Fun

In the gloom and doom, we're trying to find ways to have fun. Even with the rain, the dog needs to go for a walk, so when it was mostly dry, I took her and V around the block. He rode his scooter, and along the way noticed all the birds chirping. He said, "Mom! I can here that hoo-hee bird all the way at our house!" He was talking about the blue jay. So cute.

A little while later he said, "I need to pet Judy. My hands hurt from riding my scooter. (From the vibrations of the sidewalk bumps) She's soft. This is why I wanted to get a dog!" Pretty sure that wasn't your original need, but glad it's working out for you, buddy.

Side note: I haven't posted yet about getting our dog! She's a black lab mix who we rescued in September. We had planned to change her name, but V called her Judy about 500x in the first hour she was home, so there was no going back. She just turned 1 a couple of weeks ago. She chews on EVERYTHING, so she has to stay in the kitchen. (We've lost 2 dining chairs already.) She usually was in her kennel while we were at work/school, but now that we're home all the time, we leave her out, but then she whines if we're not in the kitchen with her. And she's figured out how to open the gates, so we have a bit of a struggle on work days. We need to install a fence, but are trying to be frugal right now just in case. Overall, she's great and we love having her as an addition to our family.


Speaking of our family, I haven't updated the blog Cast of Characters in a long time, so I did that today. It still said:

S
Our 9-year-old – spunky, contemplative and sassy.

Baby R
Our tenderhearted 7-year-old loves dancing, princesses and dreaming of ruling the free world.

Cinco

Our son. He's a big boy now, and all of the highs and lows of being 3 years old.

It's funny because my dad is the only one who called V Cinco. I've updated the sidebar to say V now since that's what we use for his initials when labeling things. Crazy to think of all the things that have happened since I last changed it. 

One of those things was that the Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV. It's been FIFTY years since we've been to the Super Bowl. It was crazy and awesome and I'm still somewhat in awe that it was real. We got our new Super Bowl bags yesterday, and it was sunny and gorgeous out, though still muddy, so we played on the driveway. 

Today we participated in online church for the second week which is so awesome. If you are looking for a place/way to worship, you should check it out: 
https://foundrychurchkc.com/

After that R was doing an assignment for her music teacher - tomorrow is when remote learning officially starts for us, but some of the teachers have been keeping in touch with activities to keep the kids busy. She was supposed to make her own music video of her singing along to a song she likes. After she finished, she asked S if she wanted to do one with her. They were so sweet together, I had to record a few seconds. The girls are in a stage where they fight a lot, but have fun together a lot, so trying to capture those moments when I can.

The Light In the Storm

What an emotional roller coaster it's been. Last week felt like a month passed between Monday and Friday. The weather was cold and rainy most of last week. Yesterday, the Kansas City metro was directed to shelter in place to continue helping flatten the curve of the outbreak. As an extrovert, I've struggled with the lack of human contact. I'm loving being with my kids more, but it's been incredibly stressful. I've never been good at balancing working and being a mom, and now that I have to do all of it in the same space, I'm floundering. 

That said, I know I'm incredibly lucky to have a job still, and one that I can do from home. And even luckier that the same is true for DH. So many we know are out of work or struggling with limits on their work options. So I'm really pushing myself to find the silver linings that coincide with the frustrations. One of them is the opportunity to do devotions with the kids at lunch each day. I've had a lot of anxiety lately, and I'm struggling to lean in to God and trust and let go. It's certainly fodder for a season of growth for me. 

This photo I took last week is a great illustration. This church is across the way from our neighborhood. There have been other times when the spire has been highlighted by the sun after a storm, but I'm usually driving or in a rush to get somewhere. A blessing of this time is that I'm out walking more and have very little time constraint. I was able to stop and take this picture. Thankful for the opportunity to capture a peaceful moment in this time of chaos.

The Big Valley

So ironically, the time I needed to be writing I didn't. The largest valley of my life started in the January of 2018 with my dad having congestive heart failure. His kidneys finally gave out from that, and he started dialysis. After three weeks in the hospital, he was released to rehab and after three weeks there they let us know he couldn't go back to living in his apartment alone. We had to scramble to find him a senior living home in a few days. Luckily he could handle an independent living place. Unfortunately, the only dialysis times available at first were 5am Monday-Wednesday-Friday. So I was up at 4am to take him for a few weeks until he was able to get a different time slot. Thankfully by then he was also strong enough to drive himself since in April, DH had hernia surgery.

It should have been a simple outpatient procedure, but due to the opioid crisis, the pain meds he was prescribed were less than he needed, and he ended up having a vasovagel episode at home resulting in my having to call 911 while he was unconscious. After three days in the hospital, he finally came home. The silver lining to his experience was a greater appreciation for the three C-sections I had.

That was followed in May by my own trip to the Minute Clinic due to severe abdominal pains. They were concerned it could be appendicitis so they refused to do a diagnosis and sent me on to Urgent Care. FYI, Urgent Care will also not be able to help in that scenario, you must go to the Emergency Room. I tell you that to save you the other two co-pays if you're in the same situation. The fun part was that we saw our favorite ER doc who usually was there to check Dad in, but this time it was me. Basically, it was a wasted trip. It was just stress.

Oddly enough that wasn't our last appendicitis scare for the year, though the one we had in the fall was legit. This time, it was DH, so he had his second abdominal surgery in a less than six months. He had been training for the Marine Corps Marathon and was devastated by this setback. But he had much better pain meds, and bounced back much more quickly so was able to get back on track.

