2023-The Year of Trauma Causes Hair Loss

I went through three major traumatic events last year.  One began on Christmas Eve of 2022 when I nearly sliced my lower leg off.  At least, Sissie's husband, who tended to my wound until the paramedics took me to the hospital in an ambulance, told her later he thought for sure I would lose that leg.  He was a battlefield medic in Afghanistan so he would know a thing or two about wounds.

We got home and shortly thereafter I got sent to Wound Care.  Being power washed to remove dead skin was no picnic.  And then the people they had putting multi-layered bandaging on me didn't know how to do it, so after about 24 hours these bandages would come undone and fall off.  

Luckily eventually I had a great home health nurse and she DID know how to administer these multilayered wraps to help close up my wound.  All in all it was a sucky time in my life and with this wound I couldn't go anywhere or do anything without help.

Then as I got past this injury my son decided to become Mr. Hyde.  He married a deceitful woman and she insisted that he do her bidding, which included turning on his own parents. He became a totally different person, someone we don't know. He began to lie to us and it all culminated at Christmas when we made a torturous 3 day car trip to see him, his wife and our granddaughter.  We weren't allowed to touch her, hold her and when we took a photo, son's wife went ballistic!  They lied that nobody in the family(her family since that is the only one they spent time with)was allowed to touch/hold her.  They mentioned that they had gone to have photos taken with Santa earlier that day but we assumed one of her parents had held her for that.  And 2 days following our visit they were taking the baby on a plane to Florida because wife's brother(who is a music teacher)had the school marching band performing at some Bowl Game down there.  Who takes an infant on a germ filled plane in the Winter but doesn't let her own grandparents touch her?  Oh, and we were required to have certain vaccines before the wife would allow us to be in the same room with our granddaughter.

We brought gifts, including this cute baby romper I bought at the Tower of London......

See the Queen's corgis on it? lol  We got no thank you either in person or in a text/email/phone call from either of them.  Son dropped a generic gift card in a card and shoved it into Hubs hands.  Does this generation not have any manners.

We went to the meeting bearing gifts in an effort to reconcile but son's wife would have none of it!  She was hell bent on being vicious and mean toward us and withholding our granddaughter like a weapon.  Even my younger son saw and said that.  While older son just goes along with wife's agenda.  I was so disappointed.

So we finished that visit and 2 days later drove to VA to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law.  Sister-in-law was somehow still friends with my son and his wife on FB and started showing hundreds of photos the wife had posted there(after she had instructed us not to post any photos of the baby online).  Including a photo with Santa, where they had plopped that baby in a complete strangers lap(neither of them had held her!)!!  

When confronted with this they continued to lie to us and sister-in-law got unfriended on FB(like everybody else).  Hubs blew up at son and I told him he was no longer my son.  He had destroyed any relationship we had with his deceits and lies and I just couldn't take anymore of his backstabbing.  He has caused me undue stress, anxiety and emotional disturbance that whole year.  I feel part of it's his wife making him lie to us to cover up her deceits but who knows for sure.  At any rate, I no longer wished to be part his life, even if that meant never seeing my granddaughter again.  I wasn't going to make him chose between his wife(who has made it very clear she hates us)and his parents, who loved, sacrificed and did a lot for him.  So basically I gave him the gift of peace by no longer being interested in being in his life.  That meant I'll never get to see my granddaughter but I will make that sacrifice it it brings him peace in his marriage to that witch.

Then my daughter, who we dragged our lives down here for, because she begged us to be near her, started acting strangely and distant.  Over that first year down here, she had slowly been withdrawing from us.  But I think older son had told her lies about our visit to PA and she refused to talk to us and get our version of what happened, so I confronted her about her behavior and other things I don't want to mention here and she basically blew us off.  She refuses to have anything to do with us now.  I gathered a box of her things from childhood(like I did for the other two kids)and went to her house around noon on a Sunday recently to give it to her.  Even with ringing the doorbell, knocking loudly numerous times on the door and her big dog barking her head off, daughter refused to answer the door.  And I know they were home as both cars were in the driveway.
I had typed up a note, just in case, so I taped it to her door, and left the box on the front porch.

So that has been a large emotional and anxiety ridden part of last year.  We sent baby gifts(some where never acknowledged)and we brought more things to PA for the granddaughter and her parents refused to acknowledge them.

Then I had to run a medical gauntlet here of incompetent health care, an orthopedic surgeon who led me on and lied to me about doing my knee replacement(he kept offering me steroid shots in the knee, knowing full well, that would put me off for 3 more months).  So I hobbled around until I found the orthopedist in Ohio would did an excellent job on my TKR.

