It's no big secret that I've taken pain meds for YEARS. It's about the only way you manage the pain of falling 36ft off of a telephone pole, or from being mugged, then dragged by a car at 60mph.

You don't usually get to my age without aches and pains.

Due to new "government guidelines (DEA), family physicians are facing a crackdown on the type and frequency of meds that they prescribe... at my doctor's, they are commonly referred to as "bluescripts". You know the ones... the "sought after" stuff.

As I've said, I've taken the stuff for years. Am I adicted, no I don't think so. I start and stop the stuff at will. (doesn't that sound familiar?) Have I built up a tolorance to it... most likely. In any event, there are certain things that I must take, that there are no replacements for... such as for anxiety. And then there are the things that only seem to work on me... also in the same family, but for pain and spasms. Sadly, there doesnt seem to be a doctor around that will now prescribe this combination. Oh, I should mention here, that the meds that were prescribed, were only for 30 days at a time, no more that 60 pills at a time. (remember this)

Oh well... off to the Pain Managment Specialist. N

FOUR hours later... I walk out with a script for Lyraca (side effects, will make you sleepy, AND make you feel high ... so they say) pain patches. muscle relaxors.. and will you believe this... they argued with me until they were blue in the face that they WOULD NOT give me the same pain med.... REFUSED! and when I got home and looked it up on the internet... it is the SAME MED minus half the tylenol. Only get this.. I'm now given 6 SIX times as many.... *shakes head*

Am I missing something here.... I can take a tylenol with each pain med (if I chose) and "make" the same drug at home. These people are just idiots. I actually came out of this new clinic with MORE meds that I went in on. Well, at least I shouldn't be hurting, and that was the goal all along.

It's been 3 straight days of migraines. I've tried every combination of meds I know.

It manage to back off longenought to allow me to go and buy some roses for the backyard.

Now it's schedueled to rain heavily. oh well.

not much esle is going on .

Yes, another disaster. Although one that didn't cause damage.... other than scaring me to nearly to death.

I was sitting here, surfing and suddenly I heard a roaring sound. The cat's all got freaked out, and then the shaking started. I was almost shaken out of my chair. I actually saw the walls MOVE. If felt like a rough landing in a jet.

It took a moment for it to register what had happened. At first I thought it might have been a tornado, (it is the season for them)...  turned out to be an earthquake of 5.4.

I called Charlie. He was still driving to work. He said he didnt feel anything. But as it turns out, most that were driving DIDN"T feel anything.

I watched the news all morning, it hadn't seemed to have damaged anything. Then at 11am, two more aftershocks hit. At least I knew what it was this time... but it didn't scare me any less.

About a month ago, I woke up early one morning. I stumbled out of bed, and headed for the bathroom. Just as I crossed out of the living room, I stepped in something wet. I wondered if one of the cat's had an "accident". I headed back to the bedroom to get my glasses and when I looked, I found that there was a small puddle of water seemingly coming from the water softner. I was midly alarmed, not somthing I wanted to deal with at 5am. I continued on to the bath room, the floor was dry. UNTIL I got into the bathroom. Just as I stepped in front of the toilet, it was also WET. My mind immediately calculated that we have water coming in on two different walls of the basement. At that same moment, the sump pum alarm went off. I yanked open the pump room door and there is water "fountaining" up out of the sump pit.

Now, when we bought this house, it made us wonder why they had built a block wall about a foot high around the sump pump area. It suddenly became crystal clear. It was a "grace" wall. Designed to give you a bit of time until it actually flooded. Too bad they neglected to seal the wall. (cinder block is pourous)

The water was seeping through the wall and continuing to move into Jen's room. I went in there and check... yes, the carpet was wet, not only that, it was continuing on into OUR room. I ran in there and the water was creeping out from under out pedestal bed. I grabbed all the towels I could find in the misguided effort to STOP THE WATER IN IT'S TRACKS! (FAT CHANCE)

I grabbed a pair of short and a tee-shirt and headed up stairs. Charlie stayed downstairs to see what he could do. At that point we thought the pump had merely stopped pumping and was causing the problem. When he came up, he said that the pump was still on, but the water wasn't going any where.

