Road trips & homework......argh

Bill, the kids and I are about to embark on yet another road trip with the kids in tow....this time though we arent headed to Seattle for doctor appointments, we are going to visit my sister in law for her daughter's second birthday. It will be nice to get away for the weekend and just go. We need that once in a while. I do get irritated trying to pack the car for trips though. My little Honda Civic basically gets crammed when we go anywhere beyond and hour of home. I dread packing all of our crap into the car like a tetris game. Soooo annoying. Of course you have your stuff, husband's stuff, both kid's stuff, toys, snacks, wheelchair, frisbee golf discs, cake supplies, first aid kit, purse, meds and all the joyous stuff that comes along with road trips with a husband that has PTSD and two children crammed into a little car. It is bound to be more than an adventure. Also since I have three classes on Fridays and we are coming back late on Sunday....I get to do homework in the car....at my sister in law's house, and probably on the way back. Oh joyous homework. Gonna make a birthday cake for my 2 year old niece while we are over there. So that will be fun and interesting.

30 year old student.....

I had forgotten what is was like to sit in a classroom and wish I were outside rather than inside listening to chalk screech on a chalkboard, or the thunderous sound of an old fashioned pencil sharpener that you have to manually crank, or even the sound of a teacher rattling off about exponents & long division. I know I need school and I really want this opportunity for education that I have been blessed with. However, at the same time....I am anxious all day to come home and do the housework that I usually complain about having to do, to find it already done when I get home. My husband has indeed stepped it up and is growing to be very useful for so much more than I wouldve ever thought. I love him so much for being Mr. Helpful. We deserve stability and common normalcy if there is such a thing. I miss him alot more now during the day since school has started.....after spending so much time together and fighting for a few years...we can now find a common ground and appreciate the time we do get. Its all so worth the long hard road we have traveled thus far. I am loving using my brain! It does hurt a little though! I have found myself parking clear across campus from where my classes are to get some forced excercise. It is much needed anyway! I have lost two pants sizes since school started and I am overjoyed. At the moment htough its off to do homework. Yay!

Higher Learnin

Just wanted to say that I start school on Monday.....wish me luck. Now I am off to read the first two chapters of my psych textbook. It cant hurt to read ahead I figure. College should hopefully be a desirable challenge.....just enough info to keep my brain from crashing but awake enough to concentrate. I dont know. I just hope this college thing doesnt kick my ass. I really want to do well and succeed. Here's to a new normal in my life. I cant wait. I feel that since the past 5 years have been far from normal I can work towards something that I want and something that I desire for a change. I can only thank my husband for giving me this great opportunity.

Bugs, books, backpacks and bowls.....

SO there apparently is a 24 hour bug lurking in my house.....my husband has already had it and I felt bad cause he went out drinking the night before and I made fun of him cause he hasnt been hung over off three beers before. So then it turned out to not be that. Then I said maybe it was the food that your friend made late in the PM that got you sick.....nope wasnt that either. I love to give his friends shit though.....then I said well I guess the rat poison didnt get mixed in well enough.....we have a sick crazy humor with eachother......I would never poison my husband.....but the shitty part is that now I have the bug.....my four year old son had it when he went to Montana with the In Laws.....now its my turn.....as if I felt left out of the viral gift giving.....just sitting here with stomach pains waiting to throw up. Didnt sleep much at all last night due to thse f*ing stomach pains......but it also doesnt help that my son decided to sneak into bed with us last night and wet our memory foam bed that wasnt cheap. Atleast I was able to get my books for school yesterday with no issues. I tried on my backpack yesterday with my binder, books and supplies and I felt like a pack mule. If my giant boobies didnt give me permanent back problems then my load of school crap will definately seal the deal. I have been able to (surprisingly) keep down a crusty tasteless eggo waffle and some water.....not so convinced that the rest of my day I will be so lucky......gonna go lay down and prop myself up in front of the TV with a bucket. Wish me luck.

