The Mouse House

This the story of how I became “The Happy Housewife.” You might want to start at the beginning.

It was hard to believe that the house was actually worse in the daylight than in the dark. The light revealed how dirty the house really was. I quickly got to work cleaning every square inch of that place before we moved in.

I remember cleaning the windows and going through two rolls of paper towels. Each window was covered with a layer of black dirt (which we later found out was soot). We cleaned the appliances several times over and I even ventured into the basement to sweep it out.

Thankfully I didn’t see any mice in my cleaning. Maybe it was just crazy coincidence that we saw a mouse the day we looked at the house?

The moving truck came, delivered our stuff, and we quickly got to work setting up our new home in Virginia. I think I had the whole house unpacked in less than a week. I wanted to be settled before the baby arrived.

In Florida, Sailor was told by the military not to take his nursing exam in Florida since he would be working in Virginia. This was a mistake (or maybe not). There was a problem getting the paperwork together for him to take the exam in Virginia and since he wasn’t licensed he couldn’t officially work as a nurse at the hospital. He was given a day job until the paperwork mess was sorted out.

The paperwork mess lasted almost six months. While all our nursing friends worked rotating shifts Sailor worked from 7-4 and had most weekends off. It was nice.

A few weeks after we moved in I went into the basement and it was filled with about two feet of water. Sailor tried to figure out the source of the water. The kids splashed and played in our basement swimming pool. I was worried that our washer and dryer would be ruined and called the landlord.

Our landlord sent over a repairman who couldn’t figure out the source of the leak but managed to get the water out of the basement. While cleaning up the mess we found a large piece of plywood under the stairs. Scrawled on the plywood were the words… “the basement floods….”

Of course that would have been nice to know before we put all our extra boxes in the basement, but fortunately only a things were ruined. We bought cinderblocks to put the washer and dryer on in case of future flooding and put anything worth saving on makeshift shelving.

The basement flooded several more times until a plumber finally figured out that tree roots had grown into the underground pipes in the yard. Our basement had been backing up with sewage!

I hated that basement and hated that I had to go down there almost every day to do the laundry.

Spring arrived in Virginia and the kids were enjoying the nice back yard. We met our “back yard neighbors” and we even built steps so they could climb the fence.

One night in the back yard Sailor saw a rat running across the power line. A few weeks later there was a dead rat under our car in the driveway. I still hadn’t seen any in the house but was starting to get worried.

At seven months pregnant I strained my back moving furniture. It was so bad I wasn’t able to walk our daughter to school. I went to the doctor and he gave me muscle relaxers but I refused to take them. It was getting so bad that I was unable to do basic chores around the house.

The doctor kept telling me that I needed to rest for a few days in order to get better. I told him that mom’s don’t have time to rest. He told me if I didn’t he would admit me to the hospital for some forced rest. It got so bad that my daughter came home from school with a picture she had drawn. It was me moving the coffee table and she was standing in the background crying, she had a bubble over her head that said, “No mommy, no!”

I decided I would take the muscle relaxers and rest for a few days. My back finally started to feel better.

One evening the kids woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Even though they had their own rooms they always slept in the same room. They loved being together! We ran in the room and they both told us they saw a mouse run across the room and under the bed.

They knew about the rats in the yard, so we wondered if it was just their imagination. They were sure it wasn’t. Sailor searched the room for a mouse but couldn’t find anything. They wouldn’t go back to sleep so we all ended up sleeping together.

I started to worry about our new baby, I didn’t want mice crawling all over them as he or she slept in the crib. I had never seen a live mouse in the house (except for the day we signed the lease) but I was starting to believe they were everywhere.

May arrived and the temperature started to rise in Virginia. We turned on our odd wall a/c unit and it made some horrible sounds and then died. We called our landlord and he said he didn’t think it could be fixed.

Now, everyone knows you don’t tell a woman who is nine months pregnant that the a/c cannot be fixed. They will hurt you. I didn’t even last 24 hours, I told Sailor he needed to go straight to Home Depot and buy a window unit for our bedroom. We could all sleep in there until the landlord did something about the air.

Since the unit was so old it couldn’t be fixed so the landlord decided to put window units in a few of the rooms. It wasn’t ideal, but at least I wasn’t a big, hot, sweaty mess.

Memorial Day weekend Sailor’s family came to visit. We had a great time and on Memorial Day Sailor had to work. I woke up feeling a little funny and since last time I felt funny I had a baby a few hours later so I decided to head to the hospital.

Sailor was already there working and my doctor was on call. He decided I was in early labor so I was admitted. We were going to have a Memorial Day baby.

We still didn’t have a name picked out so we joked with the doctor and nurses about baby names, played cards, and hung out with our friends (all who worked at the hospital). It was weird knowing most of the doctor’s and nurses, but it was also kind of nice.

Our healthy and happy baby boy was born that evening, just in time for our doctor to make his Memorial Day party. I felt great until I was taken to the post partum floor.

