Sparks and Butterflies...

But aside from that, she's still completely normal

I know about the Zebras

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Back in February, I mentioned that I had some tests done.

I eventually received my mammogram results, which were all clear. But I never heard about my pap smears, or about the ultrasound.

I called last week, and asked for my results, and the lady said she call me back. She didn’t.

I called Monday and asked again for my results. This time I was chastised, “We told you to call for your results two weeks later.” Well so sorry. Geez. The pap smear results were clear, which is good, because the last time I had it done, they were abnormal. She said, “Let me talk to the doctor about the ultrasound.”

“This is neither positive or negative, but the doctor wants you to come in so he can give you the report.”

“When?”

“This week.”

So – I’m now in that slightly terrifying place of limbo. On the one hand, I could be dying. On the other, I’m guessing they want to tell me about my two uteruses (already know), my fibroids (already know), and my cysts (already know) — in other words, I know about the zebras, just checking if there’s any unicorns in addition — so I’ll just be out of the copay money for nothing.

So I’m alternating between terrified and annoyed.

The Summer is Coming!

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Summer can be a little difficult on my end. It’s hot. I hate being hot. The kids are home and getting on each others’ nerves as much as humanly possible. There’s no schedule, and it’s difficult for me to maintain one for work — I do it, but it’s hard.

But – it’s also vacation time. We go camping.

  • It’s relatively cheaper than anything else, since we have just about everything we need.
  • It’s forced together time with no gadgets or technology since they can’t be charged. Yes, I know there’s things like car chargers etc. I don’t buy them specifically so it’s not an option. But that means I, too, am not checking my email etc. I do have my cell phone, for emergencies, but I don’t use it so that I don’t burn the battery.
  • I always choose spots on  water. This year, we’ll be on a bluff above the ocean on one trip, and directly on the river on the second trip. Water calms me. Water helps me. Water rejuvenates me. Someday, my forever home will be on a body of water. We’re camping at the El Capitan State Beach (California coast) at this site, and the Fairview Campground (California Sequoia National Forest) at this site this year.

I use national parks and such for a couple of reasons. Ease of reservations, but also for the safety. National parks means rangers, etc. And we always car camp. Logan can’t hike while carrying weight due to his heart condition, and I can’t carry much for long due to my back, to carry in/carry out would be difficult for us. (And I never said I was hardcore.) That said, that means reservations also need to be made at LEAST 6 months in advance.

The trips are coming in June and July. It’s already April! And because of the chaos in May with school closing out, I need to start planning now. To fix a couple of things we’ve learned along the way, this year we…

  • Need some kind of umbrella awning. The first site looks shaded, but the second is definitely not. Joseph and Jay just have way too sensitive of skin. While they just went into the tent last time – that doesn’t enjoy your surroundings, and it’s summer! It’s hot!
  • Get another tent for the kids. They’re older, so we don’t need to escort them to the potty anymore. Also – they’re boys and gross. Also – Jay and I would like some privacy.
  • Find some kind of transportable/foldable camp kitchen. I keep spending more time FINDING the stuff I need to cook dinner, than actually cooking the dinner! Also, note to self, dinner BEFORE it turns dark
  • Camera. I lost all  our pictures from the last trip, because the cheap camera screwed up on me. I can’t use my phone (see battery use above). So a better quality camera this year.

I’m really excited!

 

Crazy Relatives and a Crazy Few Days

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The last week or so have been yucky and crazy. And this week, the kids are on spring break, while I deal with all this with them at home. It’s no big deal – just adds a layer of complication.

So… Let’s see. Let’s go topically.

Joseph

He had two incidences at school last week prompting calls to me etc. I won’t go into the details – at 15, that’s his story – but as a mother, it leaves me anxious, nauseous, worried, and and then I’m unable to sleep, which just makes everything worse.

Logan

Last week, Logan had three separate performances for the orchestra, missing a day of school for one set of them. He made it into a week long summer music camp (awesome) but I think I’m going to have to take him to the doctor to get a medical release (not so awesome – hard to get those appointments). In addition, his IEP for the year (go over this year, prepare for next year) happened. But they did it at 7:15am – meaning I had to get up at 5am, when I had only been able to get to sleep at 3am (see Joseph above). It’s been rough.

AND? I have to take him to the Museum of Tolerance for a required assignment. The assignment was that we could go to a memorial which is 5 hours away, minimum, or the Museum of Tolerance, or do a book report. Logan is on an IEP for learning issue – one main issue is converting his knowledge into the written form to convey his ideas. To do well on this assignment, the book report is a poor choice. However. We are busy on Sundays. They are closed on Saturdays. That leaves the work week. I don’t want to take him out of school, which leaves spring break. Which means, I have to lose a day of pay, and pay $50 to get Logan and Joseph and me in (Joseph is on break so he has to come with us), plus another $20 in parking. That pisses me off. And it pisses me off that the teacher is like, well of course you can spend that money. Um? Yes, he could have done the book report, instead. True. But that wouldn’t have actually taught Logan much in the way he learns. So I’m left paying the price, not to mention pissing off clients for a non-emergency. So that’s happening Thursday.

