Hillbilly Heywoods

That is the current view out my back door. Isn't it just a bit hill-billy-ish? Just a tad! We've had two dead deer hanging in our garage since early Dec. Paul finally hauled one in last Sat. and let it thaw in my back room (it was so much fun stepping over that thing all day long!) and then started cutting it up that night. I had too much to do and wasn't planning on helping him. But then, our neighbor, the new mayor, called and asked Paul to come take a look at his furnace. Paul ended up being over there for several hours and so I ended up cutting up part of the deer. I was scoring points, I guess. Well, I didn't want Paul staying up super-late finishing it, either. He did, anyway. But anyway, he threw the carcass out the door (it needs to go in the garbage) and stuck the head in the snow to be funny. If we had not had an ice storm today I would have thrown them away before the garbage man arrived. As it is, I doubt he'll be coming today. I believe most of the metro is shut down and I highly doubt the big garbage truck is going to be able to make it up our roads. So, I'll try to throw it in before tomorrow. And we still have one more deer to go!

Paul and Will are actually over at our neighbor's today, installing a new furnace for him. I was so thankful that it worked out that way. Paul gave them a very good deal because Steve's (the neighbor) hours have been cut at his job, but it still gives us a little bit of profit which will make up for his shortened hours of late.

Well, the big news around here is that I will NOT be having surgery after all next week. I found out Mon. that my insurance was not going to be covering as much as I thought it was and we were going to have to cough up about $2000 to pay for it. I didn't like the sound of that at all! My thinking when I first learned that was that we'd have to wait until after March 1st, when our new flex spending kicks in and then use some of that to off-set that cost. But I hate to use up all our flex money at once, too. So, I went to see my dr. yesterday and we talked about it all. I found out that I could have the surgery done in the office, which would then only cost me my co-pay of $20. The down side to that was that Dr. Morgan couldn't do the surgery and I would be awake for it and there would not be as much pain control. I don't really like the sound of either of those. Dr. Morgan delivered Sam and she knows my uterus. I'd prefer her to do any messing around with it that needs to be done. And I'm not real big on pain. But, Dr. Morgan suggested that we try the Mirena for a year. It's an IUD that releases progesterone into the system, which thins down the uterine lining. She told me that when I had my biopsy last fall it showed that my progesterone levels are really low and need to come up, which was news to me. An ablation won't do anything for that. And sometimes they have to be repeated, down the road. I am leery of the whole Mirena idea because I'm not too fond of the idea of something artificial being placed into my body. However, it's easily removable if I don't like it. And honestly, surgery is just as artificial and hard on the body as putting something in it. So, I will give it a shot. Dr. Morgan said she wants to be the one to put it in because of my scar tissue. That's scheduled now for March 17. And there won't be any recovery time with this, either, which is a plus. Of course, the biggest plus is that it won't cost me $2000! I just hope it works and that it takes care of both my issues - the pain and the excessive bleeding. We'll see!

I saw my neurologist last Friday. I like him and always find myself joking around with him when I see him. Maybe it's because I always remember him commenting on my "medical smarts" when I first had my stroke. Having him say that really was a balm that day because I felt like all my brains had been emptied out of my head, along with my taste buds, hearing, and sight when I stroked. But I still came off as somewhat intelligent to my neurologist - which gave me hope for the future. So anyway, I like seeing him. I think some of it, too, is just the sheer relief I feel whenever I visit his office. I'm not as bad off as some of those patients being wheeled in there and it reminds me of how extraordinarily fortunate I am. So, we talked about all sorts of things - this time, mostly about my regular headaches. I finally agreed to try a daily drug so now I am on amitryptaline. I asked the dr. if my headaches could have anything to do with the fact that I am really struggling to read fine print these days. He said possibly, and then added, "It's not uncommon at your age to begin having eyesight problems." "My age"?? What's that supposed to mean? Unfortunately, I know what he meant - I'm almost 40, the decade where one rapidly loses their looks, strength, and health. You turn 40 and start out at the top of the slide, but by the time you get to 50, at the bottom of the slide, you've done a face plant in the mud below. Sigh...so much to look forward to!

Paul stabbed himself Sat. while skinning the deer. I thought it was kind of funny, actually. No, I'll tell you what was funny - He comes in the house with blood seeping through his jeans and announced that he just stabbed himself in the thigh. I had him pull down his pants and his long johns were pretty soaked with blood. We cleaned up the wound and he probably could have used a stitch or two. But I wasn't about to suggest it because it was just his inner thigh and I know that an ER trip would mean a $150 co-pay! So I found some non-stick gauze bandages and told him we'd put one of those one and then wrap an ace bandage around it to hold it in place. Well, when I peeled the paper off the bandage I found that it was not completely non-stick, so I just slapped that on his leg and skipped the ace bandage. Perhaps we should have shaved his leg before putting the gauze bandage on because when he went to pull up his pants, it jostled the bandage and he yelped as it pulled at all his leg hair! That was the funny part (to me anyway)!






We almost signed up for a Family Life Marriage conference last weekend, but ended up not doing it. I hope we won't regret it. They're having one in Des Moines in March and we have always wanted to go to one. They cut the price in half, too, which was a special just for last week. So, we thought and thought and almost went for it. The reason we ended up not doing it was because of the boys. I'm fine with leaving them home alone during the day, but the idea of leaving them overnight still bothers me. I think in another year or two that will change. And, sure, we could have gone to the conference and come home at night, which would have eliminated the cost of a hotel room and the worry about the boys. But we decided it just wouldn't be as much fun that way - to be all hyped up from the conference, and then have to come home to children, a messy house, and dirty dishes. We would rather wait until we could just have the whole weekend to ourselves. It was a hard decision!






I have three leak marks on my new kitchen ceiling - not a happy homeowner! Sam has lost his fascination with potty training this week. But since I know now that he has the capability of doing it, we're not stopping! But it's been more of a struggle to get him to sit on the potty this week. So yesterday morning he was running around naked after I had to completely strip him because he had soaked his training pants. I went upstairs to get him some dry clothes and before I could do that, he had urinated all over the upstairs landing. This landing doesn't have carpet on it anymore. We took that out last summer and I painted the old floorboards white and it looks so nice. Well, what I didn't realize was that without carpeting and new flooring, there are gaps between the boards. Even though I cleaned up his spill, it still went down the sides of the boards and leaked onto my new ceiling. Ugh!






Speaking of which, it's time to take him to the potty again. It's hard to believe that I had all my children trained for years and I volunteered for this again - worse than having a new puppy! Hopefully, next week I'll be back to my normally refined self and can put the memory of this week behind me!