Another Year Has Come and Gone

Hello to everyone!  Here we are starting 2022!  I was beginning to wonder if I was even going to make it this far but it looks as though the good Lord decided He wasn't finished with me yet.  A lot has gone on in the last year and much of it was very exciting!

In 2021 the time came to renew my lease for the apartment that I had been living in for the last three years. I was totally in shock when they presented me with what they would be charging me!  Since it was pretty outrageous, I decided I didn't want to put that much money into someone else's pocket so I made the decision to purchase a home of my own.  I spent a great deal of time choosing one and every time I put in an offer, someone else undercut it.  This was pretty frustrating but expected as the housing market has been so on fire.  I finally decided I would look at a few that had been on the market for longer than a few days LOL!  I kept going back to a sweet little home on the west end of town that I kept putting at the back of the list.  It was 1200 square feet and all on one floor.  The house had new siding, roof, furnace,  air conditioning, water heater, windows and electrical.  It sat on a double lot and the location was excellent.  I put down an offer which was immediately accepted and I was off and running.

The home was passed over because it had cosmetic work to be done.  I closed on the home in April 21 and promptly began the process of painting and laying carpet.  I purchased all new appliances which included a washer and dryer, new fridge and new stove.  The stove, water heater and furnace are all gas so it would be relatively inexpensive utility wise.  However, the water turned out to be quite pricey.  I needed to use the water as I wanted to ger the yard in shape.  I did not have a garage, only a carport and for now, it is alright.  I know at some time in the future I will need to look at closing in the carport in or building a one car garage.  It has been brutally cold here in Montana this year and a couple of times the car struggled in spite of having a new battery.  

One very exciting item that my home did have was a well.  I discovered it after moving in.  There was no well listed when I purchased it.  My new neighbor has one identical to it and she stated that I had one as well.  I contacted a landscaper to come over and get it up and running and 3,000 dollars later, I had water!  I had the water tested and it came back relatively safe but has Coliform bacteria.  This is easy to eradicate by shocking it with a bleach formula.  So far, I am only using it for watering outside which is where most of the cost was coming from.  After using it for a month, my water bill dropped from 111.00 to 54.00.  This coming year, I will get a much better idea as to how much it will help.  One good thing is that I can run the water through a Berkey water purification system and it will render the water safe to drink.  This is huge as it gives me a 2nd water source in case of an emergency.  I bartered labor with a friend and we got the rooms in the house painted.  Someone who used to live there had painted them turquoise and red.  Yikes...not what I imagined at all!  We spent about two weeks on this and they turned out really nice.  The home has a storage building out back and we sealed the bottom of the floor edge with caulking to prevent seepage and painted it as well.  It turned out beautiful and after putting up shelves, I moved all my storage there.  I purchased a freezer and made a cozy place for it in the storage building and it works wonderfully.  I also purchased a medium size dorm refrigerator that can be run off of my solar generator.  I also have a small refrigerator as well that is not hooked up yet.  I wanted things that I could run off of my solar generators incase we lost power for some reason.

Earlier last month, I secured a sweet deal to install solar panels on my roof.  I spent hours and hours researching everything I could on the system.  The company is Purelight Power and they are based out of Medford Oregon.  They decided to set up an office here in Billings as well.  I am to have them installed this year after the weather gets better.  However, they have run into a structural problem so I am not sure if I will be able to have it or not.  If they can make the patio cover and beams stronger, they will continue, if not I will have to give this up.  Either way, I am ok but I would really like to have the solar power.

A few weeks before Christmas I was measuring a window for lights when I missed the bottom step of the ladder and broke my leg where the Tibia fits up against the knee.  I had to be non weight bearing for 10 weeks!  Crutches are a real pain to use and I couldn't use my scooter that I used when I broke my foot a few years back.  It was a difficult 5 weeks at first.  Then, I had a healer pray for my leg when my son was at church.  They and the church prayed it would be healed.  The next week I noticed that the pain was mostly gone and that I could put my weight on my leg just fine.  Two weeks ago, I ditched the crutches completely and have had no pain at all.  I can walk just fine and my knee feels better than it has felt in many years.  Prayer is wonderous and God is outstanding in my book.  I had really been on a bad luck streak but it has started to turn around now.

