Tim probably never did that in high school but I'm glad it happened now. I got the call this morning and Tim's PET scan was unable to detect any areas of active cancer in his bones from the top of his head to his toes. PHEW!!!! The bad news is they have not been able to find any cause for his back pain so muscle spasm is still the default diagnosis even though it does not seem to be behaving
that way. Tim wants to try the stretching machine at a chiropractor's office. Our docs shudder
to hear the "c" word. So do I. The last one I went to made me worse. Our docs had one patient get his back broken from an adjustment and an ambulance had to be called to get him off the table and bring him to the ER. Tim is itching to do something 'cause so far, we're not making much progress. If he lays down a long time, he gets up and feels better for a few minutes but the pain kicks right back in again. Tim did go to Olivia's play Friday night. I was not a bit surprised. A half hour before we were to leave, he washed his hair, shaved, got dressed and went there with crutches. He sat in a chair for an agonizing 2 hours. That's one dedicated Dad. Oh well. I'm just so glad that this test turned out well. Onward and upward. Happy Easter/Passover/Spring everyone!!!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Not out of the woods yet
Tomorrow, Tim will have his first PET scan. I still don't think this back problem is dx'ed correctly. They're leaning towards muscle spasm but it has all the symptoms of pinched nerves.
They saw a spot on Tim's femoral head, which is the top of the thigh bone where it goes into
the hip socket, that has never been seen before on past scans. They want to see if this is an
active myeloma spot or not. Hope not! I don't know if this scan has any capabilities of diagnosing
mechanical problems within the spine and I'm trying to find out if they scan you laying down or
upright. I remember hearing about someone who had horrific back pain and they had to scan
him standing up to finally see what the culprit was. Tim is OK if he lays down but put any weight on his spine and it's terribly painful. He cannot sit or stand and it was all he could do to stand in the shower for 5 minutes yesterday. This screams pinched nerve to me especially that
the pain radiates around to his lower abdomen. Oh well. If we don't get to the bottom of this, I
will have to take these scans to an orthopedist. Tim's MM doc is a hematologist/oncologist and although I'm sure he has had to learn a lot about bones in his MM practice, he is no doubt relying heavily on the radiologist's interpretations and an ortho guy would know more. Olivia
is in a play tonight. Tim makes it to ALL of her events and he is sick over the possibility of not
making it to the point that he may drag himself there on crutches(he refuses to use the wheelchair) and grunt it out standing on the sidelines. Gonna be another long day and some
boob let winter back in the door to boot. It's windy and cold again. Tim just went with his employee to take his sanding machine back to the place that screwed it up terribly and my darn computer keeps going to sleep for no reason. I'm in the middle of doing something and it just shuts down. I have to unplug it to re-boot it. Sounds like narcolepsy. Dang. Well back to the to-do list. Long way to go till jammie time.
They saw a spot on Tim's femoral head, which is the top of the thigh bone where it goes into
the hip socket, that has never been seen before on past scans. They want to see if this is an
active myeloma spot or not. Hope not! I don't know if this scan has any capabilities of diagnosing
mechanical problems within the spine and I'm trying to find out if they scan you laying down or
upright. I remember hearing about someone who had horrific back pain and they had to scan
him standing up to finally see what the culprit was. Tim is OK if he lays down but put any weight on his spine and it's terribly painful. He cannot sit or stand and it was all he could do to stand in the shower for 5 minutes yesterday. This screams pinched nerve to me especially that
the pain radiates around to his lower abdomen. Oh well. If we don't get to the bottom of this, I
will have to take these scans to an orthopedist. Tim's MM doc is a hematologist/oncologist and although I'm sure he has had to learn a lot about bones in his MM practice, he is no doubt relying heavily on the radiologist's interpretations and an ortho guy would know more. Olivia
is in a play tonight. Tim makes it to ALL of her events and he is sick over the possibility of not
making it to the point that he may drag himself there on crutches(he refuses to use the wheelchair) and grunt it out standing on the sidelines. Gonna be another long day and some
boob let winter back in the door to boot. It's windy and cold again. Tim just went with his employee to take his sanding machine back to the place that screwed it up terribly and my darn computer keeps going to sleep for no reason. I'm in the middle of doing something and it just shuts down. I have to unplug it to re-boot it. Sounds like narcolepsy. Dang. Well back to the to-do list. Long way to go till jammie time.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Where to start?
I'm trying to condense my post but doubt it will help. What a day we had yesterday.
I hit the floor running(well, dragging actually) and it was getting Olivia off to school
and then phone calls galore as I set up stat MRI appt., got referrals and authorizations
and prescription faxed to radiology place. Updates to family. Then feed Tim and start doing
tons of things before we go to appt. Pick up crutches and wheelchair from volunteer ambulance
corp, buy CD for Olivia's talent show audition and run it to school. come home again and wash dishes so I can wash Tim's hair in kitchen sink(and mine, no time for shower) change his clothes(always a perk in my book) teeth brushed and off to appt. They are running behind and we're looking at a 45 minute wait at least. I ask the girl if there is anywhere he can lie down. He is
already in agony just sitting in wheelchair. Somehow, they come get us and get him started in
15 minutes.Tim gets phone call from employee just before going into MRI machine. Can't do the job cause place that just did some work on Tim's floor sanding machine screwed it up royally and won't run. Tim's ticked. There he is trying to run his business from a wheelchair in the hall of a radiology office. I tell him, just go into that machine and snooze. It is what it is. You can't do anything now,
we'll straighten this out so relax while ya can. I hit the waiting area with a book and he spends
an hour and 40 minutes getting 3 MRI's. On the way home, we hit a major detour with traffic snarls everywhere and I literally drive through about 5 or 6 towns trying to get home which would have been just a 3 or so mile drive on the road that intersects with mine. Get Tim on the couch. More phone calls to family.
He flicks on the tube and Oprah is talking to a woman whose little girl was killed in an accident
caused by a teen on a cell phone. I jump back in the car, drive the few blocks to the CVS to fill Tim's prescription and a teen on a cell phone makes a turn, and not seeing me, is just about to run my ass over in an SUV as I am walking in a crosswalk. I scream and jump out of the way with not a second or more than a
few inches to spare as I see the hot pink cell phone in her hand. She starts to pull over. I don't know if she even knows if she hit me or not. She sees me walking toward her and then she hits the gas and takes off. I call the cops with the plate number. They ask if I'm hurt. I say no.
