Shopping..

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I wasn't supposed to be born a male. I dislike shopping. Women are supposed to enjoy shopping, right? For me, it is like torture. I am fine to click a mouse and order online for the things that I need. But putting me out in the malls or shopping centers truly is like torture.

That being said, I live with my parents now. So I have to fit in with them. My Mom loves to shop. She wants me to go. I go because I want her to like me, but I can't fake enjoying it. I just can't. I dislike how people do not look where they are going and almost knock me over. I dislike spending 3 hours trying to find a gift for an Aunt who doesn't really need anything anyway- seriously, gift cards are my friend! I dislike it when cars try to hit pedestrians. And when registers don't ring up things correctly. I am not creative enough to shop. I also dislike getting gifts in general, I am always trying to reduce my items, not increase them. So maybe that is why. At any rate, my Mom told me today that we have nothing in common. I just want so badly for her to like me. I feel so bad that nothing I do is up to her standards. I try, but my interests are so very different from hers.

Maybe I would like shopping more if I had money. LOL Catch me once I dig my way out of these medical bills and have money to spend. Perhaps then I will like shopping. I doubt it though.

I also do not enjoy decorating for Christmas. I know that is just wrong on so many levels. I rarely put up a tree when I lived on my own. I think maybe I have sensory issues. Too many things around me make me uncomfortable. Plus it was just another thing for the cats to knock over. And my marriage was so bad that he was hardly ever home. And when he was he wasn't happy to see me, or the house. So decorating just wasn't my thing.

I am probably depressing people. I am not trying to! I just really wonder if I should have been born a man, since so many of my dislikes are shared by men LOL

Good news..

Well my chickens are rocking their Thanksgiving play rehearsals.

My sinus infection seems to be clearing up as there is no longer a marching band playing in my head :-) It is draining out my throat though so I am coughing. I have officially lost my voice. Today is day two of silence. I think I have ultra sensitive vocal chords, as I lose my voice a lot, about 4 times a year LOL

If anyone has any suggestions on how to ease the wicked pain on the left side of my chest and around to my back (from the coughing) let me know. I can't get rid of it with IcyHot. I guess it is a muscle very deep in the lungs. It is aggrivated.

Things are looking up for me. God is in control and I trust Him. Thank you to all who read/pray for me.

Feeling better

Well enough days have gone by that I am no longer freaking out about my car. The damage is only cosmetic. I can't afford to fix it, but I am remaining thankful that the damage wasn't worse. A friend told me "It's just a car." And it is.

I had a long lunch with my husband today. We actually managed to get along. I have laryingitis though so we communicated via my writing and him talking. He is still looking for a job. It must be hard being laid off right now. We still agree that we can not mend our relationship. We are both happier without being in that volitile situation.

I am still on the medicine for the sinus infection. I have been coughing so much, that is why I lost my voice. Last night I could not wear my BiPap mask for several hours and I woke up every few minutes. I don't know how I managed to live my life like that for so many years and not even realizing what I was missing out on. Eventually at around 5 AM I was able to breathe enough to wear it and salvaged about 4 hours of sleep.

I cleaned my room yesterday to get it extra clean. The slighest bit of dust bothers my allergies. I am washing all of the bed linens today as well. I can not wait for more frosts to kill whatever it is that I am allergic to outdoors.

You're kidding, right?

My life feels like a joke sometimes. Other times I wonder what I did wrong to be so punished? I feel punished sometimes. Today I do, anyway.

I was sick so I made an appointment with my doctor. As I was driving on the highway a ladder flung in to my car. My new car. I bought it because my husband took my other car from me. So it was new and it was actually mine and not his. And a ladder flew in to it and damaged the front. I can not afford to pay for it. I wonder if maybe I just do not deserve to have a nice car? It just seems that I have never had a nice car and when I finally got one, he took it from me, so I got one of my own, and then a ladder flings in to it.

Then I had to pay $75 for the medicine. I don't have $75 so I wont be able to pay someone out of my next pay check. I am praying for strength. I just don't know how I can get through this life anymore. I feel like every time I pull myself up I get knocked back down again. And I have to wonder what on earth I did to somehow earn this. The blindeness, the apnea, the thousands of dollars in bills that I can not pay. It is hard not to just curl up and die.

Thank you, Veterans!

Thanks to everyone who has served our country and their families :-)

Today was a boring day. I relaxed for most of it. I read some. I did some dishes. Nothing too interesting. It was a nice change of pace, having a day off in the middle of the week.

I am sniffling and coughing. Not sure what is up. I lost my insurance with my soon to be ex, and my new insurance is not good at all. So I am praying that I wont need to see a doctor. I am barely paying the medical bills I have already.

Court was cancelled on Friday. It will be rescheduled for after the new year.

I got 100% on the first month of BiPap machine use. So basically it pretty much fixed my sleep problems. Now the trick is keeping it when I can't actually pay for it LOL That is in God's hands :-)

Hobbies

Okay, time for something lighthearted for a change.

