Abscess ...what a mess.

Wednesday I had to go to the Emergency Department because I had a swollen area that was red and painful...turned out it was an abscess.

It had to be lanced and cleaned out and packed. Not fun! Thank goodness for pain medication.

I am recovering...been lying on the couch for the better part of yesterday and today. I go from excruciating pain to being so nauseated that I can't even consider putting anything in my mouth without gagging, to being so exhausted that I can't keep my eyes open...I hope this heals up quickly so I can get back to doing the things I love to do.
Just to gross ya'll out...here ya go...that is packing in the wound and it is not enlarged...that is the size of the darn thing...OUCH!

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HOLY WINDY DAY BATMAN!

Commute to work this morning : 17.36 miles. 15 mph winds from the SW, with gusts at 19 mph. Made it with an average speed of 14.6 mph.

Commute almost home: 12.5 miles. 21 mph winds from the W, gusts at 29 mph. Most of the ride I was heading North with the wind pushing at me...very tiring. I called home and asked for a ride 5 miles from town...I was cashed and my butt hurt.

First good ride of the year though, really of the past year and a half.

I'm tired. I am also feeling so good! I rode hard...I haven't smoked for 23 days. I haven't had an urge in at least a week! I am thrilled with how good I feel.

Tomorrow morning I am not going to be riding my bike to work. I'll be going for a run with my dog Izzy prior to driving to work.

Okay...Gonna take off and spend the evening taking a nap (?) lol! Kidding...gonna work on the caps for chemo.

Happy Riding my friends! It feels so good to be back on the bike!

Oh weekend...where did you go?

As much as I disliked the state of the weather outside this weekend, it sure would have been nice to be able to go outside and enjoy myself. It was cold and rainy all weekend though so I stayed inside and actually got a lot accomplished.

The upstairs is clean...and by clean I mean clean...the only way it could be cleaner would be if there weren't 3 preteen boys, a 19 year old and a baby living up there! Considering yanking out some of the carpet as well because the carpet is probably as old as the house and in Brendon's room it's also jacked up from the previous homeowner's kid being a pyro.

My front porch which serves as my office/craft/photography/library room (it's not that big, I just have a lot of junk packed in there) is now organized again after
 a long winter in which anything that people didn't want to deal with got tossed in there.

I finished several of the chemo caps as well as about a half dozen dishcloth's.

It's 36 degrees at the moment and I'm drinking this coffee not really wanting to get moving for work.

I have to leave at 11 a.m. to get Brendon to the cardiologist...Brendon wants to go to work with me. I'm still weighing the pro's and con's to this.

Oh, not sure if I mentioned but Bob and Chris actually moved the car stereo from my old vehicle to my Explorer....I went to the store yesterday and had the new Sixx A.M. CD cranked up in my truck. Hurray!

All right; there really is nothing to report. Safe and Happy Riding...I'm hoping the weather warms up so I can tackle this almost 18 mile commute soon!

Hospital

Wednesday I received a message on my cell phone when I came back to my office following morning report, the call had been from the school, informing me that Brendon had come in from playing basketball outside during gym (in 90+ degree weather) and had been complaining of chest pain.

I called back to the school, requested that they go get Brendon and let me talk to him...they did. Brendon informed me that he was complaining because his chest felt like it was being squeezed and he was having trouble breathing, which was apparently in the way he was breathing.

At no point did they get his inhaler and give it to him!

I left work and picked him up. When I arrived at the school, one of the district nurses had been called over, she informed me that Brendon really was fine, even though he was sweating and hunched a bit and breathing in gasps. She said his O2 was ok, his bp was okay, and it was probably just the heat. She also indicated that she had "felt" his heart because he had complained that it felt that it was squeezing but also that it was palpitating again (he had the palpitations quite a lot during Bob's chemo), but that she didn't feel any palpitations.

I left the school with him and took him to the hospital, where while walking in he was leaning on me and struggling to breathe. They put him in triage right away, shortly thereafter had him on Oxygen and then began Nebulizer treatments on him. 7+ hours in the hospital and his discharge papers indicated that he had been seen for Exacerbated Asthma.

To say I think the nurse was dead wrong and put my son's well being in jeopardy would be an understatement! I am very angry.

The following day I had to have him to his specialists, an hour away, the pulmonologist put him on a steroid for 5 days....Brendon's big concern was if the steroids were going to make his penis smaller!

Monday he will see his cardiologist and be fitted with a heart monitor to wear for a month to try to capture the palpitations and figure out what is causing them.

