Isabella's 2nd birthday

Here she is enjoying her cake!!

She's more interested in eating the frosting than blowing out the candles!

She was more interested in eating the frosting than blowing out the candles!

The happy family.

Our son, Alan, is in the middle. I couldn't be prouder of him doing anything else than being the good father like he is.

I am still getting the massages on my feet and I can see that it's just starting to make a little bit of a difference in my feet. It feels SO good while she is doing it and I am just grateful that I have found something to help my feet. The funny thing is I haven't grown any hair on my legs for a couple of years and now with the massage it is stimulating the circulation in my feet and legs and I'm starting to grow hair. It will be a pleasure to have to start shaving:)

The phone rang early this morning and it was one of those dreaded phone calls. My Mom was at the other end crying. She said my Dad couldn't breathe and was gasping for air. He thought it was the end and kept telling her how much he loves her. The ambulance was called and by the time I made it to the hospital he was breathing again. What a horrible feeling to not be able to get your breath.

The doctor said he was in congestive heart failure. It was early but I think the
ER doctor said it was because of high blood pressure. Maybe we'll know more tomorrow after he's been observed for a day. He was transferred by ambulance to St. Joseph Medical Center in South Bend and he's in the intensive care unit.

I had an appointment again today for a massage on my feet. She asked me where I was having the most discomfort in my feet yet and I told her in the ball of my feet. Man..did she ever dig into there and got some what she calls gunk out of there. It is amazing but the balls of my feet were even softer when I left there...not to mention feeling much better. I am so thankful for her and the help she is giving me. I just feel like a new person when that pain lets up.

Tomorrow is 2 to 2 1/2 hours in the dentist chair. Oh boy!! I will get my permanent caps put on the the top of my teeth. I will probably have to take a taxi there and the office girl said she'd take me home. It depends on how long I have to wait on her leave the office for the day. I may take the taxi back home. My Mom will be at the hospital and Wayne has to work tomorrow. I was glad he took off today to be with me and take me to my massage and then the hospital.

One nice thing I will say is that I got to have a nice talk with my brother. We have the commality (is that a word) of being raised in the said household and now I think it's just so much fun to talk to him. He keeps so busy in his job in Indianapolis that we don't get the chance to just chat. He is a doctor and sees patients for counseling. I'm not sure if he still does that but I know he is also a college professor.

April 3rd is the last time I posted on here. The reasons I stopped are all the same reason...pain! Mostly my foot pain. It had gotten to the point where I almost couldn't function. I resigned from the design team, quit scrapbooking, quit blogging and just didn't feel well enough to do anything.

About 18 months ago Alan (our son) told me he would pay for me to go to the massage therapist because she had helped him so much. Well, I have not let anyone touch my lower back because even brushing up against it causes pain. So, what is deep tissue massage going to do? I don't know why...maybe Alan mentioned her again but I decided to give her a try. I was in hope that she might be ale to help my feet. The doctor's have all given me a very grim prognosis for my back and for my feet...my pain would not get better and would probably get worse. I went to the therapist...Paula...and the first session I had some relief in my feet and the back massage was actually not unbearable.. Wow!!! How exciting!!! Yesterday was my 4th visit and I have requested that she work only on my feet because that pain is something that is so unbearable and something I cannot get rid of like I can my back pain. I have the morphine pump for my back and can get relief for now but not my feet. Right now she is getting rid of knots of tissue that is blocking the flow of blood to my feet. It hurt so bad that it brought tears to my eyes but I knew the good it was doing so I grinned and bore it!! Paula just still can't believe that I decided to come after so much time has passed and she has a very positive attitude that she can get my feet and eventually my back better. She knows this because she has seen it time and time again. My feet are all ready better or I wouldn't feel like posting on this blog. What a relief for the moments of less pain that I have. There is nothing worse than nerve pain. So, please pray with me that she can continue to provide relief. I like the fact that she gives God the credit for the work she does.

Yesterday there was no one else available to go to Beca's talent show. My Mom had a doctor's appt. and Eutemia didn't want to take the 3 little ones and I don't blame her AT all. Well, with my feet being a little better Wayne and I were able to go and support her.