They say they are in the middle of an armed robbery. WHAT???Come down and file a report at precinct. I get Tim's meds. A little shaky now thinking what would have happened to my guy and little girl
if this brat had just taken me out or even laid me up with injuries and I am mad. Get home,
give Tim his meds. More phone calls. Go to police station. They found the family. Little princess from wealthy town just a few miles from here driving car registered and insured to daddy and for the second time
in a week, cop is trying to talk me out of bothering cause he just plain doesn't want to be bothered. Sidebar here. Many towns in our area are practically going bankrupt paying the cops salaries and bennies as well as paying the retirement packages of all the former cops that retire
after 20 years or so on high pensions and benny packages. But try to find a cop that wants to do
his job around here, you'll be looking awhile. I say to the guy, "why the heck did the guy on the phone tell me to haul down here and make a complaint if nobody was going to do anything anyway?!" So second cop in a week realizes they're being called out for not doing their job and he calls the Woodcliff Lake PD and sends them to the door where they talk to rich daddy who goes right into (Oh shit, princess is gonna get me sued here mode) so starts to say he's not aware
his SUV was out at that time. Meanwhile I have the plate #, an exact decription of said princess right down to the color of her cell phone as well as exact description of suv. Hey, I just think daddy needs to know that spoiled little brat is out breaking laws in his car and is going to probably get him sued, kill someone, or come home with a toe-tag herself. Then it's off to pick up Livvy from her theater group. Man who runs it had made practice longer to get more practice in cause they are way behind. Performance is Friday. He gets frustrated and half an hour before the kids are to be picked up, he blows up, tells them they are the worst group he has worked with in 15 years, and storms out. This is really out of character for this guy but nonetheless VERY unprofessional and honestly, I think he is so upset because it is largely his fault they are not ready. I helped out at the prior day's rehearsal and even I could see that.
Get Liv home, make dinner. Cops call and want me to come back to precinct. Run there. MORE
aggravation. Then off to a meeting for next season's cheerleading. MORE aggravation. It's always the people who don't volunteer that B**** about everything. Get home at 9. Warm up Tim's dinner cause he snoozed through dinnertime. Help Liv with math homework. Man, I got a look at just how smart that little girl is while helping her last night. I didn't know how much she knew. She gets 100's all the time even in math and to be honest, I don't think she's even trying that hard. So I decompressed a little on the couch and went limping to bed(the nerve damage in my foot is killing me). I daydreamed about going to bed yesterday. That's how much I wanted the curtains to close on that day. So the end result. They did a wet read on the scans and called the doc. THEY SEE NOTHING. They checked his last scans done there and feel that there is no more disc damage and stuff than was already there. I am so relieved I am not hearing that his MM has been secretly active and I have to call today when they will have the full written report to see if they found anything more but the real nightmarish stuff seems to be ruled out. He is either in a horrible spasm(so I'm looping him up on muscle relaxers) or I think that there may be a very small change in an unstable disc
that was enough to hit a nerve. He's still in agony. We're just gonna have to take it day by day and hope it resolves. What a freekin' day. I'm scared to know what my blood pressure looks like on days like that. Oh and the armed robbery that had all the cops going nuts yesterday afternoon. Some kid/young man stole an apple and a pack of smokes and took a swing at the store owner when he got caught. Apparently armed robbery in this case means he used his arm
in the process. So I'm off to start another day. Hopefully, a much calmer one. I've said it before.
I did not know how good I had it when my life was so boring.
I hit the floor running(well, dragging actually) and it was getting Olivia off to school
and then phone calls galore as I set up stat MRI appt., got referrals and authorizations
and prescription faxed to radiology place. Updates to family. Then feed Tim and start doing
tons of things before we go to appt. Pick up crutches and wheelchair from volunteer ambulance
corp, buy CD for Olivia's talent show audition and run it to school. come home again and wash dishes so I can wash Tim's hair in kitchen sink(and mine, no time for shower) change his clothes(always a perk in my book) teeth brushed and off to appt. They are running behind and we're looking at a 45 minute wait at least. I ask the girl if there is anywhere he can lie down. He is
already in agony just sitting in wheelchair. Somehow, they come get us and get him started in
15 minutes.Tim gets phone call from employee just before going into MRI machine. Can't do the job cause place that just did some work on Tim's floor sanding machine screwed it up royally and won't run. Tim's ticked. There he is trying to run his business from a wheelchair in the hall of a radiology office. I tell him, just go into that machine and snooze. It is what it is. You can't do anything now,
we'll straighten this out so relax while ya can. I hit the waiting area with a book and he spends
an hour and 40 minutes getting 3 MRI's. On the way home, we hit a major detour with traffic snarls everywhere and I literally drive through about 5 or 6 towns trying to get home which would have been just a 3 or so mile drive on the road that intersects with mine. Get Tim on the couch. More phone calls to family.
He flicks on the tube and Oprah is talking to a woman whose little girl was killed in an accident
caused by a teen on a cell phone. I jump back in the car, drive the few blocks to the CVS to fill Tim's prescription and a teen on a cell phone makes a turn, and not seeing me, is just about to run my ass over in an SUV as I am walking in a crosswalk. I scream and jump out of the way with not a second or more than a
few inches to spare as I see the hot pink cell phone in her hand. She starts to pull over. I don't know if she even knows if she hit me or not. She sees me walking toward her and then she hits the gas and takes off. I call the cops with the plate number. They ask if I'm hurt. I say no.
They say they are in the middle of an armed robbery. WHAT???Come down and file a report at precinct. I get Tim's meds. A little shaky now thinking what would have happened to my guy and little girl
if this brat had just taken me out or even laid me up with injuries and I am mad. Get home,
give Tim his meds. More phone calls. Go to police station. They found the family. Little princess from wealthy town just a few miles from here driving car registered and insured to daddy and for the second time
in a week, cop is trying to talk me out of bothering cause he just plain doesn't want to be bothered. Sidebar here. Many towns in our area are practically going bankrupt paying the cops salaries and bennies as well as paying the retirement packages of all the former cops that retire
after 20 years or so on high pensions and benny packages. But try to find a cop that wants to do
his job around here, you'll be looking awhile. I say to the guy, "why the heck did the guy on the phone tell me to haul down here and make a complaint if nobody was going to do anything anyway?!" So second cop in a week realizes they're being called out for not doing their job and he calls the Woodcliff Lake PD and sends them to the door where they talk to rich daddy who goes right into (Oh shit, princess is gonna get me sued here mode) so starts to say he's not aware
his SUV was out at that time. Meanwhile I have the plate #, an exact decription of said princess right down to the color of her cell phone as well as exact description of suv. Hey, I just think daddy needs to know that spoiled little brat is out breaking laws in his car and is going to probably get him sued, kill someone, or come home with a toe-tag herself. Then it's off to pick up Livvy from her theater group. Man who runs it had made practice longer to get more practice in cause they are way behind. Performance is Friday. He gets frustrated and half an hour before the kids are to be picked up, he blows up, tells them they are the worst group he has worked with in 15 years, and storms out. This is really out of character for this guy but nonetheless VERY unprofessional and honestly, I think he is so upset because it is largely his fault they are not ready. I helped out at the prior day's rehearsal and even I could see that.
