Let it Snow!

Finally! Snow in the forecast for the next several days!

Looking forward to patrolling and snowboarding this weekend.

With surgery only 17 days away my days of playing in the snow are numbered.

Sunny Snow

Patrolling yesterday felt GOOD. Blue skies, sunshine and temps in the mid 40s - perfection.

I saw a lot of the blue sky yesterday, from a prone position on the snow. My excitement, combined with rusty skills, turned me into an unwilling acrobat several times.

This morning, muscles I forgot I had are SCREAMING with every move I make.

The familiarity of the hill, seeing old friends and meeting new, it felt GOOD to be home again.

Carving Snow

Up early and ready to take on the snow for the first time this season. Woooot! When I went to bed last night I was feeling neutral about getting up at the crack of o'-dark-hundred, loading up my patrol gear and hitting the road for the hill. Right now however, I am GEEEEEEEKED!

There is fresh, crisp snow to carve today. I can hear the sound of my snowboard dropping onto the first run, the cool air on my face, and laughing myself silly as I float down the hill.

Time to go!

Surprises

Well, I just received word that the Patrol Director of the ski patrol I have belonged to for so long, believes that I am a good patroller and doesn't want to lose me so the roster will be amended and sent in to the main office with my name on it.

If I could right now, while at work, I would cry...

Waiting

For almost ten years I have looked forward to and counted on only two things: snow and ski patrol. 

Unlike anything else in my current life like my husband, family, friends, waking up, sunrise or sunset, these were THE two things in my life that I KNEW for certain would happen. They were the two things I lived and breathed for year 'round.

Currently I do not belong to any ski patrol - so I don't give a shit about the snow.

So, the two things I had loved most in my currently fucked up life, the two things I knew would happen when winter rolled around, are gone.

That's okay though because I can continue to do what I do best - sleep my life away.

Coming Undone

My life is so far out of balance it's all I can do to prevent myself from going completely under. I'm stretched thin with the commitments I've made -- yet that's not how it started out.

Back in December, when the Ski Patrol Director called me and asked me if I was still interested in becoming part of the ski patrol, I didn't hesitate to say yes. With the exception of my marriage being in complete turmoil and my job, I had nothing else going on. Then my health issue multiplied exponentially, Hunter had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital and my marriage continued to suck.

Then the snowboarding season ended and I had a few months of downtime from the ski patrol before starting the Outdoor Emergency Care portion in April.

Now, between attending classes two nights a week, self-study the rest of the week, visiting Hunter because he's still in the hospital, working at a job I love, watching my health continue to deteriorate, and trying to give CPR to my marriage, I am stick-a-fork-in-me-done.

Perfect example: last week were mid-terms. We had a written exam and four scenarios we had to pass in order for the instructors to know we are not complete idiots. (Apparently 90% of our class failed.) The scenarios included a deep laceration of a forearm, a man needing CPR/AED surrounded by live electrical wires, a broken wrist and a dislocated shoulder. In order to pass the scenarios, the instructors have a checklist of things that need to be done and said -- most of it in a specific order.

(The mid-term does not count toward our "grade", it was just a sanity check.)

I failed all of them, except one. I also failed the written portion of the exam. I feel like a big idiot. So many pieces of the scenarios we had to participate in are things I do everyday at my job.

----------> Bang Head Here <----------

I am thisclose to quitting this class and taking it again next year. Except if I do that, I have to wait another year for the coveted red parka.

Ugh!

My adrenalin and nervousness, if measured, would have been pretty close to the moon. No wonder I failed.

Happy New Year?

I wish that ~ more than anything ~ this year will be a happy year. So far it's not looking very good.

I have been loathing sitting down and adding a new entry to my blog. Until a few moments ago, literally, I couldn't put my finger on the reason why. It finally occurred to me that I am afraid of the tears.

I am not scared of the tears themselves, rather I am terrified of the emotions that are bottled up behind them. The emotions are raw, potent and deep and what bubbles to the surface now and again rock me to my core.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Hunter ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Today we went to court with Hunter regarding his assault and battery charges. In addition to a woman from Child Protective Services following us, Hunter now has a Probation Officer. In exchange for a guilty plea (which we planned all along because Hunter admits what he did), of the three cases pending, totaling six people assaulted, two of the cases (five people) were dismissed. The remaining case/charge is against his teacher.

