Complications

I went to Terre Haute on Sunday to have dinner with my family. It was nice. I was eager to take a look at everyone and kind of see for myself how everyone is doing. My brother and his fiance are seemingly well. We just can't wait for the baby to be born. My brother was pretty much back to his old self, laughin and actin crazy and whatnot. My mother, however, still has deep sadness just written all over her face. She wept a little at the table, but she also laughed a lot and had plenty of funny stories to tell and she too is ecstatic about the baby. It's just in her eyes...never in my whole life has she looked like that. Just pain. It's only natural...she met my dad when she was 14 and they were wed when she was 17. He literally has been her whole life. Everything that's ever gone on, he's been right by her side, even when they were divorced. I feel all left alone because Shanee broke up with me, but she is REALLY all alone now. Her biggest supporter, life partner, is gone. I was sad when she told me that she skipped her ring ceremony at her college because her and dad had planned to attend. She just couldn't see herself there without him. A group of my dad's friends also planned a couples vacation and they told her they still wanted her to come, but she declined. Said there's no way she could have gone without my dad. I'm gonna give her one more event to pass up before I really sit down and talk to her about it. I want to encourage her to carry on with her life. She's only 53, she can't just stop. I don't blame her for the couples vacation...would have been awkward. But there's also a huge, fancy wedding in Atlanta this summer (one of my cousins is marrying a Falcon) and she is already talking about how she doesn't feel like going. I think she needs to go. It will be a great time. She also shared that she still cries each and every night before she goes to sleep...the past two nights, I've really prayed extra for her because of that. Peace and comfort for her soul.

I guess the past couple days haven't been completely unventful...I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. A few weeks ago, I had an eye exam. The optometrist looked over my chart and remembered me telling her a year ago that whenever I work out, my vision gets hazy, like I'm looking through a fog. It doesn't happen any other time. At the time, she told me that I had exercise-induced high ocular pressure. Nothing to be concerned about, just the pressure in my eyeballs gets high when I exercise and if temporarily effects my vision. So, I chucked it up to a minor inconvenience and went on with life. Well, this year at the exam, she asked me if it was still happening. I said yes. She said that it concerns her and she wanted to research it and get back with me. The next day, I heard from her and she said it's Uhthoff's Phenomenon. It's linked to MS. I needed to see my doctor. So, I've been nervous. I had my appt yesterday and he took me through an entire battery of tests, all of which I passed marvelously. He said there isn't anything else he can tell by looking at me, so he scheduled me for a blood glucose test to make sure that diabetes hasn't crept up on me. And I'm being scheduled for a ct of my head. Because something else that's concerning is that my left arm and left leg often are numb, and they tingle, and sometimes they feel like dead weight. That's been going on for awhile, but I always just blamed it on poor circulation, or figured that I had been laying wrong or sitting funny, or that they were just asleep. But after the eye doctor said MS, I kind of freaked. Suddenly, I've been hyper-aware of the numbness and tingling and it's actually pretty constant. Like I told my doctor yesterday, it could just be psychological because I never paid it much attention before she said that. But we both figure it's worth pursuing, so I'll be having my head scanned. I've been in a lot of deep prayer about it. Kind of worried and scared. I haven't yet told my mother because I don't want to worry her or stress her any farther. I'll tell her when I find out exactly when my ct is.

A couple weeks ago, I called myself being economical and saving time and gas and decided to try and just wax my own eyebrows here at the crib. I fucked it up horribly. Shanee and a few of my other friends got a good laugh out of my horrible brows. I prefer to have them not be arched, just cleaned up a little so they don't look crazy. Well, one of them ended up horribly thin and the other one was almost perfect. I left them grow a couple weeks and went to a salon that's really close to my house and explained the situation to the girl. She said not to worry. So I leaned back and relaxed. She worked for almost 15 minutes, which is a little long for some eyebrows, but I reminded myself that I had come in there looking a mess and she was probably being really precise. When she handed me the mirror, I rolled my eyes. She did the opposite of what I wanted. The one that I had actually been okay with, she made it just as thin as the other one. And she added a nice strong arch to each brow. After I told her that I didn't like an arch. "You no like?" she asked. I told her that I was not pleased. I paid her anyhow and left without another word. I learned two lessons: Never attempt my own eyebrows here at home, and don't try a new salon.

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