Hopefully we can all put the last two "train wreck" years behind us now.  This awful pandemic has ruined the relationships between people.  The ones who have suffered the most have been our children.  They need to be physically in school.  It teaches them the skills of dealing with people and helps them to gain emotional stability.  They need to be around their friends and they need in classroom teaching.  People spend too much time being afraid.  God didn't give us a spirit of fear.  We need our churches and people need to work and feel accomplished.  Making the vaccine mandatory is unconstitutional and takes away the peoples ability to choose what is best for them and their families.  We should be able to control our own lives and destiny and no one should force their control upon us in any way.  I have made the conscious choice to not take the vaccination in any way, shape or form.  It is my body and my choice and I will not comply with any of the government mandates that the president forces upon us. I believe Psalm 91 and I know that the Lord will protect me.  Have I had Covid, yes I have.  I had it approximately three separate times and I am still here.  Is it difficult? Yes, it is no fun to have but each time I do have it, my antibodies are strengthened to fight it off.  

I am optimistic about our future.  I see the signs of Christ's return more and more each day.  I hope He comes very soon.  This earth is becoming more and more like Sodom and Gomorra each day.  Soon, it will become very difficult for honest and believing Christians to find a safe place to shield their loved ones from the evil smoke that is slowly drifting across every inch of the earth.  I encourage all of you to make a survival plan for the upcoming trials and tribulations that are coming our way.  Don't wait until it is here, do your preparation now.

Well that is my update for now.  I will continue to blog when I can and share it with all of you.  Please take care of yourselves during these uncertain times.  Cheers, Freedancer      

                                                          Much Has Happened Since 2018

    Well hello everyone! It has been over two years since I have blogged and I thought I best get to updating!  After healing up from my second emergency surgery in February of 2018, I ended up leaving my husband and moved into my own apartment.

    This decision was not at all easy to make.  I was going on 14 years of marriage and had invested a great deal of my life into this marriage.  I tried very hard to make things work.  I went to counseling with him and things began to get better but our counselor left her practice to have a baby and everything went back to the way it was.  My husband was not physically abusive to me but there are many other types of abuse that I suffered from.  He was verbally, spiritually and mentally abusive.  I was screamed at, ignored, controlled and had a great deal of mental stress.  He pretty much controlled everything I did and said.  We went where he wanted, ate what he wanted, vacationed where he wanted and he constantly berated my home business.  Then, one day I was watching my son in law while he performed music at Boston College of Music on the internet.  My daughter was streaming it to me.  My husband had been upstairs all day and finally decided to come down to the living room.  He screamed at me to get off the internet, that he paid for it and would decide when I could be on.  This was far from the truth as I paid half of all the bills.  I asked him to please wait until intermission and I would talk with him.  He flew over and got right in my face and said "Do you know what you are?  Your're a dirty little pig!" 

    This comment hit me at the core of my heart.  I had spent almost 15 years cleaning, taking care of the furniture, kitchen, bathrooms and scrubbing, vacuuming and dusting everything.  I had dealt with cigarette smoke every single day as he would not go out doors to smoke.  I was a very clean person and even with my ileostomy, I still was very clean.  He had not touched me sexually in 13 years.  I was literally devastated by what he said.  I stayed up all that night, praying and crying.  I was unable to sleep and talked my heart out to God.  I asked Him what I should do and when.  At 7 am in the morning the next day, my answer came, as clear as a person speaking to me.  God said He wanted me to move out of the home and give my husband one year to start making corrections to his behavior.  If nothing was accomplished in that year, I would be allowed to divorce.  I packed my things, got an apartment and a new job and moved out on June 1st 2018.

