Bugs are People Too

I haven't written on here in quite a while, and even then, it was super lame. I freely admit, I'm not a writer. I have terrible sentance structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and pretty much anything else that could be terrible, is terrible. I've decided I just don't care. I'll never get better if I don't practice. So here goes.


Growing up, I always cringed when I killed bugs. Most people do, I suppose, but not for the reason I did. If I saw an ant crawling on the counter, I would have an internal struggle. Do I let it strut around like it owned the place? Crawling on surfaces where my food is? Or do I kill it and risk ant vengance by loved ones?

I blame cartoons where bugs are given personalities and feelings. If someone killed my brother I would seek revenge and blood. I also blame words like, swarm, and army, which give the allusion of organization. If they can organize, they can fight and kill.

I didn't want any blood on my hands. I didn't want to be traced back to the death and be held accountable. I would try to explain to friends why I didn't want to kill the bug on my backpack, but would realize how ridiculous the words sounded as they came out of my mouth. By the end of my explanation I would already be trying to find a way to prove I wasn't insane, and it usually came down to me laughing, saying "just kidding hah" and squishing the bug...muttering a low apology and request for mercy.

Realizing no one would ever quite understand my fear I stopped explaining it, and asked others to do the deed for me. When I was alone, I would bargain. " If you don't hurt me I won't hurt you and you can go on living your little life, but here are the rules. 1. Stay in your corner, or I will assume you are running towards me to hurt me, and that breaks the contract and it will be your own fault. 2. If you do break the contract, your friends and family have no claim on my blood." This usually worked out pretty well.

The south is pretty much a nightmare for me on a daily basis. I see hundreds if not thousands of bugs daily and I know, I just know that they are all connected and watching each others backs. We have ants up north, but these ones BITE. We have spiders up north, but these ones are POISONOUS. You can imagine how this could complicate an already stressful situation.

I kill ants/spiders/moths, etc on an almost daily basis and none have never been avenged, but that truth does not placate my fear. Irrational as it may be. I didn't write this all for nothing, I wrote it because if I'm ever found dead of an unknown cause, please don't forget to investigate the ants.

Not the best night.....

So last night I woke up feeling all barfy. I opened the bathroom door so I would have a clear shot to the toilet because I was quite sure it would come to that. To my surprise, later (quite a while later) I feel asleep with my innards still intact. I woke up and spent the day with a stomach ache,and super tired for that matter, but thought that maybe I had just handled the beef improperly that I made for lunch. Well, on my way home from church tonight I started feeling a little sicky to my stomach. I came in and took some tums... and that was rough, because I absolutely hate chewing that crap... and started doing the dishes. A few minutes into it my stomach started swelling and feeling sicker and sicker. I didn't end up finishing the dishes because it got so bad I decided I needed to get into my PJ's and lay down. I put my hair in a pony tail (thank heavens) and got out my pj's. All of a sudden I started salivating a ton and had a weird taste in my mouth. I got to the toilet just in time! not fun. I really hate throwing up. So anways, that was about an hour ago. My stomach felt a little better, but in the last 30 minutes i've been getting barfier and barfier. So now I sit, with a pot and a roll of paper towels (incase of one of those -I won't make it to the bathroom- moments) waiting for tj to get home. The very worst part of all of this is, I have a cleaning job tomorrow. I just started last week and I already have to cancel, at the last minute too since it's too late to call tonight. The family just got over the stomach flu last week so I would feel terrible if i came over and spread it all over their house and they got it again. UHG that sure makes me look like a great reliable worker right? I hate when I can't win

Surgery!

It is over! I had so many fears and doubts and those are all gone and I couldn't be happier, and all thanks to God

Like I said in my previous post, endometriosis can only be diagnosed through surgery. It can't be seen by ultrasound or CT scan or anything of that nature. My obgyn and fertility dr all were pretty stinkin certain I had endometriosis because I had pretty much every major symptom. I say this because after my surgery, my Dr. said I DON'T HAVE ENDOMETRIOSIS!!!!!!! Let me start from the beginning.

I got to the surgery center at 6:30 and got bloodwork. I then got prepped for surgery, which included slippers (i'm still wearing and loving them) a cap for my hair, and a gown. They got my IV hooked up and got my mom and tj back there waiting with me. They told me I was going to have a tube in my throat once I fell asleep and that the surgery should take an hour to an hour and a half. I was so scared not knowing what i'd hear when i woke up. i had a test called an HSG done a couple months ago and it looked like one of my tubes was blocked and the other one might be damaged.

