Maintaining

Mom is home from the hospital with no diagnosis. She is to go to a ENT. My vertigo comes and goes. I work today, and then have 4 days off to figure out what's going on. The house sale is going on track so far. I'm just hanging on till I can finish my work week and start picking up the pieces.

Another Update

I survived the day at work, but was really dizzy at times. I slept next to the new wooden pieces of the shelves that I bought Saturday and it was Saturday night while sleeping next to them that I first got dizzy. I had the air conditioning or heat on the next two nights that circulated the air in the room and had been feeling better. Last night the temperature was warm enough the heat didn't come on so the air didn't circulate and I felt again dizzy like I had on Sunday. I moved the shelves to the screened porch and turned on the overhead fan for tonight to see if that is what is causing my issues. If I still feel this dizzy tomorrow and Thursday at work, on Friday my day off I will find a doctor somewhere. I hope it has just been a reaction to the off-gassing chemicals. A different problem, but better than a health issue.

Mom is in the hospital. She got tired of waiting on the doctors while she kept getting worse. They admitted her and have so far run a CAT scan and not found anything. Later they will run an MRI. They said her doctor couldn't have ruled out an inner ear issue by just looking in her ear. One of my co-workers had this issue of vertigo and found some exercises on YouTube that cured it. I was going to send Mom a link, but wasn't quick enough. I'll look them up tonight and try them. If Mom gets worse I'll be hoping a plane to MO for the weekend.

I also just got a cash offer that I have accepted on the house in Nashville. A bright light in all the other issues. Here's hoping it goes through.

Prayers for all of this would be appreciated.

Better

I am better today and I plan on going to work tomorrow. I'm glad my dizziness happened in the middle of my regular days off. Mom is still having issues, and her primary doctor is still dragging his feet on getting her into a specialist. A couple of us have mentioned she might want to get a new doctor, and also go ahead to the ER as her dizziness is more of an issue and has been going on for almost 2 weeks now. She can't drive, which puts a crimp in her lifestyle at this point. I'm guessing the fact that we both had the same symptoms was coincidence and not caused by the same thing as mine only really last 24 hours, for which I am very thankful. Today I've felt like I've been trying to shake a hangover, and I haven't had any alcohol in months.

Update

Just called Mom again. Third time today. Normally we don't talk 3 times in a week, but knowing how I feel I want to check in more often. Seems we have both leveled out and not had any acute waves of our heads feeling like they are jerking. A friend of her's will take her to the ER tomorrow if she feels like she needs to go, and she has her bag all packed. I figure since tomorrow is Monday the office here will be open and I can ask about which hospital I should go to and I can take a cab if I need to go. If I just stay wobbly I probably won't go. I may start looking for a doctor, though.

I cooked eggs for breakfast, and later fixed salmon and steamed veggies for supper. I was attributing my dizziness to not eating much except peanut butter sandwiches and pop tarts yesterday. I'm also taking vitamins. And sleeping a lot. Nothing got done today except eating and sleeping. Luckily I don't need to go to work till Tuesday, so I have a day to make some decisions.

And now this...

Lots going on to blog about. One not so great is that Mom is experiencing dizzy spells, and getting worse. I had talked to her on Friday and she had been to the doctor and he said it is her heart, but they hadn't gotten her in to order the test from that doctor yet. Then last night I rolled over and my head just kept spinning, yep, just like Mom said her's does. Strange sensation as it is just my head, I know where my body is. At one point I was laying on my back and it seemed like my head jerked backwards at least 45 degrees. I got up, holding onto things, and got some water. Later around 8:30 I called Mom to see what was up with her, and she has had a more severe attack of the dizziness. She decided to get her things together in case she needs to go to ER. I made myself a cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich and wove my way back to bed. Spent from then till around 11:30 waking up, taking a bite and a drink and going back to sleep. Finally the room seemed to steady itself and so I called Mom to see how she is doing. She was up and decided to wait till tomorrow to go unless it gets worse. She mentioned that it seems to happen if she is looking up at all, compressing the back of her neck. I tried keeping my head pointed downwards, and it is helping. Things are better, but I'm still not wanting to drive anywhere. This is so strange, she's in Kansas City, MO and I'm in Phoenix, AZ. I keep trying to figure out what could be similar other than genes, and haven't figured it out yet. If I still feel this strange tomorrow I'll finally try to find a doctor. If it gets bad again, I'll head to ER. I don't run to doctors for much of anything, so that shows how out of normal this is for me.

I'll post the rest of what is going on when the room decides to stop wavering on me.

Title goes here

The hardest part of posting is trying to come up with a title. Sorry, I'm not feeling creative today. I got the header photo working again. I took this on an early morning trek I made up to Roosevelt Reservoir that had been recommended to me. I really want to have a beer with the person who recommended it (Bob G, you know who you are) because at one point I would have been screaming like a little girl if I hadn't had to watch where I was driving to keep from going over the edge of a cliff. At any rate, things are getting done and life is mellowing out. I finished one jigsaw puzzle last night, an easy 100 piece one that is probably for kids. I started a 500 piece one today. This is one reason that more hasn't been done on the blog changes. My aunt had a bunch of these in her yard sale, and I brought home what didn't sell. I'll donate them to the collection here at the park once I put them together. I'm thinking of heading to Jerome, AZ tomorrow. I'll see how I feel about it when I wake up. If I do go, I will try to get pictures. I will also turn off the date display on the camera as I don't really want to crop out parts of the pictures I do take.

Getting back to normal

Not sure what normal really is for me, but it is nice to find things when I want them. I have been listening to some of my CD's this morning while I work around the place. Nice to have music again. I played with the template on this blog and only managed to delete the header photo. I'll play more as I go along and make the changes I've been threatening. I have to shrink the size of my pictures in order to use them, a fact that I forgot which is why I deleted the photo rather than just changing it. Not a lot going on, and this is a nice change.

