The pain is gone! Hallelujah!

So I did go to Stanford and ended up having surgery on October 19 instead of the radiation, primarily because of a much higher success rate. I had a hole bored into the back of my skull, and the nerve ended up being trapped in 2 places, so he fixed them both by placing small pieces of teflon sponge material between the nerve and the artery compressing it. I had 2 days in ICU, then 2 days on the neurosurgery floor, then home. Allen stayed with me the entire time (I really have the measure of this wonderful man now!) and we sent Dean to Uncle Mike & Aunt Sammi's so he could get to school every day. Then my friends banded together and have kept us well fed and spoiled since I got home. I went back to work yesterday and only lasted 4 1/2 hours, and my brain is still swollen, which creates pressure, so I talk and move slowly and am pretty uncoordinated on the left side, but that is expected to be better in about 3 more weeks. And my hair is really short, so the shaved off part can grow back in while the rest of it is growing back too. The best thing is that the original pain seems to be gone, and we are so grateful. I never thought I would be happy to have someone cut into my brain! It's all a bit strange, but I am so thankful that it worked and hopeful to get my old energy back so I can get on with raising a teenager. And thankful to have friends that are my local family. If you are one of them, know that we love you!

Pain

So, pain. Pain that is constant, with you every second of every day, consuming, exhausting, overwhelming. That kind of pain. Hard to imagine, if you've never had it.

I had never had it. I have been in pain, of course, primarily when injured or after surgery. Let's see, there was a broken ankle that only needed a cast, a toe broken so badly they had to cut 1/4" of bone out and reshape the poor thing, all those surgeries for the dreaded gynecological stuff, a C-section, blown-out discs in my lower back and neck, that nasty pulmonary embolism last year, and more, all of which caused me pain. But I've never had pain like this. I have never had a migraine. I've never even had that "brain freeze" or "ice cream headache" that everyone else groans about. Oh, how things change.

In July of 2007, while cleaning out some old stuff in my new office at the school, I took down a stack of things from the top of the shelves and thick dust came down with it. That started me coughing and sneezing, and suddenly I had this horrible stabbing pain above my left eyebrow. That was it. It didn't go away, so I went home about an hour later, took some Advil and tried to rest. No luck. After a couple days of pain that went from "oh, my gosh, this hurts more than I can imagine" to "What the heck can be causing this?" to "I'm in too much pain to think and can't keep from crying", I went to my doctor, who sent me for an MRI of the brain and head. An aneurysm, perhaps? A brain tumor? Some other horrible thing that only Dr. House can diagnose? Nope. Just "hot spots" that could be so many different things, but the end result was that I probably wasn't in imminent danger of death. Advil did nothing to touch it, nor did codeine. A few weeks later, my doctor has decided I have trigeminal neuralgia. This is a compression of the trigeminal nerve - in my case, the upper branch on the left side. The pain radiates from a point above my eye behind/through and around my left eye, down to my upper jaw and up to my scalp on the top of my head. Oh, and did I mention also to the back of my head on the left side? And, although it gets more and less intense throughout the day and night, it never goes away. Never. Ever.

OK, so we have a name for it, now how about a way to stop it? Not so easy. Like I said, Advil and codeine did nothing, nor did heat, ice, massage, or anything else I or anyone else could think of. I couldn't sleep, I got short-tempered. (Yes, my husband, I admit that.) So I started some medication. Medication that they use to treat seizures, but it knocked me off my feet, so that had to stop. Hard to drive your son to school when you can't even walk without running into the wall. Try medication #2. That helped, a little, so increase the dosage, and keep increasing it until it really works, along with sending me to a neurologist for care, who sent me to physical therapy too. Therapy helped with the pain in the back of my head, which turned out to be related to bad discs in my neck. A visit to the ear, nose, and throat specialist and a CT scan of the sinuses told us that I have a cyst in the left maxillary sinus, but that it wasn't the cause of the pain either. Over the course of a year and a few months, my medication was increased until it was 12 times the amount I started with, and it was better but not gone. Unfortunately, the heartburn that came along with it increased too. Finally, the last straw - the burning got so bad that it made me cough non-stop, the coughing increased the pain in my head, which was the reason I took the medicine in the first place. Vicious cycle, huh? So, medicine #3 begins, along with medicine #4 to be taken shortly before bedtime. Better because it doesn't cause the heartburn, but makes me a little bit spacey. The bedtime medicine knocks me off my feet (deja vu, just like medicine #1) and I'm dead to the world within 40 minutes. The neurologist contacted the neurosurgeons at UCSF and Stanford. UCSF said they couldn't help me, and I should see a pain management doctor for different meds. (Gee, that's helpful.) But the good thing is that Stanford agreed to see me. There is a doctor there that invented a new treatment for TN using the cyberknife - pinpointed radiation - and he has had good success with it. I will be going down on Wednesday to see him, with high hopes for the possibility of treatment to finally take this thing away. So I will be running around getting my MRIs and CT scans to take along and my dear friend Mae is taking a day out of her life to drive me down.

So, have hope, cross your fingers, send prayers, and anything else you can think of that maybe, just maybe this can be dealt with and I can have a normal life again. I'll let you know the outcome.

