Going back to what started off as a fun and frivolous summer in 2007 turned bitterly foul toward the end of August that year and then continued on its own momentum to finish as one of the worst times of my life I have ever endured. But now, things are coming back to center and I am ready to commit (or is it recommit) myself 100% to the healthy lifestyle that I had started with Sparks back in January 2007.

I find it amazing that for years life chugs along at its own pace. Little ...

Going back to what started off as a fun and frivolous summer in 2007 turned bitterly foul toward the end of August that year and then continued on its own momentum to finish as one of the worst times of my life I have ever endured. But now, things are coming back to center and I am ready to commit (or is it recommit) myself 100% to the healthy lifestyle that I had started with Sparks back in January 2007.

I find it amazing that for years life chugs along at its own pace. Little things happen that are blips on the road of life. And you roll with the punches and keep on going. Plantar fasciitis, sinus infections, and other glitches hang on maybe too long but not enough to knock you down hard. But then sometimes, one thing after another happens and you wonder what is keeping you from curling up in a ball and sobbing in the corner!

On the night of August 26th, 2007 we had a half inch of rain. It was about 10pm when I finished two back to back workouts on my elliptical & Bowflex and caught up with my hunny and daughter in the kitchen. I realized that I had left my water bottle downstairs and went to get it so I could finish it. When I got to the rec room, I saw some thing that will forever stay seared in my memory: thick ugly brown muddy water was oozing in under the sliding glass door. Long story not so short, after surviving Virginia's direct hit from hurricane Isabel in 2003, some construction company ripped out 600 acres of trees behind our house and left an overflow pond that was severely under engineered. We ended up with 16" of muck in our basement. The builder tried to convince us that what had happened was an act of God while the insurance said we were not covered for this! We are still fighting the builder and have a lawyer on retainer and are moving forward with legal proceedings. So my basement looks pretty much exactly how marvelous ServiceMaster left it: no drywall, no insulation, no furniture (except lawn chairs), and about $70,000 worth of belongings (some pieces went back about a half century) in the local dump. I will keep you posted on the basement proceedings as they happen.

Then a few weeks later, I had a bad mammogram. I was crushed. I actually spent the entire weekend crying because I was so completely distraught. The letter I got said that most of the time, these turn out to be nothing but that they would rather err on the side of caution. I checked all over the internet and everything I read repeated that same message. But to me, this was different. I have already lost a friend to breast cancer and I am a thyroid cancer survivor. The thought of fighting another battle with cancer and then the knowledge of how my friend's family has been shattered absolutely tore me up. There really was no consoling me. And the worst of it was that I had to wait 3 weeks before I could go back for the second mammogram and the ultrasound. Those were probably the worst 3 weeks of my life! The second appointment at the medical imaging did not go so well; tho the xray dr. said she was pretty certain the lump was a cyst and that it would pop the instant the biopsy needle touched it. I had to wait another miserable 3 weeks before they could squeeze me in for the biopsy. When they did the biopsy, it was all I could do to not cry throughout the ordeal but somehow I managed to keep myself together. I swear they used a Black Decker cordless drill to do the biopsy and the mass did pop as soon as the biopsy needle hit it. Guess what! You are now reading the Sparkpage of a lady who has a permanent chunk of titanium left behind to permanantly mark the spot where the cyst was!! Thankfully, the pathology report came back negative!!

Then in the middle of the whole mammogram mess, I had female surgery on a lower part. That all went well except it appears as tho the surgery irritated something. The ob-gyn feels pretty confident that within 3 months the irritation will go away and I will be happy. The only real drawback from the surgery was that I had to rest for 6 weeks and let my body heal. But as soon as I got the go ahead to go back to working out, I hit the elliptical hard and have since added back weight training as well.

The night of my surgery, my teenage son finally admitted to hunny and me what we had suspected all summer. He was using pot. He tried to rationalize everything but the bottom line is that even if pot was legal, I would no more approve of habitual pot use than I would approve of habitual alcohol use! We told him to cut it out and get his act together. Two nights later, he was out past midnight which is a curfew violation for under 18 drivers in VA. He had been flaunting that law all summer but what does mom know? Well, his buddy tossed a cigarette butt out the window which resulted in them getting pulled over and that led to search of the car where my son had a pipe and a blunt of pot while his buddy had a pipe as well. When we went to court, they misfiled the possession charge so my son was only charged with the curfew violation. That ended in 25 hours of community service. The lawyer said the judge went easier on my son because we have started family therapy. Hopefully the family therapy will help bring my son back around because he has a lot of issues lately including some big problems with school and cutting classes.

Then a few weeks after the traffic violation, a pot deal went bad and the buyer held my son & 2 of his friends hostage over the money. The buyer said he would kill my son's family so now we have ADT in our house. (And we went with the deluxe security system that will notify me if there is water in my basement. See there is a silver lining here!! I will now be able to sleep whenever it rains because I will not have to keep checking for flooding in my basement.) And the story gets better because in mid-November my son has to testify in court about the whole hostage thing. All I can say is that I hope my son has learned his lesson about pot!!!

