It's Been A Long Time

First off let me appologize to all my blogger friends for taking an aweful long time to post. With that said, where do I begin?

After my last post, which was after Halloween I started physical therapy. I should have started a long time ago but I felt it was time. I still could not move like I used to. I was stiff, could barley bend over, turn around to look over my shoulder, lift anything heavy, ect. I chose to go across the street to Geisinger. It would be perfect because I could get it done within my hour lunch break. Since my condition is very rare my PT had never even heard of my condition. He was asonished (is that the right word?). Anyway, so he said he would treat me like a woman who just had a masectomy, which, makes sense. Anyway, I was scheduled to go 3 times a week for 8 weeks. At 30.00 a pop I was not looking forward to going every week. I was happy to say, first off I knew the PT. He was our announcer at our agility demo's at the Bloomsburg Fair. He's a very nice guy to so that made it fun that we could talk about dogs while I worked out. Well, I wasn't really working out but trying to. He said that he would set me up on a home program and I only had to come and see him once a week. Yippee, that made me really happy. I started off slow, with those therapand thingies. It was really hard to. I didn't realize how much muscle I had lost after the surgery. My guns were gone...... After Halloween I also decided to try out aqua aerobics. They hold classes on Tues and Thurs at the middleschool from 6:30 - 7:15. Jason never thought I would roll out of the recliner that early in the morning. Well, I did. Keep in mind I'm normally just getting out of bed each day when class is ending. Did I mention that this class was for senior citizens? Anyway, I had the best first day. Those ladies are a hoot. My first day there was about 25 people or so in the pool. I had so much fun. After we got out it was off to the locker room. That wasn't much fun at all. Actually I was traumatized. One of the ladies, the wild one as I call her, she told me it was good for me to come so I could see what I would look like at her age. They also talked about their barrells. Barrells they were too. No shower before work so I went smelling like a pool. I immediatly was telling everyone how much fun I had. I texted my friend Dori and invited her along. I was so excited she wanted to go. So, on Thursday we met at the pool together. We can't really talk much while in the pool because we're working out but just having her there by my side made it so much fun. I left the pool and headed to her house to change. Thanks Dori!

I am happy to report that I am finally sleeping in bed. I have been for about 1 month now. Every now and then I have a day where I'm in so much pain that I have to move back to the recliner but those days are minimal. I sleep with a stack of pillows since I still cannot sleep flat. I also sleep with a heating pad. The only blasted thing I HATE is the darned thing auto shuts off after 1 hour. For those that need constant very hot heat this is bad. So every hour I have to wake up, which is normally easy because of my pain, and turn the blased thing back on. I need to search the internet for an old heating pad that doesn't have that feature so I can sleep through the night. The only time I sleep soundly through the night in bed is when I take my 2 valium, which I have to do on occassion. With the cold weather finally here brings another problem. I can't get cold. If I get cold I shiver and hurt really bad. So, our new TV we had placed in the basement had to be taken upstairs since our basement is not heated. I also have to wear heavy clothes just in case I get cold. It sucks too. Gur.... or Burrr....ha ha ha

My chest still looks great. I am so proud of it. Even though I still have pain 24/7 I still look at it like it's my new best friend. If I could go back would I do it all over again? You betcha. The pain doesn't even phase me. Hurt all day long 7 days a week but I'm healthy now. My heart is back in place, my lungs are expanding......I'm so happy. Once these blasted bars are out I will be even more happier. I'm so proud I have shown most of the ladies at aerobics class my new chest. One says my surgeon is a good one because you can't even see my incisions.

The past few weeks have been nerve racking. Traveling season is starting up for me again. I will be leaving for Memphis on Nov 30th and flying home to Scranton on Dec 5th. I'll have the weekend home with my hubby but then on Monday the 8th I am heading out to Bentonville for a week. Needless to say Thanksgiving is right before these 2 weeks I will be traveling. We planned on heading home for Thanksgiving since Jay is on call during Christmas break and we cannot go home. I really didn't want to go at all. With my pain and traveling/working like crazy I knew traveling 3 weeks in a row would be pure torture for me. Not to mention when I get home from Bentonville we'll be heading to NYC with Dori and Gerald for our annual NYC Christmas road trip. So, I told Jason almost every day. I don't want to go home but I know I'll regret it if I don't get to see my family. Well our plans have changed and we will not be going home. Our plans really didn't change for a good reason though. One of my favorite aunts, Shirley, who lives in the Adirondacks in NY State has a tumor in her brain. My other favorite aunt Linda and my mom are both very concerned. The tumor is the size of a plum and is pushing against the part of her brain that helps with her memory. At first mom told me how bad it was but I really didn't believe her. So, I called Shirley and she couldn't even talk to me. She could talk but couldn't remember what she wanted to say. I could tell she was frustrated becuase the only thing she could say is "I don't know". Mom was very worried and wanted to see her before her surgery but couldn't find a way. Stacy called me and asked if I would pay 1/2 of mom's ticket to Albany so she could spend a week with Shirley before her surgery. Mom first needed to get off work. Once that prayer was answered it was time for me to work my wonders on the internet and find mom a cheap flight. Answered prayer number 2 came when I found a ticket from Indy to Albany for 182.00. Woo Hoo! That's round trip to. I had first found the cheap rates from Columbus but mom would have to fly into DC or JFK. I really didn't want her to have to go into those airports because mom hasn't flown by herself before. God really blessed us with a ticket out of Indy connecting in Charlotte. Woo Hoo! Well aunt Linda flew in from LA and met mom. So, on Wednesday when Jason get's back from his backpacking trip with J-Cob we will be heading up to Schroon Lake to spend thanksgiving with them. We will not have the normal huge dinner most people have but I am just thankful for many things. Thankful to see my mom, my 2 favorite aunts, thanksful to be going to the ADKS (our favorite spot), and just thankful that I do not have to drive that far. Please be in prayer for Shirley. We're hoping she'll ditch the doc in Glens Falls and fly to LA to have a specialty brain surgeon do the surgery on her. Shirley is hard headed so just pray she will listen to us.

