So if I were to sum of the year of 2009, I'd pretty much have to say it sucked. I know that is being extremely negative but all in all it was one of my hardest years ever. It started in May when Chris got a decrease in pay with very little notice. I moved directly into babysitting this summer which was very difficult and stressful. During the midst of all of that, my Daddy got sick, stayed sick and then passed away in October. And during the month of October I went to roll call every night to get my son into a magnet school (that he did not get accepted into) After Daddy's passing it has been dealing with the grief and living in a world without my Daddy. So yes, I know I'm being negative but looking at the year as a whole, I'd say it sucked. I know that God is sovereign and all things will lead to His glory but it doesn't mean I have to like them when they happen.
Now let me say, that I've always been horrible with sticking to New Years resolutions but in all honestly I need to start anew. So I've decided that 2010 will be a year to embrace my(our) inner weirdness. As I've gotten older I've always been drawn to things a little less mainstream, a little odd...a lifestyle that is not suited for many. Every year I get a little more comfortable in my own skin. But always holding me back is wondering if my friends and family think I'm getting too weird.
So here goes....
Chris and I are starting with a decluttering project. We are going to declutter from now until January 31st (with 5 free days). We will donate/sell/trash 5 items per day. A minimalistic life appeals to me but I've never been remotely close. Clutter seems to be the theme of my life and I'm over it. So if we stick to our guns will be rid of 300 things by January 31st which is very exciting to me. We will also get rid of 5 things per new thing that enters ours home (with the exception of food). I'm eager to see where this leads us in a month.
Chris and I have always felt drawn into a homesteading type of life. We have decided to try this out by getting some chickens in the spring and hopefully have them laying by fall. Maybe half a dozen? I'm not sure yet. We are still researching it and figured it is the best way to start a small homestead. He is also going to start winter sowing so we can have a productive garden this year. Our garden was highly neglected last year and we did not freeze/can anything. I want a stocked freezer/pantry this year!
I am crafty and creative. I know this and I need to embrace it. My recent obsession has been sewing. I'm still not that great but I'm not bad either. Each project improves and hopefully within the year I can get even better. I'd love to make most of the things we need or use. We are going to turn our storage room into a sewing room this spring. I'm very excited about this!
Homeschooling. Yes, I said it. I said all along that I would probably homeschool. When we moved back to Chattanooga and had access to magnet schools, I pushed that idea to the side. Well we did not get into CSAS this year. I'm not sure where we are on the list but I'm guessing it will be 2nd grade before we get in. That being said, I'm going to homeschool Harrison. I will say this frightens me and it will be a huge challenge. But the more I research, the more excited I become. I know we will probably not have much support on this decision but Chris and I feel it is best for him. He is so smart and I do not want him to fall through the cracks in an overcrowded class room where he might be labeled ADD or hyper and a troublemaker. He is actually showing signs of reading readiness so I'm going to go with it and see if he is truly ready to learn to read. I know I was able to read in kindergarten but I don't remember how young I was when I could read. He loves books so it really isn't a shock to me. I've been researching like crazy and feel that the eclectic approach is the best method for us. I'd like to cover all the standards for TN schools in case he does end up at CSAS. So I will look for curriculum to teach Engligh/Language Arts & Math. I think for Fine Arts we will look into learning a musical instrument and possibly an art class. For computer technology, I will probably just get him some games and look for educational web programs. I'd like to get him started on a Foreign Language so I will likely be looking for a class on that. For PE we will just play outdoors and enroll him fall/spring sports. For reading we will just read, read, read! I'm not sure about science yet or social studies yet...maybe curriculum? I'd like to do a volunteer project as a family to teach him about serving others. My mind is swimming with ideas! I don't think he is old enough for cub scouts yet but I'd like to get in involved in something of that nature.
