Too funny not to share

My 8 yr. old niece just got over Coxsackie virus and this week, my 4 yr. old nephew got it.
My sis brought him to the pediatrician the other day and apparently, the doctor, how shall we say,
released some methane gas as he walked into the examining room. The stink reached my nephew who then yelled, "MOMMA, WHAT IS DAT SMELL?" and proceded to jam two fingers up his nostrils for the
remainder of the appt. while the doc is trying to check his throat, ears, etc. He continues to ask, of course
because she has not given him an answer and my sis did mention something about "hang time". "MOMMA WHY DUZ  IT SMELL WIKE DAT?" My
sister is trying to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing and the doc is carrying on business as usual.
Just too funny being around kids that age.

Late entry: Went to the docs today. I know we were both apprehensive. Blood cell count looks a little droopy but MM numbers look good(at least Tim has something to blame his sad golf game yesterday on). Electrophoresis and immunofixation still shows a slight band that is
really not quantifiable. Doc says he's not concerned at all. 3 months interval until next appt. still. I got the chance to ask him some MM questions about transplants and drugs and am amazed at how fast things change. I have not researched nearly as much as I did when Tim was in treatment and we had pressing decisions to make and the whole MM landscape just moves and changes so quickly. Good news, I think. It's all progress. Celebrating my
dad's 73rd tonight with a calmer mind. Burgers and dogs on the Bar-B  at our house, some cake, and then all of us off to an outdoor concert in town. I'll take it.

A few things I've learned this past week

1. Hourly hot flashes and 100+ degree weather don't mix well.
2. Perimenopausal symptoms (read moodiness) and raising a teenager don't mix well. Something to be said about having kids younger, you avoid these two things colliding later. Poor planning on my part.
3. Kids on  facebook...probably a bad idea altogether.
4. Perimenopausal symptoms, raising a teenager(who never listens to me), 100 degree weather, hot flashes, owning a business and a rental, high blood pressure, lack of sleep(damn hot flashes), AND having a husband with MM(who also never listens to me), WELL.....
I don't know how to explain it other than, somedays, I wish I could quit this job.
Ugh, here comes another flash now.

Oh and one more thing I've learned. I don't consider myself a patient person. YA THINK?!!! But I realized something yesterday(after a  BMW with NY plates stopped in the middle of the road in front of me in an intersection 'cause apparently she was confused and picked that place to try to figure it all out.) If I can drive on NJ roads for 29 years without shooting someone, I think that speaks for my patience BIGTIME. ;o)
Oh and I almost forgot one more.....I cuss too much.

Ah yes, another day in paradise!  Learning new things everyday.  ;o)

She's gainin' on me

When did this......

become this? The 12 years between these 2 photos just flew by.

I measured Liv's height yesterday. She is 5' 1 and 3/4" tall. 2 more inches and she'll be as tall as me.
She caught up and passed me in shoe size. I think she's going to pass me in height too. She is skinny with not a bit of fat on her(like her dad and I
always WERE) but I am SO NOT USED to being eye level with her. She has had
one heck of a growth spurt this year. I look at her and can't believe this is my little girl. The top pic was taken when she turned a year old. For all you crafty gals across the pond, both outfits are "me-made". I LOVED
making her little girly dress. Mine was a skirt suit designed by Jessica McClintock. Yes, they matched and I'm happy to say, it's the only time I ever did that and I have also long since gotten over my pink phase(do all moms that have baby girls go through that?) Liv's eyes were violet blue until she was about 2. You can see it a bit in

the 1st photo. I was sad that they changed but they lightened up to Tim's color, which is still pretty though a bit less striking. Check out this shot of her with Tim. One of my faves. This is what his hair looked like before it met chemo. It never went back to having this much body and he hates it now. It's pin straight and lays very flat so I cut it much shorter than I used to. Olivia was born with orange hair, as I was. Mine stayed auburn, going from lighter when I was younger to darker and MAJORLY grey streaked now. Hers went from red to reddish brown then to a dirty blonde and light brown now that blondes up in the sun, just like Tim's. She has mostly his coloring with the same very pale freckles over the bridge of her nose like Tim(I am freckled bigtime). BUT the major difference is Olivia must have gotten some serious italian genes from my dad because this kid turns brown as a raisin in the sun even with 50 sunblock on. You cannot keep this kid from tanning and she keeps some color year round now. We're not even halfway through the summer and she is like cinnamon already. Well, I got a new printer that scans photos so expect to be bored with the family pictorial for awhile. I'll try to control myself.  ;o)

