After four weeks of living life SANS kid, and learning the routines of a COUPLE, Max decided to move back home. Seems that one of the stellar citizens he was living with lost their job and the whole scene was falling apart. Well, that is not really a problem, but the fact that he has brought the disease and pestilence with him IS!!!!
Sunday while he and John were moving all his stuff he was very ill and looked like crap. He had most of the sign of flu, so it was off to the ER for him. Since I have asthma and in the "high risk" group I could not sit there while he waited to get looked at, so we told him to call us when he was ready to go home. About two hours later he was done. Yep, H1N1 confirmed.
Fever 103, lots of technicolor vomiting, severe body aches.....everything that the networks are scaring you with. They forget to tell you that the Tamiflu costs over $100 bucks for kids and folks without health insurance!! We paid for it, but OUCH!!
Nothing says fun like the odor of bleach in your dishwater and vomit in the house!! I feel like I am now working in a hospital!! Not to mention the fifty, or so, boxes of kleenex that he has gone through. They say this could last about five days. I can not wait to see what this new day brings!!
Nothing like an unknown ache & pain, a few Vicodin and some wine to really make for a swell weekend!! Boy, do I know how to party like a rock star!!
It was a sharp pain, Friday night, that woke me from a dead sleep. Sharp pain in my left shin area just below the knee. I finally got back to sleep. Saturday night the same thing. I just could not get comfortable in the bed and more difficulty getting back to sleep. Went to work Sunday morning and it was not until I had done some kneeling, at work, that I came home at the pain and become intense. I also noticed while I was sitting, at the desk and doing the banking, at work that it actually was like a burning sensation. I had more comfort standing as a did it. It also was very uncomfortable to sit and drive, although I did not have a standing option there.
When I got home, Sunday afternoon, I tried to ice, but the pain and tearing/burning sensation was just too severe, so John took me to the med center. They took x-rays and gave me a knee brace. They also took blood to check for gout. So, that is where I am now. Waiting to hear about the results. As I sit here it is still burning/hurting. The Vicodin takes the edge off at night, but I can't take that and expect to work!! Not if people want their $5.00 latte to be what they asked for!!
At home though is another story! Last night it was wine and Vicodin and re-runs of NCIS. Iced off and on, but nothing seems to really help. They also gave me some steroids for inflammation, but I would have thought by now that if there was inflammation that they would have helped. I can walk fine, but it is the sitting and kneeling that are painful. It just feels like the meat is tearing away from the bone. How fun does that sound!! Sure makes the wine and Vicodin sound inviting doesn't it.
It just sucks when shit starts to happen to your body parts that are out of your control and it is not anything that can be deduced quickly. Things that require multiple tests suck! I am just wondering if I did not get a small stress fracture when I tried to run last Thursday, on my day off, and now I am feeling it. There you have it folks....another example of how healthy pursuits are dangerous!!
As for the Max update................he moved back home after two days in a bachelor pad with four guys, all 18, who are on their own for the first time. We all have talked and hopefully it is moving in a better direction for all of us!!
Yesterday it became apparent that you just really never know what might be going on in other people's lives. Those you work with as well as those you might serve. people that you come in contact with every day and all day long.
I am one of those people who always goes to work with a good attitude. People think that I am always funny & goofy. They have a good time working with me. They can never tell what my personal life might be like. There are other people, and I am sure that you have worked with people like this, they are always an emotional wreck or have some sad story or wear their emotional baggage on their sleeves.
I had a meeting with my boss yesterday to discuss a promotional/reward program that they asked me to create/implement etc. As it was over he shared some news with me that nearly brought him to tears and me as well. Then I shared with him the drama that is currently going on in my life. he was quite surprised and said, " What a mess are we right now"! Yes, I said, but you know I never try to roll my problems to work in a wheelbarrow. He knows that is the truth.
Max left me a note yesterday that he is moving out. He is coming over today to discuss what his plans are etc.
I am torn between being crushed, feeling like a failure, or begging him to stay. I feel terrible. The last thing I am interested in right now is work!! I could not be working on that promotion at a more dysfunctional time!
He has no intention of going into the Navy. I know this because he came home with an entire "sleeve" on tattoo outlines on his arm. not that I am opposed to tats, but you know if you can't afford them and don't have a really good job to pay all your bills etc. that you should be holding off, but he has not. I am not even sure that he still has a job. At least not enough hours at one to pay the bills he currently has.
I know that I moved away from home at 18, but I also got a really good job AND was able to pay bills. I was also moving out of an abusive environment. Max has nothing like that going on here. We have always been supportive and done all kinds of things with and for him as an only child.