How did CPS become involved you ask? Well, right before Christmas Hunter pulled a knife on his stepbrother with every intent on killing him. (Henry intervened.) I was asleep at the time of the incident and woke up the next morning to find a very large knife laying on a table near my side of the bed.

I was furious.

When I woke Hunter for school the next morning I bombarded him with questions and statements. "What were you thinking?!", "Do you have any idea what will happen to you if you kill somebody?!" On and on I went.

Up until that moment Hunter had never seen me so livid and I think at first it surprised him. I pushed (verbally) too far and Hunter became frustrated. When he becomes frustrated he gets angry, when he gets angry he becomes violent. When he walked away from me and descended the stairs to the first floor bathroom, I was right on his heels.

As I moved to grab his arm, a quick succession of punches were sent in my direction, landing in various places on my body. I fought back. That is until Hunter grabbed and tangled his one hand in my very long hair. Our bodies were so close together that the only body part of his exposed to me was an arm, so I bit him. HARD. By this time my stepson, Jake, had intervened and had Hunter pinned up against the bathroom mirror and Hunter let go of my hair.

When I retreated upstairs I heard Jake talking to Hunter and Hunter calmed down enough to finish preparing for school. Shortly after, and still shaking, I left for work and Hunter left for school.

Later that afternoon I received a call from the school nurse, someone who has known Hunter and our family since he was in kindergarten. She started off by saying she and the staff at his former elementary school and current junior high school were behind Henry and me 100%. She said everyone knows we are great parents and that we are totally involved with helping Hunter and that it hasn't been an easy road.

Then came the "but"...the teacher noticed the bite mark on his arm and they were required to report it to either CPS or the police and which one did I want them to turn to? I told her to call CPS because the police would defer us to them and it would just eliminate the monkey-in-the-middle.

So that's how CPS became involved in our lives. Although I don't *dislike* the CPS worker, she does have a tendency to annoy me greatly with her idiosyncrasies.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Relationships ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The stress of all things Hunter are more than enough for me. Unfortunately, on top of that, my relationship with my husband hasn't been what it used to be, although very recently, it has slightly improved.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Health ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

My health is still not the best and more issues have arisen that, in addition to their own set of symptoms, only exacerbate the tiredness and fatigue I already feel from the diseases we already knew about.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Activities ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

One thing I am fighting hard for is to stay active and not let the tiredness and fatigue cause me to sleep my life away.

I recently began training for the National Ski Patrol ~ even though I'm a snowboarder ~ at one of our local ski areas. Currently it's on-hill training, twice a week, (plus one duty shift a week) and it totally wears me out. Yet I LOVE the exhilarated feeling I get when I'm learning a new skill and I finally accomplish it, or I'm just free-styling wide-open down the hill.

Being outside ~ and in the cool air ~ is a bonus!

I am still viciously determined that 2010 be a much better year than 2009.

Only time will tell...

Snowboarding!

Yup! The 2008-09 season has begun!

Today Henry, Jake, Ed (Jake's friend), Hunter and I kicked off the season at one of our favorite hills.

Man did it feel awesome to strap the board on and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine!

Had it not been for a young punk having no control over his 'board, I would have made it through the day without falling on my butt. As I looked over my left shoulder and moved in the same direction, I caught the kid out of the corner of my eye just before his 'board slid across the top of mine, between my legs, and his momentum propelled both of us into the air, then flat on our backs.

Neither of us liked the position we were in but the young'un was so freaked out he immediately began to extricate himself, which twisted the lower half of my body as though it wasn't connected heartily to the top half. I finally managed to get him to stop and in a couple of movements I had us separated from each other with my body fully intact.

Travis

Went snowboarding today with my step-son's snowboard club. Perfectly beautiful day -- blue skies, sunshine, around 28 degrees. Snow was mostly fluffy and made for carving. The fresh air felt good.

Around 5:00 PM I was standing near one of the lifts, strapping on my snowboard when I saw a ski patrolman on a snowmobile pulling a litter with a young kid in a c-collar and a second ski patrolman sitting on top of him. At first glance of the kid in the basket, kicking, flailing and screaming, I thought it was my step-son, Jake. I quickly released my bindings and raced after the trio.

