Ethan’s Journey

 Today we gathered at the in-laws and did our annual trek to Pittsford Dairy. The smell of this place alone is what holiday candles try to capture.  All the Christmas trees are stacked and placed neatly creating small walkways  which felt like you were in the Forest. We did some Christmas photos. Jiminy also had some photos taken. He did have a few people come up and pet him too. We got to see some family and honorary family members. In fact we ate dinner with most of them. It is always good to catch up with family and honorary family. We helped Nana and Papa put up their Christmas tree. We decorated it and enjoyed making a balanced tree. We had to get going because the dogs had been home alone for a very long time.  A good day was had by all.

 Happy birthday to my Mom!  She turned 25 again this year. ❤️🥰 We are always trying to eat healthy, but we do each chips, ice cream, unhealthy snacks and more. So I cleaned out my fridge of all the healthy foods and blended them together for a healthy soup. This is going to be considered my meal prep.  Turkey vegetable soup with protien pasta. No salt. Sounds gross, but I have added fresh rosemary and parsley for flavor and will add in no salt spices and seasonings. I even added avacado to the soup. Sounds gross. But it is blended into a puree and will be undetectable. It will silently lower everyone’s cholesterol. I had my trusty floor patrol waiting silently for anything to hit the ground. He also was trying to look extra cute and may have gotten a piece of turkey because of it. I am a sucker for puppy eyes. My soup looked a little bit like vomit. But I know it will taste good and will be low in calories. We headed over to the in-laws to visit. We gathered for lunch. W...

Our power went out for a bit this morning, which made me start working on Plan B for the turkey cooking. Luckily it came back on within minutes and we were all set for the rest of the day. The festivities started at 2:00.  Avery came over a litter sooner. I was not upset by this. We spent the morning joking with one another as we prepared our meal. The turkey was divine! It was cooked perfectly and fell off the bone. It sat in a brine for 24 hours and was funny hydrated prior to cooking. It was fun sharing a laugh with one another. We were victim to the prank war. My cousin Andy, planted an intermittent noise device in our house. Every so often it would make a crazy cat screaming noise. Maybe like once every 12 minutes. Definitely difficult to locate. After everyone left, I went through my shoes, coat pockets, hats and gloves to find the device. I got down on the floor to look under our shoe rack and glanced up. It was stuck to the bottom of one of the shelves on the shoe rack. Ha!...

 Today I went on YouTube and pulled up a live bird feeder cam. It was quite an active bird feeder. I had it on in the background as I worked feverishly to catch up.  Early this morning I gave our turkey a bath. I cleaned out the orifices with 7 eyeballs watching me, hoping I would just drop a turkey neck. I did not. Next on to the turkey brine. I am soaking this bird for at least 24 hours. Yum!  I put together my potatoes, chopped up my ingredients and prepared as much food as I could tonight to make tgings easy peasy while the bird is cooking. As I was winding down from work, I received an unlikely video call for help from one of my practices. It is a practice I don’t know that well. I hopped on the call and talked this person through their scenario. We then got chatting about how her daughter was at the Emergency Room last night due to a concussion. She shared how the injury was making her daughter act very differently.  Luckily her daughter is going to be fine. Th...

 I am finally getting some help with my work load. While I am not able to give up one of my regions, I am able to heavily off load it. To put it in perspective, another person on my team has 30 positions to fill and I have 94. I am thankful that our small team is so willing to help. I have been feeling especially snarky this week. I let it come out in spurts around my safe people.  Lucky them!  The ultrasound was inconclusive. I saw that coming from a mile away. I am annoyed because they want us to schedule more imaging! That is what I pushed for originally. Grrrr!   I wonder if it would be out of line to say “we will do it your way, but if we end up doing it my way because your way didn’t work….you owe me $1000.” I sometimes say this to Paul. He owes me A LOT of money. He even has a shirt that says “if at first you don’t succeed,  try doing Patti told you to do the first time.” Here’s the kicker….i didn’t buy him that shirt! Note to self. Find that shirt so Pau...

 The responsibility I carry around regarding Ethan’s medical treatment is borderline unhealthy. I am aware of it. The heart team wants to switch one of Ethan’s medication. I did a deep dive of side effects, drug interactions and found that one of Ethan’s needed supplements can lower the efficacy of this new drug and possibly the history of rejection medications. I reached out to the heart team and asked if we should be worried about this or take a “wait and see” approach. I then felt like a jerk questioning this even though I couldn’t in good conscience not ask. I asked out of curiosity instead of judgement, which helps diffuse any potential for someone to become defensive and focus more on that than the issue at hand. I did put in my communication “if I am worrying too much about this, it is ok to tell me to take a hike!” To poke fun at my anxiety. We have come too far . I just can’t stop. I love the heart team. I think they do a phenomenal job. But…..I need to read and dive into ...

