Officially Empty Nesters! Oh, and Turkeys are Jerks!

I am not old enough to have my baby turning 20 years old tomorow!   I'm not old enough to have a 26 year old, either!  And before I get hollered at for not mentioning my poor, neglected, misunderstood middle child, I'm not old enough for her to be 23!  So, there you go!   I'd like to think of it as my amazing children growing up, rather than me growing old.  Ha!   So, Abby made plans, I think in late June or early July, to be moving out.  I think she thought we weren't going to "let her."  But as she's over 18, we didn't have much of a choice.  She had all the plans with her friends made and seemed to have thought of just about everything.  What could we do but advise her and help as best we could.  She has a great head on her shoulders and has always been very good with money, so I don't think we have much to worry about.   Now that Abby has moved out, though, we are officially empty nesters!   First time in 26 years that we are all alone in our house on a daily basis!  While it's odd to not have any of the kids around, it's also kind of nice!   At least for now, Greg and I are enjoying being all alone and not having to worry about closing doors or being quiet!  Ha, ha, ha!  

On another note, Greg had his last chemo this past week!  YIPPEEE!!!!  His "travel pack" of chemo emptied for the last time on Saturday.  I must say, he really hated that thing!  I can't even imagne.  I hated it and it wasn't even connected to me!   Just imagine having to have a "fanny pack" attached to you 24/7 via a long tube connected to your arm.  You certainly don't want to accidentally get it caught on something, or that's going to rip right out of your arm.  It makes my stomach tumble just to think about it.    His oncologist gave him the option of having his PICC line removed, but he decided it was better to keep it a while yet, as there's still going to be blood tests and scans, etc., and it's much easier to use the PICC line than to have to have an IV stuck in his ("very tough") skin, and veins that are probably in even worse shape with more chemo and radiation over the last three months.   It's not too big of a deal to have the PICC line, as there's nothing we need to do for it, except wrap his arm in plastic wrap (and vet wrap) when he takes a shower.  Not a big deal at all in the scheme of things.  

He's had a hard time with chemo during this most recent cancer attack, but he's still handling it better than I ever would!  He tries to do as much as he can around the house, but after 15 minutes of mild exertion, he needs to sit and rest for a bit.  He just doesn't have the energy or stamina he's had in the past, which is completely understandable.  The other issue he has with this chemo is mouth sores.  They've reared their ugly head again.  He has his "magic mouthwash" but it doesn't completely cure the issue.   I feel bad for him, because he really wants to be able to do more, and it really bothers him to see me working full-time and then doing so much around the house.  Most of the time I don't mind it, but like every other human on this planet, I occasionally have my melt-downs.  It happens.   

One of the things that normally helps to keep me calm are the chickens (and geese and ducks).   A couple months ago, when we added four chicks to our flock, we also added two turkeys!   I don't recall the breed, but they look like wild turkeys.  

They're very cool looking and are fairly friendly.  The only problem is that they don't want to go into their coop at night!  For about 1-1/2 weeks I've had to grab them off a low tree branch and put them into the coop when we go to close them up at night (usually around 9 p.m.).  That wasn't so bad, except when our neighbor had to do it for me when I had to take Greg to the ER!  Poor Jessica!   She wasn't exactly thrilled about having to do that!

If that wasn't bad enough, the last two nights, the stupid things have flown up on top of the chicken coop when it was time for bed!  Seriously?  What's up with THAT?  The first night, (Saturday), I was able to grab one and then had to get up on a ladder and literally push the other off the coop with a push broom!   So, we got them safely in bed Saturday night.  

Wouldn't you know it, once again, last night, the stupid things were on top of the coop again!  I happened to be watching out the patio door and saw how they did it.  They jumped onto the little coop, onto the window sill (the window was open), and then up onto the coop!  Oh, geeze!  So, last night, I was again able to grab one, who managed to scratch my arm pretty good with his claws.   It started to welt right away like I do when the cats scratch me, and was bleeding slightly.  But I had more important things to do than worry about the scratch, and that was to get the other stupid turkey off the roof of the coop!  Greg came out to help me.  I was on the ground this time, with the push broom, trying to get the stupid thing to fly off the roof.  He finally did, and we were able to coax him into the big coop.  This was the first time that everyone was in the big coop overnight!  I was a little concerned, but they needed to figure out their "pecking order" and who sleeps where at some point.  