A bad day in a sea of good days

SO yesterday was not a severely bad day but it was one of the worst days recently in a sea of good days. I am glad that the good days outweigh the bad days in our lives recently. Still yesterday started out with me getting up early and eating some cereal and my husband finally got his hand cycle. Yay! He went for a ride and we met him at the bottom of our culdesac when he was on the way back up the hill and then we walked while he rode to the park. Seemed fun and my son was excited. So we get to the park and Chaise was excited to make the choice of what playground he wanted to play on.....next thing I know my husband is chucking frisbee golf discs my way.....he said he was gonna throw them and I said wait let me get out of the way. Well I was trying to dodge discs and they were coming high in the air and at that point the sun was in my eyes so I couldnt get out of the way from a disc that was thrown not straight but into the air. I tried to run out of the way but it came straight down on my back. Ok so for those of you who dont know what frisbee golf discs are......they are like frisbees only heavier and harder and they fly hard and fast when thrown. It felt like someone jumped onto my back with a flying kick. Anyway I was irritated cause it hurt and I couldnt understand why he would throw them at all when I hadnt gotten out of the way. So instead of opologizing and coming to see if I was ok.....he said what the hell where you doing why did you walk into it. Yeah my goal was to try to hit the disc with my body before it could hit me. So no sorry, no nothing just it was all my fault. I couldnt believe it. Then he proceeeded to act like nothing was wrong. My back hurt for a couple hours after that. I ended up walking home and my son was like Daddy why did you hurt mommy. I lost it and cried all the way home......a perfectly good waste of makeup I would say. It wasnt until hours later that I got an opology. We havent had something like that happen for a while. It ruined my whole day. Today I feel still blah. Hopefully today will be better.

Popcorn and a box of tissues

I dont usually cry much during movies and of course I am a girl and yeah I am a big wuss at times. So last night My son, Bill and I decided to wind down by putting in a boring movie and eating some popcorn in hopes that the kid would actually fall asleep before bed time. Sounds good right.....yeah but of course I must have read the wrong movie trailer preview because the movie was somber, and sad from start to finish. The movie is called "Taking Chance" its about a marine corps Cnl. (Kevin Bacon) who volunteers to escort the body of a young fallen Marine corps PFC thought to be from his home town area. The movie basically covers everything from the time the PFC was fatally wounded during combat by a stray bullet, through the transportation of his body to different locations, the cleaning, the honor and respect shown through the whole process, up to the transfer, and the ride home. I do not suggest watching this movie without a box of tissues. I cried through the whole movie.....and so did Bill. He actually had to pause it and take a break at one point. Needless to say the kid fell asleep but my eyes hurt today from the frequent watering of my cheeks throughout the movie. Its hard to answer to a four year old why they put ice in the box they transport bodies in, why they had to put the dead guy on a plane, and why he couldnt ride on the plane with everyone else......it was hard......but my child will have a sense of respect and pride as he grows into a man due to the honesty and the realness surrounding him throughout his life. On another note.....my four year old son started school yesterday and I went with him on the first day. Bill wanted to go but he was up all night previous throwing up for reasons still unknown. He always makes excuses for what it could be and doesnt go to the doctor.....stubborn Marines for ya! Blah.....anyway he had enough energy to go with me in the noon to pick him up from his first day and he was obviously well enough to ask why there was no flag out on the flagpole at the preschool.....the lady was a little embarassed by not having it out after that. I totally understand though.....just another day in the life of me......

Crazieness mixed with insanity.......

Oh lets just say that I seriously believe my husband is truly crazy......lol. I think he loves pain or something. Back in April when he had surgery on his crushed left calcaneous the doctors told him absolutely no weight bearing for 12 weeks no acceptions. The also told him to quit chewing because it helps you to heal better without tobacco in your system. Ok well he did surprisingly good on the no weight bearing.....better than I expected because his level of intensity and his Marine Corps standards just never allowed him to be anything less than his best whether he was knocked down or not. SO now that he is allowed to start walking "yet again", going back and forth between the wheelchair when he is hurting and then in between he uses crutches or canes.......now he is out changing the oil in his car, changing my tires, cleaning the garage, disc golfing, going to the driving range, making countless trips to the hardware store for supplies to modify his sport wheelchair.....for off roading, the skate park, and for outdoor use. He is into wheelchair extreme sports now.....so now that he is safe from suicide bombers, IEDs, and RPGs......he has to find a new adrenaline rush.....argh....I am contemplating buying him knee pads and elbow pads.....or I could just put him in a bubble so I can keep him around for a while......lol. Atleast he isnt in my house trying to fix electrical stuff.....I have to draw the line somewhere. I hate this house but I dont want it to burn down without my approval first.....this house is beginning to feel more and more miserable everyday. No money to fix it up to make it more appealing and the longer we stay here the more screwed up it gets from Bill's wheelchair not being able to fit through doorways and turn around......it sucks. I often think about just getting some c4 and taking a personal day to sit at the bottom of my driveway with some popcorn and a coctail and watch the house explode into a hazy cloud. It reminds me of the scene in the movie "Waiting To Exhale" where the lady finds out her husband has been sleeping with the white bitch at the office and she throws all his shit in his sweet ride and parks it in the driveway then sets it on fire and goes to take a nap. Anyway.....my husband found another colony of terrorist wasps in our garage and the firefight wages on!