Apparently the people who redesigned the hospital thought it would be a good idea to have people share rooms (and bathrooms) after they have a baby. (These people had obviously never had a baby) So there I was with our baby, and on the other side of the curtain was another lady and her baby. I didn’t sleep a single second that night. If my baby wasn’t crying her baby was. It was horrible. .

When Sailor came to visit the next day I cried and told him he had to get me out of the hospital. I couldn’t stand to be there one more second. Unfortunately our baby needed to circumcised and that wasn’t going to happen until the next day.

Fortunately my roommate was discharged that afternoon and I think Sailor pulled a few strings so I didn’t end up with another roommate that night.

The next day I couldn’t wait to get home see my other kids. They took happy baby off to be circumcised and I started packing up my stuff. They brought him back all bundled up and sound asleep. I waited for my discharge paperwork and Sailor to come take us home.

The paperwork took longer than expected and I ended up waiting for over two hours. Finally happy baby woke up and I went to change his diaper. I unwrapped him from the blanket and saw blood running down his legs.

I took off his diaper and it was filled with blood.

Moving to Virginia

This the story of how I became “The Happy Housewife.” You might want to start at the beginning.

I was really starting to get worried. It wasn’t like Sailor to not call even if things weren’t good. To help pass the time I took the kids outside and started swinging on my parent’s porch swing. We hadn’t been swinging very long when I heard a familiar sound. It was the sound of our old Volkswagon’s brakes squeaking.

I smiled, but then I realized that our Volkswagon was somewhere in Virginia! I guess someone else had squeaky brakes too. The next thing I knew there was Sailor in his white uniform with a bouquet of flowers walking up my parent’s driveway. He had missed us so much he drove straight from Rhode Island to Florida to see us!

I couldn’t believe my eyes and neither could the kids. We all ran and hugged Sailor. I was still a tiny bit mad at him for making me think he was dead or stranded in a snow bank, but mostly I was glad to see him.

Sailor decided that it would be better if we all went to Virginia together. He had vacation time available so we would enjoy one last week in Florida then caravan up to Virginia together.

During the week in Florida I realized I had made a bit of a packing error. Instead of not packing the kids’ winter clothes, I packed them all in our shipment. Our kids had a few pairs of pants, no coats, and we would be moving to Virginia in February.

I didn’t think this would be a problem until I headed to the stores to buy them coats. What I forgot was that in February all the stores are gearing up for Spring Break and the winter clothes selection was severely limited. I finally found a few winter things that could hold us over until we found a house in Virginia.

We arrived in Virginia and checked in to the Navy Lodge. We had ten days of “free” lodging, so that meant we had exactly ten days to find a place to live. We were also in a hurry because we had pulled our daughter out of school and we couldn’t enroll her in a new school until we knew where we would be living.

Sailor also had to check-in to the hospital and start working. I spent my days at the Housing Office getting lists of rentals and driving around town checking out different neighborhoods.

We looked at house after house and just couldn’t seem to find the right house for us. They were either too far away, too small, the school district wasn’t very good, or the neighborhood seemed sketchy. The pressure was on to find a house because we were running out of time.

We fell in love with an area that had great schools and seemed very Navy friendly. Unfortunately the houses were way out of our budget. I kept hoping we could find a “fixer upper” that would be priced a little lower. On the seventh or eighth day I found a house for rent in that neighborhood. We called and made an appointment to look at it.

Since Sailor was working most of our appointments were in the afternoon or early evening. We arrived at this house around sunset.

The first problem with this house was that it was on a busy street, a six lane road that seemed to be buzzing with traffic. We did notice that the house had a nice big backyard so we rationalized that as long as the kids played in the back yard they would be safe.

The second problem with the house was that it didn’t have a garage, carport, or shed. Not that a garage is a necessity, but we wondered where we would put any extra boxes, bikes, toys, and Christmas decorations.

The landlord met us at the house and we headed inside. Problem number three, the house didn’t any electricity. It was wired for electricity, but because there was no one living in the house it wasn’t turned on. We were now inside a fairly dark house so it was hard to see what everything looked like.

I could tell the carpet in the house was older because it was kind of “crunchy.” The kitchen was big, but the appliances were older and dirty. It didn’t seem like anything a good scrubbing couldn’t fix. The linoleum in the kitchen was cracked in several places and very dirty, but I rationalized that  dirty floor would probably have to be cleaned less often.

There was a small half-bath under the stairs. It was one of those bathrooms that was so small that you could sit on the toilet and wash your hands at the same time. In fact you couldn’t really even stand up all the way in the bathroom if you were over six feet tall.

On the way upstairs I noticed a big box on the wall in the stairwell. I asked what it was and the landlord said it was the air conditioning. I had never seen six foot air conditioner unit mounted to a wall, but I figured it probably was similar to a window unit. He said it worked and since it was forty degrees in the unheated house I had to believe him.

Upstairs there were two huge bedrooms and two small bedrooms. The walls were dingy but the landlord said we could paint them. (Selling point number one)

There was one bathroom upstairs. The tub was cracked and peeling but it at least there was a tub to wash the kids.

