My Single Mom Life

Ok, sorry this part took so long, I just really needed a few days to rest my tired and sore body.

When we were in the lobby talking to each other, Katie came up and told us that the crowd outside wanted to meet us, see us, so we were all escorted outside to the area where all of the people stand to watch the Today show.
People started clapping for us and taking our pictures, we all stood together and people took our picture, that was kind of weird, we're not celebs, just a bunch of people who found each other, but we did it anyway.
This is how we posed for about 100 people to take our picture.

It was really cool to see the whole thing how the fans of the show do from the outside too.

After doing that, Katie said that the limos would come and pick us up and take us back to their hotel (Joanne, Gary, and Randy's) so that we could all have breakfast together and talk for about an hour before they had to leave for the airport to go home.
So we all went to the Hilton and had breakfast together and talked for about an hour.
It was so great to be able to just sit down and talk to each other and Gary's adoptive Mom and Joanne's fiance too.
This is where Joanne and I learned that we have a ton in common aside from looking a lot alike.
Both of us have pink cell phones that had charms that fell off, her charms were a sterling silver 'J', mine a sterling silver 'K', and she had an animal, can't recall what she said it was now, but my animal charm was a cat.
We both swear like sailors, smoke, and one of our fave foods is cinnamon rolls.
We were both bummed out that they didn't have any for breakfast...LoL
Both of us were married for 4 years and divorced, and both of us have bad backs.
Joanne has never had hers treated because she hasn't had any insurance, but she said her back has been in pain for the last 20 years.
I hated to hear that, but relieved at the same time, the bad back stuff really is genetic.
Sitting there looking at her and Gary, Randy was at another table eating with his fiance and her kids, I could see so much of myself, of my kids.
For the last few years Sebastian has been saying that he doesn't have my nose or the Cooper nose, but he definitely has Gary's nose.
So weird to finally say hey, that's where you got that feature.
The hour just flew by, eating, talking, I could have sat there all day talking with them, learning all about them.
We made sure to get each others info, phone, cell phone, addresses, so that we could all stay in touch and figure out the holidays.
It was such a fast hour, they had to go get their stuff and check out, they had to be at the airport at 11:30 to fly back home, but Joanne made sure to show me a printout of our bio-mom's health issues.
Quite a few of my health problems were on it and some other stuff, she said she will make sure that I get copies of all of the medical records that she has.
I hated to see them go, I just found them, I didn't want them to leave.

After they left, Sebastian and I had about 5-6 hours before we had to leave for the airport to go home, so we wandered around Times Square that whole time.
We went in like every store that we liked, the M&M store, Hershey's, the Toys R Us, Sebastian wanted a slice of real New York pizza so we made sure to get some, it was awesome.

Sebastian loved the Toys R Us store the most, it was wicked cool, 3 stories of just tons of toys and cool stuff like this T-Rex from Jurassic Park.

It actually moved and roared, way cool.
We hung out in Times Square for hours just walking around and people watching, there is so much there to look at, it was just an awesome afternoon hanging out with Sebastian, everywhere we went though, we kept saying how much Mark would have loved it if he had come.
We missed him so much, we bought him a Star Wars toy in Toys R Us while we were in there.

Around 4:50, the limo SUV came to pick us up and take us to the JFK airport to come home.
The flight home was nice, Jet Blue is an awesome airline man, tvs in every seat so you don't get bored flying.
Sebastian loved that, something to do to pass the time that won't make you motion sick. ha ha
We got back to Tampa airport and our limo driver was already waiting for us, so we grabbed our 1 suitcase and rode home.
Mark was up and trying to clean the house for us, the kitties all came running and mewing for us, it was good to be home but sad too.
I had just met my bio-siblings and only got to spend about an hour with them.
I came home to find like 1,200 emails, some from my new extended family members who were all so happy for us, reading each of them made me cry.
This is so hard, I just found them, it's still such a shock to me, I'm still in shock over the whole thing, I don't know when that feeling is going to go away, if it ever does.
I keep thinking if I hadn't watched the Today show on Tuesday, I would have never heard Joanne say my name, Claire Marie.
It feels like a dream, like did she really say it, and I know that she did, but wow, so huge, it's all so huge.

Joanne and I keep texting back and forth, and I plan on writing Gary a letter, he's not online but his mom is, and she has emailed me, and several of his aunts too, so there's a way to get in touch with him.
I also have Randy's info so that I can stay in touch with him too.
It still feels like a dream, I never thought I'd ever find any blood relatives, I never knew my birth parents names, I had nothing at all to go on except for my birth name, so finding out that I had 2 bio-brothers and that Joanne from back in high school really IS my sister, is totally freaking amazing.
I can't even explain how this feels, all of the emotions that keep coming up, it's so hard to put into words, I just keep saying wow.
How do you even begin to put it into words?
I have blood siblings now, I have this huge extended family now, the empty places are finally filled up, it's impossible to explain how this feels.
I'm just so grateful though, grateful that they went on the Today show, grateful that Joanne said my name, grateful that the Today show flew us out there, words cannot explain how I feel.
I'm overwhelmed and overflowing.
I don't even know what else to say really, I'd be happy to answer any questions people have, I'm sure that I've left something out of the whole thing, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them in another post.
And thank you all so much for the amazing show of love and support, it's really so awesome, thank you.

*Edited to add*

I need to say a HUGE thank you to the Today show and all of the staff there, especially Katie, Lexi, and Kari, the 3 of them went like above and beyond to make this happen.
Katie was the intern who took my frantic phone call at 8:20am on Tuesday the 22nd of September.
I made about 10 phone calls that morning right after watching the segment to every single phone number that I could find on the Today website and the MSNBC website, I started dialing at like 8:12am, within seconds of the segment ending.
All of those calls went unanswered, so I had to call 411 to try and get a good number.
The first one, someone answered and told me that I had to call back at 9:30am when the offices open, the lady wouldn't even listen to me and then she hung up.
Katie is the one who answered my second call to the second number.
The poor girl must have thought a lunatic was calling, I was screaming "Don't fucking hang up! Do not tell me to call back at 9:30! I am the missing sister, Claire Marie, from the last segment! Please!!! Patch me through to somebody, anybody who can get them a message before they leave the studio, I saw, I'm here, give them my name and number please!"
Katie took all of my info and said she'd call right back, Lexi is the one who made all of the travel plans and contacts to the local NBC affiliate in Tampa, and Kari is the one who interviewed me by phone for the local film crew and talked to me again when we landed at JFK and were on our way to the hotel.
These 3 women are amazing, they really worked hard and fast to get me and Sebastian to New York, to get the hotel, transportation, everything set up for us, so a big huge oh my god you're awesome thank you goes out to the 3 of them, they are simply the best ever.

I also need to say a BIG HUGE THANK YOU to NBC Universal for doing the segments, theirs and then mine, paying for all of us to be in New York, everything that they did to get us together, they rock.
And a BIG HUGE THANK YOU to Matt, Meredith, Al and Ann, they are all so incredibly polite and kind, welcoming and warming.
I wasn't expecting that, I wasn't expecting them to be so nice, they are reporters but they are celebs in their own right, so I was kind of prepared to not feel so 'welcomed', ya know what I mean?
Everyone at the NBC Today show studio, every single person from the reporters, the interns, the camera crew, the hair and makeup ladies, everyone was just so awesome and nice, they made me feel welcomed and not so nervous, they really are genuinely nice people.
Matt Lauer even signed autographs and talked to the kids, Randy's soon to be step-kids, Gary's Mom, and talked with Sebastian a bit more before we all went outside.
I totally forgot that I had this pic on my cell phone of him signing for the kids.

Whatever notions anyone has of the reporters on the Today show, if you maybe thought they were snobby or something, they are not, they really are very nice people, just incredibly kind and nice.
It made being there feel not so nervous.
All in all, this was a totally awesome experience.
Going to New York, meeting my bio-siblings, being on the Today show, it was all just so cool, I loved every minute of my time there and wish it could have been longer, it was just such a great experience to be a part of.

