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You reap what you sow

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This was actually the theme of session three at camp this summer. My favorite speaker Stuart Hall spoke about it. He started off by showing the clip from the new star wars movie where the girl was fighting Hans Solo’s kid. I was so glad bus leader Dan conned us into watching it on the way down. He said everyone has a dark side and you must deal with that before you can live the prime life. The theme of camp this year was how to live a Prime life. Anyhow today matters, right now matters and your next decision matters. All affects what happens in the future. Galatians 6:7 God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Mocking was defined by Stuart as the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What you sow today, you reap tomorrow. So he left the kids with these questions:

  1. What wrong seed are you planting.
  2. What different seed do you need to start planting.
  3. Who’s going to help you plant?

Because I do not have the gift of writing a sermon (I am sure there is a name for this but I probably couldn’t spell it anyway), it often takes me quite a while to try to relate what I have heard to my own life but over the past weekend when my mother in law asked me who says I had to run twenty-four miles on Saturday this all fell into place.

First of all, no one says I have to. I have a training schedule that recommends sticking to it and not blowing off runs, especially the long weekend ones. It is totally up to me whether or not I do it. However, I have done two races that I wasn’t properly trained for. The first was a half marathon the weekend after my running friends John & Jennifer got married. I barely followed the training schedule and my longest run was six miles. This was probably six years ago and I can still see the exact spot around mile 9 where they were with a sign to cheer me on. I seriously thought about quitting and riding on home with them. I finished but my back was killing me and my legs hurt the next day. This April I wanted to do a full as my comeback after foot surgery times two. I had a race all picked out and it ended up conflicting with Emily’s white coat ceremony so I decided to a different one four weeks earlier. So about mile 22 my right thigh started burning and by the end I was looking at people wondering if I could offer someone, anyone to drive me to my car. Both were horrible races in that I did not enjoy them and probably prayed for death during this time.

So I have a choice, do all the runs in the schedule and be able to finish the thirty-one mile race enjoying it along the way or skip half of it and pray for death. I already signed up and paid for the race, so not doing it is not an option. So if you see me walking/running all over Arnold and South County this fall you will know I am planning to reap a good race by sowing all the runs.

 

Mole moral~ Even us old folks can learn something every year at camp.

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The real reason I stopped going to the lake.

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I haven’t been to Brian’s parents lake house in at least five years. I always said it was because there was too much cleaning involved for a two-day weekend. It is always so nice to arrive to a clean house with fresh sheets and towels but it’s a lot of work to leave it that way. Ok I hate cleaning and the drive down there and back. Today’s was Brian’s fiftieth birthday so I decided we would have family weekend at the lake to celebrate. I drove down after work but everyone else left at noon. I didn’t want them to all wait on me and this way I could leave early enough to be back tonight in time for the edge.

I am currently training for a 50K race. This all started over fourth of July when I remembered saying four years ago I wanted to run 50 miles on my fiftieth birthday. The big five 0 is this coming May. So I researched how to train for a 50 mile run and it said to start with a 50K. So I pulled up the training plans and mapped out the next nine months of my life. I found a 50K about three hours passed Emily in Kansas so I roped her into going with me. I found a 50 mile on April 29 in Springfield Missouri. I decided if I am really going to pull off fifty miles, I at least need a shirt and a medal out of it. The current race is one week easy, one week hard regarding mileage. This week was the hard week which meant I had a 24 mile run, followed by a 10 mile run. It also meant I had to run it down at the lake. After just two miles I remembered the real reason I stopped coming, because all of the long runs are on the weekend and the lake is nothing but hills. I don’t mind some hills but it is insane down there. I did my 24 on Friday and it was by far the most brutal run (walk mostly) I have ever done. I went nine miles between finding a gas station to get water. I was very close to calling Brian and telling him he needed to deliver me drinks. He would have done it, but I would have never lived it down. I overshot how far out to go by like three miles because of the gas station issue. The last two hours the heat index had shot up to over 100 degrees. I was walking on the side of highway 5 and I could feel the heat just radiating up off the black top cooking me even more. The last three miles were scary. I was starting to get chills when the wind blew which every runner knows means dehydration. I was still able to make spit and recite my ABC’s and my name and social security number. Although I could have been delusional in thinking I was doing it right. I just knew there was no way I could walk the additional three miles back to the lake house so I had Brian come and pick me up. The biggest cause of injuries is over training so I wasn’t having any of that or dropping over dead. Everyone was freaking out because the side of the highway I was running on had no shoulder. It has just as much shoulder as 61/67 and every single car got over into the middle instead of seeing how close they could come to me like some of the jerks here at home. They should have been more worried about dehydration. However I survived, I finished the run and I did ten miles the next day. After I got home and looked at my Fitbit I knew I was so right in avoiding the hills of the Ozarks.

