I Think I've Reached My Limit....

TOO. MUCH. STRESS.

Shecky got his progress reports with his mid-grading period marks. His morning classes? AWESOME. All A's. His afternoon classes? Yeah... not so good. 2 C's and B. His teacher has requested that I call her. Lovely. I'm not sure what's going on with him. He's got attitude. He's not listening AT ALL. His grades are slipping and I truly am beside myself wondering what the hell to do at this point.

In mid-stream dealing with all that... Husband calls... His mother has been rushed to an ER in another part of the state with what the SUSPECT is a heart attack. We just SAW her this past weekend. She seemed off but there's a lot of stress going on for her and I just figured that was to blame.

Shit.

Then, my all knowing father decides, TONIGHT, AT SHECKY'S FRIGGIN BEDTIME, that he's to old to need the lamp that he keeps on while he goes to sleep. WTF BBQ? Give me a fekking break! Shecky, of course, melted down in a big way and I ended up staying upstairs with him, on my bed, until he fell asleep. Now, Shecky is sleeping on my king sized bed and I'll be sleeping on a wing back chair.

God... I better loose this week or SOMEONE is getting hurt.

Rest In Peace

Ella Mae Menard, my last grandparent, passed away this morning at 6:25 AM. I don't know what the official papers will say her cause of death was. I know that she died of a broken heart.

My grandmother has had medical problems for years but she didn't begin the long, slow slide to the end until my grandfather passed away on December 18, 2006. Almost one year to the day of his admission to the hospital Grandma was first admitted to Christus St. John's Hospital. She was admitted again the end of December 2007 and spent her last birthday in her hospital room.

Today she lost her fight. She went peacefully. Her passing was restful and quiet, filled with the dignity and peace she always tried to conduct herself with in life.

She was a strong woman in all the ways that counted... and in some that were annoying to those that loved her most. (She and I butted heads many times over the years. My hard headedness came, in a large part, from her. I was the grandchild that... errr... challenged her the most. Heh)

She was a good wife and mother. She was a great grandparent. She was a better person.

She wasn't perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she tried so hard to do the right things for those she loved.

We'll all miss you Grandma. Rest easy now. Give Grandpa a hug for me when you see him again.

Ella Mae Menard

December 25, 1922 - March 14, 2008

It's The End Of The World As We Know It...

... But I don't feel fine...

I have a situation that I'm not sure how to address.

I've mentioned Shecky's Godfather before, Unca B. I failed to mention that he has something called Wegner's Granulatomasis Vasculitis. It's bad. It's difficult. It's... well, basically it's killing him. It's attacked his kidneys, his sinuses and now its begun an assault on his lungs. He has nodules and scarring and is now exhibiting pleuresy like symptoms... only... not pleuresy. Last Tuesday he wound up in the ER unable to breathe. Tonight on the phone he sounded like ass. Warmed Over Ass, to be precise. I thought he was tired... but no... he's having problems breathing.

I have to tell you, I love this man with every piece of my being. I have for a long time. He's my best friend, my biggest support and the first one to call bullshit on me when its needed. I'm scared taht he's dying. No, I KNOW he's dying. I'm scared that its happening WAY faster than I'm ready for. I'm not sure how to deal with that.

That's not really the problem. Shecky LOVES Unca B. Like, HERO WORSHIPS the man. How do I explain it all to him? or... Do I at all? Do I just tell him he's sick and leave it at that? Do I say nothing and when the end comes just tell him he's gone? Can I just leave the child a note? Yeah, I know... Bad Mommy. I'm just at a complete loss on this one. Dealing with my own feelings about his illness is impossible... How do I do it for him?

Too Blessed To Be Stressed...

Ummm Not so much. 4:30am we were awakened by a call from my Nanny Deb. My grandmother lives with her. Grandma was having problems. Her blood pressure was 197/102 and her Oxygen level was only 85%. That's really high and really low for those that don't know. Nanny Deb wanted to take her to the ER. Grandma said she just wanted to be left alone to die. In the end, my cousin Jody convinced her to go to the ER by explaining that she wasn't DYING, per se, but that she'd likely have a stroke with her Blood Pressure being so high and wouldn't THAT just make the quality of her life SO much better? (GO JODY!!!)

She's been in the ER at the hospital since shortly after 7:00AM. We were told she'd been moved to the ICU... only... she's STILL in the fricking ER waiting on a bed to free up in ICU.