Posted by Kat at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm almost back to full strength now, I just really needed a few days to rest, my body was just totally drained.
Everything happened so fast last week, it was just go go go, and my body cannot go go go without coming to a crashing halt sooner or later, and it hit me a couple of days ago.
Things are still happening, lots of phone calls and emails from places wanting to do follow-up stories with all of us, this apparently was such a feel-good story in this depressing economic time, that people are wanting more of it.
I have a ton of emails to reply to and quite a few messages on voice mail to reply to as well.
It's still all so overwhelming, I keep finding myself saying 'wow'.

But I am slowly getting it back, I have just been laying on the couch for the last few days just trying to let my back and body get rested so that I can get back up and do everything that I need to do.
I have a mountain of dishes and laundry to take care of, and eventually I'd like to clean the bathroom and vac the rugs, my house looks like a tornado hit it.
I also need to get in the bathroom and fix the shower faucets thingamajiggy because Mark keeps knocking the hand held shower head down and he's not putting it back right, so once you turn the water on, the shower head pops down and whacks you in the back or head.
It hurts when you get whacked with it, so I need to go in there and un-twist it and figure out what way it fits the holder correctly.
Anyway, I'm getting back to good so I'll be hopping on and off the net while I get some house stuff done.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I am completely drained and exhausted.
Everything that has happened has finally caught up to me.
I need to rest for a day or 2, or 3.
Be back when I can.

Posted by Kat at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I am still trying to get caught up on sleep, emails, phone calls, everything, it's still so overwhelming.
There are so many links to this story out there on the internet, pretty soon it's going to need it's own web site directory to keep track of them all.

There's simply no way for me to respond to every single email or comment, so please don't be upset or offended if I do not reply to your comment, I just can't get to them all.
I am still getting emails and calls from other tv shows and magazines who want to do follow up interviews, it's really crazy.
The best part of this all though is the new extended family getting in touch with me.
I've gotten several emails from the adoptive families of my siblings, it's just too cool.

The teens are handling this really well, they are extremely happy for me to have found them, and they cannot wait to get to meet everyone too.
A major plus for me is that Joanne has some of our parents medical records and shared a quick printout with me while I was there in NYC, some of my medical issues are on that printout.
My high blood pressure and back problems, there were a bunch of other things on it too and once I am able to sit down and really go over it, I'll have a better handle on the medical history of our bio-mother and my own health issues.
For the first time in my life, I'll know more about my health history.
That's really incredible.
Some of my siblings do have back problems too, so it's not just me and Mark, it really is a genetic condition handed down from our parents.
That sucks but it's nice to know about it.

I've gotten several emails from my new extended family members, so I really need to try and reply to them all, so again, if I can't reply to your comment, I do hope that you understand, I just have way too many to reply to.
Thanks for the understanding, love and support from all of you!

Posted by Kat at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I have 112 more emails/comments to answer, I am working through them as best that I can, but it's going to take me awhile, I apologize.

I had said that Mark stayed home, he wanted to be here to take care of the cats, and his other reasons, and he watched the segment Wednesday morning.
He said that as soon as it was my part, when I started talking, all of the kitties came running into the living room to try and find me.
All of the 4 cats get really upset when I'm not home, and they get really upset when I go away and don't come back for a long time, like gone overnight, so when they heard my voice through the tv, they came running to greet me, they thought I came back.
Mark said that they were really confused when they didn't see me in the living room but I was still talking.
That's when Nova saw me on the tv.
She ran to it, stood on her back legs, and tried to touch me through the screen.
Then Kali realized that I was "in the box", she got up on the tv stand and started pawing at the tv and meowing loudly.
Then Shahiro did the same on the other side of the tv stand.
Mark said Carmine was freaking out, he was running all over the room, up on the couches, jumping up on the coffee table, running to the tv and meowing, pawing at it, all of the kitties were crying he said, confused and upset, they could hear me and see me, but couldn't get to me.
That made me feel bad, just thinking of my kitties all crying and confused like that.
When we got home around midnight, they all came running to see me, meowing, rubbing all over me, following me as I unpacked, mewing like crazy, and pretty much wherever I went, they were all right with me.
When I finally laid down to get some sleep around 8am, Kali, Shahiro and Carmine all laid on the couch with me, and Nova laid on the back of the couch within reaching distance so I could pet her every few minutes till I passed out.

From left to right, here's Gary, me, and Randy.

From left to right, Joanne, Randy, Gary, and me.

It's really just so cool to have people who look like me.
I can totally see my face in theirs, their faces in mine, and features of both of my sons match all 4 of us.
It's really an amazing feeling, I can't even really describe how this feels.
I may have been able to hold back the tears on the show, but I keep looking at these pictures and crying.
It was really so awesome meeting them, I can't wait to get in touch and stay in touch, figure out holidays, all of it, this is what I've been searching for my whole life, where I belonged.
I think all adoptees have that feeling, where do we belong, do we look like someone, is there anyone out there that is a part of me.
I have that now.
I finally have that feeling of belonging, fitting, looking like someone, that empty feeling from knowing that you were adopted, from knowing that out there somewhere may be someone who is like you but you have never found them, is finally filled up.
It's all so overwhelming, I'm like exploding on the inside, all of the years that I just never thought I would find anyone, I had pretty much given up on it, and now all I want to do is see them again, talk to them, any kind of communication with them to get to know them better, to start making up for the lost time.
The size of my family just exploded, I have all of these people in the families of my siblings who are so thrilled for all of us, they can't wait to meet me, and I can't even tell you how that feels, it's so hard to explain.
And none of what I feel about this, about finding my siblings and being welcomed into their families, can ever take away from what I feel about my adoptive family.
I love my Mom and Dad so much, they raised me, took care of me, loved me like I was their own birth child, they never made me feel like I didn't belong, I belong with them too, this is a different kind of feeling, this is the empty spaces being filled, all of those empty places where there were no answers, those places are finally filled and I don't want my family to think that they aren't my family anymore, they will always be my family, they are my family.
My family just got a lot bigger is all.

Posted by Kat at 1:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

At 6:30am, Sebastian and I rode down the 2 sets of elevators at the Doubletree Suites and walked outside to find another limousine SUV waiting for us.
NBC goes all out for their guests man, dark tinted windows on the limo service SUVs they sent for us for every single ride we took anywhere into and out of this whole adventure.
The ride from the hotel to the NBC studios wasn't far at all, just a few city blocks, and he dropped us off right in front and said that someone would be at the door to get us in just a few minutes.
Not even 2 minutes later, 2 NBC interns came out to greet us and bring us into the studios.
As we're walking down the halls to the green room, we saw Matt Lauer talking to some producers and he introduced himself to us, said how exciting it was for us to be there, that this story was amazing to start with, and then I called, he said that everyone was just blown away by it.

We were taken into the green room where the interns told us that someone from hair and makeup would be down to get me in a few minutes, and to just have a seat, relax, have some coffee or eat something if we wanted to.
While Sebastian and I were sitting there waiting and watching the local NBC news, (the Today show hadn't started yet, it was only about 6:45am) a man walked in and sat down.
I recognized him but for the life of me I could not recall his name.
It was Chuck Todd, he is the NBC News Chief White House Correspondent, NBC News Political Director, and Contributing Editor of 'Meet the Press'.
I knew I recognized him! haha
The interns told us that we were here on like a really huge news day, the United Nations is having a big summit meeting, and Benjamin Netanyahu was already in the building, secret service agents were everywhere, and so for me to not be surprised if there are certain areas where I would not be allowed to go.
I was totally blown away already, 2 huge name people in the building, 1 of them sitting less than 3 feet away from me.
Ack!

Hair and makeup came to get me, I had to leave Sebastian in the green room, and off I went up a couple flights of stairs and down a hallway where I met Al Roker, and then was taken into Meredith Vieira's dressing room where her hair and makeup ladies fixed me up.
Everyone keeps saying how good I looked, well it's thanks to them.
They did an amazing job making my hair look that awesome because believe me, on it's own in the humidity that was going on, my hair did NOT look that good when I walked in.
As I was sitting there with a giant curler in my hair and getting my face done, a camera guy/producer came in and said he needed me for those 2 shadow shots that they did, to sort of keep my face hidden until it was time to surprise Joanne, Gary, and Randy with my entrance.
So I went down the hall and into Studio 1A which is the kitchen area, the area where they do all of the cooking segments, and I sat in a chair, they did the 1st shadow shot and then we sat and waited.
While sitting waiting, Giada De Laurentiis came in and started getting things going for her segment, the food was already being cooked, there were about 10 people in there helping her, so that was really cool to see.
Then the reporter who did the switched embryos story, Amy Roebuck, came in to get through to the other part of the studio where she was going to report on that story.
Sebastian got to meet her down in the green room when Matt Lauer was in there talking to him, (to Sebastian) so he was totally psyched about meeting everyone too.
He actually got to talk to Al Roker the longest, and he said Al told him a few jokes, so Sebastian really had the most awesome time there.

