Merry Christmas, Happy Well Safe and a Hope Filled holiday Time.. AND May 2021 Bring Good News!

 

May you have a Safe, Joyous, Well, Hope Filled Christmas as in the Hope of 2021 Bringing Us a Renewed Spirit and a Year Full of Good Tidings

May you Be Blessed with a Precious, Happy, Healthy, and Wondrous New Year of 2019!

Happy Happy 2019

Wishing for YOURS to be one of good health, wonderful memories, new memories, family, friends, and full of "great surprises"... and not as the end of mine of 2018 has been....


Well, hope 2019 GETS BETTER! The "end" of 2018 has been yet another one for the records, my shower drain has been clogged now for 5 or 6 days, and I've tried everything. I could not find an "old fashioned" type of plunger, so i had to run to 3 places in town till I remembered a hardware store right downtown who keeps EVERYTHING!!! They have been there forever, and keep any and everything especially for the older homes here in town, so I got that, I tried salt, baking soda, vinegar, Dawn dish soap, hot water, bleach, (not all at once of course) and it is not completely stopped up, and it's strange because never have I had issues with my drain on my shower.... it's just odd... well, so it has to be just where my toliet pipe and the drain for the shower pipes meet...because if the shower clogs, I can "plunge" the toliet and then the shower will finally drain... but if I don't let it go down for a bit, then it does not "flood" the toliet, but will back water up in it and "gurgle" and I can plunge that, and it all goes down... so that is ONE issue.... 

a few weeks back, I got a letter from the IRS, about taxes I filed in 2016!!!!!! for the 6 months after Mom passed away... there was not much there, because I did not really "take money" but what little I got was "invested" so I just had a bit of interest to file, which I usually don't file at all because I never even come close with my SS to make enough to file.. but due to the passing away and the stuff with her things, I knew I needed to send in and file mine also for that 6 months, well THEY SCREWED UP OR I DID, the company sent me a form showing, some funds that were "not income" and were supposed to be just a bit of interest like 125.00 and due to the way the financial people sent it in to me, stating this was NOT income (the money invested) they did NOT file it "as income" to the IRS, BUT I guess I missed a form, that should have showed that along with the other forms I filed that did show the interest, and the Form B (I believe a Form D) is also what should have went in, SO the iRA tells me I owe almost 500.00!!!!! which I knew was wrong... so I sat down, got all of my 1099's, all of my other forms from everyone, wrote a letter, sent in the Form D partially done, and asked them to "re-figure" from the forms from the investment company... 

well that has been 8 weeks ago, and I got a letter a couple of days ago stating they GOT my paperwork, they are going over it all, that I don't need to do anything at the time, and they will contact me in about 6 weeks... so I think I am correct, BUT it's the IRS.... so who knows.... they my deep freezer (I had a very small chest type one) that I had hell with the lid not being correct, and they came out three times replaced the lid and even put a new one on, where the hinges are on the back of it, they never held tightly enough and ice would build up down from them inside the freezer after a few weeks... anyway, they never did get it right, but I gave up, kept the one they sent me... it worked fine I just had to watch to make sure the ice didn't build up too much, but a couple of weeks ago, I moved it to get ready to redoing, painting that backroom and thought the old carpet back there felt "damp"... at first I thought it was just the cold, but then I knew it was not "soaking" wet but damp... so I defrosted it, which there was not much in it, found a piece of ice in that drain, I read that could have caused the problem, and figured I would plug it in, 

watch it and see what happens, well it still felt "damp" to me... and I put a mat under it, so I could better watch it and see if I was feeling just "humidity" and cold or actually wet... well, I turned it off, and it said there could be a small "hole" causing a leak that is not hitting the pan under it, so I knew that a couple of times, I had let a huge hen, etc "drop" being so heavy and hit the bottom that it could be a pin hole somewhere, so I "sealed" off any and every place that could have been either a tiny dent, or where maybe the aluminum appeared to maybe have came loose a bit just with age... plugged it in, and I "think" it's okay... it is fine and been freezing, I am not worried about that, but I don't want it seeping water slowly on the carpet, so I did put a mat that keeps it from doing that under it, and am going to watch it for a few days, then put a couple of things in it to see what happens... okay, so then my big light in the back that has a sensor on it for movement suddenly began coming on and off, or staying on for hours etc, and then even came on during the day, so I even turned off the breaker, got up there and made sure everything was pointed correctly, etc... and read sometimes just turning off the breaker and resetting it will remedy the problem, well it did for a few days then it went to doing the same damned thing... 

