Treated to a night out.... USMC Ball

The evening was beautiful!  The ceremony was amazing and I was very honored to be invited by our good friends to the United States Marine Corps Ball.  Would you believe this is the only picture I have of us that night?  I had to steal this from our friends, too. 

We also had the honor to shake the hand of a retired 4 star General, Al Grey that evening...  That was an honor!  He gave a wonderful speech and it was very inspiring to listen to him talk.  What a great man.  Oh, I also stole this picture....  Here is the general at the cake cutting ceremony.  

Such an inspiring man!!

I had a great week and was almost completely in tolerable pain levels from Thursday until tonight.  I think the warmer weather helped a lot.  I'm thankful for the break my body gave me that I was able to attend that evening with our friends.  They are great company and have done so much for our family.  Certain people are placed in our lives for different reasons...  I know they were placed in ours for a very special reason.  I am blessed to be their friends!

I will insert pic of dress here...

Bryan was looking especially nice that evening, too.  He pulled out his suit jackets and found he fits into them again!!  He has been working out while I have been filling in!!  Haha!  I have an appetite now and I am so happy to be able to taste food again.  I've slowed down though.  I have never weighed this much our whole marriage, minus pregnancies.  It's not a lot, but I'm rather worried about not fitting into my clothes anymore.  It's not like I can just go out and buy myself a new pair of pants!  Slimming down is much less expensive.  So I need to build myself back up to working out again.  I'm getting a great workout doing chores around the house.  Plus, I found out that warming up by the fireplace helps my joints a lot. 

Anyhow, I got off subject.  We had fun, it was a great break and the food was fab! Best of all was sharing it with good company!   Happy Birthday Marine Corps!  

Yard work, dresses and bangs... Oh, my!

I'm sitting here by my fireplace and am listening to the children play outside.  I'm so blessed.  Last night our churches youth group, (boys and girls ages 12 to 17,) and their leaders, held a service night at our home.  I wish I had taken pictures of them....  It was too dark.  These kids are so awesome!  I mean it.  They worked hard last night and were smiling and having fun at the same time.  

My back yard needed a big trim down and clean up.  They pulled weeds and old garden plants, trimmed grass and bushes; Winterized a few plants for regrowth next year; trimmed a tree down, (most of it died); and gathered trash, raked leaves and made us a beautiful fire pit pile for later in the week.  They even blew out the rocks and cleared the path on the side of the home to the front yard.

Here is a few of my yard this morning.

This was covered in leaves and debris.

The trash pile in the old pool and the pit pile in the back.

Garden is cleared and ready to be worked.

I can get to my shed now!

The rocks are my bane...  I would rather have grass that I can mow the leaves into.

I can get to my swing and not be kicking the massive leaf pile underneath!

This is a beautiful view...  Especially knowing it will all be cleared up soon and I can plant some winter grass.  I hope I have some seed left in the shed.  I used to have grass...  And I would always blow off the patios and power wash the sandstone off.  I'm a stickler for a dirty floor and now that the yard is all dirt it's almost impossible to keep it up.  Grass should help.

Tomorrow night we are going to have dinner outside over the pit.  I'm too excited!  It gets dark enough to start around 5:30 or so.  Two years ago I hung these icicle lights and I loved it so much I left them up!  It makes it fun and the kids have a bit more light to play by at night.  

The icicles go almost all the way around.

The BBQ is our landlords also...  Can you believe we hardly use it?

My kids and their toys...  What's not showing is the slide climber they have.  It all takes up so much room on the patio.  But they still play with it.  The kitchen to the left is their favorite.

I am happy!  I really love the out doors.  I love the sounds and smells...  Well, North Las Vegas isn't the prettiest smelling with the pig farm near.  We usually don't get the smell by our home.  Just the traffic from the main road about a mile-ish away.  We have great neighbors and lots of privacy here considering our houses are so close together.  I used to have a swing at the old house.  It folded down to a solid bed.  It was awesome.  Here our landlord left us an old two seater.  It works since we couldn't bring mine from the old house.

