Hi all! I have been sick a lot this month, so I am crazy busy trying to get these prompts done. Sorry if parts of the next few blog posts are garbled. We're in the stretch!
Dec. 22: Travel. How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel this year? -Tara Hunt
In 2010, I travelled almost exclusively by Prius, with the exception of about 200 miles. There was a cab ride back from the airport in January. My friend gave me a lift to my first post-op appointment for my foot. A few van rides and cab rides back and forth between my car dealership and my home. A bike ride to go pick up the Prius from the dealership. And finally, a tow truck, that carried my dead Prius to a Eugene Toyota Dealership (yes, another dealership).
I only travelled a little this year. In January, I made a brief trip back to my hometown, Pittsburgh, to spend time with my parents, sisters, and niece. The next travel of any sort was the Oregon Country Fair, in July. I drove myself up and back in two day increments, spending the night in Yreka on the northern drive, and Corning on the southern one.
In August, after my husband was offered a great job after almost 11 months of unemployment, we took a short trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park. While we had to cut our visit short, the reason for this is going to make me jump to the prompt after the next one. Don't worry, I'll get back to the one I skipped over.
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Dec. 24: Everything's OK. What was the best moment that could? serve as proof that everything is going to be alright [sic]? And how will you incorporate the discovery into the year ahead? -Kate Inglis
If "Fraught" was the word to describe 2010, August could be considered its zenith. We were really starting to stretch our finances to the limit. We were discussing our options: I had a small IRA I could sell, and DH had stocks.
Meanwhile, DH's seizures were becoming stronger, and more frequent. His new medication, one that has been on the market for less than a year, gave him such bad side effects that sometimes he had to crawl to get around the house.
DH and his neurosurgeon, thinking that there were no more job opportunities out there for the moment, set a date for surgery. Brain surgery that is. Surgery that involves cutting a door in his skull, wrapping his brain with a sheet of electrodes, and then purposefully stimulating those electrodes to cause him to have seizures, in the hope of pinpointing the part of his brain where the wiring went wrong, the "focus." At the end of the week, they would remove the sheet, and any brain they felt might be the problem (which they warned us might be golf-ball sized), and of course, put his skull back together. Recovery is 4-6 weeks.
While DH and his neurosurgeon seemed to be handling events with aplomb, I was falling apart. Looking at my mood chart shows I was pretty freaked out. The chances of death were as good as nil, but I still dreaded life without him. I also feared he would come home with a new personality, not the man I married. I still do fear that a bit, and it turns out, he worries about it too.
The surgery date was set late in August. I was buying pajamas, and teaching myself cribbage so we could play it in the hospital during his week stay. About two weeks before the date, DH got a call from a financial services company: They were interested in his experience in UI (User Interface). Suddenly, it became a race. Could DH get an offer before he was admitted to the hospital?
8 days before his scheduled surgery, DH received his offer. He was so excited, he forgot to sign and fax in his contract, he just read it. When we were on our celebratory trip to Lassen, just as we were about to head out for the day, DH got a call from his new job. Where was his contract? We made a dash to Redding, the nearest town of any size, and waited for a fax of another copy of his contract, had him sign it, fax it back in, then wait for confirmation of his new workplace's receipt of the document. It took 3 tries, but at last we did it!
It had seemed like a horrible last minute nightmare when we first realized we had to get the contract in, or he wouldn't be able to start for another few weeks. But when we knew that contract was in their hands, suddenly, DH was officially employed. The contract was signed, the "i"s dotted, and the "t"s crossed. We had made it. We had lived on umemployment that lasted 6 months, and then on our savings alone for another 4 months. We are playing catch up a little with our debt, but as of January 6, all of our credit cards will be back to zero. We have another round of surgeries and health problems to look forward to in 2011, but the outlook is so much rosier, with DH working, my foot nearly healed (meaning I can get back to my work), and really great health insurance.
We are back.
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Dec. 23: New name. Let's meet again, for the first time. [Cassandra]If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be, and why? -Becca Wilcott
Hello, my name is Cassandra. I am the archetype of the truth teller who is ignored. For predicting the truth time and time again, in other people's minds, I am a foreteller of doom, rather than a seer of the inevitable consequences of their own actions. I am falsely labeled "mad" when I speak truths they do not want to hear. But when I am truly waxing crazy, my truths become harsher, and bitter. They are just as often true. But it is when I predict bad outcomes that come true that people are the most scared of me.
I'm not psychic. I am a "student" of behavior. I am a studier, a watcher, drawn to details, a collector of patterns. It is true, everyone is different. But what makes them different is just the differing weights of the ingredients they share with Everyone else. There are only so many ingredients out of which to make people, although there are always one or two without raisins, and others with nuts.