I am addicted to this game called "Farmville" at Facebook. I don't know, there is just something about planting, plowing and harvesting that really excites me. And the whole making fake money thing is cool, too.

I have one cow and two chickens. Plus a ton of crops.

I also enjoy the "Happy Aquarium" game. I have 9 fish and one crawler. Okay so basically I do not have much of a life right now LOL. But this stuff keeps me amused.

I dislike the word "victim", BUT!

When I left my husband I moved. Obviously :lol: Yeah, duh Jaime, of course you moved. Anyway...

I moved and I was worried that when my husband went to court, they might need to call me as a wittness. Therefore, I went out of my way to call the PA and make sure that she had my new phone number and address. Truthfully, I could really do without going to court at all, but I was concerned that one day I might get pulled over for a speeding ticket and get arrested for not appearing in court LOL

They said that they would be serving me with the papers telling me what day, time, etc. I already knew the day because my husband told my Mom the day his hearing was. The sherrif called and asked if I could meet him last Friday at a gas station to get the papers. I was there, he forgot the papers. He asked me to come again this morning to do it. I was there. I waited. He never showed.

So I call and the person who answered was so rude to me. He told me that the person who told me to meet him was off this week. Um, okay. And that maybe they would get me the papers by Thursday.

I am sorry but that is way beyond unacceptable. What if I have a boss who is demanding proof before letting me have the day off? I don't, but that isn't the issue. I don't know where in the world I am supposed to be. I don't know what time to be there. I don't know what they want from me, etc.

So he damanded that I come by this morning to get them. Um, I am already going to be late for work because your guy did not show. Now you want me to go 10 miles in the oppposite direction from my work?

He was so rude.

So I called the PA's office and told her that this was happening and that I was the victim and was being treated like a criminal. The only thing I did was get punched. I was not on trial. I did nothing wrong. I just do not understand why the police in my town can sometimes treat victims like criminals. It is not just me who feels this way, when I worked at the shelter I heard it a lot too.

Anyway, long story short, they said to come in tomorrow to get the papers, again going out of my way on my own time. Then they called to say that the case was continued and cancelled for Friday, I will get new papers.

I didn't even get the old papers.

But anwyay, next time they are coming to ME. I am not doing this again. They are earning a paycheck to serve papers to me, not to have me come in when they can fit it in to their schedule and to come in and have them cancel on me, etc. So either they drive them to my house, or they lose their wittness. I feel rude for feeling that way, but that is just how it is going to be!

Health and other assorted absurdities..

I have had some unusual health issues this year.

In July one of my students was crying at nap time. She was upset because she thought that her Dad was going to pick her up early to go to Grandma's house. I kept reassuring her that he would be there later, but she was convinced that her family had gone to Grandma's without her. :-(

I finally sat down and told her to go get another gigantic pillow from the book corner. I held her and eventually she fell asleep. I closed my eyes too. When I opened them, my right eye felt funny. It hurt a bit. I assumed it was from the detergent we wash the pillow cases in, because I am allergic to it.

Then that evening I went to another student's house for dinner. They have a dog and I am allergic to dogs. My eye felt worse. I assumed it was the dog, so I took some Benadryl and went to bed.

The next day I had lost a chunk of my sight. My husband insisted that I go to the doctor. I went to the local drop in Urgent Care clinic. The nice doctor there did a really thorough exam. He was looking for debris or any irritation. After about a half hour he gave up. He found nothing. He suggested an eye doctor and told me that if it got worse to go to the ER ASAP.

Later that night it was worse. The pain was pretty bad. My husband took me to the ER. Because I was able to read the eye chart, they did not believe me. They did a CAT scan and did not find anything. They gave me some muscle relaxers, told me that the eye doctor would be calling me and sent me home.

Two days later I was blinde in that eye.

The next day I was called by the eye doctor at the local hospital. I did not go to work that day, and my husband came home to go with me to the appointment. The nice nurse there had me do a color blindness test. I failed with my good eye. I could not see a thing out of the right eye.

The eye doctor walked in. Looked at the result of one of the tests the nurse had done, and told me that I probably had MS.

He didn't even know my name. He just glanced at the result of one eye test and told me I had MS. I stopped listening at that point. I started to cry. I wanted my Mother. My husband called her. She was there 10 minutes later.

They had to do another test on me, this one required that I lean in to a view finder and push a button when I saw flashes of light. It was hard to do with the tears streaming down my face. I failed. I think maybe I got one of them out of one hundred or something.

They called the neurologist upstairs. He was the one who had done the testing on my arms when I was being referred for carpal tunnel surgery. He got me in right then and there. I was a mess. I was crying. I was seriously irritable. He basically told me that the other doctor could not possible diagnose me with MS without any actual MRIs or testing. He admitted me to the hospital for heavy doses of steroids.

