Tonight we were learning how to make mittens (for many of us the first time)...

IT WAS GREAT!! She taught us how to do a basic cable -- and let me tell you I was so excited to learn this!! I'll post a pic of the mittens when I can -- need new batteries for the camera!

funny story as we were leaving -- Mom and Kay and I were standing up getting ready to leave when suddenly someone's car alarm starts going off in the parking lot beside the shop...

My mom says "who's alarm is that??" and we have this lil discussion about car alarms etc. and how she is no stranger to accidentally setting hers off by pressing the panic button.

We step outside the shop and the alarm is still going off... we round the corner as Mom is saying "Who's car is that!?!??!" and Kay says "It's yours you big goof!" and we all laugh because somehow (THRU THE WALL no less!) Mom had set off her car alarm with the panic button... yet again...

toooo funny.

(to recap -- lost about 40% vision in my right eye around valentines day, they did this laser treatment in april -- today was the followup to that treatment)

The eye doc said that my eye looked good -- that the hemmorhaging had gone away and that my vision was back up to 20/20 (with glasses) even though I still have the web of slight blurriness at all times. He said I'm lucky b/c a lot of people who have this happen (retinal occlusion) don't have such a good recovery -- many lose their sight fully and permanently. So that's the good news... the so/so news is that it sounds like this web of blurriness is here to stay -- unless my brain kind of fixes it over time by getting more and more used to it.

So after I finished with the exam I talked to him about possibly getting prescription sunglasses... because my current glasses don't have any kind of clip or anything (like my last pair did) -- and boyyyy howdy are those puppies expensive!! I'm realizing more and more how much I need them (i.e. while driving and sunlight shines in my eyes, my instinct is to squint my good eye shut... leaving me to drive only under the guidance of my bad eye...)

So in a couple weeks they'll arrive...

I'm learning Dutch from a good friend in Antwerp, Belgium and it's fun -- and apparently i'm a quick study...

The only problem is that I now know only a few phrases in Dutch -- and one of the other phrases that this superb person has taught me is "Bijt mij" (pronounced bettt mah).... which means "bite me" -- not a very polite reply to someone who asks how it goes with you.... ;)

first thing i was so glad of was that i took an endocet (muscle relaxer/painkiller/putsmeateaser) and i know you might be thinking "you're starting to be a druggie" and the answer to that is "nope, not really -- i save those up for emergencies... like when i had to have laserbeams shot at my eyeball for half an hour and lying motionless on a table for 90 minutes with machines whirring around you wondering if the cancer spread anywhere because your brain doesn't work the way it used to? yeah. those times? so worth it.

so i was feeling pretty mellow and relaxed when i got to the hospital -- went through the standard waiting areas while they got me checked in (they have these really awesome rolly-cart things with their computers on -- everything's wireless and portable -- they use vocera to call each other and page people -- it's all very high-tech. reminds me of that line from Jurassic Park that the rich delusional man kept saying "spared no expense!!")...

then the nice lady (Mary) from NucMeds came out and got me and brought me back into the scanning room -- apparently it was called a Gamma Scan b/c they are scanning for gamma rays from the radiation. So it wasn't a CAT scan or an MRI -- totally different piece of equipment entirely. It reminded me more of a CT scan machine (the giant donut shaped scanner that the bed passed through the middle of) -- except for a few key differences...

they had me just lie down on the table (didn't have to put that silly hospital gown on or anything -- which made me more relaxed -- better to be in your own clothes! i could even have kept my shoes on if i'd wanted but somehow that felt weird so i slipped them off -- i had the foresight to wear tennis shoes and socks as opposed to my typical attire of flipflops because i figured my feet would freeze if i had to wear the gown)

then she moved the table slightly -- i barely felt anything moving -- i could hear a humming sound but it was faint... the lights in the room were dimmed (which also really helped with the relaxation side of things) -- then she mentioned to me that i would need to not chew my gum or move my jaw while they did the scan of my head -- for about 10 minutes -- at which point i was really embarrassed b/c i'd totally forgotten about the gum in my mouth -- she offered me a tissue, i popped the gum in it and then, to avoid her having to handle my lovely tissue of gum -- i started to slip the tissue into my pocket. She stopped me saying that because of the saliva on the gum, that it would show up as a spot on the scan so she'd throw it away for me. Saliva being one of the main ways your body gets rid of this radiation...