Get Liv home, make dinner. Cops call and want me to come back to precinct. Run there. MORE
aggravation. Then off to a meeting for next season's cheerleading. MORE aggravation. It's always the people who don't volunteer that B**** about everything. Get home at 9. Warm up Tim's dinner cause he snoozed through dinnertime. Help Liv with math homework. Man, I got a look at just how smart that little girl is while helping her last night. I didn't know how much she knew. She gets 100's all the time even in math and to be honest, I don't think she's even trying that hard. So I decompressed a little on the couch and went limping to bed(the nerve damage in my foot is killing me). I daydreamed about going to bed yesterday. That's how much I wanted the curtains to close on that day. So the end result. They did a wet read on the scans and called the doc. THEY SEE NOTHING. They checked his last scans done there and feel that there is no more disc damage and stuff than was already there. I am so relieved I am not hearing that his MM has been secretly active and I have to call today when they will have the full written report to see if they found anything more but the real nightmarish stuff seems to be ruled out. He is either in a horrible spasm(so I'm looping him up on muscle relaxers) or I think that there may be a very small change in an unstable disc
that was enough to hit a nerve. He's still in agony. We're just gonna have to take it day by day and hope it resolves. What a freekin' day. I'm scared to know what my blood pressure looks like on days like that. Oh and the armed robbery that had all the cops going nuts yesterday afternoon. Some kid/young man stole an apple and a pack of smokes and took a swing at the store owner when he got caught. Apparently armed robbery in this case means he used his arm
in the process. So I'm off to start another day. Hopefully, a much calmer one. I've said it before.
I did not know how good I had it when my life was so boring.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Ruh Roh
Well, last night was a blast from the past. Not a fun one though. It was off to the emergency room for us. Haven't done that in a long time. Something happened to Tim's back, ironically when he was doing an estimate, not working and lifting. This is something that
has never happened to him before though. He can not even walk and is in the most excruciating
pain he has ever had. He has a lot of arthritis and disc damage in his back so I am praying it
has to do with a disc. The doctors shot some x-rays and did not
see any compression fractures and since I had called the on-call doc from the cancer center last night, I guess his onc.'s
office got a message when they came in and our super nurse was on my phone at 7:45 this morning finding out what was wrong. She got right on ordering an MRI of 3 areas of his back
and we have an appt. for later today. I am going to have to rent a wheelchair cause he is
literally crawling on the floor. He is OK as long as he lays down but put any weight on his
spine and he is almost throwing up from the pain. Our poor Livvy was so upset last night. He
kept smiling through the agony and telling her he was OK but she is so worried about him. So hard for a little girl and so damned unfair. So it's back to the medical grind again but hopefully
not for too long. Packing my bag to go to the ER brought back memories. I always bring water,
snacks, book, knitting, recent bloodwork etc. I never travel light. Well I gotta go rent a wheelchair and do a laundry list of things before these MRI's. Wish us luck!
has never happened to him before though. He can not even walk and is in the most excruciating
pain he has ever had. He has a lot of arthritis and disc damage in his back so I am praying it
has to do with a disc. The doctors shot some x-rays and did not
see any compression fractures and since I had called the on-call doc from the cancer center last night, I guess his onc.'s
office got a message when they came in and our super nurse was on my phone at 7:45 this morning finding out what was wrong. She got right on ordering an MRI of 3 areas of his back
and we have an appt. for later today. I am going to have to rent a wheelchair cause he is
literally crawling on the floor. He is OK as long as he lays down but put any weight on his
spine and he is almost throwing up from the pain. Our poor Livvy was so upset last night. He
kept smiling through the agony and telling her he was OK but she is so worried about him. So hard for a little girl and so damned unfair. So it's back to the medical grind again but hopefully
not for too long. Packing my bag to go to the ER brought back memories. I always bring water,
snacks, book, knitting, recent bloodwork etc. I never travel light. Well I gotta go rent a wheelchair and do a laundry list of things before these MRI's. Wish us luck!
Monday, March 22, 2010
If only I could sleep
Well, I guess it's those peri-menopausal hormones acting up again. I keep waking at 4 am and
fall back asleep usually minutes before the alarm goes off. Then I wake feeling like I've been hit
by a truck. A few years ago, I began gaining weight everytime I had sleep issues crop up. I then
found out that this is a common thing. Your seratonin levels get messed up from the sleep loss
and you gain lbs. mainly due to reaching for sweets and carbs in an effort to raise your
energy and seratonin levels. In about 3 years time, I gained 9 or 10 pounds. Now I have gained another 10 just since the fall and I am NOT a happy camper. To most people, I am still
slender but I am no fanatic and I don't like this change at all and can't fit in my clothes. I bought
some new pants last year and now am barely in them. I have never had a lot of will power or been good at taking time out for me. I'm actually thinking of joining weight watchers. I'm always afraid that I'll be in a room full of women that hate me though. At my weight, I can still dress to hide the problem areas pretty well. I started walking more but am having neuroma problems in my foot. I want to go to Philadelphia at the
end of April and do the MMRF 5K but don't know if I can make it. I would be walking, not running, but at this point, I feel so out of shape and my foot hurts after a half mile. It might
be a 3k walk, 2k crawl for me. I don't know how to solve this sleep issue. My mom says take a sleeping pill but I am pretty phobic about meds having had some pretty bad reactions to nearly
everything plus I feel that I have to be able to drive and function at all times with Tim's situation. Our first trip to the ER was at 2:30 am and it's a 9 mile drive to his hospital. I am a picker but not a huge eater and there are lots of fattening foods that I have no desire for. But it
just seems that everything I eat stays with me and I'm not burning off a thing. I have never had this problem and I weigh now what I weighed when I was 7 months pregnant. I know I have to do something now while it's not too much that I have to lose. 10-12 lbs would have me back in most of my clothes. I have several folks in my family who have tried for years and can't get the weight off and have so much to lose, I just don't know how one keeps up the will power for as long as that can take. I never took very good care of myself but it's gotten worse since Tim's dx.
