A Blast From the Past...and BIG NEWS!

Howdy, friends!!!

I bet you all have been wondering what happened to me as I haven't blogged in over a week.  Big thank you to Shawn who actually wrote in my guest book to wish me well and wondered where I was at over this past week.  Thank you, Shawn.  It's always nice to be missed!  :0)

This past week was NOT my best week.  I've had severe flare-up and every time I would sit upright, fire would spread throughout my legs and feet.  Not fun!  And it didn't take it very long to start, either.  I would be up for a minute and then my feet would be horrible!!  My lower back wasn't much better, either. So that is why I couldn't blog very much this week.  I missed you all like crazy!  I wish I had a lap top, so when those flare-ups happened, I'd be all set!  I could lay in bed and tap away and keep up with you all! (This is another little hint for my dear ole' dad for a lap top!!  He got HIS as a gift from his brother & sister...and he wasn't even having surgery!!  How do you like that!!)  Also, if anyone is selling a lap top, please let me know.  If the price is right, I'll nab it!  I want a lap top soooo bad!

My feet are starting up again, so I'm gonna hurry and let you all in on the BIG NEWS.  I was approved this past week for my bariatric surgery!!!!  Isn't that great?  I've had to go to the diagnostic test lab twice this week, on Monday to get a chest x-ray and again on Tuesday to get the abdomen & legs ultrasound.  I will be be getting the labs and the upper GI on March 24.  Isn't that horrible that I gotta wait until another whole month for those tests?  Something about they are all booked up and the earliest in was March.  Luckily, I passed the BIG test....I can get my surgery!!!!!!!  Yippppeee!!!

Nothing much else going on here except my surgery news.  I'm so excited (and scared!) and I thank each and every one of you for praying for me.  There are strength in numbers and God has heard us all.  Thank you, Jesus and to you, all my friends!!!

Hope your life is going OK.  I'm gonna try and look around at blogs and see what's happening.  I pray for each and every one of you!!!

I'll keep in touch better, I promise.  Even if just to give you an update.  I'll leave you with a parting picture of Jack....looking so nervous about his mommy's update surgery! Cats...gotta love 'em!

God bless you all,

Blog Break

Hello, everyone!

I'm so sorry to not have posted in a long time.  Heck, 3 days IS a long time in computer time, isn't it?  A lot can happen in 3 days!!  Not too much has been going on here, I just have had a HORRIBLE time with my right leg and foot.  My foot is almost always burning, it feels like someone has a fire torch on it 24/7.  And if that weren't enough torture, my thigh muscle keeps cramping and hurting.  And throw in some low back pain from my compressed lumbar vertabrae and you've got ME in a nutshell!!!

We are in for some kind of a storm but it hasn't happened for us in Phoenix yet.  Or at least over our lil' house.  The humidity is up, though, I can feel it in my bones.  What they say is true...you can tell the weather from your bones if you've got arthritis.  Anyway, the wind has definitely picked up and the sky shows nasty storm clouds.  Other than that, we've had good weather here the past week.  Can't complain about that!  :0)

Frankie and I have been in bed, watching retro TV, all day yesterday and we probably will again tonight.  Retro TV is soooo cool!  We've been watching old TV shows like "Incredible Hulk", "A-Team", "Knight Rider", "Rockford Files" and "Dragnet."  I love it when they show those old commercials, too.  So thank you to Prescott, AZ for providing our entertainment the past 3 days!!  :0)

Frankie was doing very well with his vomiting and hadn't done it all week, UNTIL last night and he really vomited for all he was worth!  Poor guy.  I know he hates this and so do I.  But I'm powerless to stop it.  We have tried everything!!  So if anyone knows of an old (or new!) trick to stop nausea/vomiting, let us know!!

OK....a few days ago I received an email from this lady in the London, UK region who said she stumbled upon my blog and loved it, so she featured it on her website and in her blog directory.  I'm gonna try to link to her site via the link she sent me on the side bar.  I'll put it on the right side bar, underneath my Twitter box.  Please visit her site and give her blog some "love", as they say!  And thank you to Sheila (the owner of the site) for featuring my lil' blog in your directory!