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To put this in perspective two weeks ago when I did 22 miles up to Melville high school and back I only did 200 flights of stairs. Fitbit counts every ten feet of elevation as a flight of stairs. It is always off on my miles. I know I did 24 because I use Nike+ app and it’s always very close to accurate. My mother in law asked me who said I had to run 24 and then 10. So I filled her in on what I was doing which made me think about this ~ you reap what you sow which was spoken about at camp and should be my next blog.

 

Mole Moral~Only crazy insane people get up at 7 am and walk for 6 1/2 hours in extreme heat to prep for a 31 mile race! Yep that’s me!

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Big Stuf Prime Session 1

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The first four hours of the bus ride were awful to the point I was thinking that maybe I was too old to be on the bus. The driver we had drives like I do. She was swerving back and forth and jamming on the brakes and running off the side of the road over the tracks that make the noise. Trying to sleep was a nightmare and whichever side I was laying on my hip would go numb. I seriously considered giving up on the seat and laying on the floor but by this time my spot had been overtaken by a teenager so I struggled on. Dan (my favorite kid, who really isn’t a kid anymore) was my bus leader again this year. He is hilarious and always has me cracking up. He makes the time go by a lot faster. He also didn’t make us play the get to know your bus neighbor game which always gives me horrible anxiety. The outside seats rotate around the bus and you have to talk to each other. I seriously am shy when it comes to talking to new people so this is a way out of my comfort zone experience. However had it not been for this game I would not have met my two favorite Dan’s. My very first year I met Dan P who told me I didn’t look over 22. What a charmer! I still keep up with him through Facebook. I met Dan the bus leader four years ago when I put my favorite restaurant was Steak n shake, and his was subway. He said something like we skinny people need to stick together. I said time out I am not naturally skinny. That was at the prime of my running when I was super thin. Anyway calling me 22 and skinny makes me love you forever! So Dan persuaded us all to watch Star Wars 7 since he had never seen it. The movie played with sound until it started and then it went silent. So he restarted it and the same thing so he started it with subtitles. He then started reading us the words over the microphone and acting out the sounds. It was awesome and hilarious. He is such a good kid. The sound finally started working and I can say I watched the entire thing waiting for them to find Luke. Can I just say all those people look so old and yet I am still in sixth grade when the original movie came out. It’s funny how everyone ages and gets older except for me.

This year the theme for Big Stuf is Prime and I forgot my ink pen to take notes so I had to take pictures of what was written on the screen so I could write this note. On a side note, I forgot all kinds of stuff this trip. I forgot my headphones, a sports bra, I lost my phone on the bus and I also lost my charger. I almost lost my fitbit charger as well. Next year I am going to rethink what bags I bring so that I am not dropping stuff and losing it. Stuart Hall spoke for the first session and he was awesome as always. The kids can relate to him and tune in nicely. I am sure a few weren’t listening but I would bet at least eight percent of the room was tuned in. The bible verse tonight was actually Herc’s life verse John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. He focused on the last part that Jesus wants us to live our life to the full. He put this really cool diagram up about strength and weakness and how people think strength is what you need and those people are usually so obnoxious no one likes them. But he talked about people who withdraw and that was me a good part of my life. I really wish I would have had a pen to take notes because it made perfect sense then and now I cannot even think of a way to explain it. Here are some key talking points.

God had a purpose for your life before anyone else had an opinion. I wonder if his purpose matched how I turned out. I mean was his purpose for me to be a nurse and on the women’s health floor. Most days I feel that is right where I am supposed to be.

Your best life is found only by placing it in the best hands. That would be Jesus’s hands and not the worlds. That’s easy to spout off but not always so easy to try to live out. The world offers fun and excitement that usually turns into a nightmare. Jesus offers a harder way but a life with fewer regrets.

