Update

I noticed that my blog got a lot of hits last week.  I wondered why... then I realized that I pretty much left you hanging with that whole spine surgery thing. 

My appointment with Dr. Beshay at UT Southwestern is on June 2nd.  Depending on what he says, I imagine surgery will happen towards the end of June.  I've grown accustomed to the pain down my left side.  My fingers are every bit as numb as they have been but it doesn't bother me as much.  I've learned a bit about spine MRIs.  Very interesting.  I wish I could figure out how to post one.  Right now they are on a cd so I can't exactly take a photo of them in my window like I did my brain MRIs.  So stay tuned, I should know more after June 2nd.

So Mother's Day was lovely this year.  I got one of my first Mother's Day gifts.  It came from Brad. 

It's a swan with roses!  I moved a frame to take the picture, replaced the frame, had the frame fall down & smashed my swan to bits.  I was sooooooooo upset.  Seriously lame-o!  The book came from our bishopric and the candy bar came from one of my friends who gets how hard Mother's Day can be when you aren't a mother.  Luckily it wasn't a hard day for me.  Cuz Mother's Day is really more about my mom then about my being a mom!  I really have a great mom.  She's always willing to let me call and vent.  And then she helps me come up with the Christlike thing to do.  I really appreciate that.  We get to go visit my parents in Mississippi this summer.  I'm totally looking forward to it!

Speaking of looking forward to it - this Saturday is my birthday.  We are having an all out High School Musical birthday party.  I'm so excited.  I've found some awesome things for my goody bags and for prizes for my games.  Here are some of the prizes.  It's a terrible picture but you'll get the idea.

Seriously love dollar stores and super cheap stuff from Party City.  The most I spent on a prize was $1!  the hardest thing was deciding who to invite.  I wanted to invited like 50 people but obviously I couldn't.  I can't wait to show you the awesomeness that we have planned. 

Musings of a very awake mind

It's 3:00 in the morning and I'm wide awake.  I have a pinched nerve in my left shoulder.  It's causing me a good deal of pain.  The fingers on my left hand are numb.  They have been for the past 4 days.  I keep shaking my hand around to make sure my arm's not falling off.  I took a couple pain pills last night & apparently they aren't the kind that make you sleepy...  Apparently they aren't the kind that makes pain go away either. 

So I've been lying in bed for the past few hours just thinking.  Thinking about how I'm going to divy out the responsibities for the YW Sock Hop to my Mia Maids.  And how on earth I'm going to find the 50's music that I need for Wednesday night.  And how I really want to remember what happened when I had brain surgery.  And how I kinda associate blogging with brain surgery - which is so dumb because I remember telling my very best friend Joni how I'd love for her just to write so I can hear what's going on in her life. 

So I decided to get up and blog - even if some of it IS about brain surgery.

For example, after one of the first surgeries when I was coming out of anesthia (how on earth do you spell that?!) a doctor was leaning over me and asked me if I knew where I was.  I, trying to be so lighthearted, responded "Pizza Hut?"  The doctor laughed.  Then I was kicking myself with why Pizza Hut was the best answer I could come up with - why not Disneyland or the red carpet or ANYplace better than Pizza Hut. 

And after the last surgery, the doctors were around my bed asking me what things were (this happens quite often when they are assessing your brain) and it seems like the words were coming slowly.  They point to things like their wedding band, or a pen, or a person.  Well, they pointed at Richard and I couldn't remember my husband's name.  I knew it and I knew that I knew it, but the only R name I could come up with was Randall (my brother).  I was so frustrated.  I don't remember if I cried or not but I felt so bad that I made Richard feel bad.  Richard and I will have to sit down and record thoughts soon.  My memory does weird stuff now.  Kinda annoying but maybe with both of us, it'll be easier to remember what happened.

Dude, the pain in my arm is increasing.  Probably a good solid 5.  My siblings give me a hard time because I've been a little melodramatic about pain in the past.  Someone will poke me and my response is a rather whiny oww.  And I haven't had a very high pain tolerance... sometimes I wish someone else could feel my pain and let me know just how intolerant I am.  I don't know, we might just realize that I actually DO have a high pain tolerance!

Something else I was thinking about was the cool new High School Musical stuff I got at Party City last night.  Richard is totally throwing me a High School Musical birthday party.  (He just found out about that last night.)  I'm totally going to make little boxes of stuff to send home with people.  Which makes me wonder who on earth I would invite to my High School Musical birthday party?! 

