The folly of getting comfortable

Just when you are feeling fantastic, and the Meniere's is the last thing on your mind, BAM!

You spin back into reality with a week long (still going) episode.

And the bitches at work start in on you for driving.

HELLOOOO Im not driving when Im in a full spin.

HELLOOOO Driving (or riding) makes me really wobbly for a while after I've been in the car a while  ie: my commute...

So Im wobbly.
So Im dizzy.
Im not in a full spin or I'd not be typing, hell I wouldn't even be at work I'd be barfing.

All this does is give the haters more ammo. More ammo to try to tell me how to live my life. More ammo to use to judge me....
My hearing is impaired right now so I can't hear your snotty comments.

HA!  There is that...

It gets better every day, but right now I feel pretty crappy and want to take a nap.

No, I want to play with my embroidery machine, but I feel too lousy for that....

Right now its 76 degrees in my office and Im about to freaking die... Oh yea, ya'll screwed with the a/c ten seconds after I said the cooler air felt better.


So screw off haters and judgers. My situation sucks enough without your comments.

You don't know the fear I have of the day when I can't work anymore. You have no idea what it means to me to be able to still wobble into work and sit behind a desk and work.  You have NO idea how bad our situation will be if I can't work.

You have no clue.

P.S.   Im jacking the a/c down while you are at lunch.

Dreams of the Other Me

Sometimes my dreams are filled with remembering who I was before I was me now.

Lately that's been a lot.  I remember the amazing time I had as a firefighter (not the bad stuff thank goodness) as I sleep. I do all the things I used to do, then I wake up.

Sometimes I wonder what things would have been had I not gotten sick. I try not to fill my mind with "what if's" but sometimes they seem to pour in in large volumes. I sit quietly at my desk and close my eyes. My mind wonders to another time and another place. Just as I start to drift away back into that dreamland, I snap away at the sound of the phone chirping.

Gotta shake it off and get back to constructive things. Im not there anymore and I will never go back. Its time to move on, I tell myself. Time to move on.

Temporarily (I hope) Deaf in my Left Ear

After the holidays, the flu and a thousand other things going on, I got a nasty cold. The nastiest cold I have ever gotten to be exact. One of the worst. Put me down for 4 days. It gave me a raging ear infection.

I'm working on a week with no hearing in my left ear. What?!

Yup. I woke up a week ago deaf in my left ear. As in I can't hear anything more than mumbles and a high pitched ringing that has replaced normal sound.

Hopefully it won't be permanent. Hopefully the antibiotics will correct this. Hopefully. But, as we all know, Meniere's is a hearing and balance disorder. So I might be like this a while.

It feels isolating, to be honest. I can't hear people coming in and out of my office, I can't use the phone on that ear, and I can not stand to listen to the radio in the car because its lopsided.  It sucks.

So lets hope the last two days of the antibiotics knocks this out so I don't have to keep saying "What?"

Refinishing a Sewing Machine

At some point in my childhood my mom taught me to sew on a treadle machine.  Then she got one, and then another.  I was given one when before she died and I never had room for it.  Then this summer I picked it up from my dad's.  Its mechanics were smooth, but it needed parts and was a bit worse for wear to be honest. So I decided to paint it.

The machine before.

Nickel plated under the grunge

Rusty Irons, but they are still smooth working

Her digits. These tell me where she was made and when. (Elizabethton, NJ Sometime between 1 SEP and 8 SEP 1925. She has 25,000 sisters

Pardon the crap in the garage.... her wheel is rusty too!

I wanted to paint her, but how should I go about it?  On the way to work, on that long, long drive I decided to paint her like a fire truck.
So I had to strip her down.

she's all naked

Then I used Rust-oleum self etching primer to prime her.  I closed off all the holes and taped off the workings. I did not paint her underbelly because I didn't want to disassemble her all the way...
Then I painted her with Rust-oleum Gloss Red.

I promise the light makes it look orange.  She IS red.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut decals out of goldleaf vinyl. And I applied it to the machine. Then I used diamond plate vinyl to trim her out. I bought some parts to replace what was missing too.

Then I clear coated her with Rust-oleum clear gloss.

Ta-da!!

Front of Machine

The wheel

The back

The face

I'll post the cabinet and irons after I finish them.  This gal really turned out.  I wonder what momma would have though.

You have GOT to be S**ting me...

The dentist visit I wrote about last time was bad, did you know it got worse.  Nerve damage.  Specifically Trigeminal Neuralgia, type 2 if I understand it correctly.  Unrelenting, God-awful pain 24/7.  The dentist said that was what was wrong, but I wound up with a referral to an endodontist, who said the tooth was good and referred me to the ENT, who gave me prednisone to no avail.  Then while at my GP for the blood pressure med I take, I told him about it.  And here we are.
600-800mg Advil every 6 hours and 100mg of neurontin.

Im hoping that this will ease up and go away, if not forever then for a really really really long time. It can. Otherwise Im in for hell for the rest of my life.  They call TN the suicide disease.  On a day I forgot my meds, I see why.

But seriously, a filling ruined my face.  You have got to be shitting me.

But it would seem it happens from time to time.


I won the crap lotto.  Why is it I can't win the powerball.....

Spinning From The Dentist and Other Medical Adventures...