OB

My brother (currently the oldest since Robert died) has been having issues. I’ll call him OB, many of the issues are legal. Him and his wife, I’ll call OBSIN – it fits, have been sucking my father into their issues. It’s a long story that started about August of last year. I won’t get into it here in case of legal issues. But just a smidge of the drama, in one day and night, I contacted the Sheriff’s department five (5 as in 1-2-3-4-5) times due to her drama. OB spent some time in jail. He then got out on probation (or is it parole? It’s the one where you serve the rest of your sentence, really, but out). But they have significant financial troubles, and have been mostly homeless. I know OBSIN eventually was staying with a niece of hers, but I don’t know if that’s the case. My father’s been helping them off and on, in little bits. He let OB live in the back apartment for like two weeks after jail. All he did was sleep and eat. I tried to give him resources for jobs that take freshly released inmates – he DOES have skills – but he didn’t want them. Whatever dude, you’re 57.

The reason they’re homeless? They were living on his job’s property – the boss let them live in the basement of the place he worked. The deal was OB only, OBSIN was out of the state. Then she came back – and really that’s where it all went downhill. She wanted things her way, told OB’s boss, and OB’s boss was like… Um, no. So she smacked him. So he fired OB and kicked them out. They then tried to turn around and sue for unemployment and unlawful firing. Because that’s how they roll.

Anyhoo… Moving on past conviction, jail, an incident that landed me a 4th cat, the Sheriff, and an OBSIN who wanted to bring up ancient history when she didn’t get her way, and OB is out. Dad actually had all OB’s work stuff (he had his own tools/machinery), and it’s all in the yard tarped up. Dad found out that OB was driving a truck. His license is suspended, and the truck apparently belongs to a dead friend. My dad warned him again and again not to drive, and not to drive that truck.

In the meantime, They have a storage unit of stuff (they stashed stuff in storage all over town, and then we started getting collections calls trying to track them down). It went to auction due to non-payment. OB begged dad to bid. Long story, of course, short, and the auction finally happened yesterday. Well, the night before yesterday, Dad was trying to get ahold of OB. He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t having any friends, or OBSIN’s mother, bidding in the auction too – because that would just be their way. Dad never heard from them. So we bid in the auction – and we actually upped Dad’s high bid by several hundred more dollars than he wanted to go, but ultimately we lost the auction – he just didn’t want to go that high, and they are now losing their possessions.

I’m sure that will be Dad’s fault in the end. Or mine, for “talking him out of it.”

The reason that OB didn’t get back to Dad is because he’s been arrested. Again. For that damn truck. He’s currently being held on $25k bail $50k bail – it just got raised. OBSIN’s got the balls to ask my Dad for it (trust me – I haven’t told you half the story – it took serious balls), and Dad said no.

The Damned Computer

We received our tax refund, and we sat down and decided on what were our priority items needed, since we very rarely have a chunk of money. One of the things was a new computer. It would be for me, and Jay would take my perfectly great computer, because his died a painful death. The one that died was one we bought in one day for very little money so I could limp along with work after a cat/water incident. So this time, I was determined to get a good one that had what I needed to grow, and handle what I handle with ease. I finally chose one, and bought it from Amazon.

I got the computer two days ago, on Sunday, and I start setting it up. I have a bunch of different software I use. One thing I also use (because I’ve gotten my ass handed to me in the past) is Carbonite, for backups. So other than a browser I like, that’s one of the first things I tried to install to provide an easy switch for my files on my old machine. It would not – it said it couldn’t connect to their server, that it was being blocked somehow. So – I completely deleted their webstorage (in case that was blocking), the antivirus (I have one I’m installing of my own), and turned off the Windows firewalls. Still nothing. So I contacted Carbonite’s help support. They were very helpful. First dude took me through some things (like turning off the firewall). When that didn’t work, he took over my computer. He did a bunch of stuff, and from what I could see, he was hunting for hidden blocks, like virus scanning software/firewalls that might be hidden. There weren’t any. He finally apologized, and said he needed to escalate me to the next level of help. Story of my life, really.

The next lady was also very helpful, and took over my computer. She went into the system’s error logs. There were a bunch of errors that basically meant that Carbonite could not write to the harddrive. She said that she couldn’t help with that. Ultimately my computer was blocking permissions to Carbonite at the harddrive level, and that I would need to contact the seller or manufacturer. She sent me an email explaining what she did, the process used so I would have the verbiage, and the errors found, keeping the ticket open.

