Breaking through the Fibrofog…

Apparently my dad was being discharged today from the hospital, he went in on Wed. or Thurs. after having a heart attack and had heart surgery for a blocked artery and stents put in.   I just found out today.   I was already an emotional mess lately so this didnt help matters much. I had a good talk with my dad though, I called him at the hospital after finding out.  Asked him to try to keep us up to date and made sure he knew I was concerned.   I dont know how much good it will do but I tried.

yesterday my mom had surgery to remove her gall bladder. she’d been complaining of severe  pain for a few months and her dr kept telling her it was acid reflux.  luckily she didnt believe him and started a diet that actually gave her some relief after which the doctor believed she might have gall bladder problems since the diet changes seemed to help her some. so they did an u/s and found out she needed to have her gall bladder removed.   the surgeon said he was suprised she was able to walk around since as inflamed as the gall bladder was she would have been in severe pain. it took them longer to do the surgery and they had to do an extra incision since it was so hard to remove.    I feel bad for thinking she was just worrying about nothing and that it was just something simple wrong with her, but since the dr was wrong too at first I guess it’s not completely horrible of me to think that, since i just assumed the dr was right the first time.   At least now once she’s recovered she’ll be feeling better!

so lots going on, lots to leave me realizing I’m getting old as are my parents.   Our time is short folks and we need to spend our time taking advantage of all and any oppurtunities to let our loved ones know that they are truly loved even if they dont seem to care!  I can only hope one day my efforts will be made worth it, I will admit that I did feel good about talking to dad today, but it still doesnt take away the pain of all the years past and I know although he said he will call in a few days to let me know how he’s doing I know I wont expect the phone to ring, because then I’d be expecting something and the less expect the less dissappointed I’ll be.   I hate having to fear opening up about my feelings with my family but today I had to let go of some things and had some much needed conversations with folks, theres still a few people I want and feel led to talk to about things but overall I’m glad I’m doing my best to keep communication open.  I realized lately how much I am like my grandmom, and I like that, I like being able to talk to her now that I’m an adult.   I like being responsible for the depth of relationships I have with my family. I realize I am a big slacker in that regard and it’s because I’m so afraid of getting hurt.  I’m not naive and I know I cant replace missed years, but every phone call and visit with those I missed out on for so many years reminds me how much I need my family.    How much they mean to me and how I can change how involved my kids are in their lives as well as they are in ours.

Dean and Caleb are at the Orioles game tonight , we signed caleb up for the dug out club.  While talking to my grandmom after they left I found out my aunt, uncle and cousin are there too so I am hoping they run into each other, Dean left the cell phone or I’d call him to let him know.   I’m hoping that in the future we can plan to meet them there, Caleb would love that and it would give us a chance to see them more often!

what a day I tell ya!  I’m hoping tomorrow starts off better than today did!   I’m hoping for a lot of things today actually, my heart is full of so much and I’m suprised this wasnt more depressing of an entry, but like I said I’m hoping, that’s a big thing I’ve got going for me today, hope and faith, without it I’d be in a much worse place, a place I know some others are dwelling and I wish I could help them, but all I can do is hope and pray for everyone and know that our God is bigger than all of this mess we’ve created for ourselves.

I had really been wanting this FP space saver high chair, but couldnt justify spending that much money on it when I could get something similar for less. So tonight I got this similar Safety First one.  I cant decide whether I’ll use our old high chair for Zeke and let Bo use the new one or just use the new one for Zeke since he’s used to the old one, but I’m afraid Bo is going to want to use the new seat once he sees it.  So I’ll guess we’ll see how he reacts to seeing it, I just got sick of having the baby in another room while we ate dinner.  Several times we laid Zeke in the boppy on the table while we ate, but that takes up space on the table while we eat.  So now he can recline in either the new seat or our old high chair which also reclines.     I always had to go check on the baby or hold him while we eat since dinner time is generally the only time other than when he’s hungry that he wants to be held, I know babies tend to be fussy around this time of day and really it’s not so bad but I just hated him not being with us as we ate as a family anyway so now we can all be at the table together, even if Zeke’s not eating with us.

Been playing around on Scrapblog.  Here’s what I’ve made so far.   It tends to freeze up my computer if I use Firefox and sometimes even acts up in IE but for the most part when it’s working its easy and fun!

