Our Life In The Desert » Randomness

Have you missed me at all?

Brandy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:25:26 +0000

I’m not coming back here. It’s no longer “Our Life” and we aren’t in the “Desert” — but I am working on the acquisition on a new home for me, so I can write and lament and cause trouble.

I’m doing well. I really am.

I’ve met someone. We’re working thru the bumps, but overall, it’s going really well.

He put a ring on it in December.

Texas has been the salve I needed to heal from 11 years of emotional abuse — or at least start to heal — but it’s time to move on. The new beau, his name is Jimmy, is from Mississippi and we’re making plans to head out that way in a month or so and set up housekeeping on some land he has there.

It’s a new adventure and I’m game.

Anyway — I’m doing well. I know some of you have wondered and I am happy to report, I got over it. I got over him. I was able to move past it and I was able to find myself.

I’ll be sure and post again once I’ve finalized my new ‘home’ on the web.

I just need to kind of unload a little this morning…

Brandy — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:57:00 +0000

This is the post where I let it all out — because holy crap — the stress is just about to effing do me in.

So, John and I are separated — that’s going ok, for now anyway. My immediate concerns related to medical coverage and financial help seem to be being addressed. That may or may not remain the same, I don’t know. If money weren’t such an issue, I’d have it all legalized, but it is — so there has to be a certain amount of trust involved…something I find increasingly difficult, since the new personality he adopted includes strong leanings towards lying (and infidelity, but I won’t go there).

I’m staying at my dads place, in Texas. The relationship I have with my family is rocky, at best. It’s been a hard transition made even harder by the circumstances that brought me here. I’m not talking only about my decision to distance myself from the hateful spewing of unfiltered nastiness that was going on in California — but also, the health circumstances of my stepmom.

Then there is the expectation that I will move in here and take care of my dad in a manner in which he’s accustom. That, to me, is laughable. And by laughable, I mean — it makes me cry so hard, I break down in fits of laughter.

Jerrett has turned into this unruly kid with lots of anger, resentment and frustration — but really, who can blame him? He’s mad as hell over this — so much so, he’s not answering the phone (when either of us calls) and he’s making my life a living, breathing, hell.

I had hoped to have more support in this area — unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be important.

My stuff. Everything I own, with the exception of the clothes I managed to pack for Jerrett and I (and my laptop) is stuck in California. The cost to get it here is prohibitive at this point and even once it gets here, I don’t know what I’d do with it…storage I guess. I don’t even know.

Then there is my work. I’m either stuck in the bedroom (where I’m writing from right now) or stuck sitting, silently, in the living room, where my dad sleeps all day and night in his recliner. I’ve got no workspace and no place to concentrate. This frustration alone makes the decision to stay here incredibly difficult.

I’m discovering, more and more, that I might need to find an alternative to what I had originally thought was the plan. I’m here and I’m staying — but staying means lots of changes that have to take place. Changes that likely wont take place for months and I can’t do that.

So, I’m just kind of stuck.

I know I need to be here, rather than there. I just need to figure out how to make *here* work and at this point, I’m not having much luck.

But it’s not all bad — really. I’ve run into a lot of friends, had lunches and gone out. It’s been seriously good for me. Seriously. I’ve met new people and watched a bunch of drunk friends (very poorly) attempt to play pool and laughed. I’ve hung out in crowds and I’ve mostly been ok with that.

These are things I haven’t done in over a decade. Being married to John really altered everything about who I was…one can only sit home and do nothing for so long before you forget how to do anything else.

So, that’s where I’m at. Just trying to figure it out. Taking things one day at a time.

Yup, it’s hard. But already, good things are happening. Really good things.

Maybe I need a list post?

Brandy — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:32:55 +0000

I carry a spiral bound notebook with me everywhere I go. It’s small and it fits in my purse and on any given day, I pull it out and jot down things I want to write about at least five times a day. But when it comes to sitting down and putting fingers to keyboard, I draw a blank. I sit here with my Dashboard open and I write a few words and I think I’m getting the thoughts down and then suddenly, it’s like I have a memory dump and all I see is the BSoD.