Lastly, ten years from now make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it. I really feel I chose most of my life. I chose to go to nursing school, I chose to get married, I chose to have kids, I chose to work at Mercy, I chose to take the kids to Kid Stuf and become involved with Oak Bridge, I chose to be the camp nurse. I could probably go on and on. Maybe I need to think of some stuff that happened that I didn’t choose. I am sure I blocked all of that but I bet my mom can come up with a ton of stuff!

Session one has come to a close and I am totally excited for tomorrow to see what it brings.

 

Mole Moral ~ I am saying this for the hundredth time, it’s the best week of the year and I wish every single teenager in America coud experience this camp just one time in their life!

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The down side of pets

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I’m an animal lover and especially of dogs. When I was little I had no intention of getting married or having children but was going to own a dog farm instead. Somewhere back in 1985 I met my future husband and the dog farm went out the window. Growing up we had two dogs. The first was fluffy a black and white beagle who was a great dog. My mom didn’t feel it was fair to leave her tied up to the dog house and needed a place to run. She told us she had found a man with a farm to take her. I would find out many years later she gave her to animal control. I am pretty sure everyone knows how that turned out. Our next dog I found in the paper. He was a terrier mix and we named him Frisky. He was a great dog too and one day he was walking with my friend Diane and I to the little store when someone shot off fireworks. Those made him crazy and he shot out across the street and got hit by a car right in front of me. The girl who hit him was actually a neighbor so she took me home to get my mom. By the time we got back he was gone. My mom dug a hole in the backyard with the help of Diane’s mom and buried him later that evening. About six months later she read the book Pet Cemetery and had a heck of a time sleeping knowing he was under her window.

Brian and I were married less than a year when a friend of his at work had a litter of beagles so in April of 1991 we brought Annie home. The stories I could tell of that crazy dog are endless. She ate everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor and lived another day. Some of the most unusual were an entire bar of soap (Irish Spring I do believe), a tub of margarine, 200 Ande’s mints, the top to mine and Brian’s wedding cake (it was chocolate too). She was so good with the kids and one day I locked myself out of the house with Allyson in it by herself. She was maybe 18 months at the time. I had to borrow Beverly’s car to drive to the credit union to get my extra key from my sister. When I got back I found Annie and Allyson underneath her baby bed. Annie left us when she was 15 and I first told the kids she had a brain tumor but I am a horrible liar and they learned I had sent her to heaven. She was walking around pooping and not even knowing it. If you startled her she would attempt to bite you because she couldn’t hear well. She would wake up in the middle of the night howling thinking it was time to eat. It was the hardest thing I ever did, but it was time.

When Emily and Kayla were little we had two Guinea Pigs. They were Wilbur (from Charlotte’s web) and Clumsy. (Don’t let kids name pets). Wilbur was wild hair and brown and white. Clumsy was all white and I wanted Emily to call him Whitey but she would not cooperate. They were great pigs and lived for at least five years. Wilbur died first and then Whitey. For some reason I just wrapped them up in newspaper and put them in the trash. I am not sure what the heck I was thinking. We went through a hermit crab phase and when they passed we buried them where our tomato plants grew. Emily had a rabbit named George that hated everyone except for Allyson. She was the only one who could pick him up. After Emily went to college I would open the door and waited until he jumped out before I would make a mad dash for the bowl before he could come back in and try to bite me. When he passed away I put him in the deep freeze until Emily came home for the funeral. (He was triple wrapped and not near any of the food). It really sucks calling someone to tell them their pet died.

And I got to do that again today. Emily has two Guinea pigs. She got the hairy one first and then started reading about hairless ones. There is a breeder in Red Bud IL so she contacted her and we went and got him one day. That girl lived out in the middle of nowhere and her guinea pig room must have had two hundred pigs in their. Some were hairless and some carried the gene. I just can’t imagine cleaning all of those cages. Emily named them Squeaks and Squawks.

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(She’s still a kid with the names). She’s been in Oklahoma this summer doing her first full-time PT clincial’s. They gave her a place to stay for free so she decided to leave the pigs with me. This evening I went down to feed them and found Squeaks gone. I was more upset about having to tell Emily than having to wrap up Squeaks. So I brought Squawks upstairs and held him for a while. Squeaks was laying out in the cage and Squawks had barricaded himself in his hut and put the food dish in the entry way of the hut. I have no idea what that was all about. After that I went running and I hadn’t even hit two miles before Emily started texting me links to Guinea Pigs for sale. I told her Squawks needed time to grieve and she can find him a friend when she is back in Missouri.