    It was around August 2018 and nothing has been worked on so I continued to work at my new job and get myself out of debt.  In late November of 2018, I was contacted by a doctor at a hospital in Everett Washington.  My middle son, who was in a group home there, was very sick and his outlook was grim.  I contacted my daughter and let her know right away.  It turns out she was getting ready to call me to notify me he was in the ICU.  It seems that he aspirated fluid into his lungs when he was asleep and it caused Pneumonia.  We were called to the hospital where we had to make the decision to turn off his life support.  He had no directive so I was the one to make the decision.  We gathered around his bed with my brothers and their wives and each of us talked to him, telling him how much we loved him and asked for forgiveness for anything we had done and told him we forgave him for anything he had done.  His father called from Montana and told him it was going to be alright, to go with Jesus.  I unplugged his equipment at 7 pm on the 17 of December 2018 and he went home to the Lord at 7:28 pm.  It was the hardest thing I ever did in my whole life.  After setting up the cremation and getting the death certificate, my daughter, my older son and I drove back to Montana.  In May 2019, we had a memorial service for him and in July of 2019, I placed most of his ashes into a mausoleum near my home.  He was a very large person so some of the ashes did not fit the state urn.  I put some of them in a small urn and flew to Boston in October of 2019 to place some of his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean with my daughter to help me.  We put some of his ashes into the water at Holter Lake Fishing Access where he liked to fish with his Dad.  I put the remainder of his ashes at our family cabin in the San Juan Islands when I went up to Washington State for my father's funeral on August 28th of this year.  My dad had passed away on the 29th of March 2020 and my divorce was final on the 27th of March 2020.  I am into my third year here at my apartment on the west end of Billings Montana.  I ended up giving my husband 2 years before I filed.  I found a wonderful church where I have been making great strides in my healing process.

    So for now, I am concentrating on getting "me" into a better place and getting closer to the Lord.  My husband and I are friends and he has told me he is very sorry for what happened but both of us have decided that there is no turning back.  In June of 2020, I was totally debt free and when my father's estate is settled, I will have enough to purchase a home of my own.  I will be consulting a Christian Financial company to help me to make good decisions with the remainder of my inheritance after I pay my Tithing and purchase my home.  I plan to go on a volcano tour before I become too old to enjoy traveling.  I have a passport that wants to travel so I think I may go to Italy or Indonesia to see some of the volcanoes there.  I also want to do the Rivers of Europe Tour when all this Covid mess settles down.

    So that is my update on what has been happening in my life.  I hope to have more adventures in my life but I will no longer be seeking another spouse.  I did not pick well the last few times so that will be left up to God to pick for me.  If He want's me to marry again, He will need to find me someone that He wants me to be with and I can wait on His timing this time.

    I hope all of you are well.  Live your life to the fullest and don't look back.  Stay healthy and remember to put God first in your life always.  God is my best friend and the greatest father a girl could ever have.  Cheers!  Freedancer

It's 2018!

Hello everyone!  Welcome to 2018.  I can honestly say that I am glad 2017 is behind me.  It was the year from Hell for me!  Why do I say this you ask?  Well, read further and you will understand.

I had several issues that caused me heartache last year.  First of all, in June of 2016, I abruptly left my job.  There were so many restrictions placed on us as Case Managers that I could not effectively do my job and help my clients.  For the next 10 months I lived on my VA disability pay which was roughly $700.00 a month.  It was difficult to say the least.  I trimmed everything I could find, barely went out of the house and basically just Facebooked through everything.  I had thought of getting another job but I had worked for over 18 years in the field of Mental Health and another 15 years in the Air Force.  I just decided that I would retire when I turned 62 and that is what I did.

In February of 2017, I had some surgery to correct an issue that had been harassing me for several years.  I spent some time recovering from this and started to feel better.  Then on June 7th, I drove to the VA hospital in Salt Lake City for a scheduled throat operation to correct an obstruction that caused me to have difficulty using my CPAP at night.  My throat would close up when I breathed out my air and I would wake up 50 to 60 times a night which was making me exhausted.  I had some nasal surgery and a Uvula removal as well as widening my airway a little.  The doctor didn't sugar coat anything.  He warned me it was going to be very painful and he was not kidding!!  That was probably the most painful surgery that I have ever had in my life!  I was unable to swallow any of my medication so I ended up having it switched to liquid and put my pills in pudding and jello to get them down.  He said it would be 14 days of pain and that is exactly how long it lasted!