Hopefully I'll be on here more often and maybe I'll even be able to start scrapbooking again soon.

Since I am on disability and being on disability I am on medicare I will be getting the $250 Obama had decided to give us. I have had at least 10 or more things that I have wanted to buy with that money. Well, yesterday Paula told me about a program on the Wii that is an exercise program. I know I can't exercise but there is a yoga section on it. So, now I am thinking about getting a Wii. I will be looking into it a little more today and make a decision. Don't know when I"ll get my check but know it will be soon.

This is the layout I just finished yesterday. This is Rhebeca a couple days old. I think she was such a beautiful baby and look at that hair!! Everything on here including the paper is made by a company called "Little Yellow Bicycle". I am really impressed with their creations.

Kelly, if you see this it started out being your March challenge but I didn't finish it in time. It also strayed a ways from your sketch:)

Tie Die Isabella

Isabella found a tie die kit her Dad had in storage and we now have tie die Bella. Her Mom said she tried washing it off and it doesn't come off. We will get to see tie die Bella for quite some time.

Bella is such a cute sweet little girl. She always has a smile to give somebody BUT there is another side to Bella and that's naughty Bella. She's like all of us who are not all good and not all bad.

I have some things to scan when I write about my birthday party but can't find them right now and it's 1:20 am so I don't feel like looking right now either1

Centennial Park 2003

You may wonder why I would post these pictures from so long ago. There are several reasons. First, they are really good. Beca has grown so much since these picturese. She is now 5'5" tall. She's now a little girl in a young woman's body. Another reason is I am saddened by how much my body has failed since these pictures. I was obviously able then to follow her around and take pictures. N0w, there's no way I could do that because of back pain and pain in my feet. But, these are good memories and I'm glad I was able to be active with the grandkids for a short time.

Follow me Grandpa!!!

I don't know of anyone else Wayne would climb up the slide for unless it was one of the other grandkids:D

Grandpa loves Rhebeca and Rhebeca loves Grandpa!! A picture that is priceless...to me at least.

I still have this real deep line on my skin where the shingles were. I looked at it yesterday because as any vain person (like me) I don't like the looks of what's left of the shingles. Well, when I looked at it I noticed all these little pimple looking bumps. It looked like the beginning of shingles again but smaller. It took me a while to process it but I think it's a new outbreak of shingles. I haven't felt well this week and have slept a lot during the day and maybe I'm fighting the shingles virus again. I called the doctor's office and they put me on my 2nd round of an anti-viral medicine.

It has taken me a while to understand medicare. When I was accepted as getting disability I was automatically on medicare. I have an insurance policy with Humana that covers most of what medicare doesn't cover. There are lots of insurance companies to choose from but Humana fit my needs the best. Well, I have learned that medicare has a very strange coverage of the medication. The first $2700 is like any insurance plan and we pay a copay with the Tier system. Generic is cheapest and regular meds w/o a generic the most costly. Then from $2700.00 to $4350.00 we pay 100% . We started with this insurance company February 1st and reached the " donut hole" (medicare terms) on March 14th. Maybe we're record makers:D

The Treat Drawer

When I was little I can remember my grandparents having a special cupboard with toys inside. I wanted to do something similar that our grandkids would remember and get excited when they came so I came up with the treat drawer. It is a BIG deal, believe me. It's the first place they run when they come here and the last thing they check out when they leave. They always have to have a sack to put their finds into so they don't lose anything. This picture below is L to R...Isabella, Kael and Kaleb. Isabella loves the fruit roll-ups and this is the first time she's let me take the paper off the roll-up before she ate it. Otherwise I'd find little spit out papers all over.