When I returned, after recovering from a PCP/Pediatrician assigned to me who abandoned me via some unknown to me person over the phone at that facility(and yes I reported her to the health system's CEO and the LA Board of Medical Examiners), I found a new PCP and a physical therapy place to help me recover the use of my knee.

While at that PT one day, I happened to look into the mirror while doing some exercise.  They had a mirror covering one whole wall of that place. I was able to see that I had bald places on the back of my head where hair should be!  WTF?!?!

This was taken in January when my hair was still colored.  I had long hair before this.

My forehead today..........

It's not as bad as it use to be but still.  I use to be able to part my hair, now I had short nubs of hair in the front I can't part.

My hair was so shockingly bad that I had to wear chemo patient type headwraps when we went to PA at Christmas.....

I can't believe that my husband never mentioned to me that I had numerous bald spots on the back of my head that whole time!  I guess men  don't notice stuff like that, huh?  I went all around the British Isles on a cruise ship in that semi-bald state and now I feel a fool.

Now with the prospect of that Focused Ultrasound procedure ahead the part most women dread, having to shave your head for it, is not a big deal with me.  I am halfway to bald now so why should I care?!

Via Good Buddy Anne I found wig manufacturer and since then I don't go out in public without a wig on.......

2023 was the Year From Hell for me, between medical issues and 2 ungrateful children who stabbed us in the back. Both of which caused me major anxiety and depression and caused me to lose my hair and question my sanity.

Sluggy

What I Haven't Been Up to Lately + More

I know some of you are shocked as can be that you're reading a post from ME!
I have been MIA off and on for about a month now.
The reason being?....March has been kicking my ASS!

My tooth ordeal is finally about over but I've also had a major case of not giving a crab about anything.
Nothing on my To-Do List has gotten done.....and I don't really care.

I've physically felt like warmed over manure for more than a month.  I'm swollen and can't breath and I need to get up to the dr.'s to have some tests run but I have the energy of a slug and can't seem to get myself organized enough to do that either.
Can I add that I am sooo tired of this Winter weather?!  We had snow on the 1st Day of Spring and here it is March 25th and it's snowing.....AGAIN!!

I sit and psyche myself up, and I try to concentrate on one goal and can't get that done.....I just keep spinning my wheels, get tired and give up.

I haven't even been to the grocery store in more than a week.  I just send Hubs or one of the kids to pick up a few things.  Depression and sickness do keep you from going out and spending unnecessary money, don't they? So it can't be all bad, right? lolol

My oldest son graduates college in a mere 6 weeks from now.  He just found out he's graduating Magna Cum Laude too.  While I am thrilled for him, the thought of having to drive out to the school and attend the Commencement makes me just want to crawl back into bed and hide.  I so don't want to deal with the crowds and hassles.

Add in the hijinx of the youngest kid lately, hijinx being code for "he has been making my life miserable", and I just want to call a taxi and go somewhere nobody knows me.

Do you see all the loveliness I have saved you all from by being quiet this past month? ;-)

The ONLY thing I stayed on top of was the Secret Sister Swap.  I had fun filling my swappee's wish list.  And I hope she enjoys it and posts about it when she gets time.

So let me close with the "Secret Sister Swap" package I received.....

I got mine like super SUPER early.....the end of February early.  So I held off posting it until the mailing deadline.

I had to email Carla just to be sure that this WAS my swap package, since the swapper didn't mention the swap at all in little handmade card that accompanied the package.....

I am assuming my swapper made that card...it's so crafty.

And here is what Debby sent me.....

A sewing project.  It's a pattern for a quilty-like casserole "cozy" and all the fabric pieces cut out and labeled.  All I have to do is just make it.
Thanks for sharing your love of crafty, quilty sewing things with me Debby.
Just don't be looking for me to actually attempt this one anytime soon, as the pile of my sewing projects(sewing clothes)is stacked quite high. ;-)



 Sluggy

Dolls Equal Sadness...or the Story of Wasted Opportunity

This is Sluggy's Cautionary Tale.

 

I got the remaining load of dolls uncrated, cleaned up their boxes(if needed), photographed and put up on the local Yahoo Tag Sale site the other day.
14 assorted dolls and 6 boxed outfits for 1 of the dolls.
This is the last of the dolls that had belonged to my mother.
And I am feeling sad.

Sad, not because they remind me of my mother and she has been gone now 11 years.
Sad because of what they represent......all that wasted money and the opportunity to use that cash for a better purpose.