I kinda like collecting things that are "so yesterday" because they are on clearance!!  I got a ton of cool stuff (for above mentioned party) for 10 bucks.  It would have cost waaaaaaaay more if it were Hannah Montana or Tangled or something that's in right now.  (P.S. Hannah Montana is "in" according to Party City.)  My nephew Tyler came to my house and saw my lunchbox.  He said, "You really like that, huh?"  I said, "Just you wait and see my huge box filled with stuff."  I proceeded to show him my huge box of stuff and he said, "You have High School Musical EVERYTHING!"  Yes.  Yes I do.  And it's amazing just how much more stuff one can find even after they have EVERYTHING. 

Okay, I've got to go lay down.  My arm really really hurts.  Maybe I'll fall back to sleep while I'm at it..

Day 11 & 12

Day 11

I was too tired on day 11. I mostly don't remember it.

Day 12

I'm almost half way through my radiation treatments. I guess it'll be halfway when I'm halfway through tomorrow's treatment.

I realized today that I haven't shared something that I learned during one of my first treatments. When Roli is doing my treatment, there are certain places that his laser beam makes me smell & see things.

I totally thought my mask was burning (because of the laser beams of course) because it smelled weird. There are about 6 positions where Roli does his thing that make me smell something. To me, it smells like burning plastic. I think Stella described it as a smoggy smell.

I also totally thought that crazy random laser beams were blinding me. There are a few positions where a purple spectrum of color appears. At first I was afraid to open my eyes for fear that I would go blind (crazy random laser beams can do that, you know). When Stella told me that this is normal, I opened my eyes to try to see where Roli was positioned. When it's the smell, Roli is always in the same place. I haven't figured out just how the color spectrum works yet.

Stella says that some people taste metal in their mouths but that has not been the case for me.

And at work today, I took a photo of my vastly growing gi-nor-mous High School Musical "shrine" if you will.

This is the new wallet that Madisan gave me.

This is the corner.This is looking down the side of my desk to the corner. These photos don't really get all of the stuff, but you get the idea.

I think some of my most unique items would have to be mylar balloons (pre-inflation), bandaids, a box of valentines, a Troy Bolton necklace-watch, and a 3D book complete with 3D glasses. Oh and 2 things not on my desk at work are my lunch box (which I take to work every day) and my special HSM Build-a-Bear (that stays at home to remind me of how grateful I am for co-workers who love me).

Wow, I'm a dork. I do absolutely blame this on my co-workers however! If they weren't so danged fun with giving me stuff, I wouldn't have nearly as big (or awesome) collection.

Oh my heck!

So I'm walking into work today & Tommy (who I worked with like a year ago) was walking in as well. He noticed my Superman lunchbox and asked about it. I told him about my "boy lunchboxes" (both blue one superman and the other hot wheels). He said, "Oh really, I would've thought you had a High School Musical lunchbox." My reply, "Yeah you would think, wouldn't you?"

Fast forward to me sitting at my desk. Staci (one of my new co-workers) rolls over to my desk and says, "I've got something for you." I'm like what type of work could you possibly have for me. I looked at her super confused like. She handed me a box. "What is this?!" I thought.

I almost died when I saw it.

This amazing woman who has known me for like a month bought me a lunchbox. Pink. High School Musical. I gave her the biggest hug! She has no idea how it made me feel. So dang amazing!! You know Heavenly Father just provides. When you are feeling a little down and all brain surgery-ed out, He knows just what to do.

So I go show Tommy (because who did I talk to about it that morning?) He sent me an email saying how amazing it was that God is aware of all the little things in our lives. I told him I like to call it the Lord's tender mercies. (Kinda makes me want to cry. Again.)

Green shirt and Pre-School Muscial

Man, I guess I don't have the energy to blog these days. Once I get home from work then do all the things I'm supposed to, I just want to veg. Watch tv or something. (Which by-the-way, has been great with all the SYTYCD greatness!)

Okay so I check the mail the other day and and a package came with a green shirt inside. I was thinking to myself "Did Richard get me a Wicked shirt?" (It's really the first time in my recollection since Richard has known me that I have been truly obsessed with something. No, High School Musical doesn't count.)

Well, long story short - it's a shirt I won from a competition at Target. It was made with recycled bottles of Coke and is worth approximately $12 (as stated on the card). I thought it was funny enough to post.

Speaking of High School Musical, my good friend Stephanie sent this to me via Facebook and I LOVE it.

It's Seasame Street's Pre-School Musical. (The link is the only way I could figure out how to attach it.) It is the funniest thing I've seen on Youtube for a while!!

Still my birthday

Joni's flight is delayed. She's supposed to get here a couple hours late. Bummer.

I finally got access to the photos off my old phone. These photos are specifically for my grandmother who got a kick out of the other photo. I think the only thing missing are the magnets.