I asked where the laundry room was and the landlord told us it was in the basement. The fact that the house had a basement solved our storage problems so the house was starting to seem like a possibility.

It was too dark to actually look at the basement so we headed back to the living room to discuss the rent and move in options.

Although the house was definitely a wreck, we were running out of time to find a place and I hoped my dad would be able to come up and help us improve the place a little. As we were talking in the living room a mouse ran across the carpet.

Now, let me interrupt this story to say that if you are ever considering renting a house and a mouse runs across the floor while you are looking at it, DO NOT RENT THE HOUSE.

In my heart I didn’t think we should rent the house, but it felt like our only option so we signed the lease. We could move in the next day.

The next morning I picked up the keys and headed over to see what our new house looked like in the sunshine.

 

Warheads

My kids got some candy at a birthday party this weekend and they really liked the sour Warheads. We’ve been laughing at their sour faces so my nine year-old thought it would be funny to film himself eating one, so he could see what he looked like too.

Please excuse my hysterical laughter. I didn’t know what he was doing at first and once I realized it I couldn’t stop laughing at his sour face!

Limbo

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

My father was on his way to the ER with Sailor. Apparently all the laughing and a reaction to the tape used on the incision had caused “stuff” to start seeping out from the bandages.

Since I’m not one to back down from a threat, I made my father take Sailor to the ER while I tended to our daughter and tried to get some sleep.

Sailor was fixed up at the ER and sent home. He spent the next month recuperating from his surgery.

The surgery put Sailor in a strange situation. All his nursing school classmates graduated that May, but because he had to withdraw from the spring semester he didn’t have enough clinical hours to graduate and was missing a few credit hours. The problem was the classes he needed were only available in the Spring and the Navy wasn’t going to pay for Sailor to spend another year in school.

We spent several weeks in limbo trying to work something out where Sailor could still graduate with his nursing degree in a time frame that was acceptable to the Navy. This was extremely stressful because we were now strapped with three years of student loans and looking at the possibility that Sailor might have to return to his old job in the Navy without a degree.

Finally, the University came up with a special program that would allow Sailor to finish his degree in November. It was something that hadn’t been done before but everyone wanted him to graduate rather than drop out.

He began independent study work and also picked up a part time job as a tech in the burn unit at the local hospital. Not only would it give him medical experience it was extra money every month to pay the bills.

While it was great experience working at the burn unit, every day at the hospital made Sailor more and more certain he did not want to be a nurse. He felt like the entire thing was a huge mistake and he wanted to give it all up and go back to his old job.

We spent hours talking and arguing about his situation. While it was a possibility to quit and go back to his old job it would most likely end his career in the Navy and then he’d be without a degree or a job. I told him once he graduated it would get better. Being a nursing student was not the same as being a nurse and I was sure he would find a place in nursing he would enjoy.

We were excited to find out a few months after Sailor’s surgery that we were expecting another baby. Since we had such a terrible time with baby boy Sailor was pretty much convinced he didn’t want any more children. I really wanted three and it took over a year to convince Sailor that not all babies were as sick as our little boy.

A few days after we told everyone we were expecting we lost the baby.

I couldn’t help but think it was because we bombed the house for bugs a few days earlier. I’ll never know for sure, but we’ve never bombed our house for bugs since.

Our cute little house on the tree lined street was wonderful, except it was always crawling with bugs.

First there were the carpenter ants.

During a bad storm a tree fell on our roof. The roof was repaired but not before the wood got wet and made a great home for the carpenter ants. We started seeing them here and there and told our landlord. He said he would send someone out to take care of it.

They didn’t come soon enough. One evening we were eating dinner with friends, spaghetti with clam sauce (I’ll never forget), and a carpenter ant dropped on the table. We all dismissed it as a random bug and then another fell, and then another. They started falling out of the light in our ceiling like raindrops.

We all started screaming and I was frantically trying to protect the clam sauce our friends had prepared. By the time they stopped falling there were several hundred ants on our table and dining area. We did what any other poor college students who had splurged on an expensive meal would do. We spread a sheet down on the living room floor and ate our dinner there.

We also had bees. The giant oak tree in the front yard had a massive nest and on certain days it was like a game to get into the house without letting a bee in with you. Once evening Sailor had gone to get a sub for me. He walked into the house and headed towards the kitchen to get a plate for the sub. After a few seconds I heard a scream and then a crash. I ran into the kitchen to find Sailor standing with his shirt off and my sub all over the floor.

Apparently a bee had flown up Sailor’s shirt and stung him. He threw the sub in the air while frantically trying to get his shirt off. I could not believe he had dropped my sub because of a bee sting! I mean don’t get between me and my Subway! He went back to Subway and explained what happend. They felt so bad for him they gave him a replacement sub for free!