There is no end to the suck that is Meniere's.  A dentist appointment, which normally sends me into a panic attack anyhow, set off my vertigo and left me with a horrible case of BPPV that lasted weeks.  To top it off, the magic didn't end there as I was enveloped in a horrific jaw pain that the dentist, an endodontist, and the ENT can't figure out.   Im still in pain with a few days of 800 mg advil and the last few days of prednisone left to go.  My family doc is going to see me this week and we get to have a chat about why I have to see him twice a year now for stable BP (this costs money you know) and what he recommends about the jaw.  Since TMJ isn't covered by our insurance, I have to pray he calls it something else or they will "retro" reject the other visits.

I already owe almost 1100.00 for the colonoscopy (thats after insurance), and who knows how much for the dental visits that keep me ready to scream. Or grind my teeth, which might be the problem anyhow.



What the heck are we even paying premiums for if we have to pay so much for everything anyhow?

Next time no filling, they are going to have to pull the tooth.

Yay we have insurance!  BOO that we can't afford to use it!

House Acquired. Mission Accomplished, sort of...

Its been a while since I posted.  We finally found a house that we adored.  It is perfect for us, well perfect in that it met both size and cost requirements.   Things are looking pretty good.  Then I went to the dentist, and then I had several vertigo attacks in a row.  Oh and then we found termites the inspector said weren't there.

So we acquired a house.  We are still in the "cant have kids yet but the clock is ticking" land.  Uncertainty has fallen upon me as the vertigo has returned once again.  It was triggered by dental work, and now Im dealing with BPPV.  Thats where head position triggers a short, but uncomfortable spin.  It makes lots of things difficult. Imagine not being able to look up or down for weeks. Yea, its like that.

So we have a house.  Whoot!!  

Im hoping that everything else settles down and the house is a blessing not a chore.

So my mission was to find a house, have a family and live happily ever after.  So part of the mission is accomplished.  We just need kids to complete the mission, right?

House Hunting: Part One Our Economic Recovery after Meniere's

A dear friend sat me down and did the math with me.  Now that I'm working full time again (finally) Don and I can afford a house.  It will literally be cheaper than rent, and good lord, we can afford a house!

Our path to even this point where we are even thinking about a house, has been long and hard.  When we first got married we made good money.  I made a LOT working at two fire stations, and we were doing quite well. But when you lose a job, you lose a lot more sometimes, like insurance.  Although we had some disability retirement and disability insurance (NOT the same as Social Security Disability), we still went from making 60,000 a year between the two of us to far less than 30,000.  It doesn't seem like much, but when you half your income AND have no health coverage AND have new health expenses you didn't have, things get tight QUICK.

Thank God I found the job I have now, and was promoted. I thank God every day.  We don't make what we did when I was working at the fire station, but we are getting there, slowly.  And we have some things paid off now too.  So we are in good shape again, financially.  It's about time.

So once we realized what we were paying in rent we could do even less and get a house, well we have started looking.  Our economic recovery after Meniere's has been slower than I'd like, but it could have been worse.  I also thank God its been on the good side of bad.

Looking for a house when you know you have serious balance issues is a chore.  So far everything we've liked online has been under contract or not good for the kind of loan we are going for.  But I look at all of these houses and wonder, can I make it up the steps?  Is the bathroom designed to keep me from falling our of the shower? Do I need to factor all of this in, or do we add rails and handicapped bars later?  Lots of questions you know. LOTS.

Its exciting to be looking for a house. Very exciting (and scary).

Only Skinny People Think I "Choose" to be Fat.

    I'm about tired of reading about the obesity epidemic in this country and seeing comments that range from just mean to the "fat people choose to be fat".  Let me set the record straight.  I did not "choose" to be fat.  I did not wake up one morning and decide that I wanted to see how far I could push my body weight wise, and I did not elect to become as heavy as I have gotten.  It is one of those things that happens over time for a number of reasons that are not especially under my control. Let me lay it out for you.

•  PCOS, or Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome, I didn't choose to have a problem that makes losing weight almost impossible.
• Genetics, yes the old stand by of millions like me, some where in the programming I was made to put on pounds for a crisis.
• Stress.  That is the crisis my body loves to react to.
• Additives in our foods that make them addictive.  Food companies do this so we eat more and thus buy more of their savory or sweet concoctions. Those additives may also, according to some studies, help the body hold on to fat because of how it is processed. 
• Grief.  I already know I am a stress eater, but I did not know until I lost my mother that I would eat when I was sad too. 
• Corn.  This sounds stupid, but there is a school of thought that the very same grain they use to fatten up cows, also fattens up humans because its processed into everything. 

    I could go on listing my "excuses".  That's what everyone calls them.  Everyone is quick to point a bony finger in my direction and tell me how its my fault I don't join a gym or get a personal trainer.  I cant afford one, so its my fault I don't walk more.  No one wants to hear about how painful it is to walk more than a couple hundred feet. I know the extra pounds doesn't help it, but the root cause is a car wreck I was in years ago compounded by 11 years of ignoring the pain to be a firefighter. 

    Oh there is the "you need to use some willpower".  I have none.  There its settled.  I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm lonely, I eat when I'm nervous, I eat when I'm bored and I eat when I'm stressed.  I feel ashamed of it, but I have done this since I was a little kid.  Some people reach for booze or pills, I reach for snacks.  I don't even buy sweets or snacks for the house anymore. I try to reach for "healthy" stuff when I get like this, unfortunately some of the healthy stuff like carrots causes some GI issues, so we have stress related issue. 