 Today was supposed to be a day of cleaning and preparation for the Thanksgiving festivities. I was able to complete a few things but the day was mostly spent outside. Today was wire/electricity day for the barn. Paul rented a trencher to dig the trench for the wire to sit. My cousin, Andy, graciously donated his time doing not so fun things. It was cold, it sprinkled a little and the work did not make the body feel good. Ethan, myself, Andy and Paul were able to get it done. Tomorrow is the inspection. The trencher got stuck at one point, so Paul had to hook it up to the tracker and use the tractor to keep things moving. I was running the trencher. I couldn’t go too fast or it would good up the depth of the trench and possible impede us passing inspection tomorrow. Ethan was a trooper. He stayed out the whole time as well. He was exerting himself. He was VERY tired at the end. I took about 5 hours of bending, lifting, pushing and pulling. I also was exhausted.  Paul stayed ou...

 I look back on the past 5 years and am thankful. Things have come a long way. We are in a stable place today. Tomorrow is a whole new day and we will deal with it then. I think of Colie’s family. While we are celebrating Ethan’s success, they are longing for their daughter, sister, friend…wishing they could give one last hug to her. Without Colie, there would be no Ethan. She is the engine of Ethan’s body.  I made a special dinner and cake for Ethan. Fun-getting cake with lemon frosting. Yum. Ethan spent the evening online with a couple buddies playing a game together. I could hear them laughing and “yucking it up”. He is doing 22 year old activities and is normalish. It feels good to hear that. I had an adult sleep over last night. This should be a normalized activity for adults. We had so much fun. We both wake up early so we chatted over coffee for a few hours this morning. Then I was off to pick up my groceries. I stopped at 5 stores and was done in less than an hour. Eth...

It is Friday!!!!! Yay! My plans this evening were to go to my Sarah’s daughter’s high school play. It was snoopy. I love Snoopy. The play was amazing. The amount of work these kids put in was evident. The main character’s were Charlie Brown, Lucy, Sally, Linus and Schroeder and of course, Snoopy. Sarah’s daughter was Snoopy. They took all the things I looked forward to watching this cartoon, and highlighted them.  Snoopy’s red Baron skit, Lucy’s 5 cent psychiatric help booth, and even Snoopy being silly. I was very proud of all of them. Probably one of my most favorite plays that I have seen. It was nice to see many students in the audience, supporting their classmates. Afterward it was interesting to watch the groups migrate toward each other. Afterward, I invited myself to spend the night at Sarah’s house. We had McDonald’s and High Noons, spending the evening watching HGTV and chatting away. It was a nice way to end a stressful week.

 Paul and I worked on getting things in order for adding utilities to the building. Paul plans to trench and lay the electrical cable with some help. Ethan plans to help with placing wire inside the conduit and putting it in the trench.  I did a presentation today for some vet tech students. There was an issue with my notes getting erased when a coworker re-branded the presentation. I just flew by the seat of my pants for an hour. I am feeling exhausted. Maybe it is a byproduct of donating blood? Maybe my brain hurts from thinking all week. Off to bed to recharge my batteries.

 This morning’s coffee reading material…..Zombie Ant Fungus. There is a type of ant (Camponotini tribe) that can get infected with this fungus. Once the ant is infected, it leaves the tribe, family and friends goes down to the floor of the rain forest where it is ideal for fungus to grow. It bites the underside of a leaf and then dies from the fungal infection. It can take 4-10 days for death to occur. What? Their brains are hijacked! The fungus then starts growing out of the ants HEAD and releases spores to infect more ants. The cool thing is that it can hijack other fungus’s so that these ant tribes aren’t wiped out completely. That’s wild! Science is cool! The funniest part is that Monday night I had a dream that I attended a live demonstration of how ants help the eco system. I was so enthralled with how strong they are and how they eliminate dead things from the environment. Now this pops up. I think I am being hijacked by ants. Time to get a tin foil hat. I am sure that will ...

 The frustration level for work is at threat level midnight! (That’s a lot!) My heart was feeling a little sad because I like helping people. I don’t feel fulfilled right now at my job because of the software limitations. I constantly feel like I am letting someone down for reasons beyond my control. I got mad this morning at this situation. I was mad at feeling like my hands were tied and I wasn’t able to help which I normally get joy from. Anyone who knows me knows that anger is not a good look for me. I decided to kick my anger in the crotch! I don’t like it! So I decided to do something that helps society. I made an appointment to donate blood. I will NOT be controlled by anger and frustration from a job. I don’t have room for that in my life! Ha! Take that anger!!!! I donated and I felt joy. Today is Jiminy’s 4 th birthday! Four years ago this world became a better place simply by him being born. He is so perfect and loved. 🥰 He brings joy to all that meet him.  We had o...

