Is It August Yet???!!!

Ok, so we all know I'm counting the days until August 25, which is my birthday. But recently I've started counting down to August for reasons I never foresaw at the beginning of the summer.

SuperHubby was in the hospital twice (yes, twice) in June. First he spent a couple of days in East Cooper with a massive migraine. That was mid-June. Then at the end of June he spent a week at our old friend MUSC with - wait for it - meningitis. Yes, it is terribly rare for the same person to get meningitis twice. Yes, even more so within 6 months of the first bout. Yes, SH managed to pull it off.

So he spent a week with the second round of meningitis, which frankly wasn't nearly as bad as the first, and when he got home all was well for a couple of days. But he still seemed off. After much discussion, we took a trip back to MUSC and asked them to check the shunt. Long story short, he had a shunt revision on July 4.


The doctors checked the valve in his head, which was working fine, but once they crack open your head they have to replace it anyway because now they've introduced bacteria and all that jazz. However, in an incredibly enlightened moment, the doctor decided to check the tubing that runs through his chest and into his heart, and it turns out it was clogged with scar tissue. They snipped that little piece out and put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Meanwhile, I already had scheduled FrogBoy's oral surgery for July 7. I was told he needed several weeks to completely heal before school started, so I didn't have a lot of options. And when things started going in the pooper with SH, I decided to just have a crappy week and go ahead with Froggie's surgery anyway.

He was AMAZING. I didn't give him nearly the credit I should have. (Do I ever?) He didn't stress or freak or anything. The only issue we had was the IV, and no one likes an IV, so I understand his feelings there.


We were at St. Francis (yes, totally different hospital from SH, just to make it fun) for 3 hours. He came home, slept on the sofa for an hour, and was back to my normal FrogBoy later that day. Several days later I was finally able to give him real food, and a collective sigh was let out by us all.

So yes, August, I greet you with open arms. I need a break.

Stop Touching Me!

There seems to be this common misconception that I don't like to be touched, and I particularly don't like to be hugged. That is simply not true. However, if you think that, I probably just don't want to be touched by YOU.

I actually really like hugs. From people I'm very close to. I think hugs are appropriate behavior when some gets married, or when you're consoling someone at a funeral, or you're greeting someone you haven't seen in 3 years. I do NOT think hugs are necessary when you see the person every day, or even every week, and definitely not if you've never met them before. (Although I will break this rule when meeting family members for the first time).

I also don't have issues with the whole touching thing, when appropriate. I will sit so close to my best friends that we're practically in each others' laps...which is fine. But that's never a good idea if you're not on my unspoken, unwritten, highly important Touching Allowed List.

I'm not trying to be cruel, or even uppity. I won't hug some of my best friends...because the NOT hugging is part of our relationship. But I WILL hug some of my other best friends...again, because it's part of our relationship. I just don't think you can go carte blanche on hugging. There are too many factors involved. People that go around hugging willy nilly have no boundaries.

And people who say I don't like hugs are just plain wrong. I love hugs. It's the people I don't like so much.

Happy Birthday to Me ~ Part 4

The birthday celebrations are really rolling now. I hope I can keep up the momentum through August. (yea, like that will be a problem!)

So...I got my first tattoo 5 years ago when we visited SuperHubby's family in PA. It is a cross with a shamrock in the center and it's on my right ankle. In case you were wondering. And I know you were.

Ever since then, I have become addicted. I really wanted another tattoo. Several, actually, but I figured maybe I should take things slow. Plus, they're sort of permanent, so I wanted to make sure I chose the right design, in the right spot, for the right reason.

Never one to jump into things, it took me 5 years to make up my mind about tattoo #2. SH and I went Friday, and here I am with Chuck, our tattoo artist at the Blu Gorilla.


And the final product :: a heart and Celtic knot intertwined together, shaded blue, in honor of Spanky and FrogBoy.

To quote Spanky: "Mommy, you're gonna be all tatted up by the time I graduate from high school." Out of the mouths of babes.

Happy Birthday to Me :: Part 3

Another thing I had on my birthday wish list was a puppy. I've been trying to convince SuperHubby this was a good idea ever since we moved back to Mt. Pleasant almost 5 years ago. We had to give up our Boxers when we moved, because they were too big for our townhouse, but a smaller dog, well...that would work.

Slight problem: SH doesn't really like small dogs. He wasn't working with me on this one. So I suffered in semi-silence and hatched my plan. After all, he couldn't refuse my ONE 40th birthday wish, right? (Yes, I know, it seems like I have a LOT of "one birthday wishes" - it's true).

Anyway, he finally started seeing things my way. I've always wanted a Boston Terrier...or a Pug was my second choice...so the hunt was on. We searched online for rescues, but they were all out of state and very expensive, and I wanted to meet the dog before I got it. So I decided to go the SPCA route.

I started looking online and found the PERFECT puppy...a Boston Terrier/Pug mix. I went to meet him and fell in love immediately. Even better, he was very obviously in love with me. I brought him home May 2.