The roaches were the worst. You have’t experienced roaches until you live in Florida. For some reason they liked our fireplace, and a few times a year they would launch an attack. Once the fearless exterminator was at our house when an ash covered roach dashed out from our fireplace. He smashed it with his bare hands. I was grossed out and impressed all at the same time.

We loved our little house but sure was buggy!

We kept busy that summer throwing birthday parties for our kids and getting them ready for the school year. Our little girl would be starting kindergarten, I couldn’t believe it! She was always a social and outgoing girl so we knew she was just going to love her class.

The first day of school we dropped her off in a room full of kids we didn’t know. It didn’t feel quite right, but I didn’t think there were any other options. Christian school was too expensive and the only homeschoolers I knew were weird.

Just as we started our school year routine we found out we were expecting again. We were excited but didn’t want to tell anyone because of what happened before. We decided we would wait until I was farther along before we spilled the beans.

Sailor finished his classes in November and was commissioned. We had a big ceremony and his parents threw a large party afterwards. It kind of felt like the wedding we never had. Except Sailor was the center of attention, not me. 🙂

The movers came to pack up our house three days before Christmas that year. I couldn’t believe we would be leaving our little house on the tree lined street. For some reason I thought we would always live there, we had put down roots and it was hard to think about leaving our friends and family.

We wouldn’t be leaving quite yet though, Sailor was going to school in Rhode Island for six weeks and I would stay with my parents while he was gone. Moving back in with my parents felt strange, but I didn’t want to stay by myself for six weeks so it worked.

Sailor and I talked frequently while he was in training, mostly we talked about how cold Rhode Island was in January. It was so cold the door handles of his little red Volkswagon snapped off when his roommate tried to get into the car. I couldn’t imagine such cold weather, but I didn’t have to. In early February I took a trip up to Rhode Island to see Sailor. When I wasn’t freezing to death it was fun.

While the kids were in school I spent my time researching our next duty station, Portsmouth, Virginia. We were only given three choices and Portsmouth seemed the most affordable out of the three.

My number one priority was finding a house near a good school. Before my kids were school-aged I didn’t realize that your entire life revolved around school districts. I grew frustrated as I started to realize that all the houses in the good school districts were out of our price range.

The plan was for Sailor to finish school in Rhode Island and then go to Virginia to find us a place to live. The day he graduated he called to let me know he was on the road. I told him to call me when he arrived in Virginia. He was getting a late start, the weather was bad, and his car was old, plus Sailor had a horrible sense of direction. I was worried he might not make it to Virginia until the middle of the night.

I heard from Sailor several hours later. I was worried because he should have been very close to Portsmouth but he told me he was at a gas station in a city nowhere near his route. We only talked for a few minutes and he said he had to get back on the road. I was sure Sailor was totally lost.

I went to bed very worried.

I woke up the next morning with no word from Sailor. I was sure he would be calling any minute. But he never called. It had been almost sixteen hours since he left Rhode Island and it was only a ten hour drive to Virginia. I told myself that he probably checked into the hotel late into the evening and was still asleep.

The day went on and still no word from Sailor. I was growing more and more concerned. I called the people we knew in Virginia to see if they had heard from him and they hadn’t.

It had been almost twenty-four hours since he left Rhode Island and except for our brief phone call, no one had seen or heard from Sailor. Where was he?

Frisbee Golf & Camping

My family loves Frisbee Golf. If you aren’t familiar with the sport it is kind of like golf, except you play with frisbees and you don’t ride in a cart or wear funny looking pants. 😉

We like it because it is fun, and you don’t have to be very good to play- so my younger kids are not excluded from the activity. When we camp, we always try to find a campground that is close to a Frisbee Golf course. We’ve been to several in the mid-Atlantic but haven’t found any in the southeast yet.

Do you have any recommendations? We’ll be camping in a few weeks and would love to add Frisbee Golf to our list of activities.

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The Tumor

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

I panicked when I walked into the house. I couldn’t tell who was hurt. I checked our toddler first and once I realized he was okay I tried to figure out what was wrong with Sailor.

He kept mumbling something and finally I realized he wanted me to check his blood pressure. I did and thought I made a mistake. It was 220/115. I took it again and it was the same. Sailor said he thought he was having a stroke. First a heart attack now a stroke… I couldn’t believe this was happening.

My mom arrived and I rushed Sailor to the ER. They took us right back (note: crazy high blood pressure will also get you right in to the ER) and Sailor was freaking out. He was sure he was dying. His cries of pain were so loud that the nurse asked him to hold it down because there were children around.

They admitted him to the hospital for tests and once again could not find anything wrong with him.

After he was discharged I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone with the kids. There was something wrong with him, but no one could figure out what it was.

A few weeks later his doctor at the VA Hospital tested him for a rare tumor. The test came back positive.

We were unsure what this diagnosis would mean for our family. What we knew was that Sailor had a rare tumor and that most people die from the tumor before it is found. We were fortunate.

They did an ultrasound to pinpoint the exact location of the tumor. During the ultrasound the tech asked Sailor if he had ever had cancer. He said no, he then asked if he had any previous abdominal surgeries, once again no.