Just as the snowmobile came to a stop at the First Aid station, the kid in the basket managed to knock the ski patrolman off of him and into the snow. Several other ski patrolmen and women descended and scooped up the kid on the backboard and onto a stretcher and carried him inside the building. I finally had a good look at the kid's face and was relieved to discover it wasn't Jake.

My next question was whether or not this hysterical kid was part of our snowboard group.

The only information the ski patrolmen who responded to the accident had was that the kids name was Travis. So I walked up to the stretcher, right next to Travis' head, and started quietly talking to him. I put my hands over his, helping staff hold him down, but continued talking softly to him. I explained all of the things going on around him, the O2 meter, blood pressure and heart rate. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he went quiet. One of the staff asked if I was his mother and I said "not his, but I am a mom" and I stroked Travis' forehead.

One of the paramedics pulled out his light and directed the beam at each of Travis' eyes. I know enough to know that what we saw in Travis' eyes was NOT good. I also knew that his combative behavior was another clear indicator that Travis had a very, very serious head injury.

Travis came around again, screaming for us to let him up and trying to kick the straps holding his legs down, loose. I started talking to him again, telling him I knew it wasn't any fun being tied down and asking him questions -- wanting desperately to know that he heard me, could process the questions and give me answers.

Travis was able to tell me his grade (freshman) and his school (not ours) then his eyes rolled up again and he went limp. The paramedics took advantage of the opportunity to start an IV and I continued talking directly to Travis about the pinch he would feel and how his arm may feel cold once the fluid started flowing into him.

He started screaming and flailing again just after the IV was started and then fell silent once again. By then the ambulance had arrived and because I was still holding Travis' hands, I walked with them and helped load him inside.

So, tonight, there is a young man -- a teenager! -- in a hospital. And tonight there is a mother and a father standing by his bed praying that everything will turn out all right, wondering if their lives will ever be the same.

Little do they -- or Travis -- know that something so simple, so easily obtained and utilized, could have made all the difference in the world.

A helmet.



P.S.

After Travis was gone I spotted the young girl who had brought Travis' snowboard to the First Aid station and stopped to talk to her. She didn't know Travis but saw what happened. She asked me if I saw him hitting the ski patrolman and I told her I did and explained that combative behavior is a common sign of a very serious head injury.

Apparently Travis was trying to do a back flip off of a jump in the terrain park (against park rules) and landed on his head. My step-son, Jake, and two of his school buddies saw the accident, too.

A little while later I was standing near a chairlift and overheard a small group of kids talking about an earlier accident and giggling nervously so I asked if they were talking about Travis and they said they were. They are also good friends with Travis.

Tumbling

2007, so far, has been pretty rough for me. I started a medical leave in November that ended February 1st. In January, I started the year off with surgery to implant the VNS therapy device. On St. Patrick's Day, I broke my left elbow snowboarding. I spent Easter weekend in the hospital hooked up to an IV that pumped heavy duty antibiotics into my body to treat a nasty staph infection. I know somewhere in there is a lesson or two, but I can't see them.

I'm frustrated. I'm tired. I'm a little cranky. I feel useless. I work, I come home, I sleep. I wake up and do it all over again. My beautiful husband and I seem to be on different planets. My life has become a blurred, exhausted mess. I have not said "I feel good" since before I broke my arm. Which, by the way, irritates the beejeezus out of me. The type of fracture I have -- of the radial head -- does not require casting. The orthoped wants me to use my arm as much as possible but I have found that it's pretty useless for doing anything really important. I can't hang my purse from it or extend it all the way. Just recently I have been able to touch my lips with my fingers without tearing up from the pain.

I think I will ask my VNS doc to dial my device back two notches (from 1.5 mAmps to 1.0 mAmps) -- which is where I was before I broke my arm. I distinctly remember snowboarding down the hill of our local haunt and saying to myself "I feel GOOD!". Right now, I don't feel good. I don't know how much of it is because of the massive, raging staph infection I've been fighting for the past two-and-a-half weeks or if it has to do with VNS?

The picture on the left is of the island located in the center of the little town I grew up in. Just beyond the bridge, on the right, is the last house my grandparents lived in. Of course you can't see it, but I know it's there. I have very fond memories of that house and everything it stood for. Still stands for. The smells of my Grandmother's southern cooking and Timeless perfume. The smell of my Granddaddy's pipe, the sounds of Lawrence Welk in the background. Granddaddy died in July, 1985 -- 52 years and a few days after he pledged to love Grandmother "'til death do us part". She continuted to live in that house until around 2000 when she moved to an assisted living facility. I spent a lot of time in that house with her looking out over the river in that picture.