You see, my mother never actually enjoyed these dolls.
At some point after her divorce from my rat bastard father(don't judge me), after she had been getting her alimony for awhile and felt financially secure(though she really wasn't), she began to buy these dolls.

Basically I can see now why she was spending all this money on something she stuck in the dark recesses of her closet as soon as she bought it.
She was buying her childhood....or rather, the childhood she wish she had had.

My mother was an only child, born in the midst of the Great Depression.  Her early years were spent growing up in the hills of Virginia(think "The Waltons").  Her parents were young and seeing as her father didn't work much due to the double whammy of no jobs and he drank, they had nothing.  Though they lived in the midst of a very large family in the immediate area with some wealth and influence, this little family unit was dirt poor.  They lived without electricity, running water, flush toilets in a log cabin that I suspect my Grandfather had built.
Not a Log Home, a one roomed log cabin on a little patch of land my Grandmother's parents had given her.

Eventually they moved away from the hills down to the coast and the big city, where there were economic opportunities.  This little family went on to prosper but my mother's early childhood, while filled with a large loving extended family, was void of "things".

So when she felt she had money to "play around with", she started buying the things of her childhood days that she was deprived of in her youth.  A few times, when she would show me or talk about something she bought, she'd tell me it was an "investment", because these were collectibles, limited edition or special items.   I am sure I was rolling my eyes at her in response.lol

No one knew the extent of this "rebuying your childhood" spending until after she passed away.
That's when my brother went into her closet and found the hoard of dolls.
Barbie Holiday dolls, replica dolls, Danbury Mint dolls, porcelain dolls.
Her three most favorites to buy were Shirley Temple dolls, Gibson Girl dolls and Christmas Barbie dolls.
I can see why she collected these three types.....
*Shirley was a BIG star as a kid and the same age as my mom.
*Gibson girls were from a more romantic era(mom was a romantic at heart) and represented her mother's generation
*My mother was a HUGE FAN of Christmas.

And she left every blessed single doll to my Daughter, her only Granddaughter.
My tomboy daughter, who stripped nekkid her 1st Barbie doll and left in a corner so she could put the outfit on her miniature stuffed animal.lol  Daughter was never a fan of dolls.  She didn't want them, I didn't buy them.

So my mother never actually gave Daughter any of these dolls, when mom was alive and my daughter was young and could enjoy them.
Mother also never displayed or enjoyed her dolls in her own home.

About 10 years ago, after my mother passed and her estate was cleared, I was given possession of all these dolls.  This was not even a year after we moved to this house.  Between the day-to-day of raising 3 kids, settling into this home and dealing with my own depression and shopaholic tendencies, I was overwhelmed.

As there were so many taking over the house and our lives, I decided to sell them a few years after bringing them to PA....or at least the ones I could find at that point.


I was able to sell off via eBay about half of the number we had.  That was 6 or so years ago when going prices were higher on the auction market.  I tucked that money away for Daughter's college fund.
Let's just say, even in a better economic climate, I recouped pennies to the dollar of what my mother spent to purchase these dolls at retail.


About half of these dolls got packed away and mixed in with my own hoard of stuff and I didn't see them again until recently, a decade later
Now that I've uncovered the rest of the dolls, I am hesitant to put them on eBay.  After the fees and the hassle of packing and shipping these things, it is not worth my time for the tiny bit of money they would bring.
Daughter still has no use for them as a 19 year old.  We are planning on moving in 7 years and we don't have room to cart them around until she is on her own and out of the house for good, when she could do with them what she wants.  I suspect at that time, she'd either put a sign that read "FREE" and put them on the curb or use them to build an awesome bonfire. ;-)

So I have made the executive decision and put them on the local selling site and am hoping I can sell at least half of these.  The ones I can't unload I'll have to cart off to Salvation Army and at least get a little tax write-off.

I pulled out the paperwork I have that's associated with these dolls.  Yes, my mother took photos and kept everything for insurance purposes.lol
I got exceedingly sad seeing in black and white on those invoices, all the money she spent on this crap.

All that money that, if she had just stuck into a savings bond or a bank account, could have paid for 4 years of tuition at a good school for her darling Granddaughter.
Wasted on a U-haul truck load of worthless dolls that nobody got to enjoy.

So I am doing the best I can with this situation and trying to turn it into a blessing.....when I'm not looking upward and asking my mom, "What the HELL were you thinking!?!?". ;-)
Maybe I'll feel better when the dolls are out of my life, since they represent waste and sadness to me.

Just take my advice.....If a doll is refered to as a "collector's edition" or a collectible investment, please do yourself a favor and RUN, don't walk! away from it as fast as you can! 8-(


Sluggy