In the past couple of weeks I have finally been able to catch up on things that I meant to have done in the first week of January. The Christmas money that we still had sure came in handy. I spent most of it on books for the kids, luckily they still had some leftover as Madison suddenly grew out of a good chunk of her clothes, and Stirling managed to blow through two pairs of jeans in a matter of a week it seemed.
Stirling is becoming the busy little socialite. His second birthday party of the year was this past weekend. He also has plans to go to play at a classmates home today after school, very exciting. He's been very busy preparing for Valentine's day. Since he knew it was coming up he started to craft his own holiday cards and gifts for some of his friends at school. The teacher's aid was very touched by the homemade card he gave her, and was even more so when we brought in the actual things for the kids. They also are planning a fancy fruit salad so I have to provide a piece of fruit; I also plan to bake cookies for Friday too.
His class is celebrating their 100th day of school next week, and had been asked to provide 100 of something in a baggie for this day. We counted by 10s, 100 Rice Krispies; needless to say it is a very minuscule amount in a sandwich bag. Not even a few tablespoons worth! This and the items provided by the other children will show the differences in size and weight; comparing these will be fun for them.
Last week I prepared for a Valentine's cookie demo that I taught on Saturday; it was a lot of fun and the two hours went by quickly. I would however like to thank (not really) the staff member who helped "tidy up" - why would you stack cookies with icing on top of one another?? I had a mess when I got home; so much for taking pictures to post on my other blog :o( I have a good idea now what I will do for Friday; but I think I will have to bake them today so they are iced and ready to go for Friday. Sunday was Stirling's party in the westend and that was a good time; he was upset at not being able to play with the toys after the presents were opened. He spent the better part of three days trying to convince me that Matthias wasn't old enough for the Play-doh kit that we bought him and that he should have it instead; lol. Why is it, you go to buy a gift for a kid, and he thinks he should get one too??
I finally went to get my test results at the doctor's back from when I had blood work done at the end of November. Just before Christmas holidays I had found a chance, but the clinic I go to was out a doctor, and Stirling's pediatrician appointment was the same morning too. The wait was over an hour so I had to leave or Stirling would be late for his appointment. Finally yesterday I found time to go; it's also best to go first thing to avoid the crowds. The doctor said I have low iron; which as I thought about it further made sense, as I have been feeling run down, but not attributing it to anything but just being plain old tired. I have been put on supplements for the next three months to see what happens. I still don't know why my heart is doing weird things, but once in a while I'm noticing it not bothering me. That said, it was bothering me this morning. The doctor also recommended a different dose of BCPs as I have been spotting a week and a half before my period since Madison was born. I hope it works, as the first pills I was put on after I had her made me feel like I was going through menopause! I feel like my hotflashes and night sweats have only dissipated in the last few months. Well we'll see how these changes affect my health. If there isn't enough oxygen in my red blood cells, would that cause my heart to do this arrhythmia thing; you know making it work harder?
David is getting better by the day. We found out last week more gory details of what was involved with his surgery. They scraped the inside of his chest cavity and stapled his lung to the inside so it won't collapse again. AHHH EWWWW I feel faint :o( :oP The surgeon also pushed a stitch that was hanging out of one of his five inscisions back inside him! BLECH! They basically stapled and stitched him internally and crazy glued him back together on the outside. His incisions are healing well considering where they changed his first chest tube for a much larger one was about two inches long :o( Thank goodness that came out this time before he came home. The surgeon said it will be at least another 4 weeks of recovery time, and my mom said it took Richard 6 months to feel like himself again. His body has a lot of repairing to do with his muscles et al. I'm just glad he's being able to start enjoying the kids again, although he still gets quite soar at times. The job search for him is still going, but he's also got contacts out there with their eyes peeled and there ears to the ground for him, which is very much appreciated.
I was day dreaming on a Scottish realty site at homes; it all started with a job posting in Dublin Ireland and I really got into the whole idea. I found our £6,000,000 castle off the loch in Scotland, LOL! One had over 9000 acres of land, it was beautiful! Anyhow, enough daydreaming for me. Speaking of dreaming; I was using Google Earth to try to look at houses that didn't have pics :oP, and ended up looking out my old town I lived in in Germany. Now there were flashbacks I never thought I would experience again, but another story for another time.
A must see - Julie and Julia - I plan to read the real project; I've already put it in my favorites folder :oP I plan to read the original books that the movie was based on too, not obsessed but intrigued.

As things finally get back to normal - or what passes for normal these days, I have found the time to sit down and blog again.
The holidays were a great time had by all this year. We had my sister in-law and niece to dinner for Christmas day; and had a few friends over for New Years. Having a more intimate and immediate family dinner that weekend; with cake. :oP No jab intended; who knew that all the grocery stores were closed New Years Eve???? I certainly didn't, nor did the other customers driving from one store to the next hoping to pick up last minute items, for their parties most likely. For shame on the grocery stores part - look all the lost revenue?!