***** 11/26/07 - UPDATE: The police finally got their act together and have filed the pot charge with a court date in mid-December that will moved to a later date because of our lawyer's having another court case the same day. My son is finally acting more determined to get a part-time job, partly to shut up his dad & me because we keep nagging him about our dwindling resources (and his part in our financial downward spiral) but also partly to make a better impression on the judge. Additionally before he goes to court, my son wants his grades to be better as well as to have worked off his 25 hours of community service at the local dump along with his cigarette tossing buddy I mentioned earlier who also has to do community service for his pot charge! *****

***** 1/20/08 UPDATE: First the good news: my daughter is back at college after winter break. It was so wonderful having her home those precious weeks during the break. She had an awesome fall semester and finished with an overall GPA of 3.1!! And yes, it is like fire and ice in my house!! Now on to my son: when we went for his arraignment, he failed the urine test for pot. He knew this would be a bad thing to do because the lawyer had repeatedly warned him that they would hold him in juvenile detention until he tested clean, which can take up to 38 days! Unfortunately, the timing of events was such that he almost missed Christmas with the family because they only test once a week at lock-up. But since it was the holidays, they tested him twice in one week and he came home the very Friday before Christmas. He spent a total of 9 days in lock-up; for his pot charge he has to serve 24 hours community service, attend a substance abuse program (he will be starting those classes this spring), court-mandated evening curfew, and 6 months suspended driver's license along with a good behavior clause. He has already met his high school probation officer but later this week, we meet with another one. So has he changed since he spent those 9 days in juvenile detention right before Christmas? Not as much as I would have liked!! He says he does not want to ever go back and his attitude towards his dad & me is not as harsh as it was before. He routinely pushes the limit on his court-ordered evening curfew; I have already told him that if he gets locked up for a curfew violation to not expect that I will be as sympathetic to him as I was last time. He still has anger issues that I would like to see him work thru with a counselor. And I still want to see him (and our entire family) get back into church. *****



*****March 2009 update: our lawsuit against the negligent construction company still lingers. We have had several engineers examine our house, the area behind our backyard, as well as scour thru the county's paperwork. Bottom line is that the county was getting ready to shut down operations because of so many erosion violations that were not getting fixed. This just won't look good in court, when or if we go! My son continues to make very rough choices but we keep hoping he will see the light. We have completely cut him off financially so gas and cigarette money are his problem. On the other hand, my daughter will soon be finished with her junior year at college and is planning to graduate with honors. This is in spite of being the main source of support to her boyfriend for the year his dear mother bravely fought cancer. She takes much joy in their absolutely sweet Great Dane who is having fun in obedience classes and is on target to go into "hospital pet" training shortly. In other news, hubby is recovering well from his heart attack and we are thrilled that the damage was microscopic because of our fast actions. He is a rather odd case since he weighs 195 at 6 ft tall. The day of his heart attack, his blood work came back normal, including cholesterol and liver functions. The best we can surmise is that the damage was done before he started his health kick and working out at the gym in January 2008. As a result of seeing this, I have stepped up my workouts and my dedication to sticking to my nutrition plan in an effort to do my best to avoid having to ever go thru what he went thru. *********

********* ********* ********* ********* August 2009 update: The female surgery I had 2 years ago did not take and last summer the dr. went back to try and fix it one more time; followed by another 6 weeks of laying fallow. So far the last surgery seems to be working and I look forward to a summer of no surgeries! This past Christmas, I got DDR2 and totally loved it until the next day when I realized I am a 50 year old retired gymnast. As a result, I have had to scale back my workouts and only do easy on the joints workouts. They don't burn nearly as many calories a I was burning before, but I am not doing any more damage to my knees either. I am currently in intensive physical therapy and am hoping that I can get back to my heavy duty 500 calorie workouts really really soon! Back in June, my son was busted for misdemeanor pot and felony drug possession (he was busted with a cousin of Ritalin, which my son does not take, except apparently for recreational purposes!!) He goes to court in mid-October. The lawsuit against the builder that sunk us in 16 inches of mud continues and I expect it will be over a year before we see any resolution to this. On the bright side, hunny is recovering well from his heart attack and continues to follow dr.'s orders!! And my daughter, who is now a senior in college, finished the year by making Dean's List! ********* ********* ********* ********* *********

********* ********* ********* ********* December 2009 update: We continue with our lawyer in the lawsuit against the builder. Currently we are in "Discovery" mode so that will take a while. My son is considering technical training to pursue his passion so I hope once he is done with the court system following his drug charges from over the summer, then we will resume looking into the post-high school education. My daughter is still doing fantastic at college and enjoying working part-time at a radio station near her college where she gets to meet the likes of Keith Urban and Papa Roach! Hubby is recovering nicely from his heart attack this past February. And I am looking forward to making 2010 the year I am able to make some serious progress towards my goal weight!

That is my story since that awful last part of summer and autumn 2007. I used to have my background picture from the night of the flood. Of all the pictures I have from that night, that one was especially tragic because it showed how the flood killed Guitar Hero 2 and I was really enjoying jamming with my son! Plus I was getting really good at it!!

So what have I learned form this experience? After all, if things happen and we do not step back and reflect on the events, then what was the point?

-- I keep telling myself that I cannot control my son's behavior nor his choices but I can control how I react to him and his choices. That distinction is very important!!

-- I learned that material things are just that and discovered that my priorities are straight. I only cried once over the basement and that was when I discovered the ruined portrait of my late mother as a teenager. When I was afraid that I had breast cancer, I could not stop crying. In a way, I guess perspective is an amazing thing.

-- If I can throw in a plug for Sparks: I have also learned that blogging is a great way to vent, work things out, and get encouraging feedback from fellow Sparkers. I did my best to not stress eat during the worst of times and I honestly believe that blogging was (and still is) a marvelous, healing source of strength that held me together during those miserable days and will continue to be an important part of the glue that holds me together as I continue on my journey of life!

-- And lastly, now that I can finally work out again I have found this final piece of the puzzle has given me an unbelievable strength to stay incredibly dedicated to my diet and exercise plan. I am determined to tightly hold on to this strength for as long as I can and would love to be able to keep it until I am at goal weight.


Like phoenix rising from the ashes, I have come back with a more determined resolve and inner strength. Onward and upward is the only way to go from here!!

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