Friday, March 20, 2009

Hello out there!

I have been off line as I went "back home" to help out when my Mom had surgery. It has taken me awhile to get back in the groove since returning home.

Lots of news around here.

I am finally getting hearing aids! Yeah! I go for my eval next week. It is $150 just for the eval! I know the actual "aids" will be in the thousands, but the audiologist did not want to speculate how much until after the evaluation. I am so tired of misunderstanding, missing half of what goes on around me, I really am excited moving even further along the road to geezerhood. The audiologist asked me how concerned I was about being "discreet" about wearing hearing aids. I honestly answered, "Not at all!" My feeling is, everyone who talks to me for any time at all knows I can't hear. It is not a secret. I have been losing my hearing slowly since age 19, so hearing loss doesn't have the age stigma for me. I hate it, but I accept it. There are other worse things that could happen. At least medical technology has advanced to where there is assistance for me. As my hearing for high pitches is still somewhat normal, I have to have a sophisticated hearing aid with a computer program to only amplify the sounds in the range where my loss is. There are even ones that can sense when I am in a restaurant, party or other noisy environment and automatically adjust to lower the sound of the background noise and bring out the sounds I am trying to hear. (Won't know if those will be in my budget until next Wednesday.)







Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Missing No 2 Son


I am missing my No 2 Son. He went off to college this year, and has hardly looked back. See that big grin? He has the sunniest disposition of any one I have ever known.

If any child had a reason to grow up grumpy and needy it was him. But no, he has an innate core of happiness that no adversity has the ability to stamp out.

He had severe eczema as a baby, severe GERD, and was diagnosed with asthma before his 1st birthday. He spent every Halloween in the hospital on oxygen for several years. Starting at age 8, he suffered for two years with unrelenting stomach pain, which no treatment seemed to abate. Finally, it was decided that surgery was the only option. Much against his will we consented to major surgery
as his only hope for a reduction in his pain and a normal childhood. It succeeded!

Throughout all this he was always smiling, always good-natured, always ready to laugh, never still a minute. We used to say that when he got still it was time to go to the ER. It was true, as he isn't a complainer, a decrease in his nonstop activity was our only clue all was not well with him.

Now he is at college, on a full tuition
scholarship in engineering. He is in a 5 year program where he goes to school year round, and will have his masters when he finishes. No summers at home for our boy, and as he is 6 hours away, no impromptu weekends home.

He is working hard to keep his scholarship, he says, 12-18 hours a day. (It is a difficult program, only the best survive.)
So my thoughts and prayers are often with him, even as he is busy and I am sure happy, far from home.



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Friday, February 27, 2009

Virgin Blog


Hey out there. Starting this blog I feel a bit like Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail". She says, "Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I’ve read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So, goodnight, dear void."

I have had a block about starting to post. Perfectionism being the bane of my existence, I had difficulty starting. See, it has to be just right. I don't want to mess up this "virgin blog" with a rotten beginning. Taking a deep breath, I am trying to let go and just make a start no matter how inane I may sound.

A bit about me.

I have atypical Meniere's Disease. It is a disease of the inner ear, and is a disease of the devil. See, it won't kill me. I look no different than I did before my diagnosis, I am not really in very much pain, so it is hard for people to understand how miserable I am at times. I have rotten balance, dizziness, hearing, pressure and tinnitus ( sometimes called ringing in the ears).

There is no known cause for this disease. Without a cause, it is difficult for science to come up with a true treatment. As miserable as I feel at times, I am blessed. Other people have much worse symptoms than I.

I promise this blog will not only be about the scourge of my life. In fact, I want to focus only lightly on my disease, and want to focus more on the people and things I love.

I love my family, 3 kids (2 sons, one daughter), one daughter-in-law, one wonderful husband of 25 years, mother, aunt, sisters, brother, nieces, nephews and cousins.

I love books, including so called "juvenile fiction".

I have an obsession with dishes, old dishes, new dishes, casual dishes, fancy dishes, holiday dishes.

I cook. I cook a lot. I have always loved cooking since I was a child. I make most things from scratch. What I used to do from love, I now do from necessity as part of the treatment for my Meniere's includes following a low sodium diet. Most convenience and take-out meals are no-nos for me.

I struggle with weight and fitness. I have lost 40 lbs in the past 20 months, but need to lose more. The picture is from my No 1 son's wedding and I weighed about 25 lbs more than I do now. That is Mr Arizona (Mr A) next to me.

I am trying to learn photography and will post my attempts at documenting my world.

Well here is my beginning Dear Void, I hope you like it.