I did not enjoy that. I hated being there. They would not give me my medicine for my blood pressure. Then they put a sleeping aid in my IV without my permission. So I was up all night- I am one of "those" people who have the opposite reaction to sleep aids. I think I am like, the 5% or something. I was soooooooooooooo hot. The steroids make you feel like your insides are on fire. I figured my insurance was pretty bad so I knew I would be out the next day. They needed to do four MRIs though. I was too fluffy- for lack of a better word- for the hospital's MRI machine. This nurse came in and kept saying that I was too fat for the machine. She said it over and over again. Finally I said "Yes, I am too fat for it, I heard you the first 4 times." and she stopped.

My Mother drove me to another hospital with a bigger machine. That nurse had humiliated me. The new people were very kind. They did not use the word "fat" or make me feel bad at all. I was in the MRI machine for about an hour. It was very loud. They were worried that I would have an anxiety attack because it was pressing down on my stomach. I closed my eyes and started running the names of my students through my head. They make me happy. My marriage wasn't making me happy. That was all I could think about to keep me from freaking out. That I wanted to live to see my students again.

I missed a week of work. My Dad drove me to the hospital every day for 4 hours of steroid treatments. I was in the chemotherapy ward. They are very nice there. They probably have to be. Anyway, I was in a nice recliner, I had a TV, some magazines, they brought me lunch. I sat there and had the treatments for a few days. I remember one day I got back on the elevator to meet my Dad downstairs and a very surprised woman said "Oh, you are leaving?" I said: "Yes, I am only blinde in one eye, I do not have Cancer." and that made me laugh to myself. I was thankful for being blinde in one eye because I know that other people have it much worse.

I went home and I waited for my sight to come back. About a month later I asked my husband if I could borrow his flash drive for the computer. For some reason I wasn't able to get it to work. He called me names, like stupid, idiot, etc. Then he threw two candles at me. They made dents in the wall. Then he ripped a wire out of the computer and it stopped working. I wanted to print my lesson plans so I could leave. I don't know why it was so important to me to get those lesson plans, I mean, like, my boss would not have minded, especially if leaving right away would have prevented what happened to me next. I could not see out of my right eye at all. He came up on my right side. I did not see it coming. I did not see him punch me in the side of the head. But he did. I fell out of the chair.

I don't know how I got up, but I did. I think I knew that I had to stay alive. I was disoriented. I ran to the bedroom and grabbed the portable phone. I dialed 911 and he ran in after me and yanked the main unit from the wall. My cell phone had fallen out of my purse and I noticed it on the bed. I grabbed it and the call went through before he could take it from me. The police came. They arrested him. That was on August 2nd, 2009.

I have never fully regained my sight in that eye.

The police filed a restraining order on my behalf. When he finally got out of jail he went to live with his brother. I would have taken him back that night. I really would have. That is the sickness that is domestic violence. The next day I had an appointment with my therapist. He had been working with me for a year to leave this relationship. He told me that he had only ever given a direct opinion a few times in his career- they are not supposed to tell you what to do, that is not their job. But he looked at me and he told me: "I believe that he will kill you if you do not get out."

That was enough. I knew I had to leave.

Unfortunately I had to have surgery first on my right hand. Have you ever tried moving after carpal tunnel surgery? It is not possible. My Mother did most of it for me. If not for her, I just have no idea what I would have done. She is an angel. I swear she has wings. She packed me and moved me herself.

In September I moved back in with them.

Not exactly how I pictured my life. But, speed bumps, right? Not mountains.

Anyway, when I went for a follow up for the eye thing with my neurologist, he mentioned my other symptoms, my nasty morning headaches, etc. He suggested a sleep study. I went, and it turns out that I don't actually sleep. My oxygen levels were 49%. I stopped breathing 72 times an hour. And on a scale of 1 to 100, 25 is considered to be severe. I was at a 97. They told me that I must have really good moral character to be able to function in society, and that it was a miracle I hadn't been in a car accident. That was so scary for me. I almost died from sleeping. I laughed then too. I mean, who almost dies just going to sleep? Absurd. I have to laugh at these things, or else I would just cry or go insane.

I got my BiPap machine. I can't pay for it, but I have it LOL. I was dropped from my husband's insurance. I was able to get on at my work but it isn't as good and doesn't pay as much. I am looking for a second job and literally don't have two dimes to rub together at the moment. But I am alive. I am no longer living in fear of my husband. I am sure he could come here and try to hurt me, but if he can get past my Dad, more power to him. I am also not really afraid of him, I was more afraid when I was in his house than I am outside of it.


God is going to take care of me. And what is going to happen is going to happen. No use stressing over it. I get up, go to work, come home, go to bed and repeat. I find joy every day at work. Sure, there are times that I feel sorry for myself. And I have locked myself in the bathroom at work to cry a time or too. But overall, I am blessed. And I am walking to the chair.

Welcome to my blog!

I love to blog. I used to blog every day before my life fell apart.

Well, it did not fall apart exactly. It just changed dramatically.

My boss says that I am at a speed bump in the path of my life. Sometimes it feels like a mountain, but speed bump works!