So I contacted Asus. While I purchased from Amazon, I figured they couldn’t help me actual internal tech support. At first I thought they would be helpful. The first person I talked to listened to what happened, and also had me paste the text from the Carbonite support. She went away, came back, and told that I needed to do a factory reset, and gave me the instructions on how. She then gave me a ticket number so I could come back if need be, after the reset was done, and installation attempted.

I attempted to reset using her instructions, but the key to get into didn’t work. Like at all. So I hunted a different way to get to the reset on the internet, and was able to set the computer to factory settings. But Carbonite again didn’t work. So I went back into the support, using the ticket I had. The new person basically said – too bad, so sad. That’s third-party software, we’re not gonna help. Why? Because I had installed something else that went fine. Carbonite is a little different though. It delves a little further into your system (on purpose, it’s meant to). But he said that since I was able to install other software, it’s a software, not hardware issue. I had already internet searched for this issue in regards to Carbonite. Nothing about this issue – and you know darn well, when it’s a software thing, everyone and their mother complains about it. It got heated between us. I said, “So – what you’re telling me is that the software says it’s hardware, the hardware says it’s software, the computer is out the box two days, you get a crapload of money, and I have a nice, expensive brick, and can’t access my work files?” Yes. They would be willing to have me ship them the laptop for a minimum of two weeks while they ran “diagnostics” on it. You know darn well those diagnostics would return as “fine.” I was spitting mad, and wasn’t about to send the machine to them and draw this nightmare out.

So? I called Amazon. I had a hell of time finding the proper contact number – so I just internet searched HELP Amazon phone number, and there it was. I spoke to a man named Charles. I told him what was going on in a basic way. This is what he said. He didn’t know if it was a hardware or software issue. But. He would send me another brand new computer, give me a label to send this one back. Then, at least I’m attempting with another machine. If it was hardware, maybe this will solve it. If it was software, I have another level of information to send to them. I get the new computer tomorrow. I’m not out any further money. He really attempted to listen to the situation and do what he could do to fix it. I specifically purchased the computer from Amazon fulfilling straight from the manufacturer, on purpose, so we wouldn’t have a third party selling issue on such an expensive item, and I’m so glad I did. So I’ll see what happens after I receive the new one.

Moral of the story is, I love Amazon, Asus’ “help” isn’t help at all, and Carbonite tries to help you, in a really nice way.

But for someone who has trouble spending money – all this chaos over a really expensive item is very draining for me.

So – the last week or so has been stressful.

Explosions and Underwear

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We had a bit of a kerfuffle. Jay and I were sitting in our office, and all the lights dimmed and brightened again. We just paused a moment, wondering if the power was going to go out. It didn’t and we moved on with our night.

An old photo of the chandelier I found.

An old photo of the chandelier I found.

Later that night, Jay called me into the bathroom asking if I could smell anything. I did. It was this awful scent of burned plastic mixed with electricity. We start hunting the smell down, because the last thing we need is an electrical fire smoldering somewhere. We tracked it to the chandelier

in the dining room. It is original to the home, when Dad bought it in the fifties. We don’t know if the chandelier caused the surge we saw earlier, or if we had an electrical surge the chandelier couldn’t handle (chicken/egg), but one of the bulbs was completely scorched all the way down into the base.

We turned off the chandelier, and I took the bulb to dad. There’s this strange annoying phenomenon. When there’s an issue… say the car is doing something funny, or the water in the house is doing something funny, when dad tests it it works perfectly fine for him. It’s incredibly annoying. So I took the scorched bulb to him so he could see there really is an issue. Dad comes over the next day to check it out. Jay’s asleep (he works nights). We’re in the living room. He tries a new bulb, turns on light, nothing happens. He turns off light, takes bulb out, and removes the outer casing of it, and the shaft next to it, so he can see if anything’s different. There is some scorching. He tells me to turn it on and I do. Nothing happens. Then he goes to manipulate it.

The damn thing exploded twice. Once, scorching dad, and then another time, then the whole thing went up in flames. I start screaming, Jay leaps out of bed running into see what’s the problem in his underwear, and I leap to turn off the electricity. Once I did, the flames went out on their own immediately. Dad was fine – although I truly thought his hair would have been standing on end after his zap – and he had a scorched fingernail. Thank God he didn’t think he could fix it.

Sometimes I think Tim “The Toolman” Taylor was based on my father.

“… So I rewired it!”

Anyway.

This is the story of how I eventually got a ceiling fan in my dining room, which has always been sorely needed in the summertime.

The new fixture.

The new fixture.

Ultrasounds, Mammograms, and why do I always get the newb?