Word of the day- guilt

It's been a tough week over here. Tim and I had a bad arguement on Sunday. Work has been stressful for him. Peri-menopause is kicking my butt. We've lived under construction for 17 years and it got old for me a LONG time ago. My dad had surgery Wed. Tim's aunt, a lovely woman, just died yesterday after fighting ovarian cancer for over 5 years. His uncle will be lost without her and they live
in Key Largo, so there has not been all that much we could do or can do now. Last night, I went out and
caught a few outdoor concerts to relax. Took my kid and my puppy and Tim met up with us after he'd had
something to eat. Then I got home and Tim hit the answering machine button and we heard a message from
a friend in Vermont telling us that her husband had died. Ya know, this week just has to end already. Tim has
to go in for a blood draw today and will have a follow-up appt. the last week of July. He admitted to me this morning that all this bad news swirling around us has him feeling like the shoe is gonna drop for him. Today, I feel guilty that I did not e-mail Tim's aunt more than I did. I did get to talk on the phone with her though just a few months ago. We have not been to visit our friends in VT in a few years. They are quite a ride from Tim's parents' house and Liv gets carsick so easily and we just have not hauled out there in awhile. Today, I have an appt. and won't be able to go with Tim to get his blood draw. I am still so angry at him for things he said on Sunday. It's so hard to be angry at someone who has cancer, but the truth is, this is still a marriage, and it's not a perfect one, and we still pi** each other off. I just called to try to move my appt. earlier or later so I could go with Tim. There I go putting everyone but myself first again but guilt is beating me senseless today. Guilt is such a vicious emotion. I suppose it can be constructive if it makes you do things better in the future, not make the same mistakes again, but it really can beat you to a pulp and make you feel bad about yourself.
It's taking the oomph right outta me today and I have too much to do to sit around here and mope. So guilt is today's 4-letter word. Learn from it maybe, then toss it out the window and move the heck on.
RIP: Carol and Herman

Dropped balls and being your own advocate

I can't say it too much. Ya gotta be on your game in the healthcare world. This morning, my dad had surgery on his sinuses. He had polups(sp?) and he was tired of dealing with sinus infections all the time. About 5 or 6 years
ago, he was rear-ended by a truck and knocked out and we found out that he has an aneurism in his head when they did a cat scan on him. Probably been there a long time but it's, of course, a concern and there's certain things that are more risky for him. SOOOOO he had to get all kinds of clearances from his neurologist, submit scans and reports about his aneurism, do all sorts of pre-op testing and the last few weeks have been a frustrating back and forth of docs offices NOT doing what they were supposed to and  dragging this whole process out. Today, after all this, they are just about to start and the anesthesiologist walks into the room and THEN she is told about his aneurism. Probably the person who most needed this information was never told and she gets it thrown in her lap when she walks into the room to put him under. She proceeds to throw a little fit (rightfully so but it stinks that my dad had to hear this) and tells them she does not want to put him under because the general anesthesia they were using can cause blood pressure spikes, especially when the patient is being intubated and extubated. BP spikes can make aneurisms rupture and cause, you know, like death. I don't know how the rest of the conversation went, but note to anesthesiologist: TALKING LIKE THIS IN FRONT OF THE PATIENT CAN ALSO CAUSE BLOOD PRESSURE SPIKES!!! Well, she did finally put him under and he got the surgery done but what a nice little scene to be privy to just as they're about to do this thing to you. It bothers me that my dad did all these things to safeguard his health AT THEIR REQUEST and then the ball gets dropped anyway. Maybe they would have used a safer type of anesthesia, I dunno, but it's scary when stuff like this happens. My dad may be just a number to them but he's a lot more than that to a whole lotta people. Thank God, everything else went smoothly. Glad I went to hang out with them cause the nerves of it all was making my Mom even more confused with her memory issues and I knew she would not remember what the doctor told her and my dad was too fuzzy to remember what the nurse said to him either. My memory is shot too so we were all like the blind leading the blind over there but when it's medical stuff, I darn well remember.

