nichtszusagen

• It's come to my attention that I'm shamefully behind in keeping in touch with... well, with just about everybody. So rather than try to catch up individually, I thought I'd post what's been happening, and then go on from there.
  
  
• The busy-ness started this spring, when Manfred, Carl's mom's husband, and pretty much the only grandpa my kids knew, became ill. The time between his first hospitalization and his death in April was shockingly short. At the last, he was transferred to a specialty clinic here in Heidelberg, which was a godsend. Doris was able to stay with us, and Carl was able to visit Manfred daily.
  
  Telling Dagny and Curran about their Opa's death on the phone was one of the hardest things I've done as a parent. I still tear up thinking about it.
  
  Since then, we've made a point to try to visit Doris more frequently, which is something we're glad we're able to do, but it does add to the amount of activity. Mostly, we're thankful we were still in Germany so we could be here for her, and for Manfred in his last days.
  
  
• Around the same time, Camden joined the high school track team--the first of our kids to ever join a school sports team. He had a rough time with shin splints for the first month or so, and tended to skip practice at least once a week. Still, he improved with every meet. He ran long distances--1500 and 3000 meters, and finished middle-of-the-pack.
  
  This was a good thing--it was good for him physically and for his self-confidence, and he made a lot of new friends, as well as having something to help deal with being the only kid left at home--but it added a lot to our schedule at an already-busy time. Track meets, every Saturday for a couple of months, last the entire day.
  
  
• For those who didn't already know, Dagny's working on her teaching certificate. She has her English degree, but needed a bunch of extra classes. Because she's trying to finish up, she had to take some classes in the summer term, which meant that the only time she
  was able to come visit was in May, and she could only stay a couple of weeks.
  
  At least Dagny and Curran were able to arrive at the same time, but Camden was still in school, which made things a little difficult. We pulled Camden out of track the last two weeks of the season, so he could spend at least a little time with his sister, but he still had
  school.
  
  So late spring was really busy, but thankfully Dagny was still able to visit, even if it wasn't for as long as we'd have liked, and the timing wasn't the best.
  
  
• While Dagny was here, she joined me at the gym. Then just before she left, Curran started coming, too. I do a half hour of Nautilus, and then about 45 minutes on a cardio machine almost every day. I started going September '09, doing just the weights, and s l o w l y building up on the cardio. I'm very proud of my progress--for someone with CFS, this much activity is just amazing. Plus, I'm focusing on strength and endurance, which is why I'm still going. If I were focusing on weight, I'd have given up a long time ago. I've lost a whopping six pounds in 13 months. *sigh* But I'm really strong.
  
  I do love going to the gym, but, well, that's an extra hour and a half out of my day.
  
  
• In July we went to Italy again. Did our usual "spa vacation"--gym in the mornings (which was really nice--the gym had been expanded and had all new equipment. Though some of the new equipment was Life Fitness, and let me tell you--however much more Nautilus costs? it's worth it. The Life Fitness machines were anti-ergonomic.), beach in the afternoons, and all kinds of fresh, healthy food. Pisa on Sunday--I got a new purse, Carl got another mask.
  
  The coolest thing was that we ran into a family we hadn't seen in 23 or 24 years. The military can be a very small place sometimes.
  
  
• Then just in case everyone was getting bored, I decided to spend a night in a German hospital Intensiv Station (ICU).
  
  We were on our way to Carl's mom's. We were in Moby, Carl was driving, Curran and Camden were along, and we were listening to Death Masks. Nice and relaxing. My left arm started aching, but I figured it was the a/c, so I put my jacket over it. Then my
  chest started to feel tight, and I squirmed a little, thinking maybe I'd worn too tight of a bra. Mostly, I was just trying to ignore it and listen to the book. But it kept getting worse--the pressure turned into pain, and I started sweating and having trouble breathing.
  
  So Carl pulled over... and dialed 112. Which was almost more shocking than the chest pain. The ambulance arrived right away (we were only a couple of blocks from the hospital), and they asked a few questions and loaded me into the back of the ambulance. How embarrassing.
  
