we went to wedowee this weekend for FIL’s birthday and a family reunion.  it was a very nice weekend with the in-laws and everything seemed to be pretty good around there.

before we left yesterday afternoon, i happened to be in the house alone with MIL.  we had a very troubling conversation that left me worried and sad.  i listened to her and tried to offer my support but before long i was teary eyed telling her that she was the only mother that i have in my life at this time and that i love her very much. 

the conversation ended abruptly when the men-folk came back in and quickly changed to talk about “final arrangements” for both MIL and FIL, should anything happen (they’ve both had health problems lately so i guess it’s been on their minds).  we left soon after for the long drive home.

two and a half hours after we left, i got a call from my MIL.  she was crying and told me that she had been thinking about our conversation and that she felt that perhaps she needed to talk to someone.  i told her that i loved her, that i would pray for her, and that i would help any way i could, even if it was just listening. 

it felt relieved to know that i might have reached her and helped her some.  i hope and pray that she finds her way to a better place.

we found out friday that a coworker passed away last week at 56 years old.  she worked in a different department and the only reason we really knew her is because i worked with that department for about a year.  hubby and i used to complain about her because she would call one or both of us directly on every issue she came across,  flouting escalation procedures.  i met her a couple times when i had to go to that office for meetings with my then-boss and she was a nice lady (even though her direct calls drove me nuts, i had nothing against her personally).  i was very sad to hear of her passing.  i immediately contacted another person in that department to pass on my condolences.  he said that she had been out on disability after a surgery in march but was supposed to be returning to work today.  though she had health concerns, no one expected this.  my heart is heavy for all of them because i know how difficult it is to have to go into the office and have to continue working like nothing happened when there is an empty desk that just breaks your heart.  my thoughts have once again turned to ron and how much i miss him… even though he was just a coworker.  it’s amazing how our fellow employees really do become family to us.  and a little sad that we don’t even realize it until they are gone.  i need to get a sympathy card to send to that office group tonight since i forgot over the weekend.  my prayers are with her family at this difficult time… her blood family and her work family.

i got a call last night that was very disturbing to me.  it was about her.  it was second-hand.  me being me, i immediately went to worst case.  i assumed that she was in the hospital and things were bad.  why else would the call be presented like it was?  i quickly started preparing myself for a trip up there…  how would i handle the reunion?  would she even care?  thankfully, she is fine.  no injury, no sickness, no hospital.  it was about her finances. 

it’s been almost three years since she talked to me.  it’s been about two and a half years since she actually told me that she didn’t want to speak to or see me again.  and this person who knows nothing about me or my life thinks money should mend things?  talk about some effed up priorities…  and frankly, i’ll bet she’d be highly ticked off to know that i was told.

her situation sucks.  i’m sorry that she’s going through it because i love her.  but life is the choices we make.  ironically, the reason she kicked me out of her life is because i was attempting to give her helpful advice about this very matter.  please keep her in your prayers that this situation resolves itself favorably.

i tell ya, give the girl the flu and she just stops ranting altogether!  what can i say?  last week was totally miserable.  i’ve never in my life been hit that hard by the flu.  i’ve never run a fever for five days straight and i wanted to die a bit.  i am thankful that it was just the flu and strep throat because if i had had a stomach bug on top of that… i may have had to swan dive off the balcony.  so, though i had no energy to post here, i did have stuff to say.  snippets of posts that never were:

• we followed up our wildy young work-night with a friday night at our favorite hangout to see a band we hadn’t seen there before.  they were craptastic.  i won’t even call them a cover band as they were purely karaoke – no original sound whatsoever.  the lead “singer” hurt my soul when he started doing the axl rose mic-stand-dance during sweet child o mine and i was appalled when gives you hell came on and i remarked at how much they sounded like all american rejects just to realize that none of them were singing.  not even lip-syncing.  they were just playing their instruments in the background while the cd played.  we only stayed until midnight, two sets was all we could take of music mockery. 
• the next morning, i set my alarm (on a saturday!) and got up early to go to the mall group run.  i remarked to hubby how i felt strangely flu-like because my neck and shoulders were stiff and i hadn’t swum laps in days.  i brushed it off figuring that i had just slept wrong.   the group run was just me and mello (hubby had a board meeting at our condo) and he was having sciatic pain so we mostly walked.  i’m glad that i went because he’s a trainer and it gave me the opportunity to have some one-on-one time with him to get some pointers on my running.  i felt much better about things after talking with him for that hour.  by the time i got back home, i was shivering cold and wrapped myself in two blankets on the couch.  a few hours later i realized that i was running a heck of a fever and hubby was packing up to go to bama for his mom’s birthday.  my flu was to be a lonely journey.
• i totally expected to be better after a couple days.  we had already planned on taking last tuesday afternoon off for the all american rejects concert and i was really looking forward to it.  instead of having fun at a concert, i found myself breaking down and going to the dr tuesday afternoon.  it was day four of not being able to get my temp below 101°.  it sucked laying in the back of the car right across the street from where the concert was taking place while hubby was in filling my prescriptions.  stupid friggin flu.
• steroids rock – my throat and ears felt so much better that night after just one dose.
• when my sissy relayed to BIL that i was waiting in the car while hubby was in the pharmacy he assumed i was pregnant.  i don’t follow the logic there but sorry to disappoint.
• i’m amazed that i had a one-day work week last week and it was the longest week of my life.
• after being cooped up all week, i finally felt up to a walk to our mall sunday.  we walked down there, had a yummy dinner (solid food, no more soup!!!), walked around the plaza a bit, and walked back home.  it was fabulous to get out and get some fresh air finally but i was exhausted by the time we made it back home.  energy replenishment promises to take a while.
• the cough and sinus congestion refuse to let up as well.
• it was a gorgeous, cool, open-window weekend.  perfect for airing the germy stuffiness out of the house.
• hubby abandoned me again monday.  he’ll be back friday and i miss him like crazy.
• prayers are needed all over including:
  • my dad’s wife totaled her car monday.  thankfully, she’s okay other than seat-belt bruises but she’s sore and shook up.
  • my friend katie’s 7yo son is recovering from yet another brain surgery yesterday.  it was unplanned but, fortunately, “minor” (can brain surgery be minor?!) and he came through with flying colors.  he’s such a trooper!
  • my 8yo niece’s friend is battling cancer.  that’s just wrong on every level.  no, the kids don’t know.
  • the wife of the youth pastor at my sissy’s church is fighting lower-body-paralysis (hopefully temporary) after childbirth. 

*UPDATE:  SIL says that the surgery went well.  the cancer had not spread so the double mastectomy should be the end of it. 

please keep my SIL’s mother in your thoughts today as she undergoes a mastectomy and finds out how much damage the cancer has caused.

i haven’t given any updates on our coworker’s son lately.  cam spent several weeks in the icu before being moved to the rehabilitation ward of the facility.  he spent quite a bit of time there as well.  last month, he moved to an apartment next to the facility which is sort of a halfway house deal and gives him a little more freedom and a little less medical supervision.  one of his parents has to be there twenty-four hours a day because he still has no control of anything below the chest.  he has learned to use his arms more, and is even in a manual wheelchair a few hours a day.  he has physical therapy six or seven hours a day.  they say that he is mostly back to his old self and stays in good spirits most of the time.  at the end of next month, he is supposed to be able to go home.  this means that both of his parents need to renovate their homes in order to make them wheelchair accessible.  they started with his dad’s house and that’s where we’re headed this weekend.  he said that they are doing a lot of sheetrock work right now so hubby will definitely be helpful there.  i’m not much good for sheetrock other than mudding the screw-holes but i’ll help out any way i can, even if it’s just making runs for supplies and food. 

the ironic thing about all of this is that, about three years ago, one of cam’s best friends died.  the family was helped by the show extreme makeover:  home edition and cam was there helping out.  now, cam is a paraplegic and both of this parents have to practically rebuild their homes for him.  and they are blessed to have friends and family helping any way they can.

so, we’re heading to ga tomorrow night and then we’ll head to orlando from there.  we’ve got my cousin’sanniversary/halloween party to look forward to and we’ve been invited to another halloween party the night after as well.  then i get to have lots of fun with my friend preparing for her wedding (16 days!!!). 

on the road again and lettin’ the good times roll!

still no time for shower blogging but i wanted to do a quick update on previous prayers and make a new prayer request.

