Taking the Scenic Route

I was down for the count for a good week.  Fever, chills, massive sinus and chest cold, but thankfully no gastro issues.  Doing the low carb thing meant that my usual sickness stand by, chicken noodle soup, was out, so I was in search of something with a similar feel that would be healing.

I ended up taking some chicken/bone broth, a bunch of frozen chopped spinach, several cloves of garlic, then streaming in some eggs at the last minute for some awesome egg drop soup.  This, along with lots of hot tea, an avocodo and some oranges became my menu for the week.  It was a good choice.

I feel much better now.  I do have a lingering cough, but from my understanding it may hang around for a good month or two if it follows the trend of everybody else who got knocked over with this bug.  Last night was my first night back in bed with the rest of the crew and I didn’t have any coughing fits, so I think I am on the mend.

So far, Zach hasn’t gotten sick at all.  Zane was sick the day before I was, never had a fever, and was better in two days.  Zora started coughing earlier this week, but hasn’t progressed to a fever, so she might luck out too.  I am SO glad that it hit me harder than the kids.

Our external hard drive, where we store ALL of our pictures (and the scrapbook pages I have spent hours on) and all of our videos, including heirloom pictures that we scanned in and no longer have access too, FAILED. It is a mechanical issue. (most likely a spindle motor failure…sad thing is, the very first Google result when you type in the problem is our exact drive.) The data is most likely still there, but it costs between $1200 – $2500 to recover it and nobody does it locally. The cheapest we have found so far is a place where we would pay to send the drive to them for them to diagnose how much it will be and charge us $65 just to tell us what the total bill would be.

Zach has been looking for a way to fix it, but so far, it looks like it requires a clean room/anti-static room to work on it, so it probably isn’t something we can do ourselves, especially since the data is so precious to us.

I have been sick for days. My fever returned about an hour ago, which means that my once a month, MUCH needed mom’s night out (autism support group meeting) is out. I haven’t been able to go to the gym for over 2 weeks now due to illness. We have no insurance (for the adults) since dh lost his job. We have very little money.

I am so sad. There are are around 15,000 pictures on there, not including the scanned photos, videos, and scrapbook pages.

I know there are worse things, but this sucks.

Any advice on data recovery related stuff would be welcome.

I can’t believe I am even posting a picture today because I look as rotten as I have looked in a long time. I have an excuse though. My mom came up today (thank you mom) so I could have a driver, so that I could Valium. I started my day at 7:30 this morning with scaling and planing 3/4 of my mouth, with Valium on board and many shots (I am really hard to numb and have always had really sensitive teeth).

After that, I took a break to go to the dermatologist. There I found out that my feet thing is mostly likely Schamberg’s disease, which basically just means I have hyperpigmentation on my feet, like my dad and his mom. Lucky me. (it doesn’t hurt or itch, it is just embarrassing) I also found out my mole/brown spots are not cancerous, but I will probably keep getting more as I age (yay me) and had the giant witch’s mole in the middle of my nose taken off, along with a skin tag that grew a skin tag near my eye. Both required MORE shots to do, and I gotta tell you, a few shots in your nose would have been the suckiest thing I have experienced, had it not been for the rest of the day. She took as many skin tags off of my eyelids as I could handle…those are without any anesthesia because it would have cause my eyes to swell shut and bruise horribly. I got the major ones that cause me issues.

Then a few minutes to try and spoon a little soup into my mouth. I only had the lower left corner with any feeling, so it was a messy proposition. Even mom couldn’t keep from giggling when I had to use my fingers to help my lips make a seal around the straw to take some more Valium.

Then back to the dentist for the true marathon. I was in the chair for three hours, getting fillings. I have a serious problem with both scraping sounds and the sound of the drill, which is a big part of why I needed Valium, but I also combatted it by cranking up my Mp3 player loud enough to compete with the drill. (the assistant told me she liked my music afterward. lol)

As I have said before, it is really hard to get me numb enough, and I stopped counting the shots somewhere around 15…there had to be at least 2 dozen by the end of the day, counting everything. I was SO THANKFUL to be taken seriously. I have had dentist not believe that I could feel anything and keep going, which is why I developed such a dental phobia. He was awesome. His staff was awesome. They did such a good job on matching the color that if I didn’t know where every cavity was (due to photoshopping my teeth in pictures that I like, but are ruined by my ugly teeth), I would never be able to see it wasn’t my natural tooth. I literally cried when I saw my teeth in the mirror at the end. (granted, I had to use my fingers to get my lips out of the way. lol).

