Week in Words - 7/25/15

Hi everyone! Thanks for continuing to read. I got a sweet card from a reader today (hi Jenn!) and will be posting the awesome pictures her boys made for me soon.

This blog won't have photos because...the camera on my phone stopped working about two weeks ago. The hubby took it in to Sprint (he is SO good to me) and they reset it to factory settings. And erased all my texts and photos in the meantime. Oops.

That still didn't fix it and so a week later I got another new phone. Thankfully they were able to transfer my contacts but I lost everything else. No biggie honestly; I'm just thankful it didn't cost anything since I don't have insurance. I don't keep a lot on my phone. My new phone is up & running and I am slowly reinstalling apps.

Our home was suppose to close last Friday. It didn't. The buyers literally emailed the morning of closing saying they were backing out of the deal. Was I sad? Yup, a bit. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that God will bring the right buyers at the right time. And if that time isn't by October, we will worry about that then. And maybe He has some kind of other plan for us. UPDATE: our house sold! It closed at the beginning of November and we purchased a small villa in a community in FL which we love.

For those that may not know, we are down in FL renting until the middle of October. Our hope was that our home would sell and we could then have the cash for a new (cheaper) home here in FL. Our timeline is to have a home in place by the middle of October when our lease runs out. We need cash to buy a home since we won't qualify for a mortgage (bankers like you to have proper job). So our timeline states our home has to sell by the beginning of September. That means we need an offer immediately and that probably won't happen.

So anyway... they backed out because our basement gets water. We live on a hill and just installed a metal roof. PA has had some pretty outstanding rain for the last two months. We don't get inches of water in the basement but the concrete does turn kind of that wet color (a darker gray) and looks damp. We've never done anything and it was fine for us to store stuff in bins and even my hubby to work out almost daily. We disclosed this in all the paperwork and the buyers knew about it. They opted out of a home inspection for some unknown reason and then decided last minute that the house would need lifted and an entire new foundation laid. We've had the foundation looked at twice and it is fine. Yeah, we aren't lifting our home to put in a new foundation for a buyer. So, it is back on the market. We do have a great friend/contractor in PA who will be painting the entire basement with DryLok - walls and basement. The basement is about 1700 square feet and the walls are all 9 foot tall so he has his work cut out for him. We want the house to show the best it can and that means putting a bit more money into it.

My RSD is fair today. If you have chronic pain, you know how things go. The other day I wanted to die. Like all day. That is not a joke. I was in the car and my husband was taking me to the doctor. I rarely go off the island for anything else. The vibrations in the car are just bad. He stopped every few miles to let me rest. I cannot even sit in a running car without feeling those vibrations. And then my pills kicked in and I could breathe, I could think.

My arthritis doctor got back my MRI results and told me I have inflammation. Yup, I feel it. She thinks I have S'jorgens (pronounced show-grens) but the only way for a clear diagnosis is a lip biopsy which I'm not willing to do. I'm not willing (right now) to allow a surgeon cut into the inside of my lip to prove I maybe have some other random health issue. The RSD could and probably would spread to my face and once it is there - it just won't go away.

So, she is taking a shot in the dark and trying me on a S'jorgens treatment. It is called Methotrexate and it is a weekly injection. She is closely monitoring my liver function and a few other stats through blood work. Methotrexate was used for cancer and then for severe arthritis. But she thinks it will help with the pain and it is a non-narcotic. There are some side effects: hair loss and nausea but she has also started me on a few supplements to hopefully help with those. She has me on a low dose to start and see how I do. I'm at the place where I'm willing to do something drastic.

My disability case was transferred from PA to FL which was done without my consent. Paperwork just showed up from the Social Security office last week saying my case was moved. Ummm...we still have a home in PA. We are temporarily renting here in FL. Our hope is to move to FL but we aren't there yet. We figured that they got a piece of mail returned to them that couldn't be forwarded and saw our "new" forwarding address.

It seems ridiculous to move the case back to PA when we do hope to live here soon and so I found a new lawyer. I filed in December 2013 so hopefully my case will be assigned a judge soon. RSD doesn't automatically qualify someone for disability but my doctors have all been amazing. Again, this is in God's hands. I would love to not have pain and GO BACK TO WORK! Hear that Social Security? I hate sitting all day in pain watching yet another "Good Mythical Morning" on YouTube (okay...I love that show but there is only so much resting a girl can do). I want to decorate cookies and paint furniture and go to church and actually swim in the Gulf instead of being a blob on the beach and...be an activity director at a retirement community.

So that brings everyone up to date. I have been blogging for almost five years now! My blog will "turn" 5 next week. . But I know some days my blog is boring for most. Like this one. But I do want to journal as I go and right now that means boring stuff. :)

Have a great day!