New Reality

                             The new reality in this case not as pretty as this pic.






I don't come on here often and have a pity party (well sometimes I do about dhs job) but I don't often have a pity party about my health problems.  I had someone the other day tell me I have a good attitude about it.  My response was "Thank you, but having a bad attitude won't change anything."  To be fair I am completely pessimistic about a lot of things, but don't often talk about my health problems, in my book, it is what it is and I can't really change it, so why complain to everyone about it.

In my book I figure I wake up about 50-60% feeling like crap, about half the time I work out of it without taking anything, the rest of the time is better living through chemistry.  And of those times about 2-4 times a year better living through chemistry doesn't work and I end up in the ER.  As for my list of ailments they include: endometroisis, crohns, kidney issues, migraines, and an assortment of random issues: ie: torn cartilage in my hip.

My most recent bout was with my not always happy right kidney, but thanks to better living through chemistry my recovery from surgery and hospital stay last week hasn't been awful until today.  Thanks to some new bogus government rule any narcotic prescription has to be signed and actually walked into a pharmacy, you can't call it in or fax it, or even use pre-authorized refills, which is where I ran into trouble today.  You see I have a refill of vicodine since I have run out from surgery, and since my dh doesn't like to see me flop on the couch like a dead fish in pain I went to get it filled.  No joy.  No way to fill thanks to the stupid new government rule.

Which leaves me in a quandary, I've run out pills my dr prescribed for me after my surgery, and I can't fly to Houston to get another one, what to do?  Emergency Room of course.  Now don't get me wrong I know an ER Room is not for this purpose but because of these new restrictions that's exactly what its come too.

For me (and many others) this is a waste of resources, I don't want to pay to go to the ER to get a refill for something that is legitimate and has already been authorized by my dr.  The folks in the ER don't want this kind of paperwork bullshit because they have much bigger problems to deal with, but none the less that is what it has come to.

Sorry for the rant and the pity party but this really pisses me off.

Surgery....When Married to a Pilot

                                                                     Pre-op!

So surgery is never fun, ask me how I know ....I've had at least 10.  But being married to a pilot adds an extra layer of "fun" to surgery.  To start with even trying to plan sugery is a pain, remember we don't know his schedule until about a week before the month starts!  We were lucky in a sense dh had the day of my suregery off and the day after my surgery off, but as history has shown us when I have kidney surgery I usually end up in the hosptial for about 3 days afer surgery, even though the insurance considers it a "day surgery."

So once we got dh's schedule we discovered he had a four day trip 2 days after my surgery, not good.  To add more complications my surgery was out of state.  So we started the FMLA process which worked really well, dh could use his sick time to drop the one trip and all would be well.  What happened was even better! He managed to move that trip so no FMLA was needed, as a side note the process for FMLA worked great, but it takes a lot of time to set everything up, probably about a month.

So I was all set for surgery, and dh even had the next 10 days off!  This was such a much better deal than the last time I had kidney surgery, dh basically dumped me at the emergency room the day after surgery when I super sick and went to work. His former carrier was awful about time off and never had enough reserves/coverage to be able to drop anything, even a valid sick call would land you a carpet dance, it was bad.  So this time was like a breath of fresh air, he dropped what he needed and no problem!

Surgery was about what we expected, and recovery took about the same amount of time as last time, but it was so much better this time staying in the hospital since dh was there with me.  Not much is lonelier than staying in the hospital by yourself because your dh is at work.

Also a big shout out to my AWESOME mom who drove to TX during my first kidney surgery when dh couldn't stay, and this year took care of our herd while I went to TX for surgery, Best.Mom.Ever!!!

Then and Now

                A little over a year ago, when I dropped dh off at the airport on his way to training.

                                              Dh and I celebrating being off first year pay!!!




It's funny how things happen in life, when we moved to Chicago almost 2 years ago, dh wasn't based here and didn't work at the same airline he does today.  A little over a year ago dh was fortunate to be able to switch jobs, now of course that comes with a pay cut, but we were happy to take it vs staying where he was.  As with any job this one isn't perfect there have been a few issue's but they were actually resolved quickly.  Dh is now based at home, and it's been nothing short of amazing.  He' not exhausted all the time and worried, it's amazing what an impact a crappy job can have on your health.  He's loving actually having time off (even the months he's had a line) he actually has had enough time to go to quite a few car shows, and see his friends.

Over all we are so much happier at dh's new airline than at his previous. We even have a friend from his former airline who dh just helped to get hired here last month! 