As far as my personal walk with God. It needs a lot of work. Ideally I'd like this upcoming year to be the year I surrender everything to God. What I've struggled with the most during my entire Christian walk is giving things to God. I guess I'm a control freak and I need to give God everything. I think I neglect feeding myself spiritually because I get too busy doing other things and I want this to change! I know I can live in peace and joy if I let God in completely!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
One month ago today
It was the worst weekend of my life
So the worst weekend of my life started out on Thursday. I thought it was going to be a good day. We got off to a good start and we all had our cute Halloween shirts on…it felt like it would be good. It all started when I locked myself out of my house and car while heading out to take Harrison to school. Our door looks from the inside without keys and I knew as soon as I shut the door what I had done. I called Chris but he was at work and didn’t answer. I called my mother-in-law and she did not have keys to my house. I knew that I’d have to call my mom but she was visiting my Daddy at the hospital and would not have her phone turned on during visiting hours. So I scoped out my house to see if there were any areas that I could break into and no such luck. Did I mention it was raining? I called my mom when visiting hours were over and she was happy to come bring her warm car over to our house so we could sit in her car instead of the rain while we waited for Chris to bring me keys. We ended up sitting in her car for nearly 2 hours before Chris got home with keys. My Daddy was also scheduled to have surgery and we were nervous because he was not having a good week. So my mom leaves to go back to the hospital, Chris leaves to go to work and I stay to try to get some stuff done around the house. Then I get a call from my sister. My dad’s doctor did not expect him to make it through surgery. I called Chris and he came home to go sit at the hospital with me. My mother-in-law came and got the kids, we took care of roll-call at the school (the CSAS list roll-call) and headed to the hospital and anxiously awaited the outcome of the surgery. He actually did well during surgery and was pretty stable. The doctor said we’d wait and see how he did through the weekend before he went back in again.
Friday I had planned on seeing my dad during the day but couldn’t get my schedule straight and I started feeling badly. He had a pretty stable day so I figured I’d just go visit him Saturday instead. That evening I started getting a horrible headache but I just chalked it up to nerves or something. Harrison spent the night with mom so Kadie and I decided to take Chris dinner at work. That evening when Chris got back home from work, we sat to make our weekend plans. We got into an argument and he went to bed while I sat in the living room to be by myself. I normally can deal with our little spats but for some reason this one hit me hard. I came on to bed and started crying. My silent tears turned into sobs and then hysterical sobs and I could not calm down. My chest got really tight and I felt like I was having a panic attack. I asked Chris to help me and finally calmed down but then laid awake for an hour or so. I had no idea what was going on with me.
Saturday morning when I woke up with an intense sadness and I also felt like I got plowed into by a semi-truck. Then my mom called me before 8 am to tell me Harrison had a fever and wanted to come. We decided she would bring my sister Daresa (who was visiting from Memphis) to see Daddy and drop Harrison off after dropping her off at the hospital. Then mom would go back home until later on that day and she would come back to see Daddy. She dropped Harrison off and within an hour I knew I was sick too (headache, sore throat, cough, body aches, chills, slight fever) and decided I was going to stay at home and see my dad the next day. Chris and I had a talk about our argument and my tears. I explained to him how sad I felt and how scared I was about losing my dad and how I didn’t know how much more of this emotional roller coaster I could handle. Around noon I decided to check my phone and I had just missed a call from my sister, Daresa. She didn’t say anything in the message other than to call her back but I knew after hearing her message that things were bad. I called her and she told me she just talked to dad’s doctor. He said Dad looked a lot worse than yesterday. Although his chest x-ray showed improvement his lungs were working properly and he basically just wasn’t responding to treatment. It appeared as if his body was tired and just ready to stop fighting. So even though I felt badly I knew that I had to be at the hospital and we knew that Harrison would want to be with us because he felt badly too. So we dropped Kadie off at my in-laws house and report to the hospital. Daddy’s blood pressure kept getting really low and