I woke up suuuper groggy and nauseaus.... my dr walked by with a big smile on her face and said "you're a perfect woman, we found no endometriosis and were able to fix the tube that was coiled up and kinked" She was so surprised to not find anything there and so was I!! She said that my pain is probably caused by some nerves that are getting inflamed every month and making the pain so bad. All I could say was "God is soo awesome!"

I woke up around 11 oclock and my recovery was only supposed to be 1hr... but I didn't get to leave till almost 4pm. I layed in bed at first, drifting in and out of sleep. Every few minutes my moniter would start alarming and a nurse would say "Grace, wake up and take some deep breaths.... you're breathing too shallow and not getting enough oxygen" It was so annoying. the second i stopped taking deep breaths it would just drop drop drop and then beep and i'd have to start all over again. After a little while they took my to a recliner where my husband and mom got to sit with me. That was before noon. I again drifted... in and out.... and the nurse would come in with a wheelchair and carry my IV bag and take me to the bathroom where I would sit. I didn't feel like I had to go, but they said I had to go before I could go home. I would sit there, start to fall asleep, and finally just pull the cord to get the nurse back in. I did this 4 times. I drank gingerale, had 3 big bags of fluids, and even drank some coffee to try and get myself to go to the bathroom. It just never happened. Eventually, after a few hours they told me I needed to get a catheter in to empty my bladder. Not. Pleasant. They did the cath and i have to say, my bladder was FULL.

As I was getting up, the nurse said, everything that could go bad or be uncomfortable after surgery, you got. I told her that it doesn't even matter, that what mattered was that God took care of me and let me get the best news ever. Much better than I, or any of my doctors expected.

You want to hear a theory? I think God gave me all the symptoms of endometriosis so they would do the surgery and be able to fix the tube. Here's the thing, the HSG I had showed my tube was obstructed... but if we had done surgery just for that, insurance would not have paid for it and tj and i could never have afforded it. But beause of all my symptoms of endometriosis they were able to do the surgery for that, which IS covered by insurance! God really orchestrated this whole thing amazingly. I now have a 50% higher chance of getting pregnant because i now have two working tubes!!

Anyways, I am really hopped up on darvocet right now so please excuse the crappy everything. SO HAPPY!!!

Body Breakdown

So I haven't written in here for quite a while... partly because I didn't have anything interesting to write about and partly because I forgot my password.

I figured I'd write about all the crappy health things i've been going through, so here goes

About two weeks before christmas, my friend Sarah and I decided to play tennis! It was below the freezing point and windy but who cares, we'd be running around right? It was fun, but after a few minutes my legs were numb. A few days later I started noticing my right knee swelling when I was walking on it. I decided to take it easy but a girls gotta walk! This went on till after christmas, getting so bad at times that I was walking around like frankenstein, and avoiding my right knee so much my left knee was hurting as well as my back. I came home from erie and stayed off it as much as possible. All of a sudden it stopped swelling! I was so excited... I fixed it! I was sad to realize it wasn't fixed as much as it was just... different. Now, I would go to extend it to stand up or lay down and it would crack so loud tj could hear it across the room and it felt almost as if it were snapping back into place. I didn't go to the gym or work out at all because I was afraid of irritating it or causing permanent damage. As many of you know, I am out of work right now, so thinking of dropping 20 dollarinos on a copay was out of the question. So I just waited, and rested. Well a couple weeks ago I got sick. pretty darn sick. Fever, sore throat, cough, labored breathing, and general ickiness. Well I haven't gotten completly better and I have surgery next friday (just be patient, I'll get there) so i figured, if i need antibiotics I have to see the Dr. now.

