Catching Up

It's been a fun couple weeks.

> Spent a week a Dad's hanging out, eating, and buying/selling golf carts
> Got to hold Peanut for as long as I wanted and got lots of kisses from Maci
> Got to go see the goats, baby cows, ducks and little ponies at Danny's
> Got a "looking Great" from Duke. Then the standard return in 2 months with a new MRI
> Meet with the therapist and a psychiatrist. They gave me drugs. This is when you know you're crazy. (but it's helping)
> Slept with Baxter almost every night.
> Missed Ronnie and Hank and Tiger and Scottie but mostly Ronnie

Then I came home and rested.

I have determined I am not up to snuff. I cleaned the house yesterday. You know the normal floors (vacuum & mop), dust, clean the kitchen and bathrooms. Nothing intense or major just a little cleaning. It kicked my butt. Like I was in bed by 9 and asleep by 9:15ish. And I didn't want to get up this morning either!

Hunting season is kicking in so I'll be hanging out with friends and family more often. I could be posting a lot or a little depending on what's going on. Hopefully a pic of the huge buck Ronnie kills :) will be coming soon!

I want to drive!!!!!

I want to drive. I mean I really (really, really, really) want to drive.

I've been feeling better and I'd like to go somewhere by myself. You know, take as long as I want without someone looking over my shoulder. Buy stupid stuff that no one will ever find out about. Grab Hank and go eat French Fries at McDonald's or head over to the dog park. That kinda thing.

We've been talking about it a lot lately. There's a test you can take at Duke that assesses your driving skills. Thinking about when to take it.

Well I got my butt handed to me on a silver platter. No way I'm going to be driving anytime soon. (insert crying sound here)

Ronnie had written up a short, couple paragraphs, statement that he needed typed up. He's a hunt & peck typer so I've always typed it for him. I'm talking maybe 5 minutes of work once I figure out his chicken scratch.

So I take his paper and get started. I did good for the first couple of sentences then it all went to Hades. I honestly could not get the words from the paper through my head into my fingers and on the screen. Somewhere between me looking at them and getting them into head it all went wonky. I'm talking shaking hands, not being able to follow sentences kinda stuff.

That's when we realized that if I cannot even follow that, there's no way I can do all the multitasking required for driving.

My little heart is broken but I'll get through it somehow.

High School Reunion

This past weekend I attended my 20 year High School Reunion. Seriously, there's no way it's been that long and no way I can be that old. Either way, we had a reunion and it was FUN.

I had a great date: DAD! It was the opening day of deer season and Ronnie didn't get to hunt last year so I let him go hunting. That meant Dad got to walk me in and get to see all the people he hadn't seen in years either. Well, some he had seen more recently than others.

What did I notice? We all looked the same - basically. Some of us liked it to have the lights on and the music down, the very opposite of the way it used to be. But we're already planning the 25th reunion and the changes we'll need.

I think I accidental nominated myself to the help get the next one going. How did I do that? I asked who was. Darn, never ever ask questions like that!

I was a little different too. I didn't close the party down but rather pulled Dad out about 10pm. I was tired. He bought me dinner when we left, McDonald's so we could take out meds. Things do change :)

A Year Later

Well, a year ago I had just found out I had a brain tumor, it was cancer and was having surgery. I've actually not thought about it a lot.

But today we came full course. I had lunch with Jolena today.

A year ago I was in a car on the way to have Margarita's and Mexican food with my friends: Jolena & Chris, Kate, and Dawn. Dinner got interrupted initially by the seizure and then things went all to hell with the tumor.

I realized that a year later, I was finally having that Mexican food. I have come full circle.

Finally made it, just took me a while.

Pick up Stix

I'm sure lots of you remember the cool game of Pick Up Stix. You'd have a can of sticks that you dropped on the floor. You'd then try to pick up a stick without disturbing the other sticks. Kinda like a very low tech version of Operation.

I made my very own home version of Pick Up Stix! But with this version you use Spaghetti. Just take a box of Spaghetti, don't need any particular brand, the store brand works just fine. Pick up the new box checking to see which end to open. Realize as 100s of noodles hit your bare feet that the box was in fact not new and had been opened at the end pointing down. You know get to play Pick Up Stix as long as you want! Or you can do as I did and just get them all up and put them in the trash while having your husband laugh his butt off while he trying to keep the dog from eating the noodles.

Cleaning the Kitchen

I know everyone is tired of all the info about doctors and diagnoses, I know I am. So I'm going to give you a little funny for today.

I try to keep the kitchen clean. By clean I mean, dishes in the dishwasher, counters clean, and the floor not covered in dog & cat hair.

So I grab the Fantastic (obvious plug here, they should send me a free bottle) and start cleaning the counters. I have no idea how our counter tops get so dirty but every morning they are nasty. So I start on the right side, spraying everywhere. I think, this isn't spraying right. So I wipe up that area and change the spray nozzle to get it back right. I start spraying the middle and think, it's still not right. So I check the nozzle again and it's the same pattern on both sides. Oh well, I move on. I spray the left side and realize not only is it not spraying right, it doesn't smell right either. So I check the bottle, yeah blue bottle of cleaner. Wait.... that doesn't say Fantastic, no that's Spot Shot. Well DUH! No wonder it doesn't spray or smell right!

I had to re-clean the entire area again with Fantastic. At least the counters are clean.

New Day - New Week

The start of a new week - Another day at the Neurologist.

I had my in follow up about the EEG and the general state of things. Everything looks to get going well with the brain waves. I have to get help controlling the stressors that cause the pseudo seizures. Once we have that under control we can start easing off the Dilantin.

Why is this cool? I'll be down to only 2 seizures meds; 4 less pills a day. Dilantin interferes with pretty much every other drug in the world so I could take fun stuff like Tylenol or Midol. I could pop a Tylenol Sinus if I had a headache.