I let them out early this morning, because I was concerned about how they fared overnight.  The baby chicks are getting bigger, but they're still quite a bit smaller than the full grown chickens, so I was more worried about them than anything.  Everyone was just fine this morning, so I'm really hoping that the turkeys will just go into the big coop without me having to chase them off any roofs!  If this keeps happening, we are going to have to clip their wings sooner than we anticipated.    As for my scratch, I washed it well when we were done, but it still itched (again, the way it does when a cat scratches me), and it was still welted.  I slathered it with some triple antibiotic ointment and that seemed to help.  It was a little red this morning, but it hardly hurts at all now.  So all is well.    If anyone has suggestions for names for these two jerks, I'm all ears!  We don't know if they're male or female, and they look so much alike that we'll probably never know who is who, but still, they need names!     

Just for fun, here's a few more pics of our flock.  These are our Guineas.  The bigger one in the back is the male we got two years ago.  He had four mates, but they became casualty's of the highway (Guineas like to roam, and aren't quite smart enough to look for traffic).  The one in front we got when we got the turkeys and chicks.  We didn't know if she was female or not, but took a chance.  We got lucky (and so does the guinea! ha, ha) in that she's a hen, and he's not as much of a jerk as he was when he was all alone.   They are always together.   Oh, the Guineas need names, too!   Any thoughts on that are welcome, too!

The geese and ducks and a couple of the chickens just hanging out.   

And one more of George (our Naked Neck Rooster) and a couple of hens wandering about the yard.  

Hoping bedtime goes smoothly tonight!  

Blessings to all!  

This Time We DID End up in the ER!

I really hate this disease.   There are no words to express how much I hate this.  There are no words to express how much I've hated to see my husband deal with cancer three times in the last 25 years.  No words.

Monday night, Greg made a pork roast on the grill.  He cut a piece off to eat and, even though he chews his food up VERY finely and drinks lots of water while he's eating, a small piece of meat got lodged in his throat.  For over an hour he tried coughing it up and nothing was working.  I gave him some Coke to drink (it helps stuff to dissolve), and that didn't work.  After arguing with him, I finally got him to agree to go to the ER.  Mind you, it's a 30 minute drive to get there because we live in the middle of nowhere. 

The entire drive to the hospital, he's gagging and coughing.  I gave him an empty ice cream bucket, because he was spitting up stuff and that's as good a puke bucket as anything!  When we got to the hospital, Greg went and sat down and I got him checked in.  While we were being checked in, the young lady at the desk called and told them that there was a 61 year old man with esophageal cancer that had something lodged in his throat.  I assumed someone would be coming out to get him.  I was wrong.  After about 15 minutes a nurse came out, looked at him and said "Oh, you're breathing fine.  It's going to be a little while yet."  Granted it seemed fairly busy in the ER, especially for a Monday night, but I couldn't believe they weren't going to take him back right away!   We tried sitting away from everyone, because the sound of his coughing and gagging and hacking up stuff was pretty gross.  It was getting to me, too.  (I can't handle puke, it makes me want to gag!)   While we were sitting there, of course, some people couldn't help peeking around the corner to see who it was that sounded like they're dying of Ebola or something!    One woman looked at me very compassionately, and I told her about his cancer and that he has some food lodged in his throat.  She and the person she was with couldn't believe they were making us wait.  The other people in the waiting room just shook their heads.  There was no one there with any sort of life threatening illness, and truth be told, I'm pretty sure a bunch of them were there because their insurance won't cover an office visit!   

So, after at least 30 minutes we finallly got called to "triage."  The nurse takes our information and tells us that we have to wait again, because the procedure room needs to be cleaned, and that's the room they're going to want to use for Greg.   OK, fine.  More waiting.  Believe it or not, I was fairly nice to the nurses.  I was disgusted with the waiting, but I knew there was nothing that I could do to make anything happen any faster.  Greg was actually surprised that I managed to hold my temper!   