The BSoD is not a good sign. It’s like writers block, except there might be drool involved and I’m pretty sure my eyes gloss over for 20-30 seconds, minimum.

I’ve resorted to turning this place into a personal journal and I hate that. I remember when I used to be witty and funny and fun…ya know — back before they told me I was going to die and back before my ankles would swell to the size of a fat mans thighs because of my medication.

Ah, the good ole days…

So, I think I’ve decided to try to put forth a bit more effort — once I’ve kind of settled some of the personal stuff I’ve got going on.

I’ll start with this little tidbit:

A week after moving to California, I was asked on three (it might actually be four, I can’t recall) separate occasions if I needed help or if I needed someone to call for help for me because I had these bruises from moving — one gnarly one on my arm and the other on my calf. Apparently, the people in California are very friendly and willing to help when it comes to possible physical abuse — and that kind of freaked me out, because I’ve never been around that type of thing before. John joked that it was because it was such a rampant issue in the area — but really, who knows.

I am happy to report — after flying through countless cities, sitting next to strangers and spending a lot of time surrounded by people I don’t know while at the hospital (and doing just general living while here in Texas) — the only comment I’ve gotten about the 20+ bruises on my arms was one made by a lady to her husband, in a hushed voice they assumed I couldn’t hear.

I was accused of being an IV drug abuser.

Ah — Texas, how I love you so.

I also found out today that I have blood poisoning from one of the IV sites on my right wrist (the really bad looking one in the pictures) — I suspected yesterday, when I posted on Facebook that I was seeing red lines on my arm. It was confirmed — I’ve got antibiotics on board to try and fight that mess.

It also means I’ve been instructed not to visit the hospital any more, due to an already compromised immune system and the fight that’s taking place in my body right now.

Yup — it’s been a damn good year, I have to say.

*The picture is my dad, Shooter. Isn’t he charming? Yes, that’s an ear ring and a pony tail. Don’t ask. Really…it’s just best you don’t.

The sum of everything, minus some things…

Brandy — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:16:40 +0000

I haven’t really updated since the hospital stay, so I thought I’d take a few and write about all that’s been going on over the last few days.

If you’re here from Twitter or Facebook, you probably already know a little about what’s going on with my family back home in Texas (where I’m writing this post from) — basically, my stepmom fell ill about a month ago, while my dad was hospitalized for health conditions of his own. While the family rallied and tried to meet her needs at home, they quickly realized that she needed more than they could offer. Ultimately, they decided (with the help from her MD) to have her admitted to the hospital, so she could be transferred to a local rehab clinic that could meet her needs until something else could be arranged.

Unfortunately, it never got that far. Upon admittance, the required blood work revealed some health issues that no one was aware of (this aside from her already debilitating arthritis and her advancing cancer, which she was getting chemo for) — and within a few days, she was transferred to a larger hospital, where she entered ICU.

Since then, her health has deteriorated to the point that the family has now made the decision to move her to Hospice Care on Thursday.

So, Jerrett and I boarded a marathon plane adventure (I don’t think I can stress how much I loathe the Wright Amendment) and arrived in Texas this afternoon to spend some time with my family.

Those of you privy to protected posts won’t be surprised to learn that there are additional factors at play here as well — all of which I’ll share in a protected post at some point in the next few days, I’m sure (You’ll need to re-request the password now, which you can do via this form).

As for my health — I’m just not really sure where that stands at this point. So basically, I was in the hospital from Friday afternoon to just before noon on Sunday. The general consensus from the Dr.’s was that I had some sort of eating misadventure — apparently, I’ve forgotten how to eat and I ate to fast. Nevermind that I didn’t get sick until 7.5 hours after I had eaten my last meal. Nevermind that what I threw up didn’t contain food. Nevermind that, even with my extremely high tolerance for pain, this pain was bringing me to my knees and it was located right where my liver is.