then once we got that all settled, she came back over and said for me to lie still as she centered the table below this giant (like 4ft by 4ft) plate which she lowered until it was ohhhhhhhh like 2 inches from my nose... now at this point my thoughts were along the lines of "hallelujah thank you Lord for endocet" because without it i'd have been climbing the walls from clausterphobia -- but because i was so relaxed from the endocet it didn't seem to matter much... i just closed my eyes and lay there -- i wasn't sleepy (even though it was really early for me) just lay there and my thoughts kinda bombarded me while i listened to the quiet whir of the machine... then it seemed to get lighter in the room and i peeked open one eye to see that the table had moved down enough that i could see the ceiling past the edge of the plate above me.

the whole thing took about an hour or so -- and then they had to take some more shots of my throat area -- another ten mins of lying there but this time the table didn't move -- i was just right below that plate and by this point some of my fingers had fallen asleep and were tingling and my legs were feeling a bit twitchy.

I got the results of the scan yesterday -- basically it seems that it was consistent with residual tissue rather than another influx of cancerous cells. So the radiation should kill that tissue off and we have to go through the testing again in six months... so not out of the woods just yet, but a bit of good news nonetheless....

Isn't she beautiful????

Andy's car died it's final death a few weeks ago -- the trunk/boot broke and he couldn't drive it anywhere because if the boot/trunk wouldn't close then someone could get into the car through the back seat and steal things like outdated Lowe's flyers etc... (giggling -- I'm teasing Andy because he's always filling the vehicles with store-spam... he can't go into a store without picking up leaflets/flyers/pamphlets... and they all end up in whatever vehicle he arrived at said store in!)... back to seriousness though -- because of work he keeps a number of things that cannot be left in vulnerable situations like that -- data tapes etc. that he'd get into big trouble over if they went missing...

so we were worried about fixing up the dead car to make it appealing to dealers as a trade-in... Andy hasn't exactly had loads of free time and the free time he has had (well read back a few entries -- he's got a list of stuff to work on!!)... so it was a concern...

and when we started to think about getting a new (to us) car... we kind of both arrived on the "we want something unique and kind of fun" page at the same moment... and we both arrived from that page onto the "we want a Bug or a Mini" paragraph on that page... it was kind of neat how we both agreed on what we want (anyone who's been married for longer than a year can attest to how nice and sometimes rare that is)...

so... I know my husband... he loves to research. And I knew, that left to his own devices... he would research for a year and then finally make a move to test drive a car... so I pointed out that there's no point in starting the research until we've actually SAT in both types of cars... because it doesn't matter for beans if a Mini gets the best gas mileage ever and has the coolest cult-following-groups, if it has not enough leg and elbow room for the two of us...

thankfully he agreed. so one evening I dragged him out (in some pretty serious heat -- it was like 92 degrees and it was after 6pm!!) to a local used car dealership that I thought (from my own searches online) would be the one-stop shop place where we could sit in both a Mini and a Bug that evening... but no dice... only a Mini was there. On the website they advertise that they have a Bug, but the sales guy said they haven't had a Bug on their lot for 6 months. (which shows the staying power of the car -- if people don't want to trade it in because they love it!) So we sat in the Mini (it was a cute one too -- bright metallic blue) and it surprisingly had good leg room -- of course the back seat was useless except for luggage etc., but as we don't have kiddos (and probably won't have kiddos) it doesn't matter to us... but the elbow room was close. We weren't touching sitting side by side but there was only maybe an inch or two between our two elbows... it was close. So we thanked the nice sales guy and left.

