...Because My Brain, It's Just Random.

I started out with my traditional "It's Okay Friday" post today but perhaps because life has been so overwhelming lately, my brain just won't seem to focus in on one thing, or one format, or one moment, or one anything for that matter.

Did you know that kidney stones cost as much as a baby? Well, okay, babies KEEP costing money but having kidney stones is the same as paying for labor and delivery...in fact, it's more if you manage to have your baby without an epidural. Not that I am saying I will manage that, those women are hard core, just that the cost is comparable for the hospital experience of delivering a little piss meteor as it is for delivering a little bundle of joy.  I should have owned a hospital instead of dreaming of writing a novella.

I'm dying to go back to The Cayman's.  Not just because the dolphins were there but because it was just my favorite place of the whole entire trip. It was so beautiful there and everyone was so nice. I need to still blog about the Cayman's and Cozumel and the cruise in general, I will get to it, I swear.  I could live in the Cayman's, if I were rich that is. See above statement about owning a hospital.

I am sick of perpetually dieting. Sick to death of it.  However, I am about 8 weeks from my goal weight and I will get there, and then I will celebrate, with new clothes though or something and not with food.

I don't say it enough, but I am very grateful for my husband.  He tells me all the time he hit the jack pot, but I am the one who got lucky.

When I was 18, turning 30 seemed like a million light years away. It seemed OLD and I thought for sure by 30 I would have a husband, a mini van and 2.5 children.  With my 27th birthday looming in a matter of 15 days, 30 doesn't seem so ancient. In fact, 30 seems like the new 20. I will have the married part down but I certainly won't own a minivan or have 2.5 children, maybe not even .5 of a child. While some days this gives me anxiety and heart burn to really think about (I mean at 30 my Mom was DONE having children!) I also have other days where I am completely at peace with where my life is going.  I have learned immense amounts of kindness, forgiveness and grace in the journey that got me here regardless of how painful it was at times, and I think that will make me a better parent when my times comes...even if means I'm an old parent.

I would toss all the above out the window if I won the lottery and have a baby right away because money wouldn't be an issue (I'm joking...sort of).

I have days where going to work requires a physical effort of forcing myself out of bed and dragging my body to that office, but I try to remember there are people who are trying so hard to get a job and can't.  I try to go to work a little more enthusiastically when I remember that.

I wish I could accessorize better than I do.  It's amazing those girls that can add an accessory and it looks like they have 5 different outfits from one small change. I also wish I could look at colors of clothes and add them together in ways a normal person wouldn't think of to make a fabulous outfit.  Who are we kidding though? I don't even wear mascara.

I love Tim Tebow.  I'm not ashamed of it. I would pinch his cheeks. (Good Lord I am getting old!)

I get sad when I think about Peyton going somewhere else.  I am less of a lover of teams in football and more of a lover of the players so it isn't that I am devastated about the team, just the prospect of what he has done for them not gaining any loyalty from them.  I love me some Peyton.

I miss my family and often times long for the days when we weren't so scattered all across the nation.  Did you know my little brother travels for work pretty much every single day? To places like Philadelphia back to North Dakota up to who-knows-where and then back down to Timbuktu...it makes visits very difficult.

I need more sleep in my life.  If you saw me and told me something mean, I would burst into tears right now. Lack of sleep.  My friends say that means I am going to cry all the time when I'm pregnant, but don't worry, see above mentioned post about the timeline of that happening. We've got awhile.

I strongly dislike medieval literature.

I sincerely love modern literature.

My house is messy. I have been so busy I have not had the time to do anything about it, and that isn't an excuse, that is just the danged truth. I hate a messy house, it gives me more anxiety.

See? I told you my brain couldn't focus on one thing, or one format, or one moment or one anything....

This One Time, He Had Kidney Stones

Almost two weeks ago now, on my first day back to work after winter closure, my husband dramatically flung himself to the floor and insisted he was having a back spasm.  The Hubs is a joker, so I stepped over him and went about my business.  He eventually peeled himself off the floor and took me to work.