    There is are the "dieters" that swear by one diet or another.  Believe me I've tried about everything I can afford. Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast, prepackaged plans, the lemonade diet, the cabbage soup diet, diet pills, HGC, low fat, low carb, low calorie, Ultra low calorie, oh the list goes on and on.  I stuck with the prepackaged plan and Weight Watchers the longest. I even lost weight at one point in the changes weight watchers made on their plan, but they tweaked it, and I never had success again.  It is impossible to stick to something when you fail at it.  At Weight Watchers I consistently averaged 1/4 lb a week. I was paying 40 bucks a month to be miserable, and only lose 1/4 lb a week.  I need to lose about 150 lbs.  That's three years, and 1440.00 of membership money.  Oh and the naysayers accuse me of cheating or doing it wrong.  When I swear I am following it to the letter, I'm called a liar.  Or my favorite part of the meeting is when there are these women whining just joining to drop five pounds and they make some snotty remark to the big girls like me about how easy it is to lose on Weight Watchers and I should be proud of the 1/4 lb, its not their five this week, but its still 1/4.  Or they ask, as many close to me have, "What did you do wrong this week?  Did you eat a cheeseburger or ice cream?"  Have you ever thought for a moment that I'm actually doing the program and my motivation wanes after six months with no results despite diet and exercise? And yes, we have had the thyroid checked, it was fine. And my cholesterol and BGLs are too, so there.

    I could go on.  But no, I don't choose to be fat.  I don't choose to feel lousy and look like a hippo.  I don't choose to be stared at or snickered at behind my back or even to my face. I don't choose to spend more money on clothes because "extended sizes" cost more, or to find nothing in my size at the goodwill ,EVER.  I don't choose to have aching joints, a throbbing back, and other weight related physical ailments.  I don't choose to be discriminated against because I'm not attractive. I don't choose to forgo the swimming pool because of how people react to a "big girl" in a swimsuit, or choose to pay 150 bucks for the only thing in town in my size at a specialty store, because Target doesn't carry swimsuits for big girls that we can actually wear. I don't choose to have low self-esteem because everyone else seems to have a major issue with my weight.  I don't choose to go shopping alone, no one wants to be seen in the "fat girl" store with me except my fantastic hubby, God bless him.

    Maybe if you took the time out of your day that you spend judging us fat girls, and you simply gave us an understanding hug, or said a prayer for our happiness, we'd all feel better about everything. 

    I did not choose to be fat.  It has been the result of many factors.  I choose to give up, but in the face of constant failure and ridicule I do not have the drive to push through the unbearable pain and do anything else.  The battle is pretty much over.  I've begun to accept that I will never be "thin" again, and my weight will haunt me for the rest of my life, however short or long that may be.  My tears are no longer for myself, they are for all those that can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that I'm big.  

    Yes, this is not especially about Meniere's, but since I was diagnosed and was unable to exercise as much, I gained 70 or so lbs. People sometimes treat me like I'm ignorant or some sort of lazy slob because I'm big.  I'm none of those.  I didn't choose this, and if you think for a moment that all of us "big girls" choose to be big, you have a lot to learn about the world.  A lot indeed. 

I am more than I look like now...

It's hard to imagine when you look at me now that I've ever done the things that I talk about having done.  (It was hard when I was healthy for people to imagine that I have ever done the things that I have done too.)
I get the "you are full of it" look a lot, and on occasion people actually call me a liar to my face.  I don't have a good enough memory to lie for one thing, and for another, what good would it do me?

To look at me now, you wouldn't imagine I've ever been SCUBA certified, been to more than two dozen states, served my nation, fought fires, been to college, gotten a Master's Degree, obtained certification in aircraft rescue, ever weighed less than 150 lbs, once had hair down past my butt, once rode every roller coaster I could, had ever seen me run a mile or leg press over 400 lbs.  You wouldn't know by looking at me that I was ever anything other than what you see now: a very overweight almost middle aged woman with a bad back and balance issues. All you see now is me shuffling when I first start to walk because my feet hurt so bad, or you might see me unable to keep my balance on uneven ground.  All you see now is someone that gets tired quickly because her brain has to work overtime to process movement now that her ears don't work, and you might even get frustrated when she can not hear what you said properly.  (I assure you that my making light of the hearing distortion is my way of dealing with the fear I feel at going deaf)

You can not even begin to process how hurt and angry I feel when I'm reliving one of my adventures in a funny story and I'm made to feel as if I'm dishonest.  It happens a lot.  It is as hard as someone questioning your intelligence because you can not spell or do advanced math due to a learning disability.  (Too bad I cant show off that IQ test to prove folks wrong, and to let the numbers show that I am in fact a genius. But who's counting?) 

I lived a LOT before I got sick.  I did all kinds of cool stuff, and am thankful for it.  I relive many of those fun and adventurous days because I can not do those things anymore. My new normal, as it were, will not allow me to SCUBA dive again, or ride roller coasters or fight fires or be more than I am now.  It is hard to be a shell of the woman you once were, and have people call into question your honesty when you are reliving a moment in a story from your past. I can not carry around those memories in a jar to show you, nor can I carry around a notebook full of affidavits to prove that I am who I once was. 

All anyone sees now is a fat, somewhat obnoxious woman who talks in excess about things that no one believes.  They don't take time to see the scars on her heart and the knicks on her soul from every time she set out to help her fellow man only to be called a liar afterwords.  No one bothers to wonder why this woman lives in the past because they don't value her enough to listen close enough to hear the pain in her words as she remembers who she once was and can no longer be.