I finally healed up from that surgery and flew back to Salt Lake VA Medical Center on the 25th of June for my checkup.  I went the day before because I was to see the doctor and he only was there one day a month in the morning.  I stayed at the Ramada Inn in Salt Lake as they are very good to the veterans and always take good care of me.  The night of the 25 of June I walked the 5 blocks to the Village Inn for supper.  I had a good meal and was on my way back to the motel to turn in for the night.  One block from the motel a piece of concrete had sunken into the sidewalk and I did not see it.  I stepped wrong on it and it flipped me up, bringing me down hard on my left foot, right leg and landing me very hard on my stomach.  All of my things were tossed all over the road and I laid there for 15 minutes trying to get up but could not stand on my left foot.  Finally, after cars sped by, not stopping to help a nice Hispanic couple stopped and picked me up off the ground and helped me get back to the the motel where I got a cab to the hospital.  After several hours, I was sitting in the exam room when the doctor came in and explained that I had broken my left Metatarsal base bone in my foot.  They put me in a wrap and doctored up my cuts and bruises, gave me some crutches and told me to be back at 10:00 am the next day where the surgeon would evaluate me.  My throat checkup was also the next day at 3:00 pm.  I made it to the hospital with the help of the VA Van Service and the doctor ended up admitting me for surgery on the 28th of June.  I had to have a screw put in it and would be non weight bearing for 12 weeks!

Sitting in the hospital room, I called my husband in Billings and told him he would have to come down to pick me up and take me home.  He would have to be here by the 30th of June.  He was pretty worried and said he would be here.  The surgery went well and the techs and doctors were all laying down bets on how long it would take!  I was released on the 30th and sent back to the motel where I waited for my husband.  We would stay over night and leave on the 1st of July for the drive back.  The VA had given me so much equipment!  I had a walker, a scooter, a frame to go around the toilet to help me get up and down and a big, bulky boot that only came off to sleep.  I was not allowed to do stairs so my husband put a bed in the dining room for me and that is where I stayed.  It wasn't too bad but not using my foot was pretty hard.

On the 12th of July, I was eating supper when I had severe pain in my lower stomach.  I tried to ignore it thinking it was just gas or something but it got so much worse that I was screaming in pain.  I started throwing up and thought that I had Appendicitis so my husband rushed me to the ER.  After 5 hours there and many tests later it was determined that I was seriously ill and in grave danger of passing away.  I was rushed into emergency surgery.  I woke up in ICU with an ileostomy bag on my side and no lower bowel.  It had all died in less than 24 hours.  I was devastated! I cried for hours and even at one point in my drugged stupor, accused my husband of trying to kill me as he made the meal that started everything.  I remained in ICU for 2 1/2 days and then was moved to the surgery floor where I began to learn about my new partner who would be with me for the rest of my life.  I was sliced from my sternum to just above my pubic area and stapled together.  The stoma nurse came every day and talked with me about my new friend and how to care for her.  I spent many hours talking to God.  I wanted to know why this happened to me.  There were no problems like this in my family, not colon problems or cancer, absolutely nothing that would lead to this.  The doctor just shook his head and stated that he was unable to tell me anything except that the whole lower bowel had suddenly died.  I wanted to know why.  Had the VA not made me to go all the way to Salt Lake VA for a 5 minute check up and allowed me to have it here, perhaps this would not have happened.  I was pretty mad, then I was bargaining with God, asking him to wake me up from the bad dream I was in and make things OK again but it wasn't to be.  It has taken me this long to finally accept my situation and start to live my new life.  My diet is changed and everything I eat seems to make my new friend, whom I have named Maxine after Maxine Waters, very angry most of the time.  I have had 4 times back to ER with one admission due to a blockage in my stoma. Why do I call her Maxine you ask?  Well, it is just a wrinkled up old bag full of crap!  The name fits her perfectly!  The hardest part of everything was that I was still non weight bearing on my left foot and had my stomach cut open and stapled shut.  I could barely hold my self up at one point and for several weeks, it was a challenge to get around.  During this time I lost 2/3rds  of my hair and that was very depressing!  It happened because my body was under such stress from emergency surgery that it couldn't cope.  It has now started to grow back in but is still grey!