That's it for now.  My right leg has had it and it's all numb.  It's just been so BAD recently!!  Pray for me that it will get better.  As a parting gift, let me leave you with a fantastic Michael W. Smith song (I mean really....which song of his is NOT fantastic?) called "This Is Your Time."  My mom and I just absolutely loved this song!  Enjoy!

Hope you all have a GREAT Saturday!!  Love n' hugs to all of you!!
PS....I still haven't heard anything from the Bariatric clinic about my surgery.  I'll have to call again on Monday and see what's up.  My guess is they haven't heard anything back, yet.  Gotta love insurance companies!!!

Starting Fresh

Howdy, folks!  Yeesh....it only took me about an hour to get Blogger to cooperate with me and finally let me post on my own blog!!  It kept giving me some bogus error page with a code a mile long.  Like I know what they are talking about!!!  The internet is acting very funky lately.  I don't know if it is our computer, the DSL modem, QWest, Phoenix, or just plain ole me!  I've ran the mal-ware and anti-virus programs and everything checks out clean.  So I'll blame it all on Qwest.  It has always worked well for me in the past! Ha!  My motto is: if you can blame it on someone else, do it!!  Hehehe....

OK, now down to brass tacks.  I hope nobody minds that I decorated for the luck of the Irish.  I could use ANY kind of luck and this template is so cute.  LeeLou blogs has so many cute templates, you should check them out.  Just click on the link at the very top of my page or the very bottom and it should take you over to her site.  And if it doesn't, again, blame Qwest....LOL!

Right now, as we speak, our baby (the car) is over at Thunderbird Automotive having its little thermometer replaced and a coolant flush.  Come to find out, the last time we had the car serviced (this past summer), the place put in the wrong type.  It's green instead of red, how it should be for a Toyota.  I have absolutely NO idea what I'm talking about, I'm just repeating what I heard the mechanic telling Frankie.  This visit will be costing us about $250 dollars.  Thank God we had a little in savings.  Man, I sure do love our car, but keeping it on the road is sure expensive!!  The people there were awfully nice, though, and gave us a ride home in our own car!  It was soooo bizarre seeing someone else drive our car away!!!  They will come and pick us up when it is ready and then Frankie and I have lots of little errands to do.

I titled this post "Starting Fresh" as a way to get my mind into focus.  I've been doing a lot of panic mode and not enough of productive mode!!!  I've been letting the Devil get to me with worry and anxiety over everything....the car, Frankie's vomiting (which has improved since coming home from his latest hospital visit), our money flow and lack thereof and my bariatric surgery.  I haven't given any of these problems to the person that can help me.  The ONLY person.....GOD.  I've bumbled my way through January and half of February just worrying over EVERYTHING and letting petty little things get in my way.  Like if I leave a post and nobody comments on it and I look at other people's blogs and they get TONS of comments.  I always think I'm doing something wrong.  I'm not writing this blog for anyone BUT ME.  It's not an advertisement for anyone or anything else.  It's just a place where I can put my thoughts down and have a journal of events of what is happening in our lives.  So dear God, please forgive me and help me live my life.  I cannot do it without you.  And I promise to not "borrow" these worries back from you!  Ha!

I called Banner Bariatrics and had to leave a message with the insurance and authorization department.  It's been almost three or four weeks since they submitted the stuff and I haven't heard a word.  I'm waiting for a call back on that.  It would be so nice to know one way or another so I can start on Plan B, if need be.  Which is ask my doctor for either Medifast, the medical liquid diet program or Phentermine, a medicine that helps morbidly obese people lose weight.  I took it in 2000 and it worked like a charm, but when I came off of it, I regained all the weight, plus some.  I use food for a comfort source and this is sooo BAD.  So I'm trying very hard to curb my appetite!!  Not an easy feat, I tell you.  And I had to bump my Prednisone back up to 15mg because I was just absolutely miserable on 10mg.  I was so stiff I could barely move.  When I know for sure about the surgery, I'll down the Prednisone again and live with it until after the surgery.  But I thought no point being miserable when I still don't know if I can even have the surgery!