Back to school is set in stone for me!

I finally after months of anticipation, have gotten my financial aid award letter for college. Its all good to go. All I had to do was accept my award and now its just a bit more waiting for school to start. I get to pick up my books on the 14th and then I start school on the 28th.....its slowly creeping up on me. I am a little nervous since I havent been in a classroom setting in over 10 years now. Its a little intimidating! Hopefully I will do well. If I couldve been as organized in high school as I am now then I think I wouldve done so much better and high school may not have been so horrible for me. Anyway i am excited to finally further my education and become someone my kids can be proud of as well as do something that I love to do and get paid to do it. I have to thank my husband though for the extra education benefits that I am recieving due to his 100% disability rating. If it werent for him then I may not have pushed myself to do this. I am super appreciative for all that I have.

School shopping with tweens....argh

I would highly reccomend that if you are going to go school clothes shopping with a hormonal pre-teen to load up on caffeine and bring earplugs and duct tape. It is seriously and adventure.....and very stressful. Fun but stressful. Now the fun begins.....school!!

So to make a long story short.....the trip to seattle was successful, Bill's foot is looking good and he is using crutches off and on switching to the wheelchair for more strenuous activities. Hiked to Multnomah falls and Bill wheeled probably over a mile all up hill while most of the tourists bitched about how steep the trail was. For those who dont know....Multnomah Falls is the second highest year round waterfall in Oregon. My husband is so impressive and refused to sit at the bottom and watch us have fun. He demanded to wheel up that hill. Inspiration at its best! We got home and dropped off my son for his trip to montana with the inlaws.....I miss him already and he will be gone a week. Dang! SO we went to our neighbors house tonight to unwind from a long stressful trip which included being contained in a small car with loud children for more than 12 hours in a three day period.....whooooa....yeah after 4 shots of whiskey which were jiggers and 4 rum and cokes.....lets just say I am relaxed and feelin good.....I am glad my driveway isnt any longer or steeper than it is. So no more Seattle trips fpr a while hopefully. Grocery shopping tomarrow and then going to see Halloween 2 with Bill. Yay! Alone time! We'll see how it plays out. I am already missing my little boy though. Its tough!

So yeah about this adventure

The adventure is going good accept for the fact that I am posting this from my husbands phone due to no internet signal at the hotel where the va has us lodged. There is a small pool so the kids enjoyed that. I had to laugh because aPparently the hotel wanted to charge for me and the kids. Umm no! He can't drive himself and I am his caregiver and I can't leave my kids alone so they can suck it lol. So ortho appointment in the morning then gonna go look for the childrens interactive museum.

Great adventures in VA land.....and we're off......AGAIN!

So today I spent the first part of the day searching through our storage unit among all the things that we cant fit into our tiny house. (Someone please buy it so we can move already) I had to get the stock wheels and tires that came with my car because the dealership's tires for life extended warranty coverage .....ummm.....how can I say this.....was pretty much a scam. SO Bill spent about 2 hours changing my bald tires on my car to the ugly stock ones that came on it. Dont get me wrong I am thankful for new tires.....but the wheels that the bald tires were on were much prettier. Anyway new tires are on.....and we are off on a 6 hour road trip to Seattle tomarrow for yet another ortho appointment with both kids tagging along. Oh how tomarrow will be a super long day.....I cant wait till school starts. Now I am off to take a late shower.....all my chores are done....everything is packed.....for myself and the kids.....snacks.....games.....DVDs.....wheelchair parts.....crutches......my little car will eventually hate me I just know it. As if tomarrow wasnt gonna be entertaining enough.....lol....my husband gets to drive the whole trip.....normally I dont go on these trips.....but I get to experience how it would appear from the inside of his humvee if he were driving it. Its like Nascar meets demolition derby on crack......with a shot of whiskey. Stay tuned! I will post updates of this adventure from time to time.....hahahahaha.....if I get there!!!!