And focused our attentions on Bugs. We drove from there over to a dealership we know has Bugs (because early on in our life here in Dublin it became disqualified in the "slugbug" game -- no dealerships allowed)... but they had closed for the evening. We just walked around and looked at the different cars they had available -- new and used. We were surprised at how the bugs really held their resale value. We talked about how we'd like it to have a tape deck (because we both have iPods and the cassette converters to be able to play our iPods through the car stereo) and my dream car would be a stick -- I wanted a stick-shift when we bought the Buick but they had none on the lot... So we went back a few days later to sit in one when the dealership was open. A very nice guy came out and helped us... we sat in the showroom models -- a convertible (again a beautiful metallic blue) and the Triple-white Special Edition model... convertible (new) costing $26,000 and spec. ed model costing $25,000 (also new). They had 3 or 4 more new Bugs on the lot ranging from $21,000 to $23,000 depending on features -- the $23,000 had a spoiler and fancy 17inch wheels with fancy hubs...

Then he told us about the bi-color Bug. Only $13,999 -- 2005, all the standard features, special limited edition (you'll have to ask Andy about how many were made etc.) it was to celebrate the older style of Beetle they used to make that had two colors -- one color was the main body and the other was the door panels etc.

So we test drove it -- and found the brakes a bit mooshy and grindy... (yes, those ARE the technical terms for that! :P ) came back from the test drive and he mentioned our options and kind of gave us a deadline because another couple really liked the car too -- but since we'd driven it first we would be given first refusal.

Next day my Dad and I went back over and Dad test drove it, checked it out (yes, he even kicked the tires) and then we put a $500 hold on it for the weekend (to give Andy his time for "research") -- me? I was ready to just buy it, but I knew I had to just be patient.

Then the discussions of whose car it would be began... in the end, it was agreed (amicably without any shouting even!!) that I would drive it during the week and he would drive it evenings and weekends -- because he's really hard on cars that he goes to and from work in -- and there was no way he was gonna trash that beautiful lil car!! Besides... he drives a company car everywhere once he gets to work anyhow.... so she'd just be driven to his office, and then sit there all day looking fun and cute and then get brought home.... no way!

Another fun discussion was what license plate to get for her... Andy wants something with "BUG" in it -- so we were laughing about all the british phrases with the word Bug in them and how his mum would have a coronary if she found out he got something like B*GGERALL as a license plate (not that he ever would -- but the idea of it was hilarious)

so as of now we are still looking for ideas of what plate to get... but she has unofficially been named "BeHelsbyBug" and also "Yady".... (by my dad -- yadybug is how my niece says ladybug)

isn't she funnn????

so I got two thyrogen shots back in April as part of the 1st anniversary "test" to see if there were any thyroid cells left... the test came back positive... there are cells left...

step two of that is another round of thyrogen shots (did I mention that these shots cost my insurance company $1,000 each!!) and then a week ago thursday I went to the hospital to the Nuclear Meds department -- and swallowed a capsule of radiated iodine...

This is to kill/show where the leftover cells are... it meant that there was radiation in my system... enough that I had to be in quarantine... not be around people, not handle my cats, not use regular silverware -- disposable everything... lots of rules about washing hands etc. and then washing out the sink after... etc. etc. etc. a week's worth of not-fun-ness.

I survived... (this helped) cheer me up...

and Monday I go in the morning for an uber-fun 90 minute full body scan... yayyy can't wait for that.

(man my blog entries are getting sarcastic!!!)

So in the meantime I'm enjoying what I'm coming to call "thyrogen brain" -- it could be similarly compared to what some women call "pregnancy brain" ... the cloudy-unable-to-put-thoughts-together-quickly-and-dam-it's-frustrating thing... I think I may have mentioned this before but when you go from being pretty intelligent and coherent and able to carry on conversations and plan something and even WRITE something... (you think I'm kidding?? go back through my blog entries.... you'll see a difference) ...it is terribly frustrating and makes you feel stupid and sad and angry and betrayed by your brain.

and it screws with your sleep schedule again too... just when you were about to be back in a somewhat normal (going to bed at 11:30 getting up at 8/8:30) routine... you're back to the going to bed at 2/2:30/3am getting up at 10:30/11/11:30am thing... which really sucks because you still feel tired pretty much all day...

