I had a call today from one of my dear friends in Alabama and she said that her dad had asked why I kept posting the same picture over and over. She explained to him that it was my blog. I do have other pictures on my blog, however, that is the one my blog prefers. Maybe I can change that up a little bit or not!
Yesterday, Dawn and I started our t shirt making for Christmas. She and I were just giggling over all the T-shirt sayings! I believe T-shirts have taken over greeting cards with life's funny realities on them. I believe that I need a wall that is dedicated to T-shirts and I can just pick the one that is applicable to the moment I am in! After we decided who She would make T-shirts for, we went to the awesome craft store called Joann's that was having amazing sales! Today mom and I went to church. Normally it wouldn't be something to blog about, however, with mom recovering from illness and dealing with oxygen and my operations that are helping me to heal lately we have not been to church in a regular manner. I have missed going to church. I love the hope, and feeling of being part of a family that worships and is learning to understand Christ.
While we were at church the pews were very uncomfortable so I slipped out and sat on the little bit more comfortable chair in the foyer. It was announced that the Bishop would be calling on people in the congregation to testify of Christ. When I heard that I thought he is going to ask me. Then of course I thought, No he won't ask me. While I was sitting in the foyer trying to get comfortable somehow (I have discovered that when my body is spitting out stitches it doesn't feel the best, in fact it can be painful) I heard the Bishop say my name. I heard him ask if I was still there and someone tattled on me and said she is in the foyer. The Bishop then asked me to come back into the chapel and testify of Christ. (I kinda felt like I was being called to the principals office!) In fact when I slipped back in I asked my neighbor who was sitting on the front pew if I was in trouble. (One of those t shirt sayings about a filter from your brain to your mouth isn't there!) When I went up to testify of Christ I knew testifying of him would not be at all hard for me as I have seen his hand in my life. I have found answers to my prayers in my scriptures. Christ has put people in my life at the right time to help me get through obstacles and challenges. What I was worried about was that I hadn't taken my adderal to keep my ADHD under control. In fact I haven't taken it for 4 weeks because of the pain pills I have been taking since my operation. I don't want them to react to each other and cause me problems. The whole time I was testifying of Christ I had a mantra going in my head "Hold still. Don't walk around!" And it didn't work! because I could see the microphone on the left side of me and then the right side of me! Oh My Gosh! I embarrass myself all the time. Since I have now gone into the embarrassing, I have to admit what happened as I was going into church. Okay here it goes... I am not use to having gentlemanly men around so when a gentleman tried to help me get everything and mom into the church I didn't expect help so I almost clocked the poor guy that was trying to help me! Mom said he had to duck out of the way and lost his balance for just a sec and his hand hit her bum! That was embarrassing. I guess all men should watch out around me! Back to my testifying of Christ, I know my Savior lives and I know that he wants us to help each other with love and forgiveness, service, unselfishness, and accepting. We are his hands. He will guide us with what we are to do; we just need to listen. My daughter called me and informed me that the Lottery amount has gotten to 1.5 billion and she is going to cross the border and get a lottery ticket. I am not one to buy lottery tickets normally. I know that the Lottery is not a God thing. It is a chance thing. All the people that are buying lottery tickets are praying, putting good thoughts, or however they pray are praying for their ticket to be the winning one. God isn't going to say that one person over another is going to be the winner.
