The One Where I Catch My Breath

Oy. Vey.

Well, we are moved.

And amongst the mountain of cardboard and newspaper a new home lay...somewhere.

But before we got there we had to first finish up at the old place. Cleaning, polishing, and sprucing to ensure we got our deposit back. And in between all of that we decided to hold a garage/moving sale.

Because we didn't have enough to do.

And I love getting up at 6:30 AM...three days in a row.

I finally found something worse than packing and unpacking. Pricing and haggling. And watching people who do the drive-by and don't even stop to see what we have. Listen, you can't get the lay of a garage sale from your car. You need to get out, peruse the merchandise. I am a hard-core garage saler, I know these things. So those not-serious people piss me off.

Tomorrow is day three of the sale and then we pack up whatever isn't sold and ship it off to the Salvation Army. Then we drop the keys off and wait for the walk through that will tell us if we get our deposit back. I think if we don't both Charming and I will go ballistic.

We have been getting things put away a bit in the new place but will really focus this weekend and plow through a lot. All the furniture is in place, it's just unpacking boxes now. We got some new faucets for our bathroom and the kitchen because the ones there were antiquated. I need to find some patio furniture for our massive outdoor space and perhaps a futon for the extra bedroom but other than that this house should be set. I will post some pictures when things get more put away.

Within all this controlled chaos, we had a bit of a scare with my mom this week. She was suddenly in the hospital with an infection in her red blood cells. She's going to be okay and is home now with antibiotics. But needless to say this scared the ever living out of me. As all of you know, a blood infection is what killed Charming's father. So I was sufficiently freaked out by this. Granted, my mom got treatment in time and was not as advanced as Charming's dad, but it brought back a whole flood of feelings and memories that I try not to relive. Also being 3000 miles away did not help matters. But she is doing okay and will be fine which is a huge relief for all of us.

So when I get a chance to breathe, when things finally, finally calm down, maybe I can relax. Or at least slow down.

That will be nice. I look froward to that day.

The One With The Eventual Goodbye

My Dad called me this morning.

He informed me that my grandmother had made the decision to take my grandfather off all of his medications.

Since his fall and then subsequent hip surgery in November, my grandfather has had several ups and downs. There were tiny whispers of improvement, things that sparked hope that maybe, just maybe he would come out of everything all right. He left the hospital for a rehab/nursing home facility to work on getting his strength back and try to work up to where we would be able to come home. For my grandfather, being in a nursing is the kiss of death. The two weeks he had to spend in one after his stroke a few years ago were hell and he vowed he would never go back to one again. So I know he was devastated to have to return, even for a short period of time. However, he worked as hard as he could to try and make his time there brief.

Then the bleeds started. He was on watch when blood appeared in his stool, sent to the hospital when that became a steady amount all the time. They gave him a transfusion and he bounced back a bit. But it was not a cure-all and soon he would need another transfusion since he was losing too much blood. They couldn't find out what was wrong without more surgery and due to his age and condition there would again be no guarantees he would survive. They opted to not take him to the bigger hospital for exploratory surgery. Then first hard decision my grandmother had to make was to say no more hospital trips, no more transfusions.

They moved my grandfather to a private room, made him comfortable, and the wait began. He soon lost interest in eating. That, combined with his constant blood loss, caused more wear on an already very tired body. They began to curb his lack of food intake with vitamins and supplements, as well as various pain meds and any other previous medications he was on for his aneurysm, blood condition, etc (there are so many things, I can't keep track) Last week I called him and he was alert enough to talk for a while but tired easily and quickly needed to rest.

I believe that is going to be the last time I will have ever spoken to my grandfather.

According to my Dad, he has stopped responding to any one. He doesn't talk any more. He doesn't move much. He has whithered away to around 110 pounds which on his tall frame is what I can imagine is skeletal. He has been moved to the hospice care section of the nursing home, close to the nursing station and has a specialized doctor there to make sure he is comfortable and out of pain. Plans have been made and set in place for weeks as we wait for what we all know is going to come.

The decision my grandmother made that will be put into effect tomorrow is to take him off all the supplements and medications, with the exception of the pain meds. They are not helping him, not making his quality of life any better. And while I don't want to lose my beloved grandfather, I am glad this decision was made. My grandmother even told me today she should have made it sooner than now. She just didn't now how to. But it's time. My grandfather, a proud and wonderful man, is wasting away and he deserves to go with dignity, deserves to let God take him into his arms and finally ease all the pain and suffering he has endured for so long. He wouldn't want to be like this, and since he can no longer tell us that, it is up to us to make the hard decisions and finally let him go.

But knowing that doesn't make the eventual goodbye any easier to bear.