After I did the shadow shots, I was taken back to hair and makeup so they could finish, and then we went down to the studio where Gary, Randy and Joanne were waiting, our story was about to air.
I was so nervous, all of these people were standing in the studio waiting to see this happen.
All of these other NBC reporters, camera and crew people, and Sebastian was also standing there with a bunch of people who I assumed were other family members of my long lost brothers and sister, they were.
I started to get choked up but stopped myself, I was NOT going to cry on live national tv! haha
Meredith did the intro and then called me out.
I was also really nervous about this whole thing because of my whole spine/head/neck thing, I can't raise my head, I knew it was going to look weird to people, so that was what the majority of my nervousness was about.
Joanne was already crying, I felt so bad for her, she knew all of these years who I was and she couldn't tell me, so I hugged her, told her that I always knew, she said she always knew but she couldn't tell me and that she was so sorry, I told her it was ok, and then I turned to meet my brothers.
I was just so excited, I had brothers, I mean, i have an older brother Mike, but he's not my bio-brother, these guys are, and all I could think to say was "Hi guys!" and I hugged them both.
Meredith said hello and I hugged her too. D'oh! hahahah ha!
I couldn't help myself, I mean, without NBC, without Meredith reporting this story on Tuesday morning, I would have never known they were looking for me, so I just felt like I owed her a hug for doing this.
You're probably not supposed to hug the Today show reporters, but I couldn't help it. hahahaha
We did the segment and then were taken down to the lobby so we could all talk and hang out for a bit before going outside.
It seems that the crowd outside wanted to meet us all.
That was kinda weird feeling, but eh.
But standing in the lobby and talking to each other, looking at each other, I saw my face in theirs.
I could see where my kids got some of their features.
Sebastian, Gary, and Randy look a lot alike, Sebastian looks like Joanne too, well he looks like me, so of course he's gonna look like her, (open these next 2 links side by side in new windows or tabs) Joanne really looks like me, and there's so much about Joanne and I that is alike, it's kinda scary.

There's so much more to tell, and I don't want these posts to be wicked long so I'm trying to break them up into smaller bits.
Part 3 coming soon!

Posted by Kat at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I didn't even go to sleep until 8am today, woke up at 11:30am, sore, oh man so so sore, and dealing with emails, voicemails, Twitters, everything.

I really don't want to offend anyone, but I'm getting an overwhelming amount of emails from a lot of people who believe in the big dog up in the clouds, every single 1 of them is saying that this is proof of his existence, that they followed the story here, read, read my blog, and were extremely disappointed to learn that I am an atheist.

take care and think about what has happened in your life in the past couple of days and consider that god played a part in this

I really do appreciate all of the love, support, and comments, this has all been so amazing and overwhelming, and I'm still totally blown away by what has happened here, so much to tell you all, and I will, I just need to run an errand first and then I can get to explaining everything.
Run an errand ha!
Sebastian and I had like 5-6 hours to really explore Times Square and stuff, and my body is just now telling me that I am the suck, it hates me, and that I'm lucky my body hasn't let me drop dead yet.
I am in some serious pain today man, whoo!
My lower back, thighs, calves, and feet are on fi-yah!
We walked the entire length of Times Square at least 3 times, finding something we missed the previous 2 trips up and down each side of the street.
Walking to the bathroom and back to my chair is unbelievably painful. hahahaha
Ok, gonna go runcrawl that errand and then I'll be back to post some more.

Oh!
Aunt Sherri, Roe, Carolyn H., Pamela, Alicia, Mom, Dad, old and new family, (Pamela!!) old friends, I promise I will reply to each of your comments and emails, I just need some time to weed through the 1,200+ comments and emails in my inbox that started pouring in the second that I posted to my blog Tuesday morning, and have not stopped yet.
Magazines are calling and emailing wanting to do interviews, other tv shows calling or Twittering for the same, there's so so much going on and so time is definitely needed to rest, get a sort of grip on this whole thing, and be able to respond to everyone, but thank you all so much for getting in touch!

Posted by Kat at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

As I posted Tuesday morning, I was watching the Today show, saw Joanne sitting on the couch with these 2 guys, and my heart began to race because it was titled "Long lost siblings reunite", and I was sitting here talking to myself, I just kept saying over and over watching the story of Gary and Randy finding out they were brothers, "That's Joanne sitting with them, she's my sister, why is she there? She looks like them too, what the hell is happening right now?!"
I kept watching, they got to her story, "Yup, she's their sister, oh man, this is going to turn out, this is going to be my family".
Meredith asked right at the very end of the segment, about another sibling, a sister, and Joanne said it, she said "Yes, there's another sister, she was born Claire Marie, she would be 39 or 40", and I started screaming "That's me! That's me!"
My sons came running from the other room, asked me what was going on, I told them, I pointed to the tv, they were still showing clips as they went to commercials, I told my sons, "That's Joanne, Gary and Randy, they are all brothers and sister, they said my name, Claire Marie, they are looking for me!"

Both Mark and Sebastian told me to hurry up and call NBC, I searched all over the Today show site and MSNBC site, for phone numbers, Mark searched on his computer in the other room, I found a bunch of numbers and started dialing.
None of those phones were being answered, so I called 411, they gave me 2 numbers, so I called the 1st one, the person who answered said I had to call back at 9:30am when the office opens, so I called the next number and when the girl answered, I yelled "Don't fucking hang up! Do not tell me to call back at 9:30! I am the missing sister, Claire Marie, from the last segment! Please!!! Patch me through to somebody, anybody who can get them a message before they leave the studio, I saw, I'm here, give them my name and number please!" I begged into the phone.
I was asked to calm down and hold, so I held, nervously pacing the house, I just wanted them to give Joanne my name and number, to let her know I saw, that I am ok, to call me, that's all I wanted

Katie, a totally awesome super amazing girl at NBC, came on the line, she asked me what my last name was at birth, I told her "My full name was Claire Marie Ogden, I know Joanne, we went to school together, tell her if she hasn't left, tell her the name Kathleen Gilligan, she will know who I am, tell her please, she knows me, she knows me."
I was asked to hold again so I did, even more nervous now, starting to shake and cry, she really IS my sister, I have brothers, I have brothers.
Katie came back on, she said that as soon as she told Joanne my name, Joanne started to cry and said she always knew, then Katie asked me if she could call me right back, she promised to call right back, I said ok, hung up and started to cry.

When Lexi, another super totally awesome girl at NBC called me back, she asked me if I could get to New York today, I said no, I just don't have the money, maybe if I had a month's notice I could, but not today.
Lexi said that NBC would take care of everything, transportation to the airport, hotel, everything, could I go, bring my family, I said well yeah, if NBC can actually do that, yeah.
She said they could, and she'd call me right back, in like 10 minutes, so I said ok, started crying again, and called my parents to tell them the news.
They were so happy for me, when I told them it was Joanne, they said they always knew that too.
As I was talking to them, a call beeped in, I told them I had to go, switched over, it was Lexi again, she said that she was going to get my sister and brothers to stay another night, fly me out and do a follow up in the morning, and then it was a completely chaotic whirlwind from there on for the rest of the day, call after call, making the travel plans, Mark wasn't going to go, he doesn't fly well, he wanted to stay and take care of the cats, and he didn't want to go meet his new aunt and uncles, have an hour with them, and then not see them again for awhile, it's just so hard to come up with the money to fly to Maine where they all live, where all my family and GreatGram still live.
I respected that, but Sebastian wanted to go, he'd always wanted to see New York since he was little anyway, so tickets were set up for us, a car was coming at 3:30, hotel, everything was being setup and it would be emailed to me.
By this time it was noon, I hadn't packed yet, taken a shower, nothing, and then I learned the local NBC news team would be here to do a promo piece on me, the before the live segment stuff, and they'd be here at 2pm.
That's the 2nd time that news guy has been to my house, and he always does extreme close ups.
So John, thanks for not listening to me when I told you to NOT do the extreme close up stuff.
My face was red and puffy from crying all morning, my hair was still wet from just getting out of the shower, I looked like hell and now the entire country was going to see it. ha ha
Just as the local news crew was finishing packing up their van, the limo pulled in.
Yes, limousine service from Sarasota to the Tampa airport. Crazy!
I had packed everything right before my shower so we were ok to go, I threw my flip flops on, and we left.