  Turns out my blood pressure was something like 200/105, which is a wee bit alarming for doing nothing but riding in a car. Death Masks has some exciting parts, sure, but even if this were the first time I'd read it, I don't think it would have that sort of effect. So they called the Notarzt (emergency doctor), in a helicopter. They explained to me that it was in case they needed to send me to a hospital other than the local one, but in retrospect, we suspect the helicopter was because we had Tricare, which translates here as the magic words of "private insurance."
  
  So, overnight in intensive care, and of course it was the one time I didn't have a book along. Curran had a Bible along--he's been reading it--and his iPod, and he let me keep both, which was a real sanity-saver (I read the bit about Noah putting a curse on his grandson because his son saw him naked when he--Noah--was drunk and passed out.).
  
  
• Health-digression: I'm trying to be chronological here, but this is an ongoing thing, so I'll stick it all together. It's reminiscent of when I first got CFS: nobody's been able to figure out what's going on. So I've had a bunch of tests and doctor appointments since, half of them with the cardiologist in Landstuhl, which is a good hour-plus drive, depending on the traffic, so it's time-consuming. The cardiologist put me on blood pressure medication, increased it when she had to stop my stress test early (my blood pressure went up to 235/56), and the increased dose made me feel like I was having a CFS relapse. It seems to be slowly getting better, but I was decidedly Not Happy about it. Not to mention being a tiny bit freaked out because that stress test was a lot less work than I do at the gym.
  
  The fatigue is again a factor. Maybe it's all been from the medication, or maybe it was just creeping up because I kept increasing my time on cardio machines (I was up to almost an hour), but it started dawning on me that once I got home from the gym, that was pretty much it for the day. I could sit and click silly Facebook games, but concentrating on anything, even answering email, was strenuous.
  
  So that's where I am with that. Back to the chronology.
  
  
• In August, Carl's brother's father-in-law died suddenly. We didn't know him well, but we'd known him for over 20 years. It was especially hard on our nieces, who lost two Opas within four months. And of course on his wife and daughters. Just a real rough time for the family.
  
  
• After summer semester, Dagny had a little time off, so she and Andrew decided to take a road trip from Texas to Michigan to visit her grandma, my mom. They took Andrew's Audi as the more reliable of their cars, and the two dogs.
  
  Unfortunately, on the way home, the car broke down near a small town in Indiana. To make things worse, they'd left early because Andrew's aunt had died. Long story short, they ended up stranded in Indiana for several days before it became clear that the car wasn't going to be fixed before they needed to be back for work and school and they got a rental car (thank goodness Dagny's 25 now!) and drove home, then Andrew, Curran, and a couple others drove back together to return the rental car and pick up Andrew's.
  
  
• This is (finally!) Dagny's last semester of coursework. In the spring semester she'll be doing her student teaching. It's a pretty rigorous program, with high expectations and a ton of fieldwork (including tutoring, mentoring, etc.).
  
  On top of a full-time load of classes, she's working at least 30 hours a week at KidSpace, a drop-in daycare center where she's assistant manager, which means she has to do more than just show up and watch the kids.
  
  Any of you who are parents of adult kids know why this is in my list of why I'm so busy. Even though (or more likely because) she lives on another continent, we spend a lot of time on the phone. I'm really glad we do, but there's not a lot I can do while talking on the phone besides Facebook games. Maybe I should see if I could find a phone with a headset.
  
  
• Camden did cross country this fall. He initially went to stay in shape for track, but now he likes it a lot more. I only had to drive him to practice one day a week (the rest of the week he just stayed after school and took the sports bus back home), but there was a pasta party every Friday and meets every Saturday. Of course, I couldn't just take frozen lasagna or a baguette or pre-made cake from the commissary, so I generally spent most of Friday cooking. And even though the cross country meets were shorter than track meets, they still ended up taking up most of the day.
  
  
• Halfway through the season, and ON HIS SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY, Camden got the flu. He was out of school for almost a week, missed practice for almost two weeks. He'd planned on having friends over for his birthday, and we cleaned the house, including his room, in preparation. Which we repeated two weeks later when his friends did come over.
  
  
• Then someone ran into Curran's car at the university parking lot. A week later, while he was in the process of dealing with the insurance companies and making appointments to get the car fixed, he got hit again, sideswiped, further damaging the same side of the car.
  
  Lots of phone calls from here to Curran and to insurance companies, particularly after the second accident, to figure out who should pay what. Of course the two drivers who hit him had different insurance companies. Fortunately, because it was an insurance claim, they allowed a 20-year-old a rental car.
  
