It's been a while!!!

Well, its been a while since I have posted on here! I think I actually forgot that I had this blog site. I've been busy, and life has been in an uproar. So much has happened, so I think I will start at the beginning...

In re-reading my last posts, as you can tell, I'm still here, and my ablation was a success. I've had some minimal residual issues since then, but nothing horrible. I've even managed to get off of my heart medication this last year. I haven't OK'd this with the cardiologist yet, but I've been feeling good.

I mentioned in the previous posts that Ken and I wanted to start a family, and boy, has that happened! On March 29th, 2010, Ken and I welcomed a little girl to our family, Alexa Dee. She has been such a blessing. I plan to write up her birthstory on an upcoming blog. I also intend to write Cade's down as well, that way I have them somewhere, and I'm already forgetting details of Cade's....especially since its been over 9 years!

Along with the good, we've ushered in so much bad. I was 5 months pregnant with Alexa when we lost Max. To this day, we truly don't understand what happened. He was fine the night before, and the next morning, in an instant, he started seizing. It was horrible and seemed very painful to him. After taking him to an emergency vet clinic, and them doing everything they could possibly do for him, we had to make the gutwrenching decision to put him to sleep. Having to put down a 3 year old dog for a mystery ailment was one of the hardest thing I've ever had to do. The doctor said that it could have been a brain aneursym, but there is no way to know for sure. He is now buried behind the house with a beautiful wooden cross marking his resting place.

In April of 2010, I lost my step dad Bobby. He struggled his entire life with alcoholism. 4-5 years before he died, he was diagnosed with liver failure, and that became almost a death sentence for him. He refused to quit drinking, even after the doctors told him that his liver was done, and if he continued, he would die. He lived life HIS way, and no medical professional was going to tell him any different. I miss him terribly. He was always so fun to talk to, and was the greatest at passing out and receiving crap! My mother also misses him more than anything, and once told me that she would give up anything, do anything, to have him back. I worry that this will be my life someday, but I hope that it never comes to that.

April seems to be a bad month for us. On April 10th of this year, an EF3 tornado struck our home head one. We still have no idea HOW it is still standing, aside from the fact that it was built well over 120 years ago, and back then, they built things to last. We are thankful that we were in the basement and everyone was safe. We are also thankful that it didn't completely destroy our home. We didn't have insurance, and are trying to piece it back together. We've had some major setbacks with this process do to uncooperative weather flooding our home on several occasions, causing ceilings to collapse, and now mold is taking over. Myself and the kids have taken up residence with my mother in Schofield. Thankfully she has taken us in, even though the drive back and forth to Antigo is much longer, at least we are in a safe home.

Ken is dealing with so much with the house. He is doing just about everything on his own. When this is all said and done, the man will have basically rebuilt this house by himself with his bare hands. His tenacity and stubborness is probably all that is getting him through right now. He is still working during all of this, plus taking care of all the animals since mother cannot have animals at her home.

One bright spot in all of this is that 5 weeks ago, we found out that we are again adding to our family. Somehow, through all the horror of our home and issues, we managed to get pregnant! Only we could have timing THIS perfect. A baby is a blessing, and hopefully a start of a new GOOD stretch.

I pray nightly that things will someday get easier for us. As a family, we have all been through so much. It would be nice for a long break from bad news or disastrous occurences.

This blog has really become quite lengthy, so I will sign off for now. I will be posting more kiddo updates and birthstories soon.

Love, Happiness and Pethair!

Shannon

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