Family

There's nothing quite like being a temporary invalid to make you appreciate your family!

Wednesday I had sinus surgery. My wonderful, beautiful, amazing mom took me, and held my hand while they stuck the big scary needle in my arm (I don't mind needles if they are not pointed in my direction) and hung out while they wheeled me away into the surgery room.

My anesthesiologist gave me Versed. Versed is awesome. I remember him putting it into my IV. I remember them wheeling me into the Operating Room. I vaguely remember seeing Dr. Beus, my surgeon in there. The anesthesiologist (I think his name was Dr. Wilson? He kept asking me about buried treasure, I hope I imagined that...) had oxygen on my face, then he had Dr. Beus hold it while he stuck some leads on me, then the next thing I remember is the PACU nurse asking me if I wanted a drink of water (which was the best thing I heard all day!) and taking those leads off, which is how I know they weren't a dream. I remember I told her probably 3 times my uncle used to work in the PACU, she didn't seem interested. Then they wheeled me back to my mom.

At this point, I noticed the Thing they had stuck to my face. The Thing is this awesome device that holds a 4x4 to your face, thus making it so you have to breathe out of your mouth. I wasn't sure what this Thing was for until (after a lot of persistence) the post-op nurse had me stand up to go to the bathroom. That's when the gushing blood started, and Ah Ha! The Thing is to keep the blood from going EVERYWHERE! My mom helped me go potty, she tried to convince me to eat the cookies (I just wanted some of that beautiful, cold water! Delicious!) then after I swallowed some pain pills and kept them down (Thank you phenergan!) my mommy took me home. The nurse gave me a sparkling princess sticker, she said "Because you found your prince charming, that makes you a princess!" (My mom must've been bragging on me and the hubby, aka Prince Charming.)

At this point, my mommy passed me off to my wonderful husband! He saw The Thing and the look on his face was priceless! A mixture of trying not to laugh and genuine concern, beautiful! He got me settled in bed with some lunch (Arby's French Dip and Hot n' Spicy Cheez-its) and a movie (the newest Twilight, because I figured since it's a $1.20 to rent it for one night at Redbox and I was going to be doped up on the remnants of anesthesia and 10mg of Lortab and struggling to stay awake, it was the perfect time to watch it! Also, was that scene where the wolves are all telepathically communicating ridiculous or was it just because I was high?) I sipped, sipped, sipped on my water (beautiful water!) and got up 3-4 times to go pee. And they were worried I wouldn't pee! I peed like a fiend!

On Thursday night, my amazing, gorgeous red headed sister-in-law brought us dinner, chili and cornbread, and we all discovered together that cornmeal does, in fact, expire. However, the chili was more than enough deliciousness to make up for the iffyness of the muffins! And, I didn't have to cook, or make Eric cook, or make Eric go to the store (stuff he does willingly, but I would've rather had him home), she didn't laugh at The Thing, and she didn't say anything about my apartment, which was a DISASTER! (Long story short, our dishwasher broke and apparently I'm not whipping Eric hard enough, but it has a happy ending, we're getting a new dishwasher, YAY!)

On Friday, I had a complete meltdown. I figured (stupidly) that the pain would be the worst on Wednesday, better on Thursday, and better on Friday. Turns out the pain was bad on Wednesday, WORSE on Thursday, and on Friday I thought I wanted to die. OK, maybe a little dramatic, but I seem to remember telling Eric that during my meltdown. So, Eric kept running to get me a new gauze, (when I cry, the blood poureth forth, so I probably shouldn't have been crying) more ice for my face (the ice pack is annoying, because then I can't read or watch TV, and what is the point of being at home without being able to read and watch TV?) and MORE WATER!! I kept up a correspondence with my mom, my amazing father-in-law who probably had better things to do than to call me and make sure I was OK (like his hot date, MEOW!), and even one of my top two favorite sisters, my sissy Sylvee, who definitely had better things to do (hot date with Airman Fiancee Jack in Texas).

What is the moral of the story? I feel like there are two.

1) Surgery is NOT FUN! Good news is I can already breathe better, which is awesome! For the first time in as long as I can remember I can breathe through BOTH nostrils SIMULTANEOUSLY! (Also, spelled simultaneously right on the first try. KA-CHING!)

2) (And the most important moral) Family is the best thing EVER. I would be nothing without them. All of them. I have always been very blessed to be born into the family I was born into, the one that would accept me for who I am, with all of my flaws and all of my quirks, and love me anyway. I have been doubly blessed to find a man who loves NaRhea for NaRhea and whom I love for being simply Eric. And, I triple scored by marrying into a family who loves me, and who I fit into rather well. Katie told me a while ago that when Eric and I were first dating, someone asked her about me, and she said, "She fits into our family PERFECTLY!" (I probably told a dirty joke at the dinner table, or maybe I started talking about blood and guts, or perhaps it was the time we went to a football game and Eric's dad and I were both shouting at the refs...) Anywho, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

 (On a side note, I am going to be a gorgeous old lady. Look at my, mom, look at my Grammie. She has baby skin! And my black grandma wouldn't know what a wrinkle is if it sat on her! Yup, gorgeous old lady. :D)

4 Months

Eric and I have been married for 4 months. We have been together for about 14 months, we have known each other for closer to 17 months. It's crazy to me how fast time flies!