Unbeknownst to Sailor he only had one kidney!

Thankfully this would have no effect on the tumor, but it was definitely unexpected.

The only cure was to remove the tumor, but the surgery was extremely risky. One mistake in the operating room could kill Sailor.

The VA Hospital wouldn’t handle such a complex case and he was assigned a surgeon at the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville. He was given medicine to reduce his blood pressure for the surgery. A spike in blood pressure during the surgery could result in a stroke or even death. To complicate things the tumor needed to be separated from his body completely before they could touch the tumor – if not he could die.

The blood pressure medicine had some serious side effects and Sailor had to withdraw from nursing school. He was unable to drive and even walking became difficult.

He had to take the medicine for four weeks before they could operate. During that time Sailor grew very depressed, he thought was going to die during the surgery. The night before the surgery we drove up to Jacksonville and stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Sailor said he wanted Mexican food for his “last meal.”

That evening Sailor ate like I had never seen him eat before. He was so stuffed that he couldn’t even get out of the booth. I anxiously sat in the booth waiting for Sailor to digest his last meal, I’m sure all my fidgeting finally convinced him he could make it to the car. We left and I dropped him off at the hospital and checked into a hotel to spend the night.

The next morning I hurried with Sailor’s parents to the hospital to see him before the surgery. We walked into the hospital room to find a half-dead looking Sailor lying in the bed.

We rushed over to him, thinking they had already given him a sedative before the surgery.

We were wrong.

Apparently the night before Sailor had been given two bottles of the stuff that cleans you out prior to surgery drink. The drink combined with enough Mexican food to feed a Mariachi band meant Sailor had spent the entire night in the bathroom. It got so bad that he finally just slept on the toilet.

He wasn’t drugged, he was exhausted.

I figured I would be sad before saying goodbye to him, but the thought of him sitting on the toilet all night with his IV pole made me giggle so I left feeling more happy than worried.

I don’t remember how long the surgery lasted but I do remember receiving occasional updates from the nurse. Things were going well but they ended up having to do a more invasive procedure than they initially expected. Instead of a few small incisions Sailor would have a fifteen inch incision across his stomach and recovery would be long and painful.

Finally the surgery was over and they allowed me into the recovery room to see him. He didn’t look good, but he was alive. I said a few things and then had to leave and wait for him to be transferred to the ICU.

When we were finally allowed to see Sailor in the ICU I was shocked. He was hooked up to so many tubes and wires you could hardly tell it was him. He wasn’t in a regular bed, he was in a chair that inflated and deflated with his movement.

Sailor hated the chair. Every chance he could he would try to move his body away from the chair, but it would inflate and press against him. He was frustrated and in pain.

It was hard to see Sailor in the ICU but it was better than the alternative.

After a few days Sailor was moved out of the ICU and into a regular room. Sailor was anxious to get home because the hospital was two hours away and visits were difficult. Finally after ten days he was released.

Our daughter ended up needing surgery on the same day Sailor was released from the hospital so his parents brought him home since I was at a different hospital. After I brought our daughter home I set up two hospital stations in the living room. Our daughter got the love seat and Sailor got the couch.

That evening my parents came over to visit. Sailor laid on one couch and we sat around talking. My father, who had major surgery a few years earlier, started cracking hospital jokes.

They were funny, really funny. I was glad to be laughing after so many months of stress. Sailor was laughing too… but he didn’t want to laugh. He asked my dad to stop the jokes, but my dad couldn’t, he was on a roll.

I finally told my dad that if he didn’t stop telling jokes he would be the one taking Sailor to the ER when he busted a stitch, or two.

My parents went home.

An hour later my father was on his way to the ER with Sailor.

 

 

The Problem With Pinterest

Cora’s crib is sitting in the garage because I just can’t throw it away. I’m sure I can find a great way to recycle it on Pinterest.

Are you on Pinterest? If so follow me here? Need an invite? Let me know in the comments.

Don’t forget if you see something you “pin worthy” here on The Happy Housewife you can use the red “pin it” below.

The Next Two Years…

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

We had our boy and our girl, life was good. Everyone was thrilled with the ultrasound mistake, except we didn’t have a boy name. We spent the first night in the hospital looking through the hospital’s copy of 10,000 Baby Names for the perfect name for our baby.

I was excited to have a boy, but I was also confused. Several times during my pregnancy I had very vivid dreams about our family. It was always Sailor, myself and three little girls. I was sure God was showing me a glimpse into our future since so often I had no hope of a future with Sailor. I was confused as to how these very real dreams could be totally wrong!

I was thrilled with our little boy though and we soon agreed on a name and brought him home from the hospital.

All was well in the world until our sweet little boy was about three weeks old.

I do not remember much about the next four months. Our little boy was very, very sick. We were at the doctor’s office every few days. He would regularly stop breathing in our arms and he would choke and projectile vomit during almost every feeding. He didn’t smile, roll over, gain weight, or even make eye contact.

