My full and kooky life as a homeschooling mommy to 2 great kids, raising a child with HLHS (Hypolastic Left Heart Syndrome), coping with depression, following Jesus, and being much too camera happy.
Chris just got back from a business trip in Des Moines, Iowa. At the office, he was introduced to some imposing vultures that usually hang out in this area. He said a couple of cars had large stuffed animals on the hood to protect their wiper blades from being eaten or get poop on the car paint, which would dissolve the paint since their poop is acidic. As a protected species, the vultures roam around this and people just coexist with them as best as they can.
This picture was taken in San Diego on June 2nd, which, unbeknownst to me, started a harrowing 2 months of stress, sickness, and a hectic scehdule. I wouldn’t have minded a mundane beginning to summer.
Even in San Diego, we started Elliot’s accelerated summer course in World History. Both of us were panting from playing during the day and studying about 4 hours each evening. At the time, we had no idea the workbooks would consume us like this for the next 6 weeks. 10 workbooks in total. Weekly review meetings with teacher. I soon became the drill sergeant and challenged Elliot to write notes for each chapter. That process allowed him to give quick updates to his teacher instead of figuring out on the spot what to discuss. Guess what his rman mama made him do? Handwrite the notes for better comprehension. (Can’t remember how many times he dropped his pen or sipped each particle of water, ever so slowly while whining.)
From June to July, both parents had masssive health issues to address: dad had glacuoma surgery for both eyes, mom was admitted to the hospital 3 times and had 2 cath surgeries for blocked arteries. They were heavily calcified and one of her arteries is only half way ballooned. It was too dangerous and risky to proceed further. Another procedure is scheduled for pelvic mass removal in late August. My brother in law had a kidney transplant in late June.
I got shingles in July.
Teddy, our bun bun, was getting treated for a parasite that gave him glaucoma, for 28 days with deworming medicine.
It was overwhelming the number of issues that kept popping up. Thankfully, we are still intact and Ellis has been out of the hospital. She took many doses of her recue medication within those weeks, but it has safely kept us from making another ER visit. All in all, I’m proud of how we managed to survive those harrowing 2 months and still experience days of fun, rest, and joyful outings. Like Elliot expressed, “life came down hard all at once.”
Going back to the picture at the start of the blog, I hoped that the start to summer vacation would be mundane and carefree, but life had other crazy plans for June and July. It’s August now and we plan to take it chill before our charter school begins on the 17th. Thank God for a new week!
And I completely forgot that Chris and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary early June!
Last week, I went to the doctor’s office to check out a few bug bites on my left upper back and chest thst burned, ached, and led to muscle cramps. Two weeks ago I got red marks on those spots that I believed were from a nasty bug bite, like a spider bite or even worse, ticks. They looked like bites I’ve never had before and nothing like the bedbug bites I had when living in NYC. (there was an outbreak of it and people threw out mattresses on the street, which didn’t solve the problem. It only exacerbated it.)
But then the muscle pain and fatigue worsened as the week progressed. This led to frequent applying of muscle pain reliever patches and taking Tylenol to help sith pain relief.
I feared that this might be a tumor development in my breast and counted down the days to see the doctor, with the fastest appointment being one week away. The week was spent wondering what was going on with my body.
Before doing the breast examination I showed the doctor the bites to see if there was a special cream for them. Immediately, she said they showed similarities to the shingles’ skin blisters. I laughed! It didn’t even cross my mind. I had no idea they could’ve been shingles even though Chris has had shingles before. I thought it could’ve been ticks, so I was trying to pick off the scabs during the week. Oy!!!
I’m still taking antibiotics and some pain med and I should be finished with them this week. Stress is one heck of a health liability. Stress about my parent’s constant health issues and helping Elliot with his accelerated World History summer class must’ve wrecked my immune system. My body was protesting!
Thankfully, my shingles wasn’t as terrible as I had heard from other people’s experiences with it. I wasn’t bedridden for days or have a fever.
I’m just relieved it wasn’t anything more severe. Thankful and blessed. Looking forward to no muscle aches and pains soon.
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