When we finally got into the ER, the doctor wanted to try a drug called Glucagon, which is supposed to relax the sphincter muscle in the esophagus to allow the food to go down.  This is normally a very quick working drug.  The doctor said it's one of those drugs that either works or it doesn't.  Unfortunately for Greg, it didn't work.   

Because that didn't work, they had to call in a Gastroenterologist.  We were lucky enough to have Dr. Christopher Young attending to Greg.  This doctor is the most compassionate, nicest, sweetest doctor I have ever met!  And that is no exaggeration!   While he was examining Greg, we were talking about his cancer, and Greg mentioned that he was "Iron Man" because of how he has beaten cancer twice before.  Dr. Young was more than just a little impressed at what Greg has all been through.  We talked about the endoscopy he was going to have to do on Greg and what he expected to happen.    He walked me out to the waiting room and then left to perform the procedure.  He came back about 20 minutes later to tell me he was all done.  He even had some pictures for me!   

In this first picture, I have circled and put an arrow to the food that was stuck in Greg's esophagus. 

Greg's esophagus is narrower than a healthy person's, but that is to be expected, considering his diagnosis.    We do not know if things are better for him or not because this picture doesn't show it.   One of the things that Greg may end up having done is to have his esophagus dilated, to make it wider.   It's basically stretching it out.  Hopefully he won't need to have that done, but that is an option, nonetheless. 

While Dr. Young was in there, he took some other pictures, including this one of Greg's feeding tube from the inside!  

Isn't that cool?!!!   I find this sort of thing absolutely fascinating.  Hopefully, no one is too grossed out by the pictures, but if you've been following us for any length of time, you already know that we're not shy about posting pictures of Greg's various physical issues.  

After Dr. Young was done, all we had to do was wait for Greg to wake up sufficiently so I could take him home.  That took almost an hour.  Trust me when I say I was ready to go home.  It was already 1 a.m. and I really needed to get to bed.  I had left a voice mail for my supervisor at 10:30 p.m., so she would understand why I wasn't in at my usual time.   I  must say, I have some really awesome supervisors who are so understanding.  I'm also very blessed to be working from home!  Even though I started late, I was able to get extra sleep because all I have to do is walk downstairs to my office!   It's great to not have to worry about how I look or what I'm wearing.  Truth be told, I was in my pajamas until 4:30 p.m.!  Isn't that great!  LOL 

Anyway, when we finally left the hospital, I was starving, as I hadn't eaten dinner.  The only place that was open at 1 a.m. was Hardees, so I pulled into their drive through.  I asked Greg if he wanted anything, and he said "a burger!"  I damn near died when he said that!  After all that he had been through, to say he wanted a burger, well, I think he's tjust rying to kill me!   (LOL) Obviously, I did not get him a burger.   He got a chocolate shake!  
  
So that was our Monday night.  We finally got home at 2 a.m.  Neither of us got a lot of sleep.  Me, because I had to get up for work, and Greg because he had to get up to go to the hospital for his last dose of chemo!   Of course we appreciate all your continued prayers that this will heal him!  

Blessings to all! 

Julie

Filed a HUD Complaint for Discrimination!

Greg and I suddenly got the idea that we wanted to move.  Abby is moving out at the end of the month, and this house is so big and the yard is so big and needs so much work with mowing and trimming, etc. that we just decided it was time to downsize.   Before we started looking at houses, we decided that we needed to look into a mortgage loan to see what we qualified for.  We are almost nine years post-bankruptcy (we went 5 years without an income when we opened our store) so that pesky question of "have you filed for bankruptcy within the last seven years can finally be answered "no"!  How awesome is that?!   