We were desperate. Our little girl had never been sick or even cried. She only went to the doctor for well check-ups. Our little boy had his own wing at the pediatrician’s office.

Not only did he suffer from chronic ear infections starting a two months old, thrush, failure to thrive and several other odd medical problems he had colic. He cried every night from 5 pm until 2 am. Not just cried but screamed, screamed until he threw up, choked, or stopped breathing.

No one would babysit him because they were afraid he would choke or stop breathing while we weren’t home, so there was never a break. Sailor didn’t handle the crying very well so I grew resentful that I was stuck with this sick, screaming baby, 24/7.

Finally when he was about four months old the colic stopped. The thrush went away and a few of the other issues were remedied as well. He was still very delayed, but at least he wasn’t turning blue and screaming all day.

After being confined to the house for almost five months, except for doctor’s visits, I decided to enroll in college to finish my last year of school. Sailor and I arranged our schedules so that we didn’t need a babysitter except for a few hours one day a week when our classes overlapped.

This new life worked. We didn’t spend much time time together so it was easier to get along. We made friends and reconnected with a few old friends.

About a year after our little boy was born our friends were babysitting while Sailor was at school and I was gone. Sailor got home before me and called to tell me to come home right away. Something was wrong.

I arrived home to find Sailor holding our son (wearing nothing but a diaper) in front of a portable fan. He didn’t look quite right. Sailor told me he had taken his temperature and it was 107.6. I told Sailor our thermometer must be wrong, but he did seem very, very sick.

He gave him a dose of motrin while I waited on hold for Tricare to give us permission to take him to the ER. (We had taken him to the ER previously without approval and ended up with huge co-pays that we couldn’t afford to pay) We finally got approval for an ER 20 minutes away instead of the one that was 3 minutes away. We put him in his car seat and raced across town to the ER.

I honestly didn’t think he would make it to the ER. During our ride his eyes fluttered and rolled back and he was unresponsive.

When we got to the ER his temperature was 106. I don’t really remember what happened that night in the ER, except that I went out of the room because I couldn’t stand to watch them start an IV on him and learned that Princess Diana had been in a car accident and died.

After several hours and numerous tests the ER doctors and nurses had no real answer for our son’s high fever. They told us they didn’t know if he had any brain damage from the fever and that we probably wouldn’t know for several years. We took our little boy home and watched over him for several days, worried the mysterious fever would return.

It never did and life continued. I graduated from college and settled into my role as a mom and wife. I learned to cook and clean (sort of) and was busy with my two kids. I got a job at our church with the children’s ministry and once again Sailor and I settled into our routine of being gone when the other was home. It worked.

One of our favorite family activities was going to garage sales on Saturday mornings. We would load the kids up in the car and drive around town with a newspaper and a map looking for great deals. During that time I learned about a little website called eBay. I couldn’t believe people were selling junk online and people were buying. I spent my free time researching how eBay worked and quickly realized that selling items I purchase at garage sales on eBay was an easy way to earn money.

My first sale, a pair of ceramic siamese cat salt and pepper shakers. I paid $0.05 for them at a yard sale and sold them for over $50 on eBay. I was hooked.

I quit my job at the church and devoted most of my free time to eBay. It was nice earn extra money, especially with all the co-pays we had for our children with chronic ear infections, asthma, and other illnesses.

My working from home was not the best thing for our marriage. With Sailor going to school full-time he had a lot of free time at home. It was hard to figure out how to get along like normal people. We had many fights that lasted for days. We ended up in counseling, again.

One day in December we got into an exceptionally bad argument. Sailor’s anger seemed worse than usual and he was so spun up during the argument I was concerned he might do something stupid.  Then all of a sudden he collapsed to the floor. I was secretly happy that his yelling made him pass out, but scared at the same time. I yelled at him to get up and he said he would…. in a minute. But he couldn’t get up. He told me he was “taking a break” from arguing. I told him that no one takes a break from arguing and lays flat on the floor.

He finally got up and the argument was forgotten. I told him something must be wrong with him because no one yells loud enough to fall down. He said he would see a doctor soon.

A few nights later we were at a Christmas concert at church. In the middle of the concert Sailor leaned over to me and whispered:

Sailor: After the concert is over I need you to take me to the ER.

Me: What????

Sailor: I think I’m having a heart attack.

Me: What????

Sailor: A heart attack.

Me: If you are having a heart attack we need to go right now!

Sailor: I don’t want to make a scene.

Me: It will be a bigger scene when the paramedics drag your dead body out of this auditorium.

Sailor: Fine, but we’re going to miss the finale and you love the finale.

Me: We are going now!

I then leaned over to my dad and said, “After the concert pick up the kids and meet us at the ER, Sailor is having a heart attack.”

By the time we had walked out of the building half my family was following us. I told them not to worry and we’d see them soon.

We headed to the ER and were admitted immediately, apparently “chest pain” is the keyword for getting to the front of the line at the ER.