I turn 40 next month and I've been feeling a little nostalgic? Sentimental? I can't quite put my finger on what is going on in my head. In all honesty, I'm not afraid of the big four-oh, there is just some. thing. Kind of gnawing at me. Furrowing my brow.

I feel the need to reach out to people in my past. To tell them how much their time in my life meant to me and how much I appreciate all they did for me. For instance, one of my dad's old girlfriends. I know, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, but she was an important part of my life at one time. So last week I Google'd the name of one of her son's -- a VERY unique name -- and sent him an email. He quickly responded and gave me her phone number. I haven't called her yet because I don't want to intrude on her life. I just want to say "thank you" to her.

Thank you for being my friend.

Season Finale

I finished the snowboarding season last Saturday with a "snap". Of my left arm. My husband, stepson and I drove up to Boyne Highlands the night before (upper-lower-Michigan). This was going to be our last hurrah. My husband and I had visited their sister resort Boyne last year with similar results.

It was my second run of the day. My husband and stepson took a different route down the hill so I was all alone when I fell. I wasn't going very fast, having just come from a small trail onto a larger open space. I feel backward with my left arm extended behind me. I actually heard the 'snap'. I sat on the slope for a few minutes, cradling my arm, trying to figure out how I was going to get to the bottom. There was still quite a bit of hill left to travel.

Snowboarding it would have been the fastest way and I had a fleeting thought that things couldn't get much worse if I fell again. Instead, I released my boots from the bindings, grabbed my board and walked down. Crying into my goggles the whole way.

I spotted my husband and stepson going up on the lift so I dropped my board and dramatically pointed to my left arm. I kept looking around me for a ski patrol but it wasn't until I was at the bottom near the lift line that I finally spotted two of them. I called out "Ski Patrol" but they kept moving away from me. I tried again and finally caught the attention of one of them.

They snapped out of their skis as I was telling them I think I broke my arm. Soon I had several Ski Patrol around me and they braced my arm while we waited for my husband to come down the hill. I got a quick ride on a snowmobile to the Ski Patrol office while my husband made contact with my stepson to tell him we were going to the emergency room and to get our Jeep from the lodge parking lot. Deep breathing is not just for childbirth anymore!

Every year the Boyne resorts have what is known as "Krazy Days" around St. Patrick's Day. According to the ER docs/nurses, I was the first casualty of 2007's annual festivities. It was only 11 o'clock in the morning.

When I got into the exam room I had a whole team of people descend upon me. Cutting off the sling and split, sliding me out of my coat, two shirts and bra in what seemed like one fell swoop.

Soon I was sitting there in a hospital gown with a guy inserting an IV in my right arm so they could give me some painkillers. Yeah me! Once the happy drugs started flowing my pain went from a solid 10 to a solid 8.

Then came the x-rays. The verdict? I broke the radial head at my elbow. It is quite painful to try to rotate my hand face up/face down. I also am not able to bend or flex it completely without tremendous amount of pain. So the good looking ER doc half casted me from knuckles to above my elbow and told me to follow up with an orthopaedic surgeon in the next few days.

After stopping to fill a script for more pain killers and lunch, we returned to the resort. I ate, took drugs and lay down for the rest of the day. My husband caught up with his son and they finished the day snowboarding. The next day the two of them bought a four hour pass and headed for the hills while I headed for bed. I was completely miserable and the pain killers were doing very little to help.

On Tuesday I saw my primary care physician to get a referral to an orthopaedic dude. I sat in the overheated room forever before the she-doc came in. The first thing she did was unwrap my arm and start pushing in places that really hurt. She said she wanted a few more x-rays so I sat there, arm unwrapped, completely miserable for another eternity.

Finally someone took me down for more x-rays then returned me to the hot room. My husband was sitting in the waiting room this whole time because he thought it would be a simple "get the referral and go" appointment.