Today was better than yesterday!

So my days vary in regards to how good of a day I have....I use the pain scale that the VA loves to use for physical pain.....thats about a joke. Anyway today was a smily face and not as painful as yesterday. This applies to Bill and myself. Him with pain and me for stress because when his pain is down in the lower area of the pain chart where a frown begins to come out.....well then that ruins my day because I either feel bad for him or I stress myself out trying to not set him off. It has gotten alot better and since his last surgery I feel like we are getting along better and we understand eachother so much better. He has been reading alot and writing in his journal and even writing poetry....thats strange for me but it has helped him apparently. He is on this how can I please my wife kick. He is basically trying to make up for all the years that we have been fighting not just with eachother but with life. I began to feel a little selfish and I told him that I was tired of everything being only about him all the time. I know that seems wrong but I have sacrificed things too. For one my sanity and two my confidence. Its coming back.....slowly but its coming! Anyway Bill has been buying me cute things, doing the dishes when he can tolerate standing, laundry and he has just all of a sudden gained this desire to try extra hard to make me happy. I appreciate his efforts and I am so glad that he is getting joy out of it too. Its been a long time since he has had this kind of motivation. Today Me, Bill and the kids went and ran some errands and then took the kids to the skate park. So my theory is that now my husband is out of the military he misses blowing stuff up so much and he is an adrenaline rush junkie....now he is taking his wheelchair to the skate park so he can pack what little danger he can into his day without actually hurting himself or other people. Its constructive, it gets him out of the house and its a good workout for him. I of course am always on standby with a box of huge bandaids just in case. The only problem is that the motto go big or go home stands strong in our home. Its a little scary and a little stressful. So with his track record of injuries....I dont think my big box of bandaids is going to make much of a difference. So now on to modifying the wheelchair for tricks, jumps and grinding. I hope other wounded warriors can learn that the word disability still has the word ability in it. It sometimes takes seeing what other disabled people can actually do with what little they have to motivate others to do the same.

Finding the humor in sacrifice!

So here is a small example of the kind of people we are and how we have learned to use humor to get us through some very tough situations in the past. Now my husband is an amputee. However he tried to keep his leg for over a year before making the decision to ultimately have it amputated just below his right knee. The limb salvage surgery just wasnt working. SO....three days before his amputation my husband Bill and our really good friend who is a tattoo artist got together and decided on a super funny idea to help my husband come to terms with the loss of his leg. In the end the doctors admitted that Bill's amputation was by far the most entertaining one to date. The picture below will either make you laugh or it will offend you.....either way I still think its sexy!

New Adventures in PTSD land

So as wives who have wounded husbands know PTSD can bring on a whole new world of excitement....maybe excitement isnt the right word! Things are likely to happen and you either choose to accept it or deal with it in creative ways. So here is a little example of an incident that made me laugh recently. Yesterday I spent most of the day at my inlaws house getting my car worked on so it wouldnt scream at me anymore. After a day of that.....wheww....car is noise free. However I was on my way home yesterday and got kind of a disturbing phone call from my husband who has recently found a new found love for trying to restore his 1991 5.0 mustang which is his baby. He hasnt been able to work on it for years due to mobility issues. Anyhow he calls me in sort of a disgruntled state asking me if I can pick up wasp spray on the way home. I replied with well we have two cans and proceeded to tell him where they were located. I asked him why he needed it and if everything was ok and he replied with.....I have just been in a firefight with a few troops of wasps who had recently made a nest in my car. So he made a bunker, got the hose and proceeded to attack the enemy wasps until he was safe enough to wheelchair out of the area to a safer FOB (forward operating base).....lol....he needed more ammo.....thus the wasp spray.....he said he was then off to locate the weapons and he was gonna go slaughter the rest of the colony and take no prisoners. Needless to say no wasp lived the attack and nobody in our platoon was injured or killed. So the car is free from enemy fire and is ready for clearance.....or some shit like that. Anyway I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I had to share this! It made me laugh and he had fun! Just another day with my husband and his PTSD!

My car screams at me.....

