Catching Up (a post in brief)

I have other things I want to talk about. But I also think I need to give a brief update to catch anyone (including me) up to speed that may need it. So this is going to be quick and without analysis. Perhaps I will go into more detail later, perhaps not.

- I am home from the hospital. In fact, they only kept me 7 days. The doctor got me back to a semi-stable place and then sent me home. The fairies have gone. The memory is back. As near as I can tell, the entire fiasco can be boiled down to a 2 drug interaction. NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT MIX XANAX AND AMBIEN!

- We are back home. We had that horrific ice storm the week before Christmas. It knocked out our power which in turn meant we had no heat. We were staying at The Mother's - 10 people crammed into a house that is used to running for 2. Then a pipe froze in our heating and flooded the living room. And I lost my mind. And Hubby was gone with the railroad most of the time. We had Christmas at The Mother's and New Year's at The Mother's. Well, things are repaired and warm and everything and we are back in the house.

- Kid-1 still has not stabilized. His mood and attitude have spiked. We have had the police out twice to contain a rage and we are always butting heads with him. I am so far beyond frustrated that it isn't even funny. We have been back to the psychiatrist and tweaked his meds but we are not there yet. And not all of this is going to be fixed by meds - he needs an attitude adjustment.

- My cousin, or rather Hubby's cousin, had an accident. He raced motorcycles in the motocross thing. Well, he flipped over his bike and landed on his head. He is now comatose, on a respirator, and not sure what will happen next. His vitals are stable but there is still pressure on the brain and all sorts of complications. It's going to be a long road and I am praying both that he does wake up and that he won't be sorry he pulled through when he does wake up.

- Hubby got laid off. On the train they call it "put on furlough" but it means the same. They are expected to be called back anywhere from 6 months to close to 2 years. It all boils down to the economy. The trains are supposedly the last to feel it, but they are feeling it. How soon he gets called back will be determined by how quickly the economy bounces back.

- He has returned to his former job for now. Lucky for us they are having a rush and need more help than they have. He has only been taken back contract and we don't know about the number of hours they will give him or how predictable those hours will be. But at this point, at least there will be some income and something for him to do. We can try to fall back on unemployment if we need to but I don't think that will be sufficient - we were barely making it before. I have applied for the state's health care plan for the kids. I think it is too soon to apply because we have no idea how many hours he will be getting. But we shall see what we shall see.

I think that is all the major plot developments for now. There are some other big minor ones I didn't touch on, like my asthma spiking and the current status of Baby and Baby-Mommy. But I can go into those at some other time as necessary.