 

Mole moral ~ My friend Meg Barry says Squawks looks like a ballsack so I am happy to say Ballsack lives!

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Goodbye Red, Hello Silver

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Do not panic, I am not changing my hair color. Although my natural color is probably pretty much silver (aka grey). Anyway I had to say goodbye to my red Saturn VUE. I purchased it eleven years ago next month, hoping to drive it for seven years and then I hoped to make it until Kayla graduated from high school.(Kayla is starting her third year of college this fall.) Then I could take her dance tuition and apply it to a car payment. Well the car lasted two years longer than I had ever dreamed of so I was very happy.

I took the car to get inspected last week and they informed me it would be at least seven hundred dollars to get it to pass inspection. I was surprised but I really wasn’t. I was at 184,000 miles and it was running really loudly. Well my husband told the gal I am trading it in and not fixing it. She tried to tell him we needed to fix it to get a good trade in. I looked it up on Kelly Blue Book and saying my car was in fair condition was a stretch which put it at about five hundred dollars. So there was no way that was happening. I really didn’t want to do the haggle thing so I found true value and signed up that way. That put me at the Lou Fuse Mazda dealership about fifteen minutes from work. So they called me while I was at work to set up an appointment. I told them I could come after work and they asked me twice if I was really going to come. I finally said I will be there unless my patient codes and dies at the end of my shift and I will call to reschedule. That totally put the girl on the phone off her rocker. She got so off kilter she could barely reply. Only I would say something like that.

When I walked into the place and told them I had an appointment they said “you really did show up”. I looked them right in the eye and said I told you I would be here unless my patient coded and died and I’m here so they all survived. A great ice-breaker only a nurse would use. The guy I had the appointment with was busy with someone else so I ended up having another guy help me and then he came and helped too. First thing they said was how about an automatic. I said “absolutely not, not going to happen. I picked the Mazda CX-5 because it comes in a stick. This keeps my teenagers from driving my car.” I also informed them I was a cheap skate and not paying for a bunch of unnecessary luxuries. They were dying. So they looked around and found a silver car at another dealer about two hours away so they were going to have to go get it. In the meantime they ran my credit and I didn’t even have to use Brian to get approved. They test drove the red car and wanted to give me a hundred dollars for it but ended up giving me four hundred and if I’m real honest that was probably very generous. So we agreed I would come back Wednesday after work to pick up my new car. It would be the next day before I remembered I had a meeting after work, so Wednesday would be out.

As it turned out with the storms on Wednesday, it was not a good day for the dealership so I said great I have a meeting with my financial advisor early Thursday morning and then I will swing by after that. So today I show up at the office and Marcus is like “um our appointment is next Thursday.” I was like oh crap you are right. So I told him I was purchasing a new car and we would have much to talk about next week. I had some time to kill so I decided to go see what a Pokemon stop was all about. That was kind of lame so I went to the dealership. Right before I was to turn in, I smoked a bird and when I looked in the rearview mirror it was flopping around on the ground. I asked God to kill it right then, so it wouldn’t have to suffer. Now I was the one was off kilter. My salesman said at least I hit it with the old car and not the new. He then shared with me that the guy that test drove it, said there was no way I would make it back. The thing would fall apart. So I think I traded it in just in the nick of time.

After two hours of chatting and paperwork the car was finally mine. I wasn’t really excited until I drove off. And all the guys were right, the clutch was sweet. I quickly realized how crappy my car really was. My new ride is smooth and sweet.

Goodbye Red
Hello Silver

 

Mole Moral ~ After not having car payments for seven years, I am currently looking for a sugar daddy. Please contact me if you are interested. BAHAHAHAHA

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My preceptor

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I have no idea how anything works except for nursing and when you graduate and become a new nurse you are assigned to an experienced nurse to show you how things are done. Everyone has a first preceptor and I have remembered mine over the years. Her name was Lisa and I always wondered what happened to her.

