4 day weekend, earthquake, hearing loss and steroids

Strange title for a blog post, but there is so much going on in my life right now.

First and most importantly, I have a 4 day weekend.  That's a blessing and a curse.  Today is a furlough day, which means a day without pay.  It's good on the one hand because I can stay home and rest and let the steroids do what they are suposed to be doing without me wanting to strangle someone, but bad because it is one day less pay and you know how expensive college is!  My daughter is going off to UCLA in the fall and the bills are starting to come in.  We had to put the initial payment for her housing last week and they added a $13.75 charge to the bill for using the master card.  They don't take VISA and we didn't know about the charge until after we hit OK, but you can bet they are getting a check next time.  That's highway robbery if you ask me!

So, I will be trying not to spend money today, but if you ask my husband he will tell you that a day off of work is like asking me to find something to spend money on.  I will probably need to go grocery shopping after I clean out the fridge so there go my best laid plans.

Last night while sitting on my bed upstairs watching TV, I felt the bed shake.  I asked my husband if he felt the earthquake and he thought I was crazy.  He looked over at his computer monitor and saw it moving, but when he checked the USGS website, the earthquake wasn't registered yet.  A few minutes later, there it was, a 5.7 near Greenville, Ca which is up near Chico or Tahoe, not on a fault line.  I get pretty excited when I feel an earthquake.  not a lot of damage, thankfully, but exciting none the less.  I heard this morning there was an 8.2 in Russia.  They said no damage, so it must have been in a very remote area.

My older son has been having hearing troubles for a couple years and this year in school failed the hearing test.  I took him in and his regular doctor gave him a quick hearing test in the office and he failed that one too.  Another tests by the audiologist was failed as well so he saw the head and neck specialist.  Once again, the kid failed the test.  He has never failed so many tests in his life.  So, on Wednesday, he had a CT scan.  I almost died when they charged me $400 for the scan and when I called to find out why it was so expensive, I was reminded that we have a $1,000 deductible for the family for the year.  We must be having a good year to not have reached that yet.  The head and neck doctor thinks it is otosclerosis or calcium build up in the ear bones of the middle ear.  He says it is not very common for a 15 year old to get it (I read on the internet it is most common in white, middle age women who are pregnant) but it is highly hereditary.  I asked my dad if anyone on my side of the family had early hearing loss and other than he (82) and my mom (79) he can't think of anyone.  I don't think either of them qualify as early hearing loss :)  Sorry dad.  Then, I got to thinking that my husband has troubles hearing and I've always thought it was because he listens to music too loud, but I bet he has this thing too.  We are going to see what the doctor says and then have his hearing tested too and maybe a ct scan done on him.  Since we have now almost reached our deductible :) why not?

The options for treatment are a hearing aide or surgery.  The hearing aide isn't covered by our insurance and costs about $2K, but the surgery is covered.  The surgery can lead to permanant hearing loss.  I think we will wait on either one until the hearing loss gets worse.  He seems to be able to just twist his head and use his good ear or read lips enough to do well.  He has straight A's and gets along socially so it really isn't causing too much troubles yet.

As for the steroids, I'm on day 4 today.  They seem to be helping the migraine a bit.  I can still feel it and still wish I could reach for a quick fix to get rid of it, but know that in the long run they should work to get me over the rebound headaches and hopfully on the right track so the preventative medicines can start working.  I'm still trying to avoid the bad foods and exercising.  Went for a walk yesterday with the weather being so nice.  We are finally having spring after our winter/summer.  Should be a nice weekend with some rain expected on Monday.

Well, I have a million and 7 things to do this weekend and they aren't getting done by themselves, so I had better get started on them if I expect to start crossing them off my list.

I sent the first box of 20 quilts off yesterday.  A teacher at my school has a good friend who lost his house in Moore, OK and was asking that people send stuffed animals to his mom so he could pass them out to the kids.  I asked if I could give quilts and he was very excited.  I boxed up 20 and took them in yesterday.  I told him I would bring another 20 on Tuesday.  That means I have to see if I have another 20 ready to go, or get busy quilting.  I also need to get busy quilting up some for my friend who is going back to Rwanda this summer.  Finally, I have another 4 quilts to take to my friend who visits the returning wounded that come through Travis AFB every Saturday.  I brought her 4 last Sunday and just got these back from Rhoda my binding buddy yesterday.  Just in time for the Memorial Day weekend, she will have them to pass out on Saturday to any returning wounded.  Now I'm ahead of my one quilt a month for this year :)  Happy, Happy.