As my daughter has put it, Mom you must be desperate if you want me to buy you a lottery, LOL Desperate isn't how I would put it, I am just figuring my odds are as good as anyone's odds. Okay, side track... I turned on a movie my daughter told me to watch and I am totally freaked out! I have a fear of heights and even though I know that they aren't as high up as they want you to believe I can't make my stomach go back down! She might be in love with the Rock and watches all his movies but I am not!!!! and I don't want to watch this movie!!! Okay back to the lottery ticket. I am playing for fun. I probably won't ever play it again because I know my odds of winning are probably 1.5 billion to 1. Last night I was going to write in my blog again before I went to sleep. I was tired so I decided to wait until morning to write it. This morning I got up and I couldn't remember what I was going to write!!! lol I have so many things going through my head that right now it can't hold everything. It took me a while to remember what I was going to write about. Last night I was going over to my friends house and I had forgotten to eat yesterday so my blood sugar had dropped and I was little out of it. My friend text messaged me and asked me if I was coming over. Yrs I was coming over! I got dressed in jammies (my preferred attire) and headed over. I was having a little difficulty getting into her house because of the spider web. I brought treats for the football game I thought we were watching. Ooops no football game it was a bi week! Then my friend asked me if I knew why I was there... Ummm to watch a movie since it isn't football... Nope! I was going to show them my blog!!! I didn't bring my laptop! I am not going to forget to eat again!!! It turns me into a walking zombie!!! Today was an eventful day for me. I went to a financial seminar and then had a financial meeting that came to me! Now if only I had finances to manage! :) For my dream retirement I would rent out my house own a condo or townhouse, you know the end unit with snow removal and and yard work done for me! Then I can travel and maybe while I am traveling I can put my condo on airbnb. Wouldn't that be awesome! Today I took my mom to the grocery store just down the street. I drove her past my neighbor's idea of Halloween! She loved it! We were a funny pair in the grocery store. I am still in my compression bandages although no one could see them. I still move a little slowly. Mom was pushing her cart around with her oxygen in her cart! She did pretty good with the getting around in the grocery store with her oxygen until she was getting to the end so I went and picked up the last few items. Mom was telling everyone in the store about the halloween decorations just down the street! I finally got brave enough to call my dr and let him know that I pulled off my bandages in the middle of the night and some of the stitches went with them leaving a hole.... Ooops! I was sent to his physicians assistant and she told me that it is okay and that now that part of my body will be able to finally heal. She said my body was spitting out the stitches that are refusing to dissolve!
After she informed me of that, then I was brave enough to tell her all the other places the stitches had been appearing in my skin. This was after the super glue and surface stitches were gone. she told me that it is all normal and when the body gets rid of those stitches it will finish healing!!! She told me this is normal! I am normal! It feels like the first time that was ever said to me! Usually when I go to the doctors there is a lot wrong or they can't figure what is wrong and it ends up being a rare disease. This time I am normal! What a wonderful word normal is! I can't even tell you the relief of hearing that this is normal! I really like that word normal! I think when my wonderful daughter in law, Dawn and I get together next week to make T-shirts and whatever else we decide to make we will have to have the word normal in our crafts! Text me what you think Dawn! Mom scared herself so much yesterday with her lack of oxygen that I didn't have to say much to her at all about the oxygen. THANK GOODNESS!!! Now, I just have to pray that she sticks with the line of thought of I NEED OXYGEN ALWAYS!!!
After mom scaring me to death yesterday, I must have gone to sleep last night with that anxiety in the back of my mind. My anxiety being the reason for my nightmares and the crazy things I did during the night. At 1:30 in the morning I was sure mom had died so I went to go check on her. I saw her chest rising and falling from the hall so I knew she was still alive. After having the knowledge that she still lived I went to check more thoroughly on how she was doing. I turned on the hall light and walked into her room trying to see if she was wearing her oxygen. I wasn't wearing my glasses so I couldn't tell if she had that oxygen on. I walked further into the room and leaned over the bed and still could not tell because I couldn't see. I am trying not to wake mom while checking on her so when I picked up the green part of the tubing and follow it up to her face while holding my breath! Oh here comes my t-shirt saying excuse... In my defense... I was left unattended!!! Oh my gosh! I now know she had her oxygen and felt very good with myself for not waking her up by holding my breath. (I am rolling my eyes here) Of course I woke her up I could hear her up and moving around as soon as I got downstairs! I then eventually went back to sleep and I am not quite sure what happened. Sometime during the night I must of been hot or feeling a little claustrophobic because I had pulled my nightgown off and most of my pressure bandages!!! I think the only one that was left on was the one that is the largest and takes some finesse to get off!!! I had put all the paraphernalia under the pillows!!! It took me quite some time to get them all untangled from each other! The dreams I had were crazy! Have you ever seen those dolls that have a different face on both sides of the head and many different outfits they are wearing? Those dolls from magic acts that are quick change artists. Well anyway, in my dream my twins were like the doll! Any time we turned Megan's face to the front the twins were both magically in Utah. If Matthew's face was turned to the front they were magically both deployed. And NO ONE WOULD LISTEN TO ME AND KEEP MEGAN"S FACE TO THE FRONT!!! Really?!?!?!? I think it should be a simple thing that if you have been prescribed oxygen you need to use it. If Megan's head being in the front means that you aren't deployed to the danger zone then Megan's head should be in the front. And if the people in my family would just figure this out I won't be claustrophobic and pull off all my clothes and bandages in my sleep! Pretty simple... this is not rocket science!!! And only I get to use T-shirt sayings as an excuse! Now that we have that settled I can go about the rest of my day!!! My mom is supposed to be on oxygen 24/7 because with any movement her stats drop. The oxygen hurts her nose by drying it out. She has also mentioned vanity reasons and wanting to be independent. She has always been very strong and independent. My dad died in 1985 and my mom has gone on strong after his death keeping us all together. She went back to school and went to the U of U and added to more degrees to put on the office wall! Getting those degrees she was able to increase her income to get us all through! She has in many ways been my idol. She has always been there when we needed her. She has been there for so many people including the people she taught was a counselor for. Because of who my mom is and has been she did not want to be reminded to put her oxygen on and very forcefully told me not to remind her to put on her oxygen any more. She let me know that she knew when she needed it and if I reminded her she wouldn't wear it at all.