 I have a tittynope of patience left for this Monday! More glitches with the work software. Today’s glitches involved  creating offer letters, seeing candidate that applied and anything else directly related to my job. I have submitted an IOU to the swear jar. I may need to take out a loan to covers today’s fines. Ha! I put in a solid 12 hours. My brain hurts. I am mentally exhausted. Who knew thinking could be so tiring? I tried to come up with some good bright sides from today. I thought about it longer than I should have. This is what I came up with: it is almost time for bed. It is still a bright side, so I am going to count it. Let’s be honest, I made the rules for this exercise, today is not the day I am going to be a stickler with my own exercise. Paul also had an equally frustrating, very Mondayish Monday. Neither one of us have anything good to say. We were each other’s venting buddy by text and with 5 phone calls.  Typically our correspondence during the day is ...

 A friend sent me a new term to use. I am going to try and use it at Thanksgiving dinner. “Oh look, there is only a tittynope of turkey left.” How fun!  When I got to Walmart on a weekend, the plonkers in the aisles leave with a tittynope of patience. Words are fun. Especially when your maturity level has not reached adulthood yet.  I enjoy learning new words. Yup…..that is something a nerd would say. Guilty! I didn’t open my laptop today. I know I will not love that decision tomorrow. But I needed a break. I start interviews at 7 am tomorrow. I was mentally dull today. I didn’t do a whole lot of thinking. I recharged.  Jiminy went on a field trip with Avery and Kendall for dinner. They stopped by and grabbed Jiminy and Jim got to meet some of Kendall’s family. I am sure Jiminy loved the snuggles and warm laps. Jiminy started his own Instagram page today. He is pretty technologically savvy! If you want to see cute Jiminy pics, he is at Jiminy the Chihuahua.

I woke up with a tension headache. I have had this headache for about a week. It is annoying but this morning it was making me a little nauseous. I was up around 5:30 and the house was quiet. Everyone was sleeping except for me. I sat in the dark with my eyes closed sipping some ginger water and feeling sorry for myself. Then I got mad. I was mad at my work situation. I do enjoy my job, however the stupid new system was a mess and I needed to do manual audits on 84 jobs. Each job audit takes about 5-10 minutes to make sure all the information is correct. I just need time set aside when I am not bombarded with questions from people within the organization. I decided this weekend I am going to put a dent in it. This will help the lingering stress of it just dangling over me and transforming into a tight band around my skull. Not really the way I want to spend a weekend, but I am sick of this damn headache! Almost as soon as I made the decision, my headache started to subside. Stress is a...

 One of Ethan’s favorite nurses arrived today with her daughter to explore SUNY Brockport tomorrow.  Avery and Kendall stopped by and we went out to dinner all 7 of us. We tried a new restaurant. It was kind of noisy (says the introvert) and they didn’t have a drink menu. Their solution was to have me go look at the drinks at the bar to see what I could order. Not a great first impression.  The food was good, the company was good. The staff was nice and did a decent job taking care of our needs. Avery and Kendall are always fun to be around. I enjoy their perspective. They were sharing their experience with SUNY Brockport. They gave a fairly accurate account of demographics, culture and accounts of people within different curriculums and how they typically behave. Ethan showed his nurse his projects in the garage he has been working on. He chatted for a while in the garage with them. She put a lot of work into this kid to get him to the point where he could start doing th...

 Excitement is in the air waiting for Ethan’s favorite nurse to arrive tomorrow. Ethan even picked up some car parts that have been sitting on the chair for months.  I had a much better day today now that my work buddy helped me catch up on some things. I am still far behind but I am only one person. I have a physical therapy appointment first thing in the morning. Now that it is dark out and chilly early in the morning, I am not looking forward to it.  I called myself a Plonker for scheduling it so early. Ha! I felt exhausted this afternoon. I have been very focused on trying to get as much done as possible. I think my brain is just tired. Brain exhaustion….it will help me sleep well.

