He Put a Ring on it!!!!

That's right! I am now engaged!!!!!

I never thought this would happen. Ben has been everything to me over the last year and some change, and boy oh boy has he been a trooper. Sticking by my side and never flinching even in the face of Brain surgery.
So he spends Christmas with me, our second year spending Christmas together. We sit with my mom and step-dad and open gifts. We laugh and make jokes and just enjoy our presents. He LOVES the Tapestry that I got him to facilitate his new decorating of his apartment.
So we go on and get ready to go over to the Excell's house ( My uncle Bob's in laws) Over in Ocala. We make the 2 hour drive and all is going well. We get there and it is wonderful. Ben meets my Uncle, who growing up I was VERY close to. His Wife Karen and their Daughter Allison. Karen's Sister, and their Parents Evelyn and Alvin. SO needless to say it;s a houseful. We have an AMAZING dinner because well Karen is From Jamaican and Boy oh Boy can her mother COOK!
We enjoyed dinner, and I noticed Ben was enjoying the Red Stripe Beer (Hooray Beer alright) but it is a little unusual for him to be drinking, so I just figured he was nervous about meeting all the new people. Though they loved and excepted him right away.
So Dinner ends and things are winding down and we are now eating desert. I am sitting on the couch eating an eggnog spiced pound cake (the same one in fact that I made for him and my mom for their Birthdays) my mom is to my right , my step-dad is in the chair across from the Couch as is my Little cousin Allison. Uncle Bob is kinda standing behind everyone in chairs. All of a sudden Wendy, Evelyn and Karen come into the living room, and I am being started at by everyone and it gets really quiet. I'm like WTF why is everyone watching me eat cake, so then Ben says "Sweetie" and as I Look over he got down on one Knee. I place the plate down after asking a panicked "what are you doing?!" and he said my Full name and started off his speech.
He started it off with " Our year started with a Broken foot, and it has gone on form there, Graduating college, getting him his own apartment, losing a relationship with his mom but gaining one with his Dad. My Brain surgery and many more things. And that well..it was HARD really hard..but even through all that, he wouldn't change a thing. He loved me through and through and every thing that happened made him love me more and he just couldn't imagine me not being in his life. And he asked me if I would Marry Him" I of course just nodded because I was speechless at this point and I hugged him and just nodded. He opened the box and showed me the most lovely ring I had ever seen. Just truly lovely. It's is a 1 karat White Topaz ring with a large oval stone in the center and 2 heart shaped baguettes on the sides, as well as 3 little stones at the top and bottom of the center stone. All in lovely White gold.

There were lots of pictures taken during the actual proposal and after and such, and of course all the women in the room were crying. My mom just about had a coronary! Even some of the men got a little misty eyed. We all hugged and laughed and cried and they welcomed him to the Family, and thanks him for including them in our special moment. It was just perfect. So magical and just..amazing.
Words cannot describe how I feel. I have wanted and waited for this moment for my entire life.  for someone to want em enough and love me enough to want to spend the rest of their lives with me. And marriage to me is someone that woulds get up in front of their family and mine and say in front of everyone that they choose me, and love me, and will forever. And that is what he did. I feel amazing, I feel like I really have a future. That though things are hard, I can do this. Becasue there is a wonderful man waiting for me. I have been feeling really run down lately after this Brain surgery, like I was running out of sunshine and rainbows to feed on to get through these hard times. But after Saturday...after my special moment, I feel full again. Like I have all the strength and hope in the world.
It really was the true definition of a Christmas Miracle.