I believe that the school staff certainly doesn't want to see a child harmed, however, I believe that they lack the education regarding asthma, attack prevention and heart conditions...I say this because this is the second time Brendon has had a big asthma attack and they have not recognized it because he isn't WHEEZING! The nurse at the school actually had the nerve to tell me that his heart condition, pulmonary stenosis, is a lung condition not a heart condition....I had to explain what his pulmonary stenosis was and educate her...her response "Oh, I'm going to have to do some research on that." My response to that "I would suggest you do, and I would suggest next time you do that research prior to arguing with a parent about their child's diagnosis."

Day 3 following the attack and he's up with me this morning...sitting on the couch, feeling a little better, the humidity has broken and this morning is actually a little on the chilly side. Here's hoping he feels 100% soon!

Today I will be completely cleaning my upstairs and trying to find out if I can pull the carpet from his room to assist in giving him some relief from possible allergens that would contribute to his asthma (specialist says really silly to do the tests...we have cats, it probably doesn't help...I think the specialist has a thing against cats lol!).

Hot, hot, hot...

Yesterday it got up to 94 degrees here! Oh happy day! How I love hot summer days. (even if it's only spring!)

Did not do a workout this morning. Instead did a meditation and read my Bible. My prayer life is severely lacking lately...probably from all the stress lately.

Did you know that Worry is from an Anglo-Saxon word that means "harm" and is another form of the word "wolf"...hhhmmm interesting...I didn't go researching this - it was a portion of the meditation this morning...but, that would sum up about how that feels...So, trying to give it all to God and only deal with what's on my plate right now.

Enjoyed my grandson yesterday....who I babysat while his mother worked late. He was outside all night and exhausted by 9 pm. He started falling asleep in my arms.

This was him earlier in the night trying to shake the hanging plant off the Shepherd hook. He turned to me when I said "NO" and gave me this very unhappy with me type of look...apparently not liking what Avo says is part of the babysitting gig. HAHA!

This week is nursing home week: yesterday we had wheelchair races...oh my goodness, it was so much fun! Even if I raced against a guy who's friend has been in a wheelchair since he was a kid so they always have wheelchair races...my girls from the kitchen tried to help me and at the turn around grabbed his wheelchair to help me catch up...it didn't help for more than a second or two as I then ran into the wall! LMAO! It was so much fun! I high fived Jonathan (the guy who beat me) afterwards...even if he did have an unfair advantage. It was a blast and the residents were sitting at either end of the hall cheering us on! That's the kind of stuff that makes every other day of frustration in the nursing home seem so worth it! The residents were laughing and hollering and seeing them with big old smiles made the day PERFECT!

Okay, off to make a dish for work that I completely forgot about. Thanks to my friend & co worker Christina for the friendly text message at 5:50 a.m. reminding me of the need for a dish to pass!

Early Mornings before the rain...

It's about 5:30 a.m. I brewed some coffee while doing a short workout...went back to my martial arts training and pulled out some old workout stuff from that. Felt good, definitely stretched some things that haven't been stretched in a while.

Now I'm on my back patio, with my computer and a cup of coffee...watching my dogs be silly. It smells like rain and I know we are set for some thunderstorms today, and pretty much all week. It could really rain between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. every day and I would be just fine with that :o) By the way...I love the smell of rain.

Day 11 without a smoke...feeling pretty darn good!

Now to do the following with my spare time:
1. Learn to play the guitar...my friend Sarah will teach me...but of course charge me...considering looking online to learn some basics.

2. Finish the 200 hats for the St. Jude kids...

3. Seriously learn to speak Portuguese since my Mai has moved to Portugal!

4. Complete at least 2 - 5K runs this summer.

5. Complete the Beanzie Century Ride, and at least 1 other this summer.

6. Get my office/craft room area in order.

7. Prepare for the annual garage sale.

Well, I suppose that's enough to work on for the summer...considering I still will have birthday parties and the like to deal with.

Happy Riding my friends...hope to see you out there!

Morning Run fun...

This morning on our run, my dog Izzy, who is an english bull dog/boxer mix was not happy about seeing the police dog statue standing there. She stopped our run and crept up on it...this picture was shortly before she decided the dog was not going to be trouble! lol!


Day 10 without a smoke...going much easier than everyone expected...so stupid to have started back up when Bob was diagnosed...but what's been done can't be undone...move forward! Feeling great other than this bit of lung butter I began coughing up over the weekend...not much, not often but often enough that I'm totally grossed out! My body's way of driving home the ridiculousness of having this habit?

Oh...and happy mother's day to me...I have Motley Crue Tickets!!!!!!!!!!! HURRAY!