He is 8 months old, and he's the best dog ever. He is completely house trained, crate trained, he doesn't bark, he doesn't jump...he's just great. He acts like he's been part of our family forever.

I named him Jovi.

Happy Birthday to Me...Part 2

Ok, so confession time: I have an extensive list of things I want for my 40th birthday. Hey, you only turn 40 once, right? Most of the wishes on my list are seemingly impossible, which makes this post even more exciting.

One of my dreams has been to see Jon Bon Jovi in concert. In person. In all his gorgeousness. So I was going to do that this year...for The Circle tour. Unfortunately, I didn't have the cash when tickets went on sale, and Jon's sort of a big deal, so the concert was sold out when I could swing it financially.

Fast forward to mid-April. Naeem and Ashley, who were formally on staff at Seacoast and started their own church, Mosaic, in Charlotte, were going to the concert. And had 2 extra tickets. Naeem decided to have a contest on his blog for the 2 extras. I read it and dismissed it...until I realized (1) this is my dream, and (2) you can't win if you don't enter.

Well, several people entered, so they decided to let his blog readers choose the winner. All you had to do was get the most votes. Well, apparently I took this way more seriously than the rest of the finalists, because I WON!

Yep...I was going to see BON JOVI.

I took the sis-in-law. Here we are on the way to Charlotte. Yes, we rode with the top down the whole way there.



The concert was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Ok, I've only been to a couple of other concerts in my life (Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, and many, many Statler Brothers concerts). But this was THE concert. And man, did Jon look amazing. And he sounded even better.



I know I'm biased because he is my most favorite person on the planet, but I think what I enjoyed most about his performance (other than how incredible he looks and sounds, which frankly is just a given) is that he seems to truly enjoy what he's doing. When he smiles, which he does a lot, it seems very genuine. He thanked the audience so many times that I lost track. And, oh wow, that smile.



So yeah, best birthday present EVER.

Happy Birthday to Me - Part 1

I'm gonna be 40 in August.

There, that wasn't so hard to say. Anyway, I love birthdays. I love celebrating birthdays. I personally think my birthday should be celebrated year-round.

Unfortunately, I've had some real stinkers. Many times when I was young, the first day of school was my birthday. SuperHubby has had quite a few brain surgeries on or around my birthday, and FrogBoy was diagnosed with autism the day after my birthday. SH forgot #38, which frankly made him very UNsuper that year, and he had a migraine and slept through #39. So I figure 40 has to be better.

So this year, I had big plans. I found out Bon Jovi was playing in Charlotte, and I figured they did that just for me, so I decided I'd go. Since I love Jon and he will love me as soon as he meets me and all that. Sadly, tickets went on sale in October, when I had no money, so I gave up the dream and figured it was not meant to be.

Tax refunds came and I was looking for a way to celebrate. Thought we'd do a big family trip. But SH keeps doing the migraine dance, so I couldn't really make firm plans, and everything I came up with was deemed BORING by the boys. Which squashed my ideas of family fun.

Then I hit on it. A mini-vacation for each of the boys, separately, just them and me. This past week, during spring break, Froggie and I went to the Lego outlet in GA.

Spanky's trip comes later. As for Bon Jovi, that chapter is still open...

Aunt Freda

Last month we buried my Aunt Freda. Actually she was my great-aunt, one of many I grew up thinking was my "real" aunt, only to discover that while I have a plethora of great-aunts and step-aunts, I only have one full-blooded, true-by-definition aunt. But I digress.

My grandmother was one of 12 kids. Yikes. They were raised in Paris, Tennessee, and they were poor (with 12 kids, who wouldn't be?). Three boys, nine girls. Grandmama is #10. Aunt Freda was #11.

Her full name was Esta Freda. Did I mention they were very country people? Her sisters called her Esta Freda or Freda. To us kids, she was just Aunt Freda.

When we were growing up, we did everything as a large, extended family. I mean everything. There were 5 sisters and their families who lived in Charleston, so during the summers we all would go to Aunt MaeDell's and swim in their pool. At Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, everyone came over to my grandparents house. We were the sort of family where 2 of us lived next door to our grandparents (those were the houses we spent the most time at as a large group, because we had the most room). We're talking 5 families, 3 generations in each family. LOTS of people. And we were never crowded.

Aunt Freda had a tiny house. But she had a big heart. She raised her granddaughter before that was the thing to do...because it needed to be done. Because of this, I spent a lot of time at her house growing up (her granddaughter, my cousin, is a year older than me).

Aunt Freda was the cool aunt. She watched soap operas and read Harlequin romance novels. We're pretty sure call-waiting was invented for her. She could keep that grapevine buzzing....always to check on her sisters, her sisters' kids, or the grands. And she was funny.

Aunt Freda had these little sayings...like "Whatever smokes your drawers." To this day I don't know what that means, but I know it's good.