Then I finished my marathon by having that last quarter of my mouth numbed to do the planing and scaling on them. I used up the last of the Flexible Spending Plan, and maxed out my dental insurance, but I am so thankful that I could get it done and that the office worked with me to get it accomplished in one swoop, and before the end of January when both the insurance and the Flex Spending runs out for us.

I also got some heavy duty pain meds, and they are kicking in now. I still have one numb spot, probably the nerve to my front upper tooth, and now that the shots have mostly worn off, I can tell something got hit in my nose and it hurts and is causing my nose to run almost uncontrollably. It is still worth it though.

So, here is the horrible picture of me, right after I got home and Zora asked what was wrong with my face. I am trying to smile, but I am numb from my lower eyelids to my throat and, in person, look like one of those people who are addicted to plastic surgery with duck lips and too high, too big of cheek implants. I iced my face for a few minutes, then I went to bed and slept for about 5 hours after this photo.

Although I didn’t hit the goal I was wanting to (to be under 200lbs), I did hit a milestone today at a 50lb loss, but more importantly, I got a phone call from my Dr. My A1C levels came back at a 5.2! (“normal” is 6ish, and higher being pre-diabetes, then higher yet is diabetes.). That means I am doing a lot better at controlling it (I am not on insulin, and don’t have problems with hypoglycemia at this point, which can lower the number in a “bad” way). My blood pressure is good (not fabulous, but good), and although my cholesterol is within normal range, my HDL (the good one) is too low of a percentage, so I need to address that now too. However, it is likely that if I keep exercising and sticking to the new eating habits, it should shift into a more healthy balance. My cholesterol level isn’t severe enough to be medicated, just monitored at this point. (however, at this point I am staying on the metformin, which helps with the PCOS)

So, today I got the gift of empowerment. Feeling like my efforts are finally starting to pay off. It feels damn good.

The very end of August both kids got sick with fevers the weekend before school started. A few days into school it looked like Zora had a bunch of bug bites on her elbow, and after seeing some of the parent’s reaction, I decided to take her to the doctor just to make sure it wasn’t chicken pox. Well, the doctor thought it was chicken pox, so Zora’s second day of school and the whole next week was cancelled. It never got any worse than the day I took her to the doctor (it was itching her like crazy that day) and, honestly, didn’t really look like chicken pox to me. Zane had one spot on his back that looked similar. By the time we got the word from the doctor, both kids were feeling better so staying at home was pretty much torture because neither of the kids felt bad. Zane is happy staying home, but Zora was ready to lose it after a day of not leaving the house.

We will still get the titers checked when they hit puberty to make sure they have an immunity to chicken pox before they start hitting the period where it can be more serious (in a kid, it isn’t usually bad, but it is pretty awful as an adult) to know whether they will need a vax for it. I hope it was CP since it was such a PITA for us, but I am not convinced it was.

Zach refuses to take meds for anxiety, which sort of drive me crazy (ironic, isn’t it), but I understand and support him. After much discussion, we have decided we are going to make a concerted effort to exercise more, including Yoga & Tai Chi type things, and start practicing meditation.

By “coincidence” (I don’t believe in coincidence) there was a show on one of the science channels about a mummy found, that talked at length about Buddhist monks and their mediation practices (the mummy was a monk), and showed the scientific evaluation of how meditation helped control breathing, heart rate, etc. and how dramatically it could help. That sparked a search for a local place to meditate at, which lead me to the discovery of several places in town. However, all of them were strongly Buddhist (and I think one was Hindu) and we aren’t comfortable with that. We both appreciate Buddhist thought, but it is because there are a lot of parallels to Christianity that we find inspiring, but we aren’t Buddhist. We are Christian.

I have always thought of meditation as a form of prayer, and I don’t feel comfortable praying to anybody except God. There are a lot of calls to meditate in the bible (“Be still and know that I am God” is one that comes to mind first, and Jesus’ going off to a quiet place to pray at length is another). After some more searching, I found two websites that offered Christian meditation information/education. Christian Meditation and World Community for Christian Meditation. The latter appealed to me more, but the first one seemed a little more like “Christian Meditation for the Clueless”, which we are right now. I know you don’t need anything to meditate, but I thought the more guided meditation would be a good set of training wheels while we learn how to do this, how to quiet our thoughts better. I can do it in short bursts, but not for an extended period of time, at least not without my thought going all over the place. The closest I get is when I zone out during knitting. So, we got some of the mp3 downloads from the first site and are trying that. (some of the downloads are bordering on offensive to me, but most of them look good. I guess I will find out. lol)

