3 Things Thursday

1. I'm taking a week off on the weigh in challenge thing.  Last week we were "snowed in" which caused us to eat crap.  Sorry excuse, I know.  Then this weekend we're helping family move, I have a project due, and I'm back to working 10 hour days.  So, I'm taking this week off.  I'm still going to try to eat well and exercise, I'm just tired of worrying about it.  This morning I weighed in at 143.6, so I'm up .6 for the week.  Arg. 
2. It looks like the people who "forgot" to see our house earlier this week are coming back today.  Or maybe it's different people?  Who knows.  At any rate, I'm just happy people are coming to see it! 
3. It's been a very challenging week at work.   But, I need some good vibes sent please!  It's been causing me a good deal of BAD stress and if you add that in with the 5 page case study that is due next week....then you can just imagine how stressed out I am. 

Wow, this was a happy post, wasn't it?!  Sheesh!

A Request

I have a request for ya'll today.  I'd like you all to go read this story and help this family get the graveside marker that they're wanting for their little boy. 

Jake Love and his family live in the same town as I do.  I bought one of their fundraising shirts last year.  We all had hope that this little guy would make it, but his time on Earth was cut very short at only 2 years old.

The owner of the blog that I just directed you to is one of my friends.  I know that the address and the request is legit.  I'm asking you all to help in any way that you can. 

Thanks.

As Promised...

Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers yesterday! They definitely worked! My dad should be out of the hospital by this weekend or sometime this weekend! Also, our house was cleaned and ready in the nick of time yesterday! Our agent showed up, took the pictures, and put the sign in our front yard! Then today, I'm going to go pay for school (ew!). I feel 100 times better this morning!!!!!!!!

As promised, here are the pictures that the agent took. They're not the best pictures, but they're certainly not bad either! I only wish he would've showed the shower curtain in the 2nd bathroom, but oh well! Plus, I don't like that our curtains are open in the first picture, but what can ya do?! Also, I know it looks really bare, but that's so the buyers can picture their things in the home!

You also can't see some of the cute little decorating things I did in some of the pictures, but again, these are his pictures and not mine! We'll be adding a picture of our backyard sometime soon. Also, I'll go more into detail to what we did to the house and the changes we made in another post - if ya'll want - so let me know!

Update

After the scan this morning, they've come to the conclusion that he has pneumonia! So, my poor dad has been suffering from heat exhaustion, dehydration, and pneumonia! So, they're starting him on an aggressive load of antibiotics and he'll stay in the hospital until his fever stays away for 24 hours. Thank you all for the prayers! Praise the Lord!

Also, hubs might've sensed my panic as our house does not look up to par for the pictures this afternoon and he's decided to take matters into his own hands. :) Again, another prayer answered!

Prayers Needed

As I mentioned earlier this week, my dad was in the ER on Saturday for heat exhaustion and dehydration. Well, he's still not better. He went to the DR on Monday and they said it might be tick fever. He was started on treatment, but then he showed NO signs of improvement. They have done LOADS of blood work and they've found nothing out. His fever wont go down, his extremely bad headache wont go away, he can't hold down food, and he aches and hurts. So, they admitted him to the hospital on Tuesday and started running more tests and doing more scans and x-rays.

Well, as I was sitting with him in the hospital room last night, the doctor came in and said that his inflammation numbers were up and they were doing another scan tomorrow morning (this morning) of his upper body. This is the first test that has came back with some indication that something was wrong. They know he has an infection somewhere, but they can't find it. They've sent his blood work to the Mayo Clinic - in another state. The doctors think that maybe his body is attacking itself.

Long story short, my dad is very sick. We have no idea what is wrong with him and he's been sick since Thursday. Please pray for him and pray that they find what is wrong with him soon so that he'll no longer be sick and in pain. Please pray that God heals him and he's able to go home - good as new!



Also, on a very small side note, while you're praying, could you please pray that I don't totally lose it.... my dad is very important to me and I hate to see him sick. It breaks my heart. Then add to that the stress of the fact that our house will have a for sale sign going up today, the realtor is taking pictures and it isn't the least bit clean or in order right now, because we were at the hospital last night, and then the fact that I realized that school starts next Thursday for me and I'll be taking 2 classes.... I feel slightly overwhelmed right now. I know God will take care of it all - I truly have faith that everything will work out just fine, but please pray that I don't lose it as I'm processing all of this. But, most importantly, pray for my dad please.

Mumbo Jumbo

It's a crazy Monday morning, so I'm gonna do a quick bullet style post!