I have begun to feel much better now.  I am able to eat a little better but not much.  I have learned what to do when Maxine gets mad so that I can stay out of the hospital.  The surgery cost 78,000 dollars and the VA paid for the whole bill.  I am very glad that I had the VA!  My daughter and son in law moved to Boston in August.  He started school in September.  We stay in touch through Messenger on the computer.  I miss them so much that sometimes I cry when I am alone.  I want to see them but I know that it won't be for a long time.

I have started Dave Ramsey's financial plan to get out of debt.  Hopefully, it won't take me a really long time to be debt free.  I needed this a lot and as I begin my emergency fund and pay off my bills, I have gained a sense of empowerment which I have never had.  I pray that I can accomplish this task.  This year I made my granddaughter's birthday gifts.  It is a start at least.  I am paying cash for everything at this point.

I am hoping for a better year in 2018.  I am praying that the politics will settle down and that our economy can get even better.  I am praying for peace and also for my health.  I would like a year with no health issues to worry about.  I just want to become renewed in Christ and hope that He sees fit to bless me with a calm year that I can enjoy.  As always, Cheers!  Freedancer 

Sad Day in the Life of Freedancer

Hello all!  Today my daughter informed me that they are moving to Boston!  Needless to say, I am devastated.  It appears that my son in law has accepted a doctoral position with Boston University in the field of Choral Conducting.  They will be there for three years.

I have a knot in my stomach that won't go away!  I feel like I can't catch my breath and I have cried so many tears!  To not see my grand babies for three years seems like a lifetime to me.  I do not think I will have the money to go there anytime soon.  I feel abandoned, left out, lost with no direction.  It has been convenient to be able to go to Belgrade Montana to see them.  It was only two hours away and easy to drive, now they will be days away and due to money constraints, almost impossible to visit.

I don't think they have looked at the big picture here. Belgrade/Bozeman Montana was a nice, quiet place.  It had somewhat of a hustle and bustle of a medium size city.  My son in law was at the top of the earning level as teachers with a Master's level in music go.  I get it.  He wants to go further in his life, to make a better life for his family and do what he loves to do.  However, how can he justify putting himself into deeper debt in a more expensive city?  One cannot even get a decent 1 bedroom apartment in Boston for under a thousand dollars.  The safety of the city is another thing I worry about.  People here in Montana are fairly safe.  We don't have bombers who blow up marathons or refugees that threaten the very lives of the people who live there.  It is so close to DC and the White House as well.  What if it is attacked?  Will Boston be destroyed or damaged along with it?

My daughter wants to be a stay at home mother.  She has a teaching degree that she is using here but over in Boston, she will have to get a license to teach there.  They are a Conservative family.  Boston is one of the most Liberal cities around.  How will they survive in that environment?  Will they even be able to find a church that they will feel at home in?  Sadly, my daughter will have to go back to work and my grand babies will have to go to daycare.  They can hardly afford this now let lone, the high cost of daycare in a city like Boston.

It makes my daughter mad if I question these things.  I understand that they are looking at this as a new adventure and they want me to be more supportive but they don't seem to understand that I am losing my daughter who is my best friend and my beautiful grand babies. No more birthday's or Christmas Eve Brunches.  No more Halloween visits or Easter visits to share with them.  I had high hopes of taking them all to our cabin for a weekend or two but this is sadly not to be.