(thus ends the health whinging hooray!!)

lemme tell you that this is not fun. I look back at the past year and a half and think "o my word what the heck has happened to me!!??!"

First the more interesting stuff --

last post (*cough* almost a month ago *cough*) was about DIY here at Chez Helsby -- even as I type this Andy is cutting and nailing down the small wooden trim that goes on top of the floor to hide the tiny gap you have to leave for the floor to float... Why you may ask has it taken so long for this room to be finished? Well, for a number of reasons -- when we took the baseboard off we discovered a moldy area, which Andy peeled back some of the drywall from and sprayed mold killer and worked on that -- but the baseboard that used to be in front of it had deteriorated too much -- it needed to be replaced.

Andy hates the DIY stores as much as I do. I don't know what happened to both of us, but the DIY bug skipped us both entirely. Andy's sister and her hubby and his parents are all about the DIY and they're good at it too! My folks -- not so much all about the DIY, they do it occasionally but if it is a big job, they're more inclined to let someone with more experience do it. My brothers -- it's too soon to tell really -- the one has only been a homeowner for 2 years and the other brother is renting a house because they're not sure where they want to settle just yet and with this market being as it is, it is wiser to rent and wait than to buy and have to sell in the bad market.

So Andy makes many trips to the DIY stores (between needing things for the mower -- which is a whole entire other story which can be summed up as follows... Kristen should never have ever tried to help out by using the riding mower... ever. and from this point forward... WILL never ever try to help out again using the mower...) and he picks up the trim and the new section of baseboard (because the rest of the baseboard seemed fine) and a mitre guide.

Insert lots of time where poor Andy is miserable with allergies and right at the end of May had taken 2 of the MCSE exams (and passed them -- he's full MCSE now!! way to go LOVE!!) and was feeling fairly stressed out/exhausted/miserable/not motivated...

flash forward to last weekend... in a couple hours we're going to head over to Mom and Dad's house for Father's Day dinner on Sunday -- Andy is getting ready to nail down the last of the baseboard and cut and attach the trim... he realizes he might need longer nails... so he heads down to the basement where his workbench is.... only to shout up to me frantically.

There's #*&$#*#$^ water everywhere. In every room of the basement.... water.

I cannot believe it... I mean, we JUST had this waterproofing done!!! HOW can there be water down there....

So I go down and he starts the mopping job (we only have one lousy mop -- make mental note to buy better mop!!) and finds that its better to just mop it up with an old towel and wring out the water into a bucket. I'm wandering around the basement trying to figure out where the water has come from... I mean -- we haven't had much rain lately -- so what in the world is going on!!!?!?

(now you can understand why we both hate DIY and it takes us AGES to complete something!!)

long story short... it's the air conditioner.... AGAIN. Same thing happened 2 years ago and again last year. Basically the tray that catches the condensation drains out into a pipe that goes into the ground... well that pipe clogs... (we have REALLY hard water -- well water) and the tray fills up and fills up and doesn't drain and then just overflows.... out of the unit... onto the floor...

and since the basement guys had been here... (and the hot water hose to the washer which they detatched to move the washer out of the way -- the connection on the hose that attaches to the washer was stripped and would have leaked... I buy new hoses, attach the cold water one myself no problem... the hot water one is basically RUSTED to the hot water spout... I try.... my dad tries.... my dad and I try.... finally I call the plumber (because also the shower is clogged -- 2 birds one trip)... he takes a week and a half to get here b/c of being on vacation and also it's his "spare time" job -- he works full time as something else (plumbing inspector).

So for more than 2 weeks... no one has set foot in that basement. I can't do laundry (thankfully Mom and Dad live nearby and I can go use their machines) ... and there's not many other reasons to go down there...