Forever later the nurses aid, not a nurse, mind you, a nurses aid, came in and said they were making my referral appointment up front and to check out. She handed me the x-rays (so now I was holding two complete sets of x-rays) and told me to go up front. Nobody bothered to re-wrap my broken arm before shooing me out of the office. She did, at the last second, give me a bag to carry everything in.

When I summoned my husband from the waiting room he started laughing because here I was holding two sets of x-rays, a plastic bag, a half cast and miles of ACE bandages. All we could do was shake our heads and laugh. The first thing we did when we got in the Jeep was wrap everything back up again. The soonest I could get into the Orthopaedic guy was Thursday. Yippee. The PCP did give me more pain killers though.

So yesterday my husband drives me to the Ortho guy. We get led back to a large room with floor to ceiling walls between each table in front of or behind you. You can see the other patient on your left or right. So we sat and waited while the little girl next to us got her wrist cast hacked off. The ortho guy did MORE x-rays and came to the same conclusion as the ER doc up north that I broke the radial head.

And, oh, by the way, this is not a type of fracture we cast. It's best if you use your arm and do some exercises. My husband and I looked at each other, yet again, and laughed. I have a broken arm BUT they don't cast it. Geez. So, once again, I left a doctors office with a broken and completely naked left arm. The first thing my husband and I did when we got in the Jeep was re-splint it.

On the upside, I did take my splint off when we got home from the Ortho doctor and I have been icing it and using it as much as I can stand it. Which isn't much.

Snow Rash

Saturday, my husband and I took three of our four boys snowboarding/skiing. I was feeling pretty good so I dusted the cobwebs off my snowboard and off we went. (My husband and three of my four boys snowboard, my oldest son skis and I can do both.)

I took up snowboarding late last season so I was looking forward to refreshing my memory of just how sore a body can get after four hours on it. I was not disappointed. Actually, I (and hubby said so, too) did much better than I thought I would and had a GREAT time! (Hunter, my ten-year old and I stayed on the bunny hills while my husband and two boys went to the difficult hills.)

Snowboarding is really not as easy as it looks; just in case you ever thought it did. It is quite literally a balancing act. If you lean too far forward (dig your toes in) or too far back (dig your heels in) and you'll fall in that particular direction. And to add insult to injury, whichever body part hurts the worst is inevitably the part of your body that you will land on. Last season it was my right hip/buttock and tailbone. I sported a huge dark purple bruise long after the season ended. I had to cancel modeling in two fashion shows because I could barely walk!

Hunter and I headed to the smallest bunny hill first. There is a "magic carpet" (it's like a people mover in some airports, you just stand on it) that gets you to the top of the hill so we hopped on. At the top of the hill we sat down to strap our boards on. Once we were strapped in it was time to flip our boards and our bodies over so we are laying face down on the hill. From there you dig the toe edge of the board in the snow and stand up. With a couple little hip shimmies I got the board moving. I had nice balance and was still standing when I reached the bottom. So far so good. I took one more ride down the ultra-baby-bunny hill and Hunter and I moved to the next larger (but still a bunny) hill. The cool thing about this is the magic carpet goes much further than the other hill so we will have a longer ride down.

So Hunter and I get to the top of the next hill, strap our feet to the boards and off we go. I wasn't doing anything fancy yet. I'm still a little nervous about getting my left shoulder (where the VNS device is) jerked too far backward if I were to fall. There is only so much electrical cord between the device and the vagus nerve in my neck and I don't want to jerk anything loose.

Hunter and kept with the easy stuff for a little while and when my husband showed up to check on us I wanted him to help me turn around. Up until this point I had been going down the hill either on my toes (toes dug in, facing up the hill) or with my left foot pointed down the hill. Last year I started to learn how to turn around so I can dig in my heels and slide facing down hill. I was ready for my husband to guide me through trying it again.

It's tricky to do because you left foot point the board down the hill. With the right foot, you dig the toe edge of the board in then, while starting down the hill, you dig your heel edge in and pop your right foot around. So far so good. Except the second time I tried that I turned all the way around so I was facing back up the hill and I.fell.flat.on.my.face. Thus resulting in "snow rash". I fell pretty hard smacking my nose and chin on the snow. I immediately cupped snow in my hands and put it up to my face. When I removed it there was blood. I thought it was from my nose but it wasn't. It was from my lower lip and chin. Nothing serious or broken just some pretty abrasions and a little bruising. I had the Ski Patrol put a couple of band aids on my wounds and I went back to snowboarding.