It was the year 1988 and I graduated from Deaconess College of Nursing in May. I had been working on 4 north as a student nurse assistant for over a year. That was the isolation floor so I was well versed in wound care, infection and isolation. HIV and AIDS was brand new back then and people were convinced you could transmit it from kissing. I took care of my first AIDS patient on that floor, he was down the isolation hall. I remember after he passed away his call light came on after he was gone from the room and we all swore it was his way of saying goodbye. So my first nursing job was on 5 north. This floor was mainly ENT, GU and all the inpatient dialysis patients. It was a tough medical surgical floor but I was a new graduate nurse and free from isolation so I was excited about the change. My preceptor was Lisa and she lived closed to me. She was awesome. Our first day together could have left me running screaming from the building. We had a laryngectomy patient who coughed out his trach tube just as we walked in his room. I know my eyes bugged out of my head but Lisa just went over picked it up, rinsed it off, grabbed the obdurator off of the wall, put it in and stuck the thing back in the guys neck as if it happened all the time. She was great to work with. Actually I have fond memories of everyone I worked with during those two years. However after two years I found myself ready for a change. The dialysis patients tended to be admitted over and over again and they became like family members to me and then they started passing away. I couldn’t take it and decided to move on to the burn unit at Mercy. So I left Lisa and everyone behind and never saw them again. This was long before the internet, email, texting and Facebook. The only way we had to keep in touch was to call someone on the telephone or write a letter and send it through the mail (oh the horrors)!

I’ve looked for Lisa a couple of times on Facebook and today I finally found her. I heard back from her today and I was very excited. I had been thinking about her a lot recently because we have so many new girls on our floor and so many straight out of nursing school. I have found their newness  refreshing. However I have never been a preceptor. There are a few reasons for this. The hours that I work make it impossible. I have the eleven in the morning shift and sometimes come in as early as eight or not at all. New nurses have to have guaranteed work hours. I also take all new surgeries which is not what anyone in their right mind would sign up to do. I however love it. I also don’t teach well. I have been told by three different people that I don’t think like a normal person which makes it harder for me to teach anyone anything. It totally explained why I understood logic but couldn’t really help anyone with it.  I do tell all the new people they can ask me anything and I will answer and help them. It’s just best not to leave me to educate on my own because I have a crazy way of doing things.

 

Mole Moral ~ Techonology is awesome because I found Lisa who was so instrumental in my becoming the nurse that I am today!

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My day with Rob Bell

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It has taken me a while to write this blog because Rob Bell is so controversial. This will not be about his controversy or a debate about him. If you have no idea what I am speaking about google him and you will be enlightened within seconds.

I was first introduced to Rob Bell (he is one of the people who I always refer to with both names, just like my best friend Meg Barry) back in 2003. My church showed his first Nooma video, Rain during service. It was ten minutes long and so interesting and good that I probably fell in love with him right then and there. He would eventually release another 23 Nooma’s for the series. I would be in two different small groups that did a study on some of the films. His first Everything is Spiritual tour was in 2006 and I went to it. I will never forget it was at Mississippi Nights on the landing. He had this gigantic white board that he talked and wrote all over. I looked around and the workers were totally enthralled in what he was saying and listened to every word. Afterwards my friend Dianne and I went up  and asked him to sign our copies of his first book, Velvet Elvis. He looked at my book and said this is one of those illegal copies I heard about, but have never seen. I could have died right there and crawled into the floor if it were possible. I had gotten the book from a Crossings, a Christian website so after that all of his books have come from Amazon. Only I would have an illegal copy and then ask Rob Bell to sign it.

Once podcasts became available I started downloading his sermons and burning to CD’s to listen in my car. If he wasn’t speaking that week, I listened anyway. It’s how I heard about Ed Dobson. I do believe he was a retired preacher that guest spoke. He also had been battling ALS for eight years at the time. He was still doing well and had a lot of mobility. He spoke about it one week and I remember burning a copy and sending it to my friends husband who has since passed from ALS. I just looked Ed up and discovered he passed away 12/26/2015 and lived with ALS for 15 years. This makes me sad as I never did meet him but I remember the year he attempted to live as Jesus did. It’s crazy to think of burning CD’s to listen to as now I can just load them in my phone and listen to them via my radio. Technology has really gone crazy in the last twenty years.

