The Catch Up

For the longest time, I thought I was just about to sit down and get back to blogging.  Facebook, in large part took its place.  I had resisted for so long, but it became impossible to stay in touch with family and friends without it.  Then I started posting my photos and funny kid quotes over there instead... it felt redundant to blog them as well.  Anyway, all this time I've been hoping to come back and share the longer stories.  But the longer time went on, the longer those stories would be... and who has the time??  Plus, as you'll soon learn, I was sleeping...

Long story short, for five years I've been sick.  I didn't know it.  Not until about 2 years or so ago when I started feeling very tired... getting constant migraines (literally CONSTANT)...  and a host of bizarre maladies.  I had intense sugar cravings (weird but true) and I was gaining weight no matter what I did.  They tested me for MS, but I didn't have it and my family doctor looked through her crystal ball and said "You are in perimenopause, it sucks."  (But I wasn't...).  A year later, last fall, I just pretty much succumbed.  I could not wake up.  Like honestly... could not stay awake.  It was crazy.  I would be making dinner, and want to lie down on the kitchen floor, so desperately, I'd be crying... just a level of exhaustion I had never ever experienced.  I would get the kids to school and then fall asleep for 5 hours and have to force myself to get up to pick them up.  Every day.  My blood pressure had gone up 30 points, my heart rate was through the roof.  I was dizzy, had brain fog so badly I couldn't get my words out.  It was terrifying.  My doctor said "Hmm, maybe a mono like virus."  After another month I couldn't drive, I couldn't focus and I had constant heavy chest pain.  I cried and told my doctor something is not right.  She said "Your blood work is normal, it is just a long virus."  Mr F was traveling for work a week each month, and I have never endured as much stress as trying to raise our girls during that time.  I thought I was surely dying, and while Baby was young enough to take it in stride, Kid was extremely aware of what was going on.  I would attend a school function and people were shocked at how I looked, like a zombie with no coloring.  I couldn't stand up straight or walk faster than a 90 year old woman.  I'd sit there in a coat and scarf and gloves (inside) shivering and barely awake.  IT WAS INTENSE!!  I thought I must have end stage cancer.  I would cry myself to sleep, because I couldn't take the stress and I couldn't keep living like that.  Like, I honestly knew, a body cannot go on living like this.  It was traumatizing.  It went on like that for months, in and out of the ER.  As it turns out, I have an unusual blood disorder and my body doesn't hold iron but I'm not anemic, in the sense that my hemoglobin doesn't change, so until I got to a phenomenal oncologist-hematologist I kept getting misdiagnosed.  Turns out without iron your organs have to work REALLY hard.  It was killing me.  Even after a year of infusions, and surgery, I'm still dealing with this as a life long issue.  I'm better... SO MUCH better.  And I'm being monitored constantly so that I don't bottom out again.  But that's a lot of where I've been.  For five years I was just basically hemorrhaging more iron than I could replace each month until I got down to zero iron stores in my bone marrow.  Now, for reasons my hematologist doesn't really understand, despite surgically stopping my periods, I cannot maintain normal iron levels.  But I'll live.  I just have a bit of a harder time.  I have to readjust my expectations of myself and my day.  During the school year, I HAVE to nap for several hours.  Getting up at 6:30AM and going to bed at 12:30 AM just isn't something I can power through anymore.  I still get all the stuff done (you know I do!!), but I'm taking self-shame out of it when I need a down day.  I'm working out 5 days a week now.  It has been over a year since I was able to exercise.  Hell, last year I honestly couldn't go grocery shopping!  But unlike my old "more is more", I work out for 30 minutes.  Now that I have a massive load of iron in me (for the time being) my doctor said I'll stop gaining weight (it had slowed my metabolism).  Unfortunately, that hasn't meant that I naturally started losing weight (unfair!) so  I am following the 21 Day fix diet, which I am a big fan of since I think it is extremely well balanced.  So that's where I am at.  Some days I can do "all the things!" and some days I need to sleep (a lot).  I'm able to stay home, which considering my body's reality, is a godsend.  I am focused on doing what I need to do for myself in the day, so that I can be 100% on and available for my kids when they are home (and staying up until midnight because I have a high schooler now)...