I also found this cool Yoga-type video that I want. It is called “Yoga Prayer” and the following line in the description caught my attention: Ryan seamlessly harmonizes prayers like Psalm 84, the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis, and the Beatitudes with vitalizing yoga postures to create a uniquely powerful spiritual practice. (IMO, the Beatitudes are among the most important passage of the bible, and the Prayer of St Francis is one of my favorite writings ever). I had just gotten “Yoga for Inflexible People”, so I will do that for a while until I get a little more physically able to do the stretches (I can’t even touch my toes right now, so a lot of the stuff is just so far beyond me at this point there really isn’t any point until I get into better shape), but this is on my “list of things to get” when I am ready for it. I saw some other aerobics tapes “for Christians”, but many of them look too dorky for words, and this is coming from somebody who actually bought a Richard Simmons tape along with the Yoga..inflexible tape. lol.

But I am back. I don’t really know why I took such a long break (the 300 bot comments weren’t helping, but that seems to have stopped), but I know that I have stories spilling out again, including some dramatics around here the last week.

The biggest “news” in our personal lives is that Zach has been recovering from a heart catherization (sp?) the last week. (where they cut into your femoral artery and thread something up to your heart, shoot dye in, and look at how your heart is functioning). It was a very bad day, but first, I will tell you the outcome….Zach’s heart is fine. Great in fact. A “runner’s heart”.

It all started last Tuesday. Zach works in one of the only skyscrapers in Wichita, and the elevators went out. So, after lunch, he had to climb a bunch of floors in a stairwell that rarely sees any action. By the time he got to his floor, he was nauseous, dizzy, totally out of breath, and his arm was tingling. He isn’t in top notch shape, but he sure should have been able to handle that under normal circumstances. However, we think that it might have been the fact the stairwell isn’t well ventilated (in retrospect), combined with constant reminders from people that both of his parents had heart attacks and “you have to start taking care of yourself or you’re going to die of a heart attack”, combined with his dad dying last fall (and the million and one times he heard “if he had only gone to see a doctor when he started having symptoms) that made him super, hyper aware of how horrible he felt when he reached his floor. He started looking for some aspirin (we have it at home, but hadn’t thought to take some to work), but when he couldn’t find any, he decided to come home. I told him to go to the hospital instead if he was feeling like that, but he didn’t.

When he got home, I loaded everyone up and took him to the nearby heart hospital. They admitted him immediately, gave him nitro, and I called Robert’s wife (Robert was at work) and asked if she could watch the kids. Thankfully, she didn’t hesitate even a moment, and I took the kids to her house. My diaper bag, usually kept in the car, was in the house waiting to be restocked, so I only had the two emergency diapers in my purse to drop off. She was nice enough to make sure I knew that it was ok, and I went back to Zach.

They tried to do some other tests, but they required his heart rate to get below 60, and he couldn’t do it. He was also having a rough time getting his blood pressure down. He hates doctors and hospitals and was stressed just to be there. Because they weren’t able to get those tests, and because of his family history, they wanted to do a heart cath. Zach said it didn’t hurt at all, until they put the star closure on it (they had to push to clamp it/close it) and the recovery was a lot worse than anything that happened in the actual hospital. I held it together until I had to try and talk on the phone, as soon as I had to say anything, I would just start blubbering uncontrollably. I was actually ok until he was doing the actual procedure and then the reality of the possibilities started to hit me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to walk away a widow by the end of the night. I was scared. When he went in, I didn’t know if he would be cleared (what happened, but not expected), or if he was going to have some shunts put in (what we expected) or whether it was serious enough to have him in bypass surgery within the hour (possible, but unlikely given his age).

Thankfully, VERY thankfully, after the procedure and a few hours in recovery, we went home that evening, a little worse for the wear. The recovery has actually been the hardest part because he is really sore, largely from the bruising of putting the closure on (they used a fairly new closure system, called a Star Close or something like that). He is on lifting restrictions, for 5 days, 7 days, or 14 days, depending on which part of the paperwork you believe. lol. Five days felt really unrealistic, 7 days passed and he felt a lot better, but we will probably be pretty careful for the 14 days. However, after driving him to and from work every day to carry his 10-ish pound computer briefcase, he decided that he felt better enough to drive himself today and carry his own brief case the short distance. He also said this morning that he thought he would sleep with the rest of us tonight (down the stairs, which he hasn’t been doing either), so I think we are at the end of the “recovery” period.

I’ll finish this post right now, but I will continue it with some of the changes this has been a catalyst for in another post.

