Moving in May

FlyLady's habit for May is going to be moving for 15 minutes a day.

We are going to have a virtual walk around the world visiting 89 countries that represent where FlyLady members are from.

Am I ready for this? This means not only am I going to have to walk or exercise for 15 minutes a day, but check into my FlyLady account, sigh. The arch of my left foot hurts. It could be plantar fascitis. I'm not going to the doctor or the nurse practitioner to check on it. I've been wearing some support on that foot & it helps. I'm also trying not to wear the shoes that caused it. I will definitely try moving or exercising.

Here's an update on making the bed every day. It has been done. Maybe some days it's not as neat as it could be, but the covers are pulled up, the CPAP reservoir has been filled and my pillow has been fluffed. It's kind of hard to make a bed with cats piled on it. We walk by the bedroom & check to see how many cats are on the bed & who they are, LOL.

Bedtime, I'm still trying to do this, it's still around midnight, but not nearly as late as it used to be.

We're watching American Idol tonight. I like Kris. I still don't have a favorite this season. I was so disappointed last year when David Cook won & not David Archuleta. I'm afraid Adam Lambert will win, but then he's good, so why not?

I just found out today one of my online friends died in FEBRUARY!! And we just found out!!! The good news is she didn't die alone and we found out. It's just that I've known this lady for almost 10 years & even though we didn't email every day, we could go for months, usually my fault for not staying connected. She would reach out to me & now she's gone & I didn't even realize I hadn't heard from her for a while. Of course, now I'm worrying about Junior, her cat. She lived alone, what about the cat & the rabbit in the back yard? Mother thinks the cat was probably turned loose.

Good news & bad news

Good news first, results of the MRI show that the lesion on my spine has not metastasised. It is NOT cancer. It is a "bone window." In other words, the bone is much thinner than the bones around it. I actually have 2 bone windows on L1.

I'm still not going to have the endoscopy nor am I going to have gall bladder surgery right now. I will not go under general anesthetic willingly. I realize I'm playing Russian roulette, but ... isn't general anesthetic a form of Russian roulette too? You go into surgery feeling fine & come out sick. One can die of complications from surgery. Seven surgeries in one year is enough to bankrupt a person financially & emotionally. My surgeries were actually within an 8 month period, that's an average of one surgery a month. I will take prilosec daily for my stomach problems before I'll go under general anesthetic again. I'm just starting to feel better.

Now, for the bad news. This isn't really my news, but I'm just sick. Eddie is on his way to detention. They were going to make him walk to Pocatello! Walk!! Who do they think we are & who do we talk to about protection from parole officers?

I listened

I listened to the still small voice today. Eddie, our foster son, Nick's best friend, a friend's son, has been on probation for a long time now. He AND his mother are facing jail time if he misses an assignment in school. He has a really hard time with executive function. He is severely ADHD, has some Asperger's & probably bipolar disorder on top of everything. He was held back a year in high school, so is a year behind others his age.

One of the hints that I was given when Nick was in high school was to get a zippered binder & organize it so that EVERYTHING goes in the binder, EVERYTHING.

I looked at Wal-Mart, even the simple binder like Nick has is $15 now. I've looked other places, like online, $45 on Flylady.net; $13 plus shipping & handling on another site. So, today at work, I walked out into the book store to see if there were any zippered binders. There weren't any. I knew I could order one, but decided I'd check at King's & see if they had any.

As I was leaving work I decided I'd stop at King's on my way home. "Check at the D.I.," kept niggling at the back of my mind. I'm thinking, "Ya, right. If you go into the D.I. looking for something, you never find it." I got out onto State Street & there was a perfect parking place right in front of the D.I. I thought that would work, I'd run into the D.I., check to see if they had a zippered binder, then could walk out the back door, across the parking lot to the back door of King's & out the front door to my car.