So for more than 2 weeks... water has been trickling out of the a/c unit... across the floor and across the basement... it was a LOT of water.

Andy got it all mopped up and we headed over to Mom and Dads -- I called the a/c guys the next day -- they can't come out for another 2 1/2 weeks... (thankfully this past week has been very mild and we've had the windows open and been ok).

All of that to say.... so right now Andy is putting finishing touches on the cat room and we can get them back into there and my house will look more like a house and less like one giant cat room..... phew STINKY. swine cats.

so the big changes are to the cat room and to the basement

in the cat room -- the carpet in there was pretty much ruined anyhow (cause of hairballs etc -- yuck!) but earlier this year we had a really big rain and some water came into that room from the corner -- and soaked this big muddy stain into the carpet from the corner about 3 1/2 feet out in a big triangle... also yuck... but then one of the kitties (swine cats!) decided that the wet carpet smelled like "litterbox" so then began using that -- yuck again.

which became the quick prompt for getting the carpet up -- bleaching that corner -- then applying this special paint that masks stains and odors -- letting it all dry -- then Andy installed pergo/laminate/parkay flooring (thin wood flooring) and now it looks fab!! I'm sure he will post pics (too bad we didn't take "before" ones) -- but he just has to replace the baseboards and put the new trim on and the lip of the doorway on

i'll blog bout the basement in a bit -- andy's just pulled up and i'm cooking! :)

I'm going to be an auntie again (which we found out that much back in january) -- my sister in law in minnesota is due at the end of september -- the biggest part of that news is that

IT'S A BOYYYYYYY!!!!!

you can imagine how happy my brother is -- i believe he hasn't stopped smiling since they saw the scan!!

other big news:

we're going to cincinnati at the beginning of june (thankfully i was able to schedule the thyrogen shots/iodine thingy AFTER this thing!!) to see in concert one of our favorite comedian/musicians -- Jonathan Coulton

the long fun story that goes along with this (in shortened fashion) --

- i read on someone's blog that he's posted new tour dates so i scoot over to his webpage and nearly jump out of my chair when i see that cincinnati is included!!

- i call andrew at work immediately to demand that he book the afternoon of the 5th and the whole day of the 6th off work!! he asks why -- i tell him it's a surprise!

- i call the theater to get tickets.... only to be told that they have never even heard of him and have nothing booked for that particular date... so i end up telling andy about what i was hoping to do as a surprise

- i email JoCo to tell him about the conversation with the theater

- he emails back!!! *squee!!* and asks am i sure that i dialed the number from his website

- i email back to say "yep sure did" and also included a p.s. of "hey do you need any helpers for that show?" (he often advertises on his blog for upcoming shows he needs helpers to sell merchandise etc.)

- he emails back again *squeeeee* and says that he'll check on the tickets thing and also that yes he does need helpers and that it would be great if i could help him!! *squee!!* and also that i should bring a friend because it is a two-person job

- i email back to say i'm bringing my hubby and ask if we need to buy tickets and what does being a helper involve (will we get to see the show? because if not it soon is listed on the shows list that he will be in a bar in columbus the next night and if we couldn't see the show, then i'd be buying tickets for that one too!!)

- he writes back to say that mostly we'll be selling merchandise before and after the show and possibly during any breaks -- that no we don't need tickets and that we should get there early to get filled in on the plan

okay so that wasn't so short -- but zomg how excited am I!!!! Andy didn't believe me that he actually wrote to me ha!!

so at least there will be fun and goodness before the not-so-fun-not-so-good thyrogen/iodine thingy

-- last bit of big news -- I got my first check from cafepress!!! WOOOT!! it really works!! now that i know it's real i am going to get lil mini-business cards printed and then also expand the shop into a deluxe one and sell other logos as well!!!