• coworker’s son cam has finally been moved out of the icu after six weeks. he is breathing on his own four to five hours a day but he gets tired and has to be put back on the respirator. he still has no control of anything below the chest but hope remains that that will change. he has bicep and wrist control but no fingers. with a special wristband that holds utensils, he is able to feed himself.
• my friend starts his chemo treatments tomorrow. i pray that he is able to get through these treatments with little ill-effects. he just hopes he can keep his hair.
• my sis-n-law’s mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. she will be undergoing a radical mastectomy in the next week or so. please send prayers her way as her family has had its unfair share of cancer. SIL’s father died a few years ago from cancer and her sister had a very scary battle with it after that. they are naturally very worried about their mother and i worry about SIL’s genes.

on our way out of atlanta yesterday, we stopped at the facility to visit with hs a bit. he seemed to be in good spirits and couldn’t brag enough on the facility. he said that all of the doctors there are totally johnny-on-the-spot about things and he is astounded with how quickly they get things done when they say they are going to do it. they have also been tirelessly working with him to cut through all of the red-tape of getting ssi and medicaid(?) and how to make their houses accessible. cam is back on a respirator because of some lung problems that went untreated at the other hospital but they are getting them taken care of and he should be breathing on his own again shortly. the good news is that he continues to regain motion in his arms. he still does not have tricep control but he is able to flex his bicep and has figured out how to slowly relax it in order to extend his arm back out again. he is also moving his wrist a little. still no progress on his lower body but since they were originally told that he would be a quadriplegic, they are thrilled with every progress he makes. hs feels that if he can at least get his upper body back, he can still have great quality of life. he also said that cam is very much himself and, though he has moments of despondency, he is overall positive and ready to overcome. what a blessing! amazingly, he remembers the entire incident and, during the few days that he was off the respirator, was able to tell his dad about it all. he said that he was running into the ocean, jumping waves, and on one jump the ocean floor was just closer than he thought. he landed on his head and immediately knew he was dead. he could not feel his body at all and could tell he was laying on the ocean floor being pushed around by the waves. his friend was in the water with him and thought he was playing around (poor friend had a major guilt-breakdown and required medical attention himself to get calmed down). cam said that the waves pushed him toward his friend and he saw his foot and bit down on it. that’s when his friend knew something was wrong and dragged him out of the water. amazing. i feel badly for his friend and i pray that he is able to get past this and realize it was not his fault and he did nothing wrong (unrelated but humorous – hs told friend to drive cam’s car home and after driving all that way, he got within city limits of home and the car blew up from being low on oil; hs has no idea where it even is). hs had some great stories of cam being cam and it was a really nice visit.

my buddy had more tests run yesterday and they were able to determine that it is follicular lymphoma which is an indolent non-hodgkins type. i was not happy to hear this because, from the research i’ve done, the indolent forms are worse than the aggressive forms but he said that the doctors tell him that this particular type responds very well to chemotherapy. they also say that it has a very high incidence of recurrence so after they put it into remission, chances are very good that it will come back and will be more aggressive when it does. *hold back tears* his next step is to get a full body pet scan and bone marrow biopsy done so that they can find where the cancer has already spread to around the body and what stage he’s in so that they can determine what treatment course they need to pursue. it looks like it’s such a slow-growing cancer that by the time it’s discovered, it’s usually already stage three or four because it’s been growing for years without symptoms. i think my friend is in the anger stage of grieving. he wants to know how this happened; what caused it. he told the doctor that he’s in good shape, exercises, eats right… the doctor told him cancer doesn’t care. i think he’s very upset that he couldn’t have prevented it. several years ago, he had clarks level 3 melanoma because of too much sun-worship in his youth. this is not something that he can look back at and say, “it’s because i did this…” he said that his kids are holding strong and that he’s trying to keep a positive attitude. the doctor told him that’s one of the best indicators for survival. i, myself, will continue to pray for him and tell him that he’s going to beat it.

a coworker’s son is in bad shape. we don’t have many details yet. all we know is that he was at the beach, there was some sort of an incident (if skimboarding was involved, any and all guests will be banned from having them here!), he had a fall in the ocean, and has broken three vertebrae in his neck. he is currently on a ventilator in an induced coma but the doctors are telling hs that they believe best case scenario is that he will be paralyzed from the waist down, worst case from the neck down. of course, they won’t know for sure the extent of damage until they wake him up. this boy is only 18 (maybe 19 by now) and getting really close to being a father. i cannot express how my heart is breaking right now. i hope and pray that the doctors are wrong and that he is able to make a full recovery.