This was taken last July. Goodness sakes how long have I had this bizarre obsession? Actually, my teammates keep it going.


Notice the chapstick, lotion, & pen at the bottom. (The pen changes characters.)


These are stickers my dad picked out for me. It may have been for my birthday last year.

Symptoms and mental health and HSM

Remember my shaky hand? It's back. Bummer. I keep making sure that my right eye is still working (which it is). My language is doing much better this time. I get a little tongue tied when I'm nervous or excited or tired but it's not like before. And this morning I got another killer headache - I'm pretty sure that has to do with my ear infection because it was right behind my ear. I'm so grateful for ibuprofen. The other thing is that I've been sick to my stomach almost everyday since I've been home. Don't know what that's about. I wonder if I could go online and find a list of things that you might expect after brain surgery. (Yeah you can't - they say stuff like "every brain surgery is different so expect different reactions." Yeah that's real helpful.)

The other day after the exhausting day at work, we went to an exhausting visit with our pyschiatrist. I say "our" because he's treats both of us. Yesterday was Richard's appt. (I do have Richard's permission to share this. He is supporting my attempts to dissolve the stigmas. If I told you he had high cholesterol - you would think nothing of it. It should be the same way if I tell you about a mental health condition. In fact it should help you understand that person better.)

He's been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder partnered with depression. As of the end of last year our dr has really been able to stabilize this. Since all of this uncertainty has started, both the OC and the depression have been out of whack. For Richard the OC has to do with obsessively eating or spending money or escaping into a movie (buying figures, watching it over and over, taking up new hobbies based on it). The depression this time has to do with incessant sleeping and lack of motivation. The dr said that the real way that he'll get back out of this is by finding out what's going on with me. But he gave us something to try to help him wake up and something to stimulate his thyroid until then. Good times. Just think we only have a week before we find something out. Let's hope it is the kind of stuff the dr meant when he said that. :)

Okay last but not least - I finally got a picture of my cube. Actually I forgot to take it when I was there so my friend took it and sent it to me. She's obviously not the one who sits there so the sticky notes, pens, chapstick, lotion, stickers, notebook and other cards normally displayed at the bottom are just kinda stuffed under some other stuff. So what you can see right now is the calendar (yes I traded 2009 for 2010), some stickers, a mini poster, a big row of magnets, and a card. That card may have been from my team last year - hard to remember for sure. No, no they gave me a singing card last year. "Soaring, flying..." It must be buried in the other stuff.

I miss you desk at work.

Karaoke & my birthday

Today I got to go visit my friends at work. I went specifically for choir. But I think I told you that in a previous post. When I first got there I called Richard and told him I was nervous about going in. But it was so cool and so much fun. Both my team and choir got me cakes and cards and the choir even sang a 4-part harmony of Happy Birthday to me!

Now I told you that my team is aware of my obsession with HSM. This is the card they got me.



Please notice the character at the bottom. I so love my team.

I shared blog pictures with several different people trying to explain how the 3 surgeries worked and why I was so grateful for the 3rd one. One of my friends who actually came to visit before this last one said, "You looked terrible before but I didn't want to say anything." Ha ha. Thanks.

Karaoke was a lot of fun. I sang a duet from HSM by myself. (It was pretty bad.) I'm afraid that Laurie is going to post it on facebook. My first thought - oh my sister will watch it and say 'off-key much?' But it's okay. We had lots of songs picked in perfect ranges for our singers. That's the best when they match up with the song. And Sharron - this is the FIRST time she EVER karaoked. We (me and her) sang Killing Me Softly and she was amazing!! I was impressed.

I went home about 2.5 hours after I got there. I was pretty exhausted. Totally happy but exhausted!!

Allstate team's build-a-bear especially for me!

I should have blogged about this a couple of weeks ago but it was right before this last surgery and my brain wasn't working right. (Hee hee - my brain wasn't working right - that cracks me up.)

My team from Allstate (who I miss very much!) went on a team outing to lunch at Olive Garden. They planned it especially so I could be a part of it. My friend Mary came by and picked me up. It was so much fun!! They were so kind. They had a special gift for me - a High School Musical build-a-bear. Soooooo fun!

At work everybody knows I'm a little obsessed with HSM. In fact my desk has a little "shrine" dedicated to HSM. (I thought I had a pic on my phone but it must be on the broken one. Actually I bought my 2010 calendar after the first surgery so I haven't even taken it to my desk at work yet.) So anyway, it's totally the perfect thing for my team to get me.

It was so delightful that my team cares about me the way they do. They each made cards for me. I love my team! I can hardly wait to get back to work to associate with them again. I wish I was going back today!