and round two of them is coming up in just about 3 weeks.... the test that i had done back in april (with the first round of the shots) showed that there must still be some tissue left that they need to take care of. the doctor said i have 3 options -- to go after it very passively with a 'wait and see' attitude and watch it -- and do the thyrogen shots & blood test in six months and see if it has changed/grown.... option 2 is to go after it very agressively with a 'take you off synthroid for 6 weeks' (which would mean i would probably spend that time in bed entirely -- with zero energy) and then do the radiated iodine thing (to kill any remaining thyroid cells)... and option 3, which is what i chose, is kind of the middle ground between the two -- agressive in that we're doing 2 more thyrogen shots (which i found out cost around 2 grand for the pair -- we thought the insurance company might give us hassle about this because we had just requested them a month ago -- because they are so spendy, you have to get them pre-approved by the insurance company -- but it was surprisingly easy!!)

so we do the two shots, then do the radiated iodine thing (which has to be done at the hospital under the care of a radiologist md -- i swallow a capsule that they have pumped radiation into some iodine, the iodine travels to the thyroid cells in my body and kills them and then a week later or so i go in for some kind of full-body scan to see where the radiation gathered? i'm not sure about this -- and that reminds me -- i haven't heard from the radiologist's office yet. better check up on that.

so what does that mean in real life every day terms? it means that i'm basically out of commission for most of june and probably part of july at least -- the second round of thyrogen shots on top of this first round not being out of my system yet means that i'll be very very very weak -- and the radiation means that i won't be able to be around people for a week -- they told me that the radiation will be excreted from my body through my saliva, pee and sweat and that if i sat closer than 5 feet to someone, they might experience effects from it. also i'm not allowed to share a bathroom or silverware or cups with andy -- not really a big deal there because we luckily do have 2 bathrooms...

the thyrogen shots are scheduled to be done on the 10th and 11th of june -- and the radiated iodine the 12th... then the scan sometime the following week i guess. when i spoke to the endocrinologist's assistant last she mentioned something about the friday too (the 13th) but i'm not sure which office i would be going to or what they'd be doing...

*shrug*

so there you go. the whole purpose of the radiated iodine is to rid my body of the thyroid cells (and hence rid my body of the thyroid cancer/possiblity of future thyroid cancer) so it's a good thing... it just is gonna be a long bumpy ride.

I just love the fact that his momma started to have her kittens on the day of my surgery and that he was born the following morning. If I hadn't had the surgery we may never have gotten him and I just can't imagine life without this lil orange ball of humor!! I'm hoping we can get the video of him fetching his water bottle lids to a decent size where we can post it on youtube and I can embed it here...

I'll try and find or take a good picture of him today -- he's gotten so big. He's really not gotten that big but he's not got any "kitten" look to him anymore. He still has the kitten in attitude but he looks all adult now.

But this past week we had a bit of a backwards step -- I had to do these Thyrogen shots at the endocrinologist because it's the 1yr mark. They drew my blood on Monday morning (crack of dawn and they *bigshock* had trouble finding veins -- dozy ppl!!) and then gave me shot number one in the hip/lower back. Tuesday (again crack of dawn) I wait in the waiting area for a good 40 minutes, then get shot number two (other side lower back/hip). Within about 1 1/2 hours of both of these shots I could feel the effects of them. They swore to me that there are no side effects and that it wouldn't affect my energy levels at all (bullpucky!!!!!!) The shots were right around 8:30am and by 10am I was ready for a nap. It was crappy. Just like how I felt following the surgery. :( So then Friday I went in (they must hate me -- again crack of dawn) and they struggled again to find a vein (when will these people learn??!?! I swear next time I am going to chop off my fingertip!!!).

They will compare the results of the two blood tests and see if there are any signs of cancerous tissue/thyroid cells left in my body. Then in 2 weeks I will see the endocrinologist for my results.

So I was just starting to feel MUCH better and be more like myself and then this... but hopefully the effects of these shots won't be very long lasting and I'll be back on the up and up track again soon!!!