The morning really was just a crazy and hectic time, NBC needed pics of me little, and they needed either my original birth certificate or adoption records, my Mom in Maine had those, so NBC asked if my Mom could fax it.
Um, no.
So my best friend Shell in Maine, who had now heard about it on the local radio, called me and was all "Did I hear that right?! Your brothers and sister?!", I said yes, and I asked her to go to Mom and Dad's house, get the adoption records and fax them to NBC.
She said yes and she did.
The whole ride and flight was just utter disbelief.
Sebastian and I just kept repeating it, "We're going to New York city, we're going to meet family, this is crazy!"
The plane ride was ok on me, we flew JetBlue, which I highly recommend, and it wasn't too bad on me pain wise.
I did warn the airport screeners that I beep, titanium implants, handed them my medical card that explains it, and amazingly I didn't beep.
JetBlue has extra leg room so even when you recline the seat-back, there's still a lot of room for whoever is sitting behind you, so at least I was able to recline the whole flight.
We got in around 10pm, NBC had gotten us a wicked nice (Holy biggest hotel room I have ever seen in my life!) room at the Doubletree Suites right in Time Square, and had also given us room service money so we could eat.
That was awesome because neither of us had eaten anything the entire day, it was crazy chaos all day until we left for the airport, so Sebastian and I ordered some room service and while we waited for the food, we investigated the room.
It was actually a suite, it has a living room, couch, a couple of chairs, a desk, the bedroom has 2 HUGE double beds with a gazillion pillows, and walking out the front door, you are right smack in Times Square.
I have never actually seen a mini-bar in a hotel room, only in movies, and I've never stayed at hotels that have them, so I just had to open it, and I just had to touch something in it.
Well, even touching something in the mini-bar means you just bought it, they are motion activated, so I ended up with a $2.50 Toblerone. LMAO!
Then our food arrived, and it was amazing!
Seeing as we were only going to be there 1 night and NBC had given us $200 for room service, Sebastian decided to live like a king and ordered the rack of lamb with mashed potatoes, and steamed asparagus, and I just ordered a chicken club.
I really couldn't decide from the 12 page in-room dining service menu, so I just ordered something simple, and we had a couple of $8 Cokes. (Diet for me)
After we ate, we were still nervously wide awake, so we went out to see Times Square.
We walked up and down a few blocks, took a bunch of pics which I will post later, and then we went back to the hotel and tried to get some sleep around 1am.
5:30am the alarm went off, I showered and dressed, then Sebastian, and then we went down to meet the car to take us to the NBC studios at 6:30am.

Part 2 coming up next.

Posted by Kat at 1:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Like holy fucking shit!!!

I was watching the Today show this morning and these 2 guys who worked together at a furniture store in Maine, found out that they were brothers, both adopted by different families.
Then about a week after the brothers knew they were brothers, their sister who they didn't know they even had a sister, saw the news story on tv, and she went to their work at the furniture store to meet them.

This morning on the Today show, Randy, Gary, and Joanne told their story.
Meredith Viera (sp?) asked about another sister that they have never met and were still looking for, Joanne said yes, her birth name was Claire Marie, she would be about 39 years old.

That's me.
I'm Claire Marie.
I'm the sister they are searching for, and the Today Show is flying me and my youngest son to New York tonight to meet my sister and brothers, and be on the Today Show tomorrow morning.

I knew the second I saw Joanne sitting on the couch, I knew who she was.
We went to high school together, had a study hall, lunch, and gym class together.
At one point during those high school years, my sister Jo and I talked to Joanne, we asked her if she had a sister, her last name is my birth last name, she said no, but that's because she didn't know that she even had a sister back then.
But Joanne and I are identical, we look even more alike now than we did back in school.
Watch the video, if it doesn't load that one, click on the "Long lost siblings" video link.
That's my sister Joanne and my brothers that I never knew that I had, Gary and Randy.
I have a sister and brothers, I'm meeting them tomorrow morning on the Today show.

Posted by Kat at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (60)

I love the internet and computers, I really do.
I think that it's been like the only thing that's kept me sane these last 10+ years.
I'm like trapped in my house, so being able to get on the internet and talk to people and be able to laugh and cry, to just be with people instead of the 4 walls, chat on forums, chat with friends on Twitter, to be able to work and make some money, and also be able to shop for just the right gift for someone for their birthday or Christmas, is really just so awesome.
I used to be able to spend hours shopping in a brick and mortar store for just the right gifts, but since all of the medical crap stopped me, being able to shop and look for that special thing, is just so awesome to me.
I think a lot of people take the internet for granted, we're all so used to having it, computers are practically in every single home, most people don't realize just how truly amazing it is.
You can make travel plans, buy plane tickets, order pizza and all kinds of other food, you can play games, watch videos, listen to music, get an education, find old friends and stay in touch with everyone through email for free which is way cheaper than calling by landline or cell, heck, most people don't even have landline phones anymore.

Anyway, I do like 95% of all of my shopping online, the only stuff that I can't buy online is my groceries, and that's only because it's not available in my area yet.
Starting next month, I will begin my holiday shopping, finding the things that the teens would like for Christmas and doing a lot of comparison shopping to find the stuff on sale to make sure that I get the absolute best prices out of all of the online retailers.
For a long time now though, I've been finding the best prices at Buy.com, they are consistently lower priced on every single item I've needed, even if it's just $5bucks lower, it's still a lot cheaper because almost every single item has free shipping too.
I take shipping prices into the calculation when doing all of the comparison shopping, and they really are lower in the long run.
I've noticed that some e-tailers are selling their products at super low prices, but then they get you on the shipping and handling charges, charging what the product would normally cost + a few bucks extra, so in the long run, you're paying exactly what you would have paid for the product + shipping costs anyway.
That's not much of a sale.

I'm not really sure what they want this year, maybe some more video games for their Xbox360, maybe that Batman: Arkham Asylum, that game loos A-maz-Zing! They also have a ton of other great Xbox360 games for some really great prices, and I know that there's been a price drop on the system and most games too, so I'll probably get them games and then some clothes, or whatever they tell me that they'd like to have.
I gotta start asking them what they want to have.
They aren't little kids anymore, I don't have to be sneaky and ask them to write a letter to Santa. ha ha haha

Posted by Kat at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arrr, today, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
E'eryone is supposed t' spend the whole day talkin' like a pirate and spendin' the day doin' all kinds o' pirate acti'ities.
Thar be e'ents takin' place all o'er the world today.
I know thar is a Pirates for Parkinsons Walk that happens today, tis' 50 walks, 1,000 people, all o'er the world, t' raise awareness and money t' help find a cure for Parkinsons disease.
Thar be many other e'ents happenin' today too, maybe one near you, so if you have nothin' much t' do today, why not find an International Talk Like a Pirate Day e'ent, and go have some fun and be a part o' an e'ent that could help a lot o' people.
Ahoy mateys, argh! Tis' Talk Like a Pirate Day 2009, argh!

Posted by Kat at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been up all night with insomnia again, and I was super bored around 2-3-ish am, so I went outside to see if anything was up in my hood.
One of my neighbors in the duplex to my left, had a party last night, and it looks like he was a good host and didn't let anyone drive home drunk.
The driveway is full of cars, about 6 cars can fit in a straight line from door to street, and 1 of his guests couldn't fit his Mustang in the driveway, so he had to park it in the street.
With all of the sidewalk construction, he took a risk parking there, somebody might have hit it because there are still barricades and tractors, and piles of dirt and sewer drain piping everywhere.
Well he didn't want his wicked nice and shiny blue Mustang getting hit, so he made use of the construction barricades, this guy was clearly thinking with his beer brain.
This is 1 smart guy.
Uh-huh.