I called an  emergency plumber out and he got there in a timely manner. Only to tell us that he couldn't help us... that we needed a "drain guy". He called his company and had us put on "first dispatch'. in the meantime I'm calling the Restoration company that dried us out after the hail damage of '05. They also got there immediately, only to tell us that they had nothing on their truck that would handle that amout of incoming water... yes, it was still rising.

The drain guy got there and thus started our day from hell. From 5am to 9am we ended up with a foot of water in our basement. It was coming THAT fast. Charlie was piling stuff up on the furniture, and dragging what he could up the stairs and into the garage.

The drain guy was there all day, and really didn't do anything positive to fix the problem. Charlie got a portable pump and set it at the bottom of the stairs and ran the hose up the stairs and out the garage and down the drive. He managed to pump all but two inches of water (the pump couldn't pick up any lower than that) Then he got out my carpet cleaner and sucked the remaining water up. ONE GALLON AT A TIME)

The drain guy had tried to snake our outside line to the storm sewer, and found it was clogged or collapsed with roots. Charlie suggested we take the pump and stick it in the hole that they made in the line when snaking. That effectively bypassed the clogged line.

The restoration company came and extracted the rest of the water, put all our stuff up on blockes and brought in fans and dehumidifiers to get the moisture out.

We ended up being out of the house for 10 days while it was drying out. We are currently back in the house, but sleeping in the guest room up stairs, on an air bed. lol. The down stairs is still a mess. We're in the process of tearing out all of the ruined carpet, and will be putting down new vynal flooring that will be flood resistant in the event (God forbid) that it ever happens again.

well, I sat and wrapped presents tonight, I think I'm about halfway done. I need get out tomorow and do my final shopping. I dread it. More to come later.

I've managed to get my back out again. So I'm eating Vicodin, Soma and Advil with a xanax chaser, it makes me sleepy, so I think I'll put this to bed for tonight.

Hugs to all

Ronar

I have just realized that I've been gone from my blog for 11 months.  Seems like yesterday, seems like a lifetime.

Some things have changed:

Our daughter has moved back in with us. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes not so good. Don't get me wrong, We love her. But having her back under the same roof is hard for us and her. She's 23 now, and being back at home, puts us into her business way more than either of are comfortable with.

So, this means that we are a multigenerational family, living in one house with 4 cats. Things often get a little hectic and strange.

I know this is not much of a post, but I wanted to at least write an update, for any old friends that might stop by.

I'll try to be on more now that I've been able to get back into the darned blog! LOL

I know I've been gone a long time. I reached a point where I was just overwhelmed. I thought that when we got back home everything would resolve itself. Well, It has, and hasn't.

Things are still somewhat frustrating. It's hard integrating another person in my family life. (dad) But there are good things about it too. His health is much improved. He's only been to the doctor once since moving here and that was just to get his medicine refilled. My own health has been more up and down. Probably just because I'm still stressed, being responsible for so many things. I have days where I just don't want to, and DON'T get out of bed. I have days of total exhaustion. But unless I feel like death warmed over, I try to get up and do things.

My dad has decided to leave mom in the nursing home in Florida, rather than trying to meet the crazy Indiana Medicare guidelines. (It varies from state to state) This has taken some of the stress off, but added it in a new way. We've been trying to set up an estate plan for him, and by him leaving her in Florida, his plan must now satisfy the requrements of TWO states. We have an attorney working on that part now.

Dad has decided that he needs a social life. I both agree and disagree. He has his friends from the department that he meets with on Thursdays, and the retirees on the 2nd Thursday of the month, and the veterans at the Legion. But these are all guys. He wants to do other things. movies, dancing. dinner. He has recently started dating a cousin of my mother's  and some of the family is having issues with it.

Jen has taken herself out of school. stress is again the culprit. I'm not sure what her plans will be. I try not to pressure her about it. My hope is that she will move back home, work the summer and go back to local school in the fall to finish her degree.     We'll see.

Enough for now. Hopefull I won't drop off the face of the earth again

It's been a hellova week.

I feel as I'm running in circles. I no more than get started on a "project" and another crisis pops up.

