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Medical Madness

I grew up in the medical system. For those that don’t know this about me I was born with a birth defect that meant I had my first corrective surgery at 3 months old and my 50th right before my 18th birthday. There have been a few others since then but the bulk were in my childhood. I’ve depended on doctors and medicine my entire life. Honestly never was taught to question them or their orders.

As I have grown older and run into periods where I suffered consequences of some of those orders I’ve begun to wonder if the doctor is always right. For example when I received the COVID vaccine and subsequently suffered through 3 months of full body hives that the doctors swore couldn’t possibly be a side effect of the vaccine I was itchy, angry, and pretty sure the medical community was full of morons.

I find myself sort of here again. My middle child and his wife question EVERYTHING. As I ask questions and find myself dissatisfied with the side effects of multiple rounds of antibiotics and steroids I grow increasingly more curious about their perspective on things. And how to balance that with conditions I have like Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism. And dysfunctional ears and sinuses that periodically, like now, just flat refuse to cooperate.

I left on vacation with an ear infection. My second in a month. Though I completed a full ten day round of antibiotics while on my trip I came back with a double middle ear infection, RSV, and a sinus infection. Was put on a different round of antibiotics when I got home, given a steroid shot, and oral steroids. The antibiotics have upset my gut. The oral steroids keep me up at night and make me angry at everything and everyone. I’m sleep deprived and cranky. By now I should be getting better but woke up with the room spinning. Like WTF.

Where is that line that we trust doctors or we say nope this isn’t working and I have to try something else? How does someone like me with all kinds of complications wean myself off of depending on doctors? One of the things pressing on my mind is the shingles vaccine. I’m not quite at the age for it yet but I had HORRIBLE chicken pox as a kid and I’m a prime candidate for shingles. But after the reaction I had to the last vaccine I let someone put in me why on earth would I sign up for another? But I know from seeing people around me go through shingles that those can be excruciating too. Which is worse?

And even if I did figure any of it out and think I have a plan then the damn insurance company would weigh in and say NOPE you can’t have that drug. Perfect example is my thyroid medicine. I was stable on one drug for over five years. But my insurance changed and they wouldn’t cover it. My body doesn’t respond to the one they do cover and even though we switched me back to the good one by paying out of pocket for it it’s now two years later and we still haven’t gotten my thyroid back under control from having been off it for 9 months. Why the hell does insurance get to dictate what we take if patient and doctor have determined that one medically won’t work?

It’s all madness. Just fiscally driven madness where money is most important and we are secondary. There’s my brain dump for the day. 😉

Blessings y’all. – A

Another Goodbye, A Closing, and A New Year

This one has been bouncing around in my brain the last few weeks and I’ve been trying to sort through so many emotions. Figure I’ll sort it out here like I always do lol. The Irving house finally found its new owners. About a week ago another tumor took our sweet Paris. And inexplicably a new year is upon us.

We signed the papers on the Irving house four years to the day of when I unpacked the last box, hung the last picture, and posted the before and after video of the renovation from moving into Turtle Summit. Funny sometimes how God’s timing works. I’ve been trying to put my mind around the emotions there, cause there are some, but can’t quite get there. When I reflect back on who I was then…man.

Four years ago I was so angry. So tired. So overwhelmed. So afraid. If I dared to crack open one of my prayer journals I can almost promise you those prayers read something like “give me my life back” or “rewind the clock”. My children were leaving home, my husband was gone, and I had absolutely no idea who I was. And quite frankly I was crazy. Out of my mind flipping crazy. I look back on that person and wonder where she came from and thank God every day that he put the right tools and people in my path to get me through.

As I look around today? My list of blessings is as overwhelming as that list of pain and sorrow was. A home I never could have dreamed this small town girl would ever have. A man I adore who loves me beyond measure. A job that challenges me and pushes me to keep growing even when I’d like a minute to breathe.

Last weekend we said goodbye to another of our fur babies. She was older but we weren’t ready. She had a tumor in her ear that they couldn’t promise us wasn’t in her brain. She was in pain and not herself. We kept the promise we made each other not to prolong our babies lives for our own inability to say goodbye. But less than three months after losing Hope it just made the grief hole rip open again. The energy in the house has shifted again and the three remaining girls are tying to find a new rhythm. They are very clingy to us and hate when we leave the house.