So, on a Thursday afternoon, I went to a local bank with Erica and spoke with a loan officer.  She was very nice to Erica and was initially nice to me, as well, but seemed to kind of "shut down" when we began talking about income and I told her that Greg was disabled and received Social Security Disability.  I didn't think too much of it at that time.  We weren't able to continue our discussion or me give her all my paperwork because she had another customer waiting.  I didn't think about that much, either, as I did not have an appointment, so OK, someone who does have one kind of takes precedence.  I get that.  Anyway, she said she would get back to me on Friday.  We wanted to look at a house on Saturday, but if we weren't going to be approved, we weren't going to bother going.   I called her about mid-morning Friday and asked about our loan.  She very curtly advised me that she was working on a loan that was closing on Tuesday and she would get back to me before the end of the day.  I waited and waited and waited.  Finally, at about 4:20 Friday afternoon, we received an email from her with a "worst case scenario" loan, which was a conventional mortgage with a high interest rate and very high monthly mortgage insurance.  She knew we were looking into a USDA rural loan, as any property we looked at would qualify.  We were also looking at an FHA loan, which is also lower in interest and closing costs and mortgage insurance, but there was no information with regard to that nor the better home loan that the bank offers.  Just the very expensive conventional loan.  

She also asked for additional financial information, including proof that Greg's disability income will continue for a minimum of three more years.  That request sent me into a tizzy.  We have never received anything that stated how long his disability payments would continue.  I searched the Social Security website and discovered that they do not provide that, because if you get better, then payments will stop.  It's as simple as that.  As long as you are disabled, the payments will continue.  They are not going to guaranty anything!   I responded to her and told her that Greg was not going to get better.  There is no cure for congestive heart failure, which was the original disability and now he's fighting esophageal cancer.  I didn't tell her at the time, but with this being such an aggressive cancer, we have no way of knowing if he will even be alive in three years.  I began to wonder why she didn't ask for the same information from me.  Why just Greg's disability?  That seemed odd to me.  Of course, the rest of the weekend was spent very frustrated, trying to figure out why she would ask for that, and feeling quite dejected, as we knew we could not provide that proof.   I was actuallly horrified that a loan officer would request such information as she should have known that Social Security did not provide that, which meant that she expected us to provide personal medical information on Greg to the bank before actually making an offer of a mortgage!   Whoa nelly!  I don't think that's legal!   She has absolutely NO right to any of Greg's personal health information!  

We decided to go look at the house we planned on anyway.  It just happened to be in Gillett, the same town that our soon-to-be daughter-in-law teaches in!  Aaron and Rachel met us at the house.  Unfortunately, it was MUCH smaller than it appeared in the pictures, and not anywhere near as nice.  Not only that, but the 1,500 or so square foot estimate included the basement!  I don't care if it's finished or not.  That should not have been included in the square footagel.  The realtor said that's quite common nowadays.  If that's the case, then our house is over 4,000 square feet!   Needless to say, we did not make an offer on that house.  We enjoy driving, and it was nice to take a road trip.  It was also great to see Aaron and Rachel, so all was not lost.  

On Monday, after still not hearing back from the banker, at 11 a.m., I sent her an email advising her that we did not like the house we looked at that weekend, and asked her to respond to the information and questions I sent on Friday.  But she didn't bother to respond to me until 6:38 Tuesday evening!   

On Tuesday, we had gone to see another home that was just south of Wisconsin Rapids.  We figured seeing as I telecommute, we can pretty much move anywhere, so we were looking all over.  We weren't happy with the home Tuesday night, either, but hey, it's going to take a while to find what we want.  We need to be able to take the chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys with us, so that does limit us on where we can live.   The fact that I'd rather be in the middle of nowhere than have any neighbors makes it a little difficult, as well.  BUT, there's no reason we can't keep looking.  We're not in any sort of hurry. 

We talked again about the bank and their request, and were still quite upset over the request.  When we got home that night, there was another email from the banker.  Instead of answering a single one of my questions, she very rudely stated that "in all the emails I sent" to her, I didn't include the rest of the financial information she wanted.   I thought about that, and her attitude and her request/demand for medical information.  At that point, Greg and I both said enough was enough.  It just wasn't worth it  to argue with the bank and gave up the thought of moving anytime soon.  We'll make it work with our current house, and just continue to grow our equity.  

Both of us were rather relieved to not be dealing with this woman any more and I sent her a not very nice email with regard to her attitude and illegal request for Greg's medical information.  Since sending that email, I have since found out that her exact request, for proof that his payments will continue for three years, is highly illegal!  There was a lawsuit in 2014 (three years ago!) on this very request and it is Federal Law that she cannot ask for that information and is discriminatory to request it!  Now, with that being the case, she should have known better and never asked for that information.  She didn't even ask for it in a phone conversation, but put it in writing in an email, so she can't even deny that she made the request!  She was so desperate to NOT give us a loan, that she put her illegal request in writing!   How awesome is THAT?!   If she did not know that the law does not allow her to ask for personal medical information and discriminate against us, then the bank is responsible and should have trained her better. After all, it's been three years since the original lawsuit!   