And she was quirky. I love quirky, and she had it in spades. When she would make hotdogs, she would dry them off with a paper towel, so your bun wouldn't get soggy (yes, I have adopted this Aunt Freda-ism). And when she washed clothes, she would never, NEVER wash underwear with towels, because then you had nasty stuff touching stuff that needed to be clean when it touched you...which just wouldn't do!

It's funny how small things work their way into your daily life and you don't really realize where it came from until you stop and think it through. In the last couple of weeks, I have chuckled more doing laundry and making hotdogs than ever before. And that's a good thing.

It's just Grandama and Aunt MaeDell now. Rather than blogging about how much I loved them after they're gone, I think I'll tell them before they go.

Different Day, Different Brain Issue

Two weeks ago we had some excitement in the Fitzgerald household. SuperHubby had been sick for a few days, nothing unusual, just a little stomach thing (okay, a big stomach thing...but it always seems little when you're not the one barfing). It started on Friday and lasted through the weekend. He didn't have migraine symptoms, or shunt symptoms, so I figured I'd let him just take the weekend and sleep it off.

Well, sleep he did. He slept from Friday night straight through to Sunday. Only got up when he had to barf, which frankly was way more than I could tolerate. I can handle a lot of things; that's not one of them. So when he wasn't puking, I let him rest, and I brought him pain and nausea meds as often as he could take them. I thought that was mighty nice of me.

Well Sunday he just seemed off. It occurred to me that most of his symptoms possibly could be shunt symptoms after all, including the sleeping for 3 days straight, and I started to grow concerned. When he got up at one point, he fell over, taking me with him, and bounced off the wall and the bed before landing in a heap on the floor, unable to move. Spanky had to help me get him back in bed. It was time to call in the big guns.

One of our pastors came over and helped me load him in the car. This was a good thing, as he was dead weight by this time. I couldn't handle him. I took him to MUSC and we hung around our home away from home for the next 9 1/2 hours. While the security guard at the door seemed to recognize the severity of the situation, the doctors, sadly, did not.

Immediately upon arriving in the ER I asked that they check his shunt for malfunction as well as infection. Since they were doing tap of the shunt for CSF, I also asked that they check for meningitis. A friend of mine recently had meningitis and the symptoms were eerily similar. I figured it was either shunt or meningitis. I was assured they would test for both.

After 7 hours, they decided to send SH home. I wasn't in the room at the time. It was the one time I had left. Coincidence? I think not. Once I got the word, I was none too pleased. I explained to the nurse that I'd been down this road before, many times, and I felt like I knew what I was talking about. Not to say he didn't, but he didn't. Anyway, I had to deal with the nurse, because I never saw the doctor. So I was ticked.

I pointed out that when a woman comes into the ER with a typed medical history, and it takes a whole page in 8-point font, you might want to consider listening to her opinions. Maybe. The nurse agreed. Poor guy, he actually was on my side. He just wasn't getting any slack from the doctor, who really just didn't want to be wrong.

So I showed my butt. For 2 1/2 hours. I fussed, loudly, about every single reason SH shouldn't go home, how I couldn't manage getting him there, how if he died it would be on them, just not nice things at all. Finally they agreed to let him walk down the hall first to test his steadiness. He failed miserably. I then pointed out that he'd run 55 miles exactly 1 month earlier, and now he couldn't walk 3 rooms down the hallway. He got to stay.

So he was admitted at midnight. He ended up staying from Sunday until Friday. Diagnosis? Meningitis. Yes, I said that. Yes, they ignored me. Yes, they pumped him full of heavy-duty antibiotics anyway, just in case, which quite possibly saved his life. (go me)

So, that's the saga of the newest brain "hiccup." Just to keep things fun.

All I Can Say Is "Wow"

Ever think something is your fault, but convince yourself that maybe it's not, and even if it is, there's nothing you can do to change it, so you decide just not to worry about it? That's what I've pretty much done for the past 12 years. I've always felt like all of FrogBoy's medical issues were somehow my doing, related in part or in whole to the medicine I took while I was pregnant with him. I remind myself that the doctors told me it was better to take the medicine and roll the dice than to not take the medicine and have a seizure while pregnant. I remind myself that I love him exactly as he is, and God gave me this child for a reason. I remind myself of a lot of things. Then I spend a little time not thinking about it, and eventually start blaming myself all over again.

This week, I discovered that it actually is all my fault. Indeed. Well, not really my fault; more the manufacturer of the medicine I took way back when. (Actually, I still take it, but that's not the point, now, is it?) Anyway, turns out this particular medicine causes birth defects...many of the issues Froggie deals with...some much, much worse. When faced with what could have been, I realize we are truly blessed.

Still, this cuts deep into my core. I am wounded, broken, raw. I wonder if he will forgive me. Will I forgive myself? I don't know...

So, finally, after 12 years, I have answers. I've been wanting answers. Not these answers, especially not these answers, but it is what it is, and now I know. Now I guess I have to live with what I've learned and move forward.