Rambles on a Wednesday Morn

I think the last time we "spoke" we were waiting on the new rheumy to review girlchild's file and decide if they would accept her as patient or not.  It took over a week for them to call the eye doc back and say she was too young.  They don't see patients under the age of 18 and suggested she be referred to a pedi rheumy.

Well -- there are a couple of problems with that.

1. She will be 18 in 6 months and then would have to find a new reg rheumy as the ped would no longer see her.
2. There is NOT one pedi rheumy on my insurance provider list.  If I found one willing to see her that was no on the list they would have to write a letter requesting to see her in network and it would take 2-3 weeks to be approved or denied.
3. The closest on our list are 4-5 hours away.

To make a long story a little shorter I'll just say we (the eye dr's office staff and I) called around and got the same response (no patients under 18) from everyone.  I logged onto The Mayo Clinic's website and filled out a form under the "request an appointment" link.   I did this on a Thursday night around 6pm and was called the next morning before 9am.  She took her history, etc and then told me the dreaded words:  We only take patients over the age of 18.   She said she would send a request "upstairs" and see what happened and told me to expect to hear back the middle of the following week.  Instead, she called me back less than 10 minutes later and said we were IN.  She goes in August.   

More good news:  Since she quit with the steroid drops in her eyes she has NOT had another flare.  YAY.

In less good news: SIL is not doing well.   I really don't know what else to say here other than that.  Cancer is so brutal it really is indescribable.  Those who have witnessed it understand.  Those who have not, cannot.  Just pray for her and her family.  Please.  She's a fighter and she's fighting hard!

Summer is here in SE GA and the heat is unbelievable already.  The current drought is really making the massive wildfires impossible to really contain.  The firefighters are working so hard.  So incredibly hard.  Prayers for all.

Work is work.  I remain grateful for my job.  Grateful I enjoy the kind of work but cannot deny the frustration I have for all the BS that is so abundant.  I suppose it is everywhere.

I fly to NY in August to meet up, for the weekend, with a group of wonderful women.  I am very, very excited.  :-)  

I am still working on some anger issues I have about a situation (or two) and this frustrates me.  I am not an angry/bitter kind of person but I do not know how to make it go away.  Pray?  I'm praying. 

That's not me

I went to see my sil the other day and while there she answered her phone and I heard the conversation.

The person calling was an old friend she hadn't talked to in years who heard she was dx with cancer and given a year.

I heard sil say, "No, that isn't what they said.  What they said was people who have my kind of cancer usually have that long but that isn't me.  I'm fighting and I'm fighting to win.".

I have to admire her fighting spirit and strength.  Pray for her and her family.  God hears. 

Let Go and Let God

Yesterday on my facebook page I had this as my status:   <<<< ----- has allowed herself to be frustrated by people and their "stuff" too much this week. I'm not going to allow myself to be lose focus of my blessings and gratitudes. Life is TOO short to be bogged down by anger and frustration ... so join me in CELEBRATING your life by listing 5 things you are grateful for.

I really enjoyed reading my friends' gratitudes and blessings.  I needed to read them. 

I've posted a lot here, on this blog, lately about recent stresses affecting me.  A few I have kept private because it is, after all, a public blog, lol. What I say here is probably about 60% of what is really happening in my life.  One of many things I have not taked about is situation this week that caused me a lot of pain, frustration and anger. That whole "mama bear" thing again, in part, triggered a lot of my emotions and reactions. On top of everything else going on, it really just left me feeling exhausted.  EXHAUSTED. 

But, as my status indicated yesterday, I KNOW I am blessed.  Also, I look around me and I see people struggling with a lot more and a lot BIGGER issues than I am facing. 

I think searching my soul and focusing ON these blessings led me to my thought this morning of LET GO AND LET GOD.   He has me and all my "situations" IN his HANDS.     I have to stop obsessing and tormenting myself with doubts, fear, frustration and pure 100% stress.   Let go, Let GOD.

I feel better

Regarding the last entry I made: I was clearly having a "moment".  

Not one ding dang thing has changed since I wrote that  .... except I am over my "moment".

I guess we are all entitled to them once in a while?

Today girlchild had a follow-up with her eye dr.  She said that often times autoimmune iritis comes with "dry eye" too.  That it is very hard to tell the difference between a flare and irritation/dryness itself (by how it feels).  She gave her a new medicine to try when she feels like she is in a flare,  since she really wants her OFF the steroid drops (except DURING an actual flare) because long term use can cause long term problems. If they do not help within a day or so or it gets worse we have to call her so she can do an exam and she will restart the durezol drops if it is an actual flare vs. irritation.    Because of the LT effects it is very important we stop using the steroids as a preventative.  She stressed the importance of the RA care because of this and asked when we'd see Dr. B again.  

I told her the issues we were having and asked for a referral to another RA.  She gave it to us, along with a print out of girlchild's chart to take with us.  She was surprised when I showed her the records from Dr. B that NONE of her visits with her were part of the chart.

The new doctor (there are only 3 on our provider list) apparently reviews charts before deciding if he will take on a patient and we'll get a call from them if they accept her.  If not ... we move on the the final doctor on the list I guess.

Last night when I took the dog outside I heard someone coughing in the very dark yard across the street from me.  Not a light in sight -- yet someone coughing.  Oh - and the family that lived there moved out last week.  Ugh.

Later on girlchild thought she saw someone pass by the front door (which would mean they were on our porch) a little after midnight (no, I didn't tell her about the coughing).   Because she wasn't 100% sure she didn't wake me up or call the police. But you have to not only be ON my porch to be visible from inside -- you also have to be on the steps (porch is lower than the house, more like a patio I guess). And with two sightings IN my yard less than two weeks ago and the weird coughing in a dark yard of a empty house just a couple of hours before ... UGH. 

I am borrowing a motion camera from boychild to use and getting some motion lights.  I really don't know what else to do for now.  The neighborhood is not condusive for a guard dog.