• I worked 7-4 on Saturday, while hubs painted.
• My dad went into the ER Saturday for heat exhaustion and dehydration. He works inside a factory that has no air conditioning and the actual temperature here has been over 100 F degrees. Add about 10 more degrees to that and you have the actual temp. for the factory, then factor in the humidity. It's no wonder he's sick. After getting 2 bags of fluids, some medicine, and spending about 3 or so hours in the ER, he's doing a little better, but he's still sick. Please pray he gets better and that fall comes soon.
• I found a bath mat that matches the shower curtain. Yay!
• We have one more wall to paint and then we are finished painting!
• The yard work is mostly done! We have curb appeal! ha!
• Tonight will be spent finishing steam cleaning the carpets, painting that wall, and taking things to storage.
• Hubs and I are both beyond exhausted and Wednesday can not come soon enough!
• We looked at more houses and still haven't found the one.
• I'm behind on Half Marathon training due to the house stuff, but I'm getting back on track this week.
• Grad School starts back NEXT WEEK. Holy crap.
• I received my notification about Jury Duty. Lovely. I'll be in "orientation" on my Birthday. Wow.
  

Prayers Please

Normally I'd post about this weekend and how great it was, but today, I'm asking you to say a few prayers.

• My friend and coworker, Todd, has been in the hospital for a few days now. Please pray that God heals him soon and he's able to go home and return to a normal life.
• My friends and sorority sisters, Kelly and Lindsay, lost their father a few months back and then last week lost their mother as well. Please pray for these girls and their family. They're going to need a lot of strength to get through all of this.
• Another sorority sister, Robin, lost her father this weekend. It was very unexpected and sudden. Please pray for her family as they struggle with his death.

Thank you! I truly believe in the power of prayer!
I'll update you on life as usual tomorrow.

Happy November!

Yes, this is a real spider. Yes, it tried to eat me Thursday when I came home from work. Yes, I screamed like a little girl and almost set our alarm off because I wouldn't run past the demon. But, alas, I made it in, grabbed my camera (because hubs wouldn't believe this) and zoomed in as much as I could. Then, I shut the door and sent the picture to hubs asking him what I needed to do. His response? Stomp on it. Um, yeah right - that thing would go up my pants leg for sure! So, I grabbed some Oust! and was prepared to spray it to death, only it was gone! So, I called Terminix (sp?) and made an appointment for the spider killers to come on Friday. :) I haven't seen a spider since that lovely man left after booby trapping our house!

Finally, it's November! We are out of October! Yes! I clearly have issues with October and I was SO happy to see November yesterday. Not only that, but the extra hour we gained yesterday was lovely as well. Who knew that an hour could make that big of a difference?! I had a wonderful weekend and I hope ya'll did too! Tonight will be my first gym class. I'm either taking Spin or Pilates tonight! Wish me luck, because I'm nervous!

P.S. My grandmother was taken to the hospital last night. The new batch of chemo they have her on is making her very sick and she's not been holding food or liquids down. She's lost a lot of weight and has gotten weak. Please pray that the doctors can make her feel better so she's able to fight the cancer. Thank You.

Running Review

It's that time again!

If you remember, August looked like this:

August
34.61 miles
13:26 overall average pace

Ready for September?

September
53.57 miles
12:55 overall average pace

Nice improvement, right? I was suppose to run more mileage than this, but I've cut back due to some issues with my shins. I'm having a slight pain in them both and I'm trying to avoid injury since the Half is 3 weeks away. So, we shall see!

I haven't posted my runs in a while, so here are the most previous two:


I failed to notice that I cut the last 1.5 miles off of this one... So, you can only see the first 7:

Thanks for all the comments yesterday. We received some not-so-great news about my grandmother's scan. To share a little bit, she has cancer in her spleen, lung, liver, and bones. Please continue to pray. That really means a lot to us all.
In case you haven't noticed {I'm hoping you haven't}, I'm running out of things to blog about so I'm opening up the floor to questions. Anything that you'd like to know about me, my job, my training, or anything - the floor is open. I'll answer all questions. So, lets hear them!

Prayers Needed

My grandmother's prognosis isn't all that great. Please say a prayer for her and our family. It's going to be a very long and tough battle. Things are not going as well as they have in the past and we've encountered a major setback. We still have hope. There is an experimental treatment that her doctor is trying to get her into. Please pray that this happens and that all goes well. Thank you.

I Can't Keep A Secret To Save My Life

Seriously, I can't. As a kid, I was always the girl who would coerce the secrets out of my friends and then run around on the playground spreading the rumor of who liked who. Yes, I was that kid.

