Monday

Yesterday was my birthday, yay me! I had a good time, the pattern of the last few was broken, and although I try and be a traditionalist, change was good. :)

The Firebird is doing great in basketball. He is a shooter. He gets the other team's rebound, passes it off to one of his teammates to move the ball down the court, and races down the court to get in position for our rebound. He made 8 points tonight. His highest so far was twelve. He had a lame couple of games with few or no points right after Kristen's accident. He has rebounded well.

The whole team is doing well; everyone's improving and our coach challenges them more every game. Willow and I are a couple of fans, cheering in the stands. Phoenix's success has enabled us to gain acceptance in his new school. Some of the parents assume I must be a basketball expert, so it's really funny when I make some really dumb comment. haha.

We have a big storm coming, welcome February. January went fast, I'm hoping the rest of the winter follows that pattern. The temp was 10 below zero this morning. Supposed to be 15 below tomorrow morning, and not knowing that I called Boss this noon and begged to work tomorrow. I missed Friday because I was in the ER.

I had three trips to the hospital last week. Monday for my three week blood work. The nurse called me Tuesday and said my levels were coming down and stay on the med. Then I mentioned I had a sore throat. She told me to go right to the lab and have blood drawn. It was snowing-so she grudgingly agreed I could go in the morning, but I had to stop taking methimazole immediately until the results came in.

Methimazole has a rare side effect. It can cause your white blood cell level to crash, making you vulnerable to infection. A sore throat is apparently cause for immediate concern.

Those blood tests came back fine. I was off the med for 24 hours and resumed it that night. The next day my shoulders felt like I had a tetanus shot. By bedtime the pain settled in one shoulder and I struggled all night to sleep, getting out of bed at dawn to drive myself (singledhandedly, literally) to the hospital.

Trying to get into a hospital gown had me in tears. I could wiggle the fingers of my left hand and that was it. I had to use my right hand to move my left arm and even that was agony. I had an x-ray series, an ice pack, and 500 mg of Ibuprofen. They offered me something stronger, but I would have had to have someone pick me up because they wouldn't let me drive. After once driving myself home after receiving morphine in the ER and getting carsick after the rotary, I hastily agreed to just Ibuprofen.

I was diagnosed with rotator cuff injury. The pain started to fade. When I was released 4 hours later, I was able to touch the steering wheel with my fingers. By noon I was lugging laundry one handed to the laundramat. I worked the farm the next morning. By the 36 hour mark all pain and stiffness was gone. Today I split wood.

Ok, that was weird! I had something similar happen before I went on the meds with the other shoulder, only not so painful. So I wonder if there was a relation to going off the meds for 24 hours? I should probably let the endo know, but I am waiting to see if it happens again. So here's hoping it doesn't!

Saturday I went over to visit Kristen's family. They wanted me to go through her clothes. You would not believe the bags and boxes they had put aside. I went through everything one thing at a time. If I hesistated over something, her daughter would say how K had loved that, or wore it all the time, So in the keep pile it would go.

Then her daughter's boyfriend was helping, "Oh, that's a nice shirt," if I hesitated.

The only comment D made was when I put on a silver metallic thread turtleneck sweater. "That's shiny," he said. I put that in the reject pile. :)

About halfway through I said, "I'll just throw out all my clothes."

Because there is two complete wardrobes of stuff sitting in bags downstairs right now. I have no idea where I can put it. So I am going to go through everything again in front of a mirror and try and keep a quarter of it? That still seems a lot!

No tears were shed during the visit, although Willow got a little bleary eyed at one point. That was her first visit to the house since K passed. I am sort of in shock, no so much because of the volume of stuff, but the concept of it. It's like an extension of my own stuff, from old stained sweatshirts, felted sweaters, nice stuff, out of date stuff. So it sort of rocks my feeling of immortality, to put it mildly.

Her daughter had already taken what she wanted, so you can imagine what the entire amount must have equaled! Then, I'll call her Vine, gave Willow several of her own beautiful dresses, including her prom dress. Willow was thrilled!!

D was smoking a butt on the deck when we made our goodbyes. He gave me a big hug and pressed something into my hand and said, "Happy Birthday, this is from Kristen." I closed my hand and thanked him sincerely. As I walked away, I opened my hand and saw her beautiful pair of blue glass and silver drop earrings.

I'm not very fond of Death at the moment.