Altered books, and other strange things

Poetry. That's the unit the 9th graders are working on in English right now, and it is all consuming. They have to create an altered book for their poems, and have been working on it for about a month now (mostly on my dining room table). What you do is: take an old hardbound book, glue the pages together in batches, and then decorate them like scrapbook pages with your poems on them. Well, since I have all the left-over supplies from teaching all those art classes, I ended up with many other kids here working on their books. There is paper, wire, chain, glue, tape, and lots of other strange miscellaneous stuff on my table, and I'm not touching it until the books are turned in - which is tomorrow. What has been cool is being able to read the poems, which are funny and sad and touching and silly and some heartbreaking. Dean actually wrote a poem about how hard it is to get up in the morning, and he has a line that says something like "my mom yells 'get up, you lout'", which is NOT true at all. When I asked him about that line, he said "yeah, but it rhymes", so apparently that was more important at the moment than truth. :) He wrote a haiku about coffee, which he loves, and one of his friends wrote a poem about tea, which he drinks because he hates coffee. Pretty funny. Anyway, then they have a Poetry Night on Tuesday, where each one reads one of their poems, and it is not only the freshmen, but also sophomores and a few juniors and seniors. It's a pretty big deal, and they publish a small book with many of the poems in it. So, Monday night, we pick up and reorganize all the stuff on the table, then put it away. I'll try to get a photo or two of the book and put it up for you all to see.

We went to the RVC play yesterday afternoon. They did Harvey (you know, Jimmy Stewart and the big white rabbit), and the kids did a fabulous job with it. Then we came home, some friends came over, and we had a feast of BBQed ribs, baked rice, garlic bread, beans, fruit, salad, and this fabulous chocolate/raspberry cake for dessert. We were stuffed! We had so much fun, just talking and laughing, and catching up, and it was in the mid 70s yesterday, so we sat outside and visited until about 8:00. Because the dining room table was covered with stuff (see above), we adults had the kitchen and the kids sat on the couch and watched a movie while they ate. Kinda hard to eat ribs on your lap, but nobody seemed to mind.

What to plan for a boy's 15th birthday, which is coming all too quickly? Any ideas?

What to tell you???

OK, I'm just as bad a blogger as I am a phone caller, so I'm sure there are lots of things to say. I have just been making my way through life and not sure what needs to be told. So, if you already know something here, just skip over it, OK?

Dean's basketball team finished with only one loss and solidly in first place. That's fun, but now it's over. He isn't joining the golf team after all, because we just couldn't manage the transportation issue. That's a bummer, because he really wanted to golf.

My new bosses are wonderful, and at my three-month review they agreed to adjust my hours. I am now working from 7:15 - 3:45 (officially), so I usually end up getting out of there by 4:00. I can actually get home in time to get dinner going and supervise homework, etc without feeling frantic. I was even able to pick up some kids at school last week and didn't have to rely on someone else to get them home. I am so grateful.

I'm trying to get the summer plans figured out, and that's always a bit difficult, but this year will be especially so. I'm actually starting to look forward to Dean getting his driver's license next year. (Please tell me I didn't just say that!) Calendar rearranging is going to be my biggest project this week.

I've been hating my office at home for a few years now, as it is not very efficient. So I've been trying to work out a new plan for it without spending a bunch of money on new furniture and stuff. I finally got it figured out yesterday, so am excited to just get some time to tear it apart and redo it. When it is done, it will be nice usable space, which will encourage me to keep it organized and discourage other people from just putting miscellaneous stuff in here. It will take a few weeks, I think, but my goal is to get it done before the end of April. That is a nice, long time away and it should be great when done. And the best part is that I need to get just a couple things and it won't cost much. Yahoo! Now if I can get something done with the yard this year, that would be a miracle!

Next Saturday Allen and I will have been married 17 years. There were times I thought that would never happen, and times I thought that our life was forever. Now I know that we just keep loving each other because we choose to, even when it's hard. Sometimes it's simply one day at a time, but here we are, all these years later, and I know some of you are shaking your heads. Amazing, isn't it? I better get taken out to dinner, though!

So, life moves forward, and days go by quicker than I think they should. If you are one of the many people I owe a phone call to, know that you are on my mind. I love you all.

It's nice to be loved.

I am alone for the moment, with my boys gone to the last basketball practice of the season. We spent a lot of time together this past weekend, though, just getting stuff done around the house (really exciting stuff like purging old files that were stored in the garage). Dean had kids coming and going all weekend, and we ended up with someone sleeping over every night, but that's all good with us. We had some yummy food and watched several movies over the weekend.

Last night we watched "Fireproof". I had heard so much about it that I pretty much knew the plot, but it still affected me somewhat, in that it did make me laugh and it made me cry some too. When all was said and done, though, I could honestly say that I can understand why so many people are impressed with it. The idea that you do have good and bad times in a marriage, and that you made the commitment "for better or worse" is one that many people can understand. What is hard to take in for so many couples is that you can make your "worse" times better with some major dedication to the person you're married to. I know I tend to be old-fashioned sometimes, but I believe that we have made it too easy to leave a relationship that struggles (and they all do sometimes). Once the word DIVORCE has been spoken, you can't take it back, and then it just sort of sits there like the elephant in the room. You may not want to talk about it, but it's still there. Obviously, I am not one to judge, having been divorced myself, but, now that I'm older, I do think it's all just a bit too easy. You think if it was harder to get divorced, maybe couples would treat each other better? Makes me wonder.

