Medical Mysteries - Can You Figure It Out?

Have you ever seen that show? They show you all these crazy symptoms and you get to guess what the heck is wrong with that person. Then at the end, they tell you.

That's what I am going do today with ya. If you guess it right, all ya get is a big ol' "Good Job" and a pat on the back. Oh, and you get to know that you are smarter than all the doctors in Shreveport, LA and Texarkana, TX.

On Memorial day in 2005, we went to my parents house to see them. My mom was in bed sick. This is really weird because my mom is NEVER sick. I think with her current job at the time, she had never even taken a sick day. She is not on any medication and doesn't even like taking Tylenol. She was literally the healthiest person I knew.

I went in, gave her a kiss, and left so she could rest. This went on for days and we started getting worried. She had severe fatigue, weakness, back pain, nausea, vomiting, joint pain, confusion and fever. With each day, more symptoms appeared. She got to the point that she couldn't eat, walk good, think, or sleep. Her being a Physical Therapist, this drove her crazy.

At first, they thought she had hepatitis but it wasn't. Then, they did a CT scan to see if she had a kidney infection because of the back pain. During that, they found some cysts on her lymph glands. Father's Day weekend, they said she could have lymphoma. We were devastated. Just one month earlier, she was climbing trees with Little Man on Mother's Day.

Turns out, it wasn't cancer. When she was 18, she was in a car wreck and her spleen basically exploded. The 'cysts' on her lymph glands were pieces of her spleen and were not causing any problems. We were so happy she didn't have cancer, but wanted to know what was wrong with her. She went through months of tests. They sent her to Shreveport for test and they thought it might be lupus. She had tested positive on some test that basically said her body was attacking itself.

Nope, not lupus. Whatever it was, it was affecting so many parts of her body. She also had dry mouth, mouth sores, sore throat, her vision got a lot worse, restless leg syndrome, headaches, chest and abdominal pain, red blotches on her face, and itching. Her symptoms would get worse after she ate so she didn't like eating. Hubby went out of town to work so I moved in with them to help out. Dad works nights so I needed to be there.

Then they thought she had Multiple Sclerosis. Nope, not that.

They did a spinal tap to see if that would tell them anything and it didn't. She had good days and bad days. Sometimes she seemed almost normal and others she was so sick. On her good days, she basically seemed drunk. Used the wrong words, unbalanced, and forgetful. Ya, those were her good days. On her bad days, she had to use a walker if she got up and hurt so bad and was so sick. The doctors finally decided it was all in her head and that she needed to see a shrink.

She didn't see a shrink. We all knew better.

In February of 2006, with still no answers, my parents decided to get away for a week. They went up to Arkansas for a fly fishing thing and I stayed at their house to dog sit. She called me on one of the days and told me to make her an appointment with a certain kind of doctor. I got out the phone book and made one for that Tuesday.

Within 2 weeks, she was pretty much back to normal. If she got too tired or ate the wrong food, she would show some symptoms but not bad. Within a couple of months, she was totally normal, healthy and back at work. This is not something that will ever come back but she still has to watch what she eats (kinda). We are so glad that this is behind us all.

So, can you guess what was wrong with her? I will let you all know Monday. Until then, good luck guessing.

Fur Babies

First thing, I do know that the proper way to spell Zues is Zeus. I spelled it wrong (for my dogs name) on purpose because that's how I think it should be spelled. I even spelled it like that on his papers. Ok, now on to today's post.

I am a major dog person. Always have been. There is seriously no telling how many stray dogs I have brought home and either kept or found a good home for. Anytime we see a stray, Hubby starts saying "NO! We already have too many". Ya, it's that bad.

So, when MamaKat put the prompts up for this week, I knew immediately which one I was doing.
When your done with mine, go check out all the others.

#1. Tell us about a stray animal you took in.

Not long after we moved into our house, I was sitting there watching some TV. The dogs started barking so I looked outside the window to see what was up. I saw them in the road with a brown furry thing so I ran out to see what they had.

