Atlas Shrugged

 

 

I saw that I missed a call from our friend and intended gestational surrogate.   The clinic should have reviewed her medical records so I was expecting her to be letting us know what the next step in the process would be.  Instead what she told me made the world stand still......like Atlas had shrugged.

 

The doctor had reviewed her records and was concerned about something in her medical records.  We were not aware of this, but there was a complication with her last pregnancy - she had preeclampsia.  From what I understand it did not cause preterm labor, but it was serious enough that there was close monitoring near the end of her pregnancy.  For this reason, the clinic will not go forward with her as our surrogate.  They would be calling me tomorrow to go over the details.

 

I tried to stay calm, but I couldn't.  I broke out in tears.  I thanked her for letting for know.  I was glad that she wanted to tell me herself.  I know that she felt very bad about the whole thing.  She just wanted us to have the experience of having children, something that her and her husband will always be grateful that they were given that gift.  Wanting that for us was such a beautiful thing.

 

What were we going to do now?

The Scooter

This is the scooter that was a large part of my life all of the fourth quarter of 2011.  I slipped on the stairs (trying to avoid stepping on the cat) and managed to give myself a Lisfranc injury (which is basically a really bad tear or sometimes fracture of the mid foot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisfranc_fracture).

The worst part was that I did this in the sub-basement (we have a split-level) and Mark was out of town.  So, after laying on the stairs and rolling around in pain for several minutes, I has to army crawl up 2 flights of stairs to even get an ice pack.

Since I am not an NFL quarterback it was not a "career-ending" injury...but it still sucked.  I was in an aircast for 12 weeks and non weightbearing for 8 of those weeks.  It was quite painful for the first few weeks also until the swelling started to go down.  I vowed that next time I will just step on the cat.

A Family Intervention

Luckily I am a fan of the show "Intervention" so I at least feel like I have an idea of what to do.  I have prepped my family that we should all tell my sister how much we love her, how scared we are that we are going to lose her, and that we are asking her to go into treatment.  I am armed with several boxes of Kleenex.

I don't think that you can ever truly be prepared though.   My sister has been struggling with eating disorders for years.  She feels that they are under control she doesn't see herself when she looks in the mirror - she sees someone else.  She has had several issues with her health - low potassium levels, susceptible to infection, thin hair - just to name a few.  I have heard about all of these through Mom but I haven't seen the impact for myself.

The first shock was seeing my sister in the hospital bed.  She looked so sick.  I think that she may have been more thin a time or two before but I can't even picture it.  She is all skin and bones with and IV and monitors all over.  I am truly scared that if we can't get her into treatment this could be out last Christmas together.

We all took turns telling her how much we loved her, telling funny family stories, and telling her how scared we were of losing her.  We ALL cried - even my brothers.  We all were truly, truly scared that this could be the start of her slowly slipping away.  I know it was hard for my sister to hear.  She sat, huddled up in ball, making herself as small as she could, trying not to let all of this affect her.  In the end we broke though and she agreed to go into treatment.  I left still scared, but now hopeful that maybe this time will make a difference.

Family Christmas 2010

As the years go by it gets harder and harder to get all of my family home for Christmas.  This year everyone was able to make it except one - my sister.  On the home I find out that my sister is in the hospital due to a ruptured esophagus.  She has been struggling with both Anorexia and Bulemia for a number of years and has been in and out of treatment.  This is the result of years of damage and probably that holidays bring on more bouts of binging.

I ask my brothers and sisters what the plan is.  I assume that she is going into in-patient treatment again as soon as she can leave the hospital. No, they say, she intends to go home.  I assume that Mom and Dad are going to make her go into treatment.  No, they say, Mom and Dad don't want to fight with her anymore.  I realize that this has been very hard on everyone, especially Mom and Dad.  They are the ones who keep replacing food, paying her multiple medical bills, pleading with her to keep up with counseling.

I understand that they are tired and worn out and don't know what to do anymore.  I decide that I am going to have to play the oldest sibling role and gather up the troops - like it or not we are visiting my sister in the hospital tomorrow and we are going to ask her to go into treatment.

Baxter Family Christmas

Our Group of friends (aka The Baxter Family) got together for our annual Christmas Party.  What a blast.  Mark is so proud of winning the Ugly Sweater Contest in the sweater that his Mom made for his Dad circa 1968.  Perhaps the best White Elephant gift of all time was given.  Good times were had by all.

Vegas Baby!

We had an awesome Bachelorette weekend in Vegas!  - Stripper School, Mystere, Clubbing, and taking in the sights.....

Bachelorette Party

Thank you for the best Bachelorette Party Every!  Seven, then The Gay 90's, the The Loop :)