I am so focused on him and Olivia that I've outright neglected myself and it's been catching up with me for a long time. You just don't get away with the things you did in your 20's when you're
in your 40's. I guess it's time to fit me in on the priority list somewhere. Now where the heck did I put my list?
fall back asleep usually minutes before the alarm goes off. Then I wake feeling like I've been hit
by a truck. A few years ago, I began gaining weight everytime I had sleep issues crop up. I then
found out that this is a common thing. Your seratonin levels get messed up from the sleep loss
and you gain lbs. mainly due to reaching for sweets and carbs in an effort to raise your
energy and seratonin levels. In about 3 years time, I gained 9 or 10 pounds. Now I have gained another 10 just since the fall and I am NOT a happy camper. To most people, I am still
slender but I am no fanatic and I don't like this change at all and can't fit in my clothes. I bought
some new pants last year and now am barely in them. I have never had a lot of will power or been good at taking time out for me. I'm actually thinking of joining weight watchers. I'm always afraid that I'll be in a room full of women that hate me though. At my weight, I can still dress to hide the problem areas pretty well. I started walking more but am having neuroma problems in my foot. I want to go to Philadelphia at the
end of April and do the MMRF 5K but don't know if I can make it. I would be walking, not running, but at this point, I feel so out of shape and my foot hurts after a half mile. It might
be a 3k walk, 2k crawl for me. I don't know how to solve this sleep issue. My mom says take a sleeping pill but I am pretty phobic about meds having had some pretty bad reactions to nearly
everything plus I feel that I have to be able to drive and function at all times with Tim's situation. Our first trip to the ER was at 2:30 am and it's a 9 mile drive to his hospital. I am a picker but not a huge eater and there are lots of fattening foods that I have no desire for. But it
just seems that everything I eat stays with me and I'm not burning off a thing. I have never had this problem and I weigh now what I weighed when I was 7 months pregnant. I know I have to do something now while it's not too much that I have to lose. 10-12 lbs would have me back in most of my clothes. I have several folks in my family who have tried for years and can't get the weight off and have so much to lose, I just don't know how one keeps up the will power for as long as that can take. I never took very good care of myself but it's gotten worse since Tim's dx.
I am so focused on him and Olivia that I've outright neglected myself and it's been catching up with me for a long time. You just don't get away with the things you did in your 20's when you're
in your 40's. I guess it's time to fit me in on the priority list somewhere. Now where the heck did I put my list?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Only in New Jersey
So to give some backround to this story, our brand new truck has a huge ding in the door
that some jerk in a parking lot did just 6 weeks after we got it. They took off. I was SO ANGRY. Then,
2 cars got hit across the street from our house in just 2 weeks time. One was a brand new
truck just like Tim's that my neighbor's mom also got for Christmas. Both of these drivers
took off. That makes me mad. Tim's work van got hit a few years back when parked out there
just as he was walking to it and I threw him the keys to my minivan, he squealed off after her while I called the cops and
we found her. The cop who responded was one we know personally and he kinda threatened
her into admitting what she'd done so we could get paid for the damage and not have to cover
our deductible. I can't stand it when folks get away with this stuff. So today, I load my groceries
into the mommy van, push the cart to the collection area and as I walk back to my car, some
woman backs up and bashes into it. CRUNCH. I have not been involved in an accident since I
was about 19 years old. She pulls forward and looks like she's about to bolt and I look right at
her license plate and start committing it to my pathetic memory. Then she stops and gets out
and comes back apologizing and I decide I am gonna be so cool here. I said to her "It happens,
whadaya gonna do." To be honest, inside I was thanking God that I was not a minute later coming out of the store or she would have taken off and I'm even happier that I did not have
Tim's truck instead. So I proceed to call the police. Then the woman goes postal. I could barely
even hear the man on the phone. I am asking her to stop, she's yelling she doesn't want cops
called. I'm telling her that I am anyway. What a mess. I finally get off the phone and say,
"Look, this happened to my mom once. They exchanged information. My dad called her house
later. The husband was a lawyer and told him if he didn't have a police report, he could go
scratch for the amount of the damage." My bumper didn't look too bad but I wasn't taking any chances. So she keeps yelling and finally
I'd had enough and I said, "Look lady, YOU hit ME. Maybe you should not be the one yelling." She probably felt like an idiot but she
took off for her car and I say, "You leave the scene and you get a ticket" as I again try to memorize the plate and find something to write on. Now, just to prove that this is Jersey,
doncha know, the cop comes. I warn her that this woman is irate that I called the cops and it turns out the cop has just as much attitude as the woman!!!! I guess she must have been busy talking on her cell phone or something cause she didn't feel like writing a report and was a total
jerk at this whole scene. UNBELIEVABLE! I told her the same thing about my mom and I say
I just want a police report and I'll be on my way. Had to call my kid's school and have her held
by the office cause I couldn't pick her up. The other driver is still being obnoxious and now she
is starting to say she never heard anything at all. I said, "are you trying to say you never hit my
car? You came out all apologetic that you did." She said no that she thinks she just tapped it and
there was no noise. My bumper was scratched but I was more concerned that something happened inside it 'cause it was loud. The cop, who was not there, is wondering if what she is saying is true
just when a man comes out of the store who had seen the accident on the way in and calls the
woman on the lie, saying, "Oh no, I HEARD it myself." I said, "THANK YOU very much."
Then he walked away and laughed at us saying he found this very entertaining. I DID mention
this is Jersey right? What an idiot. So there was more but basically I'm wondering if I should talk
to the chief of police about this cop's behavior or not. I called my brother-in-law who owns an auto-body shop in that town and knows all
the cops and he said she is the worst one in town. He said she is horrible and was not surprised at the attitude. She said a bunch of things to me that were not very professional and
really showed that she did not want to be bothered doing the paperwork. I said to her and the
other driver, "Ya know, I didn't do anything here. She hit me. I called the cops. I thought that
was the right thing to do and why am I hearing all this guff?" The cop realized I was right and
then got a little better but then she said to me, "If you decide to come up with thousands of dollars worth of damage." I stopped her right there. I said, "Oh give me a break, TRUST ME, I do not need HER money.