I got a panic- stricken phone call from SIL. Seems her finance company was "demanding" payment on Thursday and she did one on those electronic payments. Then she found out that the apartments were going to take her to court for eviction if she did not pay the rent yesterday. So, she put a stop payment on the car-payment and took the cash out and paid the rent. Then she found out that the stop-payment might not stop the transaction and she might overdraft her checking account.

She was crying and wailing and said that she was suicidal... then she would calm down and say" Do you think your dad would be interested in helping me out?"   WTF?? Since when did my dad become the sugar-daddy of the world.... this went on all night... I kept telling her that I could NOT help her with money... that I would try to help her to make some arrangements, but that was ALL.

And 'round we would go again.....

When she gets like that, she just keeps talking in a circle.... and it drives me crazy.

I talked to her bank... all was fine. I talked to the finance company... and held them off until Monday. The same thing for the cell bill. And she is trying to get a loan to consolidate. This is not my recommendation, but her bank's. Surprize, surprize. I did her budget and she has exactly 200.00 a month left after paying bills and that does not include food or gas. So, basically she's screwed... and no consolidation loan is going to fix that. She's in over her head... with an apartment and car that she can't afford.

I was supposed to meet with her again on Monday to try to set her up with CCC.

She showed up here today... I was out shopping with Jen. Then she started burning up my cellphone. I feel bad for doing it, but I just let it ring. I was drained. I just wanted to spend my weekend doing what I wanted.... which was to spend it with my family. Then, in the middle of fixing dinner... she shows up unannounced. She said that she couldn't stand sitting her appartment alone any longer. I think she was wrangling for an invite... but I was struggling with the oven and working around all the boxes and couldn't find anything and getting on my own last nerve. She was NOT what I needed standing in the middle of the kitchen... in the way. I sound like such a bitch. Sorry.

I have to admit.. I escaped downstairs and took two "play-nice" pills (xanax). I took a few minuites to put my feet up and she followed me down there. Then she started asking me if my dad played cards (eucre) THAT was not the way that I wanted to spend the evening.

Oh, and the realtor called and got me up this morning, being very demanding about when she could "sell" the house..... WTF??  I reminded her that we could not close on the house until mom was approved for Medicaid, and that could be a couple of months. She thought that the moment we arrived her that we would have info for her. She was upset that she had placed a sign in the yard and was having to field calls from people and she is unable to "sell" the house because of US. I swear, I'm about to tell her that she can take a long walk off a short pier. It was HER idea to place the sign this soon. I told her not to... well, she can just deal with it or get fired, which ever come first.

Bitchy?? Not me! LOL

The packers showed up a day early. I wasn't ready.....

There was only ONE of me, there were THREE of them. I was trying to stay ahead of them... racing to get stuff into the dumpster so it wouldn't be packed. I was failing!!

At noon they had ran out of boxes... ?? There was talk of them leaving...??? Funny, there were plenty of boxes on the truck parked out front....??? Seems the estimator estimated that there would be 39 cartons.... when all the dust settled, they had packed 61. I would say that someone needs a refresher course in MATH....

The movers showed up a day early. I wasn't ready...... AND the packers had NOT finiished packing. They left everything in the hall closet and the bathroom. Luckily the movers had MORE boxes and helped out.

We stayed in a motel on Wednesday night.... right next door to the bar/grill that was having a Harley show/party...NO, we did not get much sleep that night

We drove to Cordell Georgia and stayed Thursday night.... right next door to the room that had the deaf woman that screamed all night. Seems she was in town for a funeral and her son dropped her off at the hotel (she'd never been away from home in her life... so she said) Just how stupid is it to knock on a deaf person's door??? That's what the management did... Duh!  They ended up giving us the room for free, since we didn't actually achieve "sleep".

We drove to Dalton, Georgia on Friday night. We requested the "quietest room available". We finally slept.

We got home on Saturday and the furniture got here on Monday.

We are still dodging boxes.... I swear they are breeding in the garage!

Only two phone jacks worked in the house. My friend, the telephone man, came and fixed all but one of them today.

Now I have to go and clean the apartment tomorrow.... gag me! But at least it will be over.

AND I retrieved my car from the in-laws....

oh, and SIL is about to lose both her jeep and her apartment. *sigh*  The girl just never learns.......