I guess every family has to have a little drama, right? And certainly everyone in my family has been under a great deal of stress lately. I guess it's no surprise, then, that family drama is something I'm having to deal with but dangit it's wearing me out! I don't want to deal with it!

My mom has flipped her lid. Yup, tis true. She's mad at my sister and as such didn't bother to come and pick up my kids this morning, nor did she have the courtesy to call or check to see how I was doing or any of the common decent things one might expect of a parent. Said she's tired of helping people. So I'm dealing, and I have four of the five here this week while hubby is working from 6 am until 8:30ish pm. What else can I do?

I do hate stupid family drama. What happened with my sister has nothing at all to do with me and even if it did I would have at least appreciated a phone call and a "Heads up I can't watch your kids today, or ever, or whatever." But no.

Thankfully I'm feeling fairly good and am (so far) managing to keep up with the four of them.

I think I'm ready for vacation... I'm working entirely too hard here. I was just watching some show about theme parks and thinking how fun some roller coasters might be right about now. But then again, I guess I'd better wait for the surgical wounds to heal first. Roller coasters might be painful at the moment. I'd really like to go somewhere, though, just me and the hubby, and have a little time to reconnect. This has been rough on us to say the least. I also really wanted to take my teenager white water rafting this summer, but I'm afraid that too might have to wait until next year. For now I'm just thankful to be here and able to function in a somewhat normal capacity, but these are the things I think about as I start to feel a little better and have a little hope for tomorrow.

Hubby has been a jerk at times, and he still makes his share of mistakes, but I know he has been so worried about me and so clueless about the kids and he's really done the best that he knows how to do. How can I fault him for that? I'm trying to forgive the shortcomings - no one is perfect, and really he does most things I ask of him. The kids are still alive, and presumably healthy . Still he's managed to get to work and deal with a lot of the household things that I usually take care of. See, he can do it in a pinch! Not as smoothly as yours truly, but still.

My bills were mostly behind this month, as he didn't know how to pay any of them. So only the ones that I had automatically set up were paid on time, and those were close to bouncing as I didn't make my usual deposits. Oh well, what's a few late fees in the grand scheme of things?

I've also discovered the joy of junk food this week, and it has been an adventure! Who knew there were so many convenience foods out there that I could just pop in my microwave and voila, insta-dinner! I just usually don't buy this crap! But when I got out of the hospital Monday, I made my mom take me to the grocery store where I hit the frozen section and bought all kinds of CRAP so that I could eat without cooking while I was home alone this week. Some of this stuff is yummy! Although I don't think I could afford it on a regular basis, it was expensive as hell which I guess is why I don't usually buy it with all these children and teenage appetites and such. At any rate, right now I'm eating some steak and cheese taquitos that I deep fried for 2 whole minutes and they are so tasty! I'm sure they are horrible for me, but they are too yummy. This stuff is probably addictive. I'll have to add this to my book chapter of things I discovered while I was sick.



I can't wait until it really is past tense and I can look back and say, "Oh yeah, that one summer when I was so sick! I remember that! It sucked, but I learned so much about myself and life and frozen food..."

I got them, I got biopsy results! And it could be a helluva lot worse! I have some lung disease that 1/3 of the people who get it recover completely from, and 2/3 of the people who get it simply have to live with flare ups like I've been having. It runs a different course in every individual, and I'll just have to wait and see how it's going to play out. It's not fatal, it just might need to be managed with medications, steroids and so forth, and it may (will) require a lifestyle adjustment on my part at least temporarily.

So yay!



He recommends that I take this year off from nursing school and resume studies next fall to give my body the best chance to heal itself. It can take up to a year to recover from this, so it's better to take the year off maybe, take it slow, recover, and see where I'm at next year. I may not have any issues by then.

I don't have much time or energy left after running all day today, but I did want to post that update since I know you guys were waiting with me.

I'm up and about this morning waiting on my mom to show up and pick up a check which really *has* to be deposited in my bank today. I don't know why the world just doesn't stop when I do, it isn't right! All my damn direct withdrawals are still being withdrawn, only I haven't been making my usual deposits. At any rate, I thought I'd take a moment to write a short update since I was sitting here anyway.

I had a major fight with one of my pulmonologists before leaving the hospital Monday, and really didn't feel ready to come home. He did wind up saying that I could stay another day or two, but by that time I had already pitched such a hissy fit and felt so silly that I really just wanted to get out of there. So I did. He was one of those guys with a God complex and made me feel stupid just for asking simple questions. Seriously though, they came to discharge me and didn't even tell me how to change the dressing on my surgical wound, when to change, or even IF to change... what to do in case of seepage, bleeding, increased shortness of breath, when to call the dr... they told me that I'd be coming home on oxygen and breathing treatments via nebulizer, but didn't bother to tell me how to get said oxygen and nebulizer... and they yanked me from the dilauded pca and didn't even want to send me home with a tylenol. I guess my pain just magically disappeared the moment the IV came out. I was more than a little upset and quite frankly I'm still not over it.

I can't believe that I had to have such a hissy to get a nurse in there to explain how to get home oxygen. This is something that should have been handled by social services or the nursing staff anyway, patients do NOT deal with setting up home oxygen. And when I got home, I realized the dr. didn't write a prescription for the meds for the breathing treatments, so for that first night I had a nebulizer but nothing to go IN The nebulizer. I had to wait until the next morning when I could call the dr. to fax in an order for meds. I'm sitting here with this neb. wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do with it, thinking I KNOW there's something else but where is it....? Makes one feel so stupid because they act like you're supposed to know these things or that YOU'RE the one who f'd up. Not so!

At any rate, my daughter stayed yesterday with me and was most helpful and today I'm feeling a little stronger and a little more like myself. Which is good, because she's on vacation with her dad now and I'm home alone for the next few days while hubby is at work. My mom has the little guys, so I just have to take care of me... that's not so hard.

I have an appt with my regular pulmonologist later this afternoon, maybe there will be results from the biopsy! I'm not holding my breath at this point. Originally, both the surgeon and my pulmonologist told me they'd have results by the following Monday, when the surgery was on Friday. Of course that was almost two weeks ago, and the guy on Monday told me it might take another two weeks. How can it take so freaking long to look at a sample of lung tissue? It's driving me crazy! But maybe today there will be results and maybe I'll actually know something. This waiting is for the birds.

Well it's a good thing I type fast since this wasn't much of a short update! Hope y'all read fast too!

I'll post as soon as I know anything, and I guess you can consider no news to be good news.

I'm home. That's about all I can say. I'm not doing better. In fact, I may be doing worse. Things are a mess. I'm really trying to lay low, stay in my room and take it easy so that's where I am if I'm scarce here for a few days.