They admitted him for a few days and ran every test possible. He was totally fine. They couldn’t explain the chest pain or the earlier collapse but suggested it might be stress.

After Sailor was discharged I was afraid to leave him with the kids. His behavior was erratic and I wasn’t sure if he could handle a two and four year-old alone.

One day, against my better judgment he convinced me to go Christmas shopping while he watched the kids. I had been gone about 45 minutes when I received a phone call to come home immediately. Apparently Sailor had been talking to my aunt on the phone and all of a sudden the phone went dead. No one could reach my house. My mom was headed over there to see what was wrong but I needed to come home too.

I rushed home and opened my front door to find Sailor lying face down on the ground and my two year-old screaming next to him.

 

Headaches and Hospitals

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

We gave it up.

At the last minute Sailor had applied to the University of Central Florida and was accepted into their nursing program. In a few short weeks we would be moving to Orlando!

Since I was already in Orlando we agreed I wouldn’t go back to Virginia, Sailor could oversee the move and be in Florida in a month.

I spent the next few weeks driving around with my future sister-in-law (although I didn’t know that at the time) looking for apartments.

I decided we needed a three bedroom apartment since baby girl #2 would be arriving at the end of the summer. I didn’t think a baby and a toddler would be able to share a room and I knew Sailor didn’t want to sleep with a baby in our room forever.

I finally found the perfect apartment, it was close to family… but not too close, in a nice part of town, and had tons of family friendly amenities.

It was double the rent from our Virginia apartment, but with the promotion and the raise I knew we could afford it. Sailor arrived in Florida and got  a second job at Macaroni Grill waiting tables to help pay for his school.

We settled in to our apartment and quickly realized that a bottom apartment is not always the best choice. The people who lived directly above us were loud. They played basketball… in the kitchen… at two in the morning. If that wasn’t enough they used a rope to climb to their second story balcony. A rope that dangled down right in front of baby girl’s bedroom window.

We complained to the management and they said they would issue a warning. It continued, and got worse. I was starting to panic. We were due to have baby girl #2 in a month and there was no way she would be able to sleep through all this racket!

After being ignored by the management company for several days, we decided to exercise our 30 money back guarantee clause in our lease. We could break our lease without being penalized if we moved out within 30 days. I had 10 days to find a new place and move.

I asked my mother-in-law to help find a new house. And I do mean house. There was no way I was taking another chance on an apartment!

My mother-in-law found a property manager who showed us several possibilites. Each possibility was worse than the last. I remember standing in one house with Sailor talking about getting a guard dog so we would feel safe living there.

My mother-in-law put her foot down right then and there. She looked at the property manager and told him we would not be living in any of these homes. Surely he had something more suitable for a family.

The property manager stood there for a minute and then told us he owned a home that was for rent. The tenants had just moved out and it wasn’t clean, but we could see it.

We drove to the rental and when we turned onto the tree lined street I was already sold. We walked into a small but cute house that was just perfect for our family. It had three bedrooms, a bonus room and a huge screened back porch. It was close to everything and right down the street from a park.

We signed the lease on the spot and made plans to move.

We didn’t have much money, since we had a deposit on the apartment (which we wouldn’t get back for a few weeks) and we had a new deposit on the house. We moved things over piece by piece and finally one afternoon we rented an open trailer to move what little furniture we owned.

That afternoon I was waiting at the new house for my dad and Sailor to bring our furniture over from the apartment. Sailor called to let me know they were on their way.

Shortly after he hung up I heard thunder. Within minutes the sky opened up and a tremendous thunder storm hit our area.

I started to panic. All our furniture was on an open trailer… in the storm! I knew from the amount of rain coming down that everything would be ruined. We only had a few pieces of furniture and they were probably all floating down the highway.

I waited for over an hour with no word from Sailor. I knew they had left before the storm, but I didn’t know what happened after that. My head started to hurt thinking about all our ruined furniture.

Finally after about two hours Sailor appeared at the door. My head was pounding as he walked in soaking wet. I asked about our stuff and he told me they had pulled under the overpass right before the rain began. They waited there until the storm passed. Our stuff was damp, but not ruined. It would dry out in a few days.

I was relieved, but my head would not stop pounding. As I watched them unload our furniture my face started to twitch. A few minutes later my arm went numb. I laid down on the couch hoping no one would notice that I was having a problem. There were still many boxes to unpack and beds to put together. I figured if I rested for a minute I would be fine.

But I wasn’t fine, my head stopped hurting but I had lost feeling on one side of my body. I tried to get off the couch but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. Sailor noticed something was wrong and asked what was going on. I tried to act like it was no big deal, but I couldn’t move one side of my face so it was pretty obvious I was in trouble.

Sailor picked me up (my whole nine months pregnant self) and rushed me to the emergency room.

After several hours at the hospital it was determined that I had a migraine that caused the temporary paralysis. They gave me a sleeping pill and some pain meds and sent me home.

I can’t remember which house I slept at that night, but I remember hoping it would never happen again.