Anyhow...  My husband and I are invited to a military ball his weekend with our good friends.  I had a dress purchased from Salvation Army a while back.  It was plum and fit perfectly.  Floor length, silver accents.  Well, I tried it on today...  I gained weight.  Too much weight.  By like 3 inches.  This is the most I've ever weighed in my life minus pregnancy.  So it hit the thrift stores.  Tried on two and found a perfect fit.  Just the color is not what I would pick first...  But it is one of my favorite colors and it was $19.99. I can handle that splurge.

I'm calling it orange.  It's not tangerine, peach, or ...?  It's literally orange.  Well, I will find out if I can pull it off when the pictures come back from Saturday!  Haha!  It won't be hard to find me.  I'm sure I'll stand out.  BAM!  There's Melissa... The orange, autumn, pumpkin...

I also took my 4 year old spitfire out with me to the mall to look for a cover for the dress.  In hindsight I should have just gone to David's Bridal...  They have the ones I want for $9.99.  Anyhow.  My little lady wanted to play first so I took a break and let her have at it.  She was shy at first which was funny...  She is NOT shy.  Then she helped me look in every store possible that could have what I needed.

It was so nice to get out but was the dumbest idea...  I walked way too much.  WAY TOO MUCH.  I got home and now I can barely move.  Go me!  I had a lot to do today but my dress predicament sort of took over.  So I only accomplished one other thing...  I cut my bangs. 

My friend is going to kill me.  It's ok, I'm sure she can retrim them next week when I go in to see her.  She's pretty awesome, too.  I have a lot of good friends who put up with my non socializing self lately!  I have been trying to get out more.  I think I'm doing pretty good!  The cold weather stinks for my RA but I am managing.

Well, now I'm rambling...  It's pretty nice to not talk of Lyme all of the time.  I'll post pics from Saturday's ball!  Have a great weekend!!!

Painting: Check!!

I did it!  I finished painting my sons room!!   I just need to tack up the thin trim between the two colors and place the window trim.  Then it's curtains, closet doors, setting up the shelves, and the task of separating the boys toys.  

The picture looks a bit yellow because of the bulb.  I prefer the natural white light or day light...

Oh, this picture was my inspiration for his room.  He has biplanes on his bedding in these colors.

LJ loves it.  I can't wait to set it all up.  The coolest thing about this room is everything was already in our garage.  We had bright red and medium blue paints...  We lightened the blue with another white we had and added a dark brown to the red to make it deeper.  We didn't have green so we are glad the brown worked.  The tape, brushes and trim were also from our previous stash.  It was painful to paint but felt good to be doing something.  

I used the fan in the window again today and it brought the temperature down quite a bit.  So my body literally froze up a lot!  I find I sleep better with a heating pad under me at the lowest setting.  It feels SO good!  Well, good night ya'll.  There is more work to be done tomorrow...!

Friends are like pain pills

Sundays are my favorite.  It's the only day I don't feel guilty for resting.  It's one commandment that I take seriously...  And on the 7th day God rested.....  It gives me time to ponder and reevaluate my previous week.  I can plan my upcoming days with clarity and put things back into perspective.  

Today was rough for me.  I have inflamation and arthritis horribly...  Not sure if it's from Lyme arthritis mixed with the cold weather or from accidentally eating gluten yesterday and my body is inflamed from it.  Either way it hurts. 

My ribs, hips, elbows, wrists, ankles, spine, hip joints, neck, knees, oh, I could go on....  It all hurts so bad.  I have been on the edge of crying all day.  But instead of lying in bed I forced myself up.  Put my hair up in a ponytail and went off to church.  ( I hate when I don't do my hair for church.  I like to look nice and put together so it just bugs me to wear it up like that.)