Tim and I’s word for 2025 is “intentional”. So often we find ourselves at the end of a week, month, or year having just responded to all that came at us instead of acting intentionally towards our goals. We want to work on the goals we have set and live life on our terms. I think some of that is a result of seeing what we accomplished when we set our mind to it with the house. Not sure. We just know that as we heal from some of what 2024 took from us and embrace some of what it gave us we have big plans.

I am waking up at night with my mind and my heart racing. Anxiety coursing through me that I can’t identify. I thought it was the house. But with that settled not sure what it is. Work is out of control busy so maybe it’s that. But I know that if I turn it over to God and just lift it in prayer it’ll resolve itself in time. Just takes the one thing hardest for me – faith.

What are you reflecting on in as we close out 2024?

—Amy

Reflections on a Holiday Season

Another Christmas Eve is here. As I sit and reflect on how this year’s holiday season has gone I realize progress was made this year. For the first time in years Christmas wasn’t something just to be survived and gotten through!

I’ve spent numerous of the years past turning myself inside out trying to survive the holidays. That or exhausting myself alternating between trying to avoid them wishing away pain and memories or trying to make them perfect. Somehow this year in just letting go it was actually a very enjoyable season.

Did I get Christmas cards out this year? Nope. Get everything on the list of things I wanted to get for people I love? Not even close. Did I find a new favorite Christmas album that I wore out every commute back and forth to work for a month? Yep. (Thank you Cher.) Bake cookies and treats until I was exhausted but happy? Yep.

Tomorrow we are shucking the traditional Christmas menu and replacing it with tamales (brought in through contacts at work) and easy sides. No 5 am turkey shenanigans for me. Short of jumping on a ship I don’t remember another year we’ve dropped traditional Christmas dinner. What’s more? Everyone is pretty darn excited about it!

2024 was a year of huge changes. If you had asked me at this time last year if I’d be living anywhere other than Irving where I’d spent the last 20 years I’d have told you that you were smoking something. But if this year has taught me anything it’s that unlike what life has shown me the last decade or so change can also be good. So I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me that Christmas this year would be different! 🎄

Merry Christmas y’all!

Amy

Another Goodbye is Upon Us

Someone said to me today that pre-grieving is as hard as the grieving can be. While I had never heard the phrase “pre-grieving” it certainly fit. Knowing what’s coming, agonizing on if you are making the right decision, if the time is right, knowing how much it’s going to hurt…it all sucks.

The time has come that we have to say goodbye to Hope. Tomorrow we’ll take her to the vet and send her home to God where she won’t be in pain anymore. While I know she has quite the host of angels waiting to receive her my heart is still breaking.

Hope is the youngest of our babies. If I really dwell on the unfairness of it all that’s the thing that hits me the most. We have three senior citizen dogs and our youngest girl got aggressive non-treatable cancer. Like WTF.

From the day we got her Hope’s role has fit her name. She gave us hope. She came into our life to fill the hole left when we lost Tigre. The kids wouldn’t let me name her Faith or Love from 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” So I named her Hope.

She has always had human tendencies. She has never been one for just a belly rub. She has to hug you. Both arms around your neck hug you before she is content. She sits up in “her” chair on her butt like a human. She has never ever realized her own size…she’ll crawl into your lap like she is a five pound chihuahua instead of an eighty pound overgrown love mutt. She’ll sneak under the covers in bed with you at night and curl up oh so tight only to run you off the bed spread across half of it in the middle of the night – running in her sleep no less.

I read something recently speculating on what a dogs’ purpose is on this earth. It is to remind us humans that love is supposed to be easy. Unconditional, all consuming, and with the unadulterated joy that comes to a dog when we walk through the door. It’s us humans that make it hard. Dogs like Hope are especially good at their job. All she ever needed was a piece of human food snuck under the table (cherry tomatoes are her favorite!), a hug, a lap to sleep in, or a car ride with her ears flapping and her tongue wagging. Or to wrestle with her sister over who got to get to me first when I walked in the door.