I'm just gonna have the car checked out and make sure nothing broke inside." The cop snottily says, "If you find a thousand dollars worth of damage, you will come talk to me first." Oh god,
now I'm thinking, if I had someone to pick my kid up right now, I think I'd risk the handcuffs
cause this cop is getting on my nerves and I LIKE cops. I have several friends who are policemen
and others that are retired state troopers but this is NUTS. And the truth is, I don't have to come to her. That's for the insurance companies to iron out. So then I find out this woman did
not have any registration on her. HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder she's so mad. She claims her high
school aged son is gonna have to go home and find it. I left while she was stuck there. Ya know,
I think she was embaressed and all that but I'm thinking to myself, I tried to handle this so cool.
I mean if you bash someone's car and that person says, Hey it happens, don't ya think that's
pretty understanding? As I walked to my car as the woman is STILL carrying on and glaring at me, I shook my head and told her, "You can't drive AND you're rude." I told my brother-in-law, "That's it, no more Mrs. Nice Guy, next time,
I'll come out with both barrels firing and carry on like an idiot so they're too darn scared to start on me!" Just another day in the life.
that some jerk in a parking lot did just 6 weeks after we got it. They took off. I was SO ANGRY. Then,
2 cars got hit across the street from our house in just 2 weeks time. One was a brand new
truck just like Tim's that my neighbor's mom also got for Christmas. Both of these drivers
took off. That makes me mad. Tim's work van got hit a few years back when parked out there
just as he was walking to it and I threw him the keys to my minivan, he squealed off after her while I called the cops and
we found her. The cop who responded was one we know personally and he kinda threatened
her into admitting what she'd done so we could get paid for the damage and not have to cover
our deductible. I can't stand it when folks get away with this stuff. So today, I load my groceries
into the mommy van, push the cart to the collection area and as I walk back to my car, some
woman backs up and bashes into it. CRUNCH. I have not been involved in an accident since I
was about 19 years old. She pulls forward and looks like she's about to bolt and I look right at
her license plate and start committing it to my pathetic memory. Then she stops and gets out
and comes back apologizing and I decide I am gonna be so cool here. I said to her "It happens,
whadaya gonna do." To be honest, inside I was thanking God that I was not a minute later coming out of the store or she would have taken off and I'm even happier that I did not have
Tim's truck instead. So I proceed to call the police. Then the woman goes postal. I could barely
even hear the man on the phone. I am asking her to stop, she's yelling she doesn't want cops
called. I'm telling her that I am anyway. What a mess. I finally get off the phone and say,
"Look, this happened to my mom once. They exchanged information. My dad called her house
later. The husband was a lawyer and told him if he didn't have a police report, he could go
scratch for the amount of the damage." My bumper didn't look too bad but I wasn't taking any chances. So she keeps yelling and finally
I'd had enough and I said, "Look lady, YOU hit ME. Maybe you should not be the one yelling." She probably felt like an idiot but she
took off for her car and I say, "You leave the scene and you get a ticket" as I again try to memorize the plate and find something to write on. Now, just to prove that this is Jersey,
doncha know, the cop comes. I warn her that this woman is irate that I called the cops and it turns out the cop has just as much attitude as the woman!!!! I guess she must have been busy talking on her cell phone or something cause she didn't feel like writing a report and was a total
jerk at this whole scene. UNBELIEVABLE! I told her the same thing about my mom and I say
I just want a police report and I'll be on my way. Had to call my kid's school and have her held
by the office cause I couldn't pick her up. The other driver is still being obnoxious and now she
is starting to say she never heard anything at all. I said, "are you trying to say you never hit my
car? You came out all apologetic that you did." She said no that she thinks she just tapped it and
there was no noise. My bumper was scratched but I was more concerned that something happened inside it 'cause it was loud. The cop, who was not there, is wondering if what she is saying is true
just when a man comes out of the store who had seen the accident on the way in and calls the
woman on the lie, saying, "Oh no, I HEARD it myself." I said, "THANK YOU very much."
Then he walked away and laughed at us saying he found this very entertaining. I DID mention
this is Jersey right? What an idiot. So there was more but basically I'm wondering if I should talk
to the chief of police about this cop's behavior or not. I called my brother-in-law who owns an auto-body shop in that town and knows all
the cops and he said she is the worst one in town. He said she is horrible and was not surprised at the attitude. She said a bunch of things to me that were not very professional and
really showed that she did not want to be bothered doing the paperwork. I said to her and the
other driver, "Ya know, I didn't do anything here. She hit me. I called the cops. I thought that
was the right thing to do and why am I hearing all this guff?" The cop realized I was right and
then got a little better but then she said to me, "If you decide to come up with thousands of dollars worth of damage." I stopped her right there. I said, "Oh give me a break, TRUST ME, I do not need HER money.
I'm just gonna have the car checked out and make sure nothing broke inside." The cop snottily says, "If you find a thousand dollars worth of damage, you will come talk to me first." Oh god,
now I'm thinking, if I had someone to pick my kid up right now, I think I'd risk the handcuffs
cause this cop is getting on my nerves and I LIKE cops. I have several friends who are policemen
and others that are retired state troopers but this is NUTS. And the truth is, I don't have to come to her. That's for the insurance companies to iron out. So then I find out this woman did
not have any registration on her. HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder she's so mad. She claims her high
school aged son is gonna have to go home and find it. I left while she was stuck there. Ya know,
I think she was embaressed and all that but I'm thinking to myself, I tried to handle this so cool.
I mean if you bash someone's car and that person says, Hey it happens, don't ya think that's
pretty understanding? As I walked to my car as the woman is STILL carrying on and glaring at me, I shook my head and told her, "You can't drive AND you're rude." I told my brother-in-law, "That's it, no more Mrs. Nice Guy, next time,
I'll come out with both barrels firing and carry on like an idiot so they're too darn scared to start on me!" Just another day in the life.
It's like being on Oprah
I clicked on the "multiple myeloma for dummies" blog yesterday and there we were
looking back at me. Ugh, my first thought was "why did I send that picture" ;o). But
the truth is I know why. It's near impossible to find one with all three of us. It is impossible
to find a shot that Tim and I both like of ourselves and last but not least, I had a better one and was just about to
send Phil that shot of us taken outside our favorite burger(and margarita) joint in Cape May taken last summer, when I realized that my head was blocking the "tails" part of the word cocktails on the sign we stood in front of making the place look like it offered: Lunch, Dinner, and some very un-family-friendly entertainment. I was real glad I hadn't unwittingly used that shot for our '09 Christmas card. So onto news here. WIND and RAIN. That's about it. Parts of NJ have
been declared in a state of emergency. We had so much rain and added to the melting snow,
we are quite waterlogged. Then Saturday night, we had 75 MPH winds and the place is nuts.