Giving Thanks

SO today is Thanksgiving. Wow, it cam up on me a LOT faster then I thought. I told myself and everyone that I wanted to be at about 80% by Thanksgiving. And here I am probably closer to 50-60% at the most. But I am doing the best I can.
SO I start thinking about things at Thanksgiving, like what i did last year and of course what I am thankful for.
Last years Big Thanks was having Ben in my life and part of my family for our First thanksgiving together. And the super big thanks was that I was able to get insurance.
I am even more thankful for those 2 particular things this year then I was last year. After breaking my foot badly in February and going through the LONG recovery then almost RIGHT after that finding the AVM and going through that process to end with having double Brain surgery in October..Whew!
If I wasn't fortunate enough to have insurance, NON of this would have happened. I never would have been able to afford my new psychiatrist, not to mention a head MRI. SO the AVM never would have been found, and It probably would have ruptured.
The surgeon said the AVM was bigger then they expected when they went in, which leads me to believe it WAS getting bigger, as well as would probably going to burst.
I am so thankful.
I made it through something REALLY hard, a hard thing that not everyone has to go through. I had my wonderful supportive Family and Boyfriend by my side the WHOLE time. I was even able to get my Dad on an airplane to come down to Florida to help and support me.
Though on the friend front I was disappointed, very heavily. I had one friend that never has and never will leave my side. My Buddy Lisa. She has known me since High school, and we became friends when we were about 19. And have been ever since. We have been through it all together, and our friendship and Bond has never been shaken or broken. Never. I am thankful for her. For all she does for me, and all she means to me.
I am just thankful in general to be alive, to have survived, but more then survived, came through with flying colors, even giving the hard parts.
So on this thanksgiving when we are saying grace and what we are thankful for, this will be my list.
Health, Friendship, True Love, and Happiness....

Brain Surgery, I survived.

Well I am back home. I am about 3 weeks give or take recovered form my double brain surgery, and boy oh boy what an experience. I figured I had better write it down before my memroy takes it all away.
SO the morning of the 21st I get to the hospital at 6:30am for my 8:30am embolization. The embolization is where the neuroradiologist injects this sort of glue into the arteries and veins of the AVM plugging them up so that when the neurosurgeon goes in, there is less bleeding and an easier removal.
So anyway, I didn't actually get taken back to surgery until 1:00pm my Doctor was on call and had 2 emergencies. So I went through the 3 hour procedure and did great, woke up fine but with a killer headache. And some interesting information. The Onix (the stuff they use to glue it with) makes you smell. It goes through your pours, glands, and breath, they say it;s  kinda like garlic, but everyone said it smelled like something different. Either way it sucked. Not only did I have my head all glued up, but then I smelled bad. So recovering form that sucked, it hurt REALLY bad. Like worse then a sinus headache, there was just so much pressure. It as a little funny because when I came to form the anesthesia all I wanted was a chocolate bar, so that is what I was babbling about. I finally got some chocolate pudding and the second I took one bit I threw up. And didn't stop getting sick until they gave me meds to stop it. Let me tell you what. If anyone has ever thrown up when they have a headache you know how bad it hurts, this was like torture. It felt like fireworks were exploding in my head. So it sucked. Also because I couldn't keep anything down, I couldn't take the Vicodon, so I was on Fentenol every hour, so I basically got 45 minutes of sleep every hour all night. Not to mention the MRI at 2AM and the chest x-ray at 4AM. And the nurses fucking up.
Either way I made it through the night and they wheeled me off got the Craniotomy at 8:30am. I wasn't too scared though Ben just about made me cry as I was wheeled in. When I got in the operating room there were like 50 different people in there. They pushed something into one of my IVs hard and I freaked and started sobbing. The techs quieted everyone down and got me calmed down. The surgery lasted 7 hours. After it was done I felt pretty damn good. I was high as a kite of course, but I was hungry and eating with no problems, I was talking, and making everyone laugh. I felt like I was in the Big Land form Super Mario 3, and then I started dancing in bed and singing the Mario theme song. I couldn't really see after the surgery but I could sort of recognize shapes and things and I was in a good mood. It was hard for the next 2 days because of the IVs bad nurses, pain med problems and some other things. But I made it through. I went home Monday the 35th, 5 days after I entered the hospital. I had 25 Staples in my head, and some partial vision loss in my left upper peripheral of my left eye,but all in all I did well. My brain is still swollen and swelling so that causes problems but I am actually getting better every day. I did it, I made it, I am and always have been the ultimate survivor.

Oh My God..I don't even..What?