So how do you say goodbye? How do you look into those big brown eyes and tell her it’s ok to let go? That you’ll be ok even when at that moment you aren’t sure you will be? That’s how I will love her the way she has always loved me. Selflessly and deeply. I don’t want her to hurt anymore. I want her to run and roll and play and feel no pain. My heart will carry her with me for the rest of my days. I’ll console her sisters for many many weeks to come – especially Lilah. I’ll bury my face in her blanket and seek comfort from her smell until it fades.

I believe in heaven and I believe with all my heart that the angels who sent her to heal my broken heart after Tigre left us are making ready her place with them. I believe she’ll be free of pain. I am deeply grateful that God made the pieces fall in place on our move to allow her final days to be spent someplace where she had a yard to run and play in and be a dog instead of the way she’s had to live the last four years in the backyard at the other house. I’m grateful for these last core memories of her. More than I can even put into words.

So I’ll sign off now and soak up these last hours of Hope snuggles. Thanks for indulging my rambling. And go grab and extra hug from your own babies for me. Life is precious and it goes too damn fast.

Blessings – Amy

The Ugly Side of Moving

I’ll preface this with I am well aware that I am beyond blessed. The manner in which all the pieces of the current season of life fell into place is nothing short of God’s grace. But for someone with anxiety being in a constant state of chaos has a price.

My sweet husband keeps telling me “it’ll be ok”. Along with “we’ll get there” and “it’s not a race”. What I can’t convey, what I don’t seem to be able to put into words, is that living in constant chaos makes me feel unsafe. I have not one place – at home OR at work – that I can get a deep breath. Ironically the only place that is “normal” right now is my truck….and being in it as much as I have been lately is very not normal.

At work the pressure is unbearable. My own relentless self expectation to not let anyone down who is counting on me on top of what’s flowing downstream because of trying to get an entire office moved left me in my office crying today. When I come home there is something that needs my attention or to be put away every where I turn. Sheer exhaustion means I break, drop, or misplace almost everything I touch. Never mind accuracy at what I’m attempting to process at the office. Tim had to go tonight to work on the old house so it will be ready to be put on the market. In my efforts to get SOMETHING productive done I managed to dent the drywall and break one of my favorite lamps in the space of 30 minutes.

My brain feels like what is left of one of my favorite lamps.

Tim keeps telling me to relax. Trying to explain to him that my mind won’t LET me relax when everywhere I look there is something that needs to be done is a concept that doesn’t register with most people. I know, logically, that moving is probably one of the most stressful things we do as an adult. I have moments where I can catch a glimpse of what life will be like if we ever get to the other side of this mountain. But lack of sleep and being in a constant state of chaos and overwhelmed is robbing some of the joy that I think I should be getting from this. I come across as angry when I know I’m not. It seems to be the only emotion that is coming out with any regularity.

Tim says he can fix the dent in the drywall. And I have another lamp. And work will always just be work. Just wish I could relax, get some more sleep, learn how to leave the piles at work and at home without the doomsday feeling….and most definitely I am never moving again. Ever.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Put Your Life In Boxes

Wanna know where you fall in the pack rat/hoarder scale in life? Pack your house. Clean out every nook. Every cranny. Attic. Shed. Garage. Put it in boxes. You’ll find that “I should hang onto this for _____” thing that we all do? Goes away real fast. Pretty sure my trash man hates me. Also pretty sure my kids are tired of the text “do you want this”. I’ve lost count of the number of trash bags, boxes, rolls of tape, markers, lists, copies of floor plans, ideas, room shuffles, crying sessions, sleepless nights, etc etc etc. Moving ain’t for the faint of heart.

But on the flip side? When you get just about to the finish line. When your list of things to go through shrinks down to just a couple of things left the sense of peace that starts to come allows air in places inside you that haven’t seen light in a long time. Yesterday we finally got the attic emptied. I slept seven hours in a row last night. Seven hard almost dreamless hours. The two are definitely connected. From the attic I opened boxes with memories that made me smile, some that made me want to weep, and some that just reminded me of treasured times in my life. Pulled out items that made my daughter laugh and some that reminded me of just how small she used to be.