Yup, he put those barricades to work letting people know to not hit his pretty blue Mustang...

Till the police came by at 7:45am and wrote him a ticket for parking in a construction zone and tampering with city equipment. ha ha haha
Man, he's gonna flip when he wakes up and comes outside to sees the ticket.
The cop let me take the pics by the way, and I asked him what the fine was for the things he violated, and he told me the total ticket is $1,200.00
Ouch!
I hope the party was worth it dude. ha ha hahaha

Later on today, like this afternoon, I need to go to the grocery store and grab some more food.
I always forget like 1 or 2 crucial food items when I do the food shopping, even if I have a list and the items are on the list, somehow a couple of things always get skipped over or forgotten.
For example, I bought the super yummy Bubba burgers that we love, and forgot the buns.
Sure I could just make the burgers without the buns and use bread, but then every time I even think of doing that, I start thinking about Eddie Murphy's welfare burgers (WARNING foul language, but hey, it's Eddie Murphy...LoL) and then I am laughing so hard while making them, that I can hardly breathe or speak while trying to tell 1 of the teens to go to the corner store for burger buns.
"We got McDonalds, and you ain't got none, cuz you mommas' on welfare". LMAO!

I forgot some other stuff too, and we need more lunch meat, soda, more bread, (for mommas' big, greasy, green pepper welfare burgers HA!) and some other stuff, it's on the list that I wrote out earlier this morning after the drunk car protection and the cop thing.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you why I wasn't blogging all of that much the last few days.
I'm having this weird random body part swelling issue.
It's probably water retention, I do take a water pill everyday for my high blood pressure, so water retention might be why, but the pills usually work good so, maybe, maybe not.
Anyway, all day on Wednesday, my feet and ankles were swollen up, on Thursday, my knees were swollen up wicked bad, it like actually hurt really, really bad to try and walk, and sitting down and standing up, like having to pee and then leave the bathroom, was so freaking painful I wanted to cry!
Then all day yesterday, my hands and face were swollen.
My face wasn't too bad, I didn't look like a Campbell's soup kid, but my hands, holy crap!
My hands were swollen up so bad, like sausages in a microwave about to explode!
They were swollen and painful, they were like all tingly, so typing was out of the question.
I just laid on the couch most of the whole day until the swelling went down enough to at least use the mouse.
Once they got to that point, I was at least able to check into the forums and stuff.

It is very unusual for my face and hands to swell up like that though, my knees and feet I'm used to, they do that every few months or so, it is water weight in those areas, but the only time my hands and face ever swell up is when I've either eaten peaches or drank a juice with peach juice mixed in, or breathed in peach fuzz.
I am allergic to peaches (in case you didn't guess..haha), like really bad allergic to them, and swelling up is what happens as the allergy attack, it's like my warning sign to get some Benadryl in me, (I use the children's liquid, it works faster than the adult pills) and if I don't get some, I will have trouble breathing in about 45 minutes or so.
I usually get it and everything is ok, and last night I did take some allergy pills, I didn't have any Benadryl, and it did work, just not as fast.
The point is though, that my face and hands have never been that bad, they have never swollen up to that big and tight before.
I was really worried that the skin on my fingers was going to either crack or rip open, it was scary man.
I also have no idea what caused it, there are no peaches in the house, no peach products unless 1 of the teens brought it in, but they know what happens to me, they wouldn't do that on purpose, and I have not had anything out of the ordinary food wise, and to my knowledge, nothing where it could have been mixed in like a juice or food product.
It's very odd, I'm just going to have to be careful for awhile I think.

Posted by Kat at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

See that button over in my sidebar that says "This sheet works"?
It's for Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheets.
You can just click on that button, you don't need to type out thissheetworks.com, I linked it up for ya.
That link will take you to the Purex website where you can learn all about this amazing product that I love and has totally changed the way that I do the laundry in our house.
I really am in love with this laundry product, I admit it, this has changed the way that I do laundry, and most importantly, the cost of doing the laundry.

I became a Purex Insider back in late April and then received my trial kit on May 5th.
I opened the trial kit marked "Top Secret", and the smell of these laundry sheets totally blew me away, I loved the Spring scented sheets before ever even trying them out on my laundry!
I have now been using the Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheets since they went on sale at Publix in May, I have not bought any more expensive liquid laundry detergent in the big heavy jugs, and I have not bought any more packages of dryer sheets either.
I just walk down the laundry aisle and look at all of those heavy jugs of expensive liquid laundry detergent that I used to buy every single month, and smile to myself that I will never have to lift one of those jugs off of the shelves and hurt my back ever again, and then I just grab the small blue package of refill sheets to place in the box that came with my starter kit, and toss it in my shopping cart.

The refill kit is as light as a bag of chips!
There has been no more measuring of liquid laundry detergent, no more adding fabric softener dryer sheets to the load of clothes and having to throw them out after fishing them out of shirt sleeves or pants pockets and wasting all of that money on extra products.
I was buying at least 1 jug of liquid laundry detergent every month at the cost of at least $9.99, maybe less if Publix had my brand on sale, and a box of fabric softener sheets at the cost of $4.99 - $5.99 for about 45 sheets.
I am now buying just 1 (one) product at the cost of $6.99 and it does 24 loads of laundry, it cleans them, softens them, and keeps them static free for just 1 low price every month.
I'm doing the same amount of laundry as I was doing when using liquid detergents, but I'm saving a lot more money and time.
I was spending about $16 - $17 per month give or take a dollar here and there if the products that I used were on sale, on 2 separate products.
I'm using 1 product for about $7 per month, give or take a dollar here and there if I have a coupon for it or there's a sale, or better yet, a sale AND a coupon! ( LoL! )
When Purex says "This sheet works", they aren't kidding, this sheet really works.

That 1 little sheet does a full large load of clothes and towels combined, it gets them clean and it softens them in the wash, and then it softens them again in the dryer.
I've also noticed that even after a sheet has gone through the washer and the dryer with a large load of clothes, that the sheet still has some of that fabric softener stripe left to it, so instead of tossing the sheet in the garbage after the 1 use, I put the sheet that still has some stripe color left to it back in the dryer to be used again on the next load to get a little more softening of my clothes and towels.
I don't like to waste good product. *wink*

I'm posting about the Purex 3 -in -1 laundry sheets again because when Mark and I went and did the shopping tonight, I picked up another refill kit.
Even if I buy 2 refill kits per month, it's still less than what I was spending on 2 separate products.
It works great and it's saving me money every month, that's really important to me in times like this, we're all struggling, stretching each dollar as far as we can, so only buying 1 product that works better than the 2 that I was buying, is a huge savings for me in dollar amount and in the stress factor.
If you haven't tried Purex 3 - in -1 yet, click the button in my sidebar or click right here to learn even more about it AND get a money saving coupon to try out this awesome laundry sheet for yourself.

Posted by Kat at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The ortho just called about 15 minutes ago to let me know that medicaid has approved the MRI series that Mark needs to have done.
They are doing a series of 3 all in 1 day, it will take about 2, to 2 and a half hours, and it's this coming Monday the 21st at 12:50pm, and then we'll go in on Thursday the 24th for the follow-up visit where they tell us the results.

Now that he's 18, the docs are calling and wanting to speak directly to him, not me, not his mom, they want to speak to the legal adult age Mark now.
It's kinda crazy, my baby is 18, people need to speak to him because of the legal stuff.
He's all telling them "Uh, speak to my mom, I have no idea what you just said".
That made me laugh, and then I spoke to the nurse to schedule his appointments for next week.
Mark says he's not claustrophobic, but he's never been inside of an MRI machine before, I don't think he's ever been in something that size before, and the noises that machine makes, the noise alone can make somebody feel like the machine is gonna fall apart on top of you while you're in it.
I've had a ton of MRIs and I'm still not used to the noises it makes, it's freaky, that big spinning noise followed by the big banging noise, it really is enough to freak you out.