-- Not playing golf online as much these days -- playing more of 2moons (mmorpg) which is fun -- a golf buddy of mine got me into it, and i brought Andy into it and also another of my old guild buddies from the golf game into it

-- We're really enjoying the PS3 -- Andy adores the Rock Band game, and so do I. Ironically he has beaten the Ratchet and Clank game before me (but then I can't play much of it before I get a headache :( so it will take me a long time to beat it). We've been playing Rock Band together and switching it up -- lately I've been the guitarist and he's been the drummer. For a long stretch before this he was doing solo drumming and doing all the songs on medium and getting 5 stars. So now he's slowly working his way through the songs on hard. Good fun. We had some friends over for ice cream the other evening after a fun dinner out and showed them Rock Band and the poor wife was dying to go (she's allergic to cats and was sniffly/sneezy and the baby was sleepy) and the hubby was like "So baby Josiah, what song should Daddy play next???" It was funny.

-- That's pretty much it from a catching up perspective -- there are 2 things I want to blog about separately, so I'll get to that now.

-- finished a couple more socks (I think my total so far is 10 pair?)
-- started a bunch more pairs of socks (mystery sock group is FUN but I can't keep up!)
-- finished the Granny shawl knit-a-long with the girls I hang out with on Tuesday and Thurs. It's not as "old" as it sounds -- it's actually a very beautiful piece and I'll post pics soon as it is blocked and ready
-- finished the dropped stitches shawl for Harriet to wear to her son's wedding at the end of May -- I finished it very early in case I messed it up or something and also so she wouldn't fret about it (she's a worrier like me) It was good fun and dropping the stitches was the best part -- you knit it in this big tube, like a sleeve, then when you cast off you do 5, drop 5, all the way around to the last 30-35 stitches -- then you CUT up the middle of your knitted work and those two halves become your fringe! Very cool, but also quite scary. (Karen from Temptations did the cutting for me -- THANK YOU KAREN!!)

-- had LOTTTTS of fun with babies in April -- Ali and the girls came at the end of March and were here for almost 2 weeks total. Near the end of that time, Brian and then also David and Katie and Elizabeth came for a long weekend -- so for about 5 1/2 days we had EVERYBODY all together in one place. I love when that happens. It's so fun to see my younger brothers as dads. And their girls are all so darn cute! ohmyword. I'm going to have to post pics too -- there were some classics.
-- Dave & Katie & Elizabeth flew up on Skybus which went bankrupt the next day so I ended up moving some stuff around in my schedule (mostly doctor appts!) and I drove down to Atlanta with them -- this was excellent for me because I was hoping to drive down and see them some time in April or May anyhow, but was kind of worried about how my eye would be (if I got a headache somewhere in Kentucky I'd have to stop overnight or something, and I just was worrying about stuff like that etc.) -- this way if I got overtired or had eye problems, either David or Katie could have driven. As it happened I did great -- no headache or anything! It was tough near the end though -- when I was so tired and we got a bit "lost"ish and I had trouble focusing my eyes on the tiny print of street signs.
-- Spent a lovely week with them -- got to have Elizabeth to myself for 2 whole days (she's HILARIOUS!!) -- I should post pics (and/or videos -- took some fun ones!)
-- Got the BEST PEDICURE of MY WHOLE LIFE in Atlanta -- cheaper than I get it up here in Ohio (which was a surprise!!) and they did all these deluxe things with creams/scrubs etc. and massaged and then when your toes are drying they come up behind you and give you a shoulder rub. Fantastic job -- the girl was so attentive to detail and really worked hard to get my calluses down. Superb.

(to be continued)

the "longer version of the story" never made it online... and it has been too long -- I can't remember all the things I was going to talk about in the longer version... but here are some more details -- the ones I *can* remember...

