In the clear

I haven't posted for a while due to the fact that I had news but didn't want to post about it lest it could come back and haunt us later. In a "you must have been distracted and caused this crash" kind of way. But now it's looking like the news is better than we expected and we can begin to breathe and move forward again. Back in February, A went for his yearly neck ultrasound to monitor his post cancer status. And he came home *knowing* something was wrong just by the way the tech did the scan. And sure enough, a few days later, we got the call from the endocrinologist that something wasn't right and further testing was required. So we braced ourselves for the worst- cancer recurrence, another year + on LTD, the works. A even started telling people he expected to go off work again. He got the secondary testing done last week, which was followed by a phone call from the MD of which he can't recount anything except "it" being moderate. But he didn't know what "it" was- a tumor? Risk of reoccurance? A second kind of cancer? He made an appointment for two weeks later to meet  with the MD. And so we were doomed to wait in this abyss of not knowing. Which I have no patience for. So I had A come down to the hospital where I work and we took a walk over to medical records and got the testing results and interpretation for ourselves. Which showed good news and no sign of anything. And then we could breathe again. And move forward with our lives. There will still be more to come, I'm sure, but it's funny how we immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. And it didn't even seem so bad. It's a known quantity and we are in a better off place now for support then we were several years ago. But still, nothing is better than something at this point.

Repeat cycle

Everybody who knows A or has been following my blog for a while knows that A is the epitome of Murphy's Law. If something bad is going to happen, it will happen to him. And anything that happens is of catastrophic proportions. Sometimes I wish I had known this before I had married him, but it's too late now.

A's had ankle pain flare ups as long as I've known him and they have greatly increased in frequency in the last few years. He was on a medication for gout that seemed to work but was costing us $80 per month. With insurance. We switched to the $5 per month medicine that doesn't work as well. Recently a was at the doctor and she ordered some autoimmune and other panels to see what else is going on. And true to form, A showed up with rheumatoid arthritis. Bam, now what? And true to form again, when A got the news, he texted it to me saying "the tests showed I have RA and none of the medications are FAA approved." Which left me breathless for a minute until I remembered A's tendency to both globalize and catastrocize (see here, curiously posted 5 years ago today) and I stepped back to do my own research. A has yet to see a specialist (waiting on the referral) but there do appear to be accepted meds. And there's a chance he tested positive but doesn't really have it; much like our celiac disease scare last year with Littleboyzilla. I posted our news on a few Facebook groups, looking for someone else who has been in our shoes. I didn't find anyone with direct experience, but did get lots of advice about and offers of green smoothies, essential oils, eating daily doses of raw veggies. What I really need to know is- how long is A going to be off work while we shepard this new issue through the FAA approval process. And what do I need to know going in to the specialist? Between the Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability and Loss of License plans, we are properly insured- but then what? That's the question we've been struggling with already- where would we go from here?
But for now, we're just taking it day by day, giving it over to God, and waiting for the next step to get here. Because that's all you can do when you are married to Murphy's law personified.

Words with friends

We are friends with a couple in which the husband is also a pilot. After stagnating as an FO for about nine years, his regional airline ceased operations and he was out of a job. Instead of seeking another flying opportunity he took a job on a management track at the local Costco and in about two years was making about the same amount of money while also being home every night. He professes to being happy and out of flying for good yet every time we speak with them, the conversation quickly turns to airline life. I think that after a few years at home now, the wife is starting to get that independent itch and miss him being gone. And she brought up that it's such a waste to have spent so much time and effort on flight training to just walk away altogether. And spend your time inventorying hotdogs. We were asked to come over and discretely talk about other flying jobs, I think in the hope that perhaps he could get back into flying just a bit. We didn't succeed, the topic never really came up, but it made me wonder what A would do ,or WILL do if I believe the company gossip, when his airline folds. And I really would be pissed to have worked so hard to pay off training that he then doesn't use. As it is he still owes a few grand for the ITT tech degree he was using before he left that industry for flight school. Especially when that money could have paid outright for my own higher education. I'm not sure how it would feel to give up the identity of being a pilots wife. Even when A was on leave for two years, we knew he would go back at some point. There is still that pride of him there and admittedly that pride also because people think it's so glamorous, even though we know the truth. 

Mama's room

In our cozy little house we have three bedrooms- TeenIlla's room, Littlezilla's room, and Mama's room. Not Mom and Dad's room. Just Mama's room. Even though Dad sleeps there too when he's home (and hasn't been banished for snoring). And inside Mama's room is Mama's bathroom and Mama's bed. I'm not sure how this came about other than I usually refer to the room as "my" room and since the boys call me Mama it just evolved from there. And since A is not here all the time, the boys don't hear it referred to as anything else, like "our room". I even catch A referring to it as Mama's room on occasion. Poor A has no corresponding spot of his own, except perhaps for his closet. Wondering if this is a common occurrence or unique to our family.

Back to the grind

Tonight I will be alone at home withy boys for the first time in six weeks. I think there is a little bit of both joy and trepidation in there. Thanks to A's early December vacation coupled with a long visit from my parents our holiday season was less stress for me. The benefit of A being stuck as an FO for years on end is that he is senior in base and gets pretty good schedules (although he will still moan about them)- he had the weeks of both Thanksgiving and Christmas off. Plus, all the days he was working, my parents were available to help with shopping, school pick ups, dinner, and once even driving to Savannah (4 hr round trip) in the rain on a Sunday night to pick up A when he couldn't get back to our home airport. I don't think I can tell them enough how much their help means to me. But now they are gone, A goes back to work this afternoon, and school is back in session. Tonight means pick up at two locations, dinner and then off to Boy Scouts for one while I attempt to keep the other one occupied. And somewhere in there chores and laundry. That's what my glamours like is like these days. 

We did have a few notable occasions in December though. A and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary, momentous only to us because it meant we have been married to each other longer than we each were to our previous spouses.  I still remember riding around Folsom, CA in his little Ford Focus ten years ago and the thrill I got the first time he called me his girlfriend. 

I also made it through the day that would have been my due date for one pregnancy and the halfway date of another, both of which ended in miscarriages last year. I was busy with a work assignment that I don't usually have to do so the day flew by, which was nice. We are still hoping to add to our family and hoping,too, that it doesn't take the same three years it took for the last addition. Which we also celebrated turning four just a few days after Christmas. Where does the time go?

Our final celebration was when I finally receivedy licensure from the State. It has been a two year process of supervision and an exam culminating in the state  office not marking off all my paperwork and the six week process of trying to get someone to address it. But it's DONE.

And I read 103 books this year. There were several that stuck with me this year. In fiction, The Light Between Ocean by Stedman made me cry, which is rare. The Good Father by Chamberlain, while fairly easy, stuck with me for its desperate, I messed up and it got way out of hand story with a redeeming ending. A good beach read. My two favorite biographies were Wild by Strayed which madee want to return to my backpacking in the Sierra history and is due out as a movie soon. Second was Jerusalem by Delisle, a graphic novel about his time there that really sheds light on the cultural relations there. Finally, in nonfiction, Did Jesus Exist by Ehrman was a challenge to read (it's very academic) but so interesting in explaining contradictions in the bible.

Here's wishing you few remaining readers a happy and prosperous new year!