What they don’t tell us when we are in our 20’s and 30’s is that there will come a time in our life when the kids will move on and all we will have left of them is those tiny shirts and treasured pictures. For the generations coming behind us less and less of those printed pictures because so much is digital (which after cleaning out an attic recently might not be entirely a bad thing). My counselor tells me all the time the memories aren’t in the “stuff” but man there were memories that came to the surface last night that I couldn’t have willingly recalled without sticking my nose in a shirt collar or thumbing through an album. There has to be a balance somewhere between having hundreds of boxes and expecting our tired aging brains to recall it all. Don’t you think?

Early in Tim and I’s relationship we just sort of accepted that we wouldn’t move for at least a decade. I remember phrases like “too much work with 6 dogs” and “too many people need us here”. We laid there last night and talked about where we are in this journey. The excitement we both feel each time we walk in the new house. The very foreign concept for me of doing this thing that is for us first and everyone else second. The fact that I haven’t lived outside of Irving in over 20 years. The negative emotions have been forefront for several weeks keeping me from really enjoying this process. When I say I married the greatest man ever I ain’t joking. The way he has put up with the roller coaster I have been on and still just loved me through it? No words. If anything we’ve grown stronger in who we are together. Pretty heady stuff.

I realize now that while I thought Turtle Summit was the peak of my mountain (and why I named it Summit) it was only the mid-line. God never intends us to stop growing. We’re almost through the hardest part of the work and I’m freaking excited. I’ve got a blank slate of a house to make my own. My dogs will have a yard they can run and play in. I’ll be part of watching a neighborhood fill in around me. I’ll be pushed outside of my box and my routine and have to learn new things. I won’t be able to run on autopilot for the last half of my life. I’m just not done living. Why I thought I was I have no idea.

So pack your life up. Even if it’s one closet at a time. Purge. Organize. There is an intangible that comes with that that kick-starts your soul and reminds you there is more to life than the day to day of surviving. God intends us to do more than just survive. I just need to have that tattooed on my damn forehead some days apparently.

Blessings ya’ll – Amy

Anxiety Sucks

So for whatever reason I’ve never been one of those types of people who do things the easy way. Whether through luck of dealing with the *stuff* life dishes out or just being late out of the starting gate on major decisions I tend to have an avalanche of changes all at the same time. For an anxiety sufferer that it gets worse with age? FML.

I am writing this from about 30k feet somewhere between DFW and Seattle on our way to the Alaska trip we’ve had in the works with the hubster and my MIL’s for almost a year. I am trying to remember a time I had such a struggle even getting OUT the door for a trip. Between Hope’s diagnosis, the house buying process going on at home, being on the cusp of the fall rush at work, scheduling moving personally (and oh yah professionally come October), and a full scale change of my mental health meds? This girl is on some shaky ground. Sobbing as I left the house today….gently pushing Hope back in the house as she tried to follow me out like she has been doing in her cling on phase here lately….there was a moment when Tim looked at me and said “honey if you want to stay home it really is ok”. And a second moment where I really truly almost did just that. Not sure even he realizes how close I came to stepping back through that door.

But I am blessed with a daughter who loves my fur kids as much as I do. A bestie in that same group. Another bestie who is a rock star realtor giving everyone what for on the purchase of our house. Family who is coming up late next week to take a shift with the dogs. A hubby who put cameras up in the house so I can get an eyeball full of the babies whenever I need (which ironically is the ONLY thing that doesn’t work on this plane’s WIFI). Remote access to the office so I can stay caught up and not add being behind to it all. Even in my worst anxiety attack when I remember to breathe I know I am blessed. But dang it it takes a hot minute sometimes. When did anxiety become part of our culture and everyday life for so many of us? Is it the unrelenting pressure to always be, perform, do? Anyone got any non-pharmaceutical tips and tricks for kicking that beast to the curb permanently?

I’m blessed with a great counselor who always has plenty to help me. My biggest issue is IN the moment, like when I was walking out the door looking in Hope’s sad eyes today, none of them are larger than the fear, doubt, and paralyzing anxiety. I described it to someone today like standing on the edge of a cliff. On one hand I’m looking over my shoulder afraid I’m gonna miss something at home if I go. On the other I’m looking at the jump afraid something bad is gonna happen if I don’t go. I get caught up in the who I’m gonna hurt or what “damage” I’m gonna cause…and my “gut” I have relied on instinctively for so many years? That stupid thing fled the building about four years ago. And the real biotch of it all is that if I’m not careful I will miss something this week while we’re off doing something I normally love…and seeing something through my husband’s eyes that lights his fire the way the Caribbean does mine.