If I have become arrogant and a braggart it is because it is how I have been shaped by those that insisted on telling me my best was never enough, my truths were untrue, and that I "had no reason to live".   I always knew that my best was good enough, my truths were infact true, and I have every reason in the world to live. I had something to prove, I proved it over and over and over, then no one believed me.

So no, I am not a liar.  I may not look like much, but this broken messed up body has seen a lot in its 36 years.  I will no longer tolerate those that can not see fit to give my truth a chance.

Walking Away for the Last Time

Yesterday was my last day at the school with the kiddos.  It was heart wrenching.  I had one kiddo hurl him self on me, sobbing, begging me not to leave.  Others drew frowney faces on my good bye card with the plea that I stay. 

It was a really hard, tear filled, afternoon.  I cried and cried with the kids. 


I know Im doing what is best for my hubby and I, but its so hard.  It angers me that in order to have health coverage, EVEN with the laws in place, I have to break 10 kids hearts and take a job that is outside my scope of education.  I have to walk away for the last time, from a career that I tried so hard to build back after my time in the fire service. 

I met the folks I will be working with and Im sure that I will have no problem at my new job getting along.  Everyone seemed to be really cool and seemed to be laid back.  I got good vibes there.

I'll never have another chance at teaching.  The "career" hopping appearance I have now will forever prevent me from ever even getting an interview.  (I know because changing careers once was enough to do that, twice is a death sentence as far as they are concerned) 

I have officially walked away from what I spent thousands of dollars and several years to train and educate for.  This would never have happened had I not gotten sick and lost my job and insurance.  I wouldn't have had to make this tough decision had we had access to affordable health care.  I could have stayed until there was a public school job, or just stayed and done what Im good at, what I trained for and what I love.

I made a huge sacrifice for what we needed.  My heart aches, and Im a little bitter about seeing those kiddos cry and cry because I had to leave. Please forgive this sad rant.  I will heal and the kiddos will too, but right now as I am sad about leaving. 

Im SO thankful, at the same time, that I will finally have insurance.  I just wish it hadn't been so hard to obtain, and so heartbreaking to leave.

Maybe I will really have a lot of time to spare at the new job.  They keep telling me I will.  And if I do, well I believe that it might be just what I need to perhaps write a book... I've been talking about writing a book forever, so maybe I can actually do that...


None the less, I am standing on the brim of a glass that I'm trying to see as half-full, trying not to fall in for I know not if I can swim in what ever lies between me and the bottom. 

I'm not drunk, just dizzy. Yes they are different....

    Everyone that knows me knows that I love hockey, and they know that I believe in standing (if you possibly can) for the National Anthem.  These two things clash for me now at each game when I stand with my hand over my heart and look up at the flag.  As I stand there during the song, I began to sway.  People think I'm drunk or disrespectful.  I often times almost fall.  Last year when I mentioned this to my ENT, he laughed and said "well don't stand". 

Uh, no.

    I and my hubby served our country.  He was in the Air Force and I was in Army ROTC in college as well as a firefighter protecting my community.  I walked into the venue, so I WILL stand for the National Anthem. 

    But its not just at the anthem that I sway.  Its every time  I stand for more than a couple of minutes, or stand for a couple of seconds with my head looking anyplace other than straight ahead. I feel embarrassed that I can no longer stand up straight in public without assistance, and I feel scared when I'm doing something mundane like putting on my socks, or washing my hair.

    Yea, its not just at hockey games that I sway and lose balance. Its every time I stand.

    So, no I'm not drunk, I'm just dizzy.

I'm sorry did you just say "Spiffy Blitzkrieg"?

    So I know that I can't hear well, but I can't help but to ask when I think I heard something weird or strange if it was correct.  Most of the time I'm pretty sure what I'm going to ask is going to sound silly, but I promise that's exactly what I heard. 

    I make light of going deaf because if I didn't I'd spend everyday crying.  I can't hear the things I used to be able to hear, and although its been a year since my last hearing test, I can tell that there are changes. Lots of changes to my hearing.

    I can't hear the alarm clock most of the time now. I can't hear some of the kids at school when they ask me questions.  I can't hear my dear hubby when he says something mundane.  I have to turn up the radio WAY past the "19" I used to set it on. "34" or "40" is closer to what I set it on these days.  Sometimes I can feel the music more than hear it, but that is because of the fluctuating hearing loss. It goes from bad to gone sometimes and I have no idea why. A couple weeks ago I had a terrible head cold and was stone deaf in my left ear for about 12 hours or so.  I literally could not hear anything. Its still not "normal". My right ear was also affected, so for about 12 hours everything was one-sided and muffled.  It was frightening.

    I say "what" way too often now.  I get so frustrated when I have to ask people to tell me again what they said, and even more irked when I'm told to be quiet because I'm talking too loud.  I really can't tell. 

    In the new apartment there are lots of new sounds, and things I should be able to hear, that I simply can't. 

    I suppose once the hearing is gone I will have to walk around with a pistol to feel safe.  I can not hear the door open, I can not hear the doorbell, and if someone broke in, I'd not hear it until they came down the hall.

   What's going to happen if my hubby and I ever have kids?  How will I hear my babies cry if they need me? What if they are hurt, or scared? Will that make me a bad mother?  Deaf people have babies right? So what do they do?

    Lots of questions.  Lots of fear. Lots of miscommunication.