Well, that pretty much is all my news.  I'll end this post with one of my all time favorite Michael W. Smith songs, "Above All."  And a picture of my baby.....my furry, spoiled baby, that is.  Jackie LOVES my new tote bag.  I carry so much stuff around now that I have to carry a small tote bag.  Jack was pawing through it the other day, then got tired and fell asleep on top of it.  He is just tooooo cute.  Anyway, hope you all have a great day!!!

My poor, tired baby!  Couldn't even raise his sleep filled eyes to the camera!!

Dinner Date

Howdy, friends!!!

We had a fabulous time over at my sister & brother-in-law's house for dinner.  My brother-in-law, Jay (who doesn't want his picture on the the web) had his mother and sister and one niece and one nephew came  from out of town for a short visit.  His mother comes from Nebraska and his sister and family come from Burbank, CA.  They are all very delightful and we ate ourselves full.  We had baby back ribs, salad, pickles, broccholi, and brownies, cheesecake and these decadent chocolate-peanut butter bites.  Barbara & Jay were taking a "feebie" day on their Adkins diet.  I don't blame them!  Everyone needs a break!!  We had to leave early, though, as Frankie was starting to not feel well even though he took his pills at the right time.  Poor guy.  I just wish I could stop this nausea and vomiting for him!!!

On the way over to his sister's, our car's dashboard lit up with a "check engine" sign.  Please pray it's nothing major!  The car runs just great, we haven't noticed anything weird about it.  But luckily we have some savings so if something really is wrong, hopefully there is enough in our savings to cover it.  I just love that car!  It can't be really sick, I REFUSE IT TO BE!!!  I'm stopping my feet now, refusing!!!!  It took us over a year to save for and it's been a really great car.  Tomorrow we are taking it to Auto Zone and have it "diagnosed" and see what the problem might be.  Please pray it's nothing major!!

Here's some photos of the evening.  The first ones are of early v-day gifts my hubby got me.  I'm SUCH a big kid at heart.  Dr.Seuss has always meant something to me.  My mom would read it to me as a little girl.  Now seeing this book and the favorite stories I love so much, I couldn't help but get misty eyed.  Here's what else I got:

My very OWN "Pillow Pet" that I've named "Cindy Bug" after my mom.  Isn't she cute?  And my mom just loved ladybugs.  I squeeze the pillow real tight when I need a hug and nobody is around and boy, does that help lift my spirits!!  Thank you, Frankie!!  Have I told you today just how much I love you??  I'd be lost without you as you are the other side of me.  We are soul mates.  :0)

Here is Carol, my mother-in-law and Frankie.

Barbara and Jay are dog-sitting Jay's son's dog, Bentley.  Isn't he adorable?  And very active and excitable, too!

And last, but certainly NOT least, I had Barbara take two pictures of Frankie and I together.  We hadn't had that done since we first started dating.  And then I got real sensitive about my weight and now I'm at a point where people will either like me or not like me, fat OR thin. I'm the SAME person inside.  OK, that being said, here are the two of Frankie and I:  (GULP!)

Good Lord, someone hurry and get me out to pasture before anyone sees!!!

Good Godfrey, I practically swallow up Frankie!!!  That bariatric clinic just has to be calling me soon so I can get started on my road to a better, thinner me!!!

Hope you all had a great Saturday and Sunday.  Stay and home and relax.   I hear the weather is clearing up for a lot of the country, hopefully that is true.  NO MORE WHITE STUFF!!