Zane developed a lacy rash today, along with the red cheeks & ears, and the gastric symptoms. We sort of freaked out at first, but it looks like it is just something annoying most of the time. Zora has sort of pinkish cheeks now too and has had some of the gastric symptoms too…I now suspect she might get a little worse before getting better too. Yuck.

This is the 3rd day in a row we have had to wash all of our bedding.

Everybody in the family seemed to get worse over the weekend, and by Monday, Zach was in the doctor’s office because he was actually getting dizzy. They didn’t have any more appointments available on Monday, so the kids and I went on Tuesday (today). Both of the kids have double ear infections, and both of the grown-ups have a sinus infection. Yeah us. We have had mild colds for weeks and weeks now, waxing and waning, but never getting totally better. Now we have antibiotics, so maybe we can finally nail this thing. Obviously, our bodies weren’t getting it taken care of without help, but I HATE taking antibiotics.

I know it doesn’t really matter, in comparision to getting everybody healthy, but dang, the hit to the pocket book with four copays, four Rx’s, and some over the counter expectorant & pain meds, besides the Metformin, Allergy meds (for me and the kids) and other various medical stuff, it just sucking away the paycheck. We have a well stocked pantry, and still have enough to get some basics, but it will be a real squeeze to get everybody fed reasonably healthy until payday. This is so frustrating. We aren’t dirt poor any more, but we are still always broke. We are behind on therapy bills again too. ugh.

Before we knew we were all going to be sick, we had to go get a new video card for my dinosaur of a computer because the old one fried. It wasn’t much, but now I am wishing we could have held out another week. Of course, it is a lot cheaper to be married to somebody who can weasle the last breath out of a computer in the long run.

Well, that was depressing, let’s end on a happy note. Pictures!

I have no idea how Zora managed to do this without Zane throwing a huge fit, but I have a feeling if he would have known what she was doing, it wouldn’t have happened.

On Friday, Zach and I went out on a date. For the first time EVER, Zora let me braid her hair as we waited for “Opa” (try as we might, we can not get her to call my Mom “Oma”. Instead, both she and dad are both “Opa”, and she refers to them as “the two Opas”.) She wanted the bows and butterfly hair clip added so she could be “toot” (cute) lol

That was the date that signalled “something is wrong” for us. We went to see “Quantum of Solace” and ended up having to leave because the movie was making us dizzy and motion sick. We felt old. lol. We have replacement tickets though, so we will try again when we are feeling better.

One last happy thought. Today when I was helping Zora buckle her shows, I asked “Are you my princess?” She said “No! I Zora!”. cute kid.

Nothing super dramatic, but I am so annoyed with how today started.  We had such a good day yesterday and I was not expecting this.

Woke up at 9, a bit late.  We are supposed to go to ST at 10.  (I canceled it.  I just can not do it today) In the first place, I couldn’t believe that Zane was still asleep because he almost never sleeps 12 hours.  What I REALLY couldn’t believe is that Zora was still asleep.   Not only did she not wake us all up this morning at the crack of dawn, but she slept through me bugging Zane until he dragged himself out of bed, complaining, and up to the couch upstairs.  I heard her cry for about 30 seconds and expected her to appear up here, but then she stopped.  She fell back asleep on the bottom step.

*TMI warning*  Add to that, it is day 2 of my cycle and I feel like somebody is stabbing me repeatedly.  It is so bad it hurts to breathe and walk.  I also discovered that I am out of Ibuprofin and had to take regular Bayer asprin, which doesn’t really nail it.  I gotta tell ya, I saw some stronger stuff in the cabinet and that is just really tempting right now.  If I didn’t have to stay awake and be a parent, I would have downed that in a New York Minute.  (seriously missing the “old days” where Zach worked from home and I could crawl back in bed on these kinds of days)  The only good thing is that, as horrible as my pain is, at least it is happening on day 2 and not 2 days before my cycle.  Just “normal” really bad, not “Endo” really bad.  I wonder if PCOS has bad cramps associated with it during the cycle.  Dude, I just want to curl in a ball and cry right now.

Oh, and it’s raining.  A cold, dark rain. 

If you remember, our car doesn’t have door seals any more and since it has been raining for two days now that means that all the seats are probably soaked and I would have to take out plastic bags and towels to keep all of us from getting wet when we sit down. I just can’t deal today.

Maybe later I can post yesterday’s pictures.  Besides the normal stuff, it was cool enough that I can have the oven going more so I made some homemade rolls to go with the pot roast and roasted veggies.  The kids were thrilled to help, although Zane was hoping it was cookies and a little dissapointed it was only bread.  lol.