(I really did think my hubby said "spiffy blitzkrieg" once, in case you wondered)

Breaking the mold.

Mold.  No, seriously, the fungi kind of mold.  We lived and breathed it for months that we knew of, and for possibly a year. It can cause Meniere's like symptoms.

Could that be the trigger or cause of my horrible spins? 

Back in 2005, when I had the first vertigo attack of my life, I was working dispatch at the airport for the police and fire departments.  I was waiting patiently for an opening in the fire station, and worked as a dispatcher and security specialist.  Sometime in 2006, (its all kinda foggy to me) I awoke one morning with a horrific vertigo attack complete with ear discomfort and vomiting.  Then the family doc thought it might be Meniere's, but I spiked a fever some weeks into the dizzies and after a round of antibiotics I was "cured".  He wasn't totally convinced, but thought had it been Meniere's my dizzies would have remained. 

At about the same time as the dizzies, we had a leak in the wall of the dispatch center and it made the sheet rock soft.  I managed to put my butt through the wall (my butt-hole as it was affectionately called) and it was weeks before it was fixed.  In the meantime a dreadful moldy smell lingered and I got sick.  About the time I spiked the fever and was "cured", the wall was repaired.  No mold, no dizzies?  Maybe.

Time passed, I got a job as a firefighter and moved downstairs.  I'd eventually get married and move into my husband's grandfathers old house.  We found mold almost right away.  It was a small amount, so we fixed it, as we were told to do by the guys at Home Depot, and all was well. 

We found mold, heaps of mold in the fire station a few months later.  Then a few weeks after that, I got sick with a horrific case of vertigo. 

I lost my job and was at home for several months recovering from the initial vertigo attack that June.  As the months past, we pulled the moldy carpet out of the house and made some small repairs. Then there was a small water leak in the bathroom and it made the wall soft.  I, you guessed it, put my feet through the wall.

Then all hell, or mold as it were, broke loose.  We started finding mold EVERYWHERE.  My hearing started to go, I developed all kinds of weird symptoms and my other ear became affected.

When we found mold in the hall closet (not near the bathroom or adjoining walls) I got worried.  We had to toss a lot of really nice clothes, and try to clean others.  Then we found mold in my closet.  I rarely used it because it contained all those skinny clothes. (Ladies you know what I'm talking about here).  Once we opened that door, we all started to get sick. Both cats made vet trips.  (Orion had been sick off and on since we adopted him)  The hubby got sick, and stayed sick.  I started having migraines again, and felt horrible.

So we moved.

The cats and the hubby are better.  I'm still a work in progress, but I feel better.  Well except the dizzies.

Stress can trigger Meniere's.  So can mold. 

Mold can kill you.

I hope we got out in time.

Giving and Regrets.

This post is going to sound snarky to some, and pathetic to others.  Some may understand where I'm coming from, and others may think I'm way off base.  None the less, this is a post a long time coming, and its one that I've thought about for a while.  It's not easy, so hang in there with me ok?

When I turned 35 I looked at my life.  I have a wonderful husband and a fantastic marriage.  And yes, it IS enough. My life isn't what I thought it would be at 35. It's not. I imagined having kids by now, having mom watch those kids during the day (thus imparting all of her wisdom on them) and me having a good job and being healthy and so on....

None of that is possible for a number of reasons. Mom is gone now, I'm not really healthy enough for kids, (not that it matters we don't have health insurance), my job pays crap, and I'm sitting on a Master's Degree that no one gives a care about (though it IS a critical needs area). 

I look back and I see my life was wasted in a number of ways.  I wasted eleven years of my life as a firefighter. Wasted. Eleven years. Sure I had a lot of great adventures, and the stories will go on for a lifetime, but those were childbearing years, those were career building years I will never get back. Never. Gone, as in with the wind. There were a handful of guys that treated me as an equal, and some that did better than just tolerate me. For those men, I am grateful. I truly am. There were some that spoke down to me, left me out to dry, pushed me, cursed me, and treated me like trash. Some just didn't like me because I'm weird. Others didn't like me because I'm smart. And others, and these were the ones that left me feeling like I wasted so much time, didn't like me because I'm a woman. I got over it. Mostly. But I haven't gotten over where being a good human being, and where literally risking my life for strangers has left me.

I lost my job as a firefighter because of Meniere's, but this was after threats of getting fired if my new husband and I decided to have a baby. So we put off the family thing until I could finish my Master's Degree in Special Education and get a job with the schools.  Oh they were, (and I stress were) crying for special education teachers. Then I lost my job, and then I graduated. Then suddenly the job market in South Carolina dried up for teachers of all kinds. And being a firefighter was now a liability.  It had always been sort of the white elephant in the room for me.  It separated me from society because people believed that a woman in the fire station could only one of two things: a whore or a lesbian.  For the record, I was, and am, neither. I was in it to help people. I really wanted to do something for the world, for my nation and my community. What better way than to be a firefighter, right? Not so much.  I might have been socially separated by preconceived notions that the uneducated or ignorant had, but I didn't feel as if there was a huge black mark on my life.

I do now.

Interview after interview it comes up.  And not in the "oh I see you were a firefighter" kinda way.  Its a tone, its a change in the interviewers posture when its asked about. Its as if it means something is wrong or defective with my character. It's the unspoken that speaks volumes. No one asks why I did it, no one digs into the life I lead as a firefighter, but there are questions around the edges that ask those very things. Now some folks have told me I'm going to hell for "doing a mans job", but I don't believe that. Some folks believe that I was wrong to have lived my life so close to death for so long, and maybe there is something to that, but I'm not going to hell for helping people. I don't believe it works that way. If anyone is going to hell its the ones that made it a point to set me up to fail or to get hurt. And it happened WAY too much. But that's another blog for another day....

