I Lost My Best Friend In Delaware

I got the call Saturday morning. My husband answered the phone and stood next to me as Janice told me that Julie passed away in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Julie had knee surgery on Monday and apparently there were complications that arose after being home for several days.

I don’t know if I’ll be posting more about this later. I miss her. I hurt. But I know she was at a point at her life that things were good in her life. I don’t think I could stand it if she died when then things were difficult.

After years of working under a principal that made everyone’s life miserable, she was working with a principal that she liked, one that liked her and appreciated her work and Julie’s talent, one that tried to make the school a better place for everyone – including the faculty and staff.

Julie’s daughter struggled at school last year with a teacher that didn’t understand her physical challenges and personality. Julie went on a quest to find the answers and the help to make her daughter’s educational experience the best possible – to increase her academic success by addressing the challenges and by working with the teacher to insure she understood her daughter’s needs. Julie’s daughter was put on medication and behavioral therapy to address her attention deficit disorder. She began vision therapy to improve her visual perception and strengthen the eye muscles. The teacher this year saw her daughter’s abilities and talent. She stayed in close contact with Julie about her daughter’s progress and what was going on in the classroom. Julie was not only extremely proud of her daughter, who was now able to bloom into all she can be, but she was appreciative to all who played a part in helping her daughter along the way.

Julie loved her husband and knew she was loved by him. As it should be. It’s normal for husbands to come up in conversation when women get together. And often, something negative about them will come up – usually something little that is just driving the wife nuts at the moment. And for the most part, we know that the woman is just letting off a little steam and there’s not really anything wrong in the marriage. This happened with Julie, as well. But the last time I was with Julie, it didn’t. We rode to Christiana for a scrapbook weekend, shared a room while we were there, and then rode back again. Though Julie did talk about her husband during the weekend, it was all positive. Julie was very happy with marriage and her husband.

I don’t know if I’ll post about Julie again. Not specifically, anyway. But she will always be in my heart as I post.

Julie was the one who got me started knitting again. She’s the one who introduced me to ‘the good stuff’ and to spinning. She went with me to the “Spinning the Bunny” demonstration when I fell in love with angora rabbits. She’s the one who knew how to make a podcast and was going to be my helpline when I start mine.

Julie introduced me to stamping and scrapbooking and Stampin’ Up! and Creative Memories and has been with me as I’ve traveled down this path of paper arts. I still have the first card she gave me. It was for my marriage to Lewis. She used a hummingbird stamp and tore the corner of the cardstock to give the front a little visual interest. It was stamped in blue on white cardstock and that was layered on Ballet Blue cardstock. I loved it. And kept thinking, “I can tear paper!” That was pretty much it for me.

I could go on and on about all the little things (and bigger) that she did for me. But she was my friend and that’s what friends do.

 

I Will Finish Knitting Another Pair of Socks

The last pair of socks took about 8 months.  Today I cast on the first sock of ‘Viper Pilots’ in my Wilmington ‘Poseidon’s Palace’.  They are going to look great!  And since I’ve posted here that I will finish them this year, I’ll have to get to work on them.  I have many other projects I want to work on, too.  But this is the year that I will finish these frackin’ cool BSG Viper Pilot socks!

 

I’m Going To Scrap!

I almost titled this “I’m Going to Get Caught Up on My Scrapping!”  But I am so very, very far behind, that we won’t even think about that for now.

I went to a scrapbook weekend this past weekend and got a lot of work done.  But this was transferring photos from someone else’s old, yellowing, fading, falling apart photo album from the ’80′s (1980′s, not 1880′s!) to a new acid-free scrapbook with some colored background pages, some matting, a few embellishments and titles, and the bits of journaling that I could find in the old photo album.  I did this last year for my husband’s ‘travel’ album from the ’80′s and ’90′s.  He had a lot more journaling in his.  His album told a story of sorts.  This one was much more random.  But I got to know the person a little better through her photos.

I still have several aging albums that need to be transferred.  And many of these photos are of people that neither me nor my husband know.  But they need to be preserved for our girls.  Hopefully one day their aunt will be able to identify and add a little journaling to them.

