My Favorite Time of the Year!

Are you surprised I didn’t say Christmas or Thanksgiving?  haha  I love Bruin Football that much.  Its a family tradition to go to the Rose Bowl and watch the games as far as I can remember.  I come from a family of Bruins, and I have been bleeding blue and gold my whole life, and I am so proud that I am a Bruin myself.  Graduating from UCLA was a huge challenge, and one of the biggest accomplishments in my life.  It took 8 years, and help from all members of my family.

But this is also the beginning of the time where I get to spend quality time with About a Boy.  He’s also a huge Bruin fan, a close friend, and we spend time talking about every game, the dumb mistakes they Bruins make, the brilliant plays (rare these days!) and chit chatting.  He is slightly more obsessed and crazed than I am, but that makes me feel a lot better, knowing that there is someone out there who is a bigger nut job about the Bruins than I am!  haha

The last time I wrote about him, I was at a loss on how to tell him how sick I was.  Problem solved!  Thank you Bruins 🙂  Like a superhero, you swoop in to save the day!  He messaged me to about the first game of the season, this Thursday against Rice.  Now I have been a bad Bruin, and thought our opener was Sept 8th, but I guess that is our first home game.  He asked what I have been up to, and I broke the news.  He felt awful.  Like really bad that he hasn’t been in touch more, and the truth of the matter is I was so relieved to not hear from him, it worked out perfectly because I am feeling better now.  I just finished another 20 days of B1 injections.  Still have some B12 injections left.

I’m able to get out of the house now, and I’m making my “big debut” on Friday night to a friends birthday party at our other friends bar The Basement Tavern.  This friend has been so supportive of me throughout my struggles, that I’m beyond happy that my first outing is to help him celebrate 🙂

Back to my Bruin friend.  We are going to watch the season opener together against Rice.  I’ve been feeling so down, and he always cheers me up!  He’s a huge goof.  Plus it should be one of the games the Bruins can win, which should be fun to watch, not one of those games where I’m pulling my hair out, yelling at the screen, throwing mad arm gestures, walking away, and then returning disgruntled to see how it turns out in the last few minutes.  Watching a win will be nice.  And our second date, 6 years ago!! we went to the Rice game together.  We met up with my family and my Aunt who is hilarious, she’s my absolute favorite, and she said, “We’re running for our lives against Rice!” haha, and somehow this has been a joke of ours ever since.  So there is a little history there with watching Rice together.  I’m excited for the next few days, it’ll be a nice change of pace and almost as if I have a normal life again!

Pity Party, Table for One

Well its been a while since I wrote anything, or had anything to really say or even to think.  I’m so tried mentally and emotionally of this flea allergy.  I cannot wait until next week when I have my first insured doctors visit with my new primary care physician.  At this point I think I need antibiotics or a steroid shot, I’ve done a bunch of research on the internet.  Reactions like mine are not normal, believe it or not!  Spending a month with my friend Benny is just supposed to be a temporary house guest.  He’s overstayed his privileges. But I can’t live without him right now. Just a few more days…

In the meantime, its been one hell of a day.  I’m in emotional overdrive and I need to get it out.  Last night I sent an email to my old boss, the doctor who’s office I used to help run, and I asked her if she could help me meet my deductible for my new insurance company.  My parents are helping me as much as they can, and with the additional health insurance payment every month (which is so worth it!) its even tighter financially at home.  But I practically broke my back working for her, not just at the office, I worked for her at her home, traveled with her family (seven kids, three sets of twins under the age of seven), and took care of her horses.

If she wanted something done, no matter how ridiculous, I would get it done.  When she said jump, I would say how high, and then go even higher.  I’m a virgo and an absolute perfectionist.  I gave up many holidays to work for her, and not just because I needed the money – I did, but I have known her since I was 18, before she had kids or her medical practice.  She is the sweetest person.  The kind of person you want to dislike because she has it all, and makes it look easy.  But you can’t cause she’s so nice!  She is 110% my mentor.  She’s picked up a date for me in the airport, with only the two of us, seven children, 8 carry-ons, and a stroller!