The elephant in the room has successfully crapped on me. A big giant elephant sized poop on my resume. Eleven years worth to be exact. The verbal abuse and the anticipation of being set up to fail left me with a number of complexes to work through. When you are told for the last three years of a career you don't belong, you are stupid, you are lazy and you are only there to fill a quota, it gets to you. Especially when you know deep down it isn't true.

I worked harder than my counterparts, I worked smarter too! No matter what I did, for some it just wasn't enough.   I left the fire service a broken woman in a number of ways. My spirit was crushed, my soul was battered, and my body was breaking down from the physical and mental stress that I had endured.  I still fight a battle every day with how I feel.  I have nightmares about the things people used to say to me. And I still duck when a man raises his voice in my presence.  Now my time doing what I felt was right has become something of a stumbling block for me.

Do I regret helping others?  Nope. Do I regret the eleven years I spent as a firefighter?  Yes and no.  I would do it all again if that was the only way I'd meet my wonderful husband. I would endure even more if that is what it would take. But I regret never having the courage to do anything about the abuse I endured. It takes a brave soul to run into a burning building, but it takes even more to stand up to someone who shames you for being yourself. I regret, and I think I might always regret, never having had the courage to stand up for myself.

So there it is. There are so few views on my blog, I doubt anyone reads this. But for those that do, know that even though I left a broken soul I'd to it all again to save one life. And that includes you.

Don't worry about me, my soul will heal, my dreams will change, and my life is good. Its not where I thought it would be, but like I said, I'd walk through hell all over again and barefoot just to have my dear husband.

A Day Without Mom is Like a Day Without Sunshine, Now Its Been a Year.

As children, we believe, for the most part anyway, that death can not touch us or those we love. When we lose people when we are young, we realize they are gone but somehow our little kiddo minds heal and our hearts mend.  When we are adults, we rationalize, we feel guilt, and we grieve in ways our child-minds could not. I've lost people before, but the grief was not like this. When I lost my sister, I had made peace before hand and somehow that made the process easier for me. I missed her terribly (and still do), but was not consumed by grief like my mother was. When I lost my grandmother, I was so sad. I wished I had spent more time with her, but I knew she was free from the prison the final strokes had locked her in.  I could not be sad for that freedom. I've lost others, don't get me wrong, I have lost friends and family in my adult life. I have lost many that I have cared about. Some how losing momma was just, different.  I'd lost my mom, my mentor and my friend.

Looking back at the last days, I can only think of the time we spent watching her sleep. Watching her breath, and wondering if each breath was her last. They told us at hospice many of the patients have a "second wind" and sit up and talk and chat when they haven't for days.  Mom did.  I believe the last person she spoke to, before she slipped away into the dark, dark coma before the Light, was me. She said "well hey Shelly".  I spent my 34th birthday at hospice with momma before she started to be asleep more than awake.  She and I had cupcakes from that shop over in Taylors. I think that was about the last thing she ate too.

Mom gave me one last gift the night she died.  We had been at hospice all day and into the wee hours of the morning.  I could not stand another moment awake, and I told my Dad I had to go home to go to bed. With the Meniere's being aggravated by stress, I didn't want to have an attack, and I felt close to one. Dad and my sister shooed me away, telling me they thought it would be much later in to the next day before the end came. So Don and I reluctantly headed back to Greenville. I climbed into bed a bit after 1:30am, and fell asleep at once. At about 3:20am we got the call that momma was gone. I told Don she was hanging on just until she knew I was out of the room, because she knew I couldn't handle being there at the last second. I realized she had passed exactly one year, almost to the minute, that my battle with Meniere's began.

People must have thought I was crazy at how strong I was for the funeral.  I gave the eulogy. I barely cried, it seemed.  Sometimes I think the heartbreaks so hard the tears fall later. I spent the next three months swimming in a pool of depression.  I cried, no I sobbed every night for months. I look at things, think of momma, and cry again. I went to grief counseling. I fought anger, I still fight anger.  I stand back in awe at the world that continued to go on without mom.

It will be a year on June 17th. A year without mom.  A year I have missed phone calls to ask questions, a year she hasn't seen me learn to quilt, a year she hasn't been there for me to hug. Its been a year without that sunshine. I'm ready to let the grief move on, like a fog drifting away in the morning to let the sunshine back into my life. I'm ready, I know momma would be ready for me too.

Mom, before the "C" monster took her away.

Trying To Look On The Bright Side

Its hard sometimes when you look at your life and realize its not where you thought it should be by now. Its really hard when you work hard, follow the directions to the "American Dream" and get sidelined by something you never heard coming. Its tough when you watch everyone else reach those goals and you are still trying to figure out what you are going to do next in survival mode.

Survival mode is a place I never wanted to be. I wanted to be in the enjoyment mode, or at least in the building mode. For now that's just not possible. I've never been the envious type. I haven't been. I've always been pretty happy with what I have and have wanted, but never to this degree. We think its a part of how I've been grieving. We think its how my mind is trying to focus on something else besides shattered dreams and waylaid plans. I fight this every day. I fight hard.  Some days I win, other days I seep back into the cesspool of the envy ridden survival mode and glare out at the passers by.

