These past few months have been quite a wild ride since the last time I wrote anything on our blog. Since November, we have experience the passing of my childhood dog, the announcement of a new nephew to make his appearance in July, we moved to Springfield, MO, we went on our first vacation together since our honeymoon, and my grandmother had a stroke so I ended up staying in Oklahoma at the hospital for almost a week.
On October 16th, my childhood dog, Teddie, passed away. It was rough, but she was 16 years old. Her vet had told us during her last 3 years that we were getting bonus time with her. My grandparents are still mourning their loss of Teddie, because she really was so special to all of us, especially them. Here's a small reason why....
A little over a week ago, on March 18th, my Meme had a stroke. During her visit, we found out several things with her health that had all been tied together, but we did not know it. Meme has had Atrial Fibrillation for many years, but we did not know it. My grandparents knew, because there would be times when they checked her blood pressure that her pulse would be very high, but never long enough for the doctors to catch before it went down again. They referred her to a cardiologist a few years back, but the test they ran was too short of time for them to see anything. Her primary care physician decided to just treat the "symptoms" - anxiety, shortness of breath, body aches, insomnia, and excessive sweating during simple household chores. He gave her medication - which of course did not help, so he just kept upping the dosage. When the cardiologist at the hospital came to talk to us about what they had figured out, he said, "I would not have ever prescribed a teenage boy that much medication, let alone a woman in her 60s."
Needless to say, the body was not designed to be taking that much medication he had her on, which really only made the situation worse. She would slur her words at times, remain in chronic pain, and would become exhausted after doing the smallest of tasks. She was home alone a lot, and the neurologist suspects she was having seizures without us knowing. During the last couple of years of Teddie's life, she clung to my Meme. She would not let her out of her sight. We have wondered if maybe, that was because dogs tend to sense when things are wrong. Teddie sensed something that we did not, and she probably witnessed the seizures we were missing. We now know that the AFib is what caused the clot, which caused the stroke. They have her on new medications. We hope to see a lot of improvement in the quality of life for Meme. My Papaw retires soon, so they have a lot of plans. Hopefully, Meme will feel better than she has in years, so that she can enjoy that time with her husband and they can make memories.
On a positive note, we made a pretty big move! We are living in Springfield, Missouri now. Daniel received a job in Strafford at a metal factory, called American Products. I am working at a local law firm, running errands and doing some of the filing for the office. I am still attending school, and Daniel will be starting in the Fall. We have been staying with my parents since the beginning of March. It has been quite a blessing to us, because we've gotten to spend so much time with my family and it gave us a place to live until we move into our new place at the end of this week. We have loved being here, but we are ready to back in our own place again.
We took our first vacation a few weeks ago to Dallas, TX. We had not been anywhere since our honeymoon - a year and a half ago! It was a lot of fun! It gave us an idea of things we will keep doing for future vacations and what we will do differently next time. One thing we did learn that we love is AirBnB. My parents own a timeshare, so typically when my family and I go on vacations we find the nearest one. Daniel and I used it for our honeymoon as well, and it was amazing! This time though, we needed to find a hotel to stay at. That can get pretty pricey, so we looked into AirBnb. We weren't sure about it at first, but we had heard good things so we gave it a shot. It was awesome! Our host was great! We actually found an LDS church member in McKinney, TX renting out his home for half the price of a hotel. We will definitely be keeping AirBnB in mind for the future. One thing we learned not to do on the next vacation is amusement parks - unless there's more than just us, or Silver Dollar City where they have shows and entertainment. Daniel has a fear of roller coasters. I am an adrenaline junkie. Some roller coasters, Daniel is okay with. However, Six Flags had a ton of them that he did not want to ride. I would ride ANYTHING. Daniel likes other types of rides, like the teacups, interactive rides, and such. Those bore me. We learned that in the future, it might work out better to either have more people with us to have riding buddies, or to find something else to do.
While on vacation we got to spend a ton of quality time together. We had been apart for 2 weeks at the time, so we were really just glad to be reunited. We got to spend a total of 16 hours in the car together that weekend talking, go out to dinner together, and see Dallas. We made some pretty good memories.