I am sure I’m not the only one confused about the new BGE rate increases.   I wondered earlier in the week if it would make more sense for us to try to make sure we move sooner than later due to the rises in this and our property tax in July, yep the city is royally screwing us this July.   Now after reading this it says if we opt into the deferred rate increase plan and then move out of the area we will still owe BGE money.  How ridiculous is that?  I dont know whether to opt in or out, and several places keep saying that the average bill will be under $150, but our current bill is already over that so I dont want to imagine what it will be like after the increase.  we live in the city so our rates are already higher than those living a block over in the county and now with this and our property taxes going up a ridiculous amt we’re going to be screwed this summer.

on top of stressing over this, we got a hospital bill for Zeke’s hospital stay.   It was for over $8000!   The insurance company said we never added him to the policy, which we called both them and the HR dept at Dean’s company weeks ago.   They told us if he wasnt added in 30 days that it wouldnt be covered, they conveniently wait til after the 30 days to send us a bill letting us know there was a problem.  Turns out there is record at Dean’s hr dept that we called within the 30 day time but for some reason the info didnt get from his company to the insurance company.  I’m praying once it does the bill goes away, but it’s scary getting a bill that high!!   We’ve got a ton of other medical bills we’re having issues with in regards to the pregnancy/birth and I’m going nuts worrying about it.

we did finally get some money back from our car insurance that we were due to our towing expense coverage but we owe part of that to other things already.  I hate having to worry about money but since it doesnt grow on trees it’s kind of hard to ignore!  Not to mention all these doctors appointments and medicines we all keep needing.  Dean got 3 prescriptions today from the allergist and Caleb got one for strep.  We are supporting the freaking drug manufacturers a lot this year and I’m sure we could spend our money having more fun or at least on drugs that are more fun! 

Caleb has strep, again.   Dean went to the allergist, he has a handful  of allergies, some which we knew some I dont know why it matters.   They told him we need some kind of mattress cover because he’s allergic to dust mites.   He seems to be feeling better otherwise, guessing this morning he was sick from a nasty migraine, or so we hope that’s all it was.  I had a killer one this morning too.

Sooooo…..Dean was going to stay home to help me out today, we have a few errands to run, Caleb needs to go to the dr and Dean had an appt w/ the allergist.   Upon waking Dean proclaimed he had a headache, since then he’s been throwing up or laying in bed.   So much for helping me out today.   Caleb’s now got diarrhea to add to his list of symptoms.   I so hope we dont all get the stomach bug that’s going round.  Ive actually felt better stomach wise the last few days, thinking that was good so when I go to the gastro. next week it wont seem like I’ve been sick non stop like I was but if the boys have a stomach bug….blah!   So….now Dean will be staying home w/ Bo to take a nap while Zeke and I accompany Caleb to his doctors appt.  So I need to go hurry up and nurse Zeke before we leave.    Did I mention I have a headache too??   at least it’s almost Friday!

so we let Caleb go to school today, he didnt have a fever or any symptoms of illness this morning and was excited to go because it was kite day, they were going to picnic outside for lunch and fly kites. I was hoping to walk up w/ the two little ones to see and help but bo was too tired for morning nap and I wasnt feeling too great either. So at the end of the school day..I walked to get caleb from school thinking since the school nurse never called that Caleb had been fine all day and wasnt sick. BUT…i get there and the teacher said he laid down outside during the kite activities, ok what kid would do that? But she just assumed he was tired and didnt send him to the nurse or call me. She also said he had been sitting with his head on his desk for awhile and was there waiting for me like that. Poor kid was so mad at me since we walked and not driven to get him, he was miserable and felt fevered and he had to walk home! We got home, checked and sure enough he has a fever. he fell asleep right after getting a drink and just woke up, an hour and a half later. Needless to say I’ve made him a drs appt for tomorrow. His only complaints are a headache and his stomach hurts(but no stomach problems yet like vomitting or diarrhea) Last time he was like this, just headache and stomach cramps he had strep. Guessing that’s what this is again. Friends of ours from church have had strep back and forth between different family members for about two months now I believe. I’m hoping the rest of us stay well, but Bo has had a runny nose for a few days so it might be too late. I hate having sick kids, now I’m trying to figure out how to take 3 kids to the dr w/ me, I think Dean is going to help since he had time scheduled off for his own drs appt tomorrow so he might just take the whole day off.

the only cute thing about this has been, Caleb fell asleep on the sofa and Bo kept going over to him and patting his head and talking to him. Bo looked truly sad that Caleb wasnt playing with him! poor kid. I admit it’s been kind of lazy around here w/ the kids this week and myself because I havent been feeling well. well speaking of kids…gotta run!

UPDATE:  ugh!! last time I changed Bo I got sick of fighting him to stay still so just left his pants off of him.  He had a very runny poopy diaper and was pulling off the diaper and playing with it.   It was all over the carpet.    I just love being a SAHM!!!