The story I dreamt of went something like this:  A lovely maiden, a Knight in the Miliken Forest was swept off her feet by the man of her dreams. She left the stables and the Knights to work in the halls of learning while she and her husband built their families. They lived happily ever after....

The story took a turn....  The lovely maiden, almost broken in spirit from the years of verbal abuse endured as the only woman Knight in the Forest, met a wonderful man, whom she married.  They began to make great plans, when her husband's father fell ill, and passed into the great beyond. The newlyweds struggled to cope, when the husband lost his job.  Though his job loss was short lived, and the Lady was no longer treated so poorly with her new Captain of the Guards, her dreams of starting a family were being dashed by the Chief Guard and his ignorance. Standing once again on her feet, The Lady was not expecting the blow of the loss of her career. In the night, a new foe, the Evil Vertigo stole away with her balance, her job, and some of her heart. As her body learned to cope with the poor balance and decreasing hearing, her heart tried to mend from the loss of a job she had fought hard to get. Then her own dear mother fell ill. Her new job was a nightmare, and her mother grew sicker with each passing day. Suddenly, she was again without a job as the assignment ended, and The Lady sat in the Hospice House watching her mother fade. Then, just as the father of her husband had passed a year before, her own dear mother entered the great beyond. The Lady was devastated. Many unfortunate things danced around her broken heart. All the while, she held on through her illness, through the understanding that one day she would no longer be able to hear, through the times when others lives went so well.  Dreams of a family have been pushed aside as she and her dear husband try to again pick up pieces left by the devastating events. It takes a long time to put it all back together, and no one can be sure it is done correctly. They cling to each other in the hopes that they will have the happily ever after they dreamed of. But the story just started, so there is no telling where it will go from here....


Ok, its a little silly. Really. Sometimes it feels like that. I try to take into account the struggles we have now are only stepping stones, but its not easy. I battle grief and envy every day.  Both are new foes, and I believe they, at least in my case, rode into town together. So the rest of my post is going to be dedicated to the things I AM thankful for. 


My wonderful Husband!!!
Church (even if I don't go as I should)
My strong marriage
My Family (even if some of them drive me nuts)
My friends
My two crazy kitties
My job (even when its really hard)
My health (even when its not as good as I'd like it to be)
My car (long may the Blue Kahuna run)
Hockey
My ability to make things like momma had
My hearing (whats left of it)
My ability to write
My love of all things nerdy
My love of history
My stuff  (lol)
The experiences that have made me who I am
The house we rent
The food we eat
The clothes we wear
The things we use every day
My intelligence

Ok, so there are LOTS of blessings, and I'm sure I left a bunch out. I'm trying to look to these things rather than look at what others have and feel slighted. I'm trying to climb out of that cesspool of survival and into the plains of contentment. I'm working hard at this. I hope as the grief fades, so will this feeling that Ive been cheated.  Because logically, I haven't been. Its all in my head. Really.

The First Mother's Day Sans Mom...

    Last year I spend Mother's Day at Hospice with my mom.  She was incoherent, mostly, and we were drowning in grief.  She would make it past my birthday, and then on into June.  I can't help but to miss her.  Lots of people miss my mom. She made such an impact on SO many lives. 
    As Mother's Day rolls around I'm trying not to engage in my very own pitty party. I look on Facebook and see two things that threaten to send me spiraling into the domain of pitty: Posts about mom, and posts about being a mom. 
    My hubby and I want to have kids, and I'm not getting any younger you know. But our jobs don't have insurance, and I've got to loose some serious weight before we even try. So the clock ticks away at my chance of having a healthy kiddo, while I look for a job with insurance and pray the Meniere's doesn't get worse. I cant imagine how hard it would be if I were deaf by the time we had our first and was not able to even hear that first cry. I'm SO happy for my friends that have kids, don't get me wrong, but knowing that we are years from trying and that we are entering the "almost too late to try" age, crushes my heart.
    Missing Mom this year seems to be the biggest crushing blow.  I think of things all the time I want to tell her, and well, I cant. I pick up the phone to call, and she's no longer there. I want to call her tomorrow and tell her how much I love her and give her a gift, but I can't.  I imagined one day she'd be there for future kiddos, and be there to see all of the things I accomplished. But she won't be. It's hard this year. They say it will get easier. Somehow I doubt it.
    So I'm trying to find other things to catch my attention. I'm trying to remind myself that momma knows how much I love her, and she's going to be waiting on me up in Heaven when I get there some 60 years from now.  I'm going to avoid that pitty party as hard as I can, she wouldn't have wanted me to indulge in it anyway.

Momma, Jack Daniels and Me.