 Plonker! That is a new word I learned today. It is a British term for someone who is stupid. I might adopt this word. It made me laugh. I asked Paul if he had heard the word “plonker” or knew what it meant.  He tried to use it in a sentence and he guessed the meaning.  Me “have you heard of the word Plonker? Can you use it in a sentence?” Paul thought carefully and after a few seconds replied “I have to take a huge Plonker?” He said it with an upward inflection like he was asking a question. “Ewwwww!” I laughed out-loud. I guess it could mean two things. I shared the meaning and we laughed. I needed the laugh.  Today was a radioactive dumpster fire. This new software change has gone horribly wrong. So many things went poorly with information transfer. At the very least it has been VERY frustrating and counter productive. It is causing so much extra work and I currently have almost a record high job count. This is the worst. I mostly said a lot of swear words today. ...

Happy Veteran’s Day! Thank you to all the men, women and animals that serve our country! Hero’s! We appreciate you!   I took today “off”. Thank goodness. I did pop onto my commuter at various times throughout the day to deal with little fires before they become big fires. Paul and I enjoyed coffee together. We chatted and put plans together for moving forward with the building. We are consulting our soon to be tenant about the way we should do certain things. It was fun. I was drawing things out for ideas for how things will be placed. I spent the day doing a deep clean on the house. Ethan’s room was a focus. I know what you are thinking….why are you cleaning your adult son’s bedroom? Depression is an odd disease/disorder. I think there is a bit of messiness that Ethan was born with. A little bit of a chaotic brain that leads him going from one project to the next.  Ethan sometimes struggles with cleaning in general as well as tidiness/ organization. Sometimes he has to c...

 I got a call early this morning from my “pen pal” at the pediatrician’s office. My kids still go to the pediatrician because they also see adults too. That is kind of cool because the staff that has been there a long time know them.  This lady and I have spoken at least a dozen times over the past 10 days. She called to let me know that she scheduled Ethan’s ultrasound for his mass. It’s in about 2 weeks. Yay! Cross that off the list.  Paul was home today because he got the day off. It was nice having him here, drinking our coffee and watching the snow falling from the sky. I was thankful I didn’t have to drive in it. I said lots of bad words to myself today as myself, my coworkers and the people hiring the candidates we send, were as useful as fish out of water. Thinks are still “broken” and we are having to find ways to bypass and outsmart the system.  I tried to do a couple of kind things for others this afternoon. It helped me feel better about my work situation...

 Today was a chores day. Dusted, washed bedding, made a trip to see Avery and Kendall briefly. I showered love on my grandkitten. As I was leaving their complex, the snow was falling. As I drove out, a very large tree tipped over and came crashing down. It wasn’t in danger of hitting me, but I had a front row seat. That was kind of cool. Ethan went to visit a friend that lives out of the area but is here visiting. He was excited to see this friend. Because it is snowing now, Ethan will not be able to drive the Supra tomorrow. He is taking my van. He is not excited to drive it. I tried to convince him how “cool” he will look in a mini van. He was not buying it. Ha! Tomorrow will be a shit show at work no matter what. I don’t like not knowing. I want to just know all the things without having to learn  it. Is that too much to ask? However, I plan to learn this stuff and navigate it flawlessly soon.

 I woke up to three, 22 year old men in my house. They gathered around the table and I put out muffins and doughnuts. I made one special yummy coffee with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and peppermint flakes. We chatted for about a half hour and I was in pure bliss. I heard about the one friend’s family drama. I decided I was a pretty good mom compared to the crap this kid went through. Turns out this lady had multiple kids with multiple men and custody of none. Never a good sign. I went to work and was able to help a patient by getting information together and direct them how to get into a specialist the quickest way. I felt good about helping them. I felt frustrated for them watching their painful pet. I hope it gets seen quickly for everyone’s sake. The owners were feeling rather helpless and just wanted to make their friend comfortable. After work I had lunch with a friend. We saw a man parading around our little town in a turkey outfit.  He was spreading joy and cheer. He...

 I am so glad it is Friday! I have about had it with trying to keep up. The girl I am covering for this week is back next week, thank god! I got so far behind. SOOO FAR! The dogs were cracking me up with their early morning napping session. They kept having to change positions.  Lazy coworkers! I met Ethan at the doctor’s office. His primary care wants to start with an ultrasound sound because it feels soft. She was also worried about contrast with a MRI or CT scan. At Ethan’s last CT (and MRI) they do a quick test and have a rule of thumb that if the GFR (kidney value) is above 30. Ethan’s is currently up at 44.  I was pushing to skip the ultrasound but she wanted to be cautious of his kidney. I was more thinking about getting him to agree to more testing after the ultrasound. He doesn’t like missing work, now he may have to have a mother appointment. She said “if it’s just a lipoma we won’t need to do more imaging.” “Since it is causing nerve pain, we will likely either...