So, I had my pre op appointment today and MRI, which sucked for 2 reasons because
A it was at 8am, and B because the told me I had to be there at 8 am like 1 day in advanced..
Ok those things I can sorta forgive. I get there and they need to add contrast..so that means they get to find a vein on me, which is the proverbial needle in a haystack. They stick me 2x then have another person try, she proceeds to stick me on the side of my wrist under my thumb..Fucking OW! and she hits a nerve and ruptures the vein, double ow.
So they have to take me up stairs to have an ultrasound done on my arm to find the vein. They finally do and into the MRI I go. ( pics to come soon)

So then I go upstairs for my pre op appointment. First there is some confusion about weather or not I get blood drawn today..which thankfully was no, then we start going over things. I mention my Drs name ( the neuro radiologist, not the surgeon) and the Dr whom I am speaking to is like " he's not here anymore" What the fuck do you mean he's not fucking here anymore I have surgery in a week!?!?!?!?!111!!
Yeah so apparently my surgeon just didn't come back to work after his leave of absence. So no one happened to tell ME that my Dr was gone and that they set me up with a new one.
Jesus H Christ.....


On a lighter note I went and got Authentic Gyros with m y mom for lunch, cause hey if you have a hurtie pain in your soul form OMGWTF you SHOULD cover it with tasty foods..right?

10-10-10

SO yeah 10 is my lucky number. So needless to say I have been waiting for this day for a LONG time. I can;t gripe that it was an awful day, thought I would like to.
It;s just that for the last oh I don't know 3-5 years I thought I would be getting married on this day. I would have been even happy with engagement. But neither happened. Not even close.
Ben did take me out for a nice breakfast and to a movie, which was nice...it was all just...nice.
Nothing spectacular. Which really it should have been. If I know that someone where looking forward to a special day, I would go to the ends of the earth to make damned sure that it was perfect. But that is me and I have seldom found anyone in this earth that can hold themselves to my standards. Being this crazy nice and creative all the freaking time, no one really wants to exude that much effort.

Also, after yesterday starts the down hill decline until my surgery. I had my first hospital/surgery dream last night. Haven't had one of those in a while.
in 1 week my dad comes down from Virginia. in a week and 2 days I will be admitted to the hospital.
I don;t eve know when I will be coming home.

The more things change...

So lately I have been contemplating different things..
Most Likely because of my up coming surgery. These emotional roller coasters are getting tedious. I don;t even like roller coasters :/
Either way I have made a list of different things, important things that have happened and changed over the last 25 years. Since well, after this surgery I will no longer have something that I was born with. It will change the way my brain works and let's face it, that is scary as shit.

*My hair has gone form being long, to super short to long and is now for the first time since I was in Middle school short again
*I have 10 tattoos now and am ready for more
*3 out of the 4 Major Boyfriends I have had are now married
*2 of those have children
*I have gone from being in college, to working 3 jobs, to not working, to having to go on disability
* Almost every dream I had is gone except for one


So they say the more things that change, the more stay the same. I deem that Bullshit. The more things that change, the more they change. Period.

Fact of the matter is I will be having brain surgery in 15 days. 2 brain surgeries in fact. And it will change everything. Most of my fiends near by in Florida as so consumed with their own things, they don;t even bother with me. And the One that would bother is in Virginia.

I am not sure what I am going to do for the next 2 weeks, but I am sure I will figure something out.


This is my MRI and my lovely AVM

Insperation..

Welcome to my new Blog! I figured that since life is now going to get interesting i might as well start writing thigns down.

Here is the poem that Inspired the title of my new blog, please feel free to slip back into your literature filled childhood while you read.


Wild Strawberries
By Shel Silverstein

Are Wild Strawberries really wild?
Will they scratch an adult, will they snap at a child?
Should you pet them, or let them run free where they roam?
Could they ever relax in a steam-heated home?
Can they be trained to not growl at the guests?
Will a litterbox work or would they leave a mess?
Can we make them a Cowberry, herding the cows,
Or maybe a Muleberry pulling the plows,
Or maybe a Huntberry chasing the grouse,
Or maybe a Watchberry guarding the house,
And though they may curl up at your feet oh so sweetly,
Can you ever feel that you trust them completely?
Or should we make a pet out of something less scary,
Like the Domestic Prune or the Imported Cherry,
Anyhow, you’ve been warned and I will not be blamed
If your Wild Strawberry cannot be tamed.