When will I ever get well?

I guess this is my life's lesson on "How I am Not Invincible."  Still dizzy, still no energy, still on 2-3 meds, depending upon how bad the chest pain and pounding heart are. I have 2 scans next week, 2-3 hours each which I have to get a shot before and take medicine for 15 days to protect my thyroid.  The scan is to discover whether something is wrong with my adrenal gland.  Guess I'll find that out next week.

Greg is helping out a lot; so are the kids, and my mom and sisters and aunt.  It's wonderful to have family, and I appreciate them more than ever.

I hope to have an answer before Christmas, otherwise it'll be a very different holiday season for us.

Where have I been?

In the hospital.  I went early Monday morning, and stayed for 4 days.  My blood pressure has been really high, and I'd been having chest pains, nosebleeds and a racing heart.   They found some weird enzymes in my blood that they thought might be because I had a heart attack, so they did a cardiac catheterization (including bikini wax, yargh) and they found there was nothing wrong with my heart.   Yea!  But after many, many different kinds of hbp meds through IV and pills, they still don't know what's causing the racing heart and hbp.  So they sent me home with different meds, which sort of seem to work (today is Day One).  I hope to be back to work on Monday, but I'll have to see how it goes this weekend.  My arms are all black and blue from the IV and unsuccessful IV-attempts made, though.  Sad to find out I am NOT invincible and I really can't just do what I want to do with this body anymore.

You know what I was thinking?  I'd rather give up junk food than give up exercise.  I guess that's a good realization.

Halloween 09

Right now, 6 teenagers are in my house eating junk food and watching "Silence of the Lambs."  Clarisssssssse....!  They just came back from the Haunted House at the local neighborhood gym.  Casey wanted to go too, so we walked down there and while we were waiting in line, we heard so much screaming that she changed her mind.  Walking back, she told me she was torn between wanting to go, yet being too scared to actually go in.  I told her that it was ok not to go, and when she was no longer torn about going or not going then she was ready to go.  I also told her this slightly inappropriate story.

When I was at the market earlier getting plates it was fairly deserted because it was 9:00pm.  As I was going to the cashier I saw a man fully decked out in Wizard gear: purple coat with stars and moons and all peering closely at the beer.  It took a lot for me to not to say to him "you couldn't just wave your wand and get beer?"

All the way home we took turns waving my umbrella which had her wand stuck into it, saying "POOF, BEER!"

I learned two things.  A funny story can make scary go away.  And I'm becoming one of those people who says things to complete strangers.

Another Waikele visit, and my PINK bracelet!

I got my bracelet in the mail!

This weekend has been full; mostly using up gas doing one thing I said I would never do. I was gathering last minute Halloween things for my kid (eating into my fun-time). I distinctly remember telling Aunty Sue how she should've told Morgan she wasn't GOING to sew a little skirt for her the night before Halloween, yet here I am, driving to and from Waikele (TWICE) for a last minute costume (and return!), and waiting in a line of 30 people waiting to purchase (aha, we're not the only ones).

Other than getting to eat at Jurison's Inn (mochiko chicken, yum) and perusing Coach (50% off, yet didn't buy a THING, amazingly) and some of the upper side clothing shops, we ended up having dinner with Cara's family at Nordstrom Cafe (a favorite of Casey's and Ray's). I had a salad. Yay! And dessert. Not so yay.

Nordstrom has a new Twilight clothing line for teens (v cute) and we ran into Edward and Jacob while we were shopping. Fun!

Lost My Mind

Since August of this year, I've volunteered (some through coercion) for: Room Parenting (an ongoing email and organization nightmare for Casey's class), Carnival Sign Painting Booth Chairperson (a two year commitment of shadowing and then running 48 hours/yr of Saturday painting and drawing events in November/December/January) making sure the work gets done and is legible and beautiful, and today, the piece de resistance (add accents as needed) layout for the parent newsletter (mostly because I hated the way it looked and...well, they asked) which goes out 4x/year but needs to be done in a flurry of activity two weeks before it is mailed.  Did I mention that I don't know the graphics program they'll be using?  Of course not!