Nope — the liver was fine. In fact, in keeping with the tradition at USC, it appears that I might even be healed! My liver, which is so damaged it only functions at about 15% and has historically been large since this all started over two years ago is now ‘normal looking’.

Yup — normal looking.

You wonder why I question them? That is why I question them.

But not to worry — they offered to have me meet with a dietician, so I can learn to eat again…so, those pesky, drop to your knees and curl in the fetal position pains I’ve been having should be all cleared up in no time.

Did I mention, I’m totally healed?!

Ugh.

I won’t even bore you with the pictures I posted on Facebook of the 16 attempts to stick me.

So, as you can guess — my stress level is pretty high. I’ve got a lot going on (some of which I didn’t even write about) and the pain I have in my normal looking liver? Well — I still have it.

I’m also writing this post on about 4.5 hours of sleep since Sunday morning — so if none of it makes any sense — someone please tell me so I can fix it after I’ve had some sleep…or a triple espresso with a No-Doz chaser.

Moving along, slowly

Brandy — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:51:47 +0000

So I thought I’d do a quick run down of what’s going on, since I can’t seem to form the coherent thoughts required to make sense of any one interesting topic. Not that I ever really make sense of any topic I write about — don’t get me wrong

John’s time away

John comes home next week. I am so excited! We were talking a few days ago about how hard this has been and we both decided that the hardest part (that was 110% avoidable, sadly) was the fact that three different people told us that there would be at least one opportunity for John to come home and visit and that simply just wasn’t the case. At all. I think, if we’d both gone into this knowing that it would really be more than 60 days until we got to see each other again, then we’d have started off with a different mentality. Instead, we were of the thought process that we’d be able to break up the separation into two parts, with a visit in the middle. Thankfully, for us, John had my laptop and we were able to web cam every day, just to stay in touch and be involved in each others lives. I’m not sure what other people did and I honestly wonder how many folks there had an expectation of going for a visit and ended up having real problems because it couldn’t happen.

Random adoption related nugget

I haven’t been sleeping well at all. This week has been no different. Yesterday, I laid down to take my morning nap and my phone rang. The caller ID said, “Unknown” and normally, when it says that, it’s my Dr., so I picked it up. Surprisingly, it was S, my daughters mother. She was calling because they had M at the Dr. for her annual physical and they wanted more information about my diagnosis so the Dr. would know what to look for and what to screen for so that she would have the benefit of early detection.

If anyone is keeping score — this is what open adoption is about. Right there. Medical information, freely exchanged, for the benefit of everyone involve — and while it’s true, I also had an open adoption — this particular aspect of open adoption seems to have escaped the minds of those involved. Had I had the benefit of full medical disclosure in my open adoption, I too could have been screened and reaped the benefits of early detection.

Instead, I’ll just die young. I sure hope the comfort of the adults around me was worth my life

The. Big. Move.

Tada! In two weeks, we’ll be all unloaded in our tiny little two bedroom apartment in Bakersfield. I’m both excited and scared. The new job will keep John away from home for two weeks at a time. I’ve been comfortable with that here, in my cozy and safe little corner of the world — but Bakersfield is just…new? Unknown? I don’t know. I’ve been feeding a lot of their news and naturally I’m trying to make concessions for the fact that certain types of stories sell — but it seems like there is a whole lot of crime and murder there. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. I hope I’m wrong.

Then, well — we’ll be living close to family. People keep telling me that this is a good thing — I keep trying to believe them. I guess only time will tell. Right now, this is a a pretty big source of anxiety for me. We’ve already had at least one ‘minor issue’ come up and I’m sure there will be more — I guess I just need to give it time and see what happens.

What I really need to do is worry about it a little less.

Going back to work

I’ve been struggling with this. It’s hard for me not to contribute and at the same time it’s hard to imagine making a commitment to any job that would require me to work 8-5, Mon-Fri. So, I’ll be looking for freelance opportunities and hoping the right one falls into my lap. I’ve got a couple irons in the fire right now — so hopefully something will pan out.

