An Evening With the Girls

I got together with a couple of girls from work this evening and had Dinner at the Olive Garden in Plano.  One of the girls, whose name is Phyllis, has been out of work for a year now due to illness and I haven't seen or talked with her since I last saw her at work a year ago. It was very nice to see her and hear how she's doing. It turns out that she has Neuro-sarcoidosis.  With this disease, abnormal deposits of white blood cells and abnormal tissue cells accumulate in the brain, spinal cord, or peripheral nerves, and these areas can become inflamed. Phyllis' vision has been affected by the disease and her doctor is treating her with corticosteroids, which suppress the immune system and reduce swelling.

The corticosteroids have caused her to swell in her face and stomach. She also cannot return to work due to the fact that her immune system and been suppressed.  With her vision problems she has difficulty driving, especially at night. This must be so difficult for her as she is a single mother of a 13 year old girl.  Her daughter came with her to Dinner and is a very nice young lady!

It was nice to catch up on what is going on at work as I've been our since December 3rd due to my surgery.  Apparently not much went on because work was shut down from December 24 - January 2nd for the holidays.  I go back to work on January 8th.  One of the girls said that a female manager received a layoff, which made me feel bad because she's a nice lady.  She's 67 years old though and was able to retire so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Here is a picture of all of us at dinner tonight:

Jana, Phyllis, Sandy, Judy and Mae at the Olive Garden

I pray that Phyllis can recover from her illness or at least get it under control enough so that she can live in comfort and go back to work!  I've recently learned first-hand how fragile health can be and am very thankful that mine is returning quickly!

I also got to talk on the phone for a while today with my dear friend Tegan, which was wonderful as always!  It's very nice to have friends and spend time with them!

It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To!

It was Adeline's 5th birthday yesterday. We're having a big My Little Pony family party for her on Saturday, but couldn't let her real birthday go by without recognition.  So we sang Happy Birthday to her over cake and ice cream last night.  Unfortunately, some of the candle smoke got into her eyes and she ended up crying, the poor kid!  Here's a video of her blowing out her candles:

She ended up laughing again a few minutes after she got "smoked".  That's okay, a girl has a right to cry or do anything else she wants to on her birthday!  Leslie Gore said so a long time ago:

January is a big family birthday month.  Today is my brother Mark's birthday and my sister Katie's birthday is on the 23rd.  Happy Birthday to all January babies!!!

Goodbye 2012!

I spent New Year's Eve 2012 at home, which has become the tradition for the past several years.  We had dinner and a birthday party for my stepson Alex, who turned 23 years old yesterday.  Here is a picture of him and Adeline with his cake:

Adeline Helping Daddy Blow out His Candles!

Adeline really enjoyed opening all her presents from all of us!  She got some really nice presents this year!

The past year was full of ups and downs for me.  Some of the most noteworthy downs were the health problems that I experienced.  I've been fortunate enough to enjoy excellent health all of my life, but 2012 brought me some problems . . . first a bad kidney infection and septicemia which put me into the hospital during Easter.  Then there was the serious Ovarian Cancer scare and subsequent full Hysterectomy that I got in December.  What an eye opener that was!  Thank God it was severe Endometriosis instead of Ovarian Cancer!  I'm recovering very nicely and hope that I won't have any more health problems in 2013!

Then there were my sister and son's health problems, both of which involve seizures.  My sister just started throwing Grand Mal seizures in 2012 and was diagnosed with Epilepsy.  My son has Grand Mal seizures as a result of a severe brain trauma that he sustained back in 2007.  He is remiss in taking his anti-seizure medication sometimes, which results in seizures.  He had one at my daughter's party on Christmas Eve, which greatly saddened me.  I am terribly worried about both of them and hope that they will be okay!

Then there were the marital problems . . . I'm not going to get into that subject on here.  All I can say is that I truly need my personal space and friends and hope that this will not continue to make waves in the future.  If it does, things will have to change.

On the up side, I've made a couple of very nice friends, one of who has become very dear to me!  Although she lives in another state, we text and talk on the phone every day.  She is such an angel and I'm so glad to have her in my life! She really helped me through my cancer scare, which was a Godsend!  I look forward to spending much more time with her in the future!

