiter than Casper the ghost and got burnt.  We had seafood at a great restaurant and headed home.  I would have loved to have stayed the night but Becky wanted to get home.  Meg and I hung out at the pool yesterday.  Hot, it was and gorgeous again.  Ribs on the grill....yum.

Now, back to reality.  I got my car inspected today and yet again had problems.  I had to put $150 into have the brake calipers cleaned and lubricated and, of course inspected.  This wasn't covered by the warranty.  Sucks....blah.

And my BF and I have to be at the hospital at 5am tomorrow morning.  Sugery at 7.   His brother will be there.  Not my choice but I'll deal with it.  He's a handful, though.  I have a headache and am jumping down everybody's throat tonight.  I'm fit to be tied.  I want to run away to Erie again and just lay on the darned beach.  BTW:  my doctor started me on Zocor.  Dang, my cholesterol is borderline high.  So back to tweeking mydiet again and more walking.

I just want to have fun.  Megan just wants to have fun.  Poor Becky is so serious and can't understand how goofy we get.  She thinks we have no stress...boo ha ha.  She is still weepy and sad about her BF.  And I'm rambling like a fool right now.

Prayers, good thoughts, etc. please for the surgery.  I'm off to walk Grizzly.  I sort of like going when it's dark now for some reason. 

Love you all.....Chris