Me, my son and Mother have all been co-existing in the same household as peaceful as we could all this time until September 6, 2007. It would be easier if I bullet things that stand out the most this past three years than trying to rack my brain to catch up.
* Sometime in 2006 My older brother Rick who dropped off the face of the earth...returned after 2 years. I had him stay with us for 8 months while I helped him find affordable housing and get is life in order. My Mom and Rick have never gotten along so needless to say my house was like "Romper Room" most of the time with me hiding out in my room to escape it all.......What was I thinking!!!
* I injured my left shoulder on May 1, 2007 and have lived with moderate to sever pain since. I have continued to work through all with the help of a TENS unit which only takes the edge off of the pain and allow me to somewhat function. I have had two cortisone shots into the shoulder without any relief and now scheduled for surgery on August 26, 2008.
* September 6, 2007- My Mom had a brain aneurysm. Thank God I was home! She is doing well! And thank God that she made it through it. Because of the extent of the aneurysm Mom now requires 24 hour care and is in a great facility where she is the President of the Patient Counsel, calls Bingo every day & and reads the newspaper every other morning to the residents. She is always busy and on the go that you can hardly find her in her room. She calls me at least 3 times a day to catch me up on her activities. Because of her aneurysm we were able to find out some family history which resulted in all of us having to go in and MRA's (same as MRI but for the brain) done to make sure we did not have the inherited malformations of the arties in the brain. My older brother Brian had an aneurysm 10+ years ago (and doing fine) and come to find out that is what my grandmother died of.....
* My side kick and dear dog Teddy has been diagnosed with seizure disorder. He takes pills twice a day now and seems to be doing fine. What a scare that was when you cant do anything to help!
*June 2008 - Assistance Dogs International (ADI) http://www.assistancedogsinternational.org/ Conference was in London England....yep I was there....what a experience I will never forget! My sister-in-law Gail was my travel companion and helped me a ton at the conference. We had a day and half of free time and ventured out and about. We were told that we were doing things the locals would not do.... Sorry Gail for keeping you up all night with my snoring! It was really hard for me to come back to my every day life since there was so much more I wanted to see and do in London. I will have to put that down as a visiting spot for a vacation. Vacation? What is that??
Me and Gail visiting Big Ben!
London Eye*August 26, 2008 - Scared to death....I went in for my shoulder surgery. Not knowing the type of pain I was going to have to endurer during recovery I knew that this is something I needed to do and knew that the pain I have been in for a year and half will finally (with all hope & faith) will come to an end and I will be able to get back into doing things I have been putting on hold. The surgery went well. The doctor told me that my shoulder joint, ball, cartilage, rotater cuff were all in text book shape and that all he needed to do was to shave off a chunk of bone. I am not quite sure where the location is in the shoulder since all the pictures look like planets. I will ask the doctor on my follow up appointment. In the meantime I started physical therapy the day after surgery and go twice a week. Some is very painful but I know it will only get better! My friend Darlene came and stayed with me the first week post surgery. She helped me out a lot and I also got in a lot of trouble from her as I would try to do things myself....laundry, cook, etc. I am not use to having someone wait on me hand and foot...so it was hard. The most frustrating about my recovery is no work and .....NO driving for at least 6 weeks ....I find myself mercy of family and friends.
*September 4, 2008- No one around- stuck in the house all day and going nuts! I have two cars in the driveway and I cannot escape! It was hot outside and all I could do was lay in bed, watch t.v. and read. I finished the book The Glass Castle in two days and looking for another interesting book to bide my time while everyone is doing their normal every day duties (their lives). In the evening I decided to take a stab at the computer.....I found myself propped up in bed with a make shift lap desk (lid to a plastic storage container) and my left arm supported with pillows I plugged away at the computer.....two hours later and in a tremendous amount of pain I gave up ....grabbed the ice pack , took two extra strength Tylenol (I refuse to use the good stuff the doctor prescribed to me) and went to sleep.........What was I thinking!!!
*September 5, 2008- Shane and my brother Rick took me to physical therapy this morning and it was very painful because of me over doing it yesterday on the computer. I did tell the therapist of my little computer excursion the evening before....she just cocked her eye brow. I pulled the car out of the driveway and know now why they say I can not drive for at least 6 weeks. I will not even attempt to do that again any time soon! After physical therapy Diann came by to take me to lunch...what a nice treat! I was sitting on my back steps waiting for her to pick me up....I was ready to go! She also took me to Starbucks and I felt like a little kid all excited to see that they had my pumpkin scones. They normally do not have those available until Oct/Nov so I know that was Gods special treat to me. I love those darn things...the down side...one Starbucks pumpkin scone has the total amount of fat you should have in one day! Did I get one??? You bet I did!! Did I eat the whole thing? You bet I did!!
