Today

To what we call today, that is what I've decided to write about. What did I do today? First off, I woke up around three a.m. for the bathroom and was up for a while. Don't ask me why but I decided to eat breakfast then. Yes, at three a.m. And what did I eat? A bowl of my freshly made veggie beef soup.

Then back to sleep after being up, eating, and reading for a bit. I slept until almost 8:30 a.m. I was up to feed the cat, go to the bathroom, and then back to bed to read. I fell asleep again and woke up around 11 which was just in time for my alarm. Well, I had twenty minutes to spare with the alarm so I was doing well.

Shower and coiffing and then some online time before I left to go to my parents' house for lunch. I managed to cut myself in the shower while shaving my legs in the same place I always cut myself. This led to major bloodletting and a nasty looking cut on the back of my right ankle.

I drove to the grocery store to pick up some already barbecued chicken and fruit for the luncheon with my parents. I arrived at their house on time. I could notice that my left arm was weaker than my right as I was helping out by shucking the corn. I could also feel a visible weakness in my back and a slower walking rhythm. I was still tired after we ate and I realized that I had forgotten to take my morning meds cocktail. I also don't take Provigil during the summer so I sleep a lot. I wanted to lie down over there but I didn't have my C-PAP so there wasn't an afternoon nap.

I had a nice visit and I was hoping for a phone call from my brother in Germany as he usually calls my parents then. No dice today though.

I drove back home and read and tried to sleep. It was too late for a nap according to my body clock so I am now looking forward to an early bedtime. I go to see the neurologist on Tuesday and I know he will not be happy with my weight and lack of concerted exercise. I imagine we'll talk about finishing the school year out for the last two months and my plan for the new year starting in September (the day after Labor Day is when we officially start working). I'll mention my tiredness and my walking which is soooooooo slow compared to everyone else, and my bowel and bladder urgency. When I have to go, I HAVE to go right then. Sometimes it just comes upon me likethisfast and I have to go within seconds or I will have an accident.

Yes, I have had accidents. That's embarrassing to put out there but it's true. There have also been times when I have been at work or out and have almost had accidents, too. My shrink has suggested using "products" to deal with this but for now I can usually get to a bathroom in time when the feeling comes on me. I just have to monitor how much I eat or drink at certain times. You'd think I'd lose weight with this kind of program. Plus, being 38 and dragging my cart around at Wal-Mart with a giant bag of "products" in it is not cool when you run into your 10 and 11 year old students.

So that's my life today, totally in the present. Could be better, could be a lot worse.

Welcome back dear readers

Wow, it has been a long time since I've been back here, over a week. It's good to have something positive to write about on a day when the sun is actually out and shining where I live.

My dad finally came home from the hospital yesterday afternoon after two and a half weeks of being a patient. He has gained 35, yes you read that correctly - 35, pounds of fluid from his hospitalization so his clothes don't fit right now either.

{As a complete and selfish aside, I wore PIP (pants in public) the other day and they fit me. Must be using the Wii fit is shaking off some of my fatness.}

Dad now has to wear a special vest 24/7 for three months. It has something to do with measuring the electrical conduction of his heart. He was going to have a defibrillator put in earlier this week but the doctors were in disagreement over whether he truly needed it. Instead of getting that done he has the vest which apparently beeps all night according to my mother.

My brother is still home on his emergency leave (instead of going to Australia he came home) and he is a big help to my mom. My dad has a hard time walking because of all of the fluid and being in a hospital bed for more than half a month so my brother can help out with things like taking him to the doctors' appointments that he has tomorrow. My brother is home until his birthday (2/13) and then he goes back to Iraq.

My sister left on Tuesday morning and is back at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. Her unit is returning today from Kuwait after being in Iraq for 15 months. I believe her next stop will eventually be for captain school in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri in April.

My brother is officially a Sgt. now as of 2/1 so I am proud of him for that. I feel bad that he lost his R&R to Australia but I am glad that he is home to help out with dad. I will go over now and then but I am not really tall enough for Dad to lean on at my meager height of about 5 feet. My mom is about 5'6'' and my brother is 6'1'' so they are more in line with the height of my dad.

Hopefully he will stay off the cigarettes as he can't drive for four weeks so he'll have no real escape unless someone picks him up and drops him off somewhere. I suspect he'll stay close to home due to feeling uncomfortable due to all the fluid and being unsteady on his feet. He is now on a diuretic so get out of his way when he has to go!

I'm back at physical therapy and riding the bike each time to warm up. It's rather pathetic because I am so short and have such a round stomach. I'm pretty much too short for the bike and my knees are riding up high when I try to pedal. I don't pedal in a super smooth motion but it's getting better.