there wasn’t much more that could be done. His lungs were weak, his vent was turned up all the way and his kidneys were barely functioning. His nurse talked to my mom about DNR again because she had pulled the last set when he seemed to be improving. We talked it over with her. It was a tough decision because we knew that this time there would be a need. We knew that we were out of 2nd chances. After many tears, my mom said she would only sign those papers if they let Harrison and my niece, Camryn go in to see Daddy. You have to be at least 10 to visit patients in ICU so they had not been able to see him in over 2 months. Saturday was probably the longest day of my life. Not only did I feel horrible from fighting the flu but knowing that your Daddy’s breaths are numbered makes for a rough day. They let us stay in the family consultation room which had a door directly into the ICU. We were given unlimited access to Daddy for the entirety of his last days. Visiting hours no longer applied to us nor did visitor limits. I kept feeling weak and dizzy when I went into his room - probably because of being sick. When we took Harrison back to see him, he was a little nervous and did not want to wear the isolation gown and gloves. I got to hold him next to Daddy’s bed. It took a couple of minutes for Daddy to wake up but when he woke up his eyes twinkled and he gave Harrison the biggest smile. They were so close. It meant so much that he got to see him before he passed. Harrison gave him a shy smile back and they gazed at each other for a bit and then we waved bye. Harrison was excited because he kept saying he had forgotten what his Pops looked like. I am really thankful they got to see each other that day. Chris took Harrison back home around dinner time and got Kadie too. He went ahead and got the kids in bed while I stayed at the hospital. Daddy was responsive all day but very sleepy probably because he was getting ready to go. That night around 10 or 11 I was standing in there with my niece, Bailey and nephew John. The nurse could not get his oxygen sensor to read his stats from his finger which I knew was bad because that meant his extremities were cold due to his body shutting down. His BP starting dropping really low. Like 30/20 so I knew it was probably coming soon. My niece went and got the rest of my family. His nurse ran off to call the ICU intensivist to see what to do. They infused him quickly with more fluid and some medicine. Which manage to get his BP back up into a normal range however they would not do it again.
My mom and I went home around 2 am so she could get some sleep. Hospitals are not comfortable especially when you are 69. I live 10-15 minutes from the hospital . Two of my sisters stayed there along with one of my nieces. Mom and I both woke up right before 7 and started getting ready. My sister Debbie called me and said we needed to hurry and get there. Then she call back within 10 minutes telling us to hurry up because he was going quickly. Thankfully we were already on our way out. So we took off to the hospital and got to be with him for his very last breaths. We got to tell him how much we loved him and how important he was to us. We got to let him know what a great Daddy/husband he was. And then he was gone, just like that. My Daddy was gone. I will never forget the feeling of loneliness and pain when I knew it really happened. This emotional roller coaster was over and I know have to live my life without my Daddy.
The weeks after his passing are rather blurry. I stayed with my mom most of the week after he died. It was hard and we cried a lot. There are days I do not want to get out of bed. There are days I question every medical decision that was made by him and his doctors. There are days I cry all day long and days I laugh. There are days I am so angry I can’t deal with it so I just don’t speak. There are days that it feels like a terrible nightmare.
My Daddy was an honorable man. Sure, he made mistakes and he was definitely human. I’m not saying he was perfect or even close to it. He was a kind and sensitive man. He had integrity. He was a thoughtful gentleman. He was a thinker. He was the type of man that you just don’t see much of anymore. And the past 10 years with my him have made up for any years prior to that. He did have a drinking addiction until 1999. There are some not so great memories from that period of his life but he made up for them tenfold in the past 10 years. Even as an alcoholic he was actually still a really good man. After he stopped drinking, I saw the man my mother fell in love with. I saw someone that always seemed so hard ,become so soft. I saw him act like a child again when playing with my children. I saw him make peace with God and live a peaceful life. Daddy’s eyes always twinkled - and even up until the day he died he still had that amazing sparkle in his blue eyes. And he always had this little smirk on his face - like he knew a secret and wasn’t telling a soul.