My heart is breaking. I love him so. I don't want him to leave. I think about all the times I spent with him, the love and support he gave me, how close we became when I went to college and was only an hour away from them for seven years. Mostly, I am devastated that he will not be around to see a child of my own. That our future generation will not be able to share in his love and his amazing personality. I know I will do everything I can to make sure our children know how brave and wonderful my grandfather was. A young man who married his teenage sweetheart, went off to fight in World War II and came home to build a family, traveled all over this country and helped shape my life into what it is today.

I wait for that phone call that I know is going to come. I wait and wonder what I will feel in that moment when I lose another loved one.

The One With The Dreaded Day

One year.

Wednesday will be one year since my father-in-law passed.

How can it be one year already?

I still have flashbacks to those five days in the hospital. Especially after spending four days in a hospital in Ohio. I still wake up shaking with his slack face stuck in my mind staring at me from that hospital bed.

So much has changed in what feels like a short amount of time.

Charming still hasn't processed his loss. He has moments where it hits him like a sledgehammer and he just breaks down, but mostly he stays strong. For his mom. Because she is still having a tough time. She has come leaps and bounds in her ability to live alone but there are still set-backs and problems.

It's only been a year. And at the same time, it's been a year already?

I worry about Wednesday. About how that date will affect Charming. I worry he has it all bottled up inside and it will burst free on Wednesday.

We will not be home. We will be away, trying to keep busy. Distracting ourselves from the reality that is now our lives.

The One With All The Madness

Oh my good Lord.

I don't even know where to begin, there is just so much stuff to tell you.

I ended up going to Ohio for my grandfather's hip surgery. He survived and is doing okay. Still in the hospital but expected to pull through. He is in a lot of pain and is very uncomfortable since they could do nothing for his broken shoulder. It is all swollen and black and blue and the fluids they pump into him are seeping out through his very thin skin. But he is under constant care and they are looking after him well. What I am concerned about it my grandmother. Once I left she is now all alone and my grandfather is in a hospital 40 minutes away. My aunt takes her when she can but I worry about my grandmother staying in that house alone and not eating or sleeping. It was hard for me to get her to do those things when I was there. She's 84 and no spring chicken herself.

I didn't get paid for the four days I was off work to go to Ohio. So my last paycheck was considerably short. The fact that we can hardly get by when I work when I should caused for some huge problems when we had about $400 less than we should have. Also, I probably won't get paid for the Thanksgiving holiday since I did not work the day before (a condition of getting paid double for holidays.) And since they were understanding enough to let me go I agreed to fill in whenever I was needed. So I have some morning shifts coming up. Joy.

My brother came to town the day I returned to Vegas. He was expected to start his new job tomorrow, the Monday after Thanksgiving. However, he had a difficult time getting a hold of the man in charge to figure out when his apartment and everything would be ready. Finally he talked to him yesterday...and his job will not be ready until maybe December 13th. So my poor brother could have stayed in Houston where he had a job and made some more money. Now he is stuck in Vegas with no job, no income and forced to stay with us. He's not sure what to do since he wanted to go back to Massachusetts for Christmas. I feel like he is my kid and I'm worrying about his future. He knows he can stay with us as long as he needs to, but we are boring and I know he is bored already. He needs to get his own place so he can have his own life.

The house may finally be coming to a close with the short sale. We are expected to sign the papers this Thursday, four days before the deadline to close. I am not getting my hopes up until I am told to hand over the keys and that we are free and clear and done. Holidays don't make closing on houses easy either because no one works the day before or after so we were out five whole days with no action last week when you add in the weekend.

I tried to walk as much as I could while I was in Ohio and eat well but with the hours spent in the hospital it was a bit difficult. Since I left last Friday I didn't get to write about last week's accomplishment. I was down to 248.5 pounds! I was amazed that I managed to lose that much in a week. However, this past Thursday, before eating any Thanksgiving food, I weighed myself and I had not lost any more weight. But I was not totally surprised what with the travel and weird hours and jet lag. And then since I have gotten back I have not been able to get myself up to walk before work due to readjusting to my schedule again. However, I do walk on the treadmill at work so that is something. I won't be surprised if I don't lose anything this week either. But I will get right back on track, I know it.

Oh, and I have the Worst Travel Experience Story to share too. But that will have to wait until next time...

The One With The Early Morning Phone Call

5:45 AM.

I open my eyes, listening to the Backstreet Boys song that has infiltrated my dreams. This is why I have a specific ring tone for everyone in my phone, so I know who is calling without even having to look. It helps in situations like this when you are foggy from sleep and can't focus to read the display clearly.

I click accept and say, "Hi Dad," knowing a phone call from him this early can not be a good thing.

Through my father's tears I get pieces of information: my grandfather had fallen and broken his hip and dislocated his shoulder. He's in the hospital. He's in a lot of pain. His hip is shattered. They are not sure if they can operate because he probably won't survive the procedure due to the aneurysm in his abdomen. And even if they operate his arthritis in his spine and knees is so bad he will never walk again.