There are trees and lines down everywhere. They closed school yesterday and some are still
not open today. They cannot get to all the trees and stuff so there are roads closed everywhere.
Tim literally "could not get there from here" when going to one of his jobs yesterday due to the
traffic and road closings. The tree guys are making a fortune and I am so glad we got all our tree
work done at both houses before this happened. The maple in our back yard had to come down
because we lost 2 windshields inside of 3 weeks last summer. I was not going to see our new
truck damaged and everytime we had a storm, we had to move our cars back away from it. I
will miss the shade but not the worries. We turned on our police scanner Saturday night and
the cops were going nuts. They'd no sooner get to one spot with trees and wires down and they
were called to another. They just put cones up and went to the next. They called in every cop, the volunteer fire folks, ambulance workers etc. to help out. Lots of folks lost power and for
people on oxygen, that's a problem. We lost our power last night for an hour or so even though
the storm was well over but we heard a transformer blow some time before so I think we were
shut down so they could repair it. 2 men were killed walking home from synegogue(sp?) by a tree. A church member had a 60 ft oak fall on their house and my neighbor's friend had such
a huge tree fall on his house that it pushed the house right off its foundation. Insane. I am petrified of tornadoes. I have recurring nightmares about them, I don't know why. But I don't
even want to imagine what that would be like. This was scary enough. I am very grateful that
we don't get a flooded basement and that aside from a roofing shingle blowing off our rental,
we have no real damage just a lot of sticks to pick up. Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon. I'll
probably be putting a roof on the darn rental KACHING! On the bright side, the sun finally came
back today. We are supposed to get temps in the 60's this week. WAHOO! I am so done with the
winter coat deal. Welcome SPRING!!! What the heck took ya so long?!
looking back at me. Ugh, my first thought was "why did I send that picture" ;o). But
the truth is I know why. It's near impossible to find one with all three of us. It is impossible
to find a shot that Tim and I both like of ourselves and last but not least, I had a better one and was just about to
send Phil that shot of us taken outside our favorite burger(and margarita) joint in Cape May taken last summer, when I realized that my head was blocking the "tails" part of the word cocktails on the sign we stood in front of making the place look like it offered: Lunch, Dinner, and some very un-family-friendly entertainment. I was real glad I hadn't unwittingly used that shot for our '09 Christmas card. So onto news here. WIND and RAIN. That's about it. Parts of NJ have
been declared in a state of emergency. We had so much rain and added to the melting snow,
we are quite waterlogged. Then Saturday night, we had 75 MPH winds and the place is nuts.
There are trees and lines down everywhere. They closed school yesterday and some are still
not open today. They cannot get to all the trees and stuff so there are roads closed everywhere.
Tim literally "could not get there from here" when going to one of his jobs yesterday due to the
traffic and road closings. The tree guys are making a fortune and I am so glad we got all our tree
work done at both houses before this happened. The maple in our back yard had to come down
because we lost 2 windshields inside of 3 weeks last summer. I was not going to see our new
truck damaged and everytime we had a storm, we had to move our cars back away from it. I
will miss the shade but not the worries. We turned on our police scanner Saturday night and
the cops were going nuts. They'd no sooner get to one spot with trees and wires down and they
were called to another. They just put cones up and went to the next. They called in every cop, the volunteer fire folks, ambulance workers etc. to help out. Lots of folks lost power and for
people on oxygen, that's a problem. We lost our power last night for an hour or so even though
the storm was well over but we heard a transformer blow some time before so I think we were
shut down so they could repair it. 2 men were killed walking home from synegogue(sp?) by a tree. A church member had a 60 ft oak fall on their house and my neighbor's friend had such
a huge tree fall on his house that it pushed the house right off its foundation. Insane. I am petrified of tornadoes. I have recurring nightmares about them, I don't know why. But I don't
even want to imagine what that would be like. This was scary enough. I am very grateful that
we don't get a flooded basement and that aside from a roofing shingle blowing off our rental,
we have no real damage just a lot of sticks to pick up. Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon. I'll
probably be putting a roof on the darn rental KACHING! On the bright side, the sun finally came
back today. We are supposed to get temps in the 60's this week. WAHOO! I am so done with the
winter coat deal. Welcome SPRING!!! What the heck took ya so long?!
Monday, March 8, 2010
3 years on the roller coaster and I'm getting loopy
Today marks 3 years since I was told and then had to walk into my husband's hospital room and tell him that he has cancer. What a day that was. The pain was unbearable. During Tim's hospital stay and when he was first diagnosed, I "powered up" and was strong whenever I was around him or Olivia but absolutely lost my mind when I was alone. I thought I would never stop crying. I found out, I think, 2 days before we got the news that they were ruling out, or in,
cancer with the bone marrow biopsy. I dropped Olivia off at school the next morning and headed to the ICU ward of the hospital.
As soon as she was out of the car, I broke down. I looked at the sky and tearfully yelled out loud
to God, "DON'T YOU DO THIS TO HER. PLEASE!!!!" I begged with every ounce of energy I had to spare her and my husband this awful fate. Obviously, it was not to be. I had told(OK warned to within an inch of their lives) all the doctors that were working on Tim's case, which included his primary care doctors, infectious disease specialists, hematologists, an ear, nose and throat specialist, and an "intensivist" that I never met, that they had better not walk into my husband's hospital room with bad news if I was not there. I've had that done to me and it is so not
cool. So unfortunately, the day I brought Olivia to visit Tim in the hospital was the day we got the news. It was crazy. Tim called my cell when I was in the car with Liv on the way to the hospital after picking her up from school. He told me the hematologist came in and wanted to
know when I was coming back. I knew we were in trouble right there. I held it together and got
to the hospital. Now I had to hand our kid off to my in-laws and they had to take her to the waiting room to get her out of there. I had the doctor paged, waited an agonizing 20 minutes, and she walked me way down the hall. With every step she took further from his room, I knew we
were in big trouble. I walked back to Tim's room and tried to keep my voice from cracking and broke the news. He knew it. I had warned him that they were looking for this so he was not blindsided and in case the doctors did not do as I said and told him when I was not there and he had thought back over symptoms he'd had for the last year, in addition to what he does for a living, and he just knew. Then a neighbor, who we really don't even like, stopped in to see Tim
in the hospital just minutes after I told him. He walked into Tim's room after I briefed him at the
door and said something like, "Well this is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into." Good grief.