OH, and I forgot to mention, during this same exact time period we discovered Baby has a rare chest wall deformity. And she need to fly to Denver EVERY SIX WEEKS for treatment from a specialist at the children's hospital out there.  So, yeah, the last year was the absolute worst (and the most expensive).  Thankfully, we are both done with "active" treatment and doing better.

The Catch Up

For the longest time, I thought I was just about to sit down and get back to blogging.  Facebook, in large part took its place.  I had resisted for so long, but it became impossible to stay in touch with family and friends without it.  Then I started posting my photos and funny kid quotes over there instead... it felt redundant to blog them as well.  Anyway, all this time I've been hoping to come back and share the longer stories.  But the longer time went on, the longer those stories would be... and who has the time??  Plus, as you'll soon learn, I was sleeping...

Long story short, for five years I've been sick.  I didn't know it.  Not until about 2 years or so ago when I started feeling very tired... getting constant migraines (literally CONSTANT)...  and a host of bizarre maladies.  I had intense sugar cravings (weird but true) and I was gaining weight no matter what I did.  They tested me for MS, but I didn't have it and my family doctor looked through her crystal ball and said "You are in perimenopause, it sucks."  (But I wasn't...).  A year later, last fall, I just pretty much succumbed.  I could not wake up.  Like honestly... could not stay awake.  It was crazy.  I would be making dinner, and want to lie down on the kitchen floor, so desperately I'd be crying... just a level of exhaustion I had never ever experienced.  I would get the kids to school and then fall asleep for 5 hours and have to force myself to get up to pick them up.  Every day.  My blood pressure had gone up 30 points, my heart rate was through the roof.  I was dizzy, had brain fog so badly I couldn't get my words out.  It was terrifying.  My doctor said "Hmm, maybe a mono like virus."  After another month I couldn't drive, I couldn't focus and I had constant heavy chest pain.  "I cried and told my doctor something is not right.  She said "Your blood work is normal, it is just a long virus."  Mr F was traveling for work a week each month, and I have never endured as much stress and trying to raise our girls during that time.  I thought I was surely dying, and while Baby was young enough to take it in stride, Kid was extremely aware of what was going on.  I would attend a school function and people were shocked at how I looked, like a zombie with no coloring.  I couldn't stand up straight or walk faster than a 90 year old woman.  I'd sit there in a coat and scarf and gloves (inside) shivering and barely awake.  IT WAS INTENSE!!  I thought I must have end stage cancer.  I would cry myself to sleep, because I couldn't take the stress and I couldn't keep living like that.  Like, I honestly knew, a body cannot go on living like this.  It was traumatizing.  It went on like that for months, in and out of the ER.  As it turns out, I have an unusual blood disorder and my body doesn't hold iron but I'm not anemic, in the sense that my hemoglobin doesn't change, so until I got to a phenomenal oncologist-hematologist I kept getting misdiagnosed.  Turns out without iron your organs have to work REALLY hard.  It was killing me.  Even after a year of infusions, and surgery, I'm still dealing with this as a life long issue.  I'm better... SO MUCH better.  And I'm being monitored constantly so that I don't bottom out again.  But that's a lot of where I've been.  For five years I was just basically hemorrhaging more iron than I could replace each month until I got down to zero iron stores in my bone marrow.  Now, for reasons my hematologist doesn't really understand, despite surgically stopping my periods, I cannot maintain normal iron levels.  But I'll live.  I just have a bit of a harder time.  I have to readjust my expectations of myself and my day.  During the school year, I HAVE to nap for several hours.  Getting up at 6:30AM and going to bed at 12:30 AM just isn't something I can power through anymore.  I still get all the stuff done (you know I do!!), but I'm taking self shame out of it when I need a down day.  I'm working out 5 days a week now.  It has been over a year since I was able to exercise.  Hell, last year I honestly couldn't go grocery shopping!  But unlike my old more is more, I work out for 30 minutes.  Now that I have a massive load of iron in me (for now) my doctor said I'll stop gaining weight (it had slowed my metabolism).  Unfortunately, that hasn't meant that I naturally started losing weight (unfair!) so  I am following the 21 Day fix diet, which I am a big fan of since I think it is extremely well balanced.  So that's where I am at.  Some days I can do "all the things!"  and some days I need to sleep (a lot).  I'm able to stay home, which considering my body's reality, is a god send.  I am focused on doing what I need to do for myself in the day, so that I can be 100% on and available for my kids when they are home... and staying up until midnight because I have a high schooler now... :(

OH, and I forgot to mention, during this same exact time period we discovered Baby has a rare chest wall deformity. And she need to fly to Denver EVERY SIX WEEKS for treatment from a specialist at the children's hospital out there.  So, yeah, the last year was the absolute worst (and the most expensive).  Thankfully, we are both done with "active" treatment and doing better.