I spent the next two weeks unpacking and getting the house together. Sailor worked at Macaroni Grill while we waited for baby girl #2 and school to begin.

One Saturday night I finished hanging all the pictures and joked that I could now go into labor because the unpacking was finished. I knew it wouldn’t happen any time soon because baby girl #1 was two weeks late, and I still had a week to go before my due date!

The next morning we hung out as a family before Sailor headed to work. After he left for work I started to feel bad. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something wasn’t right. To top it off I had to go to the bathroom about every 5 minutes.

I started to get concerned that I had a bladder infection.

Shortly before noon my mother called to let me know they were headed about an hour away to work on a house. She wanted to check in since Sailor was at work and they would be unavailable for the rest of the day.

I told her that I wasn’t feeling well and that I thought I might have a bladder infection. I asked if she could come over and watch baby girl while I went to the ER. I told her it wouldn’t take long, I probably needed some antibiotics and then would be sent home.

She came over right away and I was headed to the ER when she suggested I call Sailor at work and let him know where I was going. I didn’t think it was necessary to get everyone all worked up over a bladder infection, but I called him anyway.

He said we was leaving work immediately and taking me to the ER. I told him to stay at work and I would call if anything changed. Plus Sunday’s were great tip days and I didn’t want him to miss out on the extra money.

He was home before I could even get out the door and we headed to the ER.

Since the ER doesn’t like people to have babies in the ER they immediately sent me to Labor and Delivery. I told them I didn’t need to go to L&D and that I just needed antibiotics for a bladder infection. The didn’t really care what I thought and sent me upstairs.

When I got to L&D I once again explained that I just needed antibiotics. They wanted to hook me up to the monitor just in case.

I was hooked up to the monitor for almost three hours waiting for my antibiotics. The pain was getting worse and I knew that if they would just give me a prescription I would feel better in a few days.

While on the monitor I had five or six contractions over the course of three hours. Finally the nurse came in and told me that I didn’t have an infection and I wasn’t in labor so I would be discharged.

I was desperate. I begged Sailor to do something! I was in so much pain, something had to be wrong with me!

I’m not sure what happened next, but it was decided that they would check me before sending me home just to see if I was in early labor. A quick exam revealed that I was 8 cm dilated! I wasn’t going anywhere, we were going to meet baby girl #2.

They broke my water in hopes to get some regular contractions going. I begged for an epidural but it was too late. The baby was coming too quickly.

Less than five hours after we arrived at the ER for my bladder infection our baby was born.

I was in shock.

Baby girl…. was a BOY.

 

Ransacked…

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

I was happier than I had been in a long time while in Florida. My family didn’t have a lot of money either, but money doesn’t matter as much if you aren’t alone. 🙂

One day my entire family (parents, brother, sister and baby girl) headed about an hour away for my dad’s work party. We were going to be late for the party and my mom was not happy. We rushed out the door and didn’t bother picking up our “getting ready to leave” mess.

We spent the day swimming, eating, and riding SeaDoos on the river. It was awesome.

We didn’t arrive home until almost midnight and when we pulled into the driveway we noticed the front door was partially open.

We debated about what we should do, but finally we agreed that we needed to call the police. Within a few minutes the police arrived and entered my parent’s house. They were in the house for what seemed like an eternity.

They finally came out and told us there was no one inside, but that they believed the house had been broken into. They also said something about it being ransacked, but I kind of forgot that part because I was beginning to remember how we left it early that morning.

I’m sure my mother was mortified as we walked though the house. Clothes were everywhere, drawers were opened, the contents of my purse were dumped out on the coffee table and strewn all over the floor.

The problem… we made the mess. We were in such a hurry to leave we were the ones dumping things out, looking for sunglasses and car keys, changing outfits and not picking anything up.

Everyone thought it was funny…. everyone except mom.

Someone had broken into the house, but they never made it past the foyer. My parent’s little 20 pound blind and crippled dog scared off the intruders before they had a chance to find our treasures strewn all over the house.

I made a mental note to never again be so disorganized that my house looked like it had been ransacked while I was away.

A few days before I was scheduled to return to Virginia, Sailor called.

He had good news. We had been offered a house on base! My prayers had been answered. We would be able to live in the small base community. There was a playground and best of all… lots of families with kids! I could not wait to get back and start packing!

A few hours later Sailor called back. Given the type of things that happened to us in the past I figured we lost the house.

There was more good news. Sailor had been accepted into a commissioning program! He would spend the next three years going to college to become a nurse. We would have to pay for school, but the Navy would pay his salary.

I was stunned. Since the day we got married we had been focused on Sailor getting a commission. In fact in the week between Sailor asking me to marry him and us actually getting married, talks of him rejoining the Navy and getting a commission were frequent.

I mistakenly believed that a commission was the only way to solve our financial problems.

Nonetheless Sailor had been selected for this program and we needed to make a decision.

Do we give up the house on base, the job Sailor loved, and the beautiful mountains of West Virginia for a college degree, promotion, and pay raise?