It was a dog. A little bitty dog. My dogs were trying to play and she was freaking out. I scooped her up and took her inside to see if she was hurt and figure out who she belonged to. She was a mini pom and I know those dogs aren't cheap. I called my neighbor, who knows EVERYONE, and she said she had never seen the dog before. She didn't belong to anyone near us.

Then I noticed her shoulder. It was all jacked up and I thought my dogs had dislocated her shoulder. I pulled on it a little and she didn't care. Huh, that's weird. So I called the vet and took her in. When I left the vet, I was no longer looking for the owners of this very sweet dog.

The vet said that it looked like she had BROKE her shoulder some time before and nobody bothered to have it fixed. So, it grew back wrong. The only way to fix it was to rebrake it and then set it. She could walk fine and wasn't in pain so he thought that there was no reason to put her through that. She also chewed on that leg and he decided it was probably a nervous habit and that the leg probably had some nerve damage.

Then he looked at her teeth. They were so rotten. I have never seen teeth on an animal or human look that bad. He said he couldn't decide her age because she was obviously not taken care of so she looked older than she really was. I had to buy her can food because she couldn't eat dry dog food.

Next, he flipped her over and looked at her belly. She had not been spayed.

You add this up and what do you get? Most likely, a puppy mill dog that someone had dumped in my driveway. He said that they had probably used her all up and didn't need her anymore. That's probably why they didn't fix her shoulder because a vet would have noticed all the other problems.

I was so pissed at these people and I knew right where to go. At our local grocery store, there was ALWAYS a sign for Mini Pom's for sale (small town, remember). On the way there, I decided that I really didn't want to go to jail and went home. With no way of proving this was their dog, there wasn't much I could do. I reported them to the sheriffs dept as suspicious that the sign was always there and I haven't seen it since.

We decided to keep her. She was the sweetest little dog and loved her new home. Because of her shoulder, she often walked kinda sideways or just fell over so we named her Tipsy. We loved her like we had picked her out ourselves. She quickly became part of the family.
She lived about a year and a half with us before she passed away. I'm so glad I was home the day she was left and was able to give her a good home, finally.

And for your viewing pleasure, here my other fur babies that have been with me through out life:

Max (boxer) - He was already around when I was born. We had him for 8 years.

Hawk (lab)- I was 4 when we got him and we had him for 16 years.

Sugar (cocker spaniel) - I got her when I was 7 and had her for 15 years.

Zues (boxer) - I got him when I was 16 and had him for 9 years.

And here is our current fur babies:

Outside fur babies (they don't want in, I've tried):

Booger Bear (lab) - We got him almost 6 years ago.

Danny (boxer) -We got her 5 years ago to be a wife to Zues but, umm, he didn't know what to do. Now, she is Booger's wife (that is spayed).

Inside fur babies:

Lady (king charles cavalier), Fern (stray kitten dumped on our road), and Smokey (grey cat we adopted)

We live in the country so animals get dumped a lot. Hubby just prays that I always find them a home that is NOT ours.

Wordless Wednesday

Spring break 98. That's my brother Toph, Zues, and me goofing off. He must be really strong because I was about 4 months pregnant!

For more WW go check out A Daily Dose Of Toni and 5 Minutes for Mom.

So not cool, but really cold!

I was reading every ones blogs, kinda, (the kids are sick so I squeezed in some reading when I could) and one thing I noticed was a few folks were mentioning ice. Not snow, not just freezing temps, but ICE.

So I got to looking outside. Here is what I noticed. Good thing I read yalls blogs!

• It's really cold. It was 34 degrees when I picked up Toot at noon and that's FREEZING for Texas.
• It's really grey. Looks like it could snow any minute. I'm actually just guessing because I have lived in Texas all my life so I don't really know what it looks like when it's about to snow.
• And then I notice, it's raining. That can't be good.

So, I decided to watch the weather report. I can't remember the last time I actually did that.

And DAMMIT, we are suppose to get some ice. Not a good thing here. People literally flip out.