Overall in these last few months, we have had some sad times, some scary times, and some exciting times, but most of all, we have had happy times. We have made some amazing memories - both good and bad. I am looking forward to see what these next few months have in store for us! Happy Easter, everyone!
On October 16th, my childhood dog, Teddie, passed away. It was rough, but she was 16 years old. Her vet had told us during her last 3 years that we were getting bonus time with her. My grandparents are still mourning their loss of Teddie, because she really was so special to all of us, especially them. Here's a small reason why....
A little over a week ago, on March 18th, my Meme had a stroke. During her visit, we found out several things with her health that had all been tied together, but we did not know it. Meme has had Atrial Fibrillation for many years, but we did not know it. My grandparents knew, because there would be times when they checked her blood pressure that her pulse would be very high, but never long enough for the doctors to catch before it went down again. They referred her to a cardiologist a few years back, but the test they ran was too short of time for them to see anything. Her primary care physician decided to just treat the "symptoms" - anxiety, shortness of breath, body aches, insomnia, and excessive sweating during simple household chores. He gave her medication - which of course did not help, so he just kept upping the dosage. When the cardiologist at the hospital came to talk to us about what they had figured out, he said, "I would not have ever prescribed a teenage boy that much medication, let alone a woman in her 60s."
Needless to say, the body was not designed to be taking that much medication he had her on, which really only made the situation worse. She would slur her words at times, remain in chronic pain, and would become exhausted after doing the smallest of tasks. She was home alone a lot, and the neurologist suspects she was having seizures without us knowing. During the last couple of years of Teddie's life, she clung to my Meme. She would not let her out of her sight. We have wondered if maybe, that was because dogs tend to sense when things are wrong. Teddie sensed something that we did not, and she probably witnessed the seizures we were missing. We now know that the AFib is what caused the clot, which caused the stroke. They have her on new medications. We hope to see a lot of improvement in the quality of life for Meme. My Papaw retires soon, so they have a lot of plans. Hopefully, Meme will feel better than she has in years, so that she can enjoy that time with her husband and they can make memories.
On a positive note, we made a pretty big move! We are living in Springfield, Missouri now. Daniel received a job in Strafford at a metal factory, called American Products. I am working at a local law firm, running errands and doing some of the filing for the office. I am still attending school, and Daniel will be starting in the Fall. We have been staying with my parents since the beginning of March. It has been quite a blessing to us, because we've gotten to spend so much time with my family and it gave us a place to live until we move into our new place at the end of this week. We have loved being here, but we are ready to back in our own place again.
We took our first vacation a few weeks ago to Dallas, TX. We had not been anywhere since our honeymoon - a year and a half ago! It was a lot of fun! It gave us an idea of things we will keep doing for future vacations and what we will do differently next time. One thing we did learn that we love is AirBnB. My parents own a timeshare, so typically when my family and I go on vacations we find the nearest one. Daniel and I used it for our honeymoon as well, and it was amazing! This time though, we needed to find a hotel to stay at. That can get pretty pricey, so we looked into AirBnb. We weren't sure about it at first, but we had heard good things so we gave it a shot. It was awesome! Our host was great! We actually found an LDS church member in McKinney, TX renting out his home for half the price of a hotel. We will definitely be keeping AirBnB in mind for the future. One thing we learned not to do on the next vacation is amusement parks - unless there's more than just us, or Silver Dollar City where they have shows and entertainment. Daniel has a fear of roller coasters. I am an adrenaline junkie. Some roller coasters, Daniel is okay with. However, Six Flags had a ton of them that he did not want to ride. I would ride ANYTHING. Daniel likes other types of rides, like the teacups, interactive rides, and such. Those bore me. We learned that in the future, it might work out better to either have more people with us to have riding buddies, or to find something else to do.
While on vacation we got to spend a ton of quality time together. We had been apart for 2 weeks at the time, so we were really just glad to be reunited. We got to spend a total of 16 hours in the car together that weekend talking, go out to dinner together, and see Dallas. We made some pretty good memories.
Overall in these last few months, we have had some sad times, some scary times, and some exciting times, but most of all, we have had happy times. We have made some amazing memories - both good and bad. I am looking forward to see what these next few months have in store for us! Happy Easter, everyone!