It all just sucks. There are no easy answers and no “quick” fixes. Only solution is to strap on the iron underpants and ride it out. When the year is done and everything levels out I know we’ll be hella proud of the things we decided on as a couple and the progress we made. We’re headed towards small(er) town life that has always made me happy. But we have a long fourth quarter in front of us….

Blessings y’all – Amy

Grieving Again…

Y’all know my journey. It took me YEARS to learn how to not stuff grief on a shelf in a box and ignore it pretending it wasn’t affecting everything in my world. As I stood in my kitchen last night sobbing uncontrollably in my husband’s arms about how I would give up everything – new house, traveling, everything – just to have more time with Hope I realized that messy journey of grief has started again. I was gobsmacked anew with the reminder that grief isn’t a process that is just for when someone is gone. Sometimes it starts when you know the goodbye is coming.

My children would tell you at some point or another in their childhood that I loved the dogs more than them. While that isn’t true what I love most about my dogs, and why I will ALWAYS have dogs, is the way they love you unconditionally. Unequivocally. Even on your worst day when you yell at them to get off the couch or out from under your feet. They tuck their tail and run to the next room and come back again five minutes later with their tails wagging and their heart in their eyes. Dear God if only humans could love each other that way!

What is special about Hope is she is the type of dog that they make movies about. She never met a stranger. When I bring her to the office she greets everyone with a tail wag and a head dunk for an ear scratch. When the news got out last week about her diagnosis I got a range of reactions from hugs to “please bring her to visit one more time” to “please don’t bring her because I can’t cry at work”. She is just a special dog and not in the “special” crazy way that my sweet Lilah is.

I’ll be transparently honest. I am struggling with mama guilt with Hope. She has been really clingy for about six months. Looking back through pictures with the knowledge I have now I can see the tumor growing. I am beating myself up that I missed it. That with the clinging that was uncustomary for her she was trying to tell me something and I missed it. I feel terribly guilty about this trip we leave on tomorrow and the massive change that is coming to our world with this move. Is it fair to her to turn her world upside down right now? Do you have any idea what that is doing to my heart?

I lay awake with her at night as she wraps her arms around my neck and I just hold her. Soaking up each extra minute. Praying that a miracle will happen and this ugly nasty tumor will just evaporate. Smelling the rot coming from in her mouth and knowing she surely must be miserable. Waking up when she is in her bed and checking to make sure she is breathing just to reassure myself. Feeling selfish for keeping her on this earth even one extra minute. Unable to let her go. Wanting my kids to have more time to say their goodbyes. Having my head feel like a ping pong ball and not being able to get it to stop. Wanting to scream how unfair it is for cancer to happen to such a sweet gentle young dog. I have THREE senior citizen dogs that we’ve been braced for a while to have to deal with losing and this has struck our second youngest baby.

There are some who opt not to have pets just because of this stage. The love they give is worth the pain but dear God it hurts. It hurts so bad.

Pray for my Hope. She literally gave the kids and I hope when we had none.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Fearful and Fretful

Can you remember a single “ah ha” moment when you realized that life was happening to you instead of you being in control of your future? I haven’t had a lot of those but there are times God takes out a billboard in my face to make sure I don’t miss it.

All around me people I love are struggling. Some with the pain of recent loss of loved ones. Family with new challenges that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Others still facing the same old cycle of anxiety and depression kicking their butt. It is my habit to take on these emotions and let them guide me to a place that isn’t healthy for me while I attempt to make sure people I love and hold dear are “ok”.

I was programmed from a very very early age that my role was to take care of others. As I look back on the last couple of weeks through the filter of seeing myself in others’ eyes I have realized that I’ve mistaken fear for selflessness. It’s been EASIER to live a life taking care of others than it has been to push myself out of my comfort zone. It’s been EASIER to base my decisions on where I presume I am most needed instead of what is best for me.