But before I start on those, I want to do a little work on my scrapbook albums.  I feel like my husband and my lives are passing by and I’m not recording them.  I’m losing moments and memories.  It hasn’t been so much time yet, that I can’t record them and the emotions and essence of the time.  But everytime I put it off, I fear that the history in my albums will fade.

So . . . . this is the year that I’m Going To Scrap!

 

I’m Going to Reduce the Number of Pills I Take

I just got back from my visit to Dr. Kirk.  This was a good visit.  I had the good news for her that I was feeling much better than I was on last visit.  And she had the good news for that I was doing many of the right things.

I have been able to take less of the Lyrica.  I’m down to 75 mg in the afternoon and 150 mg at night.  I was taking an additional 150 mg in the morning.  I have found that if I take my meds at lunch instead of at breakfast, I feel better during the day and can get a lot more done.  I’ve been able to really take my dyeing and spinning business seriously and to what I think is the next level.  This isn’t a hobby anymore.

My blood pressure this morning at her office was 130/88.  That probably doesn’t sound so great to most of you.  But I haven’t had any blood pressure medication for almost 48 hours.  She thought that I might be over medicated and it would be a good idea to stop the diuretic.  I’ve been on a diuretic for almost 20 years.  For a long time, that’s the only thing that would control my blood pressure.  We’re going to try having me take just the Lisinopryl (20 mg) and we’ll see what happens.  I’m hoping that it will control my blood pressure and that I will have more energy and be less likely to have kidney problems later.

And speaking of kidneys.  My blood sugar level was up just a bit when I had the blood work done in early January.  We both seem to think that was because of traveling, the stress and pain,  and poor eating habits during the trip.  I’ve since cut out almost all sweets and sugared softdrinks.  I will still have an occasional piece or two of candy and yesterday morning I had about half of a 20 oz real Coke.  But I’ve been using Splenda in my coffee and drinking water and cranberry juice/fruit juice drinks with no added sugar.   Part of me believes that the reduction in sugar is part of the reason I’m having less pain, too.

The other bad news from my blood work was that my cholesterol/triglycerides were up.  I’m going to have to cut continue to cut out the sweets, eat a somewhat low-carb diet, and cut out the sausage/cheese/egg breakfasts (though they are low-carb!)

Anyway.  I’m working on getting the meds down.  If I can get more exercise, I may be able to lose weight, get off of the blood pressure meds completely, and maybe also off of the Cymbalta.  But those are rather long term goals, to say the least.  First let’s cut back on the Lyrica and diuretic and see what happens.

 

This is the Year That I Take Control of My Fibromyalgia

I went to the neurologist today.  He and his nurse asked a lot of questions.  He looked at my MRI images.  He said he thinks my curent round of new symptoms are due to either my fibro, the meds, carpel tunnel, or depression – or a combination of any of the above.  He did say I don’t have MS, which was a relief.

So . . . . . .

This is the year that I’m going to take my fibro seriously.  It seems I’ll have to because no one else is.  Well, that’s not true.  My husband does.  My step-daughter is starting to understand. After visiting with my family for a week over Christmas, they understand.  They were able to see the difference in me now and 4 years ago.  But the doctors?  Sometimes I think my primary care physician gets it.  Other times I’m not sure she has a clue.  The neurologist I went to today – well, I’m not sure about him either.

But, back to the topic.

Getting enough sleep will be one of my highest priorities.  The other top priorities is taking my meds before the pain starts getting out of hand and managing my activity so that I don’t over do.  Those are some of the toughest things to do.  This thing made up of pain and fatigue has taken control of my life and I’m going to take it back.  It will have to be within the parameters imposed on me by the fibro, but I can have a happy and satisfying life within those parameters.

 

This is the Year That I Turn 50

I realized this today when I was waiting for MRI films to take to the the doctor tomorrow. I feel like I’ve been falling apart for the last 4 years. But for some reason, I’m not sad about this notable year. I don’t see this as the beginning of the end. I see this more as the beginning of a new chapter of my life. I’ll be looking for the good happens across my path. This little blog will contain a log of thoughts and events that happen in this remarkable year.