update: 15:55 – hubby just spoke with hs. his son was just playing in the ocean, jumping waves, when one of them flipped him over and he landed on the ocean floor on his neck. he was instantly paralyzed (which i assume means that he was fortunate enough to have someone really close by that was able to pull him out of the water before drowning). he shattered three cervical vertebrae, including the c1 (at the very top) and c6 (which is around the region of the spinal cord that controls breathing). they are going to do surgery on wednesday to try to repair the c6 vertebra so that he can breathe on his own again. they won’t know until after that surgery how extensive the paralysis might be but they are telling hs that there is a very slim chance he will ever walk again. my heart is just full of pain on behalf of the whole family.

well half the family got in a little after lunch and the other half arrived a little after dinner time. unfortunately, my sis-n-law, who got here in the first bunch, is already just about home. not long after getting here, she got a call from her husband (the only family member that was not able to come) stating that he had broken his leg and was on his way to the emergency room. she fretted about it and fretted about it and finally got in the car and headed back north. please think happy thoughts in dw’s direction. in the meantime, the rest of us have had a very nice time. we didn’t end up going to the concert in the park gig but we did spend some time on the beach and at the pool. this is our youngest (two year old) niece’s first time at the beach so it was a momentous occasion. she isn’t taking to it quite as quickly as her sister did but she did seem to enjoy digging in the sand (as long as it didn’t get on her – ewww). i think she had a better time at the pool though. she laughed and splashed and had a great time. tomorrow should be fun for her. the mushroom fountain will be on for them to play in (it was too late this evening when we were down there). we came back up around sunset and broke out the wii. so far, the nephew, niece, and sis-n-law have created their miis and played around. i boxed the nephew and came close to beating him but alas, ran out of steam. i didn’t feel too bad though since hubby got ko’d by him in the first round. i at least made it most of the way through the second round. this is the most fun we’ve had with the wii yet. it’s great for us old folks to be able to play with the youngsters, on the same level, and have a good time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to the one who denies me. we had a wonderfully relaxing long weekend at home. i cannot even tell you how nice it is to be back. sadly, it was also a very deadly weekend in our backyard. randal was out running last night when he ran up on the police pulling in the first guy mentioned. luckily, they already had him covered so my hubby did not have to see the body but he said it was a ghastly scene, just a ten minute walk down the beach. the second mentioned guy, found sunday, was an army paratrooper who went in to rescue another swimmer. that seems so tragic to me. here’s a military kid in presumably great shape who did manage to save another man’s life but lost his own in the process. i have not found anything that details how he managed to get the other guy to safety and still get himself pulled out to sea. we were out walking saturday night while the helicopters and boats were doing a grid search for them. very sad. one more reason i don’t like to swim in the gulf/ocean. there’s dead people out there. and we all know what happens to our bodies after death. yep, that’s all out in that water. ick! i’ll stick with my pool and hot tub, thankyouverymuch. anyhow, on the less gruesome side of things, we had a great weekend and got rested up. fortunately/unfortunately we did not get any painting done. we decided to wait for the bedding to come in so that we could really decide on color. since i was watching the tracking, i’m almost certain the bedding was there sunday since it was “in transit to store” from a town less than three hours away but i called the store sunday and yesterday and they insisted that the order number was not checked in. my guess is that it was there but they didn’t bother to scan the shipment until this morning. so we’ll be going to pick the bedding up this afternoon and buy paint. there will very likely be paint on the walls tonight but you can never tell these things for sure. although i would like for the walls to be dry when the furniture gets delivered and set up thursday. call me kooky like that. really, there was no excuse for me not masking and painting the bathroom over the weekend. it’s emptied out and the paint is sitting there. i guess i just didn’t want to ruin the quality time with my hubby who i have missed oh so much this past month.

wow, been a while, eh? alright, some bits of randomness then, shall we?