In about a half hour or so, Mark and I are going to walk to Publix and do the grocery shopping, and then cab it back.
I waited all day to go because of how hot it is outside, the later in the day we go, the less the sun is shining down directly on us as we walk, it's starting to set, so it's not so bad walking at this time of day.
We'll go and get it over with, then come home and chill out for the rest of the night.

But things are rolling along with Mark's doc now, we're going to start taking care of this stuff ASAP, I'm so happy about that, it gives me hope that he won't have to wait for years for treatment like I had to do.

Posted by Kat at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Let's begin at Thursday the 10th and taking Mark to the orthopedist.
This is going to be a long one, sorry, a lot has gone on here since Thursday.

When Thursday came around, I started to feel like total crap, I felt lightheaded and nauseous, I was basically feeling like I just got hit by a bus and I had to take Mark to his doctor appointment with the ortho.
Mark's Big, George, took us there and to the pharmacy after, and then home again.
The doctor took about 8 xrays of Mark's spine from all different angles and views, and then he sat down with us to tell us the news.
Mark does not have scoliosis, but he does have problems with his spine, it's genetic, what he has, all of his problems are genetic.
Mark has Spondylolysis and Spondylolysthesis.

The spine is made up of a series of connected bones called "vertebrae." In about 5% of the adult population, there is a developmental crack in one of the vertebrae, usually at the point at which the lower (lumbar) part of the spine joins the tailbone (sacrum). It may develop as a stress fracture. Because of the constant forces the low back experiences, this fracture does not usually heal as normal bone. This type of fracture (called a spondylolysis) is simply a crack in part of the vertebra and may cause no problem at all. However, sometimes the cracked vertebra does slip forward over the vertebra below it. This is known as adult isthmic spondylolisthesis.

What are the symptoms?
Isthmic spondylolisthesis may not cause any symptoms for years (if ever) after the slippage has occurred. If you do have symptoms, they may include low back and buttocks pain; numbness, tingling, pain, muscle tightness or weakness in the leg (sciatica); increased sway back; or a limp. These symptoms are usually aggravated by standing, walking and other activities, while rest will provide temporary relief.

Spondylolysis and Spondylolysthesis, is nicknamed "swayback", your back sways "in" which causes you to lean forward and hunch over.
This is something I have always been yelling at Mark about while he plays video games on the pc or the xbox, "stop hunching over! sit up straight!" and he'd always tell me that sitting up straight hurt, that leaning forward felt better, and I know that it does, I know leaning forward feels better because I too have "swayback", my spine not only curved side to side from the scoliosis, it also curved inward at the L3 to S1 vertebrae, so that's one of the many reasons that my surgeon had to fuse me so far down, all the way down.

To help you see what I'm talking about in regards to which vertebrae are affected in both myself and Mark, you can click on this chart and see those affected areas.
There are 4 sections of the spine, and each section is then broken down to individual vertebrae.
There's the Cervical spine, C1 - C7, the Thoracic, T1 - T12, the Lumbar, L1 - L5, and then the Sacrum, S1, and the coccyx which is also known as the tailbone.
I have been fused from C1 all the way down to S1, the very top to the very bottom, and S1, or the sacrum, and the coccyx, are actually connected, so when I was fused, it really was from the very top of my spine to the very bottom of my spine, stem to stern as one doctor said.
Mark is affected at the L5 and S1 areas.
His sacrum (S1) and L5, are pointing down and in instead of up and straight like you see on the chart.
I didn't have my camera with me on Thursday, and I don't think the ortho would have liked me taking a picture of the xrays anyway as Mark is a brand new patient of his, we don't have an ongoing relationship with this doctor like I do with my surgeon.
I have been with my surgeon since November 2005, and because I've been with him so long, he doesn't mind me taking pictures of my xrays and stuff when he puts them up on the lightboards.
But because I didn't take my camera with me, I couldn't take a picture of Mark's xrays, but this is a pretty accurate image of Mark's "spondy" or "swayback" as it is nicknamed by different doctors.
My surgeon calls it swayback, Mark's ortho called it spondy.

The third image (left to right) is exactly how Mark's spine looks, it is down and in exactly like this drawing.
Along with the spondy, Mark has arthritis in his spine as I said above, and he also has stenosis and some nerve impingement as well.
The ortho did a few strength tests on both of Mark's arms and legs, and he is definitely weaker on his left side, and he does not have as much lower body strength as he does in his upper body.
His upper body is very strong while his lower body and his legs, are very weak, and his left leg is much weaker than his right.
The ortho also noted the nerve damage by pinching gently on his fingernails and toenails.
If you take your index finger and thumb of one hand, and use them to pinch down on the fingernail of your other hand's index finger, you see how long it takes for the color to come back in the skin under the nail.
Pinching the nails makes the skin underneath turn white, un-pinching them allows the blood flow to come back, and the longer it takes tells the doctor if there is nerve damage or pinched nerves in the hands and feet and how severe it is.
The fingernails on both of Mark's hands were ok, a little damage on his left, but both of his feet, especially his left, took a bit of time, so this told the doc that there is definitely some nerve impingement on his left side.
Once medicaid approves the MRIs, the doc will be better able to see just how much nerve damage and stenosis he has, and he will also be better able to see the "spondy" and how bad it is.
Once he sees that, he will then figure out a plan of action for Mark which will probably be a combination of bracing and some really tough physical therapy to strengthen his core muscles and use the physical therapy to try and pull the spondy out of the falling down pattern.
The physical therapy will improve his strength and flexibility in his core, as well as teach him how to properly move his body so he does not damage his lower spine any further.
Moving your body the wrong way can cause the spondy to fall even more and cause much more pain.
His ortho gave him Tramadol and Mobic (NSAID) for the pain he is currently having, and he was told to rest as much as possible.
Trying to make an 18 year old lay down on his bed or the couch for a few hours while alternating between heat and ice to reduce the inflammation and reduce pain, is like trying to teach a mosquito to not suck your blood.
Basically, he's not doing it as long as he should, I can only get him to lay perfectly still for about 1 hour. I do 30 minutes of heat, and then 30 minutes of cold, and that's it, he can't stand it anymore.
Now we are just waiting for the ortho to call us and tell us when to come in for the MRIs if and when medicaid approves them.
That was Mark's update, sorry it took me so long Mom and Dad, I know you've been waiting for this news.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I started to feel wicked sick on the same day I took Mark to the ortho.
By the time we finally got back home, I just collapsed on the couch right after making dinner for the teens.
I didn't fall asleep, I just laid there, exhausted and watching tv all night.
I was dizzy, nauseous, had a fever of 101-102 at times, sweats, chills, the works basically.
I didn't call my doc until Monday morning at 8am, told them how I was feeling, and they got me in at 2pm.
She (my doc) said it was not the flu, that I have a really bad ear infection in my left ear, my deaf ear, so she cleaned it all out with that super-wash stuff they have, and she took out this huge chunk of wax from way down in the inner ear, the cause of the infection.
Because it's my deaf ear, I can't tell when there's too much wax built up on the deep inner ear like I can in my right ear.
If you can't hear out of one ear, you can't distinguish the loss of sound/volume due to wax build-up, so she cleaned it all out and gave me some antibiotics (erythromycin) to clear it up.
She said I should start feeling better by tomorrow morning because now that the wax build-up is gone from my deep inner ear, my balance won't be off anymore, I won't be getting dizzy every time I stand up, lean forward, or try to walk.
Every time I got dizzy, I felt nauseous, and every time I sat up to eat or drink I felt nauseous and threw up everything I had tried to eat or drink.
Because of how crappy I was feeling since Thursday, I pretty much haven't eaten anything at all, and I also barely drank anything too because it would just come back out.