Things are not good.

My parents are heading to Ohio to help my grandmother and aunt make some really difficult decisions. And I'm stuck here in Vegas, waiting to hear anything more, wanting to jump on a plane myself but know that I can't until I have a clearer idea of what is going on. I'm not good at waiting, I am better when I have something to do. After finding plane tickets for my parents I didn't have anything more to do.

So now I wait. And worry.

And try not to cry through my day.

The One With The Vaction Woes

*ffttttt* *fffftttt*

Is this blog on?

I know, I know. Since I moved here I have not been blogging regularly. Part of it is because I seem to have lost a lot of people and I wonder what is the point. I'm vain, I admit it. I like it when people read my shit. But a larger part is that I just don't feel much like blogging. Which saddens me because I LOVED to blog. I would look for things to post about and compose stuff in my head. I kept a notebook handy for ideas and funny phrases that popped into my head. I don't do that any more. Things took a sad and intense turn in the past few months and blogging just didn't seem important any more. But I miss it. So I thought if I forced myself, maybe I would get back into the swing.

We just returned from what could be simultaneously titled the Vacation From Hell and the Best Vacation Ever. Allow me to list the things that went wrong over the course of 12 short days.

~BIL crashed the car we were going to borrow one week before we arrived leading to us renting a car and spending almost $300 more dollars we didn't have to spend.

~Airlines once again screwed up our seating arrangements which meant I had to attempt to be nice to bitchy airline counter customer "service" people while we tried to get seats together so Charming could sit between the two women in his life who hate to fly and freak out over turbulence.

~Three days into our trip my BIL, MIL, Charming and myself all got food poisoning from eating out at a local restaurant one night. It hit us all hard and fast but none got it as bad as Charming who had to miss the charity motorcycle ride his brother had signed them up for due to his head being in a bucket at the time of departure.

~My mother, who flew in just for that weekend, helped take care of us while we slept and threw up and visited the bathroom multiple times practically the entire time of her visit. then she had to leave early because her first plane had a mechanical failure so they drove her 2 hours to Cleveland where she waited for another delayed flight, got stuck in Philly until 1 AM and finally arrived in Boston at 3:30 AM, had to take a $120 cab ride home from the airport since my Dad had to work at 6 AM and then she got sick too! Not the way I thought her trip would go.

~The hotels we booked in Cleveland did not take cash even though I had asked before hand. And we missed the Continental breakfast since our in room helpful brochure stated it went until 10 Am but really it stopped at 9 AM.

~I booked an appointment at Cat's Meow (It's a collectible I collect) to make my very own personal piece three weeks before our trip. They had me on the calender and had circled my name and moved it up a week...a time we were still in Vegas. So the lady who did the process wasn't there that day. With my luck they will close before I ever get back again to make one.

~On the day before we left we got a call from ADT. Our upstairs motion sensor had gone off and did we want someone to go to the house to check it out? Uh, let me think a moment...YES!!! They asked is anyone had a key and I told her I would call the woman watching our cats. I sent J over as she was on her way to work. ADT told me someone would be there in 7 minutes, a service we pay extra for. An hour and half later, J is very late for work and ADT is not there. I call again, furious and they say they sent the email to the response company and it is out of their hands. We finally get a hold of our cousin who can go over to go in the house with J so she doesn't have to go in herself. ADT finally shows up when our cousin does, they check everything out and nothing is wrong. ADT informs J that the high wind caused a lot of false alarms that day and they were backed up. Had I known that I would not have sent her over there. Needless to say ADT received a nasty phone call on Monday.

~While we were on vacation we had to repeatedly call WF because OUR SHORT SALE HAS STILL NOT BEEN APPROVED!! So we were not able to relax the entire time.

Despite all of this it was so incredible to see all of our family and friends again. Plus we were introduced to the most amazing little being on the planet, our new niece, who turns one this month. She was enough to brighten all of the dark times we had. Seeing everyone was so great and it felt like we had never left. This trip further secured how Vegased out we are and ready to move back to be closer to family. It will take some time to get there but we hope to be back in the PA/OH area in about 2 years. It is something to look forward to.

I love having goals.

The One With The Birthday Wishes

Today is my baby brother's 30th birthday.

Which makes me...I don't want to talk about it.

My little brother is 30! This is so hard for me to wrap my head around because when I think of my brother I think of him being...well, young. And not that 30 is old, just now that he is 30 it is difficult to see him as my "little brother." Because I'm in my 30s and I'm not little, or a baby. I guess this milestone has now firmly placed him in the younger brother category.