We haven't had an ice storm in about 7 years and I still haven't recovered from that one. Oh, I pray we don't have one this year!!!

To those of you that deal with this all the time; you do know you can live places where this is a very rare occurrence, right? OK, just making sure. Drive safe.

And to my Mom, because I know you are reading this, DRIVE THE JEEP TODAY AND TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!! I love you and want you as safe as possible.

Kurtis the stock boy

Ya, I got nothing. Saturday I was sick and Sunday I worked my ass off. Literally, it's gone. I looked. So, I am cheating and copying an e-mail I got. I have no idea who wrote it but it really touched me. I remember when I first started dating Hubby and wondering how he was going to handle the fact I had a 4 year old son that had diabetes.


KURTIS THE STOCK BOY AND BRENDA THE CHECKOUT GIRL

In a supermarket, Kurtis the stock boy, was busily working when a new voice came over the loud speaker asking for a carry out at register 4. Kurtis was almost finished, and wanted to get some fresh air, and decided to answer the call.

As he approached the check-out stand, a distant smile caught his eye. The new check-out girl was beautiful. She was an older woman (maybe 26, and he was only 22) and he fell in love.

Later that day, after his shift was over, he waited by the punch clock to find out her name. She came into the break room, smiled softly at him, took her card and punched out, then left. He looked at her card, BRENDA. He walked out only to see her start walking up the road. Next day, he waited outside as she left the supermarket, and offered her a ride home. He looked harmless enough, and she accepted.

When he dropped her off, he asked if maybe he could see her again, outside of work. She simply
said it wasn't possible. He pressed and she explained she had two children and she couldn't afford a baby-sitter, so he offered to pay for the baby-sitter. Reluctantly she accepted his offer for a date for the following Saturday.

That Saturday night he arrived at her door only to have her tell him that she was unable to go with him. The baby-sitter had called and canceled. To which Kurtis simply said, "Well, let's take the kids with us." She tried to explain that taking the children was not an option, but again not taking no for an answer, he pressed. Finally Brenda, brought him inside to meet her children.

She had an older daughter who was just as cute as a bug, Kurtis thought, then Brenda brought out her son, in a wheelchair. He was born a paraplegic with Down Syndrome. Kurtis asked Brenda, "I still don't understand why the kids can't come with us?" Brenda was amazed. Most men would run away from a woman with two kids, especially if one had disabilities - just like her first husband and father of her children had done.

Kurtis was not ordinary - - - he had a different mindset. That evening Kurtis and Brenda loaded up the kids, went to dinner and the movies. When her son needed anything Kurtis would take care of him. When he needed to use the restroom, he picked him up out of his wheelchair, took him and brought him back. The kids loved Kurtis. At the end of the evening, Brenda knew this was the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with.

A year later, they were married and Kurtis adopted both of her children. Since then they have added two more kids.

So what happened to Kurtis the stock boy and Brenda the check-out girl?

Well, Mr. & Mrs. Kurt Warner now live in Arizona , where he is currently employed as the quarterback of the National Football League Arizona Cardinals and has his Cardinals in the Super Bowl.

Is this a surprise ending or could you have guessed that he was not an ordinary person. It should be noted that he also quarterbacked the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. He has also been the NLF's Most Valuable Player twice and the Super Bowl's Most Valuable Player.

AND THE REST OF THE STORY:

Today at church our minister mentioned that when Kurt, his wife and children go out to eat he
has one of his children pick out a family eating at the restaurant. Kurt then tells the wait staff he is picking up the tab for that family's dinner anonymously. He remembers the days he was working nights in the grocery store and feeding his family on food stamps.

Makes it hard not to root for the Cardinals IN THE SUPER BOWL ...doesn't it?


Seeing as how my Cowboys didn't make it and the Eagles already lost (good job Cardinals) it was a toss up for me. Not anymore.

Stupid me!!

Raise your hand if you have ever done something so stupid and you felt like a complete idiot.
Really? That many of you? Ok, you can put your hand down now.