It has been one month today. I have lived a month of my life without my Daddy. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I am not even looking forward to Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. I know that the pain is still raw and it will get easier with time. I know that one day I will be able to remember something about him and smile or laugh rather than cry painful tears. I know that he is no longer in pain and that he if had the choice to come back on earth at this point, he would happily choose Heaven now. I know these things and slowly I am accepting them. There are so many things I miss about him and things I don’t even realize I miss yet. Right now I miss my deep Daddy conversations. I miss how he always had an avocado (to make guacamole) sitting on the counter for me when I came to visit. I miss how he lit up when he saw my children. I miss him taking his nightly walk at the same time every night. I just miss my Daddy. I miss him so much it hurts.
So the worst weekend of my life started out on Thursday. I thought it was going to be a good day. We got off to a good start and we all had our cute Halloween shirts on…it felt like it would be good. It all started when I locked myself out of my house and car while heading out to take Harrison to school. Our door looks from the inside without keys and I knew as soon as I shut the door what I had done. I called Chris but he was at work and didn’t answer. I called my mother-in-law and she did not have keys to my house. I knew that I’d have to call my mom but she was visiting my Daddy at the hospital and would not have her phone turned on during visiting hours. So I scoped out my house to see if there were any areas that I could break into and no such luck. Did I mention it was raining? I called my mom when visiting hours were over and she was happy to come bring her warm car over to our house so we could sit in her car instead of the rain while we waited for Chris to bring me keys. We ended up sitting in her car for nearly 2 hours before Chris got home with keys. My Daddy was also scheduled to have surgery and we were nervous because he was not having a good week. So my mom leaves to go back to the hospital, Chris leaves to go to work and I stay to try to get some stuff done around the house. Then I get a call from my sister. My dad’s doctor did not expect him to make it through surgery. I called Chris and he came home to go sit at the hospital with me. My mother-in-law came and got the kids, we took care of roll-call at the school (the CSAS list roll-call) and headed to the hospital and anxiously awaited the outcome of the surgery. He actually did well during surgery and was pretty stable. The doctor said we’d wait and see how he did through the weekend before he went back in again.
Friday I had planned on seeing my dad during the day but couldn’t get my schedule straight and I started feeling badly. He had a pretty stable day so I figured I’d just go visit him Saturday instead. That evening I started getting a horrible headache but I just chalked it up to nerves or something. Harrison spent the night with mom so Kadie and I decided to take Chris dinner at work. That evening when Chris got back home from work, we sat to make our weekend plans. We got into an argument and he went to bed while I sat in the living room to be by myself. I normally can deal with our little spats but for some reason this one hit me hard. I came on to bed and started crying. My silent tears turned into sobs and then hysterical sobs and I could not calm down. My chest got really tight and I felt like I was having a panic attack. I asked Chris to help me and finally calmed down but then laid awake for an hour or so. I had no idea what was going on with me.
Saturday morning when I woke up with an intense sadness and I also felt like I got plowed into by a semi-truck. Then my mom called me before 8 am to tell me Harrison had a fever and wanted to come. We decided she would bring my sister Daresa (who was visiting from Memphis) to see Daddy and drop Harrison off after dropping her off at the hospital. Then mom would go back home until later on that day and she would come back to see Daddy. She dropped Harrison off and within an hour I knew I was sick too (headache, sore throat, cough, body aches, chills, slight fever) and decided I was going to stay at home and see my dad the next day. Chris and I had a talk about our argument and my tears. I explained to him how sad I felt and how scared I was about losing my dad and how I didn’t know how much more of this emotional roller coaster I could handle. Around noon I decided to check my phone and I had just missed a call from my sister, Daresa. She didn’t say anything in the message other than to call her back but I knew after hearing her message that things were bad. I called her and she told me she just talked to dad’s doctor. He said Dad looked a lot worse than yesterday. Although his chest x-ray showed improvement his lungs were working properly and he basically just wasn’t responding to treatment. It appeared as if his body was tired and just ready to stop fighting. So even though I felt badly I knew that I had to be at the