They've given her some nitre glycerin and her blood pressure is better. They're still admitting her though.

The kicker, my friends, is that today is the one year anniversary of my grandfather, her husband, passing away. Mom had planned to go to the cemetery and visit Grandpa. She didn't get to go. She felt like she needed to stay close to home in case they needed her for something.

As horrible as this is going to make me sound, I wonder how much of Grandma's health crisis today is due to it being the anniversary of his death. How much of it was her wanting to die because its the day he died and how much of it was her wanting the focus of today to be on her. (You would have to really know my grandmother to understand why I would even THINK this.) I feel like a really shitty person for wondering those things, but, I do wonder them.

Mom feels like she was robbed of the opportunity to reflect on her father's life and passing today. She feels like, this day, of all days, should have been about him. Yet, she's forced to put her focus elsewhere. I agree with her, but again, I have to wonder if it was horrible that it turned out the way it did. The focus of today became the living, not the dead. I'm not so sure that's such a horrible way to mark the passing of a man we all loved and miss.

Maybe, I'm just thinking too much....

Updates and Apologies

Apologies:

So, SO sorry I've been so absent post wise lately. Life has been completely crazy lately.

Updates:

My grandmother is home and doing... ok. She's having a rough time and we're thinking some of her meds aren't properly managing some of the health issues but we're waiting and giving it a lil more time.

My Father In Law is now in the hospital. He had knee surgery replacement on both knees recently and he's thrown some clots into his lungs. He's recovering and will be on a cumin regimen for the next 6 or so months to make sure the problem doesn't recur.

Husband's Grandmother was taken to the ER today. She fell and scraped the hell out of her arm. The probably wouldn't have bothered with the ER except she started having dizzy spells and threw up something... well.. black. The Dr's didn't admit her but sent her home with medications for dizziness and nausea and instructions to see her regular physician.... WTF???

I spent today wrapping gifts. I'm DONE. Whew! I have ONE MORE gift to purchase. Bleh.

I have lost 7.2 lbs in the last 2 weeks. I have lost a total of 62 lbs since mid July. I am 1.3 lbs from being below 400 lbs. Holy Hells!

Query:

Teachers and gift certificates for a restaurant ... your thoughts?

Cute Shecky Story:

My child now plays basketball. At the first practice, I observed him picking on a child on his team that has Down's Syndrome. Its not anything he wouldn't have done to pick on any other child but I lost it. I called him offa the court in the MIDDLE of practice. He walked off the court. The coach said, "WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?" My child, bless his bones, replied, "MY MOMMAH HOLLERED FOR ME TO COME TO HER!" EVERYONE heard. EVERYONE laughed. I... wanted... to... die. lol. At least he's trained well.

Short and Sweet

I've been sick all day. Fighting Nausea. Feeling like HELL. Doing a bit better now but you'll get nothing of substance from me today! No, I'm NOT pregnant. Don't even think it! I've been attacked by some sort of stomach bug.

Had a huge assed sugar crash today. Blood Sugar was at 52. Ate a brownie. Counted the points. Still have 7 left for the day. Still scared to eat. Meh.

Happy Frickin' Friday.

Health... Stuffs

I went to the doctor today as planned. It was a new doctor that I'd never seen for my chronic conditions (diabetes, high blood pressure, PCOS, gastroparesis blah blah blah). She read my chart and was prepared, which was a nice surprise. She was very frank about my size. I actually APPRECIATED that more than she'll know. Most doctors I've been to try to act like its not an issue. HELLO! I have mirrors in my house. Not really any way to escape the fact that I'm YOOGE. :rolls eyes:

Anyway, we talked about the increase in pain and the stomach issues in depth. She's fairly sure its not anything super serious and that adding another medication to my regimen will alleviate the "waste elimination" problem. The SAME medication is also used to treat Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and diabetes. You may ask WHY I wasn't put on this medication previously. Well, I was, actually. I took it for 3 years at the maximum dose and had a lot of problems with it. I had the runs for 3 years. SOOOOOOOO not pleasant. This, however, is the reason she wants to put me back on it. Irony, I am your bitch.

I've taken the new medication twice today, as prescribed, and I'm actually feeling quite a bit better. The bloaty feeling and the pain are almost gone and the "waste elimination" issue is better thus far. I have to go see the doctor again in 3 weeks. She's hoping this medication will help the PCOS and kick start my weight loss as well.