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I mentioned that I went to the doctor, and had some tests that needed to be done. Those were done a couple of days ago.

I had a pelvic ultrasound, and a mammogram.

Because I’m not pregnant, I needed to drink a significant amount of water before the ultrasound. What they neglected to tell me prior, is that when I got to the hospital I would have to do the admitting process first, as if I were checking into the hospital. Which takes TIME. Time in which I still haven’t had my test and needed to pee.

When we finally get into the ultrasound room, they were a bit put out by the fact that Jay was there. Well… This whole thing is a little difficult for me. The not knowing if something is wrong. My bladder (which is always an issue since my second child). And my past victimization have me nervous around things like trans-vaginal ultrasounds (essentially an ultrasound wand goes up into your vagina) because even though I’m there by “choice” it feels like a violation. We know this, and so he came with me for support. I may not show that I’m a nervous wreck, and handle myself well – but I always do better with him there. “Why don’t you sit over there?” “No, thanks. I’m just fine right here.” He was by my head, held my hand, and just unobtrusively stroked my wrist. Sort of a “I’m here, you’re fine, I’m here, you’re fine” mantra message he was sending me. He is awesome, ’cause let’s face it, all this stuff is ALL about the girly bits, which can be a mysterious scary place for a dude.

The whole ultrasound process was a bit of a clusterfuck. First, the lady who first showed us to the room was apparently in training. She says, “I’ll do it first and the someone else will look, okay?” Well, okay. And then stared at me like I was supposed to know what comes next. I just stared back.

Then another lady came in and told me to get on the table, we were apparently going to do the outside before the inside. I told her about my birth defect, and why I was here, which took a little bit. That’s important, because I needed them to look beyond the birth defect — we already know that’s there. And I ask, “Will I be able to pee between the outside and vaginal ultrasounds.” “Yes, but we would have already started if you hadn’t told me that long story.”

Wow! Bitch, much?

I lay down and they do the outside ultrasound. Time to switch. Jay takes my hand to help me up (with my back issues I’m still having, coming straight up is difficult), and the bed goes flying into the ultrasound machine. Apparently, the trainee forgot to put the brake on. Correction — she couldn’t figure out HOW to put the brake on, so she didn’t. Regular lady is not pleased. I go pee, so we can do the vaginal ultrasound. I get back on the bed, now naked from the waist down. They tell me to lay down and I do. Trainee lady comes at me with some cushion thing and stares at me. I stare back. Again. “You sit on this!” It’s a vinyl wedge cushion they apparently wanted me to tilt my pelvis up with. So, Jay helps me do a bridge position so they can slide that in. They do – with the bare vinyl on my bare ass. Regular lady comes in. “I told you before, remember? There is always a sheet between them and the cushion!” I have to do the bridge maneuver again so they can put the wedge under the sheet and me. So, now I’m flat on my back, with a wedge shoving my bits up, and the trainee shoves a clipboard in my face. Apparently I need to sign another release. This time, practically upside down. The regular lady is like, “I think she can wait until after at this point.” So – the vaginal ultrasound gets done. It takes forever, and the lady said not one word at all. None. Zero. Zip. She gets done and tells me my doctor will get the results in a week, and leaves. We’re just sitting there, like “now what?” The trainee lady starts cleaning everything. Around me. Finally she looks at me like – Oh you can dress, sign this first? So I sign, and continue to wait for her to clean so I can dress in some privacy. She was totally clueless.

We move on to the breast center so I can get the mammogram. That place was fine and professional. This was my first one. I can say that it was not painful. A little awkward and uncomfortable, but not painful. However, I would NOT want to do it in the week before my period when I get really sensitive breasts. I bet that would make it an actually painful experience. I kind of wanted say “shut up” to the tech though. I can’t remember how, but the fact that I had just had a pelvic ultrasound came up. Just that. No details. And she replies telling me the whole story of her hysterectomy and how I don’t need to worry about it, it’s an easy process. Woah lady, how did we get from “I had an ultrasound” to “I’m paranoid that their going to cut out my organs?” Then she was annoyed with my hair — apparently it kept getting in the image field. Lady — if you can tame my hair, feel free. I haven’t been able to in 40 years.

Once we left, I was just exhausted.

The doctor was rather non-communitive about what’s going to happen next. I have no idea if I’ll be called about results good or bad. To my knowledge we’re waiting on:

  1. Pap smear for cervix number 1
  2. Pap smear for cervix number 2
  3. Pelvis ultrasound looking for anything abnormal like cysts, fibroids, or other issues with a uterus
  4. Mammogram (but that one was purely standard due to my age – I don’t have any lumps or anything that I know of, just getting a baseline)

So… We’ll see what the future holds.

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