Art Land

A lot has happened since last I wrote. We have a house, two boys ages 20 months and 3 months (Simon and Canaan), we have two dogs and two cats, and we have had many people die. March 2010, we started buying a house, which we got in June same year. I lost McKay, my beloved kitten who wasn't even a year old yet on Easter. As a house warming present, some friends gave us two kittens, Charlie and Fei Fong Wong. In September, Matt ended up with pneumonia and I got bronchitis and sinusitis, and pregnant, lol. That was horrible, I'd rather have bronchitis again than get pregnant again. I did lose a ton of weight because I couldn't eat, though! >.< Ended up in the hospital due to dehydration, too. Then in March 2011, my grandma (dad's mom) passed away from Parkinson's. We knew it was coming, she was slowly slipping away. It was horrible to watch. I ended up being forced to take off work because I did not handle her death well, on top of all my stupid pregnancy problems. I ended up being induced on June 13th for high blood pressure, pitting edema, headaches and auras. and had my first son Simon on the 15th. I ended up with multiple infections after I gave birth, one of which required neck surgery at the end of September. It was a branchial cleft cyst and it was pressing on my carotid artery, as well as making it harder to breathe. I was having tachycardia too (super fast heartbeat, although on the low end). I had surgery while mom and dad were on their very first cruise! Unfortunately that meant they were out of contact, so they didn't know if I'd died until I think 3 days later. In August, or end of July, we lost Matt's grandpa. I think it was just old age? In February 2012, Aunt Julie was put into the hospital. They claimed she was just depressed and ignored the massive tumors all over her body. Beginning of March, I found out I was pregnant again. Since my dad was really upset about his sister, I told him right before he was to go down and help Aunt Julie. An hour later he received a phone call letting him know she had died. 365 exact days after Grandma. The next week our old friend John died and we found out that grandpa (mom's dad) was in the hospital. His chemotherapy weakened his immune system too much and he ended up with an infection. So mom flew to Hawaii to help grandma and we followed the following week. I think it was a Thursday he died. He got to see his grandson first and that made him happy before he died. I think I really started to have serious emotional problems after that. At the end up April, Matt's grandma was put into the hospital and it was really bad (thankfully she survived surgery and is doing amazing now). Around the same time, Dagger got really sick. Aleutian virus, aka parvo for ferrets. There was nothing we could do. He tried to be a happy ferret, he tried to play, but he slowly became paralyzed more and more until he couldn't move at all. When the light was gone from his eyes, we had him put down. Shortly after, Carrie died (cat). Then Harvey fell in the pond and no one found him for a while. He lived a few miserable days after. Then my mom found out her best friend had breastcancer and had to have a double mastectomy. Stiches, Meagan's cat, was killed by dogs. November 14th I went in to get checked to see if I was going to have the baby, and I went into labor. I had Canaan Garrett Bales on November 15th at 3:40 I think. A few hours later I had my tubes tied. I ended up with a majore epidural headache, but other than that nothing serious. I did have to have physical therapy for my pelvis, but that seems to have helped a lot. Also, Aunt Donna died on Christmas and Nancy died in January right after new years. Chloe, Matt's 3 yr old German Shepherd, killed herself somehow on Feb 3rd. He found her stuck on the fence. It's been really rough, especially with financial problems, but having used a lot of our tax refund to pay off debt will help. We're hoping Matt can get his master's so he can get a raise in the pay scale. Life goes on and hopefully I can continue writing on the blog.