Just writing all this makes me wish I had a delete button on my brain. There are so many horrible memories I have of things and I wish I could just banish them all. The months that followed this were something no one that is not experiencing something similar could imagine.
I mourned for months. What I mourned was our life as we knew it which was over. No holiday,
vacation, or experience is ever the same when you wonder if there will be another with your family intact. Any feelings of being blessed or fortunate flew right out the window. I was pissed,
disappointed, and reeling with grief over what had happened to us. I could barely look at Olivia and Tim together without losing it. I have had some real trouble in my life. It had been no picnic but had just started getting back to normal in many ways and then Wham. Just when I thought things were going pretty good, cancer comes to our house.
2 weeks later there was another hospitalization where all the doctors missed the cause of Tim's fever and pain and I diagnosed Tim myself with a dangerous absess in his sinuses caused by the prior hospitalization. I had to tell a doctor I would not take him home till they looked into what I suspected and she ran a cat scan cause what I said made sense and I was right. Sounds like a pat on the back doesn't it? What it is is one of the scariest parts of this journey. Despite being treated in one of the top 50 hospitals in the country, one of the top transplant centers in the world and by a very well known MM specialist who has done this for 20+ years, we found out just how much we had to research and stay on top of things because mistakes happen even more than we already knew. It was scary to learn that we are more responsible for how Tim does than we could have possible imagined. I DO NOT want this kind of responsibility but I have it anyway. I have caught several mistakes and oversights and it's nothing other than the fact that this doctor and his staff were overworked and could not possibly stay on top of everything with their patient load. The real beauty was Tim's transplant. It wasn't enough that we had to deal with the utter devastation of it not working at all, but then for some reason Tim's good blood counts were not recovering even well after he was discharged. We were petrified.
The doctor had no idea why. Tim needed neupogen several times, Aranesp once. Then about 5 months after his transplant, I found out from another caregiver what happened. The hospital changed their stem cell freezing process and it took them months of transplant patients not engrafting normally or at all before they figured out the process was failing. There is a big cover-up now.
We should be suing them because Tim went through a lot to collect his cells and the 8 million that are on ice there are useless and he has none he can use for later. I'm not sure it's wise to sue a hospital you need care from but again, I'm pissed. This blog covers a lot of what has happened since that time. We have had a long break now from treatment since our daughter's 10th birthday which was May 9, 2008. We thank God and are very grateful but know that this is
the calm before another storm. Emotionally, we are doing well. You have no choice, well I guess you do, but basically we have accepted that this is the cards we were dealt. We can't change it now and I know that you DO NOT mourn someone who is still here. You live, laugh, and love and cry when no one is looking. The three of us stay strong for each other. I have seen a courage and selflessness in my husband that amazes me every day. We still have our ups and downs. Me mostly I suspect. But I feel that if my husband can have the kind of strength he has shown, it would not be fair for me to bring him down with my Eeyore
attitude. So I put a smile on my face and make the best of it. I get support from others and offer
it back on the internet as well as the people I meet through our doc's office and support group.
As bad as things are, I know it could be worse and I pray that God plans to keep him with us,
and that no more tragedy befalls our family to add to this already heavy burden. I have always been a learner but have learned even more during these last 3 years. I have met, both in person
and on the www, some pretty darn incredible and caring people who have enriched my life and teach me even more everyday. I have recovered enough from my own medical and anxiety issues to get back to church where I am meeting even more terrific folks. My family has come together to help Tim, Olivia and me so much and my husband has been shown some real love and support from many people which touches him deeply. Life is still a roller coaster but I have learned to just hang on tight when the twists and turns get too much and somehow it always seems to settle down again so I can get my bearings back. Having a child helps. Though it is also
what is so painful for Tim and me to deal with that our daughter got this raw deal, we also know
that she is the reason we have to try so hard to live as well as we can. We travel and make memories together. The three of us are tight as can be. Recently, I have seen that there are a lot of women struggling now on the MM blogs I read. Some are caregivers and some MM patients themselves. Some are pretty new to this MM deal. How lucky we all are to have each other. I don't know what I would do without the support of "knowing" you. But for those who are struggling, and I guess we all are, but maybe for those who are new at this, may I just say that you will be amazed at how strong you will become. I don't often reveal this but I spent half my life crippled by agoraphobia because it took literally decades of misdiagnosis to find the reason behind chronic
near-fainting spells(and sometimes fainting) that I had for most of my life. It pretty much ruined what should have been the best and most productive years of my life. After the diagnosis, I finally made headway in starting to get over the long held anxiety issue. Tim's diagnosis kicked that progress into overdrive. I had to be there for him as he had been there for me. We had swapped roles. I had not driven to the town where his doctor and hospital is in 20 years before this happened to us. I
drive there, alone even, all the time now. When put to the test, women can do most anything.
God made us that way for a reason. We are the glue that holds it all together in families so we need to be strong. I was an emotional wreck, anxious and scared all the time when I had the agoraphobia and no control over my health. I had lost all confidence in myself so if I can do this
caregiver thing now, anyone can. As someone on the acor myeloma listserv
says, "you put on your big girl pants and get on with it." And please don't think I am not aware that it is different for those who are the patient instead of the caregiver. It's vastly different,
I know. I just know that one can overcome so much and that fear is really the biggest hurdle
we all have. If you can somehow get the lid on that part of it at least somewhat, you can make
huge strides. So here I am 3 years later. The same girl only different and smarter but still
hanging in there. I have to LOOK for our blessings harder now but they're there. And when I'm really ticked, I realize there's strength and determination that comes from that. Have you ever seen "Fried Green Tomatoes?" Some days, ya gotta whip out your inner TAWANDA!!!
cancer with the bone marrow biopsy. I dropped Olivia off at school the next morning and headed to the ICU ward of the hospital.