So I have in the past year begun to have a ton of car problems off and on. My car was bought new in 2005 as a 2006 and there was 11 miles on it when we drove away from the dealership. Now 4 years later and I feel like all of this traveling for medical appointments has really begun to take a toll on my poor little car. It has almost 80,000 miles on it and today I spent a couple hours hanging out at the inlaws house while my father in law changed my brakes and inspected my car. My brakes were so bad and they have been screaming at me for weeks now. Yay no more squeeling little Honda. It seriously sounded like I was dragging a bag of baby pigs behind me down the road. No my tires could blow at any moment and I seriously think that the dealership we bought it from has the crappiest mechanica on the planet. I dont think that they do all the required maintenance when we take it in. Anyway I had to vent about that. Hopefully our truck will be paid off in a year and I can trade my car in for a hybrid something for better mileage, fuel economy, space and more earth friendly. Those are my hopes anyway. We'll see our credit is hashed though from previous issues.....dont wanna go into that.....a whole new set of drama.

I missed the bloggers window of opportunity!

I have recently realized after reading numerous blogs spanning over a few years from multiple women that I should have been blogging from the start of our horrid ordeal. It would kind of be be nice to be able to go back and see how far we have came as a couple and as individuals over the past 5 years. We have been through a tremendous amount of hell, pain, suffering, fights, family deaths, amputations, surgeries, births and so much more than I can even list here. Even though I never blogged all that time I wish now that I had kept a personal journal. It may have helped alot with my situation. I journal now and even though I just started this blog.....there is still so much to look forward to and now I feel like instead of needing to blog as an outlet for tough situation and hard times I can look forward to blogging about the good times and not only where we have been but where we are going in life. Things are definately looking up however life for us and our family is still a struggle at times. Stay tuned anything is possible when you live with a combat wounded veteran.

The Cliff's Notes

So I am new to this whole blogging "experience" so I think I should introduce myself and give you an idea of my situation so I dont have to do what I normally do which is tell the dang story 50 times a day.....or I just get to the point where now I just say hi to people and forget all the rest and if someone asks how I am doing I just say I am doing fine or good.....even if I am not fine. It saves me hours of explaining and questions and dumbfounded looks. My name is Naomi and my husband was injured in Iraq June 23rd 2004. He was driving lead vehicle in a small convoy on a night mission when his humvee hit and IED which was detonated from nearby. The blast was large enough to toss and uparmored humvee into the air and onto its top. The humvee was demolished. Everyone lived but a few of the guys including my husband were very severely injured. My husband was injured the worst since the blast was basically all on the driver side where he was sitting. Alot of people say wow he was so lucky. Yeah I guess you could say that but over the past 5 years we havent felt very lucky along this beaten path that the military likes to refer to as recovery. Its more like hell on earth. Nobody on the planet can prepare you for what I have and continue to deal with. My husband's injuries consist of a L1-L4 burst fracture....he how has hardware holding his spine together. He has a RBK (right below the knee) amputation after a year of limb salvaging his right foot. He just had reconstructive surgery done on his left foot and ankle (another limb slavage basically) a few months ago and is just now beginning to bare weight on it. He had a revision done on his stump last year so it was kind of considered a second amputation since they had to remove 2 inches of bone to fix his issue. He also has a TBI and plenty of good ol' PTSD to go around. He has left leg nerve damage and he also has pains in his left knee from overcompensation while trying to walk for 5 years on a broken foot that the Army addressed as fine. Anyway the road to recovery for us has been a very long and stressful one. Words cannot express what my emotions have been through. When I say us as in our road to recovery I mean just that.....we are recovering together because I dont care what anyone says.....we both suffer and we both carry the burden of war injuries. Thats just the way it is. Now after 5 years of dealing with more than a husband and a wife should endure we are trying to get our lives on a somewhat normal path and finally get some stability back. My only worry now is that my husband may lose his other leg eventually and that mentally I am now on my last crayon in my box of 120. He just recieved his 100% permanent and total VA disability rating after fighting and apealing twice while his buddies have just slipped right through the arms of the system with their back pains and their mild if any TBIs and gotten their 100% over a year ago with no issues. So here it is 5 years later and I am going to try out college since I havent been able to go back to school or work in quite some time. I am just trying to get my mind right and do normal things that normal people do every day. I dont know what normal is anymore if there even is such a thing. If there is.....can I borrow some please. I will pay you back later!