Being Alive In Love

For those of you who have been wondering what's been going on with me since early September (my last really meaningful post) here goes:

My husband had surgery on his shoulder in early September. The procedure is called 'Bankart Repair'. Initially we were told (erroneously) that the recovery time would be 6 weeks. When we went to see the doctor for the follow-up visit, we learned that the recovery time is actually more like 6 months. It was a very painful process. My husband could not lay flat, so he essentially had to sleep sitting up. He also needed to take very strong pain medications. Even with these he was still in rather severe pain.

At the end of September we had to move. We got some financial help for this, but almost no physical help, so my husband was forced to be packing up boxes and helping to carry some of them out to the moving containers. His friend who helped us so much ended up moving most of our stuff out of the house into the containers. We ended up needing 3 containers. We really need to pare down!

We moved into the most reasonably-priced place within a half-way reasonable distance from home base (our son's school, our church, my parents' house, etc.). Our first night sleeping here a mouse scurried across the floor in front of us when we were on our way into the bedroom. I really hate having to deal with mice, but the landlord hired an exterminator to get them under control. He's going to have to have some structural stuff done to the house, though because they are still getting in. 8 months later I am still looking at boxes and wondering how I'll ever get them unpacked and put away.

My husband applied for medical benefits, and because of a delay in receiving paperwork, it was the end of October before we received any benefit money. We also found out that the benefit amount was only going to be just under $1000.00 per month - less than 40% of our monthly expenses. It was going to be hard. We applied for and got financial assistance to cover our son's monthly tuition, so at least that was covered. We also found a hospital where he could do outpatient physiotherapy so it was covered by our medical insurance. At the end of December, my husband's medical benefits were cut off. He started looking for work right away & applied for regular unemployment benefits. Unfortunately he was not sufficiently recovered to take just any sort of work. He also applied for several Class B contracts with the military. He was accepted for one.

On February 6th 2009, my husband left for his posting. The term of the contract is 15 months. He will have vacation time, and the military will pay for transportation to & from home once during the term of the contract. Any other visits we will have to pay for ourselves. He has his own room & has arranged for high-speed internet service (the ISP gives military folks a discount), so we can e-mail, chat, and talk via our soft phones nearly every day.

Since he's been away we have been recovering financially (albeit slowly). He was promoted to Corporal on April 16th, which is supposed to come with a raise, so hopefully we can actually get caught up on things.

Right now he's away from the base on a training exercise, so we haven't spoken to him since 30 April, and won't have any contact again until 10 May (Mother's Day). I'll have to do the Mother's Day thing with my Mom on Saturday so my son & I can be home Sunday evening to devote it to talking with my husband.

We both really miss him. I am exhausted much of the time & struggling with depression & anxiety. I also have to try to help my son to cope with missing his Papa, and deal with the behavioural issues he has at home and at school. I'm sure my son is quite bewildered seeing me struggle with not knowing which end is up or what to do first. I hate having to be tough with him, but if I don't he won't learn to be a good boy. Still, he knows I love him.

We are so thankful to all of the friends, family, and other benefactors that helped us out so much during our recent period of severe financial difficulty. We prayed for help, and God prompted these people to help us. Thank you Lord!!!!

Sweetie, if you happen to read this: I LOVE YOU TONS!!!!

Things have been getting better, but we're not out of the woods yet. An overdue bill reared its ugly head and bit us - so now we're short on rent again - not the whole thing, but a sizable chunk. My husband will have to talk to the landlord about it. 8 days late will hopefully not be a major deal. Still - it's a bit frightening & depressing for me. I need a faith infusion to keep my spirits up.

Prescription: Prayer.

Tonight we went to church & besides having all of this on my mind, I was motion-sick on the way (resulting in a headache), so I couldn't focus to read my prayer book before Mass & then during Mass my son would not behave. I had to take him outside twice to discipline him. Since my husband was helping as one of the Mass co-ordinators, I was on my own with my son. I was one stressed-out Mama!

Prescription: More prayer.

Still - I do have one thing to feel really good about. I have been pushing myself to do something about 'boxville'. Over the past week I've been re-claiming the kitchen. It's only a small part of what needs to be done, but I think once the kitchen is in shape, the other rooms will come together more quickly. The next phase of 'operation kitchen' involves some heavy lifting, so I need to motivate my husband to help me with that before I can make much more headway. Where did I put that cattle prod? ONLY KIDDING!

I did it yet again. I've been so frazzled, anxious, and depressed - not to mention BUSY that I just couldn't bring myself to blog about anything. So much has gone on.

Well, my husband left for military training July 1st, and now he won't be back until possibly as late as the 30th (date to be confirmed) - sigh. He has been really good about calling home every 1-3 days - & I've really needed it. I have been going bananas with our son, and then on top of that the landlady is selling the house. This means there have been strangers parading through our house - which I've had to work extra hard on (which is really really hard when your 4-year-old who is normally his lovable high-energy self is extra demanding, extra emotional, acting-out, and being more disobedient than usual). Talking to my husband has helped me a bit. I've also just today managed to get in touch with someone at the local MFRC about getting me some counselling because I've really not been handling the stress well. I have had to completely cut out all sources of caffeine (except perhaps for the occasional small piece of chocolate), and start taking small amounts of the herb "Passion Flower" to help with the anxiety because I found I was needing to take my emergency anti-anxiety pills too often. Under normal circumstances I can even drink a cup & sometimes 2 of coffee every day & I only need the emergency pills once in every 3-4 months & I was having to take them every 2 days! As of Tuesday, my husband's whole group will be going on field exercises and he'll be completely incommunicado for 10 days! I'm not really looking forward to that, but I'll have to cope somehow.

What amazed me about our son is that he hasn't wanted to talk to my husband on the phone. Everytime I would hand him the phone or try to put it to his ear, he either ran away or just said "Hi" and then pushed the phone away. I tried a different tactic last week. I moved our extra phone that is capable of speakerphone into the livingroom & when my husband called, I put him on speaker - and they talked! It was wonderful! My son managed to express some of his feelings to his Papa, & my husband got to reassure him. It seems to have helped a bit - well at least for a while.

Anyway, all I can say is - the next time my husband is going away for training or whatever, we will have been educated in how to prepare our son for his absence. It's too bad I didn't find out about the MFRC until well after my husband had gone.

We've been sending my husband care packages filled with things he needs, goodies etc. and usually some pictures. Here's the last photo of our son that I sent to my husband:



Here he's doing the ILY sign with both hands. It's the short form for "I Love You" in American Sign Language (ASL). My husband and I have both taken some basic courses in ASL, so we have been trying to teach a few signs to our son.