As soon as she was out of the car, I broke down. I looked at the sky and tearfully yelled out loud
to God, "DON'T YOU DO THIS TO HER. PLEASE!!!!" I begged with every ounce of energy I had to spare her and my husband this awful fate. Obviously, it was not to be. I had told(OK warned to within an inch of their lives) all the doctors that were working on Tim's case, which included his primary care doctors, infectious disease specialists, hematologists, an ear, nose and throat specialist, and an "intensivist" that I never met, that they had better not walk into my husband's hospital room with bad news if I was not there. I've had that done to me and it is so not
cool. So unfortunately, the day I brought Olivia to visit Tim in the hospital was the day we got the news. It was crazy. Tim called my cell when I was in the car with Liv on the way to the hospital after picking her up from school. He told me the hematologist came in and wanted to
know when I was coming back. I knew we were in trouble right there. I held it together and got
to the hospital. Now I had to hand our kid off to my in-laws and they had to take her to the waiting room to get her out of there. I had the doctor paged, waited an agonizing 20 minutes, and she walked me way down the hall. With every step she took further from his room, I knew we
were in big trouble. I walked back to Tim's room and tried to keep my voice from cracking and broke the news. He knew it. I had warned him that they were looking for this so he was not blindsided and in case the doctors did not do as I said and told him when I was not there and he had thought back over symptoms he'd had for the last year, in addition to what he does for a living, and he just knew. Then a neighbor, who we really don't even like, stopped in to see Tim
in the hospital just minutes after I told him. He walked into Tim's room after I briefed him at the
door and said something like, "Well this is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into." Good grief.
Just writing all this makes me wish I had a delete button on my brain. There are so many horrible memories I have of things and I wish I could just banish them all. The months that followed this were something no one that is not experiencing something similar could imagine.
I mourned for months. What I mourned was our life as we knew it which was over. No holiday,
vacation, or experience is ever the same when you wonder if there will be another with your family intact. Any feelings of being blessed or fortunate flew right out the window. I was pissed,
disappointed, and reeling with grief over what had happened to us. I could barely look at Olivia and Tim together without losing it. I have had some real trouble in my life. It had been no picnic but had just started getting back to normal in many ways and then Wham. Just when I thought things were going pretty good, cancer comes to our house.
2 weeks later there was another hospitalization where all the doctors missed the cause of Tim's fever and pain and I diagnosed Tim myself with a dangerous absess in his sinuses caused by the prior hospitalization. I had to tell a doctor I would not take him home till they looked into what I suspected and she ran a cat scan cause what I said made sense and I was right. Sounds like a pat on the back doesn't it? What it is is one of the scariest parts of this journey. Despite being treated in one of the top 50 hospitals in the country, one of the top transplant centers in the world and by a very well known MM specialist who has done this for 20+ years, we found out just how much we had to research and stay on top of things because mistakes happen even more than we already knew. It was scary to learn that we are more responsible for how Tim does than we could have possible imagined. I DO NOT want this kind of responsibility but I have it anyway. I have caught several mistakes and oversights and it's nothing other than the fact that this doctor and his staff were overworked and could not possibly stay on top of everything with their patient load. The real beauty was Tim's transplant. It wasn't enough that we had to deal with the utter devastation of it not working at all, but then for some reason Tim's good blood counts were not recovering even well after he was discharged. We were petrified.
The doctor had no idea why. Tim needed neupogen several times, Aranesp once. Then about 5 months after his transplant, I found out from another caregiver what happened. The hospital changed their stem cell freezing process and it took them months of transplant patients not engrafting normally or at all before they figured out the process was failing. There is a big cover-up now.
We should be suing them because Tim went through a lot to collect his cells and the 8 million that are on ice there are useless and he has none he can use for later. I'm not sure it's wise to sue a hospital you need care from but again, I'm pissed. This blog covers a lot of what has happened since that time. We have had a long break now from treatment since our daughter's 10th birthday which was May 9, 2008. We thank God and are very grateful but know that this is
the calm before another storm. Emotionally, we are doing well. You have no choice, well I guess you do, but basically we have accepted that this is the cards we were dealt. We can't change it now and I know that you DO NOT mourn someone who is still here. You live, laugh, and love and cry when no one is looking. The three of us stay strong for each other. I have seen a courage and selflessness in my husband that amazes me every day. We still have our ups and downs. Me mostly I suspect. But I feel that if my husband can have the kind of strength he has shown, it would not be fair for me to bring him down with my Eeyore
attitude. So I put a smile on my face and make the best of it. I get support from others and offer
it back on the internet as well as the people I meet through our doc's office and support group.
As bad as things are, I know it could be worse and I pray that God plans to keep him with us,
and that no more tragedy befalls our family to add to this already heavy burden. I have always been a learner but have learned even more during these last 3 years. I have met, both in person
and on the www, some pretty darn incredible and caring people who have enriched my life and teach me even more everyday. I have recovered enough from my own medical and anxiety issues to get back to church where I am meeting even more terrific folks. My family has come together to help Tim, Olivia and me so much and my husband has been shown some real love and support from many people which touches him deeply. Life is still a roller coaster but I have learned to just hang on tight when the twists and turns get too much and somehow it always seems to settle down again so I can get my bearings back. Having a child helps. Though it is also
what is so painful for Tim and me to deal with that our daughter got this raw deal, we also know
that she is the reason we have to try so hard to live as well as we can. We travel and make memories together. The three of us are tight as can be. Recently, I have seen that there are a lot of women struggling now on the MM blogs I read. Some are caregivers and some MM patients themselves. Some are pretty new to this MM deal. How lucky we all are to have each other. I don't know what I would do without the support of "knowing" you. But for those who are struggling, and I guess we all are, but maybe for those who are new at this, may I just say that you will be amazed at how strong you will become. I don't often reveal this but I spent half my life crippled by agoraphobia because it took literally decades of misdiagnosis to find the reason behind chronic
near-fainting spells(and sometimes fainting) that I had for most of my life. It pretty much ruined what should have been the best and most productive years of my life. After the diagnosis, I finally made headway in starting to get over the long held anxiety issue. Tim's diagnosis kicked that progress into overdrive. I had to be there for him as he had been there for me. We had swapped roles. I had not driven to the town where his doctor and hospital is in 20 years before this happened to us. I
drive there, alone even, all the time now. When put to the test, women can do most anything.
God made us that way for a reason. We are the glue that holds it all together in families so we need to be strong. I was an emotional wreck, anxious and scared all the time when I had the agoraphobia and no control over my health. I had lost all confidence in myself so if I can do this
caregiver thing now, anyone can. As someone on the acor myeloma listserv
says, "you put on your big girl pants and get on with it." And please don't think I am not aware that it is different for those who are the patient instead of the caregiver. It's vastly different,
I know. I just know that one can overcome so much and that fear is really the biggest hurdle
we all have. If you can somehow get the lid on that part of it at least somewhat, you can make
huge strides. So here I am 3 years later. The same girl only different and smarter but still
hanging in there. I have to LOOK for our blessings harder now but they're there. And when I'm really ticked, I realize there's strength and determination that comes from that. Have you ever seen "Fried Green Tomatoes?" Some days, ya gotta whip out your inner TAWANDA!!!
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