I never made it to King's. Almost immediately I found a zippered binder. It looked brand new, like it had never been used. The tags inside were still crisp. It was black with a big Jack Skellington face on the front. Ed loves skeletons. They are his signature. I see a skeleton & automatically think of Eddie. The binder was $2!!! Something like that would have been $19-29 new, if I could still find something like that around here.

Eddie loved it. I hope he uses it. I may have to get some dividers for him. But I'm so glad I listened.

TGIF

I logged in to our bank account last night & found out that the government had saved our butts to the tune of $88!! Woo hoo! Utah State income tax refund had shown up on Tuesday & the federal refund had shown up on Wednesday! Then our car insurance will come out on Monday & we would have been in serious doo doo! We get paid NEXT Thursday. As it was, four transactions had cleared. Besides the amounts of the transactions, a $22 service charge would have been deducted. Mother's bank is $35 for an overdraft.

I'm so glad it's Friday. I went in to work today & announced I could only stay an hour. When asked why, I said that I had worked 14 hours on Monday & Tuesday & that only gave me one hour I could work today. Instead, I worked 4 hours, sigh.

No news on my MRI yet. I guess I'll wait til Monday & forget to call.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When I posted this quote, I think I was going to explain it later, but never have. This was given during one of the workshops in the Hospice Conference (it is a conference for both home health & hospice) I attended in February. It looks like I didn't write a lot about the conference. It was spread out over 2 weeks with 5 days of workshops. This is the third year I have attended & love it. It helps a lot & I've learned a lot.

The quote was given by a professor from Utah State University during a workshop on spirituality. I decided perhaps this is the reason I've survived so many things. I definitely have lots of whys to live. I don't know if I could survive a holocaust or prisoner of war camp though. Even the trek across the plains, but then would I have been brave enough to listen to the missionaries & join the (LDS) Church to EVEN make the trek? I've always been grateful that I live in this period of time in the earth's history with all of the medical breakthroughs. I probably wouldn't have made it out of the Preston Hospital when I was born & neither would Mother.

Applied for Medicaid

I applied for Medicaid today. I was denied almost as soon as I finished the application, LOL. I knew we wouldn't qualify, but it was a requirement before I could apply for help from IHC.

I worked for IHC when Nick was born. I was verbally told that I could take 8 weeks of maternity leave, but it was not in writing. I took one day over my 6 weeks & was fired. I had a lot of anger & depression to get over.

I finally got the invitations for Mother's siblings party finished & in the mail. None too soon either, the party is Saturday, May 2.

Nick's golden birthday

Nick turned 22 today on April 22. I told him this morning we both feel better today than we did 22 years ago. He was born C-section & had swallowed a lot of blood. He was one sick little baby & I was one sick mama.

I had an MRI today. Debbie Reese took me to Logan. Debbie works with Don & I in the ward library. She is a nurse at the local hospital & can only be to church every other week. She works this weekend, but she was willing to take me to Logan on one of her days off. She sat with me through the harrowing financial interview. I was told I could apply for financial assistance from IHC, then after I got home I got a message from the financial counselor, or whatever her title is, guess I could look on her business card & see what it actually says. She left a message saying I would have to apply for Medicaid & be denied before I could apply for financial assistance, sigh.

So, this MRI was better than the one I had in the fall of 2000 at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden. That was in a metal tube & they stuck me in this wall, like a morgue. It was closed off at the bottom & the top. The one today was hard plastic & was open at both ends of the tube. I was wiggling my feet & the tech said the image was blurry was I moving? I said yes I'd been wiggling my toes. The noise wasn't nearly as loud as last time. I think it's because last time I was enclosed in this metal tube. Could be my hearing is so much worse this time than it was 8 years ago. I almost fell asleep today. Last time I was so rattled I couldn't eve remember the first Article of Faith, which is probably the easiest one of all. No, all I could do was recite the 13th Article of Faith over & over. That's the hardest one.