I learned about human behavior from an expert, a psychopharmacologist who studied biologically based mental illnesses, AKA, my father. He taught me what was normal, what was not. He showed me the rigid patterns in which people think, the way the very words they use to conceal give them away. I learned there were a limited array of behaviours. Some are so dreadful that it is best not to think about them. But for all of them, it is as the old saw goes, there is nothing new on this Earth.
Sometimes, I scare and anger people with my assessments of their friends and what I foresee as the outcome of their actions. The more often I am correct, the harder they push me away.
My plan for now is to lie low, I refuse to fall victim to any scheming Clytemnestra. Another meaning for the name Cassandra is "defender," and I have always been someone who tries to defend the rights of the most marginalized members of society. Sometimes defending is altruistic, such as helping prisoners make legal appeals,. Other times it just means protecting myself from the consequences of mishaps created by my own peculiar recipe of perspicacity and crazy.
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Action: Walkabout #reverb10
December 13 prompt: Action. When it comes to aspirations, it's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen. What's your next step? -Scott Belsky
"A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step." -Laozi
I don't have an extensive bucket list. While some things on it are not unusual, other things are going to be a little more difficult to accomplish, especially now that I have a husband to consider. Some things on my bucket list that I have already crossed off are: Going "behind the ropes," and touching Stonehenge; driving across the United States on both the Northern and Southern routes; having sex on a train in Europe (no more detail than that, sorry); and going to Australia, not once, but three times.
Australia is featured in several further wishes on my bucket list. One item is to travel to Australia with DH to show him a place I have come to really love. A really fantastic trip, at least 3 weeks, and a month would be even better. I have been to most of the major cities, except Perth and Hobart. I have seen, felt, touched, smelled, and tasted so many amazing and beautiful things in Australia, to describe it all would require innumerable posts.
Another item I have yet to cross off is living in a foreign country for two years, minimum. But truly, I want to emigrate to a foreign company permanently. And while I do have a back up country (New Zealand), when I say I want to emigrate to another country, what I really mean is I want to settle in Australia, Melbourne ideally.
We started the process for applying for my husband's work visa, once. He had plenty of points. But when we checked out the health requirements, his epilepsy clearly was an insurmountable obstacle to a visa, at least while his seizures are so poorly controlled. They don't want to put the burden of assured multiple hospitalizations onto their health care system.
But if DH's neurosurgery in 2011 were to either stop his seizures entirely, or allow them to be controlled with medication, that obstacle would be gone. And while we pretty much emptied our savings during DH's recent period of unemployment, we agreed to create a special account, and to put a minimum amount into it every month, for the dreamed of fantastic trip to Australia. Our goal is to make it a trip for my 50th birthday, which is just under 3 years away.
But my (not very) secret agenda doesn't stop there. Unless DH were to have a job already lined up, with an offer letter from the company in hand, he has only 5 more years before he is too old to get a visa (45 is the cut-off. Yes I robbed the cradle). As an accompanying spouse my age wouldn't matter. If this trip is as fantabulous as all my other trips to Australia have been, DH will see why I love that country so much, and why I want to live there, and I hope be equally excited at the prospect. It would be a tight schedule, but I have it all planned out. Heh.
To fulfill this fantasy, we would have to start the application process as soon as we got back from our vacation. I know, I know, "unlikely" is probably an optimistic assessment of our going forward with an application. But you never know.
But first, the great vacation. We plan to open an Australia-dedicated savings account in January. DH will have his surgery in 2011, and that will answer the question of whether or not we can ever permanently settle in another country. And even if the surgery isn't as successful as we hope, we will be going to Australia in late 2013, or early 2014. I know it seems far away. Hence my opening quotation by the Chinese philosopher, Laozi (Lao tsu). I am already excited.
So both my medium and long term goals involve Australia. And whatever the end result, the first step to pursuing those items on my bucket list, will be the first deposit into our Australia savings account.
"A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step." -Laozi
I don't have an extensive bucket list. While some things on it are not unusual, other things are going to be a little more difficult to accomplish, especially now that I have a husband to consider. Some things on my bucket list that I have already crossed off are: Going "behind the ropes," and touching Stonehenge; driving across the United States on both the Northern and Southern routes; having sex on a train in Europe (no more detail than that, sorry); and going to Australia, not once, but three times.