I've also did very well at work this past year and plan to continue to do so.  I'm just praying that the Fiscal Cliff doesn't affect my job or anybody else's!!!  I'm very thankful for my job and pray that it will remain intact!

Who knows what the future will bring?  I just pray that all of my friends and loved ones will make it through the year intact and alive and that all will be well for all of us this time next year!

Kindness in the Air

We flew to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on December 19th so that we could catch our cruise the next day in Port Everglades.  We got to the airport without incident and took off at 12:05 PM on American Airlines Flight 1702, which was a direct flight to Ft. Lauderdale and was very smooth and pleasant!  As a matter of fact, something rather noteworthy occurred while we were in flight.  We usually fly First Class, but I just couldn't justify the expense for just a 2-1/2 hour flight and we're not Frequent Flyers on American Airlines.  So we flew coach and ordered some beer from the cart along with a Fruit and Cheese Plate, which ended up being light and tasty!

Anyway, during the latter part of the flight I got up to wait to use the rest room.  One of the flight attendants passed by and told me that I looked cute in my outfit, which was very nice!  Before I went into the bathroom she offered us another beer and I accepted, then she added that there would be no charge for the beers and then she wished me a Merry Christmas!  When I got out of the bathroom she handed me the beers!  I couldn't believe it!  How often do people do such random acts of kindness without expecting anything in return!

We landed on time and promptly got all of our luggage.  Then we headed to the Embassy Suites and checked into our room right away.  The hotel is very nice and is located only 1/2 mile from Port Everglades, where we needed to catch the Cruise. Here are some pictures of the room:

The Bedroom

 

The Living Room

We dropped our bags in the room and then headed to the Publix that is right next door to shop for some last minute items, some beer to stow in our bags and some of my favorite Publix Roadrunner Raspberry Lowfat Frozen Yogurt with chocolate chips.  I used to have this every night after dinner when I lived in Alabama and it tastes so good and doesn't have a lot of fat and calories.  Unfortunately, Texas doesn't have Publix stores, so whenever I'm in Florida I make it a point to get some of my favorite frozen yogurt!

My Favorite Frozen Yogurt - So Yummy!

We got back to the hotel just in time for the nightly Manager's Reception and drank a few beers out in the courtyard, which is very pretty and looks like a tropical garden.  Here are some pictures of their courtyard:

Me and the Infamous Draft Beer at Happy Hour (Yuck!)

Interesting Hotel Architecture and Palm Trees

Colorful Lanterns Hanging from the Canopy

Christmas Tree and Heat Lanterns

I was tired as I was still recovering from surgery that I got earlier in December and the draft beer didn't sit the greatest.  We went to dinner at a restaurant next door called Duffy's Sport Grill and the food and service there sucked!  It also didn't help that some woman was smoking cigarettes at the next table and that really made me sick!  I cannot stand the smell of  cigarette or cigar smoke!  I'll not go there again!  There is an Outback Restaurant right next door to the hotel that has good food, so I'll go there from now on.

After eating Dinner we went back to the hotel and I fell asleep rather quickly, which was great!  I needed the sleep to get ready for boarding the Cruise the next day.

Discrimination in Dallas

This past week has been like a roller coaster ride!  I went through a major cancer scare and subsequent surgery on 12/4/12 which put those fears to rest. Through all of that rough ride, my close friend Tegan Marie Smith has been so supportive!  Her late wife Margaret had the same kind of cancer that I thought that I might have and died from it 4 years ago.  Tegan was so informative and such a rock for me during that scary time!  I finally had the chance to meet her in person last week!  She flew into town to visit with her son and daughter-in-law, whom she hasn't seen in a good while. They had a wonderful time!  Her and I had lunch at the Macaroni Grill near Love Field Airport and had a great visit all day long!  I got to see her again on Monday for breakfast and a brief visit before she went to the airport for her flight home to Atlanta. Here's a picture of her and I having Lunch at the Macaroni Grill:

Tegs and I at the Macaroni Grill on 12/7/12

Later on that day she messaged me from the airport to say that her flight was delayed.  When I didn't hear back from her several hours later I began to get pretty worried.  Finally, several hours later I was shocked to read her post that she had been arrested at the airport!  I couldn't believe it!