SO I've had a new one here for a long while, I planned to put on the other end of my house, and I had not gotten around to doing that, so I've been trying to get between the weather, being stupid, raining too cold, or HOT ENOUGH THAT YELLOW JACKETS, BEES AND RED WASPS come out if the weather gets a bit too warm, so either I don't want to fight them, or it's too cold, or too rainy, I finally took out the big halogen bulbs and put in small CFL's for now, so I am not using up a whole wad of electricity on those huge bulbs until I can get that new one up....I had 4 dr's appts from about the 2nd to the 4th week of THIS MONTH, which I went and had my pain pump refilled and called and rescheduled the others until after New Year's, it was too much and especially with the weather and traveling people during the holidays to go to Dallas for a couple of them, so I postponed those...then due to the issues I had with the "prep" for the colonoscopy, I cancelled it, long story, but I cannot do the "prep" the way they want me to, they now want you to drinks 2 32 ounce Gatorade's with 7 DAYS OF MIRALAX IN THEM EACH WITHIN 6 HOURS OF ONE ANOTHER, plus fast which is fine, and then take another pill with it, well I won't go into what happened, but I cannot do that and I won't.... I had a colonoscopy 10 years ago, and did a prep for it. I now they used to use "Go-Lightly" etc but this thing with 14 DAYS OF MIRALAX WITHIN LESS THAN 24 HOURS IS CRAZY!!! 

It made me so sick, I had to cancel both the endoscopy and the colonoscopy... SO I was going to reschedule the endoscopy, which all you do it not each after midnight for that one, and forget that damned colonoscopy for now... well I did one of those "occult cultures" for the colon a few weeks back. I get a phone call from the doctor's office that does the scopes 2 days ago saying that my PCP called and said that the "occult test" came back with "blood showing" in the colon so NOW THEY WANT THAT DAMNED TEST AGAIN!!!! WELL, I TOLD THE nurse I would call AFTER THE NEW YEAR'S HOLIDAY, AND COME IN TO HIS OFFICE AND WE WILL TALK ABOUT THE ENDOSCOPY WHICH I WAS GOING TO DO ANYWAY, BUT we will have to figure out something else on the colonoscopy OR I WILL NOT DO IT!! I refuse to go through what I went through about 8 weeks ago again.. and I know there is probably something else, but between weather, drains, lights, doctors, tests and just bull, 2019 BETTER BE BETTER!!!! I AM so sick and tired of crap.... I feel like my New Year is now even here and I am already cursed!

Holidays Upon Us - Feeling Lousy - But trying to "Put on a Happy Face"

Just about every one of us know this dilemma. We try our best to make the holidays a special time of year. Whether it be the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays, or the others during the year; none of us want to "ruin" our family and friends holiday season.

So, we often put on that "Happy Face", and try to hide behind the mask of pain, fatigue, stiffness, swelling, and all of the other horrid issues we put up with physically, mentally and emotionally during the year and especially during the holidays.

I am headed out for now to have my pain pump refilled, so I shall finish this later this evening. But, I do want to say I pray everyone will have a safe, Happy and a reprieve from illness for the holidays.....

Rhia

Have a Wonderful Holiday!  

 

 

SECOND PART!!!!!!!!

As promised I am "here", just a bit later than I thought I would be. It has already been one helluva week. Between 2 days of doctors appointments, getting ready for whatever kind of Thanksgiving we are having (not in a bad way, just seems thing keep getting changed around), the entire ordeal about Jim, the accident, all of the ongoing and going and going about doctors for him that either are just NOT accessible, OR they are total jerks and quacks. Talk about some "scheming". I found out quite a bit more on this whole thing of getting things taken care of with doctors that are NOT on the up and up. 

Speaking of... the up and up.... Something happened today while I was at my pain doctors office in Dallas having the pain pump refilled. Of course it is NO secret that I have been in an insurmountable over 5 to 7 days of unrelenting pain. I of course mentioned it to him, and thought he might take the "hint" to either up the pain med in my pump (which can be done) OR just allow me to take my "breakthrough" medication a bit closer together, at least until I am over this damned hump of pain. It is just insanity and it is driving me over the insanity brink for sure. I did get a huge shot of Solu-Medrol yesterday while I was at my PCP office for a recheck. After telling him and then I asked about going to the corticosteroid injection at the office, and then a 14 day step down dose of prednisone, he said yes, most certainly we can try... thus we did. I seemed to have been a bit better this morning. I was able to stand on my feet almost without wincing in pain. But, as the day wore on, between the drive to Dallas, not getting to really eat, then going through the entire refill crap, and of course driving home... Then a "hog for punishment"... I decide to go out after getting home, and do a bit of my "coupon/sales" shopping, which I knew was probably a mistake and really stupid honestly. It was already almost 4pm, I was exhausted in every way from mental, physical, emotional... you name it... but I did manage to make my way down to our local Dollar General and pick up a few things that were "crazy" on sale. By the time I got home, I was just totally wiped. I had to let CVS and Wal-Greens go until maybe tomorrow, and I may try for Family Dollar, but I am not so sure yet. 