Now she wants me to come down and help them pack and clean the apartment.  I am finding that I don't want to do this.  It would just make the day they leave more painful.  To pack their things in boxes and help to put them on a moving truck would be like pounding nails into my heart.  How would I be able to stand this pain?  If I say I cannot come down, they will say I don't care and if I go down and weep as I put boxes in a moving truck, they will say I am not being supportive.  My heart is breaking in two and they are moving to the other side of my world.  It just doesn't seem fair some how. 

I officially retired on March 19th 2017.  I was so looking forward to going down to see them in the Summer and spending more than just a weekend.  I was excited to watch the children grow and to be part of their lives.  Now I will be unable to do this.  I am already feeling lonely.  With one son living in Washington State and my daughter soon to be across the United States, I will have no one except my one son who is here in Billings. The children will be 7 and 5 when I see them again.  My life is going to be so empty without them.  

To me, right now, right here, life is so very unfair!  As always, Cheers Freedancer. 

Things They are a Changin!

Well hello everyone!  A great deal has happened since my last blog so on your mark, get ready, here we go!

As of July 28th 2016 I am no longer employed with the Billings Montana Mental Health Center.  As the sign above clearly shows my feelings for the situation, I will enlighten you all on the circumstances.

Medicaid has taken it upon themselves to rewrite the duties that I and other case managers like me have been doing for many years.  Suddenly, we were no longer allowed to "assist" our clients with any of their activities of daily living such as grocery shopping, ensuring they made it to their doctor appointments, assist them in getting food boxes or even taking action if we suspected abuse toward them or by them toward someone else.  We no longer can transport them anywhere.  The higher ups stated that all those duties were to be done by a Rehab Aid but the problem is...the office has none and won't hire any.  This leaves the clients who have no car or money for a taxi or bus pass with nothing.

The other issue was that we were being told to be "creative" with our notes so that if we did end up doing some of these duties, we could get paid for them.  This basically set all of us up to lie about what we were doing with the clients.  I have never done well with change and after doing my job for the last 18 years a specific way and telling the truth in my notes, there was no way in hell that I was going to lie about what I was doing or watch my clients suffer because they had no help.

My only solution for this situation was to leave my job and that is what I did.  I am thinking about applying for a part time job to fill the next few months until I retire in April 2017 so I am hunting on the job sites and applying for different jobs.  I really do not want to work with mentally ill persons anymore so I am looking for more of a normal type of job.  At 61 I think I could do bagging at the grocery store and just work when I want to.

It pains me deeply to see the clients suffering now.  I had persons on my case load who had no money, no car and couldn't get a bus pass.  They desperately needed the assistance that I gave them.  To rip that service out from under them was wrong, cruel and frankly, really stupid.  I foresee the Mental Health Center falling apart in the near future.

I did very well at the Montana State Fair this year.  I made a Steampunk style chess board and designed the pieces myself.  I received a blue ribbon for this.  I also received some ribbons for photographs and other jewelry items that I put in.  I also was given a Best of Show for a piece of jewelry that I designed.  All in all, I was quite happy with it.

My whole life is up in the air at this moment.  I don't know what to do or how to do it.  I have lost 65% of my income and am living on my VA income only.  When all is paid, I have $88.00 left to last me until the next pay day so it seems that I will need to find another source of income very soon to last me until retirement.  I hope that I can find something fairly easy to do that I will value.  I had thought of going into business for myself as an independent case manager but by the time I even started making money, I would be retiring so that did not seem practical. 

I am getting the itch to head out of town and do some grandkid lovin or take a trip for a few weeks but I would need to get some income before I do this.  However, I really would like to see my daughter and the children.

So folks, that is my story for now.  I'll update as things go along but for right now I am dirt poor and feeling it.  As always, Cheers!  Freedancer

He Was Murdered!!!

Hello everyone!  Some of you will not like what I am going to say here today and I am truly sorry about that.  However, it must be said and everyone out there must pay close attention.  There was a very important man who was murdered last Saturday.  His name was Antonin Scalia and he was a Supreme Court Justice.

