Friday, November 27, 2009

Getting ready for cyber Monday!!






Okay, I'm not even going to try to get out for the black Friday thing. I'm just gonna do the cyber Monday thing...not that I'm gonna be able to get much for anyone, but here's a few neat websites, even for stocking stuffers, you know?
Lush -- Handmade Soaps
Overstock.com -- Everything
Undergear -- Men's Underwear
Victoria's Secret -- Women's Underwear
Things You Never Knew Existed -- Just like the name says!!
Drugstore.com -- Good drugstore stuff, I've bought stuff like Burt's Bees stuff from here
Harriet Carter -- miscellaneous stuff
What On Earth -- Like The Name Says...great for t-shirts & sweatshirts!
Betty's Attic -- Toys from when you were a kid!
The Lighter Side -- Funny stuff
Shindigz -- Party supplies & micellaneous Christmas stuff
Collections, Etc. -- collectibles...
The Perfumed Court -- kind of indescribable, but you can buy any kind of perfume in any size there...& a lot of them you never heard of!
The Lakeside Collection -- good, inexpensive stuff!
The Kodak Gallery -- Send in one of your pictures, they'll print it in any size for you, cheap & great quality!
Catalog Favorites -- Just about anything!
Okay...I've gotten stuff from just about all these places at one time or another, and I've always gotten quick shipping, and it's always well packed!...Just a little "public service" for everyone!

BoUnCeS!! LibbY!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

More health shit...I'm sorry, but I haven't had TIME to get on the blogs!!




I think that solely by my choice of pictures today, everybody can clearly understand why I was on ritalin for the last couple years...Lately, focusing isn't my strong point...
Well, I saw the "goiterologist" Wednesday, and, interestingly enough, his formal title is a surgeon. WTF?? No, he's scheduling me for a needle biopsy in a week or so...and after I saw him, I went to my neuro appt...that was a rollercoaster of emotions! First we were laughing cuz her name had changed in the last month, so, naturally, I thought she got married, right? So, she walks in, gives me a hug, and I started bitching her out about "Why can't you just find a Smith or Jones or Brown?" Cuz her name now is also a little hard for me (with my ms elocution!) to say. But, no, she's still married to her same husband, she just is using her maiden name. Because it really is a little easier to say (a little...). Well, we all started off laughing, me, her, her assistant...then we started in on what I want. I wanted 3 days of IV steroids, then 12 days of prednisone to taper...uhhhh...I lost that one. But I did get 1 IV of 1000 mgs. steroids today at the hospital IV room...+ a big old roast beef & swiss sandwich with a ton of mayonnaise....and, of course, a Coke...& the nurse made me eat the peaches too! So, I already had had a big 12 oz mug of cranberry/blueberry V-Fusion (that's my new favorite!! mmmmmm!). So, yes I'm still eating healthy! Just not enough, obviously...I'm still hanging around 88-90 pounds, and this SO fuckin' sucks!! I feel like I'm sounding like a whiney little crybaby here, but, that's kinda how this week's been...shit-tons of neat stuff, balanced out, of course, by bullshit stuff...
I'd been considering quitting the tysabri...gave it a fair 6 months try, it worked in the first 2,which is when I was advised to expect nothing! But we went through all the physical tests today, and she came up with I'm actually doing a lot of stuff better...I guess I AM, it's just so gradual, I'm not catching it...like the ataxia is better. We test that by having me touch my nose with my right finger, then touch her finger that she's holding up....sound easy....hahahahahahaha...I'd never pass a drunk test again! But it actually is 'doable' now. A lot of little things really are, I just feel weak, because the home physical therapy isn't enough, so I hafta start going out to the Clinic three times a week for it, she said "Libby, I told you months ago, you NEED to do this! It's either this or I'm sending you to a nursing home for three months to stay there and you'll HAVE to do this there!" O ! M ! G! Now you see where the "downhill" slide of my week hit! So, after my major meltdown in there, not the least of which was "I CAN'T leave TRUMAN!!!" Hell, I had a hard time leaving him here last summer when I went & stayed with my friend in the country on weekends! This is the area where she added Paxil to my Cymbalta, telling me to take one of each in the morning every day...
So, we compromised (somehow, I think she got the better end of the deal! grrrrrrrrrr!!). But I'm NOT going in a nursing home! I told her okay, I'll come out here 3 times a week for real physical therapy and I'll stay on the tysabri for the next 6 months...but I WANT solu-medrol (IV steroids)! *picture a small child stamping her foot in a very haughty way*. And she said that you really can't do the full 3 days 1 gram a day for 3 days, then the prednisone taper, that's WAY too much while you're on tysabri...which I already knew, but was just being the stubborn bitch. So I got set up to get one gram today, and that's it...but hell, it's better than nothing!
She also checked out my right hand, which I still can't straighten my pinky out, well, I can if I use my left hand to pull it out straight, but that's cheating, and I quit doing that a long time ago. She sat in front of me and opened a desk drawer, got a safety pin, and poked my hand and arm all over...it hurt a little on the thumb side and I couldn't even feel it on my little finger, and up my arm toward my elbow. She said she thinks I have a nerve in my elbow (my ulna, not anything like carpal tunnel) causing that. She was pretty sure about that, says that too many people with ms blame everything on that, when there's something else wrong...so now I'm gonna go to another dr to check that out too!! Geez, good thing this is winter and there's nothing else I might have planned in the next months, or anything...:-/...God, I feel all old & decrepit at the age of 44 (oops...45 next month...sonofabitch!).
Anyway, that's part of the reason I haven't been around...you can probably guess a little of the rest...real life gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it? But a lot of that is in a good way...unless it has anything to do with health problems...
BoUnCeS!! Libby!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Happy 86th Birthday, Mom! I love you & miss you