I worked for her for very close to two years.  I almost took another job that offered an excellent benefit package, but she promised me insurance.  She never came through.  She gave me a raise, which I really deserved.  I never got it.  When I stopped working last year in December because I was sick, she never gave me my end of the year bonus.  I didn’t file for unemployment because I knew part of it would come out of her pocket.  So it was pretty disappointing towards the end, especially because the person who I was supposedly working under always came in late, talked on the phone with her family all day long, and maybe did 30 minutes of work all day long.  I did all the work, I ran the entire practice for months and months.  And I loved my co-worker, we had a lot of giggles, but my boss never knew of this.  I covered her ass.  Now I realize what a mistake that was.  Because I’m asking for a favor, and I had a dream last night, and she said she wouldn’t do it.  I woke up to an email, and she’s giving me the run around.  She didn’t say no, but after all the sacrifices I have made, which are way more extensive than what I have listed here, I would have thought she would have given a little more effort.  But that is also my mistake.

And being so let down and mad at her today has really let the flood gates for some other emotions go.  Our house has been in foreclosure for a while, and they’ve been fighting it for a long time because there have been a lot of mistakes along the way.  But in the end, we are letting it go.  Its not worth the time, hassle or money to duke it out in court.  We have always been movers.  But this is the one place we have lived the longest.  We can’t be dragging 14 horses around every couple of years!! LOL  So we’re in the process of moving all the horses into new temporary homes, some of which have worked, some haven’t.  That has been stressful.  One of my horses almost died last week because of an irresponsible teenage girl.  They break it, they bought it!

But we are looking for a new place to live in the meantime, while we figure out the rest of our lives, and we can’t find anything that will suit our needs.  I can’t live anyplace that has stairs, because of my mobility issue.  And my mom will be getting a hip replacement soonish, so stairs are bad for her too.  A one story “townhouse” is hard to find!  And a lot of these places won’t let us have any pets.  So goodbye pets, goodbye cats!  We already gave away one of our cats a while ago, because he is such a good mouser, and lives to be outside, that it wouldn’t be nice to make him live inside.  So we gave him to a friend of ours who has wanted him since she first saw him.  And she actually gave us another one of the cats we own.  Fair trade? haha Not to sound sorry for myself or have a pity party, but I’m feeling so robbed.   So we have to be out by Sept 10th.  If we don’t find anything, we’ve decided not to settle on anything we don’t love.  My parents and I are going to split up.  I’m going to stay with friends and so are my parents.  My 31st birthday is coming up, I don’t even know where I’ll be!  To me that is just crazy!  And I’m not even going to get started on birthday dramatics right now.

I have been what feels like lifetimes in my room, my island.  I don’t want to leave!  Its my sanctuary.  I know I will feel at home where ever my family is, but just this once, a place feels more like home than a feeling.  The beautiful view I have (that I often don’t take advantage of anymore because I finally got blinds!) of the huge red rose bushes, the front lawn, so green, the large trees that line the street, the flowers in the creek bed, and the best of all – the horses in the front pasture.  Its idyllic.  Its soon to be just a memory.  I’ll be in some tiny room, with no large windows, or windows at all!  Who knows.  I just know I don’t want to leave.  And I so want to say right now, “And you can’t make me!”  HAHA.  Throw down toddler style.

Sage

I feel like there has been a bunch of negative emotions and  energy around lately.  My health is in such a precarious place right now, that I cannot take a big hit.  Anything negative cannot be good.  So on a friend’s suggestion, I decided to smudge some items in my house, my room, my parents and myself with sage.