Now I know what you are saying.  He died naturally and that is that.  Well you can all think again.  He most certainly was murdered and the President of the United States had his dirty hand right in it up to his evil elbow!

There were too many important votes coming up that the Justice most likely would have affected and there are people in the United States and all over the world that wanted to see those votes turn a different way.  What better way to do it but to rid the court of one of the steadfast conservatives?

This man whom we call our president has an evil agenda and that agenda is to take away our freedom as we know it and turn this country into a Socialist nation.  He undermines the rights of Christians in favor of Muslims and people of the "other" persuasion.  He does not want us to have our first or second amendment rights and what we work day in and day out for he wants to give to those who do not work at all.  Those citizens who basically "suck off the troth".

President Obama is an opportunist.  He saw the chance to take Justice Scalia out and he took that chance with little or no regard for anyone else but HIS own agenda.  Don't let anyone tell you this low life scum didn't have anything to do with this situation.  They would be lying to your face.

Congress now has a job to do.  It is to stonewall Obama every step, every turn and every move he makes.  He must not be able to have anyone nominated to take over Scalia's post.  It must wait until the new president takes office.  Our lives depend on it.  If another liberal judge gets in, life in this country will change forever.

It shakes me to the center of my soul to know that someone in such a position of power can just snap their fingers and kill a sitting justice like that.  Obama may have not "pulled the trigger" but he certainly "gave the order".  No,  that dear man did not die of natural causes.  He was murdered in cold blood, in his sleep, to keep him from voting.

Say what you will about me but mark my words.  The truth will come out because God is angry and when He get's angry, things get discovered.

Rest in peace Justice Scalia.

As always, Freedancer

Just Call Me Leftie!

Well hello everyone!  Freedancer here catching everyone up on the latest news!  On the 12th of Jan I had the first of several surgeries that are on the books to be accomplished.  Right now as we speak, my dominant right hand is in a very attractive bright pink cast.

I underwent the first of my CMC joint surgeries and am happy to say it went very well.  The pain was actually quite minimal but the real challenge was learning to do everything with my left hand.  It is amazing how difficult that simple action is.  Don't let anyone tell you it is easy because it is not!

I was lucky to have a fantastic hand surgeon, Dr. Smith, from the Billings Sports Medicine Clinic. I was very worried that when I was under the troughs of anesthesia that I would yell out "Danger Will Robinson or Oh the pain...the pain" but lucky for me I behaved myself.  I also was lucky to have the anesthesiologist that I had for my shoulder surgery in 2012.  I was so happy to see him.  I will be in this cast for 4 weeks and then the VA will take over my PT.  I have everything great to say about the VA.  The new ARCH program paid for my surgery for me and they were just fantastic!

My beautiful daughter came up from Belgrade and assisted me for 4 days.  She brought my little grandson with her.  He is so sweet and getting so big!  He is 7 months old and has eyelashes to die for!  I've been off work for two weeks now and of course all that time was vacation so there goes this years vacation.  I go back to work this coming Monday part time and the next Monday will be full time.  I think I am ready and my retired hubby said he enjoyed having a taste of what my retirement will be like in a couple of years but is ready to dive back into his solitude again!

We took a trip up to our cabin getaway yesterday and I thought it would be a good time to put the new feather mattress topper on the master bed.  As I was taking off the blankets, I noticed a bunch of the mouse poison pellets down in the corner of the blankets.  It  dawned on me and I finally knew where all the mouse pellets were going, the little ratturdes were bringing them all the way up from downstairs and stashing them in our bed, to get back at us!  Those are some pretty smart and obviously very vindictive rodents! Well, I got rid of it quickly after I showed my hubby what was going on.  The war is on now and it wont be pretty!!

The break at the cabin was kind of nice.  We ate pop tarts, drank coffee and watched North by Northwest on the DVD player.  Great movie!  So that is my story for now.  I am actually typing with one hand and 4 fingers and not doing too bad.  Cheers!  Freedancer