I started the day by taking a percocet for relaxation -- because I figured I wasn't driving and I didn't want to feel nervous or wiggly while they were shooting laser beams at my eyeballs, I took one just before Mom picked me up. When we got there, I got signed in, she sat knitting while they took me back into an exam room... the first nurse did the pressure test (yellow drops) and then did the basic eye exam (reading the chart from across the room) then dilated my eye (thank God they only did the right eye, if they had done both I would have been miserable all day) and said she'd be back in five minutes to dilate it some more. (this is new)

Once she did the second time, I was taken to the back waiting room and took out my iPod and knitting (b/c they only did the one eye, I could knit while waiting for my pupil to dilate (which is great because that takes about 20 minutes!)... so I ran back to the front waiting room where Mom was watching my stuff and grabbed my current pair of socks to work on.

After about 25 minutes, they called me back to the "Procedure Room" -- where they had taken the photos of my retina that first day this all happened... and by now the percocet had kicked in nicely and I was feeling relaxed and not very scared. They sat me down in the chair in front of what looked like a fancy exam machine (with the forehead strap and chin rest just like when they do the checkups) and the doctor was on the other side of it. They had me tilt my head back and they put 2 more drops in my right eye (this makes about 8 so far that morning) to numb it -- because it was going to have this thing resting against it (which, for lack of any better way to describe it -- looked like a kid's kaliedoscope -- narrow at one end and wider at the other... the narrow end went right up against the laser machine and the wider end (which had a coating of some sort of jelly on it so as to not scratch my eyeball) went up against my eye to keep it open and to keep my eyelashes from getting in the way.

When they described this and what they were going to do -- I was thinking "umm yikes that's gonna be painful and uncomfortable" but because of the numbing drops -- I didn't really feel any of that...

They had me put my head in the chin rest and hold onto the handles just below. There were two nurses in the room with the doctor, one was training on how to do this and the other was the trainer... she was the one who was holding my head in place. When I say this I mean that her hand was just behind my head, gently resting on the back of it -- not really pushing on it, but just applying a very gentle pressure to make sure it stayed still.

The doctor started to type on a computer and put his foot on something similar to a sewing machine pedal and told me to look straight ahead. I found a focus point on the wall behind him and the flashes began. It's going to sound weird but at some points it felt better to close my left eye and just kind of watch the flashes in my right eye. The nurse holding my head would occasionally call out a number (at first the numbers were low, 30 etc. but then they increased by large increments -- 50 or more). When she said 400something I was really starting to feel the discomfort of the procedure. My eye felt very dry and achy -- like I had watched too much tv or spent wayyyy too much time on the internet or something. So I told them it was starting to hurt and they said I was doing REALLY well and that they were almost done. She called out a few more numbers and the last one was like 630 and then we were done.

It turns out that what she was calling out was numbers of pulses that he had shot at my eye. Each pulse being a flash. They told me that I did really well (they kept saying this over and over as if shocked -- and all I could think was "well... just offer everyone a percocet when you dilate the pupils and ppl would probably do soooo much better!!!").

I felt really nauseated when it was over -- the room by that point was VERY warm (4 people breathing for 20 minutes in a room with no windows and with a laser shooting pulses for 20 minutes -- it was stifling in there. They brought me a couple of glasses of water and had me lie down on the reclining exam chair nearby -- the trainer nurse brought me a little eye-pack that was frozen/chilled to hold over my eye and cool things down. That really helped -- although it didn't stay cool for long.

I got out to the lobby and made my followup appointment and Mom and I got in the elevator to go down to the lobby and exit -- we're standing there and she pushes the "2" button.... (nothing happens) ... I giggle and say "umm we're *on* the second floor Mom" and we both laugh.

So then we're walking across the parking lot to the car (she had driven Dad's car because of the snow and because he was taking her car up to Marion for a service appointment). She starts walking behind me and away from me -- I'm going directly towards the car. I stop and stand right beside the passenger door wondering where she was going. She comes back and unlocks the door and we both climb in and I'm giggling.

"Did you forget what car you'd brought?" I ask.

"yeah...." she laughed "Aren't you glad you've got me along to take care of you!!??"

We both laughed until tears were running down our faces.

She dropped me off at the house and I took a brief nap and then she picked me up again and we went out to lunch at Pei Wei's with Harriet...