I had a tooth pulled today. Tuesday I spent 3 hours in the dentist's chair and he tried to pull one of my teeth last thing. Well, the tooth was so painful that even with many many shots of novacaine it wouldn't get numb enough to pull. So, thank goodness he listened to me when I told him it hurt too bad to pull today. When I got home I thought it might be best to be put under to get this tooth out. I called the oral surgeon and he had an opening this morning at 7:45. I took it! The doctor about scared me to death. He was a little afraid to put me under because of the amount of medications that I'm on...especially the pain pump. He showed me the x-ray of the tooth that showed the tooth was really close to the nerve. He said since that's so close I could end up with facial numbness that didn't go away and I could lose my taste for food, etc., etc. If that wasn't bad enough they had me read and I had to put my initials that I acknowledged it might happen to me. Well, right after I talked to the doctor and filled out that paper they took my blood pressure. I don't think I've ever seen it so high. I was filled with so much anxiety that it pushed my blood pressure to 224/125. If that doctor wasn't scared before I'm sure he was then. He had the nurse put some oxygen on me to bring down my blood pressure and I prayed and prayed for the anxiety to go away. Both things helped because the next reading was 186/99 which is still high but nothing like the first reading.

He must be an excellent oral surgeon because I have had very little bleeding and virtually no pain! Yippee!!!!

Well, here it is...my new hair color. By the time we took this picture it had faded a little bit. If you remember, my beautician had gone to a hair show in Las Vegas. I asked her if there were any new trends. She said they were using primary colors and just glimpses of them. We talked about it and decided on this color. If you can see, there are spots of red all over. Wayne wasn't sure he liked it at first but I think it's grown on him now. I really like it and I think I'll have her do it again next time.

You can also see that the shingles are leaving a scar...so far. I hope it will fade as time goes by. They aren't completely over...the one by my eye bothers me every day yet. I hope it goes away soon.

It's been a while since I have posted. I have had some real rough days physically. On those days I just don't know what to say sometimes. I don't want to always be negative.

One thing that happened is the doctor from the rehab hospital in Chicago called (he is the one that we held such high hopes for help) he said that there's nothing he can do to help me and he referred me to their pain center. I all ready go to a pain center but I will give theirs one try to see if they have any other ideas. That was really depressing that he couldn't do anything to help me and he's the one we held such high hope for some help. I'm used to it because it's happened time and time again but there's always just that little ray of hope inside that I can get some help.

K & K Cleaners

Once in a while a cute idea hits me and I run with it. I decided it would be cute to label this as if Kael and Kaleb are cleaning.
I am just getting over the shingles or at least the pain from the singles and my back decides to act up. I just dread the feeling of the spasms starting in my low back but I have ways to get rid of them at least. I right away took my faithful old muscle relaxers and usually they work within 20 minutes but this time the pain was intensifying. So, I took some more muscle relaxers and it still didn't work. I paced and paced the floor because sitting and laying down both makes the spasms worse. They lasted all day and most of the night until they let up WEdnesday morning. That's Tuesday morning at 5:0oam until Wednesday morning around 7:00 am. A long 24 hoursQ

Shingles, Day 8

I would love to say the the shingles are gone and I'll be writing on something else. But...they're still here. You know, what's funny is that I don't have any makeup on and my cheeks are very rosey. The scabs are healing nicely. The thing that is bothering me the most is that I have a scab right by my tear duct on my right eye. It is the one that feels liks sandpaper on my eye. It was so painful last night that it kept me up all night. My eyes are both starting to turn black and blue underneath but one side is worse than the other. I am really ready for these things to go away.

A representative from Real Services came by today to explain to me and have me sign papers to sign up for Medicaid. The way I understand it is that they go by my income which is my disability check I get for $525 each month. The only snag we ran into is that my name is on the title for 2 of our vehicles. For some reason my credit is better than Wayne's right now so that's why we put my name on the titles and the loan. She's going to to check on it and see if it will present any problems. If I can get accepted there are some wonderful benefits. All my medical bills will be paid. They would go the Humana (private insurance) first then to medicare and what medicare didn't pay medicaid would pick up. I would get 5 hot meals delivered each week. I would have someone come to the house and do whatever needs done..cooking or cleaning. There are other things that I am probably not remembering.

Shingles Day 6

My biggest concern on day 6 is that I have several scabs on my eyelid and I can't tell if there are some inside my eyelids or not. My eyes feel like there is sandpaper on then. The good news is that I took a shower and washed and dried my hair today and that felt mighty good.