We also discussed my lack of success with WW and the dreaded 44 points. She was SHOCKED that they (WW) keep insisting that I eat that many points. She wants me to drop down to 34 points a day and see how that works over the next 3 weeks.

She has forbidden me to exercise unless its in a pool or some other large body of water. I may have to join the gym for this and since money doesn't grow on trees (And we're about to move from one apartment complex to another which is NOT an inexpensive proposition) it may have to wait a lil while before I can afford the gym.

3 weeks, 21 days, seems to be the magic number here. I'm pinning a lot of hopes on this medication doing what she thinks its going to. If it doesn't I have a lot of research and thinking to do. The doctor is afraid that if the Metformin doesn't do it's thing, along with the reduced points intake, that my only hope for loosing weight will be a gastric bypass. Not because I don't have the willpower to make WW work, but because my lack of physical activity is preventing the weight loss and without loosing weight increasing my physical activity is virtually impossible. I think all the going in circles just made me dizzy... whew.

Yeah... I'm freaking out a bit. I really do NOT want that surgery. I've been fighting against it for a long time when any number of people have suggested it as an alternative for me. The potential for death with this surgery scares the crap out of me. However, I'm beginning to fear that the potential for that being my outcome WITHOUT the surgery is starting to overtake the odds of it WITH the surgery. I'm just gonna go curl up in the corner for a while and quietly have a nervous break down....

UPDATE: My health insurance won't cover the gastric bypass. Lovely, yes? ::groan::

Call the CDC!!!

Germ Warfare has begun! Yesterday, was a disaster. I went to work, clocked in, took a few phone calls, was REALLY bored and didn't wanna be there. Around ohhhh... Noon I got a phone call at the main switchboard. I was, of course, on one of the few calls I had taken for the day so they paged me over the intercom. Lovely. I knew it had to be the school and immediately said, out loud like a dip, "Well THIS can't be good..." The caller said, "What???" as I threw them on hold and called the switchboard. Sure enough, it was the school nurse calling. I finished up my call and had them transfer Nurse Judy to me. Shecky had gone to the nurse in the morning with a headache. She let him sleep for about an hour then sent him to lunch. After lunch he decided to hurl the contents of his stomach into a trash can... Twice. She assured me he wasn't running fever but I KNEW the daycare wouldn't want him there if he was impersonating "Chuck". NORMAL people would be able to handle this with aplomb. Me, I was like, CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP! R. was an hour away from where I work (and hour and a half from the school) on an installation job. Since we only have one car and I can't drive it was on HIM to come get me and Shecky, take us home and possibly go BACK to the job he wasn't quite finished with. We were finally able to pick him up from the Nurse's office at 2pm. We stopped for some Gatorade, Saltines and Sprite and went home.

The poor kid was like a piece of overcooked pasta. He was limp. His legs were rubbery. He kept saying things like, "When I stand up I feel like my legs don't work" and "My eyes keep crying but I'm not sad." I kept trying to baby him. I offered my lap to him. Usually, when sick, he wants Mama and no one else. This time... not so much. He just wanted to lay in the oversize chair and stare at the TV. NOTHING makes me feel worse than being unable to make him feel better. NOTHING. Usually I can joke with him until he's happy or be goofy enough to take his mind off of feeling bad. Not this time. I felt his forehead and he was BURNING UP! I cursed the school nurse, called R. and requested a thermometer and Children's Ibuprofen be brought home when he headed this way. He finally, bless his heart, got home around 8:45pm. (His 8 hours were up at 4:15pm.) Temp was 100.7 and he was sleeping soundly on the chair curled up with Mei-Mei. We semi-woke him, gave him the medicine and took him to bed.

We watched a RIDICULOUSLY stoopid movie, American Pie: The Naked Mile. It was mindless and retarded and made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to wake my drugged child. I finally went to bed at 1:30am and... couldn't sleep. I had checked on Shecky before going to bed but the fever was bothering me. He was sleeping VERY deeply and, like a dork, I took that as a sign that the fever was effecting him much more than it actually was. I woke R up from a dead sleep and made him bring Shecky into bed with us. I was finally able to sleep but I woke periodically to poke The Boy and make sure he was still conscious and hadn't lapsed into a coma from his 100.7 fever. ::rolls eyes:: What an Amature! heh