I’ve never done this before, and it was interesting.  At first I couldn’t get it to keep smoking continuously, I spoke with my friend and she said to light it up real good, let it flame and then it might be better.  It got going!  The white billows were going and I smudged my dream catcher, because I have been having some nightmares lately, some articles of clothing – that’s a completely different story, and then I did my room.  It was so odd that in very random places that smoke just turned dark, and I let it work out and go back to white before I moved on, but it was just weird how it was places in my room where I did not spend very much time.  Maybe this was for a reason.

I moved on.  I actually smudged one of my kitties.  I think he just wanted the attention.  He was so cute!  I got my dad and my mom done, and thats all I had the energy for.  It was an emotional day.  I have been fighting with my father a lot, and its been taking a toll on my stomach I think.  Hopefully this helps.  It might be psychosomatic, but I do feel much more at peace now in my room.

A Woman’s Strength

 

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” Eleanor Roosevelt You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

 

Feel the Lows, Experience the Highs

 

The fleas got me down.  Back to swollen legs, feeling like my skin is on fire and the constant feeling of wanting to crawl the walls.  But like Chumbawumba, I get knocked down, but I get up again, the fleas will never keep me down!  Well except when I’m passed out on B-dryl.  Yes, Benny and I are that close now 🙂  Nicknames!

And I look extremely cute (and Asian!) at the moment.  To avoid scratching myself raw, I’ve tried covering the bigger bites with my Hello Kitty Band-Aids.  I look like I survived a savage battle.  The fleas for my sweet sweet blood.  Can’t they take this war abroad like every other war we’re fighting?  LOL

“Benadryl Brain”

“Benadryl Brain”

Michelle is awesome,

she’s as pretty as a blossom!

But her room is full of fleas,

that are making her itchy in the knees!

But that’s ok, she’s here to stay,

She’s dealing like a champ!

~From a friend, healer and blogger.  Thank you for the smiles Leina 🙂

 

 

Days spent in a Daze

For the past, I don’t know how long now, I have spent my days and nights zoned out, dazed, feeling like a zombie, passed out on Benadryl.  The flea bites just don’t ever end.  They are 90% gone, but now even one or two bites trigger a massive reaction and I get robbed of my “sobriety”.  Its a decision, being super uncomfortable, wiggling, squirming around all day, feeling like I want to jump out of my own skin – but able to have a clear mind.  Or to feel comfortable, but not have one clear thought, focus on reading, being able to write anything, or even focus on television!  Catch 22.

 

Never Give Up

Insurance Woes No More

I got the best news this morning in my email.  I got approved for insurance!! And it only took 11 months, LOL.

I made a note to myself (as I have to do with almost anything if it needs to get done!) to write an email to my broker yesterday to ask when I would find out about this process, when I would find out, and all those other yummy details.  He works on weekends, he’s amazing.  But I didn’t want to bother him with a useless question that could wait until the start of a proper work week.  And my patience was rewarded with this blessed news.

My insurance will start on September 1st.  And they are mailing me the packet with my card in it and everything!  He included in the email the 130 page guide that they mailed me, so I got to read all about my new insurance today, and I am pretty impressed!  Especially for a government plan.

I went through all sorts of different methods of trying to get insurance throughout the past 11 months.  Through my employer, through another employer, trying to be my own employer, even a friend offered to marry me!, and now through the Affordable Health Care Act (I think that’s right), or “Obama Care”, I have health insurance!!

This health care plan I have now, I looked at 11 months ago.  I decided not to get it, because when I looked at the list of providers, none of my doctors were on it, and to go out of network would be so expensive.  So if I was going to go out of network, I figured I’d go with another plan, and “start my own company” on paper to get insurance.  The Kaiser insurance fell short in July, and I took another look at this plan because I have a friend on it who loves it.  All of a sudden all of my doctors were on the plan, in network.  And it was cheaper.  Fate stepped in.  Saved my behind.  And I have insurance.  I can go to my doctors now!

Now…which doctors do I go to first?! Maybe I should put them in a hat and pick them out one at a time 🙂 Cause I can!!

Just for Fun

Image