  Too bad it hadn't been just one insurance company--they might have totaled the car, and then we could have got him a new one. Dividing the repair cost in half, though, put it under the limit.
  
  
• As of October 1st, or 15th, or November 1st, depending on which set of orders you read, Carl changed jobs. He's actually still in the process of changing jobs, and has been doing both jobs for the past month. His new job is the European Regional Medical Command's Director of Force Health Protection, and the challenging part is that they're restructuring the whole thing. Big ego boost, because he's got people calling up wanting to work for him, but it's also a lot of headaches, a lot of phone calls, trips, and late-night teleconferences (because of the time difference, any teleconference involving people in the States takes place in the evening here).
  
  
• I'm sure there are other things that I'm not remembering. As an illustration, here's what we did this last weekend, which was not at all atypical:
  
  • Friday--last cross country pasta party. I made pumpkin pie Chex mix, which only took an hour to make, but we also volunteered to take wrapped baked goods and candy for the concession stand on Saturday, so that was a trip to the commissary.
    
    
  • Saturday--cross country European championships. Camden wasn't running--it's the top 7 runners from each team, and he ended the season around #10 (out of 20), but as the championships were held here in Heidelberg, the entire team had to attend, for support, and to help out. Camden was a course marshal. Took Camden out to the course by 9 (it's here in Heidelberg, but it's at least a 20-minutes drive, so just driving him there takes close to an hour), then went out ourselves at 11.
    
    The meet was great--absolutely perfect weather--clear skies and 60s, and apparently we made a killing on the concessions, which is why the kids got all new uniforms this year and could keep their nice Puma warmups for just $25 (the price tag on each piece was around $40). We left around three and had to go to the PX for supplies for a project Camden had due on Monday.
    
    Then I made an early dinner (bacon, spinach, and tomato salsa sandwiches--they were a huge hit), so we'd be finished by the time trick-or-treating started at six.
    
    Starting shortly after six, the hordes came. We just sit outside the door because there are so many kids you never get a chance to close the door. Carl and I took turns handing out candy while the other one got dressed and ready for going to a play with friends. This is the shirt Carl wore to pass out candy.
    
    Camden's friends arrived with one friend's nephew, so there were three 16-year-olds in silly hats and masks (Camden wore a Mexican wrestling mask and his antique top hat) taking one toddler around trick-or-treating. One of our neighbors asked them to do tricks for their treats, so Camden juggled candy, for which they gave him extra.
    
    We'd intended to leave at seven, but it was really hard to find a lull in the onslaught--you just cannot shut the door in kids' faces--so it was almost ten after when we left, and the play started at 7:30. Fortunately, our friends picked up our tickets for us.
    
    We'd pre-positioned the car over by the gym, a 5-minute walk away, because our street is NOT navigable by car during trick-or-treating. I'd forgotten this, and wore boots with 4-inch heels. Even so, we got to the theater with five minutes to spare.
    
    We saw Titanic - The Musical. They always do a nice job, and this was no exception. I was impressed with how well they managed the small space they had to work with. But it wasn't my favorite of their productions. The main thing was that it was nice to get out and spend time with friends.
    
    
  • Sunday--Camden had to work on his project for Honors English/History. We'd planned on going to Carl's brother's house in the afternoon, but his wife was sick, and Carl and his brother decided to meet at their mom's and put the winter tires on her car for her. I'd intended to go along, but all the activity the previous day had wiped me out, so I stayed home and helped Camden with his project (I'm mostly relegated to proof-reading. Carl's the one who helps with the artistic stuff). Good thing I did, too--Carl didn't get home until an hour after our bedtime.
    
    
• So that's kind of what's going on with me. I'm not really sure if we are actually very busy, if it seems that way because we're not used to being this amount of busy, or if it's just that I don't tolerate this level of busy because of the CFS. Regardless, it's made it difficult to keep up with all sorts of things. Getting up at 5:15 on school days doesn't help either.
  
  I'm a little ashamed that it took me so long to realize I needed to do something about it. Hopefully you'll have noticed that I'm trying to keep in touch better lately--if not, you should notice it soon.
  
  

Labels: about me, weekend update

// posted by Darla @ 9/21/2010 10:51:00 AM