Put on them rose colored glasses, it's vacation time, Jersey style

We're back from vacation in Cape May.The weather was fine. The vacation was appreciated, if a bit difficult.
It was hard to see that my Mom's memory problems have gotten so much worse. I found myself in a bit of
a funk this past weekend. I'm worried about her, about Tim's appts. this month, the traffic and crowds were insane, my sis was going in for lap band surgery Tues., and I am
still having some significant GI problems. I've had to once again try to put positive spins on the things that I
could, so here's a few examples. Our first day there, Tim and my dad hit the golf course while us gals did
a little shopping at the square. On the way back to the hotel, I had an idjit in a maserati convertible
almost broadside me by driving onto the street I was on without looking first. So, the positive part of this
is that at least I was paying attention and avoided the accident. I must say that since my windows were shut due to the A/C being on, the guy did not hear my comments about his driving ability, or lack thereof,  but it appeared that
the bleach blonde in the passenger seat, who almost ate the side of Tim's truck, did give him a bit of
"what-for" for his bonehead maneuver. Lasting impression: I was actually a bit surprised to see the Maserati
word on the back of the car. It is not nearly as exotic looking, nor does it sound nearly as cool as my sister's
husband's Testarossa. Also, though I normally crumble if I see a grown man cry, I don't think it would have bothered me at all if this dude did hit me and sat there bawling over his precious car. I just love driving big trucks! Then, on the night of the 4th, I was driving us all home after the fireworks(they were all eating ice cream so I took the wheel). There was traffic and pedestrians everywhere. I went to make a left at a light.
There were 4 teenagers on the sidewalk but they were not in the crosswalk and I
had plenty of room to turn. Then as I make the turn, this girl yells, "hey, we're walking here you JACKOFF!"
I slam on the brakes. 4 passengers almost get a mush full of ice cream. As soon as she sees this she thinks
RUH ROH and says, "OOPS, I'm sorry." Since I had been driving slowly, and they continued walking while I stopped, they had stepped off the curb by this time and they are pretty near Tim's open window.Then the guy says, "just keep driving" trying to be cool in front of the girls. We both give them a few choice words. They shut up 'cause Tim looks about to jump out of the truck and I'm hoping they learned a thing or two about running their pie holes without
thinking. The silver lining: though I wished I was back in my old stick shift car when it happened, the reason
it's a good thing I wasn't is that I would have pushed the clutch in and put the gas pedal to the floor and watched these four punks run for their lives thinking they were about to be mowed down. And being in the
PMS-ey, stressed out mood I was in this weekend, I can't promise I would not have popped that clutch just
long enough to chirp the tires and have all of them changing their...um....knickers. Did I mention that I love
driving big trucks though? ;o) Lasting impression: kids these days are way too full of themselves and the entitlement they feel is incredible. So the last time I had to restrain myself from killing someone...er...um...put on my rose colored glasses, was when we got home. We picked Lacey up from the kennel, got home and no sooner got out of the truck to see that there were fireworks all over our yard. We did not want to let the dog
into the house until we'd given her a bath and we didn't want to let her loose until we picked it all up so we didn't even get in the house. Tim and I spent 20 minutes in blast furnace heat picking up the remnants of bottle rockets and all sorts of fireworks that our new neighbors apparently set off while we were gone. Some of them landed on our cars and others landed ON THE BACK ROOF OF OUR HOUSE. To say we were irate is an understatement. You first have to understand, we have had some pretty bad luck with neighbors
and are pretty fed up. We had hopes that this couple would be different. Last week, they set up motion detector sprinklers to keep the deer away from their tomato plants. They were shooting over our fence and hit me when I went to get into the van and sprayed through the open windows of Tim's "new" truck. Tim spoke to them and they were apologetic. NOW the IDJITS do this with the fireworks. We wound up with a big pile of rubbish and we're still finding more everytime we go out with the dog. At one point we wondered if they came over HERE to set them off, there were so many.  Tim will be having another talk with them. Now for the positive spin: Tim stopped me before I went over and dumped the bag of crap on their deck, giving them a piece of my PMS-ey mind. My side-arm was unloaded and put in hiding still from vacation. And at least the arse is a fireman, so when he sets fire to my 103 year old home that will go up like a box of matchsticks, maybe he can put the fire out before the whole neighborhood burns down. Ya see, it's all on how you look at things, isn't it?!!!