Wednesday, February 23, 2011

WoW! Forgot I even had this blog.

Let's see what we can do about that. I just posted this wall of text over at The Happy Housewives Club


A little back story - I didn't choose to be a housewife, I had a career all lined out, I had worked my way up the ladder, was running my own department in what I thought was a successful company until September 2007 when the lay-offs began. I was the 4th to go.

I embraced it at 1st! This is SO awesome! I will just take a few months off and hang out with the kids, be home when Jason got home, have dinner ready the whole she-bang! I'd wait and go back after the holidays.... Then the market went even further south, no one was hiring. I fell into a very deep depression. My kids had activities, they weren't babies anymore. They didn't need me as much as I thought they did, which was totally my fault to begin with. They were used to me working. I was seriously lost with no idea what path to take.

My husband was in the Marines when we married (I have known him since I was 12) we married when I was 19. Lanie came along just a few months after our 1st anniversary. I went back to work immediately, my husband was over seas, I hated being home without him but I missed so much of her 1st few years. He got out of the military, we bought our 1st house, he found a job he really liked and started putting in a ton of hours to move up the ladder, neither one of us ever went to college so we were both REALLY proud of where our careers were heading due to our hard work, but neither of us noticed where our family heading until almost to late. Lissa joined us 4 years later, again by a total shock. When they say an antibiotic for a silly little cold messes up your BC's they aren't lying!

So back to 2008, I'm home, miserable, depressed, and making everyone around me miserable. My house was a TOTAL WRECK. We never had anyone over, I was a shut in. I only got out of bed when the kids where coming home and some days, not even then. I gained 45 pounds, started smoking again and was heading downhill SUPER fast with no brakes on.

Jason finally put his foot down. "I make enough to support this family, I want you to understand that I WANT you to be home full-time. So please just stop looking for work, enjoy your time with the girls! Get a hobby to do while they are in school. I hate seeing you like this and I hate what this is doing to our family." That snapped me out of it. I dove into being a housewife full steam. Most days I am still totally lost and a little bit of a wreck but I'm trying and giving it my best! Our marriage is heading back in the right direction, I talk to my kids EVERY night about their day. I know their friends, we have dinner together and I don't have any strange smells in my home anymore.

Ta Da! Like I wasn't already worried about enough going on here at home, in comes the Big C. It's sort of a funny story (as in odd, not really haha funny) actually. February 2009 my DH took both our DDs to a Father-Daughter Dance so I splurged with a little take out dinner. Within a couple of hours of them returning home, I was pretty sure I had food poisoning from my favorite Italian restaurant! Come Monday, I was so dehydrated and still sick, I couldn't get into our family doctor so I headed to primacare. The PA there swore he thought it was my gal bladder and that it needed to be removed. I told him no thanks! He sent me for a abdominal sonogram.... that's when they found it! My right kidney had a HUGE mass. About the size of a small grapefruit. Now mind you, up until some bad chicken I had never been really sick my entire life (knock on wood). Other than chicken pox as a kid, no broken bones, still had my tonsils until I was 29!

So I followed up with my family doctor (a general practitioner) the next day, he sent me to a nephrologist (kidney specialist). She called me on a Friday at 4:45 in the afternoon, her office was closed but she had gotten my results and wanted me to know as soon as possible. She said she hated having to tell me over the phone but she wanted me in her office 1st thing Monday morning.... Sure enough, Stage 2 Renal cancer. My husband wasn't home, the girls were (8 and 12 at the time) running around the house playing. I'm pretty sure I dropped the phone. Here was this lady I had only met once who had made me pee in a cup, give blood, take an MRI and be poked and prodded telling me I was in some serious trouble... OVER THE PHONE! I was devastated.

I called my husband and asked him if he could come home a little early, sent my kids to play at my In-Laws house for a couple of hours and broke the news to him. He is my rock, he is my Champion and my Backbone. Pretty sure I would have just melt, a la Wicked Witch, into a puddle in my kitchen floor if it wasn't for him. "No big deal! You're to much of a hard ass for God to take you from me so soon. Besides, who would wash my socks and cut the crust of the girls' sammiches!?!" I was 3 months from my 33rd birthday and 4 months from our 14th anniversary. My kids were still babies! They needed me, he needed me.... I NEEDED me.

12 days later I had 2/3rds of my right kidney removed. They decided to leave me with enough to function just in case some thing happened to my left kidney. I was one of the lucky ones, I watched my Mom's BFF suffer with Brest Cancer that traveled her entire body, wrack her entire system, leave her in pain and then finally take her at a very young age, from all of us that love her. I count my self among one of the BIGGEST lottery winner EVER. I had no Chemo, no radiation. I got a scar the kids all think looks "Super Cool".

Jason got an iPad for one of his contractors. I stumbled across Darla's book this past weekend and it made me realize I still have a LOT of work to do but I am NOT alone. I don't have to be. I have a great family that needs me.

So that's my story. Sort of long, I did mention in my intro that I tend to babble. Same goes for my typing, LOL!

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