Now we have to back up a day to Sunday morning at 9:31am as I was laying on the couch watching the morning news, I heard the AC go *!! ka-clunk !!* and it stopped blowing the air.
It's a really noticeable difference when the AC fan stops, it suddenly got very quiet in the living room.
I tried for several hours (like the entire day right up until I went to bed around midnight) to get it to come back to life but there was no way that it was going to come back on.
All of the rain that we had from Friday afternoon through to the very early morning hours of Sunday, got inside of it and fried the motor.
The entire Tampa Bay area was under flood warnings for the entire weekend, it just rained and rained and rained, and all of that rain killed the motor.
We know this because when we took it out of the wall tonight (Monday night) to install a new one, we took all of the panels off of it so we could see exactly what happened.
Two of my friends helped me all day going to the docs and to get the AC, carried it outside with water dripping the entire way, before we opened it all the way up.
So much water came pouring out of it after we got the back panel off of it, it seemed like a gallon or 2 came pouring out, and the motor was visibly burnt out, fried, cooked, done.
I was able to get a new one because of some work that I do, and then my friends drove me to Home Depot to get it, and then we came back home and they installed it for me.
One of my friends who installed it, is also going to make what's called a "birds nest" for the AC.
It's a cover for the top and sides of the AC so that rain cannot get in to it through the top or sides whenever it rains, and we are in the rainy season until November 30th, the last day of hurricane season.
This will prevent what happened to my AC on Sunday morning from happening again.
I'll give my landlord the receipt and he'll take that amount off of next month's rent, but man, it just sucked so freaking much to have to replace the AC again.
I just bought that one in February '09 after the one that I bought in October '08 had been stabbed in the freon line by some local teen thuggery.
I bought the one in October '08 to replace the one that my landlord installed in May '06 that shorted out after a really bad storm where the power kept going off and on all night long, to replace the one that was here from the day I moved in - in May of '99 that got directly hit by lightening in the late afternoon from a massive storm that came out of nowhere.
When it got hit by lightening, people driving up and down the street actually saw it get struck and I could hear people slam on their brakes, start honking and yelling to see if anyone was home that needed to be rescued, a huge cloud of white/gray smoke filled the side yard, smoke came in the house through the vents, I screamed at the boys to run and get outside and then I used a broom handle to yank the cord out of the wall socket so it didn't short out and blow out the electrical wiring in the whole house.

You see a pattern here don't you?
If I believed in like curses and stuff, I would totally say that this house, at least the side of the house where the AC is, is freaking cursed.
The AC ends up needing to be replaced every few years, and in just the last 2 years, we've gone through 3 AC units.
Total suckage.

You know what else really sucks?
Insomnia.
It's now 3am, I've been awake since 6am Monday morning after only getting an hour and a half of sleep on Sunday night.
I should be totally exhausted after everything that happened this weekend, being sick, not sleeping and sweating to death since Sunday morning, but nope, wide awake as usual.

Posted by Kat at 2:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Holy crap it's hot in here and I can't really open up the windows because of all of the construction going on.
There's dirt being kicked up right in front of my house again today.
I have an appointment at 2pm today to see the doc about whatever it is that I have going on, hopefully it's not the flu or *gasp* swine flu.
Ha ha, that's a joke, I can't stand all of the hype around the swine flu, it's kind of nutty in my opinion considering that every year 36,000 people die from regular old flu, and here's everyone in a panic cuz like not even a quarter of that number have died from swine flu so far.

Anyway,
I've been laying on the couch since Sebastian left for school with 2 large box fans just blowin hot air at me.
The temp is 90 and the humidity is at 90% too.
Nice scalding hot day.
Sucks.

Posted by Kat at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm wicked sick, been sick since Thursday, took Mark to the orthopedist on Thursday, will explain how that all went later on, and once again, my AC unit has died.
I'm pretty sure the storms we've been having killed it.
I really cannot believe the week I've had, am having.
This sucks so freaking much.

Posted by Kat at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

All 3 of us now have some sort of pain, we're all laughing about it because it is kind of funny, all of us in some sort of pain.
Sebastian pulled a muscle on the side of his stomach, like his obliques, and Mark is still having horrible back pain, and the teens now understand what I've been going through with my back and spine fusion pain.
Mark especially, his back is hurting him so much that he can barely sleep anymore, and this is a teen who usually can sleep for a good 18 hours if I would let him.

I'll be taking Mark to the orthopedist on Thursday after I find a ride there,
The last time we went down to the docs at that address, we took a cab, it cost $20 each way for a 10 minute ride, yeah.
I'd rather give a friend $10-$20 for gas than to pay $40 to take a cab again.
I'm going to call a friend today and see if he can help me out.
But anyway, Mark is starting to get nervous about it and I've tried like crazy to calm his fears, but he knows what I've had to go through, he's been with me every step of the way, the surgeries, the physical therapy, the braces and walkers, canes, shower chairs, and agonizing pain for days on end, so he's really getting a bit scared.
He did joke about it a bit last night though, both he and I have been up all night, neither of us can sleep, both of us are in pain, but he made a funny.
He said that buying Ferrari parts or Maserati parts, would be a whole lot cheaper than having spine fusion.
I laughed out loud and said that they probably would be, spine fusion surgeries are wicked expensive, I'll be paying off those bills till the day I die.
He laughed and said "Oh, that's great! I'm only 18 and I'll be paying off my surgeries till the day that I die too if they say that we need to do surgery!"
I told him not to think about surgery yet, we haven't even had xrays yet, just a physical examination and rib hump check, it could be something super easy to fix like a herniated disc, so chill out man, don't get freaked out about it yet.
He said that he would try to relax, but it's getting closer to the appointment date, so it's on his mind more now.

I'm really hoping that it's super easy to fix, no surgery needed, I don't want to see him go through even a small fraction of what I've been through.
I am trying so hard to keep positive thoughts, to try and make him keep positive thoughts, but he knows all too well what a diagnosis of scoliosis can mean, and he's afraid.
I hate that.
I hate that I could have given this problem to him, I hate it, I will feel so guilty if I did, if the doc on Thursday says that it is scoli.
I think I'm probably more afraid of the diagnosis than he is.

Posted by Kat at 5:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today has just been 1 of those kinds of days, and the city is to blame for it
The city is still doing the sidewalk construction and they are finally at my driveway to do it when they screwed stuff up big time.
I was sitting here this morning trying to do some work and reading up on some diet pill reviews because I'm still too fat in my opinion and need something that works, when all of a sudden, the internet wouldn't work anymore.
The city workers were out there digging up the dirt they put there last week so that they can plot out the sidewalk areas, when the dummies hit the telephone wires that are in the ground, with the backhoe.
My whole driveway is completely blocked off, no cars can get in or out at all, they have it all blocked off with cones and barricades for the night.

But anyway, when the internet and phone stopped working, I had to use my cell phone to call Verizon, at this point I didn't know the construction workers had hit the lines.
I called Verizon and they had me do all kinds of things to try and restore the connection, and nothing worked, and then the customer service guy asked me if there was any construction going on.
I told him yes, and he said that was the problem and he'd send a service tech out today.
After he told me that, I went outside and tried to talk to the workers and the Spanish worker told me in wicked bad broken English that "it no big deal you no phone, they fix after we finish digging", and he was laughing about it like it wasn't a big deal at all.

When the Verizon tech came out, I told him what happened and what the worker had said, and he got mad and went over to yell at them.
He had to run all new lines, re-bury them, and he had to find a worker who spoke English to tell them to not cement those wires in, that Verizon had marked out the lines, they have to not be cemented in.
He found a guy, a supervisor, and he explained everything to him and then came back over and fixed all of my stuff.
It was about 5 hours today where I had no internet and no phone.
It really sucked because I had a ton of work to do and couldn't do any of it.
I am very glad though that Verizon came straight out and fixed it, that's probably the best service from them that I've had in the 10.5 years that I've had them as my phone and internet providers.

When my net finally came back on, there was just so much going on, mistakes, questions, I had a ton of emails to answer, things were just nuts.
And now here it is almost 9pm, and I've barely gotten any of my stuff done.
Grr, I could have really used those 5 hours to get stuff done.
Hopefully the workers won't hit the phone lines again tomorrow when they come back to pour the cement in my driveway that cannot be driven or walked over for the next 3 days.
That really blows.