Right now — my full time job is packing the house, doing the work that needs to be done and making sure everything is good to go on the other end.

We’re in pretty good shape. I’m pretty happy with how things are coming together.

So much to do and only two weeks!

Brandy — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:44:37 +0000

Well, we’ve got just about two weeks to go until John comes home. I’m really excited. I’d be more excited if I wasn’t writing this at 4 AM, but generally speaking — my excitement level is pretty high. We’ve got a lot to do and I’m really starting to freak out over my ability vs. our need.

I’m still really struggling with the side effects of the Prednisone, which they put me back on two months ago. Most specifically, the edema, which makes it really difficult to do anything but keep my feet up for hours at a time. I also struggle with insomnia. I’m getting 1-3 hours of sleep per night and I’m trying to get 1-2 hours during a day time nap — but it’s hard to get restful sleep when you’re waking up every 30 or so minutes to void the retained fluid from the day before.

So, in addition to the stress of the move, I have the added stress of worrying about having a shit-ton of stuff left for John to do when he gets home in two weeks. We already have a short list running of things he’ll need to work on…but if we start adding to much more to that, we may end up running into problems.

I hope not.

So, what’s left? Let’s do a walk through and see: (This is a working list – I’m marking it off as I get it done )

Kitchen/Dining Room

Pack the dishes, cups, glasses and cutlery
Paint the ceiling
Deep clean the cabinets, counters, oven and stove top
Touch up the baseboards in a few places
Deep clean the floor, including moving the appliances

Living Room

~~Pack electronics~~
~~Vacuum and roll up rug~~
Vacuum sofa
~~Move book cases, sofa table and ottoman to the garage~~
~~Move remaining furniture (sofa, media center) to the center of the room~~
~~Clean baseboards~~
Paint baseboards
Paint the ceiling
Deep clean the floor, including grout lines in entry floor mosaic

Hallway/Laundry Room

Clean baseboards and trim
Paint baseboards and trim
Replace door knob on office door
Deep clean the floor, including moving washer/dryer

Office

~~Pack my desk/Printer station~~
~~Rearrange the shelving/closet unit to be a functional closet rather than boxed storage~~
~~Move furniture out~~
~~Sweep/mop~~

Jerrett’s Room

Move all the furniture out
Clean baseboards
Paint baseboards
Touch up paint where needed
Replace switch covers/plug covers
Sweep/mop
Paint the ceiling

Guest Bath

It’s a boys bathroom – it needs to be completely sanitized.

Master Bed/Bath

Clean baseboards in bath
Paint baseboards in bath
Vacuum and roll up rug in bedroom
Touch up paint behind headboard
Sweep/mop

All of this, in addition to one last really good round of yard work – mow, edge, weed and sweep. I also have some random packing to do — I’ve got a few things left out that needs to be packed away. I’m going to be moving all of our furniture out to the garage, mostly so I have access to baseboards/flooring as needed.

This also doesn’t include some of the things I can’t do — like climb into the attic and remove the gable fan, adjust the nozzles on the sprinkler system and there is something else on our Google Docs list that I can’t seem to recall…

I’m just not sure what I’m going to do…I would love to have the strength and energy to knock out a lot of this — and really, so much of it looks *easy* — but I am just struggling so hard with this medication transition. I really hate the side effects of steroids, but I hate them even more when my body has to re-acclimate itself to getting them.

Anyway, doing a list like this was a huge help the last time I needed to get some stuff done — so maybe it’ll prove helpful this time around.

And of course, you’re well wishes and stories of commiseration are always welcome…

Two weeks! Yay!

Ugh.

I get up early. Real early.

Brandy — Wed, 11 May 2011 12:44:03 +0000

It all started years ago, when the company I worked for decided to outsource its development process to web developers located in Bangalore, India. They worked an opposite shift than we did, but the need for overlap was profound (they just weren’t that spectacular). As a result I started getting up at 3:30/4:00 AM to work side-by-side with the developers assigned to my products so that we could have maximum overlap time.