God bless you, my friends.
Until my next post,

Lazy Day

Hello, everyone!  I'm so sorry about my last post where I got so excited over so many things that NOBODY can fix, it seems.  I really appreciate y'all listening to me, though.  And thank you Dad and Gina for calling me last night, I needed a big lift and you two did that.  Sorry to cut the call short, though, to go to the bathroom.  And then I got really nauseated and stayed that way all night.  I kept waking up and feeling even sicker.  My joints were stiff and the neuropathy in my feet were on fire!  I got up for awhile and rubbed lotion into my feet and legs to get circulation going and it did help a little bit.  I took a pain pill and a nausea pill and went back to bed.  Oh, if only I could sleep on my sides or stomach like I used to!!!  I've been laying on my back for over a year now.  And I'm so tired of it!!  If I move that way (on my sides or stomach) in the night, the "fire" and tingling in my legs wakes me up.

That pretty much is it in my world.  I still feel "half mast" today and am taking it really easy.   I think I'll go put my feel up and read a book.  I finally got that Literati figured out, so I'll read from that.  Hope you all have a great day!!!

I'm going to close this post with the newest single out on my all time favorite band's new album, "Gravity."  So without further ado, here's WESTLIFE singing "Safe."

God bless!

I found this wonderful siggy in my mailbox
this morning from my almost-step-mom, Gina.  Isn't it beautiful?  I LOVE it!!  Thank you, Gina!!!

Bummer Day

This is another picture of my mom that captures EXACTLY how I feel today.  Just bummed out.  For one thing, I miss my mom more than words could ever begin to say.  I was thinking today that I haven't spoken to my mom in almost three years this coming July.  Three years I haven't heard her laugh, or sing or talk.  I can't tell her all that has happened since she died.  I just am missing her very hard this week for some reason.  It's like a tidal wave of grief that you must ride and once it passes, that grief just goes away until the next wave.  I hate this! 

Another thing that has me bummed is I still haven't heard from the bariatric clinic about my surgery and the insurance.  I'm afraid to call them, as I don't think I would survive the answer at this point.  I just KNOW they are going to turn me down.  Earlier this week on the news they had a report that the state is refusing to authorize ORGAN TRANSPLANTS.  One guy already died and many others are about to because of this.  If they are doing that, what chance does my surgery have of being authorized?  It's not near the magnitude of an organ transplant!!  I hear that people are going south of the border for surgery.  I may be in that line-up!  Who knows?  Our brilliant governor thinks the answer to our budget problem is to take childless couples OFF state insurance.  Oh, great!  Now I'm being discriminated against, too, because I don't have children!!  Thank God it has to go through the federal avenues to be approved and I CANNOT believe that this country would go that low and approve that.  If it does, Canada, here I come!!!!  Why can't they take money from the over blown salaries these people get?  Why is the fix for state AND federal budgets always to take away from the poor and elderly?  It just drives me bananas!!

I just wish I could turn the clock back to nursing school when I was thin, had a good credit score, could take a shower unaided and ready to tackle the world.  No fibro. No arthritis. I could move around with ease.  And I took it all for granted!  Now I've got myself into a big pickle that might lose medical insurance in October.  If I don't get that surgery, I'll see if my doctor will prescribe that diet pill for me, Phentermine.  I took it for a short time when I was living in Yuma and needed to lose weight.  I lost about 90 pounds on it.  Problem was, when I stopped it, I started over eating again.  I'll worry about that later.  I just need to drop pounds NOW and get back to work and get us out of this poverty situation.

OK, enough.  I'm sorry to drone on and on.  But it felt good to get that all out.  Blogging is very therapeutic.  I don't know what I'd do without it.  I've "met" so many neat people in various stages of life.  I'm so grateful for my blog and reading blogs of others.

I hope you all are having a better day.  Thanks for listening to me.  :0)

God bless,

Stay warm, my dear friends!

Wordless Wednesday - Emergency Smoke!

You will ONLY hear me say this ONE time in my life.....Thank goodness my mother is up in Heaven and NOT aware of the picture I'm about to post of her for "Wordless Wednesday."  This picture just goes to show that you CAN do TWO things at once!!!  LOL.....

Forgive me, Mom......