I had one of those moments that was a pretty bad one. It involved the sheriffs dept.

Last month, I mentioned briefly that Smiley locked himself in my car FOR AN HOUR.

I didn't expand on it because so much other stuff was going on. Well, today you get to hear what really happened.

I put Smiley in the car so we could head to the school for Little Man's Christmas program.
By the time I was going to get in the drivers side, he had locked the doors. SHIT!

For about 20 minutes I begged him to unlock the door or just open it. He just kept telling me no and was pretending to drive. Double SHIT!

At one point, he actually put the keys in and turned the key on but didn't crank it. Luckily, you can't put my car into gear without pushing the brake. I was actually happy about this because now he could roll down the window. Instead, he scared himself by cranking up the radio. Now the tears were rolling. His and mine.

I made the decision to call the sheriffs department. AAA takes about 6-8 hours to get there and I didn't have that kind of time (we went through this with Toot so I knew what to do). If I am being honest, I have locked Little Man in the car too.

I sit and wait, trying to calm Smiley, when the sheriff FINALLY shows up. It has now been an hour. No Christmas program for us.

The cop walks up and I explain what happened. He walks over to the window and tries to get Smiley to unlock the door. Nope, he's not gonna do it. Now what?

Then the cop looks at me and says "I notice you don't have one of those buttons on your key chain that unlock your door. Do you know where it is?"

HOLY SHIT!!!!!

I run into my house, grab it off the shelf and free my son. After I could have done it an hour ago.
Yep, I'm that stupid sometimes.

I have never been as embarrassed as I was that day. I thanked him and he replied that he didn't do anything. Ya, except remind me I am a complete idiot.

I bet they got a good laugh about it down at the station. I know Hubby and all his co-workers thought it was freaking hilarious. As for me and Smiley, we don't talk about it. We like to pretend that one never happened.

I hope everyone has a great Friday!!!!

22 acres and a pond!

She's at it again and wants to really know more about us this week. Yes, that's MamaKat I am talking about. It's Thursday so it's time to do our homework. When you are done with mine, go check out what everyone else wrote for their writing assignment. I could take the easy road or I could take the hard road but I choose to take the joyous road.

The Prompts:

1.) Tell us about a memorable blind date. Never been on one.

2.) Other than the birth of a child or your wedding, write about a joyous moment. Joyous road.

3.) Write about one of the most difficult decisions you have made in your life. Hard road.

4.) Share the best picture you took last month and explain why it's your favorite. Easy road.

I was 22 years old and really living a dream. I had married the man of my dreams 3 1/2 months earlier and we were buying our first place together. It was such a beautiful place. We had 22 acres, a 2 acre pond, and trees everywhere. You could literally stand in my drive way and everything you could see was all ours. Also, our closest neighbor was a mile away so it was VERY peaceful. We were so excited!

Hubby was excited because of all the land. He had always wanted to live out in the country on a bunch of land. Now his dream had come true.

For me it was so much more.

This was the first place I had ever bought. Now, I had lived in a house with my ex-husband and it was ours but I didn't contribute to the purchase nor pick it out. And it was bought 3 days before we got married. Sound fishy? It should.

After my divorce, I lived in an apartment with a roommate for a very short period of time and then my parents bought me a house and put it on their property. So I was living on my own but not really because I still basically lived off them while I was in college. This new place Hubby and I purchased was the final straw that showed I had finally grown up.

I did have Little Man through it all (first marriage, divorce, life) and should have already grown up but I hadn't. Not really. We were basically growing up together and luckily I have wonderful parents that helped us through this.

This place to me was a symbol that I was now a full fledged adult that had bills, a job, a hubby, and a yard to mow. Just like other adults I have known! It was such an awesome feeling signing those final papers and having the keys in my hands. A place where we could do whatever we wanted to it. We were on cloud 9. We planned on living there forever.