Fast forward to now. I (along with one of hub's coworkers) have been planning a surprise birthday outing for my husband and I've been able to keep my mouth shut for almost two weeks, when it happened. I told my husband about the outing last night. Yes, I did.

Here's what happened....

I got the bright idea (a few weeks ago) to surprise my husband with something special for his birthday. Now, my hubs is one of those men who enjoy a good massage - from a pro. I love this about him. I'd never had a pro massage until we went to Mexico the first time. And to be honest, the idea of someone rubbing all over me kinda freaked me out. But, once I experienced it, I was in love. So, now, hubs and I go get massages every few months. Anyways, moving forward, I thought that I should book him a massage for his birthday weekend. Then, I started thinking... What if I got some of his friends together for a dinner...and drinks downtown... oh, maybe I should rent a hotel room so that we don't have to drive all the way home late at night.

So... I facebooked one of his co-workers and got the plan together. I booked his massage in a ritzy place (seen here), booked a hotel, and sent out emails/calls to his friends. I kept my mouth shut for a good week or more. And then, when Wednesday came around (his birthday), I laid out a birthday card that morning (before I left for work), then surprised him with an ice cream cake and some clothes (yes, I bought my man clothes)! Well, he wanted to know what else he was getting for his birthday. Yes, what else.

So, I told him about the massage. He said "what else." I said that I couldn't tell him, it was a surprise. Mistake #1. Long story short. He bugged me last night and even threatened to go hide in the deer woods all day Saturday - if I didn't tell him "what else." So, I spilled my guts. I told him we would be going downtown and we had a room. The, he asked if anyone else would be coming with us. I was a deer in the headlights. I just smiled a big, cheesy grin and said "noooooo." I couldn't help it. I had no control over my facial muscles. None. He just started laughing at me and said "You couldn't tell a lie if you're life depended on it." Nope, I can't. That's been established several times before. I suck at lying and keeping secrets.

So, for his birthday weekend, he will be getting a massage, we'll be heading to dinner at Shogun's with his friends and coworkers, then going downtown for drinks (btw, he got a freebie - we both gave up alcohol for lent), and then back to our room. Sounds fun, right? I'll take pictures.

I could never be a government official nor an FBI agent. LOL

In other "news".... my dad has been feeling bad and went to the doctor the other day (something he never does) and it's been noted that he has low white blood cells. So, on Monday, they're going to run tests on him at the hospital. So, let's hope and pray those tests go well.

The Vet Called...

and Bear has heart worms, too. Yes, it's a sad day (or week) in the household. So, now what? We're going to get Bear started up soon on his treatments and get little Rocky checked out too, just in case. He's been up to date on all of his stuff, so I'm hoping he's okay. As for Duke, the Vet said that he doesn't act like he's in any pain and that we can wait a little while before making our decision. My thoughts are, that we do Bear's treatment (since he doesn't have to have surgery too), keep monitoring Duke (make sure he regains his weight back that he's lost), and then after Bear is done, see what we should do with Duke - assuming there is still no pain, etc.

The Vet seems to think that we might be able to treat Duke and him make it through - might. So, honestly, we don't want to treat him, then have him pass away on us... And since Bear is the more healthy of the two, then we'll start with Bear first. We don't want to put Duke down and if he's okay and pain-free for now, then well, I guess maybe we get to keep him around for longer? Oh, gosh, I don't know. None of this is making much sense. I'm going to talk it over again with my parents and hubs... Because my heart is over riding my head right now.

On to other "news"... it's warming up here, finally. And tonight is my running night! I'm a tad excited to see how I'll do now that the air is warm - cold air and my lungs hate each other. So, maybe I'll do really awesome tonight.

And lastly, please please do not think we're bad pet owners or bad doggie parents! This whole mess just breaks my heart and I'm just at a loss. I feel horrible and I have no idea what we're suppose to do. I'm praying for Guidance.

Update On Our Doggies

We took Bear to the Vet on Saturday.. They did all the tests and came to the conclusion that Bear may have heartworms as well. No, I'm not kidding. The test resembles a pregnancy test, except they use blood instead of urine... The control spot came up and then there is a faint spot for the heartworm part of the test. So, they took some more blood (poor Bear) and have sent it off to the makers of the test and we'll know a for-sure answer by Wednesday.

So, please pray that Bear is okay and that the test was a false-positive!

Also, we've decided that we'll be putting Duke down. It breaks my heart and I cannot even look at the poor guy without crying, but I know it's probably best. They can't tell us if he'd live through his surgery and treatment, so we decided not to put the poor guy through it. :(

I've also decided that there will be no more new pets for quite a while. I've never actually lost a pet - other than my dad telling me they ran away - and my heart just can't take it.

