Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Popping In With a Quick Update

Hi everyone!  I don't have a card or project to share with you today, but I wanted to pop in today with a quick update!  I have been incredibly busy this year with lots of difficulties during the COVID-19 situation.  For starters, my husband works two weeks of nights out of every six due to COVID-19 safety procedures.  There are three guys on his team and in his building, so whoever has the pager duty, works the night shift for those two weeks.  That's how they are keeping them separated at his job.  The rest of the time he works the early day shift, but when he's on nights, my schedule is totally messed up with trying to keep the "children" (a.k.a. doggies) quiet so he can sleep.  He isn't a very sound sleeper anyway, so nights are always a difficult situation for both of us.  We have opposite schedules and he's pretty exhausted for the two weeks following his night shift rotation.  So for about two weeks out of every six, we have some semblance of our new "normal".  We have been doing this since early February of this year.  With 7 autoimmune diseases, I have to be extremely careful and our COVID rates are not dropping in the county where I live.

I also had a surgery a couple of weeks ago to implant a port.  I've had a lot of difficulty with my infusions because my veins kept collapsing when they went to put the IV's in for my MS treatments.  It was taking 3-5 tries or more to get the IV into a vein.  So after discussing possible options, we decided that it was in my best interest to have a port installed.  The port has a piece of IV tubing, that goes directly to an artery in my heart and I don't have to withhold coffee or tea for a week before each infusion.  My most recent infusion was done just a week after my surgery for the port implant, and it was a lot simpler.  I was still somewhat bruised up from the surgery, so I came home with a few more bruises, but once I develop a little scar tissue where the port is, it will be less painful.  I swear I spend half my life in a doctor's office or medical facility for tests, infusions, labs, etc.  Such is life when you have multiple autoimmune issues.  Next week I have three days out for 3 different MRI's and one doctors appointment plus labs so it is pretty physically exhausting. MS causes severe exhaustion anyhow, so it's an uphill battle.

Added to that is the fact that I started some extensive dental in January, which was supposed to be completed in March and has been drug out all of these many months and many visits, and that's another round of medical appointments.  I am scheduled to finish the last of this work on August 28th.  It feels like it has taken forever, but has also been very worth it for the end result.

Anyhow, I haven't done much blogging this year.  I left the Memory Box Design Team earlier this year, and now I am only doing Zoom Classes with Altenew and Guest Designing at this time.  That said, I have several upcoming posts in September and October with fabulous new products, so I hope you'll come back and see those posts.  My next BIG post is September 10th and again on September 14th, 2020.

On another note, I have been doing some lives in my private Facebook Group called Twinking Paper Studio Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/686226925551836/)  although I haven't done one for a few weeks.  This is a private group and eventually, I will be offering some Zoom Classes there as well.  Zoom Classes do not require a Facecook account. And the last one I did was about a nail polish system that has me totally mind blown with it's vegan formulas and hard cure in 5 minutes without the assistance of a UV Light. It comes off with regular nail polish, too, unlike a gel manicure. 

Thanks so much for checking in with me and on me!  If you haven't already, consider subscribing to my blog so that you get e-mail notification about all new posts.  This crazy 2020 COVID-19 world has thrown many of us for a total loop.  My life is far from normal during non-COVID times, so it's been a struggle this year!