Rob swears he came to St. Louis last year but if he did I missed it. All of the other times he has been out on speaking tours they have been too far away. This year however, I discovered he was going to be in Tulsa Oklahoma at the same time Emily was going to be in Norman Oklahoma for Physical Therapy clinical’s. So I googled how close they were and informed her I would come visit her while she was there because I would miss her. She said nice try, you just want to see Rob Bell. Busted! The night before the event I made the mistake of googling him because it had been a while. The controversy surrounding him was now off the charts. It seems as if  Love Wins was just the beginning. I hadn’t really followed him much after he left Mars Hills, after all he wasn’t preaching so I had no CD’s to make. Anyway I started questioning if I should even go the next day. I mean I might get sucked in and come out a horrible person or something. However I paid a hundred dollars for this eight-hour event so I was going simply because of that. I did the math wrong in my head and left too late from Emily’s to make it on time. It was an hour and forty-five minute from her place to the event. I showed up ten minutes late but he had just started. I of course had to run to the bathroom because I had drunk 24 ounces of coffee on the way over. His venue was Cains and looked like it would be the perfect place for country line dancing. It very much reminded me of Mississippi Nights ten years ago in Saint Louis only this time the chairs were in a square with him in the middle. It was how Mars Hill was set up. (I visited his church back in 2009 on the way home from Niagara Falls.) I quickly realized I was glad I had come.

The day was about his book How to be Here and he said a lot of people leave and quit their jobs. That at some point every one will have their ah ha moment and he then said you’re welcome. Well I couldn’t imagine quitting my job because I love it. I have also tried to leave at least three times and I got a big fat NO from God. No he didn’t speak to me but other things happened that were directly related and I knew I needed to stay right where I was. So in October I will be on Women’s Health for sixteen years. I am not sure where the time went. The day came and went and I never had that moment until the next day when I was driving home trying to take in everything I heard the day before. Hello, my moment was ten minutes in when I knew I made the right decision to show up. Rob Bell was still the Rob Bell I remembered from the videos and the sermons. And yes he has said some crazy off the wall stuff but don’t you think people said the same thing about Jesus back in his day. No I am not saying Rob Bell is Jesus (look I am crazy but not that crazy) and I am not saying if he is right or wrong, I am just simply pointing out that some of the same stuff said about Rob, may have been said about Jesus. There is one thing he said that really made me think and still has me freaked out. He said to the people who believe in Left Behind, he does not. He feels that Jesus already came back when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. that he was supposed to return in the disciples lifetime and that would be his way of doing it. I was like wait a minute, you mean I have no hope of Jesus returning now and saving me from this crap known as the mess of the world we created. That sucks. But I have also had an issue with Left Behind theory anyway. Why would the people who rejected him who are still living get a second chance to accept him when everyone else who died were already sent to hell. Talk about unfair. However it just shows how little anyone really knows about what is to come. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong. Maybe he is a whack a doodle sent by the devil, maybe he’s a great speaker sent by God.

One last thing and then I’m going to stop typing. He spoke a little bit about what happened after Love Wins came out. It was weird while he was talking I could feel his pain. I feel this is most likely because I never realized what it might have been like for him when the Christian community (many who were close friends) just cut him off and acted like he no longer existed. He said churches would contact him stating they had written seven page papers about why his book was wrong. There were actually people picketing him and I got the feeling (just my feeling) that he was pretty much run out of the town we grew up in. And no matter who you are, how close you are to God that has to hurt! My own church never mentioned his name again after the book came out. I spoke to him after the talk and had my picture taken with him. I told him I did not bring a book because of what happened the last time. He cracked up laughing. We discussed his leaving the church and he says it seems like so long ago and he’s glad to be gone. I bet he is because the longer you are in a church the more and more things you tend to find wrong. Everyone criticizes everyone and it just gets stupid. I am sure he is more happy just going around meeting people and talking in this environment. How did Jesus interact with people? In a building with rules and religion? Nope out in the crowds. Again Rob Bell is not Jesus it’s just interesting the parallel. I swear if anyone publishes something saying I called Rob Bell the next Jesus I will lose my mind. Oh wait I lost it years ago.

 

Mole Moral ~ I’m glad I listened to my gut and went. Rob Bell no longer calls himself a pastor as he does not have a “church” with a set group of members. It was thought provoking eight hours.

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The most expensive bladder infection!

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imageIt’s been a while since I have written much. A week or two ago I was going to finally write about my dog but then I added up what I spent and I became so angry again that I couldn’t do it. However, its been a week since then and I’ve had some time to reflect.