We have a few couples we know who treat each other with love and respect, even when they aren't happy with their spouse. That's a hard thing to do, but I am working on that part of my life. I have been trying to be less critical and more patient (you all know I am NOT a patient person under any circumstances) when things don't go my way, but now I am vowing to stop trying. I will simply commit to doing it. So, since I started out saying "It's nice to be loved", I will amend that with "and to love back". It must sound like I mean romantic love, and Valentine's Day did just go by, but I also mean any love. Friendship, family, romance, whatever. It's nice to be loved.

And so, my loved ones, I commit to you to be more patient and loving and less sarcastic and critical. Because I appreciate so very much how patient and loving you all are with me. I will make my love fireproof.

New stuff in the house

OK, the exciting thing is that after 26 years, I finally got a new fridge! (OK, I'm a cheap date; it doesn't take much to make me happy.) I got the kind with the freezer on the bottom and the french doors, and it is bigger than the old one, which is a good thing for someone who hoards food the way I do. And it's black and shiny, so it looks a lot different from the old almond one, but very nice. Of course, I had to put a few magnets back on it so it doesn't look too perfect. :)

The not-so-exciting thing is that our water heater started leaking a couple of days ago, and it had to be replaced. Of course, it held out for 36 years, so that's not too bad. Allen and his brother just finished that. We certainly didn't plan to have to buy two new appliances at the same time, but life has a way of not fitting into our plans, doesn't it?

Speaking of plans, it's time to start making the summer plans. Seems early, I know, but it sneaks up on us. Allen is riding a Double Century (200+ miles in 2 days) from Seattle to Portland in mid-July, so we need to be there in time for him to prepare. Then my dad's birthday on the 14th so we'll stay there til then, and a very close friend in Oregon's birthday right after, so I'm hoping to be there for her on her day, working our way home. Dean is planning to go to music camp at Donner again and he will be stepping into the drum major slot year after next, so he is supposed to go to drum major training camp this summer and next with the current drum major. Somehow I have to reconcile all this stuff with the fact that he will only be 15 and not able to drive himself and I can't take off to drive him everywhere this year. It will be interesting, that's for sure.

Dean is getting so tall and skinny; he's starting to remind me of my older brother. Typical teenage boy, he goes through days when he eats everything in the house, then he hardly eats anything for a couple of days. He's planning to join the golf team this year, so we'll see how he likes that. It will give him lots of practice, that's for sure. Tonight is the Winter Banquet, so he'll get all dressed up and go to an appetizer party first, then they go to Ca' Bianca for dinner. Yum! I wish I was chaperoning; I haven't been there for a long time. When I was in high school (and dinosaurs roamed the earth), kids didn't go to dances and such without a date. It's nice that they just go solo a lot now and hang out in a group when they get there. Lots less pressure that way.

Several years ago one of our couple friends came over on Valentine's Day and we had fondue. What a fun time that was! They have since moved to another state, but I remember that night with fondness. I'm thinking about having fondue for Valentine's Day again this year. It's on a Saturday, so we can take our time and have some fun with it. It's just as much fun looking through all my fondue recipes and planning it as it is actually making it, I think. (Remember, I told you earlier that I was a cheap date.)

OK, I've rambled enough. I have work to do. Love to all my family and friends.

It's a new year, so why do I feel so old?

That probably won't make much sense to you all, but it makes sense to me. If the year is new, shouldn't I feel new too? OK, OK, just kidding (sort of). I'm a little behind these days, because the year has been "new" for almost two weeks now. I don't think I goofed and wrote 2008 on very many things, so that's a good way to start off.

Dean and I had a play day the day after Christmas. He got some streaks in his hair and I got mine hacked off about 6 inches, then we went out to lunch and to a movie. We saw "Yes Man" with Jim Carrey, which was pretty funny, but had a few parts that we both were surprised about, since it was rated PG13. I don't understand why script writers feel the need to add swearing to almost every movie these days. It usually doesn't add anything to the movie that wasn't there already, so why not leave it out? Maybe more families could bring their children - although, now that I think about it, there were quite a few children there that were quite some distance away from 13. Maybe I'm just more sensitive than other people. I know I'm more protective as a mother, but hey, if mothers don't protect their children, who will? Anyway, blah, blah, blah.

I'm having a hard time getting revved up this week. I think it's time to do some purging, starting with my closet and then the office. Maybe even get rid of all those boxes of books collecting dust in the garage. Sounds like a project for this weekend.

And I eventually got those Christmas cards sent, but just in case I didn't send enough of them, here is the photo on the card. My sister-in-law took it on Thanksgiving Day, and though it isn't a fabulous photo, it really is us. (And yes, Dean was standing on the hearth, so is not quite that tall. He looks about 3" taller there than he really is.)

Love to all - and Happy New Year!