 

It made me very happy that she quit smoking shortly after this picture.  She was going in for a hip replacement and didn't want to be in the middle of nicotene withdrawal along with pain and physical therapy!!  And she STAYED quit, too!!  WooHoo, Mom!

God bless,
Until next post,

Thanks, Gina, for the risky siggy....LOVE IT!

A Quickie

Howdy!  Unfortunately, we are booked solid with doctor appointments today that I can't do Java's blog hop today. :(  My husband just got back from the primary care doctor and told him all about his hospital stay and nausea and vomiting.  The doctor has put Frankie on a low protein diet, as protein is difficult to digest.  He only has to do this for a couple of days.  And he gave him something stronger for the nausea than compazine.  It's called Zofran and is used in chemo therapies that make you very ill.  The pill just slips under the tongue and will get into this system faster.  So he will be taking a Zofran and Reglan in the AM 30 minutes before breakfast and see if that will prevent it from going back out to the toilet!!!!  I hope so!  I really feel for him.

Well, we are off to the oncologist now.  Hope you all have a great day and please sign my guest book down at the bottom of my blog if you haven't already done so.  I would really appreciate it!!  Thank you!!!

God bless!
Until next post,

Today's A Better Day - I Think!

Hello, my dear friends!

Sorry about my tirade yesterday about the e-reader.  Oh, how I wanted to throw it out the window!!  I still do, but not as badly.  At least I managed to get some help via chat support with Adobe Digital Editions.  Part of the problem was I had over-activated the device, so it wouldn't accept anything onto the reader because the books are naturally copy-right material.  And Adobe has to accept each piece of equipment that will be taking these books.  Once my tech support guy re-activated my account, I could put books back onto the reader.  Yay for that.  A lot of the books have either NO covers or generic, so picking out a book is like going to a book shelf with a blind fold on.  What you grab is what you get!!  But a least I think I can make it now until I save up a hundred years for the Nook I want so badly. (This being a hint to my dad, Gina, my hubby, and anyone who will take pity on me!!  A nook would help me recover very nicely from the big scary surgery I might be having soon.....).

I did have a chuckle in all my distress yesterday.  My assistant, who shall remain nameless, was helping me to no end:

Helping me do WHAT, I have NO idea!!  I guess he thought he would fit in there for a nice, cozy nap.  He's in the box that I was going to package that hunk of junk Literati in and he beat me to it.  That's a cat for ya!!  :0)

 

I don't think I have a single box or purse that this cat HASN'T been in.  He doesn't care if he fits really well into it at all, either!  That's my boy!!

No other news to report, except that I changed Frankie's pain patch down to 125mcg yesterday and he has vomited twice since.  I guess it takes time to leave the body, if this is indeed the cause of the vomiting.  I don't think we'll ever know.  He sees his doctor (primary care) on Monday, who will probably refer him out to a gastro-intestinal doctor.

I still haven't heard about my surgery yet.  My legs are slightly better, now that I am back on to the 15mg of Prednisone.  As soon as I hear, I'll drop it back down to 10mg.  It's such a hard drug to live without!!!

Hope you all are having a great day.  I got the special page up for my dad & Gina.  I don't know if they have seen it yet, but I hope they like it.  Everyone else please go take a peak at it.  Let me know what you think.  :0)

Have a good night and I'll see how I'm doing tomorrow.  I may participate in Java's "Meet Me On Monday" blog hop.  That is so fun!!  But we shall see how the ole' back and legs are doing.

God bless ya all!

Until next post,

Aggravated!

Hello, friends!!