BUT, plans changed. Did you notice how I kept calling it our "place" and not house. That's because it had the ugliest little house on it. It wasn't the house that we loved (or even liked for that matter) but the land. We were going to build a house there and live happily ever after. But then there was that 22 acres. Hubby worked nights (and we didn't have a tractor) and couldn't keep up the land like it should be and we now had two more kids living in this very small ugly house.

We couldn't take it anymore and we decided to sell it. We bought a beautiful huge house and now only have 5 acres. It is a wonderful home and we are very happy about it. Big enough for everyone to have their own room and Hubby can manage the land. I'm sure we wont live here forever (not near as much privacy) but it's great right now.

So my very joyous days were the day I bought my first place and the day I sold my first place.

Wordless Wednesday

We went to the park Sunday and I told Smiley to go stand by the "baby ducks" so I could take a picture. I'm so wrong, I know. He wasn't so sure about the "baby ducks".

First try

Then a little closer
The "baby duck" moved and he hauled ass! Smart kid!
Toot had fun doing flips on the bars.

That is, until she fell and broke her nose. Again. 2 times in 4 years. Poor kid. BTW, she's ok now. It wasn't real bad.

It's all fun and games until someone goes and breaks their nose. It's always something with my kids I tell ya.

And once again, For more WW go check out Punky Monkey's and 5 Minutes for Mom. And everyone else that does it!

Trust

This is long and not funny at all. Just something I needed to write. The award is right under this so if ya want to skip on down, you wont hurt my feelings.

My Mom did such a wonderful post for me but still only told you a little about me. She put in all the great things about me that I am truly proud of. She is such a great Mom and I am so blessed that I am lucky enough to be her daughter. We are really close and she is really my best friend. I believe she is the only person that I totally trust 100%. I trust Hubby but truthfully, not as much as I trust her.

I have a hard time really trusting people. Mostly men. I have been stepped on and really hurt by some men. One of which, I should have been able to really trust. It was my Mom's father.

I would go see him and my step-grandmother every summer to spend a week or so. They didn't live close to us so that's why I would stay for an extended time when I did go see them. I loved him so much and it was so special to get to spend time with him. I would always steal his seat and make him move me. It was a little game we would play. I also remember going to the golf course with him and being so excited because he let me drive the golf cart. He is a very controlling man so this was a big thing to such a little girl. He was always a very proud man. He served in the military and was always willing to talk about it. You could just see how proud of himself he was in his eyes.

I also knew that my Aunt and him didn't get along. They never did. She was kind of an odd ball and I always assumed that they just clashed in personalities and that's why they didn't talk. My mom was always a "daddy's girl". I think she always strived to impress him growing up and tried to make him as proud of her as he was of himself. I would do the same. When I was there, I would do what he asked without question. I even ate green beans and said I liked them (which I HATE green beans) to make him happy. I had total respect for him as he demanded it from everyone.

That is, until I saw the real him. In one day, he lost every ounce of trust and respect that I had for him. I now knew (without knowing it), why my Aunt hated him. He did the same thing to me that he had once done to her. I was so young and kept it all inside. I don't know why I didn't tell anyone. I know it wasn't because I thought I had done something wrong. I knew I hadn't but that he had. Maybe I didn't tell because he was so loved and respected and I didn't think anyone would believe me. Maybe because I didn't want to break my Moms heart. Or maybe, I was just so scared and didn't want to face it. Either way, I was broke inside and no one knew that was the reason. Other things had happened that year that would also cause a little girl to loose that sparkle in her eye so my Mom just thought those were the reasons.

When I was 12 years old (5 years later), I finally told someone. I told my best friend and we told my counselor at my school. Needless to say, EVERYONE found out. I now had to face it. I remember being so scared yet so relieved after that. But then came new problems.

