Tuesday, February 15, 2011

new grandson!

My grandson was born last night.  He weighs 7 lbs 1 oz and is 20 inches long.  This is my son's first child.  I can hardly wait until March when we get to go to Florida to see him.  He is actually my third grandson,  I have a 4 year old grandson from my step-daughter.  My oldest daughter had a baby when she was 15 years old that she put up for adoption, she still gets updates on him. 

Sunday, February 13, 2011

some pictures

my husband and myself
my family

at my Dad's wedding.  My side of the family if on the right
instead of a best-man my Dad had a Best-Daughter

feeling better

I'm finally starting to feel better, going to go back to work tomorrow.  My husband taught my primary class again for me today. What a sweetheart!


He mentioned the other day that one of his biggest worries is having a major stroke.  That reminded me that I need to bring home one of the POLST forms to fill out along with the rest of the paperwork having to do with what type of care you want to get.  In other words, what type life saving measures do you want?  Pretty blunt I know.  But I don't want to have to be arguing with his kids during a medical crisis.  And odds are that he will end up having a major stroke.  There is NOTHING else the Doctors can do to help prevent one.    So he works in the Temple twice a week 'cause he doesn't know how long he will be able to do it.  I work in the Temple once a week with him.  and life goes on.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

home sick

After being sick for 4 days and going to work for 3 of them I finally decided that I needed to stay home.  Unfortunately there weren't any open Dr appointments today, hopefully tomorrow.  I was able to sleep until 10am when I had to get up for a telephone job interview which went well, it lasted 20 min.  I tried to lay back down but whenever I would cough my pugs would start to whine and bark by my bedroom door.  They can't get in the room as we have a baby gate in the doorway, we had decided we would never get any sleep with 4 pugs in the bed.  So right now I'm sitting in my recliner and have three of the pugs sitting with me.  My husband and I like to say that we each have 3 children and together we have 4 pugs who we call "the boys".  All of "the boys" are now sleeping and snoring and i'm the one who's awake. 
John is at the Seattle Temple today.
It's exciting to see people discover this blog and to see responses to my posts are a bonus! 

Monday, February 7, 2011

my husband's background

I just realized that I haven't posted my husband's background.  He has type 2 diabetes and hypertension.  Unfortunately he didn't take his diabetes seriously and is now  on pills and insulin shots.  By not taking his diabetes seriously it has led to at least 7 mini strokes (TIAs), and the vascular dementia.  His main problem is in the executive functioning part of his brain, short term memory is shot.  He is only 63 and we have been dealing with this for 5 years.  If you have diabetes please take care of it, we have learned the hard way that diabetes can affect your brain.

Friday, February 4, 2011

I just copied my old blog to this one so I would be able to have it under this new title. 
My husband and I are both Temple workers.  My husband's memory is better when he is in the temple.  I am hoping that he will be able to continue working in the temple for several years.
My husband has been doing pretty good the past few weeks.  I can tell that he's getting worried about the testing that will be done in April and the results it will show.  He "knows" that he's been getting worse he just doesn't really understand how much and the effect it has on him and others.  On Sat he had problems remembering something and his cognitive thinking went haywire which sent him into a panic attack.  He was worried that he might have had another mini stroke.  So I went over the signs with him a few times and was able to calm him down, but it took a day for it to register in his brain.  I wish he would use the notebook more, hopefully our visit to  his Dr next month will be productive.
Well, time to go back to work.
I decided to see if anyone has read any of my posts in either of my blogs and was blown away that someone has actually read this blog!  I don't know how you managed to run across it as I don't have a link to it on my facebook page.  But thank you for stopping by! 

We are going to be flying to Florida to see our new little grandson soon.  The anxiety of just the thought of being around my ex-husband is already getting to my husband.  I'm torn between leaving my husband here and taking him with me as I need him there with me for support.  Thankfully we have some good friends down there that we will also be able to see.  How much do I tell our friends about how he has changed?  I don't want him being treated as being different.  But he has changed since they saw him last.....
Today I asked my husband to start a load of laundry.  He put the clothes in the washer, soap in the dispenser, then forgot that he needed to press the start button.  oops! 
When I went to my chiropractor he mentioned that when he had seen my husband a month ago he had noticed a change in him. I let him know that my husband is now using a notebook as his short term memory.  This got me to thinking, how do I reply when people ask how he is doing?  Most people don't know how to respond when I say anything other than he's doing good.  He's scheduled to go through the neuro-psych testing in April. 

denial

My husband's Dr says that I am expecting more of him than he can do and she wants to meet with the two of us.  My husband now has to carry around a notebook to write down things in.  The notebook is basically his memory now.  The Dr  also wants to put him through the neuro-psych testing to see what changes there have been since 2006.  It is too much cognitively for him to look at a simple recipe, figure out what we have at home and what he needs to buy, find the items at the grocery store, then follow the recipe once he gets home.  My husband has just recently admitted all this to me, before when I got home from work thinking we were going to be eating a recipe we had discussed earlier he would just say that he had changed his mind and fixed something different.  I wonder what the testing will show.....  I wonder how much longer before I will have to be in charge of his medication.... I hate losing my husband bit by bit to this disease....  My husband keeps reminding me that he will be made whole in the resurrection.

Prayers have been answered

I was just offered a job at Group Health this afternoon!!! I have been wanting to work for this company for 9 years.  My faith has definitely grown during this period of unemployment as I have had to rely more on my Heavenly Father.  I will be working in the Olympia location.  When I lost my job I never thought it would take 10 months to get a new job.  I'm so happy that I don't have to do any more job searching!
Received an e-mail from the lady who was supposed to let me know about the job last Friday to let me know that I'm a strong candidate and to thank me for my patience. She hopes to make a decision soon.  At least I'm still in the running!..Today's interview went well, unfortunately I mentioned why I left my last job.  Hopefully that won't count against me.  She is supposed to call me tomorrow afternoon to let me know if I get the job.   I have another interview tomorrow morning. 

My youngest daughter and one of her friends are looking at apartments.  She doesn't seem to understand that she doesn't make enough money, hopefully she will be able to get enough in student loans to cover her books/tuition and housing.
Today my husband and I were going over what we have planned for this coming week.  I mentioned my interviews and he asked me if I had told him about them before.  This was the third time in less than a week that we've had the same conversation about my job interviews.  He realizes that his memory is getting worse, it makes him grouchy, sarcastic, depressed.... and there's nothing I can do about it.   I'll have to check to make sure he's been taking his medicine.  I don't talk about his conditions (mini strokes and vascular dementia) in the Ward as people have treated him as being different" when we did tell a few people when we first found out his diagnosis.  I even had people tell me he was having seizures (entirely untrue) and that he shouldn't be driving (the Dr has never said for him to give up his license, we have even asked several times).   Luckily we do get support at the Temple and my husband doesn't get treated as if he is "different". 
This isn't how we envisioned spending his 60's and my 40's.