3 Bittersweet Lane

On Easter Sunday, we decided to put in a low offer on a foreclosure we've been eyeing since it was a short sale nearly three years ago in Dewitt.  It's in the one neighborhood I was interested in there.   Older, right off 481 but you'd never know it.   After a couple of weeks of back and forth and a lot of weird requests from the bank that owned it, Bank of America, and an offer from a guy whose been trying to get it since last fall, we made a deal.  We did have to put our foot down about a clean title....they wanted no responsibility.   Turns out they illegally subdivided out a small piece to the former owner where all liens would fall.   A complicated mess that both our agent and lawyer had never dealt with.  We closed two weeks ago, on a Wednesday morning, with a lot of signing in our lawyer's downtown office.  An older Italian guy, he got worked up at their mistakes and got on the phone with their agent twice to bluster at them.  Then they handed me the only key they had to the front door.   This house has 12 doors to the outside not including the three garage doors!  Nuts, right?  This house is full of crazy things.  The light fixtures are everywhere and so random.  I took this photo two days after close when the landscape guy had started work.

This was his first pile of brush of many.  See that cupola on top of what is our bedroom?  I loved it and thought it gave the house great character.  Todd showed me last week through the attic you could see daylight.  I was insistent we could save it,  Then Kevin called: the giant leak in that room is there.  Of course.   It had to come down.  I asked him to take it off in one piece and see what I could do with it.

Up close it was nothing special.  Rotting wood and tarpaper .. Not tin as it might appear.  Good bye cupola.   And the house actually looks fine without it.  

Adam's Sports Day

On Ellie's birthday, it was Sport's Day at Trinity.  Adam missed it last year because Ellie had just been born.   It's for the whole school and pre-schoolers did four events.  Here's Adam with one of his buddies, Max.  Max is odd but Adam likes him around... He'll play pretend stuff like Adam.

There they are 'smiling'.

Love this picture.

Setting up for the whole school shot..  Love the scowl.

Whole school.

Different angle.

Just Adam's class.

With Hunter and Toby at the left.  I've made friends with their moms.  Hunter is sweet and talks very grown up.  Toby is wild.

Adam and his first event.

Go!

Look at him grin.

With grant.

Sick of me taking pictures hahahahaha

Second event with Mrs. Pelow.

Waiting for the obstacle course.

Go!

Last one!

Tired and ready for hot dog picnic.

Poor Adam threw up at the picnic.  I'm pretty sure he just act too quickly.   Here's the thing... The other kids didn't even blink.   Pre-schoolers are hardy.  We went home and Adam begged me to take the rest for later.  Sigh.  I did.   The kids loved it all.

Whirlwind and Kidneys

There's so much I haven't recorded the last two months and I have to put it on the shelf and not get anxious.   Documenting our family is so important to me, when I fall off like this I have to remind myself not to let it bother me.   Adam graduated pre-school last night and Abbey this morning... Growing up so fast.  They both did so well.   I have some great photos.

Work has begun on 3 Bittersweet Lane.  Overwhelmed a little by paint choices.   Things are popping up.... Mold under the master bath may mean an unplanned rip out of a perfectly good  bathroom.   I threw the kids in the car this afternoon and rode up there to talk to Kevin about a few choices.   Abbey picked her room color right away... Never indecesive.  Sweet 16 pink.  But I kep forgetting to take photos  ARGH!   I even brought my camera today.   I love the house more every time I step in.  Todd feels the same.  The kids call it the new house and live to run around it but we didn't have a working toilet until this week.  Adam shared with me last week he was worried about moving to a house with no potty and no power.   We told him we'd have both before we went back, but I could tell it weighed on him.  Today he thanked Kevin 'for fixing my potty'.  Very seriously.   

 Landscape work has begun, too.  The property was such a mess!  I can't believe I didn't take immediate before photos!   It's magical in the back and the kids love it.

My blood pressure is great. But... There is still blood and protein in my urine.  I'm being sent to a kidney specialist.  I start to panic.   Kidney failure??  Doctor says no.  But she is wondering if I have an underlying kidney condition causing the crazy Bp.   I'm too young for all this.  She says my body is acting oddly.   F-ing story of my whole adult life.   Maybe I am victim of agent orange as my mother insists.    I don't want to die at 62.

And the Rest

My hypertensive emergency followed by working hard to feel better amd juggling end of year stuff with kids and buying a house have left me little time or energy for my computer.

I am finally starting to feel like myself again.  Some of the medication wipes me out... Sometimes.  Hard to predict.  Todd has done a lot of scrambling to help ferry the kids to and from their schools.  I was able to accompany Adam on his zoo school field trip on Monday, which a week before I couldn't imagine walking that long.  But I didn't bring the girls; it would've been too much.  I also made Adam's Sports Day.