• we did make our tv purchases. we ended up choosing a 50″ plasma for the living room which would not fit in the car. of course, we did not do enough up front research to know that we also could not lay it down in the car and, therefore, would have been better off with a smaller lcd for ease of transport. luckily, my hubby is a social person and when he went back into the store to re-measure the display model to see if it would fit in the car out of the box he met a man buying the same tv who happened to live a couple miles from us and had a truck but no straps. well, it just so happens that we never are without straps in our vehicle. so a deal was struck for this very kind gentleman to follow us home with our tv. we also got a 26″ lcd for our bedroom. we don’t much watch tv in our bedroom but i prefer to have a tv in there when my boy is out of town because i watch tv until i can’t keep my eyes open when i’m alone and being in bed is more conducive to that sleep behavior than having to get up from the couch and walk to bed by which time i’m awake again. insomnia sucks, ya’ll.
• i love my tvs. they are so shiny and pretty and clear. the living room requires a sound system though as the tv’s sound is insufficient and very directional.
• we had company part of last weekend. our great friends b&t and family came to visit again. they are doing vacation two beaches over this week so they came down a couple days early to stay with us. they enjoyed the entertainment system upgrades since their last visit. next time we’ll even have beds for the chilluns to sleep on. we went to play and have dinner at their rental wednesday night. tonight, we are giving them their anniversary gift by letting them drop the chilluns off for the night and then tomorrow they are headed home.
• we spent ten or eleven hours glued to the couch last sunday watching the lotr trilogy on our pretty, new tv. the rest was much needed but that is a long flippin’ trilogy.
• i got a call from my sissy last saturday letting me know that the man-child went and got himself broken at the very end of spring break. they were at the beach (apparently our beach is too far, how rude!) and the boys had just gotten a skim board and poor man-child wiped out and broke both bones in his arm and had to have surgery to pin him back together. they were on the way back from the beach hospital when she called and he was in the back of the van half asleep and drooling from the pain meds. my poor nephew. it’s been a rough and painful week for him with no guitar hero. i just want to hug him and squeeze him and take away his pain.
• we’re trying really hard to get down to orlando before the end of the month because it’s been like forever since we visited and i miss my friends and family and need to hug my little man-child ferociously. unfortunately, one of us has been working rediculously crazy hours lately and has to go out of town on a moments’ notice so it’s really hard to schedule a non-work trip.
• we got a wii! well, my mil got it for us because we have had no luck finding any. we got close the other day when we saw a man purchasing one in a store and he informed us there was another one back there but by the time we made it to the electronics department, it was gone. so next time we go to al, we’ll have a wii. in case we find one before then, in which case we’ll have a wii for sale!

please say a prayer for gma h. we got a call this morning that she somehow fell out of her wheelchair and broke her femur. they took her into surgery this afternoon to put pins in, which worried us quite a bit since she is ninety-seven years old. they ended up putting screws in her hip and knee and a steel rod along her entire femur. she made it through the surgery fine (what a blessing!) and is in recovery. we are waiting to hear when she is awake again. i’m sure it’ll be a difficult recovery at her age so all the prayers she can get will surely help. all of that aside, we have been having fun here with our friends. we spent most of the day yesterday on the beach. it was a beautiful day. one of those rare days when you can actually sit in the sun and not sweat to death. there was frisbee-throwing and football-throwing and hole-digging and castle-building and beach-running and sun-napping. we then went and swam around the pool for a while and warmed up in the hot tub before coming back up for dinner. before i had dinner done, the kids and jeremy were asleep on the couch. one of the girls’ head kept falling on the table all through dinner. they were more than happy to go to bed at an early hour. us adults managed to stay awake until 21:00 before happily dragging ourselves to bed. speaking of bed, i am so far very pleased with my latex mattress. friday night, we only ended up with three hours of sleep so that wasn’t the best to judge by, but last night was very comfortable. after a night and a half of sleeping on it, i have not had any shoulder aches or body parts falling asleep. see, i’m a side sleeper so i have a terrible time with my shoulders and hips hurting and having to flip to the other side every twenty minutes until that one starts hurting too. that’s where a lot of my tossing and turning comes from. as an extension of that, my arms and hands and legs will fall asleep on me. that’s a big part of the reason i was adamently against getting an inner-spring matress. the latex, like the visco foam, is supposed to virtually eliminate pressure points. so far, it seems to be doing the trick. it comes with a thirty-day trial period so i’ve got that long to decide whether it’s going to work out. my next priority purchase is going to be curtains. until i have curtains, there’s really no way to know for sure whether i’m sleeping well in the morning. enough of that, a rainy afternoon at the beach means we’re all headed to dinner and the movies. i don’t know why they don’t want to watch a movie on our 20″ tv.