I'm seriously wondering how many other people she demanded this illegal information from?  Maybe I need to see an attorney for a class action suit?   As it is, for now, I have filed a discrimination complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  This woman needs to find another job, where she doesn't have the ability to discriminate against people with disabilities.  

Does she think we're just scamming the system?  What the hell?  Like everyone else with disabilities, Greg would much rather be healthy and working to support his family than be dealing with all these health issues!  How DARE she!  

Almost Ended up in the ER Last Night!

Things have been uneventful here at the Mik Homestead, so I haven't posted much.  Aside from the lawnmower breaking down (AGAIN!), things had been going good . . . . until yesterday, that is!  

As I've stated in the past, Greg was advised by his doctor to eat at least once a day, in order to keep his throat and swallowing muscles working.  Usually that's been dinner, which is, of course, the best meal of the day!  Well, we had gotten quite a deal on some beef tenderloin steaks a few weeks ago and decided to have them for dinner.  It can be hard to cook them to perfection on the grill, so we decided that I would cook them on the stove.  I have an amazing cast iron grill pan and I've learned to cook steaks to a perfect medium rare on it.  So, we had the steaks and sauteed onions, together with roasted asparagus (it was on sale for just $2.29 a pound, so we grabbed one bunch of it while at the grocery store) that I marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic and I made teriaki noodles to go with. 

After about two bites, Greg started coughing.  And gagging.  And coughing.  And gagging.  Apparently, what can happen is that with the tumor in the throat, food has to go around it, so it goes down one side or the other.  Sometimes, food gets stuck.  It's not like when you're choking and can't breathe, but you can't drink or swallow much and you need to be able to cough it up. 

I hate to say it, but it really sounded gross, and both Abby and I were almost gagging just at the sounds he was making in gagging and trying to cough it up.   We watched and we waited.  And waited and waited some more.  After about 45 minutes, Abby and I decided enough was enough, and we were taking him to the Emergency Room.   It was late enough at night that there was no urgent care facility open at that time.   

As we're all getting ready to go to the ER, Greg actually manages to cough up whatever it was that was stuck in his throat!  Whew!  No ER visit!  We both commented on how something like this was supposed to happen and happen fairly often.  It's part of the reason why so many with this horrible cancer don't eat and lose much weight -- and hence the need for the feeding tube.   

So, I guess we're lucky that this was the first time this happened.   Greg has chemo one more time next week, and then he will be done with all his treatments.  It will be a month or so after that that he has any new scans or tests done, so please keep your prayers going!  

Blessings to all! 

Julie 

What an Incredibly Awesome, Busy Day!

So, a couple weeks ago, we were offered some free landscaping stone from someone on one of the Facebook groups I belong to.   The only way to get it home was to shovel it by hand into our trailer.  Of course, our dear friends and neighbors, Nate and Jess came and helped us shovel, along with a young woman that Greg used to work with and her father.   We took as much rock as we could, but just couldn't get it all, even though I would have dearly loved to do just that.   I wasn't sure if I would have enough rock to do what I wanted to do, but it was what it was.  

The first project I tackled was in the very front of the yard.   This is the ugly before picture. Notice how everything is overgrown in front of the light pole?  Yea, it's ugly!  

Here is what I did with some of the free rock that we picked up.  Isn't that gorgeous!  I do need to move the chicken feeder, as it's kind of lobsided with three things on one side and only one on the other.   I used the larger rocks to make the border, and just kind of followed the natural grass line.  