I currently the only member of my family to draw blood while snowboarding.

My boys think I'm cool. :-)

I woke up Sunday morning and every last muscle in my body was rebelling at any movement whatsoever. Even my toes hurt!

Skiing

My husband, my stepson and I went skiing yesterday and it felt good. It was the first time I strapped skis to my feet and took to the slopes since my VNS surgery and I did better than I thought I would. I have quite a bit of trouble exerting myself while the VNS device is active -- I feel like I'm having a panic attack and I find it very difficult to breathe so I wind up gasping for breath. During those moments, 30 seconds seems like.forever.

At one point I was trying to be funny gliding up to and slowly going over the jumps my stepson has so much fun on. He actually 'jumps', putting some air between his snowboard and the hill. I'm not quite that brave so I would just lazy over them. The second time I went over the hill I was going too fast and wound up sprawled in the snow. Laughing. My husband snowboarded to me quickly asking if I was all right. I sure was, I laughed. I'm sure the people on the ski lift above me thought I was crazy. My husband said the whole event looked painful but I told him that as I was speeding over the hill I lost my balance and sat down on my skis. When I landed on the other side I was laying flat on my back ON my skis and I had to wipe myself out to stop. My arms, legs and skis were going in every direction. I can only imagine how it looked from above.

A little while later my hands started getting cold so I opted to leave my husband and stepson to close down the place. All in all it was a great night and I'm glad I went.

Saturday

Every other weekend at my house is affectionately referred to as "a kid weekend". Two weekends a month estrogen is outnumbered by testosterone five-to-one (four boys, one hubby). And I love every minute of it. I like to think of myself as a pretty cool step/mom and I think my kids think so, too. My husband and I plan one major family activity for the kid weekends and it's something we all look forward to. The activity for last Saturday was skiing/snowboarding.

I learned to ski at Breckenridge, Colorado about twenty years ago. Colorado, as you know, is known for its picturesque mountains. I became intimately familiar with the Breckenridge mountain because I slid down it many times, usually on my face. The next day I was terribly sunburned and I could hardly move.

Michigan, on the other mitten, does not have mountains. It has big hills. My skiing skills are much improved since introducing myself to the sport and I have become quite a little snow bunny. Nothing fancy, but I can get off the lift and down the hill without falling (unless my stepson happens to be riding with me then I inevitably knock us both over) .

A few years ago my stepson, 13, decided to take up snowboarding and that has snowballed into five of the six of us learning to ride, too. My oldest son, 17, tried snowboarding once and has decided he'd rather have his two feet strapped to two pieces of wood instead of one. Last year I decided to try the board. It's not as easy as it looks! The season ended before I mastered the skill of sliding down the hill in an upright (standing) position. All I had to show for my efforts was the nastiest bruise on my right hip and the inability to walk for a week.

So Saturday we loaded up all of our equipment and the kiddies and set off to our favorite hill. This was my first ski trip since the VNS installation and second of the entire season. Because my youngest son, 10, has not yet mastered the fine art of snowboarding my husband and I had agreed in advance that we would take turns staying with him on the bunny hill so we could both ski (me)/snowboard (him).

Henry and the boys took off to the bigger hill and Hunter and I walked over to the bunny's. (This is Hunter's second season on a snowboard but his first trip this year.) I got Hunter strapped into his bindings and on the magic carpet for a slow ride to the top and I walked along side. I had been looking forward to skiing but after the first five trips walking up and down the bunny hills I decided that, with the stimulator, I just didn't think I had the breathing capacity to ski down a hill. Although I had tucked a magnet into my pocket to turn the stimulator off, I didn't use it. I could have. I probably should have. But I didn't.

The VNS device is a permanent part of me and I have to learn to live my life around it. I'm not trying to make my own life difficult, I am just trying to be realistic. Sure, it's easy to swipe a magnet across it when it activates (removing the magnet turns it back on), but unless absolutely necessary (talking on the phone), I think it's a cop out. I'm not able to pick and choose when I take my meds, why should I pick and choose when to keep the stimulator activated?