I hope I didn't spell aggravated wrong, but I really AM too aggravated to care!!  So please forgive me if I spell things wrong.  :0)

Remember me talking about in an earlier post about the Literati e-reader I got for Christmas?  Well, that rotten thing has been nothing but a big pain in my big butt!!  I have spent the good part of three days now trying to get the damn thing to work.  I did NOTHING else but work on that damn thing.  I didn't even get to my blogging. (Sorry!) Or my email or anything else I enjoy about the computer.  The problem, I think, is the wireless feature does NOT work....it's only worked ONCE since I got it and now all is says is it can't sync to the server.  I can't get it on our network, the Quest password is too long and the Literati won't accept it.  So I tried some wi-fi aound town and even then it wouldn't accept it.  So much for that.  So I tried the sync route, that has to work, right?  WRONG!  It had errors syncing with its own service!!!  And then if I was lucky enough to get a book on the Literati, it didn't have a cover.  What's a book without a cover?  Yeeeeesh!!!  So I'm sending this piece of **** back to where I bought it.  I have to send it Fed-Ex, how they sent it to me and put insurance on it.  If anyone wants to steal that thing, they are in for a treat!  LOL......so that's what I've been up to recently.  I'm going back to good ole' books.  You can't beat the smell of a brand new book, and it has a title on it!  :0)  Maybe someday I can get what I really want.....a Nook.  But they are too expensive for me.  I got the Literati for $79.99, but look what happened there!!

Enough of that!  I've had enough headache over it.  It's done with.  I still haven't heard from the bariatric clinic, so hopefully next week.  I wish it would worry up so I can get the testing done.  I'll have to have an ABG (arterial blood gas) and those hurt so bad, I've heard.  They poke you on the inner side of wrist and go deep down in to get the artery.  Sounds fun, huh?  And then I'll need an upper GI, which is the same test my husband needs.  He sees his primary doc on Monday, thank God.  I told him we could go in as a husband-wife special on upper GI's!!

Frankie is doing the same....still vomiting almost every day.  We tried everything.  We talked it over with his pain specialist and we are going to decrease the amount of Fentanyl that he gets via skin patch.  Today I change his patches.  His appetite is incredibly great and he eats all that he used to, just smaller portions.  So I don't get what is going on.  We may NEVER find out why and he'll go on puking his guts out over the toilet every day.  Very frustrating for him and for me.   We both just wish for one good day between us and so far haven't found it!!  So please pray for us.

As for me.....what's with this FREEZING COLD?  I mean, yesterday morning it was COLDER here than in Flagstaff at 21 degrees!!  My dad sure isn't doing a very good job at getting the north gate closed.... :0)  We kid him about that when the weather is rotten by saying he needs to keep that gate closed!  LOL.  Because of this cold, I've been so stiff I can't even move around.  My joints feel fused together.  To stand up and walk is torture.  So I jumped up the prednisone to 15mg until I hear from the bariatric clinic.  When I have an actual date for the surgery, then I'll wean back down.  It was crazy of me to lower it when it's so cold out.  I mean, why be more miserable than you have to?

Well, that about wraps it up.  I'm going to be doing another page on my blog...it's going to be a special surprise for two important people in my life.  So be watching for it!!!

Here's some pics of Jackie.  The first one is him with my new pink tote/purse.  I found I was carrying so many things and they were bursting out of my old one.  I tried by leaving some of them out, but whenever I went somewhere, I would need the things I left at home!!  So my idea was to carry a tote bag.  And so far I love it....so does Jack!!
The second picture is of Frankie and Jackie doing what they do best....laying on the bed!!  My two lazy bones!!!  I don't have that much energy, either, to tell you the truth!!

Isn't that a neat tote/purse?  I love the color.  I got it at Walmart on sale for $9.00.  I love Walmart...especially since they have those carts you can use in the store.  :0)

Two peas in a pod!!

Well, folks, hope you have a great weekend and I hope it is pain free for everyone!!  I'll leave you with two words that mean so much to me:  PAIN SUCKS!!

Big soft hugs,
God bless ya all!

Worldless Wednesday Feb. 2nd!

I have a sneaking suspicion I know what these two furry creatures what!  They always made it a habit to swirl around Dad about meal time.  Didn't want miss out on a kernel or two!!  Toby was the big kitty to the left and Tora the little kitty to the right.  Sadly, they both are in "kitty" Heaven....however, we will never forget this particular meal time tradition!!