I do not know what he is thinking. I guess I will know in a few hours, but it does not stop me from feeling like a failure as a parent. It feels like after 18 years I did not do any of it right. I have not given him any direction. I did not do my job properly because he is floundering and does not know what to do. I watch all these people whose kids are graduating and going off to schools and careers and mine is just floating off into nothingness.........
He says that he is going to go and stay with his friend that just moved in with some people and it is a first apartment. Oh yeah! I am thrilled about this.
I have always been so good at putting on the stage face and not letting people know what my personal life was like. Maybe as the result of having grown up in such a dysfunctional home it was my coping mechanism. It makes me look at customers in an entirely different light. How do I know what happened to them this morning before they came in for their coffee? How do I know what their kids did or said to them this week?
John is leaving Monday and for the first time I will be totally alone. I will not have Max here to watch junk television with. No one to talk to about the newest You Tube videos. It will be totally & utterly quiet here.
He had such promise with his electrical engineering background. I know that you can not force anyone to do anything, but it is very hard to watch or sit by and just let them go, when you have no idea what they are going to. I am feeling stunned, shocked and dismayed right now and can not imagine where to go from here.
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Looks like we are going to get a new puppy. I had plans, when Max left for the Navy, but this option came up sooner than expected and how could anyone resist that little mug!!
I was looking for a puppy that we could train ourselves. Burt, the Beagle, was an older adult dog when we got him from the APL and we haven't had a puppy in 10 years, but with so much new time on my hands and no kid to raise I think I want something that I can dress up in baby clothes and carry around as my new baby! Yes, I am losing my mind.
This little fella is coming to us with recommendations , from our vet, courtesy of a local rescue called Roses Rescue. So I feel good about using them. He is a Shepard-Hound mix and it looks like we are going to name him Baxter.
Casey, our Golden, is about the same age as our oldest dog was when we got her as a pup. We have also always had very good luck with the male/female combo. We have friends that have more than one dog and they are all males and their home is a madhouse of barking male dogs striving to be the alpha male and too rowdy and crazy for me. We have always had a nice mix and everyone gets along quite nicely when you do the male/female combo.
I have to call the foster mom and arrange a pick-up date. It may not be until next week due to a major winter storm that we are supposed to be getting tonight in to tomorrow. Since we will be potty training ourselves there is a lower cost than if we let them do it and wait to get him, but I have nothing but time now and what else to do. One can only blog and drink so much and the you need to find something else to occupy your time!! :-D
Yesterday was Max's last official day of high school. Wow. I can not believe that I have a kid that old. Today he will go and see his Naval guys and get some idea of how soon he will be leaving. Time to stock up on tissues and get a puppy.
While looking through the other blogs on my list I came across a topic that caught my attention, made me think and then to write.
Over at Dooce the topic of marriage and motherhood was the debate. Which do/did we find easier. Wow! What a topic. At first I laughed and thought,"Are either of them easy?" Then as I decided to make them part of my dialog today I looked more deeply in to both of them.
While I am currently directly involved with both of them, Max is 18 and has not left for the Navy yet and still married, I have pause to reflect upon each of them.
I was once under the assumption that as your children got older that it would become easier and far less expensive. How little I knew!! I think other parents keep this information to themselves so that others will have to go through the same experiences as they did. It must be part of the rites of parental passage. I thought that once they were through the diapers and inoculations it could only get easier. I must have been crazed as part of the sleep deprivation!
Now their "toys" are far more costly, they eat tons more food and leave bigger messes and it is FAR harder to control them and tell them what to do or what to wear. You have to repeat yourself countless times and they are far too big to put in a "time out" chair.
But...if I have to decide if it is easier than marriage......I think that I might say NO.
Trying to navigate life in a marriage can be difficult for sure, but hopefully it is with a person that you also consider a friend. Something that doesn't come with children until they are older. During those diaper years you have to be a parent and not a friend. Your marriage can be a partnership, if you are lucky enough to get to that point before you kill each other, it can be an anchor in your life.
Not always, in the early years it can be quite difficult to navigate the waters of a new marriage. I remember times when I felt like a maid until we worked our way into the niches that we have today. I think the first 10 years were the "negotiating" years. The time of feeling our way through the highs and lows of setting up a home and then you add the kids and you have a brewing cauldron of emotions!!
I don't think it was easy to negotiate with children, but far easier to do so with John. He actually worked around me and let me find myself, but there is not really any time to do that with your kids. Many of the decisions that must be made, when they are small, have to be made off the cuff and instantaneously.
When I reflect on both I know that there are things that I wish I would have done differently as a mom, but as a wife/person in a relationship I think it has been something with far fewer regrets. I have mellowed into the relationship that we have and look forward to what the future will bring. I think that motherhood was harder and has given me FAR more gray hair than anything that has come from my relationship.
How about you guys?
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