I feel older and weaker.  I sprained my foot maybe 5 weeks ago and it aches.  I can't travel fast.  And this morning, for the first time, I took all the kids, lugging Ellie in her car seat to both schools and it was hard.   I hate all the medications I'm on but the goal is to get me off at least one.   And I'd hate being dead more.   I worry about what this all means in the long term.  I couldn't stop thinking of how my early demise what affect our kids while in the hospital hooked to a satellite heart monitor.  That whole first day in the hospital my blood pressure steadily rose again as it had the day before and I kept telling them but they wouldn't listen.   Bethany came by to bring me food and some personal care items... One of the few people I would want to see me that way... And I much appreciated it more than she will know.   Shortly after she left, It hit 190 again and they finally listened and tried a new regimen.  It worked through the night but the next morning it fluctuated while Todd was there (bobby was able to come that morning) and they added two more medications that finally seemed to stabilize me.  They told me I could go home that night at 7 and I didn't want Todd to bring the kids there.  I was ready to drive myself, but the nurse talked me out of it as my migraine and nasea were strong and I was weak.  So it was Bethany to the rescue again!  I was lucky she was able to come take me home.

I have reduced my caffeine and am learning what are low and high sodium foods.   What makes me mad is that lifestyle changes won't fix this, only help.   This will likely be a struggle for life.  They did an ultrasound on my kidneys last week and thank God they seem fine.   There was a concern that a failing kidney could have caused such an out of control rise.   She is going to do some other tests to rule things out.  Keep me monitored.   They took away my blood pressure cuff as I was checking obsessively and I was concerned how would I know I'm dying?!  But I'm learning the signs of my body.

The same exact day this all happened, Tammy's grandfather passed.  A man always with a smile and friendly conversation for me, I was sad to hear that he's gone and I know it's a loss that her whole family feels deeply.  :(

(I edited the last entry as I didn't realize how horrific the spelling was)

Hypertension Emergency

A four day headache drove me to the doctor Friday before Memorial Day.  It was an appointment I made at the lat minute, realizing a long holiday weekend couple make it difficult to deal with.   I had also been vomiting, a first with a migraine for me.   I was tempted to self treat with old medicine in the cupboard from before I even moved in here, but read online it wasn't wise if you had blood pressure issues.  And then it got me thinking that's what this was about.  I knew it wasn't great, something I had half been ignoring as I wasn't happy that my third pregnancy altered my health like my first two.  Not having a thyroid still bothers me a lot.   I went off the  pill a few weeks before and got back on the bike, assuming being fat was a part of the issue.  I took my blood pressure several times and it was high.  Here's the problem : it escaped me the significance of how high it was and had been.

NO school that Friday and Todd has taken the two older two to work with him  earlier so I could rest so I took Ellie over at 2:15.   After describing the last four days, including how I had vomited my lunch on the way out the door and my blood pressure readings at home the last six weeks, she wasn't pleased.  My blood pressure was the cause.   Before she prescribed, she had me pee in a cup.   Turns out there was protein and blood in my urine which means kidney damage.   WHAT?  She wanted to call an ambulance and have me rushed to Oswego Hospital so they could give me IV medications immediately to lower it.  I was holding a sad Ellie, which she said could go with me.  I knew that scenario would not help my blood pressure.

I picked up the meds, took them and went to sleep.  In the middle of the night, I awoke and it was going down and I thought all would be fine.

But throughout the next day, it fluctuated, more up than down.   I woke up in the middle of that Saturday night with my chest tight and I knew it wasn't good.  I tested and it was nearly 200.   I put my toothbrush in my purse and told Todd I was driving to the ER.  

I Wasn't thrilled with it there.  No one seemed to be in a hurry to get it down and a nurse confirmed that a heart attack "was a very reasonable fear".  What?   It kept rising.   They gave me three doses of nitroglycerin which is the common emergency treatment.  It worked... For a half hour.   Then it climbed to 220/110.   I learned later, stroke level.  I had to keep ringing them and demanded the doctor to get something done... Meanwhile, there was a woman calling out plantiffly down the hall over and over 'Can't please someone help me?' And a man who retched non stop, which was their excuse for lagging with me.   Those three hours was the first time in my life I truly thought I could die.   I squeezed my eyes shut, praying not to see Dad.... Because people often say they see their gone loved ones before.

They gave me different medication finally and my GP's husband came into admit me.  I was hit with my migraine again and they wheeled me upstairs.  I don't remember much more of that morning.

This is my longest lapse between entries and the funny thing is, I wrote the first paragraph the day I ended up going to the ER.