It was helpful and useful and painful all at the same time.

But it got me used to getting up really early and it’s something I still do, for the most part…or, I do, but then I usually take a short early morning nap, because let’s face it — I’m not as young as I used to be. Plus, I don’t sleep as well as I used to…

Anyway…when John (aka, the old ball and chain) left for Houston in March to attend two months worth of training for his new job– the two hour time difference really made a ‘big’ difference in the amount of time we could spend together. After talking about the difference and trying to come up with ways we could bridge the gap – we decided we’d start a morning workout routine.

So, each morning, I get up at 3:30 AM, hydrate, get dressed and set out for a speed-walk with John in my ear.

I realize that 3:30 is pretty early for most of you – but what I didn’t realize was that 3:30 was late for some people.

Most notably, those rolling in from the club scene.

I seriously must be getting old.

The first week we started our new routine, I happened across a girl just getting home from a night out on the town. When I walked by the first time, she was being helped out of the back of the car by someone who, I assume, was less drunk than she was.

By the time I made round two, she was snoozing soundly on her front porch, with her friend/driver nowhere in sight.

And that isn’t even the most awkward or strange thing I’ve seen – because almost every morning when I’m out walking with John, chatting and talking about the day ahead of us, I run into someone who is urinating in their front yard/side yard.

What the hell is up with that!?

Don’t even get me started on the two dogs who have taken a keen interest in my early morning walk past their house. They randomly materialized one day last week and now every morning, they greet me with great excitement – so much so, their owner has joined in the cheering section.

I get up early. Really early. Or late – I guess it depends on your view of the world.

Two steps forward, three back

Brandy — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:06:26 +0000

This weekend was hard. A lot harder than I expected it to be. For the last few weeks, it’s been hard because I’ve been alone and I’ve been having to do all this work to try to get the house ready and I’ve been struggling with just feeling good without all the stress of having to worry about trying to rent the house out – we’d already done that.

Then Friday night I got an email from the renter. She’d lost her job. She’s a teacher and her contract hadn’t been renewed.

Crap. Back to square one.

I had planned to spend the weekend packing, cleaning, painting the baseboards and maybe taking a stab at the kitchen ceiling – but instead, I had to stop what I was doing, pull my house together and re-list it for rent…

It’s bad enough parading people through your house while it’s full of your furnishings and personal items – it’s worse to try to show someone how beautiful your home is when everything you own is packed in boxes, stacked all over the damn place.

I had a few people come look – one of them even called me back the next day and said for sure they wanted it…in the end, no one showed up with a completed application and fee in hand – so here we are.

I can’t move until it’s rented, because I’ve got to be here to show it to potential renters. Moreover – once we rented our house out, we felt comfortable committing to a place in California – so now we have two monthly payments. Had we known that I’d be staying on here to rent the house…John could have stayed with friends/family during the ‘overlap’. This is a financial catastrophe – as we were hoping to use any overtime/extra pay to go towards our looming tax bill next year.

It’s all just so overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed. I’m frustrated and alone.

I guess I just needed to get that off my chest. I’ll be ok – it’ll be ok. The house will eventually rent and I will eventually get to see my husband again – but today, I’m just feeling sad. I hate taking steps backward.

Only 50 days to go

Brandy — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 22:01:48 +0000

We’re almost two weeks down – that’s good, right?

I’ve been going crazy around here. It seems every time I turn around, something else needs to be done. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ve got to hire out the repair of our backyard sprinkler system – the guy will be here tomorrow morning and I’m sure I’ll be kissing $200+ bucks goodbye. I’ve almost resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to have to hire out the final cleaning/mowing of the yard – I just don’t have it in me, not with everything else going on.

I’m going to take a stab at re-running the dripper line in the front yard on Saturday – I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that I can do that.