Carrie 111

1. My astrological sign is Taurus.
2. And I'm stubborn.
3. I'm also strong-willed.
4. I freely admit when I'm wrong.
5. Even to my kids.
6. My nickname is "Pickles Annie".
7. My dad still calls me "Pickles".
8. Or "Annie".
9. Usually it's "Annie".
10. My dad and grandfather gave me the nickname.
11. Because I love pickles.
12. To the point of making myself sick.
13. I have a jar of sweet pickles in my refrigerator.
14. I am the fourth child of five.
15. After three sons.
16. I have a younger sister.
17. We hated each other growing up.
18. We get along now. When it matters most.
19. My parents dated in high school.
20. They married nine days after my mom graduated high school.
21. My oldest brother, the first grandson, was born 7 months later.
22. My parents are divorced and remarried.
23. To different people, silly!
24. Each second marriage has lasted longer than their first.
25. By 3 years (dad) and 4 years (mom).
26. My oldest brother died in a car wreck when he was 18.
27. I was 11.
28. It was the first time I saw my father cry.
29. One of my brothers and I graduated from the same high school as our parents.
30. I graduated 25 years to the day and date after my mother.
31. I went to my five year reunion.
32. I learned all I needed to know and have skipped the rest.
33. I was a cheerleader for football and basketball.
34. I was popular and hung with the 'jock' crowd.
35. I had my first son, the first grandson, when I was 22.
36. He weighed 10 lbs. and was 23 inches long.
37. Matthew is 18 now and leaves for Air Force BMT on October 9th.
38. Matthew stands 6'5" tall -- and he's still growing.
39. He weighs 150 lbs soaking wet.
40. He has a genius IQ.
41. I had my second son when I was 26.
42. Connor is almost 14 and lives with his dad.
43. He's a Quaterback and a Pitcher.
44. Connor and Matthew have different fathers.
45. Each has a younger brother and a younger sister, in that order.
46. Alexander, my third son, was born and died in 1995.
47. The pain NEVER subsides, it just becomes a comfortable ache.
48. My youngest son, Hunter, turned 10 this year (February 2nd).
49. Alexander and Hunter have the same father.
50. I have a step-son.
51. His name is Jake. He's 14.
52. He lives with us.
53. And Hunter.
54. Jake played the drums in the school band.
55. He also played football.
56. Henry is my fourth -- and final -- husband.
57. That's my final answer!
58. We met via Yahoo!
59. We've been together almost 9 years.
60. I posted an ad; he answered it.
61. We lived next door to each other.
62. And we didn't know it.
63. Well...I did. Sort of.
64. Call it fate.
65. We met because he had a 'crotch rocket'.
66. No, not THAT!
67. A motorcycle!
68. A red Ninja.
69. It was stolen two weeks after we met.
70. While we were re-roofing his parents house.
71. In upstate New York.
72. In 100 degree heat.
73. Seriously.
74. It was the first time I met his parents.
75. The neighbors noticed the chick on the roof.
76. I wield a mean air nailer!
77. His parents were impressed.
78. The Ninja was brand new.
79. Henry didn't have the title yet.
80. The insurance company paid the claim.
81. I called around town to find an identical replacement.
82. I found one. He bought it.
83. 3 years later, this Ninja was stolen.
84. From the same complex!
85. And it was chained to a post.
86. They left a small piece of the cut chain behind. (Yeah buddy, rub it in!)
87. I think my husband still has it.
88. We haven't replaced the bike yet.
89. We own a yacht.
90. It used to sleep six.
91. But the kids grew.
92. We keep it near one of the Great Lakes.
93. My husband and I are certified scuba divers.
94. We have driven our boat to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio several times.
95. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary June 30th.
96. We have two Jeeps -- "HIS GP" and "HER GP".
97. We have a wireless network in our home.
98. My husband is an Electrical Engineer (and techno-savvy).
99. We have three desktop and three laptop computers. (Not including ones used for work.)
100. We have three X-Boxes, two X-Box 360's, one PSP, a DDR and a couple of Gameboys.
101. I'm techno-savvy, too.
102. I have an ink pen that is part Swiss Army knife. It's blue.
103. I started snowboarding last year.
104. I don't quite have the hang of it yet.
105. I broke my left elbow on St. Patrick's Day 2007.
106. I do have the hang of downhill skiing, however.
107. I model formal/bridal gowns part-time.
108. I have played paintball with my husband and boys.
109. Twice.
110. So far. :-)
111. I turned 40 this year. It hurt.