Not riding in this morning...figure I'll alternate for a while, run, lifting, cycling....redo. :o)

Safe riding my friends!

In other news....

Aside from planting my flowers and sprucing up my backyard...(constant work in progress when there are 4 boys, my 3 + my grandson and three dogs, always in the yard playing...here's what's new:

1. baby shower for an in-law yesterday. Yes...I like her...however, I do not like some of the people in the family who are very quick to be a-holes...you would think after 18 years they'd have gotten over trying to run me out...but I guess they aren't fast learners :o)

2. Gaven went on his Springfield field trip and was totally engrossed and amazed at some of the things he saw & learned...here's hoping this makes him a little more interested in LEARNING in general!

3. Had the meeting for Cody at the school, due to the grade 2 brain bleed he had at birth, his diagnosis of a processing delay due to this brain bleed and his social feelings of awkwardness the school has put into place some "helps" for him for his transition this fall into Jr. High. He will have an assisted study hall, either at the beginning of the day or the end of the day, either way it will allow him to get help with any homework he has. :) The social worker will also be checking in with him often to make sure he is adjusting properly. I am very happy with the elementary school, especially the principal who has always had Cody's best interest at heart.

4. I had my first bike commute to work the other day! Oh my gosh - it felt so great to be back on the bike. 17.3 miles - 18.0 miles depending on which route I take...I took the one that was pretty close to 18 miles. It was amazing, even if still a bit on the chilly side. I rode the Trek since the Wingra is still in the bike shop...the repairs were kind of steep and my finances have been in a valley with all the medical stuff happening with the kids and Bob. But, I hope to have it out of there soon and back on the road for this beautiful commute. There is 1 pretty long hill on the route that I took that really kicked my butt, I hope by the end of summer it doesn't feel like a problem for me.

5. Having picked up the habit of smoking during Bob's cancer diagnosis and treatment was stupid, especially since I had not smoked in 5 years...however, it was stressful and we all do stupid things once in a while. I have again kicked the habit...and am pretty damn happy about that development...as are my kids who keep asking me how many days it's been and high fiving me! :)

6. My hair is black now in case anyone didn't see my pics.

7. Read This is Gonna Hurt - it was a great book, the pictures and the writing are very thought provoking and make one seriously consider and perhaps reconsider their thoughts on beauty and the beauty of those surrounding them...as well as looking into themselves to see what they should be changing...or at least that is the impact it had on me.

8. I have recently picked up my very old Minolta camera and been out taking photos...alot...the cost of printing the film may put a hamper on this. I hope to get (perhaps for my birthday or christmas...hint to my family) a nice and new canon or nikon digital camera with lenses. :o)

9. I treated myself for mother's day ...and bought a 4 pack of tickets to see Motley Crue ! I'm STOKED! I saw them last year and I have to say Vince was disappointing...I know that's probably a crummy thing to say considering the guy is expected to sing every day during a tour and his voice probably hurts and it's likely he was having one of those days when I did see him...but I was pissed...like C'mon pretty boy...Sing to me...I didn't come to watch you put the microphone over the jerks in the first row who payed big bucks to come see you...I'm in these damn lawn seats...getting kicked every time some jackass walks past me stumbling around from a day of excessive drinking and what I really want is for you to make it all better with that sweet little voice of yours...Okay...off my high horse now...Vince has always rubbed me a little wrong, while on the other hand I think Nikki Sixx is AMAZING. :o)

10. It's Mother's day...to all the mother's out there - please have a beautiful, blessed, enjoyable day. Here the sun is shining, my family is still sleeping and my coffee is fresh...taco's at my mother in law's later will be a fun time!

Happy Riding my friends...

Spring has sprung...

I always feel like spring has come when my flowers are planted...below ...my flowers...this was how I spent yesterday evening! 

                                     ^a little arrangement of flower pots that I had lying around.

                                       ^ a built in flower bed on my patio...I think it's cool.

                                           ^ our fire pit from several years ago...I painted the metal red, took a few cinder blocks to help hold up the metal as it had some weak spots from using it as a fire pit, I took an old newspaper bag that Cassy had used while delivering papers which has been sitting in the shed forever and laid it down inside the firepit as a cover up for the holes and to keep the dirt in:) Then planted...Hurray for recycle and reuse!

                                         ^ Shephard's hooks & hanging plants :)

                                           ^ a single plant and an old bucket that was lying in the shed both filled with flowers.

                                          ^ This wicker basket I found lying in the trash one day when I was taking a walk. Picked it up, lined it with an old t-shirt that was set for either using as a rag or tossing...filled it with dirt and voila ...we have a pretty little flower basket.