I have this coping breathing thing I do which is pretty much a concentrated sturdy breath that helps me from crying or moaning out loud.  I constantly stretch my joints out looking for relief from the stiffness but it just seems to make it more sore.  I listen to my nature soundscapes and try not to focus on the pain.

I am trying to plan an adventure to get me out of my recently created comfort zone.  I know whatever it is will be putting me down and out for a while but I will just plan for it.  Line up sitters and premake the meals.  Pick an open time on my schedule...  Haha...  And just go for it.

I love a lot of things but don't know where to start.  Hiking, swimming, biking, Zumba, or maybe a game of volleyball, softball or something of the sort.  Just to show Lyme who's boss.  I know it will show me later, (ha,) but I am so tired of not doing the things I love.  Even the simple things.  Right now I'm working on my sons room...  One more color and it's done.  Just trying to find a day to do it with a recovery day after.

I had a thought today that I shared with my hubby, on how my friends are like pain pills.  They help alleviate the pain, distract from the moment and get me though the toughest spots.  Seriously, just like my pain pills I couldn't get through this with out them.  I don't take my pills much so that's where I need my friends.  (And yes, my family are my friends, too.)

It really hit me the other day when a good friend of mine stopped by with her husband and visited us.  I was almost completely distracted from my pain and discomfort!  I know how important it is to visit the sick and grieving but that night I experienced a reminder of why it is so important.  

Since I can remember I have dealt with severe depression.  I feel I have it finally under control...  Even through all the trials in my life right now.  But you never know.  That night I was super depressed about not being able to go to church again.  I felt I had let so many down.  I didn't even pull myself back into consciousness until church was almost over.  So I was a no show.  But my friend visited me that night and I felt better about my circumstance and knew I was still loved through it all. 

In my life I have known many people to come out of the woodworks about depression and it really is a common thing.  For some reason people just don't like to talk about it.  It appears to be a sign of weakness or incompetence.  I don't like to bring it up but when I feel the spirit prompt me to I certainly do.  It can feel like a lonely world out there and any illness, including mentally, can make it feel a hundred times lonelier.  

It's so important to have friends.  It's so important to have your life in tune with the spirit to be able to hear the promptings of the spirit and more importantly to act upon them without doubt or question.  Our Heavenly Father has not left us alone.  He is here and we are his instruments in the miracles and blessings he pours out unto us.  But how can we be if we don't act.  Our lives should be full of service and love...  We may live busy lives being swept away with things we feel are important to us...  In the bigger scheme of things it's our relationships with others and showing them unconditional love inspite of our differences and opinions.

You may never know how much your acts of kindness will play out in the lives of others....  But they do play a role.  It does matter.  So when you are feeling down or are going through a tough time...  Get up and serve.  It may be one less "pain pill" they will have to take because of you.

Demons

I feel like I've had a lot of demons to face lately.  This last year has been one big emotional roller coaster ride for me.  

It started with getting sick with a horrible flu.  Down for days and hating the havoc on your body.  Canceling last minute because you can't get out of bed.  Having your family eat cold cereal and dreading homework time.  You take the forced break, which isn't really a break, nonetheless you catch up on shows, watch movies you haven't seen or love, maybe do a marathon.  I believe I finished a book, started a new novel and caught up on much needed sleep.

Then it was being sick for longer than a month.  Talk about annoying.  You feel like you miss out on so much.  Everything gets behind.  The house is a mess, children are running wild and homework is barely  kept up.  Children are now eating quick fixin meals and scooping Nutella while mom is in bed.  Chores are put on hold and kids dance around toy piles as if they are bonfires of joy from not having to pick them up for now.  Your husband starts to feel the stress of taking on extra at home...  That is if he is home and not traveling.

