*is officially a geek* Hi! I'm back!
Flower Chucks! =D
So, yes, I'm breaking my long self-imposed journal silence to post a picture of my new shoes... Because they are the cutest freaking things I've ever seen. I literally hit *PURCHASE* the moment I set my beady little eyes on them. Luckily they were on sale. lol
Yes, I'm a geek, I've wanted a pair of Chucks since I was a teenager.
Wow, so I have edited my post here because not paying attention to the news can lead to tiny jokes being in very poor taste... Don't ask, it wasn't that funny anyway.
On other topics, I've lost 13 pounds since January. Without really trying. So, I decided to actually put in some effort and see where that takes me by the end of the summer. I've been mildly disgusted with myself for letting things get so out of hand with my weight, since the family tendency to diabetes and heart disease is rampant. I'd like to get back down to 130 or less, so I've got a bit of a ways to go, but we'll see.
Since I haven't posted in so long, there's a lot of stuff that I never really told anyone about. Since last October, I've not just been taking care of my grandmother. My mother had a seizure that lasted 5 days. No exaggeration. It was something called Status Epilepticus (sic). Basically she started seizing, and it took them 5 days to find the right meds to get her stopped again. Along the way her lungs stopped working properly, and the heart murmur she's had since she was a baby started causing problems, and she developed blood clots. She also got an early diagnosis of endometrial cancer because the blood thinners they had her on for the clots caused bleeding. She spent three weeks in ICU, another week in the regular hospital, and then just under two months in a nursing home doing physical therapy. Then the insurance sent her home, and I had to become a 24/7 home-care nurse. Which is probably how I managed to start losing weight without really trying. I was working my arse off for a while there, before she started to get well enough to mostly take care of herself, again.
The remarkable thing is, for the most part, my mother is fine. The neuro team at the hospital told me flat-out that she was a miracle. The seizure alone should have caused brain damage, and the accompanying problems were enough to kill her. At the day 4 point, they told me I needed to start preparing myself and gran for the idea that she wasn't going to make it. She not only lived, she came out completely undamaged. Other than physical weakness from having to be in a hospital bed for so long, which is fixable with physical therapy. She'll be on seizure meds for the rest of her life, and they're never going to let her drive again, because they have no idea what caused the seizure, but other than that, she's fine. I dose out her medications, handle the appointment keeping, and do all the driving, but other than that, she's back to normal.
While all this was going on, I got some help with my gran. I finally gave in and called Aging Services, and they decided that I did need some help with everything. We now have a maid who comes out once a week, and a variety of other services designed to make all our lives easier, provided for free. It's a huge load off my mind, and I feel better than I have in literally years. Part of the reason I stopped posting was that my depression got so bad that I didn't want to talk to anyone about it. Depression meds don't work for me, so when I have problems I have to find other ways to handle them, and I spent about 2 years floundering, this time.
You'd think everything that happened in the last 7 months would have made things worse, but what it actually wound up doing was jump-starting me, instead. I had a reason to get out of bed early, leave the house regularly, and I was so tired that I actually WANTED to go to sleep at the end of the day.
It knocked me right out of the depression, and made me want to interact with people again. So, I've been slowly making my way back into things on here. Commenting, but not posting, and I think I'm ready to start posting regularly again. I'm sorry to everyone for dropping off the face of the earth like I did. It had nothing to do with you guys, and everything to do with not wanting to inflict my degrading mental state on other people, if I could help it. When I get like that, I'm not good at opening up about it, so my acting talent usually lets me hide it, and this time I just couldn't manage to do that, so I hid behind silence instead.
And now that the tl;dr is out of the way, I've got a note for anyone on my flist going to DragonCon! Beizy, I'm looking in your direction... =D
I AM GOING TO DRAGON CON! When I finish this I'm going to order my membership. Apparently my mother told my grandmother that I've been wistfully talking about it, and they decided that I deserved a break, and by then they'll be able to go 5 days or so without me... So for my 30th birthday (In 16 freaking days! OMG HELP, I'm getting old! *gets out the wrinkle cream*), I get to take a trip to Atlanta in August.
I'm driving up, and I already have feelers out for carpoolers. Was that hotel-sharing invite serious, Beizy? And are you up for a chat session tonight to talk about it? I get the impression you've been before, and I need to get a realistic expenditure prognosis, so I can start saving now. You may not get this far, so I'll drop a note in your journal, too. =D
And that's it for the moment. Cute shoes, life news, issues, and DRAGON CON. That's about it. Oh, and not that I'm begging or anything, but several people in my RL read this too, so:
http://www.sephora.com/registry/list.jhtml?giftlistId=gl558472458