A three part series.

Since I can't seem to get my act together, I guess I will just post bits and pieces as they come along:

Blah blah blah, I know neither one of us hasn’t written in forever, but we have been super busy, and / or super lazy depending on what day it is.  (*cough* and Jason never feels the need to update anyone on anything *cough*)

Anyway, Saturday, we had tons to do, guess what? None of it got done.  We were planning on building a step for Landon so that we could let the dogs use the doggie doors again.  Well the screws we bought work for one part, but not the other.  Super.  Jason is currently out buying longer screws for support.  We also bought a shelf-stand-organizer-storage-thing for our beverage fridge.  Now we can store more crap!  Too bad its ½ inch too short to fit our fridge, so we have to build an “extension” as we’re calling it.    Yay!  We also bough stuff to put more shelves in our laundry room, so that my habit of buying in bulk when I can save money, will no longer continue to clutter our house.  However, the shelves were too short, so we will use them on another project, and have to buy more tomorrow.  Ho-hum.

In Amanda news:
I’m dying.  No really, I feel like it.  I got a second run of blood tests to check out some wacky results, and the results were still wacky.  My doctor is guessing there is a growth on my pituitary gland, and she ordered an MRI of my brain.  Well, since my insurance is so super duper, they denied it and I don’t know when or if it will ever happen.  However, since mid-July, I have also been having massive headaches, which I never used to have.  Don’t really know if it’s related or not, because they are generally in the front/facial area of my head, and I’m pretty sure that the pituitary gland is towards the back, just kind of scary (and annoying.)  She also found that I have severe inflammation “somewhere” in my body.  The test she ran I guess, from what I understood runs on a specific scale, if your levels are between 2-3 you are at risk for coronary problems, mine was between 8 and 9 which means there is severe inflammation somewhere, they just don’t know where.  She’s told me to go to a rheumatoid specialist for that, which I haven’t done yet.  I also went to see her because my foot had been hurting.  It really started killing me on Memorial Day.  I worked that day, but was on my feet a ton more than normal, so I let it go for a few days, and told her at a normal appointment I had.  I had it x-rayed that following Friday to check for heel spurs with no luck.  Well, now it’s been two months, and she referred me to a podiatrist.  Well, he said the x-rays they took weren’t showing everything they should because they had me sit down.  He redid the x-rays with me bearing weight on them, and poked and prodded a bit.  Well turns out, just like everything else in my life, my foot issues were a domino effect.  Started out I have plantar fascia, when that got to me, I walked different and caused a contusion on my heel, which later developed into a hairline fracture, and when that got to me, I started walking different and messed up the tendon that goes from my ankle to my foot, because its rubbing up against bone that fused, and got irritated, and voila!  I am now in a boot that goes up to my knee for at least two weeks to hopefully correct the heel and ankle problem, and if all goes well with that, then we will start attacking the plantar fascia.  Super.  Well like that wasn’t bad enough, on Thursday, the day after I got the boot, some “wonderful” person decided to use the shredder that is across from my desk, while I was on the phone, and since we got a talk about how we have to be nice to everyone, because “someone” (who happens to be this particular person) felt that they were treated worse than everyone else, I just decided to move to a new phone rather than deal with drama.  Turns out, that was a bad idea.  I walked to the vault, and WHAM, the boot slid out from under me, and I went into the splits on the tile floor, with my other leg folding behind me.  One person saw it, and I thought they were going to have a heart attack, and I just started bawling, not because I hurt anything, but because I was just so frustrated.  He called someone else in, which just made me feel more stupid, and they were both asking if I was ok, but I just tried to focus on not crying, and getting back to my phone call.  Turns out, when the guy who made this all possible left, he called me a gimp, and I had just snapped.  I spent the next two hours in and out of meetings with supervisors and managers, because I was so pissed.  It didn’t really do much, as all I got was an apology and an “I heard someone else say it, so I thought it was ok” out of it.  Meh.

To wrap up my exciting week, I got jalapeño juice in my eye (even though I’ve washed my hands twice after cutting them, and it huuuuurts, they were red, and now so is my eye.)

More, coming up!

I know, I know.

I had a looong post started about whats been going on, but as of tonight, I wish that we had eloped long ago, and told everyone a long time later.  Nothing makes me want that more than the bullshit drama that went on tonight.  (And no, actually it didn't involve Jason and me directly, it's those around us...we're still great.)

Bleh.  Maybe later, when I'm a little less pissed off.

The many adventures of Enigma Girl and Enigma Dog.

Where to start?  We sent out invitations, so far two people’s spouses didn’t know who we were, and were shocked to get invitations for a wedding of someone they didn’t know.  My personal favorite response to the invitations was:

I am still laughing about it.  :P  Thanks John.