Then you stay sick for the holidays.  That's right.  December is a busy month...  There is the attending plays, parties, school performances, award ceremonies, taking children to their holiday activities.  Oh, let's not forget making and delivering holiday goodies to schools, friends and neighbors or having to shop for Christmas lists and birthdays.  Then there is visiting the sick, helping those in need at this time of year, calling others to connect during this busy time of year so we can have a moment to cheer each other on.  Don't forget decorating the home, wrapping presents, planning events and entertaining children on a dreaded two week break...  ( ok, for me that is not a fair statement.  I enjoy my kids home...  Just not when I'm sick!)  Imagine all this and tons more I forgot to mention and your are still sick.  Even worse x10.  You just can't do it.  At all.  What you do try to accomplish you barely succeed and mostly because someone else did it for you.  You show up late to everything, come bundled up and wearing earmuffs to everything because the cold is too much for your ears.  Can't see very well, everything is so bright and you hiss when your sunglasses have to come off.  Holding a thought, participating in planning or having any contribution to conversations is horribly skewed by massive migraines and horrible foggy thinking.  Your entire body aches and it's NOT the flu.  You're not contagious and life must go on so you trudge through hoping no one will judge.

Then the holidays pass and there is peace.  Kids are back in school, things slow down.  But not when you are sick.  You still have a kid on vacationed, holiday damaged, let's put away the decorations and plan a new year month to go through....and you are sick.  So much pain that you beg the doctor for pain meds.  You give in and take them because no one knows why you are still sick and in pain.  The pain meds help.  Emotionally they help a lot.  Having the edge filed down makes impact not as painful...  But the pierce is still there.  You sleep....  For days, weeks, all of a sudden the month is gone.  Time to get off the pills.

February, the lovers month.  Imagine my husbands stress level by now.  I still can't.  I don't think I ever will.  Lucky me gets to lay in bed and rest while others take over for me.  The pain is so intense you start calling it manic pain.  It seriously drives you mad.  You yell at your kids, you yell at your husband, you yell at yourself.  You yell at the dirty laundry and the dishes with dried food.  You cry.  You cry after every bout of yelling because it's not you and you can't stand it.  You don't like what you are turning into.  This is the month I got the first call...  It's Lyme, let's send you to a specialist....  Seriously the very next day I got the comment, "oh, I know someone who has died from Lyme disease."  Thanks, that helps...  

The next month rolls around and you are given a slight break from the pain by a weird anomaly that is quite a miracle!  Doctors office calls and tells you based on results it's not Lyme.  Not enough antibodies showing up.  Great, but not great.  Thank goodness it's not Lyme.  That would be horrible!  Time for tertiary care, you know as in Mayo Clinic or UCLA.  Still sick still frustrated not knowing what happened to me that shoved me to the ground and has kept me there just taunting me with pain...  Every... Single... Day.  

Now it's getting ridiculously absurd.  I am quite useless in my mind to my family, friends and church calling.  I seek other doctors for second opinions with everyone of them wishing they could figure it out and help me in someway.  They see the desperation and despair.  They hear my short story and all recommended Mayo.  I call and the wait is THREE months away.  I am about to lose it.  I emotionally cannot deal with it another day and every doctor visit is weeks in between.  Now I have to wait longer? I did lose complete emotional control for a few days.  I was begging and pleading with the Lord to help me find a diagnosis.  So when another doctor asked why I was not seeing the infectious disease doctor I was recommended to I laugh hysterically.  You mean the one who's assistant told me the relayed info that I didn't have Lyme and my case wouldn't be seen?  Yeah, that one....  I am now questioning him...  He says you have Lyme.  I panic.  WHAT?  I thought I was safe from that....  Well, then I decide to get the opinion of two Drs.  But MORE waiting.

Months have gone by and finally a confirmation of Lyme.  I'm over it now and just want the fix.  Treatments properly done are way too expensive for an average family.  My heart sinks.  At least I can try to treat the disease here locally and be on the road to good health.  I feel uplifted.  Hopeful.  Most of all relieved that this will all be coming to an end.

Treatments were rough the first two months, I'm not going to lie.  But I had things covered.  Meals, rides, donations...  I had delegated everything.  I focused on myself getting better.  When the third month came around I lost a lot of support.  Mostly my fault...  I completely underestimated the second part of treatments.