Update On Duke

I didn't want to write this post, but here we go...

The vet has no idea if the mass on his back is cancerous or not. But, while at the vet, we found out that poor Duke has heartworms. Yes, heartworms. So, what do we do now?

• Well, since Duke nor Bear seems to have had their preventive care for heartworms, we're taking Bear in tomorrow for his checkup and to see if he has them too. This scares me. I can't imagine both of them being sick.
• Rocky, thank goodness, has been kept up to date on his shots and pills. He is due, however, his heartworm meds. I'm getting them from the vet tomorrow or ordering them online, depending on the vet.
• Duke needs to have surgery to remove the mass. The surgery is $600. Our vet bill yesterday...$130. Then, he'll have a recovery time of about 8 weeks or so, where he has to stay in a pen away from the other dogs - so that he doesn't do any damage to himself while recovering. Now, if the surgery is done before his heartworm stuff, he might not make it through the surgery - because of the heartworms in his heart.
• If we have the heartworm stuff first, he still may not make it and would have to stay in the pen for about 4 weeks, so that he doesn't do any damage and have heart failure....
• All in all, $2000 worth of bills, and the dog may not make it.
• So, tomorrow Bear goes in for his appointment - another $130. Pray that he's okay.
• Afterwards, Duke will go in sometime next week and have a test and xrays done to see how bad the heartworms are. Another $275.
• Now, how are we? I'm not wearing makeup this morning, due to swollen eyes. I think hubs is handling this more "manly." Which is okay, he's a man. I get it. But we're not sure what to do. It's costly, but also we don't want him to sit in a pen alone for 3 months while being sick and wondering why his brothers are out playing and he's not. Also, if Bear is sick too - more than likely we will only treat one dog and put Duke to sleep. Painful to admit.
• Also note that, he may have cancer. We don't know what that mass is.

So to say it's been a rough night/day, would be an understatement. Pray that God gives us direction on this and that Bear & Rocky are okay. I feel like such a horrible parent. I've always made sure that Rocky was taken care of on his health stuff, but I let the other 2 fall by the way side because they were older, I guess. I feel horrible knowing that maybe I could've prevented the heartworms. Honestly, I didn't know that this stuff was still out there and I'm mad that the vet didn't inform me more. But, I guess I should've been more of a responsible pet owner.

Please Pray For Duke

I didn't intend to post today, but I need your prayers! Our Chocolate Lab, Duke, has a very large mass on his back and has lost some weight. He's also not holding down all of his food. Today, he will be seeing the Vet. Please pray that everything goes great and that he's truly not sick! His cute little picture is at the bottom right hand side of my blog.

Thanks!

Stop Running, Seriously?

So, as some of you may remember, I pulled a calf muscle a few weeks back while running and I've been struggling ever since. Well, I've been pushing through because I've only got around 3 weeks left till my half marathon (my 1st one ever)... Yesterday I could barely walk. I ran an awesome 5 miles Tuesday night, but when I woke up Wednesday - I was sure that something major was wrong. And there was/is. I've had really bad shin splints for a while now and they've not gotten better (because, I push through instead of laying off). I went to the Dr yesterday and he informed me that my leg muscles are so swollen right now that they're pinching my nerves - and that's why it hurts so bad and my toes are going numb. I'm dead serious when I say that I couldn't walk yesterday. I walked slower than a senior citizen who has a walker. Seriously. So, what's wrong you say?

I have the beginnings of Compartment Syndrome and had I not went in yesterday...had I waited, he would've had to cut open my legs to release the pressure and/or I could've lost my legs due to cell death. That's super scary! Now, the bright side to all of this is... He knows that I want to run this half marathon badly. He knows that as soon as I "feel" better that I'm going to start running again...So he told me to lay off the running for a few days - till atleast Sunday, use a heating pad as much as possible, take hot baths, elevate my legs as much as possible, and gave me a HUGE dose of steroids to take for a week. If I do all of this, I should be fine. I can run my half marathon - maybe even train some (just not as much) and then after the half - don't run for a good month. I'm okay with that. I just want to finish this race. Bad. This race means a tremendous amount to me - it's THE highest physical goal that I have EVER had. I didn't play sports as a child - I have a heart condition and was told that I would die if I did play. My parents were really protective of me...So this is huge for me. This is for me, it's MINE. So, yes I will run that half... and yes, I might have to walk a tremendous amount..but it will be worth it - for me.

Just please pray that my legs heal super quick and that I can do this half marathon and put it behind me. I really want that finisher's medal.