    By the time I was really aware of what alcohol was, momma no longer drank, and neither did dad.  They met in a bar because mom was the bartender, and dad thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. So sure, they did drink.  As a kid, there were "speciality" bottles momma had kept and neat little swizzle sticks that always fascinated me. The green eagle bottle sits on my mantle at home. I have no clue what booze it once contained, but I loved the bottle and its green hue so much momma just gave it to me.  The other little gem, was a swizzle stick from the 1960's.  Its white plastic forever immortalized a short little man from which came a strong, strong drink: Jack Daniels. 
    I know not the reason for my obsession with this little stick.  I would sneak it out of the cabinet where she kept her small collection, and just spin the stick in my hands all the while looking at the little man in old time attire. Eventually I would learn he was a short man, just 5'2", and never had any children. But at the time the white plastic statue was enough to fascinate me for hours. Mom would always seem to know when I had been in the cabinet digging in the old relics of a life long ago, and would scold me. 
    Though now, I can not remember exactly how it transpired, I managed to break the little stick. Mom was not pleased.  She fussed and fussed about how careless I was and how valuable that would be one of these days.  I took a LOT of butt chewing that day. Mom kept the pieces for years, and never let me forget how I'd broken it. I'd still, even as an adult, get those pieces out of the glass and look at them in wonder. I'd never even tasted this little man's drink, but I was enthralled just the same with the little swizzle stick.
 Its a strange childhood memory to be sure, but I can remember playing with the swizzle sticks in that old glass she kept up in the dark, dusty cabinet.  I had to tell you all of that to tell you this story....

   Years have past since the swizzle stick was broken, and the pieces have long been thrown away. I've gotten married and moved away from my homeplace, and momma died just under a year ago.  My last birthday celebration was at Hospice with her, eating flavored cupcakes and not knowing if we were counting hours or days. Her last real food, I think, were those birthday cupcakes. The last person she spoke to before she left us in June was me. She just said hello to me. Days later she was gone. The hollow space her death left is one that I cant imagine will ever be full again. The grief and sorrow are unimaginable, and I miss her every day.
    This first Mother's Day without her approaches quickly, as does my birthday. We have picked out the gift for my wonderful mother-in-law, and have talked about how much momma would have like it too. The thought of momma has weighed heavy on my mind for a while. I miss her so much, and I think of her often. I especially wanted to brag to her when I found out my wonderful hubby had scored free tickets to see the Zac Brown Band. (I'm cheap, like momma was, and don't like to pay giant prices for a concert, so free tickets is a bonus she could understand). 
    The countdown to the concert day began, and I started to get a little excited. I'm not a concert goer, for a number of reasons, the foremost being the cost, but especially now since I have Meniere's and the loud music makes me dizzy. None-the-less, I started to get really excited.
    Then my dear hubby got a call from the friend that got us the tickets...  "Do you want to go to the eat and greet?"  I was going to get to eat dinner with the band. How cool is that?  So at 3pm the day before the show I was frantically trying to get the last hour of my last appointment covered. My lead promised to cover it if the office wouldn't let me off, and amazingly enough, the client's dad was going to cancel anyway. My afternoon schedule cleared like a sky after the rain.  I was beside myself excited.  The strange thing was momma was weighing so heavy on my mind. I kept thinking, momma must have put a bug in that lady's ear to get us that eat and greet pass. A strange thought, indeed, but it kept rolling around in my head as I got ready to go. I shook my head and the thought away.  I thought unless I see something that screams "momma", I'm just a little nuts.  After all, I told myself, its crazy to think momma would have been involved in anyway getting this set up for my birthday. I'm silly.
    So behind the Bi-Lo center we lined up with about 100 other folks to have supper cooked by and served by the band, and to mingle with some really down to earth guys. Upon entering, we see the whole thing is sponsored by Jack Daniels, and there is a statue of the little guy.  While standing in the beverage line (same line for booze or water), I see it. A little white plastic swizzle stick with a short man perched atop. I had to laugh and snatch up a little stick with my soda. I could almost hear momma laugh and say "I didn't know they still made those".  I felt as if momma had given me one last birthday present. Somehow I knew momma must have inspired that lady to give us eat and greet tickets too. All I could say was Thank you Lord and Thank you Momma, as I twisted the necklace I wore around my fingers. It once was hers, and she left it to me.

    Now I believe in "God Winks", you know those funny little coincidences that are just perfect little examples of how God works in our lives. They are the kind of thing that wouldn't qualify as a religious experience, but do bolster one's faith in a special way that nothing else can. I believe in those darkest times when we feel that all hope is lost, God allows certain things to happen, and if you are looking, I mean really looking, you can see it. Once you see those God Winks, you will see them all over your life. Even in the strangest places imaginable...

Yesterday I saw momma, Jack Daniels and me, in a plastic swizzle stick. Thank you momma, for everything. 

What?! I'm sorry I didnt hear you, did you say I was deaf?

    After my last trip to the ENT, I have discovered that though his hearing test showed mild hearing loss (and a huge dip in both ears in two years), there is a lot that a hearing test can not show. It can not show the volume level on the radio or TV inching up a little every month, it can not show the missed words and misunderstood phrases in general conversation, it can not show the frustration of the kids I work with when I have to say "what" fifteen times, it can not show the devastation of a life changed, and changing.

    The ENT can not promise I will retain all or any of my hearing at this point. He can not promise I won't get worse, nor can he promise that I won't level out. He can tell me that many people with Meniere's do go deaf. He can tell me my hearing has changed drastically since I first saw him 18 months ago. He can tell me I may no longer climb ladders, or anything that requires balance because I have none. He can tell me not to look up at the flag during the anthem at the hockey games because it makes me sway. His tests can not predict the road my ears are on, nor can they stop the progression. They treat the symptoms. I'm grateful for that.  I've had lots of good days here lately, and that is a blessing.
    No one can tell me what my life will be like once the hearing is gone. Did you know insurance companies won't cover hearing aids?  Did you know I have to be almost stone deaf in both ears before they will even consider an implant device? I'm still a way's from that, but I know that there will be a point where it will affect more than just conversations. It's then that I have to do some real thinking and some planning.