This is where I find it all became more and more difficult to keep my hope up.  Frustration set in because I wasn't getting better.  What I had feared with the "band-aid" treatments was coming to life.  I wasn't getting better.  I was out of bed mostly, but still dealing with total body pain, insomnia, brain fog, heart problems, nerve issues and just the most debilitating fatigue you can imagine.  I start to get angry again.  Short tempered and pleading for relief. 

I still cannot adjust to this new me.  I feel sometimes it won't ever get any better than this.  If I go anywhere, do anything, besides rest...  I am down for days.  Total pain and bitter from the consequences of trying to be normal. 

I accept this is my trial.  I accept me.  I will not accept this disease.  I can't give in to believe that this is as good as it is going to get.  Our marriage is fighting it.  Our kids are fighting it.  Our families are fighting it.  Our deerest friends are fighting it.  Even people we don't even know are fighting it.  Yet here I am wanting to quit.  It sucks.  It sucks so bad, (and I hate that word.)  I am always putting on a smile, a show, a facade of normalcy and it sucks.  Inside I am falling apart.  I can't bare it anymore.  I ask God to take it from me...  To give me some hope.  To give me a break from the pain.  From the crashing for days afterwards.  From the feeling of incompetence and inadequacy.  I want to step outside my body for just a minute to remember what it feels like to be normal again.  To not have the desire to quit everything.  (Nothing suicidial....  My TWO "happy" pills take that from me at least.)  

I spend many hours in anger from the pain.  It is maddening.  No relief.  None.  Someday's are better than others, yes, this is true.  But not what I thought it would be.  The part that gets me the most is knowing what this bacteria is doing to me...  And what it is causing my body to do.  It is an autoimmune disease.  The Lyme bacteria doesn't want to harm its host...  No, I'm keeping it alive.  However my immune system cannot reach to where the bacteria spirals itself into.  Nerves, muscle, bones, cells....  My body knows it's there and attacks it...  But it's hiding.  So in the proces my body attacks itself over and over with out end.  This is where my symptoms come from and where my frustration lies.  My already damaged immune system will slowly destroy my body until it gets every last one.  

Having this knowledge is good and bad.  I try to overcome it thinking it's all in my head.  This holiday weekend has proved one thing to me.  It's not all in my head.  (Well, technically it's all over my body, but you know what I mean.)  I had a boost of hope and perseverance and I took it head on!  I gave my self rest days, made it easy for me, and didn't do a whole lot.  It didn't matter.  I still did something.  Yesterday was my eye opener.  A very frustrating eye opener.  I need to get this figured out.  I'm not who I was before.

I need to raise the money.  I need to try a better chance for me and my family.  I have to.  

In the mean time, I need to keep holding on.  Taking it one day at a time.  Letting myself cry and not holding it all in so much.  Being strong all the time is actually making me weak.  I need to get rid of the anger towards this disease.  I need to move forward and live life to its fullest.  I know this is a bit "corny" but our locally spawned band that hit fame big has a few songs that keep me going.  One is my ring tone on my phone.  One helps me release my demons and move past the pain.  Being a person of faith, believing in Jesus Christ, I know I'm not alone in this.  He has felt everything I have experienced and more. 

In the end it is comforting to know that I someday will be free from all this...  Especially when a cure is yet to be found. So many claim it and it's just not possible.  I have lots of other avenues to try from the so called, "I'm cured from Lyme disease".  But not one of them yet have been without a product behind them begging to be purchased.  Fundraising brings those people out.  It's a fact of fundraising life!  

I have another day ahead of me now and not a wink of sleep.  I'm sure later I will crash again...  Just not on my family's time schedule.  So is life....  For now.

Until then, here is to overcoming the demons my disease has created in my life and to being who I was meant to be.  Drowning myself in service helps....  Just not with the house if you happen to stop by, (just keep that in mind!)  

Love you all...  Many times over!