The Details... AKA... no you didn't miss something... we just didn't tell you

Remember when Mr F was interviewing for a job in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Then after 6 agonizing months they finally offered it to him?  Then we turned it down?

Okay back up to the "then we turned it down" part.

We thought we would turn it down.  We planned to turn it down.  We maybe should have turned it down.

But after a week of thought and number crunching... and then finding out Mr F didn't get the other job in Des Moines (and we cannot underestimate the influence of that)... and thinking... and number crunching... and negotiating with HR...

We accepted it.

Are there downsides to this new job?  Yep.  Big time.

You see the reason we were going to turn it down was because after offering him the job at X pay the magazine put the offer through to corporate HR.  Then HR said "wait we changed that position to Y pay".  Let's just say the difference between X & Y is 30%.  For real.  Taking this from a no brainer "take it" to... "what is this move worth to us personally?".  

That was a really hard decision.  Y pay is not moving us out of our current financial situation. But staying here isn't either.  

Staying here means losing money every month on housing we cannot afford.  

Point blank... we cannot stay here.  We'd be leaving on the next job offer that came along.  We'd have to.  No matter where it was or how much it paid.

That could mean taking Kid out of school after this year (one transition) then homeschooling her or getting her into a new public school only to pull her out and move mid year to another school.  Got that?  That's three transitions in one year.  Not ideal.

Oh did I mention that as much as Mr F likes his job that his work load is borderline undoable and that he often works until 3 AM?  And that he comes home and complains about it to me... when I don't even want to live here... when we're living here for him to have this job?  And that he doesn't make enough to pay our bills?  

Ann Arbor offers:

CHEAPER (vastly) housing

MUCH better schools (even the outlaying towns... we're talking rated 10 out of 10)

MUCH better early childhood options & recreations classes for kids

MUCH better doctor/hospital system

MORE job opportunities for Mr F & Mrs F (he already was contacted about another job there)

FRIENDS

FAMILY

(Oh and Mr F gets the perks of driving the fleet of test cars with free gas & insurance)

Asheville offers:

The potential to go bankrupt.

For one thing any other job Mr F might get while we lived here he could pursue from Ann Arbor as well if he wanted to, so there is no reason to carry this house while he does that.

Also, this is the best time of year to sell our house.  If he was offered another job in 6-9 months we would not stand as good of a chance of clearing our equity.  The timing of this move is perfect.  Mr F leaves in a couple weeks.  The girls and I will stay here until the house sells or the end of the school year... whichever comes first.  The reality is that in the last 20 months it is unreasonable to expect to have made money on this house.  We are looking at eating the realtor fees which at our house level are a huge pill to swallow.  BUT housing is so much cheaper in Michigan right now that we couldn't be moving there at a better time.  Any loss we face here will be more than made up for in the rock bottom prices in Michigan.  We're looking at getting a house for 1/3-1/2 of our current house price.  That is amazing!  

Plus, the new job is with a major magazine.  This is, while not a step up financially, not a step down career wise.  It is a definite step up, even his current employers could concede that and understood his decision.  The new magazine is also willing to let him work freelance to offset the paycut.  They are even going to give him freelance.  So that is encouraging.  When we were in MI before Mr F made more than half of his income in freelance and his biggest paying clients are... where?... oh yeah... in Michigan.  We don't have any options like that here.

The scary part is walking away from a house & job that are known and on some super lame level working.  You know?  We don't know what is going to happen next.  We don't know how much equity we'll lose here (hopefully none!!! positive energy peeps).  We don't know where we'll move (house or town specific) or when.  We don't know how stressful being separated for 3-4 months will be on our family (especially stressful to Mr F if it turns out I like it).  We don't know if I'll gain 50 pounds and start drinking Margaritas for dinner.

But we do know that next year we'll be in a better place.  Physically & emotionally. Maybe even financially.  Worst case scenario I have to supplement our income (wait I already do!)... and at least there I'd be doing it while benefitting in every other realm of our life.