I originally took my dog to the vet on a Monday because she wasn’t able to jump up on the couch and started having trouble walking up the steps. The vet did an X-ray and saw an area around T-12 on her spine that was losing density. She had never seen that before and it was concerning to her, so she sent it out to have a specialist look at it. There was a good possibility it was cancer.

I should have called on Thursday to see if it had been read but I’m going to be real here and say I was afraid they were going to tell me it was cancer and she only had a week or two left. By the time Sunday came she could barely stand up and was screaming and crying in the way dogs do. So I load her up in the car and take her to VSS. They come out to get her and she jumps out of the car and starts walking around. They charge me a hundred bucks for different pain medicine and told me to get the x-ray read. I did not know at this time that they were the ones who were suppose to be reading it.

Monday arrives and the dog won’t even put her back leg down and by this time she is only getting up two or three times a day to potty and that is it. I call the vet and inform them she’s coming in. Now somewhere between the time I called and arrived VSS finally took a look at the x-ray. Now isn’t that convenient. They feel she has a bladder infection that seeded to her T-12 vertebral plate. Say what? My vet had never heard of this and because the dog was in such bad shape I had them keep her there overnight. They ran some tests and finally got a urine sample and sure enough Moonie had a bladder infection. The craziest thing is Moonie never acted like she had one. She never peed in the house, asked to go out a million times or anything. Just one day she couldn’t jump up on the couch.

I pick her up on Tuesday because the guy at the desk couldn’t take her whining anymore. They had to take her out of the cage she was in and put her in the extra exam room so she would be quiet. I naively thought after a day or two of antibiotics she would be back to her old self. She came home on codeine, gabepentin, augmentin, vetprofen, and pepcid. I was giving her stuff four times a day. She was on more medicine than half of the patients at my work. After about a week we switched out her codeine for tramadol and she took a second round of antibiotics. She finally got off everything this past Sunday and so far she can do everything except jump up on the furniture.

I realized over the past week that it isn’t really the obscene amount of money we spent to get her almost back to baseline. Although it does make me crazy because I am a money nazi. It’s the fact of how VSS acted and my vet. My vet should have followed up with them on Thursday. I should have called and asked but like I said I was afraid it was cancer. Is this how VSS would treat their mothers, grandmothers, or their own dog. I highly doubt they would mess around and wait an entire week until their dog is in so much pain she can’t even get up to go to the bathroom. However, I know if it was their dog, someone would have looked at it immediately. Often at work I remind myself to treat each patient as if she were a family member. It makes a huge difference with that mindset.

Now that I am calm, I plan to send VSS a letter and my approach will be more about how much needless suffering and pain my dog endured due to their incompetence rather than the money. Because in the big picture money is money that isn’t going with me when I die. Compassion and lack of it may be accounted for in Heaven.

Mole Moral ~ Only a mole dog gets a bladder infection that makes it impossible for her to walk!

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Cruise Notes Episode 3

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These cruise notes are taking me longer than expected. My life is insane and every time I go on vacation all chaos breaks loose when I return. This vacation was no different except my computer did not blow up. I say it’s because I now own a Mac and not a Window’s product. I really should just shut up before my Mac blows up! After all what are the chances of getting a virus on a Mac? Slim to none but I did in fact get one.

Ok back to the cruise. We visited Nassau on Monday and Kayla and I swam with the stingrays. That was pretty cool! I did ask about their stingers and they said different types are poisonous and the ones we were with were not. Plus they clip their stinger which I had issues with because that isn’t exactly nature. I purposely did not swim with dolphins because I read upsetting things about that but made sure I read nothing on stingrays. I probably should now that it is over. I also forgot I was wearing my Fitbit HR and fried that. It wasn’t kidding when it said it’s not waterproof. I let it dry out for five days and still nothing, so I bought a new one the day after I returned. What can I say, I’m an addict to the stats.

Two days later we were suppose to stop at half-moon cay. At six am the captain of the ship comes over the loudspeaker and announces that due to the waves we would not be able to stop. It was too dangerous to board the tender boats to go over to the island. Not five minutes later the perky cruise director (Professor Bing Bong) comes on and repeats it. Except for once, he wasn’t so cheerful that I wanted to slap him. Kayla and I were pretty disappointed as we were suppose to go snorkeling but its a risk one takes when they vacation with Shleprock. (To read about my nickname click on Shleprock). So later on in the day he is out on the pool deck and I announce to Kayla I’m going to go talk to him about how often this happens. Imagine my surprise when I find this picture on her phone after we got back.

