It's Friday!

It's Friday! What are your plans for the long weekend? Mine? Uh....

 I don't know why it matters. Every day is much the same these days. I get up, do what I can at home, go to my sister's and help her out. I go home, take my sister to her infusion or doctor appointment, and go back home and to bed so tired I can't think. 

Last night I was having dizzy spells. No idea why, but I presume it's exhaustion. Don't tell my kids, please. I need to talk to the doc because they've become common this last month, but I don't see her for several weeks.. I'm fine.

I never got around to vacuuming the floors. I'm too tired. But I washed my dishes. If I'm honest, I think the fatigue is more than just doing a lot. My hips flared up again, and walking and sitting are painful. There's not much I can do. I'm taking ibuprofen, but it's not helping. Neither is meloxicam. This morning everything hurt for about two hours, and now my hip bones are excruciating. 

Enough complaining! I need to find something for a late lunch. 

I wish you all a lovely long Labor Day Weekend. 

Wash Day

I'm doing laundry today. The last load is in the dryer. I did two loads last night before I got in bed, but I've put nothing away yet. This morning I can see piles of cat hair along the baseboards. That has never happened before! I keep everything vacuumed weekly until now. And I'm just so tired I don't want to bother.

But I will. Later this evening. I am going to my sister's and get her to the infusion appointment. It goes rather fast. Yesterday, it took only 15 minutes. We're working on getting her insurance business taken care of as well. She's got to get the FMLA paperwork in today to the doctor. 

If you rent from Grand Oak here in Evansville, just know they provide little help to people who are crippled. She asked about a handrail, and they said they'd have to get back to her. I'm about to send a letter to them letting them know if they refuse, we will assume they accept full responsibility for any injuries she sustains because of that refusal. I am not feeling nice today, and that foolishness is just not gonna fly. They're terrible at repairs anyway, but this is just foolishness.

I had a rough weekend. It probably showed in my writing. I'm having to pray a lot more because of it. And I lie in bed and worry about my family and everything else. 

We're tired. Mike is only a month out from a stroke, and I get concerned he'll overdo it. I don't know how, but the fear is there. He's doing well, but I'm pretty sure his hearing is worse and his memory is worse. He's helped a lot with my sister's problem, but she has no patience with him. Today I'm going to be late getting over there. I have to do things in this house.

Right now there are so many things that have gone wrong, I can't pinpoint anything that is right. My only consolation is that when this many disasters hit one family, the devil is not happy with them. So, we must be doing something right. It will all come out in the wash. 

Adventures on the Ledge

My life on this ledge is crazy right now. Dark and stormy is an apt description. 

Mike had a kidney stone and then a stroke at the end of July. He was in hospital for a week, and I took care of him for two weeks at my house. While he was there, I hired a cleaner and helped her clean out his apartment. It took two days, and I could hardly walk after it was done. I had the carpet cleaned and got him back home in the third week. I spent the first night at the hospital and every day there. 

Then, my sister called and said they wanted to amputate her foot and she had to go to the hospital immediately. They did surgery the next day to clean out the foot and remove a bone that was coming out. Then, a week later, she had a second surgery to clean out the foot again, and try to save it. They sent her home the next day. I was there every day. She can't get around unassisted and has to go daily to the infusion center at Gateway for an infusion of antibiotics. Since she can't drive, Mike and I take her. 

So, I'm about as exhausted as it gets. At the moment, I can't get more than about six hours of sleep. I don't know when or what I'm eating. The RA is beginning not to like the way I'm treating my body. I have pain in my hips and legs and have trouble getting up and down and walking. I haven't done the laundry at my house for over a week. Also, I haven't vacuumed, swept, or mopped the floors in oh, maybe a month. I have kept the dishes washed, the cat box cleaned out (they're not happy with me), and the cats fed.  

For a couple of days, I had trouble driving because I was short on sleep. Never drive with only three hrs sleep. Not good. I've had a couple of close calls. And I couldn't remember where I was going for a moment.

And David is now ill with something. Stomach problems for the last two days, and he may have a fever. 

Life is an adventure! I love it! There's always something exciting to see, something new to learn. I don't always like either; but there's nothing like it anywhere else.

If you have a group of folks you can rely on, count your blessings. Give them all a hug. Tell them how much you appreciate them. I'm sitting here alone on the ledge. There are no neighbors here. But you know what? God knows where I am, so I'm good. I prayed for him to be my strength this morning on my way over to my sister's house. I was so tired, and my hands hurt. When I got there, my phone gave me today's scripture: Isaiah 40:31. I reckon that'll do. 

New Update on What's Happening In My World

I've had two people in the hospital. My son Mike was in for a week after a stroke. Then, a few days after he came home, my sister went into the hospital with a severely infected foot. They've saved it, but we don't know for how long. She's a bad diabetic and had a hole in her foot where a bone was working its way out. They took out the bone and the one next to it, and according to the doctor, will work its way out as well. Tomorrow they will go back in to check the foot and see how well its healing and if they have the infection under control. 