I remember this time last year, of course because it was almost Valentine's Day, and we had been together for a couple of months, so the relationship was still pretty new. Because of my divorce, I wasn't interested in rushing or saying that we were going to be together forever, I figured for at least 3-4 months we were still trying each other on for size. Eric wasn't interested in going fast either, it only took him about 6 weeks for him to kiss me for the first time! Of course, because I'm a girl and a hopeless romantic, I probably knew on our first date that I had found Mr. Right, and all that was needed for us was time.

Anyway, his parent's were going to Hawaii for Valentine's Day (Still jealous!) and so he was going to have the house to himself. He invited me over to dinner and a romantic candlelit dinner.

I came over to the house, and he was standing in the kitchen finishing dinner. I hadn't been in the house more than 5 minutes when he looked at me sheepishly and said, "I wasn't going to tell you this, but..." and lifted the leg of his jeans to reveal a blood soaked band-aid and a trail of fresh blood dribbling down his leg! He explained that he had been cutting firewood for our romantic fire and had accidentally hit his knee with the back end of the hatchet, which had ruined his jeans and left a gaping hole.

"You need stitches!" I told him. He refused to go to the clinic and get them, or to go to an insta-care and get them. He got another band-aid, and we proceeded with our Valentine's Day dinner date with me commenting every 5 minutes to go get some stiches!!

Well, it took about 3 months for his leg to heal and he still has a pretty masculine scar on his knee. And in a couple of years from now, I get to tell my children about my first Valentine's Day with their father.

It seems like the older I get the faster time goes by. A year used to be a long time, now it's not really any time at all! I can't wait to see what the next 4 months, 14 months, 18 months brings to my sweetheart and me!

Difficult

Life is difficult.

That is an understatement.

A gross understatement.

There aren't words to describe fully how hard life is. You have to experience it, and the more you experience it the worse it gets.

Remember when you were 5, and the worst thing that ever happened to you was mom took your favorite toy away? And you thought you would die? Or when you were 15 and your parents were yelling at you for something you did (and I still maintain my innocence!) and you thought you would die? Or when you were 17 and your mom wouldn't let you have the car, and your boyfriend dumped you, and you thought your life was over? Every time, you survived, and every experience you could look back and say, That sucked, but compared to what I'm going through now it was nothing!

I might be young, but that is all a matter of perspective. To my 9 year old baby brother, I am SO OLD, and to my great grandparents I am still a baby. And the interesting thing is that never really changes. Perhaps the percentage of people younger than you steadily increases while the percentage of people older than you steadily declines, but the way people think is unchangeable. So, even though I haven't lived very many years in time, I have had a lot of experiences in my life that other people could never claim to have in their entire lifetime.

So, perhaps again this is a matter of perspective, but it seems that as I age, my resilience is in decline. I have better coping mechanisms now, and they are getting easier and easier to implement, but I guess it feels like I am more distressed about things and for a longer period of time than I used to be. Again, this may be a matter of perspective. Our brains like to gloss over the minute by minute details and just give us an overview in retrospect. That's why women keep having babies, because they forget the minute discomforts that make them swear up and down they will never have children again and they can only remember the good things. Which is a good thing, or we as humans would have died out years ago.

Anyway, I'm not going to go into detail about the current situation, firstly because it makes me mad to talk about it, and secondly because it isn't necessary to get my point across. Also, it's not really my story to tell. Suffice it to say, we are going through a family crisis that has been prominent throughout our marriage, and actually even a couple weeks before our marriage, and it doesn't involve Eric and I or our relationship in any way. The stressors are exterior to us as a couple. However, they are of a nature that could be detrimental to us if we allow them to divide us.

I am proud to say that throughout this crisis, we have stayed strong. Yes, we have had rocky moments. Yes, the stress is taking it's toll. Yes, it is affecting essentially every facet of our lives including work. And, most importantly, it shall pass. Not any time soon, but the dust will settle and leave the land of our lives scarred with the wounds of battle, some of which will be permanent, others that will gradually fade.

I love my husband. I hate the difficult things in life, but they bring us closer together as a couple. Comfort in the long term equals stagnation and decay. We cannot live our lives without the occasional upheaval and turmoil. I remember when I was younger and I thought that I would reach a point in my life where things weren't difficult anymore. How very wrong I was.

But, we keep moving forward. We push, we struggle, and we wade through the murky waters of life to achieve our eternal goal. And I couldn't have picked a better companion to do it with!

Lucius!

Eric and I are huge dog lovers, and I knew that my life is incomplete without a dog. So, when we were able to get an apartment that allows dogs, the hunt for the perfect pooch began!

We were looking at pound dogs very closely, and we weren't exactly looking for a puppy, but fate delivered a wiggling, whimpering bundle of joy into our arms!

I was at work one day when Mrs. Lytle, the wife of one of our doctors, came in with two puppies. My heart melted! She told me the little girl was sold, but the little boy was still for sale. Then, she put him into my arms. He was so stinking cute! A 9 week old purebred Yorkie. I called Eric and told him, YOU HAVE TO COME OVER HERE! And of course, he fell in love with him too.

Mrs. Lytle gave us a really good deal on him, and we took him home a week later.

He is so smart! He picks up trick so fast, and he loves to learn new things. Eric is so good at teaching him new things. He can sit, lay down, roll over, shake, high 5, play dead (BANG!), crawl and pray.

This is after his first bath. He looked like a drowned rat!






He brings so much joy into our home. It is so nice to come home and see how excited he is to see us! He also loves to snuggle and watch TV with us.

 

  
                                            I love this dog!!