Sometimes it's Just One of Those Times

Picking a new team is scarier than scary. It's awesome though that my current Doctors are handpicking their replacements. (Yes, I still have not changed doctors since I moved almost 4 years ago; I just commute.) Look at me, sounding like we're putting together some elite task force, but what can I say, having the right people in place is essential for getting successful results... and as of right now, I need some good results.
I am currently and hopefully on the tail end of another migraine. The second in two and a half weeks, after not have one in months. I don't know if it is medication related but I cannot go back to dealing with these on a regular basis. Three days straight of intense pain and nausea, never knowing when the next will hit, is not living. It seriously zaps every ounce of positivity from my body... Not acceptable!!!
Which makes this so not the blog post that I've been mulling over for the past few days. I had every intention of posting a light-hearted, jab at myself over becoming a hermit since we moved and how much I actually enjoy life from my little piece of heaven.  I'm sure I'll feel like it soon enough. Sooner than later, I hope. 
Despite some strange medical issues, these last few weeks have been laying the foundation for a great 2016 in my business and personal life... I just need to figure out how to tackle the latest hurdle... Quickly!!!
I'm determined to make this my year of getting control over this. There is no other option!!!

Until Next Time...

It Came in with a Bang

2016 definitely came in with a bang... and not the kind you would expect.  Our night at home was going along perfectly.  It was just the two of us sharing drinks, loading up on junk food, having the best 2 person dance party in our kitchen, and just talking... things that we rarely have time to do with the husband being gone so many hours of the day and our one day weekends spent catching up on projects around the house.  We thought we'd sit down and watch a movie since it was still so early and about an hour into it, I could feel my body tensing up.  It's a feeling I have felt way too many times in the past 4 years and was hoping it would stay right where it was and we could finish our evening but deep down I knew better.  By the end of the movie, my nerves were on full alert and my nausea was almost at full force.  I looked at my husband and said, "I'm getting a migraine, I have to go to bed now."

I've suffered from severe migraines now for about 4 years.  For about 2 years of the 4, I was getting them twice a week.  With the help of a neurologist, we got them down to once a week and finally after a year of trying different medications, once a month.  Back in September, I decided that I was done being loaded up on all these medications (that were starting to not consistently work) and that I wanted to start tapering off of them to see if the medications were actually even working anymore.  I read up on all the yuckiness of symptoms from tapering them off, got my prescriptions filled one last time and prepared for a rough month.  I ended up having to go out of town for a few weeks and realized that I didn't have enough medicine to fully step down and my doctor's office said that they needed to see me before they would refill my prescription again.  I was over 2,000 miles away, so that was not going to happen. So the crazy and frustration kicked in and I stopped "cold turkey".  Inside I was freaking out a little but I figured, I already suffer from migraines and Crohn's, it can't be much worse that either of those... and thank you God, other than feeling pretty off for a few days and some major dizziness, the transition went fairly well.  My body actually felt so much better not being on them.  My sleep wasn't based on taking something and praying for it to work... it felt weird realizing that I was actually sleeping better than I had been in a long, LONG time.  I was still having my daily morning headaches but no matter what we tried, that has been the norm for 4 years now.  Until NYE, (other than two "mild" and short lived migraines) it has been smooth sailing.

Let's just say that 2016 did not start like I'd hoped.  The shop stayed closed (even though I had plans to launch new merchandise), the lights stayed off, the bathroom stayed close, my water glass stayed full, the husband stayed quiet as a mouse (except to check on me), and after a failed attempt to get migraine medication down and broken blood vessels around both eyes from it getting lodged in my throat, I stayed in bed praying for even 30 minutes of sleep.  I've tried every natural remedy I've ever come across to get them to go away with no success and I tried almost all of them again yesterday to still no avail.  It took everything I had to not spend the day crying and to be honest, the only reason I didn't is because it would just have made my head hurt worse.  I wanted to be strong but I just couldn't find it within myself.  Here on the first day of the new year, I already felt defeated.  Completely out of my control, yet, I couldn't stop it from making me feel weak and broken.  It's crazy how much pain, of any kind, can consume you.  At midnight, I decided that I couldn't wait another 8 hours to try to take some medication again and I grinded up those darn pills and got them down.  The 2 year old on a Pixy Sticks sugar rush pounding on the drum set in my head has mellowed and he/she is currently lightly messing with the kick on the bass drum.  It's not over yet but I'll take it.  I don't feel human but I'm upright... and I'll gratefully take it.

It's good to remember that even though January 1st is the start of a new year, it doesn't decide what the rest of the year is going to look like.  Each day is a chance for a new start.  Some will be good, some will be bad, and some will be down right ugly, but the next day the sun still rises on a new beginning... and thank God for that!!!