Australia is featured in several further wishes on my bucket list. One item is to travel to Australia with DH to show him a place I have come to really love. A really fantastic trip, at least 3 weeks, and a month would be even better. I have been to most of the major cities, except Perth and Hobart. I have seen, felt, touched, smelled, and tasted so many amazing and beautiful things in Australia, to describe it all would require innumerable posts.
Another item I have yet to cross off is living in a foreign country for two years, minimum. But truly, I want to emigrate to a foreign company permanently. And while I do have a back up country (New Zealand), when I say I want to emigrate to another country, what I really mean is I want to settle in Australia, Melbourne ideally.
We started the process for applying for my husband's work visa, once. He had plenty of points. But when we checked out the health requirements, his epilepsy clearly was an insurmountable obstacle to a visa, at least while his seizures are so poorly controlled. They don't want to put the burden of assured multiple hospitalizations onto their health care system.
But if DH's neurosurgery in 2011 were to either stop his seizures entirely, or allow them to be controlled with medication, that obstacle would be gone. And while we pretty much emptied our savings during DH's recent period of unemployment, we agreed to create a special account, and to put a minimum amount into it every month, for the dreamed of fantastic trip to Australia. Our goal is to make it a trip for my 50th birthday, which is just under 3 years away.
But my (not very) secret agenda doesn't stop there. Unless DH were to have a job already lined up, with an offer letter from the company in hand, he has only 5 more years before he is too old to get a visa (45 is the cut-off. Yes I robbed the cradle). As an accompanying spouse my age wouldn't matter. If this trip is as fantabulous as all my other trips to Australia have been, DH will see why I love that country so much, and why I want to live there, and I hope be equally excited at the prospect. It would be a tight schedule, but I have it all planned out. Heh.
To fulfill this fantasy, we would have to start the application process as soon as we got back from our vacation. I know, I know, "unlikely" is probably an optimistic assessment of our going forward with an application. But you never know.
But first, the great vacation. We plan to open an Australia-dedicated savings account in January. DH will have his surgery in 2011, and that will answer the question of whether or not we can ever permanently settle in another country. And even if the surgery isn't as successful as we hope, we will be going to Australia in late 2013, or early 2014. I know it seems far away. Hence my opening quotation by the Chinese philosopher, Laozi (Lao tsu). I am already excited.
So both my medium and long term goals involve Australia. And whatever the end result, the first step to pursuing those items on my bucket list, will be the first deposit into our Australia savings account.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Momentum
One thing I have found about blogging is the longer you go without making an entry, the harder it is to start back up. So I am just going to catch everyone up in a short post, just to get myself moving again. No pictures today.
I do have a few random outfits and purchases to post. But it is by no means a daily record.
We have been having a really tough time. I have been having a lot of headaches, and DH has been having many seizures. This weekend, he battered his face against either the bed or the bureau, I couldn't see. But he has a big cut on his forehead, right above his still healing black eye.
Surgery has been post-poned, again. I still assume it will happen before next fall.
I am thinking of trying Cymbalta for my migraines if there is not a marked improvement in frequency or severity before my January appointment. It is an anti-depressant, an SSRI, but it is used off label in tiny quantities for migraine. My p-doc doesn't think it will be enough to interfere with my other meds, and that it will be okay if we go ahead with it. I had an SSRI induced manic episode when I was on Prozac, so I was a little worried. But he said the amounts were so miniscule that they wouldn't have any anti-depressant effect. That is one odd thing about psychiatric and neurological meds: Depending on your illness, you may take wildly different dosages. For instance, both DH and I are on lamotrigine (generic Lamictal). I take it for bipolar illness, and take 225mg daily. DH takes over three times the dose I do, since he uses it for Epilepsy.
Anyway, I have been using the propranolol for 6 months as of the 29th of November. This is kind of my last gasp with it. It is odd, because I swear it helped with my headaches when I was 20; I had to quit it abruptly because of side effects. But this go round, I was able to tolerate the side effects (it is 26 years later, bodies change), but it isn't working.
Oh, and our new insurance has deadly co-pays: $10 for generics, $60 for brand name! And we both take meds that are brand name: One of DH's is so new there is no generic, and I only respond to the name brand of a migraine treatment. Even though the molecules of medication are identical between generic and name brand, sometimes there is something in the binders that blocks absorption for certain people. For most of my meds, I can use the generic, but for Sumatriptan, a rescue drug, I have to use the name brand, Imitrex. I receive it in two different formats, a pill, and a subcutaneous injection. That is $120 copay for one month of migraine rescue medication.
There is nothing wrong with the healthcare system. It is double plus good.