My counselor says F.E.A.R. means “False Evidence Appearing Real”. How easy it is to convince myself I “have” to do something because I’m needed, the only person who can do it, blah blah blah. The evidence is that those around me would get by without my help. Perhaps even stand stronger if I’d stop trying to do it for them. How easy it is to let fear allow me to put what I need or know will make me happy on the back burner so someone I care about can be.

Tim and I are have some major life decisions in front of us. I’m paralyzed with fear over them. Dumbfounded by how much the childhood mantra I live with is playing in my head – you don’t deserve that, you aren’t good enough for that, you can’t do that. It’s cast a giant light over my life as a whole (maybe this is a mid-life crisis?) and I don’t like what I see. Fear has guided too many of my decisions and kept me in the survivor role instead of the drivers seat. I so badly want to change that….

Anyway, I’m rambling. The message here is focus on life and not the fear. The fear will always be there – how much control I give the fear and the fretting is only determined by me. It is such a hard habit to break…but I am determined. Mostly. If my body would cooperate that would be fabulous – panic attacks that leave me on the bathroom floor aren’t so fun.

What decisions in your life have you looked back and realized were only fear based?

Blessings Y’all – Amy

When Did It Change?

There was a time in my life I would have said I thrived on succeeding under pressure. Grandpa in the hospital? I’d put my head down and do anything I could to handle it for my grandma. Husband in kidney failure? Me again. I don’t need any help – I’ve got this. World off it’s axis at work due to it being the busy season? Sign me up. You can count on me and I won’t let you down no matter what.

My counselor says it’s cause I had to learn how to survive at a young age. But also that it is driven by an obsessive need to prove myself good enough. Good enough for who? No idea. But we’ve come to the conclusion it drives me in everything I do. And I use the word drives because it’s currently driving me off the cliff in terms of my health. So when did that rock solid ability to handle anything start to change? When did my body start to rebel and my mind sit and spin at night? Hours and hours of tossing and turning and having conversations in my mind about how I would’ve, should’ve, or could’ve handled something. When did I become unable to rearrange the living room without validation from an outside source that it looked okay for Pete’s sake? I can’t even pray without wondering if I’m “doing it right”.

My best guess would be when my world upended a few years ago and I looked around. (Reality is it’s probably part of aging.) No one needs me anymore. Not in the protect me from the storm put food in my belly and a roof over my head kind of way. I ceased being a wife when Fred died and I got downgraded in the mom department when the kids grew up. With that came the absolutely mind bending truth that I had no idea who I was outside of those things. A realization I’m guessing most women come to at some point but still. That period in my life drove me to my counselor and the things we have unlocked have made it difficult to go back.

These days the doctors are working tirelessly to figure out why I can’t sleep. Why the weight has not crept back on but leaped back onto my body. Why I ache in my shoulders, neck, and back constantly. Food sensitivity tests, genetic tests, blood work, you name it. I’m being asked to invest time in myself. To “let go” more. How does one do that? How does a stress addicted workaholic with a need to prove herself to anyone and everyone do that exactly? Question of the day right there….

I find myself wondering what life will look like in 5, 10, or 20 years. Am I prematurely aging myself because I can’t rewire 40 year old programming? Am I working to live or living to work? Can I really see myself retiring and not facing the grind everyday? Are we doing all the things we should be doing to get ourselves where we want to be in the next few years? Geez – I’m even starting to give you an example of the hamster wheel in my brain.

I have the surreal moments these days where I look at my life from a 30,000 foot view and can’t find the words to tell my kids how proud I am of them. To tell my husband how lost I would be without him. To allow myself to fully lean in on him (or anyone) and just let them carry me for a little while. When did being able to survive massive doses of the crap life deals out become debilitating instead?

The short answer is I don’t have any answers to any of these questions. I suspect there are women (and men) out there who can relate. For now I just keep plugging at the tasks the counselor and my doctors have given me hoping that some or all of it changes before too much more damage is done. I feel like an imposter going through the motions of life instead of being able to sink in and enjoy the beautiful things God has given me.

If you can relate, shoot me a note. If you have advice, I’d love to hear it. Words of encouragement that this is all temporary? Bring it on.

Blessings Y’all – Amy