Posted by Kat at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I woke up yesterday, I had that feeling in my whole body.
The feeling that bad weather is coming, rain, a storm, whatever, something bad was coming, and I was right.
It's raining again, started sprinkling around 5pm or so, but I felt it all day and night yesterday, all day today.
When it gets like that, when I get like this, I can't hardly move, I don't want to do anything but lay on the couch, I don't want to do anything, not even eat.
I don't need any weight loss supplements or diet tricks when the weather is bad, the pain keeps me from eating.
It hurts to get up and try to cook anything, so I just don't even bother eating.
So basically all I've done all weekend is lay on the couch and watch movies.
I watched Across the Universe again, I just really love that movie.
I watched Wall-E 3 or 4 times, I just really love that movie too.
Wall-E is just so dang cute and it has a terrific story too.
Right now I'm watching Mr. Brooks.
I've never seen it before, heard it was ok, and I'll pretty much watch anything once.
If I get to feeling better, like I can move a bit better, I may go and make a cake.
I just really feel like cake, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
Yum.
I hope I get to feeling better, I really want cake.

Posted by Kat at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The city is doing the sidewalk construction project on my street still, it was supposed to be done by August 27th, but yeah, didn't happen.
They are making progress though, they are finally laying down the cement.
They got my direct neighbor to the left yesterday, they couldn't drive into their own yard all day and all night.

And by the end of today, they will have done the same to my house.
We're going to be trapped basically by wet cement.
I'll be so glad when this is over though.
They are kicking up so much dirt and dust, my whole house is getting filled with dirt and dust constantly.
It's totally affecting all of us too.
Mark's allergies are in high gear, Sebastian keeps getting headaches, and my skin is super dried out.
I've been using all of my different lotions and some natural lotion as well, but my skin is just dry dry dry.
The lotion is just being sucked in but my legs and feet are just staying dry.
I'm really over this whole sidewalk project now.
The sidewalks will be great when they are finished, but it's a freaking mess out there.
Traffic is held up, you can't get in and out of your own house, up or down the street, and if it rains at all, even little sprinkles, the construction workers all leave for the day leaving huge tractors and cement trucks, orange cones, all kinds of equipment, all over the place making it a total hazard to try and drive up or down the street.
Summer is the rainy season, it rains every single afternoon for about an hour, whoever it is that planned to do this during the rainy season should be fired.
He's an idiot.

Posted by Kat at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In today's mail, both the teens got letters from a lawyer group about a class action lawsuit.
I hadn't heard or read anything about it, usually you see ads for class actions on tv, in commercials, I'm constantly seeing class actions for mesothelioma and all kinds of other stuff like Heparin and stuff, but this is a class action suit against the Sarasota County school district and the Princeton Review.

Last year ALL of the students of ALL of the county's high schools had to go onto the Princeton Review website and enter in all of their personal information in order to take practice SATs and other tests.
What kind of personal information?
ALL of it.
Name, address, date of birth, phone number and social security number.
If a student didn't have their SS# on hand, the school filled it in for them.

Well a girl who graduated this year with Mark, went to the Princeton Review website and found all of her information posted publicly.
And then she found every single other student's information posted as well.
Thousands of teenagers SS#'s were posted to the website along with all of the information needed to commit identity theft if someone was going to do that.
The girl and her family hired a lawyer who has now started a class action suit.
If your kids got a letter in the mail, it means that their information was publicly posted to the website, they are automatically part of the class.
Both my sons got letters.
ALL of their information was posted, anyone could have taken it and tried to commit identity theft with it, along with thousands of other students in this county.

This is so unbelievable to me.
I have protected the teens SS#s like a rabid guard dog because my ex-mother in law stole my information and destroyed my credit, I didn't want it to happen to the teens, but thanks to the county school board and the Princeton Review, it may have happened anyway.

I'm still reading through the 5 page letter, all about the class suit, what will happen if it goes forward, if they win, if they lose, settle, whatever.
I'm just so flabbergasted about it.
No one knows exactly how long all of that information was posted publicly, but it was all there for anyone to look at and take any information that they wanted to take and thousands of teenagers credit could be completely ruined.

Posted by Kat at 1:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Once again, Sebastian has to have a usb drive to take back and forth to school for his digital design class, and he wants to take my Sims3 plumbomb usb drive.

I gave him my other usb drive, but he wants that one because it's cool looking, it's a corporate usb drive, a special logo drive.
You can get usb drives that look like all kinds of things now.
Candy bars, beers, video games, all kinds of stuff, and Sebastian was telling me that a lot of the other kids have cool looking drives, so he wants to take my Sims3 drive because no one else has one like it, but that they all have "cool ones".
I think he'd say anything to be able to take my drive to school, I seriously doubt that everyone has a cool usb drive, seriously doubt it.
He has been asking me every single day this week if he can please, pretty please take it, mom, please, and I keep saying no, it's mine, and then he pouts and waits a few hours to ask me again.

I might let him take it for like 1 day, but I don't want some other kid stealing it ya know?
I need to think about it some more.

Posted by Kat at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am so angry at Mark's doctor, furious really.
On Monday, I took Mark to the doctor for the back pain that he's been suffering from, I did everything that you're supposed to do when you're having a medical problem, you go to your primary care doctor for help.

His doctor wasn't actually there, he was having surgery done on himself, he won't be back until Monday, so we saw the physicians assistant.
Mark and I told her all about the pain he's been having and why it took so long for us to get him to a doctor.
Mark had been in pain for months on end but didn't tell me because of everything that I was going through, but he would ask me for Tylenol or something, he would just say he was having a backache, but it got to the point that he was asking for more and more Tylenol, so I made him tell me how long he's been in pain and how bad it is using the 1-10 pain scale.
He's been in pain for months and his pain is averaging between and 8-9 all of the time.
So I took him to the doctor, explained it all, she had him do the bend over check for scoliosis because of my history and because it's genetic, hereditary.
When he bent over, as soon as he bent over, I saw it, the rib hump on the left side.
She gave him a referral for an orthopedic and I asked her about the pain, how is she going to treat his pain because he's going through a bottle of 100 Tylenol every week by himself.
That stuff kills your stomach, liver, and kidneys, it's bad to take that much.
She said she wasn't going to give him anything, she said and I quote, "If the pain is that bad, take him to the ER."

The orthopedists office is right next door to his doctor's office, so I went in and scheduled his appointment right away, they can't see him until the 10th, so I went back over to the docs and told her that and asked again what she could do for his pain, and again, she said to take him to the ER.
Mark said he didn't want to go to the ER, it takes too long, he was in so much pain he just wanted to go home.
But he went yesterday, he couldn't take the pain anymore and I couldn't stand him being in that much pain and taking that much Tylenol anymore.
We got in to see a doc pretty fast and I told him what the primary doc said to do, bring him to the ER for pain treatment.
The ER doc was not happy about that, he said they should have taken care of him on Monday, that's what they are supposed to do, take care of their patients and treat them.
But he treated Mark anyway, he checked his spine and said it does look like scoliosis, but it also looks like a herniated disc.
He wrote Mark 3 scripts, 1 for Tramadol for pain, 1 for Flexeril for muscle spasms, and 1 for Prednisone for a steroid treatment, it's should help if it is a herniated disc.
But the ER doc told me to cal Mark's primary doc back on Monday and tell them that sending us to the ER for pain treatment is something that they should have done, and he, (the ER doc) will be calling the primary doc on Monday as well because the ER is for emergencies, not for something his primary doc should have done.

Oh, the physicians assistant did write him a script though, she wrote him a script for what she called the best acne treatment available by prescription, but Mark said he didn't want me to go pick it up, he was kinda pissed about the whole thing, about not being treated right and being made to go spend 4 hours in the ER.
I am hoping beyond hope that when we go to the ortho and they do xrays and stuff, that it won't be scoli, that it will be a herniated disc just throwing his spine out of alignment, herniated discs can make it appear like scoli because the disc is bulging so much that it causes the spine to curve.
That's what I'm hoping for.
I'm hoping that the initial diagnosis is wrong, the ER doc said he can see the rib hump but he can also detect a herniated disc, so it could be that or it could be both.
I am so hoping it's just a bad disc, I do not want Mark to have to go through everything that I've gone through.
It's no way to spend the rest of your life.
I don't want this for Mark, or Sebastian, I don't want either of them to have scoliosis.

Posted by Kat at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I took Mark to the docs yesterday about his back pain and it's not good.
The doc looked at him, did the usual tests, and he has scoliosis.
He has a definite rib hump.
I am so so upset right now.
I don't even want to talk about it, I'm just too upset about it all.

Posted by Kat at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)