She said that her plane had been delayed and she and a few people went into the bar that was near the gate and had a couple of beers to wait for the flight to arrive.  When the plane arrived, they all lined up to get on and she boarded the plane and sat down.  She said that a gate person came in and sat behind her and said that she needed to come with her, so Tegan got up and followed her out of the plane.  When she got outside of the plane there were several Dallas Police Officers waiting to arrest and handcuff her!

I'm not going to provide any of the detail that she told me due to what I hope will be an impending lawsuit against the airline and police.  All I will say is that they had no grounds to arrest her and that she was profiled and harassed from the beginning because she is a transwoman. 

They handcuffed her and took her back to the police station, where they harassed her for several hours.  Then they released her without charges.  They put her into a cab to the nearest hotel, which cost her over $200.00 for the night.

I cannot believe how terrible she was treated here in Dallas!  She is such a kind and nice person and does not deserve this kind of treatment!  I hope that the people who abused her receive their just comeuppance!  She is understandably traumatized by the whole thing!  I know that she is strong and will be able to rise above this quickly and gain justice for the terrible deeds done against her!


 

Happy Tuesday

This post is a sequel to my last two posts. To make a long story short, I had to have a complete Hysterectomy on Tuesday, December 4th at Medical City Dallas Hospital.  The surgery was scheduled for 4 PM and was to be performed with a DaVinci Robot unless any pathology was noted.  If pathology was noted, a full laparotomy would be done to check surrounding organs and take biopsies. So going into the surgery I didn't know if I was going to wake up hearing if I had cancer or not.  It was not a good feeling!

So I checked into the hospital at 2:30 PM and it ended up that my surgery got postponed until 7:00 PM because there was another doctor still using the DaVinci Robot.  This didn't help my nerves any and to top it off, the Anesthesiologist told me that my EKG was abnormal, which freaked me out!  The EKG Tech retook it twice and it was perfect, so there was a lead not placed in the right place on the first test.

At 6:00 PM someone finally came and took me up to OR Staging Area so that they could get my IV in and I could sign all of the scary papers acknowledging everything that could go wrong during surgery.  The Anesthesiologist then put the "I don't care" shot into my IV and that was all I can remember until I woke up in my hospital room several hours later.

The first thing that I did was look at the spot right underneath my breast bone to see if it had a vertical cut on it.  I was so happy to see that there was no cut!!!  This meant that the surgery was conducted with the DaVinci Robot and that no pathology was found!  The doctor confirmed that they found no cancer and everything went well!  This was the best result that I could have hoped for!

Thank God that things turned out the way that they did!  I also want to thank my family and some special friends for their support during this trying time!  I especially thank my daughter Nicole and my dear friend Tegan Marie Smith, who were so supportive to me during the dark hours I had before the surgery.

An Angel to Watch Over Me

This post is a sequel to my last one named "Alive and Kicking".  I sit here this morning in anticipation of undergoing a full hysterectomy at 4:00 PM today.  The procedure will be done using a DaVinci robot and is scheduled for 2-1/2 hours.  If any pathology is discovered,  I will have to undergo a full laparotomy where the doctor will examine my other abdominal organs and take biopsies.

I pray to God that they don't find any pathology and that I'll be done in less than 2-1/2 hours!  I want to stay my requisite night in the hospital and go home!  I want to go on my cruise to the Panama Canal on the 19th of this month!   I want to be healthy and be here for my family and friends!

I woke up this morning and found a sweet note from my daughter and a note and picture of a beautiful angel from Tegs on my Facebook wall.  I saw this as a sign that there will be angels watching over me and everything will be okay!  Here is the angel picture that was on my wall this morning:

Teg's Angel

I pray that God and his angels will watch over me today and keep me safe!  I also pray for anybody else undergoing surgery at this time as well.