Thursday, October 16, 2008

I'm Done Now - Don't Give Me Anymore

(FYI: I took the picture above just a little ways from where I live. Isn't the tree beautiful?)

You know, somebody once told me that the Good Lord would never give you more than you can handle. He must think I’m a lot tougher than I do then, because now I’ve got another issue. That seems to be all my life has been lately is issues. I know that lots of people have lots more serious issues than I do, but a very smart person also told me never to compare my issues with someone else’s. It’s really been an issue-filled summer for me, and I’m kind of worn thin, if you know what I mean.

First it was Ole getting sick back the beginning of July and ending up in the hospital almost losing his leg due to the incompetence of Indian Lady Doctor. Just a bit of stress there (did you note my sarcasm?) We did manage to take the one trip out of three that we had planned for the summer and got to Sturgis for the bike rally. When we got home, of course, we had a month to deal with all the wedding arrangements, and all the stress that went along with that. Not only physical stress but emotional stress too. Then we had a bit of a respite before Ole had surgery on his leg. Fortunately that all went well, but it’s still stressful to go through, wondering if he’s going to end up with infections and have to be hospitalized again, as he did previously.

And of course, mixed in with all of that were all the issues caused by Dick & Jane & Alice. They’ve always got to have their two cents installed, you know.

Then we had the meatball supper at church, which somehow got dumped in my lap – and definitely not because I volunteered for it. I haven’t written about that yet – but I will soon. At this point let’s just say that there are always those who set out to cause problems and then love to criticize the outcome, but never want to take control – they just want to bitch. Their criticism and judgmental attitudes have caused great stress for me to the point where I’m about to leave the organization completely. And it’s always the same “old bags,” you know. The ones whose mantra is “But we’ve always done it THIS way.”

THEN the area south of us had 5 inches of rain over the weekend, which has now created a flooding situation for us. The river has gone up 8 feet since last Saturday, but fortunately crested last night sometime and is now on its way down. It came within 6 inches of going into our storage building. Ole was about to start emptying the building out but decided to give it a few more hours, and then the river started to go down.

Here's a few pictures of our now Lake Front Properpty. Unfortunately it doesn't increase the value of our property.






We're in the process of dealing with the federal government and the state to have a ring dike built around our property. You can't imagine the hoops you have to jump through to get all the permits to have this done. Everyone who lives along the river for many miles both upstream and downstream has to be notified and sign an approval form in order to have this done because it MIGHT impact their property. What about all the farmers who are ditching their land and making the water run faster into the river channel? They don't need OUR permissions to ditch their property and it certainly affects us. Oh well, don't get me started, okay?

So last weekend the coup de grace was added. Wikipedia defines coup de grace as “the death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature.” Well, maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, but I certainly didn’t need it. I was diagnosed with shingles. Just in case you don’t know the chicken pox virus causes shingles. If you had chicken pox when you were a kid, the virus lies dormant in your spinal column until later in life at a point when you have been under a lot of stress. At that point it chooses to raise its ugly head and BLOSSOM again. I was having a lot of pain in my shoulder and upper arm but thought it was just from overdoing stuff – you know – lifting those roasters full of meatballs at the supper, or some such thing. I visited my friendly chiropractor several times and it didn’t improve. Then the surface of my skin on my shoulder and upper arm became so sensitive it hurt to have the fabric of my flannel shirt even touch it. Since I really didn’t want to go around topless (that’s an ugly thought) I decided to go to the walk-in clinic. By this time I had started to break out in little blister-like thingies on my arm and my back. Then I knew what I was in for without the doc even telling me. You see Ole had shingles a number of years ago. There’s no cure for them, but the doc gave me a prescription for something called Valtrex, which is supposed to shorten the duration by several days. The doc told me they would last from 4 to 6 weeks but the meds would shorten the duration by 3 to 4 days. Whoopee!! He also gave me Tylenol with codeine for the pain. That only makes me want to throw up, so I’m sticking to just plain Tylenol and ibuprofen. You can’t imagine the pain – it comes in waves and is worse than labor pains.

Oh well, I’m a ScandiHOOvian. I will survive.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

My moms had shingles and wow is it painful! Many big tender softy hugs! Hubby6 told me some places up in the Northern part of the country had some snow dumped on them already. Wow!
That tree has some serious good coloring! Ours are just begining to turn.

Anonymous said...

My mom also had shingles not too long ago. We, of course, had to tease her that she had the herpes virus, which it essentially is....just not the one that gets all the bad press. Hope you are doing better soon. I know with the stress in my life, I am sure to get shingles sooner or later.

Anonymous said...

Your cup sure runneth over with the poo right now! Enough of that!!! Feel better sooner than 4 to 6 weeks minus 3 to 5 days!

Anonymous said...

OWIE.. a friend of mine from work had shingles twice already and she's only my age, stress can definately bring them on, and exasterbate them. ((tender hugs)). I hope you feel better soon.

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh. A few of my little lady customers have had the shingles and they say they are extremely painful. I wish I could take away your pain and stress. (((Hugs)))
I've got an idea. Beat the crap out of Jane. That'll make you feel better. No, wait. That'll make ME feel better. Never mind.

Love ya.

Anonymous said...

I'm feeling your pain, Lena. My summer has sucked beyond belief and now with more trouble in site. I just want to throw myself into traffic.

I'll volunteer to come up there and terrorize your little Jane and Alice. They don't know what trouble is until some crazy Croatian (decidedly unScandahoovian) opens a can of (garlic infused) whoop ass on them.

Hmph. I feel better already.