 My work is still having issues with the new software. We are just limping along and it is not ideal.  Ethan is feeling a little better each day. His cough is gone, his voice is pretty much back to normal. Yay! I have been feeling a small bit of worry about this mass. It’s on my mind. I know there is nothing gained from worry. We will deal with the issue head on and keep moving forward. But the worry is there, kind of hovering. I try to ignore it but it is quite obvious and unwelcome. I have in my mind what I would want this mass to be if I had a choice. I hope it’s a begin lipoma or something simple. Ethan doesn’t usually medically do “simple”, so we will see. I worked at the vet office tonight. I go back again on Saturday morning. My entire day Saturday will be socializing and not doing any adult chores. Yay! For the record, I do consider time at the vet office “socializing” even though we are all working. I get to pet and love the animals.  There was a beautiful older ...

 No luck on just an order for the CT scan for Ethan. I did set up an exam for Friday. He has been having pain in his left arm and shoulder blade that he thought it could be due to the fistula or stroke. He also thought it could be due to just a knot in his back….or tight muscle. He does feel something which is likely the mass that was seen on the x-ray. Once it is felt and seen, the order can be put in. I am going to inquire is a CT scan or MRI would be better to see what we are dealing with.  What was a simple visit for pneumonia (sarcasm) has really snowballed for him. Geez! No wonder he feels like life kicks him down sometimes. I keep telling him to kick his hell in the balls. Keep moving forward and show this life who is boss! Here is the good news. We are seeing positive change with his kidney values with the medication change so that is good news. It’s slight but in the right direction at least. I know that makes him feel a little better. The antibiotics are making a pos...

 Ahhhhhhh the benefits of antibiotics. Ethan started his today. I reached out to his GP doctor to see if we can just get an order for a CT scan for that mass on Ethan’s spine. I didn’t hear anything back. I also send over all the communication from Urgent Care to keep the transplant team updated. I also had them verify the dose of antibiotics to make sure it was in line with what would be safe for Ethan. At work, our new software launches tomorrow. We had some trial runs of things just to get acclimated. Many things didn’t seem to work as they should. It caused a lot of frustration. We were also told that the importing between softwares didn’t go well and it was going to cause a delay. Fantastic. By fantastic….i really mean…this sucks. While I do not look forward to the day tomorrow will bring, I want to just get this week over with.  Ethan shared he is having his buddies spend the night on Friday so that they can go to JNK day together. JNK day is full of engines, cars, dirt ...

 I recently hung up a sign at the vet office saying that I can potentially help cover shifts. When my kids were little my co-worker at the time always worked late so I could spend time with my kids and put them to bed. I always appreciated it and felt that she was ALWAYS stuck with the short end of the stick.  I can never repay that kindness but I can pay it forward. This industry is a majority of women trying to balance being a Mom and working. That is hard. If I can make it a little easier on someone, I am happy to pass along that kindness. It makes me feel good to do so. Plus, I am not overly social. I consider this “killing two birds with one stone” being social as well. Ethan decided that he should be re-evaluated with a chest X-ray. I am proud of him that he is taking this seriously. He has started coughing. I got a plan of medications that are safe to use from the transplant team in case things have changed enough to warrant medications. We got to the office and waited ...

 I have the funk Ethan has. Scratchy throat, plugged ears, tired. Boo! I have removed myself from society as this will not be passed to anyone else. I missed an afternoon with friends today, but decided I would be selfish if I hung out and got everyone sick.  Instead I took it easy and did lots of hydration and more resting than usual. I did feel accomplished that I was able to trim all 4 dogs toe nails, grind them down with a dremel (except Moe) and give everyone a bath. Phew. Ethan has started coughing. Currently it is a dry cough. I suspect it will develop into a productive cough in a day or two. I am glad we went to urgent care and got a baseline x-ray. I was able to meet with my two travel buddies and we booked our hotel and hopper flight for Stockholm. Yay!  Heading to bed “early” even though it is actually on time…but daylight savings is trying to trick us.

 We got to the lab early and didn’t have to wait too long! Win!   We had enough time to grab a breakfast sandwich and then head in to Urgent Care. I had Ethan’s print out of medications ready.  We headed in early because it takes so long to go over his medical history.  He earned a flu and Covid test that they process right on site. Basically it involves scraping the frontal lobe of the brain. Not really but they inserted the swab pretty far. His lungs were clear but I advocated for chest x-ray just because Ethan doesn’t behave medically. The staff was super accommodating and efficient.  The X-ray lady came in and shared how her son had a brain injury and medical difficulty. Her son is 23. He has had very similar hardships to Ethan. She was great. The X-ray came back and the nurse practitioner said she could see where he had broken ribs in the past. We deducted this was a side effect of cpr. We are still learning about medical things that happened. It adds to th...