hospital and we knew that Harrison would want to be with us because he felt badly too. So we dropped Kadie off at my in-laws house and report to the hospital. Daddy’s blood pressure kept getting really low and there wasn’t much more that could be done. His lungs were weak, his vent was turned up all the way and his kidneys were barely functioning. His nurse talked to my mom about DNR again because she had pulled the last set when he seemed to be improving. We talked it over with her. It was a tough decision because we knew that this time there would be a need. We knew that we were out of 2nd chances. After many tears, my mom said she would only sign those papers if they let Harrison and my niece, Camryn go in to see Daddy. You have to be at least 10 to visit patients in ICU so they had not been able to see him in over 2 months. Saturday was probably the longest day of my life. Not only did I feel horrible from fighting the flu but knowing that your Daddy’s breaths are numbered makes for a rough day. They let us stay in the family consultation room which had a door directly into the ICU. We were given unlimited access to Daddy for the entirety of his last days. Visiting hours no longer applied to us nor did visitor limits. I kept feeling weak and dizzy when I went into his room - probably because of being sick. When we took Harrison back to see him, he was a little nervous and did not want to wear the isolation gown and gloves. I got to hold him next to Daddy’s bed. It took a couple of minutes for Daddy to wake up but when he woke up his eyes twinkled and he gave Harrison the biggest smile. They were so close. It meant so much that he got to see him before he passed. Harrison gave him a shy smile back and they gazed at each other for a bit and then we waved bye. Harrison was excited because he kept saying he had forgotten what his Pops looked like. I am really thankful they got to see each other that day. Chris took Harrison back home around dinner time and got Kadie too. He went ahead and got the kids in bed while I stayed at the hospital. Daddy was responsive all day but very sleepy probably because he was getting ready to go. That night around 10 or 11 I was standing in there with my niece, Bailey and nephew John. The nurse could not get his oxygen sensor to read his stats from his finger which I knew was bad because that meant his extremities were cold due to his body shutting down. His BP starting dropping really low. Like 30/20 so I knew it was probably coming soon. My niece went and got the rest of my family. His nurse ran off to call the ICU intensivist to see what to do. They infused him quickly with more fluid and some medicine. Which manage to get his BP back up into a normal range however they would not do it again.
My mom and I went home around 2 am so she could get some sleep. Hospitals are not comfortable especially when you are 69. I live 10-15 minutes from the hospital . Two of my sisters stayed there along with one of my nieces. Mom and I both woke up right before 7 and started getting ready. My sister Debbie called me and said we needed to hurry and get there. Then she call back within 10 minutes telling us to hurry up because he was going quickly. Thankfully we were already on our way out. So we took off to the hospital and got to be with him for his very last breaths. We got to tell him how much we loved him and how important he was to us. We got to let him know what a great Daddy/husband he was. And then he was gone, just like that. My Daddy was gone. I will never forget the feeling of loneliness and pain when I knew it really happened. This emotional roller coaster was over and I know have to live my life without my Daddy.
The weeks after his passing are rather blurry. I stayed with my mom most of the week after he died. It was hard and we cried a lot. There are days I do not want to get out of bed. There are days I question every medical decision that was made by him and his doctors. There are days I cry all day long and days I laugh. There are days I am so angry I can’t deal with it so I just don’t speak. There are days that it feels like a terrible nightmare.
My Daddy was an honorable man. Sure, he made mistakes and he was definitely human. I’m not saying he was perfect or even close to it. He was a kind and sensitive man. He had integrity. He was a thoughtful gentleman. He was a thinker. He was the type of man that you just don’t see much of anymore. And the past 10 years with my him have made up for any years prior to that. He did have a drinking addiction until 1999. There are some not so great memories from that period of his life but he made up for them tenfold in the past 10 years. Even as an alcoholic he was actually still a really good man. After he stopped drinking, I saw the man my mother fell in love with. I saw someone that always seemed so hard ,become so soft. I saw him act like a child again when playing with my children. I saw him make peace with God and live a peaceful life. Daddy’s eyes always twinkled - and even up until the day he died he still had that amazing sparkle in his blue eyes. And he always had this little smirk on his face - like he knew a secret and wasn’t telling a soul.