Here’s my current ‘to-do’ list:

Re-run the dripper line in the front yard
Dust, wash and paint the baseboards in the living room, hallway, master bath, Jerrett’s room, office and laundry room
Dust, wash and paint the door trim in the hallway
Paint the ceilings in the living room, kitchen and possibly in the hallway
Take a load of crap to the dump, after finding a way to get a load of crap TO the dump (read: I need to rent a truck)
Spray the weeds, clean the rocks, edge and mow the grass
Restake the tree

All of this before we even move the stuff out – once that’s done, I’ve got to mop our entire house, because the entire house is hard surface. Hopefully I can get most of the major housecleaning done in the week leading up to the Friday John comes home. I really want to wait and paint the ceilings after all of my furniture is out of here – but I don’t know if I’ll get to.

Thankfully, almost everything except kitchen stuff, electronics, the clothes we’re wearing and our food is all packed up. If I can get motivated enough, I might try to get the book shelves out of the house this weekend, move the sofa and entertainment console to the center of the room, cover it with a sheet and do the living room painting – I don’t know.

I’m dreading the baseboards.

In apartment news, we’re all squared away there. I’ve got to wait until May 1 to set up the utilities.

John is doing really well he says. He’s going to school 9+ hours per day then coming back to the hotel and studying for 3-4 more hours every night – he has his first test on Friday and he’s anxious, of course.

All in all – if I can just get motivated, I think I can pull all of this stuff off without a hitch – the problem is getting and staying motivated. I get so dang tired!

In case you were wondering…

Brandy — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:49:10 +0000

I still don’t know what will become of this blog – but I did want to update.

My numbers don’t seem to be moving and the way I understand it, elevated numbers indicate that there is damage being done – I think – I really don’t know at this point…I can’t remember what he said.
Which brings me to the lovely and most frustrating impact of living with liver disease – memory loss/inability to recall. I know that the Dr. has explained this to me, at length – but I’ll be damned if I can recall what he said, specifically.
John has a face-to-face interview next Thursday in San Diego. He really wants this job – so we’re hoping it works out. We’ve got a few reservations about making the money work and that’s if they come in at the top of their range – anything less than the top is a no-go for us, so knowing that is frustrating. Especially knowing how much he wants this job and knowing how well he’d do in it.
He did, however, get another call from another company and they may want to interview him on the 7th – at issue there is the lack of ‘skills improvement’ that would accompany the position – it’s certainly not something that he’d go into with the hope of learning something more so that he could grow as a professional. At this point in his career, that’s a down side.
I had the mother-of-all skin biopsies Tuesday. Apparently, they just start cutting without confirming that I’d been anesthetized – and while I’m standing there (yes, standing there) they cut into me and I suddenly go hot, my vision turns black and I can’t hear – the next thing I know, I’m on the floor, trying to figure out WTF just happened and the Dr. is freaking out. Good times were had by all – uh, or something.
The biopsy was done to confirm a suspected case of cutaneous lupus – that’s skin lupus. The irony of this BS is that I’ve been dealing with this rash for more than three years and it was my seeking treatment for this rash which triggered my initial liver storm that sent me to the hospital two years ago. More irony? My Dr.’s are talking – but so far, treatment for this particularly painful and ridiculously ugly lesion covered rash is contraindicated for people with liver issues. They’re trying to see if this is the case with site-directed injections.
Awesome.
John’s ex-girlfriend from high school sent him a friend request on Facebook. 8 years ago, she called him out of the blue and when he asked her where she got his number…she said she got it from his dad.
Coincidence that we’re seriously being considered for a position that would relocate us back to John’s home town and the sudden contact of an ex-girlfriend who, I can only assume, still has some sort of contact with his family? I think not. This should be interesting.
Last year, I quit several of my online friendships/relationships – I did that because the “get to give” ratio was way off balance – I don’t regret that decision at all, but I do regret losing some other friendships as a result.

So, some good news and some not-so-good news – but I’m keeping a positive outlook. It’s gonna work out

By the way – the insurance at this new job…out-freakin-standing. And affordable.