P.I.C.C line in...

well friday afternoon dominic and i headed into the hospital in middlebury...dom was shown the waiting room while i was taken to radiology to be prepped for the procedure...apparently the dr. thought my appointment was at 1pm while i thought it was at 12:30pm...oh well no harm done...at 12:45 the doc's nurse came and got me...she explained everything that was going to happen and put an iv into my left hand so they could get the dye into my vein...she then informed me that the dr. wasn't ready to see me yet...i went back to the changing room to wait...1:45 i was taken back and prepped...within an hour i was done and dominic and i were being led upstairs so i could get my first dose of the antibiotic...they needed to make sure i didn't have any reaction to meds...
saturday was spent with visits from the pharmacy lady that will be bringing my meds every week...(i get 5 days at a time)...then the home health nurse came and spent at least an hour and a half with us...she changed my dressings and showed me how to flush the 2 lines that i have...(i have to do that everyday)...
shelly suggested that i get some rubbermaid containers to store my stuff in so that i have it all in one spot and thura can't get at it...
here are my supplies...
i have to keep my medicine in the fridge so that it doesn't go bad...i take it out about an hour before i inject...
the health nurse came back today and watched me flush my own lines to make sure i would be able to do this all on my own tomorrow...here are some pics that dominic took...
this is an up close look at the insertion point...how did the doc do richard and shelly?
thanks for all the love, prayers and support!!!

the 'R' word...relapse...

so i have been having some symptoms of lyme again for the past month or so...not super intense and not the same symptom consistently...night sweats, headaches, stiffness, aching, joint pain...the usual symptoms with lyme...but things have slowly been getting worse and thursday night was the worst cognitive symptoms that i have had so far...
last wednesday i went to school at 6am to workout with devon...i got there and couldn't do anything....my body felt heavy and i had little to no energy...devon told me to go home and sleep...i called for a sub and did just that...i slept from 7:30 til about noon...was awake for a couple of hours and then slept again until 5 or 6...was up for a few hours and then slept straight through til 7 am...thursday started out ok...i was really tired but other then that i was ok...i taught all day then headed to the bobcat for my serving shift...this is when things got rough...i couldn't seem to do anything right...i was forgetting about drink orders...i wasn't able to multi-task at all (which you have to be able to do when serving)...i was forgetting how to use the computer to put in orders and cash people out...people were telling me their orders and i wasn't writing down the correct things...i was a mess....
needless to say i walked out of work that night feeling like a complete idiot...i called dominic on my walk home and started crying...i was so scared, overwhelmed and feeling stupid...
this was a bit overwhelming for dominic because i haven't been sharing with anyone really the symptoms that i have been having over the past month so it came out of the blue for him...
i have decided to talk to my 3 different docs and see what they have to say...
so i have come to a few conclusions over the past couple of days:

1. i feel deflated because i thought i had beat lyme and now realize that i haven't yet...
2. i am tired of feeling like it consumes my life...not being able to honestly say that i feel good...
3. i am scared about what the future holds in terms of the lyme disease...
4. i have to keep fighting and this isn't going to beat me!!!

this is a website that i found tonight while doing some more research...
http://www.chroniclymedisease.com/

thank you for all your prayers and support...please read up on lyme disease if you get the chance...it is a very complicated disease that is surrounded by controversy...

a huge thanks and lots of love to dominic for being so amazingly patient with all the ups and downs that lyme takes me on...i love you more then words can say!

fun with family

the holidays are a great time and i was blessed enough to be surrounded by loved ones for 2 weeks...
and to think that this photo was taken shortly after we got to the new year's eve party...




carson decides to see what the fish are up to while on our mushi mushi trip...
courtney joined all of us in some sparkler fun on new year's eve...

















everyone just hanging and chatting down by the pool on christmas day...
















jake and jum at the welcome home party for jake...jake and i on new year's eve...was so great to be able to be with him his first holiday season back home...

dad and shar enjoying each other at the welcome home dinner...

family picture on christmas eve

thank you for an amazing time...can't wait for christmas 08!!!!

fireworks on the island

so the big thing with new years on the island is the fireworks...they are everywhere and can be massive...the tradition is on the 27 or 28 of december we all go into the barrios and go firework shopping...the money spent reaches the thousands...there always seems to be something that makes us laugh during the after fireworks drink at a local bar...
this is shelly negotiating the purchase of the little roosters...which we thought were so cute....














the warning is what we found funny about this especially the reporting part...
we also bought a million pagara...it is a firecracker that is rope-like and has a million little firecrackers along it...you light one end and the rest go like dominoes...
it comes in a huge wooden crate on a pallet...this is what it looks like before being put on road...



















this is what it looks like before and then during...it is pretty amazing and so loud...
this is the mess that is left afterwards...we all get brooms and sweep it all up...you can hardly tell that anything has happened the next morning...

brotherly love...

jake has been away from his marine buddies for a couple weeks and sure he is married but i think he misses that brotherly love... thankfully dominic seemed to be a decent replacement for him...these pictures were taken on our 'nacho night' after plenty of brights and margaritas...

'it's just too bad you two don't get along"

wuv...twue wuv....

as most of you know i am dating an amazing man...he is smart, funny, attractive, and nerdy...i love him like crazy...

we were celebrating his 30th birthday on the mushi mushi with our families...the glasses were provided by shelly...his mom...
this was the night we went to the barrios and shopped for fireworks...stopping for a drink is part of tradition now...
this was a special scotch toast welcoming my brother jacob home...
here's to another year filled with love, laughing and adventure...

world traveling cat...thura

thura (pronounced two-ra) has already been on 6 flights, 3 each way to san diego for thanksgiving...but the journey to bonaire included some other aspects...it began with a 4 hour drive to boston...the picture above is in the car...she did pretty well in the car...she slept on both flights which was great...we got to bonaire and the weather didn't seem to bother her...
in fact she enjoyed quite a few sunsets down by the pool...she also made a new friend...fonz...
she had a couple of favorite spots in the apartment to hang out...one was by the door waiting for us to come home, another was in the dip of the toilet seat lid, and by the transformer for the tv because it was warm when we put the air conditioning on at night in the bedroom...



















she also joined us in welcoming courtney and carson back with a nacho night...she was partial to the fiesta party hat that was passed around for all to wear...

she also got some good quality time with jacob, whose hands made her look even smaller then she is...and with her grandmas...who spoiled her at christmas...



















the trip home was a long one but thura slept on both flights again...by the time we got our luggage and picked up the car she was starving...i poured her some food into a glad container and she chowed down at my feet in the car...
after filling her belly...she slept in my lap for 4 hours...here ends this journey....her next flight is this coming weekend to visit dominic in chicago....

cold, harsh reality

after spending 10 days on an island off of the coast of venezuela in weather where the temps range from 82-90+ with a nice breeze coming off the ocean i was faced with the reality of home on january 3rd...this is a picture of the temperature gage in my car on the way to school....the high never got above zero that day that i am aware of...
the good news is that it only lasted for a day...unlike minnesota where it lasts for weeks on end...don't know how i ever lived for so long in that state with that winter weather?? yikes...good luck to those that are still there...lol