Until next time...



Thunderstorms and Clear Blue Skies

Oh my goodness, I'm actually sitting down and using our computer!  It almost feels like a miracle... to be actually sitting down and also to be typing on something that doesn't fit in the palm of my hands!  It has be a CRAZY past 5 1/2 months!!!  It was a super dark time filled with one thunderstorm after another and I am so thankful to be looking at the clear blue skies ahead!!!

The end of October I got sick, really sick.  I blogged about it so I won't go into too much detail but let's just say it got worse, a lot worse.  By the middle of December I couldn't handle the pain any more and was pretty much bed ridden. On December 17th I ended up having a procedure done to figure out what was going on inside and to alleviate some of my pain.  Let's just say that it did more harm than good...  Immediate after coming out of recovery, I could tell that my speech was slurred and that my tongue felt funny but the nurses thought that I'd bit my tongue and that the breathing tube might have scratched the top of my throat as it was being taken out.  I was still pretty groggy from coming out of the anesthesia so I really didn't know what was what.  When I got back to my parents' house, I was still slurring all my words so I was showing them where I bit my tongue and my dad gave me a funny look and said, "I think something is wrong, your tongue is crooked!"  So I looked and this is what it looked like...

After it wasn't any better the next day and my speech was the same, I called my surgeon and he sent me straight to the emergency room to be checked out to make sure that I hadn't had a stroke while I was under sedation.  I was diagnosed with Unilateral Hypoglossal Nerve Palsy.  It means that there was damage to my 12th nerve from the breathing tube during surgery.  There has only been 5 other reported cases of this happening ever, so I was like the freak in Room 12.  I was visited by every ER nurse and doctor and some even came over from the rest of the hospital to take a look.  I also learned that it could be permanent and that only one case had a fully recovery (after 5 months of therapy).  Thank God though my speech improved after 2 weeks!!! My tongue is still crooked but not nearly as bad.  My neurologist can't find any damage to any other area that the 12th nerve controls so I will take that as a blessing!!! 

The reason we did the procedure in the first place didn't pan out either.  The pain and the flare just wouldn't go away and I was continuing to lose weight like crazy!!!  By the middle of January, I was down 18 pounds and on a small framed girl like me, there isn't many places the weight can come from!  I felt like I didn't know who I was any more.  My life felt SO out of control and to top it off, my husband's job was coming to an end and we had to figure out where to go next.  And then BOOM... without any preparation or putting any extra money aside, my husband decided that we were going to buy a house!!!  He literally said it, he found a house he liked, we contacted a real estate agent, she showed us the house a few days later, we came home and got financing, put in an offer, and closed exactly one month after the day we looked at the house... it was one of the quickest closings that I'd ever seen!!!  But oh my goodness, was it stressful on me (especially since I had no clue what to expect)!  Trying to read and sign everything, and communicate with a real estate agent, a loan officer and your spouse (who wanted me to be the one to handle everything) while you are in so much pain, weak, and suffering from the most severe and constant migraines of my life had me living in a dark room and only getting up to find the next piece of information they needed or to go throw up whatever small amount of food I had managed to get down!

Once it was all over though, I had one last storm to get through... the actual moving and commuting between the 2 houses.  We weren't expecting to find something so soon and close so quickly so I ended up packing the house after we signed and we rented a uhaul the same weekend and moved the majority of our stuff to our new house... 4 hours away from the current one we were living in!!!  It was crazy! We spend Valentine's Day moving and returned the next day.  For the next month, I commuted back and forth between both houses weekly and we had so many extra trips to get the rest of our stuff because my husband was living at the old house while I was living at the new one.  Finally in mid-March, my husband got his lay-off and we were officially both in our new house!!!  

We have been crazy busy! The house is small but perfect for the two of us but there are many projects ahead to make it our own!  So far we've gotten a new refrigerator and a washer and dryer.  So happy to not be using our TINY refrigerator any more and not to look at it after my husband put it down on top of my foot... I'll save you the gory pictures of that one (my foot is still bruised and messed up but at least it isn't broken).  We've also started on our project list.  My husband is AMAZING and can build anything I ask and never stops working so we make the perfect team... I design and he makes it come to life.  He's already built me shelving in the linen closet, made me a new custom closet, and built shelving in our laundry room/pantry.  I'll post all those later as we finish things up but for now, I'll leave you some pictures of the view!  It's literally heaven on earth here!!!

One side of our house faces Whitehorse Mountain!

These are the mountains on the other side of the house!

And this is the view from my living room window!!!

See why I'm in love!!!

... and one more because it's just so dang gorgeous!!!

Enjoy your Easter/Resurrection Sunday!!! 

Until next time...