Counting the days

We are packing, getting ready for our move to Statesboro, Georgia.  Once again, I am going to rely on Alex (and anyone else I can grab) to do the heavy lifting.

Neither Oxford nor Statesboro are really my home.  When I do go to my real home, I am sure I won't miss either one.  In the mean time, I am having a hard time saying good-bye.  There is so much here, so many people, that I love.  Moving, however, might put them out of my life and that makes me sad.

Usually when I leave a place, I feel like I feel like a criminal, sneaking away.  Actually, that has been true in the past.  The fact that I am going to miss being here, instead of being grateful to have gotten out in time, is proof that I am not the person I used to be and I celebrate that change.  I am pretty sure that I won't look at this time here (as opposed to my college years) with regret for the bad decisions I made.

I am done with my coffee, I need to get back to work.

How Mom and Dad Met

Dad, me, in 1967 on Grandpa Nota's riding lawn mower

Spring, 2007, one of the last times I saw him before he died,   I asked Dad how he and Mom met. We were sitting in the kitchen at 1 Pitt Street. While he talked, I took some notes.  This is the story he told me (as well as I could reconstruct it):

Dad's parents in front of their home  in Neffs, Ohio      

My father, Robert James Williams, was born May 10, 1920 in south-east Ohio.  I am not sure what town he was born in, but his family settled in Neffs, Ohio, a small, rural coal mining town.  At an early age, Dad exhibited one of his major character traits; he was a hard worker who never liked to sit still.  To help out with family expenses, money being short during the Depression, he grew vegetables and raised rabbits to sell.  Between 1936 and1939, Dad would work second shift in the mines, after going to to school during the day. During the summers, he and his brother Jack traveled around the country, getting free train rides by hiding in empty box cars with other men looking for work.  One summer he traveled as far as Texas, finding work herding sheep.  

In 1939, he quit school to work full time in the mines. He told me about the Willow Grove Mine explosion, which happened on March 19, 1940.  He was off that day, but  heard the explosions at home.  He spent days clearing the rubble and removing the remains of those trapped in the mine, including close friends he had known his entire life.  

Hazy, hot and humid

It is amazing how fast the seasons changed from cold, rainy and damp to hot and damp.  Living in an unairconditioned house is an endurance test.  Wearing long pants is insane.


I took a long walk yesterday before it got too hot. I have been struggling with wearing shorts and my ankle-foot orthotics. It is humiliating to expose them this way: the alternative would be to stay home or wear long pants.  


While walking, I had an epiphany: I was the one putting limits on me, not my CIDP. My desire to hide my AFOs was restricting my activity level when they are supposed to do the opposite. Wearing them means I can walk almost as fast and almost as far as I used to be able to walk.


What is the matter with me? Like anyone is going to care that I have these things on. 


 Like I care what anyone else may think about me wearing them.


Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Iron Ore

Update:

I saw the neurologist Monday and things are going well. Despite the ever present weakness, fatigue and pain, no CIDP symptoms. I am going to continue reducing my prednisone until it is 5 mg a day. I am going to start tapering off my IVIg-once every two weeks, then once a month and finally, as needed.

They are popping open champagne at my insurance headquarters over that! Last time I checked, my IVIg was over $16,000 a treatment.  I have had around fifty since last March.  

In other news, I am now married to a doctor. Adrienne received her PhD on Saturday. Next week, we will travel to Vermont to visit friends and pick up Mercedes. I can think of little else than seeing her again. There are also the preparations for moving to Statesboro, which will happen early in July. Of course, the house is still unsold.

Dogs

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 11:34:59 AM

Eloise and Mercedes

Adrienne, Eloise and I went to visit my family last weekend. That is my brother and his wife, my sister and her husband and my mother.

Mom has been in a nursing home since Dad died in 2007. Her Alzheimer's has progressed along its usual lines. I would view my mother in terms of what she was loosing; every time I saw her, there would be less of her there.

Letter to The Miami Student, the oldest student run newspaper in America

(It has happened again; reducing my steroid dosage is bringing out the madman in me.  Instead of using my car keys to scratch the following on the hood of the aforementioned vehicle, I have sought a more appropriate place to express myself.)

To the thoughtless driver who parked in a parking space for people with disabilities outside King Library on April 16; leaving your flashers on is not the same as having the appropriate parking permit.

Jesus is Lord

I have always heard that "God will never give you more than you can handle,"  and there are two opposing ways to look at it:  Sometimes that is good news, sometimes it is not.  After all, who wants to be tested?  I would never chose to be driven to the point where I end and my Higher Power has to take over.  One of the good things about that sort of testing is it can improve my relationship with God.  But what happens once the test is finished?