The following evening, he woke and said the pain was really bothering him.  He even said the established safe word so I would know he was serious.  So, I told him we would call the chiropractor and lets pray he didn’t slip a disk or something awful like that.

However, he woke up mid-week and said it was gone. So we moved on with our happy little lives, he worked his final day at Wal Mart, and the weekend came! His first Saturday off work and we could actually spend some time together! We thought it would be so great, but it was taken over by the pain in his back once more.  This time he decided that even if the pain went away before we could get in, we would go to the chiropractor Monday morning.

I went to work; you see I thought he was going in for a simple adjustment and classes started that day. I was certain he was just out of whack. What I didn’t know was after I left the house the pain intensified so much he became violently ill. He went to chiropractor anyway, and once there, after an adjustment and more vomiting because of pain, the chiropractor started feeling his abdomen and told him he needed to go to the ER immediately.

The Hubs called me and I left work in a hurry and raced to the ER with him. Unfortunately a cardiac patient came into the ER after us but received his service before us. It wasn’t until Doug was actively getting ill in the ER that the nurse finally came and took us in.  A million dollars, one CT scan, a urine sample and a blood sample later (okay, maybe not a million, but a lot) they determined that The Hubs had two kidney stones, one in the tube between the kidney and bladder on the right and one still in the kidney on the left, both which they approximated being 5-6 mm big.

They sent us home with lots of meds and a strainer and said good luck; we want you to pass it.

After two days of more violently ill episodes, we decided we weren’t waiting for little baby kidney stone to make its entrance. There had to be a better option. So we went to the urologist clinic where, upon looking at more scans, the Doctor determined that an ureteroscopy was our only option due to the location of the stone. So we scheduled a surgery for the next day.

Long story short, the kidney stone was packed very, very tightly in the tube right next to the major vessels that lead to the leg.  The doc said it was one of the tightest packed ones he has seen. So they laser blasted it into smaller pieces and put a stent in the tube so The Hubs can pass it.  He still has to pass the pieces and then in two weeks we have to go back so that they can remove the stent on the right side and go after the kidney stone on the left.

I discovered a few things in this process. Number one, my husband’s response to anesthesia is to swear, A LOT.  Number two, kidney stones are so painful my husband said he wouldn’t even wish them on his worst enemy. Number three, I hate being the person sitting in the waiting room “waiting” for news on the person having surgery done.

So he is resting. He is sleeping. He is in a lot of pain.  He is hilarious on his meds.  I would post a video but like I said, he swears.  He missed his entire first week of classes and this semester looks like it is not off to the best start we could have hoped for, but we have each other and soon we will once again have our health.

Even if it does cost a million dollars....or thousands....or whatever.

A Dream That You Wish Can Come True

How well do you know me? I mean if you're reading this blog you probably know me pretty well. I won't lie, I secretly hope I have followers who creep on my page who don't even know me, but in reality I am probably not telling any stories important enough or charming enough or witty enough for that to really be the case. So, chances are, you know me.

The point is, if you know me, you know I love dolphins. I'm not exaggerating here either, I think they are the most amazing creatures ever. It all started with a 3rd grade research paper that turned into an obsession that turned into a love that equated writing every single research paper required of me that I could on these amazing animals. If I wasn't a human, I would want to be a dolphin. When you can't find a gift for me you can just get me anything with a dolphin on it. I mean a picture frame, a snow globe, a night light, a knick knack, a candle...whatever you can find - if it has a dolphin on it, I will love it. I mean the same applies for orca whales and sea turtles, but not to the same extent as the dolphin. When you walk in my house I have an entire shelf the hall way length long that displays this amazing collection I have acquired. Boy, do I love me some dolphins.

All that to be said, when I was a little girl, land locked in this great state I love, I never believed I would see a dolphin in real life, much less touch one, or kiss one, or swim with one! I dreamt about it though. Oh, how I dreamed. I even prayed sometimes I would get to pet a dolphin when I was a little girl. I never imagined it would be an attainable wish.