When I talked to my Mom that night, I remember wondering if she even believed me. This was a man that she grew up loving and trusting. Now, she was hearing awful things about the man she called Dad. I blamed everyone but I don't remember ever blaming myself. I didn't blame them for what happened, but for not noticing. I had a lot of questions that took me another 5 years to ask. After that happened (before anyone knew), I would stick to my step-grandmother like glue to make sure I was never alone with him. Why didn't she notice and think it was strange? Why did she stay married to such a monster after she found out (she is still with him to this day)? Did she not believe me? Did my Mom really believe me? Why would she have me see him again knowing that I must really not want to see him? Why wasn't he in prison? Why me? They always tell you it happens to the weak, not the strong. That bothered me bad because I always saw myself as strong, so was I wrong? These were questions that floated through my head for years.

When I was 18 years old, I had a long talk about it with my Mom. She told me things I never knew before. Like the fact that I wasn't the first child he had done that too nor the last. She told me that my step-grandmother had told her to believe everything I had said when everyone found out because she had caught him doing the same to my step-cousin. She told me that truthfully, she had no idea how to handle it and took the advise (bad advise) from the social worker and counselor. She said that it had happened after other life changing things in my life (my friend accidentally killed her little sister while I was there and I had been in a car wreck) so I wasn't real strong at that time in my life. I was actually in counseling at the time and didn't even tell her. She also told me she felt guilty. She wasn't to blame for what had happened and I never did.

To this day, he has never apologised. Not really. All he said was "I hope we can move past this" but never "I am so sorry for what I did to you. That I hurt you so bad." Nor has he ever apologised to my Mom. I thinks she deserves one too. And to this day, I have NEVER forgiven him. I don't know that I ever will. He has never asked me to. I have no contact with him or his wife at all and he has never laid eyes on my daughter. He never will. He has seen Little Man twice and I was very uncomfortable about it both times. The last time was on Little Man's first birthday. The two times he did see him, I did it for my Mom's benefit. I thought that was what she wanted. Turns out, I was wrong. I learned that in our talk too.

To this day I still have questions. Like, why didn't my step-grandmother tell anyone when she caught him? Why can't he admit out loud what he did? How can my step-grandmother wake up every day knowing what lays next to her? When will he finally get what he deserves? Can, and should, I ever forgive him? When will I stop hating him? And, why do 'they' say that a lot of time people that do this horrible thing have had it happen to them? They should know better than anyone what it does to a persons heart and soul. I could NEVER do anything like that.

As you can see, I still deal with it everyday. It is not something that I will ever forget. I think it has played a big part in some of the things I have done in my life, mistakes I have made. But they were my mistakes and I know that I ultimately am the one that made those choices. I think it has a lot to do with my self esteem problems and everything to do with my trust issues. I think it has a lot to do with the depression issues I have had. I try and not 'act' like a victim but, I am.

I'm not broke anymore though. Hubby has helped a lot with that but mostly my Mom and Dad did. I will be eternally grateful to them for that.

I really try to believe that everything happens for a reason. I blamed God for a long time for allowing it to happen. I don't anymore. I realize God didn't do it nor chose to let it happen. My Mom's father made that choice all by himself. I have looked so hard and long for something good to come out of the whole situation. Here is what I have come up with so far.

Because it happened to me, maybe I will be a little wiser (paranoid) and be able to protect my children (especially Toot) a little better.
Because it happened to me, now my brothers and cousins know what a monster he is and will not allow their children to be alone with him.
Because it happened to me, now everyone knows what really happened to my aunt.
Because it happened to me, I know what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger. Eventually.

I don't know why I felt I needed to write this. Trust me, it wasn't easy. It's not that I wanted to but more that I needed to. I have felt that way since the day I started my blog. If it helps only one person, it was worth it. Even if that only person is me.

Hugs that I so needed

Alicia gave me this award Sunday and I just love it. I had just written today's post so I was really needing a hug at the time. It's like she is psychic.

This award is given to you in appreciation of your lovely and witty comments and for always knowing the right thing to say at the right time....

I am suppose to give it to 10 more people but I am feeling a little drained so I am only going to do a few. Actually, just three. At least I am handing it out at all. I was just going to keep it for myself but changed my mind.

Carrin, Gwen, and TMM.