Today would have been Mom's 86th birthday... still trying to make her proud...
I'm still blown away by the people I've reconnected with on the internet! One was the girl I worked with in Findlay & went to the Barry Manilow concert with me in Columbus...haven't seen her for 15 years, never thought I'd find her again, she got married & divorced, & moved to a different town...thought about her a lot, but had no way of even knowing her name now! But she 'friended' me on FB (yeah, Ric, I know it's the spawn of the devil), and she has a different name, but it was HER! I still am not sure how she found me, cuz I'm on there under a different name than she knew me as! And then I still think of all the people that connected for our 25th high school reunion. And we got hundreds of people together from all across the country! That wouldn't have happened without the internet, & lots of hard work! Or a couple years ago, a guy I went out with when I was 15-20 was able to email me...Or like the guy that emailed me this week by finding this blog...first guy I ever went out with...(Kevin M if you're reading this, I fell for you HARD!!...& you know it!!) :-D
BoUnCeS!! LibbY!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

...breaking in for a health update...





See why I love Halloween?? How could anybody look at these kids having fun, and say it's evil?? Why take a fun dress-up and get candy holiday away from kids? Let kids be kids, for heaven's sake!!


Well, I finally did it...went and got my thyroid ultrasounded last week, & my dr's office called today and I have a goiter!~! OMFG, how gross & disgusting does that sound?? At least it's not so big it shows...all I could think of is the old lady on Seinfeld, that had the goiter on her neck the size of a football! Ack! Anyway my dr set up an appt for me to see another dr about it, I guess he's a goiterologist? This is mostly funny cuz I was at H's salon yesterday getting my hair cut, and I told her I had an ultrasound on my thyroid last week, and she just stood there and then said "Maybe it's a goiter?" and I just started laughing (her too), cuz that's just a funny-sounding word, isn't it? Anyway, now I need to call her & congratulate her on her guess...or yell at her cuz she cursed me?


Tif's starting to show, well, I guess she should, she's 6 months now. And her girl dog, Lily, had 5 puppies Saturday! The father is her other dog, Samson. Lily is a miniature Italian greyhound. Samson is a German Shepherd/Lab mix. I know they'll be cute, but, what a picture in your head! Okay, I have a picture of Lily & the puppies up at the top. They'll be ready to find new homes right around Christmas, so, if you have a kid that wants a dog, well...
I already gave in and did a "grandma thing"...the hospital was having a book sale last week, & the profit goes to some of the nurses' groups...I CANNOT avoid a book sale, c'mon! So I bought 2 huge hardcover Dr Seuss books, with good pictures! For Talan, of course! For Christmas, ya know...Even though he's not due til Feb 4th...
Bro called tonight & I said something to him about "your brother, G" (psycho). He said, "Oh, now he's just MY brother, not yours too?? I had to put up with him for 11 years longer than you did!" I told him G was here the Sunday after Halloween for hours. He said, okay, I guess that's like 5 years for you...
BoUnCeS!! LibbY!

Monday, November 02, 2009

Happy Halloween!!! ...on the Day Of The Dead...which isn't a bad thing, it's a remembrance of your dead relatives & loved ones!




I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! I did! I gave out about 40 lbs of candy bars, little toys, like fangs, stickers, teeny little Halloween notebooks, etc, and some bags of cotton candy spiderwebs! How cool! Since this'll be my last Halloween in this house, I HAVE TO go out big!! ordered everything from http://www.orientaltrading.com/... they know how to do ANY holidays!!
So, back to my #1 trick in Fostoria, even better than the hiding in the safe trick...of course, it had to be on one of the 2 night crew guys, whom I got along with very well.
One day I'd ordered so much stuff for the dept, and it was Halloween, or Christmas...sometime when I had tons to do in the department and since I was the only one that worked that department I was originally supposed to work til 4:30 or 5...but I had a shit-ton to do, so I called Mom here in town, & asked if she'd go get Tif & pleeez, pleez, could she stay over night with them that night? Mom said "Okay, of course she can!" So I ended up working into the night shift...and, wow, I never imagined it being that much fun!! 'Course, when you get super-tired, you'll laugh at ANYTHING! 'Punch-drunk', is what I believe it's called...and I was the only one that had gotten up at 6:30 am that morning! By around 2 am, I was ready for a break & some fun! So I went in the break room up front, which was pretty big and had a separate men's room & women's room off it on the two sides of the room. I was sitting there, just looking at all the junk in there, you know, duct tape, aspirin, heavy gloves, hairspray...hmmmm...hairspray...gotta be something to do with that...I sat at the table and lit a cigarette *idea creeping around the edges of my mind*...Maybe 5 minutes later, Chuck came flying around the corner, grabbing a magazine to read, so I knew he'd be in there for awhile (not only the magazine, but the "Gotta shit" tossed over his shoulder...). Now THAT was nothing but a challenge, you know?
I gave it about 5 more minutes, then quietly opened the outer door. Armed with the can of hairspray (aqua-net white aerosol can, in case anyone else wants to do this someday) & my lighter. I crawled over to where I saw Chuck's feet, and then lit my lighter & sprayed the hairspray over it under the wall to the stall...KA-WHOOSH!!! followed by a "%$%W#%&&)*(_(+*&%%W#%!!!! Libby, I'll kill you for that!!!" How the hell did he know it was me, & not Charles??...oh well, I'm still here...still laughing about it!
BoUnCeS!! LibbY!