I am also trying to play my Wii fit at home. However, I have been a little overzealous on that and seemed to have bothered a nerve of mine that runs from my right foot up through my right buttock. I generally do the aerobic and balance games. I do the running but it's more of a combo of a slow jog and a fast walk, the hula hooping, the slalom skiing, and the penguin one where you're trying to catch fish. I try so hard on the ski jump and it never shows me taking off even though I am squatting down and then go up on my tip toes (and no I do NOT jump on the board). The stupid ski jump always says I extended too late no matter how early or how low to high I move on the jump. Grrr....

It could always be much worse. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and emails.

New stuff, finally

Sorry that there hasn't been much to read on here for a whole week. I have started to do some free writing on the computer that is saved separately from this blog to try and get some really personal issues out. What follows is part of that, but it's mostly about food and pants after a bit of serious thinking.


How do you feel growing up never being trusted, being made fun of, doing all the wrong things, desperately wanting to be loved and yet ignored except as a servant girl? Maybe you don’t. Maybe that’s why I’m so small and so big at the same time. Maybe God made me small so there would eventually be a tipping point where I couldn’t be filled with hatred and anger and sadness and fear and depression anymore. Instead I grew bigger and wider, holding all those things in.

I’ve been to the grocery store and purchased some foods that are not on my Special K list and we’ll see if I can eat them in moderation. There is always tomorrow, there can always be more food tomorrow.

In a way at the grocery store I already felt a tiny bit better. I did not go nuts and load up my cart with tons of junk. I picked out a few things. I felt in control.

PIP = Pants in public

I have to also get eating, rather overeating/binging under control so I can wear my pants in public instead of sweat pants. Every pair of pants I own, including my fat pants, are too small. I take the various pants out of my closet and wear them at home for a while to get them to the point over a few days where they can be PIP. I still go outside in sweats but not my shorts that fit; three pairs of shorts fit me but not real pants and I live in a place where it starts to snow in October and keeps snowing sometimes in April. There shall be no shorts outside here.

So you see I am a busy gal here with the whole pants issue and trying to relieve myself of so many of the burdens I've ingested and now want to expel. Pretty graphic there in your head, huh?

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome weekend.

Time to stop my b!tching, comment on a REAL hero

The man above is John Bul Dau, originally of Sudan, but now a resident of the United States. He's one of my true heroes in this world and I was about shoulder to kneecap with him the other day in the hospital.


Yes, dad's still a patient but hopefully coming home tomorrow. They did a second heart catherization last night, which normally takes about 30 minutes, and this latest one took two hours. That's an indication of the damage we're talking about.


The bad news is that of the three grafts from his triple bypass 15 years ago, one had been closed and two were "gunked up with crud" during the first heart cath in the hospital. As of last night's second cath, a second graft had closed in the past twenty-four hours. I spoke with dad today and he said he is scheduled for a third heart cath and some surgery in about a month.


He's not really a viable option to survive serious open heart surgery so that presents itself as a bit of a conundrum. I'll talk to my mother about all of this later on today when she's away from him.


But back to John Bul Dau...


This man is a true hero and to see him up close, to the point where I could reach out and touch his shirt just about made me foam at the mouth and hyperventilate. John is one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, if you know anything about their story. The lost boys and girls left Sudan during the civil war to find safety in Ethiopia where they stayed in refugee camps until forced back into Sudan at gun-point, crossing a river infested with crocodiles. He stayed in Sudan until they were forced out again to a refugee camp in Kenya. He lived at that camp for several years until he was chosen to come to America.


Here's a man who has overcome numerous difficulties in his life, most of them as a child. He's lived through starvation, civil war, mass murder, and so many other things that I couldn't list them all and I don't want to because the atrocities are horrendous.


But, there he was working in the hospital where my dad is a patient, not as a nurse or doctor, but someone who cleans or does what we might consider a more menial position. That's just John. One minute he's working two jobs to support his family here in the US and on another day he might be travelling to talk to famous people or large groups to tell his story and raise money for his foundation.


To learn more about John's foundation, click below:

www.johndaufoundation.org

His foundation raises money for health clinics he's having built back in Sudan. This is a man forced to leave his homeland as a child who is willing to turn around and extend a helping hand back to that same place. His story is written eloquently in his memoir "God Grew Tired of Us" and there is also a DVD (available through Netflix even!) of the same name which shows what this man lived through. I urge you to read and view and then put it all back in to perspective.

Regardless, this is a man who is a giant both physically, about 7 feet tall, and in my eyes. I wish I had been brave enough to go speak to him. He is a friend on my Facebook page and there is more information about him available on Facebook under causes, if you're a F-booker. (That sounded really dirty, didn't it?)

Seeing him gave me pause to think that yes, even though there is a lot of rough stuff in the water right now I have a boat, some oars, and a compass. Sometimes I have to remember that it's not all about me.