T and I are the kind of brother and sister that love to pick on each other. It started young, as soon as I realized I could make him do anything I wanted and then blame him for any fallout. Unfortunately he caught on to that by the time he was six or so and then it became an all out war between us. The war of Who Could Annoy The Other Sibling More (And Make Them Cry) War. I am sorry to say my brother often won these daily battles, due to the fact he would team up with my father for all out tickle fests directed at me, but I ultimately won the war.

Simply because I am older.

My poor brother had to go through life listening to "Oh, you're Princess' brother! Oh we LOVE her! We expect great things from you too!" He had to live up to the reputation of an older sister who not only was an overachiever but a complete suck-up. He got compared to me practically all of our lives. I never realized, until I got older, how unfair this was on my brother. If he didn't live up to my expectations people looked down on him. But he is his own person, he has his own interests and wants and they are completely different from mine. He is an amazing photographer and a great salesman. He is quiet and thoughtful but knows how to have a good time. He is a prankster and a true friend. He is himself and I am proud to call him my brother. So I am taking this opportunity to officially resign my title of winner to the war of WCATOSM(AMTC) War and call it a draw. Because my brother? He turned out all right, despite having to deal with me as his sister.

Happy Birthday to the best brother a girl could have. T, I love you and wish you the happiest of days! And try to get your butt out here to see your stupid sister again soon. Us 30-somethings need to stick together.

The One With The Head Injury

I hit my head at work on Monday. I actually gave myself a mild concussion while trying to retrieve a pen from under the large, heavy, metal bar supported piece of equipment I work on.

*Pause*

I can see you are all not surprised.

Why? Just because I throw out my knee while turning in my kitchen and knock myself out while trying to pick a pen up off the floor does not mean I need to live in a bubble.

*Crickets*

Okay, maybe I should at least invest in a helmet. And perhaps elbow and knee pads.

My curse as the clumsy, accident-prone, disease and problem riddled person is really starting to wear on me in my older age.

When I was a kid it was frightening. I can remember at the age of six running up to my mother with blood streaming down my back from the head wound I received upon slamming my noggin into a brick fireplace. I do believe it was my mom who passed out that day rather than me.

When I was a teenager it was annoying. The summer I tried to pop a wheelie on my bike going downhill while chasing my brother, thus breaking my wrist in two places, caused me to miss out on such fun summer activities as swimming and horseback riding and showering. Falling out of a bunk bed with my cast on did nothing to booster my parents' belief I needed to be watched at all times.

When I was in college it was a right of passage...just more frequent with me. Having your stomach pumped is nothing new for someone testing out alcohol for the first time. Having to visit the Infirmary/Hospital because you have mono/scabies/walking pneumonia/cysts/alcohol poisoning was par for the course for me.

When I was in my twenties it was somewhat charming. I became the butt of jokes among my soon-to-be-married-into new family, especially when my dear loved ones regaled them with tales of my mishaps. Charming found it cute that I managed to hurt myself in the most peculiar ways. Until the first time I managed to shoot dry spaghetti past my glasses and into my eye while attempting to cook dinner one day. Having seen me almost blind myself while doing practically nothing he became more aware of the dangers involved with being married to someone like me.

Now in my thirties I am just tired of being the one that everything happens to. If there is a crack in the floor, I'll trip over it. If there is a bug in the room, it will fly up my nose. If someone warns against a giant black swamp monster terrorizing their neighborhood, that slimy creep would find a way to break into my backyard and nosh on my head. I have that kind of luck.

The thing I worry about is passing this malady on. I take after my father. In the klutz department we are two birds of a feather. Quite frankly I think my Dad was happy when I came around because then the focus went off of his inability to walk down the street without walking into a tree to trying to save the baby from impaling herself on her high chair. Between us we have over 150 stitches, several broken bones, untold number of sprains, numerous concussions as well as the completely baffling tales of how and when we get hurt. My Dad breaks his jaw saving some kids from a horrible sledding accident. I throw out my back keeping a kid from falling to his death off the jungle gym. I almost lose a finger and get lead poisoning from a pencil sharpener at school. My Dad slices open his leg with a chainsaw. We have had some interesting and bizarre injures. I always worry when we are in the same room together, mentally going over possible problems that our combined accident-prone beings will cause to occur. We are like two non-superheroes, combining forces to bring havoc upon ourselves. Accident Dad and Klutz Girl!

So what if I did inherit this Incident Gene, destined to always be the one who falls, gets hit, bleeds, and gets hurt? I would probably pass it on to any children we have. Perhaps it is only a firstborn issue since my brother doesn't seem to harbor much the same problem staying healthy and injury-free as I do. But then again he does take after my mother's side of the family more in build and height so it would make sense he would be more in control of his ability to not be a klutz. If our kids come out more like Charming I may be in the clear. However, I will have to deal with those issues his side of the family harbors, like the strong attachment to quoting movies incessantly and cooking food that makes you eat until you burst.