As for me, Enigma Girl,  I went to the doctor twice this week.  The first time was to get an ultrasound (no, I’m not pregnant, thanks.) of my bladder, and kidneys, which appear to be fine.  Then I went in for a cystoscopy (fun!) which I thought I may die at.  I did survive, and nothing is wrong with my bladder.  This sucks for so many reasons.  First, I have obnoxiously high co-pays for specialists, which I have now paid three times, for absolutely nothing.  Second, there is something wrong with me, I still have to pee all the time, and sometimes I think I have to pee, and I don’t.  It’s really more miserable than it sounds.  Another medical condition, not found, and undiagnosed, and another doctor saying , “Sorry, don’t know what’s wrong with you, try again.”  On a happier note, the inside of your bladder looks pretty nifty, although the places where your kidneys drop fluid into it, are sorta creepy, if I do say so myself.  : )

As for Enigma Dog, (Jason said he takes after me) Landon, he had a punch biopsy last week, which left him with one stitch in a quarter sized hole about 1/4 inch deep, with no wound covering.  He had to be in an E collar so that he wouldn't chew it.  The vet didn't get the results until Wednesday, and didn't have a chance to review them and call us until late Thursday (we were told we'd know by Tuesday.)  Turns out Landon doesn't have cancer (yay!) However, that leads to either bug bites, or self mutilation.  Either way, we figured it was self mutilation because if he went after the bugs, he'd more than likely bite himself more than the bug, until we came to one realization: the way his tail hits the inside doggie door.  This sucks for a ton of reasons.  One, we're pretty sure that this is it.  He hasn't gone in or out a doggie door in almost a full week, he was without the E collar all day, we put them in the kitchen, gated up, with no doggy door access; tail was fine when I got home, and he had all day to chew on it if he wanted.  As soon as I opened up the laundry room door, allowing them access to the garage, his scab mysteriously went missing, and a few more in-and-outs, and his skin was torn, and bleeding.  (Albeit, his tail as a whole looks SO much better.)  We can either get a new, larger doggie door (which stinks because we just forked out $600 for these two to be installed) or figure out some way to rig this one so that it doesn't scrape his tail.  This also obviously is a pain in the ass financially because of how much money we have spent trying to figure this out, as well as putting this poor dog through a myriad of painful tests and procedures.  Ugh.  We are such bad parents.  : (  This is like letting your child stick it's finger in a socket and not being able to figure out why he's smoking and his hair is all crazy.  His stitch gets taken out tomorrow.  I guess we could ask the vet for suggestions as well.

[caption id="attachment_434" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="Pre-biopsy and stitches :("][/caption]

Hard Times.

Marriage counseling went well. We figured out our one major problem, and now we just have to work on it. We look forward to doing more of it, but now we are kind of crunched for time as our reverend will be out of the country for most of August, and he doesn’t want to necessarily take care of this in September, as he thinks we will be bogged down with last minute things. (And he is probably right.) Why are you doing this, you ask? Because, well, we actually discussed it before it became an option, because honestly what could it hurt. Then we discovered there are actually two different kind of marriage licenses. The difference is this:

The main difference between a contract and a covenant is the enduring commitment between two people, while a contract is based on convenience.

“A contract is convenient as long as the agreement is lived by. A contract in a marriage is nothing more than a non-binding contract between two people sustained only by emotional feelings. It is easily terminated through a no-fault divorce. When things and feelings turn sour, it takes the easy way out rather than working through the problem,” he explained.

“But that’s not what the Bible tells us our relationships should be based on. Our relationships are to be based on a covenant. It is based on an oath spoken between two parties and a covenant is a blood-bond for life. It says no matter what happens, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, that nobody leaves this relationship. A covenant marriage says ‘I’m yours by covenant, you’re mine by covenant, and that means that neither one of us is going anywhere.”

Who’da thunk marriage was supposed to last forever? Hrm. Anyway, we have to go through marriage counseling in order to obtain a covenant marriage license, and we have to have an affidavit signed by our “representative” stating that we have gone through the counseling, and that we understand the ”rules” if you will. So there you have it.

In bad news; Landon had two scabs on his tail on Memorial Day. We waited a few days, and when they didn’t get better, we took him to the vet. Originally thinking it was a bite; she shaved the area, and found another lesion on him. She sent us home with antibiotics, and a wash that we had to do twice a day. After 9 days, we went back, and the problem was not better (just the swelling was down) and now the 3 had grown to 4 lesions. Her first thought was either Valley Fever or Cancer. Both of which would possibly lead to amputation should the infection be bad enough. We got the Valley Fever test done on Saturday, along with a Blood Panel. Monday, we hear back that it is not Valley Fever, but no word on the rest of the stuff. Today, Jason hears back that everything checked out normal. Next step: Punch Biopsy. This is where they will basically knock him out, and take a punch of tissue out and go from there. She is not certain what to tell us, except that it is probably something in the bones since the lesions line up with the vertebrae in his tail. I hate this, it is so heartbreaking. He has been through so much, and I feel like we have let him down. :( We also took Lucy with us the second time we went so that she didn’t think we were neglecting her, and she FLIPPED out when they took him to take his blood. Like howling and whining flipping out, looking at us like, “What are you doing!?! Why are you letting this happen to him!?” She loves him so much… I think she’d die of a broken heart if anything happened to him. :( So sad. I can barely stand to talk about it.

Today...

We have our first day of marriage counseling.  The person who is marrying us is the person who is doing this.  His first assignment?  List your expectations of marriage.  His warning to me?  You will probably have a lot more than Jason will.

Great.  We may kill each other before this is over.  :P

More later...