Anyway; then came back to work for Dave on the Monday, followed by a trip to the emergency ward for him on the Tuesday. Rewinding a bit; back in December D had a bad attack on the nerves and muscles in his neck and arms that was so excruciating and debilitating that he was laying on the floor in the bathroom, writhing in pain. And then as the day progressed it was more bearable and eventually went away; fast forwarding to that Tuesday. Same debilitating pain starts in the same area followed by numbness in his arm and hand. Meanwhile, notices sharp pain that began in his back and traveled up his chest slowly making it difficult to breathe - he said it felt like a clot. Drives himself to emergency first thing to be told his right lung has collapsed! Of course Dave just wants them to stop this excruciating pain that is in his neck and arms. By eleven o'clock they were prepping him for emergency surgery to insert a chest tube to re inflate his lung, sending him home for the night. Oh wait it get better...
The next day we are to take him downtown to where the surgeon is who specializes in thoracic medicine to have the tube removed if the whole has repaired itself. A rather fascinating test - place valve from chest tube in glass of water - cough. Pretty scientific, eh? He was still "blowing bubbles" literally and he sent us home to come back again on Thursday. The surgeon's colleague explained to us in more detail what had happened. A bleb spontaneously burst at the top of his lung causing a hole; something that is seen in skinny tall men in there mid to late 40s having this occur, wow an actual statistically recognized occurrence, hmmmm. However, with this occurrence, his chances of it occurring again had doubled (spontaneously still I might add). This time 20% next 40% etc. etc. If it did happen again they would go in and remove the bleb and fix it. Except when we returned on Thursday he was still blowing bubbles, which the colleague we saw that morning said he should go in for surgery that afternoon! In some aspects it was good that he get it fixed now; don't need his lung bursting out on a hike somewhere in the middle of nowhere or camping - no hospitals or surgeons around - not a good situation. So that moment he was prepped for surgery, waiting on a gurney in the out patient clinic in the basement waiting for a room upstairs on the third floor. We were upstairs by lunch, but Dave couldn't eat anything; nor had he eaten anything since we brought home McDonald's for lunch the day before. Keep in mind he's still got his original chest tube in as well at this point.
They had already started an IV downstairs, and then it was just a waiting game. I'm so thankful my mom was able to come out to watch the kids for the three days. It was a long haul from our side of the city to the hospital. I also had to make a couple trips to relieve my mom in the evenings and get one of my regular sitters for the evening. When I came home to relieve my mom Thursday night, Dave called and said his surgery had been bumped. He was an emergency case but he was still "on-call". His choice was to stay the night and have surgery in the morning, hopefully, or come home and be back at the bottom of the waiting game again. He got permission to leave for a bit as long as he was back in time for the hospital curfew. I went back downtown and took him to A&W to eat - he spent all day fasting for a surgery that had now been basically canceled until Friday. He tried to eat, but found he had no appetite :o( during our visits earlier in the week, one of the things the doctor insisted that he had to quit smoking as this would cause the bleb to worsen and could cause other blebs to form. He hadn't had a smoke since Thursday morning when we drove there, he tried to have a smoke but said it tasted like s**t. Positive steps towards quitting permanently, yahoo! Speaking of which, he has yet to have, way to go D I'm so proud of you!
So Friday ended up being another day of waiting and fasting. They had a spot for him finally at 10PM, so I hung around and got to go into the pre-op area with D while they got all the necessary paperwork together. I saw him into the waiting room, but came home to wait for the outcome, as I couldn't have the sitter too late. We reassured that this was as routine as having your appendix out - bad analogy in D's case as he had his appendix rupter on the way to the operating room as a kid. Bad bad bad :o(
I sat by the phone just waiting for the surgeon's call. Midnight came and the phone rang - everything went well, and he was expected to be sedated for the night. I went in the next morning to visit.
The weekend followed with tests to see when he could come home, monitoring his pain with percacet as they could and giving him stronger stuff when he needed it.
Finally Monday the 11th they were letting him out, yey! With limited mobility - no energy, so much pain and discomfort; no picking up anything, or anyone over 5lbs. for four weeks!
Work; however, had other plans for him and I had to take him into work for his alcoholic boss who couldn't seem to read an order on his own; hmm I wonder why?! Higher than a kite on percacet (D of course, not me, :oP ) I took him into work on the Wednesday (two days after being released)to "go over" somethings. His bosses made it very clear that they expected him to return in four days (the next Monday. Hello, that is only one week after he was released! Arseholes!!!
He went back that Monday; regretting it only a short way down the street from our house. He got himself off of the percacet - and I have to say that's a downer I wouldn't wish on anyone. You might as well have snorted coke - night sweats, head aches, chills, all the common side effects of coming off of a hard drug! Nasty! So he went to work painkiller free, poor man, and worked until Wednesday the 20th, The BS that he was putting up with for just having had a major surgery was appalling. They even sent him home with work on the Wednesday I drove him in; the pigs! He quit, good man, I'm proud of you! And he has taken the remainder of his time to heal like he is supposed to as ordered by his surgeon and his doctor.
He is currently looking for a job, and I'm pretty sure something better, with benefits is just around the corner. He's got options in his court too; thanks to his bosses announcing his departure to other people in the industry. We give kudos to him; thanks so much for the references! :o) LOL
Here's to an optimistic outlook on the rest of 2010; Happy New Year!