Now for information on this weekend. As I mentioned above Jason is off hiking with J-Cob. He's been wanting to do this trip with him for a few years now but this time it actually worked out for him. I was so excited. So, I'm home alone just hanging out. On Friday Jason was still in town so we went out for dinner. He stayed overnight and then left really early on Sat morning. I have no idea when he left though. That morning I went into work to get some things done. Then I went to aqua aerobics. The instructor was not there so I had the pool all to myself, which was cool. Went home, slept for like 3 hours. Then I went back to the pool that night to swim with Dori and her friend Karen and her family. Again, the pool was all to ourselves. It was so much fun too. I tried to swim but I still do not have the strengh to hold myself out of the water so I ended up hurting myself instead.....One of these days. So, Sunday I met Dori and Gerald at EBC. They wanted to visit with me. The sermon was really good and it was nice to go to church again. The pastor is amazing. Afterwards we went to Panera Bread and sat for the longest time and talked. It was so much fun. So when I go home I painted the window and touched up some paint around the house. I have a few things more I have to paint before I'm done. I watched a movie and then decided I needed to blog.

So, hope you enjoy my book!

WOW! It sure has been a long time. I am alive and well, just busy. The last 2 weeks I have spent a lot of time working on our work Halloween costume. We ended up winning but I knew we would. Our halloween costume was amazing. Overall 4 of us spent close to 200 hours working on the thing. It's going to be very hard to top it next year.

We started getting ready around 9:30 on Friday morning. All 8 of us got ready in the showroom and then grabbed a few people to help us with the doors. We started our walk outside the building making tons of noise. I couldn't see how many people were outside but I heard almost the whole company was either peaking outside the window or actually outside watching us. We went from the front of the building over to the JDE room and walked through that. After that it was off to the front of the drive near the road for a picture by the Berwick Offray sign. So many people were honking, which was really cool. A lady from the nursing home across the street ran over and asked us to come over and walk through. Of course we will :-) We walked back to the office first for the judging. It was between us and the Jackson 5. We beat them, hands down. Woo hoo! They looked pretty cool though. I also enjoyed the goth group, the man dressed up as an old woman, and the pirate. All very cool costumes. We took the caterpillar off for a bit to cool down. It was extremely hot inside that thing. After 10 minutes we walked toward the road. They had to block traffic on rt 11 so we could all cross, all 32ft of us. :) Rt 11 is a very busy street too but I don't think people minded.

On Saturday I went with Jacquie, her sister Jen, her daughter Claire and I forget the other ladies name to a corn maze. It's becoming a tradition for us to go every year, which is neat. Jason couldn't join us this year, maybe next year. After the corn maze we went to a cemetary down the street. Seems weird but it was really cool to see. They have wire cages around them that some people call the wolf cages. I'll have to be sure to take Jason out to see them. The graves are from the 1800's so people are trying to protect them. The cages have a different meaning though. I'm attaching a link if you would like to read about them.

http://www.colcohist-gensoc.org/Essays/Cages%20on%20Graves%20Explained.pdf

Fall near our house

Other than that, we have just been hanging out. We recently got a new TV. It's been a long time coming since our projector died the week I was in the hospital. I hated to have people over to watch movies in the bedroom..Yucky. So we spent a few months researching and found one that we are really happy with. It's obviously much smaller than the projector screen but I love the picture. Makes it worth it.

I started physical therapy. This week I have not been very faithful, it's probably why I am so sore. I'm hoping to start aqua aerobics this week. I ordered a swim suit and the ones that came in were too small. I could barley fit. Hopefully my new ones will come soon. In the meantime I'll just find something else to wear.

Well, that's about it. Until the next post......