Today they had to inject a contrast in my veins. I told the tech that I could not have it in my left arm & that I only have one good vein in my right arm. He thought he found one on the outside & tried, no luck. He said my one good vein is tough as old leather from scar tissue. He tried lower down. I have 3 pokes, not sure where he finally got it in, but I could feel it as it flowed into my vein, just like the chemo. I had a bad headache the rest of the day. Sure glad I had someone to drive me.

Now, we wait for the results. The tech was walking us down the hall & he asked me how long I'd had this pain in my back. I said I didn't have a pain in my back. The lesion was found through an abdominal x-ray at Instacare because of intense stomach pain. I have had a hard time standing on my feet for years because I'd get a back ache. I've always thought it was bad posture & it could very well be. We'll see.

I was also supposed to have an endoscopy today, but because of the cost & the expectation of paying $150 up front before I could have it, I said no. I already pay almost $300 a month in medical bills from my breast cancer surgeries. I have stopped taking some prescriptions because I cannot afford $322 a month for a script.

We ate at Pizza Villa tonight for Nick's birthday. Mother has such a hard time getting in & out of Don-Mike's new pick up. We took her home & left her in tears because she was hurtng so bad. Don-Mike didn't stay long here. Of course, he'd had the day off & worked really hard in the yard. Nick said Don-Mike had mowed the back yard. I hope he had the riding lawn mower fixed. Last week he tilled the garden. Anyway, Don-Mike said he'd go home & play some games on his X-Box & sit with Nana.

Last birthday until June. Still haven't bought presents for our April birthday people, but hey, we've spent quite a bit on dinners & gas to get to the restaurants the last 2 weeks.

The speed limit

Today is Don's 55th birthday. He is now the speed limit, LOL. We went to dinner at the Borderline Grill in Franklin at La Tienda. Don-Mike asked me if I was 9. I looked at him for a minute, trying to debate what he was talking about, then he said 59 & I'm going, "Oh, no, I'm 8. I won't be 9 until this summer." We all laughed at that. So glad I'm not 8 or 9 again.

Speaking of La Tienda, which is Spanish & translated means "the store," most people say the La Tienda. In The Citizen's tourist edition that was just published this week, one of our reporters wrote, "the La Tienda store." As a copy editor, I get to find the mistakes, or should I say, I attempt to find the mistakes in the written copy. I sat there, laughed out loud at "the the store store," & then took my blue pen & crossed out the English "the" & "store."

We had a big discussion in our weekly meeting yesterday about not being so picky. I hope I don't get fired for discussing work on my blog. I read in the news yesterday that someone did.

Now that I've digressed, I'll get back to dinner. We've been wanting to try this restaurant ever since it opened in it's new location in 2007, but haven't. Mother didn't like her meal of shrimp & soup du jour, beef vegetable. It might as well have been stew, very thick. Actually, all she got was 4 shrimp prawns. We ordered the soup as a side. Nick & Don had prime rib, which Nick was quick to point out was not the most expensive entree on the menu. They didn't like it because it was too tough. Don-Mike had BBQ ribs & steak, which he devoured & thought was excellent. I had shrimp & salmon. The salmon was "blackened" & dry. There was no lemon served with it. I could've asked for it, but didn't. Since Mother was finished with her meal & I hadn't even opened my baked potato yet, I shared my potato with her. We all had cheesecake for dessert.

The booth was big, but not quite big enough for us, so we were crowded. As usual, we had the 3 right-handers on one side & both left-handers on the other. If Eddie had been with us, we would have had 3 left-handers & the booth would definitely not have been big enough. It seemed to be popular with local people though. We knew most of the diners. Don & I decided we would not return there any time soon. I'm not anxious to have another attack of restaurant syndrome (IBS) any time soon either.

At least we're not faced with Borderline Grill again on Wednesday for Nick's birthday. He wants to go back to Cabin Fever Café in Providence where we went last year. I hear they've gone out of business. According to Google, they are still there, hmmm. Maybe ...... Don suggested Iron Gate Grill. We enjoyed Cabin Fever Café. I had salmon last year & Eddie ate my leftovers, LOL.