Wider paths

I stopped so much unpacking and worked on finding places for the things I'd already unpacked. All the things in the past 5 years that I've bought more of because the ones I already had were packed away? They are now all here. I have more of everything than I need, more than I want. I'm having trouble letting it go, though. A work in progress.

I need to apologize to my new rice cooker. Apparently it is the almond milk that I was using to cook the rice rather than water that was causing the scorched issue. Had the same problem with my old cooker, although not as bad. I still need to run to the grocery to get fixings for lentil soup in the slow cooker. It will take me awhile to get back in the swing of having all my stuff, and therefore no excuse, not to live right. Found the clothes I was wondering about, and some more that I forgot I had. Have not yet found the yarn. An email buddy says the government took it to sell to drum up money, or else some sheep are holding it for ransom. Either one could be likely I guess.

I've told folks to come visit me this winter here in the sunny southland, I have plenty of room. Hmmmm. Gotta make those paths wider to have room for company. Guess it will keep me out of trouble for awhile.

Wow

I keep unpacking boxes and totes and suddenly the nice mobile home isn't nearly as big as it used to be. So far I've found most of what I missed the most. I just this morning found my smaller slow cooker and rice cooker. My new rice cooker burns the rice, not something I ever had a problem with before. So, the new one will get donated. I've found most of the clothes I've missed, but not all. I have not found my yarn yet.

I am to the point that I need to put a lot away and donate some to make room before I unpack much more. I have only paths in all the rooms. I'm careful to keep track of important stuff, putting it away when I use it so I'm not in total caos. The stuff is getting to me, though. It is a process and I just have to work through it. Again, I read posts about how 'We just sold off all our possessions and now we are SO happy!' and I wonder how that process really went down at the time.

Work is finished for the week

I had my 4 day work week this week, finished today. I was a tired puppy as I drove home. The vacation was not restful, and 3 12 hour days with an 8 hour one at the end is also tiring. I came home and took a nap. Now I am in the in-between state of being too tired to really do much and not sleepy now. Tomorrow I hit the unpacking again. I'll start with taking out the empty storage containers, breaking down any empty boxes, then taking store of what is left. I still haven't found my yarn or my small slow cooker. Also, I'm missing a lot of clothes. As it is getting chilly here I'm wanting my winter clothes, most of which have been packed away for several years. I also will start the trek of things to a donation box. At this point it is mostly clothes that are too small now. I'm hoping some of the clothes I find will still fit. I still can't quite grasp that everything I own is here in the mobile home, or out in the shed. I'm thinking when I get out there to the shed (which is attached and at the end of the car port) I'll find a lot of things that aren't on my current radar.

It's Over

Or it has just begun, depending on what part I'm talking about. I still need to take the empty truck back, but I will do that on Monday for a lot of reasons. It is safe parked across the parking spots outside of the laundry room. There are only 3 of us on this end of the park here now, so it is ok.

The nice, clean, empty mobile home looks like it has been trashed by a band of deranged I don't know what. There are boxes, totes and stuff everywhere. Pathways only around or through the piles, some of which are taller than I am. I've been saying that it will take me a year to get through all of this stuff. I think I'm being too conservative with that estimate. It's ok, though, I have absolutely no desire to drive anywhere at all. I definitely have enough to keep me busy right here.

I've started slowly picking my way into boxes. The yellow box that I kept telling folks emphatically that it needed to be near the back of the load so I could get it early because it had my coffee pot in it? Turns out it had hiking gear. Stuff I wanted to get to for sure, but not the coffee pot. I made a bookmark when packing it in Honduras, but the bookmark got misfiled apparently. So, I then decided to see what it was that Customs was so interested in that they opened the box and then taped it back with their identifying tape (so I could know they got any contraband?). Turns out they were interested in my coffee maker, so all is good. I just need to wash it out and plug it in and I can make more than 6 oz of coffee at a time again.

My back hurts and I'm so wired I can't sleep and I'm too tired to actually make much progress on the sorting and such. Hopefully this will even out before I have to go back to work on Tuesday morning.

Home Safe

Made it in around 1am this morning, drove straight through sleeping in the truck once I got the replacement one. Now to unload...

Heading Out - Again

Transfer into the new, working truck is complete. I just grabbed a bite to eat and cooled off a bit and now I'm heading out to drive the last 1053 miles. Hopefully this truck is going to make it the rest of the way. I think Budget is tired of hearing from me.

Stuck in Kansas

For the first time with Budget I got an old truck I wasn't sure about. However, my help to load it up was there, so I decided it would hopefully make it to Phoenix. It didn't. Outside of Wichata, KS I started to pull off at a casino to relax for $20 worth, get some coffee and head back out. I didn't make it through the toll both. I was stuck at the toll booth until around midnight. Well, the truck was, I walked over to the hotel and got a room, which Budget will pay for. This morning I am waiting on them to bring another truck. At one point the lady on the phone said they would be towing me to Blue Springs, MO to make the transfer. I informed her they definitely would not as that was 6 hours away. She didn't believe me. I said to have her 'supervisor' who set this up to call me ASAP. She called me back and apologized and said she now realized it was 300+ miles, not 60, and that they were now looking for a truck nearer to where I am. Who thinks Wichata (which I can't spell, BTW), is a suburb of Kansas City? Aparently Budget does. Or did.

So, I am 24 hours behind schedule. It could have been worse, I wasn't on the side of the road, the toll booth ladies were wonderful to me, and I had a nice hotel room last night. The adventure continues.