Yesterday, Nate and Jess came over with the kids to help out with the rest of the rock.  Everybody got started working, including the kids.  Jess brought over some boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and it was Greg's job to make lunch, seeing as he couldn't do any of the yard work.  When he tried cutting hte grass the other day his feeding tube started bleeding and oozing, so he was banned from any work whatsoever.   He just finished his 5 days of 24/7 chemo (he calls it his "to go" chemo) LOL   But he's having a hard time with it.  He's been exhausted lately and of course, not sleeping well.  Monday, he barely slept, and ended up taking almost a 5 hour nap on Tuesday while we were working in the yard.  Of course, that meant he couldn't sleep last night, either.  He's trying very hard to not take a nap so that he can sleep tonight.   

He has commented that each chemo has been harder than the last on him.  I can't even imagine.  He is my hero.  I know that the chemo is hard on him by he way he acts.  Things he normally loves, bother him now.  It has surprised me at how his attitudes about some things have changed.  It's because the drugs are changing him.  If YOU were getting filled with poison every four weeks, you'd change too!    I just have to learn how to live with him differently.  I'm sure we'll manage.  After all, we've been dealing with cancer for 25 years and God is with us.  He is watching over us and He is teaching us, and by me writing this blog, He is teaching you, as well!  Isn't that just incredible? How we are all touched by God?  

Anyway, Greg did a GREAT job grilling the chicken breasts and yanking stuff out of the fridge to put out quite the spread for an impromptu lunch for a group!  Everyone was quite happy and had lots of energy to finish the job!  Here are the before pictures of the front yard where we were working.  This is directly in front of the house, with bedroom windows upstairs and the family room and my office in the lower level.  

As you can see, everything is VERY overgrown.  I'll have to wait until fall to trim some of the bushes, but we did yank out a couple!   Just wait until you see the "after" pictures!   

We hadn't been working long when Jess' mom showed up!  Debi is a powerhouse when it comes to yard work and yanking weeds, and generally working on what needed to be done!  She was amazing! We had been working for just over an hour, when we were surprised by one our chuch friends, and Dan pulled up with shovel in hand to help out!  What an incredible blessing that was!  We certainly needed his help!  He worked his butt off shoveling stone from the trailer into the wheelbarrow and bringing it to the front where we were working.  

As I said, we wanted to yank out a couple of bushes that were half dead and needed to go. One of them was being stubborn, so we first tried to yank it out  with the help of the lawn tractor.  Abby had her waterproof barn bibs on because she was trimming in a "swampy" area of the yard and didn't want to get wet and full of dirt.  She added a nice pop of color! Ha, ha!  

As you can see from this photo, the lawn tractor did not work!  Dan put his Jeep to good use and we got that sucker out!  YAY!

Dan is coming around from the back yard with a load of rocks.  If you look closely, you can see another pile of rocks to the right in the driveway.  

Jessica and Dan are emptying a load of larger rocks that are being used as the border.  

And finally . . . here are the "after" pictures!  

I joked with Jess that I could decorate the entire front without having to buy a thing because I already have so much "stuff."  And guess what?  That's exactly what I did.  The old cast iron stove in this picture is something Greg had when I met him 33 years ago!  It has been outside as a plant holder for the last 19 years.  It was on our deck in back, but it looks much better here in front.  The large rock that is there is actually fake!  Erica used it when she was doing portrait photography, but as she's no longer doing portrait photography, it now belongs to me!  

In the picture above, you can see four cement stones.  We made those on July 30, 2000. The kids each have their own stone with their handprints and Greg and I share one with our handprints.  I had completely forgotten about these stones until they were found buried underneath pine needles and an overgrown evergreen!  I was so excited to find them and had to find a special place for them in the yard.  The next picture is a close-up of all four stones.  The color on them is a little off because they were wet from being washed.  

The washtub in this picture has kind of a funny story.  When we lived in Sturtevant, I was taking the kids to the babysitter on garbage day.  Someone had this in their pile of garbage.  Well, I stopped and grabbed the washtub, but left the stand there.  Once I got to work, I was berating myself for not grabbing the stand, too.  I called the babysitter and told her where it was located and asked her if she would mind picking it up for me.  She said she used to garbage pick with her dad all the time when she was younger, so had no problem getting it for me.  It was close enough to walk, so the kids were absolutely mortified by the excursion!  Ha ha!   The "pot" that the flowers are in, I picked up at a flea market a couple years ago.  It's some sort of strainer that's used on the farm.    And I've had that masher for over ten years, too.  I don't remember what it's used for any more, but it's cool, so there it is.  Oh, and that wagon wheel is over 100 years old.  I picked it up about 14 years ago just to irritate our old neighbors who preferred a naked yard, rather than one that is landscaped like ours was/is.  