I followed her decree, as it were, and did not remind her. Monday night her oxygen levels went down to far. Then again on Wednesday her oxygen got way to low. Today, Thursday, her oxygen went really low and she was having trouble thinking things through and actually felt sick with her stats so low. I love my mom and I understand where she is coming from and hopefully she has realized that she doesn't know when she needs the oxygen. It is time to have a come to Jesus talk with mom and let her see what happens when she is in charge of her oxygen. I am praying tonight that the Holy Spirit will be with her and help her realize the need she has for oxygen. I am also praying that I will be able to talk to her in a manner that will help her keep as much dignity as possible. When I first heard the saying that getting old is not for the weak at heart I truly understand! I have watched 2 amazing women having to deal with oxygen on a daily basis and many others that have had a hard road in their later years. I am thankful for the example that these wonderful people have been in my life. My day started out great! I got to video chat with my son that is deployed right now at 7am this morning! I love that I can see his face and his expressions! I can see that he still has a sense of humor when he smiles and laughs at my dumb jokes. Even when he told me he was homesick and wanted pictures of the family I still felt great because pictures is something I can do!
After I hung up with Matthew I was looking up somethings on the internet that he had told me about. I was also looking up Christmas gifts I can give to the family. I was having fun doing this and then my phone was ringing and it was about noon and it woke me up!! When did I fall asleep! How embarrassing! I guess I was tired! Now, I have to tell you that one of my T-shirt sayings fits what I did today... "Physically I am here... Mentally I am in a galaxy far far away." I was doing my daily routine of taking off my little bandages that I have left and putting on new ones. I have been doing this for weeks and don't have to think about it anymore. It is more muscle memory taking over the movement of this chore. When I took off the bandage on the left side I screamed just a wee bit as the bandage was stuck to the incision!!!! Not only was it stuck to the incision it was stuck to one of the few stitches I have left in and it pulled it enough to start it bleeding again!!!! I was being really careful as I put a new bandage on. And then my brain really was checked out because I repeated exactly what I had just done on the left side to the bandage on the right side!!! Hello is anyone there!!! Right!?!?!? I am trying not to take any pain pills, However, inflicting that much pain on myself warrants a pain pill!!! HOLY HANNAH!!!!! I think I might need to go have a MRI or CAT scan to see if I still have a brain!!! Part of my journey of healing and thriving is looking at myself and being able to see my strengths and weaknesses. If I don't like what I see in the mirror so to speak, then I have to decide if it is something I want to work at changing or even if it is something that can be changed. Like I said in an earlier blog, the catalog with a whole bunch of T-shirts with sayings on them was helping me see myself for who I am. Oh my gosh!!! Reading these T-shirts is helping me in my journey of identifying who I am.
The first T-shirt that caught my eye had this on it, "I don't trip... I do random gravity checks!" That is me!!! I do random gravity checks whenever small animals or children seem to be around! I especially need to check gravity walking up stairs! I embrace that this is who I am and it is something I am not going to be able to change!!! lol The next T-shirt that jumped out at me was, "You Know that little thing inside your head that keeps you from saying things you shouldn't say... Yeah, I don't have one of those." That is also me, however, I can change that to a certain degree. I can make myself be conscious of keeping my mouth shut until my brain can let me know if it is okay to say it. I am working on that. I have to say that when I remember to take my adderall I do much better! "In my defense... I was left unattended. I like to give myself an excuse for doing something that is pretty stupid. I guess I am going to start owning that ; yes, I can do stupid things!!! I know it is hard to fathom this fact about me! "Not to brag, but I can forget what I am doing... while I'm am Doing it. Okay that is me! Another part of me that probably isn't going to change! I am going to have to be okay with this part of me!!!! Maybe t-shirts can help you on your journey of healing!!! It will at least give you a therapy session of laughter!!! |
I am Ally. I am the center of my universe and I can determine whether to be a victim, survivor or thriver. At one time or another I have been all of the above... I am choosing to thrive!
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