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He informs me that this island gets cancelled about 20% of the time but it’s the first time it’s happened to him personally. I think he was rather new to his role but that’s just me trying to defend I’m not bad luck. So we spent four days on the cruise ship which was rather relaxing but also disappointing. I was refunded the money for our snorkeling which I promptly spent on pictures. I found out at dinner via Rose and Laney that two people were scheduled to get married on the island that day and they were unable to get married on the ship because it was in international waters and therefore would be invalid. That made me realize that missing snorkeling wasn’t so bad. I mean we can do another cruise at a later date and snorkel. But getting thirty people together on another cruise for a wedding probably is not feasible.

Mole moral~ Four days on a cruise ship wasn’t exactly what we planned, however we are blessed in being able to afford to go on a cruise and it was a good mother/daughter time.

 

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Cruise Notes Episode 2

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Everyone knows a cruise is all about the food and what better thing to write about than the people we had dinner with. The first night it was just Kayla and I and two sisters who were from Oklahoma. I thought that was really interesting since that is where Emily is currently for PT clinical’s. One was a teacher and the other was finishing up school. They both had red hair so that made them cool. I can only remember Anna’s name. They were also a little shy so not too much talking went on that first night. It was the second night when the party started. First Laney and Jessica showed up and then a couple whose names I cannot remember or where they were from. He would be the only dude at the table. The life of the party arrived next Rose and her x-sister in law Florence. That is really how she introduced them. Apparently Florence was married to Rose’s brother for thirty years until he became stupid and they remained friends. Florence was from Detroit and Rose lives in Jacksonville. Now Laney said she was from Missouri too but probably no one ever heard of it, Moberly. I said yes I knew where that was as the friend I got my beagle from (way back a hundred years ago) had cousins from there. Actually Brian had even been hunting up there. Such a small world. Laney also said her entire life people would call her Lanny. Well that immediately made me think of Lanny Donoho who founded and ran Big Stuf camp for around twenty-five years. (Camp is six weeks away!) Laney reminded me and Kayla so much of Allyson except for she’s about two foot taller! But they have the same hair cut, similar glasses, and mannerisms. She really was a lot of fun and combined with Rose the two of them talked and entertained the table the entire time. It was a blast for Kayla and I who don’t always talk much but listen to everything. Cruise with Steve

One lucky dude at a table with 9 good-looking women.

Our waiter was wonderful. His name was Phillip but I cannot remember where he was from. He really enjoyed the nightly performances the waiters put on for us. He was all smiles and really got into the singing and dancing. Just watching him was pure joy.

Rose was probably the best of everyone. She reminded me so much of my mom, crazy and fun all in one. She quickly noticed there was a table of hot young guys two tables over. She decided she was going over there to talk to them and have their picture taken. She found out they had just graduated from high school and were a baseball team. This was their farewell trip before they all went off to different colleges. They loved having their picture taken and ended up hanging out with her quite a bit in the casino. We asked them to take our picture and the one guy let Kayla know the other thought she was beautiful. After that I did notice the guys looked our way quite a bit.

Rose with hotties

The food was pretty good especially when the last desert of the cruise was my favorite. Lime sherbet and baked Alaska! I have loved that since I was a little kid and the best story involves me in middle school. We had just come back from ice cream and my mom decided to drive through Dave Montgomery (I had a huge crush on him from 4-8 grade) subdivision. He just happened to be outside and I panicked and jumped in the floor board and dropped the ice-cream.  I cannot not remember if I had baked alaska  before. I had always wanted to make it but was too afraid. If you don’t do the meringue correctly the ice-cream melts and it’s a big disaster. It was really good. The sisters always thought it was fish! They tried it as well. That was the night everyone had either two or three deserts.

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My husband asked me every night if we had steak and lobster. The answer was no, although if we wanted to cough up another twenty bucks we could. I did throw high fat, low carb out the window for the week and jumped back on program when I got home. There was soft serve ice-cream available 24/7 and there was no way I was skipping that opportunity.

 

Mole moral~ Never pass up good food on a cruise! One week eating like a crazy person will not kill you. I’m still alive so I’m living proof.