I’m back!!!! I can’t believe how long it has been since I blogged! My life has been a bit chaotic the last few months and one thing you know if you’ve followed me long is I teach how important it is to have balance and prioritize things. For me, I had to step back a bit from blogging while I adjusted to a new schedule. I’m still working on that to be honest but I’m hoping come summer it will be a bit easier!! So…..what’s been going on?!?! Here is the crazy that is my life!
In January I started experiencing sharp pain right above my heart. Found out I had a left atrial enlargement so ended up in the hospital and getting a lot of tests done. First guess was early stages of heart disease. After a few weeks the pain went away and I haven’t had it again, thank goodness!! I also had extremely high blood pressure during that time and I normally run low!! The best we can figure is my thyroid medicine wasn’t high enough and it caused inflammation along with me missing a few doses of that and my amazing vitamins that reduce inflammation. I’ll never make that mistake again as it was extremely scary! Right now I’m in the clear and don’t go back for a few months to get it checked again!
Of course that’s not all though….right when that first happened, my husband got accepted into Nurse Practionier school at Emory University. Amazing right!?!? It’s a dual program so he’ll get a Bachelor’s Degrees in nursing (yay for having 2 Bachelors degrees lol) and then go straight into the Graduate Program! It will take 3 years and he goes to school all day every day. He was excited……I was terrified!! Now, I know God never gives us more than we can handle, but I think sometimes God has me and Wonder Woman mixed up!! I’ve been doing ok just handling life, work, kids and multiple chronic illnesses but now add in me being the only parent around and having to do EVERYTHING for 3 years?!?! Ya, I’m still terrified by it haha! The only thing I was a bit happy about was he would start in August so at least we got a fun summer and all the kids would be in school so I’d have more time to get things done…..ya we were wrong and he actually starts in MAY!!
In the middle of dealing with my chest pain, my husbands nurse Practionier program we got another hurdle….he lost his job!! Totally unexpected and completely ridiculous but sometimes things happen that are out of your control. The good thing was I have an amazing job that paid all our bills and we live in an area where his type of job is pretty easy to find! It was a huge ball of added stress I didn’t need though and ended up making me horribly sick which was super bad as we had lost our insurance!! God always had a plan though and he found a great job where the hours work perfect with his school. In fact his work is a 10 minute walk from his school so he can go in right after class!! And it was a big pay increase!! Plus, he had some quality time with us before being gone for school the next few years!
The hard part has been the new schedule. He works in downtown Atlanta and we live about an hour away. Add in rush hour traffic and he was gone from 5:30am-7:30pm Monday- Friday. I ended up learning what it would be like when he was in Nurse Practionier school a whole lot sooner than I thought….and it’s hard!! Even for a healthy Mom, being the only parent around for homework, dinner, bath, bed time, after school activities, breaking up fights etc is HARD! Now add in a chronic illness…..to say I’ve been exhausted is the understatement of the century haha. My health was doing ok, but since this change I’ve gone downhill. My body starts running a fever when its struggling and that happens occasionally but not much in the past 8 months. Since this new scheduled happened? At least 3 or 4 times per week my body goes into flare up which means its attacking itself…..very very very bad!!
It’s a learning process for sure and I’m trying to figure out what I can do to make my life easier. Luckily my job is super flexible so I cut my hours back a bit. I’m also hunting for a good babysitter to come help me out once or twice a week and learning to cook super easy meals! Plus once summer hits in 4 weeks, I won’t be spending 2 hours a day driving kids to and from stuff which will help a ton! Then in the fall, all 3 will be in the same school and I’ll have 6 hours to myself to fit in all the crazy stuff I’m doing in 2 hours, 4 days a week! And I keep reminding myself this too shall pass!! The older they get, the more they can help and hopefully I’ll find someone local to help out too!! On a huge plus, my Mom is coming down for 2 weeks in a month to help me out!!
Through all this crazy though, I have found a few positives such as we were able to start going to Church again!! Not to mention I appreciate my job more than ever. I learned so many people live paycheck to paycheck and if they lose their job, they will be in major debt. Or even lose their house!! My husband was without a paycheck for 2 months and we were fine! Sure it was stressful and of course during that time we had a ton of extra expenses, but we survived! No extra debt or getting behind on any bills! Plus, I always have the option to work more or less so when he lost his job, I worked more and got a bigger check! Now that he is gone and my time is limited, I’ve worked less but haven’t taken a pay cut! How great is that?!?! Even for those with a wonderful job, I really encourage everyone to have a Plan B as you never know when life with throw you a curve ball. Try and have 6 month’s of bills in savings, pay off all debt, and get started on college and retirement accounts. If you don’t have any of those things……..I can help 😉