This week, Mike and I put his apartment back in order after I had it cleaned while he was in the hospital. He is going home to his place tomorrow. The doctors said he has to be monitored yearly for problems in his brain with blood flow and veins. 

I'm exhausted, y'all, tireder than I've ever been. And I'm better than I was a week ago. I thought one day I was just going to pass out because I had dizzy spells for a couple of days. My driving was horrible,and twice I had a couple of near misses. I couldn't stop because there was no help. No friends, no family. I've never lived in a place where there was no one to call for help and comfort. 

There are a couple of other issues that we're concerned about that I won't share. We've decided how to handle these, but it's still depressing. We've reached the end of our strength and tolerance. 

One thing I've learned during all of this, you find out who you can turn to in troubles. I've been praying about an issue for months now, and this weekend, the answer brazenly presented itself. It isn't what I wanted, but helped me make the decision. 

Don't become reliant on people or institutions. They'll never be there when you need them. I don't care what rewards you're promised. Only God never fails. He always answers. His schedule is never too full. 

It's a Small World, After All

 I was wandering around in the dank tunnels where I store my computer files looking for any forgotten writing I could use as a post. There's a lot of junk down there, and I ran across several items I did not remember. At first, I thought they were things I had posted here because they were in a file marked blog posts. They're dated, so I looked them up. Nada. 

That made no sense, but when I checked the dates, I realized I must have posted them on the old Multiply site. It was a social media site in the early 2000s. I thought they had transferred over when the site closed and I did an import, but a search didn't produce them. 

So, I'm going to share them now. You will see when they were first posted. 

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10th August 2006, 2:01 a.m.

We were stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. in 1980, just outside of Fayetteville. We had just come back from a two-year stint in Frankfurt, Germany, with our new baby boy. For a time we lived on the "economy", meaning that we lived in the community, outside the base. After a year, we got base housing.

We found a great church in Fayetteville. The pastor was Jesse Williams. It was a large church but your typical military church. Lots of people from all over, and some locals. We made friends with a couple, Debbie and Bob Bagwell. They were our age, had a child of their own, and lived on the base. We hung out with them for a bit.

One evening we were taking a trip to Raleigh to hear David and the Giants sing. This was a group of Christian young men. During the drive, we got to talking about the guys we had dated. I told them about Johnny, a guy who had joined our church about two years before I met my husband.

In the summer of 1971 or 1972, someone converted Johnny W***** to the Apostolic Pentecostal faith. And he showed up one summer day and joined my church. He was a nice guy, older than me by probably 6-8 years. I was only 15 at the time. And he could sing!

Four girls, myself included, sang together at my church. And Johnny joined us. It was a hit. He was a tenor and a good one and could harmonize, something we four girls had not mastered well. Everyone loved our singing.

During his time with us, he asked me on a date. Why Mama let me date a guy who was probably in his early 20s is beyond me. But I suspect it was because he was a member of the church and she felt comfortable with him. He really was a nice guy. Very respectful and courteous. Everyone liked him.

Now, let me just say, Johnny was not good-looking. He wore glasses that looked like Coke-bottle bottoms. His teeth had spaces, and while they were not rotten, they looked as if he never brushed them. He just didn't have any good looks to speak of. But he was a nice guy. 

So just before school started, he asked me to go skating with him. I said sure. I assure you, I never found him attractive. He was a friend, and we sang together; that’s how I viewed the date. If he had tried to kiss me, I would have balked. Even the thought of it bugged me. We went skating, and on the way home he held my hand, but all I could think of was, no way was I going to let him kiss me.

A few weeks after the date, Johnny just stopped coming to church. I saw a mutual friend at school and asked about him. She said, "He got married two weeks ago." I did a double take and said, "I just went out with him a month ago!" We were shocked. She knew who he had married, and that they had been dating for some time. I guess he forgot to tell me, but hey, we were just friends anyway.

I never saw him again until about two years later, probably in 1973. He had joined the army and was home on leave with his wife. They visited the church one Sunday morning. They had a new baby. I don't think he even spoke to me. Well, he used to be a nice guy, but oh well. I wasn't worried.

So, that was my story to Debbie as we drove toward Raleigh. But then she started asking me questions about where I was from and details about Johnny. Then she told me her story. And what a story!

After leaving Andalusia, Johnny W***** was stationed in Alaska. Her father was the Pastor of the church. Johnny had worked in the church with his wife, had been a really good guy with a good military career. Everyone liked him. But something happened in the late 70s. Johnny W***** received a prison sentence for rape. As of 1980, he was still in prison. Her father still visited him and tried to counsel him. 

I don't know if I can convey my shock. I was stunned. I couldn't believe that the guy I had spent an entire evening alone with in another town, because Andalusia had no skating rink, was arrested for rape.

And what are the odds that I would leave a small Alabama town, travel to Europe for two years, end up in N. Carolina and meet a woman from Alaska who knew someone that I knew! I should have been a gambler back then.

Mama, well, Mama must have been rolling over in her grave. But maybe not; Mama was a firm believer that God took care of us. I suspect she was right. Johnny and I had no spark, and that was probably a good thing.

You know, he was such a nice guy.