For the last 3 years I've been seeing the Nurse Practitioner at our office. I can't stand her. I could go in with a broken leg and she'd say "there's just a bug going around". Several times I've had to actively pursuade her to actually look into a problem I was having, and each time MY diagnosis was correct and hers was wrong. This time I requested to see the REAL doctor. You know, the one with the PhD. He was great! We had a conversation. That's right, I talked, he listened, he talked, I listened. It was like a breath of fresh air. He told me I had an upper respiratory infection and prescribed me some antibiotics and said I should be fine for surgery(see next paragraph) if I take them. Next I told him about my knee and he put one hand on my knee, and with his other hand moved my leg in all sorts of positions that would be uncomfortable for even the most talented contortionist. As he did this he was talking about that fun popping sound that knees do. He stopped mid sentance and said something along the lines of "Oh wow, listen to that. That is pretty bad" He continued to tell me about how the socket of my knee is all ridged and grindy instead of smooth like it should be and that my knee is in pretty bad shape. So basically I have osteoarthritis in my knee and he prescribed some anti-inflammatory medications and said we'll see how they work. I'm not to play tennis or anything that has me moving like that... you know, all squatty and running sideways type of thing. I have some exercises to do to strengthen the small muscles around my knee cap. In general the visit was nice because he addressed all my concerns, but I am slightly upset to realize I have a problem with my knee that will only get worse with time. OK. Next.

Next friday feb 5th I'm getting laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis. You can't see endometriosis with any sort of ultrasound or scan so to truly diagnose it you have to see it through surgery. My two doctors both believe I have endometriosis due to my symtoms, but like I said, you can never be sure until the surgery. They're going to go in through my belly button and a few other places and look into my pelvis and clean out any scarring and adhesions they find from the endometriosis. They will do a few other things while they're there which may, or may not, be successfull. I have known that I would probably need this surgery for over a year now... and now it's here. I am very excited to get it done, and hopefully there will be some great things that come from it. I am mostly hoping for decreased back and pelvis pain, but there are many things this surgery will affect, such as my ability to get pregnant! Here are my fears... I don't know what I'm going to hear when I wake up. There is a wide spectrum of outcomes. I could wake up from the anesthesia and my doc could say "We went in and found nothing!" Or I could wake up and hear "There was a lot of scarring and adhesions, your tubes (of the fallopian kind) are ruined and will need to be removed. We tried to remove as much as we could, but had some bleeding and had to go from laparoscopy to an open procedure" You see.... when I got my gallbladder out, my dr and I pretty much knew what we were getting ourselves into. In this case, neither of us do, and I won't know until I wake up what my fate is.

OK so I get it, this was boring, and long. Here's the thing, it's too late now... I'm not going back through and deleting things just to make your life a little easier. I'm too tired and taking approximately 4 new drugs to spell check or clarify. I promise I'll get better with practice. Next time I'll tell you about my new "diet" and how happy it makes me. Sound interesting? check back.

Day 1

WARNING: This will be less like a 'blog' and more like an online journal. This is not only for you, but for me and my sub-par memory that needs any little reminders it can get.

OK... so day one started early, with complimentary breakfast at the hotel. We got in the car and programmed our little british lady with all the cities we wanted to go to, and in what order. I have become a complete believer in navigation systems by the way. I must confess I used to be completely critical of them and worried some day one would send me over the side of a bridge or onto the wrong side of the highway. Ours has been a complete blessing... along with that and the autobahn we have been able to see so much and not waste hours and hours of driving time. Our first stop was a town called Rothenberg ob der Tauber. We drove under one of the towers that is in the surrounding city wall and were greated with an adorable town with beautiful houses and shops and plenty of flowerboxes and ... flower houses? I guess that's what you can call a house that is almost covered in flowers and vines. We parked our rented audi and walked up the stone steps to the city wall. We walked along the wall for a while, able to see down the towns small roads. We went in a few shops and saw things we liked but didn't buy anything (you must be careful not to buy too much at the first place you go, you never know what you'll find the rest of your trip!) After soaking up the towns charm we went to our next "intermediate destination" as our navagator sweetly told us in her english accent.

Nordlingen was the next town we were set to see and it didn't dissapoint!