Pilot Wife Vacation

Every pilot wife needs a vacation, so last week I headed out west to see a friend for her birthday.  It was a great trip except for getting back which will be my next blog, but we had a great time!  It was also entertaining to me to see how well dh would hold down the fort, this was the first time he had been here by himself for more than a day since we moved here, almost 2 years ago.  He had all these grand plans of doing all sorts of stuff to fix up his cars, he got some of it done, but I also got a text that said "I see how your days get filled up when I am at work."  I was happy to see this because every once and a while I get the "what do you do all day?"  question from him when he is at work.   I'm glad he saw this first hand and just hope he remembers it now!

100 Happy Days

                                                  I said he likes to play...not that he's good :)



So I so this on facebook and thought it might be worth a try.  If you remember my last post about being happy with the grass on your side of the fence, I thought this challenge would be a good complement to that post. So without further ado my first Hundred Happy Days is a pic of dh when we went golfing with his dad yesterday (well I drove the cart). I love this pic because dh loves to play golf and we are both grateful his new job has allowed him the luxury to do this, (even though we are broke) but time spent with family is worth it's weight in gold!

Wisdom from Hokus

                                                     A Happy Hokus with his hay.


 As I was feeding Hokus the other morning I threw him his hay and forgot to close the door.  Now since I forgot to close the door when I went to turn on the water, I fully expected him to be happily prancing out of the barn into the field full of grass.  After all, in horse world green grass beats hay any day of the week.  However, when I came back to fill up his water bucket and realized I had forgotten to close the door, I was startled to see him happily standing there munching on his (crappy) hay.  For some reason seeing him munch so contently on his hay while green grass was just outside his door and he didn't even try for it brought to mind the old phrase "The grass is always greener."

A lot of times in the airline industry we spend a lot of time waiting for "the grass on the other side of the fence."  Weather it is an upgrade, or a new job, or better pay, it seems like most of time it's always phrases like "Next year when I'm on second year pay."  or  "When I upgrade"  or  "When I get hired at a major."  These are all great things to hope for no doubt, however, if you constantly spend your time wishing for something that may or may not happen (upgrade and hiring, god knows it seems like first year pay lasts for ever but it really doesn't) you are letting your life pass you by while you sit on hold.

While dh's carrer progression hasn't exactly been ideal, and his paycheck literally makes me cry every two weeks for someone who is 40 and has their masters, I realize how very LUCKY we actually are.  Dh had 1-2? people in his new hire class last year that were in thier 50's and put to bed 3 airlines.3.  Not quit for a better job, or where chasing an upgrade or pay, they changed jobs 3 times only to see each one go bankrupt/furlough to non-existence.  When I think about these folks our situtaion looks like a rose garden.  I personally also like these guys, they are generally much more down to earth than the "wonderkids" who maaged to get to a major and are 24 (no disrespect to them but I have found most of them have no idea how lucky they are, and they don't understand why everyone didn't just "do what they did").

My horses often teach me things but usually it's how many tranquillizer shots do I need to give Neeko to get him on the trailer, or creative ways to swear.  However, in this case I was happily surprised by my boy Hokus's happiness at what was right in front of him :)

40th Birthday Pilot style

Dh's "cake" from last year.

                         What thats not enough candles! I think all 40 for this year~

Birthday fun from last year....wondering why its from last year? Because he's at work this year, no birthday fun yet.

So as much as we would all like to believe when we are younger that our birthday is a"special" day, its (sadly) not to the rest of the world.......even on your 40th.

I had every intention of doing this one up big!  After all it's the 40th, but as I said the rest of the world doesn't care much about birthdays (even big ones).  After 3 failed attempts to nonrev places due to loads, weather, and a trip that he got in late from so we missed our flight, I at least had some hope that he *may* be home and we could go to Margartiville for dinner.

My hopes of that were dashed yesterday afternoon, when not only did he get called for a trip they tried to wrangle a dayoff out of him to work extra. No thanks.  Now in all fairness we didn't bid his scheudle to actually have his birthday off...as we had a trip to FL planned which is what we bid for, but it would have been nice, if he wouldn't have had to work.

So this morning I made cookies for him to take to work, and went and got him coffee and Dunkin Donuts to take to work, and put a card in his lunch bag, and drove him to the airport.  I did all this before 5am! I even managed to leave the house to get Dunkin Donuts and have him not know until he got in the car and saw his coffee in the holder, I think I get bonus points for that!

So I think we will have to settle for a nice dinner when we are on our trip in FL for his birthday
As far as the card goes here is the outside

And on the inside it said "Honey Badger don't give a shit"  so of course under that I wrote
"and neither do the airlines but I do!"

Dh called me when he found it he loved it!