You may have noticed my mood issues have receded into that background for the moment, while my migraines have come to the forefront. This is how it is with the combination of migraine and bipolar illness, one condition or the other always seems to be flaring. My focus flips back and forth between the two syndromes.
I am mailing Sister2's birthday present Tuesday. Hooray. I also plan to make a trip with Violet to explore a new independently owned "boutique" pet shop, Biscuits. I meant to go see it on Saturday, which was an official day set aside to patronize small local businesses, but I was busy being sick.
I have actually purchased a couple of holiday purchases. Also I am very excited about a gift my sister got for my DH for his 40th birthday, which is this week! Eek, I have to arrange for a cake! I have no idea what to get him, and I think he would like some input: It is a special birthday, and we were in France for my 40th (he went on business, but we stretched it out into a vacation). I had hoped we would go on a great trip for his 40th, but I guess our next big trip will be for my 50th birthday. That will be Australia, if I have any say. We also had hoped to go to Hawaii for our 5th, and I needed knee surgery. So we then retrenched, and were going to go for our 10th anniversary. That was before we went through our entire savings during DH's year of unemployment.
We are still going to have an amazing 10th anniversary: We are returning to the B&B at which we honeymooned, a very luxurious and fun place.
So, not the most interesting post. But I know from past experience it is important to keep up one's posting momentum when one blogs.
I do have a few random outfits and purchases to post. But it is by no means a daily record.
We have been having a really tough time. I have been having a lot of headaches, and DH has been having many seizures. This weekend, he battered his face against either the bed or the bureau, I couldn't see. But he has a big cut on his forehead, right above his still healing black eye.
Surgery has been post-poned, again. I still assume it will happen before next fall.
I am thinking of trying Cymbalta for my migraines if there is not a marked improvement in frequency or severity before my January appointment. It is an anti-depressant, an SSRI, but it is used off label in tiny quantities for migraine. My p-doc doesn't think it will be enough to interfere with my other meds, and that it will be okay if we go ahead with it. I had an SSRI induced manic episode when I was on Prozac, so I was a little worried. But he said the amounts were so miniscule that they wouldn't have any anti-depressant effect. That is one odd thing about psychiatric and neurological meds: Depending on your illness, you may take wildly different dosages. For instance, both DH and I are on lamotrigine (generic Lamictal). I take it for bipolar illness, and take 225mg daily. DH takes over three times the dose I do, since he uses it for Epilepsy.
Anyway, I have been using the propranolol for 6 months as of the 29th of November. This is kind of my last gasp with it. It is odd, because I swear it helped with my headaches when I was 20; I had to quit it abruptly because of side effects. But this go round, I was able to tolerate the side effects (it is 26 years later, bodies change), but it isn't working.
Oh, and our new insurance has deadly co-pays: $10 for generics, $60 for brand name! And we both take meds that are brand name: One of DH's is so new there is no generic, and I only respond to the name brand of a migraine treatment. Even though the molecules of medication are identical between generic and name brand, sometimes there is something in the binders that blocks absorption for certain people. For most of my meds, I can use the generic, but for Sumatriptan, a rescue drug, I have to use the name brand, Imitrex. I receive it in two different formats, a pill, and a subcutaneous injection. That is $120 copay for one month of migraine rescue medication.
There is nothing wrong with the healthcare system. It is double plus good.
You may have noticed my mood issues have receded into that background for the moment, while my migraines have come to the forefront. This is how it is with the combination of migraine and bipolar illness, one condition or the other always seems to be flaring. My focus flips back and forth between the two syndromes.
I am mailing Sister2's birthday present Tuesday. Hooray. I also plan to make a trip with Violet to explore a new independently owned "boutique" pet shop, Biscuits. I meant to go see it on Saturday, which was an official day set aside to patronize small local businesses, but I was busy being sick.
I have actually purchased a couple of holiday purchases. Also I am very excited about a gift my sister got for my DH for his 40th birthday, which is this week! Eek, I have to arrange for a cake! I have no idea what to get him, and I think he would like some input: It is a special birthday, and we were in France for my 40th (he went on business, but we stretched it out into a vacation). I had hoped we would go on a great trip for his 40th, but I guess our next big trip will be for my 50th birthday. That will be Australia, if I have any say. We also had hoped to go to Hawaii for our 5th, and I needed knee surgery. So we then retrenched, and were going to go for our 10th anniversary. That was before we went through our entire savings during DH's year of unemployment.
We are still going to have an amazing 10th anniversary: We are returning to the B&B at which we honeymooned, a very luxurious and fun place.
So, not the most interesting post. But I know from past experience it is important to keep up one's posting momentum when one blogs.
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