While en route, I looked in the travel book on Germany we had bought at B&N and read that Nordlingen was built on a crater that was caused by a meteor 'millions' of years ago. Interesting. It also had a church, St. George that had a tower called daniels tower that if you climbed it you could get 360 view of the town. Interesting. The town itself was also very charming, but much harder to find a parking place. We drove around for a while before finding a spot we could slip into that was near enough the church. The church was beautiful of course but we weren't sure how long it would take to climb the tower so we quickly headed to the entrance. The first set of stairs were the stone kind that went into a tight spiral....not too bad. On a scale of one to ten the flimsiness was about a zero but in terms of me feeling claustrophic, it was a solid 9. They seemed to go on and on until I was slightly dizzy and slightly freaking out. Finally it opened up... to more stairs. These were made of wood and creaked as you walked on them and had slots where the wood just didn't quite meet up and you could very much see through them. Now started the hyperventilating. But I kept walking. TJ started walking behind me incase I passed out. I am just going to say this was rough.... I don't know why but sometimes I can force myself to handle heights and sometimes I feel completely hopeless. I once had a panic attack over having to climb an 8 foot ladder. We walked and walked and walked and at one point the hyperventilating went away but not the fear! When we got to the top we paid the man 2 euro each and climbed outside the tower. It was beautiful. You could walk completely around the small tower although the walkway could basically only fit one person. The fresh air helped me a bit and I got out my camera and snapped some photos of the buildings, wall, and distant fields. I wanted to take one straight down but there was no way I was leaning over that wall so I grabbed the tower with one hand and reached the other over the wall and took a photo, not knowing what was below. This was the resulting photo.

The walk down was better but not great, I stared at my feet 100 percent of the time and had both hands grasped on the rails and walls to ensure I wouldn't plummet to my death if one of the stairs fell through. We finally made it down and I was happy to sit in our car and take chill pill. All in all, glad I did it, and glad I didn't cry. hah. pee-ess... I looked it up later and there are 365 stairs!

Our final stop was in a town called Fussen where the grass was an intense green, the likes of which I have only seen in one other place, Ireland.

We instantly loved the little town at the foot of the alps and drove around trying to take it all in. We followed signs to take us to the castles. Neuschwanstein castle was beautiful, nestled into the mountain above us looking old and intricate and beautiful.

The sun was going down soon and it was foggy so we didn't take the time to park and walk up, but did take some photos of the castle with the fog around it that did turn out quite nice. We went back to the town and parked and walked around and found a cute place to eat dinner. TJ order something called a pork knuckle and truly, when they set it down in front of him it still had bits of pig hair sticking off it. Tj scraped the fat off it and said the pork underneath was "good... sortof like pulled pork in memphis" I have to admit If i saw animal hair on my meat I wouldn't be able to scrape it off and pretend it was never there! Luckily my food came, quite normal looking and good tasting. It got dark as we sat there next to the window listening to people walking around town. We decided to drive back up to the castle and see if it was lit up and it was! Tj got some good pictures but they aren't loaded up yet. My camera died soon after turning it on to try and so I really have nothing to offer you considering this.

It was getting late and so we headed home. It took us a little under 4 hours to get home but it was all very worth it and we decided we had a very successful, fun day!

Traveling/Accommodations

So I've been here about 2 1/2 days so far. I probably should start this blog with the flights. Here are the basics. My planes were first going from Memphis to Amsterdam... then Amsterdam to Frankfurt. I was standing in line to board the plane and the guy scanning the tickets was doing just that, scanning the tickets and sending people through. When he got to me he looked at my ticket and said "I need to see your passport" (I quickly open my purse and grab my passport and hand it to him) "You can't leave the country without your passport...and uh huh... you have an invalid passport" My stomach dropped to my knees.... invalid passport??? Did I accidently grab my old one with my maiden name on it?? No, turns out I forgot to sign it. He hands me a pen and tells me to step aside. My dread quickly turned into anger towards this old man who apparently wanted to be a jerk and punish me for forgetting to sign my passport by making me crap my pants. I went to my seat and fumed. Then, my journey began! My flights were generally pleasant, and included, but was not limited to.... one man sticking his knees in my seat the entire overseas flight, one seat-mate who was a fellow book reader, dachshund lover,and lover of the name claire...one semi cute inflight movie... one tired mother with one young child who had one million "whys" and three semi-decent meals.

Surprisingly I didn't have to wait long at the Frankfurt airport before TJ came to pick me up. It was so good to see him! My feelings quickly changed to dread when we got to the car, and we headed onto the autobahn. For those of you not familiar with the autobahn, it is basically a highway with no posted speed limit. For those of you not familiar with TJ, this is scarey. Oh and did I mention he rented a deisel audi? Audis are his favorite car and he pretty much is in love. The highway has parts where the speed IS posted due to unsafe conditions such as construction, exits etc. I have to say so far on the no limits areas we average 110-115mph but have gone as fast 130mph. Our oh-so-amazing audi has a digital display that shows us our speed in mph along with the km.