I will NOT shop on Thanksgiving, sorry but I think that stinks to the high heavens, that anyone in retail makes employees work on a major holiday!!! If everyone does not get what they need by Wednesday, then they can just do without it for one day!!!! It irks me to the ends of the Earth that they open those stores on a holiday like this one. Anyway, of course "people" will go, and if they come, of course that is money in their pockets, so open they are.

And you can certainly forget me getting out on "Pitch Black Friday"... I am pretty "hair brained" at times, but being out at 2am in the morning to shop, is just not what I call "fun"... Now IF we were headed for WINSTAR, now that I WOULD GET UP FOR! :):):)

Plus in all honesty, I don't have a huge family to buy for anymore... and sometimes it has become easier as the kids have grown up, and like my daughter, has a family of her own, to just send them money, and let them get what they want, need, and like. I swore when I saw my parents do that, I would NEVER ... I always believed in getting a present for everyone... that is partly what made the holiday, Christmas. But, as I have aged, and the kids grow so quickly, it now makes sense as to why my parents, and their parents did it. 

I really should be writing some words of wisdom for those of you who are looking and searching for "answers" in how to "survive and thrive" during the holidays. I am speaking of course at the moment about those of us with chronic illnesses, and chronic pain... from the autoimmune diseases, to chronic pain, migraines, CFS, FM, and the entire gamut of these that cause us grief most every day of our lives. I think I have truly discovered why I love to make a trip to the casino every once in a while. It is because once I step into those doors, until I step out and get in the car to come home, "illness" flies out the door, and stays out until I leave. It is the people, the noise, the lights, and most of all, your mind or for me, my mind is "clear" for a while. I am NOT thinking about medications, doctors, tests, prescriptions, pharmacies, people that are just plain stupid, lazy and don't give a damned that don't need to be in the business of health care at all, if they DO NOT LIKE PEOPLE!!!  I hear it and see it constantly... they either just don't give a damned about us as patients, or they don't really want to be there, ... but I see it more and more from all walks of what the medical profession is supposed to be... greed, laziness, no training, not doing their jobs, and we do it for them... it just makes my blood boil, when I hear that "tone" on the phone. You know, that one on the other end who could care less about my needs as a patient and what THEY should BE doing and they DON'T!!!! 

Anyway, so to step into that huge building that has NOT ONE WINDOW in it... NO CLOCKS, and every kind of sound, feeling, sight, and emotion rolls into those slot machines while I am there... so it is not really the "gambling"... Lord knows I DO NOT have "gambling money"... but it is the get a way from it all. Even if it is just Sunday, and we don't stay the night, still it is a rest from the daily mess. I should "coin" that phrase, "It is a rest, from the daily mess." to put it lightly.

So, for me, honestly, I am in so much pain, even as I type this I am wondering why the hell I am!!! My wrists, fingers, elbows, shoulders and neck hurt so badly all I want to do is sit in the floor and cry, cry, cry, cry.... but then I would have a Migraine, thus that is not a help, maybe a release, but certainly not a cure.

I have "lots" of advise about how to "help" your holiday run smoother, but everyone has their own way to handle it. Some just say NO... some stay home, some go out to eat, or to a movie, or to the casino... for some it is being alone and for others it is being with family and/or friends. For some it is "giving" of oneself, and serving at a homeless center, or church to others not as fortunate as many of us. So, you have to "dig deeper" within yourself to figure out "how to survive the holidays". 

Lately, I will say for me, I have been extremely fortunate, and found some incredibly super bargains on a few outfits, a pair of shoes, some leg warmers I found today, and also racked up some savings on some new eye shadow, mascara, eye liner and I even bought some "false lashes".. but it has been years since I tried to put them on, so I have not braved it yet. So, for me, between reading some really great "beauty" tips, especially those that are truly inexpensive etc... and get a few clothes for a tiny bit of nothing... (I've probably spent about 50.00 on ALL of it)!!!! Between "mega-markdowns", super sales, cashing in on coupons, I got a pair of 80.00 shoes for like 10.00, bought about 7 or 8 tops for about 15.00 or so, makeup around 10.00 leg warmers 2.00!!, plus a few other odds and ends... but I have not spent hardly anything for all of it! So, that has kind of been a "new release" for me... finding ways to have "nice" stuff, without breaking the bank... the better the bargain, the happier I am honestly. So, when things are too much to bear, I open up an email from Total Beauty, or a couple of others I get newsletters from... and even do a great deal of DIY, skin, hands, feet, nail treatments... gosh sometimes we do not realize how many things we already have in our home that work great on skin, hair, nails and so on... so I look for those, and give them a try... if they suck... they suck... if not I am not out anything... 

Okay well, it is midnight, and it's been forever since I've stayed up late like this to write... I am hoping it will help me, and if we are lucky, maybe you might get a kick out of reading it....

Happy Thanksgiving, Rhia, Jim and the family