Fast forward to December of 2011. Well, really more like July of 2011 when the mister and I were booking our honeymoon cruise.  We booked with Carnival because it was cheap and they had a payment plan. I mean really guys, cruises are the way to go. You have to deal with airfare and all that jazz but the cruise itself, tips included, was less than a thousand bucks. LESS! So we had some wedding money and some savings and we booked. With my Mom's help. Who is a travel genius. Call her if you need a trip, ours wouldn't have been the same without her.

It was a few months later when I thought, "OH MY GOSH! I could swim with the dolphins!" Alas, time and research revealed it was 150 a person. 300 bucks was a 3rd of the whole freakin cruise cost! I couldn't justify it. Not with the cost of one textbook equating the same as a dolphin swim. Education lasts forever you know.

Enter young Lucas, who told me that he never gave me a wedding present so therefore he would buy this dolphin dream for me. I told him he had to rent a tux, that WAS the present! He insisted and ultimately gave me a wedding gift that resulted in the second best day of my life.

Our dolphin's name was Darwin. He was the most perfect thing I've ever seen. He is 9 years old and he is a rescue dolphin.  He was rescued when he was 3 years old and was the victim of a shark attack. Thankfully he didn't end up being someones lunch and instead lived to make my dreams come true. If you look closely at the picture of him facing forward while jumping in the air you can see the half moon shaped scar next to his dorsal fin from the shark.  Considering I love rescuing animals it was the most perfect matching I could have hoped for.

Doug didn't originally want to do this. Even though Lucas gave us the money he had a hard time justifying it because it wasn't a very big dream of his to do this. However, I pleaded and he caved and we went together. While we were standing in the pool watching Darwin leap out of the air, he leaned over to me and said, "I am so glad you made me do this. It's amazing."

Basically to sum it up, I am going to borrow a comment my BFF made on my Facebook when she said, "I love your face in all of these (pictures).  It's a mixture of bliss and utter disbelief that you're actually with a dolphin."

But you better believe it.

I was with a dolphin.

AND

Dreams that you wish can come true.

Jamaica

I learned a few things in Jamaica.

One, even if it is cloudy and looks chilly outside, when you are in the tropics, don’t pack a sweater. You will carry it around and it is a waste of effort.

Two, you cannot go ANYWHERE without someone trying to sell you something.

I don’t know if I can really say that there was necessarily anything “bad” about our vacation. However, if I were to choose a least favorite place we visited, Jamaica would be it. If we are ever lucky enough to cruise again someday I will choose a cruise that does not stop there.  We ported on the far side of the island so we had no choice but to pay 20 dollars (EACH!) to ride this “Hop On Hop Off” bus to downtown in order to see the sights. Once we got downtown, I was sad to see how dirty it was. The island is beautiful and the town was just trashed. Also, I think it was the place with the absolute worst driving I’ve ever experienced in my life. The streets were TINY and everyone was honking and yelling at each other!

The island itself (from a distance) is beautiful. I was very surprised to see it is much more like a jungle than a sandy tropical island.  In fact, there was only one spot in the places we got to see where there was actual beach and it was not that long! It also cost a ridiculous amount of money to access it so we just skipped it.  Most of the shoreline looked like this:

 

The other thing that was seriously cracking me up was that ever other person was asking Doug if he “wanted a smoke!” No one ever asked me even once! I told Doug he must have looked like a stoner because male, female, old, young – you name it, they were asking him he wanted a smoke!!! This one girl asked him if he did that stuff and he told her no he didn’t and then she quickly retracted and said “Yaeah mon, don’t start, it make you crazy.” Riiiiight….that’s why she was asking!

We ate at Margaritaville because it looked clean and safe! We got to eat on the balcony and this was our beautiful view. The ocean was so blue! I loved the floating trampoline. We also ate the best nachos while we were there!

When we returned to the ship we took some pictures with the self-timer on the camera from the top deck with Jamaica in the background. From a distance it was sure pretty to look at!!! Sorry about all the deck floor in the photos but when you don’t have anyone to take your picture you do the best you can!

I am happy to have gone because this trip was really just a huge blessing. I can cross Jamaica off the bucket list (although it was never really there in the first place) and I am grateful really for anything that expands my cultural palette. Let’s just say, I’m not dying to move there.