Volunteerism Lobotomy is the answer, I believe. 

A Relaxing Sunday

You ever have a day...or a week...or a month that you feel just lost?  I think I'm in one right now.  I do the regular busy-things, cooking, cleaning, helping kids with homework, driving them around, etc. but I seem to feel a need to refocus to something larger than myself, and I guess that's a good thing.

Usually when I feel this way, I end up cooking or doing some kind of craft.  Last week I baked caramel cuts and peanut butter cookies and we already had 2 kinds of cake and a bag of scones (all accidentally, mind you).  Maybe I was buried in a carbohydrate low.  I've been making these flowers for the purses at Cara's store, and after a flurry of activity making about 10 of them, I seem to have lost my drive to make them.

I needed to return dvds to Blockbuster, so on Friday night Cara, Ray, Hayley, Lindsay, Reed and I ate dinner after their gymnastics class at Kenny's, which is near our house, and been there forever, yet I hadn't ever eaten there before. Lindsay got french onion soup, which she claims is better than Ryan's (gasp!) and I got corned beef hash, eggs and rice, and an orange freeze which was too thick to be a drink.  Pretty cheap.

Yesterday Cara, Casey, Hayley and I went to Target by our old house (former Costco site in Salt Lake) for one item; some shelving for her upstairs consignment store and somehow we ended up spending 3 hours there.  Luckily my end of the purchases didn't total over $60 (for once) so we didn't do too badly considering I didn't have ANYTHING to buy there.  We ended up eating dinner together (after picking up Reed) at Tsukuji at Ala Moana.  It's a buffet, and after seeing 25 things I couldn't eat (seafood issues) I found enough to eat to make me never want to eat again (including shaved ice w/azuki and condensed milk).  Exercised after, though.

Today, in response to last night's reaction to food, I had a gardenburger with half an egg on top of it.  We only had one egg, and Greg was eating the other gardenburger.  Sad, huh?

Just btw, Zac Efron looks way too pretty to be a boy. (17 Again)

I'm going to go wash the car and vacuum virtually anything I can suck up with the vacuum. Wish me luck.

Reality

Yesterday all I was concerned about was what to do.  Should I go back to bed, read, go somewhere in the car?  Bed always seems tempting, reading book 3 in a great series is better; we ended up seeing Bright Star and shopping at Kahala Mall.  The movie was pretty but kind of depressing. Whole Foods shopping was fun.  It was nice being in a/c.  Came home, made corn chowder.  Exercised and watched "My Life in Ruins".  Funny.

Today I found out my good friend has cancer, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

Stuff I thought about, stuff we did

So here I go, Deneitra, just for you :)

This weekend, this week, this MONTH has been very humid.  We've been using a lot of a/c.  I know they always say we shouldn't use a/c because it's bad for the ozone, but what ever happened to those scientists who were working on cloud seeding?  Why didn't that work?  Why isn't anyone working on how to get a huge dessicant hung in the sky?

So we went bowling with the Punahou PFA and PAA, and only about 50 people showed up. Ended up that it was a good thing because there were lots of lanes to bowl in.  We went to Aiea Bowl, home of garlic chicken, garlic fries, and lemon crunch cake.  Yummmm.  We got lots of useful items as prizes, for knowing things like Who taught Michael Jackson to dance (Kenny Ortega), What bldg on campus is 100 years old (Cooke Hall), and how to wear your glowstick in funny places (on your head).  Yes, Punahou education, at its finest.

Lunch was teriburgers and fries from W&M on Waialae.  Expensive, but worth it.  I had the foresight to call it in this time so we didn't have to wait 20 minutes.

So I didn't actually get to make spaghetti with meatballs because the meat didn't thaw out in time (apparently humidity does not help defrosting any) but I did harvest my basil (alive a whole month) and made linguine w/olive oil, garlic, basil, and tomatoes and some french bread dipped in olive oil, salt and pepper.  Easy.  Greg said, "where's the beef?"