It has been one month today. I have lived a month of my life without my Daddy. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I am not even looking forward to Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. I know that the pain is still raw and it will get easier with time. I know that one day I will be able to remember something about him and smile or laugh rather than cry painful tears. I know that he is no longer in pain and that he if had the choice to come back on earth at this point, he would happily choose Heaven now. I know these things and slowly I am accepting them. There are so many things I miss about him and things I don’t even realize I miss yet. Right now I miss my deep Daddy conversations. I miss how he always had an avocado (to make guacamole) sitting on the counter for me when I came to visit. I miss how he lit up when he saw my children. I miss him taking his nightly walk at the same time every night. I just miss my Daddy. I miss him so much it hurts.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Daddy Update
Dad had surgery to reconnect his esophagus to small intestines in hope to finally get him on the road to healing. The surgery started yesterday around 1:15 and lasted over 3 hours. His doctor told us that the part of his small intestines that was to be joined to his esophagus was necrotic so he had to cut part of it out and attach the healthy part to the esophagus. His esophagus did look good though. There was more necrotic tissue around his liver and pancreas which was cleaned. Part of his large intestines had to be removed because of necrotic tissue so he ended up with a bowel resection also. Less than an hour later he was taken back to surgery because he was bleeding and it was uncontrollable. His doctor told my family around 7 pm last night that he would probably not make it beyond an hour or so. He said that the area where his spleen had been removed (10 years ago) was the main problem because of a messentary artery which has been the bleeding problem the whole time. And his liver function is a concern. So they started infusing him with plasma, platelets, blood and different medicines to help his BP and to help him clot. So we all went to see my Daddy to be with him as he made his journey out of this world. Most of us got to seem him around 9 pm last night (which according to his doctor he should have been dead). Two of my sisters were traveling and had not made it back in town yet. At this point my dad’s kidney function was still great and he was bleeding less but his head was really swollen and he is back on a ventilator. He was actually alert and trying to talk to us. His doctor then told us that we should still probably expect the worse and pretty much all life saving measures were being taken. My mom signed DNR papers. My two sisters arrived around the same time and we got to go back to see him again. At this time the swelling had gone down slightly in his head and he was holding his own for the most part. He was off most medications and relatively stable considering all things.
This morning when I saw him again, he was still awake and alert and all vitals are stable and the bleeding has slowed down considerably. He was trying to talk to me and I’m pretty sure he told me he was feeling well. His doctor was amazed that he made it through the night and honestly doesn’t know what to tell us. He said tomorrow if things are the same, he will have to go back in and remove some of the things he packed in his abdomen to put pressure on the area. Basically at this point, we are taking it hour by hour. We really don’t know if he has much more time with us. He does not appear to be suffering as he is smiling at us when he visits and trying to talk to us. The fact he has lived through any of this is amazing and we just aren’t sure if our family is going to get anymore miracles. So for those of you keeping up with his journey and praying for him please keep us in your prayers. I am praying for God’s will to be done and for us to have peace and comfort no matter what that means and for it to be abundantly clear.
This morning when I saw him again, he was still awake and alert and all vitals are stable and the bleeding has slowed down considerably. He was trying to talk to me and I’m pretty sure he told me he was feeling well. His doctor was amazed that he made it through the night and honestly doesn’t know what to tell us. He said tomorrow if things are the same, he will have to go back in and remove some of the things he packed in his abdomen to put pressure on the area. Basically at this point, we are taking it hour by hour. We really don’t know if he has much more time with us. He does not appear to be suffering as he is smiling at us when he visits and trying to talk to us. The fact he has lived through any of this is amazing and we just aren’t sure if our family is going to get anymore miracles. So for those of you keeping up with his journey and praying for him please keep us in your prayers. I am praying for God’s will to be done and for us to have peace and comfort no matter what that means and for it to be abundantly clear.
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