I also have to let everyone know that Erica helped us this week, too!  She did one of the hardest trimming jobs, and that is the ditch next to the road in front of the barn!  It was fairly warm the day she did the trimming, so she got one heck of a workout  She did a great job and I was incredibly happy to not have to do that!   She was home to take some family pictures for our neighbors, so I stole her zoom lens to take pictures!  Course, I put it back before she even knew I used it!  

So, there you have it!   The rock is where it belongs and some other yard work got done, all with the help of some amazing people!  And it was all FREE!  Can't beat that price!  Nate, Jess, Debi, Dan, Abby, Erica and Greg!   All tremendous blessings that God has placed in my life!    

Blessings to All!

Julie 

It's become difficult financially without Greg working, so if you so inclined --> Greg's Go Fund Me

Not Sure How Much More I Can Handle

I'm really not sure how much more of this I can deal with.  I work all day, and then I spend the rest of the day/evening doing yard work and other stuff that needs to be done around here.   I'm exhausted.  My tendinitis is killing me, and I wake up crying out in pain almost every night.  My entire body hurts when I wake up in the morning.   

Greg does as much as he can, but lately, even riding the lawnmower is causing his feeding tube to bleed and leak icky fluids.  He has the memory of a gnat, and that makes me crazy, too.  I will ask him for something, and he'll go outside to do something else, and when I go out to find out what he's doing, he looks at me like "what do you want," completely forgetting what I just asked him to get/do.  It's not something he can help, it's called "chemo brain."  That's not a joke.  It's a real thing!   Just about every person going through chemo will joke about having "chemo brain" but like I said, it's a real thing. Chemo really affects your short term memory.  It's not something he can help, and I can't help it if it drives me nuts, and then I get mad at him, and then I get mad at myself.  It's horrible.  

Today, he managed to knock into one of my shepherd's crook plant hangers and not only knocked the plant off, but broke the pot and the hanger.  This is the second time that's happened.  I'm human.  I got mad.  It's not like he did it on purpose, but I still got mad.  It was just more work for me to do to fix it (and it was one of my best growing plants!).  What can I say.  Ya, I'm just mean.   How many of you have been married to or lived with someone fighting cancer?  I'm guessing there's quite a few.  Now, how many of you have been married to or lived with someone fighting cancer two or three times?  How about adding congestive heart failure to the mix?  How well would you handle it?  Greg seems to have the super power ability to beat cancer and he makes it difficult for me to remember that he's sick, so when things go wrong, well, they go wrong in more ways than one.  

I can't tell you how many people have said "let me know if I can help" and when I do ask for help, there's no one there.   I'm not in a good mood right now, so I'm just going to come out and say this:  If you're offering to help someone just to make yourself feel good, and have no intentions of actually helping, don't bother offering in the first place.  This is not just about me, it's about everyone that is struggling and needs some help.  Hollow offers of help are just that, hollow.  If you really want to help, don't offer, just go over and DO something.  If you're offering to help, you must know the person/family fairly well.  You should know what they might need help with.  There is always something that needs to be done in any household. 

When Greg had his transplant, I remember coming home from the hospital one day to find the grass had been cut.  It brought me to tears.  Seriously, I stood in front of my house crying.   I found out it was my 80 year old neighbors that cut it!  They saw a need and took care of it.  They didn't offer, they didn't ask, they just DID.   My kids' babysitter would oftentimes send me home with a casserole when I went to pick up the kids.  That way, I didn't have to worry about making dinner after a long day at work and at the hospital.  Other folks did other things.   My sister came over and did 10 loads of laundry for me!  Again, none of these were asked.  It was just people who saw a need and took care of it.   

If you see yourself in this and are starting to feel guilty, well then I guess this blog entry did it's job.  Now, I'm going to go shower and wash off all this grass and dirt and grime from all the yard work I did after I got done working all day.  

Take care, 

Julie