October 24, 2018 my dad passed away.

It was strange because he'd been so sick in the spring but he was doing so well over the summer - using his walker to come to the kids' activities, enjoying life at the senior community. When he went to the hospital on October 22, it was because he'd been at dialysis and his blood pressure was too low for them to let him leave. He still felt good - in typical fashion, giving the ambulance driver directions on the best way to the hospital. They gave him a blood transfusion, which wasn't anything new. When I went to see him Wednesday night, he was crabby, but I thought he was just tired. I kissed him goodbye and told him I'd see him in the morning. When I got home, DH and I were talking about his upcoming trip to Washington, DC Friday when he was finally going to get to run the Marine Corps Marathon. And then 20 minutes later, the hospital called. The nurse said they had started chest compressions and asked me if we had talked about what his wishes were. I said,"No, stop - he has a DNR!" She frantically told them to stop. I couldn't believe it. He'd been in that hospital for 3 days on this visit, but had been so many times over the years that several of the staff members knew him. Regardless, he was an old man - wouldn't that have been the first thing to check? He would have been so pissed if they had brought him back.

Anyway, DH was going to cancel his trip, but I told him that was ridiculous - he'd been through so much this year he had to go. Besides, my sister was in NYC and still had to fly home to STL before coming back here so it wasn't like the funeral was going to happen for a few days. He didn't want to leave me, but the upside to having a parent who's been on the verge of death most of your life is that while it's still terrible when it  happens, you aren't as unprepared as someone who hasn't been through that. DH completing the marathon was the bright light we needed in deep valley we were in. And he was my rock when he got home and we had the funeral.

Things went back to a new normal, though for Thanksgiving we just went out for Mexican since it was the first holiday without Dad. Then December 22, my father-in-law had a stroke. Luckily, DH and my mother-in-law were with him. They were all helping DH's Aunt P move. My FIL and Aunt P's boyfriend were following each other, and her boyfriend noticed that my FIL pulled the car over. He came back to check on him, and when my FIL said he couldn't move his right side, he called 911. Luckily he was able to quickly be treated at the nearest hospital to prevent the stroke effects from getting worse. Then they decided to move him to a hospital downtown to have his carotid artery cleaned out.

DH waited til they got settled in, then ran out to get some lunch. On his way back, he was sitting at a  stoplight, and a truck coming the opposite direction came across the median and hit him head on. The driver had some kind of episode and passed out behind the wheel. Thankfully, DH had minor injuries, but the brand new Explorer we'd only had for 6 months was totaled.

And because we needed an exclamation point to finish off the year, I threw out my back for the first time in my life December 30.

I kept thinking things would turn around after the first of the year. Surely 2019 can't be as bad as 2018? Unfortunately, it took some time for that to happen. The accident happened on the Missouri side of the city, and they took over a month to get the police report completed. It ended up requiring a lawsuit to get enough money to cover most of the bills we incurred which dragged out for a couple of months.

In the meantime, I'd started having really heavy periods the previous summer, and they'd just gotten worse and worse. To the point that I had to leave work one day in January. So finally went to the doctor about it. She thought I might have a polyp so had me come back for a possible in-office procedure. Unfortunately, it wasn't just one small one, she saw 2 very large ones that almost were the size of my uterus. So in April it was my turn for surgery. She found another polyp while she was in there and did an ablation to help keep them from coming back. So far so good!

Things (kind of?) started getting better after that. It's a weird time right now, of course. Counting our blessings.

St. Patrick's Day

We started the day with a bit of normal. Our tradition is to have Lucky Charms for breakfast on St. Patrick's Day. Mixed it up a little by trying the chocolate kind.

We added something new since I'm working from home. We had devotional time at lunch. The verse we discussed was Psalm 119:105

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

And we finished the day with another tradition for dinner, corned beef and cabbage. I'm not a big fan, but DH loves it. Luckily, R liked it enough to eat a full serving, too.

Unfortunately, things took a big twist after dinner. Governor Laura Kelly announced that all K-12 schools in the state of Kansas would be closed for the remainder of the school year.

I'm trying really hard to understand how this will work. The kids who have special education needs won't have the help they need. The health care workers and hourly wage workers won't be able to have care for their kids. The seniors won't have prom or graduation.

Holding on to the verse from today. Definitely need to seek Him in this crazy time.

Pre-Apocalypse?

I imagine there are many out there who've fallen away from blogging who will be back at it in the days to come. Life is surreal right now for most of the world. COVID-19 is the word of the day. It's a coronavirus like SARS, but a different strain. Only this one made its way to the US. At the moment, the death rate is roughly the same as the regular flu (2.5%). And, like the regular flu, is more dangerous for the elderly or those with compromised immune systems. Unlike the regular flu, so far it doesn't have as dangerous implications for children. Which is good. The tricky thing is that this strain is contagious before you have symptoms. Which has led to worldwide panic.

In preparation for shutting everything down, people have bought all the toilet paper. No one really knows why, but it's made for great memes.

Photo credit

I don't want to make light of this virus. But I'm much more afraid of how this will impact our economy. My husband and I have both been told to work from home - him for 3 weeks, me indefinitely. Our kids' school district is on spring break this coming week, but will probably shut down the week after. We have the luxury of working from home, and using some PTO if necessary. Not everyone is in the same situation.

Anyway, we'll see how it all goes. On the up side, hopefully I'll be better about making time to blog, Lots has happened since my last post. Wash your hands, don't touch your face, and stop hoarding TP.