We reached ramstein and went straight to dinner. We stopped at a restaurant in town called Paradox (or something like that) and had schnitzel and potatoes and nice cold cokes that we later realized were 3 euros a piece (roughly 4.50 in u.s. dollars.) We finally headed to the hotel, and by then I was fully ready for bed. The hotel is called the Hotel Atlantis. It is a light blue stuccoey looking hotel several miles off base. It has 4 floors and is relatively small. Our hotel room is on the 4th floor and this is my description of it. The room has no air conditioning and is shaped rather differently than other hotel roomes with one big window on the slanted part of the ceiling/wall. We were not able to open it the first night but thank heavens there is a ceiling fan. Did I mention we're on the 4th floor and that heat rises? The walls are the same stuccoey texture as the outside of the building, but white. The floor is a hard grey and white tile and in some parts feels hot under your feet. There's a tv with a few channels, including CNN and MTV. Right now MTV's 'Made' is on, but it is dubbed over in german. The bed looks like it is made of two full beds put together in one frame and is low to the ground. The bathroom is pretty comparable to any hotel bathroom, although the TP here leans more towards the paper part of its name. Every morning there is a complimentary breakfast buffet downstairs in the restaurant that offers eggs, toast, bacon, hashbrowns, sausage, yogurt, fruit, and the customary european cold meat and cheese.

OK I didn't plan on writing so much on the plane/hotel etc so I now need to take a break and do something less... demanding. To be continued........

Don't say I'm not prepared.

People are always telling me 'just wait till you have kids, you won't sleep, they smell bad, they're bad, etc' I'm always telling people, I have 3 dogs.. I have an idea. Here is my argument for that statement.

It started out on tuesday. Work was hard and long. I was there from 9am till 7pm and we were b-u-s-y. I went straight to the gym and did 60 minutes on the eliptical and spent 10 minutes basking in the not-so-sun UV. I had visions of hot showers and cuddly fleece all the way home, and by the time I pulled in the driveway I could hardly think of anything else... until I walked in the house. What is that smell? Is it a gas leak? If I turn on the burner will the house explode? These are the thoughts I had as I was walking to open the door to the room the dog cage is in. I turned the handle and pushed and was instantly smacked in the face by a smell so rank my nose hairs shriveled up and became nonexistant. One quick glimpse and I saw 3 dogs stomping (or should I say splashing?) and whining in numerous puddles of crap. I quickly cleared a path from the cage to the back door, pushing aside all throw rugs and furniture. I ran the dogs outside and came back inside and formulated a plan. Blanket-trash, rubber mat-patio, cage-disassembled and put on the patio. I gathered supplies... trash bags, rubber gloves, cleaner. Soon after starting the clean-up I realized what I was REALLY dealing with. One dog must have went number 2, and the other dogs must have promptly ingested said #2 and then threw it up. everywhere. I'm talking piles of crap vomit the size of dinner plates. Let me wrap this up by saying it took almost 3 hours, two trash bags, 3 pairs of gloves and almost a whole roll of paper towels to clean it up and bathe all three dogs. (did i mention it was crusted in their fur?). When it was all finished I finally got my shower. I fell asleep around 1am that night.... with wet hair and a hint of pooh in the air.

Wednesday, 7am...my day begins. Work was worse, and just as long. I got out at 7 and saw a text from tj that said 'i'm home' I called and one of the first things out of his mouth is 'we're even'. Apparently Cody had bloody diarrhea all over. So we went through another roll of paper towels and the dogs got their second bath in two days. His diarrhea continued so we slept on the couch all night so we could better hear when he needed to go out. And he did. Need to go out. A lot. About 25 minutes before my alarm was to go off he was standing at the door, tapping the handle with his nose. I was bringing them back in when they all stepped in HUGE thing of mud. I didn't open the door to the house right away, trying to ask tj for a towel and they all took off running to the neighbors house. I broke down. I plopped on the couch face first